# A probable source for Besant's universal religion

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH08.P014](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH08.P014/#char=0,110): "A short time ago Mrs. Besant, in an interesting essay, announced that there was only one religion in the world"

The close verbal and conceptual match is Annie Besant's ‘The Universal Religion,’ first published in *The Theosophical Review* 39, no. 234 (February 1907), pp. 489–494; the inspected witness is a scan of that original issue. On p. 492 she makes the universal Self the sole doctrine of universal religion, identifies it with God, and treats individual selves as manifestations of one essential being. On p. 494 she places existing religions within this universal religion as sects within Christianity. These correspondences make the identification highly probable, although Chesterton supplies no title. [Besant, pp. 492, 494](https://theosophy.world/sites/default/files/Theosophical%20Publications/The%20Theosophical%20Review/1907/theosophical_review_v39_n234_feb_1907.pdf#page=12).

Chesterton's ‘versions or perversions’ is a polemical paraphrase. Besant explicitly welcomes religious variety on p. 494: differing minds contribute complementary apprehensions of truth. He preserves her claim to an underlying unity, but concentrates the dispute on whether that unity leaves room for a beloved person who is really other than oneself.

## Sources

- [Annie Besant, The Universal Religion (February 1907 original issue scan)](https://theosophy.world/sites/default/files/Theosophical%20Publications/The%20Theosophical%20Review/1907/theosophical_review_v39_n234_feb_1907.pdf#page=9), The Theosophical Review 39, no. 234, pp. 489–494, especially pp. 492 and 494; PDF pp. 9–14

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