There are so few photos of Alice Bailey which is why I’m delighted to share this digitally enhanced image courtesy of Steven Chernikeeff, original photo courtesy of the Lucis Trust. The image appears in the original in my biography Alice A. Bailey: Life & Legacy.
This image of Alice Bailey – then Mrs Alice Evans – seated on a rustic bench in the grounds of Krotona, Hollywood, Los Angeles is delightful. She was almost forty years old and even with her hand obscuring part of her face it is easy to see how beautiful she was.
Here she is again in the same photo, this time with her future husband Foster Bailey. Both held key positions in the administration of the USA branch of the Theosophical Society, Alice as editor of The Messenger, the sectional magazine, and Foster as National Secretary.
And here seated with the couple is editor of The Theosophist Bahman Pestonji Wadia who had been sent by TS head Annie Besant to try to help sort out an ongoing organisational dispute that Alice and Foster were embroiled in. The dispute is detailed in depth in my biography, along with a possible explanation of why Alice looks so contended in the photo. She wasn’t to know what 1920 would bring.
Isobel Blackthorn 
…it’s entirely possible that Alice Bailey has been an unfairly and much maligned individual…and in many cases by those who have made a career if not religion out of their superficial understanding of ‘things spiritual’…have her observations etc been deliberately contorted into dogmas depicting their diametrically opposite meanings…now someone(Isobel Blackthorn)has leapt to her defense in a most intriguing and objective manner perhaps the truth is about to illuminate our understanding…this is a most welcome development…!!!…
…I wish to follow up by suggesting that a welter of confusion revolves about the word ‘occult’ which simply means hidden! On this basis life itself and it’s irreducible inherent mystery presents much in terms that suggest the presence of ‘occult’. These may in range in effect from our regular unconscious acts and their underlying motivations to Ramana Maharshi’s concepts Who Am I and Self Enquiry which virtually provide the basis of a philosophy! When the term is assimilated to the facts of our daily life perhaps it’s real function and meaning becomes more discernible. Hope this is revealing to anyone who hasn’t considered ‘the topic’ from such a view point!