“Study in one school of psychology came to what seemed a terrible conclusion. It was the school of Lombroso in Italy. He declared, and many others followed him, that the visions of the prophets, of the saints, of the seers, all their testimony to the existence of superphysical worlds, were the products of disordered brains, of diseased or over-strained nervous apparatus. He went further, and he declared that the manifestation known as genius was closely allied to insanity, that the brain of the genius and the brain of the madman were akin, until the phrase "genius is allied to madness," became the stock axiom of that school.”

—  Annie Besant

Source: Essays and Addresses, Vol. III- Evolution and Occultism (1913)

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Annie Besant photo
Annie Besant 85
British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, wr… 1847–1933

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