San Diego Theosophists Had Own Ideas on a New Age

On a tranquil bluff top at Point Loma in San Diego stands a cluster of historic buildings, constructed with a blend of American know-how and confidence and with a love of antiquity and Indian spirituality.

The buildings, part of what was once a much grander complex, were designed by Katherine Tingley, leader of the Theosophical Society and known to followers as the "Purple Mother" (because she wore the color often).

These few enduring landmarks -- 10 buildings survive from the original 100 -- are all that remain in San Diego of a once-flourishing utopian society.

California social critic Carey McWilliams called Tingley the "first major prophetess of the region." When she came to California from New York in 1897, she brought with her a knowledge of Eastern religions, philosophy and mystical experiences.

She became a vanguard of New York's 22-year-old Theosophy movement, founded on the teachings of Madame Helena Blavatsky, a renowned Russian spiritualist. In 1896, five years after Blavatsky died, Tingley was elevated to the presidency of the movement, which caused it to split in two.

She also stirred a public appetite for drama, art and music, with cultural performances in her outdoor Greek amphitheater and a theater she bought in downtown San Diego.

All of the magnificent glass-domed structures, which were lighted at night and could be seen from miles offshore, are gone. During World War II, some of the remaining glass shattered from the vibrations of target practice by the Navy's big guns.

A few years before she came west, Tingley met in New York with John C. Fremont, who had helped to usher in California statehood in 1850. She told the aged general of her dream to build "a white city in a golden land by the sundown sea." Fremont told her that what she described reminded him of Point Loma on San Diego Bay.

After she took control of the Theosophy movement, she bought 132 acres atop Point Loma and began designing. She built the Temple of Peace, crowned with a spacious, amethyst-colored glass dome; the Raja Yoga School; an outdoor Greek amphitheater; and several round "lotus" houses with pitched roofs where as many as a dozen students lived together.