Alice A. Bailey (1880-1949): From her conservative British background, Alice Bailey's life led her in many directions, but always in one direction-towards the time when through drastic personal experience of many kinds she had acquired a synthesis of outlook and understanding, and an absolute conviction that one divine life pervades and animates the one humanity; that the Plan for humanity requires the cooperation and service of trained and dedicated human beings intelligently informed about world affairs, in collaboration with those who form the spiritual Hierarchy, the inner government of the planet. Her life work became an integral part of this synthesis and this realization. Without in the least losing any of her very human qualities and involvement, her soul took up its commitment to her Master, and her personality provided full cooperation in the field of her accepted service.

Basically her work developed as a duality-her discipleship service which included the establishment of an esoteric school; and her initially reluctant agreement to work with the Tibetan, Djwhal Khul, in the writing of a series of books presenting the next phase in the continuity of the Ageless Wisdom teaching for the present and the immediate future.

Towards the end of her life Alice A. Bailey somewhat reluctantly agreed to attempt her own autobiography. What finally decided her to write about her life was a letter from a friend who, she says, felt deeply that "I would really render a service if I could show people how I became what I am from what I was. It might be useful to know how a rabid orthodox Christian worker could become a well-known occult teacher."