Lives of Alcyone

Alcyone was the name given to J. Krishnamurti in a series of articles published in The Theosophist, commencing in April 1910. These articles purported to describe the previous lives of Krishnamurti as clairvoyantly investigated by Charles Leadbeater and appeared under the title Rents in the Veil of Time. They were subsequently published in book form entitled Lives of Alcyone.

The Lives ranged in time from 22,662 BCE to 624 CE and successively introduced larger numbers of contemporaries who, in the main, were currently members of the Theosophical Society (TS). This led to a certain amount of friction between those who were included and those who were not. Annie BESANT appeared in all the Lives under the name of Heracles; Leadbeater as Sirius; Nitya, Krishnamurti’s brother, as Mizar.