Birth: Nov. 6, 1904
Death: May 5, 1988
Author, Natural Scientist, Painter, Philosopher, Sculptor
Born Daisy Cook in England, and later known as Daisy Stebbing, Lao Russell emigrated to the United States in the 1930s, where she marketed her own beauty products. [See Lao C. Stebbing]
She was the wife of Walter Russell.
Together, the Russells devoted themselves to spreading universal truths of love and light to students around the globe.
The couple founded The University of Science and Philosophy at Swannanoa, an Italianate palace atop the Blue Ridge overlooking the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
Family links:
Spouse:
Walter Russell (1871 - 1963)
Burial:
Swannanoa Cemetery
Afton
Nelson County
Virginia, USA
To introduce one's own wife to the world naturally leads to the temptation of exaggeration. I feel myself immunized from that, however, by the impossibility of it. I feel that I can say, without prejudice, and quite free from the fact of her relation to me, that hers is the greatest mentality I have ever known. That is saying much for me for it has been my privilege to intimately know the greatest intellectuals of our time. My wife was born with the spirit of the Crusader in her very first life's breath.
It was her destiny to search from early childhood for the illusive secret which alone would free man from his belief in EVIL, which seemingly enslaved him. She, likewise, journeyed in far lands in her search for that secret which would awaken the Light in man and thus release him from the chains of his dark. 'Neath the pyramids of Sahara's sands, to tropics of the Indies, and in crowded cities of four continents, she searched — but she did not look outside of man for that which she sought. She looked only within him. She looked only into the Light of his illumined Soul. And it was there in his illu mined Soul she found the Holy Grail of her long search. For behold! all that she found there was GOOD — naught but GOOD
Since her early childhood my illumined Lao has held to that vision of the great world - fault, and to the conviction that her destiny compelled her to arouse all thinking men and women to the necessity of uniting as One Father - Mother to bring love, romance, peace and happiness to this unhappy fearing world. The message contained herein is the first step toward that world - transformation.
The next step must be initiated by women who will be aided by the most liberal of intellectual men to bring a balanced civilization into being, which will endure forever." [Walter Russell on his wife Lao Russell] (source unknown)
I met Lao at Swananoa once (summer of 1986) and asked her if Russell had heard of Keely or did Russell have any Keely books in his library. She said she was sure there were no Keely books but felt sure Russell had heard of Keely. In all my reading of WR's works I've not yet seen any clear indication he knew of Keely. Dale Pond