5 Merging Occultism, Philosophy, Science, and the Academic Study of Religion: The Theosophical Society
In previous chapters I have repeatedly referred to the crucial role of Theosophists in the discursive reconfiguration of religion and science at the end of the nineteenth century. Now it is time to address this influence more directly and identify the discursive contribution of Theosophical authors. Indeed, many scholars of religion regard the year 1875 as the birth of modern esotericism (see, most recently, Hammer and Rothstein 2013). That year witnessed the foundation of the Theosophical Society, without whose influence twentieth-century esotericism would have looked very differently. There are several reasons why the Theosophical Society, and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891) in particular, were the most important recurrent stimulus of esoteric discourses into the twentieth century. First, the modern esoteric traditions were mustered and repackaged in Blavatsky’s writings. Second, Blavatsky assimilated Asian doctrines in a Romantic view of the ‘Orient,’ whereby the purest form of ‘ancient wisdom’ was rumored to lie in India and Tibet. Third, Blavatsky’s charismatic personality ensured her writings’ widespread acknowledgment as a revelation. Fourth, Blavatsky’s ‘Esoteric School’ became the model for many other initiatory societies and magical orders in the Rosicrucian and Masonic tradition. Last, the Theosophical Society offers an outstanding example of the mixture of religious and scientific thought in contemporary societies, as the Theosophists had a lively dialogue with leading philologists and scholars of religion and so popularized academic theories and knowledge. It is this last dynamic that renders the Theosophical Society a crucial element of the present study. In my analysis, I will combine an historical description of the early phase of the Theosophical Society with a study of Helena P. Blavatsky’s use of academic theories and her reconfiguration of discourse strands that are important for the analyses of this book.
Helena P. Blavatsky as a Discursive Hub
So many rumors and myths have gathered around the biography of Helena P. Blavatsky—or HPB, as she liked to be called—that a description of her character and life very much depends on the individual viewpoint (see Meade 1980; Campbell 1980; Godwin 1994, 277–331; Cranston 1994 [biased but useful as a collection of sources]; Goodrick-Clarke 2004). She was born on 12 August 1831 as Helena Petrovna von Hahn in Ekaterinoslav in the Ukraine and spent her childhood surrounded by Russian nobility. Her father, Peter A. von Hahn, was descended from a noble German family and served in the army, while her mother, Helena A. de Fadeyev (von Hahn), achieved renown as a novelist but died young, so Blavatsky grew up with her aristocratic maternal grandparents. In 1849 she married the vice-governor of Erevan, Nikifor Blavatsky, but their union was unhappy and brief. She soon left her husband and embarked on an adventurous life of travels that are still not fully documented. She visited Turkey, Greece, Egypt, and France, arriving in London in 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition.
According to her own account, it was in Hyde Park that Blavatsky met her ‘Master,’ whom she had known in her dreams since childhood. He came toward her in the company of an Indian delegation. Later she wrote to A.P. Sinnet, “[I] saw Master in my visions ever since my childhood. In the year of the first Nepaul Embassy (when?) saw and recognised him. Saw him twice. Once he came out of the crowd, then He ordered me to meet Him in Hyde Park. I cannot, I must not speak of this. I would not publish it for the world” (Barker 1999 [1926], 150–151). Henceforth, Blavatsky claimed to live in continuous contact with these ‘Masters.’ Who they exactly were is not easy to establish, even within the Theosophical Society. Sometimes they are simply distinguished individuals who can materialize and incarnate at various places; sometimes they are subtle forces of energy that only assume corporeal form in order to appear visible to humans.
The first model was Blavatsky’s choice (see also Johnson 1994), for she described her teachers as Indian gurus, namely Mahatma Morya—known as “Master M”—born in the Punjab, and Mahatma Koot Hoomi (“Master KH”), from Kashmir. The Theosophist of October 1907 printed Blavatsky’s following account:
There is beyond the Himalayas a nucleus of Adepts, of various nationalities, and the Teshu [Panchen] Lama knows them, and they act together, and some of them are with him and yet remain unknown in their true character even to the average lamas—who are ignorant fools mostly. My Master and KH and several others I know personally are there, coming and going, and they are all in communication with Adepts in Egypt and Syria, and even Europe (quoted in Cranston 1994, 83).
The idea of a ‘White Brotherhood,’ long current in Europe, merges here with mystical notions of the ‘Orient.’ The notion of a mysterious community of sages has recurred in esoteric discourse ever since Plato’s ‘philosopher-kings’ gave rise to utopias with an ideal and sometimes transcendent government. The Renaissance conceived of a succession of distinguished world teachers bearing the prisca theologia, an idea further elaborated by the Rosicrucians as a secret society. This tradition was now supplemented by European fantasies concerning ‘sages of the Orient,’ the Mahatmas (‘Great Souls’) who, either from the mythical paradise of Shambala or from spheres beyond the material world, mysteriously directed the destinies of human beings. I will come back to this idea, which was taken up by others at the end of the nineteenth century.
After the first contact with her Master, Blavatsky led an extremely turbulent life, which led her on journeys to Canada, Mexico, Latin America, the West Indies, Ceylon, and India. In 1854 she allegedly crossed the Rocky Mountains with settlers in covered wagons. Many biographers accept her account of journeys to India, Kashmir, Russia, the Caucasus, France, Germany, Egypt, and Italy, but her alleged visit to Tibet, where she claimed to study secret documents in Lamaist monasteries, is not confirmed by scholarship. Whatever one’s view, these extensive journeys to mythically charged places in the history of humankind represent an important instrument for the legitimization of esoteric knowledge (Hammer 2001). Even if Blavatsky had undertaken only half of these journeys, it would have been a clear indication of her extraordinary character and her driving ambition to abandon bourgeois mores and to achieve an education and self-emancipation denied to most women of her generation. Her whole life was a provocation to the guardians of Victorian etiquette.
Blavatsky’s public career really began in 1872 with her attempt to found a magical club or a société spirite in Cairo and her arrival in New York in 1873. By this time Blavatsky was already an experienced medium, and she soon made contact with the spiritualist scene, increasingly popular in America since the 1850s. The development of American spiritualism is usually reckoned to date from the events that occurred at Hydesville, New York, in 1847. Soon after John D. Fox, his wife, and six children had moved into their new house in Hydesville, they began to hear mysterious rapping sounds. These raps were attributed to the ghost of a murdered peddler, whose body had been buried in the cellar of the house. Two of the daughters, Margaret and Kate, developed a form of communication with the ghost, and more importantly, they discovered the commercial success of such conversations with spirits. The novelty spread like wildfire in the United States, and the Fox sisters became national celebrities who could charge for their performances.
Other ‘mediums’ lost no time in jumping on the bandwagon. By 1855 two million Americans were said to be convinced of the truth of the observed phenomena, which were now reported from many farms. Research groups were founded in order to study the matter scientifically, and the famous Society for Psychical Research, which became even better known for its clash with Madame Blavatsky, owed its origin to these inquiries. Many of the alleged spirit communications were unmasked as hoaxes, and when Margaret Fox, some forty years after the Hydesville incident, publicly confessed that she and her sister had staged the whole affair, the movement suffered a severe blow (Jenkins 2000, 39–41).
Of course, ‘spiritualism’ did not begin with the events at Hydesville. The only novelty in these circumstances was their becoming an object of public debate (Godwin 1993, 187–204). Communication with ‘ascended beings’—whether the souls of the deceased or with other spirits—has a long history, in which the mysticism of Emanuel Swedenborg is an important chapter. But spiritualism was significant for the history of American religion, as it influenced many Christian denominations and led to a series of new religions. Under the name of Allen Kardec, Hyppolyte Leon Denizard Rivail (1804–1869), well versed in magnetism, Mesmerism, and esoteric traditions, founded an important new religion, after a ‘Druid spirit source’ had revealed messages to him. His work, Le livre des esprits (“The Book of Spirits,” 1857), became a fundamental text of the colorful spiritualist movement, which according to conservative estimates today numbers over one hundred million followers worldwide, the majority living in Latin America. Spiritualism was also an important factor for religious seekers outside the institutional churches, which Robert C. Fuller calls “the emergence of unchurched America” (Fuller 2001, 38–44). What is more, in conjunction with Mesmerism and animal magnetism, it had a strong impact on the emergence of psychology as an academic discipline (Ellenberger 1970, 53–102).
Blavatsky was in any case very interested in the spiritualist debates of her time. In October 1874 she met Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907), who was at that moment publishing a series of newspaper articles on spiritualist phenomena taking place at a farm in Vermont. For all their differences of personality, a close relationship developed between Blavatsky and her ‘Theosophical twin.’ Olcott was a lawyer with a flourishing practice specializing in commercial law, and had earlier undertaken the public inquiry into the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He had long been interested in esoteric subjects and was close to the Freemasons. He became Blavatsky’s principal partner and was chiefly responsible for organizing what would become the Theosophical Society.
On 9 March 1875, Colonel Olcott received a mysterious letter, written in golden ink and addressed to the “Neophytos Olcott.” The sender identified himself as a certain “Tuitit Bey, Grand Master of the mystical Brotherhood of Luxor.” Further letters followed from the ‘Masters,’ in which Olcott was summoned to publish various articles in a New York newspaper about occultism and similar topics. Later he was encouraged to concern himself with Blavatsky and her public influence.
In May 1875, Olcott founded the Miracle Club, without knowing that a group of that name already existed in London. Blavatsky was probably not a member of this club, but wrote in her scrapbook in July 1875: “Orders received from India direct to establish a philosophic-religious Society & choose a name for it—also to choose Olcott” (quoted from Cranston 1994, 143). This commission was shortly fulfilled, for at a lecture by the architect and engineer George H. Felt on “The lost canon of proportion of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans,” held on 7 September 1875 in Blavatsky’s apartment before an audience of seventeen persons, Olcott had the idea of founding a new society. At successive meetings Olcott was elected president, and after some leafing through a dictionary it was decided to call it the Theosophical Society.
The goals of the organization were later defined as follows: (1) to form the nucleus of a universal brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color; (2) to study ancient and modern religions, philosophies, and sciences; and (3) to investigate the unexplained laws of nature and psychical powers latent in humankind. These very goals demonstrate that the Theosophical Society bridged esotericism, the comparative study of religion, and the heritage of the Enlightenment.
Unveiling the Hidden Knowledge of Isis
Shortly after the foundation of the Theosophical Society, Blavatsky, now sharing an apartment with Olcott, began working feverishly on her first major book. Many myths of doubtful truth have gathered around the composition of Isis Unveiled. Frequently, dozens of pages of good English in a neat hand, as if written by a spirit, were discovered in the morning on her writing desk. Olcott claimed that the work was entirely written in the ‘astral light’ and that the Mahatmas rather than Blavatsky were its real authors.
On the one hand, we have no reason to doubt that Blavatsky possessed mediumistic powers, which could have played a certain role in the creation of her major works. Blavatsky’s account that she almost daily felt the presence of her Master, who was within her body and communicated knowledge otherwise inaccessible to her, describes a widespread phenomenon known today as channeling. On the other hand, and more importantly, there is almost nothing in Isis Unveiled that could not have been gathered from contemporary literature. Critics of the Theosophical Society who were close to the Society for Psychical Research took much trouble to prove that Blavatsky’s works offered gleanings from about a hundred books, which were mostly available in Olcott’s library (Coleman 1895). One might thereby suppose that Olcott also had a share in the composition of the extensive works of his ‘Theosophical twin.’ From a discursive point of view, we can say that Blavatsky’s work is a quite ingenious example of plagiarism, in which the author entangled all relevant discourse strands that make up the knot of SCIENCE, RELIGION, and OCCULTISM. That is probably the reason why the criticism did not harm the book’s success or its discursive impact. The first edition of Isis Unveiled: A Master Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology (1877), with a print run of one thousand, had sold out within ten days, and some 500,000 copies have been sold up to the present day.
For the purpose of this study, it is particularly interesting to have a closer look at the discursive re-entanglement that Blavatsky achieved in her writing. She—and the Theosophical Society in general—is certainly not the founder of these discourses, but she played a significant role in the multiplication of discursive constellations that had influence in the twentieth century and are still in place today. Isis Unveiled collects the knowledge of the nineteenth century and assembles it in a way that intends to demonstrate the anti-materialist truth of eternal ‘Eastern’ wisdom. Even the book’s title was anticipated by others. It was none other than Carl Gustav Carus who wrote in his Zwölf Briefe über das Erdleben (1841):
To be sure, when after learning about Oersted’s discovery I understood this view of the magnetic life of the earth, it felt as if I suddenly got much closer to the secret of this whole planetary being.—Hence, if this particular view as yet has not been your own, I hope that its realization will now be a welcome enrichment of your inner vision and thinking.—Indeed, we can hardly enjoy a higher and purer pleasure than when one veil after the other is stripped off the deeply covered image of Isis, and we thus learn to increasingly perceive ourselves as being part of a general divine life.36
Carus here refers to Hans Christian Ørsted (1777–1851), the Danish physicist and chemist who discovered that electric currents create magnetic fields, which was an important step in the development of electromagnetism. Ørsted influenced post-Kantian philosophy and nineteenth-century interpretation of science. Blavatsky was familiar with this research and interpreted it in a similar fashion as Carus, but her undertone is less Romantically inspired and less eroticized, and much more polemical in its anti-Christian and anti-materialist attack.
These guerilla-skirmishes between the champions of the clergy and the materialistic Academy of Science, prove abundantly how little the latter has done toward uprooting blind fanaticism from the minds of even very educated persons. Evidently science has neither completely conquered nor muzzled theology. She will master her only on that day when she will condescend to see in the spiritual phenomenon something besides mere hallucination and charlatanry. But how can she do it without investigating it thoroughly? Let us suppose that before the time when electro-magnetism was publicly acknowledged, the Copenhagen Professor Oersted, its discoverer, had been suffering from an attack of what we call psychopho-bia, or pneumatophobia. He notices that the wire along which a voltaic current is passing shows a tendency to turn the magnetic needle from its natural position to one perpendicular to the direction of the current. Suppose, moreover, that the professor had heard much of certain superstitious people who used that kind of magnetized needles to converse with unseen intelligences. That they received signals and even held correct conversations with them by means of the tippings of such a needle, and that in consequence he suddenly felt a scientific horror and disgust for such an ignorant belief, and refused, point-blank, to have anything to do with such a needle. What would have been the result? Electro-magnetism might not have been discovered till now, and our experimentalists would have been the principal losers thereby (Blavatsky 2006 [1877], vol. 1, 92, emphasis original).
This is a typical example of how Blavatsky presents her reading of the history of religion, science, and culture. Later in her narrative, she states that electromagnetism, “the so-called discovery of Professor Oersted, had been used by Paracelsus three centuries before” (2006 [1877], vol. 1, 146, emphasis original). Paracelsus, Giordano Bruno, Johannes Kepler (“the forerunner of Newton in many great truths,” 2006 [1877], vol. 1, 185), Robert Fludd, Cagliostro, Eliphas Lévi, and other well-known persons in what is presented by Blavatsky and other occultists as an anti-clerical tradition, are the major authorities when it comes to the legitimization of ‘genuine science,’ astrology, alchemy, Kabbalah, and Hermetic philosophy (see, e. g., Blavatsky 2006 [1877], vol. 1, xl).
The discourse strands of ALCHEMY, VITALISM, and ASTROLOGY are omnipresent in Isis Unveiled (on KABBALAH see Huss 2010, 184–187 and Chapter 6 below). A few examples stand for an abundance of others. As regards alchemy and chemistry, Blavatsky notes:
The Rosicrucians of the middle ages, such as Robertus de Fluctibus (Robert Fludd), Paracelsus, Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes), Van Helmont, and others, were all alchemists, who sought for the hidden spirit in every inorganic matter. Some people—nay, the great majority—have accused alchemists of charlatanry and false pretending. Surely such men as Roger Bacon, Agrippa, Henry Kunrath, and the Arabian Geber (the first to introduce into Europe some of the secrets of chemistry), can hardly be treated as impostors—least of all as fools. Scientists who are reforming the science of physics upon the basis of the atomic theory of Demokritus, as restated by John Dalton, conveniently forget that Demokritus, of Abdera, was an alchemist, and that the mind that was capable of penetrating so far into the secret operations of nature in one direction must have had good reasons to study and become a Hermetic philosopher (vol. 1, xxxii–xxxiii).
Blavatsky directly refers to the polemical disjunction that accompanied the emergence of modern chemistry through the works of Dalton and others. “To bridge over the narrow gulf which now separates the new chemistry from old alchemy, is little, if any harder than what they have done in going from dualism to the law of Avogadro” (vol. 1, 145, emphasis original, with link to Paracelsus). This non-dualism is also a discursive link to MONISM.
When we look at VITALISM, we find passages such as the following ones.
The unprofitableness of modern scientific research is evinced in the fact that while we have a name for the most trivial particle of mineral, plant, animal, and man, the wisest of our teachers are unable to tell us anything definite about the vital force which produces the changes in these several kingdoms. It is necessary to seek further for corroboration of this statement than the works of our highest scientific authorities themselves (vol. 1, 212).
Light is the first begotten, and the first emanation of the Supreme, and Light is Life, says the evangelist. Both are electricity—the life-principle, the anima mundi, pervading the universe, the electric vivifier of all things. Light is the great Protean magician, and under the Divine Will of the architect, its multifarious, omnipotent waves gave birth to every form as well as to every living being. From its swelling, electric bosom, springs matter and spirit. Within its beams lie the beginnings of all physical and chemical action, and of all cosmic and spiritual phenomena; it vitalizes and disorganizes; it gives life and produces death, and from its primordial point gradually emerged into existence the myriads of worlds, visible and invisible celestial bodies (vol. 1, 231, emphasis original).
It has been the speculation of men of science from time immemorial what this vital force or life-principle is. To our mind the “secret doctrine” alone is able to furnish the clew. Exact science recognizes only five powers in nature—one molar, and four molecular; kabalists, seven; and in these two additional ones is enwrapped the whole mystery of life. One of these is immortal spirit, whose reflection is connected by invisible links even with inorganic matter; the other, we leave to every one to discover for himself (vol. 1, 419, emphasis original; see also vol. 2, 540).
Finally, there are long passages and dozens of references to ASTROLOGY, in which the author links astrological doctrine and tradition to the other esoteric lines of thought. Blavatsky also includes the new discipline of psychology in her conceptualization of astrology:
Astrology is to exact astronomy what psychology is to exact physiology. In astrology and psychology one has to step beyond the visible world of matter, and enter into the domain of transcendent spirit. It is the old struggle between the Platonic and Aristotelean schools, and it is not in our century of Sadducean skepticism that the former will prevail over the latter (vol. 1, 232, spelling original).
As references, the author invokes the heroes of what is constructed as esoteric tradition, but also contemporary authors such as Johann W. Pfaff and his Astrologie (1816; see Chapter 2 above; see Blavatsky 2006 [1877], vol. 1, 45–46). Indeed, it is of crucial importance for the discursive impact of Blavatsky’s work that she not only polemically attacked what she thought was a wrong understanding of science, but that she actively engaged the academic discourse of her time, entirely in line with the goals of the Theosophical Society. Quotes and counter-quotes abound in Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine, and the author demonstrates an acquaintance with the discussions in the natural sciences, Indology, and history. The Indologist Friedrich Max Müller is one of the major references when it comes to Blavatsky’s construction of an ancient Indian (Aryan) wisdom tradition. John Dalton was mentioned earlier. A third example is Thomas Wright:
As a commentary on this, the modern historian remarks: “This may be taken as a sort of exemplification of the class of exhibitions which were probably the result of a superior knowledge of natural sciences.” No one ever doubted that it was the result of precisely such a knowledge, and the hermetists, magicians, astrologers and alchemists never claimed anything else. It certainly was not their fault that the ignorant masses, under the influence of an unscrupulous and fanatic clergy, should have attributed all such works to the agency of the devil (vol. 1, 58, emphasis original, with a reference in a footnote without page number to Wright’s Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, i.e., Wright 1855).
Mark S. Morrisson correctly remarked that much of the success of the Theosophical movement “stemmed from Blavatsky’s imaginative synthesis of Western occultism and Eastern religions, especially Buddhism, and her efforts to situate the new religion as essentially an ancient science” (Morrisson 2007, 70, emphasis original). In its formal appearance, Blavatsky’s work is a mixture of genres that combines elements of academic argumentation (with footnotes being an aesthetic device that adds to authority), philosophical essay, and religious polemics. Undoubtedly, this combination has added to the discursive impact of her writings.
After the publication of Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky travelled to India and settled in Bombay, where the Theosophical Society enjoyed an extremely positive response. Its construction of an ‘Oriental spirituality’ as the ‘ancient wisdom’ of humankind significantly contributed to the strengthening of an anti-colonial identity in India (on the link between the academic study of religion, Orientalism, and Indian politics see King 2011; Lubelsky 2012, 1–76). In 1882, the headquarters of the Society were moved to Adyar, near Madras. The wave of sympathy embracing the Theosophists in India and Ceylon had strong political implications. One may cite the example of S. Radhakrishnan, the philosopher and president of India, who stated:
When, with all kinds of political failures and economic breakdowns we (Indians) were suspecting the values and vitality of our culture, when everything round about us and secular education happened to discredit the value of Indian culture, the Theosophical Movement rendered great service by vindicating those values and ideas. The influence of the Theosophical Movement on general Indian society is incalculable (quoted in Cranston 1994, 192).
The most prominent example of this influence is Mahatma Gandhi, who became acquainted with the Theosophical Society during his law studies in London in 1889. In his autobiography he describes how, like many other intellectuals of his time, he first gained access to his own culture through his encounter with the Theosophical Society. For the first time he read the Bhagavad Gita, which later became a central reference point in his philosophy and politics (Cranston 1994, 194–195; cf. now the much more academic analysis in Lubelsky 2012, 270–284). During their time in India the Theosophists would also experience serious setbacks. There were increasing accusations of fraud, whereby the Mahatma letters were alleged to be forgeries, and Blavatsky was supposed to have supplemented her ‘mediumistic powers’ with all sorts of tricks, which led to a loss of prestige for the Theosophical Society in Europe and North America. Space does not permit a detailed account here of how the relationship between Blavatsky and Olcott deteriorated. More important is Blavatsky’s major work, which she wrote as if possessed in the last years of her life.
Secret Doctrines and Synthetic Discourse
Following her return to Europe, Blavatsky published The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy in the autumn of 1888. The first volume was entitled “Cosmogenesis,” the second “Anthropogenesis,” while the third volume, “Esotericism,” was published posthumously in 1897 (with its authenticity being controversially discussed by Theosophists up to the present day). Here Blavatsky elaborated the foundations of her complex Theosophical theory of the creation of the human being, the structure of the universe, and the ancient truth of all the religions, derived from a single common source. She referred particularly to notions drawn from Hindu and Buddhist religions, which she fashioned into the embodiment of the (Aryan) religion. Quotes from and references to academic experts such as Friedrich Max Müller abound throughout the work and lend it an aura of scientific authority.
In the preface to the first edition, the author, who refers to herself rather as the “writer,” explains that these two volumes (with the third being “entirely ready, and the fourth almost so”) were initially planned as an extended version of Isis Unveiled. “It was, however, soon found that the explanations which could be added to those already put before the world in the last-named and other works dealing with esoteric science, were such as to require a different method of treatment” (Blavatsky 2013 [1888], vol. 1, vii, emphasis added). As to esoteric discourse, it is noteworthy that Blavatsky points out that
[t]hese truths are in no sense put forward as a revelation; nor does the author claim the position of a revealer of mystic lore, now made public for the first time in the world’s history. For what is contained in this work is to be found scattered throughout thousands of volumes embodying the scriptures of the great Asiatic and early European religions, hidden under glyph and symbol, and hitherto left unnoticed because of this veil (2013 [1888], vol. 1, vii).
Blavatsky claims instead that she is presenting the translation of an ancient document of Asian occult literature, which she alone has been allowed to read. Originally transmitted only orally as the “Book of Dzyan” but “hinted at in the almost countless volumes of Brahminical, Chinese and Tibetan temple-literature” (Blavatsky 2013 [1888], vol. 1, xxiii), the original text, written in an unknown language, is in the safekeeping of initiated adepts in ‘the East.’ Subsequently, many philologists felt challenged to investigate the oracular language of the Book of Dzyan, but apart from an echo of Sanskrit and other languages they could give no definite explanation. If one cannot accept the Theosophical view, one would have to say that the “Stanzas” within The Secret Doctrine are an extremely creative production of their ingenious author.
As a document in the history of twentieth-century religion, the significance of The Secret Doctrine can scarcely be overstated. On the one hand, this work simultaneously summarizes and popularizes the basic assumptions of major esoteric currents; on the other hand, it introduces the trend toward ‘Eastern spirituality, ’ which is still very influential in today’s esoteric scene. As before in Isis Unveiled, we can observe a highly creative configuration of the discourses of SCIENCE, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY, ASTROLOGY, ALCHEMY, OCCULTISM, and VITALISM. Sometimes all of the strands come together in a single passage, such as in her discussion of the “solar theory:”
This “mystery,” or the origin of the LIFE ESSENCE, Occultism locates in the same centre as the nucleus of prima materia (for they are one) of our Solar system. […] Thus, there is a regular circulation of the vital fluid throughout our system, of which the Sun is the heart—the same as the circulation of the blood in the human body—during the manvantaric solar period, or life; the Sun contracting as rhythmically at every return of it, as the human heart does. Only, instead of performing the round in a second or so, it takes the solar blood ten of its years, and a whole year to pass through its auricles and ventricles before it washes the lungs and passes thence to the great veins and arteries of the system.
This, Science will not deny, since Astronomy knows of the fixed cycle of eleven years when the number of solar spots increases,* which is due to the contraction of the Solar HEART. The universe (our world in this case) breathes, just as man and every living creature, plant, and even mineral does upon the earth; and as our globe itself breathes every twenty-four hours. The dark region is not due “to the absorption exerted by the vapours issuing from the bosom of the sun and interposed between the observer and the photosphere,” as Father Secchi would have it (“Le Soleil” II., 184), nor are the spots formed “by the matter (heated gaseous matter) which the irruption projects upon the solar disc” (ibid). It is similar to the regular and healthy pulsation of the heart, as the life fluid passes through its hollow muscles (2013 [1888], vol. 1, 540–541).
The asterisk refers to a footnote saying:
Not only does it not deny the occurrence, though attributing it to a wrong cause, as always, each theory contradicting every other, (see the theories of Secchi, of Faye, and of Young), the spots depending on the superficial accumulation of vapours cooler than the photosphere (?), etc., etc., but we have men of science who astrologize upon the spots. Professor Jevons attributes all the great periodical commercial crises to the influence of the Sun spots every eleventh cyclic year. (See his “Investigations into Currency and Finance.”) This is worthy of praise and encouragement surely (vol. 1, 541).
Let me refer here to Blavatsky’s article “Kosmic Mind” in Lucifer, which clearly expresses what is at stake for our analysis.
Now to lay at rest once for all in the minds of Theosophists this vexed question, we intend to prove that modern science, owing to physiology, is itself on the eve of discovering that consciousness is universal—thus justifying Edison’s “dreams.” But before we do this, we mean also to show that though many a man of science is soaked through and through with such belief, very few are brave enough to openly admit it, as the late Dr. Pirogoff of St. Petersburg has done in his posthumous Memoirs. Indeed that great surgeon and pathologist raised by their publication quite a howl of indignation among his colleagues. How then? the public asked: He, Dr. Pirogoff, whom we regarded as almost the embodiment of European learning, believing in the superstitions of crazy alchemists? He, who in the words of a contemporary:—
was the very incarnation of exact science and methods of thought; who had dissected hundreds and thousands of human organs, making himself as acquainted with all the mysteries of surgery and anatomy as we are with our familiar furniture; the savant for whom physiology had no secrets and who, above all men was one to whom Voltaire might have ironically asked whether he had not found immortal soul between the bladder and the blind gut, —that same Pirogoff is found after his death devoting whole chapters in his literary Will to the scientific demonstration … (Novoye Vremya of 1887)
—of what? Why, of the existence in every organism of a distinct “VITAL FORCE” independent of any physical or chemical process. Like Liebig he accepted the derided and tabooed homogeneity of nature—a Life Principle—that persecuted and hapless teleology, or the science of the final causes of things, which is as philosophical as it is unscientific, if we have to believe imperial and royal academies (Blavatsky 2013 [1887–1891]).
In other passages in The Secret Doctrine we see Blavatsky adding even more discourse strands to her already complex knot. In her musings on “Ancient and Modern Prophecies,” she adds paganism and Asian religion to the mélange and makes sure to use this in her sideswipe at modern materialist science.
But with the pagans, with whom, as Coleridge has it—“… Time, cyclical time, was their abstraction of the Deity …” that “Deity” manifesting co-ordinately with, and only through Karma, and being that KARMA-NEMESIS itself, the cycles meant something more than a mere succession of events, or a periodical space of time of more or less prolonged duration. For they were generally marked with recurrences of a more varied and intellectual character than are exhibited in the periodical return of seasons or of certain constellations. Modern wisdom is satisfied with astronomical computations and prophecies based on unerring mathematical laws. Ancient Wisdom added to the cold shell of astronomy the vivifying elements of its soul and spirit—ASTROLOGY. And, as the sidereal motions do regulate and determine other events on Earth—besides potatoes and the periodical disease of that useful vegetable—(a statement which, not being amenable to scientific explanation, is merely derided, while accepted) —those events have to be allowed to find themselves predetermined by even simple astronomical computations. Believers in astrology will understand our meaning, sceptics will laugh at the belief and mock the idea. Thus they shut their eyes, ostrich-like, to their own fate … (Blavatsky 2013 [1888], vol. 1, 645).
Blavatsky’s ability to weave together all of these diverse discourse strands into one historical narrative and to lend it authority in different directions with her mixing of genres—most prominently academic argument, philosophical musings, religious polemics, and presumed contact with the astral plane—are doubtless the main reasons for the success of her writing. Whether we call this fraud, chutzpa, or genius is beside the point. What is important is the discursive impact that this construction exerted on subsequent readings of religious history and esoteric claims of knowledge.
Blavatsky’s final years were marked by conflict, and even after her death the Theosophical Society was riven by disputes over succession. Moreover, the ‘ascended Masters’ were by no means free of such earthbound emotions. The “Mahatma letters,” which were sent beginning in 1880 to leading members of the Society, chiefly A.P. Sinnett and A.O. Hume, reflected the ‘only too human.’ The Masters complain about a lack of paper, take sideswipes at other rival Masters, deprecate human weakness, and evince a misogyny that seems astonishing given Blavatsky’s prominent role. For instance, Sinnett received a letter that ridiculed Blavatsky as the “‘gifted editor’ of the Theosophist, who has been off her head since the accusation. Verily woman—is a dreadful calamity in this fifth race!” (Barker 2013 [1923], Letter No. 93).
After her move to London in 1887, Blavatsky’s activities demonstrate the increasing tension between individual wings of the Theosophical Society, but also between herself and Olcott. She was still busy writing in her final years. In 1889 she published The Key to Theosophy and The Voice of Silence (for which the Dalai Lama wrote a warm acknowledgment in 1993), but much of her energy was directed toward securing her own position. The power struggle between Olcott and Blavatsky was initially defused by Blavatsky founding her own Esoteric Section (or Esoteric School) in England, whose members were chiefly drawn from the previously formed Blavatsky Lodge, while Olcott was responsible for the affairs of the Indian Section (Adyar). The Esoteric School effectively acted as an inner circle of Blavatsky’s closest male and female followers, and its teachings, initiations, and courses of instruction remained largely secret. By re-founding a British Section, Blavatsky claimed yet more authority for herself, which Olcott, as president of the Society, would no longer tolerate. Blavatsky therefore declared her own British lodges independent of Adyar in 1890, simultaneously claiming to represent all of Europe. The break was thereby complete and would continue to influence the later history of the Theosophical Society, after Blavatsky passed away on 8 May 1891.
Wars of Succession
After Blavatsky’s death the Theosophical Society continued to be led by Olcott and other disputants. At this time Annie Besant (1847–1933) came to the fore. Besant had first joined the Society after writing a review of The Secret Doctrine. Her discovery of this book marked the close of a painful time in her life, when the quest for religious fulfillment had led her to break away from her marriage to an Anglican clergyman. Parallels with the life of Blavatsky will be evident. Besant strengthened the orientation toward India during the whole period of her leadership of the Society, which led to further schisms (on Steiner see below; on the response from the Toronto Theosophical Society see McCann 2012, 135–136). In 1917, Besant was elected president of the Indian National Congress. This parliament was instrumental in leading India to independence under the guidance of Mahatma Gandhi (see the detailed analysis in Lubelsky 2012, 190–284).
Katherine Tingley (1847–1929) pursued a very different agenda by placing practical and social interests at the heart of her teachings. Supported by W.Q. Judge, a co-founder of the Theosophical Society, Tingley sought to give this movement an institutional basis by founding her own center in 1897 in Pasadena near Los Angeles. Its guiding principle was the foundation of a new global society with new educational systems, new forms of horticulture, and provision for theater and the arts. Many ideas of the later ‘New Age movement,’ especially in their political aspects, are borrowed from Tingley’s brand of Theosophy. The Pasadena center still publishes the magazine Sunrise, and according to its own report there are almost fifty centers with approximately one hundred groups worldwide.
Joy Dixon remarked about the change within the Theosophical Society:
In the 1890s a new variant of eastern mysticism, the East as the locus of a manly and rational spirituality, became a key element in the scientific spirituality of the Theosophical Society in England. This scientific spirituality was used to authorize a particular kind of spiritual authority and spiritual experience. Scientific spirituality was modeled on the academic study of religions: techniques developed within the emerging sciences of anthropology and the comparative study of religions (especially through philology) were redeployed in the service of a more “modern” spirituality (2001, 42–43).
The gendered configuration of discourses of mysticism and Orientalism is of crucial importance, and in Chapter 6 I will come back to this in more detail. However, one may doubt whether there really was a significant change from Blavatsky to her followers in this regard. Dixon’s argument that after Blavatsky’s death the Theosophical Society in England became something like “a self-consciously ‘gentlemanly’ variant of theosophy, which emphasized above all theosophy’s rational, scholarly, and scientific character” (Dixon 2001, 41), may also be attributed to the Society’s crisis of reputation rather than to a fundamental break with “Theosophy’s esoteric side—letters from the Masters, precipitations and materializations, initiations and Masonic rites” (ibid.). In 1903, when Rudolf Steiner tried to counter the critique that Theosophy was a ‘female philosophy,’ noting that this could be changed and that in critical Germany Theosophy could be turned into a male philosophy, “he dramatically underestimated the emancipated Theosophical women” (Zander 2011, 167).
Another aspect of ‘scientific spirituality’ is at stake here. We have seen above that Blavatsky herself was keen to present Theosophy as an ancient science. To understand the changes in Theosophical discourse, it is also important to keep in mind that major discoveries in the natural sciences were made after Blavatsky’s death. In Morrisson’s words: “If Blavatsky meant to make Theosophy a science whose ultimate goal was spiritual wisdom, her methods of scientific engagement were beginning to show their limitations within a few years after her death” (2007, 70). That is why around 1900, “the Theosophical journals augmented the work of sanitizing Blavatsky’s doctrines. They acted as clearinghouses for information about the latest scientific discoveries gleaned from newspapers, scientific journals, and current science books” (ibid., 71).
At this point, yet another schism should be mentioned, which became particularly important in the United States because of its strong Christian bent. Born into a Christian fundamentalist milieu, Alice Ann Bailey (1880–1949) joined the Theosophical Society in 1915 but was expelled in 1923 on account of her Christian creed, whereupon she founded the “Arcane School,” which is still internationally active today. The objective of Arcane School Theosophy, which only admits adults according to strict criteria, is the recognition of the individual balance of karma. At the heart of its teachings lies the “Great Invocation,” a sort of mantra or magical formula, which should be recited as often as possible by the adepts. This serves to restore cosmic harmony and prepare for the Second Coming of Christ.
Like Blavatsky before her, Bailey also claimed that her writings had been written by an ‘ascended Master’ (in her case the Tibetan Dhwal Khul) and only received by her. Bailey also practiced a form of astrology mystically influenced by Theosophy. She published a five-volume work under the title A Treatise on the Seven Rays, whose third volume, Esoteric Astrology, was devoted entirely to this mystical astrology. Even if there are few readers who have worked right through this extensive and often impenetrable book, the influence of esoteric astrology was immense. The work has the authority of revelation for many spiritually minded astrologers, and it is still available in esoteric bookshops today.
The impact of Bailey’s Arcane School upon esoteric discourse in the second half of the twentieth century can be deduced from the fact that it maintains centers in New York, London, Geneva, and Buenos Aires. A leaflet entitled “What Is an Esoteric School?” published around 1998 by the Lucis Trust in Geneva reads as follows: “Today there exists no esoteric school which prepares individuals for initiation. Those that claim this are deceiving the public. One can teach followers in an academic sense, but by contrast initiation is always an individual goal, which each person can reach only by contact with the world of spiritual being” (p. 12, quoted from the German edition). An esoteric school comes into existence, the leaflet continues, as “advanced disciples” recognize their task in the world. The life of the disciple thereby becomes “magnetic, radiant, and dynamic, whereby he attracts and gathers those whom he can help. He thereby becomes the living center of a vital organism, but not the leader of an organiza tion” (ibid., emphasis original). In ‘New Age’ jargon such disciples are frequently called “light workers.” This reflects the notion that the world will be transformed into light by a group of elect persons playing a key role.
A final schism from the parent Adyar movement should be mentioned here. The United Lodge of Theosophists, founded in 1919 by Robert Crosby (1849 –1919) as a reaction to the disputes between the various Theosophical splinter groups, is still active today. The United Lodge attempts to avoid any kind of personality cult and the tendency toward bureaucracy; there is no membership, and lectures and publications are largely anonymous. One might describe this as the ‘anarchistic section’ of the Theosophical Society.
There is a whole range of further groups close to the Theosophical Society, but as institutionalized associations they have little significance. Today the total membership of the Adyar Society is estimated at 40,000, the Pasadena Society deriving from Tingley at 2,000, and the United Lodge at 1,000 persons worldwide.
The German Knot: Rudolf Steiner
The history of the Theosophical Society clearly shows an increasing Orientalization of esoteric discourse at the beginning of the twentieth century. While the first generation of Theosophists, with Helena P. Blavatsky at its center, was still closely connected to the ideas of Romantic science, philosophy, and historiography, engaging in an embittered fight against materialism and reductionism, Blavatsky’s successors opened up Theosophy to a more spiritual reading of religious history, with a strong focus on Buddhist and Hindu traditions. These new orientations of major parts of the Theosophical Society led to internal schisms and a differentiation of various forms of Theosophy (Godwin 1994, 363–379). For the development of this discursive knot in western Europe, the work of Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) is of special importance. More than other representatives of Theosophy, Steiner remained tied to German Romanticism and nineteenth-century philosophy, and it is through his construction of esotericism that this discursive knot was transmitted into German culture in the twentieth century (on the details of Theosophical societies in the German-speaking countries see Zander 2007, 75–432).
In his biography of Rudolf Steiner, Helmut Zander correctly notes that the tension between materialism and idealism, between matter and mind, is a red thread that runs through Steiner’s entire life. It can even be seen in the contradictory information that he gave about the day of his birth; in his autobiography he noted that he was born on 27 February 1861, whereas he otherwise also gave 25 February as his date of birth. “The gap of two days is a key to Steiner’s autobiography, indeed to his whole life. 27 February is Steiner’s baptismal day. Real life, we can interpret Steiner’s credo, does not start with the biological birth but with baptism, which makes the human into a spiritual being” (Zander 2011, 13).
The turn to Christianity, however, was a later development in Steiner’s work. Until the turn of the century, Steiner’s philosophical, scientific, and religious identity had been determined by his fascination with Goethe, Nietzsche, and Haeckel (Zander 2007, 435–542). When he was only twenty-one, Steiner was invited to work as an editor of Goethe’s natural scientific work in the new edition of that giant’s Collected Works. In combination with German Romanticism and the intellectual tradition of nineteenth-century Vienna, the scientific and philosophical impact of Goethe’s thinking is clearly visible in Steiner’s formative period and beyond (Raub 1964; Zander 2011, 43–60). Steiner tried to turn his reception of Goethe’s thinking into a philosophical dissertation that ultimately became his Die Philosophie der Freiheit (“The philosophy of freedom,” 1893, officially 1894). During this period, Steiner was heavily influenced by the philosophy of Max Stirner and particularly Friedrich Nietzsche (Zander 2011, 83–100; cf. the detailed critique in Traub 2011). His love for Goethe and his critique of major parts of contemporary science and philosophy brought Steiner into contact with Ernst Haeckel in 1892. Haeckel’s evolutionary thinking was a major influence on Steiner. “Again and again, behind Steiner’s Theosophical anthropology and cosmology we discern the grand master of popular evolutionary theory, Professor Ernst Haeckel” (Zander 2011, 96; see also Zander 2007, 881–886).
A representative example of this discursive knot is Steiner’s Aus der Akasha-Chronik (a collection of contributions published between 1904 and 1908), in which he joined the group of intellectuals who wanted to combine the natural sciences and the human sciences into one large Geisteswissenschaft. However, he was to add esoteric knowledge from the astral plane, which clearly transgressed the ideas of Haeckel and others.
Nowhere do the results of the human sciences [Geisteswissenschaft] contradict the factual research [Tatsachenforschung] of the natural sciences. In all cases in which one looks unbiased at the relationship between the two, something very different reveals itself for our period. It turns out that this factual research is heading toward the goal of bringing itself in the not-too-distant future into full harmony with what the spiritual research [Geistesfor-schung] for certain areas must conclude from its supernatural sources (“Vorurteile aus ver-meintlicher Wissenschaft,” in Steiner 1986 [1904–1908], emphasis original).
Steiner is turning the argument of ‘pseudo-science’ around and criticizes those systems of knowledge that do not open themselves to the existence of spiritual and supernatural dimensions of reality as “alleged science” (“vermeintliche Wissenschaft”).
After some earlier contact with the Theosophical milieu, in 1902 Steiner joined the Theosophical Society and became, together with his soon-to-be wife Marie von Sivers, the first General Secretary of the Theosophical Society in Germany. Steiner was also a member of the Esoteric Section, founded by Blavatsky, and led its German branch. His later claim that he was the first to establish such a section is clearly false. Indeed, his account of events is strongly slanted to suggest that his ‘Theosophical phase’ had no impact on his formation of ideas, which led him to found the Anthroposophical Society in 1913. However, if one examines his lectures prior to 1910, the close relationship between their contents and the writings of Blavatsky are apparent. The borrowing of the magazine title Luzifer (“Light Bringer”), from Blavatsky’s London journal founded in September 1887, demonstrates Steiner’s proximity to Theosophy. Even in this case, Steiner advertised the idea as his own.
Nevertheless, Steiner subsequently developed his own particular combination of discourse strands. The Theosophical idea of initiated adepts that line up in a long historical tradition was part of Anthroposophical thinking too. Steiner took this from Blavatsky, but also from Edouard Schuré (1841–1929). In his book Les grands initiés (1889, translated into English as The Great Initiates), Schuré presented a tradition that replaced Persia with India, as might be expected at this time, giving the lineage Rama, Krishna, Hermes, Moses, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, and Jesus. The German edition of The Great Initiates, with a foreword by Rudolf Steiner, appeared in its twentieth edition in 1992. Schuré was friendly with Rudolf Steiner and his wife Marie Steiner-von Sivers, who not only translated the book from French into German, but also produced Schuré’s mystery-dramas on the stage (Zander 2007, 1019–1028; Zander 2011, 155–156, 291–300). Helmut Zander notes that “the historical value of Schuré’s drama is of secondary importance. More important is that he used the medium of archa-izing [antikisierend] drama to take a stand in the problems of self-positioning of alternative-religious dissenters around 1900” (Zander 2007, 1027).
Steiner’s involvement in the philosophical and intellectual debates of Germany, however, represented an important difference between his interests and the British-Indian brand of Theosophy. In the course of time he found himself at odds with the Theosophical emphasis on ‘Oriental wisdom-teachings.’ He opposed this with his own Christian worldview, which interpreted the development of human history as the product of so-called “Christ impulses,” a scheme that combined the doctrine of successive world-teachers with the Christian mystical tradition. But whether in the Theosophical form or in the garb of Anthroposophical “Christ impulses,” the idea of a transcendent world of sages who safeguard the memory of ancient wisdom has cardinal importance for twentieth-century esoteric discourse. This discourse reappears, for instance, in the many ‘channeled’ messages of those entities, which make their knowledge available to select individuals.
In sum, there can be no doubt that the specific constellation of discourse strands that representatives of Theosophy and Anthroposophy provided to various milieus was instrumental in establishing new meanings of religion and science in the twentieth century. It is of relevance for the present study that the same discursive knots reappear in academic writings of the same period, thus stabilizing and further legitimizing the underlying attributions of meaning. To these academics I will turn in the next chapters.