This is a critique of an academic paper, pointing out 34 problems, misconceptions, and mistakes. The reason I'm doing this is to try to clarify some fairly widespread problems in academia with regards to Blavatsky's relation to Buddhism. I'd basically like to argue that, although I don't have a problem with an academic adopting an eclectic approach to develop studies in a field outside of his diploma area of study, I think that it should be done in an organized, methodical way, as with, for example, the work of Christopher Lasch. In the case of Mr. Lopez Jr., his works on alternative spirituality seem to me to be informal sociological essays with little consultation of works of sociology, anthropology, history of religion and thus have significant flaws that are ultimately misleading in various ways, although I'm not questioning his credibility as a conventional Buddhism scholar and translator in the field of Buddhist studies per se. I've outlined some of the basic semantics issues with this kind of paper in a previous post about Theosophical history.
1- 'There he met the Russian émigré and medium,
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky'(38).
Blavatsky never claimed to be medium in spiritualistic
terms and denounced such practices. (see 'Mr. A. Lillie's Delusions' [Light (London), Vol. IV, No. 188, August 9, 1884, pp. 323-324], Collected Writings, Vol. 6, p. 269)
2- 'among other things, would bring the teachings of the Buddha, at least as
interpreted by the Society, to a large audience in Europe and America over
the subsequent decades' (38).
Henk Spierenberg’s The Buddhism of H.P. Blavatsky details how knowledgeable
Blavatsky was about Buddhist texts and scholarship. Olcott lists a full
bibiliography of respectable Buddhist texts in his Buddhist Catechism.
3- 'He enthusiastically embraced his new faith, which he felt contained no
dogma that he was compelled to accept' (38).
Olcott and Blavatsky were earlier promoters of the Kalama Sutta as a document
explaining non-dogmatic perspectives.
4- 'The work was translated into Sinhalese and memorized
by Sri Lankan children' (39).
'Colonel Olcott, together with Anagarika Dharmapāla of Ceylon, were
pioneers in the Buddhist revival movement in India and Ceylon. They
worked together in the development of Ceylon’s educational movement.
They travelled from village to village on foot and in bullock cart,
exhorting the people to live Buddhist lives, and collecting funds.
Principally to the credit of Colonel Olcott there are about 12 large
colleges and over 400 Buddhist schools in the island, which have now
been handed over to the government under the recent nationalisation act' Dr. Buddhadasa & P. Kirthisinghe 5- 'he is remembered today as the founder of a Victorian “spiritual
science”' (40).
Who remembers him as such? Aren Roukema calls him a ' journalist and occultist'.
6- Müller sought to dispel Olcott’s
irrational fantasies (40).
What Müller considered as irrational fantasies.
7- Such was the confidence of the British Empire
that Müller was not reluctant to tacitly
acknowledge that the statues had been stolen from a Buddhist temple (41).
That's putting it mildly.
8- Müller politely declined an invitation to preside at the World’s Parliament of
Religions in Chicago (42).
Also, the Theosophical Society had a ground-breaking participation at this
event.
9- He thus finds it highly ironic that it was Buddhism, among all the other religions, that Madame Blavatsky selected as being somehow “esoteric”. (43)
Spends 1 1 /2 pages presenting Müller's critique of Blavatsky, without contextualizing Blavatsky's side, which is not presented. Even though the paper aims to present Müller-Sinnett debate, some brief notes on Blavatsky's position would seem to me to necessary for the sake of objectivity.
10- The first Mahatma she approached initially refused, but the second
agreed, and between 1880 and 1885 Sinnett carried on a prodigious
correspondence with the two most famous Mahatmas (43).
1880-85 correct? The correspondence ended in 1884.
11- he was disappointed to have been passed over for the presidency of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society; encouraged the membership to support his rival, Anna Kingsford (44).
The dispute in that case was resolved by creating a new lodge for Kingsford. Sinnett became president of the London Lodge afterwards. Later, Blavatsky formed another Lodge in London which attracted members from the London Lodge.
12-Sinnett goes on to explain that Madame Blavatsky’s aim, especially in Isis
Unveiled, was not “to teach anything in particular, but to stir up interest
in an unfamiliar body of occult mysteries.” (45).
The Sinnett-Blavatsky relationship is complex and
significant, ye there are no explanations given. Again, even though the paper is about the Müller-Sinnett debate, it's a debate about Blavatsky, so a minimal reference to her positions would seem logical, for context's sake.
13- Müller is further mistaken in
claiming that nothing of the secret teachings is present in the sacred books of
the Buddhists (45).
The term Esoteric Buddhism has been accepted in
academia and Tantric studies are thriving. Why not acknowledge this?
14-He explains that “Common- sense ought to have been startled at the notion that the diet of so ultra- confirmed a vegetarian as a Hindoo religious teacher could not but be, could be invaded by so gross an article of food as roast pork. But worshippers of the letter which killeth are apt to lose sight of common- sense.” One might assume from this that Sinnett allies himself with the truffles camp. However, he offers another explanation (46)
Buddha’s last meal – The hermeneutic interpretation of that text was also advanced by Blavatsky with a similar interpretation (Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, p. 368, fn).
15- One might justifiably ask at this point why this obscure exchange
between two late Victorians, one an aged Oxford Sanskritist and the other, at
least in view of some, an embittered spiritualist quack, should warrant our
attention (47).
Sinnett maintained a respected position as International Vice-President of the Theosophical Society and maintained relations with
public British figures and influenced
later Theosophical developments, his subsequent reputation requires more study. He was quite successful in promoting what developed into the Neo-Theosophy of C.W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant. ‘Embitttered quack’ may not be an accurate.
16- For Sinnett’s Orientalism is heightened by the conceit that his
knowledge derives from Aryan masters, communicating telepathically from deepest
Tibet.
But were they? (48)
The question of the mode of
production of the Mahatma letters is a complex one and has been studied, see
17- Adopting a different approach, the Theosophist K. Paul Johnson has
sought to identify the numerous figures— Hindu, Buddhist, Masonic, Muslim,
Parsi, Sikh, Indian, Egyptian, Persian, Sri Lankan, and at least one Tibetan—
with whom Blavatsky and Olcott were associated during their travels (48).
Supports K. Paul Johnson’s
groundbreaking work from thirty years ago, which has been criticized and considered untenable
and outdated.
18- The Mahatma Letters (as well as Esoteric Buddhism and The Secret
Doctrine) raises a host of questions about Orientalism and authority,
perhaps the most outlandish of which is whether Madame Blavatsky’s
ventriloquism somehow allowed the subaltern to speak (48).
The notion of ancient sages living in hiding and
transmitting esoteric wisdom is not really an outlandish notion in Eastern
countries, as Tibetan terma texts, and Tantric text in general, for example,
widely attest.
19- Others, including such legendary figures as Vivekananda and Dharmapala,
after initially cordial relations with the Theosophists, would take exception
to their claim that they could help Hindus and Buddhists “to know their
religions better than heretofore” and would disavow any connection of their
Hinduism and their Buddhism to Theosophy (49).
It’s a complex social question that requires
more research question. Studies have noticed Theosophical influences on Vivekananda. Theosophical influences on Dharmapala have been studied and his turn to a hard line nationalism has been criticized. For recent ground-breaking research on the question, see Julian Strube, Global Tantra.
20- “Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the
modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what
is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result
that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact— one to be put on a
par with the ordinary facts of history” (51).
Comparing Sinnett to Pope Pius' X anti-modern views. Considering
Blavatsky’s considerable writings criticizing the Catholic Church including PopePius IX, it seems strange that he would use such a quote to represent
Theosophical views. Why not quote Blavatsky’s many critiques of modernism? Is he trying to portray Theosophists as traditionalists, despite Guénon?
21- ...his
commitment to teaching the dharma to members of all
castes— and identifies it as an error. At the same time, in an act of cosmic
colonialism, he extracts the Buddha from the conventional chronology of
history and places him in a different chronology unknown but to the initiates (51).
This is one of the most original notions presented in the early Theosophical teaching, which Blavatsky and T. Subba Row also wrote about. Blavatsky, for example in The Voice of the Silence, criticized Buddhist scholars for not using consistent spelling and definitions for Buddhist terms and concepts. The standardization of terminology since then has proven her criticisms to be valid. Asian Hindus and Buddhists are far from agreeing with the dating and historical explanations of modern Western religious scholars. For example, many would disagree with the rejection of Bodhidharma as an unhistorical legendary figure.
22- this act of interpretation was met by Asian teachers with bafflement or
dismay (as in the case of Dayananda Saraswati) (52).
Does Lopez mean to reject esoteric symbolism in Buddhism altogether? Tantric studies have opened up the field of
esoteric symbolism since at least Giuseppe Tucci. Saraswati attests to esoteric traditions that he has personally witnessed (Secret Doctrine, Intro, xxx).
23- As European interest in
Theosophy waxed, South Asian interest in Theosophy waned (52).
More could be said about the influence of Theosophy in South Asian countries. See chapter 2 in recent study, The making of Buddhism in modern Indonesia: South and Southeast Asian networks and agencies, 1900-1959 Yulianti (2020)
24- Sankara great persecutor of
Buddhism (52).
What about studies of similarities of Shankara and Buddhism?
25- The Theosophical Society continued to appropriate Buddhist
doctrines (52).
This would imply a consistent, unified, linear development among various Theosophical organizations. But is this really the case? Many term certain developments in later periods as Neo-Theosophy and is incompatible with earlier Theosophy, but this paper does not take this documented view into account.
26- in 1909 as the future Buddha, Maitreya, the World Teacher of the
Aquarian Age. (The boy, Jiddu Krishnamurti, renounced this status in 1929.) (52).
There is a pipeline from Sinnett to Leadbeater and Besant, but this is not explained. The fact the Maitreya notions contradict Blavatsky's original writings on the topic is not mentioned. Maitreya-Christ is the term more frequently used.
27-The
American Theosophist, Walter Y. Evans- Wentz, discovered what he considered
Theosophical doctrine in a Tibetan text that he would dub The Tibetan Book
of the Dead (52).
Presenting a perfectly acceptable pioneering translation of an important Tibetan Buddhist text as some kind of exercize in adulteration and appropriation, while ignoring the fundamental role of Kazi Dawa Samdup, seems to me an exercize in reputation damage to Evans-Wentz at a level close to that of the Margaret Mead case.
28-But with few exceptions (Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki called Madame Blavatsky’s The Voice of the Silence, “the real Mahāyāna Buddhism”), Buddhist figures did not reciprocate the interest of the Theosophists (52).
There are more than a few exceptions. See Blavatsky's Influence, Buddhism. There's also the question of Theosophy's influence on Buddhism in the 20th century, which has not been the subject of substantial research, to my knowledge.
29-Two decades later, he was more vociferous, writing in a letter of February 20, 1926, “Members of the Theosophical Society who follow [Charles W.] Leadbetter and Mrs. Besant are against Buddhism (52).
It would be useful to note that Dharmapala was more voiceferous because new teachings were presented that were in contradiction with previous Theosophical writings.
30-the leading Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka, Hikkaduve Sumangala (1827– 1911), withdrew his imprimatur from the fortieth edition of Olcott’s Buddhist Catechism, declaring that seventeen of the answers were “opposed to the orthodox views of the Southern Church of Buddhism (52).
'Despite pressure from Dharmapala, Hikkaḍuve eventually responded favorably to an entreaty from Olcott (Prajñananda 1947, 2:778–79). Having reached an agreement with Olcott on revisions of the Catechism (Prothero 1996, 166), 62 he withdrew his resignation (Prajñananda 1947, 2:778– 79).' Anne M. Blackburn, Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri Lanka (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), p. 138. Why not mention that Sumangala had later taken exception to Olcott's questioning of the tooth relic of Gautama Buddha, as mentioned in the first part of the paper?
31- Buddhist figures did not reciprocate the interest of the
Theosophists (52).
This is debatable. See 28.
32- was now rejected
by the Buddhists as a modern creation (52).
Dharmapala's nationalism turn has been criticized, see 19. ”The path of
perfection was shown to me by Mme Blavatsky in my 21st year”. (Diary,
December 20, 1930); “Blavatsky gave me the key to opening the door to my
spiritual nature”. (Diary, March 10, 1897) (quoted in Steven Kemper, Rescued
from the Nation: Anagarika Dharmapala and the Buddhist World, University of Chicago, 2015. pp.53, 59)
33-But what became of the Orientalists, (53).
One could argue that the notion of orientalism that informs this paper has been criticized, and could even be considered as much an artificial construction as is claimed of Sinnett's esoteric hermeneutics. Ironically, Lopez ends this paper with a positive endorsement full of mystical, esoteric Buddhist traditions.
34- If we were to
strip this traditional list of its mythological elements, as both Müller and
the Theosophists, each in their own way, sought to do, the Buddha would be
little more than a statue in Müller’s hearth (53).
Since when does Blavatsky deny these traditional elements? See 2. For Theosophists to say that there are rational, hence relevant explanations behind legendary and mythological elements, whereas modern scholars generally adopt a skeptical non committal, albeit tolerant, outlook seems disingenuous.
The Blavatsky Occult Files #1 
