Good basic overview of the question:
From the Editor's Desk: Was H.P. Blavatsky
a Nazi?
Printed
in the Summer issue of Quest magazine. 2015
In any event,
neither HPB nor her followers have ever, to my knowledge, taught or practiced
racial discrimination. As we've just seen, she herself rejected the notion of
superior and inferior races. And the Society's First Object is "to form a
nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race,
creed, sex, caste, or color" an ideal that Theosophy, as far I can see,
has always tried to fulfill. Neither
Blavatsky nor Theosophy is above criticism. No one is. But they are entitled to
an appraisal that is fair and honest. To call them racist is neither.
Citation: Smoley, Richard."From the Editor’s Desk: Was H.P. Blavatsky a Nazi?" Quest 103.3 (Summer 2015): pg. 82.
Citation: Smoley, Richard."From the Editor’s Desk: Was H.P. Blavatsky a Nazi?" Quest 103.3 (Summer 2015): pg. 82.
Fascism and the Occult: Is There a
Connection?
Mitch Horowitz - November 2 2016
Mitch Horowitz - November 2 2016
Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society combined the symbol with other
religious images – including the Egyptian ankh, the star of the David, and the
Sanskrit character “om” – to design its organizational insignia. For Theosophy,
the swastika represented karma and rebirth; its inclusion among the other
symbols was intended to express the unity of all faiths.
Gary
Lachman: There's absolutely no evidence that HPB was fascist - in fact, fascism
as a political movement didn't exist during her lifetime. There is absolutely
no evidence that she in any way nurtured or abetted the rise of Nazism. As
Mitch makes clear, some of her ideas were misappropriated by some racial minded
'occultists' and mythographers and used for dubious purposes. But she had as
much to do with this as Jesus had with the Inquisition - and readers of The
Brothers Karamazov know that if Jesus came back during the Inquisition, he
would have been burned at the stake. HPB here suffered the same fate as
Nietzsche, another architect of the modern world whose ideas were
misappropriated by the Nazis - who soon dropped him when it was clear that
reading him would turn young Germans against the Fuhrer. There is evidence that
HPB was progressive-minded, not conservative, and I suspect that the only
reason she has not been appropriated by feminists is because of the occult
connection. She was democratic by nature - unlike Crowley - abjuring her
aristocratic inheritance and embracing a variety of people of all walks and
ways of life. Unlike H P Lovecraft, who wrote dismissively of Theosophy, she
was in no way racist, living happily among the Jews, Italians, and other
immigrants - of which she herself was one - on the Lower East Side that
Lovecraft despised as he made his way among them during his few years in NYC.
https://www.facebook.com/mitch.horowitz.1/posts/10154180184206701
https://www.facebook.com/mitch.horowitz.1/posts/10154180184206701
When, just before her death, Blavatsky was asked to write a book in question and answer format that would answer the many occult and philosophical questions put to her over the years, her followers suggested that she adopt the title 'Master' for her answers. She was both horrified and angered in equal measure by this suggestion, for she had never claimed to be anything more than a student of the Mysteries she taught. Nor would she accept the accreditation 'teacher' either, much less 'guru'. Finally, it was agreed that she be identified simply by the word 'Theosophist' and her questioner as 'Enquirer' as you may read in the published book—The Key to Theosophy. In the same book Blavatsky was asked: "What do you consider as due to humanity at large?" The answer she gave was: "Full recognition of equal rights and privileges for all, and without distinction of race, colour, social position, or birth (The Key to Theosophy p. 230-231). Are these the words of a plagiarist and devil-worshipping racist? You decide!
http://www.occult-mysteries.org/blavatsky-plagiarist.html
Shocking new campaign against Theosophy?
Roy Eckardt
(leading scholar of Christian-Jewish relations and former chairman emeritus of
religion studies at Lehigh University in Bethlehem) has asserted that the
foundation of antisemitism and responsibility for the Holocaust lies ultimately
in the New Testament, That's a truth we don't read about, but from such
horrific and stupid lies, that the Third Reich was an occult or pagan state and
that Theosophy, a doctrine of philanthropy, common sense, unity, was a base of
such a contemptible system.
Steven Otto Quest magazine Summer 2019
Former Academician Theosophical now American
Minervan does not shy away from these questions:
Steven Otto - October
2017
Answering Back: How to Reply to Slanders against Theosophy
Responding to Lies about H.P. Blavatsky
United Lodge of Theosophist, England
Of all the lies and misrepresentations which abound regarding H.P. Blavatsky,
one of the worst is the ridiculous insinuation that she was a racist
and that after her death her writings and theories strongly influenced
Adolf Hitler and Nazism. There could be little more slanderous,
offensive, and downright wrong than such a claim.
https://blavatskytheosophy.com/responding-to-lies-about-h-p-blavatsky/
New York Times Profiles Tony Hovater: H.P.
Blavatsky, an Anti-Semitic influence on Nazis?
Dominique Johnson - 19 Dec. 2017
Researchers not familiar with Theosophical
History are most likely to check for sources likely in such places, despite
those sources admitting that “spirit guides” exist, by claiming H.P.
Blavatsky was a mere medium, madwoman, or both. Historian, Ronald Hutton described
Blavatsky as “one of the century’s truly international figures,” whose ideas
gained “considerable popularity.”
Theosophy, Aryans and Zurvanism: Concerning
Nazi Aryanism and Remnants of Indic Civilization
Dominique Johnson - 9 May 2018
“If to-morrow the continent of Europe were to
disappear and other lands to re-emerge instead; and if the African tribes were
to separate and scatter on the face of the earth, it is they who, in about a
hundred thousand years hence, would form the bulk of the civilized nations. And
it is the descendants of those of our highly cultured nations, who might have
survived on some one island, without any means of crossing the new seas, that
would fall back into a state of relative savagery. Thus the reason given for
dividing humanity into SUPERIOR and INFERIOR races falls to the ground and
becomes a fallacy.” (Helena P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2,
p. 425)
Adolf Hitler’s Religion and Ideological
Influences in National Socialism
Dominique Johnson - May 22 2018
Article on the history of the
Swastika:
Stop the outrage: India doesn’t have a monopoly on the symbol used to
protest Modi’s UK visit – Ranjit Hoskote – November 15, 2015
Another source for the revival of the
swastika in European popular culture was the Theosophical Society, established
in 1875 by Helena Blavatsky, Colonel Olcott, and William Quan Judge. The
Theosophists generated a persuasive world religion compounded from Hindu and
Buddhist ideas, as well as occultist and utopian themes that they distilled
from the fertile and febrile neo-religious imagination of late 19th-century
Europe and North America. At its highest point, Theosophy counted many
thousands of individuals across the world among its believers, and with its
transreligious appeal, seemed well placed to rival the more established forms
of belief.
I think Theosophical writings were inevitably caught up in a more pervasive racism that characterised much European thought in the late nineteenth century. There is an evolutionary model which is race based and evident in the SD, to my mind. Two references come to mind which you may have noted: The Notion of Race in Theosophy
ReplyDeleteJames A Santucci
Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions
Vol. 11, No. 3 (February 2008), pp. 37-63, and Isaac Lubelsky in Handbook for Theosophical Current - Brill.
https://isaaclubelsky.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/lubelsky-mythological-and-real-race-issues-in-theosophy.pdf.
I also think anti-semitism is rooted in the new testament and christianity. How else can one explain anti-semitism in countries like burundi - which know no Jews, but are dominated by catholicism.
you have a wonderful website by they way, Dewald
thanks, and thank you for sharing those references - I read them recently - fair, balanced, accurate - it's encouraging to see pieces like that are starting to come out....
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