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Saturday, 3 September 2022

Blavatsky, American Traditionalism, QAnon, UFO and New Age Spirituality

After nearly two years of reporting about Blavatsky's historical impact, in May  of 2018, I began to contend with the fact that her name was increasingly appearing in the context of contemporary politics and offshoot conspiracy theories. Shortly after, for unrelated reasons, I decided to phase out the recent news coverage in favour of a mix of editorials, book reviews, and research notes. Little did I realize that these issues (the relation of esoteric thought and right-wing politics) would continue to be a factor in mainstream preoccupations and figure in  some dramatic events on the worldwide political stage. As Blavatsky is of course, Russian, and also born in Ukraine, with her house of birth now a Museum dedicated to her located there, events have become particularly poignant. So I once again don my reporter's hat on a weekly basis for the next month, with a series of posts that attempts to grapple with the complex question of theosophical influences in current affairs. 
 

The Occult & Fascism: A Brief Comment
Mitch Horowitz May 14, 2022
But to conclude that a rightwing connection is foundational to or defining of occultism’s political influence is to proffer a preconceived thesis, which finds ready confirmation in anecdote. 
Mitch Horowitz July 29, 2022
 
Steve Bannon, Fascism and Making Sense of the Invasion of Ukraine: How the Left Divides Itself. 
Peter McLaren, 2022 

Bannon is too obsessed with traditional institutions plump with the promise of motivating the country into a state of transcendence, but in reverse direction – a move backwards from democratic urban spaces to a medieval caste society of neo-feudal fiefdoms where the pathogenic pressures of ritual and obedience keep everything in place  

Steve Bannon The Nationalism-ists
Teitelbaum, an ethnomusicologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, considers Traditionalism the "most transformative political movement of the early 21st century." Acolytes associated with this way of thinking have their claws deep in the leadership of at least three powerful nations, he argues: Russia via Aleksandr Dugin; Brazil via Olavo de Carvalho; and the United States via Bannon. 
 
The Mystical Steve Bannon  
Rod Dreher May 28, 2020 
Good interview with Benjamin R. Teitelbaum

Review of Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump
Gary Lachman New York: TarcherPerigree, 2018
The movement started out in the 19th century and goes way back to the American Transcendentalists and their romanticist Neo-Platonic notion of the realm of ideas being primordial and absolutely superior to the phenomenological world of mere matter. It was later tied in with a vast spectrum of other influences as diverse as Mesmerism, auto-hypnosis, Freudian depth-psychology, Theosophy, Eastern mantra techniques, Couéism and social Darwinism, as well as encompassing elements of prosperity Protestantism, Muscular Christianity and even puritan Calvinism. 

The King in Orange: The Magical and Occult Roots of Political Power 
Duncan Barford reviews John Michael Greer, Simon and Schuster, May 4, 2021 
Both examine the magickal aspects of Trump’s election to US President, but from very different perspectives. Lachman might be said to have written more on the political dimension of magick, whereas Greer addresses the magical dimension of politics.
 
Q Shaman’s New Age-Radical Right Blend Hints at the Blurring of Seemingly Disparate Categories
Susannah Crockford January 11, 2021
The numerous elements he adopts from neopaganism to core shamanism to Christian nationalism to QAnon makes him seem like a fake. Embodying the cross-pollination of far-right politics and New Age spirituality in America, he is all of the above. 
 
The Big History Behind January 6th, Part 5: Molestation, Cancel Culture, and QAnon
 
Dave Troy Mar 16, 2021
QAnon combines LeFevre’s “I AM”, Freedom School, and Rampart teachings into a cultish one-size-fits-all religion—modeled on the Discordianism created by LeFevre’s student Kerry Thornley in 1963, and pushed by Flynn and a network of former military and intelligence officials.
https://davetroy.medium.com/the-big-history-behind-january-6th-part-5-molestation-cancel-culture-and-qanon-bac7f73c591c 
 
Who are the starseeds?
a journey into the esoteric faith shaping the american fringe
Katherine Dee Mar 26, 2021
But I also believe it makes detours through alchemy, theosophy, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1960s contactees imbued with psychic powers, the work of Jacques Vallée, among many other bizarre blips on the historical radar. 
 
Beware of the Star Rishis
“Those who fall off from our living human Mahatmas to fall into the Saptarishi – the Star Rishis, are no Theosophists.”(Blavatsky) “The Saptarishis as meant by H.P.B. are in a very advanced class of elementals, able sometimes to communicate with man, and by their apparent knowledge to make him suppose them to be high spiritual beings.” (W. Q. Judge)
 
“Disinformation studies” is an emerging multidisciplinary speciality that brings together psychologists, computer scientists, sociologists, engineers, philosophers, mathematicians, behavioral scientists, military scholars, historians, political scientists, linguists, and more.' Caroline Orr Bueno
 
In terms of the need for inter-disciplinary studies, and what I've been writing about on the importance of esoteric studies in history and politics, see:
Egil Asprem Esoteric Knowledge, Alternative Spirituality, and Conspiracy Theories January 10, 2022

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