Blavatsky, William Butler Yeats, Mysticism and the Occult

Worried that this blog might be considered unpoetical, I thought this post was overdue, and to pay proper respects to the Theosophical movement's great Irish heritage...

 

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand

For the world's more full of weeping

than you can understand

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stolen_Child

 

A lot of mainstream journalistic and academic writings gloss over Yeats' Theosophical experience, but see:

Theosophy and the Theosophical Society

https://www.yeatsvision.com/Theosophy.html

 

A-Mysticism, Celtic Myth & the Occult - Online Library Exposition

https://web.uwm.edu/lib-omeka-spc2/exhibits/show/yeats/mysticism

 

B -"In the Heart of the Hibernian Metropolis" Online Research Exhibition

https://hibernianmetropolis.humspace.ucla.edu/about/ 

 

1-The Occult Fascinations of poet William Butler Yeats

Podcast Friday, October 6, 2023

https://shows.acast.com/night-night-bitch/episodes/william-butler-yeats-occult-magus-golden-dawn-theosophical

 

Book

2- Pilgrim Soul: WB Yeats & the Ireland of his Time

Daniel Mulhall, 2023

Review: Sonja Tiernan, Dec 11, 2023

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/review/2023/12/09/pilgrim-soul-readable-portrayal-of-the-enigma-of-wb-yeats/

 

Book

3- W. B. Yeats and Mysticism

Faisal Al-Doori, 2022

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/resources/pdfs/978-1-5275-8314-6-sample.pdf

https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Yeats_the_Initiate/zJ5jDUwgJFQC?hl=en&gbpv=1

 

Book

4- Making the Void Fruitful Yeats as Spiritual Seeker and Petrarchan Lover

 Patrick J. Keane, 2021
https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0275

 

Book

5- A Reader’s Guide to Yeats’s A Vision 2021
Neil Mann, A Reader’s Guide to Yeats’s A Vision (Clemson, SC: Clemson University
Press, 2019), pp.408

Reviewed: Claire Nally

https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1122&context=iys

 

Film

6- The Battle of Blythe Road

Film Trailer, Jun 11, 2020

https://loopline.com/wb-yeats-the-battle-of-blythe-road/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiR-HAwYI4s

 

This essay published on various sites - Dismissive treatment of Blavatsky and Theosophy, outdated, inaccurate and lacks historical method

7- William Butler Yeats and the Occult: An Essay

Adam Sedia, The Society, May 19, 2020

https://classicalpoets.org/2020/05/19/william-butler-yeats-and-the-occult-an-essay-by-adam-sedia/

 

On his relationship with artist Edmund Dulac

8- Yeats's Occultism

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

http://yeatsvision.blogspot.com/2018/09/yeatss-occultism.html

 

9- W.B. Yeats Loved Tarot Cards

Amy Shearn June 13, 2018

https://daily.jstor.org/w-b-yeats-loved-tarot-cards/

 

Lecture

10- W.B. Yeats: Poetry, Mysticism, and the Occult 

Mikita Brottman, PhD, professor of humanistic studies at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore

Academie Gnostique hosts, 6 p.m. on Friday, November 17, 2017 at 126 Baronne Street.

https://www.antenna.works/w-b-yeats-poetry-mysticism-and-the-occult/

 

Book

11- Yeats, Philosophy, and the Occult

Edited by Matthew Gibson and Neil Mann 2017

https://libraries.clemson.edu/press/books/yeats-philosophy-and-the-occult-edited-by-matthew-gibson-and-neil-mann/ 

 

Newspaper reports on Yeats anniversary events

12-  Magic, Myth and Secrecy - WB Yeats and the occult

Poet dallied with 'the other side', writes Michelle McDonagh Fri 8 May 2015

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/magic-myth-and-secrecy-wb-yeats-and-the-occult/31207213.html

 

Book

13 -Talking to the Gods - Occultism in the Work of W. B. Yeats, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, and Dion Fortune Susan Johnston Graf, 2015

https://sunypress.edu/Books/T/Talking-to-the-Gods 

 

Good article

14- W.B. Yeats, Magus

Jamie James Jul 29, 2012

For William Butler Yeats, poetry was a kind of magic.

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/magic-shows/w-b-yeats-magus