Theosophy and literature has been a topic noticed for the fantasy side in relation to supernatural literature and the occult. Blavastsk’s mother, Yelena Hahn, was a writer
of some repute in Russia and Blavatsky is wont to discuss literary topics in her writings. Writers that she discusses include: Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Shelley, Victor Hugo, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Théophile Gautier, Charles Dickens, Florence Marryat,Francis
Marion Crawford, Robert
Louis Stevenson, H. Rider Haggard, Oscar Wilde, and W. B. Yeats. (Frenschkowski)
This post aims at delving into the Theosophical influence in more conventional literature. By perusing some lists of the best novels of the twentieth century in English, it may be of some surprise to find no less than seven authors with Theosophical influences in the top ten, with as many as five in a single list.
100 Years, 100 Novels, One List, Dick Meyer, NPR
1. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce 5. Brave New World,
Aldous Huxley 10. A Passage to India,
E.M. Forster
https://www.npr.org/2009/05/07/103869541/100-years-100-novels-one-list
Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, 20th century, 1988
1 Ulysses James Joyce 3 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 5 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 9 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Library%27s_100_Best_Novels
The 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction, Larry McCaffery
2 Ulysses James Joyce 3 Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon 7 The Making of Americans Gertrude Stein 8 The Nova Trilogy William S. Burroughs 10 Finnegans Wake James Joyce
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_Century%27s_Greatest_Hits:_100_English-Language_Books_of_Fiction
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| E. M. Forster |
1) James Joyce (1882 – 1941)
'What do you think really of that hermetic crowd, the opal hush poets: A. E. the master mystic? That Blavatsky woman started it. She was a nice old bag of tricks.' Ulysses
2) E. M. Forster (1879 – 1970)
reflects Besant-era Theosophists
Howard’s End Schlegel sisters interest in theosophy, socialism, feminism, & egalitarianism-Bloosmbury group, Virginia Woolf
A Passage to India see Nakamichi
3) D. H. Lawrence (1885 – 1930)
'the thought of the later Lawrence in one word, that word would have to be “theosophical.” During the period from Women in Love to his death, the important new influences on him were theosophical' Robert E. Montgomery
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| Gertrude Stein |
Stein studied with William James, a Theosophist.
'modernist icons such as William Butler Yeats, Gertrude Stein, and T. S. Eliot, among others, took inspiration from Madame Blavatsky’s writings.' David Weir
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| Aldous Huxley |
Socialized with loose California para-Theosophical community around Ojai, with Krishnamurti
“Theosophy seems to be a good enough religion — its main principles being that all religions contain some truth and that we ought to be tolerant.”
6) William S. Burroughs (1914 – 1997)
once wrote a science-fiction story for Omni Magazine, The Ghost Lemurs of Madagascar, which evokes the Theosophical Lemuria
7) Thomas Pynchon (1937-)
Against the Day features a Madame Eskimoff, a Blavatsky composite - Gravity's Rainbow evokes the coincidence of V-E Day with the day of her death, May 8 (also Pynchon's birthday, coincidentally)
Moreover,
a perusal of the full lists yields a further nine writers that can be
considered to have Theosophical influences, connections, interests and
references across various literary schools and movements throughout the twentieth century, such as modernism, the beat movement, post-modernism and magical realism (for example with Jorge Luis Borges, ("The Theosophists" (1926 essay): In El tamaño de mi esperanza).
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| Jack London |
In a 1983 dissertation,
William Linville: London's
books Martin Eden, The Star Rover, and John Barleycorn all reveal a debt to the
Secret Doctrine.
'Martin
Eden’s head was in a state of addlement when he went away after several hours,
and he hurried to the library to look up the definitions of a dozen unusual
words. And when he left the library, he carried under his arm four volumes:
Madam Blavatsky’s “Secret Doctrine,” “Progress and Poverty,” “The Quintessence
of Socialism,” and, “Warfare of Religion and Science.” Unfortunately, he began
on the “Secret Doctrine.” Every line bristled with many-syllabled words he did
not understand.'
9) Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875 – 1950)
People have long suspected Burroughs of being influenced by Theosophy, but there is no specific evidence, only similarities of concepts in his writings. Theosophist L. Frank Baum was a friend of Edgar Rice Burrough.
brief speculation on Burroughs influences (197-98) Gustavus M. Pope Journey to Mars, 1894. C.C. Dail’s The Stone Giant (1898), a sequel of sorts to his Willmoth the Wanderer; or, The Man From Saturn (1890)
Perhaps he was influenced by A Dweller on Two Planets, Frederick Spencer Oliver
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dweller
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| Virginia Woolf |
'If one were to
catalogue the various types of ‘mystical’ experience in the writings of
Virginia Woolf, the list would be virtually indistinguishable from the topics
of interest to the Theosophits and spiritualists of her day: telepathy, auras, astral travel, synesthesia, reincarnation, the immortality of the sould, and
the existence of a Universal Mind.
.' Julie Kane
11) Thornton Wilder (1897 – 1975)
12) Jack Kerouac (1922 – 1969)
15) Philip K. Dick (1928 – 1982)
Playwright
and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes — for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and for the plays Our Town and The
Skin of Our Teeth — and a U.S. National
Book Award for the novel The
Eighth Day. In his last novel, The Eighth Day (1967), one
of his characters gives quite a lengthy dissertation on reincarnation.
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| Thornton Wilder |
Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible, 1932, an influence on Jack Kerouac-still a good book-abridged versions of many essential Theravada & Mahayana texts Lankavatara, Platform Sutras, etc.. a Xtian background, but studied with D T Suzuki, Theosophical spirit
13) Kurt Vonnegut (1922 – 2007)
In an article about Blavatsky, Kurt
Vonnegut called her ‘the Founding Mother of the Occult in America’, which is not entirely
hyperbole.
McCalls
Magazine, March 1970
14) Henry Miller (1891 –1980)
Had a substantial interest in Blavatsky and Theosophy. Listed the Secret Doctrine as one of the ten greatest books ever written.
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| Don Delillo |
Dick listened to radio interview with Neo-Theosophist Benjamin Creme, who became a mystical influence on certain of his ideas about the Age of Aquarius, where he considers that 'compassion is the way out of the maze along the fourth spatial axis'.
16) Don Delillo (1936-)
His Buddhist influences include references to works by Theosophists, D.T. Suzuki and W. Y. Evans-Wentz, with Kazi Dawa-Samdup.
Special mention:
Vladimir Nabokov (1899– 1977) mentions Theosophy a few times in his writings, but in a negative way. Paduk's father in Bend Sinister is described as "a minor inventor, a vegetarian, a theosophist, a great expert in cheap Hindu lore".
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