Blavatsky & The Morning of the Magicians (Pauwels/Bergier)

As covered fairly extensively in our May 2018 posts, due probably to the current socio-political realities (i.e. the rise of right-wing nationalistic politics with xenophobic agendas due to refugee problems), there has been a recent upswing in interest in the relation of politics and the occult, including the influence of the theosophical movement on Nazism.

It didn’t take long for people to develop an occult mythology around Nazism. In Lewis Spence’s 1940 Occult Causes of the Present War, you already have the anti-occult, satanistic mythologizing of Nazism , but he opposes it against a Christian worldview instead of a scientific one (the forces of occultism are Satanic and support the Nazis, the forces of Christianity are spiritual and support the Allies). René Guénon’s 1949 Letter to Julius Evola discusses Aleister Crowley’s role as a black magician connected to Nazism, and the Nazi regime was amply mythologized in the popular culture of the wartime period. These ideas coalesced into an opulent conspiracy theory in 1960, spawning something of a cottage industry in books on Nazism and the occult. This outgrowth caught the attention of more academic historians around 1976 and became something of a cottage industry in that field as well (Goodrich-Clarke, pp. 219-225), until the work of Goodrich-Clarke, after which study seems to have slowed down, to the detriment of Blavatsky, because, although the work is impressively researched, it has so many controversial open-ended threads, that it seems to have discouraged further academic research and fomented conspiracy theory speculation.

For this post, I thought I would add my own small contribution to this question by looking at the mothership that started it all in 1960, Pauwell and Bergier’s Morning of the Magicians, a rather funky book that became a surprise bestseller in France and then caught on with the English market a few years later just in time for the counter-culture movement.Where to begin in describing this curious work? Basically one could say that, besides spawning the whole occult Nazism mythology, it also spawned the whole Eric Von Daniken – Chariot of the Gods UFO/Ancient Civilization mythology. Moreover, there is also a pre-X-Men-like notion of a future breed of super-powered mutants spawned from experiments in nuclear energy.

Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society get mentioned a few times, and so how is she portrayed in all of this? They basically take the theosophical White Magic/Black Magic concept and turn it around. Blavatsky and the TS are said to have “opened the door to a luciferian East”, ( Pauwels & Bergier, 446) meaning that they are somehow connected to a hidden lodge of black magicians which act as a secret governing power behind Hitler and the  Nazi regime. He relies on Guénon’s 1921 Théosophisme, histoire d’une pseudo-religion to discredit Theosophy, implying that Hitler is an anti-Christ figure, although Guénon gets lumped into the occult Nazi-inspirer camp as well.

René Guénon

Now it seems that Pauwels had a mystic bent, so it looks like a case of a would-be mystic, disgruntled with bad experiences with a Gurdjieff group, wrote this book to settle a score with the occult scene, and set up his own esoteric current. (Lachman, 1). Therefore Blavatsky, René Guénon, Aleister Crowley, the Golden Dawn and Gurdjieff all get shot down at one point (Rudolf Steiner somehow gets spared, perhaps because he was a conspicuous target of Nazi persecution and possibly due to his Christian bent, Pauwels having had a Roman Catholic upbringing).



Rudolf Steiner

Later on, Blavatsky is credited with the notion of primitive gigantic human beings, which they adapt (470-71). The actual language is so evasive and ambiguous that is difficult to tell how they feel about occult philosophy, but basically they’re implying that all esoteric groups more or less partake of black magic, although their occult doctrines of ancient giants and evolutionary processes are partially correct, and the white magicians are represented by modern technological society, with Pauwells and Bergier giving the correct explanations of occult concepts, that is, in a more scientific, rationalist, hence materialist, bent.

Charles Fort

Ironically, one can notice the theosophical influence in their approach, with the spiritual aspect being replaced with atomic-age science and UFOs, a kind of materialistic, space-age version of Isis Unveiled, if you will (with a Charles Fort influence as well), or rather volume one of Isis. Volume two of Isis seems to have actually been quite an influence on another milestone of popular esotericism, Baigent, Hunt and Lincoln's 1982 The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail; and so one can see the extent of the Blavatsky influence. Therefore one could posit that this book is very much concerned with appropriations of theosophical concepts while rejecting the esoteric philosophy in favor of materialistic, albeit fantastic explanations. The Ancient Astronaut/UFO genre has even been studied as part of the Theosophical Current; Krueger gives a good overview of the theories of how theosophical speculations morphed into the ancient astronaut current (pp. 56-59). Strangely, this type of material has apparently been considered in communist Russia as excellent anti-theistic, pro-materialism propaganda (Colavito).

Sadly, this demonizing portrayal certainly didn’t help Blavatsky’s beleaguered reputation at the onset of the counter-culture revolution. This book is surely the main source for a lot of strange conspiracy theories concerning Blavatsky that can be found on the internet. Fortunately, more recent academic works on Nazism & the Occult treat Blavatsky with a more cautious, respectful neutrality of sorts (simply positioning her as the formulator of an esoteric racial theory). Lachman has a positive ‘there is no bad publicity’ take on this issue, citing Mircea Eliade, he points out how it inspired counter-culture optimism and how it put Blavatsky’s name out there for a whole new audience (8). I think that the book does serve as a good example of how influential Theosophy has been in popular culture.

How did Blavatsky’s mainstream reputation survive this negative portrayal? Briefly, one can point to a few things. Goodrich-Clarke’s 1985 The Occult Roots of Nazism, succinctly points out the largely spurious nature of the Morning of the Magicians Nazi mythology, although Blavatsky does not fare very well in that book, either (218-221). Lachman (8), May (107) and Kripal (180) have further pointed out the book’s various problems of historical credibility. Rather remarkably, Goodrich-Clarke himself does a dramatic about-face and devotes a positive ground-breaking 2004 study of Blavatsky in his Western Esoteric Masters series, giving her a much needed boost to her reputation. Also, Antoine Faivre in works such as Access to Western Esotericism (1994), bucked the trend of the largely Guénon -inspired negative approach to Theosophy in French publishing and presented Theosophy in a more articulate and positive light.

Furthermore, William Quinn's 1997 The Only Tradition convincingly pointed out the salient problems of historical accuracy in Guénon’s 1921 Théosophisme (111-114). Sadly, all this did not stop a publisher from featuring a portrait of Blavatsky on the cover of a recent edition of Morning of the Magicians. Ironically, the more positive aspect of the Blavatsky mythology that developed around World War 2 figures in another landmark of literary pseudo-history, Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow: "It is peacetime again now, no room for the Pigeons in Trafalgar Square on V-E Night, everyone at the facility that day mad drunk and hugging and kissing, except for the Blavatskian wing of Psi Section, who were off on a White Lotos Day pilgrimage to 19 Avenue Road, St. John’s Wood" (269).

Bergier and  Pauwels

That is not to say that Pauwels and Bergier did not have credentials. Pauwels was a successful novelist, journalist and editor and went on to have a successful career playing off the baby-boomer trends of the period. (Pauwels, Wikipedia). Bergier was a resistance fighter who was interned in a Nazi prisoner camp. He had a scientific background as well as an avid interest in science-fiction, helping to popularize H.P. Lovecraft in France. He went on to write many books on the supernatural and alternative science (Bergier, Wikipedia). Both were quite successful at using controversy and sensationalism in the mass media to promote their interest in the supernatural and paranormal investigation.

H.P. Lovecraft

I think part of what made the book so successful is the literary savvy. Both authors are very familiar with supernatural fiction and the perception of Nazism in popular culture and deftly use a lot of the dramatic techniques of supernatural fiction in presenting something akin to a pulp science-fiction thriller; the addition of more specific historical references and alternative science is simply an extension of the feeling of believability that the supernatural literary techniques strive to instill.

Jack Kirby's Eternals

The book actually reminds me of something out of a Jack Kirby comic book. Kirby, who was also influenced by American pulp science-fiction of the thirties and forties (Holub) (although Chris Knowles has a more mystical take on Kirby’s inspiration), has explored similar themes throughout his career; for example, see his take on the whole Chariot of the Gods concept, in his Eternals series. Conclusion: as an imaginative pop culture literary influence addressing the hopes and fears of post-war industrial society, the book has a certain interest, as an experimental, intuitive alternative historical essay, it suffers from a woeful proliferation of inaccurate and sketchy information.

Nazi concern with super-soldier experiment in Kirby's Captain America

PS. Note that Blavatsky herself was precisely opposing the type of Satanistic world-view and demonizing tendencies of the monotheistic religions that she is being targeted with. Her critique of religion is mainly against what we would now term fundamentalism, which she described as a materializing and anthropomorphicizing of spiritual concepts. Hence, she considered the religious portrayal of the devil to be a myth, a superstition. Isis Uveiled, vol.2, chap. 10 is a very focused, well-researched essay on this question:
https://universaltheosophy.com/mca/exploring-isis-unveiled/

 
References:

Colavito, Jason. The Strange Case of "Morning of the Magicians" in Soviet Russia

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/the-strange-case-of-morning-of-the-magicians-in-soviet-russia

Goodrich-Clarke, Nicholas. The Occult Roots of Nazism (1985)

Guenon, Rene, Letters from Guenon to Evola (X) http://www.gornahoor.net/?p=4693.W

Holub, Chrstian, Jack Kirby at 100: Celebrating the king of comic books (Ocotber 27, 2017) https://ew.com/books/2017/10/27/jack-kirby-king-of-comic-books/w

Kripal, Jeffrey J.  Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal (2011)
Krueger, Frederic. “The Stargate Simulacrum: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Aliens, and Postmodern Dynamics of Occulture” Aegyptiaca. Journal of the History of Reception of Ancient Egypt No.1 (2017), 47-74

https://www.academia.edu/34053617/The_Stargate_Simulacrum_Ancient_Egypt_Ancient_Aliens_and_Postmodern_Dynamics_of_Occulture
Knowles, Chris. Mind Bomb Prophecies of a Pop Astrognostic. https://secretsun.blogspot.com/2012/01/mindbomb-prophecies-of-pop-astrognostic.html

Lachman, Gary. The Fantastic Reality of Pauwels and Bergier, New Dawn 165 (Nov-Dec 2017) https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/the-fantastic-reality-of-pauwels-and-bergier 

May, Andrew. Pseudoscience and Science Fiction (2017)

Pauwels, Louis & Jacques Bergier Le Matin des Magiciens (1960)
Pynchon, Thomas. Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

Quinn, William. The Only Tradition (1997)
Spence , Lewis.  Occult Causes of the Present War,(1940)

Wikipedia. Jacques Bergier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Bergier

Wikipedia. Louis Pauwels, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pauwels

See also Gary Lachman’s interview with Antoine Faivre:

https://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/42-publications/quest-magazine/1487-acess-to-a-western-esotercist

 

Jason Colavito on Blavatsky and the Morning of the Magicians
http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/the-copy-and-paste-mysteries-of-the-nine-unknown-men

Blavatsky - The Year in Review - 2017

Sort of 

The first full year of Blavatsky News 2.0 has passed and so it is now time for our first annual review (coincidently, this is also our 50th post). However, we actually haven't covered much of 2017, the reason being that we decided to clean up and organize the rather sloppy, random, and very long posts that we were doing and this process took six months. Although still quite long, I think the shorter posts look better and there was no problem fitting them into specific topics, I`ve never found myself lacking material to fill out a post.

We could have moved on to material from 2017 sooner, it`s just that 2015 and 2016 were pretty big years, with many esoteric historians releasing books, the Enchanted Modernities project with various Museum expositions that brought Blavatsky to whole wider range of people, many events around Dharmapala's 150th anniversary, and so the Blavatsky revival showed no signs of slowing down and I thought it would be useful to record those years, for the family honor. I'm rather amazed at the diversity of topics that have come together, indicative of the wide range and depth of Blavatsky`s influence.

Perhaps we will catch up with 2017 quickly or we might not pursue the rather tight bi-weekly format we've been keeping, but rather adopt a more occasional, diversified approach, with more original written material since it is a little difficult keeping up with everything that is going on out there, hopefully we`ve managed to provide enough coverage to keep people interested, informed and entertained.

Despite last year's limited coverage so far, I'd like to also propose the news story of the year. Honorable mention would go to the indefatigable Daniel Caldwell, who released a book on the Coulomb-Hodgson affair, with the top story (which I haven't covered until now) being the return of Theosophical History, which had not appeared since 2014. 2017 saw the rapid-fire release of two double-size issues dated 2016 and a new issue for 2017.

Of particular note is Jeffrey Lavoie's work in presenting an important Blavatsky letter to Ralston Skinner from the Oxford archives. It is a very long 36-page comparative study of Hinduism and the Kabbalah. This type of erudite, original, strange, deep and surprising material is just the thing that makes Blavatsky such an interesting writer 125 years after her passing. Here's the contents for the Skinner issue: http://www.theohistory.org/Upcoming-issue/Contents_18-1.pdf
For $2.50 one can buy a PDF (with password) of that issue. Write the editor and he will explain how to do it: jsantucci@fullerton.edu

special thanks to Theosophy World News for thinking enough of our humble efforts to include some links in their coverage:
http://www.soehne-des-feuers.de/international-theosophy-news

ps - As mentioned, I'm not sure where to go with Blavatsky News - but I do have a disorganized backlog of blog drafts - and from that I would venture to say that 2017 was a pretty good year, with a goodly sum of interesting material, of which the following is a sneak preview of future post topics (what is apparent is that we still have an abundant flow of Blavatsky material, so we have the luxury of being selective about what we cover, so the following list will probably get pruned and refined somewhat): 1-modernism, 2-Gnosticism, 3-Nazism, 4-annie besant anniversary, 5-Hinduism & Buddhism, 6-art, 7-science,8- new age-alternative spirituality, 9-general & 10-various other stuff such as book reviews...

The Resurrection of Blavatsky News

Seven years ago, at the Winter Solstice, three people, possibly from the East, Hari, Jai and Padma, embarked upon a novel project of reporting on the activities and influence related to that singular 19th-century Russian Theosophist, Helena Blavatsky.
The blog caught the interest of many people in cyberspace and proved to be a unique, well-documented, outspoken and useful source of information, tracking what some have called 'The Blavatsky Revival', through an effervescent period of development. Five years later, again on the Winter Solstice, these three worthies departed into the sunset as mysteriously as they had arrived; but their impact and legacy remains and should prove to be a valuable source of information for some time to come.
Although five years is a healthy run as blogs as go, it seemed a shame to see such a good project go by the wayside and so, after less than a two-year hiatus, the powers that be have deemed that a return to action would be feasible. Hence the past few months have been busily dedicated to catching up on the Blavatsky news for all of 2015-2016 so that there is no gap in coverage since the blog's initial cessation at the end of 2014. Moreover, I did not observe any lull in interesting Blavatsky news items; with an impressive diversity of topics such as early twentieth century art exhibitions, contemporary installation art, Spanish-language novels, historical and biographical pieces from the United States, Asia, and Europe, many aspects of popular cultural, Eastern Religion, Western Occultism, academic studies, theosophical and alternative spirituality, the Blavatsky Revival remains a healthy concern and the Blavatsky News project has given a good indication of how impressively her influence, reputation and appreciation have been acknowledged and grown over the last two decades.  How the future  of her belated-recognition will evolve should be interesting to witness.
 I would like to specify that I have no connection or contact with the previous bloggers (and no formal affiliation with any Theosophical groups) and unfortunately do not have the resources to live up to Hari, Jai and Padma's knowledge, enthusiasm, and editorial insight which made every post an obvious labor of love; I have endeavored to make each post as informative and interesting as my meager knowledge and abilities permit. I hope this new version of Blavatsky News has been as enjoyable to read as it has been to research. Please feel free to comment and any news items submitted  will receive the utmost consideration and appreciation (e-mail: theosophyproject@yahoo.ca).

 Future plans for this blog remain rather boutique. Since we have pretty much caught up with tracking the backlog of news items, I will try to make future posts comparatively short and sweet and better organized, and less frequent, more of a bi-weekly pace, probably.  Editorial input will remain brief, limited to the occasional informative reference mainly, but in the interest of neutrality and objectivity as well as freedom of thought and expression, controversial or critical news items will not be ignored, if they are honest and well-researched. Happy Holidays to one and all, please stay tuned for what should be another interesting year in Blavatsky News.