Blavatsky and neo-theosophy (3/3) Myth Theory, Philosophy of History, Sociology of Pop Culture

Part 1

 

HBO’s  Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God, Docuseries was the 8^th most watched show on Max in its first of three episodes (and the second episode reached #3) . It is the tragic story of Amy Carlson and an alternative spirituality group with an eclectic mix of beliefs and practices with some questionable elements that have raised eyebrows. The theology of Love Has Won has been described as fluid, combining New Age spirituality, conspiracy theories, and elements from mainstream Abrahamic religions.

 

In the first two parts, I examined how certain concepts of esoteric cyclical history may have filtered down into the Love Has Won 'Galactic A-Team' chart in a more modern mass media pop culture form. In this post, I'd like to take a brief look of how these original ideas have been developed along more rational lines. It begins with a passage from H. P. Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled I, ch. 1, p. 34, about the doctrine of cycles:

‘’Thus, all those great characters who tower like giants in the history of mankind, like Buddha-Siddartha, and Jesus, in the realm of spiritual, and Alexander the Macedonian and Napoleon the Great, in the realm of physical conquests, were but reflexed images of human types which had existed ten thousand years before, in the preceding decimillennium, reproduced by the mysterious powers controlling the destinies of our world.’’ (34)

William Q. Judge elaborates on this notion in The Ocean of Theosophy, chapter 4, 1893; (he further elaborates on the subject in his first essay on the Bhagava Gita, 1895:

‘’In these cycles we can include mixed characters who have had great influence on nations, such as King Arthur, Pharaoh, Moses, Charlemagne reincarnated as Napoleon Bonaparte, Clovis of France reborn as Emperor Frederic III of Germany, and Washington the first President of the United States of America where the root for the new race is being formed.’’

Without getting into the complexities of it, there is a notion of the esoteric role of prominent historical figures, who are involved in the cyclical repetition of archetypal patterns. This concept has actually received one of the more serious studies in the recent academic interest in Theosophical history with a notion that Garry W. Trompf terms 'Macrohistory: Trompf, G. (2013). Theosophical Macrohistory. In Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Eds.), Handbook of the Theosophical Current, (pp. 375-403). Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004235977_019

In the second and best of three papers on Theosophical Macrohistory, he outlines a general overview of the concept in Blavatsky’s writings and the main continuations in other Theosophical writers. As a critical survey, it ambitiously aims to intertwine a historiography, theoretical study, and biography. The critical aspects fail mainly because of the limited space for such an extensive, pioneering undertaking and the limited availability of consistent materials in a burgeoning field of study. It is remarkable that the paper almost succeeds in this, before faltering with superficialities and inaccuracies. It does manage to succeed in touching upon most of the essential problems of the topic and as such can be considered a solid basis for future developments.  He does for example, cite the Blavatsky and Judge passages noticed above, seeing them as more or less consistent and connected (380-81; 390-91). Whatever one thinks of Blavatsky’s ideas, the paper does convincingly establish that her views are intelligible, hence amenable to rational analysis according to academic concepts of macrohistory.

Jeffery Lavoie, despite mixed motives and retaining familiar tired academic misconceptions, has undertaken a solid study of the Theosophical doctrine of cycles, benefiting from the more advanced state of scholarship since Trompf’s paper. Jeffrey D. Lavoie, “Saving Time: Time, Sources and Implications of Temporality in the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky” (PhD diss., University of Exeter, 2015). https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10871/25014/LavoieJ.pdf?sequence=3

It’s a rather complex subject and as been indicated in the first two posts, the idea has been developed variously in different neo-Theosophical currents. The general notion of individual agency in a context of archetypal history has been developed by several comparative mythology scholars, in considering the relation of myth and history. Mircea Eliade elaborates how historical accounts have a complex interaction with mythology, how poetic historical sagas and even local legends have a tendency to become mythologized: 'A series of contemporary events is given an articulation and an interpretation that conform with the atemporal model of the heroic myth.' (Cosmos and History: , The Myth of the Eternal Return, 1958. Chapter 1, 'Myths and History')

Georges Dumézil, in "From Myth to Fiction: The Saga of Hadingus", (1970) further elaborates on the complex inter-connection between myth, history and fiction. He considers how the early mythology of a people can be creatively transposed into the epic of their origin or the "history" of their kings, or the source of their fiction. The Saga of Hadingus, written by twelfth-century Danish "historian," Saxo-Grammaticus, provides an instance of this kind of transposition, demonstrating how the saga can be seen as a literary structure derived from the religious structure of the myth. https://www.amazon.ca/Myth-Fiction-Saga-Hadingus/dp/0226169723

Joseph Campbell further considers Freudian and Jungian psychological concepts: archetypal patterns found in mythology are found to appear subjectively in dreams. Therefore patterns of mythical heroes have individual applications.: 'Moreover, if we could dredge up something forgotten not only by ourselves but by our whole generation or our entire civilization, we should become indeed the boon-bringer, the culture hero of the day-a personage of not only local but world historical moment (The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 1949).

Moreover, Eliade furthermore mentions how forms of mythical, archetypal patterns are present in modern mainstream mass media popular culture via novels and films: 'The cinema, that 'dream factory', adopts and uses innumerable mythical motifs: the combat of the hero and the monster, combats and trials of initiation, exemplary figures and images (the 'Young Girl', the 'Hero', the land of paradise, 'Hell', etc.) Even reading has a mythological function (The Sacred and the Profane, 1957, Chapter 4, 'The sacred and the profane in the modern world',p. 174).

Edgar Morin posits the heavy mythologizing power present in the Hollywood star system: 'Thus the stars, patterns of culture in the literal sense of the term, give shape to the total human process which has produced them. The star is indeed a myth: not only a daydream but an idea-force. The characteristic of the myth is to insert itself or incarnate itself somehow within life. If the myth of the stars incarnates itself so astonishingly within reality, it is because that myth is produced by that reality, i.e., the human history of the twentieth century. But it is also because the human reality nourishes itself on the imaginary to the point of being semi-imaginary itself. (The Stars, An account of the star system in motion pictures, 1957) p, 183.

So with a recent article on Robin Williams, this notion of how popular culture figures become viewed as historical figures of some transcendent historical significance takes us full circle, as it where. Whether the archetypal structures appear after the historical events or are coeval with them is debatable, suffice to point out that there is a noticeable tendency in human nature to view historical figures in an archetypal, idealized way (The celebrity worship of "Love Has Won": Why Robin Williams may have resonated with a cult. Melanie McFarland December 4, 2023 https://www.salon.com/2023/12/04/love-has-won-robin-williams-culture/ ).

Blavatsky and neo-theosophy (Cyclical History, archetypes) (1/3)

HBO’s  Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God, Docuseries was the 8^th most watched show on Max in its first of three episodes (and the second episode reached #3) . It is the tragic story of Amy Carlson and an alternative spirituality group with an eclectic mix of beliefs and practices with some questionable elements that have raised eyebrows. The theology of Love Has Won has been described as fluid, combining New Age spirituality, conspiracy theories, and elements from mainstream Abrahamic religions.

A striking collage entitled ‘The Galactic A-Team’ featuring modern western pop cultures celebrities from film and music and the ascended master version of the Count of Saint-Germain. In reading a few articles on the subject, a few more neo-theosophical elements could be glimpsed among the Christian, millenialist, QAnon and New Age elements. Among this rather baroque appearance, I happened to recognize a few discernible elements, and so I thought it would be feasible to attempt a brief analysis as it could give some insight into how theosophical influences figure in contemporary new religious movements.

My theory is that there is a specific passage from Blavatsky that has been noticed and has gradually morphed into something very different, but one can still trace the timeline back to the source, from 2023 to 1877. It begins with a passage from H. P. Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled I, ch. 1, p. 34, about the doctrine of cycles:

‘’Thus, all those great characters who tower like giants in the history of mankind, like Buddha-Siddartha, and Jesus, in the realm of spiritual, and Alexander the Macedonian and Napoleon the Great, in the realm of physical conquests, were but reflexed images of human types which had existed ten thousand years before, in the preceding decimillennium, reproduced by the mysterious powers controlling the destinies of our world.’’ (34)

William Q. Judge elaborates on this notion in The Ocean of Theosophy, chapter 4, 1893; (he further elaborates on the subject in his first essay on the Bhagava Gita, 1895:

‘’In these cycles we can include mixed characters who have had great influence on nations, such as King Arthur, Pharaoh, Moses, Charlemagne reincarnated as Napoleon Bonaparte, Clovis of France reborn as Emperor Frederic III of Germany, and Washington the first President of the United States of America where the root for the new race is being formed.’’

Without getting into the complexities of it, there is a notion of the esoteric role of prominent historical figures, who are involved in the cyclical repetition of archetypal patterns.

Moreover, Blavatsky occasionally makes disclosures of historical figures who are agents working for the lodge of Mahatmas, such as Saint-Germain, Cagliostro, and Anton Mesmer. They are considered as adepts, initiates or students of occultism of a lower degree. These are two different concepts, but are often inter-related.

With the writings of C.W. Leadbeater, which I designate as neo-theosophy, as I consider that there are considerable differences with Blavatsky’s writings, one could say that there is an elaboration of historical spiritual and occult figures, with details about their past lives attributed to contemporary members of the Theosophical Society. One could say that the degree of spiritual advancement gains more prominence as many members of the theosophical society become designated as initiates. Moroever, the higher spiritual beings in Blavatsky’s writings, such as Sanat Kumara, which were not described in detail, and not in anthropomorphic terms, are elaborately described as such in Leadbeater’s writings. To a certain extent, human adepts become more god-like and diving beings become more human-like. Communication with both seem to be portrayed as being more frequent and less difficult than in Blavatsky’s writings.

This tendency continues in the writings of Alice Bailey, with the following passages, for example:

“These are the things which the triangle at Yalta attempted to do. These they may not have consciously recognised as the work asked of them on account of their discipleship, but they automatically worked this way because they correctly sensed human need.” (The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 3.7, 1957)

"Napoleon; Bismarck, the creator of a nation; Mussolini, the regenerator of his people; Hitler who lifted a distressed people upon his shoulders; Lenin, the idealist, Stalin and Franco are all expressions of the Shamballa force and of certain little understood energies." (The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 2.3, 1957)

In these two passages, Bailey attributes the notion of archetypal historical actors and occult historical agents to contemporary political figures, sometimes conflating the two in one person. This esoteric engagement in contemporary political events of World War Two, had some controversial repercussions, beginning with a possible influence on the notorious ‘Morning of the Magicians’. Indeed, the history of theosophical responses to the Second World War would make for an interesting study. Current Bailey groups often reject such passages as errors of transmission.

This hyper-spiritualization tendency further continues with the Church Universal Triumphant and the notion of Ascended Masters. Where adepts where initially considered to be human beings with a physical body who could engage in astral projection, now they are portrayed as angelic beings solely functioning in a spiritual world. Moreover, there is an extensive elaboration with the introduction of an extended list of spiritual beings of different types, with a hierarchical categorization according to the concept of the seven rays, a concept presented in Blavatsky’s writings, but which did not have the specific detailed elaborations that were introduced by Leadbeater.

With the Benjamin Crème group, this type of spiritualized elaboration continues on a more concrete level with an extensive array of historical figures from throughout world history from different fields, from politics to science to art and some more modern western pop culture figures, including:

Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Dirk Bogarde, Marlon Brando, Jim Morrison, Georges Brassens, George Burns, Greta Garbo, Jerry Garcia, Frank Sinatra, Katharine Hepburn, Peter Sellers, and Eartha Kitt.

The two aspects of historical agents which were conflated with Alice Bailey and termed 'disciples' in Bailey’s writings, are now given the higher status of ‘initiates’.

A final step that would take us closer to the A-Team assembly can be gleaned from The Circle of Initiates: Past and Present,  Klaire D. Roy, 2016 where are listed along with Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley, we have Robin Williams and Walt Disney.

She claims to receive communications from the so-called DK, supposedly a disciple (chela) from Blavatsky’s days, later associated with Alice Bailey, although the main Alice Bailey groups have received the work negatively. The list that she presents is shorter, and more focused on more recent western pop culture celebrities.

Theosophical concepts are considered to be part of the UFO religion movement, and so these types of portrayals expanded into an extra-terrestrial framework as well. Millenialist and millenarian elements started to appear in all of these movements, which lead to  a certain influence on the QAnon conspiracy movement. Therefore I would describe the ‘Galactic A-Team’ as a more westernized pop culture version of the cast of initiates of the Benjamin Creme group, with added aspects from UFO religions and QAnon movements. 

A quote from Michael Barkun, referring to the Hatonn communications, describes a similar process:

'What we actually have is a highly derivative form of Theosophy— bits and pieces of what should really be termed neo-Theosophy, almost certainly lifted from sects that had themselves broken away from the larger Theosophical movement, such as the “I AM” Religious Activity in the 1930s and 1940s or the more recent Church Universal and Triumphant, and that have provided the Hatonn materials with a fragmentary and superficial Theosophical gloss.'

I’ve tried to give a brief outline of a rather complicated development, that I hope serves to show how a rather picturesque assemblage began from some more straightforward, albeit esoteric considerations of alternative histories. I wouldn’t call this a logical development, but rather the result of series of deviations, with each new series of teachings having been met with opposition or rejection from a previous group. But this is not all. I think that to give a more complete explanation, it would be good to give an overview of the spiritualist movement and present some considerations on how Blavatsky’s esoteric historical notions have developed along more rational lines. To be continued…

Part 2

Blavatsky & Enchanted Modernities

Oskar-Fischinger Blue-Cristal 1951

Around the time Blavatsky News was re-launched, an important international academic research project was happening, Enchanted Modernities, an ambitious, ground-breaking historical exploration of the influence of the theosophical movement on the arts, with major art exhibitions, conferences and musical events. For various reasons, we did not give it much coverage, despite the fact that I even attended an event in Montreal, which was well-received. As I do think that this was a remarkable undertaking in many ways, that is bound to have a positive impact on the theosophical movement for some time, I now rectify my oversight by filing a long overdue report. Enchanted Modernities is presumably a take on William James’ account of the disenchantment of the world that modernity has occasioned, Enchanted Modernities being therefore a corrective aiming at showing how esoteric currents continued to bring forms of enchantment durign the rapid modernization of the 20th century, perhaps opening the door for post-modern trends.

[L-R] Christopher M. Scheer, James Mansell and Sarah V. Turner.

 

The origin of Enchanted Modernities

In 2014, the ground-breaking exhibition Enchanted Modernities charted the way Blavatsky’s Theosophy impacted the art of the American mid-West, influencing such artists as Agnes Pelton, Gordon Onslow Ford and Beatrice Wood. In this interview the editors Sarah V. Turner, Christopher M. Scheer & James G. Mansell  discuss the origins of the project – now a major book – with FULGUR’s Ellen Hausner.

And we kind of decided after talking as a group that we should have a one day symposium at Liverpool Hope, which is really I think what we could say was the beginning of this project: organising it together, inviting people from around the world who were also looking at the influence of Theosophy in the arts to present on that day. And one of the outcomes of that day after discussion with participants was the need to see if we could create a network with the work we were doing and the connections we were making—and so we applied for a Leverhulme networking grant. We were lucky enough to be successful in getting a networking grant from the Leverhulme, and that brought a number of universities and scholars who were working in the area of Theosophy and the arts together to pursue a proposed three-year slate of activities around the world.

https://fulgur.co.uk/enchanted-modernities-interview/

Enchanted Modernities Theosophy, Modernism and the arts, c. 1865-1960

The project is delivering a range of internationally-significant outcomes including:

• the establishment and development of an international network of scholars;
• the staging of international research events including an inaugural conference entitled Enchanted Modernities: Theosophy and the Arts in the Modern World which was held at the University of Amsterdam in September 2013 and a second conference Theosophy and the Arts: Texts and Contexts of Modern Enchantment scheduled to take place at Columbia University, New York, 9-10 (Friday-Saturday) October 2015;
• a display entitled Pioneering Spirit: Maud MacCarthy - Mysticism, Music and Modernity featuring archival material from the Foulds/MacCarthy Archive Collection at the Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York and the digitisation of that display now available online;
• a UK Tour in May 2013 by the Fry Street Quartet, entitled Hearing Enchantment: Music through Theosophy;
• Enchanted Modernities: Mysticism, Landscape and the American West, a major exhibition of Theosophically inspired visual art and innovative sound installation that draws on the permanent art collection at the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum, Utah State University (open from April-December 2014);
• a much needed resource hub for researchers.

https://hoaportal.york.ac.uk/hoaportal/enchanted-modernities-index-project.jsp
 
Theosophy and the Society in the Public Eye

The Story of Count Prozor

Marty Bax – the Netherlands April 11, 2020

On January 1, 1915, the Theosophical Society registered its 57,762-nd. member at the headquarters in Adyar, India. The popularity of the Society had increased immensely. More people joined the society in the 1910s than in the 30-year period 1875-1905.

A list of those members includes a colorful bunch of people: Karl Wolfskehl, Piet Mondrian, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Christian Morgenstern, Fritz von Herzmanovsky, Ada Fuller, Emily Lutyens, Ely Star, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Marie Langen-von Strachwitz, Countess Maria Radziwill, Henri Soubeyran de Saint-Prix, and Prince Mohamed Riza Khan. Behind every name is a story, sometimes with a surprising twist.

https://theosophyart.org/2020/04/11/theosophy-and-the-society-in-the-public-eye/

Theosophy and the Arts: Texts and Contexts of Modern Enchantment

Friday, October 9, 2015 - Saturday, October 10, 2015

This is the second conference of the international research network Enchanted Modernities: Theosophy, Modernism and the Arts, c.1875-1960 funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The Network’s first conference, ‘Enchanted Modernities: Theosophy and the Arts in the Modern World’ held at the University of Amsterdam in 2013, mapped Theosophy’s varied influence on painting, sculpture, applied and decorative arts, music, architecture and other art forms in the period c.1875-1960. It focused on the translation of Theosophical ideas, especially those of key figures in the Theosophical Society in this period, such as Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Annie Besant, into material, visual, and audible form.

http://heymancenter.org/events/enchanted-modernities-theosophy-modernism-the-arts/

Enchanted Modernities Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/enchantedmodernities/

Blavatsky and Modernism

Theosophy and the Rise of the Modern
July 7, 2017 by Philip Jenkins
A major theme of the first volume of Isis Unveiled was to mock "The ‘Infallibility’ of Modern Science." In the early twentieth century, esoteric thinkers claimed that insights like those of Einstein and Heisenberg provided glimpses into these higher realities. To borrow the phrase of Arthur C. Clarke, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2017/07/theosophy-rise-modern/
　
Europe and World Federation
Carlos Cardoso Aveline - May 9, 2017
Nationalism, which Helena Blavatsky praises in her book "The Key to Theosophy" [2], is a natural feeling. It must be noble and world-friendly. A healthy individual has concentric circles of love for his family, his city, his country, for the continent where he usually lives, for other countries around the world and humanity. He also loves his planet and the entire Universe. These concentric feelings are inseparable from each other.
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/europe-and-world-federation/

This one’s a little old, but a nice article:
The Strange Theosophical Connection to the U.S. Civil Rights Movement
John L. Crow - January 30, 2013
Yet, had Gandhi not engaged in Theosophy in his college years, discovering the Gita, and had Theosophy not initiated the organizations that later led Indians to realize their independence, there might not have been a non-violent resistance model for the U.S. Civil Rights advocates to emulate.
http://usreligion.blogspot.ca/2013/01/the-strange-theosophical-connection-to.html
　
Wesak at the United Nations
May 3, 2017 - editor, 2017-05-03 08:57 — editor
Over the years, many national leaders have clamoured to make Wesak an internationally recognized day and a holiday. Anagarika Dharmapala, American Civil War veteran Henry Steel Olcott, theosophist Madame Blavatsky, educationist Museus Higgins and others were at the forefront of this effort. They succeeded in having Wesak declared a national holiday during the colonial period (in May 1885) and were also responsible for the adoption of the Buddhist flag (1885).
http://www.asiantribune.com/node/90411
　
The next two are Christian Fundamentalist, but well-researched:
Occult evolution: Antediluvian, Babylonian, and modern expressions
Linda Kimball - April 30, 2014
According to Helena Blavatsky, one of the key architects of Luciferian New Age pantheism, Kabalah derived,
".... from the older secret doctrines concerning divine things and cosmogony, which were combined into a theology after the time of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon. All the works that fall under the esoteric category are termed Kabalistic." (Blavatsky, Theosophical Glossary, p. 168)
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/kimball/140430

The information about hpb is wrong in this, good research otherwise:
Occult America?
April 29, 2017 Michael H. Brown
As author Mitch Horowitz has written, "Indeed, the robust growth of occult and mystical movements can be traced through to nineteenth-century America — aided by the influence of Freemasonry and Transcendentalism — helped transform the young nation into a laboratory for religious experiments and a launching pad for the revolutions in alternative and New Age spirituality that eventually swept the globe. In the early twentieth century, the new spiritual therapies — from meditation to mind-body healing to motivational thinking — began revolutionizing how religion was understood in contemporary times: not only as a source of salvation but as a means of healing. In this sense, occult America had changed our world."　
http://spiritdaily.org/blog/uncategorized/occult-america