Blavatsky Book Review: Letters to the Sage: Selected Correspondence of Thomas Moore Johnson: Volume One: Patrick Bowen and Paul Johnson

The theosophical historians continue to dig up some surprising treasures from the vaults. It turns out that the American Platonist Thomas Moore Johnson was a card-carrying Theosophist and left behind a sizeable chunk of correspondence with quite a few Theosophists of the day. So we have in this volume letters from J.D. Buck, Josephine Cables, Abner Doubleday, William Q. Judge, Anna Kingsford, Kenneth MacKenzie, Edward Maitland, Damodar Mavalankar, GRS Mead, HS Olcott, William Oxley, Seth Pancoast, James Pryse and John Yarker among others.

It`s a real treat to be able to get first hand accounts of the interests, challenges and struggles of the very early days (the letters date from 1881 to 1911). There is also much correspondence dealing with the administrative business concerning The Platonist, the magazine Johnson published. Most of the correspondence is fairly brief and mundane with little in the way of practical esoteric information (with the exception of James Pryse), although each section has a helpful introduction and copious explanatory footnotes. But the real meat of the book is the letters from  lesser-known Theosophists Elliott B. page (55 pp.) and S.H. Randall (79 pp.). Here we have sufficient material to form a serial narrative arc, each with their own personal, dramatic twists and turns with two very different fates: Page went on to become a distinguished long-standing Theosophist with the Hargrove Theosophical group and Randall had to bow out due to family pressures.

To spice things up, many letters discuss the well-known Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor affair. This is all water under the bridge, but back in the day, GRS Mead hashed it out in Lucifer (p.54).

http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/lucifer/lucifer_v5_n25_september_1889.pdf

Editor Patrick D. Bowen, in his extensive, well-researched introduction, more or less follows the tack set by Joscelyn Godwin and John Patrick Deveney in their works on the subject.

For historians, this book should be quite useful as it fills in a noticeable gap of information pertaining to the 1880-1885 period of American Theosophy, prior to William Q. Judge’s founding of the Path magazine in 1886, beginning a remarkable ten-year run that was one of the greatest expansion periods for any organisation in modern American alternative spirituality history. Keeping in mind that the Coulomb /Hodgson affair occurred just prior to the HBL business, certain letters would seem to indicate that the crisis of the 1885-86 affected the American section more seriously than previously believed. Moreover, it probably also gives more information on the history of the TS Esoteric Section inasmuch that more evidence is given in favor of the idea of the HBL affair having spurred the creation of the ES. Also, there is lots of general coverage of the esoteric movement of the late 19th century period.

On the critical side, whether Johnson’s participation in various esoteric groups is his “greatest legacy” (p. 82) seems a little overly optimistic in my opinion, I don’t think this new information will overshadow his reputation as a prominent, pioneering American Platonic scholar. Also, it would have been nice to have more biographical information about Johnson himself beyond the context related to the correspondence. Moreover, the last part of the introduction seems to branch off into digressions and speculations that seem unfocused, while ignoring, for example, the correspondence with GRS Mead, his letter of 1911 of which is the lastest of the collection.

Letters to the Sage: Selected Correspondence of Thomas Moore Johnson: Volume One: The Esotericists
http://www.academia.edu/23150366/Letters_to_the_Sage_Selected_Correspondence_of_Thomas_Moore_Johnson_Volume_One_The_Esotericists

http://ehbritten.blogspot.ca/2016/03/new-typhon-press-release-selected.html#!/2016/03/new-typhon-press-release-selected.html

Prometheus Trust has also released The Collected Works of Thomas Moore Johnson:
Thomas Moore Johnson (1851-1919) can rightly be said to be a great American Platonist: he was one of a number of men and women of that period who sought to promulgate the philosophy of the Platonic tradition as a spiritual and intellectual discipline. Had not the tide of rationalist and sceptical thinking run so strongly in the last one hundred years, Johnson – along with his fellow philosophers such as Hiram K Jones, William Torrey Harris and Bronson Alcott – would today be recognised as a great contributor to the cause of true philosophy in the modern west.
http://www.prometheustrust.co.uk/html/other_books.html#tmj


update: Editor K. Paul Johnson has responded to this post:
http://adepts.light.org/2017/11/06/g-r-s-mead-on-the-light-of-egypt/

Blavatsky and The Voice of the Silence 2

New Facsimile Edition from the ULT:
This new edition, published on 8th May 2017, is an exact photographic facsimile of the original 1889 edition and a physical replica using very similar binding, paper and colour scheme.
http://www.theosophy-ult.org.uk/book-review/1889-the-voice-of-the-silence/

Beatrice Lane Suzuki: An American Theosophist in Japan - Adele S. Algeo:

Although a Buddhist Mrs. Suzuki never lost her interest in Theosophy and once was head of the T.S. in Japan. She told me that Prof. Suzuki's first gift to her was the "Voice of the Silence" which he wrote her was "pure Mahayana Buddhism." He was a student at Oxford at the time and she was at Columbia University. Mrs. Suzuki was devoted to Dr. Besant and Theosophical notables visiting Japan were always welcome guests....

https://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/42-publications/quest-magazine/1254-beatrice-lane-suzuki-an-american-theosophist-in-japan

Suzuki’s oft-quoted Blavatsky article  in “The Eastern Buddhist” vol. V no.4 July 1931:

http://oneviewsource.com/pls/?p=485



D T Suzuki

The Voice of the Silence is one of Blavatsky’s most quoted works:

Silence Please By Graham Peebles Friday, 13 November 2015

Beyond our endless thoughts, our fears and desires, beyond all the surface chaos, sit’s silence. A point of peace and contentment veiled by activities of the mind, which Helena Blavatsky (founder of the Theosophical society in 1875) in The Voice of The Silence, said is “the great slayer of the real”. http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/55490-silence-please.html

The Voice of the Silence, XP Maya  January 5, 2017  

https://xpmaya.wordpress.com/2017/01/05/the-voice-of-the-silence/

Being Enough - David Zenon Starlyte
Helena Blavatsky writes, “Thou canst not travel on the Path before thou hast become that Path itself.” The road less travelled represents leaving the familiar and moving into the field of the spiritual warrior. Many lifetimes may have led you to this point – reading these words right here, right now. Something is awakening within, drawing you into this field of light, liberation and possibility.
http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/healingandtransformation/2016/10/being-enough.html

Special Thanks to N.W. for suggesting this post.

 

New Book: Theosophical Appropriations: Esotericism, Kabbalah, and the Transformation of Traditions

Theosophical Appropriations: Esotericism, Kabbalah, and the Transformation of Traditions, edited by Julie Chajes and Boaz Huss

The Goldstein-Goren Library of Jewish Thought Publication no. 21 - Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press / The Bialik Institute, Jerusalem, 2016

Appreciation of the historical importance of the Theosophical Society (henceforth, TS) and related movements is growing, and rightly so, yet the extent of theosophical influences can still be surprising, even to scholars in the field. The chapters of this volume contribute to our increasing recognition of the global impact of the TS and its ideas and illustrate lesser-known instances of theosophical appropriation aroundthe world.

https://www.academia.edu/28144662/Theosophical_Appropriations_Esotericism_Kabbalah_and_the_Transformation_of_Traditions_edited_by_Julie_Chajes_and_Boaz_Huss

 

Julie Chajes -  Construction Through Appropriation: Kabbalah in Blavatsky’s Early Works p. 33
In the opening paper, Julie Chajes discusses two of Blavatsky’s early works that refer to Kabbalah: “A Few Questions to Hiraf” (1875) and Isis Unveiled (1877). The chapter elucidates Blavatsky’s doctrines of Kabbalah in those texts, each of which have distinct emphases. (Intro 11)
https://www.academia.edu/26543875/Construction_Through_Appropriation_Kabbalah_in_Blavatskys_Early_Works
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQnvizvv5S0
 
Isaac Lubelsky -  Friedrich Max Müller vs. Madame Blavatsky: A Chronicle of a (Very) Strange Relationship p. 73
In the following chapter, Isaac Lubelsky charts the relationship between Madame Blavatsky and the renowned German-born Oxford Orientalist, Friedrich Max Müller (1823-1900). Blavatsky’s references to Müller are often mentioned in passing in accounts of her sources, but this is the first detailed exploration of this topic, looking at the relationship from both sides. (Intro 13)
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/5d1f91_77de77481c854b4f9f10a12c464ef72d.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJRlXz6lBr0
 
John Patrick Deveney - The Two Theosophical Societies:Prolonged Life, Conditional Immortality,and the Individualized Immortal Monad93

These demonstrate, Deveney argues, that the Society as established in 1875 was devoted to practical occult work, and specifically to the development of the ability to project the astral double. This ability was considered an indication of the fusion of the student’s “individuality” with their “divine spirit” to create an “individualized”entity capable of surviving death.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BKVCI882gQ
 

Boaz Huss  - “Qabbalah, the Theos-Sophia of the Jews:” Jewish Theosophists and their

Perceptions of Kabbalah

Huss surveys the numerous books and articles of Jewish theosophists, demonstrating that overall, Jewish theosophists had greater access to primary texts of Kabbalah than did non-Jewish theosophists, and some even had enough knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic to prepare their own translations. Nevertheless, their knowledge of primary sources was limited and even those who did have some language skills largely based themselves on secondary literature, including Western esoteric, theosophical, and academic texts.

https://www.academia.edu/28239752/Qabbalah_The_Theos-Sophia_of_the_Jews
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--dl6zYMuEA
 
Shimon Lev - Gandhi and his Jewish Theosophist Supporters in South Africa

Lev discusses the political activism of these Jewish theosophists, their involvement in the satyågraha struggle and their friendships with Gandhi, which were often very close. Lev highlights the tension between South-African Jewish identification with the ruling white elite and Jewish critique of that establishment, speculating about a self-perception shared between Jews and Indians as “Oriental” immigrants in South Africa. He notes the appeal of a Theosophical Society that enabled the exploration of unorthodox ideas but which, at the same time, did not require the abandonment of Jewish identity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7cYTbb61OE

Blavatsky and Atlantis 2

Although often misrepresented, with  subsequent later developments retroactively attributed to Blavatsky, her theory of Atlantis continues to fascinate and is firmly ensconced in the alternative spirituality world view. The last two articles to track the offensive type of articles on this by pseudo-archaeology skeptical critics that exist in academic circles.

Brief overview of Blavatsky`s presentation of Atlantis:

Decent Article on history of Atlantis theories with Blavatskyan Atlantis theories:
Atlantis Rising - Paula Reed Nancarrow -
https://paulareednancarrow.com/2016/04/10/atlantis-rising/

 

Mark Adams Interview – Searching for Atlantis really isn’t the best Career Move

Adams persevered, traveling the world to speak with Atlantis experts who showed him some of the leading candidates for where Atlantis might have been, a journey he recounts in his book Meet Me in Atlantis. 

https://www.wired.com/2016/05/geeks-guide-mark-adams/

 

Alternative Archeology theory:
Atlantis – The Lost Continent Finally Found {The Definitive Localization of Plato’s Lost Civilization} Prof. Arysio Nunes dos Santos, Ph.D.),
The Discovery of Atlantis - August 11, 2015

http://atlan.org/the-discovery-of-atlantis/      

  

Article on Atlantis with Manly P Hall  Atlantis theories:
One of the most interesting parts of this story, to me, is the fact that this place is often remembered as a place of glory, light, and abundance, which it was. But they were not immune to the dangers of avarice, either, as H.P. Blavatsky makes clear: “...In consequence of this, war was declared, the story of which would be too long to narrate; its substance may be found in the disfigured allegories of the race of Cain, the giants, and that of Noah and his righteous family. The conflict came to an end by the submersion of the Atlantis, which finds its imitation in the stories of the Babylonian and Mosaic flood.”
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/atlantida_mu/esp_atlantida_51.htm

 

Madame Blavatsky On Atlantis - The Blavatsky quote at the end is not accurate, unreliable; has some added new age flourishes.

http://www.crystalinks.com/blatvatskyatlantis.html

 

New Age presentation of Blavatskyan evolutionary theories: Ancient Civilizations: The Theories of Atlantis and Lemuria

Was Atlantis simply a figment of Plato’s imagination, spurred by nationalistic pride when writing about his beloved Athens, or are there fragments of truth in these ancient myths, passed down and swirled about in the sands of time… Are we heading for the same fate? Or will we merely continue on, ever-evolving and seeking out new answers yet always returning once more to search the bottom of the murky ocean floors.
https://fractalenlightenment.com/35042/culture/ancient-civilizations-the-theories-of-atlantis-and-lemuria
 
Alamongordo post on Atlantis – This is more of a neo-Theosophy post and therefore only about half the information here is really from Blavatsky:
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky - January 26, 2017
http://www.alamongordo.com/helena-petrovna-blavatsky/ 

 

Minsinformed and innacurate, but a serviceable 'hipster' pop culture history of Atlantis: This one has the most offensive comments about Blavatsky in the lot.

The Strange History of Atlantis – Benito Cerino

http://www.grunge.com/77738/strange-history-atlantis/

 

Little known facts about the mysterious Atlantis.

Of course, Atlantis is mentioned, and sometimes becomes the Central figure of the mass of occult documents. Most strongly promote the myth was influenced by Blavatsky, who described in his “Secret doctrine” the evolution of the Fourth root race that was taking place in Atlantis. It’s amazing how this controversial literature has influenced the image of the lost continent in culture.

http://micetimes.asia/little-known-facts-about-the-mysterious-atlantis-photo/

New Book: Upstate Cauldron, Joscelyn Godwin (Chapter 18 on Blavatsky):

Joscelyn Godwin has concocted a frothy, bubbling brew of mystery and magic in 19^th century American alternative religion in his New York state cauldron for you to jump in. By the pricking of my thumbs, somewhere upstate, a cauldron comes..

 

Publishers’s Page

From 1776 to 1914, an amazing collection of prophets, mediums, sects, cults, utopian communities, and spiritual leaders arose in Upstate New York. Along with the best known of these, such as the Shakers, Mormons, and Spiritualists, this book explores more than forty other spiritual leaders or groups, some of them virtually unknown, but all of them fascinating. The author uncovers common threads that characterize these homegrown spiritualities, including roots in Western esoteric traditions, liberation from the psychological pressures of dogmatic Christianity, a preoccupation with sex, and involvement in the radical reform movements of the day. In addition to maps and photographs of surviving buildings and monuments, the book also features a gazetteer of sites listing 150 locations connected to these groups, which may be used as a helpful travel guide to the region.

http://www.sunypress.edu/p-6033-upstate-cauldron.aspx

 

Review by Nicole Gray

There are chapters on Madame Blavatsky and Theosophy, Cyrus Teed's hollow earth and Koreshanity, and even literary connections like L. Frank Baum, whose The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) hints of Baum's interest in Theosophy. Godwin concludes with a brief foray into the twentieth century with Elbert Hubbard and Gustav Stickley, "emphasizing the spiritual side" of these two figures and its contribution to the development of the Arts and Crafts movement, though neither Hubbard nor Stickley was expressly affiliated with any religion (p. 276). His final chapters cover New York architect and Theosophist Claude Bragdon and a series of modern-day movements and still-extant upstate communities with New Age, Eastern, and occult practices and beliefs.

https://networks.h-net.org/node/15697/reviews/91318/gray-godwin-upstate-cauldron-eccentric-spiritual-movements-early-new  

Elizabeth Lowry review
http://nr.ucpress.edu/content/20/2/131  

Magonia Review of Books
Joscelyn Godwin’s fascinating study shows that these were just the headliners; there was a multiplicity of support acts, large and small. Some were offshoots of Christianity; others were more diverse; some celebrated sex in one way or another; others preached strict abstention; some were in the forefront of racial rights and women’s rights – which, he says, “worked hand in hand”, at least until the Civil War. And then there were the sleeping preachers… http://pelicanist.blogspot.ca/2016/06/  

Quest Magazine
Theosophists appear several times in this history, not just HPB and Henry Steel Olcott, but others less known, notably Matilda Joslyn Gage, who coauthored the History of Woman Suffrage with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Mrs. Gage was to become the mother-in-law of L. Frank Baum, passing along her interest in Theosophy to him. Baum would go on to author the Oz series of children’s books, which Godwin notes have both Theosophical and Gnostic elements. Godwin also reminds us that it was Josephine Cables, a Theosophist in Rochester, New York, who helped rouse the Theosophical Society in America out of the dormancy it had fallen into after the departure of HPB and Olcott for India in 1878. In 1882 she applied to the Adyar headquarters for a charter for a Rochester branch. It was the first American branch to be chartered since the TS’s founding in 1875.
https://www.theosophical.org/membership/renew/310-publications/quest-magazine/book-reviews  

K. Paul Johnson
Hiram Edson’s vision of Christ in the cornfield in 1844 (see chapter 8), which became the theological foundation of Adventism, happened between Clifton Springs and Port Gibson. That is about five miles from the Sacred Grove outside Palmyra, where in 1820 Joseph Smith met God the Father and Jesus Christ, and about four miles from Hydesville, where in 1848 the Fox sisters started talking to the dead. So three lasting religious movements—Adventism, Mormonism, and spiritualism, were all sparked off in that little triangle.
https://adepts.light.org/2015/06/

Blavatsky and Painting: George William Russell (AE)

all images by George Russell

Hidden Aeons: Searching for a literary relic –

Brian J Showers - Mon, Apr 10, 2017

Yet despite all this, the name A.E. is still imbued with a certain magic, a presence that gathers around it the like-minded, drawing with a natural magnetism, ears straining to hear old traces of the new songs of Ireland. And just as they did during his lifetime, readers, historians, writers, mystics, activists, poets, students, organisers, politicians, artists, and the open-minded are still discovering kinship in A.E. and his works.

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/hidden-aeons-searching-for-a-literary-relic-1.3043433

 

Hairy fairy revisited – An Irishman’s Diary on George Russell

Brian Maye - Mon, Apr 3, 2017

He was a poet, painter, playwright and nationalist who wrote on economics and politics, and the list of names of those who attended his famous “soirées” at his home in Rathgar reads like a “who’s who” of the Dublin of his time.

There he met WB Yeats, who introduced him to theosophy. He joined the Theosophical Society in 1890, his membership certificate being signed by Madame Blavatsky, the Russian founder of the society.

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/hairy-fairy-revisited-an-irishman-s-diary-on-george-russell-1.3032543

Delving into the arcane: the legacy of Æ’s hidden murals

Aidan Dunne - Sat, Jul 5, 2014

Established in New York in 1875 by a small group of people centred on Helena Blavatsky, Henry Steel Olcott and Dublin-born William Quan Judge, the society held that a body of ancient, hidden knowledge lay behind all the world’s religions and, similarly, that hidden laws lay beyond the bounds of conventional scientific thought.

In Ireland, George Russell (Æ), James M Pryse and others set up a branch in Dublin, based at number 3 Ely Place. “It was a kind of commune and in many ways idealistic, even utopian,” says Moore. “The theosophists were, and are, completely non-sectarian. They believe in universal freedom and equality.”

Though it sounds as if it might be a religious cult, he points out: “It’s not. It ambitiously aimed to synthesise elements of science, philosophy and religion.”

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/delving-into-the-arcane-the-legacy-of-%C3%A6-s-hidden-murals-1.1853925

 

Recent Wall Street Journal article on Piet Mondrian mentions Blavatsky:

Mondrian was attracted to both Catholic mysticism and Theosophical religious ideas around 1908. Theosophy—founded on the beliefs of Helena Blavatsky—stressed that a divine structure was hidden beneath everyday appearances. In 1915, the artist was briefly drawn to Christosophy—a merging of Theosophy with Christian theology created by a former Catholic priest. Mondrian had begun his diamond paintings before he broke away from Christosophy four years later.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-starry-christmas-1482522700

 

From Alexei Jawlensky, Abstract Faces at Full Intensity

Will Heinrich- March 9, 2017

The son of a colonel in the imperial Russian Army, Alexei Jawlensky was 18 and a cadet when a visit to the All-Russian Exhibition of Industry and Art in Moscow in 1882 changed his life by introducing him to painting. Eventually he moved to Munich with Marianne von Werefkin, another artistic expat from the nobility, vacationed with Kandinsky, bought a van Gogh and studied Buddhism, yoga and theosophy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/arts/design/from-alexei-jawlensky-abstract-faces-at-full-intensity.html?_r=1

Blavatsky and the Theosophical Movement 2




A group of prominent neo-theosophists in Sydney 1922

One hundred and twenty-five years after Blavatsky's passing, the various theosophical movements are still doing their thing, sending out groovy spiritual vibrations into the atmosphere:

Neo-Theosophist praises Blavatsky: The Heroic Nature of H. P. Blavatsky- C. Jinarajadasa http://www.helenablavatsky.org/2016/12/the-heroic-nature-of-h-p-blavatsky.html
 
The Academican Theosophical tackles the Krishnamurti affair
https://theacademiciantheosophical.wordpress.com/2017/01/05/the-reluctant-messiah-truth-about-jiddu-krishnamurti-and-theosophy/

A nice pdf document on the Blavatsky-Leadbeater relationship:
http://www.cwlworld.info/Blavatsky_and_Leadbeater.pdf

Upcoming French biography on Annie Besant:
https://www.facebook.com/leslie.price.3194/posts/572004822982312#!/richardjohnbr/posts/10154471894178000?pnref=story
 
John Fergus replies to ULT critique of G. de Purucker’s use of Blavatsky’s writings
https://blavatskytheosophy.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/the-question-of-g-de-purucker-a-reply-to-a-reply.pdf
https://blavatskytheosophy.com/the-question-of-g-de-purucker/

Journalist Carlos Cardoso Aveline blogs in the Times of Israel, citing Blavatsky on occasion:

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/occult-roots-of-religious-violence/

Theosophy News Worldwide offers much interesting news items that have good follow-up and complement many of the news items on this site (no official connection, telepathy perhaps, or synchronicity):
http://www.soehne-des-feuers.de/nachrichten/theosophy-news-worldwide-1st-quarter-2017-327.html
 

Portuguese blog study on the history of Blavatsky Secret Doctrine Volume 3:

http://lua-em-escorpiao.blogspot.ca/2016/09/a-controversia-sobre-o-quinto-e-sexto.html

 

Prominent British Judge was a theosophist:
"There Monier-Williams was very much involved in the Oxford Union and became a follower of Madame Blavatsky, the occultist medium and founder of the esoteric movement known as Theosophy. " http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11821006/His-Honour-Evelyn-Monier-Williams-obituary.html

 

New Age Blog: The All: Unconditional Love vs Love of Family
https://iamofthestars.com/2016/09/11/the-all-unconditional-love-vs-love-of-family-by-h-p-blavatsky/