Category: Blog

For the last eighteen months I have been working as co-editor for a book project that resulted from an astonishing treasure trove of letters, almost all from the 1880s, rediscovered in 2013 and soon to be published. Patrick D. Bowen, Ph.D., the lead editor, tells the story of the Thomas Moore Johnson correspondence in a new blog post. He had become interested in the Johnson Library and Museum in Osceola, MO in hopes that its collections might shed light on his research on the early history of conversion to Islam in America. At the same time I had become aware of the library/museum, and was planning to visit in search of evidence about the relationship of Sarah Stanley Grimke to the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. Neither of us found much of what we had originally sought, and I was unable to make the trip to Missouri at all, but a serendipitous development led to an unforeseen collaboration. The Johnson family unearthed several hundred letters written to their distinguished ancestor by a diverse array of individuals, many of them literati, and placed them in the temporary custody of Missouri State University for preservation. Patrick traveled to Springfield to examine the letters, and was so struck by their value that he requested and obtained permission to edit them for publication. When Marc Demarest of the Typhon Press agreed to publish the letters, I volunteered to assist Patrick with transcribing and annotating them, as well as with mini-biographies of the correspondents. The subsequent collaboration has been richly educational and I feel honored to have participated in the project. Patrick’s 78 page introduction to the first volume is entirely his own work and an impressive feat of scholarship.

During the period of this correspondence, Johnson was a leading figure in the Theosophical Society and then in the H.B. of L., and the letters he received from the members of these two groups are a uniquely revealing time capsule. The import of this correspondence for Theosophical history is evident in many prominent T.S. names among the 48 letter writers, for example Olcott, Judge, and Mead. However, Johnson’s most informative and extensive lettters from a Theosophist were from Elliott B. Page, a heretofore little-known leader of the St. Louis Lodge. More than half of Johnson’s correspondents were associated with the H.B. of L., the best known among these being T.H. Burgoyne and Henry Wagner. But the most informative correspondent of all was the heretofore unknown Silas H. Randall, a Cincinnati inventor whose reading interests were as diverse and sophisticated as those of Johnson himself. The 48 authors of Letters to the Sage: Thomas Moore Johnson Selected Correspondence, Volume I: The Esotericists are a diverse cross-section of 19^th century esotericism– Rosicrucians, Spiritualists, Platonists, and enthusiasts of  Tarot and Mind Cure along with Hermeticists and Theosophists, and even a Hindu yogi and a Muslim novelist from India.

Editing a reprint of Grimke’s Esoteric Lessons has proceeded simultaneously with working on the Johnson correspondence, and the research has been greatly enhanced by all the new information on the American members of the Brotherhood. The second volume of Johnson correspondence, to appear in 2017, will consist almost entirely of letters from Alexander Wilder. Here the subject matter has less to do with organizational than literary shared interests, as Wilder was among Johnson’s closest allies in the world of American Platonism. Wilder, Johnson, and Grimke were all acquaintances and admirers of Bronson Alcott, so my recent Mary Baker Eddy Library research on Transcendentalism was relevant to all three forthcoming books. More will be reported on the first volume of Johnson letters when the book is available this spring.

For a chapter about Henry Steel Olcott in a forthcoming collection, I examined his friendship with Charles Carleton Massey, and became impressed by the generally admiring remarks from many sources about Massey’s honesty. Following his earlier book on the relationship between Spiritualism and Theosophy, Jeffrey Lavoie pursues that link further through a biography of one man who served as a “connecting rod” between the two movements.  Below is a review of the biography I posted on Amazon:

Until this book, Charles Carleton Massey has been a footnote in the lives of other more celebrated figures in the Victorian worlds of Spiritualism, the occult revival, and psychical research. Jeffrey Lavoie has honored him with a thoroughly researched and documented study that places Massey in a pivotal position as a “connecting rod” linking many better known contemporaries.

Each chapter of A Search for Meaning in Victorian Religion examines a different facet of Massey’s many related interests. Lavoie delves into Spiritualism and psychical research, explores the rise of esotericism in the late 19th century, relates Massey’s significance as a student and translator of German mystical and esoteric literature, and gives an intriguing account of his acceptance of anti-Masonic conspiracy theories and fantasies about Satanism. His final chapter provides well chosen excerpts from Massey’s writings that reveal him as increasingly focused on an esoteric interpretation of Christianity in his later years.

Of special interest to Theosophical history is Lavoie’s treatment of Massey’s progressive alienation from Madame Blavatsky, juxtaposed with his lifelong friendship with Colonel Olcott. No previous author in the field has appreciated all the cross-currents swirling around Massey as one of the original founders of the Theosophical Society who later had a similar role in the beginnings of the Society for Psychical Research.

There is less information available about Massey’s personal life than his intellectual life, but Lavoie provides as full a portrait of the private man as possible. The greatest strengths of the book are its excellent introduction and conclusion, which places Massey the public figure in context of intellectual history. Here Lavoie’s expertise as a religious historian and his deep personal sympathy for Massey combine to give an interpretative framework for the chapters about various phases of his subject’s life.

Recommended especially for scholars interested in Religious Studies and Victorian England, but accessible and interesting for general readers interested in Spiritualism, parapsychology, and esotericism.

Last weekend I made my first visit to a Divine Science church, something I’ve intended ever since beginning to work on the New Thought movement as context for the writings of Sarah Stanley Grimke. As with the recent connection to local Unitarians for the same reason, it was a very pleasant and encouraging experience that I intend to repeat. Among the many rare treasures now available on IAPSOP is a near-complete run of the journal Harmony, published in San Francisco from 1888 through 1906 under the editorship of Malinda Cramer, who more than anyone else is considered the founder of Divine Science. Several pieces of circumstantial evidence had suggested a connection between Sarah Stanley Grimke and Divine Science. Her friendship with Miranda Rice had begun in Massachusetts when both were students of Christian Science, and the year Rice moved to California, 1885, was the first year that Sarah visited there. Two years later, Sarah wrote to her daughter about Rice returning to Massachusetts and still being in touch by correspondence. According to The Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religions, Malinda Cramer had sought a cure for her illnesses for several years but “In 1885, Cramer finally found her cure under the ministration of Miranda Rice, an early student of Mary Baker Eddy who had left the Church of Christ, Scientist, to open the first Christian Science Practitioner’s office on the West Coast.”(p. 283) Although Divine Science was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area, it found many disciples in Denver and after the great earthquake and fire of 1906, Denver became the movement’s headquarters. Since Sarah belonged to the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor which was headquartered in Denver when The Light of Egypt was published, it seemed likely that she was acquainted with Divine Science leaders in both California and Colorado. Generally the New Thought aspects of the Church of Light heritage seem more related to Divine Science than to Unity, Christian Science, or Religious Science.

The availability of Harmony online provides the first evidence of any friendly notice of Grimke’s writings during her lifetime. Heretofore I had found dismissive references to her in the Christian Science Journal in 1885 and 1886, but no friendly references in any periodical. In April 1893, the conclusion of a multi-part article by A.P. Barton of Kansas City, entitled “Why Are We Here?” quoted Sarah briefly. Because Sarah left the US in 1888 according to correspondence in the Grimke files at Howard University, we can find no record of her presence in either California or Colorado in the pages of Harmony. But we can find, here and nowhere else as yet, evidence that she was being read in New Thought circles during her lifetime.

Here is a timeline of Sarah’s life as far as I’ve reconstructed it thus far:

Sarah Stanley Grimké Timeline

1850 born in Scriba, NY where her father Moses Stanley is a Free Baptist minister

1851 moves to Fond du Lac, WI and another Free Baptist pastorate

1855 moves to Farmington, ME, another Free Baptist church, near her mother’s birthplace Wilton

1859 moves to Two Rivers, WI, as Moses becomes a Congregational minister

1860 moves to Hartland, MI where Moses becomes an Episcopal minister, which he remains through several more assignments in Indiana and Michigan

1873 attends the University of Michigan for one year

1878 graduates from Boston University with a Ph.B., having become a Unitarian

1879 marries Archibald Henry Grimke

1880 daughter Angelina Weld Grimke is born

1883 leaves Archibald and takes Angelina to live with the Stanleys in Michigan

1884 publishes Personified Unthinkables in Detroit

1885 travels cross country in New Thought circles, including Ohio, Missouri, and California

1886 publishes First Lessons in Reality, joins the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor in Los Angeles, CA

1887 returns Angelina to Archibald, never sees either of them again, begins collaboration in Monterey, CA with T.H. Burgoyne on The Light of Egypt

1888 writes to Archibald that she has been offered work abroad and intends to leave the country, asking for a divorce, which never occurs

1889 The Light of Egypt published under the pseudonym Zanoni

1898 dies in San Diego, CA; Moses Stanley reveals to Archibald and Angelina that Sarah had spent much of the intervening decade in Auckland, New Zealand before returning to the US around 1896

1900 Esoteric Lessons published posthumously in Denver

Yesterday I heard a fascinating interview with a Unitarian minister from Maryland who is also a practicing Hindu. His family background in the Brahmo Samaj is mentioned only briefly, but relates to my current research about 19th century Indian interest in Western spirituality.

When I joined the Church of Light nine years ago, it was with a sense that it provided an opportunity to embrace what I had found to be constructive and valuable in esoteric traditions without having to engage with more destructive or distracting elements. And such has indeed been the case. But I also believed that my investigations into 19th century Indian history, which had brought so much encouragement from the scholarly world and so much discouragement from a few Theosophists, were all in the past and that the CofL’s roots were purely in the “Western Esoteric Traditions.” The latter expectation has been confounded many times over.

Elbert Benjamine names only four individuals as authors who are his precursors in giving “Brotherhood of Light” teachings; two English and two American. And nine years of historical investigations confirm that these four indeed represent the major writers whose teachings he incorporated into his systematic exposition of esotericism: Thomas H. Burgoyne, Emma Hardinge Britten, Genevieve Stebbins, and Sarah Stanley Grimke. Burgoyne, an Englishman, wrote mainly about astrology and also about Tarot. Britten was a Spiritualist historian with a background in earlier European occultism. Stebbins, a native Californian, was one of the first Americans to seek instruction in Yoga from qualified experts in the 19th century, and also wrote about physical culture and Tarot. Grimke, rooted in the Transcendentalist Unitarianism she embraced in her student years, became a Mind Cure author and then delved into astrology. These four Western authors are indeed the most important background for Benjamine’s thinking. But as it turns out, I cannot explore their influences without returning to Indian history.

As a young astrologer and medium in England, Burgoyne met not only the mysterious Max Theon, but the equally mysterious Hurrychund Chintamon. The latter was a crucial catalyst in the transfer of the Theosophical Society to India in 1879, and later became a whistleblower to the Society for Psychical Research in 1884-5. To some extent he instigated the formation of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, and thus we cannot escape the question of what was real and what was fraudulent in the Theosophical Society in India, as an element in the origins of the HBofL. Emma Hardinge Britten’s books Art Magic and Ghost Land were almost entirely about the European occult brotherhoods of the 19th century, and were unquestionably source material for the HBofL, acknowledged as such by Benjamine. But Ghost Land included a substantial subplot in India, revealing not Britten’s first hand knowledge but rather her involvement with others who did have such knowledge.

On the American side of the ledger, Sarah Stanley Grimke would seem to have nothing to do with Indian history. Except, that is, for the fact that her education and ideas place her in the stream of Unitarian Transcendentalism– which was deeply influenced by New England intellectuals’ encounter with Indian spiritual classics. Genevieve Stebbins, a Californian who pursued enlightenment in France and England in the 1880s, was profoundly influenced by her encounter with yogic breathing instruction from an Indian she met in England. So here again, an Indian connection is found in someone who seems squarely in the mainstream of Western occultism. Finally, although not an influence on Benjamine, it is relevant that the best known disciple of Max Theon, original Master figure of the HBofL, was Mirra Alfassa, a Frenchwoman with Jewish parents from Egypt and Turkey. Her decades-long partnership with Sri Aurobindo was clearly an example of a merging of Indic and Western esoteric streams.

Three of the four Typhon Press publications on which I’ve been working have been announced. So without any breach of confidence, I can say that Ghost Land entails an inquiry in the sources for Britten’s treatment of India, Grimke’s Esoteric Lessons requires looking into her Transcendentalist roots in New England, and my chapter for Con Artists, Enthusiasts and True Believers delves primarily into the influence of Hurrychund Chintamon on Col. Henry Olcott. A chapter of a yet unannounced project with another publisher includes Aurobindo among other Bengali individuals of interest. For the latter, I have enjoyed reading Subrata Dasgupta’s book Awakening on the Bengal Renaissance, which coins the phrase “Indo-Western mind” to describe a “cross-cultural mentality” that defined the great flowering of Bengali literary productivity that lasted through the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth.

The overall direction of my own recent projects has been to see the Indo-Western mental fusion that involved all these players in the late 19th century as very much a two way street. While the mythology of the Great White Lodge has emphasized the unidirectional enlightenment project of Asian Mahatmas to teach their wisdom to the West, the history of the period is one of tremendous cultural exchange. The Indian participants in this exchange gave and received in equal measure, embracing Freemasonry, Spiritualism, Theosophy, and Platonism as well as honoring their own traditions. A recent discovery that I announced at the end of my conference paper will be explained in detail in next month’s edition of the PsyPioneer in an article Leslie Price is now editing. Here I will just reproduce the bare bones announcement as given on September 20, and comment briefly that it reveals people who had been portrayed as Asian missionaries to the West to have been coming to America to learn and to promote economic cooperation, rather than to preach Hinduism.

Hurrychund Chintamon, subject of the first half of the chapter from which this paper was excerpted, was the second Indian entered in the Adyar Membership records now available online from The Art Archive. The first, Toolsidas Jadarjee, #120 in the entries, precedes #123 Chintamon and has been considerably more elusive. In Old Diary Leaves, Col. Olcott describes a transatlantic passage in wihich he encountered Moolji Thackersey in 1870, with another unnamed Indian gentleman with whom he was photographed. Years later, in 1877, an unnamed Western visitor noticed the picture on the wall of the Lamasery and told Olcott he knew both men, which led to correspondence with Chintamon and the ill-starred alliance between the TS and the Arya Samaj. TS founder Herbert Monachesi, in an 1875 article “Proselyters from India,” had claimed that Thackersey and his travel companion Tulsidas Jadarjee had been on a missionary journey to the West, but no evidence had ever appeared in support of this claim.

Early this month, I found a reference to Thackersey and Jadarjee in the November 20, 1869 Louisville Daily Express, describing two men on a business journey that had brought them to Chicago, where they were as of the date of the story. It reported that they were heading to St. Louis, New Orleans, and Boston. I immediately alerted Patrick Bowen and Marc Demarest, requesting that they pursue the story in databases to which they had access. They found more than a dozen articles and documents confirming the journey and providing more details. A news item will appear in the forthcoming issue of PsyPioneer describing the highlights of this press coverage. The mission was clearly a business journey involving their interest in the cotton trade, and it took them to Mobile, Charleston, and Savannah in addition to the above-named destinations.

At this point I would just like to announce the name of the ship and the date of passage for their departure from New York en route back to India. The New York Times for January 13, 1870 included the names “Moolja Thackersy, Toolsidas Jadarzee,” and “Colonel. Hy. S. Olcott” as having departed the previous day on the steamship Java, bound from New York to Liverpool.

 

Last January I was haunted by persistent mental images of a river bottom coated with a foot of toxic sludge. In the course of two days, in one Facebook message and three emails, I repeated the same metaphor to four different friends in context of Melungeon studies. I serve as a board officer of two different nonprofit organizations– Secretary of the Dan River Basin Association and Treasurer of the Melungeon Heritage Association. DRBA has a highly capable paid staff that handles all the serious responsibilities, so mine as a board officer are fairly light– sending out notices in advance of meetings and taking and distributing the minutes. MHA is an all-volunteer organization with barely 1% the financial resources of DRBA, so being a board officer also entails a lot of hands-on work. Hence I worry a hundred times more about MHA business than DRBA business. Perhaps this explains why I very persistently misinterpreted those mental images that plagued me last winter. This seems to be an illustration of what C.C. Zain calls “feeling ESP” which is so much more fallible than “intellectual ESP.”

For more than a century, Melungeons have consistently been described by writers and scholars as a triracial population, and many Melungeons have embraced this for decades (with the reservation that the “white” or “Caucasian” element is not purely European but includes South Asian, North African, and Middle Eastern ancestry). Yet there have been pockets of resistance among people who insist that Melungeons are a biracial population– either European/Indian only or European/African only, and even a handful who insist that Melungeons are purely European. Despite the fact that two DNA studies confirmed the triracial oral history and social science descriptions, and despite the fact that MHA was founded as an explicitly anti-racist organization in 1998 with the motto “One People, All Colors,” two factions both long-antagonistic to MHA had recently grabbed headlines with their very public feud over a third DNA study in 2012. “Some Melungeons deny their African ancestry, others deny their Indian ancestry” was the story line spread virally across the Internet, nationally and internationally, despite the fact that we have always embraced both and that it has been confirmed not just by group DNA studies but many individuals’ personal DNA profiles.

Back last winter, I fell afoul of one of these factions on Facebook. In early January I sent a message to a friend about creating a new Facebook group, calling the existing ones “covered with toxic sludge.” In an email to another friend I wrote in early January about “polemics recently unleashed” that “it’s covered with toxic sludge.” In an email to yet another different friend the same week I wrote of “the toxic sludge associated with Indian identity politics.” And to a fourth friend, I wrote about people “who corrupt and pollute online discussion of mixed ancestry issues without participating in any real-life mixed ancestry organizations or activities” and about “the ambivalence felt by whites about black ancestry and vice versa due to the still-toxic legacy of slavery.” All this, from January emails, confirms vividly how possessed I was by the image of pollution by toxic sludge covering a river bed, in relation to one of the two boards of which I am an officer.

On February 2, the third largest coal ash spill in US history occurred in Eden, NC, headquarters of the Dan River Basin Association, and the Dan River was coated with coal ash sludge all the way downstream to Danville, twenty miles away, killing fish, birds, otters, and microinvertebrates and leaving a gigantic cleanup ahead and a huge political struggle over storage of coal ash next to waterways in North Carolina. Presumably because I habitually worred about negative public images of Melungeons, and felt confident of DRBA’s sterling reputation in the region, it simply never occurred to me that all these foreboding images of a river bed coated with toxic sludge might have literal relevance in the near future, rather than metaphorical relevance in the present, to one of the two boards on which I serve.

This is the first of a two-part essay; the second half relates to a case that seems to be the reverse of this. That is, something I was fearing as a future event– specific as to time, place, and circumstances– turns out to have already happened, and the only thing that was in the future was my finding out about it. This second case relates to the subject matter of this blog, which will be updated later this month.

Meanwhile as a postscript, I will add that the reference to finding Sarah Stanley Grimke’s story more about Unitarianism than Christian Science or New Thought is part of an ongoing revision of my introduction to her writings, so I’ll wait until the dust settles before returning to that subject.

my Amazon.com review of the book, followed by a comment:

The Temple of the People is the smallest and least-known group in the family tree of the Theosophical movement. But its small membership has had a substantial cultural influence in twentieth century California, as described in Paul Ivey’s Radiance from Halcyon. The group was the source of a burst of creativity that expressed itself in a wide array of endeavors. As an art historian, Ivey is well qualified to appreciate the group’s unique contributions. His treatment of the Temple is profoundly sympathetic yet completely objective, striking a perfect balance.

The opening chapters set the stage with a chronological explanation of the Temple’s emergence in the wake of the “Judge secession” crises of the mid-1890s and the subsequent splintering of American Theosophists into multiple competing sects. The author explains the community’s relocation from Syracuse, New York to the California coast and the teachings conveyed by its leaders. In these chapters Ivey meets the standard set by the best Theosophical history books (notably Joscelyn Godwin’s The Theosophical Enlightenment) in terms of thorough research and documentation, and the clarity of his writing. But the heart of the Halcyon story he tells is found not in the teachings of the leaders but in their implementation by the community members. The most memorable parts of Ivey’s book are the later chapters, which are thematic rather than chronological in approach.`

Ivey explores the social/political experimentation of the group and its architectural, medical, musical, and fine arts expressions. Most surprising and interesting is the final chapter, depicting scientific advances produced by members of the community as an expression of its anticipation of “the Avatar.” The other surviving branches of American Theosophy have inspired historical writing that ranges from uncritical propaganda to hypercritical debunking. The Halcyon group, in its obscurity, has been spared all such distorting accounts. As the sole author to explore its legacy in detail, Paul Ivey has surpassed all previous authors in the field of Theosophical history. Radiance from Halcyon is an engaging portrait of a long-overlooked American Utopian experiment. It is a must-read for anyone interested in Theosophy or the history of the central California coast, but any reader who appreciates unexplored byways of twentieth century spiritual movements will find it enjoyable and illuminating.

Church of Light readers will find this aspect of Theosophical history more relevant than most, due to the twentieth-century California setting, the emphasis on health, and the progressive political views of the community. While the Temple of the People is in the mainstream of Theosophy in terms of accepting reincarnation and messages channeled from Masters, the cultural atmosphere seems nonetheless more harmonious with that of the Church of Light than other Theosophical organizations. IMO, KPJ

Outwitted

by Edwin Markham (1852-1940)
He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!

Of seven current book projects in which I’m engaged as an editor, chapter author, or co-editor, there is only one about which I feel at liberty to blog, because the prerogative of announcing each of the others belongs to someone else. Every one of them involves individuals or groups that are eccentric in one way or another, and the one that has most deeply engaged my heart, mind, and soul is the most eccentric of all. Sarah Stanley Grimke defied racial norms and her own family to marry an African American in 1879, a time when this placed her completely outside the circle of respectable society anywhere but among radical Boston Unitarians. When she abandoned her husband and daughter to cohabitate in California with a married Englishman who had likewise abandoned his family, the circumstances of their collaboration were completely outside the norms of respectability. And when she turned from the orthodox Christian faith of her father to Unitarianism, and then became a writer of Mind Cure lessons and subsequently of Hermetic astrology, she was as eccentric spiritually as she had been sexually and racially. This has a certain resonance with other subject matter about which I have written.

Although my mother’s Quaker ancestors were at the center of North Carolina history in the late 17th century, their position in society eroded and became progressively more marginal in the 18th and 19th centuries and by the 20th their religious community was extinct in the county where they had lived for many generations. This was largely due to their opposition to slavery which placed them more and more “outside the circle.” The main emphases of my book about my father’s ancestors was their mulatto status in the colonial era and their Union affiliation in the Civil War. To be in the mainstream of writing about the Civil War, I’d have told a story about North versus South, Unionists versus Confederates, white plantation owners and black slaves. But my story—that of my ancestors which I chose to research for years—was about border states, racially ambiguous origins, and poor white Unionists in the midst of rich Confederate slaveholders. This is eccentric subject matter, and my preference for such “marginal” populations makes me as eccentric a historian in this dimension as in others.

This theme of eccentricity in historical interests recently hit home as I participated in a book festival in my city, Martinsville. All up and down the main area were fiction writers of various genres. At the end were the handful of non-fiction writers. One big tent was occupied by a local history publisher of many illustrated works—definitely in the mainstream, but at the corner where one had to turn left to get to the other nonfiction writers. Turning left, we had a humorous columnist dressed as Mark Twain, a charming lady who had authored two books about her experiences with afterlife communication, and an African American writer whose book was about the challenges facing parents of young black boys—a very timely topic this week of all weeks. Then, farthest left, was me with Pell Mellers, my book on mixed-ancestry Unionists, Carolina Genesis, a collection from the same publisher with a chapter on the plight of Quakers on the margins of the Dismal Swamp in the wake of the Nat Turner insurrection, and Edgar Cayce in Context. Like me, the raising-black-sons author had missed the message about “bring your own tent or broil in the sun” but the New Age author and her husband kindly allowed us both to share the shade of her tent. This seemed symbolic of the eccentric non-fiction types lending mutual support.; I had a lot of fun but it was all down there in the non-fiction ghetto.

Reflecting on how perfectly Grimke as a subject matter suited my proclivities as an author, it occurred to me that Edgar Cayce and Melungeons occupy the far geographical corners of my home state, one at the eastern extremity of the Virginia Beach strip, the other at the western extremity in the corner bordering Tennessee and Kentucky. If the preoccupations of middle and upper class Richmonders are taken as defining mainstream Virginiana, Cayce represents the most eccentric figure in the religious history of the Commonwealth, and Melungeons the most eccentric element of its racial history. This doubtless has a lot to do with the fascination they hold for me.

Two decades have passed since my only books that generated any controversy, and yet interested parties have been quite effective in defining me by the label “controversial author.” While the Masters and disciples of Madame Blavatsky could be considered equally eccentric subject matter as anything that has more recently engaged my interest, my two books on Theosophy resulted in being labeled and targeted for disrespect as “outside the circle” in ways that were downright sinister and threatening, initially by Theosophists, and subsequently by Baha’is. And yet, paradoxically, they have generated far more mainstream respectability than anything I’ve written since.
(To be continued with reflections on discovering the Grimke family story to be very much part of the mainstream of Unitarian history.)

Breaking my hiatus to take note of a new 2014 publication by Russian historian Alexandre Andreyev, which fulfills a hope that I had been ready to abandon long ago– that my research on Theosophy would inspire further investigations by a scholar qualified to pursue the Russian aspects of Blavatsky and the myth of the Masters. Instead of going back in time to Theosophy’s Russian occult origins, Andreyev investigates its twentieth century impact on the most influential Russian exponents of the Masters myth. The price of this book, like many other Brill publications, means I will need to peruse it in a library. Meanwhile, here is the publisher’s description.

This book examines the lives of the famous Russian painter, thinker, and mystic Nikolai Roerich and his wife, Elena Roerich, the “mother” of Agni Yoga esoteric teaching. Extensively researched, it focuses on the couple’s spiritual quest, resulting in their gradual transformation under the influence of theosophy, spiritualism and Elena’s psychic “fiery experience” into mystics and gurus who fashioned their new version of the “myth of the Masters,” the invisible guides of humanity. Special attention is given to N. Roerich’s travels in Central Asia and Far East, his cultural and public activities and particularly his Buddho-Communist utopia. The myth of the Masters revived will appeal to those interested in New Age esotericism, mysticism, and Russian thought in the first half of the 20th century.

Google Books provides considerable access by keyword search, including this passage from the preface:

My research was further stimulated by another ground-breaking work, that of American researcher K.P. Johnson titled, The Masters Revealed: Madame Blavatsky and the Myth of the Great White Lodge (1994). This was a bold attempt to demystify the Blavatskian stories of the mahatmas and identify the real Masters behind the myth. Johnson’s conclusions that HPB’s adept sponsors were “a succession of human mentors rather than a cosmic hierarchy of supermen” encouraged me to dig deeper into Nikolai and Elena’s biographies with a hope of finally unveiling the mystery of their Masters who had the same bizarre names of Morya and Koot Hoomi.

More on the book and author in my next blog entry.

The Free Religious Association was the main focus of Parker Pillsbury’s life as a lecturer and organizer after the Civil War. The final chapter of Pillsbury’s biography, “The Postbellum Quest for the Millennium,” notes that:

In 1870…the American Anti-Slavery Society voted to disband. ..for the next twenty-five years, Pillsbury searched for the movement that would replace Garrisonian abolition. Although he found support and kinship among the old grassroots radical community, especially in the West, only a few of the leading abolitionists joined him in his search…As he lectured in support of a variety of causes, including Free Religion, health reform, women’s rights, and labor issues, he attempted to combine the perfectionism of his antebellum years with the science of the postwar generation… The first reform organization that raised Pillsbury’s hopes after he left the Revolution was the Free Religious Association. This movement, which attracted many religious radicals like Pillsbury, was spearheaded by frustrated Unitarians Francis Abbot and William Potter in the late 1860s….Potter, a former Unitarian minister and founder of the Free Religious Association, referred to the new religious organization as s “spiritual anti-slavery society.” He expressed particular interest in “freeing” people from the “thraldom” of religion imposed by a tyrannous clergy.(pp. 157-159)

The Free Religious Association was eventually reabsorbed into Unitarianism, helping transform it from a liberal Christian denomination to one embracing all religious traditions. This raises the issue of extinct groups in the complicated parentage of the Church of Light. Hermeticism, for starters, is extinct as a religion per se, although its teachings have been revived in various forms around the world. The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor is extinct as an outer form, yet the gist of its teachings were absorbed into the Brotherhood of Light teachings of Elbert Benjamine. The metaphysical group Light, Love, Truth is extinct, yet its New Thought teachings were incorporated into those of the HBofL through the collaboration of Sarah Stanley Grimke with T.H. Burgoyne. The Christian Scientist Association is extinct, but the Church of Light has been influenced by its teachings via the Light, Love, Truth group. To all intents and purposes, the original New York based Theosophical Society is extinct and has been supplanted by something very different in today’s Adyar, Pasadena, etc. TSes. And arguably, the Church of Light is a more direct expression of the ethos of that original TS than any current Theosophical organization, for example in its teachings on reincarnation. But for every extinct ancestral organization, there are descendants who are therefore “cousin” groups of the CofL– Theosophical, New Thought, Masonic, Rosicrucian, Hermetic, etc. My current line of research is examining the family ties between Unitarianism and Christian Science/New Thought. This blog will be on hiatus through the summer, during which I will be doing research in Boston that connects the heritage of the Church of Light to these movements.

Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950), born Aurobindo Ghose in Calcutta, is the Indian spiritual teacher of greatest relevance to the Church of Light due to his long partnership with Mirra Alfassa Richard (1878-1973), “the Mother,” who had been a disciple and student of Max Theon. As a Frenchwoman of Jewish ethnicity and roots in the Islamic world (Turkish-born father, Egyptian-born mother) she was complementary to Aurobindo in developing a philosophy and movement of global reach and significance. Although there was tremendous antagonism between some early Theosophists and some early leaders of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, the writings of C.C. Zain evidence respect for those of H.P. Blavatsky despite disagreements. Likewise, Aurobindo was basically respectful of Theosophy, but he took strong exception to the authoritarian tendencies he witnessed in the early 20th century. Around 1911 he wrote a commentary that remained in manuscript form until published in 1997. The entire text of The Claims of Theosophy is now available online. I reproduce below the passages that seem especially relevant to the issue most crucial to the future of Theosophy.

I wish to write in no narrow and intolerant spirit about Theosophy. There can be nothing more contemptibly ignorant than the vulgar prejudice which ridicules Theosophy because it concerns itself with marvels. From that point of view the whole world is a marvel; every operation of thought, speech or action is a miracle, a thing wonderful, obscure, occult and unknown… Nevertheless if men claim to be the pioneers of a new kind of Science, they must substantiate their claims. And if foreigners come to the people of India and demand to be accepted as instructors in our own special department of knowledge, they must prove that they have a prodigious superiority. Has the claim been substantiated? Has the superiority been proved?…

What Indians see is a body which is professedly and hospitably open to all enquiry at the base but entrenches itself in a Papal or mystic infallibility at the top. To be admitted into the society it is enough to believe in the freest investigation and the brotherhood of mankind, but everyone who is admitted must feel, if he is honest with himself, that he is joining a body which stands for certain well-known dogmas, a definite and very elaborate cosmogony and philosophy and a peculiar organisation, the spirit, if not the open practice in which seems to be theocratic rather than liberal…One sees also a steady avoidance of the demand for substantiation, a withdrawal into mystic secrecy, a continual reference to the infallible knowledge of the male and female Popes of Theosophy or, when that seems to need bolstering, to the divine authority of invisible and inaccessible Mahatmas. We in India admit the Guru and accept the Avatar. But still the Guru is only a vessel of the infinite Knowledge, the Avatar is only a particular manifestation of the Divine Personality. It is shocking to our spiritual notions to find cosmic Demiurges of a vague semi-divine character put between us and the All-Powerful and All-Loving and Kutthumi and Maurya taking the place of God…

It is not that Theosophy is false; it is that Theosophists are weak and human. I am glad to believe that there is much truth in Theosophy. There are also considerable errors… We must accept the Theosophists as enquirers; as hierophants and theocrats I think we must reject them…If Theosophy is to survive, it must first change itself. It must learn that mental rectitude to which it is now a stranger and improve its moral basis. It must become clear, straightforward, rigidly self-searching, sceptical in the nobler sense of the word. It must keep the Mahatmas in the background and put God and Truth in the front. Its Popes must dethrone themselves and enthrone the intellectual conscience of mankind.

In a word, the tendency against which Aurobindo warned more than a century ago was obscurantism, defined in one online dictionary as 1.opposition to the increase and spread of knowledge. 2. deliberate obscurity or evasion of clarity. My experience of disdainful rejection by TS leaders of the very notion of any historian trying to identify the Theosophical Mahatmas showed that the end of the twentieth century was no better than its beginning; Aurobindo’s commentary rings truer than ever. Wikipedia provides some further background on the practice:

Obscurantism (French: obscurantisme, from the Latin obscurans, “darkening”) is the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or the full details of some matter from becoming known. There are two common historical and intellectual denotations to Obscurantism: (1) deliberately restricting knowledge—opposition to the spread of knowledge, a policy of withholding knowledge from the public; and, (2) deliberate obscurity—an abstruse style (as in literature and art) characterized by deliberate vagueness.…in restricting knowledge to an élite ruling class of “the few”, obscurantism is fundamentally anti-democratic, because its component anti-intellectualism and elitism exclude the people as intellectually unworthy of knowing the facts and truth about the government of their City-State.

These passages are especially relevant at the present moment, as the Theosophical Society awaits results of an election for its eighth president. Vociferous complaints from Theosophists have resulted from what is justifiably called a “news blackout” in which neither of the two candidates nor any other TS official will make any public comment about the election. Whether the knowledge forbidden to the masses, including the membership of the TS, involves a 21st century presidential election or the organization’s hidden 19th century history, it seems to illustrate a warning issued to Annie Besant in a mysterious 1900 letter allegedly from the Master Koot Hoomi:

The best corrective of error is an honest and open-minded examination of all facts subjective and objective. Misleading secrecy has given the death blow to numerous organizations. The cant about “Masters” must be silently but firmly put down. Let the devotion and service be to that Supreme Spirit alone of which one is a part.

Whichever candidate emerges as the winner and next president of the TS would do well to consider seriously the warnings against obscurantism written in the early 20th century by Sri Aurobindo and “Koot Hoomi” (regardless of who used that signature in this instance.)

Disclaimer: This blog is not the website of the Church of Light although linked to it and sponsored by the CofL. No one in the CofL has any prior knowledge or approval of anything I post, or has ever tried to influence the content in any way. So in hopes of preventing their being blamed, I have been very discreet about the contemporary Theosophical Society heretofore. The authorial voice of Sri Aurobindo in this passage moved me to comment on lasting issues he raises. I’m an independent historian and don’t presuppose agreement or disagreement from any group; just want to offer relevant evidence to all interested individuals. Aurobindo’s remarks are relevant to the present circumstances.

History of the Adepts is focused on the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, hence the pre-history of the CofL. The present state of “misleading secrecy” in the Theosophical Society is very much rooted in the 1880s reaction therein to the perceived threat of an independent secret society poaching its leading US members. Blavatsky created the Esoteric Section as suggested by William Q Judge and others concerned about the success of the HBofL and its offers of practical occult study. Aurobindo’s commentary above strikes me as the wisest summary of the problems Theosophy was creating for itself more than a century ago, and eerily prescient of the current situation. -KPJ

This recent blog post by Marc Demarest showed the title page of a copy of Gilbert Vale’s 1869 Astronomy and Worship of the Ancients with an 1885 signature from Parker Pillsbury (1809-1898). This reminded me of having seen the same signature in an 1891 inscription of his memoir to a Boston publisher. The Occult Publishing Company advertised in 1887 in Thomas Johnson’s Platonist, featuring works by Franz Hartmann.

The abolitionist memoir Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles was published in 1883 just after its author found common cause with the Rochester lodge of the Theosophical Society, which later became a nucleus of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. Pillsbury is the only member of the Rochester lodge with known links to Sarah Stanley Grimke, and is thus the subject of current research on the origins of the H.B. of L.. His lifelong advocacy of abolitionism and feminism makes him part of a group of Boston acquaintances of the Grimkes who shared these two causes. Next month I will post a detailed review of a scholarly biography of Pillsbury.
(this will appear in May–KPJ)

Mitch Horowitz has been receiving well-deserved praise for his new book One Simple Idea. My brief Amazon review commented:

One Simple Idea combines intellectual seriousness with a playful celebration of visionary American eccentrics. Any reader drawn to New Thought as a factor in American intellectual history will have noticed its abundant contradictions and evasions. But only Horowitz has thoroughly explored the cast of characters in New Thought history and their contemporary relevance, positive and not-so-positive. His writing is as engaging as in the 2009 study Occult America, and the subjects of his capsule biographies equally intriguing in the new study. One Simple Idea is a thoroughly satisfying read that leaves the reader impressed by the author’s mastery of the subject matter at every level.

Here I add a more personal note of appreciation, from the perspective of a reader with a longstanding interest in New Thought combined with serious ethical reservations about the “no accidents” doctrine that Horowitz analyzes and rejects in this book. He is warmly appreciative of the historical characters he brings to life, which one review described as a daisy chain of capsule biographies glossed with commentary. Warren Felt Evans receives the attention he has long deserved as a New Thought pioneer. Mary Baker Eddy is treated sympathetically in a way that increased my appreciation for her writings. At the same time, her rival Emma Curtis Hopkins emerges as a formidable figure whose influence has been little understood. Although my interest was mainly in the 19th century when I started the book, its treatment of 20th century figures like Norman Vincent Peale is equally groundbreaking and valuable.

My recent research into the roots of the Church of Light for forthcoming books has yielded abundant clues about the impact of Christian Science and especially New Thought. “Directed thinking and induced emotion” is a phrase that resonates with the New Thought message of self-help. As with the Theosophical movement, New Thought has produced a wide ranging legacy of offshoot groups and individuals, a bewildering variety of developments ranging from serious to ridiculous. Horowitz captures its strengths and weaknesses, appraises its influences, and explores its contradictions, in a book that is both pleasurable and enlightening.

Jeffrey D. Lavoie is a doctoral candidate in the history of Western Esotericism at the University of Exeter in England. The program in which he studied was led by the late Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, author and editor of several books that have enriched the field of study in which he was a pioneer. Prior to his Exeter studies, Lavoie obtained a Master’s degree from Episcopal Divinity School and did post-graduate work at Harvard University. He is senior pastor of a Baptist congregation in Hanson, MA, and writes about Theosophy and Spiritualism not as a believer or disbeliever but as an objective scholar.

His 2012 study The Theosophical Society: The History of a Spiritualist Movement challenges the self-definition of Theosophy as entirely independent of Spiritualism, grounding his argument in abundant evidence that makes his study the best-documented and most thoroughly researched study of the TS. In the introduction he writes:

It is the belief of the author that despite the shifting claims made by Blavatsky and Olcott implying that the Theosophical Society was a separate organization distinct from Spiritualism…the Society remained open and embracing to Spiritualists. The second purpose of this work is to provide updated biographical information for the important figures related to these two movements who have largely been ignored by modern scholarship.(p5)

Among the figures illuminated by this study are Charles Carleton Massey, M.A. Oxon (Stainton Moses), Arthur Lillie, William Emmette Coleman, Richard Hodgson, Emma Hardinge Britten, and Alfred Russel Wallace. In his concluding remarks, Lavoie acknowledges that the relationship between Spiritualism and Theosophy “was much more complex than a simplistic dualist `yes’ or `no’ answer could provide.”(p355)

The 1992 book La Vie Astrologique il y a Cent Ans describes the impact on French astrology of the writings of T.H. Burgoyne, translated as part of a collection called the Bibliothèque Astrologique (Astrological Library.) Volume 2 of the series was La Lumière d’Egypte (The Light of Egypt) translated by René Philippon and published in 1895. In 1899 the third volume of the series appeared as Dynamique Céleste. In 1914 the original first volume of the series was replaced by Burgoyne’s Le Langage des Astres (Language of the Stars.)

Francis Marion Crawford was a hugely successful American novelist whose first book, Mr. Isaacs, was set in India during the early years of the Theosophical Society. Its title character was inspired, as widely recognized at the time, by a gem merchant named Alexander Malcolm Jacob (1849-1921), whose story is told in a new biography by John Zubrzycki. The main focus of the narrative is in the legal entanglements into which he was drawn by a Nizam of Hyderabad to whom he attempted to sell the world’s largest brilliant-cut diamond. Readers interested in the history of occultism will find the book worthwhile for its discussion of Mme. Blavatsky’s 1880 “cup and saucer” phenomenon at which Jacob was present in Simla.

In a 1913 interview with Gilbert Frankau, the elderly Jacob told of his youthful trip from his native Turkey to India, with an undetermined mixture of autobiography and fiction. This passage shows the relevance of Mr. Jacob as a figure in the mysterious world of adepts and Mahatmas in late 19th century India.

By the time he was fifteen, he was convinced that `somewhere on this earth dwelt one at whose hands I might learn all the mysteries of which my books taught me but half knowledge’…It was in Hyderabad that he finally met his master, `an old man sitting alone under the shade of an old plane tree’, who introduced himself as El Moghraby. `Earth held no secrets from his mind,’ Jacob told his incredulous listener. `The lost lore of Chaldea he knew, and all the mysteries of ancient Atlantis, of Babylon and Nineveh, of Egypt, and of That which came out of Egypt towards the East. Such was El Moghraby, and from him came all the wisdom that was mine.’

Here is my 5-star Amazon review of a 2012 biography of Laura C. Holloway-Langford I recently enjoyed:

As a biography of a long-forgotten but prolific author, Yearning for the New Age succeeds at several levels. Scholars will find here the best informed, most nuanced discussion to date of the Mahatma letters of the early Theosophical Society, explaining how they embroiled their recipients in controversy and intrigue. Readers interested in Shaker history will find the later portion of the biography engaging in its sympathetic portrayal of the state of Shakerism in the early 20th century. Admirers of scholarly quest narratives will enjoy Sasson’s final chapter explaining the odd coincidences and discoveries that propelled her research from Nashville to New York and beyond. All readers will find the entire context of late Victorian spirituality illuminated through Sasson’s portrayal of Holloway-Langford’s many enthusiasms and reversals of fortune.

Especially relevant to my own research interests is the book’s focus on 1884 as a pivotal year in Holloway-Langford’s spiritual life as well as that of William Q. Judge. As some prominent Theosophists became deeply committed to transmission of alleged Mahatma letters and all the claims and counterclaims involved, others were disappointed or disgusted. Holloway-Langford is a vivid example of an individual who was drawn into the network of alleged chelas and Mahatmas but was treated dishonestly and abusively. Her literary collaborator Mohini Chatterji, similarly embittered after his youthful experience as a proclaimed chela of TS Mahatmas, comes to life in Sasson’s book more than any other work of Theosophical history.

1884 was the year of what Joscelyn Godwin has called “the Hermetic Reaction,” of which the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor was just one example. Anna Kingsford and William Maitland created their short-lived Hermetic Society the same year in England, which was eclipsed four years later by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. For any reader with a primary interest in the TS, Yearning for the New Age is indispensable, uniquely informative about its milieu. But if one’s interest is more in the history of secret societies or neo-Hermeticism, the TS events of 1884 are likewise pivotal and through the life story of Holloway-Langford take on a larger significance than a single organization’s troubled history.

Mysteries of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor is the newest installment in Ronnie Pontiac’s series on American Metaphysical Religion. He ties together information about figures who are familiar to readers of this blog, and others about whom I was uninformed, in a very engaging narrative. (I find Pontiac more pleasurable to read of late than anyone else addressing occult history.)

I have finished reading a new book, The United States of Paranoia by Jesse Walker, which will be the topic of my next post. It includes the Benevolent Conspiracy as one among several variants of paranoid ideas, and explores some ramifications of belief in Masters, adepts, Mahatmas, etc.

(added 10/3, a tribute to Ronnie Pontiac’s talent for finding eye candy for the occult antiquarian, I found pictures of the very impressive crypt in Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington D.C. of the HBofL founding member Josephine Cables Aldrich and her husband.)

In August, Marc Demarest announced the availability online of the SSOC, the Standard Spiritualist and Occult Corpus, consisting of “2300+ primary texts, in English, covering Spiritualism, the occult and allied parasciences, between 1790 and 1940.” The collection represents the various traditions and knowledge bases that were included among the precursors of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor and thus the Church of Light. The rare works of Paschal Beverly Randolph, whose meeting with Peter Davidson in England seems to have helped inspire the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, are included. Eulis was of special interest to the HBofL. Hurrychund Chintamon’s Commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita, subject of a previous post, is likewise of interest as a work by a founding HBofL figure. Of all the works of Emma Hardinge Britten, the one that most approximates the teachings later adopted by the HBofL is her 1879 Faiths, Facts,and Frauds of Religious History (first page shown above) These few selected highlights are just a small sample of the historical treasures collected together in the SSOC, a monumental collaborative effort involving a great deal of effort from Mr. Demarest and colleagues.

The person most likely responsible for the beginning of correspondence between Hurrychund Chintamon and the Theosophical Society was a fellow Freemason who had visited Bombay in 1877 and relocated there to live two years later.
Olcott’s Old Diary Leaves describes a visitor who recognized Bombay Arya Samaj leader Moolji Thackersey in a photograph on the wall of the New York apartment the Colonel shared with Madame Blavatsky. “One evening in the year 1877 an American traveller, who had recently been in India, called…he did know Moolji Thackersey and had recently met him in Bombay.” (Old Diary Leaves, Vol. 2, p. 395) The only candidate “American traveller” suggested to date, James Peebles, is much less likely than a heretofore overlooked colleague of Olcott.

Olcott’s anecdote about the American traveler does fit the itinerary of one man who was Theosophist, Freemason, and Bombay resident, not Peebles as has been previously suggested. Peebles left his New Jersey home for his second around the world tour in late 1876, and did not return until early 1878. The person described by Olcott in the anecdote about an 1877 visitor was almost surely David E. Dudley, M.D., born 6 May 1822 in Alton, New Hampshire, son of Daniel and Martha Morrison Dudley. He was listed as a medical student at Columbia College in New York in 1860s directories, and married Adaline Lucinda Broaders in Manhattan on December 4, 1869. Dudley’s medical career took him around the world as seen in the birthplaces of his three daughters: Adelina born 1876 in Egypt, Bubie born 1878 in New York, and Indea born 1881 in Bombay. In addition to pursuing an international medical career, Dudley was an emissary on behalf of the Order of the Eastern Star. In Robert Macoy’s Correspondence Report for 1877 we find that Dudley was Deputy Grand Patron of the Order, given a commission by Brother Andres Cassard, “with ample authority to confer the degree on worthy and qualified persons, and establish chapters in Egypt, China, Japan, Philippine Islands, Singapore, Calcutta, Bombay, and several of the chief towns of the island of Java.” (Engle, History of the Order of the Eastern Star, p. 31) Albert Rawson wrote a letter to The Spiritualist, published in London on 5 April 1878, defending Blavatsky from criticism. He wrote that at the time Dudley was residing in Manila: “others of my acquaintance have met Mme. Blavatsky in the far east; others have heard of her residence there; for instance, the celebrated physician and surgeon, David E. Dudley, M.D., of Manila, Philippine Islands, who spent some time in this city recently and is now on his way to return to his Eastern home.” (Personal Memoirs of H.P. Blavatsky, p. 172)

In Olcott’s memoirs he noted April 15, 1878 as the date when “we began to talk with Sotheran, General T., and one or two other high Masons about constituting our Society into a Masonic body with a Ritual and degrees;…We did not abandon the idea until long after removing to Bombay.” (Old Diary Leaves, Vol. 1, pp. 468-469.) Dudley’s Masonic affiliation and international travel in the 1870s would identify him as a likely candidate for “one or two other high Masons” proposing an Indian-based TS as a fringe Masonic group.

edited repost from my other blog, with comment below on its relevance to this one:

Among the rewards provided to authors by Google Books and Amazon is knowing when, where, and by whom their works are cited in other books. Some years ago I started keeping a record on my Backintyme blog, mainly for my own encouragement. Years after a book’s sales diminish to near-zero, other writers can continue to find it useful in their own research. Recently the total reached 200, the occasion for a celebratory post. The books were published in sixteen countries, twenty-two states, and the District of Columbia, in chronological order of appearance: France, US, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium, Spain, India, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Brazil, Canada, Argentina, Romania, Switzerland; Georgia, Michigan, Maine, New York, Illinois, Indiana, California, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont, Minnesota, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina.

comment–It is clear from looking at these books that The Masters Revealed has been cited more than my other books combined, mainly in scholarly studies but in a fair number of popular works. What may not be as readily apparent is that almost all Theosophical Publishing House books mentioning my research have been friendly or neutral rather than antagonistic. Although I’m not an academic scholar, the encouraging response from academics in many disciplines and countries was an unintended consequence of investigating Blavatsky and company. As I’m not a Theosophist, I appreciate that my research has been fairly presented in TPH publications. The only recent attempts to draw my name into an academics-versus-Theosophists quarrel have come from a few obscure blogs. No such controversies arose from my book on Edgar Cayce which was perceived as evenhanded and accurate by believers and skeptics alike. (Nor were Pell Mellers and Carolina Genesis perceived as controversial by anyone to my knowledge.) The next book project on the horizon for me is a return to the family/local history genre, co-editing another Backintyme collection previewed in my presentation at the Melungeon Union two weeks ago in Wytheville, Virginia. After three years working on different projects related to Western Esoteric Traditions, in 2014 I’ll be reverting to the kind of research I did through the decade 2001-2010. This will entail fewer or briefer updates on my new research to this blog. But when my own research shifts direction away from the world of esoteric traditions, there are plenty of other writers and researchers whose work will merit reports. And through the end of 2013 I’ll be working intensively with aspects of HBofL history which can provide much discussion fodder in years to come.

Noticing recently that the earliest correspondence of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor was written on Springfield Road in Burnley, I wondered if the same houses might be standing that were there in 1886, and the answer seems to be yes.

Seeing hills in the distance, I checked out the environs of Burnley and found that a hill of great spiritual significance overlooks the town, Pendle Hill where George Fox in 1652 had a vision of the future growth of the Society of Friends:

As we travelled, we came near a very great hill, called Pendle Hill, and I was moved of the Lord to go up to the top of it; which I did with difficulty, it was so very steep and high. When I was come to the top, I saw the sea bordering upon Lancashire. From the top of this hill the Lord let me see in what places he had a great people to be gathered.

—George Fox: An Autobiography, Chapter 6

When Thomas H. Burgoyne sent out the earliest HBofL lessons to Americans, it was from a town where the memory of an earlier visionary was permanently enshrined in a natural landmark.

Among the many things for which I am indebted to Leslie Price, one had been forgotten on my bookshelves for many years until this week. A damaged, discarded library copy of A Commentary on the Text of the Bhavagad Gita happens to be the earliest book authored by any founding member of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. Its dedication, surprising to me, was to the Freemasons of the world:

TO THE FREEMASONS OF THE WORLD, A HARMLESS AND KINDLY CRAFT, THE PARTIZANS OF MORAL INDEPENDENCE AND MENTAL FREEDOM, WHOSE PURPOSE IT IS TO TEACH MIND TO STAND ALONE, UNFETTERED BY THE MOORINGS OF SOCIAL, POLITICAL, OR RELIGIOUS PREJUDICE, THIS WORK, AS A MARK OF HIGH ESTEEM AND FRATERNAL CONSIDERATION, IS DEDICATED, BY THEIR HUMBLE BROTHER, THE AUTHOR.

But I should not have been surprised in light of this list of Chintamon’s writings of the 1870s:

A history of Lodge Rising Star of Western India identifies Chintamon as the first Hindu accepted into the craft there:

For the first time it was in this year [1872] that a Hindu Brother named Harichand Chintaman sought admission in the lodge as a visitor. As on the ground of their being polytheists and not monotheists the Hindus were not taken in the Order, a discussion arose but ultimately the Worshipful Master admitted the Brother as he belonged to a regularly constituted lodge of Masons in England and also held a certificate from the Grand Lodge.

Google search yielded evidence that up to twenty years later Chintamon was again actively involved in the world of London Freemasonry, long past his associations with the Arya Samaj, Theosophical Society, and HBofL. He was quoted in Ars Quatour Coronatum in discussion at a meeting of the Quator Coronati Lodge in 1891 on the subject of the relationship of Masonry to Hinduism:

A list of those present at the meeting includes Wynn Westcott among others:

Via ancestry.com I learn that Chintamon was still in London listed in a voting directory of 1894. Secondary sources indicate he returned to India within the decade.

This week I was surprised to learn that a meditation I have used regularly as the Church of Light mantram was authored by a man named V. Loy Edwards, who died in 1925, four years before the first publication of it I have found in Google books. Having temporarily misplaced my copy (which was tucked in the pages of a book), I looked it up only by typing the first few words “my soul is one with the universe, and my spirit is an emanation from deity.” The only publication of this affirmation I have found other than Church of Light documents was in the November 1929 issue of The Star, edited by J. Krishnamurti, where the author is identified as V. Loy Edwards. (see postscript added 3/12/2014)

Edwards died July 10,1925 in New Orleans at the age of 31. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery. The adoption of his meditation by the Church of Light as its official mantram is attested in many publications, for example in volume 21, Personal Alchemy. The passage is reminiscent of one from the 1900 edition ofThe Light of Egypt, a letter from T.H. Burgoyne advising the student to use this phrase while concentrating one’s soul at the solar plexus: “my soul is one with the Universe, and my spirit an emanation from God.” This is further elaborated in Celestial Dynamics by the same author, so it seems likely that Edwards was associated with the students of Burgoyne, and hence with the Brotherhood of Light (the name of what is now the Church of Light from 1915 through 1932.) The last US Census entry for him, in 1920, finds him a 25-year-old U.S. Army sargeant in Salt Lake City. Newspaper reports from October 1918 indicate that he was from Provencal, Louisiana, and seriously wounded in action at the end of WWI.

In August 1929, Jiddu Krishnamurti gave his “Truth is a Pathless land” speech at Ommen in the Netherlands. He re-read portions for the American press in 1930, now viewable on Youtube (the second of these two clips). As Krishnamurti was repudiating the organization for which The Star was an official journal, The Order of the Star in the East, that journal was publishing the meditation which is now known to all Church of Light members as our own. How did this young man, otherwise invisible to history, write a work that touched two organizations as unlike each other as the Church of Light and the Order of the Star in the East? Perhaps the self-reliance implicit in the meditation appealed to Krishnamurti’s new anti-authoritarian line of teaching in 1929.

PS– It has recently come to my attention that a source earlier than 1929 might have originated the text of what became the mantram in question, unattributed as all the other instances except the one citing Edwards. The first line is found in early correspondence of T.H. Burgoyne, as has long been known, but the earliest published appearance of the full mantram after The Star is at this point an undated booklet from Wisdomquest Publications of Pasadena, CA, apparently from the early 1930s. The Order and Rules of Saint I Am is attributed to the “Hermetic Brotherhood” which suggests an earlier date of original authorship. It includes the mantram, opening another avenue of inquiry into its original composition and appearance. This “Hermetic Brotherhood” is not the HBofL and yet related to it. This blog post on “Occult Chicago” explains the context, but no evidence has yet emerged linking the mantram to the Phelon group.

When Astro-Philosophical Publications published Sarah Stanley Grimke’s Esoteric Lessons in 1900, another author received most of the attention in the catalog at the end of the book. Belle M. Wagner’s novel Within the Temple of Isis occupies the first two pages of the catalog and part of the third, with endorsements by a total of five individuals: Zanoni, S.E. Morrison, D.C. Grunow, Minnie Higgin, and Thomas M. Johnson. The only one of these to have any prominence in the literary world is Johnson, who is succinct about the virtues of Wagner’s novel. He wrote, “I have read “Within the Temple of Isis” with much interest and pleasure. It is the best representation of the process of “The Transmutation of Souls” which I know of.” Zanoni now sounds less like T.H. Burgoyne than an all-purpose shill for the Wagners, writing “This is an Occult Novel of rare value, as it contains a vast deal of Occult lore on many subjects. Soul-Transfer and Soul-Marriage are especially dealt with in a scientific manner. Everybody should read it.” In light of other references to Zanoni of 1900 as the defunct Burgoyne now accessible through mediumship by Belle Wagner, the independent existence of that “reviewer” is somewhat tenuous. Much more intense is a personal testimony from a woman, Susan E. Morrison, who knew the Wagners personally in Colorado and later was acquainted with Elbert Benjamine in California. She enthused “It is the most intensely soul-stirring work that it has ever been my privilege to read. It certainly touched the keynote that connects my soul with Deity Himself.” But who is Susan Morrison?

Ancestry.com has yielded the basic information of her birth in Vermont in 1874, and her death in California seventy years later, but sheds no light on why this woman of modest means, who was a house servant for most of her working life, was involved in an organization like the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. Between 1910 and 1918, the transformation of the secret society into an open membership brotherhood/church was an expression of the needs of a changing spiritual marketplace. Susan Morrison was a figure who like Elbert Benjamine witnessed the transformation.

The most respected, distinguished founder of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor in America was unquestionably Thomas Moore Johnson, the “Missouri Platonist.” He was the first Council President in 1886 and was actively involved through the closing of the order in 1909. Johnson’s descendants have preserved his legacy in the Johnson Library and Museum in Osceola, Missouri, the town where he lived almost all his life. Son of a Virginia-born Missouri U.S. Senator who became a Confederate Senator, Johnson’s teen years were disrupted by the Civil War, at the outset of which Kansans burned Osceola to the ground. After the war he studied at Notre Dame and traveled to New England to pursue the acquaintance of Transcendalists including Bronson Alcott and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Since Sarah Stanley Grimke moved in the same circles at the same time, it seems likely that her initial contact with the HBofL was through Johnson.

There are several worthwhile sources available online in addition to the information provided by JLM. Most of his journal The Platonist is accessible via Google Books (see previous blog post). In 1947 his son Franklin donated thousands of volumes of Johnson’s philosophy collection to the University of Missouri, where it is preserved as the Thomas Moore Johnson Collection of Philosophy. Six weeks ago, Newtopia Magazine published a colorful and informative portrait of Johnson by Ronnie Pontiac, entitled Thomas Johnson: Platonism Meets Sex Magic on the Prairie. Rest assured that the obscure pre-history of the Church of Light will be increasingly illuminated as scholars discover and explore the legacy of this remarkable American.

There is one correction I need to make to the abovementioned article. The identification of Genevieve Stebbins’s husband Norman Astley as T.H. Burgoyne dropping one pseudonym for another is not an established fact– just an inescapable conclusion. Yet what seems inescapable now might prove impossible down the road. Even though I can find no evidence of “Captain Norman Astley” existing prior to Stebbins marrying him, or “T.H. Burgoyne” dying, there is always the possibility of Astley’s birth certificate or Burgoyne’s death certificate emerging to pull the rug out from under this hypothesis. Marc Demarest and I both hope for more solid confirmation by the time the Esoteric Lessons of Sarah S. Grimke are published.

Richard Smoley has a new collection out entitled Supernatural, which I have ordered but not yet received. There are discussions of Hermeticism, Kabbalah, and 19th century interpretations thereof that make it relevant to Church of Light history, so I will post in future about the book. But while waiting for it I found this excellent joint interview with Smoley and Mitch Horowitz, author and editor of the collection respectively. The passages that struck me as immediately relevant to CofL readers are these:

Richard:
To take a counterexample, there were H.P. Blavatsky’s Masters, whoever they were, and Blavatsky felt the need to disguise their identity; they may have disguised their own identities for their own purposes. But it got to the point where people just didn’t believe they existed at all, and that really hurt Blavatsky’s movement. She said at one point that she would rather be taken as a fraud than have the Masters’ identify revealed or compromised, so she was aware of this issue, and chose to deal with it in the way she did. But from my own point of view, I wanted to have it be intellectually honest, to say, “This is what I experienced; this is where I experienced it,” without a lot of magic-mirror stuff.

Mitch:
But I think that we risk allowing ourselves to be defined by our critics, or by people who are unable to take any measure of the values or the qualities that emerge from occult and New Age movements, if we don’t forthrightly speak to some of our own experiences and interests. I think it behooves serious writers today to do that, and it’s also ethically important that we pull back from the overreliance on disguised or changed identities, and especially composite characters, or altered events or things of that nature, because I think that while those devices may have their place in certain circumstances, and while privacy and discretion is sometimes important, I believe that any followers of new religious movements, or any followers of esoteric, or occult, or New Age philosophies — because charges of chicanery, fairly or not, have been so often directed at these cultures — have a special obligation to try to be as straightforward as possible..
Elbert Benjamine avoided any use of pseudonyms or personal names in reference to “the Brotherhood” and refrained from the kind of authoritarian claims made by Blavatsky and also to a lesser extent by Britten. (Concerning Theosophical Mahatmas and Spiritualist Adepts, respectively.) Hence The Church of Light does not have “a lot of magic mirror stuff” in terms of historical claims about its origins. (Even though magic mirrors were quite literally a strong interest of its HBofL predecessors.) This means that the researcher’s effort to “be as straightforward as possible” does not face the same obstacles as in movements more committed to authorities that are of dubious historical reality. Nor does it involve dealing with ideological gatekeepers guarding access to documents and archives, exerting message control, etc. as I experienced with larger organizations. Instead the main obstacle to overcome for exploring the CofL’s roots is scarcity of relevant information. However, in Albuquerque this summer I will be reporting on an amazing new development that changes the situation considerably. 2013 is looking to be a banner year for historical breakthroughs– stay tuned.

The Astro-Philosophical Publications edition of Esoteric Lessons includes eight pages of descriptions of other titles from the same publisher. By far the most promotional attention is given to Belle M. Wagner’s novel Within the Temple of Isis. Among those who testify to its merits are “Zanoni.” As only the Wagners know who Zanoni is at this point (1900), his objectivity on Belle’s novel is open to question. Zanoni will be the topic of my presentation at the biennial convention of the Church of Light, starting with the 1842 novel of that name and tracing the pseudonym through 1900 and the second volume of The Light of Egypt. The most eminent and influential name among the promoters of Wagner’s novel was Thomas M. Johnson, about whom there will be more in future blog posts. Quite a few researchers seem to be discovering the great relevance of Johnson’s role in late 19th century occultism, simultaneously and in complementary ways. Minnie Higgins, whose role in The Light of Egypt was mentioned in a previous entry and has become more interesting with new evidence, gave a full page of glorious praise to Within the Temple of Isis. Her status as astrologer of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor in 1909, whose death led to Elbert Benjamine’s appointment as her successor, has insured her a footnote in history. But two other names in the promotional literature for Belle’s novel have never come to any author’s notice, as best I can tell at this point: D.C. Grunow and S.E. Morrison. Future posts will delve into each of them in more detail, but the only extensive reference to either is found in this 1913 article from the Battle Creek Idea in which Grunow, a meteorologist, is quoted on the virtues of a sanitarium. Born in New York of German immigrant parents, Grunow served in the army for two decades before joining the civilian Weather Service. In 1908 he was listed in the city directory of Baker City, Oregon, but had earlier served in Idaho, and retired to Valentine, Nebraska.

In the befuddled world of the occult antiquarian and esoteric historian, there are rare moments that are like sun breaking through clouds. Today’s blog post by Marc Demarest reintroduces a figure who had always seemed an obscure footnote, now in the heroic lead role as a major node in the occult network that immediately preceded, and produced, the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor.

The best place to start is Theosophical History editor James A. Santucci’s description of the research of Robert Gilbert on Thomas’s groups (detailed in a full article accessible to subscribers here.)

“The Disappointed Magus: John Thomas and His ‘Celestial Brotherhood’” by Robert A. Gilbert. The Celestial Brotherhood, or as it was known to the general public, “the British and Foreign Society of Occultists,” was a short-lived organization that in the words of Mr. Gilbert: “mimicked, consciously or otherwise, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Both worked a system of progressive grades; both professed to receive teachings from hidden Adepts on the inner planes; both practiced magical and quasi-magical rituals; and both had an autocratic and eccentric earthly Chief… The first mention of his British and Foreign Society of Occultists was in July 1884, which appeared in the inaugural issue of The Seer and Celestial Reformer, later renamed The Occultist (announced in the December 1884 issue of The Seer) beginning with the January 1885 issue “at the behest of ‘the Leaders or Masters of a certain “Noble Order.” . . .” This “Noble Order” was the H.B. of L. or the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, so the obvious references were to Peter Davidson and Thomas Henry Burgoyne. Whatever connection existed between the leaders of the H.B. of L. and Thomas ended abruptly with The Occultist remaining under the purview of Thomas and Davidson and Burgoyne introducing a new magazine, The Occult Magazine, in February 1885. Thomas gives his version in the July 1886 issue of The Occultist,which is reproduced on page 312 of The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor by Joscelyn Godwin, Christian Chanel, and John P. Deveney (York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1995).

Somehow this issue of the journal escaped my attention at the time, but Marc’s tying Emma Hardinge Britten’s social network to the HBofL via Thomas gives context that enables us to more fully appreciate work by Gilbert and Kim Farnell. Farnell has a charming brief portrait of the seer/astrologer on her website, based on research for her 1998 biography of Walter “Sepharial” Old. Her biography of Old was very helpful in disentangling his relationship with Blavatsky, as Farnell’s study of Mabel Collins did for its subject in 2005. A valuable history of the Astrological Lodge of London puts Charubel in context of late Victorian astrology. The most extensive excerpts from his collaboration with Old, Degrees of the Zodiac Symbolized, are found in this 2005 reprint.

The abundant new HBofL periodicals on IAPSOP announced today make this a redletter day for Church of Light history. Explaining the HBofL as a continuation of the Celestial Brotherhood and BFSO: British and Foreign Society of Occultists adds to its significance.

Gauri Viswanathan has previously commented insightfully on the Mahatma Letters received by A.P. Sinnett, in an article published in the Autumn 2000 issue of Critical Inquiry, “The Ordinary Business of Occultism.” She characterized the Mahatma Letters as “an extraordinary work” that is “marvelously constructed and richly textured” and “justly deserves much closer attention than it has received, particularly since it sheds valuable light on the complex dynamics of colonial relations, as well as on the institutionalization of Eastern thought and the disenchantment of religion in the modern world.” In the 2010 collection published by Routledge, Locating Transnational Ideals, she contributes chapter 12 which pursues the discussion further. About three fourths of the chapter is readable on Google Books. Two excerpts provided below illustrate the specialized knowledge and unique insights of the author, Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University:

These letters, in turn, defied British surveillance methods authorizing the interception of mail by her claim that she had perfected a form of communication beyond interception because it was telepathic, clairvoyant, and astral. In a dynamic of concealment and revelation that informed much of Blavatsky’s writing, letters were a crucial site for the selective use of secrecy to create both imperviousness to state surveillance and epistemological uncertainty in those monitoring her movements…(p. 192)

Playing a critical role in the Great Game, the maharajas of Kashmir and Indore staged an encounter between Russia and England drawing on the help of the Theosophists as they resisted incursions by the British into the princely native states. The Great Game, in other words, does not simply concern the struggle between Russia and England for control of Central Asia but represents a significant moment in the Indian movement of resistance to British rule originating in the native states outside British control, in alliance with the Theosophical Society.(195)

This line of inquiry is of personal interest to me, since it is the first scholarly investigation to delve deeper into the political aspects of the arrival of Theosophy in India. But it is also relevant to the Church of Light, in that an Indian whistle-blower about secret identities and letters promoted by the Theosophists helped inspire the establishment of its parent group the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. (The role of this man, Hurrychund Chintamon, is explored in my chapter of the forthcoming Con Artists, Enthusiasts, and True Believers.) I hope that that Viswanathan will develop this examination of the letters into an entire book. She is far better qualified to shed new light on this subject than any previous commentator, as indicated by these excerpts from her biography on Columbia University’s website:

Gauri Viswanathan is Class of 1933 Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. She has published widely on education, religion, and culture; nineteenth-century British and colonial cultural studies; and the history of modern disciplines….Prof. Viswanathan’s current work is on modern occultism and the writing of alternative religious histories. She has held numerous visiting chairs, among them the Beckman Professorship at Berkeley, and was most recently an affiliated fellow at the American Academy in Rome. She has received Guggenheim, NEH, and Mellon fellowships, and was a fellow at various international research institutes.

The Greek journal of esoteric tradition studies, Hypatia, will soon be available online in English translation. The original Greek edition is already online at the website. Editor Erica Georgiades was an organizer of the conference on esoteric traditions in the ancient and modern world last June that included presentations in absentia by Marc Demarest and me, both now viewable on Youtube along with six other presentations.

American history has been my sole obsession as a researcher and writer for the last twenty years. But in the late 1980s and early 90s, Europe and Asia were far more interesting to me. The “Rip Van Winkle” feeling upon reading Gary Lachman’s new biography of Blavatsky coincides with work I’ve been doing for Ghost Land and Con Artists, Enthusiasts, and True Believers. Research on the former focused almost entirely on Europe, although Britten’s book was published in America. And for Con Artists, although Colonel Olcott is American, my new research on him has been centered on India. So in 2012 for the first time in two decades I’ve been thinking much about Asia and Europe in the late 19th century, and how a generation of American spiritual pioneers developed a global perspective through travels to the Old World. It has been very encouraging to see this new research welcomed as part of conferences in Europe in 2012. Next month I will post about the revival of interest in Adelma von Vay in Slovenia and adjacent countries, and how Ghost Land relates to this development.

Having been immersed in the history of this family for a couple of years, I am delighted by the quality of the new and ongoing documentary from American Experience on public broadcasting, which features Angelina Grimke in a moving opening scene. (She is on the upper right in the photo.) Later segments of Part 1 depict Angelina’s journey to Philadelphia to join forces with her sister Sarah Grimke, and her marriage to Theodore Weld. The casting of both parts is excellent; the passionate intensity of their collaboration is vividly depicted. I will comment further after viewing the rest of the segments, but wanted to recommend the series here while it is still airing. Sadly, the historian most responsible for the proliferation of interest in the Grimke sisters, Gerda Lerner, died just before the documentary aired.

Alexander Wilder’s name has appeared in my reading several times lately, in different contexts as a person of historical interest. The Concord School of Philosophy, about which I posted in October, included him as a prominent lecturer; he was thus a close associate of Bronson Alcott and Cyrus Bartol, both early mentors of Sarah Stanley Grimke. He was the chief collaborator of Thomas Moore Johnson in the opening volume of his journal Biblioteca Platonica, successor to The Platonist. Also in collaboration with Johnson, Wilder became editor of the journal of the newly-created American Akademe. As one of the leading Platonists in America, Wilder would be expected to appear in the publications of TM Johnson. But I did not expect to find him among the authors published by Katherine Tingley in the late 1890s, yet the Theosophical Society-Pasadena website includes these treasures from Universal Brotherhood, many contributed by Wilder. Although he had joined the New York TS in 1877, and become a Vice-President the following year, he had little Theosophical involvement after Olcott and Blavatsky went to India. Nevertheless his role in editing Isis Unveiled for HPB and writing its foreword entitle him to permanent honor among Theosophists. But his role as part of the Platonic revival and his circle of acquaintances also make him part of the “founding fathers” generation for the CofL.

Last year Marc Demarest published an illuminating 1907 article from Wilder written after the death of Colonel Olcott, published in the Metaphysical Magazine edited by Leander E. Whipple. This was among the last works to appear from Wilder, who died the next year. At the time Marc published this, the name Leander Whipple had no significance for me. But after Wilder’s connections with Alcott and Johnson made him a figure of interest in the background of Sarah Stanley Grimke, I re-read the article with greater appreciation. Whipple was the chief disciple of Elizabeth Stuart’s group Light, Love, Truth, which was the primary readership for Grimke’s first two sets of esoteric lessons.

A doctor of Eclectic Medicine, Wilder rose to leadership in its professional organization of which he was Secretary from 1876 through 1895. The last medical school of the Eclectics closed in 1939. What we now call “alternative medicine” runs as a connecting thread through the New Thought, Spiritualist and Theosophical movements in the late 19th and early 20th century. Mark Jaqua has collected many of Wilder’s miscellaneous works and privately republished them with commentary. This is now available online here and includes valuable biographical information complied by Jaqua. Most evident is his longterm visibility of an exponent of Eclectic Medicine; he was commissioned to write a history of medicine, which took him ten years to write and finally appeared in 1901.

This week I have been rereading Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures for the first time in forty years. The ngram above shows that Eddy’s presence on the literary scene in recent decades, as measured in references to her in published books, is almost precisely equal to that of Edgar Cayce or Helena Blavatsky. Her influence in the pre-history of the Church of Light is considerably greater than I had realized.

Knowing that in her early married life Sarah Stanley Grimke was acquainted with Mrs. Eddy, I find one kind of influence very plausible. What could motivate a young mother and wife to think that she could make an independent living as author of Mind Cure lessons? The vast material success of Christian Science and its leading teachers created an expanding market for dissidents like Elizabeth Stuart and Miranda Rice, who assisted Grimke in developing a network of students for her mail order lessons. Mrs. Eddy’s success thus created a positive role model of an author, a counterpoint to that of Louisa May Alcott, who disdained Eddyism but was likewise part of Grimke’s circle of acquaintances in Boston.

At another level, the influence of Mrs. Eddy is clearly negative, in that Stuart, Grimke, and many others were reacting to authoritarianism and Christian dogmatism expressed in such pronouncements by Eddy as this:

Is there more than one school of Christian Science? Christian Science is demonstrable. There can, therefore, be but one method in its teaching. Those who depart from this method forfeit their claims to belong to this school, and they become adherents of the Socratic, the Platonic, the Spencerian, or some other school. By this is meant that they adopt and adhere to some particular system of human opinions. Although these opinions may have occasional gleams of divinity, borrowed from that truly divine Science which eschews man-made systems, they nevertheless remain wholly human in their origin and tendency and are not scientifically Christian.

Science and Health, like all Eddy’s writings, is explicitly Christian throughout. Grimke’s Esoteric Lessons make no explicit reference to Christianity; implicitly they are Platonist and an example of what Eddy meant when referring to “the Socratic, the Platonic” as renegades from her movement.

Wouter J. Hanegraaff is a highly respected academic scholar of esotericism, whose work first came to my attention in 1998 when he wrote about Edgar Cayce with more serious attention than he had ever before received from the academy. His most recent book is Esotericism and the Academy, which explores the way esoteric traditions were marginalized through a series of historical developments over the course of centuries. Although the book’s cost will be prohibitive to many readers, Google Books makes accessible large portions of the text online free of charge (hyperlinked above). Cambridge University Press provides this summary of in its catalog:

Academics tend to look on ‘esoteric’, ‘occult’ or ‘magical’ beliefs with contempt, but are usually ignorant about the religious and philosophical traditions to which these terms refer, or their relevance to intellectual history. Wouter Hanegraaff tells the neglected story of how intellectuals since the Renaissance have tried to come to terms with a cluster of ‘pagan’ ideas from late antiquity that challenged the foundations of biblical religion and Greek rationality. Expelled from the academy on the basis of Protestant and Enlightenment polemics, these traditions have come to be perceived as the Other by which academics define their identity to the present day. Hanegraaff grounds his discussion in a meticulous study of primary and secondary sources, taking the reader on an exciting intellectual voyage from the fifteenth century to the present day and asking what implications the forgotten history of exclusion has for established textbook narratives of religion, philosophy and science.

The official astrologer of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, later the Brotherhood of Light, Minnie Higgin died in 1909 creating a vacancy that was filled by Elbert Benjamine, who began the following year to write the Brotherhood lessons. In 1894 she lived in the home of Henry and Belle Wagner at 1258 Downing Avenue, where the city directory listed her as an astrologer. In the 1900 census she resided in a rooming house and was described as an astrologist. She wrote the introduction to the 1900 Part II of The Light of Egypt making her part of that mysterious collaboration.

I have long hoped for a new biography of Madame Blavatsky, but often wondered who might take on a subject that has become so controversial. Five Blavatsky bios appeared from 1975 through 1993: Howard Murphet’s When Daylight Comes, Marion Meade’s Madame Blavatsky: The Woman Behind the Myth, Jean Overton Fuller’s Blavatsky and her Teachers, Noel Richard-Nafarre’s Helena P. Blavatsky ou la Reponse du Sphinx, and Sylvia Cranston’s HPB. Each had strengths and weaknesses, but none contributed very much to scholarly research. Nonetheless, a new biography every three to four years seemed to augur future improvement in the quality of Blavatsky studies. And indeed, beginning in late 1994 with Joscelyn Godwin’s The Theosophical Enlightenment, we have seen a steadily growing interest in Blavatsky on the part of academic scholars. However, conditions have not seemed auspicious for any popular biography of HPB, and no author has taken on the difficult task of trying to explain her anew, until now. The result is well worth the long wait.

My research on Blavatsky was largely complete by 1990 although the resulting books appeared in 1994 and 1995. Seeing “Theosophical historian” and “controversial author” applied to me in a 2012 publication evokes an eerie Rip Van Winkle feeling. Anything I write about Gary Lachman’s new book could reignite such controversy, so I will not comment about its implications for Theosophists. But my career as a librarian involved thirty years of responsibility for selecting books that would be most useful for patrons in small rural and suburban communities. I can highly recommend this book solely on the basis of that expertise: if a public library were to own just one book about Blavatsky, this is the one must-have item. Lachman answers better than any previous author the question of why any non-Theosophist would or should care about HPB. This suggests that her significance as an author can become more firmly established even as the ranks of her followers diminish. The 21st century market for 19th century occultism may be shrinking, but HPB deserves readers beyond those in search of a wonder-working spiritual authority figure. While this new biography is the best available for general readers, its non-propagandistic approach will also appeal to the more specialized interests of Spiritualists and Church of Light members, who are inclined to see value in Blavatsky’s writings without accepting all the claims made on her behalf. Lachman’s sympathetic approach to the paranormal is a strength of the book, in that he neither endorses HPB’s psychic phenomena uncritically nor dismisses the possibility that some at least were genuine.

Lachman’s is the best written, best researched biography of HPB by a wide margin, and the only one to adopt what we might call a multiperspectival approach. The cases for the defense and prosecution – heroine/villain, saint/fraud– have been restated in many biographies over the years. None approaches Lachman’s in objectivity, accuracy, balance, or interest. Now we can celebrate the end of a long wait, knowing that finally HPB has received her due from a writer already distinguished for insightful explanations of other figures in the field of modern esotericism.

(published in the October issue of Psypioneer Journal, fully accessible here on the journal’s archive website)

Bronson Alcott was mentioned as an acquaintance by Sarah Stanley Grimke in early 1879. The following summer marked the opening of the Concord School of Philosophy, which had been planned in connection with Platonists from Missouri and Illinois. The Platonist, the journal of philosophy edited and published by Thomas M. Johnson, celebrated the Concord School. Arthur Versluis has contributed many valuable books on Western esotericism, and his 2001 study Esoteric Origins of the American Renaissance is especially helpful in understanding the role of Bronson Alcott. The chapter on Alcott is viewable through Google Books, beginning on page 115. Here is the opening para on Alcott:
None of the American Transcendentalists was so ridiculed as Amos Bronson Alcott. Throughout his life, Alcott was a thoroughgoing religious radical whose pronouncements often were too much even for Transcendentalists like Emerson, although they themselves had abandoned Unitarian liberalism as too conservative. Although many critics have noted and lampooned Alcott’s eccentric modes of “prophetic” expression from his “Orphic Sayings” in The Dial onward—some considering him deluded and even insane—much in Alcott’s work becomes far more comprehensible when one considers a central hidden source of his inspiration: German mysticism exemplified in the work of seventeenth-century Protestant mystic Jacob Böhme.

Our most illustrious Church of Light “founding father,” as measured by the esteem of his contemporaries, has fallen into undeserved oblivion. Or so I believed until recently discovering how much Thomas M. Johnson, President of the Council of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor in the US, is still honored in his hometown and home state. Future blog posts will delve into that story, but for now I want to highlight the availability of his writings online. His philosophy journal The Platonist was the first US publication in which Thomas H. Burgoyne was published, and three of its four volumes are available online, but not the crucial first volume. The second volume began in February 1884. The third volume did not appear until 1887; the fourth in 1888.

From the opening of the second volume we have a statement by Johnson of his commitment to the philosophy of Plato and its relevance to the contemporary world:

SALUTATORY.

The Second Volume of The Platonist begins with the present number. The field which it occupies Is broad, and the endeavor will be made to occupy it to good purpose. We shall endeavor to do our work faithfully, to discriminate wisely, welcoming knowledge at every avenue of its approach.

Platonism is a method of discipline rather than the designation of a system. Its aim is to bring out into bold relief that Philosophy which embraces the higher nature of man within its scope, unfolds the mysteries of the interior being and renders us awake to everything essential to human wellbeing. The faith of all ages, the most ancient as well as the present, however diverse in form, has always been the same in essence. In every creed the effort to realise the Truth is manifest; and every worship is the aspiration for the purer and more excellent. It is therefore only when symbols supersede substance, and external rites vail their own true scope and meaning, that we have any occasion to withhold countenance from them. Even History becomes untrue when its occurrences are described in actual disregard of the inspiring principles of action; and that Science is radically at fault which ignores the Supreme Intellect.

If Platonism has seemed to place a low estimate upon what is usually regarded as practical and scientific knowledge, it always contemplates the Truth which transcends it. It gathers the wisdom of the more ancient schools and nations, together with the learning of more modern centuries, with the purpose of extracting what is precious from all. It is a proving as well as a prizing of all things. It teaches how to discriminate the permanent from the changing, that which is from that which seems, the mathematic and absolute from the geometric and relative, Mind in its integrity from instinct and the lower understanding. It essays to make us acquainted with our true selfhood, to familiarise us with Reason—the raying forth of Divinity into human consciousness, to bring us to the knowledge of the Truth, and to awaken in us that longing which is never satisfied except at that fountain.

It is the province of Philosophy to place at their true value the whole body of facts accumulated from the world’s experience, and to render them useful. The moral sentiments, which have sometimes been described as resting on those accumulations, like islands on reefs of coral-accretion from the ocean’s bottom, it proves to be at one with what our souls have brought with them from the eternal world. We have but to winnow away the chaff and foreign seeds to have the pure grain. The philosophic discipline unfolds the interior nature of the soul, arouses the dormant truth there inhumed, brings into activty the spiritual faculty, and enables us to peruse the arcana of the higher life. It discloses the absolute identity of truth as a divine presence and manifestation in every people, a pure ideal in every faith, an overhanging sky over every lofty human aspiration.

The late Count Cavour, it is said, predicted a new religion for the coming century. The gradual waning of faith everywhere, and the honey-combing process which is steadily wearing away present institutions seem to afford a warrant for the declaration. The antipathies between races and creeds are steadily weakening. The West is constantly adopting the notions, habits and luxuries of India and China; and the bustling activity of Europe and America is shaking the whole fabric of Oriental custom. There is a steady unifying influence operating among the nations; the exigencies of commerce and daily communication, require and render more probable their acceptance and employing of a single language, which event would be the precursor of a common literature. The new worship must be accordant with the genius of the period. It will be at one with Science, but all the time intellective. There may be no single apostle or hierophant to establish it, but it will be the outgrowth of agencies now in operation. Doubtless, like the other world-religions, it will be founded upon some form or manifestation of the-supernatural; it will be evolved in a manner that will declare the relations of mankind in this form of existence with the greater and older universe and the essences that constitute it.

Already there is manifest among individuals of various shades of opinion in the thinking world, something like a reacting impulse against the materialism of the age, to arrest its progress before it shall totally benumb the moral sense of mankind. The modest little assemblages of late years, such as the School of Philosophy at Concord, the School of Christian Philosophy at Greenwood Lake, and other places, the various organisations of other forms, but all seeking to direct attention to a higher and more practical spirituality, are so many witnesses. The American Akademe, latest of them all, with a “Plato Club” for its nucleus and a goodly number steadily increasing of earnest, clear-seeing men and women for its membership, also voices the same conviction.

The times appear propitious for our venture. These things are so many assurances that we are taking a judicious step in the right direction. If one man on the side of God is in the majority, it is reasonable to presume that we, in this humble endeavor in behalf of the True and the Right, will not be on the side that fails from want of sympathisers and a deficient commissariat. We have put our hand to the work as a thing proper for us to undertake, leaving to the Divinity which inspires it, all considerations of prudence and results. It is ours individually in the fact that the work has seemed to fall to us; really, however, the whole number of those who cherish like affection for the higher knowledge and communion, are partakers of the labor and the reward—leaving to the editor as his part the gratification of the benefits of which he has been the instrument.

The scope of The Platonist will be extended to include not only the Wisdom-Religions of the archaic period, Oriental as well as Occidental philosophy, and expositions of the intrinsic and esoteric nature of the various beliefs of the world, but likewise philological investigations, translations and interpretations of the later writers as they may be offered; and in that every variety of energy and speculation relating to its department of labor or tending to enlarge the field of knowledge. Eminent writers and specialists both in America and the other Continent, have promised their assistance. The readers and patrons have therefore reassurable assurance that the pages will be supplied with rich material gathered by diligent hands and not unskilfully elaborated.

We have sent forth our little galley hopefully. The auspices have been examined, the overlooking divinities invoked, and all the propitiatory rites duly performed. The right arm of the oarsman and the benignity of the heavens must now be relied upon for the future of the voyage. We are sanguine and confident, because the Supreme Optimism that energises the universe is certain to work out the result which will be really good. It will inspire such co-operation as will best meet that end. We must be content to labor and to wait. We have indicated such apparent reasons as exist for hope that our undertaking will prosper. We shall be patient till they realise their assurance or disappoint us. The springtime is certain, whether we or others are to minister at its advent. Yet to those who desire to promote the knowledge of Philosophic Truth, and to-co-operate in the dissemination of such knowledge with a view to moral elevation and spiritual communion—to the real friends of The PLATONIST, the oracle is spoken: “now is an accepted time.” This work, this whole enterprise, all that it is and all that can be hoped from it, belong to you. The end is with you; its apocalypse will be yours.

All six books published by Astro-Philosophical Publishing of Denver are now available online. Previous blog posts have reported on three books by T.H. Burgoyne, and one each by Sarah S. Grimke and Henry Wagner. Belle Wagner’s sole contribution in book form was a novel based on ancient Egypt, Within the Temple of Isis. Henry Wagner’s introduction explains that fiction can sometimes be the best means of conveying truth:

We are safe in saying that ”Within The Temple of Isis” is unique and stands alone. There is no other book in print like it, and if Solomon of old had not said, “There is nothing new under the sun,” we would be inclined to contradict him.

“Within the Temple of Isis” God’s word was law as interpreted by his Hierophants; their oneness with the fountain of Being made them conscious of Nature’s secret operations, and enabled them, as it does the wise ones of to-day, to enter the Temple of Isis and observe the hidden mysteries concealed behind the veil.

Purity of motive and sincerity of purpose brought its own reward to them of old as it does to those of to-day who purify themselves before seeking for the knowledge and wisdom hidden within the “Holy of Holies”—”The Temple of Isis.”

Isis means Mother of all, while Osiris means Father of all.

The Temple of Two Truths as matter and spirit must be realized within.

The Polar Opposites are those of sex dually expressed as two poles of one law or principle as taught by Hermetic Philosophy before the law of polarization of spirit into matter, and matter back into spirit, can be understood.

The Alchemist and the Astrologer, alike, possess this wisdom, and it was this knowledge that made the Priests Kings of Egypt, so justly famous as Magicians or Wise Men.

They still exist in spirit realms and can transmit to this plane of earth their wisdom, that would make earth a veritable paradise if only the race could be made to realize its magical powers.

Scientific inventions of great moment to the race are thus projected to the earth, and spiritual Adepts in occult laws will again revive the “Wisdom Religion” upon earth in all its beauty and grandeur as the western race becomes fitted intellectually and spiritually to receive it.

Nature ever repeats herself in cycles of time on the spiritual and mental, as well as the physical planes of life.

End, there is none, time and eternity are the ever-present Now, so far as the spirit is concerned. Therefore, the readers of this strange occult book will some day realize its truths as realities of natural law on the spiritual planes of life. It is a clear, practical statement of Soul Marriage and of Soul Transfer from one earthly temple to that of another.

Nature’s laws are ever the same; therefore, the same experiences herein narrated are applicable to Neophytes seeking soul initiation to-day as they were in the days of The Temple of Isis, and if the veil of Isis could be raised for one single moment the world would be startled by the mysterious revelations disclosed.

To the Seers and the Occult Initiates alike, this book will appeal with magical force. Its truths are those of the soul and spirit, and can await the reader’s soul development for verification.

Truth needs no apology; therefore, none will be offered as an excuse for this publication. It is our desire that our readers may some day know for themselves that Truth is indeed stranger than Fiction.

In a life full of great adventures, Richard Francis Burton’s greatest feat was recorded in the Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah which describes his 1853 pilgrimage to Islamic shrines in Arabia. I recently read the sections of the first volume dealing with Egypt, since Burton’s meeting with Albert Rawson and Helena Blavatsky in that country foreshadow their Theosophical collaboration a quarter century later. Synchronistically, Christopher Gibson’s lead article in the current Quarterly emphasizes an adventurous spirit, and I have been thinking of Burton as in some ways the greatest exemplar of that type. In the preface to the Third Edition, he wrote of his disguise as a Sufi: “why rage so furiously against `the disguise of a wandering Darwaysh?’…Is the Darwaysh anything but an Oriental Freemason, and are Freemasons less Christians because they pray with Moslems and profess their belief in simple unitarianism?”(p. xxiii) Burton’s disguise also included the aspect of “Indian doctor” and his narrative includes many examples in which he was called upon for medical care. He explained in the first chapter of tne Narrative that even though still young, he had prepared himself for this alter ego:

But the reader must not be led to suppose that I acted “Carabin” or “Sangrado” without any knowledge of my trade. From youth I have always been a dabbler in medical and mystical study. Moreover, the practice of physic is comparatively easy amongst dwellers in warm latitudes…I therefore considered myself as well qualified for the work as if I had taken out a buono per l’estero diploma at Padua, and not more likely to do active harm than most of the regularly graduated young surgeons….A reverend man, whose name I do not care to quote, some time ago initiated me into his order, the Kadriyah, under the high-sounding name of Bismillah-Shah, and after a due period of probation, he graciously elevated me to the proud position of a Murshid, or Master in the mystic craft. I was therefore sufficiently well acquainted with the tenets and practices of these Oriental Freemasons.(pp. 13-14)

“Oriental Freemasonry” becomes a template adopted by Theosophy as well as the Shriners, significant in light of Albert Rawson’s acquaintance with both Burton and Blavatsky and his later influence on the Shrine rituals.

Rochester, New York was an early center of activity for the HBofL, site of one of the first two original lodges in the US.  The leader of the group was Mrs. Josephine Cables, a writer and editor prominent in the Theosophical movement.  A brief biography of her in the 1893 book Woman of the Century was written after her second marriage to William F. Aldrich, a northern industrialist who moved to Alabama in 1874 and attempted to operate a coal mine on progressive principles.  After this biographical entry was published Aldrich served three terms in Congress.

Mrs. Aldrich’s Theosophical and Hermetic interests were reflected in the name and design of the grand estate they built in Alabama, Rajah Lodge.  Their resting place in Washington, D.C. is a mausoleum in Rock Creek Cemetery, as opulent as their Alabama home.

 

Last week I learned of the existence of the 2010 collection, Constructing Tradition: Means and Myths of Transmission in Western Esotericism, published in the Netherlands by Brill and edited by Andreas B. Kilcher. It includes a long article by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke on the Theosophical Masters from their origins in Western esotericism to their ultimate amalgamation with Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist guru traditions. The article begins on page 113 and the first 17 pages are publicly accessible via Google Books through the above link. It represents the most thorough and best-informed explanation to date of Blavatsky’s construction of the Mahatmas, coming from a leading figure in academic study of esotericism.

I will devote a future blog post to the article, but soon after discovering the abovementioned publication I learned of the unexpected and sudden death last week of Dr. Goodrick-Clarke, whose compilation of Blavatsky writings has always been part of this site’s recommended reading list.  An appreciation of his life work by a former student and current colleague can be found here.  A researcher and writer on Theosophy and Spiritualism who studied under Goodrick-Clarke wrote another appreciation here. I met the Goodrick-Clarkes, Nicholas and his wife Clare, at a Theosophical History conference in London in 1986. The extent of his accomplishments in the field of Theosophical history in subsequent decades is very impressive, especially in light of his published work on many other lines of investigation.  His loss will be felt especially in the UK but around the world scholars of esoteric traditions will mourn his passing.

Many historical books have been digitized by Google books.  But sometimes the only digital copy of a book is on archive.org, a treasure trove for researchers.  1899 was an important year for Astro-Philosophical Publications of Denver, in that its founders Henry and Belle Wagner both published books of their own, followed in 1900 by the new second volume of Burgoyne’s The Light of Egypt and the Esoteric Lessons of Sarah Stanley Grimke.  The Duality of Truth  is the major work of Henry Wagner, M.D., and bears the imprint of his involvement with the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. An excerpt:

Immortality is born — a new Cycle entered upon — a new day dawns for mankind. Man realizes his relation to God as His child — inheritor of Wisdom, Knowledge and Truth — and, understanding himself, knowing himself with that consciousness born from intellect ripened into intuition which enables him to worship God in spirit and in truth. No longer bound by limitation he is free. His spirit can not be chained or imprisoned forever. Change, eternal change, brings light, love and life out of darkness, death and decay. Harmony out of discord. Eros out of chaos, two in one, God manifested in forms, male and female — positive and negative.(p 30)

From the preface to Volume II of The Light of Egypt (1900)

God is present in all ages and races, manifesting His love and wisdom throughout infinite creations, and that He records, in His own way, the most detailed record of any event which takes place, thus giving to man a complete history of His works and will, for man’s enlightenment, so that he, too, may cooperate intelligently with the God in every way that intelligence wills to manifest. Prehistoric history is not blotted out from Nature’s laboratory. The Astral Book of Karmic evolution will one day reveal its hidden treasures to mankind as the recording angels give up those gems of truth they have so jealously guarded for untold cycles of time, simply because the time was not ripe for its divulgence.

There is a time for everything, and when that time arrives all past history of our planet’s evolution will be written in an intelligent manner for the illumination and education of man as the masterpiece of the Living God. In this way man will worship Deity and perfect his God-nature, even to Angel-hood.

The second volume of The Light of Egypt was presented, and has been understood, as the product of a channeling process by Belle Wagner contacting the spirit of Thomas H. Burgoyne after his death.  This led me to assume that its literary and intellectual qualities would have deteriorated in the second volume, but such is not the case.  Volume II is actually better written and more appealing than the 1889 edition, and one of the keynotes of the Astro-Philosophical Publishing authors was a pro-science, pro-technology enthusiasm about the future that Henry Wagner in particular expressed repeatedly.  Some of their hopes of “unlocking the secrets of evolution” have indeed been fulfilled in the human genome project.