Tag: Blog

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.

The 1900 edition of The Light of Egypt included a new Volume II, and “Zanoni” of the 1889 edition was identified as T.H. Burgoyne, who had passed to the subjective plane, from which he dictated the new volume to Belle Wagner, his successor as Secretary of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor.  In earlier blog posts I have explained reasons for skepticism about Burgoyne’s reported death in 1894.  Still, I had always assumed that the second volume of The Light of Egypt consisted of his manuscripts edited by Wagner.  There are however other possibilities, one of which is that it is largely the work of Genevieve Stebbins.  In the publisher’s preface, Henry Wagner wrote:

“The Tablets of Aeth” is a great and mighty work, as it contains the very quintessence of Occult and Hermetic philosophy, as revealed by spiritual law. “Penetralia” is a new revelation, and invaluable to Occult students, as it is the personal experience of a developed soul.

To all lovers of Truth we respectfully recommend this Book of Books, at is has justly been called by many who are competent to criticize its teachings….

“Book of books“ from my incompetent perspective suggests that instead of having a single author, The Light of Egypt, more so in 1900 than in 1889, is a compilation of the work of several.  The Tablets of Aeth have a very different “voice” than Burgoyne’s in the 1889 edition.  Its introduction is among the more haunting passages in HBofL literature:

Accept it then, even as it is given unto you.  My friends and brethren, accept it as Zanoni’s last work on earth—his legacy to you, and may the spirit of the All-Father-Mother, the ineffable spirit of Life, Light, and Love, – the Unknowable, whom men call God, rest upon you and be with you now and forever.

This editorial appeared May 20, 1841 in the National Anti-Slavery Standard:

Thus in the Anti-Slavery Reform, the central Idea was that no one man had the right to make property of another man. “Stop there” minds applied it only to negro chattels, “go ahead” minds saw it in various collateral bearings…in America, women heard it announced, and repeated, that every human had the right to full and free opportunities for the development of all their powers…A large and stirring class of minds asked, “Why has woman nothing to do with politics? Is she not bought, and sold, and brutalized, by laws which politicians make and sustain?” While they paused for a satisfactory answer, Angelina Grimke and her sister came among them…Curiosity, combined with better motives, brought crowds to hear the Carolinian sisters; and it became necessary to ask the use of churches to accommodate them. With many clergymen this became a really troublesome question of conscience; and many were willing to use it as such to veil their hostility to anti-slavery. “Stop there” minds looked back anxiously to St. Paul to arrest the progress of this innovation.

(Lydia Maria Child Reader, 194-5)

The alliance of abolitionism and feminism was still a factor in the environment of Sarah Stanley Grimke in the 1880s, but we see in this passage how early the two causes were linked by the activism of Sarah Moore Grimke and her sister Angelina Grimke Weld.  Lydia Maria Child  is one of the major sources for the writings of Emma Hardinge Britten, and was personally well acquainted with the Weld and Grimke families.

In his 1896 publication Celestial Dynamics, Thomas H. Burgoyne wrote:

“Past earth lives” and the cumulative effect of a previous karma upon the mental, moral, and financial status of the present embodied individuals are, of all the speculative follies in which the undeveloped human mind has indulged, the most insidious and ensnaring, especially to the half awakened souls who possess a natural love for occult and metaphysical studies; they see as through a glass darkly, and feel satisfied that the half understood subtleties of oriental dogmas rationally solve the problem of good and evil, mental genius and mediocre brains. (p. 50)

This passage is one of many that could be found in the literature of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor.  In the Church of Light, opposition to reincarnationist teaching is more politely stated, but still consistent.  When we look to earlier sources for explanations, the most emphatic anti-reincarnationist writings which were familiar to the HBofL founders were those of Emma Hardinge Britten.  Spiritualism continues to be divided between opponents and proponents of reincarnationism; whereas in the wider field of the occult the anti-reincarnationist view has apparently become that of a small minority.

“The Early Theosophical Society and the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor” is the title of a presentation I gave in absentia in late June, at a conference on Esoteric Traditions in the Ancient and Modern World, held in Greece.  Most presentations are being placed on Youtube so readers of this blog  may find others of interest in links from this one. Marc Demarest’s study of Godfrey Higgins, “The Armchair Occultist,” is well worth hearing. While appearing in absentia in Greece, I was also making a presentation live at the 16th Melungeon Union, hosted by the Melungeon Heritage Association, of which I am Vice President.

Spiritualism is as significant as Theosophy and New Thought as sources of ideas found in the Church of Light.  The role of Spiritualism in transmission of Hermetic themes is discussed in Cathy Gutierrez’s 2009 study from Oxford University Press, Plato’s Ghost.  The conclusion of her third chapter on medicine offers two paragraphs worth contemplating for contemporary Hermeticists:

The Spiritualists were the inheritors of the Renaissance worldview, indebted to hermeticism in general and Kabbalism in particular, that viewed the natural world as utterly shot through with the divine. With the universe as the infinite replication of the divine man, the human body itself took on a central importance as a representative of the image of the cosmos and the vessel for the influx of the universal material or fluid… Many scholars have noted that Spiritualism was at the forefront of democratizing American Christiantiy; believers inveighed against Calvinist election, fought for the equality of the sexes and something approximating equality for the races, dispensed with hell, and threw heaven open to all religions….Spiritualism refused to accept a model whereby the body was the temporary prison of the soul, and argued insted for a form of enspirited matter in which the soul cast the light in the map of the body.(p. 141)

The first copy of The Light of Egypt I owned was the Spanish translation,  found in Monterrey, Mexico in 1991: La Luz de Egipto, the 2^nd 1978 paperback edition from Editorial Kier in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  In 1968 the first Kier edition had appeared in hardcover, and represents the translation by Emma B. MacDonald of the 1963 edition published by Wagner descendants in Denver.  That edition refers to the book having been out of print for sixty years.  In addition to many puzzles about its authorship, The Light of Egypt has a publication history that also includes mysterious elements.  The Spanish translation, now out of print, is of the most recent new edition of the book; there have been several reprints of that and earlier editions.  While C.C. Zain praised the book and its authors as authoritative earlier statements of the Brotherhood teachings, there was little emphasis on it in the CofL in his lifetime and less so thereafter.  The Argentinian publisher Kier is a mainstream firm, which included La Luz de Egipto as part of its “collecion pronostico.” Preliminary searches have yielded no evidence of the Spanish translation being cited elsewhere, nor discussed by any Spanish speakers online, but there must have been some perceived market for the book in the 1960s and 70s.  Why and how the book came back into print in Spanish translation is a subject about which I hope to learn more in future.

Fifteen years have elapsed since my last book on metaphysical and occult subjects. The intervening years have entailed a shift of emphasis to racial and political dimensions of 19^th century America. In 2010, a chapter examining Quakerism and abolitionism in my mother’s family history was published in the collection Carolina Genesis. Two years earlier, Pell Mellers explored my father’s family roots among Southern Unionists and colonial mulattoes. While working on these multigenerational family history projects, I took a half dozen different DNA tests in a decade of investigation. Each test measured in various ways my kinship to different groups of people; sometimes with crystal clear answers to research questions but often with confusing and ambiguous results. In this post I will propose DNA as a metaphor for different ways of exploring kinship among different spiritual groups. This University of Utah site explains the four types of DNA.

Whether the subject was Theosophical Mahatmas, Edgar Cayce’s Akashic Records, or my father’s legendary ancestor Chief Cucklemaker, the results of my investigations have tended to demythologize stories that some people prefer to take at face value. This caused some rejection of each book, due to the politically inconvenient or embarrassing aspects of what they reveal. But in each case another, unexpected group of readers ended up appreciating the work in ways that succeeded beyond my greatest hopes. Most vividly, this occurred with two branches of my father’s family in recent years. Pell Mellers opens with a chapter called In Search of the Dunlows, and closes with one called Johnson Reunions.  Beginning with a quest focused on one family, I ended with an unexpected connection to another.  Searching for Dunlows, but finding Johnsons, is related to specific differences between two types of knowledge available through DNA testing.  While there is no genealogical difference in degrees of cousinhood with descendants of common ancestors, there is a genetic difference in the knowledge we can have of our kinship.  Tests of Y and mitochondrial DNA yield precise assignments to haplogroups which can be traced through millennia.  But autosomal tests show the approximate ethnic blending that has occurred in recent generations, and give far less consistent and reliable results. Of eight great-grandparents, only one of each gender carries the sex-linked traits: one’s father’s father’s father, and one’s mother’s mother’s mother. The other six contribute to the autosomal DNA only.

Last summer I was interviewed by North Carolina Public Radio about Melungeons, and went into considerable detail about both autosomal and sex-linked DNA tests and what they reveal about Melungeon heritage. In terms of the spiritual ancestry of the Church of Light, “Hermetic” has the specificity and clarity of a Y or mitochondrial haplogroup, while “occult,” “metaphysical,” or “Theosophical” have the same fuzziness and confusion of autosomal test results. That is, the collection of inherited traits that are used to define occultism, or metaphysics, or Theosophy, tend to overlap and combine in random ways. Whereas the memes that define Hermeticism are more traceable in a specific line to a particular time and place. There will be more to say on this in future posts, but I will close this one with a passage from Sarah Stanley Grimke’s 1886 First Lessons in Reality that seems eerily suggestive of the double helix of DNA:

The fact that Ariadna’s twist of thread symbolizes this inner, intuitive Ray, is evident from the derivation of the word twist, as well as from the formation itself of a twist. Thus the Greek work skiza is a twist, a torch, a flame. Our word scissors is also derived from this same word.

Again, in its formation, a twist expresses the mystery of this Law, thus the twist is composed of two strands (each strand double), which are first twisted in opposite directions, then by being doubled back upon each other, the two strands fly magically into one manifestion.

I have added Catherine L. Albanese’s A Republic of Mind and Spirit to the recommended reading list, joining Gary Lachman’s The Quest for Hermes Trismegistus and Mitch Horowitz’s Occult America as valuable recent secondary sources about esoteric traditions in which the Church of Light is grounded.  Each of these books provides intriguing accounts of many characters and groups in the tapestry of 19^th-20^th century “alternative religious movements”.  Due to their breadth of coverage and depth of research, any of these books will expand the knowledge and increase the understanding of readers. Albanese’s style and target readership are more scholarly, but all three authors are historically reliable and insightful.  Albanese emphasizes metaphysical religion, while Horowitz traces the more diffuse field of “the occult” and Lachman pursues the thread of Hermetic wisdom.  All these are relevant to the Church of Light’s identity, seemingly equally so.

Nevertheless, “occult” and “metaphysical” strike me as basically different categories than “Hermetic,” reflecting a looser family resemblance and kinship.  Occultism and metaphysics seem antiquated as frameworks for spirituality in the 21^st century, whereas Hermeticism is ready for major rediscovery.  “Occultism” as hidden traditional knowledge is rooted in two millennia of persecution of pre-Christian practices and beliefs. When Hermetic teachings emerged into semi –public view in the late 19^th century, it was in the form of secret societies due to the legacy of oppression.  But having begun as an adaptation to real danger of persecution, by the 20^th century occultist secrecy was exalted into an inherent value– and justified by imaginary enemies.   When 19^th century occultism and metaphysics defined themselves in terms of opposition to  “materialist science and dogmatic religion” they became inevitably dated.  In the 21^st century science and religion are far more expansive and diverse, and Hermeticism need not (and will not) define itself as oppositional to them.    

In a sense the Church of Light is both occult and metaphysical. One “parent” group—the male dominated and hierarchical HBofL, manifested occult secrecy to far greater extent than its parent group the Theosophical Society.  But another group in the CofL’s ancestry, the female dominated Light, Truth, Love was purely in the metaphysical lineage of Christian Science and New Thought, and had a more informal style.  Indeed, anti-authoritarianism was the basis of its founders’ secession from Mrs. Eddy’s ranks in 1881.  Albanese’s thesis is that 19th century American occultism and metaphysics, as exemplified by Blavatsky and Eddy among others, are a revival of Hermeticism.  The Church of Light, although not mentioned by Albanese, is even more illustrative of her thesis than Theosophy or Christian Science, because in this case the Hermetic element is clearly acknowledged and celebrated as the defining basis for belief and practice.

In 1896, a small book was published by Astro-Philosophical Publishing Company of Denver,  Celestial Dynamics: A Course of Astrological Study, identified as having been written by “the author of The Language of the Stars and The Light of Egypt.” He was identified by the penname Zanoni and the swastika symbol.  The introduction states that “it was the intention of both the author and publisher to give the reading public Celestial Dynamics shortly after the publication of `The Language of the Stars’ in 1892, as announced on the cover of that book, but circumstances over which we have had no control, caused the delay until now…The time for Celestial Dynamics is now.  May it ever find those ready for its teachings, prepared to realize its sublime truths so ably stated by its author whose motto is `Omnia Vincit Veritas.'”(pp. 17-18)  There is no mention here of Thomas H. Burgoyne being dead, although in the 1900 second volume of The Light of Egypt he was thus described, and a death date of 1894 had been attributed.  As readers of this blog know, my interest in Sarah Stanley Grimke’s writings inspires investigation of her possible contributions to anonymous or pseudonymous publications.  Celestial Dynamics ranks high among such possibilities. Kessinger Publishing reprinted the book in 2003 and listed the authorship as Anonymous.  But the last previous edition, from Health Research in 1966, listed the author as Thomas H. Burgoyne.  In the future I will post about comparisons of this book with Grimke’s astrological writings, but for now just want to announce the availability of the reprint and the different attributions.  Closing with an excerpt that I found revealing and inspirational:

As there are no special laws relating to any individual,  no private legislature possible in the Divine economy of creative law, we must be a part of all that transpires in the action and inter-action of the planetary and stellar worlds.  Cosmic law must affect us in proportion to our state, as it does the dazzling worlds of space. This being so we must first of all look to those primary centers of force and grasp their power before we attempt to bind and measure the reactions of those powers as they become manifest in ourselves.

With the foregoing before us, we can see that those powers which mould and guide the life of the physical man are the vibrations received from the forces which mould and guide the destinies of worlds, the only difference being the length of the orbit of action; in our own case, a few fleeting seasons only, in the case of worlds, embracing untold millions of ages.(pp. 17-18)

Cyrus A. Bartol, the Unitarian minister who married Sarah Stanley and Archibald Grimke in 1879, had been Sarah’s philosophy professor at Boston University.  Family correspondence shows that Bartol was delighted by the marriage, which Sarah’s father attributed to her being led astray by “insane theorizers” of Boston. 

Bartol was best known as a transcendentalist, and his influence on Sarah Stanley Grimke was based on his philosophical and theological writings, The Rising Faith (1874) being current at the time of their first acquaintance.  But he had become known many years before as author of travel literature. His Pictures of Europe, Framed in Ideas (1856) is the most notable of his early works.

As pastor of West Church in Boston from 1837, and sole pastor from 1861 through retirement in 1889, he was the most visible exponent of Transcendentalism in that city in a career spanning five decades.

This portrait was found on the informative bostonunitarian blog.

A Republic of Mind & Spirit (Yale University Press, 2007) by Catherine L. Albanese is the most valuable recent book on American religious history for background on the roots of the Church of Light.  The author is former president of the American Academy of Religion, currently professor and chair of Religious Studies at the University of California- Santa Barbara.  This book was hailed as “a monumental synthesis,” very well received by reviewers, which augurs well for “metaphysical religion” as a dimension appreciated by American historians.  I encountered it first as a source of detail about Elizabeth G. Stuart, a major influence on Sarah Stanley Grimke, and thereby on the Church of Light.   Albanese includes abundant material on Theosophy, Christian Science, and New Thought, but is especially valuable in tracing Hermetic elements through all these traditions.  Future posts will explore Stuart further, but here I will suggest four layers discernable in Sarah Stanley Grimke’s literary influences:

1) abolitionism from her own Stanley family heritage as well as her husband’s Grimke/Weld family history

2) transcendentalism from her education at Boston University, especially from Cyrus A. Bartol, her philosophy professor and the Unitarian clergyman who married her and Archibald Grimke in 1879

3) New Thought feminism in the entourage of Mrs. Stuart, Emma Austin Tolles, and others, starting in the early 1880s and continuing throughout her life

4) Hermetic astrology through her collaboration with Thomas H. Burgoyne and association with Dr. Henry Wagner, her publisher

Although Grimke reached Hermeticism as the final stage of her journey, Albanese’s account shows Hermeticism as an inspiration from the very beginnings of American metaphysical religion.  Here is the passage most succinct in summarizing that theme:

Along a spectrum from occultism to mind cure and the transformation of the Self, we can spot the familiar signature of correspondence, the drawing down of energies of Mind and Spirit, and the strong intent to heal.  In the terms of this narrative, too, we can watch the easy glide from a (material) magic, resonating, however unconventionally, with the magical practice of a past Hermeticism to a newer, mental Magic characterizing Christian Science and New Thought.  Here a simpler work of mind and imagination prevailed; and the esoteric turned—as in Spiritualism—exoteric.(p. 259)

 

Horatio Dresser’s history of New Thought, quoted in my last entry, linked the teachings of Sarah Stanley Grimke to those of Elizabeth G.Stuart.  But until visiting the Moorland-Springarn Research Center at Howard University last month, I had not known that Stuart’s involvement with Grimke and her daughter Angelina had lasted for many years.

Of special relevance to Church of Light roots is evidence in the Grimke letters concerning Stuart’s group “Light, Truth, Love” which operated into the 20^th century. First person references to slavery in Grimke’s Esoteric Lessons seem to transfer the rhetoric of abolitionism to the cause of feminism.  No doubt influences behind this include the Weld/Grimke family into which Sarah married, all of whose eminent members had connected women’s rights with the anti-slavery movement.  Mrs. Stuart’s public statements are few, but she significantly gave an address at an event that did precisely that— connect the liberation of women to that of black slaves– the International Council of Women held from March 25 through April 1, 1888, sponsored by the Woman Suffrage Association.  Note the prominence of Frederick Douglass in the proceedings.  Here is Mrs. Stuart’s address, given on the final day:

THE POWER OF THOUGHT.

Mrs. Stuart. I come before you as a member of the organization known as Humanity: passport to that organization, Spirit of Truth; basis of work, Common Sense; theory, Evolution. What is truth? Pythagoras said, “Truth is so great a perfection that if God were to render himself visible to man, he would choose Light for his body and Truth for his soul!” Truth is one, with infinite expressions; expression implies limitation, while truth is unlimited. Truth rests upon the law of identity, established through the law of polar or real opposites and its twin sister, the law of contradictories, revealed to man by the science of numbers. It is to that science man must look for a solution of the problems of life in their varied relations.

No science of ethics, which exempts the physical, can be true, since it makes man dependent upon the conditions of the body. No system of physics can be true which strikes from its premises the spiritual law, since it degrades morals to a dependence upon the physical. Man as a unit is governed by one law through his entire being, spiritually, intellectually, and physically, ever in the one order from the higher to the next lower.

The imaging faculty is the highest known to man; through it he expresses the ideal, and it is the means by which he expresses to the senses whatever intellect accepts, thus forming the relation between mind and body. Through that open door fear enters and stamps upon the body distorted, untrue mental images, which physicians name, then proceed to try to erase from the body by physical means.

It is a self-evident absurdity that a picture in mind can be removed by rubbing the body. Fear in the mind, from any cause, increases the heat of the body; and, as the thermometer rises higher and higher, we see the different degrees known as first inflammation, then congestion, ulceration, and so on.

“As a man thinketh, that he becometh.” As is the mind, so is the thought; as is the thought, so is the image expressed in form externally. Let him keep his picture-gallery free from impurity, who would have pure blood. Whatever he does not desire to appear in the external, must be watchfully kept out of the mind; once there, its picture hangs upon the inner walls, ready for the favorable moment to appear. The imaging faculty is both cause and cure for all bodily discord.

The first history of the New Thought movement, published in 1919, mentions Sarah Stanley Grimke, relating her thought to that of Mrs. Elizabeth G. Stuart.  My latest research has found that their association lasted for many years and had great significance in the life of Grimke and her family.

One of the earliest of the mental science writers, Miss S. S. Grimke, in a book bearing the curious title Personified Unthinkables, 1884, interpreted the practical idealism with special reference to mental pictures and their influence. This emphasis on mental pictures was characteristic of Mr. Quimby. In fact, Quimby sometimes described the mental part of his treatment with reference to the pictures he discerned intuitively in the patient’s mind, and the ideal pictures in connection with which “the truth of a patient’s being” was established in place of the “error or disease.”(1)

Q. In a letter sent by H.P.B. to the President of the Ionian branch of the Theosophical Society she expresses interest in knowing what is the situation regarding Mazzini bust. Why H.P.B. was interested in Giuseppe Mazzini? What was the connection of HP.Blavatsky with the Carbonari?

A. Blavatsky claimed to have fought and been injured in the 1867 battle of Mentana, and speaks of knowing the Garibaldis who could vouch for her.  Admiring references to Mazzini are found in other TS founders sources like Charles Sotheran and Herbert Monachesi, and of course Olcott. Later Rene Guenon described HPB as having been involved in the Jeune Europe movement which had been established by Mazzini. He was passionately anti-clerical and promoted a spirituality that would be more liberal and inclusive than that of the Catholic Church.  Hence Blavatsky’s resonance with Mazzini’s ideas could have been equally political and spiritual.  Likewise her admiration for Cagliostro and his “Egyptian Masonry” which also seems to have been common among the several TS founders.

Q. In a letter of Alessandro Rombotti (Naples, June, 1878) he mentions the following: Mr. Lambro Papagiorgin delivered to him in the presence of other persons a letter from Olcott, leaving without even to shake his hands. Have u ever heard about Mr. Lambro Papagiorgin before?

A. I have not heard his name, but am curious about the “Greek gentleman” described by Emma Coulomb as having been secretary of HPB’s Societe Spirite in Cairo.  We can add this name to the list of people who need further investigation.

Q. In a letter dated of 6th June, 1878 (Naple, Italy) Alexander Rombotti mentions the following in reply to a letter from H.P.Blavatsky: As I have no friends in France and so find it impossible to get information about the Buddhist priest, who is a Professor of Sanskrit in Paris, I venture to ask you if you have an opportunity after of finding out his address, or that of any other, to let me have it I shall be much obliged to you.In another letter he also mentions the following: Corfu 23, 4th April, 1878. I send this to tell you that I am entirely convinced of the truth of your theories, and that I have decided to embrace the religion of Buddha. Though not having the original letters that H.P.B. sent to them, is obvious she mentions about Buddhism and also a Buddhist priest who is a Professor of Sanskrit in Paris, do you have any idea who was this teacher she refers to?

A. There were several institutions in Paris at the time who taught Sanskrit but I cannot identify any non-Westerner among their faculties, nor any Buddhist priests. Abel Bergaigne was Professor of Sanskrit at the Sorbonne from 1878 through his death, and presumably the person mentioned by Rombotti was known to him.

Q.Who was Agardi Metrovitch and what the nature of his relationship with H.P.Blavatsky?

A. Metrovitch was an opera performer with whom Blavatsky traveled in eastern Europe in the 1860s, and who had been politically active against the Austrian imperial government.  He appears to have died in a shipwreck en route from Greece to Egypt which Blavatsky survived.   HPB’s cousin Sergei de Witte and her friend-then-enemy Emma Coulomb both described the relationship as marital (or quasi-marital) but no other evidence has emerged to confirm or contradict this description.

Q. Do you think Yuri was H.P.B.’s son?

A. There is too little evidence on which to base an informed opinion, but the fragmentary references to him suggest that this is probable.

Q. In your book you mention that Paulo Metamon was H.P.B’s first occult teacher in Egypt. Mirra Alfassa’s claim that Max Theon taught H.P.B.  Do you think that Paulo Metamon could have been Max Theon?

A. No, because Max Theon is well established as having been of Polish Jewish origin and to have been younger than Blavatsky.  Since he apparently spent time in Egypt in the early 1870s, it is possible that he was acquainted with Metamon at the time which gave rise to later misunderstandings.

Q. Who was John King and what was the nature of his influence on H.P.B.?

A.    John King was frequently claimed as a spirit guide by a succession of Spiritualists beginning with the Davenport brothers in 1850 and continuing well into the early 20th century with Eusapia Palladino.  He claimed to be the spirit of Henry Morgan, a Caribbean pirate who became governor of Jamaica in 1673.  HPB claimed to be in communication with John King in her early years in New York, and this presumably helped give her credibility with Spiritualists.  She told one Spiritualist that she had been in daily communication with John King for fourteen years, and wrote to another that he had twice saved her life.

Q. Could you tell us about the Brotherhood of Luxor and the H.B. of L: in your opinion they were the same organization? If yes which are the evidences to sustain that?

A. They were definitely not the same organization.  The Brotherhood of Luxor was an imaginary organization first reported by Kenneth Mackenzie in his 1877 Cyclopedia of Freemasonry, then endorsed by HPB in Isis Unveiled later the same year.  Apart from these two allegations no evidence of its existence has ever surfaced. The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor was a real historical organization created in England 1884 and combining the names of two fictitious entities described by Mackenzie’s Cyclopedia, the other being the “Hermetic Brothers of Egypt.”

Q. Since the publication of  your book “The Masters Revealed” have you find more evidences to sustain the hypotheses that Ranbir Singh, Maharaja of Kashmir was “Master Morya” and Sirdar Takar Singh Sandhanwalia- founder of the Singh Sabba (Punjabi ally of the T.S.) -was “K.H.”?

A: I have not pursued further investigations on those lines, but would encourage readers to examine The Durbar in Lahore, HPB’s only book that has never been reprinted in book form.  It is now available online and reveals Blavatsky in a light that readers of her English language works might find rather different. It would be more correct to state that Ranbir Singh and Thakar Singh were respectively prototypes for M. and K.H. rather than that they were these individuals.  They correspond in some details to the portrayals of these Mahatmas, and no other plausible candidates have emerged since my books were published.  But the nature of the evidence is such that any conclusive identifications are probably impossible.  The one book by HPB that prominently features Ranbir Singh is the only one that has been generally unavailable for Theosophists and others to examine.  I would urge anyone seeking background on the subject to read it carefully.

Q. When was the last time a letter from the Mahatmas was received (before the 1900’s one) and in your opinion which was the reason the letters stopped.

A.    This is difficult to answer because it presumes that some letters were actually received from Mahatmas.  I find the evidence insufficient to justify accepting that presumption—or denying it.  If we amend that to “allegedly” received, the circumstances after the Hodgson Report were not advantageous to any further public claims about phenomena, including Mahatma letters, after the
end of 1885.  The last received to Sinnett as recorded in the Mahatma Letters volume is dated 1885.  But Olcott received an alleged Mahatma letter aboard a ship in 1888, and Annie Besant’s belief and then disbelief in such letters coming through William Q. Judge created a crisis in the TS in the mid-1890s.

Q. Hume made a great work to India while Sinnett passed away in relative obscurity, making séances trying to contact the Masters. Do you think there is a kind of wrong judgment (between theosophists) regarding these two personalities?

A.     Sinnett was credulous while Hume was incredulous at the claims being made on behalf of the Masters.  Sinnett’s credulity sought other outlets after his relationship with HPB deteriorated.  HPB and the Mahatma letters criticize the attitude of credulous believers who accept pronouncements on authority—which is exactly the attitude displayed by Sinnett, and indeed was encouraged on his part.  Hume strikes me as a much better role model, focusing his energies constructively on positive social change rather than fantasies about mediumistic contacts with adepts.  Because the Mahatma letters treat Hume as a villain for disbelieving in their authenticity, and treat Sinnett as a hero for championing the cause of the Masters, Theosophists have tended to regard them in the same light.  But I hope that Hume’s character might be better appreciated in the future.

Q. Is the H.B. of L an offshoot of the Orphic Circle? Could you tell us about the Orphic Circle, how was created who were the persons involved why and when was dissolved.

A. The term Orphic Circle originates with Emma Hardinge Britten, who late in her career named three individuals: Edward Bulwer Lytton, the astrologer “Zadkiel” Richard James Morrison, and the inventor Philip Henry Stanhope as part of the group of occult investigators with whom she worked as a young clairvoyante.    Lytton became an enthusiast of magic, astrology, and Rosicrucian lore early in his writing career, and by the late 1830s had associated himself with the Morrison and Stanhope in a private study circle.  It was never formally created or disbanded, but was an informal association of fellow explorers.  Stanhope’s death in 1855 seems to be the end of the association.

Q. Edward Bulwer Lytton was high regarded by Blavatsky and Emma. Was he a member of the H.B. of L. or of the Orphic Circle? Did Blavatsky meet him at all?

The HBofL was created years after his death, but he was the central node in the network described by Emma as the Orphic Circle.  One hypothesis about HPB’s meeting of a Master in London is that it was Bulwer-Lytton who was being described, this from the most popular biography to date, by Marion Meade.  A doctoral study in Denmark concluded that Bulwer-Lytton had strongly influenced the content of Isis Unveiled.  But there are no definite claims that HPB met him, only a mass of evidence that she was passionately interested in his writings. 

Q. In the 19th century there was an extensive use of literary pseudonyms,  prototypes, fictionalizations in almost endless variations. Which attempts were made -up today- to trace the personalities behind the endless pseudonyms used during that period?

A. Robert Matthiesen and Marc Demarest have pursued solutions to the mystery of “Chevalier Louis,” narrator of Ghost Land, both based on extensive research.    Demarest’s prototype for Louis is the more persuasive, in my opinion, but both are examples of investigations of literary pseudonyms.   My own research at the moment is focused on the book The Light of Egypt, pseudonymously authored by “Zanoni”.  At this point in the investigation, there seem to be three women and at least one man who all contributed to that work, and it may take years before the story is unraveled. 

Recently published materials that delve into these questions are few, but a new book has just appeared from Theosophical Publishing House—Wheaton that I consider valuable.  Sufism and the Way of Blame by Yannis Toussoulis is the work of an author with many years of experience both as a scholar and practitioner of Sufism.   He delves into the question of Gurdjieff’s “Sarmoung Brotherhood” and my own hypothesis that Prince Esper Ukhtomsky was the original for Gurdieff’s “Prince Lubovedsky.”  Toussoulis’s book is worthwhile for many other reasons than its discussion of this pseudonym, but is groundbreaking as the first book by a Theosophical publisher to comment on such matters in recent years.  His analysis of Meetings with Remarkable Men does not discuss any others among Gurdjieff’s legendary mentors, but that mysterious book is a perfect example of the many remaining puzzles involving pseudonyms in the literature of occultism.

Q. What originally led you down the path of the occult and Theosophy?

I grew up in coastal Virginia, with relatives who had known Edgar Cayce as a friend and neighbor.   One cousin wrote a book about him in the late 1960s, and Virginia Beach was becoming a New Age Mecca by 1977 when I discovered the large collection of Theosophical books at the A.R.E. (Association for Research and Enlightenment) Library and Conference Center.  This inspired a decades-long interest in Blavatsky and Olcott as well as many later Theosophical and metaphysical writings.  In the 1980s and 90s I was intermittently active in local Theosophical and Search for God (A.R.E. sponsored) groups as well as  Integral Yoga satsangs, Fourth Way and Sufi study groups.  All these inspired historical curiosity about the links among these traditions.  HPB’s links to Gurdjieff and Sufism were the initial inquiries that led eventually to my books about the Masters.

Q. Are you an active member of the Theosophical Society?

A. No, my only active membership in a spiritual group is with The Church of Light.

Q. Do you think the foundation of the Theosophical Society was part of a ‘hidden political’ agenda?

A. Some of the founding members were notoriously political in their other motivations and involvements, with Charles Sotheran the most extreme case, but others appear to have more moderate and less politically motivated, e.g. the Brittens.   Overall I do not see Russian or American political hidden agendas of much importance in the founding of the TS.  But its various Masonic and British diplomatic links, and the associated agendas are highly significant factors from the start of the TS.   There are also multiple indications that Italian and Greek nationalism were highly significant in the very beginning years of the TS and intertwined with spiritual and occult pursuits.   But the most significant political associations of the TS did not develop until its move to India.

Q.     What do you think about the work of the Theosophical Society today?

A.    Having had little contact in recent years, all I can say is that I am full sympathy with the Objects of the Society, and am very grateful for the support and assistance of many Theosophists in my research.

Q. In your book The Masters Revealed you present a series of hypotheses regarding the identity of the Theosophical Mahatmas, what led you into this kind of academic research?

A. When Leslie Price inaugurated the Theosophical History Centre in 1985, I was among the initial subscribers to the Theosophical History journal which he edited, and presented papers at Theosophical history conferences in London in 1986, 1988, and 1989.  After the Gurdjieff/Sufi inquiry, the second historical puzzle I wrote about was the relationship between HPB and Albert Leighton Rawson.  Freemasonry, and particularly Italian and Egyptian political associations in the mid-19^th century, was also related to HPB in a paper I presented on “Metrovitch and the Carbonari Connection.”  But the project of identifying Theosophical adepts, Masters, or Mahatmas with historical prototypes did not begin to take shape until the end of the 1980s.  In early 1990 I traveled to India and France to spend several weeks in historical research about Blavatsky’s sources.

Q.      Which member of the Ionian Branch of the T.S. intrigues you most and why?

A.      Otho Alexander is an intriguing figure for several reasons.  Since I am a member of the Church of Light which descends from the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, I’m especially interested in Alexander’s distribution of letters from HPB which allegedly supported the HBL position about her exchanging one set of Masters for another.  But Alexander also reverted to loyalty to the TS in his later years, which raises questions about his disaffiliation with the HBL.  There are two aspects of Alexander’s career that are particularly relevant to the question of mysterious adepts behind the scenes of the early TS.  He was a vice-consul in Corfu for the United Kingdom, at a time when British diplomats in the Eastern Mediterranean figured in Blavatsky’s network of sponsors, for example Richard F. Burton and Raphael Borg.  The Ionian TS was the very first branch outside New York City, which again suggests important early links between Alexander and HPB, heretofore unexplored.  She described visiting Greek friends with Metrovitch en route to Egypt in 1871, and of course the identity of “Hilarion Smerdis” remains unknown.  This leads me to think that eventually Corfu will provide some useful clues to understanding the network of adepts that were behind the scenes of the early TS. (to be continued)