Platonism

Chapter 5 argues that Blavatsky’s works are an important site for the intersection of occultist thought with nineteenth-century Classicism. It shows that Blavatsky initially argued that Pythagoras and Plato were advocates of metempsychosis and that later, she said they taught reincarnation. The chapter considers the relationship between Blavatsky’s rebirth teachings and her constructions of the ancient Greeks, situating her interest within a far-ranging nineteenth-century fascination with Classical civilisation. It argues that Blavatsky’s interpretations had substantial anti-establishment elements and that they were influenced by her friend, the American physician Alexander Wilder (1823–1908), himself a member of an American Platonic tradition with roots in Transcendentalism and the thought of the English neo-Platonist Thomas Taylor (1758–1835). The chapter shows that Blavatsky drew on her sources to construe the Greeks according to an occultist exegesis that claimed Hellenism had an Oriental source and located parallels for Greek rebirth ideas in Hebraic, Gnostic, and Indian thought.

Reincarnation in The Secret Doctrine

Chapter 3 exposes the differences between Blavatsky’s earlier and later theories of rebirth through a close reading of her second major work, The Secret Doctrine (1888). The chapter begins by explaining the ‘macrocosmic’ aspects of Blavatsky’s reincarnation doctrine, that is, her cosmology, which describes the birth, death, and rebirth of planets, solar systems, and even universes. The chapter then explores the ‘microcosmic’ elements of the teaching, namely, Blavatsky’s statements on birth, death, and the revival of human life. The chapter concludes by analysing Blavatsky’s re-interpretation of the ‘second chance’ she believed would be given to those who died in exceptional occurrences. It also considers her claim in The Secret Doctrine that despite the usual acquisition of a new personality in each lifetime, it was possible for adepts to preserve their personal identity through repeated incarnations.

Introduction

The Introduction begins with a short discussion of reincarnation belief in the contemporary world among those who have no particular affiliation with religions that traditionally teach the doctrine. Highlighting some of the typical characteristics of such belief, such as the notion of ‘spiritual evolution’, it poses the question of why reincarnation has become popular in this particular form. The influence of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky is an important part of the answer. After outlining the main points of Blavatsky’s reincarnation doctrine, the Introduction discusses Blavatsky’s colourful personality and the writing of her enormous literary oeuvre. Her interpretations of Kabbalah and Egyptology found their way into her discussions of rebirth, but as these will not be discussed in detail in the book, they are mentioned here briefly. A chapter outline concludes the Introduction.

Science

Chapter 6 considers how Blavatsky constructed science as a category and situates this construal within a world in which the boundaries of ‘legitimate’ science were more contested than they are today. The chapter demonstrates that Blavatsky’s conceptualisations of rebirth owe a considerable debt to the scientific theories under discussion at her time of writing. It explores her debt to the controversial physicists Balfour Stewart (1828–1887) and Peter Guthrie Tait (1831–1909), her hostility towards the popular materialist monism of Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), her hatred of Darwinism, and her preference for theories of evolution influenced by German Romanticism, such as the theories of orthogenesis proposed by Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli (1817–1891), Karl Ernst von Baer (1792–1876), and Darwin’s nemesis, Richard Owen (1804–1892).

Blavatsky and Reincarnation

Chapter 1 introduces Helena Blavatsky and explains her importance. It gives an account of her ancestry, childhood, education, religious background, and character, her early marriage to Nikifor Blavatsky (1809–after 1877), and her ‘veiled years’. It documents her public life, beginning in 1873 with her arrival in America, where she met Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907). Contextualising its emergence in American metaphysical religion, the chapter gives an account of the foundation of the Theosophical Society in New York City in 1875 and the writings and publication of Blavatsky’s two major works: Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888). It recounts her move to India and argues she first started teaching the doctrine of reincarnation with which she is usually associated around 1882, while living on the subcontinent. The chapter concludes with a consideration of Theosophy’s historical and cultural importance, and its legacy.

Conclusions

Chapter 8 concludes this study by making some general observations about Helena Blavatsky’s thought, appeal, and influence. It brings together the elements discussed in the previous chapters and highlights her value to the historian of nineteenth-century culture. The chapter argues that Blavatsky’s constructions of Hinduism, Buddhism, science, Platonism, and Spiritualism all came together in her rebirth doctrines. Her definitions of all these were interdependent at the same time as they were inseparable from signal late nineteenth-century cultural trends. Due to her influence on the development of modern forms of religion, including the almost ubiquitous New Age Movement, Blavatsky has significantly contributed to the popularisation of reincarnation in the West. She can be considered one of the principal architects of religion in modern times.

Spiritualism

Through reference to books and Spiritualist periodicals, chapter 4 situates Blavatsky’s early theory of metempsychosis in relation to anti-reincarnationist currents in Anglo-American Spiritualism. It also explores Blavatsky’s debt to and tension with the French Spiritism of Allan Kardec (1804–1869), arguing that her rebirth theories must be understood in light of her simultaneous reception and rejection of certain specific elements present in Anglo-American Spiritualism as well as French Spiritism. It considers the similarities and differences between Blavatsky’s ideas on rebirth and those of Kardec, the American medium Cora Scott Tappan (1840–1923), the British medium Emma Hardinge Britten (1823–1899), the American magician Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825–1875), and the occult society the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor.

Isis Unveiled and Metempsychosis

Chapter 2 argues that despite scholarly protestations to the contrary, it is possible to elucidate Blavatsky’s position on rebirth in Isis Unveiled. On the basis of a systematic examination of her first major work alongside contemporaneous letters, the chapter shows that during this early period, she taught a doctrine she termed ‘metempsychosis’ that she coupled with the teaching that ‘reincarnation’ (understood in a very specific and limited sense) was occasionally possible, but only in exceptional circumstances. The chapter explains Blavatsky’s early doctrines of metempsychosis and occasional reincarnation in detail. It concludes with a consideration of other occasional forms of rebirth Blavatsky described, such as the creation of ‘terrestrial larvae’ and the ‘transfer of a spiritual entity’.

Hindu and Buddhist Thought

Chapter 7 describes Blavatsky’s activities in India and Ceylon. The chapter argues that it is reasonable to assume Indian influences contributed, at least in part, to Blavatsky’s eventual acceptance of reincarnation. It shows that Blavatsky framed her later ideas in Vedantic terms provided by notable early Indian Theosophists such as Mohini M. Chatterji (1858–1936) and Tallapragada Subba Row (1856–1890). These came together with other influences in a modernising depiction of Theosophy as the esoteric essence of Hinduism and Buddhism that was offered as an alternative to Ernst Haeckel’s materialist monism. The chapter reveals Blavatsky’s reincarnationism as involving an entanglement of Western philosophies with the interpretations of Vedanta of Western-educated Hindu elites alongside academic Orientalism.