Theosophy in the Bengal Renaissance

This chapter explores the Theosophical Society’s association with the Bengal Renaissance in India, which is a significant, yet quite unexplored, dimension of both movements. The chapter traces the rise and fall of Theosophical influence in Bengal, beginning with contacts between Bengali and American spiritualists in the early 1870s prior to the formation of the Theosophical Society. Two years before its move to India, the Society established correspondence with leaders of the Brahmo Samaj. After the move to India in 1879, personal contacts were developed through the travels to Bengal of Henry Steel Olcott and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and the subsequent involvement of Bengalis in the Madras Theosophical Society headquarters. The role of Mohini Chatterji as an emissary of the Theosophical Society to Europe and America was the high point of this association, but by the early twentieth century, Aurobindo Ghose described the Theosophical Society as having lost its appeal to progressive young Indians.

The West Moves East

This chapter explores why the Theosophical objective “to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or colour” became important to the Theosophical Society. The chapter identifies and analyzes the intellectual contexts that informed the development of the idea as it entered the Theosophical Society, such as the great Enlightenment ideals of the eighteenth century, spiritualistic reform movements, and freemasonry in the nineteenth century, and argues that the idea became central to the relocation of the Theosophical headquarters from New York to India (1879–82).

H. P. Blavatsky’s Acquaintance with the Language of the Gods

This chapter shows how Sanskrit is understood within the framework of Helena Blavatsky’s account of history related to the fall of Atlantis and a supposedly even older language known as Senzar, which embodied the ancient universal Wisdom-Religion. Sanskrit is perceived as a highly accurate direct descendent of this older, more profound mystery language and thereby signifies a central source of the esoteric wisdom teachings. In relation to this conceptualization of the importance of Sanskrit and the fact that Blavatsky is one of the most important early proponents of Theosophy, the chapter explores the long-overdue question of Blavatsky’s actual knowledge and use of Sanskrit.

Adventures in “Wisdom-Land”

This chapter analyzes the early Theosophical Society through the lens of postcolonial analysis and argues that although the Theosophical Society represents an affirmative Romantic form of Orientalism as it promoted Indian religion and culture and opposed colonial rule and the Christian missions, the Theosophical Society is in fact also rooted in classical Orientalist discourses of power. Analyzing early Theosophical conceptualizations of wisdom, masters, and locations, the chapter argues that the Theosophical Society subdued the East to its own preconceived notions based in Western culture and esotericism. The wisdom found in the East was the esoteric wisdom of Theosophy. This chapter thereby brings attention to the many nuances of Orientalism and the often-overlooked facets of Theosophical approaches to the East.

“The Real Pure Yog”

This chapter demonstrates how yoga was introduced to Western readers interested in occultism and the East in the pages of The Theosophist in the early 1880s. In 1885, the newly formed occult society the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor (HB of L), which took inspiration from Theosophy, began instructing its members to read about and practice Theosophy-connected forms of yoga as a way to prepare for occult initiation. It was presumably the first society to do so. Using newly unearthed letters of early members of the Theosophical Society and the HB of L, the chapter pioneeringly traces the early history of the introduction of the practice of yoga in these organizations, which later, through Rev. William Ayton, led to Aleister Crowley and other British occultists’ interest in yoga.

Early Debates in the Reception of Buddhism

This chapter analyzes the origin and meaning of the notion “esoteric Buddhism” as it was used in the early Theosophical Society, especially in the work of Helena P. Blavatsky and Alfred P. Sinnett. Both Sinnett and Blavatsky primarily conceptualized Buddhism in relation to the notion of an esoteric doctrine, while scholars of Buddhism disregarded the existence of any esotericism in Buddhism. Based on an analysis of the debates about “esoteric Buddhism,” this chapter shows how differences between Orientalists and Theosophists can be contextualized in their specific imaginings of Buddhism and also in their receptions of Buddhism.

Theosophy, Cultural Nationalism, and Home Rule

This chapter examines the role of Theosophists in mobilizing Indian politics or the home rule movement, especially in the form of “cultural nationalism.” The first section shows how Western Theosophists simplified and appropriated Indian thought, deploying it to resolve dilemmas confronting occult and other religious traditions. The second section explores the ways in which Theosophical ideas then provided inspiration for a tradition of cultural nationalism within India itself. The third section briefly shows how this cultural nationalism transformed Congress in the years immediately surrounding Gandhi’s return from South Africa. It is argued that Theosophy was one strand feeding into cultural nationalism, as Theosophy introduced important and largely novel themes to cultural nationalism, including a principled commitment to non-violence and an alternative to liberal subjectivities.

The Marriage between the Theosophical Society and the Arya Samaj

This chapter explores the relationship between the Theosophical Society and the Indian Arya Samaj during the period between 1878 and 1882. While some of the overall details of these events are well known, this chapter offers new insight into how the two parties imagined and misrepresented each other and how these misrepresentations were reflections of the wider contemporary cultural representations of East and West. The chapter charts the relationship between the founders of the Theosophical Society, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott, and Swami Dayananda Saraswati of the Arya Samaj over the course of their initial written correspondence and their subsequent personal encounters in India, which began enthusiastically on both sides but ultimately ended in a public breaking of ties.

Introduction

Against the backdrop of previous research this introduction discusses the historical relevancy the Theosophical Society played in cross-cultural interchanges during the nineteenth century. While sharing a number of the imperialistic tendencies of Orientalist approaches to Asia, the Theosophical Society represents another important aspect of the reception of Asian cultures and ideas that in turn had an impact upon the original Asian contexts and later Western imaginations. Much more still needs to be uncovered about the Theosophical Society and its relation to Asia, as the introduction outlines, but it entertained its own particular esoteric imagination of “the East” as the primary source of an ancient wisdom, which played into (1) the Theosophical reception of ideas, (2) representations of “the East,” and (3) interactions with “the East.” These three areas constitute the core parts of the book and are outlined in this introduction.

Experiments with Theosophical Truth

This chapter argues that there is strong textual evidence to suggest that M. K. Gandhi’s notion of Hinduism, his specific view of Christianity, and his general belief that all religions refer to the same truth were shaped by the ideas of the Theosophical Society. The chapter presents the respective sources, discusses their plausibility, and puts these findings into perspective. This perspective is provided by a global history approach, which holds that the religious concepts in play since the nineteenth century were already products of globally “entangled histories.” Furthermore, it is argued that the impact of esotericism on global religious history, from the nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries, needs to be investigated with more academic rigor.