Quest Magazine

The Modern Book of the Dead: A Revolutionary Perspective on Death, the Soul, and What Really Happens in the Life to Come

Ptolemy Tompkins
New York: Atria, 2012. 275 pages, hardcover, $26.

An old story from China concerns a teacher and a student who pay a condolence call. As the two men stand in front of the coffin, the student pats the lid and asks, “Is it alive or dead?” The teacher responds, “I will not say alive or dead.” The student asks why not. The teacher exclaims, “I won’t say! I won’t say!” The student continues to press his inquiry, even threatening violence, but the teacher remains steadfast: “I won’t say! I won’t say!” The student—whose question is a matter of life and death—does not get the answer he wants. It is something he must discover for himself. A shame then he did not have access to Ptolemy Tompkins’ latest book, which—while offering no definitive answer to the question— fulfills its aim of bringing to light “an extraordinarily empowering new geography of the afterlife.”

Tompkins, a former editor at Guideposts and Angels on Earth magazines (and a Quest contributor), is a widely published essayist and author of four previous books, including Paradise Fever and The Divine Life of Animals. His new book, while indeed addressing the question “What happens to us when we die?”, is more concerned with a peculiar situation in which modern people find themselves: namely, having “forgotten how to perform the essential activity of ‘thinking the right things’ about death.” Our ideas of the afterlife, Tompkins contends, are hazy and ill-formed because we don’t actually believe there is any life after death. The Modern Book of the Dead is intended to persuade its readers otherwise: “We come...from a larger, better world than this one, and we return to it when our time here is finished.” To achieve his ends, Tompkins offers an agreeable blend of memoir, comparative historical survey, and metaphysical speculation.

The first fifty—and most compelling— pages of the book stand as a condensed autobiography in which the author recounts growing up in a spiritually unconventional household. Tompkins’ father, Peter, a writer of some renown, was the coauthor of two books that helped usher in New Age thought, Secrets of the Great Pyramid (1971) and The Secret Life of Plants (1973). Talk around the family dinner table was most extraordinary, incandescent with the ideas of H.P. Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner, Edgar Cayce, and L. Ron Hubbard. When Tompkins’ father wasn’t expounding on subjects metaphysical, he was voicing skepticism toward any form of conventional religion. As for modern science, the elder Tompkins harbored outright loathing, “believing that most scientists spent most of their time covering up the real truth about the world rather than revealing it.” A potent atmosphere of speculation and attitude characterized the household, all of which registered deeply on the son, who writes: “One of the main reasons I’m interested in the afterlife...is that the world I grew up in taught me to be interested.”

The majority of the book, however, is far less personal, as it provides a survey of the history and literature of what happens to us beyond the veil. Tompkins considers a wide range of perspectives on the subject, from the ancient Egyptians to contemporary neuroscientists, always on the lookout for “chunks of apparent meaning” or “the hidden narrative arc in the seemingly pointless flux of human experience.” Along the way, Tompkins delves into The Egyptian Book of the Dead, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and various writings of the American Transcendentalists— notably those of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman—for what can be gleaned to encourage us to “think the right things” about death. While nothing especially new comes to light here, The Modern Book of the Dead does make a significant contribution in its emphasis upon cultivating perspective, something Socrates himself might approve of. “For no matter what kind of brave face we might try to put on it,” Tompkins writes, “a life lived without a coherent, focused, and serious picture of the afterlife is, quite simply, a life without context: a life that will, in the end, always be missing half of itself.”

In this regard, the book is indebted to some of the pioneers of depth psychology— Fechner, Freud, and Jung—yet it also serves as a worthy complement to more recent investigations into the subject of the afterlife, such as those by Deborah Blum (Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life after Death) and Patrick Harpur (The Secret Tradition of the Soul, reviewed in Quest, Summer 2012).

The Modern Book of the Dead is not without its delightfully startling moments, as when Tompkins offers this insight about social media: “it would seem the afterlife is a lot like Facebook, with the difference that the simulacrum of connection with others that Facebook partially provides is here actually provided in full.” Laugh, cry, or wince at this analogy, it unsettles in the very way an unexpected truth often does. And despite the immodest claim of the book’s subtitle, Tompkins does strike a balanced tone in laying out his case, and he usually avoids confusing metaphor for reality: “The last thing we should do is take these descriptions completely at face value.”

Like many argonauts of the spirit before him, Tompkins is drawn to cartographic metaphor as a way to delineate the great beyond. He would have his book serve as a map for future travelers, which of course means all of us. “Such a map will always be just a map,” he admits, “but good maps do describe real places, and point to real journeys as well.” If in the end The Modern Book of the Dead proves less a map than an engaging travelogue, I for one have no complaints. Nor does it matter that this book, like that ancient teacher in China, leaves the big question unresolved. The reader instead comes away with renewed anticipation for wondrous regions that may one day be revealed.

John P. O’Grady

John P. O’Grady’s contributions to Quest include “Shadow Gazing: On Photography and Imagination” in the Fall 2009 issue.

Handbook of the Theosophical Current

Edited by Olav Hammer and Mikael Rothstein
Leiden: Brill, 2013. xii + 494 pages, hardcover, $234.

Many Theosophists may not know that they are part of a current. For that matter, they may not know what exactly a current is in this context. According to the scholars who focus on esotericism, the Theosophical current is not only the TS and its splinter groups, but the vast array of movements and figures that have been influenced by Theosophy. These include Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy; Alice Bailey and her school; the "I Am" movement of Guy and Edna Ballard and its offspring, Elizabeth Clare Prophet's Church Universal and Triumphant; the Agni Yoga of Nicholas and Helena Roerich; Edgar Cayce; and even some UFO cults.

Handbook of the Theosophical Current is a wide-ranging and impressive collection of articles on these topics. In their introduction, editors Olav Hammer and Mikael Rothstein contend, "The formation of the Theosophical Society . . . and the main events linked to the fate of this organization, its key figure Helena Blavatsky . . . and her immediate successors . . . belong to the short list of pivotal chapters in the religious history of the West" They go on to describe Theosophy and its offshoots as "one of the modern world's most important religious traditions" Its concepts of spiritual evolution, subtle bodies, lost continents such as Atlantis and Lemuria, and karma and reincarnation have permeated "just about every nook and cranny of contemporary ‘folk' religious culture"

The book is divided into three sections. The first includes four articles that set out the history of Theosophical organizations, focusing on the TS (Adyar), from Blavatsky's time to the present; one piece, by Tim Rudbøg, also discusses Katherine Tingley and the Point Loma school. The second section explores currents and people that have been influenced by Theosophy, including Anthroposophy, Agni Yoga, Cayce, and the New Age. The final section describes the impact of Theosophy on culture and society, including the women's movement, abstract art, and popular fiction.

By and large the articles are of extremely high quality and compress a tremendous amount of information into a fairly short space. Two of the most impressive are in the third section. "Western Esoteric Traditions and Theosophy," by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, the late British scholar of esotericism, goes into some depth about the role of Hermetic and Kabbalistic influences in Blavatsky's Theosophy, particularly before her departure for India in 1878. It also explores esoteric Christian themes in the Theosophy of the early twentieth century. "Mythological and Real Race Issues in Theosophy," by Isaac Lubetsky, covers the vexed issue of racism in Blavatsky's works. Lubetsky concludes that HPB's thought certainly reflected some of the racism of her day: she characterized "Redskins, Eskimos, Papuans, Australians [i.e., aborigines], Polynesians, etc" as remnants of a previous Root Race that were doomed to die out. But Lubetsky is also careful to say that even so, Theosophy was "if at all, only indirectly a source for the more virulent racial ideologies of the first half of the twentieth century"

As is inevitable, essays in a collection are bound to be uneven. Probably the weakest article here is "The Theosophical Christology of Alice Bailey," which, in my view, overstates the similarity between Bailey's conception of the Christ and that of mainstream Christianity. But the level of scholarship is very high overall. It is a pity that the book's gargantuan price ($234) puts it beyond the reach of all but the richest and most avid students.

W. Michael Ashcraft's piece, "The Third Generation of Theosophy and Beyond," is hard to fault, but for many Theosophists it will make somewhat dismal reading. For Ashcraft, the third generation of Theosophy consists of those figures who succeeded Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater after their deaths in the early 1930s. Pointing to a decades-long decline in membership in all the Theosophical organizations, Ashcraft writes, "If the organizational forms of the movement are to play important roles in the spiritual developments of the twenty-first century, then at present those roles are not clear, and many observers will remain skeptical that the movement can have the deep and profound impact on Western thinking about spiritual matters that it had from the late nineteenth to the twentieth centuries" It is up to the current generation of Theosophists to prove otherwise.

Richard Smoley

The Wizard of Us: Transformational Lessons from Oz

Jean Houston
New York: Atria, 2012. xx + 204 pp., hardcover, $24.

If you are like most people, the first time you watched the film version of The Wizard of Oz, you probably just enjoyed it for its entertainment value. You most likely never noticed the rich universal archetypes or benefitted from the movie's profound lessons about personal growth.

In The Wizard of Us: Transformational Lessons from Oz, American scholar, author, and philosopher Jean Houston exposes the deeper story hidden within L. Frank Baum's classic Oz fairy tale. Readers gain appreciation of Dorothy's experiences as Houston relates them to steps in Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. This is a universal pattern found in hundreds of key stories from around the world, in which a protagonist grows toward psychological wholeness by way of a series of events that follow a common theme.

In Houston's interpretation, Dorothy's old life back in Kansas is not working for her very well; she needs to move on. The tornado that sends her to Oz serves as her call to adventure and places her into the world of the unknown, where she is faced with numerous challenges on her road of trials. One by one, she surmounts each ordeal, many of them imposed by her shadow figure—the Wicked Witch of the West. Dorothy is helped by another archetypal figure, Glinda, the Good Witch of the North—a benign protector and Dorothy's entelechy, or her own essence realized to the fullest extent.

Houston claims that we in our culture are living in "twister times" The old ways of doing things are no longer working. To correct this we must each embark on our own Hero's Journey. By challenging ourselves to grow into our fullest potential, we can form the building blocks of a transformed society. (At risk of offending real-life Kansans, Houston calls this the need to move beyond the Kansas of our lives, which she describes as a gray, bleak, dreary, outmoded wasteland.) She weaves back and forth between comparing the Oz story with the Hero's Journey and offering exercises to help readers recognize their own "Kansas" and inspire them along their own journey. The overall theme of The Wizard of Us is progress beyond outmoded forms of existence toward the fulfillment found in a deeper story, in new ways of thinking, and in efforts to cocreate a better world.

Dorothy's three traveling companions serve as examples of growth. Each feels he is missing some crucial human element, only to learn he had it all the time—revealing that the very quality we may think we lack may actually be what Houston calls our "most potent potential"

The Scarecrow joins the trek in search of a brain. But along the way he exercises what brain he has to solve various problems, all the while building new mental circuitry and getting smarter all the time. Houston weaves this in with discussions about neuroplasticity, mirror neurons, and contemplative neuroscience. She provides exercises to help readers increase fluidity of mind and deepen access to intuitive wisdom, which she considers important for working toward a more sustainable society.

The Tin Man is invited along in search of a heart. Along with exercises to help readers find balance between heart and mind, Houston includes several touching stories of "Social Artistry"— people accessing their highest potential by opening their hearts to the needs of others.

The Cowardly Lion–in search of courage–displays his mettle in several particularly audacious acts while trying to save Dorothy from the Wicked Witch. Houston compares this to our present day challenge to find the courage to be who we really are and to do what we came here to do.

In the end, Dorothy's ultimate boon–the purpose of her quest–is realized. All she wanted was to go home to Kansas. But no longer will her Kansas be as gray and bleak, for she returns as a master of the two worlds, bringing with her the greening power of the depth realm she learned about in Oz.

Whether the Oz analogy works perfectly for everyone or not, this book is a wonderful tool for propelling ourselves beyond the Kansas of our lives, through a Hero's Journey along our own yellow brick roads, and toward an expanded life where our personal gifts play a crucial role in creating a transformed society– the Emerald City for which we all yearn.

Unless you have perfect visual recall, try to see the movie again just before reading this book. As Houston's exercises rely heavily on visualization skills, ready mental access to imagery from the movie will come in handy.

Margaret Placentra Johnston

The reviewer is author of Faith Beyond Belief: Stories of Good People Who Left Their Church Behind(Quest Books).

Radiance from Halcyon: A Utopian Experiment in Religion and Science

Paul Eli Ivey
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.
328 pp., paper, $25.

From its beginnings, Theosophy has always been associated with the scientific investigation of the cosmos. The Mahatma Letters specifically state that "modern science is [Theosophists'] best ally" Paul Eli Ivey's historical examination of the Temple of the People in Halcyon, California, in the first part of the twentieth century focuses on the relationship between spirituality and science. It also examines h ow a group of Theosophists chose to live in an intentional community based on Theosophical principles. Under the guidance of the Master Hilarion, as interpreted through Blue Star (Francia A. LaDue) and Red Star (William H. Dower), the Temple of the People developed a utopian community that embraced Theosophy as a way of life and was based on occult principles.

The first half of the book is organized chronologically, detailing the formation of the Temple movement. In 1895, a conflict between the TS leadership in America (under William Q. Judge) and the headquarters in Adyar (led by Henry Steel Olcott and Annie Besant) resulted in most of the American lodges breaking from Adyar and operating independently under the leadership of Judge and then Katherine Tingley. (The current American Section of the Adyar TS is descended from the lodges that remained loyal to Adyar or chose to reaffiliate later on.)

Initially the members of the Syracuse, New York, Lodge joined with the newly independent American lodges. However, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the members were moving away from this group (by then known as the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, today called the Theosophical Society in America [Pasadena]) and more towards an independent organization, the Temple movement. As part of this process, the members relocated from Syracuse to California, establishing the Temple of the People and the city of Halcyon.

The latter half of the book is more thematic. Focusing on the intersection of art, architecture, and music, these chapters document the way the community members applied Theosophical principles to their artistic endeavors. Yet throughout the whole book there is one reoccurring theme, and that is the way science, particularly medical science, was viewed as connected to spiritual science. Both were employed by the community at its central hospital, the Halcyon Hotel and Sanatorium, overseen by Dower, a licensed medical doctor. The residents of the Temple were convinced that science would demonstrate the Theosophical principles they understood to permeate the universe. As Ivey notes, "To Temple members, scientific investigations would prove the veracity of The Secret Doctrine" As a result, radiation, X-rays, electricity, magnetism, and other "invisible" rays were seen as evidence of the powers of the universe beyond the senses.

This point was stressed when the sanatorium opened and Dower demonstrated his X-ray machines, which allowed attendees to look at the bones in their hands and arms. It was also the basis of a large number of therapies Dower instituted at the sanatorium. By the early 1920s, he was experimenting with a variety of "radiant rays," from standard radiology to the electricitybased therapies developed by Dr. Albert Abrams. In each case Dower's medical practice became the place where people combined rest, nature cures, scientific therapies, and occult principles in order to restore their health.

In terms of the history of Theosophical teachings and the emergence of a larger metaphysical spirituality in America, Ivey pays particular attention to how ideas from other traditions, particularly New Thought and, to a much lesser degree, Christian Science, also become integrated into the teachings of the Temple members. Ivey writes, "New Thought ideas of healing did have a place in Temple theology, and one pamphlet claimed that the Masters, through Helena Blavatsky, inaugurated both Theosophical and New Thought organizations"

Of course all intentional communities have their troubles and conflicts. The Temple of the People was no different. Ivey documents the various challenges and internal struggles among members. Initially the community was organized along socialistic lines, but this plan did not work, and eventually opportunities for private ownership of land and proceeds were devised to keep the community functioning. Similarly, there were conflicts about leadership, messages from the Masters, and the overall direction of the community. In each case compromises were made, directions were changed, or, in some cases, individual members left the community.

The last chapter traces how a few of the children living in the community grew to become world-renowned scientists and engineers. George Russell Harrison taught at various schools, including Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, won prestigious awards, and had numerous patents. Russell and Sigurd Varian developed early radar systems that were essential parts of the Allied defense in World War II. For all these figures, the Theosophical principles learned at the Temple were applied practically and became the basis of their successful engineering careers.

Radiance from Halcyon is an excellent historical account of one utopian community that applied practically the principles of Theosophy as they understood them. It gives rich details of both highs and lows in the utopian experiment, all without losing the human dimension that made the community so attractive and enduring. Anyone interested in the history of intentional communities, the history of Theosophy in America, or how one group of people interpreted and implemented Theosophical principles will find Ivey's narrative both thought-provoking and instructive.

John L. Crow

John L. Crow is a Ph.D. candidate in American religious history at Florida State University. Currently he is writing his dissertation, which focuses on how Theosophists lived Theosophy and understood the cosmos and its relationship to their bodies during the early twentieth century.