Quest Magazine

The Theosophical Enlightenment

by Joscelyn Godwin
Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994. Pp. xiii +448. Paper.

Joscelyn Godwin is a professor at Colgate University who has distinguished himself as the author of a series of volumes on the history of the esoteric, particularly in its relationship to music.

The Theosophical Enlightenment is one of the most important books ever written on the history of the esoteric. The author with a charming and yet erudite style tells us all we essentially need to know about the English esoteric world from the time of the French Revolution to the early part of this century.

In this volume students of the writings of H. P. Blavatsky will find the essence of the teachings of many of the sages about whom she wrote. In addition these esotericists are linked to the social and political background of their time, and the reader will also be able to trace their links to one another.

The Theosophical Enlightenment is in three parts. The first deals with a revisionist approach to myth which developed into a universal view of history. The persons in this section include Richard Payne Knight, Sir William Jones, Henry O'Brien, Thomas Inman, and Godfrey Higgins, whose Anacalypsis was seen by one contemporary reviewer as a precursor to Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled. In this first part Professor Godwin does the reader a signal service in summarizing the 1500 pages of the Anacalypsis.

The second part of this book deals with the esoteric sciences in England up until 1850 and covers such diverse characters as Emanuel Swedenborg, Francis Barrett (author of The Magus) , the novelist Bulwer-Lytton, and Frederick Hockley. The third part views the rise of Spiritualism and deals in some derail with the mysterious Emma Hardinge Britten who was one of the founders of the Theosophical Society. It also outlines the origins of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Christian disciples of Jacob Boehme, and the Rosicrucians associated with such figures as P. B. Randolph and Hargrave Jennings. It also investigates the mysterious Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, treated more fully in The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, by Joscelyn Godwin, Christian Chanel, and John Deveney (Weiser, 1995).

Godwin sees Blavatsky as a product of the skeptical enlightenment of the nineteenth century who brought together in the Theosophical Society the two threads of western and Oriental esotericism, a joining which did not survive the century. He devotes well over 50 pages to the early Theosophical Society and brings forth a number of little known details.

The research in this volume is encyclopedic and fascinating. Very few errors can be noted, although the "legal gentleman" mentioned on page 287 who conducted telepathic experiments with G. H. Felt was W. Q. Judge, and not H. S. Olcott: as supposed (see Path 7: 344).

This volume is dedicated to Leslie Price, who founded the journal Theosophical History and to James A. Santucci, the current editor.

I recommend The Theosophical Enlightenment as essential reading for those students interested in the history of esoteric ideas and in particular for students of H. P. Blavatsky.

-JOHN COOPER {reprintedfrom Theosophy in Australia 60.3, September 1996} 

January 1997

Graceful Exits: How Great Beings Die

edited by Sushila Blackman.
New York: Weatherhill, 1997. Paperback, 160 pages.

In Graceful Exits: How Great Beings Die, Sushila Blackman has collected death stories of Hindu, Tibetan, and Zen masters.

Hindus believe that the last thoughts before death affect one's next incarnation. Hence, it is best to think of God on dying so that one will be forever liberated. A famous example is Mahatma Gandhi's last exclamation, "Sri Ram, Sri Ram, Sri Ram!" as he died from an assassin's bullets.

Tibetan monks practice meditations to Be performed immediately before and after death to effect final liberation or at least reincarnation in desirable circumstances. They study the texts we call the Tibetan Book of the Dead so they can properly navigate the various bardos, or stages between death and rebirth. As the dying person’s life-force leaves the body, a great clear light appears-the light reported in so many near-death experiences. Tibetan masters teach that if one can recognize and merge into that light, one is liberated from all separate existence.

Many of the stories in this book have to do with foreknowledge of death without fear or anxiety. In the Japanese tradition, Zen masters on the verge of death givetheir last words in the form of a death poem, or jisei. The beautiful death poem of Basho, the greatest of Japan's haiku poets, was "Sick, on a journey, yet over withered fields dreams wander on." Several death stories of Zen masters involve humorous behavior or nonsensical statements very much like Zen koans.

The afterword presents an unexpected poignancy. Shortly before completing this book, Sushila Blackman learned that cancer had metastasized to her bones. She had unknowingly been collecting these stories to prepare for her own death, which came a little more than a month after she wrote the afterword.

These stories make the point that death is just another passage in life, which we need not fear. We, like the great beings, can make a graceful exit.

-MIKE WILSON

Summer 1998

Sōd: The Son of the Man

by S. F Dunlap
Photographic reproduction of the 1861 edition with added notes and bibliography Secret Doctrine Reference Series. San Diego: Wizards Bookshelf, 1998. Paperback, [ii], xxii, [ii] + 162 pages.

Sōd is defined in The Theosophical Glossary as a Hebrew word meaning an arcanum, a religious mystery. The term was well chosen by S. F. Dunlap as the main title of his Sōd: The Son of the Man. He also wrote a sister volume, Sōd: The Mysteries of Adoni. Numerous quotations from both are to be found in H. P. Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine.

Dunlap appears to have been an unorthodox scholar, which is not to be taken as a criticism. He was ahead of mid nine-(tenth century theology-s-even that of the present time- in recognizing that 2,000 years ago "mystery" traditions were an important element in any number of contemporary religions and that some of these significantly influenced the development of early Christianity.

In Sōd: The Son of the Man, the author compiled an extraordinary collection of references to what he called "infant Gnosticism." Among these are eclectic quotations from the books of the Old and New Testament, the Hermetica, Greek and Latin historians and philosophers, the early Church Fathers, and many others, including later scholars. One of the most interesting of this wide range of sources is the Codex Nazaraeus, an eleventh century document with obviously earlier origins.

Dunlap commences the final chapter of this book with the statement "It is unnecessary to sum up." However, most readers would have welcomed a summary by one who was astute enough to recognize a common thread in the religious philosophies of the Mediterranean area at the commencement of the common era.

H. P. Blavatsky and the SPR: An Examination of the Hodgson Report of 1885

by Vernon Harrison
Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1997. Hardback, xiv + 78 pages.

A turning point in H. P. Blavatsky's life, which at the time must have seemed to her as well as to those around her to be a calamity, was the 1885 report of the committee of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) "appointed to investigate phenomena connected with the Theosophical Society" That report, written primarily by a young investigator named Richard Hodgson and therefore usually called "the Hodgson Report," reached a devastating conclusion:

For our own part, we regard her neither as the
mouthpiece of hidden seers, nor as a mere vulgar
adventuress; we think that she has achieved a title
to permanent remembrance as one of the
most accomplished, ingenious, and interesting
impostors in history. [4]

Theosophists have always held that the Hodgson Report, the initial effort of a fledgling and ambitious new investigator for the SPR, was biased, distorted, unfair, and unreliable. It would, however, not be unexpected that they should so respond to the report's highly critical judgment of the founder of Theosophy. Others tended to take the report as a soundly based, conclusive expose revealing Blavatsky as a fraud.

In 1986, shortly after the hundredth anniversary of the Hodgson Report, an impartial, critical examination of that report, covering both its methodology and conclusions, was made by a disinterested researcher, Vernon Harrison. Not connected with any Theosophical Society, Harrison had been a member of the Society for Psychical Research for fifty years; he was a professional expert in forgery and a frequent expert witness in legal cases involving forgery and counterfeiting.

The Hodgson Report dealt with a number of issues: (1) various paranormal phenomena performed by or connected with Blavatsky; (2) the putative Blavatsky-Coulomb correspondence; and (3) the authorship of the Mahatma Letters, Harrison confined himself to the last of those issues because forgery was his specialty and because primary evidence relating to that issue still exists, the Letters being available in the manuscript collection of the British Library. Eyewitnesses of the phenomena are now all dead, and the Coulomb letters mysteriously disappeared after having come into the possession of one of Blavatsky's opponents whom she sued for libel and who apparently found that the letters did not support his case.

Harrison's devastatingly critical examination of the Hodgson Report was published by the Society for Psychical Research, as the SPR editor said, "in the interest of truth and fair play, and to make amends for whatever offense we may have given" by the 1885 report. Harrison did not, however, end his investigation of the subject with that publication, but went on to examine critically all of the Mahatma Letters for evidence of forgery or fraud by Blavatsky.

Harrison's 1986 SPR article is reprinted in this volume together with a report of the new evidence from his subsequent investigation. The details of his research must be read in his own words to appreciate the thoroughness, skill, and knowledgeability with which it was conducted, There is also a keen and incisive sense of humor running through his comments. For example, Harrison demonstrates that by the same criteria Hodgson used to "prove" that HPB wrote the Mahatma Letters, he can "prove" that she also wrote Huckleberry Finn and that Dwight Eisenhower wrote Isis Unveiled, for Mark Twain and Ike's handwritings share critical features that Hodgson used to link HPB with the Mahatma Letters.

A1though it is not possible here to do justice to Harrison's full analysis, his concluding expert opinion on the subject can be summarized:

The Hodgson Report is not a scientific study…

Richard Hodgson was either ignorant or contemptuous of the basic principles of English justice…

In cases where it has been possible to check Hodgson's statements against the direct testimony of original documents, his statements are found to be either false or to have no significance in the context...

Having read the Mahatma Letters in the holographs, I am left with the strong impression that the writers KH and M were real and distinct human beings...

Who KH was I do not know, but I am of the opinion that all letters in the British Library initialed KH originated from him…

It is almost certain that the incriminating Blavatsky-Coulomb letters have been lost or destroyed, but there is strong circumstantial evidence that these letters were forgeries made by Alexis and Emma Coulomb...

I have found no evidence that the Mahatma Letters were written by Helena Blavatsky consciously and deliberately in a disguised form of her own handwriting…

I am unable to express an opinion about the "phenomena" described in the first part of the Hodgson Report ... but having studied Hodgson's methods, I have come to distrust his account and explanation of the said "phenomena."

Vernon Harrison concludes that there is much we do not know about Helena Blavatsky and many questions about her life remain unanswered. He believes, however, that "the Hodgson Report is a highly partisan document forfeiting all claim to scientific impartiality" (4), "riddled with slanted statements, conjecture advanced as fact or probable fact, uncorroborated testimony of unnamed witnesses, selection of evidence and downright falsity" (32), and therefore "should be used with great caution, if not disregarded. It is badly flawed" (69).

This book should be in the library of every Theosophist and should be studied by anyone who writes or reads about Blavatsky. It is an extraordinarily important work in HPB's biography and in the history of the Society and of Theosophy.

-JOHN ALGEO

July 1998