Quest Magazine

Mary Moody Emerson and the Origins of Transcendentalism

By Phyllis Cole
New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Hardcover, 370 pages. 

For generations, scholars have recognized an influence by Mary Moody Emerson upon her impressionable nephew, Ralph Waldo Emerson, without examining its importance. Cole's sophisticated scholarship culminates in an extraordinary landmark biography describing a remarkable woman in New England intellectual cultural history. Aunt Mary emerges as a writer, thinker, and spiritual seeker, a self-taught woman who thought independently and communicated her philosophy through brilliant conversation. Cole's biography confirms that her thought and language was assimilated discreetly by Emerson throughout his life and became the intellectual context in which the Sage of Concord developed his philosophical and aesthetic principles.

Adyar: The International Headquarters of the Theosophical Society

Introduction by Radha Burnier
Adyar Madras (Chennai): Theosophical Publishing House, 1999. Paperback, xii + 36 pages.

Adyar: Historical Notes and Features up to 1934. 2d ed.
By Mary K. Neff, Henry S. Olcott, Annie Besant, Ernest Wood, J. Krishnamurti, George S. Arundale. Foreword by C. Jinarajadasa. Adyar Madras (Chennai): Theosophical Publishing House, 1999. Paperback, x +54 pages, 1st ed. 1934 as A Guide to Adyar.

These two guidebooks present an introduction to the international center or "Home of the Theosophical Society--one a new work on Adyar today and the other a new edition of an older work on the Adyar of yesteryear. Together, they give a comprehensive overview of the campus that has been the headquarters of the Theosophical Society since 1882.

The first, the new work, is lavishly illustrated with color photographs, an average of one per page. It gives an Insightful, colorful, and extensive view of present-day Adyar. It covers the history, the grounds, the shrines, the Garden of Remembrance, the international offices, the Theosophical Publishing House, the Vasanta Press, the School of the Wisdom, the Adyar Library, the museum and archives, the guest houses, the Olcott Memorial School and other welfare activities, the Theosophical Order of Service, and international conventions. The book gives an informative and handsomely appealing tour of Adyar, its physical plant, educational activities, administrative operations, charitable services, and spiritual events. From it one gains a real sense of what Adyar is and means.

The second, newly reedited older work, covers the history of Adyar more extensively, particularly in two articles by one of our most knowledgeable historians, Mary K. Neff, tracing the history of the place under the Society's first two presidents: Henry S. Olcott, who was responsible for the initial development of Adyar, and Annie Besant, who enlarged the campus and expanded its operations. The other authors listed above give glimpses of Adyar from their intimate personal perspectives.

These two booklets are works to be read by anyone who wants to know what Adyar is like now and was like in the past. They should be in the library of every Theosophist because they give, not just a tourist-guide description, but an empathetic visit to the "spiritual heart" of the Theosophical Society.

-JOHN ALGEO

July/August 2000

The Rosicrucians: The History, Mythology, and Rituals of an Esoteric Order

By Christopher Mcintosh
3d ed. York Beach, ME: Weiser, 1997. Hardback; paperback,  xxiv + 162 pages.

Writing about the history of a secret, shadowy society such as the Rosicrucians is a perilous business at best. Even when people who claim to be members do speak out and secrets are seemingly unveiled, it is difficult to know who or what to believe. The paranoiac historian may begin to wonder whether anything is the way it appears. When one adds to the movement's hiddenness the extraordinarily opaque nature of some of the texts involved and the rivalries, claims, and counter-claims of present-day Rosicrucian groups, the task becomes daunting indeed. Nevertheless, Christopher Mclntosh, also the author of several other books on the history of the occult in the West, has produced a clear, readable, and quite plausible account of the Rosicrucians from the seventeenth century until the present day.

The author begins by tracing back the roots of the movement to ancient times. In so doing, he, like many other scholars, tends to lump together Gnosticism and Hermeticism. Although there is some justification for this in the early Hermetic texts themselves, by the time Hermeticism emerges in the Middle Ages, it is very different from Gnosticism. While Gnosticism sees the world as a trap from which the human soul must seek to escape, Hermeticism finds in that material world the clues for spiritual transformation. Hence, alchemy is taken up, not just to turn lead into gold, but to find in chemical processes the key to spiritual enlightenment. Although the route of transmission is not entirely dear, this sort of spirituality bears much closer resemblance to the internal alchemy of Taoists such as Chang Po-Tuan and the Complete Reality School than to ancient Gnostics.

It might also be noted that more attention could have been paid to late Medieval religious (and sometimes secret) societies and guilds as a fountainhead for Renaissance occultism. Certainly alchemical thought had been in Europe since the introduction of Geber's writings in the thirteenth century and had been developed in certain mining and metallurgical guilds. It is less plausible that the Rhineland mystics like Eckhardt, Suso, and Tauler had much to do with the development of the occult, for theirs was an entirely different sort of mysticism.

Despite Ron Heisler's arguments, Mclntosh's view that Rosicrucianism began in Germany with Jacob Andreae and the Tubingen circle seems plausible enough. His analysis, however, could have been strengthened by a fuller description of the "founding" documents--the Fama, Confessio, and The Chymical Wedding. Although it is clear that the last is too complicated for a full exposition in a book of this sort, this reader would have liked a more complete discussion of the earlier and shorter works.

After exploring the German roots of the Rosy Cross, Mclntosh examines its various incarnations in Germany, France, Austria, England, and finally in America. Whether all the various groups that claim the name "Rosicrucian" have any direct link to the original movement is an open question. One may suspect that often the link is confined to the name only. Nevertheless, it is fruitful to see how this name has played out in the history of the West, spawning one occult organization after another. It is also fascinating to sec the influence of the Rosicrucians upon such literary figures as Goethe, Bulwer-Lytton, and Yeats. Now that The Chymical Wedding is available in modern translation, one may guess that the literary influence of the movement will continue.

For anyone interested in the history of Rosicrucianism, this is an excellent book. Do not look to find any spiritual secrets in it. It is a reasonable, unbiased historical account, not a source of deep wisdom about ultimate reality. The full bibliography, however, provides a wonderful means for exploring further into the realms of the esoteric and occult.

-JAY G. WILLIAMS

May/June 2000

Celebrate!: A Look at Calendars and the Ways We Celebrate

By Margo Westrheim
Oxford: One World, 1999. Paperback, x + 134 pages.

Cycles pervade existence, as the second fundamental proposition of H. P. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine tells us. And humans all over the world have sought for ways to measure them. Three cycles have been especially important in that search: the apparent movement of the sun around the earth (days), the phases of the moon (months), and the apparent point of rising of the sun (or stars like Sirius) on the horizon (years).

A particular problem with those three basic cycles, however, is that they do not fit together neatly. A month has about 29.5 days, a year a little less than 365.25 days or 12.4 months. The attempt to match up these three disparate cycles has produced a wide variety of calendars. But cultures also differ in what, when, and how they celebrate-that is, in their festivals, secular and sacred.

This popular treatment of calendars and festivals spans the globe and human history, from Egypt and Babylonia to the calendar of the future. In doing so, it shows something of both the variety of human culture and the universality of human concerns.

-MORTON DILKES

May/June 2000