—Helena Blavatsky
Madame Blavatsky on Occultism, Ghosts, and Reincarnation
By Greg Guma
Theosophy became part of 19th century vocabulary with the establishment of the first Theosophical Society in New York. During its first years, however, founders Helena Blavatsky and Henry Olcott did little to define the term. Instead, they built a movement by focussing more broadly on the reintroduction of ancient wisdom and rituals from successive cultures, civilizations and epochs.
Helena said the concept of theosophy came from 2nd century Alexandrian philosophers, although the word itself is a compound of the Greek theos (god) and sophia (wisdom). Or, as she put it, “Divine Wisdom.” Helena also credited the Philaletheians, or “lovers of truth,” neo-Platonists whose philosophy tended toward mysticism and the occult.
The topic wasn’t even mentioned in People from the Other World, Olcott’s account of what he had seen in Vermont in 1874. The book, released in early 1875, introduced Blavatsky as a notable participant in the Eddy materializations, but did not explore her conclusions or philosophy. Instead, he called for further research, concluding only that the Vermont mediums were not in control. Rather, they were slaves, “compelled to act” by an outside power. “The ‘materializing medium’ must even, it appears, lend from the more ethereal portions of his frame, some of the matter that goes to form the evanescent materialized shapes of the departed,” he wrote.
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| Helena Blavatsky |
The movement’s founding text was Isis Unveiled, written by Blavatsky and published two years after the official founding of the Society on November 17, 1875. The launch had taken six meetings, beginning in September. Released around November 1877, Isis was a compendium of philosophical, scientific, mythological, allegorical and symbolic theories and facts, and underlined the antiquity of the occult tradition. It is widely considered a milestone in the history of Western esotericism. Many Theosophists believe much of it was actually dictated to Helena by her “secret masters.” Whatever the source, Isis Unveiled interpreted many themes central to the occult tradition in relation to new developments in science and non-Western faiths. For example, it incorporated serious discussion of controversies like Darwin's theories on evolution and their impact on religion. This expanded the work’s appeal to those interested in religion but alienated from its main institutions. Filled with original thinking, scientific evidence and impressive scholarship, the 1200 page, two-volume text represented a major statement about the struggle between occultism vs. materialism.
Although references to reincarnation appear in the book, Blavatsky didn’t emphasize it. When mentioned, she usually called it metempsychosis. The word had been used for centuries for the idea that human beings live many lives before reaching perfection. Another word for rebirth that she used was transmigration, but it had drawbacks since the term was sometimes used to suggest that a human being could regress to a lower form. Theosophy says, “once a human being, always a human being.”
Another reason Helena avoided the word reincarnation in Isis was its use at the time by Allen Kardec*, who believed in immediate rebirth with no period of rest between. When Blavataky used the term in Isis, therefore, she was also denying Kardec’s view. But she added that “if it had been properly understood in its application to the indestructibility of matter and the immortality of spirit, it would have been perceived that it is a sublime conception.” The Brahams, Buddhists and Pythagoreans, Origen and Clemens Alexandrinus, as well as the Gnostics, were all believers, she claimed.
“This philosophy teaches that nature never leaves her work unfinished,” Blavatsky wrote, “if baffled at the first attempt, she tries again.”
Speaking in India in 1880, Olcott explained that Theosophical Societies being formed around the world favored humanity’s “original acquisition of knowledge about the hidden things of the universe by the education and perfecting of their own latent powers. Theosophy differs as widely from philosophy as it does from theology.” Philosophy uses a dialectic method, he said, employing ideas derived from natural reason; theology adds principles derived from religious authority and revelation.
Theosophy, in contrast, claimed to avoid dialectical process, basing its system of knowledge on “direct and immediate intuition and contemplation.” This also dated from antiquity, he explained, since “every original founder of a religion was a seeker after divine wisdom by the Theosophic process of self-illumination.”
In 1882, answering a series of questions in The Theosophist** about the differences between Theosophy and Spiritualism, Helena explained that the former was “a very ancient science, while Spiritualism is a very modern manifestation of psychical phenomena. It has not yet passed the stage of experimental research.” Nevertheless, “many excellent persons are both, and none need alter his faith.”
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| Helena Blavatsky and Henry Olcott in the 1880s |
Blavatsky finally published what many Theosophists hoped would be her magnum opus in 1888. The Secret Doctrine brought together the essential teachings of her new esoteric philosophy, and the origins and impacts of universal laws in nature and humanity. The subtitle described it as “The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy.” Like Isis Unveiled, it was immense, two dense volumes, and not easy to read. But this time the reception was mixed. Critics said the book tended toward pseudoscience and borrowed from other occult systems. Some even accused Blavatsky of plagiarism.
To make the movement more accessible and reply to the growing criticism, The Key to Theosophy was published in 1889, two years before Helena died. This was the first time since the founding of the first Society that the term was used in the title of a book.
The approach is simple: direct questions and clear but detailed answers. This allowed an imaginary “enquirer” to ask about popular topics, explore common misconceptions, and address attacks on the movement. Helena was living in London by then, surrounded by friends and disciples who were eager for details about the new “wisdom religion” and constantly asking just such questions. The idea was to respond to her critics and provide students with clear, concise explanations about the basic principles of Theosophy. To draw in her readers, Helena created a socratic dialogue, posing and answering the questions.
Some Spiritualists had problems with the new movement from the start. As soon as it became apparent that members of the Theosophical Society “did not believe in communications with the spirits of the dead,” Blavatsky recalled years later, “but regarded so-called ‘Spirits’ as for the most part, astral reflections of disembodied personalities, shells, etc., than the Spiritualists conceived a violent hatred to us and especially to the Founders.”
Theosophy’s headquarters was moved from New York to Bombay, India in 1879, and later to Madras. When the first branch was launched in London, she added, “the English Spiritualists came out in arms against us, as the Americans had done.” The French Spiritists followed suit. “The Clergy opposed us on the general principle that ‘He who is not with me is against me,’” she added.
In a brief preface to the The Key to Theosophy, Blavatsky notes: “To the mentally lazy or obtuse, Theosophy must remain a riddle; for in the world mental as in the world spiritual each man must progress by his own efforts. The writer cannot do the reader’s thinking for him, nor should the latter be any the better off if such vicarious thought were possible.”
In an early section, she discusses the difference between Theosophy and Occultism. Someone might be a “very good Theosophist indeed,” she explains, “whether in or outside of the Society, without being in any way an Occultist. But no one can be a true Occultist without being a real Theosophist; otherwise he is simply a black magician, whether conscious or unconscious.”
“I have said already that a true Theosophist must put in practice the loftiest moral ideal, must strive to realize his unity with the whole of humanity, and work ceaselessly for others. Now, if an Occultist does not do all this, he must act selfishly for his own personal benefit; and if he has acquired more practical power than other ordinary men, he becomes forthwith a far more dangerous enemy to the world and those around him than the average mortal.”
Her imaginary enquirer then asks: “But are not all these Occult sciences, magic and sorcery, considered by the most cultured and learned people as relics of ancient ignorance and superstition?”
“Let me remind you,” she replies, “that this remark of yours cuts both ways. The ‘most cultured and learned’ among you regard also Christianity and every other religion as a relic of ignorance and superstition. There are very good and pure Theosophists who may believe in the supernatural, divine miracles included, but no Occultist will do so. For an Occultist practices scientific Theosophy, based on accurate knowledge of Nature’s secret workings; but a Theosophist, practicing the powers called abnormal, minus the light of Occultism, will simply tend toward a dangerous form of mediumship, because, although holding to Theosophy and its highest conceivable code of ethics, he practices it in the dark, on sincere but blind faith.
The next, predictable question is, “But do you not believe in Spiritualism?
“If by ‘Spiritualism” you mean the explanation which Spiritualists give of some abnormal phenomena, then decidedly we do not. They maintain that these manifestations are all produced by the ‘spirits’ of departed mortals, generally their relatives, who return to earth, they say, to communicate with those they have loved or to whom they are attached. We assert that the spirits of the dead cannot return to earth — save in rare and exceptional cases; nor do they communicate with men except by entirely subjective means. That which does appear objectively, is only the phantom of the ex-physical man.
“Do you reject the phenomena also?”
“Assuredly not — save the cases of conscious fraud.”
“How do you account for them, then?”
“In many ways. The causes of such manifestations are by no means so simple as the Spiritualists would like to believe. Foremost of all, the deus ex machina of the so-called ‘materializations’ is usually the astral body or ‘double’ of the medium or some one present.”
“You say ‘usually.” Then what is it that produces the rest?”
“That depends on the nature of the manifestations. Sometimes the astral remains, the Kama-lokic ‘shells” of the vanished personalities that were.” According to Blavatsky, Kama-Loka is an astral locality, known in mythology as Hades. It has no boundary and exists within subjective space. When a person dies, three things separate and vanish — body, life and astral body. But something higher continues to exist, the atma-buddhi-manas triad, waiting in the Kama-Loka. Atma is the universal spirit and manas the essential being that retains memories.
“At other times, Elementals,” she continues. Astral and fluidic, such phantom entities, bereft of higher thought, can be drawn to a medium and “live” again by proxy. “In the medium’s Aura, it lives a kind of vicarious life and reasons and speaks either through the medium’s brain or those of other persons present.”
Still, she insists, “The Conscious Individuality of the disembodied cannot materialize nor can it return from its own mental Devachanic sphere to the plane of terrestrial objectivity.”
“But many of the communications received from the ‘spirits’ show not only intelligence, but a knowledge of facts not known to the medium,” the “enquirer” notes, “and sometimes even not consciously present to the mind of the investigator, or any of those who compose the audience.”
“This does not necessarily prove the intelligence and knowledge you speak of belong to spirits, or emanate from disembodied souls,” Helena says. “Somnambulists have been known to compose music and poetry and to solve mathematical problems while in their trance state, without ever having learnt music or mathematics. Others answered intelligently to questions put to them and even, in several cases, spoke languages, such as Hebrew and Latin, of which they were entirely ignorant when awake — all this in a state of profound sleep. Will you, then, maintain that this was caused by ‘spirits’?”
“But how would you explain it?”
“We assert that the divine spark in man being one and identical in its essence with the Universal Spirit, our ‘spiritual Self’ is practically omniscient, but that it cannot manifest its knowledge owing to the impediments of matter. Now the more these impediments are removed, in other words, the more the physical body is paralyzed, as to its own independent activity and consciousness, as in deep sleep or deep trance, or, again, in illness, the more fully can the inner Self manifest on this plane.
“This is our explanation of those truly wonderful phenomena of a higher order, in which undeniable intelligence and knowledge are exhibited. As to the lower order of manifestations, such as physical phenomena and the platitudes and common talk of the general ‘spirit,’ to explain even the most important of the teachings we hold upon the subject would take up more space and time than can be alloted to it at present.”
Yet she is not quite finished. Challenging herself, Helena has the “enquirer” note, “I was told that the Theosophical Society was originally founded to crush Spiritualism and belief in the survival of the individuality in man?”
“You are misinformed,” she snaps back. “Our beliefs are all founded on that immortal individuality. But then, like so many others, you confuse personality with individuality. Yet it is precisely that difference which gives the keynote to the understanding of Eastern philosophy, and which lies at the root of the divergence between Theosophical and Spiritualistic teachings.”
“Please explain your idea more clearly.”
“What I mean is that though our teachings insist upon the identity or spirit and matter, and that we say that spirit is potential matter, and matter simply crystallized spirit (e.g., as ice is solidified steam), yet since the original and eternal condition of all is not spirit but meta-spirit, so to speak (visible and solid matter being simply its periodical manifestation), we maintain that the term spirit can only be applied to the true individuality.”
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| Helena and her secret masters |
Later in The Key to Theosophy, Helena challenges herself on reincarnation. The “enquirer” begins by teasing: “But does not the author of Isis Unveiled stand accused of having preached against reincarnation?”
“By those who had misunderstood what was said, yes,” she chides. “At the time that work was written (1876), reincarnation was not believed in by many Spiritualists, either English or American, and what is said there of reincarnation was directed against the French Spiritists, whose theory is as unphilosophical and absurd as the Eastern teaching is logical and self-evident in its truth. How can the author of Isis argue against Karmic reincarnation, at long intervals varying between 1,000 and 1,500 years, when it is the fundamental belief of both Buddhists and Hindus.”
“Then you reject the theories of both the Spiritists and the Spiritualists, in their entirety?”
“Not in their entirety, but only with regard to their respective fundamental beliefs. We believe with the Spiritualists and the Spiritists in the existence of “Spirits,” or invisible Beings endowed with more or less intelligence. But, while in our teachings their kinds and genera are legion, our opponents admit to no other than human disembodied ‘Spirits,’ which, to our knowledge, are mostly Kama-lokic shells.”
“Don’t you believe in their phenomena at all?”
“It is because I believe in them with too good reason, and (save some cases of deliberate fraud) know them to be as true as that you and I live, that all my being revolts against them. Once more I speak only of physical, not mental or even psychic phenomena. Like attracts like. There are several high-minded, pure, good men and women, known to me personally, who have passed years of their lives under the direct guidance and even protection of higher ‘Spirits,’ whether disembodied or planetary. These intelligences guide and control mortals only in rare and exceptional cases to which they are attracted and magnetically drawn by the Karmic past of the individual.
“It is not enough to sit ‘for development’ in order to attract them. That only opens the door to a swarm of ‘spooks,’ good, bad and indifferent, to which the medium becomes a slave for life. It is against such promiscuous mediumship and intercourse with goblins that I raise my voice, not against spiritual mysticism. The latter is ennobling and holy; the former is of just the same nature as the phenomena of two centuries ago, for which so many witches and wizards have been made to suffer.”
“Do you mean to suggest that it is all witchcraft and nothing more?”
“What I mean is that, whether conscious or unconscious, all this dealing with the dead is necromancy, and a most dangerous practice. For ages before Moses such raising of the dead was regarded by all the intelligent nations as sinful and cruel, inasmuch as it disturbs the rest of the souls and interferes with their evolutionary development into higher states. The collective wisdom of all past centuries has ever been loud in denouncing such practices.
“Finally, I say: While some of the so-called ‘Spirits’ do not know what they are talking about, repeating merely — like poll-parrots — what they find in the medium’s or other people’s brains, others are most dangerous, and can only lead one to evil.”
* Kardec is the pen name of the French educator, translator, and author Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail, founder of Spiritism and author of five books known as the Spiritist Codification. In his early 50s Rivail became interested in séances. At the time, Franz Mesmer's theory of animal magnetism was still popular. Confronted with phenomena, some researchers, including Rivail, thought Mesmer’s theory might explain them. After seeing a demonstration, however, Rivail dismissed it as an insufficient explanation. Instead, he began his own investigation of psychic phenomena, mainly mediumship. Before accepting a case, he insisted on checking to see if ordinary material causes could explain them. Fraud, hallucination and unconscious mental activity might explain many phenomena regarded as mediumistic, he said, but telepathy and clairvoyance could also be responsible.
** The magazine was founded in India in 1879 by Helena Blavatsky, who was also editor. It is still being published. For one year (1930) it was published in Hollywood, California by Annie Besant and Marie Russak Hotchener, but returned to Adyar in 1931.
For more on spiritualism in the Gilded Age and the true story of Helena Blavatsky, Henry Olcott and the Eddys, Vermont’s famous mediums, read Chittenden Mysteries here. For Greg’s novel, based on these events, buy Spirits of Desire.
