Blavatsky Stripped Bare by a Buddhologist, Even.
I just finished reading this splendid new book by the Swiss scholar Urs App (I already knew him from a previous book about The Birth of Orientalism). Finally, somebody has done all the hard historical-philological work that is required to uncover the true foundations of Helena P. Blavatsky’s Theosophy, one of the most influential esoteric movements of the late nineteenth and the twentieth century. App’s method rests on some simple and quite traditional but essential foundations. (1) Take the time to carefully study all the relevant primary sources, i.e. not just some part of what HPB wrote, but really everything she wrote; (2) consistently place those sources in a strict chronological order, if possible even on a day-to-day basis, so that you can see exactly how her thinking develops over time; (3) don’t be satisfied by just scanning “the discourse” in general terms, as is common in academia today, but analyze her ideas; and finally (4) do whatever you can to identify the exact written sources from which she drew those ideas at any moment in that chronological sequence.
This empirical-historical method - bottom-up historiography and textual criticism - allows Urs App to establish beyond a shadow of doubt that Blavatsky did not have any first-hand familiarity with Tibetan Buddhism, as she famously claimed; that she invented her famous Mahatmas and those mysterious occult orders in which she said she had been initiated; that her ideas about Oriental Wisdom were based not on the Indian or more specifically Buddhist traditions she encountered in India but on Western Spiritualist and Orientalist literature about those traditions; and that her entire oeuvre is based on one single obsession - to prove the existence of a primordial wisdom tradition, “the mother of all religions,” which she imagined as a kind of Buddhism prior to and independent of historical Buddhism. Of course, most modern scholars of Theosophy already assumed or suspected most of these things (pioneering work having been done by specialists such as Joscelyn Godwin, Michael Gomes, or Pat Deveney), but the difference is that App succeeds in demonstrating them so completely and so conclusively that these debates can now be considered settled once and for all. It is not just a question of countless and usually unacknowledged borrowings, plagiarisms, or paraphrases from whatever book Blavatsky happened to have in front of her at the time she was writing. At least as important is her reliance on dictionaries of Oriental languages to build up a Theosophical vocabulary that, unfortunately, shows again and again that she did not know those languages and made countless elementary mistakes (in sharp contrast, of course, with her own claims of having “translated” many textual passages from mysterious Oriental sources). None of this is speculation on App's part. Again, he does not just suggest it but demonstrates it, at a great many instances, by precise comparisons between HPB’s statements and what you actually find in those dictionaries and other sources if you just take the trouble to look them up - and of course, if you actually know something about Buddhism and its history, and can read the languages.
The result is a thrilling piece of historical detective work, beginning with Blavatsky’s early exposure to Allen Kardec in 1858 (a neglected topic, for while HPB was fluent in French, many modern scholars are not), from there to the crucial years 1874-1875, when she began creating her system in New York, and then all the way up to her period in India and her return to Europe and finally her death. Devastating as the conclusions may be to true believers in Theosophy, it would be mistaken to think of this book as just another exercise in “debunking Blavatsky” by exposing her as a fraud. On the contrary, App is doing the work that historians of religion are supposed to do, quite similar to how the discipline of biblical criticism inevitably undermines traditional Christian doctrine - not out of some desire to destroy religious or esoteric beliefs but simply out of a commitment to truth. Certainly, Blavatsky was continually deceiving her readers, and probably herself as well, and yet there’s little doubt that she believed sincerely in her primordial wisdom tradition. Her sources might be fabricated and she might have been manipulating her readers and everybody around her; but she seems to have believed that this ultimately did not matter, because the doctrine itself was true, her intentions were good, and the results of her “pious deceptions” would ultimately benefit humanity. The end justified the means. Be that as it may, App is perfectly right to finish his book by reminding his readers of a basic Theosophical tenet: no religion higher than truth.
The criticisms presented in this report appear to rest upon a fundamental misunderstanding of Blavatsky’s claims regarding herself and her work.
ReplyDelete1- On Tibetan Buddhism. Blavatsky never presented herself as an initiate of Tibetan Buddhism in its exoteric or institutional sense. On the contrary, she admitted that her knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism was cursory. Her claim was that she had been instructed in an esoteric philosophy imparted by her teachers, often referred to in Theosophical literature as the Mahatmas.
2- On the Mahatmas. The contention that Blavatsky invented her Mahatmas and the initiations she described must reckon with the existence of substantial independent testimony. More than twenty-five witnesses reported encounters with, or evidence of, these figures, a fact that calls for explanation if they are to be dismissed as inventions. (See Daniel Caldwell, Encounters with the Mahatmas: https://blavatskyarchives.com/caldwellencounterscomp.pdf.)
3- On sources of “Oriental wisdom.” The claim that Blavatsky’s ideas were primarily derived from Western Spiritualist and Orientalist literature reflects a mischaracterization of her stated project. She consistently maintained that her mission was to present aspects of the esoteric teachings she had received from her teachers. Her use of published works, Eastern as well as Western, was not to construct her philosophy from them but to illustrate correspondences, thereby pointing to the existence of an ancient wisdom-tradition. Since she never claimed the role of scholar, she necessarily relied upon the scholarship available in her time.
4- On linguistic competence. The criticism of Blavatsky’s linguistic inadequacy likewise rests upon an incomplete reading of her admissions. She explicitly acknowledged that she did not possess proficiency in Sanskrit or other Oriental languages and that, when needed, she relied upon the expertise of others. Her claim lay elsewhere: that she had been instructed in a secret language known as Senzar, from which she translated certain esoteric materials.
In summary, the conclusions presented may seem “devastating” only if one assesses Blavatsky by standards she never claimed for herself—that of a philologist or academic scholar. This does not challenge her role as an initiate in the esoteric philosophy was was an exponent of. The central issue here is epistemological: whether the study of esotericism should be limited to positivist criteria of evidence or whether it ought to allow for modes of transmission, secrecy, and authority that are intrinsic to esoteric traditions themselves. One would expect, in fact, that scholarship in the field of esotericism remain open to such possibilities.
This is just a short review. My suggestion would be: read the book itself & respond to it! Best wishes, Wouter Hanegraaff
DeleteDaniel Caldwell, CASEBOOK of Encounters with the Mahatmas
ReplyDeletehttps://blavatskyarchives.com/caldwellencounterscomp.pdf
Urs App: "...the Mahatmas...only lived in...[Blavatsky's] imagination...."
ReplyDeleteCompiled from pp. IX and 426 in Urs App's THE MOTHER OF ALL RELIGIONS.
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...Unlike Leadbeater or Rudolf Steiner, Blavatsky hardly mentions visions as a primary source of information.
Instead, one of her main claims is that she received more than seven years worth of oral instruction from Mahatmas in Tibet.
Such claims need to be examined for historical and biographical accuracy.
In Blavatsky's case we have, in addition, well over a hundred letters purportedly written by these very instructors. They are extant and can be consulted in the library of the British Museum in London.
Of course such examination ought to include the study of their content rather than just handwriting analysis.
For example, what did Blavatsky's instructors know about Buddhism and what connection does their knowledge have with the work of Western orientalists?
If these instructors did not know more about Buddhism than what they could have picked up from printed sources in English or French - sources that were not only available but clearly used by Blavatsky - then the question inevitably arises:
Were Blavatsky's real instructors Western authors, and had she invented her Mahatmas?
....As with any novelist, Blavatsky's portrayals of her masters were undoubtedly inspired by real persons including some described by K. Paul Johnson.
But since her phenomena and teachings had become so inextricably linked to the Mahatmas, she needed to prove their existence in the real world.
Unable to do so in a convincing manner, she got increasingly entangled in a web of hocus-pocus, lies, deceptions, and mind-boggling excuses.
But her "phenomena," her teachings, and her credibility had become so inextricably linked to the Mahatmas that a confession that they only lived in her imagination risked destroying everything....
...There was undoubtedly genius in Blavatsky's undertaking - all the more so if, as is argued in this book, Blavatsky was not profiting from instruction by omniscient Mahatmas in Tibet blessed with enormous akashic archives.
...modern science has debunked most of her fantasies about humanity's and the universe's past....
Blavatsky sought to realize her dream with such ardor that she did not shy away from forgery and deception.
She paid a price in her lifetime, and the Theosophical Society still has to live up to its lofty motto:
"THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN TRUTH."