Quest Magazine

H.P.B.: The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the Founder of the Modem Theosophical Movement

By Sylvia Cranston and Carey Williams
Santa Barbara, CA: Path Publishing House, 1998. Paperback, xxiv + 660 pages.

It is a pleasure to welcome back into print this third and revised edition of the best biography of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky ever written. This new edition corrects errors, which are inescapable in a book of this length and complexity, and adds some new material. It includes notably one appendix with Vernon Harrison's opinion about the 1885 Hodgson Report to the Society for Psychical Research concerning the authorship of the Mahatma Letters and another listing contemporary editions of Blavatsky's writings and selected additional resources.

This book is a sympathetic biography, which takes at face value certain of HPB's statements about herself, rather than a critical one that impartially evaluates the often conflicting reports of her life that have been made by herself, her followers, and her critics. It is, however, a carefully documented and reliable work.

As such, it is a welcome antidote to the journalistic exposes and psychologizing biographies of HPB that are too often mistaken for scholarship. It is a relief to have a serious and level-headed alternative to the sensationalized and speculative treatments that have too often been the old lady's fare. An especially useful feature of the book is part 7 (pages 421-554), examining the influence of HPB on modern thought and the parallel developments that mushroomed in the century following her death. Few either outside or inside her Society realize what a force HPB was on twentieth century thought, as revealed in these pages. Ultimately what is important is not her biography, with its mysteries and marvels, but the powerful effect she had on the world.

One of her teachers wrote of Blavatsky: "But, imperfect as may be our visible agent- and often most unsatisfactory and imperfect she is-yet she is the best available at present." That is a realistic but also an appreciative and affectionate assessment of HPB. It is also applicable to this biography-and is no small praise of either person or book.

-JOHN ALGEO

May/June 2000

The Politics of Myth: A Study of C. G. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell

Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell
By Robert Ellwood. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. Paperback, xiv + 207pages.

The Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote: "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." The three great scholars and popularizers of mythology, C. G. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell, seem to have been confronted powerfully with the predicament implied in that: saying. Living in an era of two World Wars and bloody totalitarian tyrannies, they often faced the choice between agreeing with the majority or remaining morally and clinically sane. The agonies of their choices, along with their triumphs and failures have now been eloquently chronicled by Robert Ellwood.

Having achieved considerable fame in their lifetimes (Campbell having done so posthumously by his televised interviews with Bill Moyer), all three men have been subject often to vicious criticism when dead and unable to respond to their detractors. Characteristically, these criticisms were not so much directed against their work as against their alleged political sympathies. Indeed one cannot escape the thought that the critics wished to find ways to make a case against the three mythologists that would evoke an instant and intense adverse emotional response from as many people as possible. The uniform charge leveled at lung, Eliade, and Campbell is that of fascist and related sympathies, an accusation that unaccountably seems to be more seriously damaging in many eyes than its opposite, i.e., the charge of communist sympathies that can be justly made against a good many intellectuals of the West.

Robert Ellwood addresses himself to the lives, careers, and beliefs of his three subjects individually. In Jung's case he correctly notes that for a brief period he showed some mild sympathy towards aspects of the Nazi cause, which he replaced with a violent aversion not only against German National Socialism but against all totalitarian government. In connection with Campbell, Ellwood notes that no public statements, written or verbal, have ever emanated from him that could be construed as anti-Semitic or racist. All accusations of such a nature have been made after Campbell's death by persons who claimed to have overheard such statements in private. Obviously the proof of such innuendo rests with the accusers, and they can offer none.

Ellwood's best efforts are reserved for Mircea Eliade, whose student Ellwood was at the University of Chicago. With an insight usually absent in observers outside the East-Central European matrix, the author analyses the complex political and philosophical currents in Eliade's native Romania in the early and mid-19.30s. He describes the messianic nationalism rampant in Romania at that time and tells of some of its charismatic exponents, such as the visionary Corneliu Codreanu and the philosopher Nae Ionescu. The book reveals that Eliade was never a member of the controversial Legion of the Archangel Michael (nicknamed the Iron Guard) but that for a brief time he sympathized with its aims and consequently was briefly imprisoned in 1938-9.

Perhaps the greatest merit of this book is the ability of its author to put the political sympathies of his subjects in. the context of the intellectual milieu of the precise times when those sympathies existed. As one who was present in Europe at that period, this reviewer can attest to the veracity of Ellwood's intimations concerning the peculiar circumstances and perplexing choices faced by such figures as Jung and Eliade in the 1930s. There were plenty of good people who, during those difficult years of depression and war, saw at least a short term diminishment of democracy as a necessary evil; they found a certain allure in a vision of an authoritarian nation-state which they hoped would overcome the shortcomings of the weak and pusillanimous regimes that replaced the old, stable order of pre- World War Europe.

In the first and last chapters of his book, Ellwood touches on some issues of singular and abiding import. He indicates that all three of his subjects were inspired by a gnosis that resonated with the insights of the Gnostics and Hermeticists of old. Their view of reality was based in a vision sub specie aeternitatis (from the perspective of eternity), which of necessity tends to relative such modern (and postmodern] preoccupations as multiculturalism, feminism, and the populist welfare state. Jung, Eliade, and Campbell all valued a certain individualism and spiritually based libertarianism above the fads and enthusiasms of their time or of any other time. Their contention that ancient myths interpreted in the light of patterns of spiritual transformation may serve as important resources to people impoverished by our materialistic, secular culture is not invalidated by anything we have learned about them.

With all of its outstanding virtues, Ellwood's book is likely to be found somewhat as wanting by both those who wish to condemn and those who desire to admire uncritically his three subjects. For his own part, the present reviewer would have welcomed the sort of spirited defense that can be found in an appreciation of Mircea Eliade by William W. Quinn (former editor of the Quest's predecessor journal): "Those with an irrepressible proclivity to see fascist conspiracies everywhere have occasionally sought to lump Eliade into this world view. This is poor history and worse analysis" (Novo Religio 3.1 [Oct. 1999]: 153). Neither can this reviewer agree with Ellwood that it is somehow incorrect or even reprehensible "to view the world as hopeless for any kind of salvation but individual" (178). What other salvation is there, or has there ever been, but an individual one? And where did most of the politico-ideological wrong-headedness of the last 250 years originate if not in the chimera of collective as against individual salvation?

Such considerations, however, are a matter of personal conviction rather than of objective merit. Robert Ellwood's work possesses an abundance of accurate data, inspired insight, and informed sympathy for his subjects. It is a book to be commended and recommended as well as admired by all who hold myth and its champions in high regard.

-STEPHAN A. HOELLER

March/April 2000

Innocence and Decadence: Flowers in Northern European Art 1880-1914

Chichester: Pallant House Gallery 1999. Paperback, 116 pages.

This catalog of an exhibit shown in the Netherlands, England, and France (kindly called to our attention by Paul Zwollo) reproduces stunning works of art in several media with accompanying text and background essays. The works depicted in this volume are especially noteworthy for their symbolic and specifically Theosophical associations. The introductory essay "Flowering Symbols," by Mary Bax, comments (13-6):

Between 1888 and 1891 artists developed a complex and revolutionary theory of art as a result of ideological skirmishes with one of the most important new esoteric movements of their time, Theosophy….

Because of its exoticism and universalism, the Theosophical Society, which was particularly active in France between 1883 and 1890, became a melting pot of various esoteric currents that already existed in France but which under the influence of the new Theosophical movement's dynamism gained new elan, emancipated itself and subsequently exerted great attraction on artists. These movements included Rosicrucianism, Swedenborgianism, Cabbalism and Freemasonry, and even all sorts of manifestations of the Christian faith. The mutual interchangeability of the ideas that were circulating can only be explained when one realises that they all belonged to the age-old tradition of Theosophy, which the Theosophical Society was trying to breathe new lifeinto.

As a result of the resurgence of esotericism, forms of "primitive Christianity" also gained recognition. Not only did this include Byzantine Christianity (the first, institutionalized form of Christianity), but also ecumenicism, such as was originally meant by the word "katholikos" (in other words, Christian "universal brotherhood").

Among the typical Theosophical characteristics that Bax identifies as relevant to the art of this period are the unity of all existence, the impersonality of ultimate Reality, the law of analogies or correspondences, simplicity as the earmark of truth, an emphasis on personal mystical experience of spiritual reality, an esoteric doctrine or "inner learning," and an emphasis on Eastern, Neoplatonic, ancient, and primitive cultures. In the Netherlands, a group of artists including Frans Zwollo founded the Theosophical Vahana Lodge for artists, which taught courses in design and esthetics and eventually developed a variant of Art Nouveau called "New Art," which emphasized geometrical representations of nature.

Working within this tradition of Theosophical metaphysics and nature were Jan Toorop, Pier Mondrian, Vincent van Gogh, and a great many less well known artists. Indeed, Bax reports that Theosophists dominated the various Netherlandic schools of applied arts, constituting more than half of their faculties.

This catalog depicts important examples of floral art from the movement, illustrated in full color, with commentary on the works symbolism and Theosophical significance.

-JOHN ALGEO

March/April 2000

Voices of the Rocks: A Scientist Looks at Catastrophes and Ancient Civilizations

By Robert M. Schoch, with Robert A. McNally
New York: Harmony Books. 1999. Hardback, 264pages.

The scientific study of the nature and structure of our planet and its geological history has advanced enormously in recent decades, so that we arc now able to make verifiable statements concerning much that was formerly in the realm of myth and speculation. In this book, Robert Schoch, assisted by science writer Robert McNally, applies the latest geological and astronomical understanding to address some big issues and events in the history of humanity and especially of ancient civilizations. This well-written book counters many of the extravagant and sensationalist claims by authors such as Graham Hancock, who foretell great cataclysms supposedly due to planetary alignments, which, as Schoch notes, occur on average once every century!

Robert Schoch is well trained in both geology and anthropology and is committed to the proper application of the scientific method. He describes the profound paradigm shift that has taken place in geology, in that we now see "the history of Earth, of all living beings, and of human civilizations [not as slowly changing, but] as a series of stops and starts, in which equilibrium comes to an abrupt end with a sudden severe catastrophe." Such catastrophes include the impact of extraterrestrial objects, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and floods.

In just 264 pages of well-referenced chapters, Schoch guides the reader through many exciting topics: catastrophism, the age of the Great Sphinx of Giza (7000 to 9000 years), the megalith circle at Nabta in the Nubian desert (one pair providing "a line of sight to the horizon where the summer solstice sun rose about 6000 years ago"), and the engineering sophistication of Jericho (8300 BC) and ancient Catal Huyuk (Turkey). Schoch maintains that civilizations date back thousands of years earlier than most archaeologists wish to admit.

Many theories about the lost civilization of Atlantis are discussed. Schoch favors the ideas of Mary Settegast, who in her book Plato Prehistorian equates the Atlanteans to the Magdalenian Paleolithic culture of the Lascaux cave art in western Europe. He also discusses the widespread traditions of a great flood, volcanic catastrophes, and wobbles of the Earth's axis.

Only as recently as the 1950s have scientists agreed that most craters on the Moon and quite a few on Earth resulted from meteorite impacts. Recent astronomical observations have also confirmed the presence of many asteroids whose orbits may intersect the Earth's. Such bodies and cometary debris are capable of occasionally hitting our planet. Schoch discusses the evidence for such "fire from the sky" and the "coherent catastrophism" of British astronomers Clube and Napier, who propose that predictable astrophysical events regularly send swarms of objects into the inner solar system and thus endanger the earth, Schoch discusses the human and environmental effects that follow such meteorite showers.

Schoch ends by summarizing the modern scientific view of the terrestrial environment and the factors that keep it in healthy balance. He shows that the new developing paradigm for our planet includes the Gaia hypothesis of James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis, with life itself playing a major role in shaping the environment. Increasing human interference in the earth's climate and the threat of significant meteoritic impact provide a sobering finale to this comprehensive presentation.

This book is an excellent companion to another scientifically researched recent book covering the pre-Middle-Eastern origins of civilizations: Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia by Stephen Oppenheimer. This book is thoroughly recommended to all readers who would like to understand better how modern geological knowledge illuminates our wondrous and complex human history.

-VICTOR A. GOSTIN

March/April 2000