Handbook of the Theosophical Current 2013-4-132 Hammer, Olav

O. Hammer u.a. (Hrsg.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current 2013-4-132

Hammer, Olav; Rothstein, Mikael (Hrsg.): II) and cross-cutting issues (part III). In the Handbook of the Theosophical Current. Leiden: first two parts major theosophists are pre- Brill Academic Publishers 2013. ISBN: 978-9- sented: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, being re- 00423-596-0; 525 S. garded as the „mother“ of theosophy and who founded the society in 1875 with Henry Rezensiert von: Helmut Zander, Lehrstuhl Steel Olcott, the first president. Further arti- für Vergleichende Religionsgeschichte, Uni- cles depict several leading figures of the sec- versität Fribourg ond generation: Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater, Katherine Tingely, Alice Theosophy was one of the global players Bailey and Rudolf Steiner. Other contribu- in the field of (alternative) religiosity in the tions present some theosophical movements decades around 1900 – and remains to a such as the „I AM“ current and Theosophists great extent unexplored. The importance of engaged in ufolgy. Part III comprises thematic Theosophists is rooted in their role as cul- contributions such as on theosophical „orien- tural brokers, for example with the discovery talism“, on Theosophy and gender, and on its and collection of Buddhist and Hindu texts, relation to science. All contributions capture, which they made available to the Western albeit with considerable differences in quality, world by editions and translations. Its at- the state of the art; ideological texts, which are tractiveness for many intellectuals stemmed quite common in the historiography of Theos- not least from the idea that this historical ma- ophy, were not admitted. terial would not only threaten the Western I would like to highlight two contribu- world by revealing its cultural relativity, but tions which open fresh perspectives on fur- that it could also serve as a starting point ther research. Christopher Partridge, analyz- for a universal theory of religion: „No reli- ing theosophical „orientalism“, reinterprets gion is higher than truth“ became the shibbo- the inclination of theosophists to „ancient leth of Theosophy. In combination with the wisdom“ of Buddhism and Hinduism, which promise to lead to an objective higher knowl- was not only an elitist esoteric search for edge and to overcome the detested material- „higher“ and „eternal“ knowledge, but also ism, theosophy claimed to provide an anti- an „anti-imperialistic“ position in the heyday dote against the „threats“ of historicism and of the western colonial era. Another text, relativism around 1900. A list of (at least written by Olav Hammer, puts the unwritten at one time) convinced theosophists looks religious history of the 20th century on the like an extract of the Who is Who of West- agenda of religious studies. He shows the im- ern intellectuals in these years: Ernst Bloch, portance of Theosophy for the „New Age“- Thomas A. Edison, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet movement in the second half of this century, Mondriaan, Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner, giving an example for the diffusion of theo- William Butler Yeats – just to mention a few. sophical thought and of the sometime obvi- But the scholarly research on the history ous, but far more often of the subcutaneous of Theosophy is still at the beginning. The impact of Theosophy on western culture until most important and still highly valuable book today, a fact which merits further research. is an intellectual history by the American A matter of critical discussion concerns the musicologist Joscelyn Godwin.1 Apart from selection and the interpretation of the topics. that, only some American groups and the An- Of course, it is unfair to criticize incomplete- throposophical Society, an offspring of one ness: such a book cannot replace the miss- of the theosophical societies (i.e. the one ing research work of the last decades. There- based in Adyar, India) established in Ger- fore I only mention three subjects for further many by Rudolf Steiner in 1912, have received research: the theosophists in India, the na- any noteworthy scholarly work. Thus the tional differentiations of Theosophy, and the present „handbook“ on Theosophy is highly political impact of its activities. More wor- welcome. It encompasses mainly two dimensions: It 1 Joscelyn Godwin, The Theosophical Enlightenment, presents basic historical material (parts I and New York 1994. Current research in: Theosophical His- tory, Fullerton (Calif.) 1985ff.

© H-Net, Clio-online, and the author, all rights reserved. thy of critique however is the selection of top- this promise is simply too demanding in the ics. Madame Blavatsky, who was without any current state of research. It is a collection of doubt important, is treated in four articles, contributions which provide reliable informa- which are devoted either wholly or mostly tion on important aspects of theosophy. In to her and her oeuvre (Godwin, Goodrick- this perspective, the book is highly valuable Clarke, Lubelsky and Trompf). The articles and a starting point for every further research. partly repeat basic information, and partly give different interpretations of her life. The HistLit 2013-4-132 / Helmut Zander über latter is not in itself problematic, since dif- Hammer, Olav; Rothstein, Mikael (Hrsg.): ferences are unavoidable in scholarly work. Handbook of the Theosophical Current. Leiden However, the different perspectives are based 2013, in: H-Soz-Kult 15.11.2013. on at times insufficient use of the histori- ographical tools; only Godwin discusses in some extent the extremely difficult historical problems of her biography and of her writ- ings. Furthermore, Theosophists of the second generation are underrepresented. Espe- cially Besant and Leadbeater, who were extremely important for the success of Theoso- phy in the first half of the 20th century, remain in the shadow of the great founder. Finally: A presentation of the sources and the tools for scholarly work is missing. A second problem is a consequence of this traditional focus on the famous found- ing theosophists. A number of interesting or significant members (like Montessori or Edi- son) are not even mentioned. Surely, list- ing additional names is a knock-down argu- ment against any kind of handbook. Nev- ertheless, by fully neglecting for example Franz Hartmann, a most important German theosophist, as well as the French theosophist Charles Blech, the Russian-Swiss Theosophist Margarete Kamensky or the Italian Anthro- posophist Ettore Martinoli, the book exhibits a substantial structural imbalance. More- over, this reflects a wider problem of current scholarly work in general, being overly concentrated on English language and literature. Most of the authors of this book obvi- ously have not read (and failed to reference) non-English publications. Only some Ger- man works are taken into account, but French or Italian literature is missing almost entirely, not to mention smaller languages. Thus, the non-English speaking world of Theos- ophy and its research is underrepresented, which is a particularly serious problem for a publication treating a transnational phe- nomenon. Consequently, the authors should not have claimed to present a „handbook“: