Hermetic Influences on the Evolutionary System of Helena Blavatsky's Theosophy

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Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 3 (2018) 84–111

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Hermetic Influences on the Evolutionary System of Helena Blavatsky’s Theosophy

Erin Prophet Rice University [email protected]

Abstract

Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891) developed a program of salvation that she called “double evolution,” which was elaborated in a system known as root race theory. Human souls were seen as traversing through progressive reincarnation a series of seven “races,” or body types, ranging from gigantic amorphous and ethereal bodies and transitioning through hermaphroditic into gigantic gendered ape-like humans, modern humans, and thereafter adepts and divine beings. Although root race theory drew from the scientific racism of its day, it did not equate root races with human races, but to stages of human emanation from and return to divinity. The sources of root race theory have been sought in Eastern contexts due to its use of Hindu and Buddhist terminology, though scholars have noted its Western esoteric influences. This article argues that the primary structure of root race theory is based in the Corpus Hermeticum. It identifies some of Blavatsky’s Hermetic sources, showing that she referred not only generally to a perennialist “Hermetic philosophy” that incorporated Western esoteric tropes, but also to specific Hermetic texts. These texts provided the organizing matrix of root race theory, specifically its creation mythology, support for prior androgyne human existence, a “fall into matter,” and the initial ensoulment of humans with mind, or nous. It also provided a template for the future transformation of humans into divine beings. The article builds on the suggestions of Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (2013) and Brendan French (2001) to elaborate on the role of Hermetic influence in Blavatsky’s reconfigur- ing of evolution as a novel form of salvation for an empirically-oriented nineteenth century audience.

Keywords hermetic tradition – Helena Blavatsky – theosophical society – poimandres – androgyny – root race theory

Introduction

The influential theological system known as Theosophy, as developed and promoted by Helena Blavatsky and her Theosophical Society between 1877 and her death in 1891, provided a novel and syncretic form of salvation that incorporated nineteenth-century ideas about both biological and “soul” evolution along with concepts from Western esoteric traditions and Eastern religion. In spite of the Eastern terminology adopted in Blavatsky’s later years, her system took its primary inspiration from Western esoteric teachings, and among those teachings the Hermetic tradition is acknowledged to have played an important role.1 Although the influence of Hermetic traditions on Blavatsky has been noted, much work remains to be done to trace how she used and transformed specific Hermetic texts and to evaluate the influence of Hermeticism compared with other traditions. Brendan French has argued for the primacy of Hermeticism, particularly in Blavatsky’s soteriology. He observes, “remarkably, in the vast Theosophical literature the seminal influence of the Hermetic template upon Blavatskian conceptual mapping has passed virtually unmentioned…. [T]he Hermetic strains in modern Theosophy deserve singular analysis … Blavatsky’s engagement with the Hermetica was profound, and … she incorporated many of its mythemes into her own Theosophical synthesis.”2 It can be difficult to identify the Hermeticism in the traditions cited by Blavatsky. For example, she often referenced “Hermeticism” or “Hermetic philosophy” as her primary inspiration without citing specific texts. Her general use of the term evoked prisca theologia, perennial philosophy, and a complex of associated Western esoteric ideas. She also referenced Hermetic traditions to generally position her philosophy as an alternative to both dogmatic theology and scientific materialism. However, she also cited specific Hermetic proof texts, particularly in support of elements of her controversial “root race theory.” Root race theory proposes that human souls inhabit seven types of bodies during a series of hundreds of progressive reincarnations experienced as emanation from and return to the divine. The bodies of the first race are ethereal, gigantic and sexless, the second, more condensed and androgynous, the third, more compacted and gradually transitioning into sexual reproduction and resembling giant primates, the fourth still gigantic but gradually decreasing in stature, as well as increasing in speech, language, and “mind.” Modern “savages” represent remnants of the fourth race. The fifth “root race” includes all races of modern humans (except

1 French 2001; Goodrick-Clarke 2013. 2 French 2001, 180–1.

Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 3 (2018) 84–111 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 12:56:23PM via free access 86 Prophet the primitive “survivals”), and is declined in stature and strength from earlier races.3 The sixth will gradually transcend flesh, and Hermetic creator gods are some of the prototypes for this race. The seventh race represents a return to godlike nature.4 Though her seven “root races” do not map onto human races, her theory contained racist elements, as discussed below, which were often softened as it was taken up by later belief systems. This article sketches three important ways in which she engaged Hermetic texts and traditions in constructing “root race theory,” her mature scheme of “double evolution” of soul and body, which formed an updated esoteric soteriology. Although she engaged many other traditions to flesh out or provide support for her theory, I argue that Hermeticism was its primary organizing matrix. First, it configured her creation mythology, notably in support of prior androgyne human existence. Second, it provided support for the human “fall into matter” and the initial “ensoulment” of humans. Third, it provided a template for the future transformation of humans into divine beings and creators themselves.5 I argue that Corpus Hermeticum 1.12–18 in particular provided much of the theological underpin- nings of root race theory.

Blavatsky’s “Hermetic Philosophy” and Hermetic Sources

Blavatsky (1831–1891), born in Russia to an aristocratic family, had access at a young age to a library of Western esoteric books. She equated “Hermetic philosophy” with a universal faith and frequently returned to it as a legitimating strategy. In the introduction to the 1877 Isis Unveiled, her first major publica- tion, she wrote, “Our work, then, is a plea for the recognition of the Hermetic philosophy, the anciently universal Wisdom-Religion, as the only possible key to the Absolute in science and theology.”6 She used dramatic language to justify the superiority of the “Hermetic” approach to both science and religion: “On

3 Anthropologist Edward Tylor (1832–1917) proposed a natural progression from savagery to barbarism to civilization. He also argued that modern humans retain superstitions and continue to believe in souls because of the “survivals” of primitive ideas among them. See Tylor, Primitive Culture 1913, first published in 1871. Blavatsky relied on Tylor’s progression of culture from savage to civilized, and also characterized indigenous tribes as “survivals” of earlier civi- lizations (1993 [1888], 2:168). 4 Blavatsky’s root race theory is laid out in its most complete form in Blavatsky 1888. 5 This article contains excerpts from Prophet forthcoming. 6 1960 [1877], 1:vii.

Gnosis: Journal of GnosticDownloaded Studies from Brill.com09/29/20213 (2018) 84–111 12:56:23PM via free access Hermetic Influences on the Evolutionary System 87 the brink of the dark chasm separating the spiritual from the physical world stands modern science, with eyes closed and head averted, pronouncing the gulf impassable and bottomless, though she holds in her hand a torch which she need only lower into the depths to show her her mistake. But across this chasm, the patient student of Hermetic philosophy has constructed a bridge.”7 What she called “Hermetic philosophy” must be understood in the context of nineteenth-century Hermeticism, which was already entwined with alche- my, Rosicrucianism, Jewish and Christian Kabbalah, and Freemasonry, and injected with a good dose of Egyptomania.8 What she often seemed to mean when she referenced “Hermetic philosophy” was a general opposition to mate- rialist science, affirmation of the reality of spiritual forces and immaterial beings, and support for a “double evolution” of body and soul, as proof of which she often quoted the Hermetic maxim “as above, so below.”9 In promoting this ancient “Wisdom-Religion,” Blavatsky was espousing pe- rennialism and smoothing the contradictions between the various systems of thought from which she drew. Throughout Isis, she described the system as a “secret doctrine” that had been passed down through the ages from master to student, and of which she was permitted to reveal only portions. Blavatsky built upon a narrative of secrecy and initiation already in progress as developed by Éliphas Lévi (1810–1875) and other esoteric writers, and spiritualists like Emma Hardinge Britten (1823–1899). Also influential in her system were Hargrave Jennings (1817–1890), a popularizer of esoteric lore, the philologist Samuel Fales Dunlap (1825–1905), and the novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873). Blavatsky wove the “Hermetic philosophy” into a narrative that also incorporated references to the Bible and Apocrypha, along with gnostic, Kabbalistic, and Eastern texts. She developed her own allegorical interpretations of Biblical scriptures while expressing contempt for organized Christianity, particularly the Church Fathers (for distorting gnostic systems and declaring them heretical) and the Gospel writers (for their contradictions, late composition, and ig- norance of pagan, i.e., Hellenistic, metaphysics). She offered an alternative to Christian doctrine, which by the nineteenth century had been undermined by historical criticism, causing “Christian theology,” she wrote, “to be suspected of

7 1960 [1877], 1:xxii. 8 See Faivre 2006. 9 See Blavatsky 1960 [1877], 1:425–7. The maxim “as above, so below” is a simplification of a sentence from the Emerald Tablet, an influential Hermetic text of unknown date that surfaced in the thirteenth century.

Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 3 (2018) 84–111 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 12:56:23PM via free access 88 Prophet complete bankruptcy.”10 Yet she often quoted the Bible in proof of her views while praising heretical, including gnostic interpretations. Although she was writing prior to the 1945 discovery of the Nag Hammadi library, she liberally quoted from the gnostic literature available through heresiologists.11 She also used Pistis Sophia, a fifth-century CE text collating various gnostic ideas, which presented a Christian-oriented gnostic narrative. It offers techniques for escaping the material world, including rituals, prayers, and magical incantations.12 The text describes the soul as imprisoned in the world, attempting to escape the evil archons who rule it, ensnared by the passions, and rescued by Jesus, the “power of light.”13 Blavatsky referred to other gnostic texts, for example, those of the Nazarenes (who are modern-day Mandaeans), and found some truth in the myth of an evil creator demiurge, Ialdabaoth.14 She called the gnostics “the only heirs to whose share had fallen a few stray crumbs of the unadulterated truth of primitive Christianity.”15 She, however, claimed to possess far more than crumbs, and her creator and assis- tant demigods resemble Hermetic and not gnostic figures. While gnosticism helped to strengthen the overall transcendent bent in her theology, it was the Hermetica that provided the infrastructure of her soteriology. Her frequent references to “Hermetic philosophy” invoke a collection of recurring themes in her work: an emanationist cosmogony, a participatory salvation, a view of time that incorporates both progress and cyclical recur- rence, and the destiny of humans to become divine creators themselves in imitation of the syncretistic Greek-Egyptian god Hermes-Thoth. As French argues, “the gnosticism at the core of the Hermetica was perfectly suited to as- sist in Blavatsky’s objective of wresting Promethean fire from the materialists and transmuting it into the ‘divine spark within man.’”16 French acknowledges the “‘pessimistic’ dualist elements” of the Hermetica, but argues that they

10 1960 [1877], 2:249. 11 Blavatsky 1960 [1877], 2:149–97 presented a detailed evaluation of the gnostic systems available to her, primarily as presented by the heresiologists. 12 One of Blavatsky’s sources for her Pistis Sophia references was C.W. King’s The Gnostics and their Remains, first published in 1864 and in a second edition in 1887. For a modern translation of Pistis Sophia, see Schmidt and MacDermot 1978. 13 Pistis Sophia is contained in a manuscript known as the Askew Codex, purchased in 1772 in England, which contained four books of gnostic lore. As pointed out by Birger Pearson 2007, 252–3, Pistis Sophia is considered to be of late composition and was described by Kurt Rudolph as “not on the highest level of inspiration.” 14 See 1993 [1888], 2:243–4. 15 1960 [1877], 2:249. 16 2001, 185, citing a passage from “Dreams” in Blavatsky’s Collected Writings X, 1888–1889.

Gnosis: Journal of GnosticDownloaded Studies from Brill.com09/29/20213 (2018) 84–111 12:56:23PM via free access Hermetic Influences on the Evolutionary System 89 maintain a “healthy tension with the optimistic creation-affirming elements.” He uses the phrase “gnostic Hermetism” to identify this system as ideally suited for Blavatskian Theosophy which, he maintains, “could not ever honestly be deemed dualistic.”17 As will be demonstrated, the seven androgynous creator gods of Corpus Hermeticum 1.16, who were described in Blavatsky’s translations as “governors,” or “administrators,” contribute to the template of divin- ized human as creator, providing as they do a more positive view of creation than most gnostic systems.18 Blavatsky referred to several translations of Hermetic texts in English and French, and settled on certain passages as pivot points of “Hermetic philosophy,” though she more often referenced them obliquely rather than by direct quotation. Among the sources available to her were the 1650 English translation by John Everard (which was published in the United States in 1871 under the editorship of the occultist Paschal Beverly Randolph) as well as the 1867 French translation by Louis Ménard, and an 1882 English edition by John David Chambers. She also cited in a Hermetic context a translation of Koré Kosmou, or The Virgin of the World, by Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, as well as Foix-Candale’s 1579 French edition.19 She did not herself read Latin or Greek, though she also quoted in English from excerpts of the Hermetic fragments of Stobaeus, referencing an edition by Meineke Trübner, which was published in Greek with Latin annotations. Blavatsky was early-on accused of plagiarism and she furthermore did not always make clear the source of her citations of Hermetic texts. It has been demonstrated that on numerous occasions she lifted (intentionally or not) quotations from secondary sources while citing only the primary sources.20 In spite of her second-hand quotations and unattributed borrowings, her influential dissemination of Hermetic ideas did give “Hermeticism” a new life in contemporary thought. Blavatsky believed that the books of Hermes predated and inspired Pythagoras and Plato, but was also acute enough to notice that there were contradictions and variations in quality among the Hermetic texts, and believed

17 2001, 180. 18 Corp. herm. 1.16, “governors” (Everard 1650, 22; Randolph 1871, 37); “administrators” (Chambers 1882, 9). 19 Kingsford and Maitland cited in Blavatsky 1993 [1888], 1:671; Foix-Candale in 1993 [1888], 2:96. 20 For more on the controversy surrounding Blavatsky’s sources, see Coleman 1895 (spiritualist who made the initial allegations of plagiarism), Campbell 1980, 32–35, Cranston 1993, 379–87, Goodrick-Clarke 2013, 288–9, and Winchester 2015.

Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 3 (2018) 84–111 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 12:56:23PM via free access 90 Prophet that this was due to the distortions of translation as well as probable multiple authorship.21 The name “Hermes,” she wrote, was used as a “generic nom-de- plume by … generations of mystics.”22 This epistemological move allowed her to claim the final word on the authenticity of texts, and to give certain passages priority as she constructed her syncretistic mythology.

Hermeticism and Creation in Blavatsky’s ‘Double Evolution’

Blavatsky describes her soteriology as a system of “double evolution,” which she first elaborated in Isis Unveiled, which was written while she was living in New York.23 As I demonstrate elsewhere, double evolution itself influenced and was transformed into root race theory, her more mature soteriology, which was set forth in its most complete form in The Secret Doctrine (1888).24 The goal of the system of “double evolution,” as stated in Isis Unveiled, is the ulti- mate union of spirit with the divine. At this stage, she had adopted a three-part anthropology, with body, soul, and spirit; the first two, she argued, decay after death, while only the spirit is immortal. By “double evolution,” she meant the simultaneous transformation of body and soul, and the destiny of the human spirit (which she distinguished in Isis from the mortal soul) to transcend the body and enter higher and less material stages of existence, culminating in an ascent and return to the creator in a type of divine union.25 She relied on the Hermetic narrative to provide a structure for this ascent. For example, in one of her elaborations on the divinization process she referred to “the wise Hermes” describing the spirit moving “throughout the subsequent and ascending spheres, every one of which brings him nearer to the refulgent realm of eternal and absolute light.”26

21 Blavatsky 1993 [1888] 1:285, writes that “Divine Poimandrēs” was “distorted” by “Christian ‘smoothing,’” and that the “Hermetic Fragments” were written by “sectarian pagans.” 22 Blavatsky 1993 [1888], 1:286. See also Blavatsky 1960 [1877], 1:444; 1993 [1888], 1:286, 2:210n, 2:364, 2:366. 23 The earliest reference to “double evolution” that I have been able to locate so far is a February 1876 letter from Blavatsky to C.C. Massey, a founding member of the Theosophical Society. She wrote of “spirit keeping pace with the evolution of matter…. When this double evolution has reached a certain point, it is possible for their principle to come into the union with the immortal spirit, which makes of man a Triad” (cited in Lavoie 2012, 135). 24 See Prophet forthcoming. 25 See 1960 [1877], 1:195, 1:212–3. 26 1960 [1977], 2:195.

Gnosis: Journal of GnosticDownloaded Studies from Brill.com09/29/20213 (2018) 84–111 12:56:23PM via free access Hermetic Influences on the Evolutionary System 91

From a textual perspective, Blavatsky’s system of “double evolution” seems to have had its beginning in Genesis and the Corpus Hermeticum.27 Genesis itself blends two ancient creation stories, which had the unintended conse- quence of inspiring gnostic and Hermetic creation myths that incorporated two different gods and two separate creations. The seeming first creation describes God saying, “let us make man in our image, after our likeness…. male and female.” And further, “In the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam.”28 A seeming second creation occurs in chapter 2, when God forms the first man, Adam, “of the dust of the ground,” and Eve from his rib.29 Blavatsky declared that “the first chapters of Genesis relate to the regenera- tion, or new birth of man, not to the creation of our universe and its crown work—MAN.” Genesis was a mystical and symbolic text for her, and she applauded Swedenborg’s interpretation of Genesis via “correspondences,” which she said were akin to “Hermetic symbolism” “as above, so below,” i.e., humans were created in imitation of the divine.30 Here she seemed to reference the unique human status declared for humans in Hermetic myth, which is more favorable than Christian or gnostic mythology. According to Corpus Hermeticum, “Man above all things that live upon Earth, is double, mortal, because of his body, and immortal, because of the substantial Man: For being immortal, and having power of all things, he yet suffers mortal things, and such as are subject to fate or destiny.”31 She promoted her system as consistent with but superior to the scientific narratives of her day. As she grappled with the theory of evolution, she linked Darwin with Genesis. She boldly speculated that Genesis prefigured Darwin with its two creation stories. “The whole Darwinian theory of natural selection is included in the first six chapters of the Book of Genesis.” This, she explained, is because the first “man” of chapter 1 is bi-sexed, while that of chapter 2 is created “male and female.” She argued that this clearly indicated “two races of beings,” followed by a third and fourth, “sons of God,” and “giants.”32 According to her, each of these “races” was generated by the one preceding it. Her idea of

27 In Prophet forthcoming I also look at Blavatsky’s use of Knorr von Rosenroth’s seven- teenth-century Latin translation of parts of the Zohar, a thirteenth-century Kabbalistic text. 28 Gen 1:26–27, 5:1–2, KJV. Note: Blavatsky relied on the King James Version of the Bible. 29 Gen 2:7, 21, KJV. 30 1960 [1877], 1:306. 31 Corp. herm. 1.15 (Everard 1650, 21; Randolph 1871, 36). I have modernized Everard’s spelling and eliminated excess capitalization throughout. 32 1960 [1877], 1:303.

Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 3 (2018) 84–111 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 12:56:23PM via free access 92 Prophet the possibilities of the transformation of one species into another is colored by nineteenth-century misapprehensions about the speed of natural selection and the possibility of hybrids. But this passage, in the 1877 Isis, provides the major trajectory of the first four of the seven races of root race theory, which she would not elaborate for another eleven years. She also used Kabbalism to support the idea of successive “races” of humans, and proposed that the existence of previous human races might explain fossils of giant humans that were purportedly being identified during the nineteenth century. She noted that the Kabbalists described cycles populated by succeed- ing races of men, “each of which races was less spiritual than its predecessor.”33 We can see her attempting to harmonize an esoteric interpretation of the Bible with an acceptance of some kind of evolution in biology. Noting that flowers grow from buds, and buds from seeds, she asked, where does the seed of humanity come from? She answered: “The antediluvian ancestors of the present elephant and lizard were, perhaps, the mammoth and the plesiosaurus; why should not the progenitors of our human race have been the ‘giants’ of the Vedas, the völuspa [Norse creation myth], and the Book of Genesis?”34 But it was not until The Secret Doctrine (1888) that Blavatsky first set forth her theory that modern humans are members of a fifth “root race,” biologically descended from the giants that she had called in Isis the “fourth race.” And what comes after the fifth race? The divinization narratives available in the Hermetica, with the ascent mirroring the descent, provided support for a system that predicted human destiny to return to a former state by becoming creator gods. Already, even in Isis, the implication of the “races” is that in the future we will see a return to a more perfect state by way of double evolution. She continued to rely on Hermetic texts as she elaborated her mythology of human origins and destiny through root race theory.

“Double Evolution” and Hermeticism in Blavatsky’s Controversial Root Race Theory

Root race theory, which continues the trajectory of Blavatsky’s thoughts on double evolution, was elaborated to its greatest extent in The Secret Doctrine, which was written in Europe, but after Blavatsky had spent several years in India. Most scholars see it as a syncretic system but it is couched in Eastern

33 1960 [1877], 1:150. See Chajes 2016 for more on Blavatsky’s use of Kabbalah. 34 1960 [1877], 1:152–3.

Gnosis: Journal of GnosticDownloaded Studies from Brill.com09/29/20213 (2018) 84–111 12:56:23PM via free access Hermetic Influences on the Evolutionary System 93 terminology that occasionally obscures its primary devotion to Western esoteric and particularly Hermetic texts.35 Root race theory first emerged from the “Mahatma letters,” a series of docu- ments received, often under mysterious circumstances, primarily by the news- paper editor Alfred P. Sinnett. Blavatsky had met Sinnett during her stay in India, which commenced in 1878, and he received the letters while living in India and later, England, between 1880 and 1884. The letters began in response to a series of questions Sinnett had addressed to Blavatsky, and he first popu- larized them through his 1883 work Esoteric Buddhism. The letters were purportedly written by “Mahatmas,” or adepts, spiritually advanced humans living in India, and known by their initials M. (for Morya) and K.H. (for Koot-Hoomi). The authorship of the letters has been hotly debated, with most skeptics assuming they were written by Blavatsky herself, perhaps with the assistance of one or more Indian followers. They display if not Blavatsky’s handwriting, then a concern with matters of interest to Victorian spiritualists and Theosophists, and not necessarily to Indian or Tibetan holy men. Thus, I argue, they can and should be taken as part of her overall oeuvre. Although they reflected personalities and points of view that differed occasionally from her own, they seem most likely to be her own channeled works.36 Quite in keeping with Blavatsky’s views, one of the letters mentions Hermeticism, advising that “Hermetic philosophy” is a “universal and unsec- tarian” means of promoting “Esoteric doctrines” and “Truth,” and therefore po- tentially more acceptable than systems based in Tibetan philosophy because it “suits every creed and clashes with none.” The letter addressed tensions that

35 French 2001, 180 argues that a focus on Eastern sources has distracted from a scholar- ly evaluation of the influence of Hermetica on Blavatsky’s thought: “Concentration on the Orientalism of the post-1878 Theosophical Society—that is, the period following Blavatsky’s removal to India—has ensured that antecedents for the vertical transit of the soul (the ascent/descent motif) and “Ages” theory (the macrocyclicist historiography), both so crucial to Blavatskian mapping, have been sought far afield, in Indic sources, rather than in the most predictable place of all—the Hermetica, crucible of esotericisms.” 36 This article does not address the question of whether the Mahatmas were historical per- sonages or creations of Blavatsky, but only their historical development. For more on the authorship of the Mahatma Letters, see Johnson 1994, Harrison 1997, and Lavoie 2012, 193– 5. Gomes 1994, 363–423 provides a bibliography of works relating to the letters. French 2001, 170 argues that “what little attention the Masters have received from scholars has devolved upon the question of their verifiable historical existence, and not on the more eminently interesting semiosis of the Masters Gestalt as a whole.” See also French 2000.

Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 3 (2018) 84–111 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 12:56:23PM via free access 94 Prophet had developed between those Theosophists interested in Western esotericism and those searching for wisdom in the East.37 The origins of root race theory have often been sought in the East, primarily because Blavatsky used a purported ancient manuscript to authenticate root race theory. This document, the “Stanzas of Dyzan”—Blavatsky’s name for a manuscript that she claimed to have accessed in Tibet, which dated from a more distant early civilization—contains cryptic descriptions of creation. When she herself first presented root race theory in 1888, it was as a commen- tary on these elusive stanzas. Students of Theosophy have spent much time trying to locate the stanzas in Eastern scripture but in spite of their efforts, and a few parallels, no such text has been unearthed. Although root race theory incorporates Hindu and Buddhist terminology Blavatsky had encountered in India, I agree with Goodrick-Clarke in favoring an “underlying cosmological and philosophical coherence of her two major works in the Western traditions.”38 The passage from the 1877 Isis Unveiled referenced earlier, which describes four “races” emerging from the book of Genesis, is for me textual proof that root race theory developed slowly in Blavatsky’s thought and existed in embryo prior to her 1878 journey to India.39 I treat root race theory as a continuum from Isis Unveiled through the Mahatma Letters and the Secret Doctrine, and I approach root race theory from the earliest beginnings of Blavatsky’s thought about evolution, and not starting in India, as other evalua- tions have done. Until now, no scholar has focused on the primary importance of the Hermetic interpretations to root race theory in particular. The Hermetic narrative provided the infrastructure, and as I propose and demonstrate in the discussion which follows, scientific and Eastern concepts were rallied to its support only when they seemed to confirm or overdetermine the Hermetic myth. Specifically, we may track her attempts to account for scientific theories of the biological development of life on earth, including those of Charles Lyell and his long geological time frames, and of Charles Darwin and other evolutionary biologists, which she marshalled in her favor whenever possible.

The Development of Root Race Theory Root race theory gelled in the 1880s by answering questions that had been troubling Blavatsky for some time. Isis shows her attempting, not always successfully, to find a theory that accepts the scientific reality of evolution

37 Letter 85, 1883, to the “T.S. London Lodge,” published in Barker 1975 [1923], 398–9. 38 Goodrick-Clarke 2013, 261. 39 1960 [1877], 1:303.

Gnosis: Journal of GnosticDownloaded Studies from Brill.com09/29/20213 (2018) 84–111 12:56:23PM via free access Hermetic Influences on the Evolutionary System 95 by natural selection (which she probably did not fully comprehend) but also allows for the separate “evolution” of soul.40 She accepted in Isis that the human physical form was a “product of evolution,” but shifted her position over time as she attempted also to account for gradations of existence from spiritual to material.41 Like many religious Victorians, particularly the broad spiritualist movement of her day, Blavatsky accepted Darwin but was more comfortable with Alfred Russel Wallace, the biologist who is credited as co- discoverer of natural selection. In 1864, Wallace, who had been a leader, along with Thomas Henry Huxley, in supporting and popularizing the theory of natural selection—first made available to a wide audience through Darwin’s 1859 Origin of Species—gave an address to the Anthropological Society of London, proposing that “mind” was a quality that had made humans “superior to nature,” able to till the soil and escape the elements, thus exempting them from natural selection.42 In 1869, in the Quarterly Review, Wallace went much further, suggesting by analogy that just as humans could alter the development of plant and animal species through selection, a “Higher Intelligence” may have guided the laws of science. He called the “mind of man” the “living proof of a supreme mind.”43 These speculations gave birth to a type of intelligent design.44 Wallace, who declined to endorse Blavatsky, nevertheless emerged as an unwilling patron saint of her double evolution, and she cited him admiringly and gave substance to his mind-giving “Higher Intelligences,” equating them with the Hermetic creator gods or “administrators” of Corpus Hermeticum 1. Whether or not Wallace was familiar with Hermetic texts, Blavatsky certainly made the leap between

40 Her specific denial of human descent from primates in Secret Doctrine obscures her other attempts to find harmony between evolutionary biology and her developing theology. Although in Isis she had stated that “Physical man, as a product of evolution, may be left in the hands of the man of exact science” (1960 [1877], 1:153), she stated categorically in The Secret Doctrine that “neither Occultism nor Theosophy has ever supported the wild theories of the present Darwinists—least of all the descent of man from an ape” (1993 [1888], 1:186). But she supported the idea of the biological development of human life, ap- pealing instead to Ernst Haeckel’s embryology, which she said suggested human embryos resembled those of dogs just as much as primates (1993 [1888], 2:258–9). 41 1960 [1877], 1:9. 42 1991, 24–25. 43 1991, 33. 44 For a brief discussion of similarities and differences between Wallace’s “intelligences” and late twentieth-century Bible-based intelligent design, see Smith 2008, 409 and Dick 2008, 337.

Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 3 (2018) 84–111 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 12:56:23PM via free access 96 Prophet equating the “mind” of Wallace’s evolutionary vision with the mind or nous of Hermetic creation.

Racial Hierarchies and Root Race Theory Before going any further in evaluating Hermetic influences on root race theory, it is important to briefly discuss its relationship to the racist hierarchies that developed in science beginning in the early nineteenth century and extending well into the twentieth.45 As mentioned, root race theory portrays the human soul as traversing a series of seven “races,” which range from amorphous, ethereal and gigantic to modern humans and from there to more ethereal bodies again. Issues of race arise when races are said to overlap, and contemporary indigenous peoples are called “savages” and declared to be stragglers from the fourth race. In addition, fifth-race “modern” humans are also seen as traversing a hierarchy of sub-races, which range in order from African to Asian to “Aryan,” or Indo-European. Scholars have debated whether or to what extent Blavatsky was racist. In 1886, the Theosophical Society adopted as an official objective: “To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed or colour,” which suggests she was not. But when her teachings are evalu- ated as a whole, particularly root race theory, it seems clear that by today’s standards her teachings were racist, regardless of revisionist attempts by later Theosophists.46 Root race theory is situated within the nineteenth-century theory of an Aryan race originating in northern India and populating Europe, along with a hierarchy of race from “savage” to “barbaric” to “civilized,” as well as the idea that existing aboriginal tribes were remnants of earlier “savage” races. Nineteenth-century racial hierarchy placed the “Hottentot,” a Dutch term for an African tribe, and the native Australian at the bottom, and the Aryan at the top. Aryans were thought to incorporate the entire Indo-European language family, and indeed, root race theory also makes use of the idea that language and intelligence developed together.47

45 See Stepan 1982 for a history of scientific racism. 46 For a range of positions on the topic, see Santucci 2008, Lubelsky 2013, Crow 2017, 85–137. 47 The Aryan hypothesis was based on the realization that Sanskrit was linguistically linked with European languages, suggesting that Indians and Europeans shared common ancestors. The hypothesis that an advanced northern Indian “Aryan” race had colonized Europe was first promoted by Friedrich Schlegel in 1819 and from there took root in European thought. The word Aryan builds upon the Greek Arioi, meaning Medes and Persians, but became linked by Schlegel with Ehre, the German word for honor, according to Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. Theories of Aryanism and a common Indo-European language family and race were still in their early stages in the 1840s, and did not begin to be linked

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As mentioned, in Blavatsky’s system there is no direct mapping from a “root race” to a physical race, and it is only the current fifth root race that contains modern humans, who are divided into seven “sub-races” and further into forty-nine “branch-races,” with Aryans at the top. Her incorporation of the language of “root” and “branch” suggests an attempt to harmonize her theory with Darwinian evolution and its branching tree, though Lévi also used similar terminology.48 But in spite of her racist language, she could also challenge racist concepts. For example, she opposed theories of racial difference based on skull thickness when she argued that mentally and psychically, the Indian was equal or superior to the European. She stated that even if the Southern Hindu might have a skull thickness different from the European, the difference was “purely a cli- matic result, due to the intensity of the sun’s rays,” which “involves no psycho- logical principles.”49 And she also undermined narratives about the exclusivity of the white race by asserting that each soul was intended to traverse all of the major races in hierarchical order, a system which, while preserving a racial hierarchy, would have been offensive to white European Christians convinced of their unique status. Although some of her teachings are offensive today, especially given that her ideas were later used to promote fascist and neo-Nazi views, they were also adapted by later generations of Theosophists to reduce or eliminate racist teachings, in order to harmonize the teachings with shifting social mores.50

by some with anti-Semitic theories until 1845 (Goodrick-Clarke 2002, 89–90). Blavatsky was accused of anti-Semitism. These charges are based in part on her delegitimization of the Hebrew Bible, which she like many others in the nineteenth century attacked on a historical-critical basis. In addition, her fondness for gnostic and Kabbalistic doctrines led her to ridicule and question the Old Testament God Yahweh. As Garry Trompf notes, Blavatsky’s position took on “a problematic pro-Indo-European, anti-Jewish face … that would make her macrohistorical exercises vulnerable to later twists by Nazi and ‘right- wing’ esostericists” (1998, 285). Her sympathy for Jewish mysticism notwithstanding, she did not consider Jews to be Aryans, but stated in Isis the opinion of some historians that they were identical to “Phœnecians,” and followed up with her own assertion that “Phœnecians were beyond any doubt an Æthiopian race.” However, she also singled out other groups as non-Aryan, for example, she stated: “the present race of Punjaub [a region in northwest India] are hybridized with the Asiatic Æthiopians” (1960 [1877], 1:567). 48 Lévi 1897, 149. 49 1960 [1877], 2:636. 50 For more on appropriation of Blavatsky by right-wing groups, see Goodrick-Clarke 2002, 79–87. Crow 2017, 133–37 discusses the softening of racial teachings by the Theosophical Society.

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Blavatsky was not attached to a particular political ideology and her ideas were used after her death by others to support progressive causes such as Indian self-determination, even as they would also be marshalled to support racist theories.

Hermeticism, Creation, and Hermaphroditism in Root Race Theory

The salvation narrative of root race theory is not dependent on racial hierarchies. The soul traversing the seven races experiences progressive densifica- tion and etherealization over millions of years.51 Although Hindu terminology is prominent in root race theory, and androgynous and hybrid Hindu deities provided supporting evidence, the primary structure of the seven root races emerges from the Hermetica and other Western esoteric traditions.52 The first area of influence is in the early races, which as mentioned earlier were described in the Secret Doctrine as ungendered in the first two races, and transitioning to hermaphroditic in the third race. From the writing of Isis, Blavatsky was looking for a way to fit an androgynous or hermaphroditic earlier race into her creation schema, and relying on the Corpus Hermeticum for proof. In Isis, she referenced the “double-sexed Deity” of the “Egyptian Pimander,” i.e., Poimandres, as the “first intelligible manifestation of the Divine

51 This paper deals only with the root races themselves, and not the other more complicated parts of the system, which includes seven rounds and seven planets, correlated with a now seven-part soul, which begins in flesh and ends in spirit. 52 Most scholars of Theosophy think that the choice of the number seven as a mediator in Blavatsky’s soteriology is drawn from Western esoteric sources, including Neoplatonism, Kabbalah, Jakob Böhme, and Paracelsus, though Indian theology played a role (See Hall 2007). Blavatsky’s seven-part model of the soul was introduced to the public in 1881, in an article in The Theosophist by A.O. Hume, an Englishman living in India, to whom some of the Mahatma letters had been addressed. The principles of the “septenary soul,” as summarized by Sinnett in 1883, are: (1) the body, rupa (2) vitality, prāna, or jiva (3) astral body, linga śarira, (4) animal soul, kāma rupa (5) human soul, manas (6) spiritual soul, buddhi, and (7) spirit, ātmā (Sinnett 2008, 22). According to the new system, the second through fourth principles perish with the body or decay in an “astral” realm. The revela- tions of spiritualists come from shells, which are the decaying remnant of the “fourth” principle of humans, the animal soul, combined with unfulfilled wishes and desires of the fifth (human soul). The fifth, sixth, and seventh principles survive death and reincar- nate, while the sixth and the seventh are the vehicles for soul evolution and divinization (Sinnett 2008, 23–29, 89–95).

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Spirit in material form.”53 And in Secret Doctrine, she described humans as coming from “a group of seven Celestial men or Angels, just as in Poimandres.”54 In root race theory, the first and second root races are described as inhabiting gigantic amorphous bodies without any gender at all. But by the third race, they are portrayed as hermaphroditic or androgynous, with support drawn from Corpus Hermeticum 1.18, which seems to reference and elaborate upon the dual creation stories from Genesis. It describes the first creation as specifically androgynous, seven androgyne generations following the creation, after which humans became gendered. The earlier hermaphroditic beings are described in Corpus Hermeticum 1.17 as being created from the elements, a form of generation that becomes the template in Blavatsky’s system for generation by superior future humans as well. Blavatsky’s hermaphrodites do not repro- duce by known biological processes, but by the force of mind and will acting upon the elements. This method of reproduction seems to arise from the creation myth of Corpus Hermeticum 1, in which the first “Man,” in the image of the Father, unites with “Nature” to create humans. In the Everard translation, the relevant passage reads:

And being hermaphrodite, or male and female … he [the primordial human] is governed by, and subjected to a Father, that is both male and female, and watchful…. Nature being mingled with Man, brought forth a wonder most wonderful; for he having the Nature of the harmony of the seven, from him whom I told thee, the fire and the spirit, Nature continued not, but forthwith brought forth seven men all males and females … according to the natures of the seven governors…. The generation therefore of these seven was after this manner, the air being feminine, and the water desirous of copulation, took from the fire its ripeness, and from the ether spirit; and so Nature produced bodies after the species and shape of men. And man was made of life and light into soul and mind, of life and soul, of light the mind.55

Several elements of this passage are relevant to root race theory. First, the mode of generation is the copulation of the elements and through this process humans are endowed with mind. Everard translates nous as mind, which probably suggested to Blavatsky a connection with Wallace’s “higher intelligences”

53 1960 [1877], 2:171. Following her translators, Blavatsky commonly referred to Corpus Hermeticum 1 as Pimander or Poimandres. 54 1993 [1888], 1:230. 55 Corp. herm. 1.15–17 (Everard 1650, 21–23; Randolph 1871, 36–37).

Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 3 (2018) 84–111 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 12:56:23PM via free access 100 Prophet endowing humans with “mind.” Blavatsky described the hermaphroditic administrators, governors, or creator gods, whom she also equated with Wallace’s unspecified “higher intelligences,” as creating through the spirit and the elements. She portrayed their generation as a primitive type of biological process, which may have at the time seemed plausible according to vitalist science.56 Continuing her assertion that science proves esoteric doctrine, Blavatsky referred to the “progressive order of the methods of reproduction, as unveiled by science,” declaring it to be “a brilliant confirmation of esoteric Ethnology.” She described the progression of reproduction from fission, which she associated with the first root race, to budding (the second), to “intermediate hermaphroditism” in the “early Third” race, and finally “true sexual union” in the “later Third.”57 Blavatsky also cited as supporting evidence for her theory the association by Darwin and other evolutionary biologists of asexual and hermaphroditic reproduction with earlier and simpler organisms. Darwin stated that a “remote progenitor of the whole vertebrate kingdom appears to have been hermaphrodite or androgynous.”58 Other biologists made similar speculations but none would have supported the idea of hermaphroditic mammals. True hermaphroditism in nature, according to biologists, was confined to less complex organisms.59 Nevertheless, the common notion of a progression of reproduc- tive development from asexual to hermaphrodite to gendered would have, in Blavatsky’s mind, reinforced the power and appeal of her root race theory and reaffirmed the validity of the Hermetic proof text, and suggests why she described the two creation stories of Genesis as prefiguring Darwin.60 Elsewhere she elaborated on the modes of reproduction used by the first three races. She stated that “from being previously asexual, Humanity became

56 See 1993 [1888], 1:339. 57 1993 [1888], 2:166–7. 58 2006 [1871], 875. 59 As summarized by Hodge 2009, 47, Lyell had “hypothesized that each species originated in one place, not many, and as a single first pair or lone hermaphrodite.” In Descent of Man, Darwin speculated that embryology might offer a clue to the origins of vertebrates in the invertebrate and hermaphroditic Ascidian type of mollusc (2006 [1871], 893–4). However, Darwin rejected true hermaphroditism in mammals, speculating that whatever rudimentary vestiges of sex organs mammals may possess, it is “improbable in the highest degree” that an ancient mammal possessed organs of both sexes, but rather that “when the five vertebrate classes diverged from their common progenitor the sexes had already become separated” (2006 [1871], 895). 60 1960 [1877], 1:303.

Gnosis: Journal of GnosticDownloaded Studies from Brill.com09/29/20213 (2018) 84–111 12:56:23PM via free access Hermetic Influences on the Evolutionary System 101 distinctly hermaphrodite or bisexual; and finally the man-bearing eggs began to give birth, gradually and almost imperceptibly in their evolutionary development, first, to Beings in which one sex predominated over the other, and, finally, to distinct men and women.”61 She seemed here to be referencing the Hermetic scene of the separation of the sexes that describes how, following the seven androgyne generations, “all living creatures being hermaphroditical, or male and female, were loosed and untied together with Man; and so the males were apart by themselves, and the females likewise.”62 But she was not satisfied with the “gradual and imperceptible” transition into gendered reproduction as suggested by evolutionary biology. Rather, she also used this point of transition to validate and incorporate other aspects of the Hermetic creation myth, as it became associated in her mind with a “fall into matter.” Though Blavatsky distanced this “fall” from the Christian narrative associating the expulsion from Eden with original sin, she nevertheless also associated it with sexuality.

Hermetic Texts and the “Fall into Matter”

Like much ancient philosophy, the Hermetica incorporated tensions concern- ing immanence and transcendence, the body and the soul, and these too found their way into root race theory. Corpus Hermeticum 1.18, in the very same passage describing the beginning of gendered reproduction in which humans are commanded to “increase” and “multiply” (cf. Gen. 1:28), warns against sexual desire, translated as “love of the body” by Everard, and rendered in other translations as “desire”.63 Specifically, and clearly also referencing gnostic and Platonic traditions, it states: “Let him that is endowed with mind know himself to be immortal; and that the cause of death is the love of the body, and let him learn all things that are.”64 The juxtaposition of this sentence with the description of the origin of the sexes is picked up in Blavatsky’s system of evolution, which paradoxically relies upon sexual reproduction while also anticipating its eventual demise in the sixth and seventh root races.

61 1993 [1888], 2:132. 62 Corp. herm. 1.18 (Everard 1650, 24; Randolph 1871, 37). 63 Corp. herm. 1.18 (Everard 1650, 24; Randolph 1871, 37); “desire” (Salaman, van Oyen and Wharton 1999, 21); “cupiditaté” (Foix-Candalle 1574). The original Greek word being translated here is eros ἔρως (Nock and Festugière 1945, 13). See DeConick 2001, 251–2, for a Valentinian gnostic interpretation of the use of eros in Corp. herm. 1.18. 64 Corp. herm. 1.18 (Everard 1650, 24; Randolph 1871, 37).

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During the transition between the third and fourth root races, which according to root race theory took place millions of years ago, Blavatsky described a “fall into matter” for which she used Genesis and the Book of Enoch as a foun- dation, and gave the Hermetica a central role. The “fall into matter,” while re- lated allegorically to the Christian fall, which Blavatsky rejected, nevertheless maligns lust and pleasure. It is described as having taken place towards the end of the third race, when the “sons of God” bred with developing humans. Let us more closely examine this episode of human-divine miscegenation, which Blavatsky tried to link with progressive materialization and the beginnings of sexual reproduction (which was described in her system as originating in more than one way). In Isis, Blavatsky had identified the “sons of God” of Genesis 6:4 with the “minor gods mentioned by Plato in the Timaeus … who fashioned and created all forms.”65 In Secret Doctrine, she linked these “sons of God” with the seven demigods or creators of Corpus Hermeticum 1.16–18. She later identified their enfleshment as the “Mystery [of] Nature being mingled with Man.”66 She described these divine creators as having the task during the third race of ensoul- ing and creating humans. And yet these creator demigods, equated also with the fallen angels of Enoch, can sin. Some of them refuse to do their job to create and give life to humans, which is necessary for evolution.67 Later, at the beginning of the fourth race, the sons of God also take “wives of a lower race, namely, the race of the hitherto mindless men.”68 The two-fold sins of these angels or demigods, then, become lust and the refusal to create. It is lust that leads to enfleshment and materialization, in a contradictory way.69

65 1960 [1877], 1:149–51. 66 1993 [1888], 2:267. 67 1993 [1888], 2:239. 68 1993 [1888], 2:263. 69 One can see this myth already developing in Isis in Blavatsky’s description of the “coats of skin” from Genesis as an enfleshment and materialization. She declared that the “real meaning of the allegory” of the Flood and the expulsion from the Garden was that the post-Flood bodies were “tainted by the material” (1960 [1877] 1:150). So the stories of Noah and the sons of God become commingled in enfleshment and materialization of bodies. See also Blavatsky 1993 [1888], 2:411, for association of Noah’s Flood and enfleshment. She gave conflicting reasons for the destruction of Atlantis. At times she described continent- ending cataclysms as being part of the natural cycle of life (1993 [1888], 1: 369; 2:350, 2:410), she elsewhere, echoing Biblical Flood narratives, could not resist blaming the calamity on “sorcery” turned to by some Atlanteans (1993 [1888], 2:636), which she had also connected with phallic worship and sex magic.

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Both the apocryphal Book of Enoch and Genesis are tapped as proof texts. Materialization and enfleshment are linked with the introduction of sexual reproduction: “The third race fell—and created no longer: it begat its progeny.”70 Creation is contrasted with begetting as a separate mode of reproduction. The influence of the negative valence placed on lust in Corpus Hermeticum 1.18 can be seen in the following passage from Secret Doctrine regarding the fall into matter:

The Third Race was pre-eminently the bright shadow, at first, of the gods, whom tradition exiles on Earth after the allegoric war in Heaven; which became still more allegorical on Earth, for it was the war between spirit and matter. This war will last till the inner and divine man adjusts his outer terrestrial self to his own spiritual nature. Till then the dark and fierce passions of the former will be at eternal feud with his master, the Divine Man. But the animal will be tamed one day, because its nature will be changed, and the harmony will reign once more between the two as before the ‘Fall,’ when even mortal man was created by the Elements and was not born.71

Here we have an allusion to the creation by mind and the elements of Corpus Hermeticum 1.15 combined with a prophecy of the end of sexual reproduction. Thus the end of the root races becomes a return to the beginning—harmony will “reign once more” when the animal nature is changed and people are created, not born, as in the beginning. The discussion of creation and reproduction walks a fine line between op- posing lust while allowing for procreation. Blavatsky provided an oblique com- mentary that seems to reference the passage from Corpus Hermeticum 1.18. Lust, rather than sexual reproduction, becomes the cause of degeneration and other calamities that attend the root races. During the fourth root race, on the continent of Atlantis about two million years ago, she described a degeneration into “phallicism and sexual worship,” which she associated generally with a loss of stature, life span, and psychic powers.72

70 1993 [1888], 2:267. Space does not permit a review of an ancillary tension in the Hermetica and Blavatsky’s system, that between enfleshment as a necessity for divine self-understanding and the sins associated with flesh and the body. 71 1993 [1888], 2:268. 72 1993 [1888], 2:285, 2:287.

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This association seems indebted to Hargrave Jennings, who incorporated into his 1870 work a survey of phallic symbols throughout Asia, and theorized about the nature of primitive sex worship. Jennings relied upon an article by an Edward Sellon entitled “On the Phallic Worship of India,” read before the Anthropological Society of London and published in the society’s 1863–4 pro- ceedings. Jennings commented on Sellon as follows: “The phallic worship pre- vailed, at one time, all over India…. Though it has degenerated into gross and sensual superstition, it was originally intended as the worship of the creative principle in Nature.”73 Likewise, Blavatsky represented sex worship as originating in the rites of Nature, but described it as degenerating into worship of the body itself. She used terms that evoke the “love of the body” of Corpus Hermeticum 1.18 and a phrase from 1.19, “he that through the error of love, loved the body.”74 She wrote that the “worship of the human body” degenerated into worship of “its respective sexes.”75 She distinguished procreation from lust, writing of “natural union, as all the mindless animal world does in its proper seasons” as opposed to non-procreative sex, i.e., “abusing the creative power … desecrating the divine gift, and wasting the life-essence for no purpose except bestial personal gratification.”76 Here also, her use of “creative power” evokes the administrators who are endowed with the creative power of nature in Corpus Hermeticum 1. In Blavatsky’s retelling, during the fourth root race “lust” turned “the holy mystery of procreation into animal gratification.” The end result was disease and reduced lifespan in modern fifth-race humans.77 But this did not mean she was opposed to procreative sex, as long as it was necessary for the propagation of the race. Like Christian theologians before her, she opposed only nonprocre- ative sex. And she suggested that in some ways, the human might benefit from procreating more like animals, not less, in that animals mate only in season, and not throughout the year. Yet she needed also at this point to continue the returning arc of Hermetic discourse and root race theory and find the salvation of these declined modern fifth-race humans in the future sixth and seventh races. For this task the Hermetica also provided an infrastructure.

73 Jennings 1870, 40. 74 Corp. herm. 1.18–19 (Everard 23–4). 75 1993 [1888], 2:285. 76 1993 [1888], 2:410. 77 See 1993 [1888], 2:411.

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Hermes and Hermetic Creator Gods as Templates for Future Human Existence

Corpus Hermeticum 1.26 describes the return of humans to the “father” as they ascend through heavenly spheres and ultimately become merged with the divine.78 More than one Hermetic proof text supports Blavatsky’s depiction of salvation as divinization. For example, she quoted from a Hermetic frag- ment cited by Stobaeus that traces a progression of humans from “creeping creatures” to “land animals” to birds. “From the beings who live aloft in the air [heaven] men are born. On reaching that status of men, the Souls receive the principle of [conscious] immortality, become Spirits, then pass into the choir of gods.”79 Root race theory predicts that modern fifth-race humans will be transformed in the sixth and seventh races, but not into the gigantic amorphous bodies of the first and second races. Rather, Blavatsky’s descriptions of these future races bring to mind simply better but less-solid versions of the fourth and fifth races, though they do take on some of the characteristics of the first through third races. They will once more display the type of mediumistic tal- ents such as clairvoyance and telepathy that had been seen in the third race. And they will ultimately regain the ability to create asexually—from the mind and the elements. In Isis, Blavatsky described future races that would be similar to the fictional “Vril-ya” of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s Victorian novel The Coming Race, who harness an invisible energy source to perform tasks of daily life, along with healing and warfare. These future beings she described as “but one remove from the primitive ‘Sons of God,’” a move that equates them with Hermetic creator gods.80 Among the few concrete descriptions Blavatsky gave of future root races was to compare them to “adepts” of the past and present. She predicted that a sixth “sub-race” of the fifth race would eventually incarnate on the West coast of the United States, and “sow the seeds for … a forthcoming, grander, and far more glorious Race than any of those we know of at present … the majority of the future mankind will be composed of glorious Adepts.”81 In order to provide realistic details for the divinization process, it was necessary for Blavatsky to update the Hermetic myth for the nineteenth century.

78 Corp. herm. 1.26 (Everard 1650, 30; Randolph 1871, 40–41). 79 1993 [1888], 2:137–8. Bracketed material occurs in The Secret Doctrine, most likely added by Blavatsky. 80 1960 [1877], 1:296. 81 1993 [1888], 2:446.

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Yet even as she did so, she once more relied on two aspects of the Hermetic tradition. First and most obvious is the reference to the seven Hermetic creator gods—governors or administrators—whom she had also associated not only with the sons of God of Genesis but also with the Elohim of the Hebrew Bible, with Wallace’s “higher intelligences,” and with Eastern archetypes—the Hindu Pitris and ultimately “Dhyāni Chohans.”82 These beings are described as creators, teachers, and guides as well as prototypes of future humans. The Mahatma Letters tell us that humans may, in the “seventh round,” become Dhyāni Chohans.83 The second important trope she borrowed from the Hermetic tradition is that of Hermes himself as man-god or god-man, a sort of amphibious being transiting between matter and spirit, heaven and earth, who had inspired esoteric depictions of the magus and sage.84 Blavatsky also equated Hermes archetypally with Enoch, Moses, and Jesus Christ, and even declared Hermes to be a generic name.85 French argues that she understood “that her society would be more likely to accept a god-like man than a man-like God,” and so she settled on the figure of the Mahatma, a human in the process of becoming divine. Thus she rearticulated Hermes “to embrace the cynicism and skepti- cism of her era.”86 In her modern retelling of the Hermetic myth, the Mahatma (also sometimes called a “Master”) became the contemporary prototype for the future human. French comments on the importance of the adept as Master in the salvation scheme: “The Masters, by enfleshing, as it were, evolutionary progress toward perfection, indicated that though enlightenment could not ever be achieved in one lifetime, it is nevertheless possible to make rapid spiritual and physical ad- vances within the human span.” French then quotes from Mahatma Letter 44, which states that the Mahatma K.H. is “on his way to the goal” of divine union during his lifetime.87 Salvation as evolution becomes a task that requires effort during life on earth. As Blavatsky described it, every divine being had to work to achieve its place in the universe: “There are no such privileged beings in the universe … as the angels of the Western Religion and the Judean. A Dhyāni Chohan has to

82 Hermetic creator gods as Elohim, 1993 [1888], 2:2n. Pitris as creators of humans, 1:86. 83 Letter 13, in Barker ed. 1975 [1923], 75. 84 For more information on Hermes as a divine man, see DeConick 2016, 77–90. 85 With Enoch, 1993 [1888], 1:532; as generic name, 2:210n, 364, 366. 86 2001, 182–3. 87 French 2000, 1:211.

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Conclusion

Hermetic texts and traditions had a profound influence on Blavatsky’s thought, both in general and specifically on the development of her system of “double evolution” and root race theory. Root race theory, in spite of its racism, provided an alternative explanation for human destiny that avoided biblical literalism and tried to take scientific naturalism into account. By describing a process of inhabiting different types of bodies through progressive reincarnation in seven types of bodies, Blavatsky made new contributions to theories of race, gender, and salvation that had an outsize influence after her death, and could be configured to sidestep the racist elements.90

88 1993 [1888], 1:221. Dhyāni Chohans, according to Blavatsky, “are the collective hosts of spiritual beings—the Angelic Hosts of Christianity, the Elohim and ‘Messengers’ of the Jews—who are the vehicle for the manifestation of the divine or universal thought and will” (1993 [1888], 1:38). “The seven sublime lords are the Seven Creative Spirits, the Dhyāni Chohans, who correspond to the Hebrew Elohim…. The Dhyānis watch successively over one of the Rounds and the great Root Races of our planetary chain” (1993 [1888], 1:42). 89 Blavatsky 1993 [1888], 1:278 describes the “wires of evolution” as being “pulled by unseen hands”, those of the Dhyāni-Chohan. These intelligent creators are former humans: “Every ‘Spirit’ so called is either a disembodied or a future man. As from the highest Archangel (Dhyāni-Chohan) down to the last conscious ‘Builder’ (the inferior class of Spiritual Entities), all such are men, having lived aeons ago, in other Manvantaras, on this or other Spheres; so the inferior, semi-intelligent and non-intelligent Elementals—are all future men (1993 [1888], 1:277). 90 See Hammer and Rothstein 2013 for an overview of the post-Blavatsky transformations of Theosophical ideas.

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Although she also borrowed from Eastern religion and other religious and esoteric systems, the primary allegiance of her evolutionary system was to Corpus Hermeticum 1.1–18 and the figure of Hermes as god-man or man- god. Corpus Hermeticum provided the framework for the creation mythology mapped out in the first through third root races, and support for the enfleshment or materialization of souls and bodies in the third and fourth root races. With its creator gods, it also provided a template for the future humans of the sixth and seventh races, as did Hermes reformatted as a flesh-and-blood adept, Mahatma, or Master. Much additional work remains to be done to map the incorporation and use of Hermetic texts in Blavatsky’s overall oeuvre, but at least this article has provided some supporting evidence for the proposals of Goodrick-Clarke and French. This article has also identified tension and confusion in Blavatsky’s Hermetic appropriations. Root race theory creates as many problems as it solves. It incorporates science and rejects biblical literalism but retains a transcendent scope that is at odds with more recent trends towards more positive theologies of flesh and the body. Some of the tension comes from Blavatsky’s struggle to find coherence in the contradictory passages in the Hermetic tradition. For example, Corpus Hermeticum 1.18 places both a negative and positive valence on gendered reproduction. The tensions between immanence and transcendence that are threaded through Hermetic texts are reproduced and even amplified in root race theory. It sparked as many new conflicts over body and soul, creation and destiny, as the Russian mystic had originally attempted to resolve. But the greatest Hermetic influence in the system is its support for possibilities of divinization, which Blavatsky fashioned with her pen into a revitalized myth for generations to come.

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