Chapter 2 Major Trends in Post-Enlightenment Esotericism
The Enlightenment set into motion major societal changes that affected esotericism just as it did a large number of other areas. In Chapter 7 I will go into more detail regarding sociological research concerning the consequences of these changes, but here a cursory discussion of some of the more specific implications for esotericism in general will suffice. Wouter Hanegraaff has highlighted four principal transformations:1 an adaptation to the ideals of rea- son and rationality; a growing influence from non-Western cultures and non-Christian religions, much influenced by the emerging study of religions; the adoption of an evolutionary paradigm to spiritual development; and the re-interpretation of esoteric notions in psychological framesets, in what Hanegraaff calls ‘the psychologization of religion and sacralization of psychol- ogy’.2 All these developments can be directly attributed to emerging hegemony of secularism, through which (conventional) religion was posited as antiquated and belonging to more primitive stages of cultural development. Consequently, esoteric actors attempted to aligne their teachings, practices, rhetoric, and vocabulary more closely to the ‘new scientific worldview’, and the earlier organic model of correspondences was more or less replaced by mechanistic models focused on instrumental causality.3 However, the Enlightenment ethos was not anti-religious per se. It involved a strong faith in the possibility, and indeed inevitability, of obtaining perfect knowledge about the world through reason, rationality, and recourse to essentially unchanging and absolute natural laws. The critique of religion was primarily directed towards the dominant reli- gious institutions of Western society, i.e. various forms of conventional Christianity. This relative ‘de-Christianization’ of Europe made it both possible and appealing to turn to non-Christian religions for inspiration.4 In this chapter I will look at some of the more important groups, individuals, and approaches that have emerged since the Enlightenment, specifically dealing with their rel- evance for Dragon Rouge in particular and late modern esotericism in general.
1 Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture, 411–513; idem, ‘How Magic Survived the Disenchantment of the World’. 2 Idem, New Age Religion and Western Culture, 482. 3 Hammer, Claiming Knowledge, 201–330; Hanegraaff, ‘How Magic Survived the Disenchantment of the World’. 4 For further discussion on these subjects see Granholm, ‘Locating the West’.
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The Theosophical Society, founded in New York in 1875 by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891), Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907), and William Quan Judge (1851–1896), is a textbook example of many of the Enlightenment influences on esotericism discussed by Hanegraaff.5 The Ukraine-born Madame Blavatsky was the lead ideologist of the society and the most central figure in its history and early development. The details of her early life are somewhat vague, but it would seem clear that from age eighteen she travelled the world extensively, eventually founding the short-lived Société Spirite in Egypt in 1871/1872.6 While Blavatsky appears to have been involved in spiritualism earlier she came to express an impassioned critique of it after the founding of the Theosophical Society. By the 1870s spiritualism had reached a level of mass popularity where it had attracted a lot of opportunistic charlatans, and assuming a polemical attitude towards it was in itself a way to stake out new territory. Blavatsky earlier religious pursuits, including the early Theosophical Society, were largely informed by themes com- mon to the contemporary Western esoteric milieu, in particular the ‘Egyptian hermeticism’ so in vogue during the period.7 As such, there was nothing particu- larly unique about the early Theosophical Society or Blavatsky’s first book Isis Unveiled (1877). It was the focus on Eastern spirituality that came with the move to India in 1879 that made the Society novel and generated its immense and last- ing popularity and significance in the esoteric milieu and beyond.8 The adapta- tion of Indian religious themes is evident in Blavatsky’s second book, The Secret Doctrine (1888), where the principles of reincarnation and karma coexist with concepts more familiar from traditional Western esotericism.9 The impact of Enlightenment ideals is apparent in the three core goals stip- ulated at the foundation of the Theosophical Society:10 In aiming to ‘form the core of an universal brotherhood of man, independent of Faith, race, gender or social position’ Theosophy demonstrates the Enlightenment ideal of universal- ism; the aims to ‘encourage the study of all religions, philosophy and science’ and to ‘study the laws of Nature and the psychic and spiritual powers of man’ demonstrate the influence of scientism, as discussed by Olav Hammer,11 in an
5 Hammer, Claiming Knowledge, 81–82. 6 Santucci, ‘Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna’. 7 Godwin, The Theosophical Enlightenment, 282. 8 Ibid., 321. 9 Ahlbäck, Uppkomsten av Teosofiska samfundet i Finland, 13–19. 10 For the goals, see ts, ‘Objects’; Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism, 92. 11 Hammer, Claiming Knowledge, 201–330.