divine feminine This page intentionally left blank The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science 119th series (2001) 1. Joy Dixon Divine Feminine: and Feminism in England

JOY DIXON

DIVINE FEMININE Theosophy and Feminism in England

The Johns Hopkins University Press baltimore and london ᭧ 2001 The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2001 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 246897531

The Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363

www.press.jhu.edu

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dixon, Joy, 1962– Divine feminine : theosophy and feminism in England / Joy Dixon. p. cm. — (The Johns Hopkins University studies in historical and political science 119th ser.) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8018-6499-2 (alk. paper) 1. (Great Britain)—History. 2. Feminism—Religious aspects—Theosophical Society (Great Britain)—History of doctrines. 3. Feminism— England—History. I. Title. II. Series. BP573.F46 D59 2001 299Ј.934Ј0820941—dc21

00-009881

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Frontispiece: Lectures at the Leeds Lodge, Theosophical Society (Adyar Library and Research Centre) Contents

List of Illustrations ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xvii

Introduction 1 part one domesticating the occult 1. The Undomesticated Occult 17 2. The Mahatmas in Clubland: Manliness and Scientific Spirituality 41 3. “A Deficiency of the Male Element”: Gendering Spiritual Experience 67 4. “Buggery and Humbuggery”: Sex, Magic, and Occult Authority 94 part two political alchemies 5. Occult Body Politics 121 6. The Divine Hermaphrodite and the Female Messiah: Feminism and Spirituality in the 1890s 152 7. A New Age for Women: Suffrage and the Sacred 177 8. Ancient Wisdom, Modern Motherhood 206

Conclusion 227

Notes 235 Works Cited 265 Index 285 This page intentionally left blank Illustrations

Lectures at the Leeds Lodge, TS frontispiece The groundbreaking ceremony at the TS London Headquarters in 1911 2 Artist’s sketch of the proposed TS Headquarters 9 H. P. Blavatsky 22 58 78 English Co-Masons 81 C. W. Leadbeater 97 “The Streams of Vitality,” from The Chakras, by C. W. Leadbeater 128 Septimus E. Scott, “The Dawn,” Bibby’s Annual, 1917 178 and Rukmini Devi 221 This page intentionally left blank Preface

This project had its beginnings in a paper I wrote many years ago as a postgraduate at the University of Sussex. I was working on a study of representations of the women’s suffrage movement in the popular press, tracking down caricatures of the “shrieking sisterhood” in magazines like Punch and in comic novels. Much of what I found was predictable: the suffragette (according to the comic novelists at least) was a woman of a certain age, sexually frustrated, resolutely unfashionable, and pos- sibly hysterical. But there were other, more surprising elements in the picture: the typical suffragette was also (again according to the comic novelists) a vegetarian, an animal rights activist, and a devotee of the Higher Thought, Cosmic Consciousness, or the Masters of the Wis- dom. Turning to the classified advertisements in suffrage newspapers, I discovered a feminist culture that had been largely ignored by histori- ans. Central to that culture was a self-conscious attempt to create a feminist spirituality. There were advertisements for women’s spiritualist seances, lectures on the Divine Feminine, and prayer circles that met to offer intercessory prayer on behalf of women imprisoned for suffrage militancy. In the midst of all of