RECYCLED LIVES

  
 OXFORD STUDIES IN WESTERN ESOTERICISM
Series Editor
Henrik Bogdan, University of Gothenburg

Editorial Board
Jean-​Pierre Brach, École Pratique des Hautes Études
Carole Cusack, University of Sydney
Christine Ferguson, University of Stirling
Olav Hammer, University of Southern Denmark
Wouter Hanegraaff, University of Amsterdam
Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol
Jeffrey Kripal, Rice University
James R. Lewis, University of Tromsø
Michael Stausberg, University of Bergen
Egil Asprem, University of Stockholm
Dylan Burns, Freie Universität Berlin
Gordan Djurdjevic, Siimon Fraser University
Peter Forshaw, University of Amsterdam
Jesper Aa. Petersen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

CHILDREN OF LUCIFER
The Origins of Modern Religious Satanism
Ruben van Luijk

SATANIC FEMINISM
Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-​Century Culture
Per Faxneld

THE SIBLYS OF LONDON

A Family on the Esoteric Fringes of Gregorian England
Susan Sommers

WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE DEAD?

Near-​Death Experiences, Christianity, and the Occult
Jens Schlieter

AMONG THE SCIENTOLOGISTS

History, Theology, and Praxis
Donald A. Westbrook

RECYCLED LIVES
A History of Reincarnation in Blavatsky's Theosophy
Julie Chajes
 RECYCLED
LIVES
 
A HISTORY OF REINCARNATION
IN BLAVATSKY’S THEOSOPHY

Julie Chajes

1
 1
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 For my father, Tony,
and dedicated to the memory of my mother, Rejane.
  
CONTENTS

Acknowledgements  ix

Introduction  1
Madame Controversy  4
Kabbalah, Egyptology, and Rebirth  6
Chapter Outline  12
1. Blavatsky and Reincarnation  19
Blavatsky in America and Isis Unveiled  23
When Did Blavatsky Start Teaching Reincarnation?  30
The Secret Doctrine and Theosophy’s Legacy  41
2. Isis Unveiled and Metempsychosis  45
Pythagorean Metempsychosis versus Kardecist Reincarnation  47
Transmigrations before, during, and after One Life on Earth  50
Blavatsky’s Letters: Immortality and Metempsychosis  56
Further Exceptional Occurrences  61
Conclusions  63
3. Reincarnation in The Secret Doctrine  65
The Monad’s Planetary Journey  69
The Monad’s Racial Journey  73
The Saptaparna  77
Karma  82
Conclusions  85

vii
viii Contents

4. Spiritualism  87
Blavatsky and Spiritualism  88
Blavatsky and French Spiritism  90
British and American Spiritualism  95
Emma Hardinge Britten  99
Paschal Beverly Randolph  101
The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor  104
Conclusions  106
5. Platonism  108
Nineteenth-​Century Constructions of the Greeks  110
Alexander Wilder  114
Blavatsky and Greek Rebirth  119
Pythagoras  120
Plato  122
The Neo-​Platonists  127
Conclusions  130
6. Science  132
Blavatsky, Science, and Materialism  133
Theosophy between ‘Science’ and ‘Religion’  139
The Unseen Universe and Isis Unveiled  144
Ernst Haeckel’s Monism and The Secret Doctrine  148
Darwinism  153
Conclusions  158
7. Hindu and Buddhist Thought  160
Orientalism  166
The Invention of Hinduism and Buddhism  169
Mohini Mohun Chatterji  175
Tallapragada Subba Row  177
Herbert Spencer  178
The Vishnu Purana  180
Adi Buddha  181
Conclusions  183
8. Conclusions  184

Bibliography  191
Index  211
  
AC K N OW L E D G E M E N T S

In the brief years between the submission of my doctorate and the com-
pletion of the book manuscript, what seems an unusually large number
of friends and relatives have died. From the seemingly blessed naiveté
of youth, I  was initiated into a truer appreciation of impermanence,
and at an age that was probably younger than average. Meanwhile,
I was writing about how people thought about death. I developed em-
pathy for my subjects. They were no strangers to sorrow, and Helena
Blavatsky—​whose rebirth doctrines are the subject of this book—​was
no exception. Her mother died when she was only ten, one of her
brothers already having died in infancy. Perhaps Blavatsky found solace
in an occult doctrine that taught that nothing was insignificant, not the
life or death of even the smallest creature. Within the ever-​progressing
cosmic ‘hall of mirrors’ she described, the life of every being was an
integral part of a process that would find its culmination in God’s self-​
knowledge. Thus ever-​connected, all humans, animals, plants, and even
minerals were the children of the universe and an intrinsic component
of its evolving fabric. Against contemporary Spiritualists, Blavatsky ar-
gued we would not meet our loved ones in the form in which we had
known them. Nevertheless, they were bound to us forever.

ix
x Acknowledgements

I too have been linked to others in meaningful ways through the

production of this book. I  am blessed with a wonderful community
of friends who are like a large adopted family, and whose members
have each, consciously or unconsciously, contributed to my well-​being
and productivity during the peregrinations that led to this book. Marc
Epstein and Ági Veto supported me at the beginning of what was to be
a long and difficult journey. Orly and Josh Lauffer hosted me and my
family in their beautiful home for several significant life events. David
and Sarah Benjamin, among many other remarkable acts of kindness,
let me finish the doctoral thesis on which this book was based in their
house when I desperately needed a quiet writing space. Elisheva and
Barrie Rapoport have kept me sane, each in their own unique way, and
Sara and Eliahu Shiffmann are the dearest of friends and substitute
grandparents to my son. Many other friends have offered their support,
and I can only apologise that there is not enough space to mention any
more, other than the four girlfriends with whom I have been especially
close in recent years:  Lee Hod, Jelena Shapir, Rosella De Jong, and
Shifra Goldberg.
Moving on to those who have had the most direct impact on the
present volume, the Blavatsky Trust provided me with the grant that
enabled me to finish the manuscript. Without them, this book would
probably not exist. I thank all the trustees, but particularly the presi-
dent, Colin Price. Clare Goodrick-​Clarke, widow of my PhD adviser,
Professor Nicholas Goodrick-​ Clarke, played an indispensable role
in getting me the grant. Clare believed that a good way to continue
Nicholas’s legacy was through his students. I hope I would have made
him proud and it is my belief that a part of him lives on in this book.
My debt to him (whose suggestion it was that I even work on Blavatsky
in the first place) is the greatest.
Having lost my PhD adviser just months after I  was awarded my
doctorate, it fell to others to offer a helping hand to a young scholar.
Extra special thanks go to Professor Karl Baier for his continuing sup-
port and generosity of spirit. I owe too a debt of gratitude to Professor
Boaz Huss, my postdoctoral supervisor at Ben-​Gurion University of
the Negev; Professor Yossi ben Artzi, who gave me my first postdoctoral
fellowship, at the University of Haifa; and Professor Yossi Schwartz,
who hosted me at Tel Aviv University. Thanks to Professor Christian
 Acknowledgements xi

Wiese and the team at the Forschungskolleg in Bad Homburg, I spent

a blissful month in academic paradise. Professor Steven Weitzman,
Dr. Natalie Dohrman, and all the staff at the Herbert D. Katz Center
for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania made my
stay in Philadelphia a particularly enjoyable and fruitful one. Finally,
my thanks to the donors who keep the Katz Center afloat (especially
Eloise Wood, who funded my fellowship) and to Professor David
Ruderman, the former director, who has the rare and wonderful talent
of encouraging me to be at the top of my game.
If there is a place in heaven reserved for teachers and mentors, there
is a special corner of it reserved for people like Professors Jim Moore
and Joy Dixon, both of whom offered me their expert feedback without
ever having met me, after I  had the bare-​faced cheek of contacting
them by email. In this age of overburden, I consider these acts of extra-
ordinary generosity. My thanks too to Projit Mukhariji, Mriganka
Mukhopadhyay, Vadim Putzu, Erin Prophet, Jake Poller, Joseph Tyson,
and James Santucci for reading and commenting on material that is in-
cluded in this book, as well as to Cathy Gutierrez, Christine Ferguson,
Jean-​ Pierre Brach, Olav Hammer, Maria Carlson, Aren Roukema,
and Jimmy Elwing for their various kindnesses. Erica Georgiades and
Massimo Introvigne were generous with their help when it came to
the tricky question of what to put on the cover. John Patrick Deveney,
Marc Demarest, John Buescher, Robert Gilbert, and Leslie Price are,
all five of them, living, breathing libraries of Theosophical, Spiritualist,
and occultist history. They have helped me locate sources and read and
commented on my work. Marc, Pat, and John have also amused me
with their irreverent banter and ironic take on the period we study,
a contribution I  value tremendously. Marc Demarest and colleagues’
database of Spiritualist, occultist, and Theosophical periodicals, iapsop.
com, is a phenomenal achievement that will serve many future gen-
erations of scholars. It has opened up research vistas I could not have
dreamt of when I began my doctorate.
Thanks go to my parents, Anthony Hall and Rejane Gomes de
Mattos Hall; my grandparents, Edith and Murilo Gomes de Mattos
and Giuliana and Leslie Hall; as well as my brother Joseph. My hus-
band, Yossi Chajes, has supported me in many ways over what is now
the best part of a decade, and has provided much inspiration. His
xii Acknowledgements

children from his first marriage, Ktoret, Levana, Yoel, and Nehora,
are the best siblings my son Yishai could have hoped for. Yishai has
contributed to the production of this book by forcing me to keep to
a strict schedule. He has also revealed to me a type of love I was un-
aware of before he came into the world, and taught me the unique
joy of being bathed in a child’s laughter, the perfect antidote to the
types of malaise that sometimes arise from spending long hours at
a desk.
Finally, I thank Helena Blavatsky herself, without whom this book
could never have been written. Independent, intelligent, and uncon-
ventional, Blavatsky was certainly a very interesting person, if, at times,
also a difficult one. These are precisely the qualities I  would usually
enjoy in a friend.
 Introduction

An informal survey of your friends and relatives may reveal that

many of them believe in reincarnation and karma in some form, or at
least do not dismiss them out of hand. Research shows this to be the case
for a sizeable minority (around 20 per cent) of people in the Western
world who have no particular connection with Eastern religions.1 In
Asian countries, reincarnation as an animal may be considered an un-
desirable possibility, but in Europe and America, reincarnation is usu-
ally thought of as a return to life in a human body for the purpose of
spiritual advancement or self-​improvement.2 After two millennia of the
virtual absence of any such doctrine in the Christian world, how has
this particular belief suddenly become so unremarkable?
This study explores the seminal contribution of one woman:  the
notorious Russian occultist and ‘great-​grandmother’ of the New Age

1
  Perry Schmidt-​Leukel, Transformation by Integration:  How Inter-​Faith Encounter
Changes Christianity (London:  SCM Press, 2009), 68. The ‘West’ is a problematic
category that I  use here only for the sake of convenience. For a summary of prob-
lems relating to its use, see Kennet Granholm, ‘Locating the West: Problematizing the
Western in Western Esotericism and Occultism’, in Occultism in a Global Perspective,
ed. Henrik Bogdan and Gordan Djurdjevic (Durham: Acumen, 2013).
2
  Tony Walter and Helen Waterhouse, ‘Lives-​ Long Learning:  The Effects of
Reincarnation Belief on Everyday Life in England’, Nova Religio 5, no. 1 (October
2001). For a recent exploration of reincarnation belief, see Lee Irwin, Reincarnation
in America: An Esoteric History (Lantam, MD, and London: Lexington Books, 2017).
For a shorter treatment, see Lee Irwin, ‘Reincarnation in America: A Brief Historical
Overview’, Religions 8, no. 10 (October 2017).

1
2 Recycled Lives

Movement, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–​ 1891). Blavatsky was

one of the leading figures of the nineteenth-​century ‘occult revival’,
a period during which there was a relative surge in popular interest
in all things esoteric, mystical, and magical.3 Occultism found dis-
tinctive expressions in Britain, mainland Europe, and America, where
it interconnected with currents such as Spiritualism, Mesmerism, and
Freemasonry, all of which reached a peak more or less around the
middle decades of the century. Blavatsky was the matriarch and pri-
mary theorist of the most influential occultist organisation of the late-​
nineteenth and early-​twentieth centuries, the Theosophical Society,
founded in New York in 1875. In addition to fourteen volumes of col-
lected writings and several other books, Blavatsky was the author of
two Theosophical treatises: Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine
(1888). These works had a lasting impact on the occult revival, related
twentieth-​century developments, and ultimately on the development
of the New Age Movement, that loosely organised and diffuse spiritual
and political movement that arose from the counterculture of the 1960s
and 1970s, initially in America.4 The New Age was one of the most
far-​reaching cultural and religious developments of the late twentieth
century, and Blavatsky’s ideas are fundamental to understanding its
emergence, as well as the emergence of modern and postmodern forms
of religion more generally.
Blavatsky instructed her followers in what she claimed was an an-
cient wisdom tradition, the true, esoteric teachings underlying all
religion, philosophy, and science. Sages throughout history had sup-
posedly taught the principles of this doctrine, which had been brought

3
 The term ‘revival’ is problematic, as it implies the reappearance of an occult that ex-
isted previously. I use the term here without this implication.
4
 On the connection between reincarnation belief in present-​day America, New Age,
and Theosophy, see Courtney Bender, ‘American Reincarnations:  What the Many
Lives of Past Lives Tell Us about Contemporary Spiritual Practice’, Journal of the
American Academy of Religion 75, no. 3 (September 2007). On the New Age Movement
in general, see Paul Heelas’s pioneering study, The New Age Movement: The Celebration
of the Self and the Sacralization of Modernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996). On the defin-
ition of New Age, see George D. Chrysiddes, ‘Defining the New Age’, in Handbook of
the New Age, ed. Daren Kemp and James R. Lewis (Leiden: Brill, 2007). See also James
R. Lewis, ‘Science and the New Age’, in Handbook of the New Age.
 Introduction 3

from the continent of Atlantis before its submersion. Its tenets had
been handed down from master to pupil, with initiates taking responsi-
bility for transmitting them from one generation to the next. Blavatsky
claimed aspects of the ancient wisdom were still discernible within the
world’s religions and mythologies, but only when interpreted correctly.
This was because throughout the centuries, they had been corrupted
through misunderstanding and deliberate falsification. Reincarnation
had been part of the secret tradition, and the ancient Greeks, Egyptians,
Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists had all taught it.
According to Blavatsky, humans have an immortal soul whose
origin lies in an impersonal divine absolute, which she simultaneously
identified with the highest neo-​Platonic hypostasis (the One), the
Hindu parabrahman, and the Buddhist Adi Buddha. This divine ab-
solute was said to emanate all creation from itself in a series of levels.
Straightforwardly put, emanation is a concept reminiscent of a cham-
pagne fountain in which the champagne cascades from the bottle into
the glass at the top and thereafter into the glasses beneath. In the re-
ligious or philosophical theory, the metaphorical champagne bottle
never empties; the Divine continually emanates without diminution
into the various levels of the cosmos it produces. Prominent in neo-​
Platonic, Hermetic, Gnostic, and Kabbalistic thought, many different
variants of this basic idea have been proposed throughout the centuries.
In Blavatsky’s version, the human spirit originated in one of the em-
anated levels of creation, the Universal Soul, from which they were
emitted and sent on a journey into matter, reincarnating many times
in different bodies and on different planets. They continually evolved,
until they eventually became fully ‘spiritualised’, reuniting with the
divine source from which they had come. Each time the spirit incar-
nated, it was ‘dressed’ in various garments that allowed it to function.
These vestments were said to account for the physical, emotional, intel-
lectual, and spiritual attributes experienced during a particular lifetime.
Through accumulating the experiences of more and more lives, human
evolution would be inevitable, although it could be faster or slower de-
pending on individual will and effort.
This was the reincarnation doctrine Blavatsky taught from around
1882 onwards. It is fairly well known. However, the presence in her first
major work, Isis Unveiled, of statements that seem to deny reincarnation
4 Recycled Lives

have confused Blavatsky’s readers from her lifetime to the present day.
As this study will demonstrate, this is because Blavatsky actually taught
two distinct theories of rebirth. In The Secret Doctrine, she taught re-
incarnation, but in Isis Unveiled, she taught a theory of post-​mortem
ascent to higher worlds, which she called metempsychosis.

Madame Controversy
Helena Petrovna von Hahn was of aristocratic Russian and German
ancestry. With her stout frame, piercing blue eyes, and wiry blonde
hair, she cut a curious figure and made a range of impressions on her
contemporaries. At one extreme were those who considered her an ini-
tiate, the agent of spiritual masters who had sent her on a mission to
save the West from its materialism and nihilism. Alternately, there were
those who considered her a dangerous fraud intent on nothing but
self-​aggrandisement through the deceit of others. Without question,
Blavatsky was a complex woman with many facets. Eccentric, opinion-
ated, and out of the ordinary, she did not suffer fools lightly. She was
capable of fits of temper and the use of foul language, which, together
with her smoking of tobacco and hashish could be quite a shock to
polite society.5 Yet she could also be perceived as refined, courteous,
and even sensitive, and without a doubt she was intelligent, creative,
and extremely well read. Blavatsky’s friend the physician and Platonist
Alexander Wilder was among her admirers:

She did not resemble in manner or figure what I had been led to ex-
pect. She was tall, but not strapping; her countenance bore the marks
and exhibited the characteristics of one who had seen much, thought
much, travelled much, and experienced much. [. . .] Her appearance
was certainly impressive, but in no respect was she coarse, awkward,
or ill-​bred. On the other hand, she exhibited culture, familiarity with
the manners of the most courtly society and genuine courtesy itself.
[. . .] [She] made no affectation of superiority. Nor did I ever see or

5
 On Blavatsky’s defiance of the norms of nineteenth-​century femininity, see Catherine
Tumber, American Feminism and the Birth of New Age Spirituality: Searching for the
Higher Self 1875–​1915 (Lanham, MD: Rowman, 2002), 142f.
 Introduction 5

know of any such thing occurring with anyone else. She professed,
however, to have communicated with personages whom she called
‘the Brothers’, and intimated that this, at times, was by the agency,
or some means analogous to what is termed ‘telepathy’. [. . .] She in-
dulged freely in the smoking of cigarettes, which she made as she had
occasion. I never saw any evidence that these things disturbed, or in
any way interfered with her mental acuteness or activity.6

The ‘brothers’ Wilder referred to were one the most controversial aspects
of Blavatsky’s life and work. She claimed they were advanced spiritual
masters whose initiative it had been to establish the Theosophical
Society. She asserted she had travelled to Tibet, where she studied for
around two years with the masters Morya and Koot Hoomi, who ran
a school for adepts there.7 Blavatsky also received letters from these
masters, and so did other Theosophists, notably, Alfred Percy Sinnett
(1840–​1921) and Allan Octavian Hume (1829–​1912), both of whom
wrote important Theosophical works based on these correspondences.
Like Blavatsky herself, the masters received a mixed response from the
public. Theosophists saw them as advanced spiritual guides, others
as a figment of Blavatsky’s imagination. They remain unidentified to
this day.8
In 1885, a report was issued by a society established to investigate
the claims of Spiritualism, the Society for Psychical Research. It was
based on the investigations of Richard Hodgson (1855–​1905), who con-
cluded Blavatsky was neither ‘the mouthpiece of hidden seers, nor [. . .]
a mere vulgar adventuress; we think that she has achieved a title to
permanent remembrance as one of the most accomplished, ingenious,

6
 Alexander Wilder, ‘How Isis Unveiled Was Written’, The Word 7 (April–​September
1908),  80–​82.
7
  Nicholas Goodrick-​Clarke, Helena Blavatsky (Berkeley:  North Atlantic Books,
2004),  4–​5.
8
 K. Paul Johnson has argued that Blavatsky’s masters were mythical constructs based
on real people whom she knew, such as the Maharaja Ranbir Singh of Jammu and
Kashmir, whom Johnson proposes was the template for Morya. K. Paul Johnson,
In Search of the Masters (South Boston:  Self Published, 1990), and The Masters
Revealed:  Madame Blavatsky and the Myth of the Great White Lodge (Albany:  State
University of New York Press, 1994).
6 Recycled Lives

and interesting imposters in history.’9 The report severely damaged

Blavatsky’s reputation. Her standing was further weakened by accusa-
tions of plagiarism made by a Spiritualist and opponent of Theosophy,
William Emmette Coleman, who claimed Blavatsky had copied pas-
sages from the works of others without attribution. Coleman’s accusa-
tions and Blavatsky’s response will be discussed further in the following
chapter.
This study sets aside the issue of Blavatsky’s writing vis-​à-​vis the
category ‘plagiarism’ to focus instead on what her sources were, how
she used them, and what this can tell us about nineteenth-​century his-
tory and culture. Blavatsky engaged with a comprehensive spectrum
of writings when discussing her rebirth doctrines. This study will not
provide an exhaustive treatment but an illustrative one, one that re-
veals the most pertinent historical contexts of her work as well as the
principles of her hermeneutics. We will concentrate on four areas in
particular: Spiritualism, science, Platonism, and Orientalism, showing
how Blavatsky’s interpretations of each had a formative influence on
her rebirth doctrines.

Kabbalah, Egyptology, and Rebirth

Although the limitations of space require us to restrict the historical con-
textualisation to these four main subjects, two omissions deserve special
mention, namely, Kabbalah and Egyptology, both of which Blavatsky
discussed in relation to her rebirth theories. Kabbalistic sources present
diverse and complex theories of reincarnation, the earliest source being
the Sefer ha-​Bahir (Book of Light) first published around 1176, in which
no special term for reincarnation was given.10 With the publication of
the Sefer ha-​Zohar (Book of Splendour) in early fourteenth-​century
Spain, the term gilgul came to be used.11 In the sixteenth century, Isaac

9
  On the Hodgson Report, see J. Barton Scott, ‘Miracle Publics:  Theosophy,
Christianity, and the Coulomb Affair’, History of Religions 49, no. 2 (November 2009).
10
 For an English translation, see The Bahir, trans. Aryeh Kaplan (New York: Samuel
Weiser, 1979).
11
 For an English translation, see The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, 12 vols. (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2003–​2017).
 Introduction 7

Luria (1534–​1572), the leading member of the Kabbalistic school of Safed

in present-​day northern Israel, put forward a theory of reincarnation.
His most important student, Chayim Vital (1543–​1620), was the au-
thor of Sefer ha-​gilgulim (Book of Re-​Incarnations), a systematic de-
scription of Luria’s teachings. This text became known to the Christian
world through the Latin translation in the Kabbalah Denudata (1677–​
1684), a three-​volume anthology of Kabbalistic texts translated by the
seventeenth-​century Christian Hebraist Christian Knorr von Rosenroth
(1631–​1689).12 Blavatsky complained about Rosenroth’s ‘distorted Latin
translations’ and quoted a brief Latin passage from him.13 But she did
not read Rosenroth in the Latin original. Rather, as I have argued else-
where, she drew on the works of the American lawyer Samuel Fales
Dunlap (1825–1905).14 Another possible source was the abridgement and
translation of Rosenroth’s compilation, The Kabbalah Unveiled (1887) by
the British occultist Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers (1854–​1918).15
Blavatsky referred to ‘the Hebrew book, The Revolution of the Souls’,
certainly a reference to Vital’s text, but she read about it in the writing of
the French occultist Eliphas Lévi, which she was translating.16
Blavatsky’s approach to Kabbalah was an occultist one that was in-
debted to the Christian Kabbalah of the Renaissance and early-​modern
periods.17 Kabbalists in this Renaissance tradition tended to assert

12
  Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, Kabbala Denudata (Hildesheim and New  York: 
George Olms Verlag, 1974).
13
 H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy,
2 vols. (London: The Theosophical Publishing Company, 1888), vol. I, 215 and 391.
14
 Julie Chajes, ‘Construction through Appropriation: Kabbalah in Blavatsky’s Early
Works’, in Theosophical Appropriations: Esotericism, Kabbalah, and the Transformation
of Traditions, ed. Julie Chajes and Boaz Huss (Beer Sheva:  Ben-​Gurion University
Press, 2016).
15
  Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, The Kabbalah Unveiled (London:  George
Redway, 1887).
16
  See her translation:  H. P. Blavatsky, ‘The Magical Evocation of Apollonius of
Tyana: A Chapter from Eliphas Lévi’, Spiritual Scientist 3, no. 9 (4 November 1875),
104–​105.
17
  This tradition was represented by such figures as the Italian nobleman Giovanni
Pico della Mirandola (1463–​1494) and the humanist priest Marsilio Ficino (1433–​1499).
Other significant figures were the German humanist Johannes Reuchlin (1455–​1522),
the French linguist Guillaume Postel (1510–​1581), and the German polymath and ma-
gician Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–​1535).
8 Recycled Lives

the existence of a perennial philosophy and read Christian doctrines

into Jewish Kabbalistic texts.18 Occultists like Mathers and Lévi in-
terpreted Christian Kabbalist ideas in a nineteenth-​century occultist
context. Blavatsky did the same, drawing on authors like Lévi and
Mathers as well as the studies of Kabbalah that were available in lan-
guages she could read, notably, La Kabbale ou la philosophie religieuse
des Hébreux by the French-​Jewish scholar Adolphe Franck (1809–​1893)
and The Kabbalah: Its Doctrine, Development, and Literature (1865) by
the Jewish-​born Christian scholar Christian David Ginsburg (1831–​
1914).19 These works were indebted to the academic study of Kabbalah
that had emerged at the beginning of the nineteenth century in the
context of the German-​Jewish ‘science of Judaism’, the Wissenschaft des
Judentums.20 Blavatsky also consulted works that dealt with Kabbalah as
part of a broader consideration of the history of religion or mythology,
such as The Gnostics and Their Remains (1865) by the British classicist,
writer, and expert on gemstones Charles William King (1818–​1888), and

18
  On Renaissance and early-​ modern Christian Kabbalah, see Wilhelm
Schmidt-​Biggemann, Geschichte der christlichen Kabbala, 4 vols. (Stuttgart-​ Bad
Cannstatt:  Frommann Holzboog, 2015). For an English-​ language introduction,
see Peter J. Forshaw, ‘Kabbalah’, in The Occult World, ed. Christopher Partridge
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2015). For a longer treatment, see Joseph Dan, The Christian
Kabbalah:  Jewish Mystical Books & Their Christian Interpreters:  A Symposium
(Cambridge, MA:  Harvard College Library, 1997). On perennialism, see Charles
Schmidt, ‘Perennial Philosophy from Agostino Steuco to Leibniz’, Journal of the History
of Ideas 27 (1966). On the Jewish adoption of the notion of ‘perennial philosophy’, see
Moshe Idel, ‘Kabbalah, Platonism, and Prisca Theologia: The Case of R. Menasseh
ben Israel’, in Menasseh ben Israel and His World, ed. Y. Kaplan, H. Méchoulan, and
Richard H. Popkin (Leiden: Brill, 1989).
19
 Adolphe Franck, La Kabbale ou la philosophie religieuse des Hébreux (Paris: Librairie
de L. Hachette, 1843) and David Ginsburg, The Kabbalah: Its Doctrines, Development,
and Literature. An Essay (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1865).
20
  On the Wissenschaft des Judentums, see George Kohler, ‘Judaism Buried or
Revitalised? Wissenschaft des Judentums in Nineteenth-​Century Germany—​Impact,
Actuality, and Applicability Today’, in Jewish Thought and Jewish Belief, ed. Daniel J.
Lasker (Beer Sheva: Ben-​Gurion University Press, 2012). On the relationship between
occultist and scholarly approaches to Kabbalah in the nineteenth century, see Wouter
J. Hanegraaff, ‘The Beginnings of Occultist Kabbalah: Adolphe Franck and Eliphas
Lévi’, in Kabbalah and Modernity:  Interpretations, Transformations, Adaptations, ed.
Boaz Huss, Marco Pasi, and Kocku von Stuckrad (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010). See
also Chajes, ‘Construction through Appropriation’.
 Introduction 9

Sōd: The Son of the Man (1861) by Samuel Fales Dunlap, among many
others.21
Blavatsky presented Kabbalah as a universal tradition originally
transmitted from Egypt and Chaldea (Babylonia).22 She argued that
the Kabbalistic notion of Ain Soph represented the divine absolute and
equated the Kabbalistic concept of Adam Kadmon with the Second
Logos of the Platonists or the Universal Soul, which was the source
of all reincarnating spirits.23 Blavatsky referred to Kabbalistic texts
in corroboration first of metempsychosis, and later of reincarnation.
Thus, in her first major work, Isis Unveiled, she referred to the central
Kabbalistic text, the Zohar, to disprove the commonly understood no-
tion of reincarnation.24 However, in a later text, The Key to Theosophy
(1889), Blavatsky referred to the Zohar to argue for reincarnation on
Earth in keeping with her new convictions.25
Egypt, supposedly an ancient homeland of Kabbalah, also had its
own place in Blavatsky’s writings on rebirth. In the early-​modern eso-
teric currents that were so influential in her thought, Egypt had typically
been perceived as a mysterious and exotic source of perennial wisdom.26
One of the figures Blavatsky mentioned from this period was the Jesuit
polymath Athanasius Kircher (1602–​1680), whose most famous work,
Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1652–​1654), was an account of ancient Egyptian

21
 C. W. King, The Gnostics and Their Remains, Ancient and Medieval (London: David
Nutt, 1887) and S. F. Dunlap, Sōd: The Son of the Man (London and Edinburgh: Williams
and Norgate, 1861).
22
 H. P. Blavatsky, ‘Kabalah and Kabalists at the Close of the Nineteenth Century’,
Lucifer 10, no. 57 (May 1882), 268. Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 352–​353.
23
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 16, 179, 214, and 573. The association between the souls
of humanity and Adam Kadmon was not an innovation of Blavatsky’s; it was present in
Jewish Kabbalistic sources. Gershom Scholem, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead
(New York: Schocken 1991), 229.
24
 H. P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: A Master-​Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern
Science and Theology, 2 vols. (New York: J. W. Bouton, 1877), vol. I, 259.
25
 H. P. Blavatsky, The Key to Theosophy (London and New York: The Theosophical
Publishing Company, 1889), 110–​113.
26
 See Antoine Faivre, ‘Egyptomany’, in Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism,
ed. Wouter Hanegraaff in collaboration with Antoine Faivre, Roelof van den Broek,
and Jean-​Pierre Brach (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006), 328.
10 Recycled Lives

life, culture, and religion.27 From the eighteenth century through the
nineteenth, ancient Egypt was depicted in diverse literary and artistic
contexts. Notably, Freemasonry was full of Egyptian iconography.28
The development of Egyptology from the early nineteenth century con-
siderably intensified the public’s interest in Egypt. Many discoveries
were made in a short period of time, especially during the 1870s and
1880s, when Egyptology came to be a major cultural force.29 It is there-
fore unsurprising that Blavatsky used Egyptological findings to corrob-
orate her Theosophical teachings, even though she denounced scholarly
‘misunderstanding’ of Egyptian religion and magic.30
The association between ancient Egypt and reincarnation is long-​
standing, but early Egyptologists expressed differing opinions on the
matter. In 1705, Thomas Greenhill published a seminal treatise on
Egyptian civilisation and mummification in which he claimed the
Egyptians mummified their dead because they believed in a type of
reincarnation into the same body.31 On the other hand, in 1836, John
Davidson conducted a surgical exploration of mummification and re-
jected the idea that the Egyptians embalmed mummies because of a be-
lief in reincarnation. Instead, he concluded they did it as a re-​enactment
of the myth of Osiris.32 In The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky affirmed the
Egyptians’ reincarnationism. Referring to The Book of the Dead, she ar-
gued against those who denied the Egyptian belief, which she described
in terms of the emergence of the solar boat from the realm of Tiaou (the
realm of the cause of life).33 As part of her discussion, she provided a

27
  Athanasius Kircher, Oedipus Aegyptiacus (Rome:  1652–​1654). Blavatsky mentions
Kircher’s work, for example, in Secret Doctrine II, 207.
28
 See James Stevens Curl, The Egyptian Revival: Ancient Egypt as the Inspiration for
Design Motifs in the West (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), 132 and Frances
Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (London and New York: Ark Paperbacks, 1986),
212–​213.
29
 David Gange, Dialogues with the Dead: Egyptology in British Culture and Religion,
1822–​1922 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
30
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, xix, xxix.
31
  John David Wortham, British Egyptology:  1549–​1906 (Newton Abbot:  David and
Charles, 1971), 10 and 45.
32
 Wortham, British Egyptology,  93–​94.
33
  Initially believed to be the ‘Egyptian Bible’, The Book of the Dead refers to an
Egyptian funerary text called ‘The Spells of Coming or Going Forth by Day’ intended
 Introduction 11

concise statement of her reincarnation doctrine, in which each of the

stages was equated with Egyptian terms.34
Blavatsky brought these interpretations of Kabbalistic and Egyptian
teachings together with the Spiritualistic, scientific, Platonic, Buddhist,
and Hindu themes that will be explored in greater detail in the chap-
ters that follow. Their confluence resulted in a global and uniquely
hybridic reincarnationism, in which the idea of a repeated return to
life on Earth after death was entwined with the literature and con-
cerns of the nineteenth century. The theory was then bequeathed to
Blavatsky’s successors, undergoing various ‘reincarnations’ of its own
as it passed through the doctrinal systems of the many Theosophically
inspired spokespersons of heterodox thought in the twentieth century.
Eventually, Blavatskyan elements found their way into the New Age.35
Today, the New Age is extremely pervasive, its concepts permeating
even the world of business and the realms of supposedly traditional re-
ligions.36 It is characterised by elements central to Blavatsky’s thinking,
such as syncretism, an emphasis on Eastern, ‘esoteric’, ‘mystical’, and
pagan traditions,37 the channelling of entities, and the compatibility

to assist the dead in their journey to the afterlife. Samuel Birch published the first
English translation in 1867. Wortham, British Egyptology, 97. This was the transla-
tion Blavatsky used, and it could be found at the end of a book she is known to
have consulted, volume 5 of C. C. J. Baron Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place in Universal History
(London:  Longmans, Green, and Co., 1867). On Blavatsky’s use of this source, see
Michael Gomes, Theosophy in the Nineteenth Century:  An Annotated Bibliography
(New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1994), 150.
34
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 226–​227.
35
 On the debt of the New Age Movement to Theosophy, see Wouter Hanegraaff, New
Age Religion and Western Culture: Western Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought
(Leiden:  Brill, 1996). See also Wouter Hanegraaff, ‘The New Age Movement and
Western Esotericism’, in Handbook of the New Age, 25–​50; Olav Hammer, Claiming
Knowledge:  Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age (Leiden:  Brill,
2004), and Olav Hammer, ‘Jewish Mysticism Meets the Age of Aquarius: Elizabeth
Clare Prophet on the Kabbalah’, in Theosophical Appropriations, ed. Julie Chajes and
Boaz Huss.
36
 See Martin Ramstedt, ‘New Age and Business’, in Handbook of the New Age. On
the overlap between New Age ideas and more ‘traditional’ Jewish ideas, see Boaz Huss,
‘The New Age of Kabbalah’, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 6, no. 2 (2007), 107–​125.
37
  On the connection between Theosophy and neo-​Paganism see Ronald Hutton,
Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford: Oxford University
12 Recycled Lives

of spirituality and science.38 Karma and reincarnation are, of course,

prominent.39 Blavatsky’s writings are fundamental in understanding
how that came to be.

Chapter Outline
This study approaches a wide variety of issues in the history of the
nineteenth century through a detailed reading of two closely related
doctrines, metempsychosis and reincarnation. Blavatsky’s works are
generally considered quite difficult, and this has sometimes led to their
dismissal as obscurantist and contradictory. As I will show throughout
this book, passages in Blavatsky that may seem convoluted and non-
sensical are often comprehensible once understood in the context of the
development of her thought. Understanding Blavatsky, however, can be
difficult, because rather than providing straightforward expositions, she
usually scattered her ideas piecemeal throughout her writing. This can
be frustrating, and it is one reason why a clear guide is needed. In fact,
it is high time for a detailed analysis of Blavatsky’s thought as a whole,
and this study is a contribution to that larger project. It is hoped that by
making Blavatsky more accessible and highlighting her historical im-
portance, it will contribute to a growing appreciation of this significant
and influential thinker of the nineteenth century.
Following an introduction to Blavatsky and the development of her
theories of rebirth in ­chapter 1, ­chapters 2 and 3 are internalist in orien-
tation, that is, they focus on elements internal to Blavatsky’s thought.
Theosophical principles have usually been treated quite briefly in aca-
demic studies to date. Taking a different approach, this study affirms the
importance of a detailed reading of Blavatsky’s tenets, demonstrating

Press, 1999). See also Melissa Harrington, ‘Paganism and the New Age’ and Daren
Kemp, ‘Christians and New Age’, both in Handbook of the New Age.
38
  On ‘spirituality’ as a category, see Boaz Huss, ‘Spirituality:  The Emergence of a
New Cultural Category and Its Challenge to the Religious and the Secular’, Journal of
Contemporary Religion 29, no. 1 (2014). On the notion of ‘spiritual but not religious’
see Robert C. Fuller, Spiritual, but Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), especially 4–​7.
39
 On reincarnation in the New Age Movement, see Hanegraaff, New Age Religion,
­chapter 9.
 Introduction 13

that the ideas themselves must be understood clearly before they can
be situated in the intellectual, social, religious, and political concerns
of the times.
Due to Blavatsky’s seeming contradictions, there has been no little
confusion among scholars about her teachings on rebirth in her first
major work, Isis Unveiled (1877). In c­ hapter  2, on the basis of a sys-
tematic examination of the text alongside some early letters, I demon-
strate that during the first period of her career as an occultist, Blavatsky
taught that living humans are composed of three parts: body, soul, and
spirit, and that immortality can be achieved by joining the soul with
the spirit during life on Earth through occult practice. Blavatsky argued
that once immortality had been achieved, after death, the conjoined
soul-​spirit entity would begin a journey of metempsychosis through
higher spheres. If immortality had not been achieved, then annihila-
tion followed. In exceptional circumstances, such as the death of an
infant, reincarnation of the spirit together with the same soul provided
a ‘second chance’ for the spirit to live on Earth and achieve immor-
tality. Chapter 2 considers these doctrines in detail, including aspects
not yet discussed in the scholarly literature. These include the acquisi-
tion of a new ‘astral body’ in each sphere during metempsychosis and
unusual circumstances involving ‘terrestrial larvae’ and the ‘transfer of
a spiritual entity’. The discussion clarifies Blavatsky’s teachings about
metempsychosis through mineral, plant, and animal forms, and how
these stages are ‘relived’ in utero, a Theosophical interpretation of the
contemporary scientific theory of recapitulation.
Around 1882, Blavatsky began teaching something different to met-
empsychosis: the normative, repeated, and karmic return of the human
spirit to life on Earth. She called this new doctrine ‘reincarnation’ but
denied she had changed her mind. To admit this would be to admit the
masters had changed their minds, and this was unacceptable. Blavatsky
tried to harmonise her accounts, but contemporaries noted the pres-
ence of a new perspective and its difference to the previous one. Indeed,
the divergence is exposed from a close reading of the texts.
To understand reincarnation as presented in Blavatsky’s magnum
opus The Secret Doctrine (1888) and writings of the same period, it is
necessary first of all to understand the unique and complex cosmology
that forms its basis; indeed, reincarnation is inseparable from this wider
14 Recycled Lives

doctrinal context. Chapter  3 examines this ‘macrocosmic’ aspect of

Blavatsky’s reincarnationism in detail, charting the spirit’s ‘pilgrimage’
from its emission from the ‘Universal Soul’ through its journey into
matter and back again to its divine source. This spirit was said to travel
together with many others through incarnation on six invisible planets,
evolving on Earth by passing through seven ‘root races’, of which pre-
sent humanity was the fifth.
Chapter  3 also considers the ‘microcosmic’ aspects of the reincar-
nation doctrine: Blavatsky’s teachings about birth, death, and the re-
vival of life on Earth. These processes mirrored the macrocosmic ones,
a fact not coincidental in the writings of a thinker influenced by the
Hermetic axiom ‘as above, so below’. It describes the death and rebirth
process and analyses Blavatsky’s reinterpretation of the ‘second chance’
she believed would be given to those who died in childhood and other
exceptional occurrences. Finally, I  consider Blavatsky’s claim in The
Secret Doctrine that despite the usual acquisition of a new personality
in each lifetime, it was possible for an adept to preserve their personal
identity throughout repeated incarnations.
With the details of Blavatsky’s theories established, the remaining
chapters take an externalist approach, that is, they consider elements ex-
ternal to the theories in order to situate them more broadly. Chapters 4
through 7 contextualise Blavatsky’s theory in four dimensions of
nineteenth-​century intellectual and cultural life. They draw insights
from diverse fields of nineteenth-​century cultural and intellectual his-
tory, consolidating and sometimes challenging previous conclusions.40
Chapter 4 frames Blavatsky’s rebirth doctrines in the development of
Spiritualism from the mid-​nineteenth century. A central cultural force in
America and Europe at the time, Spiritualism tried to mediate between

40
  For the foundation of present debates on the category ‘Western esotericism’, see
Antoine Faivre, Western Esotericism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010).
For a concise discussion of the meaning of the term ‘esotericism’ and the category
‘Western esotericism’, see Wouter J. Hanegraaff, ‘Esotericism’, in Dictionary of Gnosis
and Western Esotericism (Leiden, Brill, 2006). On problems relating to the definition
of Western esotericism and a cultural-​studies argument for the category as an ‘empty
signifier’, see Michael Bergunder, ‘What Is Esotericism? Cultural Studies Approaches
and the Problems of Definition in Religious Studies’, Method and Theory in the Study
of Religions 22, no. 1 (2010).
 Introduction 15

science and religion at the same time as it attempted to establish con-

tact with the dead. In general, British and American Spiritualists denied
reincarnation and affirmed progress on higher worlds whereas French
Spiritists—​the followers of Allan Kardec (1804–​1869)—​believed in the
repeated reincarnation of the same personality. Through reference to
books and Spiritualist periodicals, the chapter situates Blavatsky’s early
theory of metempsychosis in relation to anti-​reincarnationist currents
in Anglo-​American Spiritualism, especially as represented by the British
medium Emma Hardinge Britten (1823–​1899), the American magician
Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825–​1875), and the Hermetic Brotherhood
of Luxor, an occultist organisation beginning its public work in 1884.
Joscelyn Godwin, Christian Chanel, and John Patrick Deveney were
the first to highlight the similarity between Blavatsky’s early ideas and
those of Britten, Randolph, and the H. B. of L., but I delve further, re-
vealing some of the differences, as well as the similarities, between the
rebirth theories of these individuals.41 I also broaden the scope of the
discussion, considering the nineteenth-​century Spiritualist reincarna-
tion debate more widely. Central issues involved whether humans were
intrinsically immortal or had to win immortality during Earth life, and
whether the personality would be retained from life to life.
As much as it is impossible to understand Blavatsky’s doctrines
without understanding their Spiritualist heritage, it is equally impos-
sible to understand them without reference to her continuous and vo-
ciferous rejection of the French variant: Spiritism. Already during the
1870s, Blavatsky’s statements about Spiritualism were ambivalent: she
sometimes described herself as a Spiritualist and sometimes criti-
cised the movement. Although some of her best friends were French
Spiritists, she was particularly critical of their beliefs about reincarna-
tion. Blavatsky found Kardec’s conception of the repeated return of
the same person to life on Earth to be unacceptable. As I will show, her
eventual embrace of reincarnation during her later period did not indi-
cate acceptance of Kardec’s theory.

41
  Joscelyn Godwin, Christian Chanel, and John Patrick Deveney, The Hermetic
Brotherhood of Luxor:  Initiatic and Historical Documents of an Order of Practical
Occultism (York Beach: Samuel Weiser, 1995).
16 Recycled Lives

Chapter  5 considers the relationship between Blavatsky’s rebirth

teachings and her constructions of the ancient Greeks. Indeed, her
works are an important—​and hitherto unacknowledged—​site for the
intersection of occultist thought with nineteenth-​century Classicism.
The chapter situates Blavatsky’s engagement with the Classical world in
the context of her discussions of rebirth within a far-​ranging nineteenth-​
century fascination with the Greeks. This cultural interest is evident in
Blavatsky’s source texts as well as more widely. Nineteenth-​century au-
thors constructed the Greeks according to their needs, their depictions
falling into the broadly defined categories of the more conservative
and the more transgressive. Blavatsky’s interpretations had substantial
anti-​establishment elements. They were influenced by her friend, the
American physician Alexander Wilder (1823–​1908), himself a member
of an American Platonic tradition with roots in Transcendentalism
and the thought of the English neo-​Platonist Thomas Taylor (1758–​
1835). Interpreting these influences, Blavatsky construed the Greeks ac-
cording to her occultist exegesis to argue that Greek ideas had parallels
in Hebraic, Gnostic, and Indian thought and that Hellenism had an
Oriental source. First, she argued Pythagoras and Plato were advocates
of metempsychosis. Later, she maintained the taught reincarnation.
Blavatsky’s conceptualisations of rebirth also owe a considerable
debt to the scientific theories under discussion at her time of writing.
Chapter 6 demonstrates that she referred to numerous contemporary
scientists in justifying aspects of her thought, basically dividing them
into two camps, those whose ideas could be interpreted as supporting
Theosophy (at least in some way) and those whom she believed under-
stood nothing, usually because of their supposed materialism. Blavatsky
framed her theses in opposition to the latter. At the same time, she se-
lectively appropriated elements from the writings of scientists she ap-
proved of in a ‘scientism’ that was an essential feature of her thought.
In this way, Blavatsky contributed to spreading the ideas of leading
scientists, an active agent in the construction of science-​related know-
ledge and of science itself, as a category. Blavatsky’s activities occurred
within a cultural world in which the boundaries of ‘legitimate’ science
were more contested than they are today. Some believed science should
exclude all metaphysical speculation, but others believed some sort of
reconciliation might still be found. Among the latter were professional
 Introduction 17

scientists as well as occultists and Spiritualists. The chapter explores

Blavatsky’s debt to two Scottish physicists, Balfour Stewart (1828–​1887)
and Peter Guthrie Tait (1831–​1909), who were criticised for ‘pseudo sci-
ence’ in their day but on whom Blavatsky drew in her construction of
metempsychosis as a sort of ‘recycling’ of spiritual and physical elem-
ents. Citing Stewart and Tait, she positioned Theosophy between the
perceived extremes of materialism and dogmatic religion, proposing
continuity between the natural and the ‘supernatural’, as well as the
possibility of transferring from one ‘grade of being’ to another.
One of Blavatsky’s chief polemical targets in her discussions of sci-
ence was the materialist monism of Ernst Haeckel (1834–​1919), which,
despite having much in common with Theosophy, she deemed incom-
plete and misleading. Another was Darwinism. Blavatsky perceived
natural selection as materialistic, chance-​driven, and anti-​spiritual, and
offered her depiction of a reincarnationary, teleological ascent through
a vitalist ‘great chain of being’ as an alternative. Her concepts were
indebted to some of the theories of evolution popularised during the
1880s, such as the idea that higher intelligences assist in evolutionary
processes and the notion that the cosmos has an intrinsic tendency to
evolve. The latter hypothesis was termed orthogenesis, and Blavatsky
quoted teleological versions of it proposed by the Swiss botanist Carl
Wilhelm von Nägeli (1817–​1891), the Estonian scientist Karl Ernst von
Baer (1792–​1876), and the British biologist Richard Owen (1804–​1892).
German Romantic themes were significant here, especially concepts of
progress and becoming, as well as Aristotelian and Platonic notions of
a hierarchy of fixed types.
Chapter  7 describes Blavatsky’s arrival in India and Ceylon, the
establishment of branches of the Society there, and her contact with
numerous locals, including monks, university scholars, and pandits,
many of whom came from the upper echelons of Indian society.
Some wrote articles for The Theosophist on topics closely related to
reincarnation, such as the nature of the soul, moksha, and nirvana.
Blavatsky’s close friend, Henry Olcott, claimed it was in India where
she first ‘became absorbed in the problems of the soul’s cyclic pro-
gressions and reincarnations’, and it seems reasonable to assume, on
the basis of this and other primary sources, that Indian influences
contributed to Blavatsky’s eventual acceptance of reincarnation.
18 Recycled Lives

Blavatsky’s metaphysics had a neo-​Platonic basis, but she framed

her ideas in Vedantic terms provided, in part, by notable early
Indian Theosophists such as Mohini M.  Chatterji (1858–​1936) and
Tallapragada Subba Row (1856–​1890). In his discussions of Vedanta,
Subba Row drew on the social Darwinist Herbert Spencer (1820–​
1903), on whom Blavatsky also drew (and sometimes criticised). She
also assimilated material from Orientalist scholarship, especially the
translation of the Vishnu Purana prepared by H. H. Wilson (1786–​
1860), although she found fault with that too. The outcome of all
these selective borrowings was a modernising depiction of Theosophy
as the esoteric essence of Hinduism and Buddhism, in which the
neo-​Platonic One was equated with parabrahman and Adi Buddha
and offered as an alternative to Ernst Haeckel’s monism. The chapter
thus reveals Blavatsky’s reincarnationism as involving an entangle-
ment of Western philosophies with the interpretations of Vedanta
of Western-​educated Hindu elites alongside academic Orientalism.
The result of the interplay of Blavatsky’s Platonism, scientism,
Spiritualism, and Orientalism were modern perspectives on rebirth
that were inseparable from the interrelated nineteenth-​century con-
structions among which they evolved. Appreciation of the embedded-
ness of Blavatsky’s rebirth theories in these contexts allows us to better
understand Blavatsky and her period. In addition, it reveals some con-
sequential, perhaps unexpected, and evidently under-​acknowledged
historical roots of the reincarnationism that is so popular in today’s
postmodern world.
    1
Blavatsky and Reincarnation

Helena Petrovna von Hahn was born in Ekaterinoslav, Ukraine, on

12 August 1831 (31 July in the O.S.). She was of Russian, German, and
French ancestry. Her father, Peter Alexeyevitch von Hahn (1799–​1875),
was an army colonel descended from the German minor nobility. Her
mother, Helena Adreyevna de Fadeev (1814–​1842), was a novelist des-
cended from the Russian aristocracy. She died when Helena was eleven
years old. Helena had a sister, Vera, and a brother, Leonid.1 From the
age of nine, she lived mostly with her mother’s parents, Privy Councillor
Andrei de Fadeev (1789–​1867) and Princess Helena Dolgorukii (1789–​
1860). During her childhood, Andrei de Fadeev acted as trustee for
the nomadic Kalmuck people in their local Province of Astrakhan (in
the south-​west of Russia). The Kalmuck tribes had embraced Gelugpa
Tibetan Buddhism during the seventeenth century. Blavatsky’s mother,
Helena Adreyevna, even wrote a novel about Kalmuck life.2 Claiming
to have had considerable contact with the Kalmucks in her youth,

1
  On Blavatsky’s early life, see Maria Carlson, No Religion Higher than the Truth
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 38–​42.
2
 Letter to P. C. Mittra on 10 April 1878 and letter to H. Chintamon on 4 May 1878,
in H. P. Blavatsky, The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky 1861–​1879, ed. John Algeo (Wheaton,
IL, and Chennai: Quest Books, Theosophical Publishing House, 2003), 410 and 427.
H. P. Blavatsky, ‘Mr Arthur Lillie’, in Blavatsky Collected Writings, ed. Boris de Zirkoff
(Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1991), 15 vols, vol. 6, 293 (originally
published in Light 4, no. 197 (11 October 1884), 418–​419. See also Blavatsky, Isis II, 551
and 553.

19
20 Recycled Lives

Blavatsky seems to have been inspired by this early exposure to what

she must have experienced as an exotic, Oriental religion.3
Her mother tongue was Russian, and like most educated Russians of
her day, she spoke French well. Blavatsky’s ancestry suggests she would
have known German but she denied this.4 Blavatsky initially learned
English from a Yorkshire governess. She always claimed her know-
ledge of the language was limited, but even though her major works
were heavily edited, her letters and other writings attest to an excellent
command of it.5 Her friend Alexander Wilder wrote, ‘She spoke the
English language with the fluency of one perfectly familiar with it, and
who thought in it.’6 Contemporaries credited Blavatsky with knowing
Sanskrit, Hebrew, Tibetan, and even Hindi. She does not seem to have
objected, although unequivocal evidence for her knowledge is lacking.7
Blavatsky was raised in the Russian Orthodox Church.8 Her state-
ments indicate she was deeply respectful of it, despite her famed aversion

3
 Letter to P. C. Mittra on 10 April 1878 Blavatsky and letter to H. Chintamon on 4
May 1878, in The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky 1861–​1879, 410 and 427. See also Blavatsky,
‘Mr Arthur Lillie’, 293 and Blavatsky, Isis II, 551 and 553.
4
 In a letter to the Dutch Theosophist Adelberth de Bourbon, Blavatsky stated, ‘though
my father was a German, a Finlander—​Baron Hahn, I do not know German’. ‘Letter
of H.P.B. to Adelberth de Bourbon’, The Theosophist 73 (December 1951), 154.
5
 She asked her critics to take into account that she ‘had never studied the English
language, and after learning it in her childhood colloquially had not spoken it before
coming to America half a dozen times during as many years’. H. P. Blavatsky, ‘The
Claims of Occultism’, The Theosophist 2, no. 12 (September 1881), 258–​260. ‘She had
been taught to speak English by her first governess, Miss Jeffries.’ A. P. Sinnet, Incidents
in the Life of Madame Blavatsky (New York: J. W. Bouton, 1886), 52. See also 24 and 28.
6
 Wilder, ‘How “Isis Unveiled” Was Written’, 83.
7
  For example, Joy Dixon notes:  ‘she claimed to be able to read a fair amount of
Sanskrit.’ Joy Dixon, Divine Feminine: Theosophy and Feminism in England (Baltimore
and London:  Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 24. A  contemporary reporter
for the New York Times wrote, ‘Mme. Blavatsky is [. . .] the animated leader of con-
versation, speaking with equal ease in English, French, Italian, and Russian, or drop-
ping into Sanskrit or Hindoostanee as occasion requires’. ‘Blavatsky Still Lives’. The
New York Times (6 January 1889), 10. The article is an interview with William Quan
Judge. No author is given.
8
 Richard Hutch argued that the Russian Orthodox wandering holy men, the staretsi,
and the folk shamans, the volkhv, influenced Blavatsky. Richard A. Hutch, ‘Helena
Blavatsky Unveiled’, The Journal of Religious History 11, no. 2 (December 1980).
Michael Gomes dismissed Hutch’s conclusions. Gomes, Bibliography, 264. Brendan
French congratulated Hutch for being the first to draw attention to the importance
 Blavatsky and Reincarnation 21

to Christianity in general and to Protestantism and Catholicism in par-

ticular. She wrote to her sister Vera:

I simply can’t listen to people talking about the wretched Hindus

or Buddhists being converted to Anglican Phariseeism or the Pope’s
Christianity; it simply gives me the shivers. But when I read about
the spread of Russian orthodoxy in Japan, my heart rejoices. [. . .]
I do not believe in any dogmas, I dislike every ritual, but my feelings
towards our own church-​service are quite different. [.  .  .] A  thou-
sand times rather Buddhism, a pure moral teaching, in perfect har-
mony with the teachings of Christ, than modern Catholicism or
Protestantism. But with the faith of the Russian Church I will not
even compare Buddhism. I can’t help it. Such is my silly inconsistent
nature.9

Although Blavatsky received an education at home, she didn’t go to

university, and in matters beyond the expertise of governesses was
largely an autodidact. An early source for the knowledge that would
later enable her to write her Theosophical works was the library of her
great-​grandfather, Prince Pavel Dolgorukii (1755–​1837), the father of
her grandmother, Princess Helena. Prince Pavel had been a Freemason
of the kind who took an interest in occult subjects. Blavatsky claimed
to have read the contents of his library in its entirety by age fifteen, and
that it had introduced her to the subjects of alchemy, magic, and the

of Blavatsky’s native religion but argued that although Blavatsky may not have mod-
elled herself on the staretsi and the volkhv, she may have modelled the Masters on
them. Brendan French, ‘Blavatsky, Dostoevski, and Occult Starchestvo’, Aries 7, no. 2
(2007), 167.
9
  Letter to Vera Jelihovsky, cited in Personal Memoires of H.  P. Blavatsky, compiled
by Mary K. Neff (London: Rider, 1937—​Kessinger photographic reprint). Blavatsky’s
statement led Ronald Hutton to conclude that ‘the multi-​cultural, supranational
Blavatsky remained at heart what she had been as a girl: a Russian Orthodox Christian’.
Hutton, Triumph of the Moon, 19. For more statements of Blavatsky’s on the Russian
Orthodox Church, The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky 1861–​1879, 289 and H. P. Blavatsky,
‘Our Cycle and the Next’, Lucifer 4 no. 21 (May 1889), 177–​178.
22 Recycled Lives

occult sciences, topics that would come to be among the mainstays of

Theosophy.10
Blavatsky’s outspoken, opinionated, and unconventional nature was
evident from an early age:

I hate dress, finery, and civilized society, I despise a ball room, and
how much I despise it will be proved to you by the following fact.
When hardly sixteen, I was being forced one day to go to a dancing
party, a great ball at the Viceroy’s. My protests were not listened to,
and my parents told me that they would have me dressed up, or ra-
ther according to fashion, undressed for the ball by the servants by
force if I did not go willingly. I then deliberately plunged my foot
and leg into a kettle of boiling water, and held it there till nearly
boiled raw. Of course I scalded it horribly, and remained lame for six
months. But I was never forced to go to a ball again. I tell you, that
there is nothing of the woman in me. When I was young if a man
had dared to speak to me of love, I would have shot him like a dog
who bit me.11

Despite her protestations, on 7 July 1849, at the age of seventeen,

Helena married the forty-​year-​old Nikifor Blavatsky (1809–​after 1877),
vice-​governor of Yerevan province in Armenia. She soon regretted it,
however, leaving him just months afterwards in an act in many ways
representative of her rejection of the noblewoman’s life expected of
her. After abandoning her husband, she began her travels.12 No reliable
account of her life for the next twenty-​five years exists. They are known
as her ‘veiled years’, and it was during this period she claimed to have
met and studied with her mysterious masters in the Far East.

10
  Nicholas Goodrick-​ Clarke, ‘Western Esoteric Traditions and Theosophy’, in
Handbook of the Theosophical Current, ed. Olav Hammer and Michael Rothstein
(Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013), 264.
11
  H.  P. Blavatsky, ‘On Hibernation, the Ârya Samâj, etc.’, in Blavatsky Collected
Writings, vol. 6, 314.
12
 The name ‘Blavatsky’ always appeared in English in its masculine form, although
Helena’s surname was Blavatskaya in Russian.
 Blavatsky and Reincarnation 23

Blavatsky in America and Isis Unveiled

Blavatsky was in Paris in 1873, travelling there via Odessa and Eastern
Europe. She arrived in New York the same year, around the time of her
forty-​second birthday.13 There, she met the American lawyer and jour-
nalist Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (1832–​1907) who was investigating
Spiritualistic phenomena in Chittenden, Vermont, in 1874. They were
to become lifelong friends. Olcott was of Presbyterian origin and was
educated at Columbia University. He belonged to a social class his
biographer, Stephen Prothero, termed the ‘metropolitan gentility’, a
cultural elite that tended to display a ‘genteel yearning for cohesion,
unity, and order and a didactic conviction the way to achieve harmony
was by civilising the masses’.14 Olcott had worked as an agricultural cor-
respondent for the New York Tribune, served in the Union Army during
the Civil War, and was later promoted to colonel. He had become a
lawyer in 1868 and was married but estranged from his wife.15 The re-
lationship he developed with Blavatsky was very close (he nicknamed
her ‘Jack’ and she dubbed him ‘Maloney’), but it was clearly Platonic.
Fourteen individuals joined Maloney and Jack in establishing the
Theosophical Society in New York City two years later, over the course

13
 Many histories of the Theosophical Society and biographies of Blavatsky have been
published. Some are listed in Gomes, Bibliography, 19–​141. Works on Blavatsky in-
clude Charles J. Ryan, H.  P. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Movement (Pasadena,
CA:  Theosophical University Press, 1975); Marion Mead, Madame Blavatsky:  The
Woman Behind the Myth (New  York:  G. P.  Putnam’s Sons, 1980); Sylvia Cranston,
H.  P.  B. The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Blavatsky, Founder of the
Theosophical Movement (New  York:  G. P.  Putnam’s Sons, 1993); Peter Washington,
Madame Blavatsky’s Baboon (New York: Schocken Books, 1995); Joseph Howard Tyson,
Madame Blavatsky Revisited (Lincoln: iUniverse, 2007); and Gary Lachman, Madame
Blavatsky:  The Mother of Modern Spirituality (New  York:  Penguin, 2012). For a di-
gest of Blavatsky’s writings and a reliable introduction, see Goodrick-​Clarke, Helena
Blavatsky. For a concise history of the Theosophical Society, see James A. Santucci,
‘Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna’, in Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, 177–​185.
14
 Stephen Prothero, ‘Henry Steel Olcott and “Protestant Buddhism” ’, Journal of the
American Academy of Religion 63, no. 2 (Summer 1995), 290. See also Stephen Prothero,
The White Buddhist:  The Asian Odyssey of Henry Steel Olcott (Bloomington:  Indiana
University Press, 1996).
15
 Bruce F. Campbell, Ancient Wisdom Revived: A History of the Theosophical Movement
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 7.
24 Recycled Lives

of six meetings from September to November. The sixteen formers (as

Olcott called them) were the journalist and bookseller Charles Sotheran
(1847–​1902); the New York physician Dr. Charles E. Simmons (1841–​
1917); the journalist and army officer of Italian origin H. D. Monachesi
(1854–​1900); the barrister and Spiritualist Charles Carlton Massey
(1838–​1905); William Livingstone Alden (1837–​1908, a writer for the
New York Times who soon left the Society); the engineer and amateur
Egyptologist George Henry Felt (1831–​1906), the British Reform Jew
and Freemason David Etienne de Lara (1796–​1879); the Spiritualists
Dr.  William Goodwin Britten (1822–​ 1894) and his wife, Emma
Hardinge Britten (1823–​1899); John Storer Cobb (1838–​1904), who was
a non-​Jewish editor of the short-​lived Reform Jewish periodical The New
Era; the Spiritualist Henry J. Newton (1823–​1895); the Irish-​American
lawyer William Quan Judge (1851–​1896); James H. Hyslop (1854–​1920);
and H. M. Stevens (on whom we don’t have any further information).16
At first, the stated objectives of the Theosophical Society included
studying ‘the esoteric philosophy of ancient times’ and ‘collecting and
diffusing knowledge of the laws which govern the universe’.17 As John
Patrick Deveney has demonstrated, the early Theosophical Society had
a practical orientation. It included a system of three degrees and en-
couraged temperance and fasting, as well as some form of sexual ab-
stinence. The Society was initially devoted to occult work such as the
projection of the astral double as a means of achieving immortality, the
practice of Indian yoga, and the conjuration of elemental spirits.18

16
  Henry Steel Olcott, Old Diary Leaves First Series (New  York and London:  G.
P. Putnam’s Sons, 1895), 121–​122. On de Lara, see Boaz Huss, ‘Qabbalah, the Theos-​
Sophia of the Jews:  Jewish Theosophists and their Perceptions of Kabbalah’, in
Theosophical Appropriations. On de Lara and Cobb, see John Patrick Deveney, ‘D. E. de
Lara, John Storer Cobb, and The New Era’, Theosophical History 15, no. 4 (2011). For
summaries on each of the founders, see Josephine Ransom, A Short History of the
Theosophical Society (Adyar:  Theosophical Publishing House, 1938), 109–​114. It was
not possible to ascertain the life dates for all the formers of the Theosophical Society.
17
 In 1896, these were reformulated to what they remain today: to form a nucleus of the
Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or
colour; to encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy and science; and to
investigate unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent in man.
18
 On the occult practices pursued by early Theosophists, see John Patrick Deveney,
‘The Two Theosophical Societies: Prolonged Life, Conditional Immortality, and the
 Blavatsky and Reincarnation 25

The Theosophical Society was born into a unique American con-

text. The ‘Second Great Awakening’ of the early nineteenth century
had brought membership of Catholic and Protestant churches to a peak
by the 1850s and religious renewal had been so fervent in the western
section of New York State it was nicknamed the ‘burned-​over district’
because of the successive waves of revival that had swept it. Numerous
new religious groups arose there, and these included the direct fore-
runner of Theosophy, Spiritualism. When Blavatsky arrived in the New
World in the late 1870s, she was already familiar with the French ver-
sion of Spiritualism—​Spiritism. The Spiritualist ‘craze’ had started in
America around the middle of the century and it developed there in a
somewhat different direction to that of its continental counterpart. It
was a crucial component of what Catherine Albanese termed American
‘metaphysical religion’, which included currents that had emerged in
the eighteenth century, such as Mesmerism and Swedenborgianism, as
well as American Transcendentalism, which developed from the 1820s.19
Later in the nineteenth century, Christian Science, New Thought, and
Theosophy were added to the mix, and Albanese characterised these as
‘mature forms of metaphysical religion’.20 She noted four themes within
this type of religiosity: a preoccupation with the mind and its powers, a

Individualized Immortal Monad’, in Theosophical Appropriations and ‘Astral Projection

or Liberation of the Double and the Work of the Early Theosophical Society’,
Theosophical History Occasional Papers 6 (1997). See also Wouter Hanegraaff, ‘Western
Esotericism and the Orient in the First Theosophical Society’, in Theosophy Across
Boundaries, ed. Hans-​Martin Krämer and Julian Strube, forthcoming. On the prac-
tice of yoga in early Theosophy, see Karl Baier, Meditation und Moderne: Zur Genese
eines Kernbereichs moderner Spiritualität in der Wechselwirkung zwischen Westeuropa,
Nordamerika, und Asien (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann Verlag, 2009).
19
  For an introduction to Spiritualism, see Cathy Gutierrez, Plato’s Ghost
(Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2009). On Mesmerism in general, see Alan
Gauld, A History of Hypnotism (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1992).
On American Mesmerism, see Robert C. Fuller, Mesmerism and the American Cure
of Souls (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982). On Swedenborg, see
Ernst Benz, Emanuel Swedenborg (West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 2002).
On Transcendentalism, see Arthur Versluis, American Transcendentalism and Asian
Religions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) and Joel Myerson, ed., A Historical
Guide to Ralph Waldo Emerson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
20
 Catherine L. Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American
Metaphysical Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 16–​17. On the history
26 Recycled Lives

predisposition towards the cosmological theory of correspondence, an

understanding of the mind and its correspondences in terms of move-
ment and energy, and a yearning for salvation understood as solace,
comfort, therapy, and healing.21 American metaphysical religion was
one of the direct forerunners of the New Age Movement.
Blavatsky was occupied with the writing of her first major work
from 1875 and the New York publisher J. W. Bouton published it in
1877, suggesting the title Isis Unveiled. According to Henry Olcott,
in writing the book, Blavatsky ‘copied’ extracts from works that were
not physically present, seeing them ‘astrally’. As mentioned previously,
in a series of articles published in the 1890s, the Spiritualist and op-
ponent of Theosophy William Emmette Coleman (1843–​ 1909) ac-
cused Blavatsky of plagiarising from unacknowledged sources, which
he listed.22 Coleman wrote, ‘About 1400 books are quoted from and
referred to in this work; but, from the 100 books which its author pos-
sessed, she copied everything in Isis taken from and relating to the other
1300.’23 Here, Coleman highlighted what we might call ‘second-​hand’
or indirect quotations, in which Blavatsky would claim to be citing one
work while actually using a later work that quoted to the older one. In
previous publications, I identified some of Blavatsky’s source texts and
explored how she used them, revealing this second-​hand quotation to
indeed have taken place, at least in some instances.24
Blavatsky’s response to Coleman’s accusation was rather equivocal.
On the one hand, she denied the charge of plagiarism, yet on the other,

of New Thought and Christian Science, see John S. Haller Jr., The History of New
Thought (West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation Press, 2012).
21
 Albanese, Republic,  13–​15.
22
  Notably, Coleman listed around eighty works from which he said Blavatsky had
copied. See William Emmett Coleman, ‘The Sources of Madame Blavatsky’s Writings’,
in A Modern Priestess of Isis, ed. Vsevolod Solovyoff (London: Longmans, Green and
Co., 1895). A more complete bibliography of Blavatsky’s literary sources than Coleman’s
can be found in Gomes, Bibliography.
23
 Coleman (1895), 354.
24
  See Julie Chajes, ‘Construction through Appropriation’, and Julie Chajes,
‘Blavatsky and Monotheism:  Towards the Historicisation of a Critical Category’,
Journal of Religion in Europe 9 (2016). Some similar conclusions were reached in Jake
B. Winchester, ‘Roots of the Oriental Gnosis: W. E. Coleman, H. P. Blavatsky, S. F.
Dunlap’ (Unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of Amsterdam, 2015).
 Blavatsky and Reincarnation 27

admitted she had made ‘a nosegay of culled flowers’, bringing ‘nothing

of my own but the string that ties them’.25 It is worth pointing out
here that some of Blavatsky’s major literary sources made similar state-
ments to this, each acknowledging, defending, or even celebrating what
would today be considered plagiarism.26 These seeming admissions of
plagiarism in Blavatsky and the authors to whom she was indebted
point to the complexity and ambivalence of contemporary attitudes
towards literary originality, Coleman’s protestations notwithstanding.
As Robert MacFarlane has convincingly argued, it was the early to mid-​
nineteenth century that had seem the evolution of the ‘ “plagiarism
hunter”; a species of literary journalist which specialised in tracking
down allusions, borrowings, and derivations, and then listing these
examples in an article as an arraignment of an author’s originality’.27
Towards the end of the century, however, a literary trend developed in
Britain according to which it was not necessarily considered a bad thing
to borrow from, or imitate, other writings.28 In sum, Coleman was a

25
  Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, xlvi. For Blavatsky’s denial of plagiarism, see H.  P.
Blavatsky, ‘My Books’, Lucifer 8, no. 45 (15 May 1891).
26
 For example, in one of the works Blavatsky consulted, the Irish barrister Edward
Vaughn Hyde Kenealy (1819–​1880) renounced the ‘needless task of recasting the lan-
guage of others’. E. V. H. Kenealy, The Book of God: A Commentary on the Apocalypse, 3
vols. (London: Trübner and Co., [1870]), vol. 3, 2. In 1885, in a work Blavatsky is known
to have consulted, British writer on science and religion, Samuel Laing (1812–​1897),
admitted, ‘The first part of this book does not pretend to be more than a compendious
popular abridgement of [other authors’] works. I prefer, therefore, acknowledging my
obligations to them once and for all, rather than encumbering each page by detailed
references.’ Samuel Laing, Modern Science and Modern Thought (London: Chapman
and Hall, 1885), vi. In 1879, the British Indologist John Dowson (1820–​1881) wrote,
‘It is unnecessary to specify all the works which have been used in the compilation
of this book.’ He mentioned some, but concluded that there were ‘many others too
numerous to mention’. John Dowson, A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and
Religion, Geography, History, and Literature (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and
Co., 1914), vi.
27
 Robert Macfarlane, Original Copy: Plagiarism and Originality in Nineteenth-​Century
Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 41.
28
 Macfarlane, Original Copy, 6–​7. In the American context, as Lara Langer Cohen ar-
gued, readers experienced much anxiety over their ability to discern real literature from
fraudulent works (that might include plagiarisms, hoaxes, forgeries, or impostures).
Lara Langer Cohen, The Fabrication of American Literature (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2012).
28 Recycled Lives

plagiarism hunter, and rather a late one at that. By the time he wrote
his articles on Blavatsky, not everyone shared his notions of accept-
able literary practice. As if to prove this, and in a rather ironic fashion,
Coleman was himself accused of plagiarism in his lifetime.29 Be that as
it may, my concern in the present work is not whether Blavatsky (or
Coleman) did or did not plagiarise. Rather, I  am interested in what
Blavatsky’s literary sources were, how she used and interpreted them,
and, importantly, how we may historicise and contextualise this usage.
In a recent article, Wouter Hanegraaff highlighted some important
contextualisations for the production of Isis Unveiled. Olcott and others
portrayed Blavatsky’s literary borrowings as a type of ‘clairvoyance’, in
which she read books on the astral plane. This practice, Hanegraaff ar-
gued, was influenced by ideas deriving from mesmeric and spiritualistic
currents that valorised what was basically a form of creative imagin-
ation. This imagination was stimulated, at least in Blavatsky’s case, by
the consumption of hashish, which, at the time, was legal.30 Handed
the enormous and unruly manuscript that resulted, Blavatsky’s friend
the Platonist Dr. Alexander Wilder (who will be discussed further in
­chapter  5) set about editing it.31 The means of production and edit-
orship of others probably goes some way to explaining the sometimes
confusing, fragmentary nature of the text. Despite its literary shortcom-
ings, in seven years, the book sold four thousand copies in America.32
In this first publication, Blavatsky presented immortality as achievable
during this lifetime through the unification of two inner spiritual elem-
ents, the spirit (a fragment of the Divine) and the soul (the seat of the
personality). This unification was to be attained through occult prac-
tice such as astral travel and the development of one’s moral faculties.

29
  See John Patrick Deveney, ‘Sauce for the Goose:  William Emmette Coleman’s
Defence to a Charge of Plagiarism’, Theosophical History 8, no. 10 (October 2002).
30
 Wouter Hanegraaff, ‘The Theosophical Imagination’, Correspondences 5 (2017).
31
 In a 1908 article on ‘How Isis Unveiled Was Written’, he denied he was the author
of the book, as some had claimed, or even that he has edited it substantially, although
he acknowledged that he condensed it significantly. Wilder, ‘How Isis Unveiled Was
Written’, 83.
32
 It was less successful in England. Robert Gilbert, The Great Chain of Unreason: The
Publication and Distribution of the Literature of Rejected Knowledge in England during
the Victorian Era (PhD diss., University of London, 2009), 213.
 Blavatsky and Reincarnation 29

At death, the immortalised spirit-​soul entity would undergo metem-

psychosis, which, in Isis Unveiled, meant successive rebirth on higher
worlds or planets until the highest realm was reached. Isis Unveiled and
contemporaneous writings also taught a doctrine of ‘exceptional re-
incarnation’, meaning the occasional return to Earth life of a spirit who
had failed to achieve immortality together with the same soul. These
teachings of Blavatsky’s early period strongly resonated with a branch
of Anglo-​American Spiritualism that denied the normative repeated re-
turn to Earth life and instead emphasised post-​mortem ascent through
higher spheres while allowing for occasional ‘reincarnation’.
While still in America, Blavatsky and Olcott corresponded with Swami
Dayananda Saraswati (1824–​1883), a Gujarati Vedic scholar who founded
the Arya Samaj (Aryan Society) in 1875. Their discussions led to a proposed
merger between the two societies, but the relationship with Dayananda fi-
nally ended in April 1882 when Olcott realised the Arya Samaj had little
in common with Theosophy.33 As Karl Baier has demonstrated, Blavatsky
and Olcott had initially hoped Dayananda would teach Indian yogic prac-
tices to members of the Society. This enterprise failed, however, and the
disillusioned Theosophists thereafter downplayed yogic pursuits such as
this.34 Blavatsky also downplayed other practices initially promoted in the
Society, such as astral travel, and increasingly framed Theosophy as an
intellectual-​spiritual pursuit.35
Blavatsky and Olcott arrived in Bombay in February 1879. In October,
Blavatsky founded the periodical The Theosophist, which would come to
play a crucial role in the dissemination and development of Theosophical
ideas. She edited most of the issues and within months, it had acquired
hundreds of subscribers and become profitable.36 On 25 May 1880,

33
  Dayananda wished The Theosophist to be an exclusively Arya Samaj publication,
excluding Buddhists and Parsis. Olcott and Blavatsky refused to accept this and
Dayananda subsequently became hostile to the Theosophists. See Henry Steel Olcott,
Old Diary Leaves Second Series 1878–​83 (Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1974),
150–​151 and 363.
34
 See Baier, Meditation und Moderne, esp. 329–​335.
35
 Deveney, ‘Two Theosophical Societies’.
36
 Olcott, Old Diary Leaves Second Series, 92–​93 and 137. See also Carl T. Jackson, The
Oriental Religions and American Thought: Nineteenth Century Explorations (Westport,
CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 1981), 36. See also Scott, ‘Miracle Publics’ and
30 Recycled Lives

Blavatsky and Olcott took pansil in Ceylon, publicly declaring them-

selves Buddhists. By 1882, they had established the headquarters of the
Theosophical Society in Adyar, a neighbourhood in Madras, in the state
of Tamil Nadu, India. The Theosophical Society as it developed during
this Indian period had a very different character to the one founded in
New York four years previously, and it increasingly emphasised Hindu
and Buddhist thought in Theosophical interpretation.
In 1880, Blavatsky had met Alfred Percy Sinnett, an English civil
servant and journalist with an interest in Spiritualism who would later
play a major role in the debates surrounding reincarnation.37 Between
1880 and 1885, Sinnett exchanged letters with Blavatsky’s masters Koot
Hoomi and Morya, whose communications often arrived mysteriously,
such as falling from the ceiling.38 Sinnett’s correspondence with the
masters formed the basis of his work Esoteric Buddhism (1883), one
of the earliest statements of Theosophical beliefs, and which paral-
leled the doctrines of Blavatsky’s later period.39 Following an earlier
work of Sinnett’s, The Occult World (1881)—​which had not discussed
reincarnation40—​Esoteric Buddhism was the first book to lay out the new
Theosophical theory of a normative, karmic return to Earth. The Occult
World and Esoteric Buddhism were bestsellers and brought wide publi-
city to the Theosophical movement in India as well as internationally.41

When Did Blavatsky Start Teaching Reincarnation?

Blavatsky had started teaching reincarnation before Sinnett published
Esoteric Buddhism in 1883, although it is not evident precisely when

Mark S. Morrisson, ‘The Periodical Culture of the Occult Revival: Esoteric Wisdom,

Modernity, and Counter-​Public Spheres’, Journal of Modern Literature 31, no. 2 (2008).
37
  Sinnett was the editor of the influential Anglo-​Indian daily, The Pioneer. Janet
Oppenheim, The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850–​
1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 180.
38
 The originals are in the British Library. Most of the letters Sinnett received between
1880 and 1884 were published in A. Trevor Barker, ed., The Mahatma Letters to A. P.
Sinnett (London: Unwin, 1923).
39
 Alfred Percy Sinnett, Esoteric Buddhism (London: Trübner and Co., 1883).
40
 Alfred Percy Sinnett, The Occult World (London: Trübner and Co., 1881).
41
 Goodrick-​Clarke, ed., Helena Blavatsky, 12.
 Blavatsky and Reincarnation 31

or how this came about. From the beginning of its publication, The
Theosophist contained scattered references to reincarnation and karma in
the articles of the various European, American, Indian, and Ceylonese
contributors, although these represented the views of the authors and
didn’t prove Blavatsky’s endorsement.42 On the contrary, it is apparent
that the importance of reincarnation in her thought between 1870 and
1881 was minimal, at least if The Theosophist is anything to go by. For
example, in December 1881, she published an article on Hindu thought
called ‘The Popular Idea of Soul Survival’ and barely mentioned re-
incarnation.43 Therefore, although according to Olcott, Blavatsky said
she had been taught the doctrine of reincarnation in India as early as
in 1879, there’s no unequivocal evidence in The Theosophist for the ac-
curacy of this date.44
Olcott claimed reincarnation had been taught in the series of (an-
onymous) articles published in The Theosophist as Fragments of Occult
Truth, the first of which appeared in October 1881.45 The author was
Allan Octavian Hume, an early political reformer and Theosophist
who worked as secretary to the Indian government from 1870 to 1879
and who was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress.
Hume was also a crucial early disseminator of teachings received from

42
 For example, the first volume contained an article on Vedanta philosophy that stated
that those who are wise break free from the transmigrations of the soul and attain
moksha. It also outlined a doctrine of karma. ‘The Vedanta Philosophy Expounded
by the Society of Benares Pandits and Translated for The Theosophist by Pandit Surya
Narayen Sec’y’, The Theosophist 1, no.  8 (May 1880), 202. See also Rao Bahadar
Janardhan Sakharam Gadgil, ‘Hindu Ideas about Communion with the Dead’, The
Theosophist 1, no. 3 (Dec 1879).
43
  In Blavatsky’s estimation, according to Hindu belief, bad people have to ‘linger
upon earth until either their next transmigration or complete annihilation’. H.  P.
Blavatsky, ‘The Popular Idea of Soul Survival’, The Theosophist 1, no. 3 (Dec 1879), 62.
44
  Olcott also claimed reincarnation had been taught in Theosophical circles when
he wrote The Buddhist Catechism (1881), although he admitted the ‘exposition of the
Re-​incarnation theory was rather meagre in the first edition’ but was ‘given at much
greater length in the revised edition of 1882’. Olcott, Old Diary Leaves First Series, 284.
45
  Olcott, Old Diary Leaves First Series, 284. [A.  O. Hume], ‘Fragments of Occult
Truth’, The Theosophist 3, no. 25 (October 1881), 17–​22; The Theosophist 3, no. 30 (March
1882), 157–​160; The Theosophist 3, no. 36 (September 1882), 307–​314. Olcott discussed
these articles, and incorrectly attributed them to Sinnett. Olcott, Old Diary Leaves
First Series, 286.
32 Recycled Lives

Blavatsky’s masters. Based on letters he received from the mahatmas, in

Fragments of Occult Truth, he claimed that to understand the course of
man after death, it was necessary to subdivide the three human prin-
ciples Blavatsky had given in Isis Unveiled into seven. At death, if the
‘spiritual ego’ had possessed ‘material tendencies’,

Then at death, it continues to cling blindly to the lower elements of

its late combination, and the true spirit severs itself from these and
passes away elsewhere. [. . .] (taking with it no fragment of the indi-
vidual consciousness of the man with which it was temporarily asso-
ciated) [. . .] But if, on the other hand, the tendencies of the EGO
have been towards things spiritual, [.  .  .] then will it cling to the
spirit, and with this pass into the adjoining so-​called world of effects,
(in reality, a state, and not a place), and there purified of much of its
still remaining material taints, evolve out of itself by the spirit’s aid
a new Ego, to be reborn (after a brief period of freedom and enjoy-
ment) in the next higher world of causes, an objective world similar
to this present globe of ours, but higher in the spiritual scale, where
matter and material tendencies and desires play a far less important
part than here. [. . .] In either case, it is not a matter of Judgment, of
Salvation and Damnation, of Heaven and Hell, but solely the oper-
ation of the Universal Law of Affinity or Attraction.46

This passage didn’t state a person was typically reborn on Earth after
death, but rather on ‘the next higher world’, as in metempsychosis.
Nevertheless, the ideas discussed by Hume also displayed some marked
similarities to Blavatsky’s later theory of reincarnation, which would
refer to seven principles (unlike the three of metempsychosis), affirm a
period of rest between lives, and uphold an impersonal and universal
law of karma, emphasising human choice of the material or spiritual.
It is notable that in Hume’s teaching, if the spirit were to rise, it would
take ‘no fragment of the individual consciousness of the man with
which it was temporarily associated’. This was different to Blavatsky’s
doctrine of metempsychosis, in which ascent only occurred after the

46
 Hume Fragments (Oct 1881), 19.
 Blavatsky and Reincarnation 33

spirit and soul (personality or ‘individual consciousness’) were con-

joined. Instead, despite not teaching reincarnation, Hume again reson-
ated with Blavatsky’s later perspective, in which the spirit was said to
repeatedly acquire new souls (personalities).47 In short, the ideas Hume
outlined had elements in common with those of both Blavatsky’s earlier
and later periods.
In 1882, there were a greater number of references to reincarnation in
pages of The Theosophist.48 A clear endorsement of the type of reincar-
nation characteristic of Blavatsky’s later period came from a contributor
going by the name of ‘an Adept Brother’ in June:

The new personal Ego gets re-​incarnated into a personality when the
remembrance of his previous Egoship, of course, fades out, and he
can ‘communicate’ no longer with his fellow-​men on the planet he
has left forever, as the individual he was there known to be. After
numberless re-​incarnations, and on numerous planets and in various
spheres, a time will come, at the end of the Maha-​Yug or great cycle,
when each individuality will have become so spiritualised that, be-
fore its final absorption into the One All, its series of past personal
existences will marshal themselves before him in a retrospective order
like the many days of some one period of a man’s existence.49

In May and June of the same year, a book review in The Theosophist by
Sinnett also affirmed a reincarnation doctrine very similar to that of
Blavatsky’s later period. The work under consideration was The Perfect
Way; Or; The Finding of Christ (1882) by Dr.  Anna Bonus Kingsford
(1846–​1888), a Spiritualist, convert to Catholicism, and animal rights
activist with ties to Theosophy.50 As a medium, Kingsford worked
closely with Edward Maitland (1824–​1897) to teach ‘a new dispensation’

47
 This theme had already been present in Blavatsky’s earlier doctrine of metempsy-
chosis, in which the soul and spirit struggled to conjoin and ascend, rather than be
annihilated.
48
 For example, see Babu Jwala Prasad Sankhadar, ‘Aeen-​I-​Hoshang’, The Theosophist
3, no. 8 (May 1882), 210.
49
 ‘The Adept Brothers’, ‘Editor’s Note’, The Theosophist 3, no. 9 (June 1882), 226.
50
 Anna Bonus Kingsford and Edward Maitland, The Perfect Way; or, The Finding of
Christ (London: Field and Tuer, 1882).
34 Recycled Lives

comprising an ahistorical, allegorical interpretation of Christianity. In

May, June, and July 1881, Kingsford and Maitland had given a series
of lectures outlining their teachings and these were published early in
1882 as The Perfect Way. Although there were differences, it was sig-
nificant that they taught a theory of reincarnation that resonated with
Blavatsky’s later point of view in its affirmation that the immortal spirit
returned with a new soul each time it reincarnated (as affirmed by the
‘Adept Bother’ above).51 Kingsford’s lectures were backed financially by
Marie (née de Mariategue), the Countess of Caithness, a well-​connected
promoter of Theosophy in France, whose book, published six years be-
fore Kingsford’s, Old Truths in a New Light (1876), anticipated many
of the tenets of Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled.52 In that work, Caithness had
advocated reincarnation in the style of Allan Kardec, in which the same
personality returned repeatedly to life on Earth.53 Olav Hammer argued
that both Caithness and Kingsford were prominent spokespersons for
reincarnation in the 1870s, with Kingsford probably learning of reincar-
nation through Caithness.54 He affirmed Blavatsky inherited at least
some of her tenets from these two women, observing that the ‘Secret

51
 Differences between Kingsford’s and Blavatsky’s reincarnation theories included that
Kingsford didn’t teach a doctrine of devachan, and although she upheld the possibility
of reincarnation on other planets, it was a different conception to that outlined by
Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine. Kingsford also taught the possibility of reincarnation
as an animal following human incarnation, an idea Blavatsky rejected vehemently.
52
  See Marco Pasi, ‘Exégèse et Sexualité:  L’occultisme oublié de Lady Caithness’,
Politica Hermetica 20 (2006), 76–​77; Joscelyn Godwin, The Theosophical Enlightenment
(Albany:  State University of New  York Press, 1994), 304–​305 and 338; and Joscelyn
Godwin, ‘Lady Caithness and Her Connection with Theosophy’, Theosophical History
8, no. 4 (October 2000), 128.
53
 Like Blavatsky, Caithness maintained that a person evolves through mineral, vege-
table, and animal stages of development. She described this as a ‘law of progress’
and asserted retrogression was impossible. She taught that following numerous in-
carnations on Earth, one would ‘rise magnetically to purer spheres’. She offered nu-
merous scriptural proofs for reincarnation and advanced a doctrine of karma, writing,
‘Christ frequently gave us to understand that suffering and infirmity was a punish-
ment for sin, either in this or in some previous life.’ Her work had a Christian em-
phasis Blavatsky did not share. Countess of Caithness, Old Truths in a New Light, or,
An Earnest Endeavour to Reconcile Material Science with Spiritual Science, and with
Scripture (London: Chapman and Hall, 1876), 319–​320 and 340–​341.
54
 Hammer, Claiming Knowledge, 464–​465.
 Blavatsky and Reincarnation 35

Doctrine is an elaborate myth in which a rich tapestry of details fills out

the bare-​bones account of reincarnation that Blavatsky had inherited
from Kardec via Kingsford, Lady Caithness and others.’55
Did Blavatsky (and consequently other Theosophists, such as
Sinnett and Olcott) adopt reincarnation under the influence of Anna
Bonus Kingsford? Edward Maitland seemed to think so. Writing of
Kingsford’s life, he reminisced about an early encounter with Sinnett:

We were [.  .  .] greatly surprised to learn from Mr Sinnett that

[reincarnation and karma] formed no part of the doctrine of the
Theosophical Society, being neither contained in their chief text-​
book, the Isis Unveiled of its founders, nor communicated to it by its
Masters, and on these grounds Mr Sinnett rejected them, sitting up
with us until long after midnight arguing against them, and saying,
amongst other things, of the doctrine of Reincarnation, that even
of the Spiritualists only a few who followed Allan Kardec accepted
it. Whereupon we stated our conviction that it would yet be given
to his Society by its Eastern teachers, and that, as for Allan Kardec’s
writings, we knew of them enough to know that they were far from
trustworthy, and his presentation of that doctrine especially was un-
scientific and erroneous.56

Maitland also reflected on how a year later, Sinnett had embraced re-
incarnation, much to his surprise:

Recalling [Sinnett’s] persistent denial of Reincarnation on his visit to

us in the previous year, we were interested to find him now accepting
the doctrine. But even here also he differed from us in certain re-
spects. For where we had taught the possibility of a soul’s return into
a form below the human, by way of penance for grievous faults, he
insisted to the contrary on the ground that ‘Nature does not go back
on her own footsteps.’57

55
 Ibid., 468.
56
 Edward Maitland, Anna Kingsford: Her Life, Letters, Diary, and Work (London: George
Redway, 1896), 19.
57
 Edward Maitland, Anna Kingsford: Her Life, 67.
36 Recycled Lives

Maitland stated he and Kingsford had derived reincarnation ‘directly

from a celestial source and wholly independently of human authority
and tradition, of spiritualism, and of our own prepossessions’ and that
they adopted if before the Theosophists did:58

It was clear, both by this fact and by the avowals of the parties con-
cerned, that up to this time the chiefs of the Theosophical Society
had been unable to obtain from those whom they claimed as their
masters more than a very meagre instalment of their doctrine. But
after the arrival of our book in India this state of things was changed.
It was then declared on behalf of the ‘masters’ that we had obtained,
from original and independent sources, a system of doctrine sub-
stantially identical with that of which they had for ages been, as they
supposed, in exclusive possession, but had never been permitted to
divulge, as it had always been reserved for initiates. The revelation of
it through us, we were informed, had ‘forced the hands of the mas-
ters’, by showing them that the time had come when secrecy was no
longer possible, and compelling them, if only in vindication of their
own claims, to relax their rule of silence in regard to their mysteries.
The coincidence between their doctrine and ours comprised sundry
particulars the most recondite, including—​besides the two great
tenets already named—​the multiplicity of principles in the human
system, and their separation and respective conditions after death,—​
a subject lying outside the cognisance of ‘Spiritualism’.59

Whereas Maitland chose to emphasise the similarities between

Kingsford’s and Blavatsky’s new theory of reincarnation, Sinnett
emphasised the differences, correcting various particulars in his review
of The Perfect Way. As Maitland mentioned above, the idea of human
to animal reincarnation was a particular bone of contention between
Sinnett and the authors. ‘Nature does not go back upon her own foot-
steps in the awkward way here imagined,’ wrote Sinnett. ‘The animals

58
 Edward Maitland, The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of The New
Gospel of Interpretation (Birmingham: Ruskin Press, 1905), 192.
59
 Maitland, Story of Anna Kingsford, 192–​193.
 Blavatsky and Reincarnation 37

around us are not re-​incarnations of our sinful predecessors, but fresh

fruit of the great tree of life.’60
In the July 1882 issue of the Spiritualist periodical Light, the
Spiritualist, lawyer, and early Theosophist Charles Carlton Massey
quoted a section of Sinnett’s review that affirmed reincarnation along-
side some extracts taken from Isis Unveiled that seemed to deny it.
Massey asked for clarification.61 In August 1882, Blavatsky published
an article in The Theosophist admitting the passage in Isis in question
was incomplete, chaotic, clumsy, and perhaps vague, but arguing there
was no discrepancy: it had always been maintained that the same per-
sonality would not return to life on Earth under normal circumstances.
Her explanation clarified some aspects of the apparent contradiction
but left others unresolved.62
In January 1883, a letter from Mahatma Koot Hoomi to Sinnett stated
the misunderstanding that Kingsford (and Maitland) had adopted re-
incarnation before the Theosophists was in need of correction. Koot
Hoomi implored Sinnett to write to Massey. In addition to denouncing
the errors of the Kardecist notion of the repeated rebirth of the same
personality, Koot Hoomi was obviously concerned people might think
the Theosophists had taken the reincarnation teaching from The Perfect
Way. He used the term ‘Monad’ to refer to the reincarnating entity.

60
 Alfred Percy Sinnett, ‘Review of The Perfect Way’, The Theosophist 3, no. 9 (June
1882), 234. Kingsford replied in a letter written on 10 July and published in The
Theosophist in September 1882. She argued it was possible ‘to descend, as well as to
ascend, upon the manifold steps of the ladder of Incarnation and Re-​births. Your
critic allows, indeed, that the individual may become “extinct”, but he rejects the
process of deterioration, by means of which alone extinction becomes possible. And,
in thus denying a logical and scientific necessity, he both contradicts the teaching of
the Hindu and other sacred mysteries, and also, by implication, “represents man as at-
taining perfection by means mechanical and compulsory, instead of by the inevitable
action of free-​will.” ’ Anna Bonus Kingsford and Edward Maitland, ‘The Perfect Way’,
The Theosophist 3, no. 12 (September 1882), 296.
61
 Charles Carlton Massey, ‘ “Isis Unveiled” and the “Theosophist” on Reincarnation’,
Light 79, no. 2 (8 July 1882), 323.
62
  H.  P. Blavatsky, ‘ “Isis Unveiled” and the “Theosophist” on Reincarnation’, The
Theosophist 3, no. 11 (August 1882), 288–​289.
38 Recycled Lives

An affair now so trivial as to seem but the innocent expression of

feminine vanity may, unless at once set aright, produce very evil con-
sequences. In a letter from Mrs. Kingsford to Mr. Massey condition-
ally accepting the presidentship of the British T.S. she expresses her
belief—​nay, points it out as an undeniable fact—​that before the ap-
pearance of ‘The Perfect Way’ no one ‘knew what the Oriental school
really held about Reincarnation’ [. . .] Write then, good friend, to Mr.
Massey the truth. Tell him that you were possessed of the Oriental
views of reincarnation several months before the work in question
had appeared—​since it is in July (18 months ago) that, you began
being taught the difference between Reincarnation à la Allan Kardec,
or personal rebirth—​and that of the Spiritual Monad; a difference
first pointed out to you on July 5th at Bombay.63

Eighteen months prior to this letter gives a date of July 1881, and Sinnett
had indeed received a letter from Koot Hoomi on 8 July 1881, while
he had been staying with Blavatsky in India. The letter discussed ‘the
whole ladder of Evolution’. The teaching given was that in ascending
the ladder, the person who had died would not miss a rung and would
halt at every ‘star world’, ‘to perform in it his own “life-​cycle” ’, ‘re-
turning and reincarnating as many times as he fails to complete his
round of life in it, as he dies on it before reaching the age of reason as
correctly stated in Isis’. In other words, in addition to travelling up the
rungs of the ladder, that is, from ‘star world to star world’, one had
to complete multiple cycles (regenerations) on each world, until ‘the
age of reason’ was reached and graduation to the next level occurred.64
Koot Hoomi elaborated:

That is what happens. After circling, so to say, along the arc of the
cycle, circling along and within it (the daily and yearly rotation of the
Earth is as good an illustration as any) when the Spirit-​man reaches
our planet, which is one of the lowest, having lost at every station

63
 Letter 57, 6 January 1883, in Barker, ed., Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, 328–​329.
64
 This ‘age of reason’ can be considered analogous to what in Isis Unveiled had been
presented as the achievement of immortality, in which ‘reason becomes active and dis-
criminative’. It will be discussed in the following chapter. Blavatsky, Isis I, 351.
 Blavatsky and Reincarnation 39

some of the etherial and acquired an increase of material nature, both

spirit and matter have become pretty much equilibrized in him. But
then, he has the Earth’s cycle to perform.65

In other words, the spirit-​man’s cycles around one planet (i.e., his re-
incarnations) were comparable to the cycles of day and night that oc-
curred as the Earth revolved. There was also a yearly cycle, in which
the Earth moved around the sun. This was comparable to the ‘cycle’
of the spirit-​man from planet to planet. Thus, the reincarnating entity
travelled from planet to planet but also completed multiple life cycles
on each planet. The spirit-​man arrived on the Earth from more spir-
itual planets. Once he reached the most material planet, the Earth, he
would be in a state of spirit-​matter equilibrium, and would struggle to
regain his spiritual nature due to the ‘pull’ of matter. If successful, he
would continue his evolution on more spiritualised planets. Only the
few would achieve this.

At that point the great Law begins its work of selection. Matter
found entirely divorced from spirit is thrown over into the still lower
worlds—​into the sixth ‘GATE’ or ‘way of rebirth’ of the vegetable
and mineral worlds, and of the primitive animal forms. From thence,
matter ground over in the workshop of nature proceeds soulless back
to its Mother Fount; while the Egos purified of their dross are enabled
to resume their progress once more onward. It is here, then, that the
laggard Egos perish by the millions. It is the solemn moment of the
‘survival of the fittest’, the annihilation of those unfit. It is but matter
(or material man) which is compelled by its own weight to descend
to the very bottom of the ‘circle of necessity’ to there assume animal
form.66

Two options were given for those spirit-​men who reached the Earth.
Either they would purify themselves of matter or they would not. If
they did, then this cast-​off matter would be recycled and ground over

65
 Letter 9, from Koot Hoomi to Sinnett, received 8 July 1881, in Barker, ed., Mahatma
Letters to A. P. Sinnett,  46–​47.
66
 Letter 9, in Mahatma Letters, 47.
40 Recycled Lives

in the economy of nature, where it would once again proceed through

mineral, vegetable, and primitive animal forms in a type of metempsy-
chosis. Egos who failed to cast of matter in this way would be annihi-
lated. According to Koot Hoomi, successful egos would ascend.

As to the winner of that race throughout the worlds—​the Spiritual

Ego, he will ascend from star to star, from one world to another,
circling onward to rebecome the once pure planetary Spirit, then
higher still, to finally reach its first starting point, and from thence—​
to merge into MYSTERY.67

Overall, like Hume’s Fragments of Occult Truth (1881–​ 1882), Koot

Hoomi’s July 1881 discussion incorporated elements consistent both
with Blavatsky’s earlier and later rebirth doctrines.68 In that he stated
humans customarily returned to life on Earth after death, he agreed
with what Blavatsky termed reincarnation during her later period, al-
though his account lacked some of the features of hers in its fully elab-
orated version. Since we cannot come to any definite conclusions about
the identity of Koot Hoomi, all this shows is that a theory of reincar-
nation (with some features in common with Blavatsky’s) was taught in
Theosophical circles in July 1881.
What may we conclude about the provenance of Blavatsky’s ideas?
Both Koot Hoomi’s teachings of July 1881 and Anna Bonus Kingsford’s
lectures of June and July 1881 anticipated central elements of Blavatsky’s
later reincarnation doctrine. Blavatsky claimed to have received her
Theosophical principles from the masters, but she (and/​or Koot Hoomi)
may have been inspired by Kingsford or by a third, unknown source on
which Kingsford also drew. It seems plausible that, as Olav Hammer
surmised, Blavatsky assimilated some details of her reincarnationism in
its final form from Kingsford. Koot Hoomi may also have been in-
spired by Kingsford, although what this means with regard to Blavatsky

67
 Ibid.
68
 In Blavatsky’s metempsychosis doctrine, the majority of monads would be annihi-
lated due to having failed to achieve immortality. In Blavatsky’s later theory of reincar-
nation, the monad was said to travel around seven spheres repeatedly reincarnating on
each one. The ‘circle of necessity’ referred to the cycle of incarnations.
 Blavatsky and Reincarnation 41

is open to debate. Be that as it may, neither Koot Hoomi nor Kingsford

described in its entirety the fractal cosmos of reincarnating universes,
planets, and monads (reincarnating entities) characteristic of Blavatsky’s
later period. Therefore, whatever debt Blavatsky may have owed to
Kingsford or a third source, the complex reincarnationist cosmology
she eventually elaborated was influenced by a great deal more besides.
Among her influences were Platonic and neo-​Platonic accounts, diverse
contemporary scientific theories of evolution, and modernising inter-
pretations of Hindu and Buddhist thought. These will be explored in
detail presently.

The Secret Doctrine and Theosophy’s Legacy

Blavatsky left India once and for all in 1885, travelling to Würzburg,
Bavaria, where she began writing her magnum opus, The Secret
Doctrine. She completed it in England and the Theosophical Publishing
Company issued it in 1888.69 Blavatsky’s writing process seems to
have been similar to that used in the production of Isis Unveiled, and
contemporaneous sources refer to some sort of undefined ‘esoteric’
method. It was initially envisaged as a rewriting of Isis Unveiled, but
this conception soon changed as the work progressed. A central mo-
tivating factor was to show that the earlier and later teachings did not
contradict one another, a project that, as we will see, had limited suc-
cess. Importantly, Blavatsky had the help of the prominent Indian
Theosophists Tallapragada Subba Row (1856–​1890) and Mohini Mohun
Chatterji (1858–​1936), who will be discussed in ­chapter 7. The resulting
book manuscript was as disorderly as that of Isis had been, but this time
the editing fell to the Theosophists Bertram Keightley (1860–​1944) and
his nephew Archibald Keightley (1859–​1930).70
Blavatsky claimed The Secret Doctrine was based on translations of
verses from the secret Book of Dzyan, a commentary on the books of
Kiu-​Te, both texts that remain unidentified. Basing her discussions on

69
  It was originally to be published by George Redway, but this didn’t work out.
Gilbert, The Great Chain of Unreason, 214–​217.
70
 The nephew was indeed one year older than his uncle. Hanegraaff, ‘The Theosophical
Imagination’, 16.
42 Recycled Lives

her translations of stanzas of this unknown esoteric text, in The Secret

Doctrine, Blavatsky now expanded on the teachings presented in Sinnett’s
Esoteric Buddhism, giving a more fully developed account and sometimes
correcting Sinnett. She taught the existence of a single absolute reality,
the cyclic and evolutionary nature of the universe, the development of
humanity through seven root races, and the septenary constitution of
the universe and of man. She now taught reincarnation as the normative,
repeated, and karmic return of the spirit to Earth life, taking on new
lower principles with each incarnation. Blavatsky repeated her views on
reincarnation in works such as The Key to Theosophy (1889), a digest of
Theosophy in the form of questions and answers, and in the numerous
articles she wrote for The Theosophist and other periodicals.
Blavatsky died in London in 1891. It was the beginning of Theosophy’s
heyday, which would last until around 1930.71 During those years, the
Theosophical Society attracted a significant amount of press coverage
and drew followers substantially from the professional and upper
classes. Aristocratic early members included the Russian princess Ada
Troubetzkoy, who was living in Italy; the British countess Muriel De La
Warr; Viscountess Verena Maud Churchill; and the Earl of Crawford.72
Other prominent individuals included the American military officer
and inventor Abner Doubleday (1819–​1893);73 the French astronomer
Camille Flammarion (1842–​1925); the inventor of the light bulb, the
American Thomas Edison (1847–​1931); and the Irish poet William Butler
Yeats (1865–​1939). Numerous other literary, artistic, political, and reli-
gious figures and movements took their inspiration from Theosophy.74

71
  W. Michael Ashcraft, The Dawn of the New Cycle:  Point Loma Theosophists and
American Culture (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002), 23.
72
  Hermann A.  O. de Tollenaere, The Politics of Divine Wisdom:  Theosophy and
Labour, National, and Women’s Movements in Indonesia and South Asia 1875–​1947
(Leiden: Uitgeverij Katholiek Universiteit Nijmegen, 1996), 97.
73
  Robert S. Ellwood, ‘The American Theosophical Synthesis’, in The Occult in
America: New Historical Perspectives, ed. Howard Kerr and Charles L. Crow (Urbana
and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986).
74
 On Theosophy in Russian literature, see Eugene Kuzmin, ‘Maksimilian Voloshin
and the Kabbalah’, in Theosophical Appropriations. On Theosophy and the visual
arts, in the same volume, see Victoria Ferentinou, ‘Light from Within or Light from
Above? Theosophical Appropriations in Early Twentieth Century Greek Culture’ and
Massimo Introvigne, ‘Lawren Harris and the Theosophical Appropriation of Canadian
 Blavatsky and Reincarnation 43

Not least among them were some of the best-​known writers on Asian
religions of the twentieth century, such as Alexandra David-​ Néel
(1868–​1969), Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki (1870–​1966), Walter Evans-​Wentz
(1878–​1965), and Edward Conze (1904–​1979).75 Theosophy influenced
the development of modern forms of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, and glo-
bally, and had an impact on Mohandas Gandhi (1869–​1948) and the
Indian National Congress.76 The Theosophical Society quickly estab-
lished branches the world over, inspiring numerous other movements
and societies themselves highly influential.77 The best known of these
is Anthroposophy, which has a strong and vocal presence, particu-
larly in Germany.78 The founder, Rudolf Steiner (1861–​1925), was a
Theosophist who broke away to form his own society, teaching a doc-
trine of reincarnation that was a complex elaboration of Blavatsky’s.

Nationalism’. See also Tessel Bauduin, ‘The Occult and the Visual Arts’, in The Occult
World, 429–​445.
75
  Paul Pedersen, ‘Tibet, Theosophy, and the Psychologization of Buddhism’, in
Imagining Tibet, ed. Thierry Dodin and Heinz Räther (Boston: Wisdom Publications,
2001), 157.
76
 On the impact of Theosophy on Buddhism, see Prothero, The White Buddhist and
David McMahan, The Making of Buddhist Modernism (Oxford:  Oxford University
Press, 2009). Michael Bergunder has observed that Gandhi drew on Kingsford and
Maitland’s teachings on reincarnation to bridge Christianity and Hinduism, noting
the increasing number of Christians who believed in the possibility of the soul’s return
to a new body. Michael Bergunder, ‘Experiments with Theosophical Truth: Gandhi,
Esotericism, and Global Religious History’, Journal of the American Academy of
Religion 82, no. 2 (1 June 2014). On Theosophy and the Indian National Congress, see
W. Travis Hanes Jr., ‘On the Origins of the Indian National Congress: A Case Study
of Cross-​Cultural Synthesis’, Journal of World History 4, no. 1 (Spring 1993), 69–​98. See
also Shimon Lev, ‘Gandhi and His Jewish Theosophist Supporters in South Africa’, in
Theosophical Appropriations.
77
 On movements deriving from Theosophy, see Kevin Tingay, ‘Madame Blavatsky’s
Children:  Theosophy and Its Heirs’, in Beyond New Age:  Exploring Alternative
Spirituality, ed. Steven Sutcliffe and Marion Bowman (Edinburgh:  Edinburgh
University Press, 2000).
78
 On the presence and influence of Anthroposophy in Germany, see Helmut Zander,
‘Transformations of Anthroposophy from the Death of Rudolf Steiner to the Present
Day’, in Theosophical Appropriations. On the connection between Anthroposophy
and Theosophy, see Helmut Zander, Anthroposophie in Deutschland. Theosophische
Milieus und gesellschaftliche Praxis, 1884 bis 1945 (Göttingen:  Vandenhoeck and
Ruprecht, 2007).
44 Recycled Lives

Other well-​known figures heavily influenced by Theosophy include the

New Age author Alice A. Bailey (1880–​1949) and Jiddhu Krishnamurti
(1895–​1986).79 The latter was groomed to become the new ‘World
Teacher’ by Blavatsky’s successor, Annie Besant (1847–​1933), together
with Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–​1934).80 When Krishnamurti
renounced this role in 1929, the Society lost many members and never
really recovered, going into a long period of decline.
Nevertheless, the Theosophical Society continues to exist and is rep-
resented today by three different organisations. The American Section of
the Theosophical Society was created in 1886. Theosophical co-​founder
William Quan Judge remained the head of this organisation until his
death, when the leadership passed to Katherine Tingley (1847–​1929). It
is based in Pasadena, California. The United Lodge of Theosophists is a
breakaway from Judge’s group founded in 1909 by Robert Crosbie (1849–​
1919). Finally, the section originally led by Olcott with Annie Besant, is
known as the Theosophical Society Adyar and it has the most members.
The Indian headquarters are still in Adyar and the American branch is in
Wheaton, Illinois.81
The historical importance of Theosophy is almost impossible to over-
estimate. The heirs of Blavatsky’s thought include not only the individ-
uals and societies mentioned above, but also the multitude of people in
the predominantly Christian Western countries who identify as ‘spiritual
but not religious’ and who believe that in some sense, all religions point
to the same universal truth. They may affirm the value of Eastern spiritu-
ality and be suspicious of monotheistic faiths. Many believe in reincarna-
tion and karma or entertain it as plausible. I am not suggesting Blavatsky
was solely responsible for these shifts; Theosophy emerged from a cul-
tural milieu permeated by many other factors that challenged traditional
forms of faith. Nevertheless, it is undeniable she was a pivotal figure in
the development of modern and postmodern spirituality.

79
 See Ellwood, ‘The American Theosophical Synthesis’, 111. For a fuller discussion of
those influenced by Theosophy see Kevin Tingay, ‘Theosophy and Its Heirs’.
80
 On Besant and Leadbeater, see Jake Poller, ‘Under a Glamour: Annie Besant, Charles
Leadbeater and Neo-​Theosophy’, in The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875–​1947, ed.
Christine Ferguson and Andrew Radford (London: Routledge, 2018).
81
 See Ashcraft, Dawn of the New Cycle,  24–​26.
    2
Isis Unveiled and Metempsychosis

Helmut Zander claimed Blavatsky excluded the concept of reincar-

nation from Isis Unveiled (1877) or only used it metaphorically. He ob-
served she distinguished between reincarnation and metempsychosis,
which she gave a non-​literal interpretation. He acknowledged there
were some passages in which Blavatsky wrote approvingly of reincarna-
tion but maintained it would be impossible to build a theory of reincar-
nation in Isis Unveiled without suppressing the places where she denied
it, or which were inconclusive and ambiguous.1,2
As a matter of fact, it is possible to elucidate how Blavatsky con-
ceived of reincarnation and metempsychosis in Isis Unveiled, and it was
as distinct doctrines that were understood literally. Isis Unveiled offered
two main rebirth possibilities:  ‘metempsychosis’ and ‘reincarnation’.
Metempsychosis was the primary tenet and referred to the transform-
ations (described as ‘transmigrations’) of the pre-​human entity through
existences on other spheres, then through mineral, plant, and animal
forms on Earth, leading up to the gestational phases of the human
embryo prior to human incarnation. After being born on Earth, hu-
mans were composed of a ‘trinity’ of principles: body, soul, and spirit.
Immortality could be achieved during Earth-​life by conjoining the

1
  A  version of this chapter was published as Julie Chajes, ‘Metempsychosis and
Reincarnation in Isis Unveiled’, Theosophical History 16, nos. 3 and 4 (July–​October  2012).
2
  Helmut Zander, Geschichte der Seelenwanderung in Europa:  Alternative religiöse
Traditionen von der Antike bis Heute (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,
1999), 478.

45
46 Recycled Lives

spirit and soul through occult practice, leading to progress on spheres

higher than the Earth and eventually to nirvana—​envisaged as absorp-
tion into the divine—​in the seventh and highest sphere. The process
was considered ‘cyclic’ inasmuch as all spirits had originally issued from
this divine source and were finding their way home and completing
the cycle.
Blavatsky referred to the second post-​mortem possibility as ‘reincar-
nation’, but in Isis Unveiled, this term referred to a different theory
to the one taught under that name in Blavatsky’s second major work,
the Secret Doctrine (1888). In Isis Unveiled, ‘reincarnation’ nearly always
indicated a spirit’s second incarnation on Earth with the same soul.
This was said to occur only in exceptional circumstances, such as infant
death or congenital idiocy, conferring a ‘second chance’ in cases where
post-​mortem annihilation (the result of failure to achieve immortality)
would have been unjust. Blavatsky was at pains to contrast this theory
of exceptional same-​soul reincarnation with the popular Spiritist be-
lief that, as a rule, the same soul or personality repeatedly returned to
Earth-​life. Rather, according to Blavatsky, atypical circumstances were
the only ones in which another life on Earth occurred. That being the
case, she avoided the use of the term ‘reincarnation’ in her early publi-
cations, because it was associated with French Spiritism.
Blavatsky taught the most common post-​mortem occurrence was
in fact that the soul and spirit failed to conjoin. For the few who did
succeed in achieving immortality, transmigration through the higher
spheres awaited. During this metempsychosis, a new astral body would
be acquired on each sphere after the previous one had been discarded.
This repeated transmigration of the conjoined soul-​spirit into a new
astral body maintained a constant tripartite composition. Very con-
fusingly, Blavatsky sometimes portrayed this as yet another type of
‘reincarnation’, although it didn’t take place on Earth. In The Secret
Doctrine, her teachings on human rebirth were different and she tried
to harmonise her divergent accounts with limited success.3 Although

3
 Blavatsky, ‘ “Isis Unveiled” and The “Theosophist” on Reincarnation’ and ‘Theories
about Reincarnation and Spirits’, The Path 1, no. 8 (November 1886). She wrote the
latter in Ostende, Belgium, in October 1886.
 Isis Unveiled and Metempsychosis 47

she was being somewhat disingenuous when she claimed she had al-
ways taught reincarnation, in a sense, she was telling the truth. She had
previously taught a type of ‘reincarnation’, it just wasn’t the same type
of reincarnation she later affirmed.
Most previous scholarly discussions of Blavatsky’s views on life after
death have overlooked metempsychosis as well as the closely related
early Theosophical principle of the achievement of immortality.4 In
what follows, I demonstrate, through the analysis of extracts from Isis
Unveiled and early letters, that Blavatsky taught the two doctrines out-
lined above. I examine Blavatsky’s early statements closely to reveal fur-
ther details such the repeated acquisition of astral bodies, the case of
‘terrestrial larvae’, the ‘transfer of a spiritual entity’ to a student by an
adept, and the theory of ‘permutation’ or ‘revolution’.

Pythagorean Metempsychosis versus Kardecist Reincarnation

In her early work, Blavatsky ascribed belief in metempsychosis (rather
than reincarnation) to those she most admired. She cited the English
Classicist John Lemprière (1765–​1824), suggesting Pythagoras learned
of metempsychosis in India, and arguing all ancient philosophers had
taught metempsychosis, including the Gnostics and Church Fathers.
She suggested Pythagoras learned it from the Brahmans and Buddhists:

There was not a philosopher of any notoriety who did not hold to this
doctrine of metempsychosis, as taught by the Brahmans, Buddhists,
and later by the Pythagoreans, in its esoteric sense, whether he ex-
pressed it more or less intelligibly. Origen and Clemens Alexandrinus,
Synesius and Chalcidius, all believed in it; and the Gnostics, who are
unhesitatingly proclaimed by history as a body of the most refined,
learned, and enlightened men, were all believers in metempsychosis.5

4
 John Patrick Deveney did note them, pointing to Randolph’s denial of reincarna-
tion and affirmation of metempsychosis, and to parallel arguments in Blavatsky’s
early writings. John Patrick Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-​Century
Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician (Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1997), 278–​282.
5
 Blavatsky, Isis I, 12.
48 Recycled Lives

She also mentioned the Pythagorean metempsychosis belief of Giordano

Bruno—​the Italian philosopher condemned by the Roman Inquisition
for heresy in 1600: ‘Perfidious as they are, the above words plainly in-
dicate the belief of Bruno in the Pythagorean metempsychosis, which,
misunderstood as it is, still shows a belief in the survival of man in
one shape or another.’6 Giving further (and witty) endorsement, she
linked Pythagorean metempsychosis and evolution: ‘If the Pythagorean
metempsychosis should be thoroughly explained and compared with
the modern theory of evolution, it would be found to supply every
“missing link” in the chain of the latter.’7
In a letter to Charles Carlton Massey sent in February 1876 (one
year before Isis Unveiled was published), Blavatsky equated her under-
standing of the ‘Eastern Kabbalah’ with Pythagoreanism. She said
Pythagoras (and the neo-​Platonists) didn’t teach reincarnation, as the
Spiritists did, but rather an esoteric doctrine.

The eastern Kabbalah embraces the Pythagorean philosophy;

the western, or Rosicrucian, did not. But the metempsychosis of
Pythagoras was an exoteric expression to cover the esoteric meaning,
and his commentators, who had not the key, have misunderstood
him as grossly as they have misunderstood everything else written
by those of the Neoplatonics, who, like Porphyry, Iamblichus and
Plotinus, have been adopting and elaborating his precepts. The
spirits upon whose communications the reincarnationist school base
their theory, have simply given back the opinions which they found
in the heads or brains of their mediums.8

Blavatsky claimed European scholars had distorted metempsychosis

and stressed the need to understand it properly. ‘The doctrine of
Metempsychosis has been abundantly ridiculed by men of science and
rejected by theologians, yet if it had been properly understood in its ap-
plication to the indestructibility of matter and the immortality of spirit,

6
 Ibid., 95.
7
 Ibid., 9.
8
 H. P. Blavatsky, ‘Letter 65, to C. C. Massey’ [February 1876], in Blavatsky, Letters,
248–​249.
 Isis Unveiled and Metempsychosis 49

it would have been perceived that it is a sublime conception.’9 One can

hardly imagine a stronger endorsement for metempsychosis than this.
Blavatsky repeatedly affirmed the existence of a true interpretation of
metempsychosis, as opposed to ‘popular beliefs’ about it (i.e., Spiritism).

It is again from this sense of highest benevolence and charity toward

the weaker, however abject the creature may be, that they honor one
of the natural modifications of their own dual nature, and that later
the popular belief in metempsychosis arose. No trace of the latter is
to be found in the Vedas; and the true interpretation of the doctrine,
discussed at length in Manu and the Buddhistic sacred books, having
been confined from the first to the learned and sacerdotal castes,
the false and foolish popular ideas concerning it need occasion no
surprise.10

Here, Blavatsky contrasted popular misunderstandings about met-

empsychosis (which are not to be found in the Vedas, even though—​
and we may read between the lines—​they may be found in ‘exoteric’
Hinduism) with the true interpretation of metempsychosis (which, ac-
cording to Blavatsky, is found in the Hindu work The Laws of Manu, as
well as in Buddhist texts).
Blavatsky equated the teachings of Plato, Pythagoras, the Chaldeans,
and the late thirteenth-​century Kabbalistic text the Zohar, arguing all
had taught a progress of the spirit on higher worlds after death (i.e.,
metempsychosis). The Zohar was specifically invoked to disprove the
commonly held Spiritist notion of reincarnation as the repeated return
of the same personality.

Plato, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, the Eleatic schools of Greece, as well

as the old Chaldean sacerdotal colleges, all taught the doctrine of
the dual evolution; the doctrine of transmigration of souls referring
only to the progress of man from world to world, after death [. . .] a soul
which thirsts after a reunion with its spirit, which alone confers upon

9
 Blavatsky, Isis I, 8.
10
 Ibid., 279.
50 Recycled Lives

it immortality, must purify itself through cyclic transmigrations, on-

ward toward the only Land of Bliss and Eternal Rest, called in the
Sohar, ‘The Palace of Love’ [. . .] The proof that transmigration of
the soul does not relate to man’s condition on this earth after death,
is found in the Sohar.11

In other words, transmigration involved progress from one world to

the next (not a return to Earth) and was cast as purificatory and cyclic.
However, the fact it was cyclic did not mean it involved a normative
repeated return to Earth. Blavatsky quite clearly stated that transmigra-
tion occurred from world to world and didn’t relate to man’s condition
on Earth.

Transmigrations before, during, and after One Life on Earth

In Isis Unveiled, the pre-​human entity was said to begin its journey
into matter after having been ‘issued forth’ from its divine parent. It
would transmigrate through mineral and animal forms until it reached
a human womb, where it ‘re-​lived’ a version of those earlier transmi-
grations before entering human life on Earth for the first and probably
only time. Blavatsky explained ‘reincarnationists’ (i.e., of the Spiritist
Allan Kardec school) quoted Apuleius (author of the second-​century
Latin work The Golden Ass, or Metamorphoses) in corroboration of their
theory that man passed through a succession of physical human births
on Earth, but Blavatsky claimed Apuleius corroborated her denial of
reincarnation, not the Spiritist affirmation of it.

Says Apuleius [. . .] ‘The soul is born in this world upon leaving an-
other world (anima mundi), in which her existence precedes the one
we all know (on earth). [. . .]’ This language can hardly be called am-
biguous, and yet, the Reincarnationists quote Apuleius in corrobor-
ation of their theory that man passes through a succession of physical
human births upon this planet, until he is finally purged from the
dross of his nature. But Apuleius distinctly says that we come upon

11
 Ibid., 279–​280.
 Isis Unveiled and Metempsychosis 51

this earth from another one, where we had an existence, the recol-
lection of which has faded away. As the watch passes from hand to
hand and room to room in a factory, one part being added here and
another there, until the delicate machine is perfected, according to
the design conceived in the mind of the master before the work was
begun; so, according to ancient philosophy, the first divine concep-
tion of man takes shape little by little, in the several departments of
the universal workshop, and the perfect human being finally appears
on our scene.12

In other words, souls didn’t arrive on Earth having lived a previous

life on Earth, as the Spiritists claimed, but rather from another planet.
These planets were like the different rooms of a watch factory, where the
watches were perfected. This perfection was not dependent on karma,
which, although mentioned occasionally in Isis Unveiled, didn’t play a
major role in Blavatsky’s thinking at the time. Her cosmos perfected
anyway, without a developed theory of karmic retribution.
Having arrived from another planet, metempsychosis would con-
tinue on Earth. Blavatsky discussed the Earth-​stage in detail, using the
term ‘monad’ for the reincarnating entity:

The monad was shot down into the first form of matter and became
encased in stone; then, in course of time, [. . .] the monad crept out
of its prison to sunlight as a lichen. From change to change it went
higher and higher; [. . .] until its physical form became once more
the Adam of dust, shaped in the image of the Adam Kadmon. Before
undergoing its last earthly transformation, the external covering of
the monad, from the moment of its conception as an embryo, passes
in turn, once more, through the phases of the several kingdoms. In
its fluidic prison it assumes a vague resemblance at various periods
of the gestation to plant, reptile, bird, and animal, until it becomes
a human embryo.13

12
 Ibid., 345.
13
 Ibid., 202–​203.
52 Recycled Lives

The monad’s journey through these forms was an elaboration

of Blavatsky’s wider belief that there was no such thing as dead
matter: everything was infused with spirit. The ‘Adam of Dust’ repre-
sented the human being, and Adam Kadmon was a Kabbalistic term
Blavatsky understood as a divine template for humanity. The monad
would transmigrate through mineral, vegetable, and animal forms until
it reached the last form it would take on Earth: human. In order to take
that form, the monad would relive versions of all previous evolutionary
phases within the womb (its ‘fluidic prison’). This was a Theosophical
interpretation of the contemporaneous evolutionary theory of recap-
itulation, popularised by Ernst Haeckel and others, which stated an
embryo would pass through structures corresponding to the previous
evolutionary phases of that particular organism. (This evolutionary
hypothesis and some of its proponents will be considered in detail in
­chapter 5.) Blavatsky complained, ‘no physiologist or anatomist seems
to have had the idea of applying to the development of the human
being—​from the first instant of its physical appearance as a germ to its
ultimate formation and birth—​to the Pythagorean esoteric doctrine
of metempsychosis, so erroneously interpreted by critics.’ Thus, she
explained the ‘Kabbalistic axiom’, ‘a stone becomes a plant; a plant a
beast; a beast a man.’ During gestation, after three or four weeks, the
ovum would assume a plant-​like appearance and the stone would have
been changed, ‘by metempsychosis’, into a plant. The embryo then de-
veloped into an ‘animal’.14 Finally, the baby would be born.

At the birth of the future man, the monad, radiating with all the glory
of its immortal parent which watches it from the seventh sphere, be-
comes senseless. It loses all recollection of the past, and returns to
consciousness but gradually, when the instinct of childhood gives
way to reason and intelligence. After the separation between the life-​
principle (astral spirit) and the body takes place, the liberated soul-​
Monad, exultingly rejoins the mother and father spirit, the radiant
Augoeides, [Divine Spirit] and the two, merged into one, forever

14
 Ibid., 388–​389. See also her definition of metempsychosis, xxxvi–​xxxvii, which refers
to the same ‘kabbalistic axiom’.
 Isis Unveiled and Metempsychosis 53

form, with a glory proportioned to the spiritual purity of the past

earth-​life, the Adam who has completed the circle of necessity, and
is freed from the last vestige of his physical encasement. Henceforth,
growing more and more radiant at each step of his upward progress,
he mounts the shining path that ends at the point from which he
started around the GRAND CYCLE.15

In other words, at birth, the child would forget its previous mineral and
animal existences. After death (i.e., the ‘separation of the body from
the life-​principle’) the soul, if it were to achieve immortality, would
conjoin with the spirit (referred to here by the Greek term Augoeides).
This would only occur if immortality has been won during Earth-​life,
which was conditional on the purity of that life. Once this immortality
had been achieved, the ‘circle of necessity’ would be complete. When
such a person died, their conjoined soul-​spirit entity would travel up-
wards through the spheres on its ‘shining path’ towards completion of
the ‘grand cycle’, the return of the monad to its divine parent through
the transmigrations of metempsychosis. The ‘grand cycle’ included the
smaller cycle termed the ‘circle of necessity’, the section of the process
leading to the achievement of immortality.
What was a person who had achieved immorality like? Blavatsky im-
agined them as being like the great religious figures of the Bible.

In the very first remark made by Jesus about John the Baptist, we
find him stating that he is ‘Elias, which was for to come’. This asser-
tion, if it is not a later interpolation for the sake of having a prophecy
fulfilled, means again that Jesus was a kabalist; unless indeed we have
to adopt the doctrine of the French spiritists and suspect him of be-
lieving in reincarnation.

In fact, in Old Truths in a New Light, Lady Caithness had taken the verse
as evidence for just that—​French Spiritist reincarnation—​and Blavatsky
may well have been correcting her here.16 According to Blavatsky, the

15
 Ibid., 303.
16
 Caithness, Old Truths, 330 f.
54 Recycled Lives

fact Jesus thought John the Baptist was the prophet Elijah proved Jesus
was a Kabbalist because he knew of an esoteric teaching allowing for
this possibility. That tenet was not, however, reincarnation as taught by
the Spiritists of the Kardec school or by Lady Caithness. It was another,
esoteric, Kabbalistic notion.

Except the kabalistic sects of the Essenes, the Nazarenes, the disciples
of Simeon Ben Iochai, and Hillel, neither the orthodox Jews, nor the
Galileans, believed or knew anything about the doctrine of permuta-
tion. And the Sadducees rejected even that of the resurrection. ‘But
the author of this restitutionis was Mosah, our master, upon whom
be peace! Who was the revolutio (transmigration) of Seth and Hebel,
that he might cover the nudity of his Father Adam—​Primus,’ says
the Kabala. Thus, Jesus hinting that John was the revolutio, or trans-
migration of Elias, seems to prove beyond any doubt the school to
which he belonged.

According to Blavatsky, the esoteric teaching now revealed as ‘revolu-

tion’ or ‘permutation’ was not metempsychosis in the sense described
above, since there was nothing in that theory that allowed for Moses to
have been either Abel or Seth. Confirming this, she explained, ‘until the
present day uninitiated Kabalists and Masons believe permutation to
be synonymous with transmigration and metempsychosis. But they are
as much mistaken in regard to the doctrine of the true Kabalists as to
that of the Buddhists.’ She then quoted an extract from the Kabbalistic
work the Zohar:

True, the Sohar says in one place, ‘All souls are subject to transmigra-
tion . . . men do not know the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He;
they do not know that they are brought before the tribunal, both be-
fore they enter this world and after they quit it,’ and the Pharisees also
held this doctrine, as Josephus shows (Antiquities, xviii. 13). [. . .] But
this doctrine of permutation, or revolutio, must not be understood as
a belief in reincarnation. That Moses was considered the transmigra-
tion of Abel and Seth, does not imply that the kabalists—​those who
were initiated at least—​believed that the identical spirit of either of
Adam’s sons reappeared under the corporeal form of Moses. It only
 Isis Unveiled and Metempsychosis 55

shows what was the mode of expression they used when hinting at
one of the profoundest mysteries of the Oriental Gnosis, one of the
most majestic articles of faith of the Secret Wisdom. It was purposely
veiled so as to half conceal and half reveal the truth. It implied that
Moses, like certain other god-​like men, was believed to have reached
the highest of all states on Earth:—​the rarest of all psychological phe-
nomena, the perfect union of the immortal spirit with the terrestrial
duad had occurred. The trinity was complete. A god was incarnate.
But how rare such incarnations!

Blavatsky stated Moses, like Cain and Abel, was among the few to have
conjoined soul and spirit and become immortal. In a previous extract,
we saw Blavatsky had referred to those who achieve immortality as
‘gods’. She continued:

That expression, ‘Ye are gods,’ which, to our biblical students, is

a mere abstraction, has for the kabalists a vital significance. Each
immortal spirit that sheds its radiance upon a human being is a
god—​the Microcosmos of the Macrocosmos, part and parcel of the
Unknown God, the First Cause of which it is a direct emanation. It
is possessed of all the attributes of its parent source. Among these at-
tributes are omniscience and omnipotence. Endowed with these, but
yet unable to fully manifest them while in the body, during which
time they are obscured, veiled, limited by the capabilities of phys-
ical nature, the thus divinely-​inhabited man may tower far above
his kind, evince a god-​like wisdom, and display deific powers; for
while the rest of mortals around him are but overshadowed by their
divine SELF, with every chance given to them to become immortal
hereafter, but no other security than their personal efforts to win the
kingdom of heaven, the so chosen man has already become an im-
mortal while yet on earth. His prize is secured. Henceforth he will
live forever in eternal life. Not only he may have ‘dominion’ over all
the works of creation by employing the ‘excellence’ of the NAME
(the ineffable one) but be higher in this life, not, as Paul is made to
say, ‘a little lower than the angels’. The ancients never entertained the
sacrilegious thought that such perfected entities were incarnations of
the One Supreme and for ever invisible God. No such profanation
56 Recycled Lives

of the awful Majesty entered into their conceptions. Moses and his
antitypes and types were to them but complete men, gods on earth,
for their gods (divine spirits) had entered unto their hallowed taber-
nacles, the purified physical bodies.17

Here, Blavatsky found an explanation for the Hindu doctrine of avatars

(the incarnation of deities on Earth), which was congruent with met-
empsychosis and didn’t portray human beings as gods ‘sacrilegiously’.
Rather, the divine was said to overshadow such spiritually advanced
individuals, and as a consequence, they were divine themselves. Those
who achieved immortality by conjoining soul and spirit fulfilled or
consolidated that divinity through their personal effort. Such god-​
like men, who included Moses, Cain, and Abel, shared in each other’s
divine, conjoined nature. In a sense each was an individual expression
of the same divine reality. This was the true meaning of ‘revolutio’ or
‘permutation’, and not that Moses was the ‘reincarnation’ of Cain or
Abel, in the Spiritist sense, or as Lady Caithness understood it.

Blavatsky’s Letters: Immortality and Metempsychosis

Clarifications and confirmations of Blavatsky’s early doctrines can be
found in her letters, which often expressed her opinions more lucidly
than her books and other writings. This is probably because of the dif-
ference in means of production. Her major works were apparently pro-
duced in a state of trance or through an imaginative, clairvoyant-​style
process (as well as being heavily edited by others). Her letters seem to
have been written in a straightforward manner. Blavatsky’s elaborations
of metempsychosis in these early letters is unequivocal.
In a letter to C. C. Massey of February 1876, she stated that belief in
the (normative) return to life on Earth of the same soul (like that of the
Spiritists) was anti-​evolutionary, and therefore incorrect. She reinforced
the centrality of the evolutionary, progressive, or perfecting character
of metempsychosis. Death would be followed by an ascent through the
spheres.

17
 Blavatsky, Isis II, 152–​153.
 Isis Unveiled and Metempsychosis 57

This philosophy of the evolution of species by flux and reflux from

matter to spirit and back again is the only true one; . . . the whole
trouble of Kardec, and other reincarnationists lies in their misunder-
standing the hermetic philosophy upon this point. While it is true
that there is a reincarnation in one sense, in the other it is untrue.
Nay, more, it is absurd and unphilosophical, doing violence to the
law of evolution, which is constantly carrying matter and spirit up-
ward toward perfection. When the elementary dies out of one state
of existence he is born into a higher one, and when man dies out of
the world of gross matter, he is born into one more ethereal; so on
from sphere to sphere, man never losing his trinity, for at each birth
a new and more perfect astral body is evolved out of elementaries of
a correspondingly higher order, while his previous astral body takes
the place of the antecedent, external earthly body. Man’s soul (or
Divine Spirit, for you must not confound the divine with the astral
spirit) constantly entering into new astral bodies, there is an actual
reincarnation; but that when it has passed through any sphere into
a higher one, it should re-​enter the lower sphere and pass through
other bodies similar to the one it has just quitted, is as unphilosoph-
ical as to fancy that the human foetus could go back into the elemen-
tary condition, or the child after birth re-​enters its mother’s womb.18

The flux and reflux from matter to spirit was the ‘grand cycle’ of met-
empsychosis, which carried the cosmos toward perfection. Blavatsky’s
use of the term ‘reincarnation’ as synonymous with metempsychosis
was potentially confusing, although what she meant was that metem-
psychosis involved a type of ‘reincarnation’ in which the conjoined
soul-​spirit entity ‘reincarnated’ into bodies of increasing ethereality as
it travelled upwards. This letter helps explain a passage in Isis Unveiled
that might otherwise be confusing:

Philosophers held, with the Hindus, that God had infused into
matter a portion of his own Divine Spirit, which animates and moves
every particle. They taught that men have two souls, of separate and

18
 Blavatsky, ‘Letter number 65, to C. C. Massey’, 248–​249.
58 Recycled Lives

quite different natures: the one perishable—​the Astral Soul, or the

inner, fluidic body—​the other incorruptible and immortal—​the
Augoeides, or portion of the Divine Spirit; that the mortal or Astral
Soul perishes at each gradual change at the threshold of every new
sphere, becoming with every transmigration more purified.19

In this passage from Isis Unveiled, ‘transmigration’ indicated the passage

from one sphere to the next. At each sphere, a new ‘astral soul’ would
be acquired.
In the spring of 1877, Blavatsky wrote to her aunt, Nadyezhda de
Fadeev (1829–​1919). She stated that immortality could not be taken for
granted since it was conditional and occurred as the result of the shed-
ding of attachment to the earthly elements necessary to incarnation
on Earth.

Per se the soul is not immortal. The soul outlives the man’s body only
for as long as it is necessary for it to get rid of everything earthly and
fleshly; then, as it is gradually purified, its essence comes into progres-
sively closer union with the Spirit, which alone is immortal. The tie
between them becomes more and more indissoluble. When the last
atom of the earthly is evaporated, then this duality becomes a unity,
and the Ego of the former man becomes forever immortal. [. . .] And
so not all of us human beings are immortal. As Jesus expresses it, we
must take the kingdom of Heaven by violence. [. . .] When the soul
is imprisoned in a sinning body, it is as if in jail, and in order to get
rid of its chains, it has to progressively to aspire upward towards its
spirit. The soul is a chameleon. It becomes either a copy of the spirit
or of the body. In the first case, it acquires the faculty of separating
itself from the body with ease, and of setting forth, travelling all over
the wide world, having left in the body a provision of vital forces, or
animal, instinctive mental movements. [. . .] In the measure of its
union with the spirit it becomes more or less clairvoyant.20

19
 Blavatsky, Isis I, 12.
20
 Letter to N. de Fadeyev, c. May or June 1877, in Blavatsky, Letters, 306.
 Isis Unveiled and Metempsychosis 59

During Earth-​life, the soul would experience a choice. It could either

aspire downwards, towards matter, or upwards, in the direction of spirit.
If it aspired downwards, then, at death, the divine spirit that had ‘over-
shadowed’ it during Earth-​life would withdraw and the mortal soul
would be annihilated. If the soul aspired upwards, however, it could
purify itself and conjoin with the divine spirit. That soul, or ‘Ego’,
would then become immortal. This purification, through which the
soul could became ‘a copy of the spirit’ was achieved through learning
to separate the soul from the impure physical body, that is, through as-
tral travel, a prominent practice in the early Theosophical Society. The
proof the practitioner was succeeding in this work was their developing
clairvoyance.21
The same year, Blavatsky again wrote to her aunt:

All the most ancient philosophies prove that this ‘essence’ meant the
immortal spirit—​the spark of the infinite and beginningless ocean,
called God, a spark with which every human being is endowed
from birth by the Divine, that it may overshadow him during all
his earthly life; and after the death of the body either to blend with
the soul (périsprit) to make him immortal, or,—​if the man was a
beast during his life—​break the spiritual thread uniting the animal
soul, the individual intellectuality, to the immortal spirit, leaving the
animal entity at the mercy of the elements constituting its subjective
being; after that, following the law of perpetuum mobile, the soul
or ego of the former man has unavoidably to dissolve in time, to be
annihilated. It is this immortal spirit of ours that is and always was
called Chrestos or Christos. [. . .] If we behaved as Christ and the
Buddha behaved when embodied as two mortal men, we and any
one of us would become like Christ and Buddha, namely united and
blended with the Christ-​Buddha principle in us, with our immortal
spirit; but of course only after the death of our sinful flesh, because
how could we, with our beastly snout, climb into paradise in this
life?22

21
 See Deveney, ‘Two Theosophical Societies’.
22
 Letter to N. de Fadeyev, 28–​29 October 1877, in Blavatsky, Letters, 347–​349.
60 Recycled Lives

Once again, Blavatsky associated her doctrines with ‘all the most ancient
philosophers’, thereby lending them credibility. Christ and Buddha had
both succeeded in conjoining their souls and spirits and become im-
mortal. In a letter to W. H. Burr the same year, she elaborated that very
few people achieved immortality:

I deny that immortality is achieved by every man, woman or child.

Immortality must be won. [. . .] But a very small percentage of the
human race becomes immortal, i.e. very few individuals become
gods. [. . .] The rest are sooner or later annihilated, and their bodies
and souls are disintegrated, and while the atoms of one return to
the elements of physical nature, the more sublimated atoms of the
other, when no longer cemented by the presence of their individual
‘spirits’—​ which are alone immortal, as everything real becomes
subjective—​are violently torn loose from each other and return to
the more sublimated elements of spiritual nature.23

Following the departure of the divine spirit at death, the body and the
soul of one who had failed to achieve immortality disintegrated. Its
‘atoms’ would be recycled back into the elements of physical nature and
the ‘atoms’ of the soul would return to the ‘more sublimated elements’.
For those who didn’t achieve immortality during Earth-​life but had
a good reason (they died too young or were not of sound mind), the
spirit would once again overshadow the soul, incarnating into a new
physical body. It would negate the justice of the universe for annihila-
tion to take place in cases such as these. This is why in an article of 1878,
Blavatsky stated a dead child was ‘a failure of nature’ and the child had
to be reincarnated. Together with the rebirth on Earth of the congenital
idiot, these were the ‘only cases of human reincarnation’.24

Nature never leaves her work unfinished; if baffled at the first at-
tempt, she tries again. When she evolves a human embryo, the

23
 Letter to W. H. Burr, 19 November 1877, in Blavatsky, Letters, 371.
24
 H. P. Blavatsky, ‘Fragments from Madame Blavatsky’, in Blavatsky Collected Writings,
ed. Boris de Zirkoff, vol. 1, 368. [Translation from the French, originally published in
La Revue Spirite (April 1878).]
 Isis Unveiled and Metempsychosis 61

intention is that a man shall be perfected—​physically, intellectually,

and spiritually. His body is to grow mature, wear out, and die; his
mind unfold, ripen, and be harmoniously balanced; his divine spirit
illuminate and blend easily with the inner man. No human being
completes its grand cycle, or the ‘circle of necessity’, until all these
are accomplished. As the laggards in a race struggle and plod in their
first quarter while the victor darts past the goal, so, in the race of im-
mortality, some souls outspeed all the rest and reach the end, while
their myriad competitors are toiling under the load of matter, close
to the starting point. Some unfortunates fall out entirely, and lose all
chance of the prize; some retrace their steps and begin again.25

Occasional same-​soul reincarnation, the ‘supplementary doctrine’ of

Isis Unveiled, was an aspect of the justice of the universe as Blavatsky
understood it at the time, before she had assimilated a theory of karma
as part of the theodicy of her later period.

Further Exceptional Occurrences

In 1877, Blavatsky explained, ‘the evil spirit is not the devil of popular
fancy; it is the malicious, wicked soul of any sinner who has died
without repentance, and who will go on existing until it dissipates into
the dust of the elements.’ In other words, the (unconjoined) spirits and
souls of those who failed to achieve immortality could linger on Earth
for some time before finally disappearing. These ‘larvae’ could receive
a second chance and repent, thereby achieving rebirth in human flesh,
and this could be understood as a type of reincarnation, although it was
rare. This possibility was presented as a reason for the apparent belief in
reincarnation of ancient Kabbalists.

It is for these carnal terrestrial larvæ, degraded human spirits, that

the ancient kabalists entertained a hope of reïncarnation. But when,
or how? At a fitting moment, and if helped by a sincere desire for his
amendment and repentance by some strong, sympathising person,

25
 Blavatsky, Isis I, 345–​346.
62 Recycled Lives

or the will of an adept, or even a desire emanating from the erring

spirit himself, provided it is powerful enough to make him throw off
the burden of sinful matter. Losing all consciousness, the once bright
monad is caught once more into the vortex of our terrestrial evolu-
tion, and it trespasses the subordinate kingdoms, and again breathes
as a living child. To compute the time necessary for the completion
of this process would be impossible. Since there is no perception of
time in eternity, the attempt would be a mere waste of labor.26

In other words, Kabbalists didn’t believe in reincarnation in the Spiritist

sense (i.e., the return of the same soul repeatedly to Earth-​life). Instead,
they upheld this other, exceptional type of reincarnation, in which the
failed spirit and soul duo would be sent back to complete their journey
of metempsychosis for a second time, passing through all the lower
kingdoms until reborn in human form. For this, the repenting indi-
vidual would need an exceptionally strong will and/​or the assistance of
an adept.
Another uncommon occurrence was what was known as ‘the transfer
of a spiritual entity’. Blavatsky referred to the novel Ghost Land (1876)
by Spiritualist Emma Hardinge Britten (1823–​1899) to explain another
exceptional type of ‘reincarnation’ in which an adept transferred his or
her ‘spiritual entity’ to a student upon the adept’s death.

There were even those among the highest epoptæ of the greater
Mysteries who knew nothing of their last and dreaded rite—​the vol-
untary transfer of life from hierophant to candidate. In Ghost-​Land
this mystical operation of the adept’s transfer of his spiritual entity,
after the death of his body, into the youth he loves with all the ardent
love of a spiritual parent, is superbly described. As in the case of the
reincarnation of the lamas of Thibet, an adept of the highest order
may live indefinitely. His mortal casket wears out notwithstanding
certain alchemical secrets for prolonging the youthful vigor far be-
yond the usual limits, yet the body can rarely be kept alive beyond
ten or twelve score of years. The old garment is then worn out, and

26
 Ibid., 357.
 Isis Unveiled and Metempsychosis 63

the spiritual Ego forced to leave it, selects for its habitation a new
body, fresh and full of healthy vital principle.27

Blavatsky didn’t elaborate further on this unique form of ‘reincar-

nation’, but its presence and difference to other forms of rebirth she
proposed at the time underscore the need to distinguish between the
different forms of ‘reincarnation’ in Isis Unveiled very carefully indeed.

Conclusions
In Isis Unveiled and letters contemporary with it, Blavatsky’s ideas were
consistent, if not always perspicuous. The primary reason for the confu-
sion was the terminology. Blavatsky used various terms for rebirth: re-
incarnation, metempsychosis, revolution, permutation, the transfer of
an entity, and the reincarnation of terrestrial larvae. To compound the
problem, sometimes a term was given multiple meanings. For example,
‘reincarnation’ could refer to four different things:

1. The ‘supplementary doctrine’ of Isis Unveiled, namely, that in the

case of unfinished business, a spirit is reborn on Earth with the
same soul.
2. The rebirth of the immortalised soul-​spirit entity into a new astral
body on each sphere as it ascends through the spheres towards
nirvana in metempsychosis.
3. The transfer of an adept’s ‘spiritual Ego’ to his or her young disciple,
potentially enabling them to live forever.
4. The ‘reincarnation’ of repenting terrestrial larvae, possibly with the
assistance of an adept.

Metempsychosis was the main rebirth doctrine of Isis Unveiled and

it was associated with the indestructibility of spirit and matter, progres-
sive evolution, human effort, and cyclicity. Blavatsky gave the stages of
metempsychosis as follows:

27
 Blavatsky, Isis II, 563.
64 Recycled Lives

1. The monad is ‘exhaled’ from the divine source and sent on its
journey into matter.
2. It lives on a different planet before it reaches Earth. (The specific
details of the monad’s journey from other planets to this one were
not given at this stage.)
3. Once it reaches Earth, it passes through mineral, animal, and
vegetable forms.
4. It ‘relives’ those forms in utero.
5. It is born as a human on Earth. During this incarnation, it is
constituted of spirit, soul, and physical body. The incarnated
person has a chance at achieving immortality during Earth-​life
through the conjoining of their soul with their spirit through
occult practices such as astral travel.
6. Most individuals are annihilated at death, having failed to achieve
immortality. In such cases, the body and soul return to nature
after a period as terrestrial larvae.
7. There is still hope for some of the terrestrial larvae to repent and
‘reincarnate’. Adepts can help them do this.
8. A  select few succeed in conjoining soul and spirit and achieve
immortality. Their reason becomes ‘active and discriminative’, and
they progress to the next sphere after the death of their physical
body with the same personality they had during Earth-​life.
9. Those few who achieve immortality transmigrate through higher
spheres, each time acquiring a new astral body. By this act, the
continuously maintain a ‘trinity’ of principles.
10. Eventually, they achieve nirvana, meaning absorption into the
divine, in the seventh sphere.

Blavatsky scattered allusions to, and explanations of, each of these

stages throughout her early occult writings and letters. The foregoing
detailed reading makes sense of her sometimes apparently contra-
dictory statements and provides a basis on which to better understand
Blavatsky’s teachings on reincarnation in her second major work, The
Secret Doctrine. These will be considered in the following chapter.
    3
Reincarnation in The Secret Doctrine

Unlike in Isis Unveiled (1877), in The Secret Doctrine (1888), Blavatsky

taught it was normal for a person to live many lives on Earth (as well
as other planets).1 This was the fundamental difference between met-
empsychosis and reincarnation. The new teaching was also much more
complex than the previous one had been. Blavatsky described the
countless deaths and regenerations humans underwent as part of a pil-
grimage during which they would evolve physically, psychically, and
spiritually. She now stated people were composed of seven principles,
rather than three, and that each one played a vital role in the death and
rebirth process. (The seven could be grouped into three, to correspond
to the previous classification, according to Blavatsky.) Her new theory
of reincarnation was intricate, and to begin to understand it, we must
start with its cosmology.2 One of the fundamental tenets of that cos-
mology was that every aspect of the cosmos mirrors every other. Just
as a person lives, dies, and is born again, so do planets and even the
cosmos live, die, and ‘reincarnate’.
Blavatsky taught that our universe is one of many in a great ‘cosmic
chain’ of universes, each of which arose (‘reincarnated’) after the demise

1
 A version of this chapter appeared in Correspondences 5 (2017).
2
 For an account of Blavatsky’s thought in terms of ‘macrohistory’, understood as a
‘representation of the human past in terms of a vast panorama’, see Gary Trompf,
‘Imagining Macrohistory? Madame Blavatsky from Isis Unveiled (1877) to The Secret
Doctrine (1888)’, Literature and Aesthetics 21, no. 1 (June 2011).

65
66 Recycled Lives

of the previous one.3 Over the course of its life, each universe was said
to repeatedly manifest and disappear, as though sleeping and waking.4
The ultimate goal of the cyclic appearances and disappearances of the
universes was supposed to be the increasing ‘self-​consciousness’ of the
Divine. Blavatsky said the Divine would achieve this self-​consciousness
through the periodic exhibition of different aspects of itself to ‘finite
minds’, in other words, humans.5 It would attain this through the evo-
lution of humans from lower forms of life.6 How was this to take place?
According to Blavatsky, universes were living entities constituted of
spirit and matter, in fact, two aspects of the same substance. She con-
sidered spirit primary because matter arose from it. Spirit carried the
ideas that gave rise to matter, and consciousness arose from the union of
spirit with matter at a specific point in evolutionary history. Although
they would separate during the course of the universe’s lifetime, on a
deeper level, spirit and matter were inseparable, and continuously and
simultaneously repelled and attracted one another. ‘So do Spirit and
Matter stand to each other,’ Blavatsky wrote, ‘The two poles of the same
homogeneous substance, the root-​principle of the universe.’7 Blavatsky
claimed spirit and matter were linked by something called Fohat, which
functioned like a bridge by which divine ideas were impressed on the
material world as ‘laws of nature’. It was an animating principle that
brought atoms to life.8 Describing Fohat in terms of eros, or attraction,
she characterised it as a kind of ‘affinity’, ‘intelligence’, or even ‘guide’,
although she was adamant it was not a personal God.9
From a state of cosmic rest, spirit was said to ‘fall’ into matter and
be required to find its way back to its original condition. Blavatsky
called the change from matter to spirit evolution, and from spirit to
matter, involution. During involution, spirit would ‘involve’ into
matter and ‘appear’. Thereafter, it would gradually evolve back into

3
 For example, Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 43.
4
 For example, Ibid., 16.
5
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 487.
6
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 106–​107.
7
 Ibid., 247.
8
 Ibid.,  15–​16.
9
 Ibid., 119, 139.
 Reincarnation in The Secret Doctrine 67

spirit again, disappearing. Blavatsky described the periodic appear-

ance and disappearance of the universe as the ‘outbreathing’ and
‘inbreathing’ of the great breath.10 The time it took for the cosmos to
complete one out-​breath and one in-​breath was known in Sanskrit as
a manvantara.11 During the involutionary phase of the cosmos at the
beginning of a manvantara, the divine source (known in Sanskrit as
parabrahman) emitted mulaprakriti (matter). Subsequent levels were
thereafter emanated. As stated previously, in the simplest possible
terms, emanation as a concept is evocative of the image of a cham-
pagne fountain in which the wine descends from the top glass like a
waterfall, cascading into the glasses that are stacked beneath it, more
or less in the shape of a pyramid. In the various Hermetic, Gnostic,
neo-Platonic and Kabbalistic versions of emanation, the metaphor-
ical bottle was seen as pouring continuously. The Divine was seen
as emanating creation constantly and without diminishing Itself in
any sense.
In Blavatsky’s version, after the Divine had emitted mulaprakriti, a
second level emerged. This was known as the ‘first’ or ‘un-​manifested’
logos. It was followed by the second logos, known as ‘the demiurge’,
which amounted to an aggregate or ‘army’ of sentient beings called
dhyan chohans, who functioned as the architects of the universe and
agents of karma.12 The next emanation was the Universal Soul, the
source of a finite number of monads, or immortal, reincarnating
entities.13 Blavatsky described the Universal Soul as ‘a compound unity
of manifested living Spirits, the parent-​source and nursery of all the

10
 Ibid., 43.
11
 It is important to note that Blavatsky used the term manvantara to describe different
periods. I refer here to a manvantara of the universe.
12
 See Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 380. Describing the roles of these different eman-
ations, the first logos has the ‘idea’ and the second logos, constituted of the dhyan
chohans, draws up the ‘plan’ (Ibid., 279–​280). Blavatsky considered these beings
analogous to angels in Christianity, the ‘elohim’ of Jewish scriptures, and the Dhyani-​
Buddhas of Buddhism (Ibid., 10, 38, 274). There are inferior beings among them, but
no ‘devils’ (Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 487). On dhyan chohans as agents of karma,
see Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 122–​123.
13
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 16–​17, note. The term ‘monad’ can have a wider meaning
too, but we will focus here on this meaning. For example, see Ibid., 21.
68 Recycled Lives

mundane and terrestrial monads, plus their divine reflection’.14 In other

words, the Universal Soul was not merely a collective of monads but
was also independent of and mirrored them.
All monads were said to enter the cycle of incarnation at the begin-
ning of the universe’s manvantara. With each incarnation, a monad
would acquire a new personality. Through the monad’s assimilation of
successive temporary personalities, it would spiritualise, overcoming
what Blavatsky called ‘the delusions of maya’.15 It would thus become
increasingly aware of the impermanent and illusory nature of the
cosmos and more conscious of its own identity with the Universal Soul.
Finally, it would be reabsorbed into the Divine.16 Blavatsky termed this
reabsorption paranirvana. Paranirvana was followed by a pause, called
a pralaya, during which the universe rested before repeating the whole
process once more.17
Blavatsky conceived all of life as participating in this reincarnationary
journey. Those incarnated today as humans were previously less evolved
life forms such as animals and plants, and those incarnated as dhyan
chohans were once people.18 Even the dhyan chohans had not finished
evolving, and would go on to become still higher beings. Evolution,
Blavatsky maintained, was endless, but what compelled it? Blavatsky
gave three answers to this question. The first was the universe’s inherent
tendency to evolve, the second was the assistance of higher beings, and

14
 Ibid., 573.
15
 ‘The Universe is called, with everything in it, MAYA, because all is temporary therein,
from the ephemeral life of a fire-​fly to that of the Sun. Compared to the eternal im-
mutability of the ONE, and the changelessness of that Principle, the Universe, with its
evanescent ever-​changing forms, must be necessarily, in the mind of a philosopher, no
better than a will-​o’-​the-​wisp. Yet, the Universe is real enough to the conscious beings
in it, which are as unreal as it is itself.’ Ibid., 274.
16
 Ibid., 130–​131, 268.
17
 Again, there are different types of pralaya, and I refer here to the cosmic variety. On
pralaya, see Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 307. On the re-​awakening of monads after
pralaya, see Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 21.
18
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 277.
 Reincarnation in The Secret Doctrine 69

the third was the action of karma. Let’s look at each of these in more
detail.

The Monad’s Planetary Journey

Groups of monads were said to evolve more or less together. The group
of which present-​day humans were a part had progressed through the
earlier stages of cosmic evolution together. Karma only became a factor
in their evolutionary journey at a specific point. Before then, they had
not experienced karma because they had possessed no egos and no in-
tellectual faculties (manas). Nevertheless, they still evolved. This was
because the evolutionary process of a life wave was rather like a con-
veyor belt (my simile, not Blavatsky’s). Higher beings had assisted the
monads in getting onto this conveyor belt in the first place, and, once
on it, everyone evolved no matter what. When the monads reached a
certain stage of human evolution, it was as though the life wave had
reached the end of the conveyor belt and the monads would thereafter
have to continue through their own effort. In other words, they had to
get off the belt and start walking. This was because by this point, hu-
mans had evolved egos as well as intellectual and rational faculties, and
were now held responsible for their actions.19 Karma had a decisive role
during this stage of evolution because rational apprehension of its ef-
fects could impel a person to think and behave in a more spiritual way.
Blavatsky claimed that there were many solar systems and that
within them, each planet was merely the visible globe within a system
of seven spheres, the other six of which were invisible and existed on
different planes of reality.20 Thus, six invisible spheres surrounded the

19
 Manas (the principle associated with the ego) was ‘held responsible for all the sins
committed through, and in, every new body or personality—​the evanescent masks
which hide the true individual through the long series of rebirths.’ Blavatsky, The
Key to Theosophy (London and New  York:  The Theosophical Publishing Company,
1889), 136.
20
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 166. Describing the six invisible spheres that surrounded
planet Earth, Blavatsky explained they ‘blended with our world—​interpenetrating it
and interpenetrated by it’. Ibid., 605.
70 Recycled Lives

other planets of our solar system, as well as the moon. The Earth with
its six invisible planets was known as the Earth Chain. In a diagram
Blavatsky provided in The Secret Doctrine, she represented the Earth as
the lowest globe (Globe D), with six more above it (three on each side)
in ascending order of spirituality.21 On the left of the Earth were Globes
A, B, and C, and on the right Globes E, F, and G. Moving down from
the top of this diagram, Globes A and G were on the highest level of
spirituality, B and F the next down, and C and E followed. Within
the Earth Chain, evolution began on Globe A  before continuing on
Globes B, C, D, and so forth. Humans incarnated on Earth today for-
merly evolved on Globe C, a sphere slightly more spiritual and less ma-
terial than the Earth.22 Once they had completed their evolution there,
they incarnated on Earth. Once evolution on Earth was complete, life
would withdraw and continue its evolution on Globe E, which was as
spiritual as Globe C had been. Despite the equivalence in spirituality
of Globes C and E, it was not the case that humanity would simply
return to the same spiritual condition on Globe E that it experienced
on Globe C. Through having lived numerous lives on Earth and assimi-
lating those experiences, the monads would have become more con-
scious, and moved closer to the divine absorption that was the ultimate
goal of their peregrinations.
Blavatsky termed a tour of a life wave around the seven globes a
‘round’. Just as the universe experienced a manvantara (active period)
followed by a pralaya (rest period), so too did the planetary chain.
There were seven rounds in each active period of the planetary chain,
meaning the monads circled through Globes A–​G seven times. Every
time a life wave completed a round, there was a period of rest called an
‘obscuration’. Once the life wave had been around seven times, how-
ever, the planetary chain itself would begin to die out. This was known
as a ‘planetary dissolution’ and the life wave would thereafter transfer
to a different planetary chain.23 According to Blavatsky, the Lunar
Chain was where the beings now within the Earth Chain previously

21
 Ibid., 172.
22
 Ibid., 158–​159.
23
 Ibid., 158–​159.
 Reincarnation in The Secret Doctrine 71

evolved.24 She wrote that occultists termed the transference of life from
one planetary chain to another the ‘rebirth of planetary chains’. Just as
humans left behind shells (i.e., dead physical bodies), so did planets.
Said Blavatsky: ‘Every such chain of worlds is the progeny and creation
of another, lower, and dead chain—​its reincarnation, so to say.’25
Those incarnated as humans today were thought to have already
completed three and a half rounds within the Earth chain, meaning
they had travelled from Globe A  to Globe G three times before ar-
riving again at Globe D.  From its spiritual state at entry, as it pro-
gressed through the first three and a half rounds, the monad gradually
became more material, only beginning to re-​spiritualise after passing
the midpoint of the planetary chain on globe D, the Earth. Entering
the chain at the ethereal Globe A, the monad was ‘shot down by the
law of Evolution into the lowest form of matter—​the mineral’. The pre-
cise order in which it would then inhabit the different forms on each
globe was never made entirely clear, although there were some indica-
tions. Quoting an ‘extract from the teacher’s letter on various topics’,
Blavatsky wrote: ‘During the 1st round . . . (heavenly) man becomes a
human being on globe A  (rebecomes) a mineral, a plant, an animal,
on globe B and C, etc. The process changes entirely from the second
round.’26 The idea seems to have been that at least during the first round,
on each globe, the monad would pass through what we might call min-
eral, vegetable, animal, and human forms before doing the same on the
next globe. Blavatsky clarified that the so-​called stones, plants, animals,
and humans on other globes were not as we know them, but rather the

24
 Ibid., 172.
25
 Ibid., 152.
26
 An undated letter from Mahatma Koot Hoomi states: ‘At each round there are less
and less animals—​the latter themselves evoluting [sic] into higher forms. During the
first Round it is they that were the “kings of creation”. During the seventh men will
have become Gods and animals—​intelligent beings. Draw your inferences. Beginning
with the second round already evolution proceeds on quite a different plan. Everything
is evolved and has but to proceed on its cyclic journey and get perfected. It is only the
first Round that man becomes from a human being on Globe B. a mineral, a plant,
an animal on Planet C. The method changes entirely from the second Round; but—​I
have learned prudence with you; and will say nothing before the time for saying has
come.’ Letter 23 B in Barker, ed., The Mahatma Letters, 177–​178.
72 Recycled Lives

‘germ seeds’ of what we would now recognise.27 This is because on each

globe, these forms were appropriate to the overall level of materiality of
that particular globe.28 In other words, a spiritual monad enters Globe
A at the lowest level of matter for that globe, something that resembles
the stones we are familiar with on this globe.
Blavatsky explained that the most developed of the monads entering
the Earth Chain ‘reach the human germ-​stage in the first Round; be-
come terrestrial, though very ethereal human beings towards the end
of the Third Round, remaining on it (the globe) through the “obscur-
ation” period as the seed for future mankind in the Fourth Round, and
thus become the pioneers of Humanity at the beginning of this, the
Fourth Round’.29 From the middle turning point of the fourth round
no more monads would be allowed to enter the human kingdom; if
they hadn’t made it to the human stage yet, they would have to wait
until the next manvantara.30 Although Blavatsky referred to beings
from previous rounds as representing humanity, strictly speaking she
claimed that the monad was not a ‘man’ as such until ‘the Light of the
Logos’ was awakened in him. Until then, he should not ‘be referred
to as “MAN”, but has to be regarded as a Monad imprisoned in ever
changing forms’.31 For ‘man’ to develop, the monad had to acquire ‘a
spiritual model, or prototype’. It needed ‘an intelligent consciousness
to guide its evolution and progress’. This is where the pitris came in,
higher beings who descended to assist in the evolution of humanity by
deliberately blending spirit with matter, and this occurred at a specific
point in the evolution that took place on Globe D, the Earth.32

27
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 186.
28
 Ibid., 180.
29
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 182.
30
 Although all the rocks, plants, and animals in the world today would eventually be-
come men, this wouldn’t occur in this manvantara. Ibid.
31
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 42.
32
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 247.
 Reincarnation in The Secret Doctrine 73

The Monad’s Racial Journey

On Earth, the development of human life was divided into seven con-
secutive stages, known as ‘root races’, each containing seven sub-​races.33
A monad was required to pass through all seven of these root races during
its evolutionary journey.34 Blavatsky only described in detail the root races
of the Earth, stating that ‘we are not concerned with the other Globes in
this work, except incidentally’.35 In her account, previous root races lived
on continents that no longer existed and their periods of existence were
divided from one other by great convolutions of nature, resulting in a
lack of physical evidence for their existence.36 These convolutions weren’t
punishments but simply the natural course of events. Wrote Blavatsky,
‘Such is the fate of every continent, which—​like everything else under
our Sun—​is born, lives, becomes decrepit, and dies.’37 After the appear-
ance and disappearance of every continent with its root race there was
said to be a period of rest before the next race appeared on the next con-
tinent. Root races were initially more ethereal, gradually becoming more
material, evolving physically and morally and becoming more solid until
their physical evolution had reached its fullest extent. This was human
incarnation as we know it, the midpoint of the Earth Chain’s cycle. After
this, the process of spiritualisation could begin again.38
Evolution on Earth began when lunar pitris (the evolved beings of
the Lunar Chain) created the first root race by oozing them out of
their own bodies.39 The first root race was ethereal and Blavatsky called
them ‘the self-​born’.40 They multiplied by ‘budding’ and lived on a con-
tinent known as ‘The Imperishable Sacred Land’.41 They were sexless

33
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 434–​435. Each sub-​race has seven branch or family races.
34
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 160. See also Blavatsky, ‘Theosophy and Spiritism’, 45.
35
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 160.
36
 ‘Our globe is subject to seven periodical entire changes which go pari passu with the
races. . . . It is a law which acts at its appointed time, and not at all blindly, as science
may think, but in strict accordance and harmony with Karmic law.’ Blavatsky, Secret
Doctrine II, 329.
37
 Ibid., 350.
38
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 224–​225.
39
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 160, 180 and II, 110, 174.
40
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 164.
41
 Ibid., 6, 17–​18, 132.
74 Recycled Lives

and could not be injured or die. They gradually turned into their more
solid descendants, the second root race, known as ‘the sweat born’. This
second race was intellectually inactive, and was ‘constantly plunged in
a kind of blank or abstract contemplation, as required by the condi-
tions of the Yoga state’.42 Neither of the first two root races was solid
enough to have left any physical remains. The ‘Hyperborean’ continent
on which the second race lived stretched southwards and westwards
from the North Pole and comprised what is now northern Asia.43 Like
the first root race, they were sexless, but since they were more material,
they were affected by the physical conditions of the Earth.
The third root race was the first to develop physical bodies. Blavatsky
called it the Lemurian race, because it lived on a continent named
Lemuria, which used to occupy the Indian and Pacific Oceans be-
fore it sunk because of earthquakes and subterranean fires.44 The first
Lemurians reproduced by exuding drops of sweat that became eggs.45
These eggs initially produced hermaphroditic beings, but very gradually
they produced offspring in which one sex predominated over another.
Eventually, male or female Lemurians were born.46 At the close of the
third root race, the Lemurians looked like gigantic apes, but they could
already think and speak, and were relatively civilised.47 Nevertheless,
some of them were morally irresponsible and mated with lower ani-
mals, creating the remote ancestor of today’s ape.48 This, according to
Blavatsky, was how occultists explained how apes evolved from ‘men’,
and not the other way around, as the Darwinists claimed.49 During the
early Lemurian root race, higher beings had produced those who would
eventually become human adepts by a process called Kriyasakti. These

42
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 207.
43
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 7, 116.
44
 Ibid., 266, 332–​333. Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Australia, and Easter Island were its re-
mains, Blavatsky claimed (Ibid., 7).
45
 Ibid., 116.
46
 Ibid., 132.
47
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 191 and II, 446.
48
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 190.
49
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 180, 263, 635.
 Reincarnation in The Secret Doctrine 75

proto-​adepts, known as the ‘Sons of Will and Yoga’, remained entirely

apart from the rest of mankind.50
At around the midpoint of the Lemurian root race, some Lemurians
were endowed by higher beings with manas, or reason.51 From then
onwards, manas would continue to develop, and would eventually be-
come ‘entirely divine’.52 Before they had been endowed with manas,
the Lemurians had been sinless because they were without egos. They
had therefore not created any karma.53 Their death and rebirth pro-
cess had consequently been a lot less complicated that that of humans
today; they would simply ‘resurrect’ out of an old body and into a new
one.54 As soon as they were endowed with manas, however, they started
creating karma and became subject to death and reincarnation in a rec-
ognisable form.55
The fourth root race was the Atlantean. Their home was the con-
tinent of Atlantis, which rose out of the sea in the eastern Atlantic
Ocean and was eventually submerged by a deluge.56 The Atlanteans
were more intellectual than the Lemurians and they perfected lan-
guage.57 During the highest point of its civilisation, knowledge, and
intellectuality the Atlantean Race divided into those who followed the
(good) right-​hand path of knowledge, and those who followed the
(evil) left-​hand path.58 The evolution of the Atlantean race led it down
to the very bottom of materiality in its physical development.59 They
diminished in stature and the length of their lives decreased.60 During
the evolution of the Atlantean race, what had been ‘the holy mystery of
procreation’ gradually turned into animal indulgence. As a result, the
Atlanteans changed physically and mentally. According to Blavatsky,

50
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 207.
51
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 244–​245, 248, 275.
52
 Ibid.,  161–​2.
53
 Ibid., 410.
54
 Ibid., 610.
55
 Ibid., 610.
56
 Ibid., 8, 332–​334.
57
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 189.
58
 Ibid., 192.
59
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 446.
60
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 609 and II, 331.
76 Recycled Lives

from having been ‘the healthy King of animal creation of the Third
Race, man became in the Fifth, our race, a helpless, scrofulous being
and has now become the wealthiest heir on the globe to constitutional
and hereditary diseases, the most consciously and intelligently bestial of
all animals!’61 The ‘curse of karma’ was called down on the Atlanteans,
Blavatsky wrote, not for seeking natural union, but for ‘abusing the cre-
ative power’ and ‘wasting the life-​essence for no purpose except bestial
personal gratification’.62
Present-​day humanity, the fifth root race, was known as the Aryan,
and it could trace its descent through the Atlanteans from those more
spiritual races of the Lemurians.63 The Aryan race arose in Asia and
spread south and west. It had been in existence for about one million
years.64 Blavatsky described the development of the Aryan race from the
Atlantean as gradual and complex.65 As with the emergence of all root
races, there was some overlap, so that the remnants of the Atlanteans
were still present at the dawn of the Aryan root race. Some of these
remnants inhabited lands that eventually became islands, where ‘the
undeveloped tribes and families of the Atlantean stock fell gradually
into a still more abject and savage condition’.66 After the submersion of
the last remnant of the Atlantean race, ‘an impenetrable veil of secrecy
was thrown over the occult and religious mysteries’. This secrecy led
the Aryans to the establishment of the religious mysteries, ‘in which
ancient truths might be taught to the coming generations under the
veil of allegory and symbolism’.67 Blavatsky considered the Aryan root
race to be an evolutionary stage of pivotal importance since it was posi-
tioned at the exact midpoint of the involutionary-​evolutionary pro-
cess.68 Humanity had just ‘crossed the meridian point of the perfect
adjustment of Spirit and Matter’, which represented the ‘equilibrium

61
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 411.
62
 Ibid., 410.
63
 Ibid., 318, 433, 444.
64
 Ibid., 435.
65
 Ibid., 433–​435.
66
 Ibid., 743.
67
 Ibid., 124.
68
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 182, 185–​86.
 Reincarnation in The Secret Doctrine 77

between brain intellect and Spiritual perception’.69 A practical conse-

quence of the turn towards spiritualisation was that phenomena such
as thought transference, clairvoyance, and clairaudience would become
more common.70
The Aryan root race was to be followed by sixth and seventh root races
in the future, and Blavatsky claimed the germs of the sixth were already
to be found in America.71 This sixth race, she claimed, would be ‘rapidly
growing out of its bonds of matter, and even of flesh’.72 Once evolution
had been completed through all the rounds and races of the planetary
chain, the monad would ‘find itself as free from matter and all its qual-
ities as it was in the beginning; having gained in addition the experience
and wisdom, the fruition of all its personal lives, without their evil and
temptations’.73 The monad would then become a dhyan chohan.74 These
dhyan chohans would be transferred, in the next cycle, to ‘higher, superior
worlds, making room for a new hierarchy, composed of the elect ones of
our mankind’.75 Highly evolved dhyan chohans would move through solar
systems in this way until the time arrived for the cosmic pralaya, when the
entire cosmos would rest. At that point they would achieve ‘the highest
condition of Nirvana’.76

The Saptaparna
In Blavatsky’s later thought, the human microcosm reflected the sep-
tenary macrocosm, and each of the seven elements of the human con-
stitution played an indispensable role in the death and rebirth process.77

69
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 300.
70
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 536–​37.
71
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 444–​445.
72
 Ibid., 446.
73
 Ibid., 180–​181.
74
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 159.
75
 Ibid., 221.
76
 Blavatsky, ‘Nirvana’, The Theosophist 5, no. 10 (July 1884), 246.
77
  Blavatsky reconciled the earlier tripartite and the later septenary spiritual
anthropologies by explaining that the seven could be condensed into three, or the three
expanded into seven, with the two lowest principles forming the physical body, the next
two forming the soul, and the top three the spirit. Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 602–​
603. On the saptaparna, see Chajes, Julie (née Hall), ‘The Saptaparna: The Meaning
78 Recycled Lives

Known as the saptaparna (seven-​leafed plant), these seven principles

represented the balance of material and spiritual elements within the
human being, or the spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical levels
on which a person was said to operate throughout his or her life.78 The
seven principles were given, in ascending order of spirituality, as the
body (Sanskrit: stula sarira), vitality (prana or jiva), astral body (linga
sarira), animal soul (kama-​rupa), human soul (manas), spiritual soul
(buddhi), and spirit (atma).79 All seven of these principles were con-
sidered necessary for life.80 In Blavatsky’s later esoteric instructions she
taught that each of these principles was itself sevenfold: there was an
atma of the kama-​rupa, a buddhi of the kama-​rupa, and so forth.81
The physical body (stula sarira) was composed of the lowest form of
matter present in the human constitution. It was animated by prana,
which Blavatsky described as ‘the breath of life’, or the active power
producing all vital phenomena.82 She also depicted the physical body
as the vehicle (upadhi) of the life force. The third principle, the astral
body or ‘astral double’, was an ethereal duplicate of the physical body.83
The matter of the physical body was formed and moulded over this as-
tral body by the action of prana. The fourth principle, the animal soul,
was the vehicle of the will and desire. It was associated with feelings

and Origins of the Theosophical Septenary Constitution of Man’, Theosophical History

13, no. 4 (October 2007).
78
  ‘Do not imagine that because man is called septenary  . . .  he is a compound of
seven . . . entities; or, as well expressed by a Theosophical writer, of skins to be peeled
off like the skins of an onion. The “principles”, as already said, save the body, the life,
and the astral eidolon [lingha-​sharira], all of which disperse at death, are simply aspects
or states of consciousness.’ Blavatsky, Key, 100.
79
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 153 and II, 593, 596.
80
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 158 and II, 241–​242.
81
 Blavatsky, ‘Esoteric Instruction Number Three’ and ‘Esoteric Instruction Number
Five’, in vol. 12 of Blavatsky Collected Writings, ed. Boris de Zirkoff (Wheaton,
IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 648 and 693.
82
  Blavatsky, The Theosophical Glossary (Krotona:  Theosophical Publishing House,
1918), 242; Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 593. This idea is, of course, is reminiscent of
her claim that the seven root races each had seven sub-​races.
83
  Blavatsky, Theosophical Glossary, 35; ‘Esoteric Instruction Number Two’, in vol.
12 of Blavatsky Collected Writings, ed. Boris de Zirkoff (Wheaton, IL:  Theosophical
Publishing House, 1980), 547; ‘Esoteric Instruction Number Five’, 704.
 Reincarnation in The Secret Doctrine 79

and emotional consciousness and Blavatsky described it as ‘the sub-

jective form created through mental and physical desires and thoughts
in connection with things of matter, by all sentient beings’.84 Blavatsky
considered the animal soul ‘the grossest of all our principles’. It was the
‘medium through which the beast in us acts all its life’. Hinting perhaps
at the temptations of sexuality, she added, ‘every intellectual theosophist
will understand my real meaning’.85 Just as the first principle was the
vehicle of the second, the fourth was the vehicle of the fifth. Bestowed
on humanity when it was incarnated as the Lemurian root race, the
fifth principle, the ‘human soul’ or manas, was associated with memory
and reason. Blavatsky described it as the mind, intelligence, or con-
sciousness assimilating and reflecting the two principles above it. It was
what made a person an intelligent or moral being, distinguishing them
from an animal.86 Blavatsky also described manas as the conception
of self and associated it with ‘embodied consciousness’ or the ‘higher
ego’.87 Until the third root race, humanity had not possessed an animal
soul sufficiently developed to be able to act as the vehicle of manas.88
Even among the Aryans, human manas was not fully developed, and
only in the future would the full development of manas be achieved.89
Manas was crucial to Blavatsky’s account of reincarnation because
the spiritual evolution of persons who had reached the Aryan race was
said to depend on the ability of their manas to overcome the pull of
the lower principles and attach itself to the higher ones.90 Blavatsky ex-
plained the process as follows: Manas was constituted of a higher and
a lower part. The higher aspect was attracted to the principle above it,
buddhi, but the lower aspect to the principles below it, the ‘animal soul
full of selfish and sensual desires’.91 Although manas was drawn down

84
 Blavatsky, Theosophical Glossary, 159.
85
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 260.
86
 Blavatsky, Theosophical Glossary, 188; Key, 92, 135–​136.
87
 Blavatsky, Key, 100, 174.
88
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 161–​162.
89
 Ibid., 300–​301.
90
 Blavatsky, Key, 92.
91
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 495–​496. In The Key to Theosophy, she explained that
the ‘lower, or personal ego’ referred to the ‘false personality’, the combination of the
physical body, etheric double, and the lower self, including all the principles up to the
80 Recycled Lives

by these desires, if the ‘better man’ or higher manas escaped that ‘fatal
attraction’, then buddhi would conquer and carry manas with it ‘to the
realm of eternal spirit’. This meant the higher manas and buddhi would
join together and go on to the next incarnation in a more evolved
state.92 Blavatsky wrote that the higher manas existed on the ‘plane of
Sutratma, which is the golden thread on which, like beads, the various
personalities of this higher Ego are strung’.93
The two highest principles (atma and buddhi) formed the monad,
the true, immortal essence of a person.94 Buddhi was the ‘divine soul’,
or the faculty of cognising, the conscience, and the channel through
which divine knowledge reached the ego, allowing discernment of good
and evil.95 In other words, through absorbing the higher part of manas
in each incarnation, the person evolved and his or her buddhi would
become increasingly conscious.96 Blavatsky stated that buddhi was the
vehicle of the seventh principle. Atma was the ‘higher self ’, a ‘ray’ of
the universal spirit inseparable from its divine source.97 Atma, Blavatsky
wrote, ‘Is neither your Spirit nor mine, but like sunlight shines on all. It
is the universally diffused “divine principle”, and is as inseparable from
its one and absolute Meta-​Spirit, as the sunbeam is inseparable from the
sunlight.’98 Atma was ‘the God above, more than within, us. Happy the
man who succeeds in saturating his inner Ego with it!’99
According to Blavatsky, it was the separation of the higher prin-
ciples from the physical body that caused death. At death, the three
lower principles (the physical body, the vitality, and the astral body)

lower part of manas. This false personality therefore indicated the animal instincts,
passions and desires (Key, 176).
92
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 244–​245.
93
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 79.
94
 ‘Properly speaking, the term “human monad” applies only to the dual soul (Atma–​
Buddhi), not to its highest spiritual vivifying Principle, Atma, alone. But since the
Spiritual Soul, if divorced from the latter (Atma) could have no existence, no being, it
has thus been called.’ Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 178.
95
 Ibid., xix.
96
 Ibid., 244.
97
 Blavatsky, Key, 175; ‘Esoteric Instruction Number Three’, 648; ‘Esoteric Instruction
Number Five’, 693; Theosophical Glossary, 40.
98
 Blavatsky, Key, 135.
99
 Ibid., 175.
 Reincarnation in The Secret Doctrine 81

were cast off. The physical body decomposed, but the astral body could
hang around for a while as a ghost and appear during séances. The
four higher principles then entered kama loka, an astral locality where
their experience depended on their level of spiritual achievement. (The
more spiritual the person, the shorter their stay in kama loka.) At the
end of the kama loka period, the fifth principle, manas, was purified
and divided by a struggle between the principles above (atma and
buddhi) and below it (the kama-​rupa or emotional body). The three
highest principles (atma, buddhi, and the higher part of manas) then
entered a ‘spiritual ante-​natal state’, preparing for the bliss of the realm
of devachan, which would be entered having left behind the emotional
body. Devachan closely paralleled Earth life, and within it, individuals
were said to experience growth, maturity, and decline. There were an
infinite variety of levels of well-​being within devachan to suit different
degrees of merit.100 Blavatsky depicted it as a sort of heaven that pro-
vided a rest between lives just as sleep offered rest between days and as
pralayas occurred between manvantaras. Blavatsky remarked on how
this teaching reflected the life and death of a human being:

It thus becomes apparent how perfect is the analogy between the

processes of Nature in the Kosmos and the individual man. The
latter lives through his life-​cycle, and dies. His ‘higher principles’,
corresponding in the development of a planetary chain to the cycling
Monads, pass into Devachan, which corresponds to the ‘Nirvana’
and states of rest intervening between two chains. The Man’s lower
‘principles’ are disintegrated in time and are used by Nature again for
the formation of new human principles, and the same process takes
place in the disintegration and formation of Worlds. Analogy is thus
the surest guide to the comprehension of the Occult teachings.101

As with kama loka, the length of time spent in devachan varied from in-
dividual to individual, but it was never less than 1,000 years. It generally

100
  Blavatsky, ‘The Various States of Devachan’, in Blavatsky Collected Writings,
vol. 5, 90.
101
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 173.
82 Recycled Lives

lasted around 1,500, but could be as long as 3,000 years. Blavatsky wrote

that the length of time between rebirths accounted for the fact that we
were still working off the karma created in Atlantean bodies.102
After a long period in devachan, the monad—​now composed of
atma, buddhi, and the higher part of manas—​would feel the attraction
of Earth life. Reincarnation was said to occur because of a thirst for life
on the part of the monad. The monad then ‘descended’, acquiring a
new set of lower principles, and the whole process would begin again.
Although the principles themselves were considered new, Blavatsky said
they were made of the same ‘life-​atoms’ that had formed the lower prin-
ciples in previous incarnations. These atoms were once again drawn
together by the returning individuality under the guidance of karmic
law. Adding a scientific angle to this explanation, Blavatsky stated these
life-​atoms were partially transmitted from father to son by heredity.103

Karma
Karma determined the details of the new life.104 Blavatsky portrayed
karma as an impersonal law of the universe, an ‘eternal and immutable
decree’ that brought about harmony in the spirit-​matter cosmos.105

Karma creates nothing, nor does it design. It is man who plans and
creates causes, and Karmic law adjusts the effects; which adjustment
is not an act, but universal harmony, tending ever to resume its
original position, like a bough, which, bent down too forcibly, re-
bounds with corresponding vigour. If it happen to dislocate the arm
that tried to bend it out of its natural position, shall we say that it is
the bough which broke our arm, or that our own folly has brought
us to grief? . . . KARMA is an Absolute and Eternal law in the World
of manifestation.106

102
 Blavatsky, Key, 90, 98, and Secret Doctrine II, 303.
103
 Ibid., 671–​672.
104
 Ibid., 303.
105
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 643 and II, 303.
106
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 304–​305.
 Reincarnation in The Secret Doctrine 83

Blavatsky saw karma as playing a role in the perfection of humanity.

Occultists  . . .  recognise in every pain and suffering but the neces-
sary pangs of incessant procreation:  a series of stages toward an
ever-​growing perfectibility, which is visible in the silent influence of
never-​erring Karma, or abstract nature—​the Occultists, we say, view
the great Mother otherwise. Woe to those who live without suffering.
Stagnation and death is the future of all that vegetates without a
change. And how can there be any change for the better without pro-
portionate suffering during the preceding stage? Is it not those only
who have learnt the deceptive value of earthly hopes and the illusive
allurements of external nature who are destined to solve the great
problems of life, pain, and death?107

However, to reiterate, although it played a role in evolution, karma

was not ubiquitous throughout Blavatsky’s cosmos. Prior to the late
Lemurian period, ‘humanity’ had not experienced karma. Karma was,
in fact, only a feature of one of the latest phases in human evolution,
and was associated with intellectuality and the human ego.
As I  claimed previously, Blavatsky’s discussions of karmic reincar-
nation typically had the intention of vindicating divine justice by
demonstrating life’s apparent inequalities to be the results of individual
or group karma.108 Had there been no karmic reincarnation, wrote
Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine, the origin and cause of suffering could
not be accounted for.109

107
 Ibid., 475.
108
 Blavatsky argued that the ‘social evils’ of the distinction between social classes, or
the sexes, and the unequal distribution of capital and labour were due to karma, but
that the particular conditions of life were not solely the result of individual action but
also the result of group karma. Group karma was the aggregate of individual karma,
so that the sum of the karma of everyone within a particular nation became national
karma and the aggregate of all national karmas was world karma (Key, 203–​205). The
most important point for Blavatsky here was that the reality of karma didn’t mean
that people were entitled to ignore the suffering of others. For example, she argued
it is every individual’s responsibility to give what they can of their money, time, and
‘ennobling thought’ in order to ‘balance’ or improve the national karma (Key, 205).
109
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 183.
84 Recycled Lives

It is only the knowledge of the constant re-​births of one and the same
individuality throughout the life-​cycle; the assurance that the same
MONADS  . . .  rewarded or punished by such rebirth for the suf-
fering endured or crimes committed in the former life; . . . it is only
this doctrine, we say, that can explain to us the mysterious problem
of Good and Evil, and reconcile man to the terrible and apparent
injustice of life. Nothing but such certainty can quiet our revolted
sense of justice. For, when one unacquainted with the noble doctrine
looks around him, and observes the inequalities of birth and fortune,
of intellect and capacities; when one sees honour paid fools and prof-
ligates, on whom fortune has heaped her favours by mere privilege
of birth, and their nearest neighbour, with all his intellect and noble
virtues—​far more deserving in every way—​perishing of want and for
lack of sympathy; when one sees all this and has to turn away, help-
less to relieve the undeserved suffering, one’s ears ringing and heart
aching with the cries of pain around him—​that blessed knowledge
of Karma alone prevents him from cursing life and men, as well as
their supposed Creator.110

Having looked at Blavatsky’s ideas in some detail, we are now in a pos-

ition to assess the place of reincarnation vis à vis karma. Karma had
a role in Blavatsky’s account of evolution, but only from around the
middle of the Lemurian period onwards and alongside other evolu-
tionary factors such as the assistance of higher beings and the inherent
evolutionary impulse of the cosmos. The compound of karmic reincar-
nation was presented as accounting for inequality and human suffering,
and was believed to offer an opportunity for self-​perfection and hence
accelerated evolution through the endurance of suffering. Furthermore,
reincarnation in all its forms was depicted as a microcosmic reflection
of the universe’s macrocosmic cyclicity.

110
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 303–​304. She made the same point in Key, 142.
 Reincarnation in The Secret Doctrine 85

Conclusions
Presumably, Blavatsky found her later doctrine of reincarnation more
appealing than the metempsychosis theory she had discarded around
1882. If one had adhered to the doctrines of Isis Unveiled, one wouldn’t
have expected to meet deceased loved ones at séances, since they would
either have achieved immortality and transmigrated to the next sphere,
or failed to do so and been annihilated. The latter outcome was con-
sidered the lot of the majority and it was not particularly comforting.
Not so with reincarnation. In Blavatsky’s later theory, one would still
not expect to converse with the spirits of the dead (as Spiritualists
claimed to), but one might be consoled by the idea of them (in all
probability) enjoying their good karma in devachan and eventually re-
turning to life on Earth in a more advanced human form. Nevertheless,
Blavatsky’s reincarnation doctrine still placed a greater distance be-
tween the living and the dead than did its main reincarnationist com-
petitor, French Spiritism. Referring to enormous timescales in contrast
to the shorter ones of Spiritism, according to Blavatsky, reincarna-
tion never occurred during the lifetimes of family members. As ex-
plained by Blavatsky’s theory of the seven principles, it also always
involved the birth of a completely different person from the one who
had died. There was therefore no chance the new baby could be the re-
incarnation of the deceased grandparent, for example. Thus, Blavatsky
deemphasised the personal in favour of an impersonal evolutionary
trajectory whose ultimate destination was more important than the
details of any particular life. To be sure, despite individual differences,
all humans were ultimately alike in that their immortal element, atma,
derived from—​and would return to—​the same source. All else was
temporary and illusory, including earthly attachments. Blavatsky’s re-
incarnation doctrine was, therefore, arguably quite democratic, and
could be seen as supporting the notion of universal brotherhood that
was promoted in Theosophy.
It could also be seen as pointing towards the inherent power of man-
kind and the fundamental importance of the present moment. As such,
it reflected that fin-​de-​siècle apprehension—​so common in the litera-
ture of the period—​that a pivotal moment in history had been reached.
For Blavatsky, human incarnation in the fifth (Aryan) root race of the
86 Recycled Lives

fourth round of the Earth Chain was the critical juncture in the pro-
gression of the spirit-​matter cosmos, the point of exact equilibration,
after which the upward turn would once again begin. Sometimes,
Blavatsky made it seem as though everything hinged on humanity’s
contemporary choices, a position consistent with an occultist emphasis
on personal agency, power, and will. On the other hand, reincarnating
monads could also be made to seem like twigs in a stream in that no
matter what one did, humanity—​and the cosmos—​would inevitably
evolve, karma or no karma. Karmic reincarnation played a supporting
role in this evolutionary cosmic drama at the same time as it vindi-
cated divine justice by explaining the meaning of suffering. Nirvana,
Blavatsky argued, could be reached only through ‘æons of suffering’
and by attaining ‘the knowledge of EVIL as well as of good, as other-
wise the latter remains incomprehensible’.111 The tension between the
inherent progressive impulse of the cosmos and human agency was pre-
sent here too, as it wasn’t always clear whether Blavatsky was saying
that suffering itself compelled evolution, or whether one’s response to
that suffering was the key to progress. One suspects both to have been
the case.

111
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 81.
    4
Spiritualism

Blavatsky was not the only one to deny reincarnation, at least at first.
Similar opinions were expressed in Ghost Land and Art Magic (both
1876)  by the British medium Emma Hardinge Britten (1823–​1899),
in the writings of the American occultist Paschal Beverly Randolph
(1825–​1875), and in the teachings of the occultist order, the Hermetic
Brotherhood of Luxor (H. B. of L). Joscelyn Godwin described these
thinkers as offering an alternative vision within the Spiritualistic mi-
lieu of the 1870s. They denied a normative return to Earth after death
and postulated progress on higher worlds with a return to Earth-​life
considered possible in exceptional circumstances.1 Godwin noted
Blavatsky’s rejection of the French reincarnationist school of Allan
Kardec, despite her close friendships with prominent French Spiritists
such as the Leymarie family.2 He commented on tensions between con-
tinental reincarnationists and British and American Spiritualists (who
usually denied reincarnation), observing that the debate in the pages
of the Spiritualist periodical press was vociferous and that there were
counter-​schools on both sides.
This chapter builds on Godwin’s analysis by exploring in greater
detail the similarities and differences between Blavatsky’s doctrine of
metempsychosis and those of the individuals mentioned above, con-
textualising them more broadly in reincarnation-​denying British and

1
 Godwin, Theosophical Enlightenment, 303.
2
 Ibid., 281.

87
88 Recycled Lives

American Spiritualism. The Anglo-​American currents Blavatsky’s ideas

had the most in common with all accepted human immortality in some
sense but perceived its nature differently. One of the most salient issues
was that of personal continuity. Would the same personality live again,
or would life continue in the form of a new personality? The contours
of such debates within the trans-​Atlantic Spiritualist milieu provided
the parameters for Blavatsky’s discussions of metempsychosis.
The present chapter also evaluates the resemblances and distinc-
tions between Blavatsky’s ideas and those of Kardec, which she pub-
licly repudiated. It shows that despite her disavowal, Blavatsky’s
theories couldn’t help having elements in common with French
Spiritism because both Theosophy and French Spiritism emerged
in related discursive contexts. Overall, therefore, the chapter shows
Blavatsky’s rebirth theories must be understood in light of her simul-
taneous reception and rejection of certain specific elements present
in Anglo-​American Spiritualism and French Spiritism. This shows
that there is no straightforward answer to the question of whether
Blavatsky was or was not a Spiritualist, an issue that has preoccupied
more than one historian since the beginnings of the Society.3

Blavatsky and Spiritualism

The beginning of Spiritualism, at least as a public movement, is usually
dated to the Hydesville Rappings of 1848.4 From America, Spiritualism

3
 An early historian of Spiritualism, Frank Podmore, described Theosophy as a ‘vig-
orous offshoot of the spiritualist movement’. Frank Podmore, Studies in Psychical
Research (London:  Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1887), 40. Much more re-
cently, Jeffrey Lavoie has framed Theosophy as ‘A Spiritualist Movement’. Jeffrey D.
Lavoie, The Theosophical Society: The History of a Spiritualist Movement (Boca Raton,
FL: Brown Walker Press, 2012).
4
 This date is problematic, however. As Arthur Vesluis notes, studies that repeat the
idea that Spiritualism began in Hydesville in 1848 echo ‘a long critical tradition of
ignoring European and even American esoteric precedents for these phenomena
of spirit manifestation. In fact, there is a long history of such phenomena in both
Europe and North America.’ See Arthur Versluis, The Esoteric Origins of the American
Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 55.
 Spiritualism 89

quickly spread to Britain, Europe, and beyond.5 Recent studies have

portrayed Spiritualism as a central cultural force related to many other
aspects of nineteenth-​century intellectual and religious life. As Sarah
Wilburn and Tatiana Kontou recently concluded, Spiritualism arose
in the context of ‘a widespread cultural grappling with what it meant
to be a modern individual who was curious, scientifically-​minded,
technologically current, and spiritually advanced’.6 Spiritualism had
no centralised authority or creed and was only loosely organised. The
only belief all Spiritualists could be said to have shared was that it was
possible to contact the dead. Additionally, Spiritualists tended to be-
lieve in spiritual progress in this life as well as after death, and in uni-
versal salvation. Spiritualism developed in Protestant and Catholic
contexts, and many Spiritualists considered themselves Christian, al-
though Spiritualism could exist in non-​and even anti-​Christian forms
too.7 American and British Spiritualists had a propensity to deny re-
incarnation. Spiritism—​the French variety of Spiritualism based on the
thought of Allan Kardec—​had features in common with British and
American varieties but it also had some distinct characteristics, notably
a strong proclivity towards reincarnationism.

5
 An excellent recent study is Cathy Gutierrez, Plato’s Ghost. For a short summary, see
Gutierrez, ‘Spiritualism: Communication with the Dead’, Religion Compass 4, no. 12
(2010).
6
  Tatiana Kontou and Sarah Wilburn, Ashgate Research Companion to Nineteenth-​
Century Spiritualism and the Occult (Farnham and Burlington:  Ashgate, 2012),
4. For some, this grappling led in progressive directions, and Spiritualism has typ-
ically been depicted as a democratic, populist, and feminist movement, closely as-
sociated with reform agendas such a vegetarianism, abolitionism, dress reform, and
women’s rights. For example, see Alex Owen, The Darkened Room:  Women, Power,
and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England (London:  Virago Press, 1989) and Anne
Braude, Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women’s Rights in Nineteenth-​Century America
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1989). However, Spiritualism was by no means homogenous,
and, as Christine Ferguson has emphasised, it incorporated a wide spectrum of pol-
itical identifications, including the conservative and even the highly reactionary. See
Christine Ferguson, ‘Recent Studies in Nineteenth-​Century Spiritualism’, Literature
Compass 9, no. 6 (2012), 432.
7
  In Britain, anti-​Christian Spiritualism was associated with a working-​class, secu-
larist context, especially in the north of England. On Christian and non-​Christian
Spiritualism, see Oppenheim, The Other World, 63–​110.
90 Recycled Lives

Towards the end of the 1870s, when Blavatsky published Isis Unveiled
in New  York, about two decades had passed since the highpoint of
American enthusiasm for Spiritualism. Nevertheless, it was still very
popular. During the early 1870s, Blavatsky’s attitude had been equivocal.
Already in 1872 she had expressed serious reservations, claiming the
spirits contacted were not real spirits but empty shells from which the
immortal component had departed.8 This position denigrated séance
phenomena and denied Spiritualist interpretations of them. However,
in a letter to the Russian Spiritualist A. N. Aksakoff in 1874, she re-
ferred to Spiritualistic phenomena as resulting from the actions of ‘the
spirits of the departed’, an interpretation that could be interpreted as
consistent with Spiritualist perspectives.9 She also referred to herself as
a Spiritualist.10 Nevertheless, in the same year, she wrote to her rela-
tives, ‘The more I see of Spiritualistic séances in this cradle and hotbed
of Spiritualism and mediums, the more clearly I realise how dangerous
they are for humanity.’11 Despite this, in 1878, she once again described
herself as a Spiritualist.12 This was an ambiguous assortment of state-
ments that may have depended on to whom she was writing. It re-
flected the fact that Blavatsky was as indebted to Spiritualism as she
was critical of it.

Blavatsky and French Spiritism

Blavatsky’s bugbear was reincarnation as taught in French Spiritism.
Spiritist reincarnationism had roots in previous European theories,

8
 ‘Their spirits are no spirits but spooks—​rags, the cast-​off second skins of their per-
sonalities that the dead shed in the astral light.’ Letter to her relatives, c. March or early
April 1872, in Blavatsky, Letters, 20.
9
 Letter to A. N. Aksakoff, 28 October 1874, in Blavatsky, Letters, 34. Aksakoff was a
prominent Russian Spiritualist. See Carlson, No Religion Higher, 24.
10
 Letter to H. S. Olcott, Oct/​Nov 1874, in Blavatsky, Letters, 36.
11
 Letter to her relatives, 1874, in Blavatsky, Letters, 52.
12
 ‘While the Spiritualist and the Banner of Light in days past have classed me as a non
Spiritualist, the “Indian Daily News” of Calcutta and various secular papers in other
countries abuse me and my book for its author being a “Spiritualist”!! This is comical
and perplexing. I am a Spiritualist, but of another sort, and I flatter myself of a little
more philosophical sort.’ Letter to P.  C. Mitra, 10 April 1878, in Blavatsky, Letters,
410–​411.
 Spiritualism 91

such as that of the Swiss naturalist and philosopher Charles Bonnet

(1720–​1793), who proposed a theory of palingenesis, understood as re-
generation on a series of planetary worlds. Bonnet’s ideas were adopted
by the French philosopher Pierre-​Simon Ballanche (1776–​1847), and
Ballanche, in turn, influenced the early nineteenth-​century French so-
cialist Saint-​Simonians Pierre Leroux (1797–​1871) and Jean Reynaud
(1806–​1863), who argued that successive lives could occur on Earth or
other planets.13 French Spiritism drew on these currents but went much
further in popularising reincarnation belief.
Allan Kardec (1804–​1869) was the pen name of Frenchman Hippolyte
Léon Denizard Rivail, author of (among others) Le livre des esprits (The
Spirits’ Book, 1857) and Le livre des médiums (The Mediums’ Book, 1861).14
He was also editor of the journal Revue Spirite. According to Kardec,
the universe was populated with spirits living in the spirit world. These
spirits would repeatedly incarnate on Earth or other planets in increas-
ingly better conditions. Incarnation was seen as an aid to the spiritual
and moral progress of spirits, who would eventually evolve to perfection
and experience a state of pure bliss. According to the ‘law of progress’,
only improvement was possible, never deterioration. Thus, human re-
incarnation would always take place in another human form, never as
an animal, and animals could never evolve into humans. They were a
separate kingdom and evolved within that kingdom. The speed of evo-
lutionary progress was said to depend on a spirit’s efforts, and reincar-
nation was supposed to explain the diversity of aptitudes and abilities
in humans as well as the conditions into which they incarnated.
As Lynn Sharp has argued, Kardec’s reincarnationism was part of
a secular version of spirituality popular with those who favoured sci-
ence (perhaps to the detriment of Catholicism) but who nevertheless
retained a religious outlook. Sharp described the development of this
secular spirituality as quintessentially modern.15 She noted that believers

13
  See Arthur McCalla, ‘Palingenesie philosophique to Palingenesie sociale: From a
Scientific Ideology to a Historical Ideology’, Journal of the History of Ideas 55, no. 3
(July 1994) and Lynn L. Sharp, Secular Spirituality:  Reincarnation and Spiritism in
Nineteenth-​Century France (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006).
14
 Allan Kardec, Le livre des esprits (Paris: E. Dentu, 1857) and Le livre des médiums
(Paris: Didier et cie, 1861).
15
 Sharp, Secular Spirituality, xii.
92 Recycled Lives

found reincarnation consoling, and Spiritists used it to argue for social

and political change.

Believers in reincarnation imagined an evolutionary, perfectible soul,

improving as it moved through a series of lives. [. . .] As humans pro-
gressed towards perfection, they would also become less selfish, more
able to create a society that recognized the needs, rights, and interests
of all, including the working class and especially women.16

However, as John Warne Monroe has submitted, although the

reincarnationism of Kardec was felt by many to be consoling, it didn’t
aim for social and political change in any revolutionary sense, but ra-
ther a gradual betterment that would result naturally from spiritual
progress. Kardec adapted romantic socialist notions of reincarnation
such as those of Leroux and Reynaud but gave his ideas a broader ap-
peal by eliminating the revolutionary implications reincarnationism
had acquired in the 1840s. Rather than being an incentive for rebel-
lion, reincarnation now became, for Kardec, a way of justifying ex-
isting inequalities. The idea was that the rich would eventually become
more compassionate and generous and a redistribution of wealth would
occur naturally, without recourse to revolution. Additionally, social in-
equality was said to serve a purpose. Conditions experienced during life
depended on past sins, which had to be atoned in the present incarna-
tion for progression to take place.17 As Kardec summarised, ‘spiritism
revives faith in the future, raises the courage of those who are depressed,
and enables us to bear the vicissitudes of life with resignation.’18

16
 Ibid., xv.
17
 John Warne Monroe, Laboratories of Faith: Mesmerism, Spiritualism, and Occultism
in Modern France (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 2008), 106–​107
and John Warne Monroe, ‘Crossing Over:  Allan Kardec and the Transnationalism
of Modern Spiritualism’, in Handbook of Spiritualism and Channeling, ed. Cathy
Gutierrez (Leiden: Brill, 2015).
18
  Allan Kardec, The Spirits Book, trans Anna Blackwell (Boston:  Colby and Rich,
1875), 413.
 Spiritualism 93

French Spiritism had arrived in Russia by 1854.19 Since educated

Russians commonly spoke French (Blavatsky included), French
Spiritism was especially accessible to them. Blavatsky had been fa-
miliar with Spiritism at least from the early 1870s, and probably earlier.
In 1871, she established a Société Spirite in Cairo for the investigation
of phenomena according to the philosophy of Allan Kardec.20 When
visiting Paris in 1873, she stayed with the prominent Spiritists the
Leymaries.21 Joscelyn Godwin observed that despite her antagonism
towards Spiritism, all her known Parisian contacts were Spiritists.22
Blavatsky commented on this:

I find fault with [Spiritists] for one thing [. . .] they are reincarnationists
and zealous missionaries for the same. They could never do any-
thing with me in that way, so they gave me up in disgust. But we
are still friends with Mr and Madame Leymarie who are both of
them highly cultured people and—​truthful and sincere as gold. [. . .]
Prince Wittgenstein is an old friend of my youth, but has become
a reincarnationist, so we had a fight, or two for it and parted half
friends half enemies.23

What was it Blavatsky found so objectionable? The major point of dis-

agreement was the identity of the individual who reincarnated. Kardec
was adamant that death and rebirth didn’t result in any change of
identity; the being who died was the same who was reborn. Blavatsky
disagreed, arguing that the same spirit would be reborn with a new
personality and body. According to Kardec, during incarnation, a
human being was constituted of body, soul (or spirit), and the link

19
 It was introduced by General Apollon Boltin. Carlson, No Religion, 23.
20
 Godwin, Theosophical Enlightenment, 279.
21
  Joscelyn Godwin, The Beginnings of Theosophy in France (London:  Theosophical
History, 1989), 4–​6.
22
 Ibid., 7.
23
 Letter to H. Corson, 20 March 1875, in Blavatsky, Letters, 113–​114.
94 Recycled Lives

uniting soul and body, known as the périsprit.24 The périsprit played a
role in the continuity of the person’s identity through incarnations.25
At death, the ‘soul’ (in Kardec, the highest principle) would disengage
and enter a state of confusion before re-​entering the world of spirits,
where it awaited a new incarnation after spending some time as a wan-
dering spirit, before reincarnating. Although Blavatsky’s spiritual an-
thropology reflected Kardec’s, Blavatsky used the three principles to
argue the person who was reborn was fundamentally different to the
one who died: only the highest element (in Blavatsky, the ‘spirit’) was
immortal and continued from life to life. The other principles, namely,
the soul and the body, were usually only attached to the spirit for the
duration of one life on Earth. Furthermore, in Kardec, reincarnation
happened relatively quickly. In Blavatsky, it would happen only after
many centuries.
Wouter Hanegraaff argued Kardec’s Spiritism ‘combined two things
resented by Blavatsky:  popular spiritualism [.  .  .] and a pronounced
Christian emphasis’. Considering the competition between Spiritism
and Theosophy, it made sense for Blavatsky to denounce the sup-
posedly vulgar Spiritist doctrine of reincarnation in favour of a more
sophisticated Theosophical perspective.26 This interpretation is con-
sistent with Stephen Prothero’s contention that Theosophy began as
an elite attempt to reform what the founders considered a lowbrow
Spiritualism. According to Prothero, Blavatsky (and Olcott) hoped to
‘uplift’ the Spiritualist ‘masses out of their supposed philosophical and
moral vulgarities’.27 During the earlier period, this had involved a de-
nial of Kardecist reincarnation and affirmation of metempsychosis.28

24
 This is normally invisible but it may appear in exceptional circumstances, such as in
the case of apparitions.
25
 ‘How does the soul preserve the consciousness of its individuality, since it no longer
has its material body?’ the imaginary enquirer asked in Kardec’s text. The answer: ‘It
still has a fluid peculiar to itself, which it draws from the atmosphere of its planet, and
which represents the appearance of its last incarnation—​its perispirit.’ Allan Kardec,
The Spirits Book, trans Anna Blackwell (Boston: Colby and Rich, 1875), 63.
26
 Hanegraaff, New Age Religion, 481.
27
  Stephen Prothero, ‘From Spiritualism to Theosophy:  “Uplifting” a Democratic
Tradition’, Religion and American Culture 3, no. 2, 198.
28
  For a denial of Kardec’s ideas consistent with the theory of metempsychosis, see
‘Fragments from Madame Blavatsky’. Blavatsky’s article was first published in Kardec’s
 Spiritualism 95

In the later reincarnationist period, Blavatsky still repudiated French

Spiritism, even though it may, superficially, have seemed as though she
had come around to it because she had started affirming the truth of
reincarnation.

British and American Spiritualism

Across the English Channel and even further, across the Atlantic, the
situation was somewhat different to that in France. Kardec’s ideas were
made accessible to an English-​speaking audience by such translations as
Emma Wood’s The Book on Mediums (1874)29 and Anna Blackwell’s The
Spirits’ Book (1875). Blackwell also advocated reincarnation belief in such
works as The Philosophy of Existence: The Testimony of the Ages (1871). Be
that as it may, in Britain and America, Spiritualists tended to deny re-
incarnation on Earth, believing instead in the progress of the soul from
one level to another. The soul was believed to work out its faults before
moving on in an indefinite series of worlds, each one higher and more
perfect than the one before.30 The first major American theologian of
Spiritualism, Andrew Jackson Davis (1826–​1910), elaborated a non-​
reincarnationist notion of evolutionary planetary ascent that was in-
fluential and reminiscent of Blavatsky’s metempsychosis.31 Describing

periodical, La Revue Spirite, in April 1878. For a refutation of Kardec consistent with
her later reincarnation doctrine, see Blavatsky, ‘The Teachings of Allan Kardec’, The
Theosophist 4, no. 11 (August 1883), 281.
29
 Allan Kardec, The Book on Mediums Or; Guide for Mediums and Invocators, trans.
Emma Wood (Boston: Colby and Rich, 1874).
30
 Oppenheim, The Other World, 170.
31
 Davis endorsed the ‘beautiful laws of progression and development’, according to
which mankind would progress, after death, through concentric spheres of increasing
refinement surrounding the Earth until they reached the seventh sphere. He was in-
fluenced by the Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–​1772), who claimed to
have discussed the inhabitants of other planets with spirits. Among Blavatsky’s source
texts, The Unseen Universe (1875) by the physicists Balfour Stewart and Peter Guthrie
Tait referred to Swedenborg’s accounts of different planets and their dwellers. Balfour
Stewart and Peter Guthrie Tait, The Unseen Universe, or, Physical Speculations on a
Future State (New York: Macmillan, 1875), 38–​42. Blavatsky was aware of Swedenborg’s
visions but she didn’t take them too seriously. ‘[Swedenborg] saw, in “the first Earth
of the astral world”, inhabitants dressed as are the peasants in Europe; and on the Fourth
96 Recycled Lives

seven spheres, Davis wrote, the ‘first Sphere is that of the natural world,
the habitable earths of the planets, the circle of manifested things.’ Like
Blavatsky, Davis believed in multiple ‘earths’ or planets on which life
could exist. He maintained that after death on the physical planet, a
second sphere would be reached. This was the ‘Summerland’, which
contained ‘all the beauties of the first [sphere], combined and per-
fected’, gardens, unity, and celestial love.32 From the second sphere,
rebirth would take place on increasingly lovely spheres.33 The seventh
sphere was described as the ‘Infinite Vortex of love and wisdom and
the Great Spiritual Sun of the Divine Mind’.34 Davis insisted that no
matter how advanced, individuals would not merge into one another
or into the Divine. They would retain their own separate identities.35
During roughly the thirty years before the publication of Isis Unveiled
in 1877, his works provided theoretical foundations for Anglo-​American
Spiritualist discussions of after-​death states, which generally affirmed
post-​mortem progress and denied reincarnation.
Despite the broad non-​ or even anti-​reincarnationist consensus in
the English-​speaking world, Spiritualists debated the issue at length,
as evidenced in the Spiritualist periodical press. The following ex-
ample is taken from the London Spiritualist periodical The Medium
and Daybreak, which published the following letter on 23 April 1875:

‘To the Editor.—​Sir,—​I was pleased to see in last week’s MEDIUM

that the doctrines of metempsychosis and re-​incarnation have been
made the subject of consideration by Dr. Sexton [ . . . ] the doctrine
of re-​incarnation is a distinct contravention of [the great law of pro-
gress] and of the fundamental truth of Spiritualism, [ . . . ] To intro-
duce doctrines like those of re-​incarnation and metempsychosis in
any connection with Spiritualism, is to obscure its great philosophy,

Earth women clad as are the shepherdesses in a bal masque.’ Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine
II, 33.
32
  The Harmonial Philosophy:  A Compendium of the Works of Andrew Jackson Davis,
edited by A Doctor of Hermetic Science (London: William Rider, 1923) , 138–​139.
33
 Ibid., 140–​143.
34
 Ibid., 144.
35
 Ibid., 120.
 Spiritualism 97

and create those sectarian differences which have proved the weak-
ness of dogmatic creeds.—​’I remain, Sir, yours faithfully, S. E. G-​.
Croydon, April 11th, 1875.

The editors appended the following:

We publish the foregoing letter as representative of numerous other

expressions of opinion on the subject to which it refers. Some there
are whose minds receive this peculiar doctrine recently brought for-
ward in Mrs. Tappan’s discourses. The great majority of English
Spiritualists discard it.36

The two individuals mentioned here in connection with the reincar-

nation debates were Dr. George Sexton (1825–​1898), a popular lecturer
who, for some years, advocated Spiritualism, and Cora Scott Tappan
(1840–​1923), one of the best-​known mediums of the era.37
Dr. Sexton was mentioned again in the July issue of the same peri-
odical, as lecturing on the ‘doctrine of metempsychosis, ancient and
modern’, demonstrating that ‘in modern times, it had turned up in
a somewhat changed form, as advocated first by Fourier and more
recently by Allan Kardec, Miss Blackwell, and other well-​ known

36
  ‘Metempsychosis and Reincarnation’, in Medium and Daybreak 6, no.  264 (23
April 1875), 266. The reference to British druidism is compelling, the notion of Gallic
druidic reincarnationism having been popularised by Jean Reynaud in the early nine-
teenth century in what Lynn Sharp termed a ‘fascinating use of history as nationalist
propaganda’. Sharp, Secular Spirituality, xviii. The idea of druidic reincarnationism
entered French Spiritist discourse via Reynaud, but it existed in British versions too,
as in the extract above, as well as in several of Blavatsky’s sources, which discussed
the reincarnationism of English, Irish, and Gallic druids. See, for example, Richard
Payne-​Knight, The Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology (New York: J. W.
Bouton, 1876), 179 and Godfrey Higgins, Anacalypsis: An Attempt to Draw Aside the
Veil of The Saitic Isis (London: Longman, Rees, Brown, Green and Longman, 1836),
vol. 2, xvi. Blavatsky herself argued for druidic reincarnation in The Secret Doctrine and
in the context of her later doctrines of reincarnation. Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 760.
37
 Cora married four times, each time taking the name of her husband: Hatch, Daniels,
Tappan, and Richmond, and we meet her here during her third marriage. Thanks to
Marc Demarest for helping me identify these figures. For more on George Sexton,
see Timothy Larsen, Crisis of Doubt:  Honest Faith in Nineteenth-​Century England
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 197–​227.
98 Recycled Lives

Spiritualists.’ He concluded with the ‘reasons for rejecting the theory

in all its forms’.38 Cora Scott Tappan reached different conclusions. She
had also lectured at Cavendish Rooms some months previously, on 21
February 1875. The theme had been ‘metempsychosis, various forms of
transmigration and re-​incarnation’. She responded to arguments posed
against reincarnation, saying, in contradistinction to Dr. Sexton, that
since the ancients had all believed in reincarnation, there must be some
truth in it. As Blavatsky would later maintain, Mrs. Tappan argued for
the need to ‘unlock’ these ancient teachings, particularly because of the
dangers of materialism and mistranslation.
Mrs. Tappan went on to outline a theory in which individuals were
dual, possessing a personality, which distinguished them from one an-
other, and an identity, meaning ‘the actual individual consciousness of
the soul itself ’. She described the soul’s progression:

[the soul] passes through the regular succession of cherubim,

seraphim, archangelic and angelic hosts, down through the spiritual
spheres of soul existence until it reaches a planet, this earth being, of
course, only one of many planets and not being especially selected
for its age or spiritual advancement, but being in progress of devel-
opment under the administration of souls, angels, and divinities.39

A particularly striking parallel between Mrs. Tappan’s and Blavatsky’s

early thought appeared in the following section of the article:

All souls must have equal opportunities in eternity. [. . .] Since all
souls do not have equal opportunities in a single expression of life,
since some die in infancy and other have maimed, deformed, and
useless bodies, [. . .] Every soul in the great cycles of eternity must
have equal opportunities of advancement to perfection.40

38
 ‘Dr Sexton at Cavendish Rooms’, Medium and Daybreak 6, no. 275 (9 July 1875), 439.
39
  ‘Metempsychosis:  Mrs. Tappan’s Oration at Cavendish Rooms’, Medium and
Daybreak (26 February 1875), 138.
40
 Tappan, Metempsychosis, 138.
 Spiritualism 99

Mrs. Tappan here displayed the same concern as Blavatsky did in both
her rebirth doctrines that cases of child death or deficiency were simply
not fair and that something would be adjusted to compensate for them.

Emma Hardinge Britten

Closely associated with the early Theosophical Society and present at
the founding meeting, the British medium Emma Hardinge Britten
presented tenets very similar to the metempsychosis of Blavatsky’s early
period.41 John Patrick Deveney highlighted the striking similarities be-
tween Britten’s views on rebirth and Blavatsky’s early teachings, showing,
for example, that they both discussed human gestation and even resem-
bled each other on a verbal level, both mentioning the ‘pilgrim’.42 The
notion of ‘discarded shells’, a prominent theme in Blavatsky’s writings,
was also present in Britten, who described an apparition as an ‘astral
shell’, not a true ‘departed spirit’.43
Britten’s views on reincarnation are stated most explicitly in an
article she published in the Boston Spiritualist periodical over which
Blavatsky and Olcott had much influence, The Spiritual Scientist, edited
by E. Gerry Brown (1849–​1928). In her article, Britten referred to re-
incarnation as an ‘obnoxious and repulsive side issue’ that had been
‘ruthlessly engrafted upon the pure and fruitful soil of Spiritualism’.
She elaborated that although Cora Scott Tappan now affirmed reincar-
nation, she had previously taught ‘endless spiritual progression’ and that
her past utterances contained not ‘the least allusion to the doctrine of

41
 In her two major works, Ghost Land and Art Magic (both 1876), Britten claimed
that the real author was a living person she had known for a long time who went
under the alias of Chevalier Louis de B—​. Robert Mathiesen identified the Chevalier
as Ernst Christian Ludwig von Bunsen (1819–​1903), a member of an occult society
known as the ‘Orphic Circle’, for which Emma had been a mesmeric subject as a
child. Robert Mathiesen, The Unseen Worlds of Emma Hardinge Britten: Some Chapters
in the History of Western Occultism (Fullerton:  Theosophical History, 2001), 26–​32.
See Emma Hardinge Britten, Ghost Land; Or Researches into the Mysteries of Occultism
(Boston: Published for the editor, 1876) and Art Magic (New York: Published by the
author, 1876).
42
 See Deveney, Randolph, 35f.
43
 Britten, Ghost Land, 60.
100 Recycled Lives

Re-​incarnation’.44 Britten objected to Mrs. Tappan’s turnaround in the

strongest terms, objecting that ‘countless millions’ of spirits commu-
nicating through other channels had no knowledge of Re-​incarnation
and even emphatically denied it.45 She concluded, ‘the theory of Re-​
incarnation, to my apprehension, [is] a doctrine more loathsome, hor-
rible and repulsive than even annihilation itself.’46
Britten summarised her position on what actually did take place after
death in one of her major and most influential works, Art Magic (1876):

Man lives on many earths before he reaches this. Myriads of worlds

swarm in space where the soul in rudimental states performs its
pilgrimages ere he reaches the large and shining planet named the
Earth, the glorious function of which is to confer self-​consciousness.
At this point only is he man; at every other stage of his vast, wild
journey he is but an embryonic being—​a fleeting, temporary shape
of matter—​a creature in which a part, but only a part, of the high,
imprisoned soul shines forth; a rudimental shape, with rudimental
functions, ever living, dying, sustaining a fleeting, spiritual exist-
ence, as rudimental as the material shape from whence it emerged;
a butterfly, springing up from the chrysolitic shell, but ever as it on-
ward rushes, in new births, new deaths, new incarnations, anon to
die and live again, but still stretch upward, still strive onward, still
rush on the giddy, dreadful, toilsome, rugged path, until it awakens
once more—​once more to live and be a material shape, a thing of
dust, a creature of flesh and blood, but now—​a man.47

Blavatsky quoted this passage in Isis Unveiled, confirming the similarity

between her early views and those of Britten.48 However, although

44
 Emma Hardinge Britten, ‘The Doctrine of Re-​Incarnation’, The Spiritual Scientist 2,
no. 11 (20 May 1875), 128.
45
 Ibid., 129.
46
 Ibid., 140.
47
 Britten. Art Magic, 28. The account supposedly came from the Sanskrit automatic
writing of a twelve-​year-​old Hindu girl. Deveney quoted the extract as it appears in Isis
Unveiled in Randolph, 269. There are some small typographical errors in the Blavatsky
version, such as ‘flitting’ for ‘fleeting’.
48
 Blavatsky, Isis I, 368.
 Spiritualism 101

Britten’s and Blavatsky’s early views were very similar, they were not
identical. In contradistinction to Blavatsky (who claimed immortality
had to be won on Earth otherwise annihilation would result), Britten’s
writings claimed annihilation was impossible because the human being
was intrinsically self-​conscious and immortal.49

Paschal Beverly Randolph

Britten’s and Blavatsky’s views on post-​mortem progression had fur-
ther parallels in those of Paschal Beverly Randolph, a black American
Spiritualist and magician significantly influenced by Andrew Jackson
Davies who was notorious for his magic mirrors and sexual practices.50
Randolph and Blavatsky hardly mentioned one another, but Randolph’s
biographer, John Patrick Deveney, concluded there was an ‘elusive
and indirect relationship’ between them.51 In Dealings with the Dead;
The Human Soul, Its Migrations, and Transmigrations (1862) and its se-
quel, After Death; Or; Disembodied Man (1868), Randolph described
his visions and cosmology. He referred to souls as monads or ‘human
seeds’. (Britten had written of ‘germ-​seeds’.) According to Randolph,
there was a perpetual flow of these ‘world-​souls’ and ‘monads’ from the
‘Fountain’, incarnating on every ‘perfected earth in the universe’ as in-
telligent, deathless beings.52 Randolph explained matter was ‘alive with
imprisoned Spirit’ because it contained these monads, which sought to
escape their bonds in matter by travelling through the various stages of
mineral, plant, and animal life until they reached the human level.53 He

49
 Britten, Ghost Land, 318–​320.
50
 Randolph didn’t mention Britten by name, and Britten only mentioned him once,
and slightingly, in her history, Modern American Spiritualism (New York: Published by
the author, 1870), 242. See Deveney, Randolph, 35. Randolph didn’t mention Blavatsky
either. Olcott was certainly familiar with Randolph’s works before he developed a
friendship with Blavatsky and gave them to her as gifts. Apparently, she read and
valued them, although she hardly mentioned Randolph. Ibid., 260.
51
 Ibid., 253, 257–​258.
52
 Paschal Beverly Randolph, After Death; or; Disembodied Man (Boston: Printed for
the Author, 1868), 89.
53
 In a visionary account, Randolph described the transmigrations of his own monad
as it travelled together with others from its home in a fiery comet that cooled into
a world that was shaken by an earthquake freeing the monads from the granite in
102 Recycled Lives

referred to the process as ‘the great law of Transmigration’ and claimed

it explained the similarities between humans and animals.54 When the
monad reached the human level, it would be born intrinsically im-
mortal. (In this, Randolph agreed with Britten but disagreed with
Blavatsky, who argued immortality had to be won.) Nevertheless, he
echoed Blavatsky’s idea that the embryo developed in utero according to
stages corresponding to its previous transmigrations through plant and
animal forms.55 After death, the individual would find a new home ‘in
the starry heavens’, where they would learn ‘lessons far more important
than any ever studied here’.56 He elaborated on these starry heavens,
describing them as ‘spiritual belts’ around planets, the sun, the solar
system, and even the galaxy.57 After death, progress would continue in
the zones surrounding the Earth (or any other planet on which monads

which they were housed, allowing them to change their outer form into that of moss.
From moss, the monads became plants of increasingly ‘higher character’, followed
by lower and higher forms of fish, reptiles, birds, mammals, apes, and finally dif-
ferent types of human, including Negros, Indians, and Chinese and leading up to
the final three: ‘Gaul, Briton, and American!’ (The exclamation point is original, and
seems apt.) Randolph, Dealings with the Dead; The Human Soul, Its Migrations and
Transmigrations (Utica, NY: M. J. Randolph, 1861–​1862), 45–​48.
54
 It was not the case that humans had previously been animals, but rather that their
monads had transmigrated by associating themselves with animals. ‘Dogs and owls
were originally made in order that the human monad, in passing a sort of gestation
period in them, might be ripened slowly, and prepared for what he is now.’ Ibid.,
Dealings, 205.
55
 ‘The foetus [. . .] rapidly passes through a series of strange mutations, successively re-
sembling bird, beast, and simia (apes), until finally the strictly human plane is reached
[. . .] if the foetus dies before it has reached the strictly human body, it dies forever, and
its monad escapes, because it requires the chemical and other properties of the human
body to properly elaborate the human spirit and fashion it for eternity. But if that
human shape be reached before it dies in the womb, then that it is a true child, and
is, of course, immortal, for it, though weak, survived the physical death.’ Randolph,
After Death, 55–​56. This was an interpretation of recapitulationism, the contemporary
scientific theory that the human embryo passes through stages of development that
correlate to the stages of that organism’s evolutionary development.
56
 Randolph, After Death, 29. The notion of ‘starry heavens’ is reminiscent of Thomas
Lake Harris’s work, An Epic of the Starry Heaven (New York: Partridge and Brittan,
1855). In Dealings with the Dead, Randolph acknowledged his admiration for Harris.
Randolph, Dealings, 254.
57
 Randolph, After Death, 29.
 Spiritualism 103

incarnated), situated beyond the outer limits of the Earth’s atmospheric

envelope. From there, the monad would progress to the third stage, on
‘the solar belt’, and the fourth, in the ‘zone which engirdles the entire
solar system’. The fifth stage would take place in the zone encircling the
star cluster to which the solar system belonged, and the sixth would be
on ‘an immense belt or zone that surrounds another dark sun’. Finally,
the seventh stage would take place in a belt surrounding entire gal-
axies and crossing the Milky Way at right angles.58 The similarities to
Blavatsky’s seven spheres are clear, but there were differences too, as
Blavatsky never described the spheres in this way.
Significantly, like Britten, Blavatsky, and Mrs. Tappan, Randolph
discussed the issue of ‘special cases’ such as the deaths of foetuses and
idiots.59 In After Death, Randolph didn’t postulate that in such special
cases reincarnation would take place as Blavatsky had, but rather that
in some instances, the individual would be immortal and in others not.
He gave various details and included consideration of groups Blavatsky
had not discussed, such as murderers and prostitutes. His style and
some of his conclusions were different to Blavatsky’s, but the echoes
with Blavatsky and Mrs. Tappan were undeniable.60 Finally, a note-
worthy difference of perspective was that Randolph considered the idea
of the ultimate absorption of the spirit to be problematic and undesir-
able.61 Clearly, this was an issue that divided the Spiritualist commu-
nity, and one on which Blavatsky and Randolph did not agree.

58
 There were also six more grand zones just like the seventh zone. The transcendent
glories of the first grand zone were said to ‘exceed the power of a seraph to describe’
and in the other six, ‘there is absolutely nothing whatever resembling anything per-
taining to the first’. Ibid., 90–​92.
59
 Deveney, Randolph, 278.
60
 Randolph’s full discussion can be found in After Death, 54f.
61
 ‘Immortality can be the prerogative of man only so long as God and man are not
blended into one single Personality. So long as each soul shall think, feel, suffer, enjoy,
cogitate and have a continuity of self-​knowing, just so long will it be possessed of an
invincible conviction of personal identity, under which circumstance alone, and only,
can its immortality be truly predicated and affirmed. But, should any soul ever be re-​
absorbed into Deity—​again become a portion of Divinity—​an utter, total, and com-
plete annihilation of the individual must ensue; and that destruction of the human
self-​hood would be [. . .] effective, utter and complete.’ Randolph, Dealings, 166.
104 Recycled Lives

The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor

Godwin, Chanel, and Deveney identified the Hermetic Brotherhood
of Luxor (H. B. of L.) as a possible connection between Blavatsky and
Randolph. The H. B. of L. was an organisation teaching practical oc-
cultism through a correspondence course that began its public work in
1884 but may have been in existence, in one form or another, for much
longer.62 The H. B. of L. started functioning within a ‘small Randolphian
coterie already existing in England’.63 It had many influential members
and its ideas impacted on subsequent esoteric movements.64 A docu-
ment on reincarnation circulated as part of the H. B. of L. correspond-
ence course, but this has not survived. Deveney reconstructed it using
extracts from The Light of Egypt (1889) by Thomas Henry Burgoyne,
born Thomas Dalton (1855–​1895). Burgoyne had acted as a medium
for the entities considered the founders of the H. B. of L.65 The Light
of Egypt was based on the teachings of the H. B. of L. and broke its se-
crecy.66 Just as in early Blavatsky, the document denied reincarnation,
saying it was a poisonous doctrine and ‘the true Hindu and Buddhist
religions’ didn’t teach it.67 Instead, the H. B. of L. proposed a theory
much like Blavatsky and Randolph’s:

Thus we see the atom of life commencing at the mineral in the ex-
ternal world. The grand spiral of its evolutionary life is carried for-
ward slowly, imperceptibly, but always progressively. [. . .] The soul
in rudimental states performs its pilgrimages until its cyclic progress

62
  The H.  B.  of L.  became public with the appearance of a discreet advertisement
requesting potential members to make contact. Godwin, Chanel, and Deveney, The
Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, 3.
63
 Ibid., 44.
64
  Ibid., ix. Amongst its leaders were Peter Davidson (1842–​1916), who may have
been initiated by Randolph (and responsible for incorporating his teachings into the
curriculum), and the Reverend William Ayton (1816–​1909). Godwin, Theosophical
Enlightenment, 258, 351.
65
 Godwin, Chanel, and Deveney, The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor,  4–​5.
66
  Joscelyn Godwin, The Beginnings of Theosophy in France (London:  Theosophical
History Centre, 1989), 19; Godwin, Chanel, and Deveney, The Hermetic Brotherhood
of Luxor, 38.
67
 Godwin, Theosophical Enlightenment, 358, 360.
 Spiritualism 105

enables it to reach the magnificently organised planet whose glorious

function it is to confer upon the soul self-​consciousness. At this point
alone does it become man. At every other step of the wild, cosmic
journey it is but an embryonic being. [. . .] The grand, self-​conscious
stage, humanity, is attained, and the climax of earthly incarnation is
reached. Never again will it enter the material matrix or suffer the
pains of material incarnation. Henceforth its rebirths are in the realm
of spirit. Those who hold the strangely illogical doctrine of a multi-
plicity of human births have certainly never evolved the lucid state of
soul consciousness within themselves.68

The H.  B.  of L.  document on reincarnation contained another per-

tinent extract:

Each race of human beings is immortal in itself; so likewise is each

round. The first round never becomes the second, but those belonging
to the first round become the parents or originators of the second so
that each round constitutes a great planetary family which contains
within itself races, sub-​races and still minor groups of human souls;
each state being formed by the laws of its karma, and the laws of its
form and the laws of its affinity—​a trinity of laws.69

This bears a marked similarity to Blavatsky’s theory of the root races,

which was present in Blavatsky’s later (reincarnationist) works, but not
in the earlier (non-​reincarnationist) ones. This suggests Blavatsky’s later
perspective was also consistent with this current of thought in some
aspects, even though she changed her mind about reincarnation. As we
have already seen several times, despite Blavatsky’s change of doctrinal
direction, there were important continuities between her earlier and
her later views.

68
 Godwin, Chanel, and Deveney, The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, 189–​191.
69
 Ibid., 192.
106 Recycled Lives

Conclusions
It is undeniable there were strong similarities between Blavatsky’s early
doctrine of metempsychosis and the teachings of Britten, Randolph,
and the H. B. of L. Small but significant differences were present too,
such as the question of whether the being who incarnates on Earth is
intrinsically immortal or has to win immortality during life. Blavatsky’s
views were not identical to those of Britten et al., although this remains
the current with which her early ideas had the most in common. The
exact relationship between the different proponents remains elusive
but, as Deveney has shown, it is clear there was some sort of (possibly
mutual) influence. This was the ‘immediate family’ of Blavatsky’s met-
empsychosis. The ‘extended family’ included Andrew Jackson Davis,
Mrs. Tappan, Dr. Sexton, and other British and American Spiritualists.
They tended to believe in the participation of higher beings in human
progress, and differentiated between metempsychosis and reincarna-
tion, approving or disapproving of one or the other. Some highlighted
ancient reincarnationist currents and some even affirmed belief in ‘ex-
ceptional circumstances’ in which normal processes were supervened.
When Blavatsky embraced the idea of a normative return to Earth-​
life around 1882, she had not turned to Kardec’s Spiritism. The ten-
sion between Blavatsky’s teachings (first metempsychosis, later,
reincarnation) and Kardec’s reincarnationist Spiritism was constant
despite changes in perspective. In both her metempsychosis and her
reincarnation-​affirming periods, Blavatsky referred to and incorpor-
ated Spiritist ideas and terminology (such as the périsprit), but she also
denied central Spiritualist tenets (e.g., immediate reincarnation, the
return of the same personality). Theosophy and Spiritism came from
related discursive worlds, but there was a constant strain between them;
Spiritism was the extended family member with whom Blavatsky did
not get on and never had.
Stephen Prothero’s observation that the Theosophists aimed to
‘uplift’ Spiritualism was astute. If the proposition of metempsychosis
had already been part of Blavatsky’s attempt to ‘uplift’ the dogmas of
Spiritualism into something more sophisticated, then her later theory
of reincarnation endeavoured to ‘raise’ them even higher, by offering
a resplendent vision of a fractal cosmos of reincarnating planets,
 Spiritualism 107

solar systems, and universes. One of the ways Blavatsky probably

felt she was raising the tone of the conversation was through refer-
ence to highbrow topics, such as the ancient Greeks, new scientific
theories, and Oriental religions. In the following chapters, I  show
how Blavatsky’s discussions of reincarnation drew on contemporan-
eous debates related to each of these areas, revealing fundamental
aspects of how Blavatsky transmuted Spiritualist conceptions into
Theosophical ones.
    5
Platonism

Alfred North Whitehead’s statement that the ‘safest general char-

acterisation of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists
of a series of footnotes to Plato’ has often been quoted.1 M. H. Abrams
spoke instead of a long series of footnotes to Plotinus.2
Indebted to Spiritualism but taking her engagement with the Greeks
much further than the Spiritualists generally did, Blavatsky’s discus-
sions of metempsychosis and reincarnation are important—​and hith-
erto unacknowledged—​sites for the intersection of occultist thought
with nineteenth-​century (neo-)Platonism. As I  will demonstrate, her
constructions of the Greeks shifted to reflect her changing rebirth doc-
trines. Her doctrines therefore provide a window into wider historical
issues related to how Classical civilisation was construed during the
period.
In Blavatsky’s rebirth doctrines, both Plato and Plotinus had their
place, especially because, together with Pythagoras, these figures were
often noted as exponents of reincarnation or metempsychosis. Blavatsky
discussed them in this context, and so did many of her sources. She re-
ferred to Pythagoras, Plato, and the various neo-​Platonists much more
frequently in Isis Unveiled than in The Secret Doctrine. In her first major

1
 Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (New York: Free
Press, 1979), 39.
2
  M.  H. Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism:  Tradition and Revolution in Romantic
Literature (New York and London: W. W. Norton 1973), 146–​147.

108
 Platonism 109

work, such references were always interpreted as corroborations of met-

empsychosis and conditional immortality. This makes sense inasmuch
as the term ‘metempsychosis’ is of Greek origin. In Blavatsky’s later
publications, she still occasionally referred to Platonism, but much less
frequently (the main focus having shifted to India) and always in veri-
fication of reincarnation and related ideas such as devachan. Again, this
seems logical: no emphasis on ‘metempsychosis’, a lot less mention of
the Greeks. They hadn’t disappeared completely, however.
Blavatsky’s interest in Hellenism was part of a wider nineteenth-​
century fascination evident in the large number of her source texts
dealing explicitly with ancient Greece. In her works, she discussed
books specifically devoted to the subject, such as Plato und die Alte
Akademie (1876) by the German theologian and philosopher Eduard
Zeller, Mythologie de la Grèce antique (1886) by the French scholar Paul
Decharme, and many others.3 References to Classical philosophy, his-
tory, and civilisation could also be found throughout source texts of
Blavatsky’s that had a broader, usually comparative, scope.4 The rather
long list of books to which Blavatsky referred that made some reference
to the Greeks spanned professional, amateur, scholarly, and heterodox
works that dealt with many different topics. This points towards the
widespread nineteenth-​century interest in the Classics and its inter-
section with various other subjects, especially the comparative study of
religion and mythology.
Certain themes tended to recur in these sources’ discussions of Greek
religious doctrines. The Greeks were said to have taught a theory of

3
  Other sources include B.  F. Cocker, Christianity and Greek Philosophy
(New  York:  Harper and Brothers, 1870) and J. Lempriere [sic], Classical Dictionary
(London: J. Cadell and W. Davies, 1812).
4
  Discussions of Greek philosophy and reincarnation theories can be found in
plenty of these works, including, for example, Samuel Fales Dunlap, Sōd:  The
Son of Man; Sōd:  The Mysteries of Adoni (London:  Williams and Norgate, 1861);
and Vestiges of the Spirit-​History of Man (New  York:  D. Appleton and Company
1858). Also important are:  Joseph Ennemoser, The History of Magic, trans.
William Howitt (London:  George Bell and Sons, 1893); Alexander Winchell,
World Life (Chicago:  S.  C. Griggs and Company, 1883); Isaac Myer, Qabbalah
(Philadelphia:  Published by the author, 1888); and William Howitt, The History of
the Supernatural (London:  Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts and Green, 1863).
Some of these works are listed in Gomes, Bibliography, 150–​177.
110 Recycled Lives

rebirth (referred to as metempsychosis, reincarnation, or transmigra-

tion) in which the body was considered the ‘tomb of the soul’ and
in which repeated return to Earth-​life was said to result in the soul’s
purification. Another theme was a link between the Greeks, Egypt,
and India. Although rooted in ancient sources, the influence of the
East on ancient Greece was a speculation that had become especially
popular since the end of the previous century. The notion was found
throughout Blavatsky’s source texts, and versions of it appeared in the
works of the German-​born Oxford Orientalist Max Müller (1823–​
1900), the French barrister and author Louis Jacolliot (1837–​1890), and
the Tyrolean Mesmerist Joseph Ennemoser (1757–​1854). Other notable
sources to link the Greeks with India include Edward Upham’s The
History and Doctrine of Buddhism (1829) and Edward Pococke’s India in
Greece (1852), but there were many others.
Blavatsky affirmed the influence of India on ancient Greece with en-
thusiasm. ‘Pococke,’ she wrote in Isis Unveiled, ‘in his most ingenious
work, [. . .] endeavours to establish still more firmly the identity of the
Egyptian, Greek, and Indian mythology.’5 She elaborated, the ‘primitive
history of Greece is the primitive history of India’ and concluded, ‘the
primitive history of Judea is a distortion of Indian fable engrafted on that
of Egypt.’6 In other words, the two ‘great civilisations’, as they were per-
ceived in the nineteenth century—​Hellenism and Hebraism—​came from
the same (Indian) source.

Nineteenth-​Century Constructions of the Greeks

The fact that Blavatsky considered it essential to demonstrate that the
ancient Greeks corroborated her teachings points towards the contem-
porary cultural importance of the Classics. Blavatsky’s rebirth theories
must, therefore, be situated within wider nineteenth-​century construc-
tions of the Greeks. Interest in ancient Greece had intensified following
the Enlightenment, first in Germany, and eventually spreading to the

5
 Blavatsky, Isis II, 438.
6
 Ibid., 471.
 Platonism 111

rest of Europe and America.7 This nineteenth-​century interest in (or

even obsession with) the Greco-​Roman Classics has been documented
in some excellent studies, which have focused on various aspects of
scholarship, literature, politics, art, and music.8 They have demon-
strated that a fascination with the Classics was shared by many of the
greatest intellectual, literary, and artistic figures of the century, as well
as by many lesser figures, and indeed by the wider public. Many of the
authors of works on the history of ancient Greece (including Blavatsky’s
source texts) were amateur scholars, and both amateur and professional
scholarship was commonly influenced by the authors’ theological
agendas and ideologies. Nineteenth-​century scholars of Greece be-
lieved their work could have a real impact on contemporary politics,
aesthetics, religion, morals, and other areas of life. Many of them felt a
close kinship with the figures they studied, whom they considered dis-
tant contemporaries.9
Despite the wealth of academic literature on the Greeks in the
nineteenth-​century imagination, no study as yet has been dedicated to
the intersection between the Classics and occultism. Cathy Gutierrez’s
excellent Plato’s Ghost (2009) comes closest by exploring the ‘elective af-
finity’ between Platonic ideas about the nature of the soul, the cosmos,
and education in Spiritualist thought. As Gutierrez argued, although
Spiritualists were not necessarily deeply concerned with Platonism,
they were influenced by Platonic ‘structures of thought’ thanks to new
translations of Plato such as those of Bohn’s Library (begun in 1848),
which made the dialogues and other writings available to middle-​class
people in inexpensive editions.10
Classicism has most commonly been associated with the elite, pol-
itical conservatism, imperialism, and colonialism, and with the prep-
aration of men for the church or other offices of power. Instruction in

7
  Franck M. Turner, The Greek Heritage in Victorian Britain (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1981), 2.
8
 Ibid.; Richard Jenkins, The Victorians and Ancient Greece (Oxford: John Wiley and
Sons, 1981); Simon Goldhill, Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity:  Art, Opera,
Fiction, and the Proclamation of Modernity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011).
9
 Turner, The Greek Heritage, 8 and xii.
10
 Guttierez, Plato’s Ghost,  7–​8.
112 Recycled Lives

the Classics usually involved reading the great works of the established
canon in Greek and Latin, and the study of ancient history. As Franck
Turner noted, ‘General familiarity with the classics was once one of
the distinguishing and self-​defining marks of the social and intellectual
elite of Europe.’11 On the other hand, Classicism could also be associ-
ated with revolutionary and radical ideas. Simon Goldhill highlighted
the challenge posed to traditional Christian faith by the study of crit-
ical history, implicating Classicism (alongside science) in the challenge
faced by conventional forms of Christianity during the nineteenth
century. In Romantic thought, radical tendencies had stood alongside
interest in the Classics from the beginning of the century, for example
in the propensity of some Romantic poets to see a plausible alternative
to Christianity in Greek mythology.12 A little later, this unconventional
attitude was evident in the literary and philosophical movement of
American Transcendentalism, which tended to reject received religion
and embrace ‘natural laws’, the divine spirit in nature, and an intuitive
grasp of truth over and above the purely ‘rational’. From the 1860s,
writers associated with the late-​Romantic aesthetic movement also took
their Hellenism in transgressive directions.13
Blavatsky’s vision of ancient Greece was inclined towards culturally
radical readings. The ‘establishment’ constantly came under fire in her
works and this, for her, meant the Protestant and Catholic churches,
materialist science, and ‘erroneous’ academic scholarship. Like many

11
 Turner, The Greek Heritage, 4.
12
 Ibid.,  77–​78.
13
  Stefano Evangelista’s study of literary aestheticism highlighted Hellenism’s trans-
gressive potential, examining the reception of ancient Greece by writers linked to the
aesthetic movement from the 1860s to the end of the century. The aesthetic movement
included figures such as the English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–​1909);
the English historian, critic, and poet John Addington Symonds (1840–​1893); the
English critic Walter Pater (1839–​1894); and Oscar Wilde (1854–​1900). These men were
all trained in Classics at Oxford, the main centre of classical learning in nineteenth-​
century Britain. Evangelista concluded, ‘the experience of ancient Greece stands at the
very heart of literary aestheticism in its polemical and counter-​cultural identities: it is
to the Greeks that the aesthetes turn to formulate their late-​Romantic theorisation of
the aesthetic as a discourse of dissent from the dominant culture of the mid-​Victorian
decades.’ Stefano Evangelista, British Aestheticism and Ancient Greece:  Hellenism,
Reception, Gods in Exile (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 2.
 Platonism 113

of her contemporaries, Blavatsky identified with the Greeks, but this

was because she considered herself an advocate of the same subver-
sive secret doctrine they had taught. George Mills Harper observed the
neo-​Platonist scholar Thomas Taylor (1758–​1835) had a similar perspec-
tive, believing Plato not to have been the originator of Platonic phil-
osophy but rather the greatest philosopher in a chain in which Taylor
himself was the latest link.14 The similarity between Blavatsky’s and
Taylor’s perspectives is not surprising, since the influence of Taylor on
Blavatsky was both direct and indirect. In addition to reading Taylor’s
works, his ideas were also mediated through a prominent early friend
of Blavatsky’s, the American physician and Platonist Alexander Wilder,
himself a representative of an American Platonic tradition that we will
consider presently.
Another important figure in Theosophical Classicism was George
Robert Stowe Mead (1863–​1933). Mead studied Classics at Cambridge,
taking his BA in 1884, and reading Sinnett’s recently published intro-
duction to Theosophical doctrines, Esoteric Buddhism (1883) while still
at university. He joined the Theosophical Society the same year, be-
coming Blavatsky’s private secretary in 1889. By the time Mead took on
this role, Blavatsky had already published The Secret Doctrine (1888), but
she continued writing. Mead assisted her, holding this secretarial post
until Blavatsky’s death in 1891. At her cremation, he referred to the life
that had just ended as merely one brief incarnation.15 Mead prepared
Blavatsky’s Theosophical Glossary for publication in 1892. That year, he
was mentioned in the Theosophical periodical Lucifer, which he now
edited together with Blavatsky’s successor, Annie Besant (1847–​1933).16
The article went on to detail the many lectures Mead had subsequently
given in different cities, including some on the topic of reincarnation.

14
 George Mills Harper, The Neoplatonism of William Blake (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1961), 15.
15
 http://​www.katinkahesselink.net/​his/​mead.html.
16
 ‘Our General Secretary read a paper [at the Convention of the American Section of
the Theosophical Society] on Reïncarnation, and is described as having “made a strong
argument for the rationalism of the belief that men live many times on earth”. Brother
Mead seems to be winning golden opinions among the Americans, and it is pleasant to
read kind words of one whom we so highly value here.’ Besant, Annie. ‘On the Watch-​
Tower’, Lucifer 10, no. 57 (May 1892), 182–​183.
114 Recycled Lives

In 1895, he published Select Works of Plotinus, a title originally published

by Thomas Taylor. He wrote on many topics, and among his work on
the Greeks were writings on Orpheus and Orphic religion, Ammonius
Saccas, Porphyry, and Iamblichus.17 He also published a series of art-
icles on reincarnation in the thought of the Church Fathers.18 As im-
portant as G. R. S. Mead was in the history of Theosophical Classicism
and reincarnationism, however, it was really only after Blavatsky’s death
that he started publishing and speaking extensively on these topics. For
this reason, it is here that we will leave our discussion of him.

Alexander Wilder
It is within an American current influenced by Transcendentalism and
Thomas Taylor, among other things, that we must situate Blavatsky’s
interpretations of the Greeks.
Alexander Wilder (1823–​1908) was a noteworthy early Theosophist
who played a significant role in the writing and editing of Isis
Unveiled.19 He met Blavatsky when he was in his fifties, becoming
a close friend and regular visitor at Blavatsky’s ‘Lamasery’ in 1870s
New York.20 Wilder was a doctor and an advocate of what was at the
time termed ‘irregular’ medicine (usually by its detractors)—​the an-
cestor of today’s holistic medicine. Among other things, he was also an
amateur Platonist.21 Although not a professional scholar of the Classics,

17
  Clare Goodrick-​Clarke and Nicholas Goodrick-​Clarke, G.  R.  S. Mead and the
Gnostic Quest (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2005), 2–​12.
18
  ‘A Proposed Enquiry Concerning “Reincarnation in the Church Fathers” ’, The
Theosophical Review 37 (December 1905), 329–​330; ‘Origen on Reincarnation’, The
Theosophical Review 37 (February 1906), 513–​527; ‘Irenaeus on Reincarnation’, The
Theosophical Review 38 (March 1906), 38–​ 48; ‘Justin Martyr on Reincarnation’,
The Theosophical Review 38 (April 1906), 129–​136; ‘Reincarnation in the Christian
Tradition’, The Theosophical Review 38 (April 1906), 253–​259.
19
 Olcott spoke of ‘Dr. Alexander Wilder’s numerous notes and text paragraphs in the
Introduction and throughout both volumes, and others which add so much to the
value and interest of the work’. Olcott, Old Diary Leaves First Series, 206.
20
 Ibid., 412–​413.
21
  Wilder was a one-​time member of the religious community founded in 1848 by
John Humphrey Noyes (1811–​1886) that was based in Oneida, New York, and which
practiced complex marriage and male sexual continence. Wilder fought against slavery
and mandatory vaccinations and wrote a 900-​page introduction to the history of
 Platonism 115

Wilder had a vast knowledge of the topic. He was a translator, editor,

lecturer, and prodigious writer who wrote or edited some of the works
on Classical thought to which Blavatsky referred. These included art-
icles such as ‘Paul and Plato’ (1881), just one of many Wilder published
in the New York journal The Evolution.22
Blavatsky called Wilder ‘one of the best Platonists of the day’. In a
letter of around December 1876, she wrote him:

’Pon my word, without any compliment, there’s Taylor alone and

yourself, who seem to grasp truth intuitionally. I have read with the
greatest pleasure your edition of the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries.
You are right. Others know Greek better, but Taylor knew Plato a
thousand times better; and I  have found in your short fragments
much matter which for the life of me I do not know where you could
have learned it. Your guesses are so many hits right on the true spot.
Well, you ought to go East and get initiated.23

Here Blavatsky echoed a statement Wilder had previously made about

Thomas Taylor.24 It was Taylor’s first complete English translations of
Plato and Aristotle, as well as sections of Plotinus and some of the
minor neo-​Platonists, which first brought these works to the attention

medicine. For an excellent survey of Wilder’s life, see Ronnie Pontiac, ‘The Eclectic
Life of Alexander Wilder:  Alchemical Generals, Isis Unveiled, and Early American
Holistic Medicine’, Newtopia Magazine, 15 Feb 2013. https://​newtopiamagazine.
wordpress.com/​2013/​02/​15/​the-​eclectic-​life-​of-​alexander-​wilder-​alchemical-​generals-​
isis-​unveiled-​and-​early-​american-​holistic-​medicine/​.
22
 Mentioned in Blavatsky, Isis II, 90. Other titles include ‘Bacchus the Prophet-​God’
(June 1877), mentioned in Blavatsky, Isis II, 523 and ‘Paul, the Founder of Christianity’
(September 1877), mentioned in Blavatsky, Isis II, 536. Wilder also contributed essays
to The Metaphysical Magazine of New York around 1894–​1895, as well as to The Word,
from 1904 onwards, but his earlier articles are more important in this context as influ-
ences on the formation of Blavatsky’s Theosophy. See Boris de Zirkoff, ‘Dr. Alexander
Wilder’, in The Later Platonists and Other Miscellaneous Writings of Alexander Wilder
(Henry County, Ohio: Kitchen Press, 2009), 631.
23
 Letter to Alexander Wilder, c. 6 Dec 1876, in Blavatsky, Letters, 283–​284.
24
  Harper, William Blake, v.  See also 12, 17, and 29. Regarding Taylor’s popularity
and reputation, see Cees Leijenhorst, ‘Neoplatonism III:  Since the Renaissance’, in
Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, ed. Wouter Hanegraaff, 845.
116 Recycled Lives

of Romantics and Transcendentalists. A  prodigious translator, Taylor

had produced more than 100 titles. Notable works of his to which
Blavatsky referred included the above-mentioned Dissertation on the
Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries (1790), edited by Wilder in 1875,25 as
well as Works of Plato (1804),26 Select Works of Plotinus (1817),27 and a
translation of Iamblichus’ Life of Pythagoras (1818).28
Blavatsky’s acknowledgement of his deficient Greek alludes to the
fact that Taylor’s work had been criticised within the academy. Together
with Floyer Sydenham (1710–​1787), Taylor had published the first com-
plete English translation of Plato’s dialogues, but Taylor’s neo-​Platonic
tendencies and inadequate Greek meant it came to be ignored soon
after its publication, having been attacked in the Edinburgh review in
1809.29 In Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky responded to the criticisms of Taylor’s
‘mistranslations’ that had been levelled by contemporary Classicists.
Echoing her letter to Wilder, she wrote Taylor’s memory was dear to the
‘true Platonist’, in contradistinction to Taylor’s ‘dogmatic’ detractors
within the academic establishment. In an echo of the Transcendentalist
themes of interiority and intuition, she opined that the true Platonist
learnt the ‘inner thought’ of Plato rather than the mechanical elem-
ents of his work. Blavatsky allowed for the existence of more accurate
phraseology than Taylor’s but maintained Taylor revealed Plato’s true
meaning. She chided the prominent scholars Eduard Zeller (1814–​1908)
and Benjamin Jowett (1817–​1893) for not revealing this message, and
she concluded by quoting Wilder’s statement that Taylor had a superior
intuitive perception of Plato.30
With his debt to Taylor’s neo-​Platonic interpretations, Alexander
Wilder was a representative of a middle-​class American Midwestern
Platonic movement that has been described by Paul Anderson in
Platonism in the Mid-​West (1963). According to Anderson, this Platonic

25
 Blavatsky, Isis I, xxiii, 213, 253; Blavatsky, Isis II, 81, 88, 91, 98.
26
 Blavatsky, Isis I, 218.
27
 Ibid., xlix, 221.
28
 Taylor also wrote The Mystical Hymns of Orpheus (1787) and Aristotle (1806–​1812).
See Blavatsky, Isis I, 222, 253, 283.
29
 Turner, The Greek Heritage, 371.
30
 Blavatsky, Isis II, 98.
 Platonism 117

movement was closely related to Transcendentalism, influencing

American culture particularly between the 1860s and 1890s. By the
1860s, the peak of Transcendentalism had already passed, having reached
its greatest popularity between the 1830s and 1850s. Nevertheless,
its influence could still be felt. The influence of the prominent
Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson (1893–​1882) on Americans
around the midcentury was enormous, and the Platonic movement
that flourished in the Midwest in the later part of the century was dir-
ectly indebted to it.
The Plato Club was founded in 1860 in Jacksonville, Illinois. It was
a society where amateur middle-​class enthusiasts could read Plato to-
gether in Greek. The club had an egalitarian ethos that valued educa-
tion for people of all backgrounds. Its teachings included the idea the
‘creator’ could best be understood as a form of ‘absolute energy’ that
produced a hierarchy of being, in which man was at the centre and
above him were sub-​deities. Below him were spheres ‘antagonistic to
the good’. The soul was resident in the body and needed to be puri-
fied, leading to union with the creator.31 These late-​nineteenth (neo-​
Platonic) readings of Plato were very similar to Blavatsky’s views.
Around twenty years later, the Plato Club inspired the establishment
of the American Akademe, a society that held monthly meetings during
the winter. Alexander Wilder was secretary of the Akademe and later its
vice president.32 He also edited the Journal of the American Akademe for
its first four volumes and wrote many papers.33 At each meeting of the
society, a paper was read and discussed. There was a general emphasis on
‘high thought’, and although membership was based in the American
Midwest, there were members from all over the world. Among them
were many physicians, like Wilder.34 The Akademe was associated with
various international publications, such as The Platonist, the Bibliotheca
Platonica, and the Journal of the American Akademe.35 The nucleus of
membership was the Plato Club, which still operated and continued

31
 Paul Anderson, Platonism in the Midwest (New York: Columbia University Press), 48.
32
 Ibid.,  52–​53.
33
 Ibid., 59.
34
 Ibid., 57.
35
 Ibid., 6.
118 Recycled Lives

to do so even until after the Akademe ceased.36 The last meeting of the
American Akademe took place in 1892.
The Plato Club and the Akademe overlapped with another so-
ciety, the Transcendentalist Concord School of Philosophy. This was
a summer school founded in 1879 in Concord, Massachusetts, by
the reformer and writer Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–​1888), a friend
of Emerson and the father of the American novelist and poet Louisa
May Alcott (1832–​1888). Bronson Alcott was an even more enthusiastic
Platonist than Emerson. His Concord School lasted until 1888, and
Wilder lectured there many times.
Anderson has convincingly argued the Platonic movement repre-
sented by the Plato Club, American Akademe, and Concord School
was an expression of ‘the temper of the age’. The Plato Club was estab-
lished just before the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, a time of great
tension between different sections of American society. These tensions
led to a desire for an inclusive, universalistic philosophy and a universal
law of morality. The members ‘were not exponents of social programs;
they were interpreters of social events on a cosmic scale’, finding so-
lutions to moral problems ‘based on religious and metaphysical prin-
ciples. It was to these principles that they gave attention, rather than to
active participation in ameliorative measures.’37 In Anderson’s analysis,
serious American interest in Plato was ‘partly the result of a desire for
philosophic knowledge which would provide a gospel of social unity’.38
In this context, Platonism provided them with a sense of the harmony
of reality.39
These aims are congruent with those of Blavatsky, who, although
she wrote after the Civil War, was heavily indebted to the American
Platonism of Wilder, which, in turn, was based on the neo-​Platonism
of the earlier English Platonist, Thomas Taylor. Wilder had other in-
fluences too, though. Among his many other publications, he was the
author of a pamphlet entitled New Platonism and Alchemy: A Sketch of

36
 Paul Anderson estimated there were around 200 active members of the Akademe at
any given time. Ibid., 56.
37
 Ibid.,  20–​21.
38
 Ibid., 21.
39
 Ibid., 22.
 Platonism 119

the Doctrines and Principal Teachers of the Eclectic or Alexandrian School

(1869).40 Jean-​Louis Siémons has demonstrated that Wilder drew many
of his statements from the work of the German Lutheran theologian
Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1694–​1755), author of Ecclesiastical History
(1726).41 Siémons established that Wilder ignored Mosheim’s criticisms
of Ammonius Saccas, portraying the neo-​Platonic philosopher in a
purely positive light.42 This selective reading of Wilder’s was probably
influenced by Thomas Taylor’s favourable evaluations of Ammonius
Saccas.43 Wilder’s point of view was especially influential on Blavatsky.
She initially perceived the Theosophical Society as a re-​creation of this
Alexandrian Eclectic School as it was depicted in Wilder’s work.44 In
an echo of one of Wilder’s statements, and in the spirit of American
Platonism in general, Blavatsky wrote that the Alexandrian School’s
purpose had been to ‘reconcile all religions, sects and nations under a
common system of ethics, based on eternal verities’.45 This sounded re-
markably close to the goals of the Theosophical Society.

Blavatsky and Greek Rebirth

Blavatsky’s doctrines of metempsychosis and reincarnation had affin-
ities with Greek ideas. Nevertheless, the similarities between Blavatsky’s
teachings and Greek thought were superficial enough that we cannot

40
 Blavatsky, Isis I, 437.
41
  Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, Institutionum historiae ecclesiasticae antiquioris et
recentioris libri IV (Helmstedt:  1726–​1755). The first English translations were those
of Archibald Maclaine (1764) and James Murdoch (1832). See the second edition
of James Murdock, Mosheim’s Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern
(London: William Tegg, 1867), xxii and xxv.
42
 Jean-​Louis Siémons, Ammonius Saccas and His ‘Ecclectic Philosophy’ as presented by
Alexander Wilder (Fullerton: Theosophical History, 1994), 3, 6–​7, 13–​17.
43
  On Taylor’s favourable evaluation of Saccas and his love of Greek religion, see
Harper, William Blake, 12.
44
  She gave the Alexandrian School pride of place in her first published article on
Theosophy. H.  P. Blavatsky, ‘What Is Theosophy?’, in Blavatsky Collected Writings,
ed. Boris de Zirkoff [Originally published in La Revue Spirite (November 1880)]. See
also Blavatsky, Key, 1. In Old Diary Leaves, Olcott said that the spirit ‘John King’ had
brought a Master to his attention, a representative of the neo-​Platonist Alexandrian
school and ‘a very high one’ at that. Olcott, Old Diary Leaves First Series, 19.
45
 Blavatsky, Key,  1–​2.
120 Recycled Lives

speak of Blavatsky proposing ‘Pythagorean’ or ‘Platonic’ teachings. In

any case, the issue here will not be to question ‘how Greek’ Blavatsky’s
ideas ‘really were’. Rather, the objective will be to show that Blavatsky’s
construction of the Greeks paralleled her changing perspectives. In
Blavatsky’s writings, first the Greeks taught metempsychosis, then re-
incarnation. This is an example of how, for nineteenth-​century thinkers
(Blavatsky included), the Greeks could be who you wanted them to be
and say what you wanted them to say.

Pythagoras
Greek belief in rebirth is primarily associated with Pythagoras.
Accounts of his life are unanimous in stating that from an early age, he
travelled widely in search of wisdom, including in Egypt and Chaldea
(Babylonia).46 Pythagoras’ doctrines (variously described as ‘reincar-
nation’, ‘metempsychosis’, or ‘transmigration’ in nineteenth-​century
sources) have been noted since the first century bce, but very little
is known of the details of his teaching.47 This made speculation easy.
References to Pythagoras’ ideas abound in Blavatsky’s sources. For ex-
ample, Samuel Fales Dunlap stated Pythagoras taught ‘transmigra-
tion’,48 Eliphas Lévi’s The History of Magic discussed Pythagoras’ belief
in the immortality of the soul and memory of past lives,49 and Joseph
Ennemoser wrote that Pythagoras appeared to have been the first
person in Greece to maintain ‘belief in transmigration’.50

46
  David Fideler, ‘Introduction’, in The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library:  An
Anthology of Ancient Writings Which Relate to Pythagoras and Pythagorean Philosophy,
ed. Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie and David Fideler (Grand Rapids, MI:  Phanes Press,
1988),  19–​20.
47
 Aristotle, De Anima, trans. R. D. Hicks (Amherst, MA: Prometheus Books, 1991),
24; Jan Bremmer, The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife (London: Routledge, 2002), 2, 11–​12;
Herbert Strainge Long, A Study of the Doctrine of Metempsychosis in Greece from
Pythagoras to Plato (Princeton, NJ:  Privately printed, 1948), 15; Walter Burkert,
Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, trans. Edwin L. Minar Jr. (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), 120, 138.
48
 Dunlap, Vestiges, 368–​369.
49
  Eliphas Lévi, The History of Magic, trans. A.  E. Waite (London:  Rider and Co.,
1974), 96.
50
 Ennemoser, History of Magic 1, 145.
 Platonism 121

In Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky made numerous references to Pythagoras’

doctrine of metempsychosis. As we saw in c­ hapter 2, which focused on
Blavatsky’s early metempsychosis doctrine, she wrote of Pythagoras’ ‘al-
legorical mysticism and metempsychosis’51 and considered ‘Pythagorean
metempsychosis’ to have an advantage over modern science.52 She
even referred to ‘Pythagoreans’ from much later periods, especially
the Dutch Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–​1677) and the
Italian Dominican friar and esoteric thinker Giordano Bruno (1548–​
1600).53 Socrates and the Gnostics were said to have been exponents of
Pythagorean metempsychosis,54 and Blavatsky associated the theory of
metempsychosis with Hindu and Buddhist terms.55
Blavatsky discussed Pythagoras much less frequently in The Secret
Doctrine, in which there were no longer any references to Pythagorean

51
 Blavatsky, Isis I, 307.
52
 Ibid., 9.
53
 ‘The modern commentators affirm that Bruno, “unsustained by the hope of another
and better worlds still surrendered his life rather than his convictions;” thereby allowing
it to be inferred that Giordano Bruno had no belief in the continued existence of man
after death. [. . .] Giordano Bruno, if he adhered to the doctrines of Pythagoras he
must have believed in another life, hence, he could not have been an atheist whose
philosophy offered him no such “consolation.” [. . .] the above words plainly indicate
the belief of Bruno in the Pythagorean metempsychosis, which, misunderstood as it is,
still shows a belief in the survival of man in one shape or another.’ Ibid., 93–​95.
54
 Ibid., 12.
55
 Blavatsky, Isis II, 286. Elaborating on the connection between Pythagoras and India,
Blavatsky complained that Lemprière’s Classical Dictionary (1792–​1797) had stated,
‘there is great reason to suspect the truth of the whole narrative of Pythagoras’s journey
into India’. ‘If this be so,’ she interjected, ‘How account for the doctrine of the met-
empsychosis of Pythagoras, which is far more that of the Hindu in its details than the
Egyptian?’ Blavatsky, Isis I, 347. In fact, Lemprière had affirmed Pythagoras’ journey
to India: ‘The Samian philosopher was the first who supported the doctrine of met-
empsychosis or transmigration of the soul into different bodies, and those notions he
seemed to have imbibed among the priests of Egypt, or in the solitary retreats of the
Brachmans.’ J. Lempriere [sic], Classical Dictionary (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies,
1820). There are no page numbers. Pythagoras is listed under ‘PY’. Blavatsky’s attri-
bution was mistaken; the quotation actually came from the Classical Dictionary of
the American Classicist Charles Anthon (1797–​1867):  Charles Anthon, A Classical
Dictionary (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1841), 1153. Be that as it may, the most
important points were that Blavatsky affirmed Pythagoras taught metempsychosis and
that he had learned it in India.
122 Recycled Lives

‘metempsychosis’ at all. However, she mentioned him in relation to

‘reincarnation’ in another of her later publications, The Theosophical
Glossary (1892):

[Pythagoras] seems to have travelled all over the world, and to have
culled his philosophy from the various systems to which he had ac-
cess. Thus, he studied the esoteric sciences with the Brachmans of
India, and astronomy and astrology in Chaldea and Egypt. [. . .] As
the greatest mathematician, geometer and astronomer of historical
antiquity, and also the highest of the metaphysicians and scholars,
Pythagoras has won imperishable fame. He taught reincarnation as it
is professed in India and much else of the Secret Wisdom.56

In this passage, Blavatsky summed up much of what she had said in Isis
Unveiled about Pythagoras’ connection to India, but she now referred
to him as a teacher of reincarnation rather than metempsychosis. This
may seem like a small difference—​only one word—​but taken together
with parallel changes throughout her writings, it shows her construc-
tions of the Greeks shifted to reflect her changing rebirth doctrines.

Plato
Plato (427–​347 bce) discussed reincarnation in six dialogues:  Meno,
Cratylus, Republic, Phaedo, Phaedrus, and Timaeus. Plato didn’t have
one fixed theory and apparently never tried to harmonise his accounts.
Nevertheless, there were some general features. The idea that humans
had one soul, which could be divided, and which survived death, was
consistent throughout the dialogues. Souls originally lived in a blissful,
ideal world of Forms but ‘fell’ and were condemned to suffer corporeal
life and multiple human and animal incarnations. The Phaedo de-
scribed animal incarnations as punishments for acts committed in the
present life. In that dialogue, Socrates proposed a hierarchy of possible
future incarnations saying that those who ‘carelessly practiced gluttony,

56
  H.  P. Blavatsky, Theosophical Glossary (Krotona:  Theosophical Publishing House,
1918), 248.
 Platonism 123

violence and drunkenness are likely to join a company of donkeys or

of similar animals. [. . .] those who have practiced popular and social
virtue [.  .  .] will again join a social and gentle group, either of bees
or wasps or ants.’57 The incurable were annihilated.58 In the Timaeus,
two-​legged creatures were at the top of the hierarchy, followed by four-​
legged and many-​legged creatures.59 The Phaedrus also described the
types of person that less-​enlightened souls might be reborn as in a hier-
archy that was similar, but different, to that presented in the Phaedo,
with kings, commanders, and statesmen at the top, and a tyrant at the
bottom. Only those who had glimpsed at least some truth could be
born in human form.60 In some dialogues, souls were allowed to choose
their rebirth.61 Once incarnated, the intellect strove to return to its pre-
vious blissful state but was impeded by the lower parts of the soul. One
therefore had to practice philosophy and fight to transform negative
desires into positive ones. The soul could only perceive the Forms in its
disembodied state, as contact with the body caused forgetfulness. In the
Phaedrus, beauty, wisdom, and all good qualities and virtues nourished
the soul’s wings, while any sort of ugliness or foulness shrunk them.62
The numbers 1,000 and 10,000 appeared repeatedly. For example, in
the Phaedrus, souls who practised philosophy returned to where they
came from after 10,000 years.63

57
 Phaedo 81 d–​82 c, in Plato, Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hacket,
1997), 71.
58
 Phaedo 113 d–​114 c, in Plato, Complete Works,  96–​97.
59
 The most foolish were the ‘footless’, such as fish and snakes. Men who lived lives of
cowardice and injustice were reborn as women. Birds came from innocent but simple-​
minded men. Land animals came from men who didn’t study philosophy. All water-​
inhabiting animals came from the most stupid and ignorant men of all. Timaeus 90
ef–​92 a, in Plato, Complete Works, 1289–​1290.
60
 Phaedrus 248 d–​e and 249 b, in Plato, Complete Works, 1526 and 1527.
61
 For example, Phaedrus 249 a–​b, in Plato, Complete Works, 1526–​1527.
62
 Phaedrus 246 d, in Plato, Complete Works, 1525. See also Timaeus 42 a–​d, 90 e, and
91 d–​92 b, in Plato, Complete Works, 1245 and 1290.
63
 Phaedrus 249 a, in Plato, Complete Works, 1526. For an interpretation of the 10,000-​
year cycle that squares the Phaedrus with the Timaeus and with Empedocles and Pindar,
see R. S. Bluck, ‘The Phaedrus and Reincarnation’, American Journal of Philology 79,
no. 2 (1958), 164.
124 Recycled Lives

Like most educated people, Blavatsky would have been acquainted

with the Platonic dialogues, and unsurprisingly, they were discussed
throughout her source texts. To give just one example, Samuel Fales
Dunlap quoted Plato’s Phaedo that souls returned from the dead. ‘What
then is produced from death?’ ‘Life is!’ ‘From the dead living things
and living men are produced.’64 Despite the many discussions of Plato’s
doctrines, neither of Blavatsky’s rebirth theories reproduced any known
Platonic account. In Blavatsky, reincarnation was progressive whereas
in Plato souls could both rise and fall. Animal reincarnation following
human incarnation was thus a prominent feature of the Platonic
accounts but was considered impossible by Blavatsky. Nevertheless,
Blavatsky’s theories of rebirth agreed with the Platonic accounts that
the soul was of divine origin and could be divided into at least two dif-
ferent parts, with the higher struggling against the lower. The soul in
some sense ‘fell’ and would return to its divine source, but might also
be annihilated, at least in her doctrine of metempsychosis. Blavatsky’s
account shared with Plato’s dialogues the hierarchical arrangement of
humans above animals, but, according to Blavatsky, the monads now
inhabiting human bodies had only inhabited animal bodies during a
previous round.
Blavatsky referred to Plato in corroboration of her theories in much
the same way as she had Pythagoras. This was consistent with her view
in Isis Unveiled that Plato was ‘the ardent disciple of Pythagoras’ and that
‘Pythagoras obtained his knowledge in India [. . .] and Plato faithfully
echoed his teachings’.65 We recall that in the Timaeus, Plato presented
a hierarchy, with two-​legged creatures at the top and water-​inhabiting
animals at the bottom. In Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky referred to Plato’s
Timaeus when discussing her theory of the metempsychosis of the
human monad through plant, reptile, bird, and animal phases, until it
reached the human embryo stage.66 Again, referring to the Timaeus, she

64
 Dunlap, Mysteries of Adoni, 22. See also Myer, Qabbalah, 196 and Eduard Zeller,
Plato and the Older Academy, trans. Sarah Frances Alleyne and Alfred Goodwin
(London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1876), 391–​394.
65
 Blavatsky, Isis I,  9–​10.
66
 Ibid., 303.
 Platonism 125

interpreted the dialogue in terms of her doctrine of metempsychosis,

one of the central themes of which was the indestructibility of matter:

Matter is as indestructible and eternal as the immortal spirit itself,

but only in its particles, and not as organized forms. The body of
so grossly materialistic a person as above described, having been
deserted by its spirit before physical death, when that event occurs,
the plastic material, astral soul, following the laws of blind matter,
shapes itself thoroughly into the mould which vice has been grad-
ually preparing for it through the earth-​life of the individual. Then,
as Plato says, it assumes the form of that ‘animal to which it resem-
bled in its evil ways’ during life.67

Here, Blavatsky didn’t teach that a person is reborn as an animal in any

straightforward sense. Rather, in the context of her early denial that
reincarnation on Earth was a normative occurrence, she stated that a
materialistic individual would not only fail to achieve immortality but
would also be deserted by the overshadowing spirit during life. After
death, the astral soul (which, had it achieved immortality, would have
proceeded to higher spheres) assumed the form of the animal appro-
priate to the materialistic individual’s behaviour during life. In this way,
Blavatsky gave a Theosophical interpretation of the Timaeus consistent
with her teachings on metempsychosis, as given in Isis Unveiled.
In a preceding passage, Blavatsky had discussed Plato’s Gorgias along-
side the Timaeus in corroboration of metempsychosis:

That which survives as an individuality after the death of the body

is the astral soul, which Plato, in the Timæus and Gorgias, calls the
mortal soul, for, according to the Hermetic doctrine, it throws off
its more material particles at every progressive change into a higher
sphere. Socrates narrates to Callicles that this mortal soul retains all
the characteristics of the body after the death of the latter.68

67
 Ibid., 328.
68
 Ibid., 327.
126 Recycled Lives

Here, Blavatsky referred to the ascent through the higher spheres char-
acteristic of her theory of metempsychosis, in which, after the death of
the body, the soul would conjoin with the spirit and rise. This astral
soul was mortal because it had the potential to achieve immortality by
combining with the spirit. If this had not been achieved, then after
death, this astral soul—​which looked like the physical body of the in-
dividual who just died—​would hang around for a while, eventually
disintegrating. These astral souls, detached from their spirits, Blavatsky
considered to be the cause of Spiritualistic phenomena. Therefore, in
this extract, she cited Plato in support of her attack on the misunder-
standings of contemporary Spiritualism, a perspective consistent with
her early doctrine of metempsychosis.
During her later period, corroboration of the new doctrine of
reincarnation—​with reference to Plato—​could be found in Blavatsky’s
commentary on the Pistis Sophia. This appeared in the Theosophical
periodical Lucifer in May 1891, shortly before her death. Blavatsky’s
exegesis followed extracts from a translation of the Gnostic text made
by G. R. S. Mead. She explained that the term metangizein meant ‘to
pour from one vessel into another’. Metangismos, Blavatsky argued, was
the technical term for ‘metempsychosis or reincarnation among the
Pythagoreans’, and metangizein and metangismos were technical terms,
used only in connection with the idea of reincarnation. C. W. King, au-
thor of The Gnostics and Their Remains, had missed this fact, Blavatsky
maintained. She went on to lament that the numerous passages from
the Gnostics referring to reincarnation had yet to be collected. She re-
ferred to a statement of the Church Father Clement of Alexandria (c.
150–​c. 215), which she claimed should be interpreted in light of the
Theosophical teaching regarding the higher and the lower parts of the
human principle of manas. She also referred to a book by E. D. Walker
on reincarnation, which she believed demonstrated reincarnation to
have been ‘the prevailing creed in the first centuries of Christianity’.69
Blavatsky referred to the need for an authoritative volume, ‘supported
by the citation of the innumerable passages that are to be found in

69
  E.  D. Walker, Reincarnation:  A Study in Forgotten Truth (New  York:  John
W. Lovell, 1888).
 Platonism 127

the writings of the Gnostics, neo-​Platonists and early Church Fathers’,

and it is likely she was influenced here by G. R. S. Mead, who pub-
lished a series of articles on the Church Fathers and reincarnation in
the early 1890s. Finally, she referred to Thomas Taylor’s translation of
Plato’s Phaedrus, in which she claimed to have discerned references to
kama loka and devachan. She argued that the passage from Plato was
comprehensible only with the help of Theosophical teachings, and re-
ferred to cycles, rounds, races, individual births, monadic evolution,
and manasic and kamic souls. These were all ideas that were inextricably
linked with the reincarnation doctrine of her later period.70

The Neo-​Platonists
The influential neo-​ Platonist and student of Ammonius Saccas,
Plotinus (c. 205–​270), referred to reincarnation several times in his
most famous work, the Enneads.71 His position on reincarnation
was to a degree congruent with that represented in Plato’s dialogues,
and similar observations about its similarity or dissimilarity to the
Blavatskyan accounts can be made. Blavatsky didn’t discuss Plotinian
rebirth doctrines as such, but Plotinus’ ideas nevertheless influenced
her rebirth doctrines substantially. Plotinus developed Plato’s Form ‘the
Good’ into the ultimate, undifferentiated source of all being, known
as ‘The One’. Transcendent and unknowable, the One was situated at
the top of a cosmic hierarchy, overflowing (emanating) without dim-
inution into existence. In this scheme, immediately below the One
was the Divine Mind (nous), followed by the Universal Soul. Finally,
Matter was said to be furthest from the One, yet still originated in
it. The Universal Soul constituted an upper part that transcended the
material, and a lower part that was involved in generating the material
universe. The similarity to Blavatsky’s Theosophy is unmistakable. The
idea of the ‘Universal Soul’ had been popularised as the ‘Over-​Soul’ in

70
 ‘The Pistis Sophia’. Translated and annotated by G. R. S. M[ead] with additional
notes by H. P. B. Lucifer 8, no. 45 (15 May 1891), 203–​204.
71
  Ennead I, 1.12, and Ennead III, 4.2, in Plotinus, The Enneads, trans. Stephen
MacKenna (London:  Penguin, 1991), 12, 167–​168. See H.  J. Blumenthal, Plotinus’
Psychology: His Doctrines of the Embodied Soul (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), 95.
128 Recycled Lives

Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1841 essay of the same name.

In Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky mentioned this essay at least twice, once in
the introduction, strongly suggesting it was Alexander Wilder’s contri-
bution, since Wilder is known to have written and edited much of the
introduction.
In Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky referred to Plotinus and another neo-​
Platonic philosopher, Porphyry (c. 234–​c. 305), in the context of her
doctrine of conditional immortality, which was part of her teaching on
metempsychosis.

We have shown elsewhere that the ‘secret doctrine’ does not concede
immortality to all men alike. ‘The eye would never see the sun, if it
were not of the nature of the sun,’ said Plotinus. Only ‘through the
highest purity and chastity we shall approach nearer to God, and re-
ceive in the contemplation of Him, the true knowledge and insight,’
writes Porphyry. If the human soul has neglected during its life-​time
to receive its illumination from its Divine Spirit, our personal God,
then it becomes difficult for the gross and sensual man to survive for
a great length of time his physical death.72

This was another way of saying that Plotinus and Porphyry taught a
theory of conditional immortality. The ‘human soul’ (i.e., the astral
soul) either received illumination from its Divine Spirit, thereby be-
coming immortal, or disintegrated after physical death. Later, alluding
to the notion of the emanation of individual human souls and the need
for these to be united with the divine spirit during Earth-​life, Blavatsky
referred to ‘the collective aggregation of the numberless spirit entities,
which are the direct emanations of the infinite, invisible, incomprehen-
sible FIRST CAUSE—​the individual spirits of men’. She stated that
Pythagoras, Apollonius, Plotinus, Plato, and Iamblichus were examples
of those who had been ‘intermittently united’ with their spirits during
life, becoming ‘demi-​gods’ and leaders of mankind. ‘When unburdened
of their terrestrial tabernacles, their freed souls, henceforth united for-
ever with their spirits.’73 In other words, the neo-​Platonists had been

72
 Blavatsky, Isis I, 431–​432.
73
 Ibid., 159.
 Platonism 129

initiates and had achieved conditional immortality of the type outlined

in Blavatsky’s doctrine of metempsychosis.
There were fewer references to neo-​Platonists in Blavatsky’s later
works. Nevertheless, allusions to them did appear in corroboration of
her new doctrine of reincarnation and related concepts. In The Key to
Theosophy (1889), Blavatsky wrote:

Ideas on re-​incarnation and the trinity of man were held by many of

the early Christian Fathers. It is the jumble made by the translators
of the New Testament and ancient philosophical treatises between
soul and spirit, that has occasioned the many misunderstandings. It
is also one of the many reasons why Buddha, Plotinus, and so many
other Initiates are now accused of having longed for the total extinc-
tion of their souls—​‘absorption unto the Deity’, or ‘reunion with the
universal soul’, meaning, according to modern ideas, annihilation.
The personal soul must, of course, be disintegrated into its particles,
before it is able to link its purer essence for ever with the immortal
spirit.74

This was the same passage that had been cited in Isis Unveiled with
the terms ‘reincarnation’ (instead of transmigration) and ‘personal soul’
(instead of animal soul) substituted.75 This substitution is one of the
most explicit indications we have that Blavatsky changed her termin-
ology to suit her changing doctrines of rebirth. She also changed it to
correspond with her changing constructions of the Greeks, first as be-
lievers in metempsychosis, and later as believers in reincarnation.

74
 Blavatsky, Key, 77.
75
 Here is the passage as it had appeared in Isis: ‘Ideas on the transmigrations and the
trinity of man, were held by many of the early Christian Fathers. It is the jumble made
by the translators of the New Testament and ancient philosophical treatises between
soul and spirit, that has occasioned the many misunderstandings. It is also one of the
many reasons why Buddha, Plotinus, and so many other initiates are now accused of
having longed for the total extinction of their souls—​“absorption unto the Deity”, or
“reunion with the universal soul”, meaning, according to modern ideas, annihilation.
The animal soul must, of course, be disintegrated of its particles, before it is able to
link its purer essence forever with the immortal spirit.’ Blavatsky, Isis II, 281.
130 Recycled Lives

Conclusions
Like many nineteenth-​century authors with an interest in the Classics,
Blavatsky was a knowledgeable amateur researcher. She drew her in-
formation from a variety of books, including scholarly and amateur
ones. As many of her sources did, Blavatsky portrayed Greek thought as
teaching the human body to be ‘the tomb of the soul’ and the spirit to be
in need of purification. The origins of Greek thought, she said, lay in the
East, specifically in Egypt and/​or India. We cannot, therefore, consider
Blavatsky’s depiction of the Greeks in isolation from her other points of
reference, which included currents such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and
Gnosticism. As a consequence, Blavatsky’s Hellenism was inseparable
from her Orientalism. It was also inextricable from her reception of the
Anglo-​American Spiritualist doctrines explored in ­chapter 4, which in-
fluenced how she interpreted the metempsychosis doctrines of the an-
cient Greeks. In spite of this debt, and the affinity Cathy Gutierrez has
demonstrated Spiritualism had with Platonism, Blavatsky’s interpret-
ations of the Greeks were often used to attack Spiritualism, the very
current from which Theosophy had emerged.
Blavatsky’s writings are an indispensable source for understanding
how nineteenth-​century occultists appropriated elements from wider
nineteenth-​century Hellenism. Blavatsky portrayed Greek philosophers
as initiates and as guardians of a secret doctrine that had to be under-
stood ‘intuitively’. Like many contemporaneous enthusiasts for the
Classics, she personally identified with the Greeks, but unlike many of
the authors that influenced her, she based her identification on the idea
that Theosophy had a place in the chain of tradition that also included
the teachings of figures like Pythagoras, Plato, and Plotinus.
This idea was not unprecedented. It echoed the thought of
Thomas Taylor, the English Platonist. The academy had already
rejected Taylor’s translations as faulty, but they were redeemed
(at least according to Alexander Wilder and Blavatsky) thanks to
Taylor’s superior intuitive grasp of Plato, which overrode any tech-
nical deficiencies his translations may have had. Taylor influenced
Transcendentalism and the American Platonic movement that came
from it, which emphasised liberalism, universalism, harmony, and
morality, and sought to interpret life’s challenges in cosmic terms.
 Platonism 131

These were perspectives in common with Theosophy, despite the ob-

vious differences. Influenced by Taylor, Wilder, and the American
Platonic tradition, Blavatsky’s Platonism was of a broadly Romantic
type that emphasised intuition, an emphasis that lent itself well
to esotericist, universalising interpretations. As such, Blavatsky’s
Platonism was of a self-​consciously ‘anti-​establishment’ variety. She
articulated her interpretations of the Greeks (rebirth theories in-
cluded) in opposition to the religious and scholarly establishments
as she perceived them. Taylor’s rejection by the academy therefore no
doubt only endeared him all the more to Blavatsky and Wilder, both
of whom had a tendency towards dissent from what they saw as the
mainstream.
When Blavatsky wanted them to, the Greeks taught the
Theosophical doctrines of conditional immortality and metempsy-
chosis. When she wanted them to teach the normative repeated re-
turn to Earth-​life—​reincarnation—​they did that too. This confirms
what is already well established in the scholarly literature, that the
Greeks were malleable in the hands of nineteenth-​century thinkers.
Blavatsky’s occultist depictions were part of an ongoing process in
which scholars, artists, and the public at large constructed Classical
antiquity. Often, these writers were, like Blavatsky herself, amateur
scholars with obvious theological or political agendas. Her perspec-
tives on metempsychosis and reincarnation exemplify an occultist
woman’s voice among the better-​known cultural and intellectual
movements.
    6
Science

In addition to the Platonic and Spiritualistic influences already ex-

plored, Blavatsky’s theories of rebirth owe a debt to the scientific ideas
under discussion at her time of writing.1,2 This chapter provides a de-
tailed discussion of Blavatsky’s engagement with the thought of con-
temporaneous scientists in the context of issues relevant to her rebirth
theories. As such, it focuses more on the background to, and presup-
positions of, Blavatsky’s rebirth theories, while also making some refer-
ence to particulars that were influenced by current scientific theories,
such as the idea that the monad ‘relives’ previous plant and animal
incarnations in utero prior to human incarnation.
Blavatsky’s belief that Theosophy represented the perfect balance be-
tween science and religion was just one position among many. Opinions
on the extensive scientific developments of the nineteenth century and
how they impinged on wider issues varied. There were commentators
who believed science opposed religion and others who thought it com-
plemented it. Secularists embraced science to the exclusion of religion
while some theologians accommodated science within natural theolo-
gies in which God was seen as governing the universe through natural

1
 A version of this chapter was published in Aries 18 (2018).
2
 For an introduction to Blavatsky and Science, see Olav Hammer, Claiming Knowledge,
218–​222 and Egil Asprem, ‘Theosophical Attitudes towards Science: Past and Present’,
in Handbook of the Theosophical Current. For background on science and occultism,
see Egil Asprem, ‘Science and the Occult’, in Handbook of the Theosophical Current.

132
 Science 133

laws.3 Popularising works on science introduced new developments to

the reading public, some of whom embraced them, some of whom
rejected them, and some of whom simply failed to understand them.
Increasing professionalisation and specialisation meant the sciences
had become more and more inaccessible to those not trained within
the scientific establishment. Authors of popular works became inter-
mediaries between the universities and an increasingly literate popu-
lation. As Bernard Lightman demonstrated, popularisers of science
(often educated middle-​ class writers, journalists, clergymen—​ and
sometimes women) offered interpretations of scientific advancements
to their readers during the second half of the century.4 Historians ini-
tially viewed the popularisation of science as involving the simplifica-
tion of elite knowledge in its dissemination to less-​educated readers,
but Roger Cooter and Stephen Pumfrey disagreed, arguing that the
public were not the passive recipients of watered-​down science but ra-
ther active agents with their own interests and agendas.5 Blavatsky can
be considered such an active agent, albeit one with esoteric interests
and an occultist agenda.

Blavatsky, Science, and Materialism

In Blavatsky’s construction of science, she divided scientists into two
camps, the good and the bad.

We, Theosophists, would willingly bow before such men of learning

as the late Prof. Balfour Stewart, Messrs. Crookes, Quatrefages,
Wallace, Agassiz, Butlerof, and several others, though we may not

3
  James R. Moore, ‘The Crisis of Faith:  Reformation vs Revolution’, in Religion in
Victorian Britain, ed. Gerald Parsons and James R. Moore (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1988), vol. 2: Controversies, 229. Robert M. Young, ‘The Impact of
Darwin on Conventional Thought’, in The Victorian Crisis of Faith, ed. Anthony
Symondson (London: SPCK, 1970), 22–​25.
4
  Bernard Lightman, Victorian Popularizers of Science:  Designing Nature for New
Audiences (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2007), vii–​xi.
5
 Roger Cooter and Stephen Pumfrey, ‘Separate Spheres and Public Places: Reflections
on the History of Science Popularization and Science in Popular Culture’, History of
Science 32 (1994).
134 Recycled Lives

agree, from the stand-​point of esoteric philosophy, with all they say.
But nothing could make us consent to even a show of respect for
the opinions of other men of science, such as Hæckel, Carl Vogt, or
Ludwig Büchner, in Germany; or even of Mr. Huxley and his co-​
thinkers in materialism in England—​the colossal erudition of the
first named, notwithstanding. Such men are simply the intellectual
and moral murderers of future generations; especially Hæckel, whose
crass materialism often rises to the height of idiotic naivetés in his
reasonings.6

One of Blavatsky’s main criticisms of scientific perspectives she disap-

proved of was that they were ‘materialist’, and she often wrote about
this in the context of her discussions of biological evolution and
Darwinism.7 In The Origin of Species (1859), Charles Darwin (1809–​
1882) argued that natural selection was a central mechanism in evolu-
tion. Organisms were subject to randomly occurring variations within
their populations, some of which provided advantages in the context of
their struggle to survive, compete for limited resources, and reproduce.
Successful variations would be passed on to descendants and unsuc-
cessful ones would not. According to Darwin, species changed grad-
ually over time through the selection of characteristics favourable to
survival within particular environments. The English philosopher and
social Darwinist Herbert Spencer (1820–​1903) dubbed the process ‘the
survival of the fittest’, and the phrase caught on.
Darwinist ideas were associated (but not necessarily identical) with
radical materialism, the view that matter is all that exists or that life is
reducible to material causes. In Britain, materialism was ascribed to
scientific publicists such as the biologist and supporter of Darwinism
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–​1895), the physicist John Tyndall (1825–​
1895), the mathematician and philosopher William Kingdon Clifford
(1845–​1879), and Herbert Spencer. It was also associated with the

6
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 651–​652.
7
 The term ‘evolution’ was popularised by Herbert Spencer, although it has a history
going back to the seventeenth century. For a history of the use of the term, see Robert
J. Richards, The Meaning of Evolution: The Morphological and Ideological Reconstruction
of Darwin’s Theory (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
 Science 135

positivism of the French philosopher and founding father of sociology

Auguste Comte (1798–​1857), and in Germany with the thought of sci-
entists such as Karl Vogt (1817–​1895), Ludwig Büchner (1824–​1899), and
Ernst Haeckel (1834–​1919).8 Straightforwardly labelling all these men
‘materialists’, however, is problematic. As Frank Turner observed, matter
could be dealt with in relation to either scientific theory or metaphysics,
and in the latter sense, Clifford, Tyndall, and Huxley all backed away
from embracing full materialism.9 Comte and Spencer also explicitly
denied the materialist label. Despite this, they have been unproblemat-
ically categorised as materialists both by contemporary commentators
and by more recent ones. A reason for this, Turner suggested, was that
materialism and positivism were often erroneously conflated because
both proposed science as the most reliable source of knowledge. Later
opponents of the view that empirical science is the only true source
of knowledge identified materialism with positivism in their crusades
against them. As Turner pointed out, the misunderstanding was under-
standable, especially since nineteenth-​century thinkers defined materi-
alism differently, creating considerable confusion.10 The individuals in
question also encouraged this confusion either by sometimes referring
to themselves as materialists (as in the case of Tyndall) or by seeming
to (as in the case of Huxley).11 But perhaps most significantly, Turner
noted, the opponents of materialism wanted Tyndall and others to be
materialists. They wanted a target.12
Materialism, portrayed largely monolithically, was one of Blavatsky’s
primary polemical targets. She decried it as a reprehensible and totally

8
 Especially on Vogt, Büchner, and Haeckel, see Bergunder, ‘ “Religion” and “Science”
within a Global Religious History’, Aries 16, no. 1 (2016), 86–​141.
9
 ‘Clifford’s mind-​stuff was essentially an idealistic monism. Huxley always said that
if forced to answer the unanswerable question, he would choose idealism over materi-
alism. Tyndall, who called himself a “materialist” and who lectured for several years
on a materialistic theory of psychology, still contended that matter had been “defined
and maligned by philosophers and theologians, who are equally unaware that it is, at
bottom, essentially mystical and transcendental.” ’ Frank Turner, Contesting Cultural
Authority (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 147.
10
 Ibid., 264.
11
 Ibid.,  264–​5.
12
 Ibid.,  264–​5.
136 Recycled Lives

erroneous ‘denial of Deity, spirit or soul’ that admitted ‘no intelligence

outside the mind of man’.13 She didn’t even hesitate in associating it
with the devil himself:

The Satan of Materialism now laughs at all alike, and denies the
visible as well as the invisible. Seeing in light, heat, electricity, and
even in the phenomenon of life, only properties inherent in matter, it
laughs whenever life is called VITAL PRINCIPLE, and derides the
idea of its being independent of and distinct from the organism.14

If Blavatsky considered materialism poison, then the ‘vital principle’

was its antidote. Vitalism was the belief that a vital principle distin-
guished life.15 With roots in earlier ideas, in the nineteenth century,
it was offered in various forms as both a philosophical and scientific
alternative to materialism and mechanistic reductionism.16 As Bruce
Clark put it, vitalism involved a ‘phantasmagoric remythologization of
nature’, and its ‘master trope’ was ‘the life force that drives living things
up the escalator of evolution’.17 Blavatsky embraced vitalism, endorsing
a teleological (end-​driven) theory of progressive evolution impelled by
a spiritual element internal to the cosmos and its inhabitants. Matter
was alive, claimed Blavatsky, and apprehension of this solved the mys-
teries of evolution.18 She perceived her view as diametrically opposed
to that of materialist science, which, she said, denied the existence of
a vital principle. This was a ‘grand mistake’.19 Despite the errors of
many scientists, there were, nevertheless, ‘men of science’ who took

13
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 479.
14
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 602–​603
15
  On earlier forms of vitalism, see Carolyn Merchant, ‘The Vitalism of Anne
Conway:  Its Impact on Leibniz’s Concept of the Monad’, Journal of the History of
Philosophy 17, no. 3 (July 1979) and ‘The Vitalism of Francis Mercury van Helmont: Its
Influence on Leibniz’, Ambix 26, no. 3 (1979).
16
 Bruce Clarke, Energy Forms: Allegory and Science in the Era of Classical Thermodynamics
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 72.
17
 Ibid., 72. On Blavatsky’s vitalism see Mark S. Morrisson, Modern Alchemy: Occultism
and the Emergence of Atomic Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 83.
18
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 299.
19
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 538.
 Science 137

‘the same view about “things occult” as theosophists and occultists’.20

As an example, she adduced a statement from L’Espèce Humaine (The
Human Species, 1877) by the French biologist and anthropologist Jean
Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau (1810–​1892).21 Quatrefages ac-
knowledged the contemporary criticism that vitalism had introduced
‘into science a vague and mysterious expression’ but disagreed that
the proposition of a life principle was vague or mysterious, arguing it
was perfectly scientific and didn’t go beyond ‘experiment and scientific
observation’.22
Nineteenth-​century vitalism was associated with German Romantic
Naturphilosophie or ‘philosophy of nature’.23 Connected to the thought
of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–​1814), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
(1770–​1831), and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–​ 1854),
Naturphilosophie saw nature as producing the perfection of the human
form through what Michael Ruse called the ‘dynamic, forward-​moving,
purposive thrust to reality’. 24 Blavatsky didn’t always agree with Fichte,
Hegel, and Schelling entirely, but she was clearly influenced by them.25
Naturphilosophische themes included unity and polarity, metamor-
phosis, and ideal types, all ideas that resonated strongly with Blavatsky’s
thought.26 Naturphilosophie was influential in biology throughout the
nineteenth century, especially among those who opposed Darwinism.

20
 Ibid., 603.
21
 She quoted him as writing: ‘It is very true we do not know what life is; but no more
do we know what the force is that set the stars in motion.’ Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine
I, 540.
22
 A. De Quatrefages, The Human Species (New York: D. Appleton, 1890), 10–​12.
23
 Bruce Clarke, Dora Marsden and Early Modernism: Gender, Individualism, Science
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1996), 30.
24
  Michael Ruse, Monad to Man:  The Concept of Progress in Evolutionary Biology
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 26–​27.
25
 ‘This leads the reader naturally to the “Supreme Spirit” of Hegel and the German
Transcendentalists as a contrast that it may be useful to point out. The schools of
Schelling and Fichte have diverged widely from the primitive archaic conception of
an ABSOLUTE principle, and have mirrored only an aspect of the basic idea of the
Vedanta.’ Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 50. Blavatsky knew Sibree’s 1856 translation of
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s The Philosophy of History (New York: Dover, 1956).
See Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 52.
26
 Timothy Lenoir, The Strategy of Life: Teleology and Mechanics in Nineteenth-​Century
German Biology (Dordrecht, Holland, and London: D. Reidel, 1982), 27.
138 Recycled Lives

Among them were some of the scientists Blavatsky cited approvingly,

such as Karl Ernst von Baer and Richard Owen, although those with
whom Blavatsky disagreed—​such as Ernst Haeckel—​were influenced
by Naturphilosophie too.
The notion of progress so prominent in Naturphilosophie, but also
found more widely, had a central place in (re)defining humanity’s place
in the cosmos for many late nineteenth-​century thinkers, especially in
response to the perceived threats of Darwinism. Blavatsky proposed a
cyclic but continuously forward-​moving universe comprising a scala
naturae of fixed types indebted to Aristotelian and Platonic thought.
The immortal monad travelled through it, reincarnating within succes-
sive predetermined levels as it ascended the ‘great chain of being’. This
great chain, as Arthur Lovejoy explained in his classic study, was a con-
ception of the plan and structure of the world that had been accepted
by almost everyone from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, an
immense hierarchy composed of the lowest to the highest existents with
God at the top.27 For Blavatsky, different species each had their place
in the hierarchy. The possibility of small mutations notwithstanding,
species could not change into one another, as proposed in natural se-
lection. Blavatsky was not alone in rejecting transmutationism and up-
holding the fixity of species. Many prominent scientists thought along
similar lines, including Richard Owen and Karl Ernst von Baer, both of
whom Blavatsky admired.
Blavatsky referred to the names and theories of numerous such sci-
entists in her descriptions of the evolving reincarnationary cosmos
to justify her views. Choosing to treat science, heuristically, as a cul-
tural construct the boundaries of which were ‘fluid and contested’,28
Olav Hammer argued that esotericists like Blavatsky defined science
as a body of doctrines rather than a method of enquiry, selectively ap-
propriating elements of scientific discourse. Occultists used contem-
porary science in two apparently contradictory ways, both as a source

27
 Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard
University Press, 2001), 59.
28
 Hammer, Claiming Knowledge, 206–​207.
 Science 139

of legitimacy and as an ‘Other’ against which to define themselves.29

Hammer described this as ‘scientism’. It involved

The active positioning of one’s own claims in relation to the mani-

festations of any academic scientific discipline, including, but not
limited to, the use of technical devices, scientific terminology, math-
ematical calculations, theories, references and stylistic features—​
without, however, the use of methods generally approved within the
scientific community, and without subsequent social acceptance of
these manifestations by the mainstream of the scientific community
through e.g. peer reviewed publication in academic journals.30

Such scientism was a fundamental process in the construction of modern

religion. Kocku von Stuckrad called it the ‘scientification of religion’,
and as a part of it, ‘the discursive organization of knowledge around
religion in secular environments’ became entangled with scientific dis-
courses. Theosophy was ‘instrumental in establishing new meanings of
religion and science in the twentieth century’,31 and Blavatsky’s work
can be seen as a ‘discursive hub’ in which various discursive strands were
brought together.32

Theosophy between ‘Science’ and ‘Religion’

Although late nineteenth-​century commentators depicted science and
religion as warring camps in popular works such as The History of the
Conflict between Science and Religion (1874) by John William Draper
(1811–​1882), historians today tend see the situation much differently.33
As James Moore put it, we ‘aim to situate religion and science on cul-
tural common ground and so recover the religiosity of science, the

29
 Ibid.,  203–​4.
30
 Ibid., 206.
31
 Kocku von Stuckrad, The Scientification of Religion: A Historical Study of Discursive
Change 1800–​2000 (Boston and Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 112 and 180.
32
 Ibid., 94.
33
 See Richard Noakes, ‘Spiritualism, Science, and the Supernatural in Mid-​Victorian
Britain’, in The Victorian Supernatural, ed. Carolyn Burdett Nicola Bown and Pamela
Thurschwell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 24 and 39.
140 Recycled Lives

scientificity of religion, and the integrity of metaphysics occupying that

large terra incognita “between science and religion.” ’34 Spiritualism
had a significant place in discussions surrounding science and religion,
and many prominent scientists took an interest in it. While some be-
lieved séance phenomena were ‘supernatural’, others believed natural
forces lay behind them. Science had not yet identified these, but they
thought it eventually would. William Crookes (1832–​1919), one of the
scientists named approvingly by Blavatsky above, is a good example.
Crookes believed in the existence of spiritual beings. He was attracted
to Theosophy and joined the London Lodge in 1883.35 One of the most
celebrated Victorian investigators of Spiritualism, Crookes was also a
leading analytical chemist and discoverer of the element thallium. He
conducted controversial research throughout the 1870s that led him to
believe he had discovered a psychic force, although he failed to con-
vince his colleagues at the Royal Society of its existence.36
Another prominent Spiritualist-​scientist Blavatsky mentioned ap-
provingly was the co-​discoverer (with Darwin) of evolution by natural
selection, Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–​1913). Blavatsky had sent letters
to Wallace, as well as a copy of Isis Unveiled.37 She described him as
one of the ‘luminaries of the modern Evolutionist School’ and praised
him for highlighting the inadequacy of natural selection (as understood
by Darwin and his followers). Wallace believed human evolution had
been guided by the entities revealed in séances.38 This wasn’t precisely
what Blavatsky taught (which was that evolution was guided by beings
called dhyan chohans and pitris, as distinct from the entities contacted
in séances) but the basic idea was the same: evolution was guided by

34
 James Moore, ‘Religion and Science’, in The Cambridge History of Science: Volume
6, the Modern Biological and Earth Sciences, ed. Peter J. Bowler and John V. Pickstone
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 561.
35
 William Hodson Brock, William Crookes (1832–​1919) and the Commercialization of
Science (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 207.
36
  William Crookes, Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism (Manchester:  Two
Worlds, 1926), 17. Blavatsky was familiar with Crookes’s work. See Noakes,
‘Spiritualism, Science, and the Supernatural’, 33–​34.
37
 Letter to A. R. Wallace, 7 November 1877, in Blavatsky, Letters, 362.
38
 Richard Noakes, ‘The Historiography of Psychical Research: Lessons from Histories
of the Sciences’, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 72, no. 2 (April 2008).
 Science 141

spiritual beings. Blavatsky therefore agreed with Wallace in principle

and quoted him in corroboration of her position.39 She may have been
convinced, but like Crookes, Wallace’s attempts to persuade his col-
leagues to take his ideas seriously in the 1860s proved unsuccessful.40
Crookes and Wallace’s critics believed Spiritualism to be anathema
to science and threaten its progress.41 Some of Blavatsky’s source texts
put forward similar opinions. For example, in The Concepts of Modern
Physics (1882), the philosopher Johann Bernhard Stallo (1823–​1900)
expressed a hope that all metaphysical elements would be eliminated
from science, and he even went so far as to attack all metaphysical en-
deavours as flawed.42 In The Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism (1873),
Oscar Schmidt (1823–​1886) argued that religious and scientific ideas
were incommensurable.43 He went on to criticise Spiritualism expli-
citly. ‘We have only to look round at the spiritualists and summoners
of souls, who now form special sects and societies [.  .  .] and we can
but marvel at the extensive sway of [. . .] superstition [indicating] the
very widespread lack of judgment which prevails wherever the sup-
posed enigma of human existence is concerned.’44 Similarly, in Science
vs. Spiritualism, Count Agénor de Gasparin (1810–​1871) vehemently
denounced ‘false miracles, spurious sorcery, wonders of every kind, a
return to the most foolish and odious credulities of the past, a restor-
ation of the Middle Ages and their least respectable practices’.45 He

39
 ‘One of the luminaries of the modern Evolutionist School, Mr. A. R. Wallace, when
discussing the inadequacy of “natural selection” as the sole factor in the development
of physical man, practically concedes the whole point here discussed. He holds that
the evolution of man was directed and furthered by superior Intelligences, whose
agency is a necessary factor in the scheme of Nature. But once the operation of these
Intelligences is admitted in one place, it is only a logical deduction to extend it still
further.’ Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 107.
40
 Brock, Crookes, 126.
41
 Noakes, ‘Spiritualism, Science, and the supernatural’, 24.
42
  J. B. Stallo, Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics (London:  Kegan and Paul,
Trench and Co., 1882), 8.
43
 Oscar Schmidt, The Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism (London: Henry S. King
and Co., 1875), 12 and 14–​15.
44
 Ibid., 2.
45
  Agénor de Gasparin, Science vs. Spiritualism:  A Treatise on Turning Tables, the
Supernatural in General and Spirits, trans. E. W. Robert, 2 vols. (New York: Kiggins
and Kellogg, 1857), vol 1, 197–​198.
142 Recycled Lives

denounced magnetism46 (i.e., Mesmerism) and stated, ‘either science

must consent to take one step, or superstition will take ten’.47 These
opinions were not monolithic, but they illustrated a general anti-​
religious and/​or anti-​Spiritualist trend with which Blavatsky was fa-
miliar, and which she repudiated.
On the other side of the debate were those who denounced materi-
alism. Among Blavatsky’s sources who took this stance was The History
of the Supernatural (1863), by the British Spiritualist William Howitt
(1792–​1879). Howitt argued, ‘it must be admitted that in no age have
the deadening effects of a materialistic education been so prominent as
in the present.’48 He claimed to have amassed evidence ‘from every age
and every people’ to prove the existence of spiritual agencies as an anti-
dote to the growth of ‘religious infidelity’.49 Some professional scientists
pointed to the supposed limits of materialism too and, like Crookes
and Wallace, found in this reason to believe in invisible realms. In an-
other literary source of Blavatsky’s, The Soul of Things (1863), William
Denton, a professor of geology, wrote, ‘notwithstanding the disbelief of
materialists and material scientists, there lie realms beyond the domain
of physical science.’50
Other commentators expressed exasperation over the polarisation
of materialist and Spiritual positions. John Lucas Tupper (1824?–​1879)
had expressed it particularly poignantly when he wrote to fellow artist
William Holman Hunt (1827–​1910) in 1870 about the current struggle
between intellectuals positing a ‘machine world’ devoid of any real
humanity and the ‘credulous fanatics, the victims of spiritualist im-
posters’.51 Some of Blavatsky’s most influential literary sources sought
similar reconciliations and it is no coincidence that, like Blavatsky, they
were often of a heterodox or occult inclination. As Michael Bergunder
observed, esoteric movements, Theosophy included, played a decisive

46
 Ibid., vol. 1, 254–​255.
47
 Ibid., vol. 2, 424.
48
 Howitt, The History of the Supernatural, vol. 2, 461.
49
 Noakes, ‘The Historiography of Psychical Research’, 67.
50
 William Denton and Elizabeth Denton, The Soul of Things (Wellesley, MA: Denton
Publishing Company, 1888), 1–​3, 11.
51
 Herbert Schlossberg, Conflict and Crisis in the Religious Life of Late Victorian England
(New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2009), 275.
 Science 143

role in the conceptual establishment of discourses aimed at fusing the

categories ‘science’ and ‘religion’ at a time when they were separating.52
Lady Caithness’s Old Truths in a New Light (1876), for example, aimed
to test the ‘old truths’ of Spiritualism in the new light of science. She
argued although science was essential, it could not stand alone. ‘It must
go hand in hand with Spiritism, or it will inevitably stumble every
third step.’53 Likewise, the French occultist Eliphas Lévi (1810–​1875)
maintained that occult science reconciled science and religion. In La
Clef des Grandes Mystères (1861), he wrote that the three objectives of
his work were ‘to bring into accord, within religion, science with reve-
lation, reason with faith, to demonstrate, in philosophy, the absolute
principles that reconcile all the antinomies, and, finally, to reveal the
universal equilibrium of natural forces’.54 From Lévi’s perspective, reli-
gion and science were vulgarisations of the true, ancient occult science
revealed in his works. The resonances here with Blavatsky were signifi-
cant, and Lévi was a key influence whose works Blavatsky knew well.55
She may have believed that scientific theories were ‘faulty, material-
istic and biased’, but they were still ‘a thousand times nearer the truth
than the vagaries of theology’.56 Blavatsky argued that ‘belief ’ and ‘un-
belief ’ embraced only a small part of the ‘infinite horizons of spiritual
and physical manifestations’ and that they could not ‘circumscribe the
whole within their own special and narrow barriers’.57 She maintained
that the ‘best and most spiritual men of our present day’ could no longer
be satisfied with ‘either science or theology’ since neither had anything
better to offer than ‘blind faith in their respective infallibility’.58 Like

52
 Bergunder, ‘Religion and Science’.
53
 Caithness, Old Truths in a New Light, 1.
54
  ‘Accorder, dans l’ordre religieux la science avec la révélation, et la raison avec la
foi, démontrer en philosophie les principes absolus qui concilient toutes les anti-
nomies, révéler enfin l’équilibre universel des forces naturelles, tel est le triple but de
cet ouvrage, qui sera, par conséquent, divisé en trois parties.’ Eliphas Lévi, La clef des
grandes mystères (Paris: Germer Baillière, 1861), ii–​iii.
55
 Blavatsky was very familiar with Lévi’s works. She had translated them from French
to English in the 1870s and she quoted them throughout her own writings.
56
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 323.
57
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 287–​288.
58
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 349.
144 Recycled Lives

many of her Spiritualist contemporaries, Blavatsky maintained there

were things natural science had not yet discovered, and she called for
scientists to be more modest about the reach of their research and not
to unfairly condemn the occultists, arguing, ‘science has no right to
deny to the Occultists their claim to a more profound knowledge of
the so-​called Forces.’59

The Unseen Universe and Isis Unveiled

The Unseen Universe (1875) was a dominant source for Blavatsky with
regard to this attempted reconciliation, influencing her perception of
what science should be as well as her theories of rebirth.60 Its authors
were two Scotsmen:  Balfour Stewart (1828–​1887), professor of nat-
ural philosophy and president of the Society for Psychical Research,
and Peter Guthrie Tait (1831–​1901), professor of mathematics and later
natural philosophy. Responding to ideas like William Draper’s about
the supposed conflict between science and religion, Stewart and Tait
endeavoured to show that ‘the presumed incompatibility of Science
and Religion’ did not exist.61 They were part of a group of scientists
who, between the 1850s and the 1870s, proposed a science of energy,
promoting a natural philosophy they believed was in harmony with
Christian belief. They offered this in counterpoint to scientific ma-
terialism, which they saw as ‘pernicious nonsense’, in contrast to the
‘harmless folly’ of Spiritualism.62 Stewart and Tait saw this destructive
materialism exemplified in John Tyndall’s ‘Belfast Address’, a series of
lectures given between 1868 and 1874.63 Analysing the Belfast Address,

59
 Ibid., 520.
60
 For background on Blavatsky’s indebtedness to Stewart and Tait see Clark, Energy
Forms, 173–​175.
61
  Stewart and Tait, The Unseen Universe, xi. The work was initially published an-
onymously but most of the scientific community knew who the authors were and
they eventually added their names to a later edition. Daniel J. Cohen, Equations from
God:  Pure Mathematics and Victorian Faith (Baltimore:  Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2007), 166.
62
 Noakes, ‘The Historiography of Psychical Research’, 75.
63
 P. M. Heimann, ‘The “Unseen Universe”: Physics and the Philosophy of Nature in
Victorian Britain’, The British Journal for the History of Science 6, no. 1 (June 1972), 73.
 Science 145

however, Ruth Barton has shown that Tyndall’s concept of matter was
in fact a metaphysical construct with pantheistic implications influ-
enced by the American Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson and
the ‘natural supernaturalism’ of the influential Scottish philosopher
Thomas Carlyle (1795–​1881).64 Be that as it may, Stewart and Tait per-
ceived Tyndall as a materialist and proposed their theory in response to
him. Blavatsky did the same.
Attempting to bridge science and religion as they understood them,
Stewart and Tait argued for the principle of the continuity of energy,
which stated energy could not be destroyed but only change form.

We thus see that the extreme scientific, as well as the old theological
school, have erred in their conclusions, because they have neither of
them loyally followed the principle of Continuity. The theologians,
regarding matter and its laws with contempt, have without scruple
assumed that frequent invasions of these laws could constitute a ten-
able hypothesis. On the other hand, the extreme school of science,
when they were brought by the principle of Continuity into such
a position that the next logical step should have been the realisa-
tion of the unseen, failed to take it, and have suffered grievously in
consequence.65

Unsurprisingly, this claim was met with hostility from some quarters.
The English philosopher and mathematician William Kingdon Clifford
(1845–​1879) wrote a critique of The Unseen Universe in the influential
English periodical The Fortnightly Review that was widely celebrated
as a triumphant refutation of pseudo-​science.66 As Daniel Cohen ob-
served, for Clifford, ‘true scientists and mathematicians shunned in-
appropriate extrapolations such as this, and thus had no patience for
the scientific support of theology.’67

64
  Ruth Barton, ‘John Tyndall, Pantheist:  A Rereading of the Belfast Address’,
Osiris 2, no. 3 (1987), 111–​134. Carlyle’s natural supernaturalism was the idea that
people and, more broadly, nature have the power and authority once ascribed to an
independent deity.
65
 Stewart and Tait, The Unseen Universe, 66.
66
 Cohen, Equations, 166 and 219.
67
 Ibid., 167.
146 Recycled Lives

A. P. Heimann characterised The Unseen Universe as an original con-

tribution to the philosophy of nature. He affirmed that Stewart and
Tait ‘rejected any attempt to separate the natural from the miraculous.
Arguing that the natural order included an invisible realm which was in
communication with the visible universe, they explained the manifest-
ations of divine providence in terms of the transfer of energy from the
invisible to the visible realm.’68 For Stewart and Tait, the totality com-
prising the invisible and visible realms was a self-​contained system.69
They referred to the speculation of the English scientist Thomas Young
(1773–​1829) that nature constituted a hierarchy of material and imma-
terial levels, and maintained that the visible and invisible realms were
connected through the transfer of energy from one level to another.70
The ether (the ethereal medium widely believed to fill space at that
time) was ‘not merely a bridge between one portion of the visible uni-
verse and another’ but was also ‘a bridge between one order of things
and another’.71 These were ideas with clear resonances with Blavatsky.
Stewart and Tait suggested that despite the death of the human body,
a part of the person might live on as a form of energy in an invisible
realm.72 ‘Immortality,’ Stewart and Tait wrote, ‘may be regarded as a
transference from one grade of being to another’ or ‘a transference from
the visible universe to some other order of things intimately connected
with it.’73 All of this was rather close to Blavatsky’s doctrine of met-
empsychosis. It was not a coincidence, since the first volume of Isis
Unveiled was full of explicit references to The Unseen Universe.74

Of late, some of our learned men have given a particular attention

to a subject hitherto branded with the mark of ‘superstition’. They
begin speculating on hypothetical and invisible worlds. The au-
thors of the Unseen Universe were the first to boldly take the lead.

68
 Heimann, Unseen Universe,  75–​76.
69
 Ibid., 76.
70
 Ibid., 77.
71
 Ibid., 77.
72
 Cohen, Equations, 166.
73
 Stewart and Tait, Unseen Universe,  66–​67.
74
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 114.
 Science 147

[. . .] If scientists, proceeding from a strictly scientific point of view,

such as the possibility of energy being transferred into the invisible
universe—​and on the principle of continuity, indulge in such specu-
lations, why should occultists and spiritualists be refused the same
privilege?75

Indeed, Blavatsky presented Stewart and Tait’s book as proving the doc-
trines she presented in Isis Unveiled:

Of all the modern speculators upon the seeming incongruities of

the New Testament, alone the authors of the Unseen Universe seem to
have caught a glimpse of its kabalistic truths, respecting the gehenna
of the universe. This gehenna, termed by the occultists the eighth
sphere (numbering inversely), is merely a planet like our own.

Blavatsky cited The Unseen Universe in support of the idea that that
matter discarded during metempsychosis was recycled on an eighth
sphere. Immediately afterward, she outlined her theory of conditional
immortality and metempsychosis:

The secret doctrine teaches that man, if he wins immortality, will

remain forever the trinity that he is in life, and will continue so
throughout all the spheres. The astral body, which in this life is
covered by a gross physical envelope, becomes—​when relieved of
that covering by the process of corporeal death—​in its turn the shell
of another and more ethereal body. This begins developing from the
moment of death, and becomes perfected where the astral body of
the earthly form finally separates from it. This process, they say, is
repeated at every new transition from sphere to sphere. But the im-
mortal soul, ‘the silvery spark’, [. . .] remains indestructible.76

This was one of the clearest statements of the doctrines of her early
period Blavatsky ever gave. She taught humans were required to

75
 Ibid., 185.
76
 Blavatsky, Isis I, 328–​329.
148 Recycled Lives

achieve immortality during life on Earth by conjoining their immortal

spirits with their mortal souls. Having achieved this, they would as-
cend through the next six spheres (which, with the Earth gave a total
of seven), discarding and acquiring an astral body with each transition,
thereby maintaining a trinity of principles. Blavatsky had drawn signifi-
cant elements of these doctrines from the Anglo-​American Spiritualist
currents discussed in ­chapter 4, but she found her interpretations con-
firmed by Stewart and Tait’s account of a hierarchical cosmos in which
transferences from one fixed ‘grade’ to another occurred.

Ernst Haeckel’s Monism and The Secret Doctrine

Not all attempts to bridge science and religion were equal in Blavatsky’s
eyes. Monism—​the idea that everything is united in a single substance—​
originated in antiquity and had been present in German Idealism and
Romanticism, where F. W. J. Schelling (1775–​1854), J. W. von Goethe
(1749–​1832), and G. W. F. Hegel (1770–​1831) had drawn on the phil-
osophies of Baruch Spinoza (1632–​1677) and Giordano Bruno (1548–​
1600), giving them a characteristically nineteenth-​ century flavour
through reference to notions of ‘becoming’, progress, or development.
Nineteenth-​century monism could be of different orientations, with
materialist versions asserting the primacy of matter and spiritualist
ones emphasising spirit.77 Up until around 1840, variously materialist
or spiritualist versions of monism had been in tension with one an-
other, but from the end of the 1840s, materialist monism was the most
prominent.78
In General Morphology (1866), Haeckel proposed a materialist monism
that would become particularly influential. Although he didn’t invent
the term ‘monism’, he did much to popularise it.79 He cited Goethe,
synthesising Darwinism with Naturphilosophie and Lamarckism—​an

77
 Frederick Gregory, Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth-​Century Germany (Dordrecht
and Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1977), 46–​47.
78
 Gregory, Scientific Materialism, 50.
79
  Todd H. Weir, ‘The Riddles of Monism:  An Introductory Essay’, in
Monism: Science, Philosophy, Religion, and the History of a Worldview, ed. Todd H. Weir
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 5.
 Science 149

aspect of the theory of Jean-​Baptiste Lamarck (1744–​1829), namely, that

characteristics acquired by an organism during its life are passed on to
the offspring. Haeckel’s monism asserted the ‘unity of nature’, meaning
that the universe was composed of one substance and was governed by
one set of laws. Although it had spiritual meaning, reality comprised
the material world and nothing more.80 It was a naturalistic, materi-
alistic, and secularising vision that proposed the unity of science and
religion under Darwinism and left no room for anything beyond the
material realm.
Haeckel’s ideas exemplified the interaction of natural science with
philosophy and religion in the context of contemporary social ten-
sions.81 Notions of an immanent divine tended to be associated with
anti-​confessional rationalism, and monism appealed to many with
mystical, heretical, or anti-​ authoritarian dispositions.82 One might
therefore have expected it to have appealed to Blavatsky. After all, she
had an immanent view of the divine, was vehemently anti-​clerical, and
definitely thought of herself as an anti-​establishment thinker. Indeed,
there was much about Haeckel’s monism that resonated, and Blavatsky
even identified Theosophy as a type of monism.83 However, as Gauri
Viswanathan explained, Blavatsky ‘sought to disentangle’ Theosophy
from Haeckel’s monism, claiming, ‘Theosophy’s notion of the unity

80
 Gregory, Scientific Materialism, 49.
81
 Weir, Monism, 3 and 27.
82
  Ibid., 17 and 27. Many of those who attended the International Congress of
Freethinkers in Brussels, for example, were drawn to Haeckel’s monism. Gathering in
1880 to oppose clerical influence in public life, among them were Freemasons, secular-
ists, and abolitionist radical republicans. Ibid., 5.
83
 She also wrote a couple of articles specifically addressing monism in answer to the
secularist Charles Bradlaugh, who wrote an article critical of Theosophy after Annie
Besant’s conversion to Theosophy. Bradlaugh wrote: ‘An Atheist certainly cannot be
a Theosophist. A Deist might be a Theosophist. A Monist could not be a Theosophist.
Theosophy must at least involve Dualism.’ Blavatsky answered:  ‘The Monism of
Theosophy is truly philosophical. We conceive of the universe as one in essence and
origin. And though we speak of Spirit and Matter as its two poles, yet we state em-
phatically that they can only be considered as distinct from the standpoint of human,
mayavic (i.e., illusionary) consciousness. We therefore conceive of spirit and matter as
one in essence and not as separate and distinct antitheses.’ [All emphases original] H. P.
Blavatsky, ‘Force of Prejudice’, Lucifer 4, no. 23 (July 1889), 355 and 357.
150 Recycled Lives

of matter and spirit constituted a purer expression of monism than

found in science or secularism’.84 Ultimately, Blavatsky was a spiritu-
alist monist and Haeckel a materialist one, and Blavatsky could not
forgive him for this fundamental error.

Such men are simply the intellectual and moral murderers of future
generations; especially Hæckel, whose crass materialism often rises to
the height of idiotic naivetés in his reasonings. One has but to read
his ‘Pedigree of Man, and Other Essays’ (Aveling’s transl.) to feel a
desire, in the words of Job, that his remembrance should perish from
the earth, and that he ‘shall have no name in the streets’.85

Blavatsky had several grievances. She objected to Haeckel’s theory that

life arose from purely material processes, challenging his account of
the origins of life in monera, organisms that reproduce through asexual
budding. Nevertheless, she incorporated the notion of asexual budding
into her account of the evolution of the earlier root races, while com-
plaining that Haeckel’s account was incomplete and demanding the
input of spiritual elements.

Occult Sciences admit with Hæckel that (objective) life on our globe
‘is a logical postulate of Scientific natural history’, but add that the
rejection of a like Spiritual involution, from within without, of in-
visible subjective Spirit-​life—​eternal and a Principle in Nature—​is
more illogical, if possible, than to say that the Universe and all in it
has been gradually built by blind forces inherent in matter, without
any external help.86

Then there was Haeckel’s advocacy of the detested Darwinian theory

of man’s descent from the apes, which he tried to prove through refer-
ence to recapitulation, the idea that the human embryo passes through
stages of development that correlate to the stages of that organism’s

84
  Gauri Viswanathan, ‘Monism and Suffering:  A Theosophical Perspective’, in
Monism, ed. Todd H. Weir, 92.
85
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 651–​652.
86
 Ibid., 348.
 Science 151

evolutionary development.87 Blavatsky incorporated versions of

recapitulationism into her doctrines of metempsychosis and reincar-
nation, in which she argued (differently in each case) that the monad
passed through mineral, plant, and animal forms on its way to human
incarnation.88 Haeckel’s version of recapitulationism referred only to
animal forms and was, therefore, incomplete from Blavatsky’s point
of view. In The Secret Doctrine, she argued the forms the embryo went
through were the ‘store of types hoarded up in man, the microcosm’.
In other words, they were the fixed forms the monad had already in-
carnated into during previous rounds on its evolutionary journey.
Blavatsky noted that Haeckel and Darwin ‘triumphantly’ referred to
the presence of a tail in the embryonic stages as proof of man’s ancestry
from the apes. She objected, ‘It may also be pointed out that the presence
of a vegetable with leaflets in the embryonic stages is not explained on or-
dinary evolutionist principles. Darwinists have not traced man through
the vegetable, but Occultists have. Why then this feature in the embryo,
and how do the former explain it? [her emphases].’89 Once again,
Blavatsky subsumed an aspect of a scientific theory while maintaining
the Theosophical version was scientifically superior.
Haeckel’s theories had been opposed by the Berlin physiologist Emil
Du Bois Reymond (1818–​1896), who pinpointed questions—​like the
origin of consciousness and the origin of motion—​he believed were not
open to empirical explanation.90 As Todd H. Weir observed, Du Bois
Reymond’s map of science allowed for the existence of a transcendent
realm, although he insisted the transcendental should not encroach

87
 Weir, Monism, 5.
88
 In metempsychosis, the monad passes through mineral, plant, and animal forms
before achieving immortality on Earth and ascending to the spheres. In reincarnation,
the monad passes through these earlier stages in previous rounds. ‘The human fœtus
follows now in its transformations all the forms that the physical frame of man had
assumed throughout the three Kalpas (Rounds) during the tentative efforts at plastic
formation around the monad by senseless, because imperfect, matter, in her blind
wanderings. In the present age, the physical embryo is a plant, a reptile, an animal,
before it finally becomes man, evolving within himself his own ethereal counterpart, in
his turn. In the beginning it was that counterpart (astral man) which, being senseless,
got entangled in the meshes of matter.’ Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 184.
89
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 187.
90
 Weir, Monism, 9 and Gregory, Scientific Materialism, 49.
152 Recycled Lives

on the scientific. Haeckel saw no such limits.91 His theory was an all-​
encompassing materialism that subsumed religion by replacing it with
empirical science.92 Blavatsky was well aware of the argument between
Haeckel and Du Bois Reymond.93

We are assured that real science is not materialistic; and our own
conviction tells us that it cannot be so, when its learning is real.
There is a good reason for it, well defined by some physicists and
chemists themselves. Natural sciences cannot go hand in hand with
materialism. To be at the height of their calling, men of science
have to reject the very possibility of materialistic doctrines having
aught to do with the atomic theory; and we find that [. . .] Du Bois
Reymond,—​the latter probably unconsciously—​and several others,
have proved it. 94

Blavatsky knew her citation of Du Bois Reymond might be seen as

problematic because he was known as a materialist. Nevertheless, his
value as an ally against Haeckel outweighed such minor issues (which
also included his rejection of vitalism).95 This was especially the case if
Blavatsky could turn things to her advantage by stating that even ‘his
own brother materialists’ had criticised Haeckel, including ‘as great,
if not greater, authorities than himself ’ such as Du Bois Reymond.
However, she also explained that Du Bois Reymond was not really
a materialist, but rather an agnostic, who had ‘protested most vehe-
mently against the materialistic doctrine’.96 One suspects it was a case
of trying to have one’s cake and eat it, but it may have been fuelled by
the generalised lack of clarity over definitions of materialism that Frank
Turner highlighted.

91
 Weir, Monism, 10.
92
 Ibid.,  10–​11.
93
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 650. See also 663–​664, 651, and 656.
94
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 518.
95
 On Du Bois Reymond’s opposition to vitalism, see Lenoir, Strategy of Life, 217.
96
  Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 650. Gabriel Finkelstein, Emil Du Bois
Reymond: Neuroscience, Self, and Society in Nineteenth-​Century Germany (Cambridge,
MA, and London: MIT Press, 2013), 255.
 Science 153

Darwinism
In natural selection, evolution was seen as driven by a combination
of chance and environmental factors. Robert J.  Richards has argued
that despite historians’ and scientists’ portrayals of Darwin as making
a complete break with previous Romantic and teleological evolu-
tionary theories, in fact, his theory had its roots in earlier ones, such
as recapitulationism, which had ‘more than a whiff’ of ‘guidance in
evolution by teleological factors’.97 Be that as it may, Blavatsky per-
ceived natural selection as non-​teleological and materialist, and both
these things guaranteed her to hate it.98 She claimed that natural selec-
tion was incomplete and didn’t conform to ancient science, the bench-
mark against which modern ideas had to be judged.99 She also objected
that it excluded spiritual elements and as a result didn’t adequately ex-
plain the origin of variations in biological organisms. This could only
be explained through reference to the divine.100 In Isis Unveiled, she had
criticised transformationism, the idea that species gradually change into
one another that was associated with Darwinism and Lamarckism. This
intervention was so urgent to her that she opened The Secret Doctrine
by quoting herself:

‘While it is positively absurd to believe the “transformation of spe-

cies” to have taken place according to some of the more materi-
alistic views of the evolutionists, it is but natural to think that
each genus, beginning with the molluscs and ending with man,

97
 See Richards, Meaning of Evolution, esp. 76–​77.
98
 She had criticised Darwin already in Isis Unveiled but was much more detailed in her
rebuttals in The Secret Doctrine.
99
 ‘Space fails us to present the speculative views of certain ancient and mediaeval oc-
cultists upon this subject. Suffice it that they antedated Darwin, embraced more or less
all his theories on natural selection and the evolution of species, and largely extended
the chain at both ends. Moreover, these philosophers were explorers as daring in psych-
ology as in physiology and anthropology. They never turned aside from the double
parallel-​path traced for them by their great master Hermes. “As above, so below”, was
ever their axiom; and their physical evolution was traced out simultaneously with the
spiritual one.’ Blavatsky, Isis I, 427. See also Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 426.
100
 Blavatsky, Isis I, 154 and 429. Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 299.
154 Recycled Lives

had modified its own primordial and distinctive forms.’  —​Isis

Unveiled, Vol. I., p. 153.101

She maintained that despite the possibility of some adaptations leading

to variations, each species possessed a primordial or essential form and
that modifications due to the environment only took place within
those parameters.
If Blavatsky rejected Darwin, then how did she believe evolution
occurred? Blavatsky believed evolution was guided, spiritually, both in-
ternally and externally. We have already encountered the idea of the
evolutionary guidance of spiritual entities in the thought of Alfred
Russel Wallace. This was just one of the various alternatives to nat-
ural selection propagated during what Peter Bowler referred to as the
‘eclipse of Darwinism’ from the 1880s through the first decades of the
twentieth century. At that time, biologists generally accepted the idea
of evolution but doubted that natural selection was its central mech-
anism. As Blavatsky observed, ‘There are many anti-​Darwinists in the
British Association, and “Natural Selection” begins to lose ground.
[.  .  .] Even Mr. Huxley is showing signs of truancy to “Selection”,
and thinks “natural selection not the sole factor”.’102 The four main
alternatives to natural selection in the late nineteenth century were
saltationism, also known as the ‘mutation theory’ (evolution through
sudden mutations), neo-​Lamarckism (transmission of acquired char-
acteristics), theistic evolution, and orthogenesis (evolution driven by
something internal). These were proposed in various combinations by
different thinkers and the distinctions between them were sometimes
blurred.103 A central issue for evolutionary theorists was whether evolu-
tion necessarily involved progress or whether degradation could occur.
There was no clear-​cut relationship between particular evolutionary
theories and a specific view of progress. As Bowler noted, ‘Darwinism,

101
 Preface to The Secret Doctrine. No page number.
102
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 696. On Huxley’s questioning of natural selection as a
fully adequate explanation for evolution, see Turner, Contesting Cultural Authority, 20.
103
 Peter J. Bowler, The Eclipse of Darwinism (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1992), 7–​8.
 Science 155

Lamarckism and orthogenesis were all exploited by both progressionists

and degenerationists.’104
Blavatsky was firm in her progressionism. In addition to the idea of
guidance by higher intelligences, her ideas had the most affinity with
progressivist versions of orthogenesis. Orthogenetic theories proposed
that an internal factor directed evolution along a certain path inde-
pendently of the environment.105 In this vein, Blavatsky wrote about
matter’s ‘impulse to take on a higher form’106 and pitted this perspective
against a Darwinism she perceived as materialist and non-​teleological.
She quoted an extract from On the Origin of Species:

The Occultists believe in an inherent law of progressive develop-

ment. Mr. Darwin never did, and says so himself. On page  145 of
the ‘Origin of Species’ we find him stating that, since there can be no
advantage ‘to the infusorian animalcule or an intestinal worm . . . to
become highly organized’, therefore, ‘natural selection’, not including
necessarily progressive development—​leaves the animalcule and the
worm (the ‘persistent types’) quiet [Blavatsky’s emphases].107

Blavatsky was inspired by several prominent critics of Darwin, who

proposed teleological theories she described as ‘veiled manifestations
of the universal guiding FOHAT’. 108 In this context she referred to
the ‘principle of perfectibility’109 of the Swiss botanist Carl Wilhelm von
Nägeli (1817–​1891), who, in The Origin and Concept of Natural Historical
Species (1865), had argued that natural selection was a not sufficient ex-
planation and had to be supplemented with a ‘theory of perfectibility’
(Vervollkommnung), an inner progressive principle or tendency towards

104
  Peter J. Bowler, ‘Holding Your Head Up High:  Degeneration and Orthogenesis
in Theories of Human Evolution’, History, Humanity, and Evolution: Essays for John
C. Greene, ed. James R. Moore (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 330.
105
 Orthogenesis was not necessarily teleological, since trends developing without ref-
erence to the environment could lead to extinction, although it often was teleological
in orientation. Bowler, The Eclipse of Darwinism, 7.
106
 Blavatsky, Isis I, xxxii.
107
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 260.
108
 Ibid., 649.
109
 Ibid., 649.
156 Recycled Lives

complexity.110 Almost twenty years later, in A mechanico-​Physiological

Theory of Organic Evolution (1884), Nägeli reasoned there had to be a
fraction of the human egg that was important in inheritance. He called
this the ‘ideoplasm’.111 This was suggestively reminiscent of Blavatsky’s
claim that a ‘spiritual potency in the physical cell [. . .] guides the devel-
opment of the embryo. [. . .] This inner soul of the physical cell—​this
“spiritual plasm” that dominates the germinal plasm—​is the key that
must open one day the gates of the terra incognita of the Biologist, now
called the dark mystery of Embryology.’112
Blavatsky also mentioned Karl Ernst von Baer (1792–​1876) in support
of her progressivist orthogenetic perspective, referring to his notion of
‘striving towards the purpose’.113 Von Baer was an anti-​Darwinist and
distinguished member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences with
an interest in Naturphilosophie.114 According to Alexander Vucnich, von
Baer ‘represented the culmination of a strong tradition in pre-​Darwinian
embryology in Russia built by scientists of German origin’.115 Like
Blavatsky, he allowed for some transformation within types, but none
from one to another. Superficially reminiscent of Du Bois Reymond,
von Baer also believed there were mysteries of nature inaccessible to sci-
ence. For him, however, these were better approached through religion,
and he objected to materialism because it led to atheism.116 His objec-
tions to Darwinism centred on his dislike of the mechanistic aspects of
the theory as well as his teleological views, and his writings were drawn
on by many anti-​Darwinists, especially in Russia.117

110
  Evolution:  Selected Letters of Charles Darwin 1860–​1870, ed. Frederick Burkhardt,
Samantha Evans, and Alison M. Pearn (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press,
2008), 210.
111
 Stephen Webster, Thinking about Biology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2003), 16.
112
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 219.
113
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 649.
114
 Ruse, Monad to Man, 112.
115
 Alexander Vucinich, Darwin in Russian Thought (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 1988), 13 and 31–​2.
116
 Ibid., 93
117
 Ibid., 94 and 97.
 Science 157

A third teleological evolutionary theorist Blavatsky mentioned

was the English biologist and palaeontologist Richard Owen (1804–​
1892), an anti-​Darwinian who had a reputation as Darwin’s most
vociferous opponent.118 Blavatsky referred to his notion of a ‘ten-
dency towards perfectibility’.119 Owen had been influenced by
Naturphilosophie to the extent that Michael Ruse classed him as
the ‘British Naturphilosoph’.120 Like Blavatsky, he objected to the
Darwinian ascription of variation to chance and the notion of man’s
descent from apes, maintaining evolution involved progression to-
wards a specific predetermined goal. Influenced by German progres-
sivism and by von Baer, he espoused a view that was teleological but
not straightforwardly so.121 As Nicolaas Rupke explained, Owen ar-
gued that evolution was determined by an organism’s ‘innate capacity
or power of change’. He combined orthogenesis with mutationism,
at the same time adopting elements of Lamarckism too.122 He pro-
posed a theory of ‘archetypes’, as a kind of ‘blueprint of design for
the formation of animal life’ in which mutations were ‘a logical
embroidering on the archetype’.123 Rupke observed that it has often
been stated that Owen’s archetype was a Platonic idea. The matter
was more complex, however. According to Rupke, Owen’s ideas were
initially consistent with ‘a form of pantheistic Naturphilosophie and
in contradistinction to a Platonic idea. Yet in due course he came to
accept and to promulgate a Platonist connotation, even though his
archetype differed significantly from a Platonic idea sensu stricto.’124

118
 ‘It was not cogency of argument, nor even his imposing reputation as a vertebrate
anatomist and paleontologist, that made Richard Owen, superintendent of the natural
history department of the British Museum, Darwin’s most formidable opponent. It
was above all his arrogant and underhand manner.’ James Moore, The Post-​Darwinian
Controversies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 87.
119
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 649.
120
 Ruse, Monad to Man, 117.
121
 Ibid., 118 and 125.
122
  Nicolaas Rupke, Richard Owen:  Biology without Darwin (Chicago and London: 
University of Chicago Press, 1994), 172–​173.
123
 Rupke, Owen, 128 and 171.
124
 Ibid., 126.
158 Recycled Lives

Conclusions
Blavatsky’s engagement with scientific theories serves as an excellent
window into the debates of the times and was much more extensive
than has been possible to illustrate in this chapter. Nevertheless, the
foregoing overview has provided a broad outline of Blavatsky’s response
to several individual scientists. Of those she approved of, Stewart and
Tait, Du Bois Reymond, and Quatrefages were mentioned frequently
by Blavatsky in her writings. Others, such as Crookes and Wallace, were
important in the history of the Theosophical Society, not just as authors
of sources on which Blavatsky drew but as influential early members
and correspondents. Blavatsky helped diffuse the ideas of all these men
in the context of her occultist agenda.
The second group of scientists was the one against which Blavatsky
defined herself. These were the supposed ‘materialists’, and Darwin,
Huxley, and Haeckel were among the most maligned. As we’ve seen,
Blavatsky didn’t pull her punches. From her portrayals alone, one
might presume all these men to have shared the same foolish stance, but
their positions on science and metaphysics were complex and varied.
Furthermore, Du Bois Reymond, in whose ideas Blavatsky found am-
munition against the materialist Haeckel, took a materialist and anti-​
vitalist position himself, and although Haeckel was a central target for
Blavatsky’s hostility, his monism had much in common with her views.
In other words, Blavatsky disagreed with those she praised and agreed
with those she criticised. She was the first to admit her endorsements
were only ever partial.
Blavatsky’s progressive theory of reincarnation within a vitalistic
cosmos of hierarchically arranged fixed types subsumed, scientistically
(according to Olav Hammer’s definition), theories such as Stewart and
Tait’s principle of the continuity of energy, recapitulationism, the idea
of reproduction through asexual budding, and more. Sometimes, con-
firmations coming from scientific quarters weren’t particularly substan-
tial, but often all Blavatsky needed was a hint. Aspects of her views were
born of the scientistic interaction of nineteenth-​century evolutionary
biology with Platonic, Romantic, Spiritualist, and occultist thought.
This was probably why Janet Oppenheim’s apprehended Blavatsky as
‘harking back to a neo-​Platonic comprehension of scientific enquiry’
 Science 159

and depicting a universe ‘thoroughly permeated by spirit as a creative,

causative agent’.125 It was a law-​governed cosmos, in which spiritual,
physical, and psychic evolution went hand in hand in the development
of everything from solar systems, continents, and biological organisms,
to human beings. Everything progressed in spiral and cyclic fashion,
living, dying and being ‘reborn’ on a higher level. Blavatsky explicitly
stated her notion of the monad’s reincarnationary journey through
seven rounds and seven root races solved every problem in contem-
porary evolutionary theory.126 It explained how humanity progressed
in minute detail, guided by orthogenetic spiritual potencies reminis-
cent of Nägeli’s ideoplasm, as well as by the spiritual beings Crookes
and Wallace had failed to fully comprehend, in Blavatsky’s opinion.
All this took place within a great chain of being whose existence ex-
tending beyond the material realm had been confirmed by Stewart and
Tait. Blavatsky’s vision was offered against a background of tensions
between various materialist and vitalist viewpoints, as well as varied
definitions of the scope of science and the relationship between science
and religion. I have taken care not to speak about science and religion
as if they existed ‘out there’, but rather of different nineteenth-​century
constructions of science, religion, and their relationship. These ranged
from the well-​known conflict model of William Draper and others, to
the idea that there’s no real contradiction between science and religion
when properly understood. The latter was more or less Blavatsky’s view.
It represented an attempt to define humanity’s place in the cosmos in
response to the perceived challenges of Darwinism and materialism, the
‘others’ against whom Blavatsky defined herself.

125
 Oppenheim, Other World, 193.
126
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 696–​698.
    7
Hindu and Buddhist Thought

Blavatsky and Olcott arrived in Bombay in February 1879. In 1880,

they travelled to Ceylon and took pansil, reciting the five Buddhist
precepts before the venerable Akmeemana Dharmàrama at Galle.1 In
Ceylon, they developed relationships with numerous local Buddhists,
some of whom wrote articles for The Theosophist on topics relating to
reincarnation and karma.2 In June, Blavatsky and Olcott inaugurated
the Colombo branch of the Society, and the headquarters became a
place where leading monks came to preach.3 Two particularly note-
worthy figures were Megittuwatte Gunananda (1823–​1890), chief priest
of the Dipaduttama Temple in Colombo, and Hikkaduwe Sumangala
(1827–​1911), high priest of the temple of Sri Pada (Adam’s Peak).4 Both
of them wrote articles for The Theosophist on Buddhist topics.5

1
 Olcott, Old Diary Leaves Second Series, 168–​169. See also H. N. S. Karuanatilake, ‘The
Local and Foreign Impact of the Pânadurâ Vadaya’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
of Sri Lanka, New Series, vol. 49 (2004), 72.
2
  Examples include Bulatgama Sumanatissa, chief priest of the principal temple of
Galle (Olcott, Old Diary Leaves Second Series, 160, 295), and Piyaratana Tiss, high
priest at Dodanduwa (Olcott, Old Diary Leaves Second Series, 170).
3
 Karuanatilake, ‘Local and Foreign Impact’, 72.
4
 For more on Sumanagala, see K. N. O. Dharmadasa, Language, Religion, and Ethnic
Assertiveness: The Growth of Sinhalese Nationalism in Sri Lanka (Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press, 1992), 99, 334.
5
 H. Sumangala, ‘The Buddhist Idea about Soul’, The Theosophist 1, no. 6 (March 1880),
144; H. Sumangala, ‘The Nature and Office of Buddha’s Religion I’, The Theosophist 1,
no. 2 (November 1879), 43; H. Sumangala, ‘The Nature and Office of Buddha’s Religion

160
 Hindu and Buddhist Thought 161

Blavatsky and Olcott also had many Hindu friends and colleagues,
including several scholars and pandits (teachers).6 On the boat to
Bombay in January 1879, they had met Shyamji Krishna Varma (1857–​
1930), who would later go on to found the Indian Home Rule Society
and was advisor to the leading Orientalist Sir Monier Monier-​Williams
(1819–​1899).7 Krishna Varma assisted as a translator in the Theosophists’
correspondence with Swami Dayananda Saraswati (1824–​ 1883), the
Gujarati Vedic scholar who headed the Arya Samaj (Aryan Society) with
which the Theosophical Society was associated until 1882. In his Old
Diary Leaves, Olcott described how, in 1879, he and Blavatsky (presum-
ably through the translator) had long conversations with Dayananda,
the topics of which included nirvana and moksha, themes closely re-
lated to reincarnation.8
There were many other leading early Theosophists of Indian origin.
The Bengali Hindu social reformer and writer Peary Chand Mitra (1814–​
1883) joined the Society in 1877. Mitra had an interest in Spiritualism
and eventually became president of the Bengal Theosophical Society.9
Another respected Indian Theosophist was Damodar K.  Mavalankar
(1857–​?), who joined in 1879 and took pansil with the Theosophists
in Ceylon the following year. His biographer, Sven Eek, described
Damodar as one of the chief architects of the early Society. He was the

II’, The Theosophist 1, no. 5 (February 1880), 122; and Mohottivatte Gunanande, ‘The
Law of the Lord Sakhya Muni’, The Theosophist 1, no. 2 (November 1879), 43.
6
 On some of the types of individuals who joined the Society in India, see Edward
C. Moulton, ‘The Beginnings of the Theosophical Movement in India, 1879–​
1885’, in Religious Conversion Movements in South Asia, ed. Geoffrey A. Oddie
(Richmond:  Curzon, 1997). Among Blavatsky and Olcott’s academic contacts were
many scholars, including M. M. Kunte, K. R. Cama, Ram Misra Shastri, Bala Shastri,
and Adityaram Bhattacharya. Olcott, Old Diary Leaves Second Series, 23, 30, 287, 126,
273, 287.
7
 Ibid., 13, 22.
8
 Ibid., 78.
9
 Mitra was one of the earliest members of the Society in India, joining on 9 November
1877. Olcott had corresponded with him since 5 July 1877. See Blavatsky, Letters, 587.
See also Godwin, Theosophical Enlightenment, 327 and Mriganka Mukhopadhyay,
‘A Short History of the Theosophical Movement in Bengal’, in Paralok-​Tattwa by
Makhanlal Roychowdhury (Kolkata: Bengal Theosophical Society, 2016), 106–​113.
162 Recycled Lives

business manager of the publications department responsible for issuing

The Theosophist and considered himself a disciple of Koot Hoomi.10
These were just a few of the people with whom Blavatsky had a ‘rap-
idly widening correspondence’ in India.11 According to Olcott, every
evening after their arrival, they ‘held an impromptu durbar’ in which
‘the knottiest problems of philosophy, metaphysics, and science were
discussed’.12

Visitors kept on crowding our bungalow, and stopping until late

every evening to discuss religious questions [. . .] thus did we come,
so early in our connection with the Hindus, to know the difference
between Western and Eastern ideals of life. [. . .] The Soul was the
burning topic of debate and then, for the first time, H.  P.  B.  and
I  became absorbed in the problems of its cyclic progressions and
reincarnations.13

As we have already established, having previously taught metempsy-

chosis onto higher spheres after death, it was around 1881 or 1882 that
Blavatsky started teaching the normative karmic return of the human
spirit to life on earth. That being so, and bearing in mind the date of
Blavatsky’s arrival in India, it seems reasonable to assume, as Helmut
Zander did, that India had some influence on Blavatsky’s adoption of
reincarnation as a doctrine. Zander reasoned that although Blavatsky
was already acquainted with European doctrines of reincarnation when
she arrived, she took them seriously only via the ‘midwifery’ of Asia.14
Even if this is not the whole story, it is a plausible part of it.
The reincarnation theory Blavatsky would eventually embrace
was framed in the terminology of Vedanta, a type of philosophy that

10
 Sven Eek, Dâmodar and the Pioneers of the Theosophical Movement (Adyar: Theosophical
Publishing House, 1978), 2–​5. On Damodar taking pansil, see Olcott, Old Diary
Leaves Second Series, 292. Damodar disappeared on a journey to Tibet. On Damodar’s
disappearance, see Henry Steel Olcott, Old Diary Leaves Third Series 1883–​ 1887
(Adyar: Theosophical Publishing Company, 1929), 259–​268.
11
 Olcott, Old Diary Leaves Second Series, 38.
12
 Ibid., 21.
13
 Ibid., 25.
14
 Zander, Seelenwanderung, 478–​481.
 Hindu and Buddhist Thought 163

developed the monistic and non-​monistic currents of the Upanishads,

a collection of Indian philosophical and religious texts probably dating
back to around 800–​500 bce.15 The eighth-​century ce Keralan Brahmin,
Shankara, wrote commentaries on the Upanishads, developing the
monistic strand of Upanishadic thought into a non-​dualistic form of
Vedanta known as Advaita.16 According to his interpretation, the fun-
damental essence of the universe was Brahman, of which atman was
considered an individualised form, that is, Brahman refracted through
limiting conditions into the appearance of a self. Identical with the
divine, the self was not truly the self of everyday consciousness, al-
though ignorance (avidya) led to failure to apprehend this, resulting in
entrapment in the cycle of rebirth. Knowledge of non-​duality (advaita)
was said to be the path to liberation.
In Blavatsky’s account of the development of the cosmos, at the begin-
ning of a period called a manvantara, parabrahman emitted mulaprakriti
(matter), thereafter emanating the ‘first’ or ‘un-​manifested’ logos, fol-
lowed by a second logos.17 There followed the universal soul, the source
of immortal, reincarnating monads.18 For Blavatsky, atma was the sev-
enth human principle and was ‘identical with the universal Spirit’.19

15
 The beginnings of Vedanta are ascribed to Badarayana, who is said to have compiled
the Vedanta Sutras around the second century ce as a commentary on the Upanishads.
The tradition was maintained and developed by a series of priests, of whom the most
famous were Yamuna, Madhva, and Shankara, each associated with a different school.
See Fred W. Clothey, Religion in India: A Historical Introduction (Abingdon: Routledge,
2006), 103. Blavatsky was aware of the three different schools of Vedanta but was par-
ticularly interested in Shankara’s Advaita, which she described as the only ‘absolutely
pantheistical’ school. H. P. Blavatsky, ‘Neo-​Buddhism’, in Blavatsky Collected Writings,
ed. Boris de Zirkoff, vol. 12, 344. Rama Misra Shastri’s article on Vedanta in the first
volume of The Theosophist lists the different schools. Rama Misra Shastri, ‘The Vedant
Darsana’, The Theosophist 1, no. 6 (March 1880), 158.
16
 The traditional dates for Shankara are 788–​820. Advaita Vedanta was one of three
kinds. The other two were the Visishtadvaita of Ramanuja (c. 1017–​1137 ce), which rep-
resented a qualified non-​dualism and was based on the theistic strands of Upanishadic
thought, and the Dvaita Vedanta of Madhva (c. 1197–​1276 ce), which was dualistic.
See Ninian Smart, ‘Indian Philosophy’, in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul
Edwards (New  York and London:  Macmillan, 1967), 156 and Ninian Smart, World
Philosophies (London and New York: Routledge, 2008), 23.
17
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 380.
18
 Ibid.,  16–​17.
19
 Blavatsky, Key to Theosophy, 76.
164 Recycled Lives

At the end of the manvantara, monads would re-​absorbed after com-

pleting their journey through matter. She referred to Shankara when
discussing the monad’s reincarnationary journey:

The monad, then, can be traced through the course of its pilgrimage
and its changes of transitory vehicles only from the incipient stage
of the manifested Universe. In Pralaya, or the intermediate period
between two manvantaras, it loses its name, as it loses it when the
real ONE self of man merges into Brahm in cases of high Samadhi
(the Turiya state) or final Nirvana; ‘when the disciple’ in the words
of Shankara, ‘having attained that primeval consciousness, absolute
bliss, of which the nature is truth, which is without form and action,
abandons this illusive body that has been assumed by the atma just
as an actor (abandons) the dress (put on).’20

In spite of the reference to Shankara and the Sanskrit terminology,

Blavatsky’s vision had a neo-​Platonic basis that resonated strongly with
Plotinus’ scheme of the transcendent unknowable ‘One’ emanating
the Divine Mind (nous) followed by the upper and lower parts of the
Universal Soul. According to Fritz Staal, because of certain resonances
between the two systems, this neo-​Platonic framing was a virtually
unavoidable outcome of Blavatsky’s Western heritage. ‘Western phil-
osophy,’ wrote Staal, ‘reacts in a characteristic way to the problems of
Advaita.’21 ‘We look through Neoplatonic eyes at Advaita, and the at-
titude of Western thought with regard to Neoplatonism predetermines
our attitude to Advaita.’22

20
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 570, 244.
21
  J.  F. Staal, Advaita and Neoplatonism:  A Study in Comparative Philosophy
(Madras: University of Madras 1961), vii.
22
 Ibid., 27. The parallels and differences that can be discerned between neo-​Platonism
and Advaita are beyond the scope of this chapter. Some of them are outlined in Ibid.,
161 f. Staal summarises one aspect: ‘The main Neoplatonic theme is that there is a hier-
archy of being, at the summit of which is the One, the most perfect and highly evalu-
ated entity. In Plotinus there is also a tendency which stresses the perfection of the
One to such a degree that the rest of the universe is nothing in comparison with it. In
Advaita, on the other hand, the main tendency is to absolutely and uncompromisingly
deny the reality of anything apart from the absolute Brahman.’ Ibid., 231.
 Hindu and Buddhist Thought 165

Blavatsky had already presented a version of her emanationary

scheme in her first major work, Isis Unveiled, and associated it with
Plato.23 She had also referred to a Hindu version of the teaching,
using terms like bhagavant and Brahma.24 In The Secret Doctrine, she
expanded the Sanskrit vocabulary and also assimilated the Buddhist
notion of Adi Buddha—​which she equated with parabrahman—​as
part of a modernising trope that identified ‘true’ Buddhism with ‘true’
Hinduism. Blavatsky contrasted this ‘correct’ understanding with the
‘misunderstandings’ of contemporary academic Orientalists. She bol-
stered her interpretations with selections from scholarship on Hindu
topics,25 academic studies of Buddhist thought,26 and the work of ama-
teur scholars of a heterodox inclination.27

23
  ‘With Plato, the primal being is an emanation of the Demiurgic Mind (Nous),
which contains from the eternity the “idea” of the “to be created world” within itself,
and which idea he produces out of himself. The laws of nature are the established rela-
tions of this idea to the forms of its manifestations.’ Blavatsky, Isis I,  55–​56.
24
 ‘The Hindu Bhagavant does not create; he enters the egg of the world, and emanates
from it as Brahm. [. . .] Brahma dissolves himself into the Visible Universe, every atom
of which is himself. When this is done, the not-​manifested, indivisible, and indefinite
Monas retires into the undisturbed and majestic solitude of its unity. The manifested
deity, a duad at first, now becomes a triad; its triune quality emanates incessantly
spiritual powers, who become immortal gods (souls). Each of these souls must be
united in its turn with a human being, and from the moment of its consciousness it
commences a series of births and deaths.’ Ibid., 347–​348. For more of Blavatsky’s cross-​
cultural comparisons see Blavatsky, Isis II, 173.
25
  Sources Blavatsky quoted include John Dowson, A Classical Dictionary of Hindu
Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature (London:  Trübner and
Co., 1888)—​see Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine I, 80, 89, and 116—​Martin Haug,
Aitareya Brahmanam of the Rig Veda (Bombay:  Government Central Book Depot,
1863)—​Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine I, 101—​and Edward Moor, The Hindu Pantheon
(London:  K. Johnson, 1810)—​Blavatsky, Isis II, 86, 427, 512–​423, Blavatsky, Secret
Doctrine II, 548, 560.
26
  Among her Buddhist sources were Emil Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tibet
(Leipzig:  F.  A. Brockhaus, 1863); Henry Alabaster, The Wheel of the Law:  Buddhism
Illustrated by Siamese Sources (London: Trübner and Co., 1871); T. W. Rhys Davids,
Buddhism (Non-​ Christian Religious Systems; London:  Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge, [1877]); and W. Woodville Rockhill, The Life of the Buddha
(London: Trübner and Co., 1884)
27
 For example, An Indian Missionary [Hargrave Jennings], The Indian Religions: Or
Results of the Mysterious Buddhism (London: Thomas Cautley Newby, 1858) and Curious
Things of the Outside World. Last Fire (London: T. and W. Boone, 1861).
166 Recycled Lives

In addition to these sources, Indian Theosophists also provided

Blavatsky with the terminology and concepts necessary to her depic-
tions of reincarnation. In this chapter, we will explore the roles of two
of them, namely, Mohini M. Chatterji and Tallapragada Subba Row.
Blavatsky offered the resulting Orientalist-​ heterodox-​Vedantic syn-
thesis as an alternative to materialist monism of Ernst Haeckel explored
in the previous chapter. Hence, quoting Alexander Pope (whose ‘God’
she replaced with ‘Parabrahm’) she concluded, ‘Thus runs their phil-
osophy of evolution, differing as we see, from that of Hæckel:—​“All
are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and
(Parabrahm) the soul.” ’28

Orientalism
Many studies have discussed the ‘Orientalism’ of Theosophy. Some have
emphasised Theosophy’s Western character.29 For example, Joscelyn
Godwin argued that although the Theosophists ‘introduced into the
vernacular such concepts as karma and reincarnation, meditation,
and the spiritual path’, their efforts were ‘characteristically Western’.30
Similarly, Wouter Hanegraaff maintained Blavatsky’s later assimilation
of a doctrine of karma took place

Within an already-​existing western framework of spiritual progress.

This has implications for the question of her ‘orientalism’. It is not
the case that she moved from an occidental to an oriental perspective

28
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 189.
29
  For an overview of Theosophy and it relation to Oriental sources, see Nicholas
Goodrick-​ Clarke, ‘The Theosophical Society, Orientalism, and the “Mystic
East”: Western Esotericism and Eastern Religion in Theosophy’, Theosophical History
13 (2007) and Christopher Partridge, ‘Lost Horizon: H. P. Blavatsky and Theosophical
Orientalism’, in Handbook of the Theosophical Current, ed. Hammer and Rothstein.
Studies that explore the Orientalist aspects of Theosophy include Mark Bevir, ‘The
West Turns Eastward:  Madame Blavatsky and the Transformation of the Occult
Tradition’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 62, no. 3 (1994); Prothero,
‘Protestant Buddhism’ and The White Buddhist; Andrew Dawson, ‘East Is East, Except
When It’s West’, Journal of Religion and Society 8 (2006); and Isaac Lubelsky, Celestial
India: Madame Blavatsky and the Birth of Indian Nationalism (Oakville: Equinox, 2012).
30
 Godwin, Theosophical Enlightenment, 378
 Hindu and Buddhist Thought 167

and abandoned western beliefs in favour of oriental ones. Her fun-

damental belief system was an occultist version of romantic evolu-
tionism from beginning to end.31

Godwin and Hanegraaff’s arguments correctly went beyond Theosophy’s

prima facie Indian appearance to reveal Western philosophical concerns,
and they have been of import in correcting Theosophy’s widespread ini-
tial and straightforward association with Buddhism and Hinduism.32
Blavatsky had encouraged such identifications, telling Olcott, for ex-
ample, that her masters in reincarnation theory were Patanjali, Kapila,
Kanada, and the systems of Aryavarta.33 As Godwin and Hanegraaff’s
work indicated, we would be right to be suspicious of such statements.
More recently, Hanegraaff expanded his argument, stating that al-
though the Theosophical Society had begun as a ‘Western esoteric cur-
rent’ dominated by the Orientalist imagination of nineteenth-​century
European scholarship and popular literature, it became ‘entangled’
with Hindu thought after Blavatsky and Olcott arrived in Bombay in
1879.34 It was not that Theosophists moved from a Western vision of

31
 Hanegraaff, New Age Religion, 471.
32
 For example, writing in 1895, Merwin Marie Snell stated Theosophy was ‘Hinduism’.
Snell continued, ‘The facts that it accepts the authority of the Vedas, and even speaks
of Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu, would alone be sufficient to determine this
decision; but nearly all the elements of its religio-​philosophical system are distinctly
Hindu, and it resembles only those forms of Buddhism which have certainly been
Hinduized.’ Merwin-​Marie Snell, ‘Modern Theosophy in Its Relation to Hinduism
and Buddhism II’, The Biblical World 5 (1895), 264. Similarly, a ‘Brahman Theosophist’
writing in The Theosophist in 1884 argued Theosophical teachings were ‘familiar to a
great many Hindus’ and that Hindu sacred writings ‘from the Vedas to the Puranas,
contain almost all the spiritual truths that the [Theosophical] Mahatmas have re-
vealed’. A Brahman Theosophist, ‘Esoteric Buddhism and Hinduism’, The Theosophist
5, no. 9 (June 1884), 224–​225. Blavatsky identified as a Buddhist. See ‘Interview in The
New York World’, 23 January 1877, in Letters of H. P. Blavatsky, ed. Barker, 291. Letter
to W. H. Burr, 19 November 1877 and Letter to N. de Fadeyev, 11 December 1877, in
ibid., 383.
33
 Olcott, Old Diary Leaves First Series, 283–​284. Patanjali was the author of the Yoga
Sutras. Kapila was associated with Sankhya philosophy. Kanada was the founder of
Vaishesika philosophy, and Aryavarta indicated northern and central India.
34
 For discussion of the notion of ‘Western esotericism’ see Granholm, ‘Locating the
West’ and Hanegraaff, ‘The Globalisation of Esotericism’, Correspondences 3 (2015).
168 Recycled Lives

the Orient towards an ‘authentic’ Asian one, but that they came to
be involved in ‘extremely complicated historical processes of imaginal
construction and reconstruction that [took] place in a variety of spe-
cific local contexts’. This resulted in ‘a mutual fertilisation of Indian
religions and Western esotericism that would finally transform both
almost beyond recognition’.35
Indeed, the most persuasive studies have drawn on the insights of
post-​colonial studies to go beyond Edward Said’s by now well-​known
notion of Orientalism as a master-​narrative of Western imperialism that
constructs and controls its subjugated ‘Other’.36 They have demon-
strated that Theosophy’s Orientalism was not solely a form of Western
identity formation; it was also appropriated by colonised people for
their own purposes.37 As Karl Baier recently contended,

It is not simply an encounter between Western Theosophy and South

Asian tradition that we are looking at here, but a complex reciprocal
process of transculturation within the Theosophical Society itself.
[.  .  .] Members of both groups were not representatives of more-​
or-​less well-​defined traditions, but rather, protagonists of cultures-​
in-​ the-​making, who had undergone serious deculturation. This
brought a specific dynamic to the intercultural exchanges. On the
one hand, there were anglicized high-​caste Indians (mostly young
male Brahmins) who tried to construct and renew their cultural
heritage under the conditions of the Raj. Theosophy offered them
a convenient space in which to mark out this trajectory. On the
other hand, there were indophile theosophists who departed from
their European and North American mainstream culture to create a

35
 Wouter Hanegraaff, ‘Western Esotericism and the Orient’.
36
 Edward W. Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin, 2003), 3. See J. J. Clarke, Oriental
Enlightenment: The Encounter between Asian and Western Thought (London: Routledge,
1997), 8. Said has been criticised on a number of fronts, but his analysis remains
influential. See Gyan Prakash, ‘Orientalism Now’, History and Theory 34, no. 3
(October 1995). Said responded to his challengers in Edward W. Said, ‘Orientalism
Reconsidered’, Cultural Critique 1 (Autumn 1985).
37
  Karl Baier, ‘Theosophical Orientalism and the Structures of Intercultural
Transfer:  Annotations on the Appropriation of the cakras in early Theosophy’, in
Theosophical Appropriations, ed. Chajes and Huss, 318–​319.
 Hindu and Buddhist Thought 169

defiant movement that blended elements from various sources such

as Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, liberal Protestantism, Spiritism,
Mesmerism, and modern magic.38

In a similar vein, Michael Bergunder convincingly argued that

European history was not separate from that of the colonies; pro-
cesses of European identity formation were entangled with those of
the colonised. Theosophy was especially indebted to the perspectives
of nineteenth-​century English-​speaking Hindu elites, among whom it
played a decisive role in the dissemination of Orientalist knowledge.39
In such contexts, concepts like ‘religion’ and ‘Hinduism’ emerged in the
nineteenth century as part of this global religious history and were the
result of multidirectional and interrelated discourses.40 The following
will consider some of these interactions, and how they contributed to
the form Blavatsky’s reincarnation theory came to take.

The Invention of Hinduism and Buddhism

The birth of Theosophy in 1875 followed around a hundred years of
focused European academic interest in the Orient. In the context of
the British colonisation of Bengal beginning in 1765, William Jones
(1746–​1794) and Charles Wilkins (1750–​1836) had launched the Asiatic
Society of Bengal in 1784.41 The following year, Wilkins published his
English translation of the Bhagavad Gita, and European readers were
introduced to it for the first time as a central Hindu text. The number
of scholarly publications thereafter increased, with the late nineteenth
century marking a watershed in what Raymond Schwab termed the
‘Oriental Renaissance’.42 Significant events included the foundation of

38
 Baier, ‘Theosophical Orientalism’, 310.
39
 Bergunder, ‘Experiments with Theosophical Truth’, 404 and 407.
40
 Ibid., 401. For further discussion of these issues in the context of the Theosophists’
Buddhism, see Julie Chajes, ‘Orientalist Aggregates: Theosophical Buddhism between
Innovation and Tradition’, in Festschrift for Nicholas Goodrick-​Clarke, ed. Tim Rudbøg
and Jo Hedesan, forthcoming.
41
 Raymond Schwab, Oriental Renaissance: Europe’s Rediscovery of India and the East,
1680–​1880 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), 4, 7, 33, 51.
42
 Ibid., 4, 11, 16.
170 Recycled Lives

the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris in 1868 to include Indic studies on
the curriculum for the first time, and the publication of the fifty-​volume
series Sacred Books of the East (from 1879), edited by the German-​born
Oxford-​based Orientalist Friedrich Max Müller (1823–​1900).
It was during the nineteenth century that the category ‘Hinduism’
first came into vogue. It was a modern construct, and emerged under
specific historical conditions.43 A word without a precise correlate in
any Indian language (in which terms such as dharma had tradition-
ally been used to describe beliefs and practices), ‘Hinduism’ came
to be adopted both by academic Orientalists and Indian people to
designate a unified religion. This was problematic, however, since
there was no distinct entity that could be labelled in this way without
glossing over the substantial differences—​and sometimes contradic-
tions—​ between different Indian philosophical and religious sys-
tems. Despite this, the category was widely adopted and came to
play a fundamental role in scholarship as well as in Indian religious
and political life. It was a process influenced by the theorisations of
European Orientalists, but the Indian public contributed to its de-
velopment and popularisation too.44
During the nineteenth century, ‘Hinduism’ was commonly cast in
both a positive and a negative light. On the one hand, Hindu practices
were widely condemned, for example because of their ‘idolatry’ and the
sexual connotations of Shiva lingams (phalluses). Then there were the
perceived inequalities of the Hindu caste system, the self-​immolation of
widows on their husband’s funeral pyres (suttee), and child marriages.45
Under the influence of the Bengal Renaissance beginning around 1830,
reformers such as Rammohan Roy (1772–​1833) criticised such elements

43
 The term ‘Hindu’ (the Sanskrit word originally meant ‘Indian’) came into use among
Europeans in the eighteenth century. Previously, Indian religions had been described
by Christians as ‘Heathenism’. Richard King, Orientalism and Religion:  Postcolonial
Theory, India, and ‘The Mystic East’ (London and New  York:  Routledge, 2001), 99.
David Chidester, ‘Colonialism’, in Guide to the Study of Religion, ed. W. Braun and
R.  T. McCutcheon (New  York:  Cassell, 2000), 427. Peter Harrison cited in King,
Orientalism and Religion, 35.
44
 Richard Hughes Seager, The World’s Parliament of Religions: The East/​West Encounter,
Chicago, 1893 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995), 96.
45
 Godwin, Theosophical Enlightenment, 311.
 Hindu and Buddhist Thought 171

of Hindu life.46 In 1828, Roy established the Brahmo Samaj, an influ-

ential monotheistic Hindu reform movement based on theistic prin-
ciples drawn from the Vedas, the Koran, and Enlightenment thought.
Roy and other reformers aimed to eliminate undesirable elements with
the goal of revealing ‘true Hinduism’. The latter was identified with
Vedanta, the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita. Under the influence
of Roy and others, a modernising version of Vedanta that drew par-
ticularly on Advaita emerged as an ideological movement and as part
of the wider emergence of neo-​Hinduism.47 This neo–​Advaita Vedanta
became so popular that it became virtually synonymous with Vedanta,
and even with Hinduism more generally.48
Coexisting with other more traditional forms, the result of these re-
forms was a neo-​Hinduism that represented a significant rupture with
the past and in which much from the classical traditions was left out
or simplified.49 In such modernising interpretations, Hinduism was
often portrayed as a ‘mystical’, ‘Eastern’ religion. Some argued it had
the potential to rescue the ‘West’ from its growing materialism. Neo-​
Hinduism was commonly framed by a universalist and perennialist
agenda that taught all religions expressed the same truth at a funda-
mental level.50 It was a perspective that had much in common with that
of Theosophy.
Just as Hinduism is a convenient, misleading, and historically con-
tingent label, so too is Buddhism an intellectual abstraction that is used
to cover numerous divergent systems. As Philip Almond persuasively
argued, as a category, Buddhism was ‘discovered’ and ‘imaginatively

46
 On Roy, see Seager, The World’s Parliament of Religions, 112. The Bengal Renaissance
was an intellectual, religious, and cultural movement that took place in Bengal during
the period of British rule. It began around 1830, with Roy, who is considered the father
of the Bengal Renaissance, and continued into the twentieth century. See David Kopf,
British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance: The Dynamics of Indian Modernization,
1773–​1835 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969).
47
 De Michelis, Modern Yoga, 39.
48
 King, Orientalism and Religion, 128. Niranjan Dhar has argued that Henry Thomas
Colebrook was the first to identify Vedanta as ‘the religion of the Hindus’. Ibid., 130.
49
 Elizabeth De Michelis, A History of Modern Yoga: Patañjali and Western Esotericism
(London: Continuum, 2008), 52 and 73.
50
 King, Orientalism and Religion, 120.
172 Recycled Lives

created’ in Europe and America during the first half of the nineteenth
century, where it was ‘determined by the Victorian culture in which it
emerged as an object of discourse’.51 Like Hinduism, Buddhism was
subject to positive and negative interpretations. Initially, it was even
harder for Europeans to digest, with prominent Orientalists such as
Max Müller, Eugène Burnouf (1801–​1852), and Jules Barthélemy Saint-​
Hilaire (1805–​1895), portraying it as a gloomy religion of negation, or
as a sort of collective madness.52 The Theravada tradition was portrayed
as nihilistic and atheistic, and the Mahayana and Tantrayana as full of
repulsive ‘idols’. Nevertheless, the popularity of Buddhism increased
throughout the early decades of the century and by the 1850s, its influ-
ence could be felt among the middle and upper classes.53 Reasons for its
eventual popularity included its perceived dissimilarity (or similarity)
to Christianity, the supposed justice of the concept of karma, and the
apparent compatibility between Buddhism and science. The Light of
Asia (1879) by Edwin Arnold (1832–​1904) was particularly influential in
bringing a more positive image of the Buddha to the West.54
The emergence of ‘Buddhism’ as a category contributed to the devel-
opment of what David McMahan has termed Buddhist modernism, a
modern hybrid tradition with roots in the Enlightenment, Romanticism,
American Transcendentalism, and colonialism. McMahan asserted
Buddhist modernism constituted a new type of Buddhism that was
the result of processes of ‘modernization, westernization, reinterpret-
ation, image-​making, re-​vitalization, and reform’. These processes took
place in Asian countries as well as the West, where Buddhist mod-
ernism was fashioned both by Asian and Western actors in response
to the challenges of modernity. These included growing epistemic
uncertainty, religious pluralism, the threat of nihilism, and perceived
conflicts between science and religion.55 Modernising interpreters of
Buddhism, both Asian and Western, often shared certain viewpoints

51
  Philip C. Almond, The British Discovery of Buddhism (Cambridge:  Cambridge
University Press, 1988), 4.
52
 Godwin, Theosophical Enlightenment, 266, 324.
53
 Almond, The British Discovery of Buddhism,  2–​3.
54
 Edwin Arnold, The Light of Asia (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964).
55
 McMahan, Buddhist Modernism, 5.
 Hindu and Buddhist Thought 173

and these had resonances with the approaches of neo-​Hindu thinkers.

Seeking to purify Buddhism of mythological or superstitious elements
as well as ‘popular accretions’, they tended to distinguish between the
Buddhism of the philosophical elite and the Buddhism of the masses
with the goal of arriving at the original essence of Buddhism.56 Often,
this was identified with Theravada Buddhism—​which was historically
prior to Mahayana—​but it was not unheard of for Mahayana too to be
portrayed as a repository of unsullied ancient Buddhist truths. As in
neo-​Hinduism, in modernising interpretations, Buddhism was often
depicted in perennialist or universalist terms.57
Blavatsky’s definitions of Buddhism and Hinduism had modernising
characteristics. She argued for the existence of a perennial esoteric doc-
trine lying at the heart of both traditions whose closest representatives
were Advaita Vedanta and Yogacara, a fourth-​century ce school associ-
ated with Mahayana Buddhism.58 Criticising both ‘Brahmanism’ and
‘orthodox Buddhism’, she summed up her position as follows:

Brahmanism and Buddhism, both viewed from their orthodox

aspects, are as inimical and as irreconcilable as water and oil. Each of
these great bodies, however, has a vulnerable place in its constitution.

56
 On the ‘demythologisation’ of Buddhism, see Robert Sharf, ‘The Zen of Japanese
Nationalism’, History of Religions 33, no. 1 (1993), 1–​ 43 and ‘Whose Zen? Zen
Nationalism Revisited’, in Awakenings:  Zen, the Kyoto School, and the Question of
Nationalism, ed. James W. Heisig and John Maraldo Rude (Honolulu: University of
Hawai’i Press, 1995), 44–​45.
57
 On modernising interpretations of Buddhism, see McMahan, Buddhist Modernism
and ‘Modernity and the Discourse of Scientific Buddhism’, Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 72, no. 4 (2004); Richard Gombrich and Gananath Obeyesekere,
Buddhism Transformed:  Religious Change in Sri Lanka (Princeton. NJ:  Princeton
University Press, 1988); and Donald Lopez, ed., A Modern Buddhist Bible:  Essential
Readings from East and West (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002). On intersections between
Theosophy and modernising interpretations of Buddhism see Prothero, White Buddhist
and Sin’ichi Yoshinaga, ‘Theosophy and Buddhist Reformers in the Middle of the
Meiji Period: An Introduction’, Japanese Religions 34, no. 2 (2009) and ‘Three Boys on
a Great Vehicle: “Mahayana Buddhism” and a Trans-​National Network’, Contemporary
Buddhism: An Interdisciplinary Journal 14, no. 1 (2013).
58
  Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 46. On Yogacara, see Paul Williams with Anthony
Tribe, Buddhist Thought (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 152–​160 and Paul
Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism (New York: Routledge, 2009), 84–​102.
174 Recycled Lives

While even in their esoteric interpretation both can agree but to dis-
agree, once that their respective vulnerable points are confronted,
every disagreement must fall, for the two will find themselves on
common ground. The ‘heel of Achilles’ of orthodox Brahmanism
is the Adwaita philosophy, whose followers are called by the pious
‘Buddhists in disguise’; as that of orthodox Buddhism is Northern
mysticism, as represented by the disciples of the philosophies of
Aryâsanga (the Yogâchârya School) and Mahâyâna, who are twitted
in their turn by their coreligionists as ‘Vedantins in disguise’. The
esoteric philosophy of both these can be but one if carefully ana-
lysed and compared, as Gautama Buddha and Sankarachârya are
most closely connected, if one believes tradition and certain esoteric
teachings. Thus every difference between the two will be found one
of form rather than of substance.59

On Blavatsky’s view, then, true Buddhism and Hinduism (both ul-

timately identical with Theosophy) were to be uncovered by re-
moving popular accretions as well as countering ‘orthodox’ Brahmanic,
Buddhist, and scholarly misrepresentations. Esoteric Buddhism, argued
Blavatsky, was identical ‘with the Secret Wisdom taught by Krishna’
(i.e., with the Bhagavad Gita) and with that of Shankara (of Vedantic
fame).60 In other words, true Buddhism was identified with the texts
and traditions typically valued by neo-​Hindu thinkers. As for the ob-
jections of an academic Orientalist such as Thomas Rhys Davids, said
Blavatsky, he knew nothing of ‘true esoteric teachings’. Consequently,
one could only ‘heartily laugh at him’.61

59
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 637.
60
 Blavatsky argued this esoteric Buddhism (which was identical with the Theosophical
secret doctrine) could be found within Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, though it
was distinct from, and antedated both. Tibet had received the secret doctrine from India
a long time before Buddhism had arrived there, so that early Buddhists reaching Tibet
recognised the religion of the Tibetans. Thus, even though Tibet received Buddhism
relatively late, its scriptures still contained esoteric Buddhism. H. P. Blavatsky, ‘Tibetan
Teachings’, Lucifer 15, nos. 85 and 86 (September and October 1894).
61
 For example, see Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 539.
 Hindu and Buddhist Thought 175

Mohini Mohun Chatterji

On the other hand, there were those who did understand esoteric tradi-
tions, in Blavatsky’s opinion, and some of them were among the Indian
members of her society. A major source in Blavatsky’s understanding
of Vedanta seems to have been a serialised translation of Shankara’s
Viveka Chudamani published in The Theosophist between 1885 and
1886 under the title ‘The Crest Jewel of Wisdom’.62 The translator
was Mohini Mohun Chatterji (1858–​1936), a Brahmin and member
of the Western-​educated professional bourgeoisie that was typically
interested in Theosophy. Chatterji had the added honour of being
descended from Rammohan Roy’s family and he was also a member
of the Brahmo Samaj.63 Such prestigious members as Chatterji con-
siderably strengthened the standing of the Society in India, especially
in Bengal.64 Mohini was a graduate of Calcutta University, where he
studied modern European languages, Western philosophy, and law,
which eventually became his profession. He joined the Society in 1882
and was elected assistant secretary of the Bengal branch that had been
established in Calcutta the same year. After having received personal
letters from Maser Koot Hoomi, he accompanied Blavatsky and Olcott
to Paris and then London in 1884.65 Mohini was, therefore, a member
of Blavatsky’s closest circle. In 1887, he resigned from the Society.66

62
  There were five instalments:  Mohini M. Chatterji, ‘The Crest-​Jewel of Wisdom’,
The Theosophist 7, no. 73 (October 1885); The Theosophist 7, no.  76 (January 1886);
The Theosophist 7, no. 78 (March 1886); The Theosophist 7, no. 82 (July 1886); and The
Theosophist 7, no. 83 (August 1886).
63
 For a biographical sketch, see Mriganka Mukhopadhyay, ‘Mohini: A Case Study of a
Transnational Spiritual Space in the History of the Theosophical Society’, forthcoming.
64
 Mriganka Mukhopadhyay, ‘The Occult and the Orient: The Theosophical Society
and the Socio-​Religious Space in Colonial India’, Presidency Historical Review 1, no.
2, (December 2015). See also Mukhopadhyay, ‘A Short History of the Theosophical
Movement in Bengal’.
65
 Diane Sasson, Yearning for the New Age (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press, 2012), 76–​82. Sasson gives an excellent analysis of the Theosophists’
Orientalist expectations of Mohini. For an analysis of Mohini’s insistence that he was
a disciple of Koot Hoomi (and not Blavatsky), see Scott, ‘Miracle Publics’, 181–​182.
Mohini left the Society in 1887, following a scandal.
66
 See Mukhopadhyay, Mohini, for a discussion of his reasons for leaving the Society
and his life in India afterwards. Mohini apparently became disillusioned with
176 Recycled Lives

Mohini’s translation referred to the Sanskrit names of the seven

human principles used by Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine. It de-
tailed Vedantic ideas about reincarnation and escape from the cycle
of incarnations through apprehension of the atman’s true nature.
Reincarnation was supposed to be the result of the incorrect attribu-
tion (by the human principle of manas) of the atman’s qualities to
‘that which is not atman’.67 Vedanta was said to provide the means
by which to overcome this error. ‘By a proper comprehension of the
purport of the Vedanta is produced the excellent knowledge; by that
the great mystery of birth and rebirth is terminated.’68 The result
would be ‘liberation’, achieved ‘by the direct perception of the iden-
tity of the individual with the universal self ’.69 More specifically, this
perception was to involve ‘the knowledge that Brahm (the supreme
spirit) and atma are one and the same’.70 Thus, the individual would
‘not return to conditioned existence’, that is, they would cease to
reincarnate.71
In the context of a discussion of ‘modern exact science’s (limited)
grasp of the origins of existence, Blavatsky explicitly referred to
Mohini’s translation in The Secret Doctrine, explaining that ‘a European
who would undertake to solve the problem of existence by the art-
icles of faith of the true Vedantin’ should ‘read and study the sublime
teachings on the subject of Soul and Spirit, of Sankarâchârya (Viveka
Chudâmani)’. In the footnote she indicated that this work had been
translated for the Theosophist, by Mohini M. Chatterji under the title of
‘Crest Jewel of Wisdom’.72

Theosophy. He also apparently had a series of affairs, leading to his being branded a
‘failed chela’ by Blavatsky.
67
 Chatterji, Crest IV, 664.
68
 Chatterji, Crest I, 68.
69
 Chatterji, Crest II, 254.
70
 Chatterji, Crest V, 725
71
 Ibid., 726.
72
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 569–​70.
 Hindu and Buddhist Thought 177

Tallapragada Subba Row
Another Indian Theosophist to make an important contribution to
Blavatsky’s understanding of Vedanta was Tallapragada Subba Row
(1856–​1890). Subba Row came from a Telugu-​speaking Brahmin family,
had benefitted from a Western education, and worked as a lawyer in
Madras.73 He was highly esteemed by Blavatsky, and Olcott even gave
his presence in Madras as one of the reasons for their choice of that lo-
cation for the Society’s headquarters. Blavatsky referred to Subba Row
as a ‘true Vedantic Adwaitee of the genuine, esoteric Brahman faith and
an occultist’.74 He had initially corresponded with Blavatsky and with
Damodar K. Mavalankar, thereafter requesting a private audience with
Olcott and joining the Society in 1882.75 Eventually, he became presi-
dent of the Madras Branch.76 He even acted as editor of The Theosophist
during Blavatsky’s absence.77 Reflecting on the events of 1886, Olcott
wrote that they ‘saw a good deal of T.  Subba Row at Headquarters
[. . .] and enjoyed many opportunities to profit by his instructive occult
teachings’.78 Row resigned from the Society in 1888 following disagree-
ments with Blavatsky and, according to Olcott, with his ‘anglo-​Indian
backers’.79
Some of Blavatsky’s references to reincarnation in her later writ-
ings were direct quotations from Subba Row. For example, in The
Theosophical Glossary (1892), Blavatsky defined the Sanskrit term
sutratman as ‘the thread of spirit’, ‘the immortal Ego, the Individuality
which incarnates in men one life after the other, and upon which are
strung, like beads on a string, his countless Personalities’.80 This was

73
  N.  C. Ramanujachary, A Lonely Disciple:  Monograph on T.  Subba Row 1856–​90
(Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), ix.
74
 For a full list of quotations from Blavatsky, praising Row, see Henk J. Spierenburg,
ed., T. Subba Row, Collected Writings, 2 vols. (San Diego:  Point Loma Publications
2001), vol. 1, xxiii–​xxiv. Olcott also praised him. See Olcott, Old Diary Leaves Second
Series, 362.
75
 Ibid., 343.
76
 H. S. Olcott, ‘Death of T. Subba Row, B. A., B. L.’, The Theosophist 11, no. 130 (July
1890). On choice of Adyar, see Olcott, Old Diary Leaves Second Series, 362.
77
 Note (No title or author), The Theosophist 5, no. 6 (March 1884), 154.
78
 Olcott, Old Diary Leaves Third Series, 382.
79
 Spierenburg, ed., Subba Row Collected Writings Vol. 1, xx.
80
 Blavatsky, Theosophical Glossary, 291.
178 Recycled Lives

highly reminiscent of Subba Row’s description of sūtrātmā as the plane

of existence on which the kārana sharīra operates. He wrote: it ‘is called
sūtrātmā, because, like so many beads strung on a thread, successive
personalities are strung on this kārana sharīra, as the individual passes
through incarnation after incarnation’.81
Blavatsky also quoted Subba Row when discussing reincarnation in The
Secret Doctrine, claiming kundalini sakti was

the power which brings about that ‘continuous adjustment of internal

relations to external relations’ which is the essence of life according to
Herbert Spencer, and that ‘continuous adjustment of external relations to
internal relations’ which is the basis of transmigration of souls, punar
janman (re-​birth) in the doctrines of the ancient Hindu philosophers.
A  Yogi must thoroughly subjugate this power before he can attain
Moksham [moksha—​freedom from the rebirth cycle].82

Blavatsky seems to have taken this virtually verbatim from Subba Row,
who, in his first Theosophical article, ‘The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac’,
wrote that Kundalinisakti indicated

The power or force which brings about that ‘continuous adjustment

of external relations to internal relations’ which is the essence of life ac-
cording to Herbert Spencer [and which is] the basis of transmigration
of souls or punarjanma (re-​birth) according to the doctrines of the an-
cient Hindu philosophers.83

Herbert Spencer
Subba Row and Blavatsky both acknowledged a debt to the ideas of
the social Darwinist Herbert Spencer, who, in his influential work First
Principles of a New System of Philosophy (1862), had defined life as ‘the

81
 T. Subba Row, Philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, 34
82
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 293.
83
 T. Subba Row, ‘The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac’, The Theosophist 3, no. 2 (Nov 1881).
 Hindu and Buddhist Thought 179

continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations’.84

Spencer had stated this in the context of an argument for the rela-
tivity of knowledge and for the existence of a Divine Absolute that he
maintained was at the root of all religions. Spencer argued evolution
and dissolution were continually occurring throughout creation. These
two processes were always in antagonism and tension with one another.
‘Evolution,’ Spencer explained, ‘under its simplest and most general
aspect is the integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of mo-
tion; while Dissolution is the absorption of motion and concomitant
disintegration of matter.’85 Spencer maintained that evolution could be
a lot more besides, such as a chance from the homogenous to the het-
erogeneous, the indefinite to the definite, the simple to the complex, or
from confusion to order.86 He applied these ideas to the development
of life and biological organisms as well as to societies.
Blavatsky was aware of Spencer’s ideas, apparently directly as well as
through Subba Row, since she quoted Spencer’s First Principles in The
Secret Doctrine. She was impressed, but, unsurprisingly, didn’t believe
Spencer had apprehended the truth in its entirety.

It is curious to notice how, in the evolutionary cycles of ideas, an-

cient thought seems to be reflected in modern speculation. Had Mr.
Herbert Spencer read and studied ancient Hindu philosophers when
he wrote a certain passage in his ‘First Principles’ (p. 482), or is it
an independent flash of inner perception that made him say half
correctly, half incorrectly, ‘[there is] an immeasurable period during
which the attracting forces predominating, cause universal concen-
tration, and then an immeasurable period, during which the repul-
sive forces predominating, cause universal diffusion—​alternate eras
of Evolution and dissolution.’87

84
 Herbert Spencer, First Principles of a New System of Philosophy (London: Williams
and Norgate, 1870), 84.
85
 Ibid., 285.
86
 Ibid., 362.
87
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 12.
180 Recycled Lives

The Vishnu Purana
Blavatsky felt she understood the periods of evolution and dissolution
better than did Spencer, and this was because she had access to Hindu
sources. Her occasionally antagonistic attitude to the translator not-
withstanding, an important source for her was a translation of the
Vishnu Purana (1840) made by Horace Hayman Wilson (1786–1860).88
Among many other things, the Vishnu Purana described the four yugas
or ages of the world: the Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dwapara Yuga, and Kali
Yuga.89 Each of these ages was said to be preceded by a period called
its sandhya (or twilight), and was followed by another period of equal
length called sandhyansa (a portion of twilight). The total of the four
yugas gave one manvantara, which represented the reign of a manu, one
of the mythical progenitors of mankind. There were said to be fourteen
such manus in total, with seven future manus and manvantaras.90 Two
thousand manvantaras were said to comprise a kalpa, or a night and
a day of Brahma. At the beginning of each kalpa, Brahma was said to
create the world.91
In The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky summarised her understanding
of the ideas Wilson had presented in his translation.92 She explained
that after a day of Brahmâ comes ‘Pralaya, when all the Souls rest in
Nirvana’.93 She described the many different types of pralaya, quoting
Wilson: ‘The first kind [of pralaya] happens in between Brahma’s days.
The second occurs after an age, or life of Brahma and the third is indi-
vidual pralaya, or nirvana “after having reached which, there is no more
future existence possible, no rebirth till after the Maha Pralaya” ’.94 But
perhaps most importantly, Wilson’s translation proposed a correspond-
ence between cosmic cycles and individual ones. ‘In this way [. . .] this
whole world, although in essence imperishable and eternal, appears and
disappears, as if it were subject to birth and death.’95 In other words,

88
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 19, 46, 50; Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 48, 155, 162.
89
 H. H. Wilson, Vishnu Purana (London: John Murray, 1840), 23–​24.
90
 Ibid., 266–​271.
91
 Ibid., 43.
92
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 368.
93
 Ibid., 245.
94
 Ibid., 370.
95
 Wilson, Vishnu Purana, 157.
 Hindu and Buddhist Thought 181

both the cosmos and the individual underwent reincarnation, an idea

that is at the centre of Blavatsky’s theory of reincarnation.

Adi Buddha
In The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky was particularly heavily indebted to
Subba Row’s ‘Notes on the Bhagavad Gita’, claiming they were the
source of ‘The best metaphysical definition of primeval theogony in the
spirit of the Vedantins’.96 Published in The Theosophist, these ‘Notes’
were based on lectures Subba Row had delivered in 1885 and 1886. In
those lectures, he gave an allegorical interpretation in which the char-
acter of Arjuna from the Bhagavad Gita represented the monad and
Krishna the Logos.97 In The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky explicitly drew
on Subba Row’s description of Parabrahman, stating it was ‘the un-
known and the incognisable’ and equating it with the (neo-​Platonic)
One.98 Quoting Subba Row directly, she described the process of em-
anation that took place at the birth of the cosmos, in which the ‘One’
emanated the first logos, or Eswara. This metaphysical tenet, Blavatsky
maintained, could hardly have been better described than by Mr. Subba
Row.99 She also equated Parabrahman with the Buddhist concept of
Adi Buddha, describing the process of emanation as follows, using the
Platonic term logos:

In the esoteric, and even exoteric Buddhism of the North, Adi

Buddha, the One unknown, without beginning or end, [is] identical
with Parabrahm. [. . . It] emits a bright ray from its darkness. This
is the Logos (the first), or Vajradhara, the Supreme Buddha. As the
Lord of all Mysteries he cannot manifest, but sends into the world of
manifestation his heart—​the ‘diamond heart’, Vajrasattva. This is the
second logos of creation.100

96
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 428.
97
 J. Barton Scott, Spiritual Despots: Modern Hinduism and the Genealogies of Self-​Rule
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 196.
98
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 428.
99
 Ibid., 130.
100
 Ibid., 571.
182 Recycled Lives

The notion of Adi Buddha originates in the Buddhist theory of the trikaya,
the idea that a Buddha has three bodies, one of which is subtle and is
known as a sambhoga-​kaya (enjoyment body). This subtle body is said to
be located on another plane of reality.101 Thomas Rhys Davids’s Buddhism
(1877) was an influential source for Blavatsky on this topic. Rhys Davids
explained that in the tenth century, a new infinite, self-​existent, and om-
niscient being was invented—​Adi Buddha, the primordial Buddha.102 In
a letter to A. P. Sinnett, Blavatsky wrote that this late date was an error
of Davids’s, because Adi Buddha was mentioned in the oldest Sanskrit
works.103 Accordingly, she spoke of Adi Buddha as ‘the One unknown,
without beginning or end, identical with Parabrahm and Ain-​Soph’.104
Blavatsky probably found further support for her equation of
parabrahman and Adi Buddha in Essays on the Languages, Literature, and
Religion of Nepal and Tibet (1874) by the British naturalist and scholar
of Tibetan Buddhism, Brian Hodgson (1801–​1894).105 Hodgson argued
for the equivalence of Buddhism and Brahmanism in a similar way to
Blavatsky:

In regard to the destiny of the soul, I can find no moral difference

between [Buddhists] and the Brahmanical sages. By all, metempsy-
chosis and absorption are accepted. But absorbed into what? into
BRAHME, say the Brahmans,—​into Sunyata, or Svabhava, or
Pranja, or Adi Buddha, say the various sects of the Bauddhas.106

101
 According to this theory, the body that appears as a human being is not the real
Buddha but a body of magical creation, a nirmana-​kaya. The body closest to the real
body of a Buddha is the dharma-​kaya, or dharma body, the sum of perfected good qual-
ities that constitute a Buddha. The dharma-​kaya may also refer to the body of teach-
ings and texts left behind by a Buddha. Williams, Buddhist Thought, 172–​176; Rupert
Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 233.
102
 Rhys Davids, Buddhism, 206–​207.
103
 Letter to A. Sinnett in Henk Spierenburg, The Buddhism of H. P. Blavatsky (San
Diego: Point Loma, 1991), 3.
104
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine I, 571.
105
 Brian Hodgson, Essays on the Languages, Literature, and Religion of Nepal and Tibet
(London: Trübner and co, 1874).
106
 Ibid., 26.
 Hindu and Buddhist Thought 183

Conclusions
Blavatsky’s doctrine of reincarnation, with its notions of the emission
and absorption of souls into Parabrahman/​Adi Buddha, exemplifies an
entanglement of several elements, including the modernising construc-
tions/​interpretations of Hinduism and Buddhism that were proposed
by Western-​ educated Indian elites, academic Orientalism, Western
philosophy and science, and occultism. For example, as we have seen,
Herbert Spencer’s attempt to reconcile science and religion was applied
to Vedanta by a Western-​educated Brahmin Theosophist alongside
Platonic perspectives. This was then adopted by Blavatsky as part of a
response to Ernst Haeckel’s materialist monism.
Despite the undeniable influence of Western theories of rebirth
on Blavatsky’s perspectives, it seems plausible that conversations be-
tween Blavatsky, Dayananda, and other Indian and Ceylonese contacts
contributed, at least in part, to her shift from metempsychosis to re-
incarnation around 1882. Echoing statements found in Wilson’s trans-
lation of the Vishnu Purana, it was a reincarnationary model that was
fractal and cyclic, and in which the life, death, and rebirth patterns of
the individual mirrored those of the universe. In the aftermath of the
Bengal Renaissance and in the context of a burgeoning neo-​Hinduism,
Western-​educated Theosophists such as Mohini Chatterji and Subba
Row provided Blavatsky with information about Advaita Vedanta, fur-
nishing her with the terminology necessary to elaborate reincarnation
in Vedantic terms. Blavatsky could not escape her neo-​Platonic heri-
tage, however. Her esotericising interpretations of Plato and his fol-
lowers had already been present in Isis Unveiled and they persisted in
The Secret Doctrine, sometimes explicitly and sometimes as a subtext.
Blavatsky drew on contemporary scholarship of Buddhism to append
the concept of Adi Buddha to her emanationary, reincarnationist cos-
mology in a modernising interpretation that identified Buddhism and
Hinduism (in their supposedly true, esoteric interpretations) with
Theosophy. This multifaceted entanglement was a crucial aspect of the
emergence of Blavatsky’s reincarnationism as a modern and global phe-
nomenon, a characteristic perhaps because of which it achieved consid-
erable traction in the decades to follow.
    8
Conclusions

As is well established in the scholarly literature, Theosophy repre-

sented an attempt to provide unity in the face of the growing pluralism
of the modern world.1 Blavatsky compared this aspect of Theosophy
with the notion of sutratman, which, as we saw in the previous chapter,
she had originally elaborated as part of her reincarnation doctrine.

SOME years ago we remarked that ‘the Esoteric Doctrine may well
be called the “thread-​doctrine”, since, like Sutrâtman, in the Vedanta
philosophy, it passes through and strings together all the ancient
philosophical religious systems, and reconciles and explains them
all.’ We say now it does more. It not only reconciles the various
and apparently conflicting systems, but it checks the discoveries of
modern exact science, and shows some of them to be necessarily cor-
rect, since they are found corroborated in the ancient records. All this
will, no doubt, be regarded as terribly impertinent and disrespectful,
a veritable crime of lèse-​Science; nevertheless, it is a fact.2

For Blavatsky, like the thread on which lives were hung, Theosophy was
the thread on which all philosophies and religions were hung, recon-
ciling them and revealing their contradictions as merely apparent ones.

1
  Washington, Blavatsky’s Baboon, 9; McMahen, ‘Scientific Buddhism’, 920; Bevir,
‘West Turns Eastward’, 758.
2
 Secret Doctrine I, 610

184
 Conclusions 185

Blavatsky was an admirer of Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose em-

brace of Asian thought alongside neo-​Platonism prefigured her own.
Lawrence Buell argued that part of Emerson’s appeal was the suggestive
character of his writings; in a context in which the rational had been to
some extent discredited, Emerson focused on moral uplift and inspir-
ation rather than specific facts.3 The opposite can be said of Blavatsky,
whose writings (no matter how imperfectly they achieved this) were
concerned with connecting the dots of historical and doctrinal particu-
larities as concretely as possible. Theosophy certainly represented—​as
Stephen Prothero put it so well—​an elite attempt to ‘uplift’ Spiritualism
from its perceived philosophical vulgarities, but Blavatsky achieved this
by ‘pinning things down’, stringing together, for example, components
of Spiritualist rebirth theories with the minutiae of ancient histories
and etymologies she derived from her extensive reading.
On more than one occasion, colleagues have suggested that
Blavatsky’s writings resist easy exegesis. This is certainly true, they do
resist easy exegesis. They certainly do not resist any exegesis, however.
Her methods may seem unorthodox, unsystematic, and perhaps even
unethical (to those who would cast her as a plagiarist), but this does not
mean there is no unity or profundity of thought to be discerned in her
books, articles, and letters. Inconsistencies and contradictions notwith-
standing, there is a clear coherence, and although one of the central
theses of this book has been that Blavatsky changed her mind about
rebirth, tried to cover up the change, and failed, I have also shown that
there was continuity in her thinking. Indeed, it would be a mistake
to ignore either the continuities or the discontinuities at the expense
of each other; both are there. She may have changed her mind about
the form rebirth took, but she displayed similar tendencies of thought
throughout her life. Rebirth always had some sort of cyclic element, it
was always progressive, and it was always about the conservation of life
as if it were a form of energy that could not disappear but only change
form. These fundamentals remained even as Blavatsky’s perspectives

3
  Lawrence I. Buell, ‘Reading Emerson for the Structures:  The Coherence of the
Essays’, in Emerson’s Essays, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House, 2006), 51.
186 Recycled Lives

developed through the assimilation of more and more information and

experience.
It is precisely Blavatsky’s tendency towards incessant quotation, allu-
sion, and name-​dropping that makes her so useful to the historian. Our
close readings of Blavatsky’s theories of metempsychosis and reincarna-
tion have uncovered diverse underling textual sources, including those
Blavatsky believed confirmed her ideas and those whose theories she be-
lieved she had disproved. Her doctrine of metempsychosis had derived,
largely, from one specific current of Anglo-​American Spiritualism, and
had been underpinned by a Romantic, progressivist evolutionism.
Blavatsky brought this together with the American neo-​Platonism of
Alexander Wilder and the natural philosophy of Stewart and Tait’s The
Unseen Universe. This conglomerate doctrine then metamorphosed into
the fractal macrocosmic reincarnationism of Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine
period, in conversation with the neo-​Vedanta of upper-​caste Western-​
educated Theosophists in India and the reincarnation theory of Anna
Bonus Kingsford. These stood side by side in Blavatsky’s discussions of
reincarnation with a variety of scientific theories, especially those asso-
ciated with the ‘eclipse of Darwinism’ during the 1880s.
The four final chapters of this study set these adaptations of Blavatsky’s
in relief against signal late nineteenth-​century cultural trends such as
the Spiritualist craze, the growth of science and debates surrounding
its relationship with metaphysics, widespread interest in the Classical
world, nineteenth-​ century Orientalism, and the emergence of the
modernising interpretations of Hinduism and Buddhism of Asian and
Western spokespersons. The discussion revealed the various elements
of Blavatsky rebirth doctrines to be inseparable from the nineteenth-​
century discourses among which they arose, lending support to Michael
Bergunder’s claim that the rise of categories such as ‘esotericism’, ‘sci-
ence’, ‘Hinduism’, and ‘Buddhism’ in the late nineteenth century had
closely related, entangled, and global histories.4 Indeed, Blavatsky’s the-
ories demonstrate that it is impossible to understand any one of her con-
structions without reference to the others; her definitions of Hinduism,

4
 Michael Bergunder, ‘ “Religion” and “Science” within a Global Religious History’,
Aries 16 (86–​141).
 Conclusions 187

Buddhism, and science, as well as Platonism and Spiritualism, were

all interdependent. They were also built in opposition to Blavatsky’s
‘Others’:  scientists deemed materialists, Orientalist scholars who had
misunderstood their texts, orthodox Brahmins and Buddhists, French
Spiritists, and all the other authorities Blavatsky admonished. Because
it arose in response to such diverse stimuli and in such varied contexts,
Blavatsky’s reincarnation doctrine could be said to be many things at
once: an alternative to Darwinian natural selection, a critique of con-
temporary Spiritualism, part of an esoteric history of religion, and a
response to colonialism. Through the prism of historical analysis, there-
fore, one doctrine—​reincarnation—​can be refracted into many colours
to reveal aspects of the intellectual and cultural world of nineteenth
century Europe, America, and India in a spectrum of new and inter-
connected lights.

What might the attraction of such a doctrine have been to Blavatsky

(and her readers)? Presumably, she eventually came to find the later
doctrine of reincarnation more appealing than the metempsychosis of
her earlier period, which she had re-modelled. If Isis Unveiled was to be
believed, no matter how talented they were, Spiritualist mediums were
incapable of contacting dead loved ones at séances because only the
empy astral shells of the deceased were available. The departed would
probably have been annihilated, since only very few achieved immor-
tality and transmigrated to the next sphere. Metempsychosis wasn’t an
especially democratic doctrine, or indeed a comforting one.
This wasn’t as much the case with reincarnation. In the theory
Blavatsky presented in The Secret Doctrine and other later writings, one
might still not have expected to converse with the dead at séances, but
one might have been comforted by the idea of them enjoying some good
karma in devachan. They would eventually return to Earth to continue
their evolution, progressing through multiple lives on Earth and in due
course continuing to higher globes. However, although reincarnation
could be perceived as a more consoling and democratic doctrine than
metempsychosis, it still placed a greater distance between the living
and the dead than did Theosophy’s main rival in the reincarnationist
turf wars: French Spiritism. Clearly, there were going to those who pre-
ferred the idea that séance spirits were more that clattering astral trash.
188 Recycled Lives

Blavatsky was quite disdainful of such a perspective. She insisted on

at least a thousand years between each rebirth and that even if you re-
incarnated at around the same time as your deceased loved one, neither
of you would be “yourselves” anymore. New babies could never be the
reincarnations of recently deceased friends and relatives. Even though it
was perhaps easier to digest than metempsychosis had been, Blavatsky’s
reincarnation theory could still be perceived as less consoling than
Kardec’s. It was rather impersonal in nature, emphasising grand, cosmic
evolutionary schemes over and above the emotional needs of grieving
individuals. The one need Blavatsky was compelled to address was the
necessity to explain the apparent injustices of life. Karma solved this
problem nicely, at least for the present moment, in which karma was
operative. What it meant for the aeons before human egos existed and
karma emerged, Blavatsky never explained.
For Blavatsky, reincarnation was about the significance of the cur-
rent moment in time and humanity’s power to grasp it by aligning itself
with the cosmos’ inherent evolutionary drive. Like many commenta-
tors of the fin de siècle, she felt (and quite rightly) that she was living
in a pivotal historical moment. Unlike the better-known authors, how-
ever, Blavatsky’s interpretation was an occultist one: the critical junc-
ture was incarnation as a human of the fifth root race of the fourth
round of the Earth Chain. This was the point of exact equilibrium
between spirit and matter, and humanity was responsible for assisting
in the upward turn towards (re-)spiritualisation. Was it all about the
impersonal ‘tides’ of the cosmos, the great ‘inbreaths’ and ‘outbreaths’
of Brahma to which Blavatsky referred, or was humanity capable of af-
fecting the progress of evolution with its choices? It wasn’t always clear.
Karma had a supporting (but perhaps not starring) role in the drama of
evolution while sitting at the core of Blavatsky’s theodicy. Absorption in
the Divine, nirvana, could only be achieved through ‘æons of suffering’
and through knowing evil, as well as good, (i.e. through karma).5 This
tension between the progressive orthogenesis of the cosmos on the
one hand and the emphasis on human power, choice, and karma on
the other was never really resolved. Both were important elements of
Blavatsky’s thought.

5
 Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine II, 81.
 Conclusions 189

In short, Blavatsky’s reincarnation doctrine could be appealing as a

solution to the great problems of life, suffering, and death for modern,
liberal, and scientifically minded individuals. Those who embraced it
were usually middle class and well educated, and probably yearned for
an all-​encompassing spirituality that was unsentimental yet to some de-
gree consoling. Drawing on many of the trends of the day (Classicism,
Orientalism, Spiritualism) it was a fashionably dressed theory that re-
sponded to the most current concerns. As a supposed revival of ancient
wisdom, reincarnationism nodded towards a widespread nineteenth-​cen-
tury nostalgia for times gone by while simultaneously committed to the
future as part of a universal scientific religion that was supposed to resolve
the conflict between materialism and theology and unite mankind.
It was this historically and culturally contingent amalgamation
that provided the foundations of the reincarnationism of subsequent
Theosophical literature and the myriad of Theosophically influenced
movements within New Age and alternative spirituality today. Those
who developed Blavatsky’s reincarnation theory included the influ-
ential later Theosophist Charles Leadbeater (1854–​1934); the founder
of Anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner (1861–​1925); the trance medium
Edgar Cayce (1877–​1945); and the well-​known author on Theosophical
themes, Alice Bailey, as well as the numerous thinkers indebted to
them.6 Largely due to the influence of Theosophy and such offshoots,
it is no longer unusual for those in the West today who describe them-
selves as Christians to believe in reincarnation as a form of spiritual
progress.7 Henry Steel Olcott would have been pleased. Until the pre-
vious decade, he reminisced, reincarnation had ‘been almost unthink-
able by the average Western’. This was no longer the case. Multitudes
who still rejected it as unproved had ‘learned to recognise its value as
a hypothesis explaining many of the mysteries of human life’.8 Olcott
had played a minor role in bringing this about but his dear friend and
colleague, Blavatsky, had played a major one. That being the case, she
was among the principal architects of religion in modern times.

6
 Hammer, Claiming Knowledge, 469.
7
 Schmidt-​Leukel, Transformation by Integration, 68.
8
 Olcott, Old Diary Leaves 5, 243.
  
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INDEX

Adam Kadmon  9, 51 Atma  77–78, 80, 81–82, 85, Buddha (historical) 59–60,

Adi Buddha,  3, 17–18, 165, 163–64, 176, 187–88 129, 171–73
181, 183 Augoeides 52–53 Buddhi 77. See also spiritual
Advaita  162–63, 164, 171, avatar 55–56 soul, –81
173, 183 Buddhism  17–18, 21, 165, 169
Adyar, Madras  29–30 Baer, Karl Ernst von  17, Burgoyne, Thomas Henry
Agrippa, Heinrich 137–38, 156–57 (Thomas Dalton) 
Cornelius 7–9 Bailey, Alice  42–44, 189 burned over district 25–26
Ain Soph 9 Ballanche, Burnouf, Eugène  171–72
Aksakoff, A. N.  90 Pierre-​Simon  90–91
Alcott, Amos Bronson  118 Besant, Annie  42–44 Caithness, Countess of  33–53
Alcott, Louisa May  118 Bhagavad Gita 169–71, Carlyle, Thomas  144–45
Alden, William 174, 181 Catholic Church  20–21,
Living­stone  23–24 Bible 53 25–26, 33–35, 88–89,
American Akademe  117–18, Blackwell, Anna  95–96 91–92, 112–13
127–28 Blavatsky, H. P.  4–6, 19–30 Cayce, Edgar  189
Ammonius Saccas  113–14, Blavatsky, Nikifor  22 Chaldea  9, 46–47, 49, 121–22
118–19 body  59, 60, 64, 77–79, Chatterji, Mohini M.  17–18,
animal soul  59, 77–79, 129 80–81, 126 41, 166, 175, 183
annihilation  13, 30–31, 39, Bonnet, Charles  90–91 Christ  20–21, 33–35, 59–60
40, 46, 59, 60 , 64, 85, Brahmanism (in Blavatsky’s Christianity  20–21, 33–35,
99–101, 122–24, 129, 187 thought)  173, 186–87 111–12, 126–27, 173
Anthon, Charles  121–22 Brahmin Theosophists  168, Church Fathers  47, 113–14,
Anthroposophy  42–44, 189 175, 177, 183 126–27
Apuleius 50 Britten, Emma clairvoyance  28–29, 59
Arnold, Edwin  171–72 Hardinge  14–15, 23–24, Clifford, William
Aryan (root race)  76–77, 62, 87, 99, 101–3, 106 Kingdon 134–35
78–80, 85–86, 188 Britten, William Cobb, John Storer  23–24
Arya Samaj  29, 161 Goodwin 23–24 Coleman, William
astral body  13, 46–47, 56–57, Bruno, Giordano  53–54, 121, Emmette 26
63, 64, 77–78, 80–81, 147 148 Comte, Auguste  134–35
Atlantis/​Atlanteans  2–3, 75–76 Büchner, Ludwig  134–35 Concord School  118

211
212 Index

Conze, Edward  42–44 Esoteric Buddhism (book)  30, Gunananda, Megittuwatte  160
Crookes, William  133, 139–41, 41–42, 113–14
158–59 Evans-​Wentz, Walter  42–44 Haeckel, Ernst  17–​18, 52,
Crosbie, Robert  44 evolution (scientific 134–​35, 137–​38, 148, 158,
theories)  17, 140–41, 166, 183
Daniels, Cora. See 155–57, 178–79 Hahn, Peter Alexeyevitch von
Tappan, Cora evolution (in (Blavatsky’s father)  19–​20
Darwin, Charles  134, Spiritualism) 91–92, Hatch, Cora. See Tappan, Cora
140–41, 150–51, 153, 95–96, 153–55 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm
155–56, 158 evolution (in Theosophy)  3, Friedrich  137–​38,  148
Darwinism  17, 134–35, 137–38, 38, 39, 48, 49, 52, 56, 57, Hellenism (19th century)  110
148–49, 153, 186 63, 65–67, 68–72, 73, Hermetic Brotherhood of
David-​Néel, Alexandra  42–44 75–77, 79–80, 83, 84, 85, Luxor  14–​15, 87, 104
Davis, Andrew Jackson  95–96, 134, 136–37, 150, 158, 166, Hermeticism  14, 56–​57, 125
106 186, 187–88 Hindi 20
Decharme, Paul  109 Hinduism  17–​18, 49, 130, 165,
Denton, William  142 Fadeev, Andrei de (Blavatsky’s 169, 183, 186–​87
devachan  80–81, 85 grandfather) 19–20 Hodgson, Brian  182
dhyan chohans  67–68, 140–41 Fadeev, Helena Adreyevna Hodgson Report  5–​6
Dolgorukii, Prince de (Blavatsky’s Hodgson, Richard  5–​6
Pavel (Blavatsky’s mother) 19–20 Howitt, William  142
great-​grandfather)  21–22 Fadeev, Nadyezhda de Hume, Allan
Dolgorukii, Princess (Blavatsky’s aunt)  58 Octavian  5,  31–​32
Helena (Blavatsky’s Felt, George Henry  23–24 Hunt, William
grandmother) 19–20 Fichte, Johann Holman  142–​43
Doubleday, Abner  42–44 Gottlieb 137–38 Huxley, Thomas Henry  133,
Dowson, John  26–28 Ficino, Marsilio  7–9 134–​35,  154–​55
Draper, John William  139–40, Flammarion, Camille  42–44 Hyslop, James H.  23–​24
144–45, 158–59 Fohat  66–67, 155–56
Du Bois Reymond, Franck, Adolphe  7–9 immortality  13, 14–​15, 23–​24,
Emil  151–52, 156, 158 Freemasonry 9–10 28–​29, 40, 45–​48, 49, 53,
Dunlap, Samuel Fales  6–9, 124 French ancestry 55–​56, 61, 64, 85, 87–​88,
Dzyan, Book of 41–42 (Blavatsky’s) 19–20 100–​1, 106, 125, 126,
French language  20 128–​29, 131, 146, 147, 187
Earth Chain  69–73, 85–86 French occultism  6–7, 142–43 India  17–​18, 29–​30, 41,
Edison, Thomas  42–44 French socialism  90–91, 92 109–​10, 121–​22, 124–​25,
editing (of Blavatsky’s 129, 160
writings)  20, 28–29, 41, Gandhi, Mohandas  42–44 Indian National
56, 114–15, 127–28 Gasparin, Count Agénor Congress  31–​32,  42–​44
editing (of The de 141–42 involution  66–​67,
Theosophist)  29–30, 177 German ancestry 76–​77,  150
ego  31–32, 33, 39–40, 58, 59, (Blavatsky’s)  4, 19–20 Isis Unveiled  1–​2, 3–​4, 9, 13,
62, 63, 78–80, 83 German language  20 26–​28, 33–​35, 37, 38, 45,
Egypt  9–11, 122 Ginsburg, Christian 95–​96, 100, 108–​9, 110,
emanation 3 David 7–9 114–​15, 116, 121, 124–​26,
Emerson, Ralph Globes  31–32, 69. See also 127–​28, 144, 165, 187
Waldo  116–17, 118, planets, –71
127–28, 144–45, 185 Gnosticism  3, 16, 47, 66–67, Jacolliot, Louis  109–​10
English language 121, 126–27, 130–31 Jesus  53–​54
(Blavatsky’s) 20 Goethe, J. W. von  148–49 jiva  77. See also prana,  –​78
Ennemoser, Joseph  109–10, governess (Blavatsky’s)  20, Jones, William  169–​70
120 21–22 Jowett, Benjamin  116
 Index 213

Judge, William Mahatma letters  5, 30, natural selection  17, 134,

Quan  23–​24,  44 31–​32,  37–​40 138, 140–​41, 153,
justice  60–​61, 83–​55, 85–​86, Mahatmas. See masters 154–​55,  186–​87
172–​73,  188 Mahayana neo-​Platonism  3, 16, 17–​18,
Buddhism  19–​20,  171–​73 40–​41, 48, 66–​67, 108–​9,
Kabbalah  6–​9,  48 Maitland, Edward  33–​35, 115–​17, 118–​19, 127–​29,
Kalmucks  19–​20 36–​37,  38 164, 181, 185, 186
kalpa 180 manas  75,  77–​82 New Age  1–​2, 11–​12, 25–​26,
kama-​loka  80–​81 Manu, Laws of 49 42–​44,  189
kama-​rupa  77–​78, 80. See also manvantara  66–​67, 68, 70–​71, Newton, Henry J.  23–​24
animal soul, –​81 72, 80–​81, 163–​64, 180 Nirvana  45–​46, 63, 64, 77,
Kanada 167 Massey, Charles Carlton  85–​86, 164, 183, 188
Kapila 167 23–​24, 37–​38, 48,  56–​57
Kardec, Allan  14–​15, 33–​35, masters  5, 22, 30, 31–​32 occultism  1–​2, 104, 111, 183
37–​38, 47, 50, 53–​54, 57, Mathers, Samuel Liddell Occult World, the (Alfred Percy
87, 88–​90, 91–​94, 95–​96, Macgregor  6–​9 Sinnett) 30
97–​98,  106 Materialism  4, 16–​17, Olcott, Henry S.  17–​18, 23–​24,
karma  32–​33, 51, 67–​69, 75, 133, 171 26, 28–​29, 30–​31, 35, 44,
82, 85, 166 matter  3, 13–​14,  48–​49 99–​100, 160–​62, 177, 186,
Keightley (Bertram and Mavalankar, Damodar 187, 189
Archibald) 41 K.  161–​62,  177 One, The (neo-​Platonic
Kenealy, Edward Vaughn Max-​Müller, Friedrich  109–​10, concept)  3, 33, 127–​28,
Hyde  26–​28 169–​70,  171–​72 164,  181–​82
King, Charles maya 68 Orientalism  6, 17–​18,
William  7–​9,  126–​27 Mead, G.R.S.  113–​14 130, 166
Kingsford, Anna Mesmerism  1–​2, 25–​26,  168 Orthogenesis  17, 154–​55, 157
Bonus.  33–​40,  186 metaphysical religion (American)  Over-​Soul  127–​28
Kircher, Athanasius  CP.P15 25–​26, 126–​27 Owen, Richard  17, 137–​38, 157
Kiu-​Te (Book of )  41–​42 metempsychosis  9, 12, 13–​33,
Koot Hoomi  5, 30, 37–​40, 39–​40, 45, 85, 87–​88, pansil  29–​30, 160,  161–​62
161–​62,  175 94–​98, 99, 106, 108–​9, Parabrahman  3, 17–​18, 66–​67,
Krishnamurti, Jiddhu  42–​44 119–​21, 124–​25, 126, 163–​64, 165, 181, 182, 183
Krishna Varma, Shyamji  161 128–​29, 130, 131, 146, 147, Paranirvana 68
150–​51, 162, 183 Patanjali 167
Laing, Samuel  26–​28 Mitra, Peary Chand  161–​62 Perfect Way, The.  33–​35,
Lamarck, Jean-​Baptiste  148–​49 Monachesi, H. D.  23–​24 36–​37,  38
Lamarckism  148–​49, 153, Monad  37, 51–​53, 63–​64, personality  14–​15, 28–​29,
154–​55,  157 67–​68, 69, 73, 80, 82, 32–​33, 37, 46, 49, 64, 68,
Lara, David Etienne de  23–​24 83–​84, 101–​3, 124, 132, 87–​88, 93–​94, 98, 106
Leadbeater, Charles 138, 150–​51, 158–​59, Pico della Mirandola,
Webster  42–​44,  189 163–​64, 181, 188 Giovanni  7–​9
Lemprière, John  47 Monier-​Williams, pitris  72, 73–​74,  140–​41
Lemuria  74–​76 Monier 161 plagiarism  5–​6,  26
Leroux, Pierre  90–​91, 92 Morya  5, 30 planets  3, 13–​14, 28–​2 9,
Levi, Eliphas  6–​7, 120, 142–​43 Moses  54–​56 33, 38–​39, 64, 65,
Leymarie, Pierre-​Gaëtan and Mosheim, Johann Lorenz 69–​7 2, 95–​9 6, 100,
Marina,  87, 93 von  118–​19 101–​3,  106–​7
life atoms  60 mulaprakriti  67–​68, 163. Plato/​Platonism  3, 9, 16,
linga sarira 77. See also astral See also matter, –​64 17–​18, 48, 108, 138, 157,
body,  –​78 158–​59, 164, 165, 181,
logos  9,  67–​68 Nägeli, Carl Wilhelm von  17, 185,  186–​87
Lunar Chain  70–​71,  73–​74 155–​56,  158–​59 Plato Club  117–​18
214 Index

Plotinus  48, 108, 113–​14, Roy, Rammohan  170–​71, 175 Spinoza, Baruch  121, 148
115–​16, 127–​28, 129, Russian Orthodox spirit (atma)  77–​78,
130, 164 Church  20–​21 80–​81, 82, 85, 163–​64,
Pococke, Edward  109–​10 176,  187–​88
Postel, Guillaume,  7–​9 Saint-​Hilaire, Jules Spiritism  14–​15, 25–​26, 46, 49,
pralaya  68, 70–​71, 77, 80–​81, Barthélemy,  171–​72 56, 88, 90, 106, 187. See
163–​64,  180–​81 Sanskrit  20, 66–​67, 77–​78, also Allan Kardec, –​88
prana 77. See also jiva,  –​78 164, 165, 170, 176, Spiritualism  1–​2, 5–​6,
Protestant Church  20–​21, 177–​78,  182 14–​15, 25–​26, 87, 108,
25–​26, 88–​89, saptaparna 77. See also 126, 130, 139–​41, 144–​45,
112–​13,  168–​69 septenary constitution, 185,  186–​87
Pythagoras/​ Saraswati, Swami spiritual soul. See Buddhi
Pythagoreanism  16, 47, Dayananda  29, 161, 183 Stallo, Johann
52, 108–​9, 119–​20, 124–​25, Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Bernhard  141–​42
128–​29,  130 Joseph  137–​38 Steiner, Rudolph  42–​44, 189
Schmidt, Oscar  141–​42 Stevens, H. M.  23–​24
Quatrefages de Bréau, Jean science  4, 11–​12, 13, 14–​15, Stewart, Balfour  16–​17,
Louis Armand de   133, 16–​17, 132, 162, 133, 144
136–​37,  158 183, 186 stula sarira. See body
Secret Doctrine, The  1–​2, 3–​4, suffering  83–​84
Randolph, Paschal Beverly  10–​11, 13–​14, 33–​35, 41, Sumangala, Hikkaduwe  160
14–​15, 87, 101, 104, 106 46–​47, 65, 108–​9, 113–​14, Suzuki, Daisetsu Teitaro 
recapitulation (scientific 121–​22, 148, 150–​51, 42–​44
theory)  13, 52, 101–​3, 153, 165, 176, 178, 179, Swedenborgianism  25–​26,
150–​51, 153,  158–​59 180–​81,  186 95–​96
reincarnation (as opposed to Septenary Constitution Sydenham, Floyer  116
metempsychosis)  1, 2–​3, (of the cosmos and
6–​7, 9, 10–​11, 12, 13, humanity)  41–​42,  77 Tait, Peter
28–​29, 30–40, 42–​44, Sexton, George  96–​97, 106 Guthrie  16–​17,  144
45, 65, 87, 108, 109–​10, Shankara 174 Tappan, Cora Scott  96–​97
113–​14, 119–​20, 121–​24, Simmons, Charles E.  23–​24 Taylor, Thomas  16, 112–​13,
126–​28, 129, 131, 138, Sinnett, Alfred Percy  5, 30, 114, 115–​16, 118–​19,
150–​51, 160, 161, 162, 33–​35, 36–​38, 41–​42, 126–​27,  130–​31
163–​64, 166, 167, 176, 113–​14,  182 terrestrial larvae  61, 63, 64
177–​78, 180–​81, 183, 184 social Darwinism  17–​18, theodicy  83–​84
Reuchlin, Johannes  7–​9 134,  178–​79 Theosophical Society 
Reynaud, Jean,  90–​91, 92, 97 Society for Psychical 1, 5, 25–​26, 29, 42–​44,
Rhys Davids, Thomas  174, 182 Research  5–​6,  144–​45 99, 113–​14, 118–​19, 160,
Richmond, Cora. See Sotheran, Charles  23–​24 161–​62,  167–​69
Cora Tappan soul  3, 13, 28–​29, 32–​33, establishment  23–​24
Romanticism  17, 92, 45–​47, 56, 57–​58, Theosophist, The
111–​12, 115–​16, 130–​31, 59–​61, 62, 63, 64, (periodical)  17–​18,
137–​38, 148, 153, 166–​67, 77–​80, 91–​92, 93–​94, 29–​32, 33, 37, 160, 175–​76,
172–​73,  186 95–​96, 98–​99, 100, 177, 181
root race  73–​85 101–​3, 111, 122–​24, 126, Theravada Buddhism  171–​73
Rosenroth, Christian Knorr 128–​29, 162, 176, 183 Tibet  5, 161–​62, 174
von  6–​7 Spencer, Herbert  17–​18, 46, Tibetan language  5
round  70–​72, 85–​86, 105, 134, 178, 180, 183 Tingley, Katherine  44
124, 188 sphere (higher)  13, 28–​29, Transcendentalism
Row, Tallapragada Subba  33–​35, 45–​47, 56–​58, 63, (American)  16, 19–​20,
17–​18, 41, 166, 177, 64, 69–​70, 85, 95–​96, 98, 111–​12, 114, 116–​17,
178–​79, 181, 183 101–​3,  147 130–​31,  172–​73
 Index 215

Transmigration  45–​47, 49–​50, Vedanta  17–​18, 162–​63, Wilkins, Charles  169–​70

57–​58, 97–​98, 101–​3, 120, 170–​71, 173, 175, 176, 177, Wilson, H. H.  17–​18, 180, 183
129, 178 183, 184, 186 Wood, Emma  95–​96
Tupper, John Lucas  142–​43 Vedas  49,  170–​71
Tyndall, John  134–​35, Vogt, Karl  133, 154–​55 Yeats, William Butler  42–​44
144–​45 Yoga  23–​24,  73–​74
Wallace, Alfed Russell  133, Yogacara 173
Universal Soul  3, 9, 13–​14, 140–​41,  154–​55 Young, Thomas  146
67–​68, 127–​28, Wilder, Alexander.  4, 16, 20,
129,  163–​64 28–​29, 112–​13, 114, Zeller, Eduard  109, 116
Upham, Edward  109–​10 127–​28, 131, 186 Zohar, The  9, 49, 54