Theosophy and Race V – Some general observations

Posted by Phil Hine in History, Occult  |  July 30th 2022  |  About poster:

I began this series on the relationship between the Theosophical movement and race in order to contest the popular view that it is through the writings of Theosophical authors – Madame Blavatsky in particular – that the concept of the ‘Aryan’ passed into Nazi ideology. In the first post in this series, I outlined the ‘birth’ of this concept in the work of Sir William Jones and Max Muller. In the second post, I discussed how the concept of the Aryan was entangled with nineteenth-century racial science. The third post outlined how the notion of the Aryan was taken up in India, and the fourth, how Blavatsky and Olcott’s notion of India’s shared Aryan roots led to a brief alliance with the Ārya Samāj until both organizations discovered that their notions of who could be ‘Aryan’ were quite distinct.

Before I delve into the complexities of the Theosophical notion of “root races” though, here are some general observations. Race is a central concept within the vast corpus of Theosophical writings, yet it remains under-studied. Whilst the ideal that the Theosophical Society was committed to the development of a “Universal Brotherhood” became a central principle after 1878, it is undeniable that such an ideal was embedded within the wider discourse of colonial power relationships. Theosophists such as Blavatsky and Olcott did look to India as the source of their perennial tradition, their romantic orientalism (see this post) frequently reproduced and reified orientalist stereotypes about the ‘mystic east’ which legitimated the colonial enterprise. Although, as Karl Beier argues, The Theosophical Society in India did create – to an extent – a space for intercultural exchange through periodicals such as The Theosophist (1879) – the power relationships within these spaces were distinctly uneven, as can be seen for example, with Blavatsky’s acrimonious exchanges with Subba Row and her criticisms of the writings of Rama Prasad. It quickly becomes clear that Blavatsky and her spiritual heirs felt that although India was the source of their esoteric knowledge, it was they, rather than Indian Theosophists, who had the last word on matters of interpretation and doctrine.

Yet at the same time, it is too simplistic to collapse the complex relationships between Theosophists into a West-East binary in which ‘Western’ Theosophists merely appropriated Indian religious and philosophical concepts for themselves. If nothing else, that places Indian Theosophists into the position of being at best dupes and at worst, collaborators with their imperial superiors. The Theosophical Society arrived in India during a period when intense debates were occurring as to the nature of Indian religion and culture and the future of the subcontinent. These were not, as some scholars have argued, simply passive responses to colonialism and the spread of ‘western education’ amongst elites. Indian activists were actively engaged in shaping global debates about religion, social reform, and ‘universal brotherhood. These issues were not only important to India – they were the “big questions” of the day across Europe and North America too. At the same time, the boundaries of what constituted ‘valid’ Hindu religion were also being vigorously tested from within (see for example my series on the 1862 Maharaja Libel Case).

After all, Blavatsky and Olcott’s stated admiration for Indian culture (and anti-missionary stance) won them a warm reception (albeit with some reservations) during their initial lecture tours of India. In March 1879, an editorial in the Indian Mirror reflects this:

“We are not so sure about the justness or soundness of the views held by the members of the Theosophical Society; but when they said they had come to learn and not to teach, there was surely something very touching and attractive in all that they said about their mission … The members of the Theosophical Society have done what no Englishmen have ever thought of doing during their more than a century and-a-half’s administration of this country: they have dared openly to mix with us as equals. Here is something to be grateful for.”

Strube, 2022, p91.

Theosophy and Science
If Theosophists in India and America could unite over a shared desire to revive the Aryan glories of India’s past, an equally important factor was the Theosophical investment in science. Since the late 18th century, British administrators, missionaries, and similar authorities had judged Indians to be uncivilized, and superstitious, and whatever heights they had achieved in the remote past, lacked any knowledge of modern science. James Mill, in his influential History of British India (1817) lamented that although Hindus had some knowledge of astronomy and mathematics, “They have been cultivated exclusively for the purposes of astrology; one of the most irrational of all imaginable pursuits; one of those which most infallibly denote a nation barbarous”.

Theosophy sought to explain occult phenomena in scientific terms (whilst at the same time, chiding ordinary scientists for their materialism) and ultimately, to forge a unity between science, religion, and metaphysics. As the Society took root in India, these scientific explanations were quickly applied to phenomena such as yoga siddhis, chakras, and the subtle body. In fact, chakras are a good example of such re-interpretations. When I began to examine the reception of chakra schemas in the late nineteenth century, I assumed that the familiar interpolations of chakras with at first, nerve plexuses and then later, the endocrine system, were a ‘Western’ innovation. What I found was that most of these associations came from Indian medical practitioners – some Theosophically-inspired, others not. What quickly became clear is that chakras were just one example of making the case that ancient or esoteric knowledge was rooted in modern scientific thought and that India had possessed such knowledge long before it had emerged in the West. These emerging medical explanations of chakras can be thought of as examples of Projit Bihari Mukharji’s phrasing of ‘braided knowledges’ – threads taken from different realms and woven together, giving rise to new meanings for a range of different actors and crossing cultural divisions. As Mukharji points out, what constituted ‘science’ itself was rather fluid in this period ¹ There was a good deal of space for Theosophical or other esoteric notions of science such as mesmerism to take root and flourish. ²

Theosophy’s global reach
Scholars of Esotericism such as Julian Strube have recently began to agitate towards an understanding of esoteric movements as transglobal phenomena – as opposed to the rather simplistic view that western esotericisms were ‘diffused’ into India, or that again, western esotericisms merely ‘appropriated’ existing traditional knowledges and reshaped them. The Theosophical Society, as Strube points out, is a prime example of such a transglobal movement – its interests, aspirations, and modes of operation both responses to and articulations of events and questions which were not merely local to Europe or India, but worldwide in their scope. Equally, the Society’s influence was transglobal in its effects in a way that few other esoteric movements have been, either before or since. Take, for example, the Society’s publications. Print culture was a major factor in the Theosophical Society’s global reach, and its message was spread through the publication of texts and periodicals (plus they were a significant income stream). In 1878, the India-published The Theosophist was joined by the New York-based The Path, and then Lucifer, published in London, in 1879, followed by Theosophical Siftings in 1888. By the 1890s, Theosophical publishing houses in North America, India, and Europe were offering a wide range of books, and Theosophical ideas were being translated into European languages via branches of the Society across Europe. A Theosophical newspaper was established in Sri Lanka, and by 1899, it was reported to be the best-selling English-language newspaper in the country, with an estimated readership of 24,000. ³ Theosophists were also amongst the first esotericists to deliver lectures via radio.

Sources
Karl Baier. 2016. ‘Theosophical Orientalism and the Structure of Intercultural Transfer: Annotations on the Appropriation of the Cakras in Early Theosophy’ Julie Chajes and Boaz Huss (eds) Theosophical Appropriations: Esotericism, Kabbalah, and the Transformation of Traditions (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press)
Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (eds). 2013. Handbook of the Theosophical Current (Brill).
Projit Bihari Mukharji. 2016. Doctoring Traditions: Ayurveda, Small Technologies, and Braided Sciences (University of Chicago Press)
Lori Lee Oates. 2020. Imperial Occulture: The Theosophical Society and Transnational Cultures of Print (The International History Review)
Tim Rudøbg and Erik Reenberg Sand (eds). 2020. Imagining the East: The Early Theosophical Society. (Oxford University Press)
Julian Strube. 2022. Global Tantra: Religion, Science and Nationalism in Colonial Modernity (Oxford University Press)
Gauri Viswanathan. 1998. Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity and Belief (Princeton University Press).

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