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Comment by dr_dshiv | Hacker News Reader

I love the history of Theosophy — amazing, amazing story. It had such a massive influence on modern thought.

Favorite quote in the article: “They (the middle class of the cities) glory in cheap and horrid prints made in bulk in Germany and Austria, and sometimes even rise to Ravi Varma’s pictures. The harmonium is their favorite instrument. (I live in hope that one of the earliest acts of the Swaraj government will be to ban this awful instrument).” — Nehru

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modern cousins of Theosophy, at the Steiner Schools and Biodynamic Farming are generally very quick to disavow any connection to the known charlatan M. Blavatsky. In more inquisitive times, the blurry, mutable texts and rites of Theosophy held some interest to New Age groups in the USA and elsewhere, a generation ago.

Blavatsky was not a charlatan. She gets a bad rep by design— not popular with many!

Read more about her and read her “unveiling of isis”. If you follow the history of western esotericism, she was an incredible and world changing intellectual.

we may both be right :-) This journal from the 1990s is very useful (not online, paper only?)

https://www.gnosismagazine.com/

What should I look for?

Gnosis Issue #31 "Russia and Eastern Europe" ; Issue #43 "Love, Sacred and Profane" ; Issue #21 "Holy War" .. all have some Blavatsky / Theosophy content. There may be a complete issue on Theosophy, and certainly book reviews on the topic, in other issues as well.

A movement like Theosophy is an easy target for cynical criticism with 100+ years of hindsight, but considering the time it arose, I'd say they did some amazing work synthesizing materials from traditions that had previously barely met, and putting the whole thing in relation with the science of the time. The mere fact of embracing all these cultural and spiritual strands on a roughly equal footing must have been a really bold step at the time.

Then again, the fascination with occult forces really has not aged well.

> the fascination with occult forces really has not aged well

Just wait… so much of it is not what people think it is.

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