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Madame Blavatsky’s Baboon: A History of
the Mystics, Mediums, and Misfits Who Brought Spiritualism to America
Peter Washington
Schocken Books, New York, NY, 1995, 470
pages.
Reviewer:
Joseph P. Szimhart
Theosophy as discussed in Peter Washington’s highly
informative and entertaining survey has less to do with any sophisticated notion of
"divine wisdom" than it has with a host of preposterous pretenders who
successfully attracted thousands of seekers devoted to experiencing and unveiling hidden
truths. In short, the Theosophists attempted to make occultism respectable in an age of
scientism. According to Washington, these neo-occultists and their progeny have
essentially failed, as the jacket liner notes tell us, in a "curious comedy of
passion, power and gullibility."
Heading the list is Madame Helena P. Blavatsky
(1831–1891), whose colorful character ranged from the ribald to the sublime. HPB, as
she has been known to the Theosophists, cofounded the Theosophical Society (TS) with
Colonel Henry S. Olcott and a few others who were interested in spirit contact and psychic
phenomena in New York in 1875. In today’s New Age jargon, HPB became the main
"channeler" for TS. Within a few decades TS stimulated an ever-splintering
amalgam of groups and cults, the more important of which Washington portrays with solid
reporting from an impressive array of source material and his personal research. In each
case a charismatic "guru" has either received "ancient wisdom" from
some mysterious sect, self-proclaimed enlightenment, or metaphysical source, while also
assuming an exalted position as guru, messenger, teacher, master, or adept in the eyes of
the disciples and students.
Following HPB and Olcott (aka Jack and Maloney),
Washington tackles the lives and influences of the second generation of Theosophists,
including the politically motivated Annie Besant, channeler Charles W. Leadbeater,
Katherine Tingley, Rudolf Steiner (who broke from TS and founded Anthroposophy and the
Waldorf schools), G. I. Gurdjieff, and many of their significant followers. Jiddu
Krishnamurti, who became famous for abdicating his title of "the world teacher"
or Theosophical messiah in 1929, a role imposed on him at age 13 by Leadbeater, is given a
thorough treatment by Washington. In contrast, he only briefly describes and sometimes
only mentions more recent splinter groups and leaders from the TS amalgam, like Elizabeth
Prophet and her Church Universal and
Triumphant, George King and the Aetherius
Church, Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov and the Universal White Brotherhood, Lloyd
Meeker and the Emissaries of
Divine Light, Idries Shah and the Society for
Understanding Fundamental Ideas, and the
Raëlian Movement.
Washington also covers the history of the esoteric
School of Economic
Science founded by Leon MacLaren and his connection with
Transcendental
Meditation’s Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He concludes his text with a solid,
dispassionate look at J. G. Bennett’s life as it was influenced by Gurdjieff, P. D.
Ouspensky, Shah, the Subud cult, and finally Catholicism.
Some important TS offshoots are missing in
Washington’s survey, such as the Agni Yoga Society founded by Nicolas and Helena
Roerich in the early 1920s, the Arcane School founded also in the 1920s by Alice A.
Bailey, and the I
AM Activity founded by Guy and Edna Ballard in the mid-1930s. To those who
have studied the history of Theosophy as it has influenced these and other groups not
mentioned by Washington, these may appear as glaring omissions. But the pervasiveness of
Theosophy’s influence, especially with the thousands of New Age movement teachers and
sects throughout the world, would take volumes to merely summarize. Washington
nevertheless accomplishes his mission to give us a clear taste of the Western guru
tradition, its roots, and its effects on certain disciples.
The book’s title is derived from a stuffed baboon
that stood prominently among Blavatsky’s exotic paraphernalia in her flat in New
York. The baboon was dressed complete with spectacles holding a copy of Darwin’s Origin
of Species, mocking that controversial scientist. Blavatsky saw herself as
Ancient Wisdom’s counterpoint to that "strutting gamecock" of science, whom
she often railed against in her two fantastic, notoriously plagiarized tomes, Isis
Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine. HPB more than anyone has
influenced the Western occult tradition with the notion of spiritual evolution as it
allegedly occurs through rounds of "root races" reincarnating. Some of her
racist notions later crept into Nazi philosophy, even though Hitler disavowed the
Theosophical Societies.
A most revealing passage from Madame
Blavatsky’s Baboon describes P.D. Ouspensky, a Fourth Way or Gurdjieff
School leader, who near the end of his life in 1947 was very depressed (confusion and
depression have been common ailments of lifelong disciples of the Western guru tradition).
He took to escaping from students in his car with his cats. Ouspensky would park his car
at some destination, sit in the back seat staring out of a window while cuddling his pets.
"Returning home from one journey, he spent the rest of the night in the car while a
female pupil stood over him at the window, her arm raised as if in benediction. A cat
would never be so stupid" (p. 337). This passage not only reveals the depths of
delusion both guru and follower might reach, but it also reveals Washington’s
insensitivity to the perhaps deluded but nevertheless struggling, dedicated victims of
such gurus.
Washington’s sources are many and significant. Three
noteworthy ones are Ancient Wisdom Revived by Bruce F. Campbell,
Blavatsky by Marian Meade, and The Harmonious Circle by James
Webb, the latter being a complete history of Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, and their followers. A
biography of Blavatsky was also written by Theosophist Sylvia Cranston, who clumsily tries
to portray HPB as a maligned saint of the New Age. Meade’s biography is far superior
and accomplishes even more than Washington’s or Campbell’s books in presenting
Blavatsky’s complex persona to us. Another valuable resource on HPB and the Western
guru type not mentioned by Washington was written in 1948 by E.M. Butler—The
Myth of the Magus (Cambridge Canto edition, 1993). In any case, if you wish to
read an updated, critical look at Blavatsky and her influence, pick up Madame
Blavatsky’s Baboon.
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