John L Crow
Theosophical Society,
Edward Bulwer-Lytton,
H. P. Blavatsky,
Science Fiction and Religion,
The Coming Race, Vril-Gesellschaft
Location: University of California-Davis
More Info: ASE Fourth International Conference
Organization: Association for the Study of Esotericism
Conference End Date: Jul 22, 2012
Blavatsky’s Coming Race: Nationalism, Racism, and Fiction in Theosophical Doctrine
John L. Crow,
Florida State University
In 1888, the American section of the Theosophical Society began holding an annual convention, bringing together the nation’s Theosophists to organize their efforts, and celebrate their achievements. Society co-founder, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, sent a letter to each annual convention, and in them, she frequently mentioned the unique role America played in the advancement of the human race. According to her two-volume magnum opus, The Secret Doctrine, America would be the home of the next sub-race of the fifth root-race.That is, in her scheme of human evolution, America would be home to the next sub-group of the current levelof human spiritual and physical evolution.
By her 1891 letter, which was also her last, she mentions, like in many of her previous letters, the unique position of Americans, and warns that their developing powers needed to be controlled. “Your position as the forerunners of the sixth sub-race of the fifth root-race has its own special perils as well as its special advantages.”
In this letter Blavatsky connects American nationalism directly to her theories of human race development. These theories were also influenced by, not only established nineteenth-century racial categories, but the occult fiction of the English novelist, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, in particular, his last novel, The Coming Race. Building on texts she encountered in India,nineteenth-century theories of race, her American patriotism, and Bulwer-Lytton’s novel,Blavatsky developed a theory of human evolution that simultaneously separated humanity intodistinct races while, at the same time, celebrated the mixing of races in the United States. As aresult, American Theosophists, and later offshoots, combined American nationalism and occultism in the development of their occult doctrines which still persist today
By her 1891 letter, which was also her last, she mentions, like in many of her previous letters, the unique position of Americans, and warns that their developing powers needed to be controlled. “Your position as the forerunners of the sixth sub-race of the fifth root-race has its own special perils as well as its special advantages.”
In this letter Blavatsky connects American nationalism directly to her theories of human race development. These theories were also influenced by, not only established nineteenth-century racial categories, but the occult fiction of the English novelist, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, in particular, his last novel, The Coming Race. Building on texts she encountered in India,nineteenth-century theories of race, her American patriotism, and Bulwer-Lytton’s novel,Blavatsky developed a theory of human evolution that simultaneously separated humanity intodistinct races while, at the same time, celebrated the mixing of races in the United States. As aresult, American Theosophists, and later offshoots, combined American nationalism and occultism in the development of their occult doctrines which still persist today
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