Helena Blavatsky

Author(s): Robert Ellwood

Source: Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, Vol. 9, No. 2
(November 2005), pp. 110-111
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/nr.2005.9.2.110
Accessed: 25-04-2017 20:21 UTC

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Nova Religio

Helena Blavatsky. Edited by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. North Atlantic

Books, 2004. 220 pages. $14.95 paper.

This concise, workmanlike volume presents in manageable format

the thought of one of the most significant, controversial, and prolific of
modern esotericists. The Theosophy of Helena P. Blavatsky (1831–1891)
was, as the compiler Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke remarks, “perhaps the
single most important factor in the modern occult revival” (p. 18–19),
and this book helps us to view her concepts in her original words, but
without the rambling digressions and—despite a frequently pungent
style—the sometime obscurity of the original. Goodrick-Clarke’s biog-
raphical sketch and editorial introductions are admirable exemplars of
editorial craft. Clear, compact, without pretension or tendentiousness,
they do much to clarify the basic ideas of the subject and present the
current state of scholarship about her complicated life.
It is more than evident that, whatever one thinks of the more flam-
boyant aspects of this remarkable and many-sided woman, she possessed
a keen intellect and a wide-ranging vision of what occultism could be in
the modern world. Goodrick-Clarke properly insists that the hoary
charge of plagiarism leveled at her by opponents “misses its mark, given
Blavatsky’s then deficient grasp of literary English, and intended
reliance on printed authorities, and substantial editorial assistance,”
noting instead that her “combination of original insights, backed by

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Book Reviews

scholarly and scientific sources accomplished a major statement of mod-

ern occultism’s defiance of materialistic science” (p. 9). In particular,
her work was among the first major restatements of traditional philoso-
phy to take account of Darwinian evolution, as well as the nineteenth
century’s tremendous scientific and scholarly advances, to offer what was
in the end an immense panorama of a universe swayed by interlocking
evolutions both human and cosmic, both material and spiritual. To get
the Blavatskian “big picture” this is the place to begin.
Inevitably, any anthology must leave out much. This work is a volume
in the Western Esoteric Masters Series, of which Nicholas Goodrick-
Clarke is general editor. It is therefore no doubt appropriate that it
draws largely from the esoteric writings of Blavatsky, especially Isis
Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888), rather than The Key to
Theosophy (1889) and certain letters in which, perhaps under the influ-
ence of the new Theosophical convert and social activist Annie Besant,
the Russian woman dealt more broadly than before with current social
issues. Goodrick-Clarke’s work was apparently compiled just before the
publication of the first volume of her letters (John Algeo, ed., The Letters
of H. P. Blavatsky: Volume 1, 1861–1879. Quest Books, 2003).
This volume is highly recommended. It is a “must” for smaller as well
as major library or personal collections on Blavatsky or Theosophy.
Robert Ellwood, University of Southern California

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