Great book on the beginnings of New Age spiritualism

books:

	• Madame Blavatsky's Baboon: A History of the Mystics, Mediums, and Misfits Who Brought Spiritualism to Ameri ca Peter Washington Schocken, 1996 - 496 pages average customer review:based on 35 reviews view larger image
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An interesting read full of colorful characters

Washington has assembled an interesting and accessible overview of the "useful" life of Theosophy and its ancillary movements. Beginning with the ascendancy of Madame Blavatsky and ending with the death of Krisnamurti, the book charts the meandering course of Theosophy as it grows, changes, and ultimately succumbs to the entropy caused by too many strong leaders each with their own differing interpretations of the meaning of life.

The book is well-written and an enjoyable read. Keep in mind that Madame Blavatsky provides more of a backdrop than a focus of this book - far more attention is dedicated to Krishnamurti and Gurdjueff than Madame herself. And while the subtitle indicates that the book tells the story of those who "Brought Spiritualism to America," very little emphasis is placed on American spiritualism.

Washington's writing is clear, but his tone verges on smugly sarcastic at times. Certainly the downright silliness of the material merits this occasionally, but he can come off as very insensitive to his subjects.

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Good read

I found this book to be quite a good read. Yes, Mr. Washington is clearly skeptical about the Theosophical Movement but he is hardly the first. I think reading ISIS UNVEILED or THE SECRET DOCTRINE would not cause most people to conclude that Washington is wrong to be skeptical. Many of the negative reviews attack his facts but few cite concrete examples. Scroeder (T) does. He claims that Washington places Madame Blavatsky's death in 1909 not its correct 8 May 1891. In my copy of the book, on page 100, Washington writes that Madame Blavatsky died on 8 May 1891. As one who grew up in Fort Wayne myself, Scroeder (T), please help me and supply a citation for the 1909 reference.

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Great book on the beginnings of New Age spiritualism

Excellent history tracing the beginnings of New Age thinking and where its roots began. The current new Age movement has its antecedents in the past, which this book sets out to document in an interesting way. The cast of characters that the author brings to life, sheds light on some the the dubious claims made by these so-called spiritual teachers. If you have an open mind, this book is an eye-opener and is a sober assessment of this time period which has great resonance with today.

Laughs and last laughs

Except for the eyes, Helena Blavatsky "looked overall like a badly wrapped and glittering parcel."

And with that, Peter Washington is off to the races. In a way, there is no reason for people who do not believe in spooks to care about Madame Blavatsky and her progeny, apart from the practical fact that she introduced cremation into America, which up until the 1870s had been an exclusively burying nation. For the first century after she began, the numbers of Theosophists and their numerous offshoots were small. Washington does not attempt to enumerate them, but they could hardly have outnumbered even such small sects as Jehovah's Witnesses.

But they were so funny. Sympathetic people will feel a tug at the heartstrings at the hopeless search for inner contentment by the mystics. Heartless people, like myself, will read with glee of the self-inflicted psychic wounds of these nuts, who are summarized by Washington in one place as "the neurotic, the hysterical, the destructive and the downright mad" and in another as "bossy matrons, artistic maiden ladies, wealthy idealists and faddists of every variety."

By what must have been an effort of self-denial as heroic as anything Gurdjieff or Leadbeater ever demanded of their acolytes, Washington manages not to simply jeer for 400 pages. His occasional jabs are all the funnier for not being overdone.

In a sense, though, the last laugh is on Washington and the rest of us sane people. After three or four generations of strife, hilarity, thievery, libel, betrayal, adultery etc. by what were basically small coteries of people who had inherited money but not sense, the Theosophists, although the formal group is quite decayed, have spread their attitudes widely, if shallowly, throughout American popular culture.

The story of how this developed is amusing and almost beyond belief, but Washington, professor of literature at Middlesex, has the documents and some personal interviews to back him up.

Most of the leading spiritualists were compulsive writers, and besides being incomprehensible, their works are tedious past belief. How Washington was able to plow through the hundreds of volumes of this literature is really more astonishing than any of the claims the spiritualists themselves ever made, except bringing people back from the dead.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Just before the turn of the century, a renegade Russian aristocrat named Madame Blavatsky came to America claiming that man was descended not from the ape but from spiritual beings. Thus began Theosophy, the very first "new age" religion. This thought-provoking and often hilarious study delineates the course of Theosophy and other sects which have come down through the years. Photos.