Book description
This is an intellectual history of occult and esoteric currents in the English-speaking world from the early Romantic period to the early twentieth century. The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875 by Helena P. Blavatsky, holds a crucial position as the place where all these currents temporarily united, before again diverging.…
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Why read it?
1 author picked The Theosophical Enlightenment as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This book chronicles the changing landscape of Western spirituality as it encounters “the wisdom of the East,” primarily India’s religious heritage, alongside its fascination with and assumed similarity to the archaic and “pagan” European past.
The ideas of the primacy of solar worship are entertained side by side with the notions of the importance of phallic worship and fertility cults. The title of the book is a tip of the hat to Frances Yates’ study of Rosicrucian Enlightenment–in both cases, the suggestion is that the project of Enlightenment does not consist of the “cult of reason” exclusively but that it…
From Gordan's list on The best books on India and the occult.
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