For example, she said that manifestations like ghosts are mostly the astral body or double of the medium or someone else present. "When a person dies, three things separate and vanish body, life and astral body. But something higher continues." She called that universal spirit.
She also provided insights about the struggle between occultism and materialism, which was just beginning to intensify during her lifetime. Explaining what happened in Vermont, she said that what "mediums could do through spirits, others could do without any spirits at all."
Over the next years, I also came to realize that seeking "altered" states of consciousness can illuminate our experience of conventional reality and help us to transform it and ourselves.
MAB: Can you give us a brief insight into the roles Helena and Henry played at the beginning of the Theosophical Society?
GG: As I explain in the book, during Theosophy's first few years, they actually did little to define the term. Instead, they built a movement by focussing more broadly on the reintroduction of ancient wisdom and rituals from successive cultures, civilizations and epochs.
Chapters of the Society developed across continents over the next quarter century, influencing spiritual leaders like Annie Besant and Jiddi Krishmamurti; philosopher Rudolf Steiner; poets W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens; inventor Thomas Edison; transformative leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Augusto Sandino; and artists Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian.
The movement's founding text was Isis Unveiled, written by Blavatsky and published two years after the founding of the Society in November 1877. Isis was a compendium of philosophical, scientific, mythological, allegorical and symbolic theories and facts, and underlined the antiquity of the occult tradition. It is widely considered a milestone in the history of Western esotericism. Many Theosophists believe much of it was actually dictated to Helena by her "secret masters."
Theosophy had at least 45,000 members worldwide by the 1920s, and about 7,000 in the US. But its influence was greater than the numbers suggest. Books, periodicals, and lectures by foreign celebrities all spread the word. Theosophical beliefs influenced related movements like Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophical Society and Waldorf School.
Over time it drew less public attention, navigating quietly through the New Age movement. But Theosophy survived, through its society, local lodges and study groups like the Krotona School, as well as Quest Books, which preserved its founders' works and created new ones.
MAB: Well, I have plenty of books published by Quest on my shelves, and I'm so happy to have them! My favorite is "Mandala: Luminous Symbols for Healing" by Judith Cornell, which I use as a text in my mandala workshops. Where can people buy your books?
GG: Most of my books are available, either in print or digital form, through various online platforms. Amazon hosts the most complete collection. My books about Vermont, including The People's Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution in print for 34 years, Restless and Popular Movements: A Vermont History published by the University of Vermont in 2021, and Spirits of Desire, are also in bookstores and hundreds of libraries around the world.
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