Theosophy and Visionary Fiction, Part One

Some months back, John Van de Kamp, a relative of one of our founding members, Margaret Duarte, asked her if she had ever heard of theosophy, suggesting rather grandly, “I believe this concept may be the basis of visionary fiction.” A group of us discussed the idea and concluded that the topic might make for an interesting exploratory post.

As the one who relishes incorporating religious lore into my VF historical novels, I volunteered, recognizing the opportunity to develop a connection I’d previously found intriguing. Of course, like many major topics somewhat adjacent to VF, this banquet of information proved more overwhelming than it seemed at first glance. And so I find myself , even with two installments planned, barely able to list its ingredients here, leaving it to those whose interest the subject captivates, to get into the kitchen and cook up the full dinner.

Theosophy is not Theology

I was familiar enough with theosophy as a word and some of its varied uses. The root of the first part, theo-, which means God or the divine, suggests theology; they are cousins as we shall see. The second root, -sophy, means wisdom as in philosophy. Divine wisdom—heady territory for a discussion about fiction. See what I mean about the water being deep?

While theosophy and theology, per their roots, both deal with God or the divine, they are not merely synonyms as sometimes assumed.  Theology with its ending -ology, points to the academic, through the mind. The study presumes the existence of God or gods arrived at previously and is usually a detailed description of a divinity associated with a particular religion. The content of Christian and Hindu theologies is considerably different. With some peril, one might generalize that theology is masculine, of the mind, the yang.

Theosophy with its softer ending –sophy, suggestive of the lovely goddess of Wisdom Sophia, redounds to an emotional connection with the Divine. It is can be described as feminine, of the heart, the yin.

The difference, between the two, put succinctly and subject to much discussion, is “that theosophy is any doctrine of religious philosophy and mysticism claiming that knowledge of god can be attained through mystical insight and spiritual ecstasy, and that direct communication with the transcendent world is possible while theology is the study of god, or a god, or gods, and the truthfulness of religion in general.”

[In this short article on a subject perhaps unfamiliar to some, I am intentionally using my allotted space to define and compare words close in meaning but with slight differences that make a difference. I do this recognizing that the study of consciousness, to which this material is integral, is necessarily quite sophisticated with a proper language to discuss still only developing.]

The Two Theosophies

To further complicate matters, theosophy, like catholicity, is word with quite a different meaning depending on whether its first letter is upper or lower case. I don’t interject catholicity vicariously as you will see shortly when I make a connection between it and VF,  but I must chuckle when I recall that the actual meaning of the word catholic from Latin is universal (I did time in a Catholic seminary ages ago): What major human movement, especially if it is a religion, does not aim to be catholic, each and all sending out missionaries to convert the world? How ironic, too. that the Catholic (upper-case C) Church is usuauly qualified with Roman, making the term Roman Catholic, an obvious oxymoron.

But to the point. theosophy, like catholicity, has both a lower case (theosophy) and upper case (Theosophy) form that are related but not the same. As [Roman] Catholicism is to catholicism so is [Blavatskian] Theosophy to theosophy.

Without demeaning big-T Theosophy’s role in the development of modern spiritual thought and practice, a full discussion of its principals and history is beyond the scope of this post and not terribly necessary to understanding to the more relevant little-t theosophy. After all, Madame Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891), the founder of the Theosophical Society in 1875, which is now equated with big-T Theosophy, readily admitted to appropriating the already existing term theosophy. Blavatsky’s Theosophy, despite its relatively recent foundation and continuing existence, has impacted a wide swath of modern spiritual/occult movements and influenced many thinkers like Herman Hesse, Henry Olcott, Krishnamurti, Aleister Crowley, and Rudolf Steiner, to name a few. How Blavatsky’s Theosophy fits with the more ancient theosophy will be clearer, I expect, after we discuss the latter.

Theosophical Elements in Visionary Fiction

That, with this article, we are dipping our toes or jumping headlong—choose your method of immersion—into the spiritual component of our genre seems obvious. That visionary writing borders and sometimes enters the non-material realm is well recognized in descriptions such as this from “The Article that Started it All”: “Visionary Fiction is like the legendary Celtic Imram [hero’s journey]. The drama and tension of the characters’ adventures is one layer of the tale…. The other layer, deeper and more archetypal, is that mystical inner journey of spiritual awakening.” Compare the definition of theosophy given above (“any doctrine of religious philosophy and mysticism claiming that knowledge of god can be attained through mystical insight and spiritual ecstasy, and that direct communication with the transcendent world is possible”) and its direct relationship to the ideal of VF becomes obvious.

But before going further into theosophy and its history and impact, I want to highlight two elements of Visionary Fiction, both less frequently discussed, that link our genre to the ancient thread of theosophy that has been winding through history since time immemorial.

Universalism

The third characteristic of Visionary Fiction is stated as: “The plot [or story] is universal in its worldview and scope.” Thus, inferring that the purpose of VF itself is universal.

Religion, for the last couple thousand years, is much like the American political system: so much foofaraw between the parties that the commonality, the good of the nation, often gets lost in the shuffle; the one has been shattered into the many. So, it might come as a revelation to almost everyone that the concept of universalism (catholicity—that word again) in spiritual thought and practice has long been the ideal if not the reality. Case in point, biblical Genesis starts with one Universe, one God, one garden, and one couple; the story (myth) belongs to everyone; it is intended to be universal.  Only with Cain and Abel do we start the process of fighting and dividing. Take it down the road a few millennia, and the one big happy family of Abraham is split into Jews, Christian, and Muslims with little in common other than the determination to dominate, each vying to make their theology the only one, the “universal” church. And we know where that took human spiritual aspiration over the centuries.

Nevertheless, as we visionary authors have recognized in the development of our genre, the human yearning for a universal creed, ethical code, or whatever it would take for us to get along with each other and our environment, is very difficult to squelch. Even after such overwhelming evidence of man’s inhumanity to man as the Nazi concentration camps provided to Viktor Frankl, he wrote a book called Man’s Search for Meaning, a quest for universal values despite the brutality he had witnessed.

It happens that, beneath all the religious squabbling, there has always been a common stratum of spiritual worth that anyone willing to dive deep-down will discover. This undercurrent has been called by many names. One, most apropos, is, universalism, which by definition is a “theological and philosophical concept that some ideas have universal application or applicability. A community that calls itself universalist may emphasize the universal principles of most religions and accept other religions in an inclusive manner, believing in a universal reconciliation between humanity and the divine.”

Universalism is inclusive of all people, but not all ideas. The Golden Rule can be called a universalist principle as it is common to any valid spirituality and most religions. The concept of an Heaven/Hell or eternal reward/punishment is not universalist, and for that we can be grateful.

Perennialism

For the second element of Visionary Fiction to highlight, I choose the word perennial, one not used so far per se that I can find in our descriptions of VF but implied by the bolded words in the following sentence from, “What is Visionary Fiction?”: “Visionary Fiction embraces spiritual and esoteric wisdom, often from ancient sources, and makes it relevant for our modern life.”

Perennialism, a mode of thought and expression, related to VF by the words esoteric and ancient sources in the quotes above, also referred to as perennial philosophy, is a perspective in spirituality that views each of the world’s religious traditions as sharing a single, metaphysical truth or origin from which all esoteric [inner, secret] and exoteric [outer, public] knowledge and doctrine has grown.

Obviously, the fundamental truths involved must be ancient—they were there from the beginning and always will be—since the word perennial means lasting for an indefinitely long time. Thus, we can read many of the words of Plato, Buddha, Lao-Tzu or Jesus, recorded over 2000 years ago, and say, “Aha, so true.”

[To be continued. Watch for Part 2, in which we will explore the ancient history of theosophy and then illustrate how our efforts to use Visionary Fiction to elevate consciousness has a long and noble legacy despite some of the negative effects of traditional religion. We intend to keep the baby even while we change the bathwater.]