A Theosophist in Bombay

“The Spirit of Zoroastrianism” by Henry Steel Olcott is a peculiar pamphlet published in 1913 by the Theosophical Society based in Adyar, Madras, India. The author is better known as Colonel Olcott and was a co-founder of the Theosophical Society, together with the more well known Madame Blavatsky. The content of the pamphlet is a speech given at Bombay (Mumbai) already in 1882. Very little information on the background to Olcott´s colorful speech is available on the web, but I did manage to glean a few things…

Olcott´s support for the Theravada Buddhists in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) is well known. I´ve previously reviewed the so-called Buddhist Catechism written by the American colonel. Less well known are his contacts with the Parsees of Bombay, i.e. the Zoroastrian community. Apparently, the Parsees were split in several factions when Olcott and Blavatsky arrived in India, the Theosophists throwing in their lot with the “orthodox” faction that still upheld the ancient traditions of Zoroastrianism, as opposed to the “heterodox” reformers who called for modernization and craved for Western knowledge. However, it´s obvious from Olcott´s speech that he didn´t uncritically embrace orthodox Zoroastrianism either. For instance, he does call for modern scientific education. More interestingly, Olcott reinterprets Zoroastrianism in “modern” terms. Miracles associated with Zoroastrian saints are accepted, but explained in terms of “magnetic” energies (compare Mesmer). The seemingly idolatrous worship of fire is explained in terms of fire being the force which penetrates and propels the entire cosmos. In this way, the ancient Zoroastrian priesthood becomes a kind of “scientists”, more advanced in some ways than modern scientists.

Olcott doesn´t seem interested in the actual Zoroastrian religion (except some of its rituals), probably because he considered it exoteric. On the esoteric level, Zoroastrianism is the religion of the Magi, which in turn lies behind Judaism (including the Kabbalah), Christianity and Greek philosophy. He probably believed that at its esoteric core, the religion of Zoroaster wasn´t all that different from the peculiar ideas promoted by Blavatsky. At several times in the speech, Olcott wants the Parsees to support an expedition to Armenia, where a monastery is said to own ancient documents which can prove the Theosophists right. 

One thing that surprised me when reading the presentation is that Olcott is extremely straightforward. He sharply criticizes, almost reams out, his Parsee listeners. The Parsees are admonished to give more money to the education of their children and youth, instead of squandering it on “stupid tamashas” (a kind of theatre plays). They are also called upon to translate their Persian scriptures into Indian vernacular and English, and the priests are criticized for not understanding their own religion (including prayers in the Persian language). A funny detail is that Olcott refers to the Bohras, a Shia Muslim group, as “infidels”. I get the impression that Bohras and Parsees were competitors in Bombay, both traditionally being merchants. Another weird detail is that Olcott (an American) brags about Blavatsky´s friendship with the Russian governor of Armenia (Blavatsky was indeed Russian). In British-controlled India, such a statement could have been seen as potentially seditious!

I don´t know what eventually happened to Colonel Olcott´s attempts to reform the Parsee community on crypto-Theosophical lines, but since the Parsees are still thriving in modern Mumbai, I assume they somehow put their act (and their tamashas) together. As for the Theosophical Society, they continued playing an often unsung role in Indian history, Theosophical leader Annie Besant even being elected president of the Indian National Congress…until being eclipsed by the movement around a certain Gandhi. But that´s another story, as they say.