Saturday, April 24, 2021

White Savior


An interesting article on Henry Steel Olcott, the American Theosophist who promoted Buddhism in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The article is pretty critical, casting Olcott as a crypto-colonialist pseudo-Protestant liberal counter-missionary missionary, rather than as a "genuine" Buddhist. Note, however, that the Sinhalese didn´t seem to mind! Olcott was more involved in Buddhist revivalism that I had expected. Note also the Mesmerist and Spiritualist connections. There are some other articles on Olcott on this site, as well. You can find them in the navigation bar.

The White Buddhist: Henry Steel Olcott and the Sinhalese Buddhist revival

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