“The Occult Roots of Religious Studies”, edited by Yves Mühlematter and
Helmut Zander, is a scholarly volume published in 2021. It´s interesting, to be
sure, but the title is (frankly) click bait. (The subtitle is more correct: “Influence
of Non-Hegemonic Currents in Academia around 1900”.) The contributors don´t
really prove that religious studies have occult roots, and frankly don´t even
try. I get the impression of a comfy scholarly conference where everyone made a
presentation on their favorite obscure topic, had a quick snack in the bar, and
then went home to Paris, Heidelberg, or wherever these people have their
domicile! What the book proves is simply that many scholars of religion had “non-hegemonic”
side interests. In plain English: they actually believed in Spiritualism,
occultism, and the like. But that´s hardly news today. A more edgy volume
(which will have to wait another 50 years) would detail which scholars *today*
have religious connections and how that influences their academic research
(Tibetology cough cough). It´s also somewhat weird that the two biggest fish in
the occult/religious studies interface pond are hardly even mentioned. Yes,
that would be Carl Gustav Jung and Mircea Eliade. Oh, and what about Henry
Corbin?
But sure, “The Occult Roots of Religious Studies” isn´t bad, if you take
it in the right spirit (pun intended). The chapter on Britain shows that both
the Victorian and Edwardian periods were steeped in occultism, indeed,
occultism (at least in the broad sense) was near-respectable. Even after the
separation of science and “superstition”, many scientists were interested in
Theosophy and Spiritualism on a purely personal level. So nah, Alfred Russell
Wallace wasn´t unique. Chances are *Darwin* was! One thing that surprised me
was that some Theosophists were members of the SPR even *after* the latter´s
conflict with Madame Blavatsky. And SPR´s social base was near-upper class! The
scientist Sir William Crookes, inventor of the TV tube and discoverer of
Thallium, was a President of the SPR, a former President of the Royal Society
and…a member of the Theosophical Society. He is even mentioned in the Mahatma
Letters! It was also interesting to note that US philosopher William James was more
into Spiritualism than I had expected, and that he was the son of a
Swedenborgian minister…
One interesting chapter deals with John Woodroffe alias Arthur Avalon. Or
perhaps not, since “Arthur Avalon” was really a collective pseudonym,
encompassing both Woodroffe and a number of Bengali intellectuals. I never read
Avalon´s works (an unfortunate lacuna, I know), but we´re apparently talking about
a very late “reform” Tantra, paradoxically proposed to save India and Hinduism
from modernity, while simultaneously claiming to be “scientific”. And speaking
of India: one contribution deals with W Y Evans-Wentz, the man behind “The
Tibetan Book of the Dead” and a lifelong Theosophist, who never left his occult
ideas very far behind. He even saw evidence of reincarnation and other Theosophical
doctrines in Celtic fairy lore!
The most intriguing section isn´t even about a scholar of religious
studies sensu stricto: the famous German archeologist Walter Andrae. It turns
out that his Babylonian exhibition at the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin (the one
featuring the Ishtar Gate) is inspired by Anthroposophy! Apparently, Andrae
both arranged and interpreted the exhibition according to doctrines he picked
up from the Christian Community, the Anthroposophical “Church” founded by
Friedrich Rittelmeyer under the inspiration of Rudolf Steiner. Apparently, it´s
supposed to resemble an initiatory path. This also explains a weird anomaly in
the exhibition: its two sphinxes aren´t Babylonian but Hittite. Yet, Andrae
assumed that there simply must have been sphinxes present based on some hard-to-understand
Anthroposophical doctrine. Indeed, Andrae believed that the Babylonians were
carrying out a ritual created by a certain Zaratos, an earlier incarnation of
Zarathustra, and the spiritual teacher of Nebuchadnezzar II. There are also
speculations that the exhibition halls were painted according to
Anthroposophical principles, Steiner having a complex theory of color supposedly
derived from Goethe. While this is all very interesting, what conclusions are
we supposed to draw from it? For instance, why did Andrae get away with it? Was
it *only* because of his elevated position at an important institution, or did his
take on ancient Babylon speak to some more widespread Zeitgeist?
The introduction to the volume does make some points worth pondering. For
instance, it asks whether esotericism or occultism is really “non-hegemonic” to
begin with? If a worldview is widely shared and discussed in elite society,
isn´t it really hegemonic? Further, the introduction points out that the nouns “occultism”
and “esotericism” are modern inventions and become common during the late 19th
century. Why? What made it necessary to distinguish occultism/esotericism from
everything else during that period? Many of the ideas co-existing under those
headers are, after all, much older. Protestant theologians apparently started
denouncing esoteric ideas much earlier than Catholics. It struck me that this
may explain why many esoteric groups are drawn to Catholicism and even end up
creating a kind of pseudo-Catholicism themselves. Conversely, there doesn´t
seem to be any esoteric groups obviously drawn to Protestantism, albeit more
Protestants than we imagine may have been influenced by “heretical” esoteric
ideas.
With that observation, I close this little discussion.
