Helena Blavatsky: The Secret Doctrine

Questions for Further Study

• 1. Why do you think that The Secret Doctrine and Theosophy in general had such appeal for upper-class professional people? Why was it not a grassroots movement among working-class people or the masses?
• 2. Blavatsky’s name, along with Theosophy, is often associated with New Age, occultist, and spiritualist movements—and, indeed, the late 1800s in America was a time when spiritualism, séances, and the like became immensely popular. For this reason, she and the movement might be regarded by some as “flakey” or eccentric. Is this a fair representation of her, her work, and the movement? Explain.
• 3. To the extent that it synthesizes science and religion, what similarities, if any, does The Secret Doctrine have with On the Nature of Things by the Roman writer Lucretius? How do the two philosophies differ?
• 4. Through the Western world since at least the time that Blavatsky wrote, a significant number of people have become, as the entry puts it, “unhappy in Christian denominations” and have turned to mysticism, occultism, and Eastern religions such as Hinduism. Why do you think this is so? What do these belief systems offer that Christianity and other traditional Western religions fail to offer? Or do you think that these alternative systems fulfill some people’s need for things exotic and foreign?
• 5. Consider a meeting between Helena Blavatsky and Emma Goldman, author of “The Philosophy of Atheism,” in which they discuss theology. To what extent, if any, do you think Goldman would agree with this statement from The Secret Doctrine: “The pivotal doctrine of the Esoteric philosophy admits no privileges or special gifts in man, save those won by his own Ego through personal effort and merit”?