The Mother of All Religions: The Genesis of Blavatsky's Theosophy: Ancient Theology, Orientalism, and...

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Urs App

The Mother of All Religions

The Genesis of Blavatsky's Theosophy: Ancient Theology, Orientalism, and Buddhism

Urs App

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English

Universitymedia
20 June 2025

General & world history; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900; Buddhism; Theosophy & Anthroposophy

Series: East-West Discovery

The Story of Helena Blavatsky's Invention of Primeval Religion

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), the ""grandmother of the New Age,"" not only inspired artists such as Kandinsky, Klee, Mondriaan, Scriabin, Mahler, Sibelius, T. S. Eliot and Kahlil Gibran but also founders of spiritual movements such as Rudolf Steiner and George Gurdjieff. In 1875 Blavatsky co-founded the Theosophical Society in New York, and in the remaining sixteen years of her life she authored all fundamental works of modern Theosophy. Already in her lifetime, her Society had hundreds of branches in India and all over the world, and even today sections and subsections of the movement are active in many countries of Asia and the West.

Blavatsky is an extremely controversial figure. Hailed by some as the most extraordinary woman of the 19th century, she was denounced by others as history's greatest charlatan. Her central claims were that she enjoyed direct contact with members of an esoteric, Buddhism-associated brotherhood in Tibet who had initiated her to secret doctrines transmitted from the dawn of humanity, and that she had access to the world's most ancient religious scripture: the Book of Dzyan.

Urs App, the author of The Birth of Orientalism (2010) & The Cult of Emptiness (2012), and editor of Blavatsky on Buddhism (2023), describes how Blavatsky-much inspired by Romantic orientalist views of Buddhism-invented the world's primeval wisdom religion.

Instead of regarding Blavatsky as an adept with superior powers and an initiate of unchanging secret doctrines transmitted from remote antiquity, App studies her as one would any modern intellectual author by investigating the historical development of her thought. What did she read and when, what key ideas did she pick up from what sources, and how did she combine, digest, and transform such information into a Buddhism- and Orientalism-inspired Ancient Theology?

By: Urs App
Imprint: Universitymedia
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 27mm
Weight: 635g
ISBN: 9783906000350
ISBN 10: 3906000354
Series: East-West Discovery
Pages: 480
Publication Date: 20 June 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Urs App was born in 1949 in Rorschach on the Swiss shore of the Lake of Constance and studied in Freiburg, Kyoto and Philadelphia psychology, philosophy and religious studies. In 1989 he obtained a Ph.D. in Religious Studies (Chinese Buddhism) from Temple University in Philadelphia. From 1989 to 1999 he was full professor of Buddhism at Hanazono University in Kyoto and Associate Director of the International Research Institute for Zen Buddhism at Hanazono University (Director Seizan YANAGIDA). He has since devoted himself to writing books and producing documentaries while engaging in research at various academic institutions in Asia and Europe, for example at the Research Institute for Zen Culture (Zenbunka kenkyujo, Kyoto; 2005-2007), the Swiss National Science Foundation (2007-2010), the Scuola Italiana di Studi sull'Asia Orientale (Italian School of East Asian Studies, 2010-2011), and the École Française d'Extrême-Orient (2012-).