Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Theosophy across Boundaries
Julian Strube and Hans Martin Krämer
Part I: New Perspectives on Theosophy
1. Western Esotericism and the Orient in the First Theosophical
Society
Wouter J. Hanegraaff
2. Hinduism, Theosophy, and the Bhagavad Gita within a Global
Religious History of the Nineteenth Century
Michael Bergunder
3. Theosophying the Vietnamese Religious Landscape: A Circulatory
History of a Western Esoteric Movement in Southern Vietnam
Jérémy Jammes
4. Theosophical Movements in Modern China: The Education Provided
by Theosophists at the Shanghai International Settlement
Chuang Chienhui
5. Absence Unveiled? The Early Theosophical Society and the
Entanglement of History and Historiography
Ulrich Harlass
6. Affinity and Estrangement: Transnational Theosophy in Germany
and India during the Colonial Era (1878–1933)
Perry Myers
7. "To Study Judaism in the Light of Theosophy and Theosophy in the
Light of Judaism": The Association of Hebrew Theosophists and Its
Missions to the Jews and Gentiles
Boaz Huss
Part II: Theosophy in Literature, the Arts, and Politics
8. International Religious Organizations in a Colonial World: The
Maha-Bodhi Society in Arakan
Laurence Cox and Alicia Turner
9. Euro-Asian Political Activist and Spiritual Seeker: Paul Richard
and Theosophy
Hans Martin Krämer
10. An Irish Theosophist's Pan-Asianism or Fant-asia? James Cousins
and Gurcharan Singh
Hashimoto Yorimitsu
11. Theosophy as a Transnational Network: The Commission of the
Golconde Dormitory in Puducherry (1935–ca. 1948)
Helena Čapková
12. From Healer to Shaman: Theosophy and the Making of Esoteric
Bali
Yan Suarsana
13. Effects of Theosophy on Russian Cultural History
Björn Seidel-Dreffke
Contributors
Index
Hans Martin Krämer is Professor of Japanese Studies at Heidelberg University, Germany, and the author of Shimaji Mokurai and the Reconception of Religion and the Secular in Modern Japan. Julian Strube is a Research Fellow in Religious Studies at the University of Münster, Germany.
"This volume makes an important contribution to the global
understanding of the Theosophical Society and its transcultural
dimensions … Combining different perspectives and case studies, the
volume impressively shows the need for interdisciplinary and
transcultural research on the Theosophical Society. This
collection, indeed, is an important contribution to the global
history of religion." — Religious Studies Review
"There is much of value in this edited volume, with diverse voices
representing different regions and countries and different
disciplinary approaches … Theosophy across Boundaries is
recommended for upper-division and graduate courses in religious
studies, history, cultural studies, and esoteric movements and
currents." — Nova Religio
"This book successfully demonstrates that the Theosophical Society
and its derivatives crossed all sorts of intellectual and cultural
boundaries, and it makes a strong case that these phenomena—long
ignored because of their heterodox nature—must be given the
attention they deserve. The volume will appeal to those with an
interest in the history of New Age and esoteric thought, but its
many strengths include that it reveals Theosophy's broader
historical relevance, thereby introducing the movement to a wider
audience." — Julie Chajes, author of Recycled Lives: A History of
Reincarnation in Blavatsky's Theosophy
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