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The Book of Dzyan |
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Being a Manuscript Curiously Received
by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
with Diverse & Rare Texts of Related Interest
What do H. P. Blavatsky and H. P. Lovecraft have in common? At once scholarly and entertaining, serious and arch, editor Tim Maroney presents Blavatsky and the pivotal Stanzas of Dzyan through selected primary sources. His biographical introduction was called “the most insightful and balanced discussion of Blavatsky's writings to date" by K. Paul Johnson, author of The Masters Revealed, and “fascinating” by Warren Ellis, author of Transmetropolitan.
Russian psychic Helena Petrovna Blavatsky ran away from a forced marriage to become a medium, a visionary, a bestselling writer, and ultimately the greatest occult celebrity of all time. Despite the international scandal that left millions thinking Blavatsky merely a charlatan, she will continue to shape Western attitudes toward the occult long into the future. Editor Maroney presents her life and work against the colorful tapestry of 19th and 20th century occultism, from spiritualism, P. B. Randolph, and the Golden Dawn through Annie Besant, W. B. Yeats, Aleister Crowley, and Krishnamurti.
Blavatsky’s influence spread beyond the occult world, contributing to the 19th century’s “strange tale” and to 20th century horror. Her views on cyclic evolution through space and time, expressed in the poetic and evocative Stanzas of Dzyan, bridge the divide between visionary spirituality and supernatural storytelling, between magic and fiction.
To the author of the Stanzas of Dzyan, the cycle of the cosmos serves a greater spiritual purpose even while it ensnares an eternal procession of fantastic beings in illusion. The seminal horror writer H. P. Lovecraft contrasted his nihilistic work with Blavatsky’s Theosophy, and filled his cosmos instead with vast, uncaring, and incomprehensible forces. The dynamic between the two writers demonstrates skepticism and speculation not as conflicts but as kindred mythological responses to science.
The Book of Dzyan, edited by Tim Maroney. A Chaosium Book. $13.95 retail.
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