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Neo-Theosophy is a term, originally derogatory, used by the followers ofHelena Blavatsky to denominate the system ofTheosophical ideas expounded byAnnie Besant andCharles Webster Leadbeater following the death of Madame Blavatsky in 1891. This material differed in major respects from Blavatsky's original presentation, but it is accepted as genuinely Theosophical by many Theosophists around the world.
Main innovations of post-Blavatsky Theosophy as expounded by Besant and Leadbeater were the focus on exploringpast lives and theastral plane usingclairvoyance, the promotion of the young Indian boyKrishnamurti as the vehicle of the coming "World Teacher" and the introduction of Catholicism and its religious rituals in the form of theLiberal Catholic Church.[1]
After Blavatsky died in 1891,William Quan Judge became involved in a dispute withHenry Steel Olcott andAnnie Besant over Judge allegedly forging letters from the Mahatmas. As a result, he ended his association with Olcott and Besant during 1895 and took most of the Society's American Section with him. He managed his new organization for about a year until his death inNew York City, whereuponKatherine Tingley became manager. The organization originating from the faction of Olcott and Besant is based in India and known as theTheosophical Society - Adyar, while the organization managed by Judge is known nowadays simply as theTheosophical Society, but often with the specification, "international headquarters,Pasadena, California." TheTheosophical Society - Adyar is the group denounced asNeo-Theosophy by those who are followers of William Q. Judge and the original teachings of Madame Blavatsky; they do not accept what they regard as theNeo-Theosophical teachings of Annie Besant, Henry Olcott, andC. W. Leadbeater.
The termNeo-Theosophy was coined by F.T.Brooks in 1914 in a book calledNeo Theosophy Exposed,[2] the second part of an earlier book calledThe Theosophical Society and its Esoteric Bogeydom.[3] Around 1924, Margaret Thomas published a book calledTheosophy Versus Neo-Theosophy. This book, now available online,[4] presents a detailed critical comparison of Blavatskyian Theosophy and Neo-Theosophy.
G. R. S. Mead who was also highly critical of the clairvoyant researches of Besant and Leadbeater, remaining loyal to Blavatskyian Theosophy,[5] also used the term Neo-Theosophy to refer to Besant's movement. For him "Theosophy" meant the wisdom element in the great world religions and philosophies.[6]
Later, the term Neo-Theosophical came to be used outside Theosophical circles to refer to groups formed by former Theosophists as well as groups whose central premises borrow heavily from Blavatskyian Theosophy. Robert S. Ellwood, in his 1973 bookReligious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America referred to organizations that had been formed by former Theosophists as "devolutions of Theosophy" and included in his survey "Neo-Gnostic groups and Neo-Rosicrucian groups [...] theAnthroposophy ofRudolf Steiner, [...]Alice Bailey's groups, (Guy Ballard's)"I AM" Activity andMax Heindel'sRosicrucianism.[7] In a later book,Alternative Altars (1979) Professor Ellwood added;
Alice Bailey (1880 - 1949), founder of the Arcane School and the Full Moon Meditation Groups, and Guy Ballard (1878 - 1930), of the "I AM" movement, are representative of those who have started activities based on new and special communications from Theosophical Masters.[8]
The author Daryl S. Paulson associates "Neo-Theosophy" withAlice Bailey.[9]
Other neo-Theosophists includeSteiner's contemporaryPeter Deunov andSamael Aun Weor, who introduced theosophical teachings to Latin America.Dion Fortune andAleister Crowley were also influencers of (and influenced by) the leading edge of the theosophical movement, which in turn influencedAnton LaVey'sSatanism,L. Ron Hubbard'sScientology,Wicca, and the modernNew Age andNew Thought movements. (Alice Bailey introduced the termNew Age).[10]
Some examples of Neo-Theosophists today includeBenjamin Creme,Douglas Baker[11] andVictor Skumin.
In 1990, Skumin elaborated on thetheosophical conceptions ofspiritual evolution and proposed a classification ofHomo spiritalis (Latin:spiritual man),the sixth root race.