“Magic”, Theosophical Glossary

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (b. 1831; d. 1891) was one of the most important voices of nascent Western Esotericism in the late nineteenth century. She was the leading figure of the Theosophical Society, which was founded in 1875 in New York with the intention of investigating “the hidden mysteries of Nature under every aspect possible, and the psychic and spiritual powers latent in man especially” (The Key to Theosophy, 1889 [reprint 2002], 39). Given this programme, it is not surprising that Blavatsky picked up positive interpretations of “magic” from previous authors such as Agrippa of Nettesheim (see Chapter 8) and used “magic” as a core concept in her own writings, including Isis Unveiled (1877), The Secret Doctrine (1888) or The Key to Theosophy (1889). In all these works, “magic” functions as a broad synthetic concept, signifying miraculous powers and hidden truths of existence – synonymous to Blavatsky's concepts of “Occultism” and “Esotericism”. We present the entry “Magic” from the Theosophical Glossary, an encyclopaedic work elucidating the main concepts of Theosophy that was published posthumously in 1892.

Our text exemplifies the long and on-going history of positive interpretations of the concept of “magic” in Western history. “Magic” is introduced as a “great science” that operated as a “sacred science inseparable from religion” among the ancient Hindus and Egyptians. To underpin this idea, Blavatsky refers to (Pseudo-)Plato's Alcibiades I (see Chapter 1), arguing that “magic” would not have survived thousands of years of Egyptian and Indian history if it were a mere fraud.