Madame Blavatsky’s Baboon, Theosophy and the Emergence of the Western Guru by Peter Washington

Secker & Warburg 
1993 
Softcover 
470 Pages 
15.5 x 23.5cm 

Condition: Good 

Madness, mysticism, and metaphysics collide in this history that charts the rise and fall of Theosophy, and the careers of the competing gurus spawned by the movement.

Madame Blavatsky said Darwin was wrong - Man was not descended from apes but from spirit beings. As a reminder, she kept a stuffed baboon in her parlour dressed in wing collar, tail-coat, and spectacles, and holding a copy of The Origin of Species in its hand.

Washington examines how figures like Blavatsky and Gurdjieff blurred the lines between spiritual insight and performance, shaping the New Age movements that followed.