Although this book tops 400 pages in a very small and dense typeset, it is a real pleasure to read and I persevered through it, though it took me some considerable time to finish it, even though I have trained in speed-reading techniques. Mr. Washington is an extremely well read person, editor of the "Everyman's Library" series, and a professor of English Literature at Middlesex University, and his vocabulary is humongous, including Latin and French-derived dixums and expressions. If your normal reading consists of the regular mystery, adventure and romance fare on the New York Times bestsellers list, then this is probably not a book for you.
The book traces the origins of the modern New Age ideas and teachings back to their source, in the writings, lives and teachings of two Russian immigrants, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, and Georgiy Ivanovich Gurdjieff. Although they never really met, and they supposedly derived their teachings from different sources, their pupils frequently alternated between the two teachers, and later their teachings were largely synthesized, and both can be found as the foundations or integral parts of most modern New Age teachings, the Theosophical part of Blavatsky being usually more prominent, while The Work part of Gurfjieff more hidden.
The title of the book refers to the stuffed baboon that Blavatsky used to keep in her apartment in New York City, and which she used to make fun of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution and natural selection. Washington's playful style, open skepticism, sarcastic jabs and jibs is a refreshing change from the usual exalted and all-praising writings on the western 'gurus' described in the book. He describes them as real people, with multitude of character faults, whims and quirks, without the aura of prophets and holy people, as they are frequently referred to in some misguided contemporary writings. Going even further, Washington exposes the real motives behind the teachings and methods promulgated by the founders, but even more by their followers, which almost always are money, power, domination, sex, and not that infrequently - barely covered criminal activities like paedophilia, physical abuse and felony theft.
Blavatsky is probably the most likeable character of the lot, in a cynical way. Chain-smoking, heavy-drinking, binge-overeating, cursing and abuse-spitting, morbidly obese woman with abundant and sometimes disturbing imagination, she came to the US in the 1870s and initially set herself up as a spiritual medium, which was the fad at that time. She soon found a devoted follower in Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, a Civil War veteran, and after he got persuaded by Blavatsky of her 'supernatural' abilities and her communication with 'ascended adepts' they founded the Theosophical Society in 1875 in a shabby two-bedroom apartment in New York City, with less than a dozen other people, among which was William Quan Judge, who was to become a future leader of the American Section of the Theosophical Society, after the schisms in Theosophy following Blavatsky's death.
Since the popular imagination of that time ran towards Ancient Egypt, because of recent discoveries by French and other archeologists, Blavatsky's first book 'Isis Unveiled' deals with ancient mystical knowledge from the Ancient Egyptian point of view, and supposedly transmitted from a secret brotherhood in Luxor, Egypt. However, soon after, the current 'spiritual' fad and imaginative thinking changed to liking everything Indian and Hindu-related, thus Blavatsky promptly changed her style and her "ascended" sources, and her following books, including the cornerstone 'The Secret Doctrine' are all written withing the Hindu cosmology and transmitted from a secret brotherhood in the Himalayas. Seems that the "Ascended Master" from Luxor, Egypt, went into retirement after "transmitting" the first book to Blavatsky, the arch-swindler. As Washington points out, Blavatsky's sister described the huge extent of her sister's imagination, and how she would invent lengthy and complicated fantastic, made-up stories as a child, which might serve as an indicator as to why most of the material in Blavatsky's mystical books does not appear in any other mystical tradition before that. She made them them up on the spot.
However, Blavatsky's hugely excessive lifestyle had severe consequences on her physical health, and her morbid obesity reached such unprecedented levels, that she was barely able to move, and had to be hoisted by a cargo crane to the ship she took to England on one of her last trips. Washington mentions that her favourite meal was fried eggs floating in butter. Despite her obvious deceit and manipulations, especially with 'materializing' letters from the 'secret ascended masters', like Khuth Hoomi, with which letters, on many occasions, she was caught red-handed while writing them herself or trying to deliver them herself, she was a jolly person, of considerable sense of humour towards others and herself. She never took anything too seriously, including herself, and saw this whole Theosophy thing as mostly entertainment for the bored and feeble-minded. This however cannot be said of her successors, as after her death, and Colonel Ollcott's death, a real power struggle emerged in the Theosophical society between the warring factions of Annie Bessant, Katherine Tingley, W.Q. Judge and Charles Webster Leadbeatter, with frequently changing sides and alliances, the spoils being not only the sizable property the society owned in Adyar, India, but also the very sizable endowment and bequests by rich members. Even today, with the Theosophical Society being just a shadow of its former self, the real estate properties in Adyar are considerable, and elderly members still bequest most of their estate to the society, in the hope of that 'eternal life in the higher spheres, without much work', so languidly promised by Theosophists even today.
The Theosophy seems to have gone downhill after Blavatsky's death. Bessant turned it into a theatrical, pompous shell of her former self, with different outfits and choreography for a multitude of made-up rituals and silly copycat offshoots like Co-Masonry, Order of the Rising Star, etc. Tingley barricaded herself in Ojai, California (another Theosophy real-estate which got gobbled up), and helped start California's notoriety as a mecca for newagers, mystics, charlatans, quacks, swindlers, gurus, yogis, sufis and other general wackos. Judge tried to promote 'source' Blavatsky ideas and writings and spent his life alternating loyalties among the different factions. The most notorious and vile Theosophist, by far, was Charles Webster Leadbeatter. A known and persecuted pedophile and child molester, he moved to US from England to avoid further persecution, then, after some sordid affairs with young children of other Theosophists in schools established and led by Leadbeatter, he had to run again and spend prolonged time in India, and after he couldn't keep it in his pants even there, at the end he had to settle in Australia, where he formed the monstrous cult called the "Liberal Catholic Church" (no relation or similarity whatsoever to the regular Catholic Church), which was an offshoot of the "Old Catholic Church" of another pederast and child molester, J.I. Wedgewood. Both lifelong pedos proclaimed themselves 'Bishops' of their made-up "Church".
Between constantly escaping persecution because of continuous rape of young children, and writing gregarious and mostly useless volumes on his apparent "insights" into Astral and other spiritual planes of existence (since he claimed to be a clairvoyant, prophet, sage and confidant of the "ascended secret masters"), Leadbeatter, along with Bessant, managed to find a hungry, emaciated and poverty-stricken little boy on the shores of the Indian Ocean, which Leadbeatter's "precious" prophetic and clairvoyant powers unerringly told him would be the next Messiah and the Second Coming. This boy was Krishnamurti, yet another great 'eastern-turned-western' guru (as the money is better in the West) who spent his early life in a total loss and confusion as of what is he is expected of him and what he needs to do. He spent his his later life in great luxury, since he finally figured out that all he needed is to spew vague Hodge-podge of "spiritual truths" which allowed him to travel extensively, always staying in best hotels, eating in best restaurants, enjoying company of beautiful women, both sexually and 'spiritually', while at the same time preaching detachment from the world, modesty, humility and chastity. He also led people to believe that he was a life-long celibate, while having sexual affairs with quite a few women, and at least on one occasion, siring an illegal child, which the pregnant woman was forced to abort. His books and speeches are still mostly preserved today, and upon reading them one could ask themselves "what did I just read?" since there is nothing of substance or practical use in them, just generalities and vague sophistry. He was probably more "inspiring" in person.
Theosophy, however, did gain ground around the world, mostly because it was an open ended and vague system in which pretty much anything could be incorporated and practiced. After a change in the Theosophical Constitution in the early 1900s, even the belief in the 'secret adepts' was not required as necessary for one to be a Theosophist. In Europe, the German branch under Rudolph Steiner split off and formed it's own variant on Theosophy called "Antroposophy", which was pretty much the same thing but spiced up with Steiner's love for Goethe, ecology, child education, and, of course, with multitude of new information obtained by Steiner's 'supernatural' powers and his direct contacts with the "secret ascended masters". Those masters certainly go around.
The other major stream of New Age teachings came from G. I. Gurdjieff. He was born in Armenia, in the then Russian Empire, in a very large family, to a Pontus-Greek father and Armenian mother. Just like Blavatsky, pretty much nothing is know about his life until his 40s, except from his own writings in which he claims to have travelled all of Central Asia and Middle East, finding a secret brotherhood after secret brotherhood (no sisterhoods) which taught him the ancient mystical secrets of spirituality, man's role in the universe, how to ascend to the highest spiritual levels, and of course, immortality (he died at age 81). He re-emerges in Moscow in the 1910s trying to stage a ballet, then during the Russian Revolution escapes through the Black Sea and Istanbul to ultimately settle near Paris, France. Here he founded his 'Institute of Harmonious Development of Man' where he teaches that man is basically an automaton in a form of spiritual sleep throughout his life, and the only way to "awaken" is through hard physical labour, intentional suffering and changing of thinking patterns (divided attention). None of these applied to him, however, but instead he entertained himself with lavish dinners, huge houses and castles bought with the money of his followers which he abused constantly, both verbally and physically, demanding slavish obedience to his multitude of whims and contradictory instructions. He always brought his extended family with him wherever he went, and had sexual relations with many of his female students, fathering illegitimate children with many of them, even with those that already had husbands and never stopped being married.
His followers were many, the most notable being Pyotr Damyanovitch Ouspensky, who wrote the most readable overview of Gurdjieff's teachings in his book 'Fragments of an Unknown Teaching' , but was eventually driven to alcoholism by the constant flip-flopping and abuse by his "master". Other followers like Alfred Richard Orage and John G. Bennett were driven to the brink of madness by Gurdjieff's contradictory demands and constant change of the rules of the game. In the case of Bennett, who in a way became a leader of the movement after Gurdjieff's death, the ending is tragic. After getting disillusioned with Ouspensky and then also with Gurdjieff, he desperately looked for other masters and teachings, travelling through the Middle East and Central Asia, getting in contact with various Sufi mystics, but to no avail. Back in England he gets in and out of various systems like Subud (he financed the trip of the entire family of the founder Muhammad Subuh to England and paid for all their expenses, including gallons of Coca Cola they consumed every day), Shivapuri Baba (another controversial Hindu holy man) and even Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation (the Beatles also though this guy was so cool, until his love for Rolls-Royce and helicopters came to light, with $300 million in assets at his death).
Finally, Bennett lost most of his considerable property (he was a British Military Intelligence Officer and had some coal mines interests) in the hands of the unscrupulous charlatan and self-proclaimed Sufi, Idries Shah. Idries Shah was a special kind of con man and scoundrel, since he was not satisfied just by having his and his family's expenses paid by Bennett, like the previous frauds, but he required that Bennett turn over all of his property and assets to him, without any strings attached. This was to be an "act of faith" by Bennett where he gives everything he ever owned to his "master" and surrenders himself to his "infinite mercy", which Shah claimed is the only way to reach enlightenment. Bennett was so desperate for something real in his endless spiritual search that he signed over everything he owned to the swindler Shah, as instructed. The con man Shah immediately sold everything off and pocketed the money for himself, which allowed him to live off the rest of his life in considerable luxury and completely financially secure (writing many worthless books on Sufism with made-up or stolen material). Bennett subsequently falls into an even greater desperation and depression, and even converts to Catholicism, in his endless, fruitless search for the evasive spiritual truths. His life ends tragically by falling off a bell tower of a church where the witnesses of his last moments say he saw Jesus Christ in the distance and climbed to meet him.
Washington's book is full of information, little known details and hidden facts from the lives of the mystics, misfits, crooks, frauds and self-proclaimed gurus. It is a perfect reading for anyone who wants to know the background of the multitude of contemporary New Age movements, sects and cults, which often try to muddle and misrepresent their sources and roots. Some of them have lifted their entire cosmologies and pantheons directly from the convoluted writings of Blavatsky and Gurdjieff. At the end of the book, after covering a period from the 1870s to the mid 1980s, chronicling the lives, fortunes and miseries of multitude of teachers, students, mental cases, frauds, scoundrels and wannabe mystics, Washington concludes that it is the sarcastic laughter of the Madame Blavatsky's baboon that roars triumphantly through the corridors of time.
