Friday, November 15, 2019

A Name I've not Heard in a Long Time

I didn't have an opportunity to listen to more than an hour or so of today's impeachment hearings, being preoccupied with a flat tire on the way to work... I will have to catch up on the testimony of Ambassador Yovanovich now that it's quiet. That being said, I was able to poke around the weirder precincts of the t00bz, and I found a doozy:



Helena Blavatsky? Now, that's a name I've not heard in a long time... a long time. I had never really connected Blavatsky and her Theosophist movement to 'Star Wars'. I am well aware of the connection between Theosophy and the 'Weird Tales' authors of the early 20th century, but I figured that the religious underpinnings of 'Star Wars' could pretty much be summed up as Taoism 101. I know that Edgar Rice Burroughs, an influence on George Lucas (or at least those who influenced him), incorporated theosophical ideas into his 'Barsoom' books. I guess in the minds of the right-wing conspiracy mongers, anything that smacks of a non-Christian spirituality, even though it incorporates a pretty anodyne good-vs-evil plot, is connected with infernal forces. Oh, well... as I've said before, the greatest trick the authoritarians every played was convincing the world that the devil exists. Could any Jedi mind trick be that effective?

Aunt Snow wrote a bunch of posts about the Theosophical community and other nontraditional sects in the LA metro area, which make for fascinating reading.

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