The article presents Helena Blavatsky’s 1887 critique (from Le Lotus, republished in her Collected Writings Vol. VIII as part of “Misconceptions”) rejected key assumptions of rationalist secular materialists tied to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution of 1789, including Jacobin-style coercive fraternity and materialist social reconstruction. This is closer to the ethical-idealist republicanism of the Mazzinian tradition (itself often condemned by popes of the era as part of the secret-society and anti-clerical revolutionary currents) than to ultramontane Catholic social doctrine.
In an excerpt from this Parisian paper, Le Lotus (Paris, Vol. I, No. 6, Sep 1887), theosophist Helena P. Blavatsky speaks about the falsity of fraternity in the French Revolution of 1789, rails against material (industrial) developments, and the conditions of the poor. This perspective, which is from an anti-clerical, philosophical standpoint demonstrates differences between strains of non-materialist ontology versus the pure secular materialism of the radical Enlightenment, Jacobin tradition and clerical reaction in that era, while prioritizing moral regeneration, duty, and genuine brotherhood.
Rationalist secular materialists of the late 18ᵗʰ century Enlightenment included many philosophes, materialists like d’Holbach himself or Helvétius, and optimists with views on progress such as Condorcet. The revolutionary generation typically held that reason, science, and empirical knowledge, freed from clerical superstition and traditional authority, would drive linear material and institutional progress. This progress (scientific discovery, industry, better laws and education) would reliably increase human happiness, reduce inequality, and perfect society. The Revolution’s ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity embodied a secular, rational break with the ancien régime, replacing religious and monarchical hierarchy with a more just order grounded in natural rights and human perfectibility through material and political means.
They also argued that reality is fundamentally material, and moral improvement follows from better physical conditions, knowledge, and institutions rather than from spiritual or esoteric transformation.
Blavatsky strongly disagreeing with the rationalist secular materialists, argued that machines create a “superior caste” of semi-educated workers at the expense of the masses, who become more miserable; thousands of poor children in factories are “sacrificed in a holocaust to your progress, an insatiable and forever hungry Moloch.” Progress has mainly given the rich “enjoyments unknown in the centuries of barbarism.”
Happiness, in her view, cannot arrive while “moral progress slumbers in inactivity, paralyzed by the ferocious egotism of everybody, the rich as well as the poor.” It is the ethical-spiritual development over material or institutional change which must come first.
On the Revolution itself she is equally critical, perhaps speaking to the Jacobin strain, as a “false fraternity which says to his fellow man, ‘Think as I do, or I will knock you down; be my brother, or I will run you down!’” This rejects the idea that the Revolution successfully realized rational, secular brotherhood, but instead produced coercive conformity enforced by violence.
Papal teaching of the period similarly reacted strongly against the French Revolutionary tradition and its socialist and communist heirs. Pius IX’s Quanta Cura (1864) and the accompanying Syllabus of Errors condemned socialism, communism, liberalism, and the idea that the Church must reconcile itself with “progress, liberalism, and modern civilization.” These documents treated many revolutionary and secularist principles as errors that undermined religion, natural order, and social stability.
Leo XIII’s Quod Apostolici Muneris (1878, “On Socialism”) attacked socialists, communists, and nihilists as a “wicked confederacy” seeking the overthrow of civil society. It criticized their distortion of equality, their attack on private property and hierarchy, and their tendency to present themselves under the guise of justice or even the Gospel while promoting materialist upheaval.
Later, the Rerum Novarum in 1891 addressed the industrial conditions Blavatsky also deplored but firmly rejected socialism’s abolition of private property as contrary to natural rights and ultimately harmful to the workers it claimed to help.
Later documents (e.g., Pius XI’s Divini Redemptoris) continued to denounce atheistic communism’s “false ideal of justice, equality and fraternity” as a pseudo-redemption that produces greater tyranny. In all these texts the Church rejected versions of social reorganization that relied on force, class antagonism, materialist leveling, or the suppression of conscience and legitimate authority under the banner of equality or brotherhood.
Both Blavatsky and the popes therefore diagnose a common failure: appeals to fraternity or equality that become coercive, materialist, and destructive of genuine moral order and human dignity. Both see pure force or economic reconstruction without deeper moral foundations as inadequate or actively harmful but still diverge in framework.
The critique Blavatsky provides is consistent with H.P.B.’s critiques of socialism and communism, the Russian Vandals before the Bolsheviks, and the Russian monarchy. It demonstrates that she generally disfavors the approach of violent revolution. She (firstly) treats pure material, scientific and industrial progress as incomplete or actively harmful without prior or concurrent moral progress; (secondly) rejects the Revolution’s fraternity as false and coercive rather than as a rational secular achievement; and (lastly) locates the path to genuine social change in ethical self-transformation, mutual interdependence, and wisdom rather than in secular reason, material improvement, or political violence alone.
LE LOTUS, PARIS, VOL. I, NO. 6, SEPTEMBER 1887, PP. 321-38, REPUBLISHED IN MISCONCEPTIONS, BLAVATSKY COLLECTED WRITINGS, VOL. VIII.
“Let us understand each other. I am speaking of the progress of civilization on the physical plane (…) Are three quarters of humanity happier due to the progress of science and its alliance with industry, about which you seem so happy? Has the invention of machines done any good to manual labourers? No, for it has resulted in one more evil:the creation among the workers of a superior caste, semi-instructed and semiintelligent, to the disadvantage of the less favoured masses which became more miserable.
Thousands of poor children in the factories, representing for the future whole generations of crippled, ricket-ridden and unhappy people, are sacrificed in a holocaust to your progress, an insatiable and forever hungry Moloch. Yes, we protest, we say that “today is worse than yesterday,” and we deny the benefits of a progress which aims only at the welfare of the rich. The “happiness” you speak of will not come as long as moral progress slumbers in inactivity, paralyzed by the ferocious egotism of everybody, the rich as well as the poor. The revolution of 1789 has shown but one very evident result: that false fraternity which says to his fellow man, “Think as I do, or I will knock you down; be my brother, or I will run you down!” The Theosophical “missionaries” aim also at a social revolution. But it is a wholly ethical revolution. It will come about when the disinherited masses understand that happiness is in their own hands, that wealth brings nothing but worries, that he is happy who works for others, for those others work for him, and when the rich realize that their felicity depends upon that of their brothers — whatever their race or religion — then only will the world see the dawn of happiness.
“Moreover, of all the animals, man is the most animal in his excesses; the beast has its seasons, but man has none. (…) The comparison between the “God of the past” and the “God of science” is neither a just nor a happy one as the reigns of these two Gods differ very little from each other. The poor man is just as unhappy today as he was a thousand years ago, and even more so, as the gap between him and the rich man has widened. Progress has served but to provide the rich with enjoyments unknown in the centuries of barbarism.”
She further goes on to defend the motives of her associates:
“As it would appear from the behaviour of Budhist Theosophists, servants of Wisdom and Truth, that they belong to no religion, to no sect, and that on the contrary they combat all exoteric cults and the abuses which follow therefrom, and that they endeavour to be useful to humanity. The present explanation should be sufficient to finally re-establish the truth concerning the “missionaries” of the Himālayas. It is precisely because occult science and esoteric philosophy have “for pivotal function the service of humanity,” because their ardent advocates try to awaken European and Asiatic peoples sleeping under the deathly shadows of clericalism, by reminding them of the lessons of the ancient wisdom — it is on account of these motives that these servants offer themselves to Europe-America. Those who would still doubt it are asked to judge the tree of Theosophy by its fruits; for by judging it by the fruits of the tree of the Brāhmanical, Buddhist, or Judeo-Christian religions, they commit an evident injustice and prevent the Theosophists from being useful to their fellows, more especially to the disinherited ones of the world.”
IBID
This demonstrates how much Theosophy was situated within a broader anti-materialist republican current. Blavatsky’s critique is not merely occult romanticism or isolated social commentary. It participates in (and reflects) a living tradition that tried to rescue republicanism from both Jacobin excess and materialism and reactionary clericalism by insisting that political liberty and social justice require prior or concurrent moral-spiritual elevation of the person and the people. This strand valued duty, association, and a higher law over rights alone or class struggle alone. Where Enlightenment materialists and many revolutionaries saw science, industry, and secular institutions as the primary engines of progress and happiness, both Mazzini and Blavatsky treated material advance without moral advance as incomplete or actively harmful. It is the ethical revolution that is advocated as the necessary foundation. Blavatsky claimed contact with Mazzini (reportedly meeting him in London around 1851) and involvement with Garibaldi’s campaigns (including participation at Mentana in 1867). She expressed public admiration for Mazzini, supported commemorations of him, and moved in circles that overlapped with Italian republican, Masonic, and progressive networks. Theosophy later found reception in Italy among figures connected to Risorgimento ideals. These links make the mirroring more than coincidental; they locate her thought in a trans-national milieu of esoteric, freemasonic, and idealist republicanism that sought to spiritualize democratic aspirations.
Both Blavatsky and Mazzini (though more explicitly national and deistic-Christian) opposed the reduction of social life to material self-interest (of rich or poor) and insisted that true fraternity and happiness depend on recognizing interdependence and higher purpose. This anticipates later critiques of industrial capitalism’s social costs while remaining distinct from Marxist materialism.
In the philosophical context of Mazzinian (and residual Carbonari) republicanism, Blavatsky’s arguments matter because they exemplify how an ethical-spiritual critique of 1789-style materialism and false fraternity could be articulated from a philosophical standpoint while remaining continuous with a major democratic-republican tradition. They show Theosophy engaging the same problems in how to achieve genuine social brotherhood and human happiness beyond coercive politics or one-sided material progress that animated Mazzini’s attempt to establish a “religion of duty” and an educational republicanism. This connection helps explain affinities between Theosophical universal brotherhood and certain strands of 19ᵗʰ century progressive nationalism and reformism.
“The comparison between the “God of the past” and the “God of science” is neither a just nor a happy one as the reigns of these two Gods differ very little from each other. The poor man is just as unhappy today as he was a thousand years ago, and even more so, as the gap between him and the rich man has widened.”
HELENA BLAVATSKY
