'The Judges of Normality are Everywhere’: Has Esotericism and the Ideas of H. P. Blavatsky Ever Been Normal?

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Invoking Foucault, this chapter problematizes the constructed nature of both deviance and normalcy. On this basis, the chapter considers how the study of esotericism has facilitated historical reconsideration of the deviance of number of people and traditions, including Giordano Bruno, John Dee, Paracelsus and Hermeticism. Continuing this trajectory, Rudbøg queries whether Blavatsky’s Theosophy has ever been “normal.” Although the nineteenth century coincided with the emergence of a natural-scientific paradigm with which Theosophy partially clashed the pronounced exchanges between Theosophy and scholars such as Max Müller evinces that the demarcation between normalcy and deviance has remained blurred well into modernity.
Original languageDanish
Title of host publicationEsotericism and Deviance
EditorsManon Hedenborg White, Tim Rudbøg
PublisherBrill
Publication date2023
Pages83–104
Chapter4
ISBN (Print)9789004549746
ISBN (Electronic)9789004681040
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
SeriesAries Book Series
Volume33
ISSN1871-1405

ID: 223886175