Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2006, Page 106
The author missed great opportunities to create suspense and sympathy. For example,
when the distraught wife of a gay parishioner drowns their son Willy, I felt removed from
the child. We have no insights into little Willy‘s character, whether he had friends, his hair
color, how he played. The author inserts sexual tension between characters, but not enough
for it to feel more important than creepy adult behavior. Exorcisms described in Chapter 7
offer little dramatic power. Occult activity amounts to eyes locked in trance and group
ecstasy with erotic touching. I was not convinced that the devil had anything to do with
what seemed more like loosened libidos. Descriptions I‘ve read about Umbanda or Macumba
dance rituals are far more interesting.
In the genre of fundamentalist Christian literature, cult and occult carry the same sinister
though equivocal spiritual warning—they both are ―of the devil.‖ However, there are other
ways to view cult behavior, and to portray occultism more realistically as not only deceptive,
but ridiculous, and sacredly sublime, as well. See my review of another novel, Imaginary
Friends, also based on a real cult experience.
Joseph Szimhart
Theosophy and Culture: Nicholas Roerich
Anita Stasulane, Interreligious and Intercultural Investigations Series, Volume 8,
2005. Gregorian Researche Centre on Cultures and Religions. (Editrice Pontificia
Universita Gregoriana, Piazza della Pilotta, 35 – 00187, Roma, Italia. Email:
editricepugpib-gi@biblico.it.) ISBN 88-7839-035-6 (trade paperback) $25.00. 336
pages.
If you look at an American one-dollar bill, you will find a pyramid with an ―eye‖ on top. The
Great Pyramid is often associated with Freemasonry, and many of the American founding
fathers were Freemasons. The symbol comes from the Great Seal of the United States
designed in 1782 by Charles Thompson. In 1934 the Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace
convinced Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morganthau to place it on the dollar. It appeared
in 1935. Morganthau did not know at the time that Wallace made the suggestion at the
behest of his guru Nicholas Roerich. To Roerich, the eye represented the gaze of mahatmas,
or super-evolved beings that guide the affairs and spiritual evolution of humanity. Roerich
(d 1947) and his wife Helena (d 1955) followed the Theosophy teachings of the colorful 19th
century occultist, Helena P. Blavatsky (1831–1891). By 1925, the Roerichs had established
a new theosophical group called Agni Yoga in New York and London, and later in Latvia,
Russia, and India. Like Blavatsky, the Roerichs believed that mahatmas had chosen them as
messengers to an elite core of mankind.
Roerich died the year I was born, so by the time I encountered his art and Agni Yoga
teachings in 1975, his legacy had faded considerably in America. For example, as late as the
mid-1980s, Agni Yoga did not make it into an impressive list of new religious movements
established by the Institute for the Study of American Religion. Roerich‘s greatest
achievement in America was, through President Franklin Roosevelt, to have 21 nations in
the Pan-American Union sign the Peace Pact, also known as the Roerich Pact, in 1935. The
Pact was intended to preserve cultural creativity in hospitals, museums, and significant
religious sites in time of war. For his effort, Roerich was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize
he did not win.
In a way, Roerich, who was an accomplished artist, and his wife Helena, who ―transmitted‖
the Agni Yoga spiritual teachings, were my favored gurus from 1975 to 1982. I mention this
because I gained an intimate insight into their work, history, and devotees. I met with the
last two directors (both gracious individuals) of the Roerich Museum in New York many

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2006, Page 107
times. I also had occasion to study several offshoot groups that used the Agni Yoga
teachings in their core doctrine. The largest of these was the Church Universal and
Triumphant cult that used Roerich art images and teaching without permission from the
Agni Yoga Society. The second largest of these groups in America was the Aquarian
Educational Group founded by Torkum Saraydarian.
All this brings me to Theosophy and Culture: Nicholas Roerich, published last year by a
Roman Catholic press associated with the Vatican. Why, I asked, would the Catholic Church
bother to publish an extensive study on a new religious group rarely even mentioned by
religious scholars in America? My answer came when I discovered through Internet
resources that the author had written this study initially in 1997 as a student dissertation
(under the direction of Dr. Michael Fuss) to address the phenomenal growth of the ―Rerikh
societies and groups‖ throughout the Russian Federation since the late 1980s. According to
the author Anita Stasulane, a religious scholar from Latvia, the Roerich teachings have
―captivated the minds of millions‖ in the former Soviet Union.
Anita Stasulane has done a remarkably even-handed job delineating essential aspects of the
Roerich approach to theosophy and culture at large. I can hardly imagine how someone not
familiar with Helena Blavatsky might appreciate this study, but it contains just enough
essential information to give most readers a good grounding to understand Roerich in
context. The text is heavily footnoted with a majority of Russian-language references. Some
of the text is in French, especially when it quotes René Guénon, an esoteric scholar who was
critical of Blavatsky‘s writings and claims. In that regard, the study would better suit the
religious scholar or a student familiar with languages than the average American reader.
Stasulane points out that the ―Rerikh‖ groups ―differ enormously throughout the world but
they fulfill the longing in atheist Soviet society for something that is simultaneously highly
intellectual, scientific and mystical.‖i Prior to the Bolshevik takeover, Russian seekers were
already imbued with what later became the New Age explosion of beliefs in America in the
decades after 1960. That explosion includes astrology, Theosophy, occultism,
vegetarianism, Buddhism, Indian religions and yoga, and messianic expectations. It is no
surprise, therefore, that a significant portion of post-Soviet seeker society has embraced the
culture‘s native mystics in Blavatsky and the Roerichs. It is important to remember that
Agni Yoga per se, as offered by the Agni Yoga Society, has sustained a rather benign history
for the past half century. Stasulane states:
Totalitarian sects pass away like illnesses, but the Rerikh movement is alive and well all
over Russia, even after accusations in the press that the Rerikhs collaborated with the NKVD
[communist secret police], and even after the Russian Orthodox Church has anathematized
it.ii
The author quotes extensively from primary source texts of Agni Yoga and the two volumes
of published Letters of Helena Roerich to define for the reader exactly what the Roerichs
teach and believe. Stasulane demonstrates that the Roerichs teach that the great religions,
including Christianity and Indian religions, have distorted the pure teachings of their
founding prophets. With Agni Yoga, or the ―Teaching,‖ the Roerichs viewed themselves as
emissaries of the master Morya and other mahatmas who will draw enlightened seekers
toward the one Truth or Ancient Wisdom. Despite the Roerichs claims to ―the highest‖
spirituality, Stasulane shows that the Russian couple defines or reduces religion, whether
Buddhist or any other, to a version of ―Blavatskaya‘s‖ theosophy. The latter‘s genius was to
apply a spiritual form of evolutionary theory to human destiny supported by stringing
together a myriad of 19th century occult teachings. The result in both Theosophy and Agni
Yoga, as the author demonstrates, is a highly suggestive, vague notion that we are destined
to return to the impersonal Source of being after efforts in many incarnations. The real,
unvarnished Truth is thus hidden, or occulted, from the uninitiated or ignorant.