page_title: Theosophy and literature
section_title: Yeats
hierarchical_section_title: Theosophy and literature / Classic writers and Theosophists / Yeats
caption_attribution_description: English: A member of the Theosophical Society Mohini Mohun Chatterji (1858-1936)
context_page_description: According to some literary and religious studies scholars, modern Theosophy had a certain influence on contemporary literature, particularly in forms of genre fiction such as fantasy and science fiction. Researchers claim that Theosophy has significantly influenced the Irish literary renaissance of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, notably in such figures as W. B. Yeats and G. W. Russell.
context_section_description: Yeats became interested in Theosophy in 1884, after reading Esoteric Buddhism by Alfred Percy Sinnett. A copy of the book was sent him by his aunt, Isabella Varley. Together with his friends George Russell and Charles Johnston, he established the Dublin Hermetic Society, which would later become the Irish section of the Theosophical Society. According to Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology (EOP), Yeats's tendency toward mysticism was "stimulated" by the religious philosophy of the Theosophical Society.
  In 1887, Yeats's family moved to London, where he was introduced to Blavatsky by his friend Johnston. In her external appearance she reminded him of "an old Irish peasant woman". He recalled her massive figure, constant cigarette smoking, and unceasing work at her writing desk which, he claimed, "she did for twelve hours a day." He respected her "sense of humor, her dislike of formalism, her abstract idealism, and her intense, passionate nature." At the end of 1887, she officially founded the Blavatsky Lodge of the Theosophical Society in London. Yeats entered into the Esoteric Section of the Lodge in December 1888 and became a member of the "Recording Committee for Occult Research" in December 1889. In August 1890, to his great regret, he was expelled from the Society for undertaking occult experiments forbidden by the Theosophists.
  According to The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (EF), Yeats wrote extensively on mysticism and magic. In 1889 he published an article—"Irish Fairies, Ghosts, Witches, etc."—in Blavatsky's journal, and another in 1914—"Witches and Wizards and Irish Folk-Lore". Literary scholar Richard Ellmann wrote of him:
  "Yeats found in occultism, and in mysticism generally, a point of view which had the virtue of warring with accepted belief... He wanted to secure proof that experimental science was limited in its results, in an age when science made extravagant claims; he wanted evidence that an ideal world existed, in an age which was fairly complacent about the benefits of actuality; he wanted to show that the current faith in reason and in logic ignored a far more important human faculty, the imagination."
caption: M. Chatterji[27][note 6], 1884
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