The Theatre of the Occult Revival: Alternative Spiritual Performance from 1875 to the Present by Edmund B. Lingan (review)

The nexus of religion and performance has been a popular subject in recent years, with a number of articles and full-length studies approaching the issue, along with the birth of working groups in the major societies. For the most part these investigations have focused on one of two areas: the study of religious ritual as performance, or inflections of religion in traditional dramatic performances. In contrast, in The Theatre of the Occult Revival, Edmund Lingan explores the use of scripted theatrical performances as an inherent part of a number of occult religious movements, mostly from the late nineteenth century until the middle of the twentieth. To some degree these performances may be viewed as akin to the mystery and morality plays of the medieval period. But while those performances had an uneasy relationship with the established Church, the works examined here were usually promulgated (and frequently written) by the very leaders of the movements to which they were connected and, as Lingan argues, served to express their essence and central concepts.

Lingan provides an effective history of the Occult Revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, surveying both the major figures in the birth and propagation of the new religious movements of the period, as well as the scholars who have laid the groundwork for what he calls “esotericism studies” (5). Rather than offering a concrete definition of or distinct parameters for “the occult” (a difficult task, to put it mildly), the book lays bare the subtle though important distinctions among notions of occultism, esotericism, and spirituality. While offering novice readers a solid background in basic concepts and practices, it also presents clear, in-depth analysis and original research into the various esoteric movements that comprise the book’s subjects. While Lingan does not claim that every occult movement used theatre in a central role, he does suggest that the interconnection between the two was “incorporated into the teachings of some of the most famous leaders of the Occult Revival” (15), and that this served as a foundation for the use of theatre in later religious movements that took inspiration (direct or indirect) from the revival.

The book’s six chapters delineate, largely chronologically, significant occult movements in which theatre played a major role. Chapter 1 clearly establishes the foundation for the link between theatre and esotericism in the early years and among the major figures of the Occult Revival, particularly Eliphas Lévi, Madame Blavatsky, and Edouard Schuré. Each of these figures took inspiration from the Greek theatre, with Schuré claiming that the great Greek tragedies bore a “complementary relationship” to the sacred rites of Eleusis (24). Chapter 2 turns to Katherine Tingley and her Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, and Lingan here takes the opportunity to counter the common associations of the occult with evil and maleficence as he connects Tingley’s philanthropic work (which included children’s schools that placed theatre in a position of prominence) to the progressive movements of the early twentieth century. In addition to an evident fondness for Richard Wagner and the Symbolists, Tingley’s theatrical productions in Point Loma, California, included her own reinterpretations of Greek dramas, as well as Shakespeare in ways that emphasized the philosophical and spiritual dimensions of the society’s religious tenets.

Throughout the book Lingan notes strong links between the religious movements under discussion and Symbolism, and chapter 3 raises one of the book’s most interesting propositions on this front. The chapter presents Rudolf Steiner, who in 1913 founded the Anthroposophical Society and who had previously codirected a production of Maeterlinck’s The Intruder in Germany. Four mystery plays written by Steiner between 1910 and 1913 have been in continuous production since the 1920s at the Goetheanum, the headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society, in Dornach, Switzerland. These productions closely follow Steiner’s stage directions, but also appear to strive...