Boscovich in The Secret Doctrine and Revisionist History of Science connection to Occultism

Rasgusan physicist Roger J. Boscovich (1711-1787) is mentioned in Helena Blavatsky’s book “The Secret Doctrine” written in 1888. Roger J. Anderton examines the use of Roger J. Boscovich in The Secret Doctrine in his paper, Boscovich in the Esoteric Tradition of Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine¹ (July 21, 2014).

R.J. Anderton argues that ancient notions have passed down to the great philosophers, and into modern physics. Jeff Hughes also presents this argument using a case study about the history of discoveries into the atomic world, which states that the history of science has been rewritten to hide the influence and contributions by individuals who held interest in occultism.

This history is hidden, not by a conspiracy, but by certain discoverers and writers themselves Anderton writes, through constructing a revisionist history.

Roger J. Boscovich was influenced by occult tradition.

“The whole of esotericism seems based on Pythagorean ideas, as it is one of the main traditions as to how ancient wisdom has come down to us; and she hides the connection to Boscovich by talking about it in a flippant way as if it isn’t important.

From what I gather this is one of the methods used to hide secret information, namely put it in plain sight and act like it is not important.” (R.J. Anderton, Boscovich in the Esoteric Tradition of Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine)

Anderton provides further context from The Secret Doctrine, when Blavatsky explains, that the theories of Science such as atoms, ether and evolution itself advanced by the eminent men of Science in her time and prior, come from developments of ancient notions. Only, these ancient notions are referred to cleverly as “pre-scientific.” This is part of the revisionism. These conceptions, which were hid under allegories, although taught as plain truths in the initiations of the Mysteries were taught through the philosophy of Greek writers and have descended to us. Blavatsky reiterates, that Occultism has never remained stagnant in its view on matter, atoms and ether as in the “exotericism of the classical Greek writers” however. She mentions English physicist and chemist Michael Faraday (1791-1867), explaining that he was an Aristotelian, and used the reflections of Aristotle, which are found in the scientist’s works.

“Faraday, Boscovitch, and all others, however, who see, in the atoms and molecules, “centers of force,” and in the corresponding element force, an entity by itself, are far nearer the truth, perchance, than those, who, denouncing them, denounce at the same time the “old corpuscular Pythagorean theory” (one, by the way, which has never passed to posterity as the great philosopher really taught it), on the ground of its ” delusion that the conceptual elements of matter can be grasped as separate and real entities.”

This connects to the statement provided in

Speaking of the “old corpuscular Pythagorean theory,” Boscovich’s theory of point-particles is a unified theory of Pythagorean physics.

Blavatsky explains in the same book, that “Science is honeycombed with metaphysical conceptions, but the scientists will not admit the charge and fight desperately to put atomo-mechanical masks on purely incorporeal and spiritual laws in nature, on our plane – refusing to admit their substantiality even on other planes, the bare existence of which they reject a priori.” (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, pg. 544)

Modern physics was influenced by occult tradition, also according to historian Jeff Hughes in Occultism and the Atom: The Curious Story of Isotopes (Physics World, Volume 16: No. 9, 2003).

“When Francis Aston discovered a new type of neon in 1913, he initially linked it with an atom that had been predicted by two “occult chemists” through a strange form of clairvoyance. But why was this episode later rewritten in the history books?” (Jeff Hughes, Occultism and the Atom: The Curious Story of Isotopes)

Jeff Hughes is speaking of Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater. I recommend reading his article, The Curious Story of Isotopes.

“THE ROUTES to scientific discovery are sometimes strange. We are all familiar with the story of Newton and the falling apple, or with Friedrich Kekulé’s dream of a snake biting its own tail that led to the discovery of benzene’s ring-like structure. But such stories – engaging though they might be – are often mythical. They serve a function in science, emphasizing individual psychology and the flash of inspiration from a heroic scientific genius, over the more routine and collective aspects of scientific work. Romanticism aside, however, the history of science – like Orwell’s Big Brother state – usually writes and rewrites history to remove inconvenient facts, mistakes and idiosyncrasies, leaving only a rationalized path to our present knowledge, or what historians sometimes call “whig” history. In so doing, it not only distorts the actual course of historical events but also gives a misleadingly simplistic picture of the richness of scientific activity and the interactions between science and broader culture.” (Jeff Hughes, Occultism and the Atom: The Curious Story of Isotopes)

This article has been modified from its original (May 26, 2017)

1. This Boscovich in the Esoteric Tradition of Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine is also a PDF attachment from the Journal ↩︎