Four Generations

[poliphilo]

Edward Bulwer Lytton was an Victorian politician, occultist and writer, famous for starting a novel with the words "it was a dark and stormy night". His best known book is the Last Days of Pompeii. He also wrote "The Haunted and the Haunters"- one of the best English ghost stories.

His son Robert Bulwer Lytton wrote poetry under the pen-name Owen Meredith. As viceroy of India in the late 1870s he presided over a famine which killed millions. His laissez-faire attitude to the suffering of his "subjects" has been described as "genocidal".

Robert's daughter Emily married Edwin Lutyens, the architect of New Delhi. She was a theosophist and acted as foster-mother to the theosophical "World Teacher" Jiddu Khrishnamurti.

Emily's daughter Mary Lutyens was Khrishnamurti's disciple and biographer. She also wrote The Lyttons in India- a book about her grandfather the viceroy.

Comments

[oakmouse]

Well, he was of mixed race and practiced sex magic at a time when the sexuality of black males was a deeply taboo subject in America. A black man who claimed to offer magical initiation through sex, and who believed in the magical power (or indeed the very existence) of the female orgasm would be pretty much barred from the public eye; however muckraking the newspapers of his day might have been, and he lived in the peak era of so-called yellow journalism, he would have been far too hot a subject for them to handle. Had he lived longer and/or been white, he might have become more generally known. He's better known now than he has been since his death, I believe, although I'm positive I'm right.

Also, for some reason, a fair number of American occultists of the 19th century don't seem to be generally very well known, even in America. There are exceptions, of course, as with every rule.

[oakmouse]

"although I'm positive I'm right"

Sorry, that should be I'm NOT positive I'm right. :-p

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But you'd think the things that made him taboo in his lifetime would have elevated him to cult status in the modern era.

But, it's true, the books and articles on magical history I've read never even glance at the USA. They treat the magical revival of the 19th century as- almost exclusively- an Anglo-French affair.

[oakmouse]

You would think that, yes, but not so. Maybe because good old Aleister Crowley got there first? From his time onward, nobody needed to look any further for an occult Bad Boy to emulate.