The Myth of the Theons: Constructions and Deconstruction of the Image of Two European Occultists

Presenter:

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Abstract

Max Theon (Maximillian Bimstein) and his wife Mary Ware were significant European occultists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Their Mouvement Cosmique had branches in several countries and their publications circulated in occult circles in France and the United States. They are perhaps best know as the teachersof Mirra Alfassa, later the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The Theons presented themselves as the custodians of the world’s original wisdom Tradition. They spoke little about their lives but their followers sketched biographies for them consistent with this role. Toward the end of the 20th century researchers uncovered documents that filled in the outlines of these sketches, correcting corrected some of the more notable fabrications, but they still took face value most of the claims made by and about the Theons. More recent researchers have gone deeper, unearthing many documents bearing on the early lives of Max Bimstein and Mary Ware. These discoveries make it necessary to reevaluate their place in the history of modern occultism.