The Elusive Isis: Theosophy and the Mirror of Millennialism

Summary

Millennialism is usually characterized in scholarly literature as a relentlessly linear understanding of time; history has a clear beginning, middle, and end, and may be read much like a plot in narrative. Unlike many plots, though, the beginning and the end resemble an idea of perfection, and the end that is approaching must recapitulate the particular benefits of the beginning. The choice of origins, however, is unstable, and different groups – even within varying forms of Christianity – will locate the original state of purity at different times. Eden is an obvious choice for many, as is the era of the apostolic church. Other candidates for a good beginning have been the Israelite patriarchs and even the American founding fathers, from whose state of purity the United States has fallen morally and politically according to some paramilitary groups. No matter what beginning is chosen, the end of time will simultaneously put an end to profane time and usher in a new instantiation of sacred time that echoes the origin and confirms its promises. The trajectory of history is thus firmly within the plan of the divine, and time itself is understood to unravel like a novel with God as the author. Time becomes trustworthy, and all subsequent events – including suffering and ‘tribulations’ – are understood to be the necessary, if tumultuous, preludes to the final days.

American Theosophy conforms to nearly none of this.