Buddhism and Ireland - From the Celts to the Counter-Culture and Beyond - Laurence Cox
4. Esotericism Against Empire: Irish Theosophy
Buddhism and Ireland - From the Celts to the Counter-Culture and Beyond - Laurence Cox
Laurence Cox [+]
National University of Ireland
Laurence Cox is Director of the MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. He is co-editor of Ireland’s New Religious Movements (CSP, 2011), Understanding European Movements (Routledge, 2013) and Marxism and Social Movements (Brill, 2013), and a practising Buddhist.
Description
This chapter discusses the problem of non-conversion, with a view to understanding Buddhism and Ireland. Dublin Theosophy was not purely a literary phenomenon, but also a new religious movement opposed to exclusivist Christianity. This chapter further explores the role of Buddhism in the formation of Irish Theosophy and the religious politics of the choices within Irish Theosophy which explain the absence of a post-Theosophical Buddhist development. It also discusses the 1890s counter-culture of which Theosophy was part.