Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of Theosophy: Spiritual Underpinnings of the Science of Deduction
Sherlock Holmes is often oversimplified as a secular modern professional, with a remorselessly scientific outlook. This hypothesis overlooks late-nineteenth-century English society's pursuit of new social possibilities for spiritualism, following challenges from Darwinist biological determinism...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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Published: |
University of Saskatchewan
2023
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In: |
Journal of religion and popular culture
Year: 2023, Volume: 35, Issue: 2, Pages: 96-113 |
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Doyle, Arthur Conan 1859-1930
/ Doyle, Arthur Conan 1859-1930, Sherlock Holmes
/ Blavatsky, Helena P. 1831-1891
/ Theosophy
/ Buddhist philosophy
/ Vedanta
/ Darwinism
/ Decolonisation
/ Great Britain
/ Culture
/ History 1837-1901
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RelBib Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AG Religious life; material religion AZ New religious movements BK Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism BL Buddhism KBF British Isles TJ Modern history VA Philosophy YA Natural sciences |
Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
Summary: | Sherlock Holmes is often oversimplified as a secular modern professional, with a remorselessly scientific outlook. This hypothesis overlooks late-nineteenth-century English society's pursuit of new social possibilities for spiritualism, following challenges from Darwinist biological determinism to orthodox biblical mythology and morality. If we see Holmes in a default empirical scientism affiliated to imperial ideologies, we will remain blind to the effects of multiple countercultural and spiritual tones that also underpin the "science of deduction." Holmes' methods were subliminally informed by theosophy, as Doyle gleaned much of his spiritual knowledge from first- or second-hand readings on Blavatsky. Thus, Vedantic and Buddhist philosophy find inadvertent—but not coincidental—traces in Holmes through theosophy. An intellectual offspring of the trinity of Darwin, Huxley, and Tyndall, Holmes was also a child of Blavatsky's occult philosophy. Adopting a decolonial praxis, this paper argues that comparisons between the materialistic principles of Darwin, Huxley, and Tyndall, on the one hand, and Holmes on the other, are as useful as comparing the detective's work to Blavatsky's theosophy. |
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ISSN: | 1703-289X |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religion and popular culture
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