Perhaps as a result of this, Hockley was considered to be "a true Rosicrucian adept" and he himself believed to be working in the Rosicrucian tradition. But he is also claimed to have been a member of the Fratres Luces and it is asserted that this order indeed existed. The order was of a very exclusive nature; Westcott who was a member of the Rosicruciana In Anglia and would later be one of the founders of the Golden Dawn, tried to join but was refused.52
Another person who knew both Hockley and Denley well and visited the latter at his bookshop to acquire his source materials there, was the equally mysterious Francis Barrett, a self-described Rosicrucian whose home was the center of an occult group. Barrett, who lived and died in poverty, published the tremendously influential The Magus, or the Celestial Inteligencer in 1801. Strangely he had another passion — that of aeronautics.53
There is also Lytton's well-documented connection with the great French magus Eliphas Levi. Levi was known in English occult circles, but it was admitted that very little was known of his writings which were not translated into English at that time, even among members of the Societas Rosicruciana In Anglia54 of which he was appointed honorary member in 1861.55 Levi even commented upon the fact that, while visiting London in the spring of 1854, he encountered "amidst much that was courteous, a depth of indifference or trifling. They asked me forthwith to work wonders, as if I were a charlatan, and I was somewhat discouraged, for, to speak frankly, far from being inclined to initiate others into the mysteries of Ceremonial Magic, I had shrunk all along from its illusions and weariness."56
Yet Eliphas Levi (1810-1875), who was the most important occultist at that time and of whom it was claimed had direct contact with surviving members of the original Rosicrucians, found reasons enough to visit Bulwer-Lytton in London in 1853 or 1854. During his visit Bulwer-Lytton came to appreciate Levi's vast occult knowledge and became his friend.57 Levi visited him again in 1861.58 During his second visit, Levi presented him with three of his books, and inscribed these with long and friendly dedications.59
Bulwer-Lytton's son admitted to Golden Dawn member Arthur Edward Waite that indeed his father had known Levi, but that he thought that this acquaintance was first established in either Paris or Nice.60 It is suggested that Blavatsky also met Levi while studying Mesmerism in France. Not only Bulwer-Lytton's, but also Levi's influence looms heavily in her later doctrines.61
When a chapter of the German Theosophical Society was founded in 1884 in the German town of Elberfeld, the ceremony took place in a "Chambre d' Operation" that was consecrated by Levi in 1870-1871, around the time that The Coming Race was published. This occult space was a sacred room like the College Metropolitain and the French magicians were known to use, and before them the 18th century Illuminates. Descriptions of such rooms are sketchy at best. It is alleged that such an occult space was "only scarcely lit by candles and was used for meditation and magical practices." Olcott was present during the founding of the German Theosophical chapter. Wilhelm Hubbe-Schleiden, who visited Blavatsky on several occasions, was appointed its president. On the outside the chapter, called Loge Germania, was modeled like a Masonic institution.62
Wherever Bulwer-Lytton and Levi first met, Levi's visits to London were of the utmost importance to him as well, for he explains that during his first visit, the physical manifestations of the invisible presented themselves to him for the first time during elaborate magical rituals that he conducted through the mediation but not the presence of Bulwer-Lytton.63 During his second visit, Levi allegedly conducted a magical ritual with Bulwer-Lytton at the Pantheon in London.64 It is held that Bulwer-Lytton's A Strange Story that was published a year later was heavily influenced by this occult experience.65
At that time, Levi developed his concept of "Astral Light" which he also called "the Great Serpent" or the "Great Dragon," that he envisioned to be the carrier of the cosmic life-force66 and was regarded by some as the cosmic memory of the aether, the equivalent of Akasha. This astral light was called "Sidereal Light" by earlier occultists. The invisible and diaphanous region around the earth corresponded to the astral body of man, which Paracelsus called "ens astrale" or "Sidereal Body" and which he linked with the stars.67 Blavatsky called it the "sidereal force," which in turn helped Dutch literator and grailseeker Rensburg, Belinfante's friend develop his philosophy of "Inter astral Siderism."
It is believed that Levi — any correspondence between Levi and Bulwer-Lytton after their second meeting is strangely absent68 — provided the root of the idea of vril, the mysterious force that Bulwer-Lytton described in The Coming Race.69 This could very well be so, since it is alleged by Bulwer-Lytton's son that in a letter by Levi, there was talk of "the existence of a universal force and its use. "70
"What is vril?" the unnamed hero of Bulwer-Lytton's novel asks in astonishment. "There is no word in any language I know which is an exact synonym for vril. I should call it electricity, except that it comprehends in its manifold branches other forces of nature, to which, in our scientific nomenclature, differing names are assigned, such as magnetism, galvanism, &c... in vril they have arrived at the unity in natural energic agencies, which has been conjectured by many philosophers above ground...by one operation of vril, which Farraday would perhaps call 'atmospheric magnetism,' they can influence the variation of temperature — in plain words, the weather; that by other operations, akin to those ascribed to mesmerism, electro-biology, odic force, etc., but applied scientifically through vril conductors, they can influence over minds, and bodies animal and vegetable, to an extent not surpassed in the romance of our mystics. To all such agencies they give the common name vril."71
Vril, the "all-permeating fluid," can "destroy like the flash of lightning" or could "replenish or invigorate life," "heal or preserve" or "cure disease." Vril "enables the physical organization to re-establish the due equilibrium of its natural powers, and thereby to cure itself." With vril it is also possible to "rend way through the most solid substances." From it, light is extracted that burns "steadier, softer and healthier than other inflammable materials"72 and thus flowers and foliage are more brilliant in color and larger in growth.73
Vril is evoked by hollow staffs, having in "the handle several stops, keys, or springs by which its force can be altered, modified, or directed — so that by one process it destroys, by another it heals — by one it can rend the rock, by another disperse the vapor — by one it affects bodies, by another it can exercise a certain influence over minds. It is usually carried in the convenient size of a walking-staff, but it has slides by which it can be lengthened or shortened at will. When used for special purposes, the upper part rests in the hollow of the palm with the fore and middle fingers protruded." Its power, however, is not the same in the hands of any carrier; instead it is "proportioned to the amount of certain vril properties in the wearer, in affinity, or rapport, with the purposes to be effected."74
Along with vril have come certain biological adaptations; the bodies of the underground race, the Vril-ya, are filled with vril, and one must have this hereditary adaptation to use it properly, which is a special nerve in the hand: "The thumb... was much larger, at once longer and more massive. ...Secondly, the palm is proportionately thicker than ours — the texture of the skin infinitely finer and softer — its average warmth is greater. More remarkable than all this, is a visible nerve, perceptible under the skin, which starts from the wrist skirting the ball of the thumb, and branching, fork-like, at the roots of the fore and middle fingers. "75
Women are superior to men at handling these staffs, since the "female professors are eminently keen," owing to their "finer nervous organization" to the perception of vril,76 and therefore have "a readier and more concentrated power over that mysterious fluid or agency which contains the element of destruction."77
In The Coming Race, numerous devices are described as airships, elevatorlike lifts, automata that perform tasks that are animated and controlled by vril, and personal flying wings: "These wings... are ver
y large, reaching to the knee, and in repose throw back so as to form a very graceful mantle. They are composed from the feathers of a gigantic bird.... They are fastened round the shoulders with light but strong springs of steel; and, when expanded, the arms slide through loops for that purpose, forming, as it were, a stout central membrane. As the arms are raised, a tubular lining beneath the vest or tunic becomes, by mechanical contrivance, inflated with air, increased or diminished at will by the movement of the arms, and serving to buoy the whole form as on bladders. The wings and the balloon-like apparatus are highly charged with vril; and when the body is thus wafted upwards, it seems to become singularly lightened of its weight."78
The influence of The Coming Race was enormous. Greg's Across the Zodiac was partly inspired by it. The first novel of English writer C.J. Cutliffe Hyne, who fantasized about the legendary Atlantis, was modeled after Bulwer-Lytton's book.79 Tesla himself admitted that he read The Coming Race.80 The whole occult world noted it. In Isis Unveiled Blavatsky exclaimed that Bulwer-Lytton "allowed his readers to take it as a fiction," and she saw the similarity of vril with Von Reichenbachs Od, Levi's Astral Light and Akasha amongst others.81 "Absurd and unscientific as may appear our comparison of a fictitious vril invented by the great novelist, and the primal force of the equally great experimentalist, with the kabalistic astral light, it is nevertheless the true definition of this force," she wrote.82
Golden Dawn member Waite also saw the similarity between vril and Levi's Astral Light, and we may only guess at the extent of its influence upon such orders as the Golden Dawn, which after all, sprang forth from The Rosicruciana In Anglia that had included Bulwer-Lytton amongst its honorary members. We have already seen how Bulwer-Lytton was mentioned in a scathing review of Astor's A Journey In Other Worlds. This not only is again another proof that Bulwer-Lytton indeed was read by those circles surrounding the Golden Dawn, but also that Astor's novel that was influenced by Keely had been looked upon by the same coterie. Interestingly, several writings of Rosicruciana In Anglia member and Golden Dawn founder Westcott were published by the Theosophical Publishing Society. It is therefore quite possible that the initiates of the Golden Dawn not only meditated on the deeper meaning of vril but also read Bloomfield-Moore's pamphlets about Keely which appeared under the same imprint, and later would have studied Blavatsky's statements about Keely in The Secret Doctrine. Colville expressed his admiration for Bulwer-Lytton's concept of vril when lecturing on the human aura: "...the word Vril, which was certainly derived from Vir, the superior man. The simple force of energy of life, the pure spirit of humanity, is Vril, and this it is which builds and heals and can exhibit power to command all combinations of varying elements to appear and disappear."
Burgoyne of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor was highly impressed by Bulwer-Lytton's novel. He compared the manipulations of vril by the Vril-ya with the handling of the magnetic currents of the Earth and the Akasha by the first human race, "ethereal but sufficiently material to be objective and tangible."83
Later, anthroposophist Steiner would express his admiration. After World War I he confided to Guenther Wachsmuth, the German translator of The Coming Race, that Bulwer-Lytton "had seen what was possible in evolution, especially by the discovery of heretofore unknown forces of nature. The imagery of Bulwer-Lytton's novel is partly a memory of the now lost abilities of mankind in the earliest prehistory of the Atlantean era, but especially a vision of the coming phases of evolution, a very essential contribution."84
The many resemblances and similarities between The Coming Race and Keely's inventions were also noted by a newspaper a year before The Secret Doctrine was published: "It is no doubt a marvelous story, that told by John Worrell Keely, a fairy tale of a force which puts to shame the omnipotent 'Vril' of Bulwer-Lytton's fancy."85
When The Secret Doctrine was printed the following year, Blavatsky excitedly concluded that Keely had stumbled upon great tilings and, beside more wonderful analogies, she beheld the analogy with Bulwer-Lytton's vril: "Sound, for one thing, is a tremendous occult power. ...Sound may be produced of such a nature that the pyramid of Cheops would be raised in the air... that which he (Keely) has unconsciously discovered, is the terrible sidereal Force, known to and named by the Atlanteans MASH MAK...It is the Vril of Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race.. .It is the vibratory force, which, when aimed at an army from an Agni Rath fixed on a flying vessel, a balloon, according to the instructions found in the Ashtar Vidya, reduced to ashes 100,000 men and elephants, as easily as it would a dead rat. It is allegorized in the Vishnu Purana in the Ramayana and other works, in the fable about the sage Kapila whose glance made a mountain of ashes of King Sagara's 60,000 sons, and which is explained in the esoteric works, and referred to as the Kapilaksha — Kapila's eye."86
Theosophist Scott-Elliot too perceived this analogy with the vril-force that by now had reached mythical proportions: "In the earlier times it seems to have been personal vril that supplied the motive power — whether used in conjunction with any mechanical contrivance matters not much — but in the later days this was replaced by a force which, though generated in what is to us an unknown manner, operates nevertheless through definite mechanical arrangements. This force, though not yet discovered by science, more nearly approached that which Keely in America is learning to handle than the electric power used by Maxim. It was in fact of an etheric nature."87
Since The Coming Race was such an important influence on the occult undercurrents, various searches have been conducted to establish Bulwer-Lytton's sources of inspiration. On the surface one finds parallels between Baron von Reichenbach and Franz Anton Mesmer. Mesmer in turn was highly influenced by the renaissance alchemists and cabalists Agrippa and Paracelsus, thus forming another link between the Rosicrucian tradition and Bulwer-Lytton, beside Eliphas Levi and through him the French occult undercurrents. Mesmer's name crops up time and again in Bulwer-Lytton's esoteric novels and one author has even suggested that "without him the vril-concept of the English writer would hardly have been developed in this form. "88 Others have pointed towards the little-known writings of the French author Louis Jacolliot as the source for Bulwer-Lyton's idea of vril89 and on the influence of Montfaucon's strange book by explaining that the term "Gabalis" is a Paracelsian term, meaning the vital energy that animates the world.90 The case obtains another intriguing dimension when we read that it is suggested that Bulwer-Lytton obtained his idea of the mysterious vril-force from Keely.91
This theory was proposed because of the similarity in ideas between Bulwer-Lytton's aerial craft and Keely's inventions. However, at the time of publication of The Coming Race, Keely was still seven years away from his first rudimentary antigravity experiments, which around 1887 would lead to the construction of "a flying machine."
Bulwer-Lytton obtained the idea of aerial craft by reading Comte de Gabalis, tor in Montfaucon Villars' most curious novel we find not only numerous references to "the subterranean people" and "the people from the air," but also the tale of the "aerial wanderers" who were said to have "fallen from aerial ships," a story that is often repeated in UFO-literature.92
Levi and Bulwer-Lytton dabbled somewhat with strange technology. It is therefore doubtful that Keely's concepts directly influenced The Coming Race. There is a tangible link though, however small, between Bulwer-Lytton and Keely, and this is to be found in the person of Bloomfield-Moore.
Clara Bloomfield-Moore (1824-1899) was an extraordinary and highly intelligent woman who developed a deep interest in matters scientific and occult. She corresponded with hundreds of scientists in all parts of the world,93 including Tesla, whom she met at least once, as well as early aviation pioneer Hiram Maxim. At one time, she offered financial support to Maxim if he would go to America to consult with Keely and "become the custodian of the latter's secret."94
Around Bloomfield-Moore, we see an unusual clustering of some of the most famous, wealthy and influential people of her day, such as her wealthy acquaintance Astor. Afte
r the death of her husband in 1878, she would remain in London. A year later she would meet and develop a warm friendship with the famous literary poets Elisabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. After she became Keely's supporter, she tried to convince Browning that his poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" symbolized the whole Keely affair. But on this the poet politely answered that "Childe Roland was only a fantaisie, that he wrote it because it pleased his fancy." And as she interpreted to Browning the meaning in the light of Keely's discoveries, "he listened with interest and a smile of doubtful meaning played over his features, for Mr. Browning never expressed any faith in this modern Prometheus as to his commercial success."95 But according to her, "One Christmas evening we were amusing ourselves by 'Keely's Discovery' as the subject. Much more expeditiously than I had written down the rhymes to which he was to confine himself in its composition, he wrote the sonnet."96
Bloomfield-Moore was also presented to the court of Queen Victoria. Both her daughters married nobility; one daughter married Swedish Baron Carl von Bildt, who at one time had been Secretary of the Swedish Legation in Washington. Her other daughter married Count Carl von Rosen, who would eventually become First Chamberlain and Master of Ceremonies at the Court of Stockholm, Sweden. It was the son from this marriage, Count Eugene von Rosen, who allegedly sent "Keely's secrets" to Sweden. Her home in London was often the resort of writers and artists.
There also was another side to her complex character. She gained a reputation with the public for eccentricity, possibly because her London home witnessed visits of those of the occult circles, such as Cheiro, Colville, Leland, Golden Dawn member Westcott, and theosophists Besant and Blavatsky. Bloomfield-Moore's writings are remarkable for their deep esoteric knowledge. In her 1893 book about Keely one encounters the cabala, theosophy, occult templarism, the Rosicrucians, Jacob Bohme and a host of other occult and hermetic doctrines. She was not a theosophist, according to Count Eugene von Rosen when he was asked this obvious question: "No. She was interested in the study of theosophy as a broad-minded woman. She was interested speculatively, but did not believe in it."97 If not a theosophist, and we have only von Rosen's word for this and he says nothing of the countless other esoteric societies to which she may have been affiliated, she certainly had occult leanings as her book and pamphlets clearly demonstrate. With Blavatsky, Bloomfield-Moore developed a relationship that is described as "long" and "intimate," and Blavatsky used selections from her writings about Keely in The Secret Doctrine. As a rather interesting detail, a son of the marriage of one of her daughters, Count Erich Carl Gustav von Rosen, founded the Finnish Air Force in 1918 by presenting it its first airplane. Von Rosen, a noted expediter and archaeologist, had his arms painted on the upper and lower surfaces of both wings of the aircraft. His arms formed the swastika, derived from his expeditions in the Orient. The swastika of course also formed an integral part of theosophical symbology before it became used for far more sinister purposes.98
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