The ‘Spiritual Quest’ in Rider Haggard’s She and Ayesha

Influential feminist and post-colonialist accounts of Rider Haggard have presented him as a naive writer mainly interesting for what he unwittingly reveals about contemporary fears and obsessions. Haggard's religious views have either been left unexplored or have been dismissed as sentimental verbiage. In fact, these spiritual concerns are a powerful ingredient in Haggard's writing as well as being more coherent and intelligent than received opinion allows. This paper examines Haggard's treatment, in She and Ayesha, of contradictions within the teachings of Madame Blavatsky, whose occultist doctrines had so powerful an impact in the late nineteenth century.