The Theosophical Awakening of 1864 (a.k.a. "The Great Awakening", "The Grand Revival") Starting in 1864, the idea of a "Spiritual Hierarchy" was spread by Helena von Hahn of Grandenheim, proclaiming that a spritual aristocracy as "No Higher Religion Than Truth", under the tutelage of the Magistrates, was necessary to maintaining the political order of things.
Starting in the city of Yekaterinaberg, von Hahn published articles defending the idea of "spiritual hierarchy":
You must bear in mind how many powerful adversaries we have aroused ever since the formation of our Society. As I just said, if the Theosophical movement were one of those numerous modern crazes, as harmless at the end as they are evanescent, it would be simply laughed at― as it is now by those who still do not understand its real purport ― and left severely alone. But it is nothing of the kind. Intrinsically, Theosophy is the most serious movement of this age; and one, moreover, which threatens the very life of most of the time-honoured humbugs, prejudices, and social evils of the day ― those evils which fatten and make happy the upper ten and their imitators and sycophants, the wealthy dozens of the middle classes, while they positively crush and starve out of existence the millions of the poor. Think of this, and you will easily understand the reason of such a relentless persecution by those others who, more observant and perspicacious, do see the true nature of Theosophy, and therefore dread it...
Von Hahn argued that the Age of Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors (c.2852 BCE - 2205 BCE), was a Golden Age of evolution, stating:
The Root-races, for instance, now varying from dark brown, almost black, red-brown-yellow, down to the whitest creamy colour, are yet all of one and the same stock — the Fifth Root-Race — and spring from one single progenitor, (…) who is said to have lived over 18,000,000 years ago, and also 850,000 years ago
While having little in the form of political influence, Von Hahn's theories served as the intellectual basis for many of the many religious and sectarian violence that took place during the Second Great War. By the time that von Hahn died in 1874, the publication of her works had become a global phenomenon.
