Bulwer Lytton and Zanoni

Use in the book

VIII says that a full discussion of the elemental kingdoms would exceed the plan of the work. It points readers instead toward a novel and similar tales, whose inhabitants are supposed to help them recognize the kind of entities intended.

This is a reference to Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Zanoni, although the electronic copy text spells the title Sanoni. The passage supplies no sustained interpretation of the novel and does not identify one particular fictional figure as a precise catalogue entry for a plane.

Places to read

1. VIII Planes of Correspondence · Block 25… “full of mention of them. The readers of Bulwer's "Sanoni" and similar tales will recognize the entities inhabiting these planes of life.”

In this edition

The headword gives the identifiable novel's title. A quotation from VIII retains Sanoni and the occurrence list records that attested spelling. The correction is stated, rather than concealed.

Reading the argument

A literary comparison can make an unfamiliar doctrine vivid without independently confirming its entities. The source's brief gesture should not be expanded into a claim that the novel and The Kybalion have identical cosmologies.

Related texts

Zanoni supplies an occult fictional world rather than an observational report. The title and author can be checked in the novel itself; the connection here is the explicit allusion in VIII.⁹

Bulwer

“Bulwer” — 1 occurrence in 1 text block: VIII.25.

Sanoni

“Sanoni” — 1 occurrence in 1 text block: VIII.25.