Book of life (VHL Workbooks No 11) Vácslav Havel (Atom)

Vácslav Havel was on the one hand a supporter of Czech theosophy - the Czech Theosophical Society acquired its headquarters in the newly built Lucerna - and, on the other hand, a devotee of practical spiritualism. Spiritualism is directly related to his only author's book - The Book of Life, which he published in 1920 under the heading of the Czech Theosophical Society (in the newly established edition of Speeches of the unknown) and under the pseudonym Atom.

How to evaluate this whole "spirituality", in other words occult-spiritualist interest of Václav Havel and his surroundings? Spiritual practice with marked tables and speaking with medium would in itself be an easy target of ridicule. However, what is essential are not specific contemporary practices of communication with the spiritual world, but the will to communicate with it, the very desire to transcend the boundaries of materialism and positivism towards "some" spirituality - and to transcend them with the methods and means that seemed at that time to be "alternatively" scientific. The Book of Life, which was "lived and submitted" by Vácslav Havel can be downplayed as a bizarre characteristic of that period - or taken seriously, as the first text written by a member of the Havel family and expressing a summary of the author's philosophical and religious views.