The Esoteric Experience
HP Blavatsky (1831-1891) & Theosophy
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was born on 31 July 1831 in Ekaterinoslav, Russia. Throughout her life HPB seemed to be somewhat unruly, and when young suffered from bouts of somnambulism.
At the age of 17 she married General Nicephore V. Blavatsky who was 23 years her senior. The marriage lasted only a few months before HPB left her husband and set out on travels which would take her through Egypt, India, and Tibet, where she is reported to have studied with the secret masters.
Whilst living in Cairo she attempted to establish the Societe Spirite but the organisation collapsed amidst allegations of fraud and embezzlement.
HPB is reported to have demonstrated various spontaneous psychic abilities from her childhood onwards including table-tapping, clairvoyance, and levitation. After a period of severe illness in 1860 these spontaneous phenomena ceased and she now claimed to be able to produce them at will.
In 1873 she arrived in New York, America working first as a dress-maker then a journalist. On 17 November 1875 HPB co-founded the Theosophical Society with Henry Steel Olcott as President. The stated aims of the society were:
- to form a universal brotherhood of man,
- to study and make known the ancient religions, philosophers and sciences,
- to investigate the laws of nature and develop the divine powers latent in man.
1877 saw the publication of HPB's first major work, Isis Unveiled, with numerous articles written by her for the two journals which she had also established, Lucifer and The Theosophist. HPB wrote a voluminous amount of detailed material and accusations of plagiarism were made against her.
In 1882 the headquarters of the Theosophical Society was relocated to Adyar, near Madras. Whilst in India HPB impressed A.P. Sinnett, editor of the newspaper The Pioneer.
Due to an article alleging fraud written by the Coulombs in 1884 and published in the Christian College Monthly the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) sent Richard Hodgson to Adyar to investigate the phenomena. The Coulombs, previously of Blavatsky's household, told about sliding panels, a dummy figure of a Mahatma, and forged letters written by HPB. Whilst the first SPR report on HPB in 1884 was positive, in 1885 Hodgson reported in the Proceedings of the society that the phenomena were fraudulent and her followers gullible. The Hodgson report was later criticised by Vernon Harrison in his book H.P. Blavatsky and the SPR and an article, J'Accuse, printed in the Journal of the SPR in 1986.
In 1888 HPB published her second major work, The Secret Doctrine, dealing with the evolution of the universe and of mankind. The book is said to be a commentary on The Stanzas of Dyzan taken from the scriptures of North Tibet. HPB claimed that parts of this work were dictated or shown to her clairvoyantly by the Mahatmas in the Himalayas. This book was followed in 1889 by The Key To Theosophy, and then by a devotional work, Voice of the Silence in the same year.
HPB died in London on 5 May 1891, her final book, The Theosophical Glossary, being published posthumously in 1892. On her death she was estimated to have about 100, 000 followers. Today the Adyar based Theosophical Society has around 35,000 members.
Bibliography
Isis Unveiled (1877)
The Secret Doctrine (1888)
The Key to Theosophy (1889)
Voice of the Silence (1889)
The Theosophical Glossary (1892)
Sources
The Encyclopedia of the Occult, Lewis Spence, Bracken Books 1988.
Who's Who in British History, Juliet Gardiner, Collins & Brown 2000.
Guide to the Occult & Mysticism, Geddes & Crosset (1996) 1999.
The New Believers: Sects, Cults & Alternative Religions, David Barrett, Cassell & Co 2001.
A History of Magic, Witchcraft & Occultism, WB Crow, Abacus (1968) 1972.
Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology, 5th Edition, J Gordon Melton, Gale Group 2001.
Modern Esoteric Spirituality, A Faivre & J Needleman, SCM Press 1992.
