Helena Blavatsky (1831-91) was the founder of Theosophy, a movement which made the religions of Asia accessible to Western seekers for the first time. She is a key figure in the history of religion, and one of a minority of women founders of new religions. She was also a prolific writer of esoteric books, mostly still in print, of which the best known are her first, Isis Unveiled (1877), and The Secret Doctrine (1889).
Madame Blavatsky (as she is generally known) was born in the Ukraine. Her early life is mysterious, but seems to have been colourful and adventurous according to the many contradictory stories, which describe a chequered career as a novelist, circus performer, concert pianist and medium. In 1849 she married a state official whom she left after a year, and appears to have spent the next twenty-five years travelling throughout the world. She claimed that from childhood she had been endowed with remarkable psychic powers, and during her travels met various ‘masters’ (both living and discarnate) in London, Tibet, and India. In 1873 she arrived in New York where she met Henry Steel Olcott, with whom she founded the Theosophical Society in 1975. Three years later they left together for India, eventually settling in Madras, which is still the Society’s world headquarters. They never married, and the relationship seems to have been spiritual and professional rather than sexual. Olcott was the first American to convert to Buddhism. Blavatsky continued to travel nonstop, writing and setting up new branches of Theosophy worldwide. Eventually she settled in London and established the European headquarters of the Theosophical Society, where she died in 1891.
Madame Blavatsky was a highly controversial figure, who has been regarded as a charlatan in her lifetime and later. In particular, her claimed psychic abilities have often been challenged and debunked, including a report by the Society for Psychical Research in London in 1885. The report caused substantial damage to her reputation, although the SPR published a rebuttal a hundred years later. Whatever the truth of her occult powers, Blavatsky’s charisma and teachings had a tremendous impact on her followers and on later generations.
