Helena Blavatsky
Part of a series on Theosophy Theosophy Traditional Theosophy Traditional Theosophy topics Esoteric Christianity · Hermeticism · Kabbalah Intellectus · Imagination · Nous · Active imagination Traditional Theosophy contributors Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite · Ambrose · Ammonius Saccas Jerome · Al-Shahrastānī · Plotinus · Ptolemy Augustine · Origen · Jakob Boehme Paracelsus · Johann Jakob Brucker Franz von Baader · Karl von Eckartshausen Louis Claude de Saint-Martin · Emanuel Swedenborg Vladimir Solovyov · Nikolai Berdyaev Henry Corbin · Mundus Imaginalis · Eranos Group · G. R. S. Mead Ralph Waldo Emerson · Henry David Thoreau Sergei Bulgakov · Wassily Kandinsky William Walker Atkinson · Florence Farr Carl Jung Related topics Esotericism · Western esotericism Gnosticism · Mysticism Occultism · Spiritualism · Neoplatonism and Gnosticism Transcendentalism Astrology · Alchemy · Emanationism Divinatory, esoteric and occult tarot  ·  ·  ·  ·  ·  · Modern Theosophy TS Founders Helena Blavatsky · Henry Steel Olcott William Quan Judge Theosophists Annie Besant · Robert Crosbie Abner Doubleday  · Geoffrey Hodson Archibald Keightley  · C. W. Leadbeater G. R. S. Mead  · Isabel Cooper-Oakley Subba Row  · William Scott-Elliot Alfred Percy Sinnett  · Brian Stonehouse Katherine Tingley  · Ernest Wood Theosophical philosophical concepts Theosophical mysticism  · Round · Seven rays · Root races Theosophical organizations Theosophical Society · TS Adyar TS Pasadena · Theosophical Society Point Loma - Blavatskyhouse TSA Hargrove · United Lodge of Theosophists Theosophical texts Isis Unveiled · Secret Doctrine Theosophical Masters Maitreya · Morya · Kuthumi Sanat Kumara · Paul the Venetian Serapis Bey · Master Hilarion Master Jesus · St. Germain Related topics Agni Yoga · Alice Bailey · Anthroposophy Ascended masters · Ascended Master Teachings Benjamin Creme · Esotericism Jiddu Krishnamurti · Liberal Catholic Church Living Ethics · Neo-Theosophy Order of the Star in the East Theosophy portal v t e Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (Russian: Еле на Петро вна Блава тская, Yelena Petrovna Blavatskaya; 12 August [O.S. 31 July] 1831 – 8 May 1891) was an occultist, spirit medium, and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She gained an international following as the leading theoretician of Theosophy, the esoteric movement that the Society promoted. Born into an aristocratic Russo-German family, Blavatsky traveled widely around the Russian Empire as a child. Largely self-educated, she developing an interest in Western esotericism during her teenage years. According to her later claims, in 1849 she embarked on a series of world travels, visiting Europe, the Americas, and India. She alleged that during this period she encountered a group of spiritual adepts, the "Masters of the Ancient Wisdom", who sent her to Shigatse, Tibet, where they trained her to develop her own psychic powers. Both contemporary critics and later biographers have argued that some or all of these foreign visits were fictitious, and that she spent this period in Europe. By the early 1870s, Blavatsky was involved in the Spiritualist movement; although defending the genuine existence of Spiritualist phenomena, she argued against the mainstream Spiritualist idea that the entities contacted were the spirits of the dead. Relocating to the United States in 1873, she befriended Henry Steel Olcott and rose to public attention as a spirit medium, attention that included public accusations of fraudulence. In New York City, Blavatsky co-founded the Theosophical Society with Olcott and William Quan Judge in September 1875. In 1877 she published Isis Unveiled, a book outlining her Theosophical world-view. Associating it closely with the esoteric doctrines of Hermeticism and Neoplatonism, Blavatsky described Theosophy as "the synthesis of science, religion and philosophy", proclaiming that it was reviving an "Ancient Wisdom" which underlay all the world's religions. In 1880 she and Olcott moved to India, where the Society was allied to Dayananda Saraswati's Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement. That same year, while in Ceylon she and Olcott became the first Euro-Americans to officially convert to Buddhism. Although opposed by the British administration, Theosophy spread rapidly in India, although experienced internal problems after Blavatsky was accused of producing fraudulent paranormal phenomena in the Coulomb Affair. Amid ailing health, in 1885 she returned to Europe, eventually settling in London, where she established the Blavatsky Lodge. Here she published The Secret Doctrine, a commentary on what she claimed were ancient Tibetan manuscripts, as well as t