Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Russian-born American leader of the modern religiophilosophical
system known as Theosophy. Originally named Helena Hahn, she was born of
German parents in Ekaterinoslav (now Dnipropetrovs'k, Ukraine). At the
age of 16 she married a much older man but left him after a few months.
She spent the next 20 years traveling in Europe, Asia, and the United States,
later claiming to have studied for seven years under Hindu mahatmas (masters)
in the East.
After a narrow escape from drowning at sea,
she turned to spiritualism and claimed to possess psychic powers.
In 1873 Madame Blavatsky, as she was always
known, went to New York City. Within two years she was to become one of
the founders-and eventually the central figure-of the Theosophical Society,
a small but active international group of occultists who believed in reincarnation
as the necessary path to the ultimate, inevitable purification of humanity.
She became an American citizen, but in 1878 she established a new headquarters
in India. Soon she was faced with dissension, charges of chicanery and
plagiarism, and considerable notoriety. She maintained to the end of her
life, however, that the mahatmas had actually been able to pass on to her
their own uncommonly developed spiritual state.
Blavatsky's major works, Isis Unveiled (1877)
and The Secret Doctrine (1888), became the textbooks of the Theosophical
Society.
"Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna," Microsoft®
Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All
rights reserved.
Webmaster's Note: Please be advised that
Theosophy is neither "occultism" nor "Spiritualism," as this article purports.
You only need to read the work of HPB to understand that for yourself.
