Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831 - 1891) arrived in the West: 1873

Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, b. Russia, Aug. 12, 1831, d. May 8, 1891, was the principal founder of the Theosophical movement. The daughter of a German named Hahn, she was briefly married to one Nicephore Blavatsky. Traveling extensively in Asia, she met spiritual teachers who, she claimed, taught her the mysteries of the occult and chose her to spread the teachings of Theosophy. Taking citizenship in the United States, Blavatsky became an outspoken defender of Spiritualism, challenging both religious dogma and scientific materialism. The Theosophical movement that she and her collaborators founded (1875) in New York was organized to promote universal brotherhood; to study all great religions, philosophies, and sciences; and to investigate the unexplained laws of nature and the psychic powers of human beings.

Madame Blavatsky was far more important than the high-falutin' Boston brahmin Transcendentalists in bringing Eastern religion to the West.She was a free-wheeling, cigar smoking Russian emigré and occultist / spiritualist / plagiarist and created the Theosophical Society in 1975 with William Judge who provide the finances. Blavatsky supplied the chutzpah. Blavatsky wrote two massive unreadable tomes - Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine which claimed to reveal secret teachings from the East learnt from a secret cabal of deathless, immortal spirit adepts like Koot Hoomi. In a few decades the Society had gone international and had even set up branches in India. After her death the Society became enmeshed in infighting and splitting amongst it's top administrators. Annie Besant who was the next president dedicated herself to Indian independance and allowed the controversial occultist and homosexual paedophile, Charles William Leadbeater to dominate her.

The Society has never recovered from the controversies generated by the claim, begun by Leadbeater, that a young Indian boy Jiddu Krishnamurti was the manifestation of a new World Teacher. The Order of the Eastern Star was created to support him but Krishnamurti was wildly unsuitable for this role. His greatest achievements were his golf handicap of plus 2 and his dashing style in suits. In 1929 he withdrew from his Messianic role, dissolved the Order of the Eastern Star of which he was the raison dêtre and disassociated himself from the Theosophical Society shortly before he was going to be denounced by Leadbeater as coming under the power of the Dark Side. He read a speech: "Truth is a pathless land …" Krishnamurti returned most of the money and property bestowed upon him and retired to California until he realized he needed more money.

Bibliography:

• Cranston, Sylvia, The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Blavatsky (1992)
• Ryan, Charles J., H. P. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Movement (1978)
• Madame Blavatsky's Baboon
  A History of the Mystics, Mediums, and Misfits Who Brought Spiritualism to America
  Peter Washington
• ELDER BROTHER: A Biography of Charles Webster Leadbeater
  Gregory Tillett
  The evidence for Leadbeaters' homsexual paedophilia is collected and published

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