Embracing Spiritualism and establishing Theosophy: 1870–1878 Arriving in New York City Blavatsky alleged that she departed Tibet with the mission of proving to the world that the phenomena identified by
Spiritualists were objectively real, thus defending Spiritualism against accusations of fraud. However, she also stated that the entities being contacted by Spiritualist mediums were not the spirits of the dead, as the Spiritualist movement typically alleged, but instead either mischievous
elementals or the "shells" left behind by the deceased. She proceeded via the
Suez Canal to Greece, where she met with another of the Masters,
Master Hilarion. She set sail for Egypt aboard the , but in July 1871 it exploded during the journey; Blavatsky was one of only 16 survivors. Reaching Cairo, she met up with Metamon, and with the help of a woman named Emma Cutting established a
société spirite, which was based largely on
Spiritism, a form of Spiritualism founded by
Allan Kardec which professed a belief in
reincarnation, in contrast to the mainstream Spiritualist movement. However, Blavatsky believed that Cutting and many of the mediums employed by the society were fraudulent, and she closed it down after two weeks. In Cairo, she also met with the Egyptologist
Gaston Maspero, and another of the Masters, Serapis Bey. It was also here that she met up with Metrovitch, although he soon died of
typhoid, with Blavatsky claiming to have overseen the funeral. Leaving Egypt, she proceeded to Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon, there encountering members of the
Druze religion. It was during these travels that she met with the writer and traveler Lidia Pashkova, who provided independent verification of Blavatsky's travels during this period. In July 1872 she returned to her family in Odessa, before departing in April 1873. She spent time in
Bucharest and Paris, beforeaccording to her later claimsMorya instructed her to go to the United States. Blavatsky arrived in New York City on 8 July 1873. There, she moved into a women's housing cooperative on
Madison Street in
Manhattan's
Lower East Side, earning a wage through piece work sewing and designing advertising cards. It was here that she attracted attention, and was interviewed by the journalist Anna Ballard of the New York newspaper
The Sun; this interview was the earliest textual source in which Blavatsky claimed to have spent time in Tibet. Indeed, it was while in New York that "detailed records" of Blavatsky's life again become available to historians. Soon after, Blavatsky received news of her father's death, thus inheriting a considerable fortune, allowing her to move into a lavish hotel. In December 1874, Blavatsky met the
Georgian Mikheil Betaneli. Infatuated with her, he repeatedly requested that they marry, to which she ultimately relented; this constituted
bigamy, as her first husband was still alive. However, as she refused to consummate the marriage, Betaneli sued for divorce and returned to Georgia.
Meeting Henry Steel Olcott and the foundation of the Theosophical Society Blavatsky was intrigued by a news story about
William and Horatio Eddy, brothers based in
Chittenden, Vermont, who it was claimed could
levitate and manifest spiritual phenomena. She visited Chittenden in October 1874, there meeting the reporter Henry Steel Olcott, who was investigating the brothers' claims for the
Daily Graphic. Claiming that Blavatsky impressed him with her own ability to manifest spirit phenomena, Olcott authored a newspaper article on her. They soon became close friends, giving each other the nicknames of "Maloney" (Olcott) and "Jack" (Blavatsky). He helped attract greater attention to Blavatsky's claims, encouraging the Daily Graphic's editor to publish an interview with her, and discussing her in his book on Spiritualism,
People from the Other World (1875), which her Russian correspondent
Alexandr Aksakov urged her to translate into Russian. She began to instruct Olcott in her own occult beliefs, and encouraged by her he became celibate, tee-totaling, and vegetarian, although she herself was unable to commit to the latter. In January 1875 the duo visited the Spiritualist mediums Nelson and Jennie Owen in
Philadelphia; the Owens asked Olcott to test them to prove that the phenomena that they produced were not fraudulent, and while Olcott believed them, Blavatsky opined that they faked some of their phenomena in those instances when genuine phenomena failed to manifest. Drumming up interest for their ideas, Blavatsky and Olcott published a circular letter in Eldridge Gerry Brown's
Boston-based Spiritualist publication,
The Spiritual Scientist. There, they named themselves the "Brotherhood of Luxor", a name potentially inspired by the pre-existing
Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. They began living together in a series of rented apartments in New York City, which they decorated with
taxidermied animals and images of spiritual figures; their life was funded largely by Olcott's continued work as a lawyer. Their last such apartment came to be known as the Lamasery. Allegedly encouraged by the Masters, Blavatsky and Olcott established the Miracle Club, through which they facilitated lectures on esoteric themes in New York City. It was through this group that they met an Irish Spiritualist,
William Quan Judge, who shared many of their interests. At a Miracle Club meeting on 7 September 1875, Blavatsky, Olcott, and Judge agreed to establish an esoteric organization, with Charles Sotheran suggesting that they call it the
Theosophical Society. The term
theosophy came from the Greek
theos ("god(s)") and
sophia ("wisdom"), thus meaning "god-wisdom" or "divine wisdom". The term was not new, but had been previously used in various contexts by the
Philaletheians and the Christian mystic,
Jakob Böhme. Theosophists would often argue over how to define Theosophy, with Judge expressing the view that the task was impossible. Blavatsky however insisted that Theosophy was not a religion in itself. Lachman has described the movement as "a very wide umbrella, under which quite a few things could find a place". On foundation, Olcott was appointed chairman, with Judge as secretary, and Blavatsky as corresponding secretary, although she remained the group's primary theoretician and leading figure. Prominent early members included
Emma Hardinge Britten, Signor Bruzzesi,
C.C. Massey, and
William L. Alden; many were prominent and successful members of the establishment, although not all would remain members for long.
Isis Unveiled In 1875, Blavatsky began work on a book outlining her Theosophical worldview, much of which would be written during a stay in the
Ithaca home of
Hiram Corson, a Professor of English Literature at
Cornell University. Although she had hoped to call it
The Veil of Isis, it would be published as
Isis Unveiled. While writing it, Blavatsky claimed to be aware of a second consciousness within her body, referring to it as "the lodger who is in me", and stating that it was this second consciousness that inspired much of the writing. In
Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky quoted extensively from other esoteric and religious texts, although her contemporary and colleague Olcott always maintained that she had quoted from books that she did not have access to. Writing more than a century after her death Lachman conjectured that if this had been the case, then she had had an
eidetic memory, such that, while relying on earlier sources, the book represented an original synthesis that connected disparate ideas not brought together before. Revolving around Blavatsky's idea that all the world's religions stemmed from a single "Ancient Wisdom", which she connected to the Western esotericism of ancient
Hermeticism and
Neoplatonism, it also articulated her thoughts on Spiritualism, and provided a criticism of
Darwinian evolution, stating that it dealt only with the physical world and ignored the spiritual realms. The book was edited by Professor of Philosophy Alexander Wilder and published in two volumes by J.W. Bouton in 1877. Although facing negative mainstream press reviews, including from those who highlighted that it extensively quoted around 100 other books without acknowledgement, it proved to be such a commercial success, with its initial print run of 1,000 copies selling out in a week, that the publisher requested a sequel, although Blavatsky turned down the offer. While
Isis Unveiled was a success, the Society remained largely inactive, having fallen into this state in autumn 1876. This was despite the fact that new lodges of the organization had been established throughout the U.S. and in London, and prominent figures like
Thomas Edison and
Abner Doubleday had joined. In July 1878, Blavatsky gained U.S. citizenship.
India: 1879–1885 The Theosophical Society established links with an Indian
Hindu reform movement, the
Arya Samaj, which had been founded by the Swami
Dayananda Saraswati; Blavatsky and Olcott believed that the two organizations shared a common spiritual world-view. Unhappy with life in the U.S., Blavatsky decided to move to India, with Olcott agreeing to join her, securing work as a U.S. trade representative to the country. In December, the duo auctioned off many of their possessions, although Edison gifted them a
phonograph to take with them to India. They left New York City aboard the
Canada, which took them to London. After meeting with well-wishers in the capital, they traveled to
Liverpool, there setting sail aboard the
Speke Hall, arriving in Bombay in February 1879. In the city, they were greeted with celebrations organized by Arya Samaj member Hurrychund Chintamon before obtaining a house in Girgaum Road, part of Bombay's native area. Associating largely with Indians rather than the governing British elite, Blavatsky took a fifteen-year-old
Gujarati boy, Vallah "Babula" Bulla, as her personal servant. Many educated Indians were impressed with the Theosophists championing of Indian religions, coming about during a period "of [India's] growing self-assertion against the values and beliefs" of the
British Empire. Her activity in the city was monitored by British intelligence services, who suspected that she was working for Russia. In April, Blavatsky took Olcott, Babula, and their friend Moolji Thackersey to the
Karla Caves, announcing that they contained secret passages that led to an underground place where the Masters assembled. Then claiming that the Masters were telepathically commanding her to head to
Rajputana in the
Punjab, she and Olcott headed north. At the
Yamuna river, they met the
sannyasin Babu Surdass, who had sat in the
lotus position for 52 years, and in
Agra saw the
Taj Mahal. In
Saharanpur they met with Dayananda and his Arya Samajists, before returning to Bombay. In July 1879, Blavatsky and Olcott began work on a monthly magazine,
The Theosophist, with the first issue coming out in October. The magazine soon obtained a large readership, with the management being taken over by
Damodar K. Mavalankar, a Theosophist who introduced the idea of referring to the Masters as
mahatmas. In December, Blavatsky and Olcott traveled to
Allahabad, there visiting
Alfred Percy Sinnett, the editor of
The Pioneer and keen Spiritualist.
A.O. Hume was also a guest at the Sinnett's home, and Blavatsky was encouraged to manifest paranormal phenomena in their presence. From there, they traveled to
Benares, where they stayed at the palace of the
Maharaja of Vizianagram. Blavatsky and Olcott were then invited to Ceylon by Buddhist monks. There they officially converted to Buddhism – apparently the first from the United States to do so. – taking the
Five Precepts in a ceremony at Ramayana Nikayana in May 1880. Touring the island, they were met by crowds intrigued by these unusual Westerners who embraced Buddhism rather than proselytizing Christianity. Their message proved a boost to Sinhalese nationalist self-esteem, and they were invited to see the
Buddha's Tooth in
Kandy. Upon learning that old comrade Emma Coulomb (née Cutting) and her husband had fallen into poverty in Ceylon, Blavatsky invited them to move into her home in Bombay. However, the Coulombs annoyed Rosa Bates and Edward Winbridge, two American Theosophists who were also living with Blavatsky; when Blavatsky took the side of the Coulombs, Bates and Winbridge returned to the U.S. Blavatsky was then invited to
Simla to spend more time with Sinnett, and there performed a range of materializations that astounded the other guests; in one instance, she allegedly made a cup-and-saucer materialize under the soil during a picnic. Sinnett was eager to contact the Masters himself, convincing Blavatsky to facilitate this communication, resulting in the production of over 1400 pages allegedly authored by Koot Hoomi and Morya, which came to be known as the
Mahatma Letters. Sinnett summarized the teachings contained in these letters in his book
Esoteric Buddhism (1883), although scholars of Buddhism like
Max Müller publicly highlighted that the contents were not Buddhist, and Blavatsky herself disliked the misleading title. Since the book's publication, there has been much debate as to the authenticity of the letters, with some arguing that they were written by Blavatsky herself, and others believing that they were written by separate individuals. According to Meade, "there can be no reasonable doubt that Helena was their author". Theosophy was unpopular with both Christian missionaries and the British colonial administration, with India's English-language press being almost uniformly negative toward the Society. The group nevertheless proved popular, and branches were established across the country. While Blavatsky had emphasized its growth among the native Indian population rather than among the British elite, she moved into a comfortable bungalow in the elite Bombay suburb of
Breach Candy, which she said was more accessible to Western visitors. Olcott had decided to establish the Buddhist Education Fund to combat the spread of the Christian faith in Ceylon and encourage pride and interest in Buddhism among the island's Sinhalese population. Although Blavatsky initially opposed the idea, stating that the Masters would not approve, Olcott's project proved a success, and she changed her opinion about it. (seated to his left), Bombay, 1881 Blavatsky had been diagnosed with
Bright's disease and hoping the weather to be more conducive to her condition she took up the offer of the Society's
Madras Branch to move to their city. However, in November 1882 the Society purchased an estate in
Adyar, which became their permanent headquarters; a few rooms were set aside for Blavatsky, who moved into them in December. She continued to tour the subcontinent, claiming that she then spent time in
Sikkim and Tibet, where she visited her teacher's ashram for several days. With her health deteriorating, she agreed to accompany Olcott on his trip to Britain, where he was planning to argue the case for Ceylonese Buddhism and sort out problems with the Society's London Lodge. Sailing to
Marseille, France, in March 1883, she spent time in
Nice with the founder of the Theosophical Society's French branch,
Marie Sinclair, Countess of Caithness (widow of
James Sinclair, 14th Earl of Caithness), with whom she continued to Paris. In London, she appeared at the lodge's meeting, where she sought to quell arguments between Sinnett on the one hand and
Anna Kingsford and
Edward Maitland on the other. Unsatisfied, Kingsfordwhom Blavatsky thought "an unbearable snobbish woman"split from the Theosophical Society to form the Hermetic Society. In London, Blavatsky made contact with the
Society for Psychical Research (SPR) through
Frederic W. H. Myers. She complied with their request to undertake a study of her and the paranormal abilities that she claimed to possess, although wasn't impressed by the organization and mockingly referred to it as the "Spookical Research Society". With Blavatsky in Europe, trouble broke out at the society's Adyar headquarters in what became known as the
Coulomb Affair. The society's Board of Control had accused Emma Coulomb of misappropriating their funds for her own purposes, and asked her to leave their center. She and her husband refused,
blackmailing the society with letters that they claimed were written by Blavatsky and which proved that her paranormal abilities were fraudulent. The society refused to pay them and expelled them from their premises, at which the couple turned to the Madras-based
Christian College Magazine, who published an exposé of Blavatsky's alleged fraudulence using the Coulombs' claims as a basis. The story attracted international attention and was picked up by London-based newspaper,
The Times. In response, in November 1884 Blavatsky headed to Cairo, where she and Theosophist
Charles Webster Leadbeater searched for negative information on Emma Coulomb, discovering stories of her alleged former history of extortion and criminality. Internally, the Society was greatly damaged by the Coulomb Affair, although it remained popular in India, as did Blavatsky herself.
Final years in Europe: 1885–1891 ) Worsening health led Blavatsky to contemplate a return to the milder climate of Europe, and resigning her position as corresponding secretary of the society, she left India in March 1885. By 1885, the Theosophical Society had experienced rapid growth, with 121 lodges having been chartered across the world, 106 of which were located in India, Burma, and Ceylon. Initially, each lodge was chartered directly from the Adyar headquarters, with members making democratic decisions by vote. However, over the coming years the lodges were organized into national units with their own ruling councils, resulting in tensions between the different levels of administration. Settling in
Naples, Italy, in April 1885, she began living off of a small Society pension and continued working on her next book,
The Secret Doctrine. She then moved to
Würzburg in the
Kingdom of Bavaria, where she was visited by a Swedish Theosophist, the Countess
Constance Wachtmeister, who became her constant companion throughout the rest of her life. In December 1885, the SPR published
their report on Blavatsky and her alleged phenomena, authored by
Richard Hodgson. In his report, Hodgson accused Blavatsky of being a spy for the Russian government, further accusing her of faking paranormal phenomena, largely on the basis of the Coulomb's claims. The report caused much tension within the Society, with a number of Blavatsky's followersamong them Babaji and
Subba Rowdenouncing her and resigning from the organization on the basis of it. Blavatsky wanted to sue her accusers, although Olcott advised against it, believing that the surrounding publicity would damage the Society. In private letters, Blavatsky expressed relief that the criticism was focused on her and that the identity of the Masters had not been publicly exposed. For decades after, Theosophists criticized Hodgson's methodology, arguing that he set out to disprove and attack Blavatsky rather than conduct an unbiased analysis of her claims and abilities. In 1986 the SPR admitted this to be the case and retracted the findings of the report. However, Johnson has commented "Theosophists have overinterpreted this as complete vindication, when in fact many questions raised by Hodgson remain unanswered." In 1886, by which time she was using a
wheelchair, Blavatsky moved to
Ostend in Belgium, where she was visited by Theosophists from across Europe. Among them was the doctor
William Ashton Ellis, who treated her during a near-fatal illness in March 1887; Blavatsky credited him with saving her life. Supplementing her pension, she established a small ink-producing business. She received messages from members of the Society's London Lodge who were dissatisfied with Sinnett's running of it; they believed that he was focusing on attaining upper-class support rather than encouraging the promotion of Theosophy throughout society, a criticism Blavatsky agreed with. She arrived in London in May 1887, initially staying in the
Upper Norwood home of Theosophist
Mabel Collins. In September, she moved into the
Holland Park home of fellow Theosophists,
Bertram Keightley and his nephew
Archibald Keightley. In London, she established the
Blavatsky Lodge as a rival to that run by Sinnett, draining much of its membership. Lodge meetings were held at the Keightleys' house on Thursday nights, with Blavatsky also greeting many visitors there, among them the occultist and poet
W. B. Yeats. In November 1889 she was visited by the Indian lawyer
Mohandas Gandhi, who was studying the
Bhagavad Gita with the Knightleys. He became an associate member of Blavatsky's Lodge in March 1891, and would emphasize the close connection between Theosophy and Hinduism throughout his life. In 1888, Blavatsky established the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society, a group under her complete control. Admittance was restricted to those who had passed certain tests. She identified it as a place for "true Theosophists" who would focus on the system's philosophy rather than experiment with producing paranormal phenomena.
Publishing In London, Blavatsky founded a magazine, controversially titling it
Lucifer; in this Theosophical publication she sought to completely ignore claims regarding paranormal phenomena, and focus instead on a discussion of philosophical ideas. Blavatsky also finished writing
The Secret Doctrine, which was then edited by the Keightleys. As a commercial publisher willing to publish the approximately 1,500-page work could not be found, Blavatsky established the Theosophical Publishing Company, who brought out the work in two volumes, the first published in October 1888 and the second in January 1889. Blavatsky claimed that the book constituted her commentary on the
Book of Dzyan, a religious text written in Senzar, which she had been taught while studying in Tibet. Buddhologist
David Reigle claimed that he identified
Books of Kiu-te, including Blavatsky's
Book of Dzyan as a first volume, as the
Tantra section of the
Tibetan Buddhist canon. However, most scholars of Buddhism who have examined
The Secret Doctrine have concluded that there was no such text as the
Book of Dzyan, and that it was instead merely Blavatsky's invention. In the book, Blavatsky outlined her own
cosmogonical ideas about how the universe, the planets, and the human species came to exist. She also discussed her views about human beings, the human soul, and issues relating to an afterlife. == Annie Besant ==