Witch's Den, A

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, often known as Madame Blavatsky, was born on 12th August 1831 into an aristocratic family in present day Dnipro in Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. She was the younger sister of the writer Vera Zhelikhovsky. Much of Blavatsky’s life story relies on her own memories which changed much during her lifetime and therefore parts of it are unreliable. What appears to be certain is that much of her life was lived first on family travels and postings and then on her journeys in an effort to further her own self-education and quest for knowledge. As a teenager she developed an interest in Western esotericism and from there she claimed many travels including a trip to India where 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 a deeper understanding of the synthesis of religion, philosophy, and science. By the early 1870s, Blavatsky was involved in the Spiritualist movement, which was then popular both in Britain and abroad, even though she argued against its main tenet that those ‘contacted’ were the spirits of the dead. She moved to the United States in 1873 and became close to the journalist Henry Steel Olcott who helped her gain public attention as a spirit medium and then also became an adherent to her principles. In 1875 in New York City she co-founded the Theosophical Society and two years later published ‘Isis Unveiled’, a book outlining her Theosophical world-view from its ancient roots to the modern day. Her work was even more popular in Asia than elsewhere and is said to have influenced both Ghandi and Nehru amongst many others. In 1880, she and Olcott moved to India, where the Society was allied to a Hindu reform movement. That same year she converted to Buddhism. However, she was often plagued with accusations of fraudulent paranormal phenomena. With her health failing she returned to London and published ‘The Secret Doctrine’, her commentary on claimed ancient Tibetan manuscripts, and other books. Helena Blavatsky died in London of influenza during the global pandemic on 8th May 1891. She was 59.