Helena Petrovna “Madame”
Blavatsky 1831-1891
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was born on August
12, 1831, at Dnepropetrovsk (Ekaterinoslav), Ukraine, daughter of Colonel Peter
Alexeyevich von Hahn and novelist Helena Andreyevna (née de Fadeyev). In 1849
she married N. V. Blavatsky, and shortly thereafter began more than 20 years of
extensive travel, bringing her into contact with mystic traditions the world
over. In 1873 Blavatsky arrived in New
York from Paris where, impelled by her teachers, she began her work. At first
she attempted to interest the Spiritualists in the philosophy behind phenomena
but they resented her refusal to accept their standard explanations. In July
1875 she was urged "to establish a philosophico-religious society,"
and in the Fall of the same year she became the principal founder, along with
H. S. Olcott and W. Q. Judge, of The Theosophical Society. She devoted the rest
of her life to its humanitarian and educational objectives. About the time the Society began, she
started to write her first major work, Isis Unveiled, and after its publication
in 1878 she and H. S. Olcott left for India. There they worked to re-establish
Oriental philosophical and religious ideas, largely through the pages of The
Theosophist, a magazine which Blavatsky founded and edited. In 1884, while Blavatsky was traveling in
Europe, disgruntled TS employees in India went to the missionaries with forged
documents, bringing charges of fraud against her. The Society for Psychical
Research (SPR) then sent Richard Hodgson to investigate the charges, and subsequently
published an unfavorable report. (In 1986 the SPR published an analysis of the
Hodgson Report by Dr. Vernon Harrison, an SPR member expert in forgery and
handwriting analysis, who concluded that the Hodgson Report was biased,
unscientific, and completely unconvincing.)
Under the strain, Blavatsky's health had broken down, and in 1885 she
left India for Europe, where she continued to write The Secret Doctrine, her
masterwork. In 1887 she settled in London, and began a new magazine Lucifer
("Light-bringer"). In 1888 The Secret Doctrine was published and, in
the same year, aided by W. Q. Judge, she formed the Esoteric Section of The
Theosophical Society. Shortly afterwards she wrote The Key to Theosophy and The
Voice of the Silence. In 1890 she became head of a newly-established European
Section. She died in London on May 8, 1891 after many years of chronic illness.1
1. Taken from the
Theosophical Society “H.P. Blavatsky” at http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/ts/bio-hpb.htm
“We
are at the close of the cycle of 5,000 years of the present Aryan Kali Yuga or
dark age. This will be succeeded by an age of light. Even now under our very
eyes, the new Race or Races are preparing to be formed, and that is in America
that the transformation will take place, and has already silently commenced.
This Race will be altered in mentality and will move toward a more perfect
spiritual existence. That the periodical sinking and reappearance of mighty
continents, now called Atlantean and Lemurian by modern writers, is not fiction
will be demonstrated. It is only in the 20th century that portions, if not the
whole, of the present work will be vindicated. “
demonstrated.
It is only in the 20th century that portions, if not the whole, of the present
work will be vindicated.
“A
world destruction as happened to Atlantis 11,000 years ago, will occur. Instead
of Atlantis, all of England and parts of NW European coast will sink into the
sea, in contrast, the sunken Azores region, the Isle of Poseidonis, will again
be raised from the sea. “