Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky: Difference between revisions

                             Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

Born 1839 in Yekaterinoslav, Russia, a city in east central Ukraine on the Dnepier River to Peter von Hahn and Helena Andreyevna. Her father was in the military and her mother wrote novels that were centered on socially constricted Russian heroines, and was called the George Sand of Russia. Her mother died at an early age of twenty, Helena, only eleven years old went with her brother to live with her maternal grandmother, Helena Pavlovna de Fadeev who was a Princess of the Dolgorkuov family and famous botanist. Bothe her mother grandmother were strong role models that allowed H.P.B. to mature into a non-conformist as an adult, further allowing her to follow her unique spiritual path in life. Helena married the forty year old Nikifor (also Nicephor) V. Blavatsky at the age of seventeen, but they never consummated their marriage. Within a few months, she abandoned her husband.

She traveled the world from 1848 to 1858, claiming to have entered Tibet to study with the Masters for two years. She returned to Russia for a short stay in 1858 to soon leave with Italian opera singer Agardi Metrovich. 1871, a boat bound for Cairo an explosion claimed Agardi’s life, but H.P. Blavatsky continued on to Cairo herself. It was in Cairo that she formed the Societe Spirite for occult phenomena with Emma Cutting (later Emma Coulomb), which closed after dissatisfied customers complained of fraudulent activities.

It was in 1873 that she emigrated to New York. Impressing people with her psychic abilities she was spurred on to continue her mediumship. Throughout her career she claimed to be able to perform physical and mental psychic feats which included levitation, clairvoyance, out-of-body projection, telepathy, and clairaudience. Though she was apparently quite apt these feats, her interests were more in the area of theory and laws of how they work rather than performing them herself.

Helena met Colnel Henry Steel Olcott in 1874, he was a lawyer, agricultural expert, and journalist who covered the Spiritualist phenomena. September of 1875 the union of their life long friendship along with William Q. Judge, the Theosophical Society was formed. H.P. Blavatsky is well known for her writing, Isis Unveiled (1877), the Secret Doctrine (1888), The Key of Theosophy (1889), and The Voice of Silence (1889). By 1882 the Theosophical Society became an international organization and it was at this time that she moved the headquarters to Adyar near Madras India.

Suffering from heart disease, rheumatism, Bright’s disease of the Kidneys and complications of influenza, Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky died iat her home May 8, 1891. Her body was then cremated, one third of her ashes were sent to Europe, on third with William Judge to the United States, and one third to India where her ashes were scattered in the Ganges River. May 8 is celebrated by Theosophists, and it is called White Lotus Day.

--St Jack 09:53, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)