New age: Details about 'Blavatsky'
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Helena Petrovna Hahn (also Hélène) (July 31, 1831 (O.S.) (August 12, 1831 (N.S.)) - May 8, 1891 London), better known as Helena Blavatsky (Russian: Елена Блаватская) or Madame Blavatsky was the founder of the Theosophical Society.
BiographyEarly yearsShe was born in the house of her mother's parents in Ekaterinoslav (now Dnipropetrovsk), Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire). Her parents were Col. Peter Alexeivich von Hahn and Helena Andreyevna Fadeyeva. Her mother was a novelist, who, under the pen-name Zenaida R, wrote a dozen novels, and, by Belinsky, was called the "Russian George Sand". She died, at the age of 28, when Helena was eleven. Upon his wife's death, her father being in the armed forces, realized that army camps were unsuitable for little girls, and she was sent with her brother to live with her maternal grandparents, Andrey Fadeyev (at that time the Civil Governor of Saratov) and his wife Princess Helene Dolgoruki (see talk), of the Dolgorukov family and an amateur botanist. Both her mother and grandmother were strong role models that allowed her to mature into a nonconformist. She was cared for by servants who believed in the many superstitions of Old Russia and apparently encouraged her to believe she had supernatural powers at a very early age. Her grandparents living in feudal state, with never less than fifty servants. First marriageShe married three weeks before she turned seventeen, on July 7, 1848, to the forty-year old Nikifor (also Nicephor) Vassilievitch Blavatsky, vice-governor of Erivan. After three unhappy months, she took a horse, and escaped back over the mountains to her grandfather in Tiflis. Her grandfather shipped her off immediately to her father who was retired and living near Saint Petersburg. He travelled two thousand miles to meet her at Odessa, but she wasn't there. She had missed the steamer, and sailed away with the skipper of an English bark bound for Constantinople. According to her account, they never consummated their marriage, and she remained a virgin her entire life. (For a counter-claim, see the next section on Agardi Metrovitch.) Wandering yearsAccording to her own story as told to a later biographer, she spent the years 1848 to 1858 traveling the world, claiming to have visited Egypt, France, Quebec, England, South America, Germany, Mexico, India, Greece and especially Tibet to study for two years with the men she called Brothers. She returned to Russia in 1858 and went first to see her sister Vera, a young widow living in Rugodevo, which she had inherited from her husband. Agardi MetrovitchAbout this time, she met and left with Italian opera singer Agardi Metrovich. Some sources say that she had several extramarital affairs, became pregnant, and bore a deformed child, Yuri, whom she loved dearly. She wrote that Yuri was a child of her friends the Metrovitches (C.W.I p. xlvi-ii, HPB TO APS p. 147). To balance this statement, Count Witte her first-cousin (on her mother's side), stated in his Memoirs (as quoted by G Williams), that her father read aloud a letter in which Metrovich signed himself as "your affectionate grandson". So apparently Metrovich considered himself Helena's husband at this point. Yuri died at the age of five, and Helena said that she ceased to believe in the Russian Orthodox God at this point. Two different versions of how Agardi died are extant. In one, G Williams states that Agardi, in Ramleh, he had been taken sick to bed with a fever and delirium. And that he died April 19, 1870. In the second version, in 1871, on a boat, the 'Evmonia', 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. To New YorkIt was in 1873 that she emigrated to New York City. Impressing people with her psychic abilities she was spurred on to continue her mediumship. Throughout her career she was able to perform physical and mental psychic feats which included levitation, clairvoyance, out-of-body projection, telepathy, and clairaudience. One new feat of hers was materialization, that is, producing physical objects out of nothing. Though she was apparently quite adept at these feats, her interests were more in the area of theory and laws of how they work rather than performing them herself. In 1874 at the farm of the Eddy Brothers, Helena met Henry Steel Olcott, a lawyer, agricultural expert, and journalist who covered the Spiritualist phenomena. Soon they were living together in the "Lamasery" (alternate spelling: "Lamastery") where her work Isis Unveiled was created. She married her second husband, Michael C. Betanelly on April 3, 1875 in New York City. She maintained that this marriage was not consummated either. She separated from Betanelly after a few months, and their divorce was legalized on May 25, 1878. On July 8, 1878, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Founds TSWhile living in New York City, she founded the Theosophical Society in September 1875, with Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge and others. The Society was a modern day Gnostic movement of the late nineteenth century that took its inspiration from Hinduism and Buddhism. Madame Blavatsky claimed that all religions were both true in their inner teachings and false or imperfect in their external conventional manifestations. Imperfect men attempting to translate the divine knowledge had corrupted it in the translation. Her claim that esoteric spiritual knowledge is consistent with new science may be considered to be the first instance of what is now called New Age thinking. In fact, many researchers feel that much of New Age thought started with Blavatsky. To IndiaBy 1882 the Theosophical Society became an international organization, and it was at this time that she moved the headquarters to Adyar near Madras, India. DeathHer last words in regard to her work were: "Keep the link unbroken! Do not let my last incarnation be a failure." Suffering from heart disease, rheumatism, Bright's disease of the kidneys, and complications from influenza, Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky died at her home May 8, 1891. Her body was then cremated; one third of her ashes were sent to Europe, one third with William Quan 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. She was succeeded as head of one branch of the Theosophical Society, by her protege, Annie Besant. Her friend, WQ Judge, headed the other branch. InfluencesBlavatsky was influenced by the following authors:
Blavatsky influenced the following authors, artists and musicians:
WorksHer books included
Her many articles have been collected in the H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings. This series has 15 numbered volumes including the index. Books about her
QuotationsThere is no religion higher than truth. "There is often greater martyrdom to live for the love of, whether man or an ideal, than to die" is a motto of the Mahatmas. (C.W. IV, p. 603) Nothing of that which is conducive to help man, collectively or individually, to live—not “happily”—but less unhappily in this world, ought to be indifferent to the Theosophist-Occultist. It is no concern of his whether his help benefits a man in his worldly or spiritual progress; his first duty is to be ever ready to help if he can, without stopping to philosophize. (Collected Writings VOLUME XI, p. 465, October, 1889) I speak “with absolute certainty” only so far as my own personal belief is concerned. Those who have not the same warrant for their belief as I have, would be very credulous and foolish to accept it on blind faith. Nor does the writer believe any more than her correspondent and his friends in any “authority” let alone "divine revelation"! (Collected Writings VOLUME XI, p. 466, October, 1889) I am an old Buddhist pilgrim, wandering about the world to teach the only true religion, which is truth.
Helena Petrovna Blavatská Helena Petrovna Blavatsky Helena Blavatsky Helena Blavatsky Helena Petrovna Blavatsky ブラヴァツキー夫人 Helena Bławatska Helena Petrovna Blavatsky Блаватская, Елена Петровна Helena Petrovna Blavatská H. P. Blavatsky Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
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