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Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

1831 – 1891

 

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H P Blavatsky’s Life

In More Detail


1831 - Madame Blavatsky born, at Ekaterinoslav, Russia at midnight between 30 and 31 July. Daughter of Col. Peter Von Hahn and Helena Andreyevna, née de Fadeyev, renowned novelist who died at only 29 years old. Granddaughter on maternal side of Privy Councillor Andrey de Fadeyev and Princess Helena Pavlovna Dolgorukov, who survived her education at Saratov and Tiflis, Caucasus. Endowed from childhood with remarkable psychic powers and talented pianist. 

 

1849- She married General Blavatsky, a very elderly man, from whom she soon separated. 

 

1849-50 Left him and traveled in Turkey, Greece, Egypt, and France. She studied magic in Egypt with an aged Copt and joined 'The Druses of Lebanon,' a secret society

 

1851 - Met her Master in London. When walking with her father, she saw a tall and stately Rajput whom she recognized as a Protector known in her visions from childhood. He spoke to her of a future work she was to do under His direction after preparation in the East.

 

1852 - Embarked for Canada late in the year, went to New Orleans, Mexico, South America, West Indies, thence via the Cape and Ceylon to India.

 

1853 - Attempted but failed to enter Tibet. Returned to England via Java.

 

1854 - Came to America again, crossing the Rockies with a caravan of immigrants. May have visited South America again.

 

1855 - Left for India late in the year, via Japan and the Straits (Malaya).

 

1856-57 - Traveled thought India, Kashmir, Ladakh, parts of Tibet, Burma.

 

1858 - Returned to Europe via Java, staying in France and Germany. Then returned to Russia reaching Pskov on Christmas night.

 

1860 - Left for the Caucasus early in the year, where she traveled among the native tribes, remaining there until 1864-65. Experienced several physical and psychic crisis acquiring complete control over her occult powers.

 

1866-67 Left Russia again and traveled extensive in Balkans, Egypt, Syria, Italy. Returned to Italy in 1867 and paid a short visit to Southern Russia. Blavatsky also was with Garibaldi at the battle of Mentana and 'was picked out of a ditch for dead with her left arm broken in two places, musket balls embedded in right shoulder and leg, and a stiletto wound in the heart.

 

1868 - Went to India and Tibet with her Master.

 

1870 - Returned to Greece.

 

1871 - Embarked for Egypt and was shipwrecked near the Island of Spetsai, July 4. 1871-72 Settled in Cairo, she made an unsuccessful attempt to found a spiritual society upon the basis of phenomena. Then as 'Madame Laura,' she did concert tours in Italy and Russia. Traveled to Syria, Palestine, Lebanon in 1872, returning for a short time to Odessa.

 

1873- After brief travels in Eastern Europe, went to Paris where she lived with her brother, painting and writing (in addition to her other accomplishments she was a fine artist and a very clever caricaturist). Whilst in Paris on her Masters orders she left to New York, landing July 7. She was in New York, without personal funds, having exchanged her first class passage to steerage class (the cheapest) in order to buy steerage class for a poor woman and children who had been swindled. Although she had in her trunk 23,000 francs entrusted to her by her Master, she earned her living by working for a maker of cravats. Still acting under orders she finally took the money to the town of Buffalo and gave it to an unknown man just in time to prevent him from committing suicide. An unsuccessful business venture in a Long Island Farm, used up the 1,000 Ruble legacy she had received on the death of her father.

 

1874 - She was ordered to go to the Eddy homestead in Chittenden. This was the scene of various occult phenomena being investigated by Colonel H.S. Olcott.

 

1875- September 8, founded the Theosophical Society, together with Col. Olcott, William Q. Judge and others. Inaugural address of Col. Olcott delivered November 17.

 

The Theosophical Society gets off the Ground

 

1877 - Published her first great work, Isis Unveiled, in the autumn. Her magnificent attack upon the materialism of religion and science. She sent the first proceeds together with money received for her various articles published by Russian newspapers and journals, to the Red Cross in Russia to help her compatriots wounded in the Russo-Turkish war.

 

1878 - 1878 - She became an American citizen. Later that year, acting 'under orders,' she and Olcott sailed for India; they landed in Bombay in February 1879.

 

1879- Launched her first magazine, The Theosophist, in October, which resulted in rapid growth of Theosophical work in India, 1879-83.

 

1880 - Blavatsky and Olcott the two founders of the Theosophical Society toured Sri Lanka on behalf of Buddhism

 

1881 - Blavatsky and Olcott converted themselves to the Buddhism

 

1882 - The headquarters of the Society was moved to its present site in Adyar, Madras. She made various tours of India between her arrival in 1879 and her visit to Europe in 1884. In the absence of the Founders, came the one sided report of the Society for Psychical Research, in an attempt to show her up as an impostor. Since then, the S.P.R. has retracted the allegations against her. Despite the intervention of her Master to restore her health, it deteriorated and she was unable to remain at Adyar for more than a short visit paid later that year.

 

1884 - Left for Europe, February, 20, accompanied by Col. Olcott and others. After visiting Nice, settled for a while in Paris to work on the Secret Doctrine. Briefly visited London. Moved to Elberfeld, Germany, in the autumn. Went to London in October and soon after sailed to India, reaching Adyar December 21.

 

1885- Gravely ill, she sailed to Naples March 31, leaving India for good. After a brief stay at Torre del Greco, settled at Wurzburg, Germany, where she wrote a large part of The Secret Doctrine.

 

1886 - Moved to Ostende in July, visiting Elberfeld on her way.

 

1887 - Transferred her residence to London in May, where the Blavatsky Lodge was established, and her second magazine, Lucifer, was launched in September.

 

1888 - Published the first two volumes of the Secret Doctrine, late autumn. Founded the Esoteric School.

 

1889 - Published the key to Theosophy and the Voice of the Silence.

 

Voice of the Silence

 

The Key To Theosophy

 

1890 - Established European Headquarters of the Theosophical Society, at 19 Avenue Road, London, where she died.

 

1891- She passed away in London. Her ashes were divided between New York, India, and London, and part of it is interred under her statue in Adyar.

In her will she requested that each year, on the anniversary of her death, her friends should assemble and read from The Light of Asia and the Bhagavad Gita. By Colonel Olcott's wish, this anniversary came to be known as 'White Lotus Day.' Colonel Olcott summed up the secret of H.P.B.'s remarkable power in producing swift changes in the lives of those about her as due to: Her amazing occult knowledge and phenomena-working powers, together with her relation to the hidden Masters. Her sparkling talents, especially as a conversationalist with her social accomplishments, wide travels, and extraordinary adventures. Her insight into problems of philology, racial origins, fundamental bases of religions, and keys to old mysteries and symbols. Unflinching self-consecration to the Great Ones irradiated the life of H.P.B. and she will ever be known as the 'Light-Bringer' of the Nineteenth Century.

 

 

H P Blavatsky Brief Life Chronology

 

H P Blavatsky and The Masters

Her Teachers Morya & Koot Hoomi

 

 

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The All Wales

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Life & Work of H P Blavatsky

 

Theosophy in Cardiff

 

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Classic Introductory Theosophy Text

A Text Book of Theosophy By C W Leadbeater

 

 

What Theosophy Is  From the Absolute to Man

 

The Formation of a Solar System  The Evolution of Life

 

The Constitution of Man  After Death  Reincarnation

 

The Purpose of Life  The Planetary Chains

 

The Result of Theosophical Study

 

 

 

An Outline of Theosophy

Charles Webster Leadbeater

 

Theosophy - What it is    How is it Known?

 

The Method of Observation   General Principles

 

The Three Great Truths  

 

Advantage Gained from this Knowledge

 

The Deity  The Divine Scheme  The Constitution of Man

 

The True Man   Reincarnation   The Wider Outlook

 

Death   Man’s Past and Future   Cause and Effect

 

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The Occult World

By

Alfred Percy Sinnett

 

The Occult World is an treatise on the

Occult and Occult Phenomena, presented

 in readable style, by an early giant of

the Theosophical Movement.

 

Preface to the American Edition  Introduction

 

Occultism and its Adepts   The Theosophical Society

 

First Occult Experiences   Teachings of Occult Philosophy

 

Later Occult Phenomena   Appendix

 

 

 

 

Theosophy Sidmouth

Sidmouth, Devon, England

 

Theosophy Birmingham (England)

The Birmingham Annie Besant Lodge

 

 

 

 

 

The Blavatsky Blogger’s

Instant Guide To

Death & The Afterlife

 

Blavatsky Calling

The Voice of the Silence Website

 

The Key to Theosophy

 

The Blavatsky Free State

An Independent Theosophical Republic

Links to Free Online Theosophy 

Study Resources; Courses, Writings, 

Commentaries, Forums, Blogs

 

Annie Besant

Autobiography

 

Autobiography of a Yogi

Paramhansa Yogananda

 

Feelgood Theosophy

Visit the Feelgood Lodge

 

Theosophy

The New Rock ‘n Roll

 

 

 

 

 

Quotes from the Writings of

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

That which is to be shunned is pain not yet come. The past cannot be changed or amended; that which belongs to the experience of the present cannot and should  not be shunned; but alike to be shunned are disturbing anticipations or fears of  the future, and every act or impulse that may cause present or future pain to ourselves or others.

Practical Occultism, Page 87

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Perfection, to be fully such, must be born out of imperfection, the incorruptible must grow out of the corruptible, having the latter as its vehicle and basis and contrast

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 100

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

It is only by the attractive force of the contrasts that the two opposites — Spirit and Matter — can be cemented together on Earth, and, smelted in the fire of self-conscious experience and suffering, find themselves wedded in Eternity.

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 108

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Strength to step forward is the primary need of him who has chosen his path. Where is this to be found? Looking round, it is not hard to see where other men find their strength. Its source is profound conviction.

Practical Occultism, Page 67

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

It is the motive, and the motive alone, which makes any exercise of power become black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic. It is impossible to employ spiritual forces if there is the slightest tinge of selfishness remaining in the operator .... The powers and forces of animal nature can equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as by the unselfish and the all-forgiving; the powers and forces of spirit lend themselves only to the perfectly pure in heart — and this is Divine Magic.

Practical Occultism, Page 7

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Finite reason agrees with science, and says: “There is no God”. But, on the other hand, our Ego, that which lives and thinks and feels independently of us in our mortal casket, does more than believe. It knows that there exists a God in nature, for the sole and invincible Artificer of all lives in us as we live in Him. No dogmatic faith or exact science is able to uproot that intuitional feeling inherent in man, when he has once fully realised it in himself.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, Page 36

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

It may be a pleasant dream to attempt to conceive of the beauties of the spirit world; but the time can be spent more profitably in a study of the spirit itself, and it is not necessary that the subject for study should be in the spirit world.

Modern Panarion Page 70

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Physical existence is subservient to the spiritual, and all physical improvement and progress are only the auxiliaries of spiritual progress, without which there could be no physical progress.

Modern Panarion Page 78

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Mankind — the majority at any rate — hates to think for itself. It resents as an insult the humblest invitation to step for a moment outside the old well-beaten tracks and, judging for itself, to enter into a new path in some fresh direction.

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 3, Page 14

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Even ignorance is better than Head-learning with no Soul-wisdom to illuminate and guide it.

The Voice of the Silence, Page 43

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Many theosophists have had slight conscious relations with elementals, but always without their will acting, and upon trying to make elementals see, hear or act for them, a total indifference on the part of the nature spirit is all they have got in return. These failures are due to the fact that the elemental cannot understand the thought of the person; it can only be reached when the exact scale of being to which it belongs is vibrated, whether it be that of colour, form, sound, or whatever else

Annotation - The Path, May, 1888

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Parabrahman is not “God” because It is not a God. “It is that which is supreme, and not supreme”. ....It is supreme as cause, not supreme as effect.

The Secret Doctrine , Proem [Volume 1], Page 35

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

The ancients ..... fully realised the fact that the reciprocal relations between the planetary bodies is as perfect as those between the corpuscles of the blood, which float in a common fluid; and that each one is affected by the combined influence of all the rest, as each in its turn affects each of the others.

Isis, Volume 1, Page 275

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Strength to step forward is the primary need of him who has chosen his path. Where is this to be found? Looking round, it is not hard to see where other men find their strength. Its source is profound conviction.

Practical Occultism, Page 67

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

There are two kinds of magnetic attraction: sympathy and fascination; the one holy and natural, the other evil and unnatural.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, Page 210

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

In the phenomenal and Cosmic World Fohat is that occult, electric, vital power, which, under the Will of the Creative Logos, unites and brings together all forms, giving them the first impulse, which in time becomes law.

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 1, Page 134

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Oaths will never be binding till each man will fully understand that humanity is the highest manifestation on earth of the Unseen Supreme Deity, and each man an

incarnation of his God; and when the sense of personal responsibility will be so

developed in him that he will consider forswearing the greatest possible insult to himself, as well as to humanity. No oath is now binding, unless taken by one who, without any oath at all, would solemnly keep his simple promise of honour.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 2, Page 374

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

It is the motive, and the motive alone, which makes any exercise of power become

black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic. It is impossible to employ spiritual forces if there is the slightest tinge of selfishness remaining in the operator .... The powers and forces of animal nature can equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as by the unselfish and the all-forgiving; the powers and forces of spirit lend themselves only to the perfectly pure in heart — and this is Divine Magic.

Practical Occultism, Page 7

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Woe to those who live without suffering. Stagnation and death is the future of all that vegetates without change. And how can there be any change for the better without proportionate suffering during the preceding stage?

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 498

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

The person who is endowed with this faculty of thinking about even the most trifling things from the higher plane of thought has, by virtue of that gift which he possesses, a plastic power of formation, so to say, in his very imagination. Whatever such a person may think about, his thought will be so far more intense than the thought of an ordinary person, that by this very intensity it obtains the power of creation.

Lucifer, December, 1888

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Finite reason agrees with science, and says: “There is no God”. But, on the other hand, our Ego, that which lives and thinks and feels independently of us in our mortal casket, does more than believe. It knows that there exists a God in nature, for the sole and invincible Artificer of all lives in us as we live in Him. No dogmatic faith or exact science is able to uproot that intuitional feeling inherent in man, when he has once fully realised it in himself.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, Page 36

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Our voice is raised for spiritual freedom, and our plea made for enfranchisement  from all tyranny, whether of Science of Theology.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, I2.

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

If through the Hall of Wisdom thou wouldst reach the Vale of Bliss, Disciple, close fast thy senses against the great dire heresy of Separateness that weans thee from the rest.

Voice of the Silence, Page 23

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

From strength to strength, from the beauty and perfection of one plane to the

greater beauty and perfection of another, with accessions of new glory, of fresh

knowledge and power in each cycle, such is the destiny of every Ego, which thus

becomes its own saviour in each world and incarnation.

The Key to Theosophy, Page 105

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

The assertion that “Theosophy is not a Religion” , by no means excludes the fact that “Theosophy is Religion” itself. A religion in the true and only correct sense is a bond uniting men together — not a particular set of dogmas and beliefs. Now Religion, per se, in its widest meaning is that which binds not only all Men but also all Beings and all things in the entire Universe into one grand whole.

Lucifer, November, 1888

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

The Present is only a mathematical line which divides that part of Eternal Duration which we call the Future from that part which we call the Past

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 1, Page 69

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

The mind receives indelible impressions even from chance acquaintance or persons

encountered but once. As a few seconds' exposure of the sensitized photographic plate is all that is requisite to preserve indefinitely the image of the sitter, so is it with the mind.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, Page 311

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

 “Beneficent Magic” , so called, is divine magic, devoid of selfishness, love of power, of ambition or lucre, and bent only on doing good, to the world in general and one's neighbour in particular. The smallest attempt to use one's abnormal powers for the gratification of self makes of these powers sorcery or black magic.

The Key to Theosophy, Page 228

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Believing in a spiritual and invisible Universe, we cannot conceive of it in any other way than as completely dovetailing and corresponding with the material, objective Universe; for logic and observation alike teach us that the latter is the outcome and visible manifestation of the former, and that the laws governing both are immutable.

Modern Panarion Page 137

 

 

 

 

 

 

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