(H. P. Blavatsky's masterwork addressing the Secret Doctri...)
H. P. Blavatsky's masterwork addressing the Secret Doctrine of the Archaic Ages.
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/ts/sd.htm
1888
The Voice of the Silence by H. P. Blavatsky
(Blavatsky's devotional classic, describing in poetic lang...)
Blavatsky's devotional classic, describing in poetic language spiritual development from the inner awakening, through the paramitas, to the path of compassion
(Being a Clear Exposition, in the Form of Question and Ans...)
Being a Clear Exposition, in the Form of Question and Answer, of the ETHICS, SCIENCE, AND PHILOSOPHY for the Study of which The Theosophical Society has been Founded.
Helena Blavatsky was a Russian spiritualist, author, and co-founder of the Theosophical Society to promote theosophy, a pantheistic philosophical-religious system.
Background
Helena Petrovna von Hahn was born at Ekaterinoslav, a town on the river Dnieper, in Southern Russia, on the 12th of August, 1831. She was the daughter of Colonel Peter von Hahn, and Helena de Fadeyev, a renowned novelist. On her mother’s side, she was the granddaughter of the gifted Princess Helena Dolgorukov, a noted botanist and writer. After the early death of her mother in 1842, Helena was brought up in her maternal grandparents’ house at Saratov, where her grandfather was Civil Governor.
Education
At the age of 17, she was married to General Blavatsky, an old man from whom she escaped three months later. She then fled abroad and led a wild, wandering life for ten years all over the world, in search of mysteries. When she returned to Russia she possessed well-developed mediumistic gifts. Raps, whisperings, and other mysterious sounds were heard all over the house, objects moved about in obedience to her will, their weight decreased and increased as she wished, and winds swept through the apartment, extinguishing lamps and candles. She gave exhibitions of clairvoyance, discovered a murderer for the police, and narrowly escaped being charged as an accomplice.
In 1860 Blavatsky became severely ill. A wound below the heart, which she received from a sword cut in magical practice in the East, opened again, causing her intense agony, convulsions, and trance. After Blavatsky recovered, her spontaneous physical phenomena disappeared, and she claimed that they only occurred after that time in obedience to her will.
Blavatsky again went abroad and, disguised as a man, she fought under Garibaldi and was left for dead in the battle of Mentana. She fought back to life, had a miraculous escape at sea on a Greek vessel that was blown up and, in 1871 in Cairo, she founded the Societe Spirite. It was a dubious venture that soon expired amid cries of fraud and embezzlement, reflecting considerably on the reputation of the founder.
Career
It was in 1873 that she emigrated to New York City. Impressing people with her evident psychic abilities she was spurred on to continue her mediumship. Throughout her career she was reputed to have demonstrated physical and mental psychic feats which included levitation, clairvoyance, out-of-body projection, telepathy, and clairaudience. Another alleged skill of hers was materialization, that is, producing physical objects out of nothing. Though she was reportedly quite adept at these accomplishments, she claimed that 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.
Foundation of Theosophical Society
While living in New York City, she founded the Theosophical Society in September 1875, with Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge and others. 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 India
She had moved to India, landing at Bombay Feb 16 1879[5], where she first made the acquaintance of A.P. Sinnett. In his book Occult World he describes how she stayed at his home in Allahabad for six weeks that year, and again the following year.
Sometime around December 1880, while at a dinner party with a group including A.O. Hume and his wife, she is stated to have been instrumental in causing the materialization of Mrs Hume's lost brooch.
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.
In 1884, two staff members (a married couple) at Adyar accused Blavatsky of fabricating her messages from the Masters. The couple, Alexis and Emma Coulomb, were dismissed, but when the Committee failed to support legal action against them, Blavatsky withdrew from active participation in the Society. On March 31, 1885 she left India never to return. After spending some time in Germany and Belgium, she settled in England in May, 1887 where a disciple put her up in her own house. It was here that she lived until the end of her life. She was further estranged from some senior Theosophists in December, 1885 when the London Society for Psychical Research's Hodgson Report declared her a fraud.
Final years
In August, 1890 she formed the "Inner Circle" of 12 disciples: "Countess Constance Wachtmeister, Mrs Isabel Cooper-Oakley, Miss Emily Kislingbury, Miss Laura Cooper, Mrs Annie Besant, Mrs Alice Cleather, Dr Archibald Keightley, Herbert Coryn, Claude Wright, G.R.S. Mead, E.T. Sturdy, and Walter Old".
Suffering from heart disease, rheumatism, Bright's disease of the kidneys, and complications from influenza, Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky died at 19 Avenue Road, St Johns Wood[9], the home she shared, in England on May 8, 1891.
Her last words in regard to her work were: "Keep the link unbroken! Do not let my last incarnation be a failure."
Her body was 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, W.Q. Judge, headed the American Section. The split was caused by accusations that Judge had also fabricated messages from the Masters.
“Our duty is to keep alive in man his spiritual intuitions. To oppose and counteract – after due investigation and proof of its irrational nature – bigotry in every form, religious, scientific, or social, and cant above all, whether as religious sectarianism or as belief in miracles or anything supernatural. What we have to do is to seek to obtain knowledge of all the laws of nature, and to diffuse it. To encourage the study of those laws least understood by modern people, the so-called Occult Sciences, based on the true knowledge of nature, instead of, as at present, on superstitious beliefs based on blind faith and authority.”
– H.P. Blavatsky, “The Key to Theosophy” p. 48
“It is perhaps desirable to state unequivocally that the teachings, however fragmentary and incomplete, contained in these volumes, belong neither to the Hindu, the Zoroastrian, the Chaldean, nor the Egyptian religion, neither to Buddhism, Islam, Judaism nor Christianity exclusively. The Secret Doctrine is the essence of all these. Sprung from it in their origins, the various religious schemes are now made to merge back into their original element, out of which every mystery and dogma has grown, developed, and become materialised.”
– H.P. Blavatsky, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, p. viii
“The Esoteric philosophy is alone calculated to withstand, in this age of crass and illogical materialism, the repeated attacks on all and everything man holds most dear and sacred, in his inner spiritual life. The true philosopher, the student of the Esoteric Wisdom, entirely loses sight of personalities, dogmatic beliefs and special religions. Moreover, Esoteric philosophy reconciles all religions, strips every one of its outward, human garments, and shows the root of each to be identical with that of every other great religion. It proves the necessity of an absolute Divine Principle in nature. It denies Deity no more than it does the Sun. Esoteric philosophy has never rejected God in Nature, nor Deity as the absolute and abstract Ens. It only refuses to accept any of the gods of the so-called monotheistic religions, gods created by man in his own image and likeness, a blasphemous and sorry caricature of the Ever Unknowable.”
– H.P. Blavatsky, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, p. xx
“The three personalities of Krishna, Gautama, and Jesus appeared like true gods, each in his epoch, and bequeathed to humanity three religions built on the imperishable rock of ages. That all three, especially the Christian faith, have in time become adulterated, and the latter almost unrecognizable, is no fault of either of the noble Reformers. It is the priestly self-styled husbandmen of the “vine of the Lord” who must be held to account by future generations. Purify the three systems of the dross of human dogmas, the pure essence remaining will be found identical.”
– H.P. Blavatsky, “Isis Unveiled” Vol. 2, p. 536
“Be this as it may, the religion of the ancients is the religion of the future. A few centuries more, and there will linger no sectarian beliefs in either of the great religions of humanity. Brahmanism [i.e. Hinduism] and Buddhism, Christianity and Mahometanism [i.e. Islam] will all disappear before the mighty rush of facts. … But this can only come to pass when the world returns to the grand religion of the past; the knowledge of those majestic systems which preceded, by far, Brahmanism, and even the primitive monotheism of the ancient Chaldeans.”
– H.P. Blavatsky, “Isis Unveiled” Vol. 1, p. 613
It is well known that the first main objective for which the Theosophical Movement was founded was to bring about the actualisation of Universal Brotherhood, without distinction of race, religion, creed, colour, caste, or gender. This can only be achieved by recognising that Universal Brotherhood is not merely a noble and lofty ideal but is actually an eternal fact in Nature, due to the Oneness and Divineness of all life. It is already the case that we are all One in terms of our source and origin, our inner spiritual essence, and our ultimate destiny. But this needs to be recognised, accepted, and acted upon.
Those who are acquainted in any way with Theosophy and the Theosophical Movement are aware that it places constant emphasis on the unity of all religions. This theme has gained ever increasing recognition and publicity since the time of H.P. Blavatsky and today much progress has been made in terms of religious tolerance, acceptance and study of others’ religions, celebration of religious diversity, and interfaith communications. In this respect, humanity has come a very long way in a very short time.
But this is NOT exactly the kind of thing HPB and the Masters had in mind when they spoke and wrote of the unity of world religions.
What has just been described is something good and which should be actively encouraged but are peaceful and harmonious relations between the different religions of any real or lasting good if the souls involved are still immersed in ignorance, superstition, or inner separativeness? An outer, external, objective unity actually means very little if it is not recognised, understood, and appreciated by all concerned that all religions are the same in their esoteric essence.
That essence is the Universal Truth which underlies all the world’s religions and which pre-dates and transcends them all, being the primeval and archaic source and fountainhead of all the elements of truth which can be found amongst the many elements of falsehood and unphilosophical dogma.
“What we desire to prove is, that underlying every ancient popular religion was the same ancient wisdom-doctrine, one and identical, professed and practiced by the initiates of every country, who alone were aware of its existence and importance. To ascertain its origin, and the precise age in which it was matured, is now beyond human possibility. A single glance, however, is enough to assure one that it could not have attained the marvellous perfection in which we find it pictured to us in the relics of the various esoteric systems, except after a succession of ages. A philosophy so profound, a moral code so ennobling, and practical results so conclusive and so uniformly demonstrable is not the growth of a generation, or even a single epoch. Fact must have been piled upon fact, deduction upon deduction, science have begotten science, and myriads of the brightest human intellects have reflected upon the laws of nature, before this ancient doctrine had taken concrete shape. The proofs of this identity of fundamental doctrine in the old religions are found in the prevalence of a system of initiation; in the secret sacerdotal castes who had the guardianship of mystical words of power, and a public display of a phenomenal control over natural forces, indicating association with preterhuman beings.”
– H.P. Blavatsky, “Isis Unveiled” Vol. 2, p. 99
Politics
To seek to achieve political reforms before we have effected a reform in human nature, is like putting new wine into old bottles. Make men feel and recognize in their innermost hearts what is their real, true duty to all men, and every old abuse of power, every iniquitous law in the national policy, based on human, social or political selfishness, will disappear of itself. Foolish is the gardener who seeks to weed his flower-bed of poisonous plants by cutting them off from the surface of the soil, instead of tearing them out by the roots. No lasting political reform can be ever achieved with the same selfish men at the head of affairs as of old. (The Key to Theosophy, p. 229)
Views
Quotations:
The possible truths, hazily perceived in the world of abstraction, like those inferred from observation and experiment in the world of matter, are forced upon the profane multitudes, too busy to think for themselves, under the form of Divine revelation and scientific authority. But the same question stands open from the days of Socrates and Pilate down to our own age of wholesale negation: is there such a thing as absolute truth in the hands of any one party or man? Reason answers, "there cannot be." There is no room for absolute truth upon any subject whatsoever, in a world as finite and conditioned as man is himself. But there are relative truths, and we have to make the best we can of them.
Lucifer (February 1888)
"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.
Collected Writings, vol. IV, p. 603 (October 1889)
There is no religion higher than truth.
Motto of the Theosophical Society. See for instance: Blavatsky Collected Writings, Volume 6, p. 168
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, vol. 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, vol. XI, p. 466 (October, 1889)
Personality
An enigmatic personality, Blavatsky was raised in an atmosphere saturated with superstition and fantasy. She loved to surround herself with mystery as a child and claimed to her playmates that in the subterranean corridors of their old house at Saratow, where she used to wander about, she was never alone, but had companions and playmates whom she called her "hunchbacks." Blavatsky was often discovered in a dark tower underneath the roof, where she put pigeons into a mesmeric sleep by stroking them. She was unruly, and as she grew older she often shocked her relatives by her masculine behavior. Once, riding astride a Cossack horse, she fell from the saddle and her foot became entangled in the stirrup. She claimed that she ought to have been killed outright were it not for the strange sustaining power she distinctly felt around her, which seemed to hold her up in defiance of gravitation.
According to the records of her sister, Blavatsky showed frequent evidence of somnambulism as a child, speaking aloud and often walking in her sleep. She saw eyes glaring at her from inanimate objects or from phantasmal forms, from which she would run away screaming and frighten the entire household. In later years she claimed to have seen a phantom protector whose imposing appearance had dominated her imagination. Blavatsky's powers of make-believe were remarkable. She possessed great natural musical talents, had a fearful temper, a passionate curiosity for the unknown and weird, and an intense craving for independence and action.
Physical Characteristics:
Helena Blavatsky was described as a short, stout, forceful woman, with strong arms, unruly hair, and large, liquid and slightly bulging eyes. Toward the end of her life she was quite obese. Some of this appearance in her later life might have been due to her failing health. She suffered from Bright’s disease. She actually wrote to Mrs. Sinnott in 1882 that she had Bright’s disease of the kidneys, and the whole blood turning into water with ulcers breaking out in the most unexpected and least explored spots of her body. She said that she maybe hang around a couple of years, or else, her words, kick the bucket at any time.
Quotes from others about the person
For our own part, we regard Blavatsky neither as the mouthpiece of hidden seers, nor as a mere vulgar adventuress; we think that she has achieved a title to permanent remembrance as one of the most accomplished, ingenious, and interesting imposters in history.
— The statement of the Society for Psychical Research on the basis of the Hodsgon Report.
"Blavatsky talked incessantly in a guttural voice, sometimes wittily and sometimes crudely. She was indifferent to sex yet frank and open about it; fonder of animals than of people; welcoming, unpretentious, scandalous, capricious and rather noisy. She was also humorous, vulgar, impulsive and warm-hearted, and didn't give a hoot for anyone or anything."
— Biographer Peter Washington, 1993
"Blavatsky's writings garnered the materials of Neoplatonism, Renaissance magic, Kabbalah, and Freemasonry, together with ancient Egyptian and Greco-Roman mythology and religion, joined by Eastern doctrines taken from Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta to present the idea of an ancient wisdom handed down from prehistoric times."
— Historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, 2008.
"[Blavatsky was] one of the most significant, controversial, and prolific of modern esotericists... It is more than evident that, whatever one thinks of the more flamboyant aspects of this remarkable and many-sided woman, she possessed a keen intellect and a wide-ranging vision of what occultism could be in the modern world."
— Religious studies scholar Robert Ellwood, 2005.
"[Blavatsky] talked incessantly in a guttural voice, sometimes wittily and sometimes crudely. She was indifferent to sex yet frank and open about it; fonder of animals than of people; welcoming, unpretentious, scandalous, capricious and rather noisy. She was also humorous, vulgar, impulsive and warm-hearted, and didn't give a hoot for anyone or anything."
— Biographer Peter Washington, 1993.
"Blavatsky's writings garnered the materials of Neoplatonism, Renaissance magic, Kabbalah, and Freemasonry, together with ancient Egyptian and Greco-Roman mythology and religion, joined by Eastern doctrines taken from Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta to present the idea of an ancient wisdom handed down from prehistoric times."
— Historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, 2008.
"[Blavatsky was] one of the most significant, controversial, and prolific of modern esotericists... It is more than evident that, whatever one thinks of the more flamboyant aspects of this remarkable and many-sided woman, she possessed a keen intellect and a wide-ranging vision of what occultism could be in the modern world."
— Religious studies scholar Robert Ellwood, 2005.
Connections
Blavatsky's sexuality has been a matter of dispute with many biographers believing that she remained celibate throughout her life. Washington believied that she "hated sex with her own sort of passion".
Modern Priestess of Isis
Vsevolod Sergeyevich Solovyov (1849-1903) examines the complicated final years of Madame Helena Blavatsky (1831-91), co-founder of theosophy. The translation provides a picture of the final years of one of Europe's most controversial nineteenth-century spiritual leaders.