Building a society across continents
Born Helena von Hahn in the Russian Empire in 1831, Blavatsky was the daughter of a novelist and an army officer. In the United States she met Henry Steel Olcott through their shared interest in Spiritualism. With Olcott and others she founded the Theosophical Society in New York in 1875. Isis Unveiled, published two years later, brought her claims about religion and ancient knowledge to readers beyond its membership.
In India she helped establish the Society at Adyar and edited The Theosophist. Disputes over letters she attributed to hidden teachers became a public controversy. After leaving India in 1885 she eventually settled in London, where she edited Lucifer and completed The Secret Doctrine. She died there in 1891.
Questions from a reader
The Key to Theosophy gives a questioner room to press the teacher on difficult points. Blavatsky has to explain what karma means for personal responsibility and why a society devoted to universal brotherhood requires an organisation at all. The second edition in Lumitheca adds a glossary. Nightmare Tales invites a different relationship with the same writer: the speaker’s fear is part of a story, and readers have to decide how much of the speaker’s explanation to trust.
