(1831-1891)

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was born in Russia, to Peter Von Hahn and Helena Andreyevna. She was a precocious, flamboyant and dramatic young woman who was early on aware of her psychic abilities. Her mother died when she was twelve years old. Later, Blavatsky, for unknown reasons, claimed that she died giving birth to her.

Her childhood was full of bizarre occurrences and unexplained phenomena. When she was between 3 and 4 years old, she was walking and talking in her sleep. At that time, in Russia, superstitions abounded. Fairytales were filled with mythological beings, the forests alive with brownies and goblins. Her nurses, because she was born in the seventh month of the year, called her a Sedmitchka, a term difficult to translate, but connected with the mystical qualities of the number 7. The household servants believed that Helena had the ability to control the spirit world. She claims several incidents that happened in her childhood showed her that she was powerful and aligned with greater forces. She became quite impossible to live with, throwing temper tantrums when she did not get her way. At one point her family had several exorcisms performed on her, but no change in her behavior occurred.

At 17 she married General Nicephore Blavatsky. The story is that her governess, being exhausted by Helena's show of temper, told her that she could not even get an old man to marry her. To prove her wrong Helena married Blavatsky, who she called very old, at least 70 or 80, but who was only 40 at the time. She did not stay with her husband long, attempting to return home to her grandparents, who had raised her after her mother died, but they sent her to her father instead. From here she quickly escaped, and was off to see the world and seek her fortune.

She began to travel, and spoke of being initiated into the understanding of ancient mysteries while visiting Tibet. Over the next ten years, Helena traveled the world. When she returned to Russia, she made a deal with her husband that she would return to his home as long as she could see him as little as possible. She began to gather groups, and conduct séances. She also had several love affairs during this time. She had a child, named Yuri, who was deformed. This was a mysterious aspect of Helena's life. When he was five, Helena took Yuri to doctors to try to have him cured, but he died and was buried in a small town in southern Russia.

There are many stories of Helena's displays of occult powers, and much controversy over the validity of these. In 1875, she founded the Theosophical Society with Colonel Olcott and others. She had begun to gather her understandings, synthesizing them into a complex cosmology that she called Theosophy, meaning wisdom of the Gods. In 1877 she published her great work, Isis Unveiled. Then in 1879 she began The Theosophist, a magazine chronicling the rapid growth of theosophy. She continued to write books, and in 1888 published The Secret Doctrine, an epic two part presentation of her Theosophical teachings. Her books, though very difficult to read, have greatly influenced the metaphysical movement. Many of the great thinkers of the time were influenced by her teachings, including Jung, Steiner, and others. Many believe that through her work much esoteric knowledge was brought out into the open, for the benefit of all.

Madame Blavatsky Quotes:

"All steps are necessary to make up the ladder. The vices of man become steps in the ladder. One by one, as they are surmounted, give your aid to the few strong hands that hold back the powers of darkness from obtaining complete victory then do you enter into a partnership of joy, which brings indeed terrible toil and profound sadness, but also a great and ever increasing delight."

"Desire only that which is within you. Desire only that which is beyond you. Desire only that which is unattainable. For within you is the light of the world - the only light that can be shed upon the Path. If you are unable to perceive it within you, it is useless to look for it elsewhere. It is beyond you, because when you reach for it you have lost yourself. It is unattainable, because it forever recedes. You will enter the light, but you will never touch the flame.

"... stand-alone and isolated, because nothing that is embodied, nothing that is conscious of separation, nothing that is out of the eternal, can aid you.

"Anxiety is the foe of knowledge; like unto a veil it falls down before the soul's eye; entertain it, and the veil only thicker grows; cast it out, and the sun of truth may dissipate the cloudy veil."