Helena Blavatsky was born in Ekaterinoslav, Russia in 1831, the daughter of Colonel Peter von Hahn and Helena de Fadeyev, a renowned novelist. At an early age, she was gifted as a linguist, pianist, artist, and naturalist. She also possessed psychic powers that puzzled her family and friends.
She married the middle-aged Nikifor V. Blavatsky, Vice-Governor of the Province of Yerivan when she was 17. The marriage was never consummated. After few months, she escaped and traveled to Turkey, Egypt, and Greece.
While in London in 1851, Blavatsky said she met Master Mahatma Morya. He informed her that she was destined for special work, and she accepted his guidance from that point onward. Her travels took her to North and South America, the West Indies, and Japan. While visiting Tibet, she was able to acquire some of her occult training with Master Morya. She then traveled to Russia for a time and visited the Balkans, Greece, Egypt, Syria and Italy and other countries. She returned to Tibet in 1868 and met Master Koot Hoomi for the first time. She said she stayed in his house in Little Tibet and studied clairvoyance, clairaudience and telepathy.
Blavatsky joined the Spiritualist movement in the early 1870s but didn’t believe that the entities contacted were the spirits of the dead. In 1874, she met Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, who had served in the U.S. Government and was practicing law in New York. She was also introduced to William Quan Judge, a young Irish lawyer. The three of them, along with other friends, founded The Theosophical Society in 1875. The society’s purpose was to “promulgate the ancient teachings of Theosophy, or the Wisdom concerning the Divine which had been the spiritual basis of other great movements of the past, such as Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism, and the Mystery-Schools of the Classical world.”
Blavatsky’s first book, Isis Unveiled, “outlined the history, scope and development of the Occult Sciences, the nature and origin of Magic, the roots of Christianity, the errors of Christian Theology and the fallacies of established orthodox Science.”
They established their Theosophical Headquarters and their first journal in Bombay in 1879. Although opposed by the British government, Theosophy spread rapidly in India, but not without problems. Blavatsky was accused of creating fraudulent paranormal phenomena. She remained a controversial figure during her lifetime, championed by supporters and derided as a fraudulent charlatan and plagiarist by critics.
In ill health, Blavatsky pushed onward. She wrote her second work, The Secret Doctrine, in 1884. Volume I concentrated on the evolution of the universe. Volume II discussed the evolution of humanity. In 1888 she formed the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society for the deeper study of the Esoteric Philosophy by dedicated students. In 1890, she established the European Headquarters of the society in London.
After completing two more books, Blavatsky died in London in 1891 during a flu epidemic.
For more information, see the Blavatsky Study Center.