Born in Russia in 1831, Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky claimed to possess psychic prowess from an early age and, after abandoning her husband at the age of 17, spent the next decade traveling the world. When she returned to her homeland in 1858, she popularized tales of two years spent studying beneath Tibetan Masters in the Himalayas and her ability to contact other such “Mahatmas,” who resided in various remote sites throughout Asia.

In 1871, she settled in Cairo and founded the “Societe Spirite,” but was soon forced to flee as the charges of multiple fraud mounted against her. Though her stay in Egypt was short-lived, she soon found a new home: the United States of America.

After relocating to New York in 1873, Blavatsky caused a stir with her supposed acts of levitation, clairvoyance and astral projection – and also set about learning English at a lightning pace. At the time, she wrote that her interests lie not with the supernatural powers themselves, but in the unknown “laws and principles of nature that governed them” - making her, in effect, a self-professed, 19th century parapsychologist.

Not long after, she met Henry Steel Olcott, a lawyer, agricultural scientist and writer, who had covered the growth of the Spiritualist movement 1850s and 1860. Together they founded an organization based around Blavatsky’s esoteric teachings: the Theosophy Society. With a name derived from a portmanteau of the Greek “theos” (god) and “sophia” (wisdom), the Society’s ultimate declaration – Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled - was released in 1877 and its 1200 pages claimed to reconcile all “the mysteries of ancient and modern science and theology”. A second printing followed two months later and the book has continuously remained in print ever since.

Despite its imposing length and obtuse language, Isis Unveiled gained Blavatsky an imposing degree of influence on both sides of the Atlantic and, in July 1878, she became the first Russian woman to gain US citizenship. Nonetheless, Olcott and the Madame soon took off for India, where they intended to study Eastern religion and esoterica.

By 1882, Blavatsky had gained a dedicated following of English military officials and high-caste natives and relocated the Theosophy Society’s headquarters to an estate outside of Madras. There she - and she alone – relayed communiqués from her Masters to her pupils, who included British attaché and co-founder of the Indian National Congress, Allan Octavian Hume and journalist A.P. Sinnett.

Some of those letters eventually made it to the press and allegations of fraud once again surfaced, forcing Blavatsky to flee to Europe. While in exile from the majority of her followers, and in declining health, she penned The Secret Doctrine. Upon its publication in 1888, Theosophy followers revered it as her greatest work, while critics leveled accusations of plagiarism.

Never to return to Madras, Madame Blavatsky completed two more texts before her death on May 8, 1891. Her ashes were divided into thirds and scattered equally between sites in America, Europe and India. The Theosophy Society, and many variations thereof, survives to this day and Blavatsky’s adherents solemnize the date of her death with a holiday known as White Lotus Day.

Her impact of the fields of religious philosophy and metaphysics continues to be felt a century later. Theosophy is, somewhat infamously today, remembered for popularizing the use of the swastika and term “Aryan race” in Europe at the turn of the century, though author Robert Anton Wilson noted, “90 pecent of the occult groups today are wholly derivative of from Blavatsky or Gurdjieff or Crowley, who together make up of the indispensible Big Three of 20th century occultism.”

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