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Helena
Petrovna Blavatsky
1831
- 1891
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Madame H P Blavatsky
Helena
Petrovna Blavatsky was born in Ekaterinoslav (now Dnipropetrovsk), Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire), the daughter
of Col. Peter Alexeivich von Hahn and Elena Fadeev. Her mother, also known as
Helena Andreyvna Fadeyev, was a novelist, known as the "Russian George
Sand", and died when Helena
was eleven. Her father being in the armed forces, she was sent with her brother
to live with her maternal grandmother, Helena Pavlovna de Fadeev, a princess of
the Dolgorukov family and a famous botanist. Both her mother and grandmother
were strong role models that allowed her to mature into a nonconformist.
She was cared
for by servants who believed in the many superstitions of Old Russia, and apparently encouraged her to believe she
had supernatural powers at a very early age.
She married
when she was seventeen, on July 7, 1849, to the forty-year old Nikifor (also Nicephor)
Vassilievitch Blavatsky. According to her account, they never consummated their
marriage, and within a few months, she abandoned her
husband.
According to
her own story as told to a later biographer, she spent the years 1848 to 1858
traveling the world, claiming to have entered Tibet to study with the Ascended Masters for two
years.
She returned
to Russia for a short stay in 1858 to soon leave with
Italian opera
singer Agardi
Metrovich. In 1871, on a boat bound for Cairo an explosion claimed Agardi’s
life, but H.P. Blavatsky continued on to Cairo herself. It was in Cairo that she formed the Societe Spirite for occult
phenomena. This Society lasted only a few months.
It was in
1873 that she emigrated to New York City. Impressing people with her apparent psychic
abilities she was spurred on to continue her mediumship.
Throughout
her career she claimed to be able to perform physical and mental psychic feats
which included levitation, clairvoyance, out-of-body projection, telepathy, and
clairaudience. One new feat of hers was materialization, that is,
producing
physical objects out of nothing. Though she was apparently quite adept at these
feats, her interests were more in the area of theory and laws of how they work
rather than performing them herself.
In 1874, Helena met Henry Steel Olcott; he was 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.
While living
in New York
City, she founded
the Theosophical Society on November 17th 1875, with Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge and
others.
The Society
took its inspiration from Brahminical Hinduism and Esoteric Buddhism. 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.
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.
Suffering
from heart disease, rheumatism, Bright's disease of the kidneys, and
complications from influenza, Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky died at her home
May 8, 1891.
Her body was cremated.
May 8 is
celebrated by Theosophists and called White Lotus Day.
She was
succeeded as head of the Theosophical Society Annie Besant.
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Quotes from
the Writings of
Helena
Petrovna Blavatsky
Blavatsky
Quotation
That which is to be
shunned is pain not yet come. The past cannot be changed or amended; that which
belongs to the experience of the present cannot and should not be shunned; but alike to be shunned are
disturbing anticipations or fears of the
future, and every act or impulse that may cause present or future pain to
ourselves or others.
Practical
Occultism, Page 87
Blavatsky
Quotation
Perfection, to be fully
such, must be born out of imperfection, the incorruptible must grow out of the
corruptible, having the latter as its vehicle and basis and contrast
The Secret
Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 100
Blavatsky Quotation
It is only by the
attractive force of the contrasts that the two opposites — Spirit and Matter — can be cemented together on
Earth, and, smelted in the fire of self-conscious experience and suffering, find
themselves wedded in Eternity.
The Secret
Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 108
Blavatsky Quotation
Strength to step
forward is the primary need of him who has chosen his path. Where is this to be
found? Looking round, it is not hard to see where other men find their
strength. Its source is profound conviction.
Practical
Occultism, Page 67
Blavatsky Quotation
It is the motive, and
the motive alone, which makes any exercise of power become black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic. It is
impossible to employ spiritual forces if there is the slightest tinge of
selfishness remaining in the operator .... The powers and forces of animal
nature can equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as by the unselfish
and the all-forgiving; the powers and forces of spirit lend themselves only to
the perfectly pure in heart — and this is Divine Magic.
Practical
Occultism, Page 7
Blavatsky Quotation
Finite reason agrees
with science, and says: “There is no God”. But, on the other hand, our Ego,
that which lives and thinks and feels independently of us in our mortal casket,
does more than believe. It knows that there exists a God in nature, for the
sole and invincible Artificer of all lives in us as we live in Him. No dogmatic
faith or exact science is able to uproot that intuitional feeling inherent in
man, when he has once fully realised it in himself.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, Page 36
Blavatsky
Quotation
It may be a
pleasant dream to attempt to conceive of the beauties of the spirit world; but
the time can be spent more profitably in a study of the spirit itself, and it
is not necessary that the subject for study should be in the spirit world.
Modern Panarion
Page 70
Blavatsky Quotation
Physical existence is
subservient to the spiritual, and all physical improvement and progress are
only the auxiliaries of spiritual progress, without which there could be no
physical progress.
Modern Panarion
Page 78
Blavatsky Quotation
Mankind — the
majority at any rate — hates to think for itself. It resents as an insult the humblest
invitation to step for a moment outside the old well-beaten tracks and, judging
for itself, to enter into a new path in some fresh direction.
The Secret
Doctrine , Volume 3, Page 14
Blavatsky Quotation
Even ignorance
is better than Head-learning with no Soul-wisdom to illuminate and guide it.
The
Voice of the Silence, Page 43
Blavatsky Quotation
Many theosophists have had slight conscious relations with elementals,
but always without their will acting, and upon trying to make elementals see,
hear or act for them, a total indifference on the part of the nature spirit is
all they have got in return. These failures are due to the fact that the
elemental cannot understand the thought of the person; it can only be reached
when the exact scale of being to which it belongs is vibrated, whether it be
that of colour, form, sound, or whatever else
Annotation - The
Path, May, 1888
Blavatsky Quotation
Parabrahman is not “God” because It is not a God. “It is that which is
supreme, and not supreme”. ....It is supreme as cause, not supreme as effect.
The Secret
Doctrine , Proem [Volume 1], Page 35
Blavatsky Quotation
The ancients ..... fully realised the fact that the reciprocal relations
between the planetary bodies is as perfect as those between the corpuscles of
the blood, which float in a common fluid; and that each one is affected by the
combined influence of all the rest, as each in its turn affects each of the
others.
Isis, Volume 1,
Page 275
Blavatsky Quotation
Strength to step forward is the primary need of him who has chosen his
path. Where is this to be found? Looking round, it is not hard to see where
other men find their strength. Its source is profound conviction.
Practical
Occultism, Page 67
Blavatsky Quotation
There are two kinds of magnetic attraction: sympathy and fascination; the
one holy and natural, the other evil and unnatural.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, Page 210
Blavatsky Quotation
In the phenomenal and Cosmic World Fohat is that occult, electric, vital
power, which, under the Will of the Creative Logos, unites and brings together
all forms, giving them the first impulse, which in time becomes law.
The Secret
Doctrine , Volume 1, Page 134
Blavatsky Quotation
Oaths will never be binding till each man will fully understand that
humanity is the highest manifestation on earth of the Unseen Supreme Deity, and
each man anincarnation of
his God; and when the sense of personal responsibility will be so developed in him
that he will consider forswearing the greatest possible insult to himself, as
well as to humanity. No oath is now binding, unless taken by one who, without
any oath at all, would solemnly keep his simple promise of honour.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 2, Page 374
Blavatsky Quotation
It is the motive, and the motive alone, which makes any exercise of power
become black,
malignant, or white, beneficent Magic. It is impossible to employ spiritual
forces if there is the slightest tinge of selfishness remaining in the operator
.... The powers and forces of animal nature can equally be used by the selfish
and revengeful, as by the unselfish and the all-forgiving; the powers and
forces of spirit lend themselves only to the perfectly pure in heart — and this
is Divine Magic.
Practical
Occultism, Page 7
Blavatsky Quotation
Woe to those who live without suffering. Stagnation and death is the
future of all that vegetates without change. And how can there be any change
for the better without proportionate suffering during the preceding stage?
The Secret
Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 498
Blavatsky Quotation
The person who is endowed with this faculty of thinking about even the
most trifling things from the higher plane of thought has, by virtue of that
gift which he possesses, a plastic power of formation, so to say, in his very
imagination. Whatever such a person may think about, his thought will be so far
more intense than the thought of an ordinary person, that by this very
intensity it obtains the power of creation.
Lucifer,
December, 1888
Blavatsky Quotation
Finite reason agrees with science, and says: “There is no God”. But, on
the other hand, our Ego, that which lives and thinks and feels independently of
us in our mortal casket, does more than believe. It knows that there exists a
God in nature, for the sole and invincible Artificer of all lives in us as we
live in Him. No dogmatic faith or exact science is able to uproot that
intuitional feeling inherent in man, when he has once fully realised it in
himself.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, Page 36
Blavatsky Quotation
Our voice is raised for spiritual freedom, and our plea made for
enfranchisement from all tyranny,
whether of Science of Theology.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, I2.
Blavatsky Quotation
If through the Hall of Wisdom thou wouldst reach the Vale of Bliss,
Disciple, close fast thy senses against the great dire heresy of Separateness
that weans thee from the rest.
Voice of the
Silence, Page 23
Blavatsky Quotation
From strength to strength, from the beauty and perfection of one plane to
the greater beauty
and perfection of another, with accessions of new glory, of fresh knowledge and
power in each cycle, such is the destiny of every Ego, which thus becomes its own
saviour in each world and incarnation.
The Key to
Theosophy, Page 105
Blavatsky Quotation
The assertion that “Theosophy is not a Religion” , by no means excludes
the fact that “Theosophy is Religion” itself. A religion in the true and only
correct sense is a bond uniting men together — not a particular set of dogmas
and beliefs. Now Religion, per se, in its widest meaning is that which binds
not only all Men but also all Beings and all things in the entire Universe into
one grand whole.
Lucifer,
November, 1888
Blavatsky
Quotation
The Present is only a mathematical line which divides that part of
Eternal Duration which we call the Future from that part which we call the Past
The Secret
Doctrine , Volume 1, Page 69
Blavatsky
Quotation
The mind receives indelible impressions even from chance acquaintance or
persons encountered but
once. As a few seconds' exposure of the sensitized photographic plate is all
that is requisite to preserve indefinitely the image of the sitter, so is it
with the mind.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, Page 311
Blavatsky Quotation
“Beneficent Magic” , so called, is divine
magic, devoid of selfishness, love of power, of ambition or lucre, and bent only
on doing good, to the world in general and one's neighbour in particular. The
smallest attempt to use one's abnormal powers for the gratification of self
makes of these powers sorcery or black magic.
The Key to Theosophy, Page 228
Blavatsky Quotation
Believing in a spiritual and invisible Universe, we cannot conceive of it
in any other way than as completely dovetailing and corresponding with the
material, objective Universe; for logic and observation alike teach us that the
latter is the outcome and visible manifestation of the former, and that the
laws governing both are immutable.
Modern Panarion
Page 137
Classic
Introductory Theosophy Text
A
Text Book of Theosophy By C W
Leadbeater
What Theosophy Is From the Absolute to Man
The Formation of a Solar System The Evolution of Life
The Constitution of Man After Death Reincarnation
The Purpose of Life The Planetary Chains
The Result of Theosophical Study
The Ocean of
Theosophy
William Quan Judge
Preface
Theosophy and the Masters General Principles
The Earth Chain Body and Astral Body Kama – Desire
Manas Of Reincarnation Reincarnation Continued
Karma Kama Loka
Devachan
Cycles
Septenary Constitution Of Man
Arguments Supporting Reincarnation
Differentiation Of Species Missing Links
Psychic Laws, Forces, and Phenomena
Psychic Phenomena and Spiritualism
A Study in Karma
Annie Besant
Karma Fundamental Principles Laws: Natural and Man-Made The Law of Laws
The Eternal Now
Succession
Causation The Laws of Nature A Lesson of The Law
Karma Does Not Crush Apply This Law
Man in The Three Worlds Understand The Truth
Man and His Surroundings The Three Fates
The Pair of Triplets Thought, The Builder
Practical Meditation Will and Desire
The Mastery of Desire Two Other Points
The Third Thread Perfect Justice
Our Environment
Our Kith and Kin Our Nation
The Light for a Good Man Knowledge of Law The Opposing Schools
The More Modern View Self-Examination Out of the Past
Old Friendships
We Grow By Giving Collective Karma Family Karma
National Karma
India’s Karma
National Disasters
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