Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna(also Elena Blavatsky, Helena Blavatskaya; nee Hahn)

Russian (Russian Ukrainian-born) Theosophist mystic and spiritualist

co-founded Theosophical Society 1875

wrote "Isis Unveiled" 1877, "The Secret Doctrine" 1888, "Key to Theosophy" 1889, "The Voice of Silence" 1889

co-founded Theosophist headquarters at Adyar, India 1879

co-founder and 1st editor of journal "The Theosophist" 1879-1888

criticized rationalism and emphasized mystical experience as means for gaining spiritual insight

purported to possess paranormal psychic powers, but investigated by London Society for Psychical Research and declared fraud 1885

collaborator with Henry Steel Olcott

• "There is no religion higher than the truth."
• "Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly often attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults."
• "Shun praise. Praise leads to self-delusion. Thy body is not Self, thyself is in itself without a body, and either praise or blame affects it not."
• "Desire nothing, Chafe not at fate, nor at Nature's changeless laws. But struggle only with the personal, the transitory, the evanescent and the perishable."
• "Be humble, if thou would'st attain to Wisdom. Be humbler still, when Wisdom thou hast mastered."