Madame Blavatsky

The Woman Behind the Myth

Marion Meade

• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781497602250
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

The life and times of Helena Blavatsky, the controversial religious guru who cofounded the Theosophical Society and kick-started the New Age movement.
Recklessly brilliant, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky scandalized her 19th century world with a controversial new religion that tried to synthesize Eastern and Western philosophies. If her contemporaries saw her as a freak, a charlatan, and a snake oil salesman, she viewed herself as a special person born for great things. She firmly believed that it was her destiny to enlighten the world. Rebelliously breaking conventions, she was the antithesis of a pious religious leader. She cursed, smoked, overate, and needed to airbrush out certain inconvenient facts, like husbands, lovers, and a child.
Marion Meade digs deep into Madame Blavatsky's life from her birth in Russia among the aristocracy to a penniless exile in Europe, across the Atlantic to New York where she became the first Russian woman naturalized as an American citizen, and finally moving on to India where she established the international headquarters of the Theosophical Society in 1882. As she chased from continent to continent, she left in her aftermath a trail of enthralled followers and the ideas of Theosophy that endure to this day. While dismissed as a female messiah, her efforts laid the groundwork for the New Age movement, which sought to reconcile Eastern traditions with Western occultism. Her teachings entered the mainstream by creating new respect for the cultures and religions of the East—for Buddhism and Hinduism—and interest in meditation, yoga, gurus, and reincarnation.
Madame Blavatsky was one of a kind. Here is her richly bizarre story told with compassion, insight, and an attempt to plumb the truth behind those astonishing accomplishments. 

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments 
• Foreword 
• Preface 
• Natal Horoscope of H.P. Blavatsky 
• Epigraph 
• RUSSIA, 1831-1849 
• Chapter I – The Fadeyeys and the von Hahns
• Chapter II – Lelinka
• Chapter III – Visions and Voices
• Chapter IV – The Plumeless Raven
• THE VEILED YEARS, 1849-1873
• Chapter I – The Hindu at Ramsgate
• Chapter II – Agardi Metrovitch
• Chapter III – Yuri
• Chapter IV – Russia for the Last Time
• NEW YORK, 1873-1878 
• Chapter I – Immigrant
• Chapter II – “John King” and Other Spooks
• Chapter III – The Theosophical Society
• Chapter IV – Isis Unveiled
• INDIA, 1878-1884 
• Chapter I – Bombay
• Chapter II – The Mahatmas
• Chapter III – The Astral Post Office
• Chapter IV – Adyar
• PHOTOS 
• EUROPE, 1884 
• Chapter I – Paris
• Chapter II – London
• Chapter III – Elberfeld
• Chapter IV – Homeward Bound
• THE SECRET DOCTRINE, 1884-1887 
• Chapter I – The Investigation
• Chapter II – Wurzburg
• Chapter III – Ostend
• LONDON, 1887-1891 
• Chapter I – Priestess of Lansdowne Road
• Chapter II – Sweet Mango
• Chapter III – Twilight
• Epitaph 
• Appendix A – The Question of H.P.B.’s Psi Faculties
• Appendix B – The Mahatma Papers 
• Appendix C – Parallel Cases 
• Notes and Sources 
• Bibliography