Helena P. Blavatsky (1831-1891) is widely celebrated as the leading esoteric thinker of the nineteenth century who influenced an entire generation of artists and intellectuals and introduced Eastern spirituality to the West. Until now, however, readers have been able to know this fascinating woman only through her public writings. Few may have realized that H.P.B. was also a tireless correspondent with family and colleagues, friends and foes, the learned and the simple. Her personal correspondence reveals for the first time the private H.P.B. in all of her sphinx-like complexity rarely visible in her published material. This unparalleled offering contains all known letters H.P.B. wrote between 1860 and the time just before she left for India in 1879. Meticulously edited by John Algeo, former President of the Theosophical Society in America and current Vice President of the international Society, the volume also contains letters to and about Blavatsky, articles, and editorial commentary.

The definitive edition of HPB's writings in 15 extensive volumes. Volume 1 is from 1874 to 1878, and includes articles such as: 'About Spiritualism'; 'A Story of the Mystical'; 'The Theosophical Society': 'Its Origin, Plan and Aim'; 'The Diaries of H. P. Blavatsky '.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky often known as Madame Blavatsky was a Russian occultist, philosopher, and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She gained an international following as the leading theoretician of Theosophy, the esoteric religion that the society promoted. If you care about Theosophy or this trailblazer of the New Age, then this book is for you. A must for any scholar of spiritual movements. Along with writing her several books, H. P. Blavatsky kept up a voluminous correspondence and also contributed a steady stream of essays and articles to periodicals in English, French, and Russian. ISIS UNVEILED FROM THE CAVES AND JUNGLES OF HINDOSTAN WHAT IS THEOSOPHY? WHAT ARE THE THEOSOPHISTS? MAHATMAS AND CHELAS OCCULT OR EXACT SCIENCE? THE ESOTERIC CHARACTER OF THE GOSPELS OCCULTISM VERSUS THE OCCULT ARTS IS THEOSOPHY A RELIGION? THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY THE SECRET DOCTRINE

At the age of 17, rejecting nineteenth-century materialism, Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891) left her native Russia and traveled through India, Tibet, Egypt, Europe, and the Americas seeking out the sources of ancient wisdom as a key to spiritual truth. In 1875 in New York, she co-founded the Theosophical Society for the study of occult traditions. Many popular ideas of rediscovered ancient wisdom, including reincarnation and karma, trace their origin to Helena Blavatsky and Theosophy. This anthology includes material on her life and travels, as well as excerpts from her major works.

1. The Origin of the Mysteries. The last incarnation of one of seven “Lords of the Flame” was Baladeva, Krishna’s brother. Hercules is none other than Baladeva in Greek dress. In the Golden Age, Esoteric Knowledge was common property. Initiation arose later on from the necessity to limit the number of those who knew. The Initiate’s maxim was “All for the people and with the people.” The old Initiates were real philosophers, priests, and healers. They commemorated the secrets of their Mysteries in hieroglyphics. Only those, whose purity allowed them to look at the great Isis unveiled, were admitted to the secrets of Nature and Man. But what Gods and Angels had revealed, Moses reveiled and hid from the sight of the world. 2. The Trial of the Sun-Initiate. Vishvakarman (Hierophant or Logos Demiourgos) cut off seven locks of the neophyte’s long hair (Second Sun’s rays) and replaced them with a crown of brambles — thus making him Vikartana, “shorn of his rays.” The neophyte who can overcome the dreadful trials of Initiation (on the cross of his worldly passions) dies in the Chrestos condition (freed from the clutches of matter) before his second and triumphant birth in Spirit as Christos. The Masonic rite of Initiation is based upon the construction of the Temple of Solomon, a narrative modelled upon Egyptian and still earlier symbolisms. Yet, there never was an Occult Society, however open and sincere, that has not felt the hand of the Jesuit trying to pull it down by every secret means. The Jesuits infected mankind with passivity, ignorance, and superstition in order to impose their Universal Despotism unopposed. 3. The Mystery of the “Sun of Initiation.” In the days of Aristotle, few were the true Adepts left in Europe and even in Egypt. Solus-Sol-Sun is “The One” and the Greek name for Helios, the Most High. But there is a great difference between our Sun and its prototype, the Central Spiritual Sun. 4. The Objects of the Mysteries. Whether lesser or greater, Mysteries have always been graded. Theophany is the appearance of God to man; Theopathy, man’s assimilation of his divine nature; Theopneusty, inspiration or rather the power to hear the Voice of God. The last two are experienced when the neophyte passes through the crucifixion of flesh or matter. The Grecian Mysteries were identical with the Initiations of Buddhist and Hindu Adepts. In India, the candidate of the third degree of Initiation has two Gurus. But whether Eastern or Western, the Initiate dares all and keeps silent. Masonic Initiation was modelled on that of the Lesser Mysteries and remains an authority upon the three fundamental degrees. The triple duty of a Mason is to study whence he comes, what he is, and whither he goes. 5. Traces of the Mysteries. The Round Towers in Ireland and Asia were connected with the Vishvakarman and Vikartana rites. In later ages, the Initiates of the Left Path and the anthropomorphists turned them into phallic monuments. The key to the mystery of Initiation (and to the real Christ, not the blasphemous caricature of the Churches) lies on the difference between the terms Chrestos and Christos. There were two Messiahs, Chrest and Christ. Jesus was an Initiate of the Egyptian Mysteries, where the rite of the suffering Chrestos on his trial, and second birth as Christos (by regeneration), were enacted. It was on the seventh day, the third of his ultimate trial, that the Eastern neophyte arose as a regenerated man and returned to earth as triumphant conqueror of death, a Hierophant. Initiates are said to have “crushed the serpent’s head,” i.e., conquered their sensual nature. The Egyptian Initiates held the Rose as symbol of Nature, the mother and nourisher of man, represented as a virgin woman. The Brothers of the Rosy Cross, as a symbol of sexual procreation. The old Indian Mysteries of Initiation were brought to Greece by Orpheus, nine millennia before Homer and Hesiod. 6. The Last of the Mysteries in Europe. Alesia, Arles, and Bibractis, the last bastions of the Ancient Mysteries in Europe, are no more. Occult Wisdom is now replaced by absolute theocracy that displays its crowned priests to the ignorant masses. Whatever else Cheops might have done, he has not built the pyramid bearing his name. Neither Solomon his temple, nor Noah his arc, for that matter. The strict silence of the Initiates and the total loss of all written memorials of secret knowledge may explain why so little is known of the Ancient Mysteries. Yet, there is spiritual Alchemy and physical transmutation: their cradle is to be sought in the most distant times. 7. The Post-Christian Successors to the Mysteries. The Neo-Platonic School of Ammonius Saccas became the successor of the Eleusinian Mysteries and herald of the Eastern Secret Teachings — unveiling the long and laborious descent and re-ascent of the Divine Monad or Soul. Each of us have to pass through the “Valley of Thorns” before he emerges into the plains of divine light and rest. The Eclectic doctrines are strongly reflected in the Epistles of Paul and John the Evangelist. For it is not Judaism and Christianity that remodelled the ancient Pagan Wisdom, but rather the latter that put its heathen curb on the new “faith” and was further influenced by the Eclectic Theosophical system, the direct emanation of the Wisdom-Religion. Ammonius, Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, were prominent Theosophists though they never claimed the title. All that is grand and noble in Christian theology comes from Neo-Platonism. Ammonius was a true Philaletheian, one of us. His Eclectic Theosophical School, a precursor and prototype of the modern Theosophical Movement, was made of the crumbs permitted to be gathered from the antediluvian lore. Woe to those who mock Divine Knowledge and betray her secrets. But those who are pure in thought and deed, and have trust and confidence in their immortal spirit, have nothing to fear.

The essays in Imagining the East explore how Theosophists during the formative period imagined the religions and cultures of the East. The authors examine the relationship of such representations to orientalism, the history of ideas, politics, and culture at large and discuss how these esoteric or theosophical representations mirrored conditions and values current in nineteenth-century mainstream intellectual culture. The essays also look at how the early Theosophical Society's representations of the East differed from mainstream 'orientalism' and how the Theosophical Society's mission in India was distinct from that of British colonialism and Christian missionaries.