Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna

Mystic, occultist, and self-professed psychic Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891), commonly referred to as Madame Blavatsky, was the founder of Theosophy, a system of beliefs that is considered to be the source of many later ideas related to alien contact. Blavatsky established this group in 1875, along with psychic investigator Henry Steel Olcott, to promote her views regarding reincarnation, mysticism, the spiritual nature of the universe, and other concepts drawn primarily from Buddhism and Brahmanism. However, the group’s members were also dedicated to studying and explaining the nature of psychic mediums; to investigating ancient mysteries, such as what might have happened to certain lost civilizations like Atlantis; and to uncovering the reason for the building of the Egyptian pyramids.

Blavatsky promoted her views through two books, Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888), in which she claimed to know that the Earth is hollow and that an advanced civilization populated by beings from two lost civilizations, Atlantis and Lemuria, exists in this inner space. She portrayed these advanced beings as benevolent caretakers who want to save humans from destroying each other and their planet. It was this concept that subsequently appeared in numerous accounts from people claiming contact with extraterrestrials. Blavatsky claimed that she received this information psychically from spirits of the Orient. She also claimed that she had spent seven years in Tibet studying the ancient wisdom of the people there.

In 1878, after various disagreements threatened to divide the Theosophical Society into two branches, Blavatsky relocated the headquarters of the group to Adyar, India, where she actively worked to spread the basic tenets of Theosophy. She also promoted herself as a mystic, occultist, and psychic, conducting demonstrations of her abilities that astounded witnesses. In the 1880s and 1890s, skeptics tried to discredit these demonstrations, attacking her in various publications, but her followers, known as Theosophists, dismissed their attempts. The Theosophical Society still exists today, though it has split into three factions: one is the original organization established by Blavatsky in India, and the other two, both in the United States, were established by members who, for various reasons, did not like the direction the original group took after Blavatsky’s death in 1891.

SEE ALSO:

• Atlantis;
• hollow-Earth theory
• Lemuria
• The Theosophical Society

SOURCE:

The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Paranormal Phenomena – written by Patricia D. Netzley © 2006 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning