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YVES CONGAR (1987)
Translated from French by Matthew J. O’Connell
Revised Bibliography
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. Founded in 1875 in
New York City, the Theosophical Society is an organization
whose name was chosen to align it with the larger theosophi-
cal tradition. This tradition embraced Neoplatonism, Gnos-
ticism, medieval mystics like Meister Eckhart and Nicholas
of Cusa, Renaissance philosophers like Giordano Bruno and
Paracelsus, and Romantic mystics and philosophers like
Jakob Boehme and Friedrich Schelling as well as wider reli-
gious philosophies like Veda ̄nta, Maha ̄ya ̄na Buddhism, Qab-
balah, and Sufism. The Theosophical Society functions as a
bridge between East and West, emphasizing the commonali-
ty of human culture.
THE FIRST GENERATION. Among the sixteen persons who
participated in the formation of the Theosophical Society,
two were notable for their roles in its future development:
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891), a charismatic Rus-
sian of upper-class family, and Henry Steel Olcott (1832–
1907), an American lawyer and journalist. Blavatsky was the
energetic force that brought the society into existence, and
she remained its chief theoretician throughout her life. At the
age of eighteen, to escape the bonds of an unwanted mar-
riage, she began her world travels, in the course of which she
circumnavigated the globe and became familiar with a wide
range of intellectual and mystical traditions. In 1873 she
moved to New York, eventually meeting Olcott in Chitten-
den, Vermont, at Spiritualist meetings he was reporting for
a New York newspaper. The Theosophical Society subse-
quently grew out of evening gatherings held in Blavatsky’s
New York apartment, at which papers and conversation
about arcane matters attracted a small company of intellectu-
als. Blavatsky’s first significant publication was Isis Unveiled
(1877); her major book is The Secret Doctrine (1888), setting
forth a cosmology; her most readable work is The Key to The-
osophy (1889). Her periodical articles (in English and French,
but excluding those in Russian) fill fourteen volumes of Col-
lected Writings (1950–1991).
Olcott provided the organizing force that held the
Theosophical Society together. During the American Civil
War he had investigated procurement fraud for the military,
and his early writings covered agriculture, insurance, and
Spiritualism. He became the first president of the society and
held that post until his death. He also became a champion
of civil rights for the Ceylonese in Sri Lanka, where he re-
mains a national hero; a promoter of education for the com-
mon people of Sri Lanka and India; and a key figure in the
Buddhist revival, espousing an ecumenical Buddhism.
Three years after the Theosophical Society’s founding,
Olcott and Blavatsky left New York for Bombay, arriving
there in 1879. A short-lived alliance with the Hindu reform
movement of the A ̄rya Sama ̄j failed because both sides mis-
understood the basic orientation of the other. But Olcott and
Blavatsky enjoyed a considerable popularity with some na-
tive Indians and members of the British raj, Blavatsky partic-
ularly among the latter for her ability to produce phenome-
na, such as the materialization of objects, and for her claim
to be in touch with human teachers of extraordinary abilities.
In 1882 the Theosophical Society acquired property in
southern India at Adyar, on the outskirts of Madras (now
Chennai) where the Adyar River flows into the Bay of Ben-
gal, property that is still the international headquarters of the
society. In 1885 Blavatsky left India after an investigation by
a staff member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR)
resulted in a report calling her an imposter, although the re-
port was later shown by another member of the SPR to have
been biased and flawed (Harrison, 1997). Blavatsky eventu-
ally settled in London, where she spent the last four years of
her life producing the major body of her writings.
Meanwhile the Theosophical Society continued to
grow, with national sections (semiautonomous bodies) being
formed within the international organization. The first three
sections were established in the United States (1886), En-
gland (1888), and India (1891).
LATER GENERATIONS. The most important person in the
Theosophical Society’s history after Blavatsky and Olcott
was Annie Wood Besant (1847–1933). Already a proponent
of free thought as well as an activist and the most famous
woman orator in England, Besant met Blavatsky after re-
viewing the latter’s book The Secret Doctrine for an English
periodical. Besant joined the Theosophical Society just two
years before Blavatsky’s death and was almost immediately
recognized as Blavatsky’s spiritual successor. Besant became
international president of the society upon Olcott’s death in
1907.9142 THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY