Theosophical Society
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 theosophical tradition. This tradition embraced Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, 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 religious philosophies like Vedānta, Mahāyāna Buddhism, Qabbalah, and Sufism. The Theosophical Society functions as a bridge between East and West, emphasizing the commonality 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 Russian 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 marriage, 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 Chittenden, Vermont, at Spiritualist meetings he was reporting for a New York newspaper.
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