Helena Blavatsky’s Influence

Within a year of meeting in Vermont, Helena and Henry had founded the Theosophical Society in New York, developing chapters worldwide over the next quarter century and deeply influencing spiritual leaders like Annie Besant and Jiddu Krishnamurti; philosopher Rudolf Steiner; poets W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens; inventor Thomas Edison; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; transformative figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Augusto Sandino; and artists Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian.

Helena gradually initiated Olcott into the “secret doctrine.” After a tumultuous and controversial career she died in London in 1891. She was the first Russian (actually born in Ukraine) ever to become a naturalized American citizen.

Many people consider her the godmother of the 60’s New Age movement and the Age of Aquarius.