Dictionary of Indian Biography/Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna

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2892457Dictionary of Indian Biography — Blavatsky, Helena PetrovnaCharles Edward Buckland

BLAVATSKY, HELENA PETROVNA (1831–1891)

Born at Ekaterinoslav: daughter of Colonel Peter Hahn, of a noble family of Mechlenburg, settled in Russia: married at 17 a husband of 60, but they soon separated: she travelled widely, in rope, America and Asia, round the Cape to Bombay: after an unsuccessful attempt to enter Tibet, via Nipal, she entered it in' disguise in 1855, via Kashmir, was lost in the desert and brought back to the frontier: after numerous adventures and further travels in India, she was in the United States in 1873 and for 6 years in N. York, becoming a naturalized American: she studied spiritualism, and in 1875 founded, with Colonel Olcott, the Theosophical Society: wrote books and pamphlets in support of her theories: settled in London, 1887: brought out a magazine, Lucifer, the Light-bringer: wrote The Secret Doctrine, .the Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy, 1888, and The Key of Philosophy, 1889: died in London, May 8, 1891.