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The Esoteric World of Madame Blavatsky: Insights into the Life of a Modern Sphinx

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Here for the first time is the story of H. P. Blavatsky's life in the words of her contemporaries. Although not a biography per se, this collection tells the story of Madame Blavatsky's eventful career with a special look at the "Esoteric World" in which she lived. These reminiscences by her relatives, acquaintances, friends, co-workers, critics and enemies allow the reader to enter into the historical milieu of HPB's time and give a vivid portrayal of Madame Blavatsky's personality. The narratives are arranged in chronological order and include (1) striking word portraits of HPB; (2) reminiscences giving insight into HPB's enigmatic character; (3) incidents that are sometimes humorous and witty; (4) accounts of psychic phenomena performed by Madame Blavatsky; and (5) descriptions of encounters with HPB's Masters. These personal reminiscences of HPB by more than seventy of her contemporaries give a vivid portrayal of one of the most extraordinary and controversial figures of modern times. Here is a sourcebook of rare original material on HPB illustrated with forty-four photographs and drawings.

In The Esoteric World Of Madame Blavatsky: Insights Into The Life Of A Modern Sphinx, Daniel Caldwell has collected a wealth of biographical information on one of the most influential metaphysical thinkers and writers of her day. Arranged in chronological order, we are treated to Madame Blavatsky's travels beginning in Russia and spanning the entire world including her years in New York, and sojourns to London, Bombay, Allahabad, Sri Lanka, Lahore, Adyar, France, Germany, and Italy. A "must" for students of Madame Blavatsky's writings and metaphysics, Caldwell's informative text is wonderfully enhanced with a number of illustrations and photographs.

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The portrait of Madame Blavatsky that emerges in over four hundred pages of personal accounts by numerous of her contemporaries, critics as well as close associates, reveals one of the most extraordinary people who have ever lived on this planet. According to reports by relatives, Helena Blavatsky was extraordinary even as a child, a person with a strong will and an uncommon sensitivity to spirits and other dimensions of reality. She underwent a mysterious initiation process in her early life, and traveled from her native Russia to study many esoteric traditions.

Madame Blavatsky had extraoridinary abilities that she sometimes manifested in psychic parlor games. She was dedicated, however, to revealing deep spiritual truths about the nature of life and esoteric spirituality. She had an ability to work intensely for long periods of time, often writing by an unusual method. Accounts by her closest associates tell how she composed some of her voluminious writings (including Isis Unveiled) by a method that seemingly involved clairvoyant "seeing" of texts that were located in other places. (Her quotes from these distant text were often later checked by her associates, and required, at most, minor editing revisions). She claimed to be in contact with guides who were living in the Himalayas; many who came close to her reported brief contacts with those guides, as well.

Madame Blavatsky spent a brief time in the United States, even becoming a citizen. In New York City, with several associates, she started the Theosophical Society. Its stated purpose was to "go deeper than modern science has hitherto done into the Esoteric philosophies of ancient times, [that] they may be enabled to attain for themselves and other investigators proof of the existence of an `Unseen Universe,' the nature of its inhabitants, if such there be, and the laws which govern them and their relations with mankind." The organization had no creed and welcomed people of all races and religions.

Madame Blavatsky later moved to India, where she wrote and lectured and worked for many years to promote the causes of the Theosophical Society. She is credited with introducing Eastern religious ideas to the West, and in the East with encouraging a renewed interest in its own religious traditions. She left India surrounded by admiration as well as innuendo and allegations of fraud made by two disgruntled employees. The last years of her life were spent in England, in the company of a small group of advanced students, including Annie Besant, who later became president of the Theosophical Society.

Brilliant, frank, fierce, telepathic, energetic, controversial, and devoted to the work she felt called to do on behalf of humanity, Madame Blavatsky has few equals of such intensity in any century. It includes an index of helpful biographical sketches of the many influential people who came in contact with Madame Blavatsky and left some writing to describe their extraordinary encounters with her. Out of a patchwork of their recorded memories, this fascinating and enigmatic portrait emerges.