Customer Reviews

Madame Blavatsky: The Woman Behind the Myth

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Very good and interesting book. A lot of new information about Helena's life, and mostly realistic view of the author, in my opinion.
It is nice to hear all the facts from neutral side, rather then only reading those who were pro or against her.
There should be a movie about Helena, and it would be quite a drama and exciting, and long too.

I always thought about H.P.B. as a talented mystifyer: her fixed, exoftalmic gaze from photographs, her hypomaniac behaviour, the episodes of auditory and visual hallucinations, and the obvious similarity of the portraits of her "Masters" with the Renaissence iconography of the Christ, all pointed to this conclusión.
Somewhat hagiographic works as "H.P.B., the extraordinary life and influence of Helena Blavatsky" (by Sylvia Cranston, Ed. Tarcher-Putnam, 1993), or "Helena Petrovna Blavatsky e la Societá Teosofica" (by Paola Giovetti,Edizioni Mediterranee, Roma, 1991) helped me scarcely to the intímate knowledge of this character.
Only after reading this superbly documented and written biography, the personality of HPB was properly drawn, with all its lights and shadows, absolutely humanized. As the author, Marion Mead says in the preface of the book: "When I embarked on this biography, I believed it necessary to decide whether she was truly a great person or not, one that I liked or did not. Before my research had progressed very far, it became clear that such an approach was doomed to fail. Like most people, H.P.B., as she was called, was a mixture of greatness and weakness. Only in that light is an appraisal possible. Regrettably, elements of her character are difficult to admire. But after careful study we can understand why she behaved as she did and can even sympathize without condoning her actions. At the same time, she possessed a genuine daring and a vastness of body and soul that compels admiration. In every way, she was an inmense person. She weighed more than other people, ate more, smoked more, swore more, and visualized heaven and earth in terms that dwarfed any previous conception..."
In my opinion this biography is the best available work on the curious existence of Madame Blavatsky and his companion the "colonel" Henry Olcott. Absolutely essential on the subject.

Despite her lack of sympathy for her subject, Meade's biography of H.P. Blavatsky is, and remains, the best one that we have to date. Meade's indefatigable research serves up a treasure-trove for those readers wanting to know the enigmatic HPB, and the world that she inhabited, and created.

This is a very well written book although I was quite surprised by the story of Madam Blavatsky. A little dissapointed at the least. As I have looked up to Madam Blavatsky and have heard nothing but good stories about her until I read this book.