HELENA BLAVATSKY
                   AND THE  FOUNDING OF THE

                    THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

    -(a reconstruction and deconstruction) Dorian Borsella

  I have always had a fear that I might not be able to find something that’s wrapped up under my very nose, because I am confused about the shape of the package. Every once in a great while, the package can be a person who has much wisdom, but you immediately get turned off and never get to drink from that fountain. How about a short, fat woman with thick arms, hair that can’t be tamed, who is also loud, forceful, creative with the truth, wearing a tent of a dress, wearing a handful of rings, and who can cuss with the best of them? And, yes--who even smokes! How about the same lady in a proper Victorian setting! But yet—there is that great wisdom! So let’s unwrap the package.
                                  
     

 BAPTISM BY FIRE

Helena was raised  in a society which believed in all manner of ghosts, goblins, and things that go bump in the night, horror-story critters who, if crossed, could control human life. A formula for combustion, surely.
  Helena’s mother, who had her own coterie of literary friends, died when Helena was eleven. It’s best to leave the psychiatrists to debate why, throughout her life, Helena insisted that her mother had died during her infancy. HPB probably felt neglected because her mother had a life. Not all women did in those days.

  When Helena was 17 she married General Nicephore Blavatsky, presumably more for the sense of adventure than for love. The general was around 40. The marriage barely lasted as long as the honeymoon—literally! Helena ran off to her grandfather. The grandfather contacted Helena’s father. Peter von Hahn immediately started out on a trip of a couple thousand miles to retrieve his daughter. He was too late. Helena had already struck out on a path of her own, physically and spiritually.
Much of what is known between then and 1873, when Helena Blavatsky appeared on the shores of New York, is known only by what Helena told people.  She was known to occasionally embellish the truth.
 Helena did eventually return to her husband for a time.

  Séances were big at this time on both sides of the Atlantic. Helena tried her hand at mediumship.  She became close friends with a certain Baron Nicholas Meyendorff of Estonia. He shared her interests in séances and was a close friend of one of the renowned spiritualists of the day, Dunglas D. Home. Much later, in her wisdom, HPB concluded that one did not get enlightenment by hanging on the words of the dissatisfied dead who were still trying to come back and get in their two cents worth .She sought a higher truth.

   Around this time, Helena began receiving communications from two Masters,  Morya and Koot Hoomi.  The communication was via letters.I don’t know how many of these letters from the Masters there were; perhaps hundreds. They materialized in odd but significant places. They precipitated! Sometimes they gave great insights. Other times their advice was more practical.

   Like various religions, (though Theosophy is not a religion), followers fall into camps of  conservative and liberal.  The hard-liners believe that the letters came from the two disembodied spirits. Others seek more mundane explanations. (A contemporary scholar, K. Paul Johnson, wrote a sensible book called The Masters Revealed: Blavatsky and the Myth of the Great White Lodge.)

  In those days viewed from these days, one reads about long queues of esoteric writers who claim assistance from other-worldly adepts, who have come up with great works, yet do not admit to sitting down with paper and pen. The famous magician and co-founder of the Golden Dawn (1888), MacGregor Matthers, practically lived in the British Museum Reading Room for years, and held that there were “The Secret Chiefs” who spoke only to him! Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law was dictated by Aiwass, his “Holy Guardian Angel,” over the space of three days, 8, 9 and 10 April, 1904, in Cairo.

  Yeats’ A Vision originated in the afternoon of 24 October, 1917, when Yeats and his wife of four days, experimented with automatic writing. Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon in a similar fashion. One might wisely judge the wisdom found in the writings, rather than the mode of inspiration. 
  An occultist during Blavatsky’s time in America, Emma H. Britten, proclaimed her book, Art Magic, to be produced by the Astral Light. More recently we have channeling. Others had “Illiuminati.” The medium is not the message!      Chesed, on the Kaballistic Tree of Life, is usually reckoned as the jumping-off place, from which one can evolve no higher. Here, the Illumined One can jump across the abyss and become one with the All. Another choice is  to linger at the threshold as Magicians of the Light who could still reach out to influence—and hopefully help—poor, struggling humanity. Any decent “mystery school,” even today, claims to be “contacted.”

 Blavatsky devoured the writings of Bulwer-Lytton, especially Zanoni. Bulwer-Lytton was  a friend of Eliphas Levi, the defrocked French priest and magician. Crowley thought so highly of Levi that he sometimes claimed to have been Eliphas in his past life. Levi died 31 May 1875; Aleister was born 12 October 1875 so there would have been a rather quick re-ensoulment. Some claim that Blavatski got the idea of the Masters from the writings of Bulwer-Lytton. I remain agnostic on that controversy.
   In 1871 Helena (states that she) found herself on the SS Eumonia, bound for Alexandria, Egypt. She traveled with a friend,  Agardi Metrovich.

  At any rate, Helena did reach Egypt and while there formed “The Societe Spirite for Occult Phenomena.”
  A woman named Emma Cutting became Helena’s friend at this time. However, some years later, she was to reappear as Emma Coulomb and create for HPB a scandal that would prove an “8” or “9” on the Richter scale. For the present, Emma desired only contact with a recently deceased brother. She was a bit disappointed with Helena’s séance. No voices ensued, only a few meager raps. Emma accepted Helena’s explanation that the séance room had been inadequately purified beforehand.

  NEW YORK CITY:  The word spread that spiritualism was alive and well in America. In July,1873. Helena reached New York, getting off a ship with many other immigrants. In those days it was easy to be an immigrant. All you had to do was have money for the boat. Nowadays US of A has a type of iron curtain to keep people from getting in. Borders are hermetically sealed!
  HPB had an explanation for her arrival from the ship in “steerage” rather than first class. As Madame tells it, German family, with several children, were in tears because they had been sold fraudulent tickets and could not get on the boat at all; she therefore cashed in her first-class ticket and bought fares so that everyone could travel. True? Very possibly.  Throughout her life, great instances of her generosity have been documented. Yet, in a time that was much more class conscious than our own, a woman set on embarking on a career as a medium and spiritual leader might have preferred to make an excuse for arriving with the “great unwashed hordes.” A few years later, when she was to travel to India, she again traveled cheaply. Finances were scarce.
Blavatsky sought work in New York.  She perhaps  expected money to be sent from the Russian consulate. None was forthcoming. She lodged in a large boarding house. She entertained the  group with stories of her life. On Sunday nights she held séances. Finally Helena did receive a modest inheritance upon the death of her father.

  An important event in Helena's life occurred ten days after Henry Steele Olcott's first article on the Eddy séances appeared. Helena knew that she had to get introduced to Henry. How hard was that? HPB had adequate chutzpah to arrange a meeting.
  Olcott was agricultural editor of the New York Tribune (1858–60.) He had served in the Civil War and afterward was admitted to the bar in New York City. With the rank of Colonel, he was special commissioner in the U.S. War and Navy departments (1863–66). He was a moderately important public figure. Henry, like Helena, was very interested in Eastern thought.  He formed a firm belief in HPB's Masters.

  While living in New York City, Helena founded the Theosophical Society in September 1875, with Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge and others.    The Society was a type of modern day Gnostic movement of the late nineteenth century. It took its inspiration from Hinduism and Buddhism.
  Madame Blavatsky claimed that all religions were both true in their inner teachings and false or imperfect in their external conventional manifestations. Imperfect men attempting to translate the divine knowledge had corrupted it in the translation. Her claim that esoteric spiritual knowledge is consistent with new science might be considered the first instance of what is now called New Age thinking. In fact, many researchers feel that much of New Age thought started with Blavatsky. This writer, however, believes that ideas in current New Age thought  have little resemblance to Theosophy.

  Helena,  as always, needed financial support. Throughout her life, she contributed small articles to Russian magazines,  earning at least  spending change to support her (rolled) cigarette habit. Henry Olcott was scant help with finances. His money was already committed to his estranged wife and two children. His law practice had been neglected during his Spiritualism investigations.

 Helena’s main interest, however, was Olcott. He was the one whom she needed for her spiritual movement. HPB dictated Olcott's writings and directed him where to send them. (Helena’s new husband and Olcott’s wife seemed to have evaporated—not literally!) In Sept.1875 in New York City, Blavatsky and Olcott founded the Theosophical Society.
  The Society was co-founded by Olcott along with William Q. Judge. Its name was furnished by Charles Sotheran , a man of independent means, a high Mason, a Rosicrucian, and a student of the Kabbalah. The word Theosophy—Sophia, goddess of Wisdom and Knowledge. Theo – God, the Divine. Thus – Knowledge of the Divine.

   ISIS UNVEILED - AND A FEW FIRES TO BE PUT OUT: Helena, in close connection to Henry Olcott, wrote Isis Unveiled in the summer of 1876 in New York. She claimed the help of the secret Masters.  The production of the book gave HPB a huge advantage over several rival occultists and spiritualists who might otherwise have emerged as a spiritual leader.
  The cry of plagiarism immediately followed. HPB was not a trained scholar. She had quoted sources without attribution and was not on good terms with quotation marks. Reviewers complained of lack of documentation. Yet, much of the work was  Helena's original thought.

   Still another fire cried to be extinguished! The prominent medium Daniel Dunglas Home had pubished his autobiography, Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism.. In this book, he dedicated an entire chapter to criticizing Olcott and maligning Helena. It seems that Home and HPB had history some years back, when Home questioned whether Helena had actually materialized a belt buckle on a Russian corpse!

INDIA BECKONS:
   Helena was determined to go to India. Olcott gave verbal assent but then balked. After all, Henry had a life, a wife (ex) and two children, all of whom he supported. He advised Helena that she had best get American citizenship because there was currently a period of British-Russian antagonism. It would be safer to carry an American passport when arriving in India. Helena assented.

  The pattern of crisis management was not much changed when Helena and Henry arrived in Bombay. Helena was immediately disappointed with the reception committee, or lack of same. In a letter to her sister Vera, Helena complained about being met by a group of half-naked dancing girls who provided, as transport, an elephant! The person who was to officially meet them, Chintamon, was late. Next day they were given a great feast attended by hundreds. HBP and Olcott though that their fortunes were looking up –until later, they were handed the bill!

   While in Bombay, some time later, Emma Cutting, ne Coulomb, reappeared in Helena’s life. She and her husband were penniless. HPB invited the couple to stay with them at their headquarters until Mr.Alexis Coulomb could find work. Later, the invitation got extended indefinitely. Blavatsky and Emma were allies, with Helena winding Emma up to play trick after trick on the gullible Henry Olcott. Emma had sworn that she saw a spirit in the garden. Henry’s own spirits were perked up.

   Rosa Bates, one off the two original travelers from New York, was positioned as the chief housekeeper. Helena and Henry planned an extended trip to Ceylon. (During this trip, HPB and Olcott inexplicably became Buddhists—odd because the Theosophical Society headquarters was to be at Adyar, India and they had ever been inspired by Indian Hindu masters!  Jealousy reared its ugly head in this unusual household. Rosa became furious when HPB appointed Emma as head of household while HPB and Olcott traveled.

   Helena’s rationale: Whereas Emma was married and presumably had household skills, Rosa was a single woman who would not have had Emma's experience.  By the time HPB returned from Ceylon, Rosa and Emma could hardly exist in the same household.
Wimbridge, also dismissed, took to vilifying Helena in the Indian press. Blavatsky fought back with letters to the editor. All of this was unhelpful to the T.S.’ reputation.
   Yet it was in India that HPB and the Society gained much support. Newly acquired supporters included Sinnett, the statesman Allen O. Hume, and various high-caste Indians and English officials. The world  headquarters of the Theosophical Society is in Adyar, India, which is located near Madras. The Society also has various national headquarters. In England, national headquarters is located on Gloucester Place in London. American headquarters is housed in a suburb of Chicago, Wheaton.

   Alfred Sinnett quickly earned his way into the inner circle. He  ardently longed to witness miracles,  prevailing upon Helena to produce supernatural manifestations. She satisfied him by performing the esoteric equivalent to some “pull rabbits out of hats” tricks. Then there was the “astral bell.” A bell is a powerful magical symbol. It beckons, it warns. It is a feminine symbol associated with the Goddess. Even in Christian symbolism, it jingles on the altar of some churches when the priest  elevates the bread and wine.

Helena and Henry, the two great soul mates while in New York, began to experience disagreements.  Henry, who enjoyed lecturing, responded to an invitation by the Ceylon Buddhists to visit. HPB did not wish him to go.
By late 1882, Helena was clearly a public figure. Prominent people visited her, perhaps none more potentially useful than Jacob Sassoon, a wealthy businessman who had established a Jewish community in Bombay.
  William Tournay Brown, a well educated and not so well mentally balanced Scot, entered the Theosophists’ lives. Olcott made him his secretary. Brown caused trouble down the road because he had not a doubt in the world that he had visits from Koot Hoomi in his actual flesh! What irony! Later, when Helena found it prudent to de-emphasize the Mahatmas, Brown raised a stink because he was certain that he knew Hoot Hoomi as a man of flesh and blood.

   Meanwhile, following Helena’s scolding of Emma over some lesser matter, the Coulombs began to turn treacherous. Emma’s tongue began to wag to anyone who would listen. Madame was termed a fraud; Henry, merely a fool. While Helena was visiting Paris,  Emma was blowing the minds of the Adyar people. One of her charges was that Blavatsky had ordered Mr. Coulomb to cut a secret hole in the ceiling for receipt of Mahatma Letters. Moreover, the shrine in the Occult Room was fitted with a secret back door.  Franz Hartman and Lane-Fox tried to eject the Coulombs, offering 2,000 Indian rupees if they left.  Emma only entrenched herself deeper.  Helena had once confided in her. This confidence was now being abused.  Just for good measure, Emma threw in that HPB saw as the purpose of the TS, the freeing of India from British rule! Poor Olcott was ready to consider the hypothesis that he really might be a fool. Eventually the Coulombs left Adyar. They did not leave their legal action that they had started against Blavatsky.

   Helena was dissatisfied with Mrs. Kingsford, the leader of the London Theosophical Society. That society had become too Christianized. Helena went over to London, She had also met with her sister Vera. Vera was no fan of the Mahatmas. Helena was suffering excruciating pain from swollen feet and a probably flare-up of gout.
   People formerly confused gout with high-living and rich diet. Helena Blavatsky was a big eater, but it is unwise to blame the victim for the disease. Gout is a systemic disease (i.e., condition that occurs throughout the body) caused by the buildup of uric acid in the joints. An elevated blood level of uric acid occurs when the liver produces more uric acid than the body can excrete in the urine. Some foods do cause more uric acid than others, notably red meat and red wine. Over time, uric acid in the blood crystallizes and settles in the joint spaces, causing swelling, inflammation, stiffness, and pain. Gout usually affects the first metatarsal joint of the big toe, or the ankle joints. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), gout affects approximately 2.1 million people in the United States today, and is more common in men between the ages of 40 and 50. In women, incidence increases after menopause.

  Helena’s sister, Vera, questioned how the Mahatmas, if they existed, could look on Helena, their greatest proponent, and see her in so much pain. Blavatsky almost immediately said that she felt a hand on her shoulder, declared herself pain free and began to walk without a limp

In London, Blavatsky  discovered an organization that she felt was very much like her own: The Society for Psychical Research, or SPR. An updated group still exists at 49 Marloes Road, Kensington, London.
  On 2 May, 1884, the SPR decided to investigate the Theosophical Society itself. The objects of their investigation were:
1.Astral appearances of living men
2. Physical substances being moved about by occult means.
3. “Precipitation” of letters
4. Various unexplained sounds and voices.

   Olcott was the first one interviewed by the group. He had nothing but benign feelings toward them. Mohini Chatterje was interviewed. Olcott thought that he had done very well, passed his “exam” until HPB began grilling him on exactly what he had said. When Helena was through with him, poor Olcott felt deflated. It was left to Frederic Myers of the SPR to interview Blavatsky herself. Helena felt that her own interview was positive. She had also gotten her “astral bell” to tinkle. Some people presume that this was a small bell which Helena hid amidst her petticoats, perhaps a type of bell that might be worn on the collar of a cat. Other people believe that this bell is an otherworldly astral bell.
   Emma Coulomb, still in India, persuaded a Rev. George Patterson to publish some articles in his Christian magazine. One article was to be entitled “The Collapse of Koot Hoomi.”

   Back at Adyar, the key to the Shrine Room was being held by Damodar. After the appearance of the “collapse” article, Judge and Hartman demanded entrée. There they observed the hidden hole in back of the shrine from whence all manner of spirit manifestations could be manipulated. William Quan Judge packed up his clothes and caught the first boat out, ultimate destination New York City, where he had left his wife and his life.
During December 1884, Richard Hodgson (young, self-confident, pleasant in demeanor, Australian) of the Psychical Research Society (PRS) in London went to Adyar itself. He pursued his investigation of the T.S. Helena still looked upon Hodgson with favorable eyes, saw him as a friend.  She invited Hodgson to stay for 2 weeks! He examined the shrine room. He studied handwritings of the Mahatma Letters, interviewed everyone at Adyar. Then he visited Emma Coulomb.

   In the following spring he released a scathing report alleging fraud and trickery by HPB and her associates. To HPB and the Theosophical Society the report was controversial for over one hundred years. It put a tarnish upon the name of HPB and the Society. Many members left. ( In 1986 the PRS published an article in its Journal calling the report prejudiced, stating that Hodgson had ignored all evidence favorable to Helena Blavatsky, and, that an apology was due.)

   With murder suspects today, prosecutors feel uneasy unless they can go into court armed with a motive. It was the lack of motive that still bothered Hodgson. This shows his being out of touch with the esoteric world of his day, where adherents demanded “showings” and otherworldly phenomena, and were prepared to believe almost anything. And “almost anything” is exactly what they got from their Gurus and mediums: disembodied voices; transparent specters; chill winds; smells; bells; otherworldly flashes of light—and a string of occult writers who didn’t want to take credit for their own writing, preferring to claim direct dictation from some manner of “Holy Guardian Angel.” Thus Hodgson concluded that Madame might be either a  fraud or a Russian spy. Olcott got off lightly with Hodgson. He was found to be a fool albeit an honest one. (Some of us out there might think it better to be labled a Russian spy than a fool?)

  After understandably going through a period of anxiety, depression and general cussedness to any friend who offered her house and home, Helena pulled herself together and set out to produce The Secret Doctrine. This, her most famous “baby,” emerged from a prolonged and difficult “pregnancy.” She no longer had Olcott to help her. Countess Wachtmeister had packed Helena off on a badly needed holiday to Ostend, Belgium  Eventually, Constance herself came to Ostend to help Helena organize her writing. Later, back in London, Helena had other helpers: proofreaders; editors; assemblers.

   In October 1884 a crucial and infamous player in the subsequent life of the Theosophical Society entered HPB’s life: The Reverend Charles W. Leadbeater, Anglican priest at St Mary’s, Bramshott, Hampshire. HPB no longer had the help of Olcott nor Judge, so an Anglican priest, soon to be converted to Theosophy, seemed a welcome addition. Leadbeater’s story, however, is most closely connected with that of having as his charge the beautiful young Indian boy, Krishnamurti, raised to be a real-life Theosophical Mahatma. Leadbeater apparently  studied for the priesthood when his family’s fortunes collapsed. Unfortunately his favorite parishioners were the young boys. (The Krishnamurti experiment was a failure from the standpoint of T.S. Krishnamurti  did become an outstanding spiritual leader. Theosophists had hoped that he would become their own leader.  However, Krishnamurti refused to identify himself with any group, ever.

   The actual physical appearance of HPB: she is described as a short, stout, forceful woman, with strong arms, unruly hair, and large, liquid and slightly bulging eyes. Toward the end of her life she was quite obese. Some of this appearance in her later life might have been due to her failing health. She suffered from Bright’s disease. She actually wrote to Mrs. Sinnott in 1882 that she had Bright’s disease of the kidneys, and the whole blood turning into water with ulcers breaking out in the most unexpected and least explored spots of her body. She said that she maybe hang around a couple of years, or else, her words, kick the bucket at any time.
   Bright’s disease is defined as :any of several diseases of the kidney marked especially by edema (swelling) and the presence of albumin in the urine. It can cause elevated blood pressure. It is an inflammation in the filtering system of the kidneys.

  After travels in Europe, Blavatsky finally settled in London, spring l887 ,supported by some wealthy friends including Countess Wachtmeister. Helena continued to earn a small income writing occasional articles for Russian magazines. Adyar, through Olcott (the two once-great friends in New York had fallen out) did send her a small allowance (TS money) until that ran dry. But Helena had diciples who were more than willing to take her into their homes.  She lived with Mabel Collins at Norwood.”Maycot.” Miss Arundale offered hospitality but Helena said that they would find her disagreeable after 7 l/4 minutes of her living with them. Bertram Keightly who was the secretary of the London lodge (he lived with an uncle) moved HPB into their house at 17 Lansdowne Rd. Holland Park. There, she received visitors such as the young William Butler Yeats.

 Just curiously, HPB herself seldom if ever was the actual speaker at formal meetings of the Theosophical Society. The Secret Doctrine was selling well . With her friends’ help, Helena set up her journal Lucifer, which means LIGHT. She found the Blavatsky lodge, which then met on Lansdowne Rd. where she was staying. This lodge still meets at T. S. National Headquarters in London on Gloucester Place, on Thursdays at 6:15. By this time, HPB was a bit of a celebrity. She held Saturday “at homes.”
  Helena persuaded Olcott. who remained at Adyar, to agree to establishment of the Esoteric Section in 1889.This would be an exclusive group of students, under direct control of HPB herself.
   During 1889 HPB finished two more books: The Key to   Theosophy, an introduction to theosophical thought and philosophy; and, The Voice of the Silence, a mystical and poetic work on the path of enlightenment.

  The work of the Theosophical Society was continued by activist Annie Wood Besant, a reviewer of The Secret Doctrine and a convert to Theosophy. Besant's home in London, at 19 Avenue Road, now became the headquarters of the Society. It contained a special meeting room for the Esoteric Section as well as an occult room. Besant, a converted atheist, actively supported progressive causes, bringing another generation of liberal intellectuals into the society, and became president following Olcott's death in 1907.
  HPB died in her home on May 8, 1891. She became unable to walk and suffered from various diseases. She was cremated with a third of her ashes remaining in Europe, and a third going to America and India each. Theosophists commemorate her death on May 8, called White Lotus Day.

   What can one say? Madame Blavatsky actively pursued life. One never could say she allowed life to pass her by. If anything, she compelled life, helped by her huge personality. Although she had some defections, many friends as well as strangers freely offered their time, their talent, their homes, and their whole ways of life.
   It was true that she didn’t tolerate fools well. She had little patience with those followers who were only interested in her producing occult “phenomena” without first wanting to put in the hard work and training which no true occultist can dodge. She had little patience, period. In the last few years of her life, when she finally attained recognition, she was usually in pain and often ill. She was one of the early leaders of the revival of the magical movement in the West. However, her writings make it very clear that she disdained “black magick” which is an attempt to influence the free will of another person by use of magickal techniques.

   One has to also place her in historical context. The writings of Darwin, the lectures of Huxley, the new ways that theologians were beginning to look at the Bible (critically rather than literally), and the hardships, disease and death that people witnessed all around them, had shaken people’s faith. This was an age where the certainty of a personal God with the omni-attributes was beginning to crack. Findings in astronomy and geology were beginning to pull the plug on the theory that the world was created 4000 years B.C. Amidst this kind of ambiguity, people are often ready to believe anything. They yearned for proof of other worlds, for miracles, or for some kind of spirituality. Mediumship thrived, but Helena Blavatsky wanted something more than that. What she did not necessarily want was hopes of a heaven shock-full of singing angelic creatures. She was too earthy for that. Her life was with people. Her saints were the

Mahatmas or Masters of Wisdom, modeled on Buddhist and Christian monks, who resided in the inaccessible portion of the earth. They were the "old souls" who had completed their rounds of incarnations on earth, but frequently returned to help members of humankind who needed and requested their assistance.

 Ref. Sylvia Cranston, HPB: The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Blavatsky
K. Paul Johnson: The Masters Revealed: Madame Blavatsky and the Great White Lodge
Marian Meade: Madam Blavatsky: The Woman Behind the Myth.
Peter Washington: Madame Blavatsky’s Baboon: A History of the Mystics, Mediums, and Misfits Who Brought Spiritualism to America.
 

  Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (1832-1907), founder and first president of the Theosophical Society, is well-known as the first prominent person of Western descent to make a formal conversion to Buddhism. His subsequent actions as president of the Theosophical Society helped Buddhism into a new renaissance. He is still honoured in Sri Lanka for these efforts. Henry stayed in India and pursued the work of the society there. The Theosophical society built several Buddhist schools in Sri Lanka, most notably Ananda College, Nalanda College, Dharmaraja College and Visakha Vidyalaya. After his death, the leadership of the society devolved onto the shoulders of Blavatsky's protege Annie Besant. Wikipedia: Henry Steel Olcott
William Quan Judge (1851-March 22, 1896 New York) was a mystic, esotericist, and occultist, and one of the founders of the original Theosophical Society. He was born in Dublin, Ireland. When he was 13 years old, his family emigrated to the United States. He became a naturalized citizen at 21 and passed the New York state bar exam, specializing in commercial law.
Although merely a young man, he was among the seventeen who first put the Theosophical Society together. Like H.P. Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott, he stayed in the organization when others left. When Olcott and Blavatsky left the United States for India, Judge stayed behind to keep the Society's work alive, all the while working as a lawyer Wikipedia: William Quan Judge
Mabel Collins (* 9th September 1851 St Peters Port Guernsey, died 31st March 1927) was a theosophist and author of over 46 books Wikipedia Mabel Collins, She became a great friend of Vittoria Cremers and Roslyn D’Onston, one of many Jack the Ripper suspects. She got into anti-vivisection. She was deeply distressed by World War I. During the war years Mabel visited soldiers and took an interest in military displays. Throughout 1913/4 she spent more and more time with Catherine Metcalfe. In 1915 she went to stay with Catherine Metcalfe and wrote Our Glorious Future at Metcalfe's Home. Catherine Metcalfe had contacted Mabel after returning to England from Vancouver. They were to spend the last twelve years of Mabel’s life together. Mabel never talked of her early life and experiences. She was approached write a history of the rise of The TS but refused. She warned   Catherine that if she ever attempted a biography she would appear in wrath. 
Mabel died of angina on 31st March 1927 at the age of 76. In her will she left a little over £100.
Subba Row had initial problems with instructing non-Hindus. It was his distinct belief at the time that Hindu knowledge should remain with India, and not be extended to foreigners. In fact, even after passing over this hurdle, he was still especially private regarding his spiritual life, even to his mother and close friends. Unless the person he was speaking to had a deep understanding of mysticism, it was a fairly mute topic for him.
  For many years then, Subba Row was instrumental in establishing Theosophy in India, and continued to work hard until the first draft of the Secret Doctrine was given to him. It was his initial compulsion to edit the piece when it had been proposed, but upon reading it, he utterly and completely refused to have anything to do with it. It was his opinion that the piece contained so many mistakes that he might as well be writing a completely new book were he to edit it.
In 1888, T. Subba Row resigned from the Theosophical Society along with J.N. Cook. Tensions between himself and many of the members, as well as with HPB, had grown too stressful to maintain. It was only slightly thereafter that he contracted a cutaneous disease, a sickness which manifested itself in an outbreak of boils in 1890 during his last visit to the Theosophical Society's headquarters in Madras. Eventually he would succumb to the disease that year, and died on June 24, 1890, saying that his guru had called him, and that it was time for his departure. He was cremated the morning after as per Hindu tradition. Wikipedia: Subba Row
A.P. Sinnett (* 18 January 1840; † 26 June 1921) was an author and Theosophist.
By 1879, Sinnett had moved to India where he was "... the Editor of The Pioneer, the leading English Daily of India..."[2] He relates in his book, The Occult World that: "...on the first occasion of my making Madame Blavatsky's acquaintance she became a guest at my home at Allahabad and remained there for six weeks..." [3]
   In 1880 Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott visited the Sinnetts at their summer-home in Simla. The Mahatma letters, which generated the controversy that later helped lead to the split of the Theosophical Society, were mostly written to Sinnett or his wife, Patience.
  By 1889, Sinnett was back in England, and asked Leadbeater to come back to England to tutor his son Percy and George Arundale. Leadbeater agreed and brought with him one of his pupils Jinarajadasa.
  Sinnett was later President of the London Lodge of the Society. (ibid, A. P. Sinnett)
  C. Leadbeater His interest in occultism was stimulated by A.P. Sinnett's Occult World, and he joined the Theosophical Society in 1883. The next year he met Helena Petrovna Blavatsky when she came to London. "When she accepted him [as a pupil], he gave up the church, became a vegetarian, severed all ties with England, and followed her to India."[5]
  He lived first at Adyar, and then for several years in Ceylon, where he "...taught in a school for poor boys, founded by Colonel Olcott." (Lutyens, p 13). Around 1889, Sinnett asked him to return to England to tutor his son and also George Arundale. He agreed and brought with him, one of his pupils Jinarajadasa.
He became one of the most known speakers in the Theosophical Society for quite a number of years[7] and was also Secretary of the London Lodge.[8]
Leadbeater was accused of pederasty, the first accusation coming in 1906.
  A commission was appointed by the American Section, but before the meeting, Leadbetter resigned the TS, as he told Olcott, "to save the Society from embarrassment." (Mary Lutyens, p 16).
  Another such accusation came later from Hubert van Hook of Chicago, who as an 11-year-old was proclaimed by Leadbeater as future World Teacher.[11] On the denunciation, Mary Lutyens states: "Hubert later swore to Mrs Besant that Leadbetter had 'misused' him, but as he was extremely vindictive by that time, his testimorny, though unshaken, was perhaps not altogether reliable.' (Mary Lutyens, p 45n)
  Leadbetter was never charged or brought to court, though there is a body of evidence that suggests he had sexual relations with students in the United States, India and Australia. Peter Michel, in his biography of Charles W. Leadbeater, writes that these accusations are suspect as they came from those who could be considered his enemies
After Olcott died in Feb 1907, Annie Besant after a political struggle became President of the Society.     
  By the end of 1908, the International Sections voted for Leadbeater's
  His most well-known activity was the discovery, in April, 1909, of Jiddu Krishnamurti, on the private beach that formed part of the Theosophical headquarters in Adyar, India. Krishnamurti and his family had been living in the headquarters for a few months before this discovery. Krishnamurti was to be the vessel for the indwelling of the coming "World Teacher" that many Theosophists were expecting. This new teacher would, in the pattern of Moses, Buddha, Zarathustra (Zoroaster), Christ, and Muhammad divulge a new dispensation, a new religious teaching. Theosophists believed that the teacher was a spiritual being who would dwell in the body vessel.
  Charles Leadbeater believed he could read past lives, and did so on Krishnamurti who he claimed was really named Alcyone, publishing 30 such past lives in The Theosophist beginning April 1910 as Lives of Alcyone. "They ranged from 20,000 BC to 624 AD... Alycone was a female in eleven of them." (Lutyens, p 25)
  Charles Leadbeater stayed in India for some time overseeing the raising of Krishnamurti, but eventually felt that he was being called to go to Australia for the cause.Ref. Wikipedia: C.W._Leadbeater