1 00:00:02,480 --> 00:00:06,920 Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. In our episode on Joaquin Torres Garcia this week, 2 00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:10,240 Speaker 1: we talked about Patam Blovotsky and how she just seems 3 00:00:10,280 --> 00:00:13,280 Speaker 1: to keep showing up in our episodes in unexpected moments. 4 00:00:13,840 --> 00:00:17,760 Speaker 1: So today our episode on her is our Saturday Classic. 5 00:00:18,360 --> 00:00:22,599 Speaker 1: This originally came out on October fifth, twenty twenty, so enjoy. 6 00:00:25,680 --> 00:00:28,600 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 7 00:00:28,760 --> 00:00:38,360 Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 8 00:00:38,400 --> 00:00:41,880 Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Tracy, it's the best 9 00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:44,520 Speaker 1: month of the year. I know it's your absolute favorite. 10 00:00:44,720 --> 00:00:47,280 Speaker 1: It is. I mean, I in my heart it's October 11 00:00:47,320 --> 00:00:50,600 Speaker 1: every day, but now we're actually in October, which means 12 00:00:51,320 --> 00:00:56,840 Speaker 1: Halloween e content. And for this October we're doing kind 13 00:00:56,880 --> 00:00:59,880 Speaker 1: of an on ramp topic because it's a subject that 14 00:01:00,160 --> 00:01:01,720 Speaker 1: I know you and I have both been kind of 15 00:01:01,760 --> 00:01:06,800 Speaker 1: mentally prowling around for a bit. It is Madame Blavatsky, 16 00:01:07,080 --> 00:01:09,880 Speaker 1: who is said to have gone simply by her initials 17 00:01:09,920 --> 00:01:12,959 Speaker 1: of HPB. I have a hard time saying that, so 18 00:01:13,040 --> 00:01:16,319 Speaker 1: I'm going to stick to her regular name. Yeah. Well, 19 00:01:16,360 --> 00:01:18,680 Speaker 1: and it's also like the name she was known by 20 00:01:19,280 --> 00:01:23,280 Speaker 1: in all of her work around the English speaking world. 21 00:01:23,360 --> 00:01:26,920 Speaker 1: We're not going to try to like recreate her Russian 22 00:01:27,080 --> 00:01:31,720 Speaker 1: name in Russian because that's not how she was known here, right, 23 00:01:32,680 --> 00:01:35,560 Speaker 1: And Blavatsky is a figure that is iconic in a 24 00:01:35,640 --> 00:01:39,000 Speaker 1: number of ways. She was the founder of the theosophical movement. 25 00:01:39,440 --> 00:01:41,640 Speaker 1: She lived of a life of adventure that is hard, 26 00:01:42,440 --> 00:01:46,200 Speaker 1: very hard to believe. Frankly, we'll talk a little bit 27 00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:49,080 Speaker 1: about the likely embellishment of some of her life story, 28 00:01:50,080 --> 00:01:51,960 Speaker 1: and you could also make the case that she, in 29 00:01:52,040 --> 00:01:55,040 Speaker 1: many ways set the image that persists to this day 30 00:01:55,080 --> 00:01:58,840 Speaker 1: in pop culture of the fortune teller, clad in flowing 31 00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:02,440 Speaker 1: garments and fringe. She tended to play up her otherness 32 00:02:02,520 --> 00:02:05,000 Speaker 1: as she traveled through the world to make a name 33 00:02:05,040 --> 00:02:08,120 Speaker 1: for herself and to make a living. She is a 34 00:02:08,160 --> 00:02:11,800 Speaker 1: polarizing figure to this day. There are still people that 35 00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:14,160 Speaker 1: are scholars of her work, and still people that are 36 00:02:14,280 --> 00:02:18,240 Speaker 1: very vested in disproving her work. But the important thing 37 00:02:18,320 --> 00:02:20,440 Speaker 1: is that the impact of her work is still felt 38 00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:22,440 Speaker 1: in the world, whether you believe her to have been 39 00:02:22,520 --> 00:02:25,799 Speaker 1: a genuine mystic or a total fraud. So we are 40 00:02:25,800 --> 00:02:30,680 Speaker 1: tackling Madam Blovotsky after many years of kind of looking 41 00:02:30,720 --> 00:02:33,120 Speaker 1: at it and then being like later, later, yeah, well, 42 00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:37,480 Speaker 1: And then also when we were we have each had 43 00:02:37,919 --> 00:02:39,760 Speaker 1: time away from the office recently, and it was like 44 00:02:39,760 --> 00:02:42,400 Speaker 1: we were trying to get a handle on what was 45 00:02:42,480 --> 00:02:44,720 Speaker 1: coming up on the show. So one of us didn't 46 00:02:44,760 --> 00:02:46,840 Speaker 1: do the same thing as the other one while the 47 00:02:46,880 --> 00:02:50,680 Speaker 1: other one was out and not reachable, and you sent 48 00:02:50,720 --> 00:02:52,200 Speaker 1: me your list over and I was like, oh, I'm 49 00:02:52,240 --> 00:02:56,120 Speaker 1: so glad this is finally on there. Well, and it 50 00:02:56,160 --> 00:02:59,840 Speaker 1: worked out well because you know, this is a it's 51 00:02:59,880 --> 00:03:03,440 Speaker 1: a longer episode, in part because there's a lot of 52 00:03:03,440 --> 00:03:06,600 Speaker 1: her story for her and her life is in some 53 00:03:06,639 --> 00:03:12,160 Speaker 1: ways well documented in other ways very fuzzily documented. Picking 54 00:03:12,160 --> 00:03:14,320 Speaker 1: it apart is quite tricky. But I also wanted to 55 00:03:14,360 --> 00:03:18,720 Speaker 1: try to read as many different sources and biographies as 56 00:03:18,720 --> 00:03:21,480 Speaker 1: I could, because, as we know, and we've talked about before, 57 00:03:22,240 --> 00:03:24,400 Speaker 1: some will be favorable to a subject, some will not, 58 00:03:24,600 --> 00:03:26,440 Speaker 1: some will fall in the middle, and you kind of 59 00:03:26,480 --> 00:03:28,880 Speaker 1: have to develop a sense of pattern recognition to see 60 00:03:28,919 --> 00:03:32,680 Speaker 1: like what is consistent biography to biography and what seems 61 00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:35,440 Speaker 1: like biographer bias, and so in her case, that's a 62 00:03:35,520 --> 00:03:38,400 Speaker 1: really big part of the research is just kind of 63 00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:43,200 Speaker 1: trying to suss out the bias versus the actual Yeah, 64 00:03:43,480 --> 00:03:47,480 Speaker 1: I'm literally putting your quotes around actual facts because you'll 65 00:03:47,520 --> 00:03:53,160 Speaker 1: see it starts right from the beginning. The life of 66 00:03:53,360 --> 00:03:57,760 Speaker 1: Madame Blovotsky was just a tangle of intensity right from 67 00:03:57,760 --> 00:04:02,520 Speaker 1: her birth. She was born Elena Petrovna von Hahn in 68 00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:05,840 Speaker 1: what was at the time Russian Ukraine. She was born 69 00:04:06,240 --> 00:04:10,720 Speaker 1: August twelfth, eighteen thirty one, and she was born prematurely 70 00:04:10,800 --> 00:04:13,400 Speaker 1: in the middle of a cholera epidemic, so that's already 71 00:04:13,440 --> 00:04:18,520 Speaker 1: a lot. Elena's mother, Elena andreaev navon Hahn, was still 72 00:04:18,520 --> 00:04:21,919 Speaker 1: a teenager, was sick with cholera when she gave birth, 73 00:04:22,720 --> 00:04:25,600 Speaker 1: and both of them were not expected to live. A 74 00:04:25,720 --> 00:04:30,000 Speaker 1: priest was brought in to baptize the baby quickly before 75 00:04:30,320 --> 00:04:35,320 Speaker 1: she was expected to die, and so then Elena's aunt Nadya, 76 00:04:35,400 --> 00:04:38,480 Speaker 1: who was also a child at the time, accidentally set 77 00:04:38,520 --> 00:04:41,200 Speaker 1: the priest robes on fire with a candle that she 78 00:04:41,320 --> 00:04:45,440 Speaker 1: was holding. This is so much in a birth story, right, 79 00:04:45,640 --> 00:04:50,280 Speaker 1: There's just a lot going on. Elena's German father, Peter 80 00:04:50,440 --> 00:04:53,200 Speaker 1: von Hahn, was a captain in the Royal Horse Artillery. 81 00:04:53,279 --> 00:04:55,480 Speaker 1: He was in Poland when all of this happened, so 82 00:04:55,520 --> 00:04:58,760 Speaker 1: he missed all of the you know, sort of grave happenings, 83 00:04:58,800 --> 00:05:02,039 Speaker 1: but also the wackiness with the child setting a priest 84 00:05:02,080 --> 00:05:06,000 Speaker 1: on fire. Accidentally, he actually did not meet his daughter 85 00:05:06,040 --> 00:05:08,680 Speaker 1: for six months to a year, depending on the source 86 00:05:08,680 --> 00:05:11,560 Speaker 1: you look at. Accounts swerve around quite a bit on 87 00:05:11,640 --> 00:05:15,400 Speaker 1: that point. So of course she did not die in infancy. 88 00:05:16,160 --> 00:05:19,960 Speaker 1: She was also descended from royalty. Her grandmother was Princess 89 00:05:19,960 --> 00:05:25,599 Speaker 1: Elena Pavlovna Delgerikov, and defied convention of the day. She 90 00:05:25,839 --> 00:05:30,600 Speaker 1: educated herself in everything from Greek language to botany. Helena's 91 00:05:30,640 --> 00:05:34,800 Speaker 1: seventeen year old mother also survived the delivery and became 92 00:05:34,880 --> 00:05:38,400 Speaker 1: a novelist shortly after that. Sometimes she's been called the 93 00:05:38,560 --> 00:05:41,880 Speaker 1: Russian Jorge Sound because of the similarity of the themes 94 00:05:41,920 --> 00:05:44,840 Speaker 1: in her work to that of our previous podcast subject. 95 00:05:45,360 --> 00:05:49,480 Speaker 1: So young Elena grew up in a household of women 96 00:05:49,520 --> 00:05:53,200 Speaker 1: who really valued writing and learning. Yeah, her mother's novels 97 00:05:53,240 --> 00:05:56,480 Speaker 1: are largely about women who are in marriages that do 98 00:05:56,560 --> 00:06:00,479 Speaker 1: not hold enough romance or happiness for them. Much a 99 00:06:00,520 --> 00:06:04,600 Speaker 1: lot of Shorge sounds work. But though Elena was born 100 00:06:04,680 --> 00:06:08,240 Speaker 1: into the aristocracy and had really positive role models, in 101 00:06:08,320 --> 00:06:11,640 Speaker 1: terms of education for women. Elena's life as a child 102 00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:14,760 Speaker 1: was not really what you would call idyllic. Her father's 103 00:06:14,800 --> 00:06:18,240 Speaker 1: military career meant that they moved frequently, and there are 104 00:06:18,400 --> 00:06:21,920 Speaker 1: wildly different assessments of what her relationship with her mother 105 00:06:22,080 --> 00:06:25,800 Speaker 1: was like. Some indicate that the elder Elena was generally 106 00:06:25,920 --> 00:06:28,719 Speaker 1: unhappy with her life and the constant moving, and would 107 00:06:28,760 --> 00:06:30,960 Speaker 1: have been very pleased to just break free of her 108 00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:35,200 Speaker 1: family obligations entirely. Other accounts suggest that mother and daughter 109 00:06:35,240 --> 00:06:38,719 Speaker 1: were in fact quite close. At one point, Peter's orders 110 00:06:38,720 --> 00:06:42,160 Speaker 1: took the family to Saint Petersburg, and the elder Elena 111 00:06:42,440 --> 00:06:45,880 Speaker 1: was finally happy, so much so that when the orders 112 00:06:45,920 --> 00:06:49,200 Speaker 1: came to leave, she refused to go. The von Hans 113 00:06:49,240 --> 00:06:52,560 Speaker 1: were separated for a while during this period, though she 114 00:06:52,720 --> 00:06:55,640 Speaker 1: did take her two daughters on a thousand mile journey 115 00:06:55,640 --> 00:06:58,800 Speaker 1: with their grandfather to Ostrakhan, which was at the mouth 116 00:06:58,839 --> 00:07:03,000 Speaker 1: of the Vulgar River. The family patriarch was traveling for work, 117 00:07:03,640 --> 00:07:07,480 Speaker 1: and the young Helena was exposed to Tibetan Buddhism there 118 00:07:07,520 --> 00:07:10,080 Speaker 1: for the first time. Later in life, she would describe 119 00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:12,680 Speaker 1: this as having made a really lasting impression on her. 120 00:07:13,120 --> 00:07:16,560 Speaker 1: Yeah I didn't dig into it here, but most biographers 121 00:07:16,600 --> 00:07:19,680 Speaker 1: make the point of like, her mother was so happy 122 00:07:19,720 --> 00:07:22,000 Speaker 1: to be in a city and in Saint Petersburg that 123 00:07:22,080 --> 00:07:24,680 Speaker 1: she refused to move with her father. But then she 124 00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:26,720 Speaker 1: took her kids out of Saint Petersburg and went on 125 00:07:26,760 --> 00:07:29,840 Speaker 1: what was actually a very long, arduous journey. So it 126 00:07:30,400 --> 00:07:32,320 Speaker 1: kind of points to the fact that maybe she just 127 00:07:32,360 --> 00:07:34,800 Speaker 1: didn't want to be with Peter, she maybe wanted to 128 00:07:34,880 --> 00:07:39,400 Speaker 1: break Yeah. By the time Elena was nine, her parents 129 00:07:39,440 --> 00:07:42,160 Speaker 1: were back together and the family was then living in Odessa. 130 00:07:43,160 --> 00:07:45,640 Speaker 1: But at this point the elder Helena, who had never 131 00:07:45,680 --> 00:07:49,440 Speaker 1: really enjoyed robust health, was sick and she was getting worse. 132 00:07:50,080 --> 00:07:54,000 Speaker 1: When she was finally diagnosed with tuberculosis during a pregnancy, 133 00:07:54,240 --> 00:07:57,200 Speaker 1: A doctor moved in with the family full time, and 134 00:07:57,280 --> 00:07:59,920 Speaker 1: that baby, a son named Leonid, was born in ga 135 00:08:00,240 --> 00:08:03,320 Speaker 1: eighteen forty, and he was actually the family's second son. 136 00:08:03,480 --> 00:08:05,440 Speaker 1: They had had a boy named Sasha, who had died 137 00:08:05,480 --> 00:08:09,320 Speaker 1: in infancy several years earlier. And you may have noticed 138 00:08:09,360 --> 00:08:11,440 Speaker 1: that we referenced two daughters a little bit ago, and 139 00:08:11,480 --> 00:08:13,920 Speaker 1: that's because at that point there was already a second daughter. 140 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:18,480 Speaker 1: Her name was Vera, and Helena Andreevna survived the birth 141 00:08:18,520 --> 00:08:22,640 Speaker 1: of her fourth child despite her illness, but despite every 142 00:08:22,680 --> 00:08:25,560 Speaker 1: treatment that the family's wealth and connections could arrange for her, 143 00:08:25,760 --> 00:08:27,640 Speaker 1: she did not live a whole lot longer. She died 144 00:08:27,640 --> 00:08:30,480 Speaker 1: in eighteen forty two at the age of just twenty eight, 145 00:08:31,160 --> 00:08:33,840 Speaker 1: and in an apocryphal story, her last words to her 146 00:08:33,920 --> 00:08:36,200 Speaker 1: daughter were that she would not live a life like 147 00:08:36,280 --> 00:08:38,720 Speaker 1: other women and that she would suffer a great deal, 148 00:08:39,160 --> 00:08:43,680 Speaker 1: so something that Blovotsky would say throughout her life. Helena, 149 00:08:43,760 --> 00:08:46,480 Speaker 1: her sister Vera, and her brother Leonid were sent to 150 00:08:46,520 --> 00:08:50,320 Speaker 1: live with their grandparents. That sort of tropy sentiment that 151 00:08:50,440 --> 00:08:53,680 Speaker 1: Helena was not like other girls was something that was 152 00:08:53,720 --> 00:08:56,079 Speaker 1: really part of the way the family described her from 153 00:08:56,160 --> 00:09:01,360 Speaker 1: her youth. Her sister Vera described her as being singularly strange, 154 00:09:01,600 --> 00:09:04,880 Speaker 1: and most descriptions talk about her having a duality to 155 00:09:04,920 --> 00:09:08,000 Speaker 1: her personality. On the one hand, she was really rebellious 156 00:09:08,040 --> 00:09:11,320 Speaker 1: and stubborn and liked to play unkind pranks and kind 157 00:09:11,360 --> 00:09:14,000 Speaker 1: of talk back to adults, and on the other she 158 00:09:14,120 --> 00:09:18,800 Speaker 1: was bookish, deeply interested in the metaphysical, and really obsessed 159 00:09:18,880 --> 00:09:22,079 Speaker 1: with hiding in the many tunnels and other strange hideaways 160 00:09:22,120 --> 00:09:24,640 Speaker 1: that were part of their grandparents' house in the city 161 00:09:24,679 --> 00:09:28,040 Speaker 1: of Saratov on the Vulgar River, and this is also 162 00:09:28,120 --> 00:09:30,200 Speaker 1: the point in the timeline where the stories of her 163 00:09:30,320 --> 00:09:34,920 Speaker 1: unusual paranormal abilities are rooted. So, according to family stories, 164 00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:38,440 Speaker 1: which are of course not verifiable, Helena would play with 165 00:09:38,520 --> 00:09:41,360 Speaker 1: what seemed to be ghosts, and she would sleep walk 166 00:09:41,440 --> 00:09:45,320 Speaker 1: into the unused passages of the house and developed the 167 00:09:45,360 --> 00:09:48,520 Speaker 1: ability to put birds to sleep using something that she 168 00:09:48,720 --> 00:09:53,439 Speaker 1: called Solomon's wisdom. We don't know what that was. There 169 00:09:53,520 --> 00:09:57,440 Speaker 1: is literally nothing that tries to explain what Solomon's wisdom was, 170 00:09:58,720 --> 00:10:02,600 Speaker 1: and of course the fa lore around Helena mentions her 171 00:10:02,640 --> 00:10:05,440 Speaker 1: fascination with the dead from the time she was a child. 172 00:10:06,240 --> 00:10:09,560 Speaker 1: Once the children had relocated to Saratov and were just 173 00:10:09,679 --> 00:10:14,120 Speaker 1: not constantly moving around to accommodate their father's career anymore, 174 00:10:14,679 --> 00:10:20,040 Speaker 1: their education settled into more consistent and formalized structures. But 175 00:10:20,320 --> 00:10:22,960 Speaker 1: even so, and in spite of coming from a pretty 176 00:10:22,960 --> 00:10:26,520 Speaker 1: progressive family in terms of women in education, this was 177 00:10:26,760 --> 00:10:30,400 Speaker 1: largely about preparing her to be an aristocratic wife. So 178 00:10:30,440 --> 00:10:34,240 Speaker 1: she was learning French, studying art and music, but things 179 00:10:34,320 --> 00:10:38,199 Speaker 1: like math and science were not really part of the curriculum. Nope, 180 00:10:38,240 --> 00:10:42,600 Speaker 1: she was supposed to learn how to be very pretty 181 00:10:42,720 --> 00:10:45,720 Speaker 1: and quiet and to be able to entertain her husband 182 00:10:45,720 --> 00:10:49,560 Speaker 1: with talks of culture, but not really anything else. And 183 00:10:49,600 --> 00:10:52,320 Speaker 1: there are a lot of stories of the ways in 184 00:10:52,360 --> 00:10:55,320 Speaker 1: which Helena in her early years comes into contact with 185 00:10:55,400 --> 00:10:59,160 Speaker 1: the occult and the mystical, just before her own deeper 186 00:10:59,160 --> 00:11:01,680 Speaker 1: connection to that world world is said to have manifested. 187 00:11:02,400 --> 00:11:06,360 Speaker 1: So she allegedly learned about b communication and plants that 188 00:11:06,440 --> 00:11:09,880 Speaker 1: had mystical uses from what is usually referred to as 189 00:11:09,960 --> 00:11:13,280 Speaker 1: a surf on the family property. His name is listed 190 00:11:13,280 --> 00:11:17,200 Speaker 1: as baronig Buyak, and while traveling with her grandparents, she 191 00:11:17,320 --> 00:11:19,640 Speaker 1: was again exposed to a number of other cultures and 192 00:11:19,720 --> 00:11:23,920 Speaker 1: ideas and was once again completely fascinated with Tibetan Buddhism 193 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:27,840 Speaker 1: in particular. She also started to mention a protector that 194 00:11:27,960 --> 00:11:31,480 Speaker 1: she saw in her dreams during her late childhood, and 195 00:11:31,559 --> 00:11:35,200 Speaker 1: she described this protector, which was her name for him, 196 00:11:35,679 --> 00:11:39,679 Speaker 1: as a tall man from India. There were several accidents 197 00:11:39,679 --> 00:11:43,200 Speaker 1: that happened to her where she narrowly escaped serious injury, 198 00:11:43,280 --> 00:11:47,240 Speaker 1: and she attributed her lack of damage to the intervention 199 00:11:47,400 --> 00:11:51,400 Speaker 1: of this protector figure yeah in one instance, she had 200 00:11:51,440 --> 00:11:54,280 Speaker 1: stacked a table with other furniture and climbed it to 201 00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:56,240 Speaker 1: get a look at a portrait that was high on 202 00:11:56,280 --> 00:11:59,280 Speaker 1: the wall of her grandparents home. There's a whole layer 203 00:11:59,360 --> 00:12:01,440 Speaker 1: to this story where the portrait is covered with a 204 00:12:01,480 --> 00:12:04,720 Speaker 1: curtain and nobody wants anybody to see it, and so 205 00:12:04,800 --> 00:12:06,840 Speaker 1: that makes it more alluring, and we don't ever find 206 00:12:06,840 --> 00:12:12,160 Speaker 1: out what the portrait is. But when she peeked behind 207 00:12:12,200 --> 00:12:15,600 Speaker 1: it to the forbidden painting, whatever it was was either 208 00:12:15,640 --> 00:12:19,160 Speaker 1: so shocking or startling that she passed out and fell 209 00:12:19,480 --> 00:12:22,280 Speaker 1: from this giant stack of furniture. And she claimed that 210 00:12:22,320 --> 00:12:25,160 Speaker 1: when she came to everything was back where it belonged. 211 00:12:25,240 --> 00:12:27,199 Speaker 1: All of the furniture had been put back in its 212 00:12:27,240 --> 00:12:31,040 Speaker 1: proper place, and the only evidence of her clandestine climb 213 00:12:31,440 --> 00:12:33,880 Speaker 1: was a handprint that she had left high on the 214 00:12:33,920 --> 00:12:37,480 Speaker 1: wall on a dusty surface. And then on another occasion, 215 00:12:37,960 --> 00:12:40,400 Speaker 1: she was thrown from a horse, and she said that 216 00:12:40,440 --> 00:12:43,120 Speaker 1: her protector had appeared and saved her by holding her 217 00:12:43,200 --> 00:12:46,400 Speaker 1: head so it did not impact on the ground. There's 218 00:12:46,400 --> 00:12:50,200 Speaker 1: also a sort of incongruous piece of travel information that 219 00:12:50,320 --> 00:12:53,760 Speaker 1: comes up around the same time that she started seeing 220 00:12:53,760 --> 00:12:57,360 Speaker 1: this protector. Later in life, she mentioned having gone to 221 00:12:57,440 --> 00:13:00,000 Speaker 1: England with her father when she was twelve or thirteen. 222 00:13:00,679 --> 00:13:03,760 Speaker 1: There's really no record of this trip. It's not corroborated 223 00:13:03,760 --> 00:13:07,120 Speaker 1: by her sister's diary at the time. So historians tend 224 00:13:07,200 --> 00:13:10,720 Speaker 1: to be of two views on this sort of strange 225 00:13:10,760 --> 00:13:14,880 Speaker 1: standout piece in the whole Madame Blovotsky puzzle. Either it 226 00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:20,280 Speaker 1: never happened, or it happened, but she recalled the timeline incorrectly, 227 00:13:20,320 --> 00:13:23,240 Speaker 1: and this trip really took place closer to eighteen fifty 228 00:13:23,320 --> 00:13:26,280 Speaker 1: when she was seventeen or eighteen instead of twelve or thirteen. 229 00:13:26,760 --> 00:13:29,640 Speaker 1: There will be so many inconsistencies with where she is 230 00:13:29,679 --> 00:13:33,679 Speaker 1: and when accepting all of these stories, of course, requires 231 00:13:33,720 --> 00:13:35,560 Speaker 1: a bit of faith, because there isn't a way to 232 00:13:35,559 --> 00:13:38,959 Speaker 1: corroborate the appearance of a spirit that only appears to 233 00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:43,080 Speaker 1: one person, or even to verify simple events that are 234 00:13:43,120 --> 00:13:45,839 Speaker 1: part of family history but have no actual record. Right, 235 00:13:45,840 --> 00:13:47,760 Speaker 1: we don't know if she was thrown from a horse, 236 00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:52,080 Speaker 1: no one would have recorded that in any way. We 237 00:13:52,120 --> 00:13:54,640 Speaker 1: don't know if she climbed this tableful of things and 238 00:13:54,760 --> 00:13:59,679 Speaker 1: was somehow protected and cleaned up after by a friendly spirit, 239 00:13:59,760 --> 00:14:03,360 Speaker 1: because like, there's not like anybody files her report on that. 240 00:14:05,640 --> 00:14:09,400 Speaker 1: When it came to this protector, Helena also didn't seem 241 00:14:09,440 --> 00:14:12,040 Speaker 1: content to just use the idea as a means of 242 00:14:12,120 --> 00:14:17,120 Speaker 1: explaining the unexplainable. As a teenager, she became really fixated 243 00:14:17,160 --> 00:14:21,640 Speaker 1: on studying what exactly was it work when strange events 244 00:14:21,680 --> 00:14:24,960 Speaker 1: happened around her. So she read, according to her own account, 245 00:14:25,400 --> 00:14:29,200 Speaker 1: books on alchemy, magic, and the occult. These had been 246 00:14:29,320 --> 00:14:33,720 Speaker 1: part of her great grandfather's royal library and included in 247 00:14:33,760 --> 00:14:36,359 Speaker 1: these volumes there was even a book by the previous 248 00:14:36,400 --> 00:14:40,560 Speaker 1: podcast subject to San Germaine, if that account is actually true. 249 00:14:41,480 --> 00:14:44,880 Speaker 1: Reading the work of other explorers of the unknown gave 250 00:14:44,880 --> 00:14:47,280 Speaker 1: her this base of knowledge that she then used as 251 00:14:47,320 --> 00:14:51,479 Speaker 1: her jumping off point with her own mystical and philosophical explorations. 252 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:55,520 Speaker 1: Helena's teenageyers were a time full of significant change, as 253 00:14:55,600 --> 00:14:58,000 Speaker 1: is pretty normal for a teenager, although hers is not 254 00:14:58,120 --> 00:15:00,920 Speaker 1: always that normal. Uh, we're gonna delve into that after 255 00:15:00,960 --> 00:15:13,600 Speaker 1: we first pause for a sponsor break. When Elena was fifteen, 256 00:15:13,840 --> 00:15:17,720 Speaker 1: her life shifted once again. Her grandfather's appointment as governor 257 00:15:17,760 --> 00:15:21,000 Speaker 1: of Saratov ended, and at that point Helena Vera and 258 00:15:21,080 --> 00:15:23,560 Speaker 1: Leonad first spent a year with an aunt before joining 259 00:15:23,600 --> 00:15:26,680 Speaker 1: their grandparents in the Georgian capital of Tibilisi, which was 260 00:15:26,680 --> 00:15:30,600 Speaker 1: called Tiflis at the time. As she turned sixteen, Helena 261 00:15:30,640 --> 00:15:33,080 Speaker 1: had started to speak about a double life that she 262 00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:36,880 Speaker 1: was leading. One was her normal, everyday life, and the 263 00:15:36,920 --> 00:15:40,360 Speaker 1: other was her astral life. She also made the acquaintance 264 00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:44,080 Speaker 1: of Prince Alexander Golitzen, who was similarly interested in the 265 00:15:44,120 --> 00:15:47,680 Speaker 1: mystical and had traveled the world seeking out experts and 266 00:15:47,760 --> 00:15:53,000 Speaker 1: practitioners of various occult and magical activities. Goliitsen is said 267 00:15:53,040 --> 00:15:57,560 Speaker 1: to have encouraged Helena's interest in this secondary spiritual life, 268 00:15:57,600 --> 00:16:00,520 Speaker 1: and specifically advised her to travel the same way that 269 00:16:00,560 --> 00:16:03,640 Speaker 1: he had to learn more about the unknown. When Elena 270 00:16:03,800 --> 00:16:06,600 Speaker 1: was seventeen, there was once again a sudden change in 271 00:16:06,640 --> 00:16:09,760 Speaker 1: her circumstance, but this time in the form of a marriage. 272 00:16:10,800 --> 00:16:15,080 Speaker 1: Seemingly out of nowhere. She wed Nikophor Blovotsky, a man 273 00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:18,000 Speaker 1: in his forties who was vice governor of the Aravn 274 00:16:18,080 --> 00:16:22,400 Speaker 1: Province of Armenia. How this match happened is another place 275 00:16:22,400 --> 00:16:27,160 Speaker 1: in Helena's life where the stories differ really significantly. There's 276 00:16:27,200 --> 00:16:29,160 Speaker 1: some theories that she may have just run off and 277 00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:31,760 Speaker 1: gotten married as an act of rebellion against her father 278 00:16:32,400 --> 00:16:35,520 Speaker 1: or her governess, who she was having some conflict with, 279 00:16:36,040 --> 00:16:38,880 Speaker 1: and again that depends on the source you read. It 280 00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:42,360 Speaker 1: also might have been a hastily arranged marriage made by 281 00:16:42,400 --> 00:16:46,080 Speaker 1: the family in the hopes of tethering the increasingly restless 282 00:16:46,120 --> 00:16:49,240 Speaker 1: Helena to her home in some way, But in later 283 00:16:49,360 --> 00:16:52,640 Speaker 1: years she herself also said that Nikophor, unlike a lot 284 00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:55,600 Speaker 1: of the men closer to her age, never mocked her 285 00:16:55,640 --> 00:16:58,040 Speaker 1: interest in the mystical, and would talk to her about 286 00:16:58,040 --> 00:17:01,000 Speaker 1: things that he had learned in other places cultures that 287 00:17:01,120 --> 00:17:04,480 Speaker 1: might interest her as she studied such matters. This was 288 00:17:04,560 --> 00:17:07,840 Speaker 1: not a good match, though. Helena got cold feet before 289 00:17:07,840 --> 00:17:10,520 Speaker 1: the wedding even happened, and she tried to back out. 290 00:17:11,240 --> 00:17:14,359 Speaker 1: She vanished for several days, and there were rumors that 291 00:17:14,400 --> 00:17:17,639 Speaker 1: she had met up with Golitsin, but she returned from 292 00:17:17,680 --> 00:17:19,879 Speaker 1: wherever she had gone in time for the wedding. That 293 00:17:19,920 --> 00:17:23,439 Speaker 1: wedding took place on July seventh, eighteen forty nine, and 294 00:17:23,480 --> 00:17:26,080 Speaker 1: she said to have refused to do the vow of 295 00:17:26,200 --> 00:17:29,480 Speaker 1: honoring and obeying her new husband, but otherwise the ceremony 296 00:17:29,600 --> 00:17:33,200 Speaker 1: did go as planned. According to Helena, though this marriage 297 00:17:33,240 --> 00:17:36,320 Speaker 1: was never consummated, and we'll come back to this. No 298 00:17:36,440 --> 00:17:39,600 Speaker 1: sooner was this wedding over than Helena began a series 299 00:17:39,640 --> 00:17:42,040 Speaker 1: of attempts to run away from her new husband and 300 00:17:42,080 --> 00:17:45,479 Speaker 1: her new life. She and Nikophore lived in the palace 301 00:17:45,480 --> 00:17:47,960 Speaker 1: of Sardar in Araven, and she spent a great deal 302 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:51,520 Speaker 1: of time, it seems, evading guards who wished she would 303 00:17:51,600 --> 00:17:55,040 Speaker 1: just stay put. Eventually, she did manage to get past 304 00:17:55,040 --> 00:17:57,719 Speaker 1: the guards and she ran back to her family in Tiflis, 305 00:17:57,760 --> 00:18:00,760 Speaker 1: and at that point the decision was to ship her 306 00:18:00,800 --> 00:18:03,280 Speaker 1: off to her father and see if that might help, 307 00:18:03,600 --> 00:18:06,960 Speaker 1: but she purposely missed the boat and then bribed a 308 00:18:07,040 --> 00:18:10,480 Speaker 1: different boat captain to take her to Kerch. She traveled 309 00:18:10,480 --> 00:18:13,800 Speaker 1: with two members of her family's household staff and assured 310 00:18:13,800 --> 00:18:17,200 Speaker 1: them that she was still planning to rendezvous with her father. 311 00:18:17,720 --> 00:18:21,880 Speaker 1: Then she gave them the slip. Similarly, after some issues 312 00:18:21,920 --> 00:18:25,119 Speaker 1: with the captain of the English ship the Commodore, which 313 00:18:25,200 --> 00:18:27,960 Speaker 1: was the captain she had bribed, she ran away again. 314 00:18:28,760 --> 00:18:31,879 Speaker 1: The captain's boat was boarded by harbor police who were 315 00:18:31,920 --> 00:18:35,439 Speaker 1: looking for this runaway aristocrat, and while she managed to 316 00:18:35,480 --> 00:18:38,760 Speaker 1: evade capture by dressing as a cabin boy. The captain 317 00:18:38,920 --> 00:18:42,639 Speaker 1: probably did not like all of this. Bus Soon she 318 00:18:42,840 --> 00:18:44,960 Speaker 1: was gone, and this was the start of just a 319 00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:50,360 Speaker 1: wild decade. The next nine years of Elena Blovotsky's life 320 00:18:50,359 --> 00:18:53,800 Speaker 1: are very murky. She did not trust her family not 321 00:18:53,880 --> 00:18:55,840 Speaker 1: to send her back to her husband if she told 322 00:18:55,920 --> 00:18:59,480 Speaker 1: them where she was, so she didn't. With the possible 323 00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:02,520 Speaker 1: exception of her father, who might have occasionally been sending 324 00:19:02,560 --> 00:19:05,840 Speaker 1: her money, and because of the cloak and dagger nature 325 00:19:05,880 --> 00:19:10,040 Speaker 1: of her travels, plenty of unlikely stories about just what 326 00:19:10,200 --> 00:19:12,680 Speaker 1: she was up to during those years of travel abound. 327 00:19:13,520 --> 00:19:16,560 Speaker 1: Blovotsky's own accounts of this period of her life shifted 328 00:19:16,600 --> 00:19:20,120 Speaker 1: and changed over the years, sometimes in ways that contradicted 329 00:19:20,119 --> 00:19:24,080 Speaker 1: one another or created impossibilities in terms of the timeline. 330 00:19:24,640 --> 00:19:29,840 Speaker 1: The first place that Madame Blovotsky explored was Constantinople. Later 331 00:19:30,080 --> 00:19:32,399 Speaker 1: she shared that it was here that she met opera 332 00:19:32,440 --> 00:19:36,399 Speaker 1: singer Agardi Metrovitch. After finding him stabbed and left for 333 00:19:36,520 --> 00:19:40,359 Speaker 1: dead in the street, Blavotsky stood watch over him with 334 00:19:40,400 --> 00:19:43,240 Speaker 1: a pistol to ward off anybody who had ill intent. 335 00:19:43,320 --> 00:19:46,800 Speaker 1: While waiting for somebody to help her, arranged for him 336 00:19:46,920 --> 00:19:51,320 Speaker 1: to get help. She did find some non nefarious help eventually, 337 00:19:51,520 --> 00:19:54,080 Speaker 1: and Metrovich was treated and recovered. The two of them 338 00:19:54,119 --> 00:19:57,960 Speaker 1: remained friends for the remaining two decades of the singer's life. 339 00:19:58,359 --> 00:20:00,800 Speaker 1: Helena is also said to have made the acquaintance of 340 00:20:00,840 --> 00:20:04,679 Speaker 1: the Countess Sophia Kislev in Constantinople, who she traveled with 341 00:20:04,720 --> 00:20:08,400 Speaker 1: for several months, often disguised as a young man. They 342 00:20:08,440 --> 00:20:11,679 Speaker 1: went to Egypt and Greece together before heading to Eastern Europe. 343 00:20:12,520 --> 00:20:16,760 Speaker 1: Metrovich and Helena then turned up together somewhere in Europe. 344 00:20:16,800 --> 00:20:19,720 Speaker 1: Metrovich wrote to Helena's grandfather to tell him that the 345 00:20:19,720 --> 00:20:22,520 Speaker 1: two were married. Yeah, this is all very blurry. We 346 00:20:22,560 --> 00:20:24,879 Speaker 1: don't know if this was like a i'm your friend, 347 00:20:24,920 --> 00:20:29,000 Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell your grandparents that, like we're together now 348 00:20:29,040 --> 00:20:32,960 Speaker 1: and explain this to your husband, or if he really 349 00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:38,480 Speaker 1: thought they were getting married. It's again everything murky, murky marquis. 350 00:20:39,160 --> 00:20:41,600 Speaker 1: But we do know that by the early eighteen fifties, 351 00:20:41,640 --> 00:20:44,919 Speaker 1: Blovotsky was first in Paris and then in London and 352 00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:47,960 Speaker 1: in England, she had what she claimed was a significant 353 00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:51,919 Speaker 1: spiritual experience. She met a man from India who she 354 00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:56,520 Speaker 1: claimed to already know remember that protector from her childhood. 355 00:20:57,160 --> 00:20:59,760 Speaker 1: She said that this man, who she called Master Mooria 356 00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:02,760 Speaker 1: sometimes she'll just call him the Master, was one and 357 00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:06,520 Speaker 1: the same, and the specifics around exactly when and where 358 00:21:06,560 --> 00:21:09,640 Speaker 1: she met him shifted in her own accounts. She told 359 00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:12,399 Speaker 1: different people that she had seen him in a crowd 360 00:21:12,520 --> 00:21:15,359 Speaker 1: first and recognized him, others that she had met him 361 00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:19,520 Speaker 1: at Waterloo Bridge when she was considering suicide. Another version 362 00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:22,040 Speaker 1: was that she ran into him at the Great Exhibition, 363 00:21:22,800 --> 00:21:25,200 Speaker 1: and also that she met him in the seaside town 364 00:21:25,240 --> 00:21:28,439 Speaker 1: of Ramsgate. But all of these versions, even though they 365 00:21:28,440 --> 00:21:31,840 Speaker 1: are different, include his seeking her out to tell her 366 00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:36,600 Speaker 1: that she must spend several years in Tibet before trying 367 00:21:36,640 --> 00:21:40,080 Speaker 1: to make a path to Tibet. Though she headed to Canada, 368 00:21:40,240 --> 00:21:43,359 Speaker 1: she was inspired by the writing of James Finnemore Cooper 369 00:21:43,520 --> 00:21:48,639 Speaker 1: to seek out First Nations peoples. She found these encounters disappointing, though, 370 00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:53,640 Speaker 1: and she attributed this disappointment to the indigenous population having 371 00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:58,440 Speaker 1: been exposed to Christian missionaries. There's some layers here. There 372 00:21:58,440 --> 00:22:01,600 Speaker 1: are so many layers, and she's very problematic when it 373 00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:08,200 Speaker 1: comes to her interactions with people of other cultures because 374 00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:13,360 Speaker 1: she does that thing where she simultaneously fetishizes them and 375 00:22:13,600 --> 00:22:16,240 Speaker 1: criticizes the heck out of them as not being what 376 00:22:16,400 --> 00:22:21,359 Speaker 1: she wanted them to be. It's very problematic. But after 377 00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:24,240 Speaker 1: this time in Canada, she has said to have moved 378 00:22:24,280 --> 00:22:27,840 Speaker 1: south to New Orleans and then into Texas before leaving 379 00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:31,240 Speaker 1: North America for India. And she made it to India. 380 00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:33,720 Speaker 1: She stayed in Bombay first for two years, and it 381 00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:37,600 Speaker 1: said that during this time masters of ancient wisdom also 382 00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:40,080 Speaker 1: told her to go to Tibet to learn about the 383 00:22:40,080 --> 00:22:44,440 Speaker 1: integration of science, religion and philosophy. But she couldn't really 384 00:22:44,480 --> 00:22:47,679 Speaker 1: make her way into Tibet. That was tricky at this time, 385 00:22:50,720 --> 00:22:53,960 Speaker 1: Europeans not so much welcome. Tibet was very closed off. 386 00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:57,119 Speaker 1: At this point, she decided to head back to England. 387 00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:00,440 Speaker 1: Once she got there, she had quite the tale of 388 00:23:00,560 --> 00:23:03,840 Speaker 1: her journey. She claimed that the ship she was on 389 00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:06,320 Speaker 1: had wrecked near the Cape of Good Hope and that 390 00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:10,760 Speaker 1: she was one of twenty one survivors. After allegedly meeting 391 00:23:10,760 --> 00:23:13,000 Speaker 1: with the Master again in the home of someone she 392 00:23:13,040 --> 00:23:16,639 Speaker 1: says she didn't know, Elena Blovotsky made her way to 393 00:23:16,680 --> 00:23:19,760 Speaker 1: North America again. Yeah, this is the point in her 394 00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:22,040 Speaker 1: story where I was, like, she's lost all sense of 395 00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:27,480 Speaker 1: even grounding her tails in any sort of reality like 396 00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:29,359 Speaker 1: this whole Oh, I took a ship from India and 397 00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:33,760 Speaker 1: it was shipwrecked. Twenty one of us survived. Just no 398 00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:40,160 Speaker 1: account of how she got back to Europe from that point. Yeah, 399 00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:43,919 Speaker 1: it's a little bit, a little bit kooky. But she 400 00:23:44,040 --> 00:23:46,320 Speaker 1: landed in New York and then she headed west, first 401 00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:49,120 Speaker 1: to Chicago and then to Salt Lake City, and from 402 00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:52,040 Speaker 1: there she moved on to San Francisco, where she boarded 403 00:23:52,040 --> 00:23:55,760 Speaker 1: a steamer to Japan. From there it was onto India, 404 00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:58,080 Speaker 1: and this time with the help of a guide and 405 00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:02,399 Speaker 1: disguised herself. She claimed to have entered Tibet in eighteen 406 00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:06,080 Speaker 1: fifty six. At last, the timeline of her travels was 407 00:24:06,119 --> 00:24:09,359 Speaker 1: written up and published by Blovotsky in the Moscow Chronicle 408 00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:13,359 Speaker 1: under the pen name Rada Bye. From Tibet, she was 409 00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:17,080 Speaker 1: eventually ordered by the mysterious Master to travel back to Europe. 410 00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:22,600 Speaker 1: All of this is disputed. It's entirely possible that she 411 00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:26,480 Speaker 1: was just hanging out in Europe this whole time. As 412 00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:29,960 Speaker 1: Holly said earlier, Tibet was pretty closed off to Europeans. 413 00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:33,560 Speaker 1: She might have managed to gain access to Tibet if 414 00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:36,199 Speaker 1: she was traveling with one of the people that she 415 00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:39,480 Speaker 1: name checked as a spiritual master from the surrounding area. 416 00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:42,440 Speaker 1: But I mean, these are kind of long odds on this. 417 00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:46,119 Speaker 1: There's just never been any corroborating information for these claims. 418 00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:49,119 Speaker 1: But while the years from eighteen forty nine to eighteen 419 00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:53,000 Speaker 1: fifty eight are really only known by what Blovotsky said 420 00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:55,879 Speaker 1: she did, we do know that she was back in 421 00:24:55,920 --> 00:25:00,000 Speaker 1: Russia with her family on Christmas eighteen fifty eight. Once again, 422 00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:03,240 Speaker 1: again the family noted the strange phenomena that seemed to 423 00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:07,159 Speaker 1: always surround her. Elena went back to her husband Nikophore 424 00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:11,159 Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty two, but Agardi Metrovich then showed up 425 00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:14,560 Speaker 1: in Tiflis not long after, claiming his own rights as 426 00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:18,320 Speaker 1: her husband. This whole thing is really messy and unclear. 427 00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:22,439 Speaker 1: And then to confuse the situation further, she adopted a 428 00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:27,160 Speaker 1: boy named Yuri with Nikophor. The couple didn't stay together. 429 00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:30,399 Speaker 1: Yuri died at the age of five and was buried 430 00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:35,680 Speaker 1: as Yuri Metrovich. Yuri's actual parentage is also a matter 431 00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:39,080 Speaker 1: of debate. Madame Blovotsky said that this was the out 432 00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:41,720 Speaker 1: of wedlock, son of her sister in law and a 433 00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:48,200 Speaker 1: baron Mayandorf. Rumors arose and continued that he was actually 434 00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:52,320 Speaker 1: the child of Helena and Metrovich. Yeah, it's a big 435 00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:55,520 Speaker 1: it's a big cluster and mystery. We don't know. There's 436 00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:58,160 Speaker 1: so many. I feel like she was so good at 437 00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:01,960 Speaker 1: creating such a a past stee shift confusing details about 438 00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:04,240 Speaker 1: her life that no one could untangle them and be like, wait, 439 00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:08,639 Speaker 1: this doesn't end up. In eighteen sixty four, Blovotsky had 440 00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:10,639 Speaker 1: a horse riding accident that actually left her in a 441 00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:13,520 Speaker 1: coma for several months, and she said that when she 442 00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:17,000 Speaker 1: came out of that coma, her paranormal abilities had been 443 00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:20,840 Speaker 1: fully actualized. After this, she was once again on the 444 00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:24,439 Speaker 1: move throughout Europe, before once again receiving instructions from the 445 00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:28,520 Speaker 1: Master to go to Constantinople, then India and into Tibet 446 00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:32,920 Speaker 1: again all unsubstantiated. We're about to get to the phase 447 00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:37,600 Speaker 1: of Glovotsky's life where she became associated with spiritualism. Before 448 00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:39,760 Speaker 1: we get into that, let's take a quick break and 449 00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:41,960 Speaker 1: hear from some of the sponsors that keep stuff you 450 00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:53,880 Speaker 1: missed in history class going in the eighteen seventies, Blovotsky 451 00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:56,960 Speaker 1: became involved with the spiritualist movement. If you are a 452 00:26:56,960 --> 00:26:59,679 Speaker 1: longtime listener to the podcast, you may recall that the 453 00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:03,439 Speaker 1: modern spiritualist movement is usually cited as beginning with the 454 00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:07,080 Speaker 1: Fox Sisters and their claims of communication with spirits. In 455 00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:10,199 Speaker 1: eighteen forty eight. Previous hosts Sarah and Deblina did a 456 00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:13,520 Speaker 1: whole episode on their story. So by the time Helena 457 00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:17,640 Speaker 1: Blovotsky became connected to it, spiritualism had been getting attention, 458 00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:20,560 Speaker 1: particularly in the United States, for a couple of decades, 459 00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:24,800 Speaker 1: and had grown very popular, even though it also had 460 00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:28,639 Speaker 1: plenty of doubters right from the beginning. And although Madame 461 00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:33,119 Speaker 1: Blovotsky became connected to spiritualism, she was ideologically not one 462 00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:38,040 Speaker 1: hundred percent aligned with it. The idea of spiritualism involved 463 00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:42,400 Speaker 1: communication with the souls of the deceased. She didn't believe 464 00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:45,960 Speaker 1: that events like seances were making contact with the dead, 465 00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:51,159 Speaker 1: but instead that the entities being reached were elementals or shells, 466 00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:54,720 Speaker 1: not actual souls. She did really love a seance, though, 467 00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:57,760 Speaker 1: oh she certainly did, because that was part of her 468 00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:02,080 Speaker 1: fully actualized paranormal abilities. After she came out of that 469 00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:06,440 Speaker 1: como was that she could contact other realms through seances, 470 00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:09,159 Speaker 1: and it is through her work conducting seances that she 471 00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:11,960 Speaker 1: met the man who would become one of her greatest 472 00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:17,119 Speaker 1: admirers and most enthusiastic collaborators. Madam Blovotsky had made her 473 00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:20,439 Speaker 1: way back to North America by eighteen seventy three. She 474 00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:22,320 Speaker 1: was living in New York City at the time, and 475 00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:24,639 Speaker 1: she was actually kind of struggling to get by. She 476 00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:28,840 Speaker 1: was working in a sweatshop making artificial flowers to support herself, 477 00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:33,119 Speaker 1: and then she met Henry Steele Olcott at a seance 478 00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:36,399 Speaker 1: in Vermont. Olcott was, in a lot of ways the 479 00:28:36,520 --> 00:28:41,600 Speaker 1: last person you would expect to have responded positively to spiritualism. 480 00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:45,200 Speaker 1: He had served in the US Army during the American 481 00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:48,280 Speaker 1: Civil War, He had a career as a lawyer working 482 00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:51,480 Speaker 1: on fraud cases, and by the time he met Blovotsky 483 00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:55,360 Speaker 1: he was working as an investigative journalist. He found himself 484 00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:59,760 Speaker 1: at Blovotsky's seance because he was conducting investigative research into 485 00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:03,600 Speaker 1: what a lot of people suspected were not spiritual experiences 486 00:29:03,680 --> 00:29:07,600 Speaker 1: at all, but the work of Charlatan's Olcott had already 487 00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:11,240 Speaker 1: written a number of articles about spiritualism and was becoming 488 00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:14,200 Speaker 1: more and more fascinated by it. Yeah, there's a whole 489 00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:17,720 Speaker 1: story about the farm that they're at, which was run 490 00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:20,400 Speaker 1: by these people that were having seances and making money 491 00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:22,920 Speaker 1: off of it, like they were, you know, charging entry 492 00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:26,520 Speaker 1: fees and booking spiritualists to come in and do these 493 00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:30,680 Speaker 1: I want to call them performances. But these these events. 494 00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:34,360 Speaker 1: But even before the seance began, Olcott could not help 495 00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:37,240 Speaker 1: but notice Helena, who stood out in the farming town 496 00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:41,280 Speaker 1: of Chittenden, Vermont. Her manner of dress, including a bright 497 00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:45,160 Speaker 1: red tunic and a fur tobacco pouch, her many rings, 498 00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:49,040 Speaker 1: her blonde, curly hair, which Olcott described as like the 499 00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:52,080 Speaker 1: fleece of a cotswald ew and the fact that he 500 00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:55,760 Speaker 1: overheard her speaking French to a friend all drew the 501 00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:59,960 Speaker 1: journalist in. He was completely fascinated. Here's how he read 502 00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:06,080 Speaker 1: her later quote. This lady, Madame Helen p. Blovatsky, has 503 00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:09,160 Speaker 1: a lot, a very eventful life, traveling in most of 504 00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:12,600 Speaker 1: the lands of the Orient, searching for antiquities at the 505 00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:17,040 Speaker 1: base of the pyramids, witnessing the mysteries of Hindu temples, 506 00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:21,600 Speaker 1: and pushing with an armed escort far into the interior 507 00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:25,920 Speaker 1: of Africa. The adventures she has encountered, the strange people 508 00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:28,960 Speaker 1: she has seen, the perils by sea and land she 509 00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:31,480 Speaker 1: has passed through, would make one of the most romantic 510 00:30:31,520 --> 00:30:35,120 Speaker 1: stories ever told by a biographer. And the whole course 511 00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,440 Speaker 1: of my experience I never met so interesting and, if 512 00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:43,000 Speaker 1: I may say, without offense, eccentric a character. All Kat's 513 00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:46,240 Speaker 1: endorsement went a really long way in terms of validating 514 00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:50,160 Speaker 1: Blovatski's personal story. And he also called her quote a 515 00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:54,480 Speaker 1: lady of such social position as to be incapable of 516 00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:58,320 Speaker 1: entering into a vulgar conspiracy with any pair of tricksters 517 00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:01,360 Speaker 1: to deceive the public. He was like all in he 518 00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:05,880 Speaker 1: believed everything she said without fact checking. It seemed the 519 00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:09,160 Speaker 1: seance that Olcott witnessed sounds a little more like a 520 00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:14,280 Speaker 1: stage show. Various spirits made appearances, as in showing up 521 00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:18,360 Speaker 1: on stage a Native American woman, a man from the 522 00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:21,719 Speaker 1: country of Georgia, the spirit of a German Man, and 523 00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:25,040 Speaker 1: the French Canadian father of one of the attendees, who 524 00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:29,120 Speaker 1: gave responses to questions posed in French by making rapping noises. 525 00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:32,320 Speaker 1: And in one instance is said to have audibly uttered 526 00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:37,560 Speaker 1: the word way. A journalist writing for The Smithsonian, Edward Hower, 527 00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:41,560 Speaker 1: described Alcott as having one of the most dramatic midlife 528 00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:46,320 Speaker 1: crises in history and his relationship with Blovotsky. Some takes 529 00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:50,000 Speaker 1: on their relationship suggest that Madame Blovotsky was a home 530 00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:54,600 Speaker 1: wrecker who caused Alcott's divorce. He was actually already estranged 531 00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:57,560 Speaker 1: from his wife and in the legal proceedings to end 532 00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:01,400 Speaker 1: that marriage before the two of them met. Rumors of 533 00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:04,120 Speaker 1: an affair between the two of them persisted, though in 534 00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:06,800 Speaker 1: part because he moved in with her when they both 535 00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:10,040 Speaker 1: got back to New York. Even so, while Blovotsky and 536 00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:13,080 Speaker 1: Olcott may have been emotionally very intimate, it really does 537 00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:16,200 Speaker 1: seem unlikely that they had a romantic relationship, at least 538 00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:20,600 Speaker 1: not one that manifested physically. We mentioned that Helena always 539 00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:23,760 Speaker 1: said her first marriage was never consummated, and she claimed 540 00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:25,800 Speaker 1: later in life that she had never had a sexual 541 00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:30,760 Speaker 1: relationship with anyone. She generally described herself in a way 542 00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:34,880 Speaker 1: that today might be categorized as asexual. She once said quote, 543 00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:38,120 Speaker 1: I had a volcano in constant eruption in my brain 544 00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:41,960 Speaker 1: and a glacier at the foot of the mountain, but 545 00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:47,120 Speaker 1: she and Olcott tended to refer to one another as chum, 546 00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:50,800 Speaker 1: so they were close. But her characterization as a mistress 547 00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:54,840 Speaker 1: who lured him away from his wife really doesn't quite track. Olcott, 548 00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:57,600 Speaker 1: by the way, was known to have had mistresses. He 549 00:32:58,240 --> 00:33:00,760 Speaker 1: sounds like something of a ladies man, but it doesn't 550 00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:03,600 Speaker 1: appear that Blovotsky was one of them. Olcott was a 551 00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:07,959 Speaker 1: major boon to Madame Blovotsky's public persona through his writing, 552 00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:12,080 Speaker 1: as well as a source of financial support. Their shared 553 00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:16,880 Speaker 1: apartment became an epicenter for spiritualist gatherings, and they routinely 554 00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:21,320 Speaker 1: hosted seances and discussions of the paranormal there. Blovotsky would 555 00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:24,080 Speaker 1: invite journalists to visit so they would see that she 556 00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:26,720 Speaker 1: was no trickster, just merely a woman who was in 557 00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:29,640 Speaker 1: touch with other realms. And it was in this haven 558 00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:33,160 Speaker 1: for discussion of the paranormal and occult that Colonel Henry 559 00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:37,000 Speaker 1: Olcott suggested that they formalize their gatherings under an official 560 00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:40,600 Speaker 1: organization that could study all of the mystical and spiritual 561 00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:43,880 Speaker 1: subjects that they were all interested in. And this marks 562 00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:47,440 Speaker 1: the beginning of the Theosophical Society, which sought to create 563 00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:50,920 Speaker 1: an identity for itself that was separate from the spiritualist movement, 564 00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:55,760 Speaker 1: and to help shape that identity, Elena began writing. One 565 00:33:55,760 --> 00:34:00,520 Speaker 1: of the numerous reasons that Blavotsky was and remains the 566 00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:03,680 Speaker 1: figure of controversy is really clear in her writing from 567 00:34:03,680 --> 00:34:07,959 Speaker 1: this period. She published her book Isis Unveiled in eighteen 568 00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:12,319 Speaker 1: seventy seven. All Caught edited it, and she leveled a 569 00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:16,560 Speaker 1: lot of criticism at both organized religion and the scientific community. 570 00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:19,800 Speaker 1: She thought that both groups were missing the real path 571 00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:24,960 Speaker 1: to enlightenment and insight. Theosophy, according to Helena Blovotsky, was 572 00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:28,040 Speaker 1: the answer, and it was, to quote her quote, the 573 00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:32,520 Speaker 1: synthesis of science, religion, and philosophy. It was a way 574 00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:36,160 Speaker 1: to bring those three disciplines together. This book was both 575 00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:40,200 Speaker 1: praised and panned, and Blovotsky put all of the reviews 576 00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:44,400 Speaker 1: into a scrapbook. Isis Unveiled is something of a hodgepodge. 577 00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:47,799 Speaker 1: It borrows from religions all over the world, pulling in 578 00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:51,840 Speaker 1: ideas which Blovotsky adapted from memory. Although she claimed that 579 00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:55,239 Speaker 1: it was largely dictated to her telepathically by masters of 580 00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:59,800 Speaker 1: ancient and secret knowledge. Its deepest roots are in Helena's 581 00:34:59,840 --> 00:35:03,560 Speaker 1: verse versions of Buddhism and Hinduism, but she incorporated so 582 00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:07,759 Speaker 1: many varied ideas because she envisioned theosophy as something that 583 00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:12,240 Speaker 1: could unite the world's varied systems of beliefs. Although Madame 584 00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:16,040 Speaker 1: Blovotsky had managed to amass a following in the United States, 585 00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:20,600 Speaker 1: it didn't really sustain itself, and as her influence and 586 00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:24,279 Speaker 1: the members of the Theosophical Society fizzled out, she and 587 00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:28,800 Speaker 1: Alcott decided to move on and supporting Blovotsky and touting 588 00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:32,120 Speaker 1: her gifts. He had really squandered his good name among 589 00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:34,719 Speaker 1: his fellow journalists in the United States, who had really 590 00:35:34,800 --> 00:35:37,920 Speaker 1: just taken to mocking him openly about it. Yeah, he 591 00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:41,680 Speaker 1: kind of tanked his career to prepare to leave with 592 00:35:41,719 --> 00:35:45,640 Speaker 1: an eye towards India. Elena Blovotsky became a US citizen, 593 00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:49,239 Speaker 1: and the thinking here was that if things went badly overseas, 594 00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:52,600 Speaker 1: she would have the protection of the consulate in India. 595 00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:55,520 Speaker 1: She and the Colonel also sold off all of their belongings. 596 00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:58,880 Speaker 1: They cleared out their cool apartment, and on December seventeenth, 597 00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:02,479 Speaker 1: eighteen seventy eight, they left the US for India. More 598 00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:06,200 Speaker 1: specifically than simply going to India, though, all Kott and 599 00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:10,600 Speaker 1: Blovotsky intended for the Theosophical Society to join up with 600 00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:14,160 Speaker 1: the Ariya Samaje, which was a Hindu reform movement that 601 00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:18,239 Speaker 1: had started in eighteen seventy five. All Kott and Blovotsky 602 00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:22,920 Speaker 1: were novelties in Bombay. They openly criticized colonialism, and they 603 00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:26,359 Speaker 1: embraced Eastern religious ideas, and in doing so they kind 604 00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:30,360 Speaker 1: of became media darlings for a time. Through a spiritualist 605 00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:33,640 Speaker 1: named Alfred Percy Sinnett, who edited a British newspaper that 606 00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:37,399 Speaker 1: published in India, the founders of the Theosophical Society were 607 00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:41,440 Speaker 1: booked at seances throughout British society that lived in Bombay. 608 00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:44,920 Speaker 1: At the time, colonialism seemed to be a little more palatable, 609 00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:47,120 Speaker 1: if that meant it led to paying gigs for them. 610 00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:52,680 Speaker 1: These seances featured all kinds of paranormal happenings. When Sennett's wife, 611 00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:56,120 Speaker 1: for example, mentioned a lost brooch that she longed to find, 612 00:36:56,560 --> 00:37:00,320 Speaker 1: Blovotsky told her it had rematerialized in her flower bed heads. 613 00:37:00,840 --> 00:37:03,240 Speaker 1: Those flower beds were dug up and lo the brooch. 614 00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:06,640 Speaker 1: She is also said to have produced a spray of 615 00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:08,920 Speaker 1: roses in mid air which fell on the heads of 616 00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:11,239 Speaker 1: people in the room when a visitor said that she 617 00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:15,000 Speaker 1: could not produce a miracle. Olcott and Blovotsky set up 618 00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:20,160 Speaker 1: their Theosophical Society headquarters in Bombay in eighteen seventy nine. 619 00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:24,239 Speaker 1: Madame Blovotsky became the editor of their periodical, The Theosophist, 620 00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:26,520 Speaker 1: which was the role she would have for the next 621 00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:31,799 Speaker 1: nine years. Olcott toured the Indian subcontinent giving lectures. He 622 00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:35,960 Speaker 1: spoke against British efforts to convert Buddhists to Christianity, and 623 00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:37,799 Speaker 1: on a trip to Sri Lanka, which was of course 624 00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:41,239 Speaker 1: still called Ceylon at the time, he and Madame Blovotsky 625 00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:45,600 Speaker 1: publicly took Buddhist vows. Olcott took a deep interest in 626 00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:48,520 Speaker 1: Ceylon and contributed to the Buddhist community there in a 627 00:37:48,560 --> 00:37:51,920 Speaker 1: variety of ways, from opening schools to writing religious study 628 00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:55,200 Speaker 1: texts to designing a flag which is still in use today. 629 00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:59,880 Speaker 1: He also started working as a healer. He believed that 630 00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:03,920 Speaker 1: magnetism had curative properties and that he could manipulate it 631 00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:07,920 Speaker 1: to administer to all manner of ailments. While the beginning 632 00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:12,320 Speaker 1: of Glovotsky's and Olcott's time in Bombay and Ceylon was joyous, 633 00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:16,960 Speaker 1: the tides eventually turned. The members of the Theosophical Society 634 00:38:17,120 --> 00:38:21,160 Speaker 1: asked Olcott to stop healing people. The public version of 635 00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:23,440 Speaker 1: this story was that they felt like it was depleting 636 00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:26,880 Speaker 1: his energy, but there was also likely some kind of 637 00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:31,080 Speaker 1: version about it being problematic. Then, Olcott and Blovotsky became 638 00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:33,839 Speaker 1: embroiled in a dispute when a woman that they had 639 00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:38,160 Speaker 1: taken under their wing as a medium named Emma Colombe 640 00:38:38,640 --> 00:38:44,440 Speaker 1: started to hold obviously fake seances to make easy money. Next, 641 00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:48,280 Speaker 1: the head of the Arias Image denounced Theosophy very publicly, 642 00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:51,400 Speaker 1: as he believed the incorporation of all faiths was not 643 00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:54,759 Speaker 1: in line with his group's ideology. He had come to 644 00:38:54,880 --> 00:39:00,000 Speaker 1: view Blovotsky and Olcott as untrustworthy. Yeah, he had pamphlets 645 00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:02,919 Speaker 1: written up talking about how he had changed his mind 646 00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:06,040 Speaker 1: and believed that they were Charlatan's and things only got 647 00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:09,319 Speaker 1: worse from there. Alfred Percy Sinnett, who he mentioned just 648 00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:12,000 Speaker 1: a little while ago, had published a book of letters, 649 00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:15,400 Speaker 1: and these letters were alleged to have come from the 650 00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:19,279 Speaker 1: Masters that Madame Blovotsky knew, but one of them was 651 00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:24,319 Speaker 1: obviously plagiarized from an American periodical, and someone recognized it, 652 00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:27,880 Speaker 1: and so the press, which had initially welcomed the Theosophists, 653 00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:32,040 Speaker 1: turned on Blovotsky. They first started to question her legitimacy 654 00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:34,520 Speaker 1: as a psychic, and soon she was just flat out 655 00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:37,640 Speaker 1: accused of being a fraud in all the papers. She 656 00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:40,960 Speaker 1: and Olcott moved their headquarters from Bombay to Madras in 657 00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:44,399 Speaker 1: eighteen eighty two to get away from the controversy. That 658 00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:46,799 Speaker 1: worked for a while, but within a few years there 659 00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:51,160 Speaker 1: was another, much bigger controversy. Emma Colomb, who had been 660 00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:54,759 Speaker 1: doing those fake seances, published a series of letters in 661 00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:58,520 Speaker 1: a Madras periodical. She said they were written to her 662 00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:03,440 Speaker 1: by Helena Blovotz. They clearly instructed her to create fake, 663 00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:08,919 Speaker 1: miraculous and paranormal events to support their various stories. Bolovotsky 664 00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:11,960 Speaker 1: and Alcott dismissed these letters as fakes, but they found 665 00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:16,359 Speaker 1: themselves viewed with just a whole new level of suspicion. Yeah, 666 00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:18,960 Speaker 1: there's a really fun story in there about making a 667 00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:25,680 Speaker 1: life size doll that they were puppeteering in like darkness 668 00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:28,600 Speaker 1: to try to convince people they were being visited by 669 00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:33,279 Speaker 1: the masters of Blovotsky often referenced there's some very fun 670 00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:36,480 Speaker 1: and kooky theatricality to it, and that is how the 671 00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:40,520 Speaker 1: London Society for Psychical Research came to open an investigation 672 00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:45,200 Speaker 1: into Blovotsky in the Theosophical Society. That investigation, which was 673 00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:48,239 Speaker 1: conducted by Richard Hodgson, was aided by none other than 674 00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:52,160 Speaker 1: Emma Koolohm, who showed how, among other things, the miracle 675 00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:56,440 Speaker 1: of things like letters dropping into visitors laps seemingly from 676 00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:00,080 Speaker 1: thin air was actually achieved through a bit of theatrical trickery. 677 00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:02,560 Speaker 1: There was a thread and hook system in the ceiling. 678 00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:06,359 Speaker 1: A handwriting expert was also called upon to weigh in 679 00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:10,920 Speaker 1: on whether the letters that Kolombe had provided as evidence 680 00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:15,960 Speaker 1: of Madam Blovotsky's treachery were indeed written by Blovotsky. We 681 00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:17,800 Speaker 1: have talked on the show before about some of the 682 00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:20,799 Speaker 1: problems with handwriting analysis, but this was very damning at 683 00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:26,320 Speaker 1: the time. In eighteen eighty five, parapsychologist Richard Hodgson filed 684 00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:31,200 Speaker 1: his report which concluded that Blovotsky was a fraud. Olcott 685 00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:35,080 Speaker 1: was found to merely have been incredibly gullible. After the 686 00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:39,279 Speaker 1: Hodgson Report, Blovotsky left India, although she continued to edit 687 00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:43,160 Speaker 1: The Theosophist. The damage of this report was far reaching, 688 00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:47,640 Speaker 1: in addition to discrediting Blovotsky in a very public way, 689 00:41:48,120 --> 00:41:52,239 Speaker 1: and also sowed some conflict between her and Alcott. When 690 00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:56,640 Speaker 1: Helena Blovotsky filed a slander suit against Richard Hodgson and 691 00:41:56,719 --> 00:42:00,520 Speaker 1: the Society for Psychical Research, Alcott did not support that. 692 00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:03,799 Speaker 1: He instead wanted to just let things died down the 693 00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:06,799 Speaker 1: way they had in the past. To Helena, this really 694 00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:10,600 Speaker 1: felt like a betrayal. It essentially ended their partnership and 695 00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:14,239 Speaker 1: their friendship. Madame Lavotsky, who was quite ill at the 696 00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:17,000 Speaker 1: time due to a problem with her liver, took a 697 00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:20,160 Speaker 1: steamer to Europe, and despite the apparent seriousness of her 698 00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:22,759 Speaker 1: health when she left India, she did make a recovery 699 00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:26,680 Speaker 1: after spending some time in Belgium. She established the Blovotsky 700 00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:29,720 Speaker 1: Lodge of London in eighteen eighty seven, and in eighteen 701 00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:32,200 Speaker 1: eighty eight she released the work that she's probably most 702 00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:35,440 Speaker 1: well known for, which is called The Secret Doctrine, and 703 00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:38,800 Speaker 1: that was a comprehensive look at theosophy. While she was 704 00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:42,120 Speaker 1: writing this book, she had shifted focus away from the 705 00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:46,920 Speaker 1: paranormal and wrote more extensively about philosophy. The book's subhead 706 00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:50,040 Speaker 1: is there is no religion higher than Truth, and the 707 00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:53,080 Speaker 1: introduction in Blovotsky makes her goal clear quote. The aim 708 00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:55,839 Speaker 1: of this work may be thus stated, to show that 709 00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:59,640 Speaker 1: nature is not a fortuitous concurrence of Adams, and to 710 00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:02,200 Speaker 1: aid Si to man his rightful place in the scheme 711 00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:06,880 Speaker 1: of the universe. To rescue from degradation the archaic truths 712 00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:10,279 Speaker 1: which are the basis of all religions. To uncover, to 713 00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:14,920 Speaker 1: some extent, the fundamental unity from which they all spring. Finally, 714 00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:17,600 Speaker 1: to show that the occult side of nature has never 715 00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:21,800 Speaker 1: been approached by the science of modern civilization. In eighteen 716 00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:24,960 Speaker 1: eighty nine she published two more books. The Voice of 717 00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:28,279 Speaker 1: Silence has the subtitle translated from the Book of the 718 00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:32,160 Speaker 1: Golden Precepts, which shares a common origin with the Secret Doctrine. 719 00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:35,760 Speaker 1: The rules and ethics presented here contrasts the two paths 720 00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:39,520 Speaker 1: of spiritual attainment, the one pursued by those seeking knowledge 721 00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:42,640 Speaker 1: for their own enlightenment, the other chosen by those whose 722 00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:46,560 Speaker 1: aspirations are prompted by compassion for all. Her other book 723 00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:49,560 Speaker 1: to come out that year was key to Theosophy, being 724 00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:52,440 Speaker 1: a clear exposition in the form of question and answer 725 00:43:52,520 --> 00:43:56,360 Speaker 1: of the ethics, science and philosophy for the study of 726 00:43:56,400 --> 00:44:00,480 Speaker 1: which the Theosophical Society has been founded. Even though these 727 00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:03,480 Speaker 1: were very popular and they continued to actually be printed, 728 00:44:03,719 --> 00:44:08,440 Speaker 1: they were her really final achievements. Madam Blovotski died on 729 00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:10,800 Speaker 1: May eighth, eighteen ninety one, at the tail end of 730 00:44:10,840 --> 00:44:14,040 Speaker 1: an influenza epidemic, and that date of her death is 731 00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:18,480 Speaker 1: now celebrated annually by Theosophists as White Lotus Day. Long 732 00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:22,399 Speaker 1: after her death, starting in nineteen fifty, but A. Blovotska's 733 00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:27,440 Speaker 1: collected writings were published. The full publication spanned fifteen volumes, 734 00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:29,839 Speaker 1: and it came out over the course of forty years. 735 00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:33,920 Speaker 1: Blovotsky is often credited with bringing Buddhism and Hinduism to 736 00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:36,880 Speaker 1: the Western audience, and this is a little bit tricky 737 00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:39,720 Speaker 1: to celebrate, of course, since these ideas were being channeled 738 00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:43,120 Speaker 1: through a European lens. We also don't know really what 739 00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:45,840 Speaker 1: the depth of her exposure was to these things before 740 00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:50,400 Speaker 1: she started talking about them. As though she were an expert, 741 00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:54,520 Speaker 1: and since the study of these belief systems on the 742 00:44:54,560 --> 00:44:57,640 Speaker 1: part of Blovotsky is difficult to corroborate in any level, 743 00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:02,359 Speaker 1: particularly in her earlier years. I just want people to 744 00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:04,560 Speaker 1: recognize that that has to all be taken with a 745 00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:07,879 Speaker 1: grain of salts. We do have to note though, that 746 00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:13,520 Speaker 1: the Theosophical Society persists despite these bumpy times during Blovatski's life. 747 00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:17,400 Speaker 1: Her books continue to be pretty popular. Additionally, the Blovotsky 748 00:45:17,520 --> 00:45:20,960 Speaker 1: Lodge in London is still there, although it has changed 749 00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:25,200 Speaker 1: locations from where it was when Madame Blovotski initially established it. 750 00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:28,799 Speaker 1: And as for that damning report of eighteen eighty five 751 00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:32,839 Speaker 1: that declared Madame Blovotsky a fraud, in nineteen eighty six 752 00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:36,279 Speaker 1: the Society for Psychical Research retracted it due to a 753 00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:39,680 Speaker 1: review that found that Hodgson had set out to discredit 754 00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:42,640 Speaker 1: Blovotsky and that his research and his methods were biased 755 00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:46,280 Speaker 1: toward that. Although there are a lot of the issues 756 00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:49,160 Speaker 1: that Hodgson raised that remain unanswered, this is one of 757 00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:51,680 Speaker 1: those things you'll sometimes find argued about on the Internet 758 00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:55,640 Speaker 1: that some people will say this is vindication of Madame 759 00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:58,320 Speaker 1: Blovotski and others are like, no, no, they're just pointing 760 00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:01,800 Speaker 1: out that the research was bad, not weighing in really 761 00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:06,640 Speaker 1: on whether that conclusion would have been reached otherwise. Right. 762 00:46:08,200 --> 00:46:10,719 Speaker 1: Like I said, she continues to be very polarizing. I 763 00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:15,719 Speaker 1: find her utterly fascinating, but I don't have a strong opinion. 764 00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:18,680 Speaker 1: I have some opinions, but they're not strong, and they're 765 00:46:18,719 --> 00:46:21,480 Speaker 1: kind of cloudy for me anyway, which is unusual, just 766 00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:24,360 Speaker 1: because there's always part of me that's like, I don't know, 767 00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:35,760 Speaker 1: I don't know anything. So thanks so much for joining 768 00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:38,400 Speaker 1: us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us 769 00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:42,960 Speaker 1: a note, our email addresses History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, 770 00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:46,279 Speaker 1: and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, 771 00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:49,680 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.