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| Blavatsky, Madame Helena Petrovna |
| Born in Russia, Madame Blavatsky cofounded the Theosophical Society in the United States in 1857 and become a "priestess of the occult". She had travelled widely in India and in the moutains of Tibet, where she had met masters of the sacred essence, in harmony with the Universal Oversoul. She said they shared their secret wisdom with her. Theosophy is a philosophical system that rejects scientific rationalism and espouses the spiritual nature of the universe. Its adherents seek to establish contact with the Divine through contemplation,revelation and spiritualist seances. In 1887, William Butler Yeats heard Madame Blavatsky lecture on Theosophy in London. He immediately fell under her spell and joined her society. Theosophy supplied Yeats with the cosmology for his mystic visions of the universe. A "Madame Blavatsky" is a practioner of the Occult. ~ Facts on File dictionary of Cultural and Historical allusions. |
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