According to the founder of the Theosophical Society, Helena Blavatsky, commonly known as Madame Blavatsky, there exists somewhere in the vastness of the Tibetan Himalayas an esoteric brotherhood of superhuman beings who watch over the welfare of humanity. Blavatsky revealed this insight in her book Isis Unveiled, published in 1877, in which she claimed to have met the Hidden Masters, and been chosen by them to bring news of their existence to the West.[1][a]There is considerable doubt whether Blavatsky ever visited Tibet. Her biographer, Marion Meade, has commented on Blavatsky’s tales of Tibet and various other adventures by stating that “hardly a word of this appears to be true”.[2]
The concept of the world being in some sense regulated by hidden masters was not one invented by Blavatsky. She chose to focus on the beliefs of Eastern religions, in particular Hinduism,[3] but a similar Western tradition had emerged during the Renaissance, when the pamphlet Fama fraternitatis claimed to reveal the existence of a secret Rosicrucian brotherhood overseeing the welfare of Europe, and again with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the 19th century, which claimed that their leaders spent most of their time in spirit form.[1]
Notes
| a | There is considerable doubt whether Blavatsky ever visited Tibet. Her biographer, Marion Meade, has commented on Blavatsky’s tales of Tibet and various other adventures by stating that “hardly a word of this appears to be true”.[2] |
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