The Secret Life of Ruggles: Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society

Madame Blavatsky

and the Theosophical Society

Background Information

Helena Petrovna Hahn, who became known as Madame Blavatsky, was born on August 12, 1831 and passed away in early May in 1891. She was a Russian spiritualist, author, and cofounder of the Theosophical Society, who also worked for the Tsarist secret service.

At the age of 17, Helena married a Russian military officer and province vice-governor, Nicephore V. Blavatsky. They separated after only a few months. Shortly after, Helena became interested in occultism and spiritualism. She traveled to parts of the world like Asia, Europe, the United States, and claims to have spent several years in India and Tibet studying under Hindu gurus.

When she was about 42 years old, she moved to Paris and then New York City in the United States. It’s in New York City that she meets and marries colonel Henry Steel Olcott and shortly after, they establish the Theosophical Society in 1875. The term theosophy, derived from the Greek theos (“God”) and sophia (“wisdom”), is generally understood to mean “divine wisdom.” She finally became an American citizen in July 1878. Though their marriage became rocky, her and her husband left for Bombay, India in July 1879. Shortly after in 1882, they established a headquarters of the Theosophical Society in Adyar, India that still exists today. Beginning in 1879, for nearly a decade, Madame Blavatsky edited the magazine “The Theosophist.”

She passed away on May 8, 1891 after coming down with the flu. Her body was cremated at a cremation center in England and her ashes divided among three theosophical centers in New York, London, and Adyar. Her death is observed by theosophical followers as “day of the white lotus.”

Madame Blavatsky helped establish the Theosophical Society in New York City with the motto “There is no Religion higher than Truth.” Three main objectives were formulated: 1) To form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color 2) To encourage the study of Comparative Religion, Philosophy, and Science 3) To investigate the unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent in man.

The Theosophical Society is a non-proselytizing, non-sectarian. Their purpose was to support each other in wisdom and truth, provide a service fighting against ignorance to decrease the suffering of the world through divine wisdom.

Relevance in Against the Day

Thomas Pychon alludes to Madame Blavatsky and the Theospochical Society in an ironic way. Madame Eskimoff (Madame E) is so symbolic of Madame Blavatsky from the eccentric way she lives to the way she meditates to the way she attempts to philosophize. The T.W.I.T., also very ironically, is representative of an entity equal to the Theosophical Society. Pynchon interwines Madame Blavatsky’s “departure” and what’s left of the Theosophical Society with the arrival of another similar society so that the two then become very comparable, if not one and the same.

Against the Day is set in 1893. Madame Blavatsky, however, died in 1891. She is mentioned as having left a mansion that John Soane occupies after her departure, which has “become a resort for all manner of sandaled pilgrims, tweed-smocked visionaries, and devotees of the nut cutlet” (page 219). The narrator is referring strange people who are the type attracted to a religion like Theosophy. Also, the Theosophical Society has now been left with its “Blavatskian fragments.” Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society taught that religion was to keep people in harmony with one another and remain open minded to people from all walks of life (as well as learn science and philosophize). Pynchon indirectly jokes that the group is made up of strange people, and that a group with such a ridiculous name as T.W.I.T. is their “keen competition.” By demonstrating the ridiculous and biased practices of the T.W.I.T., the narrator suggests how biased and stuck in their ways both groups are. Madame Eskimoff (Madame E) then emerges on the scene with Hebrew names and the Kabbalist symbol tattooed on her skin along with a predominant member, the Cohen, who is obviously Jewish. It is no coincidence that Eskimoff’s name is also Russian and she lives a similar lifestyle to that of Ms. Blavatsky and that she goes by “Madame.” Pynchon alludes to Madame B when he refers to Madame E and her fabric in “Indian prints” and meditative lifestyle. She is some type of all-knowing leader amongst the T.W.I.T., just like Madame Blavatsky lead to create the Theosophical Society. Madame E and her clan are a group of eccentric, well-maintained hippies. Truth is the religion of the Theosophical Society, which is non-sectarian, but the T.W.I.T. have a Jewish influence and complain that they experience “snot-nosed British anti-Semitism” (page 227). Though the Cohen still insists that they are “the pure at heart” when Lew Basnight comments that they’ve been using him (page 242). It’s very ironic that there is a group of Jews keenly competing with a non-religious/philosophical group like the Theosophical Society.