H.P.Blavatsky- A Genius, Crazy or Racist, My Pick for Women's History Month

In honor of  National Women's History Month, I decided to highlight the achievements of H. P. Blavatsky, a leading figure in the New Age Movement of the 19th century. I first found out about H.P. Blavatsky while attending Unity Church of Christianity in the 70's. It was through studying about her life that I learned about Easter philosophies, the Ascended Masters of The Great White Brotherhood (White in this context means Light), the lost continents of Lemuria and Atlantis, root races, and Theosophy.

 Born in Russia to a wealthy, aristocratic family in 1831, H.P. was not the usual young woman of her time. She spent long hours in her grandfather's library reading books on alchemy, magic and other occult subjects. One of the best biographies of her life is Sylvia Cranston's H.P. B: The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Blavatsky, Founder of the Modern Theosophical Movement. 

 Blavatsky was either a genius, or crazy and many during her era thought the later, because of her extraordinary psychic abilities and her talk of letters she received from The Masters, who existed in another dimension. Her book, Secret Doctrine, now considered her magnum opus promulgates the theory that humanity's evolution on Earth is part of the overall Cosmic evolution. The process is overseen by a hidden Spiritual Hierarchy, called the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom or Great White Brotherhood. The Masters are advanced spiritual beings that can inhabit both this dimension and higher echelons. 

Blavatsky co-founded the Theosophical Society in New York City in 1875, in accordance with the Masters' plan to have an infrastructure on Earth to disseminate spiritual information and help with the ascension of  humanity. According to Wikipedia, Blavatsky saw herself as a missionary of this ancient knowledge and one of the main purposes of the Theosophical Society was "to form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_race 

I once read that Blavatsky was a racist because of her use of the word, Aryan, to describe a group of people who were superior to other races. I now realize that her use of the word was taken out of context. Blavatsky described the fifth root race with the following words: The Aryan races, for instance, now varying from dark brown, almost black, red-brown-yellow, down to the whitest creamy colour, are yet all of the same stock – the Fifth Root-Race – and spring from one single progenitor, which Hindus call Manu. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_race 

Blavatsky was a visionary and trailblazer in introducing Eastern religious and spiritual thinking into the Western world during the 19th century. All of her books, first published over a hundred years ago, are still in print. If you want to learn more about Blavatsky, her work, and Theosophical Society, I recommend you visit their website at http://www.theosophical.org/ or just google the initials H.P.B.