Practice · Orders · Theosophical

The Theosophical Society

1875 · United States, later India

Founded in New York by Blavatsky, Olcott and others, and later run from Adyar in India. It is the first of these bodies to be genuinely international, and the first to publish its aims and let anybody join who was in sympathy with them.

Is anything of the name working now?

The name is in use, and contested

Several bodies descend from the Society and more than one uses the name. The American Section declared autonomy in 1895 and there have been further divisions since. This study does not say which is the Society; it says there was one, in 1875, and that it divided.

What can be gleaned from it

More than any other body here. Its objects are printed, its founder wrote a plain question-and-answer book explaining what membership meant, and both are free to read. It is also the clearest case of the two-layer arrangement that runs through this whole section: an open society with published aims, and an Esoteric Section inside it that is not open.

They are three, and have been so from the beginning. (1). To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity without distinction of race, colour, or creed. (2). To promote the study of Aryan and other Scriptures, of the World’s religion and sciences, and to vindicate the importance of old Asiatic literature, namely, of the Brahmanical, Buddhist, and Zoroastrian philosophies. (3). To investigate the hidden mysteries of Nature under every aspect possible, and the psychic and spiritual powers latent in man especially. These are, broadly stated, the three chief objects of the Theosophical Society.
The Key to Theosophy, THE OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY — First edition, London and New York, 1889 · Project Gutenberg, ebook 55618

In plain English The Society's three aims, from its co-founder, in 1889. Only the third is occult in the ordinary sense; the first is a statement about human brotherhood and the second is comparative religion. A body whose published objects are these can admit almost anybody, which is how it grew as fast as it did.

The members of the Theosophical Society at large are free to profess whatever religion or philosophy they like, or none if they so prefer, provided they are in sympathy with, and ready to carry out one or more of the three objects of the Association.
The Key to Theosophy, WHAT THE MODERN THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IS NOT — First edition, London and New York, 1889 · Project Gutenberg, ebook 55618

In plain English Membership asks for sympathy with the objects, not assent to a doctrine — the difference between a society and a church, and the difference most of the bodies on this page inherited. The sentence before it is the other half of the arrangement: there is an Esoteric Section as well, and the open objects are what the outer body is for.

Founding

  • Founded 1875

    Proposed and organised in September 1875; the inaugural address of 17 November is what the Society keeps as its founding date.

    • World Religions and Spirituality Project, James A. Santucci, ‘The Theosophical Society’, 11 November 2018 — World Religions and Spirituality Project in copyright — cited by locator, not quoted

  • Founder Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

    • World Religions and Spirituality Project, James A. Santucci, ‘The Theosophical Society’, 11 November 2018 — World Religions and Spirituality Project in copyright — cited by locator, not quoted

  • Founder Henry Steel Olcott

    The Society's first President. This study's chronology has no page for him.

    • World Religions and Spirituality Project, James A. Santucci, ‘The Theosophical Society’, 11 November 2018 — World Religions and Spirituality Project in copyright — cited by locator, not quoted

In the chronology: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.

On the record

  • Its published objects brotherhood; comparative religion; the hidden mysteries of Nature

    Stated by a founder, in print, in 1889, and quoted in full on these pages. Only the third object is occult in the ordinary sense.

  • Division the American Section declares autonomy, April 1895

    The first of the divisions, and the reason more than one body carries the name.

    • World Religions and Spirituality Project, James A. Santucci, ‘The Theosophical Society’, 11 November 2018 — World Religions and Spirituality Project in copyright — cited by locator, not quoted