ABSTRACT
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891), a self-claimed “initiated wretch” (Jinarajadasa 1922: 611), co-founded with Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907) and others the Theosophical Society (hereafter TS) in 1875 and created a mystique around herself as a possessor of primeval wisdom and secret knowledge (Grk: gnōsis; Skrt: Gupta Vidya, in Blavatsky’s Theosophical Glossary [1892] (1978), p. 129). That primeval Gnosis, purportedly derived from divine beings responsible for the origin and development of the first human “root races,” told of the mystery of the divine spark the Ego individuality within the human personality whose point of emanation had been the Absolute All. According to Blavatsky, an embodied conscious return and union of the divine spark with the Absolute could be achieved as the divine Ego awakened to itself through the rigors of initiation. That initiatory discipline would end the cycle of incarnations and karma accrued through the various personalities informed by the Ego on its evolutionary cycle: the “Circle of Necessity” (Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine [hereafter SD] [1888], vol. 2, p. 303). At that time, only certain keen Theosophical students received from Blavatsky secret Instructions relevant to the Path of Initiation and an enlightened consciousness, the centrality of which Blavatsky publicly and mysteriously denoted as the “Lost Word” key. Included in Blavatsky’s secret Instructions was her prediction of the historical arrival of a new Bodhisattva Teacher who would lead a new human race of enlightened initiates.
