Transcript
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Welcome to Erin Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and mild.
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Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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If you've ever been to a Halloween party or a pumpkin patch, you've probably seen someone dressed as a fortune teller with dangly earrings and wrapped in shawls. She might have looked into a crystal ball and told you your future. Of course, the fortune teller was probably an actor, and you understood that her predictions weren't real. But the character she's playing is inspired by a real woman who traveled the globe conducting seances. She was an adventurer, an occultist, and the mother of an entire New Age movement. But much like fortune tellers at the party, it was hard to tell which parts of her story were real and what was invented to entice her audience. She was a clear fraud, but she also was a brilliant mind who left her mark on history, which might be why we're still captivated by the unconventional life of a very mysterious individual. Helena was born in 1831 in Russia, but they soon moved to Odessa in present day Ukraine. And according to family members, this is where Helena first began to see ghosts. She would spend hours in the unused passageways under her house, playing with the ghosts who lingered there. She also developed a supernatural gift that she called Solomon's Wisdom. It's unclear what it meant exactly, but the neighborhood kid said that she could use the gift to lull street pigeons to sleep. For the next decade, life moved quickly for Helena. Her family moved around and then married her off to an older man when she was just 16. After running away and traveling the world, she dove deep into the study of multiple world religions. And then in 1856, she snuck into Tibet. Shortly after her arrival there, Helena was in a horse riding accident that landed her in a coma. When she woke up, she said that her spiritual powers had been fully realized and she was ready to step into her role as a spiritual leader. Soon after, she hosted her first seance. At the time, seances were hugely popular in the US And Western Europe. But unlike most mediums who claimed to contact the dead, Helena, or Madame Blavatsky, as she began to call herself, contacted living people in alternate realms. She adopted dangly earrings and flowing skirts, the stereotypical look that we now associate with fortune tellers. She moved to New York City and began performing seances to growing crowds. And soon she earned herself an unlikely superfan, a lawyer and retired Civil War veteran named Henry Steele Alcott. At the time, traveling mediums were a dime a dozen, and Alcott was working as a journalist, trying to expose them all as charlatans. But something about Helena fascinated him. She was interesting and eccentric, and he believed that she was the real deal. He soon moved in with her and began financially supporting her. They hosted seances and philosophical discussions in York City home. Eventually, Olcott formalized their gathering as the theosophical society. In 1877, Helena published a book called Isis Unveiled, which introduced theosophy as, and I quote, the synthesis of science, religion, and philosophy. The book became enormously popular, launching Madame Blavatsky into widespread fame in the U.S. the notoriety gave Helena and Alcott a the confidence they needed to sell their belongings and move to India. To boost Helena's profile as a spiritual guru and medium, they built their headquarters outside Bombay and for years hosted acclaimed seances. Notable guests would travel from all over just to witness the talented Madame Blavatsky. Manifest spirits fame looked good on Helena, and she especially enjoyed the profits that accompanied her spiritual work. But then disaster struck. A series of letters surfaced. Written by Helena to one of her employees. The letters detailed all the intricate tricks and mechanisms they used during seances to fake otherworldly visitors. It soon became clear that the entire staff was in on the ruse and that Madame Blavatsky was a fraud. She and Alcott fled India, and Helena returned to London in disgrace. But as was typical with Helena, she didn't stay down for long. A few years later, she created the Blavatsky Lodge in London, an association that shifted away from paranormal seances and instead focused on theosophy. The blend of science and religion and her philosophies resonated with a new crowd. She wrote more books, many of which are still popular today. In fact, the Theosophical Society of and its London headquarters are still around. As it turns out, Helena never needed smoke and mirrors to make a mark on history. Her curious mind was more than enough.