A (0:00)

Perhaps one of the most influential spiritual teachers of the 19th century wasn't a priest or a guru or a prophet. She was a chain smoking Russian woman who claimed to talk to invisible masters. She survived things that should have killed her, and she wrote books referencing secret ancient texts. And she even convinced people that Tibetan monks were dropping mystical letters from the sky. She was accused of being one of history's greatest frauds, but her ideas ended up influencing everything from yoga studios to UFO research. This is the story of Helena Blavatsky, the woman who took ancient mysticism, mixed it with modern science, and rewired how we think about spirituality. So if you are interested in the occult, ancient texts, and one of the most controversial spiritual leaders of modern mysticism, this is the episode for you. So sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. What's up, people? And welcome back to camp. My name is Mark Gagnon and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from around the world. From all time forever. Yes, this is my tent where I go into deep dives and wormholes and rabbit holes and all sorts of different animals holes to try to figure out what's going on in this great crazy planet. We live on YouTube. Yes. And today. Oh, boy, we got a good one. All right, first, I just want to say thank you so much for tuning in and making this show possible. This is truly my dream, just to read crazy wormholes and go on Wikipedia and read books and then tell you guys about it. It's the greatest thing ever. And the fact that you tune in and subscribe to this channel and comment, it turns my dreams into a reality and it keeps the fire burning here at the campsite. And I'm also grateful for my dear friend Christos. How are you, pal? What's up? Christos, we don't have time to jump into every little thing you want to talk about, all right? I'm sorry, the audience wants to hear about Helena Blavatsky. You ever heard of her?

B (1:55)

A couple of times.

A (1:56)

Oh, goodness. Enough with this, okay?

B (1:59)

So many episodes.

A (2:00)

Oh, yeah, we've mentioned her a lot. We have. I will say that we've, we've, we've. We've referenced her in passing, but I think the time has come where we owe it to her as one of the more controversial women in modern mysticism that we give her an episode for sure. Is that fine with you, Christos? Yeah, absolutely fine. All right, we'll do it. Geez. Right, enough with this guy. If you're Clicking on this video, you're probably interested in modern mysticism and you're interested in where it all comes from. In my opinion, Helena Blavatsky is the great godmother of the kind of the current sort of mystical occult movement. And I know people, you know, disagree, they'll say, oh, John, da, da, da. I, I think Helena plays a pivotal role in how people understand ancient texts and the merging of like modern science or somewhat kind of science. As we'll explain, some of her things were a lot out there. But who is she? Why does she matter? And why have so many different occultists in the more recent years referenced her work? Well, it all starts on August 12, 1831. Helena Petrovna Hahn was born in the Russian Empire to an aristocratic family already somewhat neck deep in mystical societies. Her father, Peter Hahn, was a military officer, but the real sort of power comes from her mother's. Her great grandfather, Prince Pavel Dogorukov, was a high ranking Freemason. And allegedly their family estate had a large library filled with all sorts of occult texts and mystical writings and banned books, if such a thing exists. Everything from Rosicusan mysteries to Hermetic philosophy, occult traditions from the Russian Orthodox Church and everything in between. Literally everything that you can imagine a high ranking, you know, wealthy Freemason would have. And it's said that growing up, Helena was genuinely frightening to be around. Now, let me just say, so much of Helena's early life has been kind of reintegrated with lore and story and, you know, details that are difficult to parse from myth and reality. So take all of this with a grain of salt. But it is said that she would go into these violent rages that would require adults to restrain her. And she claimed to see and speak with people who weren't even there and would sleepwalk throughout the house, having full conversations with imaginary friends or invisible entities. And her family was high class, but they were also terrified of their own kid. It's said that one of her tutors allegedly resigned after Helena warned her that a close relative would die within days and then three days later, that exact relative died again. Do we know? These accounts come from memoirs and letters that were written years later, which makes them impossible to verify. But what we can agree on is from the earliest foundation of her reputation is that she was someone that was unnatural long before she ever entered into occult circles. Then, at 17 years old, Helena does something that looks completely normal but is actually a part of potentially a bigger plan. On July 7, 1849, she marries a Man named Nikifor Vladimirovich Blavatsky, and he is the vice governor of the Arivan province. And he's about 40 years old. He's more than twice her age at this point. But shortly after getting married, Helena abandons him, like, either on their honeymoon or shortly after their honeymoon, and just basically separates from him and just runs off in the middle of the night. But why did she do this? Well, in 19th century Russia, married women could travel internationally without male guardianship. And, you know, she could operate more independently if she was married than if she was under the tutelage of, you know, her family name or her father. However, single woman needed their father's permission for everything they could do and couldn't leave the country without a male relative as an escort. So she basically used marriage as like a legal hack to gain freedom and actually cross international borders. And, oh, boy, did she. Now, once she had this legal status of married woman, she could kind of disappear and, you know, go around and didn't have to tell Russian authorities where she was. And if she got, you know, caught up at a checkpoint, she wasn't forced to return. And this is basically what she did for an entire decade. Now, this is what we call the lost decade of her life between, like, 1850 and 1860. And it's a pretty suspicious gap. And there's all sorts of claims about where she went. Some say she went to Egypt and Greece and Tibet, India, South America, and even studied with Native American shamans in Canada and the American Southwest. While it's clear there's a lot of, you know, myth and story around her early years, what we do know is that she definitely spent time in Cairo between 1850 and 1851, where she lived in the European Quarter. She's also documented to be in Paris around 1852, where she briefly worked as a circus performer, apparently as a bareback rider. Can I get a yee haw? I was hoping for a yeehaw, but whatever. There's also some evidence that she made it to Canada, maybe even to New Orleans, where she was learning or studying voodoo. Now, during this decade, she becomes fluent in French and English and Russian and Greek and even some Sanskrit, so much so that she was able to impress university scholars with her grasp on this very specific language. She also would learn some Arabic and Tibetan script and different Indian dialects. It's pretty remarkable how many languages she learned. But more importantly than the languages, the languages were just a conduit for her to study her real passion, because she developed an advanced knowledge of Hindu cosmology and Buddhist metaphysics and Jewish Kabbalah and Gnostic Christianity and Islamic mysticism. And these were not even really available to most Europeans at the time. The translations were often in their own dialects, which is why she probably learned so many languages. And this is in the 1850s. Keep in mind the first reliable, like Sanskrit to English dictionaries are just starting to be published and even then they're pretty hard to come by. While Tibetan Buddhism is basically unknown to the west at this point. So you know who teaches a Russian woman comparative religion without leaving an academic record? Well, that takes us to August of 1851. While walking near Hyde park in London, Helena spots a tall guy in eastern looking attire walking with a group of Indian princes who were in London for the Great Exhibition. Now Helena recognizes him as someone she's been seeing in visions since childhood. And she later identifies him as Mahatma Morya. This man is a Tibetan scholar, or a Tibetan adept, you could say, who basically becomes her spiritual guide. Helena later claims that when their eyes met, he approaches her and speaks fluent English, somehow knowing details about her life that he shouldn't know. Again, this is from her own records, but this is the story he tells her that she's been chosen for a specific purpose. And this purpose is very clear. It's to confront Western materialism by proving that psychic phenomena and ancient knowledge are real. Now, it's important to note that Helena describes Moria as completely real. He's not like a vision or like a voice or one of the entities she's talking to as a kid. He's standing right there in front of her in broad daylight, speaking to her like a normal person. Yet he also accurately describes events from her childhood in Russia, knows details about her family, and gives her specific instructions about her future future that only makes sense years later. Now, she calls this an encounter because it basically becomes the blueprint for every ascended Master. And basically like a channeling story that follows, Helena doesn't frame it as this religious vision or like a psychological episode. She describes it as a recruitment meeting with a real person who just possesses extraordinary knowledge and abilities about her personal life that no one should know. In 1867, she fell from a horse in Italy and broke several ribs and developed a chronic breathing problem. And then at some point later, while traveling through the Balkans, she contracted a fever that local doctors just expected to kill her. And then in 1871, she reportedly survived a shipwreck off the Greek island of Spetsis, where most passengers drowned. And this is also where she develops her legendary Chain smoking habit. Again, reports vary on this, but it's said that she would go through like 200 cigarettes a day. She was a heavy smoker, was just chain smoking all the time. And these near death episodes later become central to her metaphysical ideas. Helena claims that during her most like severe illnesses, her consciousness would separate from her body and she could watch doctors treating her from above. And she took this as proof that human awareness is not something that's local to the brain. That, you know, this is something that can potentially exist outside of us. And this is an idea that, you know, she's talking about in like the 1860s and 70s that wouldn't even really be formally studied until the 70s to the 1970s. And it's an idea that, you know, some people suggest that perhaps our consciousness is non local and that it exists, you know, outside of our brains. Again, she's talking about this stuff way before anyone. Pretty interesting. But in 1871, she then goes to Cairo and attempts to establish the Society Speak, essentially a mystical study group that would investigate psychic phenomena using scientific methods. So she rents a house in the European quarter and manages to attract 30 regular members. But the society basically just dissolves within six months. Helena reportedly demonstrates phenomena that the group can't explain. Things like objects moving without contact and flowers and jewelry appearing from nowhere and voices coming from empty rooms. And instead of convincing these people and emboldening them, it just terrified them and they all left. Local religious authorities, both from the Islamic and the Coptic Christian communities, accused her of just being a witch. They said she's practicing black magic. And some just said she was a fraud and that she was doing magic tricks. And so as you can imagine, half the members were like, ah, this is baloney. The other half was like, she's terrifying. And everyone basically just dipped. Egyptian police would even investigate reports of unnatural activities at her house. While they didn't arrest her outright, they made it very clear that continuing this practice would result in legal issues. So she's forced to end the Society and just leave Egypt entirely. But here's the thing. Helena learns that psychic demonstrations alone don't create a lasting movement. It just kind of creates fear and doubt and suspicion. She realizes you can't just drop European mysticism into other cultures without understanding how local religions will react to. And now this takes us to the next stage of her life. Helena goes to America. On July 8, 1871, Helena arrives in New York City with very little money and speaks with a heavily accented English and just has a single suitcase. But she landed at the exact right historical moment. This is post Civil War America and it is obsessed with death and contact with the deceased. And you know, at this point, more than 600,000 people are killed in, in the Civil War, leaving families and entire communities just longing for a connection with their lost relatives. So as a result, spiritualism is exploding into this national obsession. And there are millions upon millions of Americans that are attending seances and other non traditional religious formats to try to understand where their ancestors are and the people that they lost that were close to them. There's so much fervor for connecting with this other world. So you have professional mediums like the Fox sisters who start doing, you know, this spiritual craze, and they're making a Fortune by charging $50 a cent a session, roughly like $1200 in today's money. Which, little fun fact here. Mary Todd Lincoln, first lady married to Abraham Lincoln, remember him? She would actually hold seances in the White House. That's how much of a movement this was at the time. But Helena doesn't become a medium or a clairvoyant. She actually just dismantles the industry. So she attends seances, famous performers like the Davenport brothers, and publicly shows how like, their spiritual manifestations are just stage tricks and psychological manipulation. She basically goes and is like, hey, this whole thing is a fugazi. So instead of competing with the spiritualists in America, she just reframes the combo. And she claims to be offering a scientific explanation for this psychic spiritual phenomena. She argues that most mediums are frauds or just unknowingly, like channeling lower astral entities, which are confused spirits with no access to higher knowledge. So basically she's like, hey, that's actually not your brother that died. That's just like a low level spirit that she's talking to and it's not really him. Now, for most people who lost their loved ones, the last thing that they want to hear is that the communication that they received with their brother that just died was fake. But Helena isn't telling them that it's fake. She's telling them that the methods are risky and that actually she can offer a safer, more reliable portal to access this real spiritual knowledge. It's a very clever trick, but it works really well. And you got to wonder if this is something she picked up while she was in Egypt, right, that people were casting doubt on her. So she comes to America and she's like, yeah, this is all fake. I'm the one that has the real connection. And this ultimately leads her to her probably her most famous partnership, and that is with Colonel Henry Steele and Alcott. So October 1874, Helena meets Henry Alcott. He's a 42 year old civil War veteran, he's a successful lawyer, he's an agricultural journalist who basically has this reputation for exposing insurance fraud and then investigating fake mediums for major newspapers, which is right up Helena's alley, right? She's like, hey, we both have a, you know, alignment in exposing these frauds. So Alcott had been commissioned by the New York sun to investigate the, the Eddy brothers, who were these Vermont farmers who claimed that their farmhouse was haunted by spirits that actually appear physically during seances. And they're charging people to come and experience these spirits again. It's this big revival for spiritualism in America. So Alcott arrives expecting to, you know, just expose another fraud. But instead he witnesses something that he has a difficult time explaining. Full body apparitions that speak different languages and objects materializing and dematerializing, and musical instruments playing by themselves while floating in midair. But what really impresses him, and his biggest takeaway from that evening is not the crazy things that he saw or the spirits. It's meeting Helena, who was at the farmhouse witnessing the exact same thing. She begins explaining to him how psychic phenomena are witnessed across cultures and explains like the historical precedents for everything that they're seeing. And within weeks, Alcott becomes Helena's most important partner. But more importantly, he brings what she lacks, which is organizational discipline and legal know how and, you know, financial connections and maybe above all, just a real trust from the public. So Alcott begins handling the paperwork and legal structures and fundraising and public relations and all the bureaucratic things that allow these mystical movements to actually function in the real world. Which takes us directly to the most influential occult society maybe ever formed, and that is a theosophical society. So, September 7, 1875, in Helena and Alcott's apartment at 302 West 47th street, right here in New York City, 17 people gather to formally establish what we call the Theosophical Society. The founding members include Alcott as the president, Helena as the corresponding secretary, William Judge as the counsel, and a bunch of different lawyers and doctors and journalists, spiritualists, anyone you can imagine, right? But typically pretty high society people. Now, the society has three main objectives. First, to form a universal brotherhood without the distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color. That's pretty honorable. The second, to encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy and science. And the third is to perform scientific investigations of psychic phenomena. Now, here's the crazy part. The official charter specifically states that members are not required to accept any particular belief or give up their existing religious affiliation. So that means if you're Christian or Jewish or Muslim, even non believers can join. So Helena frames theosophy as a scientific investigation of the spiritual, not a faith based belief system. And for that reason, it really attracts a lot of educated professionals who want a mystical experience or to join in on this spiritual craze that's taking over the country. But they need a rational framework to justify it. Within the first year, the Society is already having scholarship and meetings with many prestigious universities around the country. And now this is giving them an academic and sort of just a social credibility boost at a time when it could have easily have just been dismissed as another cult. Then, in September 1877, two years after forming the society, Helena publishes Isis unveiled a master Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology. And the academic world is pretty confused by this. The book is over 1300 pages long, and Helena claims to have written the entire thing in 18 months. But here's what makes a lot of people suspicious is that she's working without a research library, yet citing hundreds of sources. I mean, for context, at the time, if you were going to write a paper or a dissertation that is 1300 pages long, you'd probably have access to the library at Oxford, a library at Harvard. You would have tons of different texts in front of you that you could pull from. But yet Helena References 1200 different books, from the ancient Greek world to Latin texts, to Sanskrit manuscripts, even, like, grimoires and medieval alchemical works, like, anything you can imagine. However, many of her citations are so obscure that university librarians can't actually locate the source material. But despite this, the most unsettling part is some of her accuracy. So when scholars are actually verifying her references, her quotes and descriptions are pretty correct. Even when she's citing books in languages that she can't even read fluently. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break real quick because we got to have some real talk. All right? If you've ever brushed off white flakes from a black T shirt. Okay, that's not dry scalp or whatever you're telling yourself, right? That's dandruff. And dandruff is caused by a fungus. Now, most shampoos don't actually fix that. No, they just dry your scalp even more. So you just keep on buying the shampoo. 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There were many people living there that were heavily influenced by this Eastern tradition, not to mention so much of their theosophical work was based on Hinduism and Buddhism. And if you are centering your sort of life philosophy around these, you know, lifestyles and these religions, then it would make sense to be in the place where they're born. So they move to India. Now Indian and intellectuals educated in British schools suddenly encounter this Russian woman insisting that Hindu cosmology contains advanced knowledge that Western science doesn't really understand. And immediately there's interest. Helena gives lectures explaining that concepts like karma and reincarnation and cyclical time are these sophisticated metaphysical principles rather than, you know, backward religious beliefs that the British were trying to get rid of. And the idea explodes across Indian society. And within two years, theosophical lodges are established in 15 Indian cities. Most of the members include a lot of British officers and, you know, well educated Hindu lawyers and Parsi merchants and even some progressive Muslim scholars. But the most significant converts are Indian independence activists. Leaders like Annie Besant, who later becomes president of the Theosophical Society, and Bal Gudarhar Talak use theosophy as a way to argue that Indian civilization is not behind European civilization. Not only is it not equal, it's actually more advanced in the understanding of the spiritual. So Helena essentially tells Indian thinkers that their traditions are not only important, but they're arguably more important, and not as superstitions or as myths that people read about in America, but as an advanced metaphysical system that can stand alongside modern science. So by 1884, the Theosophical Society has exploded into this global operation. But at the same time, something weird starts to happen. So letters start to appear out of nowhere again, according to Helena, and she claims that they're written by the Mahatmas. These are ancient Tibetan masters, she says, live in remote Himalayan regions, and they operate beyond the normal physical limits. And this is what she says. Mahatma Morya, the guy that she saw in London with all the Tibetan monks that knew stuff about her. That's who she says that he was. Now, the letters basically drop from the sky in front of multiple different witnesses either, and from the ceiling inside a closed room or just on the ground when they're walking. And they're often locked in these drawers that haven't been opened in days. And in one famous incident, the Theosophical headquarters, a letter materializes inside A sealed wooden shrine in front of five witnesses and two, including two British colonial officials. What's strange is that these letters are written on handmade Tibetan paper using ink that isn't even available in India at the time. And they're written in multiple languages, sometimes mixing, like English and Tibetan and Sanskrit, all into one paragraph. And the handwriting also shows three distinct styles that forensic analysis later identify as coming from different individuals. Where these letters come from, who knows? But what the letters say is even stranger. The letters include detailed instructions on Theosophical policy, personal guidance for the members, and all sorts of complicated philosophical discussions, showing deep knowledge of not only Eastern but also Western mystical traditions. Now, a lot of people assume it was just Helena writing these letters, but they continued appearing even when she wasn't present. So in 1883 and 84, while she's traveling in Europe, letters from the masters, quote, unquote, masters are continuing to materialize at Theosophical headquarters in India, witnessed by Alcott and other residents. Later, handwriting analysis showed that some letters were written in her writing, but others, particularly those manifesting during her absence, remain unknown. Were they written by Alcott or someone else entirely? Who's to say? Now this takes us to the next major stage in Helena's life and this is the SPR investigation. So in December 1884, the Society for Psychical Research sent a man named Richard Hodgson, a 29 year old Australian researcher, to India in order to investigate claims about Helena's psychic abilities and these materialized Mahatma letters. So Hodgson spends three months at Theosophical headquarters in India interviewing witnesses and examining evidence and testing Helena's demonstrations. And by the end of his investigation, Hodgson labels Helena one of the most accomplished, ingenious and interesting imposters and in history. He claims that these Mahatma letters are produced through a combination of, you know, confederates, basically like, you know, people working for her that are kind of like stagehands, you could say, secret passages and basically like sleight of hand, you know, card magic techniques. But here's what's problematic about the investigation. He arrived already convinced that these types of phenomena are impossible and his job is basically to debunk them. He refuses to witness any demonstrations under controlled settings and relies heavily on testimony from Emma Colomb, a former Theosophical employee who was fired for embezzlement. And so some say she had a clear motive for revenge. This one single investigation essentially destroys Helena's public reputation. At the time, newspapers across Europe and America just brand her as a fraud and a lot of her Educated supporters began to distance themselves from Theosophy to avoid embarrassment. But something unexpected actually happens in the wake of this. You would think that she would just pack it up or no one would take her seriously ever again, right? This guy, Richard Hodson, from a reputable organization meant to debunk people, debunked her. But instead, her influence begins to grow. Later, proponents of Helena's work identify what they would consider serious flaws in his initial investigation. In 1986, about a full century later, the SPR published a reassessment, and they concluded that Hodgson's report was biased and methodologically unsound. And they basically say that he acted as the judge, the jury, and the executioner. Now, more importantly, attacking Helena personally didn't stop her ideas from spreading. And by 1885, Theosophy had developed such enormous momentum on its own that it basically survived the Founder's reputation being destroyed. But now Helena was about to drop her craziest bombshell yet. And this is something known as the Secret Doctrine. In October of 1888, Helena published a book called the Secret Doctrine, the synthesis of science, religion and philosophy. And this book became very dangerous in some ways, not because of what Helena intended, but because of how other people weaponized it. The book is massive, over 1500 pages across, multiple volumes, claiming to reveal the hidden history of human evolution based on ancient texts that Helena call the Stanzas of Zion, a text supposedly preserved in Tibetan monasteries, but never actually seen by Western scholars. Now, you can see where this is going, right? Helena introduces several ideas that appear, you know, not as harmful in their original context, but later became foundational for extremist movements. Firstly, and maybe worst of all, she describes something called root races. And she claims that human evolution proceeded through seven successive races, each developing different physical and mental capabilities. So according to her, we are currently in the fifth root race that she calls the Aryan root race. Yeah, and this will eventually be succeeded by more advanced forms. Secondly, she refers to cyclical destructions, where she claims that human civilization undergoes these periodic cataclysms that basically destroy most existing knowledge, requiring spiritual teachers to preserve and restore ancient wisdom. And then finally, she describes lost advanced civilizations. This one I like. She claims places like Atlantis and Lemuria were technologically sophisticated societies that were destroyed because they misused psychic power for selfish purposes. Now, over time, different groups would borrow her ideas. So many Nazi occultists like Heinrich Himmler and others would misuse her root race concept to push Aryan supremacy, even though Helena at the onset opposed this type of racism and tried to teach human Unity. I mean, that obviously went sideways. And as you can see, the idea of the root race was very easily co opted by racial extremists. Now, whether or not that was her intention, it's difficult to really pin down. But if you're talking about root races, it's not the best look. Now, ancient alien researchers take her stories about lost civilizations and then turn them into claims about extraterrestrials shaping human history. And many different types of conspiracy theorists use her idea of repeating collapse of civilization to argue that secret groups are regularly resetting the world to basically, you know, purge humanity. But the most crucial part is that Helena didn't really seem to intend for these people to use her work. And it's difficult for her to have foreseen this, but still it was used in that way. Now, her influence doesn't stop with the conspiracy world. It also runs through some of the most controversial occult figures of the 20th century. So Aleister Crowley. Now Crowley is in many ways influenced by Helena Blavatsky. Now he openly criticizes theosophy later in his life when he actually creates his own religion, Thelema. But he kept the core structure, these secret masters and hidden knowledge and ancient wisdom disguised as like, you know, modern science. And his ideas about contacting higher intelligences and learning from non human beings and unlocking human potential through rituals, they're not really new. They were just more extreme and darker versions of Blavatsky's initial framework. So even Crowley himself and the famous entities like Aiwas fit the exact mold of Helena's mahatmas. Aiwas was this higher being that Crowley believed existed beyond normal reality that he would communicate with while he was in Cairo. And you know, he wasn't the only one to be influenced. We do a whole episode on Crowley, if you want to check that one out. But many different people have directly or indirectly drawn on her ideas. So Dion Fortune, a Western ceremonial magician, and Manly P. Hall, and you know, his cataloging of secret societies and, you know, ancient mythology. Jack Parsons, a rocket scientist, also a cultist who would mix rituals with his passion for space exploration. And even like Alice Bailey, who literally popularized the term New age. And it's said that she influenced many of them either directly through her writings or through this movement of theosophy that she created. Now remember, Helena introduced the idea that non human intelligences were ultimately guiding humanity from behind the scenes. Now today we would just call that aliens or maybe if you're Christian, you would call it demons or angels. Now she doesn't call them any of those things, she calls them masters or watchers or advanced beings from earlier cycles of civilization. But the structure is pretty spot on with like modern UFO contact stories, you know. So when ufology, for lack of a better word, exploded in the 1950s, what are the stories that people say? There are these, you know, contactees that receive messages from these higher beings and there's typically some type of warning about consciousness or nuclear war or, you know, civilization collapse. And there's claims of, you know, other civilizations that are more advanced than ours. And this idea that humanity is being prepared or guided and many people will draw the connection to say that this is just Blavatsky, just with, you know, spacecraft or aliens rather than astral planes or these mahatmas. Now, Helena eventually died on May 8, 1891 at 59 years old. She had been in poor health for years, and when a severe flu outbreak hit London, she got sick and her body just couldn't recover. By the time of her passing, she never really built a massive empire, never gained any real tangible political power, and eventually lost control of what her ideas were and ultimately who co opted them. But despite that, her influence is still huge. She didn't just start a movement, she just invented an entire spiritual system. And that's what makes Helena Blavatsky so hard to pin down. Was she a fraud? Was she a genius, Was she a myth maker who somehow got some things right? It's difficult to say. What we do know is that she definitely took ancient mysticism, wrapped it in a modern language and created a framework that still shapes how people talk about consciousness and form spiritual societies and how they interface with hidden knowledge and non human intelligences more than 130 years later. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of Helena Blavatsky. Fascinating woman. I mean, it's one of these things that I can't tell, but all the stuff that she researched and went in on are all the things that I'm curious about. With the exception of the root race part. That's not great. But again, I actually think, I mean she spoke out against like anti Semitism and like European colonization. Like she thinks that the colonial powers were terrible. So like, yeah, I think a lot of the language that she used in the vocab, again, I haven't read all of her work, so I'll reserve the right to be wrong here. But like a lot of her language is probably bad and like, even the way she was approaching like race was probably like misinformed. But I think she probably would have been like against the Nazis, using her ideas to like create a genocide. I think that's probably fair to say based off what I know about her. With that said, her ideas of being like, I want to study ancient texts, I want to learn about everything. I want to go in on ancient civilizations. I want to talk about like these beings that are guiding civilization. Like, it's all stuff that would just like be on the Discovery Channel today. Maybe the History channel.