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Helena Blavatsky - Ep 145
1.6k Plays4 months ago
Continuing on with the whole “I listen to my listeners so I am a good person” situation, this week I’m covering Helena Blavatsky. Beyond the fact that several of you have asked for this one, I myself have been super curious about Helena Blavatsky, as her name crops up whenever you take a stroll in the Pseudoarchaeology universe. Of course, if your name is “Helena Blavatsky” then membership in the occult is required.
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- For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/pseudo/145
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Transcript
Introduction to Pseudo-Archaeology Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You are now entering the pseudo-archaeology podcast, a show that uncovers what's fact, what's fake, and what's fun in the crazy world of pseudo-archaeology.
Who is Helena Madame Blavatsky?
00:00:24
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the pseudo-archaeology podcast, episode 145. I'm your host, Dr. Andrew Kinkella, and tonight, Helena Madame Blavatsky. Why do we care about Helena Madame Blavatsky? We should not care about Helena Madame Blavatsky.
00:00:50
Speaker
Okay, so... I've been being a good host, you know, listening to you guys, giving you what you want. People ask me questions and they're like, hey, we want to know about Madame Blavatsky, Kinkella. So you need to you need to talk about Madame Blavatsky. And I have to tell you guys. This one might have destroyed me. It's funny, they always they come out of left field. You know, you're you're like you're doing Loch Ness Monster, you're doing Atlantis, you're doing Bigfoot, whatever. And those are like known quantities. You know what's coming. If you're going to do Atlantis, you know, you know, you you know, the foolishness, you know, the various stories. And there's kind of like a fun in it, you know, which is why i why I do this.
00:01:43
Speaker
But I have to say when it comes to like these pseudo religious figures, these guys are the worst because ultimately for me, they're just not that fun. And it's because they're just so obviously full of BS and they just get these sycophants that believe their dumbass ideas, you know, and and they just never die.
Challenges with Pseudo-Religious Figures
00:02:13
Speaker
Like a new generation takes it up. And it's and in this case, it's not a ton of people. It's not like the.
00:02:21
Speaker
Madame Blavatsky stuff again, just the name. How many times have we done this where it's like, if you've grown up with a name like Helena Blavatsky, what are your options? You're going to just have to be an occult leader. So, you know, ah behind the scenes when I do this show, I do care about getting like the facts right, more or less. And it does take me a bit of time, you know, to kind of look things up. And I'm always a little insecure. I really am, you know, about about talking about these topics, because sometimes actually often I'll know something about it, you know, like I'll be like, oh, yeah, you know, like I'll recognize the name. I'll know like one or two kind of fun little stories or something. But
00:03:05
Speaker
in order to get things right. I want to like do a bit of a deep dive. I'll go online and you know look some stuff up. I might have a book or two that might help me like stuff by like Ken Fader or Jason Colavito. There's a Jeb card, you know, these kinds of names of people like myself who have sort of spent a portion of their career Dealing with pseudoscience or pseudo archaeology, you know, and I'll look some of that stuff up and because again I do want to get it right underneath it all. I have to tell you guys This is the first time what episode are we 145? This is the first time that I just don't give a damn
00:03:45
Speaker
And it's nothing personal. Let me explain. It's nothing against you guys as my audience. I love my audience and I love doing this show. It's nothing against the show. What it's against is Madame Blavatsky because she is so full of shit that I just don't want to put it all in my brain. And I wonder I bet you anything. that those guys that I just listed, you know, the Ken Faders of the world, the Jason Colavitos of the world, I'm sure they've they've gotten to that same limit where it's like, I have a limited number of storage brain cells. Do I want to use them on this utter pointless dreck, you know?
Theosophical Society and Esoteric Beliefs
00:04:33
Speaker
And so I'm gonna give you the story of Madame Blavatsky, of course, but as we go through it,
00:04:38
Speaker
i I'll generalize a few things because it's it's not worth your time, it's not worth my time to get this stuff completely right because it's all bullshit, you guys. It's all just fakery, obvious lies, obvious made up at the last minute, you know this kind of thing by these type of people who are basically, you know these guys are all the same. They sort of have a narcissistic streak. They think they are literally like the second coming. They think that their word is the word of God or the ancients or or whatever label you want to give. And they just blather nonsense, you know? And unfortunately, somebody was there to write it down. And we have to deal with it decades later. Boy, what a waste of time. So
00:05:29
Speaker
If you look up Helena Blavatsky, she is listed as a mystic. And I always wonder if you call yourself a mystic, do you do you put that on your tax records? You know, occupation, mystic, whatever. And if you do look her up, you know, this typical sort of fakery, charlatan stuff that she does. So she was born in 1831, and she's going to die in 1891. And what that means, as we often talk about, she's going to be div We're doing stuff that we care about in like the 1870s, 1880s, right? That's when she's making making her mark. She's Russian and she kind of she grows up in Russia and as it is with these fake charlatan type people, it's actually kind of hard to reconstruct her early life because she, as she got older, added a fake history to herself.
00:06:23
Speaker
where she said she'd been to all these places and met all these mystical and very important people. Right. But so much of it is just a big fat lie that that her true story and, you know, truth is not something these people are into is basic. You know, sha she's born she. was raised in Russia. She was this is this is before the revolution, right? This is in the 1800s. So she was like a part of the aristocrat society. She grew up as a rich Russian. Yeah, good way to grow up if you're in the eighteen thirties and forties in Russia. Much better to be rich than before. And again, this is in the time if you look her up, if you don't if you don't dig too much, they'll say stuff like she traveled widely at this time. No, she didn't.
00:07:11
Speaker
You know, it's just all part of her fake but her fake origin mythology that she that she writes for herself. And what she's known for and what we'll dive into is writing a couple books. Her her most famous ones are Isis Unveiled in 1877 and The Secret Doctrine in 1888. And we will well dissect these a little bit later, but I will tell you that sometimes I'll i'll mix up which bits of bullshit go into which one. You know, so I think I'll kind of treat them together. Basically, for me, Isis unveiled a little bit more basic and then the secret doctrine and it has a little bit more specifics to it, but it's all kind of the same same stuff. She is best known for creating what is called the Theosophical Society.
Why Do New Age Beliefs Captivate?
00:08:01
Speaker
And these are the same as any other cult or pseudo religious movement, right? It starts basically with one crazy person and then the crazy person gets a couple sycophants. And it seems to me, you guys, it's like as soon as you get three or four sycophants, you're good to go. You know, then it just then it just sort of grows and people kind of come and they kind of leave the Theosophical Society, you know, but you get this core of focused brainwashed sycophants and you're good to go. And she got that, you know, ultimately. What what is the Theosophical Society? This this kind of stuff.
00:08:38
Speaker
This is always tough for me. I never understand, you know, like and the idea of of like sort of esoteric belief systems. Yeah, we've we've touched on some of this stuff before, like like Rosicrucianism has aspects of it that all it all kind of relates into this kind of Western tradition of esoteric system for me. It's just new age beliefs. That's what this stuff all is for me. If you if you really want to parse it out, the the label of new age is very much a 20th century thing. But I think for ease of just understanding.
00:09:18
Speaker
This is where kind of the new age movement originally comes from. It's this kind of stuff. And what is it ultimately going to be? It's just this singular woman literally, literally making shit up. And it's obvious, right? And she just sort of pasted it all together. But she's enough of a self-centered narcissist that she's like, oh, yeah, this is great. And then there are people gullible enough to look at it and go, oh, yeah, oh, this is great. So Helena Blavatsky does have some interesting bits and bobs to her life. The real parts, you know, the part she doesn't focus on as much, but she will ultimately move to India for a while in like I think the eight late 1870s. And that's where she does a lot of her quote unquote work, otherwise known as bullshitting. But her work, you know,
00:10:15
Speaker
does it in in India, she does convert to Buddhism. And it is interesting at that time to have Westerners convert to Buddhism, right? That's really, really rare. So she does do that. She will ultimately expand the Theosophical Society at that point, and then she'll fall into ill health. She'll come back to England or ultimately end up, I should say, I believe in England. Jesus, in England or the United States? Ha, I'm not sure. To the West. Look at that. For her her later life, and she'll ultimately die. I think she had like kidney disease, basically, and she will ultimately die in 1891. But we will fill this in.
Core Beliefs of the Theosophical Society
00:10:52
Speaker
Oh, and, you know, why do we care?
00:10:54
Speaker
Because this is one of the sort of the Blavatsky story is one of the bricks in the wall of the sort of pseudoscience, new age movement that's really you know been with us for the last 150 years or so. Anyway, more on that when we come back.
00:11:16
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the pseudo-archaeological podcast episode 145 with your host, Dr. Andrew Kinkella, and we have been discussing the one, the only, thank God, Madame Blavatsky. and so What is this theosophical society thing that she that she started? So the word theosophical, if you if you cut it in half, you have Theo and esophical Theo means God and esophic means wisdom. So the theosophical society means the God wisdom society. And what you ultimately get from this again to make it make sense, just think back to kind of
00:11:57
Speaker
typical new age belief system. So a theosophical society, what they're really looking for is kind of a base connection, like an ancient, ancient base connection between like science, religion and philosophy all together. Right. This idea that there's this one seed from time immemorial. Right. There's this one seed kind of running through all of us. And we need to study this. We need to focus and go down deep and, you know, look under every stone to sort of find these these lineages of it that surely go back through history and time immemorial. Right. This this kind of ideology, the sort of base sort of singular story underneath it all.
00:12:46
Speaker
Very similar. Here's your vibes of stuff like Graham Hancock, right? This idea that, ah, yes, at the end of the last Ice Age, there was this one so yeah super civilization that that connected everywhere, that interconnected the the world. This ideology, this is the thing that is always with us. You know what I mean? We're just all interconnected. And of course, it's because this kind of ideology is so satisfying. You know, that would be awesome if ultimately there was one religion and sort of religion and science and philosophy all went together as like one mantra, you know, and that this ideology that we've somehow lost it. You know, whether you look at at modern new age or you look at Graham Hancock, it's it's this idea of
00:13:36
Speaker
modern culture has lost the thread. you know we we just we We need to get back to some sort of ancient wisdom that we once had. You know what I mean? And you can see how that can be super attractive. to people who maybe feel a little lost. And in the modern world, it really feels like that, right? With technology and all this AI, you know yeah we just feel like, geez, or just cell phones and being on screens all the time. It's like, man, yeah we've have we lost our humanity, right? It gets very philosophical very quick. And
00:14:14
Speaker
I think a lot of us do feel that way. You know, I feel that way lots of times that, you know, technology unhinged and environmental destruction and all that kind of stuff. Oh, can we get back to whatever that is? I think it's just so much more satisfying if if there was something like the Theosophical Society. If it had some reality to it, you'd be like, oh, yeah, we could do this like. focused work and get something good. Unfortunately, it's just a total house of cards and it's total bullshit, you know, but it gets followers. I mean, I want to be a follower, you know, but unfortunately, there's reality and reality is hard. See. These choices are easy.
00:14:58
Speaker
but the hard work is what we all
Blavatsky's Mystical Claims and Influence
00:15:02
Speaker
truly need to do, which is why you need to follow me, okay? Don't be following Madame Blavatsky. You need to follow Andrew King Keller. I ah didn't want to tell you guys this, but I am the Messiah. So I just, oops, surprise. um Anyway, where were we? So Madame Blavatsky, you know, gets together this Theosophical Society and she does get, one or two sycophants to go with her on this. Insert every cliche. Oh, this guy named Henry Steele Olcott is is one of her earliest kind of sycophants and partners. And they they together actually both convert to Buddhism when they both go to India. Interesting. You know, so it's in these earlier days. And this is I don't know.
00:15:49
Speaker
1870s. Blavatsky is gonna write Isis Unveiled in the earlier days. She's gonna go to India. And she just digs down ever deeper into stuff that's more and more difficult to believe. At first, A lot of this stuff turns on people who she calls the masters who are basically mysterious Indian men, right? That are that are in India that she always says that she's visited and they've shown her visions.
00:16:25
Speaker
They've shown her how to wield the paranormal. Right. And they've shown her how to do things like travel along the astral plane and these masters. And of course, they're always kept vague. Oh, you know, the masters and that term is always used in, you know, sort of new age, folksy pseudo religious stuff. Oh, the masters. You know, there's there's other terms you'll hear all the time, like like an adept to somebody who's, you know, learned the ways of something useful like alchemy. Really? You're going to try and sell me alchemy.
00:17:00
Speaker
um So. She's met with the masters, which nobody ever saw her do, or there's no actual recordings of this, but you need to believe her. She's met with the masters. She knows how to astral travel. She knows how to deal in the world of the paranormal. She has visions. Right. And she's she's learned this all in in the secret ancient language of Senzar. Right. Which is which is a form of ancient Sanskrit. which is also a complete lie and doesn't exist. But she talks about it, right? Because you have to have this ancient stuff, have that that mystique. You know, it's all about the mystique. And that's why they use words like this, like and come up with some term like senzar. And oh yes, I learned from the masters. or It's just, it's so cheesy. It's so cliche, right? We would not believe this in a modern movie, but I guess it could just get over the bar in 1870.
00:17:57
Speaker
And now since it's old, we're talking 150 years, it has that sheen of, well, it's been around for 150 years. Bullshit can last forever. See Atlantis. Oh, speaking of Atlantis, you'll never guess where Helena Blavatsky connects all this stuff to. Yes, yes, yes, even here. I know there's there's no getting away. Of course, all this stuff goes back to Atlantis. Right. And of course, it's also connected to Egypt. You know this story. I don't even need to tell it to you. You know, it's just the same old, same old thing because it's the easiest way back. Like if you're ignorant about ancient history, as all these guys were right, even for the time, they just if you're make if you're creating if you're a bullshit artist,
00:18:47
Speaker
And you want to like impress people in the moment. You're just going to go on your limited knowledge. People still do this today. Just go online. Right. of Oh, yeah. Well, it's connected to Atlantis and the Egyptians. And then you're going to throw the easy labels like the the title of our first book, Isis Unveiled. You're going to use Isis because it's the easy term, the easy name that everyone knows. I'm sure the next book would have been Horace Veiled Again. You know, it's it's this is not hard.
00:19:19
Speaker
Oh, obviously the Masters showed her some, I think the book of Dizyan, I think it's called. I believe this is what's written in Cenzar. Again, I could be wrong and I don't care. Yeah. Yeah. The new me. But ah yeah, this is supposedly from Tibet and they showed it to her, you know, in Tibet, which of course nobody else has ever seen and it has nothing to do with reality. It's a total hoax. It's fake. She made it up. So that's what That's what ISIS unveiled is basically, hey, all of this is connected. And then do as I say, and don't look too deep. When we return the scintillating end to Madame Blavatsky.
00:20:02
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the pseudo-archaeology podcast episode 145 and we have been talking about Madame Blavatsky and so in her world of lies and silliness what's a bummer to me is there's one or two facts that are really interesting and my favorite fact by far from Madame Blavatsky is that in 1871 she was on a boat That exploded a boat that exploded. Then, you know, think of a full on full size ship like a passenger steamer or that kind of thing exploded. She was one of 16 survivors.
00:20:39
Speaker
That's a good story. See, Madame Blavatsky, that's the thing I want to hear about. I want to hear about your like experiences, you know, being on a boat with that kind of catastrophe and being one of the very few survivors. You know, she also did indeed travel to Egypt and I believe did meet Gaston Maspero, who was an ah an early figure, of course, in the 1870s in the I would say in in making Egyptian archaeology more professional so sort of in in doing away with all the looting and stuff. So that's that's that's really cool. she met She met some really interesting people.
00:21:16
Speaker
But, you know, of course, she, I think, I think brought in a group or called a group, the Brotherhood of Luxor. I forget that's in there too. You know, see Brotherhood of Luxor. The term, you know, so easy. You can make that up in two seconds, like ah like an eight year old can do this. and ah and And bringing them into the Theosophical Society, collecting people who you would refer to as spiritualists. I believe they're like mystics. I think you can put that on your IRS records, too. No, I'm a spiritualist, dude. No, I don't need to pay taxes. I'm a spiritualist. It's religious. So. Oh, in terms. So in terms of her books, I did forget to tell you there's huge part portions of ISIS unveiled that were plagiarized by Madame Blavatsky, of course, from other sources, other writings. But do we really care?
00:22:07
Speaker
It's just plagiarized from other new age bullshit. So it's it's like how if you've watched too many episodes of Ancient Aliens, Ancient Aliens actually is plagiarizing itself now because it's run out of topics. So it just kind of redoes itself. And I think that's very similar here. As we go forward in time, again, you know, Madame Blavatsky is is going more and more out there. She she tells people that that she materialized a cup under the ground. Like, I guess ah guess she buried a cup and then some people came by and had a picnic like in the backyard, you know, and then she dug it up and went, hey, look, a cup. I just materialized that.
00:22:49
Speaker
I'm not kidding. I made up the thing about the picnic, but the cup thing is true. Right. That's one thing she was purported to have done. She visited some caves in India called the Carla Caves, and these are these kind of rock cut carved out caves that are that look really nice, right there. They look much more manmade because they're kind of carved out and they're very interesting. But of course, as soon as she visited them, she's like, oh, the masters live way beneath here. Hmm, yes, just believe me, don't look too close. So. Oh, and she calls the masters, the Mahatma, you know, just cliche, you know, cliche written. Indian words, typical new age, but.
00:23:41
Speaker
Of course, as she moves on and writes the secret doctrine in 1888, she adds a bunch of stuff. You know, she's she's not a fan of Charles Darwin because evolution doesn't explain the astral plane. I guess Darwin needs to get on that, you know, when he was dealing with his finches. You should have looked for finches on the astral plane, but. You know, Darwin, but she, you know, she did. This is interesting. I didn't know this. She did add the idea of prehistoric extraterrestrials, you know, as as kind of the or X or the idea of extraterrestrials, both as ancients and as the next evolutionary step. So I guess you could say I was wrong when I said that HP Lovecraft was the first one to add kind of the extraterrestrial alien vibe to stuff because he's doing it in like the 1930s.
00:24:36
Speaker
Helena Blavatsky may have beat him because she's doing this in the 1880s. So this might be this might be ground zero for ancient aliens. So I stand corrected. I got to give it to her. and And HP Lovecraft was in all this stuff, too. So you guys, as always, it's all in a related right. It's the same handful of people are kind of like doubling down on themselves. But I think it's kind of interesting. You know, Helena Blavatsky adds the alien thing to this mix. What I do think is fascinating yet not yet is is by the time that Blavatsky has to move back to Europe right in the in like 1885 or so, as I think when she moves back, she's been in India for a while.
Intertwined Nature of Pseudo-Archaeology and Mysticism
00:25:20
Speaker
By that time, there are like 120 or so lodges dedicated to the Theosophical Society.
00:25:31
Speaker
That's how easy it is to birth a religion, my friends. You just have to be a weird woman who just talks out her ass and just throws in some pseudo religious psycho babble and you get 120 lodges and those are groups, you know, separate groups of people who believe in this. I i believe the word of the day should be mumbo jumbo. Belief in mumbo jumbo. So isn't that wild, though although I will say most are in India because, you know, she's pulling some new age, you know, thin ideology from deeper Indian religions.
00:26:14
Speaker
So that's where most of the lodges are, but there's there's some throughout. it's It's continued onward since then, but I would say that the theosophical society sort of continued on in a small but steady drip. They did for a while write like a theosophic, I think it's called the Theosophist magazine that was actually pretty successful for a little while near the you know near the end of her life. And there you kind of have it, right? so It seems like she was always, what what what was she like as a person? I think she was kind of prickly. They talk about her as always sort of dressing unkempt, very anti-Victorian for the times, but it goes with that vibe, right? She's playing the part. I dress unkempt because I'm this adept, mystic, you know? So I gotta play the part of the mystic. I'm unkempt and, you know, I just, it's all about my ideas.
00:27:09
Speaker
It's not about how I look, you know, you have to listen to me. That sort of Yoda vibe. I think I think she just she. Did that, you know, her whole life or at least her whole whole adult life. As time went on with the Theosophus Society, of course, you also had people higher ups in it who were accused of things like extortion, misappropriation of funds.
00:27:35
Speaker
And I think one of the women named Emma Colum, I think what she did was she stole like shes she she she stole a bunch of money and then extorted Helena Blavatsky by saying, hey, man, if you out me on this, I'm going to out you and show the world that you're just a big fat fraud. So you have these like interior squabbles. Isn't this so typical? Right. Of every one of these fake dumb, you know, like new agey just mind control pseudo religions.
00:28:14
Speaker
How many times have we heard this story? And of course, so b Blavatsky dies on the 8th of May, 1891. And why do I give you that specific date? Well, that for the Theosophus Society is White Lotus Day. So they actually have made her death day like a holiday. All right, I don't know. So why have I told you this story? Why why why do people ask me to? You know, I've heard this one again and again, and I didn't know as much about Madame Blavatsky as I did, you know, of other people like ah Von Dineken or, you know, Pick Your Poison. I i just i I'd heard her name for a long time, but I didn't know.
Conclusion: Pursuing Genuine Connections
00:29:03
Speaker
but more of the of the details. It's because she's, I would say, a key figure in the sort of pseudo-archaeology movement, right? When the 1880s, she's just another brick in the pseudo-archaeology wall. And what's what's so interrelated, and again, as I've done this show, I've noticed more and more interrelations to this. pseudo-archaeology and New Age mysticism, they just they they do this dance together throughout time. It goes right together, you know because both of them have this
00:29:37
Speaker
thin, basically ignorant seeds of sort of pseudo-intellectualism, you know, like, oh, just half-truths and base knowledge of Egypt or Atlantis or some sort of lost civilization, you know, and vague ideas on masters or ancient ones or, right, pick your label. it It's the same idea and the the that we're all kind of lost. And again, we feel that loss, you know, and we want to get back to something from the past. But the the sad bummer is that that thing we're trying to get back to and refined was never there in the first place. So instead of falling under the sway of Madame Blavatsky and taking a lot of time to become an adept at alchemy,
00:30:35
Speaker
Maybe use that time instead to make a friend, get to know your neighbors. I don't know. Go have lunch together. It's a much better use of your time. And with that, I'll see you guys next time.
00:30:55
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the pseudo-archaeology podcast. Please like and subscribe wherever you'd like and subscribe. And if you have questions for me, Dr. Andrew Kinkella, feel free to reach out using the links below or go to my YouTube channel, Kinkella Teaches Archaeology. See you guys next time.
00:31:16
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his ah RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.