Madame Bławatska jako czytelniczka i autorka. In: Zawiszewska, Agata / Galant, Arleta (Ed.) Czytanie… Kobieta, biblioteka, lektura. Szczecin: Szczecin UP 2015, 403–428.

Madame Blavatsky as a Reader and Writer

Helena Blavatsky still remains as one of the very few women who was able to create  a new religious movement attractive to many spiritual seekers, and thus influence Western culture. Furthermore, by popularising Brahmanism, Buddhism, Yoga, and India as well as Tibet as the land of ancient wisdom, theosophy contributed to the birth of Indian nationalism. This paper discusses the books Blavatsky read from early life to the period of the Theosophical Society. Among them are novels and stories by J. Fenimore Cooper and E.T.A. Hoffmann, and Russian folk tales. Already in her teenage years Blavatsky had access to certain texts on magic, alchemy, and Rosicrucians. She may also have read one of the proto-feminist novels published by her mother, Elena Gan (Hahn), or by George Sand. In her most prolific American and Western European period, she read widely on spiritualism, hypnosis, religion, as well as science, with particular reference to psychical research and Darwin’s evolution theory. The charge of plagiarism brought against Blavatsky in a way, and perhaps paradoxically, confirms her intellectual achievement. The question ‘What did Blavatska read?’ may only be answered by tracing quotations, allusions, paraphrases, and polemic in her writings. Her reading included religious-philosophical works, press articles, travelogues, and literary texts (Nightmare Tales, 1892). However, some books were part of the mystery surrounding Blavatsky’s life. Since she felt „a messenger of her Masters”, she sometimes quoted and translated books that were, in fact, inaccessible to her. Allegedly, she had seen them in the astral light. Notwithstanding all the doubts expressed by critics, Blavatsky’s works still have their readers and attract scholarly attention.