Theosophical Encyclopedia

A well-known occultist of the 18th century. His life is shrouded in myth and conflicting reports; he is regarded by some as a charlatan and by others as an Initiate of a high degree. The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1970 Ed.) brands Cagliostro a charlatan and adventurer. Helena P. Blavatsky (CW XII:79-88) disagrees most strongly with such a verdict, claiming him to have been a wonderful and highly accomplished person. She lays much of the blame for the evil reputation he suffers on Carlyle.

Outstanding Russian chemist whose work confirmed the classical theory of chemical structure. Butlerov was interested in Spiritualism and wrote against the materialistic tendencies of the science of his time.

Helena P. Blavatsky considered Butlerov the greatest chemist of his time. In one of her letters referring to the opinion of one of the Mahatmas about William Crookes, she wrote:
"Master says, there is no one higher than him [Crookes] in chemistry in England, nor elsewhere except Butlerov who is dead. But then Butlerov spoiled his brains by Spiritualism" (Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, p. 226).

Vice-President of the international Theosophical Society and President of the American Section, Cook was born in England on May 18, 1887, and joined the Theosophical Society in 1914. He became a naturalized American citizen, was elected to the National Board of Directors, and appointed as National Treasurer before serving as President of the American Section (1931-1945) and international Vice-President (1946-1960) under C. Jinarajadasa and Nilakanta Sri Ram.

Orientalist, authority on comparative religion, editor and translator of Tibetan religious scriptures, Walter Evans-Wentz was born in New Jersey to parents who were freethinkers and Spiritualists. He joined the Theosophical Society, Point Loma, in 1902 and was encouraged by Katherine Tingley to pursue his education at Stanford University in California. There he received his Master's degree in 1906 and afterwards continued his studies at Oxford University, where he wrote his first book, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries. 

During his many travels in the Far East, Evans-Wentz studied for several years in Tibet, where he was ordained as a Buddhist monk. In 1918 Evans-Wentz stayed at the international headquarters of the Theosophical Society in Adyar, where he had discussions with Annie Besant. While in India he met Alice Cleather, a Theosophical writer and lecturer, who was then living at Darjeeling. In 1923 he returned to Point Loma and worked there with Tingley. In 1927 he published The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the first book to describe the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism for the Western public. In this book he submitted evidence that Blavatsky was intimately acquainted with the higher lamaistic teachings.

Evans-Wentz died in San Diego in 1965. His works include The Tibetan Book of the Dead (1927), Tibet's Great Yogi, Milarepa (1928), Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines (1935), and The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation (1954).

Celebrated traveler, opera singer and writer, Alexandra David was born on October 24, 1868, at Saint-Mande near Paris, France. She was the only child of elderly parents and frequently ran away from home to escape a repressive atmosphere. As a young girl she attended lectures on Eastern religions at the Paris Theosophical Society and took singing lessons. She joined the Opera Comique and toured the Middle East, the Far East, and North Africa with that company, singing leading roles in Gounod's Faust and Massenet's Manon. Massenet thanked her in a letter for the excellent way in which she had interpreted her part in his opera.

Alexandra David joined the European Section of the Theosophical Society in London on June 7, 1892. Shortly after joining, she returned to Paris and became a member of the Ananda Lodge there. In a letter to G. R. S. Mead dated December 10,1892, she wrote that she had broken off relations with her family because of her refusal to renounce Theosophy.

In 1904, Alexandra married Philippe Francois Neel, a French railway engineer, in Tunis, but she was not suited to the conjugal state, and they went their separate ways after a short time. Although the marriage failed, she and Neel remained friends and he financed many of her journeys and maintained a cordial correspondence with her until his death in 1941.

In 1911, Alexandra David-Neel left Paris and traveled to Northern India where she studied Buddhism. It is typical of her dedication and physical endurance that she, dressed only in a cotton garment, spent a winter in a cave with a young Sikkimese lama called Yongden, studying Buddhist teaching. Sometime later she spent three years in a Peking monastery.

In 1923 David-Neel began her epic journeying. Accompanied by Yongden, she traveled from Calcutta in India through Burma, Japan, and Korea to Peking, covering nearly 5,000 miles by mule, yak, and horse across China into northeastern Tibet, then into Mongolia and the Gobi to the Mekong River. From there, disguised as Tibetan pilgrims, David-Neel and Yongden traveled through Tibet to Lhasa, the "Forbidden City." While in Tibet, she was a disciple of an abbot of the monastery of the White Conch, where she became the first European woman to be ordained as a lama.

In 1925 David-Neel returned to France a celebrity, and was awarded many honors, including the Grande Medaille d'Or of La Societe de Geographie, and in 1924 the French Government made her a Commandeur de la Legion d'Honneur. In 1937 she, with Yongden, went to Asia for the last time; they journeyed to China and took up residence in Peking where she often had dinner with Chiang Kai Shek and met Teilhard de Chardin, the celebrated Jesuit anthropologist. It is claimed (The Middle Way, May 1984) that David-Neel took part in Mao's Long March. David-Neel returned to France after the end of World War 11. She died on September 9, 1969, at Digne in Southern France just short of her 102nd birthday.

David-Neel was a skilled and objective observer whose intimate knowledge of Tibetan and Sanskrit languages enabled her to interpret and convey to Western readers much concerning Tibet that was hitherto hidden behind a veil of ignorance and misinformation. Her account of her journey to Llasa ranks among the great travel stories in literature. Her sense of humor is illustrated by her reply to a woman who wrote and asked her to kill her husband by magic. She replied, "Dear Madam, if I had to kill all unfaithful husbands, the world would be populated only by widows."

David-Neel's published works include Le Modernisme et le Buddhisme du Bouddha (1911); My Journey to Lhasa (1927); Initiations & Initiates in Tibet (1931); With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet (1931), retitled Magic and Mystery in Tibet; Tibetan Journey (1936); Buddhism, Its Doctrines and Methods (1939); A L'ouest Barbare de la Vaaste Chine (1947); L'inde: hier-aujourd'hui-demain (1951); and Le vieux Tibetface a la Chine nouvelle (1953).

A Theosophist noted for her significant contributions to the revival of Indian classical dance and as a campaigner for animal welfare, Rukmini Devi was born in Madura in South India on February 20, 1904. Her father, Nilakanta Sastry, was a professional consulting engineer to an Indian prince. Rukmini Devi was educated at a Madras (now Chennai) College. At the age of 16 years, she married George Arundale, the third International President of the Theosophical Society.

From an early age, Rukmini Devi showed exceptional talent as a dancer; Anna Pavlova, the celebrated ballerina, en-couraged her to pursue a career in Indian dance. In January 1936, she founded the International Academy of the Arts at Adyar, known as Kalakshetra (Sanskrit kala meaning "arts" and kshetra meaning "sacred place"). Through her Academy, Rukmini systematically promoted Indian dance. The then-current practitioners of the art were not held in high regard; so she used her artistic sensibility to enhance the image of the traditional dance.

She replaced the existing style of costume with those of better quality and design and added a lavish amount of jewellery. She persuaded first-class musicians and dance instructors to join the faculty, dedicated to artistic excellence. In addition to her work in reforming Indian dance, Rukmini was an energetic campaigner for animal rights and also a strong advocate of vegetarianism.

Rukmini died in a hospital in Chennai on February 24, 1986. Her body was brought to Arundale House at the international Theosophical headquarters in Adyar and was cremated in the part of the estate known as Besant Gardens.

Helena P. Blavatsky considered the art of her time as being already in deep decline. In 1891 she wrote of "the gradual decadence of true art, as if art could exist without imagination, fancy and a just appreciation of the beautiful in Nature, or without poetry and high religious, hence metaphysical aspirations!" (Collected Writings 13:180). She herself had an educated talent for drawing, but no pretensions as an artist. Professional artists among the early Theosophists included the engraver Albert Rawson, the painter Isabelle de Steiger, and Hermann Schmiechen, who painted iconic portraits of Koot Hoomi, Morya, and Blavatsky.