Theosophical Encyclopedia

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.

A scholar and Theosophist, Bhagavan Das was born on January 12, 1869, at Benares (Varanasi), India, into a landholding family of bankers. He had a distinguished academic career, earning his B.A. at Calcutta University when he was sixteen and his M.A. (in philosophy) when eighteen. He joined the Theosophical Society in 1894.

Bhagavan Das was in government service as a deputy collector and magistrate in Uttar Pradesh from 1890 to 1899. He left those positions to become Honorary Secretary of the Board of Trustees and Managing Committee for the Central Hindu College in Benares, which he helped Annie Besant to found. In 1921 he was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment for participating in the Non-Cooperative Movement, but was released after five weeks on a motion of the Government. For many years he served on the All-India Congress Committee and was elected to the Legislative Assembly in Uttar Pradesh in 1934. 

Bhagavan Das was awarded the T. Subba Row Medal in 1900, although most of his best-known publications came after that. They include The Science of the Emotions, The Science of Peace, The Science of Social Organization or the Laws of Manu in the Light of Theosophy, The Essential Unity of All Religions, and Annie Besant and the Changing World.

Grandnephew of Helena P. Blavatsky, who edited her Collected Writings, Boris de Zirkoff was born on March 7, 1902, in St. Petersburg, Russia, to Lydia Dmitriyevna von Hahn, Blavatsky’s niece. A frail child, tutored at home and mastering several languages, de Zirkoff knew little of his great aunt until he was about sixteen. Escaping across Finland in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, he settled in Stockholm (1917) with his mother and stepfather. At the home of the Russian Consul, he saw The Secret Doctrine for the first time. Its study became his first step in a lifetime dedication to Theosophy.

Esther Bright, a pioneer in Co-Freemasonry in Britain in 1902, was a helper and close friend of Annie Besant. She was born on February 19, 1868, daughter of Rt. Hon. Jacob Bright, British member of Parliament and Ursula M. Bright. She joined the Theosophical Society on September 7, 1891, and was an active worker for many humanitarian movements. Her publications include The Ancient One (1927) and Old Memories and Letters of Annie Besant (1936).

A Brahman of the Vedanta philosophy, born on July 6, 1856, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, north of Madras, T. Subba Row’s native language was Telugu, and his family included prominent Indian government officials. His father died when he was six months old; consequently an uncle reared him. In 1876 he earned a B.A. degree at the top of his class from the Madras Presidency College and became a Registrar of the High Court in Baroda (Vadodara) in the western state of Gujarat. Then he returned to Madras, earned a legal degree, and became a highly successful lawyer.

Subba Row met Helena P. Blavatsky in 1882 and joined the Theosophical Society, although he had shown no interest in metaphysical matters earlier. Nevertheless, it appeared that he was a chela of Master Morya and became an expert in Advaita, the most prominent sub-school of Vedanta.  Subba Row recommended the purchase of the Adyar property that became the site of the headquarters of the Theosophical Society. He assisted Blavatsky when she was producing the first draft of The Secret Doctrine, but they eventually disagreed on certain matters, such as the classification of the human principles and publication of statements regarding the Masters. Subba Row, as an orthodox Brahmin, was critical of Blavatsky's disclosure of certain hitherto esoteric teachings, so in 1886 he left the Theosophical Society. Thereafter he fell gravely ill and despite healing treatment by Henry S. Olcott, eventually died on June 24, 1890. 

Although a member for only about four years, Subba Row had an important influence on both the Society and its teachings. He served as a councillor, legal advisor, and secretary of the Madras Branch. He postulated four principles in the cosmos, namely, Parabrahman, Logos, Mulaprakriti, and Daiviprakrti (Light of the Logos, the source of Fohat).

Subba Row left few published works, mainly because of the shortness of his life. He gave several lectures on the Gita, which were compiled and published as Notes on the Bhagavad Gita. A posthumously published collection is Esoteric Writings of T. Subba Row. The 1883 Convention established the Subba Row Medal, to be awarded to writers of works of outstanding merit on Eastern and Western philosophy.

Founder of the United Lodge of Theosophists, Robert Crosbie was born on January 10, 1849, in Montreal. His parents were connected with the Canadian Hudson Bay Company. In 1865, Crosbie, raised as a Presbyterian, was invited to join that church, but he said that he considered himself still "unfit." Subsequent discussions caused him to doubt that church's practices. He determined independently to find "the Truth, which must be knowledge," and adopted the practice of constant questioning life's objects, pain, sickness, death, mercy, justice, and fate. He found that the religions around him offered no satisfactory answers when he questioned them. Yet “from his earliest years [he was] deeply interested in religious, philosophical and occult subjects” (Theosophy 7:320).

W. Q. Judge, with Helena P. Blavatsky and Henry S. Olcott, helped to found the Theosophical Society in 1875. He worked for its cause during the 21 years between that event and his death at the age of 44. He was General Secretary of the American Section (1886-95) and President for Life of the independent Theosophical Society in America (1895-96).

Of his early life, Judge wrote to Sarah A. Cape (Oct 1893): “I was born in Dublin, Ireland, April 13, 1851. My father was Frederic H. Judge, my mother Alice Mary Quan, both Irish. Father was deeply interested in Freemasonry. Mother died young on the birth of her seventh child. I was educated in Dublin. In 1864 Father decided to emigrate to America & we were six of us brought by him here . . . . I studied law, living with my father, who however, died not very long after. When I came of age I was naturalized a citizen of the U. S. in April 1872, and in May of that year was admitted to the bar of New York; after that I practiced law steadily for many years. I left home to marry in 1874, Ella M. Smith of Brooklyn . . . . At an early age I was interested in religion, magic, Rosicrucianism . . . . In 1874 thought of looking up spiritualism & finding Col. Olcott's book People from the Other World, I wrote him asking for the address of a medium. He replied that he did not then know but had a friend Mme Blavatsky who asked him to ask me to call. I called at 46 Irving Place, New York, & made her acquaintance.”