ABSTRACT
Many scholars of religion regard 1875 as the birth of modern Western esotericism. Critics of the Theosophical Society close to the Society for Psychical Research took much trouble to prove that Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's works offered gleanings from about a hundred books, which were mostly available in Henry Steel Olcott's library. Helena Blavatsky was in any case very interested in the spiritualist debates of her time. In 1902 Rudolf Steiner joined the Theosophical Society and became, together with his later wife Marie von Sivers, the first General Secretary of the Theosophical Society in Germany. The work has the power of revelation for many spiritually minded astrologers and it is still available in esoteric bookshops. The power struggle between Olcott and HPB was initially defused by Blavatsky founding her own Esoteric Section in England, whose members were chiefly drawn from the previously formed Blavatsky Lodge, while Olcott was responsible for the affairs of the Indian Section.
