Olcott Estate

Last updated April 29, 2019

Olcott Estate is the administrative headquarters of the Theosophical Society in America. Its education department conducts on-site courses, seminars, workshops, and lectures for members and the public. It is located in Wheaton, Illinois.

Theosophical Society organization that advances theosophy

The Theosophical Society was an organization formed in 1875 by Helena Blavatsky to advance Theosophy. The original organization, after splits and realignments, currently has several successors. Following the death of Blavatsky, competition within the Society between factions emerged, particularly among founding members and the organisation split between the Theosophical Society Adyar (Olcott-Besant) and the Theosophical Society Pasadena (Judge). The former group, headquartered in India, is the most widespread international group holding the name "Theosophical Society" today.

Wheaton is a suburban city in Milton and Winfield Townships and is the county seat of DuPage County, Illinois. It is located approximately 30 miles (48 km) west of Chicago. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 52,894, which was estimated to have increased to 53,469 by July 2012.

History

For the first fifty years of its history, the Society had its headquarters in various locations, according to the residence of its national presidents. In the mid-1920s, while L. W. Rogers was president of the American Section, the Wheaton site was selected. The property was purchased and continues to be maintained through the dues and gifts of members. In 1926 the cornerstone of the main building was laid by Annie Besant, second international President of the Society. This building was first occupied in 1927, and since that time has continued as the center of Theosophical work in the United States.

Louis William Rogers, commonly known as "L.W.," was an American teacher, railway brakeman, trade union functionary, socialist political activist, and newspaper editor. Rogers is best remembered in this context as one of the key officials of the American Railway Union jailed in conjunction with the Pullman Strike of 1894. After more than two decades in and around the labor movement, Rogers shifted his activity to mysticism as a prominent lecturer, writer, and long-time President of the Theosophical Society in America.

Annie Besant was a British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer, orator, and supporter of both Irish and Indian self-rule.

Olcott Estate derives its name from original society president, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, who formed the society in 1875. During the society's annual convention of 1932, members celebrated the centenary of Colonel Olcott's birth by naming the headquarters campus after him. President Sidney A. Cook referred to the estate as "Olcott" in his annual report.^[1] For many years postal mail was delivered to "Olcott, Wheaton, Illinois."

Henry Steel Olcott Union United States Army officer

Colonel Henry Steel Olcott was an American military officer, journalist, lawyer and the co-founder and first President of the Theosophical Society.

Theosophical Society use

The main structure at Olcott is called the L. W. Rogers Building in honor of the national president in whose administration it was constructed. It looks out over a wide sweep of lawn toward the Main Street entrance gate, which has welcomed members and visitors since 1940. Designed by the eminent American architect, writer, and Theosophist Claude Fayette Bragdon, the gate's pillars are capped by two of the five Platonic solids, symbolizing the order inherent in the universe. Many events held by the Society are held at Olcott Mansion, and the publishers of Quest magazine have their main offices at Olcott Mansion as well.

Claude Fayette Bragdon American architect

Claude Fayette Bragdon was an American architect, writer, and stage designer based in Rochester, New York, up to World War I, then in New York City.

In three-dimensional space, a Platonic solid is a regular, convex polyhedron. It is constructed by congruent regular polygonal faces with the same number of faces meeting at each vertex. Five solids meet these criteria:

Education use

Olcott provides a summer school for members in conjunction with the Society’s Annual Meeting, usually in July, at which prominent Theosophical students gather to learn from one another. A number of these programs have been recorded and are posted online for free listening. The Theosophical Society Department of Education also provides online courses as well as traditional correspondence courses. The L. W. Rogers Building houses the Henry S. Olcott Memorial Library, which contains more than 18,000 titles of books, periodicals, and audio and video cassettes. The library is popular with students and inquirers who come to browse or to borrow from its extensive collection of philosophical and religious literature, rare books and archives.

Location

Olcott is located in Wheaton, IL, near the Billy Graham Center, a major Evangelical Christian organization and Cantigny Park. Many local college students utilize the Olcott Library, including students from nearby Wheaton College, DePaul University, North Central College, and the College of DuPage.

William Franklin Graham Jr. was an American evangelist, a prominent evangelical Christian figure, and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well-known internationally in the late 1940s. One of his biographers has placed him "among the most influential Christian leaders" of the 20th century.

Evangelicalism, evangelical Christianity, or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, transdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity which maintains the belief that the essence of the Gospel consists of the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ's atonement. Evangelicals believe in the centrality of the conversion or "born again" experience in receiving salvation, in the authority of the Bible as God's revelation to humanity, and in spreading the Christian message. The movement has had a long presence in the Anglosphere before spreading further afield in the 19th, 20th and early 21st centuries.

Cantigny is a 500-acre (2.0 km²) park in Wheaton, Illinois, 30 miles west of Chicago. It is the former estate of Joseph Medill and his grandson Colonel Robert R. McCormick, publishers of the Chicago Tribune, and is open to the public. Cantigny includes large formal and informal gardens, two museums, a 27-hole golf course, a picnic grove, a playground, hiking paths, restaurants and a gift shop.

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References

↑ Joy Mills, 100 Years of Theosophy: A History of the Theosophical Society in America (Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Publishing House, 1987), 104-5.

Coordinates: 41°53′08″N88°06′25″W / 41.885494°N 88.106937°W / 41.885494; -88.106937

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.

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[1] Joy Mills, 100 Years of Theosophy: A History of the Theosophical Society in America (Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Publishing House, 1987), 104-5.