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The Theosophical Society in America (TSA) is a member-based nonprofit organization dedicated to the teaching of Theosophy and affiliated with the international Theosophical Society based in Adyar, Chennai, India. The name "Theosophical Society in America" was legally adopted by the American Theosophical Society in 1934. [1] Previously, other organizations had used the same name during the years 1895–98 and 1898–1908.
The Theosophical Society is composed of individuals united by their concurrence with its three Objects, by their dedication to promoting brotherhood, and by their interest in study and spiritual self-transformation. Theosophists consider that belief should be the result of individual study, experience, and insight, rather than reliance on dogma. They see each religion as an expression of Divine Wisdom, adapted to the needs of a particular time and place. Theosophy regards the universe as alive and interrelated, with an intelligent order guiding the cyclical evolution of all life. The Theosophical Society supports the right of individual freedom of thought for every person, and no doctrine is in any way binding on any member of the Society. [2]
The three declared Objects of the Theosophical Society are:
The Theosophical Society in America encourages open-minded inquiry into world religions, philosophy, science, and the arts in order to understand the wisdom of the ages, respect the unity of all life, and help people explore spiritual self-transformation. [4]
Russian expatriate Helena Blavatsky and American Colonel Henry Steel Olcott founded the Theosophical Society with attorney William Quan Judge and others in late 1875 in New York City. [5] After its two major co-founders departed for India in 1879 to establish the international headquarters of the Society in Adyar, India (near Madras, now known as Chennai), young Mr. Judge carried on the work of advancing interest in Theosophy within the United States. By 1886 he had established an American Section of the international Society with branches in fourteen cities. Rapid growth took place under his guidance, so that by 1895 there were 102 American branches with nearly six thousand members. [6] Madame Blavatsky died in 1891, leaving Colonel Olcott and English social activist Annie Besant as the principal leaders of the international movement based in Adyar, and William Quan Judge heading the American Section.
During the contentious Ninth Annual Convention of the American Section in 1895, eighty-three lodges voted for autonomy from the international Theosophical Society Adyar. The international President-Founder, Colonel Olcott, interpreted this action as secession, and revoked the charters of those lodges, whose members reorganized into the first “Theosophical Society in America” under William Quan Judge. [7] After Judge's death the following year, Katherine Tingley stepped into the leadership of that organization, and in 1898 folded the Theosophical Society in America into the Universal Brotherhood, resulting in the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society. [8] [9] After several changes in location and name, the successor organization is now known as the Theosophical Society Pasadena. Other groups split off from Tingley's organization over the years, becoming Theosophical Society in America (Hargrove) the Theosophical Society of New York, the United Lodge of Theosophists, and Temple of the People in Halcyon, California. [10] The second “Theosophical Society in America” headed by Ernest Temple Hargrove dropped the words "in America" from its name in 1908. [11]
Five American lodges that had opposed the 1895 secession retained their affiliation with the international Society in Adyar. They formed a new American Section known as the American Theosophical Society under the leadership of Alexander Fullerton. [12] Extensive lecture tours by Annie Besant and Constance Wachtmeister elicited much new interest in the American Theosophical Society, [12] so that by 1900 the organization claimed 1286 members and 71 branches. [13]
In an attempt to clarify the complex history of the Theosophical movement in the United States, Dorothy Bell has created a diagram along the lines of a family tree, which can be viewed at American Family Tree of Theosophy . See also Other Theosophical societies in the United States below.
The American Theosophical Society was legally renamed "The Theosophical Society in America" in 1934, and has existed under that name ever since. [1] Like other Theosophical groups, the organization aspires to educate the public about the principles of Theosophy through publications, public programs, and local group activities. A video of Society history may be viewed at .
The modern Theosophical Society in America is a member-based not-for-profit corporation. It is incorporated in the state of Illinois with federal 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. The national headquarters has been located in Wheaton, Illinois since 1927. About 115 local groups include branches (also called lodges) and smaller study centers. As of 2008, the membership comprised about 4000 people.
The TSA is governed by a Board of Directors that meets at the national headquarters. Officers include a president, vice president, national treasurer, and national secretary. Two directors are elected by members from each of three geographical districts in the United States.
The national president also has the title of General Secretary for the American section of the Theosophical Society Adyar based in Chennai, India, and participates in the General Council that governs the international Society. These are the presidents since the 1895 reorganization of the American Society:
| Term of Office | President |
|---|---|
| 1895–1907 | Alexander Fullerton |
| 1907–1912 | Dr. Weller van Hook |
| 1912–1920 | A. P. Warrington |
| 1920–1931 | L. W. Rogers |
| 1931–1945 | Sidney A. Cook |
| 1945–1960 | James S. Perkins |
| 1960–1965 | Dr. Henry A. Smith |
| 1965–1974 | Joy Mills |
| 1974–1975 | Ann Wylie |
| 1975–1987 | Dora van Gelder Kunz |
| 1987–1993 | Dorothy Abbenhouse |
| 1993–2002 | Dr. John Algeo |
| 2002–2011 | Betty Bland |
| 2011–2017 | Tim Boyd |
| 2017–2023 | Barbara Hebert |
| 2023–Present | Dr. Douglas Keene |
Under Alexander Fullerton, the American Theosophical Society (now known as Theosophical Society in America) was based in New York City, but his successor, Dr. Weller van Hook, moved the headquarters to Chicago in 1907. A. P. Warrington transferred operations to Hollywood in 1912, where the Theosophical colony of Krotona was established. Most of the colony later moved north to Ojai, California, while the headquarters returned to Chicago in 1920.
During his presidency, L. W. Rogers sought to establish a permanent headquarters in a central and accessible location. He led a search for land where a new headquarters could be established. Dozens of sites within 500 miles (800 km) of Chicago were considered before an appropriate property was located in Wheaton, Illinois. This western suburb of Chicago met all the search criteria in that it was centrally located, with excellent rail transportation, a serene rural atmosphere, and affordable land. In 1925 the Society purchased almost 10 acres (40,000 m2) of farmland, and immediately began planting a grove of trees. [14]
At the recommendation of Theosophist and architect Claude Fayette Bragdon, the Chicago architectural firm of Pond & Pond, Martin & Lloyd was engaged to design the headquarters building. Annie Besant laid cornerstone on 29 August 1926 in a ceremony that was attended by Jiddu Krishnamurti and a huge crowd. [15] In September 1927 staff members moved operations to the new structure, which was eventually named the L. W. Rogers Building. [16] Designed in a collegiate Gothic style by Irving Kane Pond, the three-story building consists of offices, library, classroom, auditorium, meditation room, kitchen, dining room, garage, and residential wing for staff members and visitors. In 1931 Mrs. C. Shillard-Smith, commissioned painter Richard Blossom Farley to create the colorful mural of evolving life that is still on view in the two-story lobby. [17]
The campus grew over the years, mostly through donations of land by generous members. In 1932, the headquarters estate came to be known as "Olcott", in honor of co-founder Colonel Henry Steel Olcott. [18] For several decades, postal mail was delivered simply to "Olcott, Wheaton, Illinois." The property now comprises almost 42 acres (170,000 m2). The Quest Book Shop and Theosophical Publishing House are housed in the Mills Building, named after president Joy Mills. The scenic grounds are open to the public, and feature a pond, groves, gardens, and a labyrinth. Video tours of the campus are available .
Books and periodicals have always been extremely important to Theosophists as tools for study. In 1922, L. W. Rogers established the national library, [19] and when the headquarters building was constructed in Wheaton a two-story library was incorporated into the design. The original space was expanded in 1962-63 to add offices, meeting rooms, stacks, and basement storage. [20]
The Henry S. Olcott Memorial Library houses books, periodicals, pamphlets, microfilm, videos, and audio recordings. The collection focuses on Theosophy, religion, science, philosophy, art, biography, and health. The reading room is open to the public six days each week; members of the Society and other library patrons can borrow library materials by mail or in person. The library belongs to the DuPage Library System MAGIC consortium and the American Theological Library Association, and works in close cooperation with the Emily Sellon Memorial Library at the New York Theosophical Society, and the Krotona Library in Ojai, California. [21]
Archival collections include organizational records, and also special collections of papers from Boris de Zirkoff, Mary K. Neff, Fritz and Dora Kunz, and others. Records of the American Theosophical movement before 1898 are in the archives of the Theosophical Society Pasadena. A rare book room also exists in the Wheaton headquarters.
The national center and local groups offer lectures, study groups, workshops, and other programs to members and the general public. Subject matter is wide-ranging to facilitate the study of comparative religion, philosophy, science, health, and art. Classes have included Hatha yoga, qigong, Therapeutic touch, and many forms of meditation. [22]
Some notable speakers at national programs have included the 14th Dalai Lama, Bede Griffiths, Lama Anagarika Govinda, Ram Dass, Stephan A. Hoeller, Huston Smith, Rupert Sheldrake, Ian Stevenson, Fritjof Capra, Amit Goswami, Ravi Ravindra, and Jean Houston. The Society has also sponsored regional and national conferences focused on special topics such as education, science, and healing. Hundreds of programs have been recorded or webcast, with many available free online. The Theosophical Community at serves as a means of conducting group discussions and other social networking.
The Theosophical Society in America has published books, pamphlets, and periodicals since its earliest days. The Theosophical Publishing House publishes books under the Quest Books imprint on a broad array of topics including Theosophy, transpersonal psychology, comparative religion, ecology, spiritual growth, and health.
Quest magazine focuses on philosophy, religion, science, and the arts; articles from some past issues are available online. Messenger is a newsletter for members, providing news of organizational activities and board actions. A free monthly electronic newsletter is distributed by e-mail to members and other interested people. Many of the branch locations, federations, and retreat centers produce their own newsletters and program listings.
Quest Book Shops are commercial enterprises operated by the Theosophical Society in America and its affiliates to sell books, recordings, and other items of interest to students of Theosophy. Locations include shops in Wheaton, Illinois; New York City; Seattle; and Ojai, California.
The Theosophical Order of Service (TOS) engages in service projects in seven areas: animal welfare; art and music; ecology; family and children; healing; peace; and social service.
Theosophical Book Gift Institute (TBGI) distributes Theosophical books free to libraries and prisoners.
Order of the Knights of the Round Table sponsors activities for children and adults, and Young Theosophists (YT) is a young adult group.
The Krotona Institute of Theosophy in Ojai, California, offers classes in Theosophical subjects.
Four retreat centers facilitate fellowship and study in serene natural settings:
The most prominent organizations now supporting study of Theosophy in the United States apart from the Theosophical Society in America are the Theosophical Society Pasadena, and the United Lodge of Theosophists (ULT), based in Los Angeles. These three organizations have worked together cordially, most notably at the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago. Collaborative efforts at that event included panel discussions and audiovisual productions: Ultimate Concerns, Theosophic Worldview, and Inter-Theosophical Dialogue: the Theosophical Movement Past and Future.
The Pasadena group is composed of sections in nine countries, and offers a library, correspondence courses, study groups, publications, and an extensive array of full-text Theosophical literature on its web page. Members supplement study of the Helena Blavatsky works with writings by William Quan Judge, Katherine Tingley, Gottfried de Purucker, and others. [23]
The ULT, founded by Robert Crosbie, is dedicated to the study of the writings of Helena Blavatsky and William Quan Judge as printed from original plates or from photographic reproductions of original texts. Twenty-two lodges and ten study groups are located in fourteen countries. [24]
By way of comparison, the modern Theosophical Society in America bases its studies on Helena Blavatsky, but draws from a broad group of other Theosophical teachers, including Annie Besant, Alfred Percy Sinnett, Charles Webster Leadbeater, Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa, Ernest Wood, Clara Codd, Geoffrey Hodson, Nilakanta Sri Ram, Joy Mills, Radha Burnier, Stephan A. Hoeller, Robert Ellwood, and John Algeo.
William Quan Judge was an Irish-American mystic, esotericist, and occultist, and one of the founders of the original Theosophical Society. He was born in Dublin, Ireland. When he was 13 years old, his family emigrated to the United States. He became a naturalized citizen of the US at age 21 and passed the New York state bar exam, specializing in commercial law.
The Theosophical Society is the organisational body of Theosophy, an esoteric new religious movement. It was founded in New York City, US in 1875. Among its founders were Helena Blavatsky, a Ukrainian mystic and the principal thinker of the Theosophy movement, and Henry Steel Olcott, its first president. It draws upon a wide array of influences among them older European philosophies and movements such as Neoplatonism and occultism, as well as parts of Asian religious traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.
Charles Webster Leadbeater was a member of the Theosophical Society, Co-Freemasonry, an author on occult subjects, and the co-initiator, with J. I. Wedgwood, of the Liberal Catholic Church.
The Theosophical Society (Pasadena) is a branch of Theosophy based in Pasadena, California. It claims to be the successor organization to the original Theosophical Society founded by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and others in 1875 in New York City. Currently is the second largest Theosophical group in members and international reach after the Theosophical Society Adyar.
The United Lodge of Theosophists or ULT is an informal and wholly voluntary association of students of Theosophy. It was founded in 1909, mainly through the efforts of Robert Crosbie. The first parent lodge of the ULT was started in Los Angeles by Robert Crosbie and seven other associates through the adoption of its Declaration on February 18, 1909. Owing largely to the revival efforts of B.P. Wadia after Crosbie's death, there are currently about twenty active lodges spread all over the world. The ULT is considered to be part of the second generation or the third section of the Theosophical Movement started in 1875 by H.P. Blavatsky in New York. Presently, it is also one of the existing four main "branches" of the original Theosophical Movement. The following founding principles when taken as a whole, sets apart the ULT from the other Theosophical Organizations:
Morya, also spelt Maurya, is one of the "Masters of the Ancient Wisdom" within modern Theosophical beliefs. He is believed to be one of the Mahatmas who inspired the founding of the Theosophical Society and was engaged in a correspondence with two English Theosophists living in India, A. P. Sinnett and A. O. Hume. The correspondence was published in 1923 by A. Trevor Barker, in the book The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett.
Radha Burnier was born in Adyar, India. She was president of the Theosophical Society Adyar from 1980 until her death in 2013. She was General Secretary of the Indian Section of the Society between 1960 and 1978, and was previously an actress in Indian films and Jean Renoir's The River.
Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa was a Sri Lankan author, occultist, freemason and theosophist. The fourth president of the Theosophical Society, Jinarajadasa was one of the world's foremost Theosophical authors, having published more than 50 books and more than 1600 articles in periodicals during his life. His interests and writings included religion, philosophy, literature, art, science and occult chemistry. He was also a rare linguist, who had the ability to work in many European languages.
The Theosophist is the monthly journal of the international Theosophical Society based in Adyar, India. It was founded in India in 1879 by Helena Blavatsky, who was also its editor. The journal is still being published till date. For the year 1930, the journal was published in Hollywood, California by Annie Besant and Marie Russak Hotchener, but it returned to Adyar in 1931. The journal features articles about philosophy, art, literature and occultism.
The Theosophical Society in America (Hargrove branch) was an organization that developed from the Theosophical Society in America.
Theosophical teachings have borrowed some concepts and terms from Buddhism. Some theosophists like Helena Blavatsky, Helena Roerich and Henry Steel Olcott also became Buddhists. Henry Steel Olcott helped shape the design of the Buddhist flag. Tibetan Buddhism was popularised in the West at first mainly by Theosophists including Evans-Wentz and Alexandra David-Neel.
Neo-Theosophy is a term, originally derogatory, used by the followers of Helena Blavatsky to denominate the system of Theosophical ideas expounded by Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater following the death of Madame Blavatsky in 1891. This material differed in major respects from Blavatsky's original presentation, but it is accepted as genuinely Theosophical by many Theosophists around the world.
Ernest Egerton Wood was a noted English yogi, theosophist, Sanskrit scholar, and author of numerous books, including Concentration – An Approach to Meditation, Yoga and The Pinnacle of Indian Thought (1967).
Boris Mihailovich de Zirkoff was an American Theosophist, editor and writer.
In Theosophy, Maitreya or Lord Maitreya is an advanced spiritual entity and high-ranking member of a reputed hidden spiritual hierarchy, the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom. According to Theosophical doctrine, one of the hierarchy's functions is to oversee the evolution of humankind; in concert with this function Maitreya is said to hold the "Office of the World Teacher". Theosophical texts posit that the purpose of this Office is to facilitate the transfer of knowledge about the true constitution and workings of Existence to humankind. Humanity is thereby assisted on its presumed cyclical, but ever progressive, evolutionary path. Reputedly, one way the knowledge transfer is accomplished is by Maitreya occasionally manifesting or incarnating in the physical realm; the manifested entity then assumes the role of World Teacher of Humankind.
Man: Whence, How and Whither, A Record of Clairvoyant Investigation, published in 1913, is a theosophical book compiled by the second president of the Theosophical Society (TS) - Adyar, Annie Besant, and by a TS member, Charles W. Leadbeater. The book is a study on early times on planetary chains, beginnings of early root races, early civilizations and empires, and past lives of men.
Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion as both a new religious movement and as part of the occultist stream of Western esotericism, it draws upon both older European philosophies such as Neoplatonism and Indian originated religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism.
Christianity and Theosophy, for more than a hundred years, have had a "complex and sometimes troubled" relationship. The Christian faith was the native religion of the great majority of Western Theosophists, but many came to Theosophy through a process of opposition to Christianity. According to professor Robert S. Ellwood, "the whole matter has been a divisive issue within Theosophy."
Hinduism is regarded by modern Theosophy as one of the main sources of "esoteric wisdom" of the East. The Theosophical Society was created in a hope that Asian philosophical-religious ideas "could be integrated into a grand religious synthesis." Prof. Antoine Faivre wrote that "by its content and its inspiration" the Theosophical Society is greatly dependent on Eastern traditions, "especially Hindu; in this, it well reflects the cultural climate in which it was born." A Russian Indologist Alexander Senkevich noted that the concept of Helena Blavatsky's Theosophy was based on Hinduism. According to Encyclopedia of Hinduism, "Theosophy is basically a Western esoteric teaching, but it resonated with Hinduism at a variety of points."
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