Russian globetrotter in the 1800s still shapes spirituality today

+ proms are getting relatively cheaper US Edition - Today's top story: White Lotus Day celebrates the 'founding mother of occult in America,' Helena Petrovna Blavatsky [View in browser]( US Edition | 6 May 2023 [The Conversation] [The Conversation]( Helena Blavatsky lived at a time when many Americans and Europeans were questioning their religious beliefs, hungry for new ideas and perspectives. Some looked to other cultures for insight; others abandoned ideas of divinity entirely, or invented their own faith traditions. Sound familiar? The Victorian era was as full of spiritual searching and experimentation as our own. The Russian-born Blavatsky – who died in London 132 years ago this week, now commemorated as White Lotus Day – spent years traveling and pouring her ideas into writing before co-founding the Theosophical Society. Aiming to create a universal brotherhood of humanity, the group claimed it was inspired by spiritual masters in the Himalayas. Its descriptions of Hinduism and Buddhism were often romanticized and inaccurate. Yet it inspired a surge of Western interest in Asian religions, popularizing concepts like karma and reincarnation. Cultural historian Marina Alexandrova traces [Blavatsky’s eclectic, esoteric life]( – and the ways her complicated legacy is still felt in our own age of restless spiritual seeking. This week we also liked articles about [peanut butter](, the [cultivation of mindfulness and self-compassion]( and [Don Lemon and Tucker Carlson](. Molly Jackson Religion and Ethics Editor Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, photographed in New York circa 1874. Universal Images Group via Getty Images [White Lotus Day celebrates the ‘founding mother of occult in America,’ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky]( Marina Alexandrova, The University of Texas at Austin Theosophy and its founders had an outsize impact on Americans’ ideas about spirituality and Asian religions. 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