{"id":3323,"date":"2026-10-03T00:26:52","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T00:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.reincarnatiopedia.com\/?p=3323"},"modified":"2026-10-03T00:26:52","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T00:26:52","slug":"helena-blavatsky-theosophy-reincarnation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reincarnatiopedia.com\/en\/helena-blavatsky-theosophy-reincarnation\/","title":{"rendered":"Helena Blavatsky, Theosophy and Reincarnation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Helena Blavatsky (1831\u20131891) was the Russian-born co-founder of the Theosophical Society and one of the people most responsible for bringing the words karma<\/strong> and reincarnation<\/strong> into everyday Western speech. Her view of rebirth changed over time: in Isis Unveiled<\/em> (1877) she called reincarnation on Earth “an exception”, but in The Secret Doctrine<\/em> (1888) and The Key to Theosophy<\/em> (1889) she taught that every soul is reborn again and again under the law of karma. She is also one of the few women in modern history to found a worldwide spiritual movement \u2014 a story we tell more widely in Women in Religion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Who was Helena Blavatsky?<\/h2>\n

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, born von Hahn, was born on 12 August 1831 (31 July in the old Russian calendar) in Yekaterinoslav in the Russian Empire, today Dnipro in Ukraine, and died in London on 8 May 1891. Before founding Theosophy she travelled widely for many years. In 1875 in New York, together with the American lawyer Henry Steel Olcott and William Quan Judge, she founded the Theosophical Society. Formally she was its corresponding secretary; in practice she was its main thinker and the author of its key books.<\/p>\n

In the early 1880s Blavatsky and Olcott moved to India, and in 1882 the Society bought an estate in Adyar, near Madras (now Chennai), which became its international headquarters. She spent her last years in Europe and wrote her two great works there. She stands beside Mary Baker Eddy, Ellen White and Nakayama Miki among the women who founded religious movements<\/a> in the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n

What is Theosophy?<\/h2>\n

Theosophy, as Blavatsky taught it, is a teaching that claims to restore an ancient wisdom shared by all religions. She did not call it a religion: Theosophical groups let members remain Christians, Buddhists or Hindus. Its main ideas are one divine Absolute from which the universe unfolds, a spiritual evolution of humanity, and the soul’s return to Earth in life after life under the law of karma.<\/p>\n

Through the Society, many Westerners met Hindu and Buddhist ideas for the first time, and educated Indians found in it a modern frame for their own traditions. Want to see how these ideas look in the traditions they came from? Read Reincarnation Beliefs Across World Religions and Cultures<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Did Blavatsky believe in reincarnation?<\/h2>\n

Yes \u2014 but not from the start. Historians of Theosophy note a clear shift between her earlier and later writings. In the late 1870s she taught a doctrine she called “metempsychosis”: after death the soul rises through ever more spiritual planes rather than returning to Earth. By the early 1880s she had replaced it with reincarnation, and from then on rebirth stood at the centre of her teaching.<\/p>\n

What did Isis Unveiled<\/em> say about reincarnation?<\/h2>\n

In her first major book, Isis Unveiled<\/em> (1877, volume 1, chapter 10), Blavatsky wrote that return to the same planet is rare:<\/p>\n

“Reincarnation, i.e., the appearance of the same individual, or rather of his astral monad, twice on the same planet, is not a rule in nature; it is an exception, like the teratological phenomenon of a two-headed infant.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As examples of such exceptions she named abortion, infants dying before a certain age, and congenital, incurable idiocy \u2014 cases where, in her words, nature’s original design was interrupted and the soul is “thrown back into earth-life”. Critics have since pointed to this passage as a contradiction with her later books; Theosophists answer that she was speaking of something narrower. Either way, the passage is worth knowing when you read later claims about what “Blavatsky always taught”.<\/p>\n

Karma and reincarnation in The Secret Doctrine<\/em> and The Key to Theosophy<\/em><\/h2>\n

In The Secret Doctrine<\/em> (1888), her two-volume magnum opus, the spirit is immortal and incarnates again and again on Earth in new bodies. Karma is the law that links one life to the next. A year later, in The Key to Theosophy<\/em> (1889), written as a dialogue between an “Enquirer” and a “Theosophist”, she put it plainly. Karma, she wrote, is “the Ultimate Law of the Universe, the source, origin and fount of all other laws which exist throughout Nature”, the “unerring law which adjusts effect to cause, on the physical, mental and spiritual planes of being.”<\/p>\n

About rebirth itself she was just as direct. The doctrine of reincarnation, she wrote, “for logic, consistency, profound philosophy, divine mercy and equity” “has not its equal on earth. It is a belief in a perpetual progress for each incarnating Ego, or divine soul.” In the same book she quotes The Secret Doctrine<\/em>: “The law of Karma is inextricably interwoven with that of reincarnation.” To compare her view with the Indian originals, see Dharma vs Karma<\/a> and How Karma Is Balanced Between Lifetimes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why don’t we remember our past lives? Blavatsky’s answer<\/h2>\n

The Key to Theosophy<\/em> has a whole section with exactly this title. Blavatsky’s answer is simple: memory belongs to the brain, and the brain dies with the body.<\/p>\n

“Reincarnation means that this Ego will be furnished with a new body, a new brain, and a new memory.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, she argued, we should not be surprised that we forget our former lives \u2014 we should be surprised if we remembered them. Other traditions answer the same question with images: the Yoruba speak of the water of forgetting<\/a> drunk before birth. Today regression therapists work with exactly these “forgotten” layers of memory.<\/p>\n

What reincarnates? Personality and individuality<\/h2>\n

Blavatsky drew a sharp line between the personality<\/strong> \u2014 the name, body and memories of one life, which she called “false (because so finite and evanescent)” \u2014 and the individuality<\/strong>, the inner “I am I” that passes from life to life. In The Key to Theosophy<\/em> (1889) she put it in an image from the theatre:<\/p>\n

“this ‘Ego’ or individuality plays, like an actor, many parts on the stage of life. Let us call every new life on earth of the same Ego a night on the stage of a theatre. One night the actor, or ‘Ego,’ appears as ‘Macbeth,’ the next as ‘Shylock,’ the third as ‘Romeo’\u2026”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is why, for Theosophy, forgetting a past life does not mean losing it: the personality forgets, the individuality does not.<\/p>\n

Devachan: the rest between lives<\/h2>\n

Before that rest comes a passage she called Kama-loka<\/strong>, “the limbus of scholastic theology, the Hades of the ancients”, where the lower desires of the past life fall away. Between two earthly lives, Blavatsky taught, the soul rests in a blissful state she called devachan<\/strong>, which she compared to heaven or paradise. She gave its length as 1,000 to 1,500 years; her follower Charles Webster Leadbeater later spoke of about 200. A century later the hypnotherapist Michael Newton described a very different, active “life between lives” \u2014 with guides, soul groups and planning of the next incarnation. Where do the two maps meet and where do they part? Read Michael Newton and Life Between Lives<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Blavatsky and the Akashic records<\/h2>\n

The idea of a cosmic memory of everything that has happened also grew out of Theosophy. Blavatsky wrote of “tablets of the astral light” that record the past and the future, though she did not use the word “akashic”. The term spread through Alfred Percy Sinnett’s Esoteric Buddhism<\/em> (1883) and was later taken up by Rudolf Steiner and Edgar Cayce. The full story is in The Akashic Records: Accessing the Book of Life<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How Theosophy brought reincarnation to the West<\/h2>\n

Scholars of religion Olav Hammer and Mikael Rothstein call Theosophy “one of the modern world’s most important religious traditions”. Its ideas inspired more than a hundred later movements, among them Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy, Alice Bailey’s Arcane School and much of the New Age. Researchers agree that it played an important role in spreading belief in reincarnation among Westerners: for millions of people in Europe and America, the first words they ever heard about karma and past lives came, directly or indirectly, from Blavatsky’s books (Irwin, 2017<\/a>).<\/p>\n

That influence did not stop at Theosophists. The same questions \u2014 what returns, what is remembered, what is the purpose of many lives \u2014 are what research into children’s past-life memories and regression later tried to answer with cases rather than doctrine. Where to start? With the reincarnation research of Dr Ian Stevenson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Controversies around Blavatsky<\/h2>\n

Blavatsky was a controversial figure in her own lifetime. In 1885 the Society for Psychical Research in London published a report by its investigator Richard Hodgson, who had visited Adyar and concluded that the “Mahatma letters” and other phenomena around her were fraudulent. A century later, in 1986, the same Society published a re-examination by the handwriting expert Vernon Harrison, who argued that the 1885 report had been one-sided; the Society’s press release said she had been “unjustly condemned”. Critics also showed that Isis Unveiled<\/em> quotes many earlier books without acknowledgement. Admirers and critics still disagree, and we leave the verdict to the reader \u2014 what matters for this article is what she taught about rebirth.<\/p>\n

Annie Besant: a woman at the head of Theosophy<\/h2>\n

After Blavatsky’s death the movement split, and its largest branch, based in Adyar, was led from 1907 by another woman \u2014 the English writer and campaigner Annie Besant (1847\u20131933). Besant came to Theosophy after reviewing The Secret Doctrine<\/em> in 1889 and seeking out its author. Under her the Adyar Society reached its greatest size in the late 1920s. Two women in a row at the head of a worldwide spiritual movement was almost unheard of at the time. Who else broke that pattern \u2014 from biblical prophetesses to today’s women bishops? See Women in Religion<\/a>, and for a woman teacher from the Hindu world, Anandamayi Ma<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Frequently asked questions<\/h2>\n

Did Helena Blavatsky believe in reincarnation?<\/h3>\n

Yes, in her mature works. In Isis Unveiled<\/em> (1877) she called rebirth on the same planet an exception; by the early 1880s, and fully in The Secret Doctrine<\/em> (1888) and The Key to Theosophy<\/em> (1889), she taught that every soul reincarnates under the law of karma.<\/p>\n

What does Theosophy say happens between lives?<\/h3>\n

The soul rests in devachan, a blissful state that Blavatsky compared to heaven, before being reborn. She gave its length as 1,000 to 1,500 years.<\/p>\n

Why don’t we remember past lives, according to Theosophy?<\/h3>\n

Because memory belongs to the brain, which dies with the body. In Blavatsky’s words, reincarnation means “a new body, a new brain, and a new memory.”<\/p>\n

Who founded the Theosophical Society?<\/h3>\n

Helena Blavatsky, Henry Steel Olcott and William Quan Judge, in New York in 1875.<\/p>\n

Is Theosophy a religion?<\/h3>\n

Blavatsky said it was not, and members may belong to any faith. Scholars of religion usually describe it as a new religious movement and a form of Western esotericism.<\/p>\n

Sources<\/h2>\n
    \n
  1. H. P. Blavatsky. Isis Unveiled<\/em>. Vol. 1, chapter 10. New York: J. W. Bouton, 1877. Online: Theosophical University Press, theosociety.org.<\/li>\n
  2. H. P. Blavatsky. The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy<\/em>. 2 vols. London: Theosophical Publishing Company, 1888.<\/li>\n
  3. H. P. Blavatsky. The Key to Theosophy<\/em>. London: Theosophical Publishing Company, 1889 \u2014 sections “On Re-incarnation or Re-birth”, “Why do we not remember our past lives?” and “What is Karma?”.<\/li>\n
  4. Bruce F. Campbell. Ancient Wisdom Revived: A History of the Theosophical Movement<\/em>. University of California Press, 1980.<\/li>\n
  5. Olav Hammer and Mikael Rothstein (eds.). Handbook of the Theosophical Current<\/em>. Brill, 2013.<\/li>\n
  6. Vernon Harrison. H. P. Blavatsky and the SPR: An Examination of the Hodgson Report of 1885<\/em>. Theosophical University Press, 1997; Society for Psychical Research press release, 8 May 1986.<\/li>\n
  7. Lee Irwin. “Reincarnation in America: A Brief Historical Overview”. Religions<\/em> 8(10), 2017, 222. doi:10.3390\/rel8100222<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Helena Blavatsky (1831\u20131891) was the Russian-born co-founder of the Theosophical Society and one of the people most responsible for bringing the words karma and reincarnation into everyday Western speech. Her view of rebirth changed over time: in Isis Unveiled (1877) she called reincarnation on Earth “an exception”, but in The Secret Doctrine (1888) and The … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reincarnatiopedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reincarnatiopedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reincarnatiopedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reincarnatiopedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reincarnatiopedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/reincarnatiopedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3338,"href":"https:\/\/reincarnatiopedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3323\/revisions\/3338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reincarnatiopedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reincarnatiopedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reincarnatiopedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}