The Wisdom of the Mahatmas

Abstract

This chapter begins with the early formation of academic Tibetology and examines how Tibet was folded into Europe’s nineteenth-century India-centric Orientalism. The chapter then moves on to the story of Helena Blavatsky and the foundation of the Theosophical Society in 1875, examining how the subtle body was portrayed in her books published in the 1870s and 1880s. It shows how her engagement with the subtle body—that is, her weaving together of Neoplatonic, Kabbalistic, Darwninan, German idealist, Transcendentalist, and Orientalist strands—significantly laid the groundwork for future permutations of the subtle body in both popular and academic arenas.