Henry Steel Olcott and Comparative Religions

His contemporaries were
1. Thomas Jefferson
2. Carl Sagan
3. Albert Einstein
4.Mark Twain
5. Bertram Russel

1. Agricultural Scientist

2. Military Investigator of fraud in the army.
Had malaria during civil war.
Signal Officer to begin with during American Civil War.
Later promoted to Colonel.
Asked to help in Abraham Lincoln assassination.

3. Lawyer

4. Journalist and a writer.

5. Spiritualist and a healer.

Marie Russack Hotchener
Father came in astral form (in dreams) to tell her to contact H.S.Olcott.

She booked the rooms.
She bought the cloths
She read the Key to Theosophy.
Follow the principles of Theosophy and do not follow the personality.

She remained as the secretary to Olcott until his death.

Logic, reason and empiricism as opposed to authority, tradition dogma and revelation (in other words the tradition of the Church).

Oriental man in turban or Mahatmas.
Mahatma Letters by Blavatsky. She had seen the Mahatmas as a child.

Mahatmas are astral bodies or mediums.

Founded the Theosophical Society.
Investigation of science, philosophy and comparative religion.

Founded in 1875.

Blavatsky, Olcott, Judge and A.P.Sennett
Annie Besant
Born in 1932.
Married in 1860 with 4 children and two girls died in childhood.
Divorced.
Died in 1907.

Came to Ceylon on May 12, 1880.
Visited on 25 May, Wijayananda Monastery in Galle.
Buddhist flag was designed in 1885.

He was into healing and mesmerism and healed over 8000.

He was into occult science and was tolerant of all religions including Muslim religion. He was once asked to talk about Islam (he had never studied) and he managed it without offending any in the audience.

He was compared to a Bodhisattva but he had lot of animosity including Anagarika Dharmapala.

He had helped to form over 4000 schools in India and Ceylon. Average Hindu respects him more than an average Sinhala Buddhist.

He may have foreseen religious animosity developing in Ceylon.

The Theosophical Society is defunct in Ceylon.

He lived a simple and frugal life unlike the present Buddhist monks with political authority.