Madame Blavatsky has received more than one person’s fair share of slander and libel. Perhaps it is because she was one of the few women of her day to defy the patriarchal structures that had been in place for millennia, both in religion, science as well as in philosophy.

“She was called an ‘adventuress’ in an age when women’s activities were restricted. She traveled the world alone daring to attack prevailing religious, philosophical, and scientific orthodoxy, and demonstrating her startling psychic powers. Others called her the greatest occultist in the history of Western civilization.” -Virginia Hanson from her book, H.P. Blavatsky and the Secret Doctrine.

The vilification of HPB still continues today, worse, the same untruths have often been repeated for a century – with no reference to their refutation. Below we have outlined some of the more egregious attacks on her personally and on her works, along with excellent rebuttals from prominent Theosophists, and from others outside the movement.

“She (Helena P. Blavatsky) brought key-thoughts, ideas that are universal, not hers, she declared, but those of the timeless Archaic Wisdom-Religion-Philosophy for which she was only a channel. She moved the intransigent, the heavy materialistic, and – daring thought perhaps for Western minds – she became through her composite self that Force needed to initiate for mankind a new Cycle. Misunderstood, unappreciated except by the few, reviled and persecuted, she wrought her great work. And its momentum rolls on.

The basic tenets she boldly enunciated constitute the very essence of all occult doctrine. To begin to understand them is to begin to know her; and to know the doctrine she taught is to begin to know Truth.” – Helen Todd and W. Emmett Small -Editors of the book, H. P. Blavatsky: The Mystery by Gottfried de Purucker.

One of the most famous defamations against H. P. Blavatsky was a lengthy article that appeared in 1890 in The New York Sun, one of the leading newspapers in the United States of that time. It had been written by Elliott Coues, an otherwise accomplished individual who had been denied the leadership of the American Section of the Theosophical Society by Madame Blavatsky – and later expelled for cause from that organization. As one veteran newspaperman remembered it, the Sun article brought together “every calumny that could be imagined or raked up from the ends of the earth.” Two lawsuits were brought on behalf of HPB, one against the Sun and the other against Dr. Coues. HPB died before the case came to trial – therefore the case became moot, and the newspaper did not need to defend itself. Nevertheless, the Sun voluntarily retracted the article on September 26, 1892, saying:

We print on another page an article in which Mr. William Q. Judge deals with the romantic and extraordinary career of the late Madam Helena P. Blavatsky. (The article that appeared then was Esoteric She by William Q. Judge.) We take occasion to observe that on July 20, 1890, we were misled by Dr. E. F. Coues of Washington, in which allegations were made against Madam Blavatsky’s character, and also against her followers, which appear to have been without solid foundation. Mr. Judge’s article disposes of all questions relating to Madame Blavatsky as presented by Dr. Coues, and we desire to say that his allegations respecting the Theosophical Society and Mr. Judge personally are not sustained by evidence and should not have been printed.

New books and articles are still being printed that denigrate Blavatsky and manufacture yet new charges against her. Perhaps it is a measure of her worth and the profundity of the revolution she started, that her books and writings are still in print, and she is still worth vilifying a century later. The tedious task of reviewing some of these new books and pointing out their errors has been undertaken by other Theosophists and the results are outlined in this article. It is the intent of this site to continue to refute the outlandish lies and misrepresentations wherever and whenever we find them.