In 1889 Annie Besant, the Fabian socialist and secularist, reviews Isis Unveiled's successor for the Pall Mall Gazette, seeks out Blavatsky, and joins the Theosophical Society within the year. Besant becomes the movement's second founder in practice, carries it to India, and makes Adyar its world headquarters; her conversion is the synthesis's most famous English recruit.
Tagged: Eastern Pantheistic Monism
The Event
- Date
- 1889 (exact)
- Era
- The Theosophical Synthesis; Periodization of the construction and its sources
- Location
- London; today London, England
- Traditions
- Eastern Pantheistic Monism
- Streams
- Eastern Pantheistic Monism
- Key figures
- Annie Besant, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Connections
Primary Sources
- Besant, Annie. An Autobiography. London, 1893 (her account of the review and the meeting).
Secondary Sources
- Clarke, J. J. Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter Between Asian and Western Thought. London: Routledge, 1997.
- Halbfass, Wilhelm. India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.
- King, Richard. Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and 'the Mystic East'. London: Routledge, 1999.
Provenance: HIST-1376; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.
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