In 1877 Helena Petrovna Blavatsky publishes Isis Unveiled in New York, a vast synthesis claiming one ancient wisdom behind all religions, drawn, she holds, from Eastern adepts. The book gives the Theosophical movement its charter text and its characteristic claim: that Hindu and Buddhist monism is the esoteric core of every faith.
Tagged: Eastern Pantheistic Monism
The Event
- Date
- 1877 (exact)
- Era
- The Theosophical Synthesis; Periodization of the construction and its sources
- Location
- New York; today New York, New York
- Traditions
- Eastern Pantheistic Monism
- Streams
- Eastern Pantheistic Monism
- Key figures
- Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
- Key texts
- Isis Unveiled
Primary Sources
- Blavatsky, H. P. Isis Unveiled. New York, 1877.
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-1374; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.
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