White Lotus Day celebrates the ‘founding mother of occult in America,’ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

Theosophy and its founders had an outsize impact on Americans’ ideas about spirituality and Asian religions.

By: Marina Alexandrova, The University of Texas at Austin, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: January 12, 2026

Words: 1,370

Last Updated: 2 months, 1 week ago

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By Marina Alexandrova, The University of Texas at Austin

Every May 8, thousands of people celebrate White Lotus Day, commemorating a remarkable and controversial Russian American woman: spiritual leader Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, who died in 1891.

HPB, as followers affectionately call her, is remembered as a co-founder of the Theosophical Society. Aiming to create a universal brotherhood of humanity, theosophy claimed that its tenets came from spiritual masters in the Himalayas.

Today, the movement …

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