Theosophical Society in America - History

History

Russian noblewoman Helena Blavatsky and American Colonel Henry Steel Olcott founded the Theosophical Society with attorney William Quan Judge and others in late 1875 in New York City. After his two major co-founders departed for India in 1879 to establish the international headquarters of the Society in Adyar, India (near Madras, now known as Chennai), young Mr. Judge carried on the work of advancing interest in Theosophy within the United States. By 1886 he had established an American Section of the international Society with branches in fourteen cities. Rapid growth took place under his guidance, so that by 1895 there were 102 American branches with nearly six thousand members. Madame Blavatsky died in 1891, leaving Colonel Olcott and English social activist Annie Besant as the principal leaders of the international movement based in Adyar, and William Quan Judge heading the American Section.

During the contentious Ninth Annual Convention of the American Section in 1895, eighty-three lodges voted for autonomy from the international Theosophical Society Adyar. The international President-Founder, Colonel Olcott, interpreted this action as secession, and revoked the charters of those lodges, whose members reorganized into the first “Theosophical Society in America” under William Quan Judge. After Judge's death the following year, Katherine Tingley stepped into the leadership of that organization, and in 1898 folded the Theosophical Society in America into the Universal Brotherhood, resulting in the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society. After several changes in location and name, the successor organization is now known as the Theosophical Society Pasadena. Other groups split off from Tingley's organization over the years, becoming Theosophical Society in America (Hargrove) the Theosophical Society of New York, the United Lodge of Theosophists, and Temple of the People in Halcyon, California. The second “Theosophical Society in America” headed by Ernest Temple Hargrove dropped the words "in America" from its name in 1908.

Five American lodges that had opposed the 1895 secession retained their affiliation with the international Society in Adyar. They formed a new American Section known as the American Theosophical Society under the leadership of Alexander Fullerton. Extensive lecture tours by Annie Besant and Constance Wachtmeister elicited much new interest in the American Theosophical Society, so that by 1900 the organization claimed 1286 members and 71 branches.

In an attempt to clarify the complex history of the Theosophical movement in the United States, Dorothy Bell has created a diagram along the lines of a family tree, which can be viewed at American Family Tree of Theosophy . See also Other Theosophical societies in the United States below.

The American Theosophical Society was legally renamed "The Theosophical Society in America" in 1934, and has existed under that name ever since. Like other Theosophical groups, the organization aspires to educate the public about the principles of Theosophy through publications, public programs, and local group activities. A video of Society history may be viewed at .