Theosophical Society

The Theosophical Society was founded in New York City in 1875 by Helena Blavatsky, Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge and others, with the aim of continuing the ideas of the larger Theosophical tradition. This tradition included Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, late medieval mystics such as Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa, Renaissance philosophers such as Giordano Bruno and Paracelsus, and Romantic mystics and philosophers such as Jakob Böhme and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, as well as Eastern religious philosophies such as Vedanta, Mahayana Buddhism, Qabbalah and Sufism. The Theosophical Society sees itself as a bridge between East and West and emphasises the commonality of human culture, but due to the heterogeneity of theosophical ideas, the Society split into different streams shortly after Blavatsky's death.