“I wouldn’t be a slave to God Himself, let alone man.”—H.P.B. It is difficult even to introduce Madame H.P. Blavatsky (1831–1891)—variously one of the most debated, venerated, and deplored figures in modern life. With the exception of Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), no other occultist has been so widely, and critically, written about. In 2012, during my publishing days, I issued an excellent biography of Blavatsky by historian Gary Lachman. The book received considerable praise—along with oh-no-you-don’t coverage in organs of lettered culture, including Harper’s Magazine and The Paris Review. I was surprised that such journals, usually dismissive of alternative spirituality—we never pitched them—set sight on a Ukrainian-born mystic who died ten years before Queen Victoria. Thematically speaking, their articles, acidulous and know-better, were conceived in advance, the blight of most letters. The same charge can be directed at me. And pertaining to this very piece. I am a “believing historian.” I have been—I am not currently—a member of the Theosophical Society in America, the organization she cofounded. Use that background to judge my portrayal. I disdain the cheapness of mainstream letters when approaching culturally disfavored figures—the practice of just broaching the line of dishonesty, experiences that have moved me to write less for legacy media, where I have plenty of bylines, and perhaps talk less to it. In any case, the tote-baggers sought blood, more so in Harper’s Magazine. They portrayed Blavatsky as a peddler of mediumistic fakery, invented biography, and kook philosophy. That is the axe-handle of critical judgment. The blade, pervasive in online comments, calls her a purveyor of colonialism, genocide, and even proto-Nazism. In a novel twist, a detractor recently wrote me that “Theosophy was and is a Trojan horse for the new age, transexual, transhumanist woke movement.” Right. I concede this: H.P.B., so known to admirers, frustrates scrutiny. As such, she is a kind of Rorschach. Documenting her requires entering a “hall of magic mirrors.” And yet—it is nearly impossible to imagine today’s culture without this one woman. mitchhorowitz.substack.com/p…