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Henry Steel Olcott: Timeline of an Occult Pioneer
The life story of American occultist Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907) contains all the twists and turns of a Harry Potter novel. But its plot is real.
If you can follow Olcott’s career, you can follow much of the development of occult, New Age, Eastern, and esoteric spirituality in the modern world. I have created this timeline to provide students, scholars, journalists, and anyone interested with a guide to the spiritual pioneer’s life.
First, a bit of background. The retired Civil War colonel cofounded the Theosophical Society with Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in New York City in 1875. In its early years, the Theosophical Society ignited new interest in occult and esoteric philosophy throughout much of the West, inspiring the wave of alternative spirituality that swept the modern world, as well as new themes in modernist art, classical music, and poetry.
Olcott’s personal influence spread in other ways, as well. He brought Westerners some of their first exposure to Vedic and Buddhist religious ideas, and in 1876 he presided over America’s first public cremation service, at a time when cremation was considered an exotic oddity. Today, cremation accounts for more than half of all American funerals.
Olcott and Blavatsky relocated to India in late 1878, taking the nucleus of the Theosophical Society with them. In marathon speaking tours throughout the East, Olcott ignited Hindu and Buddhist religious revivals in the colonial-dominated societies of India and Sri Lanka. The latter nation memorialized the American on a 1967 postage stamp and marks his passing on February 17 as “Olcott Day.”
In the late nineteenth century, members of the Theosophical Society brought vigor and early leadership to India’s nascent independence movement. Mahatma Gandhi cited Theosophy as a major influence on his earliest ideas about human equality and religious universality (a topic I explore in my Occult America and Modern Occultism). Without Blavatsky, Olcott, and the Theosophical Society, the political, cultural, and spiritual landscape of today’s world would look much different.
Even before becoming Theosophy’s roving ambassador, Olcott led a notable career. While still in his twenties he was considered a wunderkind of…
