An introduction to religious and spiritual experience

particularly on TV. It is said that Hubbard once declared that the best 
way to make millions would be to start a religion.
Mormons
The Mormon Church or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 
was founded by Joseph Smith (1805–1844). His experiences indicated 
that he was to restore the ‘latter days’ of the apostolic period, in line with 
the true teachings of Jesus which had been lost over the years. Mormons 
believe that the angel of the prophet Moroni informed Joseph Smith of 
the existence of buried records, mentioned in the Bible, which he found 
and published as 
The Book of Mormon
. This told of a link between 
American Indians and the Lost Tribes of Israel. He formed and led a tight-
knit community, but hostility from outsiders resulted in them moving 
several times. Joseph Smith was later imprisoned and ultimately mur-
dered. Nonetheless, the movement continues to thrive, with its headquar-
ters in Salt Lake City, Utah in the USA.
Theosophists
This movement was founded in 1875 in the USA by the Russian Helena 
Blavatsky (1831–1891) and the American Henry Steel Olcott (1832–
1907). Helena Blavatsky was born in Southern Russia, the daughter of 
a German, Colonel Peter von Hahn, who had settled in Russia and 
Helena de Fadeyev, a renowned novelist. Her mother died when Helena 
was 11 years old and she was brought up by her maternal grandparents. 
She was an exceptional if unruly child, given to sleepwalking and endowed 
with psychic powers. Her sister wrote of her,
For her all nature seemed animated with a mysterious life of its 
own. She heard the voice of every object and form, whether organic or 

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Less Well-Known Religious Traditions
45
inorganic; and claimed consciousness and being, not only for some 
mysterious powers visible and audible for herself alone in what was to 
every one else empty space, but even for visible but inanimate things 
such as pebbles, mounds, and pieces of decaying phosphorescent 
timber.
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When almost eighteen, she married the middle-aged Nikifor V. Blavatsky, 
Vice-Governor of the Province of Yerivan, but she very soon left him and 
travelled widely. In 1851 in London, she saw Mahatma Morya or M. whom 
she recognized from childhood dreams. He became her teacher. She later 
spent time in Tibet learning from masters there. Eventually she met the 
American Colonel Henry Olcott, who had been interested in psychic phe-
nomena from an early age and had investigated the spiritualist events at 
Eddy Farm in 1874. In 1875 Olcott and Blavatsky, along with William 
Quan Judge, set up the Theosophical Society – to promulgate the Wisdom 
concerning the Divine, which stemmed from Gnosticism and the ancient 
mystery schools. 
Headquarters were soon established in India to continue the explora-
tion of the spiritual realm underlying everyday reality. Their ideas included 
elements of Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity. The Society for Psy-
chical Research investigated Mme Blavatsky and Hodgson pronounced 
her a fraud, in a report which has since been challenged. Mme Blavatsky 
wrote first 
Isis Unveiled
and later 
The
Secret Doctrine
. 
Later theosophical luminaries included C. W. Leadbeater (1854–1934) 
and Annie Besant (1847–1933). When Annie rejected Christianity, she 
also left her clergyman husband. She joined the Theosophical Society and 
went to live in India. There she became politically active and the first 
woman President of the Indian Congress Party. She proclaimed Jiddhu 
Krishnamurti (1895–1986) a Theosophical World Teacher, but in 1929, 
aged 34, he renounced his role.