To Light a Thousand Lamps - The Theosophical Society

H. P. Blavatsky and The Theosophical Society / 147
sent by the Daily Graphic to the Eddy homestead in Vermont
to investigate the phenomena that were reportedly
happening there. The two of them were to work closely
together in the formation and development of The Theosophical
Society.
Exactly two years after coming to America, HPB received
further orders, as she noted in the first of her ‘‘Scrap
Books’’:
Orders received from India direct to establish a philosophico-religious
Society & choose a name for it — also to
choose Olcott. July 1875.*
So it was that on September 7, 1875, at her residence in
New York City, HPB hosted a small group of spiritualists,
kabbalists, physicians, and lawyers — all of them fascinated
by the ‘‘occult’’ or hidden side of nature — to hear a lecture
by George Henry Felt on ‘‘The Lost Canon of Proportion
of the Egyptians.’’ During the course of the evening, the
idea of forming a Society for this kind of study was proposed.
The sixteen or so desirous of joining met the following
and subsequent evenings to formalize their intent. By
October 30th a Preamble and Bylaws had been agreed upon
and printed, with the objects of the Society, ‘‘to collect and
di¤use a knowledge of the laws which govern the universe.’’
On November 17, 1875, an Inaugural Meeting at Mott
Memorial Hall in New York City launched The Theosophical
Society with an address by its President-Founder, Henry
S. Olcott. The name ‘‘theosophy’’ had been adopted be-
*The Golden Book of The Theosophical Society: 1875‒1925, p. 19;
H. P. Blavatsky, Collected Writings 1:94.