The Theosophical Society in America (TSA) is a member-based nonprofit organization dedicated to the teaching of Theosophy and affiliated with the international Theosophical Society based in Adyar, Chennai, India. The name "Theosophical Society in America" was legally adopted by the American Theosophical Society in 1934. Previously, other organizations had used the same name during the years 1895–98 and 1898–1908.
Philosophy
The Theosophical Society is composed of individuals united by their concurrence with its three Objects, by their dedication to promoting brotherhood, and by their interest in study and spiritual self-transformation. Theosophists consider that belief should be the result of individual study, experience, and insight, rather than reliance on dogma. They see each religion as an expression of Divine Wisdom, adapted to the needs of a particular time and place. Theosophy regards the universe as alive and interrelated, with an intelligent order guiding the cyclical evolution of all life. The Theosophical Society supports the right of individual freedom of thought for every person, and no doctrine is in any way binding on any member of the Society.
Objects
The three declared Objects of the Theosophical Society are: To form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color. To encourage the comparative study of religion, philosophy, and science. To investigate unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in humanity
Mission statement
The Theosophical Society in America encourages open-minded inquiry into world religions, philosophy, science, and the arts in order to understand the wisdom of the ages, respect the unity of all life, and help people explore spiritual self-transformation.
History
Russian expatriate Helena Blavatsky and American Colonel Henry Steel Olcott founded the Theosophical Society with attorney William Quan Judge and others in late 1875 in New York City. After its two major co-founders departed for India in 1879 to establish the international headquarters of the Society in Adyar, India (near Madras, now known as Chennai), young Mr. Judge carried on the work of advancing interest in Theosophy within the United States. By 1886 he had established an American Section of the international Society with branches in fourteen cities. Rapid growth took place under his guidance, so that by 1895 there were 102 American branches with nearly six thousand members. Madame Blavatsky died in 1891, leaving Colonel Olcott and English social activist Annie Besant as the principal leaders of the international movement based in Adyar, and William Quan Judge heading the American Section.
During the contentious Ninth Annual Convention of the American Section in 1895, eighty-three lodges voted for autonomy from the international Theosophical Society Adyar. The international President-Founder, Colonel Olcott, interpreted this action as secession, and revoked the charters of those lodges, whose members reorganized into the first “Theosophical Society in America” under William Quan Judge. After Judge's death the following year, Katherine Tingley stepped into the leadership of that organization, and in 1898 folded the Theosophical Society in America into the Universal Brotherhood, resulting in the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society. After several changes in location and name, the successor organization is now known as the Theosophical Society Pasadena. Other groups split off from Tingley's organization over the years, becoming Theosophical Society in America (Hargrove) the Theosophical Society of New York, the United Lodge of Theosophists, and Temple of the People in Halcyon, California. The second “Theosophical Society in America” headed by Ernest Temple Hargrove dropped the words "in America" from its name in 1908.
Five American lodges that had opposed the 1895 secession retained their affiliation with the international Society in Adyar. They formed a new American Section known as the American Theosophical Society under the leadership of Alexander Fullerton. Extensive lecture tours by Annie Besant and Constance Wachtmeister elicited much new interest in the American Theosophical Society, so that by 1900 the organization claimed 1286 members and 71 branches.
In an attempt to clarify the complex history of the Theosophical movement in the United States, Dorothy Bell has created a diagram along the lines of a family tree, which can be viewed at American Family Tree of Theosophy . See also Other Theosophical societies in the United States below.