Madame Blavatsky's Last Will and Testament

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott · Blavatsky Tributes Series · 9 pages

Madame Blavatsky signed her last will and testament on 31 January 1885. The document is reproduced here from Blavatsky Collected Writings, together with her separate instructions to Countess Constance Wachtmeister concerning the removal of her body, an introduction and background by Boris de Zirkoff, and his translation and annotation of the French original. It is a short text, and a plain one, but it belongs to the historical record of the Theosophical Movement rather than to its literature of doctrine.

The compilation continues past her death on 8 May 1891. On 17 April 1892, just before the first anniversary, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott issued an Executive Order from Adyar instituting White Lotus Day — the name suggested for the annual commemoration — and that order is included here in full, along with suggested further reading and a note of the other tributes gathered in this series. Taken together the documents show how quickly, and by whose hand, the observance that still marks her death each May was established.

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