H. S. Olcott

Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (2 August 1832 – 17 February 1907) was an American military officer, journalist, lawyer and the co-founder and first President of the Theosophical Society.

## H. S. Olcott

### Birthdate

August 2, 1832, City of Orange, NJ - February 17, 1907, Adyar, Chennai, India (Age 75)

### Website

https://theosophy.wiki/en/Henry\_Steel\_Olcott

Olcott was the first well-known American of European ancestry to make a formal conversion to Buddhism. His subsequent actions as president of the Theosophical Society helped create a renaissance in the study of Buddhism. Olcott is considered a Buddhist modernist for his efforts in interpreting Buddhism through a Westernized lens.

Olcott was a major revivalist of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and he is still honored in Sri Lanka for these efforts. Olcott has been called by Sri Lankans "one of the heroes in the struggle of our independence and a pioneer of the present religious, national and cultural revival".

## Biography

Olcott was born on 2 August 1832 in Orange, New Jersey, the oldest of six children, to Presbyterian businessman Henry Wyckoff Olcott and Emily Steele Olcott. As a child, Olcott lived on his father's New Jersey farm.

During his teens he attended first the College of the City of New York and later Columbia University, where he joined the St. Anthony Hall fraternity, a milieu of well-known people. In 1851 his father's business failed and he had to leave the university.

While living in Amherst, Ohio, Olcott was introduced to spiritualism by relatives who had formed a spiritualist circle after seeing the Fox sisters on tour in Cleveland. During this period, Olcott became interested in studies of "psychology, hypnotism, psychometry, and mesmerism" In 1853, after returning to New York, Olcott became a founding member of the New York Conference of Spiritualists. He also published letters and articles on spiritualist topics in the Spiritual Telegraph under the pseudonym "Amherst."

From 1858 to 1860 Olcott was the agricultural correspondent for the New York Tribune and the Mark Lane Express, but occasionally submitted articles on other subjects. He was present for John Brown's execution.

He also published a genealogy of his family extending back to Thomas Olcott, one of the founders of Hartford, Connecticut, in 1636.

In 1860 Olcott married Mary Epplee Morgan, daughter of the rector of Trinity parish, New Rochelle, New York. They had four children, two of whom died in infancy.

He served in the US Army during the American Civil War and afterward was admitted as the Special Commissioner of the War Department in New York. He was later promoted to the rank of colonel and transferred to the Department of the Navy in Washington, DC. He was well respected, and in 1865, following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, assisted in the investigation of the assassination.

In 1868 he became a lawyer specializing in insurance, revenue, and fraud.

In 1874 he became aware of the séances of the Eddy Brothers of Chittenden, Vermont. His interest aroused, Olcott wrote an article for the New York Sun, in which he investigated Eddy Farms. His article was popular enough that other papers, such as the New York Daily Graphic, republished it. His 1874 publication People from the Other World began with his early articles concerning the Spiritualist movement.

Also in 1874, Olcott met Helena Blavatsky while both were visiting the Eddy farm. His foundational interest in the Spiritualist movement and his budding relationship with Blavatsky helped foster his development of spiritual philosophy.

Olcott continued to act as a lawyer during the first few years of the establishment of the Theosophical Society, in addition to being a financial supporter of the new religious movement. In early 1875 Olcott was asked by prominent Spiritualists to investigate an accusation of fraud against the mediums Jenny and Nelson Holmes, who had claimed to materialize the famous "spirit control" Katie King (Doyle 1926: volume 1, 269–277).

In 1880 Helena Blavatsky and Olcott became the first Westerners to receive the refuges and precepts, the ceremony by which one traditionally becomes a Buddhist; thus Blavatsky was the first Western woman to do so. Olcott once described his adult faith as "pure, primitive Buddhism," but his was a unique sort of Buddhism.

## Theosophical Society

From 1874 on, Olcott's spiritual growth and development with Blavatsky and other spiritual leaders would lead to the founding of the Theosophical Society. In 1875, Olcott, Blavatsky, and others, notably William Quan Judge, formed the Theosophical Society in New York City, USA. Olcott financially supported the earliest years of the Theosophical Society and was acting president while Blavatsky served as the Society's Secretary.

In December 1878, they left New York in order to move the headquarters of the Society to India. They arrived at Bombay on February 16, 1879. Olcott set out to experience the native country of his spiritual leader, the Buddha. The headquarters of the Society were established at Adyar, Chennai as the Theosophical Society Adyar, starting also the Adyar Library and Research Centre within the headquarters.

While in India, Olcott strove to receive the translations of sacred oriental texts which were becoming available as a result of western researches. His intent was to avoid the Westernized interpretations often encountered in America, and to discover the pure message of texts from the Buddhist, Hindu, and Zoroastrian religions, in order to properly educate Westerners.

Olcott's research and translation efforts put him in dialogue with early, ostensibly secular anthropologists and scholars of religion. He corresponded extensively with Max Müller, asking questions related to his interest in Hinduism and Buddhism and sharing discoveries from his travels in South Asia. He also personally met both Müller and Edward Burnett Tylor at least once at the University of Oxford.

Olcott's main religious interest was Buddhism, and he is commonly known for his work in Sri Lanka. After a two-year correspondence with Sri Piyaratana Tissa Mahanayake Thero, he and Blavatsky arrived in the then capital Colombo on May 16, 1880. Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steele Olcott took Five Precepts at the Wijayananda Viharaya located at Weliwatta in Galle on May 19, 1880. On that day Olcott and Blavatsky were formally acknowledged as Buddhists, although Olcott noted that they had previously declared themselves Buddhists, while still living in America.

During his time in Sri Lanka Olcott strove to revive Buddhism within the region, while compiling the tenets of Buddhism for the education of Westerners. It was during this period that he wrote the Buddhist Catechism (1881), which is still used today.

The Theosophical Society built several Buddhist schools in Ceylon, most notably Ananda College in 1886, Dharmaraja College Kandy in 1887, Maliyadeva College Kurunegala in 1888, Siddhartha Kumara Maha Vidyalaya (First named as"Buddhist boy's School") Gampaha in 1891, Mahinda College Galle in 1892, Nalanda College, Colombo in 1925, Musaeus Girls College in Colombo and Dharmasoka College in Ambalangoda. Olcott also acted as an adviser to the committee appointed to design a Buddhist flag in 1885. The Buddhist flag designed with the assistance of Olcott was later adopted as a symbol by the World Fellowship of Buddhists and as the universal flag of all Buddhist traditions.

Helena Blavatsky eventually went to live in London, where she died in 1891, but Olcott stayed in India and pursued the work of the Theosophical Society there. Olcott's role in the Theosophical Society would still be as president, but the induction of Annie Besant sparked a new era of the movement. Upon his death, the Theosophical Society elected her to take over as president and leader of the movement.

## Death and legacy

On a boat trip to Europe, he broke his leg at the end of 1906, the injury no longer healed. Although he had suffered from heart disease for a long time, he did not allow himself any rest, and around the turn of the year 1906/1907 his heart condition entered an acute stage. On February 17, 1907 at 7:17 a.m., Olcott died of heart failure in Adyar. His body was cremated at his request . The pyre was made of sandalwood and covered with the US and Buddhist flags.

His last words were: To my beloved brothers in the physical body: Farewell all of you. In memory of me, I entrust you with the great task of living and proclaiming the brotherhood of all religions. To my beloved brothers on the higher levels: Greetings from me, I come to you and ask for your help to impress on all people, "No religion is higher than the truth", in the brotherhood of religions lies peace and the progress of humanity .

In 1967, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Olcott's death, a memorial was erected in front of the main train station in Colombo, which also marks the end of the street named after him. A stamp dedicated to him was also issued in the same year.

Two major streets in Colombo and Galle have been named Olcott Mawatha, to commemorate him. A statue of him has been erected in front of Colombo Fort Railway Station. Many other schools that he helped found or have been founded in his memory possess commemorative statues in honour of his contribution to Buddhist education. He is still remembered fondly by many Sri Lankans today. On September 10, 2011, a statue of Colonel Olcott was unveiled at a Buddhist temple near Princeton, New Jersey.

The date of his death is often remembered by Buddhist centers and Sunday schools in present-day Sri Lanka, as well as in Theosophical communities around the globe. Olcott believed himself to be Asia's savior, the outsider hero who would sweep in at the end of the drama to save a disenchanted subcontinent from spiritual death.

The effort to revitalize Buddhism within Sri Lanka was successful and influenced many native Buddhist intellectuals. Sri Lanka was dominated by British colonial power and influence at the time, and many Buddhists heard Olcott's interpretation of the Buddha's message as socially motivating and supportive of efforts to overturn colonialist efforts to ignore Buddhism and Buddhist tradition. This was despite the fact that his re-interpretation of the Buddha was along modern liberal ideas promoted by the British in Sri Lanka. As David McMahan wrote, "Henry Steel Olcott saw the Buddha as a figure much like the ideal liberal freethinker – someone full of 'benevolence,' 'gratitude,' and 'tolerance,' who promoted 'brotherhood among all men' as well as 'lessons in manly self-reliance". His Westernized view of Buddha influenced Sri Lankan leaders, such as Anagarika Dharmapala.

Olcott and Anagarika Dharmapala were associates, which reflects both men's awareness of the divide between East and West—as seen in their presentation of Buddhism to the West. Olcott helped financially support the Buddhist presence at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, 1893. The inclusion of Buddhists in the Parliament allowed for the expansion of Buddhism within the West in general and in America specifically, leading to other Buddhist Modernist movements.

As Stephen Prothero wrote,

It was Olcott who most eloquently articulated and most obviously embodied the diverse religious and cultural traditions that shaped Protestant Buddhism, who gave the revival movement both its organizational shape and its emphasis on education-as-character-building. The most Protestant of all early Protestant Buddhists, Olcott was the liminoid figure, the griot who because of his awkward standing betwixt and between the American Protestant grammars of his youth and the Asian Buddhist lexicon of his adulthood was able to conjure traditional Sinhalese Buddhism, Protestant modernism, metropolitan gentility, and academic Orientalism into a decidedly new creole tradition. This creole tradition Olcott then passed on to a whole generation of Sinhalese students educated in his schools.

Olcott is probably the only major contributor to the nineteenth-century Sinhalese Buddhist revival who was actually born and raised in the Protestant Christian tradition, though he had already left Protestantism for Spiritualism long before he became a Buddhist. His childhood Protestantism is a reason that many scholars have referred to the Buddhist modernism he influenced as "Protestant Buddhism".

## Today's evaluation and criticism

Olcott's work for the TG and Buddhism brought him unforgettable fame. Both activities have been and are highly controversial. One side respects, adores, even adores him, the other side describes exactly the opposite, thus practicing true demonization.

Olcott's tireless commitment, his organizational skills and, last but not least, his financial strength contributed significantly to the survival of the TG in the first few years of its existence and enabled the subsequent expansion all over the world. As a result, esoteric ideas and Eastern philosophies became public and popular in the West much faster. Buddhism was told, according to its proponents, by Olcott's work totrend-setting push, which ultimately led to the resurgence of this movement and to today's missionary work of Buddhism in the West. In Sri Lanka, because of the amalgamation of religion and politics, one can even speak of an important, if not decisive, help in the birth of Olcott towards the independence of the country. To a lesser extent, this statement is also valid for Hinduism and India.

The spread of what is called esotericism today, with all its dark sides, from radical sects to ideological suppliers of National Socialism , can only be traced back indirectly to the work of Olcott. His advocacy of the Eastern religions, primarily Buddhism, according to the critics, can be downright devastating for the Christian denominationsbe considered. This is not only due to the failure of the Christian mission in South Asia, mainly due to his initiatives, but also to the popularization and normalization of esotericism. This is now in direct competition with the traditional Western churches and is creeping to undermine their claims to absoluteness. However, theosophists used the word “esoteric” in a different meaning than it is used today; For them, it did not mean the heterogeneous hodgepodge of all possible worldviews. Furthermore, one must definitely consider the downsides of Christian proselytizing, which politically went hand in hand with colonial atrocities on the part of the Portuguese, Dutch and British; seen in this way.

### Critisism In Brief:

Which is a nice way of saying his works were later used to prop up German Occultism (NA\*Is) So, yeah, any Source Page with his name on it will have uncomfortable implications and wording. But can you judge a guy for what later generations did with his stuff? I dont know... that's a hard call. It is wrong to say it didn't happen, but at the same time we need to talk about the fact that it did happen. Sadly, he's the main source for a couple of these stories.

And what about his efforts to spread Eastern stories and traditions? Can that all be thrown to the wind because of some idioticly wrong goose steppers?

## Works

* Sorgho and Imphee, the Chinese and African sugar canes; A. O. Moore, New \* York 1857
* Outlines of the first course of Yale agricultural lectures; C. M. Saxton, \* Barker & Co., New York 1860
* Descendents of Thomas Olcott, 1872
* Human Spirits and Elementaries; 1875
* People from the other world American Publishing Co., Hartford 1875
* A Buddhist catechism; Madras 1881
* Theosophy, Religion, and Occult Science; New York 1885
* Old Diary Leaves (6 volumes), (New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1895)
* The Hindu Dwaita Catechism; 1886
* The Golden Rules of Buddhism; 1887
* The kinship between Hinduism and Buddhism; The Maha-Bodhi society, Calcutta 1893
* The Poor Pariah; Addison & Co., Madras 1902
* The Life of the Buddha and its Lessons; 1912
* The Spirit of Zoroastrianism; 1913
* Old diary leaves, Inside the occult, the true story of Madame H. P. \* Blavatsky; Running Press, Philadelphia 1975 (reprint); ISBN 0-914294-31-8

## Notes & References

### Notes

* Janet Kerschner, The Olcott Family Archived 2008-12-18 at the Wayback Machine
* Remembering H. S. Olcott
* Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities ...: Information and Much More from Answers.com at www.answers.com
* Prothero, Stephen R. (1996). The White Buddhist: The Asian Odyssey of Henry Steel Olcott. Indiana University Press. p. 22. ISBN 9780585109503. OCLC 946214562.
* Prothero, Stephen. The White Buddhist. p. 23.
* Prothero, Stephen. The White Buddhist. p. 23.
* Olcott's Old Diary Leaves, pg. 322; Amherst, "A Word to Mediums," Spiritual Telegraph, October 27, 1855.
* Olcott, Henry S. (1875), "How We Hung John Brown", in Brougham, John; Elderkin, John (eds.), Lotos Leaves, Boston: William F. Gill, pp. 233–249
* Current Perspectives in Buddhism: Buddhism today : issues & global dimensions, Madhusudan Sakya, Cyber Tech Publications, 2011, page 244
* Prothero, Stephen. "Henry Steele Olcott and 'Protestant Buddhism'" pg.285.
* Combined Chronology of The Mahatma Letters – Preface
* Josephson-Storm, Jason (2017). The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 122–123. ISBN 978-0-226-40336-6.
* Ranatunga, D. C. (2001). "That controversial clash". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
* Kaviratne, W. T. J. S. (2004). "The first Buddhist School in Sri Lanka – Piyarathana Vidyalaya of Dodanduwa dilapidated, threatened with closure". Daily News (Sri Lanka). Retrieved 20 January 2015.
* Oliveira, Pedro. "BIO". CWL World.
* Olcott in Caldwell (2000)
* Prothero, Stephen. "Henry Steel Olcott and 'Protestant Buddhism'" pg.283
* Olcott's Buddhist Catechism, pg 2
* Olcott's Buddhist Catechism, pg 38
* Olcott's Buddhist Catechism, pg. 18.
* Olcott's Buddhist Catechism, pg, 27.
* McMahan, David L. The Making of Buddhist Modernism USA: Oxford University Press, 2008. 95.
* McMahan, David L. The Making of Buddhist Modernism USA: Oxford University Press, 2008. 99.
* Ed Abdill Olcott statue unveiled in New Jersey.
* Prothero, Stephen. "Henry Steel Olcott and 'Protestant Buddhism'" pg.295
* McMahan, David L. The Making of Buddhist Modernism USA: Oxford University Press, 2008. McMahon 95.
* McMahan, David L. The Making of Buddhist Modernism. USA: Oxford University Press, 2008. Pg 95.
* Prothero, Stephen. "Henry Steel Olcott and 'Protestant Buddhism'" pg.296/297
* Prothero, Stephen. "Henry Steel Olcott and what has been termed by scholars as "Protestant Buddhism"." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 63.2 (Summer 1995): 281–302. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials. EBSCO. Norlin, Boulder, Colorado. 27 April 2009, pg. 283

### References

* Caldwell, Daniel H. (ed) The Esoteric World of Madame Blavatsky: Insights Into the Life of a Modern Sphinx, Quest Books, 2000. ISBN 0-8356-0794-1, ISBN 978-0-8356-0794-0.
* Doyle, Arthur Conan. The History of Spiritualism. New York: G.H. Doran, Co. Volume 1: 1926 Volume 2: 1926
* Guruge, Ananda W. P. Free at Last in Paradis, Authuhouse, Bloomington, Ind, 1998
* Guruge, A. (2007, January). "Henry Steel Olcott in Sri Lanka: death centennial tribute". Theosophical History, 13(1), 10–13. Retrieved April 27, 2009, from ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials database.
* From the Living Fountains of Buddhism, Colombo, Ministry of Cultural Affairs, 1984
* Return to Righteousness, Colombo, Ministry of Cultural Affairs, 1965/1991
* Killingley, D. (1998, April). "The White Buddhist: the Asian odyssey of Henry Steel Olcott". International Journal of Hindu Studies, 2(1), 153–154. Retrieved April 27, 2009, from ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials database.
* Kuhn, Alvin Boyd. 1930. Theosophy: A Modern Revival of Ancient Wisdom. New York: Henry Holt & Company.
* Motwani, Kewal: Colonel H. S. Olcott, a forgotten page in American history; Ganesh, Madras 1955 (English)
* Murphet, Howard: Hammer on the mountain, life of Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907); Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton 1972; ISBN 0-8356-0210-9
* Prothero, Stephen R.: The White Buddhist: The Asian Odyssey of Henry Steel Olcott; Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1996; ISBN 0-253-33014-9
* Prothero, Stephen R.. "Henry Steel Olcott and 'Protestant Buddhism.'" Journal of the American Academy of Religion 63: 281–302.
* Williams, Gertrude Marvin. Priestess of the Occult, Madame Blavatsky. New York : A. A. Knopf, 1946

## External links

* https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Henry\_Steel\_Olcott
* https://web.archive.org/web/20090721051328/http://www.theosophical.org/resources/library/olcott-centenary/ts/olcott-ts.htm
* https://web.archive.org/web/20081005113554/http://www.dailynews.lk/2008/09/30/fea02.asp
* http://aryasangha.org/olcott-prothero.htm
* http://www.katinkahesselink.net/other/c/c-olcott.html
* http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/theos/wqj-selc.htm#olcott
* https://web.archive.org/web/20090218110213/http://www.dailynews.lk/2009/02/17/fea03.asp
* http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article03121201.aspx
* https://www.gutenberg.org/author/Olcott,+Henry+Steel
* [Henry Steel Olcott ArchiveOrg]
* https://librivox.org/author/1723
* http://iapsop.com/archive/materials/theosophist/
* http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/ts/bio-hso.htm
* http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/o/olcott\_henry\_steele.html