The Hodgson Report on Helena Blavatsky

Record summary

Richard Hodgson investigated Helena Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society for the Society for Psychical Research, interviewing witnesses and examining alleged phenomena at Adyar. His 1885 report concluded that Blavatsky was an elaborate impostor, making it a foundational skeptical document in modern occult history. Later reassessments, especially by Vernon Harrison, criticized aspects of Hodgson’s handwriting analysis and investigative method. The episode matters because it shows how colonial testimony, institutional rivalry, forensic reasoning, and occult belief interacted in a contested investigation.