Український 
English (UK) Helena Blavatsky's personality, her mission, activity and creative heritage precede the appearance of the cardinal worldview and paradigmatic changes epoch. Humanity follows the path of evolution and such personalities as Helena Blavatsky contribute to its creative development.
The era of planetary education, a holonomic understanding of the world and the priority of spiritual values is being replaced by the opportunistic, applied, purely pragmatic dimensions of the age of materialism. The patterns of these changes are due to the logic of existence itself, in which the existence of all dimensions must be supported by eternal, not fleeting values, which entail the matter destruction. The epoch of spiritual matter, which, evolving, changing, transforming and qualitatively improving its forms in accordance with the expansion of the spiritual, was foreseen by Helena Blavatsky, who through theosophical truths opened to the world its existential perspectives, foresaw our present.
The social significance of Helena Blavatsky's activity manifested itself in several directions. First of all, Helena Blavatsky was one of the few women of the nineteenth century who led an active, free in thought, expression and action way of social life, played a significant role in the gender equality ideas implementation, trends that only emerged in those days and were actively developed in the second half of the twentieth century.
Another aspect of the social significance of HP Blavatsky's activities is in the formation of Ukraine as a sovereign state. During Helena Blavatsky life, Ukraine was a part of the Russian Empire, since 1991 it became independent and sovereign, recognized by the world as a state. Although there were Russian, French, and German aristocrats in Helena's family tree, her grandmother's lineage (Olena Pavlivna Fadeeva (1789 - 1860), née Dolgoruka) reached the Grand Duke of Kyiv Mykhailo Chernihivsky. It was in Katerynoslav (now the city of Dnipro), on the banks of the Dnieper River, on the glorious lands of the freedom-loving Ukrainian Cossacks that Helena Han (Blavatsky) was born. For the theosophical world, Ukraine, and in particular the city of Dnipro, is a sacred place associated with this planet-scale personality. In the lands of Ukraine there is the only museum in the world associated with the physical birth of HP Blavatsky and her family roots. Thus we can realize the importance of HP Blavatsky for our country. Theosophine’s name is associated with modern Ukraine for the whole world.
One more fact to mention is Blavatsky's activity and heritage contributed to radical changes in the status of theosophy, which, permeating the entire history of mankind, has always been a doctrine closed to the general public and manifested itself indirectly: through various forms of the spiritual culture of mankind. Helena Blavatska contributed to the fact that theosophy as a doctrine came out of indirect forms and became a self-sufficient direction of theoretical space. Definitions of theosophy appeared in dictionaries, scientific understandings of theosophy as a separate direction were formed, and scientific and theosophical discourse became more active.
Thanks to HP Blavatsky in the XIX century there is a social movement (Theosophical Society), an association of people whose activities are aimed at realizing the values of Theosophy in the living space.
The conceptual significance of Blavatsky's activities and heritage is much wider than social manifestations and consists in the prerequisites for the formation of a spiritual age worldview new content. The theosophical heritage, which we received through HP Blavatsky, preserves the ideas of the evolutionary model of human development, which are now realized through the ideological, scientific and aesthetic achievements of modern culture. First of all, it is a radical change in the cognition methodology, where the subject, object, method and purpose are rethought. The subject goes beyond the system-organized boundaries defined by modern scientism, the object expands to the transcendent, the cognition method approaches the syncretic holon (integrity that contains the complementarity of rational-irrational, sensory-mental, general-concrete), the goal of cognition from the practical-applied use of its results is transformed into awareness of the essence of everything that exists.
As a consequence, at the turn of the XIX - XX centuries there were a number of intuitive teachings and directions of philosophy, which were opposed to positivistic methodology. A pleiad of philosophers is being formed, such as Henri Bergson (France), Nicholas Lossky, Semen Frank (Russia), George Moore, Charles Brod, David Ross, and Alfred Ewing (England), who substantiate the theory of intuition.
The practical continuation of intuitionism is already observed in modern trends of psychology, among which we should single out transpersonal psychology (S. Grof, R. Assagioli, K. Durkheim) as a doctrine of a changed (expanded) state of consciousness. The very term "transpersonal" means overcoming the personification of the Ego as a loss of limited vision (knowledge) of the world. It should be noted that the HP Blavatsky’s "Cosmogenesis" of the "Secret Doctrine" [1] outlined the broad horizons of the knowledge object, going far beyond the science of the time. It is impossible to comprehend the concept of the Universe, which was provided by HP Blavatsky, by the limited methods of classical science. Modern science and philosophy demonstrate new achievements of the XX and XXI centuries. It can be considered indirect and gradual implementation of the Theosophine’s ideas.
Speaking about the modern philosophical context, let us turn to the concept of metamodern, which has been fixed since about 2010 as a new ideological paradigm. It occupies an intermediate position between the optimism of the modernity ideals, expressed in the rational human capacity to change the world, and the pessimism of postmodernism in the form of skepticism and disappointment in relation to all modern ideals. [9]. Metamodern is the search for integrity (holonomy) as overcoming the linearity of knowledge and acquiring a holistic holographic picture of the world [6]. "Secret Doctrine" gives this integrity, and the modern world 190 years after the birth of HP Blavatsky naturally comes to the need to universalize the picture of the world, possibly on condition that all the planes of being are recognized.
A modern interdisciplinary branch of knowledge, called "Western esotericism" (the founder of the third wave - Walter Hanegraaff (Netherlands)) [4], is aimed at the objective study of esoteric teachings. The common goal of all researches in this direction is to analyze the metahistorical nature of the transcendent source. This research position, which is fundamentally new for science, forms the basis of HP Blavatsky's teachings, only today finds realization in the scientific metamaterialist paradigm.
Transcendental materialism or speculative realism [3], the philosophical concept of continental philosophy of the last decade, is approaching theosophical ontology in modern philosophy. In a simplified statement, it is a recognition of the materiality of all possible worlds. The radical difference from vulgar materialism is that materiality is not limited to gross empiricism, but presupposes various forms, levels of matter, from which being is formed, in which the affinity with the structure of cosmogenesis can be traced in the HP Blavatsky’s works.
The movement of science along the path trodden by Helena Blavatsky is to change the scientific paradigm in the context of the quantum picture of the world. The traditional subject-object position in science is replaced by the subject-subject cognitive attitude based on the quantum concept of consciousness. It is the discourse of consciousness that allows psychology, philosophy, theoretical physics, anthropology and other spheres of scientific knowledge to be synthesized into a single problematic field of research - the only quantum nature of consciousness, according to which a person is the creator of the universe at the level of awareness of his own transcendental essence. This is the main idea of theosophical anthropology, set out by HP Blavatsky in the second volume of the "Secret Doctrine" ("Anthropogenesis") [2]. What the ancient teachings metaphorically expressed and Theosophy symbolized, modern philosophy of science formulates within the limits of transcendental phenomenology: "Form is not the essence of consciousness."
Blavatsky's scientific insights, the universal picture of the world presented in The Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled, are now expressed in the Physical Vacuum Theory, [8] that substantiates the physics of the six planes of existence and the existence of the seventh plan, the universal egregor, substantively close to the principles of the sevenfold universe in the HP Blavatsky teachings.
The evolutionary processes, described by Theosophine as a transition to the level of the sixth race, can be observed today in social manifestations. The British thinker Peter Russell’s planetary consciousness concept [5] reflects the evolutionary processes represented in theosophy. The law of the dialectic of the transition from quantity to quality leads to the natural stage of humanity unification at the level of consciousness. Despite the complexity and contradictions of the modern world, we can clearly record the unifying processes at all existence levels [7].
Tendencies to the formation of planetary consciousness and the functioning of humanity as a single conscious community will contribute to the realization of the evolutionary purpose of man in the system of the universe - spiritual self-exploration. According to Peter Russell, a qualitative change in the formation of planetary consciousness will occur in the near future at the level of the essential unity of people in fulfilling its spiritual mission - the co-evolution of Man and the Universe.
This is the essential unity that Theosophy strives for and tries to realize the Theosophical Society founded by HP Blavatsky - to create a single organism, a single field of consciousness, on the basis of which the evolutionary (quantum) leap will take place - unification in the Spirit. At the same time, essential unity does not absorb its structures, but exists due to the acceptance and interaction of everyone. Therefore, an important principle of the Theosophical Society is not formalized unity, but the acceptance of the intrinsic value of all nations, confessions, religions and social positions.
As indicated above, many ideas from the HP Blavatsky teachings have been realized, but even more - remain unconscious. Based on this, our task is not just to know what Theosophy is about, but to see and be aware of these evolutionary processes in life, embodying the foundations of practical Theosophy. The heritage of Helena Blavatsky is in demand in the modern era. Therefore, the significance of the Theosophine's activities and her spiritual heritage is epochal.
References:
1. Blavatskaya Ye. P. Taynaya doktrina. Tom 1. Kosmogenezis. M.: Azbuka-klassika. Non-Fiction, 2014. (RU)
2. Blavatskaya Ye. P. Taynaya doktrina. Tom 2. Antropogenezis. M.: AST, 2004. (RU)
3. Brassier R., Grant I. H., Harman G., Meillassoux Q. Speculative Realism // Collapse III: Unknown Deleuze (+ Speculative realism) / Mackay R. (ed.). Falmouth: Urbanomic, 2007.
4. Hanegraaff W. J. Western esotericism: the next generation // Mystic and esoteric movements in theory and practice: fifth international conference: history and discourse: historical and philosophical aspects of the study of esotericism and mysticism. St. Petersburg: Russian Christian Academy for Humanities, 2012. P. 113 - 129.
5. Russell P. The Global Brain: Speculations on the Evolutionary Leap to Planetary Consciousness. Los Angeles: JP Tarcher, 1983.
6. Shabanova Yu. O. Metamodernism Man in the Wordview Dimension of New Cultural Paradigm / Anthropological Measurements of Philosophical Research. No. 18. 2020. R. 121 - 131.
7. Shabanova Y. Planetary Awareness: The Worldwide Demand of the 21st Century / The Theosophist. Vol. 142.11, August 2021. R. 17 - 23.
8. Shipov G. Physical Vacuum theory. M.: ST-Center, 1998.
9. Vermeulen T., Akker R. Notes on metamodernism // Journal of Aesthetics & Culture. V 2, 2010. R. 56 - 77.
Yuliya Shabanova,
Doctor of Philosophy, Professor,
Head of the Department of Philosophy and Pedagogy
Dnipro University of Technology
curator of the Scientific Group TS in Ukraine
