A Witch's Den: A look into the darker rituals of late 19th Century rural India

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, often known as Madame Blavatsky, was born on 12th August 1831 into an aristocratic family in present day Dnipro in Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. She was the younger sister of the writer Vera Zhelikhovsky.

Much of Blavatsky's life story relies on her own memories which changed much during her lifetime and therefore parts of it are unreliable. What appears to be certain is that much of her life was lived first on family travels and postings and then on he...