Discussed in this essay:

Madame Blavatsky: The Mother of Modern Spirituality, by Gary Lachman. Tarcher/Penguin. 352 pages. $16.95.

Last things first: How did the avocado come to its present prominence in the agriculture of California? It happened just about a hundred years ago and belongs to the history of the syncretic occult system called “theosophy” and the life of its creator, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Madame Blavatsky, or HPB, as she preferred to call herself, passed from the earthly plane in 1891; her death caused upheaval in the Theosophical Society she created, dividing the loyalties of its many Orders,…