The Theosophical Society - Centenary 1975

The Theosophical Society was officially formed in New York City, United States, in November 1875 by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge and others. Olcott was its first president, and remained president until his demise in 1907. In the early months of 1875, Olcott and Judge had come to realize that, if Blavatsky was a spiritualist, she was no ordinary one. The society's initial objective was the "study and elucidation of Occultism, the Cabala etc." After a few years Olcott and Blavatsky moved to India and established the International Headquarters at Adyar, in Madras (Chennai). They were also interested in studying Eastern religions, and these were included in the Society's agenda. After several iterations the Society's objectives evolved to be:

1.      To form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or colour.
2. To encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy, and science.
3. To investigate the unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in man.

The Society was organized as a non-sectarian entity.

The Emblem of the Theosophical Society depicted on the stamp is composed of a number of symbols, all of which have been used from very ancient times to express profound spiritual and philosophical concepts about the human being and the universe. They are found in a variety of forms in the great religions of the world and their universality is further shown by their appearance in widely separated cultures.  Each symbol studied separately will yield a wealth of understanding.  Taken together, as in this emblem, they suggest a vast evolutionary process embracing the whole of nature, physical and spiritual, and their study may lead the serious inquirer to contemplate some of the deepest mysteries of existence. Partly because of their antiquity and partly because of the difficulty of establishing their origin, the symbols cannot be interpreted with a narrow precision. The interpretation here offered is to be taken as suggestive of the truths they seek to convey rather than as an exact statement of their meaning.
The Theosophical Society had been celebrating the centenary of its foundation since November 17, 1974 as decided at a meeting held at the World Headquarters of the Society in Adyar, Madras. The 1,200 branches of the Society at the national, regional and local levels all over the world are commemorating the centenary with their own programmes. TheCentenary World Convention of the Society met at Adyar from December 20 to December 30, 1975.