Archival collections

UNDER CONSTRUCTION
UNDER CONSTRUCTION

This article identifies archival repositories and collections on Theosophy, the Theosophical Movement, and related topics.

Theosophical organizations with archives

• Theosophical Society based in Adyar, Chennai, India holds correspondence, scrapbooks, and notebooks of H. P. Blavatsky, Annie Besant, and other Society leaders. It was founded on the first Adyar Day, February 17, 1922. Now located in a modern facility behind the Adyar Library and Research Centre, the department has been named the Surendra Narayan Archives. Archives head Jaishree Kannan gave a video presentation of its history on December 30, 2021, which is available on YouTube, beginning at the time 01:04:29. Contact at mailto:[email protected].
• Theosophical Society in America, located in Wheaton, Illinois has an Archives Department that maintains the organizational records of the TSA and special collections from Boris de Zirkoff, Walter A. Carrithers, Jr., and others. Contact at mailto:[email protected].

Academic institutions

• Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois – McCormick Library of Special Collections and University Archives
  • Arthur H. Nethercot (1895-1981) Papers, Collection Identifier: 11/3/11/8. The biographer of Annie Besant was an NU professor, and his papers retain a small amount of material about her.
• University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois – The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, Regenstein Library.
  • Helen I. Dennis Collection on the Theosophical Society 1897-1943. Helen Dennis, a Chicago Theosophist and E.S. secretary, was a major figure in the 1906-1907 controversy surrounding Charles Webster Leadbeater. This collection has three boxes of correspondence and other papers mostly focused on Leadbeater.
  • Joseph R. Rhoden Papers 1911-1979. Joseph Rasberry Rhoden (1892–1979) was a Chicago labor organizer, activist, and theosophist who frequently lectured at the city’s Akbar Lodge. The collection contains materials reflecting his theosophical activities, as well as personal correspondence with Ernest and Hilda Wood dating from 1958 to 1965.
• University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California – Special Research Collections
  • American Religions Collection. Collection Number: ARC Mss 1. Papers of J. Gordon Melton, American religious scholar, author, and encyclopedia editor. Several boxes of unsorted materials from many branches of the Theosophical Movement.
• Harvard Library Theosophy Collections
  • Blavatsky, H.P. (Helena Petrovna) Letters, 1885-1890
  • Skinner, J. Ralston Papers
  • Rare Books on Theosophy
• University of Sheffield, Sheffield, England.
  • Theosophical Society Collection, reference code: THE1. 'A collection of books and journals covering the topic of Theosophy." Scope 1875-1963.
• Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA. See Moncure D. Conway Family Papers for correspondence with Annie Besant and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
• National Library of Australia, Canberra ACT, Australia.
  • Cooper Theosophy Collection Library and papers of an Australian theosophist and lecturer, John Cooper (1930–1998), including materials on the history of Theosophy in Australia, life of H.P. Blavatsky, J. Krishnamurti, and the Liberal Catholic Church in Sydney.
    • Papers of John Cooper, 1884-1997 (manuscript)
    • John Cooper's book collection

Private archives and historical societies

• Kauai Museum, Lihue, Hawai'i has the Augustus Knudsen Archive. Photos of Augustus Francis Knudsen have been uploaded into Wikimedia Commons.

• Krotona Archive. Joseph E. Ross collected a vast number of letters, documents, artifacts, films, photographs, and audiovisual recordings that he maintains in a private archive.

• Guide to the Paul Kagan Papers, 1911-1971 Collection MS 3121, California State Historical Society. Paul Kagan collected materials about utopian communities including Krotona, Point Loma, and the Halcyon People's Temple, for his book New World Utopias.

• LightEn is an educational foundation, founded by Christopher & Kylie Hohn. The Theosophical Society in England and Wales, in the process of selling its London headquarters at 50 Gloucester Place, has transferred its books, pamphlets, serials, and the Blavatsky Library as a loan to this organization, which is heavily engaged in its preservation and digitization. A dedicated website for the TSEW library will be launched in fall 2026. Access to the physical collection in London is held by appointment – please contact mailto:[email protected] for more information. Two hundred boxes of archival records of the TSEW remain at Gloucester Place as of May 2026.

• Lomaland Theosophy Collection, Humanities Hub. This collection interfaces with the Kenneth R. Small Lomaland archival collection that was held in the Department of Special Collections at the San Diego State University Library, but has been returned to Ken Small. The Lomaland collection contains books and periodicals from the Lomaland Theosophy Community in Point Loma, San Diego (1897-1942). The Lomaland Community, founded by Katherine Tingley, was known for its emphasis on the creative arts and education, with its Raja Yoga School its central focus. This growing collection contains a broad range of books and periodicals from Theosophy and writings from the Perennial Wisdom Traditions. Also incorporated are the writings of its key figures, Katherine Tingley and G. de Purucker, and central Lomaland authors Kenneth Morris, Talbot Mundy, Osvald Siren, William E. Gates, and W. Y. Evans-Wentz. >> LIST SUB-COLLECTIONS

Other links

• Online Archive of California lists 39 collections in California that touch upon Theosophy.
  • Guide to the Temple of the People Collection at David Allan Hubbard Library Archives, Fuller Seminary, Pasadena, California. 1903-2011. Identification: CFT00122.

Additional Resources

Articles

• The TS Archives: Bringing History into the Present by Janet Kerschner