Helena Blavatsky

The "HPB" of legend, a whirlwind in a silk gown who upended the Victorian mind with the thundering pages of "The Secret Doctrine." She was the lioness of the occult, a woman who claimed to have walked the forbidden plateaus of Tibet to bring back the "Gupta Vidya"—the hidden knowledge of the ages. Why do we settle for the surface of reality when this Russian noblewoman proved that the universe is a living, breathing hierarchy of gods and masters? She remains the mother of modern esotericism, the one who tore the veil and dared us to look into the blinding light behind it.