In December 1885 the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in London, England, published a 200-page report by Richard Hodgson. The report is perhaps best known for its denunciation of H P Blavatsky as an impostor, and is often quoted in encyclopaedias, reference books, and biographical works. In April 1986 the SPR Journal, 'in the interests of truth and fair play', published a critical analysis of the Hodgson Report by handwriting expert Vernon Harrison, who found it 'riddled with slanted statements, conjectures advanced as fact or probable fact, uncorroborated testimony of unnamed witnesses, selection of evidence and downright falsity'. Dr Harrison, a professional examiner of questioned documents, continued his research, including a line-by-line examination of 1,323 colour slides of the Mahatma Letters, and in a second monograph (1997) concluded that 'the Hodgson Report is even worse than I had thought'. H P Blavatsky and the SPR combines both of Dr. Harrison s papers together with his Opinion, Replies to Criticism, formal Affidavit, and 13 full-colour plates of sample pages from the Mahatma and Blavatsky letters.

"H. P. Blavatsky and the Society for Psychical Research (SPR): An Examination of the Hodgson Report of 1885" is a book that was written by Vernon Harrison and was published in 1997 by the Theosophical University Press. The book focuses on the Russian theosophist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891). In 1885, Blavatsky's demonstrations of supernormal phenomena were dismissed as fraudulent in a report published by the Society for Psychical Research. The society was based in London, England. The 1885 report dealing with the issue was referred to as the Hodgson Report. Harrison argues in his book that there were serious flaws in the report. The Theosophical Society, headquartered in Pasadena, California, provides the full text of Harrison's book online.

Helena P. Blavatsky (1831-1891) is widely celebrated as the leading esoteric thinker of the nineteenth century who influenced an entire generation of artists and intellectuals and introduced Eastern spirituality to the West. Until now, however, readers have been able to know this fascinating woman only through her public writings. Few may have realized that H.P.B. was also a tireless correspondent with family and colleagues, friends and foes, the learned and the simple. Her personal correspondence reveals for the first time the private H.P.B. in all of her sphinx-like complexity rarely visible in her published material. This unparalleled offering contains all known letters H.P.B. wrote between 1860 and the time just before she left for India in 1879. Meticulously edited by John Algeo, former President of the Theosophical Society in America and current Vice President of the international Society, the volume also contains letters to and about Blavatsky, articles, and editorial commentary.

World traveler and student of religions, Blavatsky was among the first to bring Eastern wisdom to the West. Her writings excited such luminaries as W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Gustav Mahler. Here are first-handed accounts of her colorful life by family, friends, and enemies.

Sixteen years and a half have gone since Helena Petrovna Blavatsky passed away from this mortal world. Yet attacks are still made upon her veracity, upon her character, and good and sympathetic men still turn away from the Theosophical Society with: "Oh! I do not care to belong to it; it was founded by Mme. Blavatsky, who was convicted of fraud by the Psychical Research Society." The articles which defended her at the time have long been out of print, and are forgotten; Dr. Hodgson, the writer of the S. P. R. report, became a believer in phenomena far more wonderful than those which he denied in his youthful self-confidence, and also became himself the victim of misrepresentation and ridicule. The large circulation of Mme. Blavatsky's priceless works, the spread of the ideas which she spent her life in learning and teaching, the growth of the Theosophical Society which she founded at the orders of her Master, and with the aid of her colleague.