Robert Todd Carroll in his book The skeptic's dictionary (2003) wrote that Blavatsky used trickery into deceiving others into thinking she had paranormal powers.
Sergei Grigor’evich was the great grandfather of Helena Pavlovna Fadeyeva-Dolgorukaya (H.P. Blavatsky’s grandmother and also the grandmother of Count Sergei Witte) and great-great-great-grandfather of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.
The Inner West (Tarcher/Penguin, 2004) is a collection edited and introduced by Jay Kinney, including a chapter by Johnson, "Blavatsky and Her Masters."
K. Paul Johnson The Masters Revealed: Madame Blavatsky and the Myth of the Great White Lodge, SUNY Press,
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There is some dispute over whether Théon taught Blavatsky at some stage; the Mother in The Agenda says he did, Chanel et al. considers this unlikely, while K. Paul Johnson speculates in The Masters Revealed that the Theosophical adept Tuitit Bey might be based on Théon.
Sometime around 1843-1847 General Fadeyev was appointed Imperial Councillor to the Viceroy of the Caucasus (perhaps First Viceroy Count (later Prince) Mikhail Vorontsov although Blavatsky says "Woronzoff"), and the family moved from Saratov to an even more imposing castle at Tiflis.
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Both of her surviving children also became authors, Helena Blavatsky most famously as the founder of the Theosophical Society in 1875, and her sister Vera Zelihovsky as a writer of children's stories.
K. Paul Johnson suggests in his book The Masters Revealed: Madam Blavatsky and Myth of the Great White Brotherhood that the Masters that Madam Blavatsky claimed she had personally met are idealizations of certain people she had met during her lifetime.
Madame Blavatsky often referred to the founding of the Society as coming about as a result of occult direction from her teachers.