Henry S. Olcott

Olcott is one of the two founders of the Theosophical Society. In the several volumes of this book, he has recorded the early history of the theosophical society and his travels and experiences. A fascinating record that anyone interested in the history of the Theosophical Society should read.

A founding member of the Theosophical Society, and perhaps the first well-known European to convert to Buddhism, Henry Steel Olcott made a lasting contribution with his Buddhist Catechism of 1881. Seeing Buddhism with a Westernized scientific eye, the work is given in the same question and answer structure used in the Christian Catechism. David McMahan wrote of Olcott that he "allied Buddhism with scientific rationalism in implicit criticism of orthodox Christianity, but went well beyond the tenets of conventional science in extrapolating from the Romantic and Transcendentalist influenced 'occult sciences' of the nineteenth century."

The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons is a short pamphlet by Henry Steel Olcott. It was first published in 1912 as number fifteen in the series of Adyar Pamphlets released by the Theosophical Publishing House.