Michael Gomes has spent the past forty years researching the life of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the Russian -American esotericist who helped awaken American interest in alterative spirituality. Gomes, the author of six books and over fifty articles on Blavatsky and her circle, is a recipient of Columbia University's Herman Ausubel Memorial Prize for achievement in History. He spent a number of years in India researching at the archives of the International headquarters of the Theosophical Society. He is Curator of the Emily Sellon Memorial Library in New York.