Henry S Olcott

Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907) was an American author, attorney, and journalist who co-founded the Theosophical Society with Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in 1875 and became the first prominent Westerner to formally convert to Buddhism. He played a pivotal role in the Sinhalese Buddhist revival and the Indian Renaissance, helping to reintroduce Eastern philosophical and religious scriptures to the West. Olcott is widely recognized as a Buddhist modernist for interpreting Buddhism through a Europeanized lens.