Emily Sellon Memorial Library

Monday through Friday 

1:00 P.M-5:00 P.M 

(Inside Quest Bookshop entrance upstairs)

212-753-3835

Those who are not New York Theosophical Society members can visit our Library and use it for research purposes but cannot borrow books.  If you are in need of very specific information for your research, we recommend you call the Library in advance so the librarian can have the material available for you when you arrive. 

Membership in the Library is free for members in good standing of the New York Theosophical Society. Members may borrow up to three books at a time for a period of three weeks. Materials may be renewed unless reserved by another patron.

Members will be charged twenty-five cents per day per book for overdue books.  Lost books will be charged at the replacement cost plus a $10 fee for processing.

Our collection includes nearly 8,000 book titles and contains a wide range of materials including texts, journals, and study guides on:

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• theosophy

• religion and philosophy

• meditation and healing

• death and dying

• yoga

• science and spirituality

• and more

The collection is available to scholars, writers, researchers and students.

The origin of our Library goes back to 1933. Emily Sellon catalogued and worked out the system of classification now in use by the Library. Emily Sellon, in honor of whom the library is named, was a great lover of books, and after her retirement from this post she and her husband, John Sellon, sustained her vision of maintaining such a collection through a generous endowment which has allowed the Library to become a major resource for material relating to the work of the Theosophical Society.

Research on Theosophy and related fields of Esotericism, Religion, Philosophy and Science. The Library maintains one of the best collections of the works of H.P. Blavatsky and related Theosophists on the East Coast, and is strong in areas of Gnosticism, Hermetica, Parapsychology, and the Healing Arts. 

When the local branch was rechartered in 1897 as the NY Theosophical Society an effort was made to create the nucleus of such a Library. The purpose of the Library is to enlarge concepts and stimulate thought. The Library has on its shelves many books containing imaginative notions and even errors of fact issued as private revelations. We urge readers to decide for themselves what is realistic, scientific and impersonal.