Here one of the books that I have of my favorite writer/spokeman.
Hobart Lorenz Gottfried von Purucker was born on 15 januari 1874 as the son of a Anglican minister. After a severe illness, Gottfried moved to Genève where he learned various languages: English, Greek, Hebrew, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Anglo-Saxon. At the age of 14 he translated the New Testament from Greek as a birthday present for his father.
However he was expected to follow up his father, he realized quite soon that being a minister wasn’t what he wanted. After reading a translation of the Upanishads, he learned himself Sanskrit and started to travel throught he United States of America where he was introduced to Theosophy.
On 16 august 1893 he became a member of the Theosophical Society and met co-founder William Quan Judge who gave lessons in Helena Petrovna Blavatsky’s “The Secret Doctrine” (also reviewed in these pages).
Back in Europe in 1895 he met the Theosophical leader Katherine Tingly on her world-tour.
The following two years where spent in south America and after a few years of living in Paris, GdeP (as he is usually called) joined the Theosophical staff in the Point Loma Headquarters. Since then he accompanied Tingly on most of her journeys and got to work very close to her. This was the start of a swift Theosophical career. He was leader of the Society from 1929 to 1942 and lead the ‘esoteric section’ for many years as well.
Soon it was shown that GdeP had the great gift of being able to not only understand “The Secret Doctrine” and other occult writings very well, but to explain them quite clearly for the common man. This becomes very clear in his writings and lectures (most of his books are actually lectures collected after his death).
“Foundation Source Of Occultism” (cover of my Dutch copy above) is supposed to be “a modern presentation of ancient, universal wisdom based on the Secret Doctrine of H.P. Blavatsky”. A work spanning half of the size of the original SD (Secret Doctrine), but much more structed, easier to understand and a lot easier to read. Still it contains a gigantic amount of information and subjects, varying from the origins of the universe, evolution through the seven spheres, the circulations after death and the death of planets to Avataras (divine incarnations), Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and various other religions and philosophies, intitiation, equinoxes and solstices, science and much, much more.
I use the works of GdeP as reference, because the recent printings have a huge index in which the numerous subjects are easy to be found. The many references to the SD are also very easy to try and understand this grand-work better.
There are more works available of GdeP, such as the Occult Dictionary (very helpfull), the Four Sacred Seasons, Man and Evolution, Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy (another great work), Aspects of Occultism (dito), Studies in Occult Philosophy, Golden Precepts of Esotericism and more.
Enigmatic titles, not? Good to scare visitors secretly sneaking through your bookcase. The works aren’t even a bit dark though, all very clear, good to read with GdeP’s scientific approach of occultism and most of all: extremely interesting.