Gottfried de Purucker

Who was Gottfried de Purucker?

Gottfried de Purucker was a Theosophist, author and leader of the Theosophical Society Pasadena from 1929-1942.

Purucker's father, an Anglican minister, prepared his son for his future with the church through extensive training in language and religious studies. Purucker recalls having at age 14 translated the entire New Testament from Greek, and at age 17 having translated the Book of Genesis from the Hebrew. But he recalls having had an intuition that something was wrong with the church system he grew up in. It was when he began studying eastern religions and philosophies and Theosophy that, in his words: "I realized that the instinct of my soul had been a true one". Of the Theosophical literature, he said: "I read it avidly and studied it eagerly, and then my heart awoke, as my brain had awaked before. But now, from a study of the theosophical literature, my heart awaking, I began to realize what there was, not only in me, but in my fellows; and I said to myself: hereafter my life is consecrate to what I know to be the truth. No man can live unto himself alone; no man can tread the pathway — the still, small, old pathway — of the spiritual self within him, alone."