Gottfried de Purucker Quotes

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 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 awoke 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."These experiences led him to the Theosophical Society, which he joined on August 16, 1893. The years from 1893 until 1903 were spent traveling and working, largely in Europe, before moving to Point Loma and joining the staff at Lomaland, the headquarters of the Theosophical Society, under the leadership of Katherine Tingley. Of this period, Purucker said: "all my early life, up till nearly thirty, was passed in the whirl of social and diplomatic and literary and artistic circles, in Geneva, Paris, and other European capitals and big cities. I hated this life, as you can imagine, and when the word came to me from the "Bosses" to pack up and go to Point Loma into years of retirement and training, I felt like a prisoner released from jail, and going home."From that time forward, Purucker taught classes, gave lectures and wrote several works on Theosophy. He succeeded Katherine Tingley to leadership of the Theosophical Society in 1929 and saw its operations through the great depression. In 1942, he sold the property at Point Loma and moved the headquarters to Covina, California. He died a few months later, on September 27, 1942.

His legacy includes several publications, including elucidations of the writings of Helena Blavatsky. Several additional works were also published posthumously. Wikipedia

✵ 15. January 1874 – 27. September 1942

Gottfried de Purucker: 45 quotes2 likes

Famous Gottfried de Purucker Quotes

“There is a hunger in the human heart for beauty; there is a longing in the human soul for harmony and for peace; there is an unceasing aspiration in the human mind for an understanding of the problems of the Universe; and all these qualities of heart and soul and mind are fundamentally one, arising out of that amazing spiritual fire which dwells in the inmost of the inmost of every human being, and which is a reflection in his human character of the Divine Flame which is fundamentally the Spiritual Man; and this flame is the core of his being.”

Gottfried de Purucker

The Masters and the Path of Occultism (1939)

“It will be impossible to understand death and its mysteries as long as one concentrates attention on the mere bodies or sheaths in which this ray or flame of consciousness periodically enwraps itself. It is necessary to follow the peregrinations of the consciousness per se, if a man desire to know his postmortem destiny. When a man can do this he will no longer fear death, because he will see its non-existence except as a phase of life opening into peregrinations through inner worlds and spheres, till the devachan is reached; and he will recognize death exactly for what it is, the gentlest helper and friend that a man has.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 16

“Before the lower 'occult powers' of any kind are cultivated, man must learn the first lesson of the Higher Occultism, the mystic knowledge, which is to control himself; and all powers that later he gains must be laid on the altar of impersonal service - on the altar of service to mankind.”

Gottfried de Purucker

The Masters and the Path of Occultism (1939)

“Here then is the secret: You must give yourself, if you desire to find yourself. "Give up thy life if thou wouldst live."”

Gottfried de Purucker

Give up the small life, the petty life, the mean life, the restricted life, the little personal life which shuts you in - give it up and follow the light of the Star within you.
The Masters and the Path of Occultism (1939)

“The Christmas-Festival is in one sense only, a Christian festival. It is based upon something belonging to the Greek and Roman paganism which the Christians took over. It is therefore older than Christianity. It is 'pagan,' to use the popular word.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Story of Jesus (1938), Chapter 2

“All that they have - which means all that they are - all that they have evolved to, all that they have become, they have gained by self-devised efforts in individual evolutionary growth.”

Gottfried de Purucker

The Masters and the Path of Occultism (1939)

Gottfried de Purucker Quotes about men

“They were not so created by any extra-cosmic Deity, but they are men who have become what they are by means of inward spiritual striving, by spiritual and intellectual yearning, by aspiration to be greater and better, nobler and higher. They are not what they are by any favoritism either of a god or of Fate, but have merely run ahead of the great multitude of men. There they stand; they are Helpers, they are Seers, they are Sages.”

Gottfried de Purucker

The Masters and the Path of Occultism (1939)

“Concerning the nature of the cyclical times when the great teachers either appear personally in the world of men or send a messenger, it may be stated that the greatest teachers come at the opening or close of the longest cyclical periods; the messengers or envoys are sent forth at the opening or closing of the short cycles, and the teachers or messengers of intermediate power come at the beginnings or endings of time-periods of intermediate length.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 22

“Probably there is no single doctrine of the Esoteric Tradition which makes so instant an appeal as does the idea of the present existence in the world of great sages or seers. In most minds there lies an intuition that there must be in the world human beings of far loftier spiritual capacity and of immensely more developed intellectual power than the ordinary run of men. Those who hear of this for the first time instantly turn to those luminous figures, such as Gautama the Buddha, Jesus the Syrian avatara, Apollonius of Tyana, Lao-Tse, Krishna, Sankaracharya, etc. and, among many, the first reaction is: if such great figures have already existed in the world, why should they not exist again?”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 19

“But Christianity in its doctrines has wandered widely indeed from the original thought of its great founder, for the reason that inferior men became its propagandists after the time of Jesus. While many of them undoubtedly were thoroughly sincere, some probably were intellectually insincere in the sense of attempting to impart as universal truths of nature what were the more or less vagrant ideas of their own minds — misunderstood and misinterpreted hints and flashes which they had received from the great source.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 11

“The urge behind evolution, and the objective which this urge is impelling us toward, is simply the divine hunger in the universe to grow greater. It is innate in the universe. Why this is so, no one can say. Perhaps the gods do not know. All we men can aver is that it is so.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 6

“Eternity stretches in one direction behind and in another direction in front of us, and along and within this eternity numberless multitudes of beings and entities have been evolving — and will evolve — forever. This progressive growth is continuously in action throughout universal nature — nebula or comet, star or planet, atom or electron, all exemplify it on one side of the picture; and, on the other side, gods, cosmic spirits or dhyani-chohans, men, the beasts, and all so-called animate entities.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 6

Gottfried de Purucker Quotes about time

“There is light to be had, because there is system and order in the Universe, the results of flaming intelligences and cosmic compassion, and anyone whose heart impels him to carry on the search indefatigably and with a mental refusal to take discouragement at any time, but to carry on, will receive that light.”

Gottfried de Purucker

The Masters and the Path of Occultism (1939)

“These great sages or masters have never been discouraged in their work for humanity by the fact that the body of truths which at cyclical intervals they promulgate anew would have to undergo periods of degeneration. Directed by spiritual beings even greater than they, they do this sublime work and without intermission throughout the whirling cycles of time.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 22

“It was pointed out that a messenger or envoy is sent from the Brotherhood into the world for the purpose of striking anew a keynote of spiritual truth when a sincere call comes from the heart of mankind; but it must likewise be stated that, just as Krishna points out in the Bhagavad-Gita (4:7-8), an avatara comes in times of great spiritual barrenness, when the waves of materialism are rising high.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 22

“Reincarnation comes under the more general doctrine of reimbodiment. It is the teaching that the human ego returns to earth at some future time after the change men call death... in order that the ego may learn new lessons on earth, in new times, in new environments; taking up again on this earth the old links of sympathy and of friendship, of hatred and dislike, which were apparently ruptured by the hand of death when the ego-soul left our spheres.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 2

“Indeed, this wisdom-religion was delivered to the first thinking human beings on this earth by highly-intelligent spiritual entities from superior spheres; and it has been passed down from guardians to guardians thereof until our own time. Furthermore, portions of this original and majestic system have been given out from time to time to various races in different parts of the world by those guardians when humanity stood in need of some new extension and cyclical renewal of spiritual verities.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 1

“Within a short time after the alleged crucifixion of the Master Jesus - at any rate from the time when the Christian Scriptures began to have circulation in the Mediterranean world - and all through the Middle Ages and till nearly our own days, men quarreled and fought about the documents composing the Christian New Testament, not only with regard to just what these documents had to say, but about mere words and phrases, and also as regards their age, and as regards who wrote these various Christian Scriptures.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Story of Jesus (1938), Chapter 1

Gottfried de Purucker Quotes

“The Pathway of Beauty, the Pathway of Peace and Strength, the Pathway of the Great Quiet, is within. This is the Pathway that the great Sages and Seers of all the ages have taught. Follow that Pathway. It will lead you to the heart of the Sun, the Master and Guide of our Solar System. And later, if you follow it, it will conduct you to a destiny still more sublime. Yet that sublime destiny is only the beginning, only the beginning of something grander; for evolution, growth, expansion of consciousness, go on for ever...”

Gottfried de Purucker

The Masters and the Path of Occultism (1939)

“It is one of our Theosophical duties to show men the way to wisdom, to peace, to happiness, to strength, and to spiritual power - the real powers, the powers which are safe and clean and sweet, which make a man lovable, which make him compassionate, which guarantee that power put into his hands will be wielded never for self but always in order to benefit others.”

Gottfried de Purucker

The Masters and the Path of Occultism (1939)

“Occultism, let us understand clearly, is the science and the study of the things which are invisible, secret, sacred - the study of the inner structure, operations, powers, and so-called laws, of the Universe; and Theosophy as presented today is its theoretic presentation.”

Gottfried de Purucker

The Masters and the Path of Occultism (1939)

“With each step forwards we become ever more aware that we are not alone on this pathway to the gods. Others have been over the path before us: a long procession of the greatest spirits and minds of the past ages; yet they are still our companions, because joined to us by interior spiritual bonds. They are watching over us even now.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 22

“The members of the Brotherhood are eternally alert and watchful, and are continuously acting as a Guardian Wall (to adopt the phrase of H. P. Blavatsky), around mankind, shielding it against dangers both of a cosmic and terrestrial character. Mankind little knows what it owes to the great sages and seers.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 22

“The cause of the disappearance of the Mysteries has always been degeneracy, faithlessness on the part of the students, and their lack of an imperative and heart-reaching call for light. Where there is a genuine spiritual and intellectual call issuing from both heart and mind, there invariably comes the response by way of a new installment of teaching from the Brotherhood.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 22

“The Brotherhood of great seers and sages, united in a common purpose and governed by common ideals and esoteric knowledge, has existed as an association of high adepts under the direct inspiration and guidance of their hierarch, or mahaguru, for many millions of years — certainly for not less than twelve million; in other words, since the appearance on earth of the root-race which preceded our own present fifth root-race.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 22

“It is true that some of the teachings of these ancient religions or philosophies which by many ages preceded the respective eras of Mohammedanism and Christianity are now more or less degenerate. In addition, they have been grossly misunderstood and misinterpreted by Occidental scholars.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 11

“What we may call a blind struggle for betterment in the atoms, becomes in man a self-conscious yearning to grow, to become ever more the divinity within himself, arising in a recognition, now quasi-conscious, that man is a son of the gods. This same urge becomes in the gods a divine knowledge that they are inseparable parts of the universe, and are growing to take a vaster self-conscious part in the universal labor.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 6

“Few people realize the enormous but always invisible and quiet psychological leverage that new ideas have upon human consciousness; and this is especially so with teachings of a spiritual or intellectual type. All these teachings are replete with the divine conceptions of the gods who first gave Truth to men; and this is the secret of the immense sway that Religion per se (apart from mere degenerate religions) has upon human intellect.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 2

“These two teachings once held secret, or openly promulgated in a more or less imperfect form, are examples of the manner in which from age to age when the need arises for so doing, esoteric teachings are openly developed by the Brotherhood of sages and seers. Such teachings profoundly modify civilization because they profoundly change human psychology and the spiritual and intellectual vision of mankind.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 2

“Who are these guardians? They are those whom we call the elder brothers of the human race, and are men in all senses of the word and not excarnate spirits. They are, relatively speaking, fully evolved or perfected men, who have successfully run the evolutionary race and are therefore now in point of spiritual and intellectual grandeur where we shall be many ages hence.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 1

“There can be but one truth, and if we can find a formulation of that truth in logical, coherent, and consistent form, obviously we then can understand those portions of it equal to our capacity of comprehension.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 1

“You cannot express universal powers, you cannot manifest the divinity within you (because that divinity is entirely impersonal) if your mind and heart are restricted and imprisoned by your personal desires. You must expand your nature and open it in order to let the sunlight of the spirit stream in to you. Therefore self-forgetfulness and impersonality mean the gaining of wisdom and great and holy power.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Story of Jesus (1938), Chapter 3

“Every one of these great Sages and Seers, whether he was the Buddha-Gautama of India, or Lao-Tse of China, or Sankaracharya of India again, or Jesus, or Empedocles, or Pythagoras, or Apollonius of Tyana: any one of the numerous host of them all taught the same fundamental doctrines which therefore were identical.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Story of Jesus (1938), Chapter 3

“Jesus the Syrian Avatara did not teach anything new. What he did was to point once again to the old, old Pathway to the spiritual life: the Pathway to wisdom and spiritual power. And he told his followers how and what they might achieve by following this Pathway, so that ultimately they could become such as he was - such as he was so far as wisdom and power went; for in the heart of the heart of every human being there is a divinity, his own inner god, which the Christians of a mystical turn of mind today call the immanent Christ.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Story of Jesus (1938), Chapter 3

“Even as the Christ-child, in the beautiful Christian legend, is said to have been born on December 25th, so likewise was the Mithraic divinity said to have been born into human form on that same day of the year, which was the winter solstice. This day, or one a few days thereafter, has been commemorated as the birthday of other religious type-figures also.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Story of Jesus (1938), Chapter 2

“The Gospel-story is merely an idealized fiction, written by Christian mystics in imitation of esoteric mysteries of the Pagans, showing the initiation-trials and tests of the candidates for initiation; and it is not very well done, there being much error and many mistakes in the Gospels.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: The Story of Jesus (1938), Chapter 1

“Among the most momentous questions that every thinking person asks are: Where do we come from? Who are we? And where do we go at death?...It is questions like these that occur to the thinking mind when it also reflects upon the nature, origin, and destiny of the worlds which bestrew the spaces of infinitude. Whence came they? What are they? What is their destiny? They are questions which must have answers. The mere fact that these things are, shows that there are answers to be had somewhere.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: Man in Evolution (1941), Chapter 1

“Man is a mystery, a mystery to the investigating mind of the researcher into nature; but more so indeed is man a mystery to himself. Yet there is a solution of this mystery — a solution which is not new, which is older than the enduring hills.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Ch 2
Man in Evolution (1941)

“Yet the majestic philosophy-science-religion of the ages teaches us that there are beings so much greater and higher than man is, and beings so much smaller and less than he, that in reality he himself in turn stands in his world and cosmos as the one or the other of these extremes to such greater or smaller entities.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Ch 2
Man in Evolution (1941)

“This psychological phenomenon was brought about mainly by the efforts of two men... Thomas Henry Huxley and Ernst Heinrich Haeckel. Both were fervent Darwinists... These two men were exceedingly able; but they spoke with the voice of authority on subjects which they themselves, in many particulars, were merely guessing at. These conclusions are not mine alone. They are also the conclusions of many scientific researchers and thinkers of today.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Ch 3
Man in Evolution (1941)

“Evolution proceeds on three general lines: the spiritual, the mental-emotional,and the astral-vital; and the physical body is the channel through which all these in wrapped capacities, tendencies, and powers, express themselves on the physical plane, if the environment at any particular moment or at any particular passage of time be appropriate and fit for the expression of this or that or of some other such attribute, power, or faculty.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Ch 10
Man in Evolution (1941)

“The combination of these two — the inner urge, the drive, and a fit and appropriate environment or field— means the evolving, the coming out into manifestation, the expression, of those inner forces or powers.As is evident, this includes a far wider and vaster conception of evolution than any that has hitherto been entertained in the ranks of scientific researchers.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: Man in Evolution (1941), Chapter 10

“The strength of the doctrine of reincarnation lies in itself, in its appeal to our intellectual and logical faculties, in its own persuasiveness, in the manner in which it answers problems, in the hope that it gives, in the light that it sheds upon collateral questions of human life, and indirectly upon the problems of the physical world surrounding us. It is through and by reincarnation as a natural fact, that we learn the beauty of the inner life and thereby grow, developing a larger comprehension, not only of ourselves, but of the loveliness inherent in the harmony of the universal laws. For there is back of all things beauty, and bliss, and truth.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Source: Man in Evolution (1941), Chapter 10

“The psychology of the times following the publication of Darwin's works was so strong that most thinking men could not then be brought to admit that there were any alternative explanations of the phenomena of progressive development in life — human, animal, or plant life — to the scheme of transformism which he set forth.”

Gottfried de Purucker

Ch 3
Man in Evolution (1941)

“It is a question of relativity. In order to understand it more clearly we must cleanse our minds of old ideas instilled into us by false education, both religious and scientific, and philosophic too”

Gottfried de Purucker

Ch 2
Man in Evolution (1941)

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