G. R. S. Mead

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G. R. S. Mead.

George Robert Stow Mead (22 March 1863 in Peckham, Surrey[1] – 28 September 1933 in London)[2] was an English historian, writer, editor, translator, and an influential member of the Theosophical Society, as well as the founder of the Quest Society. His scholarly works dealt mainly with the Hermetic and Gnostic religions of Late Antiquity, and were exhaustive for the time period.

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Birth and family

Mead was born in Peckham, Surrey, England to British Army Colonel Robert Mead and his wife Mary (née Stow), who had received a traditional education at Rochester Cathedral School.

Education at Cambridge University

Mead began studying mathematics at St John's College, Cambridge.[3] Eventually shifting his education towards the study of Classics, he gained much knowledge of Greek and Latin. In 1884 he completed a BA degree; in the same year he became a public school master. He received an MA degree in 1926.[4]

Activity with the Theosophical Society

While still at Cambridge University Mead read Esoteric Buddhism (1883) by Alfred Percy Sinnett. This comprehensive theosophical account of the Eastern religion prompted Mead to contact two theosophists in London named Bertam Keightly and Mohini Chatterji, which eventually led him to join Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's Theosophical Society in 1884.

When in 1887 Madame Blavatsky settled in London, the young Mead joined the company of her close associates. In her circle he learned of the profound mysteries of the Gnostics and of the votaries of Hermes, soon becoming a prolific translator of Gnostic and Hermetic writings.[5] In fact, many of his translations were from other modern languages as he was not trained in Coptic.[6]

In 1889 he abandoned his teaching profession to become Blavatsky's private secretary, and also became a joint-secretary of the Esoteric Section (E.S.) of the Theosophical Society, reserved for those deemed more advanced.

Mead received Blavatsky's Six Esoteric Instructions and other teachings at 22 meetings headed by Blavatsky which were only attended by the Inner Group of the Theosophical Society. He married Laura Cooper in 1899.

Contributing intellectually to the Theosophical Society, at first most interested in Eastern religions, he quickly became more and more attracted to Western esotericism in religion and philosophy, particularly Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, and Hermeticism, although his scholarship and publications continued to engage with Eastern religion. He contributed many articles to the Theosophical Society's Lucifer (renamed The Theosophical Review in 1897) as joint editor. Mead became the sole editor of The Theosophical Review in 1907.

As of February 1909 Mead and some 700 members of the Theosophical Society's British Section resigned in protest at Annie Besant's reinstatement of Charles Webster Leadbeater to membership in the society. Leadbeater had been a prominent member of the Theosophical Society until he was accused in 1906 of teaching masturbation to, and sexually touching,[7] the sons of some American Theosophists under the guise of occult training. While this prompted Mead's resignation, his frustration at the dogmatism of the Theosophical Society may also have been a major contributor to his break after 25 years.

The Quest Society

In March 1909 Mead founded the Quest Society, composed of 150 defectors of the Theosophical Society and 100 other new members. This new society was planned as an undogmatic approach to the comparative study and investigation of religion, philosophy, and science. The Quest Society presented lectures at the old Kensington Town Hall in central London but its most focused effort was in its publishing of The Quest: A Quarterly Review which ran from 1909 to 1931 with many contributors.

Influence

Notable persons influenced by Mead include Ezra Pound, W.B. Yeats, Hermann Hesse, Kenneth Rexroth, and Robert Duncan. The seminal influence of G.R.S. Mead on Carl Gustav Jung, confirmed by the scholar of Gnosticism Gilles Quispel, a friend of Jung's, has been documented by several scholars.[8][9] The popularity of a 20th-century Theosophical or esoteric interpretation of "gnosis" and the "Gnostics" led to an influential conception among scholars of an essential doctrinal and practising commonality among the various groups deemed "Gnostic," which has been criticised by scholars such as Michael Allen Williams in his book Rethinking Gnosticism[10] and by Karen L. King[11] in recent decades.

Works

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COLLECTION

  • G.R.S. Mead: Essays and Commentaries ed. S.N. Parsons (Adeptis Press, 2016)

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ GRO index of births 1863 Q2 vol 1d page 525 Camberwell
  2. ↑ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Clare Goodrick-Clarke (eds), G. R. S. Mead and the Gnostic Quest, North Atlantic Books, 2005, p. 32.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ http://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search-2018.pl?sur=mead&suro=w&fir=George+Robert+Stow&firo=c&cit=&cito=c&c=all&z=all&tex=&sye=&eye=&col=all&maxcount=50
  5. ↑ GRS Read
  6. ↑ See the Bibliographical Note in the Dover edition of his Pistis Sophia, which states "Mead's English Translation does not derive from the original Coptic, but from the 1851 Latin translation by M. G. Scwartze, the 1895 French translation by E. Amelineau, and the 1905 German translation by Carl Schmidt."
  7. ↑ https://blavatskytheosophy.com/the-case-against-c-w-leadbeater/
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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