George Robert Stowe Mead's Biography(Books)(Photos)

George Robert Stowe Mead (1863–1933) was an author,
editor, translator, esotericist, and an influential member

As of February 1909 George Robert Stowe Mead and some

of the Theosophical Society as well as the founder of the
Quest Society.

seven-hundred members of the Theosophical Society's British
Section resigned from the Theosophical Society in protest of

Annie Besant's reinstating of Charles Webster Leadbeater to
the Theosophical Society. Leadbeater had been a prominent

George Robert Stowe Mead was born at Neneaton, Warwickshire,

member of the Theosophical Society in 1906 until he was met
with allegations of teaching masturbation under the guise of

England on the 22nd of March 1863. He was born to Colonel
Robert Mead, an Officer in the British Army and to Mary

occult training to the sons of some American Theosophists.
While this prompted Mead's leave of the society his

Mead, who had receivied a traditional education at Rochester
Cathedral School.

frustration at the dogmatism of the Theosophical Society may
have been a major contributor to his breaking with the

society. He had been a member for twenty-five years.
The Quest Society

Having shown academic potential George Mead began studying

In March of 1909 Mead founded the Quest Society, composed of

mathematics at St John's College, Cambridge. Eventually
shifting his education towards the study of Classics he

150 defectors of the Theosophical Society and 100 other new
members. Very intentionally this new society was planned to

gained much knowledge of both Greek and Latin. In 1884 he
completed a bachelor of arts degree, in the same year he

be an undogmatic approach to the comparative study and
investigation of religion, philosophy, and science. The

also began to practice the position of public school
master.

Quest Society had lectures at Kensington Town Hall in
central London but its most focused effort was in its

publishing of The Quest: A Quarterly Review which ran from
1909-1931 with many contributors.

While still at Cambridge University Mead read Esoteric

Influence

Buddhism by Alfred Percy Sinnett, this comprehensive
theosophical account of the eastern religion prompted Mead

Among notable names influenced by G.R.S. Mead there can be
found: Ezra Pound, W.B. Yeats, Hermann Hesse, Kenneth

to contact two theosophists in London named Bertam Keightly
and Mohini Chatterji which eventually led him to join the

Rexroth, and Robert Duncan. Carl Gustav Jung was also
influenced by George Mead, himself owning at least eighteen

Theosophical Society.

of Mead's books.

Mead became a member of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's
Theosophical Society in 1884. He abandoned his teaching

profession in 1889 to be Blavatsky's private secretary and
also became a joint-secretary of the Esoteric Section (E.S.)

* Simon Magus (1892)
* Orpheus (1895/6)

of the Theosophical Society, the E.S. was for those whom the
Theosophical Society deemed more advanced.

* Pistis Sophia Pistis Sophia (1896, 1921 ed).
* Fragments of a Faith Forgotten (London and Benares,

G.R.S Mead received Blavatsky's six Esoteric Instructions

1900)
* Apollonius of Tyana 1905. from which a selection

and other teachings at twenty-two meetings headed by
Blavatsky which were only attended by the Inner Group of the

* Thrice Greatest Hermes: Studies in Hellenistic
Theosophy and Gnosis, 3 Volumes (London: Theosophical

Theosophical Society. It was because of the intimacy Mead
felt with the Inner Group that he married Laura Cooper in

Publishing Society, 1906)
* The Hymns of Hermes

1899.

* The Gnosis of the Mind
* Commentary on "P?mandres"

Contributing intellectually to the Theosophical Society, at
first most interested in eastern religions he quickly became

* Introduction to Pistis Sophia
* Fragments of a Faith Forgotten (1900 1st edition); 3rd

more and more attracted to western esotericism of religion
and philosophy, particularly Neoplatonism, Gnosticism and

edition 1931 pp.241- 249 introduction to Marcion
* Gnostic John the Baptizer: Selections from the Mand?an

Hermeticism though his scholarship and publications
continued to engage with eastern religion. Making many

John-Book (1924)
* Did Jesus Live 100 BC?

contributions to the Theosophical Society's Lucifer as joint
editor he eventually became the sole editor of The

* Address read at H.P. Blavatsky's cremation
* Concerning H.P.B.

Theosophical Review in 1907 (as Lucifer was renamed in
1897).

* Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition