G. R. S. Mead

UNDER CONSTRUCTION
UNDER CONSTRUCTION

James Morgan Pryse, H. P. Blavatksy, and G. R. S. Mead

George Robert Stowe Mead was an English Theosophist, scholar, and writer. He worked with Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Annie Besant in editing periodicals before he founded The Quest Society. In the words of one reviewer, Mr. Mead “was the most notable researcher with the rank and file of the Theosophical Society … he made outstanding and long-lived contributions in the way of Gnostic and Hermetic literature.” Other scholars have noted that Mr. Mead would have had -- and would still have -- much higher standing in the world of academe were he not a Theosophist, but “Unhappily, academic prejudice changes exceedingly slowly in our culture.” His contributions were “dedicated, scholarly, but eminently readable studies of the spiritual roots of Christian Gnosticism and, more generally, of personal religion in the Greco-Roman world. But his work encompassed much more than this. Mead was equally at home with Sanskrit texts, Patristic literature, Buddhist thought, and the problems of contemporary philosophy and psychical research. He devoted his intellectual energy to the complex interplay of Gnosticism, Hellenism, Judaism, and Christianity.” See also Mead writings.

George Robert Stowe Mead, for many years General Secretary of the European Section, was born in 1863. His father was Col. Robert Mead, late deputy Commissioner Her Majesty's Ordnance. He was educated at King's School, Rochester, and won honors at St. John's College and at Cambridge. After three years of teaching, he entered Oxford as an undergraduate, determined upon a fellowship in philosophy. After five months hard study, he went to Clermont Ferrand, in France, where he attended lectures for six months. Previous to leaving England he had met Bertram Keightley and Mohini Mohun Chatterji, and had come in touch with Theosophy. In 1887, he met H. P. B. for the first time at Norwood, and two years later, he gave up teaching at university that he might devote his life and energies entirely to the work of the Theosophical Society. He is well known to all the members through his articles in the Theosophical Review, of which he is coeditor with Mrs. Besant, and his books, Orpheus, Plotinus, Simon Magus, Pistis Sophia, The World Mystery, and last (but decidedly not least) Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, which has just come from the press. The pressure of his literary work becoming great, Mr. Mead resigned from the office of General Secretary two or more years ago.

Early life and education

According to the alumni database at the University of Cambridge, George Robert Stow Mead was born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England, on March 22, 1863, to Robert and Mary Mead. His father, Col. Robert Mead, was an officer of the Royal Army Ordinance Corps.

George attended the King’s School in Rochester, Kent, and then St. John’s College at the University of Cambridge, where he won honors. He initially studied mathematics, then switched to Classics and received a B.A. degree in 1884. He returned several decades later and was awarded an M.A. degree in 1926.

After receiving his B.A., Mr. Mead taught school for a time. He also studied Hinduism, and his interest in spiritualism led him to a short term at the French University of Clermont-Ferrand. He became aware of the Theosophical Society through his acquaintance with Bertram Keightley and Mohini Chatterji, as well as from A.P. Sinnett’s book Esoteric Buddhism.

Theosophical Society involvement

Mead was admitted as a member of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society on January 20, 1886. He met Mme Blavatsky the following year, and by 1889 he had decided to devote himself full-time to the Theosophical Society. He became H.P.B.’s private secretary:

“When I first went to her to work permanently (1889), I was a young man of whom she practically knew nothing, except that from May, 1887 . . . when she returned to England for the last time, I spent no little of my holidays in visits to Maycott, Upper Norwood, and to 17 Lansdowne Road, Bayswater. Nevertheless, with childlike confidence, and with one of those large and eccentric gestures of hers, she handed over to me at once the keys of her desk and bookcases and tossed over, unopened, her voluminous correspondence, bidding me answer it as best I might (and “be d--d”), as she wanted all her time for writing her articles and books . . . .”

Work with H. P. Blavatsky

In addition to handling her abundant correspondence for the last three years of her life, he also edited many of her published works. According to gnosis.org, he wrote anonymously for her magazine Lucifer and was the unacknowledged assistant editor of that magazine.

In August, 1890, he became a member of H. P. Blavatsky's Inner Group in London. In 1899 Mead would marry Laura Cooper, another member of H.P.B.'s 1890 Inner Group.

The Quest Society and The Quest

Mead founded The Quest Society. He was the editor of The Quest from 1909 to 1930. It was considered to be a continuation of The Theosophical Review.

Later years

After The Quest ceased publication in 1931, Mr. Mead "still remained a member of several learned societies. Notably he took a keen interest in the recently founded Society for Promoting the Study of Religions and became a member of its Council.

Mead passed away on September 30, 1933, at his residence in London.

Writings

Mead's literary career is summarized in Mead writings.