Arthur Gebhard
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ARTICLE UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Arthur Gebhard was a German-American manufacturer whose family was close to Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in the early days of the Theosophical Society.
Personal life
Arthur Heinrich Paisley Gebhard was born on December 29, 1855 at Elberfeld, Wuppertal, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. His father was Gustav Gebhard (1828-1900), a consul with manufacturing interests, and his mother was Frances Catherine Mary l'Estrange (1832-1892), known to her friends as Mary.
On December 3, 1894, he married Harriet Luise Wilhelmine Frida Adolphe Bürger in Berlin.[1] After an earlier marriage, he married a widow, Marie-Josephe von Hoesch, née von Carlowitz (b. Jan. 7, 1888; now residing in Germany), by whom he had two sons: Rollo, b. July 7, 1921, married to Hildegard Freyer (no issue); and Vidar Arthur Eward, b. Oct. 2, 1928, when his father was already 73 years of age. In 1913, Arthur Gebhard added officially to his own name that of his mother’s family, and became known as Gebhard-L’Estrange.
In 1878, Gebhard moved to the United States, representing his family's manufacturing interests in New York and Boston. He was granted citizenship on May 17, 1889. In 1913 he spent some time in Dresden on "literary work."[2]
During World War II, Gebhard was living in England. He died at Newton-Abbot on October 11, 1944.
Theosophical Society involvement
During part of that time on close friendly terms with Mohini M. Chatterjee and William Quan Judge, with whom he was in partnership for a while, publishing The Path magazine. He took active part in the Theosophical Movement, lecturing on Oriental philosophy. He frequently came to Europe to visit his relatives as well as H.P.B., and was one of the first patrons of Wagner’s musical dramas, at Bayreuth, Bavaria, recognizing their occult significance.
At one time, he fell under the influence of Mohini M. Chatterjee, who was then in a very critical mood, and drew up in collaboration with him what H.P.B. called a “Manifesto,” entitled, “A Few Words on The Theosophical Organization,” which contained a rather severe criticism of Col. Olcott for alleged despotism. H.P.B. wrote a powerful reply, embodying an outspoken defense of him, and a statement on the basic platform of the T.S. and its policies. For lack of any definite title, it has been called at some later date, “The Original Programme of The Theosophical Society,” which it unquestionably represents. Neither the challenging “Manifesto” nor H.P.B.’s Reply were published at the time. They were later issued in booklet form, with an Introduction by C. Jinarâjadâsa (Adyar: Vol. VII of the present Series), together with all pertinent historical data which form their background. As far as is known, this little “tempest in a tea-pot” eventually blew itself out, and nothing more was heard of it.
Much later in life, namely, in 1940, Arthur Gebhard published a little book entitled The Tradition of Silence, in which he paid tribute to H.P.B. and her work.