Wind of The Spirit

G. de Purucker was born in 1874, in Suffern, New York, and educated in Geneva, Switzerland (where his father was for some years chaplain of the American Church), specializing in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and later, Sanskrit. In 1903 he moved to California to take up residence at the international headquarters of the Theosophical Society (Point Loma), and on the death of Katherine Tingley in 1929 became Leader of that Society.

Marked by that rare combination in a scholar of profound knowledge and dedication to truth with compassionate feeling for humanity, his expositions of the Esoteric philosophy carry that universal message so needed today and so appealing to awakened hearts and minds.

We have entered on the dim beginning of a new era already. It is the era of Western Occultism and of special and definite treatment and exposition of theories hitherto generally considered. We have to do as Buddha told his disciples: preach, promulgate, expound, illustrate, and make clear in detail all the great things we have learned, that is our work, and not the bringing out of surprising things about clairvoyance and other astral matters, nor the blinding of the eye of science by discoveries impossible for them but easy for the occulist. The Master’s plan has not altered. He gave it out long ago. It is to make the world at large better, to prepare a right soil for the growing out of the powers of the soul.

This is a century of turmoil. Civilization, so-called discoveries in science and medicine, techniques for comfortable living, have not brought an end to almost universal towards purpose, without real meaning or uplift. Protest against all this explosively apparent and growing, but the protestors offer no constructive program to replace what they would destroy.

Wind of the spirit, first published in 1944, and relevant then because of the flames of hate and war and general disruption wracking our globe, is today even more germane to the world situation: for men are at long last wearying of palliatives which fall short of promised intentions; they are groping for ideas that ring with the sober sound of basic truth and are of practical applications. Perhaps this is a time when they will listen attentively to All is an expression of law, of order. There is purpose in the very fabric and engineering of the universe; there is meaning in the smallest event in the life of every being. We are responsible for what we think and what we do. Escape. And further, we are not animal human beings, but because we are of divine origin we are embryo gods, with an opportunity to see the pathway ahead of us and to tread it knowingly and purposively on the long evolutionary march towards spiritual attainment.

We may apply quote from the Compilers’ preface of the first edition of this volume:

“That which is stirring through the world Dr. de Purucker has called the wind of the Spirit which, following upon Karmic act and consequence, will topple over what is evil and protect what is good and in the in the end bring healing. The grand teachings of Theosophy concerning Man and the Universe, declaring their origin, composition, structure, and destiny, are part of this great onrushing wind forcing us towards a regaining of moral health and spiritual sanity. And the work of the Theosophical Movement spear-pointing spiritual sanity this effort is today for both individual and nation indeed of fateful moment.

“The phrase, WIND OF THE SPIRIT, carries with it the gravity of an admonition, yet the buoyant song of a new hope. For this reason it is chosen by the Compilers as the title of this volume.” As in the first edition, we should add a word about the extempore nature of the contents of this volume . It should be appreciated by the reader that as his eye sees the words, his ear should hear them. They should be considered not as written but as spoken words. For they were the outpouring, mostly from the public lecture platform, in response to some question needing answer, some problem presented from the audience, some plea from one truth-hungry. They are answers to such appeals and arose from the urgency of the moment.

For historical interest, a Memorandum at the end of this volume lists the talks under the years in which they were given, though in some instance the only date known is that of their publication in The Theosophical Forum.

The eight public addresses included in the original edition are not given here. They are historically of importance as recording the character and substance of material chosen by Dr. de Purucker for public presentation. As such they may well be later incorporated in a volume that gathers others of these together and thus should make an invaluable contribution to theosophical literature.