Miscellaneous Writings of Paul Brunton

This section contains writings of PB that were published in various places.

a) The Mystery of Evil was originally published in PB’s Essays on the Quest. The topic of evil has already been touched upon in The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, The Wisdom of the Overself , and in The Spiritual Crisis of Man. In the following essay, Paul Brunton discusses what was formerly not addressed in those texts, and what needs reinforcing that was in them. Indeed, the author goes further and asserts that not only are there visible and ordinary instruments of evil which are so apparent all around us, but also unseen ones—evil spirits, in fact.

b) Karma: The Law of Consequences was originally published in PB’s Essays on the Quest. It is a wonderful exploration of many aspects of individual and collective karma.

c) Introduction to Practical Yoga Ancient and Modern by Ernest Wood.

Published in the 1940's, Ernest Wood asked PB to write an introduction to his book which is included here.

d) Indian Philosophy and Modern Culture by Paul Brunton.

Published in 1939 by E.P. Dutton & Co. in New York and also by Rider and Company in the United Kingdom, Indian Philosophy and Modern Culture was widely read and recognized, along with Brunton's other early books, as one of the first presentations of Eastern wisdom in Western terms. This book was his dissertation, required for his Ph.D. Paul Brunton received his Ph.D. from McKinley-Roosevelt Graduate College in 1938, as can be seen on his graduate certificate.

PB dedicated his thesis to V. Subrahmanya Iyer, one of India's great philosophers, who highly regarded PB's work.

e) PB’s Research with Comments

This is a collection/selection from the PB archive that, when completed, will include well over 2000 authorities and personalities which are referenced in The Notebooks of Paul Brunton and in his unpublished material. This selection has come from a few of the nearly 200 files we have of PB's work! At the end of each selection is an archival reference identifier for its location in the PB archive. Additional biographical information has come from a number of sources including Wikipedia. The present file now includes references "A" through "R", and we are updating it regularly with new entries in the "A" through "R" section as well as filling out the remaining alphabetical list. (If you have looked at this file before, you might have to refresh your browser to see the updated file.)

What many people who have read PB are unlikely to know is that he researched extensively the writings of others. His recommended reading list would fill a small library!

(These pages are based on the copyrighted Wikipedia material; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.)

f) A Message from Arunachala by Paul Brunton

This book, written in 1936, only two years after A Search in Secret India, shows several changes in PB’s writing, and is a “prequel” to The Notebooks of Paul Brunton, for here we discover his natural writing style—a style he called ‘paras,’  which are short paragraphs or sometimes a simple sentence containing a single point or intuition, written down as they came to him in the course of his daily life.  Here he speaks for Mount Arunachala as well as for himself, even as so many other mystics have used the metaphor of a mountain to express something of their journey and their vision.  That he has chosen this austere mountain long associated with yogic asceticism and more recently the famed home of Sri Ramana Maharshi is fair warning for the message to come.

PB moves back and forth between critical analysis and mystical reverence throughout this book.  Some chapters—“The Hill” and “Solitude and Leisure,” for example—are uplifting reflections on the fruits of the inner life.  Other chapters, like those on Politics, Business, and Society, are sharp criticisms of life in the modern world.  While these criticisms are indeed harsh, they are nonetheless true.  If we are made uncomfortable  by these words, we should consider them all the more seriously, if we ourselves mean to be serious about our mystical pursuits, for PB is writing from that viewpoint here—the viewpoint of the meditator, withdrawn from the world, seeing it as though from atop a sacred mountain, where one must abide betimes, until the fulfillment of that practice sends one down into the world again. 

g) My Tour among the Yogis is an article and autobiographical sketch that PB wrote for the London Forum in 1934 just after the appearance of his very popular A Search in Secret India. He reveals some little-known personal details about growing up in London.

h) Early Essays, Book Reviews, and a Poem by Paul Brunton were published in The Occult Review (London) from 1919 to 1936. These seven pieces give us an interesting glimpse of the young PB.

i) Recommended reading list created by PB

j) Introduction to Fundamentals of Yoga: A Handbook of Theory, Practice, and Application by Dr. Rammurti S. Mishra.

k) Short teaching on "Mentalism" in response to a questioner at Wisdom's Goldenrod, 1977.

l) A Traveller's Impressions of Hindu-Buddhist Ruins in Cambodian China is an article that PB wrote for Bharata-Kaumdi, published in 1945.

m) Bhikkhu Ananda Metteya: A Pioneer Western Buddhist is an article that PB wrote about his teacher and friend Allan Bennett for Ceylon Daily News, published in May, 1941.

n) Hitler's Spiritism and the German People is an essay that we think PB wrote around the end of World War II about Hitler and his alliance with evil occult forces.

o) Mankind and the World Picture Paul Brunton wrote this article that was intended to be a preface for Martinus’ book Mankind and the World Picture. It was later published in the English edition of the Martinus Institute’s magazine Kosmos no. 4, 1990. More information about Martinus is located in the Links page.

p) Paul Brunton's contributions to "The Occult Review," later titled The "London Forum", 1919-1936. PB was a prolific contributor to this periodical!