S10-E5 – GRS Mead and CG Jung-Paulina Gruffman

Thoth-Hermes Podcast

Welcome to Episode Five, Season Ten of the Thoth-Hermes podcast. This brings us the opportunity to join Rudolf in conversation with Paulina Gruffman, on the subject of GRS Mead. Paulina is a nascent luminary in occult scholarship, currently at PhD candidate at Sweden’s Lund University. Paulina’s academic rooting began with reading CG Jung in her mid-teens. The relationship between Mead and Jung is explored in-depth during this episode. Paulina notes that Jung cited Mead in his own doctoral dissertation, holding dialogue and friendship with him during the development of his own career; 20 of Mead’s books are currently held in the Jung Archive. Paulina speaks as a focused and nuanced researcher, in a long-term journey of examining the entirety of George Robert Stow Mead. She details and distinguishes his pursuits as all three of an occultist, theosophist, and a highly capable “amateur” academic. She acknowledges the critique his work has received from 20th Century academics, undercutting his capability as “amateur” from a dismissive definition of the term. Paulina reminds us that while Mead was an informal academic, and in this sense amateur, he was also amateur as a fully capable Cambridge-educated intellect. Paulina also shares openly regarding her own academic development. Rudolf and Paulina tackle the perennial question of academic objectivity’s tension or coexistence with personal occult practices of researchers. Paulina articulates her role primarily as a “historian” academic, and emphasizes the necessity of using primary sources and critical analysis… which do not preclude nor necessitate personal practices: a refreshing “it depends”! The conversation explores Mead’s assertion of the term “gnosis” and “gnostic” as definable apart from the associated historical movement; further, as both a staged process and a state of being. Mead’s many years and roles with the Theosophical Society (leaving in 1909) informed his conceptualization. Mead served as the final private secretary to Helena Blavatsky, a member of the Theosophical Society’s Circle of Twelve, and editor of the Theosophical Review. Paulina also details Mead’s founding of the Quest Society, and interest in the development of the (still existent) Eranos conferences.