Paul Brunton

Paul Brunton
Born
Hyman Abraham Isaacs; Hyman Raphael Hurst

(1898-10-21)October 21, 1898
DiedJuly 27, 1981(1981-07-27) (aged 82)
OccupationAuthor, Journalist, Bookseller
LanguageEnglish
NationalityBritish
Notable worksA Search in Secret India, The Inner Reality (in USA as Discover Yourself), The Spiritual Crisis of Man
Spouse
Karen Augusta Tuttrup
(m. 1921; div. 1926)

Janina ? (Brunton)
(annulled)

Evangeline Young
(m. 1952, divorced)
ChildrenKenneth Thurston Hurst (b.1923)
ParentsReuben Isaac Hurst
Fanny Kosofsky

Paul Brunton is the pen name and later the real name of Hyman Raphael Hurst (21 October 1898 – 27 July 1981), a British philosopher, author of spiritual books, journalist and traveler. He is best known as one of the early popularizers of Neo-Hindu spiritualism in western esotericism, notably via his bestselling A Search in Secret India (1934) which has been translated into over 20 languages.

Brunton was a proponent of a doctrine of Mentalism, or Oriental Mentalism to distinguish it from subjective idealism of the western tradition. Brunton expounds his doctrine of Mentalism in The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga (1941, new ed. 2015 North Atlantic Books), The Wisdom of the Overself (1943, new ed. 2015 North Atlantic Books) and in the posthumous publication of The Notebooks of Paul Brunton in 16 volumes (Larson Publications, 1984–88).