Stephan Hoeller was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1931 into a family of Austro-Hungarian nobility. Exiled from his native country as the result of the communist rule subsequent to World War II, he studied in various academic institutions in Austria, Belgium, and Italy. In 1952 he immigrated to the United States and has resided in Southern California ever since. In the early 1970's he became first associate professor and later head of the Department of Comparative Religions at the College of Oriental Studies in Los Angeles, a position he held for fifteen years. He also taught special courses at the Institute for the Study of Religion (East and West) at the University of California at Los Angeles. He is author of five books, all published by Quest Books: The Royal Road; The Gnostic Jung and Seven Sermons to the Dead; Jung and the Lost Gospels; Freedom: Alchemy for a Voluntary Society, and Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing. He has been a frequent contributor to Gnosis Magazine in which he wrote a popular column entitled "Alternative Realities." He has also written for Quest Magazine and for professional journals. Dr. Hoeller has lectured in Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Iceland, Germany, and the United States. Since 1972 he has lectured on a weekly basis at the Philosophical Research Society and teaches at the recently founded Philosophical Research Society University Project. He has been director of studies at the Gnostic Society in Los Angeles since 1963, as well as a bishop of the Ecclesia Gnostica, a church of Gnostic descent. He was ordained to the Gnostic priesthood in 1958 and to the episcopate in 1967. For over twenty years, Dr. Hoeller has been sharing his wisdom in weekly talks recorded at the Los Angeles Gnostic Society. His subjects range over the entire scope of Western inner traditions, emphasizing Jungian psychology and gnosis, the ancient premise that we can experience direct knowledge of transcendent reality. These talks have been recorded onto cassette tapes and made available to the general public for purchase.
