Charles Johnston

Charles Johnston
Charles Johnston (1867–1931) was a British writer, translator, and prominent member of the Theosophical Society. A scholar of Sanskrit, he translated several key Indian texts into English, including "The Bhagavad Gita" and "The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali." Johnston was also a strong advocate for Theosophy, contributing extensively to its literature and promoting spiritual and philosophical ideas that blended Eastern and Western thought. He wrote several influential works, including "The Memory of Past Births" and "From the Upanishads."

Author's Books:


The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are in themselves exceedingly brief, less than ten pages of large type in the original. Yet they contain the essence of practical wisdom, set forth in admirable order and detail. The theme, if the present interpreter be right, is the great regeneration, the birth of the spiritual from the psychical man: the same theme which Paul so wisely and eloquently set forth in writing... more...

I. VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. Here is an image by which you may call up and remember the natural form and appearance of Ireland: Think of the sea gradually rising around her coasts, until the waters, deepened everywhere by a hundred fathoms, close in upon the land. Of all Ireland there will now remain visible above the waves only two great armies of islands, facing each other obliquely across a channel of... more...