Max Heindel

Max Heindel, born Carl Louis von Grasshoff in Aarhus, Denmark on July 23, 1865, was a Danish-American Christian occultist, astrologer, and mystic. He died on January 6, 1919 at Oceanside, California, United States.

He was born into the noble family von Grasshoff, which was connected to the German Court during the lifetime of Prince Bismarck. The father of Max Heindel, Francois L. von Grasshoff, migrated to Copenhagen when he was a young man and married a Danish woman of noble birth. They had two sons and one daughter. The oldest of these sons was Carl Louis von Grasshoff, who later adopted the pen name of Max Heindel. The father died when the eldest son was six years of age, leaving the mother and three small children in straitened circumstances. Max Heindel's infancy was thus lived in genteel poverty. His mother's self-denial was carried to such an extreme that her small income was dedicated to private tutors for her sons and daughter, so that they might eventually take their place in society as members of the noble classes.

Heindel left home at the age of sixteen to learn engineering at the ship-yards of Glasgow, Scotland. As Chief Engineer of a trading steamer, he traveled extensively, and eventually found himself working on one of the large passenger steamers of the Cunard Line plying between America and Europe. From 1895 to 1901, he was a consulting engineer in New York City. During this time he married, the marriage being terminated by the death of his wife in 1905. A son and two daughters were born of this marriage.

In 1903, Max Heindel moved to Los Angeles, California, seeking work. After attending lectures by the theosophist C.W. Leadbeater, he joined the Theosophical Society of Los Angeles, of which he became vice-president in 1904 and 1905. He also became a vegetarian, and began the study of astrology, which he felt gave him the key to unlocking the mysteries of man's inner nature. He met his future wife Augusta Foss around this time. However, overwork and privation brought him severe heart trouble in 1905, and for months he lay at the point of death. Upon his recovery he said he was more keenly aware of the needs of humanity. He said that he spent much of the time during this illness out of his body, consciously working and seeking for the truth as he might find it on the invisible planes.

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