Kirsten van Gelder - A Most Unusual Life: Dora van Gelder Kunz: Clairvoyant, Theosophist, Healer

D ora van Gelder Kunz was my aunt, my fathers sister, and so I knew her very well. Dora was at once a simple and a complex person. She was simple in living a frugal life, paying no attention to haute couture. In later life she dressed mostly in her favorite blue blouse and nondescript skirt (she rarely wore slacks). At the same time, Dora was complex in the strength of her extremely rare type of clairvoyance that gave her insight into psychological, physical, and intellectual functioning as well as the spiritual development of human beings. I, unfortunately, have never seen an angel or a fairy, but I have no doubt that she could.

Doras greatest passion was to help everyone suffering from any type of illness. She spent her whole life doing so, though she was pragmatic enough to realize that some conditions were beyond her abilities to heal. She was a private person but loved to socialize, particularly with doctors and nurses. Perhaps unconsciously, she viewed these health professionals in a kind of hierarchy: male doctors, female doctors, psychologists, nurse practitioners, and nally, but not least, registered nurses. The RNs were actually her strongest adherents because they were on the front line of physical care.

Even though Dora was brought up as a Theosophist, she rejected the sycophancy of some of the members of the Theosophical Society as well as some of the Societys literature during the early years of the twentieth century. She thoroughly disliked Jinarajadasas First Principles of Theosophy and Leadbeaters Man: Whence, How and Whither: A Record of Clairvoyant Investigation. Both authors she knew well, yet she sought to prevent the republication of those particular works. During her terms as president of the Theosophical Society in America (TSA), she worked hard, following her husband, Fritz Kunz, to develop a greater focus on modern science and to reinvigorate theosophical research.

I once asked her whether the TSA should have disenfranchised the TS lodges in the southern United States that took a whites only position. She pursed her lips in a frequent gesture and replied, Youre right. They should have been expelled. Dora may have seen the colors of the aura, but she was adamantly opposed to any racism. Having grown up among Javanese, Chinese, Malayans, Indians, and people of mixed races, she was truly color blind.

Everyone who attended her workshops was bewildered and enthralled by her sudden bursts of gleeful mirth. The context did not matter; the audience was carried along. Still, Dora was almost tight lipped when treating HIV and cancer patients. Her concentration was so acute, and she dismissed both negative and positive predictions. What counted were the results. Dora assessed those who requested her help with her inner faculties, not as invasion of privacy, but only to discover their existential wellness of being.

Few people can claim to have spent their entire lives in altruistic commitment to the wellness of human beings and nature. Dora van Gelder Kunz was one of them, as Im pleased to say the present volume shows.

Nicolas van Gelder
January, 2015