I was about eight years old when the name Cyril Scott registered with me. My maternal grandfather had been a theosophist and was acquainted with some of C.S.'s works, and so from an early age my mother had been familiar with these teachings. Moreover, Mr Mehta, an old family friend and theosophist, had acted as an elder brother or mentor to my mother from early womanhood. From all accounts he was a fine and noble soul who had introduced my mother to a wider range of C.S.'s writings and other occult and esoteric works. From childhood my sister and I had been introduced by our mother to cider vinegar, crude black molasses, other health foods and alternative medicines, as advocated by C.S. in his publications.

Theosophy literally means ‘Divine Wisdom’, from the Greek theosophia: theos, divine; and sophia, wisdom. It may be described as the science of invisible forces. It is the synthesis of philosophy, science and religion – a seeking of knowledge of the Divine Principle, of man's relations to it and nature's manifestations of it. Reincarnation, karma and spiritual evolution are central to theosophy. Theosophy teaches universal brotherhood and the divinity of man. It is a knowledge of ‘being’ at all levels, which governs the evolution of the physical, astral, psychical and intellectual constituents of nature and of man. This ageless wisdom is synonymous with everlasting truth.

Mr Mehta was a great admirer of C.S. and had been in correspondence with him for many years. So when it was decided that I should be sent to boarding school in England, Mr Mehta wrote to C.S. asking if he could help a dear friend find a suitable preparatory school for her only son. He must have agreed.

By way of brief family background, my paternal grandfather left his home in Yazd in the 1890s, at the age of sixteen, to make a new life and seek his fortune in India. Yazd, an ancient city in the centre of Persia, was always a stronghold of the ancient Zoroastrian religion. On both sides of the family we had always been Zoroastrians – the only religion in the world that does not take converts. My grandfather had come from a poor rural background and died in Calcutta in 1969, having accumulated a self-made fortune through various business enterprises, beginning with a chain of provisions stores.