Victor M Mansfield

Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Colgate faculty and an ardent spiritual seeker. He attended Dartmouth College and completed graduate studies astrophysics at Cornell University in Ithaca. As a student of astrophysics he met early 1968 Anthony Damiani (1922-1984), who would become his mentor in spiritual affairs. Anthony Damiani started classes at the American Brahman Bookstore, focussing on the work of his spiritual teacher Paul Brunton, the neo-platonic duo Plotinus/Porphyry, Jung, Vedanta and astrology. In 1972 Victor and his wife, Elaine, were among the founding members of "Wisdom’s Goldenrod Center for Philosophic Studies" , where they first were students of Anthony Damiani and later became class leaders in their own right. When on Assumption day (The Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven) 1972 Victor had his first Kundalini experience in a catholic monastery, Damiani explained things to him and helped him to keep his feed on the ground. So in 1973 Victor joined the Colgate faculty with a PhD in theoretical astrophysics from Cornell University and burning interests in cosmology, computational methods, but also in the relation between science and spirituality. For thirty years he lectured astrophysics, but in his spare time, Victor became the technical wizard of the The Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation (PBPF), creating the file that was the predecessor of the searchable PB Notebook database. After Anthony’s and Paul Brunton’s death, Victor became more and more fascinated by Tibetan Buddhism and Jungian psychology. He wrote three fascinating books on the subjects and was able to present a copy of his final book, Tibetan Buddhism and Modern Science, to the Dalai Lama, two months before he died of malignant lymphoma. January 2007 he received high dose chemotherapy with a stem cell transplant for lymphoma, but still also could inspire others. In April 2008 he got as a co-recipient the Sidney J. and Florence Felten French Prize for inspirational teaching. He died 3 June 2008 after a two-year battle with leukemic lymphoma, a malignant blood disease. He was survived by his wife Elaine, their sons David and Anthony, and his mother, Virginia Pepitone.