Philip Rose

Ancient Wisdom

Philip Rose

Philip talking in 2019 about the Ancient Wisdom with his friend Cheree Bacchus and her daughter Maya.

Philip Rose (1925–2022), author of The Way, Spirit from the Well: A way of life for the modern world based on the teachings of the ancient wisdom.

Philip Rose was an artist, writer, and mystic. Born in 1925, he served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. After demob he attended the Webber Douglas School of Dramatic Art and became a professional actor.

Following the war’s end Philip fell into a tremendous depression at the state of the world. Atomic bombs had been dropped on Japan sending the world into a state of shock. The fallout cleared to reveal the Soviet Union and America facing each other with enough nuclear weapons to blow up the earth. Being a creative person with many questions, Philip began writing plays, drawing on ancient texts such as the Tao and Vedanta, in an attempt to sort out the world’s perilous situation in his own mind.

Meeting Eugene Halliday in 1950 had a profound effect. Here was a man who knew all the works Philip had been exploring and could answer his questions. He offered Philip a new way to view the world, a new understanding, which remained with him to the end of his earthly life.

Philip was a deep sea yachtsman, who sailed over 30,000 miles of the seas and the oceans of the world. A member of the Royal Naval Sailing Association, the Hakluyt Society and the Instow Yacht Club, he taught Navigation for many years at the Bideford School of Art. He made his own navigation instruments by hand, and wrote the practical guide, A Primer of Celestial Navigation (2006).

For ten years in the 1950s and 1960s Philip and his actress wife Elizabeth ran their own puppet theatre, writing their own plays and making all the puppets.

For forty years they also ran, with their daughter Sophia, a studio in Westward Ho!, North Devon, which featured  their own original work. This comprised paintings, drawings, and small plaster models of mythical and legendary figures which they designed and carved, together with a selection carved by Eugene. After Philip retired he continued writing, living with four generations of his family in a large 14th century house in Bideford.

Philip departed this earth peacefully in December 2022, shortly after his 97^th birthday. He had not been ill, and was working on his memoirs.

A Green Hill Far Away

Phlip Rose

Philip in 2019 talking about A Green Hill Far Away with his friend Cheree Bacchus and her daughter Maya.