robert sylvester de ropp (1913â1987) was an english biochemist and a researcher and academic in that field. after retiring from biochemistry, he brought other long-time personal interests to the fore, becoming a prominent author in the fields of human potentials and the search for spiritual enlightenment. ==early life== ropp was born in london, england, in 1913, the son of william de ropp (originally wilhelm von der ropp) by his marriage to ruth fisher. the ropp family had been land-owning barons in lithuania. william was of teutonic and cossack descent, and although entitled to use the title of âbaronâ, was perpetually in shaky financial circumstances. he had settled in england in 1910 and become naturalised in 1913. ropp's mother, ruth, was a daughter of albert bulteel fisher, whose brother was the academic historian herbert william fisher.ropp, robert s. de, warrior's way: a twentieth century odyssey (nevada city, ca: gateways, 1995 and 2002) ruth de ropp died in the 1918 flu pandemic.office for national statistics - death indices robert de ropp had also contracted the flu during the pandemic, and by the time he fully recovered from its ravages he was seven years old. much later in ropp's life, adeline, one of his mother's cousins, was to figure quite importantly in his development. she was the first wife of the composer ralph vaughan williams. after ropp's recovery from the flu, his father sent him as a boarder to a preparatory school, and during the school holidays he lived with various relations on his mother's side, including an aunt in leicestershire and a great aunt at salisbury. this institution, cheam school, offered the conventional curriculum of the greek and latin classics, english literature, and muscular christianity. although subsequently questioning the premises of formal religion, ropp had his first spiritual experience during his confirmation. in 1925 ropp's father, being in financial difficulties, could not pay the school fees and took him out of the school. his father also remarried, and the family went to live in the old baronial estate in lithuania. shortly after, ropp's father obtained work as an agent for an aircraft company in berlin and, taking his wife there with him, abandoned robert in the rambling ruin of the family home, where he lived with a family of latvians attached to the old ropp baronial estate. he lived a rustic existence in lithuania, left to his own devices and picking up the ways of the peasants. two years later, when he was fourteen, his father shipped him off to the semi-de
1913_births 1987_deaths Alumni_of_Imperial_College_London American_spiritual_writers Fourth_Way Psychedelic_drug_advocates Psychedelic_drug_researchers