Ernest Egerton Wood (18 August 1883 – 17 September 1965) was a noted English yogi, theosophist, Sanskrit scholar, and author of numerous books, including Concentration – An Approach to Meditation, Yoga and The Pinnacle of Indian Thought (1967). Youth and education Born in Manchester, England, Wood was educated at the Manchester Municipal College of Technology, where he studied chemistry, physics and geology. Because of his interest in Buddhism and Yoga, he began studying Sanskrit during his late teen years. He became president of his local Theosophist chapter in 1907 at age 24, then embraced the larger world by moving in 1908 to Adyar, India, the Society's world headquarters. Theosophy As a young man, Wood became interested in Theosophy after listening to lectures by the theosophist Annie Besant, whose personality impressed him greatly. He joined the society's Manchester lodge and in 1908 followed Besant, who had become President of the Theosophical Society Adyar, to India. Wood became one of her assistants, working with Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater, who had arrived in Adyar in 1909. Wood observed the discovery of the boy Jiddu Krishnamurti by Leadbeater, who soon declared Krishnamurti to be the vehicle for the "coming World Teacher". Wood's account of this discovery is in his autobiography, Is this Theosophy...?, published in 1936, and in two articles written after that. At Besant's suggestion, Wood became involved in education, and after 1910, he served as headmaster of several schools and colleges founded by the Theosophical Society. Wood became Professor of Physics, Principal and President of the Sind National College and the Madanapalle College, both teaching colleges of the Bombay and Madras Universities. Wood promoted theosophical ideas, conducting lecturing tours and publishing numerous articles, essays and books on a variety of theosophical subjects, among them a digest of Helena P. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine. He lectured throughout India and travelled to many countries in Asia, Europe, and the Americas, meeting the spiritual teacher Meher Baba aboard the ship Conte Rosso in April 1932. He continued to reside in India until the close of World War II, when he relocated to the United States. Wood become disillusioned about the future of the Theosophical Society and began to study the yoga classics. Following the Krishnamurti affair, which caused a splitting of the society, Wood campaigned for election to the office of president after Annie Besant's death in 1933. He was defeated by George Arundale, one