“I believe the most profound truths ever presented to this world are in the Sanskrit Vedas…Bernard has made  a very wide survey of nearly every branch of human culture from the earliest period to modern times. He strikes the high note of devotion to the human ideal.

…I consider membership in the Clarkstown Country Club an inestimable privilege. — Sir Paul Dukes

** Sir Paul Dukes was a member, officer and lecturer at the Clarkstown Country Club.

Sir Paul Dukes KBE (1889-1967) was a British author and MI6 officer. Born in Bridgwater, Somerset, the son of a clergyman, he was educated at Caterham School in England, and Petrograd Conservative in Russia.

As a young man he took a position as a language teacher in Riga, Latvia. He later moved to St. Petersburg, where he was a secret agent in pre-revolutionary Russia. He set up elaborate plans to help prominent White Russians escape from Communist prisons and helped hundreds of them slip into Finland.

Dukes continued his use of disguises, which aided him in assuming a number of identities and gained him access to numerous Russian organizations. He joined, among others, the Communist Party, the Comintern, and the Russian secret police, the Cheka. He learned of the inner workings of top Bolshevik leaders, and passed along their plans to British intelligence authorities.

He returned to Britain a distinguished hero, and in 1920 was knighted by King George V, who called Dukes the “greatest of all soldiers.” To this day, Dukes is the only person knighted based entirely on his exploits as a spy. He briefly returned to service in 1939, helping to locate a prominent Czech businessman who disappeared after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. He was also a leading figure in introducing yoga to the Western World.

He died on 27 August 1967 in Cape Town, South Africa.