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The first time I ran into the name of Zorab was when I found that correspondence between him and Willy Farwerck is the Dutch Royal Library. A “parapsychologist”. Recently, I ran into Zorab again, when I was looking on information on the Denier van der Gon family. A member of this family had been, just as Zorab before him, one of the editors of a parapsychological periodical. So who was this Zorab?

Some of the histories of Theosophy in the Netherlands quote a letter of Piet Meuleman, the medium around whom Theosophy in this country set off. Meuleman wrote (translated from Dutch):

Very soon after my arrival at Amsteldijk 76, Mr. J. v. Manen, then 19 years old, joined us, followed by Ms. Dijkgraaf, Mr. Hallo, Ms. Buekers, Ms. Kerdijk, Mr. and Ms. Denier v.d. Gon, Ms. Waller, while Mr. v. Ginkel, first as a trainee of the nautical college, spent his days off and vacations with us and later became a resident of the Headquarters.

We are talking about “very soon” after 1896. This quote is interesting, because it contains a few names of people whom would influence Farwercks life considerably. It did get me thinking though. Meuleman refers to a 19-year-old J. v. Manen en later mentions that other temporary residents were usually young as well. Moreover, one name (or actually two) raised problems.

I have suggested a few times that Hermann Wirth could have been one of the inspirations for Farwerck’s interest in ‘things Germanic’.

Hermann Felix Wirth was born in Utrecht, the Netherlands on 6 May 1885, four years before Farwerck. His father was a German who, as Wirth would become, was a musicologist and ‘Germanist’. Wirth’s mother was from Utrecht. His mothers maiden name Roeper was sometimes added to Hermann’s last name.

Wirth studied Dutch language, ‘Germanism’, history and music and graduated in Utrecht. In 1909 (age 24) he became a professor for Dutch language in Berlin. He would keep ties to the Netherlands with organising historic music concerts from 1910 on and an occasional lecture about historical music.

This should suffice to say that it is highly unlikely that it was Wirth who inspired Farwerck to study ‘Germanism’. Even though he had studied it, I have no indication that Wirth published anything in this vein or lectured about such subjects.