Robert Lawlor


Robert Lawlor was an American mythographer, symbologist and New Age author of several books.

Life and career

Robert Lawlor was born in Schenectady, New York on August 11, 1938.
After training as a painter and a sculptor, he became a yoga student of Sri Aurobindo and lived for many years in Puducherry, where he was a founding member of Auroville. In India, he discovered the works of the French Egyptologist and esotericist, R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, which led him to explore the principles and practices of ancient sacred science.
Between 1965 and 1968, Robert met his wife, Deborah Lawlor. In 1972, they left Auroville for a year so Robert could study sacred geometry and read Sri Aurobindo. They came back to Auroville in 1973 until 1975.
In 1979, Lawlor participated in the Lindisfarne Fellows Conference, held at Zen Center's Green Gulch Farm, with Keith Critchlow from London. In 1980, Lawlor met together with William Irwin Thompson and Rachel Fletcher to teach in the Lindisfarne Institute's Summer Program in Sacred Architecture, which provided the context for the design and building of the Lindisfarne Chapel. Critchlow's Twelve Criteria for Sacred Architecture derives from a lecture given at this time. In 1981, a gathering of about 50 members of the Lindisfarne Association met in Crestone, Colorado under the name, Homage to Pythagoras, which included Lawlor, Thompson, Fletcher, Critchlow, Christopher Bamford, Arthur Zajonc, Anne Macaulay, Kathleen Raine, Robert Bly, Joscelyn Godwin, John Michell, and Ernest McClain.
Robert Lawlor died on King Island, Tasmania on November 29, 2022, at the age of 84. His is buried alongside his third wife, author Johanna Lambert.

Published works