Peter Dunoff - Beinsa Douno

Peter Dunoff (1864–1944), also known by his spiritual name Beinsa Douno, and often called the Master by his followers, was a Bulgarian philosopher and spiritual teacher who developed a form of Esoteric Christianity known as the Universal White Brotherhood. Peter Dunoff was born in the village of Hadardja (now Nikolaevka in Suvorovo Municipality) near Varna, Bulgaria on July 11, 1864, the third child of Konstantin Dunoffsky and Dobra Atanasova Georgieva. Dunoff attended secondary school in Varna and the American Methodist School of Theology and Science in Svishtov, from which he graduated in 1886. He worked as a primary school teacher for a year before leaving for the United States, where he studied theology at Drew Theological Seminary in Madison, New Jersey, from 1888 to May 1892. After graduating from Drew, in the fall of 1892 he enrolled in the Boston University School of Theology and obtained his degree in June 1893 with a thesis on "The Migration of the Germanic Tribes and Their Christianisation" (published in 2007). He was a regular student at the School of Medicine of Boston University for a year, before returning to Bulgaria in 1895. Upon his return to Bulgaria Dunoff was offered the position of a Methodist pastor in the city of Yambol. This offer was withdrawn after he stipulated he would only serve without remuneration. In 1896 he published Science and Education, in which he analyzed the development of mankind into a new culture, which he thought was bound to take place during the forthcoming century. After the turn of the century, Dunoff began to travel throughout Bulgaria for several years, giving talks and undertaking phrenological research. He met with a wide circle of people. Among them were his first three disciples, who had belonged to different branches of Christianity – Todor Stoimenov (Eastern Orthodox), Dr. Mirkovich (Catholic) and Penyu Kirov (Protestant). After a long correspondence, all of them met in Varna during 19–23 July 1900. It is considered the first annual convention of what later became a spiritual community that lasted until the end of Dunoff's life. Dunoff eventually settled in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, and began giving lectures. In 1914, he gave his first public lecture, Behold, the Man! (Ecce Homo in Latin), published later in the series Power and Life. Dunoff began to give regular Sunday lectures which were based on the elaboration and explanation of a Biblical passage.