The Indo-Pacific Federation of the Theosophical Society had its beginnings when an initial conference near Sydney, Australia, held on December 31, 1959 to January 8, 1960, hosted by the Australian Section under the leadership of Helen Zahra.

The initiative to form the federation was not followed up until 1976 at the initiative of Elaine Murdoch of Australia which resulted in another preliminary conference being held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

This resulted in the holding of the inaugural conference of the Indo-Pacific Federation in Jogjakarta on August 4 – 6, 1978, attended by delegates from Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines and Singapore chaired by the International President, John B.S. Coats.

The Federation covers countries from Pakistan in the West and Fiji in the East, with no north/south limit. Its constitution stipulates that each member country will contribute 1% of its member’ dues to the Federation.