--- DICTIONARIES (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

theosophy ::: n. --> Any system of philosophy or mysticism which proposes to attain intercourse with God and superior spirits, and consequent superhuman knowledge, by physical processes, as by the theurgic operations of some ancient Platonists, or by the chemical processes of the German fire philosophers; also, a direct, as distinguished from a revealed, knowledge of God, supposed to be attained by extraordinary illumination; especially, a direct insight into the processes of the divine mind, and the interior relations of the divine nature.

Theosophy: (Gr., lit. "divine wisdom") is a term introduced in the third century by Ammonius Saccas, the master of Plotinus to identify a recurring tendency prompted often by renewed impulses from the Orient, but implicit in mystery schools as that of Eleusis, among the Essenes and elsewhere. Theosophy differs from speculative philosophy in allowing validity to some classes of mystical experience as regard soul and spirit, and in recognising clairvoyance and telepathy and kindred forms of perception as linking the worlds of psyche and body. Its content describes a transcendental field as the only real (approximating to Brahman, Nous, and Pleroma) from which emerge material universes in series, with properties revealing that supreme Being. Two polarities appear as the first manifesting stage, consciousness or spirit (Brahma, Chaos, Holy Ghost), and matter or energy (Siva, Logos, Father). Simultaneously, life appears clothed in matter and spirit, as form or species (Vishnu, Cosmos, Son). In a sense, life is the direct reflection of the tnnscendent supreme, hence biological thinking has a privileged place in Theosophy. Thus, cycles of life are perceived in body, psyche, soul and spirit. The lesser of these is reincarnation of impersonal soul in many personalities. A larger epoch is "the cycle of necessity", when spirit evolves over vast periods. -- F.K.

theosophy ::: n. --> Any system of philosophy or mysticism which proposes to attain intercourse with God and superior spirits, and consequent superhuman knowledge, by physical processes, as by the theurgic operations of some ancient Platonists, or by the chemical processes of the German fire philosophers; also, a direct, as distinguished from a revealed, knowledge of God, supposed to be attained by extraordinary illumination; especially, a direct insight into the processes of the divine mind, and the interior relations of the divine nature.

Theosophy: In general, a philosophical system claiming to be divine wisdom and the true knowledge of the existence and nature of the deity. Specifically, the word is used to designate the “wisdom-religion” propagated by the Theosophical Society (q.v.).

Theosophy ::: A compound Greek word: theos, a "divine being," a "god"; sophia, "wisdom"; hence divine wisdom.Theosophy is the majestic wisdom-religion of the archaic ages and is as old as thinking man. It wasdelivered to the first human protoplasts, the first thinking human beings on this earth, by highlyintelligent spiritual entities from superior spheres. This ancient doctrine, this esoteric system, has beenpassed down from guardians to guardians to guardians through innumerable generations until our owntime. Furthermore, portions of this original and majestic system have been given out at various periods oftime to various races in various parts of the world by those guardians when humanity stood in need ofsuch extension and elaboration of spiritual and intellectual thought.Theosophy is not a syncretistic philosophy-religion-science, a system of thought or belief which has beenput together piecemeal and consisting of parts or portions taken by some great mind from other variousreligions or philosophies. This idea is false. On the contrary, theosophy is that single system orsystematic formulation of the facts of visible and invisible nature which, as expressed through theilluminated human mind, takes the apparently separate forms of science and of philosophy and ofreligion. We may likewise describe theosophy to be the formulation in human language of the nature,structure, origin, destiny, and operations of the kosmical universe and of the multitudes of beings whichinfill it.It might be added that theosophy, in the language of H. P. Blavatsky (Theosophical Glossary, p. 328), is"the sub-stratum and basis of all the world-religions and philosophies, taught and practiced by a few electever since man became a thinking being. In its practical bearing, Theosophy is purely divine ethics; thedefinitions in dictionaries are pure nonsense, based on religious prejudice and ignorance." (See alsoUniversal Brotherhood)

Theosophy teaches that unity and duality, with their development as plurality in manifestation, subsist throughout the universe, every duality being comprised in a unity existing on a higher plane of being than its dual manifestation — and the duality reproducing itself in the webwork of pluralities composing the manifested universe. This is on the principle of the Pythagorean Monad producing the Duad, which produces the Triad, the last again reproducing itself in incomputable hierarchical numbers. Thus, light and dark are the dual manifestations of that which is called at once absolute light and darkness; spirit and matter are the dual manifestations of the one life; the most fundamental duality being the alternation between manvantara and pralaya, which are aspects of the ever-productive ineffable source. Monistic and dualistic philosophies merely accentuate each its own side of the question, and in reality each view more or less implies the other. The Zoroastrian doctrine, for example, in its esoteric side recognized that dualism applies only to the planes of manifestation which flow forth from it.

Theosophy makes a distinction between force (or forces) and energy. The former is the name of active monadic essences, each one of which may be considered to be a living, intelligent, self-conscious force; and when this force is actively used, its power to do work or to produce effects is energy.

Theosophy does not hold to the idea of a single-track, end-on evolution from a protoplasmic speck to human being, without inner astral, mental, and spiritual urge from within. Rather, the plan of evolution as represented by the different classes and orders of beings on earth may be represented by a tree, whose main trunk is the human stem, from which (so far as this manvantara is concerned) the various animal types have issued like branches, each of them then entering upon a special unfolding development and differentiation of its own. Indeed, the same observation applies with equal force to the vegetable and mineral kingdoms, although their root-types issued from the human stem long aeons before the animal types appeared on earth.

Theosophy holds that mesmerism is not hypnotism. In hypnotism the subject’s intermediate nature is disjoined from its natural relations with his physical and astral body and put out of the control of the person himself, becoming susceptible to other influences. This process is a reversal of all evolutionary currents which in every being unfold and manifest from conscious centers within. Such a reversal is dangerous and far-reaching in its results, spiritually, mentally, morally, psychically, and physically.

Theosophy teaches the constant rebirths of the identic spiritual-intellectual individuality throughout the manvantara; and that, even after union into paranirvana, the individuality, precisely because it is then on its own higher plane or sphere of life, is not lost and will reemerge at a new manvantara to pursue its own particular cycle. This eternal monad, the spiritual-intellectual individuality, is the real and truly immortal essence of the person; and within this supreme cycle of immortality are a series of less immortalities, each representing the life cycle of one of the imbodiments of the monad. Death therefore of necessity becomes a recurrent process, precisely like birth or rebirth, and of many degrees, and simply means the dissolution of some group of lower sheaths enclosing the individual in imbodiment.

Theosophy teaches that every body, indeed every monad or life-atom, is in constant motion, and as it moves emits a sound, its own keynote, and that this sound is in musical harmony with nature’s all-inclusive harmonic symphonies. Furthermore, every particle of matter, every physical atom even, in its incessant movements produces a sound which is indeed a song, so that had we the power of spiritual hearing (genuine clairaudience), we would be able to hear this unimaginably grand symphony of sounds: we would hear the grass growing — as the ancient Welsh mystic has it; and the opening of a flower would itself be a marvelous natural orchestral performance.

Theosophy holds that a nebula is the first stage of manifestation on the highest subplanes of the physical cosmic plane of the physical vehicle of a planet or star. Virtually all of the true irresolvable nebulae, however, are composed of matter which is hardly physical at all — physical matter in its 4th, 5th, 6th, or 7th state or condition counting upwards, and hence not the physical matter known and experimented upon in the laboratory.

Theosophy, because of the confusion arising in scholastic and modern disputes, points directly to all the phenomena of nature as expressed in beings, objects, entities, and things as arising in spiritual realms, or noumena. The hidden or invisible noumena of beings and things are both real and mere abstract names. Thus force — electricity, for instance — is both an existing emanation from cosmic entities, and yet also a “name” or abstraction because it is an aggregate of effects derivative from a hid cause which is the cosmic being or beings. All natural phenomena arise in and are therefore derivative from and emanations from causal and originating cosmic intelligences, which perdure in essence throughout eternity, but express themselves by means of phenomena or effects in cosmic manvantaras. Thus the phenomena which human intelligence cognizes are transitory but yet are real in their essence, because that essence lies in the perduring intelligence or intelligences from which they flow.

Theosophy or the wisdom-religion is the study of the ancient wisdom of the gods, and comprises in any one period that particular portion of knowledge which has been delivered to those who study it; whereas occultism in any age is that portion of the ancient wisdom dealing with matters which at such time are secret, hid, and unknown to the multitude. Thus occultism is that portion of theosophy which has not yet been openly and publicly promulgated. Occultism is founded on the principle that Divinity is concealed — transcendent yet immanent — within every living being. As a spiritual discipline occultism is the renunciation of selfishness; it is the “still small path” which leads to wisdom, to the right discrimination between good and evil, and the practice of altruism.

Theosophy enjoins students to let psychic powers alone, until they develop normally and naturally in the progress of the student along the path of wisdom and self-mastery. The craze for psychic powers and attempts in their cultivation arise almost invariably out of ignorance of the existence in ourselves of far higher and more powerful forces which can always be employed with safety, and even profit, to the individual. These greater powers are those classed as spiritual and intellectual-aspirational — powers which ennoble and dignify man, containing in themselves capacities for amazing effects. Their use is always safe once they are understood and studied. By their side the psychic powers, attributes, and faculties are like the puny efforts of children to copy adults.

Theosophy makes a distinction between the solar system and the universal solar system — the former has especial reference to the twelve sacred planets, while the universal solar system refers to all bodies belonging to and revolving around a master- or king-sun (raja-sun) and within the latter’s far-flung realm on seven or more planes of being. It therefore contains planets and suns invisible to our present range of sense perception. Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are said not to belong to the solar system (nor are they included among the twelve sacred planets), but are members of the universal solar system.

Theosophy, regarding the physical universe as merely one of many planes of kosmos, applies the term space to a much larger range. Yet it has the same characteristic meaning in all its applications: it figures, for instance, as one aspect of the trinity of space, energy, matter which is equivalent to the primordial unity. The fundamental hypostases are all derivative from ever-enduring, frontierless space, and Be-ness is symbolized by space, which no mind can either exclude nor conceive, and motion. In this conception are combined abstract space, motion, and duration.

Theosophy [from Greek theosophia from theos god, divinity + sophia wisdom] Divine wisdom, the knowledge of things divine; often described as attainable by direct experience, by becoming conscious of the essential, divine part of our nature, self-identification with the inner god, leading to communion with other similar divine beings. Theosophy actually is the “substratum and basis of all the world-religions and philosophies, taught and practised by a few elect ever since man became a thinking being” (TG 328). Also called by such names as the secret doctrine and the esoteric tradition, its teachings have been preserved, checked and rechecked with every new generation of its guardians and adepts.

Theosophy divides boundless duration into unconditionally eternal and universal time, and a conditioned or periodic or “broken” one (SD 1:62). One is the abstraction or noumenon of infinite endless time (Kala); the other its phenomenon, appearing periodically. The symbol of causal or relatively boundless time, so far as the universe is concerned, is often given as a circle, which mathematically is a beginningless and endless line. A spiral line represents time returning upon itself in cycles, and yet transcending itself at each cyclic sweep, devouring its children, as Kronos among the Greeks is said to do; and the serpent with its tail in its mouth often stands for the same ideas. Time, meaning divided or phenomenal time, or manvantaric cycles, is often mentioned as an offspring of space, the latter considered as a container of manifestation. Mystically, theosophy looks upon present and past as well as future as being illusional effects of that beginningless and endless Now, eternal duration.

Theosophy teaches that there is a planet, at present generally invisible to human scrutiny, closer to the sun than Mercury, and that it became generally invisible to human sight during the third root-race, after the fall of mankind into physical generation. The ancients spoke of seven sacred planets, and the sun was often enumerated as a substitute or blind for this planet.

THEOSOPHY Theosophy is a summary of facts that used to be imparted in the esoteric knowledge orders. The term of theosophy came into being when the term of gnostics has changed because the quasi-gnosticians of the third century A.D. had begun falsely putting their quasi forward as being esoteric gnostics.

These are the facts that constitute theosophy. Beyond them, the views of the various theosophical authors are not theosophy.

The best summary of the facts of theosophy was made by A. E. Powell in five volumes.

The original task of the Theosophical Society was to proclaim universal brotherhood.
Mankind, however, in not yet ripe to realize the principles of tolerance, freedom of opinion and expression, The Society has split up into several sects, all disputing about what they believe to be theosophy and which facts are hypotheses or facts from the hierarchy. Their dependence on authority shows that they have not understood, just believed that they understand.

The esoteric facts that have been given out after 1920 have not been communicated through the Theosophical Society. K 6.3.16f,15,18f

theosophy ::: Theosophy A theory of philosophy which believes that humans are capable of intuitive insight into the nature of God, which involves meditation using Yoga to gain wisdom and self-knowledge. The modern Theosophical Society was established by Madame Blavatsky in 1875 and continued by her protg Annie Besant.

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   1 Rudolf Steiner
   1 M Alan Kazlev
   1 Charles Webster Leadbeater
   1 Carl Jung
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   5 Annie Besant

   4 H P Blavatsky

   3 John Steinbeck

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   3 Carl Jung

1:Practice is the act of rehearsing a behavior over and over, or engaging in an activity again and again, for the purpose of improving or mastering it, as in the phrase practice makes perfect. ~ ,

2:Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the Shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular. ~ Carl Jung,

3:Just as in the body, eye and ear develop as organs of perception, as senses for bodily processes, so does a man develop in himself soul and spiritual organs of perception through which the soul and spiritual worlds are opened to him. For those who do not have such higher senses, these worlds are dark and silent, just as the bodily world is dark and silent for a being without eyes and ears. ~ Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos ,

4:The word is derived from the Latin occultus, hidden; so that it is the study of the hidden laws of nature. Since all the great laws of nature are in fact working in the invisible world far more than in the visible, occultism involves the acceptance of a much wider view of nature than that which is ordinarily taken. The occultist, then, is a man who studies all the laws of nature that he can reach or of which he can hear, and as a result of his study he identifies himself with these laws and devotes his life to the service of evolution. ~ Charles Webster Leadbeater, [occultism is:] ,

5:subtle ::: In Vedanta (Mandukya Upanishad and later teachings - e.g. Advaita - based on it) "subtle" is used to designate the "dream state" of consciousness, and in Advaita this also includes the Prana, Manas, and Vijnana koshas (= the vehicles of vital force, mind, and higher consciousness) re-interpreted from of the Taittiriya Upanishad.In Tibetan and Tantric Buddhism it refers to an intermediate grade between the "gross" and "very subtle" "minds" and "winds" (vayu = prana).The Sukshma Sthula or Subtle Body is one of the seven principles of man in Blavatskian Theosophy; it is also called the "astral body" (this has little similarity with the astral body of Out of Body experience, because it cannot move far from the gross physical vehicle, it seems to correspond to what Robert Monroe calls the "second body", and identified with the Double or KaIn Sant Mat / Radhasoami cosmology - the Anda (Cosmic Egg) / Sahans-dal Kanwal (Crown Chakra) is sometimes called the Subtle; hence Subtle = AstralThe term Subtle Physical is used somewhat generically by Sri Aurobindo (in Letters on Yoga) to refer to a wider reality behind the external physical.Ken Wilber uses the term Subtle to indicate the yogic and mystic holonic-evolutionary level intermediate between "Psychic" (in his series = Nature Mysticism) and "Causal" (=Realisation"); it includes many psychic and occult experiences and can be considered as pertaining to the Subtle as defined here (although it also includes other realities and experiences that might also be interpreted as "Inner Gross" - e.g. Kundalini as a classic example). ~ M Alan Kazlev, Kheper planes/subtle,

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1:Theosophy blesses the world; Theology is its curse. ~ H P Blavatsky

2:Theosophy is who Theosophy does, not thinks, not studies, not feels but does. ~ H P Blavatsky

3:Theosophy is who Theosophy does, not thinks, not studies, not feels but does. ~ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

4:THEOSOPHY, n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science. ~ Ambrose Bierce

5:Theosophy, on earth, is like the white ray of the spectrum, and each religion only one of the seven colours. ~ H P Blavatsky

6:Religion is neither a theology nor a theosophy; it is more than that, it is a discipline, a law, a yoke, an indissoluble engagement. ~ Joseph Joubert

7:What is the essence of theosophy? It is the fact that man, being himself divine, can know the divinity whose life he shares. As an inevitable corollary to this supreme truth comes the fact of the brotherhood of man. ~ Annie Besant

8:Theosophy has no code of morals, being itself the embodiment of the highest morality; it presents to its students the highest moral teachings of all religions, gathering the most fragrant blossoms from the gardens of the world-faiths. ~ Annie Besant

9:Theosophy tries to bridge the gulf between Buddhism and Christianity by pointing to the fundamental spiritual truths on which both religions are built, and by winning people to regard the Buddha and the Christ as fellow-laborers, and not as rivals. ~ Annie Besant

10:The subject, a widely known architect with leanings toward theosophy and occultism, went violently insane on the date of young Wilcox’s seizure, and expired several months later after incessant screamings to be saved from some escaped denizen of hell. ~ H P Lovecraft

11:I recall having read, at the brothers' instance, Madame Blavatsky's Key to Theosophy. This book stimulated in me the desire to read books on Hinduism, and disabused me of the notion fostered by the missionaries that Hinduism was rife with superstition. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

12:Somewhere there is mystery. It impels one to theosophy: to the worship of a space-god, or a god of light.” “Theory dissolves the mystery, though it lays bare a cryptic new stratum. Quite likely there is an endless set of these layers, mystery below mystery. ~ Jack Vance

13:Adam’s mother ran the farm, bore Adam, and still had time to embrace a primitive theosophy. She felt that her husband would surely be killed by the wild and barbarous rebels, and she prepared herself to get in touch with him in what she called the beyond. ~ John Steinbeck

14:In morals, theosophy builds its teachings on the unity, seeing in each form the expression of a common life, and therefore the fact that what injures one injures all. To do evil i.e., to throw poison into the life-blood of humanity, is a crime against the unity. ~ Annie Besant

15:She used religion as a therapy for the ills of the world and herself, and she changed the religion to fit the ill. When she found that the theosophy she had developed for communication with a dead husband was not necessary, she cast about for some new unhappiness. ~ John Steinbeck

16:Astrologers are influenced by theosophy, so they say, "That is very simple, it is just vibration!" ... But what is vibration? They say it is light energy, perhaps electricity, they are not quite informed. At all events the vibrations that could influence us have never been seen, so it remains just a word. ~ Carl Jung

17:Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the Shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular. ~ Carl Jung

18:Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the Shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular. ~ Carl Jung,

19:The divine life is the spirit in everything that exists, from the atom to the archangel; the grain of dust could not be were God absent from it; the loftiest seraph is but a spark from the eternal fire, which is God. Sharers in one life all form one brotherhood. The immanence of God, the solidarity of man, such are the basic truths of theosophy. ~ Annie Besant

20:The Divine Wisdom, the true Theosophy... is not, as some think, a diluted version of Hinduism, or Buddhism, or Taoism, or of any special religion. It is Esoteric Christianity as truly as it is Esoteric Buddhism, and belongs equally to all religions, exclusively to none. Foreword ~ Annie Besant, [Esoteric Christianity: Or, The Lesser Mysteries by Annie Besant], (1914)

21:Astrology is knocking at the gates of our universities: A Tübingen professor has switched over to astrology and a course on astrology was given at Cardiff University last year. Astrology is not mere superstition but contains some psychological facts (like theosophy) which are of considerable importance. Astrology has actually nothing to do with the stars but is the 5000-year-old psychology of antiquity and the Middle Ages. ~ Carl Jung

22:The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning. - Albert Einstein, letter of February 5, 1921 ~ Albert Einstein

23:Just as in the body, eye and ear develop as organs of perception, as senses for bodily processes, so does a man develop in himself soul and spiritual organs of perception through which the soul and spiritual worlds are opened to him. For those who do not have such higher senses, these worlds are dark and silent, just as the bodily world is dark and silent for a being without eyes and ears. ~ Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos,

24:The D.A.R. (reflected the cynic, Doremus Jessup, that evening) is a somewhat confusing organization—as confusing as Theosophy, Relativity, or the Hindu Vanishing Boy Trick, all three of which it resembles. It is composed of females who spend one half their waking hours boasting of being descended from the seditious American colonists of 1776, and the other and more ardent half in attacking all contemporaries who believe in precisely the principles for which those ancestors struggled. ~ Sinclair Lewis

25:Theta clearing is about as practical and simple as repairing a shoe lace. It is nothing to do with hypnotism, voodooism, charalatanism, monkeyism or theosophy. Done, the thetan can do anything a stage magician can do in the way of moving objects around. But this isn't attained by holding one's breath or thinking right thoughts or voting Republican or any other superstitous or mystic practice. So for the reason I brought up, rule out, auditor, any mumbo jumbo or mysticism, spiritualism, or religion. ~ L Ron Hubbard

26:Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I have read and heard many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and theosophy to the Christian system or that of Kant, and I have always felt that they were much too simple. I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy. That is the reason why I have no philosophy myself, and must be my excuse for dreaming. ~ J B S Haldane

27:If we have to believe in a divine principle at all, it must be in one which is as absolute harmony, logic, and justice, as it is absolute love, wisdom, and impartiality; and a God who would create every soul for the space of one brief span of life, regardless of the fact whether it has to animate the body of a wealthy, happy man, or that of a poor suffering wretch, hapless from birth to death though he has done nothing to deserve his cruel fate—would be rather a senseless fiend than a God. ~ H.P. Blavatsky,The Key to Theosophy (1889)

28:The essence of Theosophy is the perfect harmonizing of the divine with the human in man, the adjustment of his god-like qualities and aspirations, and their sway over the terrestrial or animal passions in him. Kindness, absence of every ill feeling or selfishness, charity, goodwill to all beings, and perfect justice to others as to oneself, are its chief features. He who teaches Theosophy preaches the gospel of goodwill; and the converse of this is true also — he who preaches the gospel of goodwill, teaches Theosophy. ~ H P Blavatsky

29:The so-called Philosophy of India is even more blowsy and senseless than the metaphysics of the West. It is at war with everything we know of the workings of the human mind, and with every sound idea formulated by mankind. If it prevailed in the whole modern world we'd still be in the Thirteenth Century; nay, we'd be back among the Egyptians of the pyramid age. Its only coherent contribution to Western thought has been theosophy-and theosophy is as idiotic as Christian Science. It has absolutely nothing to offer a civilized white man. ~ H L Mencken

30:I ought also here to speak of Jakob Bohme. For he too used the German language for philosophical treatises, and has gained high praise in this regard. But I have never yet been able to sit down and read him. I do not like to be made a fool of... Charles I was so impressed by this theosophical cobbler that he sent a scholar specially to Gorlitz to study him. This scholar was more fortunate than his royal master. For while the latter lost his head at Whitehall by Cromwell's axe, at Gorlitz the former, thanks to Jakob Bohme's theosophy, only lost his wits. ~ Heinrich Heine

31:We reject the idea of a personal, or an extra-cosmic and anthropomorphic God, who is but the gigantic shadow of man, and not of man at his best, either. The God of theology, we say—and prove it—is a bundle of contradictions and a logical impossibility... Our DEITY is neither in a paradise, nor in a particular tree, building, or mountain; it is everywhere, in every atom of the visible as of the invisible Cosmos, in, over, and around every invisible atom and divisible molecule; for IT is the mysterious power of evolution and involution, the omnipresent, omnipotent, and even omniscient creative potentiality. ~ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky,The Key to Theosophy (1889)

32:He was an only son, and he was born six months after his father was mustered into a Connecticut regiment in 1862. Adam’s mother ran the farm, bore Adam, and still had time to embrace a primitive theosophy. She felt that her husband would surely be killed by the wild and barbarous rebels, and she prepared herself to get in touch with him in what she called the beyond. He came home six weeks after Adam was born. His right leg was off at the knee. He stumped in on a crude wooden leg he himself had carved out of beechwood. And already it was splitting. He had in his pocket and placed on the parlor table the lead bullet they had given him to bite while they cut off his frayed leg. ~ John Steinbeck

33:Amongst various sects so numerous in America today who find their fundamental basis in occultism, the Theosophist stands pre-eminent both in intelligence and point of numbers. Theosophy is not a religion. Its followers are simply “searchers after Truth”. The Theosophists, in fact, are the dissatisfied with the world, dissenters from all creeds. They owe their origin to the wise men of India, and are numerous, not only in the far famed mystic East, but in England, France, Germany and Russia. They admit the existence of a God – not necessarily of a personal God. To them God is Nature and Nature is God…But despite this, if Christianity is Truth, as our education has taught us to believe, there can be no menace to it in Theosophy. ~ L Frank Baum

34:Children should above all be taught self-reliance, love for all men, altruism, mutual charity, and more than anything else, to think and reason for themselves. We would reduce the purely mechanical work of the memory to an absolute minimum, and devote the time to the development and training of the inner senses, faculties and latent capacities. We would endeavour to deal with each child as a unit, and to educate it so as to produce the most harmonious and equal unfoldment of its powers, in order that its special aptitudes should find their full natural development. We should aim at creating free men and women, free intellectually, free morally, unprejudiced in all respects, and above all things, unselfish. ~ H.P. Blavatsky, The Key to Theosophy p. 215, (1889)

35:There is no civilized religion without it saints and devils, without its illuminations and tokens, without the spirit of God descending upon the community of the faithful. There is no new-fangled creed, no new religion, whether it be a form of Spiritism, Theosophy, or Christian Science, which cannot prove its legitimacy by the solid fact of supernatural manifestation. The savage also has his thaumatology, and in the Trobriands, where magic dominates all supernaturalism, it is a thaumatology of magic. Round each form of magic there is a continuous trickle of small miracles, at times swelling into bigger, more conspicuously supernatural proofs, then again, running in a smaller stream, but never absent. ~ Bronislaw Malinowski, Sex and Repression in Savage Society

36:Blavatsky’s new Scripture, Isis Unveiled (1877), was written by invisible Spirit hands. Half a million words long, it began by denouncing the scientific materialism of Darwin and Huxley, and went on to expound its key doctrine, namely that all wisdom is One, that science is not opposed to religion, and that religious differences are man-made. Anyone who has nursed the thought that ‘deep down all religions are saying the same thing’ is more than halfway towards Theosophy. It appealed, said Peter Washington somewhat dismissively in his Madame Blavatsky’s Baboon, to: the world of autodidacts, penny newspapers, weekly encyclopedias, evening classes, public lectures, workers’ educational institutes, debating unions, libraries of popular classics, socialist societies and art clubs – that bustling, earnest world where the readers of Ruskin and Edward Carpenter could improve themselves, where middle-class idealists could help them to do so, and where nudism and dietary reform linked arms with universal brotherhood and occult wisdom.7 ~ A N Wilson

37:This brings us to a further aspect of the doctrine of Tikkun, which is also the most important for the system of practical theosophy. The process in which God conceives, brings forth and develops himself does not reach its final conclusion in God. Certain parts of the process of restitution are allotted to man. Not all the lights which are held in captivity by the powers of darkness are set free by their own efforts; it is man who adds the final touch to the divine countenance; it is he who completes the enthronement of God, the king and the mystical Creator of all things, in His own Kingdom of Heaven; it is he who perfects the maker of all things! In certain spheres of being, divine and human existence are intertwined. The intrinsic, extramundane process of Tikkun, symbolically described as the birth of God's personality, corresponds to the process of mundane history. The historical process and its innermost soul, the religious act of the Jew, prepare the way for the final restitution of all scattered and exiled lights and sparks. ~ Gershom Scholem

38:What is the real object of modern education? Is it to cultivate and develop the mind in the right direction; to teach the disinherited and hapless people to carry with fortitude the burden of life (allotted them by Karma); to strengthen their will; to inculcate in them the love of one’s neighbor and the feeling of mutual interdependence and brotherhood; and thus to train and form the character for practical life? Not a bit of it. And yet, these are undeniably the objects of all true education. No one denies it; all your educationalists admit it, and talk very big indeed on the subject. But what is the practical result of their action? Every young man and boy, nay, every one of the younger generation of schoolmasters will answer: “The object of modern education is to pass examinations,” a system not to develop right emulation, but to generate and breed jealousy, envy, hatred almost, in young people for one another, and thus train them for a life of ferocious selfishness and struggle for honors and emoluments instead of kindly feeling. ~ H.P. Blavatsky, The Key to Theosophy p. 210, (1889)

39:A surprising fact about the magician Bernard Kornblum, Joe remembered, was that he believed in magic. Not in the so-called magic of candles, pentagrams, and bat wings. Not in the kitchen enchantments of Slavic grandmothers with their herbiaries and parings from the little toe of a blind virgin tied up in a goatskin bag. Not in astrology, theosophy, chiromancy, dowsing rods, séances, weeping statues, werewolves, wonders, or miracles. What bewitched Bernard Kornblum, on the contrary, was the impersonal magic of life, when he read in a magazine about a fish that could disguise itself as any one of seven different varieties of sea bottom, or when he learned from a newsreel that scientists had discovered a dying star that emitted radiation on a wavelength whose value in megacycles approximated π. In the realm of human affairs, this type of enchantment was often, though not always, a sadder business—sometimes beautiful, sometimes cruel. Here its stock-in-trade was ironies, coincidences, and the only true portents: those that revealed themselves, unmistakable and impossible to ignore, in retrospect. ~ Michael Chabon

40:TRIAD supernal, both super-God and super-good, Guardian of the Theosophy of Christian men, direct us aright to the super-unknown and super-brilliant and highest summit of the mystic Oracles, where the simple and absolute a!nd changeless mysteries of theology lie hidden within the super-luminous gloom of the silence, revealing hidden things, which in its deepest darkness shines above the most super-brilliant, and in the altogether impalpable and invisible, fills to overflowing the eyeless minds with glories of surpassing beauty. This then be my prayer; but thou, O dear Timothy, by thy persistent commerce with the mystic visions, leave behind both sensible perceptions and intellectual efforts, and all objects of sense and intelligence, and all things not being and being, and be raised aloft unknowingly to the union, as far' as attainable, with Him Who is above every essence and knowledge. For by the resistless and absolute ecstasy in all purity, from thyself and all, thou wilt be carried on high, to the superessential ray of the Divine darkness, when thou hast cast away all, and become free from all. ~ Pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite

41:subtle ::: In Vedanta (Mandukya Upanishad and later teachings - e.g. Advaita - based on it) "subtle" is used to designate the "dream state" of consciousness, and in Advaita this also includes the Prana, Manas, and Vijnana koshas (= the vehicles of vital force, mind, and higher consciousness) re-interpreted from of the Taittiriya Upanishad. In Tibetan and Tantric Buddhism it refers to an intermediate grade between the "gross" and "very subtle" "minds" and "winds" (vayu = prana). The Sukshma Sthula or Subtle Body is one of the seven principles of man in Blavatskian Theosophy; it is also called the "astral body" (this has little similarity with the astral body of Out of Body experience, because it cannot move far from the gross physical vehicle, it seems to correspond to what Robert Monroe calls the "second body", and identified with the Double or Ka In Sant Mat / Radhasoami cosmology - the Anda (Cosmic Egg) / Sahans-dal Kanwal (Crown Chakra) is sometimes called the Subtle; hence Subtle = Astral The term Subtle Physical is used somewhat generically by Sri Aurobindo (in Letters on Yoga) to refer to a wider reality behind the external physical. Ken Wilber uses the term Subtle to indicate the yogic and mystic holonic-evolutionary level intermediate between "Psychic" (in his series = Nature Mysticism) and "Causal" (=Realisation"); it includes many psychic and occult experiences and can be considered as pertaining to the Subtle as defined here (although it also includes other realities and experiences that might also be interpreted as "Inner Gross" - e.g. Kundalini as a classic example). ~ M Alan Kazlev, Kheper, planes/subtle,

42:The Black Sheep 'Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?' 'Yes, sir-yes, sir: three bags full.' 'I don't want any New Thought,' said he, 'Or any Theosophy, for, you see, The faith I learned at my mother's knee Is good enough for me. Of course, I'm a wee bit broader than she, Hearing one sermon where she heard three, And I read my paper on Sunday, instead Of the Bible only. My mother said I was a black sheep, when she saw I strayed a trifle away from the law, And didn't think everyone left in the lurch Who happened to go to a different church; But, still, in the main, her creed is mine, And I don't want anything more divine.' Yet his mother's mother was more austere; She taught her children a creed of fear, And she called them 'black sheep' when, with a shock, She saw them straying away from the flock, Just far enough To get around places they thought too rough, Like infant damnation and endless hell. But his mother's mother's mother would tell How her mother thought it was God's sweet will To punish and torture a heretic till They drove out the devil that made him dare Think for himself in the matter of prayer And faith and salvation. So we see how it is If we look back over the centuriesThe creeds men learned at their mother's knee When Salem witches were hanged to a tree, And the pious dames flocked thither to see, Are not deemed Christian or holy to-day; And the bold black sheep who went straying away From rut-worn paths in their search for God, 555 And leaped over the fence into pastures broad, Are the great trail-makers for mortal souls, Leading the race up to higher goals And a larger religion; where man must find God dwelling ever within his mind, Christ in his conduct, and heaven in his thought, And hell but the places where love is not. A mighty religion that makes this earth But the cradle that fits us for death's new birth And the life beyond it, that is so near Its echoes may reach to the listening ear. 'Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?' 'Yes, sir-yes, sir: a whole world full.' ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

43:Must this be seen as a sign of the times? Whatever the case and without venturing the least prediction, it is quite difficult in the presence of all these things not to recall the words of the Gospel: "For false Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect .’ [7] Assuredly, we are not yet there; the false Messiahs we have seen until now have offered wonders of a very inferior quality, and those who have followed them were probably not very difficult to seduce, but who knows what the future holds in store? If one reflects that these false Messiahs have never been anything but more or less unconscious instruments in the hands of those who have raised them up, and if one looks at the series of attempts made by the Theosophists, one is led to think that these are no more than trials, experiments which will be renewed in various forms until success is achieved . [8] In the meantime, these efforts always have the result of troubling some minds. We do not believe moreover that the Theosophists, any more than the occultists and the spiritists, have the strength to succeed in such an enterprise by themselves. But behind all these movements is there not something more fearsome, of which their leaders perhaps do not themselves know, and of which they are in their own turn merely the instruments? We merely raise this last question without seeking to resolve it here, for to do so, we would have to raise extremely complex considerations that would lead us far beyond the limits we have set ourselves for the present study. 7 . Matt. 24:24. 8. Krishnamurti’s vain efforts to escape his role as Messiah (see P190, 023) clearly show that he is only an instrument— and we would readily say a victim— of undertakings in which his personal will counts for nothing. The present development of Theosophist messianism, which moreover does not seem to make as much noise in the ‘outer world’ as it would like, therefore does not modify what we wrote before the latest events. It must be added that even if the leaders of Theosophy now consider that there is more than a simple attempt, it might very well be that for others their movement is itself only one of multiple elements which must converge to prepare for the realization of a plan which is much more vast and complex. ~ Ren Gu non

--- IN CHAPTERS (in Dictionaries, in Quotes, in Chapters)

10

   10 Integral Yoga
   5 Occultism
   4 Theosophy
   1 Psychology
   1 Fiction


   6 Rudolf Steiner
   4 Sri Aurobindo
   4 A B Purani
   3 The Mother
   2 Satprem
   2 Aleister Crowley


   5 The Secret Doctrine
   4 Theosophy
   4 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
   3 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
   3 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
   2 Talks
   2 Liber ABA
   2 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds

1.00_-_Preliminary_Remarks, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy      Now this woman, though handicapped by a brain that was a mass of putrid pulp, and a complete lack of social status, education, and moral character, did more in the religious world than any other person had done for generations. She, and she alone, made Theosophy possible, and without Theosophy the world-wide interest in similar matters could never have been aroused. This interest is to the Law of Thelema what the preaching of John the Baptist was to Christianity.

1.01_-_Historical_Survey, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism      To come down to more historic ground, the Qabalah is the Jewish mystical teaching concerning the initiated inter- pretation of the Hebrew scriptures. It is a system of spiritual philosophy or Theosophy, using this word in its original implications of 0eo? 2 o$ia, which has not only exercised for centuries an influence on the intellectual development of so shrewd and clear-thinking a people as the Jews, but has attracted the attention of many renowned      --      About 1240 a.d. was born Abraham Abulafia, who became a celebrated figure - bringing, however, a great deal of dis- repute to the name of this Theosophy. He studied philo- logy* medicine, and philosophy, as well as those few books on the Qabalah which were available at the time. He soon perceived that the Pythagorean Number Philosophy was identical with that expounded in the Sepher Yetsirah, and later, becoming dissatisfied with academic research, he turned towards that aspect of Qabalah termed nbsp n'ova or the Practical Qabalah, which, to-day, we term   Magick. Unfortunately, the Qabalists in the public eye at that time were not acquainted with the developed specialized technique that is now available, derived as it is from the Collegii ad Spiritum Sanctum. The result was that

1.01_-_How_is_Knowledge_Of_The_Higher_Worlds_Attained?, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy    p. 12    different aspect. Of course, this rule of life alone will not yet enable him to see, for instance, what is described as the human aura, because for this still higher training is necessary. But he can rise to this higher training if he has previously undergone a rigorous training in devotion. (In the last chapter of his book Theosophy, the author describes fully the Path of Knowledge; here it is intended to give some practical details.)

1.02_-_The_Development_of_Sri_Aurobindos_Thought, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #unset   and his Livre des esprits (1857) had created a real spiritist   mass movement. Theosophy had been founded in 1875 and   spread almost instantaneously around the globe. Its influ-

1.05_-_Adam_Kadmon, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism      The third aspect of the immortal entity is Neschamah, or Intuition, the faculty for the Understanding of the Will of the Monad. In Theosophy, this is Higher or Buddhi-   Manas, which, together with Atma-Buddhi, is the god of a high and noble rank, who incarnates in the brute forms of the early races of mankind in order to endow them with mind. The Manasaputras have both Solar and Mercurial connections. The Vedantists call this principle the Vijnana- mayakosa, the Sheath of Knowledge ; and its correspond- ing Chakra in the Yogas is the Yisuddhi, said to be located in the subtle body on the spine at a point opposite to the larynx.

1.05_-_Some_Results_of_Initiation, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy      The exercises described in the preceding chapters, if practiced in the right way, involve certain changes in the organism of the soul (astral body). The latter is only perceptible to the clairvoyant, and may be compared to a cloud, psycho-spiritually luminous to a certain degree, in the center of which the physical body is discernible. (A description will be found in the author's book, Theosophy.) In this astral body desires, lusts, passions, and ideas become visible in a spiritual way. Sensual appetites, for instance, create the impression of a dark red radiance with a definite shape; a pure and noble thought finds its expression in a reddish-violet radiance; the clear-cut concept of the logical thinker is experienced as a yellowish figure with sharply defined outline; the confused thought of the muddled head appears as a figure with vague outline. The thoughts of a person with one-sided, queer views appear sharply outlined but immobile, while the    p. 133   --    p. 163    body. The latter is that tenuous body revealed to the clairvoyant as a kind of double of the physical body, and forms to a certain extent an intermediate step between the soul nature and the physical body. (See the description on the author's book Theosophy.) It is possible for one equipped with clairvoyant powers consciously to suggest away the physical body of a person. This corresponds on a higher plane to an exercise in attentiveness on a lower plane. Just as a person can divert his attention from something in front of him so that it becomes non-existent for him, the clairvoyant can extinguish a physical body from his field of observation so that it becomes physically transparent to him. If he exerts this faculty in the case of some person standing before him, there remains visible to his clairvoyant sight only the etheric body, besides the soul-body which is larger than the other two-etheric and physical bodies-and interpenetrates them both. The etheric body has approximately the size and form of the physical body, so that it practically fills the same space. It is an extremely delicate and finely organized structure. (I beg the physicist not to be disturbed at the expression "etheric    p. 164

1.07_-_The_Literal_Qabalah_(continued), #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism   In the second method, the Zohar places a whole Tree of ten Sephiros in each of the Four Worlds. The Archetypal   World is the highest, being absolutely ideal. It is the plane of the Divine Thought, the Causal Plane of Cosmic Idea- tion, or the Mahat of Blavatslcian Theosophy.      --   World of Briah, a plane less spiritual and less abstract.   Here the creative forces of the Gods seize upon the arche- typal ideas of things, expanding and vivifying and develop- ing the Tree on that particular plane. This is the mental plane proper, comparable in cosmical constitution to the conception of the Buach or the lower Manas of Theosophy in man. The lowest Sephirah in Atsilus thus becomes the   Keser in Briah, as the accompanying diagram shows, and the Malkus of Briah becomes the Keser of Yetsirah, and so on down the scale.

1.240_-_Talks_2, #unset, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy   A Dutch lady, Mrs. Gongrijp, an ardent theosophist, who had worked long in Java and is now living in Adyar, came here for a short visit.   She asked: Theosophy speaks of tanha, meaning thirst for rebirth.   What is its cause?   --   D.: How then can a prominent T. S. leader, who claims clairvoyance of a high order, praise the author for his supposed correct and vivid description of nirvana, and why is the T. Society so much obsessed by the idea of Service?   M.: Well, Theosophy and other kindred movements are good inasmuch as they make a man unselfish and prepare him for the highest truth.   Service, like prayers, japas and even business done in Gods name, lead to the highest goal - Self-Realisation.

1.300_-_1.400_Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism      She asked: Theosophy speaks of tanha, meaning thirst for rebirth.

1.400_-_1.450_Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism   D.: How then can a prominent T. S. leader, who claims clairvoyance of a high order, praise the author for his supposed correct and vivid description of nirvana, and why is the T. Society so much obsessed by the idea of 'Service'?   M.: Well, Theosophy and other kindred movements are good inasmuch as they make a man unselfish and prepare him for the highest truth.