Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00457)

Dec 13 2002

A recent posting inquired into this matter.

Here are some words from H P B that cover the subject rather well --
it also gives a history of "esotericism" over many thousands of years.

I apologise for its length, but there are some very important ideas
here which deserve consideration. I have broken longer paragraphs
into fragments for more easy location of different ideas.

This largely taken from the early pages of the KEY TO THEOSOPHY (HPB)

-----------------------

ENQUIRER. Theosophy and its doctrines are often referred to as a
new-fangled religion. Is it a religion?

THEOSOPHIST. It is not. Theosophy is Divine Knowledge or Science.


ENQUIRER. What is the real meaning of the term?

THEOSOPHIST. "Divine Wisdom," Teosofia (Theosophia) or Wisdom of the
gods, as Theogonia (theogonia), genealogy of the gods. The word Theos
means a god in Greek, one of the divine beings, certainly not "God" in
the sense attached in our day to the term. Therefore, it is not "
Wisdom of God," as translated by some, but Divine Wisdom such as that
possessed by the gods. The term is many thousand years old.


ENQUIRER. What is the origin of the name?

THEOSOPHIST. It comes to us from the Alexandrian philosophers, called
lovers of truth, Philaletheians, from fil (phil) "loving," and
aletheia (aletheia ) "truth." The name Theosophy dates from the third
century of our era, and began with Ammonius Saccas and his disciples*,
who started the Eclectic Theosophical system.


ENQUIRER. What was the object of this system?

THEOSOPHIST. First of all to inculcate certain great moral truths upon
its disciples, and all those who were "lovers of the truth." Hence the
motto adopted by the Theosophical Society: "There is no religion
higher than truth." + The chief aim of the Founder.

* Also called Analogeticists.

As explained by Prof. Alex. Wilder, F. T. S., in his "Eclectic
Philosophy,"

they were called so because of their practice of interpreting all
sacred legends and narratives, myths and mysteries, by a rule or
principle of analogy and correspondence: so that events which were
related as having occurred in the external world were regarded as
expressing operations and experiences of the human soul.

They were also denominated Neo-Platonists. Though Theosophy, or the
Eclectic Theosophical system, is generally attributed to the third
century, yet, if Diogenes Laertius is to be credited, its origin is
much earlier, as he attributed the system to an Egyptian priest,
Pot-Amun, who lived in the early days of the Ptolemaic dynasty. The
same author tells us that the name is Coptic, and signifies one
consecrated to Amun, the God of Wisdom. Theosophy is the equivalent of
Brahm-Vidya, divine knowledge.
----------------------------------- footnote ----------------

+ Eclectic Theosophy was divided under three heads:

(1) Belief in one absolute, incomprehensible and supreme Deity, or
infinite essence, which is the root of all nature, and of all that is,
visible and invisible.

(2) Belief in man's eternal immortal nature, because, being a
radiation of the Universal Soul, it is of an identical essence with
it.

(3) Theurgy, or "divine work," or producing a work of gods; from
theoi, "gods," and ergein, "to work."

The term is very old, but, as it belongs to the vocabulary of the
MYSTERIES, was not in popular use. It was a mystic belief --
practically proven by initiated adepts and priests -- that, by making
oneself as pure as the incorporeal beings ? i.e., by returning to
one's pristine purity of nature -- man could move the gods to impart
to him Divine mysteries, and even cause them to become occasionally
visible, either subjectively or objectively. It was the transcendental
aspect of what is now called Spiritualism; but having been abused and
misconceived by the populace, it had come to be regarded by some as
necromancy, and was generally forbidden.

A travestied practice of the theurgy of Iamblichus lingers still in
the ceremonial magic of some modern Kabalists.

Modern Theosophy avoids and rejects both these kinds of magic and
"necromancy" as being very dangerous.

Real divine theurgy requires an almost superhuman purity and holiness
of life; otherwise it degenerates into mediumship or black magic.

The immediate disciples of Ammonius Saccas, who was called
Theodidaktos, "god-taught"? such as Plotinus and his follower Porphyry
? rejected theurgy at first, but were finally reconciled to it through
Iamblichus, who wrote a work to that effect entitled "De Mysteriis,"
under the name of his own master, a famous Egyptian priest called
Abammon.

Ammonius Saccas was the son of Christian parents, and, having been
repelled by dogmatic spiritualistic Christianity from his childhood,
became a Neo-Platonist, and like J. Boehme and other great seers and
mystics, is said to have had divine wisdom revealed to him in dreams
and visions. Hence his name of Theodidaktos.

He resolved to reconcile every system of religion, and by
demonstrating their identical origin to establish one universal creed
based on ethics. His life was so blameless and pure, his learning so
profound and vast, that several Church Fathers were his secret
disciples. Clemens Alexandrinus speaks very highly of him.

Plotinus, the "St. John" of Ammonius, was also a man universally
respected and esteemed, and of the most profound learning and
integrity. When thirty-nine years of age he accompanied the Roman
Emperor Gordian and his army to the East, to be instructed by the
sages of Bactria and India. He had a School of Philosophy in Rome.

Porphyry, his disciple, whose real name was Malek (a Hellenized Jew),
collected all the writings of his master. Porphyry was himself a great
author, and gave an allegorical interpretation to some parts of
Homer's writings.

The system of meditation the Philaletheians resorted to was ecstacy, a
system akin to Indian Yoga practice.

What is known of the Eclectic School is due to Origen, Longinus, and
Plotinus, the immediate disciples of Ammonius? of the Eclectic
Theosophical School was one of the three objects of its modern
successor, the Theosophical Society, namely, to reconcile all
religions, sects and nations under a common system of ethics, based on
eternal verities.


ENQUIRER. What have you to show that this is not an impossible dream;
and that all the world's religions are based on the one and the same
truth?

THEOSOPHIST. Their comparative study and analysis.

The "Wisdom-religion" was one in antiquity; and the sameness of
primitive religious philosophy is proven to us by the identical
doctrines taught to the Initiates during the MYSTERIES, an institution
once universally diffused. "All the old worships indicate the
existence of a single Theosophy anterior to them. The key that is to
open one must open all; otherwise it cannot be the right key."
(Eclect. Philo.)


ENQUIRER. In the days of Ammonius there were several ancient great
religions, and numerous were the sects in Egypt and Palestine alone.
How could he reconcile them?

THEOSOPHIST. By doing that which we again try to do now. The
Neo-Platonists were a large body, and belonged to various religious
philosophies*; so do our Theosophists. In those days, the Jew
Aristobulus affirmed that the ethics of Aristotle represented

----------------- footnote ------------

* It was under Philadelphus that Judaism established itself in
Alexandria, and forthwith the Hellenic teachers became the dangerous
rivals of the College of Rabbis of Babylon.

As the author of "Eclectic Philosophy" very pertinently remarks: "The
Buddhistic, Vedantic, and Magian systems were expounded along with the
philosophies of Greece at that period. It was not wonderful that
thoughtful men supposed that the strife of words ought to cease, and
considered it possible to extract one harmonious system from these
various teachings. . . . Panaenus, Athenagoras, and Clement were
thoroughly instructed in Platonic philosophy, and comprehended its
essential unity with the Oriental systems."

-----------------------------

the esoteric teachings of the Law of Moses; Philo Judaeus endeavoured
to reconcile the Pentateuch with the Pythagorean and Platonic
philosophy; and Josephus proved that the Essenes of Carmel were simply
the copyists and followers of the Egyptian Therapeutae (the healers).
So it is in our day.

We can show the line of descent of every Christian religion, as of
every, even the smallest, sect. The latter are the minor twigs or
shoots grown on the larger branches; but shoots and branches spring
from the same trunk ?the WISDOM-RELIGION.

To prove this was the aim of Ammonius, who endeavoured to induce
Gentiles and Christians, Jews and Idolaters, to lay aside their
contentions and strifes, remembering only that they were all in
possession of the same truth under various vestments, and were all the
children of a common mother. * This is the aim of Theosophy likewise.


ENQUIRER. What are your authorities for saying this of the ancient
Theosophists of Alexandria?

* Says Mosheim of Ammonius: "Conceiving that not only the philosophers
of Greece, but also all those of the different barbarian nations, were
perfectly in unison with each other with regard to every essential
point, he made it his business so to expound the thousand tenets of
all these various sects as to show they had all originated from one
and the same source, and tended all to one and the same end." If the
writer on Ammonius in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia knows what he is
talking about, then he describes the modern Theosophists, their
beliefs, and their work, for he says, speaking of the Theodidaktos:
"He adopted the doctrines which were received in Egypt (the esoteric
were those of India) concerning the Universe and the Deity, considered
as constituting one great whole; concerning the eternity of the world
. . . and established a system of moral discipline which allowed the
people in general to live according to the laws of their country and
the dictates of nature, but required the wise to exalt their mind by
contemplation."

THEOSOPHIST. An almost countless number of well-known writers.
Mosheim, one of them, says that:?

"Ammonius taught that the religion of the multitude went hand-in-hand
with philosophy, and with her had shared the fate of being by degrees
corrupted and obscured with mere human conceits, superstitions, and
lies; that it ought, therefore, to be brought back to its original
purity by purging it of this dross and expounding it upon
philosophical principles; and the whole Christ had in view was to
reinstate and restore to its primitive integrity the wisdom of the
ancients; to reduce within bounds the universally-prevailing dominion
of superstition; and in part to correct, and in part to exterminate
the various errors that had found their way into the different popular
religions."

This, again, is precisely what the modern Theosophists say. Only while
the great Philaletheian was supported and helped in the policy he
pursued by two Church Fathers, Clement and Athenagoras, by all the
learned Rabbis of the Synagogue, the Academy and the Groves, and while
he taught a common doctrine for all, we, his followers on the same
line, receive no recognition, but, on the contrary, are abused and
persecuted. People 1,500 years ago are thus shown to have been more
tolerant than they are in this enlightened century.


ENQUIRER. Was he encouraged and supported by the Church because,
notwithstanding his heresies, Ammonius taught Christianity and was a
Christian?

THEOSOPHIST. Not at all. He was born a Christian, but never accepted
Church Christianity. As said of him by the same writer:

"He had but to propound his instructions according to the ancient
pillars of Hermes, which Plato and Pythagoras knew before, and from
them constituted their philosophy. Finding the same in the prologue of
the Gospel according to St. John, he very properly supposed that the
purpose of Jesus was to restore the great doctrine of wisdom in its
primitive integrity.

The narratives of the Bible and the stories of the gods he considered
to be allegories illustrative of the truth, or else fables to be
rejected." Moreover, as says the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, "he
acknowledged that Jesus Christ was an excellent man and the 'friend of
God,' but alleged that it was not his design entirely to abolish the
worship of demons (gods), and that his only intention was to purify
the ancient religion."


THE WISDOM-RELIGION ESOTERIC IN ALL AGES


ENQUIRER. Since Ammonius never committed anything to writing, how can
one feel sure that such were his teachings?

THEOSOPHIST. Neither did Buddha, Pythagoras, Confucius, Orpheus,
Socrates, or even Jesus, leave behind them any writings. Yet most of
these are historical personages, and their teachings have all
survived.

The disciples of Ammonius (among whom Origen and Herennius) wrote
treatises and explained his ethics. Certainly the latter are as
historical, if not more so, than the Apostolic writings. Moreover, his
pupils ? Origen, Plotinus, and Longinus (counsellor of the famous
Queen Zenobia)?have all left voluminous records of the Philaletheian
System ? so far, at all events, as their public profession of faith
was known, for the school was divided into exoteric and esoteric
teachings.


ENQUIRER. How have the latter tenets reached our day, since you hold
that what is properly called the WISDOM-RELIGION was esoteric?

THEOSOPHIST. The WISDOM-RELIGION was ever one, and being the last word
of possible human knowledge, was, therefore, carefully preserved. It
preceded by long ages the Alexandrian Theosophists, reached the
modern, and will survive every other religion and philosophy.


ENQUIRER. Where and by whom was it so preserved?

THEOSOPHIST. Among Initiates of every country; among profound seekers
after truth ? their disciples; and in those parts of the world where
such topics have always been most valued and pursued: in India,
Central Asia, and Persia.


ENQUIRER. Can you give me some proofs of its esotericism?

THEOSOPHIST. The best proof you can have of the fact is that every
ancient religious, or rather philosophical, cult consisted of an
esoteric or secret teaching, and an exoteric (outward public) worship.

Furthermore, it is a well-known fact that the MYSTERIES of the
ancients comprised with every nation the "greater" (secret) and
"Lesser" (public) MYSTERIES ? e.g. in the celebrated solemnities
called the Eleusinia, in Greece. From the Hierophants of Samothrace,
Egypt, and the initiated Brahmins of the India of old, down to the
later Hebrew Rabbis, all preserved, for fear of profanation, their
real bona fide beliefs secret.

The Jewish Rabbis called their secular religious series the Mercavah
(the exterior body), "the vehicle," or, the covering which contains
the hidden soul. ? i.e., their highest secret knowledge.

Not one of the ancient nations ever imparted through its priests its
real philosophical secrets to the masses, but allotted to the latter
only the husks.

Northern Buddhism has its "greater" and its "lesser" vehicle, known as
the Mahayana, the esoteric, and the Hinayana, the exoteric, Schools.
Nor can you blame them for such secrecy; for surely you would not
think of feeding your flock of sheep on learned dissertations on
botany instead of on grass?

Pythagoras called his Gnosis "the knowledge of things that are," and
preserved that knowledge for his pledged disciples only: for those who
could digest such mental food and feel satisfied; and he pledged them
to silence and secrecy.

Occult alphabets and secret ciphers are the development of the old
Egyptian hieratic writings, the secret of which was, in the days of
old, in the possession only of the Hierogrammatists, or initiated
Egyptian priests.

Ammonius Saccas, as his biographers tell us, bound his pupils by oath
not to divulge his higher doctrines except to those who had already
been instructed in preliminary knowledge, and who were also bound by a
pledge.

Finally, do we not find the same even in early Christianity, among the
Gnostics, and even in the teachings of Christ? Did he not speak to the
multitudes in parables which had a two-fold meaning, and explain his
reasons only to his disciples? "To you," he says, "it is given to know
the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven; but unto them that are
without, all these things are done in parables" (Mark iv. 11).

"The Essenes of Judea and Carmel made similar distinctions, dividing
their adherents into neophytes, brethren, and the perfect, or those
initiated" (Eclec. Phil.). Examples might be brought from every
country to this effect.


ENQUIRER. Can you attain the "Secret Wisdom" simply by study?
Encyclopedias define Theosophy pretty much as Webster's Dictionary
does, i. e., as "supposed intercourse with God and superior spirits,
and consequent attainment of superhuman knowledge by physical means
and chemical processes." Is this so?

THEOSOPHIST. I think not. Nor is there any lexicographer capable of
explaining, whether to himself or others, how superhuman knowledge can
be attained by physical or chemical processes. Had Webster said "by
metaphysical and alchemical processes," the definition would be
approximately correct: as it is, it is absurd. Ancient Theosophists
claimed, and so do the modern, that the infinite cannot be known by
the finite ? i.e., sensed by the finite Self ? but that the divine
essence could be communicated to the higher Spiritual Self in a state
of ecstasy. This condition can hardly be attained, like hypnotism, by
"physical and chemical means."


ENQUIRER. What is your explanation of it?

THEOSOPHIST. Real ecstasy was defined by Plotinus as "the liberation
of the mind from its finite consciousness, becoming one and identified
with the infinite."

This is the highest condition, says Prof. Wilder, but not one of
permanent duration, and it is reached only by the very, very few. It
is, indeed, identical with that state which is known in India as
Samadhi. The latter is practised by the Yogis, who facilitate it
physically by the greatest abstinence in food and drink, and mentally
by an incessant endeavour to purify and elevate the mind.

Meditation is silent and unuttered prayer, or, as Plato expressed it,
"the ardent turning of the soul toward the divine; not to ask any
particular good (as in the common meaning of prayer), but for good
itself ?for the universal Supreme Good" of which we are a part on
earth, and out of the essence of which we have all emerged. Therefore,
adds Plato, "remain silent in the presence of the divine ones, till
they remove the clouds from thy eyes and enable thee to see by the
light which issues from themselves, not what appears as good to thee,
but what is intrinsically good." *


ENQUIRER. Theosophy, then, is not, as held by some, a newly devised
scheme?

THEOSOPHIST. Only ignorant people can thus refer to it. It is as old
as the world, in its teachings and ethics, if not in name, as it is
also the broadest and most catholic system among all.


ENQUIRER. How comes it, then, that Theosophy has remained so unknown
to the nations of the Western Hemisphere? Why should it have been a
sealed book to races confessedly the most cultured and advanced?

THEOSOPHIST. We believe there were nations as cultured in days of old
and certainly more spiritually "advanced" than we are. But there are
several reasons for this willing ignorance. One of them was given by
St. Paul to the cultured Athenians ? a loss, for long centuries, of
real spiritual insight, and even interest, owing to their too great
devotion to things of sense and their

-------footnote-----------------

* This is what the scholarly author of "The Eclectic Philosophy,"
Prof. A. Wilder, F. T. S., describes as "spiritual photography": "The
soul is the camera in which facts and events, future, past, and
present, are alike fixed; and the mind becomes conscious of them.
Beyond our every-day world of limits all is one day or state -- the
past and future comprised in the present." . . .

Death is the last ecstasis on earth. Then the soul is freed from the
constraint of the body, and its nobler part is united to higher nature
and becomes partaker in the wisdom and foreknowledge of the higher
beings."

Real Theosophy is, for the mystics, that state which Apollonius of
Tyana was made to describe thus: "I can see the present and the future
as in a clear mirror. The sage need not wait for the vapours of the
earth and the corruption of the air to foresee events. . . . The
theoi, or gods, see the future; common men the present; sages that
which is about to take place."

"The Theosophy of the Sages" he speaks of is well expressed in the
assertion, "The Kingdom of God is within us." long slavery to the dead
letter of dogma and ritualism. But the strongest reason for it lies in
the fact that real Theosophy has ever been kept secret.


ENQUIRER. You have brought forward proofs that such secrecy has
existed; but what was the real cause for it?

THEOSOPHIST. The causes for it were:

Firstly, the perversity of average human nature and its selfishness,
always tending to the gratification of personal desires to the
detriment of neighbours and next of kin. Such people could never be
entrusted with divine secrets.

Secondly, their unreliability to keep the sacred and divine knowledge
from desecration. It is the latter that led to the perversion of the
most sublime truths and symbols, and to the gradual transformation of
things spiritual into anthropomorphic, concrete, and gross imagery ?
in other words, to the dwarfing of the god-idea and to idolatry.

------------------------

This is a condensed review of the history of wisdom and of esotericism
in the past.

It gives us an idea that it is a body of knowledge which was known in
antiquity, and we have inherited a part of it.

Best wishes,

Dallas

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