---

Theosophy The Inner Wisdom

By C.A. Bartzokas

---

The Renaissance Of Ancient Spiritualism

Theosophy is Archaic Wisdom-Religion, . . . the esoteric doctrine once known in every ancient country having claims to civilization. This “Wisdom” all the old writings show us as an emanation 1 of the divine Principle; and the clear comprehension of it is typified in such names as the Indian Budha, the Babylonian Nebo, the Thoth of Memphis, the Hermes of Greece; in the appellations, 2 also, of some goddesses — Metis, Neitha, Athena, the Gnostic Sophia, and finally — the Vedas, from the word “to know.” Under this designation, all the ancient philosophers of the East and West, the Hierophants 3 of old Egypt, the Rishis 4 of Aryavarta, the Theodidaktoi 5 of Greece, included all knowledge of things occult and essentially divine. The Merkabah 6 of the Hebrew Rabbis, the secular and popular series, were thus designated as only the vehicle, the outward shell which contained the higher esoteric knowledge. The Magi 7 of Zoroaster received instruction and were initiated in the caves and secret lodges of Bactria; the Egyptian and Grecian hierophants had their aporrheta, or secret discourses, during which the Mystes became an Epoptes — a Seer.8 

As taught by Masters and Magi, Sages and Hierophants, Prophets and Philosophers, to the Elect, undisguised by symbols. The title of sages — the high-priests of this worship of truth [Love of Wisdom] — was its first derivative. . . . It is to Pythagoras that we owe [the name Philosophy], as also that of gnosis, the system of η γνωσις των οντων, “the knowledge of things that are,” or of the essence that is hidden beneath the external appearances. Under that name, so noble and so correct in its definition, all masters of antiquity designated the aggregate of human and divine knowledge. The sages and Brahmanas of India, the magi of Chaldea and Persia, the hierophants of Egypt and Arabia, the prophets of nebi’im of Judaea and of Israel, as well as the philosophers of Greece and Rome, have always classified that special science in two divisions — the esoteric, or the true, and the exoteric, disguised by symbols.1

It is Spiritual Knowledge, reasoned out and corroborated by personal experience. 2 . . . The uninterrupted record covering thousands of generations of Seers, whose respective experiences were made to test and to verify the traditions passed orally by one early race to another, of the teachings of higher and exalted beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity. . . . for long ages . . . “Wise men” . . . saved and rescued from the last cataclysm and shifting of continents, had passed their lives in learning, not teaching . . . by checking, testing, and verifying in every department of nature the traditions of old by the independent visions of great adepts. . . . No vision of one adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the visions — so obtained as to stand as independent evidence — of other adepts, and by centuries of experience.3 . . . There were Theosophists before the Christian era, notwithstanding that the Christian writers ascribe the development of the Eclectic theosophical system, to the early part of the third century of their Era.4

Diogenes Laërtius traces Theosophy to an epoch antedating the dynasty of the Ptolemies. . . . and names as its founder an Egyptian Hierophant called Pot-Amun, the name being Coptic and signifying a priest consecrated to Amun, the god of Wisdom.5 

But, in fact, Theosophy is much older: It is the parent stem of Archaic Wisdom. Theosophy is synonymous with the Jnana-Vidya, and the Brahma-Vidya 6 of the Hindus, and again with the Dzyan of the trans-Himalayan adepts, the science of the true Raja-Yogis, who are much more accessible than one thinks. This science has many schools in the East, but its offshoots are more numerous, each one ultimately separating itself from the parent stem — the Archaic Wisdom — and modifying its form. But while these forms varied, departing from the Light of Truth, more and more with each generation, the basis of initiatory truths remained always the same. The symbols used to express the same ideas may differ, but in their hidden sense they always express the same thoughts.1

The term was revived in the third century AD by Ammonius Saccas, the Alexandrian Socrates of Neo-Platonism, teacher of Plotinus, and founder of the Eclectic Theosophical System. [Ammonius Saccas] and his disciples called themselves “Philaletheians” — lovers of the truth; while others termed them the “Analogists,” on account of their method of interpreting all sacred legends, symbolical myths and mysteries, by a rule of analogy or correspondence, so that events which had occurred in the external world were regarded as expressing operations and experiences of the human soul. It was the aim and purpose of Ammonius to reconcile all sects, peoples and nations under one common faith — a belief in one Supreme, Eternal, Unknown, and Unnamed Power, governing the Universe by immutable and eternal laws. His object was . . . 2 

To prove a primitive system of Theosophy, which at the beginning was essentially alike in all countries; 
To induce all men to lay aside their strives and quarrels, and unite in purpose and thought as the children of one common mother; 
To purify the ancient religions, by degrees corrupted and obscured, from all dross of human element, by uniting and expounding them upon pure philosophical principles.3 

Eclectic Theosophy asserts: 1. Humanity is a periodic emanation from a single Noetic Essence, and 2. When by exertion and merit a mortal soul activates its latent faculties and potencies, it can be re-connected with its immortal noetic origin and source. The central idea of the Eclectic 4 Theosophy was that of a single Supreme Essence, Unknown and Unknowable, for:

“How could one know the knower?”

as enquires Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Their system was characterised by three distinct features: 
[1] The theory of the above-named Essence; 
[2] The doctrine of the human soul — an emanation from the latter, hence of the same nature; 
[3] And its theurgy.
It is this last science which has led the NeoPlatonists to be so misrepresented in our era of materialistic science. Theurgy being essentially the art of applying the divine powers of man to the subordination of the blind forces of nature, its votaries were first termed magicians — a corruption of the word “Magh,” signifying a wise, or learned man, and — derided. Sceptics of a century ago would have been as wide of the mark if they had laughed at the idea of a phonograph or a telegraph. The ridiculed and the “infidels” of one generation generally become the wise men and saints of the next.1 

Hence, the Buddhistic, Vedantic, and Magian or Zoroastrian systems were taught in the Eclectic Theosophical School along with all the philosophies of Greece. . . . Hence also, that pre-eminently Buddhistic and Indian feature among the ancient Theosophists of Alexandria,

Of due reverence for parents and aged persons; 
A fraternal affection for the whole human race; 
And a compassionate feeling for even the dumb animals.

While seeking to establish a system of moral discipline which enforced upon people the duty to live according to the laws of their respective countries;

To exalt their minds by the research and contemplation of the one Absolute Truth; 2 . . . 

Ammonius Saccas’ chief object] was to extract from the various religious teachings, as from a manychorded instrument, one full and harmonious melody, which would find response in every truth-loving heart.3

It was Theosophy which prompted such men as Hegel, Fichte, and Spinoza, to take up the labours of the old Grecian philosophers and speculate upon the One Substance, the Deity, the Divine All, proceeding from Divine Wisdom. . . . incomprehensible, unknown, and unnamed — by any ancient or modern religious philosophy, with the exception of Christianity and Mohammedanism. Every Theosophist, then, holding to a theory of the Deity “which has not revelation, but an inspiration of his own for its basis,” may accept any of the above definitions or belong to any of these religions, and yet remain strictly within the boundaries of Theoso-phy. For the latter is belief in the Deity as the ALL, the source of all existence, the infinite that cannot be either comprehended or known, the universe alone revealing It, or, as some prefer it, Him, thus giving a sex to that, to anthropomorphize which is blasphemy. True, Theosophy shrinks from brutal materialization; it prefers believing that, from eternity retired within itself, the Spirit of the Deity neither wills nor creates; but that, from the infinite effulgency everywhere going forth from the Great Centre, that which produces all visible and invisible things is but a Ray containing in itself the generative and conceptive power, which, in its turn produces that which the Greeks called Macrocosm, the Kabbalists Tikkun or Adam Kadmon — the archetypal man, and the Aryans Purusha, the manifested Brahm, or the Divine Male. Theosophy believes also in the Anastasis or continued existence, and in transmigration (evolution) or a series of changes in the soul 1 which can be defended and explained on strict philosophical principles; and only by making a distinction between Paramatma (transcendental, supreme soul) and Jivatma (animal, or conscious soul) of the Vedantins. 2 

 And it was Theosophy that made it possible for great thinkers such as Plotinus, Schelling, and Emerson, o reflect upon man’s divine ancestry. Plotinus, the pupil of the “God-taught” Ammonius, tells us, that the secret gnosis or the knowledge of Theosophy, has three degrees — opinion, science, and illumination. “The means or instrument: 
Of [opinion] the first is sense, or perception; 
Of [science] the second, dialectics; 
Of [illumination] the third, intuition. 

To the last, reason is subordinate; it is absolute knowledge, founded on the identification of the mind with the object known.” Theosophy is the exact science of psychology, so to say; it stands in relation to natural, uncultivated mediumship, as the knowledge of a Tyndall stands to that of a school-boy in physics. It develops in man a direct beholding; that which Schelling denominates “a realization of the identity of subject and object in the individual”; so that under the influence and knowledge of hyponoia 1 man thinks divine thoughts, views all things as they really are, and, finally, “becomes recipient of the Soul of the World,” to use one of the finest expressions of Emerson. “I, the imperfect, adore my own Perfect” — he says in his superb Essay on The Over-Soul. 2