Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
Theosophy The Inner Wisdom
By C.A. Bartzokas
What Theosophy Is And Is Not
1. Is Theosophy a science?
By looking inwards at the noumenal 1 worlds and causes, Theosophy is Esoteric Science, par excellence. Exact Science is only concerned with phenomenal worlds and effects. . . . the Esoteric Doctrine may well be called the “thread-doctrine,” since, like Sutratman, in the Vedanta philosophy, it passes through and strings together all the ancient philosophical religious systems, and reconciles and explains them all. We say now it does more. It not only reconciles the various and apparently conflicting systems, but it checks the discoveries of modern exact science, and shows some of them to be necessarily correct, since they are found corroborated in the ancient records.
Science is, undeniably, ultra-materialistic in our days; but it finds, in one sense, its justification. Nature behaving in actu 2 ever esoterically, and being, as the Kabbalists say, in abscondito, 3 can only be judged by the profane through her appearance, and that appearance is always deceitful on the physical plane. On the other hand, the naturalists refuse to blend physics with metaphysics, the body with its informing soul and spirit, which they prefer ignoring. This is a matter of choice with some, while the minority strive very sensibly to enlarge the domain of physical science by trespassing on the forbidden grounds of metaphysics, so distasteful to some materialists. These scientists are wise in their generation. For all their wonderful discoveries would go for nothing, and remain for ever headless bodies, unless they lift the veil of matter and strain their eyes to see beyond. Now that they have studied nature in . . . her physical frame, it is time [to search for] . . . the noumenon of evanescent matter.4
Esoteric Science corroborates Nature’s metaphysics and Divine Laws; Exact Science, Its physics and natural laws. Once Theosophy and its principles are known, it will be demonstrated that our philosophy is not only a “close relative of modern science,” but its forbear, though greatly transcending it in logic; and that its “metaphysics” is vaster, more beautiful and more powerful than any emanating from a dogmatic cult. It is the metaphysics of Nature in her chaste nakedness, both physical, moral and spiritual, alone capable of explaining the apparent miracle by means of natural and psychic laws, and of completing the mere physiological and pathological notions of Science, and of killing for ever the anthropomorphic Gods and the Devils of dualistic religions. No one believes more firmly in the Unity of the eternal laws than do the Theosophists.1
In Its fruition, Theosophy is Inner Knowledge about the divinity of Cosmos and Man, Theosophy is an all-embracing Science; many are the ways leading to it, as numerous in fact as its definitions, which began by the sublime, during the day of Ammonius Saccas, and ended by the ridiculous — in Webster’s Dictionary. There is no reason why our critics should claim the right for themselves alone to know what is theosophy and to define it. There were theosophists and Theosophical Schools for the last 2,000 years, from Plato down to the mediaeval Alchemists, who knew the value of the term, it may be supposed. Therefore, when we are told that “the question for consideration is not whether the Theosophical Society is doing good, but whether it is doing that kind of good which is entitled to the name of Theosophy” — we turn round and ask: “And who is to be the judge in this mooted question?” We have heard of one of the greatest Theosophists who ever lived, who assured his audience that whosoever gave a cup of cold water to a little one in his name, would have a greater reward than all the learned Scribes and Pharisees. “Woe to the world because of offences!”2
And a noetic progression from the known and knowable, to the unknown and, otherwise, unknowable. Yes; Theosophy is the science of all that is divine in man and nature. It is the study and the analysis, within the known and the knowable, of the unknown, and the otherwise UNKNOWABLE. 1 And, as such, It lies at the root of every moral philosophy, religion, and science.
How long, O radiant gods of truth, how long shall this terrible mental cecity 2 of the nineteenth century Philosophists last? How much longer are they to be told that Theosophy is no national property, no religion, but only the universal code of science and the most transcendental 3 ethics that was ever known; that it lies at the root of every moral philosophy and religion.4
Practical Theosophy is not one Science, but embraces every science in life, moral and physical. It may, in short, be justly regarded as the universal “coach,” a tutor of world-wide knowledge and experience, and of an erudition which not only assists and guides his pupils toward a successful examination for every scientific or moral service in earthly life, but fits them for the lives to come, if those pupils will only study the universe and its mysteries within themselves, instead of studying them through the spectacles of orthodox science and religions.5
Theosophy is the world’s tree of knowledge and sum total of all sciences. It is the accumulated wisdom of Divine Beings from the beginning of time, who have willingly accepted the harshness and drudgery of sentient life to help their toiling brothers. . . . Theosophy is a descendant in direct line of the great tree of universal GNOSIS, a tree, the luxuriant branches of which, spreading over the whole earth like a great canopy, overshadowed during the epoch — which Biblical chronology is pleased to call antediluvian — all the temples and all the nations of the earth. That Gnosis represents the aggregate of all the sciences, the accumulated knowledge [savoir] of all the gods and demi-gods incarnated in former times upon the earth. There are some who would like to see in these the fallen angels and the enemy of mankind; those sons of God who, seeing that the daughters of men were fair, took them for wives and imparted to them all the secrets of heaven and earth. . . . We believe in Avataras and in divine dynasties, in an epoch when there were in fact “giants upon the earth,” but we emphatically repudiate the idea of “fallen angels” and of Satan and his army.1
