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Theosophy

Nicholas

Bodhicitta
Here is a definition from the large online Glossary:

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” (Theosophical Glossary 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.

The word became familiar to Greeks in the 3rd century with Ammonius Saccas and the Alexandrian Neoplatonists or Theurgists, who taught of divine emanations, whereby the entire universe as well as humans and all other beings are shown to be descendants of the highest gods. Theosophist is also applied to mystics in later times such as Eckhart, Boehme, and Paracelsus. It was adopted in 1875 by H. P. Blavatsky and others associated with her at the founding of the Theosophical Society as the name for the modern form of the archaic wisdom-religion which she promulgated. This 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” (Key to Theosophy 7-8).

“The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, and its cosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate system: e.g., even in the exotericism of the Puranas. But such is the mysterious power of Occult symbolism, that the facts which have actually occupied countless generations of initiated seers and prophets to marshal, to set down and explain; in the bewildering series of evolutionary progress, are all recorded on a few pages of geometrical sign and glyphs. The flashing gaze of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel of matter, and recorded the soul of things there, where an ordinary profane, however learned, would have perceived but the external work of form. But modern science believes not in the ‘soul of things,’ and hence will reject the whole system of ancient cosmogony. It is useless to say that the system in question is no fancy of one or several isolated individuals. That it is 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. That for long ages, the ‘Wise Men’ of the Fifth Race, of the stock saved and rescued from the last cataclysm and shifting of continents, had passed their lives in learning, not teaching. How did they do so? It is answered: by checking, testing, and verifying in every department of nature the traditions of old by the independent visions of great adepts; i.e., men who have developed and perfected their physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual organisations to the utmost possible degree. 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 experiences” (The Secret Doctrine 1:272-3).
G. de Purucker wrote: “There has existed in the world for almost innumerable ages, a completely coherent and fully comprehensive system of religious philosophy, or of philosophical, scientific religion, which from time to time has been given out to man when the world needed a fuller revealing of spiritual truth than it then at such time had. Further, this wonderful system has been for all those past ages in the safe guardianship of the relatively perfected men . . . [the mahatmas]; and, still further, the present Theosophical Movement is, in our age, one of such fuller revelations or renewals of that wonderful System” (The Esoteric Tradition 33-4).

One of the mahatmas referring to the guardianship of the divine wisdom, wrote: “For countless generations hath the adept builded a fane of imperishable rocks, a giant’s Tower of Infinite Thought, wherein the Titan dwelt, and will yet, if need be, dwell alone, emerging from it but at the end of every cycle, to invite the elect of mankind to co-operate with him and help in his turn enlighten superstitious man. And we will go on in that periodical work of ours; we will not allow ourselves to be baffled in our philanthropic attempts until that day when the foundations of a new continent of thought are so firmly built that no amount of opposition and ignorant malice guided by the Brethren of the Shadow will be found to prevail” (Mahatma Letters 51).
 

Nicholas

Bodhicitta
From Purucker's Dialogues:

Student — Does not the aspirant himself have to make every effort to win the victory?

G. de P. — Certainly, he must walk every step along the pathway to victory. He is not carried there. Every step he himself must take. How could it be otherwise? Human adults are not fed like babes. We feed ourselves, we inform ourselves, we teach ourselves, we make our own way in the world; and if that is a necessity in ordinary human existence, I can tell you that it is tenfold the same necessity in the esoteric life. There we must ourselves win everything. And why? Because we are simply bringing out what is within us, our own will, our own consciousness, must become awakened, fully awakened, and by our own efforts.

You cannot see unless you use your own faculty of vision. You cannot understand by some one else's understanding. Is not that clear? You must gain everything you ever have in the esoteric training. And that is why, to those who do not understand, there are aspects of the esoteric training which may seem to be a little hard, because people in the Occident have been brought up with the idea that they must be carried to victory, saved by the "blood of the Lamb," and all that kind of tommyrot.

This reminds me of the teaching of the Blackies, of the Brothers of the Shadow, with the aim of sending you to sleep, trying to down the individual spiritual impulses of your own being!

No! The opposite is the truth. You cannot live by trusting to someone else to live for you. You yourself must awaken in your own soul the holy flame. And it is the same with every other step in spiritual and intellectual progress that you make. How can you experience the unspeakable delight of compassion, the ineffable feeling of being at one with the All, by hearing that some one else has thus achieved? You yourself must be the vehicle of the inner light, must gain it. It is both in you and above you, invigorating you and inspiring you. Be it!
 

Nicholas

Bodhicitta
It is small wonder indeed that the world is in the perilous state in which it now finds itself, if its shaky ethical sense is founded on no more stable and stronger foundation than that derived from a materialism which bases the loftiest and noblest intuitions of the human spirit upon appetites, impulses, and the beastly qualities which man shares with the most savage representatives of the animal kingdom!

The causes of such materialistic nightmares, for they are nothing but scientific nightmares, have arisen in a complete, and in certain cases it would almost seem in a willful, ignoring or turning aside from every noble quality and impersonal attribute which the human constitution contains. One might well ask the scientific gentlemen whether they have never known of other qualities, attributes, impulses, powers, and faculties in the human constitution, besides those beastly instincts which we share with the beast, and which, when unleashed, sink man to depths of depravity that even the beasts are incapable of reaching.

The argument becomes immediately preposterous, because it wilfully turns its face away from everything that the human constitution contains which makes man man, that has built the great civilizations of the past, that has brought about the efflorescence of all the activities of human genius, that has established the great works of moral splendor and intellectual light which have given hope and inspiration and inestimable comfort to the human race for ages past. On the basis itself that these materialistic evolutionists lay down, they fail to show any origins for such sublime qualities in the human soul as self-forgetful devotion, impersonal love, the strong ethical instinct of altruism, and the spiritual and intellectual fruits of its activity which the human spirit has produced in the world.

Purucker, The Esoteric Tradition, 1:291-2
 

Ben Dhyan

Veteran Member
Thank you Skull, De Purucker would find it hard to believe that the material decadence and imperial ruthlessness of his time was mild compared to now....the world must surely be facing one of those transitional-subrace judgement/culling events. In particular, IIRC the 5th subrace to 6th subrace transition of the 5th root race comes to mind.
 

Nicholas

Bodhicitta
Thank you Skull, De Purucker would find it hard to believe that the material decadence and imperial ruthlessness of his time was mild compared to now....the world must surely be facing one of those transitional-subrace judgement/culling events. In particular, IIRC the 5th subrace to 6th subrace transition of the 5th root race comes to mind.

Yes Ben, something wicked this way comes for certain; but if I recall, that 5 to 6 sub race transition is still tens of thousands of years away.
 

Ben Dhyan

Veteran Member
Yes Ben, something wicked this way comes for certain; but if I recall, that 5 to 6 sub race transition is still tens of thousands of years away.
Perhaps, but the 6th is already emerging as we speak. However also, IIRC, the 5th subrace of the 4th root Atlantian race were the Hebrews, which was the seed for the 5th root race (the number of the subrace represents the upcoming next root race) and so the 5th subrace of the 5th Aryan root race are the Teutonic which is why the Jews and northern Europeans have been at loggerheads....the Aryans must completely subdue the remnants of the 4th root race in order for the next root race, the 6th, to come into existence, the seed of which will be the 6th subrace of the Aryan 5th root race.

The Zionist state of Israel is the remnant of the Atlantian (the Noah story) which event was the transition of the 4th to 5th root race...which required the remnant of the 3rd root race and earlier than the 5th subrace (Hebrews) of the Atlantian 4th root race to be culled. Now the irony is that the Hebrew 5th subrace of the 4th root race as the seed of the 5th root race, now find themselves as remnants, aligning themselves with the the earlier remnant subraces of the 5th Aryan root race against the 5th Teutonic subrace and any emerging 6th subrace peoples of the 5th Aryan root race.

Since this 6th subrace of the 5th root race will form the seed of the 6th root race, there will need to be a Noah type culling event of the remnant of the 4th root race and earlier subraces (1,2, 3, and 4th) of the 5th root race before they can multiply and prosper. I presume there will be 5th subrace is allied with the emerging 6th subrace of the 5th root race. Btw, Jesus said of the times of the dreadful judgement that was coming...it will be as in the days of Noah!
 

Nicholas

Bodhicitta
Ben:
the Aryans must completely subdue the remnants of the 4th root race in order for the next root race, the 6th, to come into existence, the seed of which will be the 6th subrace of the Aryan 5th root race.

Nonsense, no subjugation of an earlier group by a later one is part of spiritual evolution.

The rest of your notions are equally invalid and are not Theosophy in any form I know of.
 

Ben Dhyan

Veteran Member
Ben:

Nonsense, no subjugation of an earlier group by a later one is part of spiritual evolution.

The rest of your notions are equally invalid and are not Theosophy in any form I know of.
Fyi, I was associated with the Brisbane lodge of the Theosophical Society for many years and was an official member of the Society, I have met personally national and Adyar international Theosophical presidents, attended conventions, etc.. ..so had access to the esoteric libarary and read practically all that was on offer.

What I wrote was from memory of the theory of races and rounds in the context of the 'catastrophes' that take place associated with transitions between rounds, races, and subraces. I can't offer you the precise book or author as it has been many years since I studied this material...but a quick google gave me these links which support the general theme of which I had gone into more detail...

Root-Race

Every root-race is separated by a catastrophe, a cataclysm—the basis and historical foundation of the fables woven later on into the religious fabric of every people, whether civilized or savage, under the names of “deluges,” “showers of fire” and such like.[7]

The approach of every new "obscuration" is always signalled by cataclysms — of either fire or water. But, apart from this, every "Ring" or Root Race has to be cut in two, so to say, by either one or the other.[8]

Also...The Theosophical Root Races
 

Nicholas

Bodhicitta
Ben, Your post made no mention of 'cataclysms' which are natural phenomena, but one human group subduing another one. The former has some basis in Theosophy, the latter does not.

You were familiar with the Besant/Leadbeater TS variety. I find little of value or truth in CWL's teachings.
 

Ben Dhyan

Veteran Member
Ben, Your post made no mention of 'cataclysms' which are natural phenomena, but one human group subduing another one. The former has some basis in Theosophy, the latter does not.

You were familiar with the Besant/Leadbeater TS variety. I find little of value or truth in CWL's teachings.
Skull....all is of nature, you make distinctions where I don't....the transitions between the dominance of particular races are associated with cataclysms..I referred to the Noah event as an one associated with the sinking of Atlantis with the transition from 4th to 5th root race..are you telling me this is non- Theosophical?

Blavatsky, De Purucker, Judge, etc., were my favourite reading. Leadbeater was a pedaphile and Besant was probably a dyke...Jiddu Krishnamurti was sodomized by Leadbeater, etc., etc.,...and so yes, these folk are an abomination...though Jiddu managed to emerge from the darkness to get back to his vedic roots and provide some valuable teaching for novices.
 

Nicholas

Bodhicitta
I am saying that your three paragraphs, with the 'Zionist state' being an Atlantean remnant; the 'Aryans' subduing; and a 'Noah type' culling being required, are repulsive or perhaps just silly.

Sorry, but that is the way I see it.
 

Nicholas

Bodhicitta
For the benefit of any reader of this thread, be advised that since the time of HP Blavatsky other teachers calling themselves theosophists in the lineage of HPB have come along. Some understood her and her Gurus teachings, some did not and preferred their own brand. So pseudo-theosophy has many followers.

This article outlines some of the major differences between the Theosophy of Blavatsky and her Gurus and that of Leadbeater, Alice Bailey et al.

http://www.philaletheians.co.uk/Study%20notes/Theosophy%20and%20Theosophists/In%20Theosophy’s%20Shadow%20Vanity%20Whispers.pdf
 
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