Theosophy, literally divine wisdom (theos, sophia), is a name that since the time of Ammonius Saccas, in the third century after Christ, has been used in the West to cover various schools of religious philosophy, which all unite in the fundamental conception that man, in his innermost nature, is a spiritual being, one in his essence with the Universal Spirit manifested in and through the universe. In this general sense it has been taken to include mystics differing widely from each other in details; among these are the Simonian, Ophite, and Valentinian schools of so-called Gnosticism; the Neoplatonist of Ammonius Saccas, Porphyry, Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Longinus; the great Hermetic and Rosicrucian orders, which kept an unbroken tradition through medieval and modern Europe; together with the teachings of men like Jakob Boehme, Henry Vaughan, and Law. These may be taken as repre- senting the Occidental stream of Theosophical thought, which has naturally acquired a Christian tone in its symbolism, whereas the Oriental has utilised the symbolism of the great eastern religions. In the East the system now called Theosophy has been known for ages under the titles of Âtmâ Vidyâ ('spirit science'), Brahmavidyâ ('science of Brahma'), Gupta Vidyâ ('secret science'), and other similar names. All alike, in East and West, draw their inspiration and their methods from the 'Wisdom Religion,' the ancient esoteric philosophy. This claims among its initiates the men who have given to the world fragments of the teaching as basis for world-religions, men like Buddha, Confucius, Zarathustra, Pythagoras, Plato, Jesus, to say nothing of yet more ancient sages, Manu, Nârada, and other great Rishis. In the 16th century Paracelsus and Giordano Bruno are among its grandest exponents, and in our own day its messenger was a woman of Russian birth, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-91), who was initiated in Tibet, and whose works form the most complete exposition of the esoteric philosophy.
The Esoteric Philosophy, or Wisdom Religion, is a body of teaching, philosophical, scientific, and religious, which is believed to be preserved from generation to generation by a brotherhood of initiates scattered over the world, but preserving close and intimate relations with each other. It is to a group of these now stationed in Tibet that the founding of the Theosophical Society in 1875 is ascribed, and it is these who are constantly referred to in Theosophical literature as Mahâtmas, Arhats, Masters, Brothers, or Adepts. They are living men, who have evolved the spiritual nature until the physical body and brain-consciousness have become ductile instruments for the spiritual intelligence; and who, by virtue of this evolution, are said to have gained a control over natural forces which enables them to bring about results that appear to be miraculous. The possibility of this evolution, and the nature of the powers inherent in the highly evolved man, derive inevitably from the postulates of the esoteric philosophy.
This philosophy teaches as basic principles an eternal existence beyond human cognition, existence per se, absoluteness or 'be-ness.' A periodical aspect of this is life, consciousness, manifesting itself in and as the universe, primarily emanating as the dual root-substance, matter on its negative, and spirit, or energy, on its positive side. This duality is the note of the manifested universe, manifestation being held to be impossible without the 'pairs of opposites,' positive-negative, active-passive, light-darkness, &c., culminating at one part of the chain of evolution in sex-difference, male-female. Spirit and matter are therefore not separable, but are merely the opposed poles of the one root-substance, and are present in every particle, as the poles in each fragment of a broken magnet. Evolution consists in the gradual densifying of the root-substance through seven stages or planes of differentiated existence, the matter aspect becoming more and more prominent as the evolution proceeds, and the spirit aspect becoming more and more hidden; thus matter reaches its fullest differentiation, evolving the whole of its capacities as a vehicle. From this point of completest materiality begins the returning curve, during which matter becomes translucent to spirit, and spirit becomes self-conscious on all planes; having manifested itself as brain-intellect on the most material plane, it recovers all its subtler super-intellectual powers on the ascending arc, but always with the addition of self-consciousness and individuality, until, at the completion of the cycle, matter has become a perfect objective presentment of spirit, a perfect vehicle of spiritual activity.
The seven stages of cosmical evolution, aspects of the universal Divine consciousness, correspond with seven stages of human evolution, aspects of the human consciousness, by each of which man can cognise directly the corresponding cosmic state. These in man are distinguished as (1) Átmā, pure spirit, one with the universal spirit; (2) Buddhi, the vehicle of Átmā and inseparable from it, sometimes spoken of as the spiritual soul; (3) Manas, the mind, the ego or individualising principle, sometimes called the rational or human soul. These three are the immortal part of man, Manas striving for union with Buddhi, such union making the spiritual ego, the spiritual man perfected. The remaining principles form the quaternary, the perishable part of man. These are (4) Kāma, the emotions, passions, and appetites; (5) Prāna, the vitality; (6) Linga Sharīra, the astral double; (7) Sthûla Sharīra, the physical body. [These principles are generally numbered in reversed order, starting from the physical, Sthûla Sharīra being taken as 1 and Átmā as 7.] At death, it is taught, the physical body and the astral double disintegrate together; the vitality returns to the universal life; the passionate nature, in its own ethereal envelope, exists for a longer or shorter period, according as it is dominated, or was subservient to, the higher nature, but ultimately fades away. The higher triad has, during earth-life, been joined to the lower nature by Manas, the mind; this Manas is divided into higher and lower, the higher striving upwards, the lower entangled with Kāma, and held by the desire for material life which is at the root of all manifestation. At death the higher triad gradually separates itself from the lower nature, the lower mind, which is but a ray of the higher, returning to its source, carrying with it the experiences gained during incarnation; the triad, with this added experience, the harvest of life, enters on a period of repose, the state of Devachan. A state of consciousness apart from the physical body, in which the intelligence is free from physical limitations, is one but dimly apprehended by those who are accustomed to confine their ideas of life to the physical world, or to a spiritual world which is merely a sublimated reflection of the physical. Devachan is not a place; it is a state of consciousness in which the experiences of the lately concluded earth-life are assimilated, its best aspirations have their fruition, and the communion of the consciousness with other consciousnesses is freed from physical limitations, and is more complete and satisfying. This state endures for a period proportionate to the stage of evolution reached on earth, and is concluded by the re-entry of the consciousness into the embodied condition.
For the method of evolution, according to Theosophy, is Reincarnation. The reincarnating ego, the agent in progress, is the Manas. In the far-off past, when physical evolution, guided by the indwelling spirit, had produced man's physical form, Manas first became incarnate therein, and has since reincarnated after each devachanic interlude. Throughout each incarnation it labours to evolve in the body it inhabits the capacity to respond to its impulses, but it is through the moulding of successive bodies that it accomplishes its task of human elevation. The thoughts produced by its activity are real things on the mental plane, made of subtle matter, 'thought-stuff,' a form of ether. The thoughts of each life ultimate in a thought-body, that expresses the result of that incarnation, and this thought-body serves as a mould into which is built the physical body which forms the next dwelling of the ego. The 'innate character' which the child brings into the world is this result of its own past, and is physically expressed in its brain and nervous organisation. The reincarnating ego is drawn by affinity to the nation and family fitted to supply the most suitable physical material and psychical environment. The physical particles thence supplied are stamped with the racial and family characteristics, bodily and mental, but their arrangement is dominated by the thought-body resulting as above stated. Thus mental and moral capacities gained by struggle in one or many incarnations become innate qualities, exercised 'naturally,' without effort, in a later incarnation, and thus progress is secured. This law, by which all causes work out their due effects, is called Karma (the Sanskrit word for action), and according to this all thoughts, good and bad, leave their traces on the thought-body and reappear as tendencies in future lives. No escape from this sequence of cause and effect is possible; all our past must work itself out, but as the same agent that made the past is making the present it sets up fresh causes in meeting the effects of the past. Thus a trouble, generated by past action, is inevitable; it is in our Karma. But we may meet it badly, and so set up fresh cause for bad Karma in the future; or we may meet it well, and so generate good Karma. We made our present destiny in our past, and we are making our future destiny in our present.
The teaching of Reincarnation as the method, and Karma as the law, of evolution leads to the doctrine of universal brotherhood, which it is the object of Theosophy to realise. Offspring of the universal life which is the soul of the universe, bound inextricably together by the ties of Karma, evolving to one common goal of perfect humanity, how should men be aught but brothers? Reincarnation crushes out all differences of race, sex, class; Karma so interweaves human lives that each can only find happiness and perfection as all find it. These facts in nature yield, it is claimed by Theosophy, a scientific basis for ethics, and make the practical recognition of human brotherhood a necessary condition of accelerated evolution.
Besides the works of Paracelsus, Bruno, and Boehme the student should consult H. P. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, Isis Unveiled, Key to Theosophy, Voice of the Silence; the present writer's Seven Principles of Man, Reincarnation; A. P. Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism; W. Q. Judge's Echoes of the Orient; for the Christian aspect, Dr Anna Kingsford's Perfect Way, Woman clothed with the Sun (Theosophical Publishing Society, 7 Duke Street, Strand, London). There is a very large pamphlet literature. The Theosophical Society has its headquarters at Adyar, Madras, India, where a monthly periodical, The Theosophist, is published. European headquarters are at 17 and 19 Avenue Road, London, N.W., and the leading European monthly magazine is Lucifer, published at 7 Duke Street as above. American headquarters are at 144 Madison Avenue, New York, and there a third monthly, The Path, is published. There are nearly 300 branches of the society scattered over the world.