While listening to Last Podcast on the Left, one of the hosts said that Theosophy describes Picard to a t. I'm a casual fan of Star Trek, but really into Anthropology, so this comparison made me think. Theosophy ,from Encyclopedia Britannica, has the goal "to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or colour; to encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy, and science; and to investigate unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent in human beings." What do you think about that comparison to the Universe of Star Trek?

I have just learned of this philosophy/religion. Can you tell me the best book to read to introduce me the the ideas which it encompasses?

Which ethics and standards of morality does Theosophy promote ? Is a traditionalist spiritual path ?

>***“Francis Xavier arrived in Goa on May 5, 1542, a little more than a year after he set out from Lisbon. The city of Goa, on the right bank of the Mandavi River, was the largest Portuguese settlement in India. The city had been under Portuguese rule since 1510, and Xavier was delighted to find that it was like a miniature Lisbon, with Dominicans and Franciscans to look after the spiritual needs of the inhabitants, for, as he wrote back enthusiastically to Ignatius in Rome: ‘Goa is entirely populated by Christians*** [Catholics] … We must be very thankful to the Lord our God [Isis-Horus-Serapis] that the name of Christ has reached these distant shores and has prospered so splendidly among these hordes of infidels.’ This, as it turned out, was a serious misconception—Xavier had rashly assumed that the word Krishna, which he observed as constantly on the lips of the Goanese, was nothing more than a local corruption of Christus, the first of many such [strategic] misunderstandings that were to crop up in the course of his Missionary career. […] To prevent the recurrence of anything like his earlier contretemps with Krishna and Christus, Xavier had a number of prayers and sermons translated into Tamil, which he painstakingly committed to memory; nevertheless, some misunderstandings did arise from the fact that his interpreters had for some reason translated the Catholic missa (‘mass’) as misez’ in Tamil, which means ‘mustache.’ A great deal has been written about Xavier’s Missionary activities, more of it negative or actually derisive than positive. Superficially at least there does appear to be something more than a little ridiculous in the image of a black-robed Priest walking along a blazing tropical beach and ringing a little hand bell to attract the local children, then preaching one of his carefully memorized Tamil homilies and teaching them to repeat a prayer in singsong unison [New Age]***. This does sound exactly like the standard twentieth-century caricature of the overdressed, ineffectual Christian*** [Catholic] Missionary in the tropics, the outlandish intruder in Paradise, but these were Francis Xavier’s methods exactly, and they seem to have been remarkably successful [for the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council]***.”***

—Manfred Barthel; ‘The Jesuits: History and Legend of the Society of Jesus,’ pp. 179, 180-1, (New York: 1984) [Emphasis Mine]

• [***https://archive.org/deta

Specifically works by C.W Leadbeater. Have come across his writings about theosophical philosophies. A lot of it I seem to find myself agreeing with or considering to be potentially accurate although at the same time I wanted to know y’all’s thoughts on this if you are familiar. Is it deemed to be culty to any degree? It’s hard to tell because the essays are so complex.

Gesuifer Publishing Company of Loyola

World-Renowned Occultists of the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum Propaganda Fide; Annie Besant and Alice A. Bailey both pushed and preached the Jesuit Order's Counter-Reformation Canons of the Council of the Trident, the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, and Catholic Ecumenism for the Lateran Treaty in 1929 and the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council in 1962-65, for the emergence of the coming Jesuit world-wide Noosphere, i.e. the Internet: the Tower of Babel.

>***“that which was done in the Reformation,*** […] one great harm was done to Christianity [Catholicism] by that movement. It robbed the protesting communities of much of that occult knowledge which had come down from the days of the [non] Apostles and the [non] Disciples in the unbroken succession of the Church of Rome [Babylon]*. The teachings of the Roman Church today contain far more occult science than is found in the Bishops and the Clergy of the communities that take the name of Protestants. It has methods of teaching, methods of training, ways of meditating, which in every great faith are the only ways of awakening those faculties*** [demons] which enable you to know and not only to believe. The faith which leads to man’s perfection [“Thory Acta Latomorum,” i.e. “The Great (Unknown) Work” forgery of the Jesuits] is laid down in some great Roman Catholic manuals, […] Rome speaks of purification as the first step of that faith. Then you come to the next step which Rome calls the path of Illumination. […] The ending for both the Roman calls Union, […] it means the realisation of Divinity, the union of the human Spirit with the divine. A few months ago I was reading with some care a Roman Catholic treatise that any one of you might read with the greatest profit, if you care at all about the scientific [Legoministic] side of Mysticism [Catholicism]***. It is written by a Jesuit Father*** [Augustin Poulain, S.J. (1836-1919)]***, and in the translation is called ‘The Graces of Interior Prayer.’ It has received the approval of the Pope*** [Pius X] and of some of the high officials [the Black Papacy] ***of the Roman Catholic Church. Now in that book, at the end of it, in dealing with Union, the writer speaks of the deification of m

Most Hindus seem to be much more open-minded and tolerant than some other religious movements, such as conservative branches of the religions of Abraham.

What do most Hindus think about the Baha'i Faith, which recognises it as one of the nine divine religions, and which share certain commonalities, developed in Persia about several hundred years ago, and meant to reform Islam or something? And Theosophy, which partly developed in India a century ago? And the broader New Age movement in the West, consisting of horoscopes, energy healing and crystals?

Theosophy is “Divine Wisdom” (Theosophia), from the Ancient Greek theos, meaning “god," and sophia, “wisdom," and is identical to Brahma-Vidya, which means divine knowledge. It is also known as Gupta-Vidya, Atma-Vidya, Esoteric Philosophy, Occult Science, and the Secret Doctrine among others. In “The Key to Theosophy” it is said that the name first originated with the Alexandrian philosophers, called lovers of truth, Philaletheians, dating back to the third century of our era, and began with Ammonius Saccas and his disciples, who started the Eclectic Theosophical System. The object of this system was, 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.”

"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 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 strifes 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.

"By that higher intuition acquired by Theosophia — or God-knowledge, which carried the mind from the world of form into that of formless spirit, man has been sometimes enabled in every age and every country to perceive things in the interior or invisible world.

"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 the first is sense, or perception; of the second, dialectics; of the third, intuition. To the last, reason is subordinate; it is absolute knowledge, founded on the identification of the mind with the object known'" (H.P. Blavatsky, What is Theosophy?).

r/Original_Theosophy - The purpose of this subreddit is to discuss and promote the study of the original teachings of Theosophy, i.e. the works of H.P. Blavatsky and William Q. Judge. The writings of B.P. Wadia, Bhavani Shankar, Robert Crosbi

I am new to Christian Mysticism and I keep coming across stuff with connections to theosophy. Would like everyone's thoughts on theosophy. I was led to believe Blavatsky was "bad"????

Theosophy is at the root of so much crankery these days. It seems like the show stays away from hot-button issues like religion, but Theosophy can totally be covered without stepping on toes. Everyone from the Ancient Alien set to the Atlantis people, to the weird Earth Crustal Displacement folks have their roots in Theosophy. Before Aliens were all the rage, the entire occult world for nearly half a century can be reasonably characterized as a response to Theosophy. Theosophy and Charles Fort, as competing paradigms, could easily be credited with the creation of our modern framework of the weird.

Overview

In 1875, a Russian aristocrat named Helena Petrovna Blavatsky published Isis Unveiled, which formalized the doctrine of Theosophy. Born of, and a response to, the Spiritualist movement, Theosophy marked a departure from the prevailing mystic theories of the day, offering alternative metaphysics and charting much of occultism’s future course. Blavatsky described Theosophy as "the synthesis of science, religion and philosophy" and her work is a collage of Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Theosophy provided the philosophical roots of future western esoteric traditions such as Ariosophy, Anthroposophy, and the New Age Movement as well as helped introduce interpretations of Eastern concepts into Western occult thinking. In popular culture, Theosophy or its intellectual descendants have been referenced in too many works to enumerate, from H.P. Lovecraft to Led Zeppelin,

Core Concepts

1. The Ur Religion

Blavatsky asserted her Theosophy was a rediscovery or re-articulation of a global “ancient wisdom religion” which was known to certain historical figures of renown such as Plato and Solomon. The Christianization of Europe obscured this ancient wisdom, forcing it underground (in this way, the doctrine shares similarities with Margret Murry’s ideas in Witch-Cult in Western Europe), but the tradition persisted in the East, maintained by Hindu scholars, African wisdom keepers and Buddhist mystics. Thus, Theosophy was not new, but the reintroduction of lost knowledge.

2. The Ascended Masters

While Blavatsky’s cosmology was fundamentally monotheistic and absolutist (i.e. the world we inhabit is a projection, emanation, or reflection of some absolute or higher reality), both the deity and the higher realm were somewhat distant and impersonal. Blavatsky’s revelations were not direct messages from a deity but rather from a group

Quoted from The Key to Theosophy Ch. XIII.

ENQ. Now to another question; must a man marry or remain a celibate?

THEO. It depends on the kind of man you mean. If you refer to one who intends to live in the world, one who, even though a good, earnest Theosophist, and an ardent worker for our cause, still has ties and wishes which bind him to the world, who, in short, does not feel that he has done forever with what men call life, and that he desires one thing and one thing only -- to know the truth, and to be able to help others -- then for such a one I say there is no reason why he should not marry, if he likes to take the risks of that lottery where there are so many more blanks than prizes. Surely you cannot believe us so absurd and fanatical as to preach against marriage altogether? On the contrary, save in a few exceptional cases of practical Occultism, marriage is the only remedy against immorality.

ENQ. But why cannot one acquire this knowledge and power when living a married life?

THEO. My dear sir, I cannot go into physiological questions with you; but I can give you an obvious and, I think, sufficient answer, which will explain to you the moral reasons we give for it. Can a man serve two masters? No! Then it is equally impossible for him to divide his attention between the pursuit of Occultism and a wife. If he tries to, he will assuredly fail in doing either properly; and, let me remind you, practical Occultism is far too serious and dangerous a study for a man to take up, unless he is in the most deadly earnest, and ready to sacrifice all, himself first of all, to gain his end. But this does not apply to the members of our Inner Section. I am only referring to those who are determined to tread that path of discipleship which leads to the highest goal. Most, if not all those who join our Inner Section, are only beginners, preparing themselves in this life to enter in reality upon that path in lives to come.