Theos-Talk Archives (December 1995 Message tl00561)

>JRC:
>
>>From "The Key To Theosophy":
>
>>HPB says "the origin of the name ... ... comes to us from the
>>Alexandrian philosophers called lovers of truth Philaletheians from
>>`phil' loving and `aletheia' "truth". The name Theosophy dates from
>>the third century of our era and began with Ammonius Saccas and his
>>disciples."
>
>That's fine for a definition of the term "Theosophy". But HPB could have
>chosen many different terms to label her new society and the philosophy
>which she was about to teach in the west. What she was going to teach
>did not I think come from Saccas and his disciples. "Theosophy" happened
>to be a handy term to use for the future T.S.
>
>The various doctrines in our basic theosophical books contain many
>borrowed terms including "Theosophy" itself. We can I think read
>about the philosophies and religious that they come from. It's important
>though to keep in mind that the borrowed terms sometimes may have their
>meanings changed.
>
>So when RI gives us two good dictionary definitions of "Theosophy" it's
>fine for purposes of understanding how Theosophy is popularly thought of
>but does not help us when we want to understand it in the theosophical
>context in the context that it is thought of in our theosophical textbooks.
>
>-- Eldon
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eldon
I once had a dialogue with Elisabeth Trumpler about the definitions of
Theosophy in encyclopedias & etc. She told me that all these publications
give some sort of a definition which most often doesn't meet our criteria.

Liesel
>