Theos-Talk Archives (July 1997 Message tl00232)

  Paraphrased and Abridged from the Writings of G. De Purucker

THEOSOPHY:
     This is a compound Greek word: a "divine being," a "god:; and sophia,
"wisdom."  Therefore it means Divine Wisdom.. Theosophy is the timeless
wisdom-Religion of the archaic ages, and is as old as thinking man.  It was
delivered to the first human protoplasts, the first thinking human beings on our
Earth, by highly intelligent spiritual Entities from superior worlds.  This
Ancient Doctrine, this Esoteric System, has been passed down from guardians to
guardians to guardians through innumerable generations to our own time.
Furthermore, portions of this original body of doctrines have been given out at
various periods to vicarious races in various parts of the world by those
Guardians when humanity stood in need of such extension and elaboration of
spiritual and intellectual thought. 

     Theosophy is not a syncretistic religion-philosophy-science; that is, it is
not a system of thought which has been put together piecemeal from parts or
portions taken by some great mind from other religions or philosophies.
Actually, Theosophy is that single System of systematic formulation of the facts
of the visible and invisible Nature, which, as expressed through the illuminated
human mind, takes the apparently separate forms of Religion and of Philosophy
and of Science.  Theosophy may likewise be described as the formulation in human
language of the true nature, structure, origin, destiny and operations of the
Kosmical Universe, and of the multitudes of beings which in-fill it.  In
Blavatsky's words, it is "the substratum and basis of all the world-religions
and philosophies, taught and practiced by a few elect ever since man
became a thinking being."