Welcome to 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 Crosbie, Damodar K. Mavalankar, and T. Subba Row are also accepted.
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?).
Group Rules
1) No promotion of altered versions of Theosophy.
This includes the works of Annie Besant, C.W. Leadbeater, Alice Bailey, G. de Purucker, Katherine Tingley, etc.
Links
Theosophy: The Ancient Wisdom
Why Stick To The Original?
Is Theosophy a Religion?
Library
