THEOSOPHY (Gr. theosophia, divine wisdom), the name given to a so-called sacred science, which holds a place distinct as well from that of philosophy as from that of theology, even in questions where these latter sciences have the same object with it, namely, the nature and attributes of God. In investigating the divbie nature and attri butes, philosophy proceeds entirely by the dialectic method, employing as the basis of its investigation the ideas derived from natural reason; theology, still employing the same method, superadds to the principles of natural reason those derived from authority and revelation. Theosophy, on the contrary, professes to exclude all dialectical process, and to derive its knowledge of God from direct and immediate intuition and contem plation, or from the immediate communications of God himself. Theosophy, therefore, so far as regards the science of God, is but another name for mysticism (q.v.), although
the latter name implies much more; and the direct and immediate knowledge or intui tion of God, to which the Mystics laid claim, was, in fact, the foundation of that intimate union with God, and consequent abstraction from outer things, which they made the basis of their moral and ascetical system. The theosophic system dates from a very high antiquity; and within the Christian period we may number among theosophy, the Neo-Platonists, especially Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Proclus; the Hesychasts of the Greek church; all those of the mediaeval Mystics who laid claim to any dogmatical theory; and in later times, the Paracelsists, Bodenstein and Thalhauser, Weizel, Jacob Mime, and above all, Emmanuel Swedenborg. If we consider one particular view of the philo sophic system of Schelling, he also may be assigned to the same school.