THEOSOPHY, a name which since the time of Ammonius Saccas, in the 3d cen tury after Christ, has been used in the West to cover various schools of relig ious philosophy, which all unite in the fundamental conception that man, in his innermost nature, is a spiritual being, one in his essence with the Universal Spirit manifested in and through the uni verse. In this general sense it includes mystics differing from one another in details. In the East the system now called Theosophy has been known for ages under the titles of Atma Vidya ("spirit science"), Brahma Vidya "sci ence of Brahma"•, Gupta Vidya "secret science"), and other similar names. All alike, in East and West, draw in spiration and their methods from the "Wisdom Religion," the ancient esotoric philosophy. This claims among its initi ates the men who have given to the world fragments of the teaching as ba sis for world-religions, men like Buddha, Confucius, Zarathustra, Pythagoras, Plato, Jesus, and more ancient sages such as Manu, Narada, and other great Ri shis. In the 16th century Paracelsus and Giordano Bruno are among its grandest exponents, and in our own day its mes senger was a woman of Russian birth, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891).
The Esoteric Philosophy, or Wisdom Religion, is a body of teaching, philosoph ical, scientific, and religious, which is be lieved to be preserved from generation to generation by a brotherhood of initi ates scattered over the world, but pre serving close and intimate relations with one another. To a group of these sta tioned in Tibet the founding of the Theo sophical Society in 1875 is ascribed, and they are constantly referred to in theo sophical literature as Mahatmas, Arhats, Masters, Brothers, or Adepts. They are men who have evolved the spiritual na ture till the physical body and brain con sciousness have become ductile instru ments for the spiritual intelligence. By virtue of this evolution they are said to have gained control over natural forces which enables them to bring about results that appear to be miraculous.
This philosophy teaches as basic prin ciples an eternal existence beyond hu man cognition, existence per se, abso luteness or "beness." A periodical as pect of this is life, consciousness, mani festing itself in and as the universe, pri marily emanating as the dual root sub stance, matter on its negative, and spirit, or energy, on its positive side. This duality is the note of the manifested universe, manifestation being held to be impossible without the "pairs of oppo sites," positive-negative, active-passive, light-darkness, and the like, ultimating at one part of the chain of evolution in sex difference, male-female. Spirit and matter are therefore not separable, but are merely the opposed poles of the one root substance, and are present in every particle, as the poles in each fragment of a broken magnet. Evolution consists in the gradual densifying of the root substance through seven stages or planes of differentiated existence, the matter as pect becoming more and more prominent as the evolution proceeds, and the spirit aspect becoming more and more hidden; thus matter reaches its fullest differenti ation, evolving the whole of its capacities as a vehicle. From this point of corn pletest materiality begins the running curve, during which matter becomes translucent to spirit, and spirit becomes self-conscious on all planes. It mani fests itself as brain intellect on the most material plane, and recovers all its super intellectual powers on the ascending arc, but always with the addition of self consciousness and individuality, till, at the completion of the cycle, matter has become a perfect objective presentment of spirit, a perfect vehicle of spiritual activity.
The seven stages of cosmical evolution, aspects of the universal Divine con sciousness, correspond with seven stages of human evolution, aspects of the human consciousness, by each of which man can cognize directly the correspondingly cosmic state.