Theosophy

Theosophy is an esoteric religious movement established in the United States during the late nineteenth century. It was founded largely by the Russian émigrée Helena Blavatsky and draws its beliefs predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorised by scholars of religion as both a new religious movement and as part of the occultist stream of Western esotericism, it draws both upon older European philosophies like Neoplatonism and upon Asian religions like Hinduism and Buddhism.

Quotes

(oldest first)

There is no religion higher than truth.
- Motto of the Theosophical Society. Helena Blavatsky, "The Neutrality of the Senate", Journal of The Theosophical Society, Madras, vol. 1, no. 2 (February 1884), pp. 33–34 [1]

Our age, we say, is inferior in Wisdom to any other, because it professes, more visibly every day, contempt for truth and justice, without which there can be no Wisdom. Because our civilization, built up of shams and appearances, is at best like a beautiful green morass, a bog, spread over a deadly quagmire. Because this century of culture and worship of matter, while offering prizes and premiums for every "best thing" under the Sun, from the biggest baby and the largest orchid down to the strongest pugilist and the fattest pig, has no encouragement to offer to morality; no prize to give for any moral virtue.
- Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, "The Dual Aspect of Wisdom", in Lucifer, vol. 7, no. 37 (15 September 1890), p. 2

Theosophy seeks to develop the human nature in man in addition to the animal, and at the sacrifice of the superfluous animality which modern life and materialistic teachings have developed to a degree which is abnormal for the human being at this stage of his progress.
- H. P. Blavatsky in Letter To The 1888 American Convention, London, (April 3, 1888)

Theosophy is Divine Knowledge or Science...
- The Key to Theosophy by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, (1889)

Of the Absolute, the Infinite, the All-embracing, we can at our present stage know nothing, except that It is; we can say nothing that is not a limitation, and therefore inaccurate.
- Charles Webster Leadbeater, A Textbook of Theosophy (1912), ch. 2

What then is Theosophy? It is the formulated system of natural Religion-Philosophy-Science, embracing the verities of infinite Nature, and teaching therefore of the structure, operations, and laws of Nature as they have been and are visioned, seen, experienced, witnessed by all the great Sages and Seers of the past and present.
- Gottfried de Purucker, The Masters and the Path of Occultism (1939), ch. 3

I recall having read, at the brothers’ direction Madame Blavatsky’s Key to Theosophy. This book stimulated in me the desire to read books on Hinduism, and disabused me of the notion fostered by the missionaries that Hinduism was rife with superstition.
- Mahatma Gandhi in The Story of My Experiments with Truth (his autobiography) (1925–1928)

Theosophy is the teaching of Madame Blavatsky. It is Hinduism at its best. Theosophy is the Brotherhood of Man. … Jinnah and other Moslem leaders were once members of the Congress. They left it because they felt the pinch of Hinduism patronizing. … They did not find the Brotherhood of Man among the Hindus. They say Islam is the Brotherhood of Man. As a matter of fact, it is the Brotherhood of Moslems. Theosophy is the Brotherhood of Man.
- Mahatma Gandhi quoted in “The Life of Mahatma Gandhi” by Louis Fischer, p. 437 (1950)

Theosophy brought to India yet another strain of sarva-dharma-samabhâva. It proclaimed that all religions were ultimately derived from and were distortions of the Original One Religion known to the ancient Mahatmas, who had kept themselves hidden for a long time. But so far as the prevalent religions are concerned, Theosophy never said that they were the same or equally true. In fact, the first Theosophists who came to South India showed a marked preference for Hinduism, and encouraged Hindus to ridicule and denounce Christianity, its totem, and its missions. Later on, Annie Besant founded the first Hindu College at Varanasi, and could never see eye to eye with Mahatma Gandhi when it came to Islam.
- Sita Ram Goel, Freedom of expression - Secular Theocracy Versus Liberal Democracy (1998)

We have not yet clearly grasped the fact that Western Theosophy is an amateurish imitation of the East.
- Carl Jung Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Carl G. Jung. Quoted by Salil Gewali in Great Minds on India. (1998)

F.T. Brooks left a deep impress upon me and I feel that I owe a debt to him and to Theosophy.
- Jawaharlal Nehru , in his autobiography. Ferdinand T. Brooks, a young theosophists, tutored Nehru as an adolescent. (Theosophical History Vol. VII, Issue 3, July 1998) [2]

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