What’s in a word? The true, esoteric answer is more than most people can possibly imagine. One Master of the Wisdom put it this way: ‘There are some words so powerful that used by the uninitiated they could pretty much wreck the Universe. Speech is the most occult manifestation in existence; it is the means of creation and the vehicle of force.
I’ve been a member of the Theosophical Society for many years, and I take a particular interest in words and sound and their subtleties. The word ‘Theosophical’ I can just about live with despite the suffix: -ical, which sounds a bit like a diminutive to me. Infants, who are just learning to talk, say ickle when they mean little. However, ‘Theosophist’ I have always been a little uneasy about. Within the T S it has been used for decades as a complimentary synonym for a member of the society. Personally, I have never wanted to label myself a Theosophist, and at long last I have worked out why. It’s the word! It’s the sound! The fact is that –ists do not have a good reputation these days. Think of Islamist terrorists (who may just have cysts on their fists!) And who wants to be kissed by a nudist feminist?!
Not only do –ists have a poor reputation, but sophists do too. ‘In Ancient Greece, in popular thought they were associated with moral scepticism and specious reasoning.’ And the idea persists today: ‘a person who uses clever but false arguments.’ Thus seven of the eleven letters of the word Theosophist connect it with a thought-form which is really rather undesirable and not at all compatible with the Ageless Wisdom.
But there is ‘Theosophia’. H P Blavatsky, who co-founded the Theosophical Society, wrote of it and defined it thus: ‘Wisdom-religion or Divine Wisdom. The substratum and basis of all the World-religions and philosophies taught and practised by a few elect since man became a thinking being.’
Ah, Theosophia, that mellifluous-sounding word which symbolises Theos, the divine masculine, entwined forever in a creative embrace with the divine, wise feminine, Sophia. Bearing this great idea in mind, what might we call those who love Theosophia, the Ageless Wisdom, and live the Divine Ethics?
The answer is very simple: supply a happy n-ding…. and we have ‘Theosophians’. In all my years of being a T S member I have never seen it in print or heard it spoken. Strange! After all, -ian has a much better reputation than –ist. No one is named Ist, but plenty of men are named Ian, and women are named An(n)(e).
How then shall we define ‘Theosophians’? Most importantly, since Theosophy is ‘the great renunciation of self’, this is not a title you may bestow on yourself. These people, recognised by their peers, are a rare breed, old souls, original thinkers who may or may not be members of the T S. They may not consciously know a great deal about the Ageless Wisdom, but they practice it anyhow: loving humanity and Truth more than themselves.
I’d like to nominate our first Theosophian: Albert Einstein. He had a copy of H P Blavatsky’s ‘The Secret Doctrine’ on his desk, and his finely-tuned inner vision enabled him to perceive certain fundamentals about the Universe.
And while were at it, I have another nominee, of a different gender. In the Western World, we seem to be regrettably short of goddesses. There were, of course, the ‘screen goddesses’ of the 1920s and ‘30s, but modern reveal-all publicity and celebrity culture seem to have killed them all off! In the realm of religion there is the Virgin Mary, but she can hardly be called a goddess.
I think the Swiss Psychologist Carl Jung would probably say that there is something intrinsically unbalanced about a culture which does not recognise, appreciate and personify the elevated, fertile, receptive, nurturing feminine force in the world. So I nominate Sophia, the wisdom-feminine. And if, by any chance, she should look a little like her namesake the Italian beauty, Sophia Loren, film star of the 1960s, with the classic face and feminine form, so much the better. I’m not a Sixth Ray devotional type myself, but I’d devote myself to Her! So, Viva Sophia! And long live her children, the Theosophians!
