Nothing answers questions like Theosophy can!:-The Key to Theosophy

The Key to Theosophy

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

1831 -1891

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The Key to Theosophy

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

Key to Theosophy Index

The Policy of the

Theosophical Society

Q. In the days of Ammonius there were several ancient great religions, and

numerous were the sects in Egypt and Palestine alone. How could he reconcile

them?

A. By doing that which we again try to do now. The Neo-Platonists were a large

body, and belonged to various religious philosophies; so do our Theosophists.

It was under Philadelphus that Judaism established itself in Alexandria, and

forthwith the Hellenic teachers became the dangerous rivals of the College of

Rabbis of Babylon. As the author of The Eclectic Philosophy very pertinently

remarks:

The Buddhist, Vedantic, and Magian systems were expounded along with the

philosophies of Greece at that period. It was not wonderful that thoughtful men

supposed that the strife of words ought to cease, and considered it possible to

extract one harmonious system from these various teachings … Panaetius,

Athenagoras, and Clement were thoroughly instructed in Platonic philosophy, and comprehended its essential unity with the Oriental systems.

In those days, the Jew Aristobulus affirmed that the ethics of Aristotle

represented the esoteric teachings of the Law of Moses; Philo Judaeus endeavored to reconcile the pentateuch with the Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy; and Josephus proved that the Essenes of Carmel were simply the copyists and followers of the Egyptian Therapeutae (the healers). So it is in our day.

We can show the line of descent of every Christian religion, as of every, even the smallest, sect. The latter are the minor twigs or shoots grown on the larger

branches; but shoots and branches spring from the same trunk-the

wisdom-religion. To prove this was the aim of Ammonius, who endeavored to induce Gentiles and Christians, Jews and Idolaters, to lay aside their contention and strife, remembering only that they were all in possession of the same truth

under various vestments, and were all the children of a common mother. This is

the aim of Theosophy likewise. Says Mosheim of Ammonius:

Conceiving that not only the philosophers of Greece, but also all those of the

different barbarian nations, were perfectly in unison with each other with

regard to every essential point, he made it his business so to expound the

thousand tenets of all these various sects as to show they had all originated

from one and the same source, and tended all to one and the same end.

If the writer on Ammonius in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia knows what he is talking about, then he describes the modern Theosophists, their beliefs, and their work, for he says, speaking of the Theodidaktos:

He adopted the doctrines which were received in Egypt (the esoteric were those

of India) concerning the Universe and the Deity, considered as constituting one

great whole; concerning the eternity of the world … and established a system of

moral discipline which allowed the people in general to live according to the

laws of their country and the dictates of nature, but required the wise to exalt

their mind by contemplation.

Q. What is your authority for saying this of the ancient Theosophists of

Alexandria?

A. An almost countless number of well-known writers. Mosheim, one of them, says that:Ammonius taught that the religion of the multitude went hand-in-hand with philosophy, and with her had shared the fate of being by degrees corrupted and obscured with mere human conceits, superstitions, and lies; that it ought,

therefore, to be brought back to its original purity by purging it of this dross

and expounding it upon philosophical principles; and the whole Christ had in

view was to reinstate and restore to its primitive integrity the wisdom of the

ancients; to reduce within bounds the universally-prevailing dominion of

superstition; and in part to correct, and in part to exterminate the various

errors that had found their way into the different popular religions.

This, again, is precisely what the modern Theosophists say. Only while the great

Philaletheian was supported and helped in the policy he pursued by two Church

Fathers, Clement and Athenagoras, by all the learned Rabbis of the Synagogue,

the Academy and the Groves, and while he taught a common doctrine for all, we, his followers on the same line, receive no recognition, but, on the contrary,

are abused and persecuted. People 1,500 years ago are thus shown to have been

more tolerant than they are in this enlightened century.

Q. Was he encouraged and supported by the Church because, notwithstanding his heresies, Ammonius taught Christianity and was a Christian?

A. Not at all. He was born a Christian, but never accepted Church Christianity.

As said of him by the same writer:

He had but to propound his instructions according to the ancient pillars of

Hermes, which Plato and Pythagoras knew before, and from them constituted their philosophy. Finding the same in the prologue of the Gospel according to St. John, he very properly supposed that the purpose of Jesus was to restore the

great doctrine of wisdom in its primitive integrity. The narratives of the Bible

and the stories of the gods he considered to be allegories illustrative of the

truth, or else fables to be rejected. As says the Edinburgh Encyclopedia:

Moreover, he acknowledged that Jesus Christ was an excellent man and the "friend of God," but alleged that it was not his design entirely to abolish the worship of demons (gods), and that his only intention was to purify the ancient

religion.

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