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Theosophy
(the society was founded in November, 1875). It means divine
wisdom, the “wisdom religion,” the “hidden wisdom.” It is borrowed from
Ammonius Saccas of the third century A.D. Theosophists tell us there
has ever been a body of knowledge, touching the universe, known to
certain sages, and communicated by them in doles, as the world was able
to bear the secrets. Certainly Esdras supports this hypothesis. Of the
two hundred books Jehovah said:
“The first that thou hast written publish openly, that the worthy
[esoterics] and the unworthy [exoterics] may read it; but keep the
seventy last that thou mayst deliver them only to such as be
wise among the people, for in them is wisdom and the stream of
knowledge.” - 2 Esdras
xiv. 45-47.
“At my first approach to the `Wisdom Religion.' I rather resented the
necessity of having to master the profusion of technical terms which
Madame Blavatsky very freely sprinkles about her Key to Theosophy, such as DAVACHAN, BUDDI, ATMA, MANAS, SAMADHI, etc.” —F. J. Gould.
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894 More on Theosophy from Infoplease:
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