The key to theosophy : being a clear exposition, in the form of question and answer, of the ethics, science, and philosophy for the study of which the Theosophical society has been founded, with a copious glossary of general theosophical terms / by H.P. Blavatsky.

  • Helena Blavatsky
Date:
1890
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The key to theosophy : being a clear exposition, in the form of question and answer, of the ethics, science, and philosophy for the study of which the Theosophical society has been founded, with a copious glossary of general theosophical terms / by H.P. Blavatsky. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    word that Anaxagoras got liis denomination Nous, or as lie calls it, Nous aVTOKpaT7]S, 64 the Mind or Spirit Self-potent,” the * apxnrvs KLvrjdeus, the leading motor, or primum-mobile of all. With him the Nous was God, and the logos was man, his emanation. The Nous is the spirit (whether in Kosmos or in man), and the logos, whether Universe or astral body, the emanation of the former, the physical body being merely the animal. Our external powers perceive phenomena; our Nous alone is able to recognise their noumena. It is the logos alone, or the noumenon, that survives, because it is immortal in its very nature and essence, and the logos in man is the Eternal Ego, that which reincarnates and lasts for ever. But how can the evanescent or external shadow, the temporary clothing of that divine Emanation which returns to the source whence it proceeded, be that which is raised in incorruptibility ? Enq. Still you can hardly escape the charge ot having invented a new division of man’s spiritual and psychic constituents; for no philosopher speaks of them, though you believe that Plato does. Theo. And I support the view. Besides Plato, there is Pythagoras, who also followed the same idea.* He described the Soul' as a self-moving Unit {monad) composed of three elements, the * “Plato and Pythagoras,” says Plutarch, “ distribute the soul into two parts, the rational (noetic) and irrational (agnoia); that that part of the soul of man which is rational is eternal; for though it be not God, yet it is the product of an eternal deity, but that part of the soul which is divested of reason (agnoia) dies.” The modern term Agnostic comes from Agnosis, a cognate word. We wonder why Mr. Huxley, the author of the word, should have connected his great intellect with “ the soul divested of reason” which dies ? Is it the exaggerated- humility of the modern materialist ?
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