Central to this article is my argument in favor of Theosophy in its claims on the antiquity of Iranian mythology, the philosophical truth of positions considered heretical in Zoroastrianism, and its contrast (elimination of anthropomorphism) and difference from ZURVANISM which influenced Mithraism and Manichaeism.
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KEY MISUNDERSTANDINGS CLEARED AWAY ABOUT THEOSOPHY
The significant loss from a philosophical school going extinct1, defunct, or becoming derailed, distorted, diluted or heretical is unmeasured, though the serious effect of the loss becomes strong to sense as the ages go by. The degeneration of a religion long term occurs with gradual falling away of the soul of its philosophy. There are firstly very important things to touch on before getting into a theosophical defense of the now extinct school of Zurvanism, because it is the same situation in relation to our defense of Samkhya — the first and oldest school of classical Indian philosophy. Such schools demonstrate a fluidity and continuity of WISDOM, not an impenetrable brick wall — brick walls usually erected from history of colonialist interferences.
First thing to understand is, THEOSOPHY is not an obsolete school or system just because theosophists are not able to appeal to mass public audiences on popular social media platforms. The problem of “popularity” is intrinsic to the nature of Theosophy — of the esoteric, its dissemination, the preparedness of people’s minds and conditions, the limits within a modern world where materialism has won and is the basis of societal culture and is preponderantly dominant as a fundamental property of nature.
Despite this, THEOSOPHY was an incredibly ambitious effort at genuinely reconstructing the ancient Aryan (Indo-Iranian) WISDOM TRADITION, that is the source of Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and the old Brahmanical secret schools of Hinduism. This very task underlying the original impulse of the Theosophical Movement was not inaugurated by pretentious Orientalist scholars, but a fraternity of patriots in cooperation with other patriots in various countries, considered adepts and highly knowledgeable of the esotericism of their respective traditions, texts and countries. This is what underlies the historically visible Theosophical Movement.
The success of such a mission for Theosophy to have an impact and form “the nucleus of universal brotherhood” very closely parallels the political theology of Mazzini. This mission was always dependent on the real day-to-day actions and character of the individuals involved (including their flaws), not belief in miracles from the otherworld. Theosophy is not a ‘synthesis’ or a ‘pot-pourri’ “that draws from,” “blends” or “mixes”; a tired and overused summation of Theosophy.
Theosophists analyzed and analogized the highest schools of philosophy for the main purpose of tracing and providing supporting evidence that such a “once universal Secret Doctrine” existed.
We are not in the Victorian period, and even with vast libraries of information at our disposal, the opinions of people about Theosophy have not really advanced. When Theosophy is mentioned, New Age, crystals, simplistic notions of karma, ancient giants and Atlantis come to mind, and it gets in the way. This article will put things into perspective more clearly by bringing into the picture the importance of Southwestern Asia (particularly Ancient Persia) and Central Asia to the story and lineage of philosophical wisdom that Theosophy in the nineteenth-century is pointing to, besides ancient India.
LIMITS OF THE WESTERN ORIENTALISTS AND MODERN SENSATIONALISM ABOUT THEOSOPHY
Principal among the Theosophists in the nineteenth-century is important Russian (Ukrainian) Buddhist, Helena P. Blavatsky. She was of Russian, German and French Huguenot ancestry. Blavatsky explicitly challenged the most authoritative Orientalists of her day and before her (such as Darmesteter, Spiegel, Koros) who dismissed many points Theosophists argued in favor of, which she insisted should be analyzed more closely. This analysis required a certain quality of insight, philosophical training and initiation under a master, that these Orientalists lacked. Blavatsky valued the important of scholarship, but she is also approaching the works as a quite devout mystic on a mission, not a professor trying to maintain objectivity and skeptical credibility. Later scholars accused Blavatsky of palming her ideas from Csoma de Körös’s Kangyur translations and Schlagintweit for the Stanzas, for which no evidence has ever been furnished. This demonstrates that the scholars critiquing her must be consulting second, third hand sources, and not consulting her writings and her sources. There are certain people that dislike emphasis on Blavatsky, but this is a personal issue. The focus is what she is pointing to, because she is still dismissed as a “fraud” to prevent others from inquiring too deeply.
I can give an example of her response to Orientalists, as she states that either:
(a) their materialism and limited training hamper their insights;
(b) that this Orientalist or that Western thinker has intimated the philosophy correctly; or
(c) at other times, that the Orientalists almost interpreted the philosophical idea correctly.
In The Secret Doctrine, she states, that a few new facts (although new only to the “profane Orientalist”) and passages from the Commentaries on the Book of Stanzas origins of the cosmos and humanity have been transmitted orally since antiquity, but have been hinted at in countless volumes of Brahminical, Chinese and Tibetan temple-literature. (Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, xxii-xxiii). This has been the pattern in academia: instead of tracing her indications and hints, scholars with repute simply have said, “she got these ideas from her great grandfather’s personal library,” which Blavatsky said she discovered when she was in Saratov. “She may have learned about a secret book called The Chaldean Book of Numbers from Jamal al-Din.” What is the evidence for the claim she is just copying? There is none. The claim is just asserted, with no evidence to make it seem she is a bumbling fool with a fanciful imagination ignorantly involved with a clandestine network of adepts deeply immersed within the Great Game. This is sensationalism to attract the modern reader, not the main focus of the arguments Theosophy wants us to consider.
IMPORTANT BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT ABOUT BLAVATSKY
Blavatsky’s great grandfather was Prince Pavel Vasilyevich Dolgorukov (1755-1837) a major Russian general during the reign of Catherine the Great, who had connections with Rosicrucians and Freemasons. The maternal lineage of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky goes back through Mikhail of Chernigov to the founder of statehood in Russia – Rurik. This context is very important given the fall of the Russian Empire to the murderous Bolsheviks, Blavatsky’s Slavophile philosophical bent (intellectual movement focused on expression of the Soul of Russia as opposed to Western influences), Blavatsky’s consistent critiques of materialism, Blavatsky’s critiques of pre-Bolshevik elements she warned against in Russia, her critiques of Socialism and Communism, and the subsequent banning of Theosophy in Russia during the reign of the Soviet Union. This idea, that Blavatsky got her imagination from this library is a conjectural statement made with scholarly authority, a habit of modern thought that devalues individuals through statements taken as fact to compose a compelling book. Such style of scholarship does not do justice in explaining the most important and abused aspect of THEOSOPHY — its ideological content.
TRUE EXTENT OF THEOSOPHICAL POSITIONS ON GLOBAL SCALE IN ANCIENT WORLD
The ideological content of Theosophy and its claims of the antiquity and coherence of its doctrines were initially dismissed by some Western scholars, until certain inaccessible texts, e.g., within Buddhism became accessible. A very small circle of scholars are involved in a project to keep up to date with these developments, while those not engaged with the hard labor of the research, translations and communications are maintaining outdated, stale and personal opinions about Theosophy.
The Chaldean Book of Numbers is another example of this issue, where Blavatsky is dismissed by casuals as inventing sources. Blavatsky explained that this obscure work is one of the books of Hermes and had atleast two or three copies extant. She claimed to possess some extracts of it, and that in two different articles, that there was a copy among some Persian Sufis and initiated Rabbis.
This indicates that at most levels of religious understanding and understanding of the history of religions, the great traditions are seen as in a struggle of competition. At another level of the initiated, there is a different understanding of religious understanding and understanding the history of religions that necessitates global and trans-national federation and solidarity.
This is made extremely clear about the nature of the world and the origins of the “deadly strife of the two opposing principles” (of Ahura Mazda and Ahriman) in her article, The Devil’s Own Thoughts on Ormuzd and Ahriman. This one article sums up her entire philosophical analysis of the myth of the Twin Brothers, now represented through Christianity as God and Satan.
This position is that the Zoroastrian principles of “Good and Evil” are not cosmic absolutes, but merely the polarity of Spirit and Matter necessary for manifestation. Ahriman is not the diabolical personage of Devil, but the necessary resistance of Matter that allows Spirit (Ahura Mazda) to manifest. Without Zurvan (the ONE UNITY), this dynamic is impossible to explain, without falling into superstition. It is not merely a philosophical interpretation, but it is central to the Theosophical Position, that this was and is the original and true teaching.
In her Collected Writings gathered in this article on Theosophy World, it is stated that:
“References to and quotations from it can be found in Arnaldus de Villa Novai’s Rosarius Philosophorum; Franciscus Arnolphinus Lucensis’ Tractat de Lipide; Hermes Trismegistus’ Tractatus de Transmutations Mellallorum; Tabula Smaragdina; and Lilly’s De Angelis Opus Divinum de Quinta Essetia (CWIII:267), and that the Sepher Yetzirah is a portion of the original one incorporated in the Book of Numbers (CW XIV:206 fn). Along with the Upanishads, the Book of Numbers conceals the “Universal Wisdom Religion” (CW VII:260), and “pertains to, and teaches about the realm of spirit, not that of matter” (CW VII:267).” (Chaldean Book of Numbers, Theosophy World)
This is the key phrase, besides the sources listed, “Universal Wisdom Religion.” This is the basis and purpose for the promulgation of what is termed THEOSOPHY. Blavatsky said, the proofs for it exists in the many great works of antiquity, from here to China, Mongolia and so on, but no one has taken the trouble in collating the facts. As Manly P. Hall said, still no one has come forth to do the same. She states of her work, quoting Montaigne and Confucius’ Analects 7.1, that she herself brought nothing of her own, but the string that ties, that she believes in the ancients, and cannot create anything new, or make up things. Blavatsky said to her critics, whom she called “those crack-brained slanderers,” that she never said the terms she used was always correct, but it is in intimating whether her philosophical exposition of the teachings are correct. The meaning of Theosophy is exactly the same as the meaning of the Doctrine of Confucius.
When I have mentioned Theosophy in ancient China, which had an equivalent of this term, Theosophy refers to: (a) Heaven’s Wisdom — what fills the vast ocean of the heavens? — the gods, elements, forces; (b) the wisdom of the gods (or supernal quality of wisdom as possessed by gods, cloud sages, etc) — what is that wisdom the sages possess?; (c) the meditative awareness of Tiān (heaven), which is the complement of Dì, wherein worlds and lives subsist.
So, a theosophist attempts to show the antiquity of this idea of “Universal Wisdom Religion” — its trans-national and “global context” in antiquity. This should not be confused with the contexts that give rise to modern globalization and Western civilization, limiting an explanation of Theosophy to “constructions of Victorian occultism.” The formation of theosophical ideas took shape in antiquity and have been recorded in the annals of antiquity.
ZURVANISM, NOT HERETICAL
Theosophical Positions present an extremely necessary problem to the conventional theological positions of especially Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and have serious implications for the future of religion that will allow them to meet the problems of the times as a unified front. Its success depends on the learning of individuals of the given time-period, who rise to the occasion to challenge, not coddle the prejudices, fears and conditioning of the People. It challenges certain fundamental philosophy and understanding about the origins of Buddhism, Hinduism and Zoroastrian teachings.
Blavatsky argued, e.g., that the rejection of Zurvan (the Supreme Principle) as heresy by orthodox Zoroastrians was a loss of the “Secret Doctrine” of the Magi. This points to a pre-Zoroastrian Magian monist position, Theosophy argues was the original teaching; and contrary to the orthodox emphasis on the duality of Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, however, did not conflict with Zoroaster.
“Even exoterically, the God of Light and the God of Darkness are, both spiritually and physically, the two ever-contending Forces, whether in Heaven or on Earth.” (H.P. Blavatsky, Collected Writings, Vol. 13, pp. 124-1252)
ZURVAN is the infinite, passionless source of both good and evil — two opposing principles, which were an exoteric veil for the esoteric truth of non-dual unity. The dual principles are a manifestation within finite cycles, but the ultimate reality is boundless and undifferentiated.
Blavatsky argues, in both The Secret Doctrine and her Thoughts on Ormuzd and Ahriman, that the Parsis have lost the key (or philosophical interpretation) to their own religion, and refuse to recognize Ahriman as the necessary ‘Shadow’ of Ahura Mazda (the Light), both issuing from the same source, the ‘Boundless CIRCLE OF TIME‘ (Zurvan Akarana). It would suggest that the Avestan texts are fragmentary and edited, and that when Alexander the Great conquered Persia, and later when the Muslims took over, the secret books of the Magi were destroyed or hidden. Therefore, the surviving texts (the Zend-Avesta as we have it) are only the exoteric record. Therefore, this argues that the absence of Zurvan in modern Parsi ritual is not evidence that Zurvan wasn’t there originally. It is evidence that the keys were lost.
FOOTNOTES
The American Minervan 
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