Author: Dominique Johnson
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Hermetic Undertone of the Theosophical Society’s Foundations
K.H., The Mahatma Letters, Letter no. 85, December 7, 1883 “(…) As the lady has rightly observed, the Western public should understand the Theosophical Society to be “a Philosophical School constituted on the ancient Hermetic basis” — that public having never heard of the Tibetan, and entertaining very perverted notions of the Esoteric Buddhist System.…
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Manly P. Hall, ‘Philosophical Reflections on the Use and Abuse of Money’
“Philosophical Reflections on the Use and Abuse of Money” Canadian philosopher and mystic speaks on the Use and Abuses of Money in a great and enlightening talk.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson on the Over-Soul
American Transcendentalist and Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson discusses the nature of the over-soul “The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that which must be, is that great nature in which we rest as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity,…
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Alan Watts on American Spiritual Settler Movements: ‘Why America is a Republic and not a Monarchy’
“So, the point is that the ruach is the divine, in the creature, by virtue of which you are sons of, (or of) the nature of God (manifestations of the divine). This discovery is the Gospel, is the good news; but this has been perpetually repressed throughout the history of Western religion; because all Western…
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Pico della Mirandola Oration on the Secret of Gnosis and the Dignity of Man
Pico della Mirandola on the secret of Gnosis
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James M. Pryse On The Delphian Key-Note of Esotericism: Plato’s Four Degrees of Knowledge
Theosophist, James Morgan Pryse describes the true meaning of the Delphian axiom, “Man, Known Thyself,” in his highly interesting work, Apocalypse Unsealed: Being an Esoteric Interpretation of Initiation (1910). Pryse argued, that the “Book of the Revelation” of Iaonnes (John) is not a book detailing the past, nor the future; but was a book designed to…
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G.I. Gurdjieff on Esoteric Christianity and the Slavery of the Masses
Peter D. Ouspensky, a Russian philosopher and student of Armenian mystic, George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff around 1870 recounts a conversation he had with him in his book, In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching (1949). In one account, Peter D. Ouspensky asks Gurdjieff: “Why if ancient knowledge is preserved, why aren’t such men…
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Limitations of Christian Cabalists and Bible Challenge Authority of Western Esotericism
Does the limitations of Kabbalah and the Christian Bible in the Studies of Esotericism blind Western Philosophers? Helena P. Blavatsky challenged the esotericists of her time, who saw in the Bible, the final authority, even in the area of esoteric study. “And now it has come to this: The student interested in the Secret Sciences…
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Goetia and Witchcraft: Origin of the “Witch” and Magic
The term “Witch” in old Anglo-Saxon glossaries is tied to wicce, meaning “pythoness, divinatricem.” As in this, and in early forms, it referred to specific kinds of magical craft. In the Laws of Ælfred (c.890), wicce is seen as the craft of women — “wise (skilled) women in the art of magic”; and in the old German, wiccan…
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Alexander Wilder on Pagans and the Value of the Classical Religions
Limited Knowledge of Religion in Antiquity The term Pagan, or paganus originally meant, an inhabitant of the village, or a peasant, but came to refer to perverted heretical and heterodox beliefs outside of the theology of the Catholic Church. Therefore, what is considered perverted must come from the devil, hence, idolatrous and pagan. The Jews, Christians,…
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Gottfried De Purucker defines Religion in “Occult Glossary”
What does it mean, when we use the broad term religion? Gottfried de Purucker† (1874-1942), who was head of the Pasadena Theosophical Society from 1929-1942, had a good definition in his Occult Glossary (1933). It follows on pages 148-9: “Religion. An operation of the human spiritual mind in its endeavor to understand not only the how and the why of…
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Analysis of the ‘Würzburg Manuscript’ of The Secret Doctrine (1888)
Officially published in 1888, The Secret Doctrine was a project began by HPB. From as early as 1885-86, we find a partial or portion of the manuscript when she stayed in Germany and Belgium this time, called the “Würzburg Manuscript.” In studying how The Secret Doctrine was written, we see the modern example of a work…
The American Minervan 