Concerning esoteric epistemology and historiography

“Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.

These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh” (Colossians 2:18-19/23)

In contrast to the Orthodox Christian paradigm’s grounding in community, the Theosophical Society, much like other esoteric systems, emphasizes the individual path and how that betters the world. This is, in part, a result of Theosophy “[playing] a crucial role in replacing alternative theories with a near-consensus as to the reality of a melioristic model of reincarnation and karma.”[1] Within the melioristic model, transcending the wheel of samsara becomes a duty for the individual, in that their attainment of union with the Absolute helps improve the world. This view is heavily influenced by Buddhism’s bodhisattva.

The Buddhist notion of the bodhisattva, an enlightened being who forgoes complete transcendence of samsara and chooses to reincarnate to help others on the path of enlightenment, is similarly understood in Theosophy. Theosophy’s Ascended Masters are of the same ilk. The Ascended Masters, Jesus being one of them, are described as mortals who live among us, typically in seclusion, who can be communicated with, “Blavatsky’s major innovation was to claim that the messages she received came not from the dead, but from living spiritual masters of Oriental origin.”[2]

This process of transmission is how, by her own admission, Blavatsky wrote her seminal work, Isis Unveiled.[3] This book is a foundational text presenting the worldview of Theosophy and its synthesis of Hermetic philosophy and “the anciently universal Wisdom-Religion, as the only possible key to the Absolute in science and theology,”[4] written in the book’s preface. Theosophy, thus, holds the keys to the Absolute: The universal divine mind, constituting a single consciousness of varying states from the material to astral to etheric.

Theosophy claims that it’s synthesis of wisdom, science, and theology can unlock the doors to the practitioner’s ascendancy, but its claims are grounded in Blavatsky’s transmitted texts and communications with Ascended Masters. This reinterpretation of Christ as an Ascended Master reflects a shift away from communal and incarnational theology toward a highly personalized, esoteric framework.

This shift, as we will see, laid crucial groundwork for the spiritual consumerism of the New Age movement, which merged these privatized ideals with modern materialism.

What are we to make of this epistemological method?

Is this a reasonable framework for making knowledge claims?

The Theosophical Society is rooted in knowledge as a method of ascending to the divine; knowledge is a prerequisite for attaining enlightenment within this framework. However, the emic historiography and epistemology of this spiritual system diverges from traditional methods. This author certainly understands this approach, in relation to higher criticism of biblical authenticity and eisegesis it makes sense why methodologies would look different within traditions.

How can Theosophy account for knowledge claims based on this epistemology?

The issue of internal historiography is the same issue with theological presentism, precisely because these elements that have been introduced from the East to the West are no longer integrated in their own cultural milieu. It is precisely the same problem when separating the historical context of Scripture from its divine message. Knowledge claims and spiritual praxis exist within paradigms and become unsupported and relativistic without.

Claims in relation to epistemology, theology, and historiography transition from the context of complete worldview to being made by the fallacious appeal to authority. The authority then becomes simply whoever confirms one’s own beliefs and biases until eventually the authority is merely the individual themselves, based on personal revelation and spiritual intuition. This position marks a powerfully important cultural shift which makes the individual the sole authority of their own spiritual practice and beliefs (which in turn affects choices made based on those beliefs and practices).

The interpersonal dangers of this form of relativism are profound.

In contrast, Orthodox epistemology, rooted in tradition, integrates the authority of the Scriptures, the Church Fathers, and the liturgical life of the Church to guard against the errors of relativism. This communal framework ensures that spiritual knowledge remains grounded in the reality of the incarnation, not in the subjective claims of individual revelation.

The Orthodox paradigm posits that the law is written on the heart, with our conscience bearing witness to the law and our ability to uphold it, with our thoughts either accusing us or excusing us (Rom. 2:15).

While this plays into ethics it still is rooted in knowledge; the knowledge of God, which is revealed in Christ Jesus. This is the light that Christ gives all men (Jn. 1:9) which is our reason, our ability to know right from wrong; it is the intellect that, by cultivating virtues—which have their substance in Christ—we can come to know God, and by extension ourselves, more and more.

This orientation belies responsibility on the individual, a melioristic responsibility, to cultivate the ground of all goodness within us. It necessitates us to cleanse the noetic faculties in our heart, the seat of the intellect, by prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and participating in the mysteries of the Church. We are responsible, but not coerced, to participate in the sanctification of humanity, the world, and the cosmos in and through Christ.

The portrayal of Jesus Christ as an Ascended Master aligns with Theosophy’s syncretic framework, reducing the Incarnate Word to an archetype of self-realization. This interpretation denies the communal, redemptive work of Christ, emphasizing instead a solitary ascent to the Absolute—a perspective rooted more in Neoplatonism and Eastern mysticism than in the Gospel. 

Orthodox theology counters the Theosophical self-oriented spiritual school by rooting the transformation of the individual in the transformation of the community and Creation itself. St. Maximus emphasizes that all things are recapitulated in Christ, not through isolated enlightenment but through the communal life of the Church, wherein the many become one in the triune God, he writes:

 “We are his members and his body, and the fullness of Christ of God who fills all things in every way according to the plan hidden in God the Father before the ages. And we are being recapitulated in him through his Son our Lord Jesus Christ of God.”[5]

Where Theosophy isolates the individual’s spiritual ascent as the means to achieve union with the Absolute, Orthodox Christianity firmly situates salvation within the Body of Christ. Theosis is not a solitary journey but a communal participation in the life of the Trinity, manifesting in love, service, and shared liturgical worship.

When Jesus becomes a mouthpiece for one’s agenda or simply an archetype of self-realization then community, Creation, and the cosmic sanctification of Christ become foreign elements. It actively reduces the Gospel message to an individual framework that supports one’s own spiritual individualism and eclecticism.

This demonstrates that, while Theosophy may not be philosophically aligned with New Thought’s profit-as-a-virtue esotericism, it further exemplifies the personalized spirituality, self-improvement, and individualism that supported New Thought’s success. Reinforced by the continual departure of biblical higher criticism of their age.

The Theosophical Society’s melioristic vision for humanity is for all people to transcend the mortal coil and become enlightened. It is a concept tied to the school’s monism based on Vedic philosophy, in her Collected Writings, Blavatsky writes,

“Theosophy teaches a far stricter and more far reaching Monism than does Secularism. The Monism of the latter may be described as materialistic… though we speak of Spirit and Matter as its two poles, yet we state emphatically that they can only be considered as distinct from the standpoint of human, mayavic consciousness.”[6]

Blavatsky’s latter statement about mayavic consciousness is clearly rooted in her deep study of Eastern philosophy, with roots in the Vedic tradition, meaning illusion or magic. It refers to the false world of material that we are caught in, that things which appear to be tangible, and present are not what they seem. Her words emphasizes the changing spiritual landscape of the West and are suggestive of what would eventually become the focal point of the New Age.

A point to consider: How does meliorism remain fixed in a system that professes that material reality is an illusion? How is progress of mankind imperative or measured when sense-reality and phenomena are a part of the human, mayavic consciousness? Progress, in this worldview, can only be correlated to transcendence of this world, echoing Mary Eddy Baker’s words that man is not material, but spiritual.

These foundational ideas—Quimby’s emphasis on mind-power, Schleiermacher’s focus on individual experience, and Theosophy’s intuitive epistemology—laid the groundwork for New Age movements that further privatized spirituality, merging them with consumerist frameworks.

Emerging in the late twentieth century, this syncretic ‘spiritual-not-religious’ movement combined elements of faith healing, pseudo-Hermeticism, psychology, mysticism, and Eastern philosophy to create a spiritual marketplace of ideas. While no single tradition directly gave rise to the New Age, its roots can be traced to New Thought’s mesmerist principles and reinterpretations of Christian teachings, as well as Theosophy’s integration of Eastern spiritual concepts, making it an emergent paradigm of diverse, syncretic currents.

New Thought’s influence can be seen most radically and apparent with the Prosperity Gospel movement with figures like Joel Osteen and modern spiritual self-help books like “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne, influenced by New Thought writers like Napoleon Hill and Wallace Wattles’ books explaining how to get rich by one’s thinking. Byrne demonstrates her connection with the New Thought Movement in her book writing, “The Creative Process used in The Secret, which was taken from the New Testament in the Bible, is an easy guideline for you to create what you want in three simple steps.”[7]

She centers her manifesting premise on Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, delivered to the multitude, “Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you” (Matt. 7:7).

It cannot be overstated how fallacious these speakers and writers are in demonstrating a very clear practical eisegesis of self-improvement and money-making that is simply not a part of the Scriptural text nor was it promoted in the homilies of the Patristic sources. It was quite the opposite, and it can be argued that this is not merely theological presentism but is in many ways an apparent ignorance of the source material.

Byrne presents a commercialized spirituality that is intent on self-improvement and materialistic gain. It not only misinterprets Scripture for its own purposes, but demonstrates this misinterpreted structure as a personalized spirituality, meant for private use (and gain). It is a clear indication that this movement, regardless of its original concept, has become a consumer-friendly spirituality. This approach reduces profound metaphysics, despite their own misinterpretation, to superficial self-help consumeristic formulae. 

Where Theosophy and the New Age privatize spirituality and reduce the divine toa construct of self-realization, Orthodoxy proclaims a God Who enters history to unite humanity to Himself. This is not a journey of isolated ascent or exploitative biblical interpretation, but a communal participation in the life of the Triune God, Whose redemptive work in Christ encompasses not just individuals but the whole cosmos.  

Ο ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΜΕΣΩ ΗΜΩΝ! ΚΑΙ ΗΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΑΙ

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[1] Olav Hammer, Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 56.

[2] Ibid. 60.

[3] Ibid. 61.

[4] Ibid.

[5] St. Maximus, Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ, 70.

[6] H.P. Blavatsky, Collected Writings (Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, Theosophical Publishing House, 2006), 336.

[7] Rhonda Byrne, The Secret (Australia: Atria Books, Beyond Words Publishing, 2006), 46.