Plotinus, the pupil of the “God-taught” Ammonius, tells us that the secret gnosis or the knowledge of Theosophy, has three degrees-opinion, science, and illumination.  “The means or instrument of the first is sense, or perception; of the second, dialectics; of the third, intuition.  To the last, reason is subordinate; it is absolute knowledge, founded on the identification of the mind with the object known.”  Theosophy is the exact science of psychology, so to say; it stands in relation to natural, uncultivated mediumship, as the knowledge of a Tyndall stands to that of a school-boy in physics.  It develops in man a direct beholding; that which Schelling denominates “a realization of the identity of subject and object in the individual;” so that under the influence and knowledge of hyponia man thinks divine thoughts, views all things as they really are, and, finally, “becomes recipient of the Soul of the World,” to use one of the finest expressions of Emerson.  “I, the imperfect, adore my own Perfect,” he says in his superb “Essay on the Oversoul.”  Besides this psychological, or soul state, Theosophy cultivated every branch of sciences and arts.  It was thoroughly familiar with what is now commonly known as mesmerism.  Practical theurgy or “ceremonial magic,” so often resorted to in their exorcisms by the Roman Catholic clergy, was discarded by the Theosophists.  It is but Jamblichus alone who, transcending the other Eclectics, added to Theosophy the doctrine of Theurgy.  When ignorant of the true meaning of the esoteric divine symbols of Nature, man is apt to miscalculate the powers of his soul, and, instead of communing spiritually and mentally with the higher celestial beings, the good spirits (the gods of the theurgists of the Platonic school), he will unconsciously call forth the evil, dark powers which lurk around humanity, the undying, grim creations of human crimes and vices, and thus fall from theurgia (white magic) into goetia (or black magic, sorcery).  Yet, neither white nor black magic are what popular superstition understands by the terms.  The possibility of “raising spirits,” according to the key of Solomon, is the height of superstition and ignorance.  Purity of deed and thought can alone raise us to an intercourse “with the gods” and attain for us the goal we desire.  Alchemy, believed by so many to have been a spiritual philosophy as well as a physical science, belonged to the teachings of the Theosophical School.

It is a noticeable fact that neither Zoroaster, Buddha, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Confucius, Socrates, nor Ammonius Saccas, committed anything to writing.  The reason for it is obvious.  Theosophy is a double-edged weapon and unfit for the ignorant or the selfish.  Like every ancient philosophy it has its votaries among the moderns; but, until late in our own days, its disciples were few in numbers, and of the most various sects and opinions.  “Entirely speculative, and founding no schools, they have still exercised