ad
gathered disciples about him, and was teaching them a doctrine he
called _Theosophy;_ very properly, since it was and is the
Wisdom of the gods or divine Wisdom. An eclectic system, as they
say; wherein the truths in all such philosophies and religions as
come handy were fitted together and set forth. But in truth all
this was but the nexus of his teaching: Theosophy, then as now,
is eclectic only in this sense: that some truth out of it
underlies all religions and systems; which they derive from it,
and it from them nothing.

All through the long West-Asian pralaya,--West-Asian includes
Egyptian,--the seeds of the Esoteric Wisdom remained in those
parts; they lacked vitalization, because the world-currents were
not playing there then; but they survived in Egypt from the
Egyptian Mysteries of old; and as in India you might have found
men who knew about them, but not how to use them for the
uplifting of the world,--so doubtless you should have found such
men in Egypt during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Hence the
statement of Diogenes Laertius, that the Theosophy of Ammonius
Saccas originated with one Pot Ammun, a priest of Ptolemaic
times: who, perhaps, was one of those who transmitted the
doctrine in secret. The seeds were there, then; and how that
the Crest Wave was coming back to West Asia, it was possible for
Ammonius to quicken them; and this he did. But it had not quite
come back; so he made nothing public. He wrote nothing; he had
his circle of disciples, and what he taught is to be know from
them. Among them was Origen, who was born, or became, a
Christian; but who introduced into, or emphasized in, his
Christianity much sound Theosophical teaching; very likely he
was deputed to capture Christianity, or some part of it, for
truth. Here I may offer a little explanation of something that
may have puzzled some of us: it will be remembered that Mr.
Judge says somewhere that Reincarnation was condemned by the
Council of Constantinople; and that in a series of learned
articles which appeared in THE THEOSOPHICAL PATH recently, the
late Rev. S.J. Neill contradicted this asserion. The truth seems
to be this: Origen taught, if not Reincarnation, at least
the pre-existence of souls; and, says the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica:_ "It is true that many scholars deny that Origen
[read, his teachings] was condemned by this council [of Constantinople,
A.D. 553]; but Moller rightly holds that the condemnatio