Esoteric Christianity

Merriam-Webster defines the word esoteric as something “designed for or understood by” only the specially initiated; that is, esoteric knowledge is limited to only a few people because it is difficult to understand, and/or it is simply “of special, rare or unusual interest.” The word comes from roots meaning “within” or “into.” Every religion has an esoteric side, which contains the more hidden --- and truer --- meaning behind the mainstream teachings. All of these esoteric teachings mirror each other; they contain the same themes. These are not easy to understand for many of us, especially in the 21st century, when we have largely abandoned such spiritual practices. Still, there are those of us who find these studies meaningful.

Philip Jenkins, the distinguished Professor of Historical Studies of Religion in the Institute for Studies of Religion wrote:

Theosophy sparked, inspired, directed, and mobilized the esoteric quest for Jesus that still flourishes today. Theosophists furnished all the essential maps and guides to anyone interested in following that path. Without acknowledging Theosophy, we can never understand the history of the popular interest in the gospels, in Gnosticism, or in alternative Christianities.

Annie Besant, the second International President of the Theosophical Society, said that esoteric Christianity is:

“the way of the Divine Wisdom, the true Theosophy. … It is Esoteric Christianity as truly as it is Esoteric Buddhism, and belongs equally to all religions, exclusively to none. … It does not bring the Light. It only says: ‘Behold the Light!’ ”

Although scientific materialism denies it, Mrs. Besant observes “that inner impulse which exists in humanity … this yearning of the human Spirit for that which is akin to it in the universe, of the part for the whole ….” Sometimes this search seems to disappear, or it is repressed by governments or by individuals who are disconnected from their own deepest selves, but it always reappears in one form or another. Those who deny it “find the wildest superstitions succeed its denial. … [humanity] will have some answer to our questionings;” we will “take religious error rather than no religion.”

It is worth noting here that --- despite centuries-old arguments, wars, and wholesale martyrdom --- there are a few ideas that all the major religions agree on. These ideas were outlined by TS President Henry Steel Olcott in an 1882 talk:

1) There is a part of each human that is non-physical, often called the soul.

2) This non-physical part of us, the soul, survives the death of the physical body.

3) There is a matrix or Ground of Being, often called God, that underlies everything in the manifested world.

4) The soul is related to this Ground of Being and returns to it when the body dies.

The English philosopher Herbert Spencer (whom Colonel Olcott also cites) promoted the theory of evolution before Charles Darwin and the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace published their views --- although Spencer (1820-1903) initially attributed evolution to inheritance rather than natural selection. Spencer “achieved an influential synthesis of knowledge, advocating the preeminence of the individual over society and of science over religion.” Nevertheless, he believed that religion was an inherent and indestructible element of human nature. (This, of course, led to some spirited quarreling in the public sphere.)

The accretions that various religions have added to these basic themes are the stuff of all the arguments, wars, etc. However, the fact of a basic agreement regarding the existence of non-physical reality suggests an underlying truth. As Colonel Olcott noted, "The accessory superstitions which have overgrown and perverted the religious sentiment must not be confounded with the religious sentiment itself."

The Perennial Philosophy

The term “theosophy,” which means divine wisdom or wisdom of the gods, has been in use since the early centuries of the Common Era. It is also known as the Perennial Philosophy (which is also the title of a well-known book by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1945), the Ageless Wisdom, the Secret Doctrine, and by the Sanskrit phrase Sanatana Dharma, which means “Eternal Teachings.” Note that this is not an exhaustive list --- the point is that these ideas apparently have been around for at least as long as humans have. They underlie the teachings of all the major religions, including Christianity, and are often found in a mystical offshoot of the primary religious doctrines.

Basically, this perennial philosophy describes Reality --- the true Reality, as opposed to our everyday experience of reality --- as a deep and profound Unity that is based on unconditional love. This description, of course, also brings to mind the mystical experience. As Richard Smoley points out in his book Inner Christianity, the path of the esotericist and that of the mystic differ only slightly: “The mystic wants to reach his destination as quickly as possible; the esotericist wants to learn something about the landscape on the way. Moreover, mysticism tends more toward passivity: a quiet ‘waiting on God’ rather than active investigation.” Most people, however, use the words “esoteric” and “mystical” interchangeably.

Another word often found in the literature on esoteric Christianity is “gnosis,” a Greek word meaning “knowledge.” Gnosis, however, is not something we get from a book. It is a spiritual reality that we sense intuitively, based on our own inner experience. The Gnostics --- one of the original groups considered heretics --- were mostly persecuted into oblivion by the early Roman church, but the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls and Nag Hammadi library have once more brought their teachings to light, and Gnosticism has been enjoying something of a renaissance in the early 21st century.

Esoteric Symbolism

All of these expressions point to the esoteric side of the Christian religion, which requires us to view Bible stories in terms of their deeper symbolism rather than taking them literally. Although exoteric (mainstream) Christianity tends to view the serpent in Genesis as the evil genius who corrupted the first humans, in other traditions serpents symbolize wisdom, prudence, creativity, and transformation. Jesus himself advised his disciples to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16), and many other teachings recognize the apparently paradoxical powers of these reptiles.

So “The Fall” described in Genesis is seen by some Christians as symbolic of human arrogance; God was disobeyed because of an apparently sinful wish to know about things that we may not be capable of understanding and that are best left alone. In esoteric terms, however, the Fall represents humanity’s descent into the physical world from a higher level of being, a higher level of consciousness. This is further described in Genesis 3:21 as “Unto [Adam and Eve] did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” The literal interpretation is that God gave them clothing because they were now embarrassed by their nakedness; from the esoteric point of view, this is simply a description of our becoming fully physical beings. (For a more complete discussion of this concept, see “The Meaning of the Fall” in Richard Smoley’s book on Inner Christianity.)

“Eternal life” is, of course, another theme that is found repeatedly in the New Testament. Some Christians believe that being “saved” --- accepting Jesus as one’s personal savior --- means that our personal ego, the personality we know as ourselves in this lifetime, will be immortal. This, unfortunately, is quite certainly just so much wishful thinking. What is immortal in us is far deeper --- or higher (paradoxical as this may seem) --- than our surface personality.

As Mr. Smoley notes, “this ‘something eternal’ is the true ‘I,’ the spirit,” that entity within each of us that is a spark of the Universal Consciousness. In Matthew 13:3-8, Jesus compares this eternal spark to a seed. The “sower went forth to sow,” and the fate of the many seeds varied greatly: some were eaten up by birds; some fell on stony places and, without deep roots, soon withered in the sun; some fell among thorns and were choked out by them; but others “fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit” --- that is, the spark of consciousness became aware of its true identity. Mr. Smoley continues: “Gnosis is the complete liberation of this ‘I’ from its immersion in the physical and psychological worlds; it is the reversal of the Fall. … This is what it means to be ‘born again.’ ”

So gnosis is the true understanding of who and what we really are: not a body that may have a soul, but a soul that currently inhabits a body. Being “saved” means our consciousness returns to a much more refined state than the one we ordinarily recognize as “real.”

Ravi Ravindra’s book The Gospel of John in the Light of Indian Mysticism (formerly entitled Christ the Yogi) discusses the esoteric meaning behind the stories in this Gospel. Jesus the Christ continually says that he is “one with the Father” and that it is not he himself who performs any miracles, but the Will of the Father acting through him. While many people were drawn to Jesus because of his apparent powers, most of them were not capable of comprehending the underlying truth of his teachings. This is not surprising given statements like this one from Luke 14:26-27: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” This is off-putting, to say the least; it seems downright astonishing coming from the man who otherwise holds out unconditional love as the highest good.

The strong wording of verse 26 may make us wonder about the translation, but “hate” seems to be the usual interpretation. However, there are at least a couple other, less provocative, translations of these two verses:

• If anyone comes to me but loves his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, or sisters—or even life—more than me, he cannot be my follower. Whoever is not willing to carry his cross and follow me cannot be my follower. --- New Century Version (NCV)
• If people come to me and are not ready to abandon their fathers, mothers, wives, children, brothers, and sisters, as well as their own lives, they cannot be my disciples. So those who do not carry their crosses and follow me cannot be my disciples. --- GOD’S WORD Translation (GW)

Another explanation is that the Hebrew word usually translated as “hate” can simply mean avoiding pain:

“Sane” (saw-nay’) is the Hebrew word that is often translated as hate. The ancient pictographic letters for “sane” are a thorn and a seed. … The idea was that thorns caused pain, [which] made someone avoid whatever caused it. … the ancient Hebrew view of hate was more about being hurt or wounded by something, because of love being involved. Opening oneself to love meant opening to hurt. Hate then meant staying away from that source of pain.

Of course we are not meant literally to hate our most beloved relatives. As Sri Ravindra points out, “What is in question here are the relative priorities of the seeker: Compared with God, the self is nothing, and all these relations are nothing … The fundamental question is that of authority.” If we are to truly understand the message of Christ, and to practice it, we cannot look to any worldly figure --- even our most dearly beloved --- for approval. We have to be willing to accept the thorny pain of not putting our family first.

These are just a few examples of esoteric symbolism, but they give us an idea of what it is.

Other teachings are not difficult to understand. That the “bread of life” refers to spiritual nourishment rather than physical food is probably not even an esoteric concept; it’s an obvious analogy. Similarly, the idea that walking on water represents mastery over one’s emotions is not problematic; many traditions regard water as a symbol of the psyche, particularly the unconscious piece. Learning to control our emotions, rather than letting them control us, is not only a fundamental doctrine of spiritual teachings but also a hallmark of psychological health.

The Trinity

The Christian Trinity consists of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In mainstream Christianity, the Father is the Hebrew God, called Yahweh in the Old Testament. This being (or Being) is described as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent --- all powerful, all knowing, and present everywhere. He also has some very human characteristics: he is jealous, seems to be quite moody at times, and can be downright vengeful. And he does not change. “For I am the Lord, I change not” (Malachi 3:6) The Son, of course, is Jesus, the human manifestation or incarnation of God on this physical plane. The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is harder to pin down. Here is one description:

The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity. This means the holy spirit is God, co-equal with God the Father and God the Son and is of the same essence. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct from one another in terms of their personal relationship. But they are co-equally God, meaning they are all the being of God. In other words, they do not exist independently one from the other. So, you cannot remove one of the three persons of God and still have God as revealed in the Bible. … The Holy Spirit is more than a force --- He’s a Person.

According to Isaiah 11:2, the characteristics of the Holy Spirit (the “spirit of the Lord”) include wisdom, understanding, counsel, might (or fortitude), knowledge, and “fear of the Lord,” which may mean piety.

In John 14:26, Jesus said, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and will bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”

So the Holy Spirit, part and parcel of God, is the Comforter, as Mr. Smoley also tells us in Inner Christianity. He goes on to say that between the Father and the Son is “the Holy Spirit, the divine principle of relatedness, which accomplishes perhaps the most astonishing of all miracles: uniting two separate entities while still allowing them to be separate.” He quotes a 7th-century monk called Thalassios the Libyan: “The Father is the sole origin of all things … the origin of the Son and the Spirit as Their begetter and source, coeternal, coinfinite, limitless, coessential, and undivided. He is the origin of created things, as the one who produces, provides for, and judges them through the Son in the Holy Spirit.”

As Annie Besant noted, “the Divine Wisdom … is Esoteric Christianity as truly as it is Esoteric Buddhism, and belongs equally to all religions, exclusively to none.” Hence we also find a Trinity in many other traditions. In the words of Mr. Smoley:

The ancient Egyptians venerated the trinity of Osiris, Isis, and Horus; in Hinduism there is Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; Chinese religion has the triad of Heaven, Earth, and Man. Buddhism expresses this idea in the “three poisons”---ignorance, desire, and anger---that produce conditioned existence, as well as in the Triple Gem in which the seeker takes refuge---the Buddha, the teacher; the Dharma, the teaching; and the Sangha, the community of practitioners.

Additionally, Zoroastrian scriptures describe their deity, Ahura Mazda, in terms of a trinity:

"Praise to thee, Ahura Mazda, threefold before other creations." From Ahura Mazda came a duality: the twin spirits of Spenta Mainyu (the Holy or Bountiful Spirit) and Angra Mainyu (the Destructive or Opposing Spirit). The twin spirits are popularly thought of as good and evil, but rather they are two principles that represent all the opposites of life.

This article goes on to note Annie Besant’s view that the twin spirits emanated from Ahura Mazda represent “spirit and matter, reality and non-reality, light and darkness, construction and destruction, the two poles between which the universe is woven and without which no universe can be. . . . There are two names again that give us the clue to the secret, the "increaser" and the "destroyer," the one from whom the life is ever pouring forth, and the other the material side which belongs to form, and which is ever breaking up in order that life may go on into higher expression.”

This same Zoroastrian trinity is also described elsewhere, and there seem to be other trinities within Zoroastrianism as well.

One more example is that the Tao, ancient China’s version of what Theosophy calls the Absolute, may be seen as the “parent” of the two universal elements known as yin (female/passive) and yang (male, active). Again, there is no sense of good vs. evil here, nor is there spirit vs. matter. There is only a duality in the universe that comes from the Tao, two ways of being within the whole that are complementary. In later forms of the Taoist religion, other trinities emerged.

Given its presence in most religions, what the Trinity seems to symbolize is a fundamental and universal spiritual principle. In the beginning there was only the Absolute, the unconscious eternal Reality, deep in slumber. When it “awoke,” it emanated a portion of itself that would eventually become the manifested cosmos. (Note that this did not change the Absolute in any way; in itself it remained without attributes, eternally unconscious.) Hence, there now existed a duality: the One and its emanation — and there also existed the relationship between the two, which is the third “person” of the Trinity.

It may take us some time and much meditation to understand these relationships --- and perhaps we may never fully understand them --- but it is worth our time and effort. Spiritual concepts, as noted by any number of authors, scholars, and mystics, are rarely fathomable when we first encounter them. We have to get beyond our ordinary ways of thinking.

Esoteric Christianity and Theosophy

The point here is that, as Mrs. Besant pointed out more than 100 years ago, the esoteric side of Christianity is not different from the esoteric aspects of other religions. Theosophy regards all religions as truth, with no one of them possessing an exclusive and final certainty; each one presents A truth rather than THE truth.

As Mrs. Besant also stated, Theosophy is essentially esoteric religion --- it describes what the esoteric side of every major religion describes. The Secret Doctrine, Helena Blavatsky’s magnum opus, is subtitled The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy. The underlying truth of all religions is also reflected in comparative philosophy and comparative science (although, again, scientific materialists do not understand this). In the SD, Mme. Blavatsky keeps referring to “the ancient wisdom religion” that is the origin of all our exoteric or mainstream religions. The kernel of truth at the center of religion is Unity --- despite our apparent differences, in the deepest recesses of our being we are all the same, all part of a Whole (or a Being or a Beingness) that is essentially indivisible at that spiritual level. This paradox of Unity despite our obvious diversity in the physical world can be difficult to get past if we approach it only with logic. Understanding it requires us to develop a much deeper intuition than most of us possess --- it requires spiritual intuition, a level of consciousness called buddhi in some traditions.

This is esoteric religion and esoteric Christianity: recognizing the immortal Divine not only in every one of us, but also in every other being and thing around us.

Additional resources for Esoteric Christianity

Articles

• Aspects of the Christ by Annie Besant
• Is Theosophy Anti-Christian? by Annie Besant
• Theosophy and Christianity by Annie Besant
• The Esoteric Character of The Gospels by H. P. Blavatsky
• The Roots of Ritualism in Church and Masonry by H. P. Blavatsky
• Star-Angel-Worship in the Roman Catholic Church by H. P. Blavatsky
• Theosophy in Christianity by Arthur M. Coon
• The Hidden Gospel of the Aramaic Jesus by Neil Douglas-Klotz in The Quest 87 no.5 (September, 1999): 1180-184.
• Yoga-Practice in the Roman Catholic Church by Franz Hartmann
• Christian Ritual in Theosophical Perspective by Robert Ellwood
• What is a Christian? by Stephan A. Hoeller
• What is Christian Scripture? by Stephan A. Hoeller
• Reincarnation in the Bible by W. Q. Judge
• Theosophy in the Christian Bible by W. Q. Judge
• Things Common to Christianity and Theosophy by W. Q. Judge
• The Women of the Revelation by Zachary F. Lansdowne
• Gnostic and Historic Christianity by Gerald Massey
• The Historical Jesus and Mythical-Christ by Gerald Massey
• Paul the Gnostic Opponent of Peter by Gerald Massey
• The Occult Teachings of the Christ According to The Secret Doctrine by Josephine Ransom
• The Future of Esoteric Christianity by Richard Smoley
• Theosophy and Christianity by Theosophical Society in America
• Contemplative Prayer: The Discipline of Silence by Robert Trabold
• Christian Exclusiveness and Theosophical Truth by Jay G. Williams
• Jesus, the Lord of Pisces: Hipparchus and the Gospels by Jay G. Williams
• # Mary Magdalene and The Voice of the Silence by Carol N. Ward
• Dionysius The Areopagite in Theosophy World
• Christianity in Theosophy World
• Christianity, Theosophical Approaches to in Theosophy World
• Ebionites in Theosophy World
• Christian Ritual, Esoteric Significance of in Theosophy World
• Crucifixion in Theosophy World
• Baptism in Theosophy World
• Apocatastasis in Theosophy World

Books

• Esoteric Christianity by Annie Besant
• Theosophy and Christianity by H. T. Edge
• Theosophical Light on the Christian Bible by H. T. Edge
• Does the Bible Teach Reincarnation and Karma by Robert G. Katsunoff
• The Perfect Way by Anna Bonus Kingsford and Edward Maitland
• Lehtovirta, Mauri. The Yoga of Jesus: Teachings of Esoteric Christianity. Translated from Finnish into English by Antti Savinainen. Edited by Richard Smoley. Helsinki: Literary Society of the Finnish Rosy Cross, 2020.
• Smoley, Richard. Inner Christianity: A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition. Shambhala Publications, 2002.

Audio

• Hidden Wisdom in Christian Scriptures - Part 1 Part 2, Part 3 by Geoffrey Hodson
• The Bible as a Source of Secret Knowledge by Geoffrey Hodson
• Attaining the Kingdom of Heaven by Geoffrey Hodson
• The Esoteric Significance of Christmas by Bing Escudero
• On Earth as It Is in Heaven: What's Spirituality by Sister Gabriele Uhlein. 2004. Theosophical Society in America.

Video

• Myth and Meaning in Christianity by Robert Ellwood
• The Red Corner: The Creative Dimension of Folk Christianity in Russia and Beyond by Cherry Gilchrist
• Cathars, the Good Christians by Holly Sullivan McClure
• Unpacking the Parables: Jesus as Wisdom Teacher by Ron Miller
• A Very Different Christian Story by Ron Miller
• The Future of Esoteric Christianity by Richard Smoley
• The Risen Christ by Joseph Miller. April 3, 2021 Zoom presentation. Published in the Eternal Pilgrim YouTube channel, in the Aquarian Almanac series.