Old school theosophy
The old school theosophy (the English Wikipedia-article "Theosophy" has nothing about it, there exist instead an own Wikipedia-article named "Christian Theosophy") is a mystical movement inside Christianity which I would define as follows:
It is a speculative, philosophical Christian mysticism with a blend of panentheistic nature mysticism and some gnosticism and neoplatonism.
The following is a translation from the Swedish Wikipedia-article "Theosophy", beneath the headline "The older theosophy":
"Despite some similarities with Alexandrian philosophers of the 2nd century, the Older Theosophy flourished above all between the 1510s and the 1810s. Certain approaches of 14th-century mystics such as Eckhart and Johannes Tauler merged the spirituality and theology of the Lutheran vicar Valentin Weigel with the alchemical worldview of Paracelsus. Weigelianism took a mature and developed form in the writings of Jakob Böhme, and after his death Böhme influenced followers in many different denominations, for example the Reformed Georg Gichtel, the Anglicans Jane Leade and William Law, the Württemberg pietist FC Oetinger, the Roman Catholic Louis Claude de Saint- Martin and many Russian Orthodox thinkers. This older theosophy interested the Danish 19th-century bishop HL Martensen, and has been described in modern times, among others, by Professor Arthur Versluis at Michigan State University in the books "Wisdom's Children" and "Wisdom's Book".
Doctrine in outline
Böhme experienced visions which he described in words which he expressly described as limited and misleading. Seven processes were thought to take place simultaneously from eternity within the Godhead. The first of these processes is the ineffable and inconceivable Unground, which stands closer to non-being than to being. The seventh of these processes is Sophia, the divine Wisdom, who, in the manner of the Book of Proverbs, is described with female imagery. From Sophia emanates Arkaios, a kind of temporal world soul not to be confused with the Holy Spirit. Through Sophia and Arkaios, the Holy Trinity creates the spiritual and the corporeal world. The latter is initially not physical. Highest among the spirits in the spirit world are Michael, Uriel and an angel whose name is unknown, it is suspected to be Raziel due to context but it is uncertain. Below these are seven archangels who correspond with the view of the planets and metals in alchemy. In the search for the Void, the nameless angel realized the potential fire of wrath, was consumed by his own pride, cut himself off from the divine light, and became Lucifer. The third of the angels who were under this angel's supervision were therefore transformed into a world of darkness. The original Man was set to be guided by Sophia and fill the place of the lost third, but was tricked into imitating the arrogance of Lucifer. The corporeal world fell with Man to an intersection where the higher world of light and Lucifer's dark world are mixed together, and the corporeal world thus became a physical world and history began. Man became many people, submitted to the bad influence of the astrological planets and the four elements. In order to lift man back to the origin, the god God became man in the supposed Jesus Christ. Through this it becomes possible for man to undergo a process called "rebirth" (a word which is not used by Theosophists in the same sense as in Evangelicalism), and man is thus placed under the influence of Sophia instead of the influence of the elements and planets."
I will here list thinkers in the old theosophical school of thought., that I find on the internet. I begin with the oldest (one sees that they are becoming fewer with time, after Paracelsus):
Forerunners:
Origen (c. 185 – c. 253)
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (of the late 5th to early 6th century)
* * *
Actual Old School Theosophers:
Robert Fludd (1574–1637)
Jakob Böhme (1575 – 1624)
John Amos Comenius (1592 – 1670)
John Pordage (1607–1681)
Henry More (1614–1687)
Antoinette Bourignon (1616–1680)
Jan Baptist van Helmont (1618–1699)
Jane Leade (1624-1704)
Johann Georg Gichtel (1638 – 1710)
Pierre Poiret (1646–1719)
Dionysius Andreas Freher (1649 – 1728)
Gottfried Arnold (1666 – 1714)
Johannes Kelpius (1667 – 1708)
William Law (1686 –1761)
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)
Johann Jakob Brucker (1696–1770)
Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (1702 – 1782)
Louis Claude de Saint-Martin (1743 – 1803)
William Blake (1757 – 1827)
Robert Hindmarsh (1759–1835)
Franz von Baader (1765 –1841)
Friedrich W. J. von Schelling (1775 –1854)
Jakob Lorber (1800 –1864)
William Butler Yeats (1865 –1939)
Nikolaj Berdjajev (1874 –1948)
Hjalmar Ekström (1885-1962)
Gabriele Wittek (b. 1933)
Lars Larsen (munken)? (b. 1984) (I so much want to belong to this band, my work "En kristen teosofi" from 2020 ("A Christian Theosophy") might justify it)
