“It is one of the most beautiful characteristics of Theosophy that it gives back to people in a more rational form everything which was really useful and helpful to them in the religions which they have outgrown… in this teaching as to the immortality of the soul and the life after death, Theosophy…does not put forward these great truths merely on the authority of some sacred book of long ago; in speaking of these subjects it is not dealing with pious opinions, or metaphysical speculations, but with solid, definite facts, as real and as close to us as the air we breathe or the houses we live in - facts of which many among us have constant experience - facts among which lies the daily work of some of our students, as will presently be seen.”

— Charles Webster Leadbeater

Source: Invisible Helpers (1915), Ch. 1

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Charles Webster Leadbeater 37

English theosophist 1854–1934

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“We often speak of Theosophy as not in itself a religion, but the truth which lies behind all religions alike. That is so; yet, from another point of view, we may surely say that it is at once a philosophy, a religion and a science.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

A Textbook of Theosophy (1912), Chapter One

“The sacred books of the East are the best evidence for the greatness of their authors, for who in later days or in modern times can even approach the spiritual sublimity of their religious thought, the intellectual splendour of their philosophy, the breadth and purity of their ethic? And when we find that these books contain teachings about God, man, and the universe identical in substance under much variety of outer appearance, it does not seem unreasonable to refer to them to a central primary body of doctrine. To that body we give the name Divine Wisdom, in its Greek form: THEOSOPHY.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: The Ageless Wisdom (1897)

“The purpose of this book is exactly expressed in its title, “The Key to Theosophy,” and needs but few words of explanation. It is not a complete or exhaustive text-book of Theosophy, but only a key to unlock the door that leads to the deeper study.”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book The Key to Theosophy

Source: The Key to Theosophy (1889)

“I for one would never be a party, unless the law were clear, to saying to any man who put forward his views on those most sacred things, that he should be branded as apparently criminal because he differed from the majority of mankind in his religious views or convictions on the subject of religion. If that were so, we should get into ages and times which, thank God, we do not live in, when people were put to death for opinions and beliefs which now almost all of us believe to be true.”

John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge (1820–1894) British lawyer, judge and Liberal politician

Reg. v. Bradlaugh and others (1883), 15 Cox, C.C. 230.

“It is true that most religions which have been offered me teach immortality, but note the fashion in which they teach it. The surest way to lie convincingly is to tell the truth unconvincingly. They did not wish me to believe.”

Robert A. Heinlein book They

They (p. 60)
Short fiction, Off the Main Sequence (2005)

“the first quality of an honest man is contempt for religion, which would have us afraid of the most natural thing in the world, which is death; and would have us hate the one beautiful thing destiny has given us, which is life.”

Umberto Eco book The Island of the Day Before

Source: The Island of the Day Before

“Nothing ceases to exist – there is no example of this in nature... There is an entire mass of things that cannot rationally explained. There are newborn thoughts that have not yet found form. How foolish to deny the existence of the soul. After all, that a life has begun, that cannot be denied. It is necessary to believe in immortality, insofar as it can be demonstrated that the atoms of life or the spirit of life must continue to exist after the body’s death. But of what does it exist, this characteristic of holding a body together, causing matter to change and develop, this spirit of life? I felt it as a sensual delight that I should become one with – become this earth which is forever radiated by the sun in such a constant ferment and which lives – lives – and which will grow plants from my decaying body – trees and flowers – and the sun will warm them and I will exist in them – and nothing will perish – and that is eternity.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

T 2760 (January 1892); as quoted in Edvard Much – behind the scream, Sue Prideaux; Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, p. 119
1880 - 1895

“Occultism, let us understand clearly, is the science and the study of the things which are invisible, secret, sacred - the study of the inner structure, operations, powers, and so-called laws, of the Universe; and Theosophy as presented today is its theoretic presentation.”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

The Masters and the Path of Occultism (1939)

“What is that the inherence of which, will render the body alive? [The soul. ] …Then whatever the soul possesses, to that she comes bearing life? …And is there an opposite to life? [Death. ] Then the soul, as she has been acknowledged, will never receive the opposite of what she brings. …And what do we call the principle which does not admit of death? [The immortal. ] And does the soul admit of death? [No. ] Then the soul is immortal?”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Yes.
Plato, Phaedo

“No culture can satisfactorily move along its forward course without its myths, which are its teachings, its fundamental dealing with the truth of things, and the one reality that underlies everything.”

P. L. Travers (1899–1996) Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist

The Paris Review interview (1982)
Context: I think if she comes from anywhere that has a name, it is out of myth. And myth has been my study and joy ever since — oh, the age, I would think... of three. I’ve studied it all my life. No culture can satisfactorily move along its forward course without its myths, which are its teachings, its fundamental dealing with the truth of things, and the one reality that underlies everything. <!-- Yes, in that way you could say that it was teaching, but in no way deliberately doing so.

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Charles Webster Leadbeater 37

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