Difficult Books

Theosophy, or "divine wisdom," can be seen as a form of modern Gnosticism, wherein adherents believe that they have gained mystical knowledge of the spiritual nature that makes up the physical world. The term was was coined by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Madame Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society in 1875 with Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge, and others.

Theosophy was popular among intellectuals around the time that James Joyce wrote Ulysses. To proponents, it is the synthesis of the worlds esoteric knowledge, while detractors consider it a wishy-washy hodge podge of ideas cherry-picked from the world's religions.

On page 11, he mentions the concept of Memory of Nature.

On page 28, Joyce's phrase "obscure soul of the world" may refer to the Theosophy concept of Anima Mundi.

George William Russell, a friend of William Butler Yeats and James Joyce, was an Irish Theosophist.

The following links can provide more information:

The Wikipedia entry can be found here.

The Theosophy Library offers electronic versions of some of the movement's key texts.

Here are links to The Theosophical Society, the Blavatsky Net Foundation, and the Theosophical Society in America.

Jakob Böhme (or Jacob Boehme), the author of the Signature of All Things, is claimed as an early Theosophist.