Theosophy.......by Annie Besant

Theosophy is this direct knowledge of God; the search after this is the Mysticism, or Esotericism, common to all religions, thrown by Theosophy into a scientific form, as in Hinduism, Buddhism, Roman Catholic Christianity, and Sufism. Like these, it teaches in a quite clear and definite way the methods of reaching firsthand knowledge by unfolding the spiritual consciousness, and by evolving the organs through which that consciousness can function on our earth –once more, the methods of meditation and of a discipline of life.
Hence it is the same as the Science of the Self [Atma-vidyä], the Science of the Eternal [Brahma-vidyä] which is the core of Hinduism; it is “the Knowledge of God which is Eternal Life” which is the essence of Christianity. It is not a new thing, but is in all religions, and hence we find the late eminent Orientalist, Max Müller, writing his well known work on Theosophy, or Psychological Religion.
THE SECONDARY MEANING
Theosophy, in a secondary sense –the above being the primary –is the body of doctrine, obtained by separating the beliefs common to all religions from the peculiarities, specialities, rites, ceremonies and customs which mark off one religion from another; it presents these common truths as a consensus of world-beliefs, forming, in their entirety, the Wisdom-religion, or the Universal Religion, the source from which all separate religions spring, the trunk of the Tree of Life from which they all branch forth.
The name Theosophy, which as we have said, is Greek, was first used by Ammonius Saccas, in the third century after Christ, and has remained ever since in the history of religion in the West, denoting not only Mysticism, but also an eclectic system, which accepts truth wherever it is to be found, and cares little for its outer trappings.
It appeared in its present form in America and Europe in 1875, at the time when Comparative Mythology was being used as an effective weapon against Christianity, and, by transforming it into Comparative Religion, it built the researches and discoveries of archaeologists and antiquarians into bulwarks of defence for the friends of religion, instead of leaving them as missiles of attack for its enemies.