Sophiology and Wisdom Children
“But the noble Virgin shows us the Door, and how we must enter again into Paradise.” – Jacob Boehme
Sophia is Greek for “wisdom” and is the root for the words philosophy (love of wisdom) and theosophy (wisdom of God). Sophia, or Wisdom, has always been imaged as feminine and is described in the Book of Wisdom as a “holy and intelligent spirit, unique, yet manifold, subtle, fee, lucid, pure, clear, harmless, loving the good, eager, beneficent and kind, steady, free from care, all-powerful, all-seeing, and all-permeating.” Sophia has been called a “flawless mirror” of the divine, the means through which God creates, permeating the entire cosmos. She is often called the “glory of God”, the beloved, wife, bride, daughter, sister, guide, midwife, and a thousand other names.
Sophia has been theologically and philosophically described in many ways in the Old Testament through a long tradition of “Wisdom Teachings.” Through this tradition, Sophia is perennially renewed by visions, revelations, direct personal experiences, and many continuing apparitions throughout the world. Archaeomythologists call Sophia the “Magna Mater”, the Triple Goddess, or Great Mother that is found ubiquitously throughout aboriginal cultures. Sophia is known as the Mother, Daughter, and Holy Sophia who is the creatrix of Birth, Death, and Rebirth – the original divine feminine trinity.
Many lovers of Sophia have attempted to describe her magnificent nature and have ultimately fallen quite short of a satisfactory explanation for such questions as: Who is the “us” referred to in Genesis when talking about the creation of the human being.
Genesis 1: 26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping things that creepeth upon the earth.
1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Obviously, God was not alone during creation and the original “man” was indeed “male and female”, just like God – a male and female god(dess). The original “Adam” was androgynous, according to the Bible. Later, in Genesis we are told another version of the way humanity was created:
Genesis 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
2:21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
2:22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Obviously, according to the two totally different versions of the creation of humanity, the Bible is referring to two different times when “God(s)” [us & our] created a “spiritual” Adam whom God placed in the Garden of Eden, and a second Adam from whom he took a rib to create “Woman” – Eve. This original “Adam”, according to the great Sophiologist Jacob Boehme, was actually united to his “twin soul” Sophia who Adam was separated from when the “second creation” story came about. This separation from Sophia, the being of Wisdom, is the true cause for the “fall” of Adam into the physical world. Becoming separated from Divine Wisdom, Sophia, is the cause for needing a reunion with Wisdom and a reconciliation and redemption of the fallen nature of Adam – and thus all humans (male and female). It is this sacred reunion, or marriage, of the eternally pure soul (Eternal Virgin) of humanity to the spiritual bridegroom of Jesus Christ (the Lamb) in New Jerusalem as it descends from Heaven to Earth. Boehme, and many other Sophia lovers, have deemed this spiritual wedding to be the end goal and culmination of human spiritual development. Sophia is the agent of the Divine in this quest to find New Jerusalem (New Eden/Paradise) and the purification of the soul that is preparing for ascension to heavenly communion and marriage.
Jacob Boehme (like John Pordage, Jane Lead, and many others) repeatedly had direct visionary experiences of Sophia throughout their lives. These encounters with a “real being” cannot be mistaken for fantasy or ungrounded reverie. Sophia lovers experienced her in tangible experiences that changed their lives forever. They even came to believe that they should love, caress, kiss, embrace and even marry Sophia. They dedicated their lives to writing down every vision, dream, encounter, or revelation of the Divine Lady, the missing part of their ever-seeking soul longing for spirit union. In fact, there is no end to the different approaches to Sophia by such Sophianic philosophers and religious clerics as: John Pordage, Jane Lead, Gottfried Arnold, Thomas Bromley, Robert Ayshford, Ann Bathurst, Friedrich Oetinger, Georg von Welling, Jakob Wirz, Franz von Baader, Leopold Ziegler, Amos Comenius, Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Shelling, Nicholas Berdyaev, Vladimir Soloviev, Sergei Bulgakov, King Solomon, Robert Fludd, Thomas Vaughan, Rudolf Steiner, Pavel Florensky, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Sergei Bulgakov, among others. Every author waxes poetic about the primal importance of the love of Sophia and yet every philosopher, theologian, or visionary paints a different picture.
After Tyla and I wrote the Gospel of Sophia trilogy, we realized that the many versions of Sophia depicted in writings was as numerous as the people who tried to share their understanding of Wisdom’s place in their lives. Some authors believed that Sophia as Wisdom was simply a part of the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit or perhaps a mirror, an emanation, a creature, something created, or a thousand other descriptions that “limit” Sophia’s domain of influence. Catholics say Sophia is an aspect of the Holy Spirit. Creationists believe Sophia, the Mother, is the created Spouse of the Father – a creature. Many others believe that Sophia, as Wisdom, is simply a part of Jesus Christ’s nature. John Pordage believes that Sophia is threefold (a trinity) and serves as the agent of Wisdom for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Valentin Tomberg, taking his idea from the Cabbala and the Zohar, believes Sophia is a separate feminine trinity that merges (weds) with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost separately, but always through unity and ultimately creates the “Luminous Trinity” through this heavenly union. In other words, the Male Trinity is coincident with the Female Trinity.
Robert Graves tells us in The Greek Myths: “The whole of Neolithic Europe, to judge from surviving artifacts and myths, had a remarkably homogeneous system of religious ideas, based on worship of the many-titled Mother-goddess, who was also known in Syria and Libya. Ancient Europe had no gods. The Great Goddess was regarded as immortal, changeless, and omnipotent; and the concept of fatherhood had not been introduced into religious thought.” Therefore, according to Graves, it is clear that the Male Trinity came long after the Female Trinity. Or as Gunther Zuntz, the renown Greek scholar has said, “the cult of the Mother Goddess is the oldest godhead perceived by humankind.”
The beloved mythologist Joseph Campbell tells us in his last book, Goddesses, that he should have named his famous works The Heroine’s Journey and The Heroine With a Thousand Faces because he realized late in life the primacy of the
The idea of two Holy Trinities is in accord with the passages of Genesis that says “us & ours” and clearly indicate that the divine is “male and female” as an androgynous, separate and equal being who fashioned the original “Adam” as androgynous. It also seems logical that in the spiritual world angels and spiritual beings are not male or female, which is the curse of the material world caused by the splitting of Adam and Sophia in heaven. When Adam was placed in the garden, a “helpmate” was necessary to counteract the duality of the physical world. Father and Mother are both needed to birth the spirit child. Often Sophia, as Mother, is seen as the co-equal with the Father. In fact, it takes a Father and Mother to marry and bring forth the future New Jerusalem and the fulfillment of the spiritual evolution of humanity as the Divine Child who will “rule the earth with an iron scepter” and be taken “up to God, to his throne.”
It seems that Sophiologists may simply be defining the limitations of their understanding of woman, the feminine divine, and their own ability to mother the experience of the birth of the Cosmic Christ in their own heart, the New Paradise planted with Sophia’s help. Every limitation of Wisdom’s domain or the biographical aspects of the three Sophias (Mother, Daughter, Holy Sophia) spells out in these Sophianic philosophers their personal lack of spiritual development and communion with a living, divine being. This is, of course, to be expected. Many of the male Sophia lovers demonstrate a comprehensive acceptance of the fact that initially all world religions, myths, and revelations know the divine as the being of Birth, Death, and Rebirth. This primal Feminine Divine Trinity idea was the primary understanding of the ancients as they looked at the cycles of life so clearly defined by women’s ability to be a “creator goddess.” The female lovers of Sophia seem to develop a broader view of Sophia through direct experiences wherein Wisdom instructs them in the comprehensive nature of the Feminine Divine.
For a true lover of Sophia, reading the painfully delimiting descriptions of closed-hearted theologians trying to describe the vast nature of Wisdom is like listening to what a “man” thinks about the opposite sex – his limited understanding of what he thinks a “woman” is. Essentially, any male thinker cannot understand the divine nature of the female – let alone the female nature of the Goddess who is “married” (the consort of) each of the male members of the Holy Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In Tibetan Buddhism, the female deity of Wisdom is Vajrayogini who is the “Eternally Virgin” consort of all ten thousand Buddhas.
This seems incongruent to the logical mind. The idea of the Female Divine being wedded to all spiritual seekers and all spiritual hierarchy (Buddhas, avatars, saints, etc.) is impossible for any mind to comprehend. Vajrayogini is always shown as naked, but if you “see” her as naked, you fail the spiritual test and must start over again. Male priests often fail this test outright for the “shame” they project onto the beautiful sight of the naked female body – the temple of birth and Wisdom. To see Sophia in her many forms as the Bride of all spiritual seekers or saints and deities (angelic hosts) is to make her the ultimate shape-shifter or protean being who appears like a spiritual chameleon who is omnipresent.
Lao Tzu tells us in the Tao The Ching: “The Spirit of the Fountain never dies. It is called the mysterious feminine. It is the root of all heaven and earth. Frail, frail it is, hardly existing. But touch it; it will never run dry.” Obviously, the wisdom of the East knows about the Triple Goddess and herself unceasing fountain of Wisdom and Life.
Rudolf Steiner points out, like the Bible, that Sophia (Wisdom) is the most necessary aspect of spiritual development that humanity currently needs to evolve and complete the quest for the Holy Grail – the heart as the throne of Sophia. Sophia brings to all seekers the direct knowledge of the cosmic nature of Christ’s mission. As Steiner put it: “What is needed in our time is the Wisdom (Sophia) of Christ, the knowledge of the cosmic nature of Christ.” Sophia teaches us, as a personal guide, to understand the cosmic mission of Christ’s redemption of the Earth and all of humanity. Without a Christian Cosmology, Jesus Christ cannot be understood by modern materialistic humanity. Only when Wisdom is sought out by the ever-seeking soul to find the path to the higher self, the Christened self, will the individual soul attain to the spiritual marriage of the Ever-Virgin Soul to the Christ realized Spirit.
As the lover of Sophia awakens to the Language of the Spirit and begins to communicate with the Spirit World, the individual comes to know the being SophiaChristos, or the being Rudolf Steiner called AnthropoSophia. From IsisSophia, to TheoSophia, to PhiloSophia, to AnthropoSophia we follow the path of human intellectual development throughout history through Steiner’s Sophiology. Sophia, or AnthropoSophia, evolves alongside of humanity as a companion, mother, sister, lover, guide, consort, inspirer, and particularly as a bridge to the Cosmic Nature of Christ. Or as the Book of Wisdom tells us: “She is a reflection of everlasting light, the flawless mirror of the divine active power, and the image of his goodness which is unchanging as she renews all things, age after age she enters holy souls and makes them friends of God and prophets, for God accepts only those who make their home with Wisdom.”
Many authors insist there is a “Path of Wisdom”, a Sophianic spiritual awakening that comes through prayer and interior attention and, sometimes, through inner vision, dreams, and revelations. These inner visionary encounters are direct experiences, not theological speculation. That is what makes Sophiology, and the Love of Sophia, so profoundly different than what churches provide. There is no need for a church or male priests if the seeker has direct inward illumination. No human arbiter is needed to experience the divine, just a loving relationship with Wisdom/Sophia who is directly connected to the Holy Trinity. Sophia becomes then, a spiritual companion who restores paradise in the human heart. Humanity is redeemed from its “fallen condition” and is regenerated and renewed in a reunion with Heaven.
This is a transmutation to the “virginal” state of grace that existed before the “fall.” Once the soul has “realized” Wisdom and made her his spouse, the soul reunites with the spiritual Sophia we all left behind in Heaven. When rejoined, the soul becomes like Sophia/Wisdom and becomes a “virgin soul” once again in preparation for the divine marriage to the Lamb of God (Christ).
The Wisdom of the cosmos, humanity, and nature is created by the same Beings who work together with the higher hierarchy to maintain the harmony that balances Wisdom’s creation – the Harmony of the Spheres. The hierarchical rank that is the home of Wisdom is called the Kyriotetes, that works with the rank of the Thrones (Beings of Harmony) above it towards the equilibrium of the cosmos. The collective Being of Wisdom who works through the rank of the Kyriotetes is the second person in the Divine Feminine Trinity who is called the Daughter of Sophia. This Being of Wisdom over-lighted the Mother of Jesus and ultimately helped regenerate her soul into the Eternal Virgin Soul readied for ascension into the New Paradise.
This Daughter of Sophia returned to her hierarchical rank after the Mother of Jesus Christ ascended into Heaven at the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. Rudolf Steiner describes this aspect of Sophia as “the Heavenly Sophia” working from the hierarchical rank of the Beings of Wisdom, the Kyriotetes. The Heavenly Sophia, for Steiner, is distinct from the Being he calls Anthroposophia and the Beings he calls “The Mothers” (based upon the use of that name by Goethe) who created the three elementary worlds.
We can imagine the Holy Sophia in the spiritual and intellectual development of humanity as a somewhat “collective super-consciousness” shared by all seekers on the path of Wisdom who are ascending back to their original home. This group soul of AnthropoSophia (Holy Sophia) can be seen manifesting in the phylogenic development of humanity as a PhiloSophic development of consciousness.
The path of Sophia is clearly indicated for anyone to see through the descriptions of the Daughter of Sophia attested to in the beliefs concerning Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary is often deified and considered to be “The Church” or the “body of believers” in Jesus Christ. The trace of the Daughter of Wisdom from the hierarchy of the Kyriotetes is also well worn by the questing soul seeking Sophia. But the “Mother” of Wisdom herself, the creatrix being who was there (“us & our”) at creation as a creator already existing before creation is sometimes hard for Sophiologists to see or acknowledge, even though this person in the Divine Feminine Trinity seems to be the most obvious. If there was a “first mover”, then there must have been a “first moved.” As the Bible tells us: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,” but fails to tell us exactly who or what this “face of the waters” really is.
Mother Sophia is the ubiquitous Great Goddess who is threefold and was worshiped long before Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva or the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Sophia doesn’t claim to have ever “worked alone” during creation. Almost all creation myths tell of a primal dark being, often associated with water, that was there before creation began. Sophia/Wisdom is not a creature or a created being – she is a co-creator with the creator. It takes a Father and Mother to birth in this physical world (Holy Child) and ultimately, the divine must become “dual” as it enters the fallen realms of the material plane from Heaven.
Mother Sophia is also threefold in that she is the memory of past creations that have contributed to the existence of our material world. These prior worlds are the “Three Mothers” of the past, the three Norns of Norse mythology, the three Fates of the Greeks, and the threefold nature of most of the goddesses and female deities found in world mythology and religions. The “Mothers” have created all we know as the outside world, what Sophiologists call the four eternal elements that combine to create the quintessential element of the spirit. The Mother Sophia has birthed the cosmos and every human being in it and knows more about the divine wisdom that created us than we know ourselves. The Mother Sophia loves us as her children, the Daughter Sophia loves us as the guide to Wisdom, and the Holy Sophia (AnthropoSophia) helps birth every single step we take toward Wisdom, Mother Sophia, and her Divine Feminine Trinity. Sophia wedded the Father before creation and together two trinities join to create the combined “Eternal Trinity”, as the Kabbala informs us.
It seems apparent that some Sophiologists demonstrate their limitations with their mothers, sisters, and lovers in their truncated versions of Sophia’s full cosmology. One has a problem with women altogether, another has problems with their own mother, while another has serious problems with loving the opposite sex– let alone “our neighbors as ourselves.” The spiritual limits of the author seem to be the limits of their understanding of Wisdom/Sophia. Thus, this provides the many, many different theological, philosophical, and just plain-crazy ideas that abound when Sophiologists pronounce “their” limited view of a Triple Goddess who was the primal trinity.
Sophia is the new religion of the future based upon direct revelation of a living, wisdom-filled, mother-like, companion in the spirit who has never gone away since her assumption into heaven, whether under the guise of “Mary Apparitions”, the Gaia/Mother Earth as a living being movement, or the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God as intercessor to the Holy Trinity. The Great Goddess has always been a holy trinity and now the newly evolved icon of the Divine Feminine Trinity can be gleaned by combining the various limited view of Sophia into a comprehensive cosmology that effectively advances the soul towards its true spirit.
Over time, the Holy Trinity of Father-Son-Holy Spirit became the predominant religious belief in Christianity, totally obscuring any reference to the Holy Trinity of Mother-Daughter-Holy Sophia. All reference to the co-creative, equally important, and substantial nature of the two Trinities was obliterated and the feminine divinity was relegated by church fathers to limited expression of Her nature as Mother Gaia, Mother Mary, or some convoluted aspect of the Holy Spirit. What is simply needed is to understand that no matter what Sophiological “opinion” a theologist or philosopher has, it is the poetic voice of the visionary who brings revelations. Once we compare these varied inspirations of Wisdom, the truth about the living being of Sophia rises like the Morning Star to ignite our heart-fires and plant spirit-seeds in the New Garden, Eden Regained. Re-enthroning the Divine Feminine Trinity is necessary as the Eternal Virgin Soul joins together in the divine marriage of the purified Soul to the awaiting Spirit (Virgin to Christ/SopiaChristos) who will give birth again to the living imagination of the “Luminous Holy Trinity” shining in Heaven as Father/Mother Divine.
Sophiologists – Lovers of Sophia
“And whenever Sophia receives her consort and Jesus receives the Christ and the seeds and the angels, then the Pleroma will receive Sophia joyfully, and the All will come to be in unity and reconciliation.” – A Valentinian Exposition
Jacob Boehme
Boehme was one of the most influential Sophiologists who believed he had visitations from Sophia a few times throughout his life. These direct experiences convinced Boehme he was communicating with a divine being who knew his inner self better than he knew it himself. Boehme wrote such works as: The Three Principles of the Divine Being, Forty Questions on the Soul, The Signature of All Things, and the Mysterium Magnum. One could say that many Sophianic authors are simply a footnote to Boehme’s Sophiology.
As Boehme tells us in On the Virgin Wisdom: “I cannot comprehend and hold the Virgin (because my mind falls into sins) yet the Spirit of the World shall not always hold the mind captive.” But through Sophia’s interventions Boehme was able to find the path to Wisdom and meet Sophia directly as he tells us: “And when I laid upon the mountain toward the north, so that all the trees fell upon me, and all the storms and winds beat upon me, and the Antichrist opened his jaws to devour me, then she came and comforted me, and married herself to me.”
Who is this vision of the divine that has made herself the wife of Boehme? He tells us more in the following description: “The Virgin is present before God and inclines herself to the spirit from which the virtue proceeds, out of which she (the chaste Virgin) is; this is God’s Companion to the honor and joy of God; she appears or discovers herself in the wonders of God.” Already we can start to see the Divine Vision is be lowered to the ideas of the material plane. This goes further in Boehme’s physical desire for his bride Sophia: “You will gain the love of a kiss of the noble Sophia in the holy name Jesus, because she stands before the soul’s door and knocks and warns the sinner of Godless ways. So, if he desires her love she is willing, and kisses him with a ray of her sweet love, through which the heart experiences joy.” Sophia the divine has been brought down to the terrestrial images of sexual desire and pleasure. Or as Boehme has said: “Out of his lust, Adam lost the Virgin (Sophia) and in his lust he received the woman. But the Virgin still awaits him, and if he only should desire to enter into a new birth, she would receive him again with great honor.”
It is obvious that the Christian/Catholic habit of degrading woman to a “creature” is implied in Boehme’s description of his relationship with Sophia. Boehme clearly separates the woman, who ‘ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge’ and offered it to Adam, and his pristine image of Sophia who is far, far above a common woman: “But the Wisdom of God is the Eternal Virgin, not woman: she is immaculate purity and virtue and stands as an image of God and likeness of the Trinity.” In clearly separating “woman” from “Sophia” Boehme becomes superfluous with his praise that shines a spot-light on the chasm between the divine feminine and the human feminine. It reminds the reader of the “curse of Eve” that has been the bane of women since the gender roles were switched from matriarchal to patriarchal. This misunderstanding of woman and the divine feminine smells of male priests in dresses demanding that only a man can be the bridge to the divine.
Boehme does mention frequently that the many different qualities of Sophia/Wisdom make her seem similar to the Male Holy Trinity. He makes many analogies to this similarity in his works: “This all-Wisdom of God, who is the Virgin of beauty and an image of the Trinity, is in herself an image of man and the angels, and has her origin in the center of the cross, like a flower springing forth from the spirit of God.” Or again in another context, “The Virgin is eternal, uncreated, and unborn: She is the All-Wisdom of God and a likeness of Divinity.” Boehme all but clearly says that Sophia is a trinity unto herself. But something holds him back from crowning Sophia and placing her on the proper throne of the Divine Feminine Trinity.
Even though Boehme vacillates between total worship of Sophia and downgrading Wisdom’s place in the divine cosmology, he does define the central role of Sophia in the spiritual development of the aspirant: “The image of God is human-virgin, not man or woman. Accordingly, the Fire-soul must be tempered in the fire of God and become brighter than pure gold, for it is the husband of the noble Sophia, out of the woman’s seed. It is of the tincture of fire, just as Sophia is of the tincture of light. When the tincture of fire is completely purified, Sophia will be restored to it, Adam will again embrace his supremely honorable Bride, who was taken away from him at the time of his first sleep, and will become neither man nor woman, but only a branch on the jeweled tree of Christ that stands in God’s paradise.”
Benjamin West, The woman clothed with the sun fleeth from the persecution of the dragon
Jacob Boehme does not solve for us the “mysterious conjunction” of soul to Sophia, the union of man and woman, or the question of whether there is a male and a female trinity that need to wed. Boehme, like so many other Sophiologists, falls short of rounding off a complete SophiaChristos Cosmology that can lead humanity into a future where the Wisdom of our world merges with the Love of Christ’s world. From androgyne in heaven to androgyne in New Jerusalem, even though a marriage is involved, seems to be leaving something out of the picture. Too many questions arise from Boehme’s incomplete cosmology that can’t quite find a wholesome, untinged place for woman and divine woman – who supposedly teaches the seeker to became androgynous. This obvious missing piece to the puzzle led many other Sophiologists to accept Boehme’s ideas with objections which later become newly imagined aspects of the mystery of the Threefold Sophia/Wisdom. Boehme leads us nearly as far as any other Sophianic thinker but can’t resolve the gender issue when it comes to the spiritual world: “Humanity’s rebirth as androgyne will mean acceptance within oneself of the whole of nature, the genuine revelation of man as microcosm. In the truth-birth of the integral human, both God and nature will be within and not outside him.” This insight places the kingdom of God and Sophia in the human heart where the true tempering of humanity takes place.
Jacob Boehme’s notion of the seven fountain spirits forming Eternal Nature, the material counterpart of the Virgin Wisdom, has parallels in the earlier ideas of Paracelsus who contemplated the essence of nature in terms of the four wombs (‘matrices’,‘mothers’) of fire, air, water, earth; and a tripartite scheme reflecting the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). For Paracelsus, a human being consists of three essences: body, soul, and spirit. Alchemically, these correspond to sulphur, salt, and mercury. Jacob Boehme in his Incarnation refers to “Seven Mothers, out of which the substance of all Substances arises.”
One of the key concepts in the theosophical tradition is the notion of the spiritual marriage of the Soul, or bridegroom, to Sophia. Clearly based on earlier German mystical traditions this is addressed by Boehme in Christosophia, or The Way to Christ (1624): “An Earnest, resolute will must pursue this or it will not be Attained, for if the soul wishes to obtain Christ’s conqueror’s crown from the noble Virgin Sophia, it must court Her with Great love-desire. It must pray for it to Her in Her holiest of Names and must come before Her in highly chaste humility.”
Christosophia
“And the Virgin of the Wisdom of God is the spirit of the pure element, and is therefore called a Virgin, because she is so chaste, and generates nothing; yet as the flaming spirit in man’s body generates nothing, but opens all secrets, so also here; the Wisdom (or the eternal Virgin) of God opens all the great wonders in the holy element, for there are the essences, wherein the fruits of Paradise spring up.”
Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179)
Hildegard of Bingenwas a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner. She founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg and Eibingen. She wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal works, as well as letters, hymns, and antiphons for the liturgy. She also wrote poems, while supervising miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg Manuscript of her first work, Scivias.
Antiphone for Divine Wisdom
Sophia! You of the whirling wings, circling encompassing energy of God:
You quicken the world in your clasp.
One wing soars in heaven one wing sweeps the earth and the third flies all around us.
Praise to Sophia!
Let all the earth praise her!
Robert Fludd (1574-1637)
The English physician, scientist, and religious philosopher, Robert Fludd quotes often from the books of Wisdom and Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) in his writings. In the beginning of his Sophia cum Moria (1629) he invokes Wisdom (Sapientia) as his muse. In the Bodleian Library (University of Oxford) there is a manuscript in Fludd’s hand entitled Truth’s Golden Harrow in which he refers to Wisdom as feminine and as a person. (1682).
Another little-known English writer, Matthew Fowler (1617-1683) preached a sermon in Shrewsbury on biblical Wisdom which was published in pamphlet entitled Sophia, or, The Properties of Heavenly Wisdom.
In the Bodleian Library, Oxford University, there is a unique copy of Aurora Sapientiae, or The Dawn of Wisdom (1629), attributed to Robert Ayshford, which reveals the existence of a theosophic circle in England in the 1620s, and therefore predates by several decades the emergence of the first major English theosophic circle around John Pordage in the 1650s. This book refers to Wisdom as feminine and expounds three principles of ‘the Mystery of Wisdom.’
John Pordage (1607–1683)
John Pordage was an Anglican priest, astrologer, alchemist and Christian mystic. He founded the 17th-century English Behmenist group, which would later become known as the Philadelphian Society when it was led by his disciple and successor, Jane Lead. In Theologia Mystica, Pordage describes a spiritual journey through the Sophianic cosmology of the three worlds of the “Dark-Fire World, the “Fire-Light World” or common human experience, and the “Light-Fire World” or paradise. Portage published such works as: The Fruitful Wonder, Theologia Mystica, Em griindlich philosophischei Sendschreiben, Vier Tractatlein, and Truth appearing through the Clouds of Undeserved Scandal.
A group of followers came to Pordage, including Ann Bathurst, led by Mrs. Jane Lead, who experienced a number of visions and later published them in her book A Fountain of Gardens. The group incorporated as The Philadelphian Society for the Advancement of Piety and Divine Philosophy in 1694. They rejected the idea of being a church, preferring the term society, and none of the members ceased their memberships in existing churches. Mrs. Lead’s visions were a central part of the group. Around 1694, she became a Christian Universalist. Many of the Philadelphian Society’s views and writings, particularly those by Jane Lead, remained influential among certain groups of Behmenists, Pietists, Radical Pietists, Christian mystics, and Esoteric Christians, such as the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness, and the Harmony Society, among others.
John Pordage hosted a circle of women mystics in Bradfield in Berkshire, where he was the rector. Later, the rectory became a communal house with contacts with other mystics and was a nodal point on a network that was linked to similar groups in London and elsewhere. Much of what is known about this Bradfield circle derives from the opposition it aroused, the anger of a Reading clergyman, Christopher Fowler, who engineered the ejection of Pordage from his Bradfield post in 1654. Reinstated after the Restoration, Pordage and his group nonetheless kept a low profile after this, eventually moving to London in 1668 after the death of his first wife.
Whilst Pordage wrote substantially in English throughout his life, his manuscripts have not survived. However, they were translated into German and some were published in German language editions. His only publications in English are: A Treatise of Eternal Nature with Her Seven Eternal Forms (1681), and Theologia Mystica (1683). Sophia was written in English and translated into German, then retranslated back into the original English. Sophia is written in diary form, a practice that Pordage seemed to encourage amongst members of his group. Through daily recordings of his visionary discoveries, Pordage allows the reader to chart the spirit’s progress and journey. The diary consists of twenty-two entries. In Sophia, Pordage uses a diaristic form of his revelatory experiences as a technique to impart his teachings, recording the spiritual progress he makes towards understanding the nature of wisdom. He describes revelations relating to the creation of the new, magical earth, the manifold powers of vegetation, and how one should develop the soul to enter an Eden-like environment: “…and in this paradise the soul-spirit receives the chalice of wisdom wherein is the elixir of life and the vegetablisitic quintessence.”
Pordage was surrounded throughout his life by women visionaries. His first wife, Mary, was a key member of the original Bradfield group and may have been the first to experience visions. Other visionaries in this first circle include Mrs. Flavel, Mary Pocock, and Margaret Pinder, who experienced a number of visions. Pordage’s London circle included Joanna Oxenbridge and Ann Bathurst (1638-1704). The best known of the women visionaries associated with Pordage was Jane Lead.
From: Sophia (1681), by John Pordage
“The Holy Virgin reveals the New Jerusalem in the heart and soul of the newly reborn man.
It is possible for the hidden door of Sophia to open so one can then meet the Virgin Sophia directly and experience peace. When the soul-spirit finally sinks down into itself the gate of the Depth of Wisdom is immediately thrown open to it and it is led into the holy eternal Principle of the Light-World. Then Wisdom is presented to him in the form of a sphere and the harmony of the microcosm with the macrocosm is demonstrated to him.
Through four gates one must pass: the Gate of Conviction, The Gate of Destruction or Purification, the Gate of Dissolution, and the Gate of New Creation. Then comes the Day of Wisdom when Wisdom prepares her children by her fiery smelting oven which she has erected in their souls and spirits for the transfiguration of Mount Zion and the New Jerusalem. Endure the fire within until it has completely burned out all the evil seeds of astrayness, the Dragon and the Beast. I saw that this was the foundation and ground of the New Creation which was to be formed within me.
Sophia is an invisible energy, pure energy, yea nothing other than pure energy; a sheer, pure act or working, a weaving motion; a sharp, quick, penetrating, circulating, working energy; an active, efficacious and mighty energy. Thereupon Wisdom said to me: I wish to dwell with you upon this New Earth, to walk and talk with you here, and be found nowhere else but here. Here in my heart, in the midst of this New Earth, Wisdom has planted a central fire in order to ignite, to warm, to digest and to let spring forth that which here hand shall sow in this New Earth.
Wisdom fed this New Earth with the clear, crystalline Water of Life like a river. Here were now fruits and herbs of Paradise that my eternal man was now to eat and live. These fruits were peace, love, gentleness, humility, unity, harmony, patience, brotherly love, purity, innocence, uprightness, constancy, loyalty, hope, faith, heartiness and other such heavenly herbs that are filled with divine energy and oil. Through these fruits eternal life and immortality flow.
Just as Wisdom had formed my New Earth within me, she desired to proceed to create a New Heaven in my eternal spirit where she would shine like the Morning Star. She showed me how my inward New Earth depended upon the upper bodies and heavenly influences of my New Heaven within. Wisdom had become my motivator, my guide, my inner impulse, my penetrator my life, my energy and my effectuator. She is my oil, my energy, my elixir, my gentleness, my joy and pleasure, my fecundity, my everything.”
From: Theologia Mystica (1683) by John Pordage
“The third wonder which was presented to my intellectual sight was God’s Wisdom, concerning whom I shall speak under these three heads. First, I shall speak of the birth and nativity of the Wisdom of God. Secondly, of its nature. Thirdly and lastly, of its office.
First then, as to the birth and nativity of Wisdom, we are to know that it springs and flows from God’s Eternal Eye, as from its Eternal root and original, and here it is fixed as in its proper seat and center; for it is by this Wisdom, that all the desire and motions of the Deity are most wisely ordered, conducted and governed, for it proceeds from and is seated in the same Eye with his desiring mind, and willing will, these three are in one another and penetrate through one another, and make up but one inseparable, indivisible power. I say that all three exist in the Eye as one power, yet distinguishable, and without the least disorder or confusion; the first is the wisdom, then the mind, and next the will; for as the wisdom proceeds from the Eye, so the mind proceeds from the wisdom, and the will from the mind.
The Divine Wisdom is a flowing, moving power, a moving motion immediately proceeding from God’s Eternal Eye. God’s Wisdom is a bright ray or glance issuing from the Eye of Eternity; therefore, she is termed the brightness or clarity of the Godhead, and a pure breath or efflux from the majesty of the Almighty. We can say nothing of her but that she is the brightness and glance of the Eye of Eternity; who as she proceeds from the Eye, so she is moved by, and only by the same; for she is a mere passive bright shining virtue, that swiftly passeth through and pierceth all things, by reason of her high purity and subtlety, which can be compared with nothing better, than to a lustrous shining glance, being perfectly passive and moving only according to the motion of the Eye of the Father, which makes her more swift and piercing than anything whatsoever.
In the first place this Wisdom is co-essential with the Holy Trinity: Because hath been said it proceeds from the Trinity, as an outgoing ray, glance or brightness; now nothing doth immediately proceed from God, but what is of the nature and essence with him, and consequently what can this bright shining glance from the Eye of the majesty be else, but pure Deity, as proceeding from, and fixed in the Eye of Eternity.
The second essential property of this Divine Wisdom, is this, that she is co-eternal with the ever-blessed Trinity. God was never without his Wisdom, nor the Eye of Eternity without this glance and bright ray which proceedeth from it; for else God could not have been an all-wise and all-knowing God.
The third and last essential property of the Divine Wisdom, is her virgin purity, which consists in this, that she is free from all desire, will and motion of her own. She desires and wills nothing, but as the Eternal mind, and Will, desires and wills in her; she moves not, but as she is moved, and acts not, but as she is acted by the Spirit of Eternity.
This flaming heart of Love is the sole object to which her regard is fastened continually: she receives nothing into herself but this divine Love, from the heart of God.
What is the office of Wisdom in the Still Eternity? She is a revealer of the mysteries, and hidden wonders of the Deity. She is an enlightener of the Still Eternity. She is the golden key of the Eternal Eye, by which all the wonders of the Trinity are unlocked. I speak of Wisdom’s existence with the Holy Trinity, in the Still Eternity, before ever Eternal Nature was brought forth.”
Jane Lead (1624-1704)
Jane Lead joined Pordage’s circle in 1663 and led the group after his death, which by then was known as the Philadelphians or Philadelphia Society. Jane Lead had many visions of Eternal Wisdom as Sophia, including a sequence of visions recorded in her published diary, A Garden of Fountains (1670). In the first vision, Sophia said to her: “Behold I am God’s Eternal Virgin-Wisdom, whom thou hast been enquiring after; I am to unseal the Treasures of God’s deep Wisdom unto the.” Three days later, Sophia appeared again, radiant and wearing a crown, saying: “Behold me as thy Mother, and know thou art to enter into a Covenant, to obey the New Creation-Laws, that shall be revealed unto thee.”
Selections from Jane Lead
“A New Jerusalem, a castle all completed
A realm no enemy will ever have defeated,
A Maiden who was raised as high as any goddess
This, Virgin, is your soul when she is God’s beloved.”
From: A Fountain of Gardens, A Personal Diary of her Spiritual Experiences and Encounters with the Godhead during 1677. By Jane Lead, 17th Century Prophetess of God
“My thoughts were much exercised upon Solomon’s Choice, which was to find out the Noble Stone of Divine Wisdom; for by acquainting myself with her, all desirable good in Spiritual things would meet upon me. The Report and Fame that Solomon gave of Wisdom, did much excite me to seek her Favor and Friendship; demurring in myself from whence she was descended, still questioning whether she was a distinct Being from the Deity or no? Which while in this debate within my Mind, there came upon me an overshadowing bright Cloud, and in the midst of it the Figure of a Woman, most richly adorned with transparent Gold, her hair hanging down and her Face as the terrible Crystal for brightness, but her Countenance was sweet and mild. At which sight I was somewhat amazed, but immediately this Voice came, saying, Behold I am God’s Eternal Virgin-Wisdom, whom thou hast been enquiring after; I am to unseal the Treasures of God’s deep Wisdom unto thee, and will be as Rebecca was unto Jacob, a true Natural Mother; for out of my Womb thou shalt be brought forth after the manner of a Spirit, Conceived and Born again: this thou shalt know by a New Motion of Life, stirring and giving a restlessness, till Wisdom be born within the inward parts of thy Soul.
Now after three days, sitting under a Tree, the same Figure in greater Glory did appear, with a Crown upon her Head, full of Majesty; saying, Behold me as thy Mother, and know thou art to enter into Covenant, to obey the New Creation-Laws, that shall be revealed unto thee. Then did she hold out a Golden Book with three Seals upon it, saying, Herein lieth hidden the deep Wonders of Jehovah’s Wisdom, which hath been sealed up, that none could, or ever shall break up, but such as of her Virgin-Offspring shall appear to be; who will her Laws receive, and keep, as they shall spring daily in the New Heart and Mind. This Appearance, and Words, was wonderfully sweet and refreshing in my Soul; at which I bowed, and prostrated at her Feet; promising to be obedient to all her Laws.
So after six days the Vision appear’d again, with a Train of Virgin-Spirits, and with an Angelical Host; and called to me to come and see the Virgin Queen, with her first-born Children; asking me, Whether I was willing to be joined amongst this Virgin Company? At which I reply’d, All willing to offer up myself most free: Then immediately I was encompasss’d about with this Heavenly Host, and made a Spirit of Light. Then these Words from the Virgin proceeded, saying, I shall now cease to appear in a Visible Figure unto thee, but I will not fail to transfigure myself in thy mind; and there open the Spring of Wisdom and Understanding, that so thou mayest come to know the only True God, in and by the formation of Christ, the anointed Prophet in thee; that shall reveal great and wonderful things unto thee, that are to be made known, and public, in its time and day: Therefore be watchful, and to thy Mother Wisdom’s Counsel give good heed, and thou shalt greatly prosper, and succeed the Prophets and Apostles to perfect what was left behind, for completing as to Christ the Fulness of God’s great Mystery: So go on, and nothing fear, or doubt; for I thy Glass for Divine Seeing shall evermore stand before thee.
The Mind of Wisdom thus opened itself in me, as I waited in my Spirit upon her, she did shew me what Key would open the Great Mystery, which lay deeply hid in myself. It was wrought and carved out of such pure Gold, as had passed through many Fires; many Keys I had tried, but could not turn in this secret enclosed Lock, but still it shut upon me, though I thought I had that Key which was compounded of such Metals, as would have made its entrance, as Love, Faith, Patience, Humility, which with strong Supplication and Prayer, I presented, as the Key of the work.
I knew nothing by myself, as to those working Properties from Nature, and Creature, and the Wheel of the Motion standing still, another moved from a Central Fire; so that I felt myself Transmuted into one pure Flame.
Then heard I her Voice thus; Sequester and draw out of thy Animal Sensitive Life, that is too gross: I cannot appear till that disappear.
I have learned to observe her Time and Seasons; I witness her opening as in the twinkling of an Eye, a pure, bright, subtle, swift Spirit, a working Motion, a Circling Fire, a penetrating Oil.
Oh how little did I understand, till Wisdom unsealed and opened her Testimony, lighting my Lamp from her Seven Pillars of Fire, which now go before me, that my Way may no more be dark: Who hath made good her Promise, for I felt her strong Impulse, and her Furnace prepared, burning as an Oven.
Then she with her Flaming Heart did present herself to me. Out of which Heart sprouted forth a Tree, with Twelve Branches having upon the Root of it engraved, GOD is the Pith, Life and Virtue, that maketh the Heart thus Fruitful, in various opening and quickening Powers, giving forth according to each Branch, a different and peculiar Fruit. Then said she to me, Here doth lie the Mystery: do thou it come and see, how out of the Flames these Branches put forth green and palpable Fruits, that are not yet grown, yet thou with Patience must still wait till to perfection of ripeness they be grown in thee, then of the first Fruits of this Tree thou shalt bring to thy God as an Offering, who will accept it as a pure Offering.
So that there is no need of anything more to be done but to watch the Fire, that it may never go out, until it be finished, and be kept in a gentle nourishing Heat, till it come to its Perfection.
But know, you have a Mother of a higher degree, that is more true and natural to your Spirits: and she would now you should come to understand, and know her to be the Everlasting Wisdom of the Mighty God, that can do much above Nature and Creature for you: Who would have you desert all other, and hear, and learn from her mouth; from which doth drop the Law of Love and Kindness.”
From: The Revelation of An Essay Towards the Unsealing, Opening, and Discovering the Seven Seals, the Seven Thunders, and the New-Jerusalem State. By J. Lead
“Now to proceed to what the Lord hath opened to me, from this Figure of the Woman, who is represented here as travailing in Birth; intimating to us that as by a Woman, a sinful Off-spring was brought forth, in which Sorrow, Sin and the Curse had Dominion; so from this Eternal Virgin-Wisdom, a Birth is to be born, in which nothing but Joy, Life, Blessing and Eternal Power and Dominion shall take place. This Virgin, Adam had in himself, before ever Eve was taken out of him; but she with-drew as soon as Adam looked Outward, as if he were not sufficient of himself to increase and multiply for the replenishing of Paradise, God having created him Male and Female in himself.
Now we are advanced one step higher towards Wisdom’s heavenly Throne, from whence her Golden Scepter is stretched forth to lay hold on, which passeth through and beyond every elementary Cloud, which the sensitive Life hath raised, so as we could not see our way to that sparkling Rock of the Deity; for which cause the bright Sun now shines from her Eternal Orb, through the dark Clouds, that we might see every ascending degree, twisting and winding so intricately, that without a Guide expressly sent down from that Sphere, there is no possibility ever to come to any one of her Gates which lead to the New-Jerusalem.”
From: The Laws of Paradise Given forth by Wisdom To A Translated Spirit, by Jane Lead
“The First Commandment: Thou shalt own, and bear witness to the True God, manifested through his Virgin Wisdom, as come to restore Nature to its own Eternal Originality, which consisted in Light, Purity, and Power: And thou shalt have no other God live in thee but Jehovah, whose Arm alone hath redeemed, and brought thee into thy Primitive Liberty, and Sovereignty again, through the Internal Dying, as the acceptable Propitiation.
The Fifth Commandment: Here thou art required to honor thy Eternal Father, and Wisdom, thy true Natural Mother, which hath brought thee forth, and up, to that stature and degree in which thou now art: hence no less is expected from thee; and as my Fear and Love is with thee, so my Honor must be thy great Concern; that so length of days may be thy Blessing from thy Father, and Me, for evermore.
But to answer to the thoughts of thine Heart, which saith, Oh! my Mother, wherein, and how may I come to laud and honor God my Father, and Wisdom, my Mother, according as thy First-born Son, my Pattern, hath in his Paradisiacal Body done, while he was in this World. Consider thy Jesus then in his high and holy Calling, from his Birth to his Ascension, holding forth one pure Act of Glorifying his Father, in observing the Law of Wisdom his Mother, from whose Eternal Virgin Nature he had his Existence: And now know, that as thou hast had thy Birth from me, so thou art in the same Line to run parallel: having passed through the Birth-death, answerable to him that was before thee, whom thou art to follow after in hallowing that Great name, which is secret, and known but to few.
Then spake Wisdom’s Spirit in me, What hast thou seen here but the Magical Eye, which is an All-seeing globe, that includeth all Light, Power, and Might within its Circle, so that there is no need to go out for any Supply, for that all lieth within the compass of this All-generating Eye: And like as thou didst see it rise in a Moment, so shall it give new Existencies from its own in the twinkling of an Eye. This is the manner of Paradisiacal Living, quite different from the Way of the Inhabitants of the Outward World. But to thee that art come out and separated from these, my Counsel is, that thou entirely rest and depend upon this Divine Magical Eye, and never wander out from it; so will it become to thee thy Basket and thy Store: So will it be to thee thy Fountain-blessing, and thou shalt need to know no more, and to take care of no more, than what this will give forth to thee. For it is an endless Procreating Source that still puts forth New Births altogether Supernatural, to which belongs a pure, sublime, organic Body, having highly irradiated Senses, with uncorrupted, and divine Rationality, such as is grounded upon what is Seen and Known by This Eye. Hence may be demonstrated the Singularity of those Holy Beings, which are generated from this Source and Origin.”
Ann Bathurst (1638-1704)
Ann Bathurst was a member of Pordage’s London circle who, in a diary entry for September 1679, describes her spiritual marriage with Sophia as the fulfillment of her life.
Gottfried Arnold (1666-1714)
Another Sophianic thinker was Gottfried Arnold, a German theologian and professor of church history and author of over fifty books. His book entitled: The Mystery of the Holy Sophia (1700) is divided into two parts. In part one, Arnold, whilst obviously influenced by Boehme and Pordage, quotes extensively from Proverbs, Sirach, and the writings of the early Christian writers and mystics on Wisdom. In part two, Arnold presents to the reader his ‘poetical proverbs’ in praise of Wisdom, inspired by the Song of Songs in the Old Testament.
These poems show Arnold’s belief in a personal Sophia who is his “Queen, his friend and his bride.” In the first part of his book, he devotes an entire chapter to “a subject so important, certain and essential”, namely the spiritual marriage with Sophia.
Arnold defines Sophia: “Sophia is an eternal Being, which before all creatures, with the Holy Trinity, is eternal, and remains forever in eternity. She is above the Angels; the eternal wisdom has her root alone in the Godhead itself, and through her Being it reveals itself. Sophia is not a Person outside the Trinity. The spirit of Jesus and the spirit of Sophia are not separate. The eternal Sophia urges men through being reborn to return to completeness in Paradise, to which she will lead them.”
In Gottfried Arnold we find a philosopher who was able to combine a profound knowledge of Wisdom based on the writings of the previous two thousand years, with the personal knowledge of Wisdom as Sophia based on personal introspection and contemplation. But Arnold did not speculate on Sophia, nor did he have a personal, direct revelation of her. His work is excellent as historical scholarship but falls short of “knowing” Sophia in her many forms.
One of Arnold’s best poems praises Sophia as his strength:
Let reason laugh
So very much at my simplicity:
Even more will I sing
About the object of my love.
O Sophia, my strength …
O She is my heroine,
And everything that I need.
And without Her know I
Myself to be unprepared for battle …
Be Thou mine, Thou Heroine, Thou,
God’s pure life.
Let me be suspended unharmed
In peace that is assured.
Hold me tightly to You
Protect me with your cloak!
And when the enemy’s power mounts,
So, fight and be victorious in me!
Johann Georg Gichtel (1638-1710)
Moving from Germany in 1668 to escape persecution, Gichtel spent the rest of life teaching and writing in Amsterdam, establishing The Angelic Brethren. He is best known for his editing of Boehme’s writing, the Theosophia Revelata, and for his own letters, published in the Theosophia Practica. Gichtel’s major contribution to theosophy was to develop the language of Theosophic/Sophianic practice.
Gichtel believed that Sophia tests all those who seek her. The heavenly Sophia plays with all her wooers, and tries them, whether they are serious, for where there is no honest earnestness, the marriage is long delayed. This renewal of the spiritual marriage was also to occur for the remaining members of the Angelic Brotherhood in the decades after Gichtel’s death. Like other mystics before and since, Gichtel believed in inner contemplation where “if we are attended by this teacher within us” assuredly “we should require no teacher without us.” For Gichtel this inner teacher was Sophia.
Novalis (1772-1801)
Georg Friedrich Philipp von Hardenburg (Novalis) was born May 2nd, 1772, in Oberwiederstedt, Prussian Saxony, into a family of Protestant Lower Saxon nobility. His father was the director of a salt mine. He was the eldest son in a large family, consisting of ten children beside himself. As he had from birth been of poor health and wholly self-absorbed, he appeared in the first years of life to be a child who was removed and distance from his surroundings. A serious illness struck him down in his ninth year, confining him to his bed for months. Suddenly, after the illness, his inner faculties developed creating a remarkable memory, concentration, and a gift of observation wrought with a deep religious and artistic sense. Novalis had an open and profound relationship with Sophia.
Fragments
“In the bosom of the heavenly bride, Sophia, the birth of the Christ Spirit comes to pass within the human soul.
“When I believe that Sophia is about me and may appear, and while I act in keeping with this faith, she is about me indeed and at last surely does appear to me – in precisely the place where I thought I was myself, within me.”
“I have a beloved, Sophia – Philo-Sophia is her name.”
Klingsor’s Fairy Tale
“The kingdom of eternity is founded,
By love and peace all strife has been impounded,
The dreams of pain are gone, to plague us never,
Sophia is priestess of all hearts forever.”
Louis Claude de Saint-Martin (1743–1803)
Saint-Martin was a French philosopher, known as le philosophe inconnu, the name under which his works were published; he was an influential of the mystic and human mind evolution and became the inspiration for the founding of the Martinist Order. He was the first to translate the writings of Jakob Boehme from German into French. His later years were devoted almost entirely to the composition of his chief works and to the translation of Boehme. His published letters show that he was interested in spiritualism, magnetic treatments, magical evocation and the works of Emanuel Swedenborg.
Man: His True Nature and Ministry
I have no doubt she may be born in our center,
I have no doubt that the Divine Word can also be born there by her means,
as he was thus born in Mary.
All the saints and all the elect share this Sophia.
The Spirit of Jesus and the Spirit of Wisdom are not two different spirits,
but rather are one spirit and one inseparable Essence.
Harmonist Movement (1805)
The followers in the Harmonist Movement lived their lives for Sophia in every way. One could say that they were a true “religion of Sophia.” They would become enraptured with their pursuit of Sophia to the point that they actually thought they physically encountered Her in many ways. Some believed that Sophia would convey a spiritual kiss that would vouchsafe their souls. They truly loved Sophia in all aspects of their lives and believed She became physical in Her manifestations.
Harmonist’s Hymn Number 394
Sophia, from your glances rapture flows into my heart
When a friendly love delights my soul;
O the pure instincts your charm arouses in me;
This flame feeds the blessed heavenly love.
Beloved, let me experience the gentleness and faith if we were united,
With your sweet caress many an anxious hour would flee,
My wounds would be healed,
Pure fire would be drawn to love.
Your demeanor reveals that your heart treasures me;
What joy, what rapture when you are close to me.
Dip your brush into the rays of the sun to paint me your lovely picture;
Your lips and cheeks scarlet
Should my mouth and heart be pressed thereon,
My soul and spirit would be refreshed.
O your walk is without care; your work is the joy of love;
Gentle and white as the lily is your sign on my breast,
For the hand of harmony is the throne of love complete;
Beloved, if you live with us, you are our spiritual sun.
H. P. Blavatsky (1831–1891)
Blavatsky tends to be the most comprehensive philosopher in comparative religions and often has the most succinct but far-reaching opinion on spiritual topics. Most of the descriptions we have presented to this point are summarized in her sweeping statements. From the primal divinity to the being of love, Sophia is described in many of her forms found in sacred scripture. This is enigmatic, just as Sophia’s evolution is a conundrum, her nature ever-changing. Blavatsky doesn’t pin a final definition on Sophia because She is evolving alongside humanity. She cannot be described comprehensively without framing the description in its own historical perspective. A brilliant scholar, Blavatsky does not limit Sophia. She finds Her many aspects in a variety of Goddesses.
The Secret Doctrine
“The Gnostic Sophia, “Wisdom” who is “the Mother” of Ogdoad, is the Holy Ghost and the Creator of all, as in the ancient systems. The “father” is a far later invention. The earliest manifested Logos was female everywhere – the mother of the seven planetary powers. The various Cosmogonies show that the Archaic Universal Soul was held by every nation as the “Mind” of the Demiurgic Creator; and that it was called the “Mother,” Sophia with the Gnostics (or the female Wisdom), the Sephira with the Jews, Saraswati or Vach, with the Hindus, the Holy Ghost being a female Principle. The female Soul of the World or the “Great Deep;” the deity, from which these two in one have their being, is ever concealed and called the “Hidden One,” connected only indirectly with Creation.
The Spiritual substance sent forth by the Infinite Light is the first Sephira or Shekinah: Sephira exoterically contains all the other nine Sephiroths in her. Esoterically she contains but two. These two Sephiroths called, Father, Abba, and Mother, Amona, are the duad or the double-sexed logos from which issued the other seven Sephiroths. In the Kabala, Sephira is the same as Shekinah, and is, in other synthesis, the wife, daughter, and mother of the “Heavenly man,” Adam Kadmon, and is even identical with him, just as Vach is identical with Brahma, and is called the female Logos. Moreover, she is called “the Mother of the Veda, since it is through her power that Brahma revealed them, and also owing to her power that he produced the universe” i.e., through speech, words, and numbers.
Again, as goddess of Speech and of Sound, and a permutation of Aditi – She is Chaos, in one sense. At any rate, she is the “Mother of the gods.” Whether as Aditi, or the divine Sophia of the Greek Gnostics, she is the mother of the seven sons: the “Angels of the Face of the Deep,” or the “Great Green One” of the “Book of the Dead.”
Johann Jacob Wirz (1778-1858)
The little-known Swiss visionary, Johann Jacob Wirz began to receive visions of Sophia as divine Wisdom in 1823, these forming the basis of the beliefs of the Nazarene Community. His understanding of Wisdom is very much in the earlier tradition of journals he kept, much as Pordage and Gichtel had done two centuries earlier. Many of these entries are in the form of a dialogue between Wirz and his Mother, Wisdom, as in this entry for February 8, 1836:
“Wisdom spoke: Endeavour to practice and hold what your Mother, heavenly Wisdom, has said to you. It is certainly difficult to travel forth in nature, wherein you dwell, on the superior way without interruption, and to make all hindrances into favorable circumstances; but faith, practiced in weakness, develops faith, until it finally becomes power. You have last night, on the end of the year, engaged in a new promise for your heavenly Mother. This she has heard better than you hear your own voice. She has taken your vow and today answers you as follows. ‘Blessed are the souls that do not pledge alone to the holy Wisdom, but rather through the vow long to become wholly owned by her. To them she will be in everything.’”
Anna Bonus Kingsford (1846-1888)
Anna Kingsford was an English anti-vivisectionist, vegetarian and women’s right campaigner who wrote many books including, The Woman Clothed with the Sun, The Virgin of the World, The Perfect Way, and numerous other writings. She was the first English woman to obtain a degree in medicine. She founded the Food Reform Movement, studied Buddhism and Gnosticism and finally became active in the Theosophical movement in England becoming president of the London Lodge. She founded the Hermetic Society with Edward Maitland. Kingsford had many visions of Sophia and held direct communication with her throughout her life.
Concerning the Mysteries
“In the Trinity of the Unmanifest, the Great Deep, or Ocean of Infinitude – Sophia – corresponds to Mary and has for Spouse the creative Energy of whom is begotten the Manifestor, Adonai, the Lord. This “Mother” is co-equal with the Father, being primary and eternal. In Manifestation the “Mother” is derived, being born of Time and has for Father the Planet-God, for our planet Iacchos so that the paternity of the First Person of the Trinity is vicarious only. It is said that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Daughter, Spouse, and Mother of God.”
Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900)
Vladimir Solovyov’s entrance into Sophiological studies is inextricable from a series of religious experiences he had, the first of which occurred on the Feast of the Ascension when he was nine years old. Later, in the British Museum, he had a second experience as a vision of one he called his “eternal friend” who instructed him to meet her in Egypt. He traveled to Egypt and there met her once again in the desert. He recorded these experiences with her in his autobiographical poem, Three Meetings. Solovyov call Sophia “the guardian angel of the world” and the agent of “pan-unity” and connects Sophia to Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the “church.”
All in azure did my empress
Appear today before me.
My heart beat in sweet rapture
And my soul began to shine
With quiet light in rays of the dawning day.
But in the distance, burning low
The cruel flame of the earthly fire still glowed.
Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925)
Steiner gives us an excellent description of Sophia in our time and throughout history. Dr. Steiner was clairvoyant but also was a spiritual scientist who taught others how to develop the forces to create new spiritual sense organs that can perceive Sophia. His descriptions make distinctions that other writers tend to blend together or mix into a generalized picture of Sophia. Sophia has distinct aspects that evolve together with humanity, and they are united in a way that is seldom described. As the greatest prophet of Sophia in our times, Steiner’s insights are profound and far-reaching.
The Search for the New Isis
“It is not on account of something happening by itself from without that Christ will be able to appear again in his spiritual form in the course of the twentieth century, but rather through human beings finding the force represented by the Holy Sophia. The tendency in recent times has been to lose precisely this Isis force, this Mary force, which has been stamped out through that which has arisen within the modern consciousness of humanity. And the more recent confessions have partly obliterated a perspective concerning Mary.
To a certain extent this is the mystery of modern mankind, that basically Mary-Isis has been killed, and that she must be sought again, sought in the widespread heavenly realms with the power which Christ is able to kindle within us when we devote ourselves to him in the right way. Man has learned to relate to the Sophia through his Consciousness Soul, to associate her directly with human beings. This happened during the Consciousness Soul Age. The Sophia has therefore become the Being that elucidates man. Once having entered into humanity, she has to take up this human nature and set it objectively before mankind. She detaches herself again but takes with her what man is and places herself outside him, no longer merely as Sophia but as AnthropoSophia, as that Sophia who has passed through the soul of man, through man’s being, and henceforth bears this being of man within herself.
Just as the Egyptians looked from Isis to Osiris, so we must learn to look again to the new Isis, the Holy Sophia. The Christ will appear in spiritual form during the 20th century, not through an external happening, but inasmuch as human beings find that force which is represented by the Holy Sophia. The present age has the tendency to lose this Isis-force, this force of the Mary. It was killed by all that arose with the modern consciousness [materialism] of mankind. New forms of religion have in part exterminated just this view of the Mary. This is the mystery of modern humanity. The Mary-Isis [Sophia] has been killed, and she must be sought in the wide space of heaven, with that force that Christ can awaken in us. What we need in our time is not knowledge of Christ, it is the Wisdom, the Sophia, of Christ.”
Isis Sophia, Wisdom of God:
Lucifer has slain her,
And on the wings of the world-wide Forces
Carried her hence into Cosmic space.
Christ-will
Working in humanity,
Shall wrest from Lucifer
And on the boats of Spirit-knowledge
Call to new life is souls of humans
Isis-Sophia, Wisdom of God.”
A.E. (George William Russell, 1867–1935)
A. E. gives the most complete description of Sophia helping the soul attain Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition that can be found outside of spiritual scientific esoteric circles. He uses simple language with fantastic imagery that paints the reality of Sophia working in our souls. The author recommends that everyone read this book [Candle of Vision] as a master plan for the development of the soul awakening to the spirit.
The Candle of Vision
“Of the Mother of the gods, I have already said she is the first spiritual form of matter, and therefore Beauty. As every being emerges out of her womb clothed with form, she is the Mighty Mother, and as mother of all she is that divine compassion which exists beyond and is the final arbiter of the justice of the gods. Her heart will be in ours when ours forgive.”
Pavel Florensky (1882-1937)
Pavel Florensky was a priest and theologian in the Russian Orthodox Church. He was a gifted mathematician, scientist, and electrical engineer who also made an impact on art history and linguistics. Florensky’s 1914 book, The Pillar and Ground of Truth, is a mystical treatise, theological meditation, and a book of emblems. In Letter Ten: Sophia he explains Sophia’s nature and her relationship with the Holy Trinity.
The Pillar and the Foundation of Truth
“Sophia is the Great Root of the whole creation. Sophia is the first-created being of the creaturely world, with the creative love of God. In relation to the creaturely world Sophia is the Guardian Angel of the world, the Ideal nature of the world. If Sophia is the entire Creation, then the soul and conscience of creation, humanity, is above all Sophia. If Sophia is all of humanity, then the soul and conscience of humanity, the Church, is above all Sophia. If Sophia is the Church, then the soul and conscience of the Church, the Saints, is above all Sophia. If Sophia is the Church of Saints, then the soul and conscience of the Church of Saints is the Intercessor and Mediatrix on behalf of the creation before the Word of God, who judges and divides creation in two, the Mother of God, is once again above all Sophia. But the true sign of the Blessed Mary is manifested in her Virginity, the beauty of her soul.”
Andrej Belyj (1923–2007)
Belyj was a Russian novelist, Symbolist poet, theorist and literary critic. He was a committed anthroposophist and follower of Rudolf Steiner. His novel Petersburg was regarded by Vladimir Nabokov as the third-greatest masterpiece of modernist literature. The Andrei Bely Prize is one of the most important prizes in Russian literature. His poems were set to music and performed by Russian singer-songwriters.
Belyj had a profound relationship with Sophia. Through his insight concerning Sophia he describes her as “the door of love opening from heaven to Earth that can inform all love”, as he implies in the last sentence of the selection below. His belief in the heavenly marriage gives equal credence to Sophia and makes her a co-creator with Christ. Here is the true nature of the soul and spirit uniting as one beautiful displayed.
Selected Essays
“The ideas of the world and mankind coincide conditionally for us. The idea of the world may be called the world soul. The world soul, Sophia according to Soloviev, is perfect humanity, eternally enclosed in the divine nature of Christ. Here the mystical nature of the church coincides with the image of the eternal feminine, the bride of the Lamb. Here are the Alpha and Omega of true love. Christ’s relation to the church – that of the bridegroom to the bride – is an unfathomable universal symbol. This symbol illuminates every ultimate love.”
Sergei Bulgakov (1871-1944)
Sergei Bulgakov was a Russian Orthodox priest, philosopher, and theologian who created a comprehensive cosmology of Sophia. Bulgakov believed Sophia was an integral part of creation and identifies Sophia as the ousia [true being] of the Trinity and a kind of fourth hypostasis called the Virgin. She is simultaneously created and divine and is seen as the “world soul.” Even the church itself is seen as an aspect of Sophia. His book, Sophia the Wisdom of God: An Outline, is considered to be one of the most complete theologies of Sophia that explains the difference between a created and an uncreated being.
The Pillar and Foundation of the Truth
“God the Father creates the world by Sophia, which is the revelation of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The divine Sophia, as the revelation of the Logos, is the all-embracing unity, which contains within itself all the fullness of the world of ideas. In Sophia, the fullness of the ideal forms contained in the Word is reflected in creation. The primary foundation of the world is rooted in the divine Sophia. Thus, God created the world by the Word and by the Holy Spirit, as they are manifested in Wisdom. Wisdom in creation is ontologically identical with its prototype, the same Wisdom that exists in God. It exists by the power of his Godhead, even though this Wisdom exists outside of God. The created world is none other than the creaturely Sophia. God communicates Sophia, the creaturely Sophia, to creation. This great being [Sophia], both royal and feminine, who is she, then but the truest humanity, the purest and most whole of beings, the macrocosmic whole, the living soul of nature and of the universe eternally united and uniting in the process of time with the Divine and unity with all that is.”
Nikolai Berdyaev (1874-1948)
Berdyaev was deeply influenced by Solovyov and was a close friend of Bulgakov. Berdyaev made significant contributions to religious existentialism with his visionary eschatological thought. He placed great emphasis on the nature of “the church” as a manifestation and body of Sophia. Berdyaev was also greatly indebted to the works of Jacob Boehme but is basically a mystic philosopher who developed a thorough complementary philosophy of Sophianic thought.
Berdyaev in, Freedom and Spirit, tells us: “The Divine Wisdom is the eternal Virgin and not woman, she is unsullied purity and chastity and she appears as the image of God and the image of the Trinity. The Virgin is from all eternity, she is uncreated and unbegotten; she is the Divine Wisdom and the image of Divinity. Wisdom is eternal virginity and not eternal femininity, for the wisdom-cult is that of the Virgin and not that of the feminine principle which is the result of division and the Fall. That is why the cult of Wisdom is almost identical with that of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.”
Valentin Tomberg (1900-1973)
Tomberg was a Russian esotericist who had been a follower of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy. Tomberg extracted the best from Steiner, Papus, and Louis Claude de St. Martin to create his anonymous book, Meditations on the Tarot A Journey into Christian Hermeticism. Tomberg gives us his description of Sophia in Meditations on the Tarot: “It is she – the “Virgin of light” of the Pistis Sophia, the Wisdom sung of by Solomon, the Shekinah of the Cabbala, the Mother, the Virgin, the pure celestial Mary – who is the soul of the light of the three luminaries, is, as a whole, the aspiration to participation in knowledge of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the Mother, Daughter, and Holy Soul. No one understands the Holy Trinity but by Mary-Sophia. The light of the Holy Trinity became flesh in Mary – Sophia – the light. The Zohar puts forward the idea of the luminous Holy Trinity as the combination of the male and female Trinities combined. This “dogma” of the heart [Sophia] is so powerful that the time will come when it will result in official recognition from the Church [Roman Catholic] and will be formulated raising maternal love to the level of the “Luminous Holy Trinity.”
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)
Pierre Teilhard de Chardinwas a French Jesuit priest, scientist, paleontologist, theologian, philosopher and teacher. He was Darwinian in outlook and the author of several influential theological and philosophical books. He took part in the discovery of Peking Man and conceived the vitalist idea of the Omega Point and developed the concept of the noosphere. He was not well received by Catholic theologians or scientists, bordering on accusations of heresy. His love of Sophia was hidden in his writings during his life and only came to surface after his death. The poem, The Eternal Feminine is one of the most profound declarations of Sophia ever written.
From: The Eternal Feminine, written in Verzy, from March 19-25, 1918.
“When the world was born, I came into being. Before the centuries were made, I issued from the hand of God – half-formed, yet destined to grow in beauty from age to age, the handmaid of his work.
Everything in the Universe is made by union and generation – by the coming together of elements that seek out one another, melt together two by two, and are born again in a third.
Through me, all things have their movement and are made to work as one.
I am the beauty running through the world, to make it associate in ordered groups: the ideal held up before the world to make it ascend.
I am the Eternal Feminine.
I was the bond that thus held together the foundations of the universe.
I am the single radiance by which all this is aroused and within which it is vibrant.
I am the Church, the bride of Christ.
I am Mary the Virgin, mother of all humankind.”
Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
Merton was an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion. In 1949, he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood and was a member of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemane (Kentucky) living there from 1941 to his death. Merton wrote more than 50 books, mostly on spirituality, social justice and a quiet pacifism, as well as scores of essays and reviews. Among Merto’s most enduring works is his bestselling autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain.
A. E. gives the most complete description of Sophia helping the soul attain Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition that can be found outside of spiritual scientific esoteric circles. He uses simple language with fantastic imagery that paints the reality of Sophia working in our souls. The author recommends that everyone read this book [Candle of Vision] as a master plan for the development of the soul awakening to the spirit.
The Candle of Vision
“Of the Mother of the gods, I have already said she is the first spiritual form of matter, and therefore Beauty. As every being emerges out of her womb clothed with form, she is the Mighty Mother, and as mother of all she is that divine compassion which exists beyond and is the final arbiter of the justice of the gods. Her heart will be in ours when ours forgive.”
Pavel Florensky (1882-1937)
Pavel Florensky was a priest and theologian in the Russian Orthodox Church. He was a gifted mathematician, scientist, and electrical engineer who also made an impact on art history and linguistics. Florensky’s 1914 book, The Pillar and Ground of Truth, is a mystical treatise, theological meditation, and a book of emblems. In Letter Ten: Sophia he explains Sophia’s nature and her relationship with the Holy Trinity.
The Pillar and the Foundation of Truth
“Sophia is the Great Root of the whole creation. Sophia is the first-created being of the creaturely world, with the creative love of God. In relation to the creaturely world Sophia is the Guardian Angel of the world, the Ideal nature of the world. If Sophia is the entire Creation, then the soul and conscience of creation, humanity, is above all Sophia. If Sophia is all of humanity, then the soul and conscience of humanity, the Church, is above all Sophia. If Sophia is the Church, then the soul and conscience of the Church, the Saints, is above all Sophia. If Sophia is the Church of Saints, then the soul and conscience of the Church of Saints is the Intercessor and Mediatrix on behalf of the creation before the Word of God, who judges and divides creation in two, the Mother of God, is once again above all Sophia. But the true sign of the Blessed Mary is manifested in her Virginity, the beauty of her soul.”
Andrej Belyj (1923–2007)
Belyj was a Russian novelist, Symbolist poet, theorist and literary critic. He was a committed anthroposophist and follower of Rudolf Steiner. His novel Petersburg was regarded by Vladimir Nabokov as the third-greatest masterpiece of modernist literature. The Andrei Bely Prize is one of the most important prizes in Russian literature. His poems were set to music and performed by Russian singer-songwriters.
Belyj had a profound relationship with Sophia. Through his insight concerning Sophia he describes her as “the door of love opening from heaven to Earth that can inform all love”, as he implies in the last sentence of the selection below. His belief in the heavenly marriage gives equal credence to Sophia and makes her a co-creator with Christ. Here is the true nature of the soul and spirit uniting as one beautiful displayed.
Selected Essays
“The ideas of the world and mankind coincide conditionally for us. The idea of the world may be called the world soul. The world soul, Sophia according to Soloviev, is perfect humanity, eternally enclosed in the divine nature of Christ. Here the mystical nature of the church coincides with the image of the eternal feminine, the bride of the Lamb. Here are the Alpha and Omega of true love. Christ’s relation to the church – that of the bridegroom to the bride – is an unfathomable universal symbol. This symbol illuminates every ultimate love.”
Sergei Bulgakov (1871-1944)
Sergei Bulgakov was a Russian Orthodox priest, philosopher, and theologian who created a comprehensive cosmology of Sophia. Bulgakov believed Sophia was an integral part of creation and identifies Sophia as the ousia [true being] of the Trinity and a kind of fourth hypostasis called the Virgin. She is simultaneously created and divine and is seen as the “world soul.” Even the church itself is seen as an aspect of Sophia. His book, Sophia the Wisdom of God: An Outline, is considered to be one of the most complete theologies of Sophia that explains the difference between a created and an uncreated being.
The Pillar and Foundation of the Truth
“God the Father creates the world by Sophia, which is the revelation of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The divine Sophia, as the revelation of the Logos, is the all-embracing unity, which contains within itself all the fullness of the world of ideas. In Sophia, the fullness of the ideal forms contained in the Word is reflected in creation. The primary foundation of the world is rooted in the divine Sophia. Thus, God created the world by the Word and by the Holy Spirit, as they are manifested in Wisdom. Wisdom in creation is ontologically identical with its prototype, the same Wisdom that exists in God. It exists by the power of his Godhead, even though this Wisdom exists outside of God. The created world is none other than the creaturely Sophia. God communicates Sophia, the creaturely Sophia, to creation. This great being [Sophia], both royal and feminine, who is she, then but the truest humanity, the purest and most whole of beings, the macrocosmic whole, the living soul of nature and of the universe eternally united and uniting in the process of time with the Divine and unity with all that is.”
Nikolai Berdyaev (1874-1948)
Berdyaev was deeply influenced by Solovyov and was a close friend of Bulgakov. Berdyaev made significant contributions to religious existentialism with his visionary eschatological thought. He placed great emphasis on the nature of “the church” as a manifestation and body of Sophia. Berdyaev was also greatly indebted to the works of Jacob Boehme but is basically a mystic philosopher who developed a thorough complementary philosophy of Sophianic thought.
Berdyaev in, Freedom and Spirit, tells us: “The Divine Wisdom is the eternal Virgin and not woman, she is unsullied purity and chastity and she appears as the image of God and the image of the Trinity. The Virgin is from all eternity, she is uncreated and unbegotten; she is the Divine Wisdom and the image of Divinity. Wisdom is eternal virginity and not eternal femininity, for the wisdom-cult is that of the Virgin and not that of the feminine principle which is the result of division and the Fall. That is why the cult of Wisdom is almost identical with that of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.”
Valentin Tomberg (1900-1973)
Tomberg was a Russian esotericist who had been a follower of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy. Tomberg extracted the best from Steiner, Papus, and Louis Claude de St. Martin to create his anonymous book, Meditations on the Tarot A Journey into Christian Hermeticism. Tomberg gives us his description of Sophia in Meditations on the Tarot: “It is she – the “Virgin of light” of the Pistis Sophia, the Wisdom sung of by Solomon, the Shekinah of the Cabbala, the Mother, the Virgin, the pure celestial Mary – who is the soul of the light of the three luminaries, is, as a whole, the aspiration to participation in knowledge of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the Mother, Daughter, and Holy Soul. No one understands the Holy Trinity but by Mary-Sophia. The light of the Holy Trinity became flesh in Mary – Sophia – the light. The Zohar puts forward the idea of the luminous Holy Trinity as the combination of the male and female Trinities combined. This “dogma” of the heart [Sophia] is so powerful that the time will come when it will result in official recognition from the Church [Roman Catholic] and will be formulated raising maternal love to the level of the “Luminous Holy Trinity.”
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)
Pierre Teilhard de Chardinwas a French Jesuit priest, scientist, paleontologist, theologian, philosopher and teacher. He was Darwinian in outlook and the author of several influential theological and philosophical books. He took part in the discovery of Peking Man and conceived the vitalist idea of the Omega Point and developed the concept of the noosphere. He was not well received by Catholic theologians or scientists, bordering on accusations of heresy. His love of Sophia was hidden in his writings during his life and only came to surface after his death. The poem, The Eternal Feminine is one of the most profound declarations of Sophia ever written.
From: The Eternal Feminine, written in Verzy, from March 19-25, 1918.
“When the world was born, I came into being. Before the centuries were made, I issued from the hand of God – half-formed, yet destined to grow in beauty from age to age, the handmaid of his work.
Everything in the Universe is made by union and generation – by the coming together of elements that seek out one another, melt together two by two, and are born again in a third.
Through me, all things have their movement and are made to work as one.
I am the beauty running through the world, to make it associate in ordered groups: the ideal held up before the world to make it ascend.
I am the Eternal Feminine.
I was the bond that thus held together the foundations of the universe.
I am the single radiance by which all this is aroused and within which it is vibrant.
I am the Church, the bride of Christ.
I am Mary the Virgin, mother of all humankind.”
Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
Merton was an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion. In 1949, he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood and was a member of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemane (Kentucky) living there from 1941 to his death. Merton wrote more than 50 books, mostly on spirituality, social justice and a quiet pacifism, as well as scores of essays and reviews. Among Merto’s most enduring works is his bestselling autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain.
From: Hagia Sophia
“There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity of Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility. This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator’s Thought and Art within me, speaking as Hagia [Holy] Sophia, speaking as my sister, Wisdom.
Wisdom cries out to all who will hear. When the helpless one awakens strong at the voice of mercy, it is as if Life his Sister, as if the Blessed Virgin, (his own flesh, his own sister), as if Nature made wise by God’s Art and Incarnation were to stand over him and invite him with unutterable sweetness to be awake and to live. This is what it means to recognize Hagia Sophia.
All the perfections of created things are also in God; and therefore, He is at once Father and Mother. As Father he stands in solitary might surrounded by darkness. As Mother His shining is diffused, embracing all His creatures with merciful tenderness and light. The diffuse shining of God is Hagia Sophia. We call her His “glory.” In Sophia His power is experienced only as mercy and as love.
Hagia Sophia in all things is the Divine Life reflected in them, considered as a spontaneous participation, as their invitation to the Wedding Feast. Sophia is His manifestation in radiant splendor! She is the inexhaustible fountain of kindness, and source of creative realizations of the Father’s glory.
Now the Blessed Virgin Mary is the one created being who enacts and shows forth in her life all that is hidden in Sophia. Because of this she can be said to be a personal manifestation of Sophia, Who in God is Ousia rather than Person.
Natura in Mary becomes pure Mother. In her, Natura is as she was from the origin of her divine birth. In Mary Natura is all wise and is manifested as an all-prudent, all-loving, all-pure person: not a Creator, and not a Redeemer, but perfect Creature, perfectly Redeemed, the fruit of all God’s great power, the perfect expression of wisdom in mercy.”
Sergei O. Prokofieff (1954–2014)
Prokofieff was born in Moscow in 1954, where he studied Fine Arts and Painting at the Moscow School of Art. At an early age he came across the work of the Austrian-born philosopher and founder of modern spiritual science, Rudolf Steiner, and soon realized that his life was to be dedicated to Christian esotericism. He worked for many years in Dornach, Switzerland as a director of the Anthroposophical Society.
He wrote many definitive books on Steiner’s teachings which has earned him the honor of being considered one of the greatest commentators of Steiner’s opus. Prokofieff, based upon Steiner’s ideas, defines the Divine Sophia as an Avatar Being after the Sun Spirit of the Christ. This places Sophia on equal terms with Her Consort, the Son of God, Christ. This insight was gained from the works of Rudolf Steiner and his interactions with the being AnthropoSophia.
Eternal Individuality
“Thus in the figure of the Luke Mary we have a human being who was worthy of becoming the bearer of one of the highest Avatar Beings after the Sun-Spirit of the Christ Himself, of that exalted Being who in the ancient world was called the Divine Isis, and in the early Christian communities and in places where esoteric Christianity was nurtured, the Divine Sophia.”
The Heavenly Sophia and the Being of Anthroposophia
“A particular secret of the Sistine Madonna lies also in the fact that it is, so to speak, a connecting link between the past and the future. Thus, on the one hand, it points towards the Egyptian Mysteries of Isis, these being a memory of the ancient Lemurian age when human beings were still in direct communion with this Goddess, and, on the other hand, to the future mysteries of the Divine Sophia, shining towards us from the future in the image of the Virgin clothed with the Sun [Sophia].”
“For this reason, in the lecture of 3 February 1913 Rudolf Steiner spoke about the connection between the metamorphosis from the Sophia to Philosophia and finally to Anthroposophia and the historical development of the three members of man’s being in earthly evolution from the Intellectual or Mind Soul, the Conscious Soul and the Spirit-Self, during, respectively, the fourth, fifth, and sixth post-Atlantean epochs. However, the supersensible being AnthropoSophia is already beginning to prepare humanity today for the future receiving of the Spirit-Self (once she has in her own development begun the ascent to this higher member). Thus, in Rudolf Steiner’s words it is also possible to see an indication as to how the course of two periods of seven hundred years (2100-700 BC), still as the Sophia, she prepared the fourth post-Atlantean epoch; and how during two further periods (from the birth of Christ to the year 1400), as Philosophia, she prepared the fifth, and from our time until 3500, as Anthroposophia, the sixth epoch.”
Tyla Gabriel, N. D. (1956 -present)
Tyla Gabriel is a board-certified naturopath as well as an internationally known entrepreneur in education and business. She holds a graduate degree in Humanities from Florida State University, where she began her life-long studies in religion, mythology and philosophy, eventually leading her to the path of Anthroposophy. As a philosopher and theologian, her writings and teachings on the pivotal role of the Divine Feminine Trinity have broken ground that is tantamount to a new revelation of the divine that necessitates a complete revisiting of our approach to the world and ourselves.
Tyla’s The Gospel of Sophia (Trilogy), is the testament of an aspirant of Sophia who has been given self-initiation with the assistance of the Divine Feminine Trinity as guide and teacher.
From the first revelation of Sophia through Pelee, to the Etheric Christ experience several years later, Tyla Gabriel has followed the luminous path of study and communion with SophiaChristos to become an initiate of Sophia. Her teachings about the Being Sophia are the result of living Imaginations given to her by spiritual beings that inspired her over many years, guiding her to active Intuitions that unveil the hidden nature of the Triple Goddess – Sophia.
The Gospel of Sophia, A Modern Path of Initiation
“The Gospel of Sophia contains the wisdom of Christ. In fact, the shared descent into matter of Christ and Sophia is one of the most hidden mysteries of all as the role of the Divine Feminine Trinity has been marginalized in Christianity. But over time, we have witnessed – and are still seeing – Sophia recognized more and more because Her presence has never waned. She has never abandoned us. Sophia, as the Great Mother, has never turned Her back on human prayers and spiritual yearning. She moves through the aspiring human soul, guiding each aspirant along the path to revelation. Just as Joseph Campbell has written in the excerpt from Goddesses, “the Divine Feminine was the substance of thought and practice behind all ancient mysteries.” Indeed, these mysteries were maintained by female priestesses, mid-wives, and healers. They constitute a science of the same forces of life that were observed in birth, death, and rebirth – the original trinity of the divine. The mysteries of Sophia are the mysteries of our time.”
“I couldn’t imagine how I could have been so blind as to not see Her before. Sophia became a personal friend. A mother. A guide. I no longer had to enter an underground cave to witness Her. She was both in me and all around me. All of the schools of thought and secret spiritual organizations I had ever been initiated into started to make sense.
The more I read, the more I found Her description. Sophia became accessible in my waking life and in my dreams. Mysterious, mystic visions started to emerge, cloaked in symbols and promptings that led me further up the Holy Mountain of the Great Mother where I built a spiritual dwelling for my higher self. Sophia began to speak through other people to me, and I could feel Her working through their spirit. She was everywhere. All people. All things. Her nature spoke from each of them. After a while, the entire world became a book of knowledge that I was rewriting with a wisdom bursting forth from every aspect of life. There was nowhere I looked that I didn’t see Sophia, and, therefore, me. Myself.”
The Nature of Sophia
“A mystery of unity and integrity runs through the visible and invisible worlds. Rich with fertility and fruitfulness, acting as the Mother of all, this great mystery is known as Wisdom or Sophia. As a spiritual being, Her inexhaustible sweetness and purity is the very fount of love and joy. With grace and humility, She generates a silent gentleness from the unseen root of all creation that flows tenderly between all things.
She, Sophia, is my own being, my own nature of thought and breath, my sister spirit who speaks to me. Her voice awakens me from my slumber. With her whispers, I am born anew from Her deep womb. Her soft voice rouses me from dreams. The unity of the spiritual world calls me from the separate self, which is so alone and isolated in the gravity and suffering of this Earth, this grave. Her voice breaks the spell of Eden. I am suddenly cast out, seeking Her face everywhere as my beloved.
The kiss of Eve transforms into the blessing of Sophia. The wisdom of the ages has progressed from Time’s dawn into the future destiny of paradise regained. Sophia speaks to all who will listen. The small. The innocent. The humble. Into Her loving arms each night we entrust our very life, and each new day She awakens us with spirit refreshed. Sophia takes our hand and leads us across the threshold between waking and sleep. Then, She returns us to the dawn mist of a new day where acts of creation are present everywhere around us as a reminder of Her workings.
Sophia is so close. She seems like our own flesh and blood, our divine breath. Her mercy receives us as Her child, precious beyond imagination. As Nature, like the greatest of trees, She incarnates to stand over us as a canopy of shelter for the budding self.
Oh Sophia, Great Goddess of Wisdom, you speak through everything, yet are so silent in the waking world. When I wake, your visage becomes blurred. You wither into a dream where I weigh myself against the world. Difficult it is to hear the subtle whisper of mercy and grace unless our senses have been awakened in dreams to break through matter’s delusions. When we abandon ourselves to sweet sleep in the arms of Sophia, She will awaken us to Her wonders. Her tenderness will draw forth the love of all others, and moral heart-flames will bathe the soul.
Then, even in daylight, we will see the pure simplicity that all is one consciousness, a single ongoing force spreading throughout the world as Wisdom that embraces everything as offspring of a loving Mother.
The heavenly world rejoices at the awakening of a soul that receives the light of spirit into the clear silence of the heart. It calls us to adorn ourselves with the eternal. Sophia speaks to us among the myriad distractions of the world as one voice. We must hear Her. Light has fallen to the earth. Her children return this light to heaven by deeds of moral love: light from light, love from love.
Sophia tends Her children like a garden, always attentive and protective of new growth that blossoms into fruit. The kindest, most loving gardener imaginable, She reveals the glory and power of Her children to grow unshakably towards the light. At the same time, She also is the fertile darkness of the soil from which life springs eternal, an unknown mystery that sprouts seeds into magnificent forms. In time, She brings forth creation, death, and rebirth in the natural world. This miracle alone demands awe, wonder, and reverence. Such a great Queen, Her Throne is the fulcrum of creation where all things find their center, their true orientation.
Only the humblest heart can be open and empty enough to receive Her presence, the sustaining pulse of all created worlds. Hidden and protected from the profane, She is naked and transparent to the humble one – for his self, through Her, stands visible and tangible. The admixture of Sophia’s wisdom and the developing spiritual self are intertwined into one tree with leaves of devotion reaching for the light of Christ.
Sophia is the gardener who tends the seeds that will blossom into a promise of our higher self – the one that Christ gave us. More tender and precious is this fruit of the spirit to Sophia than any other. Humans were created from nothingness in the timeless realm of Wisdom. Therefore, we are the aim of all creation. Through conscious self-development, we can realize that fully.
With Sophia’s help, the human bodily constitution becomes the altar and laboratory of conscious spiritual development. Each time we experience Wisdom’s message through Sophia, we discover revelation in ourselves. Sophia plays with Her children in the world through seen and unseen manners. She calls forth Her qualities: Wisdom, Consciousness, Revelation, Humility, Meekness, Kindness, Purity, Mercy, Tenderness, Light, Life, and Eternal Love. In this way, She teaches us how to mirror the spirit. With Her guiding wisdom, we reflect the spontaneous participation of the human and divine in a wedding feast of soul to spirit.
Sophia exists in everything, just as air receives sunlight, delivering life to all in need. As a grail-offering of spiritual love, She unites all things. Knowing Her is to know communion of the spirit, to celebrate a thanksgiving of vitality, forever glorious. She, too, is filled with gratitude that all wise creatures praise Her name. We are all invited to this spiritual wedding of Sophia to Christ. It is our own wedding. This feast is the undying source of creative Imaginations. It leads to radiant splendor and nourishing life in the etheric body of the human and the Earth. The marriage is a heavenly gift of light, life, and love that replenishes dying etheric bodies. As death is conquered, Nature is renewed through this alchemical marriage of the Queen to the King, our soul to our spirit – and immortality is born. As a source of mercy and grace, this is given to the striving aspirant to feed his spiritual hunger and thirst.
Sophia helps us cleanse our soul to be ready for this alchemical feast wherein we are also taught to forgive, a truly divine quality. Love and forgiveness become the well-spring of the fountain of mercy and grace. This Fountain of Life can overturn darkness into light, gravity into levity. When divine fountains begin to spring forth in our soul, we become co-creators with Sophia, transforming our former self into a brilliant radiance that sheds the weight of praise and blame, along with all earthly desires.
Mary-Sophia is the one created being who perfectly embodies the hidden Sophia in her soul. She is a personal manifestation of Sophia. In her nature alights the purest mother, the origin of a divine birth. As Wisdom, Mary-Sophia has become perfect purity, prudence, love, power, and divine wisdom through mercy. She is sadness and joy redeemed through spiritual consciousness. It is she that places the crown upon Christ’s head, enabling the gifts of the Cosmic Word to enter human nature. Through her embodiment of wisdom, freedom, and love, Mary-Sophia anoints Christ with the glorious crown of suffering, humility, and kindness. This is the mysterious conjunction of the human with the divine, and the enduring model for all human spiritual development.
Sophia contains the wisdom of Christ. In fact, the shared descent into matter of Christ and Sophia is one of the most hidden mysteries of all as the role of the Divine Feminine Trinity has been marginalized in Christianity. But over time, we have witnessed – and are still seeing – Sophia recognized more and more because Her presence has never waned. She has never abandoned us. Sophia, as the Great Mother, has never turned Her back on human prayers and spiritual yearning. She moves through the aspiring human soul, guiding each aspirant along the path to revelation.”
The Gospel of Sophia
“Just as Joseph Campbell has written in Goddesses, the Divine Feminine was the substance of thought and practice behind all ancient mysteries. Indeed, these mysteries were maintained by female priestesses, mid-wives, and healers. They constitute a science of the same forces of life that were observed in birth, death, and rebirth – the original trinity of the divine. The mysteries of Sophia are the mysteries of our time.
Sophia, as Daughter of the Goddess, shared a body with Mary for eleven years after the crucifixion. Christian history shows that after Christ was baptized in the Jordon, Sophia over-lighted Mary with both human and divine wisdom. She dissolved all earthly nature in that body so that it could be taken whole and complete into heaven at Her assumption. In this way, like Christ, she utilized a human body with all of its imperfections as the vehicle of consciousness for the Daughter of the Goddess.
There is a saying in Hawaii that “Pele giveth and Pele taketh away.” This refers to the function of the Triple Goddess, who rules birth, death, and resurrection. She existed before and after the more well-known trinities of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, or any other of the much later, male-dominated, sun-centered religions and cultures.
She is the unmanifested Creatrix who has participated in all levels of existence, including the human. She descended as a Pure Virgin Soul and lived for eleven years as a human. The Holy Sophia is now growing with humanity as a sister soul. As Queen Mother, She redeemed humanity by giving birth to the Christ. She was with Christ through His three-year ministry and lived eleven years after His resurrection, teaching the apostles, in particular St. John the Divine at Ephesus in Turkey.
Mary (Sophia) overcame death herself after the dormition period, was assumed into heaven, and now sits on Her Throne of Wisdom next to Christ Jesus and God the Father. Mary’s apparitions have never ceased to appear to those with a pure heart. She nurtures, intercedes, and shows the way. She is the principle of Wisdom (Sophia) that has been hidden for thousands of years, and She has now reascended Her lost Throne of Power, comprised of the collective wisdom of all nature. By whatever name She is known – Eve, Mary, Sophia – She has resurrected the fall of the Virgin Soul into dark matter and has led Her through Wisdom to her higher spirit self. We are all called to this wedding feast as brides in the great alchemical marriage.
Eve and Adam were Virgin Souls incarnating first in Eden and then on the Earth. They continued to incarnate in the many mysterious religions of antiquity until the time of Jesus of Nazareth. Eve became Mary, the mother of Jesus. Adam became John the Baptist. Together, they stand next to
Christ Jesus as Adam and Eve redeemed.
The forces of Sophia the Daughter inspired Mary/Eve at the time of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist and lived with Her for years after the descent of the Holy Spirit, even until Her Assumption into heaven.
As the tongues of fire descended at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit that had inspired John the Baptist moved the Apostles to spread the Gospel of Peace, and Sophia the Daughter dwelt in Mary and instructed St. John the Divine. The Holy Sophia wed the Holy Spirit in this World Pentecost.
The Most Holy Trinosophia is triple in function. She is the Mother (Creatrix), Daughter (Spirit of Wisdom), and the Holy Sophia (Collective Evolving Consciousness of Humanity).
Maria Sophia is the first and greatest initiate to arise complete and pure. She is the first of the Virgin Souls to return to Her spiritual home, New Jerusalem, a place which exists in the etheric atmosphere around the Earth, much like Shamballa or Heaven.
Sophia has conquered death, resurrected, and has now returned to Her Temple of Wisdom and ascended Her mighty throne of birth, death, and resurrection. Now the Triple Goddess calls out, not the ancient injunction of the Egyptian mysteries, “I am the past, the present, and the future; no one has lifted my veil and lived,” but a new Invocation of Sophia (given by Rudolf Steiner):
“I am the past, the present, and the future; all must lift my veil to live.”
The Temple of Sophia Christos
They gathered from all parts of the world
Launched from the golden heart of the Earth,
Aiming their colorful Imaginations toward the unmoving stars.
There, surrounded by veils of glorious majesty flowing aloft,
Rising as funeral pyres of living offerings from the thoughts of seekers
Gleaned from the fires of love which illuminate the mind;
Rising like painted warriors dancing round the war-fire,
Calling thoughts to courageous union with archetypes divine,
Sacrificing their sense-free images as new star-light,
Quivering before the breath of the solar winds,
Displaying their bursts of mighty spirit-force,
As sighs of relief, resolved to bear the future
When Earth-beings brighten their own world,
Radiating the love they have received from their star.
Sounding forth waves of curtains bright,
Like thunder rippling the cold thin air,
Pronouncing the new rainbow with one great clarion call,
The crown of glory shines star-light, made by humans,
Encircling the poles as twin rings of colorful fires that do not burn.
Michael’s sword of fire stands guard against unprepared souls
So that Eden’s rush of light be not vainly wasted on weak eyes.
There, Michael stands as the countenance, the face of Christ,
With Sophia standing on the other side of the threshold door,
Welcoming the Virgin Soul into the Temple of Wisdom, home of spirit.
Our Spirit
Hail Holy Mother! Know Her!
Our Mother, Who art risen from the endarkened tomb!
Hail Queen of Heaven!
Seated on Your celestial Throne beside Your Son.
Thou art the One and the Many, Thrice Great Goddess!
Hail Triple Goddess of Birth, Death, and Rebirth!
Who has created and sustains all visible and invisible worlds and lets them, in time,
Fall back into Her creative womb at the moment of death, to be born again renewed.
Thou Who art the past, present, and future – ruling the world with wisdom and virtue.
Thou art Three in One: Mother, Daughter, and Holy Sophia,
In co-creative union with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
Before time began or space whirled into manifestation,
Together with the Ground of Being that moves not.
Hail Goddess of the Seven Pillars of Virtue and Time!
Teacher of Humility – Who builds fortitude and obedience to the spirit,
Teacher of Compassion – Who gives kindness to the heart to develop love,
Teacher of Purity – Who instills self-control through chastity and prudence,
Teacher of Generosity – Who shares justice through charity and selflessness,
Teacher of Temperance – Who ignites patience in the soul to tame desires,
Teacher of Diligence – Who births hope to engender spirit zeal and persistence,
Teacher of Patience – Who endures with kindness and faith through divine mercy.
Hail Sophia! Ruler of Wisdom and Space!
We know You as:
Creatrix – Who gives life eternal and holds all creation in Her heart,
Mother of All – Who tends Her children with loving devotion,
Goddess of Wisdom – Who thinkers have courted and loved wholeheartedly,
Goddess of Nature – Who brings untold power and strength into the world,
Goddess of Beauty -Who we hold and emulate in our soul and spirit,
Cosmic Virgin – Who is cleansed and purified as a radiant vessel of spirit,
Holy Bride – Who is ready for the alchemical wedding of soul to spirit,
The Beloved – Who is joined in spiritual union for all times to come,
Goddess of Love – Who is author of the primal force of creation,
Mother of God – Who birthed the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Queen of Heaven – Who is raised back to Her primal Throne of Wisdom,
Most Holy Trinosophia – Who is Three in One, when time and space are no more,
Sophia Christos – Who is the Wisdom of Christ’s cosmic nature and etheric revelation.
Hail Most Holy Trinosophia!
Bless our petition of the heart: to always draw closer to Your ways,
To Know You as Mother of all worlds, Who is the ground of the Father.
Teach us the Wisdom of Your Daughter, Who wed Christ to redeem darkness and death,
Joining Holy Sophia and the Holy Spirit in fiery union as World Pentecost,
Baptizing those who mount to higher realms witnessing the Heavenly Marriage
Of Male and Female Trinities wed as holy union divine – Sophia Christos.
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