THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY has a long history of intersections with the academic study of religion. Its “Second Object”—“to encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy, and science” (Dixon 2001, 4) —plunged Theosophists into many (often acrimonious) debates with both scholars and believers. Although the Theosophical Society had no dogmas, it developed a version of the “divine wisdom” that Theosophists claimed contained the “the esoteric truths of all religions, philosophies, and scientific systems... which, they argued, had been best preserved in the great spiritual traditions of the East” (Dixon 2001, 4). This project was a distinctively colonial one, but it was also one characterized by “‘cultural entanglement,’... [a] multidirectional process of cultural transfer in which all participants are [at least partially] a product of their encounter” and in which Asian, European, and American actors all participated, though unevenly (Chajes 2021, 232). The Theosophical study of religion oscillated between a celebration of the “local and personal elements” found in particular cultural expressions of “religion” and a perennialist search for “the pure spirit of Religion” (with a capital “R”) hidden beneath those local elements (Mitchell 1908, quoted in Stang’s contribution to this roundtable). Here, I explore the implications of that oscillation and the ways that Theosophy’s “colonial syncretic” (see Dixon 1999) can function as a cautionary tale for our own studies of “religion.”1¹

中文翻译：

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“思想就是事物”：神智学、宗教和现实的历史

神学社会与宗教学术研究有着悠久的交叉历史。它的“第二个目标”——“鼓励对比较宗教、哲学和科学的研究”（Dixon 2001, 4）——使通神论者陷入与学者和信徒的许多（通常是激烈的）辩论中。尽管神智学会没有教条，但它发展了一种“神圣智慧”，神智学家声称它包含“所有宗教、哲学和科学系统的深奥真理......东方伟大的精神传统”（Dixon 2001, 4）。这个项目是一个独特的殖民项目，但它也是一个以“文化纠葛”为特征的项目...... [a] 文化转移的多向过程，其中所有参与者 [至少部分地] 是他们相遇的产物”，亚洲、欧洲和美国的参与者都参与了，尽管参差不齐 (Chajes 2021, 232)。宗教的神智学研究在庆祝“宗教”的特定文化表达中发现的“地方和个人因素”和对“宗教”的永恒主义探索之间摇摆不定纯粹的宗教精神”（带有大写字母“R”）隐藏在这些地方元素之下（Mitchell 1908，在 Stang 对本次圆桌会议的贡献中引用）。在这里，我探讨了这种振荡的含义以及神智学的“殖民融合”（参见 Dixon 1999）如何作为我们自己的“宗教”研究的警示故事。1 ¹