Theogony
The generation of the gods, especially an account or theory of the genealogy of birth of the deities in mythology and religion. It is also the title of the most famous work of Hesiod, the first expositor of the Greek hierarchy of gods beginning with Chaos.
Theosophical philosophy posits a hierarchy of divine intelligences that emanated from the Causeless Cause. These intelligences or beings can be viewed as powers or forces, rather than as personalities as they are usually understood in popular religion. Helena P. Blavatsky, in her The Secret Doctrine, endeavored to demonstrate that the various divine beings of various religions have correspondences and that these teachings are rooted in a common primordial wisdom. These teachings reconcile also the apparent polytheism of the so-called monotheistic religions, such as Christianity.
The study of comparative theogony is one of the most important contributions of modern theosophy. In Greek mythology, for instance, it is shown that Chaos corresponds to the “Deep” of Genesis, and the M™laprakti of the Hindus. When they emanated, they engendered the various creative gods of religions, such as the Demiurgos, Brahm€, Logos, etc. In the Jewish Kabbalah, these correspond to the unmanifested Ain Soph, the Ain Soph Aur, and the first Sephiroth Kether. This stage of theogony is the highest and corresponds to the theosophical teachings on the three Logoi. It may also be referred to as pre-cosmic theogony since it refers to stages prior to the manifestation of the cosmos.
Subsequent to the above stage is the existence of other intermediate divine intelligences or principles that are behind cosmic phenomena. The most important of these are the seven intelligences that follow the Third Logos. These are spoken of as the Seven Spirits before the Throne in the Christian Bible. The different divine beings from the loftiest to the lowest are classified by the different religious system, such as the nine orders in Christianity as given by Dionysius, namely, Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. On intelligences that appear to be involved with terrestrial evolution, the theogony of Hesiod speaks of Titans and the other gods of Olympus. These are the equivalents of the Suras and Asuras of Hindu mythology, the angels and archangels of Christianity, the Dhyani-Buddhas and Dhyani-Chohans of Northern Buddhism.
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