What is a LightWorker or Theosophist?

Theosophy was essentially the birth of the modern New Age community. Most notably the Theosophical Society. Theosophy as a term is born from two Greek words “Theou-” meaning of god and “sophia” meaning wisdom, “Wisdom of god”. The group was born as an attempt to shift the world to a Universal Religion. It was created around 1875 with the teachings of Madam Blavatsky. Her writing the Secret Doctrine and the Unveiling of Isis provide a wealth of esoteric teaching scraped from around the world. Blavatsky presents all these esoteric teachings often without the context to understand them correctly and assumes that all practices are essentially the same so she ignored substantial differences, where things did not neatly fit together and invented practices to make things seem more consistent.

Blavatsky claimed that her teachings had come from secret masters who came to her in spiritual form. These beings she called Ascended Masters.

Other members of her community wrote books about similar concepts such as astral projection, thoughtforms, clairvoyance, kundalini meditation and more.

What about Lightworkers?

Blavatsky’s teachings are long-winded and time-consuming. Often a reader will find them hard work and ungratifying. Because New Age teachings are often sold for money they lean towards popularity and this means more self-gratifying teachings are sadly preferred to doctrine-heavy texts such as those of the early Theosophists. This means a lot of New Agers practice a version of Theosophy which has been slimmed down simplified and made for easier consumption. Most modern New Agers will use terms such as Light Worker or Healer.

This is often a practitioner of the New Age movement, who attempts to bring positive energy with everything they do. They frequently practice energy work methods such as reiki to provide healing. A word of warning to any lightworkers or people that know them. Often the path focuses so heavily on positivity that it can come across as toxic to people struggling with negativity. It frequently denies the existence of negative things in the world, which other paths attempt to recognize and reconcile with their practice. It is not unusual for lightworkers to use prayers to angels and oracle decks to divine information. Lightworkers often use a lot of New Age terminology, so you might hear about Ascended Masters as a type of spirit guide who was human but achieved some sort of enlightenment. The New Age movement is often very well-oriented to taking advantage of capitalism so many teachings work a bit like pyramid schemes and might have many levels of mystical ascent to either be impressive or to take advantage of initiation fees.

See also other types of Magical Practitioner.