Foundations
of Esoteric Philosophy
from the writings of H.P. Blavatsky
Arranged
with a Foreword and Notes by Ianthe H. Hoskins
(Where Yanthe Hoskins quotes
from The Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled, in most cases this online
version has a longer quote than she used, the glossary is also expanded
from her glossary)
Foreword
The particular task that Madame Blavatsky undertook in
her writings was to bring to the attention of the western world the teachings
of the Wisdom tradition, the Sacred Science of the east. Repeatedly she
affirmed both the antiquity and the universality of these teachings, known
since the early centuries of our era as Theosophy. For herself she claimed
only the role of writer and transmitter.
The way in which she saw her task is plainly stated in
the Preface to her greatest work, The Secret Doctrine, published in 1888;
These truths are in no sense put forward as a revelation;
nor does the author claim the position of a revealer of mystic lore,
now made public for the first time in the world's history. For what
is contained in this work is to be found scattered throughout thousands
of volumes embodying the scriptures of the great Asiatic and early European
religions, hidden under glyph and symbol, and hitherto left unnoticed
because of this veil. What is now attempted is to gather the oldest
tenets together and to make of them one harmonious and unbroken whole.
The work of collecting and publishing all Madame Blavatsky's
writings is now nearing completion, to make a total of some nineteen or
twenty substantial volumes. The compiler of these Collected Writings,
her great-nephew Boris de Zirkoff, informs the reader that a letter published
in the New York Daily Graphic on 30 October 1874 was the first article
definitely known to be from her pen. In 1877 her first major work, Isis
Unveiled, appeared in two large volumes. It was followed eleven years
later by the two volumes of The Secret Doctrine. Her last books, The Voice
of the Silence and The Key to Theosophy, were published in 1889. If one
bears in mind her long and frequent travels and the poor state of her
health, with periods of severe illness, this enormous literary output
in under seventeen years - and in a language that was not her own - seems
little less than miraculous. It is to be noted that, although some letters
and articles are awaiting publication in the Collected Writings, the great
books have been continuously in print throughout the hundred or so years
that have elapsed since their first appearance.
With such a mass of material, in which the topics range
from Biblical symbolism to Darwinian theory, from an examination of antediluvian
flora and fauna to quotations from the sacred texts of Hinduism and the
Kabalah, as well as from 19th century philosophers, theologians and scientists,
it would be difficult if not impossible for the reader to extract the
essential framework of the theosophical system. However, Madame Blavatsky
herself comes to the student's rescue by setting out here and there in
numbered statements the principles on which that system is based. The
collection of these statements presented here is intended to serve as
an Ariadne's thread through the vast labyrinth of information, description,
explanation, criticism, commentary and personal instruction that constitutes
her well-nigh inexhaustible gift to posterity.
Where should the student begin? During Madame Blavatsky's
last years, there gathered round her in London a group of earnest members
of The Theosophical Society who applied themselves seriously to the study
of The Secret Doctrine, questioning her and pressing her for further elucidation
of the teaching. Happily for us, much of this oral instruction was taken
down and later published in the Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, now
forming the second half of Volume X of the Collected Writings. In addition
to this, there is a small but invaluable collection of notes written down
at the time by one member of the group, Commander Robert Bowen, and brought
to light some forty years later by his son, Captain P.G. Bowen. Initially
printed in 1932 in Theosophy in Ireland, these notes have since been published
separately as a booklet entitled Madame Blavatsky on How to Study Theosophy;
they are reproduced herein Appendix A.
It is from these notes that we learn not only the way
in which, in her view, one should approach the study, the attitude and
expectations one should bring to it, but further, the order in which the
essential statements are to be taken before embarking on the whole work.
In addition, she places before the student the basic ideas which he should
keep permanently in mind. Her presentation of these ideas, together with
the sections of the work to which she calls especial attention, form the
greater part of this present collection.
Isis Unveiled is admittedly a diffuse and disorderly
compilation, displaying extraordinary erudition in a woman who had had
no formal education and whose travelling library seems to have consisted
of no more than two or three dozen volumes. It is a mass of curiosities,
of information and critical commentary on a truly vast range of subjects,
of profound knowledge of the occult tradition in its many forms, but the
material is presented in some confusion and often in a sharply polemic
tone which declares its contemporary setting. At the end of Volume II,
Madame Blavatsky summarizes in ten numbered items the essential elements
of the teaching she has sought to lay before the reader. Although this
was her first attempt to set out an orderly statement of the fundamental
principles of the esoteric philosophy enunciated in her work, the relevant
passage is here given last, for the reason that, as will be seen, she
had not at that time clearly distinguished between the broad principles
and the secondary material, that is, the working out of the principles
in particulars. In speaking of her occult instructors she used the name
of Masters, because it was from them, as she explicitly states in The
Key to Theosophy, that she derived all her knowledge of the theosophical
system. Nevertheless, it was left entirely to her to use the knowledge
communicated to her as best she could, organizing the material and developing
literary skills in the doing.
In preparing the passages for this collection, the three
editions of The Secret Doctrine in current use have been consulted, and
references are given to all three, in date order, thus: First Edition
1888/Third Edition 1893/Adyar 6-vol. Editions. As the aim here is to present
the basic teaching in the most readable form, some discretion has been
exercised in modifying the use of punctuation, capital letters and italics,
where this has been thought appropriate to facilitate first acquaintance
with the text. Each extract is preceded by an introductory note, and a
Glossary of terms is given in Appendix B.
The listing of those ideas that must be recognized as
fundamental to the theosophical system is to some extent arbitrary. So
we find that Madame Blavatsky presents the student of Theosophy with three
fundamental propositions, four basic ideas, a summary of six numbered
points, a further five proven facts, and the ten items recapitulating
the essentials of Isis Unveiled. Yet, above and beyond all lists and enumerations
of principles, there must ever be the affirmation of the ONE - the nameless
Reality from which and in which all things have their being. As there
can be no understanding of Theosophy without constant reference back to
this fundamental Unity, the unequivocal statement of the Unity has been
placed first in this selection of extracts.
I.H.H.
ONE FUNDAMENTAL LAW
NOTE
Esoteric philosophy insists that beneath the manifold
world of our experience there is a single Reality, the source and cause
of all that ever was, is and is to be. The great exponent of the Vedic
tradition, Shri Shankaracharya, puts it simply: no matter what shape may
be given to the moulded clay, the reality of the object remains always
the clay, its name and form being but transitory appearances. So likewise
all things, having issued from the One Supreme, are themselves that Supreme
in their essential nature. From highest to lowliest, from vastest to most
minute, the infinite phenomena of the manifested universe are the One,
clothed in name and form.
This teaching of the fundamental Unity is the hallmark
of the theosophical system. It follows that no doctrine based on an ultimate
duality - of spirit and matter for ever separate, of God and man as essentially
distinct, of good and evil as eternal realities - can have a place in
Theosophy.
ONE FUNDAMENTAL LAW
The radical unity of the ultimate essence of each constituent
part of compounds in Nature - from star to mineral atom, from the highest
Dhyaan Chohan to the smallest infusorium, in the fullest acceptation
of the term, and whether applied to the spiritual, intellectual or physical
worlds - this unity is the one fundamental law in Occult Science.
(v1 p120)
The Secret Doctrine
v1 p120 First Edition 1888
v1 p145 Third Edition 1893
v1 p179 Adyar 6-vol. Edition
FOUR BASIC IDEAS
NOTE
In the course of the oral instruction given to her students
in London and recorded in Commander Bowen's notes (see Appendix A), Madame Blavatsky
repeated many times that the study of The Secret Doctrine could not give
a final and complete picture of the universe. It is meant, she said, to
'LEAD TOWARDS THE TRUTH'. As an aid to progressive understanding, she
then outlined four basic ideas which the student should never lose from
view. Being given spontaneously, these ideas are presented in simpler
language than in the great works and may therefore serve as a preparation
for some of the more complex phraseology of the fuller statements.
FOUR BASIC IDEAS
Observe the following rules:--
No matter what one may study in the SD, let the mind hold fast, as the
basis of its ideation, to the following ideas:
- (a) The FUNDAMENTAL UNITY OF ALL EXISTENCE. This unity is a thing
altogether different from the common notion of unity - as when we
say that a nation or an army is united; or that this planet is united
to that by lines of magnetic force or the like. The teaching is
not that. It is that existence is ONE THING, not any collection
of things linked together. Fundamentally there is ONE Being. The
BEING has two aspects, positive and negative. The positive is Spirit,
or CONSCIOUSNESS. The negative is SUBSTANCE, the subject of consciousness.
This Being is the Absolute in its primary manifestation. Being absolute
there is nothing outside it. It is ALL-BEING. It is indivisible,
else it would not be absolute. If a portion could be separated,
that remaining could not be absolute, because there would at once
arise the question of COMPARISON between it and the separated part.
Comparison is incompatible with any idea of absoluteness. Therefore
it is clear that this fundamental ONE EXISTENCE, or Absolute Being,
must be the Reality in every form there is.
The Atom, the Man, the God, are each separately, as well as all
collectively, Absolute Being in their last analysis, that is their
REAL INDIVIDUALITY. It is this idea which must be held always in
the background of the mind to form the basis for every conception
that arises from study of the SD. The moment one lets it go (and
it is most easy to do so when engaged in any of the many intricate
aspects of the Esoteric Philosophy) the idea of SEPARATION supervenes,
and the study loses its value.
- (b) The second idea to hold fast is that THERE IS NO DEAD MATTER.
Every last atom is alive. It cannot be otherwise, since every atom
is itself fundamentally Absolute Being. Therefore there is no such
thing as "spaces" of Ether, or aakaasha, or call it what you like,
in which angels and elementals disport themselves like trout in
water. That's a common idea. The true idea shows every
atom of substance, no matter of what plane, to be in itself a LIFE.
- (c) The third basic idea to be held is that Man is the MICROCOSM.
As he is so, then all the Hierarchies of the Heavens exist within
him. But in truth there is neither Macrocosm nor Microcosm but ONE
EXISTENCE. Great and small are such only as viewed by a limited
consciousness.
- (d) Fourth and last basic idea to be held is that expressed in
the Great Hermetic Axiom. It really sums up and synthesizes all
the others.
As is the Inner, so is the Outer; as is the Great, so is the Small;
as it is above, so it is below; there is but ONE LIFE AND LAW; and
he that worketh it is ONE. Nothing is Inner, nothing is Outer; nothing
is GREAT, nothing is Small; nothing is High, nothing is Low, in
the Divine Economy.
No matter what one takes as study in the SD, one must correlate it with
those basic ideas.
From How to Study Theosophy (see Appendix A)
THREE FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS
NOTE
In the Bowen notes, Madame
Blavatsky advises the student that `the first thing to do, even if it
takes years, is to get some grasp of the "Three Fundamental Principles"
given in Proem' - the masterly prelude to The Secret Doctrine. The statement
of the three principles is introduced with a similar insistence on their
primary importance, and again, in concluding their presentation, Madame
Blavatsky affirms that these are the foundation ideas of the theosophical
tradition.
The Secret Doctrine is in large part a commentary on
selected stanzas from an ancient work, the Book of Dzyan. Following modern
usage, the title of her book is always given in italics, while her references
to the age-old esoteric philosophy are left as in the original edition,
with initial capitals, the Secret Doctrine.
SIX NUMBERED
ITEMS
NOTE
The study of the Three Fundamental Propositions, advises
Madame Blavatsky, should be followed by that of the numbered items in
the Summing Up at the end of Volume I (Part I). It would seem to have
been her intention to gather together in a few orderly paragraphs the
essential features of the Secret Doctrine so far presented. She begins,
however, in the first of the numbered paragraphs, with a reference back
to the Introductory section of the work, in which she had assembled a
great range of evidence that establishes beyond doubt the existence of
an esoteric tradition. Furthermore, arriving at the sixth numbered paragraph,
she refuses to confine herself to mere recapitulation, and adds a considerable
amount of explanatory information about those Hierarchies of Beings through
whose agency `the Universe is worked and guided'. Even so, she reverts
more than once to the fundamental law of the whole system, the essential
Oneness of existence.
FIVE PROVEN
FACTS
NOTE
Once again, Madame Blavatsky seeks to emphasize certain
important aspects of the teaching, underlining what has already been explained
and expanding the statement of fundamentals with further commentary and
quotation. So to the six numbered paragraphs of the Summing Up are added
five more items which are introduced as "proven facts".
The words in square brackets [] are given thus in the
text, being Madame Blavatsky's clarification of the quoted passages.
FIVE PROVEN FACTS
Whatever may be the destiny of these actual writings in a
remote future, we hope to have so far proven the following facts:
- 1. The Secret Doctrine teaches no Atheism, except in the sense
underlying the Sanskrit word nastika, a rejection of idols, including
every anthropomorphic god. In this sense every occultist is a Nastika.
- 2. It admits a Logos, or a collective "Creator" of the Universe;
a Demi-urgos, in the sense implied when one speaks of an architect
as the "creator" of an edifice, whereas that architect has never
touched one stone of it, but, furnishing the plan, has left all
the manual labour to the masons; in our case the plan was furnished
by the Ideation of the universe, and the constructive labour was
left to the Hosts of intelligent Powers and Forces. But that Demiurgos
is no personal Deity - i.e., an imperfect, extra-cosmic God, but
only the aggregate of the Dhyaan Chohans and the other forces.
- 3. The Dhyaan Chohans are dual in their character, being composed
of (a) the irrational brute energy inherent in matter, and (b) the
intelligent Soul, or cosmic Consciousness, which directs and guides
that energy, and which is the Dhyaan Chohanic Thought reflecting
the Ideation of the Universal Mind. This results in a perpetual
series of physical manifestations and moral effects on earth, during
manvantaric periods, the whole being subservient to Karma. As that
process is not always perfect, and since, however many proofs it
may exhibit of a guiding Intelligence behind the veil, it still
shows gaps and flaws, and even results very often in evident failures
- therefore, neither the collective Host (Demiurgos), nor any of
the working Powers individually, are proper subjects for divine
honours or worship. All are entitled to the grateful reverence of
humanity, however, and man ought to be ever striving to help the
divine evolution of Ideas, by becoming to the best of his ability
a co-worker with Nature in the cyclic task. The ever unknowable
and incognizable Kaarana alone, the Causeless Cause of all causes,
should have its shrine and altar on the holy and ever untrodden
ground of our heart - invisible, intangible, unmentioned, save through
the "still small voice" of our spiritual consciousness. Those who
worship before it ought to do so in the silence and the sanctified
solitude of their Souls, making their Spirit the sole mediator between
them and the Universal Spirit, their good actions the only priests,
and their sinful intentions the only visible and objective sacrificial
victims to the Presence.
"When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites
are ... but enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy
door, pray to thy Father which is in secret". Matt. VI, 5, 6.
Our Father is within us "in secret", our Seventh Principle in the
"inner chamber" of our soul-perception. The Kingdom of God and of
Heaven is within us, says Jesus, not outside. Why are Christians
so absolutely blind to the self-evident meaning of the words of
wisdom they delight in mechanically repeating?
- 4. Matter is eternal. It is the upaadhi, or physical basis, for
the One Infinite Universal Mind to build thereon its ideations.
Therefore the esotericists maintain that there is no inorganic or
"dead" matter in Nature, the distinction between the two made by
Science being as unfounded as it is arbitrary and devoid of reason.
Whatever Science may think, however - and exact science is a fickle
dame, as we all know by experience - Occultism knows and teaches
differently, as it has done from time immemorial, from Manu and
Hermes down to Paracelsus and his successors.
-
Thus Hermes the Thrice Great, Trismegistus, says:
Oh my son, matter becomes; formerly it was, for matter
is the vehicle of becoming. Becoming is the mode of activity of
the uncreate and foreseeing God. Having been endowed with the
germ of becoming, [objective] matter is brought into birth, for
the creative force fashions it according to the ideal forms. Matter
not yet engendered had no form; it becomes when it is put into
operation.
The Virgin of the World
To this the late Dr. Anna Kingsford, the able translator and compiler
of the Hermetic Fragments, remarks in a footnote; "Dr. Menard observes
that in Greek the same word signifies to be born and to become.
The idea here is that the material of the world is in its essence
eternal, but that before creation or 'becoming' it is in a passive
and motionless condition. Thus it 'was' before being put into operation;
now it 'becomes', that is, it is mobile and progressive". And she
adds the purely Vedantic doctrine of the Hermetic philosophy that
"Creation is thus the period of activity [Manvantara] of God, who,
according to Hermetic thought [or which, according to the Vedantin],
has two modes - Activity or Existence, God evolved (Deus explicitus),
and Passivity of Being [Pralaya], God involved (Deus implicitus).
Both modes are perfect and complete, as are the waking and sleeping
states of man. Fichte, the German philosopher, distinguished Being
(Sein) as One, which we know only through existence (Dasein) as
the Manifold. This view is thoroughly Hermetic. The 'Ideal Forms'
....are the archetypal or formative ideas of the Neo-Platonists,
the eternal and subjective concepts of things subsisting in the
Divine Mind prior to 'creation' or becoming."
Or as in the philosophy of Paracelsus:
"Everything is the product of one universal creative
effort ....There is nothing dead in Nature. Everything is organic
and living, and consequently the whole world appears to be a living
organism".
Franz Hartmann,Paracelsus.
-
5. The universe was evolved out of its ideal
plan, upheld through Eternity in the unconsciousness of that which
the Vedantins call Parabrahman. This is practically identical with
the conclusions of the highest western philosophy, "the innate,
eternal and self-existing Ideas" of Plato, now reflected by Von
Hartmann. The "Unknowable" of Herbert Spencer bears but a faint
resemblance to that transcendental Reality believed in by occultists,
often appearing merely a personification of a "force behind phenomena"
- an infinite and eternal Energy, from which all things proceed,
whereas the author of the Philosophy of the Unconscious has come
(in this respect only) as near to solution of the great Mystery
as mortal man can. Few have been those, whether in ancient or mediaeval
philosophy, who have dared to approach the subject or even hint
at it. Paracelsus mentions it inferentially, and his ideas are admirably
synthesized by Dr. F. Hartmann in his Paracelsus.
All the Christian Kabalists understood well the Eastern root idea.
The active Power, the "Perpetual Motion of the Great Breath", only
awakens Kosmos at the dawn of every new Period, setting it into
motion by means of the two contrary Forces - the centripetal and
the centrifugal forces, which are male and female, positive and
negative, physical and spiritual, the two being the one Primordial
Force - and thus causing it to become objective on the plane of
Illusion. In other words, that dual motion transfers Kosmos from
the plane of the Eternal Ideal into that of finite manifestation,
or from the noumenal to the phenomenal plane. Everything that is,
was and will be eternally IS, even the countless forms, which are
finite and perishable only in their objective but not in their ideal
Form. They existed as Ideas, in the Eternity, and when they pass
away, will exist as reflections. Occultism teaches that no form
can be given to anything, either by Nature or by man, whose ideal
type does not already exist on the subjective plane; more than this,
that no form or shape can possibly enter man's consciousness, or
evolve in his imagination, which does not exist in prototype, at
least as an approximation. Neither the form of man, nor that of
any animal, plant or stone, has ever been "created", and it is only
on this plane of ours that it commenced "becoming", that is to say,
objectivizing into its present materiality, or expanding from within
outwards, from the most sublimated and supersensuous essence into
its grossest appearance. Therefore our human forms have existed
in the Eternity as astral or ethereal prototypes, according to which
models the Spiritual Beings, or Gods, whose duty it was to bring
them into objective being and terrestrial life, evolved the protoplasmic
forms of the future Egos from their own essence. After which, when
this human upaadhi or basic mould was ready, the natural terrestrial
forces began to work on these supersensuous moulds, which contained,
besides their own, the elements of all the past vegetable and future
animal forms of this globe. Therefore man's outward shell passed
through every vegetable and animal body before it assumed the human
shape. (v1 p282)
The Secret Doctrine
v1 p279-282
v1 p300-303
v1 p322-325.
THREE NEW PROPOSITIONS
NOTE
The first volume of The Secret Doctrine has as its subject
matter the becoming of the Cosmos - "Cosmogenesis". The second volume
(Vol. III in the Adyar 6-vol. editions) is concerned with the becoming
of Man - "Anthropogenesis". Its first section, like that of the preceding
volume, is based on stanzas "drawn from the same Archaic Records as the
Stanzas on Cosmogony". As an indication of its main theme, the Preliminary
Notes which serve as an introduction to the further stanzas and commentaries
are preceded by a passage from Isis Unveiled. Provocative and challenging
to the leaders of contemporary scientific and religious thought, the extract
prepares the reader for the seemingly revolutionary ideas about the story
of Man that are offered in the occult record.
In the Bowen notes, Madame Blavatsky draws the student's
attention to these Preliminary Notes, which begin with a statement of
three new propositions concerning the evolution of Man.
THREE NEW PROPOSITIONS
Modern Science insists upon the doctrine of evolution; so
do human reason and the Secret Doctrine, and the idea is corroborated
by the ancient legends and myths, and even by the Bible itself when
it is read between the lines. We see a flower slowly developing from
a bud, and the bud from its seed. But whence the latter, with all its
predetermined programme of physical transformation, and its invisible,
therefore spiritual, forces which gradually develop its form, colour
and odour? The word evolution speaks for itself. The germ of the present
human race must have pre-existed in the parent of this race, as the
seed, in which lies hidden the flower of next summer, was developed
in the capsule of its parent flower; the parent may be but slightly
different, but it still differs from its future progeny. The antediluvian
ancestors of the present elephant and lizard were, perhaps, the mammoth
and plesiosaurus: why should not the progenitors of our human race have
been the "giants" of the Vedas, the Voluspa, and the Book of Genesis?
While it is positively absurd to believe the "transformation of species"
to have taken place according to some of the more materialistic views
of the evolutionists, it is but natural to think that each genus, beginning
with the molluscs and ending with man, has modified from its own primordial
and distinctive form.
Isis Unveiled
v1 p152-153
PRELIMINARY NOTES
The Stanzas, with the Commentaries thereon, in this Volume,
are drawn from the same Archaic Records as the Stanzas on Cosmogony in
Volume I .....
As regards the evolution of mankind, the Secret Doctrine
postulates three new propositions, which stand in direct antagonism to
modern science as well as to current religious dogmas. It teaches: (a)
the simultaneous evolution of seven human groups on seven different portions
of our globe; (b) the birth of the astral before the physical body, the
former being a model for the latter; and (c) that man, in this Round,
preceded every mammalian - the anthropoids included - in the animal kingdom.
[A footnote to this proposition is indicative of the
vast range of ancient traditions from which corroboration of the Archaic
Records may be adduced. It reads.-]
See Genesis ii, 19. Adam is formed in verse 7, and in verse
19 it is said: "Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of
the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to
see what he would call them". Thus man was created before the animals;
for the animals mentioned in Chapter i are the signs of the Zodiac,
while the man, "male and female", is not man, but the Host of the Sephiroth,
FORCES or Angels, "made in his [God's] image and after his likeness".
The Adam, man, is not made in that likeness, nor is it so asserted in
the Bible. Moreover, the Second Adam is esoterically a septenary which
represents seven men, or rather groups of men. For the first Adam, the
Kadmon, is the synthesis of the ten Sephiroth. Of these, the upper Triad
remains in the Archetypal World as the future "Trinity", while the seven
lower Sephiroth create the manifested material world; and this septennate
is the Second Adam. Genesis, and the mysteries upon which it was fabricated,
came from Egypt. The "God" of the 1st chapter of Genesis is the Logos,
and the "Lord God" of the 2nd chapter the Creative Elohim, the lower
Powers. (v2 p1-2)
The Secret Doctrine
v2 p1-2
v2 p1
v3 p15
THE SECRET
DOCTRINE
CONCLUSION
NOTE
In the Bowen notes (see page
63 below), Madame Blavatsky suggests that an initial study programme should
include the Conclusion (Vol. II). From the subject matter to which she
there refers - "the times of coming of the Races and Sub-Races" - it is
evident that the Conclusion to which the student's attention is directed
is the one which occurs at the end of Part I of the second Volume. The
passages that follow are selected from that part of the work, which carries
the heading CONCLUSION.
THE SECRET DOCTRINE
CONCLUSION
Enough was said to show that evolution in general, events,
mankind, and everything else in Nature, proceeds in cycles. We have
spoken of seven Races, five of which have nearly completed their earthly
career, and have claimed that every Root-Race, with its sub-races and
innumerable family divisions and tribes, was entirely distinct from
its preceding and succeeding race. This will be objected to, on the
authority of uniform experience in the question of Anthropology and
Ethnology. Man was - save in colour and type, and perhaps a difference
in facial peculiarities and cranial capacity - ever the same under every
climate and in every part of the world, say the Naturalists: ay, even
in stature. This, while maintaining that man descends from the same
unknown ancestor as the ape, a claim that is logically impossible without
an infinite variation of stature and form, from his first evolution
into a biped. The very logical persons who maintain both propositions
are welcome to their paradoxical views. Once more we address only those
who, doubting the general derivation of myths from "the contemplation
of the visible workings of external nature" .. think it, "less hard
to believe that these wonderful stories of gods and demi-gods, of giants
and dwarfs, of dragons and monsters of all descriptions, are transformations,
than to believe them to be inventions." It is only such "transformations"
in physical nature, as much as in the memory and conceptions of our
present mankind, that the Secret Doctrine teaches. It confronts the
purely speculative hypotheses of modern Science, based upon the experience
and exact observations of barely a few centuries, with the unbroken
tradition and records of its Sanctuaries; and brushing away that tissue
of cobweb-like theories, spun in the darkness that covers a period of
hardly a few milleniums back, and which Europeans call their "History",
the Old Science says to us: Listen, now, to my version of the memoirs
of Humanity. (v2 p443)
The human Races are born one from the other, grow, develop, become old
and die. Their sub-races and nations follow the same rule. If your all-denying
modern science and so-called philosophy do not contest that the human
family is composed of a variety of well- defined types and races, it
is only because the fact is undeniable; no one would say that there
was no external difference between an Englishman, an African negro,
and a Japanese or Chinaman. On the other hand it is formally denied
by most naturalists that mixed human races, ie, the seeds for entirely
new races, are any longer formed in our days ...
Nevertheless our general proposition will not be accepted. It will be
said that whatever forms man has passed through in the long pre- historic
Past, there are no more changes for him (save certain variations, as
at present) in the future. Hence that our Sixth and Seventh Root-Races
are fictions.
To this it is again answered: How do you know? Your experience is limited
to a few thousand years, to less than a day in the whole age of Humanity
and to the present types of the actual continents and isles of our Fifth
Race. How can you tell what will or will not be? Meanwhile, such is
the prophecy of the Secret Books and their no uncertain statements.
Since the beginning of the Atlantean Race many million years have passed,
yet we find the last of the Atlanteans, still mixed up with the Aryan
element, 11,000 years ago. This shows the enormous overlapping of one
race over the race which succeeds it, though in characters and external
type the elder loses its characteristics, and assumes the new features
of the younger race. This is proved in all the formations of mixed human
races. Now, Occult philosophy teaches that even now, under our new eyes,
the new Race and Races are preparing to be formed, and that it is in
America that the transformation will take place, and has already silently
commenced.
Pure Anglo-Saxons hardly three hundred years ago, the Americans of the
United States have already become a nation apart, and, owing to a strong
admixture of various nationalities and inter-marriage, almost a race
sui generis, not only mentally, but also physically. "Every mixed race,
when uniform and settled, has been able to play the part of a primary
race in fresh crossings," says de Quatrefages: "Mankind, in its present
state, has thus been formed, certainly, for the greatest part, by the
successive crossing of a number of races at present undetermined. (The
Human Species, page 274)
Thus the Americans have become in only three centuries a "primary race",
pro tem., before becoming a race apart, and strongly separated from
all other now existing races. They are, in short, the germs of the Sixth
sub-race, and in some few hundred years more, will become most decidedly
the pioneers of that race which must succeed to the present European
or fifth sub-race, in all its new characteristics. After this, in about
25,000 years, they will launch into preparations for the seventh sub-race;
until, in consequence of cataclysms - the first series of those which
must one day destroy Europe, and still later the whole Aryan race (and
thus affect both Americas), as also most of the lands directly connected
with the confines of our continent and isles - the Sixth Root-Race will
have appeared on the stage of our Round. When shall this be? Who knows
save the great Masters of Wisdom, perchance, and they are as silent
upon the subject as the snow-capped peaks that tower above them. All
we know is, that it will silently come into existence . . . The Fifth
will overlap the Sixth Race for many hundreds of millenniums, changing
with it slower than its new successor, still changing in stature, general
physique, and mentality, just as the Fourth overlapped our Aryan Race,
and the Third had overlapped the Atlanteans.
This process of preparation for the Sixth great Race must last throughout
the whole sixth and seventh sub-races ... But the last remnants of the
Fifth Continent will not disappear until some time after the birth of
the new Race; when another and new dwelling, the sixth continent, will
have appeared above the new waters on the face of the globe, so as to
receive the new stranger. To it also will emigrate and settle all those
who shall be fortunate enough to escape the general disaster. When this
shall be - as just said - it is not for the writer to know. Only, as
nature no more proceeds by sudden jumps and starts, than man changes
suddenly from a child into a mature man, the final cataclysm will be
preceded by many smaller submersions and destructions both by wave and
volcanic fires. The exultant pulse will beat high in the heart of the
race now in the American zone, but there will be no more Americans when
the Sixth Race commences; no more, in fact, than Europeans; for they
will have now become a new race, and many new nations. Yet the Fifth
will not die, but survive for a while: overlapping the new Race for
many hundred thousands of years to come, it will become transformed
with it - slower than its new successor - still getting entirely altered
in mentality, general physique, and stature. Mankind will not grow again
into giant bodies as in the case of the Lemurians and the Atlanteans;
because while the evolution of the Fourth Race led the latter down to
the very bottom of materiality in its physical development, the present
Race is on its ascending arc; and the Sixth will be rapidly growing
out of its bonds of matter, and even of flesh.
Thus it is the mankind of the New world - one by far the senior of our
Old one, a fact men had also forgotten - of Patala (the Antipodes, or
the Nether World, as America is called in India), whose mission and
Karma it is, to sow the seeds for a forthcoming, grander, and far more
glorious Race than any of those we know of at present. The Cycles of
Matter will be succeeded by Cycles of Spirituality and a fully developed
mind. On the law of parallel history and races, the majority of the
future mankind will be composed of glorious Adepts. Humanity is the
child of cyclic Destiny, and not one of its Units can escape its unconscious
mission, or get rid of the burden of its co-operative work with nature.
Thus will mankind, race after race, perform its appointed cycle-pilgrimage.
Climates will, and have already begun, to change, each tropical year
after the other dropping one sub-race, but only to beget another higher
race on the ascending cycle; while a series of other less favoured groups
- the failures of nature - will, like some individual men, vanish from
the human family without even leaving a trace behind.
Such is the course of Nature under the sway of KARMIC LAW: of the ever-present
and the ever-becoming Nature. For, in the words of a Sage, known only
to a few Occultists:- "THE PRESENT IS THE CHILD OF THE PAST; THE FUTURE,
THE BEGOTTEN OF THE PRESENT. AND YET, 0 PRESENT MOMENT! KNOWEST THOU
NOT THAT THOU HAST NO PARENT, NOR CANST THOU HAVE A CHILD: THAT THOU
ART EVER BEGETTING BUT THYSELF? BEFORE THOU HAST EVEN BEGUN TO SAY `I
AM THE PROGENY OF THE DEPARTED MOMENT, THE CHILD OF THE PAST,' THOU
HAST BECOME THAT PAST ITSELF. BEFORE THOU UTTEREST THE LAST SYLLABLE,
BEHOLD! THOU ART NO MORE THE PRESENT BUT VERILY THAT FUTURE. THUS ARE
THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE, THE EVER-LIVING TRINITY IN ONE
- THE MAHAMAYA OF THE ABSOLUTE IS." ------- (v2 p446)
The Secret Doctrine
v2 p437-446
v2 p455-465
v3 p434-444
ISIS UNVEILED
A TEN-POINT SUMMARY
NOTE
It would seem that Madame Blavatsky had constantly in
mind, in preparing her first major work for publication, the need to demonstrate
to the educated reader of her day that what she had to say was indeed
"no new candidate for the world's attention". Each chapter of Isis Unveiled
is introduced by a selection of extracts from respected sources ancient
and contemporary, which demonstrate that neither the attitudes displayed
nor the information given by her were without precedent. The final chapter
is headed by several such quotations, of which one is given here. The
chapter begins with an attempt to summarize the main features of the oriental
philosophy as presented in the two volumes of Isis. However, as indicated
earlier, Madame Blavatsky was at this period experimenting with the mass
of material at her command and trying to find out how to give it to the
world. Consequently, there is no clear sifting of fundamental principles
from secondary detail and illustration. The contrast between this first
attempt at a numbered summary and the later statements in The Secret Doctrine
is striking evidence of her own development as both pupil and teacher.
ISIS UNVEILED:
The
Theosophical Publishing House Ltd 1980
ISBN 0 7229 10029
Second Edition (revised) 1990
68 Great Russell Street, London WCIB 3BU
Adyar, India; Wheaton, USA
Printed by Leighton Printing Company,
London N7 8DH, UK.
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