The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 3 of 4 The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG BOOK 56880 ***





                           The Secret Doctrine

            The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy

                                    By

                        Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

                        Author of “Isis Unveiled.”

                        Third and Revised Edition.

                        SATYÂT NÂSTI PARO DHARMAH.

                “There is no Religion higher than Truth.”

                               Volume III.

                    The Theosophical Publishing House

                                  London

                                   1897





CONTENTS


Preface.
Introductory.
Section I. Preliminary Survey.
Section II. Modern Criticism and the Ancients.
Section III. The Origin of Magic.
Section IV. The Secresy of Initiates.
Section V. Some Reasons for Secresy.
Section VI. The Dangers of Practical Magic.
Section VII. Old Wine in New Bottles.
Section VIII. The Book of Enoch the Origin and the Foundation of
Christianity.
Section IX. Hermetic and Kabalistic Doctrines.
Section X. Various Occult Systems of Interpretations of Alphabets and
Numerals.
Section XI. The Hexagon with the Central Point, or the Seventh Key.
Section XII. The Duty of the True Occultist toward Religions.
Section XIII. Post‐Christian Adepts and their Doctrines.
Section XIV. Simon and his Biographer Hippolytus.
Section XV. St. Paul the real Founder of present Christianity.
Section XVI. Peter a Jewish Kabalist, not an Initiate.
Section XVII. Apollonius of Tyana.
Section XVIII. Facts underlying Adept Biographies.
Section XIX. St. Cyprian of Antioch.
Section XX. The Eastern Gupta Vidya & the Kabalah.
Section XXI. Hebrew Allegories.
Section XXII. The “Zohar” on Creation and the Elohim.
Section XXIII. What the Occultists and Kabalists have to say.
Section XXIV. Modern Kabalists in Science and Occult Astronomy.
Section XXV. Eastern and Western Occultism.
Section XXVI. The Idols and the Teraphim.
Section XXVII. Egyptian Magic.
Section XXVIII. The Origin of the Mysteries.
Section XXIX. The Trial of the Sun Initiate.
Section XXX. The Mystery “Sun of Initiation.”
Section XXXI. The Objects of the Mysteries.
Section XXXII. Traces of the Mysteries.
Section XXXIII. The Last of the Mysteries in Europe.
Section XXXIV. The Post‐Christian Successors to the Mysteries.
Section XXXV. Symbolism of Sun and Stars.
Section XXXVI. Pagan Sidereal Worship, or Astrology.
Section XXXVII. The Souls of the Stars—Universal Heliolatry.
Section XXXVIII. Astrology and Astrolatry.
Section XXXIX. Cycles and Avataras.
Section XL. Secret Cycles.
Section XLI. The Doctrine of Avataras.
Section XLII. The Seven Principles.
Section XLIII. The Mystery of Buddha.
Section XLIV. “Reincarnations” of Buddha.
Section XLV. An Unpublished Discourse of Buddha.
Section XLVI. Nirvana‐Moksha.
Section XLVII. The Secret Books of “Lam‐Rin” and Dzyan.
Section XLVIII. Amita Buddha Kwan‐Shai‐yin, and Kwan‐yin.—What the “Book
of Dzyan” and the Lamaseries of Tsong‐Kha‐pa say.
Section XLIX. Tsong‐Kha‐pa.—Lohans in China.
Section L. A few more Misconceptions Corrected.
Section LI. The “Doctrine of the Eye” & the “Doctrine of the Heart,” or
the “Heart’s Seal.”
Some Papers On The Bearing Of Occult Philosophy On Life.
   Paper I. A Warning.
   Paper II. An Explanation.
   Paper III. A Word Concerning the Earlier Papers.
   Appendix. Notes on Papers I., II. and III.
   Notes On Some Oral Teachings.
Footnotes






                               [Cover Art]

[Transcriber’s Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter
at Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.]





    As for what thou hearest others say, who persuade the many that
    the soul when once freed from the body neither suffers ... evil
    nor is conscious, I know that thou art better grounded in the
    doctrines received by us from our ancestors and in the sacred
    orgies of Dionysus than to believe them; for the mystic symbols
    are well known to us who belong to the Brotherhood.

    PLUTARCH.

    The problem of life is man. Magic, or rather Wisdom, is the
    evolved knowledge of the potencies of man’s interior being, which
    forces are divine emanations, as intuition is the perception of
    their origin, and initiation our induction into that knowledge....
    We begin with instinct; the end is omniscience.

    A. WILDER.





PREFACE.


The task of preparing this volume for the press has been a difficult and
anxious one, and it is necessary to state clearly what has been done. The
papers given to me by H. P. B. were quite unarranged, and had no obvious
order: I have, therefore, taken each paper as a separate Section, and have
arranged them as sequentially as possible. With the exception of the
correction of grammatical errors and the elimination of obviously un‐
English idioms, the papers are as H. P. B. left them, save as otherwise
marked. In a few cases I have filled in a gap, but any such addition is
enclosed within square brackets, so as to be distinguished from the text.
In “The Mystery of Buddha” a further difficulty arose; some of the
Sections had been written four or five times over, each version containing
some sentences that were not in the others; I have pieced these versions
together, taking the fullest as basis, and inserting therein everything
added in any other versions.