Author: H P Blavatsky
Publisher: Theosophical Publishing
Year: 2010
Language: English
Pages: 2035
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8170590574
Description
THE Author -- the writer, rather -- feels it necessary to apologise for the long delay, which has occurred in the appearance of this work. It has been occasioned by ill-health and the magnitude of the undertaking. Even the two volumes now issued do not complete the scheme, and these do not treat exhaustively of the subjects dealt with in them. A large quantity of material has already been prepared, dealing with the history of occultism as contained in the lives of the great Adepts of the Aryan Race, and showing the bearing of occult philosophy upon the conduct of life, as it is and as it ought to be. Should the present volumes meet with a favourable reception; no effort will be spared to carry out the scheme of the work in its entirety. The third volume is entirely ready, the fourth almost so.
This scheme, it must be added, was not in contemplation when the preparation of the work was first announced. As originally announced, it was intended that the "Secret Doctrine" should be an amended and enlarged version of "Isis Unveiled." It was, however, soon found that the explanations which could be added to those already put before the world in the last-named and other works dealing with esoteric science, were such as to require a different method of treatment: and consequently the present volumes do not contain, in all, twenty pages extracted from "Isis Unveiled."
The author does not feel it necessary to ask the indulgence of her readers and critics for the many defects of literary style, and the imperfect English which may be found in these pages. She is a foreigner, and her knowledge of the language was acquired late in life. The English tongue is employed because it offers the most widely-diffused medium for conveying the truths which it had become her duty to place before the world.
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 sole advantage, which the writer has over her predecessors, is that she need not resort to personal speculations and theories. For this work is a partial statement of what she herself has been taught by more advanced students, supplemented, in a few details only, by the results of her own study and observation. The publication of many of the facts herein stated has been rendered necessary by the wild and fanciful speculations in which many Theosophists and students of mysticism have indulged, during the last few years, in their endeavour to, as they imagined, work out a complete system of thought from the few facts previously communicated to them.
It is needless to explain that this book is not the Secret Doctrine in its entirety, but a select number of fragments of its fundamental tenets, special attention being paid to some facts which have been seized upon by various writers, and distorted out of all resemblance to the truth.
But it is perhaps desirable to state unequivocally that the teachings, however fragmentary and incomplete, contained in these volumes, belong neither to the Hindu, the Zoroastrian, the Chaldean, nor the Egyptian religion, neither to Buddhism, Islam, Judaism nor Christianity exclusively. The Secret Doctrine is the essence of all these. Sprung from it in their origins, the various religious schemes are now made to merge back into their original element, out of which every mystery and dogma has grown, developed, and become materialised.
It is more than probable that the book will be regarded by a large section of the public as a romance of the wildest kind; for who has ever even heard of the book of Dzyan?
The writer, therefore, is fully prepared to take all the responsibility for what is contained in this work, and even to face the charge of having invented the whole of it. That it has many shortcomings she is fully aware; all that she claims for it is that, romantic as it may seem to many, its logical coherence and consistency entitle this new Genesis to rank, at any rate, on a level with the "working hypotheses" so freely accepted by modern science. Further, it claims consideration, not by reason of any appeal to dogmatic authority, but because it closely adheres to Nature, and follows the laws of uniformity and analogy.
The aim of this work may be thus stated: to show that Nature is not "a fortuitous concurrence of atoms," and to assign to man his rightful place in the scheme of the Universe; to rescue from degradation the archaic truths which are the basis of all religions; and to uncover, to some extent, the fundamental unity from which they all spring; finally, to show that the occult side of Nature has never been approached by the Science of modern civilization.
If this is in any degree accomplished, the writer is content. It is written in the service of humanity, and by humanity and the future generations it must be judged. Its author recognises no inferior court of appeal. Abuse she is accustomed to; calumny she is daily acquainted with; at slander she smiles in silent contempt.
De minimis non curat lex.
H.P.B.
London, October 1888.
Contents
Introductory
The need of such a Book
The Antiquity of Documents and MSS
What the Book is intended to do
VOLUME FIRST
COSMOGENESIS:
Proem
The Oldest MSS in the World and its Symbolism
The One Life, Active and Passive
The Secret Doctrine - Pantheism - Atheism
‘Space’ in all Religions and in Occultism
Seven Cosmic Elements - Seven Races of Mankind
The three Postulates of the Secret Doctrine
Description of the Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan
VOLUME I : PART I
COSMIC EVOLUTION:
Seven Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan
Stanza I - The Night of the Universe
Stanza II - The Idea of Differentiation
Stanza III - The Awakening of Kosmos
Stanza IV - The Septenary Hierarchies
Stanza V - Fohat: The Child of the Septenary Hierarchies
Stanza VI - Our World, Its Growth and Development
Stanza VI - Continued
Stanza VII - The Parents of Man on Earth
VOLUME I : PART II
THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOKISM IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER:
1. Symbolism and Ideographs
2. The mystery-language and its Keys
3. Primordial substance and Divine thought
4. Chaos - Theos - Kosmos
5. On the hidden Deity, its Symbols and Glyphs
6. The Mundane Egg
7. The Days and nights of Brahma
8. The Lotus, as a Universal Symbol
9. The Moon, Deus Lunus, Phoebe
10. Tree, Seprpent, and Crocodile Worship
11. Daemon Est Deus Inversus
12. The Theogony of the Creative Gods
13. The Seven Creations
14. The four Elements
15. On Kuan-Shih-Yin and Kuan-Yin
VOLUME I : PART III
ADDENDA
SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED:
1. Reasons for These Addenda
2. Modern Physicists are Playing at Blind Man’s Buff
3. "An Lumen Sit corpus An Nov"
4. Is Gravitation a law?
5. The Theories of Rotation in Science
6. The Mask of Science
7. An Attack on the Scientific Theory of Force
8. Life, Force, or Gravity?
9. The Solar Theory
10. The coming Force
11. On the Elements and Atoms
12. Ancient thought in Modern Dress
13. The Modern nebular Theory
14. Force - Modes of Motion or Intelligences?
15. Gods, Monads, and Atoms
16. Cyclic Evolution and Karma
17. The Zodiac and its Antiquity
18. Summary of The Mutual Position
Volume - II
VOLUME SECOND
Preliminary Notes
On the Archaic stanzas, and the Four Prehistoric continents
The Imperishable Sacred Land
The Hyperborean
Lemuria
Atlantis
The Tropics at the Pole
VOLUME II : PART I
ANTHROPOGENESIS:
Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan
Stanza I - Beginnings of Sentient Life
Two Antediluvian Astronomers
Stanza II - Nature Unaided Fails
The Chronology of the Brahmans
Stanza III - Attempts to Create Man
Stanza IV - Creation of the First Races
Stanza V - The Evolution of the Second Race
Stanza VI - The Evolution of the Sweat-Born
Stanza VII - From the Semi-Divine Down to the First Human Races
Stanza VIII - Evolution of the Animal Mammalians - The first Fall
Stanza IX - The Final Evolution of Man
Edens, Serpents, and Dragons
The "Sons of God" and the "Sacred Island"
Stanza X - The History of the Fourth Race
Archaic teachings in the Puranas and Genesis
A Panoramic View of the Early Races
Are Giants a Fiction?
Stanza X - Continued
The Races with the "Third Eye"
The Primeval Manus of Humanity
Stanza XI - The Civilization and Destruction of the Third and
Fourth races
Cyclopean Ruins and Colossal Stones as Witness to Giants
Stanza XII - The fifth Race and its Divine Instructors
Additional Fragments from a Commentary on the Verses of Stanza XII
Conclusion
VOLUME II : PART II
THE ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS
Esoteric Tenets Corroborated in Every Scripture
Adam-Adami
The "Holy of Holies": It’s Degradation
On The Myth of The "Fallen Angles", in its various Aspects
Is Pleroma Satan’s Lair?
Prometheus, The Titan
Enoichion-Henoch
The Symbolism of the Mystery-Names Iao and Jehovah
The Upanishads in Gnostic Literature
The Cross and The Pythagorean Decad
The Mysteries of The hedomad
VOLUME II : PART III
ADDENDA
SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED
Archaic, or Modern Anthropology?
The Ancestors Mankind is Offered by Science
The Fossil Relics of Man and the anthropoid Ape
Duration of The Geological Periods, Race Cycles, and the
Antiquity of Man
Organic Evolution and Creative Centers
Giants, Civilizations, and Submerged Continents Traced in History
Scientific and Geological Proofs of The Existence of several
Submerged Continents
VOLUME THIRD
General Index
Concordance
Bibliography
Appendix I:
Selected Bibliography of
Works on the Esoteric Philosophy
Appendix II:
Selected Bibliography of works
Closely Related to subjects Discussed or
Referred to in "The Secret Doctrine"
Appendix III:
Stanzas in the Wiirzburg Manuscript