




                           The Secret Doctrine

            The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy

                                    By

                        Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

                        Author of "Isis Unveiled."

                        Third and Revised Edition.

                        SATYAT NASTI 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. It is, however, with some hesitation that I
have included these Sections in the _Secret Doctrine_. Together with some
most suggestive thought, they contain very numerous errors of fact, and
many statements based on exoteric writings, not on esoteric knowledge.
They were given into my hands to publish, as part of the Third Volume of
the _Secret Doctrine_, and I therefore do not feel justified in coming
between the author and the public, either by altering the statements, to
make them consistent with fact, or by suppressing the Sections. She says
she is acting entirely on her own authority, and it will be obvious to any
instructed reader that she makes--possibly deliberately--many statements so
confused that they are mere blinds, and other statements--probably
inadvertently--that are nothing more than the exoteric misunderstandings of
esoteric truths. The reader must here, as everywhere, use his own
judgment, but feeling bound to publish these Sections, I cannot let them
go to the public without a warning that much in them is certainly
erroneous. Doubtless, had the author herself issued this book, she would
have entirely re-written the whole of this division; as it was, it seemed
best to give all she had said in the different copies, and to leave it in
its rather unfinished state, for students will best like to have what she
said as she said it, even though they may have to study it more closely
than would have been the case had she remained to finish her work.

The quotations made have been as far as possible found, and correct
references given; in this most laborious work a whole band of earnest and
painstaking students, under the guidance of Mrs. Cooper-Oakley, have been
my willing assistants. Without their aid it would not have been possible
to give the references, as often a whole book had to be searched through,
in order to find a paragraph of a few lines.

This volume completes the papers left by H. P. B., with the exception of a
few scattered articles that yet remain and that will be published in her
own magazine _Lucifer_. Her pupils are well aware that few will be found
in the present generation to do justice to the occult knowledge of H. P.
B. and to her magnificent sweep of thought, but as she can wait to future
generations for the justification of her greatness as a teacher, so can
her pupils afford to wait for the justification of their trust.

ANNIE BESANT.





INTRODUCTORY.


"Power belongs to him who knows;" this is a very old axiom. Knowledge--the
first step to which is the power of comprehending the truth, of discerning
the real from the false--is for those only who, having freed themselves
from every prejudice and conquered their human conceit and selfishness,
are ready to accept every and any truth, once it is demonstrated to them.
Of such there are very few. The majority judge of a work according to the
respective prejudices of its critics, who are guided in their turn by the
popularity or unpopularity of the author, rather