Theos-Talk Archives (April 1998 Message tt00141)

FOOD FOR THOUGHT, Part III

An ounce of gold is worth a ton of dust. . . .

H.P. Blavatsky writes in THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY:

". . . While two-thirds of civilized society ridicule the
mere notion that there is anything in Theosophy, Occultism,
Spiritualism, or in the Kabala, the other third is composed
of the most heterogeneous and opposite elements. Some
believe in the mystical, and even in the supernatural (!),
but each believes in his own way. Others will rush
single-handed into the study of the Kabala, Psychism, Mesmerism,
Spiritualism, or some form or another of Mysticism. Result:
no two men think alike, no two are agreed upon any
fundamental occult principles, though many are those who
claim for themselves the ultima thule of knowledge, and would
make outsiders believe that they are full-blown adepts. Not
only is there no scientific and accurate knowledge of Occultism
accessible in the West -- not even of true astrology, the
only branch of Occultism which, in its exoteric teachings,
has definite laws and a definite system -- but no one has
any idea of what real Occultism means. Some limit ancient
wisdom to the Kabala and the Jewish Zohar, which each
interprets in his own way according to the dead-letter of
the Rabbinical methods. Others regard Swedenborg or Boehme
as the ultimate expression of the highest wisdom; while
others again see in mesmerism the great secret of ancient
magic. One and all of those who put their theory into practice
are rapidly drifting, through ignorance, into black magic.
Happy are those who escape from it, as they
have neither test nor criterion by which they can
distinguish between the true and the false. . . . . . A
portion of the true [esoteric] sciences is better
than a mass of undigested and misunderstood learning.
An ounce of gold is worth a ton of dust. . . ."