Theos-Talk Archives (January 2003 Message tt00559)

TEACHINGS OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY
by A.P. Sinnett

[Including a short study on some of the teachings in H.P. Blavatsky's 
ISIS UNVEILED]

[This material by Sinnett was first published 1881 in THE OCCULT 
WORLD.] 

As affirmed more than once already, Occult Philosophy in various 
countries and through different periods has remained substantially 
the same. At different times and places very different mythological 
efflorescences have been thrown off for the service of the populace; 
but, underlying each popular religion, the religious knowledge of the 
initiated minority has been identical. Of course, the modern Western 
conception of what is right in such matters will be outraged by the 
mere idea of a religion which is kept as the property of the few, 
while a" false religion, " as modern phraseology would put it is 
served out to the common people. However, before this feeling is 
permitted to land us in too uncompromising disapproval of the ancient 
hiders of the truth, it may be well to determine how far it is due to 
any intelligent conviction that the common herd would be benefited by 
teaching, which must be in its nature too refined and subtle for 
popular comprehension, and how far the feeling referred to, may be 
due to an acquired habit of looking on religion as something which it 
is important to profess, irrespective of understanding it. No doubt, 
assuming that a man's eternal welfare depends upon his declaration, 
irrespective of comprehension, of the right faith, among all the 
faiths he might have picked out from the lucky bag of birth and 
destiny- then it would be the sovereign duty of persons conscious of 
possessing such a faith to proclaim it from the housetops. But, on 
the other hypothesis, that it cannot profit any man to mutter a 
formula of words without attaching sense to it, and that crude 
intelligences can only be approached by crude sketches of religious 
ideas, there is more to be advanced on behalf of the ancient policy 
of reserve than seems at first sight obvious. Certainly the relations 
of the populace and the initiates, look susceptible of modification 
in the European world of the present day. The populace, in the sense 
of the public at large, including the finest intellects of the age, 
are at least as well able as those of any special class to comprehend 
metaphysical ideas. These finer intellects dominate public thought, 
so that no great ideas can triumph among the nations of Europe 
without their aid, while their aid can only be secured in the open 
market of intellectual competition. Thus it ensues that the bare 
notion of an esoteric science superior to that offered in public to 
the scientific world, strikes the modern Western mind as an 
absurdity. With which very natural feeling it is only necessary at 
present here to fight, so far as to ask people not to be illogical in 
its application; that is to say, not to assume that because it would 
never occur to a modern European coming into possession of a new 
truth to make a secret of it, and disclose it only to a fraternity 
under pledges of reserve, therefore such an idea could never have 
occurred to an Egyptian priest or an intellectual giant of the 
civilization which overspread India, according to some not 
unreasonable hypotheses, before Egypt began to be a seat of learning 
and art. The secret society system was as natural, indeed, to the 
ancient man of science, as the public system is in our own country 
and time. Nor is the difference one of time and fashion merely. It 
hinges on to the great difference that is to be discerned in the 
essence of the pursuits in which learned men engage now, as compared 
with those they were concerned with in former ages. We have belonged 
to the material progress epoch, and the watchword of material 
progress has always been publicity. The initiates of ancient 
psychology belonged to the spiritual age, and the watchword of 
subjective development has always been secrecy. Whether in both cases 
the watchword is dictated by necessities of the situation is a 
question on which discussion might be possible ; but, at all events, 
these reflections are enough to show that it would be unwise to 
dogmatize too confidently on the character of the philosophy and the 
philosophers who could be content to hoard their wisdom and supply 
the crowd with a religion adapted rather to the understanding of its 
recipients than to those eternal verities. 

It is impossible now to form a conjecture as to the date or time at 
which occult philosophy began to take the shape in which we find it 
now. But though it may be reasonably guessed that, the last two or 
three thousand years have not passed over the devoted initiates who 
have held and transmitted it during that time, without their having 
contributed something towards its development, the proficiency of 
initiates belonging to the earliest periods with which history deals, 
appears to have been already so far advanced, and so nearly as 
wonderful as the proficiency of initiates in the present day, that we 
must assign a very great antiquity to the earliest beginnings of 
occult knowledge on this earth. Indeed the question cannot be raised 
without bringing us in contact with considerations that hint at 
absolutely startling conclusions in this respect. 

But, apart from specific archaeological speculations, it has been 
pointed out that " a philosophy so profound, a moral code so 
ennobling, and practical results so conclusive and so uniformly 
demonstrable, are not the growth of a generation, or even a single 
epoch. Fact must have been piled upon fact, deduction upon deduction, 
science have begotten science, and myriads of the brightest human 
intellects have reflected upon the laws of Nature, before this 
ancient doctrine had taken concrete shape. The proofs of this 
identity of fundamental doctrine in the old religions are found in 
the prevalence of a system of initiation; in the secret sacerdotal 
castes, who had the guardianship of mystical words of power, and a 
public display of a phenomenal control over natural forces indicating 
association with preter-human beings. Every approach to the mysteries 
of all these nations, was guarded with the same jealous care, and in 
all the penalty of death was inflicted upon all initiates of any 
degree who divulged the secrets entrusted to them." The book just 
quoted shows this to have been the case with the Eleusinian and 
Bacchic Mysteries among the Chaldean Magi and the Egyptian 
Hierophants. The Hindu book of Brahminical ceremonies, the "Agrushada 
Parikshai," contains the same law, which appears also to have been 
adopted by the Essenes, the Gnostics, and the Theurgic Neo-
Platonists. Freemasonry has copied the old formula, though its raison 
d'être has expired here with the expiration from among freemasons
of 
the occult philosophy on which their forms and ceremonies are shaped 
to a larger extent than they generally conceive. Evidences of the 
identity spoken of may be traced in the vows, formulas, rites, and 
doctrines of various ancient faiths, and it is affirmed by those whom 
I believe qualified to speak with authority as to the fact, " that 
not only is their memory still preserved in India; but also that the 
secret association is still alive, and as active as ever." 

As I have now, in support of the views just expressed, to make some 
quotations from Madame Blavatsky's great book, " Isis Unveiled," it 
is necessary to give certain explanations concerning the genesis of 
that work, for which the reader who has followed my narrative of 
occult experiences through the preceding pages, will be better 
prepared than he would have been previously. I have shown how, 
throughout the most ordinary incidents of her daily life, Madame 
Blavatsky is constantly in communication, by means of the system of 
psychological telegraphy that the initiates employ, with her 
superior " Brothers " in occultism. This state of the facts once 
realised, it will be easy to understand that in compiling such a work 
as " Isis," which embodies a complete explanation of 'all that can be 
told about occultism to the outer world, she would not be left 
exclusively to her own resources, The truth which Madame Blavatsky 
would be the last person in the world to wish disguised, is that the 
assistance she derived from the Brothers, by occult agency, 
throughout the composition of her book, was so abundant and 
continuous that she is not so much the author of " Isis" as one of a 
group of collaborateurs, by whom it was actually produced. I am given 
to understand that she set to work on " Isis" without knowing 
anything about the magnitude of the task she was undertaking, She 
began writing to dictation- the passages thus written not now 
standing first in the completed volumes-in compliance with the desire 
of her occult friends, and without knowing whether the composition on 
which she was engaged would turn out an article for a newspaper, or 
an essay for a magazine, or a work of larger dimensions. But on and 
on it grew. Before going very far, of course, she came to understand 
what she was about; and fairly launched on her task, she in turn 
contributed a good deal from her own natural brain. But the Brothers 
appear always to have 'been at work with her, not merely dictating 
through her brain as at first, but sometimes employing those methods 
of" precipitation " of which I have myself been favoured with some 
examples, and by means of which quantities of actual manuscript in 
other handwritings than her own were produced while she slept. In the 
morning she would sometimes get up and find as much as thirty slips 
added to the manuscript she had left on her table overnight. The 
book " Isis " is in fact as great a " phenomenon "-apart from the 
nature of its contents- as any of those I have described. 

The faults of the book, obvious to the general reader, will be thus 
explained, as well as the extraordinary value it possesses for those 
who may be anxious to explore as far as possible the mysteries of 
occultism. The deific powers which the Brothers enjoy cannot protect 
a literary work which is the joint production of several-even among 
their minds, from the confusion of arrangement to which such a mode 
of composition inevitably gives rise. And besides confusion of 
arrangement, the book exhibits a heterogeneous variety of different 
styles, which mars its dignity as a literary work, and must prove 
both irritating and puzzling to the ordinary reader. But for those 
who possess the key to this irregularity of form, it is an advantage 
rather than otherwise. It will enable an acute reader to account for 
some minor incongruities of statement occurring in different parts of 
the book. Beyond this it will enable him to recognise the voice, as 
it were, of the different authors as they take up the parable in 
turn. 

The book was written-as regards its physical production-at New York, 
where Madame Blavatsky was utterly unprovided with books of 
reference. It teems, however, with references to books of all sorts, 
including many of a very unusual character', and with quotations the 
exactitude of which may easily be verified at the great European 
libraries, as footnotes supply the number of the pages, from which 
the passages taken are quoted. 

I may now go on to collect some passages from " Isis, " the object of 
which is to show the unity of the esoteric philosophy underlying 
various ancient religions, and the peculiar value which attaches for 
students of that philosophy, to pure Buddhism, a system which, of all 
those presented to the world, appears to supply us with occult 
philosophy in its least adulterated shape. Of course, the reader will 
guard himself from running away with the idea that Buddhism, as 
explained by writers who are not occultists, can be accepted as an 
embodiment of their views. For example, one of the leading ideas of 
Buddhism, as interpreted by Western scholars, is that " Nirvana " 
amounts to annihilation. It is possible that Western scholars may be 
right in saying that the explanation of" Nirvana " supplied by 
exoteric Buddhism leads to this conclusion; but that, at all events, 
is not the occult doctrine. 

" Nirvana, " it is stated in " Isis, " " means the certitude of 
personal immortality in spirit, not in soul, which, as a finite 
emanation, must certainly disintegrate its particles, a compound of 
human sensations, passions, and yearning for some objective kind of 
existence, before the immortal spirit of the Ego is quite freed, and 
henceforth secure against transmigration in any form. And how can man 
reach that state so long as the 'Upadana' that state of longing for 
life, more life, does not disappear from the sentient being, from the 
Ahancara clothed, however, in a sublimated body? It is 
the 'Upadana" , or the intense desire that produces will, and it is 
will which develops force, and the latter generates matter, or an 
object having form. Thus the disembodied Ego, through this sole 
undying desire in him, unconsciously furnishes the conditions of his 
successive self-procreations in various forms, which depend on his 
mental, state, and 'Karma', the good or bad deeds of his preceding 
existence, commonly called' merit' and 'demerit.' " There is a world 
of suggestive metaphysical thought in this passage, which will serve 
at once to justify the view propounded just now as regards the reach 
of Buddhistic philosophy as viewed from the occult standpoint. 

The misunderstanding about the meaning of " Nirvana" is so general in 
the West, that before going on with explanations of the philosophy 
which this same misunderstanding has improperly discredited, it will 
be well to consider the following elucidation also :- 

"Annihilation means with the Buddhistical philosophy only a 
dispersion of matter, in whatever form or semblance of form it may 
be; for every thing that bears a shape was created, and thus must 
sooner or later perish, i.e., change that shape; therefore, as 
something temporary, though seeming to be permanent, it is but an 
illusion, 'Maya' ; for as eternity has neither beginning nor end, the 
more or less prolonged duration of some particular form passes, as it 
were, like an instantaneous flash of lightning. Before we have the 
time to realise that we have seen it, it has gone and passed away 
forever; hence even our astral bodies, pure ether; are but illusions 
of matter so long as they retain their terrestrial outline. The 
latter changes, says the Buddhist, according to the merits or demerit 
of the person during his lifetime, and this is metempsychosis. When 
the spiritual entity breaks loose for ever from every particle of 
matter, then only it enters upon the eternal and 
unchangeable 'Nirvana'. He exists in spirit, in nothing; as a form, a 
shape, a semblance, he is completely annihilated, and thus will die 
no more ; for spirit alone is no' Maya' but the only reality in an 
illusionary universe of ever-passing forms. ...To accuse Buddhistical 
philosophy of rejecting a Supreme Being-God, and the soul's 
immortality-of Atheism, in short- on the ground that 'Nirvana' means 
annihilation, and' Svabha vat' is not a person, but nothing, is 
simply absurd. The En (or Aym) of the Jewish Ensoph also means nihil, 
or nothing, that which is not (quo ad nos), but no one bas ever 
ventured to twit the Jews with atheism. In both cases the real 
meaning of the term nothing carries with it the idea that God is not 
a thing, not a concrete or visible being to which a name expressive 
of any object known to us on earth may be applied with propriety." 

Again: " 'Nirvana' is the world of cause in which all deceptive 
effects or illusions of our senses disappear. 'Nirvana' is the 
highest attainable sphere."The secret doctrines of the Magi of the 
pre-Vedic Buddhists, of the hierophants of the Egyptian Thoth or 
Hermes, were we find it laid down in " Isis"-identical from the 
beginning, an identity that applied equally to the secret doctrines 
of the adepts of whatever age or nationality, including the Chaldean 
Kabalists and the Jewish Nazars. " When we use the word Buddhists, we 
do not mean to imply by it either the exoteric Buddhism instituted by 
the followers of Gautama Buddha, or the modern Buddhistic religion, 
but the secret philosophy of Sakyamuni, which, in its essence, is 
certainly identical with the ancient wisdom-religion of the sanctuary-
the pre-vedic Brahmanisn. The schism of Zoroaster, as it is called, 
is a direct proof of it: for it was no schism, strictly speaking, but 
merely a partially public exposition of strictly monotheistic 
religious truths hitherto taught only in the sanctuaries, and that he 
had learned from the Brahmans. Zoroaster, the primeval institution of 
sun-worship, cannot be called the founder of the dualistic system, 
neither was he the first to teach the unity of God, for he taught but 
what he had learned himself from the Brahmans, And that Zarathustra, 
and his followers the Zoroastrians, had been settled in India before 
they immigrated into Persia, is also proved by Max Muller. ' That the 
Zoroastrians and their ancestors started from India,' he says. ' 
during the Vaidic period, can be proved as distinctly as that the 
inhabitants of Massilia started from Greece...........Many of the 
gods of the Zoroastrians come out......., as mere reflections and 
deflections of the gods of the Veda.' 

" If, now, we can prove, and we ban do so on the evidence of the' 
Kabala,' and the oldest traditions of the wisdom religion, the 
philosophy of the old sanctuaries, that all these gods, whether of 
the Zoroastrians or of the Veda, are but so many personated occult 
powers of Nature, the faithful servants of the adepts of secret 
wisdom -magic -we are on secure ground. 

" Thus; whether we say that Kabalism and Gnosticism proceeded from 
Masdeanism or Zoroastrianism, it is all the same, unless we meant the 
exoteric worship, which we do not. Likewise, and in this sense we may 
echo King, the author of the' Gnostics,' and several other 
archaeologists, and maintain that both the former proceeded from 
Buddhism, at once the simplest and most satisfying of philosophies, 
and which resulted in one of the purest religions in the 
world. , ..But whether among the Essenes or the Neo-Platonists, or 
again among the innumerable struggling sects born but to die, the 
same doctrine, identical in substance and spirit, if not always in 
form, are encountered. By Buddhism, therefore, we mean that religion 
signifying literally the doctrine of wisdom, and which by many ages 
antedates the metaphysical philosophy of Siddhartha Sakyamuni," 

Modern Christianity has, of course, diverged widely from its own 
original philosophy, but the identity of this with the original 
philosophy of all religions is maintained in " Isis " in the course 
of an interesting argument. 

" Luke, who was a physician, is designated in the Syriac texts as 
Asaia, the Essaian or Essene. Josephus and Philo Judreus have 
sufficiently described this sect to leave no doubt in our mind that 
the Nazarene Reformer, after having received his education in their 
dwellings in the desert, and being duly initiated in the mysteries, 
preferred the free and independent life of a wandering Nazaria, and 
so separated, or inazarenized, himself, from them, thus becoming a 
travelling Therapeute, or Nazaria, a healer ... In his discourses and 
sermons Jesus always spoke in parables, and used metaphors with his 
audience. This habit was again that of the Essenians and the 
Nazarenes; the Galileans, who dwelt in cities and villages, were 
never known to use such allegorical language. Indeed, some of his 
disciples, being Galileans as well as himself, felt even surprised to 
find him using with the people such a form of expression. ' Why 
speakest thou unto them in parables ? ' they often inquired'. Because 
it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven; 
but to them it is not given,' was the reply, which was that of an 
initiate. ' Therefore, I speak unto them in parables, because they 
seeing, see not, and hearing, they hear not, neither do they 
understand.' Moreover, we find Jesus expressing his thoughts ... in 
sentences which are purely Pythagorean, when, during the Sermon on 
the Mount, he says, 'Give ye not that which is sacred to the dogs, 
neither cast ye your pearls before swine; for the swine will tread 
them under their feet, and the dogs will turn and rend you.' 
Professor A. Wilder, the editor of Taylor's' Eleusillian Mysteries, , 
observes a' like disposition on the part of Jesus and Paul to 
classify their doctrines as esoteric and exoteric- the mysteries of 
the Kingdom of God for the apostles, and parables for the multitude'. 
We speak wisdom, says Paul, 'among them that are perfect,' or' 
initiated. ' In the Eleusinian and other mysteries the participants 
were always divided in two classes, the neophytes and the 
perfect. ...The narrative of the Apostle Paul in his Second Epistle 
to the Corinthians, has struck several scholars well versed in 'the 
descriptions of the mystical rites of the initiation given by some 
classes as all ending most undoubtedly to the final Epopteia: ' I 
know a certain man- whether in body or outside of body I know not; 
God knoweth- who was rapt into Paradise, and heard things ineffable 
which it is not lawful for a man to repeat.' These words have rarely, 
so far as we know, been regarded by commentators as an allusion 'to 
the beatific visions of an initiated seer; but the phraseology is 
unequivocal'. These things which it is not lawful to repeat, are 
hinted at in the same words, and the reason assigned for it is the 
same as that which we find repeatedly expressed by Plato, Proclus, 
Jamblichus, Herodotus, and other classics. ' We speak wisdom only 
among them that are perfect,' says Paul; the plain and undeniable 
translation of the sentence being: ' We speak of the profounder or 
final esoteric doctrines of the mysteries (which are denominated 
wisdom), only among them who alone initiated. So in relation to the 
man who was rapt into Paradise- and who was evidently Paul himself- 
the Christian word Paradise having replaced that of Elysium." 

The final purposes of occult philosophy is to show what Man was, is, 
and will be. " That which survives as an individuality," says' 
Isis,' " after the death of the body is the actual soul, which Plato, 
in the Timaeus and Gorgias calls the mortal soul; for, according to 
the Hermetic doctrine, it throws off the more material particles at 
every progressive change into a higher sphere. The astral spirit is a 
faithful duplicate of the body in a physical and spiritual sense. The 
Divine, the highest immortal spirit, can be neither punished nor 
rewarded. To maintain such a doctrine would be at the same time 
absurd and blasphemous; for it is not merely a flame lit at the 
central and inextinguishable fountain of light, but actually a 
portion of it and of identical essence. It assures immortality to the 
individual astral being in proportion to the willingness of the 
latter to receive it. So long as the double man- i.e., the man of 
flesh and spirit- keeps within the limits of the law of spiritual 
continuity; so long as the divine spark lingers in him, however faint]
y, he is on the road to an immortality in the future state. But those 
who resign themselves to a materialistic existence, shutting out the 
divine radiance shed by their spirit, at the beginning of their 
earthly pilgrimage, and stifling the warning voice of that faithful 
sentry the conscience, which serves as a focus for the light in the 
soul- such beings as these, having left behind conscience and spirit, 
and crossed the boundaries of matter, will, of necessity, have to 
follow its laws." 

Again. " The secret doctrine teaches that man, if he wins 
immortality, will remain for ever the trinity that he is in life, and 
will continue so throughout all the spheres. The astral] body, which 
in this life is covered by a gross physical envelope, becomes, when 
relieved of that covering by the process of corporeal death, in its 
turn the shell of another and more ethereal body. This begins 
developing from the moment of death, and becomes perfected when the 
astral body of the earthly form finally separates from it." 

The passages quoted, when read by the light of the explanations I 
have given, will enable the reader, if so inclined, to take up " 
Isis " in a comprehending spirit, and find his way to the rich veins 
of precious metal which are buried in its pages. But neither in " 
Isis " nor in any other book on occult philosophy which has been or 
seems likely to be written yet awhile, must anyone hope to obtain a 
cut-and-dried, straightforward, and perfectly clear account of the 
mysteries of birth, death, and the future. At first, in pursuing 
studies of this kind, one is irritated at the difficulty of getting 
at what the occultists really believe as regards the future state, 
the nature of the life to come, and its general mise en scène. The 
well known religions have very precise views on these subjects, 
further rendered practical by the assurance some of them give that 
qualified persons, commissioned by churches to perform the duty, can 
shunt departing souls on to the right or the wrong lines, in 
accordance with consideration received. Theories of that kind have at 
any rate the merit of simplicity and intelligibility, but they are 
not, perhaps, satisfactory to the mind as regards their details. 
After a very little investigation of the matter, the student of 
occult philosophy will realise that on that path of knowledge he will 
certainly meet with no conceptions likely to outrage his purest 
idealisation of God and the life to come. He will soon feel that the 
scheme of ideas he is exploring is lofty and dignified to the utmost 
limits that the human understanding can reach. But it will remain 
vague, and he will seek for explicit statements on this or that 
point, until by degrees he realises that the absolute truth about the 
origin and destinies of the human soul may be too subtle and 
intricate to be possibly expressible in straightforward language. 
Perfectly clear ideas may be attainable for the purified minds of 
advanced scholars in occultism, who, by entire devotion of every 
faculty to the pursuit and prolonged assimilation of such ideas, come 
at length to understand them with the aid of peculiar intellectual 
powers specially expanded for the purpose ; but it does not at all 
follow that with the best will in the world such persons must 
necessarily be able to draw up an occult creed which should bring the 
whole theory of the universe into the compass of a dozen lines. The 
study of occultism, even by men of the world, engaged in ordinary 
pursuits as well, may readily enlarge and purify the understanding, 
to the extent of arming the mind, so to speak, with tests that will 
detect absurdity in any erroneous religious hypotheses ; but the 
absolute structure of occult belief is something which, from its 
nature, can only be built up slowly in the mind of each intellectual 
architect. And I imagine that a very vivid perception of this on 
their part explains the reluctance of occultists even to attempt the 
straight- forward explanation of their doctrines. They know that 
really vital plants of knowledge, so to speak, must grow up from the 
germ in each man's mind, and cannot be transplanted into the strange 
soil of an untrained understanding in a complete state of mature 
growth. They are ready enough to supply seed, but every man must grow 
his own tree of knowledge for himself. As the adept himself is not 
made, but becomes so, -in a minor degree, the person who merely 
aspires to comprehend the adept and his views of things must develop 
such comprehension for himself, by thinking out rudimentary ideas to 
their legitimate conclusions. 

These considerations fit in with, and do something towards 
elucidating, the reserve of occultism, and they further suggest an 
explanation of what will at once seem puzzling to a reader of" Isis," 
who takes it up by the light of the present narrative. If great parts 
of the book, as I have asserted, are really the work of actual 
adepts, who know of their own knowledge what is the actual truth 
about many of the mysteries discussed, why have they not said plainly 
what they meant, instead of beating about the bush, and suggesting 
arguments derived from this or that ordinary source, from literary or 
historical evidence, from abstract speculation concerning the 
harmonies of Nature? The answer seems to be, firstly, that they could 
not well write, " We know that so and so is the fact," without being 
asked, " How do you know ?"-and it is manifestly impossible that they 
could reply to this question without going into details, that it 
would be " unlawful," as a Biblical writer would say, to disclose, or 
without proposing to guarantee their testimony by manifestations of 
powers which it would be obviously impracticable for them to keep 
always at hand for the satisfaction of each reader of the book in 
turn. Secondly, I imagine that, in accordance with the invariable 
principle of trying less to teach than to encourage spontaneous 
development, they have aimed in " Isis," rather at producing an 
effect on the reader's mind, than at shooting in a store of 
previously accumulated facts. They have shown that Theosophy, or 
Occult Philosophy, is no new candidate for the world's attention, but 
is really a restatement of principles which have been recognised from 
the very infancy of mankind. The historic sequence which establishes 
this view is distinctly traced through the successive evolution's of 
the philosophical schools, in a manner which it is impossible for me 
to attempt in a work of these dimensions, and the theory laid down is 
illustrated with abundant accounts of the experimental demonstrations 
of occult power ascribed to various thaumaturgists. The authors of " 
Isis," have expressly refrained from saying more than might 
conceivably be said by a writer who was not an adept, supposing him 
to have access to all the literature of the subject and an 
enlightened comprehension of its meaning. 

But once realise the real position of the authors or inspirers 
of "Isis," and the value of any argument on which you find them 
launched is enhanced enormously above the level of the relatively 
commonplace considerations advanced on its behalf. The adepts may not 
choose to bring forward other than exoteric evidence in favour of any 
particular thesis they wish to support, but if they wish to support 
it, that fact alone will be of enormous significance for any reader 
who, in indirect ways, has reached a comprehension of the authority 
with which they are entitled to speak. 

For more on Sinnett's OCCULT WORLD, see:

http://occultworld.net

-----------------

Daniel H. Caldwell
BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES.
http://hpb.cc