Theos-Talk Archives (December 2003 Message tt00297)

H P B ON TEACHING OCCULTISM (Notes)


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The difficulty of giving one the Wisdom Religion is dealt with by
H. P. B. in the Secret Doctrine as follows:


1. Opinion must be reserved because:
Complete explanation is for initiates only.

a. Only a fragmentary portion of the esoteric meaning given.

b. Only adepts can speak with authority.
- S. D., I, 188, 190. II, 55, 90.

c. The teachings are offered as a hypothesis.
- S D II, 469.


2. We must lose sight entirely of:

a. Personalities. Only adepts can speak with authority.

b. Dogmatic beliefs.

c. Special religions.
- S. D., I, 3, 4.


3. We must be free from prejudice.
- S. D., III, 1.

We must also:

a. Be free from conceit.

b. Free from selfishness.

c. Ready to accept demonstrated truth.

d. We must find the highest meaning possible.
- S. D., III, 487.

e. We must be also non-sectarian.
- S. D., III, 110.

f. We must remember the handicap of language.
- S. D., I, 197, 290, 293.

g. We must aim to become a disciple.
- S. D., I, 188. II, 246. III, 129.

h. We must eventually develop powers.
- S. D., I, 518. II, 85.

i. We must lead the life of Brotherhood.
- S. D., I, 190.

j. We must remember that H. P. B . makes no claim to
infallibility.
- S. D., II, 25 note, 273. I,293.

k. H. P. B. says:

"I speak with 'absolute certainty' only so far as my own personal
belief is concerned. Those who have not the same warrant for
their belief as I have would be very credulous and foolish to
accept it on blind faith...

What I do believe in is:

1. The unbroken oral tradition revealed by living divine men
during the infancy of mankind to the elect among men.

2. That it has reached us unaltered.

3. That the Masters are thoroughly versed in the science based on
such uninterrupted teaching."
- Lucifer, Vol. V, p. 157.


"The Secret Doctrine is no 'authority' per se; but being full of
quotations and texts from the Sacred Scriptures and philosophies
of almost every great religion and school, those who belong to
any of these are sure to find support for their arguments on some
page or another.

There are, however, Theosophists, and of the best and most
devoted, who do suffer from such weakness for authority."
- Lucifer, Vol. III, p. 157.


"The many-sided facets of the mystery language have led to the
adoption of widely varied dogmas and rites in the exotericism of
the Church rituals.

It is they, again, which are at the origin of most of the dogmas
of the Christian Church, e.g., the seven Sacraments, the Trinity,
the Resurrection; the seven capital Sins and the seven Virtues.
The seven keys to the mystery tongue, however, having always been
in the keeping of the highest among the initiated Hierophants of
Antiquity, it is only the partial use of a few out of the seven
which passed, through the treason of some early Church
Fathers---ex-initiates of the Temples---into the hands of the new
sect of the Nazarenes. Some of the early Popes were Initiates,
but the last fragments of their knowledge have now fallen into
the power of the Jesuits, who have turned them into a system of
sorcery."
Secret Doctrine 1, page 310-11



EGYPT'S MANY RELIGIONS.


It is maintained that INDIA (not in its present limits, but
including its ancient boundaries) is the only country in the
world which still has among her sons adepts, who have the
knowledge of all the seven sub-systems and the key to the entire
system. Since the fall of Memphis, Egypt began to lose those keys
one by one, and Chaldea had preserved only three in the days of
Berosus. As for the Hebrews, in all their writings they show no
more than a thorough knowledge of the astronomical, geometrical
and numerical systems of symbolizing all the human, and
especially the physiological functions. They never had the higher
keys.

But while supposing that the whole cycle of the universal mystery
language will not be mastered for whole centuries to come, even
that which has been hitherto discovered in the Bible by some
scholars is quite sufficient to demonstrate the claim --
mathematically. Judaism having availed itself of two keys out of
the seven, and these two keys having been now rediscovered, it
becomes no longer a matter of individual speculation and
hypothesis, least of all of "coincidence," but one of a correct
reading of the Bible texts, as anyone acquainted with arithmetic
reads and verifies an addition or total.* A few years longer and
this system will kill the dead letter of the Bible, as it will
that of all the other exoteric faiths, by showing the dogmas in
their real, naked meaning.

* All we have said in Isis is now found corroborated in the
"Egyptian Mystery; or The Source of Measures," by those readings
of the Bible with the numerical and geometrical keys thereto.
Secret Doctrine. 1, p. 318 :


[Notes by DTB]