Theos-Talk Archives (March 2004 Message tt00714)

March 30 2204

Dear Friends:

The following on ISIS UNVEILED may be of interest

No reader is expected to adopt any part of theosophical lore without
severe and cautious analysis. Theosophy demands caution in study and
careful research into the sources that have lead to its several
declarations as, for example, that it is a continuation of the ancient
wisdom of mankind -- of an incredible antiquity.

As an introduction to the lore and study of esotericism and occultism it
is without modern parallels.

Best wishes,

Dallas

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


1  

HOW ISIS UNVEILED WAS WRITTEN

H P B

SIR,--"R.P." attempts in the October number of our Magazine to prove
that I have taught in Isis Unveiled substantially the doctrine of
Visishtadwaita, to which view I take exception. I am quite aware of the
fact that Isis is far from being as complete a work as, with the same
materials, it might have been made by a better scholar; and that it
lacks symmetry, as a literary production, and perhaps here and there
accuracy. But I have some excuse for all that. It was my first book; it
was written in a language foreign to me--in which I had not been
accustomed to write; the language was even more unfamiliar to certain
Asiatic philosophers who rendered assistance; and, finally, Colonel
Olcott, who revised the manuscript and worked with me throughout, was
then--in the years 1875 and 1876--almost entirely ignorant of Aryan
Philosophy, and hence unable to detect and correct such errors as I
might so readily fall into when putting my thoughts into English. Still,
despite all this, I think "R.P.'s" criticism is faulty. 

If I erred in making too little distinction between an Impersonal God,
or Parabrahm, and a Personal God, I scarcely went to the length of
confounding the one with the other completely. The pages (vol. ii.
216-17; and 153; and pref. p. 2) that he relies upon, represent not my
own doctrine but the ideas of others. 

The first two are quotations from Manu, and show what an educated
Brahman and a Buddhist might answer to Prof. Max Müller's affirmation
that Moksha and Nirvana mean annihilation; while the third (vol. ii. p.
153) is a defense and explanation of the inner sense of the Bible, as
from a Christian mystic's standpoint. Of course this would resemble
Visishtadwaitism, which, like Christianity, ascribes personal attributes
to the Universal Principle. 

As for the reference to the Preface, it seems that even when read in the
dead-letter sense, the paragraph could only be said to reflect my
personal opinion and not the Esoteric Doctrine. …

And see, for proof, my remark about the "omnipotence of man's immortal
spirit"--which would be a logical absurdity upon any theory of egoistic
separation. My mistake was that throughout the whole work I
indifferently employed the words Parabrahm and God to express the same
idea: a venial sin surely, when one knows that the English language is
so poor that even at this moment I am using the Sanskrit word to express
one idea and the English one for the other! Whether it be orthodox
Adwaita or not, 

-- HPB

========================================
	
Here are some passages of importance: (DTB)



P. 264-5	I had sought and obtained through the Masters the full
assurance of the existence of a principle (not Personal God)--"a
boundless and fathomless ocean" of which my "soul" was a drop. 


P. 265	I made no difference between my Seventh Principle and
the Universal Spirit, or Parabrahm; nor did, or do I believe in an
individual, segregated spirit in me, as a something apart from the
whole. 

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


2

HPB wrote:	H P B Art II 264, in ISIS UNVEILED & the
VISHISTADWAITA.  


I maintain as an occultist, on the authority of the Secret Doctrine,
that though merged entirely into Parabrahm, man's spirit while not
individual per se, yet preserves its distinct individuality in
Paranirvana, owing to the accumulation in it of the aggregates, or
skandhas that have survived after each death, from the highest faculties
of the Manas. 

The most spiritual--i.e., the highest and divinest aspirations of every
personality follow Buddhi and the Seventh Principle into Devachan
(Swarga) after the death of each personality along the line of rebirths,
and become part and parcel of the Monad.

The personality fades out, disappearing before the occurrence of the
evolution of the new personality (rebirth) out of Devachan: but the
individuality of the spirit-soul [dear, dear, what can be made out of
this English!] is preserved to the end of the great cycle
(Maha-Manwantara) when each Ego enters Paranirvana, or is merged in
Parabrahm. 

To our talpatic, or mole-like, comprehension the human spirit is then
lost in the One Spirit, as the drop of water thrown into the sea can no
longer be traced out and recovered. But de facto it is not so in the
world of immaterial thought. 

This latter stands in relation to the human dynamic thought, as, say,
the visual power through the strongest conceivable microscope would to
the sight of a half-blind man: and yet even this is a most insufficient
simile--the difference is "inexpressible in terms of foot-pounds." 

That such Parabrahmic and Paranirvanic "spirits," or units, have and
must preserve their divine (not human) individualities, is shown in the
fact that, however long the "night of Brahma" or even the Universal
Pralaya (not the local Pralaya affecting some one group of worlds) yet,
when it ends, the same individual Divine Monad resumes its majestic path
of evolution, though on a higher, hundredfold perfected and more pure
chain of earths than before, and brings with it all the essence of
compound spiritualities from its previous countless rebirths. 

Spiral evolution, it must be remembered, is dual, and the path of
spirituality turns, corkscrew-like, within and around physical,
semi-physical, and supra-physical evolution. But I am being tempted into
details which had best be left for the full consideration which their
importance merits to my forthcoming work, the Secret Doctrine. 
       
H. P. BLAVATSKY		
Theosophist, January, 1886

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3


SOME HINTS HIDDEN IN ISIS UNVEILED


The danger of lifting the veil of ISIS lies not in the doctrines of
Unity, Reincarnation, and Karma, but in untaught mysteries which no
Theosophist is able to reveal. WQJ ART. Vol. II, p. 356


To dare, to know, to will, and remain silent was their constant rule;
to be beneficent, unselfish and unpretending, were, with them,
spontaneous impulses. ISIS, Vol. I, p.67 

	

In the study of HPB's first work: ISIS UNVEILED, one is at first struck
by the imperative nature of the declarations and definitions offered by
Her. Some of these, like the "Hidden Hints" that Mr. Judge found in THE
SECRET DOCTRINE (W Q. Judge ARTICLES, Vol. I, p. 599), are basic to an
understanding of Theosophy. ISIS was published in 1877.


Mr. Judge, started the PATH magazine in 1886. We may see that his
writings there, reflect the deep study that he had made of ISIS
UNVEILED, during the intervening nine years, and the careful note that
he took of the wisdom recorded there. What he wrote and taught in his
articles will be found to be in accord with what HPB taught, not only in
ISIS, but in her articles appearing in THE THEOSOPHIST (started in l879,
in Bombay, India), and later in THE SECRET DOCTRINE (issued in 1888). 

Let us start with the first volume of ISIS, and among the many important
statements made, we will find:--


Intimate acquaintance with Eastern Adepts is claimed by the author (p.
vi) who identifies them as "the sages of the Orient."  


The "Secret Doctrine" of the ancient universal religion is to be traced
not only in the Hermetic philosophy, but, in "the Platonic philosophy,
the most elaborate compend of the abstruse systems of old India,"(p.
vii) which "the great minds of the world are still occupied with."
"Plato taught justice," she wrote (p. xi) "as subsisting in the soul of
its possessor, and his greatest good..."she adds:--"his metaphysics are
based on a solid foundation, and not on ideal conceptions, for the old
Grecian sage there was a single object of attainment: real knowledge."
He taught that the use of insight, or intuition afforded a criterion for
ascertaining truth (p. xiii), and based all his doctrines upon the
presence of the Supreme Mind.


Mind (nous) is called the "first principle of all principles," the
Supreme Idea. on which all others are grounded...the efficient Cause of
all order and harmony which pervade the universe--the "Supreme Good," or
"the God over all." (p. xii) 


The rational soul of man is held to have a homogeneous nature kindred to
the Divinity, and therefore capable of beholding the eternal realities.



"The love of truth is inherently the love of good"...purifying the soul,
thus raising man to a participation and communion with Divinity,
becoming just and holy with wisdom. (p. xiii)


Reincarnation, as preexistence of the spirit or nous, is mentioned (p.
xiii-xiv), and "by rightly using the memories from past lives, and
constantly perfecting himself," man would be able to make himself
perfect.


"Unity in multiplicity" -- the One evolving the many, and pervading the
many is a Pythagorean axiom to which our attention is next drawn. It is
the doctrine of emanation. The Pythagorean mystic Decad (1+2+3+4=10)
expresses this. "The universe is the combination of a thousand
elements, and yet the expression of a single spirit--a chaos to the
sense, a cosmos to the reason." (p. xvi)


AEther is declared to be an "element," (p. xvii) along with earth, air,
fire and water. The five elements correspond to the five regular
figures in Geometry.


The inner, Higher SELF of man is hinted at: "that image of blinding
light that he sees reflected in the concave mirror of his own soul is
not God, but only His reflection...it is the light of his own Spirit
that the man sees. The clearer the mirror, the brighter will be the
divine image."	(p. xviii)


Nirvana, the 'final goal' of the Buddhists is "preceded by numberless
spiritual transformations...during which the entity loses not for a
second the sense of its own individuality, and which may last for
millions of ages before the final No-Thing is reached." The concept of
reincarnation or metempsychoses is used to explain this. (p. xviii)


Every star is an independent planet, having a soul of its own; every
atom of matter is also impregnated with the divine influx of the soul of
the world. They breathe and live, feel and suffer, as well as enjoy
life in their way (p. xxi). An intelligence is innate in each of them.


Analogy and Correspondence were found by the ancients to pervade Nature.
We can also use them in the solution of the greatest mysteries. (p.
xxii)


The ASTRAL LIGHT is the same as the sidereal light of Paracelsus.
Physically it is the ether of science. Occultly it is the anima mundi,
the workshop of Nature. It permeates the entire cosmos. It is the
medium for never ceasing communications between beings and the stars
which surround the earth as a shell does the egg, all beings are
permeated with its and their influence. (p. xxv-xxvi)


Everything is double in nature. The human body, as well as the earth,
planets, and stars, are subject to the double law of attraction and
repulsion. They are saturated with a double magnetism, the influx of
the astral light. The secret of the mesmerizer is the polarization of
these forces. Equilibrium is the resultant of these two opposing forces
eternally reacting upon one another.
( P. xxvi)


Akasa, the "invisible Sky" of the Vedas, is the source of life,
reservoir of all energy. It is all-directing and omnipotent; occult
electricity, or, alkahest. It is the spiritual counterpart of the
astral light. (p. xxvii)


Elemental Spirits, are creatures evolved in the four kingdoms of earth,
air, fire and water, and may be termed forces of nature. They are the
servile agents of general law, never become men, and are "the principal
agents of disembodied but never visible spirits at seances, and the
producers of all the phenomena except the subjective." (p. xxix-xxx)


Elementary Spirits are the "disembodied souls of the depraved." They
are the 'astral souls' of purely materialistic persons of gross nature.
(p. xxx)


Evolution is said with the ancients to begin with pure sprit, which
descending, assumed at last a visible form, becoming matter. Agni , god
of fire, or the Spiritual Ether, is the substance of the divine essence
of the Invisible God and is said to be present in every atom. (p.
xxxi-xxxii)


Emanation is the concept that nothing can be evolved unless it was
first involved, indicating that life is from a spiritual potency above
the whole. (p. xxxii)


Hierophant, the Chief of the Adepts, known in India as the Brahma-atma
and in Tibet as the Dalai-Lama. The initiator of neophytes in arcane
knowledge, the Mysteries--the mysterious knowledge, which "has yet a few
real votaries on earth." (I p. xxxiii ; II 98-107)


Magician, from Magh, Mah, Maha (Sanskrit) -- great. The synonym of the
honorable and reverent. A possessor of wisdom, well versed in the
secret, esoteric knowledge (p. xxxiv). Magic is also of two kinds:
theurgic or benevolent magic, and goetic, or dark and evil necromancy
(p. xliii)


Mantra, the "Ineffable Name", Vach (Sanskrit), or mystic speech. Some
mantras, when pronounced correctly produce "an instantaneous and
wonderful effect." (p. xxxvi) Yajna, (sacrificial action) is said to be
eternal as 
it proceeded from the Supreme One, the Brahma-Prajapati. It is one of
the forms of Akasa and the mystic word calling it into existence is
pronounced mentally by the initiate. It is the Lost Word receiving
impulse through will power. (p. xliv)


Nabia, seership. Prophecy, a spiritual power; there is a distinction
between the seer, who is passive, and the magician who is active. (p.
xxxvii)


Pitris is a name given to the 'ancestors', the spirits of the human
races. In one sense, then, we are those same spirits, now incarnated in
bodies of matter. (p. xxxviii)


Spirit is the nous of Plato, the immortal, immaterial, and purely
divine principle in man; whereas, Soul or nephesh, is the vital
principle, or the breath of life. (p. xli)



=================================


-----Original Message-----

From: walkins
Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2004 1:11 AM
To: 
Subject: Re: garbled and distorted...

I'm beginning Isis Unveiled with no expectation that it will be pure, 
undistorted or free of engarblement. Not even close. But apart from 
her and Steiner, there don't seem to be any serious clairvoyant 
options out there. So it goes, somebody said. Perhaps you consider 
the writings with Blavatsky's name on them to be the reliable compass 
by which to judge which theosophy, which occultism is real. Fine with 
me, I'm not denigrating that, it just alters the starting point from 
which to address the question of, what harm does the distortion 
of "occult" truth do? How is it different from our more ordinary  
falsifications ("You'll see it when you believe it" going on all day 
long) and what are the real consequences of it? For instance, there's 
the idea that false beliefs in the field of occultism actually 
obscure the reality of the situation, making it more difficult to 
see what's going on. I'm inclined to swallow that one; maybe it's a 
hideous lie. Maybe we should all just say "maybe" a lot, until the 
psychospiritual weather clears up.