Theos-Talk Archives (January 1996 Message tl00031)

SDB2.TXT



If one turns to the ancient literature of the Semitic religions,
to the Chaldean Scriptures, the elder sister and instructress,
if not the fountain-head of the Mosaic Bible, the basis and
starting-point of Christianity, what do the scholars find? To
perpetuate the memory of the ancient religions of Babylon; to
record the vast cycle of astronomical observations of the
Chaldean Magi; to justify the tradition of their splendid and
eminently occult literature, what now remains? - only a few
fragments, _said to be_ by Berosus.

These, however, are almost valueless, even as a clue to the
character of what has disappeared. For they passed through the
hands of his Reverence the Bishop of Caesarea - that
self-constituted censor and editor of the sacred records of
other men's religions - and they doubtless bear to this day the
mark of his eminently veracious and trustworthy hand. For what
is the history of this treatise on the once grand religion of
Babylon?

Written in Greek by Berosus, a priest of the temple of Belus,
for Alexander the Great, from the astronomical and chronological
records preserved by the priests of that temple, and covering a
period of 200,000 years, it is now lost. In the first century
b.c. Alexander Polyhistor made a series of extracts from it -
_also lost._ Eusebius used these extracts in writing his
_Chronicon_ (270-340 A.D.). The points of resemblance- almost of
identity - between the Jewish and the Chaldean Scriptures, -
{Found out and proven only _now,_ through the discoveries made
by George Smith (_vide_ his "Chaldean account of Genesis"), and
which, thanks to this Armenian forger, have misled all the
_civilized nations_ for over 1,500 years into accepting Jewish
derivations _for direct Divine Revelation!_} - made the latter
most dangerous to Eusebius, in his _role_ of defender and
champion of the new faith which had adopted the Jewish
Scriptures, and with them an absurd chronology. It is pretty
certain that Eusebius did not spare the Egyptian Synchronistic
tables of Manetho - so much so that Bunsen - {Bunson's _Egypt's
Place in History,_ vol. i. p. 200.} - charges him with
mutilating history most unscrupulously. And Socrates, a
historian of the fifth century, and Syncellus, vice-patriarch of
Constantinople (eighth century), both denounce him as the most
daring and desperate forger.

Is it likely, then, that he dealt more tenderly with the
Chaldean records, which were already menacing the new religion,
so rashly accepted?

So that, with the exception of these more than doubtful
fragments, the entire Chaldean sacred literature has disappeared
from the eyes of the profane as completely as the lost Atlantis.
A few facts that were contained in the Berosian History are
given in Part II. of Vol. II., and may throw a great light on
the true origin of the Fallen Angels, personified by Bel and the
Dragon.

Turning now to the oldest Aryan literature, the Rig-Veda, the
student will find, following strictly in this the data furnished
by the said Orientalists themselves, that, although the Rig-Veda
contains only "10,580 verses, or 1,028 hymns," in spite of the
Brahmanas and the mass of glosses and commentaries, it is not
understood correctly to this day. Why is this so? Evidently
because the Brahmanas, "the scholastic and oldest treatises on
the primitive hymns," _themselves require a key,_ which the
Orientalists have failed to secure.

What do the scholars say of Buddhist literature? Have they got
it in its completeness? Assuredly not. Notwithstanding the 325
volumes of the _Kanjur_ and the _Tanjur_ of the Northern
Buddhists, each volume we are told, "weighing from four to five
pounds," nothing, in truth, is known of Lamaism. Yet, the sacred
canon of the Southern Church is said to contain 29,368,000
letters in the Saddharma alankara, - {Spence Hardy, _The Legends
and Theories of the Buddhists,_ p. 66.} or, exclusive of
treatises and commentaries, "five or six times the amount of the
matter contained in the Bible," the latter, in the words of
Professor Max Muller, rejoicing only in 3,567,180 letters.
Notwithstanding, then, these "325 volumes" (_in reality_ there
are 333, _Kanjur_ comprising 108, and _Tanjur_ 225 volumes),
"the translators, instead of supplying us with correct versions,
have interwoven them _with their own commentaries,_ for the
purpose of justifying the dogmas of their several schools." -
{_Buddhism in Tibet,_ p. 78.} Moreover, "according to a
tradition preserved by the Buddhist schools, both of the South
and of the North, the sacred Buddhist Canon comprised originally
80,000 or 84,000 tracts, _but most of them were lost,_ so that
there remained but 6,000," the professor tells his audiences.
"Lost" as usual for Europeans. But who can be quite sure that
they are likewise lost for Buddhists and Brahmins?

Considering the sacredness for the Buddhists of every line
written upon Buddha or his "Good Law," the loss of nearly 76,000
_tracts_ does seem miraculous. Had it been _vice versa,_ every
one acquainted with the natural course of events would subscribe
to the statement that, of these 76,000, five or six thousand
treatises _might have been_ destroyed during the persecutions
in, and emigrations from, India. But as it is well ascertained
that Buddhist Arhats began their religious exodus, for the
purpose of propagating the new faith beyond Kashmir and the
Himalayas, as early as the year 300 before our era, - {Lassen,
("Ind. Althersumkunde" Vol. II, p. 1,072) shows a Buddhist
monastery erected in the Kailas range in 137 B.C.; and General
Cunningham, earlier than that.} and reached China in the year 61
A.D. - {Reverend T. Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism._} when Kashyapa,
at the invitation of the Emperor Ming-ti, went there to acquaint
the "Son of Heaven" with the tenets of Buddhism, it does seem
strange to hear the Orientalists speaking of such a loss as
though it were really possible. They do not seem to allow for
one moment the possibility that the texts may be _lost_ only for
West and _for themselves;_ or, that the Asiatic people should
have the unparalleled boldness to keep their most sacred records
out of the reach of foreigners, thus refusing to deliver them to
the profanation and misuse of races even so "vastly superior" to
themselves.

Owing to the expressed regrets and numerous confessions of
almost every one of the Orientalists (See Max Muller's
_Lectures_ for example) the public may feel sufficiently sure
(a) that the students of ancient religions have indeed very few
data upon which to build such final conclusions as they
generally do about the old religions, and (b) that such lack of
data does not prevent them in the least from dogmatising. One
would imagine that, thanks to the numerous records of the
Egyptian theogony and mysteries preserved in the classics, and
in a number of ancient writers, the rites and dogmas of
Pharaonic Egypt ought to be well understood at least; better, at
any rate, than the too abstruse philosophies and Pantheism of
India, of whose religion and language Europe had hardly any idea
before the beginning of the present century. Along the Nile and
on the face of the whole country, there stand to this hour,
exhumed yearly and daily, fresh relics which eloquently tell
their own history. Still it is not so. The learned Oxford
philologist himself confesses the truth by saying that

"Though we see still standing the Pyramids, and the ruins of
temples and labyrinths, their walls covered with hieroglyphic
inscriptions, and with the strange pictures of gods and
goddesses.  On rolls of papyrus, which seem to defy the ravages
of time, we have even fragments of what may be called the sacred
books of the Egyptians; yet, though much has been deciphered in
the ancient records of that mysterious race, the main-spring of
the religion of Egypt and the original intention of its
ceremonial worship _are_ far from being fully disclosed to us."
- {So little acquainted are our greatest Egyptologists with the
funerary rites of the Egyptians and the outward marks of the
difference of sexes made on the mummies, that it has led to the
most ludicrous mistakes. Only a year or two since, one of that
kind was discovered at Boulaq, Cairo. The mummy of what had been
considered the wife of an unimportant Pharaoh, has turned out,
thanks to an inscription found on an amulet hung on his neck, to
be that of Sesostris - the greatest King of Egypt!}

Here again the mysterious hieroglyphic documents remain, but the
keys by which alone they become intelligible have disappeared.

Nevertheless, having found that "there is a natural connection
between language and religion"; and, secondly, that there was a
_common_ Aryan religion before the separation of the Aryan race;
a _common_ Semitic religion before the separation of the Semitic
race; and a _common_ Turanian religion before the separation of
the Chinese and the other tribes belonging to the Turanian
class; having, in fact, only discovered "three ancient centers
of religion" and "three centers of language," and though as
entirely ignorant of those primitive religions and languages, as
of their origin, the professor does not hesitate to declare
"that a truly _historical basis_ for a scientific treatment of
those principal religions of the world has been gained!"

A "scientific treatment" of a subject is no guarantee for its
"historical basis"; and with such scarcity of data on hand, no
philologist, even among the most eminent, is justified in giving
out his own conclusions for _historical_ facts. No doubt, the
eminent Orientalist has proved thoroughly to the world's
satisfaction, that according to Grimm's law of phonetic rules,
Odin and Buddha are two different personages, quite distinct
from each other, and he has shown it _scientifically._ When,
however he takes the opportunity of saying in the same breath
that Odin "was worshipped as the supreme deity _during a period
long anterior to the age of the Veda_ and of Homer" (_Compar.
Theol.,- p. 318), he has not the slightest "_historical_ basis"
for it. He makes _history_ and _fact_ subservient to his own
conclusions, which may be very "scientific," in the sight of
Oriental scholars, but yet very wide of the mark of actual
truth. The conflicting views on the subject of chronology, in
the case of the Vedas, of the various eminent philologists and
Orientalists, from Martin Haug down to Mr. Max Muller himself,
are an evident proof that the statement has no _historical_
basis to stand upon, "internal evidence" being very often a
Jack-o'-lantern, instead of a safe beacon to follow. Nor has the
Science of modern Comparative Mythology any better proof to
show, that those learned writers, who have insisted for the last
century or so that there must have been "fragments of a primeval
revelation, granted to the ancestors of the whole race of
mankind - preserved in the temples of Greece and Italy," were
entirely wrong. For this is what all the Eastern Initiates and
Pundits have been proclaiming to the world from time to time.
While a prominent Cinghalese priest assured the writer that it
was well known that the most important Buddhist tracts belonging
to the sacred canon were stored away in _countries and places
inaccessible to the European Pundits,_ the late Swami Dayanand
Sarasvati, the greatest Sanskritist of his day in India, assured
some members of the Theosophical Society of the same fact with
regard to ancient Brahmanical works. When told that Professor
Max Muller had declared to the audiences of his "Lectures" that
the theory - "that _there was a primeval preternatural
revelation_ granted to the fathers of the human race, finds but
few supporters at present," - the holy and learned man laughed.
His answer was suggestive.

"If Mr. _Moksh Mooller,_ as he pronounced the name, were a
Brahmin, and came with me, I might take him to a _gupta_ cave (a
secret crypt) near Okhee Math, in the Himalayas, where he would
soon find out that what crossed the _Kalapani_ (the black waters
of the ocean) from India to Europe were only the _bits of
rejected copies of some passages from our sacred books.  There
_was_ a "primeval revelation," and it still exists; nor will it
ever be lost to the world, but will reappear; though the
Mlechchhas will of course have to wait."

Questioned further on this point, he would say no more. This was
at Meerut, in 1880.

No doubt the mystification played, in the last century at
Calcutta, by the Brahmins upon Colonel Wilford and Sir William
Jones was a cruel one. But it had been well deserved, and no one
was more to be blamed in that affair than the Missionaries and
Colonel Wilford themselves. The former, on the testimony of Sir
William Jones himself (see Asiat. Res., Vol. i., p. 272), were
silly enough to maintain that "the Hindus were even now almost
Christians, because their Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesa were no
other than the Christian trinity." - {See Max Muller's
"Introduction to the Science of Religion." Lecture On _False
Analogies in comparative Theology,_ pp. 288 and 296 et seq. This
relates to the clever forgery (on leaves inserted in old Puranic
MSS.), in correct and archaic Sanskrit, of all that the Pundits
of Col. Wilford had heard from him about Adam and Abraham, Noah
and his three sons, etc., etc.} - It was a good lesson. It made
the Oriental scholars doubly cautious; but perchance it has also
made some of them too shy, and caused, in its reaction, the
pendulum of foregone conclusions to swing too much the other
way. For "that first supply on the Brahmanical market," made for
Colonel Wilford, has now created an evident necessity and desire
in the Orientalists to declare nearly every archaic Sanskrit
manuscript so modern as to give to the missionaries full
justification for availing themselves of the opportunity. That
they do so and to the full extent of their mental powers, is
shown by the absurd attempts of late to prove that the whole
Puranic story about Chrishna was _plagiarized by the Brahmins
from the Bible!_ But the facts cited by the Oxford Professor in
his Lectures on the "_Science of Religion,_" concerning the now
famous interpolations, for the benefit, and later on to the
sorrow, of Col. Wilford, do not at all interfere with the
conclusions to which one who studies the Secret Doctrine must
unavoidably come. For, if the results show that neither the
_New_ nor even the _Old_ Testament borrowed anything from the
more ancient religion of the Brahmans and Buddhists, it does not
follow that the Jews have not borrowed all they knew from the
Chaldean records, the latter being mutilated later on by
Eusebius. As to the Chaldeans, they assuredly got their
primitive learning from the Brahmans, for Rawlinson shows an
undeniably Vedic influence in the early mythology of Babylon;
and Col. Vans Kennedy has long since justly declared that
Babylonia was, from her origin, the seat of Sanskrit and Brahman
learning. But all such proofs must lose their value, in the
presence of the latest theory worked out by Prof. Max Muller.
What it is everyone knows. The code of phonetic laws has now
become a universal solvent for every identification and
"connection" between the gods of many nations. Thus, though the
Mother of Mercury (Budha, Thot-Hermes, etc.), was Maia, the
mother of Buddha (Gautama), also Maya, and the mother of Jesus,
likewise Maya (illusion, for Mary is _Mare,_ the Sea, the great
illusion symbolically) - yet these three characters have no
connection, nor can they have any, since Bopp has "laid down his
code of phonetic laws."

In their efforts to collect together the many skeins of
unwritten history, it is a bold step for our Orientalists to
take, to deny, _a priori,_ everything that does not dovetail
with their special conclusions. Thus, while new discoveries are
daily made of great arts and sciences having existed far back in
the night of time, even the knowledge of writing is refused to
some of the most ancient nations, and they are credited with
barbarism instead of culture. Yet the traces of an immense
civilization, even in Central Asia, are still to be found. This
civilization is undeniably _prehistoric._ And how can there be
civilization without a literature, in some form, without annals
or chronicles?  Common sense alone ought to supplement the
broken links in the history of departed nations. The gigantic,
unbroken wall of the mountains that hem in the whole table-land
of Tibet, from the upper course of the river Khuan-Khe down to
the Kara-Korum hills, witnessed a civilization during
millenniums of years, and would have strange secrets to tell
mankind. The Eastern and Central portions of those regions - the
Nan-Schayn and the Altyne-taga were once upon a time covered
with cities that could well vie with Babylon. A whole geological
period has swept over the land, since those cities breathed
their last, as the mounds of shifting sand, and the sterile and
now dead soil of the immense central plains of the basin of
Tarim testify. The borderlands alone are superficially known to
the traveller. Within those table-lands of sand there is water,
and fresh oases are found blooming there, wherein no European
foot has ever yet ventured, or trodden the now treacherous soil.
Among these verdant oases there are some which are entirely
inaccessible even to the native profane traveller. Hurricanes
may "tear up the sands and sweep whole plains away," they are
powerless to destroy that which is beyond their reach. Built
deep in the bowels of the earth, the subterranean stores are
secure; and as their entrances are concealed in such oases,
there is little fear that anyone should discover them, even
should several armies invade the sandy wastes where

"Not a pool, not a bush, not a house is seen, And the
mountain-range forms a rugged screen Round the parch'd flats of
the dry, dry desert."

But there is no need to send the reader across the desert, when
the same proofs of ancient civilization are found even in
comparatively populated regions of the same country. The oasis
of Tchertchen, for instance, situated about 4,000 feet above the
level of the river Tchertchen-D'arya, is surrounded with the
ruins of archaic towns and cities in every direction. There,
some 3,000 human beings represent the relics of about a hundred
extinct nations and races - the very names of which are now
unknown to our ethnologists. An anthropologist would feel more
than embarrassed to class, divide and subdivide them; the more
so, as the respective descendants of all these _antediluvian_
races and tribes know as little of their own forefathers
themselves, as if they had fallen from the moon. When questioned
about their origin, they reply that they know not whence their
fathers had come, but had heard that their _first_ (or earliest)
men were ruled by the great genii of these deserts. This may be
put down to ignorance and superstition, yet in view of the
teachings of the Secret Doctrine, the answer may be based upon
primeval tradition. Alone, the tribe of Khoorassan claims to
have come from what is now known as Afghanistan, long before the
days of Alexander, and brings legendary lore to that effect as
corroboration. The Russian traveller, Colonel (now General)
Prjevalsky, found quite close to the oasis of Tchertchen, the
ruins of two enormous cities, the oldest of which was, according
to local tradition, ruined 3,000 years ago by a hero and giant;
and the other by the Mongolians in the tenth century of our era.

"The emplacement of the two cities is now covered, owing to
shifting sands and the desert wind, with strange and
heterogeneous relics; with broken china and kitchen utensils and
human bones.  The natives often find copper and gold coins,
melted silver, ingots, diamonds, and turquoises, and what is the
most remarkable - broken glass ... Coffins of some undecaying
wood, or material, also, within which beautifully preserved
embalmed bodies are found. - The male mummies are all extremely
tall powerfully built men with long waving hair - A vault was
found with twelve dead men _sitting_ in it. Another time, in a
separate coffin, a young girl was discovered by us. Her eyes
were closed with golden discs, and the jaws held firm by a
golden circlet running from under the chin across the top of the
head. Clad in a narrow woollen garment, her bosom was covered
with golden stars, the feet being left naked." (From a lecture
by N.  M. Prjevalsky.)

To this, the famous traveller adds that all along their way on
the river Tchertchen they heard legends about twenty-three towns
buried ages ago by the shifting sands of the deserts. The same
tradition exists on the Lob-nor and in the oasis of Kerya.

The traces of such civilization, and these and like traditions,
give us the right to credit other legendary lore warranted by
well educated and learned natives of India and Mongolia, when
they speak of immense libraries reclaimed from the sand,
together with various reliques of ancient MAGIC lore, which have
all been safely stowed away.

To recapitulate. The Secret Doctrine was the universally
diffused religion of the ancient and prehistoric world. Proofs
of its diffusion, authentic records of its history, a complete
chain of documents, showing its character and presence in every
land, together with the teaching of all its great adepts, exist
to this day in the secret crypts of libraries belonging to the
Occult Fraternity.

This statement is rendered more credible by a consideration of
the following facts: the tradition of the thousands of ancient
parchments saved when the Alexandrian library was destroyed; the
thousands of Sanskrit works which disappeared in India in the
reign of Akbar; the universal tradition in China and Japan that
the true old texts with the commentaries, which alone make them
comprehensible - amounting to many thousands of volumes - have
long passed out of the reach of profane hands; the disappearance
of the vast sacred and occult literature of Babylon; the loss of
those keys which alone could solve the thousand riddles of the
Egyptian hieroglyphic records; the tradition in India that the
real secret commentaries which alone make the Veda intelligible,
though no longer visible to profane eyes, still remain for the
initiate, hidden in secret caves and crypts; and an identical
belief among the Buddhists, with regard to their secret books.

The Occultists assert that all these exist, safe from Western
spoliating hands, to re-appear in some more enlightened age, for
which in the words of the late Swami Davanand Sarasvati, "the
Mlechchhas (outcasts, savages, those beyond the pale of Aryan
civilization) will have to wait."

For it is not the fault of the initiates that these documents
are now "lost" to the profane; nor was their policy dictated by
selfishness, or any desire to monopolise the life-giving sacred
lore. There were portions of the Secret Science that for
incalculable ages had to remain concealed from the profane gaze.
But this was because to impart to the unprepared multitude
secrets of such tremendous importance, was equivalent to giving
a child a lighted candle in a powder magazine.

The answer to a question which has frequently arisen in the
minds of students, when meeting with statements such as this,
may be outlined here.

"We can understand," they say,

"the necessity for concealing from the herd such secrets as the
Vril, or the rock-destroying force, discovered by J. W. Keely,
of Philadelphia, but we cannot understand how any danger could
arise from the revelation of such a purely philosophic doctrine,
as, e.g., the evolution of the planetary chains."

The danger was this: Doctrines such as the planetary chain, or
the seven races, at once give a clue to the seven-fold nature of
man, for each principle is correlated to a plane, a planet, and
a race; and the human principles are, on every plane, correlated
to seven-fold occult forces - those of the higher planes being
of tremendous power. So that any septenary division at once
gives a clue to tremendous occult powers, the abuse of which
would cause incalculable evil to humanity. A clue, which is,
perhaps, no clue to the present generation - especially the
Westerns - protected as they are by their very blindness and
ignorant materialistic disbelief in the occult; but a clue which
would, nevertheless, have been very real in the early centuries
of the Christian era, to people fully convinced of the reality
of occultism, and entering a cycle of degradation, which made
them rife for abuse of occult powers and sorcery of the worst
description.

The documents were concealed, it is true, but the knowledge
itself and its actual existence had never been made a secret of
by the Hierophants of the Temple, wherein MYSTERIES have ever
been made a discipline and stimulus to virtue. This is very old
news, and was repeatedly made known by the great adepts, from
Pythagoras and Plato down to the Neoplatonists. It was the new
religion of the Nazarenes that wrought a change for the worse in
the policy of centuries.

Moreover, there is a well-known fact, a very curious one,
corroborated to the writer by a reverend gentleman attached for
years to a Russian Embassy - namely, that there are several
documents in the St. Petersburg Imperial Libraries to show that,
even so late as during the days when Freemasonry, and Secret
Societies of Mystics flourished unimpeded in Russia, i.e., at
the end of the last and the beginning of the present century,
more than one Russian Mystic travelled to Tibet via the Ural
mountains in search of knowledge and initiation _in the unknown
crypts of Central Asia._ And more than one returned years later,
with a rich store of such information as could never have been
given him anywhere in Europe. Several cases could be cited, and
well-known names brought forward, but for the fact that such
publicity might annoy the surviving relatives of the said late
Initiates. Let any one look over the Annals and History of
Freemasonry in the archives of the Russian metropolis, and he
will assure himself of the fact stated.

This is a corroboration of that which has been stated many times
before, and, unfortunately, too indiscreetly. Instead of
benefiting humanity, the virulent charges of deliberate
invention and imposture with a purpose thrown at those who
asserted but a truthful, if even a little known fact, have only
generated bad Karma for the slanderers. But now the mischief is
done, and truth should no longer be denied, whatever the
consequences. Is it a new religion, we are asked? By no means;
it is not a _religion, nor is its philosophy new;_ for, as
already stated, it is as old as thinking man. Its tenets are not
now published for the first time, but have been cautiously given
out to, and taught by, more than one European Initiate -
especially by the late Ragon.

More than one great scholar has stated that there never was a
religious founder, whether Aryan, Semitic or Turanian, who had
_invented_ a new religion, or revealed a new truth. These
founders were all _transmitters,_ not original teachers. They
were the authors of new forms and interpretations, while the
truths upon which the latter were based were as old as mankind.
Selecting one or more of those grand verities - actualities
visible only to the eye of the real Sage and Seer - out of the
many orally revealed to man in the beginning, preserved and
perpetuated in the _adyta_ of the temples through initiation,
during the MYSTERIES and by personal transmission - they
revealed these truths to the masses. Thus every nation received
in its turn some of the said truths, under the veil of its own
local and special symbolism; which, as time went on, developed
into a more or less philosophical cultus, a Pantheon in mythical
disguise. Therefore is Confucius, a very ancient legislator in
historical chronology, though a very modern Sage in the World's
History, shown by Dr.  Legge - {Lun-Yu Schott. "Chinesische
Literatur," p. 7.} - who calls him "emphatically a
_transmitter,_ not a maker" - as saying: "I only hand on: I
cannot create new things. I believe in the ancients and
therefore I love them." - {"Life of Confucius," p. 96.} -
(Quoted in "Science of Religions" by Max Muller.)

The writer loves them too, and therefore believes in the
ancients, and the modern heirs to their Wisdom. And believing in
both, she now transmits that which she has received and learnt
herself to all those who will accept it. As to those who may
reject her testimony; i.e., the great majority, she will bear
them no malice, for they will be as right in their way in
denying, as she is right in hers in affirming, since they look
at TRUTH from two entirely different stand-points. Agreeably
with the rules of critical scholarship, the Orientalist has to
reject _a priori_ whatever evidence he cannot fully verify for
himself. And how can a Western scholar accept on hearsay that
which he knows nothing about? Indeed, that which is given in
these volumes is selected from _oral,_ as much as from written
teachings. This first instalment of the esoteric doctrines is
based upon Stanzas, which are the records of a people unknown to
ethnology; it is claimed that they are written in a tongue
absent from the nomenclature of languages and dialects with
which philology is acquainted; they are said to emanate from a
source (Occultism) repudiated by science; and, finally, they are
offered through an agency, incessantly discredited before the
world by all those who hate unwelcome truths, or have some
special hobby of their own to defend. Therefore, the rejection
of these teachings may be expected, and must be accepted
beforehand. No one styling himself a "scholar," in whatever
department of exact science, will be permitted to regard these
teachings seriously. They will be derided and rejected _a
priori_ in this century; but only in this one. For in the
twentieth century of our era scholars will begin to recognize
that the _Secret Doctrine_ has neither been invented nor
exaggerated, but, on the contrary, simply outlined; and finally,
that its teachings antedate the Vedas.  - {This is no pretension
to _prophecy,_ but simply a statement based on the knowledge of
facts.  Every century an attempt is being made to show the world
that Occultism is no vain superstition.  Once the door permitted
to be kept a little ajar, it will be opened wider with every new
century. The times are ripe for a more serious knowledge than
hitherto permitted, though still very limited, so far.} - Have
not the latter been derided, rejected, and called "a modern
forgery" even so recently as fifty years ago? Was not Sanskrit
proclaimed at one time the progeny of, and a dialect derived
from, the Greek, according to Lempriere and other scholars?
About 1820, Prof. Max Muller tells us, the sacred books of the
Brahmans, of the Magians, and of the Buddhists,

"were all but unknown, their very existence was doubted, and
there was not a single scholar who could have translated a line
of the Veda of the Zend Avesta, or of the Buddhist Tripitaka,
and now the Vedas are proved to be the work of the highest
antiquity whose 'preservation amounts almost to a marvel'"
(Lecture on the Vedas).

The same will be said of the Secret Archaic Doctrine, when
proofs are given of its undeniable existence and records. But it
will take centuries before much more is given from it. Speaking
of the keys to the Zodiacal mysteries as being almost lost to
the world, it was remarked by the writer in "Isis Unveiled" some
ten years ago that:

"The said key must be turned _seven_ times before the whole
system is divulged. We will give it but _one_ turn, and thereby
allow the profane one glimpse into the mystery. Happy he, who
understands the whole!"

The same may be said of the whole Esoteric system. One turn of
the key, and no more, was given in "ISIS." Much more is
explained in these volumes. In those days the writer hardly knew
the language in which the work was written, and the disclosure
of many things, freely spoken about now, was forbidden. In
Century the Twentieth some disciple more informed, and far
better fitted, may be sent by the Masters of Wisdom to give
final and irrefutable proofs that there exists a Science called
_Gupta-Vidya;_ and that, like the once-mysterious sources of the
Nile, the source of all religions and philosophies now known to
the world has been for many ages forgotten and lost to men, but
is at last found.

Such a work as this has to be introduced with no simple Preface,
but with a volume rather; one that would give _facts,_ not mere
disquisitions, since the SECRET DOCTRINE is not a treatise, or a
series of vague theories, but contains all that can be given out
to the world in this century.

It would be worse than useless to publish in these pages even
those portions of the esoteric teachings that have now escaped
from confinement, unless the genuineness and authenticity - at
any rate, the _probability_ - of the existence of such teachings
was first established. Such statements as will now be made, have
to be shown warranted by various authorities: those of ancient
philosophers, classics and even certain learned Church Fathers,
some of whom knew these doctrines because they had studied them,
had seen and read works written upon them; and some of whom had
even been personally initiated into the ancient Mysteries,
during the performance of which the arcane doctrines were
allegorically enacted. The writer will have to give historical
and trustworthy names, and to cite well-known authors, ancient
and modern, of recognized ability, good judgment, and
truthfulness, as also to name some of the famous proficient in
the secret arts and science, along with the mysteries of the
latter, as they are divulged, or, rather, _partially_ presented
before the public in their strange archaic form.

How is this to be done? What is the best way for achieving such
an object? was the ever-recurring question. To make our plan
clearer, an illustration may be attempted. When a tourist coming
from a well-explored country, suddenly reaches the borderland of
a _terra incognita,_ hedged in, and shut out from view by a
formidable barrier of impassable rocks, he may still refuse to
acknowledge himself baffled in his exploratory plans. Ingress
beyond is forbidden. But, if he cannot visit the mysterious
region personally, he may still find a means of examining it
from as short a distance as can be arrived at. Helped by his
knowledge of landscapes left behind him, he can get a general
and pretty correct idea of the transmural view, if he will only
climb to the loftiest summit of the altitudes in front of him.
Once there, he can gaze at it, at his leisure, comparing that
which he dimly perceives with that which he has just left below,
now that he is, thanks to his efforts, beyond the line of the
mists and the cloud-capped cliffs.

Such a point of preliminary observation, for those who would
like to get a more correct understanding of the mysteries of the
prearchaic periods given in the texts, cannot be offered to them
in these two volumes. But if the reader has patience, and would
glance at the present state of beliefs and creeds in Europe,
compare and check it with what is known to history of the ages
directly preceding and following the Christian era, then he will
find all this in Volume III. of this work.

In that volume a brief recapitulation will be made of all the
principal adepts known to history, and the downfall of the
mysteries will be described; after which began the disappearance
and final and systematic elimination from the memory of men of
the real nature of initiation and the Sacred Science. From that
time its teachings became Occult, and Magic sailed but too often
under the venerable but frequently misleading name of Hermetic
philosophy. As real Occultism had been prevalent among the
Mystics during the centuries that preceded our era, so Magic, or
rather Sorcery, with its Occult Arts, followed the beginning of
Christianity.  However great and zealous the fanatical efforts,
during those early centuries, to obliterate every trace of the
mental and intellectual labour of the Pagans, it was a failure;
but the same spirit of the dark demon of bigotry and intolerance
has perverted systematically and ever since, every bright page
written in the pre-Christian periods. Even in her uncertain
records, history has preserved enough of that which has survived
to throw an impartial light upon the whole. Let, then, the
reader tarry a little while with the writer, on the spot of
observation selected. He is asked to give all his attention to
that millennium which divided the pre-Christian and the
post-Christian periods, by the year ONE of the Nativity. This
event - whether historically correct or not - has nevertheless
been made to serve as a first signal for the erection of
manifold bulwarks against any possible return of, or even a
glimpse into, the hated religions of the Past; hated and
_dreaded_ - because throwing such a vivid light on the new and
intentionally veiled interpretation of what is now known as the
"New Dispensation."

However superhuman the efforts of the early Christian fathers to
obliterate the Secret Doctrine from the very memory of man, they
all failed. Truth can never be killed; hence the failure to
sweep away entirely from the face of the earth every vestige of
that ancient Wisdom, and to shackle and gag every witness who
testified to it. Let one only think of the thousands, and
perhaps millions, of MSS.  burnt; of monuments, with their too
indiscreet inscriptions and pictorial symbols, pulverized to
dust; of the bands of early hermits and ascetics roaming about
among the ruined cities of Upper and Lower Egypt, in desert and
mountain, valleys and highlands, seeking for and eager to
destroy every obelisk and pillar, scroll or parchment they could
lay their hands on, if it only bore the symbol of the _tau,_ or
any other sign borrowed and appropriated by the new faith; and
he will then see plainly how it is that so little has remained
of the records of the Past. Verily, the fiendish spirits of
fanaticism, of early and mediaeval Christianity and of Islam,
have from the first loved to dwell in darkness and ignorance;
and both have made

"- the sun like blood, the earth a tomb, The tomb a hell, and
hell itself a murkier gloom!"

Both creeds have won their proselytes at the point of the sword;
both have built their churches on _heaven-kissing hecatombs_ of
human victims. Over the gateway of Century I. of our era, the
ominous words "the KARMA OF ISRAEL," fatally glowed. Over the
portals of our own, the future seer may discern other words,
that will point to the Karma for cunningly made-up HISTORY, for
events purposely perverted, and for great characters slandered
by posterity, mangled out of recognition, between the two cars
of Jagannatha - Bigotry and Materialism; one accepting too much,
the other denying all. Wise is he who holds to the golden
mid-point, who believes in the eternal justice of things. Says
Faigi Diwan, the "witness to the wonderful speeches of a
free-thinker who belongs to a thousand sects": "In the assembly
of the day of resurrection, when past things shall be forgiven,
the sins of the Ka'bah will be forgiven for the sake of the dust
of Christian churches." To this, Professor Max Muller replies:

"The sins of Islam are _as worthless as the dust of
Christianity. On the day of resurrection both Muhammadans and
Christians will see the vanity of their religious doctrines._
Men fight about religion on earth; in heaven they shall find out
that there is only one true religion - the worship of God's
SPIRIT." - {"Lectures on the Science of Religion," by F. Max
Muller, p. 257.}

In other words - "THERE IS NO RELIGION (OR LAW) HIGHER THAN
TRUTH" [the sanskrit text is given in the original - ed.] - the
motto of the Maharajah of Benares, adopted by the Theosophical
Society.

As already said in the Preface, the Secret Doctrine is not a
version of "Isis Unveiled" - as originally intended. It is a
volume explanatory of it rather, and, though entirely
independent of the earlier work, an indispensable corollary to
it. Much of what was in ISIS could hardly be understood by
theosophists in those days. The Secret Doctrine will now throw
light on many a problem left unsolved in the first work,
especially on the opening pages, which have never been
understood.

Concerned simply with the philosophies within our historical
times and the respective symbolism of the fallen nations, only a
hurried glance could be thrown at the panorama of Occultism in
the two volumes of Isis. In the present work, detailed Cosmogony
and the evolution of the four races that preceded our Fifth race
Humanity are given, and now two large volumes explain that which
was stated on the first page of ISIS UNVEILED alone, and in a
few allusions scattered hither and thither throughout that work.
Nor could the vast catalogue of the Archaic Sciences be
attempted in the present volumes, before we have disposed of
such tremendous problems as Cosmic and Planetary Evolution, and
the gradual development of the mysterious Humanities and races
that preceded our "Adamic" Humanity. Therefore, the present
attempt to elucidate some mysteries of the Esoteric philosophy
has, in truth, nothing to do with the earlier work. As an
instance, the writer must be allowed to illustrate what is said.

Volume I. of "Isis" begins with a reference to "an old book" -

"So very old that our modern antiquarians might ponder over its
pages an indefinite time, and still not quite agree as to the
nature of the fabric upon which it is written. It is the only
original copy now in existence. The most ancient Hebrew document
on occult learning - the _Siphrah Dzeniouta_ - was compiled from
it, and that at a time when the former was already considered in
the light of a literary relic. One of its illustrations
represents the Divine Essence emanating from ADAM - {The name is
used in the sense of the Greek word _anthropos_}. - like a
luminous arc proceeding to form a circle; and then, having
attained the highest point of its circumference, the ineffable
glory bends back again, and returns to earth, bringing a higher
type of humanity in its vortex. As it approaches nearer and
nearer to our planet, the Emanation becomes more and more
shadowy, until upon touching the ground it is as black as
night."

The "very old Book" is the original work from which the many
volumes of _Kiu-ti_ were compiled.  Not only this latter and the
_Siphrah Dzeniouta_ but even the _Sephir Jezirah,_ - {Rabbi
Jehoshua Ben Chananea, who died about A.D. 72, openly declared
that he had performed "miracles" by means of the _Book of Sepher
Jezireh,_ and challenged every skeptic. Franck, quoting from the
Babylonian _Talmud,_ names two other thaumaturgists, Rabbis
Chanina and Oshoi. (See _Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin,_ c. 7,
etc.; and _Franck,_ pp. 55, 56.) Many of the Mediaeval
Occultists, Alchemists, and Kabalists claimed the same; and even
the late modern _Magus,_ Eliphas Levi, publicly asserts it in
print in his books on Magic.} - the work attributed by the
Hebrew Kabalists to their Patriarch Abraham (!), the book of
_Shu-king,_ China's primitive Bible, the sacred volumes of the
Egyptian Thoth-Hermes, the Puranas in India, and the Chaldean
_Book of Numbers_ and the _Pentateuch_ itself, are all derived
from that one small parent volume. Tradition says, that it was
taken down in _Senzar,_ the secret sacerdotal tongue, from the
words of the Divine Beings, who dictated it to the sons of
Light, in Central Asia, at the very beginning of the 5th (our)
race; for there was a time when its language (the _Sen-zar_) was
known to the Initiates of every nation, when the forefathers of
the Toltec understood it as easily as the inhabitants of the
lost Atlantis, who inherited it, in their turn, from the sages
of the 3rd Race, the _Manushis,_ who learnt it direct from the
_Devas_ of the 2nd and 1st Races. The "illustration" spoken of
in "Isis" relates to the evolution of these Races and of our 4th
and 5th Race Humanity in the Vaivasvata Manvantara or "Round;"
each Round being composed of the Yugas of the seven periods of
Humanity; four of which are now passed in _our_ life cycle, the
middle point of the 5th being nearly reached. The illustration
is symbolical, as every one can well understand, and covers the
ground from the beginning. The old book, having described Cosmic
Evolution and explained the origin of everything on earth,
including physical man, after giving the true history of the
races from the _First_ down to the Fifth (our) race, goes no
further. It stops short at the beginning of the _Kali Yuga_ just
4989 years ago at the death of Krishna, the bright "Sun-god,"
the once living hero and reformer.

But there exists another book. None of its possessors regard it
as very ancient, as it was born with, and is only as old as the
Black Age, namely, about 5,000 years. In about nine years hence,
the first cycle of the first five millenniums, that began with
the great cycle of the Kali-Yuga, will end. And then the last
prophecy contained in that book (the first volume of the
prophetic record for the Black Age) will be accomplished. We
have not long to wait, and many of us will witness the Dawn of
the New Cycle, at the end of which not a few accounts will be
settled and squared between the races.  Volume II. of the
Prophecies is nearly ready, having been in preparation since the
time of Buddha's grand successor, Sankaracharya.

One more important point must be noticed, one that stands
foremost in the series of proofs given of the existence of one
primeval, universal Wisdom - at any rate for the Christian
Kabalists and students. The teachings were, at least, partially
known to several of the Fathers of the Church. It is maintained,
on purely historical grounds, that Origen, Synesius, and even
Clemens Alexandrinus, had been themselves initiated into the
mysteries before adding to the Neo-Platonism of the Alexandrian
school, that of the Gnostics, under the Christian veil. More
than this, some of the doctrines of the Secret schools - though
by no means all - were preserved in the Vatican, and have since
become part and parcel of the mysteries, in the shape of
disfigured additions made to the original Christian programme by
the Latin Church. Such is the now materialized dogma of the
Immaculate Conception. This accounts for the great persecutions
set on foot by the Roman Catholic Church against Occultism,
Masonry, and _heterodox_ mysticism generally.

The days of Constantine were the last turning-point in history,
the period of the Supreme struggle that ended in the Western
world throttling the old religions in favour of the new one,
built on their bodies. From thence the vista into the far
distant Past, beyond the "Deluge" and the Garden of Eden, began
to be forcibly and relentlessly closed by every fair and unfair
means against the indiscreet gaze of posterity. Every issue was
blocked up, every record that hands could be laid upon,
destroyed. Yet there remains enough, even among such mutilated
records, to warrant us in saying that there is in them every
possible evidence of the actual existence of a Parent Doctrine.
Fragments have survived geological and political cataclysms to
tell the story; and every survival shows evidence that the now
_Secret_ Wisdom was once the one fountain head, the ever-flowing
perennial source, at which were fed all its streamlets - the
later religions of all nations - from the first down to the
last. This period, beginning with Buddha and Pythagoras at the
one end and the Neo-Platonists and Gnostics at the other, is the
only focus left in History wherein converge for the last time
the bright rays of light streaming from the aeons of time gone
by, unobscured by the hand of bigotry and fanaticism.

This accounts for the necessity under which the writer has
laboured to be ever explaining the facts given from the hoariest
Past by evidence gathered from the historical period. No other
means was at hand, at the risk even of being once more charged
with a lack of method and system. The public must be made
acquainted with the efforts of many World-adepts, of initiated
poets, writers, and classics of every age, to preserve in the
records of Humanity the Knowledge of the existence, at least, of
such a philosophy, if not actually of its tenets. The Initiates
of 1888 would indeed remain incomprehensible and ever a
seemingly impossible myth, were not like Initiates shown to have
lived in every other age of history. This could be done only by
naming Chapter and Verse where may be found mention of these
great characters, who were preceded and followed by a long and
interminable line of other famous Antediluvian and Postdiluvian
Masters in the arts. Thus only could be shown, on
semi-traditional and semi-historical authority, that knowledge
of the Occult and the powers it confers on man, are not
altogether fictions, but that they are as old as the world
itself.

To my judges, past and future, therefore - whether they are
serious literary critics, or those howling dervishes in
literature who judge a book according to the popularity or
unpopularity of the author's name, who, hardly glancing at its
contents, fasten like lethal _bacilli_ on the weakest points of
the body - I have nothing to say. Nor shall I condescend to
notice those crack-brained slanderers - fortunately very few in
number - who, hoping to attract public attention by throwing
discredit on every writer whose name is better known than their
own, foam and bark at their very shadows. These, having first
maintained for years that the doctrines taught in the
_Theosophist,_ and which culminated in "Esoteric Buddhism," _had
been all invented by the present writer,_ have finally turned
round, and denounced "Isis Unveiled" and the rest as a
plagiarism from Eliphas Levi (!), Paracelsus (!!), and,
_mirabile dictu,_ Buddhism and Brahmanism (!!!) As well charge
Renan with having stolen his _Vie de Jesus_ from the Gospels,
and Max Muller his "Sacred Books of the East" or his "Chips"
from the philosophies of the Brahmins and Gautama, the Buddha.
But to the public in general and the readers of the "Secret
Doctrine" I may repeat what I have stated all along, and which I
now clothe in the words of Montaigne: Gentlemen, "I HAVE HERE
MADE ONLY A NOSEGAY OF CULLED FLOWERS, AND HAVE BROUGHT NOTHING
OF MY OWN BUT THE STRING THAT TIES THEM."

Pull the "string" to pieces and cut it up in shreds, if you
will. As for the nosegay of FACTS - you will never be able to
make away with these. You can only ignore them, and no more.

We may close with a parting word concerning this Volume I. In an
INTRODUCTION prefacing a Part dealing chiefly with Cosmogony,
certain subjects brought forward might be deemed out of place,
but one more consideration added to those already given have led
me to touch upon them. Every reader will inevitably judge the
statements made from the stand-point of his own knowledge,
experience, and consciousness, based on what he has already
learnt. This fact the writer is constantly obliged to bear in
mind: hence, also the frequent references in this first Book to
matters which, properly speaking, belong to a later part of the
work, but which could not be passed by in silence, lest the
reader should look down on this work as a fairy tale indeed - a
fiction of some modern brain.

Thus, the _Past_ shall help to realize the PRESENT, and the
latter to better appreciate the PAST.  The errors of the day
must be explained and swept away, yet it is more than
probable - and in the present case it amounts to certitude - that
once more the testimony of long ages and of history will fail to
impress anyone but the very intuitional - which is equal to
saying the very few. But in this as in all like cases, the
_true_ and the _faithful_ may console themselves by presenting
the skeptical modern Sadducee with the mathematical proof and
memorial of his obdurate obstinacy and bigotry.  There still
exists somewhere in the archives of the French Academy, the
famous law of probabilities worked out by an algebraical process
for the benefit of skeptics by certain mathematicians. It runs
thus: If two persons give their evidence to a fact, and thus
impart to it each of them 5/6 of certitude; that fact will have
then 35/36 of certitude; i.e., its probability will bear to its
improbability the ratio of 35 to 1. If three such evidences are
joined together the certitude will become 215/216.  The
agreement of ten persons giving each 1/2 of certitude will
produce 1023/1024, etc., etc. The Occultist may remain
satisfied, and care for no more.

Alan
--
Member, Theosophy International.
Member, Human Race.