Early theosophical doctrines expounded by H.P. Blavatsky

Book excerpt: The Secrets of Nature and of Occult Sciences cannot be revealed to the profane, who will desecrate them and turn into a weapon against humanity. They can only be imparted to a regular chela of many years’ standing, pledged to silence and secrecy during his successive initiations. Such Secrets do exist and are defended with one’s life. Occult Truth is Nature without the illusory veil of the Five Senses. Reason is purely human; instinct, an endowment of Deity. Sixth Sense is Reason over instinct, i.e., Mental Fire perceiving and registering the other Five. The Sixth Sense is spiritual clairvoyance, as opposed to psychic. The former is normal and real; the latter, abnormal and counterfeit. Not before developing his Sixth Sense, will the man of science concede the error of his theories as to the solar spectrum, unless he retracts his marked weakness for conditional and disjunctive syllogisms ending in eternal dilemmas. Appearances are deceitful, says a Master of Wisdom. While the astronomer has elucidated the visible relations of the orbs of space, he knows nothing of their inner constitution. Similarly, the knowledge of geologist and physiologist is confined to man’s outer shell. The Adept cannot cross bodily the limits of the solar system, yet he knows that far stretching beyond the telescopic power of detection there are systems upon systems, the smallest of which would, when compared with the system of Sirius, make the latter seem like an atom of dust imbedded in the great Gobi desert. Divine Wisdom alone can carry us to the perfect state of Jivanmukta, by teaching us what is true and what is false. Till then, the next best thing to learning what is true is to ascertain what is not true. With biographical notes on Frederick W.H. Myers, Sir William Crookes, and Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner.