Theosophy is the Aletheia of Occult Science and the Religion of Reason. Prerequisites and qualifications and for aspirants. The fundamental propositions of the Secret Doctrine. First proposition — Cosmogenesis. Second proposition — Law governs Cosmos and Man. Third proposition — Anthropogenesis. “Spiritual” nature cannot be “cultivated.” A sincere lover of the race can accomplish more in three incarnations during Kali-Yuga, than he could in a much greater number in any other age. What is the “moment of choice”? The elementals are spirits of the four elements of the terrestrial world. Our Earth is densely populated by these mystifying centres of energy. By coalescing around our thoughts, and being coloured by them, they act as impartial agents of karma. Curses, like chickens, come home to roost. As universal law contains within itself the means for its own accomplishment, and the punishment for its violation, it requires no further authority to carry out its decrees. The origin of man, his “original sin,” and his destiny. The doctrine of reincarnation. The inner constitution of man. The real hell is life on earth. The bliss of “paradise” is a delusion of the lower self stemming from the “heresy of individuality,” which heresy determines the monad’s future birth. Upheld through Eternity, Karma decrees harmony across the Universe. Since Compassion is the Spirit of Truth, karma follows its behests and manifests as the Law of ethical causation. It is the One Law that governs the World of Being impartially, to Cosmos, Man, and Angel alike. The universal onward march of evolutionary progress proceeds along contrary directions — spirit falling gradually into matter, and matter ascending to its original condition, that of a pure spiritual substance. Greatness is measured by the standard of genuine spiritual (not psychic) development, i.e., the acquirement of soul-wisdom by personal effort and merit. Heart-wisdom and head-learning are divergent paths. A mountain abyss separates the two, so hopelessly impassable and obstructive to the traveller. The law of spiritual development supersedes the purely intellectual growth; the latter is more of an impediment than of help. Theosophy, being the only system of true religion and philosophy, offers lucid explanations and solutions to the puzzles of life. A rebuke to the Theosophical Publication Society: We are not seeking to cater to fiction readers and curiosity hunters, but to the pressing needs of earnest minds. The United States contain more theosophists and possible subscribers and readers than the whole of Europe. They do not want fiction. They want no padding in their search for truth. They are perfectly able to grasp that which the Theosophical Publication Society in London deems to be “too advanced.”

These study notes are about a Fellow of the Theosophical Society in Paris, who asserted that Theosophy is a doctrine without proof, without authority, and without prestige in its origin; who accused Brother Theosophists of teaching pseudo-Theosophy and preaching annihilation of the spiritual ego; who talked about the yugas like a blind man about colours; who invented apocryphal Codes in order to discredit Oriental Theosophy; who was not aware of the relation between the sacred sound and the ether of space, or that the Yajur-Veda is “black” when recited by whose accent is impure.

In ancient times man stood in a far simpler position and more in harmony with nature, than he does at present in “civilized” life. Human thought, when written, is to a great extent ambiguous. The written symbol, without a constant living oral tradition to infuse into it energy, vitality, and give it concrete value, is absolutely dead. Mystery is not unrevealed knowledge; it is revealed only to those of sufficient intellect, purity, and discretion, who are devoted to the spirit of truth wholeheartedly and with undivided love. In ancient times the written word was only the symbol, the oral instruction transmitted from master to pupil, was the true secret treasure. The western approach to the study of eastern Secret Philosophy requires an impartial mind that can proceed without bigotry but with discrimination, both analytically and synthetically, discern similarities, make comparisons, and draw conclusions as to the merit or demerit of the eastern lore of Occult Knowledge.

True patriotism is the kinship of the most unselfish of human affections. Morality is no accident of human nature, but its essential characteristic. Though the principle, which is the abiding spirit of the law, remains perpetual and unaltered, the letter of the law and the mode of realizing it in actual practice, must be modified by circumstance. Patriotism is a link in the golden chain of our affections and virtues, and turns away with indignant scorn from the false philosophy or mistaken religion, which would persuade him that cosmopolitism is nobler than nationality, and that the human race a sublimer object of love than a people. Patriotism is the kinship of the most unselfish of human affections, the powers and interests of men spread without confusion through a common sphere, like the vibrations propagated in the air by a single voice, distinct yet coherent, and all uniting to express one thought and the same feeling. What were the Greeks while they remained free and independent? When Greece resembled a collection of mirrors set in a single frame, each having its own focus of patriotism, yet all capable of converging to one point and of consuming a common foe? They were the fountains of light and civilization, of truth and of beauty, to all mankind, the thinking head the beating heart of the whole world! They lost their independence, and with their independence their patriotism, and became the cosmopolites of antiquity. And what came out of these men, who were eminently free without patriotism, be-cause without national independence? While they were intense patriots, they were the benefactors of all mankind, legislators for the very nation that afterwards subdued and enslaved them. Even in cases of actual injury and just alarm the patriot sets bounds to the reprisal of national vengeance, and contents himself with such securities as are compatible with the welfare, though not with the ambitious projects of the nation, whose aggressions had given the provocation: for as patriotism inspires no superhuman faculties, neither can it dictate any conduct which would require such. He is too conscious of his own ignorance of the future, to dare extend his calculations into remote periods; nor, because he is a statesman, arrogates to himself the cares of Providence and the government of the world. Without local attachment, without national honour, we shall resemble a swarm of insects that settle on the fruits of the earth to corrupt and consume them, rather than men who love and cleave to the land of their forefathers. Deceit and hypocrisy is national politics are elevated to noble patriotic aspirations. Until final emancipation reabsorbs the Ego, it must be conscious of the purest sympathies called out by the aesthetic effects of high art, its tenderest cords responding to the call of the holier and nobler human attachments until all human and purely individual personal feelings — blood-ties and friendship, patriotism and race predilection — all will give away, to become blended into one universal feeling, the only true and holy, the only truly Unselfish and Eternal one — Love, an Immense Love for Humanity. Patriots may burst their hearts in vain if circumstances are against them. But no human power, not even the fury and force of the loftiest patriotism, has been able to bend an iron destiny aside from its fixed course, and nations have gone out like torches dropped into water in the engulfing blackness of ruin. Speculative lucubrations of an Aristotelean philosopher. He is the mouthpiece of that majority in modern society which has worked itself out an elaborate policy full of sophistry and paradox, behind which every member clumsily hides his personal views. His “respectable deference to public opinion,” is short-hand for hypocrisy. He confuses phenomena for which the agency of “disembodied spirits” is claimed, with natural phenomena for which every tithe of supernaturalism is rejected. The great, the glorious hour has come at last! Ambition, grasping greediness or envy — miscalled Patriotism — exist no longer. Cruel selfishness has made room for universal altruism, and cold indifference to the wants of the millions no longer finds favour in the sight of the favoured few. Selfishness kills every noble impulse. It is the prolific mother of all vices, Lie being born out of the necessity for dissembling, and Hypocrisy out of the desire to mask Lie. Deceit and Hypocrisy work for dear self’s sake everywhere. Nations, by tacit agreement, have decided that selfish motives in politics shall be called “noble national aspiration, patriotism,” and the citizen views it in his family circle as “domestic virtue.” Nevertheless, selfishness, whether it breeds desire for aggrandizement of territory, or competition in commerce to the detriment of one’s neighbour, can never be regarded as a virtue. Equally, a diplomat’s qualification, “dexterity or skill in securing advantages” for one’s own country, at the expense of other countries, can hardly be achieved by speaking truth but, verily, by a wily and deceitful tongue. The Turks have been convicted of systematic lying and atrocities in nearly every country. But the condition of Israelites in Russia has immensely improved since the accession of Alexander II to the throne of his father. The chief Rabbi of Moscow published an earnest address to his co-religionists throughout the empire to remind them that they were Russians by birth, and called upon them to display their patriotism in subscriptions for the wounded, prayers in the synagogues for the success of the Russian arms, and all other practical ways. The aim of Christian missions is to pervert people from their ancestral religions, rather than convert them to Christianity, in order to destroy in them every spark of national feeling. For when the spirit of patriotism is dead in a nation, it very easily becomes a mere puppet in the hands of the rulers. A true theosophist must be a cosmopolitan in his heart. He must embrace the whole of humanity in his philanthropic feelings. It is higher and far nobler to be one of those who love their fellow men, without distinction of race, creed, caste or colour, than to be merely a good patriot, or still less, a partisan.

Oh, the unspeakable hypocrisy of our age! The age when everything under the Sun and Moon is for sale and bought! Though centuries lapse and decades of ages drop out of the lap of time, great reforms take place, empires rise and fall and rise again, and even whole races disappear before the triumphant march of civilization, in his terrific selfishness the “man” that was is the “man” that is. In their internal, or rather, essential constitution, both nature and man are at one, as their essence is identical. All grows and develops and strives towards perfection on the former planes of externality or, as well said by a philosopher, is “ever becoming”; but on the ultimate plane of the spiritual essence all is, and remains therefore immutable. It is towards this eternal Esse that everything, as every being, is gravitating gradually, almost imperceptibly, but as surely as the Universe of stars and worlds moves towards a mysterious point known to, yet still unnamed by, astronomy and called by the Occultists — the Central Spiritual Sun. Yet there are still men who, notwithstanding the present chaotic condition of the moral world and the sorry débris of the best human ideals, still persist in believing and teaching that the now ideal human perfection is no dream, but a law of divine nature; and that, had mankind to wait even millions of years, still it must someday reach it and rebecome a race of gods. For the loving essence cannot be extinguished but only perverted. Without this saving redemptive power, embodied in Satan, he simply appears as the nonsensical failure of omnipotent and omniscient imbecility which the opponents of theological Christianity sneeringly and very justly make him; with it, he becomes a thinkable Entity, the Asuras of the Puranic myths, the first breaths of Brahm?, who, after fighting the gods and defeating them, are finally themselves defeated and then hurled on to the earth where they incarnate in Humanity. Thus Satanic Humanity becomes comprehensible. After moving around his cycle of obstacles Satan may, with accumulated experiences, after all the throes of Humanity, emerge again into the light. The All-denying protestors, Atheists, Nihilists, and Anarchists men of Terror, they are just Satan himself; for he is the ideal synthesis of all discordant forces and each separate human vice or passion is but an atom of his totality. In the very depths of the heart of this Human Satanic totality burns the divine spark, all negations notwithstanding. It is called Love for Humanity, an ardent aspiration for a universal reign of Justice — hence a latent desire for light, harmony and goodness. Where do we find such a divine spark among the proud and the wealthy?

The main cause of pain lies in our perpetually seeking the permanent in the impermanent, and the trouble that comes upon us is always just the one we feel to be the hardest that could possibly happen, the one thing we feel we cannot possibly bear. Evil is often the result of anxiety, in anticipation of recognition and personal reward. The mission of the Theosophical Society is to rekindle the torch of truth by the formation of a fraternal union of mankind, the only soil in which the good seed can grow. To those who are keen to acquire psychic powers for private advantage we have nothing to say. Beware of quick and easy ways of acquiring psychic “gifts.” If in each of our branches we were able to establish a homeopathic dispensary, with the addition of mesmeric healing, we might contribute towards putting the science of medicine in this country on a sounder basis, and be the means of incalculable benefit to the people at large.