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The Secret Doctrine

The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy

by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

Third and revised edition prepared by Annie Besant and G. R. S. Mead, 1893

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volume 1 Cosmogenesis, chapter Preface to the First Edition

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THE SECRET DOCTRINE.

ii

The H. P. B. Press,
42, Henry Street, Regent’s Park,
London, N.W.
(Printers to the Theosophical Society.)
(Electrotyping by B. Dellagana & Co., 48, Fetter Lane, E.C.)

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THE

SECRET DOCTRINE:

THE SYNTHESIS

OF

SCIENCE, RELIGION, AND PHILOSOPHY.

BY

H. P. BLAVATSKY,

AUTHOR OF “ISIS UNVEILED.”

THIRD AND REVISED EDITION.

SATYÂT NÂSTI PARO DHARMAH.

“There is no Religion higher than Truth.”

VOLUME I.

COSMOGENESIS.

London:
The Theosophical Publishing Society, 7, Duke Street, Adelphi, W.C.
New York:
The Path Office, 144, Madison Avenue.
Madras:
The Theosophist Office, Adyar.
1893.

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“Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1888, by H. P. Blavatsky,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D.C.”

ENTERED AT STATIONERS’ HALL.

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This Work
I Dedicate to all True Theosophists,
In every Country,
And of every Race,
For they called it forth, and for them it was recorded.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE.

Introduction	1
The Need of such a Book	3
The Antiquity of Documents and MSS.	7
What the Book is Intended to Do	12

Proem	31
The Oldest MSS. in the World and its Symbolism	31
The One Life	32
The Secret Doctrine—Pantheism—Atheism	35
“Space” in all Religions and in Occultism	37
Seven Cosmic Elements—Seven Races of Mankind	40
The Three Propositions of the Secret Doctrine	42
Description of the Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan	48

PART I.

Cosmic Evolution.

STANZA I.

Seven Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan	55
Commentaries	67
Time and Universal Mind	69
The Causes of Being	71
The Seven Sublime Lords	73
The Causes of Existence	75
The One Form of Existence	77
Âlaya, the Universal Soul	79
Can the Finite conceive the Infinite?	81

STANZA II.

The Builders	83
The Absolute Knows Itself Not	85
The Germ of Life	87

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contents.

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PAGE.

Astral Light is not Anima Mundi	89
Divine Thought	91

STANZA III.

The Awakening of Cosmos	91
The Universe, a Flitting Shadow	93
Nature’s Symbols	95
The Churning of the Ocean	97
Darkness and Light	99
Androgynous Deities	101
The Serpent Symbol	103
The Magical Agent	105
I Am That I Am	107
Primeval Differentiations	109
The Web of Being	111
Conscious Electricity	113

STANZA IV.

The Septenary Hierarchies	113
The Seven Mystic Senses	115
The Vehicle of the Universe	117
The Immaculate Conceptions.	119
The Potency of Speech and Sound	121
The Seven Senses	123
The Boundless Circle	125
Fire, the Great Symbol of Deity	127
The Stellar Sons of Light	129
The Divine Recorders	131

STANZA V.

Fohat: the Child of the Septenary Hierarchies	131
The Celestial Buddhas	133
The Theogony of the Creators	135
The Protean Spirit-Substance	137
The Correlation of the Gods	139
The Seven Worlds	141
The Antiquity of Physical Sciences	143
The One Flame	145
The Winged Wheels	147
Monism and Materialism	149
The Four Celestial Beings	151
The Lipika	153
The Ring “Pass Not”	155

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contents.

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PAGE.

The God of Man and the God of the Ant	157
The Day of “Come To Us”	159

STANZA VI.

Our World, its Growth and Development	160
The Mystery of the Female Logos	161
From No-Number to Number Seven	163
Were the Ancients Ignorant of the Physical Sciences?	165
The Sleep of the Eternal Mother	167
The Cosmic Plane, an Illusion	169
Primordial Substance, a Reality	171
Laplace’s Mistake	173
A Digression	175
A few Early Misconceptions concerning Planets, Rounds, and Man	176
Descending and Reascending States	177
Exchange of Life-Principles	179
Opinions Differ and yet Agree	181
The Transmigrations of the Ego	183
A Readjustment of Facts	185
Like Questions, like Answers	187
An Authoritative Letter	189
The Number 777	191
The Monadic Evolutions	193
Additional Facts and Explanations concerning the Globes and the Monads	193
Transfer of Life-Elements	195
The Monadic Host	197
The Elemental Kingdoms	199
Monads and Atoms	201
The Lunar Ancestors	203
The Fourth Globe	205
Man or Ape; which was First?	207
An Erroneous Opinion	209
A Master’s Letter	211
The Preliminary Creation of Man	213
The First Cause of Sin	215
The Codex Nazaræus repeats the Allegory	217
Ilda-Baoth-Jehovah	219
The Seven Planes	221
The War in Heaven	223
The Birth of the Worlds	225
The Seven Grades of Initiation	227
The Lost Canon of Proportion	229
The Origin of Devotion	231
The Creative Powers	233

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contents.

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STANZA VII.

PAGE.

The Parents of Man on Earth	233
One Parent Flame, Countless Flames	235
Teachings Contrasted	237
The Hierarchies of Spirits	239
Nature-Spirits, or Elementals	241
The Mystery of Being	243
The Ancestry of Man	245
The “Seven Souls” in Egyptology	247
The Moon God	249
Jehovah a Female Sephira	251
The Origin of Man	253
Dii Sunt Demones Inversi	255
The Immortal Root	257
Chaldæan Metaphysics	259
The True and the False Kabbalah	261
Occult and Kabbalistic Doctrines	263
Occultists and Kabbalists Differ	265
Spirit Alone is Helpless on Earth	267
The “Devourers”	269
The Four Dimensions of Space	271
Oceans of Carbonic Acid	273
The Great Magic Agent	275
Âkâsha is not Ether	277
Atoms are Invisible Lives	279
Occult Chemistry	281
The Fiery Lives	283
Man, the Shadow of his Prototype	285
Earth Peopled from Heaven	287
The “Second Advent”	289
Summing Up	290
The Upanishads	291
A Recapitulation	293
The Guiding Intelligence of the Universe	295
The Unity of All in Nature	297
The Three Universes	299
Matter is the Shadow of Spirit	301
The Yliaster of Paracelsus	303
Hermes Christianized	305
The Eternal alone is Real	307
A Few Occult Aphorisms	309
Extracts from an Eastern Private Commentary hitherto Secret	309
Yoga Powers	313
Âkâsha	315
Nothing New under the Sun	317

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PART II.

The Evolution of Symbolism.

SECTION I.

PAGE.

Symbolism and Ideographs	321
The Egyptian Cat-Symbol	323
Magic Potency of Sound	325
The Mystery Language	327

SECTION II.

The Mystery Language and its Keys	329
Egypt’s many Religions	331
The Great Pyramid Measures	333
The Quadrature of the Circle	335
Truth must Prevail at Last	337
Moses and the Ark of Bulrushes copied from Sargon	339
Occult Numbers	341
Identity of the Ancient Symbols	343
The “Satanic” Races	345

SECTION III.

Primordial Substance and Divine Thought	347
Divine Thought	349
The Universal Illusion	351
Pater Omnipotens Æther	353
The Cosmogenesis of Manu	355
The Seven Prakritis	357
The Gods of “Genesis”	359
The Mystic Fire	361
Æther	363

SECTION IV.

Chaos: Theos: Kosmos	365
The Soul of the World	367
The Birth of Mind	369
The Mystic Elements	371

SECTION V.

On the Hidden Deity, its Symbols and Glyphs	373
The Gnosis of Marcus	375
The Great Mind	377

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PAGE.

Symbols of the Creative Powers	379
International Correlation of Gods	381
Ancient Symbology	383

SECTION VI.

The Mundane Egg	384
Egg and Ark	385
Lunar and Solar Deities	387
Fiery Serpents	389
The Winged Globe	391
Two Aspects of “God”	393

SECTION VII.

The Days and Nights of Brahmâ	395
Three Kinds of Pralaya	397
The Reabsorption of All	399
A Kabalistic Key	401
The Coming of Night	403
The Return of Moru	405

SECTION VIII.

The Lotus, as a Universal Symbol	406
The Ideal becoming Material	407
Hebrew Anthropomorphism	409
Brahman and Semite	411
The Letter M	413

SECTION IX.

The Moon; Deus Lunus, Phœbe	415
The Christian Lunar God	417
The Physiological Key to the Moon Symbol	419
The “Double Womb”	421
An Allegory from the Zohar	423
Hecate-Luna the Counterpart of Jehovah	425
The Moon Bi-Sexual	427
The Dignity of Saïs	429
Ante-historical Catholicism	431
Identity of Typology	433

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SECTION X.

PAGE.

Tree, Serpent, and Crocodile Worship	434
The Serpent, the Symbol of Initiation	435
The Ashvattha Tree	437
“Sevening”	439
The Dual Logos	441

SECTION XI.

Demon est Deus Inversus	443
No Life without Death	445
Theological Etymologies	447
The Angels Slandered	449
The War of the Gods	451
Wilson’s Criticism Criticized	453
The Deception of the Gods	455

SECTION XII.

The Theogony of the Creative Gods	457
Jehovah not the Supreme Deity	459
The Primeval Theogony of the Vedântins	461
Synonyms of the Logos	463
“Female” Logoi	465
The Pythagorean Idea	467
Antiquity of the Pyramids	469
Cosmic Gods	471
Incredible, but True	473
The Same Idea in Confucianism	475
The Mystery of Blackness	477
God is our Higher Self	479

SECTION XIII.

The Seven Creations	480
The Seven Creations of the Puranas	481
The Ogdoad	483
The Primary and Secondary Creations	485
Many Versions of the One Truth	487
The Seven Creations	489
Who the Kumâras are	493
The “Virgin Ascetics”	495
Importance of the Number Seven	497

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SECTION XIV.

PAGE.

The Four Elements	497
On the Elements	499
The Cosmic Gods	501
St. Paul Believed in Cosmic Gods	503
Jehovah, a God of the Elements	505
Astarte and the Virgin Mary	507
Physical Forces, the Vehicles of the Elements	509

SECTION XV.

On Kwan-Shi-Yin and Kwan-Yin	510
Diseased Imagination	511
Crinolines, or the Dragon-Garb?	513

PART III.

Addenda.

On Occult and Modern Science

517

SECTION I.

Reasons for these Addenda	517
Forces are Devas and Genii	519
Light is both Spirit and Matter	521

SECTION II.

Modern Physicists are playing at Blind Man’s Buff	523
“Is Light a Body or Not?”	525
A Selection of Contradictory Hypotheses	527
Actio in Distans	529
Cauchy’s Views	531

SECTION III.

Is Gravitation a Law?	532
Gravity or what?	533
Jehovah, one of the Elohim	535
Newton then and Newton now	537
Perpetual Motion	539
Kepler’s Ideas	541
The Cause of Rotation	543

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SECTION IV.

PAGE.

The Theories of Rotation in Science	544
Contradictory Hypotheses	545
Scientific Aberrations	547
The Paradoxes of Science	549
Forces are Realities	551

SECTION V.

The Masks of Science	552
Academical Misnomers	553
The Fixing of Light	555
What is Force?	557
They Agree to Disagree	559
The Mystic Rays	561
The Causes and the Effects	563
What is an Atom?	565
Chemical Gods	567
The Vishishthâdvaita System	569

SECTION VI.

An Attack on the Scientific Theory of Force by a Man of Science	571
Dr. Richardson’s Heresy	573
The Spirit and Soul of Kosmos	575

SECTION VII.

Life, Force, or Gravity	577
Sun-force and Earth-force	579
Pantheism or Monotheism	581
The Seven Physical Senses	583
The Tree of Life	585
What is Nervous Ether?	587
The Life Principle	589

SECTION VIII.

The Solar Theory	590
The Heart of the Solar System	591
The Quintessence of Kosmos	593
The Original Base	595
Elements and Non-Elements	597
What is the Directive Force?	599

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PAGE.

A Scientific Caduceus	601
Occultism in Chemistry	603

SECTION IX.

The Coming Force	605
An Unconscious Occultist	607
Occult Mysteries and Society	609
Limits to Discoveries	611
Keely’s Ether	613
A Premature Discovery	615
What is the New Force?	617

SECTION X.

On the Elements and Atoms	619
The Whirling of the Soul	621
The Eternal Pilgrim	623
Buddhas of the Three Worlds	625
The Crest-jewel of Wisdom	627
Uranus and Neptune	629
Cyclic Fall of the Gods	631

SECTION XI.

Ancient Thought in Modern Dress	633
Chemistry and Occult Science	635
The Trinity in Unity	637
Genesis of the Elements	639
Puranas versus Royal Society	641

SECTION XII.

Scientific and Esoteric Evidence for, and Objections to, the Modern Nebular Theory	643
Modern Science and Occultism	645
Forces are Emanations	647
Unanswerable Queries	649
What are the Nebulæ?	651
Cometary Matter	653
What is Primitive Matter?	655
The Future Synthesis	657

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SECTION XIII.

PAGE.

Forces—Modes of Motion or Intelligences?	658
Kant and Occultism	659
Mind in Nature	661
Occult and Physical Sciences	663
Plurality of Worlds	665
The Geology of Enoch	667

SECTION XIV.

Gods, Monads, and Atoms	669
Who are the Blind?	671
The Mathematical Point	673
Space, Force, and Matter	675
Phantoms of the Mind	677
Atomic Souls	679
The Chemistry of the Future	681
Âryan and Western Science	683
Hermes or Huxley?	685
Leibnitz and Occultism	687
Spinoza and Leibnitz	689
The Nature of the Monad	691
Spirit and Matter One	693

SECTION XV.

Cyclic Evolution and Karma	695
Is Man a God or a Beast?	697
The Swing of Karma	699
The Network of Destiny	701
Cyclic Wheels within Wheels	703
Karma-Nemesis	705
Ancient and Modern Prophecies	707
Astrology a Science	709

SECTION XVI.

The Zodiac and its Antiquity	710
The Zodiac in the Bible	711
Antiquity of Zodiac	713
The Zodiac and the Patriarchs	715
The Sign of Jonas	717
Chaldæo-Judæan Gods	719
The Dragon and the Bull	721

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PAGE.

Bailly’s Conclusions	723
The Beginning of Kali Yuga	725
Hindû Astronomical Methods	727
The Âryan Hindûs Vindicated	729

SECTION XVII.

Summary of the Position	731
The Exact Science of—Negation	733
Forces are Gods	735
The Aliases of Fohat	737
Legend and History	739

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preface to the first edition.

The author—the writer, rather—feels it necessary to apologize for the long delay which has occurred in the appearance of this work. It has been occasioned by ill-health and the magnitude of the undertaking. Even the two volumes now issued do not complete the scheme, nor do these treat exhaustively of the subjects dealt with in them. A large quantity of material has already been prepared, dealing with the history of Occultism as contained in the lives of the great Adepts of the Âryan Race, and showing the bearing of Occult Philosophy upon the conduct of life, as it is and as it ought to be. Should the present volumes meet with a favourable reception, no effort will be spared to carry out the scheme of the work in its entirety.

This scheme, it must be added, was not in contemplation when the preparation of the work was first announced. As originally announced, it was intended that The Secret Doctrine should be an amended and enlarged version of Isis Unveiled. It was, however, soon found that the explanations which could be added to those already put before the world, in the last-named and other works dealing with Esoteric Science, were such as to require a different method of treatment; and consequently the present volumes do not contain, in all, twenty pages extracted from Isis Unveiled.

The author does not feel it necessary to ask the indulgence of her readers and critics for the many defects of literary style, and the

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imperfect English which may be found in these pages. She is a foreigner, and her knowledge of the language was acquired late in life. The English tongue is employed because it offers the most widely-diffused medium for conveying the truths which it had become her duty to place before the world.

These truths are in no sense put forward as a revelation; nor does the author claim the position of a revealer of mystic lore, now made public for the first time in the world's history. For what is contained in this work is to be found scattered throughout thousands of volumes embodying the Scriptures of the great Asiatic and early European religions, hidden under glyph and symbol, and hitherto left unnoticed because of this veil. What is now attempted is to gather the oldest tenets together and to make of them one harmonious and unbroken whole. The sole advantage which the writer has over her predecessors, is that she need not resort to personal speculations and theories. For this work is a partial statement of what she herself has been taught by more advanced students, supplemented, in a few details only, by the results of her viii ←own study and observation. The publication of many of the facts herein stated has been rendered necessary by the wild and fanciful speculations in which many Theosophists and students of Mysticism have indulged, during the last few years, in their endeavour, as they imagined, to work out a complete system of thought from the few facts previously communicated to them.

It is needless to explain that this book is not the Secret Doctrine in its entirety, but a select number of fragments of its fundamental tenets, special attention being paid to some facts which have been seized upon by various writers, and distorted out of all resemblance to the truth.

But it is perhaps desirable to state unequivocally that the teach-

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ings, however fragmentary and incomplete, contained in these volumes, do not belong to the Hindû, the Zoroastrian, the Chaldæan, or the Egyptian religion, nor to Buddhism, Islam, Judaism or Christianity exclusively. The Secret Doctrine is the essence of all these. Sprung from it in their origins, the various religious schemes are now made to merge back into their original element, out of which every mystery and dogma has grown, developed, and become materialized.

It is more than probable that the book will be regarded by a large section of the public as a romance of the wildest kind; for who has ever even heard of the Book of Dzyan?

The writer, therefore, is fully prepared to take all the responsibility for what is contained in this work, and even to face the charge of having invented the whole of it. That it has many shortcomings she is fully aware; all that she claims for it is that, romantic as it may seem to many, its logical coherence and consistency entitle this new Genesis to rank, at any rate, on a level with the “working hypotheses” so freely accepted by Modern Science. Further, it claims consideration, not by reason of any appeal to dogmatic authority, but because it closely adheres to Nature, and follows the laws of uniformity and analogy.

The aim of this work may be thus stated: to show that Nature is not “a fortuitous concurrence of atoms,” and to assign to man his rightful place in the scheme of the Universe; to rescue from degradation the archaic truths which are the basis of all religions; to uncover, to some extent, the fundamental unity from which they all spring; finally, to show that the Occult side of Nature has never been approached by the Science of modern civilization.

If this is in any degree accomplished, the writer is content. It is

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written in the service of humanity, and by humanity and the future generations it must be judged. Its author recognizes no inferior court of appeal. Abuse she is accustomed to; calumny she is daily acquainted with; at slander she smiles in silent contempt.

De minimis non curat lex.

H. P. B.

London, October, 1888.