The Secret Doctrine, the Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy, a book originally published as two volumes in 1888, is Helena P. Blavatsky's
magnum opusMagnum opus , from the Latin meaning great work, refers to the largest, and perhaps the best, greatest, most popular, or most renowned achievement of an author, artist, or composer.The term Great Work is also used in several...
. The first volume is named
CosmogenesisCosmogenesis is the origin and development of the cosmos. This term "Cosmogenesis" was used by Helena P. Blavatsky to describe the content of Volume I of her two-volume The Secret Doctrine, published in 1888; volume II was called "Anthropogenesis" or the origin of humanity.-Blavatsky usage:In...
, the second Anthropogenesis. It was an influential example of the revival of interest in esoteric and occult ideas in the modern age, in particular because of its claim to reconcile ancient eastern wisdom with modern science.
Blavatsky claimed that its contents had been revealed to her by '
mahatmaMahatma is Sanskrit for "Great Soul" ; it is similar in usage to the modern Christian term saint. This epithet is commonly applied to prominent people like Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Jyotirao Phule...
s' who had retained knowledge of mankind's spiritual history, knowledge that it was now possible, in part, to reveal.
The first part of the book explained the origin and evolution of the universe itself, in terms derived from the Hindu concept of cyclical development.
The Secret Doctrine, the Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy, a book originally published as two volumes in 1888, is Helena P. Blavatsky's
magnum opusMagnum opus , from the Latin meaning great work, refers to the largest, and perhaps the best, greatest, most popular, or most renowned achievement of an author, artist, or composer.The term Great Work is also used in several...
. The first volume is named
CosmogenesisCosmogenesis is the origin and development of the cosmos. This term "Cosmogenesis" was used by Helena P. Blavatsky to describe the content of Volume I of her two-volume The Secret Doctrine, published in 1888; volume II was called "Anthropogenesis" or the origin of humanity.-Blavatsky usage:In...
, the second Anthropogenesis. It was an influential example of the revival of interest in esoteric and occult ideas in the modern age, in particular because of its claim to reconcile ancient eastern wisdom with modern science.
Blavatsky claimed that its contents had been revealed to her by '
mahatmaMahatma is Sanskrit for "Great Soul" ; it is similar in usage to the modern Christian term saint. This epithet is commonly applied to prominent people like Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Jyotirao Phule...
s' who had retained knowledge of mankind's spiritual history, knowledge that it was now possible, in part, to reveal.
Volume One
The first part of the book explained the origin and evolution of the universe itself, in terms derived from the Hindu concept of cyclical development. The world and everything in it is supposed to alternate between periods of activity (
manvanataras) and periods of passivity (
pralayas). Each manvantara lasts many millions of years and consists of a number of
YugaYuga in Hindu philosophy is the name of an 'epoch' or 'era' within a cycle of four ages. These are the Satya Yuga , the Treta Yuga, the Dvapara Yuga and finally the Kali Yuga. According to Hindu cosmology, life in the universe is created, destroyed once every 4.1 to 8.2 billion years , which is...
s, in accordance with Hindu cosmology.
Blavatsky attempted to demonstrate that the discoveries of "materialist" science had been anticipated in the writings of ancient sages, and that
materialismThe philosophy of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance. As a theory, materialism is a form of physicalism and belongs to the...
would be proven wrong.
Volume Two
The second half of the book describes the origins of humanity through an account of "
Root RaceIn theosophy, Root Race is a term first used in the late 19th century by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in her book The Secret Doctrine...
s" dating back millions of years. The first root race was, according to her, "ethereal", the second root had more physical bodies and lived in
HyperboreaIn Greek mythology the Hyperboreans were a mythical people who lived far to the north of Thrace. The Greeks thought that Boreas, the North Wind, lived in Thrace, and that therefore Hyperborea was an unspecified region in the northern lands that lay beyond Scythia...
. The third root race, the first to be truly human, existed on the lost continent of
LemuriaLemuria is the name of a hypothetical "lost land" variously located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The concept's 19th century origins lie in attempts to account for discontinuities in biogeography -- however, the scientific concept of Lemuria has been rendered obsolete by modern understanding...
and the fourth root race developed in
AtlantisAtlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias.In Plato's account, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC...
.
According to Blavatsky, the present fifth root race is approximately one million years old. It overlapped the fourth root race and the very first beginnings of the fifth root race were approximately in the middle of the fourth root race.
Volumes Three and Four
Blavatsky wanted to publish a third and fourth volume of
The Secret Doctrine. After Blavatsky's death, a controversial third volume of
The Secret Doctrine was published by
Annie BesantAnnie Wood Besant was a prominent Theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator and supporter of Irish and Indian self rule.-Early life:...
.
Theories on human evolution and race
In the second volume of
The Secret Doctrine, dedicated to anthroprogenesis, Blavatsky presents a theory of the gradual evolution of physical humanity over a timespan of millions of years.
The steps in this evolution are called
rootraces, seven in all. Current humanity mainly consists of the fifth such rootrace. Earlier rootraces exhibited completely different characteristics: physical bodies first appearing in the second rootrace and sexual characteristics in the third.
The designation
aryans appears as a subgroup of the fifth rootrace, which comprises the vast majority of present humanity.
Some detractors have emphasized passages and footnotes that claim some peoples to be less fully human or spiritual than the "Aryans". For example,
- "The intellectual difference between the Aryan and other civilized nations and such savages as the South Sea Islanders, is inexplicable on any other grounds. No amount of culture, nor generations of training amid civilization, could raise such human specimens as the Bushmen
The indigenous people of southern Africa, whose territory spans most areas of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola, are variously referred to as Bushmen, San, Sho, Basarwa, Kung, or Khwe...
, the Veddhas of Ceylon, and some African tribes, to the same intellectual level as the Aryans, the Semites, and the Turanians so called. The 'sacred spark' is missing in them and it is they who are the only inferior races on the globe, now happily -- owing to the wise adjustment of nature which ever works in that direction -- fast dying out. Verily mankind is 'of one blood,' but not of the same essence. We are the hot-house, artificially quickened plants in nature, having in us a spark, which in them is latent" (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, p 421).
When discussing "sterility between two human races" as observed by
DarwinCharles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist who realised and presented compelling evidence that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors, through the process he called natural selection...
, Blavatsky notes:
- "Of such semi-animal creatures, the sole remnants known to Ethnology
Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific Discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
were the TasmaniaTasmania is an Australian island and state. It is located south of the eastern side of the continent, from which it is separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania – the 26th largest island in the world – and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 500,000 ,...
ns, a portion of the Australians and a mountain tribeA tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups .Some theorists hold that...
in ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
, the men and women of which are entirely covered with hair. They were the last descendants in a direct line of the semi-animal latter-day LemuriansLemuria is the name of a hypothetical "lost land" variously located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The concept's 19th century origins lie in attempts to account for discontinuities in biogeography -- however, the scientific concept of Lemuria has been rendered obsolete by modern understanding...
referred to. There are, however, considerable numbers of the mixed Lemuro-AtlanteanAs an adjective, Atlantean means "of or pertaining to the island of Atlantis".Atlantean can also refer to:*Atlantean , a trilogy of TV films discussing the origins of the European coastal peoples...
peoples produced by various crossings with such semi-human stocks -- e.g., the wild men of BorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located at the centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Administratively, this island is divided among Indonesia , Malaysia and Brunei . Indonesians refer to the island as Kalimantan...
, the Veddhas of Ceylon, classed by Prof. Flower among Aryans (!), most of the remaining Australians, Bushmen, Negritos, AndamanAndaman could mean:* Andaman Discoveries* Andaman Islands* Andaman Sea* The book The Andaman Islanders by Alfred Radcliffe-Brown....
Islanders, etc" (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, pp 195-6).
Blavatsky also asserts that "the
occultThe word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
doctrine admits of no such divisions as the Aryan and the Semite, accepting even the Turanian with ample reservations. Semites, especially the
ArabArab people or Arabs are an ethnic group whose members identify along linguistic, cultural or genealogical grounds...
s, are later Aryans — degenerate in spirituality and perfected in materiality" (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, p 200). She also connects physical race with spiritual attributes constantly throughout her works:
- "Esoteric history teaches that idols and their worship died out with the Fourth Race, until the survivors of the hybrid races of the latter (Chinamen, African negroes, &c.) gradually brought the worship back. The Vedas countenance no idols; all the modern Hindu writings do" (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, p 723).
According to Blavatsky, "The MONADS of the lowest specimens of humanity (the "narrow-brained" savage South-Sea Islander, the African, the Australian) had no Karma to work out when first born as men, as their more favoured brethren in intelligence had" (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, p 168).
She also prophesies of the destruction of the racial "failures of nature" as the "higher race" ascends:
- "Thus will mankind, race after race, perform its appointed cycle-pilgrimage. Climates will, and have already begun, to change, each tropical year after the other dropping one sub-race, but only to beget another higher race on the ascending cycle; while a series of other less favoured groups -- the failures of nature -- will, like some individual men, vanish from the human family without even leaving a trace behind" (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, p 446).
While these assertions have been criticized, other extracts from her writings show her strong belief in an Universal Brotherhood of humanity. In
The Key to TheosophyThe Key to Theosophy is a popular book by Helena P. Blavatsky first published in 1889 and still in print today, expounding the principles of theosophy in a readable question-and-answer manner...
she wrote that "All men have spiritually and physically the same origin, which is the fundamental teaching of Theosophy" and that "mankind is essentially of one and the same essence."
One of the objects of her Theosophical Society is "To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity without distinction of race, color, or creed." She also spoke out against European slave trade in Africa (Key to Theosophy 3), the Caste System (SD I:270) and often laid stress on "kindness, absence of every ill feeling or selfishness, charity, goodwill to all beings, and perfect justice to others as to one's self" (The First Message of HPB). In
The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky states: "Verily mankind is 'of one blood,' but not of the same essence."
In
Isis UnveiledIsis Unveiled, published in 1877, is a book of esoteric philosophy, and was Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's first major work.The book discusses or quotes, among others, Plato, Plotinus, the Chaldean Oracles, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Bible, Pythagoras, Ammonius Saccas, Porphyry, Iamblichus,...
, published eleven years before
The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky gave an account of why "white men" were "almost incapable of magic":
- "Magic being what it is, the most difficult of all sciences to learn experimentally -- its acquisition is practically beyond the reach of the majority of white-skinned people; and that, whether their effort is made at home or in the East. Probably not more than one man in a million of European blood is fitted -- either physically, morally, or psychologically -- to become a practical magician, and not one in ten millions would be found endowed with all these three qualifications as required for the work. Civilized nations lack the phenomenal powers of endurance, both mental and physical, of the Easterns; the favoring temperamental idiosyncrasies of the Orientals are utterly wanting in them. In the Hindu, the Arabian, the Thibetan, an intuitive perception of the possibilities of occult natural forces in subjection to human will, comes by inheritance; and in them, the physical senses as well as the spiritual are far more finely developed than in the Western races. Notwithstanding the notable difference of thickness between the skulls of a European and a Southern Hindu, this difference, being a purely climatic result, due to the intensity of the sun's rays, involves no psychological principles. Furthermore, there would be tremendous difficulties in the way of training, if we can so express it. Contaminated by centuries of dogmatic superstition, by an ineradicable -- though quite unwarranted -- sense of superiority over those whom the English term so contemptuously 'niggers,' the white European would hardly submit himself to the practical tuition of either Kopt, Brahman, or Lama" (Isis Unveiled, Vol. 2, pp 635-6).
Study of the Secret Doctrine
According to P.G.B. Bowen, Blavatsky gave the following instructions regarding the study of the Secret Doctrine:
Reading the S.D. page by page as one reads any other book (she says) will only end us in confusion. The first thing to do, even if it takes years, is to get some grasp of the "Three Fundamental Principles" given in the Proem. Follow that up by study of the Recapitulation - the numbered items in the Summing Up to Vol. I (Part 1.) Then take the Preliminary Notes (Vol. II) and the Conclusion (Vol. II).
Writings about "The Secret Doctrine"
- Alice Bailey
Alice Ann Bailey , known as Alice A. Bailey or AAB, was born as Alice LaTrobe Bateman, in Manchester, England—at 7:32 AM GMT, according to Dane Rudhyar. She moved to the United States in 1907, where she spent most of her life as a writer and teacher...
wrote about the Secret Doctrine: But those of us who really studied it and arrived at some understanding of its inner significance have a basic appreciation of the truth that no other book seems to supply. H.P.B. said that the next interpretation of the Ageless Wisdom would be a psychological approach, and A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, which I published in 1925, is the psychological key to The Secret Doctrine. None of my books would have been possible had I not at one time made a very close study of The Secret Doctrine.
- Blavatsky and The Secret Doctrine by Max Heindel
Max Heindel - born Carl Louis von Grasshoff in Aarhus, Denmark on July 23, 1865 - was a Christian occultist, astrologer, and mystic. He died on January 6, 1919 at Oceanside, California, United States.- Early infancy :...
(1933; from Max Heindel writings & with introduction by Manly Palmer HallManly Palmer Hall was a Canadian-born author and mystic. He is perhaps most famous for his work The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy, published in 1928 when he was 27 years old.It is claimed that Hall was...
): THE SECRET DOCTRINE is one of the most remarkable books in the world... Behind her [H.P.B.] stood the real teachers, the guardians of the Secret Wisdom of the ages, who taught her all the occult lore which she transmitted in her writings.
See also
- Book of Dzyan
The Book of Dzyan is a reputedly ancient text of Tibetan origin. The Stanzas formed the basis for The Secret Doctrine, one of the foundational works of the theosophical movement, by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in 1875.-Madame Blavatsky's claims regarding the Book of Dzyan:Madame Blavatsky claimed...
- Mahatma Letters
The Mahatma Letters are letters that were written by the Theosophical Mahatmas to certain Theosophists, especially A. P. Sinnett and A. O. Hume. Letters by the Mahatmas were also written to Henry Steel Olcott, Helena Blavatsky, C. W. Leadbeater and others....
- New Age Spirituality
- Round (Theosophy)
A round in the esoteric cosmology of Theosophy, Anthroposophy and Rosicrucianism is a cosmic cycle or sequence by which an evolving reincarnating being passes through the various stages of existence as the Earth, the Solar System or the Cosmos comes into and passes out of manifestation.- The...
- Theosophy
Theosophy is a doctrine of religious philosophy and metaphysics. Theosophy holds that all religions are attempts by the "Spiritual Hierarchy" to help humanity in evolving to greater perfection, and that each religion therefore has a portion of the truth...
External links