H.P. Blavatsky THE SECRET DOCTRINE DIALOGUES H.P. Blavatsky Talks With Students H.P. Blavatsky THE SECRET DOCTRINE DIALOGUES H.P. Blavatsky Talks With Students THE THEOSOPHY COMPANY LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 2014 First Edition 2014 The Theosophy Company Los Angeles, California ISBN 978-0-9898541-0-8 Contents Introduction i The Stanzas of Dzyan v Original Manuscript Page 1 A photocopy. xiv 1. Meeting January 10, 1889 1 Stanza 1, Slokas 1-2: Parabrahm, Ain-Soph; Laya centers; protyle and hyle; time, space and duration; Sat, “Be-ness”; the nature of intelligence and consciousness; the logoi. 2. Meeting January 17, 1889 27 Stanza 1, Slokas 3-4: Universal mind; consciousness; the Ah-hi; cosmic ideation; deep sleep; Buddhi and Mahat; four truths of Buddhism; the Nidanas and Maya; dreams; instinct; the cerebrum and the cerebellum. 3. Meeting January 24, 1889 59 Stanza 1, Slokas 5-8: Buddhism; space; Darkness and Light; Father-Mother-Son; Laya; Parabrahm, the causeless cause, Sat, rootless root; dreamless sleep; the senses; clairvoyance; light, sound and color. 4. Meeting January 31, 1889 95 Stanza 1, Slokas 6 & 9; Stanza 2, Slokas 1-2: Dhyan-Chohans, Planetary spirits; planets; the Builders; Dhyani-Buddhas, Manus and Rishis; the Sephiroth; Alaya and Jivatma; Planetary chains; Rishis and Manus; water, fire and occultism; modern science and hypotheses; induction and deduction. 5. Meeting February 7, 1889 129 Stanza 2, Slokas 3-4: Three logoi; the point in the circle; the Mundane, Solar and Universal Eggs; potentiality and potency; Fohat, “Pho”; Astral Light; Pythagorean geometry, numbers; Triangles and Pyramids; the Tetragrammaton and Tetraktys; “Yod-he-va,” the Elohim. 6. Meeting February 14, 1889 153 Stanza 3, Slokas 1-3: The first Logos; Duration and Time; radiation and emanation; Akasa and Astral Light; early Christianity; noumena and phenomena; Dhyan-Chohans and Dhyani-Buddhas; Manu; Manvantaras; cosmic elements and elementals; the fate of mediums; Water; the Virgin-Egg; language; thought and ideas. 7. Meeting February 21, 1889 191 Stanza 3, Slokas 2-4: Vibration and germ; Pythagorean triangle; “Radiant Essence”; Paramatma and Jivatma; atoms and molecules; ether and Akasa; elements; “world-stuff”; war in heaven; 14 Manus; seven rays; numbers and principles; colors and prisms; Ralston Skinner and the Kabalah; the pyramids. 8. Meeting February 28, 1889 223 Stanza 3, Slokas 5-9: The Root; the Milky Way and “world-stuff”; Light and Time; “knots” of Fohat; the Sun; nebular theory; sun spots; Fire; weight and gravity; Water; numbers and colors; Kwan-shai- yin and Kwan-yin; Oeaohoo; the veil of reality; Electricity and Fohat; the kama-rupa of amber and electricity; the ant; organic and inorganic matter; Fire; Keely’s inter-etheric force; Thompson and Crookes; suns and planets; the atmosphere. 9. Meeting March 7, 1889 257 Stanza 3, Slokas 10-11: Æther and Akasa; ether and Astral Light; the circle; the Web of the Universe; the Monad; planets and gravity; one absolute force; the Absolute. 10. Meeting March 14, 1889 295 Stanza 4, Slokas 1-5: “Sons of the Fire”; Nirvana; Father-Mother; Kabalistic permutation; the Alhim (Elohim); the Logos; “god geometrizes”; suns, comets, meteors and planets; the Pleiades. 11. Meeting March 21, 1889 323 Stanza 4, Sloka 6; Stanza 5, Slokas 1-3: The Lipika, Æons, the Syzygies of Simon Magus; Word, Voice and Spirit; “the rejected Son”; Mahat; the Absolute; the atoms; “Sons of Fohat”. 12. Meeting March 28, 1889 341 Stanza 4, Sloka 5; Stanza 5, Slokas 1-5: The Sun and planets; comets, cosmic dust and nebula; Fohat; atoms; electricity; the Caduceus of Mercury; the Hindu trinity; the four corners; magnetic influences. 13. Meeting April 4, 1889 371 Stanza 5, Sloka 6; Stanza 6, Slokas 1 & 3-4: Personal Ego and Impersonal Self; Atma-Buddhi-Manas; Vach; Laya centers; Fohat and the Mayavi-rupa; pralayas; Atoms; Force; Light and Heat; Nirvana and Parinirvana; Globes, Rounds and Races; the Moon Chain; Keely’s telescope. 14. Meeting April 11, 1889 403 Stanza 6, Sloka 4: Atmospheres and elements; meteors; minerals; atoms and molecules; Laya centers and primordial substance; Fohat, electricity and Energy; influence of the Moon; magnetism; Mars, Mercury. 15. Meeting April 18, 1889 429 Laya centers, matter and substance; seven planes of substance; triangle and square; classes of Monads; perfection in evolution; Mt. Meru; the Sishtas; anthropoids; populations; the Todas and Mulakurumbas of India. 16. Meeting April 25, 1889 457 Stanza 6, Sloka 5: The moon and earth; motion; Fohat; Lunar Pitris; Rounds, globes and principles; karma of civilization; Nature; Kama Rupa and Prana. 17. Meeting May 2, 1889 491 Stanza 6, Slokas 5-6: “The Dragon”; Saturn; cosmic “seats”; Kabalah; Cosmic Con- sciousness; seeds and atoms; Chaos and Eros; the struggle for existence; selfishness; elliptic and parabolic orbits; states of matter. 18. Meeting May 9, 1889: Transcription missing. 19. Meeting May 16, 1889 523 “The Key to Theosophy”; practical theosophy; Father Damien and Labro; altruism; growth of the Theosophical Society; pseudo-Theosophists; influences of planets and color; Theosophists and Mystics; basic theosophy. 20. Meeting May 30, 1889 549 Stanza 7, Slokas 1-3: Prana, Jiva and Monads; the Unknown and the Unknowable; Manas; the brain; Karma and heredity; the Fourth Round. 21. Meeting June 6, 1889 575 “The Key to Theosophy”; Karma, unmerited suffering; Devachan; free will; memory; reincarnation. 22. Meeting June 20, 1889 607 Materialism and understanding; natural forces and hierarchies; Theosophy and fanaticism; intuition; Atma, Buddhi and Manas; Jiva and Prana. No evidence exists that meetings were held May 23 or June 13, 1889. Appendix 1 635 Possible missing fragment from Meeting 1, page 4. Appendix 2 636 “Appendix on Dreams” from The Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge. Appendix 3 655 Blavatsky Lodge Meetings: Participants and the meetings they attended. Appendix 4 659 The Secret Doctrine: A Paper read before the Blavatsky Lodge of the T.S. by William Kingsland, President. Index 665 lL lL lL i Introduction The modern Theosophical movement, inaugurated in 1875 by H. P. Blavatsky and others with the formation of the Theosophical Society, had nearly perished by the time HPB moved to London in May of 1887. Although a worldly success, attacks from without and a lack of support from within had rendered the Society almost lifeless. Psychic phenomena, and a general misunderstanding of the nature of the “masters” and the principle of Universal Brotherhood – the fundamental purpose of the Movement – had distracted both the Society and the world’s attention from the deeper teachings. Retreating to Europe to regain her health and to re-group among friends, HPB had left India in 1885, ill, exhausted, near death in fact, yet determined to carry on with the work her teachers had set for her. At last, she was able to gather about her a revitalized nucleus of workers, which came to be called the Blavatsky Lodge. The next four years produced a flourish of wonderfully productive activity, beginning with a new magazine, Lucifer, in the fall of 1887. The additional helping hands allowed HPB to focus upon and complete The Secret Doctrine by 1888, and The Key to Theosophy and The Voice of the Silence the following year. Once published, The Secret Doctrine proved to be a tremendous catalyst for serious student inquiry. Questions about the book and its subjects, particularly cosmogenesis, were the topic of the weekly meetings of the Blavatsky Lodge, held at HPB’s home on Lansdowne Road. Students of Theosophical history will no doubt recognize many of the names of prominent Theosophists of the day who attended. In a letter to her sister, Vera, HPB gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse of those proceedings: Every Saturday we hold a reception and every Thursday a meeting, with all its scientific questions, with shorthand writers at my back, and with a couple of reporters in corners. Does not all this take time? I have to prepare myself for every Thursday, because the people who attend these meetings are not ignoramuses, but men ii introduction such as Kingsland, the worker in electricity, as Dr. William Bennett, and the naturalist, Carter Blake. I have to be ready to defend the theories of occultism against those of applied sciences so that it will be possible to print them straight away from the shorthand reports in our new special monthly magazine under the title of Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge. The first installment of theTransactions was published a year later, in 1890, carrying a note that the printed version was “somewhat condensed from the original discussions,” and presenting the material in an anonymous question and answer format. Another volume shortly followed, and though others were indicated, nothing further appeared. The recorded weekly meetings were held from January 10 to June 20, 1889, but the published accounts only covered the meetings up to March 14. Two meetings also took place in December, 1888, and resulted in the Appendix on Dreams included in the first volume, and included here as Appendix 2, making the present work a complete record of the dialogues H. P. Blavatsky held with her students over a seven month period. This material, 21 handwritten folios of over 30 pages each, provides a useful commentary on the ideas expounded in The Secret Doctrine. As much as possible, it is a word-for-word transcription from the original handwritten reports of the meetings (A sample, page one of the original MS, follows.) The report of the first meeting of January 10, 1889 is unique in that it bears HPB’s handwritten editorial changes, which differ from the version published at the time. Among the many changes made to the first dozen or so pages was her crossing out “Madame Blavatsky” and inserting “HPB.” Her preference for the latter designation is well-known, and most participants in the dialogues reported herein so referred to her, but we have maintained the former designation when it was used by the stenographers.