An Abridgment by Katharine Hillard of the Secret Doctrine: A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy; In Two Parts; Part I. Cosmogenesis; Part II. Anthropogenesis

by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

Excerpt from An Abridgment by Katharine Hillard of the Secret Doctrine: A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy; In Two Parts; Part I. Cosmogenesis; Part II. Anthropogenesis

The Editor of this Abridgment has long felt the need of a shorter, a simpler and a less expensive version of the Secret Doctrine. The wealth of ma terial that embarrassed the author of the book or perhaps we should say the transcriber - gave rise to endless digressions wherein the thread of the subject is often lost for whole chapters, while many quotations, comprehensible only to special students, increase the bulk of the volumes, and add to the difficulty of understanding their contents. Many foreign idioms (notably the use of the word actual in the sense of present) and frequent mis prints make the meaning of the text still more oh scure, and the many and complicated parentheses add to the labor of the reader. The enormous length of the book makes it so expensive that compara tively few students can afford to buy it, and the most valuable legacy of theosophic information yet given to the world is thus unavailable to many of those who most need it.

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Genres: Theosophy, Nonfiction

594 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (Russian: Еле́на Петро́вна Блава́тская, Yelena Petrovna Blavatskaya, often known as Madame Blavatsky; 12 August [O.S. 31 July] 1831 – 8 May 1891) was a Russian occultist, philosopher, and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She gained an international following as the leading theoretician of Theosophy, the esoteric religion that the society promoted.

Source: Wikipedia

Reviews

[Gregg · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first volume Cosmogenesis deals with the mechanics of how God created itself. Like all of us , God had existence before it was aware of itself. We had life after conception, but we did not have self awareness until around the age of 3 or 4. The same is true for all entities, and non entities. The treaties on Cosmogenesis goes into detail as to how God created itself from the great potential. Before anything can exist the "potential" has to exist first, even when it comes to God. Before God could actualize itself, it had to create the tools of existence. It first had to create space, and then it had to create time, and then it had to create form (geometry) or matter, (which is just folded space). Imagine space as a flat table cloth, now imagine that you twist up a little piece of the table cloth, there you have a disturbance, and that disturbance or "change" is matter. Matter is to space, what Ice is to water. Oh yes, what say you. From these manifestations God poured itself into its newly created universe, and this act represented a type of self awareness for God. I liked how the author interpreted the more arcane text,(stanzas) of the various religions into a practical explanation for a contemporary audience. The section on non-being which predates existence, starts on page 44. It was the non-beings that yearned to exist that caused creation to "be". It was because these non-existence creatures of nothing, seeking to understand the absent of reality, that a potential God brought forth a secondary reality to give them expression in the great actualization we call the Metaverse. The reading is slow and tedious, but when that ah moment of intellectual illumination surges through your being, the time invested is a small price to pay. I could not find any holes in the logic of her presentations, and the route she takes the reader on shows the mark of a true teacher. Another section that tickled my fancy was that on the subject of sacred geometry. The first "thing" that was created, were patterns in the void. These shapes define what is in the shape, and what is outside. This sets up a differentiation in the symmetry of nothing. From there the phenomenon of motion was introduce, and that became the bases for a type of life. Pythagoras was a great teacher of sacred geometry, and I would recommend his teachings to further your understanding of the subject. I cannot say enough about the debt humanity owes to Madam Blavatsky. "Her" ideals as they are expressed in the text are a great boom to our understanding of what is, and a profound boost to aid us in our journey home. The text on anthropogenesis deals mainly with human consciousness, and the forms it has had to function through. It talks about the different changes and rounds as well as the root races, and sub races, and how those races brought out different characteristics of awareness, that the developing consciousness had to unfold to become aware of the laws of nature, which is called evolution. The text states that as consciousness dabbled in physical reality it became more engrossed in the forms it began to inhabit. At some point this consciousness began to forget its true home, because in the physical form they could feel more alive, if only in a limited physical sense . At this stage the young consciousness cannot function on its own plane (the 5th dimension) it must work its way up. Its like being able to do more under the influence of some substance, and you come to think that is normal, and the old dull way is abnormal and is to be avoided. To some schools of thought this came to be known as the "fall" of mankind, as the soul (consciousness) became enmeshed in physical reality, which was the natural course of evolution. When the young consciousness or souls saw the quagmire they had made, some of them refused to complete the cycle of their curriculum of learning, this was known as the rebellion, or the war in heaven. It would be like a child refusing to complete the rest of the school year, because of one rough day. These young souls supposedly were lead by one entity who sought to "modify" the plan of nature. This entity was known as the bringer of knowledge (choice). Why, it thought, should we be giving free will, and we can't use it ? This adventurous young soul came to be known as Lucifer in the various religions and myths. If I'm to understand the readings this being was one of the saviors of humanity by being the first to "use" free will as compare to just intellectualizing it. We see this being bringing choice to other human creations. In the "story" of Adam and Eve they were just automatons who were basically robots with no chance for advancement. Ask yourself, what did Adam and Eve do in the garden all day, remember they had all eternity to do it!! Could they feel pain ? mentally or physically ? could they get bored ? could they leave the garden ? did they have hunger pangs, if so then it wouldn't be paradise. Lucifer/Satan as the parable goes, offered Adam and Eve a "choice" stay here and remain ignorant, or exercise your free will and explore the wonders of existence, with responsibilities and consequences. The only true freedom is to be more than that which created you. One ideal the text ends with is describing the next race (not skin color) that will bring about other traits of consciousness, that of intuition and empathy . This round, or period will last about 700 years. The secret Doctrine does a good job in explaining these scenarios from a Theosophical point of view. Whether you agree with such esoteric views is secondary to the fact that at least you're open minded enough to at least considered them. For this we should be thankful that Madam Blavatsky presented these interpretations in what I think are a very lucid and pragmatic way, and for this I give her all the stars.

[reqbat · Rating 2 out of 5]

I get why an abridgement is warranted, but so much of the omissions are what I would have liked to read and so much of what IS included is exhausting. A lovely thing to have on your occult shelf, but lacking in the best content by design.

[Marcus Maximilian Augustus · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bunch of crazy talk; unnecessarily complex supernatural origin explanations which combine Jewish (Kabbalah), Manichaeist, Platonist, & esoteric Buddhist traditions with a large portion of Hinduism. Theosophy is a dualistic gnostic religion dealing in ancient wisdom founded in Victorian-era America by a Russian immigrant. This book attempts to sum up the great work of Theosophy, "The Secret Doctrine," but just makes it more confusing. As far as I can surmise, it's an atheistic religion free of ethical codes which has more in common with mythical science-fiction than its adherants would care to admit (Scientology, anyone?).

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t actually read this book but read “the Art and Practice of Astral Projection: the forbidden manuscript”, by Madam Blavatsky, however, such book is not listed on goodreads. Interesting topic but not an interesting book. I do recommend the practice.

[Brad Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too hard to read for me, I need an abridgement of the abridgement. 😔