Blavatsky Blogger
Taking Theosophical
ideas
into the 21st
century
Purpose
and Origins of
The
Secret Doctrine
Posted
In his Review of The Secret Doctrine,
published in 1888 (less than one year after the Secret Doctrine itself in 1888)
W Q Judge states the following agenda for the book;
"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; and 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."
The
rejection of theories that suggest that we arrived at where we are by chance “fortuitous
concurrence of atoms” is basic to the Theosophical argument and still remains
at odds with much scientific thinking. Despite the belief in a plan for the
evolution of the universe, Theosophy does not speculate on God, just accepts
that the universe emanates from an unknowable principle.
Judge also
refers to the place of man in the evolutionary scheme. There is also a
reference to Ancient Wisdom in the sense that all religions are derived from
one original source of knowledge but the knowledge has become obscured and
distorted.
Judge goes
on to say that H P Blavatsky, although author of the Secret Doctrine, could not
have produced it entirely on her own.
“it is not the outcome of the mental or other experience of
any one person. No human brain could singly conceive a scheme so vast, so
complex in details, so simple of base. It is evidently an aggregation beginning
far back in archaic times.”
H P
Blavatsky herself always claimed to be the messenger and not the inventor or
owner of the ideas.
Judge
explains that the obscure Stanzas of Dzyan is the basis of the Secret Doctrine.
“The basis
of this remarkable work is the "Book of Dzyan," an archaic Ms. unknown to the western world and secretly preserved in the
He says of
the Stanzas
“The
stanzas are weird, magnificent. They have the grand calm of classics, joined to
that subtle, soul-stirring quality which is of all time and conveys the aroma
of the orientalist”
Much has
been made since its writing of the help given to H P Blavatsky by Ascended
Masters in the writing of the Secret Doctrine. Judge acknowledges this but in a
rather low key way;
“The style
is abrupt and full of variations which show the work of different minds and
sustain the author's claim to the aid of Tibetan adepts.”
It is
possible that Judge wished not to draw too much attention to the Ascended
Masters in an article published in a general and not specifically Theosophical
journal. He simply recognizes that the Masters’ influence.
Review of The Secret Doctrine By
W Q Judge
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