That cruelest of tyrants – public opinion.
Dogmas are the toys that amuse and can satisfy but unreasoning children. They are the offspring of human speculation and prejudiced fancy.
But – drive out prejudice with a pitch-fork it will ever return.
Theosophy is who Theosophy does, not thinks, not studies, not feels but does.
Theosophy, on earth, is like the white ray of the spectrum, and each religion only one of the seven colours.
The Occultists, however, know that the traditions of Esoteric Philosophy must be the right ones, simply because they are the most logical, and reconcile every difficulty.
The Universe is the periodical manifestation of this unknown Absolute Essence.
And now it stands proven that Satan, or the Red Fiery Dragon, the ‘Lord of Phosphorus,’ and Lucifer, or ‘Light-Bearer,’ is in us: it is our Mind.
The wheel of the Good Law moves swiftly on. It grinds by night and day. The worthless husks it drives from out the golden grain, the refuse from the flour. The hand of fate guides the wheel; the revolutions mark the beatings of the heart of manifestation.
The Secret Doctrine is the common property of the countless millions of men born under various climates, in times with which History refuses to deal, and to which esoteric teachings assign dates incompatible with the theories of Geology and Anthropology.
The more thou dost advance, the more thy feet pitfalls will meet. The Path that leadeth on is lighted by one fire – the light of daring burning in the heart. The more one dares, the more he shall obtain. The more he fears, the more that light shall pale.
Is the scraping off of a barnacle the destruction of a ship?
The idea of passing one’s whole life in moral idleness, and having one’s hardest work and duty done by another-whether God or man-is most revolting to us, as it is most degrading to human dignity.
Everything that is, was, and will be, eternally IS, even the countless forms, which are finite and perishable only in their objective, not in their ideal Form.
It is on the acceptance or rejection of the theory of the Unity of all in Nature, in its ultimate Essence, that mainly rests the belief or unbelief in the existence around us of other conscious beings besides the Spirits of the Dead.
All things that ever were, that are, or that will be, having; their record upon the astral light, or tablet of the unseen universe, the initiated adept, by using the vision of his own spirit, can know all that has been known or can be known.
It is, then, by those shadows of the hoary Past and their fantastic silhouettes on the external screen of every religion and philosophy, that we can, by checking them as we go along, and comparing them, trace out finally the body that produced them.
How long shall we Spiritualists be turned over like so many scapegoats to the unbelievers, by cheating mediums and speculating prophets?
I have pledged my word to help people on to truth while living and – will keep my word. Let them abuse and revile me. Let some call me a medium, and a Spiritualist, and others an imposter. The day will come when posterity will learn to know me better.
Endurance is the free companion of Sorrow, and Patience her master.
If thou would’st have that stream of hard-earn’d knowledge, of Wisdom heaven-born, remain sweet running waters, thou should’st not leave it to become a stagnant pond.