The Key to Theosophy: Being a Clear Exposition, in the Form of Question and Answer, of the Ethics, Science and Philosophy for the Study of Which the Theosophical Society Has Been FoundedBlavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna)
Religion
The Key to Theosophy: Being a Clear Exposition, in the Form of Question and Answer, of the Ethics, Science and Philosophy for the Study of Which the Theosophical Society Has Been Founded
Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna)
Theosophy
THEO. What science in general will never accept as proof—the cumulative
testimony of an endless series of Seers who have testified to this
fact. Their spiritual visions, real explorations by, and through,
physical and spiritual senses untrammeled by blind flesh, were
systematically checked and compared one with the other, and their
nature sifted. All that was not corroborated by unanimous and
collective experience was rejected, while that only was recorded
as established truth which, in various ages, under different
climes, and throughout an untold series of incessant observations,
was found to agree and receive constantly further corroboration.
The methods used by our scholars and students of the
psycho-spiritual sciences do not differ from those of students of
the natural and physical sciences, as you may see. Only our fields
of research are on two different planes, and our instruments are
made by no human hands, for which reason perchance they are only
the more reliable. The retorts, accumulators, and microscopes of
the chemist and naturalist may get out of order; the telescope
and the astronomer’s horological instruments may get spoiled; our
recording instruments are beyond the influence of weather or the
elements.
ENQ. And therefore you have implicit faith in them?
THEO. Faith is a word not to be found in theosophical dictionaries: we
say _knowledge based on observation and experience_. There is this
difference, however, that while the observation and experience of
physical science lead the Scientists to about as many “working”
hypotheses as there are minds to evolve them, our _knowledge_
consents to add to its lore only those facts which have become
undeniable, and which are fully and absolutely demonstrated. We
have no two beliefs or hypotheses on the same subject.
ENQ. Is it on such data that you came to accept the strange theories we
find in _Esoteric Buddhism_?
THEO. Just so. These theories may be slightly incorrect in their minor
details, and even faulty in their exposition by lay students; they
are _facts_ in nature, nevertheless, and come nearer the truth
than any scientific hypothesis.
ON THE SEPTENARY CONSTITUTION OF OUR PLANET.
ENQ. I understand that you describe our earth as forming part of a
chain of earths?
THEO. We do. But the other six “earths” or globes, are not on the same
plane of objectivity as our earth is; therefore we cannot see them.
ENQ. Is that on account of the great distance?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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