The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 3 of 4: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and PhilosophyBlavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna)
Religion
The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 3 of 4: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy
Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna)
Theosophy
“Fables,” and “superstition,” will be the answer. Be it so. Before the
lethal breath of selfishness and indifference every uncomfortable fact is
transformed into meaningless fiction, and every branch of the once verdant
Tree of Truth has become dried up and stripped of its primeval spiritual
significance. Our modern Symbologist is superlatively clever only at
detecting phallic worship and sexual emblems even where none were ever
meant. But for the true student of Occult Lore, White or Divine Magic
could no more exist in Nature without its counterpart Black Magic, than
day without night, whether these be of twelve hours or of six months’
duration. For him everything in that Nature has an occult—a bright and a
night side to it. Pyramids and Druid’s oaks, dolmens and Bo‐trees, plant
and mineral—everything was full of deep significance and of sacred truths
of wisdom, when the Arch‐Druid performed his magic cures and incantations,
and the Egyptian Hierophant evoked and guided Chemnu, the “lovely
spectre,” the female Frankenstein‐creation of old, raised for the torture
and test of the soul‐power of the candidate for initiation, simultaneously
with the last agonising cry of his terrestrial human nature. True, Magic
has lost its name, and along with it its rights to recognition. But its
practice is in daily use; and its progeny, “magnetic influence,” “power of
oratory,” “irresistible fascination,” “whole audiences subdued and held as
though under a spell,” are terms recognised and used by all, generally
meaningless though they now are. Its effects, however, are more determined
and definite among religious congregations such as the Shakers, the Negro
Methodists, and Salvationists, who call it “the action of the Holy Spirit”
and “grace.” The real truth is that Magic is still in full sway amidst
mankind, however blind the latter to its silent presence and influence on
its members, however ignorant society may be, and remain, to its daily and
hourly beneficent and maleficent effects. The world is full of such
unconscious magicians—in politics as well as in daily life, in the Church
as in the strongholds of Free‐Thought. Most of those magicians are
“sorcerers” unhappily, not metaphorically but in sober reality, by reason
of their inherent selfishness, their revengeful natures, their envy and
malice. The true student of Magic, well aware of the truth, looks on in
pity, and, if he be wise, keeps silent. For every effort made by him to
remove the universal cecity is only repaid with ingratitude, slander, and
often curses, which, unable to reach him, will react on those who wish him
evil. Lies and calumny—the latter a teething lie, adding actual bites to
empty harmless falsehoods—become his lot, and thus the well‐wisher is soon
torn to pieces, as a reward for his benevolent desire to enlighten.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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