On the eternal struggle of the two Opposite Forces, Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, Buddhi and Kama-Manas, of the One Manifested Creative Power which builds worlds and thinks through man.

When a Solitary Ray from the Infinite One is about to become the Many, Duality interposes between It and Its finite differentiations. In the mayavic worlds of being everything is dual. Even the Divine Logos manifests as a double principle of Good and Evil. In terms of human evolution, the seeds of White and Black Magic were sown in Atlantis. Though perfected in materiality, Atlanteans degenerated in spirituality. Black magic, bestiality, selfishness, and self-adoration spelled their demise. Magic is arcane knowledge of the subjective side of Universe and Man, and of the Occult laws and powers that govern their objective manifestations. Arcane science misused, is Sorcery; wisely applied, True Magic. Black Magic is the predictable outcome of selfish motives. For it is the motive, and the motive alone, which makes any exercise of power become black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic. Practical Theosophy is the modern term for old Magic. Metaphorically speaking, Magic is the conscious reunion of Psyche with Cupid, her beloved groom, upon her return to their celestial abode, or the re-integration of Thought and Spirit. This is the mystery that sanctifies marriage and every earnest hope for a better life. Thus true Magic is the marriage of Nous (Atma-Buddhi) with Manas, a union where Will and Thought, separated at the beginning of time, become One again when self-consciousness reaches the summit of divine power and inner knowledge. When man was first created he couldn’t commit any sin, for he was mindless and therefore irresponsible. The only “vice of his origin” was not his: it has been committed by those who refused to fire him with self-consciousness, with its inherent freedom of thought, and personal responsibility borne by informed decisions. Gnosis is the Western term for the mysteries and destiny of our being, both White and Black. A metaphor for the same enigma is Resurrection or the Raja-Yoga of Eastern Occultists. Amongst Neoplatonists, Raja-Yoga is known as Theurgy. Gnosis will either crown the pure with the sovereignty of their own spirit, or crush the opportunist in the darkness of ignorance and earthy passions. Theosophy is the keynote of our relationship with and in Divine Magic. For Magic is the study and application of divine law. Magic is the ancient Persian word for knowledge and embraces all Chaldeans sciences. It is proficiency in Nature’s hidden powers and laws, or Secret Wisdom, as it was taught in the sanctuaries of the Old World. Magic is the Maha, Magi or Maginsi of Medes and the Egyptians, and the Meghiston of the Zoroastrians. Ancient Magic is Secret Wisdom, the very opposite of Diabolism. It is the theurgy of Iamblichus, the gnosis of Pythagoras, the ecstasy of the Philaletheians, the summit of Eastern Philosophy and Ethics. Magic or Practical Occultism, is the object of Yoga. Mesmerism is another key to our inner nature. It is the Gupta-Vidya of the Eastern Occultists, excellence in universal philosophy, and pinnacle of human knowledge. As Truth is One, so the method for attaining It must be also one. Its disciples help each other in their lessons. The Witches of Thessaly are still amongst us. But as Magic differs from Sorcery, so the Magician differs from the Witch. Hypnotism is Black Magic, irrespective of whether conscious or unconscious. There is little difference between Voodoos and the Vivisectionists of our age. Therefore, Western practitioners of the Black Arts should not have the punishment and reputation without the profits and enjoyments they may get therefrom. Selfish initiates, lured by the glamour of power, retrogress inexorably, and curses always come home to roost. There are “Brothers of the Light” and “Brothers of the Shadow,” there are genuine seers and passive mediums, there are High Planetary Spirits and their illusionary appearances on the psychic screen of mediumistic perceptions. There is White Tantric Magic and its tainted counterpart, there is Neoplatonic Theurgia and its opposite number, Goëtia. Christians beware! The New Testament is all about Unselfishness and Spirituality. The Old Testament is a manual of Selfishness and Psychism. At the apex of its development, our Race will branch off to initiated Adepts, “Sons of Light,” and natural-born mediums, or “Sons of Darkness” — the latter to be exterminated by fire when time expires. We live in dangerous times. There are scores of unconscious crimes committed and many innocent people punished. Terror, tremor and dreadful incidences, as well as beauty, peace, and inspiration are “true presentiments of what lies in the bosom of the future, and much of which is already born.” Practical Theosophy is fraught with dangers for dabblers and neophytes alike. No one should go into occultism or even touch it before he is perfectly acquainted with his own powers. For, it’s all too easy to fall into Black Magic. Even a deed of kindness done with partiality may become evil, by stirring up animosity in the mind of others.

Occult philosophy is the key to all divine obscurities, and the absolute queen of society in those ages when it was reserved exclusively for the education of priests and kings. The multitude never conspires except against real powers; it possesses not the knowledge of what is true, but it has the instinct of what is strong. Emperor Julian was the Don Quixote of Roman Chivalry. Julian and Socrates were put to death for the same crime. Why do priests and potentates tremble? What secret power threatens tiaras and crowns? Magic, as a science, is the knowledge of the metaphysical principles, and of the way by which the omniscience and omnipotence of the spirit and its control over nature’s forces may be acquired by the individual while still in the body. Magic, as an art, is the application of this knowledge in practice. True Magic is the intimate knowledge of nature within the sanctuaries known as the “worship of the Light” and diligent research into those occult laws, which constitute the ultimate essence of every element. True Magic, being divine and spiritual wisdom, it can only be exercised by the pure in heart. Occultism is vastly different from “magic,” a term often confounded the occult sciences, including the “black arts,” and the “worship of Darkness.” The Sphinx is the living palladium of humanity and the imagination lighting up our blind senses. She is the eternal enigma of the vulgar, the granite pedestal of Divine Wisdom, the voracious and silent monster whose invariable form expresses the one dogma of the great universal mystery. By lifting the veil of Isis and balancing the twin opposing powers — spirituality and animalism — ever reacting upon each other, the Kabbalah affirms the eternal struggle of being, reconciles reason with faith, power with liberty, and science with mystery. The seeker of Truth must be fearless and forgiving, brave dangers, dishonour, and give up all expectation. Divine knowledge must be conquered by defiant intensity and virtue, before she opens the portals of her secret chambers. Unsullied by the hand of matter, she shows her treasures only to the Eye of Spirit. What is faith except the audacity of a will, which does not tarry in darkness, but moves on towards the light in spite of all ordeals, surmounting all obstacles? It is action that proves life and establishes will, therefore, we must act in order to be. Mysteries are disdained by modern science. Their primary benefit is that they forestall absolute brutality among men. Miracles are natural phenomena from occult causes. Admission of miracles implies ignorance of their causes. By providential law, the true alchemist can only exercise omnipotence in inverse proportion to his material interests: the more resigned is he to privations, and the more he esteems that poverty which protects the secrets of the magnum opus, the more gold he makes. He must be cool, dispassionate, and utterly unconcerned with self, yet ever ready to sacrifice himself for the welfare of others. He has no right to use his magnetic power to lessen his personal suffering, as long as there is a single creature that suffers and whose physical or mental pain he can lessen, if not heal. Passion forcibly projects the astral light and impresses unforeseen and uncontrollable movements on the universal agent. The more we restrain ourselves for an idea, the greater is the strength we acquire within the scope of that idea. Indolence and forgetfulness are the enemies of will, and for this reason all religions have multiplied their observances and made their worship minute and difficult. In order to do a thing we must believe in the possibility of our doing it, and this confidence must forthwith be translated into acts. Faith does not even try; it begins with the certitude of completing and proceeds calmly, as if omnipotence were at its disposal and eternity before it. True magicians are normally found in rural areas, often uninstructed folks and simple shepherds. Those who live in harmony with nature are wiser than doctors, whose spiritual perception is trammelled by the sophistries of their schools. While poverty has no natural tendency to bring forth selfishness, wealth requires it. Hardship and poverty are so favourable to spiritual progress that the greatest masters have preferred it, even when the wealth of the world was at their disposal. In poverty is benevolence assayed, and in the moment of anger is a man’s truthfulness displayed. By truth alone is man’s mind purified, and by the right discipline it does become inspired. We should always remember that we are dethroned sovereigns who consent to existence in order to reconquer our crowns. Therefore, we must avoid hideous objects and uncomely persons, must decline eating with those whom we do not esteem, and must be mild and considerate to all. The disciple, by following his inner light, will never be found judging, and far less condemning those weaker than himself. The lamp of truth guides his learning, the mantle which enwraps him is his discretion, the staff is the emblem of his strength and daring. Let us then learn diligently; and when we know, let us have the will to act in unison with the Cosmic Will. He who has silenced lusts and fears is a king among the wandering mass. Fragments of relative truths can be communicated orally by the Sage to the disciple, but not the complete, everlasting Truth. Therefore Sages speak sparingly not to disclose but to lead the pure in heart to discover. Energetic ecclesiastical mediocrity has managed to supplant modest superiority, misunderstood because of its feigned modesty. A man who is truly man can only will that which he should reasonably and justly do; so does he silence lusts and fears, that he may hearken solely to reason. Such a man is a natural king and a shepherd for the wandering multitude. Life is aspiration and respiration. Creation is the assumption of a shadow to serve as a bound to light, of a void to serve as space for the plenitude, of a passive fructified principle to sustain and realise the power of the active generating principle. Movement is the outcome of a preponderance of one over the other force (positive and negative) as determined by the laws of affinity and antipathy. If both forces are absolutely and invariably equal, the world will come to a stand-still. “If the two forces are expanded and remain so long inactive, as to equal one another and so come to a complete rest, the condition is death.” Man can produce two breathings at his pleasure, one warm and the other cold; he can also project either the active or passive light at will. Will is the offspring of Divinity; desire, the motive power of animal life. Miracles are the inexplicable effects of natural causes. They are commonly regarded as contradictions of nature or sudden vagaries of the divine mind — not seeing that a single causeless effect would reduce the universe to chaos. Anthropomorphism is the parent of materialism and author of black magic. God operates by His works in heaven by angels, and on earth by men. But in the “heaven” of human conceptions, it is humanity that creates God, and men think that God has made them in His image because they have made Him in theirs. The man who has come to fear nothing and desire nothing is master of all. Nothing on earth can withstand the power of rational will. Warm breathing attracts, cold repels, for heat is positive electricity; cold, negative electricity. Warm insufflation restores the circulation of the blood, cures rheumatic and gouty pains, restores the balance of the humours, and dispels lassitude. Cold insufflation soothes pains occasioned by congestions and fluidic accumulations. Occult medicine is essentially sympathetic. Good will and reciprocal affection must exist between doctor and patient. Syrups and juleps have little inherent virtue. Rabelais compelled his patients to laugh, and all the remedies he subsequently gave them succeeded better, as a result; he established a magnetic sympathy between himself and them, by means of which he communicated to them his own confidence and good humour; he flattered them in his prefaces, called them his precious, most illustrious patients, and dedicated his books to them. The cause of every bodily disorder can be traced back to a moral disorder. But the power to heal is never possessed by those addicted to vicious indulgences. Only the pure in heart can heal the ills of the body by exercising divine gifts. Such only can give peace to the disturbed spirit of their brothers and sisters, for their power to heal come from no poisonous source.

Materialism is the offspring of theological and dogmatic anthropomorphism. Every nation made a god of its own and, in its great ignorance and superstition, served, and flattered, and tried to propitiate that god. There can be no conscious meeting in Kama-loka, hence no grief. We meet those we loved only in Devachan, that subjective world of perfect bliss, which succeeds the Kama-loka. Kama-loka may be compared to the dressing-room of an actor, in which he divests himself of the costume of the last part he played before rebecoming himself properly. Once we realize that form is merely a temporary perception dependent on our physical senses and the idiosyncrasies of our physical brain, and has no existence on its own, then this illusion that formless cause cannot be causative of forms will soon vanish. Virtuous living alone, if uninformed by esoteric philosophy and unillumined by divine wisdom, cannot lead to friendship and interior communion with God. John Stuart Mill was a case of a wonderful development of the intellectual and terrestrial side of psyche or soul, but Spirit he rejected as all Agnostics do.

The choice between good and evil can be traced to a particular phase of the evolution of human life on earth, when the Sons of Mahat quickened the mind of animal man, and reason succumbed to the temptation of personal desires. Having informed history, legend and language will now confirm archaic custom and practice. We heard of golden and silver days, and of primeval innocence unstained. The early Lemurian men, of the sweat-born Third Root-Race, were mindless hence sinless. Old Greece had two Apollos: the Hyperborean, a personification of the Sun (whose birthday is December), and the Southern Apollo. Ulysses, an Atlantean hero, must have been a profligate in the opinion of the pastoral Cyclopes. His adventure with the three “one-eyed” giants stands for the gradual passage of humanity from the Lemurian civilization of stone and colossal buildings in the North, to the sensual and physical culture of the Atlanteans in the South, which finally caused the last three subraces of his progenitors to lose their Spiritual Eye. The other allegory, that of Apollo “killing” the Cyclopes to avenge the death of his son Asklepios-Soter (Mercury, esoterically) does not refer to the Lemurian subraces but to the Hyperborean Arimaspian Cyclopes, the last Lemurian subrace endowed with the Wisdom Eye. Apollo, the God of Seers, whose duty it is to punish desecration, “killed” them with shafts representing human passions — fiery and lethal. The Hyperborean Continent, home of the Second Root-Race, extended beyond Boreas, the frozen-hearted god of snow storms and hurricanes. Nocturnal shadows never fell upon it and knew no winter in those early days, for it was the land of Gods and the favourite abode of Apollo and his beloved priests. Greenland was part of the Hyperborean Continent and had an almost tropical climate. It was the blessed land of eternal light and summer. At the close of the Third Root-Race spring reigned over the whole globe which was not subject, like our own, to the vicissitudes of seasons and the abrupt changes of temperature. But when the fatal hour struck, its ever-blooming lands were transformed into an underwater Hades. Lemuria and most of its people perished in the first great throe of evolution and consolidation of the globe. The other submerged landmass was Atlantis, a large group of continents and islands. Asia issued from under the waters after the sinking of Atlantis. Africa surfaced later, and Europe much later. The Hyperborean Continent and its people are symbolised by Latona. The golden apples carried away by Hercules were not in Libya but in Hyperborean Atlantis. The Greeks naturalised all the gods they borrowed from India and made Hellenes of them. Accountable, endowed with moral sense, with sapience of right and wrong endowed. Then the Watcher descended on earth and reigned over the Lemurian men. Under the silent guidance of this Wondrous Being, the pupils of the incarnated Rishis and Devas of the Third Root-Race handed their knowledge from one generation to another. Endowed with divine powers, man felt he was god in his inner self, though still an animal in his physical self. The struggle between the two began from the very day they tasted of the fruit of the “Tree of Wisdom.” Those who conquered their lower principles, by obtaining mastery over the body, joined the “Sons of Light.” Those who fell victims to their lower nature became the slaves of matter. The Golden Age, when the old gods walked the earth and mixed freely with mortals, was brought to an end by the Atlanteans, the womb-born heirs to the Lemurians: they adored themselves, cursed the Sun, worshipped the phallus, and thus became the new gods on earth. And when the old Lemurians ascended toward the Northern Pole, the Hyperborean Heaven of their Divine Progenitors, the new Atlanteans descended toward the Southern Pole, the “pit,” cosmically and terrestrially, and abode of Cosmic Elementals. This is the origin of the dual and triple nature in man, and of the good and evil in our world. Every man is now responsible and therefore accountable for his thoughts and actions. A firm grasp of Esoteric Anthropogenesis will help us better understand our divine ancestry, our privileged position in the universe, the meaning and purpose of life on earth, and our shared destiny. Atlantis was a landmass of an indefinite size. It contained two countries and two “cities” or races, the Northern and the Equatorial: the former was inhabited by a pious, meditative race; the latter by a fighting, warrior race.

Materialism is the mother of all vices and root of the sin and suffering in the world. It is the negation of pure Spirit, resulting in brutality, hypocrisy, greed, and selfishness. Further proof of the moral blindness of materialism is the unquestioning belief in the necromantic apparitions of the disembodied “spirits” of the dead. Modern Science cannot unveil the mystery of the Spirit of Cosmos to the eyes of man. It can collect, classify, and generalize upon phenomena; but the Occultist declares that the daring explorer, who would probe the inmost secrets of Nature, must transcend the narrow limitations of sense, and elevate his Manas to the realm of noumena and the sphere of primal causes. To run counter to the views of modern Science’s most eminent exponents, is to court a premature discomfiture in the eyes of the Western world. Occultism is at odds with the spiritual blindness of anthropomorphism, idealism and hylo-idealism, positivism and the all-denying modern psychology and, not least, the endless speculations of physicists who are at loggerheads with each other. The ancient belief that the Sun is the God of Spiritual and Terrestrial Light, is nowadays regarded as a superstition only by rank materialism, that denies the triadic hypostasis of Deity–Spirit–Soul, and admits no intelligence outside the mind of man. The ever-concealed Central Spiritual Sun is the all-pervading Spirit of Life animating the playground of numberless Universes, incessantly manifesting and disappearing. Its creative energy, having originated in the Central Point, is then stored in the visible Sun, the Life- and Health-Giver of the physical world; and then, from deep in the bowels of the Earth, it keeps flowing incessantly out of the North Pole towards the Equator. Francis Bacon was among the first to strike the keynote of materialism, by inverting the order of mental evolution, not only by his inductive method renovated from ill-digested Aristotle, but also by the general tenor of his writings. The Light of Spirit is the eternal Sabbath of the Mystic. Fiat Lux, esoterically rendered, means “Let there be the Sons of Light,” i.e., the noumena of all phenomena. The Sons of Light are the Logoi of Life shooting out like seven fiery tongues from the infinite Ocean of Light, whose supernal pole is pure Spirit lost in Non-Being, and whose infernal pole condenses and crystallizes into gross matter.

Part 1. Mystery is the negation of common sense, just as metaphysics is a kind of poetry. Ten axiomatic propositions of eastern philosophy. Part 2. There are two kinds of seership, spiritual and sensuous. Spiritual seership is pellucid vistas of cosmic splendour; sensuous, hazy glimpses of Truth distorted by matter. Part 3. The exercise of Will-power is the highest form of prayer, followed by an instant response. Eight Vedantic precepts of man’s mystic powers, and their appellations. Part 4. An illusionary “double” or doppelganger can be projected to any location. There are three kinds of “doubles” or astral bodies. Part 5. Feats and wonders by learned thaumaturgists, skilled in occult science. Conjuration, ceremonies, circle-making, and incense-burning are as ridiculous as they are useless. Part 6. The adept-magician can release the astral soul from the cremated remains and thus facilitate the withdrawal of the astral soul of the deceased, which otherwise might remain stupefied for an indefinite period within the ashes. Part 7. The disappearance from sight of a flame, symbol of Divine Light, does not imply its actual extinction. The spirit of the flame is inextinguishable. Part 8. Pure Buddhism possesses all the breadth that can be claimed from a doctrine, at once religious and scientific. Its tolerance excites the jealousy of none. Part 9. Magnetism is the alphabet of magic. The glorified human spirit is far more beauteous than its physical capsule. Part 10. The Todas resemble the statue of the Grecian Zeus, in majesty and beauty of form. Part 11. Shamanism is the heathenism of Mongolia, and one of the oldest religions of India. In is an offshoot of primitive theurgy, a practical blending of the visible with the invisible world. Part 12. The philosopher’s stone is no stone, it is Triune Unity and the end of all philosophers. Man is also a stone, potentially, a living foundation upon which he can build a temple, pure as flaming diamond, fit for his Higher Self to shine through him and become a beneficent power on earth. Part 13. The longevity of Lamas and the Talapoins of Siam is proverbial. Part 14. To deride wonders is easy; to explain them, troublesome; to dissect scientifically, impossible. How the brave warrior’s feet proved less nimble than his tongue. Part 15. Shamanism and its spirit-worship, is the most despised of all surviving religions. Still, many Russians are convinced of the Shamans’ supernatural powers. Part 16. The Kurdish rites and doctrines are purely magical and magian. They unify the mysticism of the Hindu with the practices of the Assyrio-Chaldean magians. Part 17. The plastic power of imagination, when impregnated with the potentiality of good or bad, generates a current which attaches itself to anyone who comes within it. “Evil eye” is the effect of venomous thoughts from the spell a malicious person. Part 18. The subjective end of matter, is pure spirit; the objective end, crystallised spirit. There being but One Truth, man requires but One Church, which is the Temple of God within us, walled-in by dense matter. Part 19. Modern Spiritualism is neither a science, nor a religion, not even a philosophy. To the spiritualists we offer philosophical deduction, instead of unverifiable hypothesis; scientific analysis and demonstration, instead of undiscriminating faith. Part 20. Our work is done. The enemies of Truth have been all counted, and paraded for all to see. Modern science, powerless to satisfy the aspirations of the race, makes the future a void, and bereaves man of hope. Paganism is ancient wisdom replete with Deity. And today, it rules the world in secret. Part 21. If ye love me, keep my commandments. Commentary on John xiv, 15–17. Appendix A. The Fire which devours itself is more mighty than ordinary fire. Appendix B. Biography of Francis Gerry Fairfield.

No one can escape from the clutches of Karma by adopting masterly inactivity. For how can a hermit practice charity or industry if he runs away from man? The greatest ascetics and saints of our own day are not those who retire into inaccessible places, They live in the midst of us. Lord Buddha retreated from society only for the first six years of his ascetic life. “Self-culture” is for cloistered yogins who live apart from the society of their fellow human beings: they are spiritually selfish! Some theosophists have arrived at a certain hostility and indignation towards matter. But “where two or three are gathered” in the name of the Spirit of Truth — the Spirit of Theosophy will be in the midst of them.

France, Germany, and Italy are eaten to the core with free-thought and Atheism. Let us not talk of “pseudo-Buddhists” in the face of millions of “pseudo-Christians,” nominal and more “Grundy-fearing” than God-fearing. Sir Monier-Williams’s Oxford rival, Professor Max Müller, pronounces the moral code of Buddhism as one of the most perfect the world has ever known. The leading organ of Roman Catholic Englishmen admits that the Buddhists’ standard of morality is so high that “however much we Christianize them, we cannot succeed in making them altogether as bad as ourselves.” No better answer than this could a Buddhist find as a reply to the uncharitable and incorrect comparisons between the two creeds instituted by Sir Monier-Williams.