The Secret Doctrine by H.
P.
Blavatsky -- Vol.
1 [[Vol.
1, Page 1]] PROEM ------- PAGES FROM A PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD.
A N Archaic Manuscript -- a collection of palm leaves made impermeable to water, fire, and air, by some specific unknown process -- is before the writer's eye.
On the first page is an immaculate white disk within a dull black ground.
On the following page, the same disk, but with a central point.
The first, the student knows to represent Kosmos in Eternity, before the re-awakening of still slumbering Energy, the emanation of the Word in later systems.
The point in the hitherto immaculate Disk, Space and Eternity in Pralaya, denotes the dawn of differentiation.
It is the Point in the Mundane Egg (see Part II., "The Mundane Egg"), the germ within the latter which will become the Universe, the ALL, the boundless, periodical Kosmos, this germ being latent and active, periodically and by turns.
The one circle is divine Unity, from which all proceeds, whither all returns.
Its circumference -- a forcibly limited symbol, in view of the limitation of the human mind -- indicates the abstract, ever incognisable PRESENCE, and its plane, the Universal Soul, although the two are one.
Only the face of the Disk being white and the ground all around black, shows clearly that its plane is the only knowledge, dim and hazy though it still is, that is attainable by man.
It is on this plane that the Manvantaric manifestations begin; for it is in this SOUL that slumbers, during the Pralaya, the Divine Thought,* wherein lies concealed the plan of every future Cosmogony and Theogony.
[[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * It is hardly necessary to remind the reader once more that the term "Divine Thought," like that of "Universal Mind," must not be regarded as even vaguely shadowing forth an intellectual process akin to that exhibited by man.
The "Unconscious," according to von Hartmann, arrived at the vast creative, or rather Evolutionary Plan, "by a clairvoyant wisdom superior to all consciousness," which in the Vedantic language would mean absolute Wisdom.
Only those who realise how far Intuition soars above the tardy processes of ratiocinative thought can form the faintest conception of [[Footnote continued on next page]] [[Vol.
1, Page]] 2 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
It is the ONE LIFE, eternal, invisible, yet Omnipresent, without beginning or end, yet periodical in its regular manifestations, between which periods reigns the dark mystery of non-Being; unconscious, yet absolute Consciousness; unrealisable, yet the one self-existing reality; truly, "a chaos to the sense, a Kosmos to the reason." Its one absolute attribute, which is ITSELF, eternal, ceaseless Motion, is called in esoteric parlance the "Great Breath,"* which is the perpetual motion of the universe, in the sense of limitless, ever-present SPACE.
That which is motionless cannot be Divine.
But then there is nothing in fact and reality absolutely motionless within the universal soul.
Almost five centuries B.C.
Leucippus, the instructor of Democritus, maintained that Space was filled eternally with atoms actuated by a ceaseless motion, the latter generating in due course of time, when those atoms aggregated, rotatory motion, through mutual collisions producing lateral movements.
Epicurus and Lucretius taught the same, only adding to the lateral motion of the atoms the idea of affinity -- an occult teaching.
From the beginning of man's inheritance, from the first appearance of the architects of the globe he lives in, the unrevealed Deity was recognised and considered under its only philosophical aspect -- universal motion, the thrill of the creative Breath in Nature.
Occultism sums up the "One Existence" thus: "Deity is an arcane, living (or moving) FIRE, and the eternal witnesses to this unseen Presence are Light, Heat, Moisture," -- this trinity including, and being the cause of, every [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- [[Footnote continued from previous page]] that absolute Wisdom which transcends the ideas of Time and Space.
Mind, as we know it, is resolvable into states of consciousness, of varying duration, intensity, complexity, etc.
-- all, in the ultimate, resting on sensation, which is again Maya.
Sensation, again, necessarily postulates limitation.
The personal God of orthodox Theism perceives, thinks, and is affected by emotion; he repents and feels "fierce anger." But the notion of such mental states clearly involves the unthinkable postulate of the externality of the exciting stimuli, to say nothing of the impossibility of ascribing changelessness to a Being whose emotions fluctuate with events in the worlds he presides over.
The conceptions of a Personal God as changeless and infinite are thus unpsychological and, what is worse, unphilosophical.
* Plato proves himself an Initiate, when saying in Cratylus that [[ theos ]] is derived from the verb [[ theein ]], "to move," "to run," as the first astronomers who observed the motions of the heavenly bodies called the planets [[ theoi ]], the gods.
(See Book II., "Symbolism of the Cross and Circle.") Later, the word produced another term, [[ aletheia ]] -- "the breath of God." [[Vol.
1, Page]] 3 PROEM.
phenomenon in Nature.* Intra-Cosmic motion is eternal and ceaseless; cosmic motion (the visible, or that which is subject to perception) is finite and periodical.
As an eternal abstraction it is the EVER-PRESENT; as a manifestation, it is finite both in the coming direction and the opposite, the two being the alpha and omega of successive reconstructions.
Kosmos -- the NOUMENON -- has nought to do with the causal relations of the phenomenal World.
It is only with reference to the intra-cosmic soul, the ideal Kosmos in the immutable Divine Thought, that we may say: "It never had a beginning nor will it have an end." With regard to its body or Cosmic organization, though it cannot be said that it had a first, or will ever have a last construction, yet at each new Manvantara, its organization may be regarded as the first and the last of its kind, as it evolutes every time on a higher plane .
.
.
.
A few years ago only, it was stated that: -- "The esoteric doctrine teaches, like Buddhism and Brahminism, and even the Kabala, that the one infinite and unknown Essence exists from all eternity, and in regular and harmonious successions is either passive or active.
In the poetical phraseology of Manu these conditions are called the "Days" and the "Nights" of Brahma.
The doctrine of the periodic restoration or recurrence of all things to their original state after vast cycles.
The Manvantara/Pralaya cycle and the phrase 'whither all returns' describe periodic restoration of all things through vast cycles of manifestation and dissolution.
Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.
The divine is described as 'the abstract, ever incognisable PRESENCE' and 'the one infinite and unknown Essence,' emphasizing that it transcends all positive categories and human cognition.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The passage narrates cosmic origin: the point in the disk as 'the dawn of differentiation,' the germ in the Mundane Egg becoming the Universe, and references 'the plan of every future Cosmogony and Theogony.'
The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.
The passage repeatedly stresses the divine's radical unknowability: 'ever incognisable PRESENCE,' 'one infinite and unknown Essence,' and the explicit statement that the plane is 'the only knowledge, dim and hazy though it still is, that is attainable by man.'
The doctrine that the divine is present within all things and the universe itself, pervading creation rather than remaining solely transcendent above it. Distinct from unity_of_being (the general claim that all existence is one substance, agnostic about whether that substance indwells its parts) and from kingdom_within (the divine present specifically IN THE INDIVIDUAL human, accessible without mediation) — divine_immanence is the general pervading-presence claim applied to all of creation, not a human-specific indwelling.
The ONE LIFE is described as 'Omnipresent' and 'ever-present SPACE,' pervading all of creation rather than remaining solely transcendent above it.
The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being.
The divine is presented as 'divine Unity' — a single undivided circle from which all proceeds and to which all returns, with no internal parts or composite attributes.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The text self-identifies as 'The Secret Doctrine' and uses 'esoteric parlance' and 'occult teaching,' framing its content as concealed wisdom for the prepared reader.
The doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference, populated by innumerable worlds — Bruno's rejection of the closed Aristotelian sphere; the divine and the cosmos as ontologically infinite.
The Kosmos is explicitly called 'the boundless, periodical Kosmos' and the divine is described as 'without beginning or end' and 'Omnipresent.'
The doctrine that the cosmos unfolds as a structured descent of spirit into matter — a directional process traced stage by stage from an unconditioned principle down through successive planes to full materialization — complemented by its own eventual return ('evolution'). Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (the static structure of the resulting levels of the cascade) and cosmogony (a single originating event rather than an ongoing staged process) in naming the directional cosmic PROCESS of descent itself, paired with its own complementary ascent.
The passage describes a directional unfolding from the undifferentiated Disk (Space and Eternity in Pralaya) through the Point (dawn of differentiation) into the full Kosmos — a staged descent from unconditioned to conditioned.
The Hermetic doctrine that THE ALL is Mind, and the Universe is mental in nature — a created thought held in the mind of THE ALL. Distinct from unity_of_being in specifying WHAT the underlying oneness is (mind, not an unspecified single substance), and from logos (a mediating ordering word BETWEEN a transcendent God and a separate material world) in collapsing that mediation entirely — under mentalism there is no world outside mind to mediate to.
The passage identifies the divine essence with thought — 'the Divine Thought, wherein lies concealed the plan of every future Cosmogony' — and the Universal Soul as the plane of manifestation, collapsing the world into mind.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
The passage's central image is the white disk representing 'divine Unity, from which all proceeds, whither all returns' — the absolutely simple, undivided first principle.
Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.
The passage employs deliberate paradoxes as its primary teaching method: 'unconscious, yet absolute Consciousness; unrealisable, yet the one self-existing reality; truly, a chaos to the sense, a Kosmos to the reason.'
The doctrine that reality has two registers — an Absolute truth as the divine or ultimate mind knows it, and a Relative truth as finite human reason perceives and must act on — with both held as legitimate on their own plane rather than the second being simply an error to correct. Distinct from apophatic_theology (a claim about how the divine may be described, by negation) and unity_of_being (a claim that being is ultimately one) in being a claim about two coexisting registers of truth-claim itself.
The passage distinguishes between the NOUMENON (Kosmos as eternal abstraction, the EVER-PRESENT) and the phenomenal world (finite, periodical cosmic motion), holding both as legitimate registers of reality.
The Hermetic doctrine of a measured swing or pendulum motion between poles — action and reaction, flow and outflow, rise and fall — operating in mental, physical, and cosmic-historical registers alike. Distinct from apocatastasis (cosmic-scale eschatological restoration after vast cycles) in naming a constant, ever-present oscillation rather than a singular restorative event.
The passage repeatedly describes periodic manifestation: 'periodical in its regular manifestations,' 'periodically and by turns,' and the 'Days and Nights of Brahma' as cyclical oscillation between activity and dormancy.
The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.
The entire passage is structured around the claim that there is ONE LIFE, ONE circle, ONE Essence from which all proceeds — non-duality as the fundamental theological claim.
The Hermetic doctrine that nothing rests — matter, energy, mind, and spirit are a single continuum differing only in rate of vibration, from the grossest matter to the least material spirit. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (affinity resonating BETWEEN separate things) in being a claim about what constitutes any one thing in the first place, and from magical_equilibrium (Lévi's operational balancing technique, which presupposes some vibration doctrine rather than stating this general principle).
The passage's core doctrine is that divine essence is ceaseless motion — the 'Great Breath' as 'perpetual motion of the universe' — and that 'that which is motionless cannot be Divine.'