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" M AN," which came later, was an attempt to present the archaic doctrine from a more ideal standpoint, to translate some visions in and from the Astral Light, to render some teachings partly gathered from a Master's thoughts, but unfortunately misunderstood. This work also speaks of the evolution of the early Races of men on Earth, and contains some excellent pages of a philosophical character. But so far it is only an interesting little mystical romance. It has failed in its mission, because the conditions required for a correct translation of these visions were not present. Hence the reader must not wonder if our Volumes contradict these earlier descriptions in several particulars. [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * We are not concerned with the other Globes in this work except incidentally. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 161 A RE-ADJUSTMENT OF FACTS. Esoteric "Cosmogony" in general, and the evolution of the human Monad especially, differ so essentially in these two books and in other Theosophical works written independently by beginners , that it becomes impossible to proceed with the present work without special mention of these two earlier volumes, for both have a number of admirers -- "Esoteric Buddhism" especially. The time has arrived for the explanation of some matters in this direction. Mistakes have now to be checked by the original teachings and corrected. If one of the said works has too pronounced a bias toward materialistic science, the other is decidedly too idealistic, and is, at times, fantastic. From the doctrine -- rather incomprehensible to western minds -- which deals with the periodical "obscurations" and successive "Rounds" of the Globes along their circular chains, were born the first perplexities and misconceptions. One of such has reference to the " Fifth -" and even " Sixth -Rounders." Those who knew that a Round was preceded and followed by a long Pralaya , a pause of rest which created an impassable gulf between two Rounds until the time came for a renewed cycle of life, could not understand the "fallacy" of talking about " fifth and sixth Rounders" in our Fourth Round. Gautama Buddha, it was held, was a Sixth-Rounder, Plato and some other great philosophers and minds, "Fifth-Rounders." How could it be? One Master taught and affirmed that there were such "Fifth-Rounders" even now on Earth; and though understood to say that mankind was yet "in the Fourth Round," in another place he seemed to say that we were in the Fifth. To this an "apocalyptic answer" was returned by another Teacher: -- "A few drops of rain do not make a Monsoon, though they presage it." . . . "No, we are not in the Fifth Round, but Fifth Round men have been coming in for the last few thousand years." This was worse than the riddle of the Sphinx! Students of Occultism subjected their brains to the wildest work of speculation. For a considerable time they tried to outvie OEdipus and reconcile the two statements. And as the Masters kept as silent as the stony Sphinx herself, they were accused of inconsistency, "contradiction," and "discrepancies." But they were simply allowing the speculations to go on, in order to teach a lesson which the Western mind sorely needs. In their conceit and arrogance, as in their habit of materializing every metaphysical conception and term without allowing any margin for Eastern [[Vol. 1, Page]] 162 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. metaphor and allegory, the Orientalists have made a jumble of the Hindu exoteric philosophy, and the Theosophists were now doing the same with regard to esoteric teachings. To this day it is evident that the latter have utterly failed to understand the meaning of the term "Fifth and Sixth Rounders." But it is simply this: every "Round" brings about a new development and even an entire change in the mental, psychic, spiritual and physical constitution of man, all these principles evoluting on an ever ascending scale. Thence it follows that those persons who, like Confucius and Plato, belonged psychically, mentally and spiritually to the higher planes of evolution, were in our Fourth Round as the average man will be in the Fifth Round, whose mankind is destined to find itself, on this scale of Evolution, immensely higher than is our present humanity. Similarly Gautama Buddha -- Wisdom incarnate -- was still higher and greater than all the men we have mentioned, who are called Fifth Rounders, while Buddha and Sankaracharya are termed Sixth Rounders, allegorically. Thence again the concealed wisdom of the remark, pronounced at the time "evasive" -- that a few drops of rain do not make the Monsoon, though they presage it. " And now the truth of the remark made in "Esoteric Buddhism" by its author will be fully apparent: -- "It is impossible, when the complicated facts of an entirely unfamiliar science are being presented to untrained minds for the first time , to put them forward with all their appropriate qualifications . . . and abnormal developments. . . . We must be content to take the broad rules first and deal with the exceptions afterwards, and especially is this the case with study, in connection with which the traditional methods of teaching , generally followed , aim at impressing every fresh idea on the memory by provoking the perplexity it at last relieves. " As the author of the remark was himself, as he says, "an untrained mind" in Occultism, his own inferences, and his better knowledge of modern astronomical speculations than of archaic doctrines led him quite naturally, and as unconsciously to himself, to commit a few mistakes of detail rather than of any "broad rule." One such will now be noticed. It is a trifling one, still it is calculated to lead many a beginner into erroneous conceptions. But as the mistaken notions of the earlier editions were corrected in the annotations of the fifth edition, so the sixth may be revised and perfected. There were several reasons [[Vol. 1, Page]] 163 LIKE QUESTIONS, LIKE ANSWERS. for such mistakes. (1) They were due to the necessity under which the teachers laboured of giving what were considered as "evasive answers": the questions being too persistently pressed to be left unnoticed, while, on the other hand, they could only be partially answered. (2) This position notwithstanding, the confession that "half a loaf is better than no bread" was but too often misunderstood and hardly appreciated as it ought to have been. As a result thereof gratuitous speculations were sometimes indulged in by the European lay-chelas. Among such were (a) the "Mystery of the Eighth Sphere" in its relation to the Moon; and (b) the erroneous statement that two of the superior Globes of the terrestrial chain were two of our well-known planets: "besides the Earth . . . there are only two other worlds of our chain which are visible . . . . Mars and Mercury. . . ." ( Esoteric Buddhism ; p. 136.) This was a great mistake.