The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy: Volume 2 (Cambridge Library Collection - Spiritualism and Esoteric Knowledge)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Reissue, 5/19/2011
EAN 9781108073233, ISBN10: 1108073239
Paperback, 852 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 4.8 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Ukrainian-born Madame Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891) was a powerful and controversial member of the spiritualist world and for a time famous for her powers as a medium. She was a co-founder of the theosophy movement in the United States, which she later extended to Europe and India, drawing from her extensive global travels and her familiarity with a broad range of belief systems, from Asian religions to New Orleans voodoo, as well as secret societies such as the Freemasons. Drawing from Hinduism and Buddhism, theosophy aimed to understand the mystic powers of the universe and promote the study of other religions. In The Secret Doctrine, published in 1888, Blavatsky aims to explain the spiritual origins of the world. Volume 2 looks at the creation of humans and animals, and considers the lost world of Atlantis.
Preliminary notes
Book II
Section 1. Anthropogenesis. Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan
1. Beginnings of sentient life
Two antediluvian astronomers
2. Nature unaided fails
The chronology of the Brahmins
3. Attempts to create man
4. Creation of the first races
5. The evolution of the second race
6. The evolution of the weat-born
7. From the semi-divine down to the first human races
8. Evolution of the animal mammalians – the first fall. What may be the objections to the foregoing
9. The final evolution of man. Edens, serpents and dragons. The sons of God and the sacred island
10. The history of the fourth race. Archaic teachings in the Puranas and Genesis. A panoramic view of the early races
10. Continue.
Are giants a fiction? The races with the 'third eye'. The primeval manus of humanity
11. The civilization and destruction of the fourth and fifth races. Gyclopean ruins and colossal stones as witnesses to giants
12. The fifth race and its divine instructors
Additional fragments from a commentary on the verses of stanza 12
Conclusion
Section 2. The Archaic Symbolism of the World-Religions
Esoteric Tenets Corroborated in Every Scripture
16. Adam-Adami
17. The 'Holy of Holies', its degradation
18. On the myth of the 'Fallen angel', in its various aspects
19. Is Pleroma Satan's lair?
20. Prometheus the Titan
21. Enoichion-Henoch
22. The symbolism of the mystery names, Iao, and Jehovah
23. The Upanishads in Gnostic literature
24. The cross and the Pythagorean decade
25. The mysteries of the Hebdomad
Section 3. Addenda. Science and the Secret Doctrine Contrasted
1. Archaic, or modern anthropology?
2. The ancestors mankind is offered by science
3. The fossil relics of man and the anthropoid ape
4. Duration of the geological periods, race cycles, and the antiquity of man
5. Organic evolution and creative centres
6. Giants, civilizations, and submerged continents traced in history
7. Scientific and geological proofs of the existence of several submerged continents
Index.