“Occultism of the Secret Doctrine”

Preface.

The task of preparing this volume for the press has been a difficult and anxious one, and it is necessary to state clearly what has been done. The papers given to me by H. P. B. were quite unarranged, and had no obvious order: I have therefore taken each paper as a separate Section, and have arranged them as sequentially as possible. Wiht the exeption of the correction of grammatical errors and the elimination of obviously un-English idioms, the papers are as H. P. B. left them, save as otherwise marked. In a few cases I have filled in a gap. but any such addition is enclosed within square brackets, so as to be distinguished from the text. In “The Mystery of Buddha” a further difficulty arose; some fo the Section had been written four or five times over, each version containing some sentences that were not in the others; I have pieced these versions together, taking the fullest as basis, and inserting therein everything added in any other versions. It is, however, with some hesitation that I have included these Sections in the Secret Doctrine. Together with some most suggestive thought, they contain very numerous errors of fact, and many statements based on exoteric writings, not on esoteric knowledge. They were given into my hands to publish, as part of the Third Volume of the Secret Doctrine, and I therefore do not feel justified in coming between the author and the public, either by altering the statement, to make them consistent with fact, or by suppressing the Sections. She says she is acting entirely on her own authority, and it will be obvious to any instructed reader that she makes-possibly deliberately-many statements so confused that they are mere blinds, and other statements-probably inadvertenly-that are nothing more than the exoteric misunderstandings of esoteric truths. The reader must here, as everywhere, use his own judgment, but feeling bound to publish these Sections, I cannot let them go to the public without a warning that much in them is certainly erroneous, Doubtless, had the author herself issued this book, she would have entirely re-written the whole of this division; as it was, it seemed best to give all she had said in the different copies, and to leave it in its rather unfinished state, for students will best like to have what she said as she said it, even though they may have to study it more closely than would have been the case had she remained to finish her work.

The quatations made have been as far as possible found, and correct references given; in this most laborious work a whole band of earnest and painstaking students, under the guidance of Mrs. Cooper-Oakley, have been my willing assistants. Without their aid it would not have been possible to give the references, as often a whole book had to be searched through, in order to find a paragraph of a few lines.

This volume completes the papers left by H. P. B., with the exception of a few scattered articles that yet remain and that will be publised in her own magazine “Lucifer”. Her pupils are well aware that few will be found in the present generation to do justice to the occult knowledge of H. P. B., and to her magnificent sweep of thought, but as she can wait to future generations for the justification of her greatness as a teacher, so can her pupils afford to wait for the justification of their trust.

– Annie Besant