The Supreme Doctrine - neo-alchemist

AUTHOR’S PREFACE
THIS book contains a certain number of basic ideas that seek to improve
our understanding of the state of man. I assume, therefore, that anyone
will admit that he has still something to learn on this subject. This is
not a jest. Man needs, in order to live his daily life, to be inwardly as if he
had settled or eliminated the great questions that concern his state. Most men
never reflect on their state because they are convinced explicitly or implicitly,
that they understand it. Ask, for example, different men why they desire to
exist, what is the reason for what one calls the 'instinct of self-preservation'.
One will tell you: 'It is so because it is so; why look for a problem where
none exists?' This man depends on the belief that there is no such question.
Another will say to you: 'I desire to exist because God wishes it so; He
wishes that I desire to exist so that I may, in the course of my life, save my
soul and perform all the good deeds that He expects of His creature.' This
man depends on an explicit belief; if you press him further, if you ask him
why God wishes him to save his soul, etc., he will end by telling you that
human reason cannot and is not called upon to understand the real basis of
such things. In saying which he approaches the agnostic who will tell you
that the wise man ought to resign himself always to remaining ignorant of
ultimate reality, and that, after all, life is not so disagreeable despite this
ignorance. Every man, whether he admits it or not, lives by a personal system
of metaphysics that he believes to be true; this practical system of
metaphysics implies positive beliefs, which the man in question calls his
principles, his scale of values, and a negative belief, belief in the
impossibility for man to know the ultimate reality of anything. Man in
general has faith in his system of metaphysics, explicit or implicit; that is to
say, he is sure that he has nothing to learn in this domain. It is where he is
most ignorant that he has the greatest assurance, because it is therein that he
has the greatest need of assurance.
Since I write on the problems that concern the state of man I should
expect some difficulty in encountering a man who will read my words with
an open mind. If I were writing on pre-Columbian civilisation or on some
technical subject my reader would assuredly admit my right to instruct him.
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