The Secret Doctrine Volume 3.pdf

instructed to irregularly entrap the weaker brethren of the True and Invisible
Order, and then triumphantly betray anything they may be so inconsiderate as
to communicate to the superiors of these transitory and unmeaning
associations. Every wile was adopted to the authorities, fighting in selfdefence
against the progress of truth, to engage, by persuasion, interest or
terror, such as might be cajoled into receiving the Pope as Master—when
(Page 276) gained, as many converts to that faith know, but dare not own, they
are treated with neglect, and left to battle of life as best they may, not even
being admitted to the knowledge of such miserable aporrheta as the Romish
faith considers itself entitled to withhold.
But if Masonry has been spoiled, none is able to crush the real invisible Rosicrucian and the
Eastern Initiate. The symbolism of Vishvakarma and Sûrya Vikarttana has survived, where
Hiram Abiff was indeed murdered, and we will now return to it. It is not simply an
astronomical, but is the most solemn rite, an inheritance from the Archaic Mysteries that has
crossed the ages and is used to this day. It typifies a whole drama of the Cycle of Life, of
progressive incarnations, and of psychic as well as of physiological secrets, of which neither
the Church nor Science knows anything, though it is this rite that has led the former to the
greatest of its Christian Mysteries.
SECTION XXX
The Mystery “Sun of Initiation”
(Page 277) THE antiquity of the Secret Doctrine may be better realised when it is shown at
what point of history its Mysteries had already been desecrated, by being made subservient
to the personal ambition of despot-ruler and crafty priest. These profoundly philosophical and
scientifically composed religious dramas, in which were enacted the grandest truths of the
Occult or Spiritual Universe and the hidden lore of learning, and become subject to
persecution long before the days when Plato and even Pythagoras flourished. Withal, primal
revelations given to Mankind have not died with the Mysteries; they are still preserved as
heirlooms for future and more spiritual generations.
It has been already stated in Isis Unveiled, [Op. cit.,i. 15.] that so far back in the days of
Aristotle, the great Mysteries had already lost their primitive grandeur and solemnity. Their
rites had fallen into desuetude, and they had to a great degree degenerated into mere
priestly speculations and had become religious shams. It is useless to state when they first
appeared in Europe and Greece, since recognised history may almost be said to begin with
Aristotle, everything before him appearing to be in an inextricable chronological confusion.
Suffice it to say, that in Egypt the Mysteries had been known since the days of Menes, and
that the Greeks received them only when Orpheus introduced them from India. In an article
“Was writing known before Pânini” [Five Years of Theosophy, p.258. A curious question to
start and to deny, when it is well-known even to the Orientalists that, to take but one case,
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