TSDD Appendix 4

*A Paper read before the Blavatsky Lodge of the T.S. by William Kingsland, President*

 
“In the course of our systematic study of The Secret Doctrine, which we have now pursued for nearly six months, we have arrived at the conclusion of the stanzas of the first volume. It would be well to pause and ask ourselves what is the net gain which we have derived?

 
In what respects are our ideas altered or modified, what have we learnt which is new, and how much do we recognize the value of the book?

 
It has been no easy matter to form a clear and concise idea of the modus operandi of cosmogenesis as set forth in the stanzas and the accompanying commentary. They do not profess to do more than lift the corner of the veil. Large numbers of intermediate slokas we are told are omitted, and certain occult keys, which it is not yet permitted to make public, are withheld.

 
Those who are members of the Esoteric Section of the T.S. have a better chance of understanding the matter than the ordinary reader, but since numbers who have attended our Thursday evening meetings are not Esotericists, it has been impossible to treat the matter from any but an exoteric standpoint.

 
In order to present an abstract principle in anything like a comprehensible manner, it is necessary that it should be represented in some form having reference to our ordinary methods of intellectual apprehension, and our ordinary states of consciousness.

 
Some kind of form is indispensable for the conceptions which arise out of our present state of consciousness, and the one great fallacy which we should constantly guard against, is the mistaking of the form for the reality, the effect for the cause.

 
It is this self same illusion of form, Maya, which is the great deceiver, the great tempter. It deceives our physical senses and our intellectual faculties. It is the cause of all the illusive forms of superstition and religion which have prevailed in all ages.

 
Let not the student of The Secret Doctrine fall under the same illusion, and mistake the form which is there presented for the principles which underlie the form, or materialize into a dogma the priceless treasure of wisdom and knowledge therein contained.”

 
H. P. Blavatsky