A monthly magazine devoted to the promulgation of Theosophy as it was given by those who brought it.

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The Parent Theosophical Society was formed at New York, U. S. A., in 1875, by H. P. Blavatsky, with whom were associated William Q. Judge, Henry S. Olcott, and others.

The defined Objects of the Society were as follows:

I. To form a nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color.

II. The study of ancient and modern religions, philosophies and sciences, and the demonstration of the importance of such study; and

III. The investigation of the unexplained laws of nature and the psychical powers latent in man.

Assent to the First Object only was obligatory on the part of all Fellows, the other Objects being subsidiary and optional.

AUM

That pure, great light, which is radiant; that great glory; that verily which the gods worship, by means of which the sun shines forth-that eternal divine being is perceived by devotees. His form has no parallel, no one sees him with the eye. Those who appre

hend him by means of the understanding and also the mind and heart, become immortal. -Sanatsugatiya.

THEOSOPHY

Vol. VI

JULY, 1918

No. 9

No Theosophical Society, as such, is responsible for any opinion or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless contained in an official document.

Where any article, or statement, has the author's name attached, he alone is respon sible, and for those which are unsigned, the Editors will be accountable.

Τ

GIORDANO BRUNO

More than one great scholar has stated that there never was a religious founder who had invented a new religion, or revealed a new truth. These founders were all transmitters not original teachers. They were the authors of new forms and interpretations, while the truths upon which the latter were based were as old as mankind. Selecting one of those grand verities-actualities visible only to the eye of the real Sage and Seer-out of the many orally revealed to man in the beginning, preserved and perpetuated in the adyta of the temples through initiation, during the MYSTERIES and by personal transmission-they revealed these truths to the masses. Thus every nation received in its turn some of the said truths, under the veil of its own local and special symbolism. Confucius is shown as saying: "I only hand on; I cannot create new things. I believe in the ancients and therefore I love them."

The writer loves them too, and therefore believes in the ancients, and the modern heirs to their Wisdom. And believing in both, she now transmits that which she has received and learnt herself to all those who will accept it.

-H. P. BLAVATSKY: The Secret Doctrine.

HESE words of H. P. Blavatsky, taken from the Introductory of the Secret Doctrine, contain in a few sentences the key to the great mysteries and problems of humanity. They point to the purpose and perfection of eternal evolution, the great doctrine of Cyclic Law, or Karma; its flower and achievement in Masters, Saviours or Sages, the perfected product of all evolution. They indicate the Source of all Life and its endless progression through all forms and grades of intelligence from the lowest to the highest ; they point no less clearly to the Source of all religions and philosophies in the periodic coming among men of one or another of these Masters, who "become in all things like unto us," in order that They may impart to mankind some one or more of the truths which to

Them are actualities, under the veil of symbolism and parable. Whatever the forms and interpretations, the truths conveyed are the same statements of the eternal verities; transmissions, a "handing on of that which was known before," not inventions of the authors, for They all belong to one Body and They all possess a single Doctrine.

Probably the oldest authentic scripture in the world, judged from the standpoint of unbroken and unpolluted transmission from generation to generation, and the unbroken reverence in which it has been held by successive myriads of people, is the BhagavadGita of ancient India. In the Fourth chapter of that teaching, Krishna, the transmitter of that day, now more than fifty centuries gone by, says to his disciple:

This exhaustless Doctrine I formerly taught unto Vivaswat; Vivaswat communicated it unto Manu and Manu made it known unto Ikshwaku; and being thus transmitted from one unto another it was studied by the Rajarshees, until at length in the course of time the mighty art was lost. It is even the same exhaustless, secret, eternal doctrine I have this day communicated unto thee because thou art my devotee and my friend.

Here we find the identical expression of facts contained in the words of H. P. B. which we have quoted, and they may be verified by any student to any extent that he desires by pondering the meaning of the facts and traditions of human history.

Though Krishna speaks of the Doctrine as becoming lost in the course of time, he can mean only that it becomes lost to humanity. It was not lost to Krishna, or other Masters, or otherwise he and They could not communicate it to those who love and believe in Them. And H. P. B. goes on to say, after the statement that these truths were orally revealed to man in the beginning and preserved and perpetuated in the adyta of the Mysteries, through initiation and by personal transmission, and after the statement that they are again and again restored and revealed to the masses by Transmitters-she goes on to say how they become lost to humanity:

These truths, as time went on, developed into a more or less philosophical cultus, a Pantheon in mythical guise.

This is but repeating in her own words what Krishna said so many centuries earlier, and what any one who looks can see for himself has taken place in the case of every great religion of all times: just as any one who studies the facts can see that all these religions and philosophies are identical and in agreement fundamentally, whether as to teachings, mode or manner of inculcation on the part of the Founders; however they later, "in the course of time," became hidden and concealed under the misleading guise of a philosophical cultus or the Pantheon of sects and dogmas of established creeds.

Further, the words of H. P. B. convey, to those who can see the meanings of words and facts, the revelation of the true nature of H. P. BLAVATSKY as one of those very Transmitters, Sages, Seers or Initiates of whom she speaks, and point to her as one of the long, long line of Those 'who walk in the footsteps of the Prede

cessors." But to see this one must have not merely studied for information's sake, nor even with an eye to see the meaning of things: one must "believe in the ancients and love them," as Confucius did, and as she did; and one must have towards Her and her Mission the same attitude that Krishna says has enabled him to communicate this Doctrine to Arjuna, though to others it was lost: "Because thou art my devotee and my friend." To all others there is no real communication of the Secret Doctrine; it merely becomes to them in the course of time a philosophical cultus or one more in the pantheon of creeds.

Once a century, in the West, said H. P. B., Transmitters have come and will continue to come. She said the Next Messenger of the Great MASTERS would not come until 1975, and those who are Her devotees and Her friends, are working and will continue to work, inspired by Her communication and by Her example, to "preach, promulgate and practice" the philosophy She transmitted until the next Messenger shall come. It may some part help us in that devotion to consider from time to time the identity of aim, purpose and teaching of earlier Messengers from the same great Source of inspiration and effort.

One such was Giordano Bruno, born about 1548 and departing in "fire, light, day, the fortnight of the waxing moon, six months of the sun's northern course," for he was burned at the stake by the Inquisition on the seventeenth February, 1600, at Rome. Martyrdom, in one form or another, is the price paid by all those who seek to restore to humanity that which was lost.

Of Bruno's life little is known; almost as little as of the life of Christ or of Apollonius of Tyana. He was born in Italy. He entered in youth the order of the Dominicans. He went to Geneva, to France, to England, to Wittenberg, to Prague, and thence back. to Italy to meet his fate, his mission having been accomplished.

In the sordid, sensual, savage civil, social and religious generation in which his work was done he could be but little more than "the witness on the scene." But he held high the torch of truth to "all those who would accept it," and his philosophy and high courage had a profound, though even yet but scantly recognized, influence in and on scholasticism, science, philosophy and religion, and blazed some part of the obstacles from the path of the Renaissance of human liberty of thought in the following century, even though that liberty degenerated into the deadly licenses of intellectual atheism and sectarian superstitions.

In his successive locations he visited, talked, lectured and wrote in the then centres of Calvinism, Lutheranism, and the other protestant rebellions against the devilish hierarchy which in the name of Jesus and the Christ sat astride the conscience and the mind of Christendom, and enforced the mandates of the Vice-Gerent of God on earth by dungeon, rack and stake.

More than this, he turned again the attention of those who in secret longed and looked for some reconciliation of God and Na