The Secret Doctrine

H.P. Blavatsky

2016년 10월 · Penguin

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Madame Blavatsky's Victorian-era masterpiece is now scaled down to its essentials, providing the most readable, accessible experience ever of one of history's seminal occult works.

The Secret Doctrine, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's masterwork on the origin and evolution of the universe and humanity itself, is arguably the most famous, and perhaps the most influential, occult book ever written. Published since 1888 only in expensive, two-volume editions of some 1,400 pages, it has long eluded the grasp of modern readers- until now.

This single-volume edition, abridged and annotated by historian and Theosophical scholar Michael Gomes, places the ideas of The Secret Doctrine within reach of all who are curious. In particular, Gomes provides a critical sounding of the book's famous stanzas on the genesis of life and the cosmos- mysterious passages that Blavatsky said originated from a primeval source and which form the heart of The Secret Doctrine. Gomes scrupulously scales down the book's key writings on symbolism to their essentials, and offers notes and a glossary to illuminate arcane references. His historical and literary introduction casts new light on some of the book's sources and on the career of its brilliant and elusive author, one of the most intriguing personages of the nineteenth century.

At once compact and representative of the work as a whole, this new edition of The Secret Doctrine brings unprecedented accessibility to the key esoteric classic of the modern era.

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Like a comet across the horizon of complacent Western civilization, MADAME HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY (1831-1891) appeared on the American scene in the early 1870s and almost single-handedly revived interest in the occult and esoteric, and also introduced many Westerners to the religious ideas of the East, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism. The world-traveled Russian noblewoman founded the Theosophical Society in New York City in 1875 to study the esoteric ideas behind the world's religions. She relocated to India in 1878, where she and her collaborator, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, a retired Civil War officer, helped inaugurate India's independence movement. Fleeing scandals in India, Blavatsky relocated to London in 1885, where she began writing her magnum opus, The Secret Doctrine--a vast, two-volume compendium of occult philosophy and a cosmological vision of humanity's lost history and secret destiny. Published in 1888, The Secret Doctrine became a formative influence on avant-garde artists and intellectuals, and propelled the dawning occult revival and alternative spiritual culture. Blavatksy died two years after its publication.