Esoteric Scientific Method
DK on the Occult Science
... similarity is the basis of perception. ... Only that can be contacted which is already present or partially present in the perceiver's consciousness. -LOS 195It should be borne in mind that from the angle of the Spiritual Triad the soul nature is definitely objective. This is a statement of occult fact which will be better understood when the nature of man (as taught in the occult sciences) is admitted by thinkers, scientists and psychologists. -TSR V, 514
Each generation should produce those able to ascertain subjective fact for themselves; they will utilize that which is exoteric and known as stepping stones on the path to perfect knowledge. They will know, and they will give out, and only the next cycle of fifty years after their work is accomplished will see the recognition by the many of the truth revealed by the few. In the case of H. P. B. this is apparent. -TCF 707
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When we are more advanced upon the Path, we shall see naught but spirit everywhere, and the aphorism, enunciated by that great disciple, H.P.B., that "matter is spirit at the lowest point of its cyclic activity" and "spirit is matter on the seventh plane," or the highest, will be a realised fact in our consciousness. It is as yet but an intellectual phrase which means little except the enunciation of a truth, incapable of proof. -TSR I, 17
***Let us therefore seek for the truth as a fact in our own consciousness (26)... Those [Page 27] who know may state a fact to be thus and so, but the dictum of another person and the enunciation of a theory do not aid beyond giving to the seeker confirmatory indication. Each soul has to ascertain for himself, and must find out within himself, remembering ever that the kingdom of God is within, and that only those facts which are realised within the individual consciousness as truths are of any real value. -IHS
***I seek to formulate for you the fundamental propositions upon which all this teaching is founded. They are for me, a humble worker in the Hierarchy, as they are for the Great White Lodge as a whole, a statement of fact and of truth. For students and seekers they must be accepted as an hypothesis. -TSR I, 141
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The subject is so vast that I have been faced with the problem of the best method whereby to handle it. I decided [Page 9] on brevity, the concise statement of facts (facts to those of us who are working on the inner side of life, but which must rightly be only hypotheses to you) and the avoidance of detail and of detailed discussion. We will endeavour to work from the universal to the particular and from the general to the specific, but our emphasis will always be on the universal and the general, and not upon the particular and specific. -TSR III, 9
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What I have told you in the previous section is to me unquestionable truth and factually proven; to you it may be an adequate hypothesis or a questionable and nonacceptable interpretation of the underlying causes of disease. -TSR IV, 381
***One of the first lessons we need to learn is that our minds, being as yet unresponsive to the hidden intuitions, make it impossible for us to say with assurance that such a condition is this, that or the other; that, until we can function in our soul-consciousness, it is not for us to say what is or what is not; that until we have submitted ourselves [Page 32] to the needed training we are in no position to deny or affirm anything. Our attitude should be that of reasonable enquiry and our interest that of the investigating philosopher, willing to accept an hypothesis on the basis of its possibility, but being unwilling to acknowledge as proven truth anything until we know it for and in ourselves. I, an aspirant to the higher mysteries, and one who has searched into them for a longer period than has been possible as yet to many, may write of things as yet impossible of demonstration to you or to the public who may read these instructions. To me they may be and are truth and proven fact and for me that may suffice. For you they should be regarded as significant possibilities and hints as to the direction in which truth may be sought, but beyond that you should not permit yourself to go. -TWM
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Through the unfolding consciousness, the initiate knows the significance of life and the uses of form, but stands completely unidentified with either, though blending these dualities in himself into a conscious synthesis. The attempt to convey his state of mind, in words that but limit and confuse, leads to apparent contradictions, and this is one of the peculiar paradoxes of the occult science. Do the above imparted facts make sense to you? Have they meaning for your mind? I think not. You have not yet the needed equipment [Page 473] through which the type of implied awareness can work, or the realisation of that true Self-consciousness which would produce in you an understanding reaction. I simply make the esoteric assertion; later will come apprehension of the truth and that consequent energising which always comes when any abstract truth is truly appreciated and assimilated. But the time has not yet come for the comprehension of the above information. Disciples and aspirants grow through the means of a presented vision—unattainable as yet but definitely an extension of the known and previously grasped. Such is the mode of evolution, for it is ever a pressing forward towards the sensed. TSR V
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Do you appreciate the fact that if you were making full use of each piece of information given in the course of the training, and making it a fact in your experience, and were living out in your daily life the teaching so steadily imparted, you would be standing ere now before the Portal of Initiation? Do you realise that truth has to be wrought out in the texture of daily living before new truth can be safely imparted? -TWM 201
Let me reiterate to you the well-known truth that no man is an initiate apart from understanding, that the life of the initiate is one of constant registration of new knowledge which must be transmuted into practical wisdom, of occult facts which must take intelligent place in the life-service of the initiate, and of new inclusions of areas of consciousness; these latter must become the normal field of experience and of expression; they then become the ground for further expansion. Every revelation has to be mastered from four angles:1. The mental, occult, spiritual, hierarchical and triadal facts it embodies. Every revelation has its own format, for all our planes—so steadily being revealed—are the subplanes of the cosmic physical plane.
2. The meaning which the facts and the format veil and hide and for which the one who is being enlightened must search.
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3. The effect which the revelation is intended to make in the daily life and service and the ashramic relationships of the disciple or initiate.
4. The germ, seed thought, key form and invocative potency of that which has been revealed. Every revelation has its place in a great series of revelations and enlightenments; the disciple has to find, within the form of the revelation, that which he must use in order to achieve the next destined point of attained revelation.I have here given you, in a very brief form, one of the new techniques for disciples in the New Age and one of the modes of meditation whereby the processes of revelation can be hastened. -DINA II
***As you go on and, as aspirants, study the hidden laws of nature, you will realize the need for the price paid. The spiritual unfoldment of the disciple's character must keep pace with his inner knowledge. This knowledge grows in three ways:
1. By definite expansions of consciousness, which open up to the disciple a realization of the points to be attained. This produces in his mind a formulation of what lies ahead to be grasped and is the first step towards acquirement. An aspirant is definitely taken on the inner planes and shown by a more advanced chela what is the work to be done, much in the same way as a pupil is shown by his master the lesson to be learned.
2. The next step is the mastering of the lesson and the working out in meditation and experiment of the truths sensed. This is a lengthy process, for all has to be assimilated and made part and parcel of the disciple's very self before he can go on. It resembles the working out of a sum—figure by figure, line by line, the working out being carried forward until the answer is achieved. This work is done both on the inner planes and on the physical. In the Hall of Learning the pupil is taught nightly for a short time before proceeding with any work of service. This teaching he brings over into his physical brain consciousness in the form of a deep interest in certain subjects, and in an increasing aptitude to think concretely and abstractly on the various occult matters that are occupying his attention. He attempts to experiment and tries various methods of studying the laws and in process of time arrives at results that are of value to him. Time passes and as he appropriates and knows more, his knowledge takes a synthetic form and he becomes [Page 352] ready to teach and to impart to others the residue of knowledge of which he is sure.
3. In teaching others comes further knowledge. The definition of truth in teaching crystallises the facts learnt, and, in the play of other minds, the aspirant's own vibration becomes keyed up to ever higher planes, and this fresh intuition and fresh reaches of truth pour in.When one lesson has, in this way, been mastered, a further one is set, and when a pupil has learnt a particular series of lessons he graduates and passes an initiation. The whole group he teaches is benefited by his step forward, for every disciple carries those he instructs along with him in a curious indefinable sense. The benefit to the unit reacts upon the whole. A Master carries His disciples on and up with Him in a similar manner. The matter is abstruse and largely one of the secrets of the law of vibratory expansion. The initiation of the Logos has a universal effect. -TWM
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There are three main penalties which attach to the wrong use of thought substance, and from these the aspirant must learn to save himself, and to avoid those activities; eventually this will make the process of salvation unnecessary.
1. A potent thought-form can act like a boomerang...
2. A thought-form can also act as a poisoning agent, and poison all the springs of life...
The third danger against which the aspirant must [Page 490] guard himself is becoming obsessed by his own embodied ideas, be they temporarily right or basically strong. Forget not that all right ideas are temporary in nature and must eventually take their place as partial rights and give place to the greater truth. The fact of the day is seen later as part of a greater fact. A man can have grasped some of the lesser principles of the Ageless Wisdom so clearly and be so convinced of their correctness that the bigger whole is forgotten and he builds a thought-form about the partial truth which he has seen which can prove a limitation and keep him a prisoner and hold him back from progress. He is so sure of his possession of truth that he can see the truth of no one else. He can be so convinced of the reality of His own embodied concept of what the truth may be that he forgets his own brain limitations and that the truth has come to him via his own soul and is consequently coloured by his ray, being subsequently built into form by his personal separative mind. He lives but for that little truth; he can see no other; he forces his thought-form on other people; he becomes the obsessed fanatic and so mentally unbalanced, even if the world regards him as sane. -TWM
You will see, therefore, how the teaching leads man progressively onward and how the occult science brings man in touch with great mental reversals and divine paradoxes. -TSR V, 54
Such ideas are contacted usually at first in the form of vague perceptions or remote prophecies; when contacted by churchmen of any of the world religions, these ideas normally receive a far too literal, and therefore misleading, interpretation. This has been responsible for much misery in the world. The scientific method safeguards the scientist from this type of error. -DINA II, 186
... a study of the abnormal, and upon the form aspect (this latter being the true scientific method), and is therefore limited and circumscribed... TSR I, 6
Power to use this light as a dissipating agent only comes when these symbols are dropped and the server begins to regard himself as the light and as the irradiating centre. Herein lies the reason for some of the technicalities of the occult science. -Glamour, 196
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... the registration and the interpretation of the higher impressions is a basic occult science and takes much learning and application to perfect. -Telepathy. 107
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... the entire universe is etheric and vital in nature and of an extension beyond the grasp of the greatest mind of the age, mounting into more than astronomical figures—if that statement even conveys sense to your minds. This extent cannot be computed, even in terms of light years; this cosmic etheric area is the field of untold energies and the basis of all astrological computations; it is the playground of all historical cycles—cosmic, systemic and planetary—and is related to the constellations, to the worlds of suns, to the most distant stars and to the numerous recognised universes, as well as to our own solar system, to the many planets, and to that planet upon which and in which we move and live and have our being, as well as to the smallest form of life known to science and perhaps covered by the meaningless term "an atom." All are found existing in Space—Space is etheric in nature and—so we are told in the occult science—Space is an Entity. -Telepathy. 178
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... all approaches to truth and to knowledge must, in this cycle, be in consciousness. In another cycle such an approach may be focussed in the will or even in some already present but unrealised divine attribute, for which we have as yet no name. All that any man can consequently bring to the comprehension of life experience or to the understanding of such an occult science as the Science of Triangles is a consciousness which is developed to a certain definite and personal point of perception or awareness. This point of perception is itself dependent upon individual unfoldment and also upon the state of awareness of humanity as a whole ... Speaking technically, perception and response or the activity of the perceiving, observing consciousness—carried on through the medium of the mechanism of response—is dependent upon the condition or "aliveness" of the centres or their quiescence. -TSR III, 425
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This sense of synthesis (which must be increasingly demonstrated as each initiation is taken in group formation) is possible only to those who have bridged the gap between the concrete lower mind and the higher mind or—to word it technically and in the language of academic occult science—between the mental unit and the manasic permanent atom. -TSR V, 113
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The scientific method is, in relation to the [Page 15] mind of humanity, playing the same function as the occult method of meditation (in its first two stages of concentration and prolonged concentration or meditation) plays in relation to the individual. Through it right processes of thought are engendered, non-essentials and incorrect formulations of truth are ultimately eliminated or corrected, and the steady focussing of the attention either upon a seed thought, a scientific problem, a philosophy or a world situation results in an ultimate clarifying and the steady seeping in of right ideas and sound conclusions. The foremost thinkers in any of the great schools of thought are simply exponents of occult meditation and the brilliant discoveries of science, the correct interpretations of nature's laws, and the formulations of correct conclusions whether in the fields of science, of economics, of philosophy, psychology or elsewhere is but the registering by the mind (and subsequently by the brain) of the eternal verities, and the indication that the race is beginning also to bridge the gap between the objective and the subjective, between the world of form and the world of ideas. -TWM
Regard the theory as one which, though as yet for him only an hypothesis, fits the facts as he knows them better than any other. He will then, one can safely predict, eventually change his hypothesis into a living fact, if he studies himself with care. One of the first things a disciple has to learn is that he is, indeed, the microcosm of the macrocosm, and that within himself has to be found the open door to the universe. -TSR II, 303
It is a statement of fact that the world of the occultist is the world of energy, of forces, of their origin, their point of impact and the methods of their assimilation [Page 516] and transference or elimination. Unless, however, there is some scientific method of comprehension, some mode of adapting the life to these factors and some process of experimentation in order to prove the fact, the statement remains relatively useless to the intelligent human being; it remains in the form of an hypothesis, to be proved or disproved. -TSR III
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I can only lay down general indications, state causes, and then leave to the intelligent investigators the task of studying effects, after accepting as a possible hypothesis the suggestions I have made. -TSR IV, 241
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I simply ask for your acceptance of the hypothesis (an hypothesis which is a fact to many millions and a proved event to many thousands) that spiritual guidance is accorded to mankind and that behind the veil which separates the visible from the invisible there stand Those Who are working strenuously—and, I might add, scientifically—to meet the present dire need. -EOH 389
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Others are open-minded enough to investigate whether the teaching is true and to follow the techniques suggested, in the hope that hypothesis may turn to fact. This last group is steadily increasing in number and upon their accumulating evidence belief can be translated into knowledge. So many know the truth today; so many people of integrity and worth are cooperating consciously with Members of this Hierarchy... EOH, 417
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These statements sound interesting and perchance they are true. The religions of all nations, the Christian included, give indications that seem to substantiate these ideas. Let us therefore accept these ideas as a working hypothesis as to the consummation of the evolutionary process in man and his work upon the attainment of perfection. Let us therefore seek for the truth as a fact in our own consciousness. -IHS 26
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Suffice it here to say, that the rotation of the spheres within the solar periphery is a recognized occult fact, and indications are available to prove that science itself likewise formulates the hypothesis that the solar ring-pass-not similarly rotates in its appointed place among the constellations. TCF 151
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Now comes the opportunity for man to realise the laws of his own being, and in that realisation those who stand on the verge of intuitional apprehension of knowledge and those of scientific bent who are willing to accept these truths as a working [Page 815] hypothesis to be utilised as a basis for experiment until proven false, will have the chance to solve the world problems from within. TCF
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We shall, from the outset, accept the fact of the soul. We shall not consider the arguments for or against the hypothesis of there being a soul-universal, cosmic, and divine, or individual and human. For our purposes of discussion, the soul exists, and its intrinsic reality is assumed, as a basic and proven principle. Those who do not admit this assumption can, however, study the book from the angle of a temporarily accepted hypothesis, and thus seek to gather those analogies and indications which may substantiate the point of view. -TSR I, xxii
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The third area of doubt,—doubt as to the fact of immortality—will be solved before long in the realm of science, as the result of scientific investigation. Certain scientists will accept the hypothesis of immortality as a working basis upon which to base their search, and they will enter upon that search with a willingness to learn, a readiness to accept and a desire to formulate conclusions based upon reiterated evidence. These conclusions will, in their turn, form the basis for another hypothesis. TSR I, 183
Scientific Method
Service is the true science of creation and is a scientific method of establishing continuity. -ENA 97
I would remind you that service is a scientific method whereby the forces which awaken stimulate and control the solar plexus are directed to the heart centre, thus causing the closing of the astral door and a decentralisation of the interests of the psychic. This decentralisation is technically fulfilled when the central plexus is no longer the dominant factor and the thought interests of the man are of a different nature. -TSR II, 589
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If this review work [on light] is a definitely scientific method of bringing about subjective results with objective changes, what will these results and changes be? -DINA I, 199
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If this review work is a definitely scientific method of development, have I ever given the method of joy a fair trial? 399
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Is this review a scientific method of achieving indifference? 431
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If this review work is a definitely scientific method of development, have I ever given the technique of observation a fair trial? 444
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Heal through a scientific method of bringing together soul and body. -TSR I, 364
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It can be seen, therefore, why I have so emphatically impressed the need of harmlessness upon all of you, for it is the scientific method, par excellence and esoterically speaking, of cleaning house and of purifying the centres. Its practice clears the clogged channels and permits the entrance of the higher energies. -TSR IV, 40
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There is a big difference now between the scientific method of bringing people into incarnation and the perfectly blind and oft frightened and surely ignorant way in which we usher them out of incarnation. I seek today to open the door in the occident to a newer and more scientific method of handling the process of dying, and let me make myself perfectly clear. -TWM 499
2008-01-30