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From Time to time I shall list books which I think are relevant to psychic development and may be of help to you, this is a free service.

You should not pay for this information as by doing so destroys part of what you are trying to achieve,and to be charge for this information means the Sella does not truly believe in his or her psychic ability to provide for their wants and needs.

.A.P.Sinnett_-_Collected_Fruits_of_Occult_Teaching__1920_.pdf       14.6mb

Or: The Lost Secret by  Robert Trent  1981  pdf      2.2mb

Below is an extract from the first few page of

Theosophical literature, from the outset of the great

movement it inaugurated, has been largely concerned

with previously unknown laws governing the origin

and destinies of humanity, the birth and progres

>; of worlds, the coherent design of the Solar System

. and, in short, with the interpretation, in the light of

- : knowledge till recently reserved for a very few, of the

-.' stupendous Divine purpose underlying physical manifestation.

My own earlier books, The Occult

World and Esoteric Buddhism, forecast rather

than embodied teaching along such lines, revealing

the existence of those whom I called

" the Elder

Brethren of Humanity," who had risen above the level

of generally current civilization, and thus had touch

with the wisdom of the Divine Hierarchy. An

experiment was in progress to ascertain if ordinary

culture had attained a stage at which it would appreciate

a flood of new thought relating to a science loftier

than any dealing exclusively with phenomena perceptible

to the physical senses, and in connection with

that experiment I was privileged to receive a considerable

volume of information relating to the early

history of mankind millions of years antedating the

range of historical record ; also to the concatenation

of worlds and the ultimate destinies of our own.

Though crude and incomplete, this preliminary

sketch of occult science and of the agency through

which, though unknown to the multitude, the purpose

of creation was being worked out on the physical

plane, thrilled the readers of the message all over the

civilized world to an extent which gave rise to an

organization, the Theosophical Society, which now

covers Great Britain, Europe generally, and the

United States of America with innumerable branches .

Fresh teaching and information relating to the great

subjects enumerated above has meanwhile been

flowing into my hands, and much has been embodied

in my book, The Growth of the Soul; also, since

the publication of that book, in a large number of

articles in reviews, pamphlets, and "Transactions"

of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society over

which I preside. The present volume collects these

scattered contributions to our super-physical knowledge,

still growing and expanding in its scope and

value. At some later date the fundamental principles

laid down in the earlier books, the illuminating interpretation

of these in the essays now reproduced and

further light on mysteries previously obscure, may

constitute something resembling a complete spiritual

science. But students need not wait for this result

before assimilating the knowledge already acquired.

During this life we are each of us"imprisoned in the

five senses," and, though thought reaches out far

beyond them, its range is limited by the capacity of

the physical brain. In time that capacity will

expand. Ideas easily grasped by the man of modern

culture are beyond the comprehension of the savage.

The improved intellectual mechanism of future

generations will no doubt deal freely with conceptions

which present culture cannot appreciate. Spiritual

science, however, is an infinitude, and no attempt to

interpret it in physical plane language will ever be

more than suggestive and alluring.

But it is equally true that human faculty on this

plane of life will develop as time goes on under the

influence of effort to expand its range. Unconsciously

in most cases students of the spiritual science within

our reach will do more than profit by understanding

it so far. They will have established a claim on

Nature for improved vehicles of consciousness in

later lives, and will have contributed to raise the

level of human understanding. I am sure the experience

of many theosophists will show that within

the limits of the current life ideas can now be easily

handled in thought, which could not have been held

in the mind during earlier periods of study. These

may still defeat the resources of physical plane speech,

but they forecast intellectual conditions that will

ultimately outrun those resources. That state of

things should be a stimulus to theosophical study in

whatever direction it may tend, and few of the essays

in this volume will be found destitute of hints that

will attract thought into some new channel of

spiritual, or, at least, of super-physical enlightenment.

In no direction, as we press forward exploring the

mysteries of Nature, may we expect to attain finality.

Broad principles may be firmly established and at

first they seem to be clearly outlined. Search for

detail soon renders the outline shadowy without

suggesting any distrust of the broad principle. For

example, the most fundamental teaching of Theosophy

in relation to current human life shows us Reincarnation

as essential to the spiritual growth of each

EgOj/ In one of the essays in this book on Theosophical

Teachings liable to be Misunderstood, so

much detail is added to the original teaching on this

subject that when we absorb this the broad idea

without that detail seems as likely to mislead as to

instruct. Earlier statements concerning the

mechanism of the Solar System, the planetary chains,

the successive"manvantaras," etc., were vividly

significant at first. They remain as revelations of

natural truth that we can never lose touch with, but

surrounded by the later interpretation dealt with in

some of the present essays, concerning the way in

which the planetary chains are concatenated together

and the way in which the manvantaras expand and

contract, the first sketches of the truth are seen to

fail altogether in showing it illustrative of the

beautiful symmetry and purpose of the Divine design .

Some readers of the earlier books are too easily

satisfied. The genuine occult student will never stand

still. Henry V., preparing for battle at Agincourt,

declared that :"If it be a sin to covet honour, I am

the most offending soul alive." And the occult

student may think of knowledge the true knowledge,

the comprehension and appreciation of Divine manifestation

in the same heroic spirit.

CONTENTS

Preface - - 5

This World's Place in the Universe - - 11

Future Life and Lives - - - - 29

Religion under Repair - - - - 48

Religion under Repair : A Reply to Professor Lindsay 64

The Occultism in Tennyson's Poetry - - - 79

Creeds more or less Credible - - - - 93

Imprisoned in the Five Senses - - - - in

Our Visits to this World - - - - 129

The Masters and their Methods of Instruction - 147

Expanded Theosophical Knowledge - - - 160

The Nature of Consciousness.

The Planetary Chain.

The Astral World.

The Infinite Future.

The Pyramids and Stonehenge - - - - 189

Theosophical Teachings Liable to be Misunderstood 218

The Super-Physical Laws of Nature - - - 238

The Higher Occultism - -  253

The Objects of the Theosophical Society - - 262

The Borderland of Science - - - -272

Astronomy, Overt and Occult.

1. Nebulae.

2. Within or Beyond our Universe.

3. Planets, Stars and Atoms.

Atoms and Ether

Atoms and Misunderstandings.

Archaeology: Relics of Antiquity ... 291

Cataclysms and Earthquakes - 295

Poetry and Theosophy -304

COLLECTED FRUITS OF

OCCULT TEACHING

THIS WORLD'S PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE

Religious emotion was, till recently, at war with

science especially indignant with astronomy for

disturbing primitive conceptions as to the way this

world was first opened for business. But a bold

application of the principle that biblical language need

not be taken at the foot of the letter gradually enlarged

its interior meaning until the rotundity and

annual revolution of the earth were fitted in to the

story told in Genesis. Evolution as accounting for

the human form then came within sight of a gloomy

toleration if Modernists insisted on it. That, however,

which religious emotion has not yet quite

realized is the sublime truth that, the more we are

enabled to penetrate the deep mysteries of Nature,

the more profoundly reverent we become in contemplating

the impenetrable infinitudes of that Divine

Power which operates alike in guiding the growth of

protoplasm and the majestic mechanism of the Solar

System. Critics who preferred when Darwin first

shattered the paraphernalia of medieval theology,

like a bull in a china shop to remain on the side of

the Angels, made the immense mistake of supposing

that the Angels (regarded as agents of Divinity)

would be disestablished if we began to approach an

understanding of the way they did their work. A

view growing familiar with some students of Nature

involves the idea that even natural forces are the

expression of conscious will on some exalted levels of

spiritual potency; that the so-called" laws " of

Nature are definite Divine enactments not merely

blind attributes of matter. And we can hardly begin

to form a rational conception of the world's development

under Divine control without including this

idea in our thinking.

The reconciliation of religion and science has been

advancing by leaps and bounds of late, and " Seven

Men of Science," all of the foremost rank, recently

published a collection of addresses frankly declaring

their belief in God, as a fundamental idea underlying

scientific study. The record of the old"Conflict

is now ancient history. But this result is not a conclusion.

It is only a beginning. The seven scientific

leaders, quite in agreement as regards the main

proposition, may be groping in various directions

in the search for a definite mental picture of the God

in whom they believe. Perhaps all would admit that

the reality does not lend itself to the formation of

a mental picture. Religion reconstructed on scientific

principles must build up a conception of Divinity by

working from below upward. The earlier fashion

attempted to work from above downward. " In the

beginning"certain things happened, we were told

by teachers who, quite reasonably in dealing with

young people, ignored the idea that Eternity has no

beginning. But now that embryology must be

recognized as a method of creation when we talk about

the human form we feel the need of an embryology

as applied to planetary creation. And so we come

to recognize the subtle, mysterious laws of organic

growth not as displacing the Divine creative Will,,

but as the agency by which it is fulfilled in physical

So by degrees, with help available at the present day,.

for those especially who realize that human consciousness

can be reached by other channels of perception

besides the five senses, we reach the idea that Divine

agency is worked out through an enormously elaborate

and magnificent hierarchy of Spiritual Beings, beyond

whom, in dazzling and (as yet) impenetrable mystery,

there exists an incomprehensibly sublime Power, of

whom the Sun may be thought of as the physical

In the mental search for God we may pause at this

stage of the effort. Human intelligence is more

limited in its scope than early philosophers imagined,

but is quite limitless as regards its expectations. It

presumes to talk about the Divine power which

accounts for the whole universe. Distant stars,

though to be counted by millions and mostly gigantic

compared with the star, or Sun, to which we belong,

must come into the same creative scheme as the

sparrows in Kensington Gardens . The Sunday School

teacher can be content with nothing less than a God

who is responsible for the Milky Way as well as for

the milky mothers of the field. And medieval

painters have even presented us with his portrait.

In some foreign gallery I have seen him included

in a family group the Father with a long beard is in

an armchair with the Third Person of the Trinity

as a pigeon perched on the back, and the Son in a

chair of somewhat lesser dignity beside him. Enlightened

members of the English Church would

generally be shocked at this grossly materialistic

presentation of the Divine Mystery, forgetful of their

own declaration of belief that Christ ascended into

Heaven and "

sitteth on the right hand of God, the

Father Almighty." From The Fudge Family in

Paris we learn that a certain forcible expression,

impossible in English,

" doesn't sound half so shocking

in French," and on the same principle an idea merely

formulated in words that no one stops to invest with

a meaning is not half so shocking as the same idea

depicted on canvas by means of oil colour.

In the days of the old "Conflict" those who dealt

with it Draper and others dwelt especially on the

savage ferocity with which the early Church endeavoured

to stifle astronomical discovery. Faith,

at that time, might have been correctly described as

" the faculty that enables, us to believe what we know

to be untrue ."

It was endangered by the astronomical

emphasis of the untruthfulness in question, but in the

long run, as astronomy held the field, faith fell into

line with discovery, and in spite of ecclesiastical

opposition became ennobled in character. The God

of a Semitic tribe might with an effort of imagination

be fitted into an armchair. The God of a Solar

System, including a central Sun many thousand

times bigger than the Earth and the orbit of Neptune

thousands of million miles in diameter was in a

different order of magnitude. And if we attempt

to strain imagination by looking upward in thought

at that inconceivable splendour, we may realize the

futility of the effort by attempting to gaze directly

with open eyes on a fine day at the physical Sun.

Human sight will not tolerate the unveiled light.

Human understanding will not bring the God-idea,

once cleared of blundering theology, to a definite focus.

But astronomical discovery does not come to a

standstill even after measuring the orbit of Neptune

and accounting for the canals of Mars, nor after

attempting, however unsuccessfully, to set time

limits to the radiant energy of the Sun. We are all

agreed though astronomy affords scope for disagreement

in some directions that the whole Solar

System the Sun attended by his family of planets

is moving through space at about the rate of twelve

to fourteen miles per second. Whither is it bound ?

Greenwich authorities would hardly yet venture on a

definite reply, but we may if we* like indulge, in

connection with that question, in the fascinating

pursuit known to science as"extrapolation" the

application to regions of thought outside the range

of definite observation, of the assumption that laws

operative within that range hold good to infinitudes

beyond. Almost all the Heavenly bodies quite all

if we merely except meteorites and some comets

move in elliptical orbits more or less closely approximating

to the circular form. Plainly, it is much more

probable that the Sun's motion is in conformity with

this general principle, than that it is a blind rush

in a straight course, which would infallibly in the

long run give rise to a cosmic catastrophe. If the

uniformities of Nature are maintained, the Sun must

be revolving in an orbit around some definite sidereal

centre. Obviously such an orbit must be so vast that

any measurable arc will appear to be a straight line.

Now I must venture to outrun even extrapolation in

the explanation I have to give. I have been permitted

in the pages of the Nineteenth Century to maintain the

position that, in the course of the presen"Armageddon,"

Unseen Powers embodying loftier knowledge

than common humanity has yet reached are taking

part in the struggle. Some of us in conscious touch

with them are sometimes with their help enabled

to anticipate scientific discovery. In that way I

was concerned, some dozen years before the discovery

of Radium, with anticipations relating to the

constitution of matter, ultimately verified by that

discovery and subsequent work based upon it.

Happily those anticipations were published at the

time, so their character as a successful forecast is not

open to dispute. In another direction certain future

conclusions in connection with astronomy may be

anticipated in their turn. The centre around which

the Solar System is gravitating will be found to be

the star Sirius. Common knowledge gives us an

approximate measure of some stellar distances. The

figure accepted by astronomers for the moment as

the distance of Sirius, taking"light-years"as the

unit, is 8.8, or call it eight and three-quarters. A

light-year is the distance light crosses in a year,

moving at the rate of 186,000 miles per second. So

it would be inconvenient to give stellar distances in

miles. Moreover, there is a wide margin for possible

errors in calculations concerned with the parallax of

stars. Perhaps it will be found that Sirius is a bit

farther off than the currently accepted calculation

assumes, but anyhow the real distance is in the same

order of magnitude. Estimates of the size and

luminosity of Sirius vary very widely from 300 to

1000 times the size and brightness of our Sun, but

either guess fits in with the main idea to be grasped.

Obviously our Sun cannot be the only one that revolves

around Sirius. Directly that idea is appreciated,

we realize that Sirius must be the central sun of a

vast system, in which such suns as ours must be, to

Sirius, what the planets are to our Sun.

That this is so, can only be ascertained definitely

by those in touch with sources of information not yet

within general reach, but at all events, meanwhile,

as a hypothesis, the statement is clearly in harmony

with the uniformities of Nature. To regard our

Solar System and all the others presumably represented

by the millions of stars in the sky, as scattered

at random about space would be insulting to Supreme

Wisdom and Omnipotence. The conception could

only be acceptable to thinkers at the kindergarten

stage. Certainly up to the middle of the last century

grown and grave men did discuss the question whether

this was the only inhabited world in the Universe,

but increasing intelligence has rendered us at once