Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky | Page 5

one has but to cross the Canal
of Suez and go to India to bloom forth as a Roger Bacon or even a
Count St. Germain. Many take for their ideal Margrave with his
ever-renewing youth, and care little for the soul as the price paid for it.
Not a few, mistaking "Witch-of-Endorism" pure and simple, for
Occultism--"through the yawning Earth from Stygian gloom, call up
the meager ghost to walks of light," and want, on the strength of this
feat, to be regarded as full blown Adepts. "Ceremonial Magic"
according to the rules mockingly laid down by Éliphas Lévi, is another
imagined alter ego of the philosophy of the Arhats of old. In short, the

prisms through which Occultism appears, to those innocent of the
philosophy, are as multicolored and varied as human fancy can make
them.
Will these candidates to Wisdom and Power feel very indignant if told
the plain truth? It is not only useful, but it has now become necessary
to disabuse most of them and before it is too late. This truth may be
said in a few words: There are not in the West half-a-dozen among the
fervent hundreds who call themselves "Occultists," who have even an
approximately correct idea of the nature of the Science they seek to
master. With a few exceptions, they are all on the highway to Sorcery.
Let them restore some order in the chaos that reigns in their minds,
before they protest against this statement. Let them first learn the true
relation in which the Occult Sciences stand to Occultism, and the
difference between the two, and then feel wrathful if they still think
themselves right. Meanwhile, let them learn that Occultism differs from
Magic and other secret Sciences as the glorious Sun does from a
rush-light, as the immutable and immortal Spirit of Man--the reflection
of the absolute, causeless, and unknowable all,--differs from the mortal
clay--the human body.
In our highly civilized West, where modern languages have been
formed, and words coined, in the wake of ideas and thoughts--as
happened with every tongue--the more the latter became materialized in
the cold atmosphere of Western selfishness and its incessant chase after
the goods of this world, the less was there any need felt for the
production of new terms to express that which was tacitly regarded as
obsolete and exploded "superstition." Such words could answer only to
ideas which a cultured man was scarcely supposed to harbor in his
mind. "Magic," a synonym for jugglery; "Sorcery," an equivalent for
crass ignorance; and "Occultism," the sorry relic of crack-brained,
medieval Fire-philosophers, of the Jacob Boehmes and the St. Martins,
are expressions believed more than amply sufficient to cover the whole
field of "thimble-rigging." They are terms of contempt, and used
generally only in reference to the dross and residues of the Dark Ages
and its preceding aeons of paganism. Therefore have we no terms in the
English tongue to define and shade the difference between such

abnormal powers, or the sciences that lead to the acquisition of them,
with the nicety possible in the Eastern languages--pre-eminently the
Sanskrit. What do the words "miracle" and "enchantment" (words
identical in meaning after all, as both express the idea of producing
wonderful things by breaking the laws of nature [!!] as explained by
the accepted authorities) convey to the minds of those who hear, or who
pronounce them? A Christian--breaking "of the laws of nature,"
notwithstanding--while believing firmly in the miracles, because said
to have been produced by God through Moses, will either scout the
enchantments performed by Pharoah's magicians, or attribute them to
the devil. It is the latter whom our pious enemies connect with
Occultism, while their impious foes, the infidels, laugh at Moses,
Magicians, and Occultists, and would blush to give one serious thought
to such "superstitions." This, because there is no term in existence to
show the difference; no words to express the lights and shadows and
draw the line of demarcation between the sublime and the true, the
absurd and the ridiculous. The latter are the theological interpretations
which teach the "breaking of the laws of Nature" by man, God, or devil;
the former--the scientific "miracles" and enchantments of Moses and
the Magicians in accordance with natural laws, both having been
learned in all the Wisdom of the Sanctuaries, which were the "Royal
Societies" of those days--and in true OCCULTISM. This last word is
certainly misleading, translated as it stands from the compound word
_Guptâ-Vidyâ_, "Secret Knowledge." But the knowledge of what?
Some of the Sanskrit terms may help us.
There are four (out of the many other) names of the various kinds of
Esoteric Knowledge or Sciences given, even in the exoteric Purânas.
There is (1) _Yajña-Vidyâ_,[C] knowledge of the occult powers
awakened in Nature by the performance