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The Ancient Wisdom by Annie Besant
The Ancient Wisdom
by Annie Besant
1911 Reprint
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The Ancient Wisdom by Annie Besant
CONTENTS
THE PHYSICAL PLANE
THE ASTRAL PLANE
KÂMALOKA
THE MENTAL PLANE
DEVACHAN
THE BUDDHIC AND NIRVANIC PLANES
REINCARNATION
REINCARNATION (CONTINUED)
KARMA
THE LAW OF SACRIFICE
MAN'S ASCENT
BUILDING A KOSMOS
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The Ancient Wisdom by Annie Besant
PREFACE
This book is intended to place in the hands of the general reader an epitome of theosophical teachings,
sufficiently plain to serve the elementary student, and sufficiently full to lay a sound foundation for further
knowledge. It is hoped that it may serve as an introduction to the profounder works of H.P.Blavatsky, and
be a convenient steppingstone to their study.
Those who have learned a little of the Ancient Wisdom know the illumination, the peace, the joy, the
strength, its lessons have brought into their lives. That this book may win some to con its teachings,and
to prove for themselves their value, is the prayer with which it is sent forth into the world.
Annie Besant,
August 1897
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The Ancient Wisdom by Annie Besant
INTRODUCTION
THE UNITY UNDERLYING ALL RELIGIONS
Right thought is necessary to right conduct, right understanding to right living, and the Divine Wisdom –
whether called by its ancient Sanskrit name of Brahma Vidyā, or its modern Greek name of Theosophia,
Theosophy – comes to the world as at once an adequate philosophy and an all-embracing religion and
ethic. It was once said of the Christian Scriptures by a devotee that they contained shallows in which a
child could wade and depths in which a giant must swim. A similar statement might be made of
Theosophy, for some of its teachings are so simple and so practical that any person of average
intelligence can understand and follow them, while others are so lofty, so profound, that the ablest strains
his intellect to contain them and sinks exhausted in the effort.
In the present volume an attempt will be made to place Theosophy before the reader simply and clearly,
in a way which shall convey (Page 2) its general principles and truths as forming a coherent conception of
the universe, and shall give such detail as is necessary for the understanding of their relations to each
other. An elementary textbook cannot pretend to give the fullness of knowledge that may be obtained
from abstruser works, but it should leave the student with clear fundamental ideas on his subject, with
much indeed to add by future study but with little to unlearn. Into the outline given by such a book the
student should be able to paint the details of further research.
It is admitted on all hands that a survey of the great religions of the world shows that they hold in
common many religious, ethical, and philosophical ideas. But while the fact is universally granted, the
explanation of the fact is a matter of dispute.
Some allege that religions have grown up on the soil of human ignorance tilled by the imagination, and
have been gradually elaborated from crude forms of animism and fetishism; their likenesses are referred
to universal natural phenomena imperfectly observed and fancifully explained, solar and star worship
being the universal key for one school, phallic worship the equally universal key for another ; fear, desire,
ignorance, and wonder led the savage to personify the powers of nature, and priests played upon his
terrors and his hopes, his misty fancies, and his bewildered questionings ; myths became scriptures and
symbols facts, and their basis was universal the likeness of the products was inevitable. (Page 3) Thus
speak the doctors of “Comparative Mythology,” and plain people are silenced but not convinced under
the rain of proofs ; they cannot deny the likenesses, but they dimly feel : Are all man’s dearest hopes
and lofty imaginings nothing more than the outcome of savage fancies and of groping ignorance? Have
the great leaders of the race, the martyrs and heroes of humanity, lived, wrought, suffered and died
deluded, for the mere personifications of astronomical facts and for the draped obscenities of
barbarians?
The second explanation of the common property in the religions of the world asserts the existence of an
original teaching in the custody of a Brotherhood of great spiritual Teachers, who – Themselves the
outcome of past cycles of evolution – acted as the instructors and guides of the child-humanity of our
planet, imparting to its races and nations in turn the fundamental truths of religion in the form most
adapted to the idiosyncrasies of the recipients. According to this view, the Founders of the great religions
are members of the one Brotherhood, and were aided in Their mission by many other members, lower in
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The Ancient Wisdom by Annie Besant
degree than Themselves, Initiates and disciples of various grades, eminent in spiritual insight, in
philosophical knowledge, or in purity of ethical wisdom. These guided the infant nations, gave them their
polity, enacted their laws, ruled them as kings, taught them as philosophers, guided them as priests ; all
the nations of antiquity looked back to such mighty men, demigods, and heroes, (Page 4) and they left
their traces in literature, in architecture, in legislation.
That such men lived it seems difficult to deny in the face of universal tradition, of still existing Scriptures,
and of prehistoric remains for the most part now in ruins, to say nothing of other testimony which the
ignorant would reject. The sacred books of the East are the best evidence for the greatness of their
authors, for who in later days or in modern times can even approach the spiritual sublimity of their
religious thought, the intellectual splendour of their philosophy, the breadth and purity of their ethic? And
when we find that these books contain teachings about God, man, and the universe identical in
substance under much variety of outer appearance, it does not seem unreasonable to refer to them to a
central primary body of doctrine. To that body we give the name Divine Wisdom, in its Greek form :
THEOSOPHY.
As the origin and basis of all religions, it cannot be the antagonist of any : it is indeed their purifier,
revealing the valuable inner meaning of much that has become mischievous in its external presentation
by the perverseness of ignorance and the accretions of superstition ; but it recognises and defends itself
in each, and seeks in each to unveil its hidden wisdom. No man in becoming a Theosophist need cease
to be a Christian, a Buddhist, a Hindu ; he will but acquire a deeper insight into his own faith, a firmer
hold on its spiritual truths, a broader understanding of its sacred teachings. As Theosophy (Page 5) of old
gave birth to religions, so in modern times does it justify and defend them. It is the rock whence all of
them were hewn, the hole of the pit whence all were dug. It justifies at the bar of intellectual criticism the
deepest longings and emotions of the human heart : it verifies our hopes for man ; it gives us back
ennobled our faith in God.
The truth of this statement becomes more and more apparent as we study the various world-Scriptures,
and but a few selections from the wealth of material available will be sufficient to establish the fact, and to
guide the student in his search for further verification. The main spiritual verities of religion may be
summarised thus:
1) One eternal, infinite, incognisable real Existence.
2) From THAT the manifested God, unfolding from unity to duality to trinity.
3) From the manifested Trinity many spiritual Intelligences, guiding cosmic order.
4) Man a reflection of the manifested God and therefore a trinity fundamentally, his inner and
real Self being eternal, one with the Self of the universe.
5) His evolution by repeated incarnations, into which he is drawn by desire, and from which he
is set free by knowledge and sacrifice, becoming divine in potency as he had ever been divine
in latency.
China which is now a fossilised civilisation, was peopled in old days by the Turanians, the fourth
subdivision of the great Fourth Race, the race which inhabited the lost continent of Atlantis, and spread
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