E-KİTAP PROJESİ & CHEAPEST BOOKS

IN submitting this third volume of the series begun with "Special Teachings from the Arcane Science," the author is aware that the times are not yet ready for much of its contents.

In 1878 an attempt was made to amalgamate it with an Indian Society that was believed — mistakenly, as was afterwards proved — to be working on similar lines. When the mistake was discovered, the attempt was, of course, abandoned; but it led indirectly to the removal of the founders to India, a step they had long wished to take, and to the remodelling of the objects of the Society. From this time its activity greatly increased, its membership was rapidly enlarged, and Branches were soon formed in various parts; until, at the present time, about twenty-seven years after its formation, it has about four hundred Branches in different parts of the world.

The double title given to the book is not meant to imply that Theosophy and New Thought are approximately identical. The inclusion of the two in a single volume is rather a matter of convenience than of logical classification. We recognize that, while they have distinct points of similarity, they also exhibit quite apparent contrasts in spirit and content.

These lectures will not be concerned with history as a record of wars and political changes; they will have little to tell of battles, murders, and sudden deaths. Instead, we shall try to discover and throw light on the cyclic movements of the Human Spirit. Back of all phenomena, or the outward show of things, there is always a noumenon in the unseen. Behind the phenomena of human history, the noumenon is the Human Spirit, moving in accordance with its own necessities and cyclic laws.