Rebirth of the Occult Tradition (H.P. Blavatsky) by Doris De Zirkoff 1977 PB EX

Description: Rebirth of the Occult TraditionHow the Secret Doctrine of H.P. Blavatsky was WrittenBy Doris De ZirkoffThe Theosophical Publishing House1977 Excellent Vintage Condition. The book is clean, covers attached, uncreased spine, secure binding, unmarked, no writing, no highlighting, crisp inner pages, no ripped pages, no edge chipping, no corner folds, no crease marks, no remainder marks, not ex-library. Some very light surface and edge wear from age, use, storage and handling. Light edge fading to the rear cover. Previous owner embossed stamp on several pages. Small vintage price sticker stain on the front end-page. Free USA Shipping >>>> Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (12 August [O.S. 31 July] 1831 – 8 May 1891), often known as Madame Blavatsky, was a Russian and American mystic and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She gained an international following as the leading theoretician of Theosophy. Born into an aristocratic family in Yekaterinoslav, then in the Russian Empire (now Dnipro in Ukraine), Blavatsky traveled widely around the empire as a child. Largely self-educated, she developed an interest in Western esotericism during her teenage years. According to her later claims, in 1849 she embarked on a series of world travels, visiting Europe, the Americas, and India. She also claimed that during this period she encountered a group of spiritual adepts, the "Masters of the Ancient Wisdom", who sent her to Shigatse, Tibet, where they trained her to develop a deeper understanding of the synthesis of religion, philosophy, and science. Both contemporary critics and later biographers have argued that some or all of these foreign visits were fictitious, and that she spent this period in Europe. By the early 1870s, Blavatsky was involved in the Spiritualist movement; although defending the genuine existence of Spiritualist phenomena, she argued against the mainstream Spiritualist idea that the entities contacted were the spirits of the dead. Relocating to the United States in 1873, she befriended Henry Steel Olcott and rose to public attention as a spirit medium, attention that included public accusations of fraudulence. In 1875, New York City, Blavatsky co-founded the Theosophical Society with Olcott and William Quan Judge. In 1877, she published Isis Unveiled, a book outlining her Theosophical world-view. Associating it closely with the esoteric doctrines of Hermeticism and Neoplatonism, Blavatsky described Theosophy as "the synthesis of science, religion and philosophy", proclaiming that it was reviving an "Ancient Wisdom" which underlay all the world's religions. In 1880, she and Olcott moved to India, where the Society was allied to the Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement. That same year, while in Ceylon, she and Olcott became the first people from the United States to formally convert to Buddhism. Although opposed by the British colonial administration, Theosophy spread rapidly in India but experienced internal problems after Blavatsky was accused of producing fraudulent paranormal phenomena. In ailing health, in 1885 she returned to Europe, establishing the Blavatsky Lodge in London. There she published The Secret Doctrine, a commentary on what she claimed were ancient Tibetan manuscripts, as well as two further books, The Key to Theosophy and The Voice of the Silence. She died of influenza in 1891. Blavatsky was a controversial figure during her lifetime, championed by supporters as an enlightened sage and derided as a charlatan by critics. Her Theosophical doctrines influenced the spread of Hindu and Buddhist ideas in the West as well as the development of Western esoteric currents like Ariosophy, Anthroposophy, and the New Age Movement. >>>> The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing such phenomena involving otherworldly agency as mysticism, spirituality, and magic. It can also refer to supernatural ideas like extra-sensory perception and parapsychology. The term occult sciences was used in 16th-century Europe to refer to astrology, alchemy, and natural magic, which today are considered pseudosciences. The term occultism emerged in 19th-century France, where it came to be associated with various French esoteric groups connected to Éliphas Lévi and Papus, and in 1875 was introduced into the English language by the esotericist Helena Blavatsky. Throughout the 20th century, the term was used idiosyncratically by a range of different authors, but by the 21st century was commonly employed – including by academic scholars of esotericism – to refer to a range of esoteric currents that developed in the mid-19th century and their descendants. Occultism is thus often used to categorise such esoteric traditions as Spiritualism, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and New Age. Use of the term as a nominalized adjective has developed especially since the late twentieth century. In that same period, occult and culture were combined to form the neologism occulture. >>>> Magic, sometimes spelled magick, is the application of beliefs, rituals or actions employed in the belief that they can manipulate natural or supernatural beings and forces. It is a category into which have been placed various beliefs and practices sometimes considered separate from both religion and science. Although connotations have varied from positive to negative at times throughout history, magic "continues to have an important religious and medicinal role in many cultures today". Within Western culture, magic has been linked to ideas of the Other, foreignness, and primitivism; indicating that it is "a powerful marker of cultural difference" and likewise, a non-modern phenomenon. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Western intellectuals perceived the practice of magic to be a sign of a primitive mentality and also commonly attributed it to marginalised groups of people. In modern occultism and Neopagan religions, many self-described magicians and witches regularly practice ritual magic; defining magic as a technique for bringing about change in the physical world through the force of one's will. This definition was popularised by Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), an influential British occultist, and since that time other religions (e.g. Wicca and LaVeyan Satanism) and magical systems (e.g. chaos magic) have adopted it. Magick, in the context of Aleister Crowley's Thelema, is a term used to show and differentiate the occult from performance magic and is defined as "the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will", including "mundane" acts of will as well as ritual magic. Crowley wrote that "it is theoretically possible to cause in any object any change of which that object is capable by nature". John Symonds and Kenneth Grant attach a deeper occult significance to this preference. Crowley saw Magick as the essential method for a person to reach true understanding of the self and to act according to one's true will, which he saw as the reconciliation "between freewill and destiny." In various cultural worldviews, witchcraft is the use of magic or supernatural powers, usually to cause harm and misfortune to others. Someone who practices witchcraft, or is accused of doing so, is called a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term witchcraft originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have attacked their own community. Witchcraft was seen as immoral and often thought to involve communion with evil beings. It was believed witchcraft could be thwarted by protective magic or counter-magic, which could be provided by the cunning folk or folk healers. Suspected witches were also intimidated, banished, attacked or killed. Often they would be formally prosecuted and punished if found guilty. European witch-hunts and witch trials in the early modern period led to tens of thousands of executions - almost always of women who did not practice witchcraft. European belief in witchcraft gradually dwindled during and after the Age of Enlightenment. Contemporary cultures that believe in magic and the supernatural often believe in witchcraft. Anthropologists have applied the term witchcraft to similar beliefs and occult practices described by many non-European cultures, and cultures that have adopted English will often call these practices "witchcraft", as well. As with the cunning-folk in Europe, Indigenous communities that believe in the existence of witchcraft define witches as the opposite of the healers and medicine people, who are sought out for protection against witches and witchcraft. Modern witch-hunting is found in parts of Africa and Asia. In contemporary Western culture, most notably since the development and popularization of Wicca in the 1950s, the term witchcraft has been redefined by some adherents to refer to harmless or helpful practices such as divination, meditation, and the self-help practices found in the modern Pagan and New Age movements. >>>> Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind and matter. The word "metaphysics" comes from two Greek words that, together, literally mean "after or behind or among [the study of] the natural". It has been suggested that the term might have been coined by a first century CE editor who assembled various small selections of Aristotle’s works into the treatise we now know by the name Metaphysics (μετὰ τὰ φυσικά, meta ta physika, lit. 'after the Physics ', another of Aristotle's works). Metaphysics studies questions related to what it is for something to exist and what types of existence there are. Metaphysics seeks to answer, in an abstract and fully general manner, the questions: What is there? What is it like? Topics of metaphysical investigation include existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility. Metaphysics is considered one of the four main branches of philosophy, along with epistemology, logic, and ethics.

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