"There is no religion higher than truth" HPB.

To accuse Buddhistical philosophy of rejecting a Supreme Being -- God, and the soul's immortality, of atheism, in short, on the ground that according to their doctrines, Nirvana means annihilation, and Svabhavat is NOT a person, but nothing, is simply absurd. IU1 128. HPB.

Esoteric philosophy reconciles all religions, strips every one of its outward, human garments, and shows the root of each to be identical with that of every other great religion. It proves the necessity of an absolute Divine Principle in nature. It denies Deity no more than it does the Sun. Esoteric philosophy has never rejected God in Nature, nor Deity as the absolute and abstract Ens. Secret Doctrine vol1 xx. HPB

A spirit of agnosticism (not of atheism) is of real value to the beginner and preserves him from the snares of the world illusion. DINA1 14. Alice Bailey/DK.

Hylozoism, when philosophically understood, is the highest aspect of Pantheism. It is the only possible escape from idiotic Atheism based on lethal materiality, and the still more idiotic anthropomorphic conceptions of the Monotheists; between which it stands on its own entirely neutral ground. Hylozoism demands absolute Divine Thought, which would pervade the numberless active creating Forces, or "Creators," which Entities are moved by, and have their being in, from and through that Divine Thought... Such active "Creators" are known to exist and are believed in because perceived and sensed by the Inner Man. - S D., II, 167, 168. Helena Blavatsky.

The accusations of atheism, the introducing of foreign deities, and corrupting of the Athenian youth, which were made against Socrates, afforded ample justification for Plato to conceal the arcane preaching of his doctrines. IU1 xii. HPB.

But we have good evidence that the latter system was taught in the Mysteries, and that Socrates died for atheism, i.e., for divulging this sacred knowledge. Herakleides adopted fully the Pythagorean and Platonic views of the human soul, its faculties and its capabilities. He describes it as a luminous, highly ethereal essence. Isis Unveiled. Vol1 xii HPB.

"Positive Philosophy," continues Littre, "does not accept atheism, for the atheist is not a really-emancipated mind, but is, in his own way, a theologian still; he gives his explanation about the essence of things; he knows how they began! . . . Atheism is Pantheism; this system is quite theological yet, and thus belongs to the ancient party. IU1 79. HPB.

The more we think and the more we learn, the more difficult it becomes for us to account for the atheism of the scientist. We may readily understand that a man ignorant of the laws of nature, unlearned in either chemistry or physics, may be fatally drawn into materialism through his very ignorance; his incapacity of understanding the philosophy of the exact sciences, or drawing any inference by analogy from the visible to the invisible. A natural-born metaphysician, an ignorant dreamer, may awake abruptly and say to himself: "I dreamed it; I have no tangible proof of that which I imagined; it is all illusion," etc. But for a man of science, acquainted with the characteristics of the universal energy, to maintain that life is merely a phenomenon of matter, a species of energy, amounts simply to a confession of his own incapability of analyzing and properly understanding the alpha and the omega even of that -- matter. IU1 128. HPB.

This profound observer might have added to his experience that of Bacon, who remarks that ". . . a little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth man's mind about to religion." Ibid.

To accuse Buddhistical philosophy of rejecting a Supreme Being -- God, and the soul's immortality, of atheism, in short, on the ground that according to their doctrines, Nirvana means annihilation, and Svabhavat is NOT a person, but nothing, is simply absurd. Ibid.

Nothing is better calculated than the latter to sow seeds of distrust, doubt, and finally of skepticism which leads directly to atheism. Ibid.

A despairing plunge into the abyss of atheism. Ibid. HPB.

JC: Interestingly Christianity, although condemned today by the atheist as a religion of past conflict and war, demonstrates occultly as one of conflict and cleavage produced by the use and misuse of attraction and repulsion. Of these the atheist stands apart [temporarily] and wholly on the side of materiality [with its inevitable decent into eternal darkness when left to itself] and with a refusal to accept the responsibility of accounting for his immortal spirit. It is though, a bridging and transitional religion between individualism and group consciousness, between duality and union, between the lower and higher self of which conflict and internal war demonstrates the path of greater resistance, which is the correct path.

Traced are the path of the developing western mental faculty as it progressed even to this day as the unfolding fifth aspect or fifth ray of concrete mind. This commenced more perfectly with the incoming fifth racial ray of 1775 with the advent of the more hard line scientific/intellectual age as compared to the previous centuries of philosophical reason. Yet their paths are of differing ways and upon differing rays notably the mystical/religious being the soft line of 2/6. The way of the devotee sees no requirement for scientifically demonstrating ones inner faith. Yet both paths have and had their divisions and struggles with their extremes being religious fanatical devotion to the point of death and for the other, atheism along the hard 3/5 line of pure materialism and both are equally egotistical. As you mention it is their eventual synthesis that is the goal and this HPB attempted in 1775.

Madam Helena Blavatsky who brought us the 'Secret Doctrine' of the great Masters laid us the foundations for the understanding of the 'synthesis' of these three cornerstones to occult philosophical wisdom. She did this due to the scientific materialism that had become a problem for the spiritual development of humanity. This was not the first time the dissemination of ancient wisdom had been given due to this. We are told that Nāgārjuna (Telugu) (c. 150 - 250 CE) released his teaching on the 'central way' as a critical counter to the scientific work of the day.The over analytical mind was thought to be taking to strong a hold over China, Tibet and all the East through the Buddhist realists and Brahmin logicians and meta-physicians. Nāgārjuna preceded a succession of Buddhas and Bodhissatvas, including Asanga and Buddhapalita, through to Atisha [c 982-1054], in a wave of teachings which sought to counter such materialistic thought.

Man has ever the tendency to materialise and contain thought within the lower concrete mind. Philosophy ever bounds towards the infinity of the true nature of reality and uses the higher mind to comprehend existence and being. Philosophy loses sight of the personal and phenomenal world of 'empirical' evidence via the senses and in short sees scientific materialism as 'Atheism based on lethal materiality' as HPB so eloquently expounded. The waves of enlightenment and of esoteric teachings based on the universal truth body the "universal vehicle or "beautific" Vajra vehicle of the great Buddhas, proved to be the sequential revelation needed due to the ever tendency toward dogmatism and degradation of the teachings and of the concurrent materialist science of those who through slackness of the intellect and ignorance as to the spiritual thrust, miss-interpreted and so incorrectly taught these teachings and the ongoing spread of science of the day. It is for this very reason that the works of Lord Tsong Khapa and the Gelugpa oriental teachings of the Yellow hat wisdom tradition, deals with this problem. It is a continuous problem and one reason HPB released 'Isis Unveiled' in 1875 and the 'Secret Doctrine' in 1888.

HPB was a direct lodge agent sent forth to attack, so to speak, the basic scientific materialistic and atheistic dogma of the day. Moreover, she dealt with occult science and as you noted the "THE SYNTHESIS OF SCIENCE, RELIGION, AND PHILOSOPHY". She did a remarkable job which luckily enough she undertook as the only link in the hierarchical chain, at that time, able to undertake the task. Humanity was fast on the way to materialistic fatality and the Lodge knew it. Can we afford to underestimate that link I wonder. The Secret Doctrine was the first key in the lodge effort some of which was given by DK and the second psychological key was given in full by Master DK and AAB providing much more on the occult scientific structure and scientific psychological structure of man and the Universe.

A modern day scientist Richard Dawkins exemplifies atheism perfectly with his refutation of a creator and any intelligent design at all. He holds that only the "blind forces of physics" with no mind, vision or foresight, being utterly unconscious, is responsible for all we see and are. There is no purpose or reason to life for it is purposeless and automatic. This is a negative philosophy exactly against the positive philosophy of Littre upheld in the Secret Doctrine of Helen Blavatsky.  

"Paley drives his point home with beautiful and reverent descriptions of the dissected machinery of life, beginning with the human eye, a favourite example which Darwin was later to use and which will reappear throughout this book. Paley compares the eye with a designed instrument such as a telescope, and concludes that 'there is precisely the same proof that the eye was made for vision, as there is that the telescope was made for assisting it'. The eye must have had a designer, just as the telescope had.

Paley's argument is made with passionate sincerity and is informed by the best biological scholarship of his day, but it is wrong, gloriously and utterly wrong. The analogy between telescope and eye, between watch and living organism, is false. All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way. A true watchmaker has foresight: he designs his cogs and springs, and plans their interconnections, with a future purpose in his mind's eye. Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the /blind/ watchmaker." The Blind Watchmaker. Richard Dawkins.

"Natural selection... has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all." RD.

"In his lecture on The Action of Natural Selection on Man, Mr. Alfred R. Wallace concludes his demonstrations as to the development of human races under that law of selection by saying that, if his conclusions are just, "it must inevitably follow that the higher -- the more intellectual and moral -- must displace the lower and more degraded races; and the power of 'natural selection,' still acting on his mental organization, must ever lead to the more perfect adaptation of man's higher faculties to the condition of surrounding nature, and to the exigencies of the social state. While his external form will probably ever remain unchanged, except in the development of that perfect beauty . . . refined and ennobled by the highest intellectual faculties and sympathetic emotions, his mental constitution may continue to advance and improve, till the world is again inhabited by a single, nearly homogeneous race, no individual of which will be inferior to the noblest specimens of existing humanity." IU1 296.

Mind in the creative Universe:

* The expression of the evolution of mind or manas.
* The vitality of the soul. TCF 48.

"The illuminating side of manas is shown. He becomes an intelligent creator, and by the time he has taken the four major initiations he has:

1. Developed perfectly the Brahma aspect, which - as pointed out - functions primarily in the three worlds. It is the active intelligent aspect.
2. Achieved the point of development at which a Heavenly Man, the Divine Manasaputra, commenced this circle of manifestation we call a solar system.
3. Transmuted manas into wisdom or love.
4. Synthesized the Rays of Activity or Intelligence and is beginning to merge this synthesis into the higher one of love-wisdom." TCF 340.

"Mahat (Sk.). Lit., “The great one”. The first principle of Universal Intelligence and Consciousness. In the Purânic philosophy the first product of root-nature or Pradhâna (the same as Mulaprakriti); the producer of Manas the thinking principle, and of Ahankâra, egotism or the feeling of “I am I” (in the lower Manas)." Theosophical Glossary.

"Manas (Sk.). Lit., “the mind”, the mental faculty which makes of man an intelligent and moral being, and distinguishes him from the mere animal; a synonym of Mahat. Esoterically, however, it means, when unqualified, the Higher EGO, or the sentient reincarnating Principle in man. When qualified it is called by Theosophists Buddhi-Manas or the Spiritual Soul in contradistinction to its human reflection—Kâma-Manas." Theosophical Glossary.

JPC.

6/7/10.