“For, strange as the statement will appear at first sight, modern metaphysics, and to a large extent modern physical science, have been groping for centuries blindly after knowledge which occult philosophy has enjoyed in full measure all the while. Owing to a train of fortunate circumstances, I have come to know that this is the case; I have come into some contact with persons who are heirs of a greater knowledge concerning the mysteries of Nature and humanity than modern culture has yet evolved; and my present wish is to sketch the outlines of this knowledge, to record with exactitude the experimental proofs I have obtained that occult science invest its adepts with a control of natural forces superior to that enjoyed by physicists of the ordinary type, and the grounds there are for bestowing the most respectful consideration on the theories entertained by occult science concerning the constitution and destinies of the human soul.”

— Alfred Percy Sinnett , book The Occult World

Introduction
The Occult World

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English writer and Theosophist 1840–1921

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“There is an enormous difference between modern science and Greek philosophy, and that is just the empiristic attitude… Since the time of Galileo and Newton, modern science has been based upon a detailed study of nature and upon the postulate that only such statements should be made, as have been verified or at least can be verified by experiment. The idea that one can single out some events from nature by an experiment… to find out what is the constant law in the continuous change, did not occur to the Greek philosophers. Therefore, modern science has from its beginning stood on a much more modest, but at the same time much firmer, basis than ancient philosophy. Therefore, the statements of modern physics are in some way meant much more seriously than the statements of Greek philosophy.”

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“There is a school of philosophy still in existence of which modern culture has lost sight.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

In these words Mr. A.P. Sinnett began his book, The Occult World, the first popular exposition of Theosophy, published thirty years ago.[1881]... Since then, many thousands have learned...yet to the majority its teachings are still unknown..
A Textbook of Theosophy (1912), Chapter One

“People in the present day will be slow to believe that any knowledge worth considering can be found outside the bright focus of Western culture. Modern science has accomplished grand results by the open method of investigation, and is very impatient of the theory that persons who ever attained to real knowledge, either in sciences or metaphysics, could have been content to hide their light under a bushel. So the tendency has been to conceive that occult philosophers of old- Egyptian priests, Chaldean Magi, Essenes, Gnostics, theurgic Neo-Platonists, and the rest-who kept their knowledge secret, must have adopted that policy to conceal the fact that they knew very little. Mystery can only have been loved by charlatans who wished to mystify. The conclusion is pardonable from the modern point of view, but it has given rise to an impression in the popular mind that the ancient mystics have actually been turned inside out, and found to know very little. This impression is absolutely erroneous.”

Alfred Percy Sinnett book The Occult World

Introduction
The Occult World

“Self-knowledge will reveal the elements of biological human nature from which modern social life proliferated in all its strange forms.”

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Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

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Introduction
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D.M. Turner (1962–1996) American drug researcher

Interview with Elizabeth Gips http://www.tripzine.com/articles.asp?id=dmturnergips

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