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Three Fundamental Propositions of the Secret Doctrine in the Christian Scriptures

By Russell Nelson

They are called the three fundamental propositions of the Secret Doctrine, but they are also present in the Christian Scriptures. You just have to do a little digging to find them. So get your shovel and let’s dig. In the Bible we read that God is eternal, immortal, and invisible. (I Tim. 1:17) God is a Spirit. (John 4:24) God is Love (I John 4:8,16) All these suggest that this God is a Principle, an Absolute, a Supreme Being or Consciousness that existed before all manifested creation. It is something that is not perceived by ordinary senses, but can be perceived by anyone who desires to perceive it. Still, it is beyond our conception and speculation. It is as H.P.B. succinctly says, “an Omnipresent, Boundless, and Immutable PRINCIPLE, on which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception. It is the Infinite and Eternal Cause… the Rootless Rott of all that was, is, or ever shall be.” (SD VI, p79) This is the first proposition.

We have all heard the phrase, “what comes around goes around”. The second proposition to discover is that all things truly come around and go around. In other words, all things go in cycles. Cycles means periods, time. Now in the Bible we have, “to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be BORN, and a time to DIE (author’s emphasis), and a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; …etc” (Eccl. 3:1-8) Look at the evidence in nature, night and day, winter and summer, phases of the moon. In the cosmos, the galaxies have an immensely long period of rotation. Our electricity alternates at a sixty-cycle rate. Our heart beats at a certain rate. All these things repeat over and over. It implies a postulate of periodicity, cyclicity. “This second assertion of the Secret Doctrine is the absolute universality of that law of periodicity, of flux and reflux, ebb and flow, which science has observed and recorded in all departments of nature. It is easy to comprehend that in it we see one of the absolutely fundamental Laws of the Universe”, (SD VI, p82).

But more than just what we see with the physical eye, this applies to a much more astonishing realization about ourselves. We also manifest in periods of cycles. As the Bible quotes Jesus saying that the wind blows where is listeth, but you cannot tell when it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8). This applies very distinctly to our spirit and so the third proposition comes directly oiut of the second. Our spiritual Self, our true selves, is born into a physical body of an infant at its birth. We live a life in the physical plan of manifestation, and then leave that body, in other words, die. There is a period of rest after which our immortal spirit is “born again” into the physical world to continue the process of education and evolvement. This is exactly what Jesus was explaining to Nicodemus by telling him “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”. (John 3:3) Nicodemus quite misunderstanding asks how an old man can crawl back into his mother’s womb and be born again, (John 3:4) to which Jesus replies not to marvel about that. (John3:7) What is important is that we have existed before our present birth, i.e. we came from heaven as part of the cycle. “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven—“, (John 3:13). The word “reincarnation” is a more up-to-date-term for being “born again”. Unlike contemporary thought, it is not meant to be a renewed attitude or change of heart, but in accordance with the context taken as a whole, it is the literal meaning of the word reincarnation.

A corollary to this third proposition is the law of consequences, karma. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”, (Gal. 6:7). The Secret Doctrine further teaches as the third proposition, the fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over-Soul—a spark of the former—through the Cycle of Incarnation, in accordance with Cyclic and Karmic Law. (SD VI, p82). In the Bible we are told that we are the temple of God, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (I Cor. 3:16) This is the meaning of Jesus saying that He and his Father were one. It’s true for us as well. We, our Spirit, are fundamentally identical with all other Souls as well as the “Father”, the Universal Over-Soul.

This is the doctrine of Christ. “He that abideth in the Doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.” (2 John 1:9) It is also a secret doctrine. “—according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.” (Rom. 16:25) The secret doctrine is therefore ancient wisdom, it is the “wisdom of God”. “But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory.” (I Cor. 2:7). This doctrine is “secret” only because the profane, the outer group or multitudes, do not have the ‘ears to hear’. (Matt. 11:15) This wisdom of God, the modern word for which is Theosophy, is the pearl that we are told not to cast unto the swine. “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.” (Matt. 7:6) But for those whose mind is open, they can receive it. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” (Matt. 7:7)

The truths of the Secret Doctrine and of ourselves and of God are available to all who are aware and desire to know. Jesus was a teacher of truth and a Theosophist. “—To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth—”. (John 18:37) Truly there is no religion higher than TRUTH.

Copyright 2003

Russell Nelson

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