By HENRY S. OLCOTT, President of the Theosophical Society.
“This book, to which we can only allot an amount of space quite
incommensurate with its intrinsic interest, is one that will appeal
to the prepared student rather than to the general reader. To
anyone who has previously made the acquaintance of such books as
Mr. Sinnett’s ‘Occult World,’ and ‘Esoteric Buddhism,’ or has in
other ways familiarized himself with the doctrines of the so-called
Theosophical Society or Brotherhood, these lectures of Colonel
Olcott’s will be rich in interest and suggestiveness. The American
officer is a person of undoubted social position and unblemished
personal reputation, and his main object is not to secure belief in
the reality of any ‘phenomena,’ not to win a barren reputation for
himself as a thaumaturgist or wonder-worker, but to win acceptance
for one of the oldest philosophies of nature and human life--a
philosophy to which of late years the thinkers of the West have been
turning with noteworthy curiosity and interest. Of course, should
the genuineness of the phenomena in question be satisfactorily
established, there would undoubtedly be proof that the Eastern sages
to whom Colonel Olcott bears witness do possess a knowledge of the
laws of the physical universe far wider and more intimate than that
which has been laboriously acquired by the inductive science of
the West; but the theosophy expounded in this volume is at once a
theology, a metaphysic, and a sociology, in which mere marvels, as
such, occupy a quite subordinate and unimportant position. We cannot
now discuss its claims, and we will not pronounce any opinion upon
them; we will only say that Colonel Olcott’s volume deserves and will
repay the study of all readers for whom the byways of speculation
have an irresistible charm.”--_Manchester Examiner._
_In crown 8vo., cloth, price 6s._