Everything I ever assumed about Theosophy is wrong

So I have been reading (and more often than not) skimming through the pages of that most mysterious of books, "The Secret Doctrine" of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. First published in 1888, it´s enigmatic contents soon became the lingua franca (or perhaps the Creole) of Western occultism. In a pop version, Theosophy blended with everything from New Age and UFO-logy to alternative archeology and beyond. Offshots of Blavatsky´s musings can still be found on YouTube and elsewhere, for instance the Law of One, which is currently very popular on the neo-spiritual scene. This isn´t bad, considering that virtually nobody ever reads the original work, and I for one can´t say that I blame them! Blavatsky wasn´t a good writer, and the book´s contents often feel very "stream of consciousness". Unless, of course, it´s a guru trick of some kind to scare away those who aren´t ready to recieve the light (I seem to percieve it dimly). But then, I´ve only read until Volume 1, Book 1, Section 6c... 

I admit that despite everything, I was positively surprised by HPB´s speculations, supposedly an exegesis of "The Stanzas of Dzyan" (with outmost certainity a fictitious document invented by the author herself). On many issues, I expected her to make very different points. Thus, while the equivalent of Brahman in the Theosophical system is impersonal, beyond both being and non-being, "sleeping" in the cosmic night, "nirvana" and all the usual frankly negative stuff, Brahman also seems to be positive. The fact that it is said to be "beyond both being and non-being" simply means that it can´t be comprehended by us mere mortals. What to us looks like complete emptiness is really complete fullness. I think that´s why Blavatsky uses infinite space as a metaphor for Brahman, since space - while being empty - is nevertheless "a thing", the most empty and vast "thing" humans can somehow conceptualize. 

I was also surprised by the "personal" aspects of the divine forces as described by Blavatsky. While the Divine on the highest level (or perhaps the lowest!) seem to be impersonal, personality comes to play at a relatively early phase of the great cosmogony. Fohat is both "electricity" and a host of angelic beings, each of whom would perhaps be considered a "god" by ordinary mortals. The manifested cosmos seems to be the creation of a myriad personal "gods", known as the Dhyan-Chohans. And somehow, their personality is part of the "seven rays" that represent the original emanation of the Divine. Sometimes, I even get the impression that there is a high god, a Brahma (not to be confused with Brahman).

Another thing that annoyed me for some time with Theosophy is what I assumed was an anthropocentric perspective. Why on earth must "gods" pass through a human stage on their evolutionary journey? What makes humans so bloody special, anyway? Nothing, it turns out. By "human" Blavatsky simply means something like "embodied intelligent being anywhere in the infinite universe roughly equivalent in its evolutionary role to Homo sapiens". Humans (in this sense) are important only because they represent the mid-point between involution and evolution, the point at which the spirit´s downward arch of incarnation in dense matter starts going up again. There are infinitely many living creatures above us, just as there are infinitely many below us. To ants, a human (HPB says "an urchin") who destroys their anthill might very well be a vengeful "god". She also strongly implies that earlier root-races of "humans" had altogether greater civilizations than ours. Here is a fun quote putting us in our proper places: "To the scientists of the closing sixth Root-race, millions and millions of years hence, our modern races, or rather their fossils, will appear as those of small insignificant apes — an extinct species of the genus homo." This was written during a time when belief in anthropocentric progress was taken for granted. It´s therefore quite ironic that Blavatsky refuses to acknowledge that humans are descended from ape-like ancestors, instead claiming that it´s the other way around! Apes, it seems, are degenerate humans. (HPB lacked the Gorilla Mindset.) 

I was originally baffled by Blavatsky´s combination of progressive (and cosmic) evolution and the more pessimistic Hindu-Buddhist perspective with constant repeated cycles punctuated by ever-recurring "nights of Brahma". The answer is that the cosmos awakens to a higher stage of existence after the "pralaya" or Brahmic night. Each cycle really is better than the one preceding it. Every monad is also an angel. 

Even the high weirdness of the planetary chains might have *some* kind of logical explanation, since the authoress at one point explains that there is an analogy between the seven rounds (rounds, globes, whatever), the seven rays, and the seven principles in man. This seems to confirm that we are dealing with the evolution of *consciousness*, including *our own* (individual) consciousness.  

Amazing that I had such realizations after only reading 6 chapters of this work! While I don´t fully share Madame Blavatsky´s exegetical perspectives, or believe in the Thibetan provenance of her Stanzas, I admit that her worldview as expressed above is to a large extent aligned with my own speculative peregrinations... 

I will probably continue reading this material