E-text prepared by M. R. Jaqua
A Course of Lectures in History, Given to the Graduates' Class in the
Raja-Yoga College, Point Loma, in the College-Year 1918-1919.*
by
I. INTRODUCTION
II. HOMER
III. GREEKS AND PERSIANS
IV. AESCHYLUS AND ATHENS
V. SOME PERICLEAN FIGURES
VI. SOCRATES AND PLATO
VII. THE MAURYAS OF INDIA
VIII. THE BLACK-HAIRED PEOPLE
IX. THE DRAGON AND THE BLUE PEARL
X. "SUCH A ONE"
XI. CONFUCIUS THE HERO
XII. TALES FROM A TAOIST TEACHER
XIII. MANG THE PHILOSOPHER, AND BUTTERFLY CHWANG
XIV. THE MANVANTARA OPENS
XV. SOME POSSIBLE EPOCHS IN SANSKRIT LITERATURE
XVI. THE BEGINNINGS OF ROME
XVII. ROME PARVENUE
XVIII. AUGUSTUS
XIX. AN IMPERIAL SACRIFICE
XX. CHINA AND ROME: THE SEE-SAW
XXI. CHINA AND ROME: THE SEE-SAW (Continued)
XXII. EASTWARD HO!
XXIII. "THE DRAGON, THE APOSTATE, THE GREAT MIND"
XXIV. FROM JULIAN TO BODHIDHARMA
XXV. TOWARDS THE ISLANDS OF THE SUNSET
XXVI. "SACRED IERNE OF THE HIBERNIANS"
XXVII. THE IRISH ILLUMINATION
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* Serialized in Theosophical Path in 27 Chapters from
March, 1919 through July, 1921.
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These lectures will not be concerned with history as a recordof wars and political changes; they will have little to tellof battles, murders, and sudden deaths. Instead, we shalltry to discover and throw light on the cyclic movements ofthe Human Spirit. Back of all phenomena, or the outward showof things, there is always a noumenon in the unseen. Behindthe phenomena of human history, the noumenon is the HumanSpirit, moving in accordance with its own necessities andcyclic laws. We may, if we go to it intelligently, gain someinkling of knowledge as to what those laws are; and I thinkthat would be, in its way, a real wisdom, and worth getting.But for the most part historical study seeks knowledge only;and how it attains its aim, is shown by the falseness of whatpasses for history. In most textbooks you shall find, probably,a round dozen of lies on as many pages. And these in themselvesare fruitful seeds of evil; they by no means end with thetelling, but go on producing harvests of wrong life; whichindeed is only the Lie incarnate on the plane of action. TheEternal Right Thing is what is called in Sanskrit SAT, theTrue; it opposite is the Lie, in one fashion or another, always;and what we have to do, our mission and raison d'etre asstudents of Theosophy, is to put down the Lie at every turn,and chase it, as far as we may, out of the field of life.
For example, there is the Superior-Race Lie: I do not knowwhere it shall not be found. Races A, B, C, and D go onpreaching it for centuries; each with an eye to its sublimeself. In all countries, perhaps, history is taught with thatlie for mental background. Then we wonder that there are wars.But Theosophy is called onto provide a true mental backgroundfor historical study; and it alone can do so. It is themission of Point Loma, among many other things, to float atrue philosophy of history on to the currents of world-thought:and for this end it is our business to be thinkers, using thedivine Manasic light within us to some purpose. H.P. Blavatskysupplied something much greater than a dogma: she—like Plato—gave the world a method and a spur to thought: point