If you cannot be happy without phenomena you will never learn our philosophy. If you want healthy, philosophic thought, and can be satisfied with such—let us correspond. I tell you a profound truth in saying that if you (like your fabled Shaloma) but choose wisdom, all other things will be added unto it—in time. It adds no force to our metaphysical truths that our letters are dropped from space on to your lap or come under your pillow. If our philosophy is wrong, a wonder will not set it right. Put that conviction into your consciousness and let us talk like sensible men.

—Mahatma M.

It is not physical phenomena that will ever bring conviction to the hearts of the unbelievers in the "Brotherhood" but rather phenomena of intellectuality, philosophy and logic, if I may so express it.

—Mahatma K.H.

The lure of the invisible, the sense of the marvellous, are romantic and attract not a few natures—among them students of Theosophy, who ask: "What is wrong with observing in a practical way the Third Object of the Theosophical Movement? Why should we not experience and experiment with the invisible and develop our own hidden powers?"

The actual words of the Third Object must be examined: "The investigation of the unexplained laws of Nature and psychical powers latent in man." What it advocates, therefore, is not the development of hidden powers, but the investigation of the laws of Nature which are not explained by modern science, thus helping to further the very cause of that science along right lines; similarly, the student is called upon, not to develop his latent psychical powers, but to investigate the laws governing them. The safe way pointed out by Theosophy is the way which is used by us in acquiring ordinary knowledge: theory before practice. Theoretical knowledge is followed by the knowledge of how to make an experiment, and then only is the actual experiment made.

Those who would pursue the Third Object have many opportunities and ample scope to satisfy themselves in a healthy and legitimate way. Today, even scientists are attracted towards the invisible and are engaged in investigating abnormal happenings, or what are called psychical, parapsychological and paranormal phenomena. But their investigation consists mainly in recording a number of dream experiences, visions, apparitions, ESP phenomena and so forth, and no satisfactory explanations are yet forthcoming. The Theosophist, unlike the psychical researcher, deals with laws and not with phenomena; thus he goes straight to the heart of truth, while the psychical researcher goes round and round. Study of ancient philosophies reveals that they have thought out all the psychic and psychological laws of Nature, and have given a system which is scientific and explains them all with minuteness. It is the investigation of this system of philosophy that Theosophy recommends, so that when we come to look at the things about us we may be able to understand and explain them.

Explaining the Third Object, H.P.B. wrote in The Key to Theosophy:

What we have to do is to seek to obtain knowledge of all the laws of nature, and to diffuse it. To encourage the study of those laws least understood by modern people, the so-called Occult Sciences, based on the true knowledge of nature, instead of, as at present, on superstitious beliefs based on blind faith and authority.

So, the "investigation" that we are called upon to make does not mean "experimentation." Investigation implies study of known laws and powers; for it is only when the student has thoroughly mastered the theory or science as given, that he can wisely or safely begin to experiment. True knowledge of Nature and of Man, therefore, is necessary before any right effort can be made in the direction of the Third Object. Theosophy, which embodies a record of the laws that govern the evolution of Man and Nature, has to be studied, assimilated and applied to daily life, before the student is in a position to understand and apply the more recondite laws of the Science. A theoretical grasp of the Philosophy is wise and necessary, but practice should begin in our everyday relations, considered in the light of our real nature, and as this course is followed, the inner nature and perceptions are afforded fuller and freer range of action.

With these considerations in mind, what is to be said of the psychic characteristics that are showing themselves in our age? Men and women are striving to exercise powers and faculties which are as yet no understood and are, therefore, but too often ignorantly misused. It is a dangerous thing to go into phenomena such as telepathy, hypnotism, etc., unless the ground has first been prepared by showing men why they should be moral, why they should not practise these things for selfish purposes. For, those who practise telepathy, hypnotism and the like for their own selfish ends are just as immoral as the burglar or the thief. No one has the right to break into the mind of another to discover secrets for his own profit.

The function of Theosophists is to open men's understandings to the dangers of a conscious or unconscious exercise of powers which pertain to the lower planes of nature. Those who are seeking for powers should know that within themselves lies the key to unlock the door; that the very first step toward the finding of that key is the acquirement, in truth, of the feeling of universal brotherhood, and that the selfish desire to obtain psychic powers is a bar to such attainment. Therefore it is that Theosophists, unlike the "occultist"-boasters, do not strive to become sky-walkers, clairvoyants, telepaths or the like, but labour for the Souls of men in secrecy and silence, and help by Wisdom and purity. They are those who seek after Divine Wisdom, the method of solving all life's riddles. They aim to place before the thinking public a logical, coherent and philosophic scheme of man's origin, destiny and evolution—a scheme pre-eminent above all for its rigorous adherence to justice. And, that they may broaden their criterion of truth, their research extends to an inquiry into the nature of the less known forces, cosmic and psychical.

Writing of the Third Object, under the sub-heading "Occultism," H.P.B. wrote in 1889:

Though but a minority of our members are mystically inclined, yet, in point of fact, the key to all our successes is in our recognition of the fact of the Higher Self—colourless, cosmopolitan, unsectarian, sexless, unworldly, altruistic—and the doing of our work on that basis....We know that a comprehensive term for the Eternal Verity is the "Secret Doctrine"; we have preached it, have won a hearing, have, to some extent, swept away the old barriers, formed our fraternal nucleus, and, by reviving the Aryan Literature, caused its precious religious, philosophical and scientific teachings to spread among the most distant nations.

If we have not opened regular schools of adeptship in the Society, we have at least brought forward a certain body of proof that adepts exist and that adeptship is a logical necessity in the natural order of human development. We have thus helped the West to a worthier ideal of man's potentialities than it before possessed. The study of Eastern psychology has given the West a clue to certain mysteries previously baffling as, for example, in the department of mesmerism and hypnotism, and in that of the supposed posthumous relations of the disincarnate entity with the living. It has also furnished a theory of the nature and relations of Force and Matter capable of practical verification by whomsoever may learn and follow out the experimental methods of the Oriental schools of Occult science. Our own experience leads us to say that this science and its complementary philosophy throw light upon some of the deepest problems of man and nature; in science, bridging the "Impassable Chasm," in philosophy, making it possible to formulate a consistent theory of the origin and destiny of the heavenly orbs and their progeny of kingdoms and various planes. Where Mr. Crookes stops in his quest after the meta-elements, and finds himself at a loss to trace the missing atoms in his hypothetical series of seven, Adwaita Philosophy steps in with its perfected theory of the evolution of differentiated out of undifferentiated matter, Prakriti out of Mulaprakriti. ("Our Three Objects": Lucifer, September 1889)

In brief, the aim and desire of Theosophists is to help, in at least some degree, toward arriving at correct scientific views upon the nature of man, which carry with them the means of reconstructing, for the present generation, the deductive metaphysical or transcendental philosophy which alone is the firm, unshakable foundation of every religious philosophy. Slowly but surely Theosophy is fulfilling its mission and helping men towards the attainment of true wisdom, which is not by means of phenomena, but through the development which begins within.

The path to Occult Sciences has to be trodden laboriously and crossed at the danger of life; that every new step in it leading to the final goal, is surrounded by pitfalls and cruel thorns; that the pilgrim who ventures upon it is made first to confront and conquer the thousand and one furies who keep watch over the adamantine gates and entrance—furies called Doubt, Skepticism, Scorn, Ridicule, Envy and finally Temptation—especially the latter; and that he who would see beyond had to first destroy this living wall; that he must be possessed of a heart and soul clad in steel, and of an iron, never failing determination and yet be meek and gentle, humble and have shut out from his heart every human passion, that leads to evil. Are you all this?

—Mahatma K.H.