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P. Blavatsky begins her magnum opus The Secret Doctrine with three “Fundamental Propositions.” In prefacing these propositions, she says that “it is absolutely necessary that [the student] should be made acquainted with the few fundamental conceptions which underlie and pervade the entire system of thought to which his attention is invited. These basic ideas are few in number, and on their clear apprehension depends the understanding of all that follows.” (SD 1:13; underline added for emphasis.)

These “Three Fundamental Propositions” are:

1. “An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable Principle on which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception and could only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude. It is beyond the range and reach of thought—in the words of Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, ‘unthinkable and unspeakable.’” (SD 1:14.) This is “the Absolute; the Parabrahmaof the Vedāntins or the one Reality, Sat, which is, as Hegel says, both Absolute Being and Non-Being.” (SD 1:16.) “The fundamental Law in that system [the “Wisdom of the Ages”; see below], the central point from which all emerged, around and toward which all gravitates, and upon which is hung the philosophy of the rest, is the One homogeneous divine Substance-Principle, the one radical cause.” (SD 1:273.)

This is the doctrine of the Absolute, which forms the foundation of the laws of Universal Brotherhood and Karma—or Oneness and Harmony in Nature.

2. “The Eternity of the Universe in toto[in total] as a boundless plane; periodically ‘the playground of numberless Universes incessantly manifesting and disappearing,’ called ‘the manifesting stars,’ and the ‘sparks of Eternity.’” (SD 1:16.) Or put another way: “The Universe is the periodical manifestation of [the] unknown Absolute Essence.” (SD 1:273.)

This is the doctrine of Cycles or Periodicity, which encompasses the subjects of Evolution-Involution and Reincarnation.

3. “The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over-Soul . . . and the obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul—a spark of the former—through the Cycle of Incarnation (or ‘Necessity’) in accordance with Cyclic and Karmic law, during the whole term. In other words, [the] divine Soul [must] (a) pass through every elemental form of the phenomenal world . . . and (b) acquire individuality, first by natural impulse, and then by self-induced and self-devised efforts (checked by its Karma), thus ascending through all the degrees of intelligence, from the lowest to the highest Manas [mind], from mineral and plant, up to the holiest archangel (Dhyāni-Buddha).” (SD 1:17.)

This is the doctrine of Human Perfectibility as well as the basis of the law of Analogy and Correspondence which underlies the teachings on the Divisions of Man and Nature.

“Such are the basic conceptions on which the Secret Doctrine rests. . . . Once that the reader has gained a clear comprehension of them and realized the light which they throw on every problem of life, they will need no further justification in his eyes, because their truth will be to him as evident as the sun in heaven.” (SD 1:20.)