Myths Are Long-Forgotten Truths

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Living the Life Series · 13 pages

A thirteen-page compilation opened by a contents and abstract of central ideas. It is the most recently revised file in this batch, its version line dated July 2026.

The file begins by separating terms that are usually run together, and the distinctions do the work of the argument. Metaphor is a figure of speech; allegory is not an enigma; parable is a metaphorical narrative; fable is a word of twofold signification. Against these, myth is said to be equivalent to tradition as the ancients defined it — and the historical claim follows: that throughout the literature of the ancient classics the Greek mythos was no fairy tale but the Latin equivalent of fabula, that which was told as having happened in prehistoric times. The title's proposition is thus a claim about transmission rather than about imagination: myths are long-forgotten truths, respected by hoary antiquity and rejected by modern scepticism. A middle section explains how the material came to be in that form — the work of propagating divine truths in parables having been left to the disciples of the high initiates, whose duty was to follow the keynote of the secret teaching without revealing its mysteries. The closing movement turns to what unlocks it: esoteric philosophy, called the master-key to the Kingdom of Heaven, and described as the Wisdom of Love rather than the love of wisdom that philosophia is commonly taken to mean.

Read the full text (PDF, 0.8 MB, 13 pages)