Occultism does not depend upon one method, but employs both the deductive and the inductive. The student must first learn the general axioms. For the time being, he will of course have to take them as assumptions, if he prefers to call them so.
...
What the student has first to do is to comprehend these axioms and, by employing the deductive method, to proceed from universals to particulars. He has then to reason from the "known to the unknown," and see if the inductive met,hod of proceeding from particulars to universals supports those axioms. This process forms the preliminary stage of true contemplation. The student must first grasp the subject intellectually before he can hope to realise his aspirations. When this is accomplished, then comes the next stage of meditation which is "the inexpressible yearning of the inner man to 'go out towards the infinite." Before any such yearning can be properly directed, the goal, to which it is to be its aim to run, must be determined by the preliminary stages.
—“Contemplation II”, Theosophist, August, 1884

"The perversions and misconceptions that a religion suffers at the hands of its ignorant followers are no argument against the religion itself."—"Oxford Mission Shots at Occultism", Supplement to Theosophist, January, 1884

"We maintain that the highest ideal of love is to be found only in Brahmavidya or Esoteric Theosophy; our ideal of love being a perfect union with the ALL by an utter abnegation of the self and by ardent sleepless endeavours for the good of all sentient beings—even the brute creation, whose sufferings, and wholesale slaughter, are made entirely subservient to the pleasure of Christians and Mahomedans."—"Theosophy and Love: A Rejoinder", Supplement to Theosophist, March, 1884

"Raj Yoga encourages no sham, requires no physical postures. It has to deal with the inner man whose sphere lies in the world of thought. To have the highest ideal placed before oneself and strive incessantly to rise up to it, is the only true concentration recognized by Esoteric Philosophy which deals with the inner world of noumena, not the outer shell of phenomena."—"Contemplation", Theosophist, February, 1884

"[Damodar] was the only true, devoted friend I had in all India, the only one who having the Masters' and my secret, knew the whole truth and therefore knew that whatever people thought being blinded by appearance I had never deceived anyone. . . . Damodar was ready from his last birth to enter the highest PATH and suspected it. He had long been waiting for the expected permission to go to Tibet before the expiration of the 7 years; . . ."—H.P. Blavatsky, The Theosophist, August, 1932

. . . this devoted, high-minded, enthusiastic young Brahmin whose record since joining H. P. B. and myself at Bombay is one of unbroken energy and unfaltering zeal in the cause of humanity. A nobler heart never beat in a human breast, and his departure was one of the hardest blows we ever received. As above remarked, he had almost broken down his constitution by incessant official work, and when leaving Adyar had begun to spit blood and show signs of a rapid decline. Yet, with undaunted courage, he undertook the hard journey across the Himalayas, indifferent to the biting cold, the drifted snow, the lack of shelter and food, intent upon reaching the Guru whom he had first seen in his youth when lying on a sick-bed, of whom he had lost sight for many years, but whom he had recovered soon after joining the Theosophical Society, as his spiritual faculties developed and he was able to seek him in the suksma sarira. What made him so devotedly attached and unswervingly loyal to H. P. B. was the discovery that this Guru was one of the Adepts behind our movement, the intimate associate of "Upasika," as he always subsequently called H. P. B. From the chief coolie of his escort I got particulars about him of great interest. . . . Damodar would not keep any more clothes than the ascetic costume he was wearing, nor any of the rice, meal, pulse, or other dry provisions with which his friends had supplied him. The most he would do was to let the chief coolie bake him a dozen chapaties, or unleavened pancakes. The last that was seen of him by the coolies was when, with face turned towards the Tibetan frontier, he trudged painfully on and disappeared behind a turning of the road.—H. S. Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, Vol. III, pp. 265-6

"The ‘Brothers’ desire me to inform one and all of you natives that unless a man is prepared to become a thorough theosophist, i.e., to do what D. Mavalankar did—give up entirely caste, his old superstitions, and show himself a true reformer (especially in the case of child-marriage), he will remain simply a member of the Society, with no hope whatever of ever hearing from us."—Mahatma 'M', "A Mahatma's Letter to Some Brahmins", The Path, March, 1895