From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 2 00:38:25 1996 Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 00:38:25 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: Doing it Mime-Version: 1.0 Foreword A slightly different version of the article which follows was originally submitted for puiblication in ~The Theosophical Journal~ but was not used, although the endnote to it was. It has been adapted and reissued with a view to helping forward the work of The Theosophical Study Group in Bristol and any similar groups which may develop. THEOSOPHICAL STUDY "The Theosophical Society was founded to let it be known that such a thing as Theosophy exists." - H.P. Blavatsky in ~The Key to Theosophy.~ Although it is high time that the language used should be amended (alternative suggestions in square brackets) it is stated in every issue of the Theosophical Journal: THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY was formed in New York on 17th November 1875, and incorporated in Madras, India, on 3rd April 1905. Its three declared objects are: 1. To form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or colour. [. . . a nucleus of a universal human family . . .] 2. To encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy and science. 3. To investigate unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in man. [. . . the powers latent in human beings.] At first sight it seems that the first of these objects is more than a little ambitious, however expressed. On reflection, it is clear that we are not striving for some kind of total and all-embracing new world order without beginning where we all must - on our own doorsteps. If support for the first object is to mean anything, we must endeavour to practice what we preach - and of course, it is only by individual human beings living the life that is implicit in such a lofty purpose that we can have any hope of realising it. And so, in practice, we are looking, in the first instance, to form smaller groups attempting to live in harmony and co-operation with each other, groups which may one day learn to unite with others to form larger "families." It is very clear that the second and third objects are as necessary for the eventual achievement of the first as are the good intentions of those who subscribe to them. Comparative Religion This is the first of three subjects which we are committed to encourage - committed, not to take it or leave it, as it may or may not please us, for to take such a view would be to deny acceptance of the objects themselves. Why should the study of Comparative Religion be the first on the list? It is plain that the world has not been well served by religious institutions, by different religions in open competition or even war with each other, and by different sects within the same religion committing acts of violence upon those who are supposedly of their own persuasion. Yet religions survive, competing with each other for the minds and hearts of individuals. Behind this impulse must lie a need, otherwise no one would ever subscribe to any creed. That a need exists, and attempts made to meet it, is self-evident from the long history of religion. Religion may be as old as humanity itself, planted there, perhaps, by some divine or spiritual intelligence, an intelligence with the wisdom to know our needs before we are ourselves aware of them; planted, perhaps, by a divine wisdom - but "divine" and "wisdom" are the roots of the word Theosophy itself. May it not be that the theosophical founders, in their wisdom, realised that if we could not overcome the obstacles that religious institutions placed in the way of universal harmony, then that harmony could not even be begun to be achieved. And so, perhaps, they realised the need to make such a comparative study in order to discover the essence of wisdom underlying all true religion, for surely it is wisdom, not idealism, that may eventually enable us to fulfil our primary purpose? Philosophy "Philosophy" is a term that derives from two Greek words meaning, together, "Love of wisdom." Clearly this has also to be a part of our study, equally with Religion. Science Science is not so much a subject, but a method; a method which takes the practical approach, the investigative approach. It may appear to ask "Why?" but in reality all it ever asks - and certainly all it ever discovers - is "How." If our perception of the how of things is false, then we will place a false emphasis on everything else. The scientific method is essential for a true approach to universal harmony, otherwise we may run the risk - as some theosophists have done in the past - of accepting ideas and opinions as dogmas - sacred "truths" never to be questioned. To encourage study, therefore, requires that we ourselves engage in study, and to study is to ask questions and look for answers. Therefore we must not merely encourage the study of Comparative Religion, Philosophy and Science, but we must undertake it ourselves, otherwise will not others look at us and say, "This is all very well, but why are you not doing yourself what you are asking me to do?" Will they not be justified in thinking of us as just the teeniest bit hypocritical? - at least as hypocritical they may already perceive "religionists" to be? The Third Object "Unexplained laws of nature." To even begin to investigate these a working knowledge of scientific subjects and disciplines must, surely, already have been achieved? In other words, only by pursuing the second object can we hope to begin to work on the third. The powers latent in human beings have become the domain of psychologists and parapsychologists, separate scientific studies within the overall perception implicit in the second object. We need to pay attention to their discoveries. Both parts of the third object are, in a sense, addressing the same question - the unexplained and undiscovered - the "hidden" or "occult." This too requires study. It is not enough therefore simply to attend lectures, listen to speakers, engage in debates and theoretical discussions, thence to go home saying, "Well, fancy that!" or "My oh my, what a clever and learned person!" We are various sorts of members of a Theosophical Group, not the local debating club, or visitors to an entertainment centre. The three objects are real, vital objects, requiring real vital attention, devotion, and discipline. To achieve anything really worthwhile requires doing, not talking about doing. Alan Bain, Bristol, January 12, 1994. (Revised March 1996). --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 2 00:52:14 1996 Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 00:52:14 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: TI monthly membership listing Mime-Version: 1.0 THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL comprises those who subscribe to the Three Objects of the TS, but in a more up to-date-form based on suggestions by members of the internet community, and expressed thus: 1. To form a nucleus within the universal human family, without discrimination with regard to sex (including sexual orientation), creed, class, or color. 2. To encourage and engage in the study of comparative religion, theosophy, philosophy, and the scientific method, according to individual ability and inclination. 3. To investigate unexplained laws of nature and unrealized human potential and abilities, at the same time respecting _all_ life. THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL is simply a Theosophical Network, whereby it is sufficient to declare one's sympathy and/or allegiance to the Three Objects, and to be registered as having done so. No belief system is required _nor assumed to be held_ by any member. There are no fees, no subscriptions, although voluntary donations and/or contributions _could_ be made to specific projects or even individuals for particular and specified purposes. As THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL does not have and does not need rules, whether anyone participates in or supports any such activity is an entirely personal matter. We do hope to be of service, and to share what we have with others in amity with all theosophical organizations. ------------------------ List of current members: Contact and affiliation information is provided for some members who have expressed a wish to be identified further as a means of promoting our work, and who will be pleased to provide details of "what's on offer" either from the member personally, or within the local area, where specified. Members outside the U.S.A. are also identified by country. John ASHBY (UK) Alan BAIN, D.D. (UK): Member, TSE (Unattached). Former member, American Academy of Religion, Society of Biblical Literature (retired). E-mail: guru@nellie2.demon.co.uk Gregg BARTLE: TSA E-mail:gbartle@uclink.berkely.edu Mrs. Geraldine BESKIN (UK): One House Lodge, Onehouse, Stowmarket, Suffolk. Bee BROWN (NZ): Theosophical Society in New Zealand (Wanganui) E-mail: bbrown@whanganui.ac.nz Charles W. COSIMANO E-mail: Drpsionic@aol.com John R. CROCKER E-mail: jrcecon@selway.umt.edu Liesel F. DEUTSCH E-mail: liesel@dreamscape.com Alexis A. DOLGORUKII E-mail: [Address in theos-l postings] born july 16th 1935 16-A Henry Street, San Francisco, California 94114-1215 Artist, Sculptor, Writer, Singer, raises wolves as a hobby (real ones not astral), founder of "The Cubic Circle - Center for Experimental Shamanism" R.A. GILBERT (UK): Member, TSE (Bristol). Bookseller, Occult, Masonic and Theological. E-mail: Robert@nellie2.demon.co.uk Paul GILLINGWATER: Life member of HPB Lodge, Auckland, New Zealand Currently residing in Vienna, Austria E-mail: paul@actrix.co.at Sy GINSBURG: Theosophical Society in Miami, TSA. E-mail: 72724.413@compuserve.com Joanne GREIG (NZ): Member of Wellington Branch of the T.S. E-mail: astrea@actrix.co.at) Michael GRENIER: Member-at-large, TSA E-mail: mike@planet8.eag.unisysgsg.com Jerry HEJKA-EKINS E-mail: jhe:toto.csustan.edu K. Paul JOHNSON E-mail: pjohnson@leo.vsla.edu Lewis LUCAS E-mail: llewis@mercury.gc.peachnut.edu John E. MEAD E-mail: jem@vnet.net Anne PICKER E-mail: picker@utkvx.utcc.utk.edu Kim POULSEN (DK): Member of Teosofisk Forening (Theosophical Union), formerly TS Danish Section. [Denmark]. E-mail: poulsen@dk-online.dk; poulsen@mail.teledanmark.dk Keith PRICE E-mail: 74024.3352@compuserve.com Jerry SCHUELER E-mail: 76400.1474@compuserve.com Murray STENTIFORD (NZ): Theosophical Society in New Zealand (Auckland) E-mail: murray@sss.co.nz A. Tabitha SYNGE-PERRIN (UK) Gerda J. THOMPSON (USA) Eldon B. TUCKER E-mail: eldon@theosophy.com Peter WALSTRA (NL): Member, Theosophical Society in the Netherlands (Adyar). World Theosophical Youth Federation. Agni Yoga Society. Database administrator national theosophical library/ E-mail: pwalstra@pi.net Abbreviations: TSA: Theosophical Society in America (Adyar). ULT: United Lodge of Theosophists. TSP: Theosophical Society, Pasadena TSE: Theosophical Society in England Total signed up membership to date: 27 More welcome! Alan --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From nlporreco@bpa.gov Fri Mar 1 22:18:00 1996 Date: Fri, 01 Mar 96 14:18:00 PST From: "Porreco, Nick - CPMQ" Subject: To Alan Bain Key to Theosophy Message-Id: <31377782@mortar.bpa.gov> Encoding: 9 TEXT Dear Alan, Could you please send me Key to Theosophy E-Mail UPLOAD - KEY2.TXT and UPLOAD - KEY3.TXT. I have all the rest but somehow did not receive these two. Thanks in advance. I appreciate all of your work. E-Mail at home => suria@teleport.com From alexei@slip.net Sat Mar 2 08:40:00 1996 Date: Sat, 2 Mar 96 00:40 PST From: alexis dolgorukii Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: You've done well At 08:22 PM 3/1/96 -0500, you wrote: > Foreword > >A slightly different version of the article which follows was >originally submitted for puiblication in ~The Theosophical >Journal~ but was not used, although the endnote to it was. > >It has been adapted and reissued with a view to helping forward >the work of The Theosophical Study Group in Bristol and any >similar groups which may develop. > >>>>>double mega-snip<<<<<< Alan: That's very like (if we remove national and personal characteristics) what I'm coming to believe, and have said in "Ruminations". I therefore approve with all my heart. What I'm having trouble with is in trying to understand why anyone could object to, or reject what you said. That's a problem. If something as eminently reasonable as that statement could cause offense, it will be interesting to see what a cyclone could be raised by my words which are nowhere near as inoffensive. all the best alexis From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 2 13:55:08 1996 Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 13:55:08 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: I've done well In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 In message , alexis dolgorukii writes >At 08:22 PM 3/1/96 -0500, you wrote: >> Foreword >> >>A slightly different version of the article which follows was >>originally submitted for puiblication in ~The Theosophical >>Journal~ but was not used, although the endnote to it was. >> >>It has been adapted and reissued with a view to helping forward >>the work of The Theosophical Study Group in Bristol and any >>similar groups which may develop. >> >>>>>>double mega-snip<<<<<< > >Alan: > >That's very like (if we remove national and personal characteristics) what >I'm coming to believe, and have said in "Ruminations". I therefore approve >with all my heart. What I'm having trouble with is in trying to understand >why anyone could object to, or reject what you said. That's a problem. Thanks for the kind words! > >If something as eminently reasonable as that statement could cause offense, >it will be interesting to see what a cyclone could be raised by my words >which are nowhere near as inoffensive. No doubt we shall see ... :-) > >all the best > >alexis > .. and to you too, Alan --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 2 19:18:42 1996 Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 19:18:42 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - KEY15.TXT (Key to Theosophy) Mime-Version: 1.0 KEY15.TXT [The Key to Theosophy] Text supplied by Eldon Tucker Converted to ASCII by Alan Bain ------------------------------- The Relations of the T.S. to Theosophy On Self-Improvement Q. Is moral elevation, then, the principal thing insisted upon in your Society? A. Undoubtedly! He who would be a true Theosophist must bring himself to live as one. Q. If so, then, as I remarked before, the behavior of some members strangely belies this fundamental rule. A. Indeed it does. But this cannot be helped among us, any more than amongst those who call themselves Christians and act like fiends. This is no fault of our statutes and rules, but that of human nature. Even in some exoteric public branches, the members pledge themselves on their "Higher Self" to live the life prescribed by Theosophy. They have to bring their Divine Self to guide their every thought and action, every day and at every moment of their lives. A true Theosophist ought "to deal justly and walk humbly." Q. What do you mean by this? A. Simply this: the one self has to forget itself for the many selves. Let me answer you in the words of a true Philaletheian, an F.T.S., who has beautifully expressed it in The Theosophist: What every man needs first is to find himself, and then take an honest inventory of his subjective possessions, and, bad or bankrupt as it may be, it is not beyond redemption if we set about it in earnest. But how many do? All are willing to work for their own development and progress; very few for those of others. To quote the same writer again: Men have been deceived and deluded long enough; they must break their idols, put away their shams, and go to work for themselves, nay, there is one little word too much or too many, for he who works for himself had better not work at all; rather let him work himself for others, for all. For every flower of love and charity he plants in his neighbor's garden, a loathsome weed will disappear from his own, and so this garden of the gods, Humanity, shall blossom as a rose. In all Bibles, all religions, this is plainly set forth, but designing men have at first misinterpreted and finally emasculated, materialized, besotted them. It does not require a new revelation. Let every man be a revelation unto himself. Let once man's immortal spirit take possession of the temple of his body, drive out the money-changers and every unclean thing, and his own divine humanity will redeem him, for when he is thus at one with himself he will know the "builder of the Temple." Q. This is pure Altruism, I confess. A. It is. And if only one Fellow of the T.S. out of ten would practice it ours would be a body of elect indeed. But there are those among the outsiders who will always refuse to see the essential difference between Theosophy and the Theosophical Society, the idea and its imperfect embodiment. Such would visit every sin and shortcoming of the vehicle, the human body, on the pure spirit which sheds thereon its divine light. Is this just to either? They throw stones at an association that tries to work up to, and for the propagation of, its ideal with most tremendous odds against it. Some vilify the Theosophical Society only because it presumes to attempt to do that in which other systems, Church and State Christianity preeminently, have failed most egregiously; others because they would fain preserve the existing state of things: Pharisees and Sadducees in the seat of Moses, and publicans and sinners revelling in high places, as under the Roman Empire during its decadence. Fair-minded people, at any rate, ought to remember that the man who does all he can, does as much as he who has achieved the most, in this world of relative possibilities. This is a simple truism, an axiom supported for believers in the Gospels by the parable of the talents given by their Master: the servant who doubled his two talents was rewarded as much as that other fellow-servant who had received five. To every man it is given "according to his several ability." Q. Yet it is rather difficult to draw the line of demarcation between the abstract and the concrete in this case, as we have only the latter to form our judgment by. A. Then why make an exception for the T.S.? Justice, like charity, ought to begin at home. Will you revile and scoff at the "Sermon on the Mount" because your social, political and even religious laws have, so far, not only failed to carry out its precepts in their spirit, but even in their dead letter? Abolish the oath in Courts, Parliament, Army and everywhere, and do as the Quakers do, if you will call yourselves Christians. Abolish the Courts themselves, for if you would follow the Commandments of Christ, you have to give away your coat to him who deprives you of your cloak, and turn your left cheek to the bully who smites you on the right. "Resist not evil, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you," for "whosoever shall break one of the least of these Commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven," and "whosoever shall say 'Thou fool' shall be in danger of hell fire." And why should you judge, if you would not be judged in your turn? Insist that between Theosophy and the Theosophical Society there is no difference, and forthwith you lay the system of Christianity and its very essence open to the same charges, only in a more serious form. Q. Why more serious? A. Because, while the leaders of the Theosophical Movement, recognizing fully their shortcomings, try all they can do to amend their ways and uproot the evil existing in the Society; and while their rules and bylaws are framed in the spirit of Theosophy, the Legislators and the Churches of nations and countries which call themselves Christian do the reverse. Our members, even the worst among them, are no worse than the average Christian. Moreover, if the Western Theosophists experience so much difficulty in leading the true Theosophical life, it is because they are all the children of their generation. Every one of them was a Christian, bred and brought up in the sophistry of his Church, his social customs, and even his paradoxical laws. He was this before he became a Theosophist, or rather, a member of the Society of that name, as it cannot be too often repeated that between the abstract ideal and its vehicle there is a most important difference. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sun Mar 3 00:05:19 1996 Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 00:05:19 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - KEY16.TXT (Key to Theosophy) Mime-Version: 1.0 KEY16.TXT Text supplied by Eldon Tucker Converted to ASCII by Alan Bain ------------------------------- The Abstract and the Concrete Q. Please elucidate this difference a little more. A. The Society is a great body of men and women, composed of the most heterogeneous elements. Theosophy, in its abstract meaning, is Divine Wisdom, or the aggregate of the knowledge and wisdom that underlie the Universe, the homogeneity of eternal GOOD; and in its concrete sense it is the sum total of the same as allotted to man by nature, on this earth, and no more. Some members earnestly endeavor to realize and, so to speak, to objectivize Theosophy in their lives; while others desire only to know of, not to practice it; and others still may have joined the Society merely out of curiosity, or a passing interest, or perhaps, again, because some of their friends belong to it. How, then, can the system be judged by the standard of those who would assume the name without any right to it? Is poetry or its muse to be measured only by those would-be poets who afflict our ears? The Society can be regarded as the embodiment of Theosophy only in its abstract motives; it can never presume to call itself its concrete vehicle so long as human imperfections and weaknesses are all represented in its body; otherwise the Society would be only repeating the great error and the outflowing sacrilege of the so-called Churches of Christ. If Eastern comparisons may be permitted, Theosophy is the shoreless ocean of universal truth, love, and wisdom, reflecting its radiance on the earth, while the Theosophical Society is only a visible bubble on that reflection. Theosophy is divine nature, visible and invisible, and its Society human nature trying to ascend to its divine parent. Theosophy, finally, is the fixed eternal sun, and its Society the evanescent comet trying to settle in an orbit to become a planet, ever revolving within the attraction of the sun of truth. It was formed to assist in showing to men that such a thing as Theosophy exists, and to help them to ascend towards it by studying and assimilating its eternal verities. Q. I thought you said you had no tenets or doctrines of your own? A. No more we have. The Society has no wisdom of its own to support or teach. It is simply the storehouse of all the truths uttered by the great seers, initiates, and prophets of historic and even prehistoric ages; at least, as many as it can get. Therefore, it is merely the channel through which more or less of truth, found in the accumulated utterances of humanity's great teachers, is poured out into the world. Q. But is such truth unreachable outside of the society? Does not every Church claim the same? A. Not at all. The undeniable existence of great initiates, true "Sons of God", shows that such wisdom was often reached by isolated individuals, never, however, without the guidance of a master at first. But most of the followers of such, when they became masters in their turn, have dwarfed the Catholicism of these teachings into the narrow groove of their own sectarian dogmas. The commandments of a chosen master alone were then adopted and followed, to the exclusion of all others, if followed at all, note well, as in the case of the Sermon on the Mount. Each religion is thus a bit of the divine truth, made to focus a vast panorama of human fancy which claimed to represent and replace that truth. Q. But Theosophy, you say, is not a religion? A. Most assuredly it is not, since it is the essence of all religion and of absolute truth, a drop of which only underlies every creed. To resort once more to metaphor. Theosophy, on earth, is like the white ray of the spectrum, and every religion only one of the seven prismatic colors. Ignoring all the others, and cursing them as false, every special colored ray claims not only priority, but to be that white ray itself, and anathematizes even its own tints from light to dark, as heresies. Yet, as the sun of truth rises higher and higher on the horizon of man's perception, and each colored ray gradually fades out until it is finally reabsorbed in its turn, humanity will at last be cursed no longer with artificial polarizations, but will find itself bathing in the pure colorless sunlight of eternal truth. And this will be Theosophia. Q. Your claim is, then, that all the great religions are derived from Theosophy, and that it is by assimilating it that the world will be finally saved from the curse of its great illusions and errors? A. Precisely so. And we add that our Theosophical Society is the humble seed which, if watered and left to live, will finally produce the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil which is grafted on the Tree of Life Eternal. For it is only by studying the various great religions and philosophies of humanity, by comparing them dispassionately and with an unbiased mind, that men can hope to arrive at the truth. It is especially by finding out and noting their various points of agreement that we may achieve this result. For no sooner do we arrive, either by study, or by being taught by someone who knows, at their inner meaning, than we find, almost in every case, that it expresses some great truth in Nature. Q. We have heard of a Golden Age that was, and what you describe would be a Golden Age to be realized at some future day. When shall it be? A. Not before humanity, as a whole, feels the need of it. A maxim in the Persian Javidan Khirad says: Truth is of two kinds, one manifest and self-evident; the other demanding incessantly new demonstrations and proofs. It is only when this latter kind of truth becomes as universally obvious as it is now dim, and therefore liable to be distorted by sophistry and casuistry; it is only when the two kinds will have become once more one, that all people will be brought to see alike. Q. But surely those few who have felt the need of such truths must have made up their minds to believe in something definite? You tell me that, the Society having no doctrines of its own, every member may believe as he chooses and accept what he pleases. This looks as if the Theosophical Society was bent upon reviving the confusion of languages and beliefs of the Tower of Babel of old. Have you no beliefs in common? A. What is meant by the Society having no tenets or doctrines of its own is, that no special doctrines or beliefs are obligatory on its members; but, of course, this applies only to the body as a whole. The Society, as you were told, is divided into an outer and an inner body. Those who belong to the latter have, of course, a philosophy, or, if you so prefer it, a religious system of their own. Q. May we be told what it is? A. We make no secret of it. It was outlined a few years ago in The Theosophist and Esoteric Buddhism, and may be found still more elaborated in The Secret Doctrine. It is based on the oldest philosophy of the world, called the Wisdom-Religion or the Archaic Doctrine. If you like, you may ask questions and have them explained. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sun Mar 3 00:46:55 1996 Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 00:46:55 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - KEY17.TXT (The Key to Theosophy) Mime-Version: 1.0 KEY17.TXT Text supplied by Eldon Tucker Converted to ASCII by Alan Bain -------------------------------- The Fundamental Teachings of Theosophy On God and Prayer Q. Do you believe in God? A. That depends what you mean by the term. Q. I mean the God of the Christians, the Father of Jesus, and the Creator: the Biblical God of Moses, in short. A. In such a God we do not believe. We reject the idea of a personal, or an extra-cosmic and anthropomorphic God, who is but the gigantic shadow of man, and not of man at his best, either. The God of theology, we say, and prove it, is a bundle of contradictions and a logical impossibility. Therefore, we will have nothing to do with him. Q. State your reasons, if you please. A. They are many, and cannot all receive attention. But here are a few. This God is called by his devotees infinite and absolute, is he not? Q. I believe he is. A. Then, if infinite, i.e., limitless, and especially if absolute, how can he have a form, and be a creator of anything? Form implies limitation, and a beginning as well as an end; and, in order to create, a Being must think and plan. How can the ABSOLUTE be supposed to think, i.e., to have any relation whatever to that which is limited, finite, and conditioned? This is a philosophical, and a logical absurdity. Even the Hebrew Cabala rejects such an idea, and therefore, makes of the one and the Absolute Deific Principle an infinite Unity called Ain-Soph.* In order to create, the Creator has to become active; and as this is impossible for ABSOLUTENESS, the infinite principle had to be shown becoming the cause of evolution (not creation) in an indirect way, i.e., through the emanation from itself (another absurdity, due this time to the translators of the Cabala) of the Sephiroth. How can the non-active eternal principle emanate or emit? The Parabrahman of the Vedantins does nothing of the kind; nor does the Ain-Soph* of the Chaldean Cabala. It is an eternal and periodical law which causes an active and creative force (the logos) to emanate from the ever-concealed and incomprehensible one principle at the beginning of every Maha-Manvantara, or new cycle of life. Q. How about those Cabalists, who, while being such, still believe in Jehovah, or the Tetragrammaton? A. They are at liberty to believe in what they please, as their belief or disbelief can hardly affect a self-evident fact. The Jesuits tell us that two and two are not always four to a certainty, since it depends on the will of God to make 2 x 2 = 5. Shall we accept their sophistry for all that? Q. Then you are Atheists? A. Not that we know of, and not unless the epithet of "Atheist" is to be applied to those who disbelieve in an anthropomorphic God. We believe in a Universal Divine Principle, the root of ALL, from which all proceeds, and within which all shall be absorbed at the end of the great cycle of Being. Q. This is the old, old claim of Pantheism. If you are Pantheists, you cannot be Deists; and if you are not Deists, then you have to answer to the name of Atheists. A. Not necessarily so. The term Pantheism is again one of the many abused terms, whose real and primitive meaning has been distorted by blind prejudice and a one-sided view of it. If you accept the Christian etymology of this compound word, and form it of 'pan', "all," and 'Theos', "god," and then imagine and teach that this means that every stone and every tree in Nature is a God or the ONE God, then, of course, you will be right, and make of Pantheists fetish-worshippers, in addition to their legitimate name. But you will hardly be as successful if you etymologize the word Pantheism esoterically, and as we do. Q. What is, then, your definition of it? A. Let me ask you a question in my turn. What do you understand by Pan, or Nature? Q. Nature is, I suppose, the sum total of things existing around us; the aggregate of causes and effects in the world of matter, the creation or universe. A. Hence the personified sum and order of known causes and effects; the total of all finite agencies and forces, as utterly disconnected from an intelligent Creator or Creators, and perhaps "conceived of as a single and separate force", as in your encyclopedias? Q. Yes, I believe so. A. Well, we neither take into consideration this objective and material nature, which we call an evanescent illusion, nor do we mean by X_U Nature, in the sense of its accepted derivation from the Latin Natura (becoming, from nasci, to be born). When we speak of the Deity and make it identical, hence coeval, with Nature, the eternal and uncreate nature is meant, and not your aggregate of flitting shadows and finite unrealities. We leave it to the hymn-makers to call the visible sky or heaven, God's Throne, and our earth of mud His footstool. Our DEITY is neither in a paradise, nor in a particular tree, building, or mountain: it is everywhere, in every atom of the visible as of the invisible Cosmos, in, over, and around every invisible atom and divisible molecule; for IT is the mysterious power of evolution and involution, the omnipresent, omnipotent, and even omniscient creative potentiality. Q. Stop! Omniscience is the prerogative of something that thinks, and you deny to your Absoluteness the power of thought. A. We deny it to the ABSOLUTE, since thought is something limited and conditioned. But you evidently forget that in philosophy absolute unconsciousness is also absolute consciousness, as otherwise it would not be absolute. Q. Then your Absolute thinks? A. No, IT does not; for the simple reason that it is Absolute Thought itself. Nor does it exist, for the same reason, as it is absolute existence, and Be-ness, not a Being. Read the superb Cabalistic poem by Solomon Ben Jehudah Gabirol, in the Kether-Malchut, and you will understand: Thou art one, the root of all numbers, but not as an element of numeration; for unity admits not of multiplication, change, or form. Thou art one, and in the secret of Thy unity the wisest of men are lost, because they know it not. Thou art one, and Thy unity is never diminished, never extended, and cannot be changed. Thou art one, and no thought of mine can fix for Thee a limit, or define Thee. Thou ART, but not as one existent, for the understanding and vision of mortals cannot attain to Thy existence, nor determine for Thee the where, the how and the why B In short, our Deity is the eternal, incessantly evolving, not creating, builder of the universe; that universe itself unfolding out of its own essence, not being made. It is a sphere, without circumference, in its symbolism, which has but one ever-acting attribute embracing all other existing or thinkable attributes, ITSELF. It is the one law, giving the impulse to manifested, eternal, and immutable laws, within that never-manifesting, because absolute LAW, which in its manifesting periods is The ever-Becoming. Q. I once heard one of your members remarking that Universal Deity, being everywhere, was in vessels of dishonor, as in those of honor, and, therefore, was present in every atom of my cigar ash! Is this not rank blasphemy? A. I do not think so, as simple logic can hardly be regarded as blasphemy. Were we to exclude the Omnipresent Principle from one single mathematical point of the universe, or from a particle of matter occupying any conceivable space, could we still regard it as infinite? * [Ain-Soph = the endless, or boundless, in and with Nature, the non-existent which IS, but is not a Being.] --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 4 21:05:25 1996 Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 21:05:25 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - KEY18.TXT (Key to Theosophy) Mime-Version: 1.0 KEY18.TXT Text supplied by Eldon Tucker Converted to ASCII by Alan Bain -------------------------------- Is it Necessary to Pray? Q. Do you believe in prayer, and do you ever pray? A. We do not. We act, instead of talking. Q. You do not offer prayers even to the Absolute Principle? A. Why should we? Being well-occupied people, we can hardly afford to lose time in addressing verbal prayers to a pure abstraction. The Unknowable is capable of relations only in its parts to each other, but is non-existent as regards any finite relations. The visible universe depends for its existence and phenomena on its mutually acting forms and their laws, not on prayer or prayers. Q. Do you not believe at all in the efficacy of prayer? A. Not in prayer taught in so many words and repeated externally, if by prayer you mean the outward petition to an unknown God as the addressee, which was inaugurated by the Jews and popularized by the Pharisees. Q. Is there any other kind of prayer? A. Most decidedly; we call it WILL-PRAYER, and it is rather an internal command than a petition. Q. To whom, then, do you pray when you do so? A. To "our Father in heaven", in its esoteric meaning. Q. Is that different from the one given to it in theology? A. Entirely so. An Occultist or a Theosophist addresses his prayer to his Father which is in secret, not to an extra-cosmic and therefore finite God; and that "Father" is in man himself. Q. Then you make of man a God? A. Please say "God" and not a God. In our sense, the inner man is the only God we can have cognizance of. And how can this be otherwise? Grant us our postulate that God is a universally diffused, infinite principle, and how can man alone escape from being soaked through by, and in, the Deity? We call our "Father in heaven" that deific essence of which we are cognizant within us, in our heart and spiritual consciousness, and which has nothing to do with the anthropomorphic conception we may form of it in our physical brain or its fancy: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of (the absolute) God dwelleth in you?" One often finds in Theosophical writings conflicting statements about the Christos principle in man. Some call it the sixth principle (Buddhi), others the seventh (Atma). If Christian Theosophists wish to make use of such expressions, let them be made philosophically correct by following the analogy of the old Wisdom-Religion symbols. We say that Christos is not only one of the three higher principles, but all the three regarded as a Trinity. This Trinity represents the Holy Ghost, the Father, and the Son, as it answers to abstract spirit, differentiated spirit, and embodied spirit. Kisha and Christ are philosophically the same principle under its triple aspect of manifestation. In the Bhagavad-Ghta we find Kisha calling himself indifferently Atma, the abstract Spirit, Kshetraja, the Higher or reincarnating Ego, and the Universal SELF, all names which, when transferred from the Universe to man, answer to Atma, Buddhi, and Manas. The Anughta is full of the same doctrine. Yet, let no man anthropomorphize that essence in us. Let no Theosophist, if he would hold to divine, not human truth, say that this "God in secret" listens to, or is distinct from, either finite man or the infinite essence, for all are one. Nor, as just remarked, that a prayer is a petition. It is a mystery rather; an occult process by which finite and conditioned thoughts and desires, unable to be assimilated by the absolute spirit which is unconditioned, are translated into spiritual wills and the will; such process being called "spiritual transmutation." The intensity of our ardent aspirations changes prayer into the "philosopher's stone," or that which transmutes lead into pure gold. The only homogeneous essence, our "will-prayer" becomes the active or creative force, producing effects according to our desire. Q. Do you mean to say that prayer is an occult process bringing about physical results? A. I do. Will-Power becomes a living power. But woe unto those Occultists and Theosophists, who, instead of crushing out the desires of the lower personal ego or physical man, and saying, addressing their Higher Spiritual EGO immersed in Atma-Buddhic light, "Thy will be done, not mine," etc., send up waves of will-power for selfish or unholy purposes! For this is black magic, abomination, and spiritual sorcery. Unfortunately, all this is the favorite occupation of our Christian statesmen and generals, especially when the latter are sending two armies to murder each other. Both indulge before action in a bit of such sorcery, by offering respectively prayers to the same God of Hosts, each entreating his help to cut its enemies' throats. Q. David prayed to the Lord of Hosts to help him smite the Philistines and slay the Syrians and the Moabites, and "the Lord preserved David whithersoever he went." In that we only follow what we find in the Bible. A. Of course you do. But since you delight in calling yourselves Christians, not Israelites or Jews, as far as we know, why do you not rather follow that which Christ says? And he distinctly commands you not to follow "them of old times," or the Mosaic law, but bids you do as he tells you, and warns those who would kill by the sword, that they, too, will perish by the sword. Christ has given you one prayer of which you have made a lip prayer and a boast, and which none but the true Occultist understands. In it you say, in your dead-sense meaning: "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors," which you never do. Again, he told you to love your enemies and do good to them that hate you. It is surely not the "meek prophet of Nazareth" who taught you to pray to your "Father" to slay, and give you victory over your enemies! This is why we reject what you call "prayers." Q. But how do you explain the universal fact that all nations and peoples have prayed to, and worshiped a God or Gods? Some have adored and propitiated devils and harmful spirits, but this only proves the universality of the belief in the efficacy of prayer. A. It is explained by that other fact that prayer has several other meanings besides that given it by the Christians. It means not only a pleading or petition, but meant, in days of old, far more an invocation and incantation. The mantra, or the rhythmically chanted prayer of the Hindus, has precisely such a meaning, as the Brahmins hold themselves higher than the common devas or "Gods." A prayer may be an appeal or an incantation for malediction, and a curse (as in the case of two armies praying simultaneously for mutual destruction) as much as for blessing. And as the great majority of people are intensely selfish, and pray only for themselves, asking to be given their "daily bread" instead of working for it, and begging God not to lead them "into temptation" but to deliver them (the memorialists only) from evil, the result is, that prayer, as now understood, is doubly pernicious: (a) It kills in man self-reliance; (b) It develops in him a still more ferocious selfishness and egotism than he is already endowed with by nature. I repeat, that we believe in "communion" and simultaneous action in unison with our "Father in secret"; and in rare moments of ecstatic bliss, in the mingling of our higher soul with the universal essence, attracted as it is towards its origin and center, a state, called during life Samadhi, and after death, Nirvana. We refuse to pray to created finite beings, i.e., gods, saints, angels, etc., because we regard it as idolatry. We cannot pray to the ABSOLUTE for reasons explained before; therefore, we try to replace fruitless and useless prayer by meritorious and good-producing actions. Q. Christians would call it pride and blasphemy. Are they wrong? A. Entirely so. It is they, on the contrary, who show Satanic pride in their belief that the Absolute or the Infinite, even if there was such a thing as the possibility of any relation between the unconditioned and the conditioned, will stoop to listen to every foolish or egotistical prayer. And it is they again, who virtually blaspheme, in teaching that an Omniscient and Omnipotent God needs uttered prayers to know what he has to do! This, understood esoterically, is corroborated by both Buddha and Jesus. The one says: Seek nought from the helpless Gods, pray not! but rather act; for darkness will not brighten. Ask nought from silence, for it can neither speak nor hear. And the other, Jesus, recommends: "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name (that of Christos) that will I do." Of course, this quotation, if taken in its literal sense, goes against our argument. But if we accept it esoterically, with the full knowledge of the meaning of the term Christos which to us represents Atma-Buddhi-Manas, the "SELF," it comes to this: the only God we must recognize and pray to, or rather act in unison with, is that spirit of God of which our body is the temple, and in which it dwelleth. [Read, and try to understand. Matt. 6:6. - H.P. Blavatsky] --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 4 02:32:37 1996 Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 02:32:37 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - Secret Doctrine Stanza 5 commentary (in 2 parts) [1/2] Mime-Version: 1.0 STANCOM5.TXT From a text supplied by Eldon Tucker Converted to ASCII by Alan Bain ------------------------------- Editorial note: With the commentary on STANZA V, Eldon's text has moved into an area where detailed checking has not yet been possible. In adapting his text I have had to use my own discretion in a few instances, as I do not have the same 1888 edition that he worked from, but the later 1895 third edition revised. The dissimilarities are not, in essence, that great, but the order of sentences has occasionaly been changed, and what are footnotes in 1888 become incorporated in the main body of the text in many instances by 1895. Later editions are different again. Alas! there is no "Standard Edition" of ~The Secret Doctrine~. However, I have little doubt that all that is of importance is in these texts, and just as with any other treasure trove, we will probably have to dig for it. Also, I have adopted the same simpler approach used in the uploads of ~The Key to Theosophy~ so that original emphasis by means such as italics (of which there is an abundance, to say the least) have been lost for the sake of providing, within a reasonable time-frame, a searchable and readable text. For thos who want "purity" I regret that they will have to search out and obtain a printed copy of the version they require, be it 1888 or the later six-volume "Adyar" edition. It's a tough life :-) ------------------------------------------------------------ STANZA V. - Fohat: The Child of the Septenary Hierarchies 1. THE PRIMORDIAL SEVEN, THE FIRST SEVEN BREATHS OF THE DRAGON OF WISDOM, PRODUCE IN THEIR TURN FROM THEIR HOLY CIRCUMGYRATING BREATHS THE FIERY WHIRLWIND (a). COMMENTARY. (a) This is, perhaps, the most difficult of all the Stanzas to explain. Its language is comprehensible only to him who is thoroughly versed in Eastern allegory and its purposely obscure phraseology. The question will surely be asked, "Do the Occultists believe in all these 'Builders,"Lipika,' and 'Sons of Light' as Entities, or are they merely imageries?" To this the answer is given as plainly: "After due allowance for the imagery of personified Powers, we must admit the existence of these Entities, if we would not reject the existence of spiritual humanity within physical mankind. For the hosts of these Sons of Light and 'Mind-born Sons' of the first manifested Ray of the UNKNOWN ALL, are the very root of spiritual man." Unless we want to believe the unphilosophical dogma of a specially created soul for every human birth - a fresh supply of these pouring in daily, since "Adam" - we have to admit the occult teachings. This will be explained in its place. Let us see, now, what may be the occult meaning of this Stanza. The Doctrine teaches that, in order to become a divine, fully conscious god, - aye, even the highest - the Spiritual primeval INTELLIGENCES must pass through the human stage. And when we say human, this does not apply merely to our terrestrial humanity, but to the mortals that inhabit any world, i.e., to those Intelligences that have reached the appropriate equilibrium between matter and spirit, as we have now, since the middle point of the Fourth Root Race of the Fourth Round was passed. Each Entity must have won for itself the right of becoming divine, through self-experience. Hegel, the great German thinker, must have known or sensed intuitionally this truth when saying, as he did, that the Unconscious evolved the Universe only "in the hope of attaining clear self-consciousness," of becoming, in other words, MAN; for this is also the secret meaning of the usual Puranic phrase about Brahma being constantly "moved by the desire to create." This explains also the hidden Kabalistic meaning of the saying: "The Breath becomes a stone; the stone, a plant; the plant, an animal; the animal, a man; the man, a spirit; and the spirit, a god." The Mind-born Sons, the Rishis, the Builders, etc., were all men - of whatever forms and shapes - in other worlds and the preceding Manvantaras. This subject, being so very mystical, is therefore the most difficult to explain in all its details and bearings; since the whole mystery of evolutionary creation is contained in it. A sentence or two in it vividly recalls to mind similar ones in the Kabala and the phraseology of the King Psalmist (civ.), as both, when speaking of God, show him making the wind his messenger and his "ministers a flaming fire." But in the Esoteric doctrine it is used figuratively. The "fiery Wind" is the incandescent Cosmic dust which only follows magnetically, as the iron filings follow the magnet, the directing thought of the "Creative Forces." Yet, this cosmic dust is something more; for every atom in the Universe has the potentiality of self-consciousness in it, and is, like Science and the Monads of Leibnitz, a Universe in itself, and for itself. It is an atom and an angel. In this connection it should be noted that one of the luminaries of the modern Evolutionist School, Mr. A. R. Wallace, when discussing the inadequacy of "natural selection" as the sole factor in the development of physical man, practically concedes the whole point here discussed. He holds that the evolution of man was directed and furthered by superior Intelligences, whose agency is a necessary factor in the scheme of Nature. But once the operation of these Intelligences is admitted in one place, it is only a logical deduction to extend it still further. No hard and fast line can be drawn. STANZA V. - Continued. 2. THEY MAKE OF HIM THE MESSENGER OF THEIR WILL (a). THE DZYU BECOMES FOHAT; THE SWIFT SON OF THE DIVINE SONS, WHOSE SONS ARE THE LIPIKA,* RUNS CIRCULAR ERRANDS. HE IS THE STEED, AND THE THOUGHT IS THE RIDER (i.e., he is under the influence of their guiding thought). HE PASSES LIKE LIGHTNING THROUGH THE FIERY CLOUDS (cosmic mists) (b); TAKES THREE, AND FIVE, AND SEVEN STRIDES THROUGH THE SEVEN REGIONS ABOVE AND THE SEVEN BELOW (the world to be). HE LIFTS HIS VOICE, AND CALLS THE INNUMERABLE SPARKS (atoms) AND JOINS THEM TOGETHER. (c). [*The difference between the "Builders," the Planetary Spirits, and the Lipika must not be lost sight of. (See Nos. 5 and 6 of this Commentary.) ] (a) This shows the "Primordial Seven" using for their Vahan vehicle, or the manifested subject which becomes the symbol of the Power directing it), Fohat, called in consequence, the "Messenger of their will" - the fiery whirlwind. "Dzyu becomes Fohat" - the expression itself shows it. Dzyu is the one real (magical) knowledge, or Occult Wisdom; which, dealing with eternal truths and primal causes, becomes almost omnipotence when applied in the right direction. Its antithesis is Dzyu-mi, that which deals with illusions and false appearances only, as in our exoteric modern sciences. In this case, Dzyu is the expression of the collective Wisdom of the Dhyani-Buddhas. (b) As the reader is supposed not to be acquainted with the Dhyani Buddhas, it is as well to say at once that, according to the Orientalists, ere are five Dhyanis who are the "celestial" Buddhas, of whom the human Buddhas are the manifestations in the world of form and matter. Esoterically, however, the Dhyani-Buddhas are seven, of whom five only have hitherto manifested,* and two are to come in the sixth and seventh Root-races. They are, so to speak, the eternal prototypes of the Buddhas who appear on this earth, each of whom has his particular divine prototype. So, for instance, Amitabha is the Dhyani-Buddha of Gautama Sakyamuni, manifesting through him whenever this great Soul incarnates on earth as He did in Tzon-kha-pa.(2) As the synthesis of the seven Dhyani-Buddhas, Avalokitoswara was the first Buddha (the Logos), so Amitabha is the inner "God" of Gautama, who, in China, is called Amita(-Buddha). They are, as Mr. Rhys Davids correctly states, "the glorious counterparts in the mystic world, free from the debasing conditions of this material life" of every earthly mortal Buddha - the liberated Manushi-Buddhas appointed to govern the Earth in this Round. They are the "Buddhas of Contemplation," and are all Anupadaka (parentless), i.e., self-born of divine essence. The exoteric teaching which says that every Dhyani-Buddha has the faculty of creating from himself, an equally celestial son - a Dhyani-Bodhisattva - who, after the decease of the Manushi (human) Buddha, has to carry out the work of the latter, rests on the fact that owing to the highest initiation performed by one overshadowed by the "Spirit of l'Buddha" - (who is credited by the Orientalists with having created the five Dhyani-Buddhas!), - a candidate becomes virtually a Bodhisattva, created such by the High Initiator. [*See A. P. Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism," 5th annotated edition, pp. 171-173.] [(2) The first and greatest Reformer who founded the "Yellow-Caps," Gyalugpas. He was born in the year 1355 A.D. in Amdo, and was the Avatar of Amitabha, the celestial name of Gautama Buddha.] (c) Fohat, being one of the most, if not the most important character in esoteric Cosmogony, should be minutely described. As in the oldest Grecian Cosmogony, differing widely from the later mythology, Eros is the third person in the primeval trinity: Chaos, Gaea, Eros: answering to the Kabalistic En-Soph (for Chaos is SPACE, "void") the Boundless ALL, Shekinah and the Ancient of Days, or the Holy Ghost; so Fohat is one thing in the yet unmanifested Universe and another- in the phenomenal and Cosmic World. In the latter, he is that Occult, electric, vital power, which, under the Will of the Creative Logos, unites and brings together all forms, giving them the first impulse which becomes in time law. But in the unmanifested Universe, Fohat is no more this, than Eros is the later brilliant winged Cupid, or LOVE. Fohat has naught to do with Kosmos yet, since Kosmos is not born, and the gods still sleep in the bosom of "Father-Mother." He is an abstract philosophical idea. He produces nothing yet by himself; he is simply that potential creative power in virtue of whose action the NOUMENON of all future phenomena divides, so to speak, but to reunite in a mystic supersensuous act, and emit the creative ray. When the "Divine Son" breaks forth, then Fohat becomes the propelling force, the active Power which causes the ONE to become TWO and THREE - on the Cosmic plane of manifestation. The triple One differentiates into the many, and then Fohat is transformed into that force which brings together the elemental atoms and makes them aggregate and combine. We find an echo of this primeval teaching in early Greek mythology. Erebos and Nux are born out of Chaos, and, under the action of Eros, give birth in their turn to Aether and Hemera, the light of the superior and the light of the inferior or terrestrial regions. Darkness generates light. See in the Puranas Brahma's "Will" or desire to create; and in the Phoenician Cosmogony of Sanchoniathon the doctrine that Desire,???, is the principle of creation. Fohat is closely related to the "ONE LIFE." From the Unknown One, the Infinite TOTALITY, the manifested ONE, or the periodical, Manvantaric Deity, emanates; and this is the Universal Mind, which, separated from its Fountain-Source, is the Demiurgos or the creative Logos of the Western Kabalists, and the four-faced Brahma of the Hindu religion. In its totality, viewed from the standpoint of manifested Divine Thought in the esoteric doctrine, it represents the Hosts of the higher creative Dhyan Chohans. Simultaneously with the evolution of the Universal Mind, the concealed Wisdom of Adi-Buddha - the One Supreme and eternal - manifests itself as Avalokiteshwara (or manifested Iswara), which is the Osiris of the Egyptians, the AhuraMazda of the Zoroastrians, the Heavenly Man of the Hermetic philosopher, the Logos of the Platonists, and the Atman of the Vedantins.* By the action of the manifested Wisdom, or Mahat, represented by these innumerable centres of spiritual Energy in the Kosmos, the reflection of the Universal Mind, which is Cosmic Ideation and the intellectual Force accompanying such ideation, becomes objectively the Fohat of the Buddhist esoteric philosopher. Fohat, running along the seven principles of AKASA, acts upon manifested substance or the One Element, as declared above, and by differentiating it into various centres of Energy, sets in motion the law of Cosmic Evolution, which, in obedience to the Ideation of the Universal Mind, brings into existence all the various states of being in the manifested Solar System. The Solar System, brought into existence by these agencies, consists of Seven Principles, like everything else within these centres. Such is the teaching of the trans-Himalayan Esotericism. Every philosophy, however, has it own way of dividing these principles. [* Mr. Subba Row seems to identify him with, and to call him, the LOGOS. (See his four lectures on the "Bhagavadgita" in the Theosophist.)] Fohat, then, is the personified electric vital power, the transcendental binding Unity of all Cosmic Energies, on the unseen as on the manifested planes, the action of which resembles - on an immense scale - that of a living Force created by WILL, in those phenomena where the seemingly subjective acts on the seemingly objective and propels it to action. Fohat is not only the living Symbol and Container of that Force, but is looked upon by the Occultists as an Entity - the forces he acts upon being cosmic, human and terrestrial, and exercising their influence on all those planes respectively. On the earthly plane his influence is felt in the magnetic and active force generated by the strong desire of the magnetizer. On the Cosmic, it is present in the constructive power that carries out, in the formation of things - from the planetary system down to the glow-worm and simple daisy - the plan in the mind of nature, or in the Divine Thought, with regard to the development and growth of that special thing. He is, metaphysically, the objectivised thought of the gods; the "Word made flesh," on a lower scale, and the messenger of Cosmic and human ideations: the active force in Universal Life. In his secondary aspect, Fohat is the Solar Energy, the electric vital fluid,* and the preserving fourth principle, the animal Soul of Nature, so to say, or - Electricity. In India, Fohat is connected with Vishnu and Surya in the early character of the (first) God; for Vishnu is not a high god in the Rig Veda. The name Vishnu is from the root vish, "to pervade," and Fohat is called the "Pervader" and the Manufacturer, because he shapes the atoms from crude material.* In the sacred texts of the Rig Veda, Vishnu, also, as "a manifestation of the Solar Energy," and he is described as striding through the Seven regions of the Universe in three steps, the Vedic God having little in common with the Vishnu of later times. Therefore the two are identical in this particular feature, and one is the copy of the other. [*In 1882 the President of the Theosophical Society, Col. Olcott, was taken to task for asserting in one of his lectures that Electricity is matter. Such, nevertheless, is the teaching of the Occult Doctrine. "Force," "Energy," may be a better name for it, so long as European Science knows so little about its true nature; yet matter it is, as much as Ether is matter, since it is as atomic, though several removes from the latter. It seems ridiculous to argue that because a thing is imponderable to Science, therefore it cannot be called matter. Electricity is "immaterial" in the sense that its molecules are not subject to perception and experiment; yet it may be - and Occultism says it is - atomic; therefore it is matter. But even supposing it were unscientific to speak of it in such terms, once Electricity is called in Science a source of Energy, Energy simply, and a Force - where is that Force or that Energy which can be thought of without thinking of matter? Maxwell, a mathematician and one of the greatest authorities upon Electricity and its phenomena, said, years ago, that Electricity was matter, not motion merely. "If we accept the hypothesis that the elementary substances are composed of atoms we cannot avoid concluding that electricity also, positive as well as negative, is divided into definite elementary portions, which behave like atoms of electricity." (Helmholtz, Faraday Lecture, 1881). We will go further than that, and assert that Electricity is not only Substance but that it is an emanation from an Entity, which is neither God nor Devil, but one of the numberless Entities that rule and guide our world according to the eternal LAW OF KARMA. (See the Addendum to this Book.)] The "three and seven" strides refer to the Seven spheres inhabited by man, of the esoteric Doctrine, as well as to the Seven regions of the Earth. Notwithstanding the frequent objections made by would-be Orientalists, the Seven Worlds or spheres of our planetary chain are distinctly referred to in the exoteric Hindu scriptures. But how strangely all these numbers are connected with like numbers in other Cosmogonies and with their symbols, can be seen from comparisons and parallelisms made by students of old religions. The "three strides of Vishnu" through the "seven regions of the Universe," of the Rig Veda, have been variously explained by commentators as meaning "fire, lightning and the Sun" cosmically; and as having been taken in the Earth, the atmosphere, and the sky; also as the "three steps" of the dwarf (Vishnu's incarnation), though more philosophically - and in the astronomical sense, very correctly - they are explained by Aurnavabha as being the various positions of the sun, rising, noon, and setting. Esoteric philosophy alone explains it clearly, and the Zohar laid it down very philosophically and comprehensively. It is said and plainly demonstrated therein that in the beginning the Elohim (Elhim) were called Echod, "one," or the "Deity is one in many," a very simple idea in a pantheistic conception (in its philosophical sense, of course). Then came the change, "Jehovah is Elohim," thus unifying the multiplicity and taking the first step towards Monotheism. Now to the query, "How is Jehovah Elohim?" the answer is, "By three Steps" from below. [* It is well known that sand, when placed on a metal plate in vibration assumes a series of regular curved figures of various descriptions. Can Science give a complete explanation of this fact? ] The meaning is plain.* They are all symbols, and emblematic, mutually and correlatively, of Spirit, Soul and Body (MAN); of the circle transformed into Spirit, the Soul of the World, and its body (or Earth). Stepping out of the Circle of Infinity, that no man comprehendeth, Ain-Soph (the Kabalistic synonym for Parabrahm, for the Zeroana Akerne, of the Mazdeans, or for any other "UNKNOWABLE") becomes "One" - the ECHOD, the EKA, the AHU - then he (or it) is transformed by evolution into the One in many, the Dhyani-Buddhas or the Elohim, or again the Amshaspends, his third Step being taken into generation of the flesh, or "Man." And from man, or Jah-Hova, "male female," the inner divine entity becomes, on the metaphysical plane, once more the Elohim. The Kabalistic idea is identical with the Esotericism of the Archaic period. This esotericism is the common property of all, and belongs neither to the Aryan 5th Race, nor to any of its numerous Sub-races. It cannot be claimed by the Turanians, so-called, the Egyptians, Chinese, Chaldeans, nor any of the Seven divisions of the Fifth Root Race, but really belongs to the Third and Fourth Root Races, whose descendants we find in the Seed of the Fifth, the earliest Aryans. The Circle was with every nation the symbol of the Unknown - "Boundless Space," the abstract garb of an ever present abstraction - the Incognisable Deity. It represents limitless Time in Eternity. The Zeroana Akerne is also the "Boundless Circle of the Unknown Time," from which Circle issues the radiant light - the Universal SUN, or Ormazd(2) - and the latter is identical with Kronos, in his Aeolian form, that of a Circle. For the circle is Sar, and Saros, or cycle, and was the Babylonian god whose circular horizon was the visible symbol of the invisible, while the sun was the ONE Circle from which proceeded the Cosmic orbs, and of which he was considered the leader. Zero-ana, is the Chackra or circle of Vishnu, the mysterious emblem which is, according to the definition of a mystic, "a curve of such a nature that as to any, the least possible part thereof, if the curve be protracted either way it will proceed and finally re-enter upon itself, and form one and the same curve - or that which we call the circle." No better definition could thus be given of the natural symbol and the evident nature of Deity, which having its circumference everywhere (the boundless) has, therefore, its central point also everywhere; in other words, is in every point of the Universe. The invisible Deity is thus also the Dhyan Chohans, or the Rishis, the primitive seven, and the nine, without, and ten, including, their synthetical unit; from which IT steps into Man. Returning to the Commentary (4) of Stanza IV. the reader will understand why, while the transHimalayan Chackra has inscribed within it, ~triangle, first line, cube, second line, and a pentacle with a dot in the centre, and some other variations, the Kabalistic circle of the Elohim reveals, when the letters of the word Alhim or Elohim are numerically read, the famous numerals 13514, or by anagram 31415 - the astronomical (pi) number, or the hidden meaning of Dhyani-Buddhas, of the Gebers, the Geborim, the Kabeiri, and the Elohim, all signifying "great men," "Titans," "Heavenly Men," and, on earth, "the giants." [* The numbers 3, 5, and 7 are prominent in speculative masonry, as shown in "Isis." A mason writes: - "There are the 3, 5, and 7 steps to show a circular walk. The three faces of 3, 3; 5, 3; and 7, 3; etc., etc. Sometimes it comes in this form - 753/2 = 376 x 5 and 7635/2 = 3817 x 5 and the ratio of 20612/6561 feet for cubit measure gives the Great Pyramid measures," etc., etc. Three, five and seven are mystical numbers, and the last and the first are as greatly honoured by Masons as by the Parsis - the triangle being a symbol of Deity everywhere. (See the Masonic Cyclopedia, and "Pythagorean Triangle," Oliver.) As a matter of course, doctors of divinity (Cassel, for instance) show the Zohar explaining and supporting the Christian trinity (!). It is the latter, however, that had its origin from the [triangle] of the Heathen, in the Archaic Occultism and Symbology. The three strides relate metaphysically to the descent of Spirit into matter, of the Logos falling as a ray into the Spirit, then into the Soul, and finally into the human physical form of man, in which it becomes LIFE.] [(2) Ormazd is the Logos, the "First Born" and the Sun.] The Seven was a Sacred Number with every nation; but none applied it to more physiologically materialistic uses than the Hebrews. With these it was pre-eminently the generative number and 9 the male causative one, forming as shown by the Kabalists the "or otz - "the Tree of the Garden of Eden," the "double hermaphrodite rod" of the fourth race. [This was the symbol of the "Holy of Holies," the 3 and the 4 of sexual separation. Nearly every one of the 22 Hebrew letters are merely phallic symbols. Of the two letters - as shown above - one, the ayin, is a negative female letter, symbolically an eye, the other a male letter, tza, a fish-hook or a dart.] Whereas with the Hindus and Aryans generally, the significance was manifold, and related almost entirely to purely metaphysical and astronomical truths.* Their Rishis and gods, their Demons and Heroes, have historical and ethical meanings, and the Aryans never made their religion rest solely on physiological symbols, as the old Hebrews have done. This is found in the exoteric Hindu Scriptures. That these accounts are blinds is shown by their contradicting each other, a different construction being found in almost every Purana and epic poem. Read esoterically - they will all yield the same meaning. Thus one account enumerates Seven worlds, exclusive of the nether worlds, also seven in number; these fourteen upper and nether worlds have nothing to do with the classification of the septenary chain and belong to the purely aethereal, invisible worlds. These will be noticed elsewhere. Suffice for the present to show that they are purposely referred to as though they belonged to the chain. "Another enumeration calls the Seven worlds - earth, sky, heaven~ middle region, place of birth, mansion of the blest, and abode of truth; placing the 'Sons of Brahma' in the sixth division, and stating the fifth, or Jana Loka, to be that where animals destroyed in the general conflagration are born again." [* We are told by a Kabalist, who in a work not yet published contrasts the Kabala and Zohar with Aryan Esotericism, that "The Hebrew clear, short, terse and exact modes far and beyond measure surpass the toddling word-talk of the Hindus - just as by parallelisms the Psalmist says, "My mouth speaks with my tongue, I know not thy numbers" (lxxi., 15)B. The Hindu Glyph shows by its insufficiency in the large admixture of adventitious sides the same borrowed plumage that the Greeks (the lying Greeks) had, and that Masonry has: which in the rough monosyllabic (and apparent) poverty of the Hebrew, shows the latter to have come down from a far more remote antiquity than any of these, and to have been the source (!?), or nearer the old original source than any of them.] This is entirely erroneous. Our learned brother and correspondent judges apparently the Hindu religious systems by their Shastras and Puranas, probably the latter, and in their modern translation moreover, which is disfigured out of all recognition, by the Orientalists. It is to their philosophical systems that one has to turn, to their esoteric teaching, if he would make a point of comparison. No doubt the symbology of the Pentateuch and even of the New Testament, comes from the same source. But surely the Pyramid of Cheops, whose measurements are all found repeated by Professor Piazzi Smythe in Solomon's alleged and mythical temple, is not of a later date than the Mosaic books? Hence, if there is any such great identity as claimed, it must be due to servile copying on the part of the Jews, not on that of the Egyptians. The Jewish glyphs - and even their language, the Hebrew - are not original. They are borrowed from the Egyptians, from whom Moses go this Wisdom; from the Coptic, the probable kinsman, if not parent, of the old Phoenician and from the Hyksos, their (alleged) ancestors, as Josephus shows in his "Against Apion," I., 25. Aye; but who are the Hyksos shepherds? And who the Egyptians? History knows nothing of the question, and speculates and theorizes out of the depths of the respective consciousness of her historians. (See Isis Unveiled, vol. II., p. 430-438.) "Khamism, or old Coptic," says Bunsen, "is from Western Asia, and contains some germ of the Semitic, thus bearing witness to the primitive cognate unity of the Aryan and Semitic races"; and he places the great events in Egypt g,000 years B.C. The fact is that in archaic Esotericism and Aryan thought we find a grand philosophy, whereas in the Hebrew records we find only the most surprising ingenuity in inventing apotheoses for phallic worship and sexual theogony. (See Hindu Classical Dictionary.) Some real esoteric teaching is given in the "Symbolism." He who is prepared for it will understand the hidden meaning. STANZA V. - Continued. 3. HE IS THEIR GUIDING SPIRIT AND LEADER. WHEN HE COMMENCES WORK, HE SEPARATES THE SPARKS OF THE LOWER KINGDOM (mineral atoms) THAT FLOAT AND THRILL WITH JOY IN THEIR RADIANT DWELLINGS (gaseous clouds), AND FORMS THEREWITH THE GERMS OF WHEELS. HE PLACES THEM IN THE SIX DIRECTIONS OF SPACE AND ONE IN THE MIDDLE - THE CENTRAL WHEEL (a). (a) "Wheels," as already explained, are the centres of force, around which primordial Cosmic matter expands, and, passing through all the six stages of consolidation, becomes spheroidal and ends by being transformed into globes or spheres. It is one of the fundamental dogmas of Esoteric Cosmogony, that during the Kalpas (or aeons) of life, MOTION which, during the periods of Rest "pulsates and thrills through every slumbering atom"* (Commentary on Dzyan), assumes an evergrowing tendency, from the first awakening of Kosmos to a new "Day," to circular movement. The "Deity becomes a WHIRLWIND." They are also called Rotae - the moving wheels of the celestial orbs participating in the world's creation - when the meaning refers to the animating principle of the stars and planets; for in the Kabala, they are represented by the Ophanim, the Angels of the Spheres and stars, of which they are the informing Souls. (See Kabala Denudata, "De Anima," p. 113.) [* It may be asked, as also the writer has not failed to ask, "Who is there to ascertain the difference in that motion, since all nature is reduced to its primal essence, and there can be no one - not even one of the Dhyani-Chohans, who are all in Nirvana - to see it?" The answer to this is: "Everything in Nature has to be judged by analogy. Though the highest Deities (Archangels or Dhyani-Buddhas) are unable to penetrate the mysteries too far beyond our planetary system and the visible Kosmos, yet there were great seers and prophets in olden times who were enabled to perceive the mystery of Breath and Motion retrospectively, when the systems of worlds were at rest and plunged in their periodic sleep."] This law of vortical movement in primordial matter, is one of the oldest conceptions of Greek philosophy, whose first historical Sages were nearly all Initiates of the Mysteries. The Greeks had it from the Egyptians, and the latter from the Chaldeans, who had been the pupils of Brahmins of the esoteric school. Leucippus, and Democritus of Abdera - the pupil of the Magi - taught that this gyratory movement of the atoms and spheres existed from eternity. Hicetas, Heraclides, Ecphantus, Pythagoras, and all his pupils, taught the rotation of the earth; and Aryabhata of India, Aristarchus, Seleucus, and Archimedes calculated its revolution as scientifically as the astronomers do now; while the theory of the Elemental Vortices was known to Anaxagoras, and maintained by him 500 years 13.B.C., or nearly 2,000 before it was taken up by Galileo, Descartes, Swedenborg, and finally, with slight modifications, by Sir W. Thomson. (See his "Vortical Atoms.") All such knowledge, if justice be only done to it, is an echo of the archaic doctrine, an attempt to explain which is now being made. How men of the last few centuries have come to the same ideas and conclusions that were taught as axiomatic truths in the secrecy of the Adyta dozens of millenniums ago, is a question that is treated separately. Some were led to it by the natural progress in physical science and by independent observation; others - such as Copernicus, Swedenborg, and a few more - their great learning notwithstanding, owed their knowledge far more to intuitive than to acquired ideas, developed in the usual way by a course of study. (See "A Mystery about Buddha.") [* "The doctrine of the rotation of the earth about an axis is taught by the Pythagorean Hicetas, probably as early as 500 B.C. It was also taught by his pupil Ecphantus, and by Heraclides, a pupil of Plato. The immobility of the Sun and the orbital rotation of the earth were shown by Aristarchus of Samos as early as 281 B.C. to be suppositions accordant with facts of observation. The Heliocentric theory was taught about 150 B.C., by Seleucus of Seleucia on the Tigris. - [It was taught 500 B.C. by Pythagoras. - H.P,B.] It is said also that Archimedes, in a work entitled Psammites, inculcated the Heliocentric theory. The sphericity of the earth was distinctly taught by Aristotle, who appealed for proof to the figure of the Earth's shadow on the moon in eclipses. (Aristotle, De Coelo, lib. II., cap. XIV.), The same idea was defended by Pliny (Nat. Hist., II., 65). These views seem to have been lost from knowledge for more than a thousand yearsB."] [(Comparative Geology, Part IV., "Pre-Kantian Speculation," p. 551, by Alex. Winchell, LL.D.).] By the "Six directions of Space" is here meant the "Double Triangle," the junction and blending together of pure Spirit and Matter, of the Arupa and the Rupa, of which the Triangles are a Symbol. This double Triangle is a sign of Vishnu, as it is Solomon's seal, and the Sri-Antara of the Brahmins. STANZA v. - (Continued.) 4. FOHAT TRACES SPIRAL LINES TO UNITE THE SIX TO THE SEVENTH - THE CROWN (a); AN ARMY OF THE SONS OF LIGHT STANDS AT EACH ANGLE (and) THE LIPIKA - IN THE MIDDLE WHEEL. THEY (the Lipika) SAY, "THIS IS GOOD" (b). THE FIRST DIVINE WORLD IS READY, THE FIRST (is now), THE SECOND (world), THEN THE "DIVINE ARUPA (the formless Universe of Thought) REFLECTS ITSELF IN CHHAYALOKA (the shadowy world of Primal form, of the intellectual) THE FIRST GARMENT OF (the) ANUPADAKA (c). [That Swedenborg, who could not possibly have known anything of the esoteric ideas of Buddhism, came independently near the Occult teaching in his general conceptions, is shown by his essay on the Vortical Theory. In Clissold's translation of it, quoted by Prof Winchell, we find the following Resume: - "The first Cause is the Infinite or Unlimited. This gives existence to the First Finite or Limited." (The Logos in His manifestation and the Universe.) "That which produces a limit is analogous to motion. (See first Stanza, supra.) The limit produced is a point, the Essence of which is Motion; but being without parts, this Essence is not actual Motion, but only a connatus to it." (In our Doctrine it is not a "connatus," but a change from eternal vibration in the unmanifested, to Vortical Motion in the phenomenal World)B" From this first proceed Extension, Space, Figure, and Succession, or Time. As in Geometry a point generates a line, a line a surface, and a surface a solid, so here the connatus of a point tends towards lines, surfaces and solids. In other words, the Universe is contained in ovo in the first natural pointB the Motion toward which the connatus tends, is circular, since the circle is the most perfect of all figuresB The most perfect figure of a MotionB must be the perpetually circular, that is to say, it must proceed from the centre to the periphery and from the periphery to the centre," (Quoted from Principia Revum Naturalia.) This is Occultism pure and simple.] (a) This tracing of "Spiral lines" refers to the evolution of man's as well as Nature's principles; an evolution which takes place gradually (as will be seen in Book II., on "The origin of the Human Races"), as does everything else in nature. The Sixth principle in Man (Buddhi, the Divine Soul) though a mere breath, in our conceptions, is still something material when compared with divine "Spirit" (Atma) of which it is the carrier or vehicle. Fohat, in his capacity of DIVINE LOVE (Eros), the electric Power of affinity and sympathy, is shown allegorically as trying to bring the pure Spirit, the Ray inseparable from the ONE absolute, into union with the Soul, the two constituting in Man the MONAD, and in Nature the first link between the ever unconditioned and the manifested. "The first is now the second" (world) - of the Lipikas - has reference to the same. (b) The "Army" at each angle is the Host of angelic Beings (Dhyan-Chohans) appointed to guide and watch over each respective region from the beginning to the end of Manvantara. They are the "Mystic Watchers" of the Christian Kabalists and Alchemists, and relate, symbolically as well as cosmogonically, to the numerical system of the Universe. The numbers with which these celestial Beings are connected are extremely difficult to explain, as each number refers to several groups of distinct ideas, according to the particular group of "Angels" which it is intended to represent. Herein lies the nodus in the study of symbology, with which, unable to untie by disentangling it, so many scholars have preferred dealing as Alexander dealt with the Gordian knot; hence erroneous conceptions and teachings, as a direct result. The "First is the Second," because the first "cannot really be numbered or regarded as the First, as that is the realm of noumena in its primary manifestation: the threshold to the World of Truth, or SAT, through which the direct energy that radiates from the ONE REALITY - the Nameless Deity - reaches us. Here again, the untranslatable term SAT (Be-ness) is likely to lead into an erroneous conception, since that which is manifested cannot be SAT, but is something phenomenal, not everlasting, nor, in truth, even semi-eternal. It is coeval and coexistent with the One Life, "Secondless," but as a manifestation it is still a Maya - like the rest. This "World of Truth" can be described only in the words of the Commentary as "A bright star dropped from the heart of Eternity; the beacon of hope on whose Seven Rays hang the Seven Worlds of Being." Truly so; since those are the Seven Lights whose reflections are the human immortal Monads - the Atma, or the irradiating Spirit of every creature of the human family. First, this septenary Light; then: - (c) The "Divine World" - the countless Lights lit at the primeval Light - the Buddhis, or formless divine Souls, of the last Arupa (formless) world; the "Sum Total," in the mysterious language of the old Stanza. In the Catechism, the Master is made to ask the pupil: - "Lift thy head, oh Lanoo; dost thou see one, or countless lights above thee, burning in the dark midnight sky? "I sense one Flame, oh Gurudeva, I see countless undetached sparks shining in it." "Thou sayest well. And now look around and into thyself. That light which burns inside thee, dost thou feel it different in anywise from the light that shines in thy Brother-men?" "It is in no way different, though the prisoner is held in bondage by Karnza, and though its outer garments delude the ignorant into saying, "Thy Soul and My Soul." The radical unity of the ultimate essence of each constituent part of compounds in Nature - from Star to mineral Atom, from the highest Dhyan Chohan to the smallest infusoria, in the fullest acceptation of the term, and whether applied to the spiritual, intellectual, or physical worlds - this is the one fundamental law in Occult Science. "The Deity is boundless and infinite expansion," says an Occult axiom; and hence, as remarked, the name of Brahma." There is a deep philosophy underlying the earliest worship in the world, that of the Sun and of Fire. Of all the elements known to physical science, Fire is the one that has ever eluded definite analysis. It is confidently asserted that Air is a mixture containing the gases Oxygen and Nitrogen. We view the Universe and the Earth as matter composed of definite chemical molecules. We speak of the primitive ten Earths, endowing each with a Greek or Latin name. We say that water is, chemically, a compound of Oxygen and Hydrogen. But what is FIRE? It is the effect of combustion, we are gravely answered. It is heat and light and motion, and a correlation of physical and chemical forces in general. And this scientific definition is philosophically supplemented by the theological one in Webster's Dictionary, which explains fire as "the instrument of punishment, or the punishment of the impenitent in another state" - the "state," by the bye, being supposed to be spiritual; but, alas! the presence of fire would seem to be a convincing proof of its material nature. Yet, speaking of the illusion of regarding phenomena as simple, because they are familiar, Professor Bain says (Logic. Part II.): "Very familiar facts seem to stand in no need of explanation themselves and to be the means of explaining whatever can be assimilated to them. Thus, the boiling and evaporation of a liquid is supposed to be a very simple phenomenon requiring no explanation, and a satisfactory explanation of rarer phenomena. That water should dry up is, to the uninstructed mind, a thing wholly intelligible; whereas to the man acquainted with physical science the liquid state is anomalous and inexplicable. The lighting of a fire by a flame is a GREAT SCIENTIFIC DIFFICULTY, yet few people think so (p. 125). [* In the Rig Veda we find the names Brahmanaspat? and Brihaspati alternating and equivalent to each other. Also see "Brihad Upanishad"; Brihaspati is a deity called "the Father of the gods."] What says the esoteric teaching with regard to fire? "Fire," it says, "is the most perfect and unadulterated reflection, in Heaven as on Earth, of the ONE FLAME. It is Life and Death, the origin and the end of every material thing. It is divine 'SUBSTANCE.' "Thus, not only the FIRE-WORSHIPPER, the Parsee, but even the wandering savage tribes of America, which proclaim themselves "born of fire," show more science in their creeds and truth in their superstitions, than all the speculations of modern physics and learning. The Christian who says: "God is a living Fire," and speaks of the Pentecostal "Tongues of Fire" and of the "burning bush" of Moses, is as much a fire worshipper as any other "heathen." The Rosicrucians, among all the mystics and Kabalists, were those who defined Fire in the right and most correct way. Procure a sixpenny lamp, keep it only supplied with oil, and you will be able to light at its flame the lamps, candles, and fires of the whole globe without diminishing that flame. If the Deity, the radical One, is eternal and an infinite substance ("the Lord thy God is a consuming fire") and never consumed, then it does not seem reasonable that the Occult teaching should be held as unphilosophical when it says: "Thus were the Arupa and Rupa worlds formed: from ONE light seven lights; from each of the seven, seven times seven," etc., etc. STANZA V. - Continued. 5. FOHAT TAKES FIVE STRIDES (having already taken the first three) (a), AND BUILDS A WINGED WHEEL AT EACH CORNER OF THE SQUARE FOR THE FOUR HOLY ONESB.. AND THEIR ARMIES (hosts) (b). (a) The "strides," as already explained (see Commentary on Stanza IV.), refer to both the Cosmic and the Human principles - the latter of which consist, in the exoteric division, of three (Spirit, Soul, and Body), and, in the esoteric calculation, of seven principles - three rays of the Essence and four aspects.: Those who have studied Mr. Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism" can easily grasp the nomenclature. There are two esoteric schools - or rather one school, divided into two parts - one for the inner Lanoos, the other for the outer or semi-lay chelas beyond the Himalayas; the first teaching a septenary, the other a six-fold division of human principles. From a Cosmic point of view, Fohat taking "five strides" refers here to the five upper planes of Consciousness and Being, the sixth and the seventh (counting downwards) being the astral and the terrestrial, or the two lower planes. (b) "Four winged wheels at each cornerB.. for the four holy ones and their armies (hosts)"B.. These are the "four Maharajahs" or great Kings of the Dhyan-Chohans, the Devas who preside, each over one of the four cardinal points. They are the Regents or Angels who rule over the Cosmical Forces of North, South, East and West, Forces having each a distinct occult property. These BEINGS are also connected with Karma, as the latter needs physical and material agents to carry out her decrees, such as the four kinds of winds, for instance, professedly admitted by Science to have their respective evil and beneficent influences upon the health of Mankind and every living thing. There is occult philosophy in that Roman Catholic doctrine which traces the various public calamities, such as epidemics of disease, and wars, and so on, to the invisible "Messengers" from North and West. "The glory of God comes from the way of the East" says Ezekiel; while Jeremiah, Isaiah, and the Psalmist assure their readers that all the evil under the Sun comes from the North and the West - which proposition, when applied to the Jewish nation, sounds like an undeniable prophecy for themselves. And this accounts also for St. Ambrose (On Amos, ch. iv.) declaring that it is precisely for that reason that "we curse the North-Wind, and that during the ceremony of baptism we begin by turning towards the West (Sidereal), to renounce the better him who inhabits it; after which we turn to the East." [* The four aspects are the body, its life or vitality, and the "Double" of the body, the triad which disappears with the death of the person, and the Kama-rupa which disintegrates in Kama-rupa.] Belief in the "Four Maharajahs" - the Regents of the Four cardinal points - was universal and is now that of Christians, who call them, after St. Augustine, "Angelic Virtues," and "Spirits" when enumerated by themselves, and "Devils" when named by Pagans. But where is the difference between the Pagans and the Christians in this case? Following Plato, Aristotle explained that the {greek} term was understood only as meaning the incorporeal principles placed at each of the four great divisions of our Cosmical world to supervise them. Thus, no more than the Christians did, do they adore and worship the Elements and the cardinal (imaginary) points, but the "gods" that ruled these respectively. For the Church there are two kinds of Sidereal beings, the Angels and the Devils. For the Kabalist and Occultist there is but one; and neither of them makes any difference between "the Rectors of Light" and the Cosmocratores, or "Rectores tenebrarum harum," whom the Roman Church imagines and discovers in a "Rector of Light "as soon as he is called by another name than the one she addresses him by. It is not the "Rector" or "Maharajah" who punishes or rewards, with or without "God's" permission or order, but man himself - his deeds or Karma, attracting individually and collectively (as in the case of whole nations sometimes), every kind of evil and calamity. We produce CAUSES, and these awaken the corresponding powers in the sidereal world; which powers are magnetically and irresistibly attracted to - and react upon - those who produced these causes; whether such persons are practically the evil-doers, or simply Thinkers who brood mischief. Thought is matter,* we are taught by modern Science; and "every particle of the existing matter must be a register of all that has happened," as in their "Principles of Science" Messrs. Jevons and Babbage tell the profane. Modern Science is drawn more every day into the maelstrom of Occultism; unconsciously, no doubt, still very sensibly The two main theories of science - re the relations between Mind and Matter - are Monism and Materialism. These two cover the whole ground of negative psychology with the exception of the quasi-occult views of the pantheistic German schools. [* Says the scholarly Vossius, in his Theol. Cir. I. VII.: "Though St. Augustine has said that every visible thing in this world had an angelic virtue as an overseer near it, it is not individuals but entire species of things that must be understood, each such species having indeed its particular angel to watch it. He is at one in this with all the philosophersB For us these angels are spirits separated from the objects whereas for the philosophers (pagan) they were gods. 'Considering the Ritual established by the Roman Catholic Church for "Spirits of the Stars," the latter look suspiciously like "Gods," and were no more honoured and prayed to by the ancient and modern pagan rabble than they are now at Rome by the highly cultured Catholic Christians.] [* Not of course in the sense of the German Materialist Moleschott, who assures us that "Thought is the movement of matter," a statement of almost unequalled absurdity. Mental states and bodily states are utterly contrasted as such. But that does not affect the position that every thought, in addition to its physical accompaniment (brain-change), exhibits an objective - though to us supersensuously objective aspect on the astral plane. (See "The Occult World," pp. 89, 90.)] 2) The views of our present-day scientific thinkers as to the relations between mind and matter may be reduced to two hypotheses. These show that both views equally exclude the possibility of an independent Soul, distinct from the physical brain through which it functions. They are: - (I.) MATERIALIS, the theory which regards mental phenomena as the product of molecular change in the brain; i.e., as the outcome of a transformation of motion into feeling (!). The cruder school once went so far as to identify mind with a "peculiar mode of motion" (!!), but this view is now happily regarded as absurd by most of the men of science themselves. (2.) MONISM, or the Single Substance Doctrine, is the more subtle form of negative psychology, which one of its advocates, Professor Bain, ably terms "guarded Materialism." This doctrine, which commands a very wide assent, counting among its upholders such men as Lewis, Spencer, Ferrier, and others, while positing thought and mental phenomena generally as radically contrasted with matter, regards both as equal to the two sides, or aspects, of one and the same substance in some of its conditions. Thought as thought, they say, is utterly contrasted with material phenomena, but it must be also regarded as only "the subjective side of nervous motion" - whatever our learned men may mean by this. [In the Egyptian temples, according to Clemens Alexandrinus, an immense curtain separated the tabernacle from the place for the congregation. The Jews had the same. In both, the curtain was drawn over five pillars (the Pentacle) symbolising our five senses and five Root-races esoterically, while the four colours of the curtain represented the four cardinal points and the four terrestrial elements. The whole was an allegorical symbol. It is through the four high Rulers over the four points and Elements that our five senses may become cognisant of the hidden truths of Nature; and not at all, as Clemens would have it, that it is the elements per se that furnished the Pagans with divine Knowledge or the knowledge of God. While the Egyptian emblem was spiritual, that of the Jews was purely materialistic, and, indeed, honoured only the blind Elements and the imaginary "Points." For what was the meaning of the square tabernacle raised by Moses in the wilderness, if it had not the same cosmical significance? "Thou shalt make an hangingB of blue, purple, and scarlet" and "five pillars of shittim wood for the hangingB four brazen rings in the four corners thereofB boards of fine wood for the four sides, North, South, West, and EastB of the TabernacleB with Cherubims of cunning work." (Exodus, ch. xxvi., xxvii.) The Tabernacle and the square courtyard, Cherubim and all, were precisely the same as those in the Egyptian temples. The square form of the Tabernacle meant just the same thing as it still means, to this day, in the exoteric worship of the Chinese and Tibetans - the four cardinal points signifying that which the four sides of the pyramids, obelisks, and other such square erections mean. Josephus takes care to explain the whole thing. He declares that the Tabernacle pillars are the same as those raised at Tyre to the four Elements, which were placed on pedestals whose four angles faced the four cardinal points: adding that "the angles of the pedestals had equally the four figures of the Zodiac" on them, which represented the same orientation (Antiquities, I. VIII, ch. xxii.). [* Thus the sentence, "Natura Elementorum obtinet revelationem Dei," (In Clemens's Stromata, R. IV., para. 6), is applicable to both or neither, Consult the Zends, vol II., p. 228, and Plutarch De Iside, as compared by Layard, Academie des Inscriptions, 1854, Vol XV.] The idea may be traced in the Zoroastrian caves, in the rock-cut temples of India, as in all the sacred square buildings of antiquity that have survived to this day. This is shown definitely by Layard, who finds the four cardinal points, and the four primitive elements, in the religion of every country, under the shape of square obelisks, the four sides of the pyramids, etc., etc. Of these elements and their points the four Maharajahs were the regents and the directors. If the student would know more of them, he has but to compare the Vision of Ezekiel (chap. i.) with what is known of Chinese Buddhism (even in its exoteric teachings); and examine the outward shape of these "Great Kings." In the opinion of the Rev. Joseph Edkins, they are "the Devas who preside each over one of the four continents into which the Hindus divide the world."Each leads an army of spiritual beings to protect mankind and Buddhism. With the exception of favouritism towards Buddhism, the four celestial beings are precisely this. They are the protectors of mankind and also the Agents of Karma on Earth, whereas the Lipika are concerned with Humanity's hereafter. At the same time they are the four living creatures "who have the likeness of a man" of Ezekiel's visions, called by the translators of the Bible, "Cherubim," "Seraphim," etc.; and by the Occultists, "the winged Globes," the "Fiery Wheels," and in the Hindu Pantheon by a number of different names. All these Gandharvas, the "Sweet Songsters," the Asuras, Kinnaras, and Nagas, are the allegorical descriptions of the "four Maharajahs." The Seraphim are the fiery Serpents of Heaven which we find in a passage describing Mount Meru as: "the exalted mass of glory, the venerable haunt of gods and heavenly choristersB. not to be reached by sinful menB. because guarded by Serpents." They are called the Avengers, and the "Winged Wheels." Their mission and character being explained, let us see what the Christian Bible-interpreters say of the Cherubim: - "The word signifies in Hebrew, fullness of knowledge; these angels are so called from their exquisite Knowledge, and were therefore used for the punishment of men who affected divine Knowledge." (Interpreted by Cruden in his Concordance, from Genesis iii., 24.) Very well; and vague as the information is, it shows that the Cherub placed at the gate of the garden of Eden after the "Fall," suggested to the venerable Interpreters the idea of punishment connected with forbidden Science or divine Knowledge - one that generally leads to another "Fall," that of the gods, or "God," in man's estimation. But as the good old Cruden knew nought of Karma, he may be forgiven. Yet the allegory is suggestive. From Meru, the abode of gods, to Eden, the distance is very small, and from the Hindu Serpents to the Ophite Cherubim, the third out of the seven of which was the Dragon, the separation is still smaller, for both watched the entrance to the realm of Secret Knowledge. But Ezekiel plainly describes the four Cosmic Angels: "I looked, and behold, a whirlwind, a cloud and fire infolding itB also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creaturesB they had the likeness of a man. And every one had four faces and four wingsB the face of a man, and the face of a lion, the face of an ox, and the face of an eagleB" ("Man" was here substituted for "Dragon." Compare the "Ophite Spirits."*)B" Now as I beheld the living creatures behold one wheel upon the Earth with his four facesB as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheelB for the support of the living creature was in the wheelB their appearance was like coals of fireB" etc. (Ezekiel, ch. i.) [* The Hindus happen to divide the world into seven continents, exoterically as esoterically; and their four cosmic Devas are eight, presiding over the eight points of the compass and not the Continents. (Compare "Chinese Buddhism," p. 216.)] There are three chief groups of Builders and as many of the Planetary Spirits and the Lipika, each group being again divided;; Seven sub-groups. It is impossible, even in such a large work as this, to enter into a minute examination of even the three principal groups, as it would demand an extra volume. The "Builders" are the representatives of the first "Mind-Born" Entities, therefore of the primeval Rishi-Prajapati: also of the Seven great Gods of Egypt, of which Osiris is the chief: of the Seven Amshaspends of the Zoroastrians, with Ormazd at their head: or the "Seven Spirits of the Face": the Seven Sephiroth separated from the first Triad, etc., etc. [* The Angels recognised by the Roman Catholic Church who correspond to these "Faces" were with the Ophites: - Dragon - Raphael; Lion - Michael; Bull, or ox - Uriel; and Eagle - Gabriel, The four keep company with the four Evangelists, and preface the Gospels.] They build or rather rebuild every "System" after the "Night." The Second group of the Builders is the Architect of our planetary chain exclusively; and the third, the progenitor of our Humanity - the Macrocosmic prototype of the microcosm. The Planetary Spirits are the informing spirits of the Stars in general, and of the Planets especially. They rule the destinies of men who are all born under one or other of their constellations; the second and third groups pertaining to other systems have the same functions, and all rule various departments in Nature. In the Hindu exoteric Pantheon they are the guardian deities who preside over the eight points of the compass - the four cardinal and the four intermediate points - and are called Loka-Palas," Supporters or guardians of the World" (in our visible Kosmos), of which Indra (East), Yama (South), Varuna (West), and Kuvera (North) are the chief; their elephants and their spouses pertaining of course to fancy and afterthought, though all of them have an occult significance. The Lipika (a description of whom is given in the Commentary on Stanza IV. No. 6) are the Spirits of the Universe, whereas the Builders are only our own planetary deities. The former belong to the most occult portion of Cosmogenesis, which cannot be given here. Whether the Adepts (even the highest) know this angelic order in the completeness of its triple degrees, or only the lower one connected with the records of our world, is something which the writer is unprepared to say, and she would incline rather to the latter supposition. Of its highest grade one thing only is taught: the Lipika are connected with Karma - being its direct Recorders. [* The Jews, save the Kabalists, having no names for East, West, South, and North, e&%$;; the idea by words signifying before, behind, right and left, and very often confounded the terms exoterically, thus making the blinds in the Bible more confused and difficult to interpret, Add to this the fact that out of the forty-seven translators of King James I. of England's Bible "only three understood Hebrew, and of these two died before the Psalms were translated" (Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia), and one may easily understand what reliance can be placed on the English version of the Bible. In this work the Douay Roman Catholic version is generally followed.] The Symbol for Sacred and Secret Knowledge was universally in antiquity, a Tree, by which a Scripture or a Record was also meant. Hence the word Lipika, the Writers or Scribes; the Dragons. symbols of Wisdom, who guard the Trees of Knowledge; the "golden" Apple-Tree of the Hesperides; the "Luxuriant Trees" and vegetation of Mount Meru, guarded by Serpents, Juno's giving Jupiter, on her marriage, a Tree with golden fruit, is another form of Eve offering Adam the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. STANZA V. - Continued. 6. THE LIPIKA CIRCUMSCRIBE THE TRIANGLE, THE FIRST ONE (the vertical line or the figure I.), THE CUBE, THE SECOND ONE, AND THE PENTACLE WITHIN THE EGG (circle) (a). IT IS THE RING CALLED "PASS NOT, FOR THOSE WHO DESCEND AND ASCEND (as also for those) WHO, DURING THE KALPA, ARE PROGRESSING TOWARD THE GREAT DAY "BE WITH US (b)B. THUS WERE FORMED THE ARUPA AND THE RUPA (the Formless World and the World of Forms); FROM ONE LIGHT SEVEN LIGHTS; FROM EACH OF THE SEVEN, SEVEN TIMES SEVEN LIGHTS. THE "WHEELS WATCH THE RING. The Stanza proceeds with a minute classification of the Orders From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 4 02:32:39 1996 Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 02:32:39 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - Secret Doctrine Stanza 5 commentary (in 2 parts) [2/2] References: Mime-Version: 1.0 of Angelic Hierarchy. From the group of Four and Seven emanates the "mind-born" group of Ten, of Twelve, of Twenty-one, etc., all these divided again into sub-groups of septenaries, novems, duodecimals, and so on, until the mind is lost in this endless enumeration of celestial hosts and Beings, each having its distinct task in the ruling of the visible Kosmos during its existence. (a) The esoteric meaning of the first sentence of the Sloka is, that those who have been called Lipikas, the Recorders of the Karmic ledger, make an impassible barrier between the personal EGO and the impersonal SELF, the Noumenon and Parent-Source of the former. Hence the allegory. They circumscribe the manifested world of matter within the RING "Pass-Not." This world is the symbol (objective) of the ONE divided into the many, on the planes of Illusion, of Adi (the "First") or of Eka (the "One"); and this One is the collective aggregate, or totality, of the principal Creators or Architects of this visible universe. In Hebrew Occultism their name is both Achath, feminine, "One," and Achod, "One" again but masculine. The monotheists have taken (and are still taking) advantage of the profound esotericism of the Kabala to apply the name by which the One Supreme Essence is known to ITS manifestation, the Sephiroth-Elohim, and call it Jehovah. But this is quite arbitrary and against all reason and logic, as the term Elohim is a plural noun, identical with the plural word Chiim, often compounded with the Elohim.* Moreover, in Occult metaphysics there are, properly speaking, two "ONES" - the One on the unreachable plane of Absoluteness and Infinity, on which no speculation is possible, and the Second '- One" on the plane of Emanations. The former can neither emanate nor be divided, as it is eternal, absolute, and immutable. The Second, being, so to speak, the reflection of the first One (for it is the Logos, or Eswara, in the Universe of Illusion), can do all this. It emanates from itself - as the upper Sephirothal Triad emanates the lower seven Sephiroth - the seven Rays or Dhyan Chohans; in other words, the Homogeneous becomes the Heterogeneous, the "Protyle" differentiates into the Elements. But these, unless they return into their primal Element, can never cross beyond the Laya, or zero-point. Hence the allegory. The Lipika separate the world (or plane) of pure spirit from that of Matter. Those who "descend and ascend" - the incarnating Monads, and men striving towards purification and "ascending," but still not having quite reached the goal - may cross the "circle of the Pass-Not," only on the day "Be-With-Us"; that day when man, freeing himself from the trammels of ignorance, and recognising fully the non-separateness of the Ego within his personality - erroneously regarded as his own - from the UNIVERSAL EGO (Anima Supra-Mundi), merges thereby into the One Essence to become not only one "with us" (the manifested universal lives which are "ONE" LIFE), but that very life itself. [* The sentence in the Sepher Jezirah and elsewhere: "Achath-Ruach-Elohim-Chiim" "denotes the Elohim as androgynous at best, the feminine element almost predominating, as it would read: "ONE" is She the Spirit of the Elohim of Life." As said above, Echath (or Achath) is feminine, and Echod (or Achod) masculine, both meaning ONE t This metaphysical tenet can hardly be better described than Mr. Subba Row's in "Bhagavadgita" lectures: "Mulaprakiti (the veil of Parabrahmam) acts as the one energy through the Logos (or 'Eswara'). Now Parabrahmam, is the one essence from which starts into existence a centre of energy, which I shall for the present call the LogosB. It is called the VerbumB by the Christians, and it is the divine Christos who is eternal in the bosom of his father. It is called Avalokiteshwara by the BuddhistsB. In almost every doctrine, they have formulated the existence of a centre of spiritual energy which is unborn and eternal, and which exists in the bosom of Parabrahmam at the time of Pralaya, and starts as a centre of conscious energy at the time of Cosmic activityB." For, as the lecturer premised by saying, Parabraham is not this or that, it is not even consciousness, as it cannot be related to matter or anything conditioned. It is not Ego nor is it Non-ego, not even Atma, but verily the one source of all manifestations and modes of existence.] Astronomically, the "Ring PASS-NOT" that the Lipika trace around the Triangle, the First One, the Cube, the Second One, and the Pentacle to circumscribe these figures, is thus shown to contain the symbol of 31415 again, or the coefficient constantly used in mathematical tables (the value of pi), the geometrical figures standing here for numerical figures. According to the general philosophical teachings, this ring is beyond the region of what are called nebulae in astronomy. But this is as erroneous a conception as that of the topography and the descriptions, given in Puranic and other exoteric Scriptures, about the 1008 worlds of the Devaloka worlds and firmaments. There are worlds, of course, in the esoteric as well as in the profane scientific teachings, at such incalculable distances that the light of the nearest of them which has just reached our modern Chaldees, had left its luminary long before the day on which the words "Let there be Light" were pronounced; but these are no worlds on the Devaloka plane, but in our Kosmos. The chemist goes to the laya or zero point of the plane of matter with which he deals, and then stops short. The physicist or the astronomer counts by billions of miles beyond the nebulae, and then they also stop short; the semi-initiated Occultist will represent this laya-point to himself as existing on some plane which, if not physical, is still conceivable to the human intellect. But the full Initiate knows that the ring "Pass-Not" is neither a locality nor can it be measured by distance, but that it exists in the absoluteness of infinity. In this "Infinity" of the full Initiate there is neither height, breadth nor thickness, but all is fathomless profundity, reaching down from the physical to the "para-para-metaphysical." In using the word "down," essential depth - "nowhere and everywhere" - is meant, not depth of physical matter. If one searches carefully through the exoteric and grossly anthropomorphic allegories of popular religions, even in these the doctrine embodied in the circle of "Pass-Not" thus guarded by the Lipika, may be dimly perceived. Thus one finds it even in the teachings of the Vedantin sect of the Visishtadwaita, the most tenaciously anthropomorphic in all India. For we read of the released soul that: - After reaching Moksha (a state of bliss meaning "release from Bandha" or bondage), bliss is enjoyed by it in a place called PARAMAPADHA, which place is not material, but made of Suddasatwa (the essence, of which the body of Iswara - "the Lord" - is formed). There, Muktas or Jivatmas (Monads) who have attained Moksha, are never again subject to the qualities of either matter or Karma. "But if they choose, for the sake of doing good to the world, they may incarnate on Earth." The way to Paramapadha, or the immaterial worlds, from this world, is called Devayana. When a person has attained Moksha and the body dies: - "The Jiva (Soul) goes with Sukshma Sarira(2) from the heart of the body, to the Brahmarandra in the crown of the head, traversing Sushumna, a nerve connecting the heart with the Brahmarandra The Jiva breaks through the Brahmarandra and goes to the region of the Sun (Suryamandala) through the solar Rays. Then it goes, through a dark spot in the Sun, to Paramapadha. The Jiva is directed on its way by the Supreme Wisdom acquired by Yoga.(3) The Jiva thus proceeds to Paramapadha by the aid of Athivahikas (bearers in transit), known by the names of Archi-AhasB Aditya, Prajapati, etc. The Archis here mentioned are certain pure Souls, etc., etc." (Visishtadwaita (Catechism, by Pundit Bhashyacharya, F.T.S.) No Spirit except the "Recorders" (Lipika) has ever crossed its forbidden line, nor will any do so until the day of the next Pralaya, for it is the boundary that separates the finite - however infinite in man's sight - from the truly INFINITE. The Spirits referred to, therefore, as those who "ascend and descend" are the "Hosts" of what we loosely call "celestial Beings." But they are, in fact, nothing of the kind. [* These voluntary re-incarnations are referred to in our Doctrine as Nirmanakayas (the surviving spiritual principles of men).] [(2) Sukshma-sarira, "dream-like" illusive body, with which are clothed the inferior Dhyanis of the celestial Hierarchy.] [(3) Compare this esoteric tenet with the Gnostic doctrine found in "Pistis-Sophia" (Knowledge=Wisdom), in which treatise Sophia Achamoth is shown lost in the waters of Chaos (matter), on her way to Supreme Light, and Christos delivering and helping her on the right Path. Note well, Christos with the Gnostics meant the impersonal principal, the Atman of the Universe, and the Atma within every man's soul - not Jesus; though in the old Coptic MSS. in the British Museum Christos "is almost constantly replaced by "Jesus."] They are Entities of the higher worlds in the hierarchy of Being, so immeasurably high that, to us, they must appear as Gods, and collectively - GOD. But so we, mortal men, must appear to the ant, which reasons on the scale of its special capacities. The ant may also, for all we know, see the avenging finger of a personal God in the hand of the urchin who, in one moment, under the impulse of mischief, destroys its anthill, the labour of many weeks - long years in the chronology of insects. The ant, feeling it acutely, and attributing the undeserved calamity to a combination of Providence and sin, may also, like man, see in it the result of the sin of its first parent. Who knows and who can affirm or deny? The refusal to admit in the whole Solar system of any other reasonable and intellectual beings on the human plane, than ourselves, is the greatest conceit of our age. All that science has a right to affirm, is that there are no invisible Intelligences living under the same conditions as we do. It cannot deny point-blank the possibility of there being worlds within worlds, under totally different conditions to those that constitute the nature of our world; nor can it deny that there may be a certain limited communication* between some of those worlds and our own. To the highest, we are taught, belong the seven orders of the purely divine Spirits; to the six lower ones belong hierarchies that can occasionally be seen and heard by men, and who do communicate with their progeny of the Earth; which progeny is indissolubly linked with them, each principle in man having its direct source in the nature of those great Beings, who furnish us with the respective invisible elements in us. Physical Science is welcome to speculate upon the physiological mechanism of living beings, and to continue her fruitless efforts in trying to resolve our feelings, our sensations, mental and spiritual, into functions of their inorganic vehicles. Nevertheless, all that will ever be accomplished in this direction has already been done, and Science will go no farther. [* The greatest philosopher of European birth, Imanuel Kant, assures us that such a communication is in no way improbable. "I confess I am much disposed to assert the existence of Immaterial natures in the world, and to place my own soul in the class of these beings. It will hereafter, I know not where, or when, yet be proved that the human soul stands even in this life in indissoluble connection with all immaterial natures in the spirit-world, that it reciprocally acts upon these and receives impressions from them," (Traume eines Geistersehers, quoted by C. C. Massey, in his preface to Von Hartmann's "Spiritismus.")] She is before a dead wall, on the face of which she traces, as she imagines, great physiological and psychic discoveries, but every one of which will be shown later on to be no better than the cobwebs spun by her scientific fancies and illusions. The tissues of our objective framework alone are subservient to the analysis and researches of physiological science.' The six higher principles in them will evade for ever the hand that is guided by an animus that purposely ignores and rejects the Occult Sciences. The "Great Day of BE-WITH-US," then, is an expression the only merit of which lies in its literal translation. Its significance is not so easily revealed to a public, unacquainted with the mystic tenets of Occultism, or rather of Esoteric Wisdom or "Budhism." It is an expression peculiar to the latter, and as hazy for the profane as that of the Egyptians who called the same the "Day of COME-TO-US,"(2) which is identical with the former, though the verb "be" in this sense, might be still better replaced with either of the two words "Remain" or "Rest-with-us," as it refers to that long period of REST which is called Paranirvana. As in the exoteric interpretation of the Egyptian rites the soul of every defunct person - from the Hierophant down to the sacred hull Apis - became an Osiris, was Osirified, though the Secret Doctrine had always taught, that the real Osirification was the lot of every Monad only after 3,000 cycles of Existences; so in the present case. The "Monad," born of the nature and the very Essence of the "Seven" (its highest principle becoming immediately enshrined in the Seventh Cosmic Element), has to perform its septenary gyration throughout the Cycle of Being and forms, from the highest to the lowest; and then again from man to God. At the threshold of Paranirvana it reassumes its primeval Essence and becomes the Absolute once more. [* E.g., all that modern physiological research in connection with psychological problems has, and owing to the nature of things. could have shown, is, that every thought, sensation, and emotion is attended with a re-marshalling of the molecules of certain nerves. The inference drawn by scientists of the type of Buchner, Vogt, and others. that thought is molecular motion, necessitates a complete abstraction being made of the fact of our subjective consciousness. (2) See "Le Livre des Morts," by Paul Pierret; "Le Jour de Viens a nous c'est le jour ou Osiris a dit au Soleil: Viens! Je le vois rencontrant le Soleil dans l'Amenti." (Chap. xvii., p. 61.) The Sun here stands for the Logos (or Christos, or Horus) as central Essence synthetically, and as a diffused essence of radiated Entities, different in substance, but not in essence. As expressed by the Bhagavadgita lecturer, "it must not be supposed that the Logos is but a single centre of energy manifested from Parabrahmam; there are innumerable other centresB and their number is almost infinite in the bosom of Parabrahmam." Hence the expressions, "The Day of Come to us" and "The Day of Be with us," etc. Just as the square is the Symbol of the Four sacred Forces or Powers - Tetraktis - so the Circle shows the boundary within the Infinity that no man can cross, even in spirit, nor Deva nor Dhyan Chohan. The Spirits of those who "descend and ascend" during the course of cyclic evolution shall cross the "iron-bound world" only on the day of their approach to the threshold of Paranirvana. If they reach it - they will rest in the bosom of Parabrahmam, or the "Unknown Darkness," which shall then become for all of them Light - during the whole period of Mahapralaya, the "Great Night," namely, 311,040,000,000,000 years of absorption in Brahm. The day of "Be-With-Us" is this period of rest or Paranirvana. See also for other data on this peculiar expression, the day of "Come-To-Us," The Funerary Ritual of the Egyptians, by Viscount de Rouge. It corresponds to the Day of the Last Judgment of the Christians, which has been sorely materialised by their religion.] --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From nlporreco@bpa.gov Tue Mar 5 18:42:00 1996 Date: Tue, 05 Mar 96 10:42:00 PST From: "Porreco, Nick - CPMQ" Subject: appropriate apologies for the sins of the fathers Message-Id: <313C8B52@mortar.bpa.gov> Encoding: 22 TEXT This is a quote from Dudley Young's book "Origins of the Sacred, The Ecstasies of Love and War" Mr. Young is a professor at the University of Essex in England and teaches in the Department of English, and has authored the book "Out of Ireland: The Poetry of W. B. Yeats". As most of you know W. B. Yeats was a Theosophist during his life as well as a member of the Golden Dawn. The following quote is from page xiii of the Preface and Acknowledgments and deals with a subject that a lot of women of the TS have a problem with, I hope that this will help: "The other point concerns the implicit sexism of words such as mankind and human, both of which shorten to man taking the pronoun he. It is absolutely clear to my mind that Adam's rib is embedded in the linguistic structure (event though the word man goes back to Sanskrit manus, which before it meant mind, meant born of woman), and equally clear to my ear that there is no way of correcting the fault without falling into circumlocution and cacophany. But just as B.C. and A.D. began preemptively and have now arguably become innocuous, so the use of man for all of us can eventually be neutered (or at least house-trained) if authors who must employ it remember their Sanskrit and proffer appropriate apologies for the sins of the fathers in their prefaces." From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 5 23:53:43 1996 Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 23:53:43 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: <3wkjYZAHQNPxEwQa@nellie2.demon.co.uk> Subject: sins of the fathers (and many of the sons) In-Reply-To: <313C8B52@mortar.bpa.gov> Mime-Version: 1.0 In message <313C8B52@mortar.bpa.gov>, "Porreco, Nick - CPMQ" writes >>>snip<<< >"The other point concerns the implicit sexism of words such as mankind and >human, both of which shorten to man taking the pronoun he. It is absolutely >clear to my mind that Adam's rib is embedded in the linguistic structure >(event though the word man goes back to Sanskrit manus, which before it >meant mind, meant born of woman), and equally clear to my ear that there is >no way of correcting the fault without falling into circumlocution and >cacophany. But just as B.C. and A.D. began preemptively and have now >arguably become innocuous, so the use of man for all of us can eventually be >neutered (or at least house-trained) if authors who must employ it remember >their Sanskrit and proffer appropriate apologies for the sins of the fathers >in their prefaces." B.C. and A.D. have long since been *replaced* in academic circles by C.E. (common era) and B.C.E. (before common era). This is because the older terms were found *not* to be innocuous, not least to the the Jewish population. Also, circumlocutions around the outdated terminology are fairly simple, and newer writers will begin to discover that what began as a circumlocution becomes the norm. For example, I set out to revise my own "Keys to Kabbalah" in such a way as to use inclusive language throughout the entire text. It wasn't hard, and there is no suggestion of sexism left in it to the best of my knowledge. And I did not need to resort to explanations about sanskrit "manus" or any other language - I just rearranged the existing English! (Nick's original post appeared on theos-roots) Alan, contra sexism. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From alexei@slip.net Wed Mar 6 19:56:00 1996 Date: Wed, 6 Mar 96 11:56 PST From: alexis dolgorukii Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Hooray for Alan At 12:25 AM 3/6/96 -0500, you wrote: >In message <313C8B52@mortar.bpa.gov>, "Porreco, Nick - CPMQ" > writes > >>>>snip<<< > >>>>>>snipity snip<<<<< > >B.C. and A.D. have long since been *replaced* in academic circles by >C.E. (common era) and B.C.E. (before common era). This is because the >older terms were found *not* to be innocuous, not least to the the >Jewish population. Alexis writes: Alan, that's true, I don't think any reputable historian (at least no one I've read recently, and that's a lot), and few authors today use the old terms. It doesn't only insult the Jewish Population but that entire majority of human kind who aren't Christian. "B.C." and "A.D." are hardly innocuous. > >Also, circumlocutions around the outdated terminology are fairly simple, >and newer writers will begin to discover that what began as a >circumlocution becomes the norm. For example, I set out to revise my >own "Keys to Kabbalah" in such a way as to use inclusive language >throughout the entire text. It wasn't hard, and there is no suggestion >of sexism left in it to the best of my knowledge. And I did not need to >resort to explanations about sanskrit "manus" or any other language - I >just rearranged the existing English! Alexis writes: I try very hard to do the same thing in my own writing and I too have discovered it's really quite easy and doesn't need to result in linguistic barbarisms. The thing to do is be a careful language user and not politically correct. It's all too easy to say "that's how it is, we'll have to put up with it", but basically I question the motivations of those who won't even attempt to clean up their linguistic act. I am male so it's no skin off my nose, but I care tremendously about those who find it hurtful. >(Nick's original post appeared on theos-roots) > >Alan, contra sexism. >--------- >THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: >Ancient Wisdom for a New Age > alexis dolgorukii, contra "isms" in general member T.I.> From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 7 01:14:21 1996 Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 01:14:21 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: NO MAIL FOR BAIN Mime-Version: 1.0 NO MAIL is getting to guru@nellie2.demon.co.uk from theos-l (Dr.A.M.Bain) HELP HELP HELP Alan --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From am455@lafn.org Wed Mar 6 20:16:12 1996 Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 12:16:12 -0800 From: am455@lafn.org (Nicholas Weeks) Message-Id: <199603062016.AA24224@lafn.org> Subject: Plotinus 1 Reply-To: am455@lafn.org The Six Enneads [excerpts] BY PLOTINUS Written 250 A.D. Translated By Stephen Mackenna And B. S. Page THE FIRST ENNEAD - SIXTH TRACTATE BEAUTY. [...] 2. Let us, then, go back to the source, and indicate at once the Principle that bestows beauty on material things. Undoubtedly this Principle exists; it is something that is perceived at the first glance, something which the soul names as from an ancient knowledge and, recognising, welcomes it, enters into unison with it. But let the soul fall in with the Ugly and at once it shrinks within itself, denies the thing, turns away from it, not accordant, resenting it. Our interpretation is that the soul- by the very truth of its nature, by its affiliation to the noblest Existents in the hierarchy of Being- when it sees anything of that kin, or any trace of that kinship, thrills with an immediate delight, takes its own to itself, and thus stirs anew to the sense of its nature and of all its affinity. [...] 4. But there are earlier and loftier beauties than these. In the sense-bound life we are no longer granted to know them, but the soul, taking no help from the organs, sees and proclaims them. To the vision of these we must mount, leaving sense to its own low place. As it is not for those to speak of the graceful forms of the material world who have never seen them or known their grace- men born blind, let us suppose- in the same way those must be silent upon the beauty of noble conduct and of learning and all that order who have never cared for such things, nor may those tell of the splendour of virtue who have never known the face of Justice and of Moral-Wisdom beautiful beyond the beauty of Evening and of dawn. Such vision is for those only who see with the Soul's sight- and at the vision, they will rejoice, and awe will fall upon them and a trouble deeper than all the rest could ever stir, for now they are moving in the realm of Truth. This is the spirit that Beauty must ever induce, wonderment and a delicious trouble, longing and love and a trembling that is all delight. For the unseen all this may be felt as for the seen; and this the Souls feel for it, every soul in some degree, but those the more deeply that are the more truly apt to this higher love- just as all take delight in the beauty of the body but all are not stung as sharply, and those only that feel the keener wound are known as Lovers. 5. These Lovers, then, lovers of the beauty outside of sense, must be made to declare themselves. What do you feel in presence of the grace you discern in actions, in manners, in sound morality, in all the works and fruits of virtue, in the beauty of souls? When you see that you yourselves are beautiful within, what do you feel? What is this Dionysiac exultation that thrills through your being, this straining upwards of all your Soul, this longing to break away from the body and live sunken within the veritable self? These are no other than the emotions of Souls under the spell of love. But what is it that awakens all this passion? No shape, no colour, no grandeur of mass: all is for a Soul, something whose beauty rests upon no colour, for the moral wisdom the Soul enshrines and all the other hueless splendour of the virtues. It is that you find in yourself, or admire in another, loftiness of spirit; righteousness of life; disciplined purity; courage of the majestic face; gravity; modesty that goes fearless and tranquil and passionless; and, shining down upon all, the light of god-like Intellection. All these noble qualities are to be reverenced and loved, no doubt, but what entitles them to be called beautiful? They exist: they manifest themselves to us: anyone that sees them must admit that they have reality of Being; and is not Real-Being, really beautiful? But we have not yet shown by what property in them they have wrought the Soul to loveliness: what is this grace, this splendour as of Light, resting upon all the virtues? Let us take the contrary, the ugliness of the Soul, and set that against its beauty: to understand, at once, what this ugliness is and how it comes to appear in the Soul will certainly open our way before us. Let us then suppose an ugly Soul, dissolute, unrighteous: teeming with all the lusts; torn by internal discord; beset by the fears of its cowardice and the envies of its pettiness; thinking, in the little thought it has, only of the perish able and the base; perverse in all its the friend of unclean pleasures; living the life of abandonment to bodily sensation and delighting in its deformity. What must we think but that all this shame is something that has gathered about the Soul, some foreign bane outraging it, soiling it, so that, encumbered with all manner of turpitude, it has no longer a clean activity or a clean sensation, but commands only a life smouldering dully under the crust of evil; that, sunk in manifold death, it no longer sees what a Soul should see, may no longer rest in its own being, dragged ever as it is towards the outer, the lower, the dark? An unclean thing, I dare to say; flickering hither and thither at the call of objects of sense, deeply infected with the taint of body, occupied always in Matter, and absorbing Matter into itself; in its commerce with the Ignoble it has trafficked away for an alien nature its own essential Idea. If a man has been immersed in filth or daubed with mud his native comeliness disappears and all that is seen is the foul stuff besmearing him: his ugly condition is due to alien matter that has encrusted him, and if he is to win back his grace it must be his business to scour and purify himself and make himself what he was. So, we may justly say, a Soul becomes ugly- by something foisted upon it, by sinking itself into the alien, by a fall, a descent into body, into Matter. The dishonour of the Soul is in its ceasing to be clean and apart. Gold is degraded when it is mixed with earthy particles; if these be worked out, the gold is left and is beautiful, isolated from all that is foreign, gold with gold alone. And so the Soul; let it be but cleared of the desires that come by its too intimate converse with the body, emancipated from all the passions, purged of all that embodiment has thrust upon it, withdrawn, a solitary, to itself again- in that moment the ugliness that came only from the alien is stripped away. [...] 7. Therefore we must ascend again towards the Good, the desired of every Soul. Anyone that has seen This, knows what I intend when I say that it is beautiful. Even the desire of it is to be desired as a Good. To attain it is for those that will take the upward path, who will set all their forces towards it, who will divest themselves of all that we have put on in our descent... [...] 8. But what must we do? How lies the path? How come to vision of the inaccessible Beauty, dwelling as if in consecrated precincts, apart from the common ways where all may see, even the profane? He that has the strength, let him arise and withdraw into himself, foregoing all that is known by the eyes, turning away for ever from the material beauty that once made his joy. When he perceives those shapes of grace that show in body, let him not pursue: he must know them for copies, vestiges, shadows, and hasten away towards That they tell of. For if anyone follow what is like a beautiful shape playing over water- is there not a myth telling in symbol of such a dupe, how he sank into the depths of the current and was swept away to nothingness? So too, one that is held by material beauty and will not break free shall be precipitated, not in body but in Soul, down to the dark depths loathed of the Intellective-Being, where, blind even in the Lower-World, he shall have commerce only with shadows, there as here. "Let us flee then to the beloved Fatherland": this is the soundest counsel. But what is this flight? How are we to gain the open sea? For Odysseus is surely a parable to us when he commands the flight from the sorceries of Circe or Calypso- not content to linger for all the pleasure offered to his eyes and all the delight of sense filling his days. The Fatherland to us is There whence we have come, and There is The Father. What then is our course, what the manner of our flight? This is not a journey for the feet; the feet bring us only from land to land; nor need you think of coach or ship to carry you away; all this order of things you must set aside and refuse to see: you must close the eyes and call instead upon another vision which is to be waked within you, a vision, the birth-right of all, which few turn to use. 9. And this inner vision, what is its operation? Newly awakened it is all too feeble to bear the ultimate splendour. Therefore the Soul must be trained- to the habit of remarking, first, all noble pursuits, then the works of beauty produced not by the labour of the arts but by the virtue of men known for their goodness: lastly, you must search the souls of those that have shaped these beautiful forms. But how are you to see into a virtuous soul and know its loveliness? Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendour of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine. When you know that you have become this perfect work, when you are self-gathered in the purity of your being, nothing now remaining that can shatter that inner unity, nothing from without clinging to the authentic man, when you find yourself wholly true to your essential nature, wholly that only veritable Light which is not measured by space, not narrowed to any circumscribed form nor again diffused as a thing void of term, but ever unmeasurable as something greater than all measure and more than all quantity- when you perceive that you have grown to this, you are now become very vision: now call up all your confidence, strike forward yet a step- you need a guide no longer- strain, and see. This is the only eye that sees the mighty Beauty. If the eye that adventures the vision be dimmed by vice, impure, or weak, and unable in its cowardly blenching to see the uttermost brightness, then it sees nothing even though another point to what lies plain to sight before it. To any vision must be brought an eye adapted to what is to be seen, and having some likeness to it. Never did eye see the sun unless it had first become sunlike, and never can the soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful. Therefore, first let each become godlike and each beautiful who cares to see God and Beauty. So, mounting, the Soul will come first to the Intellectual-Principle and survey all the beautiful Ideas in the Supreme and will avow that this is Beauty, that the Ideas are Beauty. For by their efficacy comes all Beauty else, but the offspring and essence of the Intellectual-Being. What is beyond the Intellectual-Principle we affirm to be the nature of Good radiating Beauty before it. So that, treating the Intellectual-Kosmos as one, the first is the Beautiful: if we make distinction there, the Realm of Ideas constitutes the Beauty of the Intellectual Sphere; and The Good, which lies beyond, is the Fountain at once and Principle of Beauty: the Primal Good and the Primal Beauty have the one dwelling-place and, thus, always, Beauty's seat is There. _________________________________________________________________ -- Nicholas <> am455@lafn.org <> Los Angeles First of all, love truth for its own sake, for otherwise no recognition of it will follow. HP Blavatsky From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 7 01:14:21 1996 Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 01:14:21 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: NO MAIL FOR BAIN Mime-Version: 1.0 NO MAIL is getting to guru@nellie2.demon.co.uk from theos-l (Dr.A.M.Bain) HELP HELP HELP Alan --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From guru@nellie2.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 7 01:09:50 1996 Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 01:09:50 +0000 From: "Dr. A.M.Bain" Message-Id: <3uhB3MAedjPxEwRi@nellie2.demon.co.uk> Subject: NO MAILNO MAIL NO MAIL NO MAIL NO MAIL Mime-Version: 1.0 Dear all, I AM GETTING NO MAIL WHATEVER from theos-l. listproc commands work, and I just in desperation received three complete days' postings, including replies to some of my own. I have e-mailed John Mead about the problem, as I am getting the other lists as usual, but I have heard nothing. I just dunno what to do! Anyone near enough to John to give him a call? Will this even help? obviously the system recognises me, or it would reject my "get" requests, but it doesn't. I got a complete index no trouble, as well as the three days' mail just mentioned - but why no regular daily mail? I just don't understand. HELP! In the meantime, I will be grateful to anyone who adds a cc: for guru@nellie2.demon.co.uk TIA Alan --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From liesel@dreamscape.com Fri Mar 8 01:06:55 1996 Date: Thu, 07 Mar 1996 20:06:55 -0500 From: liesel@dreamscape.com (liesel f. deutsch) Message-Id: <199603080106.UAA11609@future.dreamscape.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: NO MAILNO MAIL NO MAIL NO MAIL NO MAIL Dear Alan, If this gets to you. John Mead is often out of town, He'll respond. See if this gets to you. Liesel ........................................................................... >Dear all, > >I AM GETTING NO MAIL WHATEVER from theos-l. listproc commands work, and >I just in desperation received three complete days' postings, including >replies to some of my own. I have e-mailed John Mead about the problem, >as I am getting the other lists as usual, but I have heard nothing. > >I just dunno what to do! Anyone near enough to John to give him a call? >Will this even help? obviously the system recognises me, or it would >reject my "get" requests, but it doesn't. I got a complete index no >trouble, as well as the three days' mail just mentioned - but why no >regular daily mail? I just don't understand. HELP! > >In the meantime, I will be grateful to anyone who adds a cc: for >guru@nellie2.demon.co.uk > >TIA > >Alan >--------- >THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: >Ancient Wisdom for a New Age > > From am455@lafn.org Thu Mar 7 23:15:27 1996 Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 15:15:27 -0800 From: am455@lafn.org (Nicholas Weeks) Message-Id: <199603072315.AA24964@lafn.org> Subject: Plotinus 2 Reply-To: am455@lafn.org The Six Enneads BY PLOTINUS Written 250 A.D. Translated By Stephen Mackenna And B. S. Page _________________________________________________________________ THE FOURTH ENNEAD - SEVENTH TRACTATE [excerpts] THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 1. Whether every human being is immortal or we are wholly destroyed, or whether something of us passes over to dissolution and destruction, while something else, that which is the true man, endures for ever - this question will be answered here for those willing to investigate our nature. We know that man is not a thing of one only element; he has a soul and he has, whether instrument or adjunct in some other mode, a body: this is the first distinction; it remains to investigate the nature and essential being of these two constituents. [...] The sovereign principle, the authentic man, will be as Form to this Matter or as agent to this instrument, and thus, whatever that relation be, the soul is the man. 2. [...] Body - not merely because it is a composite, but even were it simplex - could not exist unless there were soul in the universe, for body owes its being to the entrance of a Reason-Principle into Matter, and only from soul can a Reason-Principle come. 3. Anyone who rejects this view, and holds that either atoms or some entities void of part coming together produce soul, is refuted by the very unity of soul and by the prevailing sympathy as much as by the very coherence of the constituents. Bodily materials, in nature repugnant to unification and to sensation, could never produce unity or self-sensitiveness, and soul is self-sensitive. And, again, constituents void of part could never produce body or bulk. [...] 6. It is easy to show that if the Soul were a corporeal entity, there could be no sense-perception, no mental act, no knowledge, no moral excellence, nothing of all that is noble. There can be no perception without a unitary percipient whose identity enables it to grasp an object as an entirety. [...] The substantial existence of the soul, then, does not depend upon serving as Form to anything: it is an Essence which does not come into being by finding a seat in body; it exists before it becomes also the soul of some particular, for example, of a living being, whose body would by this doctrine be the author of its soul. What, then, is the soul's Being? If it is neither body nor a state or experience of body, but is act and creation: if it holds much and gives much, and is an existence outside of body; of what order and character must it be? Clearly it is what we describe as Veritable Essence. The other order, the entire corporeal Kind, is process; it appears and it perishes; in reality it never possesses Being, but is merely protected, in so far as it has the capacity, by participating in what authentically is. 9. (14) Over against that body, stands the principle which is self-caused, which is all that neither enters into being nor passes away, the principle whose dissolution would mean the end of all things never to be restored if once this had ceased to be, the sustaining principle of things individually, and of this kosmos, which owes its maintenance and its ordered system to the soul. This is the starting point of motion and becomes the leader and provider of motion to all else: it moves by its own quality, and every living material form owes life to this principle, which of itself lives in a life that, being essentially innate, can never fail. Not all things can have a life merely at second hand; this would give an infinite series: there must be some nature which, having life primally, shall be of necessity indestructible, immortal, as the source of life to all else that lives. This is the point at which all that is divine and blessed must be situated, living and having being of itself, possessing primal being and primal life, and in its own essence rejecting all change, neither coming to be nor passing away. [...] If the purification puts the human into knowledge of the highest, then, too, the science latent within becomes manifest, the only authentic knowing. For it is not by running hither and thither outside of itself that the soul understands morality and right conduct: it learns them of its own nature, in its contact with itself, in its intellectual grasp of itself, seeing deeply impressed upon it the images of its primal state; what was one mass of rust from long neglect it has restored to purity. Imagine living gold: it files away all that is earthy about it, all that kept it in self-ignorance preventing it from knowing itself as gold; seen now unalloyed it is at once filled with admiration of its worth and knows that it has no need of any other glory than its own, triumphant if only it be allowed to remain purely to itself. 11. (16) What intelligent mind can doubt the immortality of such a value, one in which there is a life self-springing and therefore not to be destroyed? [...] 15. (20) Thus far we have offered the considerations appropriate to those asking for demonstration: those whose need is conviction by evidence of the more material order are best met from the abundant records relevant to the subject: there are also the oracles of the Gods ordering the appeasing of wronged souls and the honouring of the dead as still sentient, a practice common to all mankind: and again, not a few souls, once among men, have continued to serve them after quitting the body and by revelations, practically helpful, make clear, as well, that the other souls, too, have not ceased to be. _________________________________________________________________ The Tech Classics Archive -- Nicholas <> am455@lafn.org <> Los Angeles First of all, love truth for its own sake, for otherwise no recognition of it will follow. HP Blavatsky From Drpsionic@aol.com Fri Mar 8 04:59:18 1996 Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 23:59:18 -0500 From: Drpsionic@aol.com Message-Id: <960307235917_163215694@emout06.mail.aol.com> Subject: Re: NO MAIL FOR BAIN Alan, Good grief! You are yelping louder than my ex-girlfriend did when I tied her to the sawmill. (tee hee hee) :-) Chuck MTI Heretic Troublemaker President Local 12, Villains, Thieves and Scoundrels Union From alexei@slip.net Fri Mar 8 08:06:00 1996 Date: Fri, 8 Mar 96 00:06 PST From: alexis dolgorukii Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Ditto here! At 01:50 AM 3/7/96 -0500, you wrote: >>>>>>>snip<<<<<<<< > >Alan >--------- >THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: >Ancient Wisdom for a New Age > >Alan: The same is true here. Either I get a "Sorry you have no mail" message or I get one or two messages (not always for me). Tonight, for instance, I got 4 messages , your's was the first on the list. Though I saw another which I assume was complaining about last night's attempt at humor. I do have John Mead's phone number. He's 3,000 miles from me, but I'll try to reach him. Last time I tried, during a period I couldn't get any mail, the number I have got me the answering devoice at his theosphical study group in Virginai Beach. Paul Johnson is the nearest person to him and he spends a lot of time in Virginia Beach. I have his number and if this continues, and I am unsuccessful at reaching John Mead, I'll call Paul. I do not think we've been ostracized. BTW I noticed that one of the messages was from Liesel Deutch and it also said NO MAIL, NO MAIL. So I assume we're all in the same pickle. It is clear that we can receive mail sent directly to us instead of through the list. So we can keep in touch that way. I've come to look forward to our regular contacts. I'll try to get the bio out in Saturday's mail. fondly Alexis From jem@vnet.net Fri Mar 8 17:45:12 1996 Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 12:45:12 -0500 From: jem@vnet.net (John E. Mead) Message-Id: <199603081745.MAA06728@lys.vnet.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: Ditto here! hi - try resubscribing to theos-l. (you may have to signoff first via the command signoff theos-l (no name needed) subscribe theos-l firstname lastname we seem to get this problem when I remove people (per their request) using a system command. it seems to clobber a few people occassionally. not sure if it is a listserv error or an error on my part (i.e. system manager stupidity :-) peace - john mead ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- John E. Mead jem@vnet.net Member of Theosophy International [Physics is impossible without imaginary numbers] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From liesel@dreamscape.com Sat Mar 9 02:16:07 1996 Date: Fri, 08 Mar 1996 21:16:07 -0500 From: liesel@dreamscape.com (liesel f. deutsch) Message-Id: <199603090214.VAA11381@future.dreamscape.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: Ditto here! Alexis, I've been getting mail, well, my outgoing has been cut off in spurts, but I thought that was Dreamscape. Hope you saw John Mead's message. He said to unsubscribe & then suscribe again, & he doesn't know who's at fault Vnet.net or himself. Liesel ......................................................................... >At 01:50 AM 3/7/96 -0500, you wrote: >>>>>>>>snip<<<<<<<< >> >>Alan >>--------- >>THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: >>Ancient Wisdom for a New Age >> >>Alan: > >The same is true here. Either I get a "Sorry you have no mail" message or I >get one or two messages (not always for me). Tonight, for instance, I got 4 >messages , your's was the first on the list. Though I saw another which I >assume was complaining about last night's attempt at humor. > >I do have John Mead's phone number. He's 3,000 miles from me, but I'll try >to reach him. Last time I tried, during a period I couldn't get any mail, >the number I have got me the answering devoice at his theosphical study >group in Virginai Beach. Paul Johnson is the nearest person to him and he >spends a lot of time in Virginia Beach. I have his number and if this >continues, and I am unsuccessful at reaching John Mead, I'll call Paul. > >I do not think we've been ostracized. BTW I noticed that one of the messages >was from Liesel Deutch and it also said NO MAIL, NO MAIL. So I assume we're >all in the same pickle. It is clear that we can receive mail sent directly >to us instead of through the list. So we can keep in touch that way. I've >come to look forward to our regular contacts. > >I'll try to get the bio out in Saturday's mail. > >fondly Alexis > > > From guru@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 9 00:32:33 1996 Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 00:32:33 +0000 From: "Dr. A.M.Bain" Message-Id: <32hnwAAhGNQxEwow@nellie2.demon.co.uk> Subject: All is well! In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 In message , alexis dolgorukii writes >At 01:50 AM 3/7/96 -0500, you wrote: >>>>>>>>snip<<<<<<<< >> >>Alan >>--------- >>THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: >>Ancient Wisdom for a New Age >> >>Alan: > >The same is true here. Either I get a "Sorry you have no mail" message or I >get one or two messages (not always for me). Tonight, for instance, I got 4 >messages , your's was the first on the list. Though I saw another which I >assume was complaining about last night's attempt at humor. All is now well! John Mead responded to my "mailbombimg" the lists, and his advice has worked [I think] - anyhow, I'm getting mail again with theos-l headers. >>>ye olde englisshe snippe<<< > >I'll try to get the bio out in Saturday's mail. > >fondly Alexis > .. and to you, Alan --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From guru@nellie2.demon.co.uk Fri Mar 8 02:25:04 1996 Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 02:25:04 +0000 From: "Dr. A.M.Bain" Message-Id: Subject: Some Mail In-Reply-To: <199603080106.UAA11609@future.dreamscape.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 In message <199603080106.UAA11609@future.dreamscape.com>, "liesel f. deutsch" writes > >If this gets to you. John Mead is often out of town, He'll respond. > >See if this gets to you. > >Liesel It got to me - many thanks! I heard from John, who said to signoff and subscribe again (can be done in the same message to listserv@vnet.net according to him. I have done this and await developments! Alan --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From am455@lafn.org Sat Mar 9 03:19:38 1996 Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 19:19:38 -0800 From: am455@lafn.org (Nicholas Weeks) Message-Id: <199603090319.AA04034@lafn.org> Subject: Plotinus 3 Reply-To: am455@lafn.org The Six Enneads BY PLOTINUS Written 250 A.D. Translated By Stephen Mackenna And B. S. Page _________________________________________________________________ THE THIRD ENNEAD - FIRST TRACTATE [excerpts] FATE. [...] 8. What can this other cause be; one standing above those treated of; one that leaves nothing causeless, that preserves sequence and order in the Universe and yet allows ourselves some reality and leaves room for prediction and augury? Soul: we must place at the crest of the world of beings, this other Principle, not merely the Soul of the Universe but, included in it, the Soul of the individual: this, no mean Principle, is needed to be the bond of union in the total of things, not, itself, a thing sprung like things from life-seeds, but a first-hand Cause, bodiless and therefore supreme over itself, free, beyond the reach of kosmic Cause: for, brought into body, it would not be unrestrictedly sovereign; it would hold rank in a series. Now the environment into which this independent principle enters, when it comes to this midpoint, will be largely led by secondary causes [or, by chance-causes]: there will therefore be a compromise; the action of the Soul will be in part guided by this environment while in other matters it will be sovereign, leading the way where it will. The nobler Soul will have the greater power; the poorer Soul, the lesser. A soul which defers to the bodily temperament cannot escape desire and rage and is abject in poverty, overbearing in wealth, arbitrary in power. The soul of nobler nature holds good against its surroundings; it is more apt to change them than to be changed, so that often it improves the environment and, where it must make concession, at least keeps its innocence. 9. We admit, then, a Necessity in all that is brought about by this compromise between evil and accidental circumstance: what room was there for anything else than the thing that is? Given all the causes, all must happen beyond aye or nay- that is, all the external and whatever may be due to the sidereal circuit- therefore when the Soul has been modified by outer forces and acts under that pressure so that what it does is no more than an unreflecting acceptance of stimulus, neither the act nor the state can be described as voluntary: so, too, when even from within itself, it falls at times below its best and ignores the true, the highest, laws of action. But when our Soul holds to its Reason-Principle, to the guide, pure and detached and native to itself, only then can we speak of personal operation, of voluntary act. Things so done may truly be described as our doing, for they have no other source; they are the issue of the unmingled Soul, a Principle that is a First, a leader, a sovereign not subject to the errors of ignorance, not to be overthrown by the tyranny of the desires which, where they can break in, drive and drag, so as to allow of no act of ours, but mere answer to stimulus. 10. To sum the results of our argument: All things and events are foreshown and brought into being by causes; but the causation is of two Kinds; there are results originating from the Soul and results due to other causes, those of the environment. In the action of our Souls all that is done of their own motion in the light of sound reason is the Soul's work, while what is done where they are hindered from their own action is not so much done as suffered. Unwisdom, then, is not due to the Soul, and, in general- if we mean by Fate a compulsion outside ourselves- an act is fated when it is contrary to wisdom. But all our best is of our own doing: such is our nature as long as we remain detached. The wise and good do perform acts; their right action is the expression of their own power: in the others it comes in the breathing spaces when the passions are in abeyance; but it is not that they draw this occasional wisdom from outside themselves; simply, they are for the time being unhindered. _________________________________________________________________ The Tech Classics Archive -- Nicholas <> am455@lafn.org <> Los Angeles First of all, love truth for its own sake, for otherwise no recognition of it will follow. HP Blavatsky From alexei@slip.net Sat Mar 9 07:51:00 1996 Date: Fri, 8 Mar 96 23:51 PST From: alexis dolgorukii Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: faites accompli At 09:22 PM 3/8/96 -0500, you wrote: >Alexis, > >I've been getting mail, well, my outgoing has been cut off in spurts, but I >thought that was Dreamscape. Hope you saw John Mead's message. He said to >unsubscribe & then suscribe again, & he doesn't know who's at fault Vnet.net >or himself. >Liesel >......................................................................... > > Liesel: I did just that. Alan also told me to, so I did. We shall see what we shall see. From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 9 21:52:18 1996 Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 21:52:18 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - KEY19.TXT Mime-Version: 1.0 KEY19.TXT Prayer Kills Self-Reliance Q. But did not Christ himself pray and recommend prayer? A. It is so recorded, but those "prayers" are precisely of that kind of communion just mentioned with one's "Father in secret." Otherwise, and if we identify Jesus with the universal deity, there would be something too absurdly illogical in the inevitable conclusion that he, the "very God himself" prayed to himself, and separated the will of that God from his own! Q. One argument more; an argument, moreover, much used by some Christians. They say, I feel that I am not able to conquer any passions and weaknesses in my own strength. But when I pray to Jesus Christ I feel that he gives me strength and that in His power I am able to conquer. A. No wonder. If "Christ Jesus" is God, and one independent and separate from him who prays, of course everything is, and must be possible to "a mighty God." But, then, where's the merit, or justice either, of such a conquest? Why should the pseudo-conqueror be rewarded for something done which has cost him only prayers? Would you, even a simple mortal man, pay your laborer a full day's wage if you did most of his work for him, he sitting under an apple tree, and praying to you to do so, all the while? This idea of passing one's whole life in moral idleness, and having one's hardest work and duty done by another, whether God or man, is most revolting to us, as it is most degrading to human dignity. Q. Perhaps so, yet it is the idea of trusting in a personal Savior to help and strengthen in the battle of life, which is the fundamental idea of modern Christianity. And there is no doubt that, subjectively, such belief is efficacious; i.e., that those who believe do feel themselves helped and strengthened. A. Nor is there any more doubt, that some patients of "Christian" and "Mental Scientists", the great "Deniers", are also sometimes cured; nor that hypnotism, and suggestion, psychology, and even mediumship, will produce such results, as often, if not oftener. You take into consideration, and string on the thread of your argument, successes alone. And how about ten times the number of failures? Surely you will not presume to say that failure is unknown even with a sufficiency of blind faith, among fanatical Christians? Q. But how can you explain those cases which are followed by full success? Where does a Theosophist look to for power to subdue his passions and selfishness? A. To his Higher Self, the divine spirit, or the God in him, and to his Karma. How long shall we have to repeat over and over again that the tree is known by its fruit, the nature of the cause by its effects? You speak of subduing passions, and becoming good through and with the help of God or Christ. We ask, where do you find more virtuous, guiltless people, abstaining from sin and crime, in Christendom or Buddhism, in Christian countries or in heathen lands? Statistics are there to give the answer and corroborate our claims. According to the last census in Ceylon and India, in the comparative table of crimes committed by Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Eurasians, Buddhists, etc., etc., on two millions of population taken at random from each, and covering the misdemeanors of several years, the proportion of crimes committed by the Christian stands as 15 to 4 as against those committed by the Buddhist population. No Orientalist, no historian of any note, or traveler in Buddhist lands, from Bishop Bigandet and Abbe Huc, to Sir William Hunter and every fair-minded official, will fail to give the palm of virtue to Buddhists before Christians. Yet the former (not the true Buddhist Siamese sect, at all events) do not believe in either God or a future reward, outside of this earth. They do not pray, neither priests nor laymen. "Pray!" they would exclaim in wonder, "to whom, or what?" Q. Then they are truly Atheists. A. Most undeniably, but they are also the most virtue-loving and virtue-keeping men in the whole world. Buddhism says: Respect the religions of other men and remain true to your own; but Church Christianity, denouncing all the gods of other nations as devils, would doom every non-Christian to eternal perdition. Q. Does not the Buddhist priesthood do the same? A. Never. They hold too much to the wise precept found in the DHAMMAPADA to do so, for they know that, If any man, whether he be learned or not, consider himself so great as to despise other men, he is like a blind man holding a candle, blind himself, he illumines others. [The new sect of healers, who, by disavowing the existence of anything but spirit, which spirit can neither suffer nor be ill, claim to cure all and every disease, provided the patient has faith that what he denies can have no existence. A new form of self-hypnotism. See "Christian Lecturers on Buddhism," Lucifer, April 1888, 147.] --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 9 23:00:20 1996 Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 23:00:20 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - KEY20.TXT Mime-Version: 1.0 KEY20.TXT On the Source of the Human Soul Q. How, then, do you account for man being endowed with a Spirit and Soul? Whence these? A. From the Universal Soul. Certainly not bestowed by a personal God. Whence the moist element in the jelly-fish? From the Ocean which surrounds it, in which it lives and breathes and has its being, and whither it returns when dissolved. Q. So you reject the teaching that Soul is given, or breathed into man, by God? A. We are obliged to. The "Soul" spoken of in Genesis is, as therein stated, the "living Soul" or Nephesh (the vital, animal soul) with which God (we say "nature" and immutable law) endows man like every animal. Is not at all the thinking soul or mind; least of all is it the immortal Spirit. Q. Well, let us put it otherwise: is it God who endows man with a human rational Soul and immortal Spirit? A. Again, in the way you put the question, we must object to it. Since we believe in no personal God, how can we believe that he endows man with anything? But granting, for the sake of argument, a God who takes upon himself the risk of creating a new Soul for every new-born baby, all that can be said is that such a God can hardly be regarded as himself endowed with any wisdom or prevision. Certain other difficulties and the impossibility of reconciling this with the claims made for the mercy, justice, equity and omniscience of that God, are so many deadly reefs on which this theological dogma is daily and hourly broken. Q. What do you mean? What difficulties? A. I am thinking of an unanswerable argument offered once in my presence by a Singhalese Buddhist priest, a famous preacher, to a Christian missionary, one in no way ignorant or unprepared for the public discussion during which it was advanced. It was near Colombo, and the Missionary had challenged the priest Megattivati to give his reasons why the Christian God should not be accepted by the "heathen." Well, the Missionary came out of that forever memorable discussion second best, as usual. Q. I should be glad to learn in what way. A. Simply this: the Buddhist priest premised by asking the padre whether his God had given commandments to Moses only for men to keep, but to be broken by God himself. The missionary denied the supposition indignantly. Well, said his opponent, B you tell us that God makes no exceptions to this rule, and that no Soul can be born without his will. Now God forbids adultery, among other things, and yet you say in the same breath that it is he who creates every baby born, and he who endows it with a Soul. Are we then to understand that the millions of children born in crime and adultery are your God's work? That your God forbids and punishes the breaking of his laws; and that, nevertheless, he creates daily and hourly souls for just such children? According to the simplest logic, your God is an accomplice in the crime; since, but for his help and interference, no such children of lust could be born. Where is the justice of punishing not only the guilty parents but even the innocent babe for that which is done by that very God, whom yet you exonerate from any guilt himself? The missionary looked at his watch and suddenly found it was getting too late for further discussion. Q. You forget that all such inexplicable cases are mysteries, and that we are forbidden by our religion to pry into the mysteries of God. A. No, we do not forget, but simply reject such impossibilities. Nor do we want you to believe as we do. We only answer the questions you ask. We have, however, another name for your "mysteries." --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From 73003.3321@compuserve.com Sun Mar 10 00:54:46 1996 Date: 09 Mar 96 19:54:46 EST From: Mark Gegenhuber <73003.3321@compuserve.com> Subject: Women and theosophy Message-Id: <960310005446_73003.3321_FHM50-1@CompuServe.COM> Hi, This is my fist message to this listserv, so let's see if it goes! I'm doing a paper on theosophy. particularly feminism and theosophy. Looking for the effect theosophy may have had on women's spiritual or practical lives, women in theosophy, feminist theory and theosophy. I have begun with H.P.B. (The Theosophical Society is in my town), but have found only one citation that begins to connect women and theosophy. Any ideas out there? Anyone else exploring in this area? Happy to hear from you, S. Gegenhuber From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 9 23:54:19 1996 Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 23:54:19 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - KEY21.TXT Mime-Version: 1.0 KEY21.TXT The Buddhist Teachings on the Above Q. What does Buddhism teach with regard to the Soul? A. It depends whether you mean exoteric, popular Buddhism, or its esoteric teachings. The former explains itself in The Buddhist Catechism in this wise: Soul it considers a word used by the ignorant to express a false idea. If everything is subject to change, then man is included, and every material part of him must change. That which is subject to change is not permanent, so there can be no immortal survival of a changeful thing. This seems plain and definite. But when we come to the question that the new personality in each succeeding rebirth is the aggregate of "Skandhas," or the attributes, of the old personality, and ask whether this new aggregation of Skandhas is a new being likewise, in which nothing has remained of the last, we read that: In one sense it is a new being, in another it is not. During this life the Skandhas are continually changing, while the man A.B. of forty is identical as regards personality with the youth A.B. of eighteen, yet by the continual waste and reparation of his body and change of mind and character, he is a different being. Nevertheless, the man in his old age justly reaps the reward or suffering consequent upon his thoughts and actions at every previous stage of his life. So the new being of the rebirth, being the same individuality as before (but not the same personality), with but a changed form, or new aggregation of Skandhas, justly reaps the consequences of his actions and thoughts in the previous existence. This is abstruse metaphysics, and plainly does not express disbelief in Soul by any means. Q. Is not something like this spoken of in Esoteric Buddhism? A. It is, for this teaching belongs both to Esoteric Budhism or Secret Wisdom, and to the exoteric Buddhism, or the religious philosophy of Gautama Buddha. Q. But we are distinctly told that most of the Buddhists do not believe in the Soul's immortality? A. No more do we, if you mean by Soul the personal Ego, or life-Soul, Nephesh. But every learned Buddhist believes in the individual or divine Ego. Those who do not, err in their judgment. They are as mistaken on this point, as those Christians who mistake the theological interpolations of the later editors of the Gospels about damnation and hellfire, for verbatim utterances of Jesus. Neither Buddha nor "Christ" ever wrote anything themselves, but both spoke in allegories and used "dark sayings," as all true Initiates did, and will do for a long time yet to come. Both Scriptures treat of all such metaphysical questions very cautiously, and both, Buddhist and Christian records, sin by that excess of exotericism; the dead letter meaning far overshooting the mark in both cases. Q. Do you mean to suggest that neither the teachings of Buddha nor those of Christ have been heretofore rightly understood? A. What I mean is just as you say. Both Gospels, the Buddhist and the Christian, were preached with the same object in view. Both reformers were ardent philanthropists and practical altruists, preaching most unmistakably Socialism of the noblest and highest type, self-sacrifice to the bitter end. "Let the sins of the whole world fall upon me that I may relieve man's misery and suffering!" cries Buddha. "I would not let one cry whom I could save!" exclaims the Prince-beggar, clad in the refuse rags of the burial-grounds. "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest," is the appeal to the poor and the disinherited made by the "Man of Sorrows," who hath not where to lay his head. The teachings of both are boundless love for humanity, charity, forgiveness of injury, forgetfulness of self, and pity for the deluded masses; both show the same contempt for riches, and make no difference between meum and tuum. Their desire was, without revealing to all the sacred mysteries of initiation, to give the ignorant and the misled, whose burden in life was too heavy for them, hope enough and an inkling into the truth sufficient to support them in their heaviest hours. But the object of both Reformers was frustrated, owing to excess of zeal of their later followers. The words of the Masters having been misunderstood and misinterpreted, behold the consequences! Q. But surely Buddha must have repudiated the soul's immortality, if all the Orientalists and his own Priests say so! A. The Arhats began by following the policy of their Master and the majority of the subsequent priests were not initiated, just as in Christianity; and so, little by little, the great esoteric truths became almost lost. A proof in point is, that, out of the two existing sects in Ceylon, the Siamese believes death to be the absolute annihilation of individuality and personality, and the other explains Nirvana, as we Theosophists do. Q. But why, in that case, do Buddhism and Christianity represent the two opposite poles of such belief? A. Because the conditions under which they were preached were not the same. In India the Brahmins, jealous of their superior knowledge, and excluding from it every caste save their own, had driven millions of men into idolatry and almost fetishism. Buddha had to give the death-blow to an exuberance of unhealthy fancy and fanatical superstition resulting from ignorance, such as has rarely been known before or after. Better a philosophical atheism than such ignorant worship for those: Who cry upon their gods and are not heard, Or are not heeded, and who live and die in mental despair. He had to arrest first of all this muddy torrent of superstition, to uproot errors before he gave out the truth. And as he could not give out all, for the same good reason as Jesus, who reminds his disciples that the Mysteries of Heaven are not for the unintelligent masses, but for the elect alone, and therefore "spake he to them in parables", so his caution led Buddha to conceal too much. He even refused to say to the monk Vacchagotta whether there was, or was not an Ego in man. When pressed to answer, "the Exalted one maintained silence." Buddha gives to Ananda, his initiated disciple, who inquires for the reason of this silence, a plain and unequivocal answer in the dialogue translated by Oldenburg from the Samyutta-Nikaya: If I, Ananda, when the wandering monk Vacchagotta asked me: "Is there the Ego?" had answered "The Ego is," then that, Ananda, would have confirmed the doctrine of the Samanas and Brahmaas, who believed in permanence. If I, Ananda, when the wandering monk Vacchagotta asked me, "Is there not the Ego?" had answered, "The Ego is not," then that, Ananda, would have confirmed the doctrine of those who believed in annihilation. If I, Ananda, when the wandering monk Vacchagotta asked me, "Is there the Ego?" had answered, "The Ego is," would that have served my end, Ananda, by producing in him the knowledge: all existences (dhamma) are non-ego? But if I, Ananda, had answered, "The Ego is not," then that, Ananda, would only have caused the wandering monk Vacchagotta to be thrown from one bewilderment to another: "My Ego, did it not exist before? But now it exists no longer!" This shows, better than anything, that Gautama Buddha withheld such difficult metaphysical doctrines from the masses in order not to perplex them more. What he meant was the difference between the personal temporary Ego and the Higher Self, which sheds its light on the imperishable Ego, the spiritual "I" of man. Q. This refers to Gautama, but in what way does it touch the Gospels? A. Read history and think over it. At the time the events narrated in the Gospels are alleged to have happened, there was a similar intellectual fermentation taking place in the whole civilized world, only with opposite results in the East and the West. The old gods were dying out. While the civilized classes drifted in the train of the unbelieving Sadducees into materialistic negations and mere dead-letter Mosaic form in Palestine, and into moral dissolution in Rome, the lowest and poorer classes ran after sorcery and strange gods, or became hypocrites and Pharisees. Once more the time for a spiritual reform had arrived. The cruel, anthropomorphic and jealous God of the Jews, with his sanguinary laws of "an eye for eye and tooth for tooth," of the shedding of blood and animal sacrifice, had to be relegated to a secondary place and replaced by the merciful "Father in Secret." The latter had to be shown, not as an extra-Cosmic God, but as a divine Savior of the man of flesh, enshrined in his own heart and soul, in the poor as in the rich. No more here than in India, could the secrets of initiation be divulged, lest by giving that which is holy to the dogs, and casting pearls before swine, both the Revealer and the things revealed should be trodden under foot. Thus, the reticence of both Buddha and Jesus, whether the latter lived out the historic period allotted to him or not, and who equally abstained from revealing plainly the Mysteries of Life and Death, led in the one case to the blank negations of Southern Buddhism, and in the other, to the three clashing forms of the Christian Church and the 300 sects in Protestant England alone. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From liesel@dreamscape.com Sun Mar 10 16:05:48 1996 Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 11:05:48 -0500 From: liesel@dreamscape.com (liesel f. deutsch) Message-Id: <199603101609.LAA01239@future.dreamscape.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: Women and theosophy Dear S. Gegenhuber Right off the bat, there were an awful lot of women in leadership posts in the TS. Beginning with HPB herself, continuing with Annie Besant, there were & are a multitude of leaders & writers, down to Grace Knoche who's the present Leader of the Pasadena Theosophical Society.... Mabel Collins, Dora Kunz, Shirley Nicholson, Joy Mills are some of the ones I can think off right off the bat. I think Theosophists treat men & women alike .... for instance, those who work at Olcott get equally minimal salaries. In our thinking, the so called female functions such as intuition, feeling & etc. are acknowledged. They are part of what each of us is trying to develop, as we try to grow spiritually. Our favorite Psychiatrist is Jung with his archetypes, & his anima/mus. The Theosophist Dr. Roberto Assagioli, a contemporary of Jung, came up with the idea of Psychosynthesis rather than -analysis. Synthesis is also considered a female function. That's just casually scratching the surface. For scads of material, try the Olcott Library. If you're in the United States, & aren't a member of the TS Adyar, the fee is $35.- per an. If you belong to the TS Adyar, getting books & info from the Olcott Librwary comes with being a member. Have fun, & keep us posted Liesel .......................................................................... >Hi, >This is my fist message to this listserv, so let's see if it goes! > >I'm doing a paper on theosophy. particularly feminism and theosophy. >Looking for the effect theosophy may have had on women's spiritual or >practical lives, women in theosophy, feminist theory and theosophy. I have >begun with H.P.B. (The Theosophical Society is in my town), but have found >only one citation that begins to connect women and theosophy. >Any ideas out there? Anyone else exploring in this area? > >Happy to hear from you, > >S. Gegenhuber > > From martinle@lainet.com Mon Mar 11 00:51:19 1996 Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 16:51:19 -0800 From: martinle@lainet.com (martin leiderman) Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: Women and theosophy Dear Mark, I would recommend you to watch a video made in England by the BBC about Annie Besant. You may rent it from the Olcott Library, Wheaton. Martin From am455@lafn.org Mon Mar 11 03:33:29 1996 Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 19:33:29 -0800 From: am455@lafn.org (Nicholas Weeks) Message-Id: <199603110333.AA08786@lafn.org> Subject: Plotinus 4 Reply-To: am455@lafn.org The Six Enneads BY PLOTINUS Written 250 A.D. Translated By Stephen Mackenna And B. S. Page _________________________________________________________________ THE FOURTH ENNEAD - SECOND TRACTATE [extracts] ON THE ESSENCE OF THE SOUL (2). [...] There are, we hold, things primarily apt to partition, tending by sheer nature towards separate existence: they are things in which no part is identical either with another part or with the whole, while, also their part is necessarily less than the total and whole: these are magnitudes of the realm of sense, masses, each of which has a station of its own so that none can be identically present in entirety at more than one point at one time. But to that order is opposed Essence [Real-Being]; this is in no degree susceptible of partition; it is unparted and impartible; interval is foreign to it, cannot enter into our idea of it: it has no need of place and is not, in diffusion or as an entirety, situated within any other being: it is poised over all beings at once, and this is not in the sense of using them as a base but in their being neither capable nor desirous of existing independently of it; it is an essence eternally unvaried: it is common to all that follows upon it: it is like the circle's centre to which all the radii are attached while leaving it unbrokenly in possession of itself, the starting point of their course and of their essential being, the ground in which they all participate: thus the indivisible is the principle of these divided existences and in their very outgoing they remain enduringly in contact with that stationary essence. [...] The Essence, very near to the impartible, which we assert to belong to the Kind we are now dealing with, is at once an Essence and an entrant into body; upon embodiment, it experiences a partition unknown before it thus bestowed itself. In whatsoever bodies it occupies- even the vastest of all, that in which the entire universe is included- it gives itself to the whole without abdicating its unity. This unity of an Essence is not like that of body, which is a unit by the mode of continuous extension, the mode of distinct parts each occupying its own space. Nor is it such a unity as we have dealt with in the case of quality. The nature, at once divisible and indivisible, which we affirm to be soul has not the unity of an extended thing: it does not consist of separate sections; its divisibility lies in its presence at every point of the recipient, but it is indivisible as dwelling entire in the total and entire in any part. To have penetrated this idea is to know the greatness of the soul and its power, the divinity and wonder of its being, as a nature transcending the sphere of Things. Itself devoid of mass, it is present to all mass: it exists here and yet is There, and this not in distinct phases but with unsundered identity: thus it is "parted and not parted," or, better, it has never known partition, never become a parted thing, but remains a self-gathered integral, and is "parted among bodies" merely in the sense that bodies, in virtue of their own sundered existence, cannot receive it unless in some partitive mode; the partition, in other words, is an occurrence in body not in soul. [...] There is, therefore, no escape: soul is, in the degree indicated, one and many, parted and impartible. We cannot question the possibility of a thing being at once a unity and multi-present, since to deny this would be to abolish the principle which sustains and administers the universe; there must be a Kind which encircles and supports all and conducts all with wisdom, a principle which is multiple since existence is multiple, and yet is one soul always since a container must be a unity: by the multiple unity of its nature, it will furnish life to the multiplicity of the series of an all; by its impartible unity, it will conduct a total to wise ends. [...] Soul, therefore, is, in this definite sense, one and many; the Ideal-Form resident in body is many and one; bodies themselves are exclusively many; the Supreme is exclusively one. _________________________________________________________________ The Tech Classics Archive -- Nicholas <> am455@lafn.org <> Los Angeles First of all, love truth for its own sake, for otherwise no recognition of it will follow. HP Blavatsky From am455@lafn.org Mon Mar 11 17:18:43 1996 Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 09:18:43 -0800 From: am455@lafn.org (Nicholas Weeks) Message-Id: <199603111718.AA13448@lafn.org> Subject: Plotinus 5 Reply-To: am455@lafn.org The Six Enneads BY PLOTINUS Written 250 A.D. Translated By Stephen Mackenna And B. S. Page _________________________________________________________________ THE FIFTH ENNEAD - NINTH TRACTATE [extracts] THE INTELLECTUAL-PRINCIPLE, THE IDEAS, AND THE AUTHENTIC EXISTENCE. 1. All human beings from birth onward live to the realm of sense more than to the Intellectual. Forced of necessity to attend first to the material, some of them elect to abide by that order and, their life throughout, make its concerns their first and their last; the sweet and the bitter of sense are their good and evil; they feel they have done all if they live along pursuing the one and barring the doors to the other. And those of them that pretend to reasoning have adopted this as their philosophy; they are like the heavier birds which have incorporated much from the earth and are so weighted down that they cannot fly high for all the wings Nature has given them. Others do indeed lift themselves a little above the earth; the better in their soul urges them from the pleasant to the nobler, but they are not of power to see the highest and so, in despair of any surer ground, they fall back in virtue's name, upon those actions and options of the lower from which they sought to escape. But there is a third order- those godlike men who, in their mightier power, in the keenness of their sight, have clear vision of the splendour above and rise to it from among the cloud and fog of earth and hold firmly to that other world, looking beyond all here, delighted in the place of reality, their native land, like a man returning after long wanderings to the pleasant ways of his own country. 2. What is this other place and how it is accessible? It is to be reached by those who, born with the nature of the lover, are also authentically philosophic by inherent temper; in pain of love towards beauty but not held by material loveliness, taking refuge from that in things whose beauty is of the soul- such things as virtue, knowledge, institutions, law and custom- and thence, rising still a step, reach to the source of this loveliness of the Soul, thence to whatever be above that again, until the uttermost is reached. The First, the Principle whose beauty is self-springing: this attained, there is an end to the pain inassuageable before. But how is the ascent to be begun? Whence comes the power? In what thought is this love to find its guide? The guiding thought is this: that the beauty perceived on material things is borrowed. [...] This universe is a living thing capable of including every form of life; but its Being and its modes are derived from elsewhere; that source is traced back to the Intellectual-Principle: it follows that the all-embracing archetype is in the Intellectual-Principle, which, therefore, must be an intellectual Kosmos, that indicated by Plato in the phrase "The living existent." [...] 10. All, then, that is present in the sense realm as Idea comes from the Supreme. But what is not present as Idea, does not. Thus of things conflicting with nature, none is There: the inartistic is not contained in the arts; lameness is not in the seed; for a lame leg is either inborn through some thwarting of the Reason-principle or is a marring of the achieved form by accident. To that Intellectual Kosmos belong qualities, accordant with Nature, and quantities; number and mass; origins and conditions; all actions and experiences not against nature; movement and repose, both the universals and the particulars: but There time is replaced by eternity and space by its intellectual equivalent, mutual inclusiveness. [...] It must be stated at the outset that we cannot take all that is here to be image of archetype, or Soul to be an image of Absolute-Soul: one soul, doubtless, ranks higher than another, but here too, though perhaps not as identified with this realm, is the Absolute-Soul. Every soul, authentically a soul, has some form of rightness and moral wisdom; in the souls within ourselves there is true knowing: and these attributes are no images or copies from the Supreme, as in the sense-world, but actually are those very originals in a mode peculiar to this sphere. For those Beings are not set apart in some defined place; wherever there is a soul that has risen from body, there too these are: the world of sense is one- where, the Intellectual Kosmos is everywhere. Whatever the freed soul attains to here, that it is There. [...] _________________________________________________________________ The Tech Classics Archive -- Nicholas <> am455@lafn.org <> Los Angeles First of all, love truth for its own sake, for otherwise no recognition of it will follow. HP Blavatsky From 73003.3321@compuserve.com Mon Mar 11 21:28:07 1996 Date: 11 Mar 96 16:28:07 EST From: Mark Gegenhuber <73003.3321@compuserve.com> Subject: Women and theosophy Message-Id: <960311212806_73003.3321_FHM57-1@CompuServe.COM> Hi, all, Thank you for your responses to my inquiry. FYI, I am in Pasadena, just a few short blocks from the Theosophical Society Library. The fact that so many women have been leaders in the theosophical movement is what drew my attention to it. I've recognized a number of themes in HPB's works that could be considered "of the feminine," as Ms. Deutsch verified. HPB herself did not seem to be involved in feminist social justice, as were others who assisted poor women, etc. Her research seems to be remarkable. One of my interests is a tracing of sources or thinking that may have influenced "New Age" feminism, particularly "secret" teachings or philosophical ideas that appear to be emerging in ritual, practices and ethics of late 20th century witchcraft and eco-feminism. Wicca and Theosophy have obvious differences, but practices such as magic, and ideas such as immanence, inter-relatedness and personal experience seem to be more clearly articulated in theosophical studies rather than in anything passed down from ancient folk-practice or Goddess worship. I'm in the last third of a masters program in Feminist Spirituality at Immaculate Heart College. This little paper is a 15-pager for a Historical Perspectives on Feminist Spirituality, so it's primarily a secondary source paper that hopefully can open some doors toward original research. I'm just barely scratching the surface of "women and theosophy" in this case, but hope to develop a thesis of some sorts for continuing independent study. I appreciate hearing about people doing research in this area, and should this paper develop into something, I'll be getting far more involved in the future. Thanks! -S. Gegenhuber From 73003.3321@compuserve.com Mon Mar 11 21:50:12 1996 Date: 11 Mar 96 16:50:12 EST From: Mark Gegenhuber <73003.3321@compuserve.com> Subject: H.P.B.'s research Message-Id: <960311215011_73003.3321_FHM75-1@CompuServe.COM> Hi, again, I did have another question. H.P.B. read widely and quoted from lots of sources in her materials, and I've read about the controversy over plagiarism and the like. Are the sources she did mention verifiable? Are they still in existence somewhere (a library...). Some of the things she wrote about may have come from oral sources - has anyone tried to validate any of those? Since the Society of Psychical Research rescinded their judgement of "imposter" does this mean her writings are now accepted as credible? I guess I'm trying to find out if HPB's work could provide markers to other secret or not-so-secret sources of spiritual knowledge, or perhaps if those sources are non-existent or were oral, is her work then considered valid as an original source? This question may not make sense, but I am not a historian and so lack a little in technical expertise. I just don't want to base some work on ideas or research that's already been proven to be false. Thanks! From jhe@toto.csustan.edu Mon Mar 11 02:03:20 1996 Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 18:03:20 -0800 From: Jerry Hejka-Ekins Message-Id: <9603110203.AA01879@toto.csustan.edu> Subject: Re: women and Theosophy >Hi, >This is my fist message to this listserv, so let's see if it goes! > >I'm doing a paper on theosophy. particularly feminism and >theosophy. Looking for the effect theosophy may have had on >women's spiritual or practical lives, women in theosophy, >feminist theory and theosophy. I have begun with H.P.B. (The >Theosophical Society is in my town), but have found only one >citation that begins to connect women and theosophy. Any ideas >out there? Anyone else exploring in this area? > >Happy to hear from you, > >S. Gegenhuber Hi, Sounds like you are taking an historical approach. Personally, I question whether the Modern Theosophical Movement per se has had any lasting effect upon the women of any culture, let alone the cultures themselves, except perhaps the Icelandic. On the other hand, Annie Besant made some notable contributions to Women's rights, but this was all done outside of Theosophy, and before she joined the TS. Perhaps you might consider some other approaches where you could analyze feminist issues within the writings of the Organizations and look at the Organizations themselves. For instance, with a rhetorical approach you might look at the Victorian and Modernist language that still dominates Theosophical literature. I would start with the three objects (last revised in 1896), and compare them to the rewording used in the recent by-law change. I could see that as a paper in itself. From a structuralist view, one could look at the hierarchical structure and inter-relationships of the TS: Masters; Outer Head; President; E.S. Members; T.S. members etc. You might visit some Lodge meetings and observe how the hierarchical structure works on a Lodge level. This could be the bases of an interesting post-modern paper. From another perspective, I find it interesting, that the T.S. has no women Masters. Subba Row wrote an article saying that they exist (See the TS hierarchy. It is sort of like the glass ceiling principle of corporate structures. Even with C.W.L.'s later introduction of new Masters, no women were added--though Annie Besant became an "Adept." I would also look at George Arundale's "World Mother" concept. Does it reinforce Victorian, Modernist or Post- Modern values concerning women? From a psychoanalytic approach, one might be interested in Blavatsky's, Besant's and Tingley's drive to power. What were the internal factors that put them into power. How did they use it? How was it used differently from how the men used it--for instance Olcott, Leadbeater and Purucker? Another interesting essay might be on Besant's pattern of becoming entirely dependent upon the men in her life and deferring her power to them. From a Lacanian approach, one could look at the function of a Theosophical leader's "desire" and "drive" in relationship to the "petit a" if you have taken any classes in this area. If you are interested in the effect of theosophy in the lives of Women members, any of the above approaches could work. Though I would look at the lives of members as well as the leaders. >FYI, I am in Pasadena, just a few short blocks from the >Theosophical Society Library. The fact that so many women have >been leaders in the theosophical movement is what drew my >attention to it. This throws a different wrinkle on things. You could interview Grace and Kirby at the library. They knew Tingley personally. KT was a real social activist. >I've recognized a number of themes in HPB's works that could be >considered "of the feminine," as Ms. Deutsch verified. HPB >herself did not seem to be involved in feminist social justice, >as were others who assisted poor women, etc. Take a look at volume 11 of the Blavatsky Collected Works. HPB has a couple of essays on the universal institution of marriage and how it is designed to exploit women. I think it is a fine essay and the points she makes are still valid and important today. Though HPB did not go out and burn her bra, feminist themes are all through her writings, as you have already pointed out. H.P.B.'s ideas concerning justice, ethics, inter- relationships etc. compared to post-modern notions of the same could make a very impressive essay. >Her research seems to be remarkable. One of my interests is a >tracing of sources or thinking that may have influenced "New >Age" feminism, particularly "secret" teachings or philosophical >ideas that appear to be emerging in ritual, practices and ethics >of late 20th century witchcraft and eco-feminism. I think the Theosophical contribution to "New Age" philosophy is to be found more in C.W. Leadbeater's writings than H.P.B.'s. Ask Kirby at the Library about Theosophy vs Neo-theosophy. He can give you a lot of good background. Antoine Faivre's ~Access to Western Esotericism~ (SUNY, 1994) will give you a good academic framework to make some other important distinctions. He puts Alice Bailey's Arcane School in the new religions category, where Theosophy is a syncretism of Eastern and Western Esoteric traditions. As for "tracing of sources of things" (an Intellectual history approach) You might start with CWL's concepts concerning group souls and soul mates. I don't think the "`secret' teachings" will be of much help for your paper, but might be valuable for a thesis. >Wicca and Theosophy have obvious differences, but practices such >as magic, and ideas such as immanence, inter-relatedness and >personal experience seem to be more clearly articulated in >theosophical studies rather than in anything passed down from >ancient folk-practice or Goddess worship. But these ideas changed over the years in the TS. I think you will need to take this into account. >I'm in the last third of a masters program in Feminist >Spirituality at Immaculate Heart College. This little paper is a >15-pager for a Historical Perspectives on Feminist Spirituality, >so it's primarily a secondary source paper that hopefully can >open some doors toward original research. You are very fortunate to be near the Pasadena TS library, as it will be a tremendous resource for you. Speaking from experience, you paper will be opening more and more possible doors for you as you get into it. I'm also working on a historical paper concerning Theosophy. >I'm just barely scratching the surface of "women and theosophy" >in this case, but hope to develop a thesis of some sorts for >continuing independent study. Keep in touch as to your progress. I'm very interested in knowing where you go with it, and I might be of some help too. >I appreciate hearing about people doing research in this area, >and should this paper develop into something, I'll be getting >far more involved in the future. Thanks! I'm in thesis stage in my program at C.S.U. Stanislaus. My topic concerns the influence of Theosophy on the poet, W.B. Yeats. I have already found a lot of information in unpublished and unknown documents that have not yet been touched by earlier writers. I have written a paper or two during my undergrad and grad studies on feminist criticism, but my strong points are new historical and Lacanian criticism. My thesis will be using (new) historical and critical analysis. You might be interested in a new book that recently came out called ~Women in the Golden Dawn~ by Mary Greer. It is available in the Feminist studies section at any Barns and Noble bookstore. I think you will find the book stimulating and should give you a lot of good ideas. I'm glad you wrote. You made my day. Thanks Jerry ------------------------------------------ |Jerry Hejka-Ekins, | |Member TI, TSA, TSP, ULT | |Please reply to: jhe@toto.csustan.edu | |and CC to jhejkaekins@igc.apc.org | ------------------------------------------ From jay@well.com Tue Mar 12 06:31:22 1996 Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 22:31:22 -0800 (PST) From: Jay Kinney Subject: Re: H.P.B.'s research In-Reply-To: <960311215011_73003.3321_FHM75-1@CompuServe.COM> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Although not everyone on this list may agree, I think that it is worth checking out K. Paul Johnson's two books on HPB's Masters: "The Masters Revealed" and "Initiates of Theosphical Masters" (both from SUNY Press, 94 and 95) as well as Joscelyn Godwin's "The Theosophical Enlightenment". These three books place HPB's accomplishments in the context of 19th century occultism and esotericism. Johnson's "Initiates..." has a whole section on the strong women who paralleled HPB in their search for spiritual knowledge, breaking thru the cultural limitations of their time. I think that HPB had substantial influence on women, but it was probably more by example than by ideological formulation. On the other hand, the TS worked in association with Indian organizations that were fighting against child marriages, the caste system, and taboos against widow remarriage in India. BTW, the Society for Psychical Research in the UK didn't exactly rescind their Committee's negative report on HPB. They clarified that the original report was not the opinion of the Society per se but of a Committee. And they published a paper which strongly criticized the procedures of Hodgson in his handwriting analysis of the Mahatma Letters. Various critiques of Hodgson's report remain to be made... Hope that helps, jay kinney From liesel@dreamscape.com Tue Mar 12 15:27:14 1996 Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 10:27:14 -0500 From: liesel@dreamscape.com (liesel f. deutsch) Message-Id: <199603121531.KAA00511@future.dreamscape.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: Women and theosophy Mark, If you're doing women's spirituality from a Catholic college, you probably know about this one, but just in case you don't, one of my favorites is "Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen" Text by Hildegard of Bingen with commentary by Matthew Fox. The illuminations are gorgeous. I have some of them on slides, & also her book on healing. The latter was translated from Latin to German. H. wrote in Latin. It's fun to go through. I also have (somewhere) a tape of her music. I think it's pre-Gregorian Chant. Anyway, it sounded god awful to me, so I listened to it once & stored it somewhere. This abbess lived almost 1000 years ago (1098-1179). Liesel >Hi, all, > > Thank you for your responses to my inquiry. FYI, I am in Pasadena, >just a few short blocks from the Theosophical Society Library. The fact >that so many women have been leaders in the theosophical movement is what >drew my attention to it. I've recognized a number of themes in HPB's works >that could be considered "of the feminine," as Ms. Deutsch verified. HPB >herself did not seem to be involved in feminist social justice, as were >others who assisted poor women, etc. Her research seems to be remarkable. >One of my interests is a tracing of sources or thinking that may have >influenced "New Age" feminism, particularly "secret" teachings or >philosophical ideas that appear to be emerging in ritual, practices and >ethics of late 20th century witchcraft and eco-feminism. Wicca and >Theosophy have obvious differences, but practices such as magic, and ideas >such as immanence, inter-relatedness and personal experience seem to be >more clearly articulated in theosophical studies rather than in anything >passed down from ancient folk-practice or Goddess worship. > I'm in the last third of a masters program in Feminist Spirituality at >Immaculate Heart College. This little paper is a 15-pager for a Historical >Perspectives on Feminist Spirituality, so it's primarily a secondary source >paper that hopefully can open some doors toward original research. I'm >just barely scratching the surface of "women and theosophy" in this case, >but hope to develop a thesis of some sorts for continuing independent >study. I appreciate hearing about people doing research in this area, and >should this paper develop into something, I'll be getting far more involved >in the future. Thanks! > > >-S. Gegenhuber > > From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 13 01:49:42 1996 Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 01:49:42 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - OCEAN4.TXT Mime-Version: 1.0 ~THE OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY~ CHAPTER IV RESPECTING THE NATURE OF man there are two ideas current in the religious circles of Christendom. One is the teaching and the other the common acceptation of it; the first is not secret, to be sure, in the Church, but it is so seldom dwelt upon in the hearing of the laity as to be almost arcane for the ordinary person. Nearly everyone says he has a soul and a body, and there it ends. What the soul is, and whether it is the real person or whether it has any powers of its own, are not inquired into, the preachers usually confining themselves to its salvation or damnation. And by thus talking of it as something different from oneself, the people have acquired an underlying notion that they are not souls because the soul may be lost by them. From this has come about a tendency to materialism causing men to pay more attention to the body than to the soul, the latter being left to the tender mercies of the priest of the Roman Catholics, and among dissenters the care of it is most frequently put off to the dying day. But when the true teaching is known it will be seen that the care of the soul, which is the Self, is a vital matter requiring attention every day, and not to be deferred without grievous injury resulting to the whole man, both soul and body. The Christian teaching, supported by St. Paul, since upon him, in fact, dogmatic Christianity rests, is that man is composed of body, soul, and spirit. This is the threefold constitution of man, believed by the theologians but kept in the background because its examination might result in the readoption of views once orthodox but now heretical. For when we thus place soul between spirit and body, we come very close to the necessity for looking into the question of the soul's responsibility, since mere body can have no responsibility. And in order to make the soul responsible for the acts performed, we must assume that it has powers and functions. From this it is easy to take the position that the soul may be rational or irrational, as the Greeks sometimes thought, and then there is but a step to further Theosophical propositions. This threefold scheme of the nature of man contains, in fact, the Theosophical teaching of his sevenfold constitution, because the four other divisions missing from the category can be found in the powers and functions of body and soul, as I shall attempt to show later on. This conviction that man is a septenary and not merely a duad, was held long ago and very plainly taught to every one with accompanying demonstrations, but like other philosophical tenets it disappeared from sight, because gradually withdrawn at the time when in the east of Europe morals were degenerating and before materialism had gained full sway in company with skepticism, its twin. Upon its withdrawal the present dogma of body, soul, spirit, was left to Christendom. The reason for that concealment and its rejuvenescence in this century is well put by Mme. H.P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine. In answer to the statement, "we cannot understand how any danger could arise from the revelation of such a purely philosophical doctrine as the evolution of the planetary chain," she says: The danger was this: Doctrines such as the Planetary chain or the seven races at once give a clue to the sevenfold nature of man, for each principle is correlated to a plane, a planet, and a race; and the human principles are, on every plane, correlated to the sevenfold occult forces, those of the higher planes being of tremendous occult power, the abuse of which would cause incalculable evil to humanity. A clue which is, perhaps, no clue to the present generation, especially the Westerns, protected as they are by their very blindness and ignorant materialistic disbelief in the occult; but a clue which would, nevertheless, be very real in the early centuries of the Christian era, to people fully convinced of the reality of occultism and entering a cycle of degradation which made them ripe for abuse of occult powers and sorcery of the worst description. Mr. A.P. Sinnett, at one time an official in the Government of India, first outlined in this century the real nature of man in his book Esoteric Buddhism, which was made up from information conveyed to him by H.P. Blavatsky directly from the Great Lodge of Initiates to which reference has been made. And in thus placing the old doctrine before western civilization he conferred a great benefit on his generation and helped considerably the cause of Theosophy. His classification was: (1) The Body, or Rupa (2) Vitality, or Prana-Jiva (3) Astral Body, or Linga-Sharira (4) Animal Soul, or Kama-Rupa (5) Human Soul, or Manas (6) Spiritual Soul, or Buddhi (7) Spirit, or Atma The words in italics being equivalents in the Sanskrit language adopted by him for the English terms. This classification stands to this day for all practical purposes, but it is capable of modification and extension. For instance, a later arrangement which places Astral body second instead of third in the category does not substantially alter it. It at once gives an idea of what man is, very different from the vague description by the words "body and soul," and also boldly challenges the materialistic conception that mind is the product of brain, a portion of the body. No claim is made that these principles were hitherto unknown, for they were all understood in various ways not only by the Hindus but by many Europeans. Yet the compact presentation of the sevenfold constitution of man in intimate connection with the septenary constitution of a chain of globes through which the being evolves, had not been given out. The French Abbe, Eliphas Levi, wrote about the astral realm and the astral body, but evidently had no knowledge of the remainder of the doctrine, and while the Hindus possessed the other terms in their language and philosophy, they did not use a septenary classification, but depended chiefly on a fourfold one and certainly concealed (if they knew of it) the doctrine of a chain of seven globes including our earth. Indeed, a learned Hindu, Subba Row, now deceased, asserted that they knew of a sevenfold classification, but that it had not been and would not be given out. Considering these constituents in another manner, we would say that the lower man is a composite being, but in his real nature is a unity, or immortal being, comprising a trinity of Spirit, Discernment, and Mind which requires four lower mortal instruments or vehicles through which to work in matter and obtain experience from Nature. This trinity is that called Atma-Buddhi-Manas in Sanskrit, difficult terms to render in English. Atma is Spirit, Buddhi is the highest power of intellection, that which discerns and judges, and Manas is Mind. This threefold collection is the real man; and beyond doubt the doctrine is the origin of the theological one of the trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The four lower instruments or vehicles are shown in this table: Atman, The Passions and Desires, Buddhi, Life Principle, Manas, Astral Body, Physical Body These four lower material constituents are transitory and subject to disintegration in themselves as well as to separation from each other. When the hour arrives for their separation to begin, the combination can no longer be kept up, the physical body dies, the atoms of which each of the four is composed begin to separate from each other, and the whole collection being disjointed is no longer fit for one as an instrument for the real man. This is what is called "death" among us mortals, but it is not death for the real man because he is deathless, persistent, immortal. He is therefore called the Triad, or indestructible trinity, while they are known as the Quaternary or mortal four. This quaternary or lower man is a product of cosmic or physical laws and substance. It has been evolved during a lapse of ages, like any other physical thing, from cosmic substance, and is therefore subject to physical, physiological, and psychical laws which govern the race of man as a whole. Hence its period of possible continuance can be calculated just as the limit of tensile strain among the metals used in bridge building can be deduced by the engineer. Any one collection in the form of man made up of these constituents is therefore limited in duration by the laws of the evolutionary period in which it exists. Just now, that is generally seventy to one hundred years, but its possible duration is longer. Thus there are in history instances where ordinary persons have lived to be two hundred years of age; and by a knowledge of the occult laws of nature the possible limit of duration may be extended nearly to four hundred years. The visible physical man is: Brain, Nerves, Blood, Bones, Lymph, Muscles, Organs of Sensation and Action, and Skin. The unseen physical man is: Astral Body, Passions and Desires, Life Principle (called Prana or Jiva). It will be seen that the physical part of our nature is thus extended to a second department which, though invisible to the physical eye, is nevertheless material and subject to decay. Because people in general have been in the habit of admitting to be real only what they can see with the physical eye, they have at last come to suppose that the unseen is neither real nor material. But they forgot that even on the earth plane noxious gases are invisible though real and powerfully material, and that water may exist in the air held suspended and invisible until conditions alter and cause its precipitation. Let us recapitulate before going into details. The Real Man is the trinity of Atma-Buddhi-Manas, or Spirit and Mind, and he uses certain agents and instruments to get in touch with nature in order to know himself. These instruments and agents are found in the lower Four, or the Quaternary, each principle in which category is of itself an instrument for the particular experience belonging to its own field, the body being the lowest, least important, and most transitory of the whole series. For when we arrive at the body on the way down from the Higher Mind, it can be shown that all of its organs are in themselves senseless and useless when deprived of the man within. Sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smelling do not pertain to the body but to the second unseen physical man, the real organs for the exercise of those powers being in the Astral Body, and those in the physical body being but the mechanical outer instruments for making the coordination between nature and the real organs inside. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 13 01:49:13 1996 Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 01:49:13 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - OCEAN2.TXT Mime-Version: 1.0 ~THE OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY~ CHAPTER II THE TEACHINGS OF THEOSOPHY deal for the present chiefly with our earth, although its purview extends to all the worlds, since no part of the manifested universe is outside the single body of laws which operate upon us. Our globe being one of the solar system is certainly connected with Venus, Jupiter, and other planets, but as the great human family has to remain with its material vehicle, the earth, until all the units of the race which are ready are perfected, the evolution of that family is of greater importance to the members of it. Some particulars respecting the other planets may be given later on. First let us take a general view of the laws governing all. The universe evolves from the unknown, into which no man or mind, however high, can inquire, on seven planes or in seven ways or methods in all worlds, and this sevenfold differentiation causes all the worlds of the universe and the beings thereon to have a septenary constitution. As was taught of old, the little worlds and the great are copies of the whole, and the minutest insect as well as the most highly developed being are replicas in little or in great of the vast inclusive original. Hence sprang the saying, "as above so below" which the Hermetic philosophers used. The divisions of the sevenfold universe may be laid down roughly as: The Absolute, Spirit, Mind, Matter, Will, Akasa or Aether, and Life. In place of "the Absolute" we can use the word Space. For Space is that which ever is, and in which all manifestation must take place. The term Akasa, taken from the Sanskrit, is used in place of Aether, because the English language has not yet evolved a word to properly designate that tenuous state of matter which is now sometimes called Ether by modern scientists. As to the Absolute we can do no more than say IT IS. None of the great teachers of the School ascribe qualities to the Absolute although all the qualities exist in It. Our knowledge begins with differentiation, and all manifested objects, beings, or powers are only differentiations of the Great Unknown. The most that can be said is that the Absolute periodically differentiates itself, and periodically withdraws the differentiated into itself. The first differentiation, speaking metaphysically as to time, is Spirit, with which appears Matter and Mind. Akasa is produced from Matter and Spirit, Will is the force of Spirit in action and Life is a resultant of the action of Akasa, moved by Spirit, upon Matter. But the Matter here spoken of is not that which is vulgarly known as such. It is the real Matter which is always invisible, and has sometimes been called Primordial Matter. In the Brahmanical system it is denominated Mulaprakriti. The ancient teaching always held, as is now admitted by Science, that we see or perceive only the phenomena but not the essential nature, body or being of matter. Mind is the intelligent part of the Cosmos, and in the collection of seven differentiations above roughly sketched, Mind is that in which the plan of the Cosmos is fixed or contained. This plan is brought over from a prior period of manifestation which added to its ever-increasing perfectness, and no limit can be set to its evolutionary possibilities in perfectness, because there was never any beginning to the periodical manifestations of the Absolute, there never will be any end, but forever the going forth and withdrawing into the Unknown will go on. Wherever a world or system of worlds is evolving there the plan has been laid down in universal mind, the original force comes from spirit, the basis is matter, which is in fact invisible, Life sustains all the forms requiring life, and Akasa is the connecting link between matter on one side and spirit-mind on the other. When a world or a system comes to the end of certain great cycles men record a cataclysm in history or tradition. These traditions abound; among the Jews in their flood; with the Babylonians in theirs; in Egyptian papyri; in the Hindu cosmology; and none of them as merely confirmatory of the little Jewish tradition, but all pointing to early teaching and dim recollection also of the periodical destructions and renovations. The Hebraic story is but a poor fragment torn from the pavement of the Temple of Truth. Just as there are periodical minor cataclysms or partial destructions, so, the doctrine holds, there is the universal evolution and involution. Forever the Great Breath goes forth and returns again. As it proceeds outward, objects, worlds and men appear; as it recedes all disappear into the original source. This is the waking and the sleeping of the Great Being; the Day and the Night of Brahma; the prototype of our waking days and sleeping nights as men, of our disappearance from the scene at the end of one little human life, and our return again to take up the unfinished work in another life, in a new day. The real age of the world has long been involved in doubt for Western investigators, who up to the present have shown a singular unwillingness to take instruction from the records of Oriental people much older than the West. Yet with the Orientals is the truth about the matter. It is admitted that Egyptian civilization flourished many centuries ago, and as there are no living Egyptian schools of ancient learning to offend modern pride, and perhaps because the Jews "came out of Egypt" to fasten the Mosaic misunderstood tradition upon modern progress, the inscriptions cut in rocks and written on papyri obtain a little more credit today than the living thought and record of the Hindus. For the latter are still among us, and it would never do to admit that a poor and conquered race possesses knowledge respecting the age of man and his world which the western flower of culture, war, and annexation knows nothing of. Ever since the ignorant monks and theologians of Asia Minor and Europe succeeded in imposing the Mosaic account of the genesis of earth and man upon the coming western evolution, the most learned even of our scientific men have stood in fear of the years that elapsed since Adam, or have been warped in thought and perception whenever their eyes turned to any chronology different from that of a few tribes of the sons of Jacob. Even the noble, aged, and silent pyramid of Gizeh, guarded by Sphinx and Memnon made of stone, has been degraded by Piazzi Smyth and others into a proof that the British inch must prevail and that a "Continental Sunday" controverts the law of the Most High. Yet in the Mosaic account, where one would expect to find a reference to such a proof as the pyramid, we can discover not a single hint of it and only a record of the building by King Solomon of a temple of which there never was a trace. But the Theosophist knows why the Hebraic tradition came to be thus an apparent drag on the mind of the West; he knows the connection between Jew and Egyptian; what is and is to be the resurrection of the old pyramid builders of the Nile valley, and where the plans of those ancient master masons have been hidden from the profane eyes until the cycle should roll round again for their bringing forth. The Jews preserved merely a part of the learning of Egypt hidden under the letter of the books of Moses, and it is there still to this day in what they call the cabalistic or hidden meaning of the scriptures. But the Egyptian souls who helped in planning the pyramid of Gizeh, who took part in the Egyptian government, theology, science, and civilization, departed from their old race, that race died out and the former Egyptians took up their work in the oncoming races of the West, especially in those which are now repeopling the American continents. When Egypt and India were younger there was a constant intercourse between them. They both, in the opinion of the Theosophist, thought alike, but fate ruled that of the two the Hindus only should preserve the old ideas among a living people. I will therefore take from the Brahmanical records of Hindustan their doctrine about the days, nights, years and life of Brahma, who represents the universe and the worlds. The doctrine at once upsets the interpretation so long given to the Mosaic tradition, but fully accords with the evident account in Genesis of other and former "creations," with the cabalistic construction of the Old Testament verse about the kings of Edom, who there represent former periods of evolution prior to that started with Adam, and also coincides with the belief held by some of the early Christian Fathers who told their brethren about wonderful previous worlds and creations. The Day of Brahma is said to last one thousand years, and his night is of equal length. In the Christian Bible is a verse saying that one day is as a thousand years to the Lord and a thousand years as one day. This has generally been used to magnify the power of Jehovah, but it has a suspicious resemblance to the older doctrine of the length of Brahma's day and night. It would be of more value if construed to be a statement of the periodical coming forth for great days and nights of equal length of the universe of manifested worlds. A day of mortals is reckoned by the sun, and is but twelve hours in length. On Mercury it would be different, and on Saturn or Uranus still more so. But a day of Brahma is made up of what are called Manvantaras, or period between two men, fourteen in number. These include 4,320,000,000 mortal, or earth, years, which is one day of Brahma. When this day opens, cosmic evolution, so far as relates to this solar system, begins and occupies between one and two billions of years in evolving the very ethereal first matter before the astral kingdoms of mineral, vegetable, animal and men are possible. This second step takes some three hundred millions of years, and then still more material processes go forward for the production of the tangible kingdoms of nature, including man. This covers over one and one-half billions of years. And the number of solar years included in the present "human" period is over eighteen millions of years. This is exactly what Herbert Spencer designates as the gradual coming forth of the known and heterogeneous from the unknown and homogeneous. For the ancient Egyptian and Hindu Theosophists never admitted a creation out of nothing, but ever strenuously insisted upon evolution, by gradual stages, of the heterogeneous and differentiated from the homogeneous and undifferentiated. No mind can comprehend the infinite and absolute unknown, which is, has no beginning and shall have no end; which is both last and first, because, whether differentiated or withdrawn into itself, it ever is. This is the God spoken of in the Christian Bible as the one around whose pavilion there is darkness. This cosmic and human chronology of the Hindus is laughed at by western Orientalists, yet they can furnish nothing better and are continually disagreeing with each other on the same subject. In Wilson's translation of Vishnu Purana he calls it all fiction based on nothing, and childish boasting. But the Free Masons, who remain inactive hereupon, ought to know better. They could find in the story of the building of Solomon's temple from the heterogeneous materials brought from everywhere, and its erection without the noise of a tool being heard, the agreement with these ideas of their Egyptian and Hindu brothers. For Solomon's Temple means man whose frame is built up, finished and decorated without the least noise. But the materials had to be found, gathered together and fashioned in other and distant places. These are in the periods above spoken of, very distant and very silent. Man could not have his bodily temple to live in until all the matter in and about his world had been found by the Master, who is the inner man, when found the plans for working it required to be detailed. They then had to be carried out in different detail until all the parts should be perfectly ready and fit for placing in the final structure. So in the vast stretch of time which began after the first almost intangible matter had been gathered and kneaded, the material and vegetable kingdoms had sole possession here with the Master, man, who was hidden from sight within carrying forward the plans for the foundations of the human temple. All of this requires many, many ages, since we know that nature never leaps. And when the rough work was completed, when the human temple was erected, many more ages would be required for all the servants, the priests, and the counsellors to learn their parts properly so that man, the Master, might be able to use the temple for its best and highest purposes. The ancient doctrine is far nobler than the Christian religious one or that of the purely scientific school. The religious gives a theory which conflicts with reason and fact, while science can give for the facts which it observes no reason which is in any way noble or elevating. Theosophy alone, inclusive of all systems and every experience, gives the key, the plan, the doctrine, the truth. The real age of the world is asserted by Theosophy to be almost incalculable, and that of man as he is now formed is over eighteen millions of years. What has become at last man is of vastly greater age, for before the present two sexes appeared the human creature was sometimes of one shape and sometimes of another, until the whole plan had been fully worked out into our present form, function, and capacity. This is found to be referred to in the ancient books written for the profane where man is said to have been at one time globular in shape. This was at a time when the conditions favored such a form and of course it was longer ago than eighteen millions of years. And when this globular form was the rule the sexes as we know them had not differentiated and hence there was but one sex, or if you like, no sex at all. During all these ages before our man came into being, evolution was carrying on the work of perfecting various powers which are now our possession. This was accomplished by the Ego or real man going through experience in countless conditions of matter all different one from the other, and the same plan in general was and is pursued as prevails in respect to the general evolution of the universe to which I have before adverted. That is, details were first worked out in spheres of being very ethereal, metaphysical in fact. Then the next step brought the same details to be worked out on a plane of matter a little more dense, until at last it could be done on our present plane of what we miscall gross matter. In these anterior states the senses existed in germ, as it were, or in idea, until the astral plane which is next to this one was arrived at, and then they were concentrated so as to be the actual senses we now use through the agency of the different outer organs. These outer organs of sight, touch and hearing, and tasting, are often mistaken by the unlearned or the thoughtless for the real organs and senses, but he who stops to think must see that the senses are interior and that their outer organs are but mediators between the visible universe and the real perceiver within. And all these various powers and potentialities being well worked out in this slow but sure process, at last man is put upon the scene a sevenfold being just as the universe and earth itself are sevenfold. Each of his seven principles is derived from one of the great first seven divisions, and each relates to a planet or scene of evolution, and to a race in which that evolution was carried out. So the first sevenfold differentiation is important to be borne in mind, since it is the basis of all that follows; just as the universal evolution is septenary so the evolution of humanity, sevenfold in its constitution, is carried on upon a septenary Earth. This is spoken of in Theosophical literature as the Sevenfold Planetary Chain, and is intimately connected with Man's special evolution. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 13 01:50:29 1996 Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 01:50:29 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - OCEAN3.TXT Mime-Version: 1.0 ~THE OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY~ CHAPTER III COMING NOW TO OUR EARTH the view put forward by Theosophy regarding its genesis, its evolution and the evolution of the Human, Animal and other Monads, is quite different from modern ideas, and in some things contrary to accepted theories. But the theories of today are not stable. They change with each century, while the Theosophical one never alters because, in the opinion of those Elder Brothers who have caused its repromulgation and pointed to its confirmation in ancient books, it is but a statement of facts in nature. The modern theory is, on the contrary, always speculative, changeable, and continually altered. Following the general plan outlined in preceding pages, the Earth is sevenfold. It is an entity and not a mere lump of gross matter. And being thus an entity of a septenary nature there must be six other globes which roll with it in space. This company of seven globes has been called the "Earth Chain," the "Planetary Chain." In Esoteric Buddhism this is clearly stated, but there a rather hard and fast materialistic view of it is given and the reader led to believe that the doctrine speaks of seven distinct globes, all separated from though connected with each other. One is forced to conclude that the author meant to say that the globe Earth is as distinct from the other six as Venus is from Mars. This is not the doctrine. The earth is one of seven globes, in respect to man's consciousness only, because when he functions on one of the seven he perceives it as a distinct globe and does not see the other six. This is in perfect correspondence with man himself who has six other constituents of which only the gross body is visible to him because he is now functioning on the Earth, or the fourth globe, and his body represents the Earth. The whole seven "globes" constitute one single mass or great globe and they all interpenetrate each other. But we have to say "globe," because the ultimate shape is globular or spherical. If one relies too closely on the explanation made by Mr. Sinnett it might be supposed that the globes did not interpenetrate each other but were connected by currents or lines of magnetic force. And if too close attention is paid to the diagrams used in The Secret Doctrine to illustrate the scheme, without paying due regard to the explanations and cautions given by H.P. Blavatsky, the same error may be made. But both she and her Adept teachers say, that the seven globes of our chain are in "coadunition with each other but not in consubstantiality." [The Secret Doctrine, I, 166.] This is further enforced by cautions not to rely on statistics or plane surface diagrams, but to look at the metaphysical and spiritual aspect of the theory as stated in English. Thus from the very source of Mr. Sinnett's book we have the statement, that these globes are united in one mass though differing from each other in substance, and that this difference of substance is due to change of center of consciousness. The Earth Chain of seven globes as thus defined is the direct reincarnation of a former chain of seven globes, and that former family of seven was the moon chain, the moon itself being the visible representative of the fourth globe of the old chain. When that former vast entity composed of the Moon and six others, all united in one mass, reached its limit of life it died just as any being dies. Each one of the seven sent its energies into space and gave similar life or vibration to cosmic dust, matter,, and the total cohesive force of the whole kept the seven energies together. This resulted in the evolving of the present Earth Chain of seven centers of energy or evolution combined in one mass. As the Moon was the fourth of the old series it is on the same plane of perception as the Earth, and as we are now confined in our consciousness largely to Earth we are able only to see one of the old seven, to wit: our Moon. When we are functioning on any of the other seven we will perceive in our sky the corresponding old corpse which will then be a Moon, and we will not see the present Moon. Venus, Mars, Mercury and other visible planets are all fourth-plane globes of distinct planetary masses and for that reason are visible to us, their companion six centers of energy and consciousness being invisible. All diagrams on plane surfaces will only becloud the theory because a diagram necessitates linear divisions. The stream or mass of Egos which evolves on the seven globes of our chain is limited in number, yet the actual quantity is enormous. For though the universe is limitless and infinite, yet in any particular portion of Cosmos in which manifestation and evolution have begun there is a limit to the extent of manifestation and to the number of Egos engaged therein. And the whole number of Monads now going through evolution on our Earth Chain came over from the old seven planets or globes which I have described. Esoteric Buddhism calls this mass of Egos a "life wave," meaning the stream of Monads. It reached this planetary mass, represented to our consciousness by the central point our Earth, and began on Globe A or No. I, coming like an army or river. The first portion began on Globe A and went through a long evolution there in bodies suited to such a state of matter, and then passed on to B, and so on through the whole seven greater states of consciousness which have been called globes. When the first portion left A others streamed in and pursued the same course, the whole army proceeding with regularity round the septenary route. This journey went on for four circling round the whole, and then the whole stream or army of Egos from the old Moon Chain had arrived, and being complete, no more entered after the middle of the Fourth Round. The same circling process of these differently arrived classes goes on for seven complete Rounds of the whole seven planetary centers of consciousness, and when the seven are ended as much perfection as is possible in the immense period occupied will have been attained, and then this chain or mass of "globes" will die in its turn to give birth to still another series. Each one of the globes is used by evolutionary law for the development of seven races, and of senses, faculties and powers appropriate to that state of matter: the experience of the whole seven globes being needed to make a perfect development. Hence we have the Rounds and Races. The Round is a circling of the seven centers of planetary consciousness; the Race the racial development on one of those seven. There are seven races for each globe, but the total of forty-nine races only makes up seven great races, the special septennate of races on each globe or planetary center composing in reality one race of seven constituents or special peculiarities of function and power. And as no complete race could be evolved in a moment on any globe, the slow, orderly processes of nature, which allow no jumps, must proceed by appropriate means. Hence sub-races have to be evolved one after the other before the perfect root race is formed, and then the root race sends off its off-shoots while it is declining and preparing for the advent of the next great race. As illustrating this, it is distinctly taught that on the Americas is to be evolved the new, sixth race; and here all the races of the earth are now engaged in a great amalgamation from which will result a very highly developed sub-race, after which others will be evolved by similar processes until the new one is completed. Between the end of any great race and the beginning of another there is a period of rest, so far as the globe is concerned, for then the stream of human Egos leaves it for another one of the chain in order to go on with further evolution of powers and faculties there. But when the last, the seventh, race has appeared and fully perfected itself, a great dissolution comes on, similar to that which I briefly described as preceding the birth of the earth's chain, and then the world disappears as a tangible thing, and so far as the human ear is concerned there is silence. This, it is said, is the root of the belief so general that the world will come to an end, that there will be a judgment day, or that there have been universal floods or fires. Taking up evolution on the Earth, it is stated that the stream of Monads begins first to work up the mass of matter in what are called elemental conditions when all is gaseous or fiery. For the ancient and true theory is that no evolution is possible without the Monad as vivifying agent. In this first stage there is no animal or vegetable. Next comes the mineral when the whole mass hardens, the Monads being all imprisoned within. Then the first Monads emerge into vegetable forms which they construct themselves, and no animals yet appear. Next the first class of Monads emerges from the vegetable and produces the animal, then the human astral and shadowy model, and we have minerals, vegetables, animals and future men, for the second and later classes are still evolving in the lower kingdoms. When the middle of the Fourth Round is reached no more Monads emerge into the human stage and will not until a new planetary mass, reincarnated from ours, is made. This is the whole process roughly given, but with many details left out, for in one of the rounds man appears before the animals. But this detail need lead to no confusion. And to state it in another way. The plan comes first in the universal mind, after which the astral model or basis is made, and when that astral model is completed, the whole process is gone over so as to condense the matter, up to the middle of the Fourth Round. Subsequent to that, which is our future, the whole mass is spiritualized with full consciousness and the entire body of globes raised up to a higher plane of development. In the process of condensing above referred to there is an alteration in respect to the time of the appearance of man on the planet. But as to these details the teachers have only said, "that at the Second Round the plan varies, but the variation will not be given to this generation." Hence it is impossible for me to give it. But there is no vagueness on the point that seven great races have to evolve here on this planet, and that the entire collection of races has to go seven times round the whole series of seven globes. Human beings did not appear here in two sexes first. The first were of no sex, then they altered into hermaphrodite, and lastly separated into male and female. And this separation into male and female for human beings was over 18,000,000 years ago. For that reason is it said, in these ancient schools, that our humanity is 18,000,000 years old and a little over. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 13 01:45:23 1996 Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 01:45:23 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY - OCEAN1.TXT Mime-Version: 1.0 Having reached the commentary on Stanza VI in Eldon's scanned text of the Secret Doctrine, I have found there is more work than hitherto to be done! Accordingly I am having a rest from this, but in order to keep the work moving along, I am uploading the text of ~The Ocean of Theosophy~ (Also supplied by Eldon, but in much better shape!) The following text is of the Preface and Chapter I. I omitted the contents, which merely say, Chappter I, Chapter II, etc. The page numbers will differ according to the format in which subscribers choose to keep their copies of this seminal work. Further uploads will be of individual chapters as they come. Alan Bain, March 13th, 1996. --------------------------- The Ocean of Theosophy by William Quan Judge New York, May 1893 PREFACE An attempt is made in the pages of this book to write of theosophy in such a manner as to be understood by the ordinary reader. Bold statements are made in it upon the knowledge of the writer, but at the same time it is distinctly to be understood that he alone is responsible for what is therein written: the Theosophical Society is not involved in nor bound by anything said in the book, nor are any of its members any the less good Theosophists because they may not accept what I have set down. The tone of settled conviction which may be thought to pervade the Chapters is not the result of dogmatism or conceit, but flows from knowledge based upon evidence and experience. Members of the Theosophical Society will notice that certain theories or doctrines have not been gone into. That is because they could not be treated without unduly extending the book and arousing needless controversy. The subject of the Will has received no treatment, inasmuch as that power or faculty is hidden, subtle, undiscoverable as to essence, and only visible in effect. As it is absolutely colorless and varies in moral quality in accordance with the desire behind it, as also it acts frequently without our knowledge, and as it operates in all the kingdoms below man, there could be nothing gained by attempting to enquire into it apart from the Spirit and the desire. I claim no originality for this book. I invented none of it, discovered none of it, but have simply written that which I have been taught and which has been proved to me. It therefore is only a handing on of what has been known before. CHAPTER I THEOSOPHY IS THAT OCEAN of knowledge which spreads from shore to shore of the evolution of sentient beings; unfathomable in its deepest parts, it gives the greatest minds their fullest scope, yet, shallow enough at its shores, it will not overwhelm the understanding of a child. It is wisdom about God for those who believe that he is all things and in all, and wisdom about nature for the man who accepts the statement found in the Christian Bible that God cannot be measured or discovered, and that darkness is around his pavilion. Although it contains by derivation the name God and thus may seem at first sight to embrace religion alone, it does not neglect science, for it is the science of sciences and therefore has been called the wisdom religion. For no science is complete which leaves out any department of nature, whether visible or invisible, and that religion which, depending solely on an assumed revelation, turns away from things and the laws which govern them is nothing but a delusion, a foe to progress, an obstacle in the way of man's advancement toward happiness. Embracing both the scientific and the religious, Theosophy is a scientific religion and a religious science. It is not a belief or dogma formulated or invented by man, but is a knowledge of the laws which govern the evolution of the physical, astral, psychical, and intellectual constituents of nature and of man. The religion of the day is but a series of dogmas man-made and with no scientific foundation for promulgated ethics; while our science as yet ignores the unseen, and failing to admit the existence of a complete set of inner faculties of perception in man, it is cut off from the immense and real field of experience which lies within the visible and tangible worlds. But Theosophy knows that the whole is constituted of the visible and the invisible, and perceiving outer things and objects to be but transitory it grasps the facts of nature, both without and within. It is therefore complete in itself and sees no unsolvable mystery anywhere; it throws the word coincidence out of its vocabulary and hails the reign of law in everything and every circumstance. That man possesses an immortal soul is the common belief of humanity; to this Theosophy adds that he is a soul; and further that all nature is sentient, that the vast array of objects and men are not mere collections of atoms fortuitously thrown together and thus without law evolving law, but down to the smallest atom all is soul and spirit ever evolving under the rule of law which is inherent in the whole. And just as the ancients taught, so does Theosophy; that the course of evolution is the drama of the soul and that nature exists for no other purpose than the soul's experience. The Theosophist agrees with Prof. Huxley in the assertion that there must be beings in the universe whose intelligence is as much beyond ours as ours exceeds that of the black beetle, and who take an active part in the government of the natural order of things. Pushing further on by the light of the confidence had in his teachers, the Theosophist adds that such intelligences were once human and came like all of us from other and previous worlds, where as varied experience had been gained as is possible on this one. We are therefore not appearing for the first time when we come upon this planet, but have pursued a long, an immeasurable course of activity and intelligent perception on other systems of globes, some of which were destroyed ages before the solar system condensed. This immense reach of the evolutionary system means, then, that this planet on which we now are is the result of the activity and the evolution of some other one that died long ago, leaving its energy to be used in the bringing into existence of the earth, and that the inhabitants of the latter in their turn came from some older world to proceed here with the destined work in matter. And the brighter planets, such as Venus, are the habitation of still more progressed entities, once as low as ourselves, but now raised up to a pitch of glory incomprehensible for our intellects. The most intelligent being in the universe, man, has never, then, been without a friend, but has a line of elder brothers who continually watch over the progress of the less progressed, preserve the knowledge gained through aeons of trial and experience, and continually seek for opportunities of drawing the developing intelligence of the race on this or other globes to consider the great truths concerning the destiny of the soul. These elder brothers also keep the knowledge they have gained of the laws of nature in all departments, and are ready when cyclic law permits to use it for the benefit of mankind. They have always existed as a body, all knowing each other, no matter in what part of the world they may be, and all working for the race in many different ways. In some periods they are well known to the people and move among ordinary men whenever the social organization, the virtue, and the development of the nations permit it. For if they were to come out openly and be heard of everywhere, they would be worshipped as gods by some and hunted as devils by others. In those periods when they do come out some of their number are rulers of men, some teachers, a few great philosophers, while others remain still unknown except to the most advanced of the body. It would be subversive of the ends they have in view were they to make themselves public in the present civilization, which is based almost wholly on money, fame, glory, and personality. For this age, as one of them has already said, "is an age of transition," when every system of thought, science, religion, government, and society is changing, and men's minds are only preparing for an alteration into that state which will permit the race to advance to the point suitable for these elder brothers to introduce their actual presence to our sight. They may be truly called the bearers of the torch of truth across the ages; they investigate all things and beings; they know what man is in his innermost nature and what his powers and destiny, his state before birth and the states into which he goes after the death of his body; they have stood by the cradle of nations and seen the vast achievements of the ancients, watched sadly the decay of those who had no power to resist the cyclic law of rise and fall; and while cataclysms seemed to show a universal destruction of art, architecture, religion, and philosophy, they have preserved the records of it all in places secure from the ravages of either men or time; they have made minute observations, through trained psychics among their own order, into the unseen realms of nature and of mind, recorded the observations and preserved the record; they have mastered the mysteries of sound and color through which alone the elemental beings behind the veil of matter can be communicated with, and thus can tell why the rain falls and what it falls for, whether the earth is hollow or not, what makes the wind to blow and light to shine, and greater feat than all, one which implies a knowledge of the very foundations of nature, they know what the ultimate divisions of time are and what are the meaning and the times of the cycles. But, asks the busy man of the nineteenth century who reads the newspapers and believes in "modern progress," if these elder brothers are all you claim them to be, why have they left no mark on history nor gathered men around them? Their own reply, published some time ago by Mr. A.P. Sinnett, is better than any I could write. We will first discuss, if you please, the one relating to the presumed failure of the 'Fraternity' to leave any mark upon the history of the world. They ought, you think, to have been able, with their extraordinary advantages, to have gathered into their schools a considerable portion of the more enlightened minds of every race. How do you know they have made no such mark? Are you acquainted with their efforts, successes, and failures? Have you any dock upon which to arraign them? How could your world collect proofs of the doings of men who have sedulously kept closed every possible door of approach by which the inquisitive could spy upon them? The precise condition of their success was that they should never be surprised or obstructed. What they have done they know; all that those outside their circle could perceive was the results, the causes of which were masked from view. To account for these results, many have in different ages invented theories of the interposition of gods, special providences, fates, the benign or hostile influences of the stars. There never was a time within or before the so-called historical period when our predecessors were not molding events and 'making history,' the facts of which were subsequently and invariably distorted by historians to suit contemporary prejudices. Are you quite sure that the visible heroic figures uin the successive dramas were not often but their puppets? We never pretended to be able to draw nations in the mass to this or that crisis in spite of the general drift of the world's cosmic relations. The cycles must run their rounds. Periods of mental and moral light and darkness succeed each other as day does night. The major and minor Yugas must be accomplished according to the established order of things. And we, borne along the mighty tide, can only modify and direct some of its minor currents. It is under cyclic law, during a dark period in the history of mind, that the true philosophy disappears for a time, but the same law causes it to reappear as surely as the sun rises and the human mind is present to see it. But some works can only be performed by the Master, while other works require the assistance of the companions. It is the Master's work to preserve the true philosophy, but the help of the companions is needed to rediscover and promulgate it. Once more the elder brothers have indicated where the truth, Theosophy, could be found, and the companions all over the world are engaged in bringing it forth for wider currency and propagation. The Elder Brothers of Humanity are men who were perfected in former periods of evolution. These periods of manifestation are unknown to modern evolutionists so far as their number are concerned, though long ago understood by not only the older Hindus, but also by those great minds and men who instituted and carried on the first pure and undebased form of the Mysteries of Greece. The periods, when out of the Great Unknown there come forth the visible universes, are eternal in their coming and going, alternating with equal periods of silence and rest again in the Unknown. The object of these mighty waves is the production of perfect man, the evolution of soul, and they always witness the increase of the number of Elder Brothers; the life of the least of men pictures them in day and night, waking and sleeping, birth and death, "for these two, light and dark, day and night, are the world's eternal ways." In every age and complete national history these men of power and compassion are given different designations. They have been called Initiates, Adepts, Magi, Hierophants, Kings of the East, Wise Men, Brothers, and what not. But in the Sanskrit language there is a word which, being applied to them, at once thoroughly identifies them with humanity. It is Mahatma. This is composed of Maha great, and Atma soul; so it means great soul, and as all men are souls the distinction of the Mahatma lies in greatness. The term Mahatma has come into wide use through the Theosophical Society, as Mme. H.P. Blavatsky constantly referred to them as her Masters who gave her the knowledge she possessed. They were at first known only as the Brothers, but afterwards, when many Hindus flocked to the Theosophical movement, the name Mahatma was brought into use, inasmuch as it has behind it an immense body of Indian tradition and literature. At different times unscrupulous enemies of the Theosophical Society have said that even this name had been invented and that such beings are not known of among the Indians or in their literature. But these assertions are made only to discredit if possible a philosophical movement that threatens to completely upset prevailing erroneous theological dogmas. For all through Hindu literature Mahatmas are often spoken of, and in parts of the north of that country the term is common. In the very old poem the Bhagavad-Gita, revered by all Hindu sects and admitted by the western critics to be noble as well as beautiful, there is a verse reading, "Such a Mahatma is difficult to find." But irrespective of all disputes as to specific names, there is sufficient argument and proof to show that a body of men having the wonderful knowledge described above has always existed and probably exists today. The older mysteries continually refer to them. Ancient Egypt had them in her great king-Initiates, sons of the sun and friends of great gods. There is a habit of belittling the ideas of the ancients which is in itself belittling to the people of today. Even the Christian who reverently speaks of Abraham as "the friend of God," will scornfully laugh at the idea of the claims of Egyptian rulers to the same friendship being other than childish assumption of dignity and title. But the truth is, these great Egyptians were Initiates, members of the one great lodge which includes all others of whatever degree or operation. The later and declining Egyptians, of course, must have imitated their predecessors, but that was when the true doctrine was beginning once more to be obscured upon the rise of dogma and priesthood. The story of Apollonius of Tyana is about a member of one of the same ancient orders appearing among men at a descending cycle, and only for the purpose of keeping a witness upon the scene for future generations. Abraham and Moses of the Jews are two other Initiates, Adepts who had their work to do with a certain people; and in the history of Abraham we meet with Melchizedek, who was so much beyond Abraham that he had the right to confer upon the latter a dignity, a privilege, or a blessing. The same chapter of human history which contains the names of Moses and Abraham is illuminated also by that of Solomon. And thus these three make a great Triad of Adepts, the record of whose deeds can not be brushed aside as folly and devoid of basis. Moses was educated by the Egyptians and in Midian, from both of which he gained much occult knowledge, and any clear-seeing student of the great Universal Masonry can perceive all through his books the hand, the plan, and the work of a master. Abraham again knew all the arts and much of the power in psychical realms that were cultivated in his day, or else he could not have consorted with kings nor have been "the friend of God;" and the reference to his conversations with the Almighty in respect to the destruction of cities alone shows him to have been an Adept who had long ago passed beyond the need of ceremonial or other adventitious aids. Solomon completes this triad and stands out in characters of fire. Around him is clustered such a mass of legend and story about his dealings with the elemental powers and of his magic possessions that one must condemn the whole ancient world as a collection of fools who made lies for amusement if a denial is made of his being a great character, a wonderful example of the incarnation among men of a powerful Adept. We do not have to accept the name Solomon nor the pretense that he reigned over the Jews, but we must admit the fact that somewhere in the misty time to which the Jewish records refer there lived and moved among the people of the earth one who was an Adept and given that name afterwards. Peripatetics and microscopic critics may affect to see in the prevalence of universal tradition naught but evidence of the gullibility of men and their power to imitate, but the true student of human nature and life knows that the universal tradition is true and arises from the facts in the history of man. Turning to India, so long forgotten and ignored by the lusty and egotistical, the fighting and the trading West, we find her full of the lore relating to these wonderful men of whom Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Solomon are only examples. There the people are fitted by temperament and climate to be the preservers of the philosophical, ethical, and psychical jewels that would have been forever lost to us had they been left to the ravages of such Goths and Vandals as western nations were in the early days of their struggle for education and civilization. If the men who wantonly burned up vast masses of historical and ethnological treasures found by the minions of the Catholic rulers of Spain, in Central and South America, could have known of and put their hands upon the books and palm-leaf records of India before the protecting shield of England was raised against them, they would have destroyed them all as they did for the Americans, and as their predecessors attempted to do for the Alexandrian library. Fortunately events worked otherwise. All along the stream of Indian literature we can find the names by scores of great adepts who were well known to the people and who all taught the same story, the great epic of the human soul. Their names are unfamiliar to western ears, but the records of their thoughts, their work and powers remain. Still more, in the quiet unmovable East there are today by the hundred persons who know of their own knowledge that the Great Lodge still exists and has its Mahatmas, Adepts, Initiates, Brothers. And yet further, in that land are such a number of experts in the practical application of minor though still very astonishing power over nature and her forces, that we have an irresistible mass of human evidence to prove the proposition laid down. And if Theosophy, the teaching of this Great Lodge, is as said, both scientific and religious, then from the ethical side we have still more proof. A mighty Triad acting on and through ethics is that composed of Buddha, Confucius, and Jesus. The first, a Hindu, founds a religion which today embraces many more people than Christianity, teaching centuries before Jesus the ethics which he taught and which had been given out even centuries before Buddha. Jesus coming to reform his people repeats these ancient ethics, and Confucius does the same thing for ancient and honorable China. The Theosophist says that all these great names represent members of the one single brotherhood, who all have a single doctrine. And the extraordinary characters who now and again appear in western civilization, such as St. Germain, Jacob Boehme, Cagliostro, Paracelsus, Mesmer, Count St. Martin, and Madame H.P. Blavatsky, are agents for the doing of the work of the Great Lodge at the proper time. It is true they are generally reviled and classed as impostors, though no one can find out why they are when they generally confer benefits and lay down propositions or make discoveries of great value to science after they have died. But Jesus himself would be called an impostor today if he appeared in some Fifth avenue theatrical church rebuking the professed Christians. Paracelsus was the originator of valuable methods and treatments in medicine now universally used. Mesmer taught hypnotism under another name. Madame Blavatsky brought once more to the attention of the West the most important system, long known to the Lodge, respecting man, his nature and destiny. But all are alike called impostors by a people who have no original philosophy of their own and whose mendicant and criminal classes exceed in misery and in number those of any civilization on the earth. It will not be unusual for nearly all occidental readers to wonder how men could possibly know so much and have such power over the operations of natural law as I have ascribed to the Initiates, now so commonly spoken of as the Mahatmas. In India, China, and other Oriental lands no wonder would arise on these heads, because there, although everything of a material civilization is just now in a backward state, they have never lost a belief in the inner nature of man and in the power he may exercise if he will. Consequently living examples of such powers and capacities have not been absent from those people. But in the West a materialistic civilization having arisen through a denial of the soul life and nature consequent upon a reaction from illogical dogmatism, there has not been any investigation of these subjects and, until lately, the general public has not believed in the possibility of anyone save a supposed God having such power. A Mahatma endowed with power over space, time, mind, and matter, is a possibility just because he is a perfected man. Every human being has the germ of all the powers attributed to these great Initiates, the difference lying solely in the fact that we have in general not developed what we possess the germ of, while the Mahatma has gone through the training and experience which have caused all the unseen human powers to develop in him, and conferred gifts that look god-like to his struggling brother below. Telepathy, mind-reading, and hypnotism, all long ago known to Theosophy, show the existence in the human subject of planes of consciousness, functions, and faculties hitherto undreamed of. Mind-reading and the influencing of the mind of the hypnotized subject at a distance prove the existence of a mind which is not wholly dependent upon a brain, and that a medium exists through which the influencing thought may be sent. It is under this law that the Initiates can communicate with each other at no matter what distance. Its rationale, not yet admitted by the schools of the hypnotists, is, that if the two minds vibrate or change into the same state they will think alike, or, in other words, the one who is to hear at a distance receives the impression sent by the other. In the same way with all other powers, no matter how extraordinary. They are all natural, although now unusual, just as great musical ability is natural though not usual or common. If an Initiate can make a solid object move without contact, it is because he understands the two laws of attraction and repulsion of which "gravitation" is but the name for one; if he is able to precipitate out of the viewless air the carbon which we know is in it, forming the carbon into sentences upon the paper, it is through his knowledge of the occult higher chemistry, and the use of a trained and powerful image making faculty which every man possesses; if he reads your thoughts with ease, that results from the use of the inner and only real powers of sight, which require no retina to see the fine-pictured web which the vibrating brain of man weaves about him. All that the Mahatma may do is natural to the perfected man; but if those powers are not at once revealed to us it is because the race is as yet selfish altogether and still living for the present and the transitory. I repeat then, that though the true doctrine disappears for a time from among men it is bound to reappear, because first, it is impacted in the imperishable center of man's nature; and secondly, the Lodge forever preserves it, not only in actual objective records, but also in the intelligent and fully self-conscious men who, having successfully overpassed the many periods of evolution which preceded the one we are now involved in, cannot lose the precious possessions they have acquired. And because the elder brothers are the highest product of evolution through whom alone, in cooperation with the whole human family, the further regular and workmanlike prosecution of the plans of the Great Architect of the Universe could be carried on, I have thought it well to advert to them and their Universal Lodge before going to other parts of the subject. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From sge95fmo@lustudat.student.lu.se Wed Mar 13 06:42:49 1996 Date: Wed, 13 Mar 96 07:42:49 +0100 From: sge95fmo@lustudat.student.lu.se (Fredrik Montelius) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: Women and theosophy Message-Id: <143CF381263@LuStuDat.student.lu.se> Hi, S Gegenhuber. It's pleasing to find out that people are interested in the feminist side of Theosophy. Indeed, reading the writings of HPB makes one aware of the feminist element of the teachings. Debate at the time of HPB was, and certainly still is, more or less controlled by men, and as far as I can understand, the fact that she was a woman made her enemies' attacks on her all the more severe, which is very typical. Often it is said that the Theosophical Teachings are 'timeless', but still they were presented at a specific point in time, and therefore had to be presented in a shape understandable by the people of the 19TH century, and by us. Also, naturally we filter the exoteric context by our means of perception. The esoteric meaning of the message, of course, holds no antagonism between male-female. This antagonism is man-made. But, in my opinion, the exoteric discussion pursued by HPB shows elements of a much needed feminine aspect. Anyone devoting her/himself to the pursuance 'of the feminine' side of the Theosophical Writers, should be strongly encouraged. Your work seems to become interesting. All the best! Mr. Fredrik Montelius, ULT Sweden, subscriber to THEOS-ROOTS. .>Hi, all, > > Thank you for your responses to my inquiry. FYI, I am in Pasadena, >just a few short blocks from the Theosophical Society Library. The fact >that so many women have been leaders in the theosophical movement is what >drew my attention to it. I've recognized a number of themes in HPB's works >that could be considered "of the feminine," as Ms. Deutsch verified. HPB >herself did not seem to be involved in feminist social justice, as were >others who assisted poor women, etc. Her research seems to be remarkable. >One of my interests is a tracing of sources or thinking that may have >influenced "New Age" feminism, particularly "secret" teachings or >philosophical ideas that appear to be emerging in ritual, practices and >ethics of late 20th century witchcraft and eco-feminism. Wicca and >Theosophy have obvious differences, but practices such as magic, and ideas >such as immanence, inter-relatedness and personal experience seem to be >more clearly articulated in theosophical studies rather than in anything >passed down from ancient folk-practice or Goddess worship. > I'm in the last third of a masters program in Feminist Spirituality at >Immaculate Heart College. This little paper is a 15-pager for a Historical >Perspectives on Feminist Spirituality, so it's primarily a secondary source >paper that hopefully can open some doors toward original research. I'm >just barely scratching the surface of "women and theosophy" in this case, >but hope to develop a thesis of some sorts for continuing independent >study. I appreciate hearing about people doing research in this area, and >should this paper develop into something, I'll be getting far more involved >in the future. Thanks! > > >-S. Gegenhuber > From blafoun@azstarnet.com Wed Mar 13 23:50:31 1996 Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 16:50:31 -0700 (MST) From: blafoun@azstarnet.com (Blavatsky Foundation) Message-Id: <199603132350.QAA18156@web.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: neither exists Jerry S. writes: >> I think many theosophists get hung up on this idea of Brothers >>of the Shadow. Judge and G de P talk about this a lot, following a few >>comments from HPB on it. But it is not as it seems. There is NO fellowship >>of Black Magicians or Black Magic Guild, or Guild of the Shadow that we can >>go out and join. There is not one, not a single person, who would admit to >>being "evil" or "Black." Crowley, for example, always considered himself >>to be a White Magician, and sent from the same White Lodge as HPB. >> What they are doing only seems black to others who >>are doing other things. Black and White, insofaras good and evil are >>concerned are entirely relative concepts. The Brotherhood of the Shadow >>only exists because theosophically-minded people set up the idea of a >>Brotherhood of Compassion. Without the one, the other would dissolve >>simultaneously. As long as we view treading our spiritual Path as "good" >>then we will see others who tread different paths as "evil." They, on the >>other hand, see themselves as "good" and you as "evil." Only the intent >>or motivation makes an act black or white. And who makes the >>determination? One person's good is another's evil. Best, I think, to follow >>your own Path the best you can, and try not to throw stones at others. >> >> Jerry S. >> Member, TI Of course, GdP, Judge and Blavatsky didn't know what they were talking about. Right? Jerry S. tells us: >The Brotherhood of the Shadow >>only exists because theosophically-minded people set up the idea of a >>Brotherhood of Compassion. Without the one, the other would dissolve >>simultaneously. Who are these "theosophically-minded people"? HPB? Koot Hoomi? Morya? Koot Hoomi many times in the Mahatma Letters mentions Brothers of the Shadow. KH speaks of the Brothers of the Shadow as "our greatest, most cruel...our most potential [powerful] enemies." In another letter he speaks of the "direct hostility of the Brethren of the Shadow always on the watch to perplex and haze the neophyte's brain." Elsewhere, he speaks of the "opposition and igorant malice guided by the Brethren of the Shadow...." etc. etc. And in HPB's Collected Writings, Vol. III, HPB writes that "one must become a co-worker with nature, either for *good* for for *bad*, in her work of creation and reproduction, or in that of destruction." To this comment, Koot Hoomi appends this remark: "This sentence refers to the two kinds of the initiates---the adepts and the sorcerers." In this same passage, HPB writes: "There are thoroughly wicked and depraved men, yet as highly intellectual and acutely *spiritual* for evil, as those who are spiritual for good." KH adds a note that these "thoroughly wicked and depraved men" are "The Brothers of the Shadow." And in another note KH says: "If you believe in us how can you disbelieve in them?" Of course, KH was probably making all of this up! Or speaking in "metaphors"! Or else KH was naive enough to believe in "sorcerers"! Obviously KH, as Jerry S. phrases it, is "hung up on this idea of Brothers of the Shadow"! See also the Cumulative Index (Vol. 15) to HPB's Collected Writings under "Brother of the Shadow" for HPB's words on this subject. Jerry S. writes: " There is not one, not a single person, who would admit to >>being "evil" or "Black."..... What they are doing only seems black to others who >>are doing other things. Black and White, insofaras good and evil are >>concerned are entirely relative concepts. Of course, Hitler and his legion of Nazi thugs and murderers probably wouldn't have admitted to being "evil" or "Black". But ask the millions of victims of the concentration camps about these terms Black, White/ good and evil. "What they are doing only seems black to others who are doing other things."??????? Of course, anyone has the right to question these statements by KH, HPB, Judge and GdP. But in turn, does Jerry S. really know what he is talking about? Certainly one may question KH's "ipse dixit" on the subject but why not also question Jerry S.'s "ipse dixit", too? The sword cuts both ways..... Everything in the physical world is not all good, sweet and light. Everything in the inner worlds is not necessarily all good, sweet and light. If Brothers of the Light exist, then is it not reasonable to think that Brothers of the Shadow might also exist? Personally I would rather believe that there are no "Brothers of the Shadow". But one's preferences and beliefs may not coincide with reality. Some food for thought. Thanks Jerry for your comments. Daniel H. Caldwell From eldon@theosophy.com Fri Mar 15 03:10:11 1996 Date: Thu, 14 Mar 96 19:10:11 -0800 From: eldon@theosophy.com (Eldon B. Tucker) Message-Id: <9603150310.AA20509@server1.deltanet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: Women and theosophy Fredrik: Following are some comments on your note to S. Gegenhuber. Conditions for people seem to be improving in the world. The caste system in India, and the specialized (and subservient) roles of women in society are on their way out. People will be more free to live the lives that they aspire to, without being constrained by arbitrary roles and guidelines imposed by society. Apart from the nine-month carrying of a baby in a womb, and the optional period of breast feeding, there is no real difference between men and women as either active people in the work force, nor any real difference in parenting and child-rearing abilities. Besides the traditional family, with one working parent, we've been forced into a variant where both parents have to work in order to make ends meet. There are also single parents trying to raise children. (This is another area where sexism exists, since there has been the false belief that somehow a woman is better fit to raise children, and women have been disproportionately given custody in divorces.) Other alternates include what was tried at the Point Loma theosophical community at the turn of the century. Parents sent their children, like W. Emmett Small and L. Gordon Plummer, to Point Loma to be raised in a theosophical school, where there was a form of communal upbringing. Considering feminism as a discipline, it seems to deal with two unrelated things. One is the political movement to deal with gender-based constraints in our society, constraints that need to be removed. The intent to remove these constrains is fine, as long as it doesn't degenerate into institutionalized sexism, with quotas, becoming something akin to affirmative action. The other thing that feminism may deal with is the exploration of the feminine quality, which really has nothing to do with whether someone is man or woman, and of which women have no special claim to understanding. I don't think that when we get into the Mysteries, that either sexism, racism, the caste system, or other cultural fossils has any bearing. The Teachings are timeless, since they deal both with things are we cannot yet know, as well as with things that are quite independent of the cultural biases of any particular place and time. A particular way of writing about the Teachings may adopt the idiom of the culture in which the writings are made, but that doesn't detract from the beauty of the Wisdom Religion. When we go to study and contemplate Theosophy, we've left behind, for the moment, the customs of our present-day life, and stop worrying about all the political, social, and ethical projects we may be working on. We are going *deep within* and exploring the world in a special way, as we engage in our studies. -- Eldon From am455@lafn.org Fri Mar 15 05:07:40 1996 Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 21:07:40 -0800 From: am455@lafn.org (Nicholas Weeks) Message-Id: <199603150507.AA03516@lafn.org> Subject: Plotinus 6 Reply-To: am455@lafn.org The Six Enneads BY PLOTINUS Written 250 A.D. Translated By Stephen Mackenna And B. S. Page _________________________________________________________________ THE FOURTH ENNEAD - EIGHTH TRACTATE [excerpts] THE SOUL'S DESCENT INTO BODY. 1. Many times it has happened: Lifted out of the body into myself; becoming external to all other things and self-encentered; beholding a marvellous beauty; then, more than ever, assured of community with the loftiest order; enacting the noblest life, acquiring identity with the divine; stationing within It by having attained that activity; poised above whatsoever within the Intellectual is less than the Supreme: yet, there comes the moment of descent from intellection to reasoning, and after that sojourn in the divine, I ask myself how it happens that I can now be descending, and how did the soul ever enter into my body, the soul which, even within the body, is the high thing it has shown itself to be. [...] We have to fall back on the illustrious Plato, who uttered many noble sayings about the soul, and has in many places dwelt upon its entry into body so that we may well hope to get some light from him. What do we learn from this philosopher? We will not find him so consistent throughout that it is easy to discover his mind. Everywhere, no doubt, he expresses contempt for all that is of sense, blames the commerce of the soul with body as an enchainment, an entombment, and upholds as a great truth the saying of the Mysteries that the soul is here a prisoner. In the Cavern of Plato and in the Cave of Empedocles, I discern this universe, where the breaking of the fetters and the ascent from the depths are figures of the wayfaring toward the Intellectual Realm. In the Phaedrus he makes a failing of the wings the cause of the entry to this realm: and there are Periods which send back the soul after it has risen; there are judgements and lots and fates and necessities driving other souls down to this order. In all these explanations, he finds guilt in the arrival of the soul at body, But treating, in the Timaeus, of our universe he exalts the kosmos and entitles it a blessed god, and holds that the soul was given by the goodness of the creator to the end that the total of things might be possessed of intellect, for thus intellectual it was planned to be, and thus it cannot be except through soul. There is a reason, then, why the soul of this All should be sent into it from God: in the same way the soul of each single one of us is sent, that the universe may be complete; it was necessary that all beings of the Intellectual should be tallied by just so many forms of living creatures here in the realm of sense. 2. Enquiring, then, of Plato as to our own soul, we find ourselves forced to enquire into the nature of soul in general- to discover what there can be in its character to bring it into partnership with body, and, again, what this kosmos must be in which, willing unwilling or in any way at all, soul has its activity. We have to face also the question as to whether the Creator has planned well or ill...... like our souls, which it may be, are such that governing their inferior, the body, they must sink deeper and deeper into it if they are to control it. No doubt the individual body- though in all cases appropriately placed within the universe- is of itself in a state of dissolution, always on the way to its natural terminus, demanding much irksome forethought to save it from every kind of outside assailant, always gripped by need, requiring every help against constant difficulty: but the body inhabited by the World-Soul- complete, competent, self-sufficing, exposed to nothing contrary to its nature- this needs no more than a brief word of command, while the governing soul is undeviatingly what its nature makes it wish to be, and, amenable neither to loss nor to addition, knows neither desire nor distress. This is how we come to read that our soul, entering into association with that complete soul and itself thus made perfect, walks the lofty ranges, administering the entire kosmos, and that as long as it does not secede and is neither inbound to body nor held in any sort of servitude, so long it tranquilly bears its part in the governance of the All, exactly like the world-soul itself; for in fact it suffers no hurt whatever by furnishing body with the power to existence, since not every form of care for the inferior need wrest the providing soul from its own sure standing in the highest. The soul's care for the universe takes two forms: there is the supervising of the entire system, brought to order by deedless command in a kindly presidence, and there is that over the individual, implying direct action, the hand to the task, one might say, in immediate contact: in the second kind of care the agent absorbs much of the nature of its object. Now in its comprehensive government of the heavenly system, the soul's method is that of an unbroken transcendence in its highest phases, with penetration by its lower power: at this, God can no longer be charged with lowering the All-Soul, which has not been deprived of its natural standing and from eternity possesses and will unchangeably possess that rank and habit which could never have been intruded upon it against the course of nature but must be its characteristic quality, neither failing ever nor ever beginning. Where we read that the souls or stars stand to their bodily forms as the All to the material forms within it- for these starry bodies are declared to be members of the soul's circuit- we are given to understand that the star-souls also enjoy the blissful condition of transcendence and immunity that becomes them. And so we might expect: commerce with the body is repudiated for two only reasons, as hindering the soul's intellective act and as filling with pleasure, desire, pain; but neither of these misfortunes can befall a soul which has never deeply penetrated into the body, is not a slave but a sovereign ruling a body of such an order as to have no need and no shortcoming and therefore to give ground for neither desire nor fear. There is no reason why it should be expectant of evil with regard to such a body nor is there any such preoccupied concern, bringing about a veritable descent, as to withdraw it from its noblest and most blessed vision; it remains always intent upon the Supreme, and its governance of this universe is effected by a power not calling upon act. [...] _________________________________________________________________ The Tech Classics Archive -- Nicholas <> am455@lafn.org <> Los Angeles First of all, love truth for its own sake, for otherwise no recognition of it will follow. HP Blavatsky From am455@lafn.org Sat Mar 16 15:58:52 1996 Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 07:58:52 -0800 From: am455@lafn.org (Nicholas Weeks) Message-Id: <199603161558.AA00148@lafn.org> Subject: Plotinus 7 Reply-To: am455@lafn.org The Six Enneads BY PLOTINUS Written 250 A.D. Translated By Stephen Mackenna And B. S. Page _________________________________________________________________ THE FOURTH ENNEAD - NINTH TRACTATE [excerpts] ARE ALL SOULS ONE?. 1. That the Soul of every individual is one thing we deduce from the fact that it is present entire at every point of the body- the sign of veritable unity- not some part of it here and another part there. In all sensitive beings the sensitive soul is an omnipresent unity, and so in the forms of vegetal life the vegetal soul is entire at each several point throughout the organism. Now are we to hold similarly that your soul and mine and all are one, and that the same thing is true of the universe, the soul in all the several forms of life being one soul, not parcelled out in separate items, but an omnipresent identity? If the soul in me is a unity, why need that in the universe be otherwise seeing that there is no longer any question of bulk or body? And if that, too, is one soul and yours, and mine, belongs to it, then yours and mine must also be one: and if, again, the soul of the universe and mine depend from one soul, once more all must be one. What then in itself is this one soul? First we must assure ourselves of the possibility of all souls being one as that of any given individual is. It must, no doubt, seem strange that my soul and that of any and everybody else should be one thing only: it might mean my feelings being felt by someone else, my goodness another's too, my desire, his desire, all our experience shared with each other and with the (one-souled) universe, so that the very universe itself would feel whatever I felt. Besides how are we to reconcile this unity with the distinction of reasoning soul and unreasoning, animal soul and vegetal? Yet if we reject that unity, the universe itself ceases to be one thing and souls can no longer be included under any one principle. 2. Now to begin with, the unity of soul, mine and another's, is not enough to make the two totals of soul and body identical. An identical thing in different recipients will have different experiences; the identity Man, in me as I move and you at rest, moves in me and is stationary in you: there is nothing stranger, nothing impossible, in any other form of identity between you and me; nor would it entail the transference of my emotion to any outside point: when in any one body a hand is in pain, the distress is felt not in the other but in the hand as represented in the centralizing unity. In order that my feelings should of necessity be yours, the unity would have to be corporeal: only if the two recipient bodies made one, would the souls feel as one. We must keep in mind, moreover, that many things that happen even in one same body escape the notice of the entire being, especially when the bulk is large: thus in huge sea-beasts, it is said, the animal as a whole will be quite unaffected by some membral accident too slight to traverse the organism. Thus unity in the subject of any experience does not imply that the resultant sensation will be necessarily felt with any force upon the entire being and at every point of it: some transmission of the experience may be expected, and is indeed undeniable, but a full impression on the sense there need not be. That one identical soul should be virtuous in me and vicious in someone else is not strange: it is only saying that an identical thing may be active here and inactive there. We are not asserting the unity of soul in the sense of a complete negation of multiplicity- only of the Supreme can that be affirmed- we are thinking of soul as simultaneously one and many, participant in the nature divided in body, but at the same time a unity by virtue of belonging to that Order which suffers no division. In myself some experience occurring in a part of the body may take no effect upon the entire man but anything occurring in the higher reaches would tell upon the partial: in the same way any influx from the All upon the individual will have manifest effect since the points of sympathetic contact are numerous- but as to any operation from ourselves upon the All there can be no certainty. 3. Yet, looking at another set of facts, reflection tells us that we are in sympathetic relation to each other, suffering, overcome, at the sight of pain, naturally drawn to forming attachments; and all this can be due only to some unity among us. Again, if spells and other forms of magic are efficient even at a distance to attract us into sympathetic relations, the agency can be no other than the one soul. A quiet word induces changes in a remote object, and makes itself heard at vast distances- proof of the oneness of all things within the one soul. [...] It is our feebleness that leads to doubt in these matters; the body obscures the truth, but There all stands out clear and separate. _________________________________________________________________ The Tech Classics Archive -- Nicholas <> am455@lafn.org <> Los Angeles First of all, love truth for its own sake, for otherwise no recognition of it will follow. HP Blavatsky From nlporreco@bpa.gov Mon Mar 18 17:20:00 1996 Date: Mon, 18 Mar 96 09:20:00 PST From: "Porreco, Nick - CPMQ" Subject: RE: H.P.B.'s research Message-Id: <314D9BFE@mortar.bpa.gov> Encoding: 28 TEXT Wizard Press has tried to reprint as many of the sources as they could. Also there are individuals (one David ?) who I can't recall off the top of my head who are working on collecting the sources at their own expense. > Date: Monday, March 11, 1996 5:03PM > From: theos-roots > Subject: H.P.B.'s research Hi, again, I did have another question. H.P.B. read widely and quoted from lots of sources in her materials, and I've read about the controversy over plagiarism and the like. Are the sources she did mention verifiable? Are they still in existence somewhere (a library...). Some of the things she wrote about may have come from oral sources - has anyone tried to validate any of those? Since the Society of Psychical Research rescinded their judgement of "imposter" does this mean her writings are now accepted as credible? I guess I'm trying to find out if HPB's work could provide markers to other secret or not-so-secret sources of spiritual knowledge, or perhaps if those sources are non-existent or were oral, is her work then considered valid as an original source? This question may not make sense, but I am not a historian and so lack a little in technical expertise. I just don't want to base some work on ideas or research that's already been proven to be false. Thanks! From am455@lafn.org Mon Mar 18 20:09:29 1996 Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 12:09:29 -0800 From: am455@lafn.org (Nicholas Weeks) Message-Id: <199603182009.AA01568@lafn.org> Subject: WQJ Tribute Reply-To: am455@lafn.org W. Q. J. O hero of the iron age, Upon thy grave we will not weep, Nor yet consume away in rage For thee and thy untimely sleep. Our hearts a burning silence keep. O martyr, in these iron days One fate was sure for soul like thine: Well you foreknew but went your ways. The crucifixion is the sign, The meed of all the kingly line. We may not mourn -- though such a night Has fallen on our earthly spheres Bereft of love and truth and light As never since the dawn of years; -- For tears give birth alone to tears. One wreath upon thy grave we lay (The silence of our bitter thought, Words that would scorch their hearts of clay), And turn to learn what thou hast taught, To shape our lives as thine was wrought. _____________ It is with no feeling of sadness that I think of this withdrawal. He would not have wished for that. But with a faltering hand I try to express one of many incommunicable thoughts about the hero who has departed. Long before I met him, before even written words of his had been read, his name like an incantation stirred and summoned forth some secret spiritual impulse in my heart. It was no surface tie which bound us to him. No one ever tried less than he to gain from men that adherence which comes from impressive manner. I hardly thought what he was while he spoke; but on departing I found my heart, wiser than my brain, had given itself away to him; an inner exaltation lasting for months witnessed his power. It was in that memorable convention in London two years ago that I first glimpsed his real greatness. As he sat there quietly, one among many, not speaking a word, I was overcome by a sense of spiritual dilation, of unconquerable will about him, and that one figure with the grey head became all the room to me. Shall I not say the truth I think? Here was a hero out of the remote, antique, giant ages come among us, wearing but on the surface the vesture of our little day. We, too, came out of that past, but in forgetfulness; he with memory and power soon regained. To him and one other we owe an unspeakable gratitude for faith and hope and knowledge born again. We may say now, using words of his early years: "Even in hell I lift up my eyes to those who are beyond me and do not deny them." Ah, hero, we know you would have stayed with us if it were possible; but fires have been kindled that shall not soon fade, fires that shall be bright when you again return. I feel no sadness, knowing there are no farewells in the True: to whosoever has touched on that real being there is comradeship with all the great and wise of time. That he will again return we need not doubt. His ideals were those which are attained only by Saviours and Deliverers of nations. When or where he may appear I know not, but foresee the coming when our need invokes him. Light of the future aeons, I hail, I hail to thee! AE (George Russell) ------------- [Irish Theosophist, April 1896; also ~Echoes of the Orient~ Vol. 2, pp. 2-4] -- Nicholas <> am455@lafn.org <> Los Angeles First of all, love truth for its own sake, for otherwise no recognition of it will follow. HP Blavatsky From jem@vnet.net Tue Mar 19 20:10:53 1996 Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 15:10:53 -0500 From: jem@vnet.net (John E. Mead) Message-Id: <199603192010.PAA01487@anna.vnet.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Racist newsgroup proposal alert! I thought many of the theosophists may want to respond and vote on this. john e. mead > From: Jay.Betrug@mail-e2a-service.gnn.com p.s. anyone with an e-mail address can vote. >To: warn-people@fictional.net >Subject: Racist newsgroup proposal alert! > >There is currently a proposal for the newsgroup rec.music.white-power, >an attempt by neo-nazi racists to legitimize their activities. It is now >in the CFV stage, where anyone with a valid e-mail address may vote. > >"White power" racist music is not a legitimate form of music deserving of >a separate rec.music newsgroup, but rather a political group masquerading >as a musical one. And, the rec.* hierarchy is inappropriate because rec.* >is for recreational activities, and racism is anything but recreational. > >But, most importantly, we must show the racists that they will not be >granted a mainstream forum in order to promote hate. If you don't want >a Usenet where minorities feel unwelcome and uncomfortable, vote NO on >rec.music.white-power. Let's make this a crushing defeat for racists. > >To vote, send e-mail to music-vote@sub-rosa.com and put > >I vote NO on rec.music.white-power > >in the body of the message. > >The actual CFV can be found on news.announce.newsgroups, >or by sending a blank e-mail to music-cfv@sub-rosa.com. > >Voting ends 23:59:59 UTC, 18 Mar 1996, so act quickly! From liesel@dreamscape.com Mon Mar 18 23:36:14 1996 Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 18:36:14 -0500 From: liesel@dreamscape.com (liesel f. deutsch) Message-Id: <199603182339.SAA18599@ultra1.dreamscape.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: neither exists Re the Brothers of the Shadow, No doubt there are such in the world. No doubt there was Hitler, but Nazis in the lower echelons were often either dragged in by Hitler's charisma, which was considerable (even my Jewish Uncle, when he saw & heard him ws drawn to what he said, which makes my skin crawl when I think of it), or they went along with the crowd. I think really evil men are very few & far between. For the every day, I agree with Jerry, & the Buddhists who say they're ignorant, rather than evil. I truly believe that the bugaboo of black magicians is overdone by Theosophists. liesel >Jerry S. writes: >>> I think many theosophists get hung up on this idea of Brothers >>>of the Shadow. Judge and G de P talk about this a lot, following a few >>>comments from HPB on it. But it is not as it seems. There is NO fellowship >>>of Black Magicians or Black Magic Guild, or Guild of the Shadow that we can >>>go out and join. There is not one, not a single person, who would admit to >>>being "evil" or "Black." Crowley, for example, always considered himself >>>to be a White Magician, and sent from the same White Lodge as HPB. > >>> What they are doing only seems black to others who >>>are doing other things. Black and White, insofaras good and evil are >>>concerned are entirely relative concepts. The Brotherhood of the Shadow >>>only exists because theosophically-minded people set up the idea of a >>>Brotherhood of Compassion. Without the one, the other would dissolve >>>simultaneously. As long as we view treading our spiritual Path as "good" >>>then we will see others who tread different paths as "evil." They, on the >>>other hand, see themselves as "good" and you as "evil." Only the intent >>>or motivation makes an act black or white. And who makes the >>>determination? One person's good is another's evil. Best, I think, to follow >>>your own Path the best you can, and try not to throw stones at others. >>> >>> Jerry S. >>> Member, TI > > >Of course, GdP, Judge and Blavatsky didn't know what they were talking >about. Right? > >Jerry S. tells us: > >>The Brotherhood of the Shadow >>>only exists because theosophically-minded people set up the idea of a >>>Brotherhood of Compassion. Without the one, the other would dissolve >>>simultaneously. > >Who are these "theosophically-minded people"? HPB? Koot Hoomi? Morya? > >Koot Hoomi many times in the Mahatma Letters mentions Brothers of the Shadow. > >KH speaks of the Brothers of the Shadow as "our greatest, most cruel...our most >potential [powerful] enemies." > >In another letter he speaks of the "direct hostility of the Brethren of the >Shadow always on the watch to perplex and haze the neophyte's brain." > >Elsewhere, he speaks of the "opposition and igorant malice guided by the >Brethren of the >Shadow...." > >etc. etc. > >And in HPB's Collected Writings, Vol. III, HPB writes that "one must become >a co-worker with nature, either for *good* for for *bad*, in her work of >creation and reproduction, or in that of destruction." To this comment, >Koot Hoomi appends this remark: "This sentence refers to the two kinds of >the initiates---the adepts and the sorcerers." > >In this same passage, HPB writes: "There are thoroughly wicked and depraved >men, yet as highly intellectual and acutely *spiritual* for evil, as those >who are spiritual for good." > >KH adds a note that these "thoroughly wicked and depraved men" are "The >Brothers of the >Shadow." > >And in another note KH says: "If you believe in us how can you disbelieve >in them?" > >Of course, KH was probably making all of this up! Or speaking in >"metaphors"! Or else KH was naive enough to believe in "sorcerers"! >Obviously KH, as Jerry S. phrases it, is "hung up on this idea of Brothers >of the Shadow"! See also the Cumulative Index (Vol. 15) to HPB's Collected >Writings under "Brother of the Shadow" for HPB's words on this subject. > >Jerry S. writes: " There is not one, not a single person, who would admit to >>>being "evil" or "Black."..... What they are doing only seems black to >others who >>>are doing other things. Black and White, insofaras good and evil are >>>concerned are entirely relative concepts. > >Of course, Hitler and his legion of Nazi thugs and murderers probably >wouldn't have admitted >to being "evil" or "Black". But ask the millions of victims of the >concentration camps about these terms Black, White/ good and evil. > >"What they are doing only seems black to others who are doing other >things."??????? > > >Of course, anyone has the right to question these statements by KH, HPB, >Judge and GdP. >But in turn, does Jerry S. really know what he is talking about? Certainly >one may question >KH's "ipse dixit" on the subject but why not also question Jerry S.'s "ipse >dixit", too? The sword cuts both ways..... > > >Everything in the physical world is not all good, sweet and light. >Everything in the inner worlds is not necessarily all good, sweet and light. >If Brothers of the Light exist, then is it not >reasonable to think that Brothers of the Shadow might also exist? >Personally I would rather >believe that there are no "Brothers of the Shadow". But one's preferences >and beliefs may not >coincide with reality. > >Some food for thought. Thanks Jerry for your comments. > >Daniel H. Caldwell > > > > > From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 18 23:18:44 1996 Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 23:18:44 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - OCEAN5.TXT Mime-Version: 1.0 OCEAN5.TXT CHAPTER V THE BODY, AS A MASS of flesh, bones, muscles, nerves, brain matter, bile, mucous, blood, and skin is an object of exclusive care for too many people, who make it their god because they have come to identify themselves with it, meaning it only when they say "I." Left to itself it is devoid of sense, and acts in such a case solely by reflex and automatic action. This we see in sleep, for then the body assumes attitudes and makes motions which the waking man does not permit. It is like mother earth in that it is made up of an infinitesimal number of "lives." Each of these lives is a sensitive point. Not only are there microbes, bacilli, and bacteria, but these are composed of others, and those others of still more minute lives. These lives are not the cells of the body, but make up the cells, keeping ever within the limits assigned by evolution to the cell. They are forever whirling and moving together throughout the whole body, being in certain apparently void spaces as well as where flesh, membrane, bones, and blood are seen. They extend, too, beyond the actual outer limits of the body to a measurable distance. One of the mysteries of physical life is hidden among these "lives." Their action, forced forward by the Life energy , called Prana or Jiva , will explain active existence and physical death. They are divided into two classes, one the destroyers, the other the preservers, and these two war upon each other from birth until the destroyers win. In this struggle the Life Energy itself ends the contest because it is life that kills. This may seem heterodox, but in Theosophical philosophy it is held to be the fact. For, it is said, the infant lives because the combination of healthy organs is able to absorb the life all around it in space, and is put to sleep each day by the overpowering strength of the stream of life, since the preservers among the cells of the youthful body are not yet mastered by the other class. These processes of going to sleep and waking again are simply and solely the restoring of the equilibrium in sleep and the action produced by disturbing it when awake. It may be compared with the arc-electric light wherein the brilliant arc of light at the point of resistance is the symbol of the waking active man. So in sleep we are again absorbing and not resisting the Life Energy; when we wake we are throwing it off. But as it exists around us like an ocean in which we swim, our power to throw it off is necessarily limited. Just when we wake we are in equilibrium as to our organs and life; when we fall asleep we are yet more full of life than in the morning; it has exhausted us; it finally kills the body. Such a contest could not be waged forever, since the whole solar system's weight of life is pitted against the power to resist focussed in one small human frame. The body is considered by the Masters of Wisdom to be the most transitory, impermanent, and illusionary of the whole series of constituents in man. Not for a moment is it the same. Ever changing, in motion in every part, it is in fact never complete or finished though tangible. The ancients clearly perceived this, for they elaborated a doctrine called Nitya Pralaya, or the continual change in material things, the continual destruction. This is known now to science in the doctrine that the body undergoes a complete alteration and renovation every seven years. At the end of the first seven years it is not the same body it was in the beginning. At the end of our days it has changed seven times, perhaps more. And yet it presents the same general appearance from maturity until death; and it is a human form from birth to maturity. This is a mystery science explains not; it is a question pertaining to the cell and to the means whereby the general human shape is preserved. The "cell" is an illusion. It is merely a word. It has no existence as a material thing, for any cell is composed of other cells. What, then, is a cell? It is the ideal form within which the actual physical atoms , made up of the "lives" , arrange themselves. As it is admitted that the physical molecules are forever rushing away from the body, they must be leaving the cells each moment. Hence there is no physical cell, but the privative limits of one, the ideal walls and general shape. The molecules assume position within the ideal shape according to the laws of nature, and leave it again almost at once to give place to other atoms. And as it is thus with the body, so is it with the earth and with the solar system. Thus also is it, though in slower measure, with all material objects. They are all in constant motion and change. This is modern and also ancient wisdom. This is the physical explanation of clairvoyance, clairaudience, telepathy, and mind-reading. It helps to show us what a deluding and unsatisfactory thing our body is. Although, strictly speaking, the second constituent of man is the Astral Body , called in Sanskrit Linga-Sharira , we will consider Life Energy , or Prana and Jiva in Sanskrit , together, because to our observation the phenomenon of life is more plainly exhibited in connection with the body. Life is not the result of the operation of the organs, nor is it gone when the body dissolves. It is a universally pervasive principle. It is the ocean in which the earth floats; it permeates the globe and every being and object on it. It works unceasingly on and around us, pulsating against and through us forever. When we occupy a body we merely use a more specialized instrument than any other for dealing with both Prana and Jiva. Strictly speaking, Prana is breath; and as breath is necessary for continuance of life in the human machine, that is the better word. Jiva means "life," and also is applied to the living soul, for the life in general is derived from the Supreme Life itself. Jiva is therefore capable of general application, whereas Prana is more particular. It cannot be said that one has a definite amount of this Life Energy which will fly back to its source should the body be burned, but rather that it works with whatever be the mass of matter in it. We, as it were, secrete or use it as we live. For whether we are alive or dead, life-energy is still there; in life among our organs sustaining them, in death among the innumerable creatures that arise from our destruction. We can no more do away with this life than we can erase the air in which the bird floats, and like the air it fills all the spaces on the planet, so that nowhere can we lose the benefit of it nor escape its final crushing power. But in working upon the physical body this life , Prana , needs a vehicle, means, or guide, and this vehicle is the astral body. There are many names for the Astral Body. Here are a few: Linga-Sharira, Sanskrit, meaning design body, and the best one of all; ethereal double; phantom; wraith; apparition; doppelganger; personal man; perisprit; irrational soul; animal soul; Bhuta; elementary; spook; devil; demon. Some of these apply only to the astral body when devoid of the corpus after death. Bhuta, devil, and elementary are nearly synonymous; the first Sanskrit, the other English. With the Hindus the Bhuta is the Astral Body when it is by death released from the body and the mind; and being thus separated from conscience, is a devil in their estimation. They are not far wrong, if we abolish the old notion that a devil is an angel fallen from heaven, for this bodily devil is something which rises from the earth. It may be objected that the term Astral Body is not the right one for this purpose. The objection is one which arises from the nature and genesis of the English language, for as that has grown up in a struggle with nature and among a commercial people it has not as yet coined the words needed for designating the great range of faculties and organs of the unseen man. And as its philosophers have not admitted the existence of these inner organs, the right terms do not exist in the language. So in looking for words to describe the inner body the only ones found in English were the "astral body." This term comes near to the real fact, since the substance of this form is derived from cosmic matter or star matter, roughly speaking. But the old Sanskrit word describes it exactly , Linga-Sharira, the design body , because it is the design or model for the physical body. This is better than "ethereal body," as the latter might be said to be subsequent to the physical, whereas in fact the astral body precedes the material one. The astral body is made of matter of very fine texture as compared with the visible body, and has a great tensile strength, so that it changes but little during a lifetime, while the physical alters every moment. And not only has it this immense strength, but at the same time possesses an elasticity permitting its extension to a considerable distance. It is flexible, plastic, extensible, and strong. The matter of which it is composed is electrical and magnetic in its essence, and is just what the whole world was composed of in the dim past when the processes of evolution had not yet arrived at the point of producing the material body for man. But it is not raw or crude matter. Having been through a vast period of evolution and undergone purifying processes of an incalculable number, its nature has been refined to a degree far beyond the gross physical elements we see and touch with the physical eye and hand. The astral body is the guiding model for the physical one, and all the other kingdoms have the same astral model. Vegetables, minerals, and animals have the ethereal double, and this theory is the only one which will answer the question how it is that the seed produces its own kind and all sentient beings bring forth their like. Biologists can only say that the facts are as we know them, but can give no reason why the acorn will never grow anything but an oak except that no man ever knew it to be otherwise. But in the old schools of the past the true doctrine was known, and it has been once again brought out in the West through the efforts of H.P. Blavatsky and those who have found inspiration in her works. This doctrine is, that in early times of the evolution of this globe the various kingdoms of nature are outlined in plan or ideal form first, and then the astral matter begins to work on this plan with the aid of the Life principle, until after long ages the astral human form is evolved and perfected. This is, then, the first form that the human race had, and corresponds in a way with the allegory of man's state in the garden of Eden. After another long period, during which the cycle of further descent into matter is rolling forward, the astral form at last clothes itself with a "coat of skin," and the present physical form is on the scene. This is the explanation of the verse of the book of Genesis which describes the giving of coats of skin to Adam and Eve. It is the final fall into matter, for from that point on the man within strives to raise the whole mass of physical substance up to a higher level, and to inform it all with a larger measure of spiritual influence, so that it may be ready to go still further on during the next great period of evolution after the present one is ended. So at the present time the model for the growing child in the womb is the astral body already perfect in shape before the child is born. It is on this the molecules arrange themselves until the child is complete, and the presence of the ethereal design-body will explain how the form grows into shape, how the eyes push themselves out from within to the surface of the face, and many other mysterious matters in embryology which are passed over by medical men with a description but with no explanation. This will also explain, as nothing else can, the cases of marking of the child in the womb sometimes denied by physicians but well-known by those who care to watch, to be a fact of frequent occurrence. The growing physical form is subject to the astral model; it is connected with the imagination of the mother by physical and psychical organs; the mother makes a strong picture from horror, fear, or otherwise, and the astral model is then similarly affected. In the case of marking by being born legless, the ideas and strong imagination of the mother act so as to cut off or shrivel up the astral leg, and the result is that the molecules, having no model of leg to work on, make no physical leg whatever; and similarly in all such cases. But where we find a man who still feels the leg which the surgeon has cut off, or perceives the fingers that were amputated, then the astral member has not been interfered with, and hence the man feels as if it were still on his person. For knife or acid will not injure the astral model, but in the first stages of its growth ideas and imagination have the power of acid and sharpened steel. In the ordinary man who has not been trained in practical occultism or who has not the faculty by birth, the astral body cannot go more than a few feet from the physical one. It is a part of that physical, it sustains it and is incorporated in it just as the fibers of the mango are all through that fruit. But there are those who, by reason of practices pursued in former lives on the earth, have a power born with them of unconsciously sending out the astral body. These are mediums, some seers, and many hysterical, cataleptic, and scrofulous people. Those who have trained themselves by a long course of excessively hard discipline which reaches to the moral and mental nature and quite beyond the power of the average man of the day, can use the astral form at will, for they have gotten completely over the delusion that the physical body is a permanent part of them, and, besides, they have learned the chemical and electrical laws governing in this matter. In their case they act with knowledge and consciously; in the other cases the act is done without power to prevent it, or to bring it about at will, or to avoid the risks attendant on such use of potencies in nature of a high character. The astral body has in it the real organs of the outer sense organs. In it are the sight, hearing, power to smell, and the sense of touch. It has a complete system of nerves and arteries of its own for the conveyance of the astral fluid which is to that body as our blood is to the physical. It is the real personal man. There are located the subconscious perception and the latent memory, which the hypnotists of the day are dealing with and being baffled by. So when the body dies the astral man is released, and as at death the immortal man , the Triad , flies away to another state, the astral becomes a shell of the once living man and requires time to dissipate. It retains all the memories of the life lived by the man, and thus reflexly and automatically can repeat what the dead man knew, said, thought, and saw. It remains near the deserted physical body nearly all the time until that is completely dissipated, for it has to go through its own process of dying. It may become visible under certain conditions. It is the spook of the spiritualistic seance-rooms, and is there made to masquerade as the real spirit of this or that individual. Attracted by the thoughts of the medium and the sitters, it vaguely flutters where they are, and then is galvanized into a factitious life by a whole host of elemental forces and by the active astral body of the medium who is holding the seance or of any other medium in the audience. From it (as from a photograph) are then reflected into the medium's brain all the boasted evidences which spiritualists claim go to prove identity of deceased friend or relative. These evidences are accepted as proof that the spirit of the deceased is present, because neither mediums nor sitters are acquainted with the laws governing their own nature, nor with the constitution, power, and function of astral matter and astral man. The Theosophical philosophy does not deny the facts proven in spiritualistic seances, but it gives an explanation of them wholly opposed to that of the spiritualists. And surely the utter absence of any logical scientific explanation by these so-called spirits of the phenomena they are said to produce supports the contention that they have no knowledge to impart. They can merely cause certain phenomena; the examination of those and deductions therefrom can only be properly carried on by a trained brain guided by a living trinity of spirit, soul, and mind. And here another class of spiritualistic phenomena requires brief notice. That is the appearance of what is called a "materialized spirit." Three explanations are offered: First, that the astral body of the living medium detaches itself from its corpus and assumes the appearance of the so-called spirit; for one of the properties of the astral matter is capacity to reflect an image existing unseen in ether. Second, the actual astral shell of the deceased , wholly devoid of his or her spirit and conscience , becomes visible and tangible when the condition of air and ether is such as to so alter the vibration of the molecules of the astral shell that it may become visible. The phenomena of density and apparent weight are explained by other laws. Third, an unseen mass of electrical and magnetic matter is collected, and upon it is reflected out of the astral light a picture of any desired person either dead or living. This is taken to be the "spirit" of such persons, but it is not, and has been justly called by H.P. Blavatsky a "psychological fraud," because it pretends to be what it is not. And, strange to say, this very explanation of materializations has been given by a "spirit" at a regular seance, but has never been accepted by the spiritualists just because it upsets their notion of the return of the spirits of deceased persons. Finally, the astral body will explain nearly all the strange psychical things happening in daily life and in dealings with genuine mediums; it shows what an apparition may be and the possibility of such being seen, and thus prevents the scientific doubter from violating good sense by asserting you did not see what you know you have seen; it removes superstition by showing the real nature of these phenomena, and destroys the unreasonable fear of the unknown which makes a man afraid to see a "ghost." By it also we can explain the apportation of objects without physical contact, for the astral hand may be extruded and made to take hold of an object, drawing it in toward the body. When this is shown to be possible, then travelers will not be laughed at who tell of seeing the Hindu yogi make coffee cups fly through the air and distant objects approach apparently of their own accord untouched by him or anyone else. All the instances of clairvoyance and clairaudience are to be explained also by the astral body and astral light. The astral , which are the real , organs do the seeing and the hearing, and as all material objects are constantly in motion among their own atoms the astral sight and hearing are not impeded, but work at a distance as great as the extension of the astral light or matter around and about the earth. Thus it was that the great seer Swedenborg saw houses burning in the city of Stockholm when he was at another city many miles off, and by the same means any clairvoyant of the day sees and hears at a distance. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 20 13:38:44 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 13:38:44 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: Test for Alexis Mime-Version: 1.0 ALEXIS ALEXIS ALEXIS Testing on theos-buds --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From alexei@slip.net Wed Mar 20 18:44:00 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Mar 96 10:44 PST From: alexis dolgorukii Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: got it At 08:53 AM 3/20/96 -0500, you wrote: > >ALEXIS ALEXIS ALEXIS > >Testing on theos-buds >--------- >THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: >Ancient Wisdom for a New Age > >Thank you Alan: I got it. Now as I understand it I'll automatically get things from Theos-Buds as a message. alexis From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 20 22:56:04 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 22:56:04 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: Re: got it In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 In message , alexis dolgorukii writes >>Thank you Alan: > >I got it. Now as I understand it I'll automatically get things from >Theos-Buds as a message. > >alexis Correct. Alan --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From liesel@dreamscape.com Wed Mar 20 18:50:56 1996 Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 13:50:56 -0500 From: liesel@dreamscape.com (liesel f. deutsch) Message-Id: <199603201854.NAA20491@ultra1.dreamscape.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: Racist newsgroup proposal alert! John, I just got your message & I just voted, but they may not accept it, because today is the 20th, & you said voting closed on the 18th. Liesel ........................................................................... ...... > >I thought many of the theosophists may want to respond and vote on this. >john e. mead > >p.s. anyone with an e-mail address can vote. > > >>From: Jay.Betrug@mail-e2a-service.gnn.com >>To: warn-people@fictional.net >>Subject: Racist newsgroup proposal alert! >> >>There is currently a proposal for the newsgroup rec.music.white-power, >>an attempt by neo-nazi racists to legitimize their activities. It is now >>in the CFV stage, where anyone with a valid e-mail address may vote. >> >>"White power" racist music is not a legitimate form of music deserving of >>a separate rec.music newsgroup, but rather a political group masquerading >>as a musical one. And, the rec.* hierarchy is inappropriate because rec.* >>is for recreational activities, and racism is anything but recreational. >> >>But, most importantly, we must show the racists that they will not be >>granted a mainstream forum in order to promote hate. If you don't want >>a Usenet where minorities feel unwelcome and uncomfortable, vote NO on >>rec.music.white-power. Let's make this a crushing defeat for racists. >> >>To vote, send e-mail to music-vote@sub-rosa.com and put >> >>I vote NO on rec.music.white-power >> >>in the body of the message. >> >>The actual CFV can be found on news.announce.newsgroups, >>or by sending a blank e-mail to music-cfv@sub-rosa.com. >> >>Voting ends 23:59:59 UTC, 18 Mar 1996, so act quickly! >> >> From blafoun@azstarnet.com Thu Mar 21 19:55:51 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 12:55:51 -0700 (MST) From: blafoun@AZStarNet.com (Blavatsky Foundation) Message-Id: <199603211955.MAA23658@web.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: A new book on Theosophy Here is a soon to be published book on Theosophy. Daniel H. Caldwell >------------------------------------------------------------------------ >"Theosophy : The Wisdom of the Ages" > >by > >Cherry Gilchrist > >List: $12.00 > >Subject: Theosophy > >Publisher: Harpercollins >Binding: Hardcover >Expected publication date: April 1, 1996 >ISBN: 0062513060 > > > From blafoun@azstarnet.com Thu Mar 21 19:52:38 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 12:52:38 -0700 (MST) From: blafoun@AZStarNet.com (Blavatsky Foundation) Message-Id: <199603211952.MAA23221@web.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: A new book on Theosophy is to be published around April 1, 1996. I thought this might be of some interest to those on theos-l, etc. Daniel H. Caldwell >------------------------------------------------------------------------ >"Theosophy : The Wisdom of the Ages" > >by > >Cherry Gilchrist > >List: $12.00 > >Subject: Theosophy > >Publisher: Harpercollins >Binding: Hardcover >Expected publication date: April 1, 1996 >ISBN: 0062513060 From blafoun@azstarnet.com Thu Mar 21 19:55:51 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 12:55:51 -0700 (MST) From: blafoun@AZStarNet.com (Blavatsky Foundation) Message-Id: <199603211955.MAA23658@web.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: A new book on Theosophy Here is a soon to be published book on Theosophy. Daniel H. Caldwell >------------------------------------------------------------------------ >"Theosophy : The Wisdom of the Ages" > >by > >Cherry Gilchrist > >List: $12.00 > >Subject: Theosophy > >Publisher: Harpercollins >Binding: Hardcover >Expected publication date: April 1, 1996 >ISBN: 0062513060 > > > From blafoun@azstarnet.com Thu Mar 21 19:52:38 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 12:52:38 -0700 (MST) From: blafoun@AZStarNet.com (Blavatsky Foundation) Message-Id: <199603211952.MAA23221@web.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: A new book on Theosophy is to be published around April 1, 1996. I thought this might be of some interest to those on theos-l, etc. Daniel H. Caldwell >------------------------------------------------------------------------ >"Theosophy : The Wisdom of the Ages" > >by > >Cherry Gilchrist > >List: $12.00 > >Subject: Theosophy > >Publisher: Harpercollins >Binding: Hardcover >Expected publication date: April 1, 1996 >ISBN: 0062513060 > > > From guru@nellie2.demon.co.uk Fri Mar 22 01:28:44 1996 Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 01:28:44 +0000 From: "Dr. A.M.Bain" Message-Id: Subject: Re: A new book on Theosophy In-Reply-To: <199603211955.MAA23658@web.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 In message <199603211955.MAA23658@web.azstarnet.com>, Blavatsky Foundation writes >Here is a soon to be published book on Theosophy. > >Daniel H. Caldwell > >>------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>"Theosophy : The Wisdom of the Ages" >> >>by >> >>Cherry Gilchrist >> >>List: $12.00 >> >>Subject: Theosophy Thanks for the info, but FOUR times? Cherry lives near me - I'll have to get in touch, as I haven't spoken with her since around 1980! Alan --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From blafoun@azstarnet.com Thu Mar 21 19:55:51 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 12:55:51 -0700 (MST) From: blafoun@AZStarNet.com (Blavatsky Foundation) Message-Id: <199603211955.MAA23658@web.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: A new book on Theosophy Here is a soon to be published book on Theosophy. Daniel H. Caldwell >------------------------------------------------------------------------ >"Theosophy : The Wisdom of the Ages" > >by > >Cherry Gilchrist > >List: $12.00 > >Subject: Theosophy > >Publisher: Harpercollins >Binding: Hardcover >Expected publication date: April 1, 1996 >ISBN: 0062513060 > > > From blafoun@azstarnet.com Thu Mar 21 19:52:38 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 12:52:38 -0700 (MST) From: blafoun@AZStarNet.com (Blavatsky Foundation) Message-Id: <199603211952.MAA23221@web.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: A new book on Theosophy is to be published around April 1, 1996. I thought this might be of some interest to those on theos-l, etc. Daniel H. Caldwell >------------------------------------------------------------------------ >"Theosophy : The Wisdom of the Ages" > >by > >Cherry Gilchrist > >List: $12.00 > >Subject: Theosophy > >Publisher: Harpercollins >Binding: Hardcover >Expected publication date: April 1, 1996 >ISBN: 0062513060 > > > From blafoun@azstarnet.com Thu Mar 21 20:17:32 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 13:17:32 -0700 (MST) From: blafoun@AZStarNet.com (Blavatsky Foundation) Message-Id: <199603212017.NAA01333@web.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re:Talmudic A few questions directed to Alexis Alexis writes: >The problem I've always had is, in reference to things like "Kalpas" and >"Yugas" and "Mahakalpas" is "Who Cares? What does that kind of stuff have to >do with making the world a far better place? How does all that >pseudo-technical nonsense go about ending Human suffering? > But if one follows this logic, then how much of Theosophy could we throw out? Does talk about chakras, about inner bodies, about Nirvana, about planes of existence, about adepts, etc etc. help end human suffering? Pray tell, why did HPB, Koot Hoomi and Morya talk so much about these "who cares" subjects? And to go farther, how much of the stuff that is talked about on Theos-l, how much, I ask, makes the world a far better place ,or helps to end human suffering? Maybe we should all take a vow of silence and refrain from typing any words and e-mailing them to theos-l, etc.? Daniel Caldwell Alexis writes: >The world of scientific research has both outstripped the Secret Doctrine >and proven much of it to be absolute nonsense. (All the stuff on "rounds and >Races etc.") It seems to me that what's happened here is that we have >theosophists, people whom I believe are supposed to be utterly dedicated to >open inquiry, blindly "quoting scripture". Which is what I really don't >thinbk theosophy is "all about". > Alexis seems to be saying that scientific research has proven much of the stuff on rounds and races, etc. to be absolute nonsense. If this is what Alexis is saying, I would ask please let us all know what research you are talking about? Your sources, please. Again, who has been "blindly `quoting scripture' " on theos-l? Surely we can discuss these subjects without being accused of "blindly quoting scripture."? Daniel H. Caldwell From blafoun@azstarnet.com Thu Mar 21 20:41:04 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 13:41:04 -0700 (MST) From: blafoun@AZStarNet.com (Blavatsky Foundation) Message-Id: <199603212041.NAA10034@web.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re:Free Discussion Alexis writes: >I fully understand the things Eldon and other place on the board in lieu of >opinion, and I may, or may not, agree with them. What I want to hear from >people in a free discussion is their actual ideas and perceptions and not >quotations from Chairman Blavatsky. I agree to some extent with what Alexis has said in this posting BUT I ask: can we not have a fruitful discussion of what HPB may have written on some particular subject? Can we not discuss some of HPB's ideas without being labelled traditionalists or conservatives or fundamentalists? Do we have to be constantly evolving novel "ideas"? I have found over the years that far too many students of Theosophy don't even know very much about what HPB even wrote. Food for thought, Daniel Caldwell From ramadoss@eden.com Thu Mar 21 20:56:04 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 14:56:04 -0600 (CST) From: ramadoss@eden.com Message-Id: <2.2.16.19960321145725.280f864e@mail.eden.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: A new book on Theosophy Do you have some information on the background of the author? ...doss At 03:00 PM 3/21/96 -0500, you wrote: >Here is a soon to be published book on Theosophy. > >Daniel H. Caldwell > >>------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>"Theosophy : The Wisdom of the Ages" >> >>by >> >>Cherry Gilchrist >> >>List: $12.00 >> >>Subject: Theosophy >> >>Publisher: Harpercollins >>Binding: Hardcover >>Expected publication date: April 1, 1996 >>ISBN: 0062513060 >> >> >> > > From blafoun@azstarnet.com Thu Mar 21 22:43:46 1996 Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 15:43:46 -0700 (MST) From: blafoun@AZStarNet.com (Blavatsky Foundation) Message-Id: <199603212243.PAA29478@web.azstarnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: A new book on Theosophy Doss, I know nothing about the author. Sorry. Daniel >Do you have some information on the background of the author? > > ...doss > > >At 03:00 PM 3/21/96 -0500, you wrote: >>Here is a soon to be published book on Theosophy. >> >>Daniel H. Caldwell >> >>>------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>"Theosophy : The Wisdom of the Ages" >>> >>>by >>> >>>Cherry Gilchrist >>> >>>List: $12.00 >>> >>>Subject: Theosophy >>> >>>Publisher: Harpercollins >>>Binding: Hardcover >>>Expected publication date: April 1, 1996 >>>ISBN: 0062513060 From am455@lafn.org Fri Mar 22 20:09:03 1996 Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 12:09:03 -0800 From: am455@lafn.org (Nicholas Weeks) Message-Id: <199603222009.AA27841@lafn.org> Subject: Above the Vapors 1 Reply-To: am455@lafn.org All you can do is to prepare the intellect: the impulse toward "soul-culture" must be furnished by the individual. Thrice fortunate they who can break through the vicious circle of modern influence and come up above the vapours!... We have one word for all aspirants: TRY. [KH in ML #35] ________________ O Raama, listen to what I [Vasistha] am about to say, which instruction is sure to remove the darkness of ignorance. In this world, whatever is gained is gained only by self-effort; where failure is encountered it is seen that there has been slackness in the effort. This is obvious; but, what is called fate [or God] is fictitious and is not seen. (The word used in the text for fate is "daivam" which also means "god".) Self-effort, Raama, is that mental, verbal and physical action which is in accordance with the instructions of a holy person well versed in the scriptures. It is only by such effort that Indra became king of heaven, that Brahmaa became the creator, and the other deities earned their place. Self-effort is of two catagories: that of past births and that of this birth. The latter effectively counteracts the former. Fate [or God] is none other than self-effort of a past incarnation. There is constant conflict between these two in this incarnation; and that which is more powerful triumphs. Self-effort which is not in accord with the scriptures is motivated by delusion. When there is obstruction in the fruition of self- effort one should examine it to see if there is such deluded action, and if there is it should be immediately corrected. There is no power greater that right action in the present. Hence, one should take recourse to self-effort, grinding one's teeth, and one should overcome evil by good and fate by present effort. The lazy man is worse than a donkey. One should never yield to laziness but strive to attain liberation, seeing that life is ebbing away every moment. One should not revel in the filth known as sense-pleasures, even as a worm revels in pus. One who says, "Fate [or God] is directing me to do this" is brainless and the goddess of fortune abandons him. Hence, by self- effort acquire wisdom and then realise that this self-effort is not without its own end, in the direct realisation of the truth... _________________ -- ~The Supreme Yoga~ (~The Yoga Vasistha~) translated by Swami Venkatesananda. -- Nicholas <> am455@lafn.org <> Los Angeles First of all, love truth for its own sake, for otherwise no recognition of it will follow. HP Blavatsky From ramadoss@eden.com Sat Mar 23 02:15:34 1996 Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 20:15:34 -0600 (CST) From: ramadoss@eden.com Message-Id: <2.2.16.19960322201655.28076c86@mail.eden.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Re: Above the Vapors 1 At 03:13 PM 3/22/96 -0500, you wrote: > >All you can do is to prepare the intellect: the impulse toward >"soul-culture" must be furnished by the individual. Thrice >fortunate they who can break through the vicious circle of modern >influence and come up above the vapours!... We have one word for >all aspirants: TRY. [KH in ML #35] >________________ >> Clip>>>>> >The lazy man is worse than a donkey. One should never yield to ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >laziness but strive to attain liberation, seeing that life is ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >ebbing away every moment. One should not revel in the filth known >as sense-pleasures, even as a worm revels in pus. > > What a timely quote. One could have all the knowledge of all the intricate details of (the "theory") of the origins and the future of man and the universe, an active person who has some understanding of the fundamental objects of the TS can make a difference in the lives of everyone with whom he/she comes into contact. I mention "theory" because until such time you have first hand knowledge or facts - objective or subjective, much of what we have seen written down is only "theory" to many inquirers like me. Just a thought. Don't "jump" on this poor creature!!! ....doss From am455@lafn.org Sat Mar 23 03:27:45 1996 Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 19:27:45 -0800 From: am455@lafn.org (Nicholas Weeks) Message-Id: <199603230327.AA15040@lafn.org> Subject: Above the Vapors 2 Reply-To: am455@lafn.org All you can do is to prepare the intellect: the impulse toward "soul-culture" must be furnished by the individual. Thrice fortunate they who can break through the vicious circle of modern influence and come up above the vapours!... We have one word for all aspirants: TRY. [KH in ML #35] ________________ Vasistha continues: As is the effort so is the fruit, O Raama: this is the meaning of self-effort, and it is also known as fate. When afflicted by suffering, people cry "Alas, what tragedy" or "Alas, look at my fate" both of which mean the same thing. What is called fate or divine will is nothing other than the action or self-effort of the past. The present is infinitely more potent than the past. They indeed are fools who are satisfied with the fruits of their past effort (which they regard as divine will) and do not engage themselves in self-effort now. If you see that the present self-effort is sometimes thwarted by fate (or divine will), you should understand that the present self- effort is weak. A weak and dull-witted man sees the hand of providence when he is confronted by a strong and powerful adversary and succumbs to him. Sometimes it happens that without effort someone makes a great gain... this is certainly nor an accident nor some kind of divine act, but the fruit of...self-effort in the past birth. ..The wise man should of course know what is capable of attainment by self-effort and what is not. It is, however, ignorance to attribute all this to an outside agency and to say that "God sends me to heaven or to hell" or that "an outside agency makes me do this or that" -- such an ignorant person should be shunned. One should free oneself from likes and dislikes and engage oneself in righteous self-effort and reach the supreme truth, knowing that self-effort alone is another name for divine will... That alone is self-effort which springs from right understanding which manifests in one's heart which has been exposed to the teachings of the scriptures and the conduct of holy ones. (The word used in the text for fate is "daivam" which also means "god".) _________________ -- ~The Supreme Yoga~ (~The Yoga Vasistha~) translated by Swami Venkatesananda. -- Nicholas <> am455@lafn.org <> Los Angeles First of all, love truth for its own sake, for otherwise no recognition of it will follow. HP Blavatsky From am455@lafn.org Sat Mar 23 15:33:53 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 07:33:53 -0800 From: am455@lafn.org (Nicholas Weeks) Message-Id: <199603231533.AA07611@lafn.org> Subject: Above the Vapors 3 Reply-To: am455@lafn.org All you can do is to prepare the intellect: the impulse toward "soul-culture" must be furnished by the individual. Thrice fortunate they who can break through the vicious circle of modern influence and come up above the vapours!... We have one word for all aspirants: TRY. [KH in ML #35] ________________ Vasistha continues: O Raama, one should, with a body free from illness and mind free from distress, pursue self-knowledge so that he is not born again here. Such self-effort has a threefold root and therefore threefold fruit -- an inner awakening in the intelligence, a decision in the mind, and the physical action. Self-effort is based on these three -- knowledge of scriptures, instructions of the preceptor and one's own effort. Fate (or divine dispensation) does not enter here. Hence, he who desires salvation should divert impure mind to pure endeavor by persistent effort -- this is the very essence of all scriptures. The Holy ones emphasise: persistently tread the path that leads to the eternal good. And the wise seeker knows: the fruit of my endeavours will be commensurate with the intensity of my self-effort and neither fate nor a god can ordain it otherwise. Indeed, such self-effort alone is responsible for whatever man gets here... No one has seen such a fate or a god, but everyone has experienced how an action (good or evil) leads to a result (good or evil). Hence, from one's childhood, one should endeavour to promote one's true good by a keen intelligent study of the scriptures and by having the company of the Holy ones and by right self-effort. Fate or divine dispensation is merely a convention which has come to be regarded as truth by being repeatedly declared to be true. If this god or fate is truly the ordainer of everything in this world, of what meaning is any action?... No one has ever realised the existence of a fate or divine dispensation... Raama, this sage Vishvamitra became a Brahma-Rishi by self-effort; all of us have attained self-knowledge by self-effort alone. Hence, renounce fatalism [and god] and apply yourself to self-effort. (The word used in the text for fate is "daivam" which also means "god".) _________________ -- ~The Supreme Yoga~ (~The Yoga Vasistha~) translated by Swami Venkatesananda. -- Nicholas <> am455@lafn.org <> Los Angeles First of all, love truth for its own sake, for otherwise no recognition of it will follow. HP Blavatsky From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 23 20:51:42 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 20:51:42 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: OCEAN6.TXT UPLOAD (Ocean of Theosophy) Mime-Version: 1.0 OCEAN6.TXT (~The Ocean of Theosophy~ by W.Q.Judge) CHAPTER VI THE AUTHOR OF Esoteric Buddhism, which book ought to be consulted by all students of Theosophy, since it was made from suggestions given by some of the Adepts themselves, gave the name Kamarupa to the fourth principle of man's constitution. The reason was that the word Kama in the Sanskrit language means "desire," and as the idea intended to be conveyed was that the fourth principle was the "body or mass of desires and passions," Mr. Sinnett added the Sanskrit word for body or form, which is Rupa, thus making the compound word Kamarupa. I shall call it by the English equivalent, passions and desires, because those terms exactly express its nature. And I do this also in order to make the sharp issue which actually exists between the psychology and mental philosophy of the west and those of the east. The west divides man into intellect, will, and feeling, but it is not understood whether the passions and desires constitute a principle in themselves or are due entirely to the body. Indeed, most people consider them as being the result of the influence of the flesh, for they are designated often by the terms "desires of the flesh" and "fleshly appetites." The ancients, however, and the Theosophists know them to be a principle in themselves and not merely the impulses from the body. There is no help to be had in this matter from the western psychology, now in its infancy and wholly devoid of knowledge about the inner, which is the psychical, nature of man, and from this point there is the greatest divergence between it and Theosophy. The passions and desires are not produced by the body, but, on the contrary, the body is caused to be by the former. It is desire and passion which caused us to be born, and will bring us to birth again and again in some body on this earth or another globe. It is by passion and desire we are made to evolve through the mansions of death called lives on earth. It was by the arising of desire in the unknown first cause, the one absolute existence, that the whole collection of worlds was manifested, and by means of the influence of desire in the now manifested world is the latter kept in existence. This fourth principle is the balance principle of the whole seven. It stands in the middle, and from it the ways go up or down. It is the basis of action and the mover of the will. As the old Hermetists say: "Behind will stands desire." For whether we wish to do well or ill we have to first arouse within us the desire for either course. The good man who at last becomes even a sage had at one time in his many lives to arouse the desire for the company of holy men and to keep his desire for progress alive in order to continue on his way. Even a Buddha or a Jesus had first to make a vow, which is a desire, in some life, that he would save the world or some part of it, and to persevere with the desire alive in his heart through countless lives. And equally so, on the other hand, the bad man life after life took unto himself low, selfish, wicked desires, thus debasing instead of purifying this principle. On the material and scientific side of occultism, the use of the inner hidden powers of our nature, if this principle of desire be not strong the master power of imagination cannot do its work, because though it makes a mold or matrix the will cannot act unless it is moved, directed, and kept up to pitch by desire. The desires and passions, therefore, have two aspects, the one being low and the other high. The low is that shown by the constant placing of the consciousness entirely below in the body and the astral body; the high comes from the influence of and aspiration to the trinity above, of Mind, Buddhi, and Spirit. This fourth principle is like the sign Libra in the path of the Sun through the Zodiac; when the Sun (who is the real man) reaches that sign he trembles in the balance. Should he go back the worlds would be destroyed; he goes onward, and the whole human race is lifted up to perfection. During life the emplacement of the desires and passions is, as obtains with the astral body, throughout the entire lower man, and like that ethereal counterpart of our physical person it may be added to or diminished, made weak or increased in strength, debased or purified. At death it informs the astral body, which then becomes a mere shell; for when a man dies his astral body and principle of passion and desire leave the physical in company and coalesce. It is then that the term Kamarupa may be applied, as Kamarupa is really made of astral body and Kama in conjunction, and this joining of the two makes a shape or form which though ordinarily invisible is material and may be brought into visibility. Although it is empty of mind and conscience, it has powers of its own that can be exercised whenever the conditions permit. These conditions are furnished by the medium of the spiritualists, and in every seance room the astral shells of deceased persons are always present to delude the sitters, whose powers of discrimination have been destroyed by wonderment. It is the "devil" of the Hindus, and a worse enemy the poor medium could not have. For the astral spook, or Kamarupa, is but the mass of the desires and passions abandoned by the real person who has fled to "heaven" and has no concern with the people left behind, least of all with seances and mediums. Hence, being devoid of the nobler soul, these desires and passions work only on the very lowest part of the medium's nature and stir up no good elements, but always the lower leanings of the being. Therefore it is that even the spiritualists themselves admit that in the ranks of the mediums there is much fraud, and mediums have often confessed, "the spirits did tempt me and I committed fraud at their wish." This Kamarupa spook is also the enemy of our civilization, which permits us to execute men for crimes committed and thus throw out into the ether the mass of passion and desire free from the weight of the body and liable at any moment to be attracted to any sensitive person. Being thus attracted, the deplorable images of crimes committed and also the picture of the execution and all the accompanying curses and wishes for revenge are implanted in living persons, who, not seeing the evil, are unable to throw it off. Thus crimes and new ideas of crimes are wilfully propagated every day by those countries where capital punishment prevails. The astral shells together with the still living astral body of the medium, helped by certain forces of nature which the Theosophists call "elementals," produce nearly all the phenomena of non-fraudulent spiritualism. The medium's astral body having the power of extension and extrusion forms the framework for what are called "materialized spirits," makes objects move without physical contact, gives reports from deceased relatives, none of them anything more than recollections and pictures from the astral light, and in all this using and being used by the shells of suicides, executed murderers, and all such spooks as are naturally near to this plane of life. The number of cases in which any communication comes from an actual spirit out of the body is so small as to be countable almost on one hand. But the spirits of living men sometimes, while their bodies are asleep, come to seances and take part therein. But they cannot recollect it, do not know how they do it, and are not distinguished by mediums from the mass of astral corpses. The fact that such things can be done by the inner man and not be recollected proves nothing against these theories, for the child can see without knowing how the eye acts, and the savage who has no knowledge of the complex machinery working in his body still carries on the process of digestion perfectly. And that the latter is unconscious with him is exactly in line with the theory, for these acts and doings of the inner man are the unconscious actions of the subconscious mind. These words "conscious" and "subconscious" are of course used relatively, the unconsciousness being that of the brain only. And hypnotic experiments have conclusively proved all these theories, as on one day not far away will be fully admitted. Besides this, the astral shells of suicides and executed criminals are the most coherent, longest lived, and nearest to us of all the shades of Hades, and hence must, out of the necessity of the case, be the real "controls" of the seance room. Passion and desire together with astral model-body are common to men and animals, as also to the vegetable kingdom, though in the last but faintly developed. And at one period in evolution no further material principles had been developed, and all the three higher, of Mind, Soul, and Spirit, were but latent. Up to this point man and animal were equal, for the brute in us is made of the passions and the astral body. The development of the germs of Mind made man because it constituted the great differentiation. The God within begins with Manas or mind, and it is the struggle between this God and the brute below which Theosophy speaks of and warns about. The lower principle is called bad because by comparison with the higher it is so, but still it is the basis of action. We cannot rise unless self first asserts itself in the desire to do better. In this aspect it is called rajas or the active and bad quality, as distinguished from tamas, or the quality of darkness and indifference. Rising is not possible unless rajas is present to give the impulse, and by the use of this principle of passion all the higher qualities are brought to at last so refine and elevate our desires that they may be continually placed upon truth and spirit. By this Theosophy does not teach that the passions are to be pandered to or satiated, for a more pernicious doctrine was never taught, but the injunction is to make use of the activity given by the fourth principle so as to ever rise and not to fall under the dominion of the dark quality that ends with annihilation, after having begun in selfishness and indifference. Having thus gone over the field and shown what are the lower principles, we find Theosophy teaching that at the present point of man's evolution he is a fully developed quaternary with the higher principles partly developed. Hence it is taught that today man shows himself to be moved by passion and desire. This is proved by a glance at the civilizations of the earth, for they are all moved by this principle, and in countries like France, England, and America a glorification of it is exhibited in the attention to display, to sensuous art, to struggle for power and place, and in all the habits and modes of living where the gratification of the senses is sometimes esteemed the highest good. But as Mind is being evolved more and more as we proceed in our course along the line of the race development, there can be perceived underneath in all countries the beginning of the transition from the animal possessed of the germ of real mind to the man of mind complete. This day is therefore known to the Masters, who have given out some of the old truths, as the "transition period." Proud science and prouder religion do not admit this, but think we are as we always will be. But believing in his teacher, the theosophist sees all around him the evidence that the race mind is changing by enlargement, that the old days of dogmatism are gone and the "age of inquiry" has come, that the inquiries will grow louder year by year and the answers be required to satisfy the mind as it grows more and more, until at last, all dogmatism being ended, the race will be ready to face all problems, each man for himself, all working for the good of the whole, and that the end will be the perfecting of those who struggle to overcome the brute. For these reasons the old doctrines are given out again, and Theosophy asks every one to reflect whether to give way to the animal below or look up to and be governed by the God within. A fuller treatment of the fourth principle of our constitution would compel us to consider all such questions as those presented by the wonder workers of the east, by spiritualistic phenomena, hypnotism, apparitions, insanity, and the like, but they must be reserved for separate handling. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From am455@lafn.org Sun Mar 24 05:05:22 1996 Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 21:05:22 -0800 From: am455@lafn.org (Nicholas Weeks) Message-Id: <199603240505.AA05381@lafn.org> Subject: Above the Vapors 4 Reply-To: am455@lafn.org All you can do is to prepare the intellect: the impulse toward "soul-culture" must be furnished by the individual. Thrice fortunate they who can break through the vicious circle of modern influence and come up above the vapours!... We have one word for all aspirants: TRY. [KH in ML #35] ________________ Raama asked: Lord, you are indeed the knower of truth. Pray, tell me what do people really call god, fate or daivam. Vasistha replied: The fruition of self-effort by which one experiences the good and evil results of past action is called fate or daivam by people. People also regard that as fate or daivam which characterises the good and evil nature of such results. When you see that "this plant grows out of this seed", it is regarded as an act of this daivam. But I feel that fate is nothing but the culmination of one's own action. In the mind of man are numerous latent tendencies [vasanas], and these tendencies give rise to various actions -- physical, verbal and mental. Surely, one's actions are in strict accordance with these tendencies, it cannot be otherwise. Such is the course of action [karma]: action is non-different from the most potent among latent tendencies, and these tendencies are non-different from the mind and the man is non-different from the mind!... Raama asked again: Holy sir, if the latent tendencies brought forward form the previous birth impel me to act in the present, where is the freedom of action? Vasistha said: Raama, the tendencies brought forward from past incarnations are of two kinds -- pure and impure. The pure ones lead you towards liberation, and the impure ones invite trouble. You are indeed consciousness itself, not inert physical matter. You are impelled to action by anything other than yourself. Hence you are free to strengthen the pure latent tendencies in preference to the impure ones. The impure ones have to be abandoned gradually and the mind turned away from them little by little, lest there should be violent reaction. By encouraging the good tendencies to act repeatedly, you strengthen them. The impure ones will weaken by disuse. You will soon become absorbed in the expression of the good tendencies, in good actions. When thus you have overcome the force of the evil tendencies then you will have to abandon even the good ones. You will then experience the supreme truth with the intelligence that rises from the good tendencies. (The word used in the text for fate is "daivam" which also means "god".) _________________ -- ~The Supreme Yoga~ (~The Yoga Vasistha~) translated by Swami Venkatesananda. -- Nicholas <> am455@lafn.org <> Los Angeles First of all, love truth for its own sake, for otherwise no recognition of it will follow. HP Blavatsky From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sun Mar 24 15:41:10 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Mar 1996 15:41:10 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - OCEAN7.TXT (Ocean of Theosophy) Mime-Version: 1.0 OCEAN7.TXT ~The Ocean of Theosophy~ - W.Q.Judge CHAPTER VII IN OUR ANALYSIS of man's nature we have so far considered only the perishable elements which make up the lower man, and have arrived at the fourth principle or plane, that of desire, without having touched upon the question of Mind. But even so far as we have gone it must be evident that there is a wide difference between the ordinary ideas about Mind and those found in Theosophy. Ordinarily the Mind is thought to be immaterial, or to be merely the name for the action of the brain in evolving thought, a process wholly unknown other than by inference, or that if there be no brain there can be no mind. A good deal of attention has been paid to cataloguing some mental functions and attributes, but the terms are altogether absent from the language to describe actual metaphysical and spiritual facts about man. This confusion and poverty of words for these uses are due almost entirely, first, to dogmatic religion, which has asserted and enforced for many centuries dogmas and doctrines which reason could not accept, and secondly to the natural war which grew up between science and religion just as soon as the fetters placed by religion upon science were removed and the latter was permitted to deal with facts in nature. The reaction against religion naturally prevented science from taking any but a materialistic view of man and nature. So from neither of these two have we yet gained the words needed for describing the fifth, sixth, and seventh principles, those which make up the Trinity, the real man, the immortal pilgrim. The fifth principle is Manas, in the classification adopted by Mr. Sinnett, and is usually translated Mind. Other names have been given to it, but it is the knower, the perceiver, the thinker. The sixth is Buddhi, or spiritual discernment; the seventh is Atma, or Spirit, the ray from the Absolute Being. The English language will suffice to describe in part what Manas is, but not Buddhi, or Atma, and will leave many things relating to Manas undescribed. The course of evolution developed the lower principles and produced at last the form of man with a brain of better and deeper capacity than that of any other animal. But this man in form was not man in mind, and needed the fifth principle, the thinking, perceiving one, to differentiate him from the animal kingdom and to confer the power of becoming self-conscious. The monad was imprisoned in these forms, and that monad is composed of Atma and Buddhi; for without the presence of the monad evolution could not go forward. Going back for a moment to the time when the races were devoid of mind, the question arises, "who gave the mind, where did it come from, and what is it?" It is the link between the Spirit of God above and the personal below; it was given to the mindless monads by others who had gone all through this process ages upon ages before in other worlds and systems of worlds, and it therefore came from other evolutionary periods which were carried out and completed long before the solar system had begun. This is the theory, strange and unacceptable today, but which must be stated if we are to tell the truth about theosophy; and this is only handing on what others have said before. The manner in which this light of mind was given to the Mindless Men can be understood from the illustration of one candle lighting many. Given one lighted candle and numerous unlighted ones, it follows that from one light the others may also be set aflame. So in the case of Manas. It is the candle of flame. The mindless men having four elementary principles of Body, Astral Body, Life and Desire, are the unlighted candles that cannot light themselves. The Sons of Wisdom, who are the Elder Brothers of every family of men on any globe, have the light, derived by them from others who reach back, and yet farther back, in endless procession with no beginning or end. They set fire to the combined lower principles and the Monad, thus lighting up Manas in the new men and preparing another great race for final initiation. This lighting up of the fire of Manas is symbolized in all great religions and Freemasonry. In the east one priest appears holding a candle lighted at the altar, and thousands of others light their candles from this one. The Parsees also have their sacred fire which is lighted from some other sacred flame. Manas, or the Thinker, is the reincarnating being, the immortal who carries the results and values of all the different lives lived on earth or elsewhere. Its nature becomes dual as soon as it is attached to a body. For the human brain is a superior organism and Manas uses it to reason from premises to conclusions. This also differentiates man from animal, for the animal acts from automatic and so-called instinctual impulses, whereas the man can use reason. This is the lower aspect of the Thinker or Manas, and not, as some have supposed, the highest and best gift belonging to man. Its other, and in theosophy higher, aspect is the intuitional, which knows, and does not depend on reason. The lower, and purely intellectual, is nearest to the principle of Desire, and is thus distinguished from its other side which has affinity for the spiritual principles above. If the Thinker, then, becomes wholly intellectual, the entire nature begins to tend downward; for intellect alone is cold, heartless, selfish, because it is not lighted up by the two other principles of Buddhi and Atma. In Manas the thoughts of all lives are stored. That is to say: in any one life, the sum total of thoughts underlying all the acts of the lifetime will be of one character in general, but may be placed in one or more classes. That is, the business man of today is a single type; his entire life thoughts represent but one single thread of thought. The artist is another. The man who has engaged in business, but also thought much upon fame and power which he never attained, is still another. The great mass of self-sacrificing, courageous, and strong poor people who have but little time to think, constitute another distinct class. In all these the total quantity of life thoughts makes up the stream or thread of a life's meditation, "that upon which the heart was set", and is stored in Manas, to be brought out again at any time in whatever life the brain and bodily environments are similar to those used in engendering that class of thoughts. It is Manas which sees the objects presented to it by the bodily organs and the actual organs within. When the open eye receives a picture on the retina, the whole scene is turned into vibrations in the optic nerves which disappear into the brain, where Manas is enabled to perceive them as idea. And so with every other organ or sense. If the connection between Manas and the brain be broken, intelligence will not be manifested unless Manas has by training found out how to project the astral body from the physical and thereby keep up communication with fellowmen. That the organs and senses do not cognize objects, hypnotism, mesmerism, and spiritualism have now proved. For, as we see in mesmeric and hypnotic experiments, the object seen or felt, and from which all the effects of solid objects may be sensed, is often only an idea existing in the operator's brain. In the same way Manas, using the astral body, has only to impress an idea upon the other person to make the latter see the idea and translate it into a visible body from which the usual effects of density and weight seem to follow. And in hypnotism there are many experiments, all of which go to show that so called matter is not per se solid or dense; that sight does not always depend on the eye and rays of light proceeding from an object; that the intangible for one normal brain and organs may be perfectly tangible for another; and that physical effects in the body may be produced from an idea solely. The well-known experiments of producing a blister by a simple piece of paper, or preventing a real blistering plaster from making a blister, by force of the idea conveyed to a subject, either that there was to be or not to be a blister, conclusively prove the power of effecting an impulse on matter by the use of that which is called Manas. But all these phenomena are the exhibition of the powers of lower Manas acting in the astral Body and the fourth principle, Desire, using the physical body as the field for the exhibition of the forces. It is this lower Manas which retains all the impressions of a lifetime and sometimes strangely exhibits them in trances or dreams, delirium, induced states, here and there in normal conditions, and very often at the time of physical death. But it is so occupied with the brain, with memory and with sensation, that it usually presents but few recollections out of the mass of events that years have brought before it. It interferes with the action of Higher Manas because just at the present point of evolution, Desire and all corresponding powers, faculties, and senses are the most highly developed, thus obscuring, as it were, the white light of the spiritual side of Manas. It is tinted by each object presented to it, whether it be a thought-object or a material one. That is to say, Lower Manas operating through the brain is at once altered into the shape and other characteristics of any object, mental or otherwise. This causes it to have four peculiarities. First, to naturally fly off from any point, object, or subject; second, to fly to some pleasant idea; third, to fly to an unpleasant idea; fourth, to remain passive and considering naught. The first is due to memory and the natural motion of Manas; the second and third are due to memory alone; the fourth signifies sleep when not abnormal, and when abnormal is going toward insanity. These mental characteristics all belonging to Lower Manas, are those which the Higher Manas, aided by Buddhi and Atma, has to fight and conquer. Higher Manas, if able to act, becomes what we sometimes call Genius; if completely master, then one may become a god. But memory continually presents pictures to Lower Manas, and the result is that the Higher is obscured. Sometimes, however, along the pathway of life we do see here and there men who are geniuses or great seers and prophets. In these the Higher powers of Manas are active and the person illuminated. Such were the great Sages of the past, men like Buddha, Jesus, Confucius, Zoroaster, and others. Poets, too, such as Tennyson, Longfellow, and others, are men in whom Higher Manas now and then sheds a bright ray on the man below, to be soon obscured, however, by the effect of dogmatic religious education which has given memory certain pictures that always prevent Manas from gaining full activity. In this higher Trinity, we have the God above each one; this is Atma, and may be called the Higher Self. Next is the spiritual part of the soul called Buddhi; when thoroughly united with Manas this may be called the Divine Ego. The inner Ego, who reincarnates, taking on body after body, storing up the impressions of life after life, gaining experience and adding it to the divine Ego, suffering and enjoying through an immense period of years, is the fifth principle, Manas, not united to Buddhi. This is the permanent individuality which gives to every man the feeling of being himself and not some other; that which through all the changes of the days and nights from youth to the end of life makes us feel one identity through all the period; it bridges the gap made by sleep; in like manner it bridges the gap made by the sleep of death. It is this, and not our brain, that lifts us above the animal. The depth and variety of the brain convolutions in man are caused by the presence of Manas, and are not the cause of mind. And when we either wholly or now and then become consciously united with Buddhi, the Spiritual Soul, we behold God, as it were. This is what the ancients all desired to see, but what the moderns do not believe in, the latter preferring rather to throw away their own right to be great in nature, and to worship an imaginary god made up solely of their own fancies and not very different from weak human nature. This permanent individuality in the present race has therefore been through every sort of experience, for Theosophy insists on its permanence and in the necessity for its continuing to take part in evolution. It has a duty to perform, consisting in raising up to a higher state all the matter concerned in the chain of globes to which the earth belongs. We have all lived and taken part in civilization after civilization, race after race, on earth, and will so continue throughout all the rounds and races until the seventh is complete. At the same time it should be remembered that the matter of this globe and that connected with it has also been through every kind of form, with possibly some exceptions in very low planes of mineral formation. But in general all the matter visible, or held in space still unprecipitated, has been molded at one time or another into forms of all varieties, many of these being such as we now have no idea of. The processes of evolution, therefore, in some departments, now go forward with greater rapidity than in former ages because both Manas and matter have acquired facility of action. Especially is this so in regard to man, who is the farthest ahead of all things or beings in this evolution. He is now incarnated and projected into life more quickly than in earlier periods when it consumed many years to obtain a "coat of skin." This coming into life over and over again cannot be avoided by the ordinary man because Lower Manas is still bound by Desire, which is the preponderating principle at the present period. Being so influenced by Desire Manas is continually deluded while in the body, and being thus deluded is unable to prevent the action upon it of the forces set up in the lifetime. These forces are generated by Manas, that is, by the thinking of the lifetime. Each thought makes a physical as well as mental link with the desire in which it is rooted. All life is filled with such thoughts, and when the period of rest after death is ended Manas is bound by innumerable electrical magnetic threads to earth by reason of the thoughts of the last life, and therefore by desire, for it was desire that caused so many thoughts and ignorance of the true nature of things. An understanding of this doctrine of man being really a thinker and made of thought will make clear all the rest in relation to incarnation and reincarnation. The body of the inner man is made of thought, and this being so it must follow that if the thoughts have more affinity for earth-life than for life elsewhere a return to life here is inevitable. At the present day Manas is not fully active in the race, as Desire still is uppermost. In the next cycle of the human period Manas will be fully active and developed in the entire race. Hence the people of the earth have not yet come to the point of making a conscious choice as to the path they will take; but when in the cycle referred to, Manas is active, all will then be compelled to consciously make the choice to right or left, the one leading to complete and conscious union with Atma, the other to the annihilation of those beings who prefer that path. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sun Mar 24 17:06:08 1996 Date: Sun, 24 Mar 1996 17:06:08 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: <1XP3hDAAEYVxEwTR@nellie2.demon.co.uk> Subject: UPLOAD - OCEAN8.TXT (Ocean of Theosophy) Mime-Version: 1.0 OCEAN8.TXT - ~The Ocean of Theosophy~ - W.Q.Judge CHAPTER VIII HOW MAN HAS COME to be the complex being that he is and why, are questions that neither Science nor Religion makes conclusive answer to. This immortal thinker having such vast powers and possibilities, all his because of his intimate connection with every secret part of Nature from which he has been built up, stands at the top of an immense and silent evolution. He asks why Nature exists, what the drama of life has for its aim, how that aim may be attained. But Science and Religion both fail to give a reasonable reply. Science does not pretend to be able to give the solution, saying that the examination of things as they are is enough of a task; religion offers an explanation both illogical and unmeaning and acceptable but to the bigot, as it requires us to consider the whole of Nature as a mystery and to seek for the meaning and purpose of life with all its sorrow in the pleasure of a God who cannot be found out. The educated and enquiring mind knows that dogmatic religion can only give an answer invented by man while it pretends to be from God. What then is the universe for, and for what final purpose is man the immortal thinker here in evolution? It is all for the experience and emancipation of the soul, for the purpose of raising the entire mass of manifested matter up to the stature, nature, and dignity of conscious godhood. The great aim is to reach self-consciousness; not through a race or a tribe or some favored nation, but by and through the perfecting, after transformation, of the whole mass of matter as well as what we now call soul. Nothing is or is to be left out. The aim for present man is his initiation into complete knowledge, and for the other kingdoms below him that they may be raised up gradually from stage to stage to be in time initiated also. This is evolution carried to its highest power; it is a magnificent prospect; it makes of man a god, and gives to every part of nature the possibility of being one day the same; there is strength and nobility in it, for by this no man is dwarfed and belittled, for no one is so originally sinful that he cannot rise above all sin. Treated from the materialistic position of Science, evolution takes in but half of life; while the religious conception of it is a mixture of nonsense and fear. Present religions keep the element of fear, and at the same time imagine that an Almighty being can think of no other earth but this and has to govern this one very imperfectly. But the old theosophical view makes the universe a vast, complete, and perfect whole. Now the moment we postulate a double evolution, physical and spiritual, we have at the same time to admit that it can only be carried on by reincarnation. This is, in fact, demonstrated by science. It is shown that the matter of the earth and of all things physical upon it was at one time either gaseous or molten; that it cooled; that it altered; that from its alterations and evolutions at last were produced all the great variety of things and beings. This, on the physical plane, is transformation or change from one form to another. The total mass of matter is about the same as in the beginning of this globe, with a very minute allowance for some star dust. Hence it must have been changed over and over again, and thus been physically reformed and re-embodied. Of course, to be strictly accurate, we cannot use the word reincarnation, because "incarnate" refers to flesh. Let us say "reembodied," and then we see that both for matter and for man there has been a constant change of form and this is, broadly speaking, "reincarnation." As to the whole mass of matter, the doctrine is that it will all be raised to man's estate when man has gone further on himself. There is no residuum left after man's final salvation which in a mysterious way is to be disposed of or done away with in some remote dust-heap of nature. The true doctrine allows for nothing like that, and at the same time is not afraid to give the true disposition of what would seem to be a residuum. It is all worked up into other states, for as the philosophy declares there is no inorganic matter whatever but that every atom is alive and has the germ of self-consciousness, it must follow that one day it will all have been changed. Thus what is now called human flesh is so much matter that one day was wholly mineral, later on vegetable, and now refined into human atoms. At a point of time very far from now the present vegetable matter will have been raised to the animal stage and what we now use as our organic or fleshy matter will have changed by transformation through evolution into self-conscious thinkers, and so on up the whole scale until the time shall come when what is now known as mineral matter will have passed on to the human stage and out into that of thinker. Then at the coming on of another great period of evolution the mineral matter of that time will be some which is now passing through its lower transformations on other planets and in other systems of worlds. This is perhaps a "fanciful" scheme for the men of the present day, who are so accustomed to being called bad, sinful, weak, and utterly foolish from their birth that they fear to believe the truth about themselves, but for the disciples of the ancient theosophists it is not impossible or fanciful, but is logical and vast. And no doubt it will one day be admitted by everyone when the mind of the western race has broken away from Mosaic chronology and Mosaic ideas of men and nature. Therefore as to reincarnation and metempsychosis we say that they are first to be applied to the whole cosmos and not alone to man. But as man is the most interesting object to himself, we will consider in detail its application to him. This is the most ancient of doctrines and is believed in now by more human minds than the number of those who do not hold it. The millions in the East almost all accept it; it was taught by the Greeks; a large number of the Chinese now believe it as their forefathers did before them; the Jews thought it was true, and it has not disappeared from their religion; and Jesus, who is called the founder of Christianity, also believed and taught it. In the early Christian church it was known and taught, and the very best of the fathers of the church believed and promulgated it. Christians should remember that Jesus was a Jew who thought his mission was to Jews, for he says in St. Matthew, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." He must have well known the doctrines held by them. They all believed in reincarnation. For them Moses, Adam, Noah, Seth, and others had returned to earth, and at the time of Jesus it was currently believed that the old prophet Elias was yet to return. So we find, first, that Jesus never denied the doctrine, and on various occasions assented to it, as when he said that John the Baptist was actually the Elias of old whom the people were expecting. All this can be seen by consulting St. Matthew in Chapters XVII, XI, and others. In these it is very clear that Jesus is shown as approving the doctrine of reincarnation. And following Jesus we find St. Paul, in Romans IX, speaking of Esau and Jacob being actually in existence before they were born, and later such great Christian fathers as Origen, Synesius, and others believing and teaching the theory. In Proverbs VIII, 22, we have Solomon saying that when the earth was made he was present, and that, long before he could have been born as Solomon, his delights were in the habitable parts of the earth with the sons of men. St. John the Revelator says in Revs. III, 12, he was told in a vision which refers to the voice of God or the voice of one speaking for God, that whosoever should overcome would not be under the necessity of "going out" any more, that is, would not need to be reincarnated. For five hundred years after Jesus the doctrine was taught in the church until the council of Constantinople. Then a condemnation was passed upon a phase of the question which has been regarded by many as against reincarnation, but if that condemnation goes against the words of Jesus it is of no effect. It does go against him, and thus the church is in the position of saying in effect that Jesus did not know enough to curse, as it did, a doctrine known and taught in his day and which was brought to his notice prominently and never condemned but in fact approved by him. Christianity is a Jewish religion, and this doctrine of reincarnation belongs to it historically by succession from the Jews, and also by reason of its having been taught by Jesus and the early fathers of the church. If there be any truthful or logical way for the Christian church to get out of this position , excluding, of course, dogmas of the church , the theosophist would like to be shown it. Indeed, the theosophist holds that whenever a professed Christian denies the theory he thereby sets up his judgment against that of Jesus, who must have known more about the matter than those who follow him. It is the anathema hurled by the church council and the absence of the doctrine from the teaching now that have damaged Christianity and made of all the Christian nations people who pretend to be followers of Jesus and the law of love, but who really as nations are followers of the Mosaic law of retaliation. For alone in reincarnation is the answer to all the problems of life, and in it and Karma is the force that will make men pursue in fact the ethics they have in theory. It is the aim of the old philosophy to restore this doctrine to whatsoever religion has lost it; and hence we call it the "lost chord of Christianity." But who or what is it that reincarnates? It is not the body, for that dies and disintegrates; and but few of us would like to be chained forever to such bodies as we now have, admitted to be infected with disease except in the case of the savage. It is not the astral body, for, as shown, that also has its term and must go to pieces after the physical has gone. Nor is it the passions and desires. They, to be sure, have a very long term, because they have the power to reproduce themselves in each life so long as we do not eradicate them. And reincarnation provides for that, since we are given by it many opportunities of slowly, one by one, killing off the desires and passions which mar the heavenly picture of the spiritual man. It has been shown how the passionnel part of us coalesces with the astral after death and makes a seeming being that has a short life to live while it is disintegrating. When the separation is complete between the body that has died, the astral body, and the passions and desires , life having begun to busy itself with other forms , the Higher Triad, Manas, Buddhi, and Atma, who are the real man, immediately go into another state, and when that state, which is called Devachan, or heaven, is over, they are attracted back to earth for reincarnation. They are the immortal part of us; they, in fact, and no other are we. This should be firmly grasped by the mind, for upon its clear understanding depends the comprehension of the entire doctrine. What stands in the way of the modern western man's seeing this clearly is the long training we have all had in materialistic science and materializing religion, both of which have made the mere physical body too prominent. The one has taught of matter alone and the other has preached the resurrection of the body, a doctrine against common sense, fact, logic, and testimony. But there is no doubt that the theory of the bodily resurrection has arisen from the corruption of the older and true teaching. Resurrection is founded on what Job says about seeing his redeemer in his flesh, and on St. Paul's remark that the body was raised incorruptible. But Job was an Egyptian who spoke of seeing his teacher or initiator, who was the redeemer, and Jesus and Paul referred to the spiritual body only. Although reincarnation is the law of nature, the complete trinity of Atma-Buddhi-Manas does not yet fully incarnate in this race. They use and occupy the body by means of the entrance of Manas, the lowest of the three, and the other two shine upon it from above, constituting the God in Heaven. This was symbolized in the old Jewish teaching about the Heavenly Man who stands with his head in heaven and his feet in hell. That is, the head Atma and Buddhi are yet in heaven, and the feet, Manas, walk in hell, which is the body and physical life. For that reason man is not yet fully conscious, and reincarnations are needed to at last complete the incarnation of the whole trinity in the body. When that has been accomplished the race will have become as gods, and the godlike trinity being in full possession the entire mass of matter will be perfected and raised up for the next step. This is the real meaning of "the word made flesh." It was so grand a thing in the case of any single person, such as Jesus or Buddha, as to be looked upon as a divine incarnation. And out of this, too, comes the idea of the crucifixion, for Manas is thus crucified for the purpose of raising up the thief to paradise. It is because the trinity is not yet incarnate in the race that life has so many mysteries, some of which are showing themselves from day to day in all the various experiments made on and in man. The physician knows not what life is nor why the body moves as it does, because the spiritual portion is yet enshrouded in the clouds of heaven; the scientist is wandering in the dark, confounded and confused by all that hypnotism and other strange things bring before him, because the conscious man is out of sight on the very top of the divine mountain, thus compelling the learned to speak of the "subconscious mind," the "latent personality," and the like; and the priest can give us no light at all because he denies man's god-like nature, reduces all to the level of original sin, and puts upon our conception of God the black mark of inability to control or manage the creation without invention of expedients to cure supposed errors. But this old truth solves the riddle and paints God and Nature in harmonious colors. Reincarnation does not mean that we go into animal forms after death, as is believed by some Eastern peoples. "Once a man always a man" is the saying in the Great Lodge. But it would not be too much punishment for some men were it possible to condemn them to rebirth in brute bodies; however nature does not go by sentiment but by law, and we, not being able to see all, cannot say that the brutal man is brute all through his nature. And evolution having brought Manas the Thinker and Immortal Person on to this plane, cannot send him back to the brute which has not Manas. By looking into two explanations for the literal acceptation by some people in the East of those laws of Manu which seem to teach the transmigrating into brutes, insects, and so on, we can see how the true student of this doctrine will not fall into the same error. The first is, that the various verses and books teaching such transmigration have to do with the actual method of reincarnation, that is, with the explanation of the actual physical processes which have to be undergone by the Ego in passing from the unembodied to the embodied state, and also with the roads, ways, or means of descent from the invisible to the visible plane. This has not yet been plainly explained in Theosophical books, because on the one hand it is a delicate matter, and on the other the details would not as yet be received even by Theosophists with credence, although one day they will be. And as these details are not of the greatest importance they are not now expounded. But as we know that no human body is formed without the union of the sexes, and that the germs for such production are locked up in the sexes and must come from food which is taken into the body, it is obvious that foods have something to do with the reincarnating of the Ego. Now if the road to reincarnation leads through certain food and none other, it may be possible that if the Ego gets entangled in food which will not lead to the germ of physical reproduction, a punishment is indicated where Manu says that such and such practices will lead to transmigration, which is then a "hindrance." I throw this out so far for the benefit of certain theosophists who read these and whose theories on this subject are now rather vague and in some instances based on quite other hypotheses. The second explanation is, that inasmuch as nature intends us to use the matter which comes into our body and astral body for the purpose, among others, of benefitting the matter by the impress it gets from association with the human Ego, if we use it so as to give it only a brutal impression it must fly back to the animal kingdom to be absorbed there instead of being refined and kept on the human plane. And as all the matter which the human Ego gathered to it retains the stamp or photographic impression of the human being, the matter transmigrates to the lower level when given an animal impress by the Ego. This actual fact in the great chemical laboratory of nature could easily be misconstrued by the ignorant. But the present-day students know that once Manas the Thinker has arrived on the scene he does not return to baser forms; first, because he does not wish to, and second, because he cannot. For just as the blood in the body is prevented by valves from rushing back and engorging the heart, so in this greater system of universal circulation the door is shut behind the Thinker and prevents his retrocession. Reincarnation as a doctrine applying to the real man does not teach transmigration into kingdoms of nature below the human. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 25 00:01:12 1996 Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 00:01:12 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - OCEAN9.TXT (Ocean of Theosophy) Mime-Version: 1.0 OCEAN9.TXT ~The Ocean of Theosophy~ - W.Q.Judge CHAPTER IX IN THE WEST, where the object of life is commercial, financial, social, or scientific success, that is, personal profit, aggrandizement, and power, the real life of man receives but little attention, and we, unlike the Orientals, give scant prominence to the doctrine of preexistence and reincarnation. That the church denies it is enough for many, with whom no argument is of any use. Relying on the church, they do not wish to disturb the serenity of their faith in dogmas that may be illogical; and as they have been taught that the church can bind them in hell, a blind fear of the anathema hurled at reincarnation in the Constantinople council about 500 A.D. would alone debar them from accepting the accursed theory. And the church in arguing on the doctrine urges the objection that if men are convinced that they will live many lives, the temptation to accept the present and do evil without check will be too strong. Absurd as this seems, it is put forward by learned Jesuits, who say men will rather have the present chance than wait for others. If there were no retribution at all this would be a good objection, but as Nature has also a Nemesis for every evil doer, and as each, under the law of Karma, which is that of cause and effect and perfect justice, must receive the exact consequences himself in every life for what good or bad deeds and thoughts he did and had in other lives, the basis for moral conduct is secure. It is safe under this system, since no man can by any possibility, or favor, or edict, or belief escape the consequences, and each one who grasps this doctrine will be moved by conscience and the whole power of nature to do well in order that he may receive good and become happy. It is maintained that the idea of rebirth is uncongenial and unpleasant because on the one hand it is cold, allowing no sentiment to interfere, prohibiting us from renouncing at will a life which we have found to be sorrowful; and on the other, that there appears to be no chance under it for us to see our loved ones who have passed away before us. But whether we like it or not Nature's laws go forward unerringly, and sentiment or feeling can in no way avert the consequence that must follow a cause. If we eat bad food bad results must come. The glutton would have Nature permit him to gorge himself without the indigestion which will come, but Nature's laws are not to be thus put aside. Now, the objection to reincarnation that we will not see our loved ones in heaven as promised in dogmatic religion, presupposes a complete stoppage of the evolution and development of those who leave earth before ourselves, and also assumes that recognition is dependent on physical appearance. But as we progress in this life, so also must we progress upon leaving it, and it would be unfair to compel the others to await our arrival in order that we may recognize them. And if one reflects on the natural consequences of arising to heaven where all trammels are cast off, it must be apparent that those who have been there, say, twenty of mortal years before us must, in the nature of things mental and spiritual, have made a progress equal to many hundreds of years here under varied and very favorable circumstances. How then could we, arriving later and still imperfect, be able to recognize those who had been perfecting themselves in heaven with such advantages? And as we know that the body is left behind to disintegrate, so, it is evident, recognition cannot depend, in the spiritual and mental life, on physical appearance. For not only is this thus plain, but since we are aware that an unhandsome or deformed body often enshrines a glorious mind and pure soul, and that a beautifully formed exterior, such as in the case of the Borgias, may hide an incarnate devil in character, the physical form gives no guarantee of recognition in that world where the body is absent. And the mother who has lost a child who had grown to maturity must know that she loved the child when a baby as much as afterwards when the great alteration to later life had completely swept away the form and features of early youth. The Theosophists see that this objection can have no existence in the face of the eternal and pure life of the soul. And Theosophy also teaches that those who are like unto each other and love each other will be reincarnated together whenever the conditions permit. Whenever one of us has gone farther on the road to perfection, he will always be moved to help and comfort those who belong to the same family. But when one has become gross and selfish and wicked, no one would want his companionship in any life. Recognition depends on the inner sight and not on outward appearance; hence there is no force in this objection. And the other phase of it relating to loss of parent, child, or relative is based on the erroneous notion that as the parents give the child its body so also is given its soul. But soul is immortal and parentless; hence this objection is without a root. Some urge that Heredity invalidates Reincarnation. We urge it as proof. Heredity in giving us a body in any family provides the appropriate environment for the Ego. The Ego only goes into the family which either completely answers to its whole nature, or which gives an opportunity for the working out of its evolution, and which is also connected with it by reason of past incarnations or causes mutually set up. Thus the evil child may come to the presently good family because parents and child are indissolubly connected by past actions. It is a chance for redemption to the child and the occasion of punishment to the parents. This points to bodily heredity as a natural rule governing the bodies we must inhabit, just as the houses in a city will show the mind of the builders. And as we as well as our parents were the makers and influencers of bodies, took part in and are responsible for states of society in which the development of physical body and brain was either retarded or helped on, debased or the contrary, so we are in this life responsible for the civilization in which we now appear. But when we look at the characters in human bodies, great inherent differences are seen. This is due to the soul inside, who is suffering or enjoying in the family, nation, and race his own thoughts and acts in the past lives have made it inevitable he should incarnate with. Heredity provides the tenement and also imposes those limitations of capacity of brain or body which are often a punishment and sometimes a help, but it does not affect the real Ego. The transmission of traits is a physical matter, and nothing more than the coming out into a nation of the consequences of the prior lives of all Egos who are to be in that race. The limitations imposed on the Ego by any family heredity are exact consequences of that Ego's prior lives. The fact that such physical traits and mental peculiarities are transmitted does not confute reincarnation, since we know that the guiding mind and real character of each are not the result of a body and brain but are peculiar to the Ego in its essential life. Transmission of trait and tendency by means of parent and body is exactly the mode selected by nature for providing the incarnating Ego with the proper tenement in which to carry on its work. Another mode would be impossible and subversive of order. Again, those who dwell on the objection from heredity forget that they are accentuating similarities and overlooking divergences. For while investigations on the line of heredity have recorded many transmitted traits, they have not done so in respect to divergences from heredity vastly greater in number. Every mother knows that the children of a family are as different in character as the fingers on one hand, they are all from the same parents, but all vary in character and capacity. But heredity as the great rule and as a complete explanation is absolutely overthrown by history, which shows no constant transmission of learning, power, and capacity. For instance, in the case of the ancient Egyptians long gone and their line of transmission shattered, we have no transmission to their descendants. If physical heredity settles the question of character, how has the great Egyptian character been lost? The same question holds in respect to other ancient and extinct nations. And taking an individual illustration we have the great musician Bach, whose direct descendants showed a decrease in musical ability leading to its final disappearance from the family stock. But Theosophy teaches that in both of these instances, as in all like them, the real capacity and ability have only disappeared from a family and national body, but are retained in the Egos who once exhibited them, being now incarnated in some other nation and family of the present time. Suffering comes to nearly all men, and a great many live lives of sorrow from the cradle to the grave, so it is objected that reincarnation is unjust because we suffer for the wrong done by some other person in another life. This objection is based on the false notion that the person in the other life was someone else. But in every life it is the same person. When we come again we do not take up the body of someone else, nor another's deeds, but are like an actor who plays many parts, the same actor inside though the costumes and the lines recited differ in each new play. Shakespeare was right in saying that life is a play, for the great life of the soul is a drama, and each new life and rebirth another act in which we assume another part and put on a new dress, but all through it we are the self-same person. So instead of its being unjust, it is perfect justice, and in no other manner could justice be preserved. But, it is said, if we reincarnate how is it that we do not remember the other life; and further, as we cannot remember the deeds for which we suffer is it not unjust for that reason? Those who ask this always ignore the fact that they also have enjoyment and reward in life and are content to accept them without question. For if it is unjust to be punished for deeds we do not remember, then it is also inequitable to be rewarded for other acts which have been forgotten. Mere entry into life is no fit foundation for any reward or punishment. Reward and punishment must be the just desert for prior conduct. Nature's law of justice is not imperfect, and it is only the imperfection of human justice that requires the offender to know and remember in this life a deed to which a penalty is annexed. In the prior life the doer was then quite aware of what he did, and nature affixes consequences to his acts, being thus just. We well know that she will make the effect follow the cause whatever we wish and whether we remember or forget what we did. If a baby is hurt in its first years by the nurse so as to lay the ground for a crippling disease in after life, as is often the case, the crippling disease will come although the child neither brought on the present cause nor remembered aught about it. But reincarnation, with its companion doctrine of Karma, rightly understood, shows how perfectly just the whole scheme of nature is. Memory of a prior life is not needed to prove that we passed through that existence, nor is the fact of not remembering a good objection. We forget the greater part of the occurrences of the years and days of this life, but no one would say for that reason we did not go through these years. They were lived, and we retain but little of the details in the brain, but the entire effect of them on the character is kept and made a part of ourselves. The whole mass of detail of a life is preserved in the inner man to be one day fully brought back to the conscious memory in some other life when we are perfected. And even now, imperfect as we are and little as we know, the experiments in hypnotism show that all the smallest details are registered in what is for the present known as the sub-conscious mind. The theosophical doctrine is that not a single one of these happenings is forgotten in fact, and at the end of life when the eyes are closed and those about say we are dead every thought and circumstance of life flash vividly into and across the mind. Many persons do, however, remember that they have lived before. Poets have sung of this, children know it well, until the constant living in an atmosphere of unbelief drives the recollection from their minds for the present, but all are subject to the limitations imposed upon the Ego by the new brain in each life. This is why we are not able to keep the pictures of the past, whether of this life or the preceding ones. The brain is the instrument for the memory of the soul, and, being new in each life with but a certain capacity, the Ego is only able to use it for the new life up to its capacity. That capacity will be fully availed of or the contrary, just according to the Ego's own desire and prior conduct, because such past living will have increased or diminished its power to overcome the forces of material existence. By living according to the dictates of the soul the brain may at least be made porous to the soul's recollections; if the contrary sort of a life is led, then more and more will clouds obscure that reminiscence. But as the brain had no part in the life last lived, it is in general unable to remember. And this is a wise law, for we should be very miserable if the deeds and scenes of our former lives were not hidden from our view until by discipline we become able to bear a knowledge of them. Another objection brought up is that under the doctrine of reincarnation it is not possible to account for the increase of the world's population. This assumes that we know surely that its population has increased and are keeping informed of its fluctuations. But it is not certain that the inhabitants of the globe have increased, and, further, vast numbers of people are annually destroyed of whom we know nothing. In China year after year many thousands have been carried off by flood. Statistics of famine have not been made. We do not know by how many thousands the deaths in Africa exceed the births in any year. The objection is based on imperfect tables which only have to do with western lands. It also assumes that there are fewer Egos out of incarnation and waiting to come in than the number of those inhabiting bodies, and this is incorrect. Annie Besant has put this well in her "Reincarnation" by saying that the inhabited globe resembles a hall in a town which is filled from the much greater population of the town outside; the number in the hall may vary, but there is a constant source of supply from the town. It is true that so far as concerns this globe the number of Egos belonging to it is definite; but no one knows what that quantity is nor what is the total capacity of the earth for sustaining them. The statisticians of the day are chiefly in the West, and their tables embrace but a small section of the history of man. They cannot say how many persons were incarnated on the earth at any prior date when the globe was full in all parts, hence the quantity of egos willing or waiting to be reborn is unknown to the men of today. The Masters of theosophical knowledge say that the total number of such egos is vast, and for that reason the supply of those for the occupation of bodies to be born over and above the number that die is sufficient. Then too it must be borne in mind that each ego for itself varies the length of stay in the post-mortem states. They do not reincarnate at the same interval, but come out of the state after death at different rates, and whenever there occurs a great number of deaths by war, pestilence, or famine, there is at once a rush of souls to incarnation, either in the same place or in some other place or race. The earth is so small a globe in the vast assemblage of inhabitable planets there is a sufficient supply of Egos for incarnation here. But with due respect to those who put this objection, I do not see that it has the slightest force or any relation to the truth of the doctrine of reincarnation. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 25 02:26:17 1996 Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 02:26:17 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: W.Q.JUDGE at the founding of the T.S. Mime-Version: 1.0 FOUNDING.TXT From the first edition of ~Old Diary Leaves~ by H.S.Olcott, published New York and London by G. P. Putnam's Sons, from Madras, The Proprietors of the "Theosophist" 1895 (p.133 ff): ------------------------------------------------------------- As regards the drafting of the original By-laws, we took much pains and drew up as good a set as any society could desire. The Rules of various corporate bodies were examined, but those of the American Geographical and Statistical Society and the American Institute were thought by us to be as good models as any to follow. All preliminaries being settled, we obtained permission from Mrs. Britten that the next meeting should be held at her private residence (no hall having as yet been taken), and I issued (on post-cards) the following notice: The Theosophical Society. NEW YORK, October 13, 1875. The Committee on By-Laws having completed its work, a meeting of the Theosophical Society will be held at the private residence, No. 206 West 38th St., on Saturday, October 16, 1875, at 8 p.m., to organize and elect officers. If Mr. Felt should be in town, he will continue his intensely interesting account of his Egyptological discoveries. Under the By-Laws proposed, new members cannot be elected until after thirty days' consideration of their application. A full attendance at this preliminary meeting is, therefore, desirable. The undersigned issues this call in compliance with the order adopted by the meeting of September 13th ultimo. (Signed) HENRY S. OLCOTT, President, pro. tem. The copy of the original post-card sent by post by Sotheran to H. P. B. I have, framed, at "Gulistan," and my own copy is also in my possession. Our Minute Book records the following persons as present at this meeting in question: "Mme. Blavatsky, Mrs. E. H. Britten, Henry S. Olcott, Henry J. Newton, Chas. Sotheran, W. Q. Judge, J. Hyslop, Dr. Atkinson, Dr. H. Carlos, Dr. Simmons, Tudor Horton, Dr. Britten, C. C. Massey, John Storer Cobb, W. L. Alden, Edwin S. Ralphs, Herbert D. Monachesi, and Francisco Agromonte. "On behalf of the Committee on Preamble and By-Laws, the Preamble was read by the chair, and the By-Laws by Mr. Chas. Sotheran." Mr. Massey was then introduced by the chair and made some remarks; after which he was obliged to hurry away to the steamer on which he was to sail for England. Discussions ensued and various motions were made on the adoption of the By-Laws; the final result being that the draft submitted by the Committee was laid on the table and order printed. The meeting then adjourned. H. S. Olcott was Chairman and J. S. Cobb Secretary of the meeting. The next preliminary meeting was held at the same place on the 30th October. The Committee on rooms having reported, Mott Memorial Hall, 64 Madison Avenue (a few doors only from our recently purchased New York Headquarters), was selected as the Society's meeting-place. The By-Laws were read, discussed and finally adopted, but with the proviso that the Preamble should be revised by H. S. Olcott, C. Sotheran and J. S. Cobb, and then published as the Preamble of the Society. Voting for officers was next proceeded with; and Tudor Horton and Dr. W. H. Atkinson being appointed tellers of the Election, the result was announced by Mr. Horton as follows: President, HENRY S. OLCOTT; Vice-Presidents, DR. S. PANCOAST and G. H. FELT; Corresponding Secretary, MME. H. P. BLAVATSKY; Recording Secretary, JOHN STORER COBB; Treasurer, HENRY J. NEWTON; Librarian, CHARLES SOTHERAN . Councillors, REV. J. H. WIGGIN, R. B. WESTBROOK, LL.D., MRS. EMMA HARDINGE BRITTEN, C. E. SIMMONS, M.D., and HERBERT D. MONACHESI; Counsel to the Society, WILLIAM Q. JUDGE. The meeting then adjourned over to the 17th November, 1875, when the perfected Preamble would be reported, the President Elect deliver his Inaugural Address, and the Society be thus fully constituted. On the evening designated, the Society met in its own hired room; the minutes of the previous meeting were read and approved; the President's Inaugural Address was delivered and ordered printed; upon Mr. Newton's motion, thanks were voted to the President; and the Society, now constitutionally organised, adjourned over to the 15th December. Thus the Theosophical Society, first conceived of on the 8th September and constitutionally perfected on the 17th November, 1875, after a gestatory period of seventy days, came into being and started on its marvellous career of altruistic endeavour per angusta ad augusta. Inadvertently, in our first published document, the Preamble and By-Laws of The Theosophical Society, the 30th October was given as the date of organisation, whereas, as seen above, it should properly have been November 17, 1875. The foregoing narrative of the origin and birth of the Society is very prosaic and lacks all the sensational and imaginative features which have sometimes been ascribed to the event. It has, however, the merit of being historically exact; for, as I am writing history and not romance, I have stuck to the evidences of our certificated records and can prove every point. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From Aprioripa@aol.com Mon Mar 25 14:09:13 1996 Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 09:09:13 -0500 From: Aprioripa@aol.com Message-Id: <960325090912_361138700@emout06.mail.aol.com> Subject: Esoteric Arts & Sciences www page Hello Friends, New Esoteric Arts & Sciences www page is http://users.aol.com/psychosoph/esoartsci.html Shanti, Patrick *** A.Priori / 6524 San Felipe #323 / Houston, TX 77057 USA *** *** aprioripa@aol.com / http://users.aol.com/psychosoph/esopsych.html *** From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 25 23:15:46 1996 Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 23:15:46 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD OCEAN10.TXT (Ocean of Theosophy) Mime-Version: 1.0 OCEAN10.TXT ~The Ocean of Theosophy~ - W.Q.Judge CHAPTER X UNLESS WE DENY THE immortality of man and the existence of soul, there are no sound arguments against the doctrine of preexistence and rebirth save such as rest on the dictum of the church that each soul is a new creation. This dictum can be supported only by blind dogmatism, for given a soul we must sooner or later arrive at the theory of rebirth, because even if each soul is new on this earth it must keep on living somewhere after passing away, and in view of the known order of nature will have other bodies in other planets or spheres. Theosophy applies to the self, the thinker, the same laws which are seen everywhere in operation throughout nature, and those are all varieties of the great law that effects follow causes and no effect is without a cause. The soul's immortality, believed in by the mass of humanity, demands embodiment here or elsewhere, and to be embodied means reincarnation. If we come to this earth for but a few years and then go to some other, the soul must be embodied there as well as here, and if we have travelled from some other world we must have had there too our proper vesture. The powers of mind and the laws governing its motion, its attachment, and its detachment as given in theosophical philosophy show that its reembodiment must be here, where it moved and worked, until such time as the mind is able to overcome the forces which chain it to this globe. To permit the involved entity to transfer itself to another scene of action before it had overcome all the causes drawing it here and without its having worked out its responsibilities to other entities in the same stream of evolution would be unjust and contrary to the powerful occult laws and forces which continually operate upon it. The early Christian Fathers saw this, and taught that the soul had fallen into matter and was obliged by the law of its nature to toil upward again to the place from which it came. They used an old Greek hymn which ran: Eternal Mind, thy seedling spark, Through this thin vase of clay, Athwart the waves of chaos dark Emits a timorous ray. This mind enfolding soul is sown, Incarnate germ in earth: In pity, blessed Lord, then own What claims in Thee its birth. Far forth from Thee, thou central fire, To earth's sad bondage cast, Let not the trembling spark expire; Absorb thine own at last! Each human being has a definite character different from every other human being, and masses of beings aggregated into nations show as wholes that the national force and distinguishing peculiarities go to make up a definite and separate national character. These differences, both individual and national, are due to essential character and not to education. Even the doctrine of the survival of the fittest should show this, for the fitness cannot come from nothing but must at last show itself from the coming to the surface of the actual inner character. And as both individuals and nations among those who are ahead in the struggle with nature exhibit an immense force in their character, we must find a place and time where the force was evolved. These, Theosophy says, are this earth and the whole period during which the human race has been on the planet. So, then, while heredity has something to do with the difference in character as to force and morale, swaying the soul and mind a little and furnishing also the appropriate place for receiving reward and punishment, it is not the cause for the essential nature shown by every one. But all these differences, such as those shown by babes from birth, by adults as character comes forth more and more, and by nations in their history, are due to long experience gained during many lives on earth, are the outcome of the soul's own evolution. A survey of one short human life gives no ground for the production of his inner nature. It is needful that each soul should have all possible experience, and one life cannot give this even under the best conditions. It would be folly for the Almighty to put us here for such a short time, only to remove us just when we had begun to see the object of life and the possibilities in it. The mere selfish desire of a person to escape the trials and discipline of life is not enough to set nature's laws aside, so the soul must be reborn until it has ceased to set in motion the cause of rebirth, after having developed character up to its possible limit as indicated by all the varieties of human nature, when every experience has been passed through, and not until all of truth that can be known has been acquired. The vast disparity among men in respect to capacity compels us, if we wish to ascribe justice to Nature or to God, to admit reincarnation and to trace the origin of the disparity back to the past lives of the Ego. For people are as much hindered and handicapped, abused and made the victims of seeming injustice because of limited capacity, as they are by reason of circumstances of birth or education. We see the uneducated rising above circumstances of family and training, and often those born in good families have very small capacity; but the troubles of nations and families arise from want of capacity more than from any other cause. And if we consider savage races only, there the seeming injustice is enormous. For many savages have good actual brain capacity but still are savage. This is because the Ego in that body is still savage and undeveloped, for in contrast to the savage there are many civilized men with small actual brain force who are not savage in nature because the indwelling Ego has had long experience in civilization during other lives, and being a more developed soul has power to use the brain instrument to its highest limit. Each man feels and knows that he has an individuality of his own, a personal identity which bridges over not only the gaps made by sleep but also those sometimes supervening on temporary lesions in the brain. This identity never breaks from beginning to end of life in the normal person, and only the persistence and eternal character of the soul will account for it. So, ever since we began to remember, we know that our personal identity has not failed us, no matter how bad may be our memory. This disposes of the argument that identity depends on recollection, for the reason that if it did depend alone on recollection we should each day have to begin over again, as we cannot remember the events of the past in detail, and some minds remember but little yet feel their personal identity. And as it is often seen that some who remember the least insist as strongly as the others on their personal identity, that persistence of feeling must come from the old and immortal soul. Viewing life and its probable object, with all the varied experience possible for man, one must be forced to the conclusion that a single life is not enough for carrying out all that is intended by Nature, to say nothing of what man himself desires to do. The scale of variety in experience is enormous. There is a vast range of powers latent in man which we see may be developed if opportunity be given. Knowledge infinite in scope and diversity lies before us, and especially in these days when special investigation is the rule. We perceive that we have high aspirations with no time to reach up to their measure, while the great troop of passions and desires, selfish motives and ambitions, war with us and among themselves, pursuing us even to the door of death. All these have to be tried, conquered, used, subdued. One life is not enough for all this. To say that we have but one life here with such possibilities put before us and impossible of development is to make the universe and life a huge and cruel joke perpetrated by a powerful God who is thus accused, by those who believe in a special creation of souls, of triumphing and playing with puny man just because that man is small and the creature of the Almighty. A human life at most is seventy years; statistics reduce this to about forty; and out of that little remainder a large part is spent in sleep and another part in childhood. Thus in one life it is perfectly impossible to attain to the merest fraction of what Nature evidently has in view. We see many truths vaguely which a life gives us no time to grasp, and especially is this so when men have to make such a struggle to live at all. Our faculties are small or dwarfed or weak; one life gives no opportunity to alter this; we perceive other powers latent in us that cannot possibly be brought out in such a small space of time; and we have much more than a suspicion that the extent of the field of truth is vastly greater than the narrow circle we are confined to. It is not reasonable to suppose that either God or nature projects us into a body simply to fill us with bitterness because we can have no other opportunity here, but rather we must conclude that a series of incarnations has led to the present condition, and that the process of coming here again and again must go on for the purpose of affording us the opportunity needed. The mere fact of dying is not of itself enough to bring about development of faculties or the elimination of wrong tendency and inclination. If we assume that upon entering heaven we at once acquire all knowledge and purity, then that state after death is reduced to a dead level and life itself with all its discipline is shorn of every meaning. Some of the churches teach of a school of discipline after death where it is impudently stated that the Apostles themselves, well known to be ignorant men, are to be the teachers. This is absurd and devoid of any basis or reason in the natural order. Besides, if there is to be such subsequent discipline, why were we projected into life at all? And why after the suffering and the error committed are we taken from the place where we did our acts? The only solution left is in reincarnation. We come back to earth because on it and with the beings upon it our deeds were performed; because it is the only proper place where punishment and reward can be justly meted out; because here is the only natural spot in which to continue the struggle toward perfection, toward the development of the faculties we have and the destruction of the wickedness in us. Justice to ourselves and to all other beings demands it, for we cannot live for ourselves, and it would be unjust to permit some of us to escape, leaving those who were participants with us to remain or to be plunged into a hell of eternal duration. The persistence of savagery, the rise and decay of nations and civilizations, the total extinction of nations, all demand an explanation found nowhere but in reincarnation. Savagery remains because there are still Egos whose experience is so limited that they are still savage; they will come up into higher races when ready. Races die out because the Egos have had enough of the experience that sort of race gives. So we find the red Indian, the Hottentot, the Easter Islanders, and others as examples of races deserted by high Egos and as they are dying away other souls who have had no higher life in the past enter into the bodies of the race to go on using them for the purpose of gaining such experience as the race body will give. A race could not possibly arise and then suddenly go out. We see that such is not the case, but science has no explanation; it simply says that this is the fact, that nations decay. But in this explanation no account is taken of the inner man nor of the recondite subtle and occult laws that unite to make a race. Theosophy shows that the energy drawn together has to expend itself gradually, and therefore the reproduction of bodies of the character of that race will go on, though the Egos are not compelled to inhabit bodies of that sort any longer than while they are of the same development as the race. Hence a time comes when the whole mass of Egos which built up the race leaves it for another physical environment more like themselves. The economy of Nature will not permit the physical race to suddenly fade away, and so in the real order of evolution other and less progressed Egos come in and use the forms provided, keeping up the production of new bodies but less and less in number each century. These lower Egos are not able to keep up to the limit of the capacity of the congeries of energies left by the other Egos, and so while the new set gains as much experience as is possible the race in time dies out after passing through its decay. This is the explanation of what we may call descending savagery, and no other theory will meet the facts. It has been sometimes thought by ethnologists that the more civilized races kill off the other, but the fact is that in consequence of the great difference between the Egos inhabiting the old race body and the energy of that body itself, the females begin to be sterile, and thus slowly but surely the number of deaths exceeds the births. China itself is in process of decay, she being now in the almost stationary stage just before the rush downward. Great civilizations like those of Egypt and Babylon have gone because the souls who made them have long ago reincarnated in the great conquering nations of Europe and the present American continents. As nations and races they have been totally reincarnated and born again for greater and higher purposes than ever. Of all the old races the Aryan Indian alone yet remains as the preserver of the old doctrines. It will one day rise again to its old heights of glory. The appearance of geniuses and great minds in families destitute of these qualities, as well as the extinction from a family of the genius shown by some ancestor, can only be met by the law of rebirth. Napoleon the First came in a family wholly unlike him in power and force. Nothing in his heredity will explain his character. He said himself, as told in the Memoirs of Prince Talleyrand, that he was Charlemagne. Only by assuming for him a long series of lives giving the right line of evolution or cause for his mind and nature and force to be brought out, can we have the slightest idea why he or any other great genius appeared at all. Mozart when an infant could compose orchestral score. This was not due to heredity, for such a score is not natural, but is forced, mechanical, and wholly conventional, yet he understood it without schooling. How? Because he was a musician reincarnated, with a musical brain furnished by his family and thus not impeded in his endeavors to show forth his musical knowledge. But stronger yet is the case of Blind Tom, a negro whose family could not by any possibility have a knowledge of the piano, a modern instrument, so as to transmit that knowledge to the atoms of his body, yet he had great musical power and knew the present mechanical musical scale on the piano. There are hundreds of examples like these among the many prodigies who have appeared to the world's astonishment. In India there are many histories of sages born with complete knowledge of philosophy and the like, and doubtless in all nations the same can be met with. This bringing back of knowledge also explains instinct, for that is no more than recollection divisible into physical and mental memory. It is seen in the child and the animal, and is no more than the result of previous experience. And whether we look at the new-born babe flinging out its arms for self-protection, or the animal with very strong instinctual power, or the bee building a cell on the rules of geometry, it is all the effect of reincarnation acting either in the mind or physical cell, for under what was first laid down no atom is devoid of life, consciousness, and intelligence of its own. In the case of the musician Bach we have proof that heredity counts for nothing if the Ego is not advanced, for his genius was not borne down his family line; it gradually faded out, finally leaving the family stream entirely. So, too, the coming of idiots or vicious children to parents who are good, pure, or highly intellectual is explained in the same way. They are cases where heredity is set at nought by a wholly bad or deficient Ego. And lastly, the fact that certain inherent ideas are common to the whole race is explained by the sages as due to recollection of such ideas, which were implanted in the human mind at the very beginning of its evolutionary career on this planet by those brothers and sages who learned their lessons and were perfected in former ages long before the development of this globe began. No explanation for inherent ideas is offered by science that will do more than say, "they exist." These were actually taught to the mass of Egos who are engaged in this earth's evolution; they were imprinted or burned into their natures, and always recollected; they follow the Ego through the long pilgrimage. It has been often thought that the opposition to reincarnation has been solely based on prejudice, when not due to a dogma which can only stand when the mind is bound down and prevented from using its own powers. It is a doctrine the most noble of all, and with its companion one of Karma, next to be considered, it alone gives the basis for ethics. There is no doubt in my mind that the founder of Christianity took it for granted and that its present absence from that religion is the reason for the contradiction between the professed ethics of Christian nations and their actual practices which are so contrary to the morals given out by Jesus. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 26 01:40:25 1996 Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 01:40:25 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: ISIS UNVEILED - ISIS001.TXT Mime-Version: 1.0 ISIS UNVEILED A MASTER-KEY TO THE MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT AND MODERN SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. BY H. P. BLAVATSKY, CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. "Cecy est un livre de bonne Foy." - MONTAIGNE. VOL. I. - SCIENCE. THE AUTHOR Dedicates these Volumes TO THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, WHICH WAS FOUNDED AT NEW YORK, A.D. 1875, TO STUDY THE SUBJECTS ON WHICH THEY TREAT. PREFACE. THE work now submitted to public judgment is the fruit of a somewhat intimate acquaintance with Eastern adepts and study of their science. It is offered to such as are willing to accept truth wherever it may be found, and to defend it, even looking popular prejudice straight in the face. It is an attempt to aid the student to detect the vital principles which underlie the philosophical systems of old. The book is written in all sincerity. It is meant to do even justice, and to speak the truth alike without malice or prejudice. But it shows neither mercy for enthroned error, nor reverence for usurped authority. It demands for a spoliated past, that credit for its achievements which has been too long withheld. It calls for a restitution of borrowed robes, and the vindication of calumniated but glorious reputations. Toward no form of worship, no religious faith, no scientific hypothesis has its criticism been directed in any other spirit. Men and parties, sects and schools are but the mere ephemera of the world's day. TRUTH, high-seated upon its rock of adamant, is alone eternal and supreme. We believe in no Magic which transcends the scope and capacity of the human mind, nor in "miracle," whether divine or diabolical, if such imply a transgression of the laws of nature instituted from all eternity. Nevertheless, we accept the saying of the gifted author of Festus, that the human heart has not yet fully uttered itself, and that we have never attained or even understood the extent of its powers. Is it too much to believe that man should be developing new sensibilities and a closer relation with nature? The logic of evolution must teach as much, if carried to its legitimate conclusions. If, somewhere, in the line of ascent from vegetable or ascidian to the noblest man a soul was evolved, gifted with intellectual qualities, it cannot be unreasonable to infer and believe that a faculty of perception is also growing in man, enabling him to descry facts and truths even beyond our ordinary ken. Yet we do not hesitate to accept the assertion of Biffe, that "the essential is forever the same. Whether we cut away the marble inward that hides the statue in the block, or pile stone upon stone outward till the temple is completed, our NEW result is only an old idea. The latest of all the eternities will find its destined other half-soul in the earliest." When, years ago, we first travelled over the East, exploring the penetralia of its deserted sanctuaries, two saddening and ever-recurring questions oppressed our thoughts: Where, WHO, WHAT is GOD? Who ever saw the IMMORTAL SPIRIT of man, so as to be able to assure himself of man's immortality ? It was while most anxious to solve these perplexing problems that we came into contact with certain men, endowed with such mysterious powers and such profound knowledge that we may truly designate them as the sages of the Orient. To their instructions we lent a ready ear. They showed us that by combining science with religion, the existence of God and immortality of man's spirit may be demonstrated like a problem of Euclid. For the first time we received the assurance that the Oriental philosophy has room for no other faith than an absolute and immovable faith in the omnipotence of man's own immortal self. We were taught that this omnipotence comes from the kinship of man's spirit with the Universal Soul - God ! The latter, they said, can never be demonstrated but by the former. Man-spirit proves God-spirit, as the one drop of water proves a source from which it must have come. Tell one who had never seen water, that there is an ocean of water, and he must accept it on faith or reject it altogether. But let one drop fall upon his hand, and he then has the fact from which all the rest may be inferred. After that he could by degrees understand that a boundless and fathomless ocean of water existed. Blind faith would no longer be necessary; he would have supplanted it with KNOWLEDGE. When one sees mortal man displaying tremendous capabilities, controlling the forces of nature and opening up to view the world of spirit, the reflective mind is overwhelmed with the conviction that if one man's spiritual Ego can do this much, the capabilities of the FATHER SPIRIT must be relatively as much vaster as the whole ocean surpasses the single drop in volume and potency. Ex nihilo nihil fit; prove the soul of man by its wondrous powers - you have proved God ! In our studies, mysteries were shown to be no mysteries. Names and places that to the Western mind have only a significance derived from Eastern fable, were shown to be realities. Reverently we stepped in spirit within the temple of Isis; to lift aside the veil of "the one that is and was and shall be" at Sais; to look through the rent curtain of the Sanctum Sanctorum at Jerusalem; and even to interrogate within the crypts which once existed beneath the sacred edifice, the mysterious Bath-Kol. The Filia Vocis - the daughter of the divine voice - responded from the mercy-seat within the veil, and science, theology, every human hypothesis and conception born of imperfect knowledge, lost forever their authoritative character in our sight. [Lightfoot assures us that this voice, which had been used in times past for a testimony from heaven, "was indeed performed by magic art" (vol. ii., p. 128) This latter term is used as a supercilious expression, just because it was and is still misunderstood. It is the object of this work to correct the erroneous opinions concerning "magic art."] The one-living God had spoken through his oracle - man, and we were satisfied. Such knowledge is priceless; and it has been hidden only from those who overlooked it, derided it, or denied its existence. From such as these we apprehend criticism, censure, and perhaps hostility, although the obstacles in our way neither spring from the validity of proof, the authenticated facts of history, nor the lack of common sense among the public whom we address. The drift of modern thought is palpably in the direction of liberalism in religion as well as science. Each day brings the reactionists nearer to the point where they must surrender the despotic authority over the public conscience, which they have so long enjoyed and exercised. When the Pope can go to the extreme of fulminating anathemas against all who maintain the liberty of the Press and of speech, or who insist that in the conflict of laws, civil and ecclesiastical, the civil law should prevail, or that any method of instruction solely secular, may be approved; [Encyclical of 1864] and Mr. Tyndall, as the mouth-piece of nineteenth century science, says, " ... the impregnable position of science may be stated in a few words: we claim, and we shall wrest from theology, the entire domain of cosmological theory"["Fragments of Science."] - the end is not difficult to foresee. Centuries of subjection have not quite congealed the life-blood of men into crystals around the nucleus of blind faith; and the nineteenth is witnessing the struggles of the giant as he shakes off the Lilliputian cordage and rises to his feet. Even the Protestant communion of England and America, now engaged in the revision of the text of its Oracles, will be compelled to show the origin and merits of the text itself. The day of domineering over men with dogmas has reached its gloaming Our work, then, is a plea for the recognition of the Hermetic philosophy, the anciently universal Wisdom-Religion, as the only possible key to the Absolute in science and theology. To show that we do not at all conceal from ourselves the gravity of our undertaking, we may say in advance that it would not be strange if the following classes should array themselves against us: The Christians, who will see that we question the evidences of the genuineness of their faith. The Scientists, who will find their pretensions placed in the same bundle with those of the Roman Catholic Church for infallibility, and, in certain particulars, the sages and philosophers of the ancient world classed higher than they. Pseudo-Scientists will, of course, denounce us furiously. Broad Churchmen and Freethinkers will find that we do not accept what they do, but demand the recognition of the whole truth. Men of letters and various authorities , who hide their real belief in deference to popular prejudices. The mercenaries and parasites of the Press, who prostitute its more than royal power, and dishonor a noble profession, will find it easy to mock at things too wonderful for them to understand; for to them the price of a paragraph is more than the value of sincerity. From many will come honest criticism; from many - cant. But we look to the future. The contest now going on between the party of public conscience and the party of reaction, has already developed a healthier tone of thought. It will hardly fail to result ultimately in the overthrow of error and the triumph of Truth. We repeat again - we are laboring for the brighter morrow. And yet, when we consider the bitter opposition that we are called upon to face, who is better entitled than we upon entering the arena to write upon our shield the hail of the Roman gladiator to Caesar: MORITURUS TE SALUTAT!* New York, September, 1877. --------------------------------------------------------------- * "We who are about to die salute you" - ed. .. text scanned, edited and uploaded by Alan Bain --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 26 00:09:22 1996 Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 00:09:22 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - OCEAN11.TXT (Ocean of Theosophy) Mime-Version: 1.0 OCEAN11.TXT CHAPTER XI KARMA IS AN UNFAMILIAR WORD for Western ears. It is the name adopted by Theosophists of the nineteenth century for one of the most important of the laws of nature. Ceaseless in its operation, it bears alike upon planets, systems of planets, races, nations, families, and individuals. It is the twin doctrine to reincarnation. So inextricably interlaced are these two laws that it is almost impossible to properly consider one apart from the other. No spot or being in the universe is exempt from the operation of Karma, but all are under its sway, punished for error by it yet beneficently led on, through discipline, rest, and reward, to the distant heights of perfection. It is a law so comprehensive in its sweep, embracing at once our physical and our moral being, that it is only by paraphrase and copious explanation one can convey its meaning in English. For that reason the Sanskrit term Karma was adopted to designate it. Applied to man's moral life it is the law of ethical causation, justice, reward and punishment; the cause for birth and rebirth, yet equally the means for escape from incarnation. Viewed from another point it is merely effect flowing from cause, action and reaction, exact result for every thought and act. It is act and the result of act; for the word's literal meaning is action. Theosophy views the Universe as an intelligent whole, hence every motion in the Universe is an action of that whole leading to results, which themselves become causes for further results. Viewing it thus broadly, the ancient Hindus said that every being up to Brahma was under the rule of Karma. It is not a being but a law, the universal law of harmony which unerringly restores all disturbance to equilibrium. In this the theory conflicts with the ordinary conception about God, built up from the Jewish system, which assumes that the Almighty as a thinking entity, extraneous to the Cosmos, builds up, finds his construction inharmonious, out of proportion, errant, and disturbed, and then has to pull down, destroy, or punish that which he created. This has either caused thousands to live in fear of God, in compliance with his assumed commands, with the selfish object of obtaining reward and securing escape from his wrath, or has plunged them into darkness which comes from a denial of all spiritual life. But as there is plainly, indeed painfully, evident to every human being a constant destruction going on in and around us, a continual war not only among men but everywhere through the whole solar system, causing sorrow in all directions, reason requires a solution of the riddle. The poor, who see no refuge or hope, cry aloud to a God who makes no reply, and then envy springs up in them when they consider the comforts and opportunities of the rich. They see the rich profligates, the wealthy fools, enjoying themselves unpunished. Turning to the teacher of religion, they meet the reply to their questioning of the justice which will permit such misery to those who did nothing requiring them to be born with no means, no opportunities for education, no capacity to overcome social, racial, or circumstantial obstacles, "It is the will of God." Parents produce beloved offspring who are cut off by death at an untimely hour, just when all promised well. They too have no answer to the question "Why am I thus afflicted?" but the same unreasonable reference to an inaccessible God whose arbitrary will causes their misery. Thus in every walk of life, loss, injury, persecution, deprivation of opportunity, nature's own forces working to destroy the happiness of man, death, reverses, disappointment continually beset good and evil men alike. But nowhere is there any answer or relief save in the ancient truths that each man is the maker and fashioner of his own destiny, the only one who sets in motion the causes for his own happiness and misery. In one life he sows and in the next he reaps. Thus on and forever, the law of Karma leads him. Karma is a beneficent law wholly merciful, relentlessly just, for true mercy is not favor but impartial justice. My brothers! each man's life The outcome of his former living is; The bygone wrongs bring forth sorrows and woes, The bygone right breeds bliss This is the doctrine of Karma. How is the present life affected by that bygone right and wrong act, and is it always by way of punishment? Is Karma only fate under another name, an already fixed and formulated destiny from which no escape is possible, and which therefore might make us careless of act or thought that cannot affect destiny? It is not fatalism. Everything done in a former body has consequences which in the new birth the Ego must enjoy or suffer, for, as St. Paul said: "Brethren, be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." For the effect is in the cause, and Karma produces the manifestation of it in the body, brain, and mind furnished by reincarnation. And as a cause set up by one man has a distinct relation to him as a center from which it came, so each one experiences the results of his own acts. We may sometimes seem to receive effects solely from the acts of others, but this is the result of our own acts and thoughts in this or some prior life. We perform our acts in company with others always, and the acts with their underlying thoughts have relation always to other persons and to ourselves. No act is performed without a thought at its root either at the time of performance or as leading to it. These thoughts are lodged in that part of man which we have called Manas, the mind, and there remain as subtle but powerful links with magnetic threads that enmesh the solar system, and through which various effects are brought out. The theory put forward in earlier pages that the whole system to which this globe belongs is alive, conscious on every plane, though only in man showing self-consciousness, comes into play here to explain how the thought under the act in this life may cause result in this or the next birth. The marvelous modern experiments in hypnotism show that the slightest impression, no matter how far back in the history of the person, may be waked up to life, thus proving it is not lost but only latent. Take for instance the case of a child born humpbacked and very short, the head sunk between the shoulders, the arms long and legs curtailed. Why is this? His karma for thoughts and acts in a prior life. He reviled, persecuted, or otherwise injured a deformed person so persistently or violently as to imprint in his own immortal mind the deformed picture of his victim. For in proportion to the intensity of his thought will be the intensity and depth of the picture. It is exactly similar to the exposure of the sensitive photographic plate, whereby, just as the exposure is long or short, the impression in the plate is weak or deep. So this thinker and actor, the Ego, coming again to rebirth carries with him this picture, and if the family to which he is attracted for birth has similar physical tendencies in its stream, the mental picture causes the newly-forming astral body to assume a deformed shape by electrical and magnetic osmosis through the mother of the child. And as all beings on earth are indissolubly joined together, the misshapen child is the karma of the parents also an exact consequence for similar acts and thoughts on their part in other lives. Here is an exactitude of justice which no other theory will furnish. But as we often see a deformed human being, continuing the instance merely for the purpose of illustration, having a happy disposition, an excellent intellect, sound judgment, and every good moral quality, this very instance leads us to the conclusion that karma must be of several different kinds in every individual case, and also evidently operates in more than one department of our being, with the possibility of being pleasant in effect for one portion of our nature and unpleasant for another. Karma is of three sorts: First, that which has not begun to produce any effect in our lives owing to the operation on us of some other karmic causes. This is under a law well known to physicists, that two opposing forces tend to neutrality, and that one force may be strong enough to temporarily prevent the operation of another one. This law works on the unseen mental and karmic planes or spheres of being just as it does on the material ones. The force of a certain set of bodily, mental, and psychical faculties with their tendencies may wholly inhibit the operation on us of causes with which we are connected, because the whole nature of each person is used in the carrying out of this law. Hence the weak and mediocre furnish a weak focus for karma, and in them the general result of a lifetime is limited, although they may feel it all to be very heavy. But that person who has a wide and deep-reaching character and much force will feel the operation of a greater quantity of karma than the weaker person. Second, that karma which we are now making or storing up by our thoughts and acts, and which will operate in the future when the appropriate body, mind, and environment are taken up by the incarnating Ego in some other life, or whenever obstructive karma is removed. This bears both on the present life and the next one. For one may in this life come to a point where, all previous causes being worked out, new karma, or that which is unexpended, must begin to operate. Under this are those cases where men have sudden reverses of fortune or changes for the better either in circumstances or character. A very important bearing of this is on our present conduct. While old karma must work out and cannot be stopped, it is wise for the man to so think and act now under present circumstances, no matter what they are, that he shall produce no bad or prejudicial causes for the next rebirth or for later years in this life. Rebellion is useless, for the law works on whether we weep or rejoice. The great French engineer, de Lesseps, is a good example of this class of karma. Raised to a high pitch of glory and achievement for many years of his life, he suddenly falls covered with shame through the Panama canal scandal. Whether he was innocent or guilty, he has the shame of the connection of his name with a national enterprise all besmirched with bribery and corruption that involved high officials. This was the operation of old karmic causes on him the very moment those which had governed his previous years were exhausted. Napoleon I is another, for he rose to a very great fame, then suddenly fell and died in exile and disgrace. Many other cases will occur to every thoughtful reader. Third, that karma which has begun to produce results. It is the operating now in this life on us of causes set up in previous lives in company with other Egos. And it is in operation because, being most adapted to the family stock, the individual body, astral body, and race tendencies of the present incarnation, it exhibits itself plainly, while other unexpended karma awaits its regular turn. These three classes of karma govern men, animals, worlds, and periods of evolution. Every effect flows from a cause precedent, and as all beings are constantly being reborn they are continually experiencing the effects of their thoughts and acts (which are themselves causes) of a prior incarnation. And thus each one answers, as St. Matthew says, for every word and thought; none can escape either by prayer, or favor, or force, or any other intermediary. Now as karmic causes are divisible into three classes, they must have various fields in which to work. They operate upon man in his mental and intellectual nature, in his psychical or soul nature, and in his body and circumstances. The spiritual nature of man is never affected or operated upon by karma. One species of karma may act on the three specified planes of our nature at the same time to the same degree, or there may be a mixture of the causes, some on one plane and some on another. Take a deformed person who has a fine mind and a deficiency in his soul nature. Here punitive or unpleasant karma is operating on his body while in his mental and intellectual nature good karma is being experienced, but psychically the karma, or cause, being of an indifferent sort the result is indifferent. In another person other combinations appear. He has a fine body and favorable circumstances, but the character is morose, peevish, irritable, revengeful, morbid, and disagreeable to himself and others. Here good physical karma is at work with very bad mental, intellectual, and psychical karma. Cases will occur to readers of persons born in high station having every opportunity and power, yet being imbecile or suddenly becoming insane. And just as all these phases of the law of karma have sway over the individual man, so they similarly operate upon races, nations, and families. Each race has its karma as a whole. If it be good that race goes forward. If bad it goes out, annihilated as a race, though the souls concerned take up their karma in other races and bodies. Nations cannot escape their national karma, and any nation that has acted in a wicked manner must suffer some day, be it soon or late. The karma of the nineteenth century in the West is the karma of Israel, for even the merest tyro can see that the Mosaic influence is the strongest in the European and American nations. The old Aztec and other ancient American peoples died out because their own karma, the result of their own life as nations in the far past, fell upon and destroyed them. With nations this heavy operation of karma is always through famine, war, convulsion of nature, and the sterility of the women of the nation. The latter cause comes near the end and sweeps the whole remnant away. And the individual in race or nation is warned by this great doctrine that if he falls into indifference of thought and act, thus molding himself into the general average karma of his race or nation, that national and race karma will at last carry him off in the general destiny. This is why teachers of old cried, "Come ye out and be ye separate." With reincarnation the doctrine of karma explains the misery and suffering of the world, and no room is left to accuse Nature of injustice. The misery of any nation or race is the direct result of the thoughts and acts of the Egos who make up the race or nation. In the dim past they did wickedly and now suffer. They violated the laws of harmony. The immutable rule is that harmony must be restored if violated. So these Egos suffer in making compensation and establishing the equilibrium of the occult cosmos. The whole mass of Egos must go on incarnating and reincarnating in the nation or race until they have all worked out to the end the causes set up. Though the nation may for a time disappear as a physical thing, the Egos that made it do not leave the world, but come out as the makers of some new nation in which they must go on with the task and take either punishment or reward as accords with their karma. Of this law the old Egyptians are an illustration. They certainly rose to a high point of development, and as certainly they were extinguished as a nation. But the souls, the old Egos, live on and are now fulfilling their self-made destiny as some other nation now in our period. They may be the new American nation, or the Jews fated to wander up and down in the world and suffer much at the hands of others. This process is perfectly just. Take, for instance, the United States and the Red Indians. The latter have been most shamefully treated by the nation. The Indian Egos will be reborn in the new and conquering people, and as members of that great family will be the means themselves of bringing on the due results for such acts as were done against them when they had red bodies. Thus it has happened before, and so it will come about again. Individual unhappiness in any life is thus explained: (a) It is punishment for evil done in past lives; or (b) it is discipline taken up by the Ego for the purpose of eliminating defects or acquiring fortitude and sympathy. When defects are eliminated it is like removing the obstruction in an irrigating canal which then lets the water flow on. Happiness is explained in the same way: the result of prior lives of goodness. The scientific and self-compelling basis for right ethics is found in these and in no other doctrines. For if right ethics are to be practiced merely for themselves, men will not see why, and have never been able to see why, for that reason they should do right. If ethics are to be followed from fear, man is degraded and will surely evade; if the favor of the Almighty, not based on law or justice, be the reason, then we will have just what prevails today, a code given by Jesus to the west professed by nations and not practiced save by the few who would in any case be virtuous. On this subject the Adepts have written the following to be found in The Secret Doctrine: Nor would the ways of karma be inscrutable were men to work in union and harmony instead of disunion and strife. For our ignorance of those ways, which one portion of mankind calls the ways of Providence dark and intricate, while another sees in them the action of blind fatalism, and a third simple chance with neither gods nor devils to guide them, would surely disappear if we would but attribute all these to their correct cause. With right knowledge, or at any rate with a confident conviction that our neighbors will no more work harm to us than we would think of harming them, two-thirds of the world's evil would vanish into thin air. Were no man to hurt his brother, Karma-Nemesis would have neither cause to work for nor weapons to act through B We cut these numerous windings in our destinies daily with our own hands, while we imagine that we are pursuing a track on the royal high road of respectability and duty, and then complain of those ways beings so intricate and so dark. We stand bewildered before the mystery of our own making and the riddles of life that we will not solve, and then accuse the great Sphinx of devouring us. But verily there is not an accident in our lives, not a misshapen day or a misfortune, that could not be traced back to our own doings in this or another life. Knowledge of Karma gives the conviction that if, 'virtue in distress and vice in triumph Make atheists of Mankind,' it is only because that mankind has ever shut its eyes to the great truth that man is himself his own savior as his own destroyer; that he need not accuse heaven and the gods, fates and providence, of the apparent injustice that reigns in the midst of humanity. But let him rather remember and repeat this bit of Grecian wisdom which warns man to forbear accusing That which Just though mysterious, leads us on unerring Through ways unmarked from guilt to punishment - which are now the ways and the high road on which move onward the great European nations. The western Aryans had every nation and tribe like their eastern brethren of the fifth race, their Golden and their Iron ages, their period of comparative irresponsibility, or the Satya age of purity, while now several of them have reached their Iron age, the Kali Yuga, an age black with horrors. This state will last B until we begin acting from within instead of ever following impulses from without B Until then the only palliative is union and harmony, a Brotherhood in actu and altruism not simply in name. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Fri Mar 29 00:59:35 1996 Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 00:59:35 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: ISIS002.TXT (ISIS UNVEILED) - UPLOAD Mime-Version: 1.0 ISIS002.TXT (Isis Unveiled, 1877) BEFORE THE VEIL. Joan. - Advance our waving colors on the walls! -King Henry VI. Act IV. "My life has been devoted to the study of man, his destiny and his happiness." - J. R. BUCHANAN, M.D., Outlines of Lectures on Anthropology. IT is nineteen centuries since, as we are told, the night of Heathenism and Paganism was first dispelled by the divine light of Christianity. and two-and-a-half centuries since the bright lamp of Modern Science began to shine on the darkness of the ignorance of the ages. Within these respective epochs, we are required to believe, the true moral and intellectual progress of the race has occurred. The ancient philosophers were well enough for their respective generations, but they were illiterate as compared with modern men of science. The ethics of Paganism perhaps met the wants of the uncultivated people of antiquity, but not until the advent of the luminous "Star of Bethlehem," was the true road to moral perfection and the way to salvation made plain. Of old, brutishness was the rule, virtue and spirituality the exception. Now, the dullest may read the will o f God in His revealed word; men have every incentive to be good, and are constantly becoming better. This is the assumption; what are the facts ? On the one hand an unspiritual, dogmatic, too often debauched clergy, a host of sects, and three warring great religions; discord instead of union, dogmas without proofs, sensation-loving preachers, and wealth and pleasure-seeking parishioners, hypocrisy and bigotry, begotten by the tyrannical exigencies of respectability, the rule of the day, sincerity and real piety exceptional. On the other hand, scientific hypotheses built on sand; no accord upon a single question; rancorous quarrels and jealousy; a general drift into materialism. A death-grapple of Science with Theology for infallibility - "a conflict of ages." At Rome, the self-styled seat of Christianity, the putative successor to the chair of Peter is undermining social order with his invisible but omnipresent network of bigoted agents, and incites them to revolutionize Europe for his temporal as well as spiritual supremacy. We see him who calls himself the "Vicar of Christ," fraternizing with the anti-Christian Moslem against another Christian nation, publicly invoking the blessing of God upon the arms of those who have for centuries withstood, with fire and sword, the pretensions of his Christ to Godhood! At Berlin - one of the great seats of learning - professors of modern exact sciences, turning their backs on the boasted results of enlightenment of the post-Galileonian period, are quietly snuffing out the candle of the great Florentine; seeking, in short, to prove the heliocentric system, and even the earth's rotation, but the dreams of deluded scientists, Newton a visionary, and all past and present astronomers but clever calculators of unverifiable problems. [See the last chapter of this volume]. Between these two conflicting Titans - Science and Theology - is a bewildered public, fast losing all belief in man's personal immortality, in a deity of any kind, and rapidly descending to the level of a mere animal existence. Such is the picture of the hour, illumined by the bright noon-day sun of this Christian and scientific era! Would it be strict justice to condemn to critical lapidation the most humble and modest of authors for entirely rejecting the authority of both these combatants? Are we not bound rather to take as the true aphorism of this century, the declaration of Horace Greeley. "I accept unreservedly the views of no man, living or dead"? ["Recollections of a Busy Life," p. 147.] Such, at all events, will be our motto, and we mean that principle to be our constant guide throughout this work. Among the many phenomenal outgrowths of our century, the strange creed of the so-called Spiritualists has arisen amid the tottering ruins of self-styled revealed religions and materialistic philosophies; and yet it alone offers a possible last refuge of compromise between the two. That this unexpected ghost of pre-Christian days finds poor welcome from our sober and positive century, is not surprising. Times have strangely changed; and it is but recently that a well-known Brooklyn preacher pointedly remarked in a sermon, that could Jesus come back and behave in the streets of New York, as he did in those of Jerusalem, he would find himself confined in the prison of the Tombs. [Henry Ward Beecher.] What sort of welcome, then, could Spiritualism ever expect? True enough, the weird stranger seems neither attractive nor promising at first sight. Shapeless and uncouth, like an infant attended by seven nurses, it is coming out of its teens lame and mutilated. The name of its enemies is legion; its friends and protectors are a handful. But what of that? When was ever truth accepted a priori? Because the champions of Spiritualism have in their fanaticism magnified its qualities, and remained blind to its imperfections, that gives no excuse to doubt its reality. A forgery is impossible when we have no model to forge after. The fanaticism of Spiritualists is itself a proof of the genuineness and possibility of their phenomena. They give us facts that we may investigate, not assertions that we must believe without proof. Millions of reasonable men and women do not so easily succumb to collective hallucination. And so, while the clergy, following their own interpretations of the Bible, and science its self-made Codex of possibilities in nature, refuse it a fair hearing, real science and true religion are silent, and gravely wait further developments. The whole question of phenomena rests on the correct comprehension of old philosophies. Whither, then, should we turn, in our perplexity, but to the ancient sages, since, on the pretext of superstition, we are refused an explanation by the modern? Let us ask them what they know of genuine science and religion; not in the matter of mere details, but in all the broad conception of these twin truths - so strong in their unity, so weak when divided. Besides, we may find our profit in comparing this boasted modern science with ancient ignorance; this improved modern theology with the "Secret doctrines" of the ancient universal religion. Perhaps we may thus discover a neutral ground whence we can reach and profit by both. It is the Platonic philosophy, the most elaborate compend of the abstruse systems of old India, that can alone afford us this middle ground. Although twenty-two and a quarter centuries have elapsed since the death of Plato, the great minds of the world are still occupied with his writings. He was, in the fullest sense of the word, the world's interpreter. And the greatest philosopher of the pre-Christian era mirrored faithfully in his works the spiritualism of the Vedic philosophers who lived thousands of years before himself, and its metaphysical expression. Vyasa, Djeminy, Kapila, Vrihaspati, Sumati, and so many others, will be found to have transmitted their indelible imprint through the intervening centuries upon Plato and his school. Thus is warranted the inference that to Plato and the ancient Hindu sages was alike revealed the same wisdom. So surviving the shock of time, what can this wisdom be but divine and eternal? Plato taught justice as subsisting in the soul of its possessor and his greatest good. "Men, in proportion to their intellect, have admitted his transcendent claims." Yet his commentators, almost with one consent, shrink from every passage which implies that his metaphysics are based on a solid foundation, and not on ideal conceptions. But Plato could not accept a philosophy destitute of spiritual aspirations; the two were at one with him. For the old Grecian sage there was a single object of attainment: REAL KNOWLEDGE. He considered those only to be genuine philosophers, or students of truth, who possess the knowledge of the really-existing, in opposition to the mere seeing; of the always-existing, in opposition to the transitory. and of that which exists permanently, in opposition to that which waxes, wanes, and is developed and destroyed alternately. "Beyond all finite existences and secondary causes, all laws, ideas, and principles, there is an INTELLIGENCE or MIND [nous, the spirit], the first principle of all principles, the Supreme Idea on which all other ideas are grounded; the Monarch and Lawgiver of the universe; the ultimate substance from which all things derive their being and essence, the first and efficient Cause of all the order, and harmony, and beauty, and excellency, and goodness, which pervades the universe - who is called, by way of preeminence and excellence, the Supreme Good, the God (a Theos) 'the God over all' (a epi pasi Theos)." [* Cocker: "Christianity and Greek Philosophy," xi., p. 377.] He is not the truth nor the intelligence, but "the father of it." Though this eternal essence of things may not be perceptible by our physical senses, it may be apprehended by the mind of those who are not wilfully obtuse. "To you," said Jesus to his elect disciples, "it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, but to them [the polloi] it is not given; . . . therefore speak I to them in parables [or allegories]; because they seeing, see not, and hearing, they hear not, neither do they understand." [Gospel according to Matthew, xiii. 11, 13.] The philosophy of Plato, we are assured by Porphyry, of the Neo-platonic School, was taught and illustrated in the MYSTERIES. Many have questioned and even denied this; and Lobeck, in his Aglaophomus, has gone to the extreme of representing the sacred orgies as little more than an empty show to captivate the imagination. As though Athens and Greece would for twenty centuries and more have repaired every fifth year to Eleusis to witness a solemn religious farce! Augustine, the papa-bishop of Hippo, has resolved such assertions. He declares that the doctrines of the Alexandrian Platonists were the original esoteric doctrines of the first followers of Plato, and describes Plotinus as a Plato resuscitated. He also explains the motives of the great philosopher for veiling the interior sense of what he taught. ["The accusations of atheism, the introducing of foreign deities, and corrupting of the Athenian youth, which were made against Socrates, afforded ample justification for Plato to conceal the arcane preaching of his doctrines. Doubtless the peculiar diction or 'jargon' of the alchemists was employed for a like purpose. The dungeon, the rack, and the fagot were employed without scruple by Christians of every shade, the Roman Catholics especially, against all who taught even natural science contrary to the theories entertained by the Church. Pope Gregory the Great even inhibited the grammatical use of Latin as heathenish. The offense of Socrates consisted in unfolding to his disciples the arcane doctrine concerning the gods, which was taught in the Mysteries and was a capital crime. He also was charged by Aristophanes with introducing the new god Dinos into the republic as the demiurgos or artificer, and the lord of the solar universe. The Heliocentric system was also a doctrine of the Mysteries; and hence, when Aristarchus the Pythagorean taught it openly, Cleanthes declared that the Greeks ought to have called him to account and condemned him for blasphemy against the gods," - ("Plutarch"). But Socrates had never been initiated, and hence divulged nothing which had ever been imparted to him.] As to the myths, Plato declares in the Gorgias and the Phaedon that they were the vehicles of great truths well worth the seeking. But commentators are so little en rapport with the great philosopher as to be compelled to acknowledge that they are ignorant where "the doctrinal ends, and the mythical begins." Plato put to flight the popular superstition concerning magic and daemons, and developed the exaggerated notions of the time into rational theories and metaphysical conceptions. Perhaps these would not quite stand the inductive method of reasoning established by Aristotle; nevertheless they are satisfactory in the highest degree to those who apprehend the existence of that higher faculty of insight or intuition, as affording a criterion for ascertaining truth. Basing all his doctrines upon the presence of the Supreme Mind, Plato taught that the nous, spirit, or rational soul of man, being "generated by the Divine Father," possessed a nature kindred, or even homogeneous, with the Divinity, and was capable of beholding the eternal realities. This faculty of contemplating reality in a direct and immediate manner belongs to God alone; the aspiration for this knowledge constitutes what is really meant by philosophy - the love of wisdom. The love of truth is inherently the love of good; and so predominating over every desire of the soul, purifying it and assimilating it to the divine, thus governing every act of the individual, it raises man to a participation and communion with Divinity, and restores him to the likeness of God. "This flight," says Plato in the Theaetetus, "consists in becoming like God, and this assimilation is the becoming just and holy with wisdom." The basis of this assimilation is always asserted to be the pre-existence of the spirit or nous. In the allegory of the chariot and winged steeds, given in the Phaedrus, he represents the psychical nature as composite and two-fold; the thumos, or epithumetic part, formed from the substances of the world of phenomena; and the thumoeides, the essence of which is linked to the eternal world. The present earth-life is a fall and punishment. The soul dwells in "the grave which we call the body," and in its incorporate state, and previous to the discipline of education, the noetic or spiritual element is "asleep." Life is thus a dream, rather than a reality. Like the captives in the subterranean cave, described in The Republic, the back is turned to the light, we perceive only the shadows of objects, and think them the actual realities. Is not this the idea of Maya, or the illusion of the senses in physical life, which is so marked a feature in Buddhistical philosophy? But these shadows, if we have not given ourselves up absolutely to the sensuous nature, arouse in us the reminiscence of that higher world that we once inhabited. "The interior spirit has some dim and shadowy recollection of its ante-natal state of bliss, and some instinctive and proleptic yearnings for its return." It is the province of the discipline of philosophy to disinthrall it from the bondage of sense, and raise it into the empyrean of pure thought, to the vision of eternal truth, goodness, and beauty. "The soul," says Plato, in the Theaetetus, "cannot come into the form of a man if it has never seen the truth. This is a recollection of those things which. our soul formerly saw when journeying with Deity, despising the things which we now say are, and looking up to that which REALLY IS. Wherefore the nous, or spirit, of the philosopher (or student of the higher truth) alone is furnished with wings; because he, to the best of his ability, keeps these things in mind, of which the contemplation renders even Deity itself divine. By making the right use of these things remembered from the former life, by constantly perfecting himself in the perfect mysteries, a man becomes truly perfect - an initiate into the diviner wisdom." Hence we may understand why the sublimer scenes in the Mysteries were always in the night. The life of the interior spirit is the death of the external nature; and the night of the physical world denotes the day of the spiritual. Dionysus, the night-sun, is, therefore, worshipped rather than Helios, orb of day. In the Mysteries were symbolized the pre-existent condition of the spirit and soul, and the lapse of the latter into earth-life and Hades, the miseries of that life, the purification of the soul, and its restoration to divine bliss, or reunion with spirit. Theon, of Smyrna, aptly compares the philosophical discipline to the mystic rites: "Philosophy"' says he, "may be called the initiation into the true arcana, and the instruction in the genuine Mysteries. There are five parts of this initiation: I., the previous purification; II., the admission to participation in the arcane rites; III., the epoptic revelation; IV the investiture or enthroning; V. the fifth, which is produced from all these, is friendship and interior communion with God, and the enjoyment of that felicity which arises from intimate converse with divine beings. . . . Plato denominates the epopteia, or personal view, the perfect contemplation of things which are apprehended intuitively, absolute truths and ideas. He also considers the binding of the head and crowning as analogous to the authority which any one receives from his instructors, of leading others into the same contemplation. The fifth gradation is the most perfect felicity arising from hence, and, according to Plato, an assimilation to divinity as far as is possible to human beings." [See Thomas Taylor. "Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries," p. 47. New York: J. W. Bouton, 1875.] Such is Platonism. "Out of Plato," says Ralph Waldo Emerson, "come all things that are still written and debated among men of thought." He absorbed the learning of his times - of Greece from Philolaus to Socrates; then of Pythagoras in Italy. then what he could procure from Egypt and the East. He was so broad that all philosophy, European and Asiatic, was in his doctrines; and to culture and contemplation he added the nature and qualities of the poet. The followers of Plato generally adhered strictly to his psychological theories. Several, however, like Xenocrates, ventured into bolder speculations. Speusippus, the nephew and successor of the great philosopher, was the author of the Numerical Analysis, a treatise on the Pythagorean numbers. Some of his speculations are not found in the written Dialogues; but as he was a listener to the unwritten lectures of Plato, the judgment of Enfield is doubtless correct, that he did not differ from his master. He was evidently, though not named, the antagonist whom Aristotle criticised, when professing to cite the argument of Plato against the doctrine of Pythagoras, that all things were in themselves numbers, or rather, inseparable from the idea of numbers. He especially endeavored to show that the Platonic doctrine of ideas differed essentially from the Pythagorean, in that it presupposed numbers and magnitudes to exist apart from things. He also asserted that Plato taught that there could be no real knowledge, if the object of that knowledge was not carried beyond or above the sensible. But Aristotle was no trustworthy witness. He misrepresented Plato, and he almost caricatured the doctrines of Pythagoras. There is a canon of interpretation, which should guide us in our examinations of every philosophical opinion: "The human mind has, under the necessary operation of its own laws, been compelled to entertain the same fundamental ideas, and the human heart to cherish the same feelings in all ages." It is certain that Pythagoras awakened the deepest intellectual sympathy of his age, and that his doctrines exerted a powerful influence upon the mind of Plato. His cardinal idea was that there existed a permanent principle of unity beneath the forms, changes, and other phenomena of the universe. Aristotle asserted that he taught that "numbers are the first principles of all entities." Ritter has expressed the opinion that the formula of Pythagoras should be taken symbolically, which is doubtless correct. Aristotle goes on to associate these numbers with the "forms" and "ideas" of Plato. He even declares that Plato said: "forms are numbers," and that "ideas are substantial existences - real beings." Yet Plato did not so teach. He declared that the final cause was the Supreme Goodness - to agathon. "Ideas are objects of pure conception for the human reason, and they are attributes of the Divine Reason." [Cousin: "History of Philosophy"' I., ix] Nor did he ever say that "forms are numbers." What he did say may be found in the Timaeus: "God formed things as they first arose according to forms and numbers." It is recognized by modern science that all the higher laws of nature assume the form of quantitative statement. This is perhaps a fuller elaboration or more explicit affirmation of the Pythagorean doctrine. Numbers were regarded as the best representations of the laws of harmony which pervade the cosmos. We know too that in chemistry the doctrine of atoms and the laws of combination are actually and, as it were, arbitrarily defined by numbers. As Mr. W. Archer Butler has expressed it: "The world is, then, through all its departments, a living arithmetic in its development, a realized geometry in its repose." The key to the Pythagorean dogmas is the general formula of unity in multiplicity, the one evolving the many and pervading the many. This is the ancient doctrine of emanation in few words. Even the apostle Paul accepted it as true. "Out of him and through him and in him all things are." This, as we can see by the following quotation, is purely Hindu and Brahmanical: "When the dissolution - Pralaya - had arrived at its term, the great Being - Para-Atma or Para-Purusha - the Lord existing through himself, out of whom and through whom all things were, and are and will be . . . resolved to emanate from his own substance the various creatures" (Manava-Dharma-Sastra, book i., slokas 6 and 7). The mystic Decad 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10 is a way of expressing this idea. The One is God, the Two, matter. the Three, combining Monad and Duad, and partaking of the nature of both, is the phenomenal world; the Tetrad, or form of perfection, expresses the emptiness of all; and the Decad, or sum of all, involves the entire cosmos. The universe is the combination of a thousand elements, and yet the expression of a single spirit - a chaos to the sense, a cosmos to the reason. (to be continued ...) --------------------------------------------------------------- Text scanned and uploaded by Alan Bain (edited for ASCII) --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 30 01:02:26 1996 Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 01:02:26 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - OCEAN12.TXT (Ocean of Theosophy) Mime-Version: 1.0 OCEAN12.TXT (The Ocean of Theosophy - W.Q.Judge) CHAPTER XII LET US NOW CONSIDER the states of man after the death of the body and before birth, having looked over the whole field of the evolution of things and beings in a general way. This brings up at once the questions: Is there any heaven or hell, and what are they? Are they states or places? Is there a spot in space where they may be found and to which we go or from where we come? We must also go back to the subject of the fourth principle of the constitution of man, that called Kama in Sanskrit and desire or passion in English. Bearing in mind what was said about that principle, and also the teaching in respect to the astral body and the Astral Light, it will be easier to understand what is taught about the two states ante and post mortem. In chronological order we go into Kama Loka, or the plane of desire, first on the demise of the body, and then the higher principles, the real man, fall into the state of Devachan. After dealing with Kama Loka it will be more easy to study the question of Devachan. The breath leaves the body and we say the man is dead, but that is only the beginning of death; it proceeds on other planes. When the frame is cold and eyes closed, all the forces of the body and mind rush through the brain, and by a series of pictures the whole life just ended is imprinted indelibly on the inner man not only in a general outline but down to the smallest detail of even the most minute and fleeting impression. At this moment, though every indication leads the physician to pronounce for death and though to all intents and purposes the person is dead to this life, the real man is busy in the brain, and not until his work there is ended is the person gone. When this solemn work is over the astral body detaches itself from the physical, and, life energy having departed, the remaining five principles are in the plane of Kama Loka. The natural separation of the principles brought about by death divides the total man into three parts: First, the visible body with all its elements left to further disintegration on the earth plane, where all that it is composed of is in time resolved into the different physical departments of nature. Second, the Kamarupa made up of the astral body and the passions and desires, which also begins at once to go to pieces on the astral plane; Third, the real man, the upper triad of Atma-Buddhi-Manas, deathless but now out of earth conditions, devoid of body, begins in Devachan to function solely as mind clothed in a very ethereal vesture which it will shake off when the time comes for it to return to earth. Kama Loka, or the place of desire, is the astral region penetrating and surrounding the earth. As a place it is on and in and about the earth. Its extent is to a measurable distance from the earth, but the ordinary laws obtaining here do not obtain there, and entities therein are not under the same conditions as to space and time as we are. As a state it is metaphysical, though that metaphysic relates to the astral plane. It is called the plane of desire because it relates to the fourth principle, and in it the ruling force is desire devoid of and divorced from intelligence. It is an astral sphere intermediate between earthly and heavenly life. Beyond any doubt it is the origin of the Christian theory of purgatory, where the soul undergoes penance for evil done and from which it can be released by prayer and other ceremonies or offerings. The fact underlying this superstition is that the soul may be detained in Kama Loka by the enormous force of some unsatisfied desire, and cannot get rid of the astral and kamic clothing until that desire is satisfied by someone on earth or by the soul itself. But if the person was pure minded and of high aspirations, the separation of the principles on that plane is soon completed, permitting the higher triad to go into Devachan. Being the purely astral sphere, it partakes of the nature of the astral matter which is essentially earthly and devilish, and in it all the forces work undirected by soul or conscience. It is the slag-pit, as it were, of the great furnace of life, where nature provides for the sloughing off of elements which have no place in Devachan, and for that reason it must have many degrees, every one of which was noted by the ancients. These degrees are known in Sanskrit as lokas or places in a metaphysical sense. Human life is very varied as to character and other potentialities, and for each of these the appropriate place after death is provided, thus making Kama Loka an infinitely varied sphere. In life some of the differences among men are modified and some inhibited by a similarity of body and heredity, but in Kama Loka all the hidden desires and passions are let loose in consequence of the absence of body, and for that reason the state is vastly more diversified than the life plane. Not only is it necessary to provide for the natural varieties and differences, but also for those caused by the manner of death, about which something shall be said. And all these various divisions are but the natural result of the life thoughts and last thoughts of the persons who die on earth. It is beyond the scope of this work to go into a description of all these degrees, inasmuch as volumes would be needed to describe them, and then but few would understand. To deal with Kama Loka compels us to deal also with the fourth principle in the classification of man's constitution, and arouses a conflict with modern ideas and education on the subject of the desires and passions. It is generally supposed that the desires and passions are inherent tendencies in the individual, and they have an altogether unreal and misty appearance for the ordinary student. But in this system of philosophy they are not merely inherent in the individual nor are they due to the body per se. While the man is living in the world the desires and passions, the principle Kama, have no separate life apart from the astral and inner man, being, so to say, diffused throughout his being. But as they coalesce with the astral body after death and thus form an entity with its own term of life, though without soul, very important questions arise. During mortal life the desires and passions are guided by the mind and soul; after death they work without guidance from the former master; while we live we are responsible for them and their effects, and when we have left this life we are still responsible, although they go on working and making effects on others while they last as the sort of entity I have described, and without our direct guidance. In this is seen the continuance of responsibility. They are a portion of the skandhas, well known in eastern philosophy, which are the aggregates that make up the man. The body includes one set of the skandhas, the astral man another, the Kama principle is another set, and still others pertain to other parts. In Kama are the really active and important ones which control rebirths and lead to all the varieties of life and circumstance upon each rebirth. They are being made from day to day under the law that every thought combines instantly with one of the elemental forces of nature, becoming to that extent an entity which will endure in accordance with the strength of the thought as it leaves the brain, and all of these are inseparably connected with the being who evolved them. There is no way of escaping; all we can do is to have thoughts of good quality, for the highest of the Masters themselves are not exempt from this law, but they "people their current in space" with entities powerful for good alone. Now in Kama Loka this mass of desire and thought exists very definitely until the conclusion of its disintegration, and then the remainder consists of the essence of these skandhas, connected, of course, with the being that evolved and had them. They can no more be done away with than we can blot out the universe. Hence they are said to remain until the being comes out of Devachan, and then at once by the law of attraction they are drawn to the being, who from them as germ or basis builds up a new set of skandhas for the new life. Kama Loka therefore is distinguished from the earth plane by reason of the existence therein, uncontrolled and unguided, of the mass of passions and desires; but at the same time earth-life is also a Kama Loka, since it is largely governed by the principle Kama, and will be so until at a far distant time in the course of evolution the races of men shall have developed the fifth and sixth principle, thus throwing Kama into its own sphere and freeing earth-life from its influence. The astral man in Kama Loka is a mere shell devoid of soul and mind, without conscience and also unable to act unless vivified by forces outside of itself. It has that which seems like an animal or automatic consciousness due wholly to the very recent association with the human Ego. For under the principle laid down in another chapter, every atom going to make up the man has a memory of its own which is capable of lasting a length of time in proportion to the force given it. In the case of a very material and gross or selfish person the force lasts longer than in any other, and hence in that case the automatic consciousness will be more definite and bewildering to one who without knowledge dabbles with necromancy. Its purely astral portion contains and carries the record of all that ever passed before the person when living, for one of the qualities of the astral substance is to absorb all scenes and pictures and the impressions of all thoughts, to keep them, and to throw them forth by reflection when the conditions permit. This astral shell, cast off by every man at death, would be a menace to all men were it not in every case, except one which shall be mentioned, devoid of all the higher principles which are the directors. But those guiding constituents being disjoined from the shell, it wavers and floats about from place to place without any will of its own, but governed wholly by attractions in the astral and magnetic fields. It is possible for the real man, called the spirit by some, to communicate with us immediately after death for a few brief moments, but, those passed, the soul has no more to do with earth until reincarnated. What can and do influence the sensitive and the medium from out of this sphere are the shells I have described. Soulless and conscienceless, these in no sense are the spirits of our deceased ones. They are the clothing thrown off by the inner man, the brutal earthly portion discarded in the flight to Devachan, and so have always been considered by the ancients as devils, our personal devils, because essentially astral, earthly, and passionnel. It would be strange indeed if this shell, after being for so long the vehicle of the real man on earth, did not retain an automatic memory and consciousness. We see the decapitated body of the frog or the cock moving and acting for a time with a seeming intelligence, and why is it not possible for the finer and more subtle astral form to act and move with a far greater amount of seeming mental direction? Existing in the sphere of Kama Loka, as, indeed, also in all parts of the globe and the solar system, are the elementals or nature forces. They are innumerable, and their divisions are almost infinite, as they are, in a sense, the nerves of nature. Each class has its own work just as has every natural element or thing. As fire burns and as water runs down and not up under their general law, so the elementals act under law, but being higher in the scale than gross fire or water their action seems guided by mind. Some of them have a special relation to mental operations and to the action of the astral organs, whether these be joined to a body or not. When a medium forms the channel, and also from other natural coordination, these elementals make an artificial connection with the shell of a deceased person, aided by the nervous fluid of the medium and others near, and then the shell is galvanized into an artificial life. Through the medium connection is made with the physical and psychical forces of all present. The old impressions on the astral body give up their images to the mind of the medium, the old passions are set on fire. Various messages and reports are then obtained from it, but not one of them is original, not one is from the spirit. By their strangeness, and in consequence of the ignorance of those who dabble in it, this is mistaken for the work of spirit, but it is all from the living when it is not the mere picking out from the astral light of the images of what has been in the past. In certain cases to be noted there is an intelligence at work that is wholly and intensely bad, to which every medium is subject, and which will explain why so many of them have succumbed to evil, as they have confessed. A rough classification of these shells that visit mediums would be as follows: (1) Those of the recently deceased whose place of burial is not far away. This class will be quite coherent in accordance with the life and thought of the former owner. An immaterial, good, and spiritualized person leaves a shell that will soon disintegrate. A gross, mean, selfish, material person's shell will be heavy, consistent, and long lived: and so on with all varieties. (2) Those of persons who had died far away from the place where the medium is. Lapse of time permits such to escape from the vicinity of their old bodies, and at the same time brings on a greater degree of disintegration which corresponds on the astral plane to putrefaction on the physical. These are vague, shadowy, incoherent; respond but briefly to the psychic stimulus, and are whirled off by any magnetic current. They are galvanized for a moment by the astral currents of the medium and of those persons present who were related to the deceased. (3) Purely shadowy remains which can hardly be given a place. There is no English to describe them, though they are facts in this sphere. They might be said to be the mere mold or impress left in the astral substance by the once coherent shell long since disintegrated. They are therefore so near being fictitious as to almost deserve the designation. As such shadowy photographs they are enlarged, decorated, and given an imaginary life by the thoughts, desires, hopes, and imaginings of medium and sitters at the seance. (4) Definite, coherent entities, human souls bereft of the spiritual tie, now tending down to the worst state of all, avitchi, where annihilation of the personality is the end. They are known as black magicians. Having centered the consciousness in the principle of Kama, preserved intellect, divorced themselves from spirit, they are the only damned beings we know. In life they had human bodies and reached their awful state by persistent lives of evil for its own sake; some of such already doomed to become what I have described, are among us on earth today. These are not ordinary shells, for they have centered all their force in Kama, thrown out every spark of good thought or aspiration, and have a complete mastery of the astral sphere. I put them in the classification of shells because they are such in the sense that they are doomed to disintegration consciously as the others are to the same end mechanically only. They may and do last for many centuries, gratifying their lusts through any sensitive they can lay hold of where bad thought gives them an opening. They preside at nearly all seances, assuming high names and taking the direction so as to keep the control and continue the delusion of the medium, thus enabling themselves to have a convenient channel for their own evil purposes. Indeed, with the shells of suicides, of those poor wretches who die at the hand of the law, of drunkards and gluttons, these black magicians living in the astral world hold the field of physical mediumship and are liable to invade the sphere of any medium no matter how good. The door once open, it is open to all. This class of shell has lost higher Manas, but in the struggle not only after death but as well in life the lower portion of Manas which should have been raised up to godlike excellence was torn away from its lord and now gives this entity intelligence which is devoid of spirit but power to suffer as it will when its final day shall come. In the state of Kama Loka suicides and those who are suddenly shot out of life by accident or murder, legal or illegal, pass a term almost equal to the length life would have been but for the sudden termination. These are not really dead. To bring on a normal death, a factor not recognized by medical science must be present. That is, the principles of the being as described in other chapters have their own term of cohesion, at the natural end of which they separate from each other under their own laws. This involves the great subject of the cohesive forces of the human subject, requiring a book in itself. I must be content therefore with the assertion that this law of cohesion obtains among the human principles. Before that natural end the principles are unable to separate. Obviously the normal destruction of the cohesive force cannot be brought about by mechanical processes except in respect to the physical body. Hence a suicide, or person killed by accident or murdered by man or by order of human law, has not come to the natural termination of the cohesion among the other constituents, and is hurled into the Kama Loka state only partly dead. There the remaining principles have to wait until the actual natural life term is reached, whether it be one month or sixty years. But the degrees of Kama Loka provide for the many varieties of the last-mentioned shells. Some pass the period in great suffering, others in a dreamy sort of sleep, each according to the moral responsibility. But executed criminals are in general thrown out of life full of hate and revenge, smarting under a penalty they do not admit the justice of. They are ever rehearsing in Kama Loka their crime, their trial, their execution, and their revenge. And whenever they can gain touch with a sensitive living person, medium or not, they attempt to inject thoughts of murder and other crime into the brain of such unfortunate. And that they succeed in such attempts the deeper students of Theosophy full well know. We have now approached Devachan. After a certain time in Kama loka the being falls into a state of unconsciousness which precedes the change into the next state. It is like the birth into life, precluded by a term of darkness and heavy sleep. It then wakes to the joys of Devachan. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 30 22:24:08 1996 Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 22:24:08 +0000 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - OCEAN13.TXT (Ocean of Theosophy) Mime-Version: 1.0 OCEAN13.TXT (The Ocean of Theosophy - W.Q.Judge) CHAPTER XIII HAVING SHOWN THAT JUST beyond the threshold of human life there is a place of separation wherein the better part of man is divided from his lower and brute elements, we come to consider what is the state after death of the real being, the immortal who travels from life to life. Struggling out of the body the entire man goes into Kama Loka, to purgatory, where he again struggles and loosens himself from the lower skandhas; this period of birth over, the higher principles, Atma-Buddhi-Manas, begin to think in a manner different from that which the body and brain permitted in life. This is the state of Devachan, a Sanskrit word meaning literally "the place of the gods," where the soul enjoys felicity; but as the gods have no such bodies as ours, the Self in Devachan is devoid of a mortal body. In the ancient books it is said that this state lasts "for years of infinite number," or "for a period proportionate to the merit of the being;" and when the mental forces peculiar to the state are exhausted, "the being is drawn down again to be reborn in the world of mortals." Devachan is therefore an interlude between births in the world. The law of karma which forces us all to enter the world, being ceaseless in its operation and also universal in scope, acts also on the being in Devachan, for only by the force or operation of Karma are we taken out of Devachan. It is something like the pressure of atmosphere which, being continuous and uniform, will push out or crush that which is subjected to it unless there be a compensating quantity of atmosphere to counteract the pressure. In the present case the karma of the being is the atmosphere always pressing the being on or out from state to state; the counteracting quantity of atmosphere is the force of the being's own life-thoughts and aspirations which prevent his coming out of Devachan until that force is exhausted, but which being spent has no more power to hold back the decree of our self-made mortal destiny. The necessity for this state after death is one of the necessities of evolution growing out of the nature of mind and soul. The very nature of Manas requires a devachanic state as soon as the body is lost, and it is simply the effect of loosening the bonds placed upon the mind by its physical and astral encasement. In life we can but to a fractional extent act out the thoughts we have each moment; and still less can we exhaust the psychic energies engendered by each day's aspirations and dreams. The energy thus engendered is not lost or annihilated, but is stored in Manas, but the body, brain, and astral body permit no full development of the force. Hence, held latent until death, it bursts then from the weakened bonds and plunges Manas, the thinker, into the expansion, use, and development of the thought-force set up in life. The impossibility of escaping this necessary state lies in man's ignorance of his own powers and faculties. From this ignorance delusion arises, and Manas not being wholly free is carried by its own force into the thinking of Devachan. But while ignorance is the cause for going into this state the whole process is remedial, restful, and beneficial. For if the average man returned at once to another body in the same civilization he had just quitted, his soul would be completely tired out and deprived of the needed opportunity for the development of the higher part of his nature. Now the Ego being minus mortal body and Kama, clothes itself in Devachan with a vesture which cannot be called body but may be styled means or vehicle, and in that it functions in the devachanic state entirely on the plane of mind and soul. Everything is as real then to the being as this world seems to be to us. It simply now has gotten the opportunity to make its own world for itself unhampered by the clogs of physical life. Its state may be compared to that of the poet or artist who, rapt in ecstacy of composition or arrangement of color, cares not for and knows not of either time or objects of the world. We are making causes every moment, and but two fields exist for the manifestation in effect of those causes. These are, the objective as this world is called, and the subjective which is both here and after we have left this life. The objective field relates to earth life and the grosser part of man, to his bodily acts and his brain thoughts, as also sometimes to his astral body. The subjective has to do with his higher and spiritual parts. In the objective field the psychic impulses cannot work out, nor can the high leanings and aspirations of his soul; hence these must be the basis, cause, substratum, and support for the state of Devachan. What then is the time, measured by mortal years, that one will stay in Devachan? This question while dealing with what earth-men call time does not, of course, touch the real meaning of time itself, that is, of what may be in fact for this solar system the ultimate order, precedence, succession, and length of moments. It is a question which may be answered in respect to our time, but not certainly in respect to the time on the planet Mercury, for instance, where time is not the same as ours, nor, indeed, in respect to time as conceived by the soul. As to the latter any man can see that after many years have slipped away he has no direct perception of the time just passed, but is able only to pick out some of the incidents which marked its passage, and as to some poignant or happy instants or hours he seems to feel them as but of yesterday. And thus it is for the being in Devachan. No time is there. The soul has all the benefit of what goes on within itself in that state, but it indulges in no speculations as to the lapse of moments; all is made up of events, while all the time the solar orb is marking off the years for us on the earth plane. This cannot be regarded as an impossibility if we will remember how, as is well known in life, events, pictures, thoughts, argument, introspective feeling will all sweep over us in perfect detail in an instant, or, as is known of those who have been drowning, the events of a whole lifetime pass in a flash before the eye of the mind. But the Ego remains as said in Devachan for a time exactly proportioned to the psychic impulses generated during life. Now this being a matter which deals with the mathematics of the soul, no one but a Master can tell what the time would be for the average man of this century in every land. Hence we have to depend on the Masters of wisdom for that average, as it must be based upon a calculation. They have said, as is well put by Mr. A.P. Sinnett in his Esoteric Buddhism, that the period is fifteen hundred years in general. From a reading of his book, which was made up from letters from the Masters, it is to be inferred he desires it to be understood that the devachanic period is in each and every case fifteen centuries; but to do away with that misapprehension his informants wrote at a later date that is the average period and not a fixed one. Such must be the truth, for as we see that men differ in respect to the periods of time they remain in any state of mind in life due to the varying intensities of their thoughts, so it must be in Devachan where thought has a greater force though always due to the being who had the thoughts. What the Master did say on this is as follows: The 'dream of Devachan' lasts until karma is satisfied in that direction. In Devachan there is a gradual exhaustion of force. The stay in Devachan is proportionate to the unexhausted psychic impulses originated in earth life. Those whose actions were preponderatingly material will be sooner brought back into rebirth by the force of Tanha. Tanha is the thirst for life. He therefore who has not in life originated many psychic impulses will have but little basis or force in his essential nature to keep his higher principles in Devachan. About all he will have are those originated in childhood before he began to fix his thoughts on materialistic thinking. The thirst for life expressed by the word Tanha is the pulling or magnetic force lodged in the skandhas inherent in all beings. In such a case as this the average rule does not apply, since the whole effect either way is due to a balancing of forces and is the outcome of action and reaction. And this sort of materialistic thinker may emerge out of Devachan into another body here in a month, allowing for the unexpended psychic forces originated in early life. But as every one of such persons varies as to class, intensity and quantity of thought and psychic impulse, each may vary in respect to the time of stay in Devachan. Desperately materialistic thinkers will remain in the devachanic condition stupefied or asleep, as it were, as they have no forces in them appropriate to that state save in a very vague fashion, and for them it can be very truly said that there is no state after death so far as mind is concerned; they are torpid for a while, and then they live again on earth. This general average of the stay in Devachan gives us the length of a very important human cycle, the Cycle of Reincarnation. For under that law national development will be found to repeat itself, and the times that are past will be found to come again. The last series of powerful and deeply imprinted thoughts are those which give color and trend to the whole life in Devachan. The last moment will color each subsequent moment. On those the soul and mind fix themselves and weave of them a whole set of events and experiences, expanding them to their highest limit, carrying out all that was not possible in life. Thus expanding and weaving these thoughts the entity has its youth and growth and growing old, that is, the uprush of the force, its expansion, and its dying down to final exhaustion. If the person has led a colorless life the Devachan will be colorless; if a rich life, then it will be rich in variety and effect. Existence there is not a dream save in a conventional sense, for it is a stage of the life of man, and when we are there this present life is a dream. It is not in any sense monotonous. We are too prone to measure all possible states of life and places for experience by our present earthly one and to imagine it to be reality. But the life of the soul is endless and not to be stopped for one instant. Leaving our physical body is but a transition to another place or plane for living in. But as the ethereal garments of Devachan are more lasting than those we wear here, the spiritual, moral, and psychic causes use more time in expanding and exhausting in that state than they do on earth. If the molecules that form the physical body were not subject to the general chemical laws that govern physical earth, then we should live as long in these bodies as we do in the devachanic state. But such a life of endless strain and suffering would be enough to blast the soul compelled to undergo it. Pleasure would then be pain, and surfeit would end but in an immortal insanity. Nature, always kind, leads us soon again into heaven for a rest, for the flowering of the best and highest in our natures. Devachan is then neither meaningless nor useless. In it we are rested; that part of us which could not bloom under the chilling skies of earth-life bursts forth into flower and goes back with us to earth-life stronger and more a part of our nature than before. Why should we repine that Nature kindly aids us in the interminable struggle, why keep the mind revolving about the present petty personality and its good and evil fortunes?,Mahatma K.H., Path, V, 191 But it is sometimes asked, what of those we have left behind: do we see them there? We do not see them there in fact, but we make to ourselves their images as full, complete, and objective as in life, and devoid of all that we then thought was a blemish. We live with them and see them grow great and good instead of mean or bad. The mother who has left a drunken son behind finds him before her in Devachan a sober, good man, and likewise through all possible cases, parent, child, husband, and wife have their loved ones there perfect and full of knowledge. This is for the benefit of the soul. You may call it a delusion if you will, but the illusion is necessary to happiness just as it often is in life. And as it is the mind that makes the illusion, it is no cheat. Certainly the idea of a heaven built over the verge of hell where you must know, if any brains or memory are left to you under the modern orthodox scheme, that your erring friends and relatives are suffering eternal torture, will bear no comparison with the doctrine of Devachan. But entities in Devachan are not wholly devoid of power to help those left on earth. Love, the master of life, if real, pure, and deep, will sometimes cause the happy Ego in Devachan to affect those left on earth for their good, not only in the moral field but also in that of material circumstance. This is possible under a law of the occult universe which cannot be explained now with profit, but the fact may be stated. It has been given out before this by H.P. Blavatsky, without, however, much attention being drawn to it. The last question to consider is whether we here can reach those in Devachan or do they come here. We cannot reach them nor affect them unless we are Adepts. The claim of mediums to hold communion with the spirits of the dead is baseless, and still less valid is the claim of ability to help those who have gone to Devachan. The Mahatma, a being who has developed all his powers and is free from illusion, can go into the devachanic state and then communicate with the Egos there. Such is one of their functions, and that is the only school of the Apostles after death. They deal with certain entities in Devachan for the purpose of getting them out of the state so as to return to earth for the benefit of the race. The Egos they thus deal with are those whose nature is great and deep but who are not wise enough to be able to overcome the natural illusions of Devachan. Sometimes also the hypersensitive and pure medium goes into this state and then holds communication with the Egos there, but it is rare, and certainly will not take place with the general run of mediums who trade for money. But the soul never descends here to the medium. And the gulf between the consciousness of Devachan and that of earth is so deep and wide that it is but seldom the medium can remember upon returning to recollection here what or whom it met or saw or heard in Devachan. This gulf is similar to that which separates Devachan from rebirth; it is one in which all memory of what preceded it is blotted out. The whole period allotted by the soul's forces being ended in Devachan, the magnetic threads which bind it to earth begin to assert their power. The Self wakes from the dream, it is borne swiftly off to a new body, and then, just before birth, it sees for a moment all the causes that led it to Devachan and back to the life it is about to begin, and knowing it to be all just, to be the result of its own past life, it repines not but takes up the cross again, and another soul has come back to earth. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sun Mar 31 01:01:10 1996 Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 02:01:10 +0100 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: UPLOAD - OCEAN14.TXT (Ocean of Theosophy) Mime-Version: 1.0 OCEAN14.TXT (The Ocean of Theosophy - W.Q.Judge) CHAPTER XIV THE DOCTRINE OF CYCLES is one of the most important in the whole theosophical system, though the least known and of all the one most infrequently referred to. Western investigators have for some centuries suspected that events move in cycles, and a few of the writers in the field of European literature have dealt with the subject, but all in a very incomplete fashion. This incompleteness and want of accurate knowledge have been due to the lack of belief in spiritual things and the desire to square everything with materialistic science. Nor do I pretend to give the cyclic law in full, for it is one that is not given out in detail by the Masters of Wisdom. But enough has been divulged, and enough was for a long time known to the Ancients to add considerably to our knowledge. A cycle is a ring or turning, as the derivation of the word indicates. The corresponding words in the Sanskrit are Yuga, Kalpa, Manvantara, but of these Yuga comes nearest to cycle, as it is lesser in duration than the others. The beginning of a cycle must be a moment, that added to other moments makes a day, and those added together constitute months, years, decades, and centuries. Beyond this the West hardly goes. It recognizes the moon cycle and the great sidereal one, but looks at both and upon the others merely as periods of time. If we are to consider them as but lengths of time there is no profit except to the dry student or to the astronomer. And in this way today they are regarded by European and American thinkers, who say cycles exist but have no very great bearing on human life and certainly no bearing on the actual recurrence of events or the reappearance on the stage of life of persons who once lived in the world. The theosophical theory is distinctly otherwise, as it must be if it carries out the doctrine of reincarnation to which in preceding pages a good deal of attention has been given. Not only are the cycles named actual physical facts in respect to time, but they and other periods have a very great effect on human life and the evolution of the globe with all the forms of life thereon. Starting with the moment and proceeding through a day, this theory erects the cycle into a comprehensive ring which includes all in its limits. The moment being the basis, the question to be settled in respect to the great cycles is, When did the first moment come? This cannot be answered, but it can be said that the truth is held by the ancient theosophists to be that at the first moments of the solidification of this globe the mass of matter involved attained a certain and definite rate of vibration which will hold through all variations in any part of it until its hour for dissolution comes. These rates of vibration are what determine the different cycles, and, contrary to the ideas of western science, the doctrine is that the solar system and the globe we are now on will come to an end when the force behind the whole mass of seen and unseen matter has reached its limit of duration under cyclic law. Here our doctrine is again different from both the religious and scientific one. We do not admit that the ending of the force is the withdrawal by a God of his protection, nor the sudden propulsion by him of another force against the globe, but that the force at work and determining the great cycle is that of man himself considered as a spiritual being; when he is done using the globe he leaves it, and then with him goes out the force holding all together; the consequence is dissolution by fire or water or what not, these phenomena being simply effects and not causes. The ordinary scientific speculations on this head are that the earth may fall into the sun, or that a comet of density may destroy the globe, or that we may collide with a greater planet known or unknown. These dreams are idle for the present. Reincarnation being the great law of life and progress, it is interwoven with that of the cycles and karma. These three work together, and in practice it is almost impossible to disentangle reincarnation from cyclic law. Individuals and nations in definite streams return in regularly recurring periods to the earth, and thus bring back to the globe the arts, the civilization, the very persons who once were on it at work. And as the units in nation and race are connected together by invisible strong threads, large bodies of such units moving slowly but surely all together reunite at different times and emerge again and again together into new race and new civilization as the cycles roll their appointed rounds. Therefore the souls who made the most ancient civilizations will come back and bring the old civilization with them in idea and essence, which being added to what others have done for the development of the human race in its character and knowledge will produce a new and higher state of civilization. This newer and better development will not be due to books, to records, to arts or mechanics, because all those are periodically destroyed so far as physical evidence goes, but the soul ever retaining in Manas the knowledge it once gained and always pushing to more complete development the higher principles and powers, the essence of progress remains and will as surely come out as the sun shines. And along this road are the points when the small and large cycles of Avatars bring out for man's benefit the great characters who mold the race from time to time. The Cycle of Avatars includes several smaller ones. The greater are those marked by the appearance of Rama and Krishna among the Hindus, of Menes among the Egyptians, of Zoroaster among the Persians, and of Buddha to the Hindus and other nations of the East. Buddha is the last of the great Avatars and is in a larger cycle than is Jesus of the Jews, for the teachings of the latter are the same as those of Buddha and tinctured with what Buddha had taught to those who instructed Jesus. Another great Avatar is yet to come, corresponding to Buddha and Krishna combined. Krishna and Rama were of the military, civil, religious, and occult order; Buddha of the ethical, religious. and mystical, in which he was followed by Jesus; Mohammed was a minor intermediate one for a certain part of the race, and was civil, military, and religious. In these cycles we can include mixed characters who have had great influence on nations, such as King Arthur, Pharaoh, Moses, Charlemagne reincarnated as Napoleon Bonaparte, Clovis of France reborn as Emperor Frederic III of Germany, and Washington the first President of the United States of America where the root for the new race is being formed. At the intersection of the great cycles dynamic effects follow and alter the surface of the planet by reason of the shifting of the poles of the globe or other convulsion. This is not a theory generally acceptable, but we hold it to be true. Man is a great dynamo, making, storing, and throwing out energy, and when masses of men composing a race thus make and distribute energy, there is a resulting dynamic effect on the material of the globe which will be powerful enough to be distinct and cataclysmic. That there have been vast and awful disturbances in the strata of the world is admitted on every hand and now needs no proof; these have been due to earthquakes and ice formation so far as concerns geology; but in respect to animal forms the cyclic law is that certain animal forms now extinct and also certain human ones not known but sometimes suspected will return again in their own cycle; and certain human languages now known as dead will be in use once more at their appointed cyclic hour. The Metonic cycle is that of the Moon. It is a period of about nineteen years, which being completed the new and the full moons return on the same days of the month. The cycle of the Sun is a period of twenty eight years, which having elapsed the Dominical or Sunday letters return to their former place and proceed in the former order according to the Julian calendar. The great Sidereal year is the period taken by the equinoctial points to make in their precession a complete revolution of the heavens. It is composed of 25,868 solar years almost. It is said that the last sidereal year ended about 9,868 years ago, at which time there must have been on this earth a violent convulsion or series of such, as well as distributions of nations. The completion of this grand period brings the earth into newer spaces of the cosmos, not in respect to its own orbit, but by reason of the actual progress of the sun in an orbit of its own that cannot be measured by any observer of the present day, but which is guessed at by some and located in one of the constellations. Affecting man especially are the spiritual, psychic, and moral cycles, and out of these grow the national, racial, and individual cycles. Race and national cycles are both historical. The individual cycles are of reincarnation, of sensation, and of impression. The length of the individual reincarnation cycle for the general mass of men is fifteen hundred years, and this in its turn gives us a large historical cycle related closely to the progress of civilization. For as the masses of persons return from Devachan, it must follow that the Roman, the Greek, the old Aryan, and other Ages will be seen again and can to a very great extent be plainly traced. But man is also affected by astronomical cycles because he is an integral part of the whole, and these cycles mark the periods when mankind as a whole will undergo a change. In the sacred books of all nations these are often mentioned, and are in the Bible of the Christians, as, for instance, in the story of Jonah in the belly of the whale. This is an absurdity when read as history, but not so as an astronomical cycle. "Jonah" is in the constellations, and when that astronomical point which represents man reaches a point in the Zodiac which is directly opposite the belly of Cetus or the whale on the other side of the circle, by what is known as the process of opposition, then Jonah is said to be in the center of the fish and is "thrown out" at the expiration of the period when that man-point has passed so far along in the Zodiac as to be out of opposition to the whale. Similarly as the same point moves thus through the Zodiac it is brought by opposition into the different constellations that are exactly opposite from century to century while it moves along. During these progresses changes take place among men and on earth exactly signified by the constellations when those are read according to the right rules of symbology. It is not claimed that the conjunction causes the effect, but that ages ago the Masters of Wisdom worked out all the problems in respect to man and found in the heavens the means for knowing the exact dates when events are sure to recur, and then by imprinting in the minds of older nations the symbology of the Zodiac were able to preserve the record and the prophecy. Thus in the same way that a watchmaker can tell the hour by the arrival of the hands or the works of the watch at certain fixed points, the Sages can tell the hour for events by the Zodiacal clock. This is not of course believed today, but it will be well understood in future centuries, and as the nations of the earth have all similar symbols in general for the Zodiac, and as also the records of races long dead have the same, it is not likely that the vandal-spirit of the western nineteenth century will be able to efface this valuable heritage of our evolution. In Egypt the Denderah Zodiac tells the same tale as that one left to us by the old civilization of the American continent, and all of these are from the same source, they are the work of the Sages who come at the beginning of the great human cycle and give to man when he begins his toilsome ascent up the road of development those great symbols and ideas of an astronomical character which will last through all the cycles. In regard to great cataclysms occurring at the beginning and ending of the great cycles, the main laws governing the effects are those of Karma and Reembodiment, or Reincarnation, proceeding under cyclic rule. Not only is man ruled by these laws, but every atom of matter as well, and the mass of matter is constantly undergoing a change at the same time with man. It must therefore exhibit alterations corresponding to those through which the thinker is going. On the physical plane effects are brought out through the electrical and other fluids acting with the gases on the solids of the globe. At the change of a great cycle they reach what may be termed the exploding point and cause violent convulsions of the following classes: (a) Earthquakes, (b) Floods, (c) Fire, (d) Ice. Earthquakes may be brought on according to this philosophy by two general causes; first, subsidence or elevation under the earth-crust due to heat and steam, second, electrical and magnetic changes which affect water and earth at the same time. These last have the power to instantaneously make the earth fluidic without melting it, thus causing immense and violent displacements in large or small waves. And this effect is sometimes seen now in earthquake districts when similar electrical causes are at work in a smaller measure. Floods of general extent are caused by displacement of water from the subsidence or elevation of land, and by those combined with electrical change which induces a copious discharge of moisture. The latter is not a mere emptying of a cloud, but a sudden turning of vast bodies of fluids and solids into water. Universal fires come on from electrical and magnetic changes in the atmosphere by which the moisture is withdrawn from the air and the latter turned into a fiery mass; and, secondly, by the sudden expansion of the solar magnetic center into seven such centers, thus burning the globe. Ice cataclysms come on not only from the sudden alteration of the poles but also from lowered temperature due to the alteration of the warm fluid currents in the sea and the hot magnetic currents in the earth, the first being known to science, the latter not. The lower stratum of moisture is suddenly frozen, and vast tracts of land covered in a night with many feet of ice. This can easily happen to the British Isles if the warm currents of the ocean are diverted from its shores. Both Egyptians and Greeks had their cycles, but in our opinion derived them from the Indian Sages. The Chinese always were a nation of astronomers, and have recorded observations reaching far back of the Christian era, but as they belong to an old race which is doomed to extinction, strange as the assertion may appear, their conclusions will not be correct for the Aryan races. On the coming of the Christian era a heavy pall of darkness fell on the minds of men in the West, and India was for many centuries isolated so as to preserve these great ideas during the mental night of Europe. This isolation was brought about deliberately as a necessary precaution taken by that great Lodge to which I adverted in Chapter I, because its Adepts, knowing the cyclic laws perfectly, wished to preserve philosophy for future generations. As it would be mere pedantry and speculation to discuss the unknown Saros and Naros and other cycles of the Egyptians, I will give the Brahmanical ones, since they tally almost exactly with the correct periods. A period or exhibition of universal manifestation is called a Brahmanda, that is a complete life of Brahma, and Brahma's life is made of his days and years, which, being cosmical are each of immense duration. His day is as man's 24 odd hours long, his year 360 odd days, the number of his years is 100. Taking now this globe, since we are concerned with no other, its government and evolution proceed under Manu or man, and from this is the term Manvantara or "between two Manus." The course of evolution is divided into four Yugas for every race in its own time and way. These Yugas do not affect all mankind at one and the same time, as some races are in one of the Yugas while others are in a different cycle. The Red Indian, for instance, is in the end of his stone age, while the Aryans are in quite a different state. These four Yugas are: Krita, or Satya, the golden; Treta; Dwapara; and Kali or the black. The present age for the West and India is Kali Yuga, especially in respect to moral and spiritual development. The first of these is slow in comparison with the rest, and the present, Kali, is very rapid, its motion being accelerated precisely like certain astronomical periods known today in regard to the Moon, but not fully worked out. ---------------------------------------------------------------- MORTAL YEARS 360 (odd) mortal days make 1 Krita Yuga . . . . . has . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.728,000 Treta Yuga . . . . . . " . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,296,000 Dvapara Yuga . . . . . " . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 864,000 Kali Yuga . . . . . . " . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432,000 Maha Yuga, or the four preceding, has . . . . . . . . 4,320,000 71 Maha Yugas form the reign of one Manu, or . . . 306,720,000 14 Manus are . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,294,080,000 Add the dawns or twilights between each Manu . . 25,920,000 These reigns and dawns make 1000 Maha Yugas, a Kalpa, or Day of Brahma . . . . . . . . . . . 4,320,000,000 Brahma's Night equals his Day and Day and Night together make . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8,640,000,000 360 of these Days make Brabma's Year. . . . . 3,110,400,000,000 100 of these Years make Brahma's Life . . . 31l,040,000,000,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------- The first 5000 years of Kali Yuga will end between the years 1897 and 1898. This Yuga began about 3102 years before the Christian era, at the time of Krishna's death. As 1897-98 are not far off, the scientific men of today will have an opportunity of seeing whether the close of the five thousand year cycle will be preceded or followed by any convulsions or great changes political, scientific, or physical, or all of these combined. Cyclic changes are now proceeding as year after year the souls from prior civilizations are being incarnated in this period when liberty of thought and action are not so restricted in the West as they have been in the past by dogmatic religious prejudice and bigotry. And at the present time we are in a cycle of transition, when, as a transition period should indicate, everything in philosophy, religion, and society is changing. In a transition period the full and complete figures and rules respecting cycles are not given out to a generation which elevates money above all thoughts and scoffs at the spiritual view of man and nature. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Mon Apr 1 00:54:22 1996 Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 01:54:22 +0100 From: Alan Message-Id: Subject: TI monthly listing Mime-Version: 1.0 THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL comprises those who subscribe to the Three Objects of the TS, but in a more up to-date-form based on suggestions by members of the internet community, and expressed thus: 1. To form a nucleus within the universal human family, without discrimination with regard to sex, sexual orientation, creed, class, or color. 2. To encourage and engage in the study of comparative religion, theosophy, philosophy, and the scientific method, according to individual ability and inclination. 3. To investigate unexplained laws of nature and unrealized human potential and abilities, at the same time respecting _all_ life. THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL is simply a Theosophical Network, whereby it is sufficient to declare one's sympathy and/or allegiance to the Three Objects, and to be registered as having done so. No belief system is required _nor assumed to be held_ by any member. There are no fees, no subscriptions, although voluntary donations and/or contributions _could_ be made to specific projects or even individuals for particular and specified purposes. As THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL does not have and does not need rules, whether anyone participates in or supports any such activity is an entirely personal matter. We hope to be of service, and to share what we have with others in amity with all theosophical organizations. ------------------------ List of current members: Contact and affiliation information is provided for some members who have expressed a wish to be identified further as a means of promoting our work, and who will be pleased to provide details of "what's on offer" either from the member personally, or within the local area, where specified. Members outside the U.S.A. are also identified by country. John ASHBY (UK) Alan BAIN, D.D. (UK): Member, TSE (Unattached). Former member, American Academy of Religion, Society of Biblical Literature (retired). E-mail: guru@nellie2.demon.co.uk Gregg BARTLE: TSA E-mail:gbartle@uclink.berkely.edu Mrs. Geraldine BESKIN (UK): One House Lodge, Onehouse, Stowmarket, Suffolk. Francois BERTRAND, Paris, France. Bee BROWN (NZ): Theosophical Society in New Zealand (Wanganui) E-mail: bbrown@whanganui.ac.nz Charles W. COSIMANO E-mail: Drpsionic@aol.com John R. CROCKER E-mail: jrcecon@selway.umt.edu Liesel F. DEUTSCH E-mail: liesel@dreamscape.com Alexis A. DOLGORUKII E-mail: [Address in theos-l postings] born july 16th 1935 16-A Henry Street, San Francisco, California 94114-1215 Artist, Sculptor, Writer, Singer, raises wolves as a hobby (real ones not astral), founder of "The Cubic Circle - Center for Experimental Shamanism" R.A. GILBERT (UK): Member, TSE (Bristol). Bookseller, Occult, Masonic and Theological. E-mail: Robert@nellie2.demon.co.uk Paul GILLINGWATER: Life member of HPB Lodge, Auckland, New Zealand Currently residing in Vienna, Austria E-mail: paul@actrix.co.at Sy GINSBURG: Theosophical Society in Miami, TSA. E-mail: 72724.413@compuserve.com Joanne GREIG (NZ): Member of Wellington Branch of the T.S. E-mail: astrea@actrix.co.at) Michael GRENIER: Member-at-large, TSA E-mail: mike@planet8.eag.unisysgsg.com Jerry HEJKA-EKINS E-mail: jhe:toto.csustan.edu K. Paul JOHNSON E-mail: pjohnson@leo.vsla.edu Lewis LUCAS E-mail: llewis@mercury.gc.peachnut.edu John E. MEAD E-mail: jem@vnet.net Anne PICKER E-mail: picker@utkvx.utcc.utk.edu Kim POULSEN (DK): Member of Teosofisk Forening (Theosophical Union), formerly TS Danish Section. [Denmark]. E-mail: poulsen@dk-online.dk; poulsen@mail.teledanmark.dk Keith PRICE E-mail: 74024.3352@compuserve.com Jerry SCHUELER E-mail: 76400.1474@compuserve.com Zach Spiller zas5431@prin.edu Murray STENTIFORD (NZ): Theosophical Society in New Zealand (Auckland) E-mail: murray@sss.co.nz A. Tabitha SYNGE-PERRIN (UK) Gerda J. THOMPSON (USA) Eldon B. TUCKER E-mail: eldon@theosophy.com Peter WALSTRA (NL): Member, Theosophical Society in the Netherlands (Adyar). World Theosophical Youth Federation. Agni Yoga Society. Database administrator national theosophical library/ E-mail: pwalstra@pi.net Abbreviations: TSA: Theosophical Society in America (Adyar). ULT: United Lodge of Theosophists. TSP: Theosophical Society, Pasadena TSE: Theosophical Society in England --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age - time for more new members! From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sun Mar 31 13:40:41 1996 Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 14:40:41 +0100 From: Alan Message-Id: <+D49pKAZtoXxEwi0@nellie2.demon.co.uk> Subject: UPLOAD - OCEAN17.TXT (Ocean of Theosophy) Mime-Version: 1.0 OCEAN17.TXT (The Ocean of Theosophy - W.Q.Judge) CHAPTER XVII IN THE HISTORY OF PSYCHICAL phenomena the records of so-called "spiritualism" in Europe, America, and elsewhere hold an important place. Advisedly I say that no term was ever more misapplied than that of "spiritualism" to the cult in Europe and America just mentioned, inasmuch as there is nothing of the spirit about it. The doctrines given in preceding chapters are those of true spiritualism; the misnamed practices of modern mediums and so-called spiritists constitute the Worship of the Dead, old-fashioned necromancy, in fact, which was always prohibited by spiritual teachers. They are a gross materializing of the spiritual idea, and deal with matter more than with its opposite. This cult is supposed by some to have originated about forty years ago in America at Rochester, New York, under the mediumship of the Fox sisters, but it was known in Salem during the witchcraft excitement, and in Europe one hundred years ago the same practices were pursued, similar phenomena seen, mediums developed, and seances held. For centuries it has been well known in India where it is properly designated "bhuta worship," meaning the attempt to communicate with the devil or Astral remnants of deceased persons. This should be its name here also, for by it the gross and devilish, or earthly, parts of man are excited, appealed to, and communicated with. But the facts of the long record of forty years in America demand a brief examination. These facts all studious Theosophists must admit. The theosophical explanation and deductions, however, are totally different from those of the average spiritualist. A philosophy has not been evolved in the ranks or literature of spiritualism; nothing but theosophy will give the true explanation, point out defects, reveal dangers, and suggest remedies. As it is plain that clairvoyance, clairaudience, thought transference, prophecy, dream and vision, levitation, apparitional appearance, are all powers that have been known for ages, the questions most pressing in respect to spiritualism are those relating to communication with the souls of those who have left this earth and are now disembodied, and with unclassified spirits who have not been embodied here but belong to other spheres. Perhaps also the question of materialization of forms at seances deserves some attention. Communication includes trance speaking, slate and other writing, independent voices in the air, speaking through the physical vocal organs of the medium, and precipitation of written messages out of the air. Do the mediums communicate with the spirits of the dead? Do our departed friends perceive the state of life they have left, and do they sometimes return to speak to and with us? The answers are intimated in foregoing chapters. Our departed do not see us here. They are relieved from the terrible pang such a sight would inflict. Once in a while a pure-minded, unpaid medium may ascend in trance to the state in which a deceased soul is, and may remember some bits of what was there heard; but this is rare. Now and then in the course of decades some high human spirit may for a moment return and by unmistakable means communicate with mortals. At the moment of death the soul may speak to some friend on earth before the door is finally shut. But the mass of communications alleged as made day after day through mediums are from the astral unintelligent remains of men, or in many cases entirely the production of, invention, compilation, discovery, and collocation by the loosely attached Astral body of the living medium. Certain objections arise to the theory that the spirits of the dead communicate. Some are: (1) At no time have these spirits given the laws governing any of the phenomena, except in a few instances, not accepted by the cult, where the theosophical theory was advanced. As it would destroy such structures as those erected by A.J. Davis, these particular spirits fell into discredit. (2) The spirits disagree among themselves, one stating the after-life to be very different from the description by another. These disagreements vary with the medium and the supposed theories of the deceased during life. One spirit admits reincarnation and others deny it. (3) The spirits have discovered nothing in respect to history, anthropology, or other important matters, seeming to have less ability in that line than living men; and although they often claim to be men who lived in older civilizations, they show ignorance thereupon or merely repeat recently published discoveries. (4) In these forty years no rationale of phenomena nor of development of mediumship has been obtained from the spirits. Great philosophers are reported as speaking through mediums, but utter only drivel and merest commonplaces. (5) The mediums come to physical and moral grief, are accused of fraud, are shown guilty of trickery, but the spirit guides and controls do not interfere to either prevent or save. (6) It is admitted that the guides and controls deceive and incite to fraud. (7) It is plainly to be seen through all that is reported of the spirits that their assertions and philosophy, if any, vary with the medium and the most advanced thought of living spiritualists. From all this and much more that could be adduced, the man of materialistic science is fortified in his ridicule, but the theosophist has to conclude that the entities, if there be any communicating, are not human spirits, and that the explanations are to be found in some other theories. Materialization of a form out of the air, independent of the medium's physical body, is a fact. But it is not a spirit. As was very well said by one of the "spirits" not favored by spiritualism, one way to produce this phenomenon is by the accretion of electrical and magnetic particles into one mass upon which matter is aggregated and an image reflected out of the Astral sphere. This is the whole of it; as much a fraud as a collection of muslin and masks. How this is accomplished is another matter. The spirits are not able to tell, but an attempt has been made to indicate the methods and instruments in former chapters. The second method is by the use of the Astral body of the living medium. In this case the Astral form exudes from the side of the medium, gradually collects upon itself particles extracted from the air and the bodies of the sitters present, until at last it becomes visible. Sometimes it will resemble the medium; at others it bears a different appearance. In almost every instance dimness of light is requisite because a high light would disturb the Astral substance in a violent manner and render the projection difficult. Some so-called materializations are hollow mockeries, as they are but flat plates of electrical and magnetic substance on which pictures from the Astral Light are reflected. These seem to be the faces of the dead, but they are simply pictured illusions. If one is to understand the psychic phenomena found in the history of "spiritualism" it is necessary to know and admit the following: (1) The complete heredity of man astrally, spiritually, and psychically, as a being who knows, reasons, feels, and acts through the body, the Astral body, and the soul. (2) The nature of the mind, its operation, its powers; the nature and power of imagination; the duration and effect of impressions. Most important in this is the persistence of the slightest impression as well as the deepest; that every impression produces a picture in the individual aura; and that by means of this a connection is established between the auras of friends and relatives old, new, near, distant, and remote in degree: this would give a wide range of possible sight to a clairvoyant. (3) The nature, extent, function, and power of man's inner Astral organs and faculties included in the terms Astral body and Kama. That these are not hindered from action by trance or sleep, but are increased in the medium when entranced; at the same time their action is not free, but governed by the mass chord of thought among the sitters, or by a predominating will, or by the presiding devil behind the scenes; if a skeptical scientific investigator be present, his mental attitude may totally inhibit the action of the medium's powers by what we might call a freezing process which no English terms will adequately describe. (4) The fate of the real man after death, his state, power, activity there, and his relation, if any, to those left behind him here. (5) That the intermediary between mind and body, the Astral body, is thrown off at death and left in the Astral light to fade away; and that the real man goes to Devachan. (6) The existence, nature, power, and function of the Astral light and its place as a register in Nature. That it contains, retains, and reflects pictures of each and everything that happened to anyone, and also every thought; that it permeates the globe and the atmosphere around it; that the transmission of vibration through it is practically instantaneous, since the rate is much quicker than that of electricity as now known. (7) The existence in the Astral light of beings not using bodies like ours, but not human in their nature, having powers, faculties, and a sort of consciousness of their own; these include the elemental forces or nature sprites divided into many degrees, and which have to do with every operation of Nature and every motion of the mind of man. That these elementals act at seances automatically in their various departments, one class presenting pictures, another producing sounds, and others depolarizing objects for the purposes of apportation. Acting with them in this Astral sphere are the soulless men who live in it. To these are to be ascribed the phenomenon, among others, of the "independent voice," always sounding like a voice in a barrel just because it is made in a vacuum which is absolutely necessary for an entity so far removed from spirit. The peculiar timbre of this sort of voice has not been noticed by the spiritualists as important, but it is extremely significant in the view of occultism. (8) The existence and operation of occult laws and forces in nature which may be used to produce phenomenal results on this plane; that these laws and forces may be put into operation by the subconscious man and by the elementals either consciously or unconsciously, and that many of these occult operations are automatic in the same way as is the freezing of water under intense cold or the melting of ice under heat. (9) That the Astral body of the medium, partaking of the nature of the Astral substance, may be extended from the physical body, may act outside of the latter, and may also extrude at times any portion of itself such as hand, arm, or leg and thereby move objects, indite letters, produce touches on the body, and so on ad infinitum. And that the Astral body of any person may be made to feel sensation, which, being transmitted to the brain, causes the person to think he is touched on the outside or has heard a sound. Mediumship is full of dangers because the Astral part of the man is now only normal in action when joined to the body; in distant years it will normally act without a body as it has in the far past. To become a medium means that you have to become disorganized physiologically and in the nervous system, because through the latter is the connection between the two worlds. The moment the door is opened all the unknown forces rush in, and as the grosser part of nature is nearest to us it is that part which affects us most; the lower nature is also first affected and inflamed because the forces used are from that part of us. We are then at the mercy of the vile thoughts of all men, and subject to the influence of the shells in Kama Loka. If to this be added the taking of money for the practice of mediumship, an additional danger is at hand, for the things of the spirit and those relating to the Astral world must not be sold. This is the great disease of American spiritualism which has debased and degraded its whole history; until it is eliminated no good will come from the practice; those who wish to hear truth from the other world must devote themselves to truth and leave all considerations of money out of sight. To attempt to acquire the use of the psychic powers for mere curiosity or for selfish ends is also dangerous for the same reasons as in the case of mediumship. As the civilization of the present day is selfish to the last degree and built on the personal element, the rules for the development of these powers in the right way have not been given out, but the Masters of Wisdom have said that philosophy and ethics must first be learned and practiced before any development of the other department is to be indulged in; and their condemnation of the wholesale development of mediums is supported by the history of spiritualism, which is one long story of the ruin of mediums in every direction. Equally improper is the manner of the scientific schools which without a thought for the true nature of man indulge in experiments in hypnotism in which the subjects are injured for life, put into disgraceful attitudes, and made to do things for the satisfaction of the investigators which would never be done by men and women in their normal state. The Lodge of the Masters does not care for Science unless it aims to better man's state morally as well as physically, and no aid will be given to Science until she looks at man and life from the moral and spiritual side. For this reason those who know all about the psychical world, its denizens and laws, are proceeding with a reform in morals and philosophy before any great attention will be accorded to the strange and seductive phenomena possible for the inner powers of man. And at the present time the cycle has almost run its course for this century. Now, as a century ago, the forces are slackening; for that reason the phenomena of spiritualism are lessening in number and volume; the Lodge hopes by the time the next tide begins to rise that the West will have gained some right knowledge of the true philosophy of Man and Nature, and be then ready to bear the lifting of the veil a little more. To help on the progress of the race in this direction is the object of this book, and with that it is submitted to its readers in every part of the world. ---------------------------------------------------------------- The final chapter of: The Ocean of Theosophy by William Quan Judge --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sun Mar 31 13:39:28 1996 Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 14:39:28 +0100 From: Alan Message-Id: <8Ta9NGAQsoXxEwCt@nellie2.demon.co.uk> Subject: UPLOAD - OCEAN16.TXT (Ocean of Theosophy) Mime-Version: 1.0 OCEAN16.TXT (The Ocean of Theosophy - W.Q.Judge) CHAPTER XVI THE FIELD OF PSYCHIC FORCES, phenomena, and dynamics is a vast one. Such phenomena are seen and the forces exhibited every day in all lands, but until a few years ago very little attention was given to them by scientific persons, while a great deal of ridicule was heaped upon those who related the occurrences or averred belief in the psychic nature. A cult sprang up in the United States some forty years ago calling itself quite wrongly "spiritualism," but having a great opportunity it neglected it and fell into mere wonder-seeking without the slightest shadow of a philosophy. It has accomplished but little in the way of progress except a record of many undigested facts which for four decades failed to attract the serious attention of people in general. While it has had its uses, and includes in its ranks many good minds, the great dangers and damages coming to the human instruments involved and to those who sought them more than offset the good done in the opinion of those disciples of the Lodge who would have man progress evenly and without ruin along his path of evolution. But other Western investigators of the accepted schools have not done much better, and the result is that there is no Western Psychology worthy of the name. This lack of an adequate system of Psychology is a natural consequence of the materialistic bias of science and the paralyzing influence of dogmatic religion; the one ridiculing effort and blocking the way, the other forbidding investigation. The Roman Catholic branch of the Christian Church is in some respects an exception, however. It has always admitted the existence of the psychic world, for it the realm of devils and angels, but as angels manifest when they choose and devils are to be shunned, no one is permitted by that Church to meddle in such matters except an authorized priest. So far as that Church's prohibiting the pernicious practice of necromancy indulged in by "spiritualists" it was right, but not in its other prohibitions and restrictions. Real psychology is an Oriental product today. Very true the system was known in the West when a very ancient civilization flourished in America, and in certain parts of Europe anterior to the Christian era, but for the present day psychology in its true phase belongs to the Orient. Are there psychic forces, laws, and powers? If there are, then there must be the phenomena. And if all that has been outlined in preceding chapters is true, then in man are the same powers and forces which are to be found anywhere in Nature. He is held by the Masters of Wisdom to be the highest product of the whole system of evolution, and mirrors in himself every power, however wonderful or terrible, of Nature; by the very fact of being such a mirror he is man. This has long been recognized in the East, where the writer has seen exhibitions of such powers which would upset the theories of many a Western man of science. And in the West the same phenomena have been repeated for the writer, so that he knows of his own knowledge that every man of every race has the same powers potentially. The genuine psychic, or, as they are often called, magical, phenomena done by the Eastern fakir or yogi are all performed by the use of natural forces and processes not even dreamed of as yet by the West. Levitation of the body in apparent defiance of gravitation is a thing to be done with ease when the process is completely mastered. It contravenes no law. Gravitation is only half of a law. The Oriental sage admits gravity, if one wishes to adopt the term; but the real term is attraction, the other half of the law being expressed by the word repulsion, and both being governed by the great laws of electrical force. Weight and stability depend on polarity, and when the polarity of an object is altered in respect to the earth immediately underneath it, then the object may rise. But as mere objects are devoid of the consciousness found in man, they cannot rise without certain other aids. The human body, however, will rise in the air unsupported, like a bird, when its polarity is thus changed. This change is brought about consciously by a certain system of breathing known to the Oriental; it may be induced also by aid from certain natural forces spoken of later, in the cases of those who without knowing the law perform the phenomena, as with the saints of the Roman Catholic Church. A third great law which enters into many of the phenomena of the East and West is that of Cohesion. The power of Cohesion is a distinct power of itself, and not a result as is supposed. This law and its action must be known if certain phenomena are to be brought about, as, for instance, what the writer has seen, the passing of one solid iron ring through another, or a stone through a solid wall. Hence another force is used which can only be called dispersion. Cohesion is the dominating force, for, the moment the dispersing force is withdrawn, the cohesive force restores the particles to their original position. Following this out the Adept in such great dynamics is able to disperse the atoms of an object, excluding always the human body, to such a distance from each other as to render the object invisible, and then can send them along a current formed in the ether to any distance on the earth. At the desired point the dispersing force is withdrawn, when immediately cohesion reasserts itself and the object reappears intact. This may sound like fiction, but being known to the Lodge and its disciples as an actual fact, it is equally certain that Science will sooner or later admit the proposition. But the lay mind infested by the materialism of the day wonders how all these manipulations are possible, seeing that no instruments are spoken of. The instruments are in the body and brain of man. In the view of the Lodge "the human brain is an exhaustless generator of force," and a complete knowledge of the inner chemical and dynamic laws of Nature, together with a trained mind, give the possessor the power to operate the laws to which I have referred. This will be man's possession in the future, and would be his today were it not for blind dogmatism, selfishness, and materialistic unbelief. Not even the Christian lives up to his Master's very true statement that if one had faith he could remove a mountain. A knowledge of the law when added to faith gives power over matter, mind, space, and time. Using the same powers, the trained Adept can produce before the eye, objective to the touch, material which was not visible before, and in any desired shape. This would be called creation by the vulgar, but it is simply evolution in your very presence. Matter is held suspended in the air about us. Every particle of matter, visible or still unprecipitated, has been through all possible forms, and what the Adept does is to select any desired form, existing, as they all do, in the Astral Light and then by effort of the Will and Imagination to clothe the form with the matter by precipitation. The object so made will fade away unless certain other processes are resorted to which need not be here described, but if these processes are used the object will remain permanently. And if it is desired to make visible a message on paper or other surface, the same laws and powers are used. The distinct, photographically and sharply definite, image of every line of every letter or picture is formed in the mind, and then out of the air is drawn the pigment to fall within the limits laid down by the brain, "the exhaustless generator of force and form." All these things the writer has seen done in the way described, and not by any hired or irresponsible medium, and he knows whereof he speaks. This, then, naturally leads to the proposition that the human Will is all powerful and the Imagination is a most useful faculty with a dynamic force. The Imagination is the picture-making power of the human mind. In the ordinary average human person it has not enough training or force to be more than a sort of dream, but it may be trained. When trained it is the Constructor in the Human Workshop. Arrived at that stage it makes a matrix in the Astral substance through which effects objectively will flow. It is the greatest power, after Will, in the human assemblage of complicated instruments. The modern Western definition of Imagination is incomplete and wide of the mark. It is chiefly used to designate fancy or misconception and at all times stands for unreality. It is impossible to get another term as good because one of the powers of the trained Imagination is that of making an image. The word is derived from those signifying the formation or reflection of an image. This faculty used, or rather suffered to act, in an unregulated mode has given the West no other idea than that covered by "fancy." So far as that goes it is right but it may be pushed to a greater limit, which, when reached causes the Imagination to evolve in the Astral substance an actual image or form which may be then used in the same way as an iron molder uses a mold of sand for the molten iron. It is therefore the King faculty, inasmuch as the Will cannot do its work if the Imagination be at all weak or untrained. For instance, if the person desiring to precipitate from the air wavers in the least with the image made in the Astral substance, the pigment will fall upon the paper in a correspondingly wavering and diffused manner. To communicate with another mind at any distance the Adept attunes all the molecules of the brain and all the thoughts of the mind so as to vibrate in unison with the mind to be affected, and that other mind and brain have also to be either voluntarily thrown into the same unison or fall into it voluntarily. So though the Adept be at Bombay and his friend in New York, the distance is no obstacle, as the inner senses are not dependent on an ear, but may feel and see the thoughts and images in the mind of the other person. And when it is desired to look into the mind and catch the thoughts of another and the pictures all around him of all he has thought and looked at, the Adept's inner sight and hearing are directed to the mind to be seen, when at once all is visible. But, as said before, only a rogue would do this, and the Adepts do not do it except in strictly authorized cases. The modern man sees no misdemeanor in looking into the secrets of another by means of this power, but the Adepts say it is an invasion of the rights of the other person. No man has the right, even when he has the power in his hand, to enter into the mind of another and pick out its secrets. This is the law of the Lodge to all who seek, and if one sees that he is about to discover the secrets of another he must at once withdraw and proceed no further. If he proceeds his power is taken from him in the case of a disciple; in the case of any other person he must take the consequence of this sort of burglary. For Nature has her laws and her policemen, and if we commit felonies in the Astral world the great Law and the guardians of it, for which no bribery is possible, will execute the penalty, no matter how long we wait, even if it be for ten thousand years. Here is another safeguard for ethics and morals. But until men admit the system of philosophy put forward in this book, they will not deem it wrong to commit felonies in fields where their weak human law has no effect, but at the same time by thus refusing the philosophy they will put off the day when all may have these great powers for the use of all. Among phenomena useful to notice are those consisting of the moving of objects without physical contact. This may be done, and in more than one way. The first is to extrude from the physical body the Astral hand and arm, and with those grasp the object to be moved. This may be accomplished at a distance of as much as ten feet from the person. I do not go into argument on this, only referring to the properties of the Astral substance and members. This will serve to some extent to explain several of the phenomena of mediums. In nearly all cases of such apportation the feat is accomplished by thus using the unseen but material Astral hand. The second method is to use the elementals of which I have spoken. They have the power when directed by the inner man to carry objects by changing the polarity, and then we see, as with the fakirs of India and some mediums in America, small objects moving apparently unsupported. These elemental entities are used when things are brought from longer distances than the length to which the Astral members may be stretched. It is no argument against this that mediums do not know they do so. They rarely if ever know anything about how they accomplish any feat, and their ignorance of the law is no proof of its non-existence. Those students who have seen the forces work from the inside will need no argument on this. Clairvoyance, clairaudience, and second-sight are all related very closely. Every exercise of any one of them draws in at the same time both of the others. They are but variations of one power. Sound is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Astral sphere, and as light goes with sound, sight obtains simultaneously with hearing. To see an image with the Astral senses means that at the same time there is a sound, and to hear the latter infers the presence of a related image in Astral substance. It is perfectly well known to the true student of occultism that every sound produces instantaneously an image, and this, so long known in the Orient, has lately been demonstrated in the West in the production to the eye of sound pictures on a stretched tympanum. This part of the subject can be gone into very much further with the aid of occultism, but as it is a dangerous one in the present state of society I refrain at this point. In the Astral Light are pictures of all things whatsoever that happened to any person, and as well also pictures of those events to come the causes for which are sufficiently well marked and made. If the causes are yet indefinite, so will be the images of the future. But for the mass of events for several years to come all the producing and efficient causes are always laid down with enough definiteness to permit the seer to see them in advance as if present. By means of these pictures, seen with the inner senses, all clairvoyants exercise their strange faculty. Yet it is a faculty common to all men, though in the majority but slightly developed; but occultism asserts that were it not for the germ of this power slightly active in every one no man could convey to another any idea whatsoever. In clairvoyance the pictures in the Astral Light pass before the inner vision and are reflected into the physical eye from within. They then appear objectively to the seer. If they are of past events or those to come, the picture only is seen; if of events actually then occurring, the scene is perceived through the Astral Light by the inner sense. The distinguishing difference between ordinary and clairvoyant vision is, then, that in clairvoyance with waking sight the vibration is communicated to the brain first, from which it is transmitted to the physical eye, where it sets up an image upon the retina, just as the revolving cylinder of the phonograph causes the mouthpiece to vibrate exactly as the voice had vibrated when thrown into the receiver. In ordinary eye vision the vibrations are given to the eye first and then transmitted to the brain. Images and sounds are both caused by vibrations, and hence any sound once made is preserved in the Astral Light from whence the inner sense can take it and from within transmit it to the brain, from which it reaches the physical ear. So in clairaudience at a distance the hearer does not hear with the ear, but with the center of hearing in the Astral body. Second-sight is a combination of clairaudience and clairvoyance or not, just as the particular case is, and the frequency with which future events are seen by the second sight seer adds an element of prophecy. The highest order of clairvoyance, that of spiritual vision, is very rare. The usual clairvoyant deals only with the ordinary aspects and strata of the Astral matter. Spiritual sight comes only to those who are pure, devoted, and firm. It may be attained by special development of the particular organ in the body through which alone such sight is possible, and only after discipline, long training, and the highest altruism. All other clairvoyance is transitory, inadequate, and fragmentary, dealing, as it does, only with matter and illusion. Its fragmentary and inadequate character results from the fact that hardly any clairvoyant has the power to see into more than one of the lower grades of Astral substance at any one time. The pure-minded and the brave can deal with the future and the present far better than any clairvoyant. But as the existence of these two powers proves the presence in us of the inner senses and of the necessary medium, the Astral Light, they have, as such human faculties, an important bearing upon the claims made by the so-called "spirits" of the seance room. Dreams are sometimes the result of brain action automatically proceeding, and are also produced by the transmission into the brain by the real inner person of those scenes or ideas high or low which that real person has seen while the body slept. They are then strained into the brain as if floating on the soul as it sinks into the body. These dreams may be of use, but generally the resumption of bodily activity destroys the meaning, perverts the image, and reduces all to confusion. But the great fact of all dreaming is that someone perceives and feels therein, and this is one of the arguments for the inner person's existence. In sleep the inner man communes with higher intelligences, and sometimes succeeds in impressing the brain with what is gained, either a high idea or a prophetic vision, or else fails in consequence of the resistance of brain fiber. The karma of the person also determines the meaning of a dream, for a king may dream that which relates to his kingdom, while the same thing dreamed by a citizen relates to nothing of temporal consequence. But, as said by Job: "In dreams and visions of the night man is instructed." Apparitions and doubles are of two general classes. The one, astral shells or images from the astral world, either actually visible to the eye or the result of vibration within thrown out to the eye and thus making the person think he sees an objective form without. The other, the astral body of living persons and carrying full consciousness or only partially so endowed. Laborious attempts by Psychical Research Societies to prove apparitions without knowing these laws really prove nothing, for out of twenty admitted cases nineteen may be the objectivization of the image impressed on the brain. But that apparitions have been seen there is no doubt. Apparitions of those just dead may be either pictures made objective as described, or the Astral Body, called Kamarupa at this stage, of the deceased. And as the dying thoughts and forces released from the body are very strong, we have more accounts of such apparitions than of any other class. The Adept may send out his apparition, which, however, is called by another name, as it consists of his conscious and trained astral body endowed with all his intelligence and not wholly detached from his physical frame. Theosophy does not deny nor ignore the physical laws discovered by science. It admits all such as are proven, but it asserts the existence of others which modify the action of those we ordinarily know. Behind all the visible phenomena is the occult cosmos with its ideal machinery; that occult cosmos can only be fully understood by means of the inner senses which pertain to it; those senses will not be easily developed if their existence is denied. Brain and mind acting together have the power to evolve forms, first as astral ones in astral substance, and later as visible ones by accretions of the matter on this plane. Objectivity depends largely on perception, and perception may be affected by inner stimuli. Hence a witness may either see an object which actually exists as such without, or may be made to see one by internal stimulus. This gives us three modes of sight: (a) with the eye by means of light from an object, (b) with the inner senses by means of the Astral Light, and (c) by stimulus from within which causes the eye to report to the brain, thus throwing the inner image without. The phenomena of the other senses may be tabulated in the same manner. The Astral substance being the register of all thoughts, sounds, pictures, and other vibrations, and the inner man being a complete person able to act with or without coordination with the physical, all the phenomena of hypnotism, clairvoyance, clairaudience, mediumship, and the rest of those which are not consciously performed may be explained. In the Astral substance are all sounds and pictures, and in the Astral man remain impressions of every event, however remote or insignificant; these acting together produce the phenomena which seem so strange to those who deny or are unaware of the postulates of occultism. But to explain the phenomena performed by Adepts, Fakirs, Yogis, and all trained occultists, one has to understand the occult laws of chemistry, of mind, of force, and of matter. These it is obviously not the province of such a work as this to treat in detail. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age From TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk Sun Mar 31 13:38:12 1996 Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 14:38:12 +0100 From: Alan Message-Id: <6T$8dDAEroXxEwje@nellie2.demon.co.uk> Subject: UPLOAD - OCEAN15.TXT (Ocean of Theosophy) Mime-Version: 1.0 OCEAN15.TXT (The Ocean of Theosophy - W.Q.Judge) CHAPTER XV BETWEEN SCIENCE AND THEOSOPHY there is a wide gulf, for the present unbridged, on the question of the origin of man and the differentiation of species. The teachers of religion in the West offer on this subject a theory, dogmatically buttressed by an assumed revelation, as impossible as the one put forward by scientific men. And yet the religious expounders are nearer than science to the truth. Under the religious superstition about Adam and Eve is hidden the truth, and in the tales of Cain, Seth, and Noah is vaguely shadowed the real story of the other races of men, Adam being but the representative of one single race. The people who received Cain and gave him a wife were some of those human races which had appeared simultaneously with the one headed by Adam. The ultimate origin or beginning of man is not to be discovered, although we may know when and from where the men of this globe came. Man never was not. If not on this globe, then on some others, he ever was, and will ever be in existence somewhere in the Cosmos. Ever perfecting and reaching up to the image of the Heavenly Man, he is always becoming. But as the human mind cannot go back to any beginning, we shall start with this globe. Upon this earth and upon the whole chain of globes of which it is a part seven races of men appeared simultaneously, coming over to it from other globes of an older chain. And in respect to this earth, the fourth of this chain, these seven races came simultaneously from another globe of this chain. This appearance of seven races together happens in the first and in part of the second round of the globes. In the second round the seven masses of beings are amalgamated, and their destiny after that is to slowly differentiate during the succeeding rounds until at the seventh round the seven first great races will be once more distinct, as perfect types of the human race as this period of evolution will allow. At the present time the seven races are mixed together, and representatives of all are in the many so-called races of men as classified by our present science. The object of this amalgamation and subsequent differentiation is to give to every race the benefit of the progress and power of the whole derived from prior progress in other planets and systems. For Nature never does her work in a hasty or undue fashion, but, by the sure method of mixture, precipitation, and separation, brings about the greatest perfection. And this method was one known to the Alchemists, though not fully understood in all its bearings even by them. Hence man did not spring from a single pair. Neither did he come from any tribe or family of monkey. It is hopeless to look to either religion or science for a solution of the question, for science is confused on her own admission, and religion is tangled with a revelation that in its books controverts the theory put forward by the priest. Adam is called the first man, but the record in which the story is found shows that other races of men must have existed on the earth before Cain could have founded a city. The Bible, then, does not support the single pair theory. If we take up one of the hypotheses of Science and admit for the moment that man and monkey differentiated from one ancestor, we have then to decide where the first ancestor came from. The first postulate of the Lodge on this subject is that seven races of men appeared simultaneously on the earth, and the first negative assumption is that man did not spring from a single pair or from the animal kingdom. The varieties of character and capacity which subsequently appear in man's history are the forthcoming of the variations which were induced in the Egos in other and long anterior periods of evolution upon other chains of globes. These variations were so deeply impacted as to be equivalent to inherent characteristics. For the races of this globe the prior period of evolution was passed on the chain of globes of which our moon is the visible representative. The burning question of the anthropoid apes as related to man is settled by the Masters of Wisdom, who say that instead of those being our progenitors they were produced by man himself. In one of the early periods of the globe the men of that time begot from large females of the animal kingdom the anthropoids, and in anthropoid bodies were caught a certain number of Egos destined one day to be men. The remainder of the descendants of the true anthropoid are the descendants of those illegitimate children of men, and will die away gradually, their Egos entering human bodies. Those half-ape and half-man bodies could not be ensouled by strictly animal Egos, and for that reason they are known to the Secret Doctrine as the "Delayed Race," the only one not included in the fiat of Nature that no more Egos from the lower kingdoms will come into the human kingdom until the next Manvantara. But to all kingdoms below man except the anthropoids, the door is now closed for entry into the human stage, and the Egos in the subordinate forms must all wait their turn in the succeeding great Cycle. And as the delayed Egos of the Anthropoid family will emerge into the man stage later on, they will thus be rewarded for the long wait in that degraded race. All the other monkeys are products in the ordinary manner of the evolutionary processes. On this subject I cannot do better than quote the words of one of those Masters of Wisdom, giving the esoteric anthropology from the secret volumes, thus: The anatomical resemblance between Man and the higher Ape, so frequently cited by the Darwinists as pointing to some former ancestor common to both, presents an interesting problem the proper solution of which is to be sought for in the esoteric explanation of the genesis of the pithecoid stocks. We have given it so far as was useful by stating that the bestiality of the primeval mindless races resulted in the production of huge man-like monsters, the offspring of human and animal parents. As time rolled on and the still semi-astral forms consolidated into the physical, the descendants of these creatures were modified by external conditions until the breed, dwindling in size, culminated in the lower Apes of the Miocene period. With these the later Atlanteans renewed the sin of the "Mindless", this time with full responsibility. The resultants of their crime were the species now known as the Anthropoid B Let us remember the esoteric teaching which tells us of Man having had in the Third Round a gigantic Ape-like form on the astral plane. And similarly at the close of the Third Race in this Round. Thus it accounts for the human features of the Apes, especially of the later Anthropoids, apart from the fact that these latter preserved by heredity a resemblance to their Atlanto-Lemurian sires. The same teachers furthermore assert that the mammalian types were produced in the fourth round, subsequent to the appearance of the human types. For this reason there was no barrier against fertility, because the root-types of those mammals were not far enough removed to raise the natural barrier. The unnatural union in the third race, when man had not yet had the light of Manas given to him, was not a crime against Nature, since, no mind being present save in the merest germ, no responsibility could attach. But in the fourth round, the light of Manas being present, the renewal of the act by the new race was a crime, because it was done with a full knowledge of the consequences and against the warning of conscience. The karmic effect of this, including as it does all races, has yet to be fully felt and understood, at a much later day than now. As man came to this globe from another planet, though of course then a being of very great power before being completely enmeshed in matter, so the lower kingdoms came likewise in germ and type from other planets, and carry on their evolution step by step upward by the aid of man, who is, in all periods of manifestation, at the front of the wave of life. The Egos in these lower kingdoms could not finish their evolution in the preceding globe chain before its dissolution, and coming to this they go forward age after age, gradually approaching nearer the man stage. One day they too will become men and act as the advance guard and guide for other lower kingdoms of this or other globes. And in the coming from the former planet there are always brought with the first and highest class of beings some forms of animal life, some fruits and other products, as models or types for use here. It will not be profitable to go into this here with particularity, for being too far ahead of the time it would evoke only ridicule from some and stupidity from others. But the general forms of the various kingdoms being so brought over, we have next to consider how the differentiation of animal and other lower species began and was carried on. This is the point where intelligent aid and interference from a mind or mass of minds is absolutely necessary. Such aid and interference was and is the fact, for Nature unaided cannot do the work right. But I do not mean that God or angel interferes and aids. It is Man who does this. Not the man of the day, weak and ignorant as he is, but great souls, high and holy men of immense power, knowledge, and wisdom. Just such as every man would now know he could become, if it were not that religion on one hand and science on the other have painted such a picture of our weakness, inherent evil and purely material origin that nearly all men think they are puppets of God or cruel fate without hope, or remain with a degrading and selfish aim in view both here and after. Various names have been given to these beings now removed from our plane. They are the Dhyanis, the Creators, the Guides, the Great Spirits, and so on by many titles. In theosophical literature they are called the Dhyanis. By methods known to themselves and to the Great Lodge they work on the forms so brought over, and by adding here, taking away there, and often altering, they gradually transform by such alteration and addition the kingdoms of nature as well as the gradually forming gross body of man. This process is carried on chiefly in the purely astral period preceding the gross physical stage, as the impulses thus given will surely carry themselves forward through the succeeding times. When the midway point of evolution is reached the species emerge on to the present stage and not showing the connection to the eye of man nor to our instruments. The investigations of the day have traced certain species down to a point where, as is confessed, it is not known to what root they go back. Taking oxen on one side and horses on the other, we see that both are hoofed, but one has a split hoof and the other but one toe. These bring us back, when we reach the oldest ancestor of each, to the midway point, and there science has to stop. At this spot the wisdom of the Masters comes in to show that back of this is the astral region of ancient evolution, where were the root-types in which the Dhyanis began the evolution by alteration and addition which resulted in the differentiation afterwards on this gross plane into the various families, species, and genera. A vast period of time, about 300,000,000 years, was passed by earth and man and all the kingdoms of nature in an astral stage. Then there was no gross matter such as we now know. This was in the early rounds when Nature was proceeding slowly with the work of perfecting the types on the astral plane, which is matter, though very fine in its texture. At the end of that stretch of years the process of hardening began, the form of man being the first to become solid, and then some of the astral prototypes of the preceding rounds were involved in the solidification, though really belonging to a former period when everything was astral. When those fossils are discovered it is argued that they must be those of creatures which coexisted with the gross physical body of man. While that argument is proper enough under the other theories of Science, it becomes only an assumption if the existence of the astral period be admitted. It would be beyond the scope of this work to go further into particulars. But it may incidentally be said that neither the bee nor the wheat could have had their original differentiation in this chain of globes, but must have been produced and finished in some other from which they were brought over into this. Why this should be so I am willing to leave for the present to conjecture. To the whole theory it may be objected that Science has not been able to find the missing links between the root-types of the astral period and the present fossils or living species. In the year 1893 at Moscow Professor Virchow said in a lecture that the missing link was as far off as ever, as much of a dream as ever, and that no real evidence was at hand to show man as coming from the animals. This is quite true, and neither class of missing link will be discovered by Science under her present methods. For all of them exist in the astral plane and therefore are invisible to the physical eye. They can only be seen by the inner astral senses, which must first be trained to do their work properly, and until Science admits the existence of the astral and inner senses she will never try to develop them. Always, then, Science will be without the instruments for discovering the astral links left on the astral plane in the long course of differentiation. The fossils spoken of above, which were, so to say, solidified out of date, form an exception to the impossibility of finding any missing links, but they are blind alleys to Science because she admits none of the necessary facts. The object of all this differentiation, amalgamation, and separation is well stated by another of the Masters, thus: Nature consciously prefers that matter should be indestructible in organic rather than inorganic forms, and works slowly but incessantly towards the realization of this object, the evolution of conscious life out of inert material. --------- THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Ancient Wisdom for a New Age