Here again the student is asked to dismiss from his mind any

correspondence between “principles” and numbers, for reasons already

given. The Esoteric enumeration cannot be made to correspond with the

conventional exoteric. The one is the reality, the other is classified

according to illusive appearances. The human principles, as given in

_Esoteric Buddhism_, were tabulated for beginners, so as not to confuse

their minds. It was half a blind.

Colours, Sounds and Forms.

To proceed:

[Illustration: Square]

The Point in the Circle is the Unmanifested Logos, corresponding to

Absolute Life and Absolute Sound.

The first geometrical figure after the Circle or the Spheroid is the

Triangle. It corresponds to Motion, Colour and Sound. Thus the Point in

the Triangle represents the Second Logos, “Father‐Mother,” or the White

Ray which is no colour, since it contains potentially all colours. It is

shown radiating from the Unmanifested Logos, or the Unspoken Word. Around

the first Triangle is formed on the plane of Primordial Substance in this

order (_reversed_ as to our plane):

[Illustration: Square]

[Illustration: Triangle and Square]

[Illustration: Triangle and Square]

A.

(_a_) The Astral Double of Nature, or the Paradigm of all Forms.

(_b_) Divine Ideation, or Universal Mind.

(_c_) The Synthesis of Occult Nature, the Egg of Brahmâ, containing all

and radiating all.

(_d_) Animal or Material Soul of Nature, source of animal and vegetable

intelligence and instinct.

(_e_) The aggregate of Dhyân Chohanic Intelligences, Fohat.

(_f_) Life Principle in Nature.

(_g_) The Life Procreating Principle in Nature. That which, on the

spiritual plane, corresponds to sexual affinity on the lower.

Mirrored on the plane of Gross Nature, the World of Reality is reversed,

and becomes on Earth and our plane:

B.

(_a_) Red is the colour of manifested dual, or male and female. In man it

is shown in its lowest animal form.

(_b_) Orange is the colour of the robes of the Yogîs and Buddhist Priests,

the colour of the Sun and Spiritual Vitality, also of the Vital Principle.

(_c_) Yellow or radiant Golden is the colour of the Spiritual, Divine Ray

in every atom; in man of Buddhi.

(_d_) Green and Red are, so to speak, interchangeable colours, for Green

absorbs the Red, as being threefold stronger in its vibrations than the

latter; and Green is the complementary colour of extreme Red. This is why

the Lower Manas and Kâma Rûpa are respectively shown as Green and Red.

(_e_) The Astral Plane, or Auric Envelope in Nature and Man.

(_f_) The Mind or rational element in Man and Nature.

(_g_) The most ethereal counterpart of the Body of man, the opposite pole,

standing in point of vibration and sensitiveness as the Violet stands to

the Red.

The above is on the manifested plane; after which we get the seven and the

Manifested Prism, or Man on Earth. With the latter, the Black Magician

alone is concerned.

In Kosmos, the gradations and correlations of Colours and Sounds, and

therefore of Numbers are infinite. This is suspected even in Physics, for

it is ascertained that there exist slower vibrations than those of the

Red, the slowest perceptible to us, and far more rapid vibrations than

those of the Violet, the most rapid that our senses can perceive. But on

Earth, in our physical world, the range of perceptible vibrations is

limited. Our physical senses cannot take cognizance of vibrations above

and below the septenary and limited gradations of the prismatic colours,

for such vibrations are incapable of causing in us the sensation of colour

or sound. It will always be the graduated septenary and no more, unless we

learn to paralyze our Quaternary and discern both the superior and

inferior vibrations with our spiritual senses seated in the upper

Triangle.

Now, on this plane of illusion, there are three fundamental colours, as

demonstrated by Physical Science, Red, Blue and Yellow (or rather Orange‐

Yellow). Expressed in terms of the human principles they are: (1) Kâma

Rûpa, the seat of the animal sensations, welded to, and serving as a

vehicle for the Animal Soul or Lower Manas (Red and Green, as said, being

interchangeable); (2) Auric Envelope, or the essence of man; and (3)

Prâna, or Life Principle. But if from the realm of illusion, or the living

man as he is on our Earth, subject to his sensuous perceptions only, we

pass to that of semi‐illusion, and observe the natural colours themselves,

or those of the principles, that is, if we try to find out which are those

that in the perfect man absorb all others, we shall find that the colours

correspond and become complementary in the following way:

Violet.

(1) Red Green.

(2) Orange Blue.

(3) Yellow Indigo.

Violet.

A faint violet, mist‐like form represents the Astral Man within an oviform

bluish circle, over which radiate in ceaseless vibrations the prismatic

colours. That colour is predominant, of which the corresponding principle

is the most active generally, or at the particular moment when the

clairvoyant perceives it. Such man appears during his waking states; and

it is by the predominance of this or that colour, and by the intensity of

its vibrations, that a clairvoyant, _if_ he be acquainted with

correspondences, can judge of the inner state or character of a person,

for the latter is an open book to every practical Occultist.

In the trance state the Aura changes entirely, the seven prismatic colours

being no longer discernible. In sleep also they are not all “at home.” For

those which belong to the spiritual elements in the man, _viz._, Yellow,

Buddhi; Indigo, Higher Manas; and the Blue of the Auric Envelope will be

either hardly discernible, or altogether missing. The Spiritual Man is

free during sleep, and though his physical memory may not become aware of

it, lives, robed in his highest essence, in realms on other planes, in

realms which are the land of reality, called dreams on our plane of

illusion.

A good clairvoyant, moreover, if he had an opportunity of seeing a Yogî in

the trance state and a mesmerized subject, side by side, would learn an

important lesson in Occultism. He would learn to know the difference

between self‐induced trance and a hypnotic state resulting from extraneous

influence. In the Yogî, the “principles” of the lower Quaternary disappear

entirely. Neither Red, Green, Red‐Violet nor the Auric Blue of the Body

are to be seen; nothing but hardly perceptible vibrations of the golden‐

hued Prâna principle and a violet flame streaked with gold rushing upwards

from the head, in the region where the Third Eye rests, and culminating in

a point. If the student remembers that the true Violet, or the extreme end

of the spectrum, is no compound colour of Red and Blue, but a homogeneous

colour with vibrations seven times more rapid than those of the Red,(815)

and that the golden hue is the essence of the three yellow hues from

Orange Red to Yellow‐Orange and Yellow, he will understand the reason why:

he lives in his own Auric Body, now become the vehicle of Buddhi‐Manas. On

the other hand, in a subject in an artificially produced hypnotic or

mesmeric trance, an effect of unconscious when not of conscious Black

Magic, unless produced by a high Adept, the whole set of the principles

will be present, with the Higher Manas paralyzed, Buddhi severed from it

through that paralysis, and the red‐violet Astral Body entirely subjected

to the Lower Manas and Kâma Rûpa (the green and red animal monsters in

us).

One who comprehends well the above explanations will readily see how

important it is for every student, whether he is striving for practical

Occult powers or only for the purely psychic and spiritual gifts of

clairvoyance and metaphysical knowledge, to master thoroughly the right

correspondences between the human, or nature principles, and those of

Kosmos. It is ignorance which leads materialistic Science to deny the

inner man and his Divine powers; knowledge and personal experience that

allow the Occultist to affirm that such powers are as natural to man as

swimming to fishes. It is like a Laplander, in all sincerity, denying the

possibility of the catgut, strung loosely on the sounding‐board of a

violin producing comprehensive sounds or melody. Our principles are the

Seven‐Stringed Lyre of Apollo, truly. In this our age, when oblivion has

shrouded ancient knowledge, men’s faculties are no better than the loose

strings of the violin to the Laplander. But the Occultist who knows how to

tighten them and tune his violin in harmony with the vibrations of colour

and sound, will extract divine harmony from them. The combination of these

powers and the attuning of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm will give the

geometrical equivalent of the invocation “_Om Mani Padme Hum_.”

This was why the previous knowledge of music and geometry was obligatory

in the School of Pythagoras.

The Roots Of Colour And Sound.

Further, each of the Primordial Seven, the first Seven Rays forming the

Manifested Logos, is again sevenfold. Thus, as the seven colours of the

solar spectrum correspond to the seven Rays, or Hierarchies, so each of

these latter has again its seven divisions corresponding to the same

series of colours. But in this case one colour, _viz._, that which

characterizes the particular Hierarchy as a whole, is predominant and more

intense than the others.

These Hierarchies can only be symbolized as concentric circles of

prismatic colours; each Hierarchy being represented by a series of seven

concentric circles, each circle representing one of the prismatic colours

in their natural order. But in each of these “wheels” one circle will be

brighter and more vivid in colour than the rest, and the wheel will have a

surrounding Aura (a fringe, as the physicists call it) of that colour.

This colour will be the characteristic colour of that Hierarchy as a

whole. Each of these Hierarchies furnishes the essence (the Soul) and is

the “Builder” of one of the seven kingdoms of Nature which are the three

elemental kingdoms, the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, and the

kingdom of spiritual man.(816) Moreover, each Hierarchy furnishes the Aura

of one of the seven principles in man with its specific colour. Further,

as each of these Hierarchies is the Ruler of one of the Sacred Planets, it

will easily be understood how Astrology came into existence, and that real

Astrology has a strictly scientific basis.

The symbol adopted in the Eastern School to represent the Seven

Hierarchies of creative Powers is a wheel of seven concentric circles,

each circle being coloured with one of the seven colours; call them

Angels, if you will, or Planetary Spirits, or, again, the Seven Rulers of

the Seven Sacred Planets of our system, as in our present case. At all

events, the concentric circles stand as symbols for Ezekiel’s Wheels with

some Western Occultists and Kabalists, and for the “Builders” or Prajâpati

with us.

DIAGRAM III.

The student should carefully examine the following Diagram.

[Diagram III]

Thus the Linga Sharîra is derived from the Violet sub‐ray of the Violet

Hierarchy; the Higher Manas is similarly derived from the Indigo sub‐ray

of the Indigo Hierarchy, and so on. Every man being born under a certain

planet, there will always be a predominance of that planet’s colour in

him, because that “principle” wall rule in him which has its origin in the

Hierarchy in question. There will also be a certain amount of the colour

derived from the other planets present in his Aura, but that of the ruling

planet will be strongest. Now a person in whom, say, the Mercury principle

is predominant, will, by acting upon the Mercury principle in another

person born under a different planet, be able to get him entirely under

his control. For the stronger Mercury principle in him will overpower the

weaker Mercurial element in the other. But he will have little power over

persons born under the same planet as himself. This is the key to the

Occult Sciences of Magnetism and Hypnotism.

The student will understand that the Orders and Hierarchies are here named

after their corresponding colours, so as to avoid using numerals, which

would be confusing in connection with the human principles, as the latter

have no proper numbers of their own. The real Occult names of these

Hierarchies cannot now be given.

The student must, however remember that the colours which we see with our

physical eyes are not the true colours of Occult Nature, but are merely

the effects produced on the mechanism of our physical organs by certain

rates of vibration. For instance, Clerk Maxwell has demonstrated that the

retinal effects of any colour may be imitated by properly combining three

other colours. It follows, therefore, that our retina has only three

distinct colour sensations, and we therefore do not perceive the seven

colours which really exist, but only their “imitations,” so to speak, in

our physical organism.

Thus, for instance, the Orange‐Red of the first “Triangle” is not a

combination of Orange and Red, but the true “spiritual” Red, if the term

may be allowed, while the Red (blood‐red) of the spectrum is the colour of

Kâma, animal desire, and is inseparable from the material plane.

The Unity Of Deity.

Esotericism, pure and simple, speaks of no personal God; therefore are we

considered as Atheists. But, in reality, Occult Philosophy, as a whole, is

based absolutely on the ubiquitous presence of God, the Absolute Deity;

and if IT Itself is not speculated upon, as being too sacred and yet

incomprehensible as a Unit to the finite intellect, yet the entire

Philosophy is based upon Its Divine Powers as being the Source of all that

breathes and lives and has existence. In every ancient Religion the ONE

was demonstrated by the many. In Egypt and India, in Chaldæa and Phœnicia,

and finally in Greece, the ideas about Deity were expressed by multiples

of three, five and seven; and also by eight, nine and twelve great Gods,

which symbolized the powers and properties of the One and Only Deity. This

was related to that infinite subdivision by irregular and odd numbers to

which the metaphysics of these nations subjected their ONE DIVINITY. Thus

constituted, the cycle of the Gods had all the qualities and attributes of

the ONE SUPREME AND UNKNOWABLE; for in this collection of divine

Personalities, or rather of Symbols personified, dwells the ONE GOD, the

GOD ONE, that God which, in India, is said to have no Second.

O God Ani [the Spiritual Sun], thou residest in the agglomeration

of thy divine personages.(817)

These words show the belief of the ancients that all manifestation

proceeds from one and the same Source, all emanating from the one

identical Principle which can never be completely developed except in and

through the collective and entire aggregate of Its emanations.

The Pleroma of Valentinus is absolutely the Space of Occult Philosophy;

for Pleroma means the “Fullness,” the superior regions. It is the sum

total of all the Divine manifestations and emanations expressing the

_plenum_ or totality of the rays proceeding from the ONE, differentiating

on all the planes, and transforming themselves into Divine Powers, called

Angels and Planetary Spirits in the Philosophy of every nation. The

Gnostic Æons and Powers of the Pleroma are made to speak as the Devas and

Siddhas of the _Purânas_. The Epinoia, the first female manifestation of

God, the “Principle” of Simon Magus and Saturninus, holds the same

language as the Logos of Basilides; and each of these is traced to the

purely esoteric Alêtheia, the TRUTH of the Mysteries. All of them, we are

taught, repeat at different times and in different languages the

magnificent hymn of the Egyptian papyrus, thousands of years old:

The Gods adore thee, they greet thee, O the One Dark Truth.

And addressing Ra, they add:

The Gods bow before thy Majesty, by exalting the Souls of that

which produces them ... and say to thee, Peace to all emanations

from the Unconscious Father of the Conscious Fathers of the

Gods.... Thou producer of beings, we adore the souls which emanate

from thee. Thou begettest us, O thou Unknown, and we greet thee in

worshipping each God‐Soul which descendeth from thee and liveth in

us.

This is the source of the assertion:

Know ye not that ye are Gods and the temple of God.

This is shown in the “Roots of Ritualism in Church and Masonry,” in

_Lucifer_ for March, 1889. Truly then, as said seventeen centuries ago,

“Man cannot possess Truth (Alêtheia) except he participate in the Gnosis.”

So we may say now: No man can know the Truth unless he studies the secrets

of the Pleroma of Occultism; and these secrets are all in the Theogony of

the ancient Wisdom‐Religion, which is the Alêtheia of Occult Science.

Paper III. A Word Concerning the Earlier Papers.

As many have written and almost complained to me that they could find no

practical clear application of certain diagrams appended to the first two

Papers, and others have spoken of their abstruseness, a short explanation

is necessary.

The reason of this difficulty in most cases has been that the point of

view taken was erroneous; the purely abstract and metaphysical was

mistaken for, and confused with, the concrete and the physical. Let us

take for example the diagrams on page 477 (Paper II.,) and say that these

are entirely macrocosmic and ideal. It must be remembered that the study

of Occultism proceeds from Universals to Particulars and not the reverse

way, as accepted by Science. As Plato was an Initiate, he very naturally

used the former method, while Aristotle, never having been initiated,

scoffed at his master, and, elaborating a system of his own, left it as an

heirloom to be adopted and improved by Bacon. Of a truth the aphorism of

Hermetic Wisdom, “As above, so below,” applies to all Esoteric

instruction; but we must begin with the above; we must learn the formula

before we can sum the series.

The two figures, therefore, are not meant to represent any two particular

planes, but are the abstraction of a pair of planes, explanatory of the

law of reflection, just as the Lower Manas is a reflection of the Higher.

They must therefore be taken in the highest metaphysical sense.

The diagrams are only intended to familiarize students with the leading

ideas of Occult correspondences, the very genius of metaphysical, or

macrocosmic and spiritual Occultism forbidding the use of figures or even

symbols further than as temporary aids. Once define an idea in words, and

it loses its reality; once figure a metaphysical idea, and you materialize

its spirit. Figures must be used only as ladders to scale the battlements,

ladders to be disregarded when once the foot is set upon the rampart.

Let students, therefore, be very careful to spiritualize the Papers and

avoid materializing them; let them always try to find the highest meaning

possible, confident that in proportion as they approach the material and

visible in their speculations on the Papers, so far are they from the

right understanding of them. This is especially the case with these first

Papers and Diagrams, for as in all true arts, so in Occultism, we must

first learn the theory before we are taught the practice.

Concerning Secrecy.

Students ask: Why such secrecy about the details of a doctrine the body of

which has been publicly revealed, as in _Esoteric Buddhism_ and the

_Secret Doctrine_?

To this Occultism would reply: for two reasons:—

(_a_) The whole truth is too sacred to be given out promiscuously.

(_b_) The knowledge of all the details and missing links in the exoteric

teachings is too dangerous in profane hands.

The truths revealed to man by the “Planetary Spirits”—the highest Kumâras,

those who incarnate no longer in the Universe during this

Mahâmanvantara—who will appear on earth as Avatâras only at the beginning

of every new human Race, and at the junctions or close of the two ends of

the small and great cycles—in time, as man became more animalized, were

made to fade away from his memory. Yet, though these Teachers remain with

man no longer than the time required to impress upon the plastic minds of

child‐humanity the eternal verities they teach, Their Spirit remains vivid

though latent in mankind. And the full knowledge of the primitive

revelation has remained always with a few elect, and has been transmitted

from that time up to the present, from one generation of Adepts to

another. As the Teachers say in the Occult Primer:

_This is done so as to ensure them_ [the eternal truths] _from being

utterly lost or forgotten in ages hereafter by the forthcoming

generations._

The mission of the Planetary Spirit is but to strike the key‐note of

Truth. When once He has directed the vibration of the latter to run its

course uninterruptedly along the concatenation of the race to the end of

the cycle, He disappears from our earth until the following Planetary

Manvantara. The mission of any teacher of Esoteric truths, whether he

stands at the top or the foot of the ladder of knowledge, is precisely the

same; as above, so below. I have only orders to strike the key‐note of the

various Esoteric truths among the learners as a body. Those units among

you who will have raised themselves on the “Path” over their fellow‐

students, in their Esoteric sphere, will, as the “Elect” spoken of did and

do in the Parent Brotherhoods, receive the last explanatory details and

the ultimate key to what they learn. No one, however, can hope to gain

this privilege before the MASTERS—not my humble self—find him or her

worthy.

If you wish to know the real _raison d’être_ for this policy, I now give

it to you. No use my repeating and explaining what all of you know as well

as myself; at the very beginning, events have shown that no caution can be

dispensed with. Of our body of several hundred men and women, many did not

seem to realize either the awful sacredness of the pledge (which some took

at the end of their pen), or the fact that their _personality_ has to be

entirely disregarded, when brought face to face with their HIGHER SELF; or

that all their words and professions went for naught unless corroborated

by actions. This was human nature, and no more; therefore it was passed

leniently by, and a new lease accorded by the MASTER. But apart from this

there is a danger lurking in the nature of the present cycle itself.

Civilized humanity, however carefully guarded by its invisible Watchers,

the Nirmânakâyas, who watch over our respective races and nations, is yet,

owing to its collective Karma, terribly under the sway of the traditional

opposers of the Nirmânakâyas—the “Brothers of the Shadow,” embodied and

disembodied; and this, as has already been told you, will last to the end

of the first Kali Yuga cycle (1897), and a few years beyond, as the

smaller dark cycle happens to overlap the great one. Thus, notwithstanding

all precautions, terrible secrets are often revealed to entirely unworthy

persons by the efforts of the “Dark Brothers” and their working on human

brains. This is entirely owing to the simple fact that in certain

privileged organisms, vibrations of the primitive truth put in motion by

the Planetary Beings are set up, in what Western philosophy would term

innate ideas, and Occultism “flashes of genius.”(818) Some such idea based

on eternal truth is awakened, and all that the watchful Powers can do is

to prevent its entire revelation.

Everything in this Universe of differentiated matter has its two aspects,

the light and the dark side, and these two attributes applied practically,

lead the one to use, the other to abuse. Every man may become a Botanist

without apparent danger to his fellow‐creatures; and many a Chemist who

has mastered the science of essences knows that every one of them can both

heal and kill. Not an ingredient, not a poison, but can be used for both

purposes—aye, from harmless wax to deadly prussic acid, from the saliva of

an infant to that of the cobra di capella. This every tyro in medicine

knows—theoretically, at any rate. But where is the learned Chemist in our

day who has been permitted to discover the “night side” of an attribute of

any substance in the three kingdoms of Science, let alone in the seven of

the Occultists? Who of them has penetrated into its Arcana, into the

innermost Essence of things and its primary correlations? Yet it is this

knowledge alone which makes of an Occultist a genuine practical Initiate,

whether he turn out a Brother of Light or a Brother of Darkness. The

essence of that subtle, traceless poison, the most potent in nature, which

entered into the composition of the so‐called Medici and Borgia poisons,

if used with discrimination by one well versed in the septenary degrees of

its potentiality on each of the planes accessible to man on earth—could

heal or kill every man in the world; the result depending, of course, on

whether the operator was a Brother of the Light or a Brother of the

Shadow. The former is prevented from doing the good he might, by racial,

national, and individual Karma; the second is impeded in his fiendish work

by the joint efforts of the human “Stones” of the “Guardian Wall.”(819)

It is incorrect to think that there exists any special “powder of

projection” or “philosopher’s stone,” or “elixir of life.” The latter

lurks in every flower, in every stone and mineral throughout the globe. It

is the ultimate essence of _everything on its way to higher and higher

evolution_. As there is no good or evil _per se_, so there is neither

“elixir of life” nor “elixir of death,” nor poison, _per se_, but all this

is contained in one and the same universal Essence, this or the other

effect, or result, depending on the degree of its differentiation and its

various correlations. The _light side_ of it produces life, health, bliss,

divine peace, etc.; the _dark side_ brings death, disease, sorrow and

strife. This is proven by the knowledge of the nature of the most violent

poisons; of some of them even a large quantity will produce no evil effect

on the organism, whereas a grain of the same poison kills with the

rapidity of lightning; while the same grain, again, altered by a certain

combination, though its quantity remains almost identical, will heal. The

number of the degrees of its differentiation is septenary, as are the

planes of its action, each degree being either beneficent or maleficent in

its effects, according to the system into which it is introduced. He who

is skilled in these degrees is on the high road to practical Adeptship; he

who acts at hap‐hazard—as do the enormous majority of the “Mind Curers,”

whether “Mental” or “Christian Scientists”—is likely to rue the effects on

himself as well as on others. Put on the track by the example of the

Indian Yogîs, and of their broadly but incorrectly outlined practices,

which they have only read about, but have had no opportunity to

study—these new sects have rushed headlong and guideless into the practice

of _denying_ and _affirming_. Thus they have done more harm than good.

Those who are successful owe it to their innate magnetic and healing

powers, which very often counteract that which would otherwise be

conducive to much evil. Beware, I say; Satan and the Archangel are more

than twins; they are one body and one mind—_Deus est Demon inversus_.

Is The Practice Of Concentration Beneficent?

Such is another question often asked. I answer: Genuine concentration and

meditation, _conscious and cautious_, upon one’s lower self in the light

of the inner divine man and the Pâramitâs, is an excellent thing. But to

“sit for Yoga,” with only a superficial and often distorted knowledge of

the real practice, is almost invariably fatal; for ten to one the student

will either develop mediumistic powers in himself or lose time and get

disgusted both with practice and theory. Before one rushes into such a

dangerous experiment and seeks to go beyond a minute examination of one’s

lower self and _its_ walk in life, or that which is called in our

phraseology, “The Chelâ’s Daily Life Ledger,” he would do well to learn at

least the difference between the two aspects of “Magic,” the White or

Divine, and the Black or Devilish, and assure himself that by “sitting for

Yoga,” with no experience, as well as with no guide to show him the

dangers, he does not daily and hourly cross the boundaries of the Divine

to fall into the Satanic. Nevertheless, the way to learn the difference is

very easy; one has only to remember that _no Esoteric truths entirely

unveiled will ever be given in public print_, in book or magazine.

I ask students to turn to the _Theosophist_ of November, 1887. On page 98

they will find the beginning of an excellent article by Mr. Râma Prasâd on

“Nature’s Finer Forces.”(820) The value of this work is not so much in its

literary merit, though it gained its author the gold medal of the

_Theosophist_, as in its exposition of tenets hitherto concealed in a rare

and ancient Sanskrit work on Occultism. But Mr. Râma Prasâd is not an

Occultist, only an excellent Sanskrit scholar, a university graduate and a

man of remarkable intelligence. His essays are almost entirely based on

Tântra works, which, if read indiscriminately by a tyro in Occultism, will

lead to the practice of most unmitigated Black Magic. Now, since the

difference of primary importance between Black and White Magic is the

object with which it is practised, and that of secondary importance the

nature of the agents used for the production of phenomenal results, the

line of demarcation between the two is very—_very_ thin. The danger is

lessened only by the fact that every _Occult_ book, so‐called, is Occult

only in a certain sense: that is, the text is Occult merely by reason of

its blinds. The symbolism has to be thoroughly understood before the

reader can get at the correct sense of the teaching. Moreover, it is never

complete, its several portions each being under a different title, and

each containing a portion of some other work; so that without a key to

these no such work divulges the whole truth. Even the famous _Shivâgama_,

on which _Natures Finer Forces_ is based, “is nowhere to be found in

complete form,” as the author tells us. Thus, like all others, it treats

of only five Tattvas instead of the seven as in Esoteric teachings.

Now, the Tattvas being simply the substratum of the seven forces of

Nature, how can this be? There are seven forms of Prakriti, as Kapila’s

Sânkhya, the _Vishnu Purâna_, and other works teach. Prakriti is Nature,

Matter (primordial and elemental); therefore logic demands that the

Tattvas also should be seven. For whether Tattvas mean, as Occultism

teaches, “forces of Nature,” or, as the learned Râma Prâsad explains, “the

substance out of which the universe is formed” and “the power by which it

is sustained,” it is all one; they are Force, Purusha, and _Matter_,

Prakriti. And if the _forms_, or rather planes, of the latter are seven,

then its forces must be seven also. In other words, the degrees of the

solidity of matter and the degrees of the power that ensouls it must go

hand in hand.

The Universe is made out of the Tattva, it is sustained by the

Tattva, and it disappears into the Tattva,

says Shiva, as quoted from the _Shivâgama_ in _Nature’s Finer Forces_.

This settles the question; if Prakriti is septenary, then the Tattvas must

be seven, for, as said, they are both Substance and Force, or atomic

Matter and the Spirit that ensoule it.

This is explained here to enable the student to read between the lines of

the so‐called Occult articles on Sanskrit Philosophy, by which they must

not be misled. The doctrine of the seven Tattvas (the principles of the

Universe and also of man) was held in great sacredness and therefore

secrecy, in days of old, by the Brâhmans, who have now almost forgotten

the teaching. Yet it is taught to this day in the Schools beyond the

Himâlayan Range, though now hardly remembered or heard of in India except

through rare Initiates. The policy has, however, been changed gradually;

Chelâs began to be taught the broad outlines of it, and at the advent of

the T. S. in India in 1879, I was ordered to teach it in its exoteric form

to one or two. I now give it out Esoterically.

Knowing that some students try to follow a system of Yoga in their own

fashion, guided only by the rare hints they find in Theosophical books and

magazines, which must naturally be incomplete, I chose one of the best

expositions upon ancient Occult works, _Nature’s Finer Forces_, in order

to point out how very easily one can be misled by their blinds.

The author seems to have been himself deceived. The Tantras read

Esoterically are as full of wisdom as the noblest Occult works. Studied

without a guide and applied to practice, they may lead to the production

of various phenomenal results, on the moral and physiological planes. But

let anyone accept their dead‐letter rules and practices, let him try with

some selfish motive in view to carry out the rites prescribed therein,

and—he is lost. Followed with pure heart and unselfish devotion merely for

the sake of experiment, either no results will follow, or such as can only

throw back the performer. But woe to the selfish man who seeks to develop

Occult powers only to attain earthly benefits or revenge, or to satisfy

his ambition; the separation of the Higher from the Lower Principles and

the severing of Buddhi‐Manas from the Tântrist’s personality will speedily

follow, the terrible Karmic results to the _dabbler_ in Magic.

In the East, in India and China, _soulless_ men and women are as

frequently met with as in the West, though vice is, in truth, far less

developed there than it is here.

It is Black Magic and oblivion of their ancestral wisdom that lead them

thereunto. But of this I will speak later, now merely adding: you have to

be warned and know the danger.

Meanwhile, in view of what follows, the real Occult division of the

Principles in their correspondences with the Tattvas and other minor

forces has to be well studied.

About “Principles” And “Aspects.”

Speaking metaphysically and philosophically, on strict Esoteric lines, man

as a complete unit is composed of Four basic Principles and their Three

Aspects on this earth. In the semi‐esoteric teachings, these Four and

Three have been called Seven Principles, to facilitate the comprehension

of the masses.

The Eternal Basic Principles.

1. _Âtmâ_, or _Jîva_, “the One Life,” which permeates the _Monadic Trio_.

(One in three and three in One.)

2. _Auric Envelope_; because the substratum of the Aura around man is the

universally diffused primordial and pure Akâsha, the first film on the

boundless and shoreless expanse of Jîva, the immutable Root of all.

3. _Buddhi_; for Buddhi is a ray of the Universal Spiritual Soul (ALAYA).

4. _Manas_ (the Higher Ego); for it proceeds from Mahat, the first product

or emanation of Pradhâna which contains _potentially_ all the Gunas

(attributes). Mahat is Cosmic Intelligence, called the “Great

Principle.”(821)

Transitory Aspects Produced by the Principles.

1. _Prâna_, the Breath of Life, the same as _Nephesh_. At the death of a

living being, Prâna re‐becomes Jîva.(822)

2. _Linga Sharîra_, the Astral Form, the transitory emanation of the Auric

Egg. This form precedes the formation of the living Body, and after death

clings to it, dissipating only with the disappearance of its last atom

(the skeleton excepted).

3. Lower Manas, the Animal Soul, the reflection or shadow of the Buddhi‐

Manas, having the potentialitie of both, but conquered generally by its

association with the Kâma elements.

As the lower man is the combined product of two aspects—physically, of his

Astral Form, and psycho‐physiologically of Kâma‐Manas—he is not looked

upon even as an aspect, but as an illusion.

The Auric Egg, on account of its nature and manifold functions, has to be

well studied. As Hiranyagarbha, the Golden Womb or Egg, contains Brahmâ,

the collective symbol of the Seven Universal Forces, so the Auric Egg

contains, and is directly related to, both the divine and the physical

man. In its essence, as said, it is eternal; in its constant correlations

and transformations, during the reincarnating progress of the Ego on this

earth, it is a kind of perpetual motion machine.

As given out in our second volume, the Egos or Kumâras, incarnating in

man, at the end of the Third Root‐Race, are not human Egos of this earth

or plane, but become such only from the moment they ensoul the Animal Man,

thus endowing him with his Higher Mind. Each is a “Breath” or Principle,

called the Human Soul, or Manas, the Mind. As the teachings say:

_“__Each is a pillar of light. Having chosen its vehicle, it expanded,

surrounding with an Âkâshic Aura the human animal, while the Divine

(Mânasic) Principle settled within that human form.__”_

Ancient Wisdom teaches us, moreover, that from this first incarnation, the

Lunar Pitris, who had made men out of their Chhâyâs or Shadows, are

absorbed by this Auric Essence, and a distinct Astral Form is now produced

for each forthcoming personality of the reincarnating series of each Ego.

Thus the Auric Egg, reflecting all the thoughts, words and deeds of man,

is:

(_a_) The preserver of every Karmic record.

(_b_) The storehouse of all the good and evil powers of man, receiving and

giving out at his will—nay, at his very thought—every potentiality, which

becomes, then and there, an acting potency: this Aura is the mirror in

which sensitives and clairvoyants sense and perceive the real man, and see

him _as he is_, not as he appears.

(_c_) As it furnishes man with his Astral Form, around which the physical

entity models itself, first as a fœtus, then as a child and man, the

astral growing apace with the human being, so it furnishes him during

life, if an Adept, with his Mâyâvi Rûpa, or Illusion Body, which is not

his _Vital_‐Astral Body; and after death, with his Devachanic Entity and

Kâma Rûpa, or Body of Desire (the Spook).(823)

In the case of the Devachanic Entity, the Ego, in order to be able to go

into a state of bliss, as the “I” of its immediately preceding

incarnation, has to be clothed (metaphorically speaking) with the

spiritual elements of the ideas, aspirations and thoughts of the now

disembodied personality; otherwise what is it that enjoys bliss and

reward? Surely not the impersonal Ego, the Divine Individuality. Therefore

it must be the good Karmic records of the deceased, impressed upon the

Auric Substance, which furnish the Human Soul with just enough of the

spiritual elements of the ex‐personality, to enable it to still believe

itself that body from which it has just been severed, and to receive its

fruition, during a more or less prolonged period of “spiritual gestation.”

For Devachan is a “spiritual gestation” within an ideal matrix state, a

birth of the Ego into the world of effects, which ideal, subjective birth

precedes its next terrestrial birth, the latter being determined by its

bad Karma, into the world of causes.(824)

In the case of the Spook, the Kâma Rûpa is furnished from the animal dregs

of the Auric Envelope, with its daily Karmic record of animal life, so

full of animal desires and selfish aspirations.(825)

Now the Linga Sharîra remains with the Physical Body, and fades out along

with it. An astral entity then has to be created, a new Linga Sharîra

provided, to become the bearer of all the past Tanhas and future Karma.

How is this accomplished? The mediumistic Spook, the “departed angel,”

fades out and vanishes also in its turn(826) as an entity or full image of

the personality that was, and leaves in the Kâmalokic world of effects

only the record of its misdeeds and sinful thoughts and acts, known in the

phraseology of Occultists as Tânhic or human Elementals. Entering into the

composition of the Astral Form of the new body, into which the Ego, upon

its quitting the Devachanic state, is to enter according to Karmic decree,

the Elementals form that new astral entity which is born within the Auric

Envelope, and of which it is often said:

Bad Karma waits at the threshold of Devachan, with its army of

Skandhas.(827)

For no sooner is the Devachanic state of reward ended, than the Ego is

indissolubly united with (or rather follows in the track of) the new

Astral Form. Both are Karmically propelled towards the family or woman

from whom is to be born the _animal child_ chosen by Karma to become the

vehicle of the Ego which has just awakened from the Devachanic state. Then

the _new_ Astral Form, composed partly of the pure Akâshic Essence of the

Auric Egg, and partly of the terrestrial elements of the punishable sins

and misdeeds of the last personality, is drawn into the woman. Once there,

Nature models the fœtus of flesh around the Astral, out of the growing

materials of the male seed in the female soil. Thus grows out of the

essence of a decayed seed the fruit or eidolon of the dead seed, the

physical fruit producing in its turn within itself another, and other

seeds for future plants.

And now we may return to the Tattvas, and see what they mean in nature and

man, showing thereby the great danger of indulging in fancy, amateur Yoga,

without knowing what we are about.

The Tâttvic Correlations and Meaning.

In Nature, then, we find seven Forces, or seven Centres of Force, and

everything seems to respond to that number, as for instance, the septenary

scale in music, or Sounds, and the septenary spectrum in Colours. I have

not exhausted its nomenclature and proofs in the earlier volumes, yet

enough is given to show every thinker that the facts adduced are no

coincidences, but very weighty testimony.

There are several reasons why only five Tattvas are given in the Hindu

systems. One of these I have already mentioned; another is that owing to

our having reached only the Fifth Race, and being (so far as Science is

able to ascertain) endowed with only five senses, the two remaining senses

that are still latent in man can have their existence proven only on

phenomenal evidence which to the Materialist is no evidence at all. The

five physical senses are made to correspond with the five lower Tattvas,

the two yet undeveloped senses in man; and the two forces, or Tattvas,

forgotten by Brâhmans and still unrecognized by Science, being so

subjective and the highest of them so sacred, that they can only be

recognized by, and known through, the highest Occult Sciences. It is easy

to see that these two Tattvas and the two senses (the sixth and the

seventh) correspond to the two highest human principles, Buddhi and the

Auric Envelope, impregnated with the light of Âtmâ. Unless we open in

ourselves, by Occult training, the sixth and seventh senses, we can never

comprehend correctly their corresponding types. Thus the statement in

_Nature’s Finer Forces_ that, in the Tâttvic scale, the highest Tattva of

all is Âkâsha(828) (followed by [only] four, each of which becomes grosser

than its predecessor), if made from the Esoteric standpoint, is erroneous.

For once Âkâsha, an almost homogeneous and certainly universal Principle,

is translated Ether, then Âkâsha is dwarfed and limited to our visible

Universe, for assuredly it is not the Ether of Space. Ether, whatever

Modern Science makes of it, is differentiated Substance; Âkâsha, having no

attributes save one—SOUND, _of which it is the substratum_—is no substance

even exoterically and in the minds of some Orientalists,(829) but rather

Chaos, or the Great Spatial Void.(830)

Esoterically, Âkâsha alone is _Divine_ Space, and becomes Ether only on

the lowest and last plane, or our visible Universe and Earth. In this case

the blind is in the word “attribute,” which is said to be Sound. But Sound

is no attribute of Âkâsha, but its primary correlation, its primordial

manifestation, the LOGOS, or Divine Ideation made Word, and that “WORD”

made “Flesh.” Sound may be considered an “attribute” of Âkâsha only on the

condition of anthropomorphizing the latter. It is not a characteristic of

it, though it is certainly as innate in it as the idea “I am _I_” is

innate in our thoughts.

Occultism teaches that Âkâsha contains and includes the seven Centres of

Force, therefore the six Tattvas, of which it is the seventh, or rather

their synthesis. But if Âkâsha be taken, as we believe it is in this case,

to represent only the exoteric idea, then the author is right; because,

seeing that Âkâsha is universally omnipresent, following the Paurânic

limitation, _for the better comprehension of our finite intellects_, he

places its commencement only beyond the four planes of our Earth

Chain,(831) the two higher Tattvas being as concealed to the average

mortal as the sixth and seventh senses are to the materialistic mind.

Therefore, while Sanskrit and Hindu Philosophy generally speak of five

Tattvas only, Occultists name seven, thus making them correspond with

every septenary in Nature. The Tattvas stand in the same order as the

seven macro‐ and micro‐cosmic Forces: and as taught in Esotericism, are as

follows:

(1) ÂDI TATTVA, the primordial universal Force, issuing at the beginning

of manifestation, or of the “creative” period, from the eternal immutable

Sat, the substratum of ALL. It corresponds with the Auric Envelope or

Brahmâ’s Egg, which surrounds every globe, as well as every man, animal

and thing. It is the vehicle containing potentially everything—Spirit and

Substance, Force and Matter. Âdi Tattva, in Esoteric Cosmogony, is the

Force which we refer to as proceeding from the First or Unmanifested

LOGOS.

(2) ANUPÂDAKA TATTVA,(832) the first differentiation on the plane of

being—the first being an ideal one—or that which is born by transformation

from something higher than itself. With the Occultists, this Force

proceeds from the Second LOGOS.

(3) ÂKÂSHA TATTVA, this is the point from which all _exoteric_

Philosophies and Religions start. Âkâsha Tattva is explained in them as

Etheric Force, Ether. Hence Jupiter, the “highest” God, was named after

Pater Æther; Indra, once the highest God in India, is the etheric or

heavenly expanse, and so with Uranus, etc. The Christian biblical God,

also, is spoken of as the Holy Ghost, Pneuma, rarefied wind or air. This

the Occultists call the Force of the Third LOGOS, the Creative Force in

the already Manifested Universe.

(4) VÂYU TATTVA, the aërial plane where substance is gaseous.

(5) TAIJAS TATTVA, the plane of our atmosphere, from _tejas_, luminous.

(6) ÂPAS TATTVA, watery or liquid substance or force.

(7) PRITHIVÎ TATTVA, solid earthly substance, the terrestrial spirit or

force, the lowest of all.

All these correspond to our Principles, and to the seven senses and forces

in man. According to the Tattva or Force generated or induced in us, so

will our bodies act.

Now, what I have to say here is addressed especially to those members who

are anxious to develop powers by “sitting for Yoga.” You have seen, from

what has been already said, that in the development of Râja Yoga, no

extant works made public are of the least good; they can at best give

inklings of Hatha Yoga, something that may develop mediumship at best, and

in the worst case—consumption. If those who practice “meditation,” and try

to learn “the Science of Breath,” will read attentively _Nature’s Finer

Forces_, they will find that it is by utilizing the five Tattvas only that

this dangerous science is acquired. For in the exoteric Yoga Philosophy,

and the Hatha Yoga practice, Âkâsha Tattva is placed in the head (or

physical brain) of man; Tejas Tattva in the shoulders; Vâyu Tattva in the

navel (the seat of all the phallic Gods, “creators” of the universe and

man); Âpas Tattva in the knees; and Prithivî Tattva in the feet. Hence the

two higher Tattvas and their correspondences are ignored and excluded;

and, as these are the chief factors in Râja Yoga, no spiritual or

intellectual phenomena of a high nature can take place. The best results

obtainable will be physical phenomena and no more. As the “Five Breaths,”

or rather the five states of the human breath, in Hatha Yoga correspond to

the above _terrestrial_ planes and colours, what spiritual results can be

obtained? On the contrary, they are the very reverse of the plane of

Spirit, or the higher macrocosmic plane, reflected as they are upside

down, in the Astral Light. This is proven in the Tântra work, _Shivâgama_,

itself. Let us compare.

First of all, remember that the Septenary of visible and also invisible

Nature is said in Occultism to consist of the _three_ (and four) Fires,

which grow into the forty‐nine Fires. This shows that as the Macrocosm is

divided into seven great planes of various differentiations of

Substance—from the spiritual or subjective, to the fully objective or

material, from Akâsha down to the sin‐laden atmosphere of our earth—so, in

its turn, each of these great planes has three aspects, based on four

Principles, as already shown above. This seems to be quite natural, as

even modern Science has her three states of matter and what are generally

called the “critical” or intermediate states between the solid, the

fluidic, and the gaseous.

Now, the Astral Light is not a universally diffused stuff, but pertains

only to our earth and all other bodies of the system on the same plane of

matter with it. Our Astral Light is, so to speak, the Linga Sharîra of our

earth; only instead of being its primordial prototype, as in the case of

our Chhâyâ, or Double, it is the reverse. Human and animal bodies grow and

develop on the model of their antetypal Doubles; whereas the Astral Light

is born from the terrene emanations, grows and develops after its

prototypal parent, and in its treacherous waves everything from the upper

planes and from the lower solid plane, the earth, both ways, is reflected

_reversed_. Hence the confusion of its colours and sounds in the

clairvoyance and clairaudience of the sensitive who trusts to its records,

be that sensitive a Hatha Yogî or a medium.

Such, then, is the Occult Science on which the modern Ascetics and Yogîs

of India base their Soul development and powers. They are known as the

Hatha Yogîs. Now, the science of Hatha Yoga rests upon the “suppression of

breath,” or Prânâyâma, to which exercise our Masters are unanimously

opposed. For what is Prânâyâma? Literally translated, it means the “death

of (vital) breath.” Prâna, as said, is not Jîva, the eternal fount of life

immortal; nor is it connected in any way with Pranava, as some think, for

Pranava is a synonym of AUM in a mystic sense. As much as has ever been

taught publicly and clearly about it is to be found in _Nature’s Finer

Forces_. If such directions, however, are followed, they can only lead to

Black Magic and mediumship. Several impatient Chelâs, whom we knew

personally in India, went in for the practice of Hatha Yoga,

notwithstanding our warnings. Of these, two developed consumption, of

which one died; others became almost idiotic; another committed suicide;

and one developed into a regular Tântrika, a Black Magician, but his

career, fortunately for himself, was cut short by death.

The science of the Five Breaths, the moist, the fiery, the airy, etc., has

a twofold significance and two applications. The Tântrikas take it

literally, as relating to the regulation of the vital, lung breath,

whereas the ancient Râja Yogîs understood it as referring to the mental or

“will” breath, which alone leads to the highest clairvoyant powers, to the

function of the Third Eye, and the acquisition of the true Râja Yoga

Occult powers. The difference between the two is enormous. The former, as

shown, use the five lower Tattvas; the latter begin by using the three

higher alone, for mental and will development, and the rest only when they

have completely mastered the three; hence, they use only one (Âkâsha

Tattva) out of the Tântric five. As well said in the above stated work,

“Tattvas are the modifications of Svara.” Now, the Svara is the root of

all sound, the substratum of the Pythagorean music of the spheres, Svara

being that which is _beyond_ Spirit, in the modern acceptation of the

word, the Spirit within Spirit, or as very properly translated, the

“current of the life‐wave,” the emanation of the One Life. The Great

Breath spoken of in our first volume is ÂTMÂ, the etymology of which is

“_eternal motion_.” Now while the ascetic Chelâ of our school, for his

mental development, follows carefully the process of the evolution of the

Universe, that is, proceeds from universals to particulars, the Hatha Yogî

reverses the conditions and begins by sitting for the suppression of his

(vital) breath. And if, as Hindu philosophy teaches, at the beginning of

kosmic evolution, “Svara threw itself into the form of Âkâsha,” and thence

successively into the forms of Vâyu (air), Agni (fire), Âpas (water), and

Prithivî (solid matter),(833) then it stands to reason that we have to

begin by the higher _supersensuous_ Tattvas. The Râja Yogî does not

descend on the planes of substance beyond Sûkshma (subtle matter), while

the Hatha Yogî develops and uses his powers only on the material plane.

Some Tântrikas locate the three Nadîs, Sushumnâ, Îdâ and Pingalâ, in the

medulla oblongata, the central line of which they call Sushumnâ, and the

right and left divisions, Pingalâ and Îdâ, and also in the heart, to the

divisions of which they apply the same names. The Trans‐Himâlayan school

of the ancient Indian Râja Yogîs, with which the modern Yogîs of India

have little to do, locates Sushumnâ, the chief seat of these three Nadîs,

in the central tube of the spinal cord, and Îdâ and Pingalâ on its left

and right sides. Sushumnâ is the Brahmadanda. It is that canal (of the

spinal cord), of the use of which Physiology knows no more than it does of

the spleen and the pineal gland. Îâ and Pingalâ are simply the sharps and

flats of that _Fa_ of human nature, the keynote and the middle key in the

scale of the septenary harmony of the Principles, which, when struck in a

proper way, awakens the sentries on either side, the spiritual Manas and

the physical Kâma, and subdues the lower through the higher. But this

effect has to be produced by the exercise of will‐power, not through the

scientific or trained suppression of the breath. Take a transverse section

of the spinal region, and you will find sections across three columns, one

of which columns transmits the volitional orders, and a second a life

current of Jîva—not of Prâna, which animates the body of man—during what

is called Samâdhi and like states.

He who has studied both systems, the Hatha and the Râja Yoga, finds an

enormous difference between the two: one is purely psycho‐physiological,

the other purely psycho‐spiritual. The Tântrists do not seem to go higher

than the six visible and known plexuses, with each of which they connect

the Tattvas; and the great stress they lay on the chief of these, the

Mûladhâra Chakra (the sacral plexus), shows the material and selfish bent

of their efforts towards the acquisition of powers. Their five Breaths and

five Tattvas are chiefly concerned with the prostatic, epigastric,

cardiac, and laryngeal plexuses. Almost ignoring the Âjñâ, they are

positively ignorant of the synthesizing laryngeal plexus. But with the

followers of the old school it is different. We begin with the mastery of

that organ which is situated at the base of the brain, in the pharynx, and

called by Western Anatomists the Pituitary Body. In the series of the

objective cranial organs, corresponding to the subjective Tâttvic

principles, it stands to the Third Eye (Pineal Gland) as Manas stands to

Buddhi; the arousing and awakening of the Third Eye must be performed by

that vascular organ, that insignificant little body, of which, once again,

Physiology knows nothing at all. The one is the Energizer of Will, the

other that of Clairvoyant Perception.

Those who are Physicians, Physiologists, Anatomists, etc., will understand

me better than the rest in the following explanation.

Now, as to the functions of the Pineal Gland, or Conarium, and of the

Pituitary Body, we find no explanations vouchsafed by the standard

authorities. Indeed, on looking through the works of the greatest

specialists, it is curious to observe how much confused ignorance on the

human vital economy, physiological as well as psychological, is openly

confessed. The following is all that can be gleaned from the authorities

upon these two important organs.

(1) The Pineal Gland, or Conarium, is a rounded, oblong body, from three

to four lines long, of a deep reddish grey, connected with the posterior

part of the third ventricle of the brain. It is attached at its base by

two thin medullary cords, which diverge forward to the Optic Thalami.

Remember that the latter are found by the best Physiologists to be the

organs of reception and condensation of the most sensitive and sensorial

incitations from the periphery of the body (according to Occultism, from

the periphery of the Auric Egg, which is our point of communication with

the higher, universal planes). We are further told that the two bands of

the Optic Thalami, which are inflected to meet each other, unite on the

median line, where they become the two peduncles of the Pineal Gland.

(2) The Pituitary Body, or Hypophysis Cerebri, is a small and hard organ,

about six lines broad, three long and three high. It is formed of an

anterior bean‐shaped, and of a posterior and more rounded lobe, which are

uniformly united. Its component parts, we are told, are almost identical

with those of the Pineal Gland; yet not the slightest connection can be

traced between the two centres. To this, however, Occultists take

exception; they _know_ that there is a connection, and this even

anatomically and physically. Dissectors, on the other hand, have to deal

with corpses; and, as they themselves admit, brain‐matter, of all tissues

and organs, collapses and changes form the soonest—in fact, a few minutes

after death. When, then, the pulsating life which expanded the mass of the

brain, filled all its cavities and energized all its organs, vanishes, the

cerebral mass shrinks into a sort of pasty condition, and once open

passages become closed. But the contraction and even interblending of

parts in this process of shrinking, and the subsequent pasty state of the

brain, do not imply that there is no connection between these two organs

before death. In point of fact, as Professor Owen has shown, a connection

as objective as a groove and tube exists in the crania of the human fœtus

and of certain fishes. When a man is in his normal condition, an Adept can

see the golden Aura pulsating in both the centres, like the pulsation of

the heart, which never ceases throughout life. This motion, however, under

the abnormal condition of effort to develop clairvoyant faculties, becomes

intensified, and the Aura takes on a stronger vibratory or swinging

action. The arc of the pulsation of the Pituitary Body mounts upward, more

and more, until, just as when the electric current strikes some solid

object, the current finally strikes the Pineal Gland, and the dormant

organ is awakened and set all glowing with the pure Âkâshic Fire. This is

the psycho‐physiological illustration of two organs on the physical plane,

which are, respectively, the concrete symbols of the metaphysical concepts

called Manas and Buddhi. The latter, in order to become conscious on this

plane, needs the more differentiated fire of Manas; _but once the sixth

sense has awakened the seventh_, the light which radiates from this

seventh sense illumines the fields of infinitude. For a brief space of

time man becomes omniscient; the Past and the Future, Space and Time,

disappear and become for him the Present. If an Adept, he will store the

knowledge he thus gains in his physical memory, and nothing, save the

crime of indulging in Black Magic, can obliterate the remembrance of it.

If only a Chelâ, portions alone of the whole truth will impress themselves

on his memory, and he will have to repeat the process for years, never

allowing one speck of impurity to stain him mentally or physically, before

he becomes a fully initiated Adept.

It may seem strange, almost incomprehensible, that the chief success of

Gupta Vidyâ, or Occult Knowledge, should depend upon such flashes of

clairvoyance, and that the latter should depend in man on two such

insignificant excrescences in his cranial cavity, “two horny _warts_

covered with grey sand (acervulus cerebri),” as expressed by Bichat in his

_Anatomie Descriptive_; yet so it is. But this sand is not to be despised;

nay, in truth, it is only this landmark of the internal, independent

activity of the Conarium that prevents Physiologists from classifying it

with the absolutely useless atrophied organs, the relics of a previous and

now utterly changed anatomy of man during some period of his unknown

evolution. This “sand” is very mysterious, and baffles the inquiry of

every Materialist. In the cavity on the anterior surface of this gland, in

young persons, and in its substance, in people of advanced years, is found

A yellowish substance, semi‐transparent, brilliant and hard, the

diameter of which does not exceed half a line.(834)

Such is the acervulus cerebri.

This brilliant “sand” is the concretion of the gland itself, so say the

Physiologists. Perhaps not, we answer. The Pineal Gland is that which the

Eastern Occultist calls Devâksha, the “Divine Eye.” To this day, it is the

chief organ of spirituality in the human brain, the seat of genius, the

magical Sesame uttered by the purified will of the Mystic, which opens all

the avenues of truth for him who knows how to use it. The Esoteric Science

teaches that Manas, the Mind Ego, does not accomplish its full union with

the child before he is six or seven years of age, before which period,

even according to the canon of the Church and Law, no child is deemed

responsible.(835) Manas becomes a prisoner, one with the body, only at

that age. Now a strange thing was observed in several thousand cases by

the famous German anatomist, Wengel. With a few extremely rare exceptions,

this “sand,” or golden‐coloured concretion, is found only in subjects

after the completion of their seventh year. In the case of fools these

calculi are very few; in congenital idiots they are completely absent.

Morgagni,(836) Grading,(837) and Gum(838) were wise men in their

generation, and are wise men to‐day, since they are the only

Physiologists, so far, who connect the calculi with mind. For, sum up the

facts, that they are absent in young children, in very old people, and in

idiots, and the unavoidable conclusion will be that they must be connected

with mind.

Now since every mineral, vegetable and other atom is only a concretion of

crystallized Spirit, or Âkâsha, the Universal Soul, why, asks Occultism,

should the fact that these concretions of the Pineal Gland, are, upon

analysis, found to be composed of animal matter, phosphate of lime and

carbonate, serve as an objection to the statement that they are the result

of the work of mental electricity upon surrounding matter?

Our seven Chakras are all situated in the head, and it is these Master

Chakras which govern and rule the seven (for there are seven) principal

plexuses in the body, besides the forty‐two minor ones to which Physiology

refuses that name. The fact that no microscope can detect such centres on

the objective plane goes for nothing; no microscope has ever yet detected,

nor ever will, the difference between the motor and sensory nerve‐tubes,

the conductors of all our bodily and psychic sensations; and yet logic

alone would show that such difference exists. And if the term plexus, in

this application, does not represent to the Western mind the idea conveyed

by the term of the Anatomist, then call them Chakras or Padmas, or the

Wheels, the Lotus Heart and Petals. Remember that Physiology, imperfect as

it is, shows septenary groups all over the exterior and interior of the

body; the seven head orifices, the seven “organs” at the base of the

brain, the seven plexuses, the pharyngeal, laryngeal, cavernous, cardiac,

epigastric, prostatic, and sacral, etc.

When the time comes, advanced students will be given the minute details

about the Master Chakras and taught the use of them; till then, less

difficult subjects have to be learned. If asked whether the seven

plexuses, or Tâttvic centres of action, are the centres where the seven

Rays of the Logos vibrate, I answer in the affirmative, simply remarking

that the rays of the Logos vibrate in every atom, for the matter of that.

In these volumes it is almost revealed that the “Sons of Fohat” are the

personified Forces known in a general way as Motion, Sound, Heat, Light,

Cohesion, Electricity or Electric Fluid, and Nerve‐Force or Magnetism.

This truth, however, cannot teach the student to attune and moderate the

Kundalinî of the cosmic plane with the _vital_ Kundalinî, the Electric

Fluid with the Nerve‐Force, and unless he does so, he is sure to kill

himself; for the one travels at the rate of about 90 feet, and the other

at the rate of 115,000 leagues a second. The seven Shaktis respectively

called Para Shakti, Jñâna Shakti, etc., are synonymous with the “Sons of

Fohat,” for they are their female aspects. At the present stage, however,

as their names would only be confusing to the Western student, it is

better to remember the English equivalents as translated above. As each

Force is septenary, their sum is, of course, forty‐nine.

The question now mooted in Science, whether a sound is capable of calling

forth impressions of light and colour in addition to its natural sound

impressions, has been answered by Occult Science ages ago. Every impulse

or vibration of a physical object producing a certain vibration of the

air, that is, causing the collision of physical particles, the sound of

which is capable of affecting the ear, produces at the same time a

corresponding flash of light, which will assume some particular colour.

For, in the realm of hidden Forces, an _audible_ sound is but a subjective

colour; and a perceptible colour, but an _inaudible_ sound; both proceed

from the same potential substance, which Physicists used to call ether,

and now refer to under various other names; but which we call plastic,

through invisible SPACE. This may appear a paradoxical hypothesis, but

facts are there to prove it. Complete deafness, for instance, does not

preclude the possibility of discerning sounds; medical science has several

cases on record which prove that these sounds are received by, and

conveyed to, the patient’s organ of sight, through the mind, under the

form of chromatic impressions. The very fact that the intermediate tones

of the chromatic musical scale were formerly written in colours shows an

unconscious reminiscence of the ancient Occult teaching that colour and

sound are two out of the seven correlative aspects, _on our plane_, of one

and the same thing, _viz._, Nature’s first differentiated Substance.

Here is an example of the relation of colour to vibration well worthy of

the attention of Occultists. Not only Adepts and advanced Chelâs, but also

the lower order of Psychics, such as clairvoyants and psychometrists, can

perceive a psychic Aura of various colours around every individual,

corresponding to the temperament of the person within it. In other words,

the mysterious records within the Auric Egg are not the heirloom of

trained Adepts alone, but sometimes also of natural Psychics. Every human

passion, every thought and quality, is indicated in this Aura by

corresponding colours and shades of colour, and certain of these are

sensed and felt rather than perceived. The best of such Psychics, as shown

by Galton, can also perceive colours produced by the vibrations of musical

instruments, every note suggesting a different colour. As a string

vibrates and gives forth an audible note, so the nerves of the human body

vibrate and thrill in correspondence with various emotions under the

general impulse of the circulating vitality of Prâna, thus producing

undulations in the psychic Aura of the person which result in chromatic

effects.

The human nervous system as a whole, then, may be regarded as an Æolian

Harp, responding to the impact of the vital force, which is no

abstraction, but a dynamic reality, and manifests the subtlest shades of

the individual character in colour phenomena. If these nerve vibrations

are made intense enough and brought into vibratory relation with an astral

element, the result is—sound. How, then, can anyone doubt the relation

between the microcosmic and macrocosmic forces?

And now that I have shown that the Tântric works as explained by Râma

Prâsad, and other Yoga treatises of the same character which have appeared

from time to time in Theosophical journals—for note well that those of

true Râja Yoga are never published—tend to Black Magic and are most

dangerous to take for guides in self‐training, I hope that students will

be on their guard.

For, considering that no two authorities up to the present day agree as to

the real location of the Chakras and Padmas in the body, and, seeing that

the colours of the Tattvas as given are reversed, _e.g._:

(_a_) Âkâsha is made black or colourless, whereas corresponding to Manas,

it is indigo;

(_b_) Vâyu is made blue, whereas, corresponding to the Lower Manas, it is

green;

(_c_) Âpas is made white, whereas, corresponding to the Astral Body, it is

violet, with a silver, moonlike white substratum;

Tejas, red, is the only colour given correctly—from such considerations, I

say, it is easy to see that these disagreements are dangerous blinds.

Further, the practice of the Five Breaths results in deadly injury, both

physiologically and psychically, as already shown. It is indeed that which

it is called, Prânâyâma, or the death of the breath, for it results, for

the practiser, in death—in moral death always, and in physical death very

frequently.

On Exoteric “Blinds” and “the Death of the Soul.”

As a corollary to this, and before going into still more abstruse

teachings, I must redeem the promise already given. I have to illustrate

by tenets you already know, the awful doctrine of personal annihilation.

Banish from your minds all that you have hitherto read in such works as

_Esoteric Buddhism_, and thought you understood, of such hypotheses as the

eighth sphere and the moon, and that man shares a common ancestor with the

ape. Even the details occasionally given out by myself in the

_Theosophist_ and _Lucifer_ were nothing like the whole truth, but only

broad general ideas, hardly touched upon in their details. Certain

passages, however, give out hints, especially my foot‐notes on articles

translated from Éliphas Lévi’s _Letters on Magic_.(839)

Nevertheless, personal immortality is conditional, for there are such

things as “soulless men,” a teaching barely mentioned, although it is

spoken of even in _Isis Unveiled_;(840) and there is an Avîtchi, rightly

called Hell, though it has no connection with, or similitude to, the good

Christian’s Hell, either geographically or psychically. The truth known to

Occultists and Adepts in every age could not be given out to a promiscuous

public; hence, though almost every mystery of Occult Philosophy lies half

concealed in _Isis_ and the two earlier volumes of the present work, I had

no right to amplify or correct the details of others. Readers may now

compare those four volumes and such books as _Esoteric Buddhism_ with the

diagrams and explanations in these Papers, and see for themselves.

Paramâtmâ, the Spiritual Sun, may be thought of as outside the human Auric

Egg, as it is also outside the Macrocosmic or Brahmâ’s Egg. Why? Because,

though every particle and atom are, so to speak, cemented with and soaked

through by this Paramâtmic essence, yet it is wrong to call it a “human”

or even a “universal” Principle, for the term is very likely to give rise

to naught but an erroneous idea of the philosophical and purely

metaphysical concept; it is not a Principle, but the cause of every

Principle, the latter term being applied by Occultists only to its

shadow—the Universal Spirit that ensouls the boundless Kosmos whether

within or beyond Space and Time.

Buddhi serves as a vehicle for that Paramâtmic shadow. This Buddhi is

universal, and so also is the human Âtmâ. Within the Auric Egg is the

macracosmic pentacle of LIFE, Prâna, containing within itself the

pentagram which represents man. The universal pentacle must be pictured

with its point soaring upwards, the sign of White Magic—in the human

pentacle it is the lower limbs which are upward, forming the “Horns of

Satan,” as the Christian Kabbalists call them. This is the symbol of

Matter, that of the personal man, and the recognized pentacle of the Black

Magician. For this reversed pentacle does not stand only for Kâma, the

fourth Principle exoterically, but it also represents physical man, the

animal of flesh with its desires and passions.

Now, mark well, in order to understand that which follows, that Manas may

be pictured as an upper triangle connected with the lower Manas by a thin

line which binds the two together. This is the Antah‐karana, that path or

bridge of communication which serves as a link between the personal being

whose physical brain is under the sway of the lower animal mind, and the

reincarnating Individuality, the spiritual Ego, Manas, Manu, the “Divine

Man.” This thinking Manu alone is that which reincarnates. In truth and in

nature, the two Minds, the spiritual and the physical or animal, are one,

but separate into two at reincarnation. For while that portion of the

Divine which goes to animate the personality, consciously separating

itself, like a dense but pure shadow, from the Divine Ego,(841) wedges

itself into the brain and senses(842) of the fœtus, at the completion of

its seventh month, the Higher Manas does not unite itself with the child

before the completion of the first seven years of its life. This detached

essence, or rather the reflection or shadow of the Higher Manas, becomes,

as the child grows, a distinct thinking Principle in man, its chief agent

being the physical brain. No wonder the Materialists, who perceive only

_this_ “rational soul,” or mind, will not disconnect it with the brain and

matter. But Occult Philosophy has ages ago solved the problem of mind, and

discovered the duality of Manas. The Divine Ego tends with its point

upwards towards Buddhi, and the human Ego gravitates downwards, immersed

in Matter, connected with its higher, subjective half only by the

Antahkarana. As its derivation suggests, this is the only connecting link

during life between the two minds—the higher consciousness of the Ego and

the human intelligence of the lower mind.

To understand this abstruse metaphysical doctrine fully and correctly, one

has to be thoroughly impressed with an idea, which I have in vain

endeavoured to impart to Theosophists at large, namely, the great

axiomatic truth that the only eternal and living Reality is that which the

Hindus call Paramâtmâ and Parabrahman. This is the one ever‐existing Root

Essence, immutable and unknowable to our physical senses, but manifest and

clearly perceptible to our spiritual natures. Once imbued with that basic

idea and the further conception that if It is omnipresent, universal and

eternal, like abstract Space itself, we must have emanated from It and we

must, some day, return into It, and all the rest becomes easy.

If so, then it stands to reason that life and death, good and evil, past

and future, are all empty words, or at best, figures of speech. If the

objective Universe itself is but a passing illusion on account of its

beginning and finitude, then both life and death must also be aspects and

illusions. They are changes of state, in fact, and no more. Real life is

in the spiritual consciousness of that life, _in a conscious existence in

Spirit, not Matter_; and real death is the limited perception of life, the

impossibility of sensing conscious or even individual existence outside of

form, or at least, of some form of Matter. Those who sincerely reject the

possibility of conscious life divorced from Matter and brain‐substance,

are _dead units_. The words of Paul, an Initiate, become comprehensible.

“Ye are dead, and your _life_ is hid with Christ in God;” which is to say:

Ye are personally dead matter, unconscious of its own spiritual essence,

and your real life is hid with your Divine Ego (Christos) in, or merged

with, God (Âtmâ); now has it departed from you, ye soulless people.

Speaking on Esoteric lines, every irrevocably materialistic person is a

_dead Man_, a living automaton, in spite of his being endowed with great

brain power. Listen to what Aryasangha says, stating the same fact:

That which is neither Spirit nor Matter, neither Light nor

Darkness, but is verily the container and root of these, that thou

art. The Root projects at every Dawn its shadow on ITSELF, and

that shadow thou callest Light and Life, O poor dead Form. (This)

Life‐Light streameth downward through the stairway of the seven

worlds, the stairs of which each step become denser and darker. It

is of this seven‐times‐seven scale that thou art the faithful

climber and mirror, O little man! Thou art this, but thou knowest

it not.

This is the first lesson to learn. The second is to study well the

Principles of both the Kosmos and ourselves, dividing the group into the

permanent and the impermanent, the higher and immortal and the lower and

mortal, for thus only can we master and guide, first the lower cosmic and

personal, then the higher cosmic and impersonal.

Once we can do that we have secured our immortality. But some may say:

“How few are those who can do so. All such are great Adepts, and none can

reach such Adeptship in one short life.” Agreed; but there is an

alternative. “If the Sun thou canst not be, then be the humble Planet,”

says the _Book of the Golden Precepts_. And if even that is beyond our

reach, then let us at least endeavour to keep within the ray of some

lesser star, so that its silvery light may penetrate the murky darkness,

through which the stony path of life trends onward; for without this

divine radiance we risk losing more than we imagine.

With regard, then, to “soulless” men, and the “second death” of the

“Soul,” mentioned in the second volume of _Isis Unveiled_, you will there

find that I have spoken of such soulless people, and even of Avîtchi,

though I leave the latter unnamed. Read from the last paragraph on page

367 to the end of the first paragraph on page 370, and then collate what

is there said with what I have now to say.

The higher triad, Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas, may be recognized from the first

lines of the quotation from the Egyptian papyrus. In the _Ritual_, now the

_Book of the Dead_, the purified Soul, the dual Manas, appears as “the

victim of the dark influence of the Dragon Apophis,” the physical

personality of Kâmarûpic man, with his passions. “If it has attained the

final knowledge of the heavenly and infernal Mysteries, the Gnosis”—the

divine and the terrestrial Mysteries, of White and Black Magic—then the

defunct personality “will triumph over its enemy”—death. This alludes to

the case of a complete re‐union, at the end of earth life, of the lower

Manas, full of “the harvest of life,” with its Ego. But if Apophis

conquers the Soul, then it “cannot escape a _second_ death.”

These few lines from a papyrus, many thousands of years old, contain a

whole revelation, known, in those days, only to the Hierophants and the

Initiates. The “harvest of life” consists of the finest spiritual

thoughts, of the memory of the noblest and most unselfish deeds of the

personality, and the constant presence during its bliss after death of all

those it loved with divine, spiritual devotion.(843) Remember the

teaching: The Human Soul, lower Manas, is the _only_ and direct mediator

between the personality and the Divine Ego. That which goes to make up on

this earth the _personality_ miscalled _individuality_ by the majority, is

the sum of all its mental, physical, and spiritual characteristics, which,

being impressed on the Human Soul, produces the _man_. Now, of all these

characteristics it is the purified thoughts alone which can be impressed

on the higher, immortal Ego. This is done by the Human Soul merging again,

in its essence, into its parent source, commingling with its Divine Ego

during life, and re‐uniting itself entirely with it after the death of the

physical man. Therefore, unless Kâma‐Manas transmits to Buddhi‐Manas such

personal ideations, and such consciousness of its “I” as can be

assimilated by the Divine Ego, nothing of that “I” or personality can

survive in the Eternal. Only that which is worthy of the immortal God

within us, and identical in its nature with the divine quintessence, can

survive; for in this case it is its own, the Divine Ego’s, “shadows” or

emanations which ascend to it and are indrawn by it into itself again, to

become once more part of its own Essence. No noble thought, no grand

aspiration, desire, or divine immortal love, can come into the brain of

the man of clay and settle there, except as a direct emanation from the

Higher to, and through, the lower Ego; all the rest, intellectual as it

may seem, proceeds from the “shadow,” the _lower mind_, in its association

and commingling with Kâma, and passes away and disappears for ever. But

the mental and spiritual ideations of the personal “I” return to it, as

parts of the Ego’s Essence, and can never fade out. Thus of the

personality that was, only its spiritual experiences, the memory of all

that is good and noble, with the consciousness of its “I” blended with

that of all the other personal “I’s” that preceded it, survive and become

immortal. There is no distinct or separate immortality for the men of

earth outside of the Ego which informed them. That Higher Ego is the sole

bearer of all its _alter egos_ on earth and their sole representative in

the mental state called Devachan. As the last embodied personality,

however, has a right to its own special state of bliss, unalloyed and free

from the memories of all others, it is the _last life only which is fully

and realistically vivid_. Devachan is often compared to the happiest day

in a series of many thousands of other “days” in the life of a person. The

intensity of its happiness makes the man entirely forget all others, his

past becoming obliterated.

This is what we call the Devachanic state, the reward of the personality,

and it is on this old teaching that the hazy Christian notion of Paradise

was built, borrowed with many other things from the Egyptian Mysteries,

wherein the doctrine was enacted. And this is the meaning of the passage

quoted in _Isis_. The Soul has triumphed over Apophis, the Dragon of

Flesh. Henceforth, the personality will live in eternity, in its highest

and noblest elements, the memory of its past deeds, while the

“characteristics” of the “Dragon” will be fading out in Kâma Loka. If the

question be asked, “How live in eternity, when Devachan lasts but from

1,000 to 2,000 years,” the answer is: “In the same way as the recollection

of each day which is worth remembering lives in the memory of each one of

us.” For the sake of an example, the days passed in one personal life may

be taken as an illustration of each personal life, and this or that person

may stand for the Divine Ego.

To obtain the key which will open the door of many a psychological mystery

it is sufficient to understand and remember that which precedes and that

which follows. Many a Spiritualist has felt terribly indignant on being

told that personal immortality was _conditional_; and yet such is the

philosophical and logical fact. Much has been said already on the subject,

but no one to this day seems to have fully understood the doctrine.

Moreover, it is not enough to know that such a fact is said to exist. All

Occultist, or he who would become one, must know _why_ it is so; for

having learned and comprehended the _raison d’étre_, it becomes easier to

set others right in their erroneous speculations, and, most important of

all, it affords one an opportunity, without saying too much, to teach

other people to avoid a calamity which, sad to say, occurs in our age

almost daily. This calamity will now be explained at length.

One must know little indeed of the Eastern modes of expression to fail to

see in the passage quoted from the _Book of the Dead_, and the pages of

_Isis_, (_a_) an allegory for the uninitiated, containing our Esoteric

teaching; and (_b_) that the two terms “second death” and “Soul” are, in

one sense, blinds. “Soul” refers indifferently to Buddhi‐Manas and Kâma‐

Manas. As to the term “second death,” the qualification “second” applies

to several deaths which have to be undergone by the “Principles” during

their incarnation, Occultists alone understanding fully the sense in which

such a statement is made. For we have (1) the death of the Body; (2) the

death of the Animal Soul in Kâma Loka; (3) the death of the Astral Linga

Sharîra, following that of the Body; (4) the metaphysical death of the

Higher Ego, the _immortal_, every time it “falls into matter,” or

incarnates in a new personality. The Animal Soul, or lower Manas, that

shadow of the Divine Ego which separates from it to inform the

personality, cannot by any possible means _escape death_ in Kâma Loka, at

any rate that portion of this reflection which remains as a terrestrial

residue and cannot be impressed on the Ego. Thus the chief and most

important secret with regard to that “second death,” in the Esoteric

teaching, was and is to this day the terrible possibility of the _death_

of the Soul, that is, its severance from the Ego on earth during a

person’s lifetime. This is a _real_ death (though with chances of

resurrection), which shows no traces in a person and yet leaves him

morally a living corpse. It is difficult to see why this teaching should

have been preserved until now with such secrecy, when, by spreading it

among people, at any rate among those who believe in reincarnation, so

much good might be done. But so it was, and I had no right to question the

wisdom of the prohibition, but have given it hitherto, as it was given to

myself, _under pledge_ not to reveal it to the world at large. But now I

have permission to give it to all, revealing its tenets first to the

Esotericists, and then when they have assimilated them thoroughly it will

be their duty to teach others this special tenet of the “second death,”

and warn all the Theosophists of its dangers.

To make the teaching clearer, I shall seemingly have to go over old

ground; in reality, however, it is given out with new light and new

details. I have tried to hint at it in the _Theosophist_ as I have done in

_Isis_, but have failed to make myself understood. I will now explain it,

point by point.

The Philosophical Rationale of the Tenet.

(1) Imagine, for illustration’s sake, the one homogeneous, absolute and

omnipresent Essence, above the upper step of the “stair of the seven

planes of worlds,” ready to start on its evolutionary journey. As its

correlating reflection gradually descends, it differentiates and

transforms into subjective, and finally into objective matter. Let us call

it at its north pole Absolute Light; at its south pole, which to us would

be the fourth or middle step, or plane, counting either way, we know it

Esoterically as the One and Universal Life. Now mark the difference.

Above, LIGHT; below, _Life_. The former is ever immutable, the latter

manifests under the aspects of countless differentiations. According to

the Occult law, all potentialities included in the higher become

differentiated reflections in the lower; and according to the same law,

nothing which is differentiated can be blended with the homogeneous.

Again, nothing can endure of that which lives and breathes and has its

being in the seething waves of the world, or plane of differentiation.

Thus Buddhi and Manas being both primordial rays of the One Flame, the

former the vehicle, the upâdhi or vâhana, of the one eternal Essence, the

latter the vehicle of Mahat or Divine Ideation (Mahâ‐Buddhi in the

_Purânas_), the Universal Intelligent Soul—neither of them, as such, can

become extinct or be annihilated, either in essence or consciousness. But

the physical personality with its Linga Sharîra, and the animal soul, with

its Kâma,(844) can and do become so. They are born in the realm of

illusion, and must vanish like a fleecy cloud from the blue and eternal

sky.

He who has read these volumes with any degree of attention, must know the

origin of the human Egos, called Monads, generically, and what they were

before they were forced to incarnate in the human animal. The divine

beings whom Karma led to act in the drama of Manvantaric life, are

entities from higher and earlier worlds and planets, whose Karma had not

been exhausted when their world went into Pralaya. Such is the teaching;

but whether it is so or not, the Higher Egos are—as compared to such forms

of transitory, terrestrial mud as ourselves—Divine Beings, Gods, immortal

throughout the Mahâmanvantara, or the 311,040,000,000,000 years during

which the Age of Brahmâ lasts. And as the Divine Egos, in order to re‐

become the One Essence, or be indrawn again into the AUM, have to purify

themselves in the fire of suffering and individual experience, so also

have the terrestrial Egos, the personalities, to do likewise, if they

would partake of the immortality of the Higher Egos. This they can achieve

by crushing in themselves all that benefits only the lower personal nature

of their “selves” and by aspiring to transfuse their thinking Kâmic

Principle into that of the Higher Ego. We (_i.e._, our personalities)

become immortal by the mere fact of our thinking moral nature being

grafted on our Divine Triune Monad, Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas, the three in one

and one in three (aspects). For the Monad manifested on earth by the

incarnating Ego is that which is called the Tree of Life Eternal, that can

only be approached by eating the fruit of knowledge, the Knowledge of Good

and Evil, or of GNOSIS, Divine Wisdom.

In the Esoteric teachings, this Ego is the fifth Principle in man. But the

student who has read and understood the first two Papers, knows something

more. He is aware that the seventh is not a human, but a universal

Principle in which man participates; but so does equally every physical

and subjective atom, and also every blade of grass and everything that

lives or is in Space, whether it be sensible of it or not. He knows,

moreover, that if man is more closely connected with it, and assimilates

it with a hundredfold more power, it is simply because he is endowed with

the highest consciousness on this earth; that man, in short, may become a

Spirit, a Deva, or a God, in his next transformation, whereas neither a

stone nor a vegetable, nor an animal, can do so before they become men in

their proper turn.

(2) Now what are the functions of Buddhi? On this plane it has none,

unless it is united with Manas, the conscious Ego. Buddhi stands to the

divine Root Essence in the same relation as Mûlaprakriti to Parabrahman,

in the Vedânta School; or as Alaya the Universal Soul to the One Eternal

Spirit, or that which is beyond Spirit. It is its human vehicle, one

remove from that Absolute, which can have no relation whatever to the

finite and the conditioned.

(3) What, again, is Manas and its functions? In its purely metaphysical

aspect, Manas, though one remove on the downward plane from Buddhi, is

still so immeasurably higher than the physical man, that it cannot enter

into direct relation with the personality, except through its reflection,

the lower mind. Manas is _Spiritual Self‐Consciousness_ in itself, and

Divine Consciousness when united with Buddhi, which is the true “producer”

of that “production” (vikâra), or Self‐Consciousness, through Mahat.

Buddhi‐Manas, therefore, is entirety unfit to manifest during its

periodical incarnations, except through the human mind or lower Manas.

Both are linked together and are inseparable, and can have as little to do

with the lower Tanmâtras,(845) or rudimentary atoms, as the homogeneous

with the heterogeneous. It is, therefore, the task of the lower Manas, or

thinking personality, if it would blend itself with its God, the Divine

Ego, to dissipate and paralyze the Tanmâtras, or properties of the

material form. Therefore, Manas is shown double, as the Ego and Mind of

Man. It is Kâma‐Manas, or the lower Ego, which, deluded into a notion of

independent existence, as the “producer” in its turn and the sovereign of

the five Tanmâtras, becomes _Ego‐ism_, the selfish Self, in which case it

has to be considered as Mahâbhûtic and finite, in the sense of its being

connected with Ahankâra, the personal “I‐creating” faculty. Hence

Manas has to be regarded as eternal and non‐eternal; eternal in

its atomic nature (paramanu rûpa), as eternal substance (dravya),

finite (kârya rûpa) when linked as a duad with Kâma (animal desire

or human _egoistic_ volition), a lower production, in short.(846)

While, therefore, the INDIVIDUAL EGO, owing to its essence and nature, is

immortal throughout eternity, with a form (rûpa), which prevails during

the whole life cycles of the Fourth Round, its _Sosie_, or resemblance,

the personal Ego, has to win its immortality.

(4) Antahkarana is the name of that imaginary bridge, the _path_ which

lies between the Divine and the human Egos, for they are _Egos_, during

human life, to re‐become _one_ Ego in Devachan or Nirvâna. This may seem

difficult to understand, but in reality, with the help of a familiar,

though fanciful illustration, it becomes quite simple. Let us figure to

ourselves a bright lamp in the middle of a room, casting its light upon

the wall. Let the lamp represent the Divine Ego, and the light thrown on

the wall the lower Manas, and let the wall stand for the body. That

portion of the atmosphere which transmits the ray from the lamp to the

wall, will then represent the Antahkarana. We must further suppose that

the light thus cast is endowed with reason and intelligence, and

possesses, moreover, the faculty of dissipating all the evil shadows which

pass across the wall, and of attracting all brightnesses to itself,

receiving their indelible impressions. Now, it is in the power of the

human Ego to chase away the shadows, or sins, and multiply the

brightnesses, or good deeds, which make these impressions, and thus

through Antahkarana, ensure its own permanent connection, and its final

re‐union, with the Divine Ego. Remember that the latter cannot take place

while there remains a single taint of the terrestrial, or of matter, in

the purity of that light. On the other hand, the connection cannot be

entirely ruptured, and final re‐union prevented, so long as there remains

one spiritual deed, or potentiality to serve as a thread of union; but the

moment this last spark is extinguished, and the last potentiality

exhausted, then comes the severance. In an Eastern parable, the Divine Ego

is likened to the Master who sends out his labourers to till the ground

and to gather in the harvest, and who is content to keep the field so long

as it can yield even the smallest return. But when the ground becomes

absolutely sterile, not only is it abandoned, but the labourer also (the

lower Manas) perishes.

On the other hand, however, still using our simile, when the light thrown

on the wall, or the rational human Ego, reaches the point of actual

spiritual exhaustion, the Antahkarana disappears, no more light is

transmitted, and the lamp becomes non‐existent to the ray. The light which

has been absorbed gradually disappears and “Soul eclipse” occurs; the

being lives on earth and then passes into Kâma Loka as a mere surviving

congeries of material qualities; it can never pass onwards towards

Devachan, but is reborn immediately, a human animal and scourge.

This simile, however fantastic, will help us to seize the correct idea.

Save through the blending of the moral nature with the Divine Ego, there

is no immortality for the personal Ego. It is only the most spiritual

emanations of the personal Human Soul which survive. Having, during a

lifetime, been imbued with the notion and feeling of the “I am I” of its

personality, the Human Soul, the bearer of the very essence of the Karmic

deeds of the physical man, becomes, after the death of the latter, part

and parcel of the Divine Flame, the Ego. It becomes immortal through the

mere fact that it is now strongly grafted on the Monad, which is the “Tree

of Life Eternal.”

And now we must speak of the tenet of the “second death.” What happens to

the Kâmic Human Soul, which is always that of a debased and wicked man or

of a soulless person? This mystery will now be explained.

The personal Soul in this case, _viz._, in that of one who has never had a

thought not concerned with the animal self, having nothing to transmit to

the Higher, or to add to the sum of the experiences gleaned from past

incarnations which its memory is to preserve throughout eternity—this

personal Soul becomes separated from the Ego. It can graft nothing of self

on that eternal trunk whose sap throws out millions of personalities, like

leaves from its branches, leaves which wither, die and fall at the end of

their season. These personalities bud, blossom forth and expire, some

without leaving a trace behind, others after commingling their own life

with that of the parent stem. It is the Souls of the former class that are

doomed to annihilation, or Avîtchi, a state so badly understood, and still

worse described by some Theosophical writers, but which is not only

located on our earth, but is in fact this very earth itself.

Thus we see that Antahkarana has been destroyed before the lower man has

had an opportunity of assimilating the Higher and becoming at one with it;

and therefore the Kâmic “Soul” becomes a separate entity, to live

henceforth, for a short or long period according to its Karma, as a

“soulless” creature.

But before I elaborate this question, I must explain more clearly the

meaning and functions of the Antahkarana. As already said, it may be

represented as a narrow bridge connecting the Higher and the lower Manas.

If you look at the Glossary of the _Voice of the Silence_, pp. 88 and 89,

you will find that it is a projection of the lower Manas, or, rather, the

link between the latter and the Higher Ego, or, between the Human and the

Divine or Spiritual Soul.(847)

At death it is destroyed as a path, or medium of communication,

and its remains survive as Kâma Rûpa,

the “shell.” It is this which the Spiritualists see sometimes appearing in

the séance rooms as materialized “forms,” which they foolishly mistake for

the “Spirits of the Departed.”(848) So far is this from being the case,

that in dreams, though Antahkarana is there, the personality is only half

awake; therefore, Antahkarana is said to be _drunk_ or _insane_ during our

normal sleeping state. If such is the case during the periodical death, or

sleep, of the living body, one may judge what the consciousness of

Antahkarana is like when it has been transformed after the “eternal sleep”

into Kâma Rûpa.

But to return. In order not to confuse the mind of the Western student

with the abstruse difficulties of Indian metaphysics, let him view the

lower Manas, or Mind, as the personal Ego during the waking state, and as

Antahkarana only during those moments when it aspires towards its Higher

Ego, and thus becomes the medium of communication between the two. It is

for this reason that it is called the “Path.” Now, when a limb or organ

belonging to the physical organism is left in disuse, it becomes weak and

finally atrophies. So also is it with mental faculties; and hence the

atrophy of the lower mind‐function, called Antahkarana, becomes

comprehensible in both completely materialistic and depraved natures.

According to Esoteric Philosophy, however, the teaching is as follows:

Seeing that the faculty and function of Antahkarana is as necessary as the

medium of the ear for hearing, or that of the eye for seeing; then so long

as the feeling of Ahankâra, that is, of the personal “I” or selfishness,

is not entirely crushed out in a man, and the lower mind not entirely

merged into and become one with the Higher Buddhi‐Manas, it stands to

reason that to destroy Antahkarana is like destroying a bridge over an

impassable chasm; _the traveller can never reach the goal on the other

shore_. And here lies the difference between the exoteric and Esoteric

teaching. The former makes the Vedânta state that so long as Mind (the

lower) clings through Antahkarana to Spirit (Buddhi‐Manas) it is

impossible for it to acquire true Spiritual Wisdom, Gnyâna, and that this

can only be attained by seeking to come _en rapport_ with the Universal

Soul (Âtmâ); that, in fact, it is by ignoring the Higher Mind altogether

that one reaches Râja Yoga. We say it is not so. No single rung of the

ladder leading to knowledge can be skipped. No personality can ever reach

or bring itself into communication with Âtmâ, except through Buddhi‐Manas;

to try and become a Jîvanmukta or a Mahâtmâ, before one has become an

Adept or even a Narjol (a sinless man) is like trying to reach Ceylon from

India without crossing the sea. Therefore we are told that if we destroy

Antahkarana before the personal is absolutely under the control of the

impersonal Ego, we risk to lose the latter and be severed for ever from

it, unless indeed we hasten to re‐establish the communication by a supreme

and final effort.

It is only when we are indissolubly linked with the essence of the Divine

Mind, that we have to destroy Antahkarana.

Like as a solitary warrior pursued by an army, seeks refuge in a

stronghold; to cut himself off from the enemy, he first destroys

the drawbridge, and then only commences to destroy the pursuer; so

must the Srotâpatti act before he slays Antahkarana.

Or as an Occult axiom has it:

_The Unit becomes Three, and Three generate Four. It is for the

latter [the Quaternary] to rebecome Three, and for the Divine

Three to expand into the Absolute One._

Monads, which become Duads on the differentiated plane, to develop into

Triads during the cycle of incarnations, even when incarnated know neither

space nor time, but are diffused through the lower Principles of the

Quaternary, being omnipresent and omniscient in their nature. But this

omniscience is innate, and can manifest its reflected light only through

that which is at least semi‐terrestrial or material; even as the physical

brain which, in its turn, is the vehicle of the lower Manas enthroned in

Kâma Rûpa. And it is this which is gradually annihilated in cases of

“second death.”

But such annihilation—which is in reality the absence of the slightest

trace of the doomed Soul from the eternal MEMORY, and therefore signifies

annihilation in eternity—does not mean simply discontinuation of human

life on earth, for earth is Avîtchi, and the worst Avîtchi possible.

Expelled for ever from the consciousness of the Individuality, the

reincarnating Ego, the physical atoms and psychic vibrations of the now

separate personality are immediately reincarnated on the same earth, only

in a lower and still more abject creature, a human being only in form,

doomed to Karmic torments during the whole of its new life. Moreover, if

it persists in its criminal or debauched course, it will suffer a long

series of immediate reincarnations.

Here two questions present themselves: (1) What becomes of the Higher Ego

in such cases? (2) What kind of an animal is a human creature born

soulless?

Before answering these two very natural queries, I have to draw the

attention of all of you who are born in Christian countries to the fact

that the romance of the vicarious atonement and the mission of Jesus, as

it now stands, was drawn or borrowed by some too liberal Initiates from

the mysterious and weird tenet of the earthly experience of the

reincarnating Ego. The latter is indeed the sacrificial victim of, and

through, its own Karma in previous Manvantaras, which takes upon itself

voluntarily the duty of saving what would be otherwise soulless men or

personalities. Eastern truth is thus more philosophical and logical than

Western fiction. The Christos, or Buddhi‐Manas of each man is not quite an

innocent and sinless God, though in one sense it is the “Father,” being of

the same essence with the Universal Spirit, and at the same time the

“Son,” for Manas is the second remove from the “Father.” By incarnation

the Divine Son makes itself responsible for the sins of all the

personalities which it will inform. This it can do only through its proxy

or reflection, the lower Manas. The only case in which the Divine Ego can

escape individual penalty and responsibility as a guiding Principle, is

when it has to break off from the personality, because matter, with its

psychic and astral vibrations, is then, by the very intensity of its

combinations, placed beyond the control of the Ego. Apophis, the Dragon,

having become the conqueror, the reincarnating Manas, separating itself

gradually from its tabernacle, breaks finally asunder from the psycho‐

animal Soul.

Thus, in answer to the first question, I say:

(1) The Divine Ego does one of two things: either (_a_) it recommences

immediately under its own Karmic impulses a fresh series of incarnations;

or (_b_) it seeks and finds refuge in the bosom of the Mother, Alaya, the

Universal Soul, of which the Manvantaric aspect is Mahat. Freed from the

life‐impressions of the personality, it merges into a kind of Nirvânic

interlude, wherein there can be nothing but the eternal Present, which

absorbs the Past and Future. Bereft of the “labourer,” both field and

harvest now being lost, the Master, in the infinitude of his thought,

naturally preserves no recollection of the finite and evanescent illusion

which had been his last personality. And then, indeed, is the latter

annihilated.

(2) The future of the lower Manas is more terrible, and still more

terrible to humanity than to the now animal man. It sometimes happens that

after the separation the exhausted Soul, now become supremely animal,

fades out in Kâma Loka, as do all other animal souls. But seeing that the

more material is the human mind, the longer it lasts, even in the

intermediate stage, it frequently happens that after the present life of

the soulless man is ended, he is again and again reincarnated into new

personalities, each one more abject than the other. The impulse of _animal

life_ is too strong; it cannot wear itself out in one or two lives only.

In rarer cases, however, when the lower Manas is doomed to exhaust itself

by _starvation_; when there is no longer hope that even a remnant of a

lower light will, owing to favourable conditions—say, even a short period

of spiritual aspiration and repentance—attract back to itself its Parent

Ego, and Karma leads the Higher Ego back to new incarnations, then

something far more dreadful may happen. The Kâma‐Mânasic spook may become

that which is called in Occultism the “Dweller on the Threshold.” This

Dweller is not like that which is described so graphically in _Zanoni_,

but an actual fact in Nature and not a fiction in romance, however

beautiful the latter may be. Bulwer, however, must have got the idea from

some Eastern Initiate. This Dweller, led by affinity and attraction,

forces itself into the astral current, and through the Auric Envelope, of

the new tabernacle inhabited by the Parent Ego, and declares war to the

lower light which has replaced it. This, of course, can only happen in the

case of the moral weakness of the personality so obsessed. No one strong

in virtue, and righteous in his walk of life, can risk or dread any such

thing; but only those depraved in heart. Robert Louis Stevenson had a

glimpse of a true vision indeed when he wrote his _Strange Case of Dr.

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. His story is a true allegory. Every Chelâ will

recognise in it a substratum of truth, and in Mr. Hyde a Dweller, an

obsessor of the personality, the tabernacle of the Parent Spirit.

“This is a nightmare tale!” I was often told by one, now no more in our

ranks, who had a most pronounced “Dweller,” a “Mr. Hyde,” as an almost

constant companion. “How can such a process take place without one’s

knowledge?” It can and does so happen, and I have almost described it once

before in the _Theosophist_.

The Soul, the lower Mind, becomes as a half animal principle

almost paralyzed with daily vice, and grows gradually unconscious

of its subjective half, the Lord, one of the mighty Host; [and] in

proportion to the rapid sensuous development of the brain and

nerves, sooner or later, it (the personal Soul) finally loses

sight of its divine mission on earth.

Truly,

Like the vampire, the brain feeds and lives and grows in strength

at the expense of its spiritual parent ... and the personal half‐

unconscious Soul becomes senseless, beyond hope of redemption. It

is powerless to discern the voice of its God. It aims but at the

development and fuller comprehension of natural, earthly life; and

thus can discover but the mysteries of physical nature.... It

begins by becoming virtually dead, during the life of the body;

and ends by dying completely—that is, by being _annihilated as a

complete immortal Soul_. Such a catastrophe may often happen long

years before one’s physical death: “We elbow soulless men and

women at every step in life.” And when death arrives ... there is

no more a Soul (the reincarnating Spiritual Ego) to liberate ...

for _it has fled years before_.

_Result_: Bereft of its guiding Principles, but strengthened by the

material elements, Kâma‐Manas, from being a “derived light” now becomes an

independent Entity. After thus suffering itself to sink lower and lower on

the animal plane, when the hour strikes for its earthly body to die, one

of two things happens: either Kâma‐Manas is immediately reborn in Myalba,

the state of Avîtchi on earth,(849) or, if it become too strong in

evil—“immortal in Satan” is the Occult expression—it is sometimes allowed,

for Karmic purposes, to remain in an active state of Avîtchi in the

terrestrial Aura. Then through despair and loss of all hope it becomes

like the mythical “devil” in its endless wickedness; it continues in its

elements, which are imbued through and through with the essence of Matter;

for evil is coeval with Matter rent asunder from Spirit. And when its

Higher Ego has once more reincarnated, evolving a new reflection, or Kâma‐

Manas, the doomed lower Ego, like a Frankenstein’s monster, will ever feel

attracted to its Father, who repudiates his son, and will become a regular

“Dweller on the Threshold” of terrestrial life. I gave the outlines of the

Occult doctrine in the _Theosophist_ of October, 1881, and November, 1882,

but could not go into details, and therefore got very much embarrassed

when called upon to explain. Yet I have written there plainly enough about

“useless drones,” those who refuse to become co‐workers with Nature and

who perish by millions during the Manvantaric life‐cycle; those, as in the

case in hand, who prefer to be ever suffering in Avîtchi under Karmic law

rather than give up their lives “in evil,” and finally, those who are co‐

workers with Nature for destruction. These are thoroughly wicked and

depraved men, but yet as highly intellectual and acutely _spiritual_ for

evil, as those who are spiritual for good.

The (lower) Egos of these may escape the law of final destruction

or annihilation for ages to come.

Thus we find two kinds of soulless beings on earth: those who have lost

their Higher Ego in the present incarnation, and those who are born

soulless, having been severed from their Spiritual Soul in the preceding

birth. The former are candidates for Avîtchi; the latter are “Mr. Hydes,”

whether _in_ or _out_ of human bodies, whether incarnated or hanging about

as invisible though potent ghouls. In such men, cunning develops to an

enormous degree, and no one except those who are familiar with the

doctrine would suspect them of being soulless, for neither Religion nor

Science has the least suspicion that such facts actually exist in Nature.

There is, however, still hope for a person who has lost his Higher Soul

through his vices, while he is yet in the body. He may be still redeemed

and made to turn on his material nature. For either an intense feeling of

repentance, or one single earnest appeal to the Ego that has fled, or best

of all, an active effort to amend one’s ways, may bring the Higher Ego

back again. The thread of connection is not altogether broken, though the

Ego is now beyond forcible reach, for “Antahkarana is destroyed,” and the

personal Entity has one foot already in Myalba;(850) yet it is not

entirely beyond hearing a strong spiritual appeal. There is another

statement made in _Isis Unveiled_(851) on this subject. It is said that

this terrible death may be sometimes avoided by the knowledge of the

mysterious NAME, the “WORD.”(852) What this “WORD,” which is not a “Word”

but a _Sound_, is, you all know. Its potency lies in the rhythm or the

accent. This means simply that even a bad person may, by the study of the

Sacred Science, be redeemed and stopped on the path of destruction. But

unless he is in thorough union with his Higher Ego, he may repeat it,

parrot‐like, ten thousand times a day, and the “Word” will not help him.

On the contrary, if not entirely at one with his Higher Triad, it may

produce quite the reverse of a beneficent effect, the Brothers of the

Shadow using it very often for malicious objects; in which case it awakens

and stirs up naught but the evil, material elements of Nature. But if

one’s nature is good, and sincerely strives towards the HIGHER SELF, which

is that Aum, through one’s Higher Ego, which is its third letter, and

Buddhi the second, there is no attack of the Dragon Apophis which it will

not repel. From those to whom much is given much is expected. He who

knocks at the door of the Sanctuary in full knowledge of its sacredness,

and after obtaining admission, departs from the threshold, or turns round

and says, “Oh, there’s nothing in it!” and thus loses his chance of

learning the whole truth—can but await his Karma.

Such are then the Esoteric explanations of that which has perplexed so

many who have found what they thought contradictions in various

Theosophical writings, including “Fragments of Occult Truth,” in vols.

iii. and iv. of _The Theosophist_, etc. Before finally dismissing the

subject, I must add a caution, which pray keep well in mind. It will be

very natural for those of you who are Esotericists to hope that none of

you belong so far to the soulless portion of mankind, and that you can

feel quite easy about Avîtchi, even as the good citizen is about the penal

laws. Though not, perhaps, exactly on the Path as yet, you are skirting

its border, and many of you in the right direction. Between such venal

faults as are inevitable under our social environment, and the blasting

wickedness described in the Editor’s note on Éliphas Lévi’s “Satan,”(853)

there is an abyss. If not become “immortal in good by identification with

(our) God,” or AUM, Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas, we have surely not made ourselves

“immortal in evil” by coalescing with Satan, the lower Self. You forget,

however, that everything must have a beginning; that the first step on a

slippery mountain slope is the necessary antecedent to one’s falling

precipitately to the bottom and into the arms of death. Be it far from me

the suspicion that any of the Esoteric students have reached to any

considerable point down the plane of spiritual descent. All the same I

warn you to avoid taking the first step. You may not reach the bottom in

this life or the next, but you may now generate causes which will insure

your spiritual destruction in your third, fourth, fifth, or even some

subsequent birth. In the great Indian epic you may read how a mother whose

whole family of warrior sons were slaughtered in battle, complained to

Krishna that though she had the spiritual vision to enable her to look

back fifty incarnations, yet she could see no sin of hers that could have

begotten so dreadful a Karma; and Krishna answered her: “If thou could’st

look back to thy fifty‐first anterior birth, as I can, thou would’st see

thyself killing in wanton cruelty the same number of ants as that of the

sons thou hast now lost.” This, of course, is only a poetical

exaggeration; yet it is a striking image to show how great results come

from apparently trifling causes.

Good and evil are relative, and are intensified or lessened according to

the conditions by which man is surrounded. One who belongs to that which

we call the “useless portion of mankind,” that is to say, the lay

majority, is in many cases irresponsible. Crimes committed in Avidyâ, or

ignorance, involve physical but not moral responsibilities or Karma. Take,

for example, the case of idiots, children, savages, and people who know no

better. But the case of each who is pledged to the HIGHER SELF is quite

another matter. _You cannot invoke this Divine Witness with impunity_, and

once that you have put yourselves under its tutelage, you have asked the

Radiant Light to shine and search through all the dark corners of your

being; consciously you have invoked the Divine Justice of Karma to take

note of your motive, to scrutinize your actions, and to enter up all in

your account. The step is irrevocable as that of the infant taking birth.

Never again can you force yourselves back into the matrix of Avidyâ and

irresponsibility. Though you flee to the uttermost parts of the earth, and

hide yourselves from the sight of men, or seek oblivion in the tumult of

the social whirl, that Light will find you out and lighten your every

thought, word and deed. All H. P. B. can do is to send to each earnest one

among you a most sincerely fraternal sympathy and hope for a good outcome

to your endeavours. Nevertheless, be not discouraged, but try, ever keep

trying;(854) twenty failures are not irremediable if followed by as many

undaunted struggles upward. Is it not so that mountains are climbed? And

know further, that if Karma relentlessly records in the Esotericist’s

account, bad deeds that in the ignorant would be overlooked, yet, equally

true is it that each of his good deeds is, by reason of his association

with the Higher Self, a hundredfold intensified as a potentiality for

good.

Finally, keep ever in mind the consciousness that though you see no Master

by your bedside, nor hear one audible whisper in the silence of the still

night, yet the Holy Power is about you, the Holy Light is shining into

your hour of spiritual need and aspirations, and it will be no fault of

the MASTERS, or of their humble mouthpiece and servant, if through

perversity or moral feebleness some of you cut yourselves off from these

higher potencies, and step upon the declivity that leads to Avîtchi.

Appendix. Notes on Papers I., II. and III.

Page 436.

Students in the west have little or no idea of the forces that lie latent

in Sound, the Âkâshic vibrations that may be set up by those who

understand how to pronounce certain words. The Om, or the “_Om mani padme

hum_” are in spiritual affinity with cosmic forces, but without a

knowledge of the natural arrangement, or of the order in which the

syllables stand, very little can be achieved. “Om” is, of course, Aum,

that may be pronounced as two, three or seven syllables, setting up

different vibrations.

Now, letters, as vocal sounds, cannot fail to correspond with musical

notes, and therefore with numbers and colours; hence also with Forces and

Tattvas. He who remembers that the Universe is built up from the Tattvas

will readily understand something of the power that may be exercised by

vocal sounds. Every letter in the alphabet, whether divided into three,

four, or seven septenaries, or forty‐nine letters, has its own colour, or

shade of colour. He who has learnt the colours of the alphabetical

letters, and the corresponding numbers of the seven, and the forty‐nine

colours and shades on the scale of planes and forces, and knows their

respective order in the seven planes, will easily master the art of

bringing them into affinity or interplay. But here a difficulty arises.

The Senzar and Sanskrit alphabets, and other Occult tongues, besides other

potencies, have a number, colour, and distinct syllable for every letter,

and so had also the old Mosaic Hebrew. But how many students know any of

these tongues? When the time comes, therefore, it must suffice to teach

the students the numbers and colours attached to the Latin letters only

(N.B. as pronounced in Latin, not in Anglo‐Saxon, Scotch, or Irish). This,

however, would be at present premature.

The colour and number of not only the planets but also the zodiacal

constellations corresponding to every letter of the alphabet, are

necessary to make any special syllable, and even letter, _operative_.(855)

Therefore if a student would make Buddhi operative, for instance, he would

have to intone the first words of the Mantra on the note _mi_. But he

would have still further to accentuate the _mi_, and produce mentally the

yellow colour corresponding to this sound and note, on every letter M in

“_Om mani padme hum_”; this, not because the note bears the same name in

the vernacular, Sanskrit, or even the Senzar, for it does not—but because

the letter M follows the first letter, and is in this sacred formula also

the seventh and the fourth. As Buddhi it is second; as Buddhi‐Manas it is

the second and third combined.

H. P. B.

Page 439.(856)

The Pythagorean Four, or Tetraktys, was the symbol of the Kosmos, as

containing within itself, the point, the line, the superficies, the solid;

in other words, the essentials of all forms. Its mystical representation

is the point within the triangle. The Decad or perfect number is contained

in the Four; thus, 1+2+3+4=10.

Page 477.

The difficult passage: “Bear in mind ... a mystery below truly,”(857) may

become a little more clear to the student if slightly amplified. The

“primordial Triangle” is the Second Logos, which reflects itself as a

Triangle in the Third Logos, or Heavenly Man, and then disappears. The

Third Logos, containing the “potency of formative creation,” develops the

Tetraktys from the Triangle, and so becomes the Seven, the Creative Force,

making a Decad with the primordial Triangle which originated it. When this

heavenly Triangle and Tetraktys are reflected in the Universe of Matter,

as the astral paradigmatic man, they are reversed, and the Triangle, or

formative potency, is thrown below the Quaternary, with its apex pointing

downwards: the Monad of this astral paradigmatic man is itself a Triangle,

bearing to the Quaternary and Triangle the relation borne by the

primordial Triangle to the Heavenly Man. Hence the phrase, “the upper

Triangle ... is shifted in the man of clay below _the seven_.” Here again

the Point tracing the Triangle, the Monad becoming the Ternary, with the

Quaternary and the lower creative triangle, make up the Decad, the perfect

number. “As above, so below.”

The student will do well to relate the knowledge here acquired to that

given on p. 477. Here the upper Triangle is given as Violet, Indigo, Blue,

associating Violet as the paradigm of all forms with Indigo as Mahat, and

blue as the Âtmic Aura. In the Quaternary, Yellow, as substance, is

associated with Yellow‐Orange, Life, and Red‐Orange, the creative potency.

Green is the plane between.

The next stage is not explained. Green passes upwards to Violet, Indigo,

Blue, the Triangle opening out to receive it, and so forming the square,

Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green. This leaves the Red‐Orange, Yellow‐Orange,

and Yellow, and these, having thus lost their fourth member, can only form

a triangle. This triangle revolves, to point downwards for the descent

into matter, and “mirrored on the plane of gross nature, it is reversed.”

In the perfect man the Red will be absorbed by the Green; Yellow will

become one with Indigo; Yellow‐Orange will be absorbed in Blue; Violet

will remain outside the True Man, though connected with him. Or, to

translate the colours: Kâma will be absorbed in the Lower Manas; Buddhi

will become one with Manas; Prâna will be absorbed in the Auric Egg; the

physical body remains, connected but outside the real life.

A. B.

Page 481.

To the five senses at present the property of mankind two more on this

globe are to be added. The sixth sense is the psychic sense of colour. The

seventh is that of spiritual sound. In the second instruction, the

corrected rates of vibration for the seven primary colours and their

modulations are given. Inspecting these, it appears that each colour

differs from the proceeding one by a step of 42, or 6 × 7.

462 Red + 42 = 504

504 Orange + 42 = 546

546 Yellow + 42 = 588

588 Green + 42 = 630

630 Blue + 42 = 672

672 Indigo + 42 = 714

714 Violet + 42 = 756

756 Red

Carrying the process backward, and subtracting 42, we find that the first

or ground colour is green, for this globe.

—— Green

42 Blue

84 Indigo

126 Violet (end of First semi‐octave)

168 Red (start of Second octave)

210 Orange

252 Yellow

294 Green

336 Blue

378 Indigo

420 Violet

462 Red

The second and fourth octaves would be heat and actinic rays, and are

invisible to our present perception.

The seventh sense is that of spiritual sound; and, since the vibrations of

the sixth progress by steps of 6 × 7, those of the seventh progress by

steps of 7 × 7. This is their table:

—— Fa ... Green Sound (start of First semi‐octave)

49 Sol ... Blue

98 La ... Indigo

147 Si ... Violet

196 Do ... Red

245 Re ... Orange (start of Second Octave)

294 Mi ... Yellow

343 Fa ... Green

392 Sol ... Blue

441 La ... Indigo

490 Si ... Violet

539 Do ... Red

Etc., etc.

The fifth sense is in our possession: it is possibly that of geometrical

form, and its steps of progression would be 5 × 7, or 35.

The fourth sense is that of physical hearing, music, and its progressions

are 28, or 4 × 7. The truth of this is demonstrated by the fact that it is

in accord with the theories of Science as to the vibrations of musical

notes. Our scale is as follows:

—, 28, 56, 84, 112, 140, 168, 196, 224, 252, 280, 308, 336, 364, 392, 420,

448, 476, 504, 532, 560, 588, 616, 644, 672, 700.

According to musical science, the notes C, E, G, are as 4, 5, 6, in their

ratios of vibrations. The same ratio obtains between the notes of the

triplet G, B, D, and F, A, C.

H. C.

Notes On Some Oral Teachings.

The Three Vital Airs.