THEO. Not that we know of, and not unless the epithet of “Atheist” is

to be applied to those who disbelieve in an anthropomorphic God.

We believe in a Universal Divine Principle, the root of ALL, from

which all proceeds, and within which all shall be absorbed at the

end of the great cycle of Being.

ENQ. This is the old, old claim of Pantheism. If you are Pantheists,

you cannot be Deists; and if you are not Deists, then you have to

answer to the name of Atheists.

THEO. Not necessarily so. The term “Pantheism” is again one of the many

abused terms, whose real and primitive meaning has been distorted

by blind prejudice and a one-sided view of it. If you accept the

Christian etymology of this compound word, and form it of παν,

“all,” and θεος, “god,” and then imagine and teach that this means

that every stone and every tree in Nature is a God or the ONE

God, then, of course, you will be right, and make of Pantheists

fetish-worshippers, in addition to their legitimate name. But you

will hardly be as successful if you etymologise the word Pantheism

esoterically, and as we do.

ENQ. What is, then your definition of it?

THEO. Let me ask you a question in my turn. What do you understand by

Pan or Nature?

ENQ. Nature is, I suppose, the sum total of things existing around us;

the aggregate of causes and effects in the world of matter, the

creation or universe.

THEO. Hence the personified sum and order of known causes and effects;

the total of all finite agencies and forces, as utterly

disconnected from an intelligent Creator or Creators, and

perhaps “conceived of as a single and separate force”—as in your

cyclopædias?

ENQ. Yes, I believe so.

THEO. Well, we neither take into consideration this objective and

material nature, which we call an evanescent illusion, nor do

we mean by παν Nature, in the sense of its accepted derivation

from the Latin _Natura_ (becoming, from _nasci_, to be born).

When we speak of the Deity and make it identical, hence coeval,

with Nature, the eternal and uncreate nature is meant, and not

your aggregate of flitting shadows and finite unrealities. We

leave it to the hymn-makers to call the visible sky or heaven,

God’s Throne, and our earth of mud His footstool. Our DEITY is

neither in a paradise, nor in a particular tree, building, or

mountain; it is everywhere, in every atom of the visible as of the

invisible Cosmos, in, over, and around every invisible atom and

divisible molecule; for IT is the mysterious power of evolution

and involution, the omnipresent, omnipotent, and even omniscient

creative potentiality.

ENQ. Stop! Omniscience is the prerogative of something that thinks, and

you deny to your Absoluteness the power of thought.

THEO. We deny it to the ABSOLUTE, since thought is something limited

and conditioned. But you evidently forget that in philosophy

absolute unconsciousness is also absolute consciousness, as

otherwise it would not be _absolute_.

ENQ. Then your Absolute thinks?

THEO. No, IT does not; for the simple reason that it is _Absolute

Thought_ itself. Nor does it exist, for the same reason, as it

is absolute existence, and _Be-ness_, not a Being. Read the

superb Kabalistic poem by Solomon Ben Jehudah Gabirol, in the

Kether-Malchut, and you will understand:—“Thou art one, the root

of all numbers, but not as an element of numeration; for unity

admits not of multiplication, change, or form. Thou art one, and

in the secret of Thy unity the wisest of men are lost, because

they know it not. Thou art one, and Thy unity is never diminished,

never extended, and cannot be changed. Thou art one, and no

thought of mine can fix for Thee a limit, or define Thee. Thou

ART, but not as one existent, for the understanding and vision of

mortals cannot attain to Thy existence, nor determine for Thee the

where, the how and the why,” etc., etc. In short, our Deity is the

eternal, incessantly _evolving_, not _creating_, builder of the

universe; that _universe itself unfolding_ out of its own essence,

not being _made_. It is a sphere, without circumference, in its

symbolism, which has but one ever-acting attribute embracing all

other existing or thinkable attributes—ITSELF. It is the one law,

giving the impulse to manifested, eternal, and immutable laws,

within that never-manifesting, _because_ absolute LAW, which in

its manifesting periods is _The ever-Becoming_.

ENQ. I once heard one of your members remarking that Universal Deity,

being everywhere, was in vessels of dishonour, as in those of

honour, and, therefore, was present in every atom of my cigar ash!

Is this not rank blasphemy?

THEO. I do not think so, as simple logic can hardly be regarded as

blasphemy. Were we to exclude the Omnipresent Principle from one

single mathematical point of the universe, or from a particle of

matter occupying any conceivable space, could we still regard it

as infinite?

IS IT NECESSARY TO PRAY?

ENQ. Do you believe in prayer, and do you ever pray?

THEO. We do not. We _act_, instead of _talking_.

ENQ. You do not offer prayers even to the Absolute Principle?

THEO. Why should we? Being well-occupied people, we can hardly afford

to lose time in addressing verbal prayers to a pure abstraction.

The Unknowable is capable of relations only in its parts to each

other, but is non-existent as regards any finite relations. The

visible universe depends for its existence and phenomena on its

mutually acting forms and their laws, not on prayer or prayers.

ENQ. Do you not believe at all in the efficacy of prayer?

THEO. Not in prayer taught in so many words and repeated externally, if

by prayer you mean the outward petition to an unknown God as the

addressee, which was inaugurated by the Jews and popularised by

the Pharisees.

ENQ. Is there any other kind of prayer?

THEO. Most decidedly; we call it WILL-PRAYER, and it is rather an

internal command than a petition.

ENQ. To whom, then, do you pray when you do so?

THEO. To “our Father in heaven”—in its esoteric meaning.

ENQ. Is that different from the one given to it in theology?

THEO. Entirely so. An Occultist or a Theosophist addresses his prayer

to _his Father which is in secret_ (read, and try to understand,

ch. vi. v. 6, Matthew), not to an extra-cosmic and therefore

finite God; and that “Father” is in man himself.

ENQ. Then you make of man a God?

THEO. Please say “God” and not _a_ God. In our sense, the inner man is

the only God we can have cognizance of. And how can this be

otherwise? Grant us our postulate that God is a universally

diffused, infinite principle, and how can man alone escape from

being soaked through _by_, and _in_, the Deity? We call our

“Father in heaven” that deific essence of which we are cognizant

within us, in our heart and spiritual consciousness, and which

has nothing to do with the anthropomorphic conception we may form

of it in our physical brain or its fancy: “Know ye not that ye

are the temple of God, and that the great spirit of that the

spirit of (the absolute) God dwelleth in you?”[16] Yet, let no

man anthropomorphise that essence in us. Let no Theosophist, if

he would hold to divine, not human truth, say that this “God in

secret” listens to, or is distinct from, either finite man or the

infinite essence—for all are one. Nor, as just remarked, that a

prayer is a petition. It is a mystery rather; an occult process

by which finite and conditioned thoughts and desires, unable to

be assimilated by the absolute spirit which is unconditioned, are

translated into spiritual wills and the will; such process being

called “spiritual transmutation.” The intensity of our ardent

aspirations changes prayer into the “philosopher’s stone,” or

that which transmutes lead into pure gold. The only homogeneous

essence, our “will-power” becomes the active or creative force,

producing effects according to our desire.

ENQ. Do you mean to say that prayer is an occult process bringing about

physical results?

THEO. I do. _Will-Power_ becomes a living power. But woe unto those

Occultists and Theosophists, who, instead of crushing out the

desires of the lower personal _ego_ or physical man, and saying,

addressing their _Higher_ Spiritual Ego immersed in Atma-Buddhic

light, “Thy will be done, not mine,” etc., send up waves of

will-power for selfish or unholy purposes! For this is black

magic, abomination, and spiritual sorcery. Unfortunately, all

this is the favorite occupation of our Christian statesmen and

generals, especially when the latter are sending two armies to

murder each other. Both indulge before action in a bit of such

sorcery, by offering respectively prayers to the same God of

Hosts, each entreating his help to cut its enemies’ throats.

ENQ. David prayed to the Lord of Hosts to help him smite the

Philistines and slay the Syrians and the Moabites, and “the Lord

preserved David whithersoever he went.” In that we only follow

what we find in the Bible.

THEO. Of course you do. But since you delight in calling yourselves

Christians, not Israelites or Jews, as far as we know, why do

you not rather follow that which Christ says? And he distinctly

commands you not to follow “them of old times,” or the Mosaic law,

but bids you do as he tells you, and warns those who would kill

by the sword, that they, too, will perish by the sword. Christ

has given you one prayer of which you have made a lip prayer and

a boast, and which none but the _true_ Occultist understands. In

it you say, in your dead-sense meaning: “Forgive us our debts, as

we forgive our debtors,” which you never do. Again, he told you

to _love your enemies_ and do _good to them that hate you_. It is

surely not the “meek prophet of Nazareth” who taught you to pray

to your “Father” to slay, and give you victory over your enemies!

This is why we reject what you call “prayers.”

ENQ. But how do you explain the universal fact that all nations and

peoples have prayed to, and worshipped a God or Gods? Some have

adored and propitiated _devils_ and harmful spirits, but this only

proves the universality of the belief in the efficacy of prayer.

THEO. It is explained by that other fact that prayer has several other

meanings besides that given it by the Christians. It means not

only a pleading or _petition_, but meant, in days of old, far more

an invocation and incantation. The _mantra_, or the rhythmically

chanted prayer of the Hindus, has precisely such a meaning, as the

Brahmins hold themselves higher than the common _devas_ or “Gods.”

A prayer may be an appeal or an incantation for malediction, and

a curse (as in the case of two armies praying simultaneously for

mutual destruction) as much as for blessing. And as the great

majority of people are intensely selfish, and pray only for

themselves, asking to be _given_ their “daily bread” instead of

working for it, and begging God not to lead them “into temptation”

but to deliver them (the memoralists only) from evil, the result

is, that prayer, as now understood, is doubly pernicious: (_a_)

It kills in man self-reliance; (_b_) It develops in him a still

more ferocious selfishness and egotism than he is already endowed

with by nature. I repeat, that we believe in “communion” and

simultaneous action in unison with our “Father in secret”; and

in rare moments of ecstatic bliss, in the mingling of our higher

soul with the universal essence, attracted as it is towards its

origin and centre, a state, called during life _Samadhi_, and

after death, _Nirvana_. We refuse to pray to _created_ finite

beings—_i.e._, gods, saints, angels, etc., because we regard it

as idolatry. We cannot pray to the ABSOLUTE for reasons explained

before; therefore, we try to replace fruitless and useless prayer

by meritorious and good-producing actions.

ENQ. Christians would call it pride and blasphemy. Are they wrong?

THEO. Entirely so. It is they, on the contrary, who show Satanic pride

in their belief that the Absolute or the Infinite, even if there

was such a thing as the possibility of any relation between the

unconditioned and the conditioned—will stoop to listen to every

foolish or egotistical prayer. And it is they again, who virtually

blaspheme, in teaching that an Omniscient and Omnipotent God

needs uttered prayers to know what he has to do! This—understood

esoterically—is corroborated by both Buddha and Jesus. The one

says “seek nought from the helpless Gods—pray not! _but rather

act_; for darkness will not brighten. Ask nought from silence, for

it can neither speak nor hear.” And the other—Jesus—recommends:

“Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name (that of Christos) that will I

do.” Of course, this quotation, if taken in its _literal_ sense,

goes against our argument. But if we accept it esoterically, with

the full knowledge of the meaning of the term, “Christos,” which

to us represents _Atma-Buddhi-Manas_, the “SELF,” it comes to

this: the only God we must recognise and pray to, or rather act

in unison with, is that spirit of God of which our body is the

temple, and in which it dwelleth.

PRAYER KILLS SELF RELIANCE.

ENQ. But did not Christ himself pray and recommend prayer?

THEO. It is so recorded, but those “prayers” are precisely of that kind

of communion just mentioned with one’s “Father in secret.”

Otherwise, and if we identify Jesus with the universal deity,

there would be something too absurdly illogical in the inevitable

conclusion that he, the “very God himself” _prayed to himself_,

and separated the will of that God from his own!

ENQ. One argument more; an argument, moreover, much used by some

Christians. They say, “I feel that I am not able to conquer any

passions and weaknesses in my own strength. But when I pray to

Jesus Christ I feel that he gives me strength and that in his

power I am able to conquer.”

THEO. No wonder. If “Christ Jesus” is God, and one independent and

separate from him who prays, of course everything is, and

_must_ be possible to “a mighty God.” But, then, where’s the

merit, or justice either, of such a conquest? Why should the

pseudo-conqueror be rewarded for something done which has cost

him only prayers? Would you, even a simple mortal man, pay your

labourer a full day’s wage if you did most of his work for him, he

sitting under an apple tree, and praying to you to do so, all the

while? This idea of passing one’s whole life in moral idleness,

and having one’s hardest work and duty done by another—whether God

or man—is most revolting to us, as it is most degrading to human

dignity.

ENQ. Perhaps so, yet it is the idea of trusting in a personal Saviour

to help and strengthen in the battle of life, which is the

fundamental idea of modern Christianity. And there is no doubt

that, subjectively, such belief is efficacious, _i.e._, that those

who believe _do_ feel themselves helped and strengthened.

THEO. Nor is there any more doubt, that some patients of “Christian”

and “Mental Scientists”—the great “_Deniers_”[17]—are also

sometimes cured; nor that hypnotism, and suggestion, psychology,

and even mediumship, will produce such results, as often, if not

oftener. You take into consideration, and string on the thread of

your argument, successes alone. And how about ten times the number

of failures? Surely you will not presume to say that failure is

unknown even with a sufficiency of blind faith, among fanatical

Christians?

ENQ. But how can you explain those cases which are followed by full

success? Where does a Theosophist look to for power to subdue his

passions and selfishness?

THEO. To his Higher Self, the divine spirit, or the God in him, and to

his _Karma_. How long shall we have to repeat over and over again

that the tree is known by its fruit, the nature of the cause by

its effects? You speak of subduing passions, and becoming good

through and with the help of God or Christ. We ask, where do

you find more virtuous, guiltless people, abstaining from sin

and crime, in Christendom or Buddhism—in Christian countries or

in heathen lands? Statistics are there to give the answer and

corroborate our claims. According to the last census in Ceylon and

India, in the comparative table of crimes committed by Christians,

Mussulmen, Hindoos, Eurasians, Buddhists, etc., etc., on two

millions of population taken at random from each, and covering the

misdemeanours of several years, the proportion of crimes committed

by the Christian stands as 15 to 4 as against those committed

by the Buddhist population. (Vide LUCIFER for April, 1888, p.

147, Art. Christian Lectures on Buddhism.) No Orientalist, no

historian of any note, or traveller in Buddhist land, from Bishop

Bigandet and Abbé Huc, to Sir William Hunter and every fair-minded

official, will fail to give the palm of virtue to Buddhists before

Christians. Yet the former (not the true Buddhist Siamese sect,

at all events) do not believe in either God or a future reward,

outside of this earth. They do not pray, neither priests nor

laymen. “Pray!” they would exclaim in wonder, “to whom, or what?”

ENQ. Then they are truly Atheists.

THEO. Most undeniably, but they are also the most virtue-loving and

virtue-keeping men in the whole world. Buddhism says: Respect the

religions of other men and remain true to your own; but Church

Christianity, denouncing all the gods of other nations as devils,

would doom every _non_-Christian to eternal perdition.

ENQ. Does not the Buddhist priesthood do the same?

THEO. Never. They hold too much to the wise precept found in the

DHAMMAPADA to do so, for they know that, “If any man, whether he

be learned or not, consider himself so great as to despise other

men, he is like a blind man holding a candle—blind himself, he

illumines others.”

ON THE SOURCE OF THE HUMAN SOUL.

ENQ. How, then, do you account for man being endowed with a Spirit and

Soul? Whence these?

THEO. From the Universal Soul. Certainly not bestowed by a _personal_

God. Whence the moist element in the jelly-fish? From the Ocean

which surrounds it, in which it lives and breathes and has its

being, and whither it returns when dissolved.

ENQ. So you reject the teaching that Soul is given, or breathed into

man, by God?

THEO. We are obliged to. The “Soul” spoken of in ch. ii. of Genesis

(v. 7) is, as therein stated, the “living Soul” or _Nephesh_

(the _vital_, animal soul) with which God (we say “nature” and

_immutable law_) endows man like every animal, is not at all the

thinking Soul or mind; least of all is it the _immortal Spirit_.

ENQ. Well, let us put it otherwise: is it God who endows man with a

human _rational_ Soul and immortal Spirit?

THEO. Again, in the way you put the question, we must object to it.

Since we believe in no _personal_ God, how can we believe that he

endows man with anything? But granting, for the sake of argument,

a God who takes upon himself the risk of creating a new Soul for

every new-born baby, all that can be said is that such a God

can hardly be regarded as himself endowed with any wisdom or

prevision. Certain other difficulties and the impossibility of

reconciling this with the claims made for the mercy, justice,

equity and omniscience of that God, are so many deadly reefs on

which this theological dogma is daily and hourly broken.

ENQ. What do you mean? What difficulties?

THEO. I am thinking of an unanswerable argument offered once in my

presence by a Cingalese Buddhist priest, a famous preacher, to

a Christian missionary—one in no way ignorant or unprepared for

the public discussion during which it was advanced. It was near

Colombo, and the Missionary had challenged the priest Megattivati

to give his reasons why the Christian God should not be accepted

by the “heathen.” Well, the Missionary came out of that for ever

memorable discussion second best, as usual.

ENQ. I should be glad to learn in what way.

THEO. Simply this: the Buddhist priest premised by asking the _padri_

whether his God had given commandments to Moses only for men to

keep, but to be broken by God himself. The missionary denied

the supposition indignantly. Well, said his opponent, “you tell

us that God makes no exceptions to this rule, and that no Soul

can be born without his will. Now God forbids adultery, among

other things, and yet you say in the same breath that it is he

who creates every baby born, and he who endows it with a Soul.

Are we then to understand that the millions of children born in

crime and adultery are your God’s work? That your God forbids and

punishes the breaking of his laws; and that, nevertheless, _he

creates daily and hourly souls for just such children_? According

to the simplest logic, your God is an accomplice in the crime;

since, but for his help and interference, no such children of lust

could be born. Where is the justice of punishing not only the

guilty parents but even the innocent babe for that which is done

by that very God, whom yet you exonerate from any guilt himself?”

The missionary looked at his watch and suddenly found it was

getting too late for further discussion.

ENQ. You forget that all such inexplicable cases are mysteries, and

that we are forbidden by our religion to pry into the mysteries of

God.

THEO. No, we do not forget, but simply reject such impossibilities. Nor

do we want you to believe as we do. We only answer the questions

you ask. We have, however, another name for your “mysteries.”

THE BUDDHIST TEACHINGS ON THE ABOVE.

ENQ. What does Buddhism teach with regard to the Soul?

THEO. It depends whether you mean exoteric, popular Buddhism, or its

esoteric teachings. The former explains itself in the _Buddhist

Catechism_ in this wise: “Soul it considers a word used by the

ignorant to express a false idea. If everything is subject to

change, then man is included, and every material part of him

must change. That which is subject to change is not permanent,

so there can be no immortal survival of a changeful thing.” This

seems plain and definite. But when we come to the question that

the new personality in each succeeding re-birth is the aggregate

of “_Skandhas_,” or the attributes, of the _old_ personality,

and ask whether this new aggregation of _Skandhas_ is a _new_

being likewise, in which nothing has remained of the last, we

read that: “In one sense it is a new being, in another it is

not. During this life the Skandhas are continually changing,

while the man A. B. of forty is identical as regards personality

with the youth A. B. of eighteen, yet by the continual waste and

reparation of his body and change of mind and character, he is

a different being. Nevertheless, the man in his old age justly

reaps the reward or suffering consequent upon his thoughts and

actions at every previous stage of his life. So the new being of

the re-birth, being the _same individuality as before_ (but not

the same personality), with but a changed form, or new aggregation

of _Skandhas_, justly reaps the consequences of his actions and

thoughts in the previous existence.” This is abstruse metaphysics,

and plainly does not express _disbelief_ in Soul by any means.

ENQ. Is not something like this spoken of in _Esoteric Buddhism_?

THEO. It is, for this teaching belongs both to Esoteric _Budhism_ or

Secret Wisdom, and to the exoteric Buddhism, or the religious

philosophy of Gautama Buddha.

ENQ. But we are distinctly told that most of the Buddhists do not

believe in the Soul’s immortality?

THEO. No more do we, if you mean by Soul the _personal Ego_, or

life-Soul—_Nephesh_. But every learned Buddhist believes in

the individual or _divine Ego_. Those who do not, err in their

judgment. They are as mistaken on this point, as those Christians

who mistake the theological interpolations of the later editors

of the Gospels about damnation and hell-fire, for _verbatim_

utterances of Jesus. Neither Buddha nor “Christ” ever wrote

anything themselves, but both spoke in allegories and used “dark

sayings,” as all true Initiates did, and will do for a long time

yet to come. Both Scriptures treat of all such metaphysical

questions very cautiously, and both, Buddhist and Christian

records, sin by that excess of exotericism; the dead letter

meaning far overshooting the mark in both cases.

ENQ. Do you mean to suggest that neither the teachings of Buddha nor

those of Christ have been heretofore rightly understood?

THEO. What I mean is just as you say. Both Gospels, the Buddhist and

the Christian, were preached with the same object in view.

Both reformers were ardent philanthropists and practical

_altruists—preaching most unmistakably Socialism_ of the noblest

and highest type, self-sacrifice to the bitter end. “Let the sins

of the whole world fall upon me that I may relieve man’s misery

and suffering!” cries Buddha; ... “I would not let one cry whom I

could save!” exclaims the Prince-beggar, clad in the refuse rags

of the burial-grounds. “Come unto me all ye that labour and are

heavy laden and I will give you rest,” is the appeal to the poor

and the disinherited made by the “Man of Sorrows,” who hath not

where to lay his head. The teachings of both are boundless love

for humanity, charity, forgiveness of injury, forgetfulness of

self, and pity for the deluded masses; both show the same contempt

for riches, and make no difference between _meum_ and _tuum_.

Their desire was, without revealing to _all_ the sacred mysteries

of initiation, to give the ignorant and the misled, whose burden

in life was too heavy for them, hope enough and an inkling into

the truth sufficient to support them in their heaviest hours. But

the object of both Reformers was frustrated, owing to excess of

zeal of their later followers. The words of the Masters having

been misunderstood and misinterpreted, behold the consequences!

ENQ. But surely Buddha must have repudiated the soul’s immortality, if

all the Orientalists and his own Priests say so!

THEO. The Arhats began by following the policy of their Master and the

majority of the subsequent priests were not initiated, just as in

Christianity; and so, little by little, the great esoteric truths

became almost lost. A proof in point is, that, out of the two

existing sects in Ceylon, the Siamese believes death to be the

absolute annihilation of individuality and personality, and the

other explains Nirvana, as we theosophists do.

ENQ. But why, in that case, do Buddhism and Christianity represent the

two opposite poles of such belief?

THEO. Because the conditions under which they were preached were not

the same. In India the Brahmins, jealous of their superior

knowledge, and excluding from it every caste save their own, had

driven millions of men into idolatry and almost fetishism. Buddha

had to give the death-blow to an exuberance of unhealthy fancy

and fanatical superstition resulting from ignorance, such as has

rarely been known before or after. Better a philosophical atheism

than such ignorant worship for those—

“Who cry upon their gods and are not heard,

Or are not heeded—”

and who live and die in mental despair. He had to arrest first of

all this muddy torrent of superstition, to uproot _errors_ before

he gave out the truth. And as he could not give out _all_, for

the same good reason as Jesus, who reminds _his_ disciples that

the Mysteries of Heaven are not for the unintelligent masses, but

for the elect alone, and therefore “spake he to them in parables”

(Matt. xiii. 11)—so his caution led Buddha _to conceal too much_.

He even refused to say to the monk Vacchagotta whether there was,

or was not an Ego in man. When pressed to answer, “the Exalted one

maintained silence.”[18]

ENQ. This refers to Gautama, but in what way does it touch the Gospels?

THEO. Read history and think over it. At the time the events narrated

in the Gospels are alleged to have happened, there was a similar

intellectual fermentation taking place in the whole civilized

world, only with opposite results in the East and the West. The

old gods were dying out. While the civilized classes drifted

in the train of the unbelieving Sadducees into materialistic

negations and mere dead-letter Mosaic form in Palestine, and

into moral dissolution in Rome, the lowest and poorer classes

ran after sorcery and strange gods, or became hypocrites and

pharisees. Once more the time for a spiritual reform had arrived.

The cruel, anthropomorphic and jealous God of the Jews, with his

sanguinary laws of “an eye for eye and tooth for tooth,” of the

shedding of blood and animal sacrifice, had to be relegated to a

secondary place and replaced by the merciful “Father in Secret.”

The latter had to be shown, not as an extra-Cosmic God, but as a

divine Saviour of the man of flesh, enshrined in his own heart

and soul, in the poor as in the rich. No more here than in India,

could the secrets of initiation be divulged, lest by giving that

which is holy to the dogs, and casting pearls before swine, both

the _Revealer_ and the things revealed should be trodden under

foot. Thus, the reticence of both Buddha and Jesus—whether the

latter lived out the historic period allotted to him or not, and

who equally abstained from revealing plainly the Mysteries of Life

and Death—led in the one case to the blank negations of Southern

Buddhism, and in the other, to the three clashing forms of the

Christian Church and the 300 sects in Protestant England alone.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Ain-Soph, אין סיף = τὸ πάγ = ἔπειρος Nature, the non-existent

which IS, but is not _a_ Being.

[15] How can the non-active eternal principle emanate or emit? The

Parabrahm of the Vedantins does nothing of the kind; nor does the

Ain-Soph of the Chaldean Kabala. It is an eternal and periodical law

which causes an active and creative force (the logos) to emanate from

the ever-concealed and incomprehensible one principle at the beginning

of every maha-manvantara, or new cycle of life.

[16] One often finds in Theosophical writings conflicting statements

about the Christos principle in man. Some call it the sixth principle

(_Buddhi_), others the seventh (_Atman_). If Christian Theosophists

wish to make use of such expressions, let them be made philosophically

correct by following the analogy of the old Wisdom-Religion symbols.

We say that Christos is not only one of the three higher principles,

but all the three regarded as a Trinity. This Trinity represents

the Holy Ghost, the Father, and the Son, as it answers to abstract

spirit, differentiated spirit, and embodied spirit. Krishna and Christ

are philosophically the same principle under its triple aspect of

manifestation. In the _Bhagavatgita_ we find Krishna calling himself

indifferently Atman, the abstract Spirit, Kshetragna, the Higher or

reincarnating Ego, and the Universal SELF, all names which, when

transferred from the Universe to man, answer to _Atma_, _Buddhi_ and

_Manas_. The _Anugita_ is full of the same doctrine.

[17] The new sect of healers, who, by disavowing the existence of

anything but spirit, which spirit can neither suffer nor be ill, claim

to cure all and every disease, provided the patient has faith that what

he denies can have no existence. A new form of self-hypnotism.

[18] Buddha gives to Ananda, his _initiated_ disciple, who enquires

for the reason of this silence, a plain and unequivocal answer in the

dialogue translated by Oldenburg from the _Samyuttaka Nikaya_:—“If

I, Ananda, when the wandering monk Vacchagotta asked me: ‘Is there

the Ego?’ had answered ‘The Ego is,’ then that, Ananda, would have

confirmed the doctrine of the Samanas and Brahmanas, who believed in

permanence. If I, Ananda, when the wandering monk Vacchagotta asked

me, ‘Is there not the Ego?’ had answered, ‘The Ego is not,’ then

that, Ananda, would have confirmed the doctrine of those who believed

in annihilation. If I, Ananda, when the wandering monk Vacchagotta

asked me, ‘Is there the Ego?’ had answered, ‘The Ego is,’ would that

have served my end, Ananda, by producing in him the knowledge: all

existences (dhamma) are non-ego? But if I, Ananda, had answered, ‘The

Ego is not,’ then that, Ananda, would only have caused the wandering

monk Vacchagotta to be thrown from one bewilderment to another:

‘My Ego, did it not exist before? But now it exists no longer!’”

This shows, better than anything, that Gautama Buddha withheld such

difficult metaphysical doctrines from the masses in order not to

perplex them more. What he meant was the difference between the

personal temporary Ego and the Higher Self, which sheds its light on

the imperishable Ego, the spiritual “I” of man.

VI. THEOSOPHICAL TEACHINGS AS TO NATURE AND MAN.

THE UNITY OF ALL IN ALL.

ENQ. Having told me what God, the Soul and Man are _not_, in your

views, can you inform me what they _are_, according to your

teachings?

THEO. In their origin and in eternity the three, like the universe and

all therein, are one with the absolute Unity, the unknowable

deific essence I spoke about sometime back. We believe in no

_creation_, but in the periodical and consecutive appearances of

the universe from the subjective on to the objective plane of

being, at regular intervals of time, covering periods of immense

duration.

ENQ. Can you elaborate the subject?

THEO. Take as a first comparison and a help towards a more correct

conception, the solar year, and as a second, the two halves

of that year, producing each a day and a night of six months’

duration at the North Pole. Now imagine, if you can, instead of

a Solar year of 365 days, ETERNITY. Let the sun represent the

universe, and the polar days and nights of 6 months each—_days

and nights lasting each 182 trillions and quadrillions of years_,

instead of 182 days each. As the sun arises every morning on our

_objective_ horizon out of its (to us) _subjective_ and antipodal

space, so does the Universe emerge periodically on the plane of

objectivity, issuing from that of subjectivity—the antipodes of

the former. This is the “Cycle of Life.” And as the sun disappears

from our horizon, so does the Universe disappear at regular

periods, when the “Universal night” sets in. The Hindoos call

such alternations the “Days and Nights of Brahma,” or the time of

_Manvantara_ and that of _Pralaya_ (dissolution). The Westerns may

call them Universal Days and Nights if they prefer. During the

latter (the nights) _All is in All_; every atom is resolved into

one Homogeneity.

EVOLUTION AND ILLUSION.

ENQ. But who is it that creates each time the Universe?

THEO. No one creates it. Science would call the process evolution; the

pre-Christian philosophers and the Orientalists called it

emanation: we, Occultists and Theosophists, see in it the only

universal and eternal _reality_ casting a periodical reflection of

_itself_ on the infinite Spatial depths. This reflection, which

you regard as the objective _material_ universe, we consider as a

temporary _illusion_ and nothing else. That alone which is eternal

is _real_.

ENQ. At that rate, you and I are also illusions.

THEO. As flitting personalities, to-day one person, to-morrow

another—we are. Would you call the sudden flashes of the _Aurora

borealis_, the Northern lights, a “reality,” though it is as real

as can be while you look at it? Certainly not; it is the cause

that produces it, if permanent and eternal, which is the only

reality, while the other is but a passing illusion.

ENQ. All this does not explain to me how this illusion called the

universe originates; how the conscious _to be_, proceeds to

manifest itself from the unconsciousness that _is_.

THEO. It is _unconsciousness_ only to our finite consciousness. Verily

may we paraphrase verse v, in the 1st chapter of St. John,

and say “and (Absolute) light (which is darkness) shineth in

darkness (which is illusionary material light); and the darkness

comprehendeth it not.” This absolute light is also absolute and

immutable law. Whether by radiation or emanation—we need not

quarrel over terms—the universe passes out of its homogeneous

subjectivity on to the first plane of manifestation, of which

planes there are seven, we are taught. With each plane it becomes

more dense and material until it reaches this, our plane, on which

the only world approximately known and understood in its physical

composition by Science, is the planetary or Solar system—one _sui

generis_, we are told.

ENQ. What do you mean by _sui generis_?

THEO. I mean that, though the fundamental law and the universal working

of laws of Nature are uniform, still our Solar system (like every

other such system in the millions of others in Cosmos) and even

our Earth, has its own programme of manifestations differing

from the respective programmes of all others. We speak of the

inhabitants of other planets and imagine that if they are _men_,

_i.e._, thinking entities, they must be as we are. The fancy of

poets and painters and sculptors never fails to represent even

the angels as a beautiful copy of man—_plus_ wings. We say that

all this is an error and a delusion; because, if on this little

earth alone one finds such a diversity in its flora, fauna and

mankind—from the seaweed to the cedar of Lebanon, from the

jelly-fish to the elephant, from the Bushman and negro to the

Apollo Belvedere—alter the conditions cosmic and planetary, and

there must be as a result quite a different flora, fauna and

mankind. The same laws will fashion quite a different set of

things and beings even on this our plane, including in it all

our planets. How much more different then must be _external_

nature in other Solar systems, and how foolish is it to judge of

other _stars_ and worlds and human beings by our own, as physical

science does!

ENQ. But what are your data for this assertion?

THEO. What science in general will never accept as proof—the cumulative

testimony of an endless series of Seers who have testified to this

fact. Their spiritual visions, real explorations by, and through,

physical and spiritual senses untrammeled by blind flesh, were

systematically checked and compared one with the other, and their

nature sifted. All that was not corroborated by unanimous and

collective experience was rejected, while that only was recorded

as established truth which, in various ages, under different

climes, and throughout an untold series of incessant observations,

was found to agree and receive constantly further corroboration.

The methods used by our scholars and students of the

psycho-spiritual sciences do not differ from those of students of

the natural and physical sciences, as you may see. Only our fields

of research are on two different planes, and our instruments are

made by no human hands, for which reason perchance they are only

the more reliable. The retorts, accumulators, and microscopes of

the chemist and naturalist may get out of order; the telescope

and the astronomer’s horological instruments may get spoiled; our

recording instruments are beyond the influence of weather or the

elements.

ENQ. And therefore you have implicit faith in them?

THEO. Faith is a word not to be found in theosophical dictionaries: we

say _knowledge based on observation and experience_. There is this

difference, however, that while the observation and experience of

physical science lead the Scientists to about as many “working”

hypotheses as there are minds to evolve them, our _knowledge_

consents to add to its lore only those facts which have become

undeniable, and which are fully and absolutely demonstrated. We

have no two beliefs or hypotheses on the same subject.

ENQ. Is it on such data that you came to accept the strange theories we

find in _Esoteric Buddhism_?

THEO. Just so. These theories may be slightly incorrect in their minor

details, and even faulty in their exposition by lay students; they

are _facts_ in nature, nevertheless, and come nearer the truth

than any scientific hypothesis.

ON THE SEPTENARY CONSTITUTION OF OUR PLANET.

ENQ. I understand that you describe our earth as forming part of a

chain of earths?

THEO. We do. But the other six “earths” or globes, are not on the same

plane of objectivity as our earth is; therefore we cannot see them.

ENQ. Is that on account of the great distance?

THEO. Not at all, for we see with our naked eye planets and even stars

at immeasurably greater distances; but it is owing to those six

globes being outside our physical means of perception, or plane

of being. It is not only that their material density, weight, or

fabric are entirely different from those of our earth and the

other known planets; but they are (to us) on an entirely different

_layer_ of space, so to speak; a layer not to be perceived or felt

by our physical senses. And when I say “layer,” please do not

allow your fancy to suggest to you layers like strata or beds laid

one over the other, for this would only lead to another absurd

misconception. What I mean by “layer” is that plane of infinite

space which by its nature cannot fall under our ordinary waking

perceptions, whether mental or physical; but which exists in

nature outside of our normal mentality or consciousness, outside

of our three dimensional space, and outside of our division of

time. Each of the seven fundamental planes (or layers) in space—of

course as a whole, as the pure space of Locke’s definition, not as

our finite space—has its own objectivity and subjectivity, its own

space and time, its own consciousness and set of senses. But all

this will be hardly comprehensible to one trained in the modern

ways of thought.

ENQ. What do you mean by a different set of senses? Is there anything

on our human plane that you could bring as an illustration of what

you say, just to give a clearer idea of what you may mean by this

variety of senses, spaces, and respective perceptions?

THEO. None; except, perhaps, that which for Science would be rather a

handy peg on which to hang a counter-argument. We have a different

set of senses in dream-life, have we not? We feel, talk, hear,

see, taste and function in general on a different plane; the

change of state of our consciousness being evidenced by the fact

that a series of acts and events embracing years, as we think,

pass ideally through our mind in one instant. Well, that extreme

rapidity of our mental operations in dreams, and the perfect

naturalness, for the time being, of all the other functions, show

us that we are on quite another plane. Our philosophy teaches

us that, as there are seven fundamental forces in nature, and

seven planes of being, so there are seven states of consciousness

in which man can live, think, remember and have his being. To

enumerate these here is impossible, and for this one has to turn

to the study of Eastern metaphysics. But in these two states—the

waking and the dreaming—every ordinary mortal, from a learned

philosopher down to a poor untutored savage, has a good proof that

such states differ.

ENQ. You do not accept, then, the well-known explanations of biology

and physiology to account for the dream state?

THEO. We do not. We reject even the hypotheses of your psychologists,

preferring the teachings of Eastern Wisdom. Believing in seven

planes of Kosmic being and states of Consciousness, with regard

to the Universe or the Macrocosm, we stop at the fourth plane,

finding it impossible to go with any degree of certainty beyond.

But with respect to the Microcosm, or man, we speculate freely on

his seven states and principles.

ENQ. How do you explain these?

THEO. We find, first of all, two distinct beings in man; the spiritual

and the physical, the man who thinks, and the man who records as

much of these thoughts as he is able to assimilate. Therefore we

divide him into two distinct natures; the upper or the spiritual

being, composed of three “principles” or _aspects_; and the lower

or the physical quaternary, composed of _four_—in all _seven_.

THE SEPTENARY NATURE OF MAN.

ENQ. Is it what we call Spirit and Soul, and the man of flesh?

THEO. It is not. That is the old Platonic division. Plato was an

Initiate, and therefore could not go into forbidden details; but

he who is acquainted with the archaic doctrine finds the seven

in Plato’s various combinations of Soul and Spirit. He regarded

man as constituted of two parts—one eternal, formed of the same

essence as the Absoluteness, the other mortal and corruptible,

deriving its constituent parts from the _minor_ “created” Gods.

Man is composed, he shows, of (1) A mortal body, (2) An immortal

principle, and (3) A “separate mortal kind of Soul.” It is that

which we respectively call the physical man, the Spiritual Soul

or Spirit, and the animal Soul (the _Nous_ and _psuche_). This

is the division adopted by Paul, another Initiate, who maintains

that there is a psychical body which is sown in the corruptible

(astral soul or body), and a _spiritual_ body that is raised in

incorruptible substance. Even James (iii. 15) corroborates the

same by saying that the “wisdom” (of our lower soul) descendeth

not from the above, but is terrestrial (“psychical,” “demoniacal,”

_vide_ Greek text); while the other is heavenly wisdom. Now so

plain is it that Plato and even Pythagoras, while speaking but of

three “principles,” give them seven separate functions, in their

various combinations, that if we contrast our teachings this will

become quite plain. Let us take a cursory view of these seven

aspects by drawing two tables.

THEOSOPHICAL DIVISION.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

{ SANSCRIT TERMS. | EXOTERIC MEANING.| EXPLANATORY.

{------------------------------------------------------------------

L { | |

o {(_a_) Rupa, or |(_a_) Physical |(_a_) Is the vehicle of

w { Sthula-Sarira. | body. | all the other

e { | | “principles” during

r { | | life.

{(_b_) Pranâ. |(_b_) Life, or |(_b_) Necessary only to

{ | Vital principle.| _a_, _c_, _d_, and

Q { | | the functions of the

u { | | lower _Manas_, which

a { | | embrace all those

t { | | limited to the

e { | | (_physical_) brain.

r {(_c_) Linga Sharira.|(_c_) Astral Body.|(_c_) The _Double_, the

n { | | phantom body.

a {(_d_) Kama rupa. |(_d_) The seat of |(_d_) This is the centre

r { | animal desires| of the animal man,

y { | and passions. | wherelies the line

. { | | of demarcation which

{ | | separates the mortal

{ | | man from the

{ | | immortal entity.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------

{ | |

{ SANSCRIT TERMS. | EXOTERIC MEANING. | EXPLANATORY.

{ | |

T {-------------------------------------------------------------------

H {(_e_) _Manas_—a |(_e_) Mind, Intelligence:|(_e_) The future state

E { dual principle| which is the higher | and the Karmic

{ in its | human mind, whose | destiny of man

U { functions. | light, or radiation, | depend on whether

P { | links the MONAD, for | Manas gravitates

P { | the lifetime, to the | more downward to

E { | mortal man. | Kama rupa, the

R { | | seat of the animal

{ | | passions, or

I { | | upwards to_Buddhi_,

M { | | Spiritual _Ego_. In

P { | | the latter case,

E { | | the higher

R { | | consciousness of

I { | | the individual

S { | | Spiritual

H { | | aspirations of

A { | | _mind_ (Manas),

B { | | assimilating

L { | | Buddhi, are

E { | | absorbed by it

{ | | and form the _Ego_,

T { | | which goes into

R { | | Devachanic bliss.[19]

I {(_f_) Buddhi. |(_f_) The Spiritual |(_f_) The vehicle of

A { | Soul. | pure universal

D { | | spirit.

. {(_g_) Atma. |(_g_) Spirit. |(_g_) One with the

{ | | Absolute, as its

{ | | radiation.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Now what does Plato teach? He speaks of the _interior_ man as

constituted of two parts—one immutable and always the same,

formed of the same _substance_ as Deity, and the other mortal and

corruptible. These “two parts” are found in our upper _Triad_,

and the lower _Quaternary_ (_vide_ Table). He explains that when

the Soul, _psuche_, “allies herself to the Nous (divine spirit

or substance[20]), she does everything aright and felicitously”;

but the case is otherwise when she attaches herself to _Anoia_,

(folly, or the irrational animal Soul). Here, then, we have

_Manas_ (or the Soul in general) in its two aspects: when

attaching itself to _Anoia_ (our _Kama rupa_, or the “Animal Soul”

in “Esoteric Buddhism,”) it runs towards entire annihilation, as

far as the personal Ego is concerned; when allying itself to the

_Nous_ (Atma-Buddhi) it merges into the immortal, imperishable

Ego, and then its spiritual consciousness of the personal that

_was_, becomes immortal.

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN SOUL AND SPIRIT.

ENQ. Do you really teach, as you are accused of doing by some

Spiritualists and French Spiritists, the annihilation of every

personality?

THEO. We do not. But as this question of the duality—the

_individuality_ of the Divine Ego, and the _personality_ of the

human animal—involves that of the possibility of the real immortal

Ego appearing in _Séance rooms_ as a “materialised spirit,” which

we deny as already explained, our opponents have started the

nonsensical charge.

ENQ. You have just spoken of _psuche_ running towards its entire

annihilation if it attaches itself to _Anoia_. What did Plato, and

do you mean by this?

THEO. The _entire_ annihilation of the _personal_ consciousness, as an

exceptional and rare case, I think. The general and almost

invariable rule is the merging of the personal into the individual

or immortal consciousness of the Ego, a transformation or a divine

transfiguration, and the entire annihilation only of the lower

_quaternary_. Would you expect the man of flesh, or the _temporary

personality_, his shadow, the “astral,” his animal instincts

and even physical life, to survive with the “spiritual Ego” and

become sempiternal? Naturally all this ceases to exist, either

at, or soon after corporeal death. It becomes in time entirely

disintegrated and disappears from view, being annihilated as a

whole.

ENQ. Then you also reject _resurrection in the flesh_?

THEO. Most decidedly we do! Why should we, who believe in the archaic

esoteric philosophy of the Ancients, accept the unphilosophical

speculations of the later Christian theology, borrowed from the

Egyptian and Greek exoteric Systems of the Gnostics?

ENQ. The Egyptians revered Nature-Spirits, and deified even onions:

your Hindus are _idolaters_, to this day; the Zoroastrians

worshipped, and do still worship, the Sun; and the best Greek

philosophers were either dreamers or materialists—witness Plato

and Democritus. How can you compare?

THEO. It may be so in your modern Christian and even Scientific

catechism; it is not so for unbiased minds. The Egyptians

revered the “One-Only-One,” as _Nout_; and it is from this word

that Anaxagoras got his denomination _Nous_, or as he calls it,

Νους αυτοχρατης, “the Mind or Spirit Self-Potent,” the αρχητης

χινηδεως, the leading motor, or _primum-mobile_ of all. With

him the _Nous_ was God, and the _logos_ was man, his emanation.

The _Nous_ is the spirit (whether in Kosmos or in man), and the

_logos_, whether Universe or astral body, the emanation of the

former, the physical body being merely the animal. Our external

powers perceive _phenomena_; our _Nous_ alone is able to recognise

their _noumena_. It is the logos alone, or the _noumenon_, that

survives, because it is immortal in its very nature and essence,

and the _logos_ in man is the Eternal Ego, that which reincarnates

and lasts for ever. But how can the evanescent or external shadow,

the temporary clothing of that divine Emanation which returns

to the source whence it proceeded, be that _which is raised in

incorruptibility_?

ENQ. Still you can hardly escape the charge of having invented a new

division of man’s spiritual and psychic constituents; for no

philosopher speaks of them, though you believe that Plato does.

THEO. And I support the view. Besides Plato, there is Pythagoras, who

also followed the same idea.[21] He described the _Soul_ as a

self-moving Unit (_monad_) composed of three elements, the _Nous_

(Spirit), the _phren_ (mind), and the _thumos_ (life, breath or

the _Nephesh_ of the Kabalists) which three correspond to our

“Atma-Buddhi,” (higher Spirit-Soul), to _Manas_ (The EGO), and

to _Kama-rupa_ in conjunction with the _lower_ reflection of

Manas. That which the Ancient Greek philosophers termed _Soul_,

in general, we call Spirit, or Spiritual _Soul_, _Buddhi_, as the

vehicle of _Atma_ (the _Agathon_, or Plato’s Supreme Deity). The

fact that Pythagoras and others state that _phren_ and _thumos_

are shared by us with the brutes, proves that in this case the

_lower_ Manasic reflection (instinct) and _Kama-rupa_ (animal

living passions) are meant. And as Socrates and Plato accepted

the clue and followed it, if to these five, namely, _Agathon_

(Deity or Atma), _Psuche_ (Soul in its collective sense), _Nous_

(Spirit or Mind), _Phren_ (physical mind), and _Thumos_ (Kama-rupa

or passions) we add the _eidolon_ of the Mysteries, the shadowy

_form_ or the human double, and the _physical body_, it will be

easy to demonstrate that the ideas of both Pythagoras and Plato

were identical with ours. Even the Egyptians held to the Septenary

division. In its exit, they taught, the Soul (EGO) had to pass

through its seven chambers, or principles, those it left behind,

and those it took along with itself. The only difference is that,

ever bearing in mind the penalty of revealing Mystery-doctrines,

which was _death_, they gave out the teaching in a broad outline,

while we elaborate it and explain it in its details. But though

we do give out to the world as much as is lawful, even in our

doctrine more than one important detail is withheld, which those

who study the esoteric philosophy and are pledged to silence, _are

alone entitled to know_.

THE GREEK TEACHINGS.

ENQ. We have magnificent Greek and Latin, Sanskrit and Hebrew scholars.

How is it that we find nothing in their translations that would

afford us a clue to what you say?

THEO. Because your translators, their great learning notwithstanding,

have made of the philosophers, the Greeks especially, _misty_

instead of mystic writers. Take as an instance Plutarch, and read

what he says of “the principles” of man. That which he describes

was accepted literally and attributed to metaphysical superstition

and ignorance. Let me give you an illustration in point: “Man,”

says Plutarch, “is compound; and they are _mistaken who think him

to be compounded of two parts only_. For they imagine that the

understanding (brain intellect) is a part of the soul (the upper

Triad), but they err in this no less than those who make the soul

to be a part of the body, _i.e._, those who make of the _Triad_

part of the corruptible mortal _quaternary_. For the understanding

(nous) as far exceeds the soul, as the soul is better and diviner

than the body. Now this composition of the soul (ψυχη) with the

understanding (νοῦς) makes reason; and with the body (or thumos,

the animal soul) passion; of which the one is the beginning or

principle of pleasure and pain, and the other of virtue and

vice. Of these three parts conjoined and compacted together, the

earth has given the body, the moon the soul, and the sun the

understanding to the generation of man.”

This last sentence is purely allegorical, and will be comprehended

only by those who are versed in the esoteric science of

correspondences and know which planet is _related to every

principle_. Plutarch divides the latter into three groups, and

makes of the body a compound of physical frame, astral shadow,

and breath, or the triple lower part, which “from earth was

taken and to earth returns”; of the middle principle and the

instinctual soul, the second part, derived _from_ and _through_

and ever influenced by the moon[22]; and only of the higher part

or the _Spiritual Soul_, with the Atmic and Manasic elements in

it does he make a direct emanation of the Sun, who stands here

for _Agathon_ the Supreme Deity. This is proven by what he says

further as follows:

“Now of the deaths we die, the one makes man two of three and

the other one of (out of) two. The former is in the region

and jurisdiction of Demeter, whence the name given to the

Mysteries, τελειν, resembled that given to death, τελευταν.

The Athenians also heretofore called the deceased sacred to

Demeter. As for the other death, it is in the moon or region of

Persephone.”

Here you have our doctrine, which shows man a _septenary_ during

life; a _quintile_ just after death, in Kama-loka; and a threefold

_Ego_, Spirit-Soul, and consciousness in _Devachan_. This

separation, first in “the Meadows of Hades,” as Plutarch calls

the _Kama-loka_, then in Devachan, was part and parcel of the

performances during the sacred Mysteries, when the candidates for

initiation enacted the whole drama of death, and the resurrection

as a glorified spirit, by which name we mean _Consciousness_. This

is what Plutarch means when he says:—

“And as with the one, the terrestrial, so with the other

celestial Hermes doth dwell. This suddenly and with violence

plucks the soul from the body; but Proserpina mildly and in a

long time disjoins the understanding from the soul.[23] For

this reason she is called _Monogenes, only begotten_, or rather

_begetting one alone_; for _the better part of man becomes

alone when it is separated by her_. Now both the one and the

other happens thus according to nature. It is ordained by Fate

(Fatum or Karma) that every soul, whether with or without

understanding (mind), when gone out of the body, should wander

for a time, though not all for the same, in the region lying

between the earth and moon (_Kama-loka_).[24] For those that

have been unjust and dissolute suffer then the punishment due

to their offences; but the good and virtuous are there detained

till they are purified, and have, by expiation, purged out of

them all the infections they might have contracted from the

contagion of the body, as if from foul health, living in the

mildest part of the air, called the Meadows of Hades, where

they must remain for a certain prefixed and appointed time. And

then, as if they were returning from a wandering pilgrimage

or long exile into their country, they have a taste of joy,

such as they principally receive who are initiated into Sacred

Mysteries, mixed with trouble, admiration, and each one’s

proper and peculiar hope.”

This is Nirvanic bliss, and no Theosophist could describe in

plainer though esoteric language the mental joys of Devachan,

where every man has his paradise around him, erected by his

consciousness. But you must beware of the general error into

which too many even of our Theosophists fall. Do not imagine that

because man is called septenary, then _quintuple_ and a triad, he

is a compound of seven, five, or three _entities_; or, as well

expressed by a Theosophical writer, of skins to be peeled off like

the skins of an onion. The “principles,” as already said, save the

body, the life, and the astral _eidolon_, all of which disperse

at death, are simply _aspects_ and _states of consciousness_.

There is but one _real_ man, enduring through the cycle of life

and immortal in essence, if not in form, and this is _Manas_, the

Mind-man or embodied Consciousness. The objection made by the

materialists, who deny the possibility of mind and consciousness

acting without matter is worthless in our case. We do not deny

the soundness of their argument; but we simply ask our opponents,

“Are you acquainted _with all the states of matter_, you who knew

hitherto but of three? And how do you know whether that which we

refer to as ABSOLUTE CONSCIOUSNESS or Deity for ever invisible

and unknowable, be not that which, though it eludes for ever our

human _finite_ conception, is still universal Spirit-matter or

matter-Spirit _in its absolute infinitude_?” It is then one of the

lowest, and in its manvantaric manifestations _fractioned_-aspects

of this Spirit-matter, which is the conscious _Ego_ that creates

its own paradise, a fool’s paradise, it may be, still a state of

bliss.

ENQ. But what is _Devachan_?

THEO. The “land of gods” literally; a condition, a state of mental

bliss. Philosophically a mental condition analogous to, but far

more vivid and real than, the most vivid dream. It is the state

after death of most mortals.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] In Mr. Sinnett’s “Esoteric Buddhism” _d_, _e_, and _f_, are

respectively called the Animal, the Human, and the Spiritual Souls,

which answers as well. Though the principles in _Esoteric Buddhism_ are

numbered, this is, strictly speaking, useless. The dual _Monad_ alone

(_Atma-Buddhi_) is susceptible of being thought of as the two highest

numbers (the 6th and 7th). As to all others, since _that_ “principle”

only which is predominant in man has to be considered as the first and

foremost, no numeration is possible as a general rule. In some men it

is the higher Intelligence (Manas or the 5th) which dominates the rest;

in others the Animal Soul (Kama-rupa) that reigns supreme, exhibiting

the most bestial instincts, etc.

[20] Paul calls Plato’s _Nous_ “Spirit”; but as this spirit is

“substance,” then, of course, _Buddhi_ and not _Atma_ is meant, as

the latter cannot philosophically be called “substance” under any

circumstance. We include Atma among the human “principles” in order not

to create additional confusion. In reality it is no “human” but the

universal _absolute_ principle of which Buddhi, the Soul-Spirit, is the

carrier.

[21] “Plato and Pythagoras,” says Plutarch, “distribute the soul into

two parts, the rational (noetic) and irrational (agnoia); that that

part of the soul of man which is rational is eternal; for though it

be not God, yet it is the product of an eternal deity, but that part

of the soul which is divested of reason (agnoia) dies.” The modern

term _Agnostic_ comes from _Agnosis_, a cognate word. We wonder why

Mr. Huxley, the author of the word, should have connected his great

intellect with “the soul divested of reason” which dies? Is it the

exaggerated humility of the modern materialist?

[22] The Kabalists who know the relation of Jehovah, the life and

children-giver, to the Moon, and the influence of the latter on

generation, will again see the point as much as some astrologers will.

[23] Proserpina, or Persephone, stands here for post mortem Karma,

which is said to regulate the separation of the lower from the higher

“principles”: the _Soul_, as _Nephesh_, the breath of animal life,

which remains for a time in Kama-loka, from the higher compound _Ego_,

which goes into the state of Devachan, or bliss.

[24] Until the separation of the higher, spiritual “principle” takes

place from the lower ones, which remain in the Kama-loka until

disintegrated.

VII. ON THE VARIOUS POST MORTEM STATES.

THE PHYSICAL AND THE SPIRITUAL MAN.

ENQ. I am glad to hear you believe in the immortality of the Soul.

THEO. Not of “the Soul,” but of the divine Spirit; or rather in the

immortality of the reincarnating Ego.

ENQ. What is the difference?

THEO. A very great one in our philosophy, but this is too abstruse and

difficult a question to touch lightly upon. We shall have to

analyse them separately, and then in conjunction. We may begin

with Spirit.

We say that the Spirit (the “Father in secret” of Jesus), or _Atman_,

is no individual property of any man, but is the Divine essence

which has no body, no form, which is imponderable, invisible and

indivisible, that which does not _exist_ and yet _is_, as the

Buddhists say of Nirvana. It only overshadows the mortal; that

which enters into him and pervades the whole body being only

its omnipresent rays, or light, radiated through _Buddhi_, its

vehicle and direct emanation. This is the secret meaning of the

assertions of almost all the ancient philosophers, when they said

that “the _rational_ part of man’s soul”[25] never entered wholly

into the man, but only overshadowed him more or less through the

_irrational_ spiritual Soul or Buddhi.[26]

ENQ. I laboured under the impression that the “Animal Soul” alone was

irrational, not the Divine.

THEO. You have to learn the difference between that which is

negatively, or _passively_ “irrational,” because undifferentiated,

and that which is irrational because too _active_ and positive.

Man is a correlation of spiritual powers, as well as a correlation

of chemical and physical forces, brought into function by what we

call “principles.”

ENQ. I have read a good deal upon the subject, and it seems to me that

the notions of the older philosophers differed a great deal from

those of the mediæval Kabalists, though they do agree in some

particulars.

THEO. The most substantial difference between them and us is this.

While we believe with the Neo-Platonists and the Eastern teachings

that the spirit (Atma) never descends hypostatically into the

living man, but only showers more or less its radiance on the

_inner_ man (the psychic and spiritual compound of the _astral_

principles), the Kabalists maintain that the human Spirit,

detaching itself from the ocean of light and Universal Spirit,

enters man’s Soul, where it remains throughout life imprisoned

in the astral capsule. All Christian Kabalists still maintain

the same, as they are unable to break quite loose from their

anthropomorphic and Biblical doctrines.

ENQ. And what do you say?

THEO. We say that we only allow the presence of the radiation of Spirit

(or Atma) in the astral capsule, and so far only as that spiritual

radiancy is concerned. We say that man and Soul have to conquer

their immortality by ascending towards the unity with which, if

successful, they will be finally linked and into which they are

finally, so to speak, absorbed. The individualization of man after

death depends on the spirit, not on his soul and body. Although

the word “personality,” in the sense in which it is usually

understood, is an absurdity if applied literally to our immortal

essence, still the latter is, as our individual Ego, a distinct

entity, immortal and eternal, _per se_. _It is only in the case

of black magicians or of criminals beyond redemption, criminals

who have been such during a long series of lives_—that the shining

thread, which links the spirit to the _personal_ soul from the

moment of the birth of the child, is violently snapped, and the

disembodied entity becomes divorced from the personal soul, the

latter being annihilated without leaving the smallest impression

of itself on the former. If that union between the lower, or

personal Manas, and the individual reincarnating Ego, has not

been effected during life, then the former is left to share the

fate of the lower animals, to gradually dissolve into ether, and

have its personality annihilated. But even then the Ego remains a

distinct being. It (the spiritual Ego) only loses one Devachanic

state—after that special, and in that case indeed useless,

life—as that idealized _Personality_, and is reincarnated, after

enjoying for a short time its freedom as a planetary spirit,

almost immediately.

ENQ. It is stated in _Isis Unveiled_ that such planetary Spirits or

Angels, “the gods of the Pagans or the Archangels of the

Christians,” will never be men on our planet.

THEO. Quite right. Not “_such_,” but _some_ classes of higher Planetary

Spirits. They will never be men on this planet, because they are

liberated Spirits from a previous, earlier world, and as such they

cannot re-become men on this one. Yet all these will live again in

the next and far higher Mahamanvantara, after this “great Age,”

and “Brahma _pralaya_,” (a little period of 16 figures or so) is

over. For you must have heard, of course, that Eastern philosophy

teaches us that mankind consists of such “Spirits” imprisoned in

human bodies? The difference between animals and men is this: the

former are ensouled by the “principles” _potentially_, the latter

_actually_.[27] Do you understand now the difference?

ENQ. Yes; but this specialisation has been in all ages the

stumbling-block of metaphysicians.

THEO. It was. The whole esotericism of the Buddhistic philosophy is

based on this mysterious teaching, understood by so few persons,

and so totally misrepresented by many of the most learned modern

scholars. Even metaphysicians are too inclined to confound the

effect with the cause. An Ego who has won his immortal life as

spirit will remain the same inner self throughout all his rebirths

on earth; but this does not imply necessarily that he must either

remain the Mr. Smith or Mr. Brown he was on earth, or lose his

individuality. Therefore, the astral soul and the terrestrial

body of man may, in the dark hereafter, be absorbed into the

cosmical ocean of sublimated elements, and cease to feel his last

_personal_ Ego (if it did not deserve to soar higher), and the

_divine_ Ego still remain the same unchanged entity, though this

terrestrial experience of his emanation may be totally obliterated

at the instant of separation from the unworthy vehicle.

ENQ. If the “Spirit,” or the divine portion of the soul, is

pre-existent as a distinct being from all eternity, as Origen,

Synesius, and other semi-Christians and semi-Platonic philosophers

taught, and if it is the same, and nothing more than the

metaphysically-objective soul, how can it be otherwise than

eternal? And what matters it in such a case, whether man leads a

pure life or an animal, if, do what he may, he can never lose his

individuality?

THEO. This doctrine, as you have stated it, is just as pernicious in

its consequences as that of vicarious atonement. Had the latter

dogma, in company with the false idea that we are all immortal,

been demonstrated to the world in its true light, humanity would

have been bettered by its propagation.

Let me repeat to you again. Pythagoras, Plato, Timaeus of Locris, and

the old Alexandrian School, derived the _Soul_ of man (or

his higher “principles” and attributes) from the Universal

World Soul, the latter being, according to their teachings,

_Aether_ (Pater-Zeus). Therefore, neither of these “principles”

can be _unalloyed_ essence of the Pythagorean Monas, or our

_Atma-Buddhi_, because the _Anima Mundi_ is but the effect, the

subjective emanation or rather radiation of the former. Both the

_human_ Spirit (or the individuality), the reincarnating Spiritual

Ego, and Buddhi, the Spiritual soul, are pre-existent. But, while

the former exists as a distinct entity, an individualization,

the soul exists as pre-existing breath, an unscient portion

of an intelligent whole. Both were originally formed from the

Eternal Ocean of light; but as the Fire-Philosophers, the

mediæval Theosophists, expressed it, there is a visible as well

as invisible spirit in fire. They made a difference between the

_anima bruta_ and the _anima divina_. Empedocles firmly believed

all men and animals to possess two souls; and in Aristotle we find

that he calls one the reasoning soul, νους and the other, the

animal soul, ψυχη. According to these philosophers, the reasoning

soul comes from _within_ the universal soul, and the other from

_without_.

ENQ. Would you call the Soul, _i.e._, the human thinking Soul, or what

you call the Ego—matter?

THEO. Not matter, but substance assuredly; nor would the word “matter,”

if prefixed with the adjective, _primordial_, be a word to

avoid. That matter, we say, is co-eternal with Spirit, and is

not our visible, tangible, and divisible matter, but its extreme

sublimation. Pure Spirit is but one remove from the _no_-Spirit,

or the absolute _all_. Unless you admit that man was evolved

out of this primordial Spirit-matter, and represents a regular

progressive scale of “principles” from _meta_-Spirit down to the

grossest matter, how can we ever come to regard the _inner_ man as

immortal, and at the same time as a spiritual Entity and a mortal

man?

ENQ. Then why should you not believe in God as such an Entity?

THEO. Because that which is infinite and unconditioned can have no

form, and cannot be a being, not in any Eastern philosophy worthy

of the name, at any rate. An “entity” is immortal, but is so only

in its ultimate essence, not in its individual form. When at

the last point of its cycle, it is absorbed into its primordial

nature; and it becomes spirit, when it loses its name of Entity.

Its immortality as a form is limited only to its life-cycle or

the _Mahamanvantara_; after which it is one and identical with

the Universal Spirit, and no longer a separate Entity. As to the

_personal_ Soul—by which we mean the spark of consciousness that

preserves in the Spiritual Ego the idea of the personal “I” of the

last incarnation—this lasts, as a separate distinct recollection,

only throughout the Devachanic period; after which time it is

added to the series of other innumerable incarnations of the Ego,

like the remembrance in our memory of one of a series of days,

at the end of a year. Will you bind the infinitude you claim for

your God to finite conditions? That alone which is indissolubly

cemented by _Atma_ (_i.e._, Buddhi-Manas) is immortal. The Soul

of man (_i.e._, of the personality) _per se_ is neither immortal,

eternal nor divine. Says the _Zohar_ (vol. iii., p. 616), “the

soul, when sent to this earth, puts on an earthly garment, to

preserve herself here, so she receives above a shining garment,

in order to be able to look without injury into the mirror, whose

light proceeds from the Lord of Light.” Moreover, the _Zohar_

teaches that the soul cannot reach the abode of bliss, unless she

has received the “holy kiss,” or the reunion of the soul _with the

substance from which she emanated_—spirit. All souls are dual,

and, while the latter is a feminine principle, the spirit is

masculine. While imprisoned in body, man is a trinity, unless his

pollution is such as to have caused his divorce from the spirit.

“Woe to the soul which prefers to her divine husband (spirit) the

earthly wedlock with her terrestrial body,” records a text of the

_Book of the Keys_, a Hermetic work. Woe indeed, for nothing will

remain of that personality to be recorded on the imperishable

tablets of the Ego’s memory.

ENQ. How can that which, if not breathed by God into man, yet is on

your own confession of an identical substance with the divine,

fail to be immortal?

THEO. Every atom and speck of matter, not of substance only, is

_imperishable_ in its essence, but not in its _individual

consciousness_. Immortality is but one’s unbroken consciousness;

and the _personal_ consciousness can hardly last longer than

the personality itself, can it? And such consciousness, as I

already told you, survives only throughout Devachan, after which

it is reabsorbed, first, in the _individual_, and then in the

_universal_ consciousness. Better enquire of your theologians how

it is that they have so sorely jumbled up the Jewish Scriptures.

Read the Bible, if you would have a good proof that the writers

of the _Pentateuch_, and _Genesis_ especially, never regarded

_nephesh_, that which God breathes into Adam (Gen. ch. ii.), as

the _immortal_ soul. Here are some instances:—“And God created ...

every _nephesh_ (life) that moveth” (Gen i. 21), meaning animals;

and (Gen. ii. 7) it is said: “And man became a _nephesh_” (living

soul), which shows that the word _nephesh_ was indifferently

applied to _immortal_ man and to _mortal_ beast. “And surely

your blood of your _nepheshim_ (lives) will I require; at the

hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man”

(Gen. ix. 5), “Escape for _nephesh_” (escape for thy _life_, it

is translated), (Gen. xix. 17). “Let us not kill him,” reads

the English version (Gen. xxxvii. 21). “Let us not kill his

_nephesh_” is the Hebrew text. “_Nephesh_ for _nephesh_,” says

Leviticus (xvii. 8). “He that killeth any man shall surely be put

to death,” literally “He that smiteth the _nephesh_ of a man”

(Lev. xxiv. 17); and from verse 18 and following it reads: “And he

that killeth a beast (_nephesh_) shall make it good ... Beast for

beast,” whereas the original text has it “nephesh for nephesh.”

How could man _kill_ that which is immortal? And this explains

also why the Sadducees denied the immortality of the soul, as it

also affords another proof that very probably the Mosaic Jews—the

uninitiated at any rate—never believed in the soul’s survival at

all.

ON ETERNAL REWARD AND PUNISHMENT; AND ON NIRVANA.

ENQ. It is hardly necessary, I suppose, to ask you whether you believe

in the Christian dogmas of Paradise and Hell, or in future rewards

and punishments as taught by the Orthodox churches?

THEO. As described in your catechisms, we reject them absolutely; least

of all would we accept their eternity. But we believe firmly in

what we call the _Law of Retribution_, and in the absolute justice

and wisdom guiding this Law, or Karma. Hence we positively refuse

to accept the cruel and unphilosophical belief in eternal reward

or eternal punishment. We say with Horace:—

“Let rules be fixed that may our rage contain,

And punish faults _with a proportion’d pain_;

But do not flay him who deserves alone

A whipping for the fault that he has done.”

This is a rule for all men, and a just one. Have we to believe

that God, of whom you make the embodiment of wisdom, love and

mercy, is less entitled to these attributes than mortal man?

ENQ. Have you any other reasons for rejecting this dogma?

THEO. Our chief reason for it lies in the fact of re-incarnation. As

already stated, we reject the idea of a new soul created for every

newly-born babe. We believe that every human being is the bearer,

or _Vehicle_, of an _Ego_ coeval with every other Ego; because

all _Egos_ are _of the same essence_ and belong to the primeval

emanation from one universal infinite _Ego_. Plato calls the

latter the _logos_ (or the second manifested God); and we, the

manifested divine principle, which is one with the universal mind

or soul, not the anthropomorphic, extra-cosmic and _personal_ God

in which so many Theists believe. Pray do not confuse.

ENQ. But where is the difficulty, once you accept a manifested

principle, in believing that the soul of every new mortal is

_created_ by that Principle, as all the Souls before it have been

so created?

THEO. Because that which is _impersonal_ can hardly create, plan and

think, at its own sweet will and pleasure. Being a universal

_Law_, immutable in its periodical manifestations, those of

radiating and manifesting its own essence at the beginning of

every new cycle of life, IT is not supposed to create men, only

to repent a few years later of having created them. If we have to

believe in a divine principle at all, it must be in one which is

as absolute harmony, logic, and justice, as it is absolute love,

wisdom, and impartiality; and a God who would _create_ every

soul for the space of _one brief span of life_, regardless of

the fact whether it has to animate the body of a wealthy, happy

man, or that of a poor suffering wretch, hapless from birth to

death though he has done nothing to deserve his cruel fate—would

be rather a senseless _fiend_ than a God. (_Vide infra_, “On

the Punishment of the Ego.”) Why, even the Jewish philosophers,

believers in the Mosaic Bible (esoterically, of course), have

never entertained such an idea; and, moreover, they believed in

re-incarnation, as we do.

ENQ. Can you give me some instances as a proof of this?

THEO. Most decidedly I can. Philo Judæus says (in “De Somniis,” p.

455): “The air is full of them (of souls); those which are nearest

the earth, descending to be tied to mortal bodies, παλινδρομοῦσιν

αὖθις _return to other bodies, being desirous to live in them_.”

In the _Zohar_, the soul is made to plead her freedom before

God: “Lord of the Universe! I am happy in this world, and do

not wish to go into another world, where I shall be a handmaid,

and be exposed to all kinds of pollutions.”[28] The doctrine

of fatal necessity, the everlasting immutable law, is asserted

in the answer of the Deity: “Against thy will thou becomest an

embryo, and against thy will thou art born.”[29] Light would be

incomprehensible without darkness to make it manifest by contrast;

good would be no longer good without evil to show the priceless

nature of the boon; and so personal virtue could claim no merit,

unless it had passed through the furnace of temptation. Nothing

is eternal and unchangeable, save the concealed Deity. Nothing

that is finite—whether because it had a beginning, or must have an

end—can remain stationary. It must either progress or recede; and

a soul which thirsts after a reunion with its spirit, which alone

confers upon it immortality, must purify itself through cyclic

transmigrations onward toward the only land of bliss and eternal

rest, called in the _Zohar_, “The Palace of Love,” היבל אחכה; in

the Hindu religion, “Moksha”; among the Gnostics, “The Pleroma of

Eternal Light”; and by the Buddhists, “Nirvana.” And all these

states are temporary, not eternal.

ENQ. Yet there is no re-incarnation spoken of in all this.

THEO. A soul which pleads to be allowed to remain where she is, _must

be pre-existent_, and not have been created for the occasion. In

the _Zohar_ (vol. iii., p. 61), however, there is a still better

proof. Speaking of the reincarnating _Egos_ (the _rational_

souls), those whose last personality has to fade out _entirely_,

it is said: “All souls which have alienated themselves in heaven

from the Holy One—blessed be His name—have thrown themselves into

an abyss at their very existence, and have anticipated the time

when they are to descend once more on earth.” “The Holy One” means

here, esoterically, the Atman, or _Atma-Buddhi_.

ENQ. Moreover, it is very strange to find _Nirvana_ spoken of as

something synonymous with the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Paradise,

since according to every Orientalist of note Nirvana is a synonym

of annihilation!

THEO. Taken literally, with regard to the personality and

differentiated matter, not otherwise. These ideas on

re-incarnation and the trinity of man were held by many of the

early Christian Fathers. It is the jumble made by the translators

of the New Testament and ancient philosophical treatises between

soul and spirit, that has occasioned the many misunderstandings.

It is also one of the many reasons why Buddha, Plotinus, and so

many other Initiates are now accused of having longed for the

total extinction of their souls: “absorption unto the Deity,”

or “reunion with the universal soul,” meaning, according to

modern ideas, annihilation. The personal soul must, of course,

be disintegrated into its particles, before it is able to link

its purer essence for ever with the immortal spirit. But the

translators of both the _Acts_ and the _Epistles_, who laid the

foundation of the _Kingdom of Heaven_, and the modern commentators

on the Buddhist _Sutra of the Foundation of the Kingdom of

Righteousness_, have muddled the sense of the great apostle of

Christianity as of the great reformer of India. The former have

smothered the word ψυχικος so that no reader imagines it to have

any relation with _soul_; and with this confusion of _soul_ and

_spirit_ together, _Bible_ readers get only a perverted sense of

anything on the subject. On the other hand, the interpreters of

Buddha have failed to understand the meaning and object of the

Buddhist four degrees of Dhyâna. Ask the Pythagoreans, “Can that

spirit, which gives life and motion and partakes of the nature of

light, be reduced to nonentity?” “Can even that sensitive spirit

in brutes which exercises memory, one of the rational faculties,

die and become nothing?” observe the Occultists. In Buddhistic

philosophy _annihilation_ means only a dispersion of matter, in

whatever form or _semblance_ of form it may be, for everything

that has form is temporary, and is, therefore, really an illusion.

For in eternity the longest periods of time are as a wink of the

eye. So with form. Before we have time to realize that we have

seen it, it is gone like an instantaneous flash of lightning, and

passed for ever. When the Spiritual _entity_ breaks loose for ever

from every particle of matter, substance, or form, and re-becomes

a Spiritual breath: then only does it enter upon the eternal and

unchangeable _Nirvana_, lasting as long as the cycle of life has

lasted—an eternity, truly. And then that Breath, existing _in

Spirit_, is _nothing_ because it is _all_; as a form, a semblance,

a shape, it is completely annihilated; as absolute Spirit it

still is, for it has become _Be-ness_ itself. The very word used,

“absorbed in the universal essence,” when spoken of the “Soul” as

Spirit, means “_union with_.” It can never mean annihilation, as

that would mean eternal separation.

ENQ. Do you not lay yourself open to the accusation of preaching

annihilation by the language you yourself use? You have just

spoken of the Soul of man returning to its primordial elements.

THEO. But you forget that I have given you the differences between the

various meanings of the word “Soul,” and shown the loose way in

which the term “Spirit” has been hitherto translated. We speak of

an _animal_, a _human_, and a _spiritual_, Soul, and distinguish

between them. Plato, for instance, calls “rational SOUL” that

which we call _Buddhi_, adding to it the adjective of “spiritual,”

however; but that which we call the reincarnating Ego, _Manas_, he

calls Spirit, _Nous_, etc., whereas we apply the term _Spirit_,

when standing alone and without any qualification, to Atma alone.

Pythagoras repeats our archaic doctrine when stating that the

_Ego_ (_Nous_) is eternal with Deity; that the soul only passed

through various stages to arrive at divine excellence; while

_thumos_ returned to the earth, and even the _phren_, the lower

_Manas_, was eliminated. Again, Plato defines _Soul_ (Buddhi) as

“the motion that is able to move itself.” “Soul,” he adds (Laws

X.), “is the most ancient of all things, and the commencement of

motion,” thus calling Atma-Buddhi “Soul,” and _Manas_ “Spirit,”

which we do not.

“Soul was generated prior to body, and body is posterior and

secondary, as being according to nature, ruled over by the

ruling soul.” “The soul which administers all things that are

moved in every way, administers likewise the heavens.”

“Soul then leads everything in heaven, and on earth, and in

the sea, by its movements—the names of which are, to will,

to consider, to take care of, to consult, to form opinions

true and false, to be in a state of joy, sorrow, confidence,

fear, hate, love, together with all such primary movements

as are allied to these.... Being a goddess herself, she ever

takes as an ally _Nous_, a god, and disciplines all things

correctly and happily; but when with _Annoia_—not _nous_—it

works out everything the contrary.”

In this language, as in the Buddhist texts, the negative is

treated as essential existence. _Annihilation_ comes under a

similar exegesis. The positive state is essential being, but no

manifestation as such. When the spirit, in Buddhistic parlance,

enters _Nirvana_, it loses objective existence, but retains

subjective being. To objective minds this is becoming absolute

“nothing”; to subjective, NO-THING, nothing to be displayed to

sense. Thus, their Nirvana means the certitude of individual

immortality _in Spirit_, not in Soul, which, though “the most

ancient of all things,” is still—along with all the other _Gods_—a

finite emanation, in _forms_ and individuality, if not in

substance.

ENQ. I do not quite seize the idea yet, and would be thankful to have

you explain this to me by some illustrations.

THEO. No doubt it is very difficult to understand, especially to one

brought up in the regular orthodox ideas of the Christian Church.

Moreover, I must tell you one thing; and this is that unless you

have studied thoroughly well the separate functions assigned to

all the human “principles” and the state of all these _after

death_, you will hardly realize our Eastern philosophy.

ON THE VARIOUS “PRINCIPLES” IN MAN.

ENQ. I have heard a good deal about this constitution of the “inner

man” as you call it, but could never make “head or tail on’t” as

Gabalis expresses it.

THEO. Of course, it is most difficult, and, as you say, “puzzling” to

understand correctly and distinguish between the various

_aspects_, called by us, the “principles” of the real EGO. It is

the more so as there exists a notable difference in the numbering

of those principles by various Eastern schools, though at the

bottom there is the same identical substratum of teaching.

ENQ. Do you mean the Vedantins, as an instance? Don’t they divide your

seven “principles” into five only?

THEO. They do; but though I would not presume to dispute the point with

a learned Vedantin, I may yet state as my private opinion that

they have an obvious reason for it. With them it is only that

compound spiritual aggregate which consists of various mental

aspects that is called _Man_ at all, the physical body being in

their view something beneath contempt, and merely an _illusion_.

Nor is the Vedanta the only philosophy to reckon in this manner.

Lao-Tze, in his _Tao-te-King_, mentions only five principles,

because he, like the Vedantins, omits to include two principles,

namely, the spirit (Atma) and the physical body, the latter of

which, moreover, he calls “the cadaver.” Then there is the

_Taraka Rajà Yogà_ School. Its teaching recognises only three

“principles” in fact; but then, in reality, their _Sthulopadi_,

or the physical body, in its waking conscious state, their

_Sukshmopadhi_, the same body in _Svapna_, or the dreaming state,

and their _Karanopadhi_ or “causal body,” or that which passes

from one incarnation to another, are all dual in their aspects,

and thus make six. Add to this Atma, the impersonal divine

principle or the immortal element in Man, undistinguished from the

Universal Spirit, and you have the same seven again.[30] They are

welcome to hold to their division; we hold to ours.

ENQ. Then it seems almost the same as the division made by the mystic

Christians: body, soul and spirit?

THEO. Just the same. We could easily make of the body the vehicle of

the “vital Double”; of the latter the vehicle of Life or _Pranâ_;

of _Kama-rupa_, or (animal) soul, the vehicle of the _higher_

and the _lower_ mind, and make of this six principles, crowning

the whole with the one immortal spirit. In Occultism every

qualificative change in the state of our consciousness gives to

man a new aspect, and if it prevails and becomes part of the

living and acting Ego, it must be (and is) given a special name,

to distinguish the man in that particular state from the man he is

when he places himself in another state.

ENQ. It is just that which it is so difficult to understand.

THEO. It seems to me very easy, on the contrary, once that you have

seized the main idea, _i.e._, that man acts on this or another

plane of consciousness, in strict accordance with his mental and

spiritual condition. But such is the materialism of the age that

the more we explain the less people seem capable of understanding

what we say. Divide the terrestrial being called man into

three chief aspects, if you like, and unless you make of him a

pure animal you cannot do less. Take his objective _body_; the

thinking principle in him—which is only a little higher than the

_instinctual_ element in the animal—or the vital conscious soul;

and that which places him so immeasurably beyond and higher than

the animal—_i.e._, his _reasoning_ soul or “spirit.” Well, if we

take these three groups or representative entities, and subdivide

them, according to the occult teaching, what do we get?

First of all, Spirit (in the sense of the Absolute, and therefore,

indivisible ALL), or Atma. As this can neither be located nor

limited in philosophy, being simply that which IS in Eternity,

and which cannot be absent from even the tiniest geometrical or

mathematical point of the universe of matter or substance, it

ought not to be called, in truth, a “human” principle at all.

Rather, and at best, it is in Metaphysics, that point in space

which the human Monad and its vehicle man occupy for the period

of every life. Now that point is as imaginary as man himself,

and in reality is an illusion, a _maya_; but then for ourselves,

as for other personal Egos, we are a reality during that fit of

illusion called life, and we have to take ourselves into account,

in our own fancy at any rate, if no one else does. To make it

more conceivable to the human intellect, when first attempting

the study of Occultism, and to solve the A B C of the mystery

of man, Occultism calls this _seventh_ principle the synthesis

of the sixth, and gives it for vehicle the _Spiritual_ Soul,

_Buddhi_. Now the latter conceals a mystery, which is never given

to any one, with the exception of irrevocably pledged _chelas_,

or those, at any rate, who can be safely trusted. Of course,

there would be less confusion, could it only be told; but, as

this is directly concerned with the power of projecting one’s

double consciously and at will, and as this gift, like the “ring

of Gyges,” would prove very fatal to man at large and to the

possessor of that faculty in particular, it is carefully guarded.

But let us proceed with the “principles.” This divine soul, or

Buddhi, then, is the vehicle of the Spirit. In conjunction, these

two are one, impersonal and without any attributes (on this

plane, of course), and make two spiritual “principles.” If we

pass on to the _Human_ Soul, _Manas_ or _mens_, every one will

agree that the intelligence of man is _dual_ to say the least:

_e.g._, the high-minded man can hardly become low-minded; the very

intellectual and spiritual-minded man is separated by an abyss

from the obtuse, dull, and material, if not animal-minded man.

ENQ. But why should not man be represented by two “principles” or two

aspects, rather?

THEO. Every man has these two principles in him, one more active than

the other, and in rare cases, one of these is entirely stunted

in its growth, so to say, or paralysed by the strength and

predominance of the other _aspect_, in whatever direction.

These, then, are what we call the two principles or aspects of

_Manas_, the higher and the lower; the former, the higher Manas,

or the thinking, conscious EGO gravitating toward the spiritual

Soul (Buddhi); and the latter, or its instinctual principle,

attracted to _Kama_, the seat of animal desires and passions in

man. Thus, we have _four_ “principles” justified; the last three

being (1) the “Double,” which we have agreed to call Protean, or

Plastic Soul; the vehicle of (2) the life _principle_; and (3)

the physical body. Of course no physiologist or biologist will

accept these principles, nor can he make head or tail of them.

And this is why, perhaps, none of them understand to this day

either the functions of the spleen, the physical vehicle of the

Protean Double, or those of a certain organ on the right side of

man, the seat of the above-mentioned desires, nor yet does he know

anything of the pineal gland, which he describes as a horny gland

with a little sand in it, which gland is in truth the very seat

of the highest and divinest consciousness in man, his omniscient,

spiritual and all-embracing mind. And this shows to you still more

plainly that we have neither invented these seven principles, nor

are they new in the world of philosophy, as we can easily prove.

ENQ. But what is it that reincarnates, in your belief?

THEO. The Spiritual thinking Ego, the permanent principle in man, or

that which is the seat of _Manas_. It is not Atma, or even

Atma-Buddhi, regarded as the dual _Monad_, which is the

_individual_, or _divine_ man, but Manas; for Atman is the

Universal ALL, and becomes the HIGHER-SELF of man only in

conjunction with _Buddhi_, its vehicle, which links IT to the

individuality (or divine man). For it is the Buddhi-Manas which is

called the _Causal body_, (the United 5th and 6th Principles) and

which is _Consciousness_, that connects it with every personality

it inhabits on earth. Therefore, Soul being a generic term, there

are in men three _aspects_ of soul—the terrestrial, or animal; the

Human Soul; and the Spiritual Soul; these, strictly speaking, are

one Soul in its three aspects. Now of the first aspect, nothing

remains after death; of the second (_nous_ or Manas) only its

divine essence _if left unsoiled_ survives, while the third in

addition to being immortal becomes _consciously_ divine, by the

assimilation of the higher Manas. But to make it clear, we have to

say a few words first of all about Re-incarnation.

ENQ. You will do well, as it is against this doctrine that your enemies

fight the most ferociously.

THEO. You mean the Spiritualists? I know; and many are the absurd

objections laboriously spun by them over the pages of _Light_.

So obtuse and malicious are some of them, that they will stop at

nothing. One of them found recently a contradiction, which he

gravely discusses in a letter to that journal, in two statements

picked out of Mr. Sinnett’s lectures. He discovers that grave

contradiction in these two sentences: “Premature returns to

earth-life in the cases when they occur may be due to Karmic

complication ...”; and “there is no _accident_ in the supreme act

of divine justice guiding evolution.” So profound a thinker would

surely see a contradiction of the law of gravitation if a man

stretched out his hand to stop a falling stone from crushing the

head of a child!

FOOTNOTES:

[25] In its generic sense, the word “rational” meaning something

emanating from the Eternal Wisdom.

[26] _Irrational_ in the sense that as a _pure_ emanation of the

Universal mind it can have no individual reason of its own on this

plane of matter, but like the Moon, who borrows her light from the Sun

and her life from the Earth, so _Buddhi_, receiving its light of Wisdom

from Atma, gets its rational qualities from _Manas_. _Per se_, as

something homogeneous, it is devoid of attributes.

[27] _Vide_ “_Secret Doctrine_,” Vol. II., stanzas.

[28] “_Zohar_,” Vol. II., p. 96.

[29] “_Mishna_,” “Aboth,” Vol. IV., p. 29.

[30] See “Secret Doctrine” for a clearer explanation. Vol. I., p. 157.

VIII. ON RE-INCARNATION OR REBIRTH.

WHAT IS MEMORY ACCORDING TO THEOSOPHICAL TEACHING?

ENQ. The most difficult thing for you to do, will be to explain and

give reasonable grounds for such a belief. No Theosophist has

ever yet succeeded in bringing forward a single valid proof to

shake my scepticism. First of all, you have against this theory of

re-incarnation, the fact that no single man has yet been found to

remember that he has lived, least of all who he was, during his

previous life.

THEO. Your argument, I see, tends to the same old objection; the loss

of memory in each of us of our previous incarnation. You think it

invalidates our doctrine? My answer is that it does not, and that

at any rate such an objection cannot be final.

ENQ. I would like to hear your arguments.

THEO. They are short and few. Yet when you take into consideration

(_a_) the utter inability of the best modern psychologists to

explain to the world the nature of _mind_; and (_b_) their

complete ignorance of its potentialities, and higher states,

you have to admit that this objection is based on an _a priori_

conclusion drawn from _primâ facie_ and circumstantial evidence

more than anything else. Now what is “memory” in your conception,

pray?

ENQ. That which is generally accepted: the faculty in our mind of

remembering and of retaining the knowledge of previous thoughts,

deeds and events.

THEO. Please add to it that there is a great difference between the

three accepted forms of memory. Besides memory in general you have

_Remembrance_, _Recollection_ and _Reminiscence_, have you not?

Have you ever thought over the difference? Memory, remember, is a

generic name.

ENQ. Yet, all these are only synonyms.

THEO. Indeed, they are not—not in philosophy, at all events. Memory is

simply an innate power in thinking beings, and even in animals,

of reproducing past impressions by an association of ideas

principally suggested by objective things or by some action on our

external sensory organs. Memory is a faculty depending entirely on

the more or less healthy and normal functioning of our _physical_

brain; and _remembrance_ and _recollection_ are the attributes

and handmaidens of that memory. But _reminiscence_ is an entirely

different thing. “Reminiscence” is defined by the modern

psychologist as something intermediate between _remembrance_

and _recollection_, or “a conscious process of recalling past

occurrences, but _without that full and varied reference_ to

particular things which characterises _recollection_.” Locke,

speaking of recollection and remembrance, says: “When an _idea

again_ recurs without the operation of the like object on the

external sensory, it is _remembrance_; if it be sought after by

the mind, and with pain and endeavour found and brought again into

view, it is _recollection_.” But even Locke leaves _reminiscence_

without any clear definition, because it is no faculty or

attribute of our _physical_ memory, but an intuitional perception

apart from and outside our physical brain; a perception which,

covering as it does (being called into action by the ever-present

knowledge of our spiritual Ego) all those visions in man which

are regarded as _abnormal_—from the pictures suggested by genius

to the _ravings_ of fever and even madness—are classed by science

as having no _existence_ outside of our fancy. Occultism and

Theosophy, however, regard _reminiscence_ in an entirely different

light. For us, while _memory_ is physical and evanescent and

depends on the physiological conditions of the brain—a fundamental

proposition with all teachers of mnemonics, who have the

researches of modern scientific psychologists to back them—we call

_reminiscence_ the _memory of the soul_. And it is _this_ memory

which gives the assurance to almost every human being, whether he

understands it or not, of his having lived before and having to

live again. Indeed, as Wordsworth has it:

“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,

The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,

Hath elsewhere had its setting,

And cometh from afar.”

ENQ. If it is on this kind of memory—poetry and abnormal fancies, on

your own confession—that you base your doctrine, then you will

convince very few, I am afraid.

THEO. I did not “confess” it was a fancy. I simply said that

physiologists and scientists in general regard such reminiscences

as hallucinations and fancy, to which _learned_ conclusion they

are welcome. We do not deny that such visions of the past and

glimpses far back into the corridors of time, are abnormal, as

contrasted with our normal daily life experience and physical

memory. But we do maintain with Professor W. Knight, that “the

absence of memory of any action done in a previous state cannot

be a conclusive argument against our having lived through it.”

And every fair-minded opponent must agree with what is said in

Butler’s _Lectures on Platonic Philosophy_—“that the feeling of

extravagance with which it (pre-existence) affects us has its

secret source in materialistic or semi-materialistic prejudices.”

Besides which we maintain that memory, as Olympiodorus called it,

is simply _phantasy_, and the most unreliable thing in us.[31]

Ammonius Saccas asserted that the only faculty in man directly

opposed to prognostication, or looking into futurity, is _memory_.

Furthermore, remember that memory is one thing and mind or

_thought_ is another; one is a recording machine, a register which

very easily gets out of order; the other (thoughts) are eternal

and imperishable. Would you refuse to believe in the existence of

certain things or men only because your physical eyes have not

seen them? Would not the collective testimony of past generations

who have seen him be a sufficient guarantee that Julius Cæsar once

lived? Why should not the same testimony of the psychic senses of

the masses be taken into consideration?

ENQ. But don’t you think that these are too fine distinctions to be

accepted by the majority of mortals?

THEO. Say rather by the majority of materialists. And to them we say,

behold: even in the short span of ordinary existence, memory is

too weak to register all the events of a lifetime. How frequently

do even most important events lie dormant in our memory until

awakened by some association of ideas, or aroused to function

and activity by some other link. This is especially the case

with people of advanced age, who are always found suffering from

feebleness of recollection. When, therefore, we remember that

which we know about the physical and the spiritual principles

in man, it is not the fact that our memory has failed to record

our precedent life and lives that ought to surprise us, but the

contrary, were it to happen.

WHY DO WE NOT REMEMBER OUR PAST LIVES?