ELEMENTARY THEOSOPHY
L. W. ROGERS
LOS ANGELES
THEOSOPHICAL BOOK CONCERN
1917
Copyright
By
L. W. Rogers
1917
PREFACE
To comprehend the significance of great world changes, before Time has
fully done his work, is difficult. While mighty events are still in
their formative period the future is obscure. But our inability to
outline the future cannot blind us to the unmistakable trend of the
evolutionary forces at work. One thing that is clear is that our boasted
Christian civilization is the theater in which has been staged the most
un-Christian war of recorded history and in which human atrocity has
reached a point that leaves us vaguely groping for a rational
explanation of it. Another obvious fact is that the more than twenty
nations involved have been forced into measures and methods before
unknown and which wholly transform the recognized function and powers of
governments. With these startling facts of religious and political
significance before us thoughtful people are beginning to ask if we are
not upon the threshold of a complete breaking down of modern
civilization and the birth of a new order of things, in which direct
government by the people throughout the entire world will be coincident
with the rise of a universal religion based on the brotherhood of man.
In such a time any contribution to current literature that will help to
clear the ground of misconceptions and to bring to the attention of
those interested in such things, that set of fundamental natural truths
known as theosophy, may perhaps be helpful. Whether or not the world is
about to recast its ethical code there can at least be no doubt that it
is eagerly seeking reliable evidence that we live after bodily death and
that it will welcome a hypothesis of immortality that is inherently
reasonable and therefore satisfies the intellect as well as the heart.
Those who are dissatisfied with the old answers to the riddle of
existence and demand that Faith and Reason shall walk hand in hand, may
find in the following pages some explanation of the puzzling things in
life--an explanation that disregards neither the intuitions of religion
nor the facts of science.
Of course no pretension is made of fully covering the ground. The book
is a student's presentation of some of the phases of theosophy as he
understands them. They are presented with no authority whatever, and are
merely an attempt to discuss in simple language some of the fundamental
truths about the human being. No claim is made to originality but it is
hoped that by putting the old truths in a somewhat different way, with
new illustrations and arguments, they may perhaps be seen from a new
viewpoint. The intention has been to present elementary theosophy simply
and clearly and in the language familiar to the ordinary newspaper
reader. All technical terms and expressions have been avoided and the
reader will not find a single foreign word in the book.
L. W. R.
CONTENTS
I. THEOSOPHY 9
II. THE IMMANENCE OF GOD 15
III. THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL 23
IV. LIFE AFTER BODILY DEATH 29
V. THE EVOLUTIONARY FIELD 43
VI. THE MECHANISM OF CONSCIOUSNESS 49
VII. DEATH 59
VIII. THE ASTRAL WORLD 69
IX. REBIRTH: ITS REASONABLENESS 103
X. REBIRTH: ITS JUSTICE 135
XI. REBIRTH: ITS NECESSITY 153
XII. WHY WE DO NOT REMEMBER 167
XIII. VICARIOUS ATONEMENT 181
XIV. THE FORCES WE GENERATE 187
XV. SUPERPHYSICAL EVOLUTION 205
CHAPTER I.
THEOSOPHY
Rediscovery is one of the methods of progress. Very much that we believe
to be original with us at the time of its discovery or invention proves
in time to have been known to earlier civilizations. The elevator, or
lift, is a very modern invention and we supposed it to be a natural
development of our civilization, with its intensive characteristics,
until an antiquarian startled us with the announcement that it was used
in Rome over two thousand years ago; not, of course, as we use it, but
for the same purpose, and involving the same principles. A half century
ago our scientific men were enthusiastic over the truths of evolution
that were being discovered and placed before western civilization. But
as we learn more and more of the thought and intellectual life of the
Orient it becomes clear that the idea of evolution permeated that part
of the world centuries ago. Even the most recent and startling
scientific discoveries occasionally serve to prove that what we supposed
to be the fantastic beliefs of the ancients were really truths of nature
that we were not yet able to comprehend! The transmutation of metals is
an example. We have already gone far enough in that direction to show
that the alchemists of old were not the foolish and superstitious people
we supposed them to be. We have given far too little credit to past
civilizations and we are coming to understand now that we have rated
them too low. Our modesty must necessarily increase as it becomes
clearer that much of our supposed contribution to the world's progress
is not invention but rediscovery. We are beginning to see that it is not
safe to put aside without careful examination an idea or a belief that
was current in the world thousands of years ago. Like the supposed folly
of the alchemists it may contain profound truths of nature that have
thus far been foreign to our modes of thinking.
Theosophy is both very old and very new--very old because the principles
it contains were known and taught in the oldest civilizations, and very
new because it includes the latest investigations of the present day. It
is sometimes said by those who desire to speak lightly of it that it is
a philosophy borrowed from the Buddhists, or at least from the Orient.
That is, of course, an erroneous view. It is true that the Buddhists
hold some beliefs in common with theosophists. It is also true that
Methodists hold some beliefs in common with Unitarians, but that does
not show that Unitarianism was borrowed from Wesley! When different
people study the same facts of nature they are likely to arrive at
substantially the same conclusions. Theosophy is based upon certain
truths of nature. Those who study those truths and formulate a belief
from them must reasonably be expected to resemble theosophists in their
views. Buddhism is not unique in resembling theosophy. In the same list
may be placed the Vedanta philosophy, the Cabala of the Jews, the
teachings of the Christian Gnostics, and the philosophy of the Stoics.
The more general charge must also be denied; theosophy is not something
transplanted from the Orient. It belongs to the race, as the earth does,
and cannot be localized, even to a continent. As it is taught today in
Europe and America it is probably unknown to the masses of the Orient,
for the great general truths it embodies have here the special
application and peculiar emphasis required by a totally different
civilization. But that theosophical principles were earlier known and
more widely accepted in the Orient is quite true. That fact can in no
possible way lessen their value to us. Precisely the same thing is true
of the principles of mathematics. The science of mathematics reached
European civilization directly from the Arabs, but we do not foolishly
decline to make use of the knowledge on that account.
The literal meaning of the word theosophy is self-evident--knowledge of
God. It has three aspects, determined by the different ways in which the
human being acquires knowledge--through the study of concrete facts, by
the study of the relationship of the individual consciousness to its
source, and through the use of reasoning faculties in constructing a
logical explanation of life and its purpose. In one aspect it is,
therefore, a science. It deals with the tangible, with the facts and
phenomena of the material scientist and makes its appeal to the evidence
of the physical senses. In another aspect it is a religion. It deals
with the relationship between the source of all consciousness and its
multiplicity of individual expressions; with the complex relationships
that arise between these personalities; with the duties and obligations
which thus come into existence; with the evolution of the individual
consciousness and its ultimate translation to higher spheres. In its
other aspect it is a philosophy of life. It deals with man, his origin,
his evolution, his destiny. It seeks to explain the universe and to
throw a flood of light upon the problem of existence that will enable
those who study its wisdom to go forward in their evolution rapidly,
safely and comfortably, instead of blundering onward in the darkness of
ignorance, reaping as they go the painful harvests of misdirected
energy.
While theosophy is distinctly a science and a philosophy it is not, in
the same full sense, a religion. It has its distinctive religious
aspect, it is true, but when we speak of a religion we usually have in
mind a certain set of religious dogmas and a church that propagates
them. Theosophy is a universal thing like mathematics--a body of natural
truths applicable to all phases of life. It sees all religions as
equally important, as peculiarly adapted to the varying civilizations in
which they are found, and it presents a synthesis of the fundamental
principles upon which all of them rest.
From all of this it will be seen that there is a vast difference
between theosophy and theology. Theosophy declares the immortality of
man but not as a religious belief. It appeals to the scientific facts in
relation to the nature of consciousness. It knows no such word as
"faith," as it is ordinarily used. Its faith arises from the constancy
of natural law, the balance and sanity of nature, and the harmonious
adjustment of the universe. Theosophy is very ancient in that it is the
great fund of ancient wisdom about man and his earth, that has come down
through countless centuries, reaching far back into prehistoric times.
But added to that hoary wisdom are the up-to-date facts that have been
acquired by its most successful students, who have evolved their
consciousness to levels transcending the physical senses--facts which,
however, do not derive their authority from the method of their
discovery but from their inherent reasonableness. A detailed discussion
of such methods of consciousness and the proper value to be placed upon
such investigations rightly belongs to another chapter. It is enough now
to warn the reader against the error of confusing the pronouncements of
pseudo psychism with the work of the psychic scientists who have already
done much toward placing a scientific foundation beneath the universal
hope of immortality.