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You can search through the full text of this book on the web \n\n\n\nat |http : //books . google . com/ \n\n\n\nliHEeSopAlCALynA^lJALS \n\n/4UMBER OySE \n\n'I?\\E\u20225EVE/S\u2022PR!A^CIPLBS \nQP-MAN \n\nANNIE BESA/NT.F.T,S. \n\n\n\n(yju\u00a3^7^>^'(^i \n\n\n\nHARVARD COLLEGE \nLIBRARY \n\n\n\n\nFROM THE \n\nPHILOSOPHIGAL LIBRARY \n\nOF \n\nWILLIAM JAMES \n\nIN8TBUCTOB AND FB0FBS80B AT HABYABD \nFROM 1878 TO 1910 \n\nTHE GIFT OF HIS FAMILY \n1923 \n\n\n\n\nl loogle \n\n\n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nTHEosoPHiCAt Manuals. No. i. \n\n\n\nTHE \n\n\n\nSEVEN PRINCIPLES \nOF MAN. \n\n\n\nBY \n\n\n\nANNIE BESANT, F.T.S. \n\n\n\n(Ninth Thousand.) \n\n\n\ni^ondon: \nTheosophicai. Pubi^ishing Society, \n\n7, DUKE STREET, ADELPHI, W.C. \n\nNEW YORK: \n\nThe Path, 144, Madison Ave. \n\nMADRAS : \n\nTheosophicai, Society, Adyar. \n1892. \n\n\n\nPRICE ONE SHILLING. \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n^xs qi^. t>. ui \n\n\n\n/ \n\n\n\nifARVARO COLLiQE UBRAUt \n\nFmmtHE \n\nfHllOSOPHlCAl LiBRARt \n\nOF \n\nWILLIAM JAUES \n\n1923 \n\n\n\n\nThe H.P. B. Press, \n42, Henry Street, Regent's Park, \n\nIvONDON, N.W. \n\n(Printers to the Theosophical Society.) \n\n\n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nPREFACE. \n\n\n\nFew words are fieeded ifi sending this little book out \ninto the world. It is the first of a series of Mayiuals \ndesigned to meet the public demand for a simple expo- \nsition of Theosophical teachi7igs^ Some have complained \nthat our literature is at once too abstruse, too techjiical, \nand too expensive, for the ordinary reader, and it is our \nhope that the present series may succeed in supplying \nwhat is a very real want, Theosophy is 7iot only for \nthe learned; it is for all. It may be that among those \nwho in these little books catch their first glimpse of its \nteachings, there may be a few who will be led by them \nto penetrate more deeply into its philosphy, its science, \nand its religion, facing its abstruser problems with the \nstudent's zeal and the neophytes ardour. But these \nmanuals are not written for the eager student, whom \nno initial difficulties can daunt ; they are written for \nthe busy men and women of the work-a-day world, \na7id seek to make plain some of the great truths that \nrender life easier to bear and death easier to face. \nWritten by servants of the Masters who are the Elder \nBrothers of our race, they can have no other object \nthan to serve our fellow-men. \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nTHE SEVEN PRINCIPLES \nOF MAN. \n\n\n\nT^NQUIRERS attracted to Theosophy by its central \n^ doctrine of the Brotherhood of Man, and by the \nhopes it holds out of wider knowledge and of spiritual \ngrowth, are apt to be repelled when they make their \nfirst attempt to come into closer acquaintance with it, \nby the to them strange and puzzling names which \nflow glibly from the lips of Theosophistsjn conference \nassembled. They hear a tangle of Atm^-Buddhi, \nK^ma-Manas, Triad, Devachan, Linga Sharira, and \nwhat not, and feel at once that for them Theosoph}- \nis far too abstruse a study. Yet they might have \nbecome very good Theosophists, had not their initial \nenthusiasm been quenched with the douche of Sanskrit \nterms. In the present manual the smoking flax shall \nbe more tenderly treated, and one Sanskrit name at a \ntime shall be the most that shall be flung in the face \nof the enquirer. As a matter of fact, the use of these \nterms has become general amongTheosophists because \nthe English language has no equivalents for them, \nand a long and clumsy sentence has to be used in \ntheir stead, if the idea is to be conveyed at all. The \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\ninitial trouble of learning the names has been pre- \nferred to the continued trouble of using roundabout \ndescriptive phrases \u2014 **Kama,'* for instance, being \nshorter and more precise than the loose \"the passional \nand emotional part of our nature.\" \n\nMan, according to the Theosophical teaching, is a \nsevenfold being, or, in the usual phrase, has a septen- \nary constitution. Putting it in yet another way, man's \nnature has seven aspects, may be studied from seven \ndifferent points of view, is composed of Seven Princi- \nples. Whatever words may be used, the fact remains \nthe same \u2014 that he is essentially sevenfold, an evolving \nbeing, part of whose nature has already been mani- \nfested, part remaining latent at present, so far as the \nvast majority of humankind are concerned. Man's \nconsciousness is able to function through as many of \nthese aspects, on as many of these planes, as have \nbeen already evolved in him into activity. A \"plane\" \nis merely a condition, a stage, a state; so that we \nmight describe man as fitted by his nature, when \nthat nature is fully developed, to exist consciously in \nseven different conditions, or seven different stages, \nin seven different states; or, technically, on seven \ndifferent planes of being. To take an easily verified \nillustration: a man may be conscious on the physical \nplane, that is, in his physical body, feeling hunger and \nthirst, the pain of a blow or cut. But let the man be \na soldier in the heat of battle, and his consciousness \nwill be centred in his passions, his emotions, and he \nmay suffer a wound without knowing it, his conscious- \nness being away from the physical plane and acting \non the plane of passions and emotions: when the ex- \ncitement is over, consciousness will pass back to the \nphysical, and he will \"feel\" the pain of his wound. \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nLet the man be a philosopher, and as he ponders \nover some knotty problem he will lose all conscious- \nness of bodily wants, of emotions, of love and hatred ; \nhis consciousness will have passed to the plane of \nintellect, he will be \"abstracted,\" i,e.j drawn away \nfrom considerations pertaining to his bodily life, and \nfixed on the plane of thought. Thus may a man live \non these several planes, in these several conditions, \none part or another of his nature being thrown into \nactivity at any given time ; and an understanding of \nwhat man is, of his nature, his powers, his possibili- \nties, will be reached more easily and assimilated \nmore usefully if he is studied along these clearly \ndefined lines, than if he be left without analysis, a \nmere confused bundle of qualities and states. \n\nIt has also been found convenient, having regard \nto man's mortal and immortal life, to put these Seven \nPrinciples into two groups \u2014 one containing the three \nhigher Principles and therefore called the Triad, the \nother containing the four lower and therefore called \nthe Quaternary. The Triad is the deathless part of \nman's nature, the ** spirit\" of Christian terminology; \nthe Quaternary is the mortal part, the *'soul\" and the \n\"body\" of Christianity. This division into \"body, \nsoul, and spirit\" is used by Paul, and is recognised in \nall careful Christian philosophy, although generally \nignored by the mass of Christian people. In ordinary \nparlance \"soul\" and \"body,\" or \"spirit\" and \"body,\" \nmake up the man, and the words \"soul\" and \"spirit\" \nare used interchangeably, with much confusion of \nthought as the result. This looseness is fatal to any \nclear view of the constitution of man, and the Theo- \nsophist may well appeal to the Christian philosopher \nas against the casual Christian non-thinker if it be \n\nDigitized by VjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n8 \n\nurged that he is making distinctions difficult to be \ngrasped. No philosophy worthy of the name can be \nstated even in the most elementary fashion without \nmaking some demand on the intelligence and the \nattention of the would-be learner, and carefulness in \nthe use of terms is a condition of all knowledge. \n\nPrinciplk I, STHUI.A Sharira, the Physicai. Body. \n\nThe physical body of man is called the first of his \nSeven Principles, as it is certainly the most obvious. \nBuilt of material molecules, in the generally accepted \nsense of the term, with its five organs of sensation \u2014 \nthe five senses \u2014 its organs of locomotion, its brain \nand nervous system, its apparatus for carrying on the \nvarious functions necessary for its continued exist- \nence, there is little to be said about the physical body \nin so slight a sketch as this of the Constitution of \nMan. Western Science is almost ready to accept the \nTheosophical view that the human organism consists \nof innumerable \"Lives,\" which build up the cells. \nH. P. Blavatsky says on this: \"Science never yet \nwent so far as to assert with the occult doctrine that \nour bodies, as well as those of animals, plants, and \nstones, are themselves altogether built up of such \nbeings [bacteria, etc.]: which, except larger species, \nno microscope can detect. . . . The physical and \nchemical constituents of all being found to be identi- \ncal, chemical science, may well say that there is no \ndifference between the matter which composes the ox \nand that which forms man. But the Occult doctrine \nis far more explicit. It says : Not only the chemical \ncompounds are the same, but the same infinitesimal \ninvisible lives compose the atoms of the bodies of the \nmountain and the daisy, of man and the ant, of the \n\n\"Digitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\neleptant and of the tree which shelters him from the \nsun. Each particle \u2014 whether you call it organic or \ninorganic \u2014 is a life. Every atom and molecule in the \nUniverse is both life-giving and death-giving to that \nform\" {Secret Doctrine, vol. i. 9. 261). The microbes \nthus **build up the material body and its cells,\" under \nthe constructive energy of vitality \u2014 a phrase that \nwill be explained when we come to deal with \" life,\" \nas the Third Principle, and with these microbes as \npart of it. When the \"life\" is no longer supplied the \nmicrobes **are left to run riot as destructive agents,\" \nand they break up, disintegrate the cells they built, \nand so the body goes to pieces. \n\nThe purely physical consciousness is the conscious- \nness of the cells and the molecules. The selective \naction of the cells, taking from the blood what they \nneed, rejecting what they do not need, is an instance \nof this self-consciousness. The process goes on with- \nout the help of \"our\" consciousness or volition. \nAgain that which is called by physiologists \"uncon- \nscious memory\" is the memory of this physical con- \nsciousness, unconscious to us indeed, until we have \nlearned to transfer our brain consciousness thither. \nWhat \"we\" feel is not what the cells feel. T\\i^pain \nof a wound is felt by the brain-consciousness, acting, \nas before said, on the physical plane; but the con- \nsciousness of the molecule, as of the aggregation of \nmolecules we call cells, leads it to hurry to the repair \nof the damaged tissues \u2014 action of which the brain is \nttwconscious \u2014 and its memory makes it repeat the \nsame act again and again, even when it has become \nunnecessary. Hence, cicatrices on wounds, scars, \ncallosities, etc. The student may find many details \non this subject in physiological treatises. \n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nThe death of the physical body occurs when the \nwithdrawal of the controlling life-energy leaves the \nmicrobes to go their own way, and the many lives, no \nlonger co-ordinated, scatter from each other and \nscatter the particles of the cells of ** the man of dust,\" \nand what we call \"decay\" sets in. The body be- \ncomes a whirlpool of unrestrained, unregulated lives, \nand its form, which resulted from their correlation, \nis destroyed by their exuberant individual energy. \n** Death\" is but an aspect of Life, and the destruction \nof one material form is but a prelude to the building \nup of another. \n\nPRINCIPI.K II,* LiNGA ShARIRA, THE ASTRAI, BODY. \n\nThe Astral Body, the Ethereal Body, the Fluidic \nBody, the Double, the Wraith, the Doppelganger, the \nAstral man, such are a few of the many names which \nhave been given to the Second Principle in man's con- \nstitution. The best of all the names is that oi Linga \nSharira, because this term designates the Second \nPrinciple only, whereas the other names have been \nused somewhat generally to describe bodies formed \nof more subtle matter than the matter which affects \nour physical senses, without regard to the question \nwhether other Principles were or were not involved \nin their construction. I shall therefore use this name \nthroughout. \n\nThe I/inga Sharira is formed of matter rarer or more \nsubtle than the matter \\(^hich is perceptible to our \nfive senses. This matter is called astral matter, as \n\n\u2022 Some writers speak of Ivinga Sarira as the Second Principle, and \"I^ife\" \nas the third; others of \"I,ifc\" as the second and Linga as the Third. The \nnumbers are of no importance, since there is no \"order\" in intermingling \nprinciples ; the important division is between the Triad and Quaternary, the \nMortal and the Immortal Man. \n\n\n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nII \n\nresembling that which fills space, and it is the state \nof matter which is just beyond our \"solid, liquid, and \ngas,\" and is characteristic of the \"astral plane\" im- \nmediately succeeding the \"material plane,\" or the \ngenerally accepted objective universe. To this astral \nplane belong what are ordinarily called clairvoyance, \nclairaudience, many hypnotic phenomena \u2014 material \nenough, though manifesting in matter which is in a \nfiner state than that which we can feel and see. \n\nThis Linga Sharira is the exact double or counter- \npart of the physical body to which if belongs, and is \nseparable from it although unable to go very far \naway therefrom. When separated from the physical \nbody it is visible to the clairvoyant as an exact re- \nplica thereof, united to it by a slender thread. So \nclose is the physical union between the two that an \ninjury inflicted on the Linga Sharira appears as a \nlesion on the physical body, a fact known under the \nname of \"repercussion.\" A. D'Assier, in his well- \nknown work \u2014 translated by H. S. Olcott, the President- \nFounder of the Theosophical Society, under the title \nof \"Posthumous Humanity\" \u2014 gives a number of cases \n(see pp. 51-57) in which this repercussion took place. \n\nSeparation of the Linga Sharira from the physical \nbody is generally accompanied with a considerable \ndecrease of vitality in the latter, the Wnga Sharira \nbecoming more vitalised as the energy in the body \ndiminishes. Col. Olcott says in a note in the book \njust mentioned (p. 63) : \n\n\"When the Double is projected by a trained expert, even, \nthe body seems torpid, and the mind in a * brown study* or \ndazed state; the eyes are lifeless in expression, the heart and \nlung actions feeble, and often the temperature much lowered. \nIt is very dangerous to make any sudden noise, or burst into \n\n\n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n12 \n\nthe room, under such circumstances; for the Double being by \ninstantaneous reaction drawn back into the body, the heart \nconvulsively palpitates, and death even may be caused.\" \n\nIn the case of Emilie Sagee (quoted on p. 62-65), \nthe girl was noticed to look pale and exhausted when \nthe Double was visible: \"the more distinct the Double \nand more material in appearance, the really material \nperson was proportionately wearied, suifering and lan- \nguid; when, on the contrary, the appearance of the \nDouble weakened, the patient was seen to recover \nstrength.\" This phenomenon is perfectly intelligible \nto the Theosophical student, who knows that the \nLinga Sharira is the vehicle of the Life- Principle, or \nVitality, in the body, and that its partial withdrawal \nmust therefore diminish the energy with which this \nPrinciple plays on the physical molecules. \n\nClairvoyants, such as the Seeress of Prevorst, state \nthat they can see the ethereal arm or leg attached to \na body from which the physical limb has been ampu- \ntated, and D*Assier remarks on this: \n\n\"Whilst I was absorbed in physiological studies, I was often \narrested by a singular fact. It sometimes happens that a \nperson who has lost an arm or leg experiences certain sensa- \ntions at the extremities of the fingers or toes. Physiologists \nexplain this anomaly by postulating in the patient an inver- \nsion of sensitiveness or of recollection, which makes him lo- \ncate in the hand or the foot the sensation with which the \nnerve of the stump is alone affected. ... I confess that \nthese explanations seemed to me laboured and have never \nsatisfied me. Wlien I studied the problem of the duj)lication \nof man, the question of amputations recurred to my mind, and \nI asked myself if it was not more simple and logical to attri- \nbute the anomaly of which I have spoken to the doubling of \nthe human body, which by its fluidic nature can escape ampu- \ntion\" {Joe. cit. pp. 103, 104). \n\nThe Linga Sharira plays a great part in \"spiritu- \n\n\n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n13 \n\nalistic\" phenomena. Here again the clairvoyant, \nseeing on the astral plane, can help us. A clair- \nvoyant can often see the Linga Sharira oozing out of \nthe left side of the medium, and it is this ethereal \ndouble which often appears as the \"materialized \nspirit,\" easily moulded into various shapes by the \nthought-currents of the sitters, and gaining strength \nand vitality as the medium sinks into a deep trance. \nThe Countess Wachtmeister, who is clairvoyant, says \nthat she has seen the same ** spirit\" recognized as \nthat of a near relative or friend by different sitters, \neach of whom saw it according to his expectations, \nwhile to her own eyes it was the mere double of the \nmedium/ So again H. P. Blavatsky told me that \nwhen she was at the Eddy homestead, watching the \nremarkable series of phenomena there produced, she \ndeliberately moulded the \"spirit\" that appeared into \nthe likenesses of persons known to herself and to no \none else present, and the other sitters saw the types \nshe produced by her own will-power, moulding the \nplastic astral matter of the medium's Linga Sharira. \n\nMany of the movements of objects that occur at \nsuch seances, and at other times, without visible con- \ntact, are due to the action of the I^inga Sharira, and \nthe student can learn how to produce such pheno- \nmena at will. They are trivial enough: the mere \nputting out of the astral hand is no more important \nthan the putting out of the physical counterpart, and \nneither more nor less \"miraculous.\" Some persons \nproduce such phenomena unconsciously, mere aim- \nless overtumings of objects, making of noises, and \nso on : they have no control over their astral Double, \nand it just blunders about in their near neighbour- \nhood, like a baby trying to walk. For the I^inga \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n14 \n\nSharira is without consciousness, and is senseless on \nthe physical plane when temporarily divorced from \nthe physical organs of sensation. \n\nThis leads us to an interesting point. The mate- \nrial centres of sensation are located in the I^inga Sha- \nrira, which may be said to form the bridge between \nthe physical organs and the mental perceptions; im- \npressions from the physical universe impinge on the \nmaterial molecules of the physical body, setting in \nvibration the constituent cells of the organs of sensa- \ntions, or our ** senses.\" These vibrations, in their \nturn, set in motion the finer material molecules of \nthe corresponding organs in the lyinga Sharira, or the \ncentres of sensation, the inner senses. From these \nvibrations are again propagated into the yet rarer \nmatter of the lower mental plane, whence they are \nreflected back until, reaching the material molecules \nof the cerebral hemispheres, they become our ** brain \nconsciousness.\" This correlated and unconscious \nsuccession is necessary for the normal action of \n\"consciousness\" as we know it. In sleep and in \ntrance, natural or induced, the first and last stages \nare generally omitted, and the impressions start from \nand return to the astral plane, and thus make no \ntrace on the brain memory; but the natural psychic, \nthe clairvoyant who does not need trance for the \nexercise of his powers, is able to transfer his con- \nsciousness from the physical to the astral plane \nwithout losing grip thereof, and can impress the \nbrain-memory with knowledge gained on the astral \nplane, so retaining it for use. \n\n** Seeing in the astral light\" is a phrase often met \nwith, and one which may have puzzled the casual \nenquirer. It means just this exercise of the inner \n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nIS \n\nsenses, or senses located in the lyinga Shaiira, an \nexercise which \u2014 in the present stage of human evolu- \ntion \u2014 is a natural gift with a few, and a latent possi- \nbility in everybody. \n\n** Death\" means for the lyinga Sharira just what it \nmeans for the physical body, the breaking up of its \nconstituent parts, the dissipation of its molecules. \nThe vehicle of the vitality that animates the bodily \norganism as a whole, it oozes forth from the body \nwhen the death-hour comes, and is seen by the \nclairvoyant as a violet light, or violet form, hovering \nover the dying person, still attached to the physical \nbody by the slender thread before spoken of. When \nthe thread snaps, the last breath has quivered out- \nwards, and the bystanders whisper \"He is dead.\" \n\nThe Linga Sharira remains in the neighbourhood of \nthe corpse, and is the \"wraith,\" or \"apparition,\" or \n\"phantom,\" sometimes seen at the moment of death \nand afterwards by persons near the place where the \ndeath has occurred. It disintegrates slowly pari \npassu with its physical counterpart, and its remnants \nare seen by sensitives in cemeteries and churchyards \nas violet lights hovering over graves. Here is one of \nthe reasons which render cremation preferable to \nburial as a mode of disposing of the physical envelopes \nof man ; the fire dissipates in a few hours the mole- \ncules which would otherwise be set free only in the \nslow course of gradual putrefaction, and thus quickly \nrestores to their own planes the physical and astral \nmaterials, ready for use once more in the building up \nof new forms. \n\nPRINCIPI.K III., PRANA, THK lylFK. \n\nAll universes, all worlds, all men, all brutes, all \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\ni6 \n\nvegetables, all minerals, all molecules and atoms, all \nthat iSf are plunged in a great ocean of Life, Life \nEternal, Life Infinite, Life incapable of increase or \nof diminution. This great ocean of Life is called \nJiVA ; the universe is only Jiva in manifestation, Jiva \nmade objective, Jiva differentiated. Now each organ- \nism, whether minute as a molecule or vast as a uni- \nverse, may be thought of as appropriating to itself \nsomewhat of Jiva, of embodying in itself as its own \nlife some of this universal Life. Figure a living \nsponge, stretching itself out in the water which \nbathes it, envelopes it, permeates it; there is water, \nstill the ocean, circulating in every passage, filling \nevery pore ; but we may think of the ocean outside \nthe sponge, or of the part of the ocean appropriated \nby the sponge, distinguishing them in thought if we \nwant to make statements about each severally. So \neach organism is a sponge bathed in the ocean of \nLife Universal, of Jiva, and containing within itself \nsome of that ocean as its own breath of life. In \nTheosophy we distinguish this appropriated life under \nthe name Prdna, and call it the Third Principle in \nman*s constitution. \n\nTo speak quite accurately, the \"breath of life\" \u2014 \nthat which the Hebrews termed Nephesch^ or the \nbreath of life breathed into the nostrils of Adam \u2014 is \nnot Prana only, but Prana and the Fourth Principle \nconjoined. It is these two together that make the \n**Vital Spark\" {Secret Doctrifie, Vol. I., p. 242, noie^y \nand that are the \"breath of life in man, as in beast or \ninsect, of physical, material life\" (ibid, note top. 243). \nIt is \"the breath of animal life in man \u2014 the breath of \nlife instinctual in the animal\" (Jbid, diagram on p. \n242). But just now we are concerned with PrSna \n\n\n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n17 \n\nonly, with vitality, as the animating principle in all \nanimal and human bodies. Of this life the Linga \nSharira is the vehicle, acting, so to say, as means of \ncommunication, as bridge, between Prana and the \nSthula Sharira, or physical body. \n\nPrana is explained in the Secret Doctrine as having \nfor its lowest subdivision the microbes of science; \nthese are the \"invisible lives\" that build up the \nphysical cells (see a7ite, pp. 8, 9); these are the ** count- \nless myriads of lives\" that build the ** tabernacle of \nclay,\" the physical bodies (^Secret Doctri7ie, Vol. I., p. \n225). ** Science, dimly perceiving the truth, may find \nbacteria and other infinitesimals in the human body, \nand see in them but occasional and abnormal visitors \nto which diseases are attributed. Occultism \u2014 which \ndiscerns a life in every atom and molecule, whether \nin a mineral or human bod^^ in air, fire, or water \u2014 \naffirms that our whole body is built of such lives, the \nsmallest bacteria under the microscope being to them \nin comparative size like an elephant to the tiniest \ninfusorium\" (Jbid, note to p. 225). The *' fiery lives\" \nare the controllers and directors of these microbes, \nthese invisible lives, and ** indirectly\" build, i.e., build \nby controlling and directing the microbes, the im- \nmediate builders, suppljdng the latter with what is \nnecessary, acting as the life of these lives: the **fiery \nlives,\" the synthesis, the essence, of Prana, are the \n** vital constructive energy\" that enables the microbes \nto build the physical cells. One of the archaic Com- \nmentaries sums up the matter in stately and luminous \nphrases: \"The worlds, to the profane, are built up of \nthe known Elements. To the conception of an Arhat, \nthese Elements are themselves collectively a divine \nlyife; distributively, on the plane of manifestations, \n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\ni8 \n\nthe numberless and countless crores* of lives. Fire \nalone is one, on the plane of One Reality; on that of \nmanifested, hence illusive, being, its particles are fier>' \nlives which live and have their being at the expense \nof every other life that they consume. Therefore \nthey are named the Dkvourers. . . . Every \nvisible thing in this Universe was built by such WVES, \nfrom conscicus and divine primordial man, down to \nthe unconscious agents that construct matter. . . . \nFrom the One Life, formless and uncreate, proceeds \nthe Universe of lives.\" {Secret Doctrine, Vol. I., pp. \n249, 250.) As in the universe, so in man, and all \nthese countless lives, all this constructive vitality, all \nthis is summed up by the Theosophist, as Prana. \n\nPrinciple IV, Kama, the Desires. \n\nIn building up our man we have now reached the \nPrinciple sometimes described as the Animal Soul. \nIt includes the whole body of appetites, passions, \nemotions, and desires, which come under the head of \ninstincts, sensations, feelings and emotions, in our \nWestern psychological classification, and are dealt \nwith as a subdivision of Mind. In Western psycho- \nlogy Mind is divided \u2014 by the modern school \u2014 into \nthree main groups. Feelings, Will, Intellect. Feelings \nare again divided into Sensations and Emotions, and \nthese are divided and subdivided under numerous \nheads. Kama includes the whole group of ** Feel- \nings/' and might be described as our passional and \nemotional nature. All animal needs, such as hunger, \nthirst, sexual desire, come under it; all passions, such \n\n\n\n\u2022 A crore is ten millions. \n\n\n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n19 \n\nas love (in its lower sense), hatred, envy, jealousy. \nIt is the desire for sentient existence, for experience \nof material joys \u2014 **the lust of the flesh, the lust of the \neyes, the pride of life.\" This Principle is the most \nmaterial in our nature, it is the one that binds us fast \nto earthly life. *' It is not molecularly constituted mat- \nter \u2014 least of all the human body {Sthula Sharird) \u2014 \nthat is the- grossest of all our 'principles,' but verily \nthe middle principle, the real animal centre ; whereas \nour body is but its shell, the irresponsible factor and \nmedium through which the beast in us acts all its \nlife\" (^Secret Doctrine, Vol. I., p. 260). \n\nUnited to the lower part of Manas, as K^ma-Manas, \nit becomes the normal human brain-intelligence, and \nthat aspect of it will be dealt with presently. Con- \nsidered by itself, it remains the brute in us, the ** ape \nand tiger\" of Tennyson, the force which most avails \nto keep us bound to earth and to stifle in us all higher \nlongings by the illusions of sense. \n\nKama joined to Prana is, as we have seen, the \n** breath of life,\" the vital sentient principle spread \nover every particle of the body. It is, therefore, the \nseat of sensation, that which enables the centres of \nsensation to function. We have already noted that \nthe physical organs of sense, the bodily instruments \nthat come into immediate contact with the external \nworld, are related to the material centres of sensation \nin the lyinga Sharira, the inner senses {ante, p. 14). \nBut these organs and centres would be incapable of \nfunctioning did not Prana make them vibrant with \nactivity, and their vibrations would remain vibrations \nonly, motion on the material planes of the body and \nthe I/inga Sharira, did not Kama, the Principle of sen- \nsation, translate the vibration into feeling. Feeling, \n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n20 \n\n\n\nindeed, is consciousness on the Kamic plane, and \nwhen a man is under the dominion of a sensation or \na passion, the Theosophist speaks of him as on the \nKamic plane, meaning thereby that his consciousness \nis functioning on that plane. For instance, a tree \nmay reflect rays of light, that is ethereal vibrations, \nand these vibrations striking on the outer eye will set \nup vibrations in the physical nerve-cells-; these will \nbe propagated as vibrations to the physical and on to \nthe astral centres, but there is no sight of the tree \nuntil the seat of sensation is reached, and Kama en- \nables us to perceive. \n\nDuring life, Kama, as such, has no form or body. \nBut after death it takes form as an astral body, /.^., a \nbody composed of astral matter, and is then known \nas Kama Rupa, Rupa being the Sanscrit name for a \nbody, for anything having form. (The force of the \nobjection to speaking of the lyinga Sharira as the astral \nbody will now be seen; a7iy body formed of astral \nmatter is an astral body, but its properties will vary \nwith the Principles with which it is informed. Very \nlittle knowledge is, therefore, given of the nature of \nany entity, when it is spoken of merely as an astral \nbody.) The Kama Rupa possesses consciousness of \na very low order, has brute cunning, is without con- \nscience \u2014 an altogether objectionable entity, often \nspoken of as a \"spook.\" It strays about, attracted \nto all places in which animal desires are encouraged \nand satisfied, and is drawn into the currents of those \nwhose animal passions are strong and unbridled. \nMediums of low type inevitably attract these emi- \nnently undesirable visitors, whose fading vitality is \nreinforced in their seance-rooms, who catch astral \nreflections, and play the part of \"disembodied spirits\" \n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n21 \n\nof a low order. Nor is this all : if at such a seance \nthere be present some man or woman of correspond- \ningly low development, the \"spook\" will be attracted \nto that person, and may attach itself to him or to her, \nand thus may be set up currents between the Kdma \nof the living person and the Kama Rupa of the past \nperson, generating results of the most deplorable \nkind. \n\nThe longer or shorter persistence of the Kama \nRupa depends on the greater or less development of \nthe animal and passional nature in the dying per- \nsonality. If during earth-life the animal nature was \nindulged and allowed to run riot, if the intellectual \nand spiritual parts of man were neglected or stifled, \nthen, as the life-currents were set strongly in the \nKamic direction, the Kama Rupa will persist for a \nlong period after the body of the person is **dead.\" \nOr again, if earth-life has been suddenly cut short by \naccident or by suicide, the link between Kama and \nPrana will not be easily broken, and the Kama Rupa \nwill be strongly vivified. If, on the other hand, Kama \nhas been conquered and bridled during earth-life, if \nit has been purified and trained into subservience to \nman's higher nature, then there is but little to ener- \ngize the Rupa, and it will quickly disintegrate and \ndissolve away. \n\nThere remains one other fate, terrible in its possi- \nbilities, which may befall the Kamic Principle, but it \ncannot be clearly understood until the Fifth Principle \nhas been dealt with. \n\nThe Quaternary, or Four lyOWER Principi.es. \n\nWe have thus studied Man, as to his lower nature, \nand have reached the point in his path of evolution \n\n\n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n22 \n\n\n\nto which he is accompanied by the brute. The Qua- \nternary, regarded alone, ere it is affected by contact \n\n\n\n\nDiagram of the Quaternary; transitory and mortal: \nsee '^Secret Dodriyie^' Vol. /., p, 242, \n\nwith the Mind, is merely a lower animal; it awaits \nthe coming of the Mind to make it Man. Theosophy \nteaches that through past ages man was thus slowly \nbuilded up, stage by stage, Principle by Principle, \nuntil he stood as a Quaternary, brooded over but not \nin contact with the Spirit, waiting for that Mind \nwhich could alone enable him to progress further, \nand to come into conscious union with the Spirit, so \nfulfilling the very object of his being. This seonian \nevolution, in its slow progression, is hurried through \nin the personal evolution of each human being, each \nPrinciple which was in the course of ages successively \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n^5 \n\nIncarnated in the races of Man on earth, appearing \nas part of the constitution of each man at the point \nof evolution reached at any given time, the remaining \nPrinciples being latent, awaiting their gradual mani- \nfestation. The evolution of the Quaternary until it \nreached the point at which further progress was im- \npossible without Mind, is told in eloquent sentences \nin the archaic stanzas on which the Secret Doctrine \nof H. P. Blavatsky is based {breath is the Spirit, for \nwhich the human tabernacle is to be builded; the \ngross body is the Sthula Sharira; the spirit of life is \nPrana; the mirror of its body is the lyinga Sharira; \nthe vehicle of desires is Kama) : \n\n\"The Breath needed a form; the Fathers gave it. \nThe Breath needed a gross body ; the Earth moulded \nit. The Breath needed the Spirit of lyife ; the Solar \nlyhas breathed it into its form. The Breath needed \na Mirror of its Body; *We gave it our own,' said the \nDhyanis. The Breath needed a Vehicle of Desires; \n*It has it,' said the Drainer of Waters. But Breath \nneeds a Mind to embrace the Universe; *We cannot \ngive that,' said the Fathers. *I never had it,' said \nthe Spirit of the Earth. *The form would be con- \nsumed were I to give it mine,' said the Great Fire \n. . . Man remained an empty senseless Bhuta\" \n(phantom). \n\nAnd so is the personal Man without Mind. The \nQuaternary alone is not Man, the Thinker, and it is \nas Thinker that Man is really Man. \n\nYet at this point let the student pause, and reflect \nover the human constitution, so far as he has gone. \nFor this Quaternary is the mortal part of man, and \nis distinguished by Theosophy as the Personality. \nIt needs to be very clearly and definitely realised, if \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nH \n\nthe constitution of man is to be understood, and if \nthe student is to read more advanced treatises with \nintelligence. True, to make the Personality kumati \nit has yet to come under the rays of Mind, and to be \nilluminated by it as the world by the rays of the sun. \nBut even without these rays it is a clearly defined \nentity, with its body, its ethereal double, its life, and \nits animal soul. It has passions, but no reason: it \nhas emotions, but no intellect: it has desires, but no \nrationalised will ; it awaits the coming of its monarch, \nthe Mind, the touch which shall transform it into \nMan. \n\nPRINCIPI.K V, Manas, thk Thinkkr, or Mind. \n\nWe have reached the most complicated part of our \nstudy, and some thought and attention are necessary \nfrom the reader to gain even an elementary idea of \nthe relation held by the Fifth Principle to the other \nPrinciples in man. \n\nThe word Manas comes from the Sanskrit word \nman, the root of the verb to think ; it is the Thinker \nin us, spoken of vaguely in the West as \"Mind.\" I \nwill ask the reader to regard Manas as Thinker rather \nthan as Mind, because the word Thinker suggests \nsome one who thinks, ue,, an individual, an entity. \nAnd this is exactly the theosophical idea of Manas, \nfor Manas is the immortal individual, the real ** I,\" \nthat clothes itself over and over again in transient \npersonalities, and itself endures for ever. It is de- \nscribed in the Voice of the Sileyice in the exhortation \naddressed to the candidate for initiation: **.Have \nperseverance as one who doth for evermore endure. \nThy shadows [personalities] live and vanish; that \nwhich in thee shall live for ever, that which in thee \n\n\n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n25 \n\nknows, for it is knowledge, is not of fleeting life; \nit is the man that was, that is, and will be, for \nwhom the hour shall never strike\" (p. 31). H. P. \nBlavatsky has described it very clearly in the Key to \nTheosophy: **Try to imagine a 'Spirit,* a celestial \nBeing, whether we call it by one name or another, \ndivine in its essential nature, yet not pure enough to \nbe pne with the MX,, and having, in order to achieve \nthis, to so purify its nature as finally to gain that goal. \nIt can do so only by passing individually and person- \nally, i,e., spiritually and physically, through every \nexperience and feeling that exists in the manifold or- \ndifferentiated Universe. It has, therefore, after hav- \ning gained such experience in the lower kingdoms, \nand having ascended higher and still higher with \nevery rung on the ladder of being, to pass through \nevery experience on the human planes. In its very \nessence it is Thought, and is, therefore, called in \nits plurality Manasaputra, *the Sons of (universal) \nMind.' This individualised * Thought' is what we \nTheosophists call the real human Ego, the thinking \nEntity imprisoned in a case of flesh and bones. This \nis surely a spiritual Entity, not Matter^ and such \nEntities are the incarnating Egos that inform the \nbundle of animal matter called mankind, and whose \nnames are Ma?iasa or * Minds'\" {Key to Theosophy, \npp. 183, 184). \n\nThis idea may be rendered yet clearer perhaps by \na hurried glance cast backward over man's evolution \nin the past. When the Quaternary had been slowly \nbuilt up, it was a fair house without a tenant, and \nstood empty awaking the coming of the one who was \n\n\u2022 That is, not Matter as we know it, on the plane of the objective uni- \nverse \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n26 \n\nto dwell therein. The Manasaputra (the sons of \nMind), spiritual entities, lofty intelligences, at this \npoint came to this earth, and took up their abode in \nthe human Quaternary, in the mindless men. This \nwas the incarnation of the Manasaputra, who became \nthe tenants of the human frames as then evolved on \nearth, and these same Manasaputra, reincarnating \nage after age, are the Reincarnating Egos, the Manas \nin us, the persistent Individual, the Fifth Principle \nin man. \n\nThe multiplicity of names given to this Principle \nhas probably tended to increase the confusion sur- \nrounding it in the minds of many commencing stu- \ndents of Theosophy. Manasaputra is what we may \ncall the historical name, the name that suggests their \nentrance into Humanity at a certain point of evolu- \ntion ; Manas is the ordinary name, descriptive of the \nnature of the Principle thus designated; the Indi- \nvidual or the \"/,\" or EgOy recalls the fact that this \nPrinciple is permanent, does not die, is the individua- \nlising Principle, separating itself in Thought from all \nthat is not itself, the Subject in Western terminology \nas opposed to the Object; the Higher Ego puts it into \ncontrast with the Personal Ego of which something \nis to be presently said; the Keincamating Ego lays \nstress on the fact that it is the Principle that re- \nincarnates continually, and so unites in its own ex- \nperience all the lives passed through on earth. There \nare various other names, but they will not be met \nwith in elementary treatises. The above are those \nmost often encountered, and there is no real difficulty \nabout them, but when they are used interchangeably, \nwithout explanation, the unhappy student is apt to \ntear his hair in anguish, wondering how many Prin- \n\n\n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n27 \n\nciples he has got hold of, and what relation they bear \nto each other. \n\nWe must now consider Manas during a single in- \ncarnation, which will serve as the type of all, and we \nwill start when the Ego has been drawn \u2014 ^by causes \nset a-going in previous earth-lives \u2014 to the family in \nwhich is to be born the human being who is to serve \nas its next tabernacle. (I do not deal here with Re- \nincarnation, since that great and most essential doc- \ntrine of Theosophy must be expounded separately.) \nThe Thinker, then, awaits the building of the ** house \nof life\" he is to occupy, and now arises a difficulty; \nhimself a \"spiritual\" entity, living on a plane far \nhigher than that of the physical universe, he cannot \ninfluence the molecules of gross matter of which his \ndwelling is builded by the direct play upon them of \nhis own subtle and most ethereal particles. So he \nprojects part of his own substance, which clothes \nitself with astral matter, and permeates the whole \nnervous system of the yet unborn child, to form, as \nthe physical apparatus matures, the thinking prin- \nciple in man. This projection from Manas, spoken \nof as its reflexion, its shadow, its ray, and by many \nanother descriptive and allegorical name, is the \nlyOWER Manas, in contradistinction to the Higher \nManas \u2014 Manas, during every period of incarnation, \nbeing dual. On this, H. P. Blavatsky says; **Once \nimprisoned, or incarnate, their (the Manasa) essence \nbecomes dual ; that is to say the rays of the eternal \ndivine Mind, considered as individual entities, assume \na two-fold attribute which is (a) their essential, in- \nherent, characteristic, heaven-aspiring mind (higher \nManas), and (b) the human quality of thinking, or \nanimal cogitation, rationalised owing to the superior- \nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n28 \n\nity of the human brain, the KSma-tending or lowef \nManas\" {Key to Theosophy^ p. 184). \n\nWe must now turn our attention to this Lower \nManas alone, and see the part it plays in the human \nconstitution. \n\nIt is engulfed in the Quaternary, and we may \nregard it as clasping Kama with one hand, while with \nthe other it retains its hold on its father, the Higher \nManas. Whether it will be dragged down by Kama \naltogether and be torn away from the Triad to which \nby its nature it belongs, or whether it will triumph- \nantly carry back to its source the purified experiences \nof its earth-life, that is the life-problem set and solved \nin each successive incarnation. During earth-life, \nK^ma and the lyower Manas are joined together, and \nare often spoken of conveniently as Kama-Manas, \nKama supplies, as we have seen, the animal and \npassional elements; the Lower Manas rationalises \nthese, and adds the intellectual faculties; and so we \nhave the brain-mind, the brain-intelligence, z.^., \nKama-Manas functioning in the brain and nervous \nsystem, using the physical apparatus as its organ on \nthe material plane. \n\nAs with a flame we may light a wick, and the \ncolour of the flame of the burning wick will depend \non the nature of the wick and of the liquid in which \nit is soaked, so in each human being the flame of \nManas sets alight the brain and Kamic wick, and the \ncolour of the light from that wick will depend on the \nKamic nature and the development of the brain- \napparatus. If the Kamic nature be vStrong and un- \ndisciplined it will soil the pure Manasic light, lending \nit a lurid tinge and fouling it with noisome smoke. \nIf the brain-apparatus be imperfect or undeveloped, \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n25 \n\nit will dull the light and prevent it from shining forth \nto the outer world. As was clearly stated by H. P. \nBlavatsky in her article on \"Genius\" : **What we call \n*the manifestations of genius' in a person are only \nthe more or less successful efforts of that Ego to \nassert itself on the outward plane of its objective form \n\u2014 the man of clay \u2014 in the matter-of-fact, daily life of \nthe latter. The Egos of a Newton, an ^schylus, or \na Shakspere are of the same essence and substance as \nthe Egos of a yokel, an ignoramus, a fool, or even an \nidiot; and the self-assertion of their informing genii \ndepends on the physiological and material construc- \ntion of the physical man. No Ego differs from another \nEgo in its primordial, or original, essence and nature. \nThat which makes one mortal a great man, and of \nanother a vulgar silly person is, as said, the quality \nand make-up of the physical shell or casing, and the \nadequacy or inadequacy of brain and body to transmit \nand give expression to the light of the real, iymer, man ; \nand this aptness or inaptness is, in its turn, the result \nof Karma. 'Or, to use another simile, physical man is \nthe musical instrument, and the Ego the performing \nartist. The potentiality of perfect melody of sound is \nin the former \u2014 the instrument \u2014 and no skill of the \nlatter can awaken a faultless harmony out of a broken \nor badly made instrument. This harmony depends \non the fidelity of transmission, b3^ word and act, to \nthe objective plane, of the unspoken divine thought \nin the very depths of man's subjective or inner nature. \nPhysical man may \u2014 to follow our simile \u2014 be a price- \nless Stradivarius, or a cheap and cracked fiddle, or \nagain a mediocrity between the two, in the hands of \nthe Paganini who ensouls him\" {Lucifer for Novem- \nber, 1889, p. 228). \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n30 \n\nBearing in mind these limitations and idiosyncra- \nsies* imposed on the manifestations of the thinking \nprinciple by the organ through which it has to func- \ntion, we shall have little difficulty in following the \nworkings of the Lower Manas in man ; mental ability, \nintellectual strength, acuteness, subtlety \u2014 all these \nare its manifestations ; these may reach as far as \nwhat is often called genius, what H. P. Blavatsky \nspeaks of as '^artificial genius, the outcome of culture \nand of purely intellectual acuteness.\" Its nature is \noften demonstrated by the presence of Kamic elements \nin it, of passion, vanity and arrogance. \n\nThe Higher Manas can but rarely manifest itself \nat the present stage of human evolution. Occasionally \na flash from those loftier regions lightens the twilight \nin which we dwell, and such flashes are what the \nTheosophist alone calls true genius ; \"Behold in every \nmanifestation of genius, wheri combified with lirtuc, \nthe undeniable presence of the celestial exile, the \ndivine Ego whose jailor thou art, O man of matter.\" \nFor Theosophy teaches \"that the presence in man \nof various creative powers \u2014 called genius in their \ncollectivity \u2014 is due to no blind chance, to no innate \nqualities through hereditary tendencies \u2014 though that \nwhich is known as atavism may often intensify these \nfaculties \u2014 but to an accumulation of individual ante- \ncedent experiences of the Ego in its preceding life \nand lives. For, omniscient in its CvSsence and nature, \nit still requires experience, through its pcrso7ialities, \nof the things of earth, earthly on the objective plane, \nin order to apply the fruition of that abstract experi- \nence to them. And, adds our philosophy, the cultiva- \n\n\u2022 lyimitations and idiosyncrasies due to the action of the Ego in previous \nearth -lives, be it remembered. \n\n\n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n31 \n\ntion of certain aptitudes throughout a long series of \npast incarnations must finally culminate, in some one \nlife, in a blooming forth as ge7iius, in one or another \ndirection*' {Lucifer for November, 1889, pp. 229-230). \nFor the manifestation of true genius, purity of life is \nan essential condition. , \n\nKama-Manas is the Personal Self of man ; we have \nalready seen that the Quaternary, as a whole, is the \npersonality, **the shadow,\" and the Lower Manas \ngives the individualising touch that makes the per- \nsonality recognize itself as **I.\" It becomes intellec- \ntual, it recognizes itself as separate from all other \nselves ; deluded by the separateness it feels, it does \nnot realize a unity beyond all that it is able to sense. \nAnd the Lower Manas, attracted by the vividness of \nthe material life-impressions, swayed by the rush of \nthe KSmic emotions, passions and desires, attracted \nto all material things, blinded and deafened by the \nstorm -voices among which it is plunged \u2014 the Lower \nManas is apt to forget the pure and serene glory of \nits birthplace, and to throw itself into the turbulence \nwhich gives rapture in lieu of peace. And be it \nremembered, it is this very Lower Manas that yields \nthe last touch of delight to the senses and to the \nanimal nature ; for what is passion that can neither \nanticipate nor remember, where is ecstacy without \nthe subtle force of imagination, the delicate colours \nof fancy and of dream ? \n\nBut there may be chains yet more strong and con- \nstraining, binding the Lower Manas fast to earth. \nThey are forged of ambition, of desire for fame, be it \nfor that of the stateman's power, or of supreme in- \ntellectual achievement. So long as any work is \nwrought for sake of love, or praise, or even recogni- \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n32 \n\ntion that the work is **mine\" and not another's; so \nlong as in the heart's remotest chambers one subtlest \nyearning remains to be recognized as vSeparate from \nall; so long, however grand the ambition, however \nfar-reaching the charity, however lofty the achieve- \nment, Manas is tainted with K^ma, and is not pure \nas its source. \n\nManas in Activity. \n\nWe have already seen that the Fifth Principle is \ndual in its aspect during each period of earth-life, \nand that the lower Manas united to Kama, spoken of \nconveniently as Kama-Manas, functions in the brain \nand nervous system of man. We need to carry our \ninvestigation a little further in order to distinguish \nclearly between the activity of the Higher and of the \nLower Manas, so that the working of the Mind in \nman may become less obscure to us than it is at \npresent to many. \n\nNow the cells of the brain and nervous system \n(like all other cells) are composed of minute particles \nof matter, called molecules (literally, little heaps). \nThese molecules do not touch each other, but are \nheld grouped together by the manifestation of the \nEternal Life that we call attraction. Not being in \ncontact with each other they are able to vibrate to \nand fro if set in motion, and, as a matter of fact, they \nare in a state of continual vibration. H. P. Blavatsky \npoints out {Lucifer, October, 1890, pp. 92, 93), that \nmolecular motion is the lowest and most material \nform of the One Eternal Life, itself motion as the \n** Great Breath,\" and the source of all motion on \nevery plane of the Universe. In the Sanskrit, the \nroots of the terms for spirit, breath, being, and mo- \nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n33 \n\ntion, are essentially the same, and Rama Prasad says \nthat \"all these roots have for their origin the sound \nproduced by the breath of animals\" \u2014 ^the sound of \nexpiration and inspiration. \n\nNow the I/)wer Mind, or K^ma-Manas, acts on the \nmolecules of the nervous cells by motion, and sets \nthem vibrating, so starting mind-consciousness on \nthe physical plane. Manas itself could not affect \nthese molecules; but its Ray, the I/)wer Manas, \nhaving clothed itself in astral matter and united it- \nself to the Kamic elements, is able to set the physical \nmolecules in motion, and so give rise to \"brain-con- \nsciousness,\" including the brain-memory and all the \nother functions of the human mind, as we know it in \nits ordinary activity. These manifestations, \"like all \nother phenomena on the material plane . . . must \nbe related in their final analysis to the world of vibra- \ntion,\" says H. P. Blavatsky. But, she goes on to point \nout, \"in their origin they belong to a different and a \nhigher world of harmony.\" Their origin is in the \nManasic essence, in the Ray; but on the material \nplane, acting on the molecules of the brain, they are \ntranslated into vibrations. \n\nThis action of the Kama-Manas is spoken of by \nTheosophists as psychic. All mental and passional \nactivities are due to this psychic energy, and its mani- \nfestations are necessarily conditioned by the physical \napparatus through which it acts. We have already \nseen this broadly stated (ajitCy pp. 29, 30) and the \nrationale of the statement will now be apparent. If \nthe molecular constitution of the brain be fine, and if \nthe working of the specifically Kamic organs (^liver, \nspleen, etc.) be healthy and pure \u2014 so as not to injure \nthe molecular constitution of the nerves which put \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n34 \n\nthem into communication with the brain \u2014 then the \npsychic breath, as it sweeps through the instrument, \nawakens in this true Eolian harp harmonious and \nexquisite melodies; whereas if the molecular consti- \ntution be gross or poor, if it be disordered by the \nemanations of alcohol, if the blood be poisoned by \ngross living or sexual excesses, the strings of the \nEolian harp become too loose or too tense, clogged \nwith dirt or frayed with harsh usage, and when the \npsychic breath passes over them they remain dumb \nor give out harsh discordant notes, not because the \nbreath is absent, but because the strings are in evil \ncase. \n\nIt will now, I think, be clearly understood that \nwhat we call Mind, or Intellect, is, in H. P. Blavat- \nsky's words, **a pale and too often distorted reflection\" \nof Manas itself, or our Fifth Principle; Kama-Manas \nis \"the rational, but earthly or physical intellect of \nman, incased in, and bound by, matter, therefore sub- \nject to the influence of the latter\"; it is the \"lyower \nSelf, or that which manifesting through our organic \nsystem, acting on this plane of illusion, imagine^ \nitself the Ego sum, and thus falls into what Buddhist \nphilosophy brands as the * heresy of separateness.' '* \nIt is the human PersonaIvITy, from which proceeds \n\"the psychic, i,e., ^terrestrial wisdom' at best, as it \nis influenced by all the chaotic stimuli of the human \nor rather animal passions of the living body\" {Lucifer y \nOctober, 1890, p. 179). \n\nA clear understanding of the fact that Kama-Manas \nbelongs to the human Personality, that it functions \nin and through the physical brain, that it acts on the \nmolecules of the brain, setting them into vibration, \nwill very much facilitate the comprehension by the^ \n\n\n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n35 \n\nstudent of the doctrine of Reincarnation. That \ngreat subject will be dealt with in another volume \nof this series, and I do not propose to dwell upon it \nhere, more than to remind the student to take care- \nful note of the fact that the Lower Manas is a Ray \nfrom the immortal Thinker, ilhirninating a persoii- \nality, and that all the functions which are brought \ninto activity in the brain-consciousness are functions \ncorrelated to the particular brain, to the particular \nPersonality, in which they occur. The brain-mole- \ncules that are set vibrating are material organs in the \nman of flesh; they did not exist as brain-molecules \nbefore his conception, nor do they persist as brain- \nmolecules after his disintegration. Their functional \nactivity is limited by the limits of his personal life, \nthe life of the body, the life of the transient Person- \nality. Now the faculty we speak of as \"memory\" \non the physical plane depends on the response of \nthese very brain molecules to the impulse of the \nI/)wer Manas, and there is no link between the \nbrains of successive Personalities except through \nthe Higher Manas, that sends out its Ray to succes- \nsively inform and enlighten them. It follows, then, \ninevitably, that unless the consciousness of man can \nrise from the physical and Kama-Manasic planes to \nthe plane of the Higher Manas, no memory of one \nPersonality can reach over to another. The memory \nof the Personality belongs to the transitory part of \nman*s complex nature, and those only can recover \nthe memory of their past lives who can raise their \nconsciousness to the plane of the immortal Thinker, \nand can, so to speak, travel in consciousness up and \ndown the Ray that is the bridge between the personal \nman that perishes and the immortal Man that en- \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n3<5 \n\ndures. If while we are cased in the man of flesh, \nwe can raise our consciousness along the Ray that \nconnects our lower with our true Self, and so reach \nthe Higher Manas, we find there stored in the memory \nof that eternal Ego the whole records of our past \nlives on earth, and we can bring back those records \nto our brain-memory by way of that same Ray, \nwherethrough we can climb upwards, to our ** Father.\" \nBut this is an achievement that belongs to a late \nstage of human evolution, and until this is reached \nthe successive Personalities informed by the Manasic \nRays are separated from each other, and no memory \nbridges over the gulf between. The fact is obvious \nenough to anyone who thinks the matter out, but as \nthe difference between the Personality and the im- \nmortal Individuality is somewhat unfamiliar in the \nWest, it may be well to remove a possible stumbling- \nblock from the student's path. \n\nNow the lyower Manas may do one of three things: \nit may rise towards its source, and by unremitting \nand strenuous efforts become one with its ** Father in \nHeaven,\" or the Higher Manas \u2014 Manas uncontami- \nnated with earthly elements, unsoiled and pure. Or, \nit may partially aspire and partially tend downwards, \nas indeed is mostly the case with the average man. \nOr, saddest fate of all, it may become so clogged with \nthe KSmic elements as to become one with them, and \nbe finally wrenched away from its Parent and perish. \n\nBefore considering these three fates, there are a few \nmore words to be said touching the activity of the \nLower Manas. \n\nAs the Lower Manas frees itself from Kama, it \nbecomes the sovereign of the lower part of man, and \nmanifests more and more of its true and essential \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n37 \n\nnature. In KSma is Desire, moved by bodily need^, \nand Wiivi., which is a faculty of Manas, is often led \ncaptive by the turbulent physical impulses. But the \nLower Manas, \"whenever it disconnects itself, for \nthe time being, from Kama, becomes the guide of the \nhighest mental faculties, and is the organ of the free- \nwill in physical man\" {Lucifer, October, 1890, p. 94). \nBut the condition of this freedom is that Kama shall \nbe subdued, shall lie prostrate beneath the feet of the \nconqueror: if the maiden Will is to be set free, the \nManasic St. George must slay the Kamic Dragon that \nholds her captive; for while Kama is unconquered, \nDesire will be master of Will. \n\nAgain, as the Lower Manas frees itself from Kama, \nit becomes more and more capable of transmitting to \nthe human personality with which it is connected, \nthe impulses that reach it from its source. It is then, \nas we have seen, that Genius flashes forth, the light \nfrom the Higher Ego streaming through the Lower \nManas to the brain, and manifesting itself to the \nworld. So also, as H. P. Blavatsky points out, such \naction may raise a man above the normal level of \nhuman power: \"The Higher Ego,*' she says, \"can- \nnot act directly on the body, as its consciousness \nbelongs to quite another plane and planes of idea- \ntion; the * Lower Self does; and its action and be- \nhaviour depend on its free-will and choice as to \nwhether it will gravitate more towards its parent \n(*the Father in Heaven*) or the * animal* which it \ninforms, the man of flesh. The Higher Ego, as part \nof the Essence of the Universal Mind, is uncon- \nditionally omniscient on its own plane, and only \npotentially so in our terrestrial sphere, as it has to \nact solely through its alter Ego \u2014 the Personal Self. \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n38 \n\nNow . . . the former is the vehicle of all know- \nledge of the past, the present and the future, and \n. . . it is from this fountain-head that its 'double' \ncatches occasional glimpses of that which is beyond \nthe senses of man, and transmits them to certain \nbrain-cells (unknown to Science in their functions), \nthus making of man a Seer, a soothsayer and a \nprophet\" (^Lticifer, November, 1890, p. 179). This is \nthe real Seership, and on it a few words must be said \npresently. It is, naturally, extremely rare, and pre- \ncious as it is rare. A *' faint and distorted reflection\" \nof it is found in what is called 77tedmmship, and of \nthis H. P. Blavatsky says: \"Now what is a medium? \nThe term medium, when not applied simply to things \nand objects, is supposed to be a person through whom \nthe action of another person or being is either mani- \nfested or transmitted. Spiritualists, believing in \ncommunications with disembodied spirits, and that \nthese can manifest through, or impress sensitives to \ntransmit messages from them, regard mediumship as \na blessing and a great privilege. We Theosophists, \non the other hand, who do not believe in the 'com- \nmunion of spirits' as Spiritualists do, regard the gift \nas one of the most dangerous of abnormal nervous \ndiseases. A medium is simply one in whose personal \nEgo, or terrestrial mind, the percentage of astral light \nso preponderates as to impregnate with it his whole \nphysical constitution. Every organ and cell thereby \nis attuned, so to speak, and subject to an enormous \nand abnormal tension\" {LucifeVy November, 1890, \np. 183). In such cases, the astral covering of the \nLower Manas, to which we have already alluded, \nhas really overpowered the Manasic Ray, and the \nlatter, instead of shining through it, is dulled and \n\n\n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n39 \n\nbut broken beams struggle through. These, illu- \nminating the dim regions of astral and psychic \nshapes, fall now on one, now on another, lending \nthem deceptive colour and reality, misleading alike \nthe medium and those who look to him for guidance. \n\nTo return to the three ** fates\" spoken of above, \nany one of which may befall the Lower Manas. \n\n// may rise towards its source and become one ivith the \nFather in Heaven, This triumph can only be gained \nby many successive incarnations, all consciously di- \nrected towards this end. As life succeeds life, the \nphysical frame becomes more and more delicately \nattuned to vibrations responsive to the Manasic im- \npulses, so that gradually the Manasic Ray needs less \nand less of the coarser astral matter as its vehicle. \n\"It is part of the mission of the Manasic Ray to get \ngradually lid of the blind deceptive element which, \nthough it makes of it an actual spiritual entity on \nthis plane, still brings it into so close contact with \nmatter as to entirely becloud its divine nature and \nstultify its intuitions\" {Lucifer, November, 1890, \np. 182). Life after life it rids itself of this *' blind \ndeceptive element,\" until at last, master of Kama, \nand with body responsive to Mind, the Ray becomes \none with its radiant source, the lower nature is \nwholly attuned to the higher, and the Adept stands \nforth complete, the ** Father and the Son\" having \nbecome one on all planes, as they have been always \n**one in heaven.\" For him the wheel of incarnation \nis over, the cycle of necessity is trodden. Hence- \nforth, he can incarnate at will, to do any special ser- \nvice to mankind ; or he can dwell in the planes round \nearth without the physical body, helping in the fur- \nther evolution of the globe and of the race. \n\ndigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n40 \n\n// may partially aspire and partially tend downwards. \nThis is the normal experience of the average man. \nAll life is a battlefield, and the battle rages in the \nLower Manasic region, where Manas wrestles with \nKama for empire over man. Anon aspiration con- \nquers, the chains of sense are broken, and the Lower \nManas, with the radiance of its birth-place on it, soars \nupward on strong wings, spurning the soil of earth. \nBut alas! too soon the pinions tire, they flag, they \nflutter, they cease to beat the air; and downwards \nfalls the royal bird whose true realm is that of the \nhigher air, and he flutters heavily to the bog of earth \nonce more, and Kama chains him down. \n\nWhen the period of incarnation is over, and the \ngateway of Death closes the road of earthly life, what \nbecomes of the Lower Manas in the case we are con- \nsidering? \n\nSoon after the death of the physical body Kama- \nManas is set free, and dwells for awhile on the astral \nplane clothed with a body of astral matter. From \nthis all of the Manasic Ray that is pure and unsoiled \ngradually disentangles itself, and returns to its source, \ncarrying with it such of its life experiences as are of \na nature fit for assimilation with the Higher Ego. \nManas thus again becomes one, and it remains one \nduring the period which intervenes between two \nincarnations. The Manasic Ego, united to Atma- \nBuddhi \u2014 the two highest principles in the human \nconstitution, not yet considered by us \u2014 passes into \nthe Devachanic state of consciousness, resting, as we \nrest in sleep, from the weariness of the life-struggle \nthrough which it has passed, wrapped in blissful \ndreams, coloured and peopled by the experiences of \nthe earth-life thus clothed. These are carried into \n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n41 \n\nthe Manasic consciousness by the I/5wer Ray with- \ndrawn into its source. They make the Devachanic \nstate a continuation of earth-life, shorn of its sorrows, \na completion of the wishes and desires of earth-life, \nso far as those were pure and noble. The poetic \nphrase that \"the mind creates its own heaven\" is \ntruer than many may have imagined, for everywhere \nman is what he thinks^ and in the Devachanic state \nthe mind is unfettered by the gross physical matter \nthrough which it works on the objective plane. The \nDevachanic period is the time for the assimilation of \nlife experiences, the regaining of equilibrium, ere a \nnew journey is commenced. It is the night that suc- \nceeds the day of earth-life, the alternative of the \nobjective manifestation. Periodicity is here, as every- \nwhere else in nature, ebb and flow, throb and rest, \nthe rhythm of the Universal Life. This Devachanic \nstate of consciousness lasts for a period of varying \nlength, proportioned to the stage reached in evolu- \ntion, the Devachan of the average man being said to \nextend over some fifteen hundred years. \n\nMeanwhile, that portion of the impure garment of \nthe Lower Manas which remains entangled with Kama \ngives to the Kama-Rupa {nipa is form or body, there- \nfore Kama-Rupa is merely the Kama Body) a some- \nwhat confused consciousness, a broken memory of \nthe events of the just closed life. If the emotions \nand passions were strong and the Manasic element \nweak during the period of incarnation, the Kama- \nRupa will be strongly energised, and will persist in \nits activity for a considerable length of time after the \ndeath of the body. It will also show a considerable \namount of conscioUvSness, as much of the Manasic \nRay will have been overpowered by the vigorous \n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n42 \n\nKSmic elements, and will have remained entangled \nin them. If, on the other hand, the just closed earth- \nlife was characterised by mentality and purity rather \nthan by passion, the Kama-Rupa, being but poorly \nenergised, will be a pale simulacrum of the person to \nwhom it belonged, and will fade away, disintegrate \nand perish before any long period has elapsed. \n\nThe \"spook\" already mentioned {ante pp. 20, 21) \nwill now be fully understood. It may show very con- \nsiderable intelligence, if the Manasic element be still \nlargely present, and this will be the case with the \nKama-Rupa of persons of strong animal nature and \nforcible though coarse intellect. For intelligence \nworking in a very powerful Kamic personality will \nbe exceeding strong and energetic, though not subtle \nor delicate, and the **spook\" of such a person, still \nfurther vitalised by the magnetic currents of persons \nyet living in the body, may shew much intellectual \nability of a low type. But such a \"spook\" is con- \nscienceless, devoid of good impulses, tending to- \nwards disintegration, and communications with it \ncan work for evil only, whether we regard them as \nprolonging its vitality by the currents it sucks up \nfrom the bodies and Kamic elements of the living, \nor as exhausting the vitality of these living persons \nand polluting them with astral connexions of an al- \ntogether undesirable kind. \n\nNor should it be forgotten that, without attending \nseance-rooms at all, living persons may come into \nobjectionable contact with these Kamic \"vSpooks.\" \nAs already mentioned, they are attracted to places in \nwhich the animal part of man is chiefly catered for; \ndrinking-houses, gambling saloons, brothels, all these \nplaces are full of the vilest magnetism, are very whirl- \nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n43 \n\npools of magnetic currents of the foulest type. These \nattract the ** spooks'* magnetically, and they drift to \nsuch psychic maelstroms of all that is earthly and \nsensual. Vivified by currents so congenial to their \nown, the Kama-Rupas become more active and po- \ntent, impregnated with the emanations of passions \nand desires they can no longer physically satisfy, \ntheir magnetic currents reinforce the similar cur- \nrents in the live persons, action and reaction con- \ntinually going on, and the animal natures of the \nliving become more potent and less controlled by \nthe will as they are played on by these forces of the \nKamic world. Kama-loka (from loka^ a place, and so \nthe place for Kama) is a name often used to desig- \nnate that plane of the astral world to which these \n\"spooks\" belong, and from this ray magnetic cur- \nrents of poisonous character, as from a pest-house \nfloat out germs of disease that may take root and \ngrow in the congenial soil of some poorly vitalised \nphysical body. \n\nIt is very possible that many will say, on reading \nthese statements, that Theosophy is a revival of \nmediaeval superstitions and will lead to imaginary \nterrors. Theosophy explains mediaeval superstitions, \nand shows the natural facts on which they were founded \nand from which they drew their vitality. If there are \nplanes in nature other than the physical no amount \nof reasoning will get rid of them and belief in their \nexistence will constantly reappear; but knowledge \nwill give them their intelligible place in the universal \norder, and will prevent superstitution by an accurate \nunderstanding of their nature, and of the laws under \nwhich they function. And let it be remembered that \npersons whose consciousness is normally on the \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n44 \n\nphysical plane can protect themselves from undesir- \nable influences by keeping their minds clean and their \nwills strong. We protect ourselves best against \ndisease by maintaining our bodies in vigorous health ; \nwe cannot guard ourselves against invisible germs, \nbut we can prevent our bodies becoming suitable soil \nfor the growth and development of the germs. Nor \nneed we deliberately throw ourselves in the way of \ninfection. So also as regards these malign germs \nfrom the astral plane. We can prevent the formation \nof Kama-Manasic soil in which they can germinate \nand develop, and we need not go into evil places, nor \ndeliberately encourage receptivity and mediumistic \ntendencies. A strong active will and a pure heart \nare our best protection. \n\nThere remains the third possibility for Kama- \nManas, to which we must now turn our attention, the \nfate spoken of earlier as ^'terrible in its consequences, \nwhich may befall the Kamic Principle.'' \n\n// may break away from its source ^ made one with \nKama, instead of with the Higher Mafias. This is, \nfortunately, a rare event, as rare at one pole of human \nlife as the complete re-union with the Higher Manas \nis rare at the other. But still the possibility remains \nand must be stated. \n\nThe personality may be so strongly controlled by \nKama that, in the struggle between the Kamic and \nManasic elements the victory may remain wholly with \nthe former. The Lower Manas may become so en- \nslaved that its essence may become, as it were, frayed \nthinner and thinner by the constant rub and strain, \nuntil at last persistent yielding to the promptings of \ndesire bears its inevitable fruit, and the slender link \nwhich unites the Higher to the Lower Manas, the \n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n45 \n\n** silver thread that binds it to the Master,\" snaps in \ntwo. Then, during earth-life, the I/)wer Quaternary- \nis wrenched away from the Triad to which it was \nlinked, and the Higher Nature is severed wholly from \nthe lower. The human being is rent in twain, the \nbrute has broken itself free, and it goes forth un- \nbridled, carrying with it the reflections of that Manasic \nlight which should have been its guide through the \ndesert of life. A more dangerous brute it is than its \nfellows of the unevolved animal world, just because \nof these fragments in it of the higher mentality of man. \nSuch a being, human in form but brute in nature, \nhuman in appearance but without human ruth, or \nlove, or justice \u2014 such a one may now and then be \nmet with in the haunts of men, putrescent while still \nliving, a thing to shudder at with deepest, if hopeless, \ncompassion. What is its fate after the funeral knell \nhas tolled? \n\nUltimately, there is the perishing of the personality \nthat has thus broken away from the Principles that \ncan alone give it immortality. But a period of per- \nsistence lies before it. \n\nThe Kama-Rupa of such a one is an entity of \nterrible potency, and it has this unique peculiarity, \nthat it is able to reincarnate in the world of men. It \nis not a mere \"spook\" on the way to disintegration ; \nit has retained, entangled in its coils, too much of the \nManasic element to permit of such natural dissipation \nin space. It is sufficiently an independent entity, \nlurid instead of radiant, with Manasic flame rendered \nfoul instead of purifying, as to be able to take to it- \nself garment of flesh once more and dwell as man with \nmen. Such a man \u2014 if the word may be indeed \napplied to the mere human shell with brute interior \n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n46 \n\n\u2014 ^passes through a period of earth-life the natural foe \nof all who are still normal in their humanity. With \nno instincts save those of the animal, driven only by \npassion never even by emotion, with a cunning that \nno brute can rival, a deliberate wickedness that plans \nevil in fashion unknown to the mere frankly natural \nimpulses of the animal world, the reincarnated Kama- \nRupic entity touches ideal vileness. Such soil the \npage of human history as the monsters of iniquity \nthat startle us now and again into a wondering cry, \n**Is this a human being?\" Sinking lower with each \nsuccessive incarnation, the evil force gradually wears \nitself out, and such a personality perishes, separated \nfrom the source of life. It finally disintegrates, to be \nworked up into other forms of living things, but as a \nseparate existence it is lost. It is a bead broken ofi* \nthe thread of life, and the Immortal Ego that incar- \nnated in that personality has lost the experience of \nthat incarnation, has reaped no harvest from that life- \nsowing. Its Ray has brought nothing back, its life- \nwork .for that birth has been a total and complete \nfailure, whereof nothing remains to weave into the \nfabric of its own eternal Self. \n\nAsTRAi, Forms of the Fourth and Fifth \nPrincipi.ES. \n\nThe student will already have fully realised that \n**an astral body\" is a term that may cover a variety \nof different forms. It may be well at this stage to \nsum up the astral types that belong to the Fourth \nand Fifth Principles. \n\nDuring life an astral body may be projected \u2014 \nformed, as its name implies, of astral matter \u2014 but, \nunlike the Linga Sharira, dowered with intelligence, \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n47 \n\nand able to travel to a considerable distance from the \nphysical body to which it belongs. Unfortunately, \nno distinctive name has as yet been given to this \nentity; it is often spoken of as \"the astral,\" to the \nsad confusion of the student, who confounds it very \nnaturally with the Linga Sharira. This form, which \nI label the Kama-Manasic Rupa, for lack of a better \nname, is projected by mediums and sensitives uncon- \nsciously, during sleep or trance. It can travel with \nthe speed of thought to a distant place, can there \ngather impressions from surrounding objects, can \nbring back those impressions to the physical body, \nand, by means of the physical body still entranced, \ncan convey them to others ; but, as a rule, when the \nsensitive comes out of trance, the brain does not \nretain the impressions thus made upon it, and no \ntrace is left \"in the memory\" of the experiences thus \nacquired. Sometimes, but this is rare, the Kama- \nManasic Rupa is able to sufficiently affect the brain \nby the vibrations it sets up, to leave a lasting impres- \nsion thereon, and then the sensitive is able to recall \nthe knowledge acquired during trance. \n\nThis Kama-Manasic Rupa is the agent uncon- \nsciously used by clairvoyants when their vision is \nnot merely the seeing in the astral light. This astral \nform does then really travel to distant places, and \nmay appear there to persons who are sensitive or \nwho chance for the time to be in an abnormal ner- \nvous condition. Sometimes it appears to them \u2014 \nwhen very faintly informed by consciousness \u2014 as a \nvaguely outlined form, not noticing its surroundings. \nSuch a Rupa has appeared near the time of death at \nplaces distant from the dying person, to those who \nwere closely united to the dying by ties of blood, of \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n\u25a0 48 \n\naffection, or of hatred. More highly energized, it \nwill shew intelligence and emotion, as in some cases \non record, in which dying mothers have visited their \nchildren residing at a distance, and have spoken in \ntheir last moments of what they had seen and done. \nThis K^ma-Manasic Rupa is set free in many cases \nof disease \u2014 as is the Linga Sharira \u2014 as well as in \nsleep and in trance. Inactivity of the physical body \nis a condition of such astral voyagings. \n\nThe Kama-Manasic Rupa seems also to occasion- \nally appear in seance-rooms, giving rise to some of \nthe more intellectual phenomena that take place. It \nmust not be confounded with the Kama Rupa, or \n\"spook,\" already sufficiently familiar to the reader, \nthe latter being always the Kamic or Kama-Manasic \nremains of a dead person, whereas the body we are \nnow dealing with is the projection of an astral double \nfrom a living person. \n\nA higher form of astral body, belonging to the \nHigher Manas, is that known as the Mayavi Rupa, or \n\"body of illusion.\" The Mayavi Rupa is an astral \nbody formed by the consciously directed will of the \nAdept; it may, or may not, resemble His physical \nbody, He giving to it whatever form may suit the \npurpose for which He projects it. He transfers to \nthis Mayavi Rupa His full consciousnCvSS, His higher \nPrinciples, lives in it, in fact, for the time, as though \nit were His physical body, leaving the latter en- \ntranced, its functions suspended at the lowest ebb of \nvitality. The Adept can thus travel wherever He \nwill, without the burden of His physical body, in the \nfull exercise of every faculty, in perfect self-con- \nsciousness. He makes the Mayavi Rupa visible or \ninvisible at will \u2014 on the physical plane \u2014 and the \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n4^ \n\nphrase often used by Chelas and others as to seeing \nan Adept \"in His astral,\" means that He has visited \nthem in His Mayavi Rupa. If He so choose, He can \nmake it indistinguishable from a physical body, warm \nand firm to the touch as well as visible, able to carry \non a conversation, at all points like a physical human \nbeing. But the power to thus form the true Mayavi \nRupa is confined to the Adepts and advanced Chelas ; \nit cannot be done by the untrained student, however \npsychic he may naturally be, for it is a Manasic not a \npsychic creation, and it is only under the instruction \nof his Guru that the Chela learns to form and use the \n\"body of illusion.\" \n\nThk Higher Manas. \n\nThe Immortal Thinker itself, as will by this time \nhave become clear to the reader, can manifest itself \nbut little on the physical plane at the present stage of \nhuman evolution. Yet we are able to catch some \nglimpses of the powers resident in it, the more as in \nthe Lower Manas we find those powers \"cribbed, \ncabined and confined\" indeed, but yet existing. \nThus we have seen (p. 37) that the Lower Manas \"is \nthe organ of the freewill in physical man.\" Freewill \nresides in Manas itself, in Manas the offspring of \nMahat, the Universal Mind. From Manas comes \nthe feeling of liberty, the knowledge that we can \nrule ourselves \u2014 really the knowledge that the higher \nnature in us can rule the lower, let that lower nature \nrebel and struggle as it may. Once let our conscious- \nness identify itself with Manas instead of with Kama, \nand the lower nature becomes the animal we be- \nstride, it is no longer the \" I.\" All its plungings, its \nstruggles, its fights for mastery, are then outside us, \n\n\n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n56 \n\nnot within us, and we rein it in and hold it as we \nrein in a plunging steed and subdue it to our will. \n\nOn this question of freewill I venture to quote from \nan article of my own that appeared in the Path : \n\n** Unconditioned will alone can be absolutely free: \nthe unconditioned and the absolute are one : all that \nis conditioned must, by virtue of that conditioning, \nbe relative and therefore partially bound. As that \nWill evolves the Universe, it becomes conditioned by \nthe laws of its own manifestation. The Manasic \nentities are differentiations of that Will, each condi- \ntioned by the nature of its manifesting potency, but, \nwhile conditioned without, it is free within its own \nvSphere of activity, so being the image in its own \nworld of the Universal Will in the Universe. Now \nas this Will, acting on each successive plane, crystal- \nlizes itself more and more densely as matter, the \nmanifestation is conditioned by the material in which \nit works, while, relatively to the material, it is itself \nfree. So, at each stage, the inner freedom appears in \nconsciousness, while yet investigation shows that that \nfreedom works within the limits of the plane of mani- \nfestation on which it is acting, free to work upon the \nlower, yet hindered as to manifestation by the respon- \nsiveness of the lower to its impulse. Thus the Higher \nManas, in whom resides Freewill, so far as the Lower \nQuaternary is concerned \u2014 being the offspring of Ma- \nhat, the third Logos, the Word, i.e., the Will in mani- \nfestation \u2014 is limited in its manifestation in our lower \nnature by the sluggishness of the response of the \npersonality to its impulses; in the Lower Manas it- \nself \u2014 as immersed in that personality \u2014 resides the \nwill with which we are familiar, swayed by passions, \nby appetites, by desires, by impressions coming from \n\n\n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n51 \n\nwithout, yet able to assert itself among them all, by \nvirtue of its essential nature, one with that Higher \nEgo of. which it is the Ray. It is free, as regards all \nbelow it, able to act on KSma and on the physical \nbody, however* much its full expression may be \nthwarted and hindered by the crudeness of the ma- \nterial in which it is working. Were the will the mere \noutcome of the physical body, of the desires and pas- \nsions, whence could arise the sense of the 'I' that can \njudge, can desire, can overcome? It acts from a higher \nplane, is royal as touching the lower whenever it claims \nthe royalty of birthright, and the very struggle of its \nself-assertion is the best testimony to the fact that in \nits nature it is free. And so, passing to lower planes, \nwe find in each grade this freedom of the higher as \nruling the lower, 3^et, on the plane of the lower, hin- \ndered in manifestation. Reversing the process and \nstarting from the lower, the same truth becomes \nmanifest. Let a man's limbs be loaded with fetters, \nand crude material iron will prevent the manifesta- \ntion of the muscular and nervous force with which \nthey are instinct: none the less is that force present, \nthough hindered for the moment in its activity. Its \nstrength may be shown in its very efforts to break \nthe chains that bind it: there is no power in the iron \nto prevent the free giving out of the muscular energy, \nthough the phenomena of motion may be hindered. \nBut while this energy cannot be ruled by the physical \nnature below it, its expenditure is determined by the \nKamic principle; passions and desires can set it \ngoing, can direct and control it. The muscular and \nnervous energy cannot rule the passions and desires, \nthey are free as regards it, it is determined by their \ninterposition. Yet again Kama may be ruled, con- \nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n52 \n\ntrolled, determined by the will; as touching the Ma- \nnasic principle it is bound, not free, and hence the \nsense of freedom in choosing which desire shall be \ngratified, which act performed. As the I/)wer Manas \nrules Kama, the Lower Quaternary t^kes its rightful \nposition of subserviency to the Higher Triad, and is \ndetermined by a will it recognizes as above itself, and, \nas regards itself, a will that is free. Here in many a \nmind will spring the question, * And what of the will \nof the Higher Manas; is that in turn determined by \nwhat is above it, while it is free to all below?' But \nwe have reached a point where the intellect fails us, \nand where language may not easily utter that which \nthe spirit senses in those higher realms. Dimly only \ncan we feel that there, as everywhere else, the truest \nfreedom must be in harmony with law, and that volun- \ntary acceptance of the function of acting as channel \nof the Universal Will must unite into one perfect \nliberty and perfect obedience.\" \n\nThis is truly an obscure and difficult problem, but \nthe student will find much light fall on it by following \nthe lines of thought thus traced. \n\nAnother power resident in the Higher Manas and \nmanifested on the lower planes by those in whom the \nHigher Manas is consciously Master, is that of crea- \ntion of forms by the will. The Secret Doctrine says : \n\"Kriyasakti. The mysterious power of thought \nwhich it enables it to produce external, perceptible, \nphenomenal results by its own inherent energy. The \nancients held that any idea will manifest itself exter- \nnally if on^s attention is deeply co7icentrated upon it. \nSimilarly an intetise volition will be followed by the \ndesired results*' (Vol. I., p. 293). Here is the secret of \nall true ** Magic,\" and as the subject is an important \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n53 \n\none, and as Western Science is beginning to touch its \nfringe, a separate section is devoted to its consideration \nfurther on, in order not to break the connected outline \nhere given of the Principles. - \n\nAgain, we have learned from H. P. Blavatsky that \nManas, or the Higher Ego, as \"part of the Essence \nof the Universal Mind, is unconditionally omni- \nscient on its own plane,\" and *4s the vehicle of all \nknowledge of the past and present, and the future.\" \nWhen this immortal entity is able through its Ray, \nthe Lower Manas, to impress the brain of a man, that \nman is one who manifests abnormal qualities, is a \ngenius or a seer. The conditions of seership are thus \nlaid down : \n\n**The former [the visions of the true seer] can be \nobtained by one of two means : (a) on the condition \nof paralysing at will the memory and the instinctual \nindependent action of all the material organs and \neven cells in the body of flesh, an act which, once \nthat the light of the Higher Ego has consumed and \nsubjected for ever the passional nature of the personal \nlower Ego, is easy, but requires an adept; and {b) of \nbeing a reincarnation of one, who, in a previous birth, \nhad attained through extreme purity of life and efforts \nin the right direction almost to a Yogi-state of holiness \nand saintship. There is also a third possibility of \nreaching in mystic visions the plane of the Higher \nManas; but it is only occasional, and does not depend \non the will of the Seer, but on the extreme weakness \nand exhaustion of the material body through illness \nand suffering. The Seeress of Prevorst was an in- \nstance of the latter case; and Jacob Boehme of our \nsecond category\" (JLucifer, November, 1890, p. 183). \n\nThe reader will now be in a position to grasp the \n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n54 \n\ndifference between the workings of the Higher Ego \nand of its Ray. Genius, which sees instead of arguing, \nis of the Higher Ego; true Intuition is one of its \nfaculties. Reason, the weighing and balancing quality \nwhich arranges the facts gathered by observation, \nbalances them one against the other, argues from \nthem, draws conclusions from them \u2014 this is the exer- \ncise of the Lower Manas through the brain-apparatus; \nits instrument is ratiocination ; by induction it ascends \nfrom the known to the unknown, building up a hypo- \nthesis : by deduction it descends again to the known, \nverifying its hypothesis by fresh experiment. \n\nIntuition, as we see by its derivation, is simply in- \nsight \u2014 a process as direct and swift as bodily vision. \nIt is the exercise of the eyes of the intelligence, the \nunerring recognition of a truth presented on the \nmental plane. It sees with certainty, its vision is \nunclouded, its report unfaltering. No proof can add \nto the certitude of its recognition, it is beyond and \nabove the reason. Often our instincts, blinded and \nconfused by passions and desires, are miscalled intui- \ntions, and a mere Kamic impulse is accepted as the \nsublime voice of the Higher Manas. Careful and \nprolonged self-training is necessary ere that voice can \nbe recognised with certainty, but of one thing we may \nfeel very sure: so long as we are in the vortex of the \nPersonality, so long as the storms of desires and \nappetites howl around us, so long as the waves of \nemotion toss us to and fro, so long the voice of the \nHigher Manas cannot reach our ears. Not in the \nfire or the whirlwind, not in the thunderclap or the \nstorm, comes the mandate of the Higher Ego: only \nwhen there has fallen the stillness of a silence that \ncan be felt, only when the very air is motionless and \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nS6 \n\nthe calm is profound, only when the man wraps his \nface in a mantle which closes his ears even to the \nsilence that is of earth, then only sounds the voice \nthat is stiller than the silence, the voice of his true \nSelf. \n\nOn this H. P. Blavatsky has written in Iszs Unveiled: \n'* Allied to the physical half of man's nature is reason, \nwhich enables him to maintain his vSupremacy over \nthe lower animals, and to subjugate nature to his \nuses. Allied to his spiritual part is his conscience, \nwhich will serve as his unerring guide through the \nbesetment of the senses; for conscience is that in- \nstantaneous perception between right and wrong \nwhich can only be exercised by the spirit, which, \nbeing a portion of the Divine Wisdom and Purity, is \nabsolutely pure and wise. Its promptings are in- \ndependent of reason, and it can only manifest itself \nclearly when unhampered by the baser attractions of \nour dual nature. Reason being a faculty of our \nphysical brain, one which is justly defined as that of \ndeducing inferences from premisses, and being wholly \ndependent on the evidence of other senses, cannot be \na quality pertaining directly to our divine spirit. The \nlatter knows \u2014 hence all reasoning, which implies dis- \ncussion and argument, would be useless. So an \nentity which, if it must be considered as a direct \nemanation from the eternal Spirit of Wisdom, has to \nbe viewed as possessed of the same attributes as the \nessence or the whole of which it is part. Therefore \nit is with a certain degree of logic that the ancient \nTheurgists maintained that the rational part of man's \nsoul (spirit) never entered wholly into the man's body, \nbut only overshadowed him more or less through the \nirrational or astral soul, which serves as an inter- \n\n\n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n56 \n\nmediatpry agent, or a meduim between spirit and \nbody. The man who has conquered matter suffi- \nciently to receive the direct light from his shining \nAugoeides, feels truth intuitionally ; he could not err \nin his judgment, notwithstanding all the sophisms \nsuggested by cold reason, for he is illuminated. \nHence, prophecy, vaticination, and the so-called \nDivine inspiration, are simply the effects of this \nillumination from above by our own immortal spirit\" \n(Vol. I., pp. 305, 306). \n\nThis Augoeides, according to the belief of the Neo- \nPlatonists, as according to the Theosophical teach- \ningvS, ** sheds more or less its radiance on the inner \nman, the astral soul\" {Ibid, p. 315), i.e, in the now \naccepted terminology, on the Kama- Man avSic person- \nality, or Lower Ego. (In reading Isis Unveiled, the \nstudent has to bear in mind the fact that when the \nbook was written, the terminology was by no means \neven as fixed as it is now ; in Isis Unveiled is the first \nmodern attempt to translate into Western language \nthe complicated Eastern ideas, and further experi- \nence has shown that many of the terms used to cover \ntwo or three conceptions may with advantage be \nrestricted to one and thus rendered precise. Thus \nthe \"astral soul\" mUvSt be understood in the sense \ngiven above.) Only as this Lower Ego becomes pure \nfrom all breath of passion, as the Lower Manas frees \nitself from Kama, can the ** Shining One\" impress \nit; H. P. Blavatsky tells us how Initiates meet this \nHigher Ego fac^ to^ face. Having spt)ken of the \ntrinity in man, Atma-Buddhi-Manas, she goes on: \n**It is when this trinity, in anticipation of the final \ntriumphant reunion beyond the gates of corporeal \ndeath, became for a few seconds a unity, that the \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n57 \n\ncandidate is allowed, at the moment of the initia- \ntion, to behold his future self. Thus we read in the \nPersian Desatir of the * Resplendent One'; in the \nGreek philosopher-initiates of the Augoeides \u2014 the \nself-shining * blessed vision resident in the pure \nlight' ; in Porphyry, that Plotinus was united to his \n*god' six times during his life-time, and so on\" (Jsis \nUnveiled, Vol. II., pp. 114, 115). \n\nThis trinity made into unity, again, is the ** Christ\" \nof all mystics. When, in the final initiation, the can- \ndidate has been outstretched on the floor or altarstone \nand has thus typified the crucifixion of the flesh, or \nlower nature, and when from this ** death\" he has \n\" risen again \" as the triumphant conqueror over sin \nand death, he then, in the supreme moment, sees \nbefore him the glorious presence and becomes **one \nwith Christ,\" is himself the Christ. Thenceforth he \nmay live in the body, but it has become his obedient \ninstrument ; he is united with ^his true Self, the \nHigher Ego made one with Atma-Buddhi, and \nthrough the personality he inhabits he wields his \nfull powers as an immortal spiritual intelligence. \nWhile he was still struggling in the toils of the lower \nnature, Christ, the Spiritual Ego, was daily crucified \nin him; but in the full Adept Christ has arisen \ntriumphant, lord of himself and of Nature. The long \npilgrimage of the Higher Manas is over, the cycle of \nnecessity is trodden, the wheel of rebirth ceases to \nturn, the Son of Man has been made perfect by \nsuffering. \n\nSo long as this point has not been reached, \"the \nChrist\" is the object of aspiration. The Ray is ever \nstruggling to return to its source, the lyower Manas \n^ver aspiring to rebecome one with the Higher. \n\nDigitized by VjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n58 \n\nWhile this duahty persists the continual yearning \ntowards reunion felt by the noblest and purest natures \nis one of the most salient facts of the inner life and it \nis this which clothes itself as prayer, as inspiration, \nas ** seeking after God,\" as the longing for union with \nthe divine. \"My soul is athirst for God, for the \nliving God,\" cries the eager Christian, and to tell \nhim that this intense longing is a fancy and is futile \nis to make him turn aside from you as one who can- \nnot understand, but whose insensibility does not alter \nthe fact. The Occultist recognises in this cry the \ninextinguishable impulse upwards of the Lower Self \nto the Higher from which it is separated, but the \nattraction of which it vividly feels. Whether the \nperson pray to Buddha, to Vishnu, to Christ, to the \nVirgin, to the Father, it matters not at all ; these are \nquestions of mere dialect, not of essential fact. In \nall the Manas united to Atma-Buddhi is the real \nobject, veiled under what name the changing time or \nrace may give ; at once the Ideal Humanity and the \n^'personal God,\" the \"God-Man\" found in all re- \nligions, \"God incarnate,\" the \"Word made flesh.\" \nthe Christ who must \"be born in\" each, with whom \nthe believer must be made one. \n\nAnd this leads us on to the last planes of all, the \nplanes of Spirit, using that must abused word merely \nas the opposite pole to matter ; here only very general \nideas can be grasped by us, but it is necessary none \nthe less to try and grasp these ideas if we are to com \u2022 \nplete, however poorly, our conception of man. \n\nPRiNCiPi.:es VI AND VII, Atma-Buddhi, the \n\"Spirit.\" \n\nAs the completion of the thought of the last sec- \nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n59 \n\ntion, we will look at Atma-Buddhi first in its con- \nnexion with Manas, and will then proceed to a \nsomewhat more general view of it as \"the Monad.\" \nThe clearest and best description of the human \ntrinity, Atma-Buddhi-Manas, will be found in the \nKey to Theosophy, in which H. P. Blavatsky gives the \nfollowing definitions : \u2014 \n\n/ Atmd, the inseparable Ray of the Universal \nThe Higher ; and One Sei.f. It is the God above, more \nSEiyF is \\ than within us. Happy the man who suc- \n\n\\ ceeds in saturating his inner Ego with it. \n\n/ the spiritual soul, or Buddhiy in close union \nThe SpirituaIv l with Manas, the Mind-Principle, without \ndivine Ego is j which it is no Ego at all, but only the \n\\ Atmic vehicle. \n\nManas, the fifth Principle, so-called, in- \ndependently of Buddlii. The Mind-Prin- \nThe Inner or J ciple is only the Spiritual Ego when \nHigher Ego is \\ merged into one with Buddhi. . . It is \nthe permanent Individuality or the Re- \nincarnating Ego (pp. 175, 176). \n\nAtmS must then be regarded as the most abstract \npart of man's nature, the ** Breath\" which needs a \nbody for its manifestation. It is the one Reality, that \nwhich manifests on all planes, the Essence of which \nall our *' Principles\" are but aspects. The one Eter- \nnal Existence, wherefrom are all things, which em- \nbodies one of its aspects in the universe, that which \nwe speak of as the Onk Life \u2014 this Eternal Existence \nrays forth as AtmS, the very Self alike of the universe \nand of man ; their innermost core, their very heart, \nthat in which all things inhere. In itself incapable \nof direct manifestation on lower planes, yet That \n\n\n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n6o \n\nwithout which no lower planes could come into exis- \ntence, it clothes itself in Buddhi, as its vehicle, or \nmedium of further manifestation. ** Buddhi is the \nfaculty of cognizing the channel through which di- \nvine knowledge reaches the Ego, the discernment of \ngood and evil, divine conscience also, and spiritual \nsoul, which is the vehicle of Atma\" (^Secret Doctrine, \nVol. I., p. xix.). It is often spoken of as the principle \nof spiritual discernment. But Atma-Buddhi, a uni- \nversal principle, needs individualizing ere experience \ncan be gathered and self-consciouspess attained. So \nthe Mind-Principle is united to Atma-Buddhi, and \nthe human trinity is complete. Manas becomes the \nspiritual Ego only when merged in Buddhi; Buddhi \nbecomes the spiritual Ego only when united to Manas; \nin the union of the two lies the evolution of the spirit, \nself-conscious on all planes. Hence Manas strives \nupward to Atma-Buddhi, as the Lower ManaS strives \nupward to the Higher, and henc^e, in relation to the \nHigher Manas, Atma-Buddhi, or Atnia, is often spoken \nof as **the Father in Heaven,\" as the Higher Manas \nis itself thus described in relation to the Lower (see \nante, p. 40). The lyower Manas gathers experience \nto carry it back to its source ; the Higher Manas ac- \ncumulates the store throughout the cycle of reincar- \nnation ; Buddhi becomes assimilated with the Higher \nManas; and these, permeated with the Atmic light, \none with that True Self, the trinity becomes a unity, \nthe spirit is self-conscious on all planes, and the object \nof the manifested universe is attained. \n\nIt will be gathered from this and from the preced- \ning section that the Augoeides, the Christ, is the \nhighest \"form\" of which Theosophy tells us. We \nhere reach the limit of form, and as a form the \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n6i \n\nAugoeldes is of the Fifth Plane. Beyond this, all \nform is apparenj:ly impossible, since form implies \nseparation, and Atma-Buddhi is one and indivisible, \na universal principle in all, not an individual posses- \nsion of any. \n\nBut no words of mine can avail to explain or to \ndescribe that which is beyond explanation and beyond \ndescription. Words can but blunder along on such a \ntheme, dwarfing and distorting it. Only by long and \npatient meditation can the student hope to vaguely \nsense something greater than himself, yet something \nwhich stirs at the innermost core of his being. As \nto the steady gaze directed at the pale evening sky \nthere appears after awhile, faintly and far away, the \nsoft glimmer of a star, so to the patient gaze of the \ninner vision there may come the tender beam of the \nspiritual star, if but as a mere suggestion of a far-off \nworld. Only to a patient and persevering purity will \nthat light arise, and blessed beyond all earthly blessed- \nness is he who sees but the palest shimmer of that \ntranscendent Radiance. \n\nWith such ideas as to \"Spirit,\" the horror with \nwhich Theosophists shrink from ascribing the trivial \nphenomena of the seance-room to \"spirits\" will be \nreadily undenstood. Playing on musical-boxes, talk- \ning through trumpets, tapping people on the head, \ncarrying accordions round the room \u2014 these things \nmay be all very well for astrals, spooks, and ele- \nmentals, but who can assign them to \"spirits,\" who \nhas any conception of spirit worthy of the name ? \nSuch vulgarization and degradation of the most sub- \nlime conceptions as yet evolved by man are surely \nsubjects for the keenest regret, and it may well be \nhoped that ere long these phenomena will be put \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n62 \n\nin their true place, as evidence that the materialistic \nviews of the universe are inadequate, instead of being \nexalted to a place they cannot fill as proofs of spirit. \nNo physical, no intellectual phenomena are proofs \nof the existence of spirit. Only to the spirit can \nspirit be demonstrated. You cannot prove a^ pro- \nposition in Euclid to a dog; you cannot prove Atma- \nBuddhi to Kama and the Lower Manas. As we climb, \nour view will widen, and when we stand on the sum- \nmit of the Holy Mount the planes of Spirit shall lie \nbefore our opened vivSion. \n\nThe Monad in Evoi^ution. \n\n^ Perhaps a slightly more definite conception of \nAtma-Buddhi may be obtained by the student, if he \nc^onsiders its work in Evolution as the Monad. Now \nAtma-Buddhi is identical with the Universal Over- \nsoul, \"itself an aspect of the Unknown Root,\" the \nOne Existence. When manifestation begins the \nMonad is *' thrown downwards into matter,\" to propel \ntowards and force evolution (see Secret Doctrine, Vol. \nII., p. 109); it is the mainspring, so to speak, of all \nevolution, the impelling force at the root of all \nthings. All the principles we have been studying \nare mere \"variously differentiated aspects\" of Atma, \nthe One Reality manifesting in our universe ; it is in \nevery atom, \"the root of every atom individually and \nof every form collectively,\" and all the principles \nare fundamentally Atma on different planes. The \nstages of its evolution are very clearly laid down in \nFive Years of Theosophy, pp. 273 et seq. There we are \nshown how it passes through the stages termed \nelemental, \"nascent centres of forces,\" and reaches \nthe mineral stage; from this it passes up through \n\n\n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n63 \n\nvegetable, animal, to man, vivifying every atom, the \natom being as it were its body of manifestation, its \nouter shell, densified for work on the lower planes. \nAs we are taught in the Secret Doctrifie: **The well- \nknown Kabbalistic aphorism runs: *A stone becomes \na plant; a plant, a beast; the beast, a man; a man, a \nspirit; and the spirit, a god.' The * spark' animates \nall the kingdoms in turn before it enters into and in- \nforms divine man, between whom and his predeces- \nsor, animal man, there is all the difference in the \nworld. . . . The Monad ... is, first of all, \nshot down by the law of evolution into the lowest \nform of matter \u2014 the mineral. After a sevenfold \ng>Tation encased in the stone (or that which will \nbecome mineral and stone in the Fourth Round) it \ncreeps out of it, say, as a lichen. Passing thence \nthrough all the forms of vegetable matter into what \nis termed animal matter, it has now reached the \npoint in which it has become the germ, so to speak, \nof the animal, that will become the physical man\" \n(Vol. I., pp. 246, 247)., \n\nIt IS the Monad, Atma-Buddhi, that thus vivifies \nevery part and kingdom of Nature, making all in- \nstinct with life and consciousness, one throbbing \nwhole. \"Occultism does not accept anything in- \norganic in the Kosmos. The expression employed \nby Science, 'inorganic substance,' means simply that \nthe latent life slumbering in the molecules of so- \ncalled 'inert matter,' is incognisable. All is lyife and \nevery atom of even mineral dust is a Life, though \nbeyond our comprehension and perception, because \nit is outside the range of the laws known, to those \nwho reject Occultism\" (^Secret Doctrine, Vol. I., p. 248). \nAnd again; \"Everything in the universe, throughout \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n64 \n\nall its kingdoms, is conscious, i.e., endowed with a \nconsciousness of its own kind and on its own plane \nof perception. We men must remember that because \nwe do not perceive any signs of consciousness, say in \nstones, we have no right to say that no consciousness \nexists there. There is no such thing as either *dead' \nor 'blind' matter, as there is no 'blind' or 'uncon- \nscious' law\" (p. 274). \n\nHow many of the great poets, with the sublime \nintuition of genius, have sensed this great truth! To \nthem all Nature pulses with life; they see life and \nlove everywhere, in suns and planets as in the grains \nof dust, in rustling leaves and opening blossoms, in \ndancing gnats and gliding snakes. Each form mani- \nfests as much of the One Life as it is capable of \nexpressing, and what is man that he should despise \nthe more limited manifestations, when he compares \nhimself as Life-expression, not with the forms below \nhim, but with the possibilities of expression that \nsoar above him in infinite heights of being, that he \ncan estimate still less than the stone can estimate \nhim. \n\nThe student will readily see that we must regard \nthis Force at the centr^ of Evolution as essentially \none. There is but one Atma-Buddhi in the universe, \nthe universal Soul, everywhere present, immanent in \nall, the One Supreme Energy whereof all varying \nenergies or force's are only differing forms. As the \nsunbeam is light or heat or electric^ity according to \nits conditioning environment, so is Atm& all-energy, \ndifferentiating on different planes. \"As an abstrac- \ntion, we call it the Onk Lifk; as an objective and \nevident Reality, we speak of a septenary scale of \nmanifestation, which begins at the upper rung with \n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n65 \n\nthe one unknowable Causality, and ends as Omni- \npresent Mind and lyife in every atom of matter\" \n(^Secret Doctrifie, Vol. I., p. 139). \n\nIts evolutionary course is very plainly outlined in \nthe Secret Doctrine, and as students are very often \npuzzled over this unity of the Monad I subjoin the \nstatement. The subject is difficult, but it could not, \nI think, be more clearly put than it is in these \nsentences: \n\n\"Now the Monadic or Cosmic Essence (if such a \nterm be permitted) in the mineral, vegetable, and \nanimal, though the same throughout the series of \ncycles from the lowest elemental up to the Deva \nkingdom, yet differs in the scale of progression. It \nwould be very misleading to imagine a Monad as a \nseparate Entity trailing its slow way in a distinct path \nthrough the lower kingdoms, and after an incalculable \nseries of transformations flowering into a human \nbeing; in short, that the Monad of a Humboldt dates \nback to the Monad of an atom of hornblende. Instead \nof saying a * Mineral Monad,' the more correct phrase- \nology in physical science, which differentiates every \natom, would of course have been to call it *the Monad \nmanifesting in that form of Prakriti called the \nMineral Kingdom.' The atom, as represented in the \nordinary scientific hypothesis, is not a particle of \nsomething, animated by a psychic something, destined \nafter aeons to blossom as a man. But it is a concrete \nmanifestation of the Universal Energy which itself \nhas not yet become individualised; a sequential \nmanifestation of the one Universal Monas. The ocean \n(of matter) does not divide into its potential and \nconstituent drops until the sweep of the life-impulse \nreaches the stage of man-birth. The tendency towards \n\n3 \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n66 \n\nSegregation into individual Monads is gradual, and in \nthe higher animals comes almost to the point. The \nPeripatetics applied the word Monas to the whole \nKosmos in the pantheistic sense ; and the Occultists, \nwhile accepting this thought for convenience sake, \ndistinguish the progressive stages of the evolution of \nthe concrete from the abstract by terms of which the \n'mineral, vegetable, animal, etc.. Monad* are examples. \nThe term merely means that the tidal wave of spiritual \nevolution is passing through that arc of its circuit. \nThe * Monadic Essence' begins to imperfectly differ- \nentiate towards individual consciousness in the \nvegetable kingdom. As the Monads are un com- \npounded things, as correctly defined by Leibnitz, it is \nthe spiritual essence which vivifies them in their \ndegrees of differentiation, which properly constitutes \nthe Monad \u2014 not the atomic aggregation, which is only \nthe vehicle and the substance through which thrill \nthe lower and the higher degrees of intelligence\" \n(Vol. I., pp. 178, 179). \n\nThe student who reads and weighs this passage \nwill, at the cost of a little present trouble, save him- \nself from much confusion in days to come. Let him \nfirst realise clearly that the Monad \u2014 **the spiritual \nessence \" to which alone in strict accuracy the term \nMonad shquld be applied \u2014 is one all the universe \nover, that Atma-Budahi is not his, nor mine, nor the \nproperty of anybody in particular, brt the spiritual \nessence energising in all. So is electricity one all the \nworld over; though it maybe active in his machine \nor in mine, neither he nor I can call it distinctively \nour electricity. But \u2014 and here arises the confusion \u2014 \nwhen Atma-Buddhi energises in man, in whom Manas \nis active as an individualising force, it is often spoken \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n67 \n\nof as though the \" atomic aggregation\" were a separate \nMonad, and then we have ** Monads,\" as in the above \npassage. This loose way of using the word will not \nlead to error if the student will remember that the \nindividualizing process is not on the spiritual plane, \nbut that Atma-Buddhi as seen through Manas seems \nto share in the individuality of the latter. So if you \nhold pieces of variously coloured glass in your hand \nyou may see through them a red sun, a blue sun, a \nyellow sun, and so on. None the less is there only \nthe one sun shining down upon you, altered by the \nmedia through which you look at it. So we often \nmeet the phrase **human Monads;\" it should be \n\"the Monad manifesting in the human kingdom;\" \nbut this somewhat pedantic accuracy would be likely \nonly to puzzle a large number of people, and the \nlooser popular phrase will not mislead when the \nprinciple of the unity on the spiritual plane is \ngrasi)ed, any more than we mislead by speaking of \nthe rising of the sun. **The Spiritual Monad is One, \nUniversal, Boundless, and Impartite, whose rays, \nnevertheless, form what we, in our ignorance call the \n'Individual Monads' of men\" (^Secret Doctrine, Vol. I., \n\nP- 177)- \n\nVery beautifully and poetically is this unity in \ndiversity put in one of the Occult Catechisms in which \nthe Guru questions the Chela: \n\n\"Lift thy head, O Lanoo; dost thou see one or \ncountless lights above thee, burning in the dark mid- \nnight sky?\" \n\n\"I sense one Flame, O Gurudeva; I see countless \nundetached sparks burning in it.\" \n\n\"Thou sayest well. And now look around and \ninto thyself. That light which burns inside thee, \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n68 \n\ndost thou feel it different in anywise from the light \nthat shines in thy brother-men?\" \n\n\"It is in no way different, though the prisoner is \nheld in bondage by Karma, and though its outer \ngarments delude the ignorant into saying, *thy soul' \nand* my sour.\" \u2022 \n\nThere ought not to be any serious difficulty now in \ngrasping the stages of human evolution ; the Monad, \nwhich has been working its way as we have seen, \nreaches the point at which the human form can be \nbuilt up on earth; an astral body and its physical \ncounterpart are then developed, Prana specialised \nfrom the great ocean of Life, and Kama evolved, all \nthese principles, the Lower Quaternary, being brooded \nover by the Monad, energised by it, impelled by it, \nforced onward by it towards continually increasing \nperfection of form and capacity for manifesting the \nhigher energies in Nature. This was animal, or \nphysical man, evolved through two-and-a-half Races. \nBut the Monad and the Lower Quaternary could not \ncome into sufficiently close relation with each other; \na link was yet a- wan ting. **The Double Dragon [the \nMonad] has no hold upon the mere form. It is like \nthe breeze where there is no tree or branch to receive \nand harbour it. It cannot affect the form where \nthere is no agent of transmission, and the form knows \nit not\" {^Secret Doctrine, Vol. II., p. 57). Then, at \nthe middle point just reached, in the middle, that \nis, of the Third Race, the Manasa-jjutra stepped \nin (see ante, p. 26), the Immortal Thinkers, to in- \nhabit the dwellings thus prepared for them, and \nto form the bridge between animal man and the \nspirit, be^een the evolved Quaternary and the \nbrooding AtmS-Buddhi, to begin the long cycle of \n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n69 \n\nreincarnation which is to issue in the Perfect Man. \n\nThe \"Monadic inflow\" or the evolution of the \nMonad from the animal into the human kingdom, \ncontinued through the Third Race on to the middle \nof the Fourth, the human population thus continually \nreceiving fresh recruits, into each of which entered \none of the Manasa-putra, this primary incarnation \nthus continuing through the second half of the Third \nRace and the first half of the Fourth. After this, the \n\"central turning point\" of this cycle of evolution, \n\"no more Monads can enter the human kingdom. \nThe door is closed for this cycle\" {Secret Dodririe, \nVol. I., p. 182). Since then reincarnation has been \nthe method of evolution, this individual reincarna- \ntion of the Immortal Thinker in conjunction with \n^tm^-Buddhi replacing the collective indwelling of \nAtma-Buddhi in lower forms of matter. \n\nAccording to Theosophical teachings. Humanity \nhas now reached the Firth Race, and we are in the \nfifth sub-race thereof, mankind on this globe in the \npresent stage having before it the completion of the \nFifth Race, and the rise, maturity and decay of the \nSixth and Seventh Races. But during all the ages \nnecessary for this evolution there is no increase in \nthe total number of reincarnating Egos; only a \nsmall proportion of these are reincarnated at any \nspecial time on our globe, so that the population may \nebb and flow within very wide limits, and it will have \nbeen noticed that there is a rush of births after a \nlocal depopulation has been caused by exceptional \nmortality. There is room and to spare for all such \nfluctuations, having in view the difference between \nthe total number of reincarnating Egos and the \nnumber actually incarnated at a given period. \n\n\n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n70 \n\nI^iNKS OF Proof for an Untrained Enquirer. \n\nIt is natural and right that any thoughtful person, \nbrought face to face with assertions such as those put \nforth in the preceding pages, should demand what \nproof is forthcoming to substantiate the propositions \nlaid down. A reasonable person will not demand \nfull and complete proof available to all comers, with- \nout study and without painstaking. He will admit \nthat the advanced theories of a science cannot be \ndemonstrated to one ignorant of its first principles, \nand he will be prepared to find that very much will \nhave been alleged which can only be proved to those \nwho have made some progress in their study. An \nessay on the higher mathematics, on the correlation \nof forces, on the atomic theory, on the molecular \nconstitution of chemical compounds, would contain \nmany statements the proofs of which would only be \navailable for those who had devoted time and thought \nto the study of the elements of the science concerned ; \nand so, an unprejudiced person, confronted with the \nTheosophical view of the constitution of man, would \nreadily admit that he could not expect complete \ndemonstration until he had mastered the elements of \nTheosophical science. \n\nNone the less are there general proofs available in \nevery science which suffice to justify its existence and \nto encourage study of its more recondite truths; and \nin Theosophy it is possible to indicate lines of proof \nwhich can be followed by the untrained enquirer, and \nwhich justify him in devoting time and pains to a \nstudy which gives promise of a wider and deeper \nknowledge of himself and of external nature than is \notherwise attainable. \n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nV \n\nIt is well to say at the outset that there is no proof \navailable to the average enquirer of the existence of \nthe three higher planes of which we have spoken. \nThe realms of the Spirit and of the Higher Mind are \nclosed to all save those who have evolved the faculties \nnecessary for their investigation. Those who have \nevolved these faculties need no proof of the existence \nof those realms ; to those who have not, no proof of \ntheir existence can be given. That there is something \nabove the Kama-Manasic plane may indeed be proven \nby the flashes of genius, the lofty intuitions, that \nfrom time to time lighten the darkness of our lower \n\u2022 world ; but what that something is, only those can \nsay whose inner eyes have been opened, who see \nwhere the race as a whole is still blind. But the \nlower planes are susceptible of proof, and fresh proofs \nare accumulating day by day. The Masters of \nWisdom are using the investigators and thinkers of \nthe Western world to make ** discoveries\" which tend \nto substantiate the outposts of the Theosophical posi- \ntion, and the lines which they are following are \nexactly those which are needed for the finding of \nnatural laws which will justify the assertions of Theo- \nsophists with regard to the elementary ** powers\" \nand \"phenomena\" to which such exaggerated im- \nportance has been given. If it is found that we have \nundeniable facts which establish the existence of \nplanes other than the physical on which conscious- \nness can work; which establish the existence of \nsenses and powers of perception other than those \nwith which we are familiar in daily life; which estab- \nlish the existence of powers of communication be- \ntween intelligences without the use of mechanical \napparatus, surely, under these circumstances, the \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n72 \n\nTheosophist may claim that he has made out a prima \nfacie case for further investigation of his doctrines. \n\nLet us, then, confine ourselves to the four lower \nplanes of which we have spoken in the preceding \npages, the four lower Principles in man which are \ncorrelated with these planes. Of these four we may \ndismiss one, that of Prana, as none will challenge the \nfact of the existence of the energy we call \"life\"; the \nneed of isolating it for purposes of study may be \nchallenged, and in very truth the plane of Prana, or \nthe Principle of Prana, runs through all other planes, \nall other Principles, interpenetrating all and binding \nall in one. There remain for our study the physical \nplane, in man that of the Sthula Sharira, the astral \nplane, the Kama-Manasic plane. Can we substan- \ntiate these by proofs which will be accepted by those \nwho are not yet Theosophists ? I think we can. \n\nFirst, as regards the physical plane. We need \nhere to notice how the senses of man are correlated \nwith the physical universe outside him, and how his \nknowledge of that universe is bounded by the power \nof his organs of sense to vibrate in response to vibra- \ntions set up outside him. He can hear when the air \nis thrown into vibrations into which the drum of his \near can also be thrown ; if the vibration be so slow \nthat the drum cannot vibrate in answer, the person \ndoes not hear any sound; if the vibration be so rapid \nthat the drum cannot vibrate in answer, the person \ndoes not hear any sound. So true is this, that the \nlimit of hearing in dijBferent persons varies with this \npower of vibration of the drums of their respective \nears; one person is plunged in silence, while another \nis deafened with the keen shrilling that is throwing \ninto tumult the air around both. The same principle^ \n\nDigitized by LjOOQIC \n\n\n\n73 \n\nholds good of sight; we see so long as the light \nwaves are of a length to which our organs of sight \ncan respond ; below and beyond this length we are in \ndarkness, let the ether vibrate as it may. The ant \ncan see where we are blind, because its eye can re- \nceive and respond to etheric vibrations more rapid \nthan we can sense. \n\nAll this suggests to any thoughtful person the idea \nthat if our senses could be evolved to more respon- \nsiveness, new avenues of knowledge would be opened \nup even on the physical plane, this realised, it is not \ndifficult to go a step further, and to conceive that \nkeener and subtler senses might exist which would \nopen up, as it were, a new universe on a plane other \nthan the physical. \n\nNow this conception is true, and with the evolution \nof the astral senses the astral plane unfolds itself, and \nmay be studied as really, as scientifically, as the \nphysical universe can be. These astral senses exist \nin all men, but are latent in most, and generally need \nto be artificially forced, if they are to be used in the \npresent stage of evolution. In a few persons they \nare normally present and become active without any \nartificial impulse. In very many persons they can be \nartificially awakened and developed. The condition, \nin all cases, of the activity of the astral senses is the \npassivity of the physical, and the more complete the \npassivity on the physical plane the greater the possi- \nbility of activity on the astral. \n\nIt is noteworthy that Western psychologists have \nfound it necessary to investigate what is termed the \n\"dream-consciousness,\" in order to understand the \nworkings of consciousness as a whole. It is im- \npossible to ignore the strange phenomena which \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\ncharacterise the workings of consciousness when, \nit is removed from the limitations of the physical \nplane, and some of the most able and advanced of \nour psychologists do not think these workings to be \nin any way unworthy of the most careful and scien- \ntific investigation. All such workings are, in Theo- \nsophical language, on the astral plane, and the student \nwho seeks for proof that there is an astral plane, may \nhere find enough and to spare. He will speedily dis- \ncover that the laws under which consciousness works \non the physical plane have no existence on the astral. \nE.g.y the laws of Space and Time which are here the \nvery conditions of thought, do not exist for conscious- \nness when its activity is transferred to the astral \nworld. Mozart hears a whole symphony as a single \nimpression, **as in a fine and strong dream\" f Philo- \nsophy of Mysticism, Du Prel, Vol. I., p. io6), but has \nto work it out in successive details when he brings it \nback with him to the physical plane. The ** dream\" \nof a moment contains a mass of events that would \ntake years to pass in succession in our world of space \nand time. The drowning man sees his life-history in a \nfew seconds. But it is needless to multiply instances. \n\nThe astral plane may be reached in sleep or in \ntrance, natural or induced, i.e,, in any case in which \nthe body is reduced to a condition of lethargy. It is \nin trance that it can best be studied, and here our \nenquirer will soon find proof that consciousness can \nwork apart from the physical organism, unfettered by \nthe laws that bind it while it works on the physical \nplane. Clairvoyance and clairaudience are among \nthe most interesting of the phenomena that here lie \nopen for investigation. \n\nIt is not necessary here to give a large number of \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n75 \n\ncases of clairvoyance, for I am supposing that the \nenquirer intends to study for himself. But I may \nmention the case of Jane Rider, observed by Dr. \nBelden, her medical attendant, a girl who could read \nand write with her eyes carefully covered with wads \nof cotton wool, coming down to the middle of the \ncheek (/sis Revelata^ Vol. I., p. 37); of a clairvoyant \nobserved by Schelling, who announced ,the death of \na relative at a distance of 150 leagues, and stated that \nthe letter containing the news of the death was on its \nway {Ibid,, Vol. II., pp. 89-92); of Madame Lagandre, \nwho diagnosed the internal state of her mother, giving \na description that was proved to be correct by the \npost-mortem examination {Somnolism and Psychism, \nDr. Haddock, pp. 54-56); of Emma, Dr. Haddock's \nsomnambule, who constantly diagnosed diseases for \nhim (Ibid,, chap. 7). Speaking generally, the clair- \nvoyant can see and describe events which are taking \nplace at a distance, or under circumstances that render \nphysical sight impossible. How is this done? The \nfacts are beyond dispute. They require explanation. \nWe say that consciousness can work through senses \nother than the physical, senses unfettered by the limi- \ntations of space which exist for our bodily senses, and \ncannot by them be transcended. Those who deny the \npossibility of such working on what we call the astral \nplane should at least endeavour to present a hypothe- \nsis more reasonable than ours. \"Facts are stubborn \nthings,\" and we have here a mass of facts, proving \nthe existence of conscious activity on a superphysical \nplane, of sight without eyes, hearing without ears, \nobtaining knowledge without physical apparatus. In \ndefault of any other explanation, the Theosophical \nhypothesis hplds the field. \n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n76 \n\nThere is another class of facts: that of astral ap- \npearances, whether of living or dead persons, wraiths, \napparitions, doubles, ghosts, etc., etc. Of course the \nknow-everything person of the end of the nineteenth \ncentury will sniff with lofty disdain at the mention of \nsuch silly superstitions. But sniffs do not abolish \nfacts, and it is a question of evidence. The weight \nof evidence is enormously on the side of such appear- \nances, and in all ages of the world human testimony \nhas borne witness to their reality. The enquirer \nwhose demand for proof I have in view may well set \nto work to gather first-hand evidence on this head. \nOf course, if he is afraid of being laughed at, he had \nbetter leave the matter alone, but if he is robust \nenough to face the ridicule of the superior person, he \nwill be amazed at the evidence he will collect from \npersons who have themselves come into contact with \nastral forms. ** Illusions! hallucinations!\" the su- \nperior person will say. But calling names settles \nnothing. Illusions to which the vast majority of the \nhuman race bear witness are at least worthy of study, \nif human testimony is to be taken as of any worth. \nThere must be something which gives rise to this \nunanimity of testimony in all ages of the world, testi- \nmony which is found to-day among civilized people, \namid railways and electric lights, as among ** bar- \nbarous races.\" \n\nThe testimony of millions of Spiritualists to the \nreality of astral forms cannot be left out of considera- \ntion. When all cases of fraud and imposture are \ndiscounted there remain phenomena that cannot be \ndismissed as fraudulent, and that can be examined \nby any persons who care to give time and trouble to \nthe investigation. There is no necessity to employ Si, \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n77 \n\nprofessional medium; a few friends, well-known to \neach other, can carry on their search together; and it \nis not too much to say that any half-dozen persons, \nwith a little patience and perseverance, may convince \nthemselves of the existence of forces and of intelli- \n. gences other than those of the physical plane. There \nis danger in this research to any emotional, nervous, \nand easily influenced natures, and it is well not to \ncarry the investigations too far, for the reasons given \non previous pages. But there is no readier way of \nbreaking down the unbelief in the existence of any- \nthing outside the physical plane than trying a few \nexperiments, and it is worth while to run some risk in \norder to effect this breaking down. \n\nThese are but hints as to lines that the enquirer \nmay follow, so as to convince himself that there is a \nstate of consciousness such as we label \"astral.\" \nWhen he has collected evidence enough to make \nsuch a state probable to him, it will be time for him \nto be put in the way of serious study. For real in- \nvestigation of the astral plane the student must de- \nvelop in himself the necessary senses, and to make \nhis knowledge available while he is in the body he \nmust learn to transfer his conscioUvSness to the astral \nplane without losing grip of the physical organism, \nso that he may impress on the physical brain the \nknowledge acquired during his astral voyagings. But \nfor this he will need to be not a mere enquirer but a \nstudent, and he will require the aid and guidance of a \nteacher. As to the finding of that teacher, \"when \nthe pupil is ready the teacher is always there.\" \n\nThe proofs of the existence of the Kama-MSnasic \nplane are, at the present time, most easily found in \nthe study of mesmeric and hypnotic phenomena. \n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n78 \n\nAnd here, ere passing to these, I am bound to put in \na word of warning. The use of mesmerism and \nhypnotism is surrounded with danger. The pub- \nlicity which attends on all scientific discoveries in \nthe West has scattered broadcast knowledge which \nplaces within the reach of the criminally-disposed \npowers of the most terrible character, and which may \nbe used for the most damnable purposes. No good \nman or woman will use these powers, if he finds that \nhe possesses them, save when he utilizes them purely \nfor human service, without personal end in view, and \nwhen he is very sure that he is not by their means \nusurping control over the will and the actions of \nanother human being. Unhappily the use of these \nforces is as open to the bad as to the good, and they \nmay be, and are being, used to most nefarious ends. \nIn view of these new dangers menacing individuals \nand society, each will do well to strengthen the habits \nof self-control and of concentration of thought and \nwill, so as to encourage the positive mental attitude \nas opposed to the negative, and thus to oppose a sus- \ntained resistance to all influences coming from with- \nout. Our loose habits of thought, our lack of distinct \nand conscious purpose, lay us open to the attacks of \nthe evil-minded hypnotiser, and that this is a real, not \na fancied, danger has been already proved by cases \nthat have brought the victims within the grasp of the \ncriminal law. It may be hoped that ere long such \nhypnotic malpractices may be brought within the \ncriminal code. \n\nWhile thus in the attitude of caution and of self- \ndefence, we may yet wisely study the experiments \nmade public to the world, in our search for prelimi- \nnary proofs of the existence of the Kama-M^nasic \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n79 \n\nplane. For here Western science is on the very \nverge of discovering some of those \"powers\" of \nwhich Theosophists have said so much, and we have \nthe right to use in justification of our teachings all \nthe facts with which that science may supply us. \n\nNow, one of the most important classes of these \nfacts is that of thoughts rendered visible as forms. \nA hypnotised person, after being awakened from \ntrance and being apparently in normal possession of \nhis senses, can be made to see any form conceived by \nthe hypnotiser. No word need be spoken, no touch \ngiven; it suffices that the hypnotiser should clearly \nimage to himself some idea, and that idea becomes a \nvisible and tangible object to the person under his \ncontrol. This experiment may be tried in various \nways; while the patient is in trance, \"suggestion\" \nmay be used; that is, the operator may tell him \nthat a bird is on his knee, and on awaking from \nthe trance he will see the bird and will stroke it \n{Etudes Cliniques sur la Grande Hysterie^ Richer, \np. 645); or that he has a lampshade between his \nhands, and on awaking he will press his hands \nagainst it, feeling resistance in the empty air {A?iimal \nMagfietisnty translated from Binet and Fere, p. 213); \nscores of these experiments may be read in Richer or \nin Binet and Fere. Similar results may be eiBfected \nwithout \"suggestion,'* by pure concentration of the \nthought ; I have seen a patient thus made to remove \na ring from a person's finger, without word spoken or \ntouch passing between hypnotiser and hypnotised. \n\nThe literature of mesmerism and hypnotism in \nEnglish, French, and German is now very extensive, \nand it is open to every one. There may be sought \nthe evidence of this creation of forms by thought and \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n8o \n\nwill, forms which, on the Kama-Manasic plane, are \nreal and objective. Mesmerism and hypnotism set \nthe intelligence free on this plane, and it works \nthereon without the hindrances normally imposed by \nthe physical apparatus ; it can see and hear on that \nplane, and sees thoughts as things. Here, again, for \nreal study, it is necessary to learn how thus to trans- \nfer the consciousness while retaining hold of the \nphysical organism; but for preliminary enquiry it \nsuffices to study others whose consciousness is arti- \nficially liberated without their own volition. This \nreality of thought-images on a super-physical plane \nis a fact of the very highest importance, especially in \nits bearing on Reincarnation ; but it is enough here \nto point to it as one of the facts which go to show \n\\h^ prima facie probability of the existence of such a \nplane. \n\nAnother class of facts deserving study is that which \nincludes the phenomena of thought-transference. \nThe \"Transactions of the Psychical Research So- \nciety\" contain a large number of interesting experi- \nments on this subject, and the possibility of the \ntransference of thought from brain to brain without \nthe use of words, or of any means of ordinary physi- \ncal communication, is on the verge of general accept- \nance. Any two persons, gifted with patience, may \nconvince themselves of this possibility, if they care \nto devote to the effort sufficient time and persever- \nance. lyCt them agree to give, say, ten minutes daily \nto their experiment, and, fixing on the time, let each \nshut himself up alone, secure from interruption of \nany kind. Let one be the thought-projector, the \nother the thought- receiver, and if one happens to be \nnaturally positive and the other naturally receptive. \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n8i \n\nso much the better. I^et the thought-projector con- \ncentrate himself on a definite thought and will to \nimpress it on his friend ; no other idea than the one \nmust enter his mind; his thought must be concen- \ntrated on the one thing, ** one-pointed'* in the graphic \nlanguage of Patanjali. The thought-receiver, on the \nother hand, must render his mind a blank, and must \nmerely note the thoughts that drift into it. These he \nshould put down as they appear, his only care being \nto remain passive, to reject nothing,' to encourage \nnothing. The thought-projector, on his side, should \nkeep a record of the ideas he tries to send, and at the \nend of six months the two records should be com- \npared. Unless the persons are abnormally deficient \nin thought and will, some power of communication \nwill by that time have been established between them ; \nand if they are at all psychic they will probably also \nhave developed the power of seeing each other in the \nastral light. \n\nIt may be objected that such an experiment would \nbe wearisome and monotonus. Granted. All first- \nhand investigations into natural laws and forces are \nwearisome and monotonous. That is why nearly \neveryone prefers secondhand to firsthand knowledge; \nthe \"sublime patience of the investigator\" is one of \nthe rarest of gifts. Darwin would perform an appa- \nrently trivial experiment hundreds of times to sub- \nstantiate one small fact ; the supersensuous domains \ncertainly do not need for their conquest less patience \nand less eiBfort than the sensuous. Impatience never \nyet accomplished anything in the questioning of \nnature, and the would-be student must, at the very \noutset, show the tireless perseverance which can \nperish but cannot relinquish its hold. \n\ndigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n82 \n\nFinally, let me advise the enquirer to keep his eyes \nopen for new discoveries, especially in the sciences of \nelectricity, physics, and chemistry. Let him read \nProfessor Lodge's address to the British Association \nat CardijBf last autumn, and Professor Crookes' ad- \ndress to the Society of Electrical Engineers in London \nlast November. He will there find pregnant hints of \nthe lines along which Western Science is preparing \nto advance, and he will perchance begin to feel that \nthere may be something in H. P. Blavatsky's state- \nment, that the Masters of Wisdom are preparing to \ngive proofs that will substantiate the Secret Doctrine. \n\n\n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n\nIi)foriDatioD for EDquirer?. \n\n\n\nThe Theosophical Society is an international body which \nwas founded at New York, U.S., on the 17th day of November, \n1875, with three well defined objects, viz: \n\nFiR$T. \u2014 To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of \nHumanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or colour. \n\nSecond. \u2014 To promote the study of Aryan and other Eastern \nliteratures, religions, philosophies and sciences, and demonstrate \nthe importance of that study. \n\nThird. \u2014 To investigate unexplained laws of Nature and the \npsychic powers latent in man. \n\nThe Fellows of the Society are either members of its Branches \n(or Lodges) or unattached to any Branch, and in territories \nwhere there are sufficient Branches the latter are included in a \nSection. Each Branch and each Section has complete au- \ntonomy in all local affairs. All charters for Branches and \ndiplomas for members draw their sanction from the whole \nSociety, and are signed and sealed in its name by the Presi- \ndent, and recorded in the particular Section where the mem- \nber may have been admitted or elected. \n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n84 \n\nThe acceptance of the Second and Third objects of the \nSociety is optional with those desiring to enter, the First \u2014 \nUniversal Brotherhood\u2014 being the only one to which it is \nexpected all applicants will subscribe. \n\nThe Society does not pretend to be able to establish at once \na Universal Brotherhooa among men, but only strives to create \na nucleus for such a body, and believes that a careful study of \nthe religions and philosophies of the past as well as of the \npresent day will reveal the common basis upon which all rest \nand therefore the truth underlying them all. The organiza- \ntion is therefore wholly unsectarian, with no creed or dogma \nto enforce or impose, its motto being \n\nTHERE IS NO RElylGION HIGHER THAN TRUTH. \n\nHence in its ranks and co-operating in its work are to be \nfound professors of all faiths as well as those who have none \nwhatever. No restriction is placed on its members save that \nof loyalty to its one fundamental principle \u2014 Universal Brother- \nhood. Nor is it as a Society to be held responsible for the \nopinions of its members, who all have a right to hold their \nown views and to receive for them from their fellow members \nthe respect which they in turn should show for the views of \nothers. This toleration and respect is asked from all members \nas a duty, since it is believed that dogmatism and intolerance \nhave always been the greatest foes to human progress. The \nSociety therefore represents all creeds and all branches of \nScience, opposing bigotry, superstition, credulity and dogma- \ntism wherever found and by whomsoever taught, and asking \nof its members an unflinching condemnation of vice in every \nform and of all that tends to feed or propagate it, and expect- \ning every one who joins its ranks to avoid doin^ what will be \nlikeW to throw discredit upon the Society or dishonour upon \nhis fellow members. \n\n\n\nTHEOSOPHY, \n\nThe mystical system which gives its name to the. Society, \nand is vaguely known under the general title \"Theosophy,\" is \nput forward by certain members as at once the result of, and \nan incentive to that particular line of study described in the \n\nDigitized by VjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n85 \n\nsecond and third \"Objects.\" They believe that the doctrined, \nor leading ideas, of Theosophy, both Eastern and Western, are \nespecially worthy of attention at the present time, as suggest- \ning the probable solution of many of the most vexed religious, \nsocial, and scientific questions of the day. An extensive \nliterature has sprung up in connection with the Theosophical \nmovement, in which many of these .ideas are explained and \ndiscussed. \n\nIt must be borne in mind, however, that these doctrines are \nnot advanced as dogmas, but merely as reasonable hypotheses, \nthrowing light upon many phases and conditions of life which \notherwise appear incomprehensible or inconsistent. The \nTheosophical Society aims at assisting its members, by the \nspread of literature, and by all other methods within its \npower, in their searchings after Truth, and, as above said, it \nplaces no restrictions upon its members beyond that of loyalty \nto its one fundamental principle of thought and action \u2014 Uni- \nversal Brotherhood. It may, however, be stated that the \nmajority of the members, as individuals, believe that the \nrealization of this first object of the Theosophical Society can \nbest be attained by a thorough grasp of the principles of \nTheosophy, which, in their opinion, place Universal Brother- \nhood on a scientific and logical basis. \n\n\n\nMEMBERS, \n\nMembership of the Society is obtained in two ways, first by \nbein^ formally elected by a Branch to which the name of the \napplicant has been proposed; or second by being admitted by \nthe General Secretary, in the case of those who wish to be un- \nattached to a Branch. And the fact of such election on the \none hand or of admission on the other constitutes the person \na member of the Theosophical Society and entitled to its \ndiploma. A member who is in a Branch may transfer his \nname to the list of members unattached, and similarly one \nwho is unattached may become a member of a Branch. \n\nBranches are formed by five or more persons \u2014 either mem- \nbers of the Society or desiring to become such \u2014 applying in \nwriting to the General Secretary for a Charter to form such \nBranch, and if no objection of a valid character is raised, a \nCharter is issued to the applicants for the formation of such \n\n\n\nDigitized by CjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nBranch, and from that time the Branch is a part of the Society \nand entitled to be represented at the Conventions of the Sec- \ntion in which it is situated. \n\n\n\nFEES AND DUES. \nThe fees and dues to be charged and paid are as follows: \n\n{a) All applications for membership must be accompanied \nby. an entrance fee of 5 shillings, English (or the equi- \nvalent). \n\n(d) The annual dues to be paid in advance to the General \nSecretary's office are: for English-reading members 5 \nshillings (or the equivalent), and for all other members \n2s. 6d. (or the equivalent). \nFees and dues may be remitted in special cases. \n\nGENERAL OFFICES AND OFFICERS, \n\nPresident, Col. H. S. Olcott, Adyar, Madras, India; Vice- \nPresident, William Q. Judge, New York, U.S.A.; Recording \nSecretary, S. E. Gopala Charlu, Adyar, Madras, India. \n\nEuropean Section. \u2014 General Secretary, G. R. S. Mead, B.A., \n{CantahX 17 and 19, Avenue Road, London, N.W. \n\nAmerican Section.\u2014 General Secretary, William Q. Judge, \n144, Madison Ave., New York, U.S.A. \n\nIndian Section. \u2014 General Secretary, Bertram Keightley, \nM.A. {Cantab.\\ Adyar, Madras, India. \n\nAuSTRAi^ASiAN SECTION. \u2014 General Secretary, A. Carroll, \nM.D., 6, Victoria Chambers, Elizabeth Street, Sydney. \n\nThere are upwards of 260 Branches of the whole Society, of \nwhich 160 are in India and Ce54on, 60 in America, 28 in Europe \nand 7 in Australasia. There are also several Branches in the \nWest Indies, Burmah and Japan. \n\nThose desiring further information can obtain it by applying \nin person or in writing to the General Secretary of the Euro- \npean Section or to any of the officers of the various Branches \nm the United Kingdom and Europe. \n\nG. R. S. MEAD, \n\nGen. Sec, European Section, \n17 & 19, Avenue Road, Regent's Park, N.W. London. \n\n\n\nDigitized by VjOOQ IC \n\n\n\n\u00a77 \n\nAll orders for periodicals and books should be addressect to \nilie Manager, Theosophical Publication Society, 7, Lhike Street, \nAdelphi, London, W.C, and not to the General Secretary. \n\nBOOKS. ,^ a. \n\nIsis Unveiled. H. P. Blavatsky - - - 42 o \n\nThe Secret Doctrine. H. P. Blavatsky - - 42 o \n\nThe Key to Theosophy. H. P. Bi^avatsky - -60 \nThe Voice of the Silence. Tran. by H. P. BIvAVATSKY 2 6 \n\nLetters that have helped me. Jasper Niemand - 2 6 \n\nftchoes from the Orient. Wiluam Q. Judge - 2 6 \n\nEsoteric Buddhism. A. P. Sinnett - -40 \n\nThe Bhagavad Gita. (American Edition) - - 4 6 \n\nThe Light of Asia. Sir Edwin Arnoi^d - - 3 6 \n\nPAMPHLETS. \n\nH.P.B.: In Memory of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, by \n\nSome of Her Pupils - - - -10 \n\nLight from the I^ast. (Speeches on Theosophy) - 06 \n\nWilkesbarre Letters on Theosophy. A. Fui,i.ERTON - o 6 \nIndianapolis Letters on Theosophy. A. Fui.i,ERTON - o 6 \nEpitome of Theosophical Teachings. V/M. Q. JUDGE o 3 \nThe Higher Science. W. Kingsland '^ -02 \n\nTheosophy and its Evidences. Annie Besant - o 3 \n\nWhy I Became a Theosophist. Annie BesanT -04 \n\nIn Defence of Theosophy. Annie BesanT - o 2 \n\nThe Sphinx of Theosophy. Annie BesanT - o 3 \n\nFrom 1875 to 1891. (A Fragment of Autobiography) \n\nAnnie Besant - - - -02 \n\nTheosophy and the Law of Population. Annie BesanT o i \nThe Theosophical Society and H.P.B. Annie Besant \n\n& H. T. Patterson - t - -03 \n\nShort Glossary of Theosophical Terms. Annie Besant \n\n& Herbert Burrows - - - -01 \n\nTheosophy and Occultism. G. R. S. Mead, B.A. - 02 \n\nTheosophy and Ethics. E. T. Sturdy - -01 \n\nPERIODICALS, \n\nThe Theosophist, a Theosophical monthly, conducted by Col. \nH. S. Olcott; published at Adyar, Madras: subscription \u00a31 per \n\n\n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nLucifer^ monthly, founded by H. P. Blavatsky and edited by \nAnnie Besant; published at 7, Duke Street, London, W.C.: \nsubscription 17s. 6d. per annum. \n\nThe Pathy monthly, edited by William Q. Judge, published \nat 144, Madison Ave., New York City, U.S.A. : subscription 2 \ndollars per annum. \n\nTheosophical StftingSy bi-monthly, edited by the Countess \nWachtmeister; published at 7, Duke Street, I/)ndon, W.C. : \nsubscription 5s. per annum. \n\n\n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nDigitized by LjOOQ IC \n\n\n\nThis book should be retumed to \nthe Library on or before the last date \nstamped below. \n\nA flue of five cents a day is inciirred \nby retaming it beyond the specified \ntbne- \n\nPlease retom promptly. \n\n\n\nDU \n\n\n\n\n0U\u00a3 OCT 2s *5D ^ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDigitized \n\n\n\n^il 97a.e.6t \n\n^a Mv\u00abn pr1nc[p4\u00bb\u00bb of \n\n\n\n00224^363 \n\n\n\nliiiiiiiii \n\n3 2044 084 591 056","title":"The seven principles of man","tradition":"Theosophy","translated_text":null,"word_count":25898}