INDEX. (continued 9)

Knowledge increases in proportion to its use—that is, the more we teach the more we learn. Therefore, seeker after Truth, with the faith of a little child and the will of a Initiate give of your store to him who hath not wherewithal to comfort him on his journey. A whisper of the divine mystery into the ear of a weary wayfarer frees you from the stain of many evil deeds done in your migrations through matter. Philosophy can never be learned through phenomena. Try to break through the desire for it. Occult students the world over have been warned by their teachers that it is a habit which grows with gratification. It is better to abandon the study than to risk the dangers of black magic.

What is Self? Only a passing guest, whose concerns are all like a mirage of the great desert. Man is the victim of his surroundings while he lives in the atmosphere of society. The Mahatma may be willing to befriend such as he has an interest in, and yet be helpless to do so. The will of the neophyte, also, must be the magnet which alone can compel a Mahatma’s notice. He follows his attractions as the needle does the poles. Will and Purity—these are the qualities which open the arcane to the presence of an adept—mere enthusiastic regard has no effect.

Feeble souls content themselves with wishes; great ones have wills.

In every man lie concealed the germs of faculties that are never unfolded on earth, and which have no reference to this state of knowledge.

No man can judge another, save by the measure of his own understanding: do not injure your own chance for growth by condemning in others the possession of faculties not known to yourself.

Thought runs swifter than the electric fluid; every bright aspiration sparkles and attracts the attention of the distant, but ever-watchful Master.

“Lay your burden upon the Lord”—that is, put your reliance in the Higher Self. Use the body as a means of strengthening the connection with the spirit and opening the road for its descents.

Slay Ambition: it is a deadly and cowardly foe, whose power over you is augmented by the approbation of others.

It is Karma that sends you into this world—to which you come alone—that leaves you alone in it and which takes you out of it alone. The law of Karma is the law of the conservation of energy on the moral and spiritual planes of nature.

The body is the mind’s portrait. The artist seeing its inharmonies regrets his failure, but knows not how to improve upon it. This is the spirit’s work, which, accomplished, leaves the outward a reflection of the indwelling Soul.

The manna that feeds the spirit is hidden from sight. The universal spirit supplies it.

Duty is the River that flows through life. Its tide is silvery to those who are on it, but threatening to those who approach it seldom.

Seek to recover your soul. It is the hidden treasure lost in the caverns of sense. Its recovery is redemption from many rebirths.

The vain and the arrogant demand our pity—the weak and erring our forbearance—the indifferent our sympathy—and the wise, alone, our admiration.

You have learned of Krishna that death is better than the performance of another’s duty. In persevering in the erroneous idea that we were put here to do the duties of others, woes have resulted that follow one through many lives.

Your perception of the inner self is clearer than the vision of the natural eye.

Earnestly regard the plane upon which you seek truth, do not expect to secure soul knowledge through the avenues of the senses.

Karma is like the vine that gathers strength through uninterrupted years, and which fastens its tendrils so closely that it is as strong as the structure to which it adheres. There is no way to destroy its power except by the separation of the parts, these parts renew themselves in other forms of life, but the structure is freed when its root is destroyed.

Evil thoughts corrode the character. Only the spirit has power over character to purify it.

We carry the accumulated results of many lives from one to another. This is the clue to the perfect fairness of nature. The apparent injustice of all differences of well-being are explained by the fact that we have known former states of existence. Every spiritual effort now made will tell not only now, but in the next incarnation as well.

The clue to many of the great mysteries of life is to be found in reincarnation; it is the only possible solution of the enigmas of existence.

The rule of the Mahatma is to approach every one where there exists even only the slightest glimmer of the true Light within him. None are left to perish who desire to be succored.

We write in every aspiration for truth, in thought and deed by day, and in soul-struggles by night, the story of our desire for spiritual development. Upon the pages of the Book of Karma are written the minutest particulars of individual efforts: when the feeble will is strong enough to prevent further births in this world, which is the spirit’s dream life, we shall find in Real existence all the chapters that we have written in all our transitions. Only then will we be able to read the whole book through and know the nature of the long journey out of spirit through matter and back again to the All.

The conflict of intuition against intellect has covered mankind in the crumbling ruin of despair. Man will never surrender himself to be the permanent vehicle of any set of ideas unless it completely satisfies the whole of his nature; the union of intellect and intuition only will end the conflict.

Take what you can of the teachings, and in developing devotion keep before you your example—The Teacher.

The Hermetic Philosophy.

[Concluded from the July Number.]

“The music of the spheres” is not a mere figure of speech, but an actuality.

The Soul of the World has its central Sun whose life throbs pulsate throughout immensity. If we study the phenomena and conditions of either crystallization or organization we shall find that every atom in the vast universe is set to music. There is the pean of life, and the dirge of death, the major and the minor key. The rythm is the same whether in the ebb or flow of life, but the serried columns march in opposite directions. The Unity lies back of all phenomena in the infinite ocean, the universal solvent, as the crystal lies latent, potential, unmanifested, in the solution of salt. So all things exist potentially in the ether. The real form of everything is perfect, essential, divine. Only the effigy appears with ebb and flow; with swell and cadence like martial music. Only in the Garden of the Gods can the perfect flower and fruit appear. There is but one approximation to perfect form to be apprehended by mortals—the Sphere—and even this is ideal or geometrical, not actual. The dimensions of space pertain to objects: objects exist in time, and the essence of time is motion.153 Imagine the intelligence of man posited in an ocean of Ether, a thinking principle, without form or extension, and the fallacy of space as generally conceived becomes manifest, and disappears. Matter, space, time, and motion, these pertain to outwardly manifested existence. Read backward the genesis of crystal, plant, animal or man, and one plan, one basis is discovered in all.

“Out from the shore of the great unknown” come trooping these effigies of diviner being, these shapes of diviner forms. In the beginning was the Word, the Fiat has gone forth. Listen O! man to the music of Bath Col the voice of thine own soul. Adonai speaks. If thou art conscious, His voice is conscience. It is the memory of the voice of God in fields elysian, thy former divine abode. Thou mayest involve in thy life on earth thine Augoeides, “being of light,” a “gleaming brightness.” This is thy holy mission, the meaning of thy human shape, thy manly powers, thy subtle intellect, thy holy intuitions. These are but the seed of larger life, the bird of promise. The unfolded flower shall be thy highest aspiration, thy holiest wish, and its ripened fruit shall bear thee to the garden of the gods, with knowledge and power as thy servants. Ask but thine own soul, counsel with thy better self, and if thou findest not within the silence the answering voice, then return to thy wallowing in the mire, and the husks which the swine do eat, rather than to thy father’s house which thou hast made, and will henceforth continue to make a den of thieves, at best, a whited sepulchre.

Now let us read the Tablet of Hermes, bearing in mind the fact that man is an epitome of the universe, thus actually or potentially containing all that is, and if he knows how to read and to unfold his own nature, powers and possibilities, he may read thereby the universe, unfold its laws, comprehend its plan, and if he be master of himself, thus revealed to his understanding, his powers shall be co-extensive with knowledge. He shall possess the Masters’ Word.

This tablet is printed in full in September Path at p. 167.

The reader is referred to Isis Unveiled for explanation of the Azoth to which, on the physical plane, the tablet refers,154 and I might say in passing, that those who complain that the Brothers closely guard occult secrets, will do well, even at this late day, to read Isis Unveiled. There are several matters contained in those two volumes which the careless reader, and complaining “theosophist” has possibly overlooked. In fact there is less concealment in all occult matters than the ignorant and time-serving suppose. There can be no better safe-guards to Royal Secrets, than ignorance and defective vision, for which defects there is no surgery or remedy outside ourselves.

“God saith, Let the man endued with a mind, mark, consider, and know himself well. * * And before they give up their bodies to the death of them, they hate their senses, knowing their works and operations.

“Rather I, that am the mind itself, will not suffer the operations or works, which belong to the body, to be finished and brought to perfection in them, but being the Porter and Doorkeeper I will shut up the entrances of evil, and cut off the thoughtful desires of filthy works.

“But to the foolish, and evil, and wicked, and envious, and covetous, and profane, I am far off, giving place to the revenging demon * *

“For the sleep of the body is the sober watchfulness of the mind, and the shutting of my eyes, the true sight, and my silence great with child; and full of good, and the pronouncing of my words the blossoms and fruits of good things.155

“Wherefore we must be bold to say that an earthly man is a mortal god, and that the heavenly God is an immortal Man156.”

Compare with this the following from the writings of Plato:

“He who has not even a knowledge of common things, is a brute among men; he who has an accurate knowledge of human concerns alone, is a man among brutes; but he who knows all that can be known by intelligent inquiry is a god among men.”

In these brief and imperfect outlines enough has been given to show the thoughtful student, the agreement of the Hermetic doctrines with the teachings of Theosophy, indeed, any real progress in the comprehension of the one, may be taken as a key to the other. These, together with the teachings of the Kabala, are but different forms of the Secret Doctrine; none of them are to be fully apprehended by the intellect alone; but only when the mind is illuminated by the light of understanding, and the process by which this illumination is to be achieved, through diligent inquiry, unselfish work, and repression of the senses, appetites and passion, has been often pointed out, and is found repeated and reiterated in all these writings. If any, therefore, are disposed to complain that they are left to grope in darkness, they have no one to blame but themselves. To the conscientious student, the constant wonder is at the richness of the feast spread out on every hand.

Like a beautiful landscape to the blind, or music to the deaf, are the pages of wisdom to the ignorant and selfish. Eyes have they but they see not, ears have they but they hear not, and so long as they are joined to their idols they may as well be let alone. But to the earnest disciple, to the true seeker of The Path these are the everlasting verities: let them run and not be weary, walk and not faint, seek, and they shall surely find, desire, and they shall attain, knock, and the door of knowledge shall open, obey, and they shall in turn command, labor, and they shall obtain rest.

B.

Tea Table Talk.

Thought Transference and Dreams.

Have you ever noticed the swiftness of thought transference in cases where the thinker is not consciously projecting his thought to another mind? The writer had lately a notable instance of this. I was seated at the breakfast table, thinking over an order from The Path which had come the night before. It was an order for “1000 words on dreams, etc.” and not being such stuff as dreams are made of, I pondered intently albeit silently:—“Where the deuce am I to get any authentic dreams?”

“Mr. Julius, do you like dreams?”

So spoke a clear young voice at my elbow. It was the voice of Sue. I am not qualified to judge whether Sue is a child or a girl. She is, however, an embodiment of that young America who rules these United States from Atlantic coast to Pacific wave, and although a bachelor, I respect her accordingly. Sue represents my possible fate.

“Dreams!” I stammered. “What do you know about dreams?”

“Me? Why I have ‘em. Lots! But only the horrid kind, you know.”

I venture to ask, most respectfully, what she calls “the horrid kind.”

“The kind you can’t remember, so’s to tell ‘em and scare the girls. All mixed up, you see.” Here Sue snaps down the lid of the maple syrup cruet with an air which indicates that the subject is closed. But I venture on. I fear Sue a trifle less than I do my Editor and his demand for contracted copy.

“What made you think of dreams just now, Sue. if you please?”

“Oh! I don’t know. They just came spang into my head. Perhaps you were thinking about them.”

“Why, my child! You do not mean to say that you believe in thought transference!”

“What’s that? Some nonsense! What I mean is that when I’m thinkin’ ‘bout somethin’, an ‘I don’t want the other girls to talk about it, I put it out of my head, quick,—(another hot cake, please,) so they won’t get it into their heads too. They always do, unless. Understand?”

I did indeed. “Verily out of the mouths of babes and sucklings proceed the words of wisdom.”

This to myself of course. What I said aloud was merely, “I should like to hear a real good dream this minute, a true one.”

Sue gives her head that capable toss. “Why didn’t you ask me? You people always think children don’t know anything. Guess you’ve changed your mind since you were a child. Anyhow, Mrs. D. was tellin’ it t’ Sister an’ some ladies, and it gives your blood a lovely curdle.”

Here Sue settled herself in her chair and gave herself up with gusto to the joy of curdling my blood. Making careful inquiry afterward, I found true, in all its details, the dream which I now give to my readers.

Mrs. D. was at her country place. She dreamed one night that she rose, and walking to her window looked out upon the familiar scene just then lit by the moon. To her surprise she noticed persons walking two by two across the lawn towards her; then more people, many of whom she knew. As she watched this procession, there came finally a hearse driven by a boy. He stopped the ghastly vehicle under her window, and raising a scarred face on which the moonbeams played, he called out; “Are you ready?” Mrs. D. shrieked and awoke, to find herself in bed and the sport of a dream, but telling it afterwards to her family she remarked; “If ever I were to see that boy, I should know him by the awful scars on his face.”

Some time afterward this lady was standing in a hotel corridor, waiting for the lift. As it rose slowly into view, she was attracted by the head of the boy running it: “Where have I seen that head?” was her thought, and so puzzling, she delayed to step into the waiting lift. Just as she moved forward and entered, the boy turned his face towards her saying: “Are you ready?” and she saw again those great scars, and across her inner vision moved that slow funereal scene. Sickened, startled, she felt an impulse of escape, and profited by the stoppage of the lift at the next floor to get off, instead of continuing to a higher floor, as she had proposed. She paused a few moments to recover herself, and to reason with herself as well, when suddenly a horrible crash was heard; then a dead silence; afterward the murmur of excited voices. The machinery had broken, the lift had fallen to the ground floor, and every person in it had been killed. As I thought over this strange story, the decided young voice streamed on: “Do you know, Mr. Julius, they were discussing it at dinner, and I heard some quite stylish people say they believed it was God Himself warning her. Fancy! They weren’t church people of course.”

Humanity is divided by Sue into two classes. Class 1. Members of The Protestant Episcopal Church. Class 2. Heathen. She finds this very convenient. So, I doubt not, do many older persons.

“And what do you think it was, my child?”

“Me? Oh, well! I just think it was her soul, somehow, Mr. Julius! Why do you stare at me like that? I do believe you know something about it! Nobody will ever tell me. Put down your coffee cup, its spilling all over your beard, and tell me straight off all you know about our souls.”

But here the Skye terrier comes bouncing in, and offers himself for dissection instead. Nevertheless, I know a few people, (and I fancy The Path knows scores more) who expect you to tell between the roast and the relevé, all that is known about the soul. Go instead to the children, question their fresh instincts, their curious methods, their habitual impulses and freaks, above all, their esprit de corps, and what you learn about occultism from these still plastic minds will surprise you. It has me!

Julius.

A Remarkable Occurrence.

This story was told me by my step-father about an uncle of his.

The uncle was large, broad-shouldered, loved fun, and yet had strange pre-occupied ways. He was fond of playing strange tricks upon the little ones, and was known by them all as: “the—queer uncle.”

Indeed he did not confine his experiments wholly to the small folks.

One evening he came into the sitting-room where his sister was, his face pale, with great drops of perspiration upon it, and his whole body shaking as with ague. She asked him what the matter was, and then said she was glad if he who had been frightening other people all his life, was really frightened himself. It was sometime before he could speak. At last he said he would tell her what had happened as well as he could.

He went into the woods and found a large tree (Beech, I think) standing alone.

Having tied his handkerchief around it, he placed his back against the tree and took so many paces in a straight line away from it. Then without looking towards the tree he walked three times around it—keeping the circle as nearly as possible. The night was very calm with a beautiful full moon.

After he had been round it once, there appeared to be no change. The second time the wind began to blow, and before he had completed the third circuit, the moon was overcast and the wind blew a gale. When he had reached the point, for the third time, from which he first started, he turned and faced the tree. Soon the wind ceased to blow, and the moon shone clear. Then, coming in an opposite direction, he saw a young lady approaching the tree.

She walked directly to it, untied the handkerchief and brought it to him and then disappeared on the spot. Upon concluding his narrative he said if ever he should meet that girl he should know her. The moonlight fell upon her face so that each feature was distinctly visible.

Six months later business called him to another town. While waiting in the parlor of the Hotel, before being called to dinner, the lady he had seen in the forest walked into the room.

Sometime after he obtained an introduction, and eventually became engaged. One day while discussing different matters, he told her of his singular experience in the woods.

“Why” said she “at that very time I had a most singular feeling, and fainted.” Her mother was appealed to and corroborated the fact. She said she was unconscious for such a length of time they thought her dead.

The day of the month and the hour corresponded exactly with the time the lady untied the handkerchief and brought it to him in the forest.

F. C.

Reviews and Notes.

The Theosophist for October is a notably good number of that admirable magazine. Madame Blavatsky contributes the leading article, “Ancient Magic in Modern Science,” the reading of which makes us eager for the publication of her “Secret Doctrine,” the first volume of which, we learn, will soon be ready for publication.

Mohini M. Chatterji contributes a short article on “Mother Ganga,” and his strong tale, “Sowing and Reaping,” is concluded.

Maurice Fredal writes of Apollonius of Tyana, anent Mr. Tredwell’s valuable book on the Master. It is a “coincidence” that the October numbers of both The Theosophist and The Path should contain articles on Apollonius, the two complementing each other. It has been said that the teachings of Apollonius will have much to do in the new religion which is destined to become the leading faith of the world.

Col. Olcott has a highly interesting article on “Phantom Pictures in the Astral Light,” in which the various traditions of “The Flying Dutchman” are given prominence, and mention is made of a phantom ship seen from the man-of war which carried the two sons of the Prince of Wales on their voyage around the world.

Two articles of this issue are contributed from Chicago—a thoughtful essay on “Theosophy and Theosophists” by M. M. Phelon, and “A World-Old Story Still Unlearned,” by M. L. Brainard, the Secretary of the Chicago Branch; an allegory that will take, and repay, much pains to discover its true significance. “Some Hypnotic Experiments” is a valuable scientific article, and Miss L. S. Cook’s ideas “On Prayer” will probably meet approval among all Theosophists, who object only to the common forms of prayer, such as those designed to be “heard of men” like the prayers offered up in churches, and also the requests of people for divine favors which they have done nothing to merit.

The Unpublished Writings of Eliphas Levy, a mine of occult information, are continued, and an article on Raj Yoga will be appreciated by students of Indian philosophy.

Madame Blavatsky: Incidents in Her Life. Edited by A. P. Sinnett. (London, 1886.) Price, $3.00. These memoirs are of absorbing interest, containing as they do authentic narratives written by the relatives and friends of Madame Blavatsky. They are divided into ten chapters, beginning with her childhood and ending with the present time when she rests in sickness in Germany, and bristle with stories of the most extraordinary character. Read in connection with the first article in the present number of this magazine, they become of greater interest. At page 257 Mr. Sinnett says she was not able to foresee the annoyances in the future. But we think she could see those quite clearly, and therein lay one of her constant trials: that she might see those troubles to come and yet refrain from trying to avert them. Inquirers can purchase the book through The Path.

ANNOUNCEMENT.

We beg to announce that with this date we sever our partnership. The Path henceforth will be the exclusive property and under the sole management of Mr. William Q. Judge.

William Q. Judge, Arthur H. Gebhard.

New York, Dec. 1, 1886.

“There is a living creature in heaven which by day has “Truth” upon its forehead, by which the angels know it is day; but in the evening it has “Faith” on its forehead, whereby the angels know that night is near.”—From the Kabbalistic book, Kitzur-Sh’lh, fol. 42, col. 2.

OM!

No. 10.

But there is another invisible eternal existence, higher, deeper, innermost; not like this life of sense, escaping sight, unchanging. This endures when all created things have passed away. This is the highest walk and very supreme abode.—Bagavad-Gita, ch. 8.

Hear the secret of the wise. Be not anxious for subsistence; it is provided by the maker. When the child is born the mother’s breasts flow with milk. He who hath clothed the birds with their bright plumage will also feed thee.—Hitapodesa.

THE PATH.

Vol. I. JANUARY, 1887. No. 10.

The Theosophical Society, as such, is not responsible for any opinion or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless contained in an official document.

Where any article, or statement, has the author’s name attached, he alone is responsible, and for those which are unsigned, the Editor will be accountable.

The Elementals, the Elementary Spirits,

And the Relationship between them and Human Beings. A paper read before the Aryan Theosophical Society of New York, December 14th, 1886. BY C. H. A. BJERREGAARD.

The subject of my paper is “The Elementals, the Elementary Spirits, and the relation between them and human beings.”

I will endeavor to give an outline of some of the teachings of the occult science relative to these beings, their relationship to the universal powers and to us, and our power over them.

In the general statement I shall probably not be able to say anything new to students of the occult forces of nature, except it be in the illustrations I shall bring forth from what I consider new sources, from Leibnitz’s Monadology, namely:

In Leibnitz’s Monads, I think we may see the very substance of the astral sphere, in which the elementary spirits “wrap themselves,” according to a statement in the Kabbala. We may even see more, we may even look upon them as the Elementals themselves.

If Leibnitz’s Monads may be considered not only as Elementals, but also the very substance of the astral sphere, and if it be so, that according to the Zohar, “the spirits, when they come down clothe themselves with air, or wrap themselves in elements,” then it becomes a subject of the greatest importance to us how or by what means we may influence the astral sphere, or in other words, it becomes very important by what kind of Monads we are surrounded.

As a help to the proper consideration of this momentous question, I shall offer some information regarding the natural auras or objective spheres, that surround us, and also some historic facts regarding the use of aromatic vapors, odors, &c.

Having come so far with my paper, I shall say a few words about our power over the elementals “clothed with air and wrapped in elements,” by defining the power of Mind and by describing those—almost unknown—small nerve centres of the human hand, called the Pacinian corpuscles.

I shall only stop to define these two tools, the head and the hand, and leave out, for the present, the third of the human trinity, the heart.

Having defined the power of mind and the hand, I shall come to a close with a few suggestions as to the use of these powers regarding the subject under consideration.

Elementary Spirits are defined in “Isis Unveiled” to be “the disembodied souls. The depraved souls have at some time prior to death separated from themselves their divine spirits, and so lost their chance for immortality. Eliphas Levi and some other Kabbalists make little distinction between elementary spirits who have been men, and those beings which people the elements, and are the blind forces of nature.”

The points to mark in this definition are these: (1) Elementary Spirits are disembodied souls; (2) they are disembodied souls of the good, and (3) of the depraved, i. e., of those, in whom the higher principles have never been developed, nor even born into light. They are the shades of those who, by their sins and moral misery, have closed the most interior principles of the constitution of man, and having closed the door against them, have no part in life, but sooner or later become dissolved and disintegrated in the surrounding elements.

In the manifestations common among Spiritualists, these Elementary Spirits play the most prominent parts. The Elementals do not. We shall concern ourselves mainly with the Elementals.

Elementals are defined in “Isis Unveiled” as “the creatures evolved in the four kingdoms of earth, air, fire, and water, and called by the Kabbalists gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, and undines. They may be termed the forces of nature, and will either operate effects as the servile agents of general law, or may be employed by the disembodied spirits—whether pure or impure—and by living adepts of magic and sorcery, to produce desired phenomenal results. Such beings never become men.”

They are in popular mythology and folktales called by a great many names, peris, fauns, elves, brownies, nixies, &c., &c.

They are not disembodied human spirits, but distinct Creations. They have their homes in the astral sphere but are found commonly on earth.

The definition already given from “Isis Unveiled” I will amplify by a few lines I have extracted and translated from the various works of Paracelsus:

“All elements have a soul and are living. The inhabitants of the elements are named Saganes (Saganae), i. e., elements. They are not inferior to men; they differ from men by having no immortal soul. They are the powers of Nature, i. e., they are the ones who do that which is usually ascribed to Nature. We may call them beings, but they are not of Adam’s kin. They eat and drink such substances as in their element serve for eating and drinking. They are clothed, they marry and multiply themselves. They can not be incarcerated, and die like the animals, having no soul.”

“They know all that is going on, and do often reveal it to men, who are able to converse with them. But they are very unreliable, and some are very treacherous. They like children and simple minded persons the best. They avoid drunken and beastly men. They reveal more of their nature to the simple minded and innocent ones than to the learned and arrogant ones. They are rather simple minded themselves.”

“There are more women among them than men, and a congregation of women is called a Venus-mount. The fable told about Tannhauser is no mere tale, it is true.”

Thus far, we have, perhaps, no difficulty in following Paracelsus, but when we read further into his revelations, our common sense fails to comprehend the mysteries laid open. Yet, I will say for myself, that though I can not comprehend it, I can readily apprehend such a state of things as that described in the following words:

“They can come to us and mix with our society. They can bear us children; but such children do not belong to them, they belong to us. We may bring these elemental wives to us by faith, pure thinking and our image-making powers. When they enter our sphere of existence and copulate with us, they appear, on account of their strange manners, like gods.”

“Those that live in the water are called Nymphs or Undines, those in the air Sylphs, those of the earth Pygmies or Gnomes, those of the fire Salamanders. Nymphs or Undines look much like human beings, the others differ more or less.”

“It is particularly the Undines or Nymphs that unite with men. When an Undine marries a man, both she and her child become souls.”

From the Kabbala we can draw many statements corroborating the testimony of Paracelsus. In fact all the most valuable teachings we possess, relative to Elementals, as far as they are printed and given to the public, are derived from the Kabbala. According to it all activity, all events, in History and in Nature, are in the hands of spirits, either Elementals or Elementary. We find them as ministering everywhere, from the Zodiac down to the smallest worm. We find them mentioned by name, those of the sphere of the Shechina as well as those presiding over the four elements.

In Jalkut Chadash it is stated: “There is not a thing in the world, not the least herb, over which is not set a spirit.”

The Kabbalistic work Berith Menucha (by Abraham, a son of Isaac, a Jew from Granada), their names are given:

The spirit that presides over fire is named Jehuel, and under him range seven other spirits. Prince Michael is set over water, and under him rule seven other spirits. Jechiel rules over the wild animals and these rule under him. Anpiel rules over the birds and two princes rule beside him. Hariel controls the cattle and besides him three spirits. Samniel rules the creatures of earth and water and Mesannahel the worms. Deliel together with three princes command the fishes; Ruchiel and three others, the winds; Gabriel, the thunder; Nariel, the hailstorm; Maktuniel, the rocks and Alpiel the fruitful trees, while Saroel, the unfruitful. Sandolfon governs men.

These names are important, as you know, for they are the key to the respective powers of each of these spirits.

As stated in “Isis Unveiled,” Eliphas Levi and other Kabbalists make no or very little distinction between Elementals and Elementary Spirits. This cannot be right by Levi to do. There are essential differences. The Elementals never become men, nor were they ever men. The Elementary spirits as defined by Levi resemble very much such spirits as those we are familiar with in ordinary spiritism. I shall in this paper only give them a passing notice and speak about the Elementals mainly.

From the definition already given, it is evident that the Elementals exist in a great variety of forms, some are mere forces of nature, pure abstract beings; others have some kind of body, at least, when we speak of gnomes, sylphs, undines, &c., we represent them in figures more or less human.

In the Kabbala and other Jewish secret books and traditions, the Elementals are represented as a middle race of beings, which, by a general name, the Jews called Schedim (the male Ruchin and the female Lilin). They are really the lowest and the dregs of the spiritual orders. They are divided into four classes: (1) Those of Fire; these cannot be seen with the eye; they mean to do good, and often help men. They understand the Thora and have communion with the angelic world. They are masters of many of nature’s secrets.

It was these beings which Solomon employed, according to Mohammedan traditions, in erecting the temple. We are told,157 that “he obliged the male genii to erect various public buildings, among others also, the temple. The female genii he obliged to cook, to bake, to wash, to weave, to spin, to carry water, and to perform other domestic labors. The stuffs they produced Solomon distributed among the poor.”

Much curious information can be had from these Mohammedan traditions. Solomon, we are told, once asked an Elemental, who appeared to him in the form of a fish, as to how many there were of that kind, and received the following reply: “There are of my species alone, seventy thousand kinds, the least of which is so large that thou would appear in its body like a grain of sand in the wilderness.”

We are further told, that Solomon, by means of a certain stone, “had dominion over the kingdom of spirits, which is much greater than that of man and beasts, and fills up the whole space between the earth and heaven.” Part of these spirits believe in the only God, but others are unbelieving. Some adore the fire; others the sun; others, again, the different stars; and many of them even water. The first continually hover round the pious, to preserve them from evil and sin; but the latter seek in every possible manner to torment and to seduce them, which they do the more easily, since they render themselves invisible, or assume any form they please. Solomon desired to see the genii in their original form. An angel rushed like a column of fire through the air, and soon returned with a host of demons and genii, whose appalling appearance filled Solomon, spite of his dominion over them, with horror. He had no idea that there were such misshapen and frightful beings in the world. He saw human heads on the necks of horses, with asses’ feet; the wings of eagles on the dromedary’s back; and the horns of the gazelle on the head of the peacock. Astonished at this singular union, he prayed the angel to explain it to him: “This is the consequence,” replied the angel, “of their wicked lives and their shameless intercourse with men, beasts and birds; for their desires know no bounds; and the more they multiply, the more they degenerate.”

(2) The second group consists of those of Fire and Air; they are lower in order than the former, those of Fire, but they are good and wise. They are also invisible. They inhabit, like the former, the upper regions.

(3) The third group consists of those of Fire, Air and Water, they are sometimes visible to our senses.

(4) The fourth class is also made of Fire, Air and Water, but have besides an element of Earth in their constitution. They may be fully seen by human eyes.

This class and those of the third are of a wicked disposition and deceive men, and are glad to do us harm. They have no moral sense at all. Some of them live in the waters, some in the mountains and deserts, and some in filthy places. Some of them are hideous to look upon, and are said to be met with even in open daylight.

The two first classes mentioned stand bodily next to men and are very dangerous. They possess extraordinary powers, standing, as they do, between the visible and the invisible worlds. They have some knowledge of the future and are particularly wise in regard to natural things. Some of these have in the time past been worshipped as gods and national deities. The Kabbala is quite emphatic in warnings against them, saying that they are untrustworthy because “their natural affinities are towards the lower realms of existence, rather than the higher.”

All these elementals, whatever class they belong to are subject to dissolution. Their lives are not centred on an eternal principle. They die—and that is the end of them.

It is also worthy of notice that there is a close parallel between the teachings of the Kabbala on this point with that of the Vishnu Purana regarding the composition of the descending order of emanations. According to the Kabbala, as we have just heard, the Elementals of the first order were pure Fire, those of the next were Fire plus Air, those of the next Fire, Air, and Water, while those of the lowest order consisted of Fire, Air, Water plus Earth. Each of them as they live on a lower plane add a new element to their constitution. The same law is found in the groupings of the elements according to the Vishnu Purana. The purest one is Ether and has only one property, sound. The next is Air which to sound adds touch; the next is Fire, which to sound and touch adds colour; the next is Water, which to the three former adds a fourth, taste; the last is Earth, which to all the former adds smell, thus possessing five properties.

The harmony in the teachings of these two authorities, resting as they do on so different a basis is an additional argument for the truths of their teachings on the main subject.

Thus far I have been speaking of Elementals in the commonly accepted sense. But, it appears to me that there is another order of beings which also may be called Elementals, though perhaps in another sense.

I mean the ten Sephiroth.

The Kabbala teaches that the En-Soph (the One without end, the Boundless) is present in the Sephiroth or “intelligences,” by means of which creation is effected.

These Sephiroth, these “intelligences” or spheres, as they also have been called, these spiritual substances are emanations from the En-Soph in which they existed from all eternity. They are emanations, not creations. A creation implies diminution of strength, but an emanation does not, hence the ten Sephiroth form among themselves, and with the En-Soph, a strict unity. They are in fact only differing from the En-Soph in the same way as light differs from its source, the fire. They are boundless on one side of their being, but finite manifestations on the other. They are both infinite and finite.

It has been stated that the whole world is like a gigantic tree full of branches and leaves, the root of which is the spiritual world of the Sephiroth; or it is like an immense sea, which is constantly filled by a spring everlastingly gushing forth its streams. That which thus has been said about the world applies equally to the Sephiroth. They are like trees rooted in the En-Soph, but blossoming and bearing fruit in the world. They are open within but closed without. Though they partake of the divine nature, they are on the outer side the garments of the Most High. This their outer side is their bodily form, and it is with this we may come in contact.

It is almost blasphemy to call the outer side of the Sephiroth bodily—for body is to us something very low. Let us, therefore, beware of attaching anything low or mean to Body, when we speak of the Sephiroth. Let us bow down and revere, for we are in the presence of the Holy, even when we in thought rise to the bodily form of the Sephiroth.

The Sephiroth, through the divine power immanent in them, uphold the World. They are the Elemental Forces of the World. Through them flows all Power and all Mercy. Yea, the En-Soph is revealed through the Sephiroth, and becomes incarnate in them. It is stated in the Kabbala that the En-Soph, through various Sephiroth, became incarnate in Abraham as love, in Isaac as power, in Jacob as beauty, in Moses as firmness, in Aaron as splendor, in Joseph as foundation, etc.

The soul, notwithstanding its connection with the body, if it remain uncontaminated and pure, is able to ascend to the Kingdom of the Sephiroth and to “command them”. But great mysteries surround the secrets connected with this power, and but few have they been who have been pious enough and strong enough to be admitted.

That the Sephiroth are powers, “Elementals,” and not individual beings is evident from their division into three groups, intelligence, animation and matter.

Each of the three groups is again subdivided, the first into (1) the Crown or the inscrutable Height, (2) the creative Wisdom, (3) the conceiving Intellect. The result of the combination of the latter two: the creative Wisdom and the conceiving Intellect, is in the Kabbala called knowledge (= Logos), which certainly shows these three Sephiroph to be spiritual substances, rather than individualities according to the common acceptation of the term. But it is not enough that we escape the mistakes which we would fall into if we regarded the Sephiroth as individualities, we must also beware of regarding them as mere abstractions, which the terms wisdom and intellect might lead us into. We shall never arrive at the truth, much less the power of associating with these celestials, until we return to the simplicity and fearlessness of the primitive ages, when men mixed freely with the gods, and the gods descended among men and guided them in truth and holiness.

The first group of the Sephiroth rests in so sublime an atmosphere and so near the Deity, that we can know nothing of their nature or activity.

The second group of the Sephiroth exercises its power over the moral world, and consists of (1) infinite Grace, (2) divine Justice, and (3) Beauty, which is the connecting link between Grace and Justice.

Here again we have to do neither with mere moral states nor with abstractions, but with embodiments of living and moving realities. Human eyes can, however, neither see them, nor can human hands touch them, for they are far removed from them, existing as they do on another plane of existence. Yet, he who keeps his virtue, and who knows the key to the chain of existences, can bring them out from their own realm and into his own and cause them to act.

The third group of the Sephiroth stands in relation to Matter in the same way as the other two stand to the Mind and the Heart, and may be called Elementals par excellence. They are called Firmness, Splendor, primary Foundation and Kingdom.—

I now wish to engage your attention by describing to you Leibnitz’s Monads. His monads have all the characteristics of Elementals, at the same time, that they seem to be purely physical molecules. But this very duplicity is an argument for my theory, that Leibnitz’s monad is a faithful definition of an Elemental. If it should be proved that they are not Elementals, and I doubt that that can be proved, they will at least serve as illustrations as to what an Elemental is.

Leibnitz158 formulates his conception of substance in direct opposition to Spinozism. To Spinoza substance is dead and inactive, but to Leibnitz’s penetrating powers of mind everything is living activity and active energy. In holding this view he comes infinitely nearer the Orient than any other thinker of his day or after him. His discovery that an active energy forms the essence of substance is a principle that places him in direct relationship to the seers of the East.

This fact, that the chief points of Leibnitz’s philosophy are derived from this conception of an active energy forming the essence of substance, places it at once in our confidence.

From Leibnitz’s Monadology I translate the following paragraphs:

§1. “The Monad is a simple substance, entering into those which are compound; simple, that is to say, without parts.”

§2. “Monads are the veritable Atoms of Nature, in one word, the elements of things.”

When Leibnitz speaks of atoms it must not be understood that he is a materialist. He is far from it. Indeed, his system has been called a spiritualistic atomistic. Atoms and Elements to him are Substance not Matter. They are centres of force or better “spiritual beings, whose very nature it is to act.” These elementary particles are vital forces, not acting mechanically, but from an internal principle. They are incorporeal or spiritual units, inaccessible to all change from without, but only subject to internal movement. They are indestructible by any external force. Leibnitz’s monads differ from atoms in the following particulars, which are very important for us to remember, otherwise we shall not be able to see the difference between Elementals and mere matter.

Atoms are not distinguished from each other, they are qualitatively alike, but one monad differs from every other monad, qualitatively; and every one is a peculiar world to itself. Not so with the atoms; they are absolutely alike quantitatively and qualitatively and possess no individuality of their own. Again, the atoms of materialistic philosophy can be considered as extended and divisible, while the monads are mere “metaphysical points” and indivisible. Finally, and this is a point where these monads of Leibnitz closely resemble the Elementals of mystic philosophy, these monads are representative beings. Every monad reflects every other. Every monad is a living mirror of the universe, within its own sphere. And mark this, for upon it depends the power possessed by these monads, and upon it depends the work they can do for us: in mirroring the world, the monads are not mere passive reflective agents, but spontaneously self-active; they produce the images spontaneously, as the soul does a dream. In every monad, therefore, the adept may read everything, even the future. Every monad—or elemental—is a looking-glass that can speak.

The monads may from one point of view be called force, from another matter. To occult science force and matter are only two sides of the same substance.

Such a doctrine is of course much objected to by people of the modern age, who pretend to possess very fine analytical powers, and yet are unable to conceive of matter under any other conditions than those cognizable by our coarse senses.

Those who have intellectual difficulties in seeing that Brahm is everything and everything is Brahm must take this doctrine on faith for awhile. A little earnest practice will lead them to see that truth is not attained through reflection, but through immediate intuition.

If we should desire to look upon these monads as matter, I know of no better comparison than with that which has been called Matter in a Fourth state or condition, a condition as far removed from the state of gas as a gas is from a liquid.

If we should desire to look upon these monads as force, I know of no better comparison than with that which Faraday called “Radiant Matter” and which by Crooke’s experiments has been shown to be so much like mere force, or matter completely divested of all the characteristics of bodies that its physical properties have been so modified that it has changed nature and appears under the form of force.

In §8 of the Monadology Leibnitz declares that “The Monads have qualities—otherwise they would not even be entities.” The qualities attributed to them make them appear very much like living rational beings. I am disposed to look upon them as upon those little beings represented by Raphael, as heads resting upon a pair of wings: pure intelligence, or spirits who have not yet attained to bodily life. If they have not a thinking soul, they are at least forces that resemble life. Continuing, Leibnitz (§11) says: “We might give the name of Perfection (Entelechies) to all monads inasmuch as there is in them a certain Completeness or Perfection. There is a sufficiency which makes them the sources of their own internal actions, and, as it were, incorporeal automata.” Says Leibnitz: (§19) “If we choose to give the name of soul to all that has perceptions and desires, in the general sense which I have just indicated, all simple substances or monads may be called souls.”

You see these infinitesimal beings are regarded by the great philosopher very much like intelligent existences; and yet they are very far removed from our conceptions of soul-life and existence. They are like the Elementals of the Kabbala: they never become men.

Continuing his definitions, he says (§60): “The monads are limited, not in the object, but in the mode of their knowledge of the object.” That is, the objective would have no power over them, but they themselves have only a limited knowledge of the objectivity, hence also a limited power. But that does not preclude the possibility of their being the means of the greatest influence upon the objective world—in the hands, namely, of an intelligent human being or spirit. “They all”, says Leibnitz, “tend (confusedly) to the infinite, to the whole; but they are limited and distinguished by the degrees of distinctness in their perception.”

Now I quote (§62) a sentence that reëchoes the most beautiful philosophy of the Orient. Leibnitz has seen as distinctly as the old nature worshippers of the early Aryans, that “every monad represents the entire universe.” This short sentence is the key to all mystical philosophy and to all magic; it is only second to such sentences as these: “God dwells in all things in His fullness,” (Vemana verse), and “The world is the image of God,” (Sufi philosophy).

It is a common mistake in the world to believe that God and his truth is only to be found in the Grand, in the Large, in the infinitely large.

In opposition to this, much of our mystical and esoteric philosophy points to the infinitely Small, declaring, that if we can become humble enough to descend to nature’s workshop, we shall learn more from the “atoms in space” upon which God let fall a “beam of his glory,” than from all the magnificent systems of the learned. Hear what Leibnitz himself says, though he is not a mystic. He ought to have been, for his insight was truly remarkable. He declares: (§66) “There is a world of creatures, of living things, of animals, of Perfection of souls, in the minutest portion of matter.” (§67) “Every particle of matter may be conceived as a garden of plants, or as a pond full of fishes—all swarming with life!“

Keep this in mind, that I am not talking about atoms of MATTER, but of atoms of substance, real unities, the first principles in the composition of things. Leibnitz himself, besides calling these corpuscular units Monads, has also called them Metaphysical points, and Scaliger called them seeds of eternity, and a Persian poet has put it very clearly before us, that an atom is not a unit, by saying, ”Cleave an atom, and you will find in it a Sun.” Here is the kernel of our subject, the substance of an atom in space is the storehouse of the immanent forces to which elementals, and elementary spirits to some extent, have access, and by means of which they work.

This view is fully corroborated by a representative of modern science, Sir John F. W. Herschel, who has approached very near to the teachings of occult science by declaring the presence of mind in atoms. In the Fortnightly Review of 1865, Sir John Herschel stated as follows: “All that has been predicated of Atoms, ‘the dear little creatures,’ as Hermione said, all their hates and loves, their attractions and repulsions, according to the primary laws of their being, only becomes intelligible when we assume the presence of Mind.”

These various definitions of the Monads as given by Leibnitz, answer in many important points exactly to what we find in occult teachings about the Elementals, and I can see no good reason why we should not look upon Leibnitz’s Monadology as a work on Elementals.

We are really done with him as far as our subject is concerned, but before dismissing him to turn to other wisdom, permit me to quote a few more passages, though they do not bear directly upon the subjects of monads. He says (§83-86): “Among other differences which distinguish spirits from ordinary souls, there is also this: ‘That souls in general are living mirrors, or images of the universe of creatures, but spirits are, furthermore, images of Divinity itself, or of the Author of Nature, capable of cognizing the system of the universe, and of imitating something of it by architectonic experiments, each spirit being, as it were, a little divinity in its own department.’—Hence spirits are able to enter into a kind of fellowship with God.—All spirits constitute the City of God—that is to say, the most perfect state possible under the most perfect of monarchs.—The City of God, this truly universal monarchy, is a moral world within the natural; and it is the most exalted and the most divine among the works of God.”

(To be continued.)

What is the “Theosophical Society”?

The subjoined extracts from the writings and public utterances of some of the leading members of the Theosophical Society will it is believed throw considerable light on the issues raised in Dr. Hartmann’s article in the number for October entitled “What is the Theosophical Society”; not so much perhaps as testing the validity of his observations as expanding their scope, and throwing into relief the true character of the Theosophical Society. Anything done or said by anybody without exception, not in harmony with the spirit of these extracts is entirely without binding power on the Theosophical Society or any of its members.

UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD THE MAIN OBJECT OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

In support of this assertion it may be noticed that in the April number of the Theosophist for the year 1880 in the extract of the rules of the Society as given in 1879, it is alternatively described as the Theosophical Society or Universal Brotherhood, and further stated that “The Theosophical Society is formed upon a basis of a Universal Brotherhood.”

In March, 1880, in a speech by Ráo Báhádur Gopálráo Hurry Deshmuk, the Society is described in the following words: “This Society was established in America four years ago (i.e. in 1875) and its object is to inquire into the philosophies of the East, to announce the brotherhood of man, and to create the bonds of fellowship among nations and sects of different denominations.”

In the June number of the Theosophist for 1881, the name of the Society is again put forward as, “Universal Brotherhood” and its first object is stated to be—To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity.

The same sentiment is to be found enunciated by Mr. Sinnett in a speech made on the occasion of the seventh anniversary of the Society. He says: “But even this philosophical search for truth is hardly the primary object of the Society. That object is promoted by the philosophical search for truth, as I hope directly to show, that object itself is that pressed in the foremost watchword of the Society, Universal Brotherhood.” (Supplement Theosophist, January, 1883.)

In the last edition of his lectures, published in 1885, Col. Olcott quotes a passage from Lange’s “History of Materialism” p. 361, in which it is stated:—“That the new epoch will not conquer unless it be under the banner of a great idea which sweeps away egoism, and sets human perfection in human fellowship as a new aim in the place of reckless toil, which looks only to personal gain.” Col. Olcott then proceeds: “It is to such an idea as this that the Theosophical Society seeks to give a formal if not already a quite practical expression,” p. 30. Further on in the same book, p. 117, he states “Our Society might have added to the name ‘Theosophical’ that of ‘Philadelphian’ as it was always meant to be a Society of Universal Brotherhood and for promoting brotherly love among all races.”

In No. 8, Transactions of the London Lodge Theosophical Society, Mr. Mohini M. Chatterji, in a paper “On the Theosophical Society and its Work,” after enumerating the three objects of the Society, makes the following observation:—“Of these three the first (i.e. Universal Brotherhood) is to be looked upon as the crown and end, the other two are merely accessories and means. Every member of the Theosophical Society must be inspired by that end, but may or may not be interested in the other two objects.”

A letter from Dewan Bahadoor Ragoonath Row published in the Theosophist for March, 1884, and quoted in the same “Transaction,” still further accentuates this position. He says:—“Theosophy, as understood by me, is made up of three elements, viz, universal brotherhood, knowledge of truths discovered by science generally known to the ordinary scientist, and knowledge of truths still in store for them. It may be described in another way, viz, ‘universal religion and science reconciled.’ To be a Theosophist he must acknowledge and practice universal brotherhood. If he is not prepared to admit the principle, he cannot be a Theosophist. In addition to this, he should be a student of truths generally known, of course to the extent of his capacity. He should, besides, be a searcher of truths hitherto unknown. If he be all these three, he is undoubtedly a Theosophist. It is, however, possible that one may not be capable of knowing scientific truths, extant or prospective, and yet may be able to recognize and practice universal brotherhood; he is still a Theosophist. No one who does not admit and practice universal brotherhood, though he be a scientist of the first degree, can ever be a Theosophist.”

In the last published report (1886) of the Rules of the Theosophical Society it will also be seen that the first object of the Society is again stated as the promotion of a “Universal Brotherhood of Humanity.”

It is evident from these extracts, dating from the first formation of the Society to the present year, that Universal Brotherhood has been the one and only constant object of the Theosophical Society. The other objects which have at different times been added to this can only be looked upon as additions forming no part of the basic nature of the original, admissible only on the principle of toleration but in no sense binding on the Society. Whatever may be the statement put forward by individuals, from the President to the youngest member of the Society, or by any groups of individuals, such statements ought to be considered as representing individual opinion only and as having no authoritative legislation over the members of the Society.

THE UNSECTARIAN CHARACTER OF THE SOCIETY.

This point which is the logical outcome of the former position, is likewise as clearly enunciated in Theosophical literature.

In October, 1879, in an article entitled “What are Theosophists,” which has since been acknowledged by Madame Blavatsky, it is stated:

“With how much, then, of this nature-searching, God-seeking science of the ancient Aryan and Greek mystics, and of the powers of modern spiritual mediumship, does the Society agree? Our answer is:—with it all. But if asked what it believes in, the reply will be:—‘as a body—Nothing.’ The Society, as a body, has no creed, as creeds are but the shells around spiritual knowledge; and Theosophy in its fruition is spiritual knowledge itself—the very essence of philosophical and theistic enquiry. Visible representative of Universal Theosophy, it can be no more sectarian than a Geographical Society, which represents universal geographical exploration without caring whether the explorers be of one creed or another. The religion of the Society is an algebraical equation, in which so long as the sign = of equality is not omitted, each member is allowed to substitute quantities of his own, which better accord with climatic and other exigencies of his native land, with the idiosyncracies of his people, or even with his own. Having no accepted creed, our Society is very ready to give and take, to learn and teach, by practical experimentation, as opposed to mere passive and credulous acceptance of enforced dogma. It is willing to accept every result claimed by any of the foregoing schools or systems, that can be logically and experimentally demonstrated. Conversely it can take nothing on mere faith, no matter by whom the demand may be made. * *

“Born in the United States of America, the Society was constituted on the model of its Mother Land. The latter, omitting the name of God from its constitution lest it should afford a pretext one day to make a state religion, gives absolute equality to all religions in its laws. All support and each is in turn protected by the state. The Society, modelled upon this constitution, may fairly be termed a ‘Republic of Conscience.’

“We have now, we think, made clear why our members, as individuals, are free to stay outside or inside any creed they please, provided they do not pretend that none but themselves shall enjoy the privilege of conscience, and try to force their opinions upon the others. In this respect the Rules of the Society are very strict. It tries to act upon the wisdom of the old Buddhistic axiom: ‘Honor thine own faith, and do not slander that of others;’ echoed back in our present century, in the ‘Declaration of Principles’ of the Brahmo Samaj, which so nobly states that: ‘no sect shall be vilified, ridiculed, or hated.’” * * * * *

“In conclusion, we may state that, broader and far more universal in its views than any existing mere scientific Society, it has plus science its belief in every possibility, and determined will to penetrate into those unknown spiritual regions which exact science pretends that its votaries have no business to explore. And, it has one quality more than any religion in that it makes no difference between Gentile, Jew or Christian. It is in this spirit that the Society has been established upon the footing of a Universal Brotherhood.”

In the supplement of the Theosophist, January, 1886, in the Preamble or Statement of Principles, first put forth in 1875 are these words: “Whatever may be the private opinions of its members, the Society has no dogmas to enforce, no creed to disseminate. It is formed neither as a Spiritualistic schism, nor to serve as the foe or friend of any sectarian or philosophical body. Its only axiom is the omnipotence of truth, its only creed a profession of unqualified devotion to its discovery and propagation. In considering the qualification of applicants for membership, it knows neither race, sex, color, nor creed.

In the rules of the Theosophical Society, published in 1886, it is also stated “That the Society represents no particular religious creed, is entirely unsectarian, and includes professors of all faiths.”

In the paper before alluded to No. 8, Transactions of the London Lodge—Mr. Mohini M. Chatterji makes the following remark:—“All attempts to fasten the authority of the Society to any creed, philosophical or otherwise, which is not covered by these rules (viz, the printed objects of the Society) are void ab initio; not because of the merits of such creed or doctrine, or of their exponents, but simply for the reason that the Theosophical Society, by its constitution, is not capable of holding any creed or doctrine in its corporate character.”

It is important that each individual member should clearly realize what the Theosophical Society is, what its fundamental principles and what is required of its members. It has been with the thought of giving further emphasis to the idea set forth by Dr. Hartmann in his concluding paragraph that these few extracts have been put together. A little attention to these statements will it is believed show the true character and purpose of the Theosophical Society and aid people to discern what is and what is not consistent with that character and purpose.

F. A.

Rotation-Individual Evolution.

[BY THE AUTHOR OF “LINES FROM LOWER LEVELS.”]

The paper on “The Higher Life,”159 and the remarks which it has called forth, have led me to further reflections upon the subject. That subject is in fact, Individual Evolution, and the warning expressed by Murdhna Joti, in that article about “impetuously rushing into the circle of ascetics,” opens up an important phase of the topic most vital to humanity. For this sentence is not a mere advisory caution; it points out the only available procedure, the one course conducive to successful evolution, or final perfection. This course may be briefly summed up in one word,—Rotation. Upon examination we shall find this fact proved by the laws governing Universal Brotherhood.

To begin with, when we take into consideration the personalities of the real Founders of the Theosophical Society, we find ourselves safely concluding that the institution of this principle of Brotherhood as the basis of that Society, did not occur from any arbitrary selection, nor yet from ethical or even humanitarian considerations merely. We may say that it was not chosen; it presented itself as a central fact, one which correlates with all things, and is itself one of the aspects of the Great, the Mysterious Law. It must be moreover that level of the Law most nearly related to the human being, and by which alone he can raise himself from this “Slough of Despond” called matter. Upon no lesser precedent than this would the Masters, those supreme exponents of the Law, proceed. The outcome and teaching of that Law is Unity; the power of Unity is its exoteric expression. (Its hidden expression, Great Spirits alone can declare.) This power is conferred by the economic tendency of Nature, which uniformly moves along the line of least resistance and of larger currents of energy, which draw in turn all minor streams of being into their resistless tide. In order to bring home to all mankind the primary fact that only as a united body, only by living in and working with and for all, can unbroken advance to the Perfect Goal be achieved, this unitarian necessity had to be conveyed by a term which would appeal to the untrained, as well as to the cultured mind. No man or woman so grossly ignorant but can sense the advantages of “Universal Brotherhood,” while the more profound the thinker, the more he warms to the sublime comprehensiveness of this idea.

Many readers will doubtless recall an italicised sentence in the “Diary of a Hindu,” also published in The Path. It ran as follows:—“No Yogee will do a thing unless he sees the desire in another Yogee’s mind.” These were the words of a teacher, and those who may require it have here an authoritative recognition of the need of humanitarian unity. For man’s strength lies in his perfect equilibrium, and by man I now mean the whole, triune man. That this fact is also true on the physical plane alone, is evidenced by medical testimony to the effect that while perfect health is perfect balance, the more complete this balance, the more readily is it disturbed. Thus trained athletes are compelled to take dietetic and other precautions, which men of minor strength disregard with apparent impunity. I say “apparent,” because the result is of course visible in their inferior physical powers. Only when the triune man has attained equilibrium is he a moral force; then alone is he in complete harmony. Harmony with what? With the Law that works for perfection or reunion, faith in which and accordance with which, is the sum of the highest consciousness of the human being. Now remember that there is at all times a body, (be it numerically large or small,) of individuals cognizing and waiting upon this Law. They perceive its tendency, they only act with and through it, and the cumulative energy of this compact body, plus certain impersonal forces, is in itself a tremendous power, so vast in fact, that plus the energizing spirit again, it may be said to form the exoteric expression of the Law itself. Imagine some one member of this body attempting to act from his separate impulse, and not from the general instinct. By disengaging his unit of force from the sum total, he at once neutralizes its effect and limits its expansive ratio; hence it is that action from self, however disinterested, is enfeebling in its tendency. This man may join himself to the powers of evil and act in opposition to the Law: he has then the accruing benefit of that energetic total, but this must fail in the long run, because it is minus the creative spirit, which works for eventual harmony. So true is it that a given cause produces similar results on all the planes alike, that in the spiritual as in the physical world, there must be united action to produce large results. The inutility of weak, single effort was acknowledged by St. Paul when he said—“Because thou art neither cold nor hot I will spew thee out of my mouth.” Unless the Yogee therefore, perceives an idea in other related minds, as the reflection of the Universal mind, he does not act. When the individual mind has freed itself from all desire for personal action and resting in the Universal Mind, acts passively with it alone, saying: “I rise with thy rising, with thee subside,”—then the individual has attained Nirvana. So that our present unit of power depends upon our greater or lesser assimilation with the highest aggregate of mind, and its continuance, upon our adherence to that manifested body of the Universal Mind which works for Good, with faith into the Perfect Law. This body in turn depends upon the individual efforts of its members, for the continuous elevation and expansion of its highest Ideal. Being thus interdependent, I think we may easily recognize that Universal Brotherhood is the starting point towards final success, and that its complete realization is the goal itself. Each may attain Omniscience, but only as one of a body, not as a separate part. “You shall enter the light, but you shall never touch the flame.”160 So we may be part of the universal spirit, yet never that spirit itself.

This Brotherhood then, in its harmonious equilibrium, implies subservience to the Law of Evolution. The course marked out by this Law is one of gradual progression through a series of interlinked processes, not one of which can be intermitted or dropped, any more than we can omit a link from a chain without break of continuity, which would in this case imply a break of individuality, either as applied to a member or to the whole body. We find this course substantiated by Nature, who is our great initiator. Murdhna Joti’s phrase about not rushing “into the circle of ascetics,” refers to the rotation prevalent in Nature, and may be used in a large general sense, and not merely applied to any especial circle, such as the Hindu, Mahomedan, Christian or other group of ascetics. He refers to the disadvantages consequent upon any violation of this rotatory course; these apply quite as much to the farmer who fails to rotate his crops, as to any thing or person rushing into any plane, before being in all respects fitted to go there. Each plane in itself constitutes a “circle of ascetics,” and must be entered in the proper manner. In every department of Life we meet with an acceptance of this fact. No man is admitted to the privileges of naturalization until he has resided in a country, and has had time to accustom himself to its manners and laws. It is ever held necessary to serve a certain apprenticeship before entering any profession or trade. The social usages even make “circles of ascetics” in this sense. A boor, a ploughman, or even unsuitably attired persons, are not desired or admitted in a parlor full of people in splendid array, and a natural instinct makes them shrink from entering there. When exceptions occur, there is an undercurrent of discord perceptible; all are alike ill at ease. So in Nature, minerals, plants and animals are limited to their proper sphere. Birds cannot swim nor fishes fly. I would say, as birds or as fish per se they cannot do so, nor can the boor, as a boor, be at ease with elevated minds. But advancement is the common lot of all, provided it be made step by step in the natural series of succession.

What then is this process in practical Life? It is, firstly, the identification of yourself with the highest consciousness accessible on your present plane, the engrafting upon your entire life of the best ideal attainable, so that you may act upon it in every thought and word. If you can do no more, select in your own mind the most unselfish and pure-hearted person in your horizon, and study the workings of such gracious aspirations and deeds. Noble ideals will soon spring up within you, and by this lodestone similar minds will swiftly be attracted, until you shall collectively form a nucleus of persons identical in aim and influence. If one receives a ray of Truth, he will speedily reflect it to all, and thus our attainment is largely regulated by that of our compeers. Largely, but not entirely. There are exceptional souls who progress with amazing velocity, far outstripping the comrades of their starting-level. But even these hearts of power reach up to the more perfect spirits above them, and to feel this attraction they must have prepared themselves for it, in the uniform, if rapid, rotation of previous existences. Each must trace out the prescribed circuit, but he may travel fast or slow. Let him not rashly conceive himself to be endowed with unusual spiritual momentum: time is better spent in caution than in failure.

Murdhna Joti gives valid warning not to rush in until all is ready. The circle is prepared, but you may not be so. Again, your fitness may be assured and the circle for the moment closed. The course of physical nature will exemplify my meaning. The blood leaves the heart by the arteries and goes on to the capillary interchange with the venous system, even as man descends from Spirit into matter, and at the point of choice, turns, and reascends towards Spirit. The veins take up the function of returning the blood to the heart; in these are valves; they receive, hold and transmit the impulse from the central heart. All the blood between any two valves has to stay there until the next impulse comes from the heart; when this arrives, it passes on. The valves close behind each quantum of blood thus ejected through: it is not possible for the blood to recede; retrogression is impeded by the closed valve. Nor can it remain; progress is imperative when the next impulse drives it forward, and so it goes on to the heart In the same manner each person should stay in his appropriate place, not only until he is ready, but also until the great Heart of all is ready to give the next impulse. Then he will inevitably go on to the next place.

Masters have said that for “chelas and adepts alike there is an abyss behind each step; a door closed. To stop or to go back is impossible.” That which is true for the Adept is true for the humblest disciple, each in his own manner and degree. It behooves us then to concentrate our attention upon the natural and fitting method of progression, and to assist those about us in maintaining a high average of ideality, that the entire body may progress evenly, steadily, and that nowhere may ignorance or undue haste clot or clog the way. In the end, the reward of patience is holy. In every effort you make to lighten the mind of another and open it to Truth, you help yourself. “Those pearls you find for another and give to him, you really retain for yourself in the act of benevolence. Never lose, then, that altitude of mind. Never, never desire to get knowledge or power for any other purpose than to give it on the altar, for thus alone can it be saved to you. When you open any door, beyond it you find others standing there who had passed you long ago, but now, unable to proceed, they are there waiting; others are there waiting for you! Then you come, and opening a door, those waiting disciples perhaps may pass on; thus on and on. What a privilege this, to reflect that we may perhaps be able to help those who seemed greater than ourselves.”161

The consent of the Spirit has hallowed those thoughts. Another Messenger of Truth once said:—“The first shall be last and the last first; contain yourselves, therefore, in Peace.”

Jasper Niemand, F. T. S.

Thoughts in Solitude.

I.

Within the symbols and doctrines of the Christian Church may indeed lie hidden all the truths of the Occult Philosophy, and another and abler pen has already traced the correspondences, but it is necessary to realize differences as well as likenesses, and while Christianity, as a definite system, has embodied for the world many noble ideas, it seems to the writer to have been able to display only one fact of the divine jewel of Truth—to have been able to trace only a short line of the celestial circle of Wisdom.

Putting aside all such unphilosophical dogmas, as a personal anthropomorphic God—atonement by the vicarious sacrifice of another—eternal damnation and such like, which may be regarded as the outworks of the Creed, and which indeed many of its own professors deny or minimize, and coming to the essential kernel of the system—the inner stronghold of the faith—that which would be regarded as such by all its truest sons throughout these nearly nineteen centuries of its existence, it would yet seem to be but a one-sided statement—a partial view—compared with the all-embracing Catholicity of the Occult Wisdom.

Unfortunately the outworks and excrescences above referred to, have, during these many centuries, so warped the thoughts and feelings of the populations professing this religion that it is no longer the pure and exalted doctrine as preached by its founder, but something very different. There are, no doubt, here and there good and noble souls, who practice the higher virtues of Christianity, but they are in such a minority that they are quite unable to affect the popular standard.

When one begins to analyse the stupendous outgrowth called Western Civilization, of which steam and electricity, in their practical uses, may be regarded as the types, and to ask how and by what means this vast fabric has arisen, we are informed by those who are able to see below the mere surface of things that the setting of men’s minds in a certain direction must have been the factor, and it is only logical that if a man’s highest religious duty is put before him as the saving of his own soul from perdition, a tendency of mind which may be characterized as the supremely selfish must naturally be set in motion. When the converging lines of heredity through many generations have so strengthened this tendency that it has become a potent factor, the development “in excelsis” of the purely intellectual faculties as dissociated from the moral will be seen to be the inevitable result, and from this has naturally evolved the Western Civilization which is spoken of with so much pride. But are not nations like trees to be known by their fruits? “Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?”

What sins are dwelt on with more emphatic reprobation throughout the whole teachings of Christ than those of hypocrisy and cupidity? And where is hypocrisy deeper than within the Christian fold? So deep indeed, that it has become an integral part of the nature, and is no more recognized as a vice than it was by the Pharisees of old. And where is the worship of mammon more rampant than throughout the length and breadth of Christendom? The preachers of the Churches may utter faint-hearted protests, but the nations nevertheless remain prostrate before their idol, and as steam and electricity extend their sway, and new countries are laid open to modern progress, the more primitive races, to avoid extinction, join in the mad competition for wealth. But whether conspicuously shown in the acts of States lustful to conquer fresh territory, or hidden in the individual character, where it displays itself in the haste to grow rich by fair means or foul, it remains none the less a gnawing canker at the heart of Christendom.

What a gulf there lies between the practice of modern Europe and the divine teachings of the Master.

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon Earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

And again: “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.”

There is probably no teaching more thoroughly altruistic in its character, and which, if it could be literally applied, would exercise so direct and beneficial an influence on the human race as the teaching of Christ, but to the impartial student there seems to be none, the spirit of whose revelation has been more perverted and degraded by his followers of all denominations, and following the spiritual law whose complement on the physical plane may be recognized in the axiom that action and reaction are equal, the moral light to which Christ’s teachings soared is the measure which decides the depth to which such teaching, when perverted, must inevitably fall, and Christendom may veritably be said to have become Anti-Christian.162 All the religions of the world have more or less lost the divine afflatus by which they were originally vivified, but it has been reserved for Christianity to mould the life of the nations from the very blackness of the shadows cast by the “Light of the World.”

When we ask to what goal or catastrophe this Western Civilization is hurrying, it is still more necessary to have the eyes of those who are able to read the signs of the times. The following is an extract from a letter to which many of the above ideas may be traced which was signed “a Turkish Effendi” (in the absence of any right to suggest the real and more authoritative name), and was published by his correspondent in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine of January, 1880:

“The persistent violation for centuries of the great altruistic laws propounded and enjoined by the great founder of the Christian religion, must inevitably produce a corresponding catastrophe; and the day is not far distant when modern civilization will find, that in its great scientific discoveries and inventions, devised for the purpose of ministering to its own extravagant necessities, it has forged the weapons by which it will itself be destroyed. No better evidence of the truth of this can be found than in the fact that Anti-Christendom alone is menaced with the danger of a great class revolution: already in every so-called Christian country we hear the mutterings of the coming storm, when labor and capital will find themselves arrayed against each other—when rich and poor will meet in deadly antagonism, and the spoilers and the spoiled solve, by means of the most recently invented artillery, the economic problems of modern ‘progress.’ It is surely a remarkable fact that this struggle between rich and poor is specially reserved for those whose religion inculcates upon them as the highest law—the love of their neighbor—and most strongly denounces the love of money. No country which does not bear the name of Christian is thus threatened.”

But to return from this long digression, take Christianity, I say, in its loftiest ideal, as taught and practiced by its founder—and it certainly is a very lofty one—altruism in its most sublimated form—self-sacrifice incarnate upon Earth—giving of its life-blood to raise the sons of men, and drawing all to Him by the sheer force of divine love, until the believer’s heart is set on flame, and nothing seems worthy in his eyes short of absolute union with this divine personality who is at once his Saviour, his brother and his God.

Yet were you to analyse the thoughts and feelings of the most ecstatic saint, would they display more than an ardent soul, a devout mind and a holy life?

Those of the Dualist Philosophy might indeed argue that such an one had his feet well planted on the narrow way—but the students of the wider Philosophy of Nature know well that everything on Earth—religion included—is under the governance of natural law. The attainment of perfection is not to be achieved by sentiment alone—it is a scientific process, and knowledge is the supreme enlightener.

The devotion of Bhakti is indeed a necessary prelude to progress in the religious life, under the guidance of whichever special cult the neophyte may aspire, but it is as it were the outer court of the Temple, and the Holy of Holies cannot be reached by any save those who have attained knowledge.

Without some previous study of occult writings, this word knowledge will entirely fail to carry home the idea which it is intended to express, and let alone the liability to misinterpretation from this cause, how can anyone pretend to describe it who has himself none of this knowledge, who has not yet trodden one step of the path that leads there, and who can only strain with vague imagination towards the sublime conception of the inmost workings of Nature through her manifold diversity laid bare before the intuitive vision? However, although it is an act of temerity on the writer’s part, these few words may convey some idea to those who are no further on the path than himself.

When the lower states of consciousness have been so welded in the fire of supreme emotion that duty, though involving the most appalling sacrifice, is no longer a thing to strive after with pain and struggle, but is a natural outcome of the life—the absolute expression of unity with nature—when the higher faculties, emotional, ethical and intellectual, whose respective functions may be said to be the perceiving of the Beautiful, the Good, and the True, have been so merged in one that the Buddhi or divine spark which hitherto flickered, becomes a bright, steady, luminous flame—when the “Explosion,” as St. Martin called it, has taken place, “by which our natural will is forever dispersed and annihilated by contact with the divine,”—then and then only is one fit to begin to tread the path of knowledge.

That it leads altogether beyond human experience, and entirely transcends what we can conceive is but too apparent.

The 15th and 16th Rules in the second part of “Light on the Path” may help towards a vague apprehension of what this knowledge means.

15th. Inquire of the earth, the air and the water of the secrets they hold for you. The development of your inner senses will enable you to do this.

16th. Inquire of the holy ones of the earth of the secrets they hold for you. The conquering of the desires of the outer senses will give you the right to do this.

And the final secret of all may be said to be wrapped up in the mystery of “self.” When the knowledge of the individualization of Being is reached, man has learned all that this world can teach him, and in the words “Know thyself” lie folded the ultimate possibilities of Humanity. Knowledge is indeed the supreme enlightener.

Whether any intelligible idea as to the knowledge itself can be evolved from what is here written—it will at least be apparent that a goodness so exalted as to be scarcely imaginable as a human attribute is required as the necessary qualification for the commencement of the search.

Well did Shelley write in his Prometheus:

and the current Theologies of the world have not been able to remove the reproach. In the case of Christianity the failure may, to a great extent, be owing to its sentimentality and its failure to realize that to be supremely good it is necessary to be wise—though wise with a higher wisdom than that referred to in the above lines.

But Christianity’s greatest fall has probably been its disregard of the facts of Reincarnation. Whatever interpretation may be put on the great Master’s utterance on this subject, and however the early church may have regarded it, it is notorious that Christianity, as interpreted by its mediæval and modern professors alike, has entirely ignored the evolution of the soul progressing through innumerable earthly existences, and has instead adopted the illogical and unphilosophic dogma of a human soul born into the world from nothingness and meriting by its 70 or 80 years of earth-life an Eternity of bliss or an Eternity of misery.

But one does not expect of the child the reason-guided actions of mature manhood—its teachings must be given in the form of dogma, to which it must yield implicit obedience. Nor do we expect the infant school to provide the same training that the University does for the cultured intellect. Similarly the various Religions of the world have been the infant schools for growing Humanity until the complete stature of manhood should be reached.

It has been remarked by some Christians who are much enamored of the self-devoted love exhibited by the Founder of their faith, and the strong feeling of personal love and attachment thereby called forth from them, that Theosophy is cold because it does not dwell exclusively on that side of the nature, but while each separate Religion that has existed in the world may be regarded as the analysis of one special characteristic of the mind, the occult philosophy gathers into one synthetical whole all its varied characteristics. The different religions accentuating as they do different truths may be regarded at the same time—according as one looks at them from the scientific or religious standpoint—and both views are equally tenable and mutually comprehensive—as natural evolutions of the peoples among whom they arose, and as revelations from the unseen universe of partial truths which have to be received and assimilated before mankind can be fitted to comprehend the Supreme Truth in its abstract purity.

It will be seen from the foregoing that what we call Theosophy is the supreme expression of all Religion, as it is the final synthesis of all Science—for it is faith merged in Knowledge.

When one looks abroad on the world and sees how few even among the Religious, the Cultured and the Intellectual are able to grasp the Truth by intuitive vision—while the masses of mankind are sunk in degradation and semi-barbarity, the mind is lost in the vistas of the future, during which the present Religions or those which may have taken their place will have to continue their work of teaching.