< More Elucidations to "The Adeptship of Jesus Christ" (continued from page 11-280) >
nal Light of Wisdom. The more Light, the more God who dwelleth hi Light, and in his Children, who are Children of Light and Life: For this is the condemnation and death, that Light is come into the World, and men love Darkness rather than Light; because their deeds are evil. This therefore as a trumpet, these latter days may awaken, and teach men what God, the World, and Devils are. that so their Souls and Spirits hereby quickened and inspired, may better know themselves, and arise from dead works of Sin and sensual vanities (the first Resurrection of Grace) to be sure to rise again with Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven in Glory. For many talk of Heaven, and being in its Glory with Christ, which have it not within them, or desire to be there, with such mortified, pure and peaceable company as go thither; who rather have Hell, and feed on it, and delight in it and such Company; which the better to distinguish and reflect upon the way and the Company for Heaven, take these tour observations:—To do Evil for Good, is devilish; Evil for Evil, natural, sensual and bestial; Good for Good, humane; Good for Evil, Divine. The Wisdom, therefore, from above is still, pure, holy, and good; gotten by mortification on the Cross of Christ, and brings joy and peace in the Holy Ghost for the Kingdom of Heaven; but horror, amazement, and miserie attend the rest, who live not after the Gospel of the Cross of Christ (which is the power of God to Salvation) but after the flesh, and do evil to serve the Devil. To know and fear God, therefore, is perfect Righteousness. Wisdom and Eternal Life; so that the Patriarchs and many termed Heathen, not having the outward name of Christ, may have life Spirits and Essential name, and be better members of him than we who live not thereafter. ‘For’ (as the Scripture saith) ‘he was the Rock of Ages, was slain from the beginning, and hath enlightened everyone that cometh into the World, and was before Adam.’ But most men do not know nor fear God, but superficially believe there is a God, and therefore talk of Him as Parrots, and sometimes worse by Lyes, Oaths and Curses, etc. And, therefore, have no true faith in Him or his Son. For did they truly know and consider him still in bis property and works, to be Infinite. Wise, Omnipotent and Omniscient (just as well as merciful) and that he is able to destroy them in a moment, (in the very Act of Sin) then would they fear him, (the first degree of Wisdom) and so, after Christs example, avoid all occasion and appearance of sin, as they can and will do in some acts, for a very child being present. And so would believe that he who made and created the eye and ear, and gives it Life and Sense in the instant of its exercise, see both see and hear, as well as any eye and fear, which can see or bear nothing at any time 'Without his help; and likewise that he is as really present (though invisible to the outward Sense) as any creature can be which he has made; yea and is would believe that be who made and created the eye and ear, and gives it Life and Sense in the instant of its exercise, can both see and hear, as well as any eye and fear, which can see or hear nothing at any time without his help; And likewise that ho is as really present (though invisible to the outward Sense) as any creature can be which he has made; yea and that lie knows our very secretest thoughts too, in whom we live end have our Being.”
Truth comes openly and without disguise, only the Perverse stalks about in mystery and pretends to be “so esoteric that it can never become exoteric;” tear away the glamour and what remains of it?
It is unnecessary to have an exoteric, and an esoteric doctrine; this division belongs to the past. In the present time we should have only the latter, as the subject in itself excludes the vulgar and depraved, but whoever masters it, that the Word becomes flesh, is thereby so completely changed, that though he were a ploughman, he would at once become one of God’s Aristocracy.
You cannot believe in the Ptolemaic and Copernican Systems simultaneously. As one must be renounced to establish the other, so must also man’s prejudices first be overthrown before he can receive the Eternal Truth.
Theosophists' Ideas as to the Nature of Spirits
The following are some of the speculations printed in the October number of The Theosophist, in an article which was described by us last week as interesting but unscientific; in other words it is assertion, assertion, assertion, from beginning to end, with no proof:—
In order to understand clearly the view of the Occultists, it is necessary to glance at the constitution of the living human being. Even the spiritual theory teaches that man is a trinity, composed of (l) a higher spirit, or the “Spiritual Soul” as ancient philosophers designated it; (2) its envelope—the ethereal form or shadow of the body—called by the Neoplatonists the “animal soul;” and (3) the physical body.
Although from one point of view this is broadly correct, yet, according to Occultists, to render our conceptions of this truth clearer and follow successfully the course of man after death, it is neccessary to subdivide further these three entities and resolve them into their <... continues on page 11-281 >
< Theosophists' Ideas as to the Nature of Spirits (continued from page 11-282) >
gestating in the fathomless womb of the adjoining world of effects, and to disturb the shells by necromantic sorcery is at the same time to disturb the foetal spiritual Ego.
We said that these shells in such cases rapidly decay, the rapidity being exactly proportional to the purity of the departed spiritual Ego, and we may add that similarly the rapidity of gestation of the new Ego is proportional to the purity of the old Ego out of which it is evolved. Happily necromancy is unknown to modern Spiritualists, so that it is next to impossible that the reliquiæ of the good and pure should ever appear in the séance-room. No doubt, the simulacra of some spiritual Egos whose fate trembled in the balance, whose affinities, earthwards and heaven-wards, to use the popular phraseology, were nearly equal, who have left too much of the matter behind that has been in combination to form them, who will He long in festal bonds before being able to develop the new Egohood; no doubt, we say such simulacra may survive longer and may occasionally appear under exceptional conditions in seance-rooms, with a dim-dazed consciousness of their past lives. But even this, owing to the conditions of the case, will be rare, and they will never be active or intelligent, as the stronger portions of their wills—the higher portions of then intelligence—have gone elsewhere.
Nature draws no hard and fast lines, though in the balance of forces very slight differences in opposing energies may produce the most divergent results. All entities shade off from one end to the other of the chain by imperceptible degrees, and it is impossible for man to guage the exact degree of purity of the deceased at which the re-appearance voluntarily of his rebquiæ through the agency of mediumship becomes impossible, but it is absolutely true that, broadly speaking, as a law, it is only the reliquiæ of non-spiritually minded men, whose spiritual Egos have perished, that appear in séance-rooms and are dignified by Spiritualists with the title of “spirits of the departed.”
These shells, these animal souls, in whom still survive the major portions of the intelligence, will-power, and knowledge that they possessed when incorporated in the human combination, invigorated too by the re-assimilation with the spirit-vitalised matter that once combined with the spirit to compose their spiritual Ego, are often powerful and highly intelligent, and continue to survive for lengthened periods, their intense desire for earthly life enabling them to seize from the decaying simulacra of the good and feeble the material for prolonged existence.
To these eidolons Occultists are used to give the name of elementaries, and these it is that, by the aid of the half-intelligent forces of nature which are attracted to them, perform most of the wonders of the seance-rooms. If to these shells, these eidolons, which have lost their immortality <... continues on page 11-285 >
<Untitled> (The last number...)
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< Theosophists' Ideas as to the Nature of Spirits (continued from page 11-286) >
whence its perceptions are being derived. In its spiritual soul it knows no doubt, but in its combination with the other principles—a combination necessary for the writing or speaking of those perceptions,—it is quite in the dark and can be impressed by any elementary, of sufficient force, at hand with any conception in regard to this point that it chooses to convey.
Editor's notes
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 483, November 25, 1881, pp. 260-62