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Some Papers on the Bearing of Occult Philosophy on Life.
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Note.
Papers I. II. III. of the following were written by H.P.B. and were circulated privately during her lifetime, but they were written with the idea that they would be published after a time. They are papers intended for students rather than for the ordinary reader, and will repay careful study and thought. The “Notes of some Oral Teaching” were written down by some of her pupils and were partially corrected by her, but no attempt has been made to relieve them of their fragmentary character. She had intended to make them the basis for written papers similar to the first three, but her failing health rendered this impossible, and they are published with her consent, the time for restricting them to a limited circle having expired.
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PAPER 1
A Warning.
There is a strange law in Occultism which has been ascertained and proven by thousands of years of experience; nor has it failed to demonstrate itself, almost in every case, during the years that the Theosophical Society has been in existence. As soon as anyone pledges himself as a “Probationer,” certain Occult effects ensue. Of these the first is the throwing outward of everything latent in the nature of the man; his faults, habits, qualities or subdued desires, whether good, bad or indifferent.
For instance, if a man be vain or a sensualist, or ambitious, whether by atavism or by karmic heirloom, those vices are sure to break out, even if he has hitherto successfully concealed and repressed them. They will come to the front irrepressibly, and he will have to fight a hundred times harder than before, until he kills all such tendencies in himself.
On the other hand, if he be good, generous, chaste and abstemious, or has any virtue hitherto latent and concealed in him, it will work its way out as irrepressibly as the rest. Thus a civilized man who hates to be considered a saint, and therefore assumes a mask, will not be able to conceal his true nature, whether base or noble.
This is an immutable law in the domain of the occult.
Its action is the more marked, the more earnest and sincere the desire of the candidate, and the more deeply he has felt the reality and importance of his pledge.
The ancient occult axiom, “Know Thyself,” must be familiar to every student; but few if any have apprehended the real meaning of this wise exhortation of the Delphic Oracle. You all know your earthly pedigree, but who of you has ever traced all the links of heredity,
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astral, psychic and spiritual, which go to make you what you are? Many have written and expressed their desire to unite themselves with their Higher Ego, yet none seem to know the indissoluble link connecting their “Higher Egos” with the One Universal Self.
For all purposes of Occultism, whether practical or purely metaphysical, such knowledge is absolutely requisite. It is proposed, therefore, to begin these papers by showing this connection in all directions with the worlds: Absolute, Archetypal, Spiritual, Mânasic, Psychic, Astral, and Elemental. Before, however, we can touch upon the higher worlds—Archetypal, Spiritual and Mânasic—we must master the relations of the seventh, the terrestrial world, the lower Prakriti, or Malkuth as in the Kabalah, to the worlds or planes which immediately follow it.
OM.
“Om,” says the Âryan Adept, the son of the Fifth Race, who with this syllable begins and ends his salutation to the human being, his conjuration of, or appeal to, non-human Presences.
“Om-Mani,” murmurs the Turanian Adept, the descendant of the Fourth Race; and after pausing he adds, “Padme-Hum.”
This famous invocation is very erroneously translated by the Orientalists as meaning, “Oh the Jewel in the Lotus.” For although, literally, Om is a syllable sacred to the Deity, Padme means “in the Lotus,” and Mani is any precious stone, still neither the words themselves, nor their symbolical meaning, are thus really correctly rendered.
In this, the most sacred of all Eastern formulas, not only has every syllable a secret potency producing a definite result, but the whole invocation has seven different meanings and can produce seven distinct results, each of which may differ from the others.
The seven meanings and the seven results depend upon the intonation which is given to the whole formula and to each of its syllables; and even the numerical value of the letters is added to or diminished according as such or another rhythm is made use of. Let the student remember that number underlies form, and number guides sound. Number lies at the root of the manifested Universe: numbers and harmonious proportions guide the first differentiations of homogeneous substance into heterogeneous elements; and number and numbers set limits to the formative hand of Nature. Know the corresponding numbers of the fundamental principle of
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every element and its sub-elements, learn their interaction and behaviour on the occult side of manifesting Nature, and the law of correspondences will lead you to the discovery of the greatest mysteries of macrocosmical life.
But to arrive at the macrocosmical, you must begin by the microcosmical, i.e., you must study Man, the microcosm—in this case as physical science does—inductively, proceeding from particulars to universals. At the same time, however, since a key-note is required to analyze and comprehend any combination of differentiations of sound, we must never lose sight of the Platonic method, which starts with one general view of all, and descends from the universal to the individual. This is the method adopted in Mathematics—the only exact science that exists in our day.
Let us study Man, therefore; but if we separate him for one moment from the Universal Whole, or view him in isolation, from a single aspect, apart from the “Heavenly Man”—the Universe symbolized by Adam Kadmon or his equivalents in every Philosophy—we shall either land in Black Magic or fail most ingloriously in our attempt.
Thus the mystic sentence, “Om Mani Padme Hum,” when rightly understood, instead of being composed of the almost meaningless words, “Oh the Jewel of the Lotus,” contains a reference to this indissoluble union between Man and the Universe, rendered in seven different ways, and having the capability of seven different applications to as many planes of thought and action.
From whatever aspect we examine it, it means: “I am that I am;” “I am in thee and thou art in me.” In this conjunction and close union with the good and pure man becomes a God. Whether consciously or unconsciously, he will bring about, or innocently cause to happen, unavoidable results. In the first case, if an Initiate (of course an Adept of the Right-hand Path alone is meant), he can guide a beneficent or a protecting current, and thus benefit and protect individuals and even whole nations. In the second case, although quite unaware of what he is doing, the good man becomes a shield to whomsoever he is with.
Such is the fact; but its how and why have to be explained, and this can be done only when the actual presence and potency of numbers in sounds, and hence in words and letters, have been rendered clear. The formula, “Om Mani Padme Hum,” has been chosen as an illustration on account of its almost infinite potency in the mouth of an Adept, and
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of its potentiality when pronounced by any man. Be careful, all you who read this: do not use these words in vain, or when in anger, lest you become yourself the first sacrificial victim, or, what is worse, endanger those whom you love.
The profane Orientalist, who all his life skims mere externals, will tell you flippantly, and laughing at the superstition, that in Tibet this sentence is the most powerful six-syllabled incantation and is said to have been delivered to the nations of Central Asia by Padmapâni, the Tibetan Chenresi. *
But who is Padmapâni, in reality? Each of us must recognize him for himself, whenever he is ready. Each of us has within himself the “Jewel in the Lotus,” call it Padmapâni, Krishna, Buddha, Christ, or whatever name we may give to our Divine Self. The exoteric story runs thus:
The supreme Buddha, or Amitâbha, they say, at the hour of the creation of man, caused a rosy ray of light to issue from his right eye. The ray emitted a sound and became Padmapâni Bodhisattva. Then the Deity allowed to stream forth from his left eye a blue ray of light, which, becoming incarnate in the two virgins Dolma, acquired the power to enlighten the minds of living beings. Amhitâbha then called the combination, which forthwith took up its abode in man. “Om Mani Padme Hum,” “I am the Jewel in the Lotus and in it I will remain.” Then Padmapâni, “the One in the Lotus,” vowed never to cease working until he had made Humanity feel his presence in itself and had thus saved it from the misery of rebirth. He vowed to perform the feat before the end of the Kalpa, adding that, in case of failure, he wished that his head should split into numberless fragments. The Kalpa closed; but Humanity felt him not within its cold, evil heart. Then Padmapâni’s head split and was shattered into a thousand fragments. Moved with compassion, the Deity re-formed the pieces into ten heads, three white, and seven of various colours. And since that day man has become a perfect number, or Ten.
In this allegory the potency of Sound, Colour, and Number is so ingeniously introduced as to veil the real Esoteric meaning. To the outsider it reads like one of the many meaningless fairy-tales of creation; but it is pregnant with spiritual and divine, physical and magical meaning. From Amitâbha—no colour, or the white glory—are
* See supra, ii. 188, 189.
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born the seven differentiated colours of the prism. These each emit a corresponding sound, forming the seven of the musical scale. As Geometry, among the Mathematical Sciences, is specially related to Architecture, and also (proceeding to Universals) to Cosmogony, so the ten Jods of the Pythagorean Tetrad, or Tetraktys, being made to symbolize the Macrocosm, the Microcosm, or man, its image, had also to be divided into ten points. For this Nature herself has provided, as will be seen.
But before this statement can be proved and the perfect correspondences between the Macrocosm and Microcosm demonstrated, a few words of explanation are necessary.
To the learner who would study the Esoteric Sciences with their double object: (a) of proving Man to be identical in spiritual and physical essence with both the Absolute Principle and with God in Nature; and (b) of demonstrating the presence in him of the same potential powers as exist in the creative forces in Nature—to such a one a perfect knowledge of the correspondences between Colours, Sounds, and Numbers is the first requisite. As already said, the sacred formula of the far East, “Om Mani Padme Hum.” is the one best calculated to make these correspondential qualities and functions clear to the learner.
In the allegory of Padmapâni, the Jewel (or Spiritual Ego) in the Lotus, or the symbol of androgynous man, the numbers 3, 4, 7, 10, as synthesizing the Unit, Man, are prominent, as I have already said. It is on the thorough knowledge and comprehension of the meaning and potency of these numbers, in their various and multiform combinations, and in their mutual correspondence with sounds or words, and colours or rates of motion (represented in physical science by vibrations), that the progress of a student in Occultism depends. Therefore we must begin with the first, initial word, Om, or Aum. Om is a “blind.” The sentence “Om Mani Padme Hum,” is not a six- but a seven-syllabled phrase, as the first syllable is double in its right pronunciation, and triple in its essence, A-um. It represents the for ever concealed primeval triune differentiation, not from but in the One Absolute, and is therefore symbolized by the 4, or the Tetraktys, in the metaphysical world. It is the Unit-ray, or Âtman.
It is the Âtman, this highest Spirit in man, which, in conjunction with Buddhi and Manas, is called the upper Triad, or Trinity. This
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Triad with its four lower human principles, is, moreover, enveloped with an auric atmosphere, like the yolk of an egg (the future embryo) by the albumen and shell. This, to the perceptions of higher Beings from other planes, makes of each individuality an oval sphere of more or less radiancy.
To show the student the perfect correspondence between the birth of Kosmos, a World, a Planetary Being, or a Child of Sin and Earth, a more definite and clear description must be given. Those acquainted with Physiology will understand it better than others.
Who, having read say the Vishnu or other Purâna, is not familiar with the exoteric allegory of the birth of Brahmâ (male-female) in the Egg of the World, Hiranyagarbha, surrounded by its seven zones, or rather planes, which in the world of form and matter become seven and fourteen Lokas; the numbers seven and fourteen reäppearing as occasion requires.
Without giving out the secret analysis, the Hindus have from time immemorial compared the matrix of the Universe, and also the solar matrix, to the female uterus. It is written of the former: “Its womb is vast as the Meru,” and
The future mighty oceans lay asleep in the waters that filled its cavities, the continents, seas and mountains, the stars, planets, the gods, demons and mankind.
The whole resembled, in its inner and outer coverings, the cocoanut filled interiorly with pulp, and covered externally with husk and rind. “Vast as Meru,” say the texts.
Meru was its Amnion, and the other mountains were its Chorion,
adds a verse in Vishnu Purâna. *
In the same way is man born in his mother’s womb. As Brahmâ is surrounded, in exoteric traditions, by seven layers within and seven without the Mundane Egg, so is the embryo (the first or the seventh layer, according to the end from which we begin to count). Thus, just as Esotericism in its Cosmogony enumerates seven inner and seven outer layers, so Physiology notes the contents of the uterus as seven also, although it is completely ignorant of this being a copy of what takes place in the Universal Matrix.
These contents are:
1. Embryo. 2. Amniotic Fluid, immediately surrounding the Embryo. 3. Amnion, a membrane derived from the Fœtus, which contains the fluid. 4. Umbilical l’esicle, which serves to convey nourishment origi-
* Wilson’s translation, as amended by Fitzedward Hall, i. 40.
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nally to the Embryo and to nourish it. 5. Allantois, a protrusion from the Embryo in the form of a closed bag, which spreads itself between 3 and 7, in the midst of 6, and which, after being specialized into the Placenta, serves to conduct nourishment to the Embryo. 6. Interspace between 3 and 7 (the Amnion and Chorion), filled with an albuminous fluid. 7. Chorion, or outer layer.
Now, each of these seven contents severally corresponds with, and is formed after, an antetype, one on each of the seven planes of being with which in their turn correspond the seven states of Matter and all other forces, sensational or functional, in Nature.
The following is a bird’s-eye view of the seven correspondential contents of the wombs of Nature and of Woman. We may contrast them thus:
| (1) The mathematical Point, called the "Cosmic See", the Monad of Leibnix; which contians the whole Universe, as the acorn the oak.
This is the first bubble on the surface of boundless homogeneous Substance, or Space, the buble of differentiation in its incipient stage. It is the beginning of the Orphic or Brahmâ's Egg. It corresponds in Astrology and Astronomy to the Sun. |
(1) The terrestrial Embryo, which contains in it the future man with all his potentialities. In the series of principles of the human system it is the Âtman, or the super-spiritual principle, just as in the physical Solar System it is the Sun. | |
| (2) The vis vitæ of our solar system exudes from the Sun. | (2) The Amniotic Fluid exudes from the Embryo. | |
| (a) It is called, when referred to the higher planes, Âkâsha. | (a) It is called, on the plane of matter, Prâna. * | |
| (b) It proceeds from the ten "divinities" the ten numbers of the Sun, which is itself the "Perfect Number". These are called Dis – in reality Space – the forces | (b) It proceeds, taking its source in the universal One Life, from the heart of man and Buddhi, over which the Seven Solar Rays (Gods) preside. |
* Prâna is in reality the universal Life Principle.
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spread in Space, three of which are contained in the Sun's Âtman, or seventh principle, and seven are the rays shot out by the Sun. |
||
| (3) The Ether of Space, which, in its external aspect, is the plastic crust which is supposed to envelope the Sun. On the higher plane it is the whole Universe, as the third differentiation of evolving Substance, Mulaprakriti becoming Prakriti. | (3) The Amnion, the membrane containing the Amniotic Frluid and enveloping the Embryo. After the birth of man it becomes the third layer, so to say, of his magneto-vital aura. | |
| (a) It corresponds mystically to the manifested Mahat, or the Intellect or Soul of the World | (a) Manas, the third principle (counting from above), or the Human Soul in Man. | |
| (4) The sidereal contents of Ether, the substantial parts of it, unknown to Modern Science, represented: | (4) Umbilical Vesicle, serving, as Science teaches, to nourish the Embryo originally, but, as Occult Science avers, to carry to the Foetus by osmosis the cosmic influences extraneous to the mother. | |
| (a) In Occult and Kabalistic Mysteries, by Elementals. | (a) In the grown man these become the feeders of Kâma, over which they preside. | |
| (b) In physical Astronomy, by meteors,comets, and all kinds of casual and phenomenal cosmic bodies. | (b) In the physical man, his passions and emotions, the moral meteors and comets of human nature. | |
| (5) Life currents in Ether, having their origin in the Sun: the canals through which the vital principle of that Ether (the blood of the Cosmic Body) passes to nourish everything on the Earth and on the other Planets: from the minerals, which are thus made to grow | (5) The Allantois, a protrusion from the Embryo, which spreads itself between the Amnion and Chorion; it is supposed to conduct the nourishment from the mother to the Embryo. It corresponds to the life-principle, Prâna or Jîva. |
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and become specialized, from the plants, which are thus fed, to animal and man, to whom life is thus imparted. |
||
| (6) The double radiation, psychic and physical, which radiates from the Cosmic Seed and expands around the whole Kosmos, as well as around the Solar System and every Planet. In Occultism it is called the upper divine, and the lower material, Astral Light. | (6) The Allantois is divided into two layers. The inter space between the Amnion and the Chorion contains the Allantois and also an albuminous fluid. * | |
| (7) The outer crust of every sidereal body, the Shell of the Mundane Egg, or the sphere of our Solar System, of our Earth, and of every man and animal. In sidereal space, Ether proper; on the terrestrial plane, Air, which again is built in seven layers. | (7) The Chorion, or the Zona Pellucida, the globular object called Blastodermic Vesicle, the outer and the inner layers of the membrane of which go to form the physical man. The outer, or ectoderm, forms his epidermis; the inner, or endoderm, his muscles, bones, etc.. Man's skin, again, is composed of seven layers. | |
| (a) The primordial potential world-stuff becomes (for the Manvantaric period) the permanent globe or globes. | (a) The "primitive" becomes the "permanent" Chorion. |
Even in the evolution of the Races we see the same order as in Nature and Man. † Placental animal-man became such only after the separation of sexes in the Third Root-Race. In the physiological evolution, the placenta is fully formed and functional only after the third month of uterine life.
* All the uterine contents, having a direct spiritual connnection with their cosmic antetypes, are, on the physical plane, potent objects in Black Magic, and are therefore considered unclean.
† See supra, ii. Part I.
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Let us put aside such human conceptions as a personal God, and hold to the purely divine, to that which underlies all and everything in boundless Nature. It is called by its Sanskrit Esoteric name in the Vedas, Tat (or That), a term for the unknowable Rootless Root. If we do so, we may answer these seven questions of the Esoteric Catechism thus:
(1) Q.—What is the Eternal Absolute?
- A.—That.
(2) Q.—How came Kosmos into being?
- A.—Through That.
(3) Q.—How, or what will it be when it falls back into Pralaya?
- A.—In That.
(4) Q.—Whence all the animate, and suppositionally, the “inanimate” nature?
- A.—From That.
(5) Q.—What is the Substance and Essence of which the Universe is formed?
- A.—That.
(6) Q.—Into what has it been and will be again and again resolved?
- A.—Into THAThatT.
(7) Q.—Is That then both the instrumental and material cause of the Universe?
- A.—What else is it or can it be than That?
As the Universe, the Macrocosm and the Microcosm, [The Solar System or the Earth, as the case may be.] are ten, why should we divide Man into seven “principles”? This is the reason why the perfect number ten is divided into two: in their completeness, i.e., super-spiritually and physically, the forces are TEN: to-wit, three on the subjective and inconceivable, and seven on the objective plane. Bear in mind that I am now giving you the description of the two opposite poles: (a) the primordial Triangle, which, as soon as it has reflected itself in the “Heavenly Man,” the highest of the lower seven—disappears, returning into “Silence and Darkness”; and (b) the astral paradigmatic man, whose Monad (Âtmâ) is also represented by a triangle, as it has to become a ternary in conscious Devachanic interludes. The purely terrestrial man being reflected in the universe of Matter, so to say, upside down, the upper Triangle, wherein the creative ideation and the subjective potentiality of the formative faculty resides,
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DIAGRAM I.
| 1st.–Macrocosm and Its 3, 7, or 10 Centres of Creative Forces. | ||
|---|---|---|
|
A. Sexless, Umnanifested Logos. B. Potential Wisdom. C. Universal Ideation.
D. The Spiritual Forces acting in Matter |
|
А. В. C. The Unknowable.
|
| 2nd.—Microcosm (the Inner Man end His 3, 7, or 10 Centres of Potential Forces. | ||
| (Âtman, although exoterically reckoned as the seventh principle, is no individual principle at all, and belongs to the Universal Soul; 7 is the AURIC EGG, the Magnetic Sphere round every human and animal being.)
1. Buddhi, the vehicle of Âtmâ. 2. Manas, the vehicle of Buddhi. 3. Lower Manas (the Upper and Lower Manas are two aspects of one and the same principle) and 4. Kâma Rupa, its vehicle. 5. Prâna, Life, and 6. Linga Sharira, its vehicle. |
|
I. II. III. are the Three Hypostases of Âtman, its contact with Nature and Man being the Fourth, making it a Quaternary, or Tetraktys, the Higher Self.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. These six principles, acting on four different planes, and having their Auric Envelope on the seventh (vide infra), are those used by the Adepts of the Right-Hand, or White Magicians. * The Physical Body is no principle; it is entirely ignored, being used only in Black Magic. |
| 3rd.— Microcosm (the Physical Man) and His 10 Orifices, or Centres of Action | ||
|
1. (Buddhi) Right Eye. 3. (Lower Manas) Right Ear. 5. (Life Principle) Right Nostril. 7. The Organ of the Creative Logos, the Mouth. 8. 9. 10. As this Lower Ternary has a direct connection with the Higher Atmic Triad and its three aspects (creative, preservative and destructive, or rather regenerative), the abuse of the corresponding functions is the most terrible of Karmic Sins—the Sin against the Holy Ghost with the Christians. |
|
2. (Manas) Left Eye. 4. (Kama Rupa) Left Ear. 6. (Life Vehicle) Left Nostril. 7. The Paradigm of the 10th (creative) orifice in the Lower Triad. These Physical Organs are used only by Dugpas in Black Magic. |
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is shifted in the man of clay below the seven. Thus three of the ten containing in the archetypal world only ideative and paradigmatical potentiality, i.e., existing in possibility, not in action, are in fact one. The potency of formative creation resides in the Logos, the synthesis of the seven Forces or Rays, which becomes forthwith the Quaternary, the sacred Tetraktys. This process is repeated in man, in whom the lower physical triangle becomes, in conjunction with the female One, the male-female creator, or generator. The same on a still lower plane in the animal world. A mystery above, a mystery below, truly.
This is how the upper and highest, and the lower and most animal, stand in mutual relation.
In this diagram, we see that physical man (or his body) does not share in the direct pure waves of the divine Essence which flows from the One in Three, the Unmanifested, through the Manifested Logos (the upper face in the diagram). Purusha, the primeval Spirit, touches the human head and stops there. But the Spiritual Man (the synthesis of the seven principles) is directly connected with it. And here a few words ought to be said about the usual exoteric enumeration of the principles. At first an approximate division only was made and given out. Esoteric Buddhism begins with Âtmâ, the seventh, and ends with the Physical Body, the first. Now neither Âtmâ, which is no individual “principle,” but a radiation from and one with the Unmanifested Logos, nor the Body, which is the material rind, or shell, of the Spiritual Man, can be, in strict truth, referred to as “principles.” Moreover, the chief “principle” of all, one not even mentioned heretofore, is the “Luminous Egg” (Hiranyagarbha), or the invisible magnetic sphere in which every man is enveloped. * It is the direct emanation: (a) from the Âtmic Ray in its triple aspect of Creator, Preserver and Destroyer (Regenerator); and (b) from Buddhi-Manas. The seventh aspect of this individual Aura is the faculty of assuming the form of its body and becoming the “Radiant,” the Luminous Augoeides. It is this, strictly speaking, which at times becomes the form called Mâyâvi Rûpa. Therefore, as explained in the second face of the diagram (the astral man), the Spiritual Man consists of only five
* So are the animals, the plants, and even the minerals. Reichenbach never understood what he learned through his sensitives and clairvoyants. It is the odic, or rather the auric or magnetic fluid which emanates from man, but it is also something more.
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principles, as taught by the Vedântins, * who substitute tacitly, for the physical this sixth or Auric, Body, and merge the dual Manas (dual mind, or consciousness) into one. Thus they speak of the five Koshas (sheaths or principles), and call Âtmâ the sixth yet no “principle.” This is the secret of the late Subba Row’s criticism of the division in Esoteric Buddhism. But let the student now learn the true Esoteric enumeration.
The reason why public mention of the Auric body was not permitted was on account of its being so sacred. It is this Body which, at death, assimilates the essence of Buddhi and Manas and becomes the vehicle of these spiritual principles, which are not objective, and then, with the full radiation of Âtmâ upon it ascends as Manas-Taijasi into the Devachanic state. Therefore it is called by many names. It is the Sûtrâtmâ, the silver “thread” which “incarnates” from the beginning of Manvantara to the end, stringing upon itself the pearls of human existence, in other words, the spiritual aroma of every personality it follows through the pilgrimage of life. † It is also the material from which the Adept forms his Astral Bodies, from the Augoeides and the Mâyâvi Rûpa downwards. After the death of man, when its most ethereal particles have drawn into themselves the spiritual principles of Buddhi and the Upper Manas, and are illuminated with the radiance of Âtmâ, the Auric Body remains either in the Devachanic state of consciousness, or, in the case of a full Adept, prefers the state of a Nirmânakâya, that is, one who has so purified his whole system that he is above even the divine illusion of a Devachanî. Such an Adept remains in the astral (invisible) plane connected with our earth, and henceforth moves and lives in the possession of all his principles except the Kâma Rûpa and Physical Body. In the case of the Devachanî, the Linga-Sharira—the alter ego of the body, which during life is within the physical envelope while the radiant aura is without—strengthened by the material particles which this aura leaves behind, remains close to the dead body and outside it, and soon fades away. In the case of the full Adept, the body alone becomes subject to dissolution, while the centre of that force which was the seat of desires and passions, disappears with its cause—the animal body. But during the life of the latter all these centres are more or less active and in constant correspondence
* See supra, i. 181, for the Vedântic exoteric enumeration.
† See Lucifer, January 1889, “Dialogue upon the Mysteries of After-Life.”
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with their prototypes, the cosmic centres, and their microcosms, the principles. It is only through these cosmic and spiritual centres that the physical centres (the upper seven orifices, and the lower triad) can benefit by their Occult interaction, for these orifices, or openings, are channels conducting into the body the influences that the will of man attracts and uses, viz., the cosmic forces.
This will has, of course, to act primarily through the spiritual principles. To make this clearer, let us take an example. In order to stop pain, let us say in the right eye, you have to attract to it the potent magnetism from that cosmic principle which corresponds to this eye and also to Buddhi. Create, by a powerful will effort, an imaginary line of communication between the right eye and Buddhi, locating the latter as a centre in the same part of the head. This line, though you may call it “imaginary,” is, once you succeed in seeing it with your mental eye and give it a shape and colour, in truth as good as real. A rope in a dream is not and yet is. Moreover, according to the prismatic colour with which you endow your line, so will the influence act. Now Buddhi and Mercury correspond with each other, and both are yellow, or radiant and golden coloured. In the human system, the right eye corresponds with Buddhi and Mercury; and the left with Manas and Venus or Lucifer. Thus, if your line is golden or silvery, it will stop the pain; if red, it will increase it, for red is the colour of Kâma and corresponds with Mars. Mental or Christian Scientists have stumbled upon the effects without understanding the causes. Having found by chance the secret of producing such results owing to mental abstraction, they attribute them to their union with God (whether a personal or impersonal God they know best), whereas it is simply the effect of one or another principle. However it may be, they are on the path of discovery, although they must remain wandering for a long time to come.
Let not Esoteric students commit the same mistake. It has often been explained that neither the cosmic planes of substance nor even the human principles—with the exception of the lowest material plane or world and the physical body, which, as has been said, are no “principles,”—can be located or thought of as being in Space and Time. As the former are seven in ONE, so are we seven in One—that same absolute Soul of the World, which is both Matter and non-Matter, Spirit and non-Spirit, Being and non- Being. Impress yourselves well with this idea, all those of you who would study the mysteries of Self.
Remember that with our physical senses alone at our command, none
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of us can hope to reach beyond gross Matter. We can do so only through one or another of our seven spiritual senses, either by training, or if one is a born Seer. Yet even a clairvoyant possessed of such faculties, if not an Adept, no matter how honest and sincere he may be, will through his ignorance of the truths of Occult Science, be led by the visions he sees in the Astral Light only to mistake for God or Angels the denizens of those spheres of which he may occasionally catch a glimpse, as witness Swedenborg and others.
These seven senses of ours correspond with every other septenate in nature and in ourselves. Physically, though invisibly, the human Auric Envelope (the amnion of the physical man in every age of life) has seven layers, just as Cosmic Space and our physical epidermis have. It is this Aura which, according to our mental and physical state of purity or impurity, either opens for us vistas into other worlds, or shuts us out altogether from anything but this three-dimensional world of Matter.
Each of our seven physical senses (two of which are still unknown to profane Science), and also of our seven states of consciousness—viz.: (1) waking; (2) waking-dreaming; (3) natural sleeping; (4) induced or trance-sleep; (5) psychic; (6) super-psychic; and (7) purely spiritual—corresponds with one of the seven Cosmic Planes, develops and uses one of the seven super-senses, and is connected directly, in its use on the terestro-spiritual plane, with the cosmic and divine centre of force that gave it birth, and which is its direct creator. Each is also connected with, and under the direct influence of, one of the seven sacred Planets. * These belonged to the Lesser Mysteries, whose followers were called Mystai (the veiled), seeing that they were allowed to perceive things only through a mist, as it were “with the eyes closed”; while the Initiates or “Seers” of the Greater Mysteries were called Epoptai (those who see things unveiled). It was the latter only who were taught the true mysteries of the Zodiac and the relations and correspondences between its twelve signs (two secret) and the ten human orfices. The latter are now of course ten in the female, and only nine in the male; but this is merely an external difference. In the second volume of this work it is stated that till the end of the Third Root-Race (when androgynous man separated into male and female) the ten orifices existed in the hermaphrodite, first potentially, then
* See supra, i. 626-629.
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functionally. The evolution of the human embryo shows this. For instance, the only opening formed at first is the buccal cavity, “a cloaca communicating with the anterior extremity of the intestine.” These become later the mouth and the posterior orifice: the Logos differentiating and emanating gross matter on the lower plane, in Occult parlance. The difficulty which some students will experience in reconciling the correspondences between the Zodiac and the orifice can be easily explained. Magic is coëval with the Third Root-Race, which began by creating through Kriyâshakti and ended by generating its species in the present way. * Woman, being left with the full or perfect number 10 (the divine number of Jehovah), was deemed higher and more spiritual than man. In Egypt, in days of old, the marriage service contained an article that the woman should be the “lady of the lord,” and real lord over him, the husband pledging himself to be “obedient to his wife” for the production of alchemical results such as the Elixir of Life and the Philosopher’s Stone, for the spiritual help of the woman was needed by the male Alchemist. But woe to the Alchemist who should take this in the dead-letter sense of physical union. Such sacrilege would become Black Magic and be followed by certain failure. The true Alchemist of old took aged women to help him, carefully avoiding the young ones; and if any of them happened to be married they treated their wives for months both before and during their operations as sisters.
The error of crediting the Ancients with knowing only ten of the zodiacal signs is explained in Isis Unveiled. † The Ancients did know of twelve, but viewed these signs differently from ourselves. They took neither Virgo nor Scorpio singly into consideration, but regarded them as two in one, since they were made to refer directly and symbolically to the primeval dual man and his separation into sexes. During the reformation of the Zodiac, Libra was added as the twelfth sign, though it is simply an equilibrating sign, at the turning point—the mystery of separated man.
Let the student learn all this well. Meanwhile we have to recapitulate what has been said.
(1) Each human being is an incarnation of his God, in other words, one with his “Father in Heaven,” just as Jesus, an Initiate, is made to say. As many men on earth, so many Gods in Heaven; and yet these
* See supra, i. 228, et seq., ii. passim.
† Op. cit., 456, 461, 465 et seq.
| 450 | 450 |
Gods are in reality One, for at the end of every period of activity, they are withdrawn, like the rays of the setting sun, into the Parent Luminary, the Non- Manifested Logos, which in its turn is merged into the One Absolute. Shall we call these “Fathers” of ours, whether individually or collectively, and under any circumstances, our personal God? Occultism answers, Never. All that an average man can know of his “Father” is what he knows of himself, through and within himself. The Soul of his “Heavenly Father” is incarnated in him. This Soul is himself, if he be successful in assimilating the Divine Individuality while in his physical, animal shell. As to the Spirit thereof, as well expect to be heard by the Absolute. Our prayers and supplications are vain, unless to potential words we add potent acts, and make the Aura which surrounds each one of us so pure and divine that the God within us may act outwardly, or in other words, become as it were an extraneous Potency. Thus have Initiates, Saints, and very holy and pure men have been enabled to help others as well as themselves in the hour of need, and produce what are foolishly called “miracles,” each by the help and with the aid of the God within himself, which he alone has enabled to act on the outward plane.
(2) The word Aum or Om, which corresponds to the upper Triangle, if pronounced by a very holy and pure man, will draw out, or awaken not only the less exalted Potencies residing in the planetary spaces and elements, but even his Higher Self, or the “Father” within him. Pronounced by an averagely good man, in the correct way, it will help to strengthen him morally, especially if between two “Aums” he meditates intently upon the Aum within him, concentrating all his attention upon the ineffable glory. But woe to the man who pronounces it after the commission of some far-reaching sin: he will only thereby attract to his own impure, photosphere invisible Presences and Forces which could not otherwise break through the Divine Envelope.
Aum is the original of Amen. Now. Amen is not a Hebrew term, but, like the word Halleluiah, was borrowed by the Jews and Greeks from the Chaldees. The latter word is often found repeated in certain magical inscriptions upon cups and urns among the Babylonian and Ninevean relics. Amen does not mean “so be it,” or “verily,” but signified in hoary antiquity almost the same as Aum. The Jewish Tanaïm (Initiates) used it for the same reason as the Âryan Adepts use Aum, and with a like success, the numerical value of AMeN in Hebrew
| 451 | 451 |
letters being 91, the same as the full value of YHVH, * 26, and A DoNa Y, 65, or 91. Both words mean the affirmation of the being, or existence of the sexless “Lord” within us.
(3) Esoteric Science teaches that every sound in the visible world awakens its corresponding sound in the invisible realms, and arouses to action some force or other on the Occult side of Nature. Moreover, every sound corresponds to a colour and a number (a potency spiritual, psychic or physical) and to a sensation on some plane. All these find an echo in every one of the so-far developed elements, and even on the terrestrial plane, in the Lives that swarm in the terrene atmosphere, thus prompting them to action.
Thus a prayer, unless pronounced mentally and addressed to one’s “Father” in the silence and solitude of one’s “closet,” must have more frequently disastrous than beneficial results, seeing that the masses are entirely ignorant of the potent effects which they thus produce. To produce good effects, the prayer must be uttered by “one who knows how to make himself heard in silence,” when it is no longer a prayer, but becomes a command. Why is Jesus shown to have forbidden his hearers to go to the public synagogues? Surely every praying man was not a hypocrite and a liar, nor a Pharisee who loved to be seen praying by people! He had a motive, we must suppose: the same motive which prompts the experienced Occultist to prevent his pupils from going into crowded places now as then, from entering churches, séance rooms, etc., unless they are in sympathy with the crowd.
There is one piece of advice to be given to beginners, who cannot help going into crowds—one which may appear superstitious, but which in the absence of Occult knowledge will be found efficacious. As well known to good Astrologers, the days of the week are not in the order of those planets whose names they bear. The fact is that the ancient Hindus and Egyptians divided the day into four parts, each day being under the protection (as ascertained by practical magic) of a planet; and every day, as correctly asserted by Dion Cassius, received the name of the planet which rules and protected its first portion. Let the student protect himself from the “Powers of the Air” (Elementals) which throng public places, by wearing either a ring containing some jewel of the colour of the presiding planet, or else of the metal sacred to it. But the best protection is a clear conscience and a firm desire to benefit Humanity.
* Jod-Hevah, or male-female on the terrestrial plane, as invented by the Jews, and now made out to mean Jehovah: but signifying in reality and literally, “giving being” and “receiving life.”
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The Planets, The Days of the Week and Their Corresponding Colours and Metals.
In the accompanying diagram the days of the week do not stand in their usual order, though they are placed in their correct sequence as determined by the order of the colours in the solar spectrum and the corresponding colours of their ruling planets. The fault of the confusion in the order of the days revealed by this comparison lies at the door of the early Christians. Adopting from the Jews their lunar months, they tried to blend them with the solar planets, and so made a mess of it; for the order of the days of the week as it now stands does not follow the order of the planets.
Now, the Ancients arranged the planets in the following order: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, counting the Sun as a planet for exoteric purposes. Again, the Egyptians and Indians, the two oldest nations, divided their day into four parts, each of which was under the protection and rule of a planet. In course of time each day came to be called by the name of that planet which rules its first portion—the morning. Now, when they arranged their week, the Christians proceeded as follows: they wanted to make the day of the Sun, or Sunday, the seventh, so they named the days of the week by taking every fourth planet in turn; e.g., beginning with the Moon (Monday), they counted thus: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars; thus Tuesday, the day whose first portion was ruled by Mars, became the second day of the week; and so on. It should be remembered also that the Moon, like the Sun, is a substitute for a secret planet.
The present division of the solar year was made several centuries later than the beginning of our era; and our week is not that of the Ancients and the Occultists. The septenary division of the four parts of the lunar phases is as old as the world and originated with the people who reckoned time by the lunar months. The Hebrews never used it, for they counted only the seventh day, the Sabbath, though the second chapter of Genesis seems to speak of it. Till the days of the Cæsars there is no trace of a week of seven days among any nation save the Hindus. From India it passed to the Arabs, and reached Europe with Christianity. The Roman week consisted of eight days, and the Athenian of ten. * Thus one of the numberless contra-
* See Notice sur le Calendrier, J. H. Ragon.
| 452a | 452a |
DIAGRAM II.
| These Correspondences are from the Objective, Terrestrial Plane. | Âtman is no Number, and corresponds to no visible Planet, for it proceeds from the Spiritual Sun; nor | does it bear any relation either to Sound, Colour, or the rest, for it includes them all. |
As the Human Principles have no Numbers per se, but only correspond to Numbers, Sounds, Colors, etc., they are not enumerated here in the order used for exoteric purposes. |
| NUMBERS. | METALS. | PLANETS. | THE HUMAN PRINCIPLES. | DAYS OF THE WEEK. | COLOURS. | SOUND. Musical Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sanskrit Gamut. | Italian Gamut. | ||||||
Physical Man's Key-note. |
The Planet of Generation |
The vehicle or seat of the Animal Instincts and Passions |
Dies Martis, or Tiw. |
1. Red |
Sa. | Do. | |
Life Spiritual and Life Physical. |
The Giver of Life physically, Spiritually and esoterically the substitute for the inter-Mercurial Planet, a sacred planet with the ancients. |
Life. |
Dies Solis, or Sun. |
2. Orange. | Ri. | Re. | |
Because Buddhi is (so to speak) between Âtmâ and Manas, and forms with the seventh, or Auric Envelope, the Devachanic Triad. |
Mixes with Sulphur, as Buddhi is mixed with the Flame of Spirit (See Alchemical Definitions.) |
The Messanger and the Interpreter of the Gods. |
Spiritual Soul, or Âtmic Ray; Vehicle of Âtmâ. |
Dies Mercurii, or Woden. Day of Buddha in the South, and of Woden in the North–Gods of Wisdom. |
3. Yellow. | Ga. | Mi. |
The middle principle–between the purely material and purely spiritual triads. The conscious part of animal man. |
The Lower Mind, or Animal Soul. |
Dies Saturni, or Saturn |
4. Green. | Ma. | Fa. | ||
Dies Jovis, or Thor. |
5. Blue. | Pa. | Sol. | ||||
When alloyed becomes Bronze, the dual principle. |
The morning and the Evening Star. |
The Higher Mind, or Human Soul. |
Dies Veneris, or Frige. |
6. Indigo, or Dark Blue. | Da. | La. | |
Contains in itself the reflection of Septenary Man. |
The Parent of the Earth. |
The Astral Double of Man. The Parent of the Physical Man |
Dies Lunae, or Moon. |
7. Violet. | Ni. | Si. | |
| 453 | 453 |
dictions and fallacies of Christendom is the adoption of the Indian septenary week of the lunar reckoning, and the preservation at the same time of the mythological names of the planets.
Nor do modern Astrologers give the correspondences of the days and planets and their colours correctly; and while Occultists can give good reason for every detail of their own tables of colours, etc., it is doubtful whether the Astrologers can do the same.
To close this first Paper, let me say that the readers must in all necessity be separated into two broad divisions: those who have not quite rid themselves of the usual sceptical doubts, but who long to ascertain how much truth there may be in the claims of the Occultists; and those others who, having freed themselves from the trammels of Materialism and Relativity, feel that true and real bliss must be sought only in the knowledge and personal experience of that which the Hindu Philosopher calls the Brahmavidyâ, and the Buddhist Arhat the realization of Âdibuddha, the primeval Wisdom. Let the former pick out and study from these Papers only those explanations of the phenomena of life which profane Science is unable to give them. Even with such limitations, they will find by the end of a year or two that they will have learned more than all their Universities and Colleges can teach them. As to the sincere believers, they will be rewarded by seeing their faith transformed into knowledge. True knowledge is of Spirit and in Spirit alone, and cannot be acquired in any other way except through the region of the higher mind, the only plane from which we can penetrate the depths of the all-pervading Absoluteness. He who carries out only those laws established by human minds, who lives that life which is prescribed by the code of mortals and their fallible legislation, chooses as his guiding star a beacon which shines on the ocean of Mâya, or of temporary delusions, and lasts for but one incarnation. These laws are necessary for the life and welfare of physical man alone. He has chosen a pilot who directs him through the shoals of one existence, a master who parts with him, however, on the threshold of death. How much happier that man who, while strictly performing on the temporary objective plane the duties of daily life, carrying out each and every law of his country, and rendering in short, to Cæsar’s what is Cæsar’s, leads in reality a spiritual and permanent existence, a life with no breaks of continuity, no gaps, no inter-
| 454 | 454 |
ludes, not even during those periods which are the halting places of the long pilgrimage of purely spiritual life. All the phenomena of the lower human mind disappear like the curtain of a proscenium, allowing him to live in the region beyond it, the plane of the noumenal, the one reality. If man by suppressing, if not destroying, his selfishness and personality, only succeeds in knowing himself as he is behind the veil of physical Mâyâ, he will soon stand beyond all pain, all misery and beyond all the wear and tear of change, which is the chief originator of pain. Such a man will be physically of Matter, he will move surrounded by Matter, and yet he will live beyond and outside it. His body will be subject to change, but he himself will be entirely without it, and will experience everlasting life even while in temporary bodies of short duration. All this may be achieved by the development of unselfish universal love of Humanity, and the suppression of personality, or selfishness, which is the cause of all sin, and consequently of all human sorrow.