Clothed With The Sun
Being The Book Of The Illuminations
of Anna Bonus Kingsford~ Section 5, Lections 41 - 50 ~
"Illuminations is the Light of Wisdom, whereby man perceiveth heavenly secrets. Which Light is the Spirit of God within the man, showing unto him the things of God" ~Illuminations No. 11.
No. 41: CONCERNING THE TRUE EGO[1]
[This illumination followed upon a meditation on the following passage from G. H. Lewes: "The evolution of organisms, like the evolution of crystals, or of islands and continents, is determined, first, by laws inherent in the substance evolved; secondly, by relations to the medium in which the evolution takes place."]
THERE is a law inherent in the primordial substance of all matter which obliges all things to evolve after the same mode and manner. The worlds in the infinite abyss of heaven are in all respects similar to the cells in vegetable or animal tissue. Their evolution is similar, their distribution similar, and their mutual relations are similar. Wherefore, by the study of the natural sciences, the truth may be learnt, not only in regard to these, but in regard also to the occult sciences; for the facts of the first are as a mirror to the facts of the last. And just what the spiritual Ego is to the physical man, is God to the manifest universe,--its spirit, dwelling in and pervading it; no more, no less.
[1. Paris, December 6, 1882. Having previously studied materialistic science in Paris, Mrs Kingsford returned thither to study materialistic philosophy, when this and the following Illuminations, to No. XLVII inclusive, were received by her in elucidation of the subjects studied, and in correction of the doctrine enunciated by her professor. The Illuminations were received chiefly in sleep. E. M.
Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford, vol. ii, pp. 96-97.]
And as for the souls of the planets, let us enquire awhile what, as an individual, thou art. Thy soul is constituted of the agglomerate essences of all the individual consciousnesses composing thy system. It has, then, grown,--evolving gradually from rudimentary entities, themselves evolved by polarisation from mineral and gaseous matter. And these entities combine and coalesce to form higher entities, the combined forces of their manifold consciousnesses polarising and centralising so as to form the human soul. In the same way, the souls of the planets are formed by the agglomeration and combination of the myriad souls composing them, these souls ranging from the mineral to the human group, and thus composing the four principles of each planet's kingdom. Each planetary God is, therefore, not a supernatural, extraneous personage, but is the sum total of the souls composing the planet. His physical body is the visible planet and its phenomena. His astral body and mind are the plant and animal intelligences. His soul is man's superior reason; and his spirit is divine, being the Nous of the man. And as when we speak of the planet-god, we specially mean that Nous, it is said with truth that our divine part is no other than the planet-god, in our case Dio-Nysos, the god of the emerald.
And again, such as are all creatures composing the planet to the planet, such also are the planets to the universe, and, in consequence, such are the Gods to GOD.
The primordial God is the sum total of all the Gods. The Spirit of God is the agglomerate essences of all the deities. To pray to God is to address all the Celestial Host, and, by inclusion, all the spirits of just men.
But the Gods are not limited in number. For human convenience they are called seven, or twelve, or twenty-four, or seventy; but these are names of orders only. Beyond number are the orbs in infinite space, and each of these is a God. Phoibos is legion, so also is Hermes, so also Aphrodite, so also Dionysos, so also Ares, Zeus, Hera, Kronos, and the rest. Phoibos is the spirit of all the suns; Poseidon, of all the seas; and each divinity has his quality, corresponding to the conditions of the elements which compose his kingdom.
To every planet belongs a different spectrum, and the physical is the measure of the spiritual. And every physical world of causes has its spiritual world of effects.
Now, the world of causes is the material and the astral, and the world of effects is the psychic. Therefore it may be said that the soul is the effect of the body, for organism is before function, and the mineral before man. And yet it is true that organism is the effect of idea, and that mind is the cause of evolution. So that spirit is before matter in its abstract, but not in its concrete conception. All things are begotten by fission or section in a universal blastoderm or protoplast, and the power which causes this generation is centrifugal.
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No. 42: CONCERNING GOD[1] |
BUT why should we be at the pains to seek further than the phenomenal? Why this incessant craving to prove ourselves immortal, and to argue a God into the universe?
The answer is manifold, because the appeal is to nature, to reason, and to principle. First, evolution, as revealed by the facts of physical science, is inexplicable on the material hypothesis; as equally also are the facts of occult science and experience. Secondly, it has been proved that mind in man anticipates the demonstration of natural laws, and argues by mathematical and logical induction that what is ought to be, while yet the actual fact is undiscovered. It is thus evident that mind, greater than and yet identical with man's intelligence, has preceded phenomenon. Thirdly, the primary principle in the sane mind, justice, demands satisfaction, and insists that rectitude of intelligence infers also rectitude of spirit. And if this be conceded, all the rest follows. What, then, must we conceive--positing this indefeasible principle of justice as the central sun of our philosophical system? Equity on all planes, and a perfect correspondence and balance between physical and spiritual; between the world of causes and the world of effects. justice is represented by the dual balance, of which one scale is spirit and the other matter; one male and the other female; without which dual principle the system of the balance itself would be impossible. The balance is unity; the scales are the duad.
[1. Paris, December 8, 9, 1882.]
What, then, is God? Spirit; essential substance. Is God, then, impersonal? Impersonal if the word Persona be taken in its radical meaning, but personal in the highest and truest sense of that word if the conception be of essential consciousness. For God has no limitations. God is a pure and naked fire burning in infinity, whereof a flame subsists in all creatures. The Kosmos is a tree having innumerable branches, each connected with and springing out of various boughs, and these again originating in one stem, and nourished by one root. And God is as a fire burning in this tree, and yet consuming it not. God is "I AM." Such is the nature of infinite and essential being. And such is God in the beginning before the worlds.
What, then, is the purpose of evolution and separation into many forms? Life is the elaboration of soul through the varied transformations of matter.
Spirit is essential and perfect in itself, having neither end nor beginning. Spirit is abstract. Soul is secondary and perfected, being begotten of spirit. Soul is concrete. And the whole object of creation or manifestation is the evolution of souls. Spirit is the primary Adam; soul is Eve, the woman, taken out of the side of the man. Spirit is the first principle; soul is the derivative.
Now, the essential principle of personality or consciousness--the higher personality--is spirit. And this personality is God. Wherefore the higher and interior personality of every monad is God. But this primary principle, being naked essence, could not be separated off into individuals unless contained and limited by a secondary principle. This principle, being derived and not essential, must be evolved. Spirit, therefore, is projected into matter in order that soul may be begotten thereby.
Soul is begotten in matter by means of polarisation, And spirit, of which all matter consists, returns to its essential nature in soul. Soul is the medium by which spirit is individuated, and in which it becomes concrete. So that by means of creation, God the One becomes God the Many. And the object set before the saint is so to live as to render the soul luminous and consolidate with the spirit, that thereby the spirit may be perpetually one with the soul, and thus eternise its individuality.
For personality is of and in the spirit; but individuality appertains to the soul. But for creation there would be one vast diffused and unindividuated consciousness, contained in one vast diffused substance. Of this substance all things consist by means of this force or spirit; and the soul grows up out of matter by means of evolution;--that is, by the inherent force acting on the manifest substance. And thus the soul is born in the womb of matter, and within her is conceived the personal element which, divided from God, is yet God and man. For God is not multiplied neither diminished; but God is separated into many. The matter is the wax, the soul is the wick, and God is the flame which illumines. If they ask thee the reason of creation, thou shalt answer,--The evolution and elaboration of the soul.
Anna is the rolling year, the Time, of which is born Maria the soul, the mother of God.[1] God is the first of the ten categories of Aristotle[2] as the number one is the root of all numbers. Thou canst not begin the tables with the duad, because the unity is the primal idea. Therefore this unity is positive and essential in necessity.
To God everything is good; it is only to men that evil appears positive. As it is written, "I am the Lord, and there is none else; I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things." For that which differentiates evil from good is the plane of the action, and the medium in which the thought is conceived. If thou love from the plane of the spirit through the medium of the soul, thou lovest as Christ loveth. But if thou love from the plane of the astral man, through the medium of the body, thou hast lust. And, again, if spirit desire aught, it desires that which is like itself, spiritual, and its treasure is in heaven: this is aspiration. But if the plane of desire be the astral, the medium of desire is material, and the material desireth matter, that is, riches upon earth. This is avarice. And again, the passion of the spirit is a fierce upward burning towards spirit; a force bursting forth and leaping into life; a vehement taking of heaven by heavenly violence. This is zeal. But the passion of the astral is a fierce burning downward through the body; a force translating itself in material action; a furious and blind collision of matter with matter. This eventuates in murder. See, then, that according to the plane and the medium, so is an act good or evil. There is nothing truly evil in its essential idea; for, primarily, all is good, because the primary is spirit.
[1. See Part I, No. III, "Concerning the immaculate Conception," and No. XLVIII (i), "Concerning the Christian Mysteries."
2. {Greek Sófķa}, original substance or simple being; the Ensoph of the Kabala. E. M.]
(In answer to questions.) Any desire or act of the body that does not profit the mind, that is sensuality.
It is necessary that certain interior mysteries belonging to the Celestial be kept secret, because if they should be given to the people the mysteries would all speedily become materialised, and so lost. But if they be confided to a few Wise, and transmitted only to the Initiate, they will be preserved in their true meaning. And again, if these wise men betray their secret, the uninitiated would lay violent hands on them, and so they and the secret would perish together. But when the majority are wise, then may the mysteries be told openly.[1]
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No. 43: CONCERNING PSYCHE, OR THE SUPERIOR HUMAN SOUL[2] |
IT is truly said that God is the primordial mind, and that the kosmic universe and its manifestations are the ideas of that mind. Mind in itself is passive; it is organ, not function. Idea is active; it is function. As soon, therefore, as mind begins to act, it brings forth ideas, and these constitute existence. Mind is abstract; ideas are concrete. When thou thinkest, thou createst. Every thought is a substantial action.
Thoth,[3] therefore, is the creator of the Kosmos. The science of the mysteries can be understood only by one who has studied the physical sciences; because it is the climax and crown of all these, and must be learned last, and not first. Unless thou understand
[1. The fact that the mysteries have been disclosed anew, expressly in order that they may be made generally known, is by no means to be interpreted as an indication that in the view of their guardians the time has come when the "majority are wise." But this only;--(1) That the concealment of the mysteries has already led to their materialisation and loss at the hands of the priesthoods, and only by their publication can they be restored; and (2) that the majority are sufficiently wise, at least in the land of the present promulgation, to refrain from murderous persecution either for the sake of opinion or in the interests of an Order. E. M.
2. Paris, December 13, 1882.
3. Also spelt Thaut, in which form it is identical in both sound and meaning with our word Thought. Thoth or Thaut was the Egyptian equivalent for both Hermes and the Logos. E. M.]
the physical sciences, thou canst not comprehend the doctrine of Vehicles, which is the basic doctrine of occult science. "If thou understand not earthly things, how shall I make thee understand heavenly things?" Wherefore, get knowledge, get knowledge, and be greedy of knowledge, ever more and more. It is idle for thee to seek the inner chamber until thou hast passed through the outer. This, also, is another reason why occult science cannot be unveiled to the horde. To the unlearned, no truth can be demonstrated. Theosophy[1] is the royal science. If thou wouldst reach the king's presence chamber, there is no way save through the outer rooms and galleries of the palace.
In every living globule there are four inherent powers. I speak not now of the component parts of a cell, but of forces. The first arid lowest mode of power is mechanical; the second is chemical, the third is electric, and the fourth is psychic. The first three belong to the domain of physiological science; the last to that of occult science. It is this last mode of power which belongs to the immaculate and essential. It is inherent in the substantial, and is therefore permanent as an indefeasible quantity. It is in the Arche,[2] and it is wherever there is organic life. Now the Psyche is from the beginning latent and diffused in all matter; and forasmuch as Psyche also is not of herself, but of spirit, therefore is spirit also the basic quality of all things;--the motionless by motion converted into the solid;--the invisible by energy made visible. So that herein are two:--that which is made visible, and that which makes visible; and of these again is a third, that which is visible.
And of this energy, or primordial force, there are two modes (because everything is dual), the centrifugal or accelerating force; and the centripetal or moderating force. (Yet, as I have already said, this second mode of energy is feminine, and therefore derivative, being reflex and complementary to its primary.) By means of the first force, substance (Psyche) becomes matter. By Means of the second, substance resumes her first condition. But in all matter there is a tendency to revert to substance, and hence to polarise soul by means of evolution. The tendency to revert to substance is the cause of evolution. And this, because the instant the centrifugal mode begins to act, that instant its derivative, the centripetal, begins also to exercise its influence.
[1. This term is used here in its ancient sense, the science of divine things, and without reference to any modern or special application of it. E. M.
2. See Appendix, "Definitions."]
And no sooner has the primordial Arche assumed the condition of matter, than matter itself begins to differentiate, actuated by the inherent force of psychic energy, and by differentiation begets individuals without number.
Then Psyche, once impersonal because essential, becomes individuated and personal, and through the gate of matter issues forth into new life. A tiny spark in the globule, Psyche becomes a refulgent blaze in the globe. And this by continual accretion and centralisation. As along a chain of nerve-cells the current of magnetic energy flows to its central point--being conveyed, as is a mechanical shock, along a series of units in contiguity--with ever culminating impetus, so is the psychic energy throughout nature developed. Hence the necessity of centres, of associations, of organisms. Thus, by the systematisation of congeries of living entities, that which in each is little becomes great in the whole. For the quality of Psyche is ever the same, and her potentiality is invariable.
I have spoken of an outer personality and of an inner personality; of a material consciousness as differing from a spiritual consciousness. So now, in like manner, I speak of a spiritual energy as differing from a material energy. The energy whereby Psyche polarises and accretes is not dependent on the undulations of ether, as are material energies. For Psyche is the essence of the ether itself. All manifested life is a process of burning. Psyche is the substance of the medium by which the burning is conditioned. The first state of matter is ether. But Psyche is within and before the ether. Therefore is she rightly termed immaculate. And to the first state of matter corresponds a first mode of force, that is rotatory, the centrifugal and centripetal in one. But before and within force is will;--that is Necessity. Necessity is the will of God. Now this will is spiritual force. It is inherent in Psyche, and she is the medium in which it operates. Such, therefore, as the primordial will is in relation to the primordial substance, such is the individual will in relation to the derived soul. And when the current of spiritual energy (or will) is strong enough in the complex organism to polarise and kindle centrally, then the individual Psyche conceives divinity in her womb, and becomes God-conscious. In the rudimentary stages of matter this current is not strong enough, or continuous enough, thus to polarise.
Psyche, when once she has gathered force enough to burn centrally, is not quenched by the disintegration of the physical elements. These, indeed, fall asunder and desquamate many times during life, whether it be the life of an individual or the life of a system; yet the consciousness and memory remain the same. Thou hast not in thy physical body a single particle that thou hadst fifteen years since, yet thou art the same Ego, and thy thought is continuous. Thy Psyche, therefore, has grown up out of many elements; and in thine Ego their interior Egos are perpetuated, because their psychic force is centralised in thine individuality. And when thy Psyche passes forth from the disintegrating particles of thy physical body, these shall build up new material entities, and the reversion of matter to substance shall still continue. And thy substantial part shall go forth to new affinities.
"But," thou sayest, "if soul be immaculate, how comes she to be attracted by material affinities?"
The link between her and earth is Karma. Not until she is permeated throughout her essence by spirit, is she able to rise above the astral influences. Remember that the science of theosophy is a science of vehicles. Soul is the highest of these vehicles. But the spirit is the first and last term. Immaculate though she be in her virginal essence, she is not the espoused bride until the bond between her and earth be severed. And this can only be when every molecule of her essence is pervaded by spirit, and indissolubly married therewith, as God with Arche in the Principle.
"But," thou sayest, "there are foul and horrible forms;--have these also an immaculate Psyche?"
These have a Psyche overwhelmed by her Karma, because of her feebleness. Either increase or decrease is the portion of the soul. "He that gathereth not with me, scattereth." Then, when the celestial is weak and divided, the astral and material are strong.
"But," thou sayest, "if soul be thus a resultant of polarisation occurring in the organism she animates, how can soul pass from one body to another by re-incarnation? Surely soul is formed anew in every body and cannot undergo transmigration?"
Do not confuse between substance and force. Substance is Psyche, the medium. Force is Spirit, the energy. That which burns in a flame is gas; the process of burning is a mode or condition of the gas. That which is burnt is fuel, or matter, in which the gas is generated. And when thou askest, "How can the Pysche, {sic} which is generated in one body, pass by transmigration to another?" it is as though thou askedst, "How can the flame generated in one log of wood pass to another?" The dispensation of physical series may be compared to a furnace into which are cast in succession many faggots. In each faggot is a certain amount of unburnt gas and of latent energy; because there is no medium without inherent force. This latent or inherent force is capacity. (A living medium need not always be active, but it must retain the capacity of action. God need not always be creating, but God must always retain the capacity of creating.) As by the burning the gas of each faggot is consumed, the elements of the faggot (in each of which is stored a certain proportion of this gas) disintegrate and fall into ash. Then another faggot catches the flame and continues it without solution, supplying in the same way the necessary medium. But observe that Psyche is not "generated in a body," neither is flame generated in a faggot. But for fuel there could be no flame, and but for matter there could be no Psyche. That which really is "generated" in the fuel, is the gas by means of which flame becomes manifest. And that which really is generated in the body, is the condition by means of which Psyche abstract becomes Psyche concrete.
No. 44: CONCERNING THE POET, AS TYPE OF THE HEAVENLY PERSONALITY
[Extract from Diary, Paris, Christmas Day, 1882.[1]
"It is strange how I forget! This evening I have re-read several passages and chapters written by my own hand, and conceived in my own mind, of The Perfect Way, and they filled me with as great wonder and admiration as though I had read them for the first time in some stranger's work. Ought this not to set me a-thinking how little this outward and mundane memory has to do with the true and interior consciousness? For, indeed, in my true self I know well all these things, and an hundredfold more than there lie written; yet my exterior self forgetteth them right readily, and, once they are written, scarce remembereth them more! And this sets me wondering whether, perchance, we are not altogether out of the reckoning when we talk of memory as a necessary part of selfhood; for memory, in the sense in which we use the word,
[1. Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford, vol. ii, pp. 96-97, 100-102.]
signifies a thinking back into the past, and an act by which past experience in time is recalled. But how shall the true, essential self, which is without end or beginning, have memory in any such sort, since the "eternal remembrance" of the soul seeth all things at a glance, both past and to come? To that which is in its nature Divine and of God, memory is no longer recollection, but knowledge. Shall we say that God remembers? Nay, God knoweth. I thank thee, O my Divine Genius; Thou art here! I feel thee; thine aura encompasseth me; I burn under the glow of thy wonderful presence. Yes, it is thus indeed!" Here meditation passes into Illumination, and the diary thus continues. It will be seen that the writer had caught in advance the style of her illuminator.]
THIS faculty which we call Memory is but the faint reflex and image in the material brain of that function which, in all its celestial plenitude, can belong only to the heavenly man. That which is of time and of matter must needs think by means of an organ and material cells, and these can only work mechanically, and by slow processes. But that which is of eternity and spirit needeth neither organ nor process, since organism is related only to time, and its resultant is process. "Yea, thou shalt see face to face! Thou shalt know even as thou art known!" And just as widely and essentially as the heavenly memory differs from the earthly, so doth the heavenly personality differ from that of the material creature.
Thou mayest the more easily gather somewhat of the character of the heavenly personality by considering the quality of that of the highest type of mankind on earth,--the Poet.
The poet hath no self apart from his larger self. Other men pass indifferent through life and the world, because the selfhood of earth and heaven is a thing apart from them, and toucheth them not.
The wealth of beauty in earth and sky and sea lieth outside their being, and speaketh not to their heart.
Their interests are individual and limited: their home is by one hearth: four walls are the boundary of their kingdom,--so small is it!
But the personality of the poet is divine: and being divine, it hath no limits.
He is supreme and ubiquitous in consciousness: his heart beats in every element.
The pulses of all the infinite deep of heaven vibrate in his own: and responding to their strength and their plenitude, he feels more intensely than other men.
Not merely he sees and examines these rocks and trees: these variable waters, and these glittering peaks.
Not merely he hears this plaintive wind, these rolling peals.
But he is all these; and with them--nay, in them--he rejoices and weeps, he shines and aspires, he sighs and thunders.
And when he sings, it is not he--the man--whose voice is heard: it is the voice of all the manifold Nature herself.
In his verse the sunshine laughs: the mountains give forth their sonorous echoes; the swift lightnings flash.
The great continual cadence of universal life moves and becomes articulate in human language.
O joy profound! O boundless selfhood! O God-like personality!
All the gold of the sunset is thine; the pillars of chrysolite; and the purple vault of immensity!
The sea is thine with its solemn speech, its misty distance, and its radiant shallows!
The daughters of earth love thee: the water-nymphs tell thee their secrets; thou knowest the spirit of all silent things!
Sunbeams are thy laughter, and the rain-drops of heaven thy tears; in the wrath of the storm thine heart is shaken: and thy prayer goeth up with the wind unto God.
Thou art multiplied in the conscience[1] of all living creatures; thou art young with the youth of Nature; thou art all-seeing as the starry skies:
Like unto the Gods,--therefore art thou their beloved: yea, if thou wilt, they shall tell thee all things;
Because thou only understandest, among all the sons of men!
Concerning memory; why should there any more be a difficulty in respect of it? Reflect on this saying,--"Man sees as he knows." To thee the deeps are more visible than the surfaces of things; but to men generally the surfaces only are visible. The material can perceive only the material, the astral the astral, and the spiritual the spiritual. It all resolves itself, therefore, into a question of condition and of quality. Thy hold on matter is but slight, and thine organic memory is feeble and treacherous. It is hard for thee to perceive the surfaces of things and to remember their aspect. But thy spiritual perception is the stronger for this weakness, and the profound is that which thou seest the most readily. It is hard for thee to understand and to retain the
[1. An archaism for consciousness. In the French there is still but one word--conscience--for the two things. E. M.]
memory of material facts; but their meaning thou knowest instantly and by intuition, which is the memory of the soul. For the soul takes no pains to remember; she knows divinely. Is it not said that the immaculate woman brings forth without a pang? The sorrow and travail of conception belong to her whose desire is unto "Adam."[1]
No. 45: CONCERNING PSYCHE[2]
(Continued from No. XLIII)
BUT it may make the subject clearer to thee if, leaving such material comparisons, we speak of those things which only may be fitly compared together. Thou knowest already the nature of the planet and the divisions of its Ego into four parts or regions. Of these thou knowest that the soul or Psyche is in man, the human superior reason. Now there appertains to the planet besides all these four regions, an atmosphere of a magnetic nature.[3] This atmosphere is well known to thee. It is the astral or sideral soul of the planet, the anima mundi or picture-world. Therein are stored up all the memories of the world: its past life, its history, its affections and recollections of physical things. The adept may interrogate this phantom world, and it shall speak for him. It is the cast-off vestment of the planet; yet it is living and palpitating, for its very fabric is spun of psychic substance, and its entire parenchyma[4] is magnetic. And forasmuch as the planet is an entity ever being born and ever dying, so this astral counterpart of itself is ever in process of increase--the mirror of the globe, a world encompassing a world. But the Divine Spirit, Dio-Nysos, is not in this magnetic circle. God the Nous is in the celestial, and the temple thereof is in the heart of humanity.
Such as is the astral world to the planet, the Ruach is to man. And in truth the great magnetic sphere of the planet is itself composed and woven out of the magnetic Egos of its offspring, precisely as these in their turn are woven out of the infinitely
[1. I.e. the outer sense and lower reason. E. M.
2. Paris, January 6, 1883.
3. Not another element, but another mode of the astral: that in which it represents its past as distinguished from its present condition, which co-exist-the latter continually passing into the former. E. M.
4. Anatomically, the mass of a glandular or similar organ. Botanically, the soft cellular tissue of plants. E. M.]
lesser atoms which compose the individual man. So that, by a figure, one may represent the whole astral atmosphere of the planet as a system of so many tiny spheres, each reflecting and transmitting special rays. But if in this astral sphere thou shouldst seek the true soul and Divine Spirit, thou shalt not find them; for they are of the higher altitudes. To each world its Ruach, and but one. But the world's true soul migrates and interchanges. And this is the secret of the "creation" of worlds. Worlds, like men, have their karma, and new kosmic globes arise out of the ruins of former states. As the soul of the individual human unit transmigrates and passes on, so likewise does the Psyche of the planet. From world to world, in ceaseless intercourse and impetus, the living Neshamah pursues her variable way. And as she passes, the tincture of her divinity changes. Here her spirit is derived through Iacchos, there through Aphrodite, anon through Hermes or another god. Here, again, she is weak, and there strong. Your planet did not begin this avatār in strength; an evil karma overwhelmed its soul, and evil lives predominated in its first ages. Monstrous reptiles, creeping things, and many fierce natures tore and devoured each other in the great deeps. For the world-soul was weak, and brought forth with pain and trouble. But Adonai reigns, and shall reign.
Now the physical molecules of the planet are its many generated bodies, whether of plants, of animals, or of men; and these are continually dropping into decay and being shed. But the living germs of all these organisms die not; they revert continually to their proper place, and the soul of each gathers strength by progression. And the ghost of each living thing goes into the astral sphere, its proper place; and the dust of each creature to the earth; and the Psyche departs to fulfil her karma. For Psyche is as a flame within a flame, whereof the highest and most luminous part mounts and wanders, while the heavier and the less pure remains burning above the surface of the earth.
And as with the man, so with the planet; for small and great there is one law. And one star differeth from another star in glory. And so throughout the infinite vistas and systems of heaven. From star to star, from sun to sun, from galaxy to galaxy, the kosmic souls migrate and interchange. But every God keeps his tincture and maintains his indefeasible personality.
There is no evil. There are only weak and strong, and the differentiation of substance.
Compare like with like, and preserve the affinity of similars.
All things are explicable and comprehensible; but the key of their explanation is order.
Order is the first word of analysis, and the alphabet of synthesis.
No. 46: CONCERNING CONSCIOUSNESS AND MEMORY IN RELATION TO PERSONALITY[1]
CONSCIOUSNESS is not so much a thing as a condition. Now, if thou wouldst have a clear conception of that condition by means of analogy, take as an illustration the image of an incandescent globe,--a ball of fire, fluid and igneous throughout its whole mass.[2] Divide this globe in thought into several successive zones, each containing its precedent. Thou wilt find that the central interior zone only contains the radiant point, or heart of the fiery mass, and that each successive zone constitutes a circumferential halo more or less intense, according to its nearness to the radiant point, but secondary and derived only and not in itself a source of luminous radiation.
It is thus with the macrocosm and thus also with the human kingdom. In the latter the soul is the interior zone, and it alone contains the radiant point. By this one indivisible effulgence, the successive zones are illuminated in unbroken continuity; but the source of this effulgence is not in them. I call this effulgence consciousness, and this radiant point the spiritual ego or divine spark. Now, for all things there is one law. God is nothing that man is not. Man, therefore, is one. But within this unity is plurality. God being one, is yet three; for in one personality are three persons. And not only three; for God is beyond number, being all that is. So that in this divine unity are many comprehended personalities. This is because spirit is in its very essence consciousness, and wherever spirit is there is consciousness. Yet all spirit is one. Wherefore consciousness is one. And as spirit is manifold, so consciousness is manifold. And spirit, like light, is diffusive. Were it otherwise there could be no universe, but only one point spreading no rays, and instead, thick darkness and unconsciousness throughout eternity. But this is absurd
[1. Paris, January 15, 1883. Received in sleep (Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, p. l00).
2. The idea is of a globe self-luminous and heated from within. E. M.]
and against reason; because it is the very nature of light to be radiant; and radiance is itself light; so that wherever light is there is radiance or shining; and God is the Shining One, or radiant point of the universe. God is the supreme consciousness, and the divine radiance is also consciousness. And man's interior ego is conscient only because the radiant point in it is divine. But this consciousness emits consciousness, and transmits it, first to the anima bruta, and last to the physical body. But the more concentrated the consciousness, the brighter and more effulgent the central spark. It is erroneous to think of consciousness as non-diffusive, precisely as it would be to think of light as non-radiant. But it is true that consciousness hath a centre of diffusion, as light hath a radiant point.
Now, if from the midst of this imagined globe of fire thou take the central incandescent spark, the whole globe does not immediately become dark, but the effulgence lingers in each zone according to its degree of nearness to the centre of the sphere. It is thus also when dissolution occurs in the process of death. Everything is conscious according to its proper degree. In somnambulism either the anima bruta and the physical body are conscious while the consciousness of the soul is suspended; or the reverse occurs, according to the kind of somnolence induced. But that part which remains conscious is capable of reflection, of thought, of memory, and even of intelligent invention and acumen, according to its kind and its endowments. Consciousness is, therefore, diffusive and, in a certain sense, divisible. He best comprehends this truth who is nearest and most like to God; and such an one is the poet.
Thou knowest that in the end, when Nirvāna is attained, the soul shall gather up all that it hath left within the astral of holy memories and worthy experience, and to this end the Ruach rises in the astral sphere, by the gradual decay and loss of its more material affinities, until these have so disintegrated and perished, that its substance is thereby lightened and purified. But continual commerce and intercourse with earth add, as it were, fresh fuel to its earthly affinities, keeping these alive and hindering its recall to its spiritual ego. Thus, therefore, the spiritual ego itself is detained from perfect absorption into the divine, and union therewith. For the Ruach shall not all die, if there be in it anything worthy of recall. The astral sphere is its purging chamber. For Saturn, who is Time, is the trier of all things; he devoureth all the dross; only that escapeth which in its nature is ethereal and destined to reign. And this death of the Ruach is gradual and natural. It is a process of elimination and disintegration, often--as men measure time-extending over many decades, or even centuries. And those Ruachs which appertain to wicked and evil persons, having strong wills, inclined earthwards,--these persist longest and manifest most frequently and vividly, because they rise not, but, being destined to perish utterly, are not withdrawn from immediate contact with the earth. They are all dross; there is in them no redeemable element. But the Ruach of the righteous complaineth if thou disturb his evolution. "Why callest thou me? disturb me not. The memories of my earth-life are chains about my neck; the desire of the past detaineth me. Suffer me to rise towards my rest, and hinder me not with evocations. But let thy love go after me and encompass me; so shalt thou rise with me through sphere after sphere."
For the good man upon earth can love nothing less than the divine. Wherefore that which he loveth in his friend is the divine, that is, the true and radiant self. And if he love it as differentiated from God, it is only on account of its separate tincture. For in the perfect light there are innumerable tinctures. And according to its celestial affinity, one soul loveth this or that splendour more than the rest. And when the righteous friend of the good man dieth, the love of the living man goeth after the true soul of the dead; and the strength and divinity of this love helpeth the purgation of the astral soul, the psychic ghost. It is to this astral soul, which ever remaineth near the living friend, an indication of the way it must also go,--a light shining upon the upward path that leads from the astral to the celestial and everlasting. For love, being divine, is towards the divine. "Love exalteth, love purifieth, love uplifteth."
There is but one God; and in God are comprehended all thrones, and dominions, and powers, and principalities, and archangels, and cherubim in the celestial world. And through these are all the worlds begotten in time and space, each with its astral sphere. Now, all these, both terrene and heavenly, are conscient entities, yet all subsist in one consciousness, which is one God. Because all things are of spirit, and God is spirit, and spirit is consciousness. The material of the physical brain is constituted of countless cells and innumerable connecting fibres, and each cell hath its own consciousness, according to its degree. Yet the resultant of all these concordant functions is one perception and one consciousness. {p. 116} There is also a consciousness of the nerves, and another of the blood, and another of the tissues. There is a consciousness of the eye, and another of the ear, and another of the touch. There is a consciousness appropriate, and appertaining specially and distinctively, to every bodily organ. And all these work night and day within the body, each according to its kind and its order. Yet the intellect of the man knoweth nothing thereof. Interrogate one of these living organs, and it will answer thee after its kind. If man, then, can so little dominate and direct the divers parts of his own physical body, why should he find it strange that his ethereal self be likewise similarly multiple? The anima bruta is as an organ of the spiritual man; and though it be part of him, its acts, its functions, and its consciousness are not identical with those of the spiritual soul. Consciousness is divisible, therefore, and diffusible in man, as in God; in the planet, as in the universe; and one law is throughout all.
No. 47: CONCERNING THE SUBSTANTIAL EGO AS THE TRUE SUBJECT[1]
PART I
IT hath been said, "All life is a burning," and thou sayest,
"Let the cells of the brain be likened to these burning logs, and their ash to waste tissue, and the flame to consciousness. Then is consciousness nothing more than an unstable product, which, when the logs are all consumed, dieth away with their ash. How then shall we think of Psyche, if she be this flame? Is not all consciousness phenomenon merely, depending for its existence on an organic processs; {sic} a consensus of vital action in the nervous cells? And the Psyche, what is she but the sum of conscious states,--a complexity, unstable and automatic, making and unmaking herself at each instant, even as the flame?"
What, then, doth cognise these unstable states? These successive and ephemeral objective conditions to what Subject do they manifest themselves, and how are they recognised? If consciousness be phenomenon, to what noumenon is it related?
[1. Paris, February 27, 1883. Received during the night, and written down while in trance. The word Subject, spelt with a capital, is used herein in its metaphysical sense, to denote the thinking and perceiving agent. E. M.]
{p. 117} Perceivest thou not that the flame, which is phenomenon, appeareth not to itself, and dependeth for its objectivity on the subjectivity of the observer? The physiologist who telleth thee that memory is a biological processus, and that consciousness is a state dependent on the duration and intensity of molecular nervous vibration, toucheth not the Psyche. For this molecular phenomenon is incapable of cognising itself; it is objective only. Seest thou not that unless there be an inner, subjective ego to perceive and to reflect in itself this succession of phenomenal states, the condition of personality would be impossible? Or, thinkest thou that unless in the true and inner universe the ideal flame subsisted, thou couldst cognise the material flame? Knowest thou not that in the Divine Mind subsist eternally and substantially all those things of which thou beholdest the images and phenomena? It is this inner substantial noumenon which is the Psyche. And as in nature there are infinite gradations from simple to complex, and from coarse to fine, so is Psyche reached by innumerable degrees, and they who have not penetrated to the inner, stop short at the secondary consciousness, which is objective only, and imagine that the subjective, which alone explains all, is undemonstrable. But only Psyche can apprehend the psychical; only reason can reach the ultimate. "By what, or by whom," say the biologists, "are these ephemeral and unstable states which they name consciousness, apprehended? Dependent for their production upon duration and intensity of vibration, they pass away as quickly as they appear." If, then, they appear, it is to something, otherwise their production and apparition, automatic in itself, could not be cognised. A thing or a state doth not appear to itself, but to the observer. For apparition and production are processes affecting a Subject, and this Subject is Psyche.
But the vice of your biologists lieth in their pursuit of the unity in the simple rather than in the complex. By this method they reverse and invert the divine method of evolution, and nullify its end. They refuse unity to the man, in order to claim it for the molecule. For the ultimate element, indivisible and indestructible by thought, for the simplest and lowest monad only, they claim unity, and thereby individuality. Thus they divinise the lowest, and in their method evolution hath no motive or reasonable end.
But, in truth, Psyche is the most complex of essences, and of this complexity is born responsibility. Pure and naked simplicity of being is the outermost and lowermost, touching negation. And the dignity and excellence of the human soul lieth not in her simplicity, but in her complexity. She is the summit of evolution, and all generation works in order to produce her. The philosophy then, which defies the lowest in place of the highest, ignores the true sense of its own doctrine of evolution. For the occult law which governs evolution brings together, in increasingly complex and manifold entities, innumerable unities, in order that these units may, of their substantial essence, polarise one complex essence;--complex, because evolved from, and by the concurrence of, many simple monads;--essence, because in its nature indivisible and indestructible. The problem of the Ego in man is the problem of God in nature. By the same method which expounds the last, shall the first be expounded likewise. The human ego is, therefore, the synthesis, the divine impersonal personified. And the higher and more excellent this personality, the profounder the consciousness of 'the impersonal. The divine personality is not concrete, but abstract, and the divine consciousness is not objective, but subjective. The phenomenal personality and consciousness are to the noumenal as water reflecting the heavens, the nether completing and returning to the upper its own concrete reflex.
If thou desirest really to study, to comprehend, and to master the heavenly science, thou must learn that interior and subjective method by which only heavenly things are apprehended. Thou must shift the ground of thine observation from the exterior to the interior; and this can be accomplished only by means of regeneration. "I tell thee that unless thou be born again, thou shalt not see the kingdom of God." And this saying meaneth that unless a man be regenerate he shall not be able to see the inner and essential, which are the only true and divine things. The unregenerate man works always from the exterior, and hath experience only of that which is without. But thou, if thou wouldst behold the kingdom of God, learn to live in the essential, and fix the polaric point of thy mind in the central and substantial.
PART 2[1]
It is necessary before entering on the study of the substantial, that thou shouldst clearly apprehend what difference there is
[1. Received at the same time and in the same manner as the foregoing, but written down on the following day. E. M.]
between the abstract and the concrete. Now the study of the material is the study of the objective, and that of the substantial is the study of the subjective. That, then, which the biologists term the subjective is not truly so, but only the last or interior phases and conditions of phenomena. Thus, for example, the unstable states which constitute consciousness, are in their view subjective states. But they are objective to the true subject, which is Psyche, because they are. perceived by this latter, and whatever is perceived is objective. There are in the microcosm two functions,--that of the revealer, and that of the entity to which revelation is made. The unstable states of the biologist, which accompany certain operations of organic force, are so many modes whereby exterior things are revealed to the interior subject. They are not in themselves the subject to which the revelation is made. Do not think that thou canst attain the subjective by the same method of study which discovers to thee the objective. The last is found by observation from without; the first by intuition from within. The human kosmos is a complexity of many principles, each having its own mode of operation. And it is, therefore, on the rank and order of the principle affected by any special operation that dependeth the nature of the effect produced. When, therefore, for example, the biologist speaketh of "unconscious cerebration," he should ask himself to whom or to what such operation is unconscious, knowing that in all vital processes there is infinite gradation. Questions of duration affect the mind; questions of intensity affect the Psyche. All processes which occur in the objective are relative to something; there is but one thing absolute, and that is the Subject. Unconscious cerebration is, therefore, only relatively unconscious in regard to that mode of perception which is conditioned in and by duration. But inasmuch as any such process of cerebration is intense, it is perceived by that perceptive centre which is conditioned by intensity, and in relation to that centre it is not unconscious. The interior man knoweth all processes, but many processes are not apprehended by the mental man. This truth ought in itself to demonstrate to thee the distinction of the human principles, and their separability even on this plane of life. If, then, the mundane ego and the heavenly ego be so distinct and separable, even when vitally connected, that a nervous process conscious to the latter shall be unconscious to the former, how much more shall separability be possible when the vital bond is broken? If the polarities of all thy kosmos were single and identical in direction, thou wouldst be conscious of all processes, and nothing would be to thee unknown, because thy central point of perception would be precisely the focus of all convergent radii. But no unregenerate man is in such case. For most, the perceptive point lies in the relative and objective man, and by no means in the absolute and subjective. Thus the convergent radii pass unheeded of their consciousness, because, as yet, they know not their own spirit. They are asleep while they live, and incapable of absolute cognition.
No. 48: CONCERNING THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES[1]
PART I
THE two terms of the history of creation or evolution are formulated by the Catholic Church in two precious and all-important dogmas. These are--first, the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary; and, secondly, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.[2] By the doctrine of the first we are secretly enlightened concerning the generation of the soul, who is begotten in the womb of matter, and yet from the first instant of her being is pure and incorrupt. Sin comes through the material and intellectual element, because these belong to matter. But the soul, which is of the celestial, and belongs to heavenly conditions, is free of original sin. "Salem, which is from above, is free, which is the mother of us all. But Agar"--the intellectual and astral part--"is a bond slave, both she and her son." The soul, born of time (Anna), is yet conceived without taint of corruption or decay, because her essence is divine.[3] Contained in matter, and brought into the world by means of it, she is yet not of it, else she could not be mother of God. In her bosom is conceived that bright and holy light--the Nucleolus--which dwells in her from the beginning, and which, without intercourse with matter, germinates in her and manifests itself as the express image of the eternal and ineffable personality. She gives this image individuality. Through and in her it is
[1. Paris, December 12, 1882. Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford, Vol. ii, pp. 98, 99.
2. The latter is not yet promulgated. See The Perfect Way, V. 43, n. 13. E. M.
3. See Part I, No. III, "Concerning the Immaculate Conception," and No. XLII, "Concerning God."]
focused and polarised into a perpetual and self-subsistent person, at once God and man. But were she not immaculate,--did any admixture of matter enter into her integral substance,--no such polarisation of the Divine could occur. The womb in which God is conceived must be immaculate; the mother of Deity must be "ever-virgin." She grows up from infancy to childhood at the knee of Anna; from a child she becomes a maiden,--true type of the soul, unfolding, learning, increasing, and elaborating itself by experience. But in all this she remains in her essence divine and uncontaminated, at once daughter, spouse, and mother of God.
As the Immaculate Conception is the foundation of the mysteries, so is the Assumption their crown. For the entire object and end of cosmic evolution is precisely this triumph and apotheosis of the soul. In the mystery presented by this dogma, we behold the consummation of the whole scheme of creation--the perpetuation and glorification of the individual human ego. The grave--the material and astral consciousness--cannot retain the immaculate Mother of God. She rises into thee heavens; she assumes divinity. In her own proper person she is taken up into the King's chamber. From end to end the mystery of the soul's evolution--the history, that is, of humanity and of the kosmic drama--is contained and enacted in the cultus of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The acts and the glories of Mary are the one supreme subject of the holy mysteries.
PART 2[1]
It is necessary, in relation to the Mysteries, to distinguish between the unmanifest and the manifest, and between the
[1. Home, August 19, 1883. Mrs Kingsford thus prefaces this; exposition in her diary:--
"How wonderfully the Church helps one in matters of Theosophy! When I am doubtful about Divine Order, or about function in the human kingdom, I appeal instinctively to Catholic doctrine, and am at once set in the right path. I think I should never have clearly understood the Order and Function of the Soul but for the Catholic teaching concerning the Mother of God; nor should I have comprehended the Method of Salvation by the Merits of our Divine Principle, save for the doctrine of the Incarnation and the Atonement."
Between Catholic doctrine in its inner and true meaning, however, and that doctrine as set before the world, she recognised an absolute distinction, holding firmly to the dictum that "The Church has all the truth, but the priests have materialised it, making themselves and their followers idolaters." E. M.
Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford, vol. ii, pp. 133-135.]
macrocosm and the microcosm. These last, however, are identical, in that the process of the universal and the process of the individual are one.
Mary is the soul, and as such the matrix of the divine principle--God--made man by individualisation, through descent into the "Virgin's womb." But the seven principles of universal spirit are concerned in this conception; since it is through their operation in the soul that she becomes capable of polarising divinity.
[This is the secret aspect of the Mosaic week of Creation, each day of which week denotes the operation of one of the Seven creative Elohim or Divine Potencies concerned in the elaboration of the spiritual microcosm.]
It is said that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the daughter, spouse, and mother of God. But inasmuch as spiritual energy has two conditions, one of passivity and one of activity,--which latter is styled the Holy Spirit,--it is said that Mary's spouse is not the Father, but the Holy Ghost, these terms implying respectively the static and the dynamic modes of Deity. For the Father denotes the motionless, the force, passive and potential, in whom all things are--subjectively. But the Holy Ghost represents will in action,--creative energy, motion and generative function. Of this union of the Divine will in action--the Holy Ghost-with the human soul, the product is Christ, the God-Man and our Lord. And through Christ, the Divine Spirit, by whom he is begotten, flows and operates.
In the trinity of the unmanifest, the great deep, or ocean of infinitude--Sophia (Wisdom)--corresponds to Mary, and has for spouse the creative energy of whom is begotten the Manifestor, Adonai, the Lord. This "Mother" is co-equal with the Father, being primary and eternal. In manifestation the "Mother" is derived, being born of Time (Anna), and has for Father the Planet-God--for our planet, Iacchos Joachim, or Jacob;[1] so that the paternity of the first person of the Trinity is vicarious only. The Church, therefore, being a Church of the manifest, deals with
[1. Ps. xxiv, 6; cxxxii, 2, 5, etc. See Appendix, "Definitions." Every kosmic entity, whether a system, a planet, or a person, is constituted of a certain portion of Divinity, segregated and assigned to be its life and substance. These names designate that particular individuation of the universal deity of which we and our planet consist. Wherefore Mary, as the perfected human soul, is "daughter" of the planet-god, precisely as her "son" Christ, the perfected human spirit, is "son" of the planet-god. The soul is at once "daughter, mother, and spouse of God," as woman is at once daughter, mother, and spouse of man. E. M.]
Mary (substance), under this aspect alone, and hence does not specify her as co-equal with the first principle. In the unmanifest being underived, she has no relation to time.
No. 49: CONCERNING DYING[1]
WHEN a man or an animal dies a violent death, it is not an immediate separation that takes place between body and soul. There are many principles to be considered, each, as it were, incased in an outer, like a nest of Chinese boxes, or the spiral of a cone. And the lower consciousness can be reanimated in the physical body by physical means. This is the consciousness related to nerve-stimulation and reflex action, as involuntary gesture and all animal functions. It is only by degrees that the soul disengages itself, and its skirts linger long in the physical system, and can be detained artificially.
All the component elements of the body polarise to form a unity which is as a sun to the system. But this polarisation is fourfold, and the central and inmost point of radiance is not objective, but subjective. That which reflects is molecular; that which shines is non-molecular. Force, or spirit, is non-molecular. That, therefore, is alone one and indivisible, and it is subjective. When Psyche is one with the spirit, she too becomes subjective. It has been said, "All things are by infinite gradation, and Psyche is reached by innumerable degrees; so that they who have not penetrated to the inner, stop short at the secondary consciousness, and imagine that to be the subjective." Psyche, so long as existence[2] lasts, is a mirror to the spirit, she reflects, and is therefore molecular. But she is gradually in process of at-one-ment; she and the spirit mutually attract and permeate each other. She will, then, finally become non-molecular and entirely subjective. Therefore the higher the entity undergoing death, the easier the detachment of Psyche from the lower consciousnesses which enshrine her. For the nearer she is to being herself a radiant point, the nearer she is to unity and spiritual subjectivity. The
[1. Home, August 23, 1883. Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford, Vol. ii, p. 136.
2. The state of manifested as distinguished from unmanifested being. E. M.]
saint does not fear death because his consciousness is gathered up into Psyche, and she into her spouse. "The grave--that is the physical and astral consciousness--cannot retain the holy Virgin." The whole object of incarnation is to buildup a spiritual counterpart, subjective and substantial. Now, when once the radii of the physical and astral molecules have polarised a radiant point interior and superior to themselves, no injury or mutilation of the physical ego will affect the subjective ego. As a matter of fact, physical bodies are constantly changing and interchanging their particles; portions of other bodies are engrafted continually within them; but there is no change in the unity or continuity of the higher consciousness. This is because the true unity is not objective, but subjective. The true "Son of man" is "in heaven," and it is his body and anima bruta only which are on earth. Most of the mistakes of the materialists arise from understanding localities and things when they should understand conditions and principles. Of course a subjective entity cannot be localised in space or duration. Potentially the soul is always eternal, although brought into relation with the objective through time. It is therefore a mistake to suppose that the soul is in the body in the same sense as the watery humours of the body. The soul is in the body only in the sense in which Arche is in the universe; that is, she is interior to it in the fourth dimension, of which, objectively, no idea can be formed. If there were no other consciousness inherent in man than the lower consciousness of the cells, there could be no self-consciousness, or unity of thought. The cerebral sense would not be reflected in knowledge, and man would not be cognisant of his apprehensions and perceptions. Continuity of memory and will must belong to one, and must be positive and absolute, that is, when they relate to higher selfhood.
As regards the lower consciousness, it is easy to understand that in the case of violent death, death is not instantaneous. The stroke of the sword which divides the physical head from the physical trunk may indeed be instantaneous, but this physical separation does not constitute death, and this process is not really complete until the phantom is wholly disengaged. So long as it is present, of course, any physical aid given to the nerve-cells permits the manifestation of its forces. But when it has wholly abandoned the body such aid would be furnished in vain. The fluidic body is so tenuous and elastic that no mere separation of the physical frame would suffice to destroy its integrity
|
No. 50: CONCERNING THE ONE LIFE: BEING A RECAPITULATION[1] |
THE spirit absorbed in man or in the planet does not exhaust Deity.
Nor does the soul evolved upward through matter exhaust substance.
There remain, then, ever in the fourth dimension--the principium--above the manifest, unmanifest God and soul.
The perfection of man and of the planet is attained when the soul of the one and of the other is throughout illuminate by spirit.
But spirit is never the same thing as soul. It is always celestial energy, and soul is always substance.
That which creates is Spirit (God).
The immanent consciousnesses (spirits) of all the cells of a man's entity, cause by their polarisation a central unity of consciousness, which is more than the sum total of all their consciousnesses, because it is on a higher round or plane.
For in spiritual science everything depends upon levels; and the man's evolution works round spirally, as does the planetary evolution.
In this relation consider the worlds of form and formless worlds of Hindū theosophy.
Similarly the soul of the planet is more than the associated essences of the souls upon it: because this soul also is on a higher plane than they.
Similarly, too, the consciousness of the solar system is more than that of the associated world-consciousnesses.
And the consciousness of the manifest universe is greater than that of its corporate systems.
But that of the unmanifest is higher and greater still: as, except in substance, God the Father is greater than God the Son.
[1. Written at home, the first five sections on December 9, 1883, and the rest on January 21, 1884, and regarded by the writer as an exercise or meditation, based on previous illuminations, rather than as a fresh illumination. It is unfinished. E. M.
Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford, vol. ii, p. 33.]
(2)
The elemental kingdoms represent spirit on its downward path into matter.
There are three of these before the mineral is reached.
These are the formless worlds before the worlds of form.
They are in the planet, and also in man.
All the planets inhabited by manifest forms are themselves manifest.
After the form-worlds come other formless worlds, caused by the upward arc of ascending spirit: but these also are in the planet.
They are also in the man: and are the states of pure thought.
The thinker, therefore, who is son of Hermes, is as far beyond the medium who is controlled and who is not self-conscious, as the formless worlds of the ascending arc are beyond the formless worlds of the elemental, or descending, arc.
In the planet and in the man they only seem contiguous because each round is spiral.
But each round takes the One Life higher in the spiral.
Neither the planet-soul nor the man-soul goes over exactly the same ground again.
But perverse and disobedient will may reverse the direction of the spiral.
Individuals in whom the will so acts are finally abandoned by the planet to the outer sphere.
(3)
The One Life is the point of consciousness.
The will is the impulse which moves it.
In the celestial the One Life is the Elohim; and the will is the Father.
The One Life is manifest by effulgence (the Son).
So, then, the will begets in substance the effulgence, which is the manifestation of the One Life.
In man and the planet the effulgence is dim and diffuse until it moves into the soul. Then only Christ is born.
The One Life is invisible until Christ manifests it.
Christ in man has for counterpart Adonai in the heavens.
So, then, the One Life is in the Father-Mother latently, until manifest by the Son (effulgence).
And the procession of the Holy Spirit is from the Father-Mother through the Son.
Herein is the difference reconciled between the Greek and Latin Churches.
The point of consciousness shineth more and more unto the perfect day of brightness ("Nativity of Christ" within man).
(4)
The object of creation is the production of "Ancients."[1]
They are the first-fruits of the souls of the planets; or First Resurrection." (First in dignity, not in time.)
They are not themselves creators; but are regenerators of that which is created;
Being vehicles for the Holy Spirit, who is the regenerator, through Christ.
Because will can create only when it is in the abstract; the derived does not create.
The Father-Mother creates through Adonai by means of the Holy Spirit.
The will of the perfect man renovates through the effulgence of his One Life.
His Karma is poured out over the world to save mankind.
He is the Saviour through his precious life.
There are twenty-four Ancients, because there are twelve Avatārs of the Lord, and every one is dual.
(5)
Will, when it is derived through existence, begets Karma.
God has no Karma. God does not exist: God is.
Karma is the channel of initiation. God is not initiated.
The perfect man saves himself and saves others by his righteousness.
The two terms of existence are creation and redemption.
The first is God's work; the second is the work of Christ,--God in man.
The reason why the Ancient cannot create is because he is not infinite.
He is immortal, not eternal; he is derived, not self-subsistent.
His is the point of grace, not the point of projection.
[1. A.V., "Elders," Apoc. iv.]
The thrones of the Ancients are round about the Throne of God and below it.
(6)
The lower self is the cause of the difference between man and nature.
This lower self is the unreal self, the magnetic states.
These magnetic states are the serpent, in whose folds all nature is involved (to man).
It is the serpent that tempts Eve, the soul.
How does this magnetic self arise?
It is a reflect, the pole of which is antithetic to the pole of the true self.
The perfect balance is to be in the centre or equator, between the two.
Nature has no lower self; consequently she is not self-conscious (does not know that she is "naked").
The centre of the true self is in eternity; the poles are in time.
The soul's proper seat is in the centre,--eternity.
When she is there, the man is in eternal life.
This centre is the tree of life.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the condition of the cognisance of the two poles.
Eating the fruit of this tree is the act by which the soul beholds these two poles.
While she remained in her first state she was as nature is, seeing only one pole, the good, and not knowing herself.
(7)
There are two modes of God,--the manifest and the unmanifest.
God manifest rises gradually through nature to meet God unmanifest.
Every level in nature rises out of itself to merge in every other level.
When the mind-plane is reached, God emerges thence as the soul, and looks upon himself.
That into which the soul looks back is the past of her journey,--time and nature.
That into which she looks forward is God,--spirit and eternity.
The point she has reached is eternal life,--the tree in the midst of paradise.
The false self is the mirage in time.
As the planes evolved, their laws were the laws of God.
But backwards they are the laws of the Devil.
"A prayer said backwards is an evocation of the Evil One."
(8)
The God manifest is the true self.
The God unmanifest is the Divine overshadowing, the true spouse of the soul.
To know one's self is no sin.
God planted the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The sin is in the retrogression towards the astral.
It is the giving of the apple to Adam.
Adam is commanded; Adam is rebuked.
From the moment of the fall, a new projection takes place, similar to that of God's first projection into time.
The wheel turns again, and all is done over again in the microcosm.
For the retrogression towards the intellectual (Adam) is a displacement of the centre.
It is a transference of the tree of life from the place of Eve (the soul) to the place of Adam.
The centre can be nowhere save in the meeting place of the two lines which intersect at right angles the two triangles of the "Seal of Solomon."
There can be but one point of centre, therefore the two trees represent two lines crossed.
When the One Life has reached the seventh kingdom, then is the Sabbath.
That is the point of return from Nature--God in Action--to God in God--Rest.
Seven for the outgoing, seven for the incoming.[1]
(9)
Thought in nature is the law of God.
Thought in man is the law of God; because man is the offspring of nature, and there is but one law.
[1. The difference between this reckoning and that in The Great Work, Part II, No. III, v. 60, 61, is only apparent, the point which the two series have in common being here reckoned twice over, making the total in both cases thirteen. E. M.]
All the planes in nature express this thought in unison.
Law in one plane does not conflict with law in another plane. Therefore God is invariable in nature.
But in man there appears to be conflict of two diverse wills. How is this, and whence comes the will which conflicts with the law of God in man?
Man like the world, is constituted of many planes.
Each plane has its consciousness, and the medium of one plane is more responsive and powerful in expressing the will of God than that of another plane.
The same is true of nature's plane. It is a question of subtlety and rarefaction of media.
The cause of evolution is the constant convergence of radii.
That is,--the consciousness of the mineral plane has a tendency to express itself in a higher plane, i.e. as vegetable consciousness; and the vegetable as animal; and the animal as human; and the human as divine.
But when the human is reached, the whole process begins over again, in petto.
And in man unregenerate, the tendency is not from behind forwards, in upward order, but in downwards, or retrogressive series.
For in man all the planes are consubstantiate, and all their modes of law obtain. Some media are weaker or denser than others, and these are the lowermost and outermost,--" touching negation."
(10)
As the earth in its whirling, or individuation, throws off its Karma, so it is with man.
It is through Karma that initiation occurs.
Karma is two-faced, good and evil. But only the good face reflects on us the divine light.
Diana is the moon; so also is Hecate.
The "moon" is good or evil, according to the condition of the postulant.
. . . . . . . . . .
| Book
The First |
Sect.
2 No 11-20 |
Book The |
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