*x AP U-TIIMEROF HEO'SOPin el TO THE READER: To extend the knowledge of THE- OSOPHY this little book is pub- lished by the American Section of the Theosophical Society at a net cost of ij cents a copy, postage paid within ^ PRINCETON, N. J. ^ Presented \^y\J^<^\e.r- ^S a\^ CJAqo K . 0\ Y-\ ^ )~ ^ BP 565 .T53 1909 Theosophical Society (Madras, India). American A primer of theosophy ^ostofficc money order and ".i'C zinll mail ihc book at once. H. P. JJl.AVATSKY Founder of the TlieosopJiical Society CONTENTS Page Theosophy— A\^at It Is 5 Theosophy and Religion 8 Theosophy and An Ethical Code 10 Man and His Bodies 1- Astral Inhabitants '-1 Non-Human Inhabitants 25 Astral Phenomena 27 The Heaven World 36 Thought Forms 38 The Buddhic Plane 41 Re-incarnation 43 Karma 43 Clairvoyance 48 Psychometry 49 Telepathy 49 Psychical Research 49 The Structure of Matter 54 Theosophy and Spiritualism 58 Theosophy and Masonry 61 The Theosophic Life 62 The Care of the Body 62 The Search for the Master 67 Activities During Sleep 69 Meditation 71 Renunciation 77 The Masters of Wisdom 80 The Hierarchy 82 What Theosophy Does for Us 85 The History of the Society 110 The Objects of the Society 112 H. P. Blavatsky 114 H. S. Olcott 116 Mrs. Annie Besant 117 Mr. C. W. Leadbeater 118 Mr. C. Jinarajadasa 119 Courses of Reading 120 Names of Lodges 123 Study Classes 127 Joining the Society 127 Forming a Lodge 127 Lodge Membership 128 Membership at Large 128 ^ CLEAN life, an open mind, a pure heart, an eager intellect^ an unveiled spiritual perception, a brotJierliness for all, a readiness to give and receive advice and instruc- tion, a courageous endurance of personal injustice, a brave declaration of principles, a valiant defence of those zi'ho are unjustly attacked, and a constant eye to the ideal of human progression and perfection which the Sacred Science depicts — these are the golden stairs up the steps of which the learner may climb to the Temple of Divine Wisdom, H, P. Blavatsky. A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY Theosophy is a word that comes from the Greek words meaning Divine Wisdom. The divine wisdom is that which teaches man the way to reach God by grow- ing into his image and likeness, "developing the deific powers within him." But it is also the wisdom or knowledge which includes all other knowledge, which means all the sciences, forms of philosophy and ethics, as would necessarily be the case if, as we affirm, it came from the Logos or God of our solar system through His agents. Theosophy, then, may be considered as science, religion, philosophy and ethics as seen from God's point of view. This w^ould also further mean they were to be considered not solely from the point of view of their present status, but also from that of their origin and their destiny. We shall present the subject in very brief outline under these four headings, referring read- ers at frequent intervals to the works which deal in authoritative detail with the subjects touched upon. Theosophy as Science at once gives the origin of science, its rationale, its future and the synthesis of its parts. It considers all material and spiritual things within the solar system as made up of two elements, the form and the life which dwells within it. These A PRUIER OF TUEO^OPUY elements are present as the result of the outpouring of the will of the God or Logos of our solar system in the process of creation. The outpourings of the Logos are three: first, the building up of matter to make the planes or worlds; second, producing within them life as in mineral, veg- etable and animal forms; the third outpouring or dis- charge of energy is an outpouring of love creating egos that are to evolve. Natural Science is the orderly presentation of the facts pertaining to manifested or visible, tangible nature. Theosophy begins its study with the apprehension of the life, its destiny and purpose as determined by the Creator and His Agents. The first fact or series of facts which must be borne in mind while studying Theosophy is this, that the Nature which we see, smell, touch, taste and hear about us is but a minor part of Nature as it really exists. For the greater part of Nature is entirely hidden from our ordinary observation, which takes cognizance of what may reasonably be called only the negative or reflected side of things. To gain a knowledge of the hidden side is to get first a conviction that there is such a side, then the knowledge that there is a known way in existence by which this hidden side may be contacted, and, in the third place, to come into contact with Those Who can teach the methods by which this knowledge may be put into practical application. The world is many millions of years old and in much earlier days there came to our earth Great Beings from the Planet Venus, who gave men the rudiments of mind and taught them how to think. From them was de- rived the Ancient Wisdom or knowledge. They knew definitely because they had investigated and experi- mented at first hand. Theosophy postulates distinctly the notion that there is everywhere in the world, simultaneously in existence, not only such gross matter as we know from our daily 6 THEO SOPHY AS SCIEXCE observation, but also ethers or very finely attenuated matter partaking of the nature of gases but infinitely finer, subtler. They exist in great tenuity, some for one and others for other purposes, but of different degrees of fineness. These ethers are used, some to transmit light and other forces, and others to form coverings or bodies for the ego or I. There are seven great realms or planes of Nature, three of which, the most exal.ed, are almost unknown to man. We know that these three exist. But we have not been told much about them. The four lower planes are those with which we are chiefly concerned. They are the physical (with which we are most ac- quainted), the astral, the mental and the buddhic. The beginner in the study of Theosophy must take pains to get an accurate knowledge of the meaning of the word plane in the theosophic sense. A plane is a realm of Nature of which the matter is of a certain quality or grossness. The physical plane embraces all solids, liquids, gases and some of the lower grades of ethers. These we call the sub-planes of the physical. The astral plane has only the finer and astral ethers in it and SO its inhabitants and forms are not visible to the senses as ordinarily developed. The same is true of the mental and buddhic and other higher planes. , Although the senses which men ordinarily possess in normal development are adequate for the work of the lowest or physical plane, they are not so for the re- quirements of the higher levels of consciousness. They do not suffice for the investigations of even the lowest plane itself. For the undeveloped man may not know more of the upper sub-planes of the physical plane than he can learn by reasoning from the observations which he makes upon the things of the lowest sub-planes. But there are ways by which the objects of the higher planes and their inter-relations may be cognized or manipulated, and it is one of the purposes of Theoso- phists to know and to teach to those who are pre- A PRIMER OF THE080PHY pared for such knowledge and its use, the beginnings of the way by which such faculties are developed. It is a fact that the power to develop the faculty of contacting the things of these hidden planes lies latent in man. When he has acquired the power to do this he is free at any moment to feel, to know, to think of the things of the higher departments of being, and to do things for humanity and its development of which unevolved men could not dream. He may, indeed, take part in the development of the souls of men individually and col- lectively and he may guide the civilizations and races of men in their evolution, enabling them to attain far higher ground than would otherwise be the case. As we shall see, this ideal is not attainable without great' sacrifice and labor and but few can enter upon the the way that leads to this goal until all humanity has progressed to the place at which more opportunities may be afforded for such progress and the conditions become somewhat easier than they now are. Meantime our people are learning more and more of the ancient wisdom, and, rejoicing in its charm, its completeness, its~ symmetry, the perfection of all its parts as explanatory of God's plan. They are happier, wiser and better than they were before, and in future lives, they, too, will become practised occultists, having found those Teachers *W^ho are to carry them on to a closer knowledge of God. (W. V-H.) Theosophy and Religion. One of the most striking concepts Theosophy offers is that underlying the many religions is one natural truth stated in as many different ways. As the ray of sunlight is broken up by the prism into the seven prismatic colours, so, too, the one body of natural truth concerning the relation of man to the cosmos appears in different forms through the different religions. The Theosophist notes in the study of any one religion three elements: one is due to primitive and faulty conception of natural phenomena; a second is an element of fundamental truth which was implanted in 8 THEOSOPHY AND RELIGIONS it by a great religious teacher; and a third is a theology raised on both long after the days of the Founder of the Religion. Noting these three elements in a religion, the Theosophist continually searches for the second group of ideas, and when he finds these he finds that they are not so radically different from the same element to be found in other religions. The great religions of the world were given to the various races by the Adept guardians of humanity, either themselves personally appearing as the founder of a religion, as did Krishna, Buddha, and Christ, or by in- spiring some lesser person to state just so much of the truth as was sufficient to lead the people to whom it was given a few steps further in their advancement. No one religion has a monopoly of the whole truth, but all the great religions are needed to help souls in their progress through reincarnations on earth. James Rus- sell Lowell expresses the Theosophist's attitude to the religions, in these beautiful words: "God sends his teachers unto every age, To every clime, and every race of men, With revelations fitted to their growth And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of truth Into the selfish rule of one sole race." The Christian who studies Theosophy does not cease to be a Christian because he sees a larger truth, but he takes up the study of his own religion from the new standpoint, and sees in it a deeper, more abiding, and more reasonable truth than he ever heard proclaimed from the pulpits. The Theosophical Society numbers among its members Hindus, Buddhists, Mohammedans, Zoroastrians, and Christians, and it is the testimony of these members that after the study of Theosophy each takes up the study of his own religion with greater en- thusiasm than ever before, finding in it new and un- dreamt of inspiration, and a greater devotion to the founder of his religion. (C- J.) Theosophy as a Philosophy explains the origin, the 9 A PRIMER OF THE080PHY meaning and destiny of the objects, facts and beings of all planes and shows thoughts themselves as concrete objects, the product of action by the Thinker, the Ego 1 or I, and tells how the "I" is related to the Universal ! Creator, a part of Him, and living in Him. All philoso- ' phies are therefore embraced in Theosophy. We do not maintain that all scientific and philosophic knowledge is contained in our written books, but we show that a place is there for it all, and that there is no lack in the scheme for the setting of not only every scientific fact, but for all departments of philosophy and all that has been thought out about it by men. Just as Theosophy shows the common groundwork of al; religions, so, too, it shows us how the various phil- osophical systems of the East and West are partial ex- pressions of the one great truth. The Vedanta, the Sankhya, and others of India, the different philosophical schools of Greece, the modern German philosophers, Kant, Fichte, Hegel and Schopenhauer, are all dealing with the same fundamental facts of the relation that the human consciousness as a unit has to the totality of consciousness of Divinity. The student of Theosophy, in studying these various philosophies notes their dif- ferences, but with the aid of Theosophy he sees that all that is fundamental in a particular philosophical school is like one facet in a diamond with many facets, all refracting a definite group of vibrations which we call the white ray of sunlight. As there is a unity un- derlying the different religions, so is there a unity underlying the many philosophies, and Theosophy shows what that unity is. (W. V-H.) Theosophy teaches an ethical code which shows men how, in a few lives, they may hasten their evolution until they can reach a direct knowledge of God, which is the true goal of all existence, knowledge, philosophy and ethics. In essence the goal is reached by recogniz- ing the unsatisfying character of the oojects of personal desire, laying these aside and living only for the highest, 10 THEOSOPHY AXD ETHICS that Self which is in union with God, by laboring ceaselessly for the spiritual uplifting of men, who are regarded as being but apparently separated from one another in bodies though really their egos are united in God. When a man studies and accepts the truths of Theosophy he is a theosophist. He may become then an aspirant for a more intimate association with a Master, then successively a probationary pupil, an ac- cepted pupil or chela, and, finally an initiate of the Great White Lodge, when he is said to be upon the Path of Holiness. It is then that, though living in the world, he is at heart a man of God and day by day seeks unceasingly to know Him. He begins his training as an occultist and at last a practical knowledge of the occult is communicated to him by his Master. Through life after life he works, always under such a supervision by his Teacher as one could scarce dream of, until after centuries of such labor for humanity he himself reaches the end. Union with the consciousness of the Master is then complete and the pupil himself becomes an Adept knowing God and living and rejoicing in His service. The beginner ought not to be discouraged by the length of this pathway. It does not matter, from one point of view, how many years are consumed in making ,this journey and the way is provided, prepared in every way, the difficulties are all foreseen and the disciple is carefully led. The principle of re-incarnation is pe- culiarly applied in such cases, the pupil being almost always permitted to return to a new body immediately or within a very few years after leaving the old one. In this way he is able to maintain his activity and in- terest in many of the works in which he was engaged before leaving the body, and he is able to help and cheer at times many of his former friends. All the pathway is filled with interesting work which the Master turns to good account for the helping of men in those great armies in which their evolution is pro- 11 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHT ceeding. But there are difficulties in this service which are very great and those whose hearts are set upon the opinion of the world need not expect to find conditions quite to their liking on the Path. But such people need not fear that they will be prematurely placed upon it, since the Masters do not choose men to enter this service until they have entirely or almost entirely exhausted such feelings as are concerned with dependence upon the world's opinion. The great majority of theosophists occupy themselves outwardly with the affairs of the world, whatever they may be. Inwardly they are thinking of their higher duty or feeling the subtle influences that come from the higher spiritual realms. (W. V-H.) Theosophy and Art. The fundamental principles of art appear clearly from a study of Theosophy. Art in all its many phases of music, architecture, sculpture, painting, the drama, is seen as so many ways of stating fragments of the one truth, the true relation man bears to Divinity. As science through her investigation of Nature's laws helps a man to see his relation to the^ whole by means of a trained and impersonal intellect, so art, when properly presented, appeals to a still higher principle of consciousness in man, a divine Intuition. To the Theosophist, the love of the beautiful becomes one pathway to the higher life, and the light that is thrown by Theosophy upon every phase of artistic pro- duction synthesizes its different expressions and shows that, as through religion, we come to know God as Eternally Holy, as through science we see Him as Divine Law and Order, so through art He is seen as the Infinitely Beautiful. (C. J.) MAN AND HIS BODIES. The Astral Plane. No one can get a clear conception of the teachings of the Wisdom-Religion until he has at least an intellectual grasp of the fact that in our solar system there exist perfectly definite planes, each 12 THE PLANES OF NATURE with its own matter of different degrees of density, and that some of these planes can be visited and observed by persons who have qualified themselves for the work, exactly as a foreign country might be visited and ob- served. The names usually given to these planes, taking them in order of materiality, rising from the denser to the finer, are the physical, the astral, the mental or deva- chanie, the buddhic, and the nirvanic. Higher than this last are two others, but they are so far above our present power of conception that for the moment they may be left out of consideration. ) It should be under- stood that the matter of eacK^ of' these planes differs from that of the one below it in the same way as, though to a much greater degree than, vapour differs from solid matter; in fact, the states of matter which we call solid, liquid, and gaseous are merely the three lowest subdi- visions of the matter belonging to this one physical plane. The astral region is the second of these great planes of nature— the next above (or within) that physical world with which we are all familiar. It has often been called the realm of illusion— not that it is itself any more illusory than the physical world, but because of the extreme unreliability of the impressions brought back from it by the untrained seer. This is to be accounted for mainly by two remarkable characteristics of the astral world — first, that many of its inhabitants have a marvelous power of changing their forms with Protean rapidity, and also of casting practically unlimited glamour over those with whom they choose to sport; and secondly, that sight on that plane is a faculty very different from and much more extended than physical vision. An object is seen, as it were, from all sides at once, the inside of a solid being as plainly open to the view as the outside: it is therefore obvious that an in- experienced visitor to this new world may well find •onsiderable difficulty in understanding what he really 13 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY does see, and still more in translating his vision into the very inadequate language of ordinary speech. In the case of a student of occultism trained by a capable Master such a mistake would be impossible except through great hurry or carelessness, since such a pupil has to go through a long and varied course of instruction in this art of seeing correctly, the Master, or perhaps some more advanced pupil, bringing before him again and again all possible forms of illusion, and asking him "What do you see?" Any errors in his answers are then corrected and their reasons explained, until by degrees the neophyte acquires a certainty and confidence in dealing with the phenomena of the astral plane which far exceeds anything possible in physical life. But he has to learn not only to see correctly but to translate the memory of what he has seen accurately from one plane to the other; and to assist him in this he is trained to carry his consciousness without break from the physical plane to the astral or devachanic and back again, for until that can be done there is always a possibility that his recollections may be partially lose or distorted during the blank interval which separates his periods of consciousness on the various planes. When the power of bringing over the consciousness is perfectly acquired the pupil will have the advantage of the use of all the astral faculties, not only while out of his body during sleep or trance, but also while fully awake in ordinary physical life. The astral plane lies next to our world of denser mat- ter; it is usually in connection with it that our earliest super-physical experiences take place. A knowledge of this plane can only be obtained by clairvoyant vision, a new sixth sense, a method of seeing without the use of the physical eye. Those who can see with tnis vision are able to observe the world of the astral plane, and all who see fully agree that to attempt to call up a vivid picture of this astral scenery before those whose 14 THE ASTRAL PLA^'E— SCENERY eyes are as yet unopened is like speaking to a blind man of the exquisite variety of tints in a sunset sky — how- ever detailed and elaborate the description may be, there is no certainty that . the idea presented before the hearer's mind will be an adequate representation of the truth. There are certain sources of error in clairvoyant vision which makes it possible for the possessor to see the things of the plane inaccurately. But in addition to these possible sources of error matters are fuither complicated by the fact that this higher sight cognizes forms of matter w^hich, while still purely physical, are nevertheless invisible under ordi- nary conditions. Such, for example, are the particles composing the atmosphere, all the various (emanations which are always being given out by everything that has life, and also four grades of a still finer order of physical matter which, for want of more distinctive names, must all be described as etheric. The latter form a kind of system by themselves, freely interpen- etrating all other physical matter. Even when our imagination has fully grasped all that is comprehended in what has already been said, we do not yet understand half the complexity of the problem; for besides all these new forms of physical matter we have to deal with the still more numerous and perplex- ing subdivisions of astral matter. We must note first that every material object, every particle even, has its astral counterpart, and this counterpart is itself not a simple body, but is usually extremely complex, being composed of various kinds of astra mat'^er. In addi- tion to this each living creature is &. irrounded with an atmosphere of its own, usually called its aura, and in the case of human beings this aura forms of itself a very fascinating branch of study. It is seen as an oval mass of luminous mist of highly complex structure, and from its shape has sometimes been called the auric egg. In regarding his fellow-man he no longer sees only his 15 A PRIMER OF THE080PHY \ outer appearance; almost exactly co-extensive with tl physical body he clearly distinguishes the ethe double; while the universal life-fluid as it is absorl and specialized, as it circulates in rosy light throughc the body, as it eventually radiates from the healt person in its altered form, is also perfectly obvious. Most brilliant and most easily seen of all, perha though belonging to a more refined order of mattei the astral — is that aura which expresses by its vi and ever -changing flashes of colour the diff'erent desi which sweep across the man's mind from moment moment. This is the true astral body. Behind that, and consisting of a finer grade of mat" again — that of the form-levels of the devachanic planf lies the mental body or aura of the lower mind, wh( colours, changing only by slow degrees as the man \i\ his life, show the trend of his thoughts and the dispo tion and character of his personality; while still higl and infinitely more beautiful, where at all cleai developed, is the living light of the casual body, t vehicle of the higher self, which shows the stage development of the real ego in its passage from bii to birth. But to see these the pupil must, of cour have developed the vision of the levels to which th belong. It will save the student much trouble if he learns once to regard these auras not as mere emanations, b as the actual manifestation of the ego on their resp< tive planes — if he understands that it is the auric e which is the real man, not the physical body which this plane crystallizes in the middle of it. So long i the reincarnating ego remains upon the plane which his true home in the formless levels, the vehicle whi he inhabits is the causal body, but when he descen into the form-levels he must, in order to be able function upon them, clothe himself in their matte and the matter that he thus attracts to himself fi nishes hia devachanic or mind-body. 16 I THE AURA Similarly, descending into the astral plane he forms his astral or desire-body out of its matter, though of course still retaining all the other bodies, and on his still further descent to this lowest plane of all the physical body is formed in the midst of the auric egg, which thus contains the entire man. Though the astral aura from the brilliancy of its flashes of colour may often be more conspicuous, the nerve-ether and the etheric double are really of a much denser order of matter, being within the limits of the physical plane, though invisible to ordinary sight. If we examine with psychic faculty the body of a newly- born child, we shall find it permeated not only by astral matter of every degree of density, but also by the several grades of etheric matter; and if we take the trouble to trace these inner bodies backwards to their origin, we find that it is of the latter that the etheric double — the mould upon which the physical body is built up — is formed by the agents of the Lords of karma; while the astral matter has been gathered to- gether by the descending ego, not of course consciously, but automatically, as he passess through the astral plane. (See Manual No. IV., p. 44.) Into the composition of the etheric double must enter something of all the different grades of etheric matter; but the proportions may vary greatly, and are deter- mined by several factors, such as the race, sub-race, and type of a man, as well as by his individual karma. When it is remembered that these four subdivisions of matter are made up of numerous combinations, which, in their turn, form aggregations that enter into the composition of the "atom" of the so-called ''element" of the chemist, it will be seen that this double of man is highly complex, and the number of its possible varia- tion practically infinite, so that, however complicated and unusual a man's karma may be, those in whose province such work falls are able to give a mould in accordance with which a body exactly suiting it can be formed. 17 A PRIMER OF THEOSOrHY It will by this time be obvious that though, as above stated, the ordinary objects of the physical world form the background to life on certain levels of the astral plane, yet so much more is seen of their real appear- ance and characteristics that the general effect differs widely from that with which we are familiar. For the sake of illustration take a rock as an example of the simpler class of objects. When regarded with trained sight it is no mere inert mass of stone. First of all, the whole of the physical matter of the rock is seen instead of a very small part of it: secondly, the vibra- tions of its physical particles are perceptible; thirdly, it is seen to possess an astral counterpart composed of various grades of astral matter, whose particles are also in constant motion; fourthly, the universal life is seen to be circulating through it and radiating from it; fifthly, an aura will be seen surrounding it, though this is, of course, much less extended and varied than in the case of the higher kingdoms; sixthly, its appro- priate elemental essence is seen permeating it, ever active but ever fluctuating. In the case of the vegetable-, animal, and human kingdoms, the complications are naturally much more numerous. The first, second and third subdivisions of the Astral Plane, though occupying the same space, yet give the impression of being much further removed from this physical world, and corre- spondingly less material. Entities inhabiting these levels lose sight of the earth and its belongings; they are usually deeply self-absorbed, and to a large extent create their own 'surroundings, though these are suffi- ciently objective to be perceptible to other entities and also to clairvoyant vision. This region is beyond doubt the "summerland" of which we hear so much at spirit- ualistic seances, and those who descend from and describe it no doubt speak the truth as far as their knowledge extends. It is on these planes that '"spirits" call into temporary existence their houses, schools, and 18 TEE AKASHIC RECORDS cities, for these objects are often real enough for the time, though to a clearer sight they may sometimes be pitiably unlike what their delighted creators suppose them to be. Nevertheless, many of the imaginations which take form there are of real though temporary beauty, and a visitor who knew of nothing higher might wander contentedly enough there among forests and mountains, lovely lakes and pleasant flower-gardens, which are at any rate much superior to anything in the physical world; or he might even construct such sur- roundings to suit his own fancies. The details of the differences between these three higher sub-planes will perhaps be more readily explicable when we come to deal with their human inhabitants. An account of the scenery of the astral plane would be incomplete without some mention of what have often, thought mistakenly, been called the Records of the Astral Light. These records (which are in truth a sort of materialization of the Divine memory — a living photographic representation of all that has ever hap- pened) are really and permanently impressed upon a very much higher level, and are only reflected in a more or less spasmodic manner on the astral plane, so that one whose power of vision does not "rise above this will be likely to obtain only occasional and dis- connected pictures of the past instead of a coherent narrative. But nevertheless these reflected pictures of all kinds of past events are constantly being repro- duced in the astral world, and form an important part of the surroundings of the investigator there. Visitors to the Astral Plane. The men who manifest themselves on the astral plane during physical life may be subdivided into four classes: — 1. The Adept and his Pupils. Those belonging to this class usually employ as a vehicle not the astral body at all, but the mind-body, which is composed of the matter of the four lower or rupa levels of the plane next above. The advantage of this vehicle is that it 19 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY permits of instant passage from the mental plane to the astral and back, and allows of the use at all times of the greater power and keener sense of its own plane. Whichever vehicle he is employing, the man who is introduced to the astral plane under the guidance of a competent teacher has always the fullest possible con- sciousness there, and is able to function perfectly easily upon all its subdivisions. 2. The Psychically-developed Person who is not under the guidance of a Master. Such a person may or may not be spiritually developed, for the two forms of ad- vancement do not necessarily go together. When a man is born with psychic powers it is simply the result of efforts made during a previous incarnation, which may have been of the noblest and most unselfish character, or on the other hand may have been ignorant and ill- directed or even entirely unworthy. Such an one will usually be perfectly conscious when out of the body, but for want of proper training is liable to be greatly deceived as to what he sees. He will often be able to range through the different subdivisions of the astral plane almost as fully as persons belonging to the last class; but sometimes he is especially at- tracted to some one division and rarely travels beyond its influences. His recollection of what he has seen may vary according to the degree of his development through all the stages from perfect clearness to utter distortion or blank oblivion. He will appear always in this astral body, since he does not know how to func- ] tion in the mental vehicle. - 3. The Ordinary Person — that is, the person without ! any psychic development — who floats about in his astral body during sleep in a more or less unconscious condi- tion. In deep slumber the higher principles in their astral vehicle almost invariably withdraw from the { body, and hover in its immediate neighbourhood, though in quite undeveloped persons they are practically almost as much asleep as the body is. i 20 t THE DENIZENS OF THE ASTRAL PLANE All cultured people, belonging to the higher races of the world, have at the present time their astral senses very fairly developed, so that, if they were sufficiently aroused to examine the realities which surround them during sleep, they would be able to observe them -and learn much from them. But, in the vast majority of cases, they are not so aroused, and they spend most of their nights in a kind of brown study, pondering deeply over whatever thought may have been upper- most in their minds when they fell asleep. They have the astral faculties, but they scarcely use them; they are certainly awake on the astral plane, and yet they are not in the least awake to the plane, and are conse- quently conscious of their surroundings only very, vaguely, if at all. When such a man becomes a pupil of one of the Mas- ters of Wisdom, he is usually at once shaken out of this somnolent condition, fully awakened to the realities around him on that plane, and set to learn from them and to work among them, so that his hours of sleep are no longer a blank, but are filled with active and useful occupation without in the least interfering with the healthy repose of the tired physical body. (See The Disciple's Activities During Sleep.) 4. The Black Magician or his pupil. This class cor- responds somewhat to the first except that the develop- ment has been for evil instead of good, and the powers acquired are used for purely selfish purposes instead of for the benefit of humanity. Astral Inhabitants. The human inhabitants of the astral plane who are "dead" may be subdivided into several classes. To begin with, of course, this very word "dead" is an absurd misnomer, as most of the entities classified under this heading are as fully alive as we are ourselves — often distinctly more so; so the term must be understood simply as meaning those who are for the time unattached to a physical body. 1. The Nirmanakaya. This class is just mentioned 21 A PRIMER OF TnEOSOPEY in order to make the catalogue complete, but it is of course very rarely indeed that so exalted a being man- ifests himself upon so low a plane as this. When for any reason connected with his sublime work he found it desirable to do so, he would probably create a tem- porary astral body for the purpose from the atomic matter of the plane, just as the Adept in the mind-body would do, simply because his more refined vesture would be invisible to astral sight. 2. The Pupil awaiting reincarnation. When a pupil who has decided to do this dies, he simply steps out of his body, as he has often done before, and waits upon the astral plane until a suitable reincarnation can be arranged for him by his Master. 3. The Ordinary Person after death. Needless to say, this class is millions of times larger than those of which we have spoken, and the character and condi- tion of its members vary within extremely wide limits. Within similarly wide limits may vary also the length of their lives upon the astral plane, for while there are those who pass only a few days or hours there, others remain upon this level for many years and even cen- turies. A man who has led a good and pure life, whose strong- est feelings and aspiration have been unselfish and spiritual, will have no attraction to this plane, and will, if entirely left alone, find little to keep him upon it, or to awaken him into activity ever/ during the compara- tively short period of his stay. For it must be under- stood that after death the true man is withdrawing into himself, and just as at the first step of that process he casts off the physical body, and almost directly after- wards the etheric double, so it is intended that he should as soon as possible cast off also the astral or desire body, and pass into the heaven-world, where alone his spiritual aspirations can bear their perfect fruit. Every one after death has to pass through all the subdivisions of the astral plane on his way to the 22 THE SUB-PLANES OF THE ASTRAL WORLD heaven-world, though it must not be inferred that he will be conscious upon all of them. The only persons who would normally awake to con- sciousness on the lowest level of the astral plane are those whose desires are gross and brutal — drunkards, sensualists, and such like. There they woula remain for a period proportioned to the strength of their desires. The ordinarily decent man would probably have little to detain him on that seventh sub-plane; but if his chief desires and thoughts had centered in mere worldly affairs, he would be likely to find himself in the sixth subdivision, still hovering about the places and persons with which he was most closely connected while on earth. The fifth and the fourth sub-planes are of sim- ilar character, except that as we rise through them mere earthly associations appear to become of less and less importance, and the departed tends more and more to mould his surroundings into agreement with the more persistent of his thoughts. By the time we get to the third sub-division we find that this characteristic has entirely superseded the vision of the realities of the plane; for here the people are living in imaginary cities of their own — not, of course, each evolved entirely by his own thought, as in the heaven-world, but inheriting and adding to the structures erected by the thoughts of their predecessors. Here it is that the churches and schools and "dwellings in the summerland," so often described at spiritualistic seances, are to be found; though they would often seem much less real and much less magnificent to an unpreju- diced living observer than they are to their delighted creators. The second sub-plane seems especially the habitat of the selfish or unspiritual religionist; here he wears his golden crown and worships his own grossly material representation of the particular deity of his country and time. The highest subdivision appears to be specially appropriated to those who during life have devoted 23 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY themselves to materialistic but intellectual pursuits, following them not for the sake of benefiting their fellow-men thereby, but either from motives of selfish ambition or simply for the sake of intellectual exercise. Such persons will often remain upon this level for many years — happy enough indeed in W'orking out their intel- lectual problems, but doing no good to any one, and making but little progress on their way towards the heaven-world. In the case of a thoroughly spiritually-minded person, before death, attraction to life in the astral world will have been destroyed, and the result would be a prac- tically instantaneous passage through this plane, so that consciousness would be^ recovered for the first time in the heaven-world. 4. The Shade. When the astral life of the person is over, as before stated, he passes into the devachanic condition. But just as when he dies to this plane he leaves his physical body behind him, so when he dies tc the astral plane he leaves a disintegrating astral body behind him. It is not in any sense the real individual at all, for he has passed away into the heaven-world; but nevertheless, it not only bears his exact personal appearance, but possesses his memory and all his liltle idiosyncrasies, and may, thefore, very readily be mis- taken for him, as indeed it frequently is at seances. 5. The Shell. This is absolutely the mere astral corpse in the later stages of its disintegration, every particle of the mind having left it. It is entirely with- out any kind of consciousness or intelligence, and is drifted passively about upon the astral currents just as a cloud might be swept in any direction by a passing breeze; but even yet it may be galvanized for a few moments into a ghastly burlesque of life if it happens to come within reach of a medium's aura. 6. The Vitalized Shell. This entity ought not, strictly speaking, to be classified under the head "human" at all, since it is only its outer vesture, the . 24 NATURE SPIRITS, DEVA8 passive, senseless shell, that was once an appanage of humanity; such life, intelligence, desire, and will as it may possess are those of the artificial elemental animat- ing it, and that, though in terrible truth a creation of man's evil thought, is not itself human. Let it suffice here to mention that it is always a malevolent being — a true tempting demon, whose evil influence is limited only by the extent of its power. 7. The Suicide and the victim of sudden death. A man wiio is torn from physical life hurriedly while in full health and strength, whether by accident or suicide, finds himself upon the astral plane in full consciousness, and usually remains there for the length of time equal to that during which his karma would have required him to live in physical plane life had it not been for the accident or suicide. Non-Human Inhabitants. Among the many and varied non-human inhabitants of the astral plane are: — The Astral Bodies of Animals. This is an extremely large class, yet it does not occupy a particularly im- portant position on the astral plane, since its members usually stay there but a very short time. The animal has a real existence on the astral plane, the length of which, though never great, varies accord- ing to the intelligence which it has developed. In most cases it does not seem to be more than dreamily con- scious, but appears perfectly happy. Nature Spirits. In popular language they are known by many names — fairies, pixies, elves, brownies, peris, djinns, trolls, satyrs, fauns, kobolds, imps, goblins, good people, &c. The Adept knows how to make use of the services of the nature-spirits when he requires them, but the ordinary magician can obtain their assistance only by processes either of invocation or evocation— that is, either by attracting their attention as a sup- pliant and making some kind of bargain with them, or by endeavouring to set in motion influences which would 25 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY compel their obedience. Both methods are extremely un- desirable, and the latter is also excessively dangerous, as the operator would arouse a determined hostility which might prove fatal to him. Needless to say, no one studying occultism under a qualified Master would ever be permitted to attempt anything of the kind at all. The Devas. The highest system of evolution con- nected with this earth, so far as we know, is that of the beings whom Hindus call the devas, and who have elsewhere been spoken of as angels, sons of God, &c. They may, in fact, be regarded as a kingdom lying next above humanity, in the same way as humanity in turn lies next above the animal kingdom, but with this im- portant difference, that while for an animal there is no possibility of evolution (so far as we know) through any kingdom but the human, man, when he attains a certain high level, finds various paths of advancement opening before him, of which this great deva evolution is only one. The attention of Devas can be attracted by certain magical avocations, but the only human will wliich can dominate theirs is that of a certain high class of Adepts. As a rule they seem scarcely conscious of us on our physical plane, but it does now and then happen that one of them becomes aware of some human diflfi- culty which excites his pity, and he perhaps renders some assistance, just as any of us would try to help an animal that we saw in trouble. But it is well under- stood among them that any interference in human affairs at the present stage is likely to do far more harm than good. Elementals formed unconsciously. The elemental es- sence which surrounds us on every side is in all its numberless varieties singularly susceptible to the in- fluence of human thought. The action of the mere casual wandering thought upon it, causes it to burst into a cloud of rapidly-moving, evanescent forms; but 26 GHOSTS, APPARITIOXS when the human mind formulates a definite, purposeful thought or wish, the effect produced is of the most striking nature. The thought seizes upon the plastic essence, and moulds it instantly into a living being of appropriate form — a being which when once thus created is in no way under the control of its creator, but lives out a life of its own, the length of which is propor- tionate to the intensity of the thought or wish which called it into existence. Astral Phenomena. A study of the laws governing life in the astral world gives the clue to many a strange phenomenon. If a ghost is seen hovering about a grave it is probably the etheric shell of a newly-buried per- son, though it may be the astral body of a living man haunting in sleep the tomb of a friend; or again, it may be a materialized thought-form — that is, an artificial elemental created by the energy with which a man thinks of himself as present at that particular spot. These varieties would be easily distinguishable one from the other by any one accustomed to use astral vision, but an unpracticed person would be quite likely to call them all vaguely "ghosts." Apparitions at the time of death are by no means uncommon, and are very often really visits paid by the astral form of the dying man just before what we elect to call the moment of dissolution; though here again they are quite likely to be thought-forms called into being by his earnest wish to see some friend once more before he passes into an unfamiliar condition. There are some instances in which the visit is paid just after the moment of death instead of just before, and in such a case the visitor is really a ghost; but for various causes this form of apparition is far less fre- quent than the other. Apparitions at the spot where some crime was com- mitted are usually thought-forms projected by the crim- inal, who, whether living or dead, but most especially when dead, is perpetually thinking over again and again 27 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY the circumstances of his action. Since these thoughts are naturally specially vivid in his mind on the anni- versary of the original crime, it is often only on that occasion that the artificial elementals which he creates are strong enough to materialize themselves to ordinary sight — a fact which accounts for the periodicity of some manifestations of this class. Another point in reference to such phenomena is, that wherever any tremendous mental disturbance has taken place, wherever overwhelming terror, pain, sorrow, hatred, or indeed any kind of intense passion has been felt, an impression of so very marked a character has been made upon the astral light that a person with even the faintest glimmer of psychic faculty cannot but be deeply impressed by it. The family ghost, whom we generally find in the stock stories of the supernatural as an appanage of the feudal castle, may be either a thought-form or an un- usually vivid impression in the astral light, or again he may really be an earth-bound ancestor still haunting the scenes in which his thoughts and hopes centered during life. Another class of hauntings which take the form of bell-ringing, stone-throwing, or the breaking of crockery, has already been referred to, and is almost invariably the work of elemental forces, either set blindly in motion by the clumsy efforts of an ignorant person try- ing to attract the attention of his surviving friends, or intentionally employed by some childishly mischievous nature-spirit. The nature-spirits are also responsible for whatever of truth there may be in all the strange fairy stories which are so common in certain parts of the country. Sometimes a temporary accession of clairvoyance, which is by no means uncommon among the inhabitants of lonely mountainous regions, enables some belated way- farer to watch their joyous gambols; sometimes strange tricks are played upon some terrified victim, and a 28 HAUNTING8, SPIRITUALISTIC SEA-^CES glamour is cast over liim, making him, for example, see houses and people where he knows none really exist. And this is frequently no mere momentary delusion, for a man will sometimes go through quite a long series of imaginary but most striking adventures, and then sud- denly find that all his brilliant surroundings have van- ished in a moment, leaving him standing in some lonely valley or on some wind-swept plain. On the other hand, it is 'by no means safe to accept as founded on fact all the popular legends on the subject, for the grossest superstition is often mingled with the theories of the peasantry about these beings. To the same entities must be attributed a large por- tion of what are called physical phenomena at spirit- ualistic seances— indeed, many a seance has been given entirely by these mischievous creatures. Such a perform- ance might easily include many very striking items, such as the answering of questions and delivery of pretended messages by raps or tilts, the exhibition of "spirit lights," the apport of objects from a distance, the read- ing of thoughts which were in the mind of any person present, the precipitation of writings or drawings, and €ven materializations. In fact, the nature-spirits alone, if any of them hap- pened to be disposed to take the trouble, could give a seance equal to the most wonderful of which we read; for though there may be certain phenomena which they would not find it easy to reproduce, their marvelous power of glamour would enable them without difficulty to persuade the entire circle that these phenomena also had duly occurred— unless, indeed, there were present a trained observer who understood their arts and knew how to defeat them. As a general rule, whenever silly tricks or practical jokes are played at a seance, we may infer the presence either of low-class nature-spirits, or of human beings who were of a sufficiently degraded type to find pleasure in such idiotic performances dur- ing life. A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY To understand the methods by which a large class of phenomena are produced, it is necessary to have some comprehension of the various resources which a person functioning on the astral plane finds at his command; the mere possession of astral vision by a being would at once account for his capability to produce many re- sults that seem very wonderful to us — such, for ex- ample, as the reading of a passage from a closed book; and when we remember, furthermore, that this faculty includes the power of thought-reading to the fullest extent, and also, when combined with the knowledge of the projection of currents in the astral light, that of observing a desired object in almost any part of the world, we see that a good many of the phenomena of clairvoyance are explicable even without rising above this level. True, trained, and absolutely reliable clairvoyance calls into operation an entirely different set of facul- ties, but as these belong to a higher plane than the astral, they form no part of our present subject. The faculty of accurate prevision, again, appertains alto-~ gether to that higher plane, yet flashes or reflections of it frequently show themselves .to purely astral sight, more especially among simple-minded people who live under suitable conditions — what is called "second-sight" among the Highlanders of Scotland being a well-known example. It will be readily understood that superphysical forces and the methods of managing them are not sub- jects about which much can be written for publication at present, though there is reason to suppose that it may not be very long before at any rate some applications of one or two of them come to be known to the world at large. First, there are great etheric currents constantly sweeping over the surface of the earth from pole to pole In volume which makes their power as irresistible as that of the rising tide, and there are methods by 30 FORCES OF THE ASTRAL PLAXE which this stupendous force may be safely utilized, though unskilful attempts to control it would be fraught with frightful danger. Secondly, there is what can best be described as an etheric pressure, somewhat corresponding to, though immensely greater than, the atmospheric pressure. In ordinary life we are as little conscious of one of these pressures as we are of the other, but nevertheless they both exist, and if science were able to exhaust the ether form a given space, as it can exhaust the air, the one could be proved as readily as the other. The difficulty of doing that lies in the fact that matter in the etheric condition freely interpenetrates matter in all states below it, so that there is as yet no means within the knowledge of our physicists by which any given body of ether can be isolated from the rest. Practical Occult- ism, however, teaches how this can be done, and thus the tremendous force of etheric pressure can be brought into play. Thirdly, there is a vast store of potential energy which has become dormant in matter during the involu- tion of the subtle into the gross, and by cnanging the condition of the matter some of this may be liberated and utilized, somewhat as latent energy in the form of heat may be liberated by a change in the condition of visible matter. Fourthly, many striking results, both great and small, may be produced by an extension of a principle which may be described as that of sympathetic vibration. Since it is possible by an alteration of vibrations to change matter from the solid to the etheric condition, it will be comprehended that it is also possible to reverse the process and to bring etheric matter into the solid state. As the one process explains the phenomenon of disintegration, so does the other that of materialization; and just as in the former case a continued effort of will is necessary to prevent the object from resuming its original state, so in exactly the same way in the latter 31 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY phenomenon a continued effort is necessary to prevent the materialized matter from relapsing into the etheric condition. In the materializations seen at an ordinary seance, such matter as may be required is borrowed as far as possible from the medium's etheric double — an operation which is prejudicial to his health, and also undesirable in various other ways. Thus is explained the fact that the materialized form is usually strictly confined to the immediate neighbourhood of the medium, and is subject to an attraction which is constantly drawing it back to the body from which it came, so that if kept away from the medium too long the figure collapses, and the matter which composed it, returning to the etneric condition, rushes back instantly to its source. In some cases there is no doubt that dense and visible physical matter also is temporarily removed from the body of the medium, however difficult it may be for us to realize the possibility of such a transfer. The reason why the beings directing a seance find it easier to operate in darkness or in very subdued light will now be manifest, since their power would usually be insufficient to hold together a materialized form or even a "spirit hand" for more than a very few seconds amidst the intense vibrations set up oy brilliant light. ^laterializations are of three kinds: — First, those which are tangible but not visiuie; second, those which are visible but not tangible; and third, those which are both visible and tangible. To the first kind, which is much the most common, belong the invisible spirit hands which so frequently stroke the faces of the sit- ters or carry small objects about the room, and the vocal organs from which the "direct voice" proceeds. In this case, an order of matter is being used which can neither reflect nor obstruct light, but which is capable under certain conditions of setting up vibrations in the atmosphere which affect us as sound. A variation of this class is that kind of partial 32 MATERIALIZATION, REDUPLICATION, materialization which, though incapable of reflecting any light that we can see, is yet able to affect some of the ultra-violet rays, and can therefore make a more or less definite impression upon the camera, and so pro- vide us with what are known as "spirit photographs." When there is not sufficient power available to pro- duce a perfect materialization we sometimes get the vaporous-looking form which constitutes our second class, and in such a case the "spirits" usually warn their sitters that the forms which appear must not be touched. In the rarer case of a full materialization there is sufficient power to hold together, at least for a few moments, a form which can be both seen and touched. Another phenomenon closely connected with this part of the subject is that of reduplication, which is pro- duced by simply forming a perfect mental image of the object to be copied, and then gathering about that mould the necessary astral and physical matter. Of course for this purpose it is necessary that every particle, interior as well as exterior, of the object to be duplicated should be held accurately in view simultaneously, and conse- quently the phenomenon is one which requires consid- erable power of concentration to perform. Persons un- able to extract the matter required directly from the surrounding ether have sometimes borrowed it from the material of the original article, which in this case would be correspondingly reduced in weight. The precipitation of letters or pictures, like everything else, may be obtained in several ways. An Adept wish- ing to communicate with some one might place a sheet of paper before him, form a mental image of the writ- ing which he wished to appear upon it, and draw from the ether the matter wherewith to objectify that im- age; or if he preferred to do so it would be equally easy for him to produce the same result upon a sheet of paper lying before his correspondent, whatever might be the distance between them. 33 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY A third method which, since it saves time, is much more frequently adopted, is to impress the whole sub- stance of the letter on the mind of some pupil, and leave him to do the mechanical work of precipitation. That pupil would then take his sheet of paper, and, imagining he saw the letter written thereon in his Mas- ter's hand, would proceed to objectify the writing as before described. If he found it difficult to perform simultaneously the two operations of drawing his ma- terial from the surrounding ether and precipitating the writing on the paper, he might have either ordinary ink or a small quantity of coloured powder on the table beside him, which, being already dense matter, could be drawn upon more readily. As to speed, a pupil new to the work of precipitation would probably be able to image only a few words at a time, and would, therefore, get on hardly more rapidly than if he wrote his letter in the ordinary way, but a more experienced individual who could visualize a whole page or perhaps the entire letter at once would get through his work with greater facility. It is in this manner that quite long letters are sometimes produced in a few seconds at a seance. When a picture has to be precipitated the method is precisely the same, except that here it is absolutely necessary that the entire scene should be visualized at once, and if many colours are required there is the additional complication of manufacturing them, keeping them separate, and reproducing accurately the exact tints of the scene to be represented. Evidently there is scope here for the exercise of the artistic faculty, and it must not be supposed that every inhabitant of the astral plane could by this method produce an equally good picture; a man who had been a great artist in life, and had therefore learnt how to see and what to look for, would certainly be very much more successful than the ordinary person if he attempted precipitation when on the astral plane after death. 34 PRECIPITATION The slate-writing, for the production of which under test conditions some of the greatest mediums have been so famous, is sometimes produced by precipitation, though more frequently the fragment of pencil en- closed between the slates is guided by a spirit hand, of which only just the tiny points sufficient to grasp it are materialized. An occurrence which occasionally takes place at seances, and more frequently among Eastern Yogis, is what is called levitation — that is, the floating of a human body in the air. No doubt when this takes place in the case of a medium, he if often simply upborne by "spirit hands," but there is another and more scientific method of accomplishing this feat which is always used in the East, and occasionally here also. Occult science is acquainted with a means of neutralizing or even entirely reversing the attraction of gravity, and it is obvious that by the judicious use of this power all the phenomena of levitation may be easily produced. It was no doubt by a knowledge of this secret that some of the air-ships of ancient India and Atlantis were raised from the earth and made light enough to be readily moved as directed; and not improbably the same ac- quaintance with nature's finer forces greatly facilitated the labours of those who raised the enormous blocks jDf stone sometimes used in cyclopean architecture, or %i the building of the Pyramids and Stonehenge. It is by the aid of the etheric elemental essence also that the remarkable feat of handling fire unharmed is generally performed, though there are as usual other ways in which it can be done. The thinnest layer of etheric substance can be so manipulated as to be abso- lutely impervious to heat, and when the hand of a medium or sitter is covered with this he may pick up burning coal or red-hot iron with perfect safety.* •These facts about the astral world have been taken almost bodily from the classical little book by Mr. C. W. Leadbeater, "The AstTal Plane." 35 A PRIMER OF THEO SOPHY The Heaven World is the mental or thought-plane world next beyond the astral plane and one step nearer the true source of being or the world of heaven. In its higher part the ego has consciousness in the causal body. This is his true home, whence, "trailing clouds of glory," he successively puts on his garments of mind body, astral body, and physical body in incarnation. When the experiences apportioned by the Lords of Karma for the incarnation have been gained in the earthly life and the physical body is cast off, a similar process occurs in the astral body after a period of life in the astral world of a few hours, days, months, or years, according to the life lived on earth. Death, from the stand-point of the ego, is the ad- justment of the focus of consciousness from the things of the physical to those of the astral, and then to those of the heaven world. The states of consciousness and happiness in this period of the ego's evolution are sym- bolically described in the various stories of heaven to be found in all the great religions. All have a certain basis of fact which is as follows. '^xirough every particle of this heaven world matter and at every moment of time the beauty, intense happi- ness, and inspiration of the personality of the Logos is flashing. It is the Ideal World of Plato's imagination, to be in touch with which is to be happy beyond the dream of mortal mind. All egos live surrounded by this splendour and beauty, which can be sensed by the egos living in the heaven-life when unencumbered by the' lower bodies only in so far as they are developed and are consciously, with love and knowledge, identifying their motive, their aspiration and their thought with the will of the Logos. It is easiest for the ego to gain the experience needed in order to reach tuis level of evolu- tion by coming into touch with other egos in their limited expressions as personalities on earth. In so far as through links he forms with them he understands the true principle of his being, he learns a little of the possi- 36 HEAVEN AXD ITS LIFE bilities of life in his home of heaven by self-sacrifice and altruism in this kindergarten of life of the physical world. Each altruistic quality he developes within him- self is like a window through which he can look in the heaven world into the fulness of life of the Logos. All men, irrespective of race, creed, sex, caste or colour, are opening windows within themselves in a thousand and one ways in so far as they forget them- selves in thinking and planning service for others. This other may be God and He may be loved as Allah, Vishnu or Shiva, or Christ; the other may be husband, wife, child or friend. It may be a great ideal work in the fields of philanthropy, literature, science or art. Each form of dedication to something not ourselves is a window we are opening to the life and inspiration of the Logos. While we live on earth, all our dreams of dedication, the ideal happiness we plan, cannot be realized owing to the inevitable conditions of physical life; but when the astral plane life is over, the ego has a life in the heaven world, and all these dreams of ideal happiness are felt by him intensified a thousand fold, and now with every possibility of realization. The Logos gives to each man his heaven. The Christian is happy in communion with Christ and the Virgin Mary or the saints; the Buddhist lives happy in the inspiration of the personality of the Buddha, and the Hindu lives with Krishna and Rama and the Gods of his pantheon; the philosopher is intensely happy in working out as he never could before the problems of existence; the husician makes music undreamt of by Beethoven; the scientist revels in the discovery of wonderful new natural truths; the simple-minded soul that was only capable of gentle aff'ection to wife and child lives with them, realizing and enacting all that he meant to do for them and failed. According to the capacity developed by the ego in the life on earth is the length of his life in this heaven of 37 A PRIMER X>F WHEO SOPHY the mental world. It may vary from a few dozen years in the case of a child personality that dies young, to twenty centuries and more when the life that is closed has been a long one of great sacrifice and aspiration. When this period comes to an end the ego is better equipped than ever to live the real life. Aspirations have been transmuted into capacities, experiences have been grouped into laws and concepts. But yet there is much work to do; the fulness of life that awaits him is infinitely greater still, and to qualify himself to know more of that life, to open new windows in himself, he descends once again into the lower realms; he rein- carnates, returning to reap what he has sown in past lives, to sow in goodness and virtue what he shall reap again. Thought-forms. When man thinks, the result of the action is expressed in a definite "thought" which is made up of atomic or will-plane matter which holds together the ether of the mental plane to the formation of a "thought form" more or less definite in character. Mrs.i Annie Besant and Mr. C. W, Leadbeater* say: "This thought-form may not inaptly be compared to a Leyden jar, the coating of living essence being symbol- ized by the jar, and the thought energy by the charge of electricity. If the man's thought or feeling is di- rectly connected with someone else, the resultant thought-form moves towards that person and dis- charges itself upon his astral and mental bodies. If the man's thought is about himself, or is based upon a personal feeling, as the vast majority of thoughts are, it hovers round its creator and is always ready to react upon him whenever he is for a moment in a passive condition. For example, a man who yields himself to thoughts of impurity may forget about them while he is engaged in the daily routine of business, even though the resultant forms are hanging round him in a •Thought-forms. 38 THOUGHTS— THEIR VALUE AND EFFECTS heavy cloud, because his attention is otherwise directed and liis astral body is therefore not impressable by any other rate of vibration than its own. When, however, the marked vibration slackens and the man rests after his labors and leaves his mind blank as regards definite thought he is very likely to feel the vibration of im- purity stealing insidiously upon him. If the conscious- ness of the man be to any extent awakened, he may perceive this and cry out that he is being tempted by the devil; yet the truth is that the temptation is from without only in appearance, since it is nothing but tne natural reaction upon him of his own thought forms. Each man travels through space enclosed within a cage of his own building, surrounded by a mass of the forms created by his habitual thoughts. Through this medium he looks out upon the world, and naturally he sees everything tinged with its predominant colors, and all rates of vibration which reach him from without are more or less modified by its rate. Thus until the man learns complete control of thought and feeling, he sees nothing as it really is, since all his observations must be made through this medium, which distorts and colors everything like badly-made glass. "Red of all shades, from lurid brick-red to brilliant scarlet, indicates anger; brutal anger will show as flashes of lurid red from dark brown clouds, while the anger of "noble indignation" is a vivid scarlet, by no means unbeautiful, though it gives an unpleasant thrill; a particularly dark and unpleasant red, almost exactly the color called dragon's blood, shows animal passion and sensual desire of various kinds. "Clear brown (almost burnt sienna) shows avarice; hard dull brown-grey is a sign of selfishness — a color which is indeed painfully common; deep heavy grey signifies depression, while a livid pale grey is associated with fear; grey-green is a signal of deceit, while brown- ish-green (usually flecked with points and flashes of scarlet) betokens jealousy. 39 A PRIMER OF THE080PHY "Green seems always to denote adaptability; in the lowest case, when mingled with selfishness, this adapta- bility becomes deceit; at a later stage, when the color becomes purer, it means rather the wish to be all things to all men, even though it may be chiefly for the sake of becoming popular, and bearing a good reputation with them; in its still higher, more delicate and more lum- inous aspect, it shows the divine power of sympathy. ''Affection expresses itself in all shades of crimson and rose; a full clear carmine means a strong healthy af- fection of normal type; if stained heavily with brown- grey, a selfish and grasping feeling is indicated, while pure pale rose marks that absolutely unselfish love which is possible only to high natures; it passes from the dull crimson of animal love to the most exquisite shades of delicate rose, like the early flushes of the dawning, as the love becomes purified from all selfish elements, and flows out in wider and wider circles of generous impersonal tenderness and compassion to all who are in need. With a touch of the blue of devotion in it, this may express a strong realisation of the uni- versal brotherhood of humanity. "Deep orange imports pride or ambition, and the vari- ous shades of yellow denote intellect or intellectual gratification, dull yellow ochre implying the direction of such faculty to selfish purposes, while clear gamboge shows a distinctly higher type, and pale luminous prim- rose yellow is a sign of the highest and most unselfish use of intellectual power, the pure reason directed to spiritual ends. "The different shades of blue all indicate religious feeling, and range through all hues from the dark brown-blue of selfish devotion, or the pallid grey-blue of fetish-worship tinged with fear, up to the rich deep clear color of heartfelt adoration, and the beautiful pale azure of that highest form which implies self- renunciation and union with the divine; the devotional thought of an unselfish heart is very lovely in color, 40 THE PLANE OF BLISS like the deep blue of a summer sky. Through such clouds of blue will often shine out golden stars of great brilliancy, darting upwards like a shower of sparks. A mixture of affection and devotion is manifested by a tint of violet, and the more delicate shades of this in- variably show the capacity of absorbing and responding to a high and beautiful ideal. The brilliancy and depth of the colors are usually a measure of the strength and the activity of the feeling." The Buddhic Plane. During the long ages of evolu- tion the ego lives in his causal body in the higher part of the mental plane. In this vehicle he translates all experiences of his personalities in terms of universal law. He still retains the consciousness of himself as separate from his fellow men. He knows, however, in theory, that all souls are rooted in God and that there is a unity binding them all together. It is, however, when the ego learns to focus his con- sciousness in the next higher world, the Buddhic plane, that his conception of life once again is modified. On this plane "all limitations begin to fall away, and the consciousness of man expands until he realizes, no longer in theory only, but by absolute experience, that the consciousness of his fellows is included within his own, and he feels and knows and experiences with an abso- lute perfection of sympathy all that is in them, because it is in reality a part of himself."* All those he loves no longer exist outside his consciousness, but they live within him, and so he understands every thought and feeling of theirs in a new way. He retains fully his own personal memories, and yet, at the same time, in ways not describable in words, his friend and the friend's experience are a part of his own. The ego, in trying to understand another from the buddhic plane, knows him from within, together with his past, present and future, and not from without, *Leadbeater, "The Devachanic Plane." 41 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY for he lives as a part of the ego's consciousness. Nirvana is the next world beyond the Buddhic plane, that realm of nature so often described in Indian re- ligious writings. In exoteric Buddhism, owing to its de- parture from the Wisdom Religion, Nirvana is often ex- pounded as a cessation of the individual consciousness, and therefore to be described as annihilation. The Theosophical conception is quite the reverse and is the conception of esoteric Buddhism. If the consciousness of the ego, working on the Bud- dhic plane, senses the falling away of barriers between soul and soul, and feels that the limitations of indi- vidual life disappear, existence in Nirvana is nearer the divine life still. No term can give more than a vague idea of what Nirvana is, but one thing is distinctly asserted by the occult tradition, that it is beneficent life and activity of a kind that our lower human con- sciousness cannot realize. It is true that the limitations of individual consciousness fall away, but not into an- nihilation or absorption, like a drop into the ocean. Far rather is it that the individual consciousness enters upon a new mode of existence where, without losing his individual characteristics, the ego makes his indi- viduality like a lens through which can oe focussed the life and consciousness of the Logos. It is a state of being beyond any experience that men outside the ranks of Initiates have, and, therefore, cannot be described in any term of our every-day experience except by negatives. It is "an inexhaustible positivity which bursts through every conceptual form and makes every determination an impossibility."* If the ocean of universal life were to be suddenly contained in the limited consciousness of the drop, we should have a simile that would be some- v;hat true of the state of consciousness of the Adept, who, though he lives and works with men on the phys- *Hoeflfding, "Philosophy of Religion." 42 BASIC DOCTRINES OF THEOSOPHY ical plane, yet has his center of being rooted in Nirvana and can say, as we cannot yet, "I and my Father are one." The adept then may be conscious of all things within the consciousness of the Logos of our world. (C. J.) By re-incarnation is meant a renewed manifestation of the ego upon the lower planes. When a man "dies" he gives up and leaves his physical body with its etheric double. After living for a few years without this vehicle, identifying himself with the ideas and feelings to be derived from contact with the things of the astral plane, he lays aside the astral body. When the mental body, too, has been discarded, after the period of heaven-life is over, the soul exists in his ful- ness as ego, and not in a limited way as a man or woman. The ego, the real man or thinker, is not able to manifest himself entirely upon the lower planes of con- sciousness. The men and women whom we see about us we see and know but partially. They are greater, grander, far more ideal than they seem to be, because the divine or more permanent part of them cannot be known by us. With each return to life in physical bodies new phases of the ego are presented for manifestation. The ego is required to live in bodies and under condi- tions of environment that offer at once aids, incentives and resistance to his action in this or that direction. Working against resistance and supplied with this or that equipment of personality the ego learns the needed lessons of a physical life-period, gains in force, wisdom or power of affection or devotion. The ego has volition, the power of choice and determination of courses of action within certain limits. But chiefly has he some degree of volition within the domain of desire and af:;piration. Karma is the return effect of actions on any or all the planes upon the ego and upon the world. Every volition, every aspiration, every thought, every desire 43 A PRIMER OF THE080PHY and every action has both its direct and its rebounding eflfects. All expenditures of energy that aid in evolu- tion are accredited to the beneficent side of the ledger, all actions detrimental to the development of man and nature are placed upon the opposite side. Of course the progress of general evolution carries all men onward and all, benefited by its action, are aided in evolving. Karmic law is always in action upon us. It is ad- ministered by the great devas called The Lords of Karma. We are affected by our own karma, by the karma of the World, of the nation in which we live and of our neighbors and friends. We may be happily or unhappily afTected at any moment by the action of recently originated karma or by the effects of aspira- tions, thoughts, desires and acts brought over from other lives. People often speak of the karma as good when it brings the objects of earthly desire and the conditions for happiness, while they think of bad karma as that which brings present distress and suffering. But it must be remembered that the purpose of life is the evolution of souls, that we are to learn and to grow. Hence the conditions in which we find ourselves are those in which we must learn certain lessons and develop strength in certain parts or phases of the soul. So no Karma can be regarded as in reality evil. Its purpose is benefi- cent. And when our lessons are learned we find the karma suddenly changing, either in outward character or in its meaning for us. Of course we are not to lie supine under karmic burdens, helpless to join in efforts for the good of others. We must grasp our situation firmly and endeavor to alter or modify it to suit our growing ideas of life and its purpose, remembering that our duty as a rule is plain and clear and thai; the smaller aspect of ourselves is not to be considered in casting up our accounts. It is the karma of a man added to the other influences which have determined his status in evolution that causes him to be placed in this or that family, to have 44 THE ACTION OF KARMA this or that kind of a body, to be a member of this nation or of that one. His afflictions, his joys, his sor- rows, are determined by his own life and previous in- carnations. In reality he has had but one life with its varying phases of manifestation on earth, in the astral world, in the world of heaven and in return to earth. His own tendencies of feeling, thought and action are more or less exactly carried over from life to life. The karma of the whole world depends upon the receptivity of the world and its willingness to obey. As human society progresses from one phase of its evolu- tion to another it has opportunities to lag or to progress rapidly. Its very advanced members — the Masters — constitute our link with the unembodied members of the hierarchy that rules the world. Their plans include the presentation to mankind as a body as well as in aggregations in nations and as individuals, opportuni- ties for rapid progress. All the agencies for the instruc- tion of men in all departments of being are in Their hands. As humanity can be brought to see the beauties of the higher life, it is taught to aspire to the living of that life and this aspiTation brings about its realiza- tion in the same or succeeding incarnations. Individ- uals, nations and races are trained as the cycles and the opportunities afforded in them by the Logos permit. Civilizations are built up on the basis of one or more great central ideas and purposes around which lesser ones are grouped. These civilizations are provided by the Brothers with their educational ideals, religions ap- propriate to their needs, with their supply of facts per- taining to such of the laws of nature as they need and to which their Karma entitles them. As time passes there will be given more and more favorable opportunities for men to recognize the Law, that is, to realize that God works through a definite plan with the aid of myriads of more or less self-con- scious agents. More and more they will come to see that the world of physical manifestation is not the only 45 A PRIMER OF THE080PHY one existent about them. They will recognize that the law of evolution is universally active and that active cooperation with that law and its administrators brings peace with the knowledge that one and all are being aided in their evolution and that the sufferings of the world are being lightened by their efforts. Karma is, then, the law of causation, the law of cause and effect. It was put pointedly by the Christian Initiate, St. Paul: "Be not deceived: God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." Man is continually using forces on the planes on which he functions; these forces, the quantity and quality of which are determined by his past activities, he uses in each world he inhabits; they bring about certain definite effects both on himself and on others for which he is karmically responsible. Let it never be forgotten, whether details are under- stood or not, that each man makes his own karma, creating alike his own capacities and his own limita- tions; and that working at any time with these self- created capacities, and within these self-created limita- tions, he is still himself, the living soul, and can strengthen or weaken his capacities, enlarge or contract his limitations. "Look! the clay dries into iron, but the potter moulds the clay; destiny today is master; man was master yes- terday." (W. V-H.) Re-Incarnation — A Parable. A boy went to school. He was very little. All that he knew he had drawn in with his mother's milk. His teacher (who was God) placed him in the lowest class, and gave him these les- sons to learn: Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt do no hurt to any living thing. Thou shalt not steal. So the man did not kill; but he was cruel, and he stole. At the end of the day (when his beard was gray, — when the night was come), his teacher (who was God) said: Thou hast learned not to kill. But the other lessons thou hast not learned. Come back tomorrow. 46 MAN'S LATENT POWERS On the morrow he came back, a little boy. And his teacher (who was God) put him in a class a little higher, and gave him these lessons to learn: Thou shalt do no hurt to any living thing. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not cheat. So the man did no hurt to any living thing; but he stole, and he cheated. And at the end of the day (when his beard was gray,— when the night was come), his teacher (who was God) said: Thou hast learned to be merciful. But the other lessons thou hast not learned. Come back tomorrow. Again, on the morrow, he came back, a little boy. And his teacher (who was God) put him in a class yet a little higher, and gave him these lessons to learn: Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not cheat. Thou shalt not covet. So the man did not steal; but he cheated and he coveted. And at the end of the day (when his beard was gray,— when the night was come), his teacher (who was God) said: Thou hast learned not to steal. But the other lessons thou hast not learned. Come back, my child, tomorrow. This is what I have read in the faces of men and women, in the book of the world, and in the scroll of the heavens, which is writ with stars. — Berry Benson, The Century, May, 1894. The Deific Powers Latent in Man. If man is to be- come, after myriad ages, a god, as we in common with religionists believe, he must be evolving into the image and likeness of his Maker, now partly or wholly con- cealing within him the germs of such powers as will make him divine. To investigate these powers rational- ly and to develop them for the service of men, of course under the control and direction of a Master, is one of the occultist's duties. To do this now is to anticipate the longer and in some respects easier course of Nature. We are encouraged to offer ourselves for this service in order that, if accepted, we may aid in hastening the evolution and lightening the burdens of the great mass of humanity who are to follow this longer road. 47 A PRIMER OF THE080PHY These powers are those known as the siddhis among v.'hich are clairvoyance, telepathy, levitation, the occult; transportation of bodies and the materialization by the occultist of a physical body at a distance. "Clairvoyance," says Mr. C. W. Leadbeater (Clair- voyance, p. 5), "means literally nothing more than clear seeing." For the purpose of occultism, "we may, perhaps, define it as the power to see what is hidden from ordinary physical sight." It may be limited to vision pertaining to the things of the etheric levels of the physical plane. But it may also include the things of the astral and lower mental levels. There is a corresponding power which puts its possessor in touch with the affairs of the upper mental and the budd- hic planes. The clairvoyance which is possessed by people who have not been specially trained is extremely untrust- worthy and uncertain. It can be applied only fitfully and its results are of no great value. The same faculty, trained and carefully developed under the tuition of a Master, for the purpose of apply- ing it to spiritual uses of the utmost importance to humanity, places its possessor in correspondence with the affairs of the higher worlds, enabling him to see and hear what is going on about him at the time in these realms and also to cognize the facts and conditions at points remote in both space and time. Hence not only is such a man a seer for the present but also for the past. Under certain restrictions he may also investigate some of the affairs of the future. But the Master does not undertake this development except for those who are desirous of using the new faculties in complete harmony with His purposes which pertain in the end solely to the affairs of the spiritual world. Accounts of these powers, their nature, the methods by which they may have developed and the ways in which they shall be used are to be found in a number of books by our writers. 48 CLAIRVOYANCE, TELEPATHY Psychometry is the power, closely related to that of clairvoyance, of reading the records of past happenings pertaining to those persons, things and events formerly associated with an object of the physical plane. For example, a skilled psychometer can place himself in correspondence with the past of a weapon, a garment, a stone, and tell what battles, what wearers, what buildings they were respectively concerned with in the past. Telepathy is closely allied to clairvoyance and depends on the transmission of thoughts in one way or another. One of the simplest ways in which telepathy is prac- ticed is by the projection of thought-forms from one person to another. The person sending the thought assumes a positive, the one receiving it taking a more passive role. The positive operator's thought-form, of etheric matter vibrating at a certain rate, comes to the negative recipient's presence and causes to rise in his mind a thought of like kind and quality. Psychical Research and The Sub-Conscious Mind. There are few things of greater interest to the intelli- gent inquirer than what is termed the Sub-conscious Mind or the Subliminal Self. The enormous mass of facts gathered in the by-paths of psychology and through psychical research can be grouped in an orderly manner with a knowledge of Theosophy. Psychical research is the application of ordinary scien- tific methods of investigation to the study of a large mass of facts that psychologists and biologists as yet believe to be incomprehensible and so not within the domain of present day science. It is true that in this fiield possibilities of error are great, to the inexperienced investigator; but one that is trained finds in it data looking to the establishment of exact scientific laws. Patient observation and experiment bring to light many startling facts, of which perhaps the most revolutionary (from the materialistic standpoint) is what Theosophy has for ages been teaching — that man is not the simple 49 A PRIMER OF TEE080PHY entity he appears, composed of a body, with only the mental and moral qualities in the one life. The facts of multiple personality show the soul of man to be com- parable to an iceberg, of which but one-eighth appears above the surface of the water, the rest being submerged. The part that appears may have a definite contour, yet it is not the whole but a part ; and if through a change of its centre of gravity the iceberg turns over and shows above the surface a different corner, this is none the less a part of the same berg. Behind each of us is the larger consciousness of the ego in the causal body. It is he that is the evolving soul — immortal, growing in wisdom and capacity, by the many personalities he expresses himself through, life after life, to gain experience. The ego has had personalities on earth, as man and as woman; many a time in savage "races in far off days; later in China, Egypt, India, Greece, Rome and elsewhere. All these experiences are within his memory and he is slowly transmuting them into concepts and divine ideas. The personalities of a remote age have been assimilated, but those of the more recent lives are still before him as of himself. Egos differ in capacity according to the length of their evolution. There are some who are geniuses along certain lines, and in the front ranks of humanity; the mass of egos are still in the kindergarten stage of life. The quality of genius is the result of hard work the ego has done through many lives along a particular line. Each ego manifests on realms lower than his own world of heaven as a personality, which is a partial expression of himself, never the whole. He puts on as garments : 1. A mind-body, suitable to his own temperament and developed as the result of past thought, but having a life of its own, which he must learn to control. 2. An astral body, giving him in the astral world his instrument of desire. The astral body, too, has a life 50 THE ''SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND" or its own; its likes and dislikes, are not necessarily the ego's now, though they are the result of what the ego liked and disliked in his recent lives. 3. A physical body. This, too, is exactly what he has deserved by his karma. It is a living body, with a slight degree of consciousness of its own separate from that of the man. The normal life of the personality partly reflects the ego, only just so much of him being manifest as is sufficient for obtaining the experiences of the incarna- tion. This may be cultured and philosophic, or worldly and selfish, according to the gi'owth of the ego. But this normal life may be interfered with in two ways: First, by a rush of thought and feeling from the Super-self, the Super-conscious Mind; then we have a phenomenon where the ego expresses for the time being more of his true qualities. These are the moments of genius and inspiration. These moments may be when through some tension the normal resistance of the vehicles to the action of the ego is broken down. This may happen following proper evolutionary proc- esses, as through a purified and saint-like life, in med- itation and contemplation; it may also happen, but with great danger and as a reversionary process, if the re- sistance of the vehicles is broken down through ill- health, over-stimulation and hysteria. Secondly, the normal life can be interfered with when the Sub-conscious Mind ousts the normal consciousness. This happens when the mental or astral or physical bodies take things into their own hands, and the ego for the moment has lost control. When a man is ob- sessed by a fixed idea, or a hallucination, or is unbal- anced or insane, this sub-conscious mind has sway; this happens through some form of ill-health, or lack of tone of the vehicles, especially of the mind-body. In automatic writing the sub-conscious is often evident. Similarly is it when in a fit of rage a man commits a crime; the astral body for the moment ousts the normal self. 51 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY Some forms of hysteria are due to the action of the physical body consciousness. This body consciousness is child-like in treasuring trivial experiences for years, in exaggerating them, and every now and then it takes charge, dispossessing the normal self. Hence sometimes occur terrors of various kinds, of darkness, death, the unknown, and hallucinations. Man is briefly a Super-conscious Mind, the Ego; a Normal Self, a personality in man's or woman's form; and a Sub-conscious Mind, the totality of thoughts, likes and dislikes of his living instruments, his ve- hicles. (C. J.) Occult Physics. One of the powers of a clairvoyant, trained under Adept teachers, is the ability to gain a vision of the almost infinitely minute. As by an ar- rangement of lenses in a microscope tiny organisms can be magnified, so that the human eye can watch their structure and life, by a similar process, but without the aid of physical instruments, the clairvoyant can see, magnified, the atom and the electron. Various chemical and electrical phenomena can be ob- served by clairvoyance and new and wonderful laws deduced. One of the important facts observable is the relation that matter, as our senses cognize it, has to finer orders of matter. Clairvoyant vision discloses several distinct states of matter and within each state seven sub-states. The physical state of matter with which we are all familiar exists in the three known sub-states, solid, liquid and gaseous, as well as in four others of the order of radiant matter. Next comes a finer state of matter called astral (or starry from its luminous quality) with seven sub- states of diff'erent degrees of density. Then follows mental matter, Buddhic matter, Nirvanic matter and the ethers of two other higher states. The universe we live in is composed of these seven fundamental states of matter which provide 52 THEOSOPHY AND PHYSICS realms or fields of consciousness which we call the planes of nature. A finer otder of matter fills up the inter- stices between particles of a coarser order, just as solids, liquids and gases can exist in one and the same space, as when a bottle is filled with sand to which water is added, the water being then "aerated" by compressed gas. The several planes of nature and their sub-states are all about us and through us everywhere. Each state of matter has its own peculiarities and laws. Physical matter is affected by heat, cold and gravity as we usually know it. Astral matter is special- ly responsive to the rapid vibrations of the astral body of man. The mental matter is specially sensitive to the forces sent out from the mind-body and a man's thought is seen as a disturbance in this matter, often precipitat- ing in some definite form, called a thought-form. The outer world in its physical aspect is sensed by the ego by means of a physical body which is provided with a brain and nervous system. The nerves respond- ing to the vibrations of physical matter transmit im- pulses to the brain, which passes them on to the ego interpreted in terms of sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. The vibrations thrown off by physical matter in motion are innumerable; only a few limited groups of them are sensed by us. We do not, as a rule, respond to the finer vibrations of the X-ray and electricity. It is easily evident that of the physical world in its fulness we know only a small fraction by the direct means of the senses. The finer part of the cosmos represented by astral matter is sensed by the clairvoyant by means of a sensitiveness which the average person has not yet developed. The same is the case with the knowledge of the higher realms: each plane of nature can be seen and examined by the clairvoyant who develops the special order of sensitiveness appropriate to that plane. It must be understood that a person exercising, for instance, the sight of the astral world does not neces- 53 A PRIMER OF THE080PHY sarily cease to be conscious of the physical plane. He is conscious of both and at any given instant he can focus his vision either in the astral or in the physical. When in the course of the development of the ego the powers of clairvoyance are unfolded, the man's normal con- sciousness is thenceforward centered in the highest plane with which he is in touch, and the concentration of his attention on a lower plane means a deliberate limitation of his powers of consciousness; he, for the moment, descends, and when the work is done he reascends to his own plane. For instance, a Master of Wisdom lives in all his full powers in the plane of Nirvana; yet he may have a physical body and be speaking or writing. But when he speaks or writes on the physical plane it means a de- liberate, though instantaneous, self-limitation in order to focus his consciousness into a lower realm. The Adept that lives in the world with mankind lives there only a partial existence, for he cannot express through the capabilities of physical, astral or mental matter all the manifold divine attributes existing within him in their fulness. The Structure of Matter. All the vareties of matter of the seven great planes are made up of one type of corpuscle. These inconceivably small corpuscles are not themselves matter, though they are sensed by us as such; they are in reality tiny points of force, units of consciousness of the Cosmic Logos driving back an inde- scribable substance called in Eastern philosophy Mu- laprakriti or root-matter which the physicist terms the aether. Our matter is not this omnipresent aether; it is composed of those vacancies in the aether created by the Logos. These vacancies, as before mentioned, are filled with force, and are the result of the exercsie of the will of the Logos to drive back from given points the tremendous pressure of the root-matter; they exist only so long as His will is manifest in this way. However, they are cognized by us as matter, physical, astral^ 54 STRUCTURE OF TEE ATOM The Spirillae of the Atom. mental, and so on. The universe is plunged in a field of aether, but, para- doxical as it may seem, any given part of the universe we come into touch with is just where the aether is not. These corpuscles are grouped in definite num- bers and in definite ways to form the various types of matter. By the exer- cise of high powers of clairvoyant magnification it is possible to calculate fairly approximately. As in a blood count the his- tologist can estimate roughly the number of blood corpuscles in a certain given quantity of blood, so too, the clairvoyant investigator, taking phys- ical, astral and mental atoms can magnify them and taking, as it were, sections of them, can come to a general idea of the number of corpuscles in a unit of any given state of matter. Thus, for instance, when a unit of the lightest known gas, hydrogen, is taken, it is seen to be made up of eighteen smaller units. Similarly, when a unit of gold is examined, it is seen to have 3546 smaller units. Like units to the number of 4087 exist in radium, and 4267 in uranium. All the substances known as chemiijal elements are seen to be made up of these units, with eighteen for a particle of hydrogen. From this eighteen to the 4267 of uranium there exist the intermediate ele- ments and the exact number of units in a^y one ele- ment can be counted by clairvoyant examination. These units in all the elements are seen to be of the same general construction. We call them physical atoms. The general appearance of one is given in the accom- 55 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY panying diagram. There are two types of physical atoms, one in which the spiral twist is to the right, and in the other to the left. The former shows a positive electrical quality, the latter a negative one. For a fuller description of the movements and energies of the atom see '"Occult Chemistry" by Annie Besant and C. W. Lead- beater. It will be seen in the diagram that the atom consists of ten parallel strands wound spirally three and one-half times outside and similarly three and one-half times inside round the core. The general appearance is that of a wiry body. It seems at first sight a living, solid thing, but with higher power of magnification it is seen to be made up of currents of force, vortices of energy, rather than actual substance. It is noticeable that when the vibrations of the sun's rays impinge upon the atom, one or more of the seven thinner strands begin to vibrate more rapidly and give rise to the colors of the solar spectrum. The three thicker strands become specially active when the atom is affected by electricity. If any section of these ten parallel strands is magni- fied, it is seen to be a spiral, and careful observation shows that one strand is made up of 1680 smaller spirals, which we call a spirilla of the first order. When a spirilla of the first order is in its turn magnified, it is seen to be made up of seven spirals, called the spirillae of the second order. A spirilla of the sec- ond order is itself made up of seven spirals called those of the third order; higher and higher powers of magnification show this complicated spiral construction throughout, till we find that a spirilla of the third order has seven of the fourth; one of the fourth has seven of the fifth; a spirilla of the fifth has seven of the sixth and one of the sixth is made up of seven of the seventh. A spirilla of the last and seventh order is seen to consist of seven corpuscles held spirally. It is found that the thicker nature of the three elec- trical strands of the atom is due to the fact that in 100 56 THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS spirillae of the seventh order in these three there are 704 corpuscles, not 700 as in the other parts of the atom; that further 704 spirillae of the seventh order go to make up 700 spirillae of the sixth, 704 of the sixth make 700 of the fifth and so on. This slight increase in the number of corpuscles makes the three electrical bands larger than the seven color bands. Counting by sections it is found that in one physical atom there exists something over fourteen thousand mill- ions of corpuscles. It is found that astral matter exists in many astral elements, but, as with physical matter, they are aggre- gations of astral units called atoms. An astral atom in its general appearance and construction is like the phys- ical; it, too, is made up of the fundamental corpuscles, but the difference is, that only one forty-ninth of the number required for a physical atom is utilized to forni an astral one. Similarly it is found that the atom of the mental world is made up of one forty-ninth the number required to form an astral atom. It will be seen that the fundamental types of matter, represented by the physical atom, the astral atom, the mental atom, and the rest, are all built up of one com- mon type, the corpuscle, which, in reality, is a point of consciousness within the existence of the Logos. It is His power that holds so many millions of these cor- puscles in a given formation, as, for instance, a mental atom; forty-nine times that number of corpuscles He uses for an astral atom, and forty-nine times this latter number He uses to form a physical atom. As long as His energy holds the forty thousand millions in a certain definite structure the physical atom exists. It is possible to change one order of matter into an- other. If a force is brought to bear on the physical atom, such that the power of the Logos that holds its corpuscles in that formation is counteracted, this power at once utilizes those same corpuscles and forms of them forty-nine astral atoms. In other words the energy of 57 A PRIMER OF THE080PHT one physical atom can be made to disappear from the physical plane, but it will then rearrange the corpuscles of that physical atom as forty-nine astral ones. Thus, for instance, hydrogen can be broken up from its phys- ical condition into a finer one. In hydrogen there are eighteen physical atoms; by will power as well as by electricity a force can be brought to bear on each of these eighteen to disintegrate them and each then re- arranges itself as forty-nine astral atoms; every unit of hydrogen will thus give rise to 882 astral atoms. It is these astral atoms that are now being labeled by the physicist by the term electron. The atom itself is evolving. The corpuscles are held in their several spirals by appropriate spiral movements of forces. Seven such forces exist within the atom (not counting the forces affecting the atom as a whole); but so far in the evolutionary process only four are in full activity, the other three being as it were embryonic. As aeons pass, these latent forces will be called into activity, one by one, by the energy of the Logos, and in the ages to come, matter itself will be a fuller and more powerful manifestations of His will. C. J. Theosophy and Spiritualism. Theosophists fully credit all the facts in Spiritualism that prove the survival of the human personality after death. The work that Spiritualism has done in giving this proof to millions is the most remarkable achievement of this movement. "Wliile fully admitting that the dead can come back, and do under certain conditions, as in the spiritualistic seance, Theosophists hold that to call the dead into touch once more with earth conditions retards their evolution. Wlien the physical body is put aside the ego is slowly coming into touch with a higher phase of life than is to be found in the physical world. In the evolutionary scheme of things, man after death is not intended to be conscious of physical life until he returns in a new body at reincarnation. There are a few cases where a man after death instead 58 THEOSOPHY AND SPIRITUALISM of passing to the fuller life is so worried concerning things done or undone during life that he can be helped by being given an opportunity through a medium to communicate with the living, and so put matters right. But these cases are very rare, and usually calling the dead back to communicate with us who are on the physical plane hinders their evolution. Furthermore, every consolation which we gain by communicating with those that have gone before, we can gain outside of seances when we understand the fact that during the sleep of our bodies we live in the astral world where are those dead friends of ours, and during sleep we can rise to their world and so be with them as before death Mediumship is in a large percentage of cases extreme- ly harmful to the moral welfare of the medium, and on general principles no one should give up his volition and allow himself to be . controlled by some outside agency who cannot be controlled readily from the side of the living, but who can control the medium. The medium, furthermore, is at any moment liable to be under the control not only of his guiding guardian spirit, but also of any undeveloped and depraved entity as well. "As to the entities who may 'communicate' at a seance or may obsess and speak through an entranced medium, their name is simply legion; there is hardly a single class among all the varied inhabitants of the astral plane from whose ranks they many not be drawn, though after the explanations given it will be readily under- stood that the chances are very much against their coming from a high one. A manifesting "spirit" is often exactly what it professes to be, but often also it is nothing of the kind; and for the ordinary sitter there is absolutely no means of distinguishing the true from the false, since the extent to which a being having all the resources of the astral plane at his command can delude a person on the physical plane is so great that no reliance can be placed even on what seems the most convincing proof." A PRIMER OF THEOSOPEY Since all the phenomena of Spiritualism can be es- tablished as facts along different lines of investigation, there is little use in experimenting with spiritualism, except for the hardened materialist, for there is little satisfactory or reliable knowledge to be obtained con- cerring man's evolution from spiritualistic investiga- tions. C. J. THEOSOPHY AND MASONRY. The symbolism of Masonry is rich, inherent and in- sistent. At every turn one finds in its printed and otherwise executed emblems many of the symbols which from time immemorial have served to give men certain visible, concrete representations of their relationships to their Maker. The many symbols which Masons em- ploy are, each of them, well worth study. Each of them has its own general meaning, its direct reference to a phase of God's being or activity and each of them may have its own special explanation. But the explanations which are given in the dictionaries of the craft are brief and inadequate, though suggestive. They contain the statement that this or that symbol has reference to certain phases of God's manifestation to man or of man's return to Him. But if the origin of the symbol is traced and if, at the same time, the reference to the Divine Being is studied, an entire volume might be written. Indeed many volumes have been written. But the glory of the symbol remains undisturbed. Like that for which it stands it is permanent, enduring, un- changing, ready to be used by other men in their study of God and His relations to men. These symbols were not picked up, discovered or in- vented by men in ancient monasteries or temples. They were given to men directly from on High by the min- isters of God. Their deeper meaning is so recondite that it could never have been discovered by man without such aid. 60 THEOSOPHY AND MASONRY The ritualism of Masonry is of equally great value. It teaches truly; it suffices to invoke Those Powers of the heavens, Who deal immediately with men's for- tunes. These angels of God are perpetually within call to take part in the affairs of men. They can be evoked "by ceremonies and they can be propitiated in wonderful ways by the appeal to them with rites. Hence, all who take part in these rites, take part in them to their own remote or immediate advantage. Sooner or later they and their loved ones reap benefits of high value, not only because they have done their duty toward the servants of God who were at the moment to be pro- pitiated but also because they have taken part in an associated effort to carry forward the great humani- tarian effort of those who are laboring for the upbuild- ing of mankind. It is, however, as the entire ritual has the -deeper meaning of a parallel to the spiritual development of man, that we find there is a value to masonry which is incalculable. Man rises by almost imperceptible grada- tions of growth from the level of savagery to that of the Master. This entire progress of man is- given dramatic representation in the degrees of Masonry and as shown by Madame H. P. Blavatsky and others typi- fies the actual progress of the soul from its nakedness to the completeness of knowledge and self-mastery. These deeper meanings of Masonry theosophists con- tinually seek out and study, always more closely, un- til they find themselves at one with the inmost signifi- cance of the work. So graciously is the whole of the work laid out by its founders that even those who take but little part in it, those who simply play a pas- sive role are infinitely benefited by its observances. There are two presentations of the divine wisdom which are rounded and satisfying; that given by Theoso- phy and that of Masonry. No religion or exoteric philosophy can equal them in fullness or clearness. Theosophy presents an open and avowed discussion of 61 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY the philosophy while Masonry half conceals it in its allegory, its ritual and its ceremonial. Masonry teaches the everlasting truth in indestructible forms suitable to all languages and all times. Some temperaments are better suited to it than others. But something of the response to the ritualistic appeal will occur in every heart, for temperaments are of the rays of the Logos and every soul has more or less of each of the rays in its composition. THE LIFE THEOSOPHIC. The Care of the Body. "Man's body is fine or coarse in its texture according to the materials drawn from the physical plane for its composition. Each subdivision of matter yields finer or coarser materials; compare the bodies of a butcher and of a refined student; both have solids* in them, but solids of such difi"erent qualities. Further, we know that a coarse body can be refined, a refined body coarsened. The body is constantly chang- ing; each particle is a life, and the lives come and go. They are drawn to a body consonant with themselves, they are repelled from one discordant with themselves. All things live in rhythmical vibrations, all seek the harmonious and are repelled by dissonance, A pure body repels coarse particles because they vibrate at rates discordant with its own; a coarse body attracts them because their vibrations accord with its own. Hence, ir the body changes its rates of vibration, it gradually drives out of it the constituents that cannot fall into the new rhythm, and fills up their places by drawing in from external nature fresh constituents that are har- monious. Nature provides materials vibrating in all possible ways, and each body exercises its own selective action."* The purest foods are those which are known through occult examination to be free from the etheric particles *Annie Besant, "Ancient Wisdom." 62 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE -which respond to vibrations from without whose rates are unsatisfactory, whose presence in the vehicles would interfere with the delicate uses to which they must be put. The flesh of animals is especially undesirable, as it is heavily loaded with deleterious matter. The prod- ucts of decomposition, as alcohol and the fermented cheeses, are to be set aside. The dietary may consist of cooked grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts and fresh milk; eggs are added by some. Modern science shows that these foods are sufficient to support the body under the most vigorous activity. Aside from the choice of suitable foods the body should be cared for by scrupulous attention to cleanli- ness, by the use of simple but suitable clothing, by the most rigid attention to elimination and by bear- ing in mind the principle of the body's tendency to cyclical action, the same act being best performed at the same hour each day. The life of the Theosophist is that which our compre- hensions of the ancient wisdom necessarily imposes upon us in accordance with our own state of evolution, our Karmic relations and our aspiration to serve Those Who are wisely aiding in the plans of the Logos. The Theosophist may be a member of the Theosophical Society. He will certainly be such if it is possible for him to compass it. He may be an aspirant for dis- cipleship under the tutelage of a Master or he may be an accepted pupil of One of Them. In one sense the Masters Themselves are members of the Society. The life characteristically led by the theosophist does not much differ in outward seeming from that of the man of the world. His visible occupations may be the same, but his thoughts and feelings have changed. Living now in the conviction that all that he does in all the planes is of consequence to the world he tries to order his inner life in such a way that he may be of greatest service. He studies the art of feeling at peace by recognizing the beneficence of the laws of evolution 63 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY and the necessarily good outcome of all the processes of nature. The fact that each of our lives Is called by the Brothers a day impresses upon him the fact that what we do in each incarnation is but part of the acts of the long life-time that leads to the end of evolution so that he accepts the fact that much which affects him he can never understand in the present existence. His peace of the spirit lies in his unswerving confidence in the Law and in the guidance of the Master under it. The knowledge that thoughts are entities, that they have power for good or evil, makes him careful in the extreme of what he thinks. If he emits a thought of evil he quickly tries to annul its effect and to properly maintain discipline over his own being by emitting a thought of the opposite intent and form. Character building, by this method goes on rapidly especially as the effort to lead a spiritual life is always followed by temporary opposition on the part of nature. Hence, as increased karmic difficulties must be met, greater re- sistance must be overcome with the aid of much power conferred. So greater strength is developed. The worldly observer does not see theosophists leading peaceful, quiet lives. Their lives are often of storm and stress. But they lead to an inner peace and calm- ness and a conviction that the usefulness of the aspirant is daily heightened and that he is arrayed forever among those who would aid the Pioneers of humanity in Their beneficent efforts to hasten the evolution of Man. The desires of the lower type are set aside as far as possible in order that their place may be taken by aspiration for a realization of the quickened life of the spirit. In this labor of changing his character and fitting himself for the new life of helping others the aspirant is aided by the example and precept of Those Who have gone before. Books tell of the diflficulties in the way and the methods to be used in overcoming them. 64 BUILDING THE CHARACTER Bhagavad Gita, Light on the Path, The Voice of the Silence, The Path of Discipleship, and The Outer Court are recommended. Mrs. Besant's words are here most instructive: "How shall a man build himself into purity? By, in his morning meditation, taking purity as part of the subject on wiiich he thinks, realizing what it means. No impurity of thought must ever touch him; no im- purity of action must ever stain him, he must be pure in the threefold thread of action, word and thought. In the morning he thinks of purity as a thing that is desirable, that he must accomplish; and when he goes out into the world he carries the memory of his medi- tation with him. He watches his actions; he allows no impure action to stain his body; he commits no im- pure action aH through the day, for he steadily watches every action that no touch of impurity may soil it. He watches his words. He speaks no word that is impure; he makes no reference in his talk to an unclean sub- ject; he never permits his tongue to be soiled by making an unclean suggestion. Every word of his is pure, so that he would dare to speak it in the presence of his Master, whose eye sees every lightest stain of im- purity which the ordinary mortal eye would miss. He will watch every word that it may be the purest that he can utter, and he will never foul himself or others by a single word or phrase coarse with impure sug- gestion. His thought will be pure. He will never allow an unclean thought to come into his mind, or if it comes into his mind it will at once be cast out; the moment the thought comes he will cast it out; and as he knows that it could not come into his mind unless there was in his mind something to attract it, he purifies his own mind, so that no unclean thought of any one else may be able to gain entrance. Thus he watches on this one point through the whole of his day. And then again he will take truth in this morning meditation; he will think of truth, its value in the 65 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY "world, its value in society, its value in his own char- acter; and when he goes out into the world of men he will never commit an action that will give a false im- pression, he will never speak a word that conveys a false idea. Not only will he not lie, but he will not even be inaccurate, because that also is speaking a falsehood. To be inaccurate in recounting what you have seen is to speak untruth. All exaggeration and painting up of a story, everything that is not perfectly consistent with fact, so far as he knows it, everything which has any shade of untruthfulness, may not be used by him who would become a disciple. And so in thought again he must be true. Every thought must be as true as he can make it, with no shadow of fa'.so- hood to pollute his mind. So with compassion. He will meditate on compassion in the morning and during the day he will seek to practice it; he will show all kindness to people around him; he will do all service to family and friends and neighbours. Wherever he sees want he will try to relieve it; wherever he sees sorrow he will try to comfort it; wherever he sees misery he will strive to lighten it. He will live com- passion as well as think it, and so make it part of his character. So with fortitude. He will think of the nobility of the strong man, the man whom no outer circumstances can depress or ela(e, the man who is not joyful over success nor miserable over failure, who is not at the mercy of circumstances, sad today because tilings are troublesome and joyful tomorrow because things are easy. He will try to be himself, always balanced and strong; as he goes out into the world he will practice; if trouble comes he will think of the Eternal where no trouble is; if loss of money comes, he will think of the wealth of wisdom that cannot be taken away from him; if a friend be snatched by death, he will consider that no living soul can die and that the body that dies is only the garment which is thrown aside when it is out-worn, and another taken, and that 66 QUALIFl CATIONS OF THE DISCIPLE his friend shall be found again. And so with all the other virtues of self-restraint, of peaceableness, of fear- lessness — all these things he will think of and prac- tice. Not all at once. No man living in the world would be able to give sufficient time to meditate on each of these every day; but take them one by one, and build them into your character. Work on steadily: do not be afraid of giving time to it; do not be afraid of giving trouble to it. Everything that you build you are building for eternity, and you may well be patient in time when eternity spreads before you. Everything you gain, you gain for evermore. Meditation alone or practice alone is insufficient for the building of the character. Both must go together; both must form part of the daily life, and in this way a noble character is made. The Search for the Master. A man who has thus trained himself, a man who has thus done the utmost that he can do, who has given his time and thought and trouble to make himself fit to find the Teacher, even by him the Teacher shall verily be found; or rather, the Teacher shall find him and manifest Himself to his soul. For do you imagine in blindness and in ignorance that these Teachers desire to be hidden? Do you imagine, veiled in illusion, that They deliberately hide Themselves from the eyes of men in order to leave humanity to stumble helpless, unwishful to aid it and to guide? I tell you that much as you may for a moment desire to find your Teacher, the Teacher is a thousand-fold more constant in His desire to find you, in order that He may help. Looking out over the world of men. They see so many helpers are wanted and so few are found. The masses perish in ignorance; teachers are wanted for them and they perish by myriads; there is none to help them. The great Teachers need disciples who are living in the lower world, and who, trained by the Teachers, shall go out into the world of men, and bring help to the 67 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY suffering, bring knowledge to the darkened minds. They are always looking out into the world to find one soul that is willing and ready to be helped; always looking over the world in order that They may at once come to the souls that are ready to receive Them, and will not shut the doors of their hearts against Them. For our hearts are closed against Them and fast-locked, so that They cannot enter. They may not break down the doors and come in by force. If a man choose his own way and if he lock the doors, none other may turn the key; we are locked up by worldly desire; we are locked up by grasping after the things of the earth; we are locked up with the keys of sin and indifference and sloth; and the Teacher stands waiting till the do-^r be opened in order that He may cross the threshold and illuminate the mind. Do you say: How do They know among the myriads of men one soul that works for Them and makes itself fit for Their coming? The answer was once given in the form of a picture; that as a man standing on a mountain- top looking over the adjacent valley sees a light in a single cottage because the light shines out against the surrounding darkness, so does the soul that has made itself ready show the light in the darkness of the surrounding world which catches the eye of the Watcher on the mountain-side and draws his attention by its own light. You must light the soul, in order that the Teacher may see it. He stands watching, but you must give the signal in order that He may become your Teacher and guide you on the way. How great the need you will perhaps understand better at the end of the remaining work that lies before us, as I trace the work of the disciple and what may really be done by him: but let me leave you this morning with this thought in your minds: that the Teacher is watching, is waiting, is desiring to find you, desiring to teach you: that you have the power to draw Him to you, that only you can let Him come. He may knock at 68 INVISIBLE HELPERS the door of your heart, but you must cry out the word that bids Him enter; and if you would follow the path I have traced for you this morning, if step by step you would thus learn control of mind, meditation, building of character, there you would have spoken the threefold word which makes it possible for the Teacher to reveal Himself. When that word is breathed out in the silence of the soul then the Master appears before it, and the feet of the Guru are found.* The Disciple's Activities during Sleep. The physical body is in simple truth nothing but a vehicle or vest- ure of the real man. It is put off permanently at death, but it is also put off temporarily every night when we go to sleep — indeed the process of falling asleep consists in this very action of the real man in his astral vehicle slipping out of the physical body. Now the man who has not yet developed the link between the astral and physical consciousness is unable to leave his denser body at will, or to recollect most of what happens to him while away from it; but the fact nevertheless remains that he leaves it every time he sleeps, and may be seen by any trained clairvoyant either hovering over it or wandering about at a greater or less distance from it, as the case may be. But the disciple, aspiring to be of service in waking life, is taken in hand and taught how to be active and useful in his astral life while the physical body is asleep and resting. The work to be done is manifold, for the '"dead" who have passed beyond the grave and are dwelling for a time in the astral world, as well as for the living. The main work, done for the newly dead by our helpers is that of soothing and comforting them — of delivering them when possible from the terrible though unreasoning fear which but too often seizes them, and not only causes them much unnecessary suffering, but *Annie Besant, 'The Path of Discipleship." 69 A PRIMER OF TEE080PEY retards their progress to higher spheres— and of enab- ling them as far as may be to comprehend the future that lies before them. Others who have been longer on the astral plane may also receive much help, if they will but accept it, from explanations and advice as to their course through its different stages. They may, for example, be warned of the danger and delay caused by attempting to communicate with the living through a medium, and sometimes (though rarely) an entity already drawn into spiritual- istic circle may be guided into higher and healthier life. The assistance given to the living is exceedingly varied in character. The consolation of those who are suffering or in sorrow at once suggests itself, as does also the endeavour to guide towards the truth those who are earnestly seeking it. When a person is spend- ing much anxious thought upon some spiritual or metaphysical problem, it is often possible to put the solution into his mind without his being at all aware that it comes from external agency. A pupil too, may often be employed as an agent in what can hardly be described otherwise than as the answering of prayer; for though it is true that any earnest spiritual desire, such as might be supposed to find its expression in prayer, is itself a force which automatically brings about certain results, it is also a fact that such a spiritual effort offers an opportunity of influence to the Powers of Good, of which they are not slow to take advantage; and it is sometimes the privilege of a willing helper to be made the channel through which their energy is poured forth. W[\^t is said of prayer is true to an even greater extent of medi- tation, for those to whom this higher exercise is a possi- bility. Besides these more general methods of help there are also special lines open only to the few. Again and again such pupils as are fitted for the work have been employed to suggest true and beautiful thoughts to 70 MEDITATION authors, poets, artists and musicians; but obviously it is not every helper who is capable of being used in this way. Sometimes, though more rarely, it is possible to warn persons of the danger to their moral development of some course which they are pursuing, to clear away evil influences from about some person or place, or to counteract the machinations of black magicians. It is not often that direct instruction in the great truths of nature can be given to people outside the circle of occult students, but occasionally it is possible to do something in that way by putting before the minds of preachers and teachers a wider range of thought or a more liberal view of some question than they would otherwise have taken. Naturally as an occult student progresses on the Path he attains a wider sphere of usefulness. Instead of assisting individuals only, he learns how classes, nations and races are dealt with, and he is entrusted with a gradually increasing share of the higher and more important work done by the adepts themselves.* Concentration. There is a story told in the East about some sceptical courtiers, who declined to believe that an ascetic could ever be so occupied with his medita- tion as to be unaware that an army passed close by him as he sat under his tree wrapt in thought. The king, who was present, assured them that he would prove to them the possibility of this, and proceeded to do so in a truly Oriental and autocratic way. He or- dered that some large water-jars should be brought and filled to the brim. Then he instructed the courtiers each to take one and carry it; and his command was that they should walk, carrying this water, through the principal streets of the city. But th^y were to be surrounded by his guards with drawn swords and if one of them spilled one single drop of his water, that un- *C. W. L., "Invisible Helpers." 71 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY fortunate was to be instantly beheaded then and there. The courtiers started on their journey filled with ter- ror; but they all got safely back again, and the king smilingly greeted them with a request to tell him all the incidents of their walk, and describe the persons whom they had met. Not one of them could mention even one person that they had seen, for all agreed that they had been so entirely occupied with the one idea of watching the brimming jars that they had noticed nothing else of any sort. *'So gentlemen," rejoined the king, "you see that when there is sufficient interest concentration is possible." Meditation. When you have attained concentration such as that, not under the stress of the fear of in- stant death, but by the exertion of your will, then you may profitably try the next stage of effort. I do not say that it will be easy; on the contrary, it is very difficult; but it can be done, for many of us have had to do it. Wlien your mind is thus an instrument, try what we call meditation. Choose a certain fixed time for yourself, when you can be undisturbed; the early mo'rning is in many ways the best, if that can be man- aged. It is not always an easy time for us now, for we have in modern civilization hopelessly disarranged our day, so that noon is no longer its middle point, as it should be. Now we lie in bed long after the sun has risen, and then stay up injuring our eyes with artificial light long after he has set at night. But choose your time, and let it be the same time each day, and let no day pass without your regular effort. We know that if we are trying any sort of physical exercise for train- ing purposes how much more effective it is to do a lit- tle regularly than to make a violent effort one day, and then to do nothing for a week. So in this matter it is the regularity that is important. Sit down comfortably where you will not be dis- turbed, and turn your mind, with all its newly-de- veloped power of concentration, upon some selected sub- 72 SOUL DEVELOPMENT ject demanding high and useful thought. We in our Theosophical studies have no lack of such subjects, combining deepest interest with greatest profit. If you prefer it, you can take some moral quality, as is ad- vised by the Catholic Church when it prescribes this exercise. In that ease, you would turn the quality over in your mind, see how it was an essential quality in the Divine order, how it was manifested in Nature about you, how it had been shown forth by great men of old, how you yourself could manifest it in your daily life, how (perhaps) you have failed to display it in the past and so on. Such meditation upon a high moral quality is a vety good exercise in many ways, for it not only trains the mind, but keeps the good thought constantly before you. But it needs to be preceded generally by thought upon concrete subjects, and when those are easy for you, you can usefully take up the more ab- stract ideas. Contemplation. When this has become an estab- lished habit with you, with which nothing is allowed to interfere; when you can manage it fairly well without any feeling of strain or difficulty, and without a single wandering thought ever venturing to intrude itself, then you may turn to the third stage of our effort — contemplation. - But remember that you will not suc- ceed with this until you have entirely conquered the mind-wandering. For a long time you will find, when you try to meditate, that your thoughts are con- tinually going off at a tangent, and you do not know it till suddenly you start to find out how far away you have gone. You must not let this dishearten you, for it is the common experience; you must simply bring the errant mind back again to its duty, a hundred or a thousand times if necessary, for the only way to succeed is to decline to admit of the possibility of failure. But when you have at length succeeded, and the mind is definitely mastered, then we reach that for which all the rest has been but the necessary prepara- 73 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY tion, good though it has been in itself. Instead of turning over a quality in your mind, take the highest spiritual ideal you know. It does not matter what it is, or by what name you call it. A Theosophist would most probably take one of those Great Ones to whom we have already referred — a mem- ber of that great Brotherhood of Adepts, whom we call the Masters — especially if he had the privilege of hav- ing come directly into contact with one of them. The Catholic might take the Blessed Virgin or some patron Saint, the ordinary Christian would probably take the Christ; the Hindu would perhaps choose Krishna, and the Buddhist most likely the Lord Buddha himself. Names do not matter, for we are dealing with realities now, but it must be to you the highest, that which will evoke in you the greatest feeling of reverence, love and devotion that you are capable of experiencing. In place of your previous meditation call up the most vivid mental image that you can make of this ideal, and letting your most intense feelings go out towards this highest One, try with all the strength of your nature to raise yourself towards Him, to become one with Him to be in and of that glory and beauty. If you will do that, if you will thus steadily continue to raise your consciousness, there will come a time ■when you will suddenly find that you are one with that ideal as you never were before, when you realize and understand Him as you never did before, for a new and wonderful light has somehow dawned for you, and all the world has changed, for now for the first time you know what it is to live, and all life before seems like darkness and death to you as compared with this. Then it will all slip away again, and you will return to the light of common day— and darkness indeed it will appear by comparison. But go on working at your contemplation, and presently that glorious moment will come again and yet again; and each time it will stay with you longer, till there comes a period when that 74 CONSCIOUSNESS ON HIGHER PLANES higher life is yours always, no longer a flash or a glimpse of paradise, but a steady glow, a new and never-ceasing marvel every day of your existence. Then for you day and night will be one continuous conscious- ness, one beautiful life of happy work for the helping of others; yet, this, which seems so indescribable and so unsurpassable, is only the beginning of the entrance into the heritage in store for you and for every child of man. Look about you with that new and higher sight, and you will see and grasp many things which until now you have never even suspected — unless, in- deed, you have previously familiarized yourself with the investigations of your predecessors along this path. Continue your eflforts, and you will rise higher still, and in due course there will open before your astonished eyes a life as much grander than the astral as that is than the physical, and once more you will feel that the true life has been unknown to you until now; for all the while you are rising nearer to the One Life which alone is perfect Truth and perfect Beauty. This is a development that must take years, you will say. Yes, that is probable, for you are trying to com- press into one life the evolution which would normally spread itself over many; but is far more than worth the time and the effort. No man can say how long it will take in any individual case, for that depends upon two things — the amount of crust that there is to break through, and the energy and determination that is put into the work. I could not promise you that in so many years you would certainly succeed; I can only tell you that many have tried before you, and that many have succeeded. All the Great Masters of Wisdom were once men at our own level; as they have risen, so must we rise. Many of us in our humbler way have tried also, and have succeeded, some more and some less; but none who has tried regrets his attempt, for whatever he has gained, be it little or much, is gained for all eternity, since it inheres in the soul which survives death. What- 75 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY ever we gain thus we possess in full power and con- sciousness, and have it always at our command; for this is no mediumship, no feeble intermittent trance- quality, but the power of the developed and glorified life which is to be that of all humanity some day. But the man who wishes to try to unfold these faculties within himself will be very ill-advised if he does not take care first of all to have utter purity of heart and soul, for that is the first and greatest neces- sity. If he is to do this, and do it well, he must purify the mental, the astral and the physical; he must cast aside his pet vices and his physical impurities; he must cease to defile his body with meat, with alcohol or tobacco, and try to make himself pure and clean all through, on this lower plane as well as on the higher ones. If he does not think it worth while to give up petty uncleannesses for the higher life, that is exclusive- ly his own affair; it was said of old that one could not serve God and Mammon simultaneously. I do not say that bad habits on the physical plane will prevent him altogether from any psychic development, but I do very emphatically and distinctly say that the man who remains unclean is never free from danger, and that to touch holy things with impure hands is to risk a terrible peril. The man who would try for the higher must free his mind from worry and from lower cares; while doing his duty to the uttermost he must do it impersonally and for the right's sake, and leave the result in the hands of higher powers. So will he draw round him pure and helpful entities as he moves onward, and will himself radiate sunlight on those in suffering or in sorrow. So shall he remain master of himself, pure and clean and unselfish, using his new powers never for a personal end, but ever for the advancement and the succour of men his brothers, that they also, as they can, may learn to live the wider life, may learn to rise from amid the mists of ignorance and selfishness into 76 UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD. the glorious sunlight of the peace of God. Take up this study of Theosophy, then, not on blind faith, for blind faith has done enough harm in the world already — but for enquiry; if you are not satisfied, there is iio harm done, while if you are satisfied, much good may come to you thereby, as it has come to the rest of us. The best way of all to see whether this thing is so, is to act as if it were true; live the life which it teaches, and note its effects. Try the thought- control which it recommends, and see whether you are the better or the worse for it. Try to realize the unity and brotherhood w^hich it teaches, and to show the un- selfishness w^hich it exacts; and then see for yourself whether this is an improvement upon other modes of living or not. It still remains true now, as in days of old, that they that do the will of the Father that is in heaven, they shall know of the doctrine, whether it be true. The surest way to find the truth, is to live the life; try the unselfishness and the watchful helpfulness, and see whether here is not an opening into new fields of happiness and usefulness. From that go on gradually to other parts of the teaching and you will find evi- dence enough. Think what the world w^ould be if all, held these doctrines of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man; w^ould it be better, or would it be worse, if all mankind held unity as a fact, and unself- ishness as a duty? As yet we are only at the beginning of the mightiest of studies; yet w^e say to you with utmost confidence, come and join us in our study, and to you also will come the peace and confidence that has come to us, so that through your study of Theosophy your lives shall become happier to yourselves and more useful to your fellow-men.* Self -Sacrifice and Renunciation. "We talk of the Great Renunciation, w^e speak of Those, before whose feet we bow, as Those who have "made the Great Renunciation." *C. W. Leadbeater, "The Other Side of Death," 77 A PRIMER OF THE080PHY Do not dream that They made Their renunciation, when, standing on the threshold of Nirvana, They heard the sobbing of the world in anguish, and turned back to help. It was not then that the real, the great, renuncia- tion was made. They made it over and over again in the hundreds of lives that lie behind Them; They made it by the constant practice of the small renunciations of life, by continual pity, by daily sacrifices in common human life. They did not make it at the last hour, when on the threshold of Nirvana, but through the course of lives of sacrifice; until, at last, the Law of Sacrifice became so much the law of Their being, that They could not do anything at the last moment, when the choice was Theirs, save register on the record of the universe the innumerable renunciations of the past. "You and I, my brothers, today, if we will, may begin to make the Great Renunciation, and if we do not begin it in the daily life, in our hourly dealings with our fellows, be assured we should not be able to make it when we stand on the mountain crest. The habit of daily sacrifice, the habit of thinking, the habit of always giving and not taking, only thus shall we learn to make that which the outer world calls the Great Renunciation. We dream of great deeds of heroism, we dream of mighty ordeals, we think that the life of discipleship consists in tremendous trials for which the disciple prepares himself, towards which he marches with open vision, and then by one supreme effort, by one brave struggle, gains his crown of victory. "Brothers, it is not so. The life of the disciple is one long series of petty renunciations, one long series of daily sacrifices, one continual dying in time in order that the higher may eternally live. It is not a single deed that strikes the world with wonder which makes true discipleship, else were the hero or the martyr greater than the disciple. The life of the disciple is lived in the home, is lived in the town, is lived in the office, is lived in the market place, yea, amid the 78 OCCULTISM common lives of men. The true life of sacrifice is that which utterly forgets itself, in which renunciation be- comes so common that there is no effort, that it becomes a thing of course. If we lead that life of sacrifice, if w^e lead that life of renunciation, if daily, perse veringly, we pour out ourselves for others, we shall find ourselves one day on the summit of the moun- tain, and shall discover that we have made the Great Renunciation, without ever dreaming that any other act were possible." — A. B. The Theosophist and the Occultist. It will be seen from the foregoing that the ideal a Theosophist keeps before him is the highest imaginable. He identifies himself with all the thoughts, feelings and actions of others that tend to union, and lives actively sympa- thizing with all that is best in every department of life. He recognizes the Brotherhood of Man because there is a common Father of all men. The Occultist is one who, trying to live up to this ideal in every detail, emphasizes its more important aspects. He sees all life not from the standpoint of personality, but from the standpoint of the ego, who is free from conventional ways of thought and judgment that mark a given nation or period of time. He sees conventions are useful up to a certain point and often true, but he knows that they are true only partially, because they are based on a partial understanding of nature. The unseen facts of the invisible worlds are always the larger part in any event, and the w^orld's conventions take no account of the hidden side of things; the ego knows that the occult aspect modifies considerably the hasty judgment given by conventions. The Occultist trains himself to use the true standard of values, not those of a nation or creed or period, but those which are of all time and universal. This new valuation is the most correct as being truest to fact and to all the facts. He uses this standard only as he feels himself as ego and not as personality. A PRIMER OF THE080PHY The Occultist further definitely trains himself to be- come one of the conscious accepted agents of the Great Adept Hierarchy. He works definitely under one of the Adepts carrying out the work given him to do, and his r-^--- '■• -.„„!-, I; is devoted to the welfare of the work. It matters little to him whether he himself is happy or unhappy; is furthering his evolution or not; only one thing is of vital import, that the work shall be done at the right time and in the best way, not who shall do it nor what benefits come to the doer. All can be Theosophists, but for the life of occultism, "Many are called but few are chosen." C. J. The Masters of Wisdom. "What, then, it may be asked, are the desirable methods, since so many are un- desirable? Broadly, those which, instead of suppressing the physical body by force, train the soul to control it. The surest and safest way of all is to put oneself into the hands of a competent teacher and practice only what he advises. But where is the qualified teacher to be found? Not, assuredly, among any who adver- tise themselves as teachers; not among those who take money for their instruction, and offer to sell the mys- teries of the universe for so many shillings or so many dollars. Knowledge can be gained now where it has always been available — at the hands of those who are adepts in this great science of the soul, the fringe of which we are beginning to touch in our deepest studies. "There has always been a great Brotherhood of the men who know, and they have always been ready to teach their lore to the right man, for it is for that very purpose that they have taken the trouble to acquire it, in order that they may be able to guide and help. How can we reach them? We cannot reach them in the physical body, and we might not even know them if it should happen to us to see them. But they can reach us, and assuredly they will reach us when they see us to be fit for the work of helping the world. Their one great interest is the furthering of evolution, the helping 80 TnE SAVIORS OF MANKIND of humanity; they need men devoted to this work, and they are ever watching for them; so none need fear that he can be overlooked if he is ready for that work. They will never gratify mere curiosity. They will give no aid to the man who wishes to gain power for him- self alone; but when a man has shown by long and careful training of himself, and by using for helpfulness all the power which he already possesses, that his will is strong enough and his heart pure enough to bear his part in the Divine work— then he may become con- scious of their presence and their aid when he least expects it. "It is true that they founded the Theosophical Society, yet membership in the Society will not of itself be sufficient to bring a man into relationship with them— no; nor even membership in that Inner School through which the Society offers training to its more earnest members. It is true that from the ranks of the Society men have been chosen to come into closer relation with them; but none could guarantee that as a result of becoming a member,, for it rests with them alone, for they see further into the hearts of men than we. But always be sure of this, you whose hearts are yearning for the higher life, for something greater than this lower life can give, they never overlook one honest effort, but always recognize it by giving through their pupils such teaching and such help as is best for the man at his stage.*" The Masters of Wisdom, who are members of the Hierarchy that governs the world, call themselves the Elder Brothers of humanity. Among their ranks still move and work the gi-eat saviors of mankind like Gau- tama Buddha, Christ and Krishna; Pythagoras, Kleinias, Apollonius of Tyana, lamblichus, still inspire the philo- sophic schools. Shankaracharya and Bamanujacharya *C. W. L., "The Other Side of Death." 81 A PRIMER OF THE080PEY of India and others are among them; and Christian Rosenkreuz, the founder of Rosicrucianism, one of these elder brothers, has for centuries stood behind all Masonic and other fraternal organizations, inspiring them and guiding them to do for men what Christian churches cannot do. Among the Adept ranks still live, guiding their followers, Zoroaster and Mohammed. These adepts are known in the East as Mahatmas or Great Souls, Rishis, and Arhats. In western lands, in the Middle Ages, tradition knew something of them as the Knights of the Koly Grail; even in the Christian ritual a faint recollection of them still exists under the term "The Communion of Saints." Many of these great ones have had many reincarnations since they were known to history under these names. C. J. The Celestial Hierarchy of the World. "Every Adept — every pupil even, when once definitely accepted — takes part in the great work of helping forward the evolution of man; but those standing on the higher levels take charge of special de.partments, and cor- respond in the cosmic scheme to the ministers of the crown in a well-ordered earthly state." One such de- partment, the present head of which is the Christ (known to esoteric Hindu tradition as Jagat Guru, the Teacher of the World, and to esoteric Buddhist tradi- tion as Bodhisattva, the future Buddha), directs the religious instruction of humanity. "The Great One in charge of this department sometimes himself appears on earth to found a great religion, and sometimes entrusts such work to one of his more advanced assistants. We must regard Him as exercising a kind of steady pressure from behind all the time, so that the force employed will flow as though automatically into every channel anywhere and of any sort which is open for its pas- sage; so that He is working simultaneously through every religion, and utilizing all that is good in the way of devotion and self-sacrifice in each. The fact that 82 TEE CELESTIAL EIERARCHY these religions may be wasting strength in abusing one another upon the physical plane is of course regret- table, but it does not make much difference to the fact that whatever is good in each of them is being simul- taneously utilized from behind by the same great power. The same is true of course of all movements in the world — every ounce of the good in them is being utilized as a channel, while the evil in them is in each case just so mucn "regrettable waste of force which might have been utilized if the people had been more sensible." A second department deals with humanity as grouped into nations, and guides their rise and fall, directing each from the unseen to do its work in the world, so that the progresses of the whole may be quickened. Nations, as well as individuals, have their karma, and the adepts in charge of them are continu- ally adjusting their karmas to bring out of chaos and selfishness the utmost good possible. Other departments guide the evolution of the vege- table and animal kingdoms, directing the survival of the fittest forms, bringing about variations and new types in accordance with plans before them by utilizing the struggle for existence on the physical plane. Yet other departments direct the progress of the world by guid- ing discoveries in science and archaeology, step by step, with infinite tenderness coaxing souls to step out into the light. So it is with the world of art; all unseen, except to the occultist, there is the steady pressure from behind, directing the strivings of artists to realize the ideal. ♦> In the millions of years required to train human souls, in successive cycles, humanity inhabits different planets within the Solar System. Humanity for ages now has occupied the earth. There exist humanities on all the planets of the system, some in physical bodies, where the globe's condition permits physical life, others in astral forms. While a humanity occupies a globe there appear on it successively seven great types of races. 83 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY So far on earth five such "root-races" have appeared. The descendants of the two earliest liave died out. The third race, the Lemurian, is represented by< the blaci-: wooly-haired races of the world. The fourth root-race had its habitat on the sunken continent of Atlantis. This Atlantean race is represented now on earth by the Mongolian peoples of China and Japan, and the Red Indians of America. The fifth root-race is the Aryan or Caucasian, having within it Aryan Hindus, Ancient Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts and Teutons. Its sixth sub-race is being formed in North America. Each root-race has seven sub-races, appearing one after another. Each root-race has its Manu or Law- giver, and its Buddha or Spiritual Director. The work of all the departments is under the supervision of a Chief, within whose immediate and direct consciousness everything within this globe takes place. Each globe has its Chief, who is as it were its life and heart. All the chiefs within the Solar System are the ministers of the Solar Logos, whose powers and attributes are such that He is to us very God of very God, since at every point of space within His system He exists in His fullest consciousness. In Him we live and move and have our being, for we are His offspring. Every starry system in the heavens has its Logos, the Father of that system and of all that has life and consciousness therein. Embracing all conceivable uni- verses, at every point in His full perfection, is the Cosmic Logos. "Him, nor from above, nor from below, nor midmost, can one grasp; no equal to be found is there of Him, whose name is Glory Great." Yet this much we know, and every year fuller and fuller; that from us at our lowly levels, linking us to the Godhead, there is a hierarchy of Elder Brothers — Angels and Adepts, Masters of the Wisdom, Captains of our Salvation, Logoi innumerable; that in spite of the seeming jarring and discord and suffering, there is an irresistable guidance; that there is not a sparrow 84 WHAT TEEO SOPHY DOES FOR US that falls on the ground but They know; that They are stretching Their hands to us, once again as of old, now through Theosophy, to help us to climb to where life is in its truest and fullest, to teach us what They know — That God is all and in all. C. J. WHAT THEOSOPHY DOES FOR US. There are certain great basic facts of life about which every thinking man desires accurate information — such facts as the existence and nature of God and His relation to man; we desire to know whence we came and whitlTder we are going anrl what is the object of our existence. There are in the world many forms of religion, and each of these forms has propounded its own theories with regard to these matters, but these theories have differed wide- ly, and each has bitterly assailed and ridiculed the be- liefs of the others, so that the majority of men have come to think that upon all these points there is no certain information available. So it comes to them as a surprise to find that there is a coherent and reasonable theory of the universe — a plain declaration of the great facts of Nature, so far as they are known — a statement which is not to be accepted as a creed, but to be studied and investigated. Theosophy is such a statement — a definite science, the result of very many centuries of research and experi- ment, yet verified in our day by many of its students, and verifiable by anyone who is willing to take the trouble to qualify himself for such enquiry. Theosophy is not a religion, but it bears to the re- ligions the same relation as did the ancient philoso- phies ; it does not contradict any of them, but it explains and harmonizes them all. It teaches that truth on all those important points of which we have spoken is attainable. It considers all the various religions as statements of that truth from difl"erent points of view, and it points to the fact that however much these faiths may seem 85 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHi to differ, its teachings explain them all. It shows us also the relation between religion and science — that they are not hostile to one another, as is usually supposed, but that on the contrary true religion should welcome science, as affording the means of proof for its teach- ings, while science may learn from religion the direc- tion in which it may most usefully push its investiga- tions. Theosophy is itself a science, and the greatest of all, for it is the Science of the Soul; it carries scientific methods into higher realms and applies them to the consideration of a vast field of facts which lie beyond the reach of the physical senses. It solves for us many of the most difficult problems of life, and explains for us many mysteries, bringing them all together as parts of a connected scheme, and thus making them at once intelligible and rational. From the investigations that have been made, there emerge three great basic truths, ' not metaphysical speculation, not pious opinions, but definite scientific facts, proved and examined over and over again by many students. These three truths are: 1. God exists, and He is good. He is the great life- giver who dwells within us and without us, and is undying and eternally beneficent. He is not heard, nor seen, nor touched, yet is perceived by the man who desires perception. 2. Man is immortal, and his future is one whose glory and splendour have no limit. 3. A Divine law of absolute justice rules the world, 80 that each man is in truth his own judge, the dis- penser of glory or gloom to himself, the decreer of his life, his reward, his punishment. Since the object of this paper is not to explain the scheme, but to describe its results in daily life, I may refer the reader, for further exposition of it to "An Outline of Theosophy." When those three great basic truths and all the de- ductions which naturally follow from them are thor- THE THREE BASIC TRUTHS oughly comprehended, they introduce so radical a change inio a man's life that it is not easy within reasonable compass to give any idea of its extent. The best that can be done is to mention a few leading ideas, leaving the reader to follow out the necessary ramifications for himself. Finding that there is a Supreme Power which is directing the course of evolution and that He is all- wise and all-loving, we see that everything which exists within His scheme must be intended to further its progress. We realize that all things are working to- gether for good, not only in the far distant future but also now and here. The final attainment of unspeak- able glory is an absolute certainty for every son of man, whatever may be his present condition. But that is by no means all; here and at tnis present moment he is on his way towards that glory; and all tiie circum- stances surrounding him are intended to help and not to hinder him, if only they are rightly understood. It is sadly true that in the world there is much of evil and of sorrow and of suff'ering; yet, from the higher point of view we may see that, terrible though this be, it is only temporary and superficial, and is all being utilized as a factor in the progress. ^Miile we look at it from its own level it is almost impossible to see this, but if we will raise ourselves above it and look upon it with the eyes of the spirit we shall regard it as a whole, and thus we shall compre- hend it. While we are looking from beneath at the under side of life, with our eyes fixed all the time upon some apparent evil, we can never gain a true grasp of its meaning; but if we rise above it to the higher planes of thought and of consciousness we can look down and understand it in its entirety. So we can see that in very truth all is well. Not only that all will be well in some remote future, but that even now in this moment in the midst of incessant strife and apparent evil, the mighty current of evolution is still 87 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY flowing, and so all is well because all is moving on in perfect order towards the final goal. Regard the roaring rapids of some rolling river, svich as Niagara, and picture to yourself some tiny insect being swept down upon the surface of the water. Think how that water boils and foams and surges and rushes this way and that as it dashes among the rugged rocks, and realize how impossible it would be for that tiny insect to see anything beyond the strife and the stress and the foam and the beating backwards and forwards — how to him inevitably that must seem the whole world, nothing but a confusion and a struggle and a buffeting, carrying him sometimes in one direction and sometimes in the other without any ordered progress or any comprehensible object. Yet we have only to rise above all that confusion, to stand upon the bank and look down upon it, and we observe that the whole body of water is moving steadily onwards, and that though here and there there are little eddies in which part of it for the time seems to be running backwards, in reality the very eddies themselves are all the time sweeping forwards with the rest. Just so the philosopher who can raise his conscious- ness above the storm and stress of worldly life and look down upon it from above recognizes what seems to us to be evil and notes how it is apparently pressing backward against the great stream of progress; but he also sees that the onward sweep of the Divine law of evolution bears the same relation to this superficial evil as does the tremendous torrent of Niagara to the fleckings of foam upon its surface. So while he sym- pathizes deeply with all who suffer, he yet realizes what will be the end of that suffering and so for him despair or hopelessness is impossible. He applies this consideration to his own sorrows and troubles as well as to those of the world, and therefore one great result of his Theosophy is a perfect serenity — even more than that, a perpetual cheerfulness and joy. 88 RELIEF FROM FEAR For him there is an utter absence of worry, because in truth there is nothing left to worry about, since he knows that all must be well. His higher science makes him a confirmed optimist, for it shows him that, what- ever of evil there may be in any person or in any move- ment, it is of necessity temporary because it is op- posed to the resistless stream of evolution; whereas, whatever is good in any person or any movement must necessarily be persistent and useful because it has be- hind it the omnipotence of that current, and therefore it must abide and it must prevail. Yet it must not for a moment be supposed that because he is so fully assured of the final triumph of good he remains care- less of or unmoved by the evils which exist in the world around him. He knows that it is his duty to combat these to the utmost of his power because in doing this he is working upon the side of the gi'eat evolutionary force and is bringing nearer the time of its ultimate victory. None will be more active than he in labouring for the good, even though he is absolutely free from the feeling of helplessness and hopelessness which so often oppresses those who are striving to helo their fellow- men. Another most valuable result of Theosophical study is the absence of fear. Many people are constantly anxious or worried about something or other; they are fearing lest this or that should happen to them; lest this or that combination may fail, and so all the while they are in a condition of unrest. The majority of their fear is wholly unnecessary, and most of the things feared never come to pass ; but nevertheless the fact re- mains that large numbers of people are constantly giving themselves a great deal of unnecessary suffering in this way. Most serious of all for many is the fear of death. Quite a large number of people seem to have it always in their minds as an ever-haunting dread — a sword of Damocles ever hanging over their heads, ready to fall upon them at any moment. 89 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY The whole of that feeling is entirely swept away for the man who understands the Theosophical teaching. When we realize the great truth of reincarnation, when we know that we have often before laid aside physical bodies, then we shall see that death is no more to us than sleep — that just as sleep comes in between our days of work and gives us rest and refreshment, so between these days of labour here on earth which we call lives, there comes the long night of astral and of heavenly life to give us rest and refreshment and to help us on our way. To the Theosophist death is simply the laying aside for a time of this robe of flesh. He knows that it is his duty to preserve that bodily vesture as long as he can, to gain all the experience he can; but when the time comes for him to lay it down, he will do so thankfully, because he knows that the next stage will be a very much pleasanter one than this. Thus he will have no fear of death, although he realizes that he must live his life to the appointed end, because he is here for the purpose of progress, and that progress is the one truly momentous matter. See what a differ- ence that makes in a man's conception of life; the ob- ject is not to earn so much money, not to obtain such and such a position; the one important thing, when we really comprehend it, is to carry out the divine plan. For this we are here, and everything else should give way to it. It needs only that we shall understand the facts, and all fear at once ceases. Another great point which we gain from our Theo- sophical teaching is that we have no longer any religious fears or worries or troubles. Many of our noblest and best people are constantly morbidly introspective, con- stantly fearing whether at the last they may not some- how be cast away; whether they may not fall short in some way, they scarcely understand how, of the de- mands which their faith makes upon them. All that is swept aside when we see clearly that progress toward the highest is the Divine Will for us; 90 MAN, KNOW THYSELF that we cannot escape from that progress; that what- ever comes in our way and whatever happens to us is meant to help us along that line; that we ourselves are absolutely the only people that can delay our ad- vance. When we really know this, what a dilierence it makes in the aspect of life! No longer do we trouble and fear about ourselves; we simply go on and do the duty which comes nearest, in the best way that we can, confident that if we do this, all will be well for us without our perpetually worrying. True, we are told in the wise Greek proverb: "Know thyself." True, it is our business to know ourselves, and to discover our own weak points; but that also must be done according to reason and according to common-sense, and we must not be like those tiny children who, when they make a garden, are constantly pulling up their plants to see how much they are grow- ing. That is exactly what so many good people are always doing — they are perpetually pulling themselves up by the roots to see how they are getting on, instead of being satisfied quietly to do their duty, and trying to help their fellows in the race, knowing that the great Divine Power behind will press them onward slowly and steadily and do for them all that can be done, so Ion"' as their faces are set steadfastly in the right direction, so long as they do all that they reason- ably can. Since we are thus all part of one great evolution and all very literally the children of one Father, we see that the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity is no mere poetical conception, but a definite fact; not a dream of something which is to be in the dim distance of Utopia, but a condition existing here and now; and that is why the promotion, the realization of that Universal Brotherhood is the first Object of the Theosophical Society. And the certainty of this all-embracing fra- ternity gives us a wider outlook upon life and a broad impersonal point of view from which to regard every- 91 A PRIMER OF THE080PHY thing. The ordinary man looks at everything from a personal point of view; the first thing and often the only thing that he thinks about is how a certain occur- rence is going to affect him; if he thinks of its effect on the community at large it is only as an after- thought. Theosophy teaches us that the real interests of all are in truth identical, and that no man can ever make a real gain for himself at the cost of loss or suffering to someone else. Once more we must insist that this also is not taught as a pious belief, but is proved as a scientific fact. Many a man is under the delusion that he gains much for himself when he cheats or injures another; he may even think that he can prove it by showing the dollars and cents which he has amassed in this nefarious man- ner. But in truth that man is taking a ludicrously partial view of the case and is leaving out of account absolutely every factor which is of any permanent value. For there is something higher and greater in a man than the physical body, which is after all nothing but a vesture, and that which is of importance is ^ot the effect of any given transaction upon the vesture, but upon the man who wears it; and it is found by in- vestigation that the effect of any such fraudulent action upon the true man, the soul, is limiting and debasing to the last degree; so that through his ignorance of the facts, such a man is seriously hindering his own prog- ress for the sake of a very small apparent acquisition. Since humanity is literally a whole, nothing which injures one man can ever be really for the good of any other, for the harm done influences not only the doer but all those who are about him. So the student soon comes to know that there is no such thing as a private gain at another man's cost, and that the only true • advantage for him is that benefit which he shares with all. He sees also that any advance which he makes in the way of spiritual progress or development is some- thing secured not for himself alone but for others, as 92 TEE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN we shall see later when we come to write on the sub- ject of the power of thought. If he gains knowledge and self-control he assuredly acquires much for himself, yet he takes nothing away from anyone else, but on the contrary he helps and strengthens others. Cognizant as he is of the absolute spiritual unity of humanity, he knows that in this lower world also, in real truth, the interest of one can never be opposed to the interest of all, and so that no true profit can be made by one man which is not made in the name of and for the sake of all humanity; that one man's progress must be a little lifting of the burden of all the others; that one man's advance in spiritual things means a very slight yet not imperceptible ad- vance to humanity as a whole; that everyone who bears sorrow and suffering nobly in his struggle towards the light is lifting a little of the heavy load of the sorrow and suffering of his brothers as well. When he recognizes this brotherhood not merely as a hope cherished by despairing men but as a definite fact following in scientific series from all other facts, when he sees this as an absolute certainty, his attitude towards all those around him naturally changes very greatly. It becomes a posture ever of helpfulness, ever of the deepest sympathy, for he sees that nothing which clashes with their higher interest can ever be the right thing for him to do or can ever be good for him in any way. And so it naturally follows that he becomes filled with the widest possible tolerance and charity. He cannot but be always tolerant because his philosophy shows him that it matters little what a man believes so long as he is a good man and true. Charitable also he must be, because his wider knowledge enables him to make allowance for many things which the ordinary man does not understand. The standard of the Theo- sophical student as to right and wrong is always higher than that of the less-instructed man; yet he is far gentler than the latter in his feeling towards the sin- 93 A PRIMER OF THE080PHY ner, because he comprehends more of human nature. He realizes how the sin appeared to tlie sinner at the mo- ment of its commission, and so he makes more allow- ance than could possibly be made by the man who is ignorant of all this. He goes further than tolerance, charity, sympathy; he feels positive love towards mankind, and that leads him to adopt a position of ever-watchful helpfulness- The child who deeply loves his mother is always watch- ing for an opportunity of doing some little thing for her, something that he knows will please her or save her trouble. It is just that attitude of watching for an opportunity to help which the Theosophist adopts towards his fellows. He feels that every contact with others is for him an opportunity, and Theosophy brings him so much additional knowledge, that there is hardly any case in which it does not enable him to give advice or help. Not that he is perpetually thrusting his opinions upon other people; on the contrary he observes that just this is one of the commonest mistakes made by the uninstructed. If the ordinary man has a definite opinion of his own, whether it be upon matters religious, political, or social, or upon any of the other subjects of common discussion, he is for ever endeavouring to force that opinion upon others and to make them think exactly as he does. The Theosophist knows that all this is a very foolish waste of energy, and therefore he declines to argue. If anyone desires from him ex- planation or advice he is more than willing to give it; yet he has no sort of wish to convert anyone else to his own way of thinking. In every relation of life this idea of helpfulness comes into play— not only with regard to our fellow-men, but also with regard to the vast animal kingdom which surrounds us. Units of this kingdom arc often brought into very close relation with us, and this is for us an opportunity of doing something foi 94 THEOSOPHY 18 COMMON 8EX8E chem. We must remember that these animals also are our brothers, even though they may be younger brothers. It is the same great Divine Life which ani- mates them, even though it be a later wave, a less developed outpouring of that life. Still, they are our brothers and we owe a fraternal duty to them also — so to act and so to think that our relation with them shall be always for their good and never for their harm. Pre-eminently and above all else, Theosophy is a doctrine of common-sense. It puts before us, so far as we can know them, the facts about God and man and the relations between them; and then instructs us to take these facts into account, and act in relation to them with ordinary reason and common-sense. This is all that it asks from any man as regards life. It sug- gests to him to regulate his life according to these laws o" evolution which it has taught him. That is all, yet it means a great deal; for it gives the man a totally different standpoint, and a touchstone by which to try everything — his own thoughts and feelings, and his own actions first of all, and then those things which come before him in the world outside himself. Always he applies this criterion, is the thing right or wrong? Does it help evolution or does it hinder it? If a thought or a feeling arises within himself, he may see at once by this test whether it is one that he ought to encourage. If it is for the greatest good of the greatest number, then all is well; if it may hinder or cause harm to any being in its progress, then it is evil and to be avoided. Exactly the same reasoning holds good if he is called upon to decide with regard to anything outside of himself. If from that point of view the thing be a good thing, then he can conscientiously support it; if not, then it is not for him. For the man who sees the truth in, this way the question of personal interest does not come into the case at all, and he thinks simply of the good of evolu- tion as a whole. This gives the man a definite foot-hold, 95 A PRIMER OF THE080PHY a clear criterion, and removes from him the pain of indecision and hesitation. The will of God is man's evo- lution; whatever therefore helps on that evolution must be good, whatever stands in the way of it and delays it, that thing must be wrong, even though it may have on its side all the weight of public opinion and of imme- morial tradition. It is true that all about us we see infringements of the Divine Law taking place, yet we know that the law is far stronger than the petty will of those who ignorantly disobey it; we know that in working along with the law we are cer- tainly working for the future, and that though at the passing moment our efforts may not be appreciated the future will assuredly do us justice. Therefore we care little for the judgment of those who do not yet under- stand, since our knowledge of the governing laws enables us to work in the' right direction. Of no less importance are the practical deductions which flow from the second of the great truths which we stated at the beginning of this paper; for to under- stand that the true man is the soul and not the body means an absolute revolution from the concepts of the majority of men around us. Our common expressions in every-day life show the most astounding practical materialism, for we constantly speak of "my soul," showing that we ordinarily regard the body as the self and the supposed soul as part of its property. Until we have entirely rid ourselves of this extraor- dinary delusion that the body is the man, it is quite impossible that we should at all appreciate the real facts of the case. A little investigation soon shows us that the body is only a vehicle by means of which the man manifests himself in connection with this par- ticular type of gross matter out of which our visible world is built, and that the man himself has an ex- istence quite apart from his body, capable of being carried on at a distance from it when it is living and entirely without it when it is dead. 96 SEEKING PERFECT DEVELOPMENT This being so, it becomes evident at once that it is the life of the soul only which is really of monent, and that everything connected with the body must un- hesitatingly be subordinated to those higher interests. The student knows that this earth-life is given to him for the purpose of progress, and that that progress is the one really important thing. We shall readily see what a difference this makes in his conception of life; the objects which men ordinarily put before themselves at once fade into the background, for he sees that whether he earns a certain amount of money or whether he obtains some particular position is a matter of com- paratively little moment. The one vital thing, now that he understands life, is to carry out the Divine plan, since it is for that reason that he is here, and every- thing else must give way to that. The real purpose of his life is the unfoldment of his powers as a soul, the development of his character. It is with this object only that he descends into physical life, in order that through the physical body he may gain experience which would not be possible to him on a higher plane, and may thus develop within himself permanent qualities. Closer study will show him that he possesses other vehicles besides the physical body, and that through all of these he has lessons to learn; so that there must be development not only of the physical body, but also of the emotional nature, of the mind, and of the spir- itual perceptions. The detailed method by which all this can be done will be found in our Theosophical lit- erature; but half of the battle is already won when the man has realized the necessity of this effort and is de- termined to make it. In connection with this he dis- covers three great points: 1. That nothing short of absolute perfection is expected of him in regard to this development. 2. That all power with regard to it is in his own hands. 3. That he has all eternity before him in which to attain this perfection, but that the sooner it is gained the happier and the more useful will he be. 97 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPEY He sees that what he has been in the habit of calling his life is nothing but a day at school, and that his physical body is merely a temporary vesture assumed for the purpose of learning through it. He knows at once that this purpose of learning the lesson is the only one of any real importance, and that the man who allows himself to be diverted from that purpose by any consideration whatever is acting with inconceivable stupidity. To him who thus grasps the truth, the life of the ordinary person devoted exclusively to physical objects, to the acquisition of wealth or fame, appears the merest child's play — a senseless sacrifice of all that is really w^orth having for the sake of a few moments* gratification of the lower part of man's nature. The student "sets his affection on things above and not on things of the earth" not only because he sees this to be the right course of action but because he realizes very clearly the valulessness of these things of earth. He always tries to take the higher point of view, for he knows that the lower is utterly unreliable — that the lower desires and feelings gather round him like a dense fog and make it impossible for him to see anything clearly from that level. Whenever he finds a struggle going on within him — that "law of the members warring against the law of the mind," as St. Paul puts it, he remembers that he himself is the higher, and that this, which is the lower, is not the real self, but merely an uncontrolled part of one of its vehicles. He identifies himself never with the lower, but always with the higher; he stands on its side, because he knows that the soul is the true man. The great law of evolution is steadily pressing us on, sweeping us ever onward and upward along the course that all must take sooner or later. But it is obvious that the better we understand tiie Divine law under which we are living, the easier and the more rapid will be our progi'ess. No doubt even with the very best intentions and efforts we shall make many mistakes and shall often fall by the way; but we 98 EACH LIFE A DAY IN SCHOOL need not for this reason become the victims of despair. Although we may fail a thousand times on the way towards our goal, our reason for trying to reach it re- mains just as strong after the thousandth fall as it was at the beginning, so that it would not only be use- less but very unwise and very wrong to give way to despondency and hopelessness. The work has to be done, the goal has to be attained, and' each man must always start from where he individually stands; it is futile for him to think that he will wait until he reaches some other position. Therefore, however often he may fail, he must still get up and go on again, for the road of progress has to be trodden. The sooner we begin it the better for us — not only because it is far easier for us now than it will be if we leave the effort until later, but chiefly because if we make the endeavour now and succeed in achieving some progress, if we "rise thereby to some higher level, we are in a position to hold out a helping hand to those who have not reached even that step of the ladder which we have gained. In this way we may take a part, however humble it may be, in the great Divine work of evolution, every one of us, because each has his own position and his own opportunities. No matter how low his present status may be, yet there is someone still lower to whom he can hold out a helping hand, to whom he can be useful. The Theosophical teaching shows him that he has arrived at his present position only by a very slow process of growth, and so he cannot expect instantaneous attainment of perfection; but it also shows him how inevitable is the great law of cause and eff"ect, and he sees that when he once grasps the working of that law he can use it intelligently in re- gard to mental and moral development, just as on the physical plane we can employ for our own assistance those laws of nature, the working of which we have learned to understand. 99 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY One of the most important practical results of a thorough comprehension of Theosophical truth is the entire change which it necessarily brings about in our attitude towards death. It is impossible to calculate the vast amount of utterly unnecessary sorrow and misery which mankind in the aggregate has suffered simply from its ignorance with regard to this one matter of death. There is among us a mass of false and foolish belief along this line which has worked untold evil in the past and is causing indescribable affliction in the present, and its complete eradication would be one of the greatest benefits that could be conferred upon the human race. This benefit Theosophy at once bestows upon those who, from their study of philosophy in past lives, find themselves able to accept it. It robs death forthwith of all of its terror and much of its sorrow, and enables us to see it in its true proportions and to understand its place in the scheme of our evolution. The man who understands what death is knows that there can be no need to fear it or to mourn over it, whether it comes to himself or to those whom he loves. It has come to them all often before, so that there is nothing unfamiliar about it. He comprehends that life is continuous and that the loss of the physical body is nothing more than the casting aside of an outworn garment, which in no way changes the real man who is the wearer of the garment. He sees that death is simply a promotion from a life which is more that half physical to one which is wholly superior; so for himself he unfeignedly welcomes it, and even when it comes to those whom he loves, he recognizes at once the advantage for them, even though he cannot but feel a pang of regret that he should be temporarily separated from thein. Further study shows that even this supposed separa- tion is in fact only apparent and not real, for he learns that the so-called dead are near him still, and that he 100 TEE BEAUTY OF THE UNSEEN WORLD has only to cast off for a time his physical body in sleep in order to stand side by side with them as before. He sees clearly that the world is one, and that the same Divine laws rule the whole of it, whether it be visible or invisible to physical sight. Conse- quently he has no feeling of nervousness or strangeness in passing from one part of it to another, and no sort of uncertainty as to what he will find on the other side of the veil. The whole of the unseen world is so clearly and fully mapped out for him through the work of the Theosophical investigators that it is almost as well known to him as the physical life, and thus he is prepared to enter upon it without hesitation whenever it may be best for his evolution. For full details of the various stages of this higher life we must refer our readers to the books specially devoted to this subject; it is sufficient here to say that the conditions into which the man passes are precisely those that he has made for himself. He who is intelligent and helpful, who understands the condi- tions of this non-physical existence, and takes the trouble to adapt himself to them and make the most of them, finds open before him a splendid vista of opportunities both for acquiring fresh knowledge and for doing useful work. He discovers that life away from this dense body has a vividness and a brilliancy to which all earthly enjoyment is as nothing, and that through his clear knowledge and calm confidence the power of the endless life shines out upon all those around him. We have already said that what the uninstructed man usually calls his life is only one day in the real and wider life, and this brings us at once to the consideration of the great Theosophical doctrine of Reincarnation. This is one which is very frequently misunderstood, and one of the most ordinary misconceptions in con- nection with it is to confound it with the theory of the transmigration of human souls into animal bodies. Suffice it to say that no such retrogression is within 101 A PRIM Eli OF THE080PHY the limits of possibility. Though it is true that the physical form of man has evolved from a lower kingdom, when once a human soul has come into existence he can never again fall back into that lower kmgdom of nature, whatever mistakes he may make or however he may fail to take advantage of his opportunities. Since this day of life is a day at school, if a man is idle in the school of life he may need to take the same lesson over and over again before he has really learned it, but still on the whole progress is steady even though it may often be slow. Those who have not studied it, and therefore do not know all that it means, often feel great objection to this doctrine of rebirth. I have no space here to set forth the many unanswerable arguments in its favour, but they are fully set forth in the second of our Theo- sophical Manuals by a far abler pen than mine. It should also be remembered that, like the rest of the teaching, this is not a hypothesis but a matter of direct knowledge for many of us. Man gains very greatly, also, from obtaining an ac- curate idea of his place in the universe; his inherent self-conceit is wholesomely curbed by the realization of other and far grander evolutions, while at the same time he receives the very gTeatest encouragement from a definite certainty of the future that lies before him and the splendour of the goal which he will assuredly one day attain. In what has already been written we have constantly had to take into consideration the existence of the third of our great truths, the mighty law of cause and effect, of action and reaction, or of the readjust- ment of equilibrium. If we wish to understand this great fundamental law, we must wholly dissever it from the old ecclesiastical idea of reward or chastise- ment, and we must apprehend that in nature the punishment fits the crime with absolute accuracy and perfection because it is in fact part of it, because the 102 WE REAP AS WE HAVE SOWN result which follows the cause is itself part of that cause, although it is the unseen side of it. Under the operation of this far-seeing law man is what he has made himself and his surrounding circumstances are those which he himself has provided. Novel though this idea has been to many, it should not be difficult of comprehension. We are all familiar with the suggestion that as we sow so shall we reap; it is merely a slight extension of that thought to suppose that as we are now reaping, whether it be in circumstance or in disposition, so have we sown in the remote past of earlier lives. Indeed there is no other raiional hypothesis by which the many inequalities which we see on all sides of us can be explained. For not only do surroundings and opportunities differ, but it is painfully obvious that men ditier greatly in them- selves and that some are in every conceivable way less evolved than others. It is impossible reasonably to account for this on any of the ordinary theories, with- out impugning the Divine justice, but if we once admit that souls are of different ages ana therefore need differ- ent training we shall see that a flood of light is at once poured on the subject, and that its difficulties one by one disappear. The gross and brutish man is simply a child-soul; where he stands now we ourselves stood many ages ago; where we are now, there he will also stand after many more of these school-days which we call lives. And just as by looking back on the savage we may realize that which we were in the past, so by looking to the greatest and wisest of mankind may we realize what we shall be in the futufe. There have been and there yet are among men those who tower head and shoul- ders above their fellow-creatures in spiritual develop- ment; the Buddhas and the Christs, the great teachers and the philosophers — all these show us what one day we shall be, and so we see an unbroken chain of de- velopment, a ladder of perfection rising steadily before 103 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY us, and yet with human beings upon every step of it, so that we know that those steps are possible for us to climb; and it is just because of the unchangeableness of this great law of cause and effect that we are able to climb that ladder — because, since the law works always in the same way, we can depend upon it and we can use it, just as we use the laws of nature on the physical plane. If physical laws were subject to capricious variation, it would be impossible for us to utilize them, since at any moment our machinery might fail us and we could have no certainty of any kind in connection with its work; but just because we can invariably rely upon the action of gravity or upon the expansion of a gas we feel 'reasonably certain in our employment of these natural forces. Just in the same way when we know with absolute assurance that the qualities which we possess now are the products of our own thought and desire in the past, we have also indubitable evidence that our thought and desire in the present must inevi- tably build for us new qualities in the future, and there- fore that we can make ourselves precisely what we will. Not immediately, for growth is slow and evil habits take long to eradicate; nevertheless, with utter cer- tainty. When we see clearly that our present circum- stances are the results of our actions in the past we see also at the same time that we can so arrange our actions in the present as to mould our circumstances in the future, and thus we see that the whole of that future is entirely in our own hands, subject only to un- exhausted effects of what we have already done in the past. For neither thought nor action necessarily pro- duces all its effects immediately. Sometimes it may be many years or even many lives before the full re- sults become apparent; yet never does the slightest of them fail of final fulfilment. As the poet Longfellow has said: "Though the mills of God grind slowly. Yet they grind exceeding small; 104 TEE MEANING OF SUFFERING X hough with patience stands He waiting, With exactness grinds He all." ' From this great law flow many things. If once one gains this idea of perfect justice, the troubles and sorrows of life take on quite a new aspect. In the case of the ordinary person quite a small trouble will often, because it is so close to him, loom up so large as to obscure the entire horizon for him, so that he is un- able to see that the very sun is shining. Everything is altered for him; all life takes on a gloomy look, and he believes that he is the victim of some especial persecu- tion, when all the time the trouble in reality may be a very small matter. Such an attitude is not in the least possible for the student of Theosophy, for his knowledge brings to him a sense of perspective, and shows him that if suffering comes to him it comes because he has deserved it, as a consequence of actions which he has committed, of words which he has spoken, of thoughts to which he has given harbour in previous days or perhaps in earlier lives; and thus the w^liole idea of injustice as connected with misery is absolutely removed for him. He comprehends that all affliction is of the nature of tlie payment of a debt, and therefore when he has to meet the troubles of life he takes them and uses them as a lesson because he understands why they have come, and is in reality glad of the opportunity which they give him to pay off something of his obligations, even though they may cause him much sorrow in the paying. Again and in yet another way does he take them as an opportunity, for he sees that there is, as it were, an- other side to them if he meets them in the right way. Far too often the ordinary man makes the most of his troubles ; he anticipates them with fear, he intensi- fies them by grumbling, and he looks back upon them with regret and indignation. The wise man spends no time in bearing prospective burdens, for he knows that nine-tenths of those things which people fear never come to them, and that even 105 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY the few fears which are realized are never so serious in fact as they appeared beforehand in fancy; and so when trouble comes to him he does not aggravate it by foolish repining, but sets himself to endure so much of it as is inevitable with patience and with fortitude. Not that he submits himself to it as a fatalist might, for he takes adverse circumstance always as an incentive to such self-development as may enable him to trans- cend it; and thus out of the result of long past evil he brings forth the seed of future good. For in the very act of paying the outstanding debt he develops qualities of courage and resolution that will stand him in good stead through all the ages that are to come. Though it is true, as we have already said, that the student of Theosophy should be distinguishable from the rest of the world by his perennial cheerfulness, his undaunted courage under difficulties, and his ready sympathy and helpfulness, yet he will be at the same time emphatically a man who takes life seriously, who realizes that there is much for every one to do in the world, that there is no time to waste. Since he knows with such utter certainty that he not only makes his own destiny but may also gravely affect that of others around him, he perceives how weighty a responsibility attends the use of this power. He knows, for example, that thoughts are things, and that it is very easily possible to do great harm or great g od by their means. He knows that no man liveth to himself, for his every thought acts upon others as well; that the vibrations which he sends forth from his mind and from his emotional nature are reproducing themselves in the minds and the emotional natures of other men, and so that he is a source either of mental health or of mental ill to all with whom he comes in contact. This at once imposes upon him a far higher code of social ethics than that which is known to the outer world, for he discovers that it is demanded of him to control not only his acts pM his words but also his thoughts, since they may produce effects more serious 106 THE EFFECTS OF THOUGHTS and more far-reaching than their expression on the physical plane. For example, one of the commonest vices in this age of overwork and overstrain is irrit- ability. Very many people are suffering from this, and many are aware of the failing and are struggling against it. Every time that a man yields himself to this feel- ing and gives w^ay to an outburst of anger, he habituates himself to the vibrations which express this feeling, and so makes it a little easier to repeat them next time and a little harder to resist the next force from without which may impel him in that direction. But he also radiates these vibrations all around him and they impinge upon the emotional natures of other men and tend, like all other vibrations, to reproduce themselves. So that if some of those others be striving against this vice of irritability, his vibrations will stir them towards that emotion, and so make the task of control more difficult; and in this w^ay by his own carelessness he adds to the burden which his brother has to bear. If on the other hand he makes a heroic effort and controls his own emotion, he sends out a vibration of serenity, of peace and of harmony, which also tends to reproduce itself among his fellow-men, and makes it easier for every one of them to control him- self in turn. Thus, even when a man is not in the least thinking of others, he inevitably affects them for good or for evil. But in addition to this unconscious action of his thought upon others he may also employ it consciously for good; currents may be set in motion which will carry mental help and comfort to many a suffering friend, and in this way a whole new world of usefulness opens before the student. In this case as in every other, knowledge is power and those who understand the law can use the law. Knowing what effects upon them- selves and others will be produced by certain thoughts, they can deliberately arrange that the results shall be good and not evil, for all who can think can help others, 107 A PRIMER OF THE080PHY and all who can help others ought to help. Thus not only from selfish but from the far higher unselfish reasons the student sees the necessity for gaining per- fect control of the various parts of his nature, because only in that way can he progress and only in that way can he be thoroughly fitted to help others when the opportunity comes to him. Thus he will range himself ever on the side of the higher rather than the lower thought, the nobler rather than the baser; his toleration will be perfect because he sees the good in all. He will deliberately take the optimistic rather than the pessimistic view of every- thing, the hopeful 'rather than the cynical, because he knows that to be fundamentally the true view, the evil in everything being, as we have said before, neces- sarily the impermanent part, since in the end only the good can endure. In this way by looking ever for the good in everything that he may endeavor to strengthen it, by striving always to help and never to hinder, he will become ever of greater use to his fellow-men and thus will become in his small way a co-worker with the splendid stream of evolution. From what has already been written it will be seen that Theosophy is in no way unpractical or indefinite, but that on the contrary it has information to give which is of the greatest value to every human being, whether it be to the child or the parent, to the man of business or the artist, to the scientist, the poet, or the philosopher. Wherever it has spread its uplifting force has been felt, and already it has done much noble work towards the realization of the idea of Universal Brotherhood. An examination of its principles will at once show that if they were generally accepted war between nation and nation or strife between class and class would be- come a ridiculous impossibility, and that its thorough comprehension could not but raise man's actions and thoughts to a plane far higher than at present. For 108 TEE BENEFITS OF THEOSOPHIC STUDY this knowledge means not only power, but progress and unfoldment and the spreading of the truth means the advancement of the world. Summary. Surely, all mankind would be the better for the development of that serenity and joyousness which comes from the knowledge that all things are working together for good; for the attainment of that wider outlook which shows us that no man can ever gain at the cost of another; for the widest tolerance and the deepest sympathy; for the attitude of universal help- fulness, towards the lower kingdoms as well as towards men; for the possession of a criterion by which all actions and all thoughts may be tried; for the knowl- edge that man is a boul and not a body, and that therefore the life of the soul is his life, and that his work here is its development; tliat death is something not to be feated but to be understood; that there is no injustice in the world, since people are what they have made themselves in previous lives, and have what they have deserved to have; that therefore they are absolutely the makers of their own destiny, and that every word or thought or action is a stone in that edifice of the future; hence that they are responsible for their thoughts, and it is their duty to purify and to enrich them, not only in order that they may them- selves approach perfection, but also that they may be more useful to their fellow-men. Those who will study this Theosophical teaching will find, as we have found who are older students, that year after year it will grow more interesting and more fascinating, giving them more and more satisfac- tion for their reason as well as more perfect fulfilment and realization of their higher aspirations. Those who examine it will never regret it; through all their future lives they will find reason to be thankful that they undertook the study of the magnificent and all-em- bracing Wisdom-Religion which in these modern days we call Theosophy. 109 THE FOUXDIXG OF THE SOCIETY THE HISTORY AND ORGANIZATION OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. The Society began its career in New York City. November 17, 1875, when under the inspiration of Madame Blavatsky. Colonel H. S. Olcott, W. Q. vjudge, and a few friends joined her in organizing to study Occultism and spread the liberalizing doctrines of Uni- Headquarters of the Society, Adyar, India. versal Brotherhood. Colonel Olcott was elected Presi- dent. Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott soon re- moved to* India, where they established the present headquarters of the Society at Adyar, a suburb of Madras, and outlined the work and the purpose of our brotherhood. To Colonel Olcott is due the present division of the world-field into sections corresponding to the larger geogi-aphical and political departments of the earth. Each section is to a large degree autonomous. It elects its own officers, a general secretary and an executive committee, and holds annual meetings of delegates who are responsible for the framing of its local constitution and by-laws, which, however, may not conflict with those of the Society-at-large. The Society as a whole has its organization, which is headed by the President, who, at present, is Mrs. Annie Besant, who was elected to succeed Colonel Olcott, who died in 1907. A general council exists in which the General Secretaries have seats. 110 OUR ORGANIZATION It will thus been seen that while the Society is closely knit together, it has also a proper degree of elasticity and freedom in its local workings. Its pres- idents are energetic people who travel a great deal, visiting the sections and lecturing before them as often as possible. The solidarity and unity of the body are pTienomenal. The interest maintained in the work of the society^ by the members is enthusiastic, and is fostered by period- icals in over twenty languages of Europe and Asia. Each section, as has been said, holds its annual con- vention and maintains lecturers, who visit the branches and instruct members both in classes and individually. The sections are in internal communication through their own periodicals. The general headquarters, at Adyar, Madras, com- prise the presidential and secretarial offices, and the Adyar librarv, consisting of 13,000 oriental manuscripts, and about 15,000 printed books on eastern and western religion, philosophy and science. The grounds on which the headquarters buildings stand have a frontage upon the Adyar River and upon the Indian Ocean and cover over one hundred and thirty acres. Psychic Practices. Theosophists have ever deprecated the attempt to develop clairvoyance, clairaudience, leav- ing the body at will, levitation, etc.— by means of such methods or "yogi practices" as regulated breathing, crys- tal-gazing, automatic writing, looking concentratedly at points, circles, svmbols, etc. There are two forms of psychism, a lower and a higher. The lower offers com- paratively easy methods of gaining a few elementary psychic powers, without first insisting on a purified heart, a cultured mind, and a deep aspiration for service. This lower psychism is disastrous to the student sooner or later, not infrequently ruining his health, and worse still making him unbalanced and half insane. This is the "left-hand path of Yoga," that panders to the refined selfishness, pride and vanity of unscrupulous natures. Ill A PRIMER OF THEO SOPHY The right-hand path of the Higher Psychism lays down as the first qualification a spotlessly pure moral life. In this path, a desire to acquire powers is more a hindrance than a help. Needless to say, any exercise of a power, hypnotic or otherwise, to tamper with an- other's freedom of Avill, or to acquire knowledge in ways that would be considered dishonorable in the moral code of civilized nations, immediately stamps a man as a practitioner of "black magic." The ideals of the Higher Psychism cannot better be summed up than in these words Tennyson puts into the mouth of Athene, Goddess of Wisdom: "Self-reverence, self-knowdedge, self-control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power. Yet not for power (power of herself Would come uncall'd for), but to live by law, Acting the law we live by without fear; And because right is right, to follow right Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence." Objects of the Theosophical Society. Every religious leader has in one form or other proclaimed the Brother- hood of Man. To love one's neighbour as one's self is the ethicnl teaching of the East and the West. Yet in spite of the teaching of thousands of years the Brotherhood of Man seems as far off as ever. Theosophy shows how this ideal can be achieved in a new way, by appealing not merely to the emotions but by showing to the logical intelligence why the law of love is the principle of individual and collective growth. It combats materialism by pointing out the facts of the seen and the unseen that materialism ig- nores, and strives to abolish sectarianism by showing the common spiritual basis of all religious cults. Theosophy offers "the materials for a needed uni- versal religious philosophy; one impregnable to scien- tific assault, because itself the finality of absolute science, and a religion that is indeed worthy of the name since it includes the relations of man physical to man psychical, and of the two to all that is above and below them."* *A. P. Sinnett, "The Occult World." il2 OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY The objects of the Society are stated in its constitu- tion, as follows: , pirst— To form a nucleus of the Universal Brother- hood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color. Second.— To encourage the study of comparative re- ligion, philosophy and science. Third.— To investigate unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent in man. ^Tts chief aim is to extirpate current superstitions and skepticism, and from long-sealed ancient fountains to draw the proof that man may shape his own future destiny, and know for a certainty that he can live here- after, if he only wills, and that all 'phenomena' are but manifestations of natural law, to try to comprehend which is the duty of every intelligent being."* "The Theosophical Society is composed of students, belonging to any religion in the worll or none, who are united by their approval of the above objects, by their wish to remove religious antagonisms and to draw together men of good-will whatsoever their religious opinions, and by their desire to study religious truths and to share the results of their studies with others. Their bond of union is not the profession of a common belief, but a common search and aspiration for Truth. They hold that Truth should be sought by study, by reflection, by purity of life, by devotion to high ideals, and they regard Truth as a prize to be striven for, not as a dogma to be imposed by authority. They con- sider that belief should be the result of individual study or intuition, and not its antecedent, and should rest on knowledge, not on assertion. They extend tolerance to all, even to the intolerant, not as a privilege they bestow, but as a duty they perform, and they seek to remove ignorance, not to punish it. They see every religion as an expression of the Divine Wisdom, and *"The Occult Worid." 113 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY prefer its study to its condemnation, and its practice to proselytism. Peace is their watch-word, as Truth is their aim. Theosophy is the body of truths which forms the basis of all religions, and which cannot be claimed as the exclusive possession of any. It offers a philosophy which renders life intelligible, and which demonstrates the justice and love which guide in its evolution; it puts death in its rightful place, as a recurring inci- dent in an endless life, opening the gateway of a fuller and more radiant existence. It restores to the world the science of the spirit, teaching man to know the spirit as himself, and the mind and body as his servants. It illuminates the scriptures and doctrines of religions by unveiling their hidden meanings, and thus justifying them at the bar of intelligence, as they are ever justified in the eyes of intuition. Members of the Theosophical Society study these truths, and Theosophists endeavor to live them. Every one willing to study, to be tolerant, to aim high and to work perseveringly is welcomed as a member, and it rests with the member to become a true Theosophist."* No person's religious opinions are asked upon his joining, nor any interference with them permitted, but every one is required, before admission, to promise to show towards his fellow-members the same tolerance in this respect as he claims for himself. The motto of the Society is that of the princely family of the Maharajahs of Benares, "There is no Re- ligion higher than Truth." H. P. Blavatsky. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, born in 1831, was a Rus- sian lady of noble family. Her father was Colonel Peter Hahn, her mother Helene Fadeef, daughter of Privy-Councillor Andre Fadeeff and the Princess Dol- *Annie Besant. 114 THE FOUNDERS OF THE SOCIETY gorouki. When quite young she married General Nice- phore Blavatsky, Councillor of State, and Vice-Governor of the Province of Erivan. In 1852, when she was in London with her father, she met there her Adept teacher, a prince of India, then on a visit to England. He told her what work she would have to do in com- bating materialism. After some years' sojourn in the East with her Master, he commissionea her to go out into the world to form an organization through which the ancient wisdom of the East could once more be given to the world. Acting under orders she came to America in 1873. Then she sought out Colonel Olcott, whose name had been told her, as that of a future collaborator. In her first years in America she tried to show the occult and scientific basis of spiritualistic phenomena, but spirit- ualists then cared more for phenomena than for a com- prehension of their scientific significance. In 1875 she inspired the formation of the Theosophical Society, of which she was appointed corresponding secretary. In 1880, in Simla in India, she showed publicly to interested friends her possession of many occult powers. The story of these phenomena will be found in "The Occult World," by A. P. Sinnett. In 1884 an attempt was made by the Society for Psychical Research to prove her a fraud and trickster. The late Dr. Richard Hodgson was sent to India as a judicial commissioner to investigate and report. Not under- standing the first principles of occultism, and intensely materialistic in his standpoint, refusing to believe any- thing he could not account for, his report was con- demnatory. He gave ear to the testimony of discharged employes, whose mendacity has been clearly proved and utterly refused to credit the written and spoken tes- timony of honourable people in responsible public posi- tions. The whirligig of time brings many curious changes, and none more remarkable than that Dr. Hodg- son and the late F. W. H. Myers before their deaths went far toward establishing as proved facts phe- 115 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY nomeiia such as were condemned years before. Facts that Dr. Hodgson either glossed over or totally ignored because they contradicted his report, can be seen in "H. P. Blavatsky and the Masters of Wisdom," by Annie Besant, and "The Occult World," by A. P. Sinnett. Madame Blavatsky passed away in May, 1891. Her monumental work is "The Secret Doctrine," in three volumes, other writings being "Isis Unveiled, "The Voice of the Silence," "A Key to Theosophy," etc. H. S. Olcott. Henry Steel Olcott was born in 1832 in Orange, New Jersey. Up to the time of the Civil W^ar he worked as an agricultur- al expert, being at one time associate agricul- tural editor of the "New York Tribune." During tlie war he served in the Northern Army under General Burnside. He was then appointed by the War Department to inquire into department- al frauds. For success in this work he was ap- pointed Special Commissioner of the War Depart- ment and was lent to the Navy Department to put a stop to the abuses of the Navy Yards. It was later when he was sent by the "New York Sun" and the "New York Graphic" to investigate the spirit- ualistic manifestations at the Eddy farm that he met there a remarkable visitor, Madame H. P. Blavatsky. From this period began a collaboration which was ended only by death. Colonel Olcott was a magnificent organizer. He saw in the Theosophical movement a great unifier of re- 116 TEE PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY ligions and nations, and dedicating himself to the work he traveled all over the world proclaiming the broad fraternal platform of Theosophy. To his inspiration and help are due the self-supporting educational move- ment among the Buddhists of Ceylon; the drawing to- gether of the Buddhists of Ceylon, Burma, and Siam, and those of Japan and China, to a common plat- form; and the foundation in Southern India of schools for the education of the outcaste pariahs. The history of the Theosophical Society has been charm- ingly written by him in "Old Diary Leaves," in three volumes. Colonel Olcott died at the Headquarters in February, 1907. Mrs. Annie Besant. The present President of the Theosophical Society is known by name to all instructed people. Her father, though belonging to a Devonshire family, was half Irish. Her mother was pure Irish. Hence Miss Annie Wood, born in London in 1847, is three-quarters Irish. In 1867 she married the Reverend Frank Besant, brother of the novelist. Two children, a son and a daughter, were born to her, both still living and deeply devoted to her. The marriage was an unhappy one, and a divorce could easily have been secured on the ground of cruelty, but only a separation was arranged. In 1871 the long and painful illness of her baby daughter and the terrible suffering visited upon the child by a De- ity Who seemed to her unjust, shook her faith in religion and from this point began her rebellion against orthodoxy. 117 A PRIMER OF THEO SOPHY In 1874 began her collaboration with Charles Brad- laugh, For twelve years she worked for the National Secular Society, fighting against orthodox narrowness and illiberal oppression of freedom of thought. This was a period of atheism, where there was not so much the denial of God, as the assertion that a wish to be- lieve in His existence was not suflicient proof of that existence. Her strong love of the popular masses brought her into contact in 1884 with leading socialists of England like George Bernard Shaw. Her first introduction in this life to Theosophy and Occultism was in 1889, when W. T. Stead of the "Re- view of Reviews" gave her to review two large volumes, "The Secret Doctrnie," by H. P. Blavatsky. When she read that work she knew that her search for truth was over and that through storm she had come to peace. Since then she has represented Theosophy and the Theosophical Society in every part of the globe. Prob- ably now the most brilliant orator in the English-speak- ing world, she combines a broad and powerful intellect with wonderful, artistic expression and deep intuitive insight into the workings of Nature. Her writings are many, most noteworthy among them being "The Ancient Wisdom," "A Study in Consciousness," "In the Outer Court," and "Esoteric Christianity." Mrs. Besant is a good linguist, often lecturing in French. She knows Sanskrit, and has translated into English the "Bhagavad Gita." In May, 1907, for a term of seven years, she was elected President of the Society. C. W. Leadbeater. One of the most valued contributors to Theosophical literature is C. W. Leadbeater. He was born in England in 1847. Several years of boyhood were spent in travel and adventure in South America. He was ordained a priest of the Church of England and had already worked as a curate for some years when in 1883 he gained his first knowledge of Theosophy from Sinnett's "Occult 118 MR. C. W. LEADBEATER World." For many years he had been a close stu- dent of spiritualistic phe- nomena. In 1884 he left the church and formally attached himself to the Theosophical movement and went to India with Madame Blavatsky. During his stay in In- dia he was definitely trained by his Adept teachers to develop clair- voyant and other powers of consciousness. The use of his super-normal fac- ulties is as much a part of his normal life as it is for one not blind to see. The great value of his many writings lies in the fact that he shows that the super- physical worlds, the astral plane, the mental plane, the Buddhic plane, are as fully comprehensible by the human intellect by scientific methods of investigation as is any field or forest on the physical plane. He shows that there is no unbridgeable gap between the seen and the unseen; that Occultism is not a vague, mystical tradition to be accepted with faith, but on the other hand a science of nature in the study of which man not only finds fascination and inspiration but also those fundamental laws which affect his life for better or for worse. A list of his writings which are both charming and direct will be found elsewhere. C. Jinarajadasa. Among the younger workers in the Society is C. Jinarajadasa. He was born in 1875 in Ceylon, in the Sinhalese branch of the Hindu race. He studied lan- guages and law in England at St. John's College, Cam- bridge, and took his degree in 1900. Later, for a 119 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY while, he acted as Vice-Principal of Ananda Buddhist College, Colombo. Mr. Jinarajadasa was brought up as an orthodox Buddhist, but soon after his iheosophical studies be- gan he outgrew orthodoxy. He is a Theosophist first, and then a Buddhist only in so far as Buddhism does not contradict the truths of Theosophy. In 1902 he worked in Italy for theosophical propaganda, and in 1904 he came to America to work for the American Section. He is a fluent speaker and presents a broad cultured concep- tion of Theosophy. Com- parative Religion is one of his special studies, but he is also an eager stu- dent of the natural sci- ences. As a lover of Pla- to, Dante, Wagner and Kuskin, Mr. Jinarajada- sa's exposition of Theos- ophy supplements the work of the other theosophical lecturers and writers. Systematic Reading. It is undoubtedly desirable that one who wishes to study Theosophy thoroughly should acquaint himself in the course of time with the whole of the Theosophical literature. This is no light task; and the order in which the books are taken is of import- ance if a man wishes to get out of them the best that can be got. But at the same time it must be remem- bered that no order can be prescribed which will be equally suitable for every one; there are those who can usefully absorb information only along devotional lines, and there are those who must have a scientific and non-emotional presentation of the truth. The best thing that I can do, therefore, is to prescribe such a plan of reading as I have found to be on the whole 120 THE080PHIC STUDY most generally useful, leaving room for considerable variation to individual idiosyncrasies. It seen. 3 to me of great importance to have a clear outline of the whole scheme thoroughly in the mind before endeavoring to fill in the details. No one can know how strong is the evidence for any one part of the Theosophical teaching until he knows the whole of that teaching, and sees how each separate portion is confirmed and strengthened by the rest, and is indeed a necessary part of the scheme as a whole. My advice, therefore, would be that the beginner should read first the elementary literature, not troubling himself unduly with details, but seeking rather to take in and assim- ilate the broad ideas contained in it, so as to see all that they imply and to realize them as facts in nature, thereby putting himself into what may be called the Theosophical attitude, and learning to look at every- thing from the Theosophical point of view. To this end the student may take "An Outline of Theosophy" and various lectures by Mrs. Besant and myself which have been issued as propaganda pamphlets. When he feels himself fairly certain of these, I should recommend next Mrs. Besant's "Ancient Wisdom," which will give him a clear idea of the system as a whole. Another book which might be useful to him at this stage is "Some Glimpses of Occultism." He can then proceed to follow details along whichever line most commends itself to him. If he is interested chiefly in the ethical side, the best books are: "Light on the Path," "The Voice of the Silence," "The Doctrine of the Heart," "The Path of Discipleship," "In the Outer Court." If he cares chiefly for the Christian presentation of these truths, the best books are: "Esoteric Christianity," "The Christian Creed," "Fragments of a Faith For- gotten," "The Perfect Way." If he is interested in studying the life after death he will find what he wants in: "The Other Side of Death," "The Astral Plane." "The Devachanic Plane," "Death and After." 121 A PRIMER OF THE080PEY If he is approaching the matter from the scientific side , Mr. Sinnett's books will suit him: "Esoteric Buddhism," "The Growth of the Soul," "Nature's Mys- teries," and also Dr. Marques's "Scientific Corrobora- tions of Theosophy." If he cares for the study of comparative religion he should read: "Four Great Religions," "The Great Law,** "The Bhagavad-Gita," "Hints on the Study of the Bhagavad-Gita," *The Upanishats," "The Wisdom of the Upanishats," "Avataras," "The Three Paths and Dharma," "The Light of Asia," "A Buddhist Cate- chism," "An Advanced Textbook of Hindu Religion and Ethics." The student who is interested in applying Theosophy to the world of modern thought, and to political and social questions may profitably turn to: "Some Prob- lems of Life," "Theosophy and Human Life," "Occult Essays," "Theosophy and the New Psychology." If he is interested in investigating the origins and early history of Christianity, in addition to the books on Christianity already mentioned, Mr. Mead's works will specially appeal to him: "Did Jesus Live B.C. 100?" "The Gospel and the Gospels," "Thrice-Greatest Hermes," "Orpheus," "Plotinus." If, as is the case with most enquirers, his main interest centers round the wider knowledge and the grasp of life resulting from a study of occultism, he should read in addition to many of the books men- tioned above: "A Study on Consciousness," "An Intro- duction to Yoga," "Clairvoyance," "Dreams," "Invisible Helpers," "Man, Visible and Invisible," "Thought Forms," '•The Evolution of Life and Form," "Thought Power, Its Control and Culture." It will be desirable that he should comprehend the subjects dealt with in the manuals on "Reincarnation," "Karma," "Man and His Bodies." Indeed, these should be taken at an early stage of his reading. The earnest student, who intends to live 122 BOOKS FOR BEGINNER8 Theosophy as well as merely study it intellectually, should also have knowledge of the inner purpose of the Theosophical Society. He will gain this from Mrs. Besant's "London Lectures of 1907," as well as from the study of Col. Olcott's "Old Diary Leaves," and Mr. Sinnett's "Occult World" and "Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky." I, myself, think that the greatest book of all, Madame Blavatsky's "Secret Doctrine," should be left until all these others have been thoroughly assimilated, for the man who comes to it thus thoroughly prepared will gain from it far more than is otherwise possible. I know that many students prefer to take it at an earlier stage, but it seems to me more an encyclopedia or book of reference. The course I have indicated above means some years of hard reading for the ordinary man, but one who has achieved it and tries to put into practice what he has learnt, will certainly be in a position to afiford much help to his fellow men. C. W. L. Beginners are urged to commence their consideration of Theosophy with the study of such fundamental icorks^ as "An Outline of Theosophy," "Mam, and His Bodies," ''The Astral Plane," "The Other Side of Death" or "Some Glimpses of Occultism." There are sections of the Society in America, Great Britain, India, Australia, Scandinavia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, France, Italy, Germany, Cuba, Hun- gary, Finland, Russia and Bohemia. In South America and South Africa are presidential agents. Members of the Theosophical Society living in other countries are attached officially directly to the headquarters at Adyar. The lodges of the American Section are located in the following cities: Akron, Ohio; Albany, New York; Ana- conda, Mont.; Austin, Texas; Berkeley, Cal.; Boston, Mass.; Brooklvn, N. Y.; Buffalo, N. Y.; Butte, Mont.; Chicago, m.j Cleveland, 0.; Danvers, Mass.; Denver, 123 A PRIMER OF THEOSOPHY Colo.; Detroit, Mich.; Duluth, Minn.; Freeport, 111.; Fremont, Neb.; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Great Falls, Mont.; Helena, Mont.; Holyoke, Mass.; Honolulu, H. L; Jackson, Mich.; Joplin, Mo.; Kansas City, Mo.; Kansas City, Kan.; Lima, Ohio; Lincoln, Neb.; Long Beach, Cal.; Los Angeles, Cal.; Louisville, Ky.; Melrose High- lands, Mass.; Minneapolis, Minn.; Montreal, Can.; Muskegon, Mich.; Newark, N. J.; Newton Highlands, Mass.; New Orleans, La.; New York, N. Y.; Norfolk, Va.; Oakland, Cal.; Pasadena, Cal.; Philadelphia, Pa.; Pierre, So. Dak.; Pittsburg, Pa.; Portland, Ore.; Roches- ter, N. Y.; Saginaw, Mich.; San Francisco, Cal.; San Diego, Cal.; Santa Cruz, Cal.; Santa Rosa, Cal.; St.- Joseph, Mo.; St. Paul, Minn.; Seattle, Wash.; Sheridan, Wyo.; Spokane, Wash.; Springfield, Mass.; Superior, Wis.; Syracuse, N. Y.; Tacoma, Wash.; Toledo, Ohio; Topeka, Kan.; Toronto, Can.; Vancouver, B. C; Vic- toria, B. C; Washington, D. C; Wilmette, 111. Theosophic books may be purchased from several book i!oncerns, notices of which are to be fund in Messenger. The following periodicals are issued directly in the interest of theosophy: English: The Theosophist; Adyar Bulletin; The Vahan; Theosophy in India; Cen- tral Hindu College Magazine; Theosophy in Australia; Theosophy in New Zealand; The Theosophic Messenger; The Message of Theosophy; S. African Bulletin; Tlie Lotus Journal. French: Le Bulletin Theosophique; Les Annales Theosophique; Theosophie. Bulgarian: The Path. Swedish: Teosofisk Tidskrift. Spannish: Sophia Revista Teosofica; La Verdad; Virya; Sophia; Bhakti Cyan: Revista Teosofica. Dutch: Theosophia; De Gulden Keten; Theosophisch Haandblad: De Theo- sofische Beweging. Italian: Ultra; II Bollettino. Ger- man: Metaphysiche Rundschau; New Lotus Blueten; Lucifer-Gnosis; Mitteilungen. Finnish: Tietaja. Hun- garian: Azelet. Russian: The Theosophical Review. 124 There are human leings who do not care to walk along the road that has been made by the troubles and toils of others. They claim the icork of the pioneer to cut through the jungle, to make the road for others, to move away the stones that would cut the feet of others, making the road on which the weaker souls and hearts may walk. That is our only attraction, the spirit of the -pioneer. We attract those who icant to do the luork in order that others may be the letter for their icorUng, those who are willing to struggle, to suffer, to have their oicn feet cut by the sharp rocks, tn order that the ivay may be made smooth so that other feet may walk uninjured, unharmed. That is the only attraction to come into this little spiritual society that is striving to make the ivorkers for the future. Only those who hear that voice in the silence, summoning all to help who are willing to help, only they will spring forward and say: "Here am I; send me ichere there is work to be done. Let my hands be the hands of a worker;" that our only prize, that our only reward. But of all the rewards which earth can offer, of all the croicns with which humanity crowns her children, I know of none so at- tractive, I know of none that raises such passionate enthusiasm, as the permission to work that others may enjoy, the permission to labor that others may have rest; that splendid work, ichich proclaims the future while the difficulties of the present are upon us and in the darkest midnight proclaims the dawn, and has faith in the sun rising to dissipate the darkness of the night. A. B. ' The last word of Theosophy is the spirit of brotherhood. 'None should he happy and content while one is miserable and degraded. None should feel himself healthy and strong while one is diseased and deformed. We are all of one life. We are all of one love. Poor and rich, iceaJc and strong, ice are one humanity and we sink or rise together. Be- lieve not that by retiring to your own wealthy and happy homes amd closing your windows against the misery of the wretched you insure for yourselves a happy and peace- ful life. There is no peace while one jnan, woman or child is living in misery and des- titution. There is oyily one life, theirs and ours alike, and only as we strive for the re- demption of human misery and the defense of the weak and the miserable, only then can we hope to be recognized as fellow- workers with nature in that great army of the redeemers of the world, to ivhom God and the teachers look as their human instruments to do in the physical world that which is essentially their right, their duty, and if they only knew it, their highest hap- piness and their supreme fruit. A. B. A PRIMER OF TREO SOPHY JOINING THE SOCIETY— THE FORMATION Ot ^ LODGE. Seven or more persons who are already members, or intend to become charter members of the lodge may apply for a charter. All applicants who are already members of lodges must send demits from the lodges they are leaving. The headquarters will forward to those desiring to form a lodge a charter application form. This form must be filled out by inserting the proposed names of the lodge and the city in which it is to be located. Applications for charters are passed on by the Executive Committee. The sectional head- quarters are to notified of the names and addresses of the officers elected. Suitable by-laws are to be adopted by lodges at their organization meeting. Each member of the Section receives gratuitously The Theosophic Messenger, a monthly periodical issued under the auspices of the Sectional Convention. Upon his admission the member receives a sample copy of the Theosophist. A fee of five dollars must accompany th«* application for the charter. Study-classes. The early study of theosophy is diffi- cult and is usually best pursued in organized classes. Some one who has pursued the study for a time brings together a small group and some elementary work is used as a text-book. A small part of the subject-mat- ter is assigned as a text for the work of each hour of meeting. Teachers are advised not to lecture to study- classes but to lead them as question-meetings in which the teacher endeavors to find and strengthen the weak points in the knowledge of the class-members. In this way the peculiarities and difficulties of the members are met. Most lodges are formed as a result of the work of study-classes. The Primer may be used by beginners as a class text-book, but Man and His Bodies, by Mrs. Besant, and The Astral Plane, by Mr. Leadbeater, are generally utilized. For later study The Ancient Wisdom, by Mrs. Besant, is especially suited. 127 A PRIMER OF THEO SOPHY How to join the Theosophical Society — Send to the General Secretary or to the Secretary of any lodge for a blank application form. A copy of the rules of the Society will be given the applicant at the same time if desired. They are ex- tremely simple and involve him in no undesirable or unworthy obligation. Membership in a branch is secured by obtaining the counter-signature of two of its members who are ac- quainted with the qualifications of the applicant. The very modest fees of the society are paid, the applica- tion is acted upon by the branch and it is then for- warded to the General Secretary who returns a diploma of membership to the new member. Membership-at-large is secured by signing and return- ing the same form. With it should be enclosed $2.00 for entrance -fee, $1.00 for annual dues for the first year, and 50 cents diploma fee; total, $3.50. If the applicant knows no members whose counter-signatures may be obtained, he should refer the headquarters to two citizens of the applicant's neighborhood who vouch for his character. Their testimony will justify the oflSce in securing the signatures of two members of the Society. These being affixed, the General Secretary will admit and enroll the applicant as a member-at-large, returning him a diploma. Applicants may also be admitted as members-at-large by Presidents of Branches upon the same conditions, the President sending the completed application to Head- quarters. The annual dues are payable each January first, and a notice-card is sent to members-at-large from the headquarters. Members-at-large may join lodges at any time upon election to membership in them. 128 A LETTER. Dear Sir: The real meaning of Theosophy is only the study of all life, in all forms, as one. The hkie flax-flower, the golden-rod possess forms which our life, in its segre- gated seeming, ha^s long discarded. Yet we feel as we walk over those glorious waves of Dakota earth that, in an indescribable way, we are at one with the spirit of the scene, at one with its life. Where is God — the All — of Which we are a part? He is in our hearts, in our life; He is in the remainder of Nature, He is in Himself. How may we find Himf By the effort to study Him, to understand Nature or understand and to be the divine in ourselves. All men are consciously or unconsciously seeking God. The most God-like of God's creatures that we may study is Man. The shortest way to God is by going into our hearts, finding the laws of the growth of our life and obeying those lanvs. Theosophy tells openly in printed words to all men the gross outlines of The Path by which they may attain to a conscious union with God. What can you dot Read the book I send to em- phasize the idea of the flow of life through forms. Read other books and finally the idea of the evolu- tion of life will seem as inevitable to you a« is that of forms to our scientists. When will you feel that you are a theosophistf It will be' when you feel that what I have said about unity is the inevitable and only all-inclusive truth. This concept of the universe as God at one with and embracing His Nature and His more conscious children must be fully apprehended at the outset. When will you gain consciousness of unity with Godf In minor ways now. You do it when with a thrill of love for the flax-bell you feel your unity with it. Again when the soul is uplifted by music, a lecture, the regard of a friend, sympathy for humanity — then you feel the vague stirring of the Divine Babe loithin. When will you know God in your strength? When you have grown to manhood's stature. Now man, unth jutit a touch of the undeveloped superman, you vnll know God in His true likeness only when you are more than man — superman. Meantime, to-day, how can you draw breath — what inducement to live does the theosophist suggest your 129 pu/rsuing tJiat your days need not succeed each other in gathering horror? Seek the loay to Ood as you pnd it suits you. We have been satisfied icith theo- sophic philosophy and its hope. And DO — that which your hand finds to do — in the spirit of offering a gift to God uith each act. For it is the law that ichat we do for God redounds to the blessing of the world, and we may then live in the joy of Him Whom we serve. W. V-H. THE CHRIST'S SECOND COMING. When we sz>eak of the Christ we theosophists mean Him to Whom others refer when that wondrous word is used though we know that there are many Christs if we use the term in the generic sense. But He who once came before men to deliver that message of His which should be the religion of myriads of men in western incarnation is for us, too. The Christ and He it is who shall one day be a Christ for all the loorld. Soon he shall come again as has long been foretold; soon, in a third or half a century, He shall come and move among us, even here in America, lo prepare a neiu religion, to give a new message to men. This seems a necessity even to us who see but par- tially. Men are divided in thought, in feeling. They are no longer satisfied to be either churchmen or athe- ists, hut are beginning to contact God vaguely, uncer- tainly, in many ways as is planned by the Wise Broth- ers. In all arts, in all crafts, in all sciences, in all researches, in the touch with the unseen icorld which has been granted by so many agencies, God is being revealed anew to humanity. Many and various sign- posts point toward Him, but the revelation is never quite complete except when an Avatar is with us. Then all things are made clear — the curtain is for a moment raised and men by thousands — fortunate to be incarnate! — for that instant catch a glimpse of the supernal, sense the reality of the super-physical worlds. And ivhat preparations have been made in hea/ven for that coming! How the Brothers must rejoice that the long period of waiting is nearly over, that the difficulties to be encountered have been — almost all of them — overcome; that the thought-forms of centuries have been well utilized; that the men appointed to do certain work have performed their tasks and that the world that They love so icell and for which They have 130 borne so much, may move on by a great step amd that something more of certitude, something more of hope for life beyond the limitations of the flesh may really he hoped for by the Children of God! Sixty thousand millions of souls! What a vgst num- ber to be thought of, to be classified, to be watched, each one to be put back in the physical world in proper place and time. Yet the power and love of the Almighty and Bis Sons is adequate. And the new era that will come will be filled with good changes. For we are now to icork on the easier path of the upward evolutional trend and hope icill grow with the increasing years. What a rejoicing there will be ichen He comes! We the told that when the Savior's Blessing is given the world, the very trees and grass are made happier. Their leaves and fronds stand up filled with the reviving life- forces. The sacred word resounds more clearly through all nature. At each recurring season of the Lord's appearing, we feel the sweet influence all about and through. Think joyous thoughts, send out feelings of hope to men. Great Ones come to prepare the way. Mighty organi- zations of men are formed and manipulated to make all ready! In joyful anticipation, we may reiterate the siceet, old cry, ''Peace on Earth, good-will toward men." Anthem from "The White Lotus." (An unpublished mask.) In all hearts glows Some spark of life divine. Seek ye that fire! Deep in the heart it lies — fire of Love's sacrifice, Oft hidden by man's ignorance 'neath earthly jovs. Christ in all hearts! II. Servant of God's love, Sensa, shalt ever be; Christ now is born in thee! Brothers stood all about as thou wert slain, Brothers of the holy Grail, born long ago. Seek Christ within! m. All men shall seek Christ! First see they Him far oflf in ancient times. Seek for surcease of sorrow, kneel at His feet. Sacrifice they offer Him of their hearts' fire! Christ born within! IV. Joy in Christ's service Shall all men find! Peace sacred shall they know In the universal Law, tending God's altar fires. New joys forever Master gives without. In God's image Christ grows within. — W. V-H. 131 To each temperament there is one road which seems the most desirable. But the icay is not found by devotion alone, by religious contempla- tion alone, by ardent progress, by se^f-sacrificing labor 3 by studious observation of life. None alone can take the disciple more than one step onwards. All steps are necessary to make up the ladder. The vices of men become steps in the ladder, one by one, as they are surmounted. The virtues of man are steps indeed, necessary — not by any means to be diyyensed icith. Yet, though they create a fair limosphere and a happy future, they are useies-s if they stand alone. The tchole nature of man must be used icisely by the one icho desires to enter the way. Each man is to himself absoluteirj the toay, the truth and the life. But he is only so when he grasps his whole individualify prmly, and bii the force of his airakened spiritual nill, recog- nizes this individuality as not hi.'iself. but that thing which he has with pain created for his own use, and by means of which he purposes, as his growth slowly derelops his nfelligcnce, to reach to the life beyond individuality. When he knows that for this his wonderful complex separated life exists, then, indeed, and then only, he is upon the icay. Seek it bi/ plunging into the mysterious and glorious depths of your ou-n inmost being. Seek it by testing all experience. by utilizing the senses in order to understand the growth and meaning of individuality, and the beauty and obscurity of those other divine frag- ments which are struggling side by side with you. and form the race to ichich you belong. Seek it by study of the laws of being, the lair/i of nature, the laws of the supernatural : and seek it by making the profound obeisance of the .^oul to the dim star that burns icithin. Steailily, as you watch and worship, its light will groir stronger. Then yon may knoic you have found the beginning of the way. And when you han found the end its light will suddenly become *h< infinite light. - -"Light on the I'ath." 132 Date Due N 29 37 mh-'^i Ui^:'' I '^'■ti^,!^^^^*'''^ «WH?** >' f TJie American Section of the Theo- sophical Society has ninety-tzvo lodges '.Heated in sixty-seven cities. They are designated on page 123 and the name and address of the secretary of each zcill be furnished by the undersigned upon application. Wherever it is pos- sible, enquirers are urged to have personal interviezi's zvith officers of lodges, zvhose pleasure it is to give in- formation in regard to Theosophy. If for anv reason this is inconvenient or undesirable a competent correspondent residing as near the enquirer as pos- sible zvill be assigned to anszver all questions and aid in carrying on a course of reading and study. For- eigners zvill be assigned to correspon- dents zvho are acquainted zvith their ozvn language. Make all further inquiries of the General Secretary of the Section, Weller Van Hook, 103 State Street, Chicago, III., U. S. A. ilii Seminary-Speer Library 1 1012 01015 1977