Chapter LIV: Section LI: The “doctrine of the Eye” & the “doctrine of the Heart,” or (3)

The source and basis of it lie in Spirit and Thought, whether on the purely divine or the terrestrial plane. Those who know the history of Simon have the two versions before them, that of White and of Black Magic, at their option, in the much talked of union of Simon with Helena, whom he called his Epinoia (Thought). Those who, like the Christians, had to discredit a dangerous rival, talk of Helena as being a beautiful and actual woman, whom Simon had met in a house of ill‐fame at Tyre, and who was, according to those who wrote his life, the reincarnation of Helen of Troy. How, then, was she “Divine Thought”? The lower angels, Simon is made to say in _Philosophumena_, or the third Æons, being so material, had more badness in them than all the others. Poor man, created or emanated from them, had the vice of his origin. What was it? Only this: when the third Æons possessed themselves, in their turn, of the Divine Thought through the transmission into them of Fire, instead of making of man a complete being, according to the universal plan, they at first detained from him that Divine Spark (Thought, on Earth Manas); and that was the cause and origin of senseless man’s committing the original sin as the angels had committed it æons before by refusing to create.(809) Finally, after detaining Epinoia prisoner amongst them and having subjected the Divine Thought to every kind of insult and desecration, they ended by shutting it into the already defiled body of man. After this, as interpreted by the enemies of Simon, she passed from one female body into another through ages and races, until Simon found and recognized her in the form of Helena, the “prostitute,” the “lost sheep” of the parable. Simon is made to represent himself as the Saviour descended on Earth to rescue this “lamb” and those men in whom Epinoia is still under the dominion of the lower angels. The greatest magical feats are thus attributed to Simon through his sexual union with Helena, hence Black Magic. Indeed, the chief rites of this kind of Magic are based on such disgusting literal interpretation of noble myths, one of the noblest of which was thus invented by Simon as a symbolical mark of his own teaching. Those who understood it correctly knew what was meant by “Helena.” It was the marriage of Nous (Âtmâ‐Buddhi) with Manas, the union through which Will and Thought become one and are endowed with divine powers. For Âtman in man, being of an unalloyed essence, the primordial Divine Fire (or the eternal and universal “that which has stood, stands and will stand”), is of all the planes; and Buddhi is its vehicle or Thought, generated by and generating the “Father” in her turn, and also Will. She is “that which has stood, stands and will stand,” thus becoming, in conjunction with Manas, male‐female, in this sphere only. Hence, when Simon spoke of himself as the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and of Helena as his Epinoia, Divine Thought, he meant the marriage of his Buddhi with Manas. Helena was the Shakti of the inner man, the female potency.

Now, what says Menander? The lower angels, he taught, were the emanations of Ennoia (Designing Thought). It was Ennoia who taught the Science of Magic and imparted it to him, together with the art of conquering the creative angels of the lower world. The latter stand for the passions of our lower nature. His pupils, after receiving baptism from him (_i.e._, after Initiation), were said to “resurrect from the dead” and, “growing no older,” became “immortal.”(810) This “resurrection” promised by Menander meant, of course, simply the passage from the darkness of ignorance into the light of truth, the awakening of man’s immortal Spirit to inner and eternal life. This is the Science of the Râja Yogîs—Magic.

Every person who has read Neo‐Platonic Philosophy knows how its chief Adepts, such as Plotinus, and especially Porphyry, fought against phenomenal Theurgy. But, beyond all of them, Jamblichus, the author of the _De Mysteriis_, lifts high the veil from the real term Theurgy, and shows us therein the true Divine Science of Râja Yoga.

Magic, he says, is a lofty and sublime Science, Divine, and exalted above all others.

It is the great remedy for all.... It neither takes its source in,
nor is it limited to, the body or its passions, to the human
compound or its constitution; but all is derived by it from our
upper Gods,

our divine Egos, which run like a silver thread from the Spark in us up to the primeval divine Fire.(811)

Jamblichus execrates physical phenomena, produced, as he says, by the bad demons who deceive men (the spooks of the séance room), as vehemently as he exalts Divine Theurgy. But to exercise the latter, he teaches, the Theurgist must imperatively be “a man of high morality and a chaste Soul.” The other kind of Magic is used only by impure, selfish men, and has nothing of the Divine in it. No real Vates would ever consent to find in its communications anything coming from our higher Gods. Thus one (Theurgy) is the knowledge of our Father (the Higher Self); the other, subjection to our lower nature. One requires holiness of the Soul, a holiness which rejects and excludes everything corporeal; the other, the desecration of it (the Soul). One is the union with the Gods (with one’s God), the source of all Good; the other intercourse with demons (Elementals), which, unless we subject them, will subject us, and lead us step by step to moral ruin (mediumship). In short:

Theurgy unites us most strongly to divine nature. This nature
begets itself through itself, moves through its own powers,
supports all, and is intelligent. Being the ornament of the
Universe, it invites us to intelligible truth, to perfection and
imparting perfection to others. It unites us so intimately to all
the creative actions of the Gods, according to the capacity of
each of us, that the soul having accomplished the sacred rites is
consolidated in their [the Gods’] actions and intelligences, until
it launches itself into and is absorbed by the primordial divine
essence. This is the object of the sacred Initiations of the
Egyptians.(812)

Now, Jamblichus shows us how this union of our Higher Soul with the Universal Soul, with the Gods, is to be effected. He speaks of Manteia, which is Samâdhi, the highest trance.(813) He speaks also of dream which is divine vision, when man re‐becomes again a God. By Theurgy, or Râja Yoga, a man arrives at: (1) Prophetic Discernment through our God (the respective Higher Ego of each of us) revealing to us the truths of the plane on which we happen to be acting; (2) Ecstacy and Illumination; (3) Action in Spirit (in Astral Body or through Will); (4) and Domination over the minor, senseless demons (Elementals) by the very nature of our purified Egos. But this demands the complete purification of the latter. And this is called by him Magic, through initiation into Theurgy.

But Theurgy has to be preceded by a training of our senses and the knowledge of the human Self in relation to the Divine SELF. So long as man has not thoroughly mastered this preliminary study, it is idle to anthropomorphize the formless. By “formless” I mean the higher and the lower Gods, the supermundane as well as mundane Spirits, or Beings, which to beginners can be revealed only in Colours and Sounds. For none but a high Adept can perceive a “God” in its true transcendental form, which to the untrained intellect, to the Chelâ, will be visible only by its Aura. The visions of full figures casually perceived by sensitives and mediums belong to one or another of the only three categories they can see: (_a_) Astrals of living men; (_b_) Nirmânakâyas (Adepts, good or bad, whose bodies are dead, but who have learned to live in the invisible space in their ethereal personalities); and (_c_) Spooks, Elementaries and Elementals masquerading in shapes borrowed from the Astral Light in general, or from figures in the “mind’s eye” of the audience, or of the medium, which are immediately reflected in their respective Auras.

Having read the foregoing, students will now better comprehend the necessity of first studying the correspondences between our “principles”—which are but the various aspects of the triune (spiritual and physical) man—and our Paradigm, the direct roots of these in the Universe. In view of this, we must resume our teaching about the Hierarchies directly connected and for ever linked with man.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Enough has been said to show that while for the Orientalists and profane masses the sentence, “_Om Mani Padme Hum_,” means simply “Oh the Jewel in the Lotus,” Esoterically it signifies “Oh my God within me.” Yes; there is a God in each human being, for man was, and will re‐become, God. The sentence points to the indissoluble union between Man and the Universe. For the Lotus is the universal symbol of Kosmos as the absolute totality, and the Jewel is Spiritual Man, or God.

In the preceding Paper, the correspondences between Colours, Sounds, and “Principles” were given; and those who have read our second volume will remember that these seven principles are derived from the seven great Hierarchies of Angels, or Dhyân Chohans, which are, in their turn, associated with Colours and Sounds, and form collectively the Manifested Logos.

In the eternal music of the spheres we find the perfect scale corresponding to the colours, and in the number, determined by the vibrations of colour and sound, which “underlies every form and guides every sound,” we find the summing‐up of the Manifested Universe.

We may illustrate these correspondences by showing the relation of colour and sound to the geometrical figures which(814) express the progressive stages in the manifestation of Kosmos.

But the student will certainly be liable to confusion if, in studying the Diagrams, he does not remember two things: (1) That, our plane being a plane of reflection, and therefore illusionary, _the various notations are reversed and must be counted from below upwards_. The musical scale begins from below upwards, commencing with the deep Do and ending with the far more acute Si. (2) That Kâma Rûpa (corresponding to Do in the musical scale), containing as it does all potentialities of Matter, is necessarily the starting‐point on our plane. Further, it commences the notation on every plane, as corresponding to the “matter” of that plane. Again, the student must also remember that these notes have to be arranged in a circle, thus showing how Fa is the middle note of Nature. In short, musical notes, or Sounds, Colours and Numbers proceed from one to seven, and not from seven to one as erroneously shown in the spectrum of the prismatic colours, in which Red is counted first: a fact which necessitated my putting the principles and the days of the week at random in Diagram II. The musical scale and colours, according to the number of vibrations, proceed from the world of gross Matter to that of Spirit thus:

_Principles._ _Colours._ _Notes._ _Numbers._ _States of Matter._ Chhâyâ, Violet. Si. 7. Ether. Shadow or Double. Higher Manas, Indigo. La. 6. Critical Spiritual State, Intelligence. called Air in Occultism. Auric Blue. Sol. 5. Steam or Envelope. Vapour. Lower Manas, Green. Fa. 4. Critical or Animal State. Soul. Buddhi, or Yellow. Mi. 3. Water. Spiritual Soul. Prâna, or Orange. Re. 2. Critical Life State. Principle. Kâma Rûpa, Red. Do. 1. Ice. the Seat of Animal Life.

Here again the student is asked to dismiss from his mind any correspondence between “principles” and numbers, for reasons already given. The Esoteric enumeration cannot be made to correspond with the conventional exoteric. The one is the reality, the other is classified according to illusive appearances. The human principles, as given in _Esoteric Buddhism_, were tabulated for beginners, so as not to confuse their minds. It was half a blind.

Colours, Sounds and Forms.

To proceed:

The Point in the Circle is the Unmanifested Logos, corresponding to Absolute Life and Absolute Sound.

The first geometrical figure after the Circle or the Spheroid is the Triangle. It corresponds to Motion, Colour and Sound. Thus the Point in the Triangle represents the Second Logos, “Father‐Mother,” or the White Ray which is no colour, since it contains potentially all colours. It is shown radiating from the Unmanifested Logos, or the Unspoken Word. Around the first Triangle is formed on the plane of Primordial Substance in this order (_reversed_ as to our plane):

A.

(_a_) The Astral Double of Nature, or the Paradigm of all Forms.

(_b_) Divine Ideation, or Universal Mind.

(_c_) The Synthesis of Occult Nature, the Egg of Brahmâ, containing all and radiating all.

(_d_) Animal or Material Soul of Nature, source of animal and vegetable intelligence and instinct.

(_e_) The aggregate of Dhyân Chohanic Intelligences, Fohat.

(_f_) Life Principle in Nature.

(_g_) The Life Procreating Principle in Nature. That which, on the spiritual plane, corresponds to sexual affinity on the lower.

Mirrored on the plane of Gross Nature, the World of Reality is reversed, and becomes on Earth and our plane:

B.

(_a_) Red is the colour of manifested dual, or male and female. In man it is shown in its lowest animal form.

(_b_) Orange is the colour of the robes of the Yogîs and Buddhist Priests, the colour of the Sun and Spiritual Vitality, also of the Vital Principle.

(_c_) Yellow or radiant Golden is the colour of the Spiritual, Divine Ray in every atom; in man of Buddhi.

(_d_) Green and Red are, so to speak, interchangeable colours, for Green absorbs the Red, as being threefold stronger in its vibrations than the latter; and Green is the complementary colour of extreme Red. This is why the Lower Manas and Kâma Rûpa are respectively shown as Green and Red.

(_e_) The Astral Plane, or Auric Envelope in Nature and Man.

(_f_) The Mind or rational element in Man and Nature.

(_g_) The most ethereal counterpart of the Body of man, the opposite pole, standing in point of vibration and sensitiveness as the Violet stands to the Red.

The above is on the manifested plane; after which we get the seven and the Manifested Prism, or Man on Earth. With the latter, the Black Magician alone is concerned.

In Kosmos, the gradations and correlations of Colours and Sounds, and therefore of Numbers are infinite. This is suspected even in Physics, for it is ascertained that there exist slower vibrations than those of the Red, the slowest perceptible to us, and far more rapid vibrations than those of the Violet, the most rapid that our senses can perceive. But on Earth, in our physical world, the range of perceptible vibrations is limited. Our physical senses cannot take cognizance of vibrations above and below the septenary and limited gradations of the prismatic colours, for such vibrations are incapable of causing in us the sensation of colour or sound. It will always be the graduated septenary and no more, unless we learn to paralyze our Quaternary and discern both the superior and inferior vibrations with our spiritual senses seated in the upper Triangle.

Now, on this plane of illusion, there are three fundamental colours, as demonstrated by Physical Science, Red, Blue and Yellow (or rather Orange‐ Yellow). Expressed in terms of the human principles they are: (1) Kâma Rûpa, the seat of the animal sensations, welded to, and serving as a vehicle for the Animal Soul or Lower Manas (Red and Green, as said, being interchangeable); (2) Auric Envelope, or the essence of man; and (3) Prâna, or Life Principle. But if from the realm of illusion, or the living man as he is on our Earth, subject to his sensuous perceptions only, we pass to that of semi‐illusion, and observe the natural colours themselves, or those of the principles, that is, if we try to find out which are those that in the perfect man absorb all others, we shall find that the colours correspond and become complementary in the following way:

Violet. (1) Red Green. (2) Orange Blue. (3) Yellow Indigo. Violet.

A faint violet, mist‐like form represents the Astral Man within an oviform bluish circle, over which radiate in ceaseless vibrations the prismatic colours. That colour is predominant, of which the corresponding principle is the most active generally, or at the particular moment when the clairvoyant perceives it. Such man appears during his waking states; and it is by the predominance of this or that colour, and by the intensity of its vibrations, that a clairvoyant, _if_ he be acquainted with correspondences, can judge of the inner state or character of a person, for the latter is an open book to every practical Occultist.

In the trance state the Aura changes entirely, the seven prismatic colours being no longer discernible. In sleep also they are not all “at home.” For those which belong to the spiritual elements in the man, _viz._, Yellow, Buddhi; Indigo, Higher Manas; and the Blue of the Auric Envelope will be either hardly discernible, or altogether missing. The Spiritual Man is free during sleep, and though his physical memory may not become aware of it, lives, robed in his highest essence, in realms on other planes, in realms which are the land of reality, called dreams on our plane of illusion.

A good clairvoyant, moreover, if he had an opportunity of seeing a Yogî in the trance state and a mesmerized subject, side by side, would learn an important lesson in Occultism. He would learn to know the difference between self‐induced trance and a hypnotic state resulting from extraneous influence. In the Yogî, the “principles” of the lower Quaternary disappear entirely. Neither Red, Green, Red‐Violet nor the Auric Blue of the Body are to be seen; nothing but hardly perceptible vibrations of the golden‐ hued Prâna principle and a violet flame streaked with gold rushing upwards from the head, in the region where the Third Eye rests, and culminating in a point. If the student remembers that the true Violet, or the extreme end of the spectrum, is no compound colour of Red and Blue, but a homogeneous colour with vibrations seven times more rapid than those of the Red,(815) and that the golden hue is the essence of the three yellow hues from Orange Red to Yellow‐Orange and Yellow, he will understand the reason why: he lives in his own Auric Body, now become the vehicle of Buddhi‐Manas. On the other hand, in a subject in an artificially produced hypnotic or mesmeric trance, an effect of unconscious when not of conscious Black Magic, unless produced by a high Adept, the whole set of the principles will be present, with the Higher Manas paralyzed, Buddhi severed from it through that paralysis, and the red‐violet Astral Body entirely subjected to the Lower Manas and Kâma Rûpa (the green and red animal monsters in us).

One who comprehends well the above explanations will readily see how important it is for every student, whether he is striving for practical Occult powers or only for the purely psychic and spiritual gifts of clairvoyance and metaphysical knowledge, to master thoroughly the right correspondences between the human, or nature principles, and those of Kosmos. It is ignorance which leads materialistic Science to deny the inner man and his Divine powers; knowledge and personal experience that allow the Occultist to affirm that such powers are as natural to man as swimming to fishes. It is like a Laplander, in all sincerity, denying the possibility of the catgut, strung loosely on the sounding‐board of a violin producing comprehensive sounds or melody. Our principles are the Seven‐Stringed Lyre of Apollo, truly. In this our age, when oblivion has shrouded ancient knowledge, men’s faculties are no better than the loose strings of the violin to the Laplander. But the Occultist who knows how to tighten them and tune his violin in harmony with the vibrations of colour and sound, will extract divine harmony from them. The combination of these powers and the attuning of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm will give the geometrical equivalent of the invocation “_Om Mani Padme Hum_.”

This was why the previous knowledge of music and geometry was obligatory in the School of Pythagoras.

The Roots Of Colour And Sound.

Further, each of the Primordial Seven, the first Seven Rays forming the Manifested Logos, is again sevenfold. Thus, as the seven colours of the solar spectrum correspond to the seven Rays, or Hierarchies, so each of these latter has again its seven divisions corresponding to the same series of colours. But in this case one colour, _viz._, that which characterizes the particular Hierarchy as a whole, is predominant and more intense than the others.

These Hierarchies can only be symbolized as concentric circles of prismatic colours; each Hierarchy being represented by a series of seven concentric circles, each circle representing one of the prismatic colours in their natural order. But in each of these “wheels” one circle will be brighter and more vivid in colour than the rest, and the wheel will have a surrounding Aura (a fringe, as the physicists call it) of that colour. This colour will be the characteristic colour of that Hierarchy as a whole. Each of these Hierarchies furnishes the essence (the Soul) and is the “Builder” of one of the seven kingdoms of Nature which are the three elemental kingdoms, the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, and the kingdom of spiritual man.(816) Moreover, each Hierarchy furnishes the Aura of one of the seven principles in man with its specific colour. Further, as each of these Hierarchies is the Ruler of one of the Sacred Planets, it will easily be understood how Astrology came into existence, and that real Astrology has a strictly scientific basis.

The symbol adopted in the Eastern School to represent the Seven Hierarchies of creative Powers is a wheel of seven concentric circles, each circle being coloured with one of the seven colours; call them Angels, if you will, or Planetary Spirits, or, again, the Seven Rulers of the Seven Sacred Planets of our system, as in our present case. At all events, the concentric circles stand as symbols for Ezekiel’s Wheels with some Western Occultists and Kabalists, and for the “Builders” or Prajâpati with us.

DIAGRAM III.

The student should carefully examine the following Diagram.

[Diagram III]

Thus the Linga Sharîra is derived from the Violet sub‐ray of the Violet Hierarchy; the Higher Manas is similarly derived from the Indigo sub‐ray of the Indigo Hierarchy, and so on. Every man being born under a certain planet, there will always be a predominance of that planet’s colour in him, because that “principle” wall rule in him which has its origin in the Hierarchy in question. There will also be a certain amount of the colour derived from the other planets present in his Aura, but that of the ruling planet will be strongest. Now a person in whom, say, the Mercury principle is predominant, will, by acting upon the Mercury principle in another person born under a different planet, be able to get him entirely under his control. For the stronger Mercury principle in him will overpower the weaker Mercurial element in the other. But he will have little power over persons born under the same planet as himself. This is the key to the Occult Sciences of Magnetism and Hypnotism.

The student will understand that the Orders and Hierarchies are here named after their corresponding colours, so as to avoid using numerals, which would be confusing in connection with the human principles, as the latter have no proper numbers of their own. The real Occult names of these Hierarchies cannot now be given.

The student must, however remember that the colours which we see with our physical eyes are not the true colours of Occult Nature, but are merely the effects produced on the mechanism of our physical organs by certain rates of vibration. For instance, Clerk Maxwell has demonstrated that the retinal effects of any colour may be imitated by properly combining three other colours. It follows, therefore, that our retina has only three distinct colour sensations, and we therefore do not perceive the seven colours which really exist, but only their “imitations,” so to speak, in our physical organism.

Thus, for instance, the Orange‐Red of the first “Triangle” is not a combination of Orange and Red, but the true “spiritual” Red, if the term may be allowed, while the Red (blood‐red) of the spectrum is the colour of Kâma, animal desire, and is inseparable from the material plane.

The Unity Of Deity.

Esotericism, pure and simple, speaks of no personal God; therefore are we considered as Atheists. But, in reality, Occult Philosophy, as a whole, is based absolutely on the ubiquitous presence of God, the Absolute Deity; and if IT Itself is not speculated upon, as being too sacred and yet incomprehensible as a Unit to the finite intellect, yet the entire Philosophy is based upon Its Divine Powers as being the Source of all that breathes and lives and has existence. In every ancient Religion the ONE was demonstrated by the many. In Egypt and India, in Chaldæa and Phœnicia, and finally in Greece, the ideas about Deity were expressed by multiples of three, five and seven; and also by eight, nine and twelve great Gods, which symbolized the powers and properties of the One and Only Deity. This was related to that infinite subdivision by irregular and odd numbers to which the metaphysics of these nations subjected their ONE DIVINITY. Thus constituted, the cycle of the Gods had all the qualities and attributes of the ONE SUPREME AND UNKNOWABLE; for in this collection of divine Personalities, or rather of Symbols personified, dwells the ONE GOD, the GOD ONE, that God which, in India, is said to have no Second.

O God Ani [the Spiritual Sun], thou residest in the agglomeration
of thy divine personages.(817)

These words show the belief of the ancients that all manifestation proceeds from one and the same Source, all emanating from the one identical Principle which can never be completely developed except in and through the collective and entire aggregate of Its emanations.

The Pleroma of Valentinus is absolutely the Space of Occult Philosophy; for Pleroma means the “Fullness,” the superior regions. It is the sum total of all the Divine manifestations and emanations expressing the _plenum_ or totality of the rays proceeding from the ONE, differentiating on all the planes, and transforming themselves into Divine Powers, called Angels and Planetary Spirits in the Philosophy of every nation. The Gnostic Æons and Powers of the Pleroma are made to speak as the Devas and Siddhas of the _Purânas_. The Epinoia, the first female manifestation of God, the “Principle” of Simon Magus and Saturninus, holds the same language as the Logos of Basilides; and each of these is traced to the purely esoteric Alêtheia, the TRUTH of the Mysteries. All of them, we are taught, repeat at different times and in different languages the magnificent hymn of the Egyptian papyrus, thousands of years old:

The Gods adore thee, they greet thee, O the One Dark Truth.

And addressing Ra, they add:

The Gods bow before thy Majesty, by exalting the Souls of that
which produces them ... and say to thee, Peace to all emanations
from the Unconscious Father of the Conscious Fathers of the
Gods.... Thou producer of beings, we adore the souls which emanate
from thee. Thou begettest us, O thou Unknown, and we greet thee in
worshipping each God‐Soul which descendeth from thee and liveth in
us.

This is the source of the assertion:

Know ye not that ye are Gods and the temple of God.

This is shown in the “Roots of Ritualism in Church and Masonry,” in _Lucifer_ for March, 1889. Truly then, as said seventeen centuries ago, “Man cannot possess Truth (Alêtheia) except he participate in the Gnosis.” So we may say now: No man can know the Truth unless he studies the secrets of the Pleroma of Occultism; and these secrets are all in the Theogony of the ancient Wisdom‐Religion, which is the Alêtheia of Occult Science.

Paper III. A Word Concerning the Earlier Papers.

As many have written and almost complained to me that they could find no practical clear application of certain diagrams appended to the first two Papers, and others have spoken of their abstruseness, a short explanation is necessary.

The reason of this difficulty in most cases has been that the point of view taken was erroneous; the purely abstract and metaphysical was mistaken for, and confused with, the concrete and the physical. Let us take for example the diagrams on page 477 (Paper II.,) and say that these are entirely macrocosmic and ideal. It must be remembered that the study of Occultism proceeds from Universals to Particulars and not the reverse way, as accepted by Science. As Plato was an Initiate, he very naturally used the former method, while Aristotle, never having been initiated, scoffed at his master, and, elaborating a system of his own, left it as an heirloom to be adopted and improved by Bacon. Of a truth the aphorism of Hermetic Wisdom, “As above, so below,” applies to all Esoteric instruction; but we must begin with the above; we must learn the formula before we can sum the series.

The two figures, therefore, are not meant to represent any two particular planes, but are the abstraction of a pair of planes, explanatory of the law of reflection, just as the Lower Manas is a reflection of the Higher. They must therefore be taken in the highest metaphysical sense.

The diagrams are only intended to familiarize students with the leading ideas of Occult correspondences, the very genius of metaphysical, or macrocosmic and spiritual Occultism forbidding the use of figures or even symbols further than as temporary aids. Once define an idea in words, and it loses its reality; once figure a metaphysical idea, and you materialize its spirit. Figures must be used only as ladders to scale the battlements, ladders to be disregarded when once the foot is set upon the rampart.

Let students, therefore, be very careful to spiritualize the Papers and avoid materializing them; let them always try to find the highest meaning possible, confident that in proportion as they approach the material and visible in their speculations on the Papers, so far are they from the right understanding of them. This is especially the case with these first Papers and Diagrams, for as in all true arts, so in Occultism, we must first learn the theory before we are taught the practice.

Concerning Secrecy.

Students ask: Why such secrecy about the details of a doctrine the body of which has been publicly revealed, as in _Esoteric Buddhism_ and the _Secret Doctrine_?

To this Occultism would reply: for two reasons:—

(_a_) The whole truth is too sacred to be given out promiscuously.

(_b_) The knowledge of all the details and missing links in the exoteric teachings is too dangerous in profane hands.

The truths revealed to man by the “Planetary Spirits”—the highest Kumâras, those who incarnate no longer in the Universe during this Mahâmanvantara—who will appear on earth as Avatâras only at the beginning of every new human Race, and at the junctions or close of the two ends of the small and great cycles—in time, as man became more animalized, were made to fade away from his memory. Yet, though these Teachers remain with man no longer than the time required to impress upon the plastic minds of child‐humanity the eternal verities they teach, Their Spirit remains vivid though latent in mankind. And the full knowledge of the primitive revelation has remained always with a few elect, and has been transmitted from that time up to the present, from one generation of Adepts to another. As the Teachers say in the Occult Primer:

_This is done so as to ensure them_ [the eternal truths] _from being utterly lost or forgotten in ages hereafter by the forthcoming generations._

The mission of the Planetary Spirit is but to strike the key‐note of Truth. When once He has directed the vibration of the latter to run its course uninterruptedly along the concatenation of the race to the end of the cycle, He disappears from our earth until the following Planetary Manvantara. The mission of any teacher of Esoteric truths, whether he stands at the top or the foot of the ladder of knowledge, is precisely the same; as above, so below. I have only orders to strike the key‐note of the various Esoteric truths among the learners as a body. Those units among you who will have raised themselves on the “Path” over their fellow‐ students, in their Esoteric sphere, will, as the “Elect” spoken of did and do in the Parent Brotherhoods, receive the last explanatory details and the ultimate key to what they learn. No one, however, can hope to gain this privilege before the MASTERS—not my humble self—find him or her worthy.

If you wish to know the real _raison d’être_ for this policy, I now give it to you. No use my repeating and explaining what all of you know as well as myself; at the very beginning, events have shown that no caution can be dispensed with. Of our body of several hundred men and women, many did not seem to realize either the awful sacredness of the pledge (which some took at the end of their pen), or the fact that their _personality_ has to be entirely disregarded, when brought face to face with their HIGHER SELF; or that all their words and professions went for naught unless corroborated by actions. This was human nature, and no more; therefore it was passed leniently by, and a new lease accorded by the MASTER. But apart from this there is a danger lurking in the nature of the present cycle itself. Civilized humanity, however carefully guarded by its invisible Watchers, the Nirmânakâyas, who watch over our respective races and nations, is yet, owing to its collective Karma, terribly under the sway of the traditional opposers of the Nirmânakâyas—the “Brothers of the Shadow,” embodied and disembodied; and this, as has already been told you, will last to the end of the first Kali Yuga cycle (1897), and a few years beyond, as the smaller dark cycle happens to overlap the great one. Thus, notwithstanding all precautions, terrible secrets are often revealed to entirely unworthy persons by the efforts of the “Dark Brothers” and their working on human brains. This is entirely owing to the simple fact that in certain privileged organisms, vibrations of the primitive truth put in motion by the Planetary Beings are set up, in what Western philosophy would term innate ideas, and Occultism “flashes of genius.”(818) Some such idea based on eternal truth is awakened, and all that the watchful Powers can do is to prevent its entire revelation.

Everything in this Universe of differentiated matter has its two aspects, the light and the dark side, and these two attributes applied practically, lead the one to use, the other to abuse. Every man may become a Botanist without apparent danger to his fellow‐creatures; and many a Chemist who has mastered the science of essences knows that every one of them can both heal and kill. Not an ingredient, not a poison, but can be used for both purposes—aye, from harmless wax to deadly prussic acid, from the saliva of an infant to that of the cobra di capella. This every tyro in medicine knows—theoretically, at any rate. But where is the learned Chemist in our day who has been permitted to discover the “night side” of an attribute of any substance in the three kingdoms of Science, let alone in the seven of the Occultists? Who of them has penetrated into its Arcana, into the innermost Essence of things and its primary correlations? Yet it is this knowledge alone which makes of an Occultist a genuine practical Initiate, whether he turn out a Brother of Light or a Brother of Darkness. The essence of that subtle, traceless poison, the most potent in nature, which entered into the composition of the so‐called Medici and Borgia poisons, if used with discrimination by one well versed in the septenary degrees of its potentiality on each of the planes accessible to man on earth—could heal or kill every man in the world; the result depending, of course, on whether the operator was a Brother of the Light or a Brother of the Shadow. The former is prevented from doing the good he might, by racial, national, and individual Karma; the second is impeded in his fiendish work by the joint efforts of the human “Stones” of the “Guardian Wall.”(819)

It is incorrect to think that there exists any special “powder of projection” or “philosopher’s stone,” or “elixir of life.” The latter lurks in every flower, in every stone and mineral throughout the globe. It is the ultimate essence of _everything on its way to higher and higher evolution_. As there is no good or evil _per se_, so there is neither “elixir of life” nor “elixir of death,” nor poison, _per se_, but all this is contained in one and the same universal Essence, this or the other effect, or result, depending on the degree of its differentiation and its various correlations. The _light side_ of it produces life, health, bliss, divine peace, etc.; the _dark side_ brings death, disease, sorrow and strife. This is proven by the knowledge of the nature of the most violent poisons; of some of them even a large quantity will produce no evil effect on the organism, whereas a grain of the same poison kills with the rapidity of lightning; while the same grain, again, altered by a certain combination, though its quantity remains almost identical, will heal. The number of the degrees of its differentiation is septenary, as are the planes of its action, each degree being either beneficent or maleficent in its effects, according to the system into which it is introduced. He who is skilled in these degrees is on the high road to practical Adeptship; he who acts at hap‐hazard—as do the enormous majority of the “Mind Curers,” whether “Mental” or “Christian Scientists”—is likely to rue the effects on himself as well as on others. Put on the track by the example of the Indian Yogîs, and of their broadly but incorrectly outlined practices, which they have only read about, but have had no opportunity to study—these new sects have rushed headlong and guideless into the practice of _denying_ and _affirming_. Thus they have done more harm than good. Those who are successful owe it to their innate magnetic and healing powers, which very often counteract that which would otherwise be conducive to much evil. Beware, I say; Satan and the Archangel are more than twins; they are one body and one mind—_Deus est Demon inversus_.

Is The Practice Of Concentration Beneficent?

Such is another question often asked. I answer: Genuine concentration and meditation, _conscious and cautious_, upon one’s lower self in the light of the inner divine man and the Pâramitâs, is an excellent thing. But to “sit for Yoga,” with only a superficial and often distorted knowledge of the real practice, is almost invariably fatal; for ten to one the student will either develop mediumistic powers in himself or lose time and get disgusted both with practice and theory. Before one rushes into such a dangerous experiment and seeks to go beyond a minute examination of one’s lower self and _its_ walk in life, or that which is called in our phraseology, “The Chelâ’s Daily Life Ledger,” he would do well to learn at least the difference between the two aspects of “Magic,” the White or Divine, and the Black or Devilish, and assure himself that by “sitting for Yoga,” with no experience, as well as with no guide to show him the dangers, he does not daily and hourly cross the boundaries of the Divine to fall into the Satanic. Nevertheless, the way to learn the difference is very easy; one has only to remember that _no Esoteric truths entirely unveiled will ever be given in public print_, in book or magazine.

I ask students to turn to the _Theosophist_ of November, 1887. On page 98 they will find the beginning of an excellent article by Mr. Râma Prasâd on “Nature’s Finer Forces.”(820) The value of this work is not so much in its literary merit, though it gained its author the gold medal of the _Theosophist_, as in its exposition of tenets hitherto concealed in a rare and ancient Sanskrit work on Occultism. But Mr. Râma Prasâd is not an Occultist, only an excellent Sanskrit scholar, a university graduate and a man of remarkable intelligence. His essays are almost entirely based on Tântra works, which, if read indiscriminately by a tyro in Occultism, will lead to the practice of most unmitigated Black Magic. Now, since the difference of primary importance between Black and White Magic is the object with which it is practised, and that of secondary importance the nature of the agents used for the production of phenomenal results, the line of demarcation between the two is very—_very_ thin. The danger is lessened only by the fact that every _Occult_ book, so‐called, is Occult only in a certain sense: that is, the text is Occult merely by reason of its blinds. The symbolism has to be thoroughly understood before the reader can get at the correct sense of the teaching. Moreover, it is never complete, its several portions each being under a different title, and each containing a portion of some other work; so that without a key to these no such work divulges the whole truth. Even the famous _Shivâgama_, on which _Natures Finer Forces_ is based, “is nowhere to be found in complete form,” as the author tells us. Thus, like all others, it treats of only five Tattvas instead of the seven as in Esoteric teachings.

Now, the Tattvas being simply the substratum of the seven forces of Nature, how can this be? There are seven forms of Prakriti, as Kapila’s Sânkhya, the _Vishnu Purâna_, and other works teach. Prakriti is Nature, Matter (primordial and elemental); therefore logic demands that the Tattvas also should be seven. For whether Tattvas mean, as Occultism teaches, “forces of Nature,” or, as the learned Râma Prâsad explains, “the substance out of which the universe is formed” and “the power by which it is sustained,” it is all one; they are Force, Purusha, and _Matter_, Prakriti. And if the _forms_, or rather planes, of the latter are seven, then its forces must be seven also. In other words, the degrees of the solidity of matter and the degrees of the power that ensouls it must go hand in hand.

The Universe is made out of the Tattva, it is sustained by the
Tattva, and it disappears into the Tattva,

says Shiva, as quoted from the _Shivâgama_ in _Nature’s Finer Forces_. This settles the question; if Prakriti is septenary, then the Tattvas must be seven, for, as said, they are both Substance and Force, or atomic Matter and the Spirit that ensoule it.

This is explained here to enable the student to read between the lines of the so‐called Occult articles on Sanskrit Philosophy, by which they must not be misled. The doctrine of the seven Tattvas (the principles of the Universe and also of man) was held in great sacredness and therefore secrecy, in days of old, by the Brâhmans, who have now almost forgotten the teaching. Yet it is taught to this day in the Schools beyond the Himâlayan Range, though now hardly remembered or heard of in India except through rare Initiates. The policy has, however, been changed gradually; Chelâs began to be taught the broad outlines of it, and at the advent of the T. S. in India in 1879, I was ordered to teach it in its exoteric form to one or two. I now give it out Esoterically.

Knowing that some students try to follow a system of Yoga in their own fashion, guided only by the rare hints they find in Theosophical books and magazines, which must naturally be incomplete, I chose one of the best expositions upon ancient Occult works, _Nature’s Finer Forces_, in order to point out how very easily one can be misled by their blinds.

The author seems to have been himself deceived. The Tantras read Esoterically are as full of wisdom as the noblest Occult works. Studied without a guide and applied to practice, they may lead to the production of various phenomenal results, on the moral and physiological planes. But let anyone accept their dead‐letter rules and practices, let him try with some selfish motive in view to carry out the rites prescribed therein, and—he is lost. Followed with pure heart and unselfish devotion merely for the sake of experiment, either no results will follow, or such as can only throw back the performer. But woe to the selfish man who seeks to develop Occult powers only to attain earthly benefits or revenge, or to satisfy his ambition; the separation of the Higher from the Lower Principles and the severing of Buddhi‐Manas from the Tântrist’s personality will speedily follow, the terrible Karmic results to the _dabbler_ in Magic.

In the East, in India and China, _soulless_ men and women are as frequently met with as in the West, though vice is, in truth, far less developed there than it is here.

It is Black Magic and oblivion of their ancestral wisdom that lead them thereunto. But of this I will speak later, now merely adding: you have to be warned and know the danger.

Meanwhile, in view of what follows, the real Occult division of the Principles in their correspondences with the Tattvas and other minor forces has to be well studied.

About “Principles” And “Aspects.”

Speaking metaphysically and philosophically, on strict Esoteric lines, man as a complete unit is composed of Four basic Principles and their Three Aspects on this earth. In the semi‐esoteric teachings, these Four and Three have been called Seven Principles, to facilitate the comprehension of the masses.

The Eternal Basic Principles.

1. _Âtmâ_, or _Jîva_, “the One Life,” which permeates the _Monadic Trio_. (One in three and three in One.)

2. _Auric Envelope_; because the substratum of the Aura around man is the universally diffused primordial and pure Akâsha, the first film on the boundless and shoreless expanse of Jîva, the immutable Root of all.

3. _Buddhi_; for Buddhi is a ray of the Universal Spiritual Soul (ALAYA).

4. _Manas_ (the Higher Ego); for it proceeds from Mahat, the first product or emanation of Pradhâna which contains _potentially_ all the Gunas (attributes). Mahat is Cosmic Intelligence, called the “Great Principle.”(821)

Transitory Aspects Produced by the Principles.

1. _Prâna_, the Breath of Life, the same as _Nephesh_. At the death of a living being, Prâna re‐becomes Jîva.(822)

2. _Linga Sharîra_, the Astral Form, the transitory emanation of the Auric Egg. This form precedes the formation of the living Body, and after death clings to it, dissipating only with the disappearance of its last atom (the skeleton excepted).

3. Lower Manas, the Animal Soul, the reflection or shadow of the Buddhi‐ Manas, having the potentialitie of both, but conquered generally by its association with the Kâma elements.

As the lower man is the combined product of two aspects—physically, of his Astral Form, and psycho‐physiologically of Kâma‐Manas—he is not looked upon even as an aspect, but as an illusion.

The Auric Egg, on account of its nature and manifold functions, has to be well studied. As Hiranyagarbha, the Golden Womb or Egg, contains Brahmâ, the collective symbol of the Seven Universal Forces, so the Auric Egg contains, and is directly related to, both the divine and the physical man. In its essence, as said, it is eternal; in its constant correlations and transformations, during the reincarnating progress of the Ego on this earth, it is a kind of perpetual motion machine.

As given out in our second volume, the Egos or Kumâras, incarnating in man, at the end of the Third Root‐Race, are not human Egos of this earth or plane, but become such only from the moment they ensoul the Animal Man, thus endowing him with his Higher Mind. Each is a “Breath” or Principle, called the Human Soul, or Manas, the Mind. As the teachings say:

_“__Each is a pillar of light. Having chosen its vehicle, it expanded, surrounding with an Âkâshic Aura the human animal, while the Divine (Mânasic) Principle settled within that human form.__”_

Ancient Wisdom teaches us, moreover, that from this first incarnation, the Lunar Pitris, who had made men out of their Chhâyâs or Shadows, are absorbed by this Auric Essence, and a distinct Astral Form is now produced for each forthcoming personality of the reincarnating series of each Ego.

Thus the Auric Egg, reflecting all the thoughts, words and deeds of man, is:

(_a_) The preserver of every Karmic record.

(_b_) The storehouse of all the good and evil powers of man, receiving and giving out at his will—nay, at his very thought—every potentiality, which becomes, then and there, an acting potency: this Aura is the mirror in which sensitives and clairvoyants sense and perceive the real man, and see him _as he is_, not as he appears.

(_c_) As it furnishes man with his Astral Form, around which the physical entity models itself, first as a fœtus, then as a child and man, the astral growing apace with the human being, so it furnishes him during life, if an Adept, with his Mâyâvi Rûpa, or Illusion Body, which is not his _Vital_‐Astral Body; and after death, with his Devachanic Entity and Kâma Rûpa, or Body of Desire (the Spook).(823)

In the case of the Devachanic Entity, the Ego, in order to be able to go into a state of bliss, as the “I” of its immediately preceding incarnation, has to be clothed (metaphorically speaking) with the spiritual elements of the ideas, aspirations and thoughts of the now disembodied personality; otherwise what is it that enjoys bliss and reward? Surely not the impersonal Ego, the Divine Individuality. Therefore it must be the good Karmic records of the deceased, impressed upon the Auric Substance, which furnish the Human Soul with just enough of the spiritual elements of the ex‐personality, to enable it to still believe itself that body from which it has just been severed, and to receive its fruition, during a more or less prolonged period of “spiritual gestation.” For Devachan is a “spiritual gestation” within an ideal matrix state, a birth of the Ego into the world of effects, which ideal, subjective birth precedes its next terrestrial birth, the latter being determined by its bad Karma, into the world of causes.(824)

In the case of the Spook, the Kâma Rûpa is furnished from the animal dregs of the Auric Envelope, with its daily Karmic record of animal life, so full of animal desires and selfish aspirations.(825)

Now the Linga Sharîra remains with the Physical Body, and fades out along with it. An astral entity then has to be created, a new Linga Sharîra provided, to become the bearer of all the past Tanhas and future Karma. How is this accomplished? The mediumistic Spook, the “departed angel,” fades out and vanishes also in its turn(826) as an entity or full image of the personality that was, and leaves in the Kâmalokic world of effects only the record of its misdeeds and sinful thoughts and acts, known in the phraseology of Occultists as Tânhic or human Elementals. Entering into the composition of the Astral Form of the new body, into which the Ego, upon its quitting the Devachanic state, is to enter according to Karmic decree, the Elementals form that new astral entity which is born within the Auric Envelope, and of which it is often said:

Bad Karma waits at the threshold of Devachan, with its army of
Skandhas.(827)

For no sooner is the Devachanic state of reward ended, than the Ego is indissolubly united with (or rather follows in the track of) the new Astral Form. Both are Karmically propelled towards the family or woman from whom is to be born the _animal child_ chosen by Karma to become the vehicle of the Ego which has just awakened from the Devachanic state. Then the _new_ Astral Form, composed partly of the pure Akâshic Essence of the Auric Egg, and partly of the terrestrial elements of the punishable sins and misdeeds of the last personality, is drawn into the woman. Once there, Nature models the fœtus of flesh around the Astral, out of the growing materials of the male seed in the female soil. Thus grows out of the essence of a decayed seed the fruit or eidolon of the dead seed, the physical fruit producing in its turn within itself another, and other seeds for future plants.

And now we may return to the Tattvas, and see what they mean in nature and man, showing thereby the great danger of indulging in fancy, amateur Yoga, without knowing what we are about.

The Tâttvic Correlations and Meaning.