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    "num": 12,
    "slug": "11-chapter-xii",
    "title": "CHAPTER XII.",
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    "words": 18257,
    "text": "## CHAPTER XII.\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED.\n\nLong familiarity with the esoteric doctrine\nwill alone give rise to a full perception of the\nmanner in which it harmonizes with facts of\nNature such as we are all in a position to ob-\nserve. But something may be done to indi-\ncate the correspondences that may be traced\nbetween the whole body of teaching now set\nforth and the phenomena of the world around\nus.\n\nBeginning with the two great perplexities of\nordinary philosophy, — the conflict between free-\nwill and predestination and the origin of evil, —\nit will surely be recognized that the system\nof Nature now explained enables us to deal\nwith those problems more boldly than they have\never yet been handled. Till now the most pru-\ndent thinkers have been least disposed to pro-\nfess that either by the aid of metaphysics or\nreligion could the mystery of free-will and\npredestination be unraveled. The tendency of\nthought has been to relegate the whole enigma\n\n264 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nto the region of the unknowable. And strange\nto say this has been done contentedly by peo-\nple who have been none the less contented to\naccept as more than a provisional hypothesis\nthe religious doctrines which thus remained in-\ncapable of reconciliation with some of their\nown most obvious consequences. The omnis-\ncience of a personal Creator, ranging over the\nfuture as well as the past, left man no room to\nexercise the independent authority over his\nown destinies, which nevertheless it was ab-\nsolutely necessary to allow him to exercise in\norder that the policy of punishing or rewarding\nhim for his acts in life could be recognized as\nanything but the most grotesque injustice. One\ngreat English philosopher, frankly facing the\nembarrassment, declared in a famous posthu-\nmous essay that by reason of these considera-\ntions it was impossible that God could be all-\ngood and all-potent. People were free to in-\nvest him logically with one or other of these\nattributes, but not with both. The argument\nwas treated with the respect due to the great\nreputation of its author, and put aside with the\ndiscretion due to respect for orthodox tenets.\n\nBut the esoteric doctrine comes to our rescue\nin this emergency. First of all it honestly takes\ninto account the insignificant size of this world\ncompared to the universe. This is a fact of\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 265\n\nNature, which the early Christian church feared\nwith a true instinct, and treated with the\ncruelty of terror. The truth was denied, and\nits authors were tortured for many centuries.\nEstablished at last beyond even the authority\nof papal negations, the church resorted to the\n\"desperate expedient,\" to quote Mr. Rhys\nDavids' phrase, of pretending that it did not\nmatter.\n\nThe pretense till now has been more success-\nful than its authors could have hoped. When\nthey dreaded astronomical discovery, they were\ncrediting the world at large with more remorse-\nless logic than it ultimately showed any in-\nclination to employ. People have been found\nwilling, as a rule, to do that which I have de-\nscribed esoteric Buddhism as not requiring us\nto do, — to keep their science and their relig-\nion in separate water-tight compartments. So\nlong and so thoroughly has this principle been\nworked upon that it has finally ceased to be\nan argument against the credibility of a relig-\nious dogma to point out that it is impossible.\nBut when we establish a connection between\nour hitherto divided reservoirs and require\nthem to stand at the same level, we cannot\nfail to see how the insignificance of the earth's\nmagnitude diminishes in a corresponding pro-\nportion the plausibility of theories that require\n\n266 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nus to regard the details of our own lives' as\npart of the general stock of a universal Crea-\ntor's omniscience. On the contrary, it is un-\nreasonable to suppose that the creatures inhab-\niting one of the smaller planets of one of the\nsmaller suns in the ocean of the universe, where\nsuns are but water-drops in the sea, are exempt\nin any way from the general principle of gov-\nernment by law. But that principle cannot co-\nexist with government by caprice, which is an\nessential condition of such predestination as\nconventional discussions of the problems before\nus associate with the use of the word. For,\nbe it observed that the predestination which\nconflicts with free-will is not the predestina-\ntion of races, but individual predestination,\nassociated with the ideas of divine grace or\nwrath. The predestination of races, under laws\nanalogous to those which control the general\ntendency of any multitude of independent\nchances, is perfectly compatible with individual\nfree-will, and thus it is that the esoteric doc-\ntrine reconciles the long-standing contradiction\nof Nature. Man has control over his own des-\ntiny within constitutional limits, so to speak ;\nhe is perfectly free to make use of his natural\nrights as far as they go, and they go practically\nto infinity as far as he, the individual unit, is\nconcerned. But the average human action,\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 267\n\nunder given conditions, taking a vast multiplic-\nity of units into account, provides for the un-\nfailing evolution of the cycles which constitute\ntheir collective destiny.\n\nIndividual predestination, it is true, may be\nasserted, not as a religious dogma having to do\nwith divine grace or wrath, but on purely met-\naphysical grounds ; that is to say, it may be\nargued that each human creature is fundamen-\ntally, in infancy, subject to the same influence\nby similar circumstances, and that an adult life\nis thus merely the product or impression of all\nthe circumstances which have influenced such a\nlife from the beginning, so that if those circum-\nstances were known the moral and intellectual\nresult would be known. By this train of reason-\ning it can be made to appear that the circum-\nstances of each man's life may be theoretically\nknowable by a sufficiently searching intelli-\ngence ; that hereditary tendencies, for example,\nare but products of antecedent circumstances\nentering into any given calculation as a pertur-\nbation, but not the less calculable on that ac-\ncount. This contention, however, is no less in\ndirect conflict with the consciousness of human-\nity than the religious dogma of individual pre-\ndestination. The sense of free-will is a factor\nin the process which cannot be ignored, and the\nfree-will of which we are thus sensible is not a\n\n268 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nmere automatic impulse, like the twitching of a\ndead frog's leg. The ordinary religious dogma\nand the ordinary metaphysical argument both\nrequire us to regard it in that light ; but the\nesoteric doctrine restores it to its true dignity,\nand shows us the scope of its activity, the lim-\nits of its sovereignty. It is sovereign over the\nindividual career, but impotent in presence of\nthe cyclic law, which even so positive a philos-\nopher as Draper detects in human history, —\nbrief as the period is which he is enabled to ob-\nserve. And none the less does that collateral\nquicksand of thought which J. S. Mill discerned\nalongside the contradictions of theology — the\ngreat question whether speculation must work\nwith the all-good or all-potent hypothesis —\nfind its explanation in the system now dis-\nclosed. Those great beings, the perfected efflo-\nrescence of former humanity, who, though far\nfrom constituting a supreme God, reign never-\ntheless in a divine way over the destinies of our\nworld, are not only not omnipotent, but, great\nas they are, are restricted as regards their ac-\ntion by comparatively narrow limits. It would\nseem as if, when the stage is, so to speak, pre-\npared afresh for a new drama of life, they are\nable to introduce some improvements into the\naction, derived from their own experience in\nthe drama with which they were concerned.\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 269\n\nbut are only capable, as regards the main con-\nstruction of the piece, of repeating that which\nhas been represented before. They can do on\na large scale what a gardener can do with dah-\nlias on a small one ; he can evolve considerable\nimprovements in form and color, but his flow-\ners, however carefully tended, will be dahlias\nstill.\n\nIs it nothing, one may ask in passing, in sup-\nport of the acceptability of the esoteric doctrine,\nthat natural analogies support it at every turn ?\nAs it is below, so it is above, wrote the early\noccult philosophers ; the microcosm is a mirror\nof the macrocosm. All Nature lying within\nthe sphere of our physical observation verifies\nthe rule, so far as that limited area can exhibit\nany principles. The structure of lower animals\nis reproduced with modifications in higher ani-\nmals, and in man ; the fine fibres of the leaf\nramify like the branches of the tree, and the\nmicroscope follows such ramifications, repeated\nbeyond the range of the naked eye. The dust-\nladen currents of rain-water by the roadside\ndeposit therein \" sedimentary rocks \" in the\npuddles they develop, just as the rivers do in\nthe lakes and the great waters of the world over\nthe sea-bed. The geological work of a pond\nand that of an ocean differ merely in their\nscale, and it is only in scale that the esoteric\n\n270 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\ndoctrine shows the sublimest laws of Nature\ndiffering, in their jurisdiction over the man\nand their jurisdiction over the planetary family.\nAs the children of each human generation are\ntended in infancy by their parents, and grow\nup to tend another generation in their turn, so\nin the whole humanity of the great manvantaric\nperiods the men of one generation grow to be\nthe Dhyan Chohans of the next, and then yield\ntheir places in the ultimate progress of time to\ntheir descendants, and pass themselves to higher\nconditions of existence.\n\nNot less decisively than it answers the ques-\ntion about free-will does the esoteric doctrine\ndeal with the existence of evil. This subject\nhas been discussed in its place in the preceding\nchapter on the Progress of Humanity, but the\nesoteric doctrine, it will be seen, grapples with\nthe great problem more closely than by the\nmere enunciation of the way human free-will,\nwhich it is the purpose of Nature to grow, and\ncultivate into Dhyan Chohanship, must by the\nhypothesis be free to develop evil itself if it\nlikes. So much for the broad principle in oper-\nation ; but the way it works is traceable in the\npresent teaching as clearly as the principle it-\nself. It works through physical Karma, and\ncould not but work that way except by a sus-\npension of the invariable law that causes can.\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 271\n\nnot but produce effects. The objective man\nborn into the physical world is just as much\nthe creation of the person he last animated as\nthe subjective man who has in the interim been\nliving the Devachanic existence. The evil that\nmen do lives after them, in a more literal sense\neven than Shakespeare intended by those words.\nIt may be asked, How can the moral guilt of a\nman in one life cause him to be born blind or\ncrippled at a different period of the world's his-\ntory several thousand years later, of parents\nwith whom he has had, through his former life,\nno lack of physical connection whatever? But\nthe difficulty is met b}^ considering the opera-\ntion of affinities more easily than may be im-\nagined at the first glance. The blind or crip-\npled child, as regards his physical frame, may\nhave been the potentiality rather than the prod-\nuct of local circumstances. But he would not\nhave come into existence unless there had been\na spiritual monad pressing forward for incarna-\ntion, and bearing with it a fifth principle (so\nmuch of a fifth principle as is persistent, of\ncourse) precisely adapted by its Karma to in-\nhabit that potential body. Given these circum-\nstances, and the imperfectly organized child is\nconceived and brought into the world, to be a\ncause of trouble to himself and others — an\neffect becoming a cause in its turn — and a liv-\n\n272 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\ning enigma for philosophers endeavoring to ex-\nplain the origin of evil.\n\nThe same explanation applies, with modifica-\ntions, to a vast range of cases that might be\ncited to illustrate the problem of evil in the\nworld. Incidentally, moreover, it covers a ques-\ntion connected with the operation of the Karmic\nlaw that can hardly be called a difficulty, as\nthe answer would probably be suggested by the\nbearings of the doctrine itself, but is none the\nless entitled to notice. The selective assimi-\nlation of Karma-laden spirits with parentage\nwhich corresponds to their necessities or deserts\nis the obvious explanation which reconciles\nrebirth with atavism and heredity. The child\nborn may seem to reproduce the moral and\nmental peculiarities of parents or ancestors as\nwell as their physical likeness, and the fact\nsuggests the notion that his soul is as much an\noffshoot of the family tree as his physical frame.\nIt is unnecessary to enlarge here on the multi-\nfarious embarrassments by which that theory\nwould be surrounded, on the extravagance of\nsupposing that a soul thus thrown off, like a\nspark from an anvil, without any spiritual past\nbehind it, can have a spiritual future before it.\nThe soul, which was thus merely a function of\nthe body, would certainly come to an end with\nthe dissolution of that out of which it arose\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 273\n\nThe esoteric doctrine, however, as regards trans-\nmitted characteristics, will afford a complete\nexplanation of that phenomenon, as well as all\nothers connected with human life. The family\ninto which he is born is to the re-incarnating\nspirit what a new planet is to the whole tide\nof humanity on a round along the manvantaric\nchain. It has been built up by a process of\nevolution working on a line transverse to that\nof humanity's approach ; but it is fit for human-\nity to inhabit when the time comes. So with\nthe re -incarnating spirit: it presses forward\ninto the objective world, the influences which\nhave retained it in the Devachanic state having\nbeen exhausted, and it touches the spring of\nNature, so to speak, provoking the development\nof a child which without such an impulse would\nmerely have been a potentiality, not an actual\ndevelopment, but in whose parentage it finds\n— of course unconsciously by the blind opera-\ntion of its affinities — the exact conditions of\nrenewed life for which it has prepared itself\nduring its last existence. Certainly we must\nnever forget the presence of exceptions in all\nbroad rules of Nature. In the present case\nit may sometimes happen that mere accident\ncauses an injury to a child at birth. Thus a\ncrippled frame may come to be bestowed on a\nspirit whose Karma has by no means earned\n\n274 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nthat penalty, and so with a great variety of ac-\ncidents. But of these all that need be said is\nthat Nature is not at all embarrassed by her\naccidents ; she has ample time to repair them.\nThe undeserved suffering of one life is amply\nredressed under the operation of the Karmic\nlaw in the next or the next. There is plenty\nof time for making the account even, and the\nadepts declare, I believe, that, as a matter of\nfact, in the long run undeserved suffering oper-\nates as good luck rather than otherwise, thereby\nderiving from a purely scientific observation\nof facts a doctrine which religion has benevo-\nlently invented sometimes for the consolation of\nthe afflicted.\n\nWhile the esoteric doctrine affords in this\nway an unexpected solution of the most per-\nplexing phenomena of life, it does this at no\nsacrifice in any direction of the attributes we\nmay fairly expect of a true religious science.\nForemost among the claims we may make on\nsuch a system is that it shall contemplate\nno injustice, either in the direction of wrong\ndone to the deserving, or of benefits bestowed\non the undeserving ; and the justice of its oper-\nation must be discernible in great things and\nsmall alike. The legal maxim, de minimis non\ncurat lex, is means of escape for human fallibil.\nity from the consequences of its own imperfec-\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 275\n\ntions. -There is no such thing as indifference\nto small things in chemistry or mechanics.\nNature in physical operations responds with ex-\nactitude to small causes as certainly as to great,\nand we may feel instinctively sure that in her\nspiritual operations also she has no clumsy habit\nof treating trifles as of no consequence, of ig-\nnoring small debts in consideration of paying\nbig ones, like a trader of doubtful integrity con-\ntent to respect obligations which are serious\nenough to be enforced by law. Now the minor\nacts of life, good and bad alike, are of necessity\nignored under any system which makes the final\nquestion at stake, admission to or exclusion\nfrom a uniform or approximately uniform con-\ndition of blessedness. Even as regards that\nmerit and demerit which is solely concerned\nwith spiritual consequences, no accurate re-\nsponse could be made by Nature except by\nmeans of that infinitely graduated condition\nof spiritual existence described by the esoteric\ndoctrine as the Devachanic state. But the\ncomplexity to be dealt with is more serious than\neven the various conditions of Devachanic ex-\nistence can meet. No system of consequences\nensuing to mankind after the life now under\nobservation can be recognized as adapted sci-\nentifically to the emergency, unless it responds\nto the sense of justice, in regard to the multi-\n\n276 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nfarious acts and habits of life generall}T, includ-\ning those which merely relate to physical ex-\nistence, and are not deeply colored by right or\nwrong.\n\nNow, it is only by a return to physical exist-\nence that people can possibly be conceived to\nreap with precise accuracy the harvest of the\nminor causes they may have generated, when\nlast in objective life. Thus, on a careful exam-\nination of the matter, the Karmic law, so unat-\ntractive to Buddhist students, hitherto, in its\nexoteric shape, — and no wonder, — will be seen\nnot only to reconcile itself to the sense of justice,\nbut to constitute the only imaginable method\nof natural action that would do this. The con-\ntinued individuality running through successive\nKarmic re-births once realized, and the corre-\nsponding chain of personal existences interca-\nlated between each borne in mind, the exquisite\ns}7mmetry of the whole system is in no way\nimpaired by that feature which seems obnoxious\nto criticism at the first glance, — the successive\nbaths of oblivion, through which the re-incar-\nnating spirit has to pass. On the contrary,\nthat oblivion itself is in truth the only condition\nDn which objective life could fairly be started\nafresh. Few earth-lives are entirely free from\nshadows, the recollection of which would darken\na renewed lease of life for the former personal\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 211\n\nity. And if it is alleged that the forgetfulness\nin each life of the last involves waste of experi-\nence and effort and intellectual acquirements,\npainfully or laboriously obtained, that objection\ncan only be raised in forgetfulness of the Deva\nchanic life, in which, far from being wasted,\nsuch efforts and acquirements are the seeds\nfrom which the whole magnificent harvest of\nspiritual results will be raised. In the same\nway, the longer the esoteric doctrine occupies\nthe mind the more clearly it is seen that every\nobjection brought against it meets with a ready\nreply, and only seems an objection from the\npoint of view of imperfect knowledge.\n\nPassing from abstract considerations to oth-\ners partty interwoven with practical matters,\nwe may compare the esoteric doctrine with the\nobservable facts of Nature in several ways with\nthe view of directly checking its teachings. A\nspiritual science which has successfully divined\nthe absolute truth must accurately fit the facts\nof earth whenever it impinges on earth. A\nreligious dogma in flagrant opposition to that\nwhich is manifestly truth in respect of geology\nand astronomy may find churches and congre-\ngations content to nurse it, but is not worth\nserious philosophical consideration. How then\ndoes the esoteric doctrine square with geology\nand astronomy ?\n\n278 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nIt is not too much to say that it constitutes\nthe only religious system that blends itself ea-\nsily with the physical truths discovered by mod-\nern research in those branches of science. It\nnot only blends itself with, in the sense of tol-\nerating, the nebula hypothesis and the stratifi-\ncation of rocks ; it rushes into the arms of these\nfacts, so to speak, and could not get on without\nthem. It could not get on without the great\ndiscoveries of modern biology ; as a system rec-\nommending itself to notice in a scientific age it\ncould ill afford to dispense with the latest ac-\nquisitions of physical geography, and it may\noffer a word of thanks even to Professor Tyndall\nfor some of his experiments on light, for he\nseems on one occasion, as he describes the phe-\nnomenon without knowing what he is describ-\ning, in \" Fragments of Science,\" to have pro-\nvoked conditions within a glass tube which en-\nabled him for a short time to see the elementals.\n\nThe stratification of the earth's crust is, of\ncourse, a plain and visible record of the inter-\nracial cataclysms. Physical science is emerging\nfrom the habits of timidity, which its insolent\noppression by religious bigotry for fifteen cen-\nturies engendered, but it is still a little shy in\nits relations with dogma, from the mere force\nof habit. In that way, geology has been con«\ntent to say, such and such continents, as then\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 279\n\nshell-beds testify, must have been more than\nonce submerged below and elevated above the\nsurface of the ocean. It has not yet grown used\nto the free application of its own materials to\nspeculation, which trenches upon religious ter-\nritory. But surely if geology were required to\ninterpret all its facts into a consistent history\nof the earth, throwing in the most plausible\nhypotheses it could invent to rill up gaps in its\nknowledge, it would already construct a history\nfor mankind which in its broad outlines would\nnot be unlike that sketched out in the chap-\nter on the Great World Periods ; and the fur-\nther geological discovery progresses, our esoteric\nteachers assure us, the more closely will the\ncorrespondence of the doctrine and the bony\ntraces of the past be recognized. Already we\nfind experts from the Challenger vouching for\nthe existence of Atlantis, though the subject be-\nlongs to a class of problems unattractive to the\nscientific world generally, so that the considera-\ntions in favor of the lost continent are not yet\ngenerally appreciated. Already thoughtful ge-\nologists are quite ready to recognize that in\nregard to the forces which have fashioned the\nearth this, the period within the range of his-\ntoric traces, may be a period of comparative\ninertia and slow change ; that cataclysmal met-\namorphoses may have been added formerly to\n\n280 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nthose of gradual subsidence, upheaval, and de-\nnudation. It is only a step or two to the rec-\nognition as a fact of what no one could any\nlonger find fault with as a hypothesis : that\ngreat continental upheavals and submergences\ntake place alternately ; that the whole map of\nthe world is not only thrown occasionally into\nnew shapes, like the pictures of a kaleidoscope\nas its colored fragments fall into new arrange-\nments, but subject to systematically recurrent\nchanges, which restore former arrangements at\nenormous intervals of time.\n\nPending further discoveries, however, it will,\nperhaps, be admitted that we have a sufficient\nblock of geological knowledge already in our\npossession to fortify the cosmogony of the eso-\nteric doctrine. That the doctrine should have\nbeen withheld from the world generally as long\nas no such knowledge had paved the way for\nits reception can hardly be considered indis-\ncreet for the part of its custodians. Whether\nthe present generation will attach sufficient im-\nportance to its correspondence with what has\nbeen ascertained of Nature in other ways re-\nmains to be seen.\n\nThese correspondences may, of course, be\ntraced in biology as decisively as in geology.\nThe broad Darwinian theory of the Descent of\nMan from the animal kingdom is not the only\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 281\n\nsupport afforded by this branch of science to\nthe esoteric doctrine. The detailed observa-\ntions now carried out in embryology are espe-\ncially interesting for the light they throw on\nmore than one department of this doctrine.\nThus the now familiar truth that the succes-\nsive stages of ante-natal human development\ncorrespond to the progress of human evolution\nthrough different forms of animal life is noth-\ning less than a revelation, in its analogical bear-\nings. It does not merely fortify the evolution-\nary hypothesis itself ; it affords a remarkable\nillustration of the way Nature works in the\nevolution of new races of men at the beginning\nof the great round periods. When a child has\nto be developed from a germ which is so simple\nin its constitution that it is typical less of the\nanimal — less even of the vegetable — than of\nthe mineral kingdom, the familiar scale of evo-\nlution is run over, so to speak, with a rapid\ntouch. The ideas of progress which may have\ntaken countless ages to work out in a connected\nchain for the first time are once for all firmly\nlodged in Nature's memory, and thenceforth\nthey can be quickly recalled in order, in a few\nmonths. So with the new evolution of human-\nity on each planet as the human tide-wave of\nlife advances. In the first round the process is\nexceedingly slow, and does not advance far.\n\n282 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nThe ideas of Nature are themselves under' ev-\nolution. But when the process has been ac-\ncomplished once it can be quickly repeated.\nIn the later rounds, the life impulse runs up\nthe gamut of evolution with a facility only\nconceivable by help of the illustration which\nembryology affords. This is the explanation\nof the way the character of each round differs\nfrom its predecessor. The evolutionary work\nwhich has been once accomplished is soon re-\npeated ; then the round performs its own evo-\nlution at a very different rate, as the child, once\nperfected up to the human type, performs its\nown individual growth but slowly, in proportion\nto the earlier stages of its initial development.\n\nNo elaborate comparison of exoteric Bud-\ndhism with the views of Nature which have now\nbeen set forth — briefly, indeed, considering\ntheir scope and importance, but comprehensive-\nly enough to furnish the reader with a general\nidea of the system in its whole enormous range\n— will be required from me. With the help of\nthe information now communicated, more ex-\nperienced students of Buddhist literature will be\nbetter able to apply to the enigmas that it may\ncontain the keys which will unlock their mean-\ning. The gaps in the public records of Bud-\ndha's teaching will be filled up readily enough\nnow, and it will be plain why they were left.\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 283\n\nFor example, in Mr. Rhys Davids' book I find\nthis : \" Buddhism does not attempt to solve the\nproblem of the primary origin of all things ; \"\nand quoting from Hardy's \"Manual of Bud-\ndhism,\" he goes on, \" When Malunka asked the\nBuddha whether the existence of the world is\neternal or not eternal, he made him no reply ;\nbut the reason of this was that it was considered\nby the teacher as an inquiry that tended to no\nprofit.\" In reality the subject was manifestly\npassed over because it could not be dealt with\nby a plain yes or no, without putting the in-\nquirer upon a false scent ; while to put him on\nthe true scent would have required a complete\nexposition of the whole doctrine about the ev-\nolution of the planetary chain, an explanation\nof that for which the community Buddha was\ndealing with was not intellectually ripe. To\ninfer from his silence that he regarded the in-\nquiry itself as tending to no profit is a mistake\nwhich may naturally enough have been made\nin the absence of any collateral knowledge, but\nnone can be more complete in reality. No re-\nligious system that ever publicly employed it-\nself on the problem of the origin of all things\nhas, as will now be seen, done more than scratch\nthe surface of that speculation, in comparison\nwith the exhaustive researches of the esoteric\nscience of which Buddha was no less prominent\n\nESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nan exponent than he was a prominent teacher\nof morals for the populace.\n\nThe positive conclusions as to what Bud-\ndhism does teach — carefully as he has worked\nthem out — are no less inaccurately set forth\nby Mr. Rhys Davids than the negative conclu-\nsion just quoted. It was inevitable that all\nsuch conclusions should hitherto be inaccurate.\nI quote an example, not to disparage the careful\nstudy of which it is the fruit, but to show how\nthe light now shed over the whole subject pen-\netrates every cranny and puts an entirely new\ncomplexion on all its features : —\n\n\" Buddhism takes as its ultimate fact the ex-\nistence of the material world, and of conscious\nbeings living within it ; and it holds that every-\nthing is subject to the law of cause and ef-\nfect, and that everything is constantly, though\nimperceptibly, changing. There is no place\nwhere this law does not operate ; no heaven\nor hell, therefore, in the ordinary sense. There\nare worlds where angels live, whose existence\nis more or less material according as their pre-\nvious lives were more or less holy ; but the\nangels die, and the worlds they inhabit pass\naway. There are places of torment, where the\nevil actions of men or angels produce unhappy\nbeings ; but when the active power of the evil\nthat produced them is exhausted, they will\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 285\n\nvanish, and the worlds they inhabit are not\neternal. The whole Kosmos — earth and heav-\nens and hells — is always tending to renova-\ntion or destruction, is always in a course of\nchange, a series of revolutions or of cycles, of\nwhich the beginning and the end alike are\nunknowable and unknown. To this universal\nlaw of composition and dissolution men and\ngods form no exception ; the unity of forces\nwhich constitutes a sentient being must sooner\nor later be dissolved, and it is only through\nignorance and delusion that such a being in-\ndulges in the dream that it is a separable and\nself-existent entity.\"\n\nNow certainly this passage might be taken to\nshow how the popular notions of Buddhist phi-\nlosophy are manifestly thrown off from the real\nesoteric philosophy. Most assuredly that phi-\nlosophy no more finds in the universe than in\nthe belief of any truly enlightened thinker, Asi-\natic or European, the unchangeable and eter-\nnal heaven and hell of monkish legend ; and\n\"the worlds where angels live,\" and so on, —\nthe vividly real though subjective strata of the\nDevachanic state, — are found in Nature truly\nenough. So with all the rest of the popular\nBuddhist conceptions just passed in review.\nBut in their popular form they are the nearest\ncaricatures of the corresponding items of eso-\n\n286 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nteric knowledge. Thus the notion about indi-\nviduality being a delusion, and the ultimate\ndissolution as such of the sentient being, is\nperfectly unintelligible without fuller explana-\ntions concerning the multitudinous aeons of in-\ndividual life, in as yet, to us, inconceivable but\never-progressive conditions of spiritual exalta-\ntion, which come before that unutterably remote\nmergence into the non-individualized condition.\nThat condition certainly must be somewhere in\nfuturity, but its nature is something which no\nuninitiated philosopher, at any rate, has ever\nyet comprehended by so much as the faintest\nglimmering guess. As with the idea of Nir-\nvana, so with this about the delusion of indi-\nviduality, writers on Buddhist doctrine derived\nfrom exoteric sources have most unfortunately\nfound themselves entangled with some of the\nremote elements of the great doctrine, under\nthe impression that they were dealing with\nBuddhist views of conditions immediately suc-\nceeding this life. The statement, which is al-\nmost absurd, thus put out of its proper place in\nthe whole doctrine, may be felt not only as no\nlonger an outrage on the understanding, but\nas a sublime truth when restored to its proper\nplace in relation to other truths. The ultimate\nmergence of the perfected man-god, or Dhyan\nChohan, in the absolute consciousness of para\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 287\n\nnirvana has nothing to do, let me add, with\nthe \" heresy of individuality,\" which relates to\nphysical personalities. To this subject I recur\na little later on.\n\nJustly enough, Mr. Rhys Davids says, in ref-\nerence to the epitome of Buddhist doctrine\nquoted above : \" Such teachings are by no\nmeans peculiar to Buddhism, and similar ideas\nlie at the foundation of earlier Indian philoso-\nphies.\" (Certainly by reason of the fact that\nBuddhism as concerned with doctrine was ear-\nlier Indian philosophy itself.) \" They are to\nbe found, indeed, in other systems widely sepa-\nrated from them in time and place ; and Bud-\ndhism, in dealing with the truth which they\ncontain, might have given a more decisive and\nmore lasting utterance if it had not also bor-\nrowed a belief in the curious doctrine of trans-\nmigration,— a doctrine which seems to have\narisen independently, if not simultaneously, in\nthe valley of the Ganges and the valley of the\nNile. The word transmigration has been used,\nhowever, in different times and at different\nplaces for theories similar, indeed, but very dif-\nferent ; and Buddhism, in adopting the general\nidea from post-Vedic Brahmanism, so modified\nit as to originate, in fact, a new hypothesis.\nThe new hypothesis, like the old one, related to\nlife in past and future bii'ths, and contributed\n\n288 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nnothing to the removal here, in this life, of the\nevil it was supposed to explain.\"\n\nThe present volume should have dissipated\nthe misapprehensions on which these remarks\nrest. Buddhism does not believe in anything\nresembling the passage backwards and forwards\nbetween animal and human forms, which most\npeople conceive to be meant by the principle of\ntransmigration. The transmigration of Bud-\ndhism is the transmigration of Darwinian evo-\nlution scientifically developed, or rather exhaust-\nively explored, in both directions. Buddhist\nwritings certainly contain allusions to former\nbirths, in which even the Buddha himself was\nnow one and now another kind of animal. But\nthese had reference to the remote course of pre-\nhuman evolution, of which his fully opened\nvision gave him a retrospect. Never in any\nauthentic Buddhist writings will any support\nbe found for the notion that any human crea-\nture, once having attained manhood, falls back\ninto the animal kingdom. Again, while noth-\ning, indeed, could be more ineffectual as an ex-\nplanation of the origin of evil than such a cari-\ncature of transmigration as would contemplate\nsuch a return, the progressive re-births of human\nEgos into objective existence, coupled with the\noperation of physical Karma and the inevitable\nplay of free-will within the limits of its privi\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 289\n\nlege, do explain the origin of evil, finally and\ncompletely. The effort of Nature being to grow\na new harvest of Dhyan Chohans whenever a\nplanetary system is evolved, the incidental de-\nvelopment of transitory evil is an unavoidable\nconsequence under the operation of the forces\nor processes just mentioned, themselves una-\nvoidable stages in the stupendous enterprise\nset on foot.\n\nAt the same time the reader who will now\ntake up Mr. Rhys Davids' book and examine\nthe long passage on this subject, and on the\nskandhas, will realize how utterly hopeless a\ntask it was to attempt the deduction of any ra-\ntional theory of the origin of evil from the exo-\nteric materials there made use of. Nor was it\npossible for these materials to suggest the true\nexplanation of the passage immediately after-\nwards, quoted from the Brahmajala Sutra : —\n\n\" After showing how the unfounded belief\nin the eternal existence of God or gods arose,\nGautama goes on to discuss the question of the\nsoul, and points out thirty-two beliefs concern-\ning it, which he declares to be wrong. These\nare shortly as follows : ' Upon what principle,\nor on what ground, do these mendicants and\nBrahmans hold the doctrine^of future existence?\nThey teach that the soul is material, or is im-\nmaterial, or is both or neither ; that it will\n\n290 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nhave one or many modes of consciousness ; that\nits perceptions will be few or boundless ; that\nit will be in a state of joy or of misery, or of\nneither. These are the sixteen heresies, teach-\ning a conscious existence after death. Then\nthere are eight heresies teaching that the soul,\nmaterial or immaterial, or both or neither, finite\nor infinite, or both or neither, has one uncon-\nscious existence after death. And, finally, eight\nothers which teach that the soul, in the same\neight ways, exists after death in a state of be-\ning neither conscious nor unconscious.' ' Men-\ndicants,' concludes the sermon, 4 that which\nbinds the teacher to existence (viz., tanha,\nthirst), is cut off, but his body still remains.\nWhile his body shall remain, he will be seen\nby gods and men, but after the termination of\nlife, upon the dissolution of the body, neither\ngods nor men will see him.' Would it be pos-\nsible in a more complete and categorical man-\nner to deny that there is any soul, — anything\nof any kind which continues to exist in any\nmanner after death ? \"\n\nCertainly, for exoteric students, such a pas-\nsage as this could not but seem in flagrant con-\ntradiction with those teachings of Buddhism\nwhich deal with the successive passages of the\nsame individuality through several incarnations,\nand which thus along another line of thought\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 291\n\nmay see in to assume the existence of a trans-\nmissible soul as plainly as the passage quoted\ndenies it. Without a comprehension of the\nseven principles of man, no separate utterances\non the various aspects of this question of im-\nmortality could possibly be reconciled. But\nthe key now given leaves the apparent contra-\ndiction devoid of all embarrassment. In the\npassage last quoted Buddha is speaking of the\nastral personality, while the immortality recog-\nnized by the esoteric doctrine is that of the\nspiritual individuality. The explanation has\nbeen fully given in the chapter on Devachan,\nand in the passages quoted there from Colonel\nOlcott's \" Buddhist Catechism.\" It is only\nsince fragments of the great revelation this vol-\nume contains have been given out during the\nlast two years in the \" Theosophist \" that the\nimportant distinction between personality and\nindividuality, as applied to the question of hu-\nman immortality, has settled into an intelligible\nshape, but there are plentiful allusions in former\noccult writing, which may now be appealed to\nin proof of the fact that former writers were\nfully alive to the doctrine itself. Turning to the\nmost recent of the occult books, in which the\nveil of obscurity was still left to wrap the doc-\ntrine from careless observation, though it was\nstrained in many places almost to transparency,\n\n292 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nwe might take any one of a dozen passages to\nillustrate the point before us. Here is one : —\n\n\" The philosophers who explained the fall\ninto generation their own way viewed spirit as\nsomething wholly distinct from the soul. They\nallowed its presence in the astral capsule only\nso far as the spiritual emanations or rays of the\n4 shining one ' were concerned. Man and soul\nhad to conquer their immortality by ascending\ntoward the unity, with which, if successful,\nthey were finally linked, and into which they\nwere absorbed, so to say. The individualiza-\ntion of man after death depended on the spirit,\nnot on his body and soul. Although the word\n' personality,' in the sense in which it is usually\nunderstood, is an absurdity if applied literally\nto our immortal essence, still the latter is a dis-\ntinct entity, immortal and eternal per se; and\nas in the case of criminals beyond redemption,\nwhen the shining thread which links the spirit\nto the soul from the moment of the birth of a\nchild is violently snapped, and the disembodied\nentity is left to share the fate of the lower ani-\nmals, to dissolve into ether and have its indi-\nviduality annihilated, — even then the spirit\nremains a distinct being.\" 2\n\nNo one can read this — scarcely any part, in-\ndeed, of the chapter from which it is taken — ■\n\n1 Isis Unveiled, vol. i. p. 315.\n\nTEE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 293\n\nwithout perceiving, by the light of the expla-\nnations given in the present volume, that the\nesoteric doctrine now fully given out was per-\nfectly familiar to the writer, though I have been\nprivileged to put it for the first time into plain\nand unmistakable language.\n\nIt takes some mental effort to realize the\ndifference between personality and individual-\nity, but the craving for the continuity of per-\nsonal existence, for the full recollection always\nof those transitory circumstances of our present\nphysical life which make up the personality,\nis manifestly no more than a passing weakness\nof the flesh. For many people it will perhaps\nremain irrational to say that any person now\nliving, with his recollections bounded by the\nyears of his childhood, is the same individual as\nsome one of quite a different nationality and\nepoch who lived thousands of years ago, or the\nsame that will reappear after a similar lapse of\ntime under some entirely new conditions in the\nfuture. But the feeling \" I am I\" is the same\nthrough the three lives and through all the\nhundreds; for that feeling is more deeply seated\nthan the feeling \" I am John Smith, so high, so\nheavy, with such and such property and rela-\ntions,\" Is it inconceivable, as a notion in the\nmind, that John Smith, inheriting the gift of\nTithonus, changing his name from time to time,\n\n294 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nmarrying afresh every other generation or so,\nlosing property here, coming into possession of\nproperty there, and getting interested as time\nwent on in a great variety of different pursuits,\n— is it inconceivable that such a person in a\nfew thousand years should forget all circum-\nstances connected with the present life of John\nSmith, just as if the incidents of that life for\nhim had never taken place ? And yet the Ego\nwould be the same. If this is conceivable in\nthe imagination, what can be inconceivable in\nthe individual continuity of an intermittent life,\ninterrupted and renewed at regular intervals,\nand varied with passages through a purer con-\ndition of existence.\n\nNo less than it clears up the apparent con-\nflict between the identity of successive individ-\nualities and the ''heresy \" of individuality will\nthe esoteric doctrine be seen to put the \" in-\ncomprehensible mystery of Karma, which Mr.\nRhys Davids disposes of so summarily, on a\nperfectly intelligible and scientific basis. Of\nthis he says that because Buddhism \" does not\nacknowledge a soul \" it has to resort to the des-\nperate expedient of a mystery to bridge over\nthe gulf between one life and another some-\nwhere else, — the doctrine, namely, of Karma.\nAnd he condemns the idea as \" a non-exist-\nent fiction of the brain.\" Irritated as he feels\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 295\n\nwith what he regards as the absurdity of the\ndoctrine, he yet applies patience and great men-\ntal ingenuity in the effort to evolve something\nthat shall feel like a rational metaphysical con-\nception out of the tangled utterances concern-\ning Karma of the Buddhist scriptures. He\nwrites : —\n\n\"Karma, from a Buddhist point of view,\navoids the superstitious extreme, on the one\nhand, of those who believe in the separate ex-\nistence of some, entity called the soul ; and the\nirreligious extreme, on the other, of those who\ndo not believe in moral justice and retribu-\ntion. Buddhism claims to have looked through\nthe word soul for the fact it purports to cover,\nand to have found no fact at all, but only one\nor other of twenty different delusions which\nblind the eyes of men. Nevertheless, Buddhism\nis convinced that if a man reaps sorrow, dis-\nappointment, pain, he himself, and no other,\nmust at some time have sown folly, error, sin;\nand if not in this life, then in some former\nbirth. Where, then, in the latter case, is the\nidentity between him who sows and him who\nreaps ? In that which alone remains when a\nman dies, and the constituent parts of the sen-\ntient being are dissolved, in the result, namely,\nof his action, speech, and thought, in his good\nor evil Karma (literally his doing), which doe*\n\n296 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nnot die. We are familiar with the doctrine,\n4 Whatever a man soweth that shall he also\nreap,' and can therefore enter into the Bud-\ndhist feeling that whatever a man reaps that he\nmust also have sown ; we are familiar with the\ndoctrine of the indestructibility of force, and\ncan therefore understand the Buddhist dogma\n(however it may contravene our Christian no-\ntions) that no exterior power can destroy the\nfruit of a man's deeds, that they must work out\ntheir full effect to the pleasant or the bitter end.\nBut the peculiarity of Buddhism lies in this :\nthat the result of what a man is or does is held\nnot to be dissipated, as it were, into many sepa-\nrate streams, but to be concentrated together in\nthe formation of one new sentient being, — new,\nthat is, in its constituent parts and powers, but\nthe same in its essence, its being, its doing, its\nKarma.\"\n\nNothing could be more ingenious as an at-\ntempt to invent for Buddhism an explanation\nof its \" mystery \" on the assumption that the\nauthors of the mystery threw it up originally\nas a \" desperate expedient \" to cover their re-\ntreat from an untenable position. But in re-\nality the doctrine of Karma has a far simpler\nhistory and does not need so subtle an interpret\ntation. Like many other phenomena of Nature\nhaving to do with futurity, it was declared by\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 297\n\nBuddha an incomprehensible mystery, and ques-\ntions concerning it were thus put aside ; but\nhe did not mean that because it was incompre-\nhensible for the populace it was incomprehen-\nsible, or any mystery at all, for the initiates\nin the esoteric doctrine. It was impossible to\nexplain it without reference to the esoteric\ndoctrine ; but the outlines of that science once\ngrasped, Karma, like so much else, becomes a\ncomparatively simple matter, — a mystery only\nin the sense in which also the affinity of sul-\nphuric acid for copper and its superior affinity\nfor iron are also mysteries. Certainly esoteric\nscience for its \" lay chelas \" at all events, like\nchemical science for its lay chelas, — all stu-\ndents, that is to say, of its mere physical phe-\nnomena,— leaves some mysteries unfathomed in\nthe background. I am not prepared to explain\nby what precise molecular changes the higher\naffinities which constitute Karma are stored up\nin the permanent elements of the fifth principle.\nBut no more is ordinary science qualified to say\nwhat it is in a molecule of oxygen which in-\nduces it to desert the molecule of hydrogen\nwith which it was in alliance in the raindrop,\nand attach itself to a molecule of the iron of a\nrailing on which it falls. But the speck of\nrust is engendered, and a scientific explanation\nof that occurrence is held to have been given\n\n298 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nwhen its affinities are ascertained and appealed\nto.\n\nSo with Karma, the fifth principle takes up\nthe affinities of its good and evil deeds in its\npassage through life, passes with them into\nDevachan, where those which are suitable to\nthe atmosphere, so to speak, of that state, fruc-\ntify and blossom in prodigious abundance, and\nthen passes on, with such as have not yet ex-\nhausted their energy, into the objective world\nonce more. And as certainly as the molecule\nof oxygen brought into the presence of a\nhundred other molecules will fly to that with\nwhich it has the most affinity, so will the\nKarma-laden spiritual monad fly to that incar-\nnation with which its mysterious attractions\nlink it. Nor is there in that process an}^ crea-\ntion of a new sentient being, except in the\nsense that the new bodily structure evolved is\na new instrument of sensation. That which in-\nhabits it, that which feels joy or sorrow, is the\nold Ego, — walled off by forgetf ulness from its\nlast set of adventures on earth, it is true, but\nreaping their fruit nevertheless, — the same \"I\nam I \" as before.\n\n\" Strange it is,\" Mr. Rhys Davids thinks,\nthat \" all this \" — the explanation of Buddhist\nphilosophy which esoteric materials have ena-\nbled him to give — \" should have seemed not\n\nTHE DOCTRINE REVIEWED. 299\n\nunattractive, these 2,300 years and more, to\nmany despairing and earnest hearts ; that they\nshould have trusted themselves to the so seem-\ning stately bridge which Buddhism has tried to\nbuild over the river of the mysteries and sor-\nrows of life. . . . They have failed to see that\nthe very keystone itself, the link between one\nlife and another, is a mere word, — this won-\nderful hypothesis, this airy nothing, this im-\naginary cause beyond the reach of reason, — -\nthe individualized and individualizing grace\nof Karma.\"\n\nIt would have been strange indeed if Bud-\ndhism had been built on such a frail foundation;\nbut its apparent frailty has been simply due to\nthe fact that its mighty fabric of knowledge\nhas hitherto been veiled from view. Now that\nthe inner doctrine has been unveiled it will be\nseen how little it depends for any item of its\nbelief on shadowy subtleties of metaphysics.\nSo far as these have clustered round Buddhism\nthey have merely been constructed by external\ninterpreters of stray doctrinal hints that could\nnot be entirely left out of the simple system of\nmorals prescribed for the populace.\n\nIn that which really constitutes Buddhism\nwe find a sublime simplicity, like that of Na-\nture herself, — one law running into infinite\nramifications ; complexities of detail, it is true,\n\nESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nas Nature herself is infinitely complex in her\nmanifestations, however unchangeably uniform\nin her purposes, but always the immutable doc-\ntrine of causes and their effects, which in turn\nbecome causes again in an endless cyclic pro-\ngression.\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\nNOTE TO CHAPTER I.\n\nThe further we advance in occult study, the more ex-\nalted in many ways become our conceptions of the Ma-\nhatmas. The complete comprehension of the manner in\nwhich these persons become differentiated from human-\nkind at large, is not to be achieved by the help of mere\nintellectual effort. There are aspects of the adept nature\nwhich have to do with the extraordinary development of\nthe higher principles in man, which cannot be realized by\nthe application of the lower. But while crude concep-\ntions in the beginning thus fall very short of reaching the\nreal level of the facts, a curious complication of the prob-\nlem arises in this way. Our first idea of an adept who\nhas achieved the power of penetrating the tremendous\nsecrets of spiritual nature, is modelled on our conception\nof a very highly gifted man of science on our own plane.\nWe are apt to think of him as once an adept always an\nadept, — as a very exalted human being, who must neces-\nsarily bring into play in all the relations of his life the\nattributes that attach to him as a Mahatma. In this way,\nwhile — as above pointed out — we shall certainly fail, do\nall we can, to do justice in our thoughts to his attributes\nas a Mahatma, we may very easily run to the opposite\nextreme in our thinking about him in his ordinary human\n\n302 APPENDIX.\n\naspect, and thus land ourselves in many perplexities, as\nwe acquire a partial familiarity with the characteristics of\nthe occult world. It is just because the highest attributes\nof adeptship have to do with principles in human nature\nwhich quite transcend the limits of physical existence,\nthat the adept of Mahatma can only be such in the high-\nest acceptation of the word, when he is, as the phrase\ngoes, \"out of the body,\" or at all events thrown by spe-\ncial efforts of his will into an abnormal condition. When\nhe is not called upon to make such efforts or to pass en-\ntirely beyond the limitations of this fleshly prison, he is\nmuch more like an ordinary man than experience of\nhim in some of his aspects would lead his disciples to\nbelieve.\n\nA correct appreciation of this state of things explains\nthe apparent contradiction involved in the position of the\noccult pupil towards his masters, as compared with some\nof the declarations that the master himself will frequently\nput forward. For example, the Mahatmas are persistent\nin asserting that they are not infallible, that they are\nmen, like the rest of us, perhaps with a somewhat more\nenlarged comprehension of nature than the generality of\nmankind, but still liable to err both in the direction of\npractical business with which they may be concerned, and\nin their estimate of the characters of other men, or the\ncapacity of candidates for occult development. But how\nare we to reconcile statements of this nature with the\nfundamental principle at the bottom of all occult research\nwhich enjoins the neophyte to put his trust in the teaching\nand guidance of his master absolutely and without re-\nserve ? The solution of the difficulty is found in the state\nof things above referred to. While the adept may be a\nman quite surprisingly liable to err sometimes in the ma-\nnipulation of worldly business, just as with ourselves some\n\n* APPENDIX. 303\n\nof the greatest men of genius are liable to make mis-\ntakes in their daily life that matter-of-fact people could\nnever commit, on the other hand, directly a Mahatma\ncomes to deal with the higher mysteries of spiritual sci-\nence, he does so by virtue of the exercise of his Mahatma-\nattributes, and in dealing with these can hardly be recog-\nnized as liable to err.\n\nThis consideration enables us to feel that the trust-\nworthiness of the teachings derived from such a source\nas those which have inspired the present volume, is alto-\ngether above the reach of small incidents which in the\nprogress of our experience may seem to claim a revision\nof that enthusiastic confidence in the supreme wisdom of\nthe adepts which the first approaches to occult study will\ngenerally evoke.\n\nNot that such enthusiasm or reverence will really be\ndiminished on the part of any occult chela as his compre-\nhension of the world he is entering expands. The man\nwho in one of his aspects is a Mahatma, may rather be\nbrought within the limits of affectionate human regard,\nthan deprived of his claims to reverence, by the consid-\neration that in his ordinary life he is not so utterly lifted\nabove the commonplace run of human feeling as some\nof his Nirvanic experiences might lead us to believe that\nhe would be.\n\nIf we keep constantly in mind that an adept is only\ntruly an adept when exercising adept functions, but that\nwhen exercising these he may soar into spiritual rapport\nwith that which is, in regard at all events to the limita-\ntions of our solar system, all that we practically mean\nby omniscience, we shall then be guarded from many of\nthe mistakes that the embarrassments of the subject\nmight create.\n\nIntricacies concerning the nature of the adept may be\n\n304 APPENDIX.\n\nnoticed here, which will hardly be quite intelligible with-\nout reference to some later chapters of this book, but\nwhich have so important a bearing on all attempts to un-\nderstand what adeptship is really like that it may be con-\nvenient to deal with them at once. The dual nature of\nthe Mahatma is so complete that some of his influence or\nwisdom on the higher planes of nature may actually be\ndrawn upon by those in peculiar psychic relations with\nhim, without the Manhatma-man being at the moment\neven conscious that such an appeal has been made to him.\nIn this way it becomes open to us to speculate on the\npossibility that the relation between the spiritual Ma-\nhatma and the Mahatma-man may sometimes be rather\nin the nature of what is sometimes spoken of in esoteric\nwriting as an overshadowing than as an incarnation in the\ncomplete sense of the word.\n\nFurthermore as another independent complication of\nthe matter we reach this fact, that each Mahatma is not\nmerely a human Ego in a very exalted state, but belongs,\nso to speak, to some specific department in the great econ-\nomy of nature. Every adept must belong to one or other\nof seven great types of adeptship ; but although we may\nalmost certainly infer that correspondences might be\ntraced between these various types and the seven princi-\nples of man, I should shrink myself from attempting a\ncomplete elucidation of this hypothesis. It will be enough\nto apply the idea to what we know vaguely of the occult\norganization in its higher regions. For some time past it\nhas been affirmed in esoteric writing that there are five\ngreat Chohans or superior Mahatmas presiding over the\nwhole body of the adept fraternity. When the foregoing\nchapter of this book was written, I was under the impres-\nsion that one supreme chief on a different level again\n.zeroised authority over these five Chohans, but it now\n\nAPPENDIX. 305\n\nappears to me that this personage may rather be regarded\nas a sixth Chohan, himself the head of the sixth type of\nMahatmas, and this conjecture leads at once to the fur-\nther inference that there must be a seventh Chohan to\ncomplete the correspondences which we thus discern. But\njust as the seventh principle in nature or in man is a con-\nception of the most intangible order, eluding the grasp of\nany intellectual thinking, and only describable in shadowy\nphrases of metaphysical non-significance, so we may be\nquite sure that the seventh Chohan is very unapproach-\nable by untrained imaginations. But even he no doubt\nplays a part in what may be called the higher economy\nof spiritual nature, and that there is such a personage vis-\nible occasionally to some of the other Mahatmas I take to\nbe the case. But speculation concerning him is valuable\nchiefly as helping to give consistency to the idea above\nthrown out, according to which the Mahatmas may be\ncomprehended in their true aspect as necessary phe-\nnomena of nature without whom the evolution of hu-\nmanity could hardly be imagined as advancing, not as\nmerely exceptional men who have attained great spiritual\nexaltation.\n\nNOTE TO CHAPTER II.\n\nSome objection has been raised to the method in which\nthe Esoteric Doctrine is presented to the reader in this\nbook, on the ground that it is materialistic. I doubt if in\nany other way the ideas to be dealt with could so well be\nbrought within the grasp of the mind, but it is easy, when\nthey once are grasped, to translate them into terms of\nidealism. The higher principles will be the better suscep-\n\n306 APPENDIX.\n\ntible of treatment as so many different states of the Ego,,\nwhen the attributes of these states have been separately-\nconsidered as principles undergoing evolution. But it\nmay be useful to dwell for a while on the view of the hu-\nman constitution according to which the consciousness of\nthe entity migrates successively through the stages of de-\nvelopment, which the different principles represent.\n\nIn the highest evolution we need concern ourselves with\nat present — that of the perfected Mahatma — it is some-\ntimes asserted in occult teaching that the consciousness of\nthe Ego has acquired the power of residing altogether in\nthe sixth principle. But it would be a gross view of the\nsubject, and erroneous, to suppose that the Mahatma has\non that account shaken off altogether, like a discarded\nsheath or sheaths, the fourth and fifth principles, in which\nhis consciousness may have been seated during an ear-\nlier stage of his evolution. The entity which was the\nfourth or fifth principle before, has come now to be dif-\nferent in its attributes, and to be entirely divorced from\ncertain tendencies or dispositions, and is therefore a sixth\nprinciple. The change can be spoken of in more general\nterms as an emancipation of the adept's nature from the\nenthralments of his lower self, from desires of the ordi-\nnary earth-life — even from the limitations of the affec-\ntions ; for the Ego, which is entirely conscious in his sixth\nprinciple, has realized the unity of the true Egos of all\nmankind on the higher plane, and can no longer be drawn\nby bonds of sympathy to any one more than to any other.\nHe has attained that love of humanity as a whole which\ntranscends the love of the Maya or illusion which consti-\ntutes the separate human creature for the limited being\non the lower levels . of evolution. He has not lost his\nfourth and fifth principles, — these have themselves at-\ntained Mahatmaship ; just as the animal soul of the lowei\n\nAPPENDIX. 307\n\nkingdom, in reaching humanity, has blossomed into the\nfifth state. That consideration helps us to realize more\naccurately the passage of ordinary human beings through\nthe long series of incarnations of the human plane. Once\nfairly on that plane of existence, the consciousness of the\nprimitive man gradually envelops the attributes of the\nfifth principle. But the Ego at first remains a centre of\nthought-activity working chiefly with impulses and desires\nof the fourth stage of evolution. Flashes of the higher\nhuman reason illumine it fitfully at first, but by degrees\nthe more intellectual man grows into the fuller possession\nof this. The impulses of human reason assert themselves\nmore and more strongly. The invigorated mind becomes\nthe predominant force in the life. . Consciousness is trans-\nferred to the fifth principle, oscillating, however, between\nthe tendencies of the lower and higher nature for a long\nwhile, — that is to say, over vast periods of evolution and\nmany hundred lives, — and thus gradually purifying and\nexalting the Ego. All this while the Ego is thus a unity\nin one aspect of the matter, and its sixth principle but a\npotentiality of ultimate development. As regards the\nseventh principle, that is the true Unknowable, the su-\npreme controlling cause of all things, which is the same\nfor one man as for every man, the same for humanity as\nfor the animal kingdom, the same for the physical as for\nthe astral or devachanic or nirvanic planes of existence :\nno one man has got a seventh principle, in the higher\nconception of the subject ; we a^e all in the same un-\nfathomable way overshadowed by the seventh principle of\nthe cosmos.\n\nHow does this view of the subject harmonize with the\nstatement in the foregoing chapter, that in a certain sense\nthe principles are separable, and that the sixth even can\nbe imagined as divorcing itself from its next lower neigh-\n\n308 APPENDIX.\n\nbor, and, by reincarnation, as growing a new fifth prin-\nciple by contact with a human organism ? There is no\nincompatibility in the spirit of the two views. The sev-\nenth principle is one and indivisible in all Nature, but\nthere is a mysterious persistence through it of certain life-\nimpulses, which thus constitute threads on which succes-\nsive existences may be strung. Such a life-impulse does\nnot expire even in the extraordinary case supposed, in\nwhich an Ego, projected upon it and developed along it\nup to a certain point, falls away from it altogether and as\na complete whole. I am not in a position to dogmatize\nwith precision as to what happens in such a case, but the\nsubsequent incarnations of the spirit along that line of\nimpulse are clearly of the original sequence ; and thus, in\nthe materialistic treatment of the idea, it may be said,\nwith as much approach to accuracy as language will allow\nin either mode, that the sixth principle of the fallen entity\nin such a case separates itself from the original fifth, and\nreincarnates on its own account.\n\nBut with these abnormal processes it is unnecessary to\noccupy ourselves to any great extent. The normal evo-\nlution is the problem we have first to solve ; and while\nthe consideration of the seven principles as such is, to my\nown mind, the most instructive method by which the prob-\nlem can be dealt with, it is well to remember always that\nthe Ego is a unity progressing through various spheres or\nstates of being, undergoing change and growth and purifi-\ncation all through the course of its evolution, — that it is\na consciousness seated in this, or that, or the other, of the\npotential attributes of a human entity.\n\nAPPENDIX. 309\n\nNOTE TO CHAPTER III.\n\nAn expression occurs in this chapter which does not\nrecommend itself to the somewhat fuller conceptions I\nhave been able to form of the subject since this book was\nwritten. It is stated that \" the spiritual monads — the\nindividual atoms of that immense life-impulse of which\nso much has been said — do not fully complete their min-\neral existence on globe A, then complete it on globe B,\nand so on. They pass several times round the whole cir-\ncle as minerals, and then again several times round as\nvegetables, &c.\" Now it is intelligible to me that I was\npermitted to use this form of expression in the first in-\nstance because the main purpose in view was to elucidate\nthe way in which the human entity was gradually evolved\nfrom processes of Nature going on in the first instance\nin lower kingdoms. But in truth at a later stage of the\ninquiry it becomes manifest that the vast process of which\nthe evolution of humanity and all which that leads up to\nis the crowning act, the descent of spirit into matter, does\nnot bring about a differentiation of individualities until a\nmuch later stage than is contemplated in the passage just\nquoted. In the mineral worlds on which the higher forms\nof plant and animal life have not yet been established,\nthere is no such thing, as yet, as an individual spiritual\nmonad, unless indeed by virtue of some inconceivable\nunity — inconceivable, but subject to treatment as a the-\nory none the less — in the life-impulses which are destined\nto give rise to the later chains of highly organized exist-\nence. Just as in a preceding note we assumed the unity\nof such a life-impulse in the case of a perverted human\nEgo falling away as a whole from the current of evolu-\ntion on which it was launched, so we may assume the same\n\n310 APPENDIX.\n\nunity backwards to the earliest beginnings of the plane-\ntary chain. But this can be no more than a protective\nhypothesis, reserving us the right to investigate some mys-\nteries later on that we need not go into at present. For\na general appreciation of the subject it is better to regard\nthe first infusion, as it were, of spirit into matter as pro-\nvoking a homogeneous manifestation. The specific forms\nof the mineral kingdom, the crystals and differentiated\nrocks, are but bubbles in the seething mass assuming par-\ntially individualized forms for a time, and rushing again\ninto the general substance of the growing cosmos, not yet\ntrue individualities. Nor even in the vegetable kingdom\ndoes individuality set in. The vegetable establishes or-\nganic matter in physical manifestation, and prepares the\nway for the higher evolution of the animal kingdom. In\nthis, for the first time, but only in the higher regions of\nthis, is true individuality evoked. Therefore it is not till\nwe begin in imagination to contemplate the passage of the\ngreat life-impulse round the planetary chain on the level\nof animal incarnation, that it would be strictly justifiable\nto speak of the spiritual monads as travelling round the\ncircle as a plurality, to which the word \" they \" would\nproperly apply.\n\nIt is evidently not with the intention of encouraging\nany close study of evolution on the very grand scale with\nwhich we are dealing here, that the adept authors of the\ndoctrine set forth in this volume have opened the subject\nof the planetary chain. As far as humanity is concerned,\nthe period during which this earth will be occupied by our\nrace is more than long enough to absorb all our specula-\ntive energy. The magnitude of the evolutionary process\nto be accomplished during that period is more than enough\nto tax to the utmost the capacities of an ordinary imagi-\nnation. But it is extremely advantageous for students of\n\nAPPENDIX. 311\n\nthe occult doctrine to realize the plurality of worlds in\nour system once for all — their intimate relations with,\ntheir interdependence on each other — before concentrat-\ning attention on the evolution of this single planet. For\nin many respects the evolution of a single planet follows\na routine, as it will be found directly, that bears an ana-\nlogical resemblance to the routine affecting the entire se-\nries of planets to which it belongs. The older writings\non occult science, of the obscurely worded order, some-\ntimes refer to successive states of one world, as if suc-\ncessive worlds were meant, and vice versa. Confusion\nthus arises in the reader's mind, and according to the bent\nof his own inclination he clings to various interpretations\nof the misty language. The obscurity disappears when\nwe realize that in the actual facts of Nature we have to\nrecognize both courses of change. Each planet, while in-\nhabited by humanity, goes through metamorphoses of a\nhighly important and impressive character, the effect of\nwhich may in each case be almost regarded as equivalent\nto the reconstitution of the world. But none the less, if\nthe whole group of such changes is treated as a unity,\ndoes it form one of a higher series of changes. The sev-\neral worlds of the chain are objective realities, and not\nsymbols of change in one single, variable world. Further\nremarks on this head will fall into their place more nat-\nurally at the close of a later chapter.\n\nNOTE TO CHAPTERS V., VI.\n\nThere is no part of the present volume which I now\nregard as in so much urgent need of amplification as chap-\n\n812 APPENDIX.\n\nters V. and VI. The Kama loca stage of existence, and\nthat higher region or state of Devachan, to which it is but\nthe antechamber, were, designedly I take it, left by our\nteachers in the first instance in partial obscurity, in order\nthat the whole scheme of evolution might be the better\nunderstood. The spiritual state which immediately fol-\nlows our present physical life is a department of Nature,\nthe study of which is almost unhealthily attractive for\nevery one who once realizes that some contact with it —\nsome processes of experiment with its conditions — are pos-\nsible even during this life. Already we can to a certain ex-\ntent discern the phenomena of that state of existence into\nwhich a human creature passes at the death of the body.\nThe experience of spiritualism has supplied us with facts\nconcerning it in very great abundance. These facts are\nbut too highly suggestive of theories and inferences which\nseem to reach the ultimate limits of speculation, and noth-\ning but the bracing mental discipline of esoteric study in\nits broadest aspect will protect any mind addressed to the\nconsideration of these facts from conclusions which that\nstudy shows to be necessarily erroneous. For this reason,\ntheosophical inquirers have nothing to regret as far as\ntheir own progress in spiritual science is at stake, in the\ncircumstances which have hitherto induced them to be\nrather neglectful of the problems that have to do with\nthe state of existence next following our own. It is im-\npossible to exaggerate the intellectual advantages to be\nderived from studying the broad design of Nature through-\nout those vast realms of the future which only the perfect\nclairvoyance of the adepts can penetrate, before going\ninto details regarding that spiritual foreground, which is\npartially accessible to less powerful vision, but liable, on\na first acquaintance, to be mistaken for the whole expanse\nof the future.\n\nAPPENDIX. 313\n\nThe earlier processes, however, through which the soul\npasses at death, may be described at this date somewhat\nmore fully than they are denned in the foregoing chapter.\nThe nature of the struggle that takes place in Kama loca\nbetween the upper and lower duads may now, I believe,\nbe apprehended more clearly than at first. That struggle\nappears to be a very protracted and variegated process,\nand to constitute, — not, as some of us may have conjec-\ntured at first, an automatic or unconscious assertion of\naffinities or forces quite ready to determine the future of\nthe spiritual monad at the period of death, — but a phase\nof existence which may be, and in the vast majority of\ncases is more than likely to be, continued over a consider-\nable series of years. And during this phase of existence\nit is quite possible for departed human entities to mani-\nfest themselves to still living persons through the agency\nof spiritual mediumship, in a way which may go far to-\nwards accounting for, if it does not altogether vindicate,\nthe impressions that spiritualists derive from such com-\nmunications.\n\nBut we must not conclude too hastily that the human\nsoul going through the struggle or evolution of Kama loca\nis in all respects what the first glance at the position, as\nthus defined, may seem to suggest. First of all, we must\nbeware of too grossly materializing our conception of the\nstruggle, by thinking of it as a mechanical separation of\nprinciples. There is a mechanical separation involved in\nthe discard of lower principles when the consciousness of\nthe Ego is firmly seated in the higher. Thus at death\nthe body is mechanically discarded by the soul, which in\nunion, perhaps (with intermediate principles), may act-\nually be seen by some clairvoyants of a high order to\nquit the tenement it no longer needs. And a very sim-\nilar process may ultimately take place in Kama loca it-\n\n314 APPENDIX.\n\nself, in regard to the matter of the astral principles. But\npostponing this consideration for a few moments, it is im-\nportant to avoid supposing that the struggle of Kama loca\ndoes itself constitute this ultimate division of principles,\nor second death upon the astral plane.\n\nThe struggle of Kama loca is in fact the life of the en-\ntity in that phase of existence. As quite correctly stated\nin the text of the foregoing chapter, the evolution taking\nplace during that phase of existence is not concerned with\nthe responsible choice between good and evil which goes\non during physical life. Kama loca is a portion of the\ngreat world of effects, — not a sphere in which causes are\ngenerated (except under peculiar circumstances). The\nKama loca entity, therefore, is not truly master of his\nown acts ; he is rather the sport of his own already estab-\nlished affinities. But these are all the while asserting\nthemselves, or exhausting themselves, by degrees, and the\nKama loca entity has an existence of vivid consciousness\nof one sort or another the whole time. Now a moment's\nreflection will show that those affinities, which are gath-\nering strength. and asserting themselves, have to do with\nthe spiritual aspirations of the life last experienced, while\nthose which are exhausting themselves have to do with\nits material tastes, emotions, and proclivities. The Kama\nloca entity, be it remembered, is on his way to Devachan,\nor, in other words, is growing into that state which is the\nDevachanic state, and the process of growth is accom-\nplished by action and reaction, by ebb and flow, like al-\nmost every other in Nature, — by a species of oscillation\nbetween the conflicting attractions of matter and spirit.\nThus the Ego advances towards Heaven, so to speak, or\nrecedes towards earth, during his Kama loca existence,\nand it is just this tendency to oscillate between the two\npoles of thought or condition that brings him back occa-\nsionally within the sphere of the life he has just quitted.\n\nAPPENDIX. gig\n\nthiet tf £\\wa,nJ meaDS \"* °n°e that his «*»* »jmpa-\ntine. with that Me are dissipated. His sympathies^\nthe higher aspects of that life, be it remembered, are not\neven on their way to dissipation. For instance, in what i\n\nexerc.se of affection, which is a function of Devachanic\nessence in a preeminent degree. Bnt perhaps even\"\nregard to h affecti(ms there be ^ J ™ m\n\naspects of these, and the contemplation of [hem, w h he\n_ tances and surroundings of the earth-life, may\nof en have to do wtth the recession towards earth-life of\nthe Kama loca entity referred to above\n\nOf conrseit will be apparent at once that the inter-\n\nZrZTl PraCtiCe °f SpiritUaKsm SetS «P ^twcen\nsnch Kama-loca entities as are here in view, and the\n\nperiods of the soul's existence in which earth memories\nengage its attention ; and there are two consider\"\nof ^ry important natnre which arise out JZZ\n\n1st. While its attention is thus directed, it is turned\naway from the spiritual progress on which t is enZli\nduring its oscillations in the other direction. It Ly f afr 1\nwell remember, and in conversation refer to th I , .\naspirations of the life m earth, ^^ J?. «\n\niZTC'T t0 be °f \" °rfer te eannot b a!\nlatcdbact into terms of the ordinarv phvsical iutellec\n\nwtii:1 th- T' io be not •**» fc«\n\nfaculties which are in operation in the soul during its oe\nupatiou Wlth old.earth memor;es The ZJ oc\n\nw & f ed> but °niy to a ^ im^« -*-t\n\nby the case of a poor emigrant, whom we may imagine\nprospering in his new country, getting educated there\nconcerning himself with its publics and fa^\n\n316 APPENDIX.\n\nphilanthropy, and so on. He may keep up an interchange\nof letters with his relations at home, but he will find it\ndifficult to keep them au courant with all that has come to\nbe occupying his thoughts. The illustration will only fully\napply to our present purpose, however, if we think of the\nemigrant as subject to a psychological law which draws a\nveil over his understanding when he sits down to write to\nhis former friends, and restores him during that time to\nhis former mental condition. He would then be less and\nless able to write about the old topics as time went on, for\nthey would not only be below the level of those to the con-\nsideration of which his real mental activities had risen,\nbut would to a great extent have faded from his memory.\nHis letters would be a source of surprise to their recip-\nients, who would say to themselves that it was certainly\nso-and-so who was writing, but that he had grown very\ndull and stupid compared to what he used to be before he\nwent abroad.\n\n2dly. It must be borne in mind that a very well-known\nlaw of physiology, according to which faculties are invig-\norated by use and atrophied by neglect, applies on the as-\ntral as well as on the physical plane. The soul in Kama-\nloca, which acquires the habit of fixing its attention on\nthe memories of the life it has quitted, will strengthen\nand harden those tendencies which are at war with its\nhigher impulses. The more frequently it is appealed to\nby the affection of friends still in the body to avail itself\nof the opportunities furnished by mediumship for mani-\nfesting its existence on the physical plane, the more vehe-\nment will be the impulses which draw it back to physical\nlife, and the more serious the retardation of its spiritual\nprogress. This consideration appears to involve the most\ninfluential motive which leads the representatives of The-\nosophical teaching to discountenance and disapprove of\n\nAPPENDIX. 317\n\nall attempts to hold communication with departed souls\nby means of the spiritual seance. The more such com-\nmunications are genuine the more detrimental they are to\nthe inhabitants of Kama loca concerned with them. In\nthe present state of our knowledge it is difficult to deter-\nmine with confidence the extent to which the Kama loca\nentities are thus injured. And we may be tempted to be-\nlieve that in some cases the great satisfaction derived by\nthe living persons who communicate, may outweigh the\ninjury so inflicted on the departed soul. This satisfac-\ntion, however, will only be keen in proportion to the fail-\nure of the still living friend to realize the circumstances\nunder which the communication takes place. At first, it\nis true, very shortly after death, the still vivid and com-\nplete memories of earth-life may enable the Kama loca\nentity to manifest himself as a personage very fairly like\nhis deceased self, but from the moment of death the\nchange in the direction of his evolution sets in. He will,\nas manifesting on the physical plane, betray no fresh fer-\nmentation of thought in his mind. He will never, in that\nmanifestation, be any wiser, or higher in the scale of Na-\nture, than he was when he died ; on the contrary, he must\nbecome less and less intelligent, and apparently less in-\nstructed than formerly, as time goes on. He will never\ndo himself justice in communication with the friends left\nbehind, and his failure in this respect will grow more and\nmore painful by degrees.\n\nYet another consideration operates to throw a very\ndoubtful light on the wisdom or propriety of gratifying a\ndesire for intercourse with deceased friends. We may\nsay, never mind the gradually fading interest of the friend\nwho has gone before, in the earth left behind ; while there\nis anything of his or her old self left to manifest itself to\nus, it will be a delight to communicate even with that*\n\n318 APPENDIX.\n\nAnd we may argue that if the beloved person is delayed\na little on his way to Heaven by talking with us, he or she\nwould be willing to make that sacrifice for our sake. The\npoint overlooked here is, that on the astral, just as on the\nphysical plane, it is a very easy thing to set up a bad\nhabit. The soul in Kama loca once slaking a thirst for\nearthly intercourse at the wells of mediumship will have\na strong impulse to fall back again and again on that in-\ndulgence. We may be doing a great deal more than di-\nverting the soul's attention from its own proper business\nby holding spiritualistic relations with it. We may be\ndoing it serious and almost permanent injury. I am not\naffirming that this would invariably or generally be the\ncase, but a severe view of the ethics of the subject must\nrecognize the dangerous possibilities involved in the course\nof action under review. On the other hand, however, it\nis plain that cases may arise in which the desire for com-\nmunication chiefly asserts itself from the other side : that\nis to say, in which the departed soul is laden with some\nunsatisfied desire — pointing possibly towards the fulfil-\nment of some neglected duty on earth — the attention to\nwhich, on the part of still living friends, may have an ef-\nfect quite the reverse of that attending the mere encour-\nagement of the Kama loca entity in the resumption of its\nold earthly interests. In such cases the living friends\nmay, by falling in with its desire to communicate, be the\nmeans, indirectly, of smoothing the path of the spiritual\nprogress. Here again, however, we must be on our guard\nagainst the delusive aspect of appearances. A wish man-\nifested by an inhabitant of Kama loca may not always be\nthe expression of an idea then operative in his mind. It\nmay be the echo of an old, perhaps of a very old, desire,\nthen for the first time finding a channel for its outward\nexpression. In this way, although it would be reasonable\n\nAPPENDIX. 319\n\nto treat as important an intelligible wish conveyed to us\nfrom Kama loca by a person only lately deceased, it would\nbe prudent to regard with great suspicion such a wish ema-\nnating from the shade of a person who had been dead a\nlong time, and whose general demeanor as a shade did not\nseem to convey the notion that he retained any vivid con-\nsciousness of his old personality.\n\nThe recognition of all these facts and possibilities of\nKama loca will, I think, afford theosophists a satisfactory\nexplanation of a good many experiences connected with\nspiritualism which the first exposition of the Esoteric Doc-\ntrine, as bearing on this matter, left in much obscurity.\n\nIt will be readily perceived that as the soul slowly\nclears itself in Kama loca of the affinities which retard\nits Devachanic development, the aspect it turns towards\nthe earth is more and more enfeebled, and it is inevitable\nthat there must always be in Kama loca an enormous\nnumber of entities nearly ripe for a complete mergence in\nDevachan, who ou that very account appear to an earthly\nobserver in a state of advanced decrepitude. These will\nhave sunk, as regards the activity of their lower astral\nprinciples, into the condition of the altogether vague and\nunintelligible entities, which, following the example of\nolder occult writers, I have referred to as \" shells \" in the\ntext of this chapter. The designation, however, is not\naltogether a happy one. It might have been better to\nhave followed another precedent, and to have called them\n\"shades,\" but either way their condition would be the\nsame. All the vivid consciousness inhering, as they left\nthe earth, in the principles appropriately related to the\nactivities of physical life, has been transferred to the\nhigher principles which do not manifest at stances. Their\nmemory of earth-life has almost become extinct. Their\nlower principles are in such cases only reawakened by the\n\n320 APPENDIX.\n\ninfluences of the mediumistic current into which they may\nbe drawn, and they become then little more than astral\nlooking-glasses, in which the thoughts of the medium or\nsitters at the stance are reflected. If we can imagine the\ncolors on a painted canvas sinking by degrees into the\nsubstance of the material, and at last re emerging in their\npristine brilliancy on the other side, we shall be conceiv-\ning a process which might not have destroyed the picture,\nbut which would leave a gallery in which it took place a\ndreary scene of brown and meaningless backs, and that is\nvery much what the Kama loca entities become before\nthey ultimately shed the very material on which their first\nastral consciousness operated, and pass into the wholly\npurified Devachanic condition.\n\nBut this is not the whole of the story which teaches us\nto regard manifestations coming from Kama loca with dis-\ntrust. Our present comprehension of the subject enables\nus to realize that when the time arrives for that second\ndeath on the astral plane, which releases the purified Ego\nfrom Kama loca altogether and sends it onward to the\nDevachanic state — something is left behind in Kama\nloca which corresponds to the dead body bequeathed to\nthe earth when the soul takes its first flight from physical\nexistence. A dead astral body is in fact left behind in\nKama loca, and there is certainly no impropriety in ap-\nplying the epithet \" shell \" to that residuum. The true\nshell in that state disintegrates in Kama loca before very\nlong, just as the true body left to the legitimate processes\nof Nature on earth would soon decay and blend its ele-\nments with the general reservoirs of matter of the order\nto which they belong. But until that disintegration is ac-\ncomplished, the shell which the real Ego has altogether\nabandoned may even in that state be mistaken sometimes\nat spiritual seances for a living entity. It remains for a\n\nAPPENDIX. 321\n\ntime an astral looking-glass, in which mediums may see\ntheir own thoughts reflected, and take these back, fully\nbelieving them to come from an external source These\nphenomena in the truest sense of the term are galvanized\n• astral corpses ; none the less so, because until they are\nactually disintegrated a certain subtle connection will sub-\nsist between them and the true Devachanic spirit ; just\nas such a subtle communication subsists in the first in-\nstance between the Kama loca entity and the dead body\nleft on earth. That last - mentioned communication is\nkept up by the finally-diffused material of the original\nthird principle, or linga sharira, and a study of this branch\nof the subject will, I believe, lead us up to a better com-\nprehension than we possess at present of the circum-\nstances under which materializations are sometimes ac-\ncomplished at spiritual seances. But without going into\nthat digression now, it is enough to recognize that the\nanalogy may help to show how, between the Devachanic\nentity and the discarded shell in Kama loca a similar con-\nnection may continue for a while, acting, while it lasts, as\na drag on the higher spirit, but perhaps as an after-glow\nof sunset on the shell. It would surely be distressing,\nhowever, m the highest degree, to any living friend of rhe\nperson concerned, to get, through clairvoyance, or in any\nother way, sight or cognition of such a shell, and to be led\nmto mistaking it for the true entity.\n\nThe comparatively clear view of Kama loca which we\nare now enabled to take, may help us to employ terms re-\na mg to its phenomena with more precision than we have\nhitherto been able to attain. I think if we adopt one new\nexpression, \"astral soul,\" as applying to the entities in\nKama loca who have recently quitted earth-life, or who\nfor other reasons still retain, in the aspect they turn back\ntowards earth, a large share of the intellectual attributes\n\n322 APPENDIX.\n\nthat distinguished them on earth, we shall then find the\nother terms in use already, adequate to meet our remain-\ning emergencies. Indeed, we may then get rid entirely\nof the inconvenient term \" elementary,\" liable to be con-\nfused with elemental, and singularly inappropriate to the\nbeings it describes. I would suggest that the astral soul\nas it sinks (regarded from our point of view) into intel-\nlectual decrepitude, should be spoken of in its faded con-\ndition as a shade, and that the term shell should be re-\nserved for the true shells or astral dead bodies which the\nDevachanic spirit has finally quitted.\n\nWe are naturally led in studying the law of spiritual\ngrowth in Kama loca to inquire how long a time may\nprobably elapse before the transfer of consciousness from\nthe lower to the higher principles of the astral soul may\nbe regarded as complete ; and as usual, when we come to\nfigures relating to the higher processes of Nature, the an-\nswer is very elastic. But I believe the esoteric teachers\nof the East declare that as regards the average run of\nhumanity — for what may be called, in a spiritual sense,\nthe great middle classes of humanity — it is unusual that\na Kama loca entity will be in a position to manifest as such\nfor more than twenty-five to thirty years. But on each\nside of this average the figures may run up very consid-\nerably. That is to say, a very ignoble and besotted hu-\nman creature may hang about in Kama loca for a much\nlonger time for want of any higher principles sufficiently\ndeveloped to take up his consciousness at all, and at the\nother end of the scale the very intellectual and mentally-\nactive soul may remain for very long periods in Kama loca\n(in the absence of spiritual affinities in corresponding\nforce), by reason of the great persistence of forces and\ncauses generated on the higher plane of effects, though\nmental activity could hardly be divorced in this way from\n\nAPPENDIX. 323\n\nspirituality except in cases where it was exclusively asso-\nciated with worldly ambition. Again, while Kama loca\nperiods may thus be prolonged beyond the average from\nvarious causes, they may sink to almost infinitesimal brev-\nity when the spirituality of a person dying at a ripe old\nage, and at the close of a life which has legitimately ful-\nfilled its purpose, is already far advanced.\n\nThere is one other important possibility connected with\nmanifestations reaching us by the usual channels of com-\nmunication with Kama loca, which it is desirable to notice\nhere, although from its nature the realization of such a\npossibility cannot be frequent. No recent students of\ntheosophy can expect to know as yet very much about the\nconditions of existence which await adepts who relinquish\nthe use of physical bodies on earth. The higher possi-\nbilities open to them appear to me quite beyond the\nreach of intellectual appreciation. No man is clever\nenough, by virtue of the mere cleverness seated in a liv-\ning brain, to understand Nirvana ; but it would appear\nthat adepts in some cases elect to pursue a course lying\nmidway between re-incarnation and the passage into Nir-\nvana, and in the higher regions of Devachan ; that is to\nsay, in the arupa state of Devachan may await the slow\nadvance of human evolution towards the exalted condi-\ntion they have thus attained. Now an adept who had\nthus become a Devachanic spirit of the most elevated type\nwould not be cut off by the conditions of his Devachanic\nstate — as would be the case with a natural Devachanic\nspirit passing through that state on his way to re-incarna-\ntion — from manifesting his influence on earth. His\nwould certainly not be an influence which would make\nitself felt by the instrumentality of any physical signs to\nmixed audiences, but it is not impossible that a medium\nof the highest type — who would more properly be called\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\na seer — might be thus influenced. By such an Adept\nspirit, some great men in the world's history may from\ntime to time have been overshadowed and inspired, con-\nsciously or unconsciously as the case may have been:\n\nThe disintegration of shells in Kama loca will inevi-\ntably suggest to any one who endeavors to comprehend\nthe process at all, that there must be in Nature some\ngeneral reservoirs of the matter appropriate to that sphere\nof existence, corresponding to the physical earth and its\nsurrounding elements, into which our own bodies are\nresigned at death. The grand mysteries on which this\nconsideration impinges will claim a far more exhaustive\ninvestigation than we have yet been enabled to under-\ntake ; but one broad idea connected with them may use-\nfully be put forward without further delay. The state\nof Kama loca is one which has its corresponding orders\nof matter in manifestation round it. I will not here at-\ntempt to go into the metaphysics of the problem, which\nmight even lead us to discard the notion that astral mat-\nter need be any less real and tangible than that which\nappeals to our physical senses. It is enough for the\npresent to explain that the propinquity of Kama loca to\nthe earth, which is so readily made apparent by spirit-\nualistic experience, is explained by Oriental teaching to\narise from this fact, — that Kama loca is just as much\nin and of the earth as, during our lives, our astral soul is\nin and of the living man. The stage of Kama loca, in\nfact, the great realm of matter in the appropriate state\nwhich constitutes Kama loca and is perceptible to the\nsenses of astral entities, as also to those of many clair-\nvoyants, is the fourth principle of the earth, just as the\nKama-rupa is the fourth principle of man. For the earth\nhas its seven principles like the human creatures who in-\nhabit it. Thus, the Devachanic state corresponds to the\n\nAPPENDIX. 325\n\nfifth principle of the earth, and Nirvana to the sixth\nprinciple.\n\nNOTE TO CHAPTER VII.\n\nLater information and study — the comparison, that is\nto say, of the various branches of the doctrine, and the col,\nlocation of other statements with those in Chapter VII —\nshow the difficulty of applying figures to the Esoteric Doc-\ntrines m a very striking light. Figures may be quite trust-\nworthy as representing broad averages, and yet very\nmisleading when applied to special cases. Devachanic\nperiods vary for different people within such very wide\nlimits that any rule laid down in the matter must be sub-\nject to a bewildering cloud of exceptions. To begin with\nthe average mentioned above has no doubt been computed\nwith reference to fully matured adults. Between the quite\nyoung child who has no Devachanic period at all and the\nadult who accomplishes an average period we have to take\nnote of persons dying in youth, who have accumulated\nKarma, and who must therefore pass through the usual\nstages of spiritual development, but for whom the brief\nlives they have spent have not produced causes which take\nvery long to work themselves out. Such persons would\nreturn to incarnation after a sojourn in the world of effects\nof corresponding brevity. Again there are such things as\nartificial incarnations accomplished by the direct interven-\ntion of the Mahatmas when a chela who may not yet have\nacquired anything resembling the power of controlling the\n-matter himself, is brought back into incarnation almost\nimmediately after his previous physical death, without\nhaving been suffered to float into the current of natural\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\ncauses at all. Of course in such cases it may be said that\nthe claims the person concerned has established on the\nMahatmas are themselves natural causes of a kind, the\nintervention of the Mahatmas, who are quite beyond the\nliability of acting capriciously in such a matter, being so\nmuch fruit of effort in the preceding life, so much Karma.\nBut still either way such cases would be equally with-\ndrawn from the operation of the general average rule.\n\nClearly it is impossible when the complicated facts of an\nentirely unfamiliar science are being presented to untrained\nmind for the first time, to put them forward with all\ntheir appropriate qualifications, compensations and abnor-\nmal developments visible from the beginning. We must\nbe content to take the broad rules first and deal with the\nexceptions afterwards, and especially is this the case with\noccult study, in connection with which the traditional\nmethods of teaching, generally followed, aim at impress-\ning every fresh idea on the memory, by provoking the\nperplexity it at last relieves. In relation to another mat-\nter dealt with in the preceding pages, an important ex-\nception in Nature has thus, it seems to me now, been left\nout of account. The description I have given of the prog-\nress of the human tide-wave is quite coherent as it stands,\nbut since the publication of the original edition of this\nbook some criticism was directed, in India, to a compari-\nson between my version of the story and certain passages\nin other writings, known to emanate from a Mahatma.\nA discrepancy between the two statements was pointed out,\nthe other version assuming the possibility that a monad\nactually might have travelled round the seven planets once\nmore often than the compeers among whom he might\nultimately find himself on this earth. My account of the\nobscurations appears to render this contingency impossi-\nble. The clue to the mystery appears to lie outside the\n\nAPPENDIX. 327\n\ndomain of those facts concerning which the adepts are\nwilling to speak freely; and the reader must clearly un-\nderstand that the explanation I am about to offer is the\nfruit of my own speculation and comparison of different\nparts of the doctrine — not authentic information received\nfrom the author of my general teaching.\n\nThe fact appears to be that the obscurations are so far\ncomplete as to present all the phenomena above described\nin regard to each planet they affect as a whole. But ex-\nceptional phenomena, for which we must be ever on the\nalert, come into play even in this matter. The great\nbulk of humanity is driven on from one planet to the next\nby the great cyclic impulse when its time comes for such a\ntransition, but the planet it quits is not utterly denuded of\nhumanity, nor is it, in every region of its surface rendered,\nby the physical and climatic changes that come on, unfit\nto be the habitation of human beings. Even during ob-\nscuration a small colony of humanity clings to each planet,\nand the monads associated with these small colonies fol-\nlowing different laws of evolution, and beyond the reach\nof those attractions which govern the main vortex of hu-\nmanity in the planet occupied by the great tide-wave,\npass on from world to world along what may be called\nthe inner round of evolution, far ahead of the race at\nlarge. What may be the circumstances which occasion-\nally project a soul even from the midst of the great human\nvortex, right out of the attraction of the planet occupied\nby the tide-wave, and into the attraction of the Inner\nRound — is a question that can only be a subject for us\nat present of very uncertain conjecture.\n\nIt may be worth while to draw attention, in connection\nwith the solution I have ventured to offer as applicable\nto the problem of the Inner Rounds, to the way in which\nthe fact of Nature I assume to exist, would harmonize\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\nwith the widely diffused doctrines of the Deluge. That\nportion of a planet which remained habitable during an\nobscuration would be equivalent to the Noah's Ark of the\nbiblical narrative taken in its largest symbolical meaning.\nOf course the narrative of the Deluge has minor sym-\nbolical meanings also, but it does not appear improbable\nthat the Kabalists should also have associated with it the\nlarger significance now suggested. In due time when the\nobscured planet grew ready once more to receive a full\npopulation of humanity, the colonists of the ark would\nbe ready to commence the process of populating it afresh.\n\nNOTE TO CHAPTER VIII.\n\nThe condition into which the monads failing to pass the\nmiddle of the fifth round must fall as the tide of evo-\nlution sweeps on, leaving them stranded, so to speak,\nupon the shores of time, is not described very fully in this\nchapter. By a few words only is it indicated that the\nfailures of each manwantara are not absolutely annihilated\nwhen they reach \" the end of their tether,\" but are destined\nafter some enormous period of waiting to pass once more\ninto the current of evolution. Many inferences may be\ndeduced from this condition of things. The period of\nwaiting which the failures have thus to undergo, is, to\nbegin with, a duration so stupendous as to baffle the im-\nagination. The latter half of the fifth round, the whole of\nthe sixth and seventh have to be performed by the suc-\ncessful graduates in spirituality, and the latter rounds\nare of immensely longer duration than those of the middle\nperiod. Then follows the vast interval of Nirvanic rest,\nwhich closes the manwantara, the immeasurable Night\n\nAPPENDIX. 329\n\nof Brahma, the Pralaya of the whole planetary chain.\nOnly when the next manwantara begins do the failures\nbegin to wake from their awful trance — awful to the\nimagination of beings in the full activity of life, though\nsuch a trance, being necessarily all but destitute of con-\nsciousness, is possibly no more tedious than a dreamless\nnight in the memory of a profound sleeper. The fate\nof the failures may be grievous first of all, rather on\naccount of what they miss, than on account of what they\nincur. Secondly, however, it is grievous on account of\nthat to which it leads, for all the trouble of physical life\nand almost endless incarnations must be gone through\nafresh, when the failures wake up; whereas the perfected\nbeings, who outstripped them in evolution during that\nfifth round in which they became failures, will have\ngrown into the god-like perfection of Dhyan Chohanhood\nduring their trance, and will be the presiding geniuses of\nthe next manwantara, not its helpless subjects.\n\nApart altogether, meanwhile, from what may be regard-\ned as the personal interest of the entities concerned, the\nexistence of the failures in Nature at the beginning of\neach manwantara is a fact which contributes in a very\nimportant degree to a comprehension of the evolutionary\nsystem. When the planetary chain is first of all evolved\nout of chaos — if we may use such an expression as \" first\nof all\" in a qualified sense, having regard to the reflec-\ntion that \"in the beginning\" is a mere fa^on de parler\napplied to any period in eternity — there are no failures\nto deal with. Then the descent of spirit into matter,\nthrough the elemental, mineral, and other kingdoms, goes\non in the way already described in earlier chapters of\nthis book. But from the second manwantara of a planet-\nary chain, during the activity of the solar system, which\nprovides for many such manwantaras, the course of events\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\nis somewhat different — easier, if I may again be allowed\nto use an expression that is applicable rather in a con-\nversational than a severely scientific sense. At any rate\nit is quicker, for human entities are already in Existence,\nready to enter into incarnation as the world, also already\nin existence, can be got ready for them. The truth thus\nappears to be, that after the first manwantara of a series — ■\nenormously longer in duration than its successors — no\nentities, then first evolved from quite the lower kingdoms,\ndo more than attain the threshold of humanity. The late\nfailures pass first into incarnation, and then eventually\nthe surviving animal entities already differentiated. But,\ncompared with the passages in the Esoteric Doctrine\nwhich affect the current evolution of our own race, these\nconsiderations, relating to the very early periods of world-\nevolution, have little more than an intellectual interest,\nand cannot as yet by any contributions of mine be very\ngreatly amplified.\n\n%4\n\nvO\n\n* 8 M\n\nv> ^\n\nS Xi\n\nf\\s\n\n\\. V\n\n. ■\n\n*V~' i ^°-<- ',\n\n^\n\n<p\n\nr \"\n\nJ*\n\n'\n\n\\°°.\n\n.^^\n\n\" -_ A L\n\n6 * ^\n\n■i ■?->\n\no Cf\nv >\n\n* *^A -V\n\n'/-•\n\n,Oo,\n\n^ '\"r.\\\n\nV . s\n\n&\n\n^ VL\n\n% 8 ' A *\n\n&\n\nv>V\n\n;? V» o\n\n, ^\n\nvV1 V.\n\n•■\n\n- / «\n\n....\n\n^. ^ ;\n\n°a\n\nV*\n\n'^WA ro *</?„ ^",
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