The Astral Plane
Its Scenery, Inhabitants,
and
Phenomena
By
C
Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24 -1DL
The Astral Plane
Its Scenery, Inhabitants,
and
Phenomena
By
C
[1847-1934]
THIRD EDITION
(REVISED)
PREFACE.
Few words are needed in sending this
little book out into
the world. It is the fifth of a series
of Manuals designed to
meet the public demand for a simple
exposition of
Theosophical teachings. Some have
complained that our
literature is at once too abstruse, too
technical, and too
expensive for the ordinary reader, and
it is our hope that the
present series may succeed in supplying
what is a very real
want. Theosophy is not only for the
learned; it is for all.
Perhaps among those who in these little
books catch their
first glimpse of its teachings, there
may be a few who will be
led by them to penetrate more deeply
into its philosophy, its
science, and its religion, facing its abstruser problems with
the student's zeal and the neophyte's ardour. But these
Manuals are not written only for the
eager student, whom
no initial difficulties can daunt; they
are written for the busy
men and women of the work-a-day world,
and seek to make
plain some of the great truths that
render life easier to bear
and death easier to face. Written by
servants of the Masters
who are the Elder Brothers of our race,
they can have no
other object than to serve our fellow-men..CONTENTS.
PAGE
Introduction. 9
Scenery.—The Seven Subdivisions—Degrees of Materiality—
Characteristics of Astral Vision—The Aura—The
Etheric
Double—Power of Magnifying Minute Objects—The
"Summerland"—Records of the Astral Light
17
Inhabitants.—
Pupil—The Psychically Developed Person—The Ordinary
Person—The Black Magician 29
(2) Dead:—The Nirmanakaya—The
Pupil awaiting
Reincarnation—The Ordinary person after
Death—The Shade—The Shell—The Vitalized Shell—The
Suicide—The Victim of Sudden Death—The Vampire—The
Werewolf—The Black Magician after Death 35
II. Non-human:—The Elemental Essence—The Astral
Bodies
of Animals—Various Classes of Nature-Spirits,
commonly
called Fairies—Kamadevas—Rupadevas—Arupadevas—The
Devarajas 62
III. Artificial:—Elementals formed
Unconsciously—Guardian
Angels—Elementals formed Consciously—Human
Artificials—The True Origin of Spiritualism 87
Phenomena.—Churchyard Ghosts—Apparitions of the
Dying—Haunted Localities—Family Ghosts—Bell-ringing,
Stone-throwing, etc.—Fairies—Communicating
Entities—
Astral
Resources—Clairvoyance—Prevision—Second-Sight—
Astral Force—Etheric Currents—Etheric
Pressure—Latent
Energy—Sympathetic
Vibration—Mantras—Disintegration—
Materialization—Why Darkness is Required at a Seance—
Spirit Photographs—Reduplication—Precipitation of
Letters
and Pictures—Slate-writing—Levitation—Spirit
Lights—
Handling Fire—Transmutation—Repercussion 104
Conclusion. 125.THE ASTRAL PLANE.
INTRODUCTION.
THOUGH for the most part entirely unconscious of
it, man
passes the whole of his life in the midst of a vast
and
populous unseen world. During sleep or in trance,
when the
insistent physical senses are for the time in
abeyance, this
other world is to some extent open to him, and he
will
sometimes bring back from those conditions more or
less
vague memories of what he has seen and heard there.
When,
at the change which men call death, he lays aside
his physical
body altogether, it is into this unseen world that
he passes,
and in it he lives through the long centuries that
intervene
between his incarnations into this existence that
we know. By
far the greater part of these long periods is spent
in the
heaven-world, to which the sixth of these manuals
is devoted;
but what we have now to consider is the lower part
of this
unseen world, the state into which man enters
immediately
after death—the Hades or under world of the Greeks,
the
purgatory or intermediate state of Christianity
which was
called by mediaeval alchemists the astral plane.
The object of
this manual is to collect and arrange the
information with
regard to this interesting
9.10
region which is scattered through Theosophical
literature,
and also to supplement it slightly in cases where
new facts
have come to our knowledge. It must be understood
that any
such additions are only the result of the
investigations of a
few explorers, and must not, therefore, be taken as
in any
way authoritative, but are given simply for what
they are
worth. On the other hand every precaution in our
power has
been taken to ensure accuracy, no fact, old or new,
being
admitted to this manual unless it has been
confirmed by the
testimony of at least two independent trained
investigators
among ourselves, and has also been passed as
correct by
older students whose knowledge on these points is
necessarily much greater than ours. It is hoped,
therefore,
that this account of the astral plane, though it
cannot be
considered as quite complete, may yet be found
reliable as
far as it goes.
The first point which it is necessary to make clear
in
describing this astral plane is its absolute
reality. Of course
in using that word I am not speaking from that
metaphysical
standpoint from which all but the One Unmanifested is
unreal because impermanent. I am using the word in
its plain,
every-day sense, and I mean by it that the objects
and
inhabitants of the astral plane are real in exactly
the same
way as our own bodies, our furniture, our houses or
monuments are real—as real as
expressive remark from one of the earliest
Theosophical
works. They will no more endure for ever than will
objects
on the physical plane, but they are nevertheless
realities from
our point of view while they last—realities which
we cannot
afford to ignore merely because the majority of
mankind is
as yet unconscious, or but vaguely conscious, of
their
existence..11
No one can get a clear conception of the teachings
of the
Wisdom-Religion until he has at any rate an
intellectual
grasp of the fact that in our solar system there
exist perfectly
definite planes, each with its own matter of
different degrees
of density, and that some of these planes can be
visited and
observed by persons who have qualified themselves
for the
work, exactly as a foreign country might be visited
and
observed; and that, by comparison of the
observations of
those who are constantly working on these planes,
evidence
can be obtained of their existence and nature at
least as
satisfactory as that which most of us have for the
existence
of
who has the means and chooses to take the trouble
can go
and see
who chooses to take the trouble to qualify himself
by living
the necessary life, can in time come to see these
higher
planes on his own account.
The names usually given to these planes, taking
them in
order of materiality, rising from the denser to the
finer, are
the physical, the astral, the mental or devachanic, the buddhic,
and the nirvanic. Higher
than this last are two others, but they
are so far above our present power of conception
that for the
moment they may be left out of consideration. It
should be
understood that the matter of each of these planes
differs
from that of the one below it in the same way as,
though to a
much greater degree than, vapour
differs from solid matter;
in fact, the states of matter which we call solid,
liquid, and
gaseous are merely the three lowest subdivisions of
the
matter belonging to this one physical plane.
The astral region which I am to attempt to describe
is.12
the second of these great planes of nature—the next
above
(or within) that physical world with which we are
all familiar.
It has often been called the realm of illusion—not
that it is
itself any more illusory than the physical world,
but, because
of the extreme unreliability of the impressions
brought back
from it by the untrained seer. This is to be
accounted for
mainly by two remarkable characteristics of the
astral
world—first, that many of its inhabitants have a
marvellous
power of changing their forms with Protean
rapidity, and
also of casting practically unlimited glamour over
those with
whom they choose to sport; and secondly, that sight
on that
plane is a faculty very different from and much
more
extended than physical vision. An object is seen,
as it were,
from all sides at once, the inside of a solid being
as plainly
open to the view as the outside; it is therefore
obvious that an
inexperienced visitor to this new world may well
find
considerable difficulty in understanding what he
really does
see, and still more in translating his vision into
the very
inadequate language of ordinary speech.
A good example of the sort of mistake that is
likely to
occur is the frequent reversal of any number which
the seer
has to read from the astral light, so that he would
be liable to
render, say, 139 as 931, and so on. In the case of
a student of
occultism trained by a capable Master such a
mistake would
be impossible except through great hurry or
carelessness,
since such a pupil has to go through a long and
varied course
of instruction in this art of seeing correctly, the
Master, or
perhaps some more advanced pupil, bringing before
him
again and again all possible forms of illusion, and
asking
him "What do you see?" Any errors in his
answers are then
corrected and their.13
reasons explained, until by degrees the neophyte
acquires a
certainty and confidence in dealing with the
phenomena of
the astral plane which far exceeds anything
possible in
physical life.
But he has to learn not only to see correctly but
to
translate the memory of what he has seen accurately
from
one plane to the other; and to assist him in this
he is trained
to carry his consciousness without break from the
physical
plane to the astral or devachanic
and back again, for until that
can be done there is always a possibility that his
recollections
may be partially lost or distorted during the blank
interval
which separates his periods of consciousness on the
various
planes. When the power of bringing over the
consciousness
is perfectly acquired the pupil will have the
advantage of the
use of all the astral faculties, not only while out
of his body
during sleep or trance, but also while fully awake
in ordinary
physical life.
It has been the custom of some Theosophists to
speak
with scorn of the astral plane, and treat it as
entirely
unworthy of attention; but that seems to me a
mistaken view.
Most assuredly that at which we have to aim is the
life of the
spirit, and it would be most disastrous for any
student to
neglect that higher development and rest satisfied
with the
attainment of astral consciousness. There have been
some
whose karma was such as to enable them to develop
the
higher mental faculties first of all—to overleap
the astral
plane for the time, as it were; but this is not the
ordinary
method adopted by the Masters of Wisdom with their
pupils.
Where it is possible it no doubt saves trouble, but
for most
of us such progress by leaps and bounds has been
forbidden
by our own faults or follies in the past: all that
we can hope
for is to win our way slowly step by step,.14
and since this astral plane lies next to our world
of denser
matter, it is usually in connection with it that
our earliest
super-physical experiences take place. It is
therefore of deep
interest to those of us who are but beginners in
these studies,
and a clear comprehension of its mysteries may
often be of
the greatest importance to us, by enabling us not
only to
understand many of the phenomena of the seance-room, of
haunted houses, etc., which would otherwise be
inexplicable,
but also to guard ourselves and others from
possible
dangers.
The first introduction to this remarkable region
comes to
people in various ways. Some only once in their
whole lives
under some unusual influence become sensitive
enough to
recognize the presence of one of its inhabitants,
and perhaps,
because the experience does not repeat itself, they
may come
in time to believe that on that occasion they must
have been
the victims of hallucination: others find themselves
with
increasing frequency seeing and hearing something
to which
those around them are blind and deaf; others
again—and
perhaps this is the commonest experience of
all—begin to
recollect with greater and greater clearness that
which they
have seen or heard on that other plane during
sleep.
Among those who make a study of these subjects,
some
try to develop the astral sight by crystal-gazing,
or other
methods, while those who have the inestimable
advantage of
the direct guidance of a qualified teacher will
probably be
placed upon that plane for the first time under his
special
protection, which will be continued until, by the
application
of various tests, he has satisfied himself that
each pupil is
proof against any danger or terror that he is
likely to
encounter. But, however it may occur, the first
actual.15
realization that we are all the while in the midst
of a great
world full of active life, of which most of us are
nevertheless
entirely unconscious, cannot but be a memorable
epoch in a
man's existence.
So abundant and so manifold is this life of the
astral plane
that at first it is absolutely bewildering to the
neophyte; and
even for the more practised
investigator it is no easy task to
attempt to classify and to catalogue it. If the
explorer of some
unknown tropical forest were asked not only to give
a full
account of the country through which he had passed,
with
accurate details of its vegetable and mineral
productions, but
also to state the genus and species of every one of
the myriad
insects, birds, beasts, and reptiles which he had
seen, he
might well shrink appalled at the magnitude of the
undertaking: yet even this affords no parallel to
the
embarrassments of the psychic investigator, for in
his case
matters are further complicated, first by the
difficulty of
correctly translating from that plane to this the
recollection of
what he has seen, and secondly by the utter
inadequacy of
ordinary language to express much of what he has to
report.
However, just as the explorer on the physical plane
would
probably commence his account of a country by some
sort
of general description of its scenery and
characteristics, so it
will be well to begin this slight sketch of the
astral plane by
endeavouring to give some idea of the scenery which forms
the background of its marvellous and ever-changing
activities. Yet here at the outset an almost
insuperable
difficulty confronts us in the extreme complexity
of the
matter. All who see fully on that plane agree that
to attempt to
call up a vivid picture of this astral before those
whose eyes
are as yet unopened is like.16
speaking to a blind man of the exquisite variety of
tints in a
sunset sky—however detailed and elaborate the
description
may be, there is no certainty that the idea
presented before
the hearer's mind will be an adequate
representation of the
truth..SCENERY.
FIRST of all, then, it must be understood that the
astral
plane has seven subdivisions, each of which has its
corresponding degree of materiality and its
corresponding
condition of matter. Although the poverty of
physical
language forces us to speak of these subplanes as higher and
lower, we must not fall into the mistake of
thinking of them
(or indeed of the greater planes of which they are
only
subdivisions) as separate localities in space—as
lying above
one another like the shelves of a book-case or
outside one
another like the coats of an onion. It must be
understood that
the matter of each plane or subplane
interpenetrates that of
the plane or subplane
below it, so that here at the surface of
the earth all exist together in the same space,
although it is
true that the higher varieties of matter extend
further away
from the physical earth than the lower.
So when we speak of a man as rising from one plane
or
subplane to another, we do not think of him as necessarily
moving in space at all, but rather as transferring
his
consciousness from one level to another—gradually
becoming unresponsive to the vibrations of one
order of
matter, and beginning instead to answer to those of
a higher
and more refined order; so that one world with its
scenery
and
17.18
inhabitants would seem to fade slowly away from his
view,
while another world of a more elevated character
would dawn
upon him in its stead.
Numbering these subdivisions from the highest and
least
material downwards, we find that they naturally
fall into three
classes, divisions 1, 2, and 3 forming one such
class, and 4, 5,
and 6 another, while the seventh and lowest of all
stands
alone. The difference between the matter of one of
these
classes and the next would be commensurable with
that
between a solid and a liquid, while the difference
between the
matter of the subdivisions of a class would rather
resemble
that between two kinds of solid, such as, say,
steel and sand.
Putting aside for the moment the seventh, we may
say that
divisions 4, 5, and 6 of the astral plane have for
their
background the physical world in which we live, and
all its
familiar accessories. Life on the sixth division is
simply like
our ordinary life on this earth, minus the physical
body and
its necessities; while as it ascends through the
fifth and
fourth divisions it becomes less and less material,
and is
more and more withdrawn from our lower world and
its
interests.
The scenery of these lower divisions, then, is that
of the
earth as we know it; but in reality it is also very
much more;
for when looked at from this different standpoint,
with the
assistance of the astral senses, even purely
physical objects
present a very different appearance. As has already
been
mentioned, they are seen by one whose eyes are
fully
opened, not as usual from one point of view, but
from all
sides at once—an idea in itself sufficiently
confusing; and
when we add to this that every particle in the
interior of a
solid body is as fully and clearly visible as those
on the
outside, it will be comprehended that under such
conditions.19
even the most familiar objects may at first be
totally
unrecognizable.
Yet a moment's consideration will show that such
vision
approximates much more closely to true perception
than
does physical sight. Looked at on the astral plane,
for
example, the sides of a glass cube would all appear
equal, as
they really are, while on the physical plane we see
the further
side in perspective—that is, it appears smaller
than the nearer
side, which is of course, a mere illusion. It is
this
characteristic of astral vision which has led to
its sometimes
being spoken of as sight in the fourth dimension—a
very
suggestive and expressive phrase.
But in addition to these possible sources of error
matters
are further complicated by the fact that this
higher sight
cognizes forms of matter which, while still purely
physical,
are nevertheless invisible under ordinary
conditions. Such,
for example, are the particles composing the
atmosphere, all
the various emanations which are always being given
out by
everything that has life, and also four grades of a
still finer
order of physical matter which, for want of more
distinctive
names, must all be described as etheric. The latter
form a
kind of system by themselves, freely
interpenetrating all
other physical matter; and the investigation of
their vibrations
and the manner in which various higher forces
affect them
would in itself constitute a vast field of deeply
interesting
study for any man of science who possessed the
requisite
sight for its examination.
Even when our imagination has fully grasped all
that is
comprehended in what has already been said, we do
not yet
understand half the complexity of the problem for
besides all
these new forms of physical matter we have to deal
with the
still more numerous and perplexing subdivisions.20
of astral matter. We must note first that every
material object,
every particle even, has its astral counterpart;
and this
counterpart is itself not a simple body, but is
usually
extremely complex, being composed of various kinds
of
astral matter. In addition to this each living
creature is
surrounded with an atmosphere of its own, usually
called its
aura, and in the case of human beings this aura
forms of
itself a very fascinating branch of study. It is
seen as an oval
mass of luminous mist of highly complex structure,
and
from its shape has sometimes been called the auric egg.
Theosophical readers will hear with pleasure that
even at
the early stage of his development at which the
pupil begins
to acquire this fuller sight, he is able to assure
himself by
direct observation of the accuracy of the teaching
given
through our great founder, Madame Blavatsky, on the
subject
of some at least of the "seven principles of
man." In
regarding his fellow-man—he no longer sees only his
outer
appearance; almost exactly coextensive with that
physical
body he clearly distinguishes the etheric double;
while the
universal life-fluid as it is absorbed and
specialized, as it
circulates in rosy light throughout the body, as it
eventually
radiates from the healthy person in its altered
form, is also
perfectly obvious.
Most brilliant and most easily seen of all,
perhaps, though
belonging to a more refined order of matter—the
astral—is
that aura which expresses by its vivid and
ever-changing
flashes of colour the different desires which sweep
across
the man's mind from moment to moment. This is the
true
astral body. Behind that, and consisting of a finer
grade of
matter again—that of the form-levels of.21
the devachanic plane—lies
the mental body or aura of the
lower mind, whose colours, changing only by slow
degrees
as the man lives his life, show the trend of his
thoughts and
the disposition and character of his personality
while still
higher and infinitely more beautiful, where at all
clearly
developed, is the living light of the causal body,
the vehicle of
the higher self, which shows the stage of
development of the
real ego its passage from birth to birth. But to
see these the
pupil must, of course, have developed the vision of
the levels
to which they belong.
It will save the student much trouble if he learns
at once to
regard these auras not as mere emanations, but as
the actual
manifestation of the ego on their respective
planes—if he
understands that it is the auric
egg which is the real man, not
the physical body which on this plane crystallizes
in the
middle of it. So long as the reincarnating ego
remains upon
the plane which is his true home in the formless
levels, the
vehicle which he inhabits is the causal body, but
when he
descends into the form-levels he must, in order to
be able to
function upon them, clothe himself in their matter;
and the
matter that he thus attracts to himself furnishes
his
devachanic or mind-body.
Similarly, descending into the astral plane he
forms his
astral or desire-body out of its matter, though of
course, still
retaining all the other bodies, and on his still
further descent
to this lowest plane of all the physical body is
formed in the
midst of the auric egg,
which thus contains the entire man.
Fuller accounts of these auras will be found in Transaction
No. 18 of the London Lodge, and in a small pamphlet
on
The Aura which I have published, but enough has been said
here to show that as they still occupy the same
space, the
finer interpenetrating.22
the grosser, it needs careful study and much
practice to
enable the neophyte to distinguish clearly at a
glance the one
from the other. Nevertheless the human aura, or
more usually
some one part of it only, is not infrequently one
of the first
purely astral objects seen by the untrained, though
in such a
case its indications are naturally very likely to
be
misunderstood.
Though the astral aura from the brilliancy of its
flashes of
colour may often be more conspicuous, the nerve-ether
and
the etheric double are really of a much denser
order of
matter, being within the limits of the physical
plane, though
invisible to ordinary sight. If we examine with
psychic
faculty the body of a newly-born child, we shall
find it
permeated not only by astral matter of every degree
of
density, but also by the several grades of etheric
matter; and
if we take the trouble to trace these inner bodies
backwards
to their origin, we find that it is of the latter
that the etheric
double—the mould upon which the physical body is
built
up—is formed by the agents of the Lords of karma;
while
the astral matter has been gathered together by the
descending ego—not of course consciously, but auto-matically—
as he passes through the astral plane. (See
Manual No. IV., p. 44.)
Into the composition of the etheric double must
enter
something of all the different grades of etheric
matter; but the
proportions may vary greatly, and are determined by
several
factors, such as the race, sub-race, and type of a
man, as well
as by his individual karma. When it is remembered
that these
four subdivisions of matter are made up of numerous
combinations, which, in their turn, form
aggregations that
enter into the composition of the "atom"
of the so-called
"element" of the chemist, it will be
seen.23
that this second principle of man is highly
complex, and the
number of its possible variations practically
infinite, so that,
however complicated and unusual a man's karma may
be,
those in whose province such work falls are able to
give a
mould in accordance with which a body exactly
suiting it can
be formed. But for information upon this vast
subject of
karma the previous manual should be consulted.
One other point deserves mention in connection with
the
appearance of physical matter when looked at from
the astral
plane, and that is that the higher vision when
fully developed
possesses the power of magnifying at will the
minutest
physical particle to any desired size, as though by
a
microscope, though its magnifying power is
enormously
greater than that of any microscope ever made or
ever likely
to be made. The hypothetical molecule and atom
postulated
by science are visible realities to the occult
student, though
the latter recognizes them as much more complex in
their
nature than the scientific man has yet discovered
them to be.
Here again is a vast field of study of absorbing
interest to
which a whole volume might readily be devoted; and
a
scientific investigator who should acquire this
astral sight in
perfection, would not only find his experiments
with
ordinary and known phenomena immensely facilitated,
but
would also see stretching before him entirely new
vistas of
knowledge needing more than a lifetime for their
thorough
examination.
For example, one curious and very beautiful novelty
brought to his notice by the development of this
vision would
be the existence of other and entirely different
colours
beyond the limits of the ordinarily visible
spectrum, the ultra-red
and ultra-violet rays which science has
discovered.24
by other means being plainly perceptible to astral
sight. We
must not, however, allow ourselves to follow these
fascinating bye-paths, but must resume our endeavour to give
a general idea of the appearance of the astral
plane.
It will by this time be obvious that though, as
above stated,
the ordinary objects of the physical world form the
background to life on certain levels of the astral
plane, yet so
much more is seen of their real appearance and charac-teristics
that the general effect differs widely from that
with
which we are familiar. For the sake of illustration
take a rock
as an example of the simpler class of objects. When
regarded with trained sight it is no mere inert
mass of stone.
First of all, the whole of the physical matter of
the rock is
seen instead of a very, small part of it; secondly,
the
vibrations of its physical particles are
perceptible; thirdly, it is
seen to possess an astral counterpart composed of
various
grades of astral matter, whose particles are also
in constant
motion; fourthly, the universal life is seen to be
circulating
through it and radiating from it; fifthly, an aura
will be seen
surrounding it, though this is of course much less
extended
and varied than in the case of the higher kingdoms;
sixthly,
its appropriate elemental essence is seen
permeating it, ever
active but ever fluctuating. In the case of the
vegetable,
animal, and human kingdoms, the complications are
naturally
much more numerous.
It may be objected by some readers that no such
complexities as these are described by most of the
psychics
who occasionally get glimpses of the astral world,
nor are
they reported at seances
by the entities that manifest there ;
but this is readily accounted for. Few untrained
persons on
that plane, whether living or "dead" see
things as they really.25
are until after very long experience; even those
who do see
fully are often too dazed and confused to
understand or
remember; and among the very small minority who
both see
and remember there are hardly any who can translate
the
recollection into language on our lower plane. Many
untrained psychics never examine their visions
scientifically
at all; they simply obtain an impression which may
be quite
correct, but may also be half false, or even wholly
misleading.
All the more probable does the latter hypothesis
become
when we take into consideration the frequent tricks
played by
sportive denizens of the other world, against which
the
untrained person is usually absolutely defenceless. It must
also be remembered that the regular inhabitant of
the astral
plane, whether he be human or elemental, is under
ordinary
circumstances conscious only of the objects of that
plane,
physical matter being to him as entirely invisible
as is astral
matter to the majority of mankind. Since, as before
remarked,
every physical object has its astral counterpart,
which would
be visible to him, it may be thought that the
distinction is a
trivial one, yet it is an essential part of the
symmetrical
conception of the subject.
If, however, an astral entity constantly works through
a
medium, these finer astral senses may gradually be
so
coarsened as to become insensible to the higher
grades of
matter on their own plane, and to include in their
purview the
physical world as we see it instead; but only the
trained
visitor from this life, who is fully conscious on
both planes,
can depend upon seeing both clearly and
simultaneously. Be
it understood, then, that the complexity exists,
and that only
when it is fully perceived and.26
scientifically unravelled
is there perfect security against
deception or mistake.
For the seventh or lowest subdivision of the astral
plane
also this physical world of ours may be said to be
the
background, though what is seen is only a distorted
and
partial view of it, since all that is light and
good and beautiful
seems invisible. It was thus described four
thousand years
ago in the Egyptian papyrus of the Scribe Ani: "What
manner of place is this unto which I have come? It
hath no
water, it hath no air; it is deep, unfathomable; it
is black as the
blackest night, and men wander helplessly about
therein; in it
a man may not live in quietness of heart." For
the
unfortunate human being on that level it is indeed
true that
"all the earth is full of darkness and cruel
habitations," but it
is darkness which radiates from within himself and
causes
his existence to be passed in a perpetual night of
evil and
horror—a very real hell, though, like all other
hells, entirely
of man's own creation.
Most students find the investigation of this
section an
extremely unpleasant task, for there appears to be
a sense of
density and gross materiality about it which is
indescribably
loathsome to the liberated astral body, causing it
the sense of
pushing its way through some black, viscous fluid,
while the
inhabitants and influences encountered there are
also usually
exceedingly undesirable.
The first, second and third subdivisions, though
occupying the same space, yet give the impression
of being
much further removed from this physical world, and
correspondingly less material. Entities inhabiting
these levels
lose sight of the earth and its belongings; they
are usually
deeply self-absorbed, and to a large extent create
their own
surroundings, though these are sufficiently.27
objective to be perceptible to other entities and
also to
clairvoyant vision. This region is beyond doubt the
"summerland" of
which we hear so much at spiritualistic
seances,
and those who descend from and describe it no
doubt speak the truth as far as their knowledge
extends. It is
on these planes that "spirits" call into
temporary existence
their houses, schools, and cities, for these object
are often
real enough for the time, though to a clearer sight
they may
sometimes be pitiably unlike what their delighted
creators
suppose them to be. Nevertheless, many of the
imaginations
which take form there are of real though temporary
beauty,
and a visitor who knew of nothing higher might
wander
contentedly enough there among forests and
mountains,
lovely lakes and pleasant flower-gardens, which are
at any
rate much superior to anything in the physical
world; or he
might even construct such surroundings to suit his
own
fancies. The details of the differences between
these three
higher sub-planes will perhaps be more readily
explicable
when we come to deal with their human inhabitants.
An account of the scenery of the astral plane would
be
incomplete without some mention of what have often,
though
mistakenly, been called the Records of the Astral
Light.
These records (which are in truth a sort of
materialization of
the Divine memory—a living photographic
representation of
all that has ever happened) are really and
permanently
impressed upon a very much higher level, and are
only
reflected in a more or less spasmodic manner on the
astral
plane, so that one whose power of vision does not
rise above
this will be likely to obtain only occasional and
disconnected
pictures of the past instead of a coherent
narrative. But
nevertheless these reflected pictures of all.28
kinds of past events are constantly being
reproduced in the
astral world, and form an important part of the
surroundings
of the investigator there. I have not space to do
more than
just mention them here, but a fuller account of
them will be
found in chapter vii of my little book on Clairvoyance..INHABITANTS
HAVING sketched in, however slightly, the
background of
our picture, we must now attempt to fill in the
figures—to
describe the inhabitants of the astral plane. The
immense
variety of these beings makes it exceedingly
difficult to
arrange and tabulate them. Perhaps the most
convenient
method will be to divide them into three great
classes, the
human, the non-human, and the artificial.
I. HUMAN.
The human denizens of the astral plane fall
naturally into
two groups, the living and the dead, or, to speak
more
accurately, those who have still a physical body,
and those
who have not.
1. LIVING
The men who manifest themselves on the astral plane
during physical life may be subdivided into four
classes:—
1. The Adept and his Pupils. Those belonging to this
class usually employ as a vehicle not the astral
body at all,
but the mind-body, which is composed of the matter
of the
four lower or rupa levels
of the plane next above. The
advantage of this vehicle is that it permits of
instant passage
from the mental plane to the astral and back, and
29.30
allows of the use at all times of the greater power
and keener
sense of its own plane.
The mind-body is not naturally visible to astral
sight at all,
and consequently the pupil who works in it learns
to gather
round himself a temporary veil of astral matter
when in the
course of his work he wishes to become perceptible
to the
inhabitants of the lower plane in order to help
them more
efficiently. This temporary body is usually formed
for the
pupil by his Master on the first occasion, and he
is then
instructed and assisted until he can form it for
himself easily
and expeditiously. Such a vehicle, though an exact
repro-duction
of the man in appearance, contains none of the
matter
of his own astral body, but corresponds to it in
the same way
as a materialization corresponds to a physical
body.
At an earlier stage of his development the pupil
may be
found functioning in the astral body like any one
else; but
whichever vehicle he is employing, the man who is
introduced to the astral plane under the guidance
of a
competent teacher has always the fullest possible
consciousness there, and is able to function
perfectly easily
upon all its subdivisions. He is in fact himself,
exactly as his
friends know him on earth, minus only the four
lower
principles in the one case and the three lower in
the other,
and plus the additional powers and faculties of
this higher
condition, which enable him to carry on far more
easily and
far more efficiently on that plane during sleep the
Theo-sophical
work which occupies so much of his thought in his
waking hours. Whether he will remember fully and
accurately on the physical plane what he has done
or learnt
on the other depends largely upon whether he is
able to carry
his consciousness without intermission from the one
state to
the other.
The investigator will occasionally meet on the
astral.31
plane students of occultism from all parts of the
world
(belonging to lodges quite unconnected with the
Masters of
whom Theosophists know most) who are in many cases
most earnest and self-sacrificing seekers after
truth. It is
noteworthy, however, that all such lodges are at
least aware of
the existence of the great Himalayan Brotherhood,
and
acknowledge it as containing among its members the
highest
Adepts now known on earth.
2. The Psychically-developed Person who
is not under the
guidance of a Master. Such a person may or may not be
spiritually developed, for the two forms of
advancement do
not necessarily go together. When a man is born
with
psychic powers it is simply the result of efforts
made during
a previous incarnation, which may have been of the
noblest
and most unselfish character, or on the other hand
may have
been ignorant and ill-directed or even entirely
unworthy.
Such an one will usually be perfectly conscious
when out
of the body, but for want of proper training is
liable to be
greatly deceived as to what he sees. He will often
be able to
range through the different subdivisions of the
astral plane
almost as fully as persons belonging to the last
class; but
sometimes he is especially attracted to some one
division and
rarely travels beyond its influences. His
recollection of what
he has seen may vary according to the degree of his
development through all the stages from perfect
clearness to
utter distortion or blank oblivion. He will appear
always in
this astral body, since he does not know how to
function in
the mental vehicle.
3. The Ordinary Person—that is, the person without any
psychic development—who floats about in his astral
body
during sleep in a more or less unconscious
condition. In.32
deep slumber the higher principles in their astral
vehicle
almost invariably withdraw from the body, and hover
in its
immediate neighbourhood,
though in quite undeveloped
persons they are practically almost as much asleep
as the
body is.
In some cases, however, this astral vehicle is less
lethargic,
and floats dreamily about on the various astral
currents,
occasionally recognizing other people in a similar
condition,
and meeting with experiences of all sorts, pleasant
and
unpleasant, the memory of which, hopelessly
confused and
often travestied into a grotesque caricature of
what really
happened, will cause the man to think next morning
what a
remarkable dream he has had.
All cultured people, belonging to the higher races
of the
world, have at the present time their astral senses
very fairly
developed, so that, if they were sufficiently
aroused to
examine the realities which surround them during
sleep, they
would be able to observe them and learn much from
them.
But, in the vast majority of cases, they are not so
aroused,
and they spend most of their nights in a kind of
brown study,
pondering deeply over whatever thought may have
been
uppermost in their minds when they fell asleep.
They have
the astral faculties, but they scarcely use them;
they are
certainly awake on the astral plane, and yet they
are not in the
least awake to the plane, and are consequently
conscious of
their surroundings only very vaguely, if at all.
When such a man becomes a pupil of one of the
Masters of
Wisdom, he is usually at once shaken out of this
somnolent
condition, fully awakened to the realities around
him on that
plane, and set to learn from them and to work among
them,
so that his hours of sleep are no longer a blank,
but are filled
with active and useful occupation,.33
without in the least interfering with the healthy,
repose of the
tired physical body. (See Invisible Helpers. Chap.
v.)
These extruded astral bodies are almost shapeless
and
very indefinite in outline in the ease of the more
backward
races and individuals, but as the man developes in intellect
and spirituality his floating astral becomes better
defined, and
more closely resembles his physical encasement. It
is often
asked how—since the undeveloped astral is so vague
in
outline, and since the great majority of mankind
come under
the head of the undeveloped—how it is ever possible
to
recognise the ordinary man at all when he is in his astral
body. In trying to answer that question we must endeavour to
realize that, to the clairvoyant eye, the physical
body of man
appears surrounded by what we call the aura—a
luminous
coloured mist, roughly ovoid in shape, and extending to a
distance of some eighteen inches from the body in
all
directions. All students are aware that this aura
is
exceedingly complex, and contains matter of all the
different
planes on which man is at present provided with
vehicles; but
for the moment let us think of it as it would
appear to one
who possessed no higher power of vision than the
astral.
For such a spectator the aura would of course
contain
only astral matter, and would therefore be a
simpler object of
study. He would see, however, that this astral
matter not only
surrounded the physical body, but interpenetrated
it, and that
within the periphery of that body it was much more
densely
aggregated than in that part of the aura which lay
outside it.
Possibly this may be due to the attraction of the
large amount
of dense a astral matter which is gathered together
there as
the counterpart of the cells of the physical body,
but however
that may he, the fact is undoubted that.34
the matter of the astral body which lies within the
limits of
the physical is many times denser than that outside
it.
When during sleep the astral body is withdrawn from
the
physical this arrangement still persists, and any
one looking
at such an astral body with clairvoyant vision
would still see,
just as before, a form resembling the physical body
surrounded by an aura. That form would now be
composed
only of astral matter, but still the difference in
density
between it and its surrounding mist would be quite
sufficient
to make it clearly distinguishable, even though it
is itself only
a form of denser mist.
Now as to the difference in appearance between the
evolved and the unevolved
man. Even in the case of the latter
the features and shape of the inner form would be
recognizable always, though blurred and indistinct,
but the
surrounding egg would scarcely deserve the name,
for it
would be in fact a mere shapeless wreath of mist,
having
neither regularity nor permanence of outline.
In the more developed man the change would be very
marked, both in the aura and the form within it.
This latter
would be far more distinct and definite—a closer
repro-duction
of the man's physical appearance; while instead of
the floating mist-wreath we should see a sharply
defined
ovoid form, preserving its shape unaffected amidst
all the
varied currents which are always swirling around it
on the
astral plane.
Since the psychical faculties of mankind are in
course of
evolution, and individuals are at all stages of
their
development, this class naturally melts by
imperceptible
gradations into the former one.
4. The Black Magician or his pupil. This class
corresponds somewhat to the first, except that the
development.35
has been for evil instead of good, and the powers
acquired
are used for purely selfish purposes instead of for
the benefit
of humanity. Among its lower ranks come members of
the
negro race who practise
the ghastly rites of the Obeah or
Voodoo schools, and the medicine-men of many a
savage
tribe; while higher in intellect, and therefore the
more
blameworthy, stand the Tibetan black magicians, who
are
often, though incorrectly, called by Europeans Dugpas—a
title properly belonging, as is quite correctly
explained by
Surgeon-Major Waddell in his book on The
Buddhism of
Tibet,
only to the Bhotanese subdivision of the great Kargyu
sect, which is part of what may be called the
semi-reformed
school of Tibetan Buddhism.
The Dugpas no doubt deal
in Tantrik magic to a
considerable extent, but the real red-hatted entirely
unreformed sect is that of the Nin-ma-pa,
though far beyond
them still lower depth be the Bonpa—the
votaries of the
aboriginal religion, who have never accepted any
form of
Buddhism at all. It must not, however, He supposed
that all
Tibetan sects except the Gelugpa
are necessarily and
altogether evil; a truer view would be that as the
rules of other
sects permit considerably greater laxity of life
and practice,
the proportion of self-seekers among them is likely
to be
much larger than among the stricter reformers.
DEAD.
To begin with, of course this very word
"dead" is all
absurd misnomer, as most of the entities classified
under this
heading are as fully alive as we are
ourselves—often
distinctly more so; so the term must be understood
simply as
meaning those who are for the time unattached to
a.36
physical body. They may be subdivided into nine
principal
classes, as follows:—
1. The Nirmanakaya.
This class is just mentioned in
order to make the catalogue complete, but it is of
course very
rarely indeed that so exalted a being manifests
himself upon
so low a plane as this. When for any reason
connected with
his sublime work he found it desirable to do so, he
would
probably create a temporary astral body for the purpose
from
the atomic matter of the plane, just as the Adept
in the mind-body
would do, simply because his more refined vesture
would be invisible to astral sight. In order to be
able to
function without a moment's hesitation on any
plane, he
retains always within himself some atoms belonging
to each,
round which as a nucleus he can instantly aggregate
other
matter, and so provide himself with whatever
vehicle he
desires. Further information about the position and
work of
the Nirmanakaya may be
found in Madame Blavatsky's
Voice of the Silence, and in my own little book on Invisible
Helpers.
2. The Pupil awaiting reincarnation. It has frequently
been stated in Theosophical literature that when
the pupil
reaches a certain stage he is able with the
assistance of his
Master to escape from the action of what is in
ordinary cases
the law of nature which carries a human being into
the
heaven-world after death, there to receive the due
result of the
full working out of all the spiritual forces which
his highest
aspirations, have set in motion while on earth.
As the pupil must by the hypothesis be a man of
pure life
and high thought, it is probable that in his case
these spiritual
forces will be of abnormal strength, and therefore
if he, to
use the technical expression, "takes his
devachan,".37
it is likely to be an extremely long one; but if
instead of
taking it he chooses the Path of Renunciation (thus
even at
his low level and in his humble way beginning to
follow in
the footsteps of the Great Master of Renunciation,
GAUTAMA BUDDHA Himself), he is able to expend that
reserve of force in quite another direction—to use
it for the
benefit of mankind, and so, infinitesimal though
his offering
may be, to take his tiny part in the great work of
the
Nirmanakayas. By taking this course he no doubt sacrifices
centuries of intense bliss, but on the other hand
he gains the
enormous advantage of being able to continue his
life of
work and progress without a break.
When a pupil who has decided to do this dies, he
simply
steps out of his body, as he has often done before,
and waits
upon the astral plane until a suitable
reincarnation can be
arranged for him by his Master. This being a marked
departure from the usual course of procedure, the
permission
of a very high authority has to be obtained before
the attempt
can be made; yet, even when this is granted, so
strong is the
force of natural law, that it is said the pupil
must be careful to
confine himself strictly to the astral level while
the matter is
being arranged, lest if he once, even for a moment,
touched
the devachanic plane, he
might be swept as by an irresistible
current into the line of normal evolution again.
In some cases, though these are rare, he is enabled
to
avoid the trouble of a new birth by being placed
directly in all
adult body whose previous tenant has no further use
for it,
but naturally it is not often that a suitable body
is available.
Far more frequently he has to wait on the astral
plane, as
mentioned before, until the opportunity of a
fitting birth
presents itself. In the meantime, however, he is.38
losing no time, for he is just as fully himself as
ever he was,
and is able to go on with the work given him by his
Master
even more quickly and efficiently than when in the
physical
body, since he is no longer hampered by the
possibility of
fatigue. His consciousness is of course quite
complete, and
he roams at will through all the divisions of the
plane with
equal facility.
The pupil awaiting reincarnation is by no means one
of
the common objects of the astral plane, but still
he may be
met with occasionally, and therefore he forms one
of our
classes. No doubt as the evolution of humanity
proceeds, and
an ever-increasing proportion enters upon the Path
of
Holiness, this class will become more numerous.
3. The Ordinary Person after death. Needless to say this
class is millions of times larger than those of
which we have
spoken, and the character and condition of its
members vary
within extremely wide limits. Within similarly wide
limits
may vary also the length of their lives upon the
astral plane,
for while there are those who pass only a few days
or hours
there, others remain upon this level for many years
and even
centuries.
A man who has led a good and pure life, whose
strongest
feelings and aspirations have been unselfish and
spiritual,
will have no attraction to this plane, and will, if
entirely left
alone, find little to keep him upon it, or to
awaken him into
activity even during the comparatively short period
of his
stay. For it must be understood that after death
the true man
is withdrawing into himself, and just as at the
first step of that
process he casts off the physical body, and almost
directly
afterwards the etheric double, so it is intended
that he should
as soon as possible cast off also the astral or
desire body,
and pass into the.39
heaven-world, where alone his spiritual aspirations
can bear
their perfect fruit.
The noble and pure-minded man will be able to do
this,
for he has subdued all earthly passions during
life; the force
of his will has been directed into higher channels,
and there
is therefore but little energy of lower desire to
be worked out
on the astral plane. His stay there will
consequently be very
short, and most probably he will have little more
than a
dreamy half-consciousness of existence until he
sinks into
the sleep during which his higher principles
finally free
themselves from the astral envelope and enter upon
the
blissful life of the heaven-world.
For the person who has not as yet entered upon the
path
of occult development, what has been described is
the ideal
state of affairs, but naturally it not attained by
all, or even by
the majority. The average man has by no means freed
himself from all lower desires before death, and it
takes a
long period of more or less fully conscious life on
the
various subdivisions of the astral plant to allow
the forces
which he has generated to work themselves out, and
thus
release the higher ego.
Every one after death has to pass through all the
subdivisions of the astral plane on his way to the
heaven-world,
though it must not be inferred that he will be
conscious upon all of them. Precisely as it is
necessary that
the physical body should contain within its
constitution
physical matter in all its conditions, solid,
liquid, gaseous,
and etheric; so it is indispensable that the astral
vehicle
should contain particles belonging to all the
corresponding
subdivisions of astral matter, though, of course,
the
proportions may vary very greatly in different
cases.
Now it must be remembered that along with the
matter.40
of his astral body a man picks up the corresponding
elemental essence, and that during his life this
essence is
segregated from the ocean of similar matter around,
and
practically becomes for that time what may be
described as a
kind of artificial elemental. This has temporarily
a definite
separate existence of its own, and follows the
course of its
own evolution downwards into matter without any
reference
to (or indeed any knowledge of) the convenience or
interest
of the ego to whom it happens to be attached—thus
causing
that perpetual struggle between the will of the
flesh and the
will of the spirit to which religious writers so
often refer. Yet
though it is "a law of the members warring
against the law of
the mind," though if the man obeys it instead
of controlling it
his evolution will be seriously hindered, it must
not be
thought of as in any way evil in itself, for it is
still a Law—
still an outpouring of the Divine power going on
its orderly
course, though that course in this instance happens
to be
downwards into matter instead of upwards and away
from it,
as ours is.
When the man passes away at death from the physical
plane the disintegrating forces of nature begin to
operate
upon his astral body, and this elemental thus finds
his
existence as a separate entity endangered. He sets
to work
therefore to defend himself, and to hold the astral
body
together as long as possible; and his method of
doing this is
to rearrange the matter of which it is composed in
a sort of
stratified series of shells, leaving that of the
lowest (and
therefore coarsest and grossest) sub-plane on the
outside,
since that will offer the greatest resistance to
disintegration.
Now a man has to stay upon this lowest subdivision
until
he has disentangled so much as is possible of his
true.41
self from the matter of that sub-plane; and when
that is done
his consciousness is focussed
in the next of these concentric
shells (that formed of the matter of the sixth
subdivision), or,
to put the same idea in other words, he passes on
to the next
sub-plane. We might say that when the astral body
has
exhausted its attractions to one level, the greater
part of its
grosser particles fall away, and it finds itself in
affinity with a
somewhat higher state of existence. Its specific gravity,
as it
were, is constantly decreasing, and so it steadily
rises from
the denser to the lighter stratas
pausing only when it is
exactly balanced for a time. This is evidently the
explanation
of a remark frequently made by the departed who
appear at
seances to
the effect that they are about to rise to a higher
sphere, from which it will be impossible, or not so
easy, to
communicate through a medium; and it is as a matter
of fact
true that a person upon the highest subdivision of
this plane
would find it almost impossible to deal with any
ordinary
medium.
Thus we see that the length of a man's detention
upon any
level of the astral plane will be precisely in
proportion to the
amount of its matter which is found in his astral
body, and
that in turn depends upon the life he has lived,
the desires he
has indulged, and the class of matter which by so
doing he
has attracted towards him and built into himself.
It is,
therefore, possible for a man, by pure living and
high
thinking, to minimize the quantity of matter
belonging to the
lower astral levels which he attaches to himself,
and to raise it
in each case to what may be called its critical
point, so that
the first touch of disintegrating force should
shatter its
cohesion and resolve it into its original condition,
leaving him
free at once to pass on to the next sub-plane.
In the ease of a thoroughly spiritually-minded
person.42
this condition would have been attained with
reference to all
the subdivisions of astral matter, and the result
would be a
practically instantaneous passage through that
plane, so that
consciousness would be recovered for the first time
in the
heaven-world. Of course, as was explained before,
the sub-planes
must never be thought of as divided from one
another
in space, but rather as interpenetrating one
another; so that
when we say that a person passes from one
subdivision to
another, we do not mean that he moves in space at
all, but
simply that the focus of his consciousness shifts
from the
outer shell to the one next within it.
The only persons who would normally awake to
consciousness on the lowest level of the astral
plane are
those whose desires are gross and brutal drunkards,
sensualists, and such like. There they would remain
for a
period proportioned to the strength of their desires,
often
suffering terribly from the fact that while these
earthly lusts
are still as strong as ever, they now find it
impossible to
gratify them, except occasionally in a vicarious
manner when
they are able to seize upon some like-minded
person, and
obsess him.
The ordinarily decent man would probably have
little to
detain him on that seventh sub-plane; but if his
chief desires
and thoughts had centred
in mere worldly affairs, he would
be likely to find himself in the sixth subdivision,
still
hovering about the places and persons with which he
was
most closely connected while on earth. The fifth
and the
fourth sub-planes are of similar character, except
that as we
rise through them mere earthly associations appear
to
become of less and less importance, and the
departed tends
more and more to mould his surroundings into
agreement
with the more persistent of his thoughts..43
By the time we get to the third sub-division we
find that
this characteristic has entirely superseded the
vision of the
realities of the plane; for here the people are
living in
imaginary cities of their own—not, of course, each
evolved
entirely by his own thought, as in the
heaven-world, but
inheriting and adding to the structures erected by
the
thoughts of their predecessors. Here it is that the
churches
and schools and "dwellings in the summerland," so often
described at spiritualistic seances,
are to be found; though
they would often seem much less real and much less
magnificent to an unprejudiced living observer than
they are
to their delighted creators.
The second sub-plane seems especially the habitat
of the
selfish or unspiritual religionist; here he wears
his golden
crown and worships his own grossly material
representation
of the particular deity of his country and time.
The highest
subdivision appears to be specially appropriated to
those
who during life have devoted themselves to
materialistic but
intellectual pursuits, following them not for the
sake of
benefiting their fellow-men thereby, but either
from motives
of selfish ambition or for the sake of intellectual
exercise.
Such persons will often remain upon this level for
many long
years happy enough indeed in working out their
intellectual
problems, but doing no good to anyone, and making
but little
progress on their way towards the heaven-world.
It must be clearly understood, as before explained,
that the
idea of space is not in any wav to be associated
with these
sub-planes. A departed entity functioning upon any
one of
them might drift with equal ease from here to
Australia, or
wherever a passing thought might take him; but he
would not
be able to transfer his consciousness from.44
that sub-plane to the one next above it until the
process of
detachment described had been completed.
To this rule there is no kind of exception, so far
as we are
yet aware, although naturally a man's actions when
he finds
himself conscious upon any sub-plane may within
certain
limits either shorten or prolong his connection
with it.
But the amount of consciousness that a person will
have
upon a given sub-plane does not invariably follow
precisely
the same law. Let us consider an extreme example of
possible variation in order that we may grasp its
method.
Suppose a man who has brought over from his past
incarnation tendencies requiring for their manifestation
a
very large amount of the matter of the seventh or
lowest sub-plane,
but has in his present life been fortunate enough
to
learn in his very earliest years the possibility
and necessity of
controlling these tendencies. It is scarcely
probable that such
a man's efforts at control should be entirely and
uniformly
successful; but if they were, the substitution of
finer for
grosser particles in his astral body would progress
steadily,
though slowly.
This process is at best a very gradual one, and it
might
well happen that the man died before it was half
completed.
In that case there would undoubtedly be enough
matter of the
lowest sub-plane left in his astral body to ensure
him no
inconsiderable residence there but it would be
matter through
which in this incarnation his consciousness had
never been
in the habit of functioning, and as it could not
suddenly
acquire this habit the result would be that the man
would rest
upon that sub-plane until his share of its matter
was
disintegrated, but would be all the while in a
condition of
unconsciousness that is to say, he would.45
practically sleep through the period of his sojourn
there, and
so would be entirely unaffected by its many disagreeables.
It may be said in passing that communication is
limited on
the astral plane by the knowledge of the entity,
just as it is
here. While a pupil able to use the mind-body can
communicate his thoughts to the human entities
there present
more readily and rapidly than on earth, by means of
mental
impressions, the inhabitants of the plane are not
usually able
to exercise this power, but appear to be restricted
by
limitations similar to those that prevail on earth,
though
perhaps less rigid. The result of this is that they
are found
associating there as here, in groups drawn together
by
common sympathies, belief, and language.
The poetic idea of death as a universal leveller is a mere
absurdity born of ignorance, for, as a matter of
fact, in the
vast majority of cases the loss of the physical
body makes no
difference whatever in the character or intellect
of the person,
and there are therefore as many different varieties
of
intelligence among, those whom we usually call the
dead as
among the living.
The popular religious teaching of the West as to
man's
post-mortem adventures has long been so wildly
inaccurate
that even intelligent people are often terribly
puzzled when
they recover consciousness in the astral world
after death.
The condition in which the new arrival finds
himself differs
so radically from what he has been led to expect
that it is no
uncommon case for him to refuse at first to believe
that he
has passed through the portals of death at all;
indeed, of so
little practical value is our much-vaunted belief
in the
immortality of the soul that most people consider
the very
fact that they are still conscious an absolute
proof that they
have not died..46
The horrible doctrine of eternal punishment, too,
is
responsible for a vast amount of most pitiable and
entirely
groundless terror among those newly arrived in this
higher
life. In many cases they spend long periods of
acute mental
suffering before they can free themselves from the
fatal
influence of that hideous blasphemy, and realize
that the
world is governed not according to the caprice of
some
demon who gloats over human anguish, but according
to a
benevolent and wonderfully patient law of
evolution. Many
members of the class we are considering do not
really attain
an intelligent appreciation of this fact of
evolution at all, but
drift through their astral interlude in the same
aimless
manner in which they have spent the physical
portion of their
lives. Thus after death, exactly as before it,
there are the few
who comprehend something of their position and know
how
to make the best of it, and the many who have not
yet
acquired that knowledge; and then, just as now, the
ignorant
are rarely ready to profit by the advice or example
of the
wise.
But of whatever grade the entity's intellect may
be, it is
always a fluctuating and on the whole a gradually
diminishing quantity, for the lower mind of the man
is being
drawn in opposite directions by the higher
spiritual nature
which acts on it from above its level and the
strong desire-forces
which operate from below; and therefore it
oscillates
between the two attractions, with an ever-increasing
tendency
towards the former as the forces of lower desire
wear
themselves out.
Here comes in one of the objections to the
spiritualistic
seance.
An exceedingly ignorant or degraded man may no
doubt learn much by coming into contact after his
death with
a circle of earnest sitters under the control of
some reliable
person, and so may be really helped and raised..47
But in the ordinary man the consciousness is
steadily rising
from the lower part of the nature towards the
higher; and
obviously it cannot be helpful to his evolution
that this lower
part should be reawakened from the natural and
desirable
unconsciousness into which it is passing, and
dragged back
into touch with earth in order to communicate
through a
medium.
The peculiar danger of this will be seen when it is
recollected that since the real man is all the
while steadily
withdrawing into himself, he is as time goes on
less and less
able to influence or guide this lower portion,
which
nevertheless, until the separation is complete, has
the power
to generate karma, and under the circumstances is
evidently
far more likely to add evil than good to its
record.
Apart altogether from any question of development
through a medium, there is another and much more
frequently exercised influence which may seriously
retard a
disembodied entity on his way to the heaven-world,
and that
is the intense and uncontrolled grief of his
surviving friends
or relatives. It is one among many melancholy
results of the
terribly inaccurate and even irreligious view that
we in the
West have for centuries been taking of death, that
we not
only cause ourselves an immense amount of wholly
unnecessary pain over this temporary parting from
our loved
ones, but we often also do serious injury to those
for whom
we bear so deep an affection by means of this very
regret
which we feel so acutely.
When our departed brother is sinking peacefully and
naturally into the unconsciousness which precedes
his
awakening amid the glories of the heaven-world, he
is too
frequently aroused from his dreamy happiness into
vivid
remembrance of the earth-life which he has lately
left, solely.48
by the action of the passionate sorrows and desires
of his
friends on earth, which awaken corresponding
vibrations in
his own desire-body, and so cause him acute
discomfort.
It would be well if those whose loved ones have
passed
on before them would learn from these undoubted
facts the
duty of restraining for the sake of those dear ones
a grief
which, however natural, it may be, is yet in its
essence selfish.
Not that occult teaching counsels forgetfulness of
the dead—
far from it; but it does suggest that a man's
affectionate
remembrance of his departed friend is a force
which, if
properly directed into the channel of earnest good
wishes for
his progress towards the heaven-world and his quiet
passage
through the intermediate state, might be of real
value to him,
whereas when hen wasted in mourning for him and
longing
to have him back again it is not only useless but
harmful. It
is with a true instinct that the Hindu religion
prescribes its
Shraddha ceremonies and the Catholic Church its prayers for
the dead.
It sometimes happens, however, that the desire for
communication is from the, other side, and that the
dead man
has something which he specially desires to say to
those
whom he has left behind. Occasionally this message
is an
important one, such as, for example, an indication
of the
place where a missing will is concealed; but more
often it
seems to us quite trivial. Still, whatever it may
be, if it is
firmly impressed upon the mind of the dead person,
it is
undoubtedly desirable that he should be enabled to
deliver it,
as otherwise the anxiety to do so would perpetually
draw his
consciousness back into the earth-life, and prevent
him from
passing to higher spheres. In such a case a psychic
who can
understand him, or a medium through whom he can
write or
speak, is of real service to him..49
Why cannot he write or speak without a medium? it
may
be asked. The reason is that one state of matter
can ordinarily
act only upon the state next below it, and, as he
has now no
denser matter in his organism than that of which
the astral
body is composed, he finds it impossible to set up
vibrations
in the physical substance of the air or to move the
physical
pencil without borrowing living matter of the
intermediate
order contained in the etheric double, by means of
which an
impulse can readily be transferred from the one
plane to the
other. He would be unable to borrow this material
from an
ordinary person, because such a man's principles
would be
too closely linked together to be separated by any
means
likely to be at his command, but the very essence
of
mediumship is the ready separability
of the principles, so
from a medium he can draw without difficulty the
matter he
needs for his manifestation, whatever it may be.
When he cannot find a medium or does not understand
how to use one he sometimes makes clumsy and
blundering
endeavours to communicate on his own account, and by the
strength of his will he sets elemental forces
blindly working,
perhaps producing such apparently aimless
manifestations as
stone-throwing, bell-ringing, etc. It consequently
frequently
happens that a psychic or medium going to a house
where
such manifestations are taking place may be able to
discover
what the entity who produces them is attempting to
say or do,
and may thus put an end to the disturbance. This
would not,
however, invariably be the case, as these elemental
forces are
occasionally set in motion by entirely different
causes.
4. The Shade. When the separation of the principles is
complete, the astral life of the person is over,
and, as.50
before stated, he passes into the devachanic condition. Put
just as when he dies to this plane he leaves his
physical body
behind him, so when he dies to the astral plane he
leaves a
disintegrating astral body behind him. If he has
purged
himself from all earthly desires during life, and
directed all
his energies into the channels of unselfish
spiritual
aspiration, his higher ego will be able to draw
back into itself
the whole of the lower mind which it put forth into
incarnation; in that case the body left behind on
the astral
plane will be a mere corpse like the abandoned
physical
body, and it will then come not into this class but
into the
next.
Even in the case of a man of somewhat less perfect
life
almost the same result may be attained if the
forces of lower
desire are allowed to work themselves out
undisturbed in the
astral plane. But the majority of mankind make but
very
trifling and perfunctory efforts while on earth to
rid
themselves of the less elevated impulses of their
nature, and
consequently doom themselves not only to a greatly
prolonged sojourn in the intermediate world, but
also to what
cannot be described otherwise than as a loss of a
portion of
the lower mind.
This is, no doubt, a material method of expressing
the
reflection of the higher mind in the lower, but a
very fairly
accurate idea of what actually takes place will be
obtained by
adopting the hypothesis that the manasic principle sends
down a portion of itself into the lower world of
physical life
at each incarnation, and expects to be able to
withdraw it
again at the end of the life, enriched by all its
varied
experiences. The ordinary man, however, usually
allows
himself to be so pitiably enslaved by all sorts of
base desire,
that a certain portion of this lower mind becomes
very.51
closely interwoven with the desire-body, and when
the
separation takes place at the close of his astral
life the mental
principle has, as it were, to be torn apart, the
degraded portion
remaining within the disintegrating astral body.
This body then consists of the particles of astral
matter
from which the lower mind has not been able to
disengage
itself, and which therefore retain it captive; for
when the man
passes into the heaven-world these clinging
fragments adhere
to a portion of his mind, and as it were wrench it
away. The
proportion of the matter of each level present in
the decaying
astral vehicle will therefore depend on the extent
to which the
mind has become inextricably entangled with the
lower
passions. It will be obvious that as the mind in
passing from
level to level is unable to free itself completely
from the
matter of each, the astral remnant will show the
presence of
each grosser kind which has succeeded in retaining
its
connection with it.
Thus comes into existence the class of entity which
has
been called "The Shade "—an entity, be it
observed, which is
not in any sense the real individual at all, for he
has passed
away into the heaven-world; but nevertheless, it
not only
bears his exact personal appearance, but possesses
his
memory and all his little idiosyncrasies, and may,
therefore,
very readily be mistaken for him, as indeed it
frequently is at
seances.
It is not, of course, conscious of any act of
impersonation, for as far as its intellect goes it
must
necessarily suppose itself to be the individual,
but one can
imagine the horror and disgust of the friends of
the departed,
if they could only realize that they had been
deceived into
accepting as their loved one a mere soulless bundle
of all his
lowest qualities..The
length of life of a shade varies according to the.52
amount of the lower mind which animates it, but as
this is all
the while in process of fading out, its intellect
is a steadily
diminishing quantity though it may possess a great
deal of a
certain sort of animal cunning; and even quite
towards the
end of its career it is still able to communicate
by borrowing
temporary intelligence from the medium. From its
very
nature it is exceedingly liable to be swayed by all
kinds of
evil influences, and, having separated from its
higher ego, it
has nothing in its constitution capable of
responding to good
ones. It therefore lends itself readily to various
minor
purposes of some of the baser sort of black
magicians. So
much of mental matter as it possesses gradually
disintegrates
and returns to its own plane, though not to any
individual
mind, and thus the shade fades by almost
imperceptible
gradations into a member of our next class.
5. The Shell. This is absolutely the mere astral corpse in
the later stages of its disintegration, every
particle of the mind
having left it. It is entirely without any kind of
consciousness
or intelligence, and is drifted passively about
upon the astral
currents just as a cloud might be swept in any
direction by a
passing breeze; but even yet it may be galvanized
for a few
moments into a ghastly burlesque of life if it
happens to
come within reach of a medium's aura. Under such
circumstances it will still exactly resemble its
departed
personality in appearance, and may even reproduce
to some
extent his familiar expressions or handwriting, but
it does so
merely by the automatic action of the cells of
which it is
composed, which tend under stimulation to repeat
the form
of action to which they are most accustomed, and
whatever
amount of intelligence may be behind any such
manifestation
has most assuredly no connection.53
with the original man, but is lent by the medium or
his
"guides" for the occasion.
It is, however, more frequently temporarily
vitalized in
quite another manner, which will be described under
the next
head. It has also the quality of being still
blindly responsive
to such vibrations—usually of the lowest order as
were
frequently set up in it during its last stage of
existence as a
shade, and consequently persons in whom evil
desires or
passions are predominant will be very likely, if
they attend
physical seances,
to find these intensified and as it were
thrown back upon them by the unconscious shells.
There is also another variety of corpse which it is
necessary to mention under this head, though
belongs to a
much earlier stage of man's post-mortem history.
It has been
stated above that after the death of the physical
body the
astral vehicle is comparatively quickly rearranged,
and the
etheric double cast off—this latter body being
destined to
slow disintegration, precisely as is the astral
shell at a later
stage of the proceedings.
This etheric shell, however, is not to be met with
drifting
aimlessly about, as is the variety with which we
have hitherto
been dealing; on the contrary, it remains within a
few yards
of the decaying physical body, and since it is
readily visible
to any one even slightly sensitive, it is
accountable for many
of the commonly current stories of churchyard
ghosts. A
psychically developed person passing one of our
great
cemeteries will see hundreds of these bluish-white,
misty
forms hovering over the graves where are laid the
physical
vestures which they have recently left; and as
they, like their
lower counterparts, are in stages of
disintegration, the sight is
by no means a pleasant one..54
This also, like the other kind, of shell, is
entirely devoid of
consciousness and intelligence; and though it may
under
certain circumstances be galvanized into a very
horrible form
of temporary life, this is possible only by means
of some of
the most loathsome rites of one of the worst forms
of black
magic, about which the less said the better. It
will thus be
seen that in the successive stages of his progress
from earth-life
to the heaven-world, man casts off and leaves to
slow
disintegration no less than three corpses—the dense
physical
body, the etheric double, and the astral
vehicle—all of which
are by degrees resolved into their constituent
elements and
their matter utilized anew on their respective
planes by the
wonderful chemistry of nature.
6. The Vitalized Shell. This entity ought not, strictly
speaking, to be classified under the head
"human" at all,
since it is only its outer vesture, the passive,
senseless shell,
that was once an appanage
of humanity; such life,
intelligence, desire, and will as it may possess
are those of
the artificial- elemental animating it, and that,
though in
terrible truth a creation of man's evil thought is
not itself
human. It will therefore perhaps be better to deal
with it more
fully under its appropriate class among the
artificial entities,
as its nature and genesis will be more readily
comprehensible
by the time that part of our subject is reached.
Let it suffice here to mention that it is always a
malevolent
being—a true tempting demon, whose evil influence
is
limited only by the extent of its power. Like the
shade, it is
frequently used to further the horrible purposes of
the
Voodoo and Obeah forms of magic. Some writers have
spoken of it under the name "elementary,"
but as that title has
at one time or another been used for almost.55
every variety of post-mortem entity, it has
become so vague
and meaningless that it is perhaps better to avoid
it.
7. The Suicide and the victim of sudden
death. It will be
readily understood that a man who is torn from
physical life
hurriedly while in full health and strength,
whether by
accident or suicide, finds himself upon the astral
plane tinder
conditions differing considerably from those which
surround
one who dies either from old age or from disease.
In the
latter case the hold of earthly desires upon the
entity is sure
to be more or less weakened, and probably the very
grossest
particles are already got rid of, so that the man
will most
likely find himself on the sixth or fifth
subdivision of the
astral world, or perhaps even higher; the
principles have been
gradually prepared for separation, and the shock is
therefore
not so great.
In the case of the accidental death or suicide none
of these
preparations have taken place, and the withdrawal
of the
principles front their physical encasement has been
very
aptly compared to the tearing of the stone out of
an unripe
fruit; a great deal of the grossest kind of astral matter
still
clings around the personality, which is
consequently held in
the seventh or lowest subdivision of the plane.
This has
already been described as anything but a pleasant
abiding
place, yet it is by no means the same for all those
who are
compelled for a time to inhabit it. Those victims
of sudden
death whose earth-lives have been pure and noble
have no
affinity for this plane, and so the time of their
sojourn upon it
is passed, to quote front an early letter on this
subject, either
in "happy ignorance and full oblivion, or in a
state of quiet
slumber, a sleep full of rosy dreams."
On the other hand, if men's earth-lives have been
low and.brutal, selfish and sensual, they will, like
the suicides,.56
be conscious to the fullest extent in this undesirable
region
and they are liable to develope
into terribly evil entities.
Inflamed with all kinds of horrible appetites which
they call
no longer satisfy directly now they are without a
physical
body, they gratify their loathsome passions
vicariously
through a medium or any sensitive person whom they
can
obsess; and they take a devilish delight in using
all the arts of
delusion which the astral plane puts in their power
in order to
lead others into the same excesses which have
proved so fatal
to themselves.
Quoting again from the same letter:—"These are
the
Pisachas, the incubi and succubae of mediaeval writers—
demons of thirst and gluttony, of lust and avarice,
of
intensified craft, wickedness, and cruelty,
provoking their
victims to horrible crimes, and revelling
in their
commission." From this class and the last are
drawn the
tempters the devils of ecclesiastical literature;
but their power
falls utterly before purity of mind and purpose;
they can do
nothing with a man unless he has first encouraged
in himself
the vices into which they seek to draw him.
One whose psychic sight has been opened will often
see
crowds of these unfortunate creatures hanging round
butchers' shops, public-houses, or other even more
disreputable places—wherever the gross influences
in which
they delight are to be found, and where they
encounter men
and women still in the flesh who are like-minded
with
themselves. For such an entity as one of these to
meet with a
medium with whom he is in affinity is indeed a
terrible
misfortune not only does it enable him to prolong
enormously his dreadful astral life, but it renews
for perhaps
all indefinite period his power to generate evil
karma, and so
prepare for himself a future incarnation of the
most.57
degraded character, besides running the risk of
losing a large
portion of such mind-power as he may happen to
possess. If
he is fortunate enough not to meet with a sensitive
through
whom his passions can be vicariously gratified, the
unfulfilled desires will gradually burn themselves
out, and
the suffering caused in the process will probably
go far
towards working off the evil karma of the past
life.
The position of the suicide is further complicated
by the
fact that his rash act has enormously diminished
the power
of the higher ego to withdraw its lower portion
into itself, and
therefore has exposed him to manifold and great
additional
dangers; but it must be remembered that the guilt
of suicide
differs considerably according to its
circumstances, from the
morally blameless act of Seneca or Socrates through
all
degrees down to the heinous crime of the wretch who
takes
his own life in order to escape from the
entanglements into
which his villainy has brought him and of course
the position
after death varies accordingly.
It should be noted that this class, as well as the
shades
and the vitalized shells, are all what may be
called minor
vampires; that is to say, whenever they have the
opportunity
they prolong their existence by draining away the
vitality
from human beings whom they find themselves able to
influence. This is why both medium and sitters are
often so
weak and exhausted after a physical seance. A student of
occultism is taught how to guard himself from their
attempts,
but without that knowledge it is difficult for one
who puts
himself in their way to avoid being more or less
laid under
contribution by them.
8. The Vampire and Werewolf. There remain two even
more awful but happily very rare possibilities to
be.58
mentioned before this part of our subject is
completed, and
though they differ very widely in many ways we may
yet
perhaps group them together, since they have in
common the
qualities of unearthly horror and of extreme
rarity—the latter
arising from the fact that they are really legacies
from earlier
races—hideous anachronisms, appalling relics of a
time
when man and his surroundings were in many ways not
what
they are now.
We of the fifth root race ought to have evolved
beyond
the possibility of meeting such a ghastly fate as
is indicated
by either of the two headings of this sub-section,
and we
have so nearly done it that these creatures are
commonly
regarded as mere mediaeval fables; yet there are
examples to
be found occasionally even now, though chiefly in
countries
where there is a considerable strain of fourth-race
blood,
such as Russia or Hungary. The popular legends
about them
are probably often considerably exaggerated, but
there is
nevertheless a terribly serious substratum of truth
beneath
the eerie stories which pass from mouth to mouth
among the
peasantry of Central Europe. The general
characteristics of
such tales are too well known to need more than a
passing
reference; a fairly typical specimen of the vampire
story,
though it does not profess to be more than the
merest fiction,
is Sheridan le Fanu's Carmilla, while a very remarkable
account of an unusual form of this creature is to
be found in
Isis Unveiled vol. i., p. 454.
Readers of Theosophical literature will be aware
that it is
just possible for a man to live a life so
absolutely degraded
and selfish, so utterly wicked and brutal, that the
whole of his
lower mind may become entirely immeshed
in his desires,
and finally separated from its spiritual source in
the higher
ego. Some students even seem.59
to have supposed that such an occurrence is quite a
common
one, and that we may meet scores of such
"soulless men," as
they have been called, in the street every day of
our lives; but
this, happily, is untrue. To attain the appalling
pre-eminence
in evil which thus involves the entire loss of a
personality and
the weakening of the developing individuality
behind, a man
must stifle every gleam of unselfishness or
spirituality, and
must have absolutely no redeeming point whatever;
and when
we remember how often, even in the worst of
villains, there is
to be found something not wholly bad, we shall
realize that
the abandoned personalities must always be a very
small
minority. Still, comparatively few though they be,
they do
exist, and it is from their ranks that the still
rarer vampire is
drawn.
The lost entity would very soon after death find
himself
unable to stay in the astral world, and would be
irresistibly
drawn in full consciousness into "his own
place," the
mysterious eighth sphere, there slowly to
disintegrate after
experiences best left undescribed.
If, however, he perishes by
suicide or sudden death, he may under certain
circumstances,
especially if he knows something of black magic,
hold
himself back from that awful fate by a death in
life scarcely
less awful—the ghastly existence of the vampire.
Since the eighth sphere cannot claim him until
after the
death of the body, he preserves it in a kind of
cataleptic
trance by the horrible expedient of the transfusion
into it of
blood drawn from other human beings by his
semi-materialized
astral, and thus postpones his final destiny by
the commission of wholesale murder. As popular
"superstition" again quite rightly
supposes, the easiest and
most effectual remedy in such a case is to exhume
and burn
the body, thus depriving the creature of his.60
point d'appui.
When the grave is opened the
body usually
appears quite fresh and healthy, and the coffin is
not
infrequently filled with blood. In countries where
cremation
is the custom, vampirism of this sort is naturally
impossible.
The Werewolf, though equally horrible, is the product
of
a somewhat different karma, and indeed ought
perhaps to
have found a place under the first instead of the
second
division of the human inhabitants of this plane,
since it is
always during a man's lifetime that he first
manifests under
this form. It invariably implies some knowledge of
magical
arts sufficient at any rate to be able to project
the astral body.
When a perfectly cruel and brutal man does this,
there are
certain circumstances under which the body may be
seized
upon by other astral entities and materialized, not
into the
human form, but into that of some wild animal
usually the
wolf; and in that condition it will range the
surrounding
country killing other animals, and even human
beings, thus
satisfying not only its own craving for blood, but
that of the
fiends who drive it on.
In this case, as so often with ordinary
materialization, any
wound inflicted upon that animal form will be
reproduced
upon the human physical body by the extraordinary
phenomenon of repercussion; though after the death
of that
physical body, the astral (which will probably
continue to
appear in the same form) will be less vulnerable.
It will then,
however, be also less dangerous, as unless it can
find a
suitable medium it will be unable to materialize
fully. In such
manifestations there is probably a great deal of
the matter of
the etheric double, and perhaps also a toll is
levied upon the
gaseous and liquid constituents of the physical.61
body as in the case of some materializations. In
both cases
this fluidic body appears able to pass to much
greater
distances from the physical than is ever otherwise
possible,
so far as is yet known for a vehicle which contains
at least a
certain amount of etheric matter.
It has been the fashion of this century to scoff at
what are
called the foolish superstitions of the ignorant
peasantry but,
as in the above cases, so in many others, the
occult student
finds on careful examination that obscure or
forgotten truths
of nature be behind what at first sight appears
mere
nonesense, and he learns to be cautious in rejecting as well
as
cautious in accepting. Intending explorers of the
astral plane
need have little fear of encountering the very
unpleasant
creatures described under this head, for, as before
stated, they
are even now extremely rare, and as time aces on
their
number will happily steadily diminish. In any case
their
manifestations are usually restricted to the
immediate
neighbourhood of their physical bodies, as might be
supposed from their extremely material nature.
9. The Black Magician or his pupil. This person
corresponds at the other extremity of the scale to
our second
class of departed entities, the pupil awaiting
reincarnation, but
in this case, instead of obtaining permission to
adopt an
unusual method of progress, the man is defying the
natural
process of evolution by maintaining himself in
astral life by
magical arts sometimes of the most horrible nature.
It would be easy to make various subdivisions of
this
class, according to their objects, their methods,
and the
possible duration of their existence on this plane,
but as they
are by no means fascinating objects of study, and
all that in
occult student wishes to know about them is how to avoid.them, it will probably be more interesting to pass
on.62
to the examination of another part of our subject.
It may,
however, be just mentioned that every such human
entity
which prolongs its life thus on the astral plane
beyond its
natural limit invariably does so at the expense of
others, and
by the absorption of their life in some form or
another.
II. NON-HUMAN.
Though it might have been thought fairly obvious
even to
the most casual glance that many of the terrestrial
arrangements of nature which affect us most nearly
have not
been designed exclusively with a view to our
comfort or even
our ultimate advantage, it was yet probably
unavoidable that
the human race, at least in its childhood, should
imagine that
this world and everything it contains existed
solely for its
own use and benefit; but undoubtedly we ought by
this time
to have grown out of that infantile delusion and
realized our
proper position and the duties that attach to it.
That most of us have not yet done so is shown in a
dozen
ways in our daily life—notably by the atrocious
cruelty
habitually displayed towards the animal kingdom
under the
name of sport by many who probably consider
themselves
highly civilized people. Of course the veriest tyro
in the holy
science of occultism knows that all life is sacred,
and that
without universal compassion there is no true
progress; but it
is only as he advances in his studies that he
discovers how
manifold evolution is, and how comparatively small
a place
humanity really fills in the economy of nature.
It becomes clear to him that just as earth, air,
and.63
water support myriads of forms of life which,
though
invisible to the ordinary eve, are revealed to us
by the
microscope, so the higher planes connected with our
earth
have an equally dense population of whose existence
we are
ordinarily completely unconscious. As his knowledge
increases he becomes more and more certain that in
one way
or another the utmost use is being made of every
possibility
of evolution, and that wherever it seems to us that
in nature
force is being wasted or opportunity neglected, it
is not the
scheme of the universe that is in fault, but our
ignorance of
its method and intention.
For the purposes of our present consideration of
the non-human
inhabitants of the astral plane it will be best to
leave
altogether out of consideration those very early
forms of the
universal life which are evolving in a manner of
which we can
have little comprehension, through the successive
encasement
of atoms, molecules, and cells; for if we commence
at the
lowest of what are usually called the elemental
kingdoms, we
shall even then have to group together under this
general
heading an enormous number of inhabitants of the
astral
plane upon whom it will be possible to touch only
very
slightly, as anything like a detailed account of
them would
swell this manual to the dimensions of an encyclopaedia.
The most convenient method of arranging the
nonhuman
entities will perhaps be in four classes—it being
understood
that in this case the class is not, as previously,
a
comparatively small subdivision, but usually a
great kingdom
of nature at least as large and varied as, say, the
animal or
vegetable kingdom. Some of these classes rank
considerably
below humanity, some are our equals, and others
again rise
far above us in goodness and power. Some belong to
our.64
scheme of evolution—that is to say, they either
have been or
will be men like ourselves; others are evolving on
entirely
distinct lines of their own.
Before proceeding to consider them it is necessary,
in
order to avoid the charge of incompleteness, to
mention that
in this branch of the subject two reservations have
been
made. First, no reference is made to the occasional
appearances of very high Adepts from other planets
of the
solar system and of even more august Visitors from
a still
greater distance, since such matters cannot fitly be
described
in an essay for general reading and besides it is
practically
inconceivable, though of course theoretically
possible, that
such glorified Beings should ever need to manifest
themselves on a plane so low as the astral. If for
any reason
they should wish to do so, the body appropriate to
the plane
would be temporarily created out of astral matter
belonging
to this planet, just as in the case of the Nirmanakaya.
Secondly, quite outside of and entirely unconnected
with
the four classes into which we are dividing this
section, there
are two other great evolutions which at present
share the use
of this planet with humanity; but about them it is
forbidden
to give any particulars at this stage of the
proceedings, as it is
not apparently intended tinder ordinary
circumstances either
that they should be conscious of man's existence or
man of
theirs. If we ever do come into contact with them
it will most
probably be on the purely physical plane, for in
any case
their connection with our astral plane is of the
slightest, since
the only possibility of their appearance there
depends upon
an extremely improbable accident in an act of
ceremonial
magic, which fortunately only a few of the most
advanced
sorcerers know how to perform. Nevertheless, that
improbable accident.65
has happened at least once, and may happen again,
so that
but for the prohibition above mentioned it would
have been
necessary to include them in our list.
1. The Elemental Essence belonging to
our own
evolution. Just as the name "elementary" has been
given
indiscriminately by various writers to any or all
of man's
possible post-mortem conditions, so this
word "elemental"
has been used at different times to mean any or all
nonhuman spirits, from the most godlike of the Devas down
through every variety of nature-spirit to the
formless essence
which pervades the kingdoms lying behind the
mineral, until
after reading several books the student becomes
absolutely
bewildered by the contradictory statements made on
the
subject. For the purposes of this treatise let it
be understood
that elemental essence is merely a name applied
during
certain stages of its evolution to monadic essence,
which in
its turn may be defined as the outpouring of spirit
or divine
force into matter.
We are all familiar with the idea that before this
outpouring arrives at the stage of
individualization at which it
ensouls man, it has passed through and ensouled
in turn six
lower phases of evolution—the animal, vegetable,
mineral,
and three elemental kingdoms. When energizing
through
those respective stages it has sometimes been
called the
animal, vegetable, or mineral monad—though this
term is
distinctly misleading, since long before it arrives
at any of
these kingdoms it has become not one, but many
monads.
The name was, however, adopted to convey the idea
that,
though differentiation in the monadic essence had
already
long ago set in, it had not yet been carried to the
extent of
individualization..When this monadic essence is energizing through the.66
three great elemental kingdoms which precede the
mineral, it
is called by the name of "elemental
essence." Before,
however, its nature and the manner in which it
manifests can
be understood, the method in which spirit enfolds
itself in its
descent into matter must be realized.
Be it remembered then, that when spirit, resting on
any
plane (it matters not which—let us call it plane
No. 1 ) wills
to descend to the plane next below (let us call
that plane No.
2) it must enfold itself in the matter of that
plane—that is to
say, it must draw round itself a veil of the matter
of plane No.
2. Similarly when it continues its descent to plane
No. 3 it
must draw round itself the matter of that plane,
and we shall
then have, say, an atom whose body or outer
covering
consists of the matter of plane No. 3. The force
energizing in
it—its soul, so to speak—will however not be spirit
in the
condition in which it was on plane No. 1, but will
be that
divine force plus the veil of the matter of
plane No. 2. When
a still further descent is made to plane No. 4, the
atom
becomes still more complex, for it will then have a
body of
No. 4 matter, ensouled by
spirit already twice veiled—in the
matter of planes 2 and 3. It will be seen that,
since this
process repeats itself for every subplane of each plane of the
solar system, by the time the original force
reaches our
physical level it is so thoroughly veiled that it
is small
wonder men often fail to recognize it as spirit at
all.
Now suppose that the monadic essence has carried on
this process of veiling itself down to the atomic
level of the
mental plane, and that, instead of descending
through the
various subdivisions of that plane, it plunges down
directly
into the astral plane, ensouling,
or aggregating round it a
body of atomic astral matter; such a combination would
be.67
the elemental essence of the astral plane,
belonging to the
third of the great elemental kingdoms—the one
immediately
preceding the mineral. In the course of its two
thousand four
hundred differentiations, on the astral plane it
draws to itself
many and various combinations of the matter of its
several
sub-divisions; but these are only temporary, and it
still
remains essentially, one kingdom, whose
characteristic is
monadic essence involved down to the atomic level
of the
mental plane only, but manifesting through the
atomic matter
of the astral plane.
The two higher elemental kingdoms exist and
function
respectively upon the higher and the lower levels
of the
mental plane; but we are not at the moment
concerned with
them.
To speak, as we so often do, of an elemental
in connection
with the group we are now considering is somewhat
misleading, for strictly speaking there is no such
thing. What
we find is a vast store of elemental essence,
wonderfully
sensitive to the most fleeting human thought, responding
with inconceivable delicacy in an infinitesimal
fraction of a
second to a vibration set up in it even by an
entirely
unconscious exercise of human will or desire.
But the moment that by the influence of such
thought or
exercise of will it is moulded
into a living force into
something that may correctly be described as an
elemental—
it at once ceases to belong to the category we are
discussing
and becomes a member of the artificial class. Even
then us
separate existence is usually of the most evanescent
character, and as soon as its impulse has worked
itself out it
sinks back into the undifferentiated mass of that
particular
subdivision of elemental essence from which it came..It would be tedious to attempt to catalogue these.68
divisions, and indeed even if a list of them were
made it
would be unintelligible except to the practical
student who
can call them up before him and compare them. Some
idea of
the leading lines of classification can, however,
be grasped
without much trouble, and may prove of interest.
First comes the broad division which has given the
elementals their name—the classification according
to the
kind of matter which they inhabit. Here, as usual,
the
septenary character of our evolution shows itself, for there
are seven such chief groups, related respectively
to the seven
states of physical matter—to "earth, water,
air, and fire," or to
translate from mediaeval symbolism to modern
accuracy of
expression, to the solid, the liquid, the gaseous,
and the four
etheric conditions.
It has long been the custom to pity and despise the
ignorance of the alchemists of the middle ages,
because they
gave the title of "elements" to
substances which modern
chemistry has discovered to be compounds; but in
speaking
of them thus slightingly we have done them great
for their
knowledge on this subject was really wider, not
narrower,
than ours. They may or may not have catalogued all
the sixty
or seventy substances which we now call elements;
but they
certainly did not apply that name to them, for
their occult
studies had taught them that in that sense of the
word there
was but one element, of which these and all
other forms of
matter were but modifications—a truth which some of
the
greatest chemists of the present day are just
beginning to
suspect.
The fact is that in this particular case our
despised
forefathers' analysis, went several steps deeper
than our own,
They understood and were able to observe the ether,
which.modern science can only postulate as a
necessity for its.69
theories; they were aware that it consists of
physical matter in
four entirely distinct states above the gaseous—a
fact which
has not yet been re-discovered. They knew that all
physical
objects consist of matter in one or other of these
seven states,
and that into the composition of every organic body
all seven
enter in a greater or lesser degree; hence all
their talk of fiery
and watery humours, or
"elements," which seems so
grotesque to us. It is obvious that they used the
latter word
simply as a synonym for "constituent
parts," without in the
least degree intending it to connote the idea of
substances
which could not be further reduced. They knew also
that
each of these orders of matter serves as a basis of
manifestation for a great class of evolving monadic
essence,
and so they christened the essence
"elemental."
What we have to try to realize, then, is that in
every
particle of solid matter, so long as it remains in
that
condition, there resides, to use the picturesque
phraseology
of mediaeval students, an earth elemental—that is,
a certain
amount of the living elemental essence appropriate
to it, while
equally in every particle of matter in the liquid,
gaseous, or
etheric states, the water, air, and fire
"elementals" respectively
inhere. It will be observed that this first broad
division of the
third of the elemental kingdoms is, so to speak, a
horizontal
one—that is to say, its respective classes stand—in
the
relation of steps, each somewhat less material than
the one
below it, which ascends into it by almost
imperceptible
degrees; and it is easy to understand how each of
these
classes may again he divided horizontally into
seven, since
there are obviously many degrees of density among
solids,
liquids, and gases.
There is, however, what may be described as a
perpendicular.70
division also, and this is somewhat more difficult
to
comprehend, especially as great reserve is always
maintained
by occultists as to some of the facts which would
be involved
in a fuller explanation of it. Perhaps the clearest
way to put
what is known on the subject will be to state that
in each of
the horizontal classes and subclasses will be found
seven
perfectly distinct types of elemental, the
difference between
them being no longer a question of degree of
materiality, but
rather of character and affinities.
Each of these types so reacts upon the others that,
though
it is impossible for them ever to interchange their
essence, in
each of them seven sub-types will be found to
exist,
distinguished by the colouring
given to their original
peculiarity by the influence which sways them most
readily.
It will at once be seen that this perpendicular
division and
subdivision differs entirely in its character from
the
horizontal, in that it is far more permanent and
fundamental;
for while it is the evolution of the elemental
kingdom to pass
with almost infinite slowness through its various
horizontal
classes and sub-classes in succession, and thus to
belong to
them all in turn, this is not so with regard to the
types and
sub-types, which remain unchangeable all the way
through.
A point which must never be lost sight of in endeavouring
to understand this elemental evolution is that it
is taking place
on what is sometimes called the downward curve of
the arc;
that is to say, it is progressing towards the
complete
entanglement in matter which we witness in the
mineral
kingdom, instead of away from it, as is most other
evolution
of which we know anything. Thus for it progress
means
descent into matter instead of.71
ascent towards higher planes and this fact
sometimes gives it
a curiously inverted appearance in our eyes until
we
thoroughly grasp its object. Unless the student
bears this
constantly and clearly in mind, he will again and
again find
himself beset by perplexing anomalies.
In spite of these manifold subdivisions, there are
certain
properties which are possessed in common by all
varieties of
this strange living essence; but even these are so
entirely
different from any with which we are familiar on
the physical
plane that it is exceedingly difficult to explain
them to those
who cannot themselves see it in action.
Let it be premised, then, that when any portion of
this
essence remains for a few moments entirely
unaffected by
any outside influence (a condition, by the way,
which is
hardly ever realized) it is absolutely without any
definite
form of its own, though its motion is still rapid
and
ceaseless; but on the slightest disturbance, set up
perhaps by
some passing thought-current, it flashes into a
bewildering
confusion of restless, ever-changing shapes, which
form,
rush about, and disappear with the rapidity of the
bubbles on
the surface of boiling water.
These evanescent shapes, though generally those of
living
creatures of some sort, human or otherwise, no more
express
the existence of separate entities in the essence than
do the
equally changeful and multiform waves raised in a
few
moments on a previously smooth lake by a sudden
squall.
They seem to be mere reflections from the vast
storehouse of
the astral light, yet they have usually a certain
appropriateness to the character of the
thought-stream which
calls them into existence, though nearly always
with
grotesque distortion, some terrifying or unpleasant
aspect.about them..72
A question naturally arises in the mind here as to
what
intelligence it is that is exerted in the selection
of an
appropriate shape or its distortion when selected.
We are not
dealing with the more powerful and longer-lived
artificial
elemental created by a strong definite thought, but
simply
with the result produced by the stream of
half-conscious,
involuntary thoughts which the majority of mankind
allow to
flow idly through their brains. The intelligence
therefore is
obviously not derived from the mind of the thinker;
and we
certainly cannot credit the elemental essence
itself, which
belongs to a kingdom further from individualization
even
than the mineral, with any sort of awakening of the
mental
quality
Yet it does possess a marvellous adaptability which
often
seems to come very near it, and it is no doubt this
property
that caused elementals to be described in one of
our early
books as "the semi-intelligent creatures of
the astral light."
We shall find further evidence of this power when
we come
to consider the case of the artificial class. When
we read of a
good or evil elemental, it must always be either an
artificial
entity or one of the many varieties of
nature-spirits that is
meant, for the elemental kingdoms proper do not
admit of
any such conceptions as good and evil.
There is, however, undoubtedly a sort of bias or
tendency
permeating nearly all their subdivisions which
operates to
render them rather hostile than friendly towards
man. Every
neophyte knows this, for in most cases his very
first
impression of the astral plane is of the presence
all around
him of vast hosts of protean spectres
who advance upon him
in threatening guise, but always retire or
dissipate harmlessly
if boldly faced. It is to this curious tendency
that the
distorted or unpleasant aspect above mentioned.73
must be referred, and mediaeval writers tell us
that man has
only himself to thank for its existence. In the
golden age
before this sordid present men were on the whole
less selfish
and more spiritual, and then the
"elementals" were friendly,
though now they are so no longer because of man's
indifference to, and want of sympathy with, other
living
beings.
From the wonderful delicacy with which the essence
responds to the faintest action of our minds or
desires it
seems clear that this elemental kingdom as a whole
is very
much what the collective thought of humanity makes
it. Any
one who will think for a moment how far from
elevating the
action of that collective thought is likely to be
at the present
time will see little reason to wonder that we reap
as we have
sown, and that this essence, which has no power of
perception, but only blindly receives and reflects
what is
projected upon it, should usually exhibit
unfriendly
characteristics.
There can be no doubt that in later races or
rounds, when
mankind as a whole has evolved to a much higher
level, the
elemental kingdoms will be influenced by the
changed
thought which continually impinges upon them, and
we shall
find them no longer hostile, but docile and
helpful, as we are
told that the animal kingdom will also be. Whatever
may
have happened in the past, it is evident that we
may look
forward to a very passable "golden age"
in the future, if we
can arrive at a time when the majority of men will
be noble
and unselfish, and the forces of nature will
co-operate
willingly with them.
The fact that we are so readily able to influence
the
elemental kingdoms at once show, us that we have a.responsibility towards them for the manner in which we
use.74
that influence. Indeed, when we consider the
conditions
under which they exist, it is obvious that the
effect produced
upon them by the thoughts and desires of all
intelligent
creatures inhabiting the same world with them must
have
been calculated upon in the scheme of our system as
a factor
in their evolution.
In spite of the consistent teaching of all the
great
religions, the mass of mankind is still utterly
regardless of its
responsibility on the thought-plane; if a man can
flatter
himself that his words and deeds have been harmless
to
others, he believes that he has done all that can
be required of
him, quite oblivious of the fact that he may for
years have
been exercising a narrowing and debasing influence
on the
minds of those about him, and filling surrounding
space with
the unlovely creations of a sordid mind. A still
more serious
aspect of this question will come before us when we
discuss
the artificial elemental but in regard to the
essence it will be
sufficient to state that we undoubtedly have the
power to
accelerate or delay its evolution according to the
use which
consciously or unconsciously we are continually
making of
it.
It would be hopeless within the limits of such a
treatise as
this to attempt to explain the different uses to
which the
forces inherent in the manifold varieties of this
elemental
essence can he put by one who has been trained in
their
management. The vast majority of magical ceremonies
depend almost entirely upon its manipulation,
either directly
by the will of the magician, or by some more
definite astral
entity evoked by him for that purpose.
By its means nearly all the physical phenomena of
the
seance-room
are produced, and it is also the agent in most.cases
of stone-throwing or bell-ringing in haunted houses,.75
such results as these latter being brought about
either by
blundering efforts to attract attention made by
some
earthbound human entity, or by the mere mischievous
pranks
of some of the minor nature-spirits belonging to
our third
class. But the "elemental" must never be
thought of as itself a
prime mover; it is simply a latent force, which
needs an
external power to set it in motion.
It may be noted that although all classes of the
essence
have the power of reflecting images from the astral
light as
described above, there are varieties which receive
certain
impressions much more readily than others—which
have, as
it were, favourite forms
of their own into which upon
disturbance they would naturally flow unless
absolutely
forced into some other, and such shapes tend to be
a trifle
less evanescent than usual.
Before leaving this branch of the subject it may be
well to
warn the student against the confusion of thought
into which
some have fallen through failing to distinguish
this elemental
essence which we have been considering from the
monadic
essence manifesting through the mineral kingdom. It
must be
borne in mind that monadic essence at one stage of
its
evolution towards humanity manifests through the
elemental
kingdom, while at a later stage it manifests
through the
mineral kingdom; but the fact that two bodies of
monadic
essence at these different stages are in
manifestation at the
same moment, and that one of these manifestations
(the earth
elemental) occupies the same space as and inhabits
the other
(say a rock), in no way interferes with the
evolution either of
one or the other, nor does it imply any relation
between the
bodies of monadic essence lying within both. The
rock will
also be permeated by its appropriate variety of the
omnipresent life principle, but.76
that is again totally distinct from either of the
essences above
mentioned.
2. The Astral Bodies of Animals. This is an
extremely
large class, yet it does not occupy a particularly
important
position on the astral plane, since its members
usually stay
there but a very short time. The vast majority of
animals have
not as yet acquired permanent individualization,
and when
one of them dies the monadic essence which has been
manifesting through it flows back again into the
particular
stratum whence it came, bearing with it such
advancement or
experience as has been attained during that life.
It is not,
however, able to do this quite immediately; the
astral body of
the animal rearranges itself just as in man's case,
and the
animal has a real existence on the astral plane,
the length of
which, though never great, varies according to the
intelligence
which it has developed. In most cases it does not
seem to be
more than dreamily conscious, but appears perfectly
happy.
The comparatively few domestic animals who have
already attained individuality, and will therefore
be reborn no
more as animals in this world, have a much longer
and much
more vivid life on the astral plane than their less
advanced
fellows, and at the end of it sink gradually into a
subjective
condition, which is likely to last for a very
considerable
period. One interesting subdivision of this class
consists of
the astral bodies of those anthropoid apes
mentioned in The
Secret Doctrine (vol. i., p. 184) who are
already
individualized, and will be ready to take human
incarnation in
the next round, or perhaps some of then) even
sooner.
3. Nature-Spirits of all Kinds. So many and so varied are
the subdivisions of this class that to do them
anything like
justice one would need to devote a separate
treatise to.77
this subject alone. Some characteristics, however,
they all
have in common, and it will be sufficient here to
try to give
some idea of those.
To begin with, we have to realize that we are here
dealing
with entities which differ radically from all that
we have
hitherto considered. Though we may rightly classify
the
elemental essence and the animal astral bodies as
nonhuman,
the monadic essence which manifests itself through
them
will, nevertheless, in the fulness
of time, evolve to the level of
manifesting itself through some future humanity
comparable
to our own, and if we were able to look back
through
countless ages on our own evolution in previous
world-cycles,
we should find that that which is now ourselves has
passed on its upward path through similar stages.
That, however, is not the case with the vast
kingdom of
nature-spirits; they neither have been, nor ever
will be,
members of a humanity such as ours; their line of
evolution
is entirely different, and their only connection
with us
consists in our temporary occupancy of the same
planet. Of
course since we are neighbours
for the time being we owe
neighbourly kindness to one another when we happen to
meet, but our lines of development differ so widely
that each
can do but little for the other.
Many writers have included these spirits among the
elementals, and indeed they are the elementals (or
perhaps, to
speak more accurately, the animals) of a higher
evolution.
Though much more highly developed than our
elemental
essence, they have yet certain characteristics in
common with
it; for example, they also are divided into seven
great classes,
inhabiting respectively the same seven states of
matter
already mentioned as permeated by the
corresponding.78
varieties of the essence. Thus, to take those which
are most
readily comprehensible to us, there are spirits of
the earth,
water, air, and fire (or ether)—definite
intelligent astral
entities residing and functioning in each of those
media.
It may be asked how it is possible for any kind of
creature to inhabit the solid substance of a rock,
or of the
crust of the earth. The answer is that since the
nature-spirits
are formed of astral matter, the substance of the
rock is no
hindrance to their motion or their vision, and
furthermore
physical matter in its solid state is their natural
element—the
only one to which they are accustomed and in which
they
feel at home. The same is of course true of those
who live in
water, air, or ether.
In mediaeval literature, these earth-spirits are
often called
gnomes, while the water-spirits are spoken of as
undines, the
air-spirits as sylphs, and the ether-spirits as
salamanders. In
popular language they are known by many
names—fairies,
pixies, elves, brownies, peris,
djinns, trolls, satyrs, fauns,
kobolds, imps, goblins, good people, &c.—some
of these
titles being applied only to one variety, and
others
indiscriminately to all.
Their forms are many and various, but most
frequently
human in shape and somewhat diminutive in size.
Like
almost all inhabitants of the astral plane, they
are able to
assume any appearance at will, but they undoubtedly
have
definite forms of their own, or perhaps we should
rather say
favourite forms, which they wear when they have no special
object in taking an other. Under ordinary
conditions they are
not visible to physical sight at all, but they have
the power of
making themselves so by materialization when they
wish to
be seen..79
There are an immense number of subdivisions or
races
among them, and individuals of these subdivisions
differ in
intelligence and disposition precisely as human
beings do.
The great majority of them apparently prefer to
avoid man
altogether; his habits and emanations are
distasteful to them,
and the constant rush of astral currents set up by
his restless,
ill-regulated desires disturbs and annoys them. On
the other
hand instances are not wanting in which
nature-spirits have
as it were made friends with human beings and
offered them
such assistance as lay in their power, as in the
well-known
stories told of the Scotch brownies or of the
fire-lighting
fairies mentioned in spiritualistic literature.
This helpful attitude, however, is comparatively
rare, and
in most cases when they come in contact with man
they
either show indifference or dislike, or else take
an impish
delight in deceiving him and playing childish
tricks upon
him. Many a story illustrative of this curious
characteristic
may he found among the village gossip of the
peasantry in
almost any lonely mountainous district and any one
who has
been in the habit of attending seances
for physical
phenomena will recollect instances of practical
joking and
silly though usually, good-natured horseplay, which
almost
always indicate the presence of some of the lower
orders of
the nature-spirits.
They are greatly assisted in their tricks by the
wonderful
power which they possess of casting a glamour over
those
who yield themselves to their influence, so that such
victims
for the time see and hear only what these fairies
impress
upon them, exactly as the mesmerized subject sees,
hears,
feels, and believes whatever the magnetizer wishes.
The
nature-spirits, however, have not the mesmerizer's power of.80
dominating the human will, except in the case of
quite
unusually weak-minded people, or of those who allow
themselves to fall into such a condition of
helpless terror that
their will is temporarily in abeyance. They cannot
go beyond
deception of the senses, but of that are they are
undoubted
masters, and cases are not wanting in which they
have cast
their glamour over a considerable number of people
at once.
It is by invoking their aid in the exercise of this
peculiar
power that some of the most wonderful feats of the
Indian
jugglers are performed—the entire audience being in
fact
hallucinated and made to imagine that they see and
hear a
whole series of events which have not really taken
place at
all.
We might almost look upon the nature-spirits as a
kind of
astral humanity, but for the fact that none of
them—not even
the highest possesses a permanent reincarnating individ-uality.
Apparently therefore one point in which their lint
of
evolution differs from ours is that a much greater
proportion
of intelligence is developed before permanent individ-ualization
takes place; but of the stages through which they
have passed, and those through which they have yet
to pass,
we can know little.
The life-periods of the different subdivisions vary
greatly,
some being quite short, others much longer than our
human
lifetime. We stand so entirely, outside such a life
as theirs
that it is impossible for us to understand much
about its
conditions; but it appears on the whole to be a
simple,
joyous, irresponsible kind of existence, much such
as a party
of happy children might lead among exceptionally favourable
physical surroundings.
Though tricky and mischievous, they are rarely malicious.unless provoked by some unwarrantable intrusion
or
annoyance;.81
but as a body they also partake to some extent of
the
universal feeling of distrust for man, and they
generally seem
inclined to resent somewhat the first appearance of
a
neophyte on the astral plane, so that he usually
makes their
acquaintance under some unpleasant or terrifying
form. If,
however, he declines to be frightened by any of
their freaks,
they soon accept him as a necessary evil and take
no further
notice of him, while some among them may even after
a time
become friendly and manifest pleasure on meeting
him.
Some among the many subdivisions of this class are
much less childlike and more dignified than those
we have
been describing, and it is from these sections that
the entities
who have sometimes been reverenced under the name
of
wood-gods, or local village-gods, have been drawn.
Such
entities would be quite sensible of the flattery
involved in the
reverence shown to them would enjoy it, and would
no doubt
be quite ready to do any small service they could
in return.
(The village-god is also often an artificial
entity, but that
variety will he considered in its appropriate
place).
The Adept knows how to make use of the services of
the
nature-spirits when he requires them, but the
ordinary
magician can obtain their assistance only by
processes either
of invocation or evocation—that is, either by
attracting their
attention as a suppliant and making some kind of
bargain
with them, or by endeavouring
to set in motion influences
which would compel their obedience. Both methods
are
extremely undesirable, and the latter is also
excessively
dangerous, as the operator would arouse a
determined
hostility which might prove fatal to him. Needless
to say, no
one studying occultism under a qualified Master
would ever
be permitted to attempt anything of the kind at
all..82
4. The Devas. The highest
system of evolution connected
with this earth, so far as we know, is that of the
beings whom
Hindus call the devas,
and who have elsewhere been spoken
of as angels, sons of God, &c. They may, in
fact, be regarded
as a kingdom lying next above humanity, in the same
way as
humanity in turn lies next above the animal
kingdom, but
with this important difference, that while for an
animal there
is no possibility of evolution (so far as we know)
through
any kingdom but the human, man, when he attains a
certain
high level, finds various paths of advancement
opening
before him, of which this great deva
evolution is only one.
In comparison with the sublime renunciation of the
Nirmanakaya, the acceptance of this line of evolution is
sometimes spoken of in the books as "yielding
to the
temptation to become a god", but it must not
be inferred from
this expression that any shadow of blame attaches
to the man
who makes this choice. The path which he selects is
not the
shortest, but it is nevertheless a very noble one,
and if his
developed intuition impels him towards it, it is
certainly the
one best suited for his capacities. We must never
forget that
in spiritual as in physical climbing it is not
every one who
can bear the strain of the steeper path; there may
be many for
whom what seems the slower way is the only one
possible,
and we should indeed be unworthy followers of the
great
Teachers if we allowed our ignorance to betray us
into the
slightest thought of disposal towards those whose
choice
differs from our own.
However confident that ignorance of the
difficulties of the
future may allow us to feel now, it is impossible
for us to tell
at this stage what we shall find ourselves able to
do when,
after many lives of patient striving, we have
earned.83
the right to choose our own future; and indeed,
even those
who "yield to the temptation to become
gods" have a
sufficiently glorious career before them, as will
presently be
seen. To avoid possible misunderstanding it may be
mentioned par parenthese
that there is another and entirely
evil sense sometimes attached in the books to this
phrase of
"becoming a god," but in that form it
certainly could never be
any kind of "temptation" to the developed
man, and in any
ease it is altogether foreign to our present
subject.
In oriental literature this word "deva" is frequently used
vaguely to mean almost any kind of non-human
entity, so
that it would often include great divinities on the
one hand,
and nature-spirits and artificial elementals on the
other. Here,
however, its use will be restricted to the
magnificent evolution
which we are now considering.
Though connected with this earth, the devas are by no
means confined to it, for the whole of our present
chain of
seven worlds is as one world to them, their
evolution being
through a grand system of seven chains. Their hosts
have
hitherto been recruited chiefly from other
humanities in the
solar system, some lower and some higher than ours,
since
but a very small portion of our own has as yet
reached the
level at which for us it is possible to join them;
but it seems
certain that some of their very numerous classes
have not
passed in their upward progress through any
humanity at all
comparable to ours.
It is not possible for us at present to understand
very
much about them, but it is clear that what may be
described
as the aim of their evolution is considerably
higher than ours;
that is to say, while the object of our human
evolution.84
is to raise the successful portion of humanity to a
certain
degree of occult development by the end of the
seventh
round, the object of the deva
evolution is to raise their
foremost rank to a very much higher level in the
corresponding period. For them, as for us, a
steeper but
shorter path to still more sublime heights lies
open to earnest
endeavour; but what those heights may be in their case we
can only conjecture.
It is only the lower fringe of this august body
that need be
mentioned in connection with our subject of the
astral plane.
Their three lower great divisions beginning from
the bottom)
are generally called Kamadevas,
Rupadevas, and Arupadevas
respectively. Just as our ordinary body here—the
lowest
body possible for us—is the physical, so the
ordinary body
of a Kamadeva is the
astral; so that he stands in somewhat
the same position as humanity will do when it
reaches planet
F, and he, living ordinarily in an astral body,
would go out of
it to higher spheres in a mental body just as we
might in an
astral body, while to enter the causal body would
be to him
(when sufficiently developed) no greater effort
than to use a
mind-body is to us.
In the same way the Rupadeva's
ordinary body would be
the mental, since his habitat is on the four lower
or rupa
levels of that plane; while the Arupadeva
belongs to the three
higher levels, and owns no nearer approach to a
body than
the causal. But for Rupa- and Arupadevas
to manifest on the
astral plane is an occurrence at least as rare as
it is for astral
entities to materialize on this physical plane, so
we need do
no more than mention them now.
As regards the lowest division—the Kamadevas—it
would be quite a mistake to think of all of them as.immeasurably superior to ourselves, since some have
entered.85
their ranks from a humanity in some respects less
advanced
than our own. The general average among them is
much
higher than among us, for all that is actively or wilfully evil
has long been weeded out from their ranks but they
differ
widely in disposition, and a really noble,
unselfish,
spiritually-minded man may well stand higher in the
scale of
evolution than some of them.
Their attention can be attracted by certain magical
evocations, but the only human will which can
dominate
theirs is that of a certain high class of Adepts.
As a rule they
seem scarcely conscious of us on our physical
plane, but it
does now and then happen that one of them becomes
aware
of some human difficulty which excites his pity,
and he
perhaps renders some assistance, just as any of us
would try
to hell) an animal that we saw in trouble. But it
is well
understood among them that any interference in
human
affairs at the present stage is likely to do far
more harm than
good. Above the Arupadevas
there are four other great
divisions, and again, above and beyond the deva kingdom
altogether, stand the great hosts of the Planetary
Spirits, but
the consideration of such glorified beings would be
out of
place in an essay on the astral plane.
Though we cannot claim them as belonging exactly to
any
of our classes, this is perhaps the best place in
which to
mention those wonderful and important beings, the
four
Devarajas. In this name the word deva
must not, however, be
taken in the sense in which we have been using it,
for it is not
over the deva kingdom,
but over the four, "elements" of earth,
water, air, and fire, with their indwelling
nature-spirits and
essences, that these four Kings rule. What the
evolution has
been through which they rose to their present
height of
power and wisdom we cannot.86
tell, save only that it has certainly not passed
through
anything corresponding to our own humanity
They are often spoken of as the Regents of the
Earth, or
Angels of the four cardinal points, and the Hindu
books call
them the Chatur
Maharajas, giving their names as
Dhritarashtra, Virudhaka, Virupaksha, and Vaishravana. In
the same books their elemental hosts are called Gandharvas,
Kumbhandas, Nagas, and Yakshas respectively, the points of
the compass appropriated to each being in
corresponding
order cast, south, west, and north, and their
symbolical
colours, white, blue, red, and gold. They are
mentioned in
The Secret Doctrine as "winged globes and fiery wheels";
and in the Christian bible Ezekiel makes a very
remarkable
attempt at a description of them in which very
similar words
are used. References to them are to be found in the
symbology of every religion, and they have always
been held
in the highest reverence as the protectors of
mankind.
It is they who are the agents of man's karma during
his
life on earth, and they thus play an extremely
important part
in human destiny. The great karmic deities of the Kosmos
(called in The Secret Doctrine the Lipika) weigh the deeds of
each personality when the final separation of its
principles
takes place at the end of its astral-life, and give
as it were the
mould of an etheric double exactly suitable to its
karma for
the man s next birth; but it is the Devarajas who, having
command of the "elements" of which that
etheric double
must be composed, arrange their proportion so as to
fulfil
accurately the intention of the Lipika.
It is they also who constantly watch all through
life to
counterbalance the changes perpetually being
introduced.87
into man's condition by his own free will and that
of those
around him, so that no injustice may be done, and
karma may
be accurately worked out, if not in one way then in
another.
A learned dissertation upon these marvellous beings
will be
found in The Secret Doctrine, vol. i., pp. 122-126. They are
able to take human material forms at will, and
several cases
are recorded when they have done so.
All the higher nature-spirits and hosts of
artificial
elementals act as their agents in the stupendous
work they
carry out, yet all the threads are in their hands,
and the whole
responsibility rests upon them alone. It is not
often that they
manifest upon the astral plane, but when they do
they are
certainly the most remarkable of its non-human
inhabitants.
A student of occultism will not need to be told
that as there
are seven great classes both of nature-spirits and
elemental
essence there must really be seven and not four Devarajas,
but outside the circle of initiation little is
known and less may
be said of the higher three.
III. ARTIFICIAL.
This, the largest class of astral entities, is also
much the
most important to man. Being entirely his own
creation, it is
inter-related with him by the closest karmic bonds,
and its
action upon him is direct and incessant. It is an
enormous
inchoate mass of semi-intelligent entities,
differing among
themselves as human thoughts differ, and
practically
incapable of anything like classification or
arrangement. The
only division which can be usefully made is that
which
distinguishes between the artificial elementals
made by the
majority of mankind unconsciously and those made by
magicians with definite intent; while we may
relegate to a.88
third class the very small number of artificially
arranged
entities which are not elementals at all.
1. Elementals formed unconsciously. It has already been
explained that the elemental essence which
surrounds us on
every side is in all its numberless varieties
singularly
susceptible to the influence of human thought. The
action of
the mere casual wandering thought upon it, causing
it to
burst into a cloud of rapidly-moving, evanescent
forms, has
already been described; we have now to note how it
is
affected when the human mind formulates a definite,
purposeful thought or wish.
The effect produced is of the most striking nature.
The
thought seizes upon the plastic essence, and moulds
it
instantly into a living being of appropriate form—a
being
which when once thus created is in no way under the
control
of its creator, but lives out a life of its own,
the length of
which is proportionate to the intensity of the
thought or wish
which called it into existence. It lasts, in fact,
just as long as
the thought-force holds it together. Most people's
thoughts
are so fleeting and indecisive that the elementals
created by
them last only a few minutes or a few hours, but an
often-repeated
thought or an earnest wish will form an elemental
whose existence may extend to many days.
Since the ordinary man's thoughts refer very
largely to
himself, the elementals which they form remain
hovering
about him, and constantly tend to provoke a
repetition of the
idea which they represent, since such repetitions,
instead of
forming new elementals, would strengthen the old
one, and
give it a fresh lease of life. A mail, therefore,
who frequently
dwells upon one wish often forms for himself an
astral
attendant which, constantly fed by fresh thought,
may haunt.him.89
for years, ever gaining more and more strength and
influence
over him; and it will easily be seen that if the
desire be an evil
one the effect upon his moral nature may be of the
most
disastrous character.
Still more pregnant of result for good or evil are
a man's
thoughts about other people, for in that case they
hover not
about the thinker, but about the object of the
thought. A
kindly thought about any person, or an earnest wish
for his
good, will form and project towards him a friendly,
artificial
elemental. If the wish be a definite one, as, for
example, that
he may recover from some sickness, then the
elemental will
be a force ever hovering over him to promote his
recovery or
to ward off any influence that might tend to hinder
it. In
doing this it will display what appears like a very
considerable amount of intelligence and
adaptability, though
really it is simply a force acting along the line
of least
resistance—pressing steadily in one direction all
the time,
and taking advantage of any channel that it can
find, just as
the water in a cistern would in a moment find the
one open
pipe among a dozen closed ones, and proceed to
empty itself
through that.
If the wish be merely all indefinite one for his
general
good, the elemental essence in its wonderful
plasticity will
respond exactly to that less distinct idea also,
and the creature
formed will expend its force in the direction of
whatever
action for the man's advantage comes most readily
to hand.
In all cases the amount of such force which it has
to expend,
and the length of time that it will live to expend
it, depend
entirely upon the strength of the original wish or
thought
which gave it birth; though it must be remembered
that it can
be, as it were, fed and strengthened, and its
life-period
protracted by other.90
good wishes or friendly thoughts projected in the
same
direction.
Furthermore, it appears to be actuated, like most
other
beings, by an instinctive desire to prolong its
life, and thus
reacts on its creator as a force constantly tending
to provoke
the renewal of the feeling which called it into
existence. It
also influences in a similar manner others with
whom it
comes into contact, though its rapport with
them is naturally
not so perfect.
All that has been said as to the effect of good
wishes and
friendly thoughts is also true in the opposite
direction of evil
wishes and angry thoughts; and considering the
amount of
envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness
that exists in the
world, it will be readily understood that among the
artificial
elementals many terrible creatures are to be seen.
A man
whose thoughts or desires are spiteful, brutal,
sensual,
avaricious, moves through the world carrying with
him
everywhere a pestiferous atmosphere of his own,
peopled
with the loathsome beings which he has created to
be his
companions. Thus he is not only in sadly evil case
himself,
but is a dangerous nuisance to his fellow-man,
subjecting all
who have the misfortune to come into contact with
him to the
risk of moral contagion from the influence of the
abominations with which he chooses to surround
himself.
A feeling of envious or jealous hatred towards
another
person will send an evil elemental to hover over
him and seek
for a weak point through which it can operate; and
if the
feeling be a persistent one, such a creature may be
continually nourished by it and thereby enabled to
protract
its undesirable activity for a very long period. It
can, however,
produce no effect upon the person towards whom it is.directed unless he has himself some tendency which.91
it can foster—some fulcrum for its lever, as it
were. From the
aura of a man of pure thought and good life all
such
influences at once rebound, finding nothing upon
which they
can fasten, and in that case, by a very curious
law, they react
in all their force upon their original creator. In
him by the
hypothesis they find a very congenial sphere of
action, and
thus the karma of his evil wish works itself out at
once by
means of the very entity which he himself has
called into
existence.
It occasionally happens, however, that an
artificial
elemental of this description is for various
reasons unable to
expend its force either upon its object or its
creator, and in
such cases it becomes a kind of wandering demon,
readily
attracted by any person who indulges feelings
similar to that
which gave it birth, and equally prepared either to
stimulate
such feelings in him for the sake of the strength
it may gain
from them, or to pour out its store of evil
influence upon him
through any opening which he may offer it. If it is
sufficiently powerful to seize upon and inhabit
some passing
shell it frequently does so, as the possession of
such a
temporary home enables it to husband its dreadful
resources
more carefully in this form it may manifest through
a
medium, and by masquerading as some well-known
friend
may sometimes obtain an influence over people upon
whom
it would otherwise have little hold.
What has been written above will serve to enforce
the
statement already made as to the importance of
maintaining a
strict control over our thoughts. Many a
well-meaning man,
who is scrupulously careful to do his duty towards
his
neighbour in word and deed, is apt to consider that his
thoughts at least are nobody's business but his
own, and so.92
lets them run riot in various directions, utterly
unconscious
of the swarms of baleful creatures which he is
launching
upon the world.
To such a man an accurate comprehension of the
effect of
thought and desire in producing artificial
elementals would
come as a horrifying revelation; on the other hand,
it would
be the greatest consolation to many devoted and
grateful
souls who are oppressed with the feeling that they
are unable
to do anything in return for the kindness lavished
upon them
by their benefactors. For friendly thoughts and
earnest good
wishes are as easily and as effectually formulated
by the
poorest as by the richest, and it is within the
power of almost
any man, if he will take the trouble, to maintain
what is
practically a good angel always at the side of the
brother or
sister, the friend or the child, whom he loves best,
no matter
in what part of the world he may be.
Many a time a mother's loving thoughts and prayers
have
formed themselves into an angel guardian for the
child, and
except in the almost impossible case that the child
had in him
no instinct responsive to a good influence, have
undoubtedly
given him assistance and protection. Such guardians
may
often be seen by clairvoyant vision, and there have
even been
cases in which one of them has had sufficient
strength to
materialize and become for the moment visible to
physical
sight.
A curious fact which deserves mention here is that
even
after the passage of the mother into the
heaven-world the love
which she pours out upon the children whom she
imagines
as surrounding her, will react upon those children
though
they are still living in this world, and will often
support the
guardian elemental which she created while on
earth, until her.dear ones themselves pass away in
turn..93
As Madame Blavatsky remarks, "her love will
always be
felt by the children in the flesh; it will manifest
in their
dreams and often in various events, in providential
protections and escapes for love is a strong
shield, and is not
limited by space or time" (Key to Theosophy,
1). 150). All
the stories of the intervention of guardian angels
must not,
however, be attributed to the action of artificial
elementals, for
in many cases such "angels" have been the
souls of either
living or recently departed human beings, and they
have also
occasionally, though rarely, been devas. (See Invisible
Helpers, 1). 24).
This power of all earnest desire, especially if
frequently
repeated, to create all active elemental which ever
presses
forcefully in the direction of its own fulfilment, is the
scientific explanation of what devout but unphilosophical
people describe as answers to prayer. There are
occasions,
though at present these are rare, when the karma of
the
person so praying is such as to permit of
assistance being
directly rendered to him by an Adept or his pupil,
and there
is also the still rarer possibility of the
intervention of a deva
or some friendly nature-spirit; but in all these
cases the
easiest and most obvious form for such assistance
to take
would be the strengthening and the intelligent
direction of the
elemental already formed by the wish.
A very curious and instructive instance of the
extreme
persistence of these artificial elementals under favourable
circumstances came under the notice of one of our
investigators quite recently. All readers of the
literature of
such subjects are aware that many of our ancient
families are
supposed to have associated with them a traditional
death-warning—
a phenomenon of one kind or another which
foretells, usually some days beforehand, the
approaching.decease.94
of the head of the house. A picturesque example of
this is the
well-known story of the white bird of the Oxenhams, whose
appearance has ever since the time of Queen
Elizabeth been
recognised as a sure presage of the death of some member of
the family; while another is the spectral coach
which is
reported to drive up to the door of a certain
castle in the north
when a similar calamity is impending.
A phenomenon of this order occurs in connection
with
the family of one of our members, but it is of a
much
commoner and less striking type than either of the above,
consisting only of a solemn and impressive strain
of dirge-like
music, which is heard apparently floating in the
air three
days before the death takes place. Our member,
having
himself twice heard this mystic sound, finding its
warning in
both cases quite accurate, and knowing also that
according to
family tradition the same thing had been happening
for
several centuries, set himself to seek by occult
methods for
the cause underlying so strange a phenomenon.
The result was unexpected but interesting. It
appeared that
somewhere in the twelfth century the head of the
family went
to the crusades, like many another valiant man, and
took with
him to win his spurs in the sacred cause his
youngest and
favourite son, a promising youth whose success in life was
the dearest wish of his father's heart. Unhappily,
however, the
young man was killed in battle, and the father was
plunged
into the depths of despair, lamenting not only the
loss of his
son, but still more the fact that he was cut off so
suddenly in
the full flush of careless and not altogether
blameless youth.
So poignant, indeed, were the old man's feelings
that he
cast off his knightly armour
and joined one of the great
monastic orders, vowing to devote all the remainder
of.95
his life to prayer, first for the soul of his son,
and secondly
that henceforward no descendant of his might ever
again
encounter what seemed to his simple and pious mind
the
terrible danger of meeting death unprepared. Day
after day
for many a year he poured all the energy of his
soul into the
channel of that one intense wish, firmly believing
that
somehow or other the result he so earnestly desired
would be
brought about.
A student of occultism will have little difficulty
in
deciding what would be the effect of such a
definite and
long-continued stream of thought; our knightly monk
created
an artificial elemental of immense power and
resourcefulness
for its own particular object, and accumulated
within it a store
of force which would enable it to carry out his
wishes for an
indefinite period. An elemental is a perfect
storage-battery—
one from which there is practically no leakage; and
when we
remember what its original strength must have been,
and how
comparatively rarely it would be called upon to put
it forth,
we shall scarcely wonder that even now it exhibits
unimpaired vitality, and still warns the direct
descendants of
the old crusader of their approaching doom by
repeating in
their cars the strange walling music which was the
dirge of a
young and valiant soldier seven hundred years ago
in
Palestine.
2. Elementals formed consciously. Since such
results as
have been described above have been achieved by the
thought-force of men who were entirely in the dark
as to
what they were doing, it will readily be imagined
that a
magician who understands the subject, and can see
exactly
what effect he is producing, may wield immense
power along
these lines. As a matter of fact occultists of both
the.96
white and dark schools frequently use artificial
elementals in
their work, and few tasks are beyond the powers of
such
creatures when scientifically prepared and directed
with
knowledge and skill for one who knows how to do so
can
maintain a connection with his elemental and guide
it, no
matter at what distance it may be working, so that
it will
practically act as though endowed with the full
intelligence of
its master.
Very definite and very efficient guardian angels
have
sometimes been supplied in this way, though it is
probably
very rarely that karma permits such a decided
interference in
a person's life as that would be. In such a case,
however, as
that of a pupil of the Adepts, who might have in
the course of
his work for them to run the risk of attack from
forces with
which his unaided strength would be entirely
insufficient to
cope, guardians of this description have been
given, and have
fully proved their sleepless vigilance and their
tremendous
power.
By some of the more advanced processes of black
magic,
also, artificial elementals of great power may be
called into
existence, and much evil has been worked in various
ways by
such entities. But it is true of them, as of the
previous class,
that if they are aimed at a person whom by reason
of his
purity of character they are unable to influence
they react
with terrible force upon their creator; so that the
mediaeval
story of the magician being torn to pieces by the
fiends he
himself had raised is no mere fable, but may well
have an
awful foundation in fact.
Such creatures occasionally, for various reasons,
escape
from the control of those who are trying to make
use of
them, and become wandering and aimless demons, as do.some of those mentioned under the previous heading
under.97
similar circumstances; but those that we are
considering,
having much more intelligence and power, and a much
longer
existence, are proportionately more dangerous. They
invariably seek for means of prolonging their life
either by
feeding like vampires upon the vitality of human
beings, or
by influencing them to make offerings to them and
among
simple half-savage tribes they have frequently
succeeded by
judicious management in getting themselves
recognized as
village or family gods.
Any deity which demands sacrifices involving the
shedding of blood may always be set down as
belonging to
the lowest and most loathsome class of this order
other less
objectionable types are sometimes content with
offerings of
rice and cooked food of various kinds. There are
parts of
India where both these varieties may be found
flourishing
even at the present day, and in Africa they are
probably
comparatively numerous.
By means of whatever nourishment they can obtain
from
the offerings, and still more by the vitality they
draw from
their devotees, they may continue to prolong their
existence
for many years, or even centuries, retaining
sufficient
strength to perform occasional phenomena of a mild
type in
order to stimulate the faith and zeal of their
followers, and
invariably making themselves unpleasant in some way
or
other if the accustomed sacrifices are neglected.
For example,
it was asserted recently that in one Indian village
the
inhabitants had found that whenever for any reason
the local
deity did not get his or her regular meals,
spontaneous fires
began to break out with alarming frequency among
the
cottages, sometimes three or four simultaneously,
in cases
where they declared it was impossible to suspect
human
agency; and other stories of a more.98
or less similar nature wilt no doubt recur to the
memory of
any reader who knows something of the
out-of-the-way
corners of that most wonderful of all countries.
The art of manufacturing artificial elementals of
extreme
virulence and power seems to have been one of the
specialties of the magicians of Atlantis—"the
lords of the
dark face." One example of their capabilities
in this line is
given in The Secret Doctrine (vol. ii., p.
427), where we read
of the wonderful speaking animals who had to be
quieted by
an offering of blood, lest they should awaken their
masters
and warn them of the impending destruction. But
apart from
these strange beasts they created other artificial
entities of
power and energy so tremendous, that it is darkly
hinted that
some of them have kept themselves in existence even
to this
day, though it is more than eleven thousand years
since the
cataclysm which overwhelmed their original masters.
The
terrible Indian goddess whose devotees were
impelled to
commit in her name the awful crimes of Thuggee—the
ghastly Kali, worshipped even to this day with
rites too
abominable to be described—might well be a relic of
a
system which had to be swept away even at the cost
of the
submergence of a continent, and the loss of
sixty-five million
human lives.
3. Human Artificials.
We have now to consider a class
of
entities which, though it contains but very few
individuals,
has acquired from its intimate connection with one
of the
great movements of modern times an importance
entirely out
of proportion to its numbers. It seems doubtful
whether it
should appear under the first or third of our main
divisions;
but, though certainly human, it is so far removed
from the
course of ordinary evolution, so entirely the
product of a will
outside of its own, that.99
it perhaps falls most naturally into place among
the artificial
beings.
The easiest way of describing it will be to
commence with
its history, and to do that we must once more look
back to
the great Atlantean race. In thinking of the Adepts
and
schools of occultism of that remarkable people our
minds
instinctively revert to the evil practices of which
we hear so
much in connection with their latter days; but we
must not
forget that before that age of selfishness and
degradation the
mighty civilization of Atlantis had brought forth
much that
was noble and worthy of admiration, and that among
its
leaders were some who now stand upon the loftiest pinnacles
as yet attained by man.
Among the lodges for occult study preliminary to
initiation formed by the Adepts of the good Law was
one in a
certain part of America which was then tributary to
one of the
great Atlantean monarchs—"the Divine Rulers of
the Golden
Gate"; and though it has passed through many
and strange
vicissitudes, though it has had to move its
headquarters from
country to country as each in turn was invaded by
the jarring
elements of a later civilization, that lodge still
exists even at
the present day observing still the same old-world
ritual even
teaching as a sacred and hidden language the same
Atlantean
tongue which was used at its foundation so many
thousands
of years ago.
It still remains what it was from the first a lodge
of
occultists of pure and philanthropic aims, which
can lead
those students whom it finds worthy no
inconsiderable
distance on the road to knowledge, and confers such
psychic
powers as are in its gift only after the most
searching tests as
to the fitness of the candidate. Its teachers
do.100
not stand upon the Adept level, yet hundreds have
learnt
through it how to set their feet upon the path
which has led
them to Adeptship in
later lives; and though it is not directly
a part of the Brotherhood of the Himalayas, there
are some
among the latter who have themselves been connected
with it
in former incarnations, and therefore retain a more
than
ordinarily friendly interest in its proceedings.
The chiefs of this lodge, though they have always
kept
themselves and their society strictly in the
background, have
nevertheless done what they could from time to time
to assist
the progress of truth in the world. Some
half-century ago, in
despair at the rampant materialism which seemed to
be
stifling all spirituality in Europe and America
they
determined to make an attempt to combat it by
somewhat
novel methods—in point of fact to offer
opportunities by
which any reasonable man could acquire absolute
proof of
that life apart from the physical body which it was
the
tendency of science to deny. The phenomena
exhibited were
not in themselves absolutely new, since in some
form or
other we may hear of them all through history; but
their
definite organization—their production as it were
to order—
these were features distinctly new to the modern
world.
The movement which they thus on foot gradually grew
into the vast fabric of modern Spiritualism, and
though it
would perhaps be unfair to hold the originators of
the
scheme directly responsible for many of the results
which
have followed, we must admit that they have
achieved their
purpose to the extent of converting vast numbers of
people
from a belief in nothing in particular to a firm
faith in at any
rate some kind of future life. This is
undoubtedly.101
a magnificent result, though there are those who
think that it
has been attained at too great a cost.
The method adopted was to take some ordinary person
after death, arouse him thoroughly upon the astral
plane,
instruct him to a certain extent in the powers and
possibilities
belonging to it, and then put him in charge of a
Spiritualistic
circle. He in his turn "developed other
departed personalities
along the same line, they all acted upon those who
sat at their
seances,
and "developed" them as mediums; and so
spiritualism grew and flourished. No doubt living
members
of the original lodge occasionally manifested
themselves in
astral form at some of the circles—perhaps they may
do so
even now; but in most cases they simply gave such
direction
and guidance as they considered necessary to the persons
they had put in charge. There is little doubt that
the
movement increased so much more rapidly than they
had
expected that it soon got quite beyond their
control, so that,
as has been said, for many of the later
developments they can
only be held indirectly responsible.
Of course the intensification of the astral-plane
life in
those persons who were thus put in charge of
circles
distinctly delayed their natural progress; and
though the idea
had been that anything lost in this way would be
fully atoned
for by the good karma gained by helping to lead
others to the
truth, it was soon found that it was impossible to
make use of
a "spirit-guide" for any length of time
without doing him
cases such "guides" serious and permanent
injury. In some
cases such "guides" were therefore
withdrawn, and others
substituted for them in others it was considered
for various
reasons undesirable make such a change, and then a
very
remarkable expedient was adopted which gave rise to
the
curious class of creatures have called "human
artificials.".102
The higher principles of the original
"guide" were allowed
to pass on their long-delayed evolution into the
heaven-world,
but the shade which he left behind him was taken
possession of, sustained, and operated upon so that
it might
appear to its admiring circle practically just as
before. This
seems at first to have been done by members of the
lodge
themselves, but apparently that arrangement was
found
irksome or unsuitable, or perhaps was considered a
waste of
force, and the same objection applied to the use
for this
purpose of an artificial elemental; so it was
eventually
decided that the departed person who would have
been
appointed to succeed the late
"spirit-guide" should still do so,
but should take possession of the latter's shade or
shell, and
in fact simply wear his appearance.
It is said that some members of the lodge objected
to this
on the ground that though the purpose might be
entirely
good a certain amount of deception was involved;
but the
general opinion seems to have been that as the
shade really
was the same, and contained something at any rate
of the
original lower mind, there was nothing that could
be called
deception in the matter. This, then, was the
genesis of the
human artificial entity, and it is understood that
in some
cases more than one such change has been made
without
arousing suspicion, though on the other hand some
investigators of spiritualism have remarked on the
fact that
after a considerable lapse of time certain
differences
suddenly became observable in the manner and
disposition
of a "spirit." It is needless to say that
none of the Adept
Brotherhood has ever undertaken the formation of an
artificial entity of this sort, though they not
interfere with any
one who thought it right to take such a course. A
weak point
in the arrangement is.103
that many others besides the original lodge may
adopt this
plan, and there is nothing whatever to prevent
black
magicians from supplying communicating
"spirits"—as,
indeed, they have been known to do.
With this class we conclude our survey of the
inhabitants
of the astral plane. With the reservations
specially made
some few pages back, the catalogue may be taken as
a fairly
complete one; but it must once more be emphasized
that this
treatise claims only to sketch the merest outline
of a very vast
subject, the detailed elaboration of which would
need a
lifetime of study and hard work..PHENOMENA.
THOUGH in the course of this paper various,
super-physical
phenomena have been mentioned and to some
extent explained, it will perhaps before concluding
be
desirable so far to recapitulate as to give a list
of those which
are most frequently met with by the student of
these subjects,
and to show by which of the agencies we have
attempted to
describe they are usually caused. The resources of
the astral
world, however, are so varied that almost any
phenomenon
with which we are acquainted can be produced in
several
different ways, so that it is only possible to lay
down general
rules in the matter.
Apparitions or ghosts furnish a very good instance
of the
remark just made, for in the loose manner in which
the words
are ordinarily used they may stand for almost any
inhabitant
of the astral plane. Of course psychically
developed people
are constantly seeing such things, but for an ordinary
person
to "see a ghost," as the common
expression runs, one of two
things must happen: either that ghost must
materialize, or that
person must have a temporary flash of psychic
perception.
But for the fact that neither of these events is a
common one,
ghosts would be met with in our streets as
frequently as
living people.
Churchyard
Ghosts. If the ghost is
seen hovering about
a grave it is probably the etheric shell of a
newly-buried
person, though it may be
104.105
the astral body of a living man haunting in sleep
the tomb of
a friend; or again, it may be a materialized
thought-form—
that is, an artificial elemental created by the
energy with
which a man thinks of himself as present at that
particular
spot. These varieties would be easily distinguishable
one
from the other by any one accustomed to use astral
vision,
but an unpractised person
would be quite likely to call them
vaguely "ghosts."
Apparitions of
the Dying. Apparitions at
the time of
death are by no means uncommon, and are very often
really
visits paid by the astral form of the dying man
just before
what we elect to call the moment of dissolution;
though here
again they are quite likely to be thought-forms
called into
being by his earnest wish to see some friend once
more
before he passes into an unfamiliar condition.
There are
some instances in which the visit is paid just
after the
moment of death instead of just before, and in such
a case
the visitor is really a ghost; but for various
causes this form
of apparition is far less frequent than the other.
Haunted
Localities. Apparitions at
the spot where some
crime was committed are usually thought-forms
projected by
the criminal, who, whether living or dead, but most
especially
when dead, is perpetually thinking over again and
again the
circumstances of his action. Since these thoughts
are
naturally specially vivid in his mind on the
anniversary of the
original crime, it is often only on that occasion
that the
artificial elementals which he creates are strong
enough to
materialize themselves to ordinary sight a fact
which account,
for the periodicity of some manifestations of this
class..106
Another point in reference to such phenomena is,
that
wherever any tremendous mental disturbance has
taken place,
wherever overwhelming terror, pain, sorrow, hatred,
or indeed
any kind of intense passion has been felt, an
impression of
so very marked a character has been made upon the
astral
light that a person with even the faintest glimmer
of psychic
faculty cannot but be deeply impressed by it. It
would need
but a slight temporary increase of sensibility to
enable him to
visualize the entire scene—to see the event in all
its detail
apparently taking place before his eyes—and in such
a case
he would of course report that the place was
haunted, and
that he had seen a ghost.
Indeed, people who are as yet unable to see
psychically
under any circumstances are frequently very
unpleasantly
impressed when visiting such places as we have
mentioned.
There are many, for example, who feel uncomfortable
when
passing the site of Tyburn
Tree, or cannot stay in the
Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud's
though they may
not be in the least aware that their discomfort is
due to the
dreadful impressions in the astral light which
surround
places and objects redolent of horror and crime,
and to the
presence of the loathsome astral entities which
always swarm
about such centres.
Family Ghosts. The family ghost, whom we generally
find in the stock stories of the supernatural as an
appanage of
the feudal castle, may be either a thought-form or
an
unusually vivid impression in the astral light, or
again he may
really be an earth-bound ancestor still haunting
the scenes in
which his thoughts and hopes centred
during life..107
Bell-ringing,
Stone-throwing, &c. Another class
of
hauntings which take the form of bell-ringing,
stone-throwing,
or the breaking of crockery, has already been
referred to, and is almost invariably the work of
elemental
forces, either set blindly in motion by the clumsy
efforts of
an ignorant person trying to attract the attention
of is
surviving friends, or intentionally employed by
some
childishly mischievous nature-spirit.
Fairies. The nature-spirits are also responsible for
whatever of truth there may be in all the strange
fairy stories
which are so common in certain parts of the
country.
Sometimes a temporary accession of clairvoyance,
which is
by no means uncommon among the inhabitants of
lonely
mountainous regions, enables some belated wayfarer
to
watch their joyous gambols; sometimes strange
tricks are
played upon some terrified victim, and a glamour is
cast over
him, making him, for example, see houses and people
where
he knows none really exist. And this is frequently
no mere
momentary delusion, for a man will sometimes go
through
quite a long series of imaginary but most striking
adventures,
and then suddenly find that all his brilliant
surroundings
have vanished in a moment, leaving him standing in
some
lonely valley or on some wind-swept plain. On the
other
hand, it is by no means safe to accept as founded on
fact all
the popular legends on the subject, for the
grossest
superstition is often mingled with the theories of
the
peasantry about these beings, as was shown by a
recent
terrible murder case in Ireland.
To the same entities must he attributed a large portion
of
what are called physical phenomena at
spiritualistic
seances—indeed,
many a seance has been given entirely
by
these mischievous creatures. Such a performance might.easily include many very striking items, such as the
answering of questions and delivery of pretended
messages.108
by raps or tilts, the exhibition of "spirit
lights," the apport of
objects from a distance, the reading of thoughts
which were
in the mind of any person present, the
precipitation of
writings or drawings, an and even materializations.
In fact, the nature-spirits alone, if any of them
happened to
he disposed to take the trouble, could give a seance equal to
the most wonderful of which we read; for though
there may
be certain phenomena which they would not find it
easy to
reproduce, their marvellous power of glamour would
enable
them without difficulty to persuade the entire
circle that these
phenomena also had duly occurred—unless, indeed,
there
were present a trained observer who understood
their arts
and knew how to defeat them. As a general rule,
whenever
silly tricks or practical jokes are played at a seance we may
infer the presence either of low-class
nature-spirits, or of
human beings who were of a sufficiently degraded
type to
find pleasure in such idiotic performances during
life.
Communicating
Entities. As to the
entities who may
"communicate" at a seance,
or may obsess and speak
through an entranced medium, their name is simply
legion;
there is hardly a single class among all the varied
inhabitants
of the astral plane from whose ranks they may not
be drawn,
though after the explanations given it will be
readily
understood that the chances are very much against
their
coming from a high one. A manifesting
"spirit" is often
exactly what it professes to be, but often also it
is nothing of
the kind; and for the ordinary sitter there is
absolutely no
means of distinguishing the true from the false,
since the
extent to which a being having all the resources of
the astral
plane at his command can delude a person on the
physical
plant is so great that no reliance.109
can be placed even on what seems the most
convincing
proof.
If something manifests which announces itself as a
man's
long-lost brother, he can have no certainty that
its claim is a
just one. If it tells him of some fact known only
to that
brother and to himself, he remains unconvinced, for
he
knows that it might easily have read the
information from his
own mind, or from his surroundings in the astral
light. Even
if it goes still further and tells him something
connected with
his brother, of which he himself is unaware, but
which he
afterwards verifies, he still realizes that even
this may have
been read from the astral record, or that what he
sees before
him may be only the shade of his brother, and so
possess his
memory without in any way being himself. It is not
for one
moment denied that important communications have
sometimes been made at seances
by entities who in such
cases have been precisely what they said they were;
all that is
claimed is that it is quite impossible for the
ordinary person
who visits a seance
ever to be certain that he is not being
cruelly deceived in one or other of half a dozen
different
ways.
There have been a few cases in which members of the
lodge of occultists referred to above is originating
the
spiritualistic movement have themselves given
through a
medium, a series of valuable teachings on deeply
inter sting
subjects, but this has invariably been at strictly
private family
seances,
not at public performances for which money has
been paid.
Astral
Resources. To understand
the method, by which
a large class of physical phenomena are produced,
it is
necessary to have some comprehension of the various.resources mentioned above, Much a.110
person functioning on the astral plane finds at his
command;
and this is a branch of the subject which it is by
no means
easy to make clear, especially as it is hedged
about with
certain obviously necessary restrictions. It may
perhaps help
us if we remember that the astral plane may be
regarded as in
many ways only an extension of the physical, and
the idea
that matter may assume the etheric state (in which,
though
intangible to us, it is yet purely physical) may
serve to show
us how the one melts into the other. In fact, in
the Hindu
conception of Jagrat, or
"the waking state," the physical and
astral planes are combined, its seven subdivisions
corresponding to the four conditions of physical
matter, and
the three broad division,; of astral matter which
have
previously been explained.
With this thought in our minds it is easy to move a
step
further, and grasp the idea that astral vision, or
rather astral
perception, may from one point of view be defined
as the
capability of receiving an enormously increased
number of
different sets of vibrations. In our physical
bodies one set of
slow vibrations is perceptible to us as sound,
another small
set of much more rapid vibrations affects us as
light; and
again another set as electric action; but there are
immense
numbers of intermediate vibrations which produce no
result
which our physical senses can cognize at all.
Now it will readily be seen that if all, or even
some only,
of these intermediates, with all the complications
producible
by differences of wave-length, are perceptible on
the astral
plane, our comprehension of nature might be very
greatly
increased on that level, and we might be able to
acquire much
information which is now hidden from us.
Clairvoyance. It is admitted that some of these vibra-.tions pass.111
through solid matter with perfect ease, so that this
enables us
to account scientifically for the peculiarities of
etheric vision,
though for astral sight the theory of the fourth
dimension
gives a neater and more complete explanation. It is
clear that
the mere possession of this astral vision by a being
would at
once account for his capability to produce many
results that
seem very wonderful to us such, for example, as the
reading
of a passage from a closed book; and when we
remember,
furthermore, that this faculty includes the power
of thought-reading
to the fullest extent, and also, when combined with
the knowledge of the projection of currents in the
astral light,
that of observing a desired object in almost any
part of the
world, we set that a good many of the phenomena of
clairvoyance are explicable even without rising
above this
level. I would refer any one who desires to study
more
closely this very interesting subject to my little
book on
Clairvoyance, in which its varieties are tabulated
and
explained, and numerous examples given.
Prevision and Second-Sight.
True, trained, and
absolutely reliable clairvoyance calls into
operation an
entirely different set of faculties, but as these
belong to a
higher plane than the astral, they form no part of
our present
subject. The faculty of accurate prevision, again,
appertains
altogether to that higher plane, yet flashes or
reflections of it
frequently show themselves to purely astral sight,
more
especially among simple-minded people who live
under
suitable conditions—what is called
"second-sight" among
the Highlanders of Scotland being a well-known
example.
Another fact which must not be forgotten is that
any
intelligent inhabitant of the astral plane is not
only able to.112
perceive these etheric vibrations, but can also—if
he has
learnt how it is done—adapt them to his own ends,
or
himself set them in motion.
Astral Force. It will be readily understood that super-physical
forces and the methods of managing them are not
subjects about which much can be written for
publication at
present, though there is reason to suppose that it
may not be
very long before at any rate some applications of
one or two
of them come to he known to the world at large; but
it may
perhaps be possible, without transgressing the
limits of the
permissible, to give so much of an idea of them as
shall be
sufficient to show in outline how certain phenomena
are
performed.
All who have much experience of spiritualistic seances at
which physical results are produced must at one
time or
another have seen evidence of the employment of
practically
resistless force in, for example, the instantaneous
movement
of enormous weights, and so on; and if of a
scientific turn of
mind, they may perhaps have wondered whence this
force
was obtained, and what was the leverage employed.
As usual
in connection with astral phenomena, there are
several ways
in which such work may have been done, but it will
be
enough for the moment to hint at four.
Etheric
Currents. First, there
are great etheric currents
constantly sweeping over the surface of the earth
from pole
to pole in volume which makes their power as
irresistible as
that of the rising tide, and there are methods by
which this
stupendous force may be safely utilized, though unskilful
attempts to control it would be fraught with
frightful danger.
Etheric Pressure.
Secondly, there is what can best be.described as an etheric pressure, somewhat corresponding
to,
though.113
immensely greater than, the atmospheric pressure.
In
ordinary life we are as little conscious of one of
these
pressures as we are of the other, but nevertheless
they both
exist, and if science were able to exhaust the
ether from a
given space, as it can exhaust the air, the one
could be proved
as readily as the other. The difficulty of doing
that lies in the
fact that matter in the etheric condition freely
interpenetrates
matter in all slates below it, so that there is as
yet no means
within the knowledge of our physicists by which any
given
body of ether can be isolated from the rest.
Practical
Occultism, however, teaches how this can be done,
and thus
the tremendous force of etheric pressure can be
brought into
play.
Latent Energy. Thirdly, there is a vast store of potential
energy which has become dormant in matter during
the
involution of the subtle into the gross, and by
changing the
condition of the matter some of this may be
liberated and
utilized, somewhat as latent energy in the form of
heat may
be liberated by a change in the condition of
visible matter.
Sympathetic
Vibration. Fourthly, many
striking
results, both great and small, may be produced by
an
extension of a principle which may be described as
that of
sympathetic vibration. Illustrations taken from the
physical
plane seem generally to misrepresent rather than
elucidate
astral phenomena, because they can never be more
than
partially applicable; but the recollection of two
simple facts
of ordinary life may help to make this important
branch of
our subject clearer, if we are careful not to push
the analogy
further than it will hold good..114
It is well known that if one of the wires of a harp
be made
to vibrate vigorously, its movement will call forth
sympathetic
vibrations in the corresponding strings of any
number of
harps placed round it, if they are tuned to exactly
the same
pitch. It is also well known that when a large body
of
soldiers crosses a suspension bridge it is
necessary for them
to break step, since the perfect regularity of
their ordinary
march would set up a vibration in the bridge which
would be
intensified by every step they took, until the
point of
resistance of the iron was passed, when the whole
structure
would fly to pieces.
With these two analogies in our minds (never
forgetting
that they are only partial ones) it may seem more
comprehensible that one who knows exactly at what
rate to
start his vibrations knows, so to speak, the
keynote of the
class of matter he wishes to affect should be able,
by
sounding that keynote, to call forth an immense
number of
sympathetic vibrations. When this is done on the
physical
plane no additional energy is developed; but on the
astral
plane there is this difference, that the matter
with which we
are dealing is far less inert, and so when called
into action by
these sympathetic vibrations it adds its own living
force to
the original impulse, which may thus be multiplied
many-fold;
and then by further rhythmic repetition of the
original
impulse, as in the case of the soldiers marching
over the
bridge, the vibrations may be so intensified that
the result is
out of all apparent proportion to the cause.
Indeed, it may be
said that there is scarcely any limit to the
conceivable
achievements of this force in the hands of a great
Adept who
fully comprehends its possibilities; for the very
building of
the Universe itself was but the result of the
vibrations set up
by the Spoken Word..115
Mantras. The class of mantras or spells which produce
their result not by controlling some elemental, but
merely by
the repetition of certain sounds, also depend for
their efficacy
upon this action of sympathetic vibration.
Disintegration.
The phenomenon of disintegration also
may be brought about by the action of extremely
rapid
vibrations, which overcome the cohesion of the
molecules of
the object operated upon. A still higher rate of
vibrations of a
somewhat different type will separate these
molecules into
their constituent atoms. A body reduced by these
means to
the etheric condition can be moved by an astral
current from
one place to another with very great rapidity; and
the moment
that the force which has been exerted to put it
into that
condition is withdrawn it will be forced by the
etheric
pressure to resume its original condition.
Students often at first find it difficult to
understand how
in such au experiment the shape of the article
dealt with can
be preserved. It has been remarked that if any
metallic
object—say, for example, a key—be melted and raised
to a
vaporous state by heat, when the heat is withdrawn
it will
certainly return to the solid state, but it will no
longer be a
key, but merely a lump of metal. The point is well
taken,
though as a matter of fact the apparent analogy
does not hold
good. The elemental essence which informs the key
would
be dissipated by the alteration in its
condition—not that the
essence itself can be affected by the action of
beat, but that
when its temporary body is destroyed (as a solid)
it pours
back into the great reservoir of such essence, much
as the
higher principles of a man, though entirely
unaffected by
heat or cold,.116
are yet forced out of a physical body when it is
destroyed by
fire.
Consequently, when what had been the key cooled
down
into the solid condition again, the elemental
essence (of the
"earth" or solid class) which poured back
into it would not
be in any way the same as that which it contained
before, and
there would be no reason why the same shape should
be
retained. But a man who disintegrated a key for the
purpose
of removing it by astral currents from one place to
another,
would be very careful to hold the same elemental
essence in
exactly the same shape until the transfer was
completed, and
then when his will-force was removed it would act
as a
mould into which the solidifying particles would
flow, or
rather round which they would be re-aggregated.
Thus
unless the operator's power of concentration
failed, the shape
would be accurately preserved.
It is in this way that objects are sometimes
brought almost
instantaneously from great distances at
spiritualistic seances,
and it is obvious that when disintegrated they
could be
passed with perfect ease through any solid
substance, such,
for example, as the wall of a house or the side of
a locked
box, so that what is commonly called "the
passage of matter
through matter" is seen, when properly
understood, to be as
simple as the passage of water through a eve, or of
a gas
through a liquid in some chemical experiment.
Materialization.
Since it is possible by an alteration
of
vibrations to change matter from the solid to the
etheric
condition, it will be comprehended that it is also
possible to
reverse the process and to bring etheric, matter
into the solid
state. As the one process explains the phenomenon
of
disintegration,.117
so does the other that of materialization; and just
as in the
former case a continued effort of will is necessary
to prevent
the object from resuming its original state, so in
exactly the
same way in the latter phenomenon a continued
effort is
necessary to prevent the materialized matter from
relapsing
into the etheric condition.
In the materializations seen at an ordinary seance, such
matter as may be required is borrowed as far as possible
from the medium's etheric double—an operation which
is
prejudicial to his health, and also undesirable in
various other
ways. Thus is explained the fact that the
materialized form is
usually strictly confined to the immediate neighbourhood of
the medium, and is subject to an attraction which
is
constantly drawing it back to the body from which
it came,
so that if kept away from the medium too long the
figure
collapses, and the matter which composed it, return
into the
etheric condition, rushes back instantly to its
source.
In some cases there is no doubt that dense and
visible
physical matter also is temporarily removed from
the body of
the medium, however difficult it may be for us to
realize the
possibility of such a transfer. I have myself seen
instances in
which this phenomenon undoubtedly took place, and
was
evidenced by a very considerable loss of weight in
the
medium's physical body. Similar cases are described
in
Colonel Olcott's People
from the Other Worlds, and in Un
Cas de Dematerialisation,
by M. A. Aksakow.
Why Darkness is
Required. The reason why
the beings
directing a seance find
it easier to operate in darkness or in
very subdued light will now be manifest, since
their power
would usually be insufficient to.118
hold together a materialized form or even a
"spirit hand" for
more than a very few seconds amidst the intense
vibrations
set up by brilliant light.
The habitues of
seances will no doubt have noticed that
materializations are of three kinds:—First, those
which are
tangible but not visible; second, those which are
visible but
not tangible; and third, those which are both
visible and
tangible. To the first kind, which is much the most
common,
belong the invisible spirit hands which so
frequently stroke
the faces of the sitters or carry small objects
about the room,
and the vocal organs from which the "direct
voice" proceeds.
In this case, an order of matter is being used
which can
neither reflect nor obstruct light, but which is
capable under
certain conditions of setting up vibrations in the
atmosphere
which affect us as sound.
Spirit
Photographs. A variation of
this class is that kind
of partial materialization which, though incapable
of
reflecting any light that we can see, is yet able
to affect some
of the ultra-violet rays, and can therefore make a
more or less
definite impression upon the camera, and so provide
us with
what are known as "spirit photographs."
When there is not sufficient power available to
produce a
perfect materialization we sometimes get the
vaporous-looking
form which constitutes our second class, and in
such
a case the "spirits" usually warn their
sitters that the forms
which appear must not be touched. In the rarer case
of a full
materialization there is sufficient power to hold
together, at
least for a few moments, a form which can be both
seen and
touched.
When an Adept or pupil finds it necessary for any.purpose to materialize his mental or astral vehicle, he
does
not draw upon either his own etheric double or any
one.119
else since he has been taught how to extract the
matter which
he requires directly from the surrounding ether.
Reduplication. Another phenomenon closely connected
with this part of the subject is that of
reduplication, which is
produced by simply forming a perfect mental image
of the
object to be copied, and then gathering about that
mould the
necessary astral and physical matter. Of course for
this
purpose it is necessary that every particle,
interior as well as
exterior, of the object to be duplicated should be
held
accurately in view simultaneously, and consequently
the
phenomenon is one which requires considerable power
of
concentration to perform. Persons unable to extract
the
matter required directly from the surrounding ether
have
sometimes borrowed it from the material of the
original
article, which in this case would be
correspondingly reduced
in weight.
Precipitation. We read a good deal in Theosophical
literature about the precipitation of letters or
pictures. This
result, like everything else, may be obtained in
several ways.
An Adept wishing to communicate with some one might
place a sheet of paper before him, form a mental
image of the
writing—which he wished to appear upon it, and draw
from
the ether the matter wherewith to objectify that
linage; or if he
preferred to do so it would be equally easy for him
to
produce the same result upon a sheet of paper lying
before
his correspondent, whatever might be the distance
between
them.
A third method which, since it saves time, is much
more
frequently adopted, is to impress the whole substance
of the
letter on the mind of some pupil, and leave him to
do the
mechanical work of precipitation. That pupil
would.120
then take his sheet of paper, and, imagining he saw
the letter
written thereon in his Master's hand, would proceed
to
objectify the writing as before described. If he
found it
difficult to perform simultaneously the two
operations of
drawing his material from the surrounding ether and
precipitating the writing on the paper, he might
have either
ordinary ink or a small quantity of coloured powder on the
table beside him, which, being already dense
matter, could be
drawn upon more readily.
It is of course obvious that the possession of this
power
would be a very dangerous weapon in the hands of an
unscrupulous person, since it is just as easy to
imitate one
man's handwriting as another's, and it would be
impossible to
detect by any ordinary means a forgery committed in
this
manner. A pupil definitely connected with any
Master has
always an infallible test by which he knows whether
any
message really emanates from that Master or not,
but for
others the proof of its origin must always be
solely in the
contents of the letter and the spirit breathing
through it, as the
handwriting, however cleverly imitated is of
absolutely no
value as evidence.
As to speed, a pupil new to the work of
precipitation
would probably be able to image only a few words at
a time,
and would, therefore, get on hardly more rapidly
than if he
wrote his letter in the ordinary way, but a more
experienced
individual who could visualize a whole page or
perhaps the
entire letter at once would get through his work
with greater
facility. It is in this manner that quite long
letters are
produced in a few seconds at a seance.
When a picture has to be precipitated the method is
precisely the same, except that here it is
absolutely.121
necessary that the entire scene should be
visualized at once,
and if many colours are required there is the
additional
complication of manufacturing them, keeping them
separate,
and reproducing accurately the exact tints of the
scene to be
represented. Evidently there is scope here for the
exercise of
the artistic faculty, and it must not be supposed
that every
inhabitant of the astral plane could by this method
produce
an equally good picture; a man who had been a great
artist in
life, and had therefore learnt how to see and what
to look for,
would certainly be very much more successful than
the
ordinary person if he attempted precipitation when
on the
astral plane after death.
Slate-writing. The slate-writing, for the production of
which under test conditions some of the greatest
mediums
have been so famous, is sometimes produced by
precipitation, though more frequently the fragment
of pencil
enclosed between the slates is guided by a spirit
hand, of
which only just the tiny points sufficient to grasp
it are
materialized.
Levitation. An occurrence which occasionally takes
place at seances,
and more frequently among Eastern Yogis,
is what is called levitation—that is, the floating
of a human
body in the air. No doubt when this takes place in
the case of
a medium, he is often simply upborne
by "spirit hands," but
there is another and more scientific method of
accomplishing
this feat which is always used in the East, and
occasionally
here also. Occult science is acquainted with a
means of
neutralizing or even entirely reversing the
attraction of
gravity, and it is obvious that by the judicious
use of this
power all the phenomena of levitation may be easily
produced. It was no doubt by a.122
knowledge of this secret that some of the air-ships
of ancient
India and Atlantis were raised from the earth and
made light
enough to be readily moved and directed; and not
improbably the same acquaintance with nature's
finer forces
greatly facilitated the labours
of those who raised the
enormous blocks of stone sometimes used in
cyclopean
architecture, or in the building of the Pyramids
and
Stonehenge.
Spirit Lights. With the knowledge of the forces of
nature which the resources of the astral plane
place at the
command of its inhabitants the production of what
are called
"spirit lights" is a very easy matter,
whether they be of the
mildly phosphorescent or the dazzling electrical
variety, or
those curious dancing globules of light into which
a certain
class of fire elementals so readily transform
themselves.
Since all light consists simply of vibrations of
the ether, it is
obvious that any one who knows how to set up these
vibrations can readily produce any kind of light
that he
wishes.
Handling Fire. It is by the aid of the etheric elemental
essence also that the remarkable feat of handling
fire
unharmed is generally performed, though there are
as usual
other ways in which it can be done. The thinnest
layer of
etheric substance can be so manipulated as to be
absolutely
impervious to heat, and when the hand of a medium
or sitter
is covered with this he may pick up burning coal or
red-hot
iron with perfect safety.
Transmutation. Most of the occurrences of the seance-room
have now been referred to, but there are one or two
of
the rarer phenomena of the outer world which must
not he
left quite without mention in our list. The
transmutation of
metals is commonly supposed to.123
be a mere dream of the mediaeval alchemists, and no
doubt in
most cases the description of the phenomenon was
merely a
symbol of the purification of the soul; yet there
seems to be
some evidence that it was really accomplished by
them on
several occasions, and there are petty magicians in
the East
who profess to do it under test conditions even
now. Be that
as it may, it is evident that since the ultimate
atom is one and
the same in all substances, and it is only the
methods of its
combination that differ, any one who possessed the
power of
reducing a piece of metal to the atomic condition
and of re-arranging
its atoms in some other form would have no
difficulty in effecting transmutation to any extent
that he
wished.
Repercussion. The principle of sympathetic vibration
mentioned above also provides the explanation of
that
strange and little-known phenomenon called
repercussion, by
means of which any injury done to, or any mark made
upon,
the materialized body in the course of its
wanderings will be
reproduced in the physical body. We find traces of
this in
some of the evidence given at trials for witchcraft
in the
middle ages, in which it is not infrequently stated
that some
wound given to the witch when in the form of a dog
or a wolf
was found to have appeared in the corresponding
part of her
human body. The same strange law has sometimes led
to in
entirely unjust accusation of fraud against a
medium,
because, for example, some colouring
matter rubbed upon
the hand of a materialized "spirit" was
afterwards found
upon his hand—the explanation being that in that
case, as so
often happens, the "spirit" was simply the
medium's etheric
double, forced by the guiding influences to take
some form
other than his own. In fact these two parts.124
of the physical body are so intimately connected
that it is
impossible to touch the keynote of one without
immediately
setting up exactly corresponding vibrations in the other..CONCLUSION.
IT is hoped that any reader who has been
sufficiently
interested to follow this treatise thus far, may by
this time
have a general idea of the astral plane and its
possibilities,
such as will enable him to understand and fit into
their
proper places in its scheme any facts in connection
with it
which he may pick up in his reading. Though only
the
roughest sketch has been given of a very great
subject,
enough has perhaps been said to show the extreme
importance of astral perception in the study of
biology,
physics, chemistry, astronomy, medicine, and
history, and the
great impulse which might be given to all these
sciences by
its development.
Yet its attainment should never be regarded as an
end in
itself, since any means adopted with that object in
view
would. inevitably lead to what is called in the
East the laukika
method of development—a system by which certain
psychic
powers are indeed acquired, but only for the
present
personality; and since their acquisition is
surrounded by no
safeguards, the student is extremely likely to
misuse them.
To this class belong all systems which involve the
use of
drugs, invocation of elementals, or the practices
of Hatha
Yoga.
The other method, which is called the lokottara, consists
of Raj Yoga or spiritual
progress, and though it may be
somewhat slower than the other, whatever is
125.126
acquired along this line is gained for the
permanent
individuality, and never lost again, while the
guiding care of a
Master ensures perfect safety from misuse of power
as long
as his orders are scrupulously obeyed. The opening
of astral
vision must be regarded then only as a stage in the
development of something infinitely nobler—merely
as a
step, and a very small step, on that great Upward
Path which
leads men to the sublime heights of Adeptship, and beyond
even that through glorious vistas of wisdom and
power such
as our finite minds cannot now conceive.
Yet let no one think it an unmixed blessing to have
the
wider sight of the astral plane, for upon one in
whom that
vision is opened the sorrow and misery, the evil
and the
greed of the world press as an ever-present burden,
until he
often feels inclined to echo the passionate
adjuration of
Schiller: "Why hast thou cast me thus into the
town of the
ever-blind, to proclaim thine
oracle with the opened sense?
Take back this sad clear-sightedness; take from
mine eyes
this cruel light! Give me back my blindness—the
happy
darkness of my senses; take back thy dreadful
gift!" This
feeling is perhaps not an unnatural one in the
earlier stages
of the Path, yet higher sight and deeper knowledge
soon
bring to the student the perfect certainty that all
things are
working together for the eventual good of all—that
Hour after hour, like an opening flower,
Shall truth after truth expand;
For the sun may pale, and the stars may fail,