collected fruits of occult teaching (1920)

8/14/2019 Collected Fruits of Occult Teaching (1920)

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COLLECTED FRUITS

OFOCCULT TEACHING

BY

A. P. Sinnett

AUTHOR OF THE OCCULT WORLD, ESOTERIC BHUDDISM

THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL, ETC.

PHILADELPHIAJ. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

1920


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First Published in 1919Second Impression 1920

[All rights rtserved]


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PREFACETheosophical literature, from the outset of the greatmovement it inaugurated, has been largely concernedwith previously unknown laws governing the originand destinies of humanity, the birth and progres

>; of worlds, the coherent design of the Solar System. and, in short, with the interpretation, in the light of- : knowledge till recently reserved for a very few, of the-.' stupendous Divine purpose underlying physical mani-

festation. My own earlier books, The OccultWorld and Esoteric Buddhism, forecast ratherthan embodied teaching along such lines, revealingthe existence of those whom I called " the ElderBrethren of Humanity," who had risen above the levelof generally current civilization, and thus had touchwith the wisdom of the Divine Hierarchy. Anexperiment was in progress to ascertain if ordinaryculture had attained a stage at which it would appreci-ate a flood of new thought relating to a science loftierthan any dealing exclusively with phenomena per-ceptible to the physical senses, and in connection withthat experiment I was privileged to receive a con-siderable volume of information relating to the earlyhistory of mankind millions of years antedating therange of historical record ; also to the concatenationof worlds and the ultimate destinies of our own.Though crude and incomplete, this preliminarysketch of occult science and of the agency through

which, though unknown to the multitude, the purposeof creation was being worked out on the physicalplane, thrilled the readers of the message all over the

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6 Prefacecivilized world to an extent which gave rise to anorganization, the Theosophical Society, which nowcovers Great Britain, Europe generally, and theUnited States of America with innumerable branches .Fresh teaching and information relating to the greatsubjects enumerated above has meanwhile beenflowing into my hands, and much has been embodiedin my book, The Growth of the Soul; also, sincethe publication of that book, in a large number ofarticles in reviews, pamphlets, and " Transactions "of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society overwhich I preside. The present volume collects thesescattered contributions to our super-physical know-ledge, still growing and expanding in its scope andvalue. At some later date the fundamental principleslaid down in the earlier books, the illuminating inter-pretation of these in the essays now reproduced andfurther light on mysteries previously obscure, mayconstitute something resembling a complete spiritualscience. But students need not wait for this resultbefore assimilating the knowledge already acquired.During this life we are each of us " imprisoned in thefive senses," and, though thought reaches out farbeyond them, its range is limited by the capacity ofthe physical brain. In time that capacity willexpand. Ideas easily grasped by the man of modernculture are beyond the comprehension of the savage.The improved intellectual mechanism of futuregenerations will no doubt deal freely with conceptionswhich present culture cannot appreciate. Spiritualscience, however, is an infinitude, and no attempt tointerpret it in physical plane language will ever bemore than suggestive and alluring.But it is equally true that human faculty on thisplane of life will develop as time goes on under theinfluence of effort to expand its range. Unconsciouslyin most cases students of the spiritual science within


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Preface 7our reach will do more than profit by understandingit so far. They will have established a claim onNature for improved vehicles of consciousness inlater lives, and will have contributed to raise thelevel of human understanding. I am sure the ex-perience of many theosophists will show that withinthe limits of the current life ideas can now be easilyhandled in thought, which could not have been heldin the mind during earlier periods of study. Thesemay still defeat the resources of physical plane speech,but they forecast intellectual conditions that willultimately outrun those resources. That state ofthings should be a stimulus to theosophical study inwhatever direction it may tend, and few of the essaysin this volume will be found destitute of hints thatwill attract thought into some new channel ofspiritual, or, at least, of super-physical enlighten-ment.

In no direction, as we press forward exploring themysteries of Nature, may we expect to attain finality.Broad principles may be firmly established and atfirst they seem to be clearly outlined. Search fordetail soon renders the outline shadowy withoutsuggesting any distrust of the broad principle. Forexample, the most fundamental teaching of Theosophyin relation to current human life shows us Rein-carnation as essential to the spiritual growth of eachEgOj/ In one of the essays in this book on Theo-sophical Teachings liable to be Misunderstood, somuch detail is added to the original teaching on thissubject that when we absorb this the broad ideawithout that detail seems as likely to mislead as toinstruct. Earlier statements concerning themechanism of the Solar System, the planetary chains,the successive " manvantaras," etc., were vividlysignificant at first. They remain as revelations ofnatural truth that we can never lose touch with, but


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8 Prefacesurrounded by the later interpretation dealt with insome of the present essays, concerning the way inwhich the planetary chains are concatenated togetherand the way in which the manvantaras expand andcontract, the first sketches of the truth are seen tofail altogether in showing it illustrative of thebeautiful symmetry and purpose of the Divine design .Some readers of the earlier books are too easilysatisfied. The genuine occult student will never standstill. Henry V., preparing for battle at Agincourt,declared that : " If it be a sin to covet honour, I amthe most offending soul alive." And the occultstudent may think of knowledge the true knowledge,the comprehension and appreciation of Divine mani-festation in the same heroic spirit.


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CONTENTSPAGR

Preface - - 5This World's Place in the Universe - - 11Future Life and Lives - - - - 29Religion under Repair - - - - 48Religion under Repair : A Reply to Professor Lindsay 64The Occultism in Tennyson's Poetry - - - 79Creeds more or less Credible - - - - 93Imprisoned in the Five Senses - - - - inOur Visits to this World - - - - 129The Masters and their Methods of Instruction - 147Expanded Theosophical Knowledge - - - 160

The Nature of Consciousness.The Planetary Chain.The Astral World.The Infinite Future.

The Pyramids and Stonehenge - - - - 189Theosophical Teachings Liable to be Misunderstood 218The Super-Physical Laws of Nature - - - 238The Higher Occultism ----- 253The Objects of the Theosophical Society - - 262

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i o ContentsPACKThe Borderland of Science - - - -272

Astronomy, Overt and Occult.1. Nebulae.2. Within or Beyond our Universe.3. Planets, Stars and Atoms.

Meta-science.Atoms and EtherAtoms and Misunderstandings.

Archaeology: Relics of Antiquity ... 291Cataclysms and Earthquakes - 295Poetry and Theosophy ----- 304Note- ------- 308


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COLLECTED FRUITS OFOCCULT TEACHINGTHIS WORLD'S PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE

Religious emotion was, till recently, at war withscience especially indignant with astronomy fordisturbing primitive conceptions as to the way thisworld was first opened for business. But a boldapplication of the principle that biblical language neednot be taken at the foot of the letter gradually en-larged its interior meaning until the rotundity andannual revolution of the earth were fitted in to thestory told in Genesis. Evolution as accounting forthe human form then came within sight of a gloomytoleration if Modernists insisted on it. That, how-ever, which religious emotion has not yet quiterealized is the sublime truth that, the more we areenabled to penetrate the deep mysteries of Nature,the more profoundly reverent we become in contem-plating the impenetrable infinitudes of that DivinePower which operates alike in guiding the growth ofprotoplasm and the majestic mechanism of the SolarSystem. Critics who preferred when Darwin firstshattered the paraphernalia of medieval theology,like a bull in a china shop to remain on the side ofthe Angels, made the immense mistake of supposingthat the Angels (regarded as agents of Divinity)would be disestablished if we began to approach anunderstanding of the way they did their work. Aview growing familiar with some students of Nature


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12 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachinginvolves the idea that even natural forces are theexpression of conscious will on some exalted levels ofspiritual potency; that the so-called " laws " ofNature are definite Divine enactments not merelyblind attributes of matter. And we can hardly beginto form a rational conception of the world's develop-ment under Divine control without including thisidea in our thinking.The reconciliation of religion and science has beenadvancing by leaps and bounds of late, and

" SevenMen of Science," all of the foremost rank, recentlypublished a collection of addresses frankly declaringtheir belief in God, as a fundamental idea underlyingscientific study. The record of the old " Conflict '*is now ancient history. But this result is not a con-clusion. It is only a beginning. The seven scientificleaders, quite in agreement as regards the mainproposition, may be groping in various directionsin the search for a definite mental picture of the Godin whom they believe. Perhaps all would admit thatthe reality does not lend itself to the formation ofa mental picture. Religion reconstructed on scientificprinciples must build up a conception of Divinity byworking from below upward. The earlier fashionattempted to work from above downward. " In thebeginning " certain things happened, we were toldby teachers who, quite reasonably in dealing withyoung people, ignored the idea that Eternity has nobeginning. But now that embryology must berecognized as a method of creation when we talk aboutthe human form we feel the need of an embryologyas applied to planetary creation. And so we cometo recognize the subtle, mysterious laws of organicgrowth not as displacing the Divine creative Will,,but as the agency by which it is fulfilled in physicalmanifestation.So by degrees, with help available at the present day,.


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This World's Place in the Universe 1 3for those especially who realize that human conscious-ness can be reached by other channels of perceptionbesides the five senses, we reach the idea that Divineagency is worked out through an enormously elaborateand magnificent hierarchy of Spiritual Beings, beyondwhom, in dazzling and (as yet) impenetrable mystery,there exists an incomprehensibly sublime Power, ofwhom the Sun may be thought of as the physicalsymbol.In the mental search for God we may pause at thisstage of the effort. Human intelligence is morelimited in its scope than early philosophers imagined,but is quite limitless as regards its expectations. Itpresumes to talk about the Divine power whichaccounts for the whole universe. Distant stars,though to be counted by millions and mostly giganticcompared with the star, or Sun, to which we belong,must come into the same creative scheme as thesparrows in Kensington Gardens . The Sunday Schoolteacher can be content with nothing less than a Godwho is responsible for the Milky Way as well as forthe milky mothers of the field. And medievalpainters have even presented us with his portrait.In some foreign gallery I have seen him includedin a family group the Father with a long beard is inan armchair with the Third Person of the Trinityas a pigeon perched on the back, and the Son in achair of somewhat lesser dignity beside him. En-lightened members of the English Church wouldgenerally be shocked at this grossly materialisticpresentation of the Divine Mystery, forgetful of theirown declaration of belief that Christ ascended intoHeaven and " sitteth on the right hand of God, theFather Almighty." From The Fudge Family inParis we learn that a certain forcible expression,impossible in English, " doesn't sound half so shockingin French," and on the same principle an idea merely


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14 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingformulated in words that no one stops to invest witha meaning is not half so shocking as the same ideadepicted on canvas by means of oil colour.

In the days of the old " Conflict " those who dealtwith it Draper and others dwelt especially on thesavage ferocity with which the early Church en-deavoured to stifle astronomical discovery. Faith,at that time, might have been correctly described as" the faculty that enables, us to believe what we knowto be untrue . " It was endangered by the astronomicalemphasis of the untruthfulness in question, but in thelong run, as astronomy held the field, faith fell intoline with discovery, and in spite of ecclesiasticalopposition became ennobled in character. The Godof a Semitic tribe might with an effort of imaginationbe fitted into an armchair. The God of a SolarSystem, including a central Sun many thousandtimes bigger than the Earth and the orbit of Neptunethousands of million miles in diameter was in adifferent order of magnitude. And if we attemptto strain imagination by looking upward in thoughtat that inconceivable splendour, we may realize thefutility of the effort by attempting to gaze directlywith open eyes on a fine day at the physical Sun.Human sight will not tolerate the unveiled light.Human understanding will not bring the God-idea,once cleared of blundering theology, to a definite focus.But astronomical discovery does not come to astandstill even after measuring the orbit of Neptuneand accounting for the canals of Mars, nor afterattempting, however unsuccessfully, to set timelimits to the radiant energy of the Sun. We are allagreed though astronomy affords scope for disagree-ment in some directions that the whole SolarSystem the Sun attended by his family of planetsis moving through space at about the rate of twelveto fourteen miles per second. Whither is it bound ?


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This World's Place in the Universe 15Greenwich authorities would hardly yet venture on adefinite reply, but we may if we* like indulge, inconnection with that question, in the fascinatingpursuit known to science as " extrapolation " theapplication to regions of thought outside the rangeof definite observation, of the assumption that lawsoperative within that range hold good to infinitudesbeyond. Almost all the Heavenly bodies quite allif we merely except meteorites and some cometsmove in elliptical orbits more or less closely approxi-mating to the circular form. Plainly, it is much moreprobable that the Sun's motion is in conformity withthis general principle, than that it is a blind rushin a straight course, which would infallibly in thelong run give rise to a cosmic catastrophe. If theuniformities of Nature are maintained, the Sun mustbe revolving in an orbit around some definite siderealcentre. Obviously such an orbit must be so vast thatany measurable arc will appear to be a straight line.Now I must venture to outrun even extrapolation inthe explanation I have to give. I have been permittedin the pages of the Nineteenth Century to maintain theposition that, in the course of the present " Armaged-don," Unseen Powers embodying loftier knowledgethan common humanity has yet reached are takingpart in the struggle. Some of us in conscious touchwith them are sometimes with their help enabledto anticipate scientific discovery. In that way Iwas concerned, some dozen years before the dis-covery of Radium, with anticipations relating to theconstitution of matter, ultimately verified by thatdiscovery and subsequent work based upon it.Happily those anticipations were published at thetime, so their character as a successful forecast is notopen to dispute. In another direction certain futureconclusions in connection with astronomy may beanticipated in their turn. The centre around which


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1 6 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingthe Solar System is gravitating will be found to bethe star Sirius. Common knowledge gives us anapproximate measure of some stellar distances. Thefigure accepted by astronomers for the moment asthe distance of Sirius, taking " light-years " as theunit, is 8.8, or call it eight and three-quarters. Alight-year is the distance light crosses in a year,moving at the rate of 186,000 miles per second. Soit would be inconvenient to give stellar distances inmiles. Moreover, there is a wide margin for possibleerrors in calculations concerned with the parallax ofstars. Perhaps it will be found that Sirius is a bitfarther off than the currently accepted calculationassumes, but anyhow the real distance is in the sameorder of magnitude. Estimates of the size andluminosity of Sirius vary very widely from 300 to1000 times the size and brightness of our Sun, buteither guess fits in with the main idea to be grasped.Obviously our Sun cannot be the only one that revolvesaround Sirius. Directly that idea is appreciated,we realize that Sirius must be the central sun of avast system, in which such suns as ours must be, toSirius, what the planets are to our Sun.That this is so, can only be ascertained definitely

by those in touch with sources of information not yetwithin general reach, but at all events, meanwhile,as a hypothesis, the statement is clearly in harmonywith the uniformities of Nature. To regard ourSolar System and all the others presumably repre-sented by the millions of stars in the sky, as scatteredat random about space would be insulting to SupremeWisdom and Omnipotence. The conception couldonly be acceptable to thinkers at the kindergartenstage. Certainly up to the middle of the last centurygrown and grave men did discuss the question whetherthis was the only inhabited world in the Universe,but increasing intelligence has rendered us at once


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This World's Place in the Universe 17wiser and more modest than when a doubt on thatsubject was possible. I need not go over the evidencethat makes an important group of astronomers certainthat Mars (to confine our attention for a moment toour own Solar System) is the abode of life not entirelyunlike our own. The other planets may not haveclimatic conditions like our own, but the resourcesof Nature may easily provide vehicles of life appro-priate to any conditions of temperature; while thoseof us who know something more about life, conscious-ness and spiritual growth than mere surgery wouldsuggest, regard with disdain the idea that any worldswhether around our sun or in the infinitudes ofspace can be mere inanimate masses of matterdestitute of the loftier purposes that life implies.

Just for the present all information relating to theSirian Cosmos must remain hypothetical until theastronomy of the future overtakes the forecast, butits value as illuminating reverent imaginationreaching in the direction of Divinity is very great.It helps us to realize that in all such upward reachingwe must blend with the idea of which we are insearch, the idea of infinity. In the search within thelimits of our own Solar System we are hopelesslydazzled long before we touch those limits. But theconception of the Sirian Cosmos shows us that in-comprehensible as the Solar Divinity may be" That " (our miserable word " he " is degrading insuch use) can only be in some dependent relationshipto the Divinity guiding the whole Sirian Cosmos; inother words that " God " is an infinite hierarchy.Faintly we realize that God when we think of theSirian Cosmos is, in some wholly incomprehensibleway, greater even (in a stupendous degree) thanGod, when we think of the Solar System and of thevarious worlds within it of which ours is one. And,indeed, human intelligence, limited in its grasp of

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1 8 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingdetail, unlimited when reaching out towards infinitude,perceives, the moment this last idea is touched, thatthe Sirian Cosmos itself must be in relationshipwith some still more expanded and sublime organism;that Sirius cannot be a stationary body but mustitself, attended by all its family of solar systems,be dependent on some other centre of energy, onsome other superior manifestation of the infinite God .It is futile even to speculate as to where or whatthat centre may be, but the feeling that it must existvaguely hints at a unity pervading the whole visibleuniverse. Along that line of thought, however, liesa mental bewilderment that bars further progress.We can play in imagination still with astronomicalfigures. The bright star Arcturus is said to be 140light-years distant from us, and yet it shines nearlyas brilliantly as Sirius. What must be its actualmagnitude and lustre ? What must be its place inthe universal scheme ? And some other stars ofalmost equivalent brilliancy are beyond parallacticmeasurement altogether. But the purpose which allfulfil must be within the grasp of infinite Divinity.

Science, growing more and more intimately weldedwith spiritual aspiration as human intelligence ex-pands, grants us some mental illumination as we seekto penetrate, so far as that may be possible, themysteries of the Divine Hierarchy. Certainly, ifwe turn our attention from the appalling magnitudesof astronomy to the phenomena of the infinitely little,the measurements we have to deal with are equallybewildering. Physicists tell us that a cubic centi-metre of water contains thirty trillions of molecules.That if a glass globe four inches in diameter wereabsolutely empty and air molecules admitted at therate of a hundred millions a second 50,000 yearswould elapse before the globe was full. Such figuresare more amusing than instructive, but they may


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This World's Place in the Universe 19help us, to some extent, in our attempt to formulatea conception of the Divine Hierarchy. The attributesof the physical molecules the laws they obey, areobviously as much an expression of Divine Will asthe forces that regulate the march of solar systemsin the Sirian Cosmos. Within our Solar System theDivine Hierarchy extends downward, as definitely as,beyond it, it extends upward ; and though, as weattempt to understand it in its lower levels, we shallsoon find mental difficulties almost as insuperable asthose attending efforts in the other direction, we can,with help from certain sources of information, arriveat some intelligible conclusions.Astronomy may still help us to some extent. The

conditions that must attend life in the various planetsof our system must obviously differ very widely.Temperature may vary from below that of ice to abovethat of steam. Vehicles of consciousness bodies ofwhatever matter may be suitable, must vary accord-ingly. We may safely assume that while some of thefundamental laws of Nature may hold good through-out the system, others, for example all appertainingto organic growth, may need local modification.Each world must be controlled, even as regards itsphysical manifestation, by appropriate DivineAgency. And very little progress beyond primitivetheology makes us sure that first of all as regards ourown world there are teeming regions of life that liebeyond the cognition of the physical senses. Talktherefore of our familiar planets should properlyrelate to planetary schemes, embracing much morethan the visible globes. So we reach the conceptionthat for each planetary scheme the Divine will ofthe whole Solar System must transmit itself througlian agency that is still so Divine in its character asto dazzle our mental sight.None the less a very important stage in our study


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20 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingof the Divine Hierarchy is reached when we realizethe principle of agency as working through it. Themind leaps to the conclusion that this principlemust be operative right down to the subtle activitiesof Nature that we are in the habit of summing up inthe word " Evolution." For the verification of thisconjecture we must obviously be dependent oninformation received from those sources of super-physical knowledge above referred to, such informa-tion in turn being only subject to the check imposedby our own critical faculties. Does it appeal to ourintelligence as essentially reasonable in its character ?Leaving that question to be determined later, I willfirst endeavour to describe the agency through whichthe purpose of the Divine Power presiding over theplanetary scheme to which this world belongs, appearsto be worked out in physical manifestation.We have to think of the Unseen realms of Nature asinhabited by hosts of spiritual beings concernedwith the direction of the forces (emanating fromsuper-Divine Will) which not merely guide organicgrowth but provide for the growth of the spiritualessence with which such growth is associated.Language is apt to break down in one's hands as ameans of conveying ideas that are inextricably blendedwith still more subtle underlying ideas. We areliving in a world the whole raison d'etre of whichresides in the opportunity it affords for the growth andexpansion of spiritual consciousness. The experiencesof consciousness in association with physical environ-ment are the conditions providing for its growth.We may plunge down in search of the beginnings ofsuch growth to levels of consciousness far below thoseof humanity. But leaving that vast area of thoughtuntrodden, the growth of spiritual consciousness asfocussed in humanity is itself under the guidance ofDivine agency whose perfect uniformity of intention,


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This World's Place in the Universe 21fulfilling the Divine purpose, would, if we couldsee only a little more clearly, present to imaginationa system of natural law on the moral plane as un-alterable as the natural laws relating to physicalmatter that we deal with in the chemist's laboratory.Those natural laws of the moral plane are entangledwith variable influences arising from human free will,but that only renders the task of the Divine agentswho guide them more delicate, not less specific.The first glimpses we get in this way, of the intricacyof the work carried out by the hosts of Divine agentsengaged in guiding the world's growth, prepare usto find that a distribution of function is carried out inthat wonderful realm of activity, so that while onegreat host is concerned with the growth of conscious-ness, another is concentrated on the task of guiding thegrowth of form of carrying out the idea that, forwant of a better comprehension of the process, we callthe principle of Evolution. And such agency worksagain in its contact with matter through lower agencyright down to the manipulation of the molecule.The Divine Hierarchy is infinite both ways; incon-ceivably exalted and inconceivably minute, but inthe direction of minutiae still conscious and purposeful.Intelligence, with a certain range of freedom withinlimits, guides not only the gradual improvement of thehuman form, pari passu with the progress of spiritualgrowth, but the humbler development of form in theanimal kingdom and even variation in the colouringof plants and flowers. The agency concerned withsuch work cannot be discerned by the physical senses,but finer senses can already sometimes cognize itsoperation, though most of us are still too young inevolution to have come into full possession of all thefaculties latent in human nature. " We are ancientsof the earth and in the morning of the times."So brief a sketch as this must be content in some


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22 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingdirections with mere faint hints. How do the Divineagents concerned, as declared above, with the evolu-tion of form translate their superphysical powers tothe physical plane ? The answer has to do withwhat may be called the semi-intelligent mechanismof Nature. The mere phrase is bewildering, but itdeals with certain aspects of Nature that science mustconcern itself with before long. " ElementalAgency " cannot properly be regarded as belongingto the Divine Hierarchy even in its lower levels, butit constitutes a vast subsidiary evolution by itself;cosmic in its character: related to much more thanthe interests of this world alone ; beginning on levelscommensurate with the electron in magnitude andimportance, rising to conditions in which definiteforms in certain fine orders of matter are identifiableby observers, with adequately clairvoyant senses, asassociated with specific functions in Nature. Ele-mentals constitute the link between will humanor Divine and physical manifestation. Obviouslythe subject is one of stupendous magnitude. No firecould burn, no plant could grow, no human beingcould live on the physical plane, and carry on all thatbusiness transacted within his body of which he iswholly unconscious, without elemental agency.When science comes to grapple with the intricacies ofthis so far hidden aspect of Nature, it will look backto its present condition as one barely emerging fromthe dark ages.Thus vast and complicated is the agency by whichDivine Will is fulfilled. But we have to struggle as

best we may with the idea of hierarchies withinhierarchies. The world is a theatre in which astupendous drama is in process of performance. Thescenery and decorations are provided by Divineagency, and the actors are responsible if we pushthe metaphor to its extreme limits for the parts


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This World's Place in the Universe 23they play. In other words, while Divine agencyinvests them with their opportunity, their own free willis left to determine the use they make of this. Butthey must not be allowed to wreck the whole under-taking by too gross a misuse of that free will. Thedrama is intended to have a happy ending. So overand above or apart from the hierarchies that providethe conditions Divine ordination provides for agoverning hierarchy that does not actually controlthe actors put words into their mouths, so to speak,or manage them like marionettes but causes themto feel disagreeable consequences from blundering;invests them with larger consciousness as theywillingly fall into line with the Divine idea. Ofcourse that governing hierarchy is merged in itsloftier levels with the superior agents of infiniteDivinity, but on its less exalted levels is in closetouch with our own humanity. This thought leadsup to what is perhaps the most important idea of allthat I have been endeavouring to suggest. Humanityitself recruits the governing hierarchy. Its memberson the first important level above ordinary humanityhave been, at some remote periods in the past, humanbeings like (the best of) ourselves. We speak of themnow, those of us who have the privilege of more orless knowing them, as great adepts, Masters of Wisdom,Brothers of the Great White Lodge, or by any otherphrases approximately appropriate. They are innormal periods equal to the task under Divineinspiration of which they, of course, are vividlyconscious of carrying on the government of theworld in so far as it needs adjustment or interference.They are our Allies in this ghastly abnormal periodin which humanity is confronted by an attack fromsuch elevated levels of spiritual potency that, greatas their power undoubtedly is, they can only for themoment resist the awful unseen foe inspiring our


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24 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingphysical plane enemies, whilst awaiting intervention,ultimately certain if it becomes necessary, from loftylevels of Divine Power.

Will this view of the great current crisis seem, tosome critics, at variance with the main idea that thisworld, like all others, is governed by an infiniteDivine Hierarchy of quite limitless capacity anddirecting human evolution from the realms of infiniteLove ? The problem has been dealt with at somelength in articles for the Nineteenth Century?- andneed only be referred to now. Freewill, in one word,is the answer. The ultimate evolution of individualhumanity can only be accomplished by investing eachunit with the Divine attribute of freewill in a greateror less degree. Half-fledged humanity of the kindaround us in abundance is hardly conscious of theextent to which it enjoys this attribute. It becomesmore and more available as spiritual evolutionproceeds. By the hypothesis it may be exerted tofulfil the purpose of Divine love, in so far as that maybe discerned, or it may be perverted to antagonizethat purpose. Within the limits of our humanitythe perversion may not be carried to any extremedegree. But other humanities have preceded ourown and have reached exalted conditions in whichfree will for good or evil was enormously expandedin its scope. In that way it has come to pass thatspiritual evil has assumed colossal proportions untilat last it has challenged Divine Power on very highlevels. That is the challenge with which we, on ourhumble level, are now contending. We feel sure ofultimate success because the mighty spiritual powersof evil, at war with the Divine idea of humanity (onthis plane with ourselves, the Allied armies) have

1 " Our Unseen Enemies and Allies " and " When the DarkHosts are Vanquished," Nineteenth Century and After, Octoberand November, 191 5.


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This World's Place in the Universe 25had a definite origin that we can discern and havereached a definite height of spiritual power. How-ever exalted that power, it is finite. The DivineHierarchy is infinite. At whatever level Satanicpower may confront it on equal terms, Divine re-sources above that level are limitless. If exertedthey must subdue the finite power, and we havereason to feel sure that sooner or later they will beexerted to avert the ruin of the world.

I have said that our Allies in this great strugglethe Masters of Wisdom, or by whatever name we liketo call them the Chieftains of Humanity, of whoseexistence, till recent years, humanity at large waswholly ignorant, are recruited from amongst ourselvesalthough none the less constituting the first greatstage of advancement, counting from below upward,of the Divine Hierarchy. But while, beyond them,conditions of existence begin to transcend physicalbrain comprehension we can understand to someextent the capacities and powers of the beings whohave attained to them, and the functions appertainingto their stage of evolution. Certainly that mightyorganization includes some who reached high spiritualdignity before this world's children had emergedfrom early races, in one sense their nursery. Butnone the less it includes some who have been tooutward appearance within historic periods mereordinary men. The world, indeed, has never beenwithout a great ruling Brotherhood, though at onetime it was indebted for this to a Senior humanity.The phrase needs amplification to be fully intelligible,but a very little thought will give reason to the ideathat the history of this world and of our humanraces is not a " complete short story," in itself, butan episode in universal history.As our humanity became sufficiently evolved tofurnish recruits for the great ruling Brotherhood


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26 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingits existence was allowed to filter out gradually intothe consciousness of the few candidates available.These were the few whose ardour in the pursuit oflofty knowledge and whose moral development weresuch that they could be trusted not to misuse enhancedknowledge. The world at large was not generallyripe for the proper appreciation of the fact thatpowers and knowledge beyond ordinary experiencewere attainable by certain means. A prematuredissemination of that idea might have had unfortunateconsequences. But for the chosen few it was re-vealed, and so it has come to pass that at the presentday the great Brotherhood includes many memberswho have been men like (the best of) ourselves withina comparatively recent period.

Experience of ordinary life does not enable us tounderstand their place in Nature altogether andcompletely. They work to a great extent on planesof consciousness beyond the cognition of the ordinarysenses. They wield forces as yet unknown to Science,using the physical body merely as a vehicle to beoccupied or left aside as convenience may suggest :the finest clairvoyance which ordinary students ofthat wonderful faculty have ever met with is, com-pared with theirs, a rushlight to an electric arc;and physical matter itself is plastic in their hands.In the higher vehicles of consciousness distances aboutthe world mean nothing, and withal they are ofcourse in absolute harmony with the Divine Will.The view thus reached that shows us the humanityto which we all belong as designed to recruit thefirst, as we look upward, of the spiritual degrees thatin the aggregate constitute the Divine Hierarchyis of supreme significance. Properly understood itinvests humanity with an entirely new meaning, ascompared with that which merely treats each itemin that humanity as destined to an infinitely continued


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This World's Place in the Universe 27individual existence, happy or unhappy, as the casemay be. The crude fancy thus presented to themind by commonplace religion may have served itspurpose while the world was young, as coaxing orwarning an ignorant multitude not yet ripe for amore profound conception, but philosophically it isbeneath criticism. The sublime idea, as directlyaffecting ourselves, to be derived from a conception,even if only broad and incomplete, of the DivineHierarchy is that which shows it to be a coherententirety stretching upward from this world as weknow it, in the direction of absolute infinity. Itenables us, for the first time, to comprehend thisworld 's place in the Universe. A misdirected modestyleads some of us occasionally to talk of this world asa small planet amongst many greater, attached toa tenth-rate sun in a Universe richly stocked withothers of enormously greater magnitude and brilliancy,The infinitesimal creatures on its surface can only beregarded, in this way, as important in their ownestimation; no more so really than the grains ofsand on the seashore. That view is no less erroneousthan depressing. The humanity for the sake ofevolving which this world exists, represents a definitestage in the evolution of Divine consciousness, which,besides its limitless expansion towards infinity, issusceptible of infinite accretion from below. Thereare no stages in the Divine Hierarchy that have notbeen recruited, in some unfathomable past, fromhumanities more or less resembling our own.Eternity stretches both ways and the world thesolar systems of to-day, though figures would failto suggest their duration as measured in our timeare manifestations of Divine power that have suc-ceeded others and will be in turn succeeded. Wecount the nebulae in the Heavens, and watch thegrowth of future suns destined to bear their progeny


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28 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingof future worlds and future candidates for Divineevolution.

But we need not torment imagination by followingthat thought too far. It is enough to know thathere and now we are candidates for Divine evolution ;that there is no solution of continuity from this stageof existence up to those that have been faintlysuggested in these pages and are hopelessly dazzlingto mental vision as we dwell in thought on theirattributes and power. This humanity of ours, evenas we contemplate its visible varieties from thesavage to the greatest philosopher, is obviously avast procession moving through the ages, eachimmortal spirit ever seeking new and new incarnationstill gathered experience and effort entitle it to thoseof the loftiest order. The appreciation of this ideamarks a huge advance beyond the primitive con-ception of an eternal perpetuation of each grotesquelyincomplete being. But such an appreciation is merelya step in the direction of the grander conception.The highest level of moral and intellectual attainmenton the stage of this world's potentialities is but a newbeginning, a point of departure for a progress beyondthe precise comprehension of physically incarnateintelligence, but happily not altogether veiled fromour view. No matter for the moment whether therebe other worlds affording still more favourableopportunities for embodied consciousness. That isno concern of ours. We may be fully content to knowthat however the preparatory processes leading upto the Divine Hierarchy may be provided for in otherworlds, this of ours has a place in the Universe indirect relation with all the infinitudes that simpleword represents with all that the most illuminatedreverence can suggest when we presume to speak ofGod.


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FUTURE LIFE AND LIVESNaturally enough the tragedies of the War haveimparted thrilling interest to some questions care-lessly disregarded by the multitude during normalperiods. Is there an after life for all of us when we" die " ? Can we find out anything about it inadvance ? Can we communicate with those whohave already passed on ? Most current essaysdealing with such perplexities have a ludicrous aspectfor millions of spiritualists in constant touch withdeparted friends, for all occult students and for mostpsychic researchers. A writer in these pages lastmonth calmly asserts that communication with thedead " has never been definitely proved to be anythingbut delusion or fraud." If equally ignorant in otherdirections he might deal in the same way with anyscientific discovery, say, the retrograde motion ofsome planetary satellites, or the transmutations ofradium. The vast literature of spiritualism is floodedwith proof of the main idea. More recently theliterature of occult research is rich in detail con-cerning the conditions of the after life.1 To say that

1 Simply to show that I am not talking at random I will men-tion a few books the perusal of which would guard writers of acertain class from making themselves ridiculous: Spirit Identity,Psychography, The Higher Aspects of Spiritualism, Spirit Teach-ings, A Wanderer in Spirit Lands, The Story of Ahrinziman, Collo-quies with an Unseen Friend, Out of the Vortex, After Death, NotSilent though Dead, In the Next World, Do Thoughts Perish ? TheHidden Side of Things, The Inner Life, Esoteric Buddhism, TheGrowth of the Soul, The Occult World, The Secret Doctrine, A Studyin Consciousness, The Ancient Wisdom. Some of the books named29


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30 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingknowledge thereof has made " no substantial progresswhatever " is like asserting that since Galvani'sexperiment with frogs' legs our knowledge of elec-tricity has made no progress whatever. Raymond,,attracting deserved attention on account of itsauthorship, is only the latest contribution to in-numerable records of a similar kind, the cumulativesignificance of which is overwhelming, while all whoare patient and painstaking get personal convictionfor themselves.Spiritualists for the most part are content with this.The)' know their departed friends still live and getassurance of their welfare. They look forward withconfidence to their own future. Occult students findthat, besides evidence of that order, minute in-formation relating to the conditions of the after lifecan be obtained by people still in this life when giftedwith clairvoyant faculties of an appropriate kind.Abundant information is accumulating in theliterature of occult research along these lines. In nodepartment of human activity has more remarkableprogress been made during the last thirty years thanin this branch of superphysical science. That progresshas carried the occult student far beyond elementarydiscoveries relating to the immediate experiences ofthe next life . Certainly these are intensely interesting ,but do not in themselves enable us to obtain a com-prehensive grasp of the whole scheme of evolutionto which humanity belongs. Comprehension of thenext phase of life marks a great advance beyond thecrass ignorance that doubts or denies even that, butit only helps us relatively a little way in the directionof understanding our place in Nature and our ultimatedestinies. Later developments of occult sciencerelate to Spiritualism, some to Theosophy or occult science gener-ally. They are a mere handful compared with any completebibliography of either subject.


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Future Life and Lives 3 1enable us to appreciate both the value and limitationsof spiritualism. >CThe mediumship on which it reliesis better understood now than at first. Physicalphenomena are brought about when certain invisiblefactors in the medium's constitution can be withdrawnfor use by elemental agency. Messages come throughwhen certain organs in the medium's body respondto subtle vibrations that most people fail to perceive.But the medium in either case is a passive instrumentin the hands of invisible operators, and these are of allvarieties. That accounts for the nonsense that oftendiscredits the method. The lower regions of thenext world swarm with the (morally and intel-lectually) lower classes of humanity dying constantlyb}r thousands, and (for a time at all events) remainingas unintelligent as they were in life. Their influencesand messages are ignoble and stupid, but even thenthey serve their purpose. They show us in touch withanother plane of existence. And meanwhile moreenlightened inhabitants of that plane also communicateas the literature of spiritualism shows.But spiritualism, having broken down the deadlymaterialism into which thought was drifting duringthe last century, paved the way for the developmentof occult science. The later literature referred toabove illuminates its origin and progress. The newview of Evolution, of human destiny, and theeconomy of Nature generally, which it has unfoldedfor us, cannot be fully interpreted within the limitsof a Review article, but may be broadly suggested.-L The stupendous conception of the future which showsthat physical life has spiritual progress for its purpose,that this world is the region in which that progresshas to be accomplished, that other realms of existenceare the regions in which the work done here bearsfruit, and provides for invigorating rest, leads us tothe important conception that each physical life is


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32 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingmerely one of a series; that whatever experiencesintervene between each we shall all of us come backagain and again to life of the kind we are familiarwith here, that Reincarnation is as certain a law ofNature as the circulation of the blood.Reincarnation when first scientifically defined some

thirty-odd years ago was quickly seen to solve manypreviously insoluble problems. The hideous in-equalities of human condition no longer seemed toinsult Divine justice. Suffering became intelligiblewhen the conditions of each new life were realized asthe consequences of previous doing " (or Karma).The superficial objection, that the sufferer did notremember his former misdoing, was dissipated as werealized that the Higher Self did so, and profited byeach physical plane experience. Further knowledgeshowed that humanity is still in its youth. A fewmore advanced than the multitude do rememberformer lives. The whole course of reasoning need notbe repeated here. The appreciation of rebirth asessential to a comprehension ;of human life is alreadywidely spread. By reason of misunderstanding detailsmany people regard it with dislike, and the dislikehas been accentuated by the eagerness of those whoseized upon it at first to deal with it as though itcovered all mysteries of the future. To think of thefuture as simply a return to this life is as great ablunder as to ttunk of the life which opens up to theperson just set' free from the physical body, by itsdeath, as entering an everlasting existence of a super-physical order. Only by failing to understand itcorrectly pan anyone fall into the habit of criticizingthe Divine scheme of evolution unfavourably. Thepersonality of a brutal criminal in the slums is clearlynot fit for eternal perpetuation. The bishop in hispalace, if he honestly considers the matter, will cometo the same conclusion as regards himself. " We are


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Future Life and Lives 33ancients of the Earth," etc., and, as we look backon those who millions of years ago were more ancientstill, we can see how better worth perpetuation weshall be when wider experiences of life shall havelifted us as far beyond our present condition as wenow are beyond that of our Stone Age predecessorsourselves in former lives. Probably, indeed, therewill be no stage of growth from which the perpetuationof that stage would be conceivable. Spiritual pro-gress must be infinite, but with that which lies beyondthe perfection of humanity we can only be concernedmuch later on J( Our present purpose should be tounderstand the laws of reincarnation so as to realizethat it does not conflict in any way with the wide-ranging possibilities of life on higher realms afterbodily death, and to understand that life so as torealize that it does not interfere with the necessityof returning here to gather fresh experience and getready for loftier spiritual enlightenment on happierlevels again. Those of us who have taken adequateadvantage of modern opportunities need not speculateabout the chances of survival after death. That isutterly familiar knowledge, and, with varyingfacilities, many of us are in communication withfriends who have passed on, though it does notalways happen that these have acquired any scientificcomprehension of their own destinies beyond thestage actually reached. Even for those of us herewho have taken best advantage of current oppor-tunities there are horizons beyond which our know-ledge does not extend, but the region in which peoplewake up after they have discarded the physicalvehicle of consciousness is already a pays de con-naissance for many of us, and there is pathos as wellas absurdity in the fact that, for much larger numbers,conventional teaching has left them still in doubtwhether there is any waking up at all.

3


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34 Collected Fruits of Occult Teaching" The Astral Plane " is the term generally used by

occultists to designate the vast realm of unseen lifeimmediately surrounding this globe. It is not a well-chosen term, as the region in question has nothingto do with the stars, but it has become rooted inoccult phraseology, and we cannot now escape fromits use. It is really a vast concentric sphere ofmatter that does not appeal to our physical senses;far greater in size than the physical globe it embraces,including an enormous variety of conditions, some ofthem highly disagreeable; but of these it is needlessto speak for the moment, as the vast majority ofdecently behaved people will have nothing to do withthem but will pass at once, when free of the body, toregions where they will find themselves happier thanthey are likely to have ever been, even under favour-able circumstances, in the physical life. Naturally thecharacter of such happiness is determined by the usethat has been made of the earth life and the extentof spiritual development that the Soul (or Ego) hasreached in its long progress through the ages, itsinnumerable immersions in physical life, its formerincarnations. The distribution of the varied condi-tions is well understood by those among us whosefaculties are equal to the' task of cognizing astralconditions, but for people who are not merely withoutsuch faculties, but have not been in touch with thosewho do enjoy them, some explanation is needed inreference to matter and sense-perception.Without plunging into metaphysics in the direction

of Berkeley it is obvious that the reality of matterfor us is due to the appeal it makes to our senses.Even on this plane some kinds of matter most gasesmake no appeal to the sense of sight, but we knowof them by means of other senses, other avenues toconsciousness. But most of us have no sensesthrough which astral matter can affect our conscious-


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Future Life and Lives 35ness. Many, however, have, and that is the wholesecret of " clairvoyance " the actuality of which asa faculty in some people is no longer the subject ofany sane denial. Clairvoyants can in some casessee the forms in which astral life is expressed . For themost part their astral senses are partially smotheredby their association with physical senses. Those,however, who can as the phrase goes get out of thebody, and exist prematurely in the astral plane, in thevehicle of consciousness that will not be in perfectorder for use until the physical body, at death, isfinally got rid of, such persons become at once fullyconscious of the astral realm, and this is the im-portant point to realize cease for the time to beconscious of the physical realm. It does not existfor them any more than the astral world exists forthe commonplace man in the street. All this is notguesswork or metaphysical speculation. It is thedefinite result of observation as scientific in itscharacter as that concerned with astronomy orspectroscopic analysis. And the final result is thatwe are now in a position to know that when welook up into the sky and see nothing between us andthe stars, we are really looking through a realm as richin detail as the landscape we can see on a fine day froma mountain top. This region is inhabited by myriadsof the human family, amongst them any we haveloved and lost and will rejoin in due time, pending,at a far remoter date, our return together to thislaborious nether world in which we have to work forany grand results above that may crown our ultimateendeavours.The astral world is not merely a concentric sphere

surrounding the physical globe, it is one withinanother a series of concentric spheres, generallyspoken of by occult scientists as " sub-planes."Counting from below upwards, the first and second,


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36 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingactually immersed in the body of the earth, areregions of suffering with which none but the veryworst offenders against Divine laws have anythingto do. The third sub-plane, above the earth's surface,is still a comfortless region in which people who havebeen too deeply absorbed by the lower interests ofphysical life may have to spend a period of purificationbefore ascending to happier levels; but this vast andhighly varied range of experience may be ignoredfor the moment as it need not disturb the appre-hensions either of people who lead fairly wholesomelives while incarnated, or of the large numbers ofgallant victims of the War who, on passing over,find the normal consequences of minor shortcomingsobliterated by the sacrifice they have made of theirearth lives in a noble cause. They, and the fairlywell behaved majority, will slip through the thirdsub-level without finding themselves entangled in it,and awake to consciousness on the fourth level ofthe astral world, the circumstances of which are almostinfinitely varied but on which, however varied, happi-ness is the underlying principle of all sensation andexperience.Obviously the conditions that make for happinesswill be very different for people who, howevercreditable in a humble way their earth lives may havebeen, do not represent advanced intellectual develop-ment. The great man of science, for example, andthe simplest maid-servant may share one charac-teristic. Both may regard some other human beingswith genuine love. Their happiness on the fourthlevel will involve reunion with such persons if thesehave passed on first, ultimate reunion in either case;and if they have to wait for this there will be partialreunion meanwhile, for the Egos of people in physicallife are, especially during sleep, in closer touch withthe astral plane than they realize in the normal


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38 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingable by all human beings, is a gradual progress justas the acorn becomes the oak by degrees, not betweento-day and to-morrow. If anyone is discontentedwith this explanation because he thinks of a beloveddaughter (for instance) as turned into an angel oflight, the day after her death, and in touch with thethrone of omniscience, he has failed to appreciate themagnificence of the scale on which human perfectionis gradually developed. Some of us may already beexquisite in goodness, as we measure character, someof us already splendid in intellectual grandeur, butinfinitude is a long story. Eternity cannot behustled. The achievement of the modern occultisthas to do with the illumination of the relativelyimmediate future. > -.'.And some details of that fascinating period arealready within the range of our comprehension.Astral matter is plastic to the creative power ofthought. With a vivid imagination here we canmentally almost visualize objects we might desire topossess. On the astral plane under similar conditions,the things desired appropriate clothing, for example,pictures, furniture, houses even would assumeobjective reality, and even durability when manycreative thoughts co-operate. But as familiaritywith the delightful freedom from body necessitiesthat the astral life confers enables people graduallyto realize that they do not need houses, furniture, andso on, those cease to make their appearance on thehigher levels, where scenes of natural beauty providefor all the wants of inhabitants incapable of fatigue,hunger, or thirst, unconscious of either heat or cold.They may be fully conscious, none the less, of theintellectual interests they have been concerned within physical life, and may continue in touch with theprogress of art or discovery down here, in a way it ishardly possible to describe in a few words.


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Future Life and Lives 39This outline sketch of the astral life could, indeed, be

filled in with much further detail and even be supple-mented with some description of planes or sphereshigher and beyond the astral. But in attempting toexplore these, incarnate human intelligence is upagainst conditions that defy the resources of language.For every Ego, indeed, each experience of astral lifemust come to an end sooner or later, though it mayextend to many centuries of our time, and must almostalways culminate in some touch with the lofty planebeyond; but for the humbler, less developed entitiesthis touch would hardly involve consciousness, wouldmerely be the prelude to an unconscious plunge backinto incarnation. The better understanding of thatplunge by the great many people in the present daywho recognize the necessity of reincarnation as aprinciple, but dislike the idea for want of compre-hending its method, is supremely desirable.The law applies to all, but is so elastic as to fitin with very different volumes of circumstance.First we must remember that Egos ripe for rein-carnation represent very different stages of develop-ment . The humblest of these, leaving out quite savageraces that we need not think about for the moment,is not a very expanded being when, after a long stayon the astral, he has shed all memories of his last lifeand remains its spiritual nucleus. The law, guidedby Divine agency, puts that spiritual nucleus in touchwith a new birth, and there is not much consciousnessleft on higher planes to be thought of as the HigherSelf of the new personality. But in the case of thehighly developed entity astral experience, instead ofobliterating unimportant memories, has enormouslyexpanded those that are important. The Ego as itstands ready for reincarnation is a being on the AstralPlane of immense complication, built up by theexperience of many lives in the past, by that of many


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40 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingintervening astral episodes. He is probably some-thing much more than can be fully expressed in itsnext immersion in physical matter. He will remain,all through the earth life to come, the Higher Selfof the visible entity, of which the visible entity in itsphysical brain will have but little consciousness.But, by the hypothesis, enough of the real completebeing will be expressed on the physical plane to makethe new incarnation greater than ever along the linesof its former growth. If a great scientist before,a greater scientist again. If a great poet, a greater,and so on. But the point to be emphasized for themoment is that, while the new body is growing, theactual great intellectual being destined to use it atmaturity is doing little more than looking on fromabove. If that idea can once be properly grasped, itdoes away with the fear some people seem to feel,to the effect that they with their present volume ofconsciousness will have to go through babyhood andall the experiences of the nursery when they comeback to earth life. During all that time they willsimply be looking on from above. To understandfully how it will come to pass that the baby and theyoung child will in a certain sense be conscious also,is very difficult for most of us, but, however faintly, thatis what has to be realized. There is so little of thereal Ego in the new child up to seven years of age that,if it dies within that time, the trace of consciousnessit has been expressing simply reverts to the HigherSelf, who makes another attempt a little later on andbegins to animate a new form, not infrequently in thesame family as the first. The mother's pretty belief,that a later child is her first baby restored to her is]often the outcome of a literal scientific truth.

If all goes well the first seven years of the newchild's life is spent in the growth of certain invisibleaccessories of the body, which medical science will


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Future Life and Lives 41sooner or later be concerned with investigating.And, again, the next seven years are spent in furtherdevelopments of the same order, but by the time theboy or girl is fourteen a good deal of the real entityis beginning to express itself. Not the whole by anymeans, nor even the whole of that part designed forexpression in the new life. But now the old astralis beginning to be wanted no more. In the new lifethe Ego is forming for itself a new astral. TheHigher Self remaining in touch with lofty planeswill, for any expression it may need on the astralplane, make use of the new astral. Of course all thesechanges fade one into another like dissolving views.Nature is rarely addicted to abrupt metamorphoses.Mutatis mutandis, the process of incarnation asdescribed above with reference to a well-developed Egois applicable also to people at intervening stages ofgrowth . The return to physical life is never attendedby inconveniently premature consciousness in thenew body. Or this broad rule is only in rare casespartially infringed. /Here and there, for example,young children have been known to show musicaltalent at a ridiculously early age. In such cases theEgo of the great musician in the background is soeager to express itself on the physical plane that itcannot wait till the new instrument is properly tunedfor the task. But even Mozarts who play the piano atsix are not all there. Their condition is so excep-tional that it need not be minutely examined inconnection with any sweeping survey of the lawsgoverning reincarnation.^r/TSut one essential principle must never be forgotten,fjuided by supreme wisdom and power, each newincarnation is conditioned by the merit or demeritof the Ego returning to physical life ./'Students ofheredity generally make the mistake of supposing thatancestral attributes are the cause of characteristics


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42 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingreproduced in the descendant. The descendant hasbeen planted in that family because bodily hereditywould there provide it with a physical vehiclequalified to give expression to its own inner nature.And, beyond this, because the circumstances of thatlife's programme fit in with the requirements ofabsolute justice as regards the claims of the Egofor happiness or its deserts as regards trouble. Theinfinite skill of the Divine Power regulating the detailsof each rebirth blends the intellectual or artisticnecessities of the Ego with a worldly environmentappropriate to its moral condition, its good or bad" Karma," as the case may be. The working of thislaw is intensely interesting and marvellously intricate.The consequences of good or bad action in one lifepartly reflect themselves, to begin the explanation,in happiness or the reverse during the astral life.But that is only the first part of the story. A funda-mental law, equivalent, on higher levels of nature,to the conservation of energy in mechanics, assertsitself with every entity coming back to incarnation inthe earth life. Moral action, good or bad, must bearconsequences from\life to life. The external con-ditions, the happiness or the reverse of each lifeare the expression of forces set in activity during theprevious life, or sometimes going back behind that,during previous lives. And, again, though the}'cannot controvert that law, aspirations in any givenlife, when sustained and intense, yjfre an importantfactor in generating the environment of the next.To work with the simplest example, a person in ahumble rank of life may be wishing all the time thathe or she belonged to a' superior class. The longingwould have no effectif it were too vague. A carpenterthinking he would like to be a king does not knowenough about the kingly life to long for it with pre-cision. But he knows a good deal about the con-


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Future Life and Lives 43ditions of social life just a little above his own. Hemay or may not long for these, according to themeasure of his contentment in his own station, butif he does long for them he does so with precision,with exact comprehension of what he wants, and thensuch longing becomes a natural force tending to colourhis next incarnation. And the principle reallyoperates so widely as to bring about a gradual upwarddrift in social station of the innumerable Egosemerging from the humble levels of existence. Ofcourse that is merely a broad rule subject to frequentexceptions. Sometimes the Karma of a life spenton high levels may necessitate a plunge to lower,but normally the aspirations of our life do contributeto engender the environment of the next.Thus in thinking of future Life and lives we have torecognize the two-fold character of the consequenceensuing from the manner in which each life is spent.That definitely affects both the immediate future andthe ultimate future; more specifically it colours lifeon the astral plane after the death of one body, anddetermines the welfare or suffering of the next in-carnation. For people who have led fairly creditablelives the astral period is happy and restful, oftenassociated with opportunities of doing useful work.Even when the previous life has been faulty in somerespects, it may be that such misdoing has been of akind so exclusively identified with physical lifethat it can only give rise to consequences on thisplane again in the next earth life. But when themisdirection of activity has been of a kind thatdeeply colours the surviving consciousness of the Ego,it may entangle him, when first passing on, in thethird level of the astral world. That is a region ofvaried discomfort in which people have to realize thenature of their misdoing and shed the desires thathave given rise to it. In bad cases that are not of the


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44 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingsupremely bad order, the purification may be rathera slow process, but assuming that the character of theperson going through it is tainted merely not pre-dominantly evil the ultimate passage to the happylevels already (very imperfectly) described is assured,not merely in the long run, but very likely in a shortone.

In awfully serious cases the course of astral life isvery different. / There is one variety of human wicked-ness that is altogether in a different category fromthose that are mere vices. The sinful character ofthese the mere vices is often exaggerated; butcruelty, that worst and horrible form of crueltywhich takes actual pleasure in the infliction of andsight of pain and suffering in others, is an attributethat drives the authors of such hideous misdoingdown into that appalling submerged level of theastral world with which most of those even in need ofpurification have nothing whatever to do. Even thatregion must be thought of as purgatorial. Its fearfulexperiences may at last cure or begin the cure of themost ghastly offenders against the Divine law of love(of which cruelty is the exact reverse). But imagina-tion shrinks from the attempt to realize the details ofthe sufferings incidental to existence on the terriblesubmerged level. Their duration, in the worst cases,may be counted in centuries of our time. In others, abrief experience of this character may give rise to theneedful revulsion of feeling. But though it wouldbe unwise to attempt a survey of the astral worldwithout taking cognizance of its lower depths, it wouldbe worse than unwise to refer to them in any way thatcould excite fear on the part of harmless, innocentpeople, too prone, as a consequence of clumsy religiousteaching, to imagine themselves " miserable sinners."Talk of that kind is for the most part silly nonsense,culminating in something much worse when associated


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Future Life and Lives 45with ghastly imaginings concerning eternal sufferingsin hell. No decorous language is equal to theemergency in dealing with the criminal folly of thosewho

terrifychildren and insult God by describingburning tortures to be inflicted for ever on hapless

victims of Providential atrocities. Nature does pro-vide a penitential reformatory for souls of diabolicalcriminality, but even there reformation is the purposein view. It need only be thought of as completing thebroad conceptionof after-death conditions that modernresearch in spiritual science enables us to form. Forthe poor innocent " miserable sinners " of the churches,the view we are now in a position to obtain of happylife on the higher levels of the astral world is that withwhich they are personally concerned. But that vieweven is in need of amplification. The merely happyrestful life to which people of ordinarily good life mayconfidently look forward is not the only possibilitythat the astral world holds out. To understand thedesign of the future correctly, we must realize firstof all that the whole scheme of evolution providesfor a gradual progress, through many earth lives andmany episodes on higher planes, towards a conditionenormously superior to that yet attained by the mostadvanced representatives of current civilization onearth. By most of the human family such conditionswill ultimately be attained after periods of time thatare bewildering to the imagination. But when thedistant possibilities of human evolution are fairlywell comprehended in advance, in the light of suchteaching as occult research (and modern revelation)enables us now to deal with, we see that it is possiblefor those who appreciate the opportunities availableto make a much more rapid progress than is providedfor by the natural drift of events in reference to themultitude. Some members of the human family havebeen able to accomplish this long ages ago, and already


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46 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingstand on levels of progress on which they become agentsof Divine purpose in promoting the spiritual growthof mankind. These are referred to in occult literatureas the Masters of Wisdom, and they are always readyto help forward the abnormal progress of peoplewho have acquired some comprehension of theirplace in Nature, and are filled with eagerness to geton as rapidly as possible in the direction of those greatheights. The earth life is the opportunity for be-ginning such efforts. In this supremely importantaspect of the subject, as in minor matters, the earthlife is the period for sowing all spiritual seed. Theastral life is the period in which it begins to bearfruit. A perfectly commonplace earth life, howeverharmless and innocent, bears appropriate fruit in theastral world in the shape of happiness and rest. Anaspiration during earth life towards real spiritualgrowth, coloured by such knowledge as is nowavailable for all, bears fruit in the shape of personaltouch with those Masters of Wisdom who may guidethe aspirant to incarnations in which he mayaccomplish results the dignity and grandeur of whichcannot easily be exaggerated. Something beyondmere personal happiness is then seen to be the objectof attainment. This world is the expression of DivineWill: it is governed by Divine Law, but it is, so tospeak, managed in detail by the agents of Divine Willevolved from the scheme itself. To become a partof, to be identified with that sublime agency, isthe goal aimed at by those who fully realize the truemeaning of spiritual growth. That such a conditioninvolves a species of exalted beatitude which is some-thing greater than and beyond personal happiness isa thought that may fairly be associated with truespiritual aspiration, but one that does not cover thewhole idea, too subtle perhaps for clear definition inlanguage, though some trace of it should always colour,


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Future Life and Lives 47for advanced thinkers, all reference to the changesinaugurated by each physical death. When the graveswallows any particular vehicle of consciousness thatwe have done with, it certainly marks an importantstage of our progress through the infinitudes of life,and represents a very tiresome circumstance connectedwith this early period of human evolution; but onlywhile we are suffering from the sad imperfections ofconventional teaching is the grave surrounded withterror.The purpose of this article has not been merelyto dissipate that terror, but to elucidate, for thosewho may long since have ceased to feel it, the detailed

circumstances of the passage to the life beyond ;and above all, to show how the all-important principleof reincarnation does not in any way conflict withnatural aspirations for spiritual existence after bodilydeath. Reincarnation is no hurried process. Thereis plenty of time in Eternity. Does anyone imaginethat a thousand year\ of spiritual life after the fatiguesof this one will not be enough for him ? If he con-tinues hereafter to entertain that view, then he willhave more. Or if he has no such far-reaching aspira-tion, and finds himself content with the simpleenjoyment of the astral life>pn its less exalted levels,he will fall asleep and drift back to physical life inobedience to natural law at the appropriate time.And both in his case and in that of his more advancedcontemporaries, the return to physical life will beaccomplished as easily as the processes of sleep andwaking during physical life, with the iriner mechanismof which, for that matter, most people'are no betteracquainted than with the method of rebirth, thefullest acquaintance with which carries with it themost complete acquiescence in the wisdom, beauty,and harmony of the whole design.


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RELIGION UNDER REPAIROn the 14th of April, 191 7, The Times publishedan article entitled " Sheep without a Shepherd,"which, gently and without bitterness but in un-equivocal terms, described the conventional religionof the Churches and all their creeds as hopelesslyout of date. Thinking men and women wererepresented as convinced that religion must berediscovered from the beginning. The clergymanand his religion " belong to a dead past." Thinkingpeople

" turn away from the Churches more and moreas their interest in religion grows." What they needis " a conception of the Universe in which they maytake their place." They believe in Christianity butthey need an expression of it that will satisfy intelli-gence. " The time of cleansing for the Christiantheology has been delayed so long that there is adanger lest the mass of men should think it all litterand dust of the past." The Churches have fanciedthat the danger would be staved off "by the slow,reluctant relinquishing of this or that belief as itbecame impossible." The real need is for discoveryand growth. The Church " must not be content anylonger to talk pious nonsense in the hope that it willseem sense because it is pious."One might have supposed that so sweeping anindictment as this, directed against vested interestsfirmly rooted in social life, would have provokeda storm of criticism and a flood of sympatheticreiteration. Has orthodoxy preferred silence as onthe whole safer than defence that would provoke

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Religion under Repair 49fresh attack ? If so, the fear is misdirected, becauseit is based on a misunderstanding of the attack.The clergyman accused of talking pious nonsensethinks the accuser an atheist denying God. Theaccuser is simply indignant with the clergyman forcaricaturing God. There would still be a place forthat clergyman among us if he could be taught toreverence God wjsely. Has that attitude of wisereverence been-aftained by any of the earnest thinkersdiscontented with the clergyman's teaching ? Hasdiscovery really anticipated the demand for it setforth in the article quoted ? Are there answersavailable for people who " ask real questions aboutthe nature of the Universe," and may there not bealready a considerable number of others who haveprofited during the last thirty years from widepublicity given to super-physical knowledge at onetime reserved for a peculiarly qualified few ?The true answer to that last question is in theaffirmative, and those who have been concernedduring recent years with the assimilation of ideasreflected in the Higher Occultism believe themselves,at all events, in possession of definite knowedge whichmeets the intellectual craving represented by TheTimes article. Many books convey this to all whocare to read, and describe the sources from which it isderived. For some of us who are students of occultscience and philosophy the authors of the teachinggiven out are seen to have extraordinary claims on ourtrust. The nature of these claims can better beappreciated after we have fairly considered thegeneral outline of the teaching they convey. Itconstitutes a complete response to the demandset forth in The Times article. It does give us acomprehensive view of the Cosmos to which we belong.It embodies a revelation which is, for the world atlarge, a " discovery," of previously unsuspected truth

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50 Collected Fruits of Occult Teachingconcerning the fundamental facts of spiritual silenceunderlying all forms of religion. It does much morethan this because it gives us a perfectly clear viewof the course of human evolution, dissipating all thedarkness that surrounds death; lighting up theconditions of the new life that immediately followsthe change and pointing out the path to be ultimatelytrodden, leading to infinitudes of progress. The viewof Divinity, Life and Nature thus afforded con-veniently to be described as the Higher Occultismmakes its first claim on respectful consideration byits own inherent reasonableness. It is vast in its scope,widely ramifying in all directions, but perfectly co-herent, scientifically harmonious; all parts of thewhole mutually supporting each other. In one way,that is a difficulty for the beginner approaching thestudy of the Higher Occultism. [ The comprehensionof not necessarily the whole because the whole isan infinitude but of a great volume of super-physicalknowledge is essential to an adequate appreciation ofits parts separately. But eventually when enough isgrasped, conviction sets in as an intellectual necessity,and then, among other conclusions, the honeststudent realizes that the Higher Occultism has beena gift to the world from Teachers who are obviouslyentitled to profound trust. But his perception of thisis no longer needed as a guarantee of the teaching.It embodies its own confirmation.

Perhaps this can only be fully appreciated after amore exhaustive study of super-physical science thancan be provided for within the limits of a Reviewarticle; but a mere outline sketch of the knowledgeaccumulating on our hands will go far towardsjustifying the claim made above. Indeed, the mostelaborate attempt to deal with detail would still leaveus gazing at remote horizons beyond which humanvision cannot penetrate, but that is by itself a con-


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Religion under Repair 51dition which tends to fortify belief in what can beseen. No theory which invested Eternity with abeginning and an end could be otherwise than absurd.But while the idea of God, Divinity, the Divineprinciple whatever phrase we prefer expands intoregions beyond the reach of understanding, we dofind that in so far as this world is concerned in so far,indeed, as the Solar System is concerned Occultismpresents us with an intelligible conception of theDivine Hierarchy; also, as already affirmed, clearlyilluminating the mysteries of human origin anddestiny, the course and conditions of evolution, andthe manner in which Divine justice can be reconciledwith the terrible irregularities of life in the physicalworld. It puts us in a position of intimate familiaritywith the life on super-physical worlds surrounding ourglobe to which all pass after the change described asdeath. It enlarges our view of human destiny, tothat extent that we see life on other planets linkedwith that of the Earth ; and the whole Solar Systemresolves itself into a definite Divine enterprise, withan origin and purpose vaguely appreciable, though intouch with mysteries of infinitude and eternity whichwe need not, at this stage of our progress, attemptto fathom. Incidentally occult science forecasts thefuture progress in various directions of physicalscience, and in some cases those forecasts, made tenor fifteen years ago, have already been overtaken bypractical research. The proof of that last statementwould involve a long digression, but is definitelyavailable, as many of the conclusions arising from thediscovery of radium were clearly set forth in a bookentitled Occult Chemistry published many years beforeMadame Curie's luminous contribution to plainphysical science. Indeed laboratory research has asyet only partly overtaken the occult discoveries thoughconfirming them as far as it has gone.


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52 Collected Fruits of Occult TeachingThe claims for occult science just set forth may beexamined one by one. It does not shrink from the

use of the word " God " except in so far as the wordhas been degraded by ignoble creeds. But SupremeDivinity is necessarily infinite and must have referenceto manifestations in millions of worlds besides ourown. And yet we feel sure that Divine Consciousnesspermeates this world. Occult teaching assures us thatourown individual consciousness is a Divine emanation ,though limited in its scope and range of power by thevehicle or sheath in which it is working for themoment. The idea is susceptible of expansion. Allconsciousness is a Divine emanation that working inanimal forms in vegetable forms even also thatworking in super-human forms on planes or realmsof Nature loftier than the physical. The idea at onceleads to an appreciation of the sublime magnificenceof the Divine Hierarchy intervening between ourhumanity and the nearest manifestation of theinfinite Divinity. Reasonable occultists do not pre-sume to formulate a rigid conception of that nearestmanifestation, but they know that the Solar Systemis a definite enterprise within the manifested Universeand therefore that in some way it can be identifiedwith a vortex, so to speak, in infinite Divinity, andthat is generally referred to as the Logos of the SolarSystem. Words are not well adapted to such thoughts,but we must be content to use the best we have got.The simple Christian who wants to discern a Father inGod may be chilled by this awfully super-physicalidea, but he need not be so if he clings to his faith inChrist which the occultist has no wish to disturb.Medieval creeds which the Churches perpetuate havecaricatured the Christ idea, amongst others, but theoccultist clearly understands Christ as belonging to theDivine Hierarchy, in close touch with this world, andthat understanding carries with it a reverential


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Religion under Repair 53feeling that no conventional Christian can possiblyimprove upon. Of course the Hierarchy of Beingsrepresenting various stages of spiritual evolution anda vast variety of functions in Nature include sublimeentities on all imaginable levels, but the fundamentalall-important idea to be held firmly in thinking of thehierarchy is that it constitutes the Agency throughwhich the Divine purpose is worked out in manifesta-tion. This is one way in which a scientific com-plexion is put upon occult religion. Agency runsdown to the minutest activities of Nature. There isno break in the uniformity of the method . ArchangelicBeings fulfil the Divine purpose on their levels.Elemental beings on levels of consciousness below ourcomprehension are agents in promoting the growthof plants, or carrying out the laws (the Divine purposes)of chemical affinity. This last thought relates to ahuge branch of occult science in a borderland thatphysical research must soon invade.A hierarchy that includes Beings of the Archangelicorder (and also others of still loftier spiritual rank)together with humbler agencies below the level ofhumanity, concerned with the working of natural law,must obviously also include beings but relativelylittle above the human level. And this thoughtilluminated by definite information brings the occul-tist into touch with a realm of knowledge bearingequally on the government of this world and thepossibilities of human evolution. There is a levelof the great hierarchy definitely rec

collected fruits of occult teaching (1920)

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