Selections from CLOTHED WITH THE SUN

by ANNA (BONUS) KINGSFORD

 

Anna Kingsford was an extraordinary 19th Century woman. She was one of the first women in Britain to become a medical doctor, edited a feminist newspaper, and served as president of the Theosophical Society. She knew Helena P. Blatavsky, Eliphas Levi, and many other primary figures in Occult and Esoteric circles of the time. She was a principled vegetarian and anti-vivisectionist, and opposed foxhunting. She was considered one of the inspirations for the Golden Dawn, a ritual magic secret society which was one of the sources of modern neo-paganism, although she did not live to join it. In particular, the equality of the sexes in the Golden Dawn is acknowledged as her contribution.

 

Anna Kingsford claimed to be in contact with fairies as a child. As an adult she had channeled visions, both waking and in lucid dreams, in which she tapped esoteric knowledge imparted by angelic beings, traveled in time, and witnessed shamanistic visions of a vast cosmos alive at every scale of creation. These 'illuminations', as she called them, were exhausting and sometimes terrifying. Her close collaborator Edward Maitland worked with Kingsford to record her illuminations in this book, published after her death.

 

Much of the channeled and revealed literature of the 19th Century is surreal fantasy, invented pseudo-histories, or pure free-association. By contrast, Anna Kingsford's illuminations are consistent, coherent, and display a deep understanding of occult traditions. Her theology could be described as Gnostic Christian Polytheist. She had a radical feminist viewpoint which seems fresh even today, one in which a Goddess figure, the 'Sophia' of the Essenes, Gnostics and early Christians has a central role:

For the woman is the crown of man, and the final manifestation of humanity.
She is the nearest to the throne of God, when she shall be revealed.
But the creation of woman is not yet complete: but it shall be complete in the time which is at hand.
All things are thine, O Mother of God: all things are thine, O Thou who risest from the sea; and Thou shalt have dominion over all the worlds.

Kingsford was chronically ill her entire life; she died of complications from pneumonia at the early age of 42, on February 22nd 1888.

 

The following are excerpted pieces I have taken from her book Clothed With The Sun:

 

 

CONCERNING THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY

The Tree of Life is the Central Will or Divine Life, the God, that is, whether of the universe or of the individual. And the Tree of Knowledge is experience which comes of trespass, or a descent from the region of spirit to that of matter. It is thus Maya, or illusion; and the serpent, or tempter, is the impulse by yielding to which the inward reality of Being is abandoned for the outward appearance, and idolatry is committed through the preference of the symbol to the verity, of the form to the substance. The phrase "coats of skin" implies a deeper descent into materiality, and the consequent need of multiplied penances and transmigrations.

The Tree of Life signifies also the secret of regeneration, or final transmutation into pure spirit, and the consequent attainment of eternal life, which can come only when all the necessary processes have been performed, and the soul-Eve-is once more pure and free, when she becomes "Mary."

In the Mysteries the Adam of the second chapter signifies also the ordinary earth-man, devoid of spiritual perception or consciousness, and unable, therefore, at all to comprehend the mysteries. And Eve signifies the seer and prophet, who, being illuminated in soul and taught of the Spirit, has in his keeping the knowledge of things sacred, but is on no account to divulge that knowledge to the outer world of mankind at large. Springing from the heart of humanity, when its outer sense and reason and passions are laid in sleep, or mystic trance, Eve is the Sibyl, or "Mother," who has the sacred tree in charge, but may not communicate of it. But being tempted by the prospect of sensuous reward, she yields to the serpent of matter--or astral impulses--and communicates the Mysteries to the vulgar, and thereby loses her supremacy over men, and from being their mistress and ruler, becomes their slave, while the prophets, her offspring, are persecuted and slain, so that all her revelations and proper ministrations are made in pain and sorrow and labour. For it is characteristic of the vulgar, that they reverence only what is unfamiliar and mysterious to them.

The Four Rivers springing from one source are the four elements which enter into the composition alike of the whole and the part, the universe, the planet, the individual, and the single (physiological) cell. Together they constitute the fourfold being. Pison, which surrounds and encloses the earth or mineral zone, and contains the materials of wealth and fame, is the body, or material region. Gihon, the river which runs through the land of burning, denotes the Vale of Gehenna or purgatorial region, and is the "fiery body," the magnetic belt between the body and the soul. Hiddekel, the river with the double symbol of Two Languages, is that which leads back to the ancient time and place of the soul's "innocence." For, being representative of the soul, it occupies the soul's place between the material and the spiritual part. The last is called the Euphrates, and implies the innermost and highest, the Spirit, or Will. These four "rivers" go forth into and constitute the whole universe, and all therein that is of a fourfold nature. A portion of each is necessary to constitute a molecule, or monad of the substance of creation, whether a planet, a man, or a cell. For the cell is the type of the kosmos.

 

CONCERNING THE FALL

 The key to their interpretation is to be found in the word Now. There is no past in the Divine Mind, no future in the Divine Economy. To each is one thing forbidden under penalty of death. This one thing is disobedience to the Divine Will. Death is the natural and inevitable result of rebellion against the Central Will, which is the Tree of Life. Death ensues in the body when the central will of the system no longer binds in harmony the

component elements of the body. And death ensues in the soul when it is no longer desirous of union with the Divine Will. Wherefore disobedience and rebellion are death. But to desire ardently that which God wills, and to give oneself even to the death to fulfil God's Will, is life. For "he who will find his life shall lose it"; which means that he who seeks his own in opposition to the Divine Will, shall perish. "And he who loses his life shall find it"; which means that he who giveth himself to the death to fulfil the Divine Will, shall have--nay, already hath--eternal life.

Now, the injunction laid on every human soul is, not to disobey the Divine Will. For, in the day that the soul wilfully opposes itself to God, she shall surely die. This means that the natural death or dissolution of the body shall, in such case, entail the dissolution and dispersion of the soul. For the Divine Breath, or Spirit, is the central life of the human soul, or true man; and if the elements of this personality be no longer bound in obedience to the Divine Fire, they will become dissolved and dispersed in the void, and so the individual perish. "Dying, thou shalt die." The rebellious Adam hath not eternal life. Death in the body is for him death in the soul. The soul is a purer and finer essence than the mere matter of the body. But when she is rebellious, and her elements are no longer bound to their central fire, they continue, after the death of the body, to disunite and disintegrate, until, at length, the Holy Spirit being withdrawn, the soul dissolves into the void and is no more. This is eternal death. On the other hand, the soul redeemed by obedience to the Divine Will, withdraws itself, and aspires ever more and more to its centre, until--absorbed therein--it becomes like unto God, wholly spiritual. This is eternal life.

Now, "the Gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." "For, as in the earthly and rebellious Adam we die; so in the Christ we are made alive for evermore." That is, that inasmuch as by disobedience to the Divine Will the soul brings on itself dissolution and eternal death; so, when it is regenerate and strives continually to attain the Christ nature, it obtains thereby eternal life. For it arises necessarily out of the law of the universe that nothing can continue to exist which is out of harmony with the Divine Central Will. Now, the nature which is in most perfect harmony with the Divine Will is the Christ-nature. Wherefore, of the redeemed universe the perfect chord is, Thy Will be done.

But had it been permitted to the rebellious and fallen Adam, after his act of disobedience in plucking and eating of the forbidden fruit, to "put forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life, and to live for ever," the result would have been an eternal hell. For then the soul would have continued to exist for ever while in a state of separation by disobedience from God, and while insulting and defying God. Such division of the universe against itself would have involved its destruction--a catastrophe which can by no possibility occur. And the condition would have involved the soul in a perpetual hell of misery; wherefore, in merciful arrest of such a doom, God drove out the fallen soul from the reach of eternal life. But even while doing so, God pronounced the words of hope and redemption. For with the curse comes the promise, "Adam falling, Christ redeems."

For the soul, having accomplished the act of disobedience, has its "eyes opened." And it now perceives that alone and divorced from the Divine Will it is "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked," as said of the Church of Laodicea in the Apocalypse; and Adam, knowing he is fallen, "hides" himself. For apart from God, Who is its life, the soul is nothing. And this knowledge of her shameful condition is all the soul gains by rebellion. And so the lesson to the soul is this:--If thou disunite thyself from God and make thy desire earthwards, thou art as the dust of the ground, and must die the death of the body. But if thou desire only God, and make God's law thy will, and its accomplishment thy delight, thou becomest as God, and hast eternal life.

 

CONCERNING PERSEPHONE, OR THE SOUL'S DESCENT INTO MATTER

I SEE God under two modes, one static or passive, the other dynamic or active. As the former, God is original Life, Will, Power. As the latter, God is the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit and the Substance of God are one. At first there is perfect rest. Then comes a movement of rotation round itself, and Substance becomes first ether, and at length matter. Every ultimate particle of matter moves in ether, as do the planets, and has two poles, that is in the intercellular ether. Their rotation is intensely rapid; it makes me giddy to look; and by this movement comes creation. This is accomplished in six periods, and then there is Rest, and the whole is re-absorbed. Wherefore there is an incessant Putting-Forth for six "days," and a recurring Sabbath of Rest.

The more rapid the movement of the particles of his body, the more material is the man. Hence the object of the saint is to attain perfect quiescence, and thereby union with the Divine One. The "Philosopher's Stone" signifies in one aspect perfect quiescence, or the re-absorption of matter into spirit through the absence of motion.

Thus the rigidity we know as matter is caused by the incessant intense movement of spirit. This truth, for the Greeks, is represented by Demeter, who is all that is in motion and solid. And whereas motion is begotten of the Holy Spirit in time, her parents are Rhea and Saturn. Rhea is "the mother" of the Gods, and is the same as Nox, the original Darkness or Invisible Light of Divinity prior to manifestation in creation. And Persephone, or Proserpine, is the daughter of Demeter or Motion--or that which makes visible--by Ether. Persephone is the liquid or psychic part of man, which consists both of his true soul and his "fiery" or magnetic perisoul. And the story of the stealing of Persephone, or rape of Proserpine, relates to the "fixing of the volatile," whereby the astral part becomes coagulated into the material. Belonging thus, half to the body, or lower world, and half to the heavens and upper world, and thus linking the two together, she is said to spend six months of the year in Hades and six on Olympus. And she would be updrawn altogether to the latter, but that as the consequence of her eating a pomegranate, which--like the apple of Eve--is the symbol of illusion or matter, she is fixed in the lower world or body, whence her mother, Demeter, seeks to withdraw her.

You are to understand, further, that this descent of Persephone into Hades comes about not only through the continued motion of the particles of the soul, but also through their depolarisation from the central and Divine Will. The body ought to be in such a state that the man can indraw and re-absorb it. But Persephone, through following her own will, reversed the poles of her constituent substance, and caused this to become fixed. Whenever, as was the case with Jesus, the man is in union with the central will of his system, he has power to indraw and re-absorb his body. And one of the purposes of the Gospel story of the water being changed into wine, was to typify this transmutation. Animals never have this power, as they have no divine spirit, and, therefore, no central will, to polarise. Man has it only by the Spirit's descent into him. The eating of the pomegranate implies the reversal of the poles, and the illusion whereby the outer becomes the inner, and the individual polarises outwardly instead of centrally, and, so, becomes fixed and material.

 

CONCERNING THE ACTUAL JESUS

I AM shown the Descent from the Cross. I see Jesus carried by Joseph of Arimathea to his house. The house communicates with a sepulchre; and Jesus is carried to the house where they do something to revive him; for he has swooned rather than died. The clothes are placed in the sepulchre, but not Jesus. I see a rupture of the pericardium, but no fatal injury to the heart. I see plainly that he is not dead. There is no organic lesion; and the wound heals like a simple wound, without suppuration, and by incessant bathing with water. What a lovely climate it is there! and how curious that there should have been a Joseph at both birth and crucifixion!

I am now shown the truth respecting the birth of Jesus. It was most certainly an ordinary birth. I see that quite distinctly. The names are all altered. The birth-name of Jesus is not Jesus, or anything like it. Nothing is real as I have thought it. Very little happens as related. The losing and finding in the temple and the feeding of the five thousand are allegories of which the signification is spiritual. The miracles of the raising of the ruler's daughter and widow's son are real facts. Jesus saw clairvoyantly that the former was not dead, and that the body was uninjured by disease, so that the soul could return to it. For disease is gradual death, and when death occurs through it the soul is set free altogether. In violent or sudden death the soul is slow to get away, and the separation is a long process.

In his own case Jesus instructed his friends beforehand what to do. Joseph of Arimathea was a friend of Mary Magdalen; and she procured for him the requisite balms. I see her running with them through the sepulchre to the house. Jesus was not organically dead at all, for the heart never ceased to beat. He foreknew all the particulars of the event, and provided accordingly.

Nor is Jesus well again on the third day. He is at least ten days under treatment in Joseph's house. Three days is a mystical period, having no relation to actual time. All about him are women except one, the old man. Jesus' name begins with M. I do not see the rest of it.

The perfect adept is he who has attained in himself the Philosopher's Stone of a spirit absolutely quiescent, and is in union with the Divine Will. Being without ardour, sympathy and compassion are for him but other names for justice; and, incapable of anger, his temperament is always cool and equable. I now see faults in Jesus which I did not see before. I mean Jesus as he actually was, and not as he is depicted in the Gospels. They are faults from the adept's point of view. I am shown a passion-flower as the emblem of his character. He sacrificed himself for others, but would have been able to do more had he been more careful,--especially in respect of his diet. His liability to give way continually to indignation or pity prevented him from getting higher. He allowed himself to be drawn too much out of himself to reach the highest possible.

I see him bidding his followers good-bye. It is on a hill which he ascends, and he disappears from their view, lost in cloud or mist. He now becomes a hermit. I see him in the wilderness alone; and there he attains the higher life which constituted his true ascension.

Jesus was able to influence persons at a distance by means of an emanation which he projected from himself; so that it was not necessary for him to be dead when supposed to be seen by Paul.

I now see some one with him on his mountain. It is John, writing down the Apocalypse at the dictation of Jesus. Jesus recollects all his past incarnations, and epitomises them in the Apocalypse, which is the history of his, and of every perfected soul. He is quite an old man at this time.

And now I see the panther's skin of Bacchos, and whence Jesus got the name which has been given him of "Rabbi Ben Panther," and why he was said to be the son of one Panther. It is a play on Pan and theos, and means all the gods. The panther's skin represented the raiment, or attributes, of all the gods, with which Jesus, as a "Son of God," was held to be endowed.

I am shown that there is but little of real value in the Scriptures. They are a mass of clay, comparatively modern, with here and there a bit of gold. The angel whom I saw before, and who told us to burn the Bible, 1 now puts it in the fire, and there comes out a few pages only of matter which is original and divine. All the rest is interpolation or alteration. This is the case with both Old Testament and New, Isaiah and the prophets. Isaiah is a great mixture. It is all fragments from various sources, just thrown together. The book of Genesis is one large parable; and so are all the legends of the wanderings and wars of Israel. All is mixed up with fiction. Moses wrote none of it. And similarly with all the books of the Law and the prophets. All are made up in this manner. Here and there is an original piece of the ancient Revelation, but these are largely interspersed with additions and embellishments, commentaries, and applications to the times by copyists and interpreters. And when the angel told us to put the Bible in the fire, he meant separate the gold from the dross and clay.

As for the gospels, they are almost entirely parabolical. Religion is not historical, and in no wise depends upon past events. For, faith and redemption do not depend upon what any man did, but on what God has revealed. Jesus was not the historical name of the initiate and adept whose story is related. It is the name given him in initiation. 2 His birth, the manner of it, his being lost and found by his parents in the temple, his lying three days in the tomb,--all are parabolic, as also is the story of the Ascension. The Scriptures are addressed to the soul, and make no appeal to the outer senses, The whole story of Jesus is a mass of parables, the things that occurred to him being used as symbols. Thus, the Crucifixion represents the soul's sufferings; the Resurrection its transmutation; and the life and Ascension are a prophecy of what is possible to man.

The real original gospel is that of John. The others came long afterwards, and all were written long after the time of Jesus. Jesus largely wrote the Apocalypse by the hand of John, as he sat with him on the mountain. This was many years after the "Ascension," as his disappearance on the hill was termed. The Apocalypse was rather a recovery than an original composition of Jesus. The gospel life of Jesus is made up of the lives of all the divine teachers before him, and represents the best the world had then, and the best it has in it to be. And it is therefore a prophecy. The recorded life of Jesus epitomised all the teachers before him, and the possibilities of mankind some day to be realised.

The "beautiful feet of the messengers on the mountains" are the first rays of the rising sun of the coming salvation, seen by the watchers from the spiritual heights,--the "shepherds who tend their flocks,"--even their own pure hearts and thoughts. They it is who see from the "hills" the coming God, the demonstration of the divinity that is in humanity, while the world below is wrapped in darkness.

 

CONCERNING THE METEMPSYCHOSIS OR AVATaR

METEMPSYCHOSIS means, in its chief aspect, not transmigration which is of souls, but the vivification or illumination of a soul already incarnate by the spirit of a preceding "angel." Thus, the soul of Jesus was overshadowed by the angel of Moses.

The Word, Logos, or Adonai--for they are the same--speaks in the spirit of one or the other of the Gods of the Seven Spheres. He spoke through the Spirit, or God, of the Fourth Sphere--Dionysos or Iacchos--to Noah, Moses, and Jesus. Nevertheless Jesus was not an incarnation of either of these, and when he said, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day," he spoke, in one sense, of his own former birth as Isaac. For Jesus was a transmigration or re-incarnation of the soul of Isaac, and the two names are occultly related.

The metempsychosis constitutes a planetary Avatar. The number of these is variously stated to be ten and twelve. Both are, in a sense, right. There are ten such Avatars and twelve angels, or messengers, for the first and last are dual or "twins." The pair at the first Avatar were "Eve" and "Adam"--for this also is one sense of the allegory. The Avatars and their angels have their corresponding signs in the Zodiac, the double ones being represented by the double signs Gemini and Pisces. The latter Avatar, now at hand, will introduce Aquarius, "the sign of the Son of Man in Heaven." Heracles is an epitome of the "twelve Avatars of the Lord." Each of his labours--the labours, that is, of the soul--represents a divine operation, and constitutes an Avatar, while its sign in the Zodiac corresponds to the nature of the Labour. These signs represent the twelve gates of the Holy City, or perfected kosmos, and the twelve mysteries of the greater initiation; and the gates are spoken of as pearls, because pearls are found at the sea-bottom, and in oysters, which are difficult to get and hard to open; and the sea represents the Holy Spirit and the soul. In order to obtain these twelve mysteries, one must be at great labour and trouble, risking one's life in diving for them, going down into the sea naked and stripped of all things, finding them in obscurity and darkness, and when they are brought up, requiring a keen blade to open them.

The "twelve apostles" are types of these angels and mysteries. John represents the dual messenger to come. And by a metempsychosis corresponding to that by which the spirit of Moses instructed Jesus, the spirit of John will instruct the angel of the new Avatar. This spirit is dual. For John represents both the Virgin and himself. This is the "mother" referred to by Jesus at his crucifixion. John comprises the feminine as well as the masculine element. His inspiring spirit is the same as that of Daniel. The spirit that informed Noah, Moses, and Jesus is Dionysos (Jehovah Nissi), the God of the planet. And the spirit which informed Daniel and John, and will inform the angel of this century, is Michael, who represents Zeus and Hera, or the planet Jupiter.

That which comes back as a messenger or angel, is not the personal soul of the individual man employed; for that has become transmuted into spirit. Nor does the spirit itself which was in that soul become re-incarnate. That which comes is the overshadowing informing spirit who influenced and spoke through the man in his lifetime, and the man himself also, who has become an angel, or pure spirit, and who no longer needs the body. So that his return is voluntary, and his coming an Avatar. The new Avatar will be of the double or overshadowing spirit of Daniel and John, as well as the spirit which was in those men. For, owing to the union between them, the two--the man's spirit and the divine spirit--are so much one as to be scarcely distinguishable; and the God speaks through the man's spirit. It is as a tube within a tube. God speaks through the Logos, the Logos through an Elohe, and the Elohe through the perfected spirit of a former prophet. But of this last it is a metempsychoisis, not a transmigration or re-incarnation. That is, the spirit returning informs the spirit of one already incarnate, and who, like John the Baptist, may be thus used without being himself regenerate and "in the kingdom of God."

 

CONCERNING THE ĈON OF THE CHRIST

THE Christs are above all things media, and the various descriptions they gave of their office--such as "I am the way, the truth, and the life." "I am the door," and the like--referred not to themselves at all, but to the Spirit who spoke through them. Jesus, when questioned on this very subject, said plainly, "The words which I speak unto you I speak not of myself; but the Father which dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." Jesus, then, spoke as he was moved by the Holy Ghost, and was no other than a clear glass through which the divine glory shone. [As it is written, "And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Now, the Only Begotten is not mortal man, but he who has been in the bosom of the Father from all eternity, even the Word, the Maker, the Speaker, the Manifestor.] It was this Holy Spirit which descended upon Jesus at his baptism, and dwelt in him for the time of his sojourn upon earth, speaking through him and controlling him; while he, on his part, so lived as to bring all his personal will into oneness with that Spirit.

The Spirit answers to the Essence, the Father, and the Word. Of these, the first is one of the seven spirits, or divine flames, of universal Divinity. The second is the angel, or God, of the planet, and is the Ĉon of the Christ. The third is the Christ. They are respectively "the spirit, the water, and the blood." The Father and the Word may therefore be said to be one; for by the Word the Father is manifest, and--in the microcosm--the Word is the Father manifested.

The greatest hierarch--he, that is, who has the most perfect control over Nature--is not only a man of many incarnations, but has obtained from God the greatest and rarest of gifts,--that of being a medium for the Highest. Such a one is the Ĉon, and has what is called the "double portion." Elisha craved and received this grace. "Where now is the God of Elijah?" he cried, when endeavouring to work his first miracle; and he besought Elijah that a portion of his double might rest upon him. For Elijah had so transmuted his soul into spirit that it was doubled, and a portion of this he bestowed on Elisha. Such an Ĉon it was that descended upon Jesus, to quit him at the final moment. Hence the exclamation, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

 

CONCERNING GOD

BUT why should we be at the pains to seek further than the phenomenal? Why this incessant craving to prove ourselves immortal, and to argue a God into the universe?

The answer is manifold, because the appeal is to nature, to reason, and to principle. First, evolution, as revealed by the facts of physical science, is inexplicable on the material hypothesis; as equally also are the facts of occult science and experience. Secondly, it has been proved that mind in man anticipates the demonstration of natural laws, and argues by mathematical and logical induction that what is ought to be, while yet the actual fact is undiscovered. It is thus evident that mind, greater than and yet identical with man's intelligence, has preceded phenomenon. Thirdly, the primary principle in the sane mind, justice, demands satisfaction, and insists that rectitude of intelligence infers also rectitude of spirit. And if this be conceded, all the rest follows. What, then, must we conceive--positing this indefeasible principle of justice as the central sun of our philosophical system? Equity on all planes, and a perfect correspondence and balance between physical and spiritual; between the world of causes and the world of effects. justice is represented by the dual balance, of which one scale is spirit and the other matter; one male and the other female; without which dual principle the system of the balance itself would be impossible. The balance is unity; the scales are the duad.

What, then, is God? Spirit; essential substance. Is God, then, impersonal? Impersonal if the word Persona be taken in its radical meaning, but personal in the highest and truest sense of that word if the conception be of essential consciousness. For God has no limitations. God is a pure and naked fire burning in infinity, whereof a flame subsists in all creatures. The Kosmos is a tree having innumerable branches, each connected with and springing out of various boughs, and these again originating in one stem, and nourished by one root. And God is as a fire burning in this tree, and yet consuming it not. God is "I AM." Such is the nature of infinite and essential being. And such is God in the beginning before the worlds.

What, then, is the purpose of evolution and separation into many forms? Life is the elaboration of soul through the varied transformations of matter.

Spirit is essential and perfect in itself, having neither end nor beginning. Spirit is abstract. Soul is secondary and perfected, being begotten of spirit. Soul is concrete. And the whole object of creation or manifestation is the evolution of souls. Spirit is the primary Adam; soul is Eve, the woman, taken out of the side of the man. Spirit is the first principle; soul is the derivative.

Now, the essential principle of personality or consciousness--the higher personality--is spirit. And this personality is God. Wherefore the higher and interior personality of every monad is God. But this primary principle, being naked essence, could not be separated off into individuals unless contained and limited by a secondary principle. This principle, being derived and not essential, must be evolved. Spirit, therefore, is projected into matter in order that soul may be begotten thereby.

Soul is begotten in matter by means of polarisation, And spirit, of which all matter consists, returns to its essential nature in soul. Soul is the medium by which spirit is individuated, and in which it becomes concrete. So that by means of creation, God the One becomes God the Many. And the object set before the saint is so to live as to render the soul luminous and consolidate with the spirit, that thereby the spirit may be perpetually one with the soul, and thus eternise its individuality.

For personality is of and in the spirit; but individuality appertains to the soul. But for creation there would be one vast diffused and unindividuated consciousness, contained in one vast diffused substance. Of this substance all things consist by means of this force or spirit; and the soul grows up out of matter by means of evolution;--that is, by the inherent force acting on the manifest substance. And thus the soul is born in the womb of matter, and within her is conceived the personal element which, divided from God, is yet God and man. For God is not multiplied neither diminished; but God is separated into many. The matter is the wax, the soul is the wick, and God is the flame which illumines. If they ask thee the reason of creation, thou shalt answer,--The evolution and elaboration of the soul.

Anna is the rolling year, the Time, of which is born Maria the soul, the mother of God. 1 God is the first of the ten categories of Aristotle 2 as the number one is the root of all numbers. Thou canst not begin the tables with the duad, because the unity is the primal idea. Therefore this unity is positive and essential in necessity.

To God everything is good; it is only to men that evil appears positive. As it is written, "I am the Lord, and there is none else; I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things." For that which differentiates evil from good is the plane of the action, and the medium in which the thought is conceived. If thou love from the plane of the spirit through the medium of the soul, thou lovest as Christ loveth. But if thou love from the plane of the astral man, through the medium of the body, thou hast lust. And, again, if spirit desire aught, it desires that which is like itself, spiritual, and its treasure is in heaven: this is aspiration. But if the plane of desire be the astral, the medium of desire is material, and the material desireth matter, that is, riches upon earth. This is avarice. And again, the passion of the spirit is a fierce upward burning towards spirit; a force bursting forth and leaping into life; a vehement taking of heaven by heavenly violence. This is zeal. But the passion of the astral is a fierce burning downward through the body; a force translating itself in material action; a furious and blind collision of matter with matter. This eventuates in murder. See, then, that according to the plane and the medium, so is an act good or evil. There is nothing truly evil in its essential idea; for, primarily, all is good, because the primary is spirit. (In answer to questions.) Any desire or act of the body that does not profit the mind, that is sensuality. It is necessary that certain interior mysteries belonging to the Celestial be kept secret, because if they should be given to the people the mysteries would all speedily become materialised, and so lost. But if they be confided to a few Wise, and transmitted only to the Initiate, they will be preserved in their true meaning. And again, if these wise men betray their secret, the uninitiated would lay violent hands on them, and so they and the secret would perish together. But when the majority are wise, then may the mysteries be told openly.

 

CONCERNING PSYCHE, OR THE SUPERIOR HUMAN SOUL

IT is truly said that God is the primordial mind, and that the kosmic universe and its manifestations are the ideas of that mind. Mind in itself is passive; it is organ, not function. Idea is active; it is function. As soon, therefore, as mind begins to act, it brings forth ideas, and these constitute existence. Mind is abstract; ideas are concrete. When thou thinkest, thou createst. Every thought is a substantial action.

Thoth, 3 therefore, is the creator of the Kosmos. The science of the mysteries can be understood only by one who has studied the physical sciences; because it is the climax and crown of all these, and must be learned last, and not first. Unless thou understand the physical sciences, thou canst not comprehend the doctrine of Vehicles, which is the basic doctrine of occult science. "If thou understand not earthly things, how shall I make thee understand heavenly things?" Wherefore, get knowledge, get knowledge, and be greedy of knowledge, ever more and more. It is idle for thee to seek the inner chamber until thou hast passed through the outer. This, also, is another reason why occult science cannot be unveiled to the horde. To the unlearned, no truth can be demonstrated. Theosophy 1 is the royal science. If thou wouldst reach the king's presence chamber, there is no way save through the outer rooms and galleries of the palace.

In every living globule there are four inherent powers. I speak not now of the component parts of a cell, but of forces. The first arid lowest mode of power is mechanical; the second is chemical, the third is electric, and the fourth is psychic. The first three belong to the domain of physiological science; the last to that of occult science. It is this last mode of power which belongs to the immaculate and essential. It is inherent in the substantial, and is therefore permanent as an indefeasible quantity. It is in the Arche, and it is wherever there is organic life. Now the Psyche is from the beginning latent and diffused in all matter; and forasmuch as Psyche also is not of herself, but of spirit, therefore is spirit also the basic quality of all things;--the motionless by motion converted into the solid;--the invisible by energy made visible. So that herein are two:--that which is made visible, and that which makes visible; and of these again is a third, that which is visible.

And of this energy, or primordial force, there are two modes (because everything is dual), the centrifugal or accelerating force; and the centripetal or moderating force. (Yet, as I have already said, this second mode of energy is feminine, and therefore derivative, being reflex and complementary to its primary.) By means of the first force, substance (Psyche) becomes matter. By Means of the second, substance resumes her first condition. But in all matter there is a tendency to revert to substance, and hence to polarise soul by means of evolution. The tendency to revert to substance is the cause of evolution. And this, because the instant the centrifugal mode begins to act, that instant its derivative, the centripetal, begins also to exercise its influence. And no sooner has the primordial Arche assumed the condition of matter, than matter itself begins to differentiate, actuated by the inherent force of psychic energy, and by differentiation begets individuals without number.

Then Psyche, once impersonal because essential, becomes individuated and personal, and through the gate of matter issues forth into new life. A tiny spark in the globule, Psyche becomes a refulgent blaze in the globe. And this by continual accretion and centralisation. As along a chain of nerve-cells the current of magnetic energy flows to its central point--being conveyed, as is a mechanical shock, along a series of units in contiguity--with ever culminating impetus, so is the psychic energy throughout nature developed. Hence the necessity of centres, of associations, of organisms. Thus, by the systematisation of congeries of living entities, that which in each is little becomes great in the whole. For the quality of Psyche is ever the same, and her potentiality is invariable.

I have spoken of an outer personality and of an inner personality; of a material consciousness as differing from a spiritual consciousness. So now, in like manner, I speak of a spiritual energy as differing from a material energy. The energy whereby Psyche polarises and accretes is not dependent on the undulations of ether, as are material energies. For Psyche is the essence of the ether itself. All manifested life is a process of burning. Psyche is the substance of the medium by which the burning is conditioned. The first state of matter is ether. But Psyche is within and before the ether. Therefore is she rightly termed immaculate. And to the first state of matter corresponds a first mode of force, that is rotatory, the centrifugal and centripetal in one. But before and within force is will;--that is Necessity. Necessity is the will of God. Now this will is spiritual force. It is inherent in Psyche, and she is the medium in which it operates. Such, therefore, as the primordial will is in relation to the primordial substance, such is the individual will in relation to the derived soul. And when the current of spiritual energy (or will) is strong enough in the complex organism to polarise and kindle centrally, then the individual Psyche conceives divinity in her womb, and becomes God-conscious. In the rudimentary stages of matter this current is not strong enough, or continuous enough, thus to polarise.

Psyche, when once she has gathered force enough to burn centrally, is not quenched by the disintegration of the physical elements. These, indeed, fall asunder and desquamate many times during life, whether it be the life of an individual or the life of a system; yet the consciousness and memory remain the same. Thou hast not in thy physical body a single particle that thou hadst fifteen years since, yet thou art the same Ego, and thy thought is continuous. Thy Psyche, therefore, has grown up out of many elements; and in thine Ego their interior Egos are perpetuated, because their psychic force is centralised in thine individuality. And when thy Psyche passes forth from the disintegrating particles of thy physical body, these shall build up new material entities, and the reversion of matter to substance shall still continue. And thy substantial part shall go forth to new affinities.

"But," thou sayest, "if soul be immaculate, how comes she to be attracted by material affinities?"

The link between her and earth is Karma. Not until she is permeated throughout her essence by spirit, is she able to rise above the astral influences. Remember that the science of theosophy is a science of vehicles. Soul is the highest of these vehicles. But the spirit is the first and last term. Immaculate though she be in her virginal essence, she is not the espoused bride until the bond between her and earth be severed. And this can only be when every molecule of her essence is pervaded by spirit, and indissolubly married therewith, as God with Arche in the Principle.

"But," thou sayest, "there are foul and horrible forms;--have these also an immaculate Psyche?"

These have a Psyche overwhelmed by her Karma, because of her feebleness. Either increase or decrease is the portion of the soul. "He that gathereth not with me, scattereth." Then, when the celestial is weak and divided, the astral and material are strong.

"But," thou sayest, "if soul be thus a resultant of polarisation occurring in the organism she animates, how can soul pass from one body to another by re-incarnation? Surely soul is formed anew in every body and cannot undergo transmigration?"

Do not confuse between substance and force. Substance is Psyche, the medium. Force is Spirit, the energy. That which burns in a flame is gas; the process of burning is a mode or condition of the gas. That which is burnt is fuel, or matter, in which the gas is generated. And when thou askest, "How can the Psyche, which is generated in one body, pass by transmigration to another?" it is as though thou askedst, "How can the flame generated in one log of wood pass to another?" The dispensation of physical series may be compared to a furnace into which are cast in succession many faggots. In each faggot is a certain amount of unburnt gas and of latent energy; because there is no medium without inherent force. This latent or inherent force is capacity. (A living medium need not always be active, but it must retain the capacity of action. God need not always be creating, but God must always retain the capacity of creating.) As by the burning the gas of each faggot is consumed, the elements of the faggot (in each of which is stored a certain proportion of this gas) disintegrate and fall into ash. Then another faggot catches the flame and continues it without solution, supplying in the same way the necessary medium. But observe that Psyche is not "generated in a body," neither is flame generated in a faggot. But for fuel there could be no flame, and but for matter there could be no Psyche. That which really is "generated" in the fuel, is the gas by means of which flame becomes manifest. And that which really is generated in the body, is the condition by means of which Psyche abstract becomes Psyche concrete.

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