CHAPTER II

THE FIRST AND SECOND CHAINS
l
We have to face what is practically the only great difficulty of our study at the very outset — the evolutionary cycles on the first and second Chains of our Scheme. A Master said smilingly as to this: “Well, you will be able to see it, but it is doubtful how far you will be able to describe it in intelligible language, so that others may understand.” The conditions are so different from all that here we know : the forms are so tenuous, so subtle, so changing ; the matter so utterly “ the stuff which dreams are made of,” that clear voicing of the things seen is well-nigh im¬ possible. Yet however imperfect the description, some description must be essayed, in order to render intelligible the later growth and unfolding ; poor as it must be, it may be better than none.
A real 4 beginning ’ may not be found ; in the endless chain of living things a link may be studied, fairly complete in itself ; but the metal there¬ of has somewhere slept in the bosom of the earth, has been dug out from some mine, smelted in some furnace, wrought in some workshop, shaped by some hands, ere it appears as a link in a chain. And so with our Scheme. Without previous Schemes
4
18 MAN : WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
it could not be, for its higher inhabitants began not here their evolution. Suffice it, that some of the fragments of Deity, eternal Spirits, who other¬ where had passed through the downward arc — involving themselves in ever-densifying matter through the Elemental Kingdoms, and reaching their lowest point — began in the Mineral Kingdom of this first Chain their upward climbing, their long unfold¬ ing in evolving matter ; and in that Chain, learn¬ ing our first evolutionary lessons in that Mineral Kingdom, were we — the humanity of our present earth. It is these consciousnesses that we propose to trace from their life in minerals in the first Chain to their life in men in the fourth. Our¬ selves part of the humanity of the earth, it is easier to trace this than to trace something entirely alien from ourselves. For in this we are but evoking from the Eternal Memory scenes in which we our¬ selves played our part, with which we are indissolubly linked, and which we therefore can more easily reach.
Seven centres are seen, forming the first Chain, the first and seventh, as already said, on the spiritual level,1 the second and sixth on the in¬ tuitional,2 the third and fifth on the higher mental, the fourth on the lower mental. We name them in the fashion of later globes, A and G, B and F, C and E, and in the centre D, the turning point of the cycle. In the first Round of the fourth Chain, which is to some extent a coarse copy of the first Chain, the Occult Commentary quoted in The Secret Doctrine says of the Earth
1 Nirvanic.
a Bud4hic.
THE FIRST AND SECOND CHAINS
19
that it was “ a foetus in the matrix of Space,’' and the simile recurs to the mind. This Chain is the future worlds in the matrix of thought, the worlds that later are to be born into denser matter. We can scarcely call these centres 4 globes ’ ; they are like centres of light in a sea of light, foci of light through which light is rushing, wrought of the very substance of light and only light, yet modified by the flood of light which courses through them ; they are as vortex-rings, yet the rings are but light, only distinguishable by their whirling, by the difference of their motion, like whirlpools made only of water in the midst of water ; but these are whirlpools of light in the midst of light. The first and seventh centres are both modifications of spiritual matter, the seventh the perfected out- working of the broad outlines visible in the first, the finished picture outwrought from the rough sketch of the divine Artist. There is a humanity there, a very glorified humanity, product of some previous evolution, which is here to complete its human course on this Chain (see the top right hand circle in the first Chain in Diagram IV) ; hereon each entity will acquire his lowest body — in the fourth globe of each Round — the body of mental matter which is the densest the Chain can give. The level fixed for achievement on this Chain — the non¬ attainment of which would imply the necessity for rebirth on the following Chain — is the first of the great Initiations, or what corresponds to it there. On this first Chain there are — so far as we could see — none who drop out as failures, and some, as always seems to be the case in later
20 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
Chains also, pass far beyond the appointed level ; in the seventh Round the members of that human¬ ity who became Initiates entered on one or other of the seven Paths before-mentioned.
All stages of ego-hood appear to be present on this Chain, but the absence of the lower levels of matter to which we are accustomed makes one notable difference in the evolutionary methods that strikes the observer : everything not only starts but also progresses 6 above/ there being no below and no ‘ forms 5 in the ordinary sense of the word, but only centres of life, living beings without stable forms ; there are no physical and emotional worlds — in the first three globes not even a lower mental — from which impulses can surge upwards, calling down the higher in response to ensoul and use the forms already existing on the lower levels. The nearest approach to such action is on globe D, where the animal-like thought-forms reach up¬ wards, attracting the attention of the subtle centres floating above them ; then more of the life of the Spirit pulses out into the centres, and they anchor themselves to the thought-forms and ensoul them, and the thought-forms become human.
It is difficult to mark off the successive Rounds ; they seem to fade one into the other like dissolving views,1 and are marked only by slight increases and diminutions of light. Progress is very slow ; one recalls the Safya Yuga of the Hindu Scriptures, where a life lasts for many thousands of
1 It may be remembered that the first and second Races on our present world also showed something of this peculiarity, though on a level so much lower.
THE FIRST AND SECOND CHAINS
21
years without much change.1 The entities unfold very slowly, as rays of magnetised light play upon them ; it is like a gestation, like growth within an egg, or of a flower-bud within its sheath. The chief interest of the Chain is in the evolution of the Shining Ones — the Devas, or Angels — those who live habitually on these high levels ; while the lower evolutions seem to play a subsidiary part. Humanity is much influenced by these, mostly by their mere presence and by the atmosphere created by them, and occasionally a Shining One may be seen to take a human being almost as a toy or as a pet. The vast angelic evolution helps humanity by its very existence ; the vibrations set up by these glorious Spirits play on the lower human types, strengthening and vivifying them. Looking at the Chain as a whole, we saw it as a field for this Angel Kingdom primarily, and only second¬ arily for humanity ; but perchance that may ever be so, and that it is because we are human that we regard the world as so specially our own.
On the fourth globe, now and again a Shining One may be seen deliberately to aid a human being, transferring matter from his own body into the human, and thus increasing the responsiveness and suscepti¬ bility of the latter. Such helpers belong to the class of Form- Angels — Rupa-Devas — who live nor¬ mally in the lower mental world.
1 The Hindus divide time into cycles composed of four Yugas, or Ages, that succeed each other, the Satya, the first of the series, being the most spiritual and the longest. When the fourth is ended, a new cycle opens, again with a Satya.
22
MAN : WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
When we turn to the mineral kingdom, we are among those some of whom will become men on the Moon Chain, and some on the Earth Chain. The consciousness asleep in these minerals is to awaken gradually and to unfold through long stages into the human.
The vegetable kingdom is a little more awake, but very dull and sleepy still ; the normal progress herein will carry the ensouling consciousness into the animal kingdom on the second Chain, and into the human on the third.
At present, while we must needs speak of these kingdoms as mineral and vegetable, they are really composed of mere thoughts — thoughts of minerals, thoughts of vegetables, with the Monads who dream in them, as it were, floating over them, sending down faint thrills of life into these airy forms ; these Monads are, it would seem, forced now and again to turn attention to them, to feel through them, to sense through them, when some external touch compels a drowsy notice. These thought-forms are as models in the Mind of the Ruler of the Seven Chains, living within Him, products of His meditation, a world of thoughts, of ideas ; we see that the Monads who have acquired permanent atoms in some previous Scheme, and who are floating over these thought- forms, attach themselves to them, and become vague¬ ly conscious in and through them. Vague as this consciousness is there are differences in it ; the lowest grade can scarcely be called consciousness, the life in the thought-forms of types resembling what we should now call earth, rocks, stones. Monads touching these can scarcely be said to be
THE FIRST AND SECOND CHAINS
23
aware of anything through them, save of pressure, drawing from them a dull stirring of life, showing itself as resistance to the pressure, and thus differ¬ ent from the yet duller life in the chemical molecules unattached to Monads, and sensing no pressure. In the next grade, in the thought-forms resembling what we should now call metals, the sense of pressure is stronger and the resistance to it a little more definite ; there is almost an effort to push outwards against it, a reaction causing expansion. When this sub-conscious reaction is in several directions, the thought-model of a crystal is formed. We noticed that when our own con¬ sciousness was in the mineral, we felt only the sub-conscious re-action ; but passing out, and trying to feel the re-action from outside, it figured itself in our consciousness as a vague discontent at the pressure, and a dull resentful effort to resist and push against it. “ I feel a discontented sort of mineral,” one of us remarked. Probably the Monadic life, seeking expression, did vaguely feel dis¬ pleasure at its frustration, and this we felt when we came out of the mineral, feeling it in ourselves as we felt it in that part of our consciousness which was at that time outside the rigid form. If we glance hastily forward, we may see that Monads attached to crystals do not enter the next Chain in the lowest forms of vegetable life, but only in the higher, and, passing through those, enter the Moon Chain at its middle point as mammals, becoming individualised there, and taking human birth in its fifth Round.
One most disconcerting fact for observers is that these ‘thoughts of minerals9 are not immobile,
24
MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
but mobile; a hill, which one expects to be steady, will turn over or float away, or change its form ; there is no solid * earth, but a shifting panorama. It requires no faith to move these mountains, for they move of themselves.
At the end of this first Chain, all who attained the appointed level set for it — that which, as said before, corresponded to our first Initiation — entered on one or other of the seven Paths, one of these leading to work on the second Chain as the builders of the forms of its humanity, playing to it a part similar to that played later on our earth by the ‘Lords of the Moon’.1 These are called by H. P. Blavatsky fi Asuras,’ i.e., ‘ living beings ’ ; later the term was confined by usage to living beings in whom intellect, but not emotion was developed.2 Those who did not succeed in reaching this level entered the second Chain for their own further evolution
xThe Barhishad Pitrs of The Secret Doctrine.
« *
2 These Asuras acted on the second Chain as Barhishad
• •
Pitrs, and on the third as Agnishvatta Pitrs, and formed one of the highest classes of the superhuman Manasaputras who came to our earth, according to The Secret Doctrine. It must be remembered that these stages are all super¬ human ; they apparently indicate the superhuman stages of the fifth of the seven Paths named on p. 12. In The
Secret Doctrine a difficulty is created by the use of
this same name of Asuras for those who left the lunar Chain from the first globe of its seventh Round, and who caused trouble on Earth by ‘refusing to create’. Readers
of The Pedigree of Man must correct it by this, and by
details given later, for I was led into a mistake by the double use of the word in The Secret Doctrine. The human beings can never exist, as such, on more than two successive Chains. They must have become Supermen, for such appearance. — A. B.
THE FIRST AND SECOND CHAINS
25
at its midmost point and led its humanity, at the close of that Chain reaching liberation and being among its 6 Lords 5 ; some of these Lords, in turn, worked on the third Chain in building the forms of its humanity.1 The early humanity on the second Chain was drawn from the animal kingdom of the first ; the animal kingdom of the second Chain from the vegetable of the first ; while the vegetable king¬ dom of the second came from the mineral of the first. The three elemental kingdoms on the downward arc of the first Chain passed similarly into the second Chain, filling the mineral kingdom and two of the elemental, while the first elemental kingdom was formed from a new impulse of life from the Logos.
In the second Chain, the further descent into matter gives us a globe on the emotional plane, an astral globe, and the denser material makes things a little more coherent and comprehensible. We have then A and G on the intuitional level, B and F on the higher mental, C and E on the lower mental, and D on the emotional. On this lowest globe, things were a little more like those to which we are accustomed though still very strange and weird. Thus things with the general appearance of vegetables moved about with the freedom of animals, though apparently with little, if any, sentiency. They were not anchored to physical matter, and hence were very mobile. The young humanity here lived in close contact with the Shining Ones, who still dominated the evolutionary field, and the
1 In the nomenclature of the 5. D. becoming its Barhishad
Pitrs.
• *
26 MAN : WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
Form-Angels and the Desire-Angels — Rupa Devas and Kama Devas — strongly, but for the most part un¬ intentionally, influenced human evolution. Passion showed itself in many who now had emotional bodies on globe D, and its germs were visible in animals. Differences were noticeable in the capacity to respond to vibrations sent out, consciously and unconsciously, by the Shining Ones, but changes were very gradual and progress was slow. Later, when the intuitional consciousness unfolded, there was communication between this Scheme and the Scheme of which Venus is now the physical globe ; that Scheme is a Chain ahead of ours, and some came to our second Chain from there; but whether they belonged to the Venus humanity, or were members of the ‘ Staff,’ we could not tell.
Great surging clouds of matter, splendid in colour, were a noticeable feature on globe D in the first Round ; they became in the following Round denser, more brilliantly coloured, more responsive to vibrations which shaped them into forms, whether vegetable or animal it is hard to say. Much of the work was on the higher levels, a vitalising of subtle matter for future use, showing but little effect on the lower forms. Just as now elemental essence is used to build emotional and mental bodies, so then the Form- and Desire-Angels were seeking to differentiate themselves more fully by using these clouds of matter and living in them. They came down, sub-plane by sub-plane, into denser matter, but were not in this using the human kingdom. Even at the present time a Deva, or Angel, may ensoul a whole country-side, and
THE FIRST AND SECOND CHAINS
27
such action was very general then ; the emotional and lower-mental matter formed the bodies of these Angels, changing, intermingling ; and incidentally permanent atoms of vegetables, minerals, and even animals, rooting themselves in such Angel-bodies, grew and evolved. The Angels seemed to take no particular interest in them, any more than we interest ourselves in the evolution of microbes within ourselves ; now and then, however, some interest was shown in an animal, and its capacity to respond increased rapidly under such conditions.
Studying vegetable consciousness in the second Chain — in which we, who now are human, were living in the vegetable world — we find a dim awareness of forces playing on it, and a certain sense of compulsion towards growth. In some, there was a feeling of the want to grow, the wish to grow ; as one of the investigators remarked : “ I am trying to flower.” In others there was a slight resistance to the line of growth impressed, and a
i
vague groping after another self-chosen direction. Some seemed to try to use any forces that contacted them, and in their germinal consciousness held that all around existed for them. Some tried to push out in a direction which attracted them, and were frustrated and became vaguely resentful ; one, forming part of a Deva, was observed to be thus hindered, since the Deva was naturally arranging things to suit himself, and not any constituents of his body. On the other hand, from the ob¬ scure view-point of the vegetable, the Deva’s proceedings were as incomprehensible as the weather is to us in these days, and often as troublesome.
28 MAN : WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
Towards the end of the Chain, the more highly developed vegetables were showing a little mind, in fact a fair baby intelligence, recognising the existence of external animals, liking the neighbour¬ hood of some and shrinking from others. And there was a craving for more cohesion, evidently the result of the downward push of life into matter of greater density, the Will working in Nature for descent into denser levels. Without the physical anchorage the emotional forms were very unstable, and tended to float about vaguely and without purpose.
In the seventh Round of this Chain a con¬ siderable number dropped out from its humanity as failures, having fallen too far behind to find suitable forms ; and they went on later into the third, the Moon Chain, as men. Others reached the level now marked by the third Initiation, the level appointed for success on the second Chain, and entered on one of the seven Paths, one, as before, leading to the next Chain for work thereon. Those who were not failures, but had not reached perfect suc¬ cess, went on to the third Chain, entering it at the Round suitable for the stage previously reached. The foremost from the animal kingdom individualised on the second Chain, and began their human evolu¬ tion on the Moon Chain, passing through its lower kingdoms very rapidly and becoming men ; they then led evolution on that Chain until the classes already mentioned — first the failures, and then those who had not achieved perfect success — dropped in from the second Chain and became successively the leaders. The foremost from the second Chain
THE FIRST AND SECOND CHAINS
29
vegetable kingdom entered the Moon Chain Animal Kingdom as mammals, in its fourth Round, not passing through the infusoria and lower animal types — fishes and reptiles ; the rest came in, in its first Round, as animals of the lower types. The consciousnesses in the second Chain Mineral King¬ dom passed on into the Vegetable Kingdom in the Moon Chain, and the Mineral Kingdom was filled from the highest Elemental Kingdom of the second Chain. As before, the lowest Elemental Kingdom was filled by a new wave of life from the LOGOS.
An important principle may here be mentioned ; each of the seven sub-planes which make up a plane is again divided into seven ; hence a body, while containing matter of all the sub-planes in its constitution, will show activity only in the subdivisions corresponding to the number of the Chains or Rounds already experienced, or in the course of being experienced. A man working in the second Round of the second Chain will be able to use in his emotional and mental bodies only the first and second subdivisions of each sub¬ plane of astral and mental matter ; in the third Round he will be able to use the first, second and third, though not so fully as regards the third as he will do when he shall be in the third Round of the third Chain, and so on. Thus later on, in our Earth Chain, man in the second Round was working at and through the first and second subdivisions of each of the sub-planes, and feebly in the third and fourth, as he was in the fourth Chain; so that, while he had matter of all the sub-planes in him, it was only the two lower
30 MAN : WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
subdivisions of the two lower sub-planes that were fully active, and through these only could his con¬ sciousness fully work. Not until the seventh Race of our seventh Round will man possess the splen¬ did body in which every particle will thrill res¬ ponsive to himself, and even then not as perfectly as in later Chains.