Section 1

“Tintin a.
Theology Library
SEEQSORHICAL Manvats. No. t. : CLAREMONT L OF THEOLOG\ THE Claremont, CA
seven Principles Dp O of Man.
bo au ager. | BY ANNES? “BESANT: -F:TS. 107
TWENTIETH THOUSAND.
REVISED AND CORRECTED EDITION.
Lonpon & BENARES: THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY.
CHICAGO:
NEw YORK: THEOSOPHICAL Book CONCERN.
Joun Lane, 65, FirTH AVENUE.
1904.
PREFACE.
Few words are needed in sending this little book out into the world. It is the first of a series of Manuals designed to meet the public demand for a simple expo- sition of Theosophical teachings. Some have complained that our literature is at once too abstruse, too technical, and too expensive for the ordinary reader, and it is our hope that the present series may succeed in supplying what is a very real want. Theosophy is not only for the learned ; it ts for all. It may be that among those who in these little books catch their first glimpse of its teachings, there may be a few who will be led by them to penetrate more deeply into its philosophy, its science, and its religion, facing its abstruser problems with the student’s zeal and the neophyte’s ardour. But these Manuals are not written for the eager student whom no initial difficulties can daunt ; they ave written for the busy men and women of the work-a-day world, and seek to make plain some of the great truths that vender life easier to bear and death easier to face. Written by servants of the Masters who are the Elder Brothers of our race, they can have no other object than to serve our fellowmen.
THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF MAN.
INqurreERs attracted to Theosophy by its central doctrine of the brotherhood of man, and by the hopes which it holds out of wider knowledge and of spiritual growth, are apt to be repelled when they make their first attempt to come into closer acquaintance with it, by the to them strange and puzzling-names which flow glibly from the lips of Theosophists in conference assembled. They hear a tangle of Atma-Buddhi, Kama-Manas, Triad, Devachan, and what not, and feel at once that for them Theosophy is far too abstruse a study. Yet they might have become very good Theosophists, had not their initial enthusiasm been quenched with the douche of San- skrit terms. In the present manual the smoking flax shall be more tenderly treated, and but few Sanskrit names shall be flung in the face of the inquirer. As a matter of fact the use of these terms has become general among Theosophists because the English language has no equivalents for them, and a long and clumsy sentence has to be used in their stead if the idea is to be conveyed at all. The initial trouble of learning the names has been preferred to the continued trouble of using roundabout descriptive phrases—‘ Kama,” for instance, being shorter and more precise than “the passional and emotional part of our nature.”’
Man, according to the Theosophical teaching, is a
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seven-fold being, or, in the usual phrase, has a septenary constitution. Putting it in another way, man’s nature has seven aspects, may be studied from seven different points of view, is composed of seven principles. The - clearest and best way of all in which to think of man is to regard him as one, the Spirit or true Self; this belongs to the highest region. of the universe, and is universal, the same for all; it is a ray of God, a spark from the divine fire. This is to become an individual, reflecting the divine perfection,;-a son that grows into the likeness of his father. For this purpose the Spirit, or true Self, is clothed in garment after garment, each garment be- Jonging to a definite region of the universe, and enabling the Self to come into contact with that region, gain knowledge of it, and workin it.. It thus gains experience, and all its latent potentialities are gradually drawn out into active powers. These garments, or sheaths, are. distinguishable from each other both theoretically and. practically. Ifa man be looked at clairvoyantly each is distinguishable by the.eye,.and they are separable each: from each either during physical life .or at -death, according to the mature of any . particular’ sheath. Whatever words may be-used, the. fact- remains the same—that he is essentially seven-fold, an evolving being, part of whosewnature has :already been manifested, part remaining latent at-present, so;far.as the vast. majority of humankind are concerned. Man’s consciousness is able-to function through as many of these aspects as have been already evolved in him into activity. :
This evolution, during the present cycle of: human: development, takes place on five out of the seven planes: of :nature.’ “The. two higher. planes—the-. sixth ~~ and: seventh—will not be reached, save in the most:excep» tional cases,:by the men-of this humanity in the present
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cycle, and they may therefore be left out of sight for our present purpose. As, however, some confusion has arisen as to"the seven planes:through differences of the nomen- clature, two diagrams are given at.the end of this treatise showing the seven planes as they exist in our division of the universe, in correspondence with the vaster planes of the universe as a whole, and:also the subdivision of the five into seven, as they are represented in some of our literature. A “plane” is merely a condition, a stage, a state; so that we might describe man as fitted by his nature, when that nature is fully developed, to exist consciously in seven different conditions, or seven dif- ferent stages, in seven different states; or, technically, on seven different planes of being. To take an easily verified illustration: a man may be conscious on the physical plane, that is, in his physical body, feeling hunger.and thirst, the pain of a blow or cut. But let the man be a soldier in the heat of battle, and his con- sciousness will be centred in his passions and emotions, and he may suffer a wound without knowing it, his con- sciousness being away from the physical plane and acting on the plane of passions and emotions: when the excite- ment is over, consciousness will pass back to the physical, and he will “feel” the pain of his wound. Let the man be a philosopher, and as he ponders over some knotty problem he will lose all consciousness of bodily wants, of emotions, of love and hatred; his consciousness will have passed to the plane of intellect, he will be “abstracted,” i.e., drawn away from considerations per- taining to his bodily life, and fixed on the plane of thought. Thus may a man live on these several planes, in these several conditions, one part or another of his nature being thrown into activity at any given time; and an understanding of what man is, of his nature, his powers,
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his possibilities, will be reached more easily and assimi- lated more usefully if he is studied along these clearly defined lines, than if he be left without analysis, a mere confused bundle of qualities and states.
It has also been found convenient, having regard to ~ man’s mortal and immortal life, to put these seven principles into two groups—one containing the three higher principles and therefore called the Triad, the other containing the four lower, and therefore called the Quaternary. The Triad is the deathless part of man’s nature, the “spirit” and soul of Christian terminology ; the Quaternary is the mortal part, the “body” of Christianity. This division into body, soul, and spirit is used by St. Paul, and is recognised in all careful Christian philosophy, although generally ignored by the mass of Christian people. In ordinary parlance soul and body, or spirit and body, make up the man, and the words soul and spirit are used interchangeably, with much confusion of thought as the result. This loose- ness is fatal to any clear view of the constitution of man, and the Theosophist may well appeal to the Christian philosopher as against the casual Christian non-thinker if it be urged that he is making distinctions difficult to be grasped. No philosophy worthy of the name can be stated even in the most elementary fashion without making some demand on the intelligence and the attention of the would-be learner, and carefulness in the use of terms is a condition of all knowledge.
Principte I. Tue Dense Puysicat Bopy.
The dense physical body of man is called the first of his seven principles, as it is certainly the most obvious. Built of material molecules, in the generally accepted sense of the term, with its five organs of sensation—the five senses—its organs of locomotion, its brain and nervous system, its apparatus for carrying on the various functions necessary for its continued existence, there is little to be said about this physical body in so slight a sketch as this of the constitution of man. Western science is almost ready to accept the Theosophical view that the human orgariism consists of innumerable “lives,” which build up the cells. H. P. Blavatsky says on this: “«« Science has never yet gone so far as to assert with the Occult doctrine that our bodies, as well as those of animals, plants, and stones, are themselves altogether built up of such beings [ bacteria, etc.]: which, with the excep- tion of the larger species, no microscope can detect... .
The physical and chemical constituents of all being found to be identical, chemical science may well say that there is no difference between the matter which composes the ox and that which forms the man. But the Occult doctrine is far more explicit. It says: Not only the chemical compounds are the same, but the same in- finitesimal ivisible lives compose the atoms. of the bodies of the mountain and the daisy, of man and the ant, of the elephant and of the tree which shelters him
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from the sun. Each particle—whether you call it organic or inorganic—is a life. Every atom and molecule in the universe is both life-giving and death-giving to such forms” (Secret Doctrine, vol. i., p. 281, new edition). The microbes thus “ build up the material body and its cells,” under the constructive energy of vitality—a phrase that will be explained when we come to deal with “life,” as the Third Principle, and with these microbes as part of it. When the “life ’’ is no longer supplied the microbes “are left to run riot as destructive agents,” and they break up and disintegrate the cells which they built, and so the body goes to pieces.
The purely physical consciousness is the consciousness of the cells and the molecules. : ‘The selective action of the cells, taking from the blood what they need, rejecting what: they do not need, is an instance of this self- consciousness.. The process goes on without the help of our consciousness or volition. ‘Again that. which is: called by physiologists unconscious memory is the memory. of this physical consciousness. unconscious to us indeed, until we: have learned to transfer our brain consciousness thither. _ What we feel is not what the cells feel. The pain of a wound is felt by the brain-consciousness, acting, as before said, on the physical plane; but the con- sciousness: of the molecule, as of the aggregation of molecules. we call cells, leads it to hurry to the repair of the damaged tissues——actions of which the brain is unconscious—and its memory. makes it repeat the same act again and again, even when it has become unnecessary. Hence cicatrices on wounds, scars, cal-. losities, etc. The student may find many details on this subject in physiological treatises. ah,
The death of the. dense physical body. occurs when. the withdrawal of the controlling life-energy leaves the
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microbes to go their own way, and the many lives, no longer co-ordinated, separate from each other and scatter the particles of the cells of “the man of dust,” and what we call decay sets in. The body becomes a whirlpool of unrestrained, unregulated lives, and its form, which resulted from their correlation, is destroyed by their exuberant individual energy. Death is but an aspect of life, and the destruction of one material form is but the prelude to the building up of another.
Principle Il. Tue Etueric DouBLe.
The Linga Sharira, the astral body, the ethereal
body, the fluidic body, the double, the wraith, the |
déppelganger, the astral man—such are a few of the many names which have been given to the second principle in man’s constitution. The best name is the Etheric double, because this term designates the second principle only, suggesting its constitution and appear- ance: whereas the other names have been used some- what generally to describe bodies formed of more subtle matter than that which affects our physical senses, with- out regard to the question whether other principles were or were not involved in their construction. I shall therefore use this name throughout.
The etheric double is formed of matter rarer or more subtle than that which is perceptible to our five senses, but still matter belonging to the physical plane, to which its functioning is confined. It is the state of physical matter which is just beyond our “solid, liquid, and gas,’”’ which forms the dense portions of the physical plane.
This etheric double is the exact double or counter- part of the dense physical body to which it belongs, and is separable from it, although unable to go very far away therefrom. In normal healthy human beings the separation is a matter of difficulty, but in persons known as physical or materializing mediums, the ethereal
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double slips out without any great effort. When separated from the dense body it is visible to the clair- voyant as an exact replica thereof, united to it by a slender thread. So close is the physical union between the two that an injury inflicted on the etheric double appears as a lesion on the dense body, a fact known under the name of repercussion. well-known work—translated by Colonel H. S. Olcott, the President-Founder of the Theosophical Society, under the title of Posthumus Humanity—gives a number of cases (see pp. 51-57) in which this repercussion took place.
Separation of the etheric double from the dense body is generally accompanied by a considerable de- crease of vitality in the latter, the double becoming more vitalized as the energy in the dense body dimin- ishes. Colonel Olcott says in a note in the book just mentioned (p. 63) :—
‘« When the double is projected by a trained expert, even the body seems torpid, and the mind in a ‘brown study’ or dazed state; the eyes are lifeless in expression, the heart and lung actions feeble, and often the temperature much lowered. It is very dangerous to make any sudden noise or burst into the room under such circumstances; for the double, being by instantaneous reaction drawn back into the body, the heart convulsively pal- pitates, and death even may be caused.”’
In the case of Emilie Sagée (quoted on pp. 62-65), the girl was noticed to look pale and exhausted when the double was visible: “the more distinct the double and more material in appearance, the really material person was proportionately wearied, suffering and languid; when, on the contrary, the appearance of the double weakened, the patient was seen to recover strength.” This pheno- menon is perfectly intelligible to the Theosophical student,
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who knows that the etheric double is the vehicle: of the life-principle,. or vitality, in- the physical body, and that its partial withdrawal must therefore diminish the energy with which this principle plays on the denser molecules.
Clairvoyants, such. as the Seeress of Prevorst, state that they can see the ethereal arm or leg attached to a body from which the dense limb has. been amputated, and d’Assier remarks on this :— °
‘‘ Whilst I was absorbed: in: physiological studies, I was often arrested by a singular fact. It sometimes happens that a person who has lost an arm or leg experiences certain sensations at the extremities of the fingers or toes Physiologists explain this anomaly by postulating-in the patient an inversion of sensitive- ness or of recollection,. which makes him locate. in the hand. or the foot the sensation with which the nerve of the stump is alone affected. . . . I confess that these explanations seemed to me ‘aboured and have never satisfied me. When I studied the problem of the duplication of man, the question of amputations recurred to my mind, and I asked myself if it was not more simple and. logical to.attribute the anomaly of which I have spoken to the doubling of the human body, which by its fluidic nature’ can escape:amputation.”’ (ieee vu, = 103, IO4)..
The etheric dénbte: plays a. great part in spiritual- istic phenomena. Here again the clairvoyant can help us. A clairvoyant can see the etheric double oozing out of the left side of the medium, and it is this which often appears as the “materialized spirit,” easily moulded into-various shapes by the -thought-currents of the sitters, and gaining strength and vitality as the medium sinks into a deep trance. The Countess: Wachtmeister, who is clairvoyant, says that she has seen the same “spirit ” recognised as that ofa dear relative and friend by differ- ent sitters, each of whom saw it according to his expec- tations, while to her own eyes it was the mere double of
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the medium. ..So again H. P. Blavatsky told me that when she was at the Eddy homestead, watching the remarkable series of phenomena there produced, she deliberately moulded the “ spirit’ that appeared into the likenesses of persons known to herself and to no one else present, and the other sitters saw the types which she produced by her own will-power, moulding the. plastic matter of the medium’s etheric double.