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Annie Besant

1847 - 1933

 

 

A Rough Outline of Theosophy

By

Annie Besant

 

 

First Published November 1921

 

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IN dealing with a great theme within narrow limits one has always to make a choice of evils: one must either substantiate each point, buttress it up

with arguments, and thus fail to give any roughly complete idea of the whole; or one must make an outline of the whole, leaving out the proofs which bring conviction of the truth of the teaching. As the main object of this paper is to place before the average man or woman an idea of Theosophy as a whole, I elect to take the inconvenience of the latter alternative, and use the expository instead of the controversial method. Those who are sufficiently interested in the subject to desire further knowledge can easily pass on into the

investigation of evidences, evidences that are within the reach of all who have patience, power of thought and courage.

 

 

We, who are Theosophists, allege that there exists a great body of doctrine philosophical, scientific and ethical, which forms the basis of, and includes

all that is accurate in, the philosophies, sciences, and religions of the ancient and modern worlds.

 

This body of doctrine is a philosophy and a

science more than a religion in the ordinary sense of the word, for it does not impose dogmas as necessary to be believed under any kind of supernatural penalties, as do the various Churches of the world. It is indeed a religion, if religion be the binding of life by a sublime ideal; but it puts forward its teachings as capable of demonstration, not on authority which it is blasphemy to

challenge or deny.

 

 

That some great body of doctrine did exist in antiquity, and was transmitted from generation to generation, is patent to any investigator. It was this which was taught in the Mysteries, of which Dr. Warburton wrote: “The wisest and best men in the Pagan world are unanimous in this, that the Mysteries were instituted pure, and proposed the noblest ends by the worthiest means”. To speak of the Initiates is to speak of the greatest men of old; in their ranks we find Plato and Pythagoras, Euclid and Democritus, Thales and Solon, Apollonius and lamblichus. In the Mysteries unveiled, they learned their wisdom, and gave out to the world such fragments of it as their oath allowed. But those fragments have fed the world for centuries, and even yet the learned of the modern West sit at the feet of these elder sons of wisdom.

 

Among the teachers of the early Christian Church some of these men were found; they held Christianity in its esoteric meaning, and used exoteric dogmas merely as veils to cover the hidden

truth. “Unto you it is given”, said Jesus, “to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but unto them that are without, all these things are done in

parables” (Mark, iv, 2). Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen both recognised the esoteric nature of the underlying truths of Christianity, as before them did Paul. In West as in East, exoteric religions were but the popular representations of the Secret Wisdom.

 

But with the triumph of ecclesiasticism, the Secret Wisdom drew back further and further into the shade, until its very existence slowly faded from the minds of men. Now and then one of its disciples appeared in Christendom, and gave to the world some discovery which started thought on some new and fruitful line; thus Paracelsus, with his discovery of hydrogen, his magnetic treatment for the core of disease, and his many hints at secrets of nature not even yet worked out.

 

Trace through the Middle Ages, too often by the lurid light of flames blazing round a human body, the path along which the pioneers of Science toiled, and it will be found that the magicians and wizards were the finger-posts that marked the way. Passing strange it is to note how the minds of men have changed in their aspect to the guardians of the Hidden Wisdom. Of old, in their passionate gratitude, men regarded them as well nigh divine, thinking no honours too great to pay to those who had won the right of entrance into the temple of the Unveiled Truth. In the Middle Ages, when men, having turned from the light, saw devils everywhere in the darkness, the adepts of the Right-Hand Path were dreaded as those of the Left, and where-ever new knowledge appeared and obscure regions of nature were made visible, cries of terror and wrath rent the air, and men paid their benefactors with torture and with death, In our own time, secure in the completeness of our knowledge, certain that our philosophy embraces all things possible in heaven and earth, we neither honour the teachers as Gods nor denounce them as devils: with a shrug of contempt and a sniff of derision we turn from them, as they come to us with outstretched hands full of priceless gifts, and we mutter, “Frauds, charlatans!” entrenched as we are in our modern conceit that only our century is wise.

 

Theosophy claims to be this Secret Wisdom, this great body of doctrine, and it alleges that this precious deposit, enriched with the results of the

investigations of generations of Seers and Sages, verified by countless experiments, is today, as of old, in the hands of a mighty Brotherhood,

variously spoken of as Adepts, Arhats, Masters. Mahatmas, Brothers, who are living men, evolved further than average humanity, who work ever for the service of their race with a perfect and selfless devotion, holding their high powers in

trust for the common good, content to be without recognition, having passed beyond all desires of the personal self.

 

The claim is a lofty one, but it can be substantiated by evidence. I leave it as a mere statement of the position taken up. Coming to the Western world today, Theosophy speaks far more openly than it has ever done before, owing to the simple fact that, with the evolution of the race, man has become more and more fitted to be the recipient of such knowledge, so that what would once be taught

to only a small minority may now find a wider field. Some of the doctrine is now thrown broadcast, so that all who can receive it may; but the keys which unlock the Mysteries are still committed but to few hands, hands too well tried to

tremble under their weight, or to let them slip from either weakness or treachery.

 

As of old, so now, the Secret Wisdom is guarded, not by the arbitrary consent or refusal of the Teachers to impart instruction, but by the capacity of the student to understand and to assimilate.

 

Theosophy postulates the existence of an eternal Principle, known only through its effects. No words can describe It, for words imply discrimination, and This is ALL. We murmur, Absolute, Infinite, Unconditioned — but the words mean

naught. SAT, the Wise speak of: BE-NESS, not even Being, nor Existence. Only as the Manifested becomes, can language be used with meaning; but the appearance of the Manifested implies the Unmanifested, for the Manifested is transitory and mutable, and there must be Something that eternally endures. This Eternal must be postulated, else whence the existences around us ? It must contain within Itself That which is the essence of the germ of all possibilities, all potencies: Space is the only conception that can even faintly mirror It without preposterous distortion, but silence least offends in these high regions where the wings of thought beat faintly, and lips can only falter, not pronounce.

 

The universe is, in Theosophy, the manifestation of an aspect of SAT. Rhythmically succeed each other periods of activity and periods of repose, periods of manifestation and periods of absorption, the expiration and inspiration of the Great Breath, in the figurative and most expressive phraseology of the East. The outbreathing is the manifested world; the inbreathing terminates the period of activity.

 

The Root-Substance differentiates into spirit-matter, whereof the universe, visible and invisible, is built up, evolving into seven stages, or planes, of manifestation, each denser than its predecessor; the substance is the same in all, but the degrees of its density differ. So the chemist may have in his receiver water held invisible: he may condense it into a faint mist-cloud, condense it further into vapour, further yet into liquid, further yet into solid; throughout he has the same chemical

compound, though he changes its condition. Now it is well to remember that the chemist is dealing with facts in Nature and that his results may therefore throw light on natural methods, working in larger fields; we may at least learn from such an illustration to clarify our conceptions of the past course of evolution.

 

Thus, from the Theosophical standpoint, spirit and matter are essentially one, and the universe one living whole from center to circumference, not a molecule in it that is not instinct with life. Hence the difficulty that scientists have always found in defining life. Every definition they have made has broken down as excluding some phenomena that they were compelled to recognize as those of life. Sentiency, in our meaning of the word there may not be, say in the mineral; but is it therefore dead ? Its particles cohere, they vibrate, they attract and they repel: what are these but manifestations of that living energy which rolls the worlds in their courses, flashes from continent to continent, thrills from root to summit of the plant, pulses in the animal, reasons in the man ?

 

One Life and therefore One Law, everywhere, not a Chaos of warring atoms but a Kosmos of ordered growth. Death itself is but a change in life-manifestation, life which has outworn one garment, and, rending it in pieces, clothes itself anew. When the thoughtless say, “He is dead”, the wise know that the countless lives of which the human body is built up have become charged with more energy than the bodily structure can stand, that the strain has become too great, that disruption must ensue. But death is only transformation not destruction, and every molecule has pure life essence at its core with the material garment it has woven round itself of its own substance for action on the objective plane.

 

Each of the seven Kosmic planes of manifestation is marked off by its own characteristics; in the first pure spirit, the primary emanation of the ONE,

subtlest, rarest, of all manifestations, incognisable even by the highest of Adepts save as present in its vehicle, the Spiritual Soul: without form, without

intelligence, as we use the word — these matters are too high, “I cannot attain unto them”. Next comes the plane of Mind, of loftiest spiritual intelligence, where first entity as entity can be postulated; individualism begins, the Ego

first appears. Rare and subtle is matter on that plane, yet form is there possible, for the individual implies the presence of limitation, the separation

of the “I” from the “not I”. Fourth, still densifying, comes the plane of animal passions and desires, actual forms on their own plane. Then, fifthly, that of the vivid animating life-principle, as absorbed in forms. Sixthly, the astral plane, in which matter is but slightly rarer than with ourselves. Seventhly, the plane familiar to all of us, that of the objective universe.

 

Let us delay for a moment over this question of planes, for on the understanding of it hinges our grasp of the philosophical aspect of Theosophy. A plane may be defined as a state marked off by clear characteristics; it must not be thought of as a place, as though the universe were made up of shells one within the other like the coats of an onion. The conception is metaphysical, not

physical, the consciousness acting on each plane in fashion appropriate to each.

 

Thus a man may pass from the plane of the objective in which his consciousness is generally acting, on to the other planes: he may pass into the astral in sleep, under mesmerism, under the influence of various drugs; his consciousness may be removed from the physical plane, his body passive, his brain inert; an electric light leaves his eyes unaffected, a gong beaten at his ear cannot rouse the organ of hearing; the organs through which his consciousness normally acts in the physical universe are all useless, for the consciousness that uses them is transferred to another plane.

 

But he can see, hear, understand, on the astral plane, see sights invisible to physical eyes, hear sounds inaudible to physical ears. Not real ? What is real ? Some people confine the real to the tangible, and only believe in the existence of a thing that can knock them down with a lesion to prove the striking. But an emotion can slay as swiftly as an arrow; a thought can cure with as much certainty as a drug. All the mightiest forces are those which are invisible on this plane, visible though they be to senses subtler than our own. Take the case of a soldier who, in the mad passion of slaughter, the lust for blood, is wounded in the onward charge, and knows not the wounding till his passions cool and the fight is over; his consciousness during the fight is transferred to the fourth plane, that of the emotions and passions, and it is not till it returns from that to the plane of the physical body that pain is felt. So again will a great philosopher, his consciousness rising to the plane of intelligence, becomes wholly abstracted — as we well say — from the physical plane; brooding over some deep problem, he forgets all physical wants, all bodily appetites, and becomes concentrated entirely on the thought-plane, the fifth, in Theosophic parlance.

 

Now the consciousness of man can thus pass from plane to plane because he is himself the universe in miniature, and is built up himself of these seven

principles, as they are sometimes called, or better, is himself a differentiation of consciousness on seven planes. It may be well, at this stage,

to give to these states of consciousness the names by which they are known in Theosophical literature, for although some people shrink from names that are unfamiliar, there are, after all, only seven of them, and the use of them enables one to avoid the continual repetition of clumsy and inexact descriptive sentences. To Macrocosm and Microcosm alike the names apply, although they are most often found in relation to man. The Spirit in man is named Âtmă, cognizable only in its vehicle Buddhi, the Spiritual Soul; these are the reflections in man of the highest planes in the universe.

 

The Spiritual Intelligence is Manas, the Ego in man, the 1immortal entity, the link between Âtmă-Buddhi and the temporary personality. Below these come in order Kama, the emotional and passional nature; Prâna, the animating life-principle of the personality; Lińga Sharîra, the astral body the double of the physical, but formed of the somewhat more ethereal astral matter; lastly, Stűla Sharîra, the physical body.

 

These seven states are grouped under two heads: Âtma-Buddhi-Manas make up the trinity in man, imperishable, immortal, the pilgrim that passes through countless lives; the Individual, the True Man. Kâma, Prâna, Lińga Sharîra, and Sthűla Sharîra form the quaternary, the transitory part of the human being, the person, which perishes gradually, onwards from the death of the physical body.

 

This disintegrates, the molecules of physical, astral, kămic matter finding all new forms into which they are built, and the more quickly they are all resolved into their elements the better for all concerned. The consciousness of the normal man

resides chiefly on the physical, astral and kamic planes, with the lower portion of the Mănasic. In flashes of genius, in loftiest aspirations, he is touched for a moment by the light from the higher Mănasic regions, but this comes — only comes — to the few, and to these but in rare moments of sublime abstraction.

 

Happy they who even thus catch a glimpse of the Divine Augoeides, the immortal Ego within them. To none born of women, save the Masters, is it at the present time given by the law of evolution to rise to the Âtmic-Buddhic planes in man; thither the race will climb millenniums hence, but at present it boots not to speak thereof.

 

Each of these planes has its own organisms, its own phenomena, the laws of its own manifestation; and each can be investigated as exactly, as scientifically, as experimentally, as the objective plane with which we are most familiar. All that is necessary is that we should use our appropriate organs of sensation, and appropriate methods of investigation. On the objective plane we are already able to obey this rule; we do not use our eyes to listen to sounds, and then deny that sounds exist because our eyes cannot hear them nor do we take in hand the microscope to examine a distant nebula, and then say that the nebula is not there because the field of the microscope is dark.

 

A very slight knowledge of our own objective universe will place us in the right mental attitude towards the unknown. Why do we see, hear, taste, feel ? Merely because our physical body is capable of receiving certain impressions from without by way of the avenues of senses.

 

But there are myriads of phenomena, as real as those we familiarly cognize, which are to us non-existent, for the very simple reason that our organs of sensation are not adapted to receive them. Take the air-vibrations which, translated into terms of consciousness, we call sound. If an instrument

that emits successive notes be sounded in a room with a dozen people, as the notes become shriller and shriller one person after another drops out

of the circle of auditors and is wrapped in silence while still a note is sounding, audible to others there; at last a pipe speaks that no one hears, and

though all the air be throbbing with its vibrations, silence complete reigns in the room. The vibration-waves have become so short and rapid that the mechanism of the human ear cannot vibrate in unison with them; the objective phenomenon is there, but the subjective does not respond to it, so that for man it does not exist.

 

Similar illustrations might be drawn in connection with every sense, and it is surely not too much to claim that if, on the plane to which our bodies are

correlated, phenomena constantly escape our dull perceptions, men shall not found on their ignorance of other planes the absolute denial of their existence.

 

Only informed opinion is of any weight in discussion, and in Occult Science, as in every other, the mere chatter and vituperation of uninformed criticism do not count. The Occultist can be no more moved thereby than Professor Huxley by the assertions of a fourth-standard schoolboy.

 

Those who have time, ability, and courage, can develop in themselves the senses and the capacities which enable the consciousness to come into touch with the higher planes, senses and capacities already evolved and fully at work in some, and to be in the course of ages the common inheritance of every child of man. I know that the exercise of these powers often arouses in the minds of people convinced of their reality an eager desire to possess them, but only those who will pay the price can attain possession. And the first installment of that price is the absolute renunciation of all that men prize and long for here on earth; complete self-abnegation; perfect devotion to the service of others; destruction of all personal desires; detachment from all earthly things. Such is the first step on the Right-Hand Path, and until that step is taken it is idle to talk of further progress along that thorny road. Occultism wears no crown save that of thorns, and its scepter of command is the seven-knotted wand, in which each knot marks the payment of a price from which the normal man or woman would turn shuddering away. It is because of this that it is not worth while to deal with this aspect of Theosophy at any length. What does concern us is the general plan of evolution, the pilgrimage of the Ego, of the individual, encased in the outer shell of the personality.

 

The evolution of man consists in the acquirement by the Ego of experience, and the gradual moulding of the physical nature into a form which can readily respond to every prompting of the Spirit within. This evolution is carried on by the repeated incarnation of the Ego, overshadowed by the Spirit, in successive personalities, through which it lives and acts on the objective plane. The task

before it when it starts on the wheel of life on this earth; during the present cycle, is to acquire and assimilate all experience, and so to energize and sublimate the objective form of man that it may become a fit instrument and dwelling for the Spirit; the complete assimilation of the Ego with the Spirit, of Manas with Âtma-Buddhi, being the final goal of the long and painful pilgrimage. It is obvious that such work cannot be accomplished in one lifetime, or in a few. For such a gigantic task countless lives must be required, each life but one step in the long climbing upward. Each life should

garner some fresh experience, should add some new capacity or strengthen some budding force; thus is built up through numberless generations the Perfect Man. Hence the doctrine of Reincarnation is the very core and essence of Theosophy, and according to the hold this belief has on life, so will be the grasp of the learner on all Theosophic truth.

 

There is no doctrine in the range of philosophy which throws so much light on the tangled web of human life as does this doctrine of Reincarnation. Take, for instance, the immense difference in capacity and in character found within the limits of the human race. In all plants and in all animals the characteristic qualities of species may vary, but within comparatively narrow limits; so also with man, so far as his outer form, his instincts and his animal passions are concerned. They vary of course, as those of the brute vary, but their broad

outline remains the same.

 

But when we come to study the difference of mental capacity and moral character, we are struck with the vast distances that separate man from man. Between the savage, counting five upon his fingers,

and the Newton who calculates the movements of a planet and predicts its course, how wide and deep a gulf as to intellect! Between a barbarian dancing gleefully round the bleeding body of his foe, as he mangles and torments the living tissues, and the Howard who gives his life to save and aid the lowest fallen of his people, how vast the difference as to character ! And this leaves out of account those living men, who are as far ahead of Newton and of Howard as these are above the least evolved of our race. Whence the great divergences,

unparalleled among the rest of the organisms on our globe ? Why is man alone so diverse ! Theosophy points in answer to the reincarnation of the Ego, and sees in the differing stages of experience reached by that Ego the explanation of the differing intellectual and moral capacities of the personality. Baby Egos — as I have heard H. P. Blavatsky call them with reference to their lack of human experience — inform the little-evolved humanity, while those who dwell in the more highly developed races are those who have already garnered much rich harvest of past experience and have thereby become capable of more rapid growth.

 

The Ego that has completed a span of earth-life, and has shaken off the worn-out personality 1that it informed, passes into a subjective state of rest, ere reassuming “the burden of the flesh”. Thus it remains for a period varying in length according to the stage of evolution it has reached. When that period is exhausted, it is drawn back to earth-life, to such environment as is suitable for the growing of the seed it has sown in its past.

 

As surely as hydrogen and oxygen rush into union under certain conditions of temperature and of pressure, is the Ego drawn by irresistible affinity to the circumstances that yield opening for its further evolution. Suitable environment, suitable parents to provide a suitable physical body, such are some of the conditions that guide the place and time of reincarnation.

 

The desire for sentient life, the desire for objective expression, that desire which set the universe a-building, impels the Ego to seek renewed manifestation; it is drawn to the surroundings which its own past has made necessary for its further progress. Nor is this all. I have spoken of the fact that each plane has its own organisms, its own laws; the Mănasic plane is the plane on which thoughts take forms, objective to all who are able to perceive on that plane. All the experiences of a life, gathered up after death, and the essence, as it were, extracted, have their appropriate thought-forms on the Mănasic plane; as the time for the reincarnation of the Ego approaches, these, with previous unexhausted similar thought-forms, pass to the astral plane, clothe themselves in astral matter, and mould the astral body into the form suitable for the working out of their own natural results.

 

Into this astral body the physical is built, molecule by molecule, the astral mould thus, in its turn, moulding the physical. Through the physical body, including its brain, the reincarnated Ego has to work for the term of that incarnation, and thus it dwells in a tabernacle of its own construction, the

inevitable resultant of its own past earth lives.

 

To how many of the problems that vex thinkers today by the apparent hopelessness of their solution, is an explanation suggested if, for the moment, Reincarnation be accepted even as a possible hypothesis. Within the limits of a family, hereditary physical likeness, often joined by startling mental and moral divergences; twins, alike as far as regards heredity and pre-natal environment, yet showing in some cases strong resemblance, in others no less dissimilarity.

 

Cases of precocity, where the infant brain manifests the rarest capacities precedent to all instruction. Cases of rapid gain of knowledge, where the knowledge seems to be remembered rather than acquired, recognized rather than

learned. Cases of intuition, startling in their swiftness and lucidity, insight clear and rapid into complicated problems without guide or teacher to show the way. All these and many other similar puzzles receive light from the idea of the

persistent individual that informs each personality, and it is a well-known principle in seeking for some general law underlying a mass of apparently unrelated phenomena that the hypothesis which explains most, brings most into accord with an intelligible sequence, is the one most likely to repay

further investigation.

 

To those, again, who shrink from the idea that the Universe is one vast embodiment of injustice, the doctrine of Reincarnation comes as a mental relief

from a well nigh unbearable strain. When we see the eager mind imprisoned in an inefficient body; when we note the differences of mental and moral capacity that make all achievement easy to one, impossible to others; when we come across what seem to be undeserved suffering, disadvantageous circumstances; when we feel longings after heights unattainable for lack of strength; then the knowledge that we create our own character, that we have made our own strength or our own weakness, that we are not the sport of an arbitrary God or of a soulless Destiny, but are verily and indeed the creators of ourselves and of our lot in

life — this knowledge comes to us as a support and an inspiration, giving energy to improve and courage to endure.

 

This immutable law of cause and effect is spoken of as Karma (action) in Theosophy. Each action — using the word to include all forms of activity,

mental, moral, physical — is a cause and must work out its full effect. Effect as regards the past, it is cause as regards the future, and under this

sway of karmic law moves the whole life of man as of all worlds. Every debt incurred must be duly paid in this or in some other life, and as the wheel of life turns round, it brings with it the fruit of every seed that we have sown. Reincarnation under karmic law, such is the message of Theosophy to a

Christendom which relies on a vicarious atonement and a swift escape to Paradise when the grave closes on the dead. Reincarnation under karmic law, until the fruit of every experience has been gathered, every blunder rectified, every fault eradicated, until compassion has been made perfect, strength unbreakable, tenderness complete, self-abnegation the law of life, renunciation for others the natural and joyous impulse of the whole nature.

 

But how, it may be asked, can you urge to effort, or press responsibility, if you regard every action as one link in an infrangible chain of cause and effect

? The answer lies in the sevenfold nature of man, in the action of the higher on the lower. The freewill of man on this plane is lodged in the Mănasic entity, which acts on his lower nature. Absolute freewill is there none, save in the

Unconditioned. When manifestation begins, the Universal Will becomes bound and limited by the laws of Its own manifestation, by the fashion of the expression It has chosen as Its temporary vehicle. Conditioned, it is limited by the conditions It has imposed on Itself, manifesting under the garb of the universe in which it wills to body Itself forth.

 

On each plane Its expression is limited by the capacities of Its embodiments. Now the Manasic entity in its own sphere is the reflection, the image, of the Universal Will in Kosmos. So far as

the personality is concerned, the promptings, the impulses, from the Mănasic plane are spontaneous, have every mark of freedom, and if we start from the lowest plane of objective nature, we shall see how relative freedom is possible.

 

If a man be loaded with chains, his muscles will be limited in their power of movement. They are constrained in their expression by the dead weight of iron pressing upon them; yet the muscular force is there, though denied outward expression, and the iron cannot prevent the straining of the fibers against the force used in their subdual. Again, some strong emotion, some powerful impulse

from the kăma-mănasic plane, may hold rigid the muscles under lesion that would make every fibre contract and pull the limb away from the knife. The muscles are compelled from the plane above them, the personal will being free to hold them rigid or leave them to their natural reaction against injury.

 

From the standpoint of the muscles the personal will is free, and it cannot be controlled save as to its material expression on the material plane. When the Mănasic entity sends an impulse downwards to the lower nature with which it is linked, conflict arises between the animal desire and the human will. Its interferences appear to the personality as spontaneous, free, uncaused by any

actions on the lower plane; and so they are, for the causes that work on it are of the higher not the lower planes.

 

The animal passions and desires may limit its effective expression on their own plane, but they cannot either prompt or prevent its impulses: man's true freedom is found when his lower nature puts itself into line with the higher, and gives free course to the will of the higher Ego. And so with that Ego itself: able to act freely on the planes below it, it finds its own best freedom as channel of the Universal Will from which it springs, the conscious willing harmony with the All of which it is part. An effect cannot be altered when the cause has appeared; but that effect is itself to be a cause, and here the will can act. Suppose a great sorrow falls on some shrinking human heart; the effect is there, it cannot be avoided, but its future result as cause may be one of two things; Kâma may rebel, the whole personal nature may rise in passionate revolt, and so, warring against the Higher Will, the new cause generated will be of disharmony, bearing in its womb new evil to be born in days to come. But Kâma may range itself obediently with karmic action; it may patiently accept the pain, joyfully unite itself to the Higher Will, and so make the effect as cause to be pregnant with future good.

 

Remains but space for one last word on that which is Theosophy in action — the Universal Brotherhood of Man. This teaching is the inevitable outcome of the doctrines of the One Universal Spirit common to all humanity, Reincarnation and Karma. Every distinction of race and sex, of class and creed, fades away before the essential unity of the indwelling Spirit, before the countless incarnations under all forms of outward garmenture, making the experience of prince and beggar part of the training of all in turn. Here is to be found the motive spring of action — love for all mankind. In each child of man the true Theosophist recognises a brother to be loved and served, and in the Theosophical Society, Theosophists, under the direction of the Masters, have formed a nucleus for such Brotherhood of Humanity and have made its recognition the only obligation binding on all who enter. Amid class hatreds and warring sects it raises this sublime banner of human love, a continual reminder that essentially all humanity is one, and that the goal to which we travel is the same for all.

 

Without this recognition of Brotherhood all science is useless and all religion is hypocrisy. Deeper than all diversity, mightier than all animosity, is that

Holy Spirit of Love. The Self of each is the Higher Self of all, and that bond is one which nothing in all worlds can avail to break. That which raises one raises all; that which degrades one degrades all. The sin and crime of our races are our sin and crime, and only as we save our brethren can we save ourselves. One in our inception, one in our goal, we must needs be one in our progress; the “curse of separateness” that is on us, it is ours to remove, and Theosophy, alike as religion and philosophy, will be a failure save as it is the embodiment of the life of Love.

 

 

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Death & How to Get Through It

 

Quick Blasts of Theosophy

One Liners & Quick Explanations

 

Great Theosophists

The Big Names of Theosophy

 

The Most Basic Theosophy Website in the Universe

If you run a Theosophy Study Group you can use

this as an introductory handout

 

Theosophy

The New Rock ‘n Roll

 

The Key to Theosophy

 

The Voice of the Silence

 

The South of Heaven Guide to

 Theosophy and Devachan

 

The South of Heaven Guide

To Theosophy and Dreams

 

The South of Heaven Guide

To Theosophy and Angels

 

Theosophy and Help From

The Universe

 

Theosophy

Aardvark

No Aardvarks were harmed in

The preparation of this Website

 

Feelgood Theosophy

Visit the Feelgood Lodge

 

SearchSight

 

The Tooting Broadway

Underground Theosophy Website

The Spiritual Home of Urban Theosophy

 

The Mornington Crescent

Underground Theosophy Website

The Earth Base for Evolutionary Theosophy

 

_____________________

 

Tekels Park

Camberley, Surrey, England GU15 – 2LF

 

Tekels Park to be Sold to a Developer

Concerns are raised about the fate of the wildlife as

The Spiritual Retreat, Tekels Park in Camberley,

Surrey, England is to be sold to a developer

 

Many feel that the sale of a sanctuary for 

wildlife to a developer can only mean disaster

 for the park’s animals

 

Confusion as the Theoversity moves out of 

Tekels Park to Southampton, Glastonbury & 

Chorley in Lancashire while the leadership claim

that the Theosophical Society will carry on using 

Tekels Park despite its sale to a developer

 

Theosophy talks of a compassionate attitude

to animals and the sale of the Tekels Park

sanctuary for wildlife to a developer has

dismayed many Theosophists

 

 

Future of Tekels Park Badgers in Doubt

Badgers have been resident

in Tekels Park for Centuries

 

Tekels Park & the Loch Ness Monster

A Satirical view of the sale of Tekels Park

in Camberley, Surrey to a developer

 

 

The Toff’s Guide to the Sale of Tekels Park

What the men in top hats have to say about the

sale of Tekels Park to a developer. It doesn’t

require a Diploma in Finance or indeed a

Diploma in Anything to realize that this is a

bad time economically to sell Tekels Park

 

Party On! Tekels Park Theosophy NOT

 

St Francis Church at Tekels Park

 

____________________

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Text Book of Theosophy

Charles Webster Leadbeater

 

What Theosophy Is  From the Absolute to Man

 

The Formation of a Solar System  The Evolution of Life

 

The Constitution of Man  After Death  Reincarnation

 

The Purpose of Life  The Planetary Chains

 

The Result of Theosophical Study

 

 

 

Quotes from the Writings of

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

That which is to be shunned is pain not yet come. The past cannot be changed or amended; that which belongs to the experience of the present cannot and should  not be shunned; but alike to be shunned are disturbing anticipations or fears of  the future, and every act or impulse that may cause present or future pain to ourselves or others.

Practical Occultism, Page 87

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Perfection, to be fully such, must be born out of imperfection, the incorruptible must grow out of the corruptible, having the latter as its vehicle and basis and contrast

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 100

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

It is only by the attractive force of the contrasts that the two opposites — Spirit and Matter — can be cemented together on Earth, and, smelted in the fire of self-conscious experience and suffering, find themselves wedded in Eternity.

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 108

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Strength to step forward is the primary need of him who has chosen his path. Where is this to be found? Looking round, it is not hard to see where other men find their strength. Its source is profound conviction.

Practical Occultism, Page 67

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

It is the motive, and the motive alone, which makes any exercise of power become black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic. It is impossible to employ spiritual forces if there is the slightest tinge of selfishness remaining in the operator .... The powers and forces of animal nature can equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as by the unselfish and the all-forgiving; the powers and forces of spirit lend themselves only to the perfectly pure in heart — and this is Divine Magic.

Practical Occultism, Page 7

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Finite reason agrees with science, and says: “There is no God”. But, on the other hand, our Ego, that which lives and thinks and feels independently of us in our mortal casket, does more than believe. It knows that there exists a God in nature, for the sole and invincible Artificer of all lives in us as we live in Him. No dogmatic faith or exact science is able to uproot that intuitional feeling inherent in man, when he has once fully realised it in himself.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, Page 36

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

It may be a pleasant dream to attempt to conceive of the beauties of the spirit world; but the time can be spent more profitably in a study of the spirit itself, and it is not necessary that the subject for study should be in the spirit world.

Modern Panarion Page 70

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Physical existence is subservient to the spiritual, and all physical improvement and progress are only the auxiliaries of spiritual progress, without which there could be no physical progress.

Modern Panarion Page 78

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Mankind — the majority at any rate — hates to think for itself. It resents as an insult the humblest invitation to step for a moment outside the old well-beaten tracks and, judging for itself, to enter into a new path in some fresh direction.

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 3, Page 14

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Even ignorance is better than Head-learning with no Soul-wisdom to illuminate and guide it.

The Voice of the Silence, Page 43

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Many theosophists have had slight conscious relations with elementals, but always without their will acting, and upon trying to make elementals see, hear or act for them, a total indifference on the part of the nature spirit is all they have got in return. These failures are due to the fact that the elemental cannot understand the thought of the person; it can only be reached when the exact scale of being to which it belongs is vibrated, whether it be that of colour, form, sound, or whatever else

Annotation - The Path, May, 1888

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Parabrahman is not “God” because It is not a God. “It is that which is supreme, and not supreme”. ....It is supreme as cause, not supreme as effect.

The Secret Doctrine , Proem [Volume 1], Page 35

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

The ancients ..... fully realised the fact that the reciprocal relations between the planetary bodies is as perfect as those between the corpuscles of the blood, which float in a common fluid; and that each one is affected by the combined influence of all the rest, as each in its turn affects each of the others.

Isis, Volume 1, Page 275

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Strength to step forward is the primary need of him who has chosen his path. Where is this to be found? Looking round, it is not hard to see where other men find their strength. Its source is profound conviction.

Practical Occultism, Page 67

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

There are two kinds of magnetic attraction: sympathy and fascination; the one holy and natural, the other evil and unnatural.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, Page 210

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

In the phenomenal and Cosmic World Fohat is that occult, electric, vital power, which, under the Will of the Creative Logos, unites and brings together all forms, giving them the first impulse, which in time becomes law.

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 1, Page 134

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Oaths will never be binding till each man will fully understand that humanity is the highest manifestation on earth of the Unseen Supreme Deity, and each man an

incarnation of his God; and when the sense of personal responsibility will be so

developed in him that he will consider forswearing the greatest possible insult to himself, as well as to humanity. No oath is now binding, unless taken by one who, without any oath at all, would solemnly keep his simple promise of honour.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 2, Page 374

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

It is the motive, and the motive alone, which makes any exercise of power become

black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic. It is impossible to employ spiritual forces if there is the slightest tinge of selfishness remaining in the operator .... The powers and forces of animal nature can equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as by the unselfish and the all-forgiving; the powers and forces of spirit lend themselves only to the perfectly pure in heart — and this is Divine Magic.

Practical Occultism, Page 7

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Woe to those who live without suffering. Stagnation and death is the future of all that vegetates without change. And how can there be any change for the better without proportionate suffering during the preceding stage?

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 498

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

The person who is endowed with this faculty of thinking about even the most trifling things from the higher plane of thought has, by virtue of that gift which he possesses, a plastic power of formation, so to say, in his very imagination. Whatever such a person may think about, his thought will be so far more intense than the thought of an ordinary person, that by this very intensity it obtains the power of creation.

Lucifer, December, 1888

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Finite reason agrees with science, and says: “There is no God”. But, on the other hand, our Ego, that which lives and thinks and feels independently of us in our mortal casket, does more than believe. It knows that there exists a God in nature, for the sole and invincible Artificer of all lives in us as we live in Him. No dogmatic faith or exact science is able to uproot that intuitional feeling inherent in man, when he has once fully realised it in himself.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, Page 36

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Our voice is raised for spiritual freedom, and our plea made for enfranchisement  from all tyranny, whether of Science of Theology.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, I2.

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

If through the Hall of Wisdom thou wouldst reach the Vale of Bliss, Disciple, close fast thy senses against the great dire heresy of Separateness that weans thee from the rest.

Voice of the Silence, Page 23

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

From strength to strength, from the beauty and perfection of one plane to the

greater beauty and perfection of another, with accessions of new glory, of fresh

knowledge and power in each cycle, such is the destiny of every Ego, which thus

becomes its own saviour in each world and incarnation.

The Key to Theosophy, Page 105

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

The assertion that “Theosophy is not a Religion” , by no means excludes the fact that “Theosophy is Religion” itself. A religion in the true and only correct sense is a bond uniting men together — not a particular set of dogmas and beliefs. Now Religion, per se, in its widest meaning is that which binds not only all Men but also all Beings and all things in the entire Universe into one grand whole.

Lucifer, November, 1888

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

The Present is only a mathematical line which divides that part of Eternal Duration which we call the Future from that part which we call the Past

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 1, Page 69

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

The mind receives indelible impressions even from chance acquaintance or persons

encountered but once. As a few seconds' exposure of the sensitized photographic plate is all that is requisite to preserve indefinitely the image of the sitter, so is it with the mind.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, Page 311

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

 “Beneficent Magic” , so called, is divine magic, devoid of selfishness, love of power, of ambition or lucre, and bent only on doing good, to the world in general and one's neighbour in particular. The smallest attempt to use one's abnormal powers for the gratification of self makes of these powers sorcery or black magic.

The Key to Theosophy, Page 228

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Believing in a spiritual and invisible Universe, we cannot conceive of it in any other way than as completely dovetailing and corresponding with the material, objective Universe; for logic and observation alike teach us that the latter is the outcome and visible manifestation of the former, and that the laws governing both are immutable.

Modern Panarion Page 137

 

 

 

Elementary Theosophy

By

A Student of Katherine Tingley

 

Katherine Tingley (1847 -1929)Was the founder & President

of the Point Loma Theosophical Society 1896 -1929

She and her students produced a series of informative

Theosophical works in the early years of the 20th century

 

 

Elementary Theosophy   Who is the Man?

 

Body and Soul  Body, Soul and Spirit   Reincarnation

 

Karma  The Seven in Man and Nature

 

The Meaning of Death

 

 

The Occult World

By

Alfred Percy Sinnett

 

The Occult World is an treatise on the

Occult and Occult Phenomena, presented

 in readable style, by an early giant of

the Theosophical Movement.

 

Preface to the American Edition  Introduction

 

Occultism and its Adepts   The Theosophical Society

 

First Occult Experiences   Teachings of Occult Philosophy

 

Later Occult Phenomena   Appendix

 

 

 

 

The Ocean of Theosophy

William Quan Judge

 

Preface    Theosophy and the Masters    General Principles

 

The Earth Chain    Body and Astral Body    Kama – Desire

 

Manas    Of Reincarnation    Reincarnation Continued

 

Karma    Kama Loka    Devachan    Cycles

 

Septenary Constitution Of Man

 

Arguments Supporting Reincarnation

 

Differentiation Of Species Missing Links

 

Psychic Laws, Forces, and Phenomena

 

Psychic Phenomena and Spiritualism

 

 

Theosophy Cardiff’s

Instant Guide to Theosophy

Quick Explanations with Links to More Detailed Info

 

 

What is Theosophy ?  Theosophy Defined (More Detail)

 

Three Fundamental Propositions  Key Concepts of Theosophy

 

Cosmogenesis  Anthropogenesis  Root Races

 

Ascended Masters  After Death States

 

The Seven Principles of Man  Karma

 

Reincarnation   Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

 

Colonel Henry Steel Olcott  William Quan Judge

 

The Start of the Theosophical Society

 

History of the Theosophical Society

 

Theosophical Society Presidents

 

History of the Theosophical Society in Wales

 

The Three Objectives of the Theosophical Society

 

Explanation of the Theosophical Society Emblem

 

The Theosophical Order of Service (TOS)

 

Ocean of Theosophy

William Quan Judge

 

Glossaries of Theosophical Terms

 

Worldwide Theosophical Links

 

 

 

 

 

A Study in Karma

Annie Besant

 

Karma  Fundamental Principles  Laws: Natural and Man-Made  The Law of Laws 

 

The Eternal Now  Succession  Causation The Laws of Nature  A Lesson of The Law

 

  Karma Does Not Crush  Apply This Law  Man in The Three Worlds  Understand The Truth

 

Man and His Surroundings  The Three Fates  The Pair of Triplets  Thought, The Builder

 

  Practical Meditation  Will and Desire  The Mastery of Desire  Two Other Points

 

  The Third Thread  Perfect Justice  Our Environment  Our Kith and Kin  Our Nation

 

The Light for a Good Man  Knowledge of Law  The Opposing Schools

 

The More Modern View  Self-Examination  Out of the Past

 

Old Friendships  We Grow By Giving  Collective Karma  Family Karma

 

National Karma  India’s Karma  National Disasters

 

 

Try these if you are looking for a

local Theosophy Group or Centre

 

 

UK Listing of Theosophical Groups

Please tell us about your UK Theosophy Group

 

Worldwide Directory of Theosophical Links

 

International Directory of 

Theosophical Societies

 

 

WALES

Pages about Wales

General pages about Wales, Welsh History

and The History of Theosophy in Wales

 

 

Bangor University

 

 

The hut circles of the ancient settlement in Porthdafarch,

 which is believed to date back 4000 years

Porth Dafarch is on the coast road between Treaddur Bay and Holyhead.

Holyhead is on Holy Island off the north west of the Island of Anglesey 

which is off the North Wales Coast

 

South Stack Lighthouse

Off Holy Island about 3 miles from Holyhead

 

 

Wales is a Principality within the United Kingdom

and has an eastern border with England. The land

area is just over 8,000 square miles. Snowdon in

North Wales is the highest mountain at 3,650 feet.

The coastline is almost 750 miles long. The population

of Wales as at the 2001 census is 2,946,200.

 

 

Theosophy Wales

 

 

theosophycardiff.org

 

__________________________________________

 

SearchSight

 

DMOZ Open Directory Project

Theosophy Links

 

Link Exchange Web & Blog Directory of Top Sites Dmegs.com
SEO friendly web directory of top sites & blogs organized by topic

into categories and presented according to relevance of website.

Submit your website free.

 

 

Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales

Theosophy House

206 Newport Road

Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24 – 1DL

theosophycardiff@uwclub.net

 

_________________

 

Wales Picture Gallery

 

 

Beaumaris Castle

 

 

Cardiff Castle

 

 

Conwy Castle

 

 

Flint Castle

 

 

Flint Castle North East Tower

 

 

 

Grosmont Castle

 

 

 

Beaumaris Castle

 

 

 

Llantilio Castle

 

 

 

Montgomery Castle

 

 

 

Rhuddlan Castle

 

 

 

Skenfrith Castle

 

 

 

Anglesey Abbey

 

 

 

Bangor Town Clock

 

_______________________

 

Theosophy in Wales

 

The centralized hierarchical structure of the

Theosophical Society has had its day.

Theosophy in Wales has no controlling

body and is now comprised of independent

groups who run their own show

___________________________

 

 

Colwyn Bay Centre

 

 

 

The Great Orme

 

 

 

llandudno Promenade

 

 

 

Great Orme Tramway

 

 

 

Caervarvon Castle

 

 

 

New Radnor

 

 

 

Blaenavon High Street

 

 

 

Blaenavon Ironworks

 

 

 

 

Llandrindod Wells

 

 

 

Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales

Theosophy House

206 Newport Road

Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24 – 1DL

theosophycardiff@uwclub.net

 

 

 

 

Carmarthen

 

 

 

Presteign Railway

 

 

 

Caerwent Roman Ruins

 

 

 

Colwyn Bay Postcard

 

 

 

Ferndale in the Rhondda Valley

 

 

 

Denbigh

 

 

 

National Museum of Wales

 

 

 

Nefyn

 

 

 

Penisarwaen

 

 

 

Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales

Theosophy House

206 Newport Road

Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24 – 1DL

theosophycardiff@uwclub.net