James Morgan Pryse was a disciple of
Blavatsky, and in 1910 he published a book entitled: "The Unveiled Apocalypse" where he detailed about the chakras
and the kundalini.
And what he wrote I transcribe below
adding my comments in purple:
« There are two nervous structures:
- the cerebro-spinal, consisting of
the brain and the spinal cord;
- and the sympathetic or ganglionic
system.
These two structures are virtually
distinct yet intimately associated in their ramifications.
The sympathetic system consists of a series of distinct nerve-centres, or ganglia — small masses of vascular neurine — extending on each side of the spinal column from the head to the coccyx.
The sympathetic system consists of a series of distinct nerve-centres, or ganglia — small masses of vascular neurine — extending on each side of the spinal column from the head to the coccyx.
Some knowledge of these ganglia and
the forces associated with them is indispensable in an examination into the esotericism.
THE
CHAKRAS
Their occult nature is more fully
elucidated in the Upanishads than in
any other available ancient works, the teaching therein contained will here be
referred to, and their Sanskrit terms employed.
The ganglia are called chakras, "discs,"
and forty-nine of them are counted, of which the seven principal ones are the
following:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
|
CONARIUM
CAVERNOUS
PNARYNGEAL
CARDIAC
EPIGASTRIC
PROSTATIC
SACRAL
|
SAHASRARA
AJNA
VISHUDDHI
ANAHATA
MANIPURAKA
ADHISHTHANA
MULADHARA
|
Of these only the seventh, the
conarium or pineal body, need be considered here with particularity.
It is a small conical, dark- grey
body situated in the brain immediately behind the extremity of the third
ventricle, in a groove between the nates, and above a cavity filled with
sabulous matter composed of phosphate and of carbonate of lime.
It is supposed by modem anatomists
to be the vestige of an atrophied eye, and hence is termed by them "the
unpaired eye."
Though atrophied physically, it is
still the organ of spiritual vision when its higher function is restored by the
vivifying force of the speirema or paraklete (kundalini), and it is
therefore called esoterically "the third eye," the eye of the seer.
When through the action of man's
spiritual will, whether by his conscious effort or unconsciously so far as his
phrenic mind is concerned, the latent kundalini (speirema), which in the Upanishads is poetically said to lie
coiled up like a slumbering serpent, is aroused to activity, it displaces the
slow-moving nervous force or neuricity and becomes the agent of the telestic or
perfecting work.
As it passes from one ganglion to
another its voltage is raised, the ganglia being like so many electric cells
coupled for intensity; and moreover in each ganglion, or chakra, it liberates
and partakes of the quality peculiar to that centre, and it is then said to
"conquer" the chakra. In Sanskrit mystical literature very great
stress is laid upon this "conquering of the chakras."
The currents of the kundalini, as
also the channels they pursue, are called nadis, "pipes" or
"tubes," and the three principal ones are:
- SUSHUMNA — which passes from the terminus of the spinal cord to the top of the cranium, at a point termed the brahmarandra, or "door of Brahma" (in early Christian mysticism, thura lesou, "door of Jesus")
- PINGALA — which corresponds to the right sympathetic; and
- IDA — which corresponds to the left sympathetic.
The force, as specialized in the
ganglionic system, becomes the seven tattvas,
which in the Apocalypse are called the seven pneumata, "breaths," since they are differentiations of
the Great Breath, the "World-Mother," symbolized by the moon.
Concurrent with these seven lunar
forces are five solar forces pertaining to the cerebro-spinal system, called
the five pranas, "vital
airs," or "life-winds," which in the Apocalypse are termed "winds"
(anemoi).
The Apocalypse represents these
twelve forces, the seven "breaths" and the five "winds," as
corresponding to the twelve signs of the zodiac, of which, therefore, a brief
description will here be appropriate.
The zodiac is a belt of the
celestial sphere, about seventeen degrees in breadth, containing the twelve
constellations which the sun traverses during the year in passing around the
ecliptic. Within this zone are confined the apparent motions of the moon and
major planets.
The zodiacal circle was divided by
the ancients into twelve equal portions called signs, which were designated by
the names of the constellations then adjacent to them in the following order:
Aries, the Ram; Taurus, the Bull;
Gemini, the Twins; Cancer, the Crab; Leo, the Lion; Virgo, the Virgin; Libra,
the Balance; Scorpio, the Scorpion; Sagittarius, the Bowman; Capricornus, the
Goat; Aquarius, the Water-bearer; and Pisces, the Fishes.
Owing to the precession of the
equinoxes, the signs of the ecliptic are now about one place ahead of the
corresponding zodiacal constellations, which constitute the fixed zodiac.
Aside from its astronomical utility,
the scheme of the zodiac was employed to symbolize the relations between the
macrocosm and the microcosm, each of the twelve signs being made to correspond
to one of the twelve greater gods of the ancient pantheon and assigned as the
"house" of one of the seven sacred planets.
Each sign, moreover, being said to
govern a particular portion of the human body, as shown in the familiar
exoteric chart here reproduced.
KUNDALINI
A further explanation will now be
given of the action of the "serpent force" (kundalini) in the
telestic or perfective work.
This work has to be preceded by the
most rigid purificatory discipline, which includes strict celibacy and
abstemiousness, and it is possible only for the man or woman who has attained a
very high state of mental and physical purity.
To the man who is gross and sensual,
or whose mind is sullied by evil thoughts or constricted by bigotry, the holy
paraklete (kundalini) does not come; the unpurified person who rashly attempts
to invade the adytum of his inner God can arouse only the lower psychic forces
of his animal nature, forces which are cruelly destructive and never
regenerative.
The neophyte who has acquired the
"purifying virtues" before entering upon the systematic course of
introspective meditation by which the spiritual forces are awakened, must also
as a necessary preliminary gain almost complete mastery of his thoughts, with
the ability to focus his mind undeviatingly upon a single detached idea or
abstract concept, excluding from the mental field all associated ideas and irrelevant
notions.
If successful in this mystic
meditation, he eventually obtains the power of arousing the speirema, or paraklete (kundalini), and can thereby at will enter into the state
of manteia, the sacred trance of
seership.
The four mantic states are not
psychic trances or somnambulic conditions; they pertain to the noetic,
spiritual nature; and in every stage of the manteia
complete consciousness and self-command are retained, whereas the psychic
trances rarely transcend the animalistic phrenic nature, and are usually
accompanied by unconsciousness or semi-consciousness.
Proficiency in the noetic
contemplation, with the arousing of the speirema
(kundalini) and the conquest of the life-centres (chakras), leads to knowledge
of spiritual realities (the science of which constitutes the Gnosis), and the
acquirement of certain mystic powers, and it culminates in emancipation from
physical existence through the "birth from above" when the deathless solar
body has been fully formed.
This telestic work requires the
unremitting effort of many years, not in one life only but carried on through a
series of incarnations until the final result is achieved.
But almost in its initial stages the
consciousness of the aspirant becomes disengaged from the mortal phrenic mind
and centred in the immortal noetic mind, so that from incarnation to
incarnation his memory carries over, more or less clearly according to the
degree he has attained, the knowledge acquired; and with this unbroken memory
and certainty of knowledge he is in truth immortal even before his final
liberation from the cycle of reincarnation (Samsara).
In arousing the kundalini by
conscious effort in meditation, the sushumna, though it is the all-important
force, is ignored, and the mind is concentrated upon the two side-currents; for
the sushumna can not be energized alone, and it does not start into activity
until the ida and the pingala have preceded it, forming a positive and a
negative current along the spinal cord.
These two currents, on reaching the
sixth chakra, situated back of -the nasal passages, radiate to the right and
left, along the line of the eyebrows; then the sushumna, starting at the base
of the spinal cord, proceeds along the spinal marrow, its passage through each
section thereof corresponding to a sympathetic ganglion being accompanied by a
violent shock, or rushing sensation, due to the accession of force — increased
“voltage” — until it reaches the conarium, and thence passes outward through
the brahmarandra, the three currents
thus forming a cross in the brain.
In the initial stage the seven
psychic colors are seen, and when the sushumna impinges upon the brain there
follows the lofty consciousness of the seer, whose mystic "third eye"
now becomes, as it has been poetically expressed, "a window into
space." In the next stage, as the brain-centres are successively
"raised from the dead" by the serpent-force (kundalini), the seven
"spiritual sounds" are heard in the tense and vibrant aura of the
seer.
In the succeeding stage, sight and
hearing become blended into a single sense, by which colors are heard, and
sounds are seen — or, to word it differently, color and sound become one, and
are perceived by a sense that is neither sight nor hearing but both.
Similarly, the psychic senses of
taste and smell become unified; and next the two senses thus reduced from the
four are merged in the interior, intimate sense of touch, which in turn vanishes
into the epistemonic faculty, the gnostic power of the seer — exalted above all
sense-perception — to cognize eternal realities.
This is the sacred trance called in
Sanskrit Samadhi, and in Greek manteia; and in the ancient literature of both
these languages four such trances are spoken of.
These stages of seership, however,
are but the beginning of the telestic labor, the culmination of which is, as
already explained, rebirth in the imperishable solar body. As the Apocalypse
has for its sole theme this spiritual rebirth, it should now be apparent why
that book has ever been unintelligible to the conventional theologian, and has
never yielded its secrets to the mere man of letters.
The light of the Logos, which in
energizing becomes what may be described as living, conscious electricity, of
incredible voltage and hardly comparable to the form of electricity known to
the physicist.
(This "living and conscious electricity" is
what in esotericism is known as "Cosmic Kundalini" or "Electric
Fire", and which the manifestation to a much smaller degree is the
kundalini that humans handle.)
This is the "good serpent"
of ancient symbology; and, taken with the pneumatic
ovum, it was also represented in the familiar symbol of the egg and the
serpent.
It is called in the Sanskrit
writings kundalini, the annular or ring-form force, and in the Greek speirema,
the serpent-coil.
It is this force which, in the
telestic work, or cycle of initiation, weaves from the primal substance of the auric ovum, upon the ideal form or archetype
it contains, and conforming thereto, the immortal Augoeides, or solar body {soma
heliakon) , so called because in its visible appearance it is self-luminous
like the sun, and has a golden radiance. Its aureola displays a filmy
opalescence. This solar body is of atomic, non-molecular substance.
(I suspect that the solar body must be the "body of
light" that the great initiates create when they are liberated from the
cycle of reincarnations, and this body of light they form it from matter,
transforming his physical body into "conscious energy." And from what James Pryse mentions, kundalini is required to achieve that transformation.)
The psychic, or lunar, body, through
which the Nous acts in the psychic
world, is molecular in structure, but of far finer substance than the elements
composing the gross physical form, to whose organism it closely corresponds,
having organs of sight, hearing, and the rest. »
(Chapter 2 - The path of power)
OBSERVATIONS
There are two details in which I do
not agree with James Pryse:
- The first is that Blavatsky said that we have 56 chakras (7 in the head and 49 in the body).
- And the second is that the Third Eye is related with Ajna, not with Sahasrara.
But outside of that, I am impressed
by the great knowledge that James Pryse possessed, and more considering that he
wrote his book in 1910, when there was practically still no information about
the chakras and kundalini in the West.
