This is the eighth
chapter of the series of articles titled “Studies in Isis Unveiled” published
by Theosophy journal. In purple I added my comments. Blavatsky put in his text the word "spirits"
but the word "entities" is more appropriate.
Different types of Spirits
The accompanying
article is made up of textual extracts from Isis Unveiled, topically and
sequentially arranged. The page references from which the statements are taken,
are given at the conclusion of the article. — Editors
From the moment when the foetal
embryo is formed until the old man, gasping his last, drops into the grave,
neither the beginning nor the end is understood by scholastic science; all
before us is a blank, all after us chaos. For it there is no evidence as to the
relations between spirit, soul, and body, either before or after death. The
mere life-principle itself presents an unsolvable enigma, upon the study of
which materialism has vainly exhausted its intellectual powers. In the presence
of a corpse the skeptical physiologist stands dumb when asked by his pupil
whence came the former tenant of that empty box, and whither it has gone. The
pupil must either, like his master, rest satisfied with the explanation that
protoplasm made the man, and force vitalized and will now consume his body, or
he must go outside the walls of his college and the books of its library to
find an explanation of the mystery.
Why should there be an attraction
between the molecules of matter and none between those of spirit? By whatsoever
name the physicists may call the energizing principle in matter is of no
account; it is a subtile something apart from the matter itself, and, as it
escapes their detection, it must be something besides matter. If the law of
attraction is admitted as governing the one, why should it be excluded from
influencing the other? Leaving logic to answer, we turn to the common
experience of mankind, and there find a mass of testimony corroborative of the
immortality of the soul, if we judge but from analogies. But we have more than
that – we have the unimpeachable testimony of thousands upon thousands, that
there is a regular science of the soul, which, notwithstanding that it is now
denied the right of a place among other sciences, is a science. This
science, by penetrating the arcana of nature far deeper than our modern philosophy
ever dreamed possible, teaches us how to force the invisible to become
visible; the existence of elementary spirits; the nature and magical properties
of the astral light; the power of living men to bring themselves into
communication with the former through the latter.
The existence of spirit in the
common mediator, the ether, is denied by materialism; while theology makes of
it a personal god. Every organized thing in this world, visible as well as
invisible, has an element appropriate to itself. The fish lives and breathes in
the water; the plant consumes carbonic acid, which for animals and men produces
death; some beings are fitted for rarefied strata of air, others exist only in
the densest. Life, to some, is dependent on sunlight, to others, upon darkness;
and so the wise economy of nature adapts to each existing condition some living
form. These analogies warrant the conclusion that, not only is there no
unoccupied portion of universal nature, but also that for each thing that has
life, special conditions are furnished, and, being furnished, they are
necessary. Now, assuming that there is an invisible side to the universe, the
fixed habit of nature warrants the conclusion that this half is occupied, like
the other half; and that each group of its occupants is supplied with the
indispensable conditions of existence. It is as illogical to imagine that
identical conditions are furnished to all, as it would be to maintain such a
theory respecting the inhabitants of the domain of visible nature.
To say that all spirits are alike,
or fitted to the same atmosphere, or possessed of like powers, or governed by
the same attractions – electric, magnetic, odic, astral, it matters not which –
is as absurd as though one should say that all planets have the same nature, or
that all animals are amphibious, or all men can be nourished on the same food.
It accords with reason to suppose that the grossest natures among the spirits
will sink to the lowest depths of the spiritual atmosphere – in other words, be
found nearest to the earth. Inversely, the purest would be farthest away. In
what, were we to coin a word, we should call the Psychomatics of
Occultism, it is as unwarrantable to assume that either of these grades of
spirits can occupy the place, or subsist in the conditions, of the other, as in
hydraulics it would be to expect that two liquids of different densities could
exchange their markings on the scale of Beaume's hydrometer.
Whether or not the men of science
are willing to concede the correctness of the Hermetic theory of the physical
evolution of man from higher and more spiritual natures, they themselves show
us how the race has progressed from the lowest observed point to its present
development. And, as all nature seems to be made up of analogies, is it
unreasonable to affirm that the same progressive development of individual
forms has prevailed among the inhabitants of the unseen universe? If
such marvellous effects have been caused by evolution upon our little
insignificant planet, producing reasoning and intuitive men from some higher
type of the ape family, why suppose that the boundless realms of space are
inhabited only by disembodied angelic forms? Why not give place in that
vast domain to the spiritual duplicates of these hairy, long-armed and
half-reasoning ancestors, their predecessors, and all their successors, down to
our time?
Of course, the spiritual parts of
such primeval members of the human family would be as uncouth and undeveloped
as were their physical bodies. While they made no attempt to calculate the
duration of the "grand cycle," the Hermetic philosophers yet
maintained that, according to the cyclic law, the living human race must
inevitably and collectively return one day to that point of departure, where
man was first clothed with "coats of skin;" or, to express it more
clearly, the human race must, in accordance with the law of evolution, be
finally physically spiritualized.
Lowest in the scale of being are those
invisible creatures called by the kabalist the "elementary." There
are three distinct classes of these.
1) The highest, in intelligence and
cunning, are the so-called terrestrial spirits. They are the larvae, or
shadows of those who have lived on earth, have refused all spiritual light,
remained and died deeply immersed in the mire of matter, and from whose sinful
souls the immortal spirit has gradually separated.
(These entities are the deceased humans who
have separated from their higher triad, and were later referred to as
"elementaries".)
The second class is composed of the
invisible antitypes of the men to be born. No form can come into
objective existence – from the highest to the lowest – before the abstract
ideal of this form – or, as Aristotle would call it, the privation of
this form – is called forth. Before an artist paints a picture every feature of
it exists already in his imagination; to have enabled us to discern a watch,
this particular watch must have existed in its abstract form in the
watchmaker's mind. So with future men.
Only it must not be understood that
this thought creates matter. No; it creates but the design for the
future form; the matter which serves to make this design having always been in
existence, and having been prepared to form a human body, through a series of
progressive transformations, as the result of evolution. Forms pass; ideas that
created them and the material which gave them objectiveness, remain. These
models, as yet devoid of immortal spirits, are "elementals," –
properly speaking, psychic embryos – which, when their time arrives, die
out of the invisible world, and are born into this visible one as human
infants, receiving in transitu that divine breath called spirit which
completes the perfect man. This class cannot communicate objectively with men.
(These
entities are humans who failed in their previous evolutionary cycle, and
because they failed they have to repeat this cycle, but this time they have to
prepare the prototypes that will inhabit the new souls that begin this cycle.
To
give you an analogy, it is as if a student fails the first year of high school,
he has to repeat this school year, but also this time he has to help his
teacher to prepare the lessons for his new classmates.)
3) The third class are the
"elementals" proper, which never evolve into human beings, but
occupy, as it were, a specific step of the ladder of being, and, by comparison
with the others, may properly be called nature-spirits, or cosmic agents of
nature, each being confined to its own element and never transgressing the
bounds of others. These are what Tertullian called "the princes of the
powers of the air."
This class is believed to possess
but one of the three attributes of man. They have neither immortal spirits nor
tangible bodies; only astral forms, which partake, in a distinguishing degree,
of the element to which they belong and also of the ether. They are a
combination of sublimated matter and a rudimental mind. Some are changeless,
but still have no separate individuality, acting collectively, so to say.
Others, of certain elements and species, change form under a fixed law which
kabalists explain. The most solid of their bodies is ordinarily just immaterial
enough to escape perception by our physical eyesight, but not so unsubstantial
but that they can be perfectly recognized by the inner, or clairvoyant vision.
They not only exist and can all live in ether, but can handle and direct it for
the production of physical effects, as readily as we can compress air or water
for the same purpose by pneumatic and hydraulic apparatus; in which occupation
they are readily helped by the "human elementary." More than this;
they can so condense it as to make to themselves tangible bodies, which by
their Protean powers they can cause to assume such likeness as they choose, by
taking as their models the portraits they find stamped in the memory of the
persons present. It is not necessary that the sitter should be thinking at the
moment of the one represented. His image may have faded many years before. The
mind receives indelible impressions even from chance acquaintance or persons
encountered but once. As a few seconds exposure of the sensitized photograph
plate is all that is requisite to preserve indefinitely the image of the
sitter, so it is with the mind.
Though spiritualists discredit them
ever so much, these nature-spirits are realities. The Christians call them
"devils," "imps of Satan," and like characteristic names.
They are nothing of the kind, but simply creatures of ethereal matter,
irresponsible, and neither good nor bad, unless influenced by a superior
intelligence.
(These beings belong to the subtle kingdoms
that are in the descending arc and whose objective is to reach the mineral
kingdom, and then start their development in the ascending arc.
And
in this article there is no mention of the higher subtle entities that direct
the universe in its different scales: planets, star systems, galaxies, etc.
These beings are not elementals but are known as The Divine Hierarchy.)
The entities with which they communicate
the spiritualists
What should sensible spiritualists
think of the character of angel guides, who after monopolizing, perhaps
for years, a poor medium's time, health and means, suddenly abandons him when he
most needs their help? None but creatures without soul or conscience would
be guilty of such injustice. Conditions? — mere sophistry. What sort of spirits
must they be who would not summon if necessary an army of spirit-friends (if
such there be) to snatch the innocent medium from the pit dug for his feet?
Such things happened in the olden time, such may happen now. There were
apparitions before modern spiritualism, and phenomena like ours in every
previous age. If modern manifestations are a reality and palpable facts, so
must have been the so-called "miracles" and thaumaturgic exploits of
old; or if the latter are but fictions of superstition, so must be the former,
for they rest on no better testimony.
But, in this daily-increasing
torrent of occult phenomena that rushes from one end of the globe to the other,
though two-thirds of the manifestations are proved spurious, what of those
which are proved genuine without doubt or cavil? Among these may be found
communications coming through non-professional as well as professional mediums,
which are sublime and divinely grand. Who are those spirits, what those powers
or intelligences which are evidently outside of the medium proper and
entities per se? These intelligences deserve the appellation; and
they differ as widely from the generality of spooks and goblins that hover
around the cabinets for physical manifestations, as day from night.
Be it however a "spirit of
health or goblin damn'd" it is of little consequence; for if it be once
proved that its organism is not solid matter, then it must be and is a
"spirit," an apparition, a breath. It is an intelligence which
acts outside our organisms, and therefore must belong to some existing even
though unseen race of beings. But what is it? What is this something which
thinks and even speaks but yet is not human; that is impalpable and yet not a
disembodied spirit; that simulates affection, passion, remorse, fear, joy, but
yet feels neither? What is this canting creature which rejoices in cheating the
truthful inquirer and mocking at sacred human feeling? For, if not Mr.
Crookes's Katie King, other similar creatures have done all these. Who can
fathom the mystery?
(The
vast majority of the "angels
or guiding spirits" of spiritualists are elementaries.)
The true psychologist alone. And
where should he go for his text-books but to the neglected alcoves of libraries
where the works of despised hermetists and theurgists have been gathering dust
these many years.
Skeptics, and even skeptical
spiritualists, have often unjustly accused mediums of fraud, when denied what
they consider their inalienable right to test the spirits. But where there is
one such case, there are fifty in which spiritualists have permitted themselves
to be practiced upon by tricksters, while they neglected to appreciate genuine
manifestations procured for them by their mediums. Ignorant of the laws of
mediumship, such do not know that when an honest medium is once taken
possession of by spirits, whether disembodied or elemental, he is no longer his
own master. He cannot control the actions of the spirits, nor even his own.
They make him a puppet to dance at their pleasure while they pull the wires
behind the scenes. The false medium may seem entranced, and yet be playing
tricks all the while; while the real medium may appear to be in full possession
of his senses, when in fact he is far away, and his body is animated by his
"Indian guide," or "control." Or, he may be entranced in
his cabinet, while his astral body (double) or doppelganger, is walking
about the room, moved by another intelligence.
Far from us be the thought of casting
an unjust slur on physical mediums. Harassed by various intelligences, reduced
by their overpowering influence – which their weak and nervous natures are
unable to shake off – to a morbid state, which at last becomes chronic, they
are impeded by these "influences" from undertaking other occupation.
They become mentally and physically unfit for any other. Who can judge them
harshly when, driven to the last extremity, they are constrained to accept
mediumship as a business?
And heaven knows whether the calling
is one to be envied by any one! It is not mediums, real true, and
genuine mediums that we would ever blame, but their patrons, the spiritualists.
The ancients, unlike ourselves, could "try" the spirits and discern
the difference between the good and evil ones, the human and the elemental.
They also knew that unregulated spirit intercourse brought ruin upon the
individual and disaster to the community.
This view of mediumship may be novel
and perhaps repugnant to many modern spiritualists; but still it is the view
taught in the ancient philosophy, and supported by the experience of mankind
from time immemorial.
We are far from believing that all
the spirits that communicate at circles are of the classes called
"Elemental" and "Elementary." Many – among those who
control the medium subjectively to speak, write, and otherwise act in various
ways – are human, disembodied spirits. Whether the majority of such spirits are
good or bad, largely depends on the private morality of the medium, much
on the circle present, and a great deal on the intensity and object of their
purpose. But in any case, human spirits can never materialize themselves
in propria persona.
(Spiritualists
communicate most of the time with trickster astral entities whose majority are
elementaries, sometimes they communicate with disembodied humans who remain
awake after death, and very rarely they communicate with initiated humans or
superior beings.)
The recognized laws of physical
science account for but a few of the more objective of the so-called spiritual
phenomena. While proving the reality of certain visible effects of an unknown
force, they have not thus far enabled scientists to control at will even this
portion of the phenomena. The truth is that the professors have not yet discovered
the necessary conditions of their occurrence. They must go as deeply into the
study of the triple nature of man – physiological, psychological, and divine
– as did their predecessors, the magicians, theurgists, and thaumaturgists
of old.
(Note: The volume and
page references to Isis Unveiled, from which the foregoing chapter is compiled,
are, in the order of the excerpts, as follows:– Volume I, 336, 340, 341, 343,
344, 295, 296, 310, 311, 325, 53, 54, 360, 488-9, 490, 67.)
(Theosophy, Los Angeles, May 1918, p.289-294)
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