Knowledge of Life Two
1. HYLOZOICS
1. HYLOZOICS
1In the history of philosophy it is said of Pythagoras that he studied in Egypt and several other countries and acquired his knowledge there. It is quite natural that also 46-selves travel about and visit places where there are esoteric teachers. Interchange is always fruitful. However, such journeys are not undertaken in order to acquire knowledge like the learned do who copy each other and earlier presentations. Pythagoras wanted to examine the various knowledge systems in relation to the respective national characters in order to find the method best suited to Greek mentality. The formulation he gave to esoterics was quite different from earlier presentations.
2He created no symbolism but a formulation of the exact reality concepts, necessary for mankind as fundaments of exact research into reality. By hylozoics, or spiritual materialism, Pythagoras did away with the opposition of spirit and matter, clarifying that spirit is the same as the consciousness of matter. This was a totally new mode of presentation which he had not copied from anybody. It was the first time that the knowledge was presented in this way. Thereby the foundations were laid for research, for scientific treatment of esoterics. Pythagoras is the first scientist in the Western sense, the founder of exact science. How long it will be before science sees and recognizes this is quite irrelevant.
1Prevalent idiologies afford no knowledge of reality. Except such facts as everybody can ascertain in the physical world, human knowledge consists of guesswork (fictions).
2In all times there has existed a knowledge of reality, accessible in secret knowledge orders. In our time, at least, they should have learnt to comprehend that the knowledge that confers power cannot be given out to others than those who are quite unable to abuse power.
3This knowledge, esoterics, consists of facts that only those can ascertain who have passed from the human kingdom to the fifth natural kingdom, the kingdom of knowledge.
4After the year 1875, these facts have been allowed for publication to an ever greater extent, thereby being made accessible to everybody. Regrettably, writers who have not possessed a sufficient amount of facts have tried to systematize what they have known, attempts that were foredoomed to failure. Certain sects (theosophy, anthroposophy, and the many Rosicrucian sects) have accepted these vague systems, and this has brought discredit on esoterics.
5The authors of these incomplete systems have been ignorant of hylozoics, the only system which clarifies that all existence has three fundamental aspects (trinity), which are indissolubly and inseparably united: the aspects of matter, energy, and consciousness. Without these three the knowledge of reality will not be a correct knowledge.
6Hylozoics is not a creation by a man but by a member of the planetary hierarchy, an individual who has attained the fifth natural kingdom and become an essential self. His system is no speculation but a description of reality.
7Pythagoras, the immediate successor to the world teacher office (second department) in the planetary hierarchy, by hylozoics laid the basis of the scientific way of looking at things which has made research and technology possible.
8Pythagorean hylozoics is actually a mathematical system, not a system of thought in the usual sense, but a mathematical description of reality.
9Pythagorean hylozoics is a system of orientation affording sufficient knowledge of reality and life to liberate mankind from its disorienting idiologies, its illusions and fictions.
10Hylozoics is a mental system. This means that is tries to represent reality in mental concepts, so that the mentalist can have a vision of the nature, meaning, and goal of existence.
11Hylozoics is the basis on which all that superstructure can be built which makes it possible to have a mental comprehension and instinctive – “intuitive” – understanding of existence. Hylozoics is the basis of Western thought with exact conception of reality.
12Hylozoics liberates us from Oriental symbolism the purpose of which was to train the “intuition”. The hylozoician acquires causal intuition via perspective and system thinking and essential intuition through collective consciousness via telepathy.
1Hylozoics is the world view formulated by Pythagoras.
2Esoterics is any world view and life view based exclusively on facts received from the planetary hierarchy.
3The term hylozoics was, like all other Greek words, latinized, in this case into hylozoism. Englishmen in particular, being reincarnations of old Romans, stubbornly refuse to adopt the original Greek and only correct terms.
4The “hylozoism” mentioned by F. A. Lange in the first edition of his “History of Materialism” and embraced by Ernst Haeckel in his “Lebenswunder” is most closely reminiscent of Chrysippos’ physicalist hylozoism, an abortive attempt to “popularize” the original Pythagorean teaching.
5The old terms mysticism, occultism, theosophy etc. have, on account of the abuse of words by ignorance, been so idiotized that they have become unusable being misleading. For people are hypnotized by cliches, and brain paralysis sets in, with stoppage of reflection, otherwise catchwords would not be so powerful.
6You have a right to call yourself an esoterician when you have mastered hylozoics to the extent that you can demonstrate its absolute superiority to all other working hypotheses.
7The use of mathematical designations for unknown and incomprehensible realities (all above world 46) is of course preferable to the use of words, which are always misunderstood and are sooner or later idiotized by conceited ignorance.
8The 49 atomic kinds can be exactly classified and the developmental level of any individual can be exactly defined only by using mathematical designations. It is meaningless to invent particular names (and in all languages) for realities which you cannot characterize, being beyond all human experience. We can form an idea of the physical, emotional, mental, causal, and essential (unity) worlds, though of no reality beyond these, until we have received data on the faculties which are particularly characteristic of the higher atomic consciousnesses.
9Everything in higher worlds that has been given other than mathematical designations has sufficiently demonstrated how unsuitable the verbal method is. When a thing falls within the range of human life and experience, can be observed and analyzed, then and only then should words be used as designations. In all other cases it is enough to clarify that the figures used refer to kinds of consciousness and energy of enormously increased intensity and energetic effect as compared with the next lower kinds.
10Indians recognize the two terms of buddhi (46) and nirvana (45); theosophists, the terms of intuition (46) and spirit (45). They use these terms as though the realities they stand for were familiar to them, although they are quite unable to understand what they are talking about. But when you try to explain this, teach them to stop being so thoughtless, emphasize that this concerns realities of which they have no idea and therefore give them new terms, essential (46) and superessential (45), then they find these terms “incomprehensible” merely because they are “unfamiliar”. This best proves their dependence on terms and phrases and the total absence of reality content in their thinking. It is meaningless to speak about the “spiritual world” (45), the “divine world” (43), the “world of intuition” (47:1-3 as well as 46) as Adyar theosophists do, since these threadbare terms are used by everybody for all sorts of things.
11Blavatsky (Secret Doctrine) as well as Bailey (Cosmic Fire) used the term “cosmic physical” for the atomic worlds 43-49 and thus indirectly for the entire solar system. It is deplorable that such disorienting terms are still being used. This has also caused a confusion of ideas in those socalled occultists who have thought they should favour mankind with their quasi.
12It is true that all atomic worlds belong to the cosmos. However, since the atomic worlds 43-49 also make up the material basis of the 42 molecular worlds of the solar system, it is almost unavoidable that those unversed in esoterics confuse these two concepts. (The great majority of readers of occult and esoteric literature is meant here. “Occult” includes everything non-hylozoic; only facts from the planetary hierarchy are called esoteric.) It should be most suitable to keep, and there is no reason to drop, the very ancient term “cosmos” for everything outside the solar system, and therefore the atomic worlds 43-49 should be included in the solar system.
13We understand that the planetary hierarchy has many thousands of years of experience of the seemingly incurable faith that men have in the correctness of their fancies and brainwaves, and so avoids, as far as possible, to furnish the endless speculation of ignorance with new materials for imaginative excesses. Especially D.K.-Kleinias does what he can to prevent such infantilism, for so it must be called by the esoterician. Even though he points out that Annie Besant’s term “monad” for the third triad is meaningless and misleading, yet he used the Besant term, perhaps because he does not want to enter into a complicated explanation of the Pythagorean term (monad = primordial atom). Of this primordial atom he is content to say: “a tiny point of consciousness eternally present”.
1The purpose of the hylozoic system is to give a comprehensive answer to the question of the meaning and goal of existence, and it is the only system that has given a rational explanation. It has never been intended to be other than a basic world view (not a life view), containing those facts of reality which are fundamental to a correct conception of reality and a necessary understanding of life. In that respect it is the only reality system that has ever been publicized. It can never be dogmatized or be superseded by a better system in the future. It is the only correct and therefore only tenable system.
2One inestimable advantage of hylozoics is that it liberates man from his dependence on the authorities of theological, philosophical, and scientific ignorance in world and life view. Hylozoics puts a definite end to philosophical fictionalism with its endless mania for speculation. The learned may then go on with their speculations and new theories as much as they want to.
3Hylozoics is the very basis on which science can build in the future without any risk of going astray by its hypotheses. Hylozoics has solved the basic problems of philosophy. It is the only tenable common first foundation of religion, philosophy, and science. It was never meant to be more. It constitutes the elementary textbook of life, the introduction to knowledge without which all knowledge strays into fictionalism. That is quite sufficient.
4The seeker convinces himself of the correctness of hylozoics by examining whether it explains otherwise inexplicable things. Before that he should have seen the untenability of the explanations provided by theology, philosophy, and science. That insight causes the seeker finally to wonder if he should perhaps examine that which all authorities have rejected. Esoterics should be the last thing you examine.
5Hylozoics presents the basic facts necessary to comprehend the three aspects of reality and the structure of the cosmos. It provides the common theoretical basis of the various schools belonging to the seven departments or answers to the needs of people at the mystic and humanist stages. Hylozoics provides the foundation. The various superstructures should be given other names so that a confusion of concepts is avoided, which otherwise is unavoidable. Thus no school has a right to usurp the name of hylozoics. The new schools should take new names and not choose names known from history. The old schools have an exclusive right to the names they were once given. This is a matter of mental fairness. The new presentations will in so many respects differ from the old ones that none of them has any right to exploit the authoritative position of some older school. It is for example a nuisance (outright falsification) when the modern Rosicrucian sects present themselves as the genuine Rosicrucian Order. They have taken that name without permission by the founder of the Order, the present supreme chief of the third department of the planetary hierarchy (43-self R.).
6It would be improper to say that hylozoics is the knowledge of the planetary hierarchy. It would be the same logical impropriety as appears in the terms “theosophy” or “theology”, meaning “god’s wisdom” and “god’s teaching”, respectively. In those natural kingdoms (the fifth and the sixth) they have quite a different perception of the three aspects of reality. It could be said, however, that hylozoics is a mental system of facts that can only be supplied by the planetary hierarchy.
7The presence of atoms in molecules and the presence of higher atomic kinds in lower atomic kinds is the factor that makes it possible for atoms to develop; or you could say it is one of the proofs of “god immanent”. If you have once thought through and mastered Pythagorean hylozoics, then you will find how well everything adds up in all respects. It is only then, too, that you will be convinced of the system’s tenability and sovereignty over all other systems. It shows its sovereignty by the perspectivity and the common sense it affords. Nevertheless it will take several generations before this insight breaks through and hylozoics is recognized as a justified working hypothesis. This testifies to the fact that mankind still is at the mental stage of slow, step by step inference thinking and is still far from perspective consciousness. The esoteric teacher must have acquired the quality of patience to a high degree to tolerate this repetition and harping on the simplest concepts going on until the pertaining mental molecule has succeeded in penetrating and settling in any of the grey brain cells.
8As for our solar system, we know that the atoms brought together to form the various planets and worlds in the planets have already gone through many processes before they made up the forms we can observe. Life is not as simple as it must be presented to mankind with its extremely limited prospects of understanding. We should be grateful for having been given such an immensely simple working hypothesis as hylozoics, which correctly understood is the simplest that has ever been formulated and probably the simplest of all conceivable hypotheses. A comparison with the other esoteric presentations should demonstrate this. The exoteric systems of thought (for example: sankhya, vedanta, advaita) are no systems that can claim to agree with reality. Hylozoics comes as close to reality as is possible for mankind’s conception of reality in the current eon.
9The true knowledge system (due to its agreement with reality) acts like a magnet, making it possible for the esoterician to automatically extract the essentials of all “learning” (the ideas of reality scaled down into mentality and fictionalized in the process) and refining it into true mental ideas (the ideas of common sense).
1Hylozoics is a mental system for the basic outlook of mental consciousness in the physical world and so operates within the framework of human comprehension and the three physical dimensions, the sole conceivable ones in physical matter. That is its strength but also its given, inescapable limitation in an existence of 49 cosmic dimensions. The superiority of hylozoics to other mental systems is due to the fact that it satisfies the mental conception in the mentally most exact manner. It liberates from the systems of ignorance accepted by mankind. In so doing, the system has fulfilled its mission.
2Even though hylozoics is the best possible working hypothesis as the present stage of mankind’s development and adheres as closely to reality as is possible for concretizing mental consciousness, yet it should not be made a firm system for all time to come. We should be satisfied that the system affords us a vision and does not contain anything that conflicts with reality. That is more than can be said of all other systems. Thus hylozoics is no system for the causal self with his five-dimensional conception of reality. But hylozoics is everything we need until be have become causal selves and are able to experience the reality of the mental atomic world, which we in any case cannot understand in the fourth natural kingdom.
3Hylozoics is not reality, for it must be experienced, and only the causal self can do that. Life alone is reality. The causal self sees, hears, etc. everything in the worlds of man as we see and hear in the physical world. A mental systems is a theory, not life, and may become an obstacle to life, if it is turned into an “idee fixe”. The causal self needs no concepts. Causal ideas are intuitions, in which the consciousness aspect, the matter aspect, and the energy aspect are living realities. Mental systems thus are substitutes for life, as life cannot be bound by concepts. They are working hypotheses that can never replace experience.
4The esoterician, striving to acquire causal consciousness and being able to do without a system, therefore abandons the mental conception of reality and tries to identify himself with causal intuitional consciousness by living as if he already were this, trying to understand how the causal self looks on reality and life. The risk of all systems is that they lock consciousness to something that must be abandoned, that just is a theory and easily remains a theory instead of a real life. It all depends on how you apply it in life, make experiments and so gain your own experience, for only so you acquire qualities and abilities.
5Those who dispute about theories have never seen that theories are meaningless compared with living reality. With perfect justice causal selves reject all mental systems, which become obstacles to development if they are allowed to be more than tools of orientation, useful until the individual experiences reality both in the present and in the past, which exists in the “eternal now” or in the aeonic time appearing to the causal self as timelessness.
1An esoteric work does not need to and should not, as a matter of principle, invoke any authorities whatsoever. Its only (and sufficient) defence is its accordance with reality. Those who are unable to see this may be content to regard the work as a working hypothesis. As such, it is superior to all other systems by its universally valid explanations of previously inexplicable things. Modern philosophy a la Bertrand Russell is unable to offer any explanations whatever. The fact that explanations are possible suffices as a proof that esoterics is reliable, if they are unable to grasp that it is inescapable.
2Leadbeater thought that it was impossible to convince physicalists about superphysical reality, impossible for reason to demonstrate that esoterics accords with reality. It is an all too common fallacy that “you can never prove scientifically that a life view is right or false”. The esoterician asserts that it is precisely what you can. You can prove that hylozoics is a world view that agrees with reality and that the esoteric life view (the knowledge of the laws of life) follows as a corollary from this world view. The hylozoic mental system is, when you have once mastered it, quite simply logically cogent, since it explains thousands of otherwise inexplicable phenomena in the simplest possible manner. And the explanation is the proof. But of course it depends on what you mean by “science”. According to esoterics, all “human disciplines” fall within the sphere of physical life, and esoterics makes up the knowledge of superphysical reality. The planetary hierarchy promises that we shall receive many superphysical disciplines.
3The most important task for esotericians in our times is not so much to add new facts to the hylozoic world and life view as to elaborate proofs that this system is the only tenable working hypothesis. There are already sufficient facts to prove this. And it is done by clarifying that this working hypothesis is the only one that can explain reality and the historical process. There is a possibility to demonstrate this with clarity. Esoterics can prove its incomparable superiority as a basis of explanation. The saying of the Mahachohan, “the doctrine we promulgate, being the only true one, must become ultimately triumphant”, clarifies what the planetary hierarchy thinks about this possibility. There are many difficulties. Above all we must expect that the black lodge will frantically and by all means combat the cause by promoting further idiotization with all manner of confusing new hypotheses. Moreover, it is not everybody’s task to master the system so as to be able to explain everything by means of it and so explode all idiologies. It is not enough to master the system. That is a relatively simple thing; so simple on the verge of self-evidence is the system when you have once studied it. It is also required that you thoroughly study the systems you are about to refute, and point by point. Because the refutation of false systems is almost as important as the learning of the true one.
4The esoterician, putting forward Pythagorean hylozoics for the public to ponder and to study, challenges criticism and maintains that here all criticism must fall silent. A correct system cannot be refuted. And the only correct system can explain everything in the simplest, most purposeful manner. Mankind has never seen any such thing before. And what happens? They hush up the truth, the knowledge of reality.
5I challenge all philosophers in the East and the West. Do your best and try to refute hylozoics. Your silence is a challenge which I answer.
1In this presentation, everything is denoted with the familiar material terms. This is done in order to forestall the usual vagueness. In some knowledge orders they disregard the matter aspect, concentrating on the consciousness aspect. The triads and envelopes are presented as individual consciousnesses with names that easily confuse hylozoicians.
2The more you penetrate into esoterics, the more clearly the matter aspect is seen to be the basis of explanation. You certainly understand why they have tried to discard this aspect. People have let themselves be hypnotized by physical matter as the only tangible and valuable, not suspecting that the meaning of existence is consciousness development and that the right use of energy is the only way to realize. From the educational point of view it is perhaps psychologically correct to disregard the matter aspect, physical matter in particular. It is impossible to deny that physicalism is the curse of mankind. But when men receive the true knowledge of reality, they will see the idiocy of the traditional outlook, see that the material is the least valuable of everything. In order to do this, however, you do not need to deny that matter exists, that matter is necessary as the carrier of consciousness and a factor of energy.
3Westerners start from the matter aspect also in the matter of the superphysical. Science derives from the West, and by its systematic exploration of physical matter it laid a solid basis for exploration of the matter aspect of higher matters too. This had the consequence that also the consciousness aspect was explored in connection with matter and the different kinds of consciousness were associated with the kinds of matter, in which process they ascertained exact limits to the various kinds of consciousness and thus they could use scientific methodology also in this respect. In the yoga philosophy, on the other hand, definitions of the various kinds of consciousness are never as exact as in hylozoics. But exactness, clarity, stringency is the mentalist’s demand on a knowledge of reality. The mystic (emotionalist) detests clarity, for it prevents his imagination from “expanding into infinitude”. He wants to feel infinitude (boundlessness), feel omniscient and omnipotent, a feeling that is quite understandable as of a consciousness touching on the essential world.
4Westerners find it easier to see the correctness of hylozoics than do yoga philosophers. The matter aspect, being the basis of the perception of reality in the physical world, contains concepts that are easily understandable, almost self-evident for those who have a scientific orientation. There is of course a risk that the importance of the matter aspect becomes as dominating as it is for physicalists. There is every reason to point out that in the emotional world already, and more and more with every higher world, the consciousness aspect and the motion aspect (energies) are the only essential ones. It will be the task of future hylozoicians to find Western names for the factors of reality belonging to the consciousness and motion aspects which yogis discovered and used millennias ago. Admitted that Westerners are superior in technology as they have cultivated the physical matter aspect. But they are decidedly inferior to yoga philosophers in everything belonging to the consciousness aspect. There is in yoga an immensely wide field of research for Western researchers. Western science is almost totally ignorant of the laws of consciousness as well as the laws of the matters and energies of higher worlds. To Westerners, these law may appear to “be in the air” as they have a one-sided formulation in a purely subjectivist presentation. However, their validity can only be denied by those who are unable to ascertain their existence.
5From the educational point of view, the first presentation of esoterics (hylozoics) should start from the matter aspect, since this aspect is the one directly given for all and the best known one. This also dismisses philosophical subjectivism denying the existence of matter and the external world, so that there is no risk of confusing esoterics with this subjectivism when, subsequently, hylozoics is treated from angle of the consciousness aspect, the view of the fifth natural kingdom. Because it is consciousness that explores higher worlds, consciousness in higher kinds of matter and envelopes that is to be roused. It is true that the matter aspect always remains the implicit basis being the carrier of consciousness. But the disciple finds it easier to acquire higher kinds of consciousness if he so enters into this view that “everything” is just consciousness to him. Those in the fifth kingdom who prepare to move into the sixth kingdom where the motion aspect (energy aspect, will aspect) is the essential one, have to enter into this aspect so as to sense that “everything” consists of energy as if there were nothing but force.
1Even though an esoterician finds it relatively easy to decide whether alleged facts are true facts, even though as a causal self he is able to ascertain facts in the human worlds, yet he does not content himself with that but consults the expertise of the planetary hierarchy in order to have his findings checked.
2The real esoterician (something quite different from occultists a la Rudolf Steiner who trust their clairvoyance and their brainwaves and mislead their readers) is aware of the fact that the mental world is a chaos of fictions and the emotional world a chaos of illusions and that criteria of reality are lacking in these worlds. Also those who pay careful attention to this can make very annoying mistakes, which all esotericians are the first ones to admit.
3The chaotic condition mentioned is due to many different factors. In the emotional and mental worlds all material forms are the products of the activity of the pertaining active consciousness. There is not the least permanent reality. Thus what you see are products of imagination. Exceptions to this rule are of course the emotional and mental matter contained in physical matter, for these matters exist through physical reality.
4The chaos is moreover due to the fact that all human ideas of the superphysical are erroneous. This is not only because of traditional fallacies (theological, philosophical, etc. speculations) but also because most people accept their fancies, brainwaves, assumptions, guesswork, fantasies, etc. as if they were in agreement with reality, which they hardly do one per cent. More than 99 per cent are mistakes, all too often more or less conscious self-deception, thus lies. That is what is called “living in appearances”, and those who are comfortable doing so certify themselves that “the world wants to be deceived”. The esoterician refuses to take part in the cult of appearances. He has once and for all left the world of appearances and entered into the world of reality. They are two radically different worlds and have nothing in common. The neophyte always makes the serious mistake of bringing his old views with him when trying to think esoterically, not understanding that in so doing he remains in chaos. The esoterician has definitively thrown everything exoteric on the dustheap and learnt to rethink in all respects and about everything. Of course he keeps physical facts definitively ascertained in the physical world. But then that is all.
5Knowledge is possible in the physical world about such things as do not depend on superphysical material reality or superphysical realities for a rational explanation, you might say: everything purely physical. Knowledge is impossible about everything that depends on emotional and mental matter and their pertaining energies for its explanation. Knowledge is possible in the causal world (the Platonic world of ideas), for the reality content of the ideas is an exact representation of permanent reality.
6Perspective consciousness (47:5) has the advantage that the totally misconstructed mental systems in the two lowest mental regions (47:6,7) are dropped and that common sense, critical reason does not so easily fall a victim to the constructive urge.
7Only those at the cultural stage can have the lowest kind of causal consciousness 47:3:7:7 (apprehension of consciousness in the lowest composition of the third causal molecular kind) and those at the humanist stage, of 47:3. However, for the unexperienced it is impossible to tell the pertaining vibrations from those of the higher mentality (47:4).
8Before the individual has acquired subjective causal consciousness, his physical brain is insusceptible to causal vibrations, and causal molecules cannot penetrate into his brain cells, which moreover have been made insusceptible through unsuitable diet and all manner of poisons. Medical science is of course entirely unable to judge the pertaining phenomena. It does not even know that the brain-cells are contained in envelopes of etheric matter.
1Mental hylozoics, appealing to common sense (47:5), is of course highly unsuitable for those at the stage of the mystic (48:3) or that of the saint (48:2), for whom the Christian idiology has remained a matter of the heart which they cannot bear to lose. Hylozoics would only put them into a state of emotional chaos and would harm rather than benefit them. This is true to an even greater extent of those at the stage of civilization who have embraced the usual religious teaching. Consciousness development does not proceed by leaps and bounds but step by step. Add to this the fact that every idiology is anchored in a powerful thought-form (a live elemental) from which the believer cannot tear himself loose, a thought-form that serves as a deity and supplies the devotee with trust in life as well as the necessary vital energy. The wise “spiritual adviser” must take all consideration to those “deities” when trying to help people. In actual fact they are irreplaceable assets for the believers. It is only when there arise profound doubts of the reality and efficacy of that thought-form that a careful transition to some other closely related thought-form (without realized defects) is advisable. For at the emotional stage man cannot live without “god” no more than at the mental stage without a system. There must be something “firm” for emotion as well as for thought. Otherwise the consequence is uncertainty, insecurity, emotional-mental chaos with ensuing dissolution of all concepts, a deplorable state.
2Hylozoics is that mental system which most easily develops causal consciousness and (intuition) and guides man into the “Platonic world of ideas” where man at last finds “true reality” and can by himself ascertain firm facts. In the causal world, man is for ever freed from the dependence on subjective conceptions and concepts and leads an objective life in an objective reality where errors are non-existent. The emotional and mental worlds disappear, as it were (since they offer no possibility of objective perception and no subjective conceptions agree with the pertaining phenomena) and the physical and causal worlds make up a permanent unity. Then he sees that the physical world is the world most important for man until he has attained the causal world. Then he comprehends what Platon meant by “the world of ideas” and that nobody has been able to grasp his veiled intimations. Emotional illusions and mental fictions have for ever lost their power to seduce and disorient in life. Man is free from all human idiologies. He does not even need any ideology. Since the self does not need a system any more, he no longer thinks it strange that causal selves have such difficulty in shaping mental systems such as mentalists require. But he understands how necessary these idiological aids are for those at the emotional and mental stages, and he is careful not to deprive people of their idiologies as long as these meet a need. Without them, emotional and mental consciousness development will not be possible. That is the profound significance of the saying “man cannot live without god”, a symbolic saying that is meaningless to skeptics and other uninitiated people. Man must have something firm for his emotion or thought until he has become a causal self and has entered into reality.
3It is no easy task to shape an esoteric mental system into so perfect a form as possible. Comprehensible terms for realities in higher worlds are non-existent. This was one of the reasons why they resorted to symbols in the the ancient esoteric knowledge orders. Nowadays, the knowledge of physical reality has to a great extent been acquired, and so it is easier than before to find analogies. The principle, the Hermetic theorem of “as above, so below”, must not be absolutified, however. Then Goethe found a more apposite expression: “everything transient is just a likeness”. It is true that everything higher is repeated in the lower, but this scaling down also involves considerable deviations.
4Different ideologies (note this: not idiologies) will always exist. There are seven different ways of looking at reality, corresponding to the tasks of the seven departments. However, they are inclusive and not exclusive. They have everything essential and fundamental in common. Each one enables its students to fully understand the differing traits of the other six views. Whenever any world view or life view has an isolating effect, there is something wrong with its conception or presentation. The esoterician fully understands the idiologies of ignorance and excludes for that sake nobody, although he of course must do what he can to dispel ignorance. It must of course take a long time before that bridge can be constructed which makes it possible for the ruling idiologies, which always contain some element of reality, to enter into a synthesis. It cannot be expected that an esoterist who has painstakingly acquired a world view will take an interest in or even be able to grasp the most elementary esoterics, the hylozoic mental system. That system is indeed constructed on facts that mankind is unable to ascertain. It can prove its correctness only through its universal explanations of the previously inexplicable. Those who do not see this have quite simply never mastered the system. It will prove increasingly necessary to found schools where children from the beginning are taught to think, not just parrot, to comprehend reality in an entirely new manner, by the deductive method instead of the present inductive method. The inductive method is intended for researchers though not for beginners who are confused by the masses of facts and so do not understand why they are doing their studies. As it now is, they are given masses of facts within closed compartments without being oriented in reality.
1Mankind has now been given the basic facts required to see that hylozoics agrees with reality. If mankind is so idiotized by the fictions of science and its groundless denial of superphysical existence, then there is no sense in granting more of the knowledge. That would amount to casting pearls, and the planetary hierarchy does not. If men do not want to accept the most wonderful gift that has ever been offered to them, then they shall not be forced to do so. If they prefer wandering in the dark, then it is their business.
2The question is whether men have not been given too much knowledge already. There are those in the planetary hierarchy who consider that the limit has been passed, the limit to the knowledge of reality corresponding to the stage of development attained. Mankind has passed that limit twice before with annihilation as the result. The Indian word maya originally meant “selfblindment” (eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear). Mankind has truly managed to make itself blind to the fact of immanent divinity, the divine in man, man’s participation in cosmic total consciousness, the community of all life.
1It is totally abortive to proclaim the knowledge to those who are unripe for it. That is the error of all those occult orders. At best they have become meaningless ends in themselves, when they do not exist just to stupidize people.
2Not all publicized esoteric literature suits everybody, like higher mathematics does not belong at the infant stage. It has already appeared that most students misunderstand what they believe they comprehend and spread their misinterpretations to others. Obviously we must expect that the knowledge will be more and more distorted.
3There is a great risk that the same thing will happen to hylozoics as happened to theosophy. It can be idiotized by people who accept it on the recommendation of others without understanding it at all, at the most comprehending it superficially, emotionalizing and so idiotizing it. You are wise in moderating the enthusiasm in those who swell in ecstasy at the “wonderful” teaching. Mental understanding demands a work that kills ecstasy.
4It is in the interest of all esotericians to prevent that also esoterics, hylozoics, is turned into a new religion for emotionalists, mystics, believers. You have a right to demand that those who call themselves esotericians know what they are talking about and do not go on with that twaddle of ignorance and incompetence which has always discredited all attempt made to teach mankind a wee bit of common sense. Esoterics is for the elite who have reached the humanist stage. Those who ask for “who has said it” in so doing exclude themselves.
5You are not freed from the usual logical and psychological defects just because you study esoterics. On the contrary, there is even a greater risk that you fall a victim to seemingly ineradicable conceit and think you are better than others and more important. That attitude is an efficient way of becoming an even greater idiot in the future. Like our roads are lined with car wrecks, so the history of esoterics testifies to the mass of failures of the greatest intellects. This has been said over and over again in all conceivable contexts. And people read it and say, oh yes, indeed, I’ll be on my guard against that and then they have become even more conceited. A piece of good advice: Distrust your brilliant ideas. If you do not let them go down into the slop-pail, there is a risk you will go down there yourself.
6There are risks to engaging oneself in esoterics. The fact that these ideas agree with reality means that they possess quite another energy than do the consciousness expressions of life ignorance. They are dynamical, and the brain-cells of most people are not suited to assimilating them in any purposive manner. In all too many cases the result is mental chaos, and the attempts individuals make at rightly apprehending the ideas end in false constructions and breed fanatical belief in the correctness of the self-made fictions. There are plenty of examples of this in the history of theology, philosophy, and occultism. That esoteric studies are fraught with risks appears in many ways. Many people end up in psychiatric hospitals, unable to keep the worlds of illusion and reality apart. There are those who, joyfully and with a sense of liberation, begin studying esoterics but find that they ought to abandon their studies in order to better please the surrounding world. Strangely enough, they eventually lose more and more of their “mental vitality” and grow “increasingly stupid”. Their mental consciousness appears to have lost its ability to use the mental energies.
7“Those who engage themselves in the occult sciences must either reach the goal or perish. Once fairly started on the way to the great knowledge, to doubt is to risk insanity; to come to a dead stop is to fall; to recede is to tumble backward, heading into an abyss.” (K.H. alias Pythagoras)
8The warning proved to be justified. He is mistaken who believes that esoterics is something that can be handled carelessly.
1All “thinking” people could be called “seekers”. In our times there are many people who think they are seekers and also are, but in a restricted sense, as they are not unprejudiced seekers. They seek for something particular that could liberate them from their inner uncertainty. They seek within the framework of a certain system which they have already accepted and which they regard as the only true one. The persistent ones seek until they find this “system”, which is nothing else than what they have once acquired and possess latently. They do not know that this system is to be found in their subconscious with which they instinctively try to regain a contact. Esoteric seekers are those who seek until they have found the hylozoic knowledge system. There are also those who have examined all the attempts at explanation hitherto published, seen their untenability, and end up in skepticism, refusing to concern themselves with new “hypotheses”. This attitude is understandable. It is tragic that when the ultimate explanation is given, it is unheeded.
2The esoterician is concerned with the fact that a seeker who would find in hylozoics the system he instinctively is seeking for will perhaps never find it. If it would not suit him there is no harm done. But he must be given an opportunity to seek. How should you be able to reach that seeker? And what should be said about the book reviewers on the big newspapers? Here in Sweden, no newspaper has reviewed The Philosopher’s Stone or The Knowledge of Reality. They are surrounded by a deadly silence. How long will it be before people realize the hypocrisy of the talk about a democratic society?
1It is not allowed for an esoterician to make any kind of profit on esoteric work or gain any kind of personal advantage from it. All such work must involve “personal sacrifice”. Thus he enjoys no privileges. Any thought of “good reaping” becomes a “bad sowing”.
2Those who think they are able to “test the spirits” should first and foremost examine whether the exponent has any advantage of an economical, social, or personal character; whether his work has entailed honour and fame.
3The great ones have always been clamoured as madmen, evil-doers, defect in some or several respects. This has been said innumerable times before and is as new every time. It is as if mankind could not learn anything but emotional illusions and mental fictions, as if it were unable to learn anything truly sensible. Verily, has not the instinct for reality become totally destroyed? Only lies triumph ever and again.
4It is among the duties of the esoterician not to give any information whatever that has to do with his private life, to forcefully counteract every kind of gossip. The personality is a tool, nothing more, and thus is nothing at all. Anyone who asks about anything personal is no seeker and so has no right to know anything.
5It is also important that hylozoicians will not form any societies. For whenever a society arises, people flock to join it, and as the majority do not have the requisite qualifications of understanding, they can just harm the cause. Moreover, satanists always infiltrate, causing strife and division. Thereby the organization ceases to be the “spiritual” power factor it could have become. External criticism does not harm. It is, moreover, inevitable. Criticism within the society, however, divides and makes its contribution futile. The wisest things the theosophists can do is to dissolve their society, turn Adyar into a museum and hand over their literary treasures to it. That society has completed its mission.
6The esoterician is never a skeptic. Either he knows or he does not know. What he does not know he leaves at that for the time being, until he has gained clarity. That is something quite different from doubt. The hylozoician has no doubts whatever as to Steiner’s imaginative misrepresentation of the esoteric knowledge. He knows that it was a big mistake. Anyone must realize that who compares anthroposophy with hylozoics. It is quite obvious, from a purely logical point of view.
7The esoterician does not want to convince anybody or “win anybody over” to his cause. He has no reason to show forbearance with the authorities of life-ignorance. He will not mince matters telling the naked truth. If this annoys some people it is their own fault.
8It is no easy thing to acquire the system of reality for those who have become consolidated in a fictional system. The esoterician must be able to live in two worlds, in the world of reality and in the world of human illusions, without other people noticing anything, without being dragged down to the level of his environment. The mere mastering of the hylozoic system requires perspective consciousness. The hylozoician is a mentalist.
1Let the idiologies that dominate human thought be however splendid. If they do not agree with reality, however, they make up hindrances to a correct conception and thereby to consciousness development as well. “Our fictions blind us to our own ignorance.” It is from this hindrance, blindness that hylozoics liberates us.
2Mankind is blinded by its own world views and life views, those constructions by the ignorance of reality and life. Before the intelligentsia have seen this fact, there is not much hope that they will take any interest in the planetary hierarchy’s facts about reality and life.
3The philosophic and scientific world views succeed each other as research progresses. That the idiologies acquired are ineradicable is a fact that is due to several causes: man must have something unshakably firm to keep to and to regard as absolute; whatever man assimilates is emotionalized and so dogmatized; those who have accepted such a system are content to have it and often refuse even to examine new systems; they find it too troublesome to rethink.
4It is an often witnessed fact that thinking at the present stage of mankind’s development evinces a tendency of almost inconceivable inertia. It is lamentable, however, that such a tendency still is so clearly seen in scientifically educated people. There is a manifest inability to abandon a mode of thinking once learnt, also in the matter or hypotheses, which everybody has been taught to recognize as temporary. They treat a hypothesis as if it were something definitive from which they could start and on which they could build.
5A serious hindrance to research is the fact that science is dependent on theories and hypotheses. That method must be discarded once and for all, if research is not to be hampered. It should be clear to all researchers that the method of hypotheses has been an enormous impediment in all times. It is part of the cult of fictions. After hylozoics has laid the basis of true science, it will be possible to make a direct connection to hylozoics, and the method of hypotheses will be exiled to the lumber-room of history.
6A new hypothesis is scientifically more correct than a previous one, if it explains more facts. It must not be possible to replace an esoteric hypothesis with a new one, but it must be a definitive explanation. It is called a hypothesis, since its absolute correctness cannot be ascertained by science, so that it must be regarded as an assumption for the time being. Because human reason cannot reach farther than that. Esoteric hypotheses are given to us by the planetary hierarchy. Human hypotheses are not esoteric. Science will eventually see that an esoteric hypothesis cannot be replaced or refuted. This means that it must be a hypothesis for mankind.
7One thing that mankind cannot understand is that what is absolutely self-evident can never be discovered by a human intellect. The principle saying “the simpler, the more difficult to find” is connected with this. Truth is the simplest thing, an axiom that has of course been misrepresented and distorted. It is true that no “education”, which is more or less “over-education”, is necessary for understanding. What is necessary, however, is a certain mental level and a considerable fund of latent experience of life, far greater than the one to be found on the “mass level”.
8What is “wrong” with hylozoics is that it is all too simple. That simple it must not be. The more complicated anybody manages to make it, the more willingly the doctrine will be received, and fully accepted it will not be until somebody can present something totally incomprehensible. The truth is, however, that the knowledge of reality is the simplest of all simple things. Posterity will have a hearty laugh at all those intricacies that mankind at some time accepted as truth.
9If men would assimilate the basic facts of Pythagorean hylozoics, then their analyses would soon discover that the fictions of all ages are untenable. If they had listened to Pythagoras, then they would have been spared such fantasts of the subconscious as Edouard von Hartmann and Freud and their epigons, who are the prophets of today. The would have been the illusions and fictions which they live on after the proclamations of the ignorant, and they would have been spared the anguish before life which sooner or later becomes their destiny.
10Man’s mental consciousness has but two reality functions: to scale down causal ideas and, as for the rest, to explode the fictions by analysis. Reason cannot produce knowledge. Sense ascertains facts and reason can just work up the facts that sense has ascertained. Only when sense has begun functioning can there be anything worth the name of knowledge of man. When people start speculating on subconscious and superconscious and everything else beyond the reach of sense, they make nothing but mistakes, for the chance that they would find the true explanation is not even one out of one thousand. Philosophy as well as science has to be content with “probabilities”. And using them they have always deceived themselves and will always do so.
1When the elite comes to see that human knowledge in theology, philosophy, and science lacks the requisite basis of knowledge, that these disciplines have always “been floating in the air”, and when they in earnest start examining the tenability of hylozoics, then mankind has taken what in esoterics is called the “first initiation”. Then the illusions and fictions of mankind will be cleared up like fogs by a gale. For the first time mankind will see reality.
2India’s spiritual superiority to the West will cease when hylozoics is generally accepted as the most superior working hypothesis superseding all the theological, philosophical, scientific and quasi-occult systems of thought ruling hitherto. It will not be possible any longer to call the people at the higher emotional stage (48:2,3) mystics. For mysticism presupposes an idiology that makes imagination sovereign, independent of common sense and mental control. Anyone who has understood that emotion is no source of information, has understood the risks of imagination, will not be as dependent on their imaginative excesses as before.
3When hylozoics has been accepted by “the authorities” as the only rational working hypothesis, then it will no longer deserve to be called esoteric. That term must then be reserved for that new symbolic literature which will remain incomprehensible even to hylozoicians and whose interpretation will be reserved for disciples of the planetary hierarchy as is still the case with the Upanishads and the other Vedic literature.
1Hylozoics is a system for mental orientation. It helps us to grasp reality and to understand the meaning of life. According to the planetary hierarchy, however, the essential is that the system makes it possible for us to conceive reality as a gigantic energy phenomenon. The hierarchy also explains that the knowledge of energies and their utilization is what makes it possible to evolve and, where the individual is concerned, to reach the fifth natural kingdom.
2Then it is up to everybody to use this insight, apply it purposefully. As enmeshed into ruling illusions and fictions as the individual has become, this is not so simple a task as people are apt to believe. You will discover that when you start to apply the knowledge. It does not come of itself. It is the dynamic energies of the ideas that the esoterician must learn to use. It is a matter of “will”, intention and purposiveness. To use your understanding in the purposeful application of causal energies; that is the art of living. And that art is learnt by serving.
3What is revolutionary in the hylozoic teaching is the emphasis on the motion aspect, energy aspect, will aspect. It is energy that builds the cosmos, keeps aggregates (all the material forms in the cosmos, including all the various kinds of atoms) together, makes development possible. For energy is the source of revelation. The right use of energy solves all problems. Right use is according to the Law and can never come into conflict with the cosmic energies. Right use shows the way and clears the way. Important is the insight that every consciousness expression is at the same time an energy expression which must have its effect. Man produces energy by his consciousness expressions in all his envelopes. Of this he is unaware, and he does not know that if these energies are not given purposeful outlets, then they become irrational or harmful (from this arises all disease; true health makes the organism immune to attacks).
4Hylozoics is not as difficult to understand as it appears at the first glance. It certainly takes time before the mass of new facts can begin to “lead their own lives” and combine with each other. When this becomes the case, you will find the whole thing to be amazingly simple, treacherously enough all too simple in an everyday overall view. Some people think that “this is all you need to know” and are content with that. They are right in a way; the system explains so many things that they did not understand before. However, the knowledge is not in itself sufficient to teach us to live in the right way. It is all a matter of application. Even if you have a correct theoretical knowledge it is not easy to live the life.
5The basic factors of existence, Pythagorean hylozoics, the “Shorter Catechism” of esoterics: (KR chapters 1.4–1.41) you can learn in a month. Indubitably it takes longer time before you have understood the system’s sovereign possibilities to explain previously inexplicable real phenomena. The theoretical part of the issue is, however, just the firm rock bottom. The practical part is the really important one, the will aspect: the power to rightly use the material energies that partly are the result of the consciousness expressions of the self, partly circulate through the three triads of the triad chain, between the self, Augoeides, and Protogonos. Long before this is possible, however, the individual must have learnt to distinguish from where those vibrations come that at every moment pour through his various envelopes: from the outside, impulses from the subconscious or inspirations from the superconscious, or those energies which make him think, feel, say and do what he never intended or wanted.
6As we know how people read (also Laurency’s works of combined aphorisms) we repeat: In energy is the secret of revelation! You do not reach the knowledge of life by speculating. You reach it by realizing.
1It is not enough to have learnt the Pythagorean hylozoic mental system in order to give offhand explanations of everything that the system can explain. A pretty long familiarity with the entire way of thinking is necessary before you discover its resources of explanation.
2A superficial study is no study at all. For the majority of intellectual people it should take about two years of study to become convinced of the fact that hylozoics agrees with reality, before they can be logically convinced, for it usually takes that time before you can use the system to explain previously inexplicable things and to do so in the most simple, irrefutable manner. Nevertheless it has appeared that highly intellectual persons even after several years of study have not discovered these possibilities. The best method of study is probably to compare hylozoics with other systems and closely analyze how the different systems explain various facts. Those who have spent time on such work do not think that they wasted their toil. On the contrary, they have found this to be the best way to sovereignly master hylozoics and to realize its incomparable superiority.
3To comprehend hylozoics is not enough. You understand it only when using it you can solve the problem of reality, can rationally explain the meaning and goal of life, explain countless previously inexplicable facts in the simplest manner; understand that this is the only possible explanation, that this is what reality is like, and that it cannot be otherwise. Then hylozoics has ceased to be a working hypothesis. Then you can start to deduct from the system, draw conclusions from the system and ascertain that they agree with reality. Quite a lot of things can be established mathematically. A basic tenet of hylozoics is that the true knowledge can be established mathematically. Of course that explanation, too, was idiotized, as people distort everything they cannot understand. Fortunately so, it may be added, since they abuse everything they understand. The question is whether they have not been given too much knowledge already.
4The importance of hylozoics is in the fact that it agrees with reality. Be it however correct, it nevertheless must not be accepted without being tested in all respects. And only all-sided explanation can finally convince, be accepted as the proof of correctness. Anyone who cannot explain shows that hylozoics has become a creed for him. And that is what it must not be. If you cannot explain you have not even comprehended.
5Hylozoics must demonstrate its logical and psychological tenability, its viability in everyday life. If you have not convinced yourself by using the system as the superior explanation of the previously inexplicable, then it cannot afford you the certainty that it else could afford. Everything that can be doubted lacks the certainty of conviction. Belief is in essence emotional, and everything emotional is subject to doubt, however many logical arguments you try to prop it up with. Everything in the matter of blind belief degenerates into superstition. Hylozoics must not be more than an assumption, until you are able to use the deductive method and your deductions from the system prove to be agree with reality. Anyone who is unable to do so has not mastered the system has no right to call himself a hylozoician. Pythagoras would not have any believing, blind, uncritical repeaters; people who do not know what they are speaking about. He still has a right to make the same demands on those who are given his system for nothing.
1Mental system can be presented in different ways, corresponding to the different powers of conception at the different stages of development as well as the seven main different views based on the seven departments. In order to forestall confusion of systems and concomitant confusion of concepts, the student is wise to keep to one system, the one that best corresponds to his power of comprehension and understanding. Hylozoics should best suit those belonging to the third and fifth departments.
2Understanding hylozoics is possible only for old initiates who have the knowledge latently. Comprehension, however, is possible for all who are sufficiently logical and make the effort.
3Superficial readers think they have understood when they have just comprehended. Learning the three hylozoic aspects by heart is easy. Thinking out the consequences, however, is something quite different. It means a revolutionary rethinking on the theological, philosophical, and scientific views of mankind. It will take many generations’ work to do so.
4Those who see that hylozoics is the only possible mental system that agrees with reality, that hylozoics consists of causal ideas (Platonic ideas), in so doing demonstrate that they have acquired causal consciousness, albeit of the lowest kind (47:3). You can certainly comprehend that hylozoics is a perfect working hypothesis, but only the causal consciousness affords a full understanding of the fact that the system agrees with reality. It is unrealistic to demand that the system be accepted by those who are not former initiates.
5It is true that hylozoics has been shaped into the form of a concretized mental system. Its origin, however, is the world of ideas. In order to understand it, you must be in contact with the world of ideas (47:3). It is clear from this, that it is meaningless to expect any understanding of this system from exoterists. They could learn to comprehend it, of course. As a general phenomenon, however, that cannot be expected until hylozoics has been generally accepted by philosophers and scientists as a working hypothesis. When the system is accepted by those who set the tone in these circles, the “masses” will follow suit. Until then, they dare not “trust” the system, as they lack causal intuition and so cannot judge to what extent the system agrees with reality. It is important to understand this fact, which otherwise the neophyte must learn to see by having unpleasant experiences. The beginner, having grasped the system, thinks that everybody should be able to comprehend it. 6Comprehend, oh yes! But they accept it on the words of authority. And therein lies the difference. Many people at the stage of civilization can very well become convinced that hylozoics is correct through their interest in the very study of “philosophical system” that proves its logical tenability. Thus it need not mean that they have reached the higher mentality (47:5) or the humanist stage. Therefore, you cannot on that ground alone, on the mere theoretical interest, decide what stage the philosopher is at. More signs of recognition are needed. The occult sects are instances that prove this fact to be correct. Their members believe they have reached a higher stage merely because they have accepted some occult theory. The history of the sects does not validate these claims. Members have certainly been incarnated in India once or twice and then believed in “reincarnation and karma”. If the latent learning is roused to remembrance, then it is easy to believe in a lot of other though new things as well.
7Those who do not see that hylozoics agrees with reality thereby demonstrate that they have no prospects of understanding reality. Nothing can be done about that. Esotericians take no notice of people who are working to convince those who do not understand, because any “success” they may have just contributes to turn the knowledge into a belief system. The knowledge is only for those at the higher stages of development. In any case it remains esoteric for those at the lower stages.
8If Pythagorean hylozoics (KR 1.4–1.41) does not from the very start appear as directly selfevident and the only rational, only possible description and explanation of existence, then the individual should not concern himself with these studies any more. He lacks the requisite “instinct” for the true knowledge of reality. He is and remains a fictionalist, then he may believe himself to be a skeptic or a realist or something equally clever.
1Anyone who has mastered hylozoics (KR 1.4–1.41) has gained an understanding not just of the three aspects of reality but also of mankind’s path of development, and he will find that this understanding entails an energy that makes further “revelation” possible, a path of light from clarity to clarity. Having once reached the right path, you eventually see what steps you should take. There can never be any halt as long as you follow the light you have received. “Understanding is a revealing energy that makes realization possible. In the deepest sense true understanding means an increase of your participation in the cosmic total consciousness. What is said hereby is the foremost of what has ever been said hitherto.” Understanding involves a process in the scientific sense, a process in which the energies of all the seven departments are consciously utilized for the realization of evolution within our planet. It brings about enhanced possibilities for the centres of the human envelopes to assimilate existing energies. That was the insight which is now lost but was once the basis of the original “laya yoga” or scientific knowledge of the centres.
The above text constitutes the essay Hylozoics by Henry T. Laurency. The essay is part of the book Knowledge of Life Two by Henry T. Laurency. Copyright © 1999 by the Henry T. Laurency Publishing Foundation.