The Knowledge of Reality by Henry T. Laurency
2. THE PROBLEMS OF REALITY, PART TWO
2. THE PROBLEMS OF REALITY, PART TWO
1The three aspects of reality have been treated in The Problems of Reality, Part One, which also contains some essential facts about the material structure of the cosmos, the cosmic total consciousness, the dynamic energy of primordial matter, the cosmic organization, and other things.
2In this part some more facts are given in order to put these three aspects of existence into a broader perspective. Some repetitions from Part One have been deemed necessary for the account to gain in clarity.
3In these two parts an attempt has been made to present the fundamental facts which have been considered necessary in order to furnish mankind with the requisite perspectives on existence and without which disorientation will be inevitable.
4A foundation has been laid for the world view of the future, for the first time exact in concepts (as it must be for mentalists), free from the vagueness of symbolism.
1Our cosmos, one of innumerable globes in primordial matter, is composed of primordial atoms. These have been formed into 49 successively more composed kinds of atoms, each lower kind containing increasingly more primordial atoms. These 49 different atomic kinds make up 49 cosmic worlds of increasingly greater density. As matter is thus composed, all the higher worlds can penetrate all the lower worlds. All the 49 atomic worlds occupy the same space in the cosmos and fill up the cosmic globe.
2The 49 atomic worlds are divided into seven series of seven worlds in each series. The division into septenaries is due to the fact that the three aspects of existence have been susceptible of combination in the following seven ways.
3The table facilitates analysis of the composition of matter, the relations of the aspects, the seven types and departments.
1 = the will aspect (the motion aspect)
2 = the consciousness aspect
3 = the matter aspect
4The cosmic worlds are built out from "above". The cosmos, originally of insignificant extent, grows continually until it has reached the limit set by the capacity of the 49 cosmic dimensions. The seven highest worlds are formed first. They are the foundation of everything in the cosmos. They constitute the cosmic ground-plan, the pattern of the repeated septenary division of atomic worlds. The lower septenary series are thus scaled-down replicas of those immediately "above" them. This scaling down is a result of the increased density of primordial atoms and is especially noticeable in the case of the aspects of consciousness and motion.
5This system of copying has the result that the seven septenary series relate to each other analogously. Therefore, it is possible in lower worlds to make at any rate interesting analogies as to higher worlds in many respects.
6The principle of analogous composition has the result that corresponding worlds in the septenary series present the greatest possible correspondence as to all three aspects. What is characteristic of world 1 will thus recur in worlds 8, 15, 22, 29, 36, and 43. What is peculiar of world 7 will be found again (apart from all the inevitable modifications, of course) in worlds 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, and 49. The corresponding is true of all the other worlds in the series.
7The septenary series of cosmic worlds form as many cosmic natural kingdoms, divine kingdoms, as there are series. The highest or seventh kingdom consists of worlds 1—7, the lowest or first kingdom, or worlds 43—49.
8The individual who in world 43 has through his own endeavour acquired consciousness in world 42 (that is, has become a 42-self) is said to have entered into the second "divine kingdom".
9The cosmos has been built out by a collective of monads who have acquired consciousness in a cosmos and have themselves worked their way up through all its 49 worlds. They wish, in their turn, to awaken to consciousness the unconscious monads in primordial matter and make it possible for them to acquire omniscience and omnipotence in the cosmos.
10In our cosmos, all the 49 atomic worlds of the seven cosmic natural kingdoms have already been filled with individuals who with each higher world form an ever wider collective consciousness.
In the following some facts will be given pertaining to: the collective consciousness the seven fundamental types of consciousness the seven departments of the planetary hierarchy the human types of consciousness some problems for the future psychology telepathy
1The thing most essential for understanding the consciousness aspect of existence is to know that there is only one consciousness in the cosmos, the cosmic total consciousness, of which every monad has an inalienable part. This consciousness is an amalgamation of the consciousness of all monads in the cosmos.
2From this it follows that all consciousness is by nature both individual and collective. The collective consciousness is the primary and common one; the individual self-consciousness the individual must acquire by himself throughout ever higher natural kingdoms, this being possible because of his very participation in the collective consciousness.
3Every material aggregate in the cosmos, from an atom to a planetary world, a solar system, or a cosmic world, is ultimately composed of primordial atoms. Every aggregate has a collective consciousness.
4The seven atomic worlds of the solar system make up seven main kinds of collective worldconsciousness. The six molecular worlds within each atomic kind form six sub-groups of collective consciousness within each of the main kinds. It is practically impossible to enumerate all kinds of collective consciousness. Anything that can form a collective consciousness by reason of some kind of relatedness, automatically constitutes one.
5The monads making up an aggregate can be, and usually are, on different levels of consciousness and have very different ability to participate in the collective consciousness. Often the monads entering into an aggregate belong to different natural kingdoms, often there will be in the aggregate one monad far ahead of the others in consciousness development; this one can then with a certain right regard the aggregate as its envelope.
6The cosmic total consciousness is what the ancients called the "universal soul" or "god immanent". Some speak of "the soul's merging with the universal soul". One cannot merge with something of which one is already a part. When the self reaches the highest cosmic world, it will have worked its way up through over fifty different successively higher kinds of material envelopes with corresponding consciousnesses. "God immanent" indicates that every monad is a potential god, a god in becoming (besides, participating of cosmic "divinity"). "God transcendent" is all higher, superhuman kingdoms which cooperate for evolution. As for a "personal god", the planetary hierarchy declares with vigour that all in higher kingdoms decline with thanks any suchlike caricature. Judaism introduced monotheism into religion with anthropomorphism as an inevitable result.
1The monads are introduced into the cosmos from chaos via one or another of the seven highest cosmic worlds. This sets a certain stamp on them from the beginning, so that seven types of monads can be distinguished.
2The first three types of the septenary series are the most pronounced expressions of the three aspects. The first type is the extreme force type (the motion aspect), the second type represents the consciousness aspect, and the third type the matter aspect. The four others are differentiations of the first three in more composed matter.
3Types 1, 3, 5, 7 are rather expressive of the objective side of existence; types 2, 4, 6, of its subjective side.
4With each lower cosmic kingdom (septenary series of atomic worlds), the types undergo modifications conditioned by the material composition. The types thus prove different in different worlds. The difference is especially great between types in the atomic and in the molecular worlds, even though something will remain of what is characteristic of the original types.
5Thus the question is whether the most expedient numeration of the cosmic worlds would not be according to the principle of analogous septenaries, with worlds 1—7 being designated by 11—17, worlds 8—14 by 21—27, worlds 15—21 by 31—37, etc., and worlds 43—49 by 71—77. World and department would then coincide so that one would always know to which department the different worlds belonged.
6Most generally, one can say that the types are determined by the possibility of the three aspects of making themselves felt in different kinds of matter. Each atomic kind most easily expresses one aspect of the three. The result is that each atomic kind affords the possibility to develop special kinds of qualities and abilities.
7It is true that from the beginning the monads are of certain types. But in the course of evolution, the individual is given opportunities to acquire in his different envelopes the qualities of all the types in order to develop the requisite all-roundness. He also has an opportunity to decide himself which type he finally prefers to represent. Until then he will in the cosmos have been identifying his consciousness with the different kinds of collective type consciousness of the respective worlds.
8The division into types works thoroughly, in many ways and in innumerable kinds of combinations. Strange as it may seem, every solar system, every planet, every aggregate expresses one of the seven types especially. Every individual belongs to one, all man's envelopes can be of different types.
9Individual character also makes itself felt, so that every individual, despite his type, is unique, which fact conduces to greater understanding and makes cosmic unity more fully vibrant.
1The seven lowest atomic worlds (43—49) make up the lowest or first cosmic kingdom. In our solar system they belong to the solar systemic government, in our planet they make up the collective consciousness of the planetary government.
2Our planetary hierarchy (not government) is divided into seven departments. In each department there are four degrees consisting of 43-selves, 44-selves, 45-selves, and 46-selves.
3Those individuals who most recently passed from the fourth to the fifth natural kingdom are 46-selves. Together with the 45-selves they make up the fifth natural kingdom. The two highest kinds of selves in the planet (43- and 44-selves) form the sixth natural kingdom, also called the lowest divine kingdom.
4The task of the planetary hierarchy is to supervise evolution in the four lower natural kingdoms.
5The seven departments in the planet are replicas of the seven departments of the solar system and, to a certain degree, also of the seven types constantly recurring in the cosmic kingdoms. Many attempts have been made to describe or explain these types. These attempts have of course failed, the only result being the idiotization of the whole subject.
6The most expedient notation should be the mathematical one, that is: the first to the seventh department.
7As connected with the seven lowest atomic worlds (43—49) one could tentatively and analogously denote them:
1st the manifestalist, the dynamician
2nd the submanifestalist, the unifier of all
3rd the superessentialist, the knower of all
4th the essentialist, the harmonizer
5th the mentalist, the technician
6th the emotionalist, the reconciler
7th the physicalist, the organizer
8These designations are but suggestions. All attempts at analogy with human qualities or abilities are utter failures, having resulted in nothing but a mass of superstition so typical of man's incurable presumptuousness of thinking himself able to judge everything.
9The expression "divine love" has been used in connection with the second type. So human a concept (despite everything) can be nothing but misleading as applied to anyone who has become part of the planetary consciousness of community and is aware of his inseparable unity of all.
10The first department represents the motion aspect (will, energies); the second department, the consciousness aspect; and the third department, the matter aspect. The other four are purposeful modifications of the three.
11In the "odd" departments, 1, 3, 5, 7, and in the "odd" worlds, 43, 45, 47, 49, consciousness is more objective and extravert; in the "even" departments, 2, 4, 6, and in the worlds 44, 46, 48, it is more subjective and introvert.
12The departmental energies that make themselves best felt in man's envelopes consciousnesses are:
1, 4, 5 in mental consciousness
2, 6 in emotional consciousness
3, 7 in physical consciousness
1The seven planetary types exist only in the worlds of the planetary hierarchy (43—46).
2The pure human types do not exist in the human kingdom at its present stage of development. They will not appear until in the last or seventh root-race.
3It is in any case hard to define even these types. Attempts will only tend to provide man's imagination, idiotizing everything, with more material for excesses. The pure types have been called main types and those actually existing now, sub-types.
4Man's five envelopes can belong to five different departments. The incarnation envelopes usually change in departments in each new life, so that the individual is continually changing "type". He can have something of all the five types.
5A man will seem feminine if he has just concluded a long series of female incarnations, a woman masculine after a long series of male incarnations.
6In the man, the organism and the emotional envelope are positive, the etheric and mental envelopes negative; in the woman the reverse is the case: the organism and the emotional envelope are negative; the etheric and mental envelopes are positive. This explains why women find it easier to endure pain and are mentally steadier, and why men are emotionally aggressive, etc.
7Only 46-selves can ascertain to which department the five different envelopes belong. Accordingly, there is no point in speculating as to the type to which an individual belongs.
8However, in order to give some hints as to the seven human types, the following attempt has been made, invoking the reservations above, to point out certain characteristics of the seven types.
9The first type is distinguished by a strong so-called will which makes the individual suitable as a leader, a real one and one recognized as such by all. That type, often without regard for the consequences and the opinions of others, goes with "waves of his own across the ocean".
10The second type is that of the wise man, of him possessing knowledge, insight, and understanding. He is the born teacher, able and willing to unite conflicting opinions and individuals, etc.
11The third type is the thinker, philosopher, mathematician (often the unpractical theorist), who examines everything from every side, etc.
12The fourth type is the one who strives after harmony in all, the designer, architect, cityplanner, artistic constructor, etc., with a pronounced sense of form and colour.
13The fifth type is the scientist, researcher with a sense of detail, the discoverer, inventor, etc. It is interesting to see that also those who follow the path of 6—4—2 during a series of incarnations must have the 5th department in their lower causal envelope (the one incarnating).
14The sixth type is the mainly emotional imaginative man in the spheres of religion, literature, etc. with traits of fanaticism and well-marked sympathy—antipathy.
15The seventh type is the man of order with a marked sense of everything belonging to procedure, ceremony, ritual, etc. The symbolic meaning of "ritual" as a support of the various moments in the process of formation of matter, remains esoteric.
16The human types are rather examples of modes of reaction, resulting from the permanent influence of certain fixed kinds of energies (vibrations).
17To what extent the types are expressed largely depends, among other things, on the level of development attained and the percentage of previously acquired latent qualities and abilities, of which some are more easily awakened than others.
18Uniformity is out of the question. Everything that exists is individual and unique and, once it has acquired the consciousness of unity, an always welcome contribution to the greater fullness of vibrant cosmic harmony.
1Consciousness is a cosmic ocean. Human psychology is in a position to explore the three lowest of its 49 different strata. The others belong to man's superconsciousness. Having only this tiny share in the consciousness aspect of existence, man evidently lacks the prerequisites of judging the real nature of consciousness.
2The same can be said of man's prospect of constructing a system of thought in accordance with reality, a system that makes it possible to explain the three aspects of existence, the meaning and goal of existence, the causes of processes in nature, etc.
3We are given the facts we need for the necessary orientation as to world view and life view, but it is up to us to put these facts into their correct contexts.
4In the domain of psychology we may look forward to increasingly more facts about:
- the human types of consciousness
- the human stages of development
- consciousness in the different molecular kinds
- consciousness in man's five different material envelopes
- how we are to acquire the ability of activity in the different chakras of the envelopes
- how we are to acquire ever higher kinds of sense (objective consciousness in our higher envelopes)
5Psychologists ought to try to explain why "good resolutions" have the opposite effects, demonstrate that man's different kinds of consciousness have their seats in different material envelopes, that there is often tension between these different envelopes, that when in conflict with the waking consciousness the subconsciousness will almost always win.
6It is important for scientists of all kinds to understand that everything has an individual character. Every primordial atom (monad) is something unique. Every combination of monads of whatever kind is something unique. Every change (because of the continual exchange of atoms in the aggregate) is unique.
7What is common in all is, regarding the matter aspect, the constant relations (the laws), and, regarding the consciousness aspect, the ever expanding collective consciousness.
1Of course, they deny and ridicule such a thing as telepathy, our colossal, scientifically trained psychologists, it being beyond their ability to ascertain its existence.
2Of man's five envelopes, the organism (brain and nervous system), the physical etheric, emotional, mental, and causal envelopes, all but the first act as live receiving apparatuses, because they consist of elemental matter with passive consciousness. They are unable to act by themselves, but are unparalleledly sensitive to vibrations of all kinds, perfect robots.
3It depends on his level of development how much of these vibrations man is able to perceive. How much he actually perceives of what he should be able to, depends on his power of attention, and of simultaneous attention, in all four envelopes.
4All vibrations which are above the individual's level almost always pass him by unnoticed. They belong to his superconscious, and he does not even suspect that it exists.
5The expressions of man's emotional and mental consciousness can be divided into two groups: self-activity and robot activity (including "habitual thinking": automatized emotional and mental associations originally his own).
6Over 80 per cent of most people's consciousness activity is emotional and mental robot activity.
7The vibrations the robots receive are mostly vibrations reproduced from what others have felt and thought, which man receives and through his attention amplifies to re-emit them into the emotional and mental worlds.
8What the individual apprehends is usually and most generally what touches his domains of knowledge and interests, things he has recently heard or read of, etc. The rest passes him by unnoticed.
9Human thinking is largely mass thinking: group, clan, class, or nation thinking, of which man takes part without knowing it, imagining that he is thinking "independently", unaware where it all comes from.
10Lichtenberg (18th century) had a glimpse of this idea when he wrote: "One ought not to say: I think', but it thinks in me'." It is significant that even after 200 years this truth has not been appreciated.
11Scientists have done tremendous work, as will be readily admitted. All the more deplorable is their dogmatic attitude still existing, which hampers and restricts research quite incredibly. Do they really believe that they have explored everything, that there are no new revolutionary discoveries to be made? Then the esoterician can tell them that such discoveries will continue to be made for many thousands of years to come. As the scientists of today smile at those of a hundred years ago, so the scientists of a hundred years hence will wonder at the present lack of understanding of esoteric facts, which is little short of stupidity. But so strong is the opposition, so misled is mankind by innumerable idiologies in theology, philosophy, and science, that over one million esotericians now living, eminent scientists included, are forced to keep their knowledge to themselves.
12The simplest explanation of telepathy is that all consciousness is collective and common to all to the extent that they have acquired the ability to apprehend. We all have a share in the collective consciousness.
In the following some facts are given pertaining to: the process of manifestation the seven fundamental energies the systemic and planetary energies "Ideas rule the world"
1A more detailed account of the great cosmic process of manifestation, through which the cosmos with all its content comes into being, has been given in The Philosophers' Stone by Laurency.
2The great principal processes are:
the processes of involvation and evolvation
the processes of involution and evolution
the process of expansion
3In the process of involvation, the unconscious primordial atoms (the monads) are introduced from chaos and are involved to form more and more composed matter, cosmic material worlds as well as solar systems and planets.
4In the processes of involution and evolution, the unconscious monads are awakened to consciousness, after which their consciousness development continues in ever higher natural kingdoms.
5In the process of expansion, the individual consciousness is expanded into collective consciousness comprising more and more, until the goal of all monads has been reached: the common cosmic total consciousness.
6The seven highest cosmic worlds (1—7) constitute the foundation of everything in the cosmos. They are made up of monads which have gone through the process of manifestation in another cosmos, have learnt to handle dynamis (the eternally blind omnipotence of primordial matter, the source of all power) and in their turn are now building out the cosmos and directing the process of manifestation.
7From these seven worlds emanate all the material energies which form matter and the worlds and make the cosmos a living whole constantly changing.
8The entire process of manifestation is based on a plan broadly outlined in which the final goal (the omniscience of all participating monads) alone is fixed. The process depends in its course more or less on the cooperation of all monads. They cannot, of course, prevent the process being completed, but resistance or inertia on their part can delay it.
9All events, all processes of nature, the formation, changes, and dissolution of matter, in the last resort originate in the seven highest cosmic worlds. They thus constitute the basis of the motion aspect of existence.
10These original energies are conveyed to the solar systems through the five intermediate cosmic expansion kingdoms (the five septenary series from world 8 to world 42), in the course of which a higher world transforms and scales down the material energies for further transmission to the world immediately "below".
11From what has already been said about the three aspects of existence, it follows that:
12The relative significance of the three aspects to each other is constantly being shifted in the process of manifestation. In the lower natural kingdoms, the matter aspect appears to be the only one. With each higher kingdom, the consciousness aspect grows more and more in significance, so greatly that the matter aspect (which of course always remains the basis that can never be lost) comes to seem utterly insignificant. But since with each higher kind of atomic consciousness the blind omnipotence of dynamis gradually manifests more clearly, the motion aspect (also called the will aspect) finally comes to predominate.
13There are no restrictions on the action of dynamis in chaos and, being a blind force, it can itself only work chaos. Directed by omniscience and perfect wisdom, it will work perfect purposefulness, based on the knowledge of the constant relations of the matter aspect. Dynamis makes the universe a perpertuum mobile and causes higher matter to act as energy on lower matter.
1As has already been pointed out, the material energies which pour out from the seven highest cosmic worlds are the source of all energies in the cosmos. The primordial force is dynamis, it is true, but the original material for the energies is primordial atoms. All energies are material.
2The seven fundamental energies are different expressions of that individual character which makes them, in accordance with the law of least resistance, follow the numerical principle of the septenary series (for example, the seventh energy through worlds 7, 14, 21, etc.).
3The seven fundamental energies are composed and scaled down more and more with each lower cosmic kingdom, until they reach the lowest kingdom (43—49), the spheres of the solar systems, where they are utilized by the governments of the solar systems.
4The cosmic energies are uninterruptedly active. But in the solar systems their activity is increased and decreased in accordance with a periodicity inevitable for the pertaining material processes (the so-called law of periodicity), the rhythm of which varies with every world, every kind of matter, every kind of material envelopes.
5This law of periodicity is what makes everything within the solar systems and in the relations of the solar systems to each other proceed in regularly recurring periods, or cycles, that can be determined mathematically.
6The balance of life, the balance in the composition of matter and in material energy, requires a constant change of the various life-sustaining energies.
7For example, the so-called vital force of the organism depends on five different kinds of energies replacing one another at twenty-four-minute intervals, thus recurring periodically at intervals of two hours.
8The most comprehensive of these cycles, the systemic cycles, are called eons (4320 million years).
9Cyclical activity dominates all processes. When the history of mankind's development is published one day, the public will learn about the true historic epochs. A surprise awaits them: astronomers will be able to use celestial mechanics to calculate exactly the determinable dates of past events.
1The cosmic energies that reach the solar systems arrive via the seven worlds of the lowest cosmic kingdom but one (36—42).
2The solar systems are an intricate distribution network for these energies.
3Every solar system undergoes three different stages of development corresponding to the three aspects: those of matter, consciousness, and motion. In each of the three periods the solar system undergoes a complete remoulding.
4Independently of this, the planets in the solar system undergo seven different processes of development, divided into seven periods of activity and passivity called eons (Sanskrit: kalpas with manvantara and pralaya).
5The solar systems of higher degrees transmit the cosmic energies to those of lower degrees. Our solar system is of the second degree. The energies from other solar systems reach the planets via the sun, which has the task, among others, of transforming the atomic energies into molecular energies. These seven main kinds of molecular energies, like all septenaries, can be divided into three higher and four lower. The three circulate interplanetarily; the four are distributed to the planets, in which process the principle of circulation is also employed, so that the planets receive energy from each other.
6Every solar system, every planet, represents one of the seven cosmic types specifically, always in its individual mode, since everything in the cosmos is at the same time typified and individually characterized.
7As a result of this typification with its concurrent differentiation down to individual character, the ever lower kingdoms present a continual subdivision of the types until every individual becomes something individually characterized, yet, as regards one or other of the aspects, he can be said to represent one of the principal types, at the same time, however, being something of all the types.
8The energies are always type energies, and the effects they have on the different types in the different kinds of matter and kinds of consciousness differ accordingly. When activity of one type dominates, it sets it mark on individuals and collectives in their unique characters. The result is that every process is to some extent individual and can never again produce anything exactly similar, never achieve exactly the same result. (This is why we have difficulty in learning from history, since the typical is lost in the individual.) Herakleitos tried to hint at the eternal uniqueness of everything when he said that you can never descend twice into exactly the same river. This demolishes Nietzsche's fancies of the "eternal return" to exactly the same. It is impossible, because everything is unique.
9It should be added that all atoms in all material aggregates receive and in their turn emit energies.
10The energies coming in from without have their own types and individual characters. The energies transmitted further always have their individual characters coloured to a certain degree in the new aggregates they flow through.
11The knowledge of the relations of our solar system and our planet to other solar systems, of the exchange of interstellar and interplanetary energies, once was one of the most important sciences in mankind's possession. The people that got farthest in this respect were the Chaldeans of some 30.000 years ago. Fortunately, we can look forward to the time when the individuals who acquired this knowledge in Chaldea will incarnate again and once more present mankind with the esoteric "astrology", thereby reviving the long-lost knowledge. The planetary hierarchy will provide them with the facts necessary to awaken their latent knowledge to a new life. This is what is constantly happening, being in accordance with the Law. What mankind can accomplish, it must do by itself. It is up to man to remember anew knowledge that he has lost.
12Thus we have entered upon a matter regarded by the astronomers as superstition of the grossest kind: astrology. Historically speaking there are four kinds of astrology: the esoteric astrology long since forgotten; that adopted from antiquity, which is in many ways corrupt (the Ptolemaeic, starting from our planet as the centre of the universe); the degenerate medieval astrology; and today's empirical astrology, which examines statistically horoscopes collected systematically, employing the inductive method of research. By horoscope is understood the sum total of ascertainable celestial relations to exact time, exact longitude and latitude our planet at the "birth" of something. (The monad, or group of monads, in question thereby enters anew into a causal connection temporarily interrupted. "The Law can wait.") Thereby one gains knowledge of what principal energies must strongly influence, say, a person during his lifetime. If one also has a knowledge of the individual's different envelopes and can determine what vibrations will most strongly influence them, it will be possible to draw a number of important conclusions about the characteristic problems which this same person will have to wrestle with. But this does not mean that one can foresee the individual's fate. To do so would eliminate the law of freedom wholly. Nothing is predestinated in detail. The new esoteric astrology will put a definite end to fatalism and the doctrine of predestination.
13Exoteric astrology is not exact. It still lacks the knowledge of a number of necessary facts. Even with its twelve zodiacal types and seven planetary types to guide it, it still cannot state their relations to the existing types. It cannot interpret all the possibilities of the horoscope. It knows nothing about the horoscope of more than one of the individual's five envelopes.
14The fate of astrology is one of many examples of what will happen when esoteric knowledge gets into the hands of the uninitiated. The same can be said of hylozoics in philosophy and of gnostics (Christos' secret doctrine) in Christianity. The result is superstition of a more or less gross kind.
as should be clear from what follows:
"Ideas rule the world"
Cosmic ideas
Hierarchic ideas
The ideas in mankind
1By making this statement the "divine" Platon "told tales out of school", betraying an esoteric axiom. He dared to, since he saw that nobody would comprehend the axiom. And events have proved him right.
2Only an esoterician can understand the axiom. This should be clear from what follows. No exoterist has even understood what Platon meant by idea or the world of ideas. But an incredible amount of acute and profound balderdash has been wasted in the attempt, the best possible proof of the incurable conceit of ignorance and of its confidence in its ability to discriminate: to judge without knowledge of the facts of reality. Common sense is the direct perception, by the human collective consciousness, of reality in each world separately. We have no logical right to express opinions regarding worlds unknown to us. We cannot correctly grasp their reality. They are all totally dissimilar in their elaboration of the three aspects, despite existing analogies.
3As an expression of consciousness, the idea belongs to the consciousness aspect. But its realization belongs to the motion aspect. What would omniscience be without omnipotence?
4"Ideas rule the world", for the entire process of manifestation proceeds in accordance with cosmic ideas.
1The entire process of manifestation is a continuous process of ideas.
2There are cosmic ideas, systemic ideas, planetary ideas, as many different kinds of ideas as there are kinds of atomic consciousness and atomic worlds in the cosmos.
3Our planetary government is entrusted with the cosmic ideas pertaining to the maintenance and development of life in the planet and also sees to it that they are realized in accordance with the laws.
4These ideas are the causes of the processes in nature, the causes of the formation, changes, and dissolution of matter, and they are the preconditions of the consciousness development of all the natural kingdoms.
5It is not true, as the physicalists believe, that finality in nature is a special case of forces of unconscious matter acting mechanically. The exact opposite of this is the case: the energies that act mechanically in the solar system are special cases of those acting purposefully: automatized consciousness robots achieving the missions suited to them with unerring precision.
6The planetary government and planetary hierarchy are in no way pleased by any cult of personalities. They explain that the highest developed monad in any more permanent collective consciousness (the planetary ruler, for instance) will leave his office for a higher one when some other monad has developed sufficiently as to be able to take over that function.
7There must be one dominant (being one eon ahead of those following next in consciousness development, consciousness expansion), since final decisions must be unambiguous and divergence be impossible.
1Those cosmic ideas pertaining to consciousness development, which are to be realized in the human and lower kingdoms, are laid down by the planetary government and effected by the planetary hierarchy. Ideals can be accepted or rejected. But hierarchic ideas must be realized, no matter how long it will take.
2Just as mankind has its highest world (the causal world) and from there can bring down ideas, so the planetary hierarchy has its world of ideas, the lowest world of the planetary government.
3The work of the planetary hierarchy can be read in the planetary history of the consciousness development of the four lower natural kingdoms which goes on in the physical world. This history is to its full extent preserved in the collective memory of the submanifestal world. "Akasha", of which Rudolf Steiner spoke so much, is not the emotional world (48), as he believed, but the submanifestal world (44).
4The history of the human individual exists in the collective memory of the causal world (47).
5The causal world, the Platonic world of ideas, belongs to the planetary hierarchy, being accessible to those who have acquired causal consciousness. The causal ideas reproduce reality such as it can be rendered in this kind of consciousness. The Indian elaborator of the raja yoga system, Patanjali, called the idea content of the causal world the "rain-cloud of knowable things".
6All that man needs for his consciousness development is given to him. He is given opportunities of coming to know reality through his own experiences during countless incarnations. He is informed of all the facts which are necessary for him to orient himself in reality and life, and which he cannot ascertain by himself. He is given every possibility. What he can do, however, that he must do by himself, solving all his problems by himself. The law of selfrealization is a cosmic law that is valid in all kingdoms.
1The physicalists believe that ideas are subjective conceptions of the human brain. That is on the whole true of the reality content of their ideas, for they consist of emotional illusions and mental fictions.
2Emotional illusions are emotionalized mental conceptions, which, on account of emotional needs, have turned into permanent convictions (dogmas, beliefs). Examples include all political idiologies and religious dogmas.
3Mental fictions include all fancies, freaks, guesses, superstitions, assumptions, etc., as well as the hypotheses and theories of science, all being mental constructions that do not have all the facts put in their correct relations.
4Knowledge, on the other hand, is a perfect mental system of the necessary facts. It is only the planetary hierarchy that can decide whether all the facts are there.
5Mankind has a long way to go before it learns to distinguish between what it knows and what it does not know. Sokrates was one of the few to be on the safe side. Others deceive themselves by their acuity and profundity.
6It is significant that few of those hyperintelligent people have been initiated into esoteric knowledge orders, and that those who have, remain in the lower degrees. No better off are those who drivel about their intuition or believe they can judge the reality content of their "revelations", or clairvoyant experiences.
7If one does not know, comprehend, see, and understand, the safest attitude is a good share of healthy skepticism, according to a piece of advice from 45-self D.K., to counteract credulity and blind belief in authority.
8There are two main kinds of ideas:
hierarchic ideas
ideas of the causal world
9The hierarchic ideas include the facts mankind needs for a rational conception of reality and life, of the meaning and goal of life, of all that it is unable to ascertain by itself. These facts are communicated gradually, as mankind develops sufficiently to be able correctly to comprehend them, to put them into their correct contexts and not to abuse them to the detriment of life and its own ruin.
10For these ideas to be made conceivable, they have to be scaled down to the lower mental. Those people who occupy themselves with the pertaining problems and are "on the right wavelength" are able to pick up the pertaining mental molecules. Then follows a process of matter and consciousness that can take a relatively long time, in many cases as long as fifteen years. The mental idea becomes part of the consciousness, often the superconsciousness, of the mental envelope, frequently as a "hunch". Eventually it becomes a mental conception and then works its way down to the mental molecules in the brain cells. It can now be formulated into a definition.
11"Ideas rule the world" means, as far as mankind is concerned, that ideas are the mile-stones of development, that what we call the course of history proceeds in accordance with cosmic ideas scaled down by the planetary hierarchy. Mankind advances to the extent that these ideas can be conceived as ideals, eventually to be realized. That these ideals are still regarded as utopias is evidence of the stage of development that mankind is at.
12Other measures are also taken, of course. For example, clans at the stage of culture are permitted to incarnate when a new culture is to be built up, and clans at the stage of barbarism incarnate when old cultures have grown unfit for life or hostile to life and are to be smashed. The same process is repeated in each zodiacal epoch (of some 2500 years).
13Dictatorship, democracy, and communism are all examples of ideals that have been bungled. So far, they have always been idiotized and brutalized. They are different sides of one and the same idea, which sooner or later in the course of history will have to be realized in a synthesis.
14"Energy follows thought" is an esoteric axiom, too, that the psychologists have not yet been able to grasp.
The above text constitutes the essay The Problems of Reality, Part Two by Henry T. Laurency. The essay is part of the book The Knowledge of Reality by Henry T. Laurency. Copyright © 1979 by the Henry T. Laurency Publishing Foundation.