The Philosopher's Stone by Henry T. Laurency
2. ESOTERIC WORLD VIEW
2. ESOTERIC WORLD VIEW
1There exists a vast literature of which, amazingly, the general public appears to be entirely ignorant. This literature is about the knowledge of reality. It is a knowledge that has only been taught in secret knowledge orders over the ages.
2It was necessary to keep this knowledge secret for at least three reasons: persecution, misinterpretation, abuse of the power it conferred. Torture and burning at the stake awaited those who dared to doubt theological fictionalism. The esoteric knowledge cannot be comprehended by others than those who are able to think independently and not just parrot others. What outsiders have managed to pick up of it has always been misinterpreted or ridiculed or distorted intentionally. The knowledge that confers power has always been abused.
3Even in the 1880s a so-called free-thinker (one who dared to "think freely" and not just as the theologians prescribed) was regarded as almost a criminal. In any case he was impossible socially. However, natural science had made such progress and exploded so many theological absurdities (Bible legends and The Story of Creation) that they began in scientific circles to demand the right to free expression and also assumed that right, to such an extent that the authorities did not consider it suitable to start a prosecution for "blasphemy" whenever somebody declared himself dubious about the theological dogmas.
4Since, thanks to natural science, the condition existed of making the knowledge comprehensible without a circumstantial preparation, it was decided that certain parts (which could be understood and not be abused) of esoterics should be permitted for publication after the year 1875.
5It has proved desirable that, from the very beginning, the reader's attention be called to the fact that the following outline deals with matters totally different from anything generally known.
6This introduction represents a transition from exoteric ignorance to esoteric knowledge, from the unreal world of imagination, which mankind lives in, to the world of reality.
7Most people wander through life without asking themselves: Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? How is reality made up?
8The answers to the eternal questions of the Sphinx: Whence? How? and Whither?, are given in the following presentation, which is not a new doctrine but has always been available for serious seekers, for whom the answer has been vitally important.
9The researchers into reality inquired into the "inmost essence of things" and the "true causes". They searched for answers to the questions What? and Why?. These questions, however, neither philosophy nor science will ever be able to answer. All attempts of ignorance to construct a metaphysics must fail. Esoterics alone can offer an explanation of the world. Science must be content with searching for answers to the question How?. Research shows that much can be achieved pursuing that path.
10Neither scientific research nor philosophic speculation has been able to offer a rational explanation of the problem of existence, since they both lack the possibility of a knowledge of reality. As should be clear from the esoteric facts about the composition of matter, physical science can never explore the whole of material reality. Neither do the hypotheses and assumptions of philosophy provide any knowledge. However much you analyse the concepts, you cannot extract more from them than you once put into them. You either know the facts and factors or you do not know the facts. If you know the facts, it is sufficient to present them in order. If you do not know the facts, constructions are useless and "proofs" just persuasion to believe. Only facts can prove that you know and that knowledge is knowledge. There is no other possibility of knowing reality than the knowledge of facts. The intricate subtleties of philosophy are abortive attempts at substituting incomprehensible imaginative constructions for the missing facts. The true knowledge of reality is always immediately self-evident as soon as the necessary facts are available. People will never in the long run be content with a positivist, agnostic, or skeptic standpoint. They will always search after a rational explanation of existence. A rational world view is a need of reason. Such a world view is necessary merely because it releases man from the emergency solution of contenting himself with irrationalities or superstition. It is necessary also because it always furnishes the basis for the life view and for the conception of right.
11Subjectivist philosophy, in order to counteract all too arbitrary speculations, has been obliged to demand universality and necessity of the theories capable of being accepted. Moreover, it has thought that the absence of logical contradictions was a criterion of truth. And all this for want of facts.
12The esoteric knowledge furnishes facts that only those who have hastened ahead of evolution have been able to ascertain. Until all mankind will in due time have acquired that objective consciousness of the material existence of higher worlds, esoterics will remain authoritative.
13Those who reject authoritative knowledge without further ado confuse self-determination with self-sufficience. Acute minds have accepted esoterics as being the most rational of all hypotheses. "As far as we can see, it is rational and does not present any contradictions. As far as we can practically test it, it has proved to accord with reality. We shall reject it if this would not be the case in the future. We shall accept a more rational, a more correct view, if some such will appear." Such an argument needs no defence and is above criticism.
14When examined esoterics proves to be equivalent to almost all metaphysical views that have appeared in the West. Esoterics is a synthesis of the science of the will (the magic of immemorial origin), of idealism, and materialism. The esoteric science of consciousness includes all the essential of philosophic idealism and spiritualism, and this it does, moreover, in an incomparably superior way. The esoteric science of matter gives a rational explanation entirely different from anything that philosophic materialism can offer. Esoterics shows the rationality of the hylozoics taught in the Greek mysteries. It gives a rational content to the gnostic trinitism, to Leibniz' monadology, to Spinoza's pantheism, to Schopenhauer's idea of omnipotent blind will as the primordial force, to Hartmann's idea of the unconscious, to Spencer's and Bergson's idea of evolution. Esoterics explains more than any other hypothesis, and this makes it more probable than any other hypothesis. Esoterics does not seek any believers. It appeals, by the concordance of its hypotheses and its explanations without contradictions, to everybody's common sense. Anyone who believes, who asks "who has said it?", who needs an authority, and who on the word of authority can accept irrational views, shows by this that he is unable to judge for himself. The esoterician does not accept any other opinions than those which logically accord with the rational fundamentals of his system.
15The esoteric system of knowledge is the common sense view of reality, the objective attitude in the use of esoteric facts. Reality is such as reason uncorrupted by subjectivism apprehends it. This remains an indispensable logical requirement. Such as we see reality it is not an illusion. Our apprehension is correct as far as we see reality. The knowledge of objects is the immediate, direct, objective apprehension of objects by consciousness. Consciousness apprehends the object directly and immediately in its material reality. Objective consciousness — or more exactly: objectively determined consciousness — is consciousness determined by the material object.
16Esoterics teaches that material reality consists of a series of different atomic states, a series of successively higher kinds of matter. To them corresponds a series of different, successively higher kinds of objective consciousness. Thus a whole series of different kinds of logically correct apprehension of reality is obtained. Each kind of objective consciousness can acquire a correct apprehension of its own material reality. All the different — radically different — kinds of apprehension of reality are equally determined by reality, each kind within the given limits of its kind of matter. Anyone who lacks the exact apprehension of reality within a lower kind of matter cannot acquire an exact apprehension of reality within higher kinds.
17The esoteric world view must remain an hypothesis for those who lack higher objective consciousness. Even as an hypothesis, however, it makes up a logical system that by its freedom from inner contradictions, by its simplicity, clarity, rationality, universality is incomparably superior to any other metaphysical system. It demonstrates the suffocating narrowness of prevalent horizons and furnishes a total picture of reality that far surpasses the speculative resources of science and philosophy. But it does not pretend to be anything but a superstructure above the level of knowledge possible for man. On no single point does it conflict with reason based on facts, with the objective results of scientific research. On the contrary, it presupposes that research will some time achieve a direct connection to this superstructure.
18It is true that esoterics becomes exoteric in being published, but it still deserves its name. One reason is that from the historical point of view it has long been esoteric. A second reason is that essential parts of it still remain esoteric, since people are far from ripe for the knowledge that confers real power. A third reason is that even in its published state it stands a good chance of remaining unknown to all but the independent, to all those who always resort to authorities, who reject everything they do not already know or have not been taught to comprehend.
19The esoteric knowledge has been imparted in exclusive societies to the few who have had the qualifications. Such societies have existed in all ages and in all nations. It is perhaps possible to derive from reminiscences of them the widely spread predilection for secret orders with their parodic efforts of feigning to possess the mysterious symbols of a superior knowledge. The esoteric knowledge that was communicated in the various secret schools almost always found expression in a vast literature. As a precaution lest this literature were to fall into the hands of the uninitiated, the knowledge was deliberately disguised and thus made unintelligible to the "unworthy", by which term they meant those who were too undeveloped as well as those who could abuse the power that the knowledge conferred. Exact concepts were protected against being comprehended by outsiders through carefully elaborated symbols, which were often intentionally wrought so as to be mistaken for actual facts and occurrences related. It stands to reason that this symbolism still remains esoteric without the necessary key to it.
20During the years 1875-1950 increasingly more facts about the superphysical reality have been published by disciples of the planetary hierarchy, that fifth kingdom in nature which has hastened ahead of the rest of mankind in the development of consciousness. The planetary hierarchy has found that the time has come to liberate a totally disoriented mankind — or at least serious seekers — from the prevalent illusions and fictions.
21Regrettably, these facts have been put together by incompetent people in such a manner that esoterics has been brought into ridicule and everything so-called occult has fallen into disrepute, which circumstances have been duly utilized by the enemies of truth.
22Those who have taken pains to examine hylozoics critically have found that it is not just logically incontrovertible but also the only satisfactory working hypothesis. It cannot be anything else at mankind's present stage of development. But as one of the chiefs in the planetary hierarchy expresses the matter: "The doctrine we promulgate, being the only true one, must, supported by such evidence as we are preparing to give, become ultimately triumphant as every other truth."
23Also readers acquainted with occultism should find quite a number of as yet little known facts, which do not always agree with dogmas already fixed. The enormous material has been concentrated as much as possible, with the effect that this part of the book makes heavy reading, the more so as it has not been possible to present the facts in the desirable consecutive order. Therefore the Esoteric World View must be read several times over. No acuity is necessary to comprehension, but certainly the ability to retain all the facts. Diffuse terms have been avoided, and the new, uniformly applied terminology has been reduced to a minimum, which is easily learned. Only a basic outline, a first schematic picture of reality, has of course been possible. The esoteric knowledge — thoroughly different from the exoteric — must be mastered gradually. No one could grasp, no one could present to the uninitiated a comprehensible, final esoteric world view. The principles must be understood first. This Esoteric World View contains the basic principles. Without a gradual understanding intelligibility would be precluded. Each step offers increasingly greater difficulties, which would be unsurmountable without the help of the preceding simple facts. One must avoid adhering too early to theories based on insufficient facts.
24The following outline thus is given for the benefit of those who have seen the irremediable limitation of speculative philosophy, and who can liberate themselves from traditional views. It is a summary of the common content of the doctrines of the various secret societies of knowledge together with complementary facts. The world view presented diverges from prevalent occult systems in important respects.
25Since all the chapters presuppose one another, the best method of study is probably to read the Esoteric World View several times over, each time at one sitting and not dwelling on any chapter, until all the facts combine in your subconscious. Using this method you will master the system, which makes it possible to solve a great number of problems otherwise unsolvable.
1It is the same with the history of philosophy as with all other history. It is a construction of scanty, dubitable pieces of information and assumptions. When the esoteric history will some time be written, it will be seen that what is called history belongs to the realm of fiction in important respects.
2The most ancient philosophers were initiates of esoteric schools, the so-called mysteries. What was taught in these remained secret. Historians have tried to construct some sort of "first attempts at thinking" from some of the philosophers' misunderstood statements that were accidentally preserved. As though thinking made its start only in 600 B.C. The elite of Atlanteans, Indians, Chaldeans, Egyptians and other nations possessed esoteric knowledge. They had no use of philosophy, which is the speculation of ignorance. The Greek term for esoterics was hylozoics. According to hylozoics, matter consists of atoms that have proper motion and consciousness. Potential and actual consciousness were distinguished. One hylozoic tenet read: "Consciousness sleeps in the stone, dreams in the plant, awakens in the animal, and becomes self-conscious in man." This indicates the original unconsciousness (potentiality of consciousness) as well as the activation of consciousness into increasingly higher kinds (the idea of development).
3Of course, such tenets made hylozoics known only in an extremely fragmentary form. Demokritos, who was an initiate, attempted an "exoteric" theory within the limits of the permissible. His matter lacked both proper motion and consciousness. And thus begins the speculation of ignorance, or the history of philosophy.
4The mystery schools declined. As they decayed they began to substitute speculation for a traditional knowledge of reality. Platon, who foresaw the decline, made attempts to save as much of the knowledge as possible through hints. Aristoteles failed, like all the subsequent philosophers, in his attempt to give mankind a tenable system of knowledge without esoterics.
5Hylozoics is the only rational "materialism". It presupposes that consciousness is a quality of all matter, also "inorganic". This doctrine has been superficially rejected by the philosophers. Kant's summary verdict, "hylozoism would be the death of all natural philosophy", is typical. As though chemistry, physics, geology, or astronomy would be affected by this fact in their methods of research. As though physiology and biology would be the worse for having a new factor to allow for. Natural philosophy is a subject that we have fortunately been spared ever since natural research superseded speculation. Hylozoics does not in the least prevent a mechanical conception of natural processes. It does in no way alter the objective view taken by science.
6On the other hand, philosophical materialism suffers from incurable defects and is not usable even as a "working hypothesis". It cannot explain consciousness, its origin, its unity. It cannot explain motion. It has not fully understood that matter makes up a continuum, although this has been assumed by some scientists and has been given its most appropriate formulation in Poincare's thesis: atoms are just voids in the ether. The fact that the physicists have rejected this primitive theory of the ether shows a greater knowledge of the nature of matter.
7Natural science and technology have fully demonstrated that visible reality and also the invisible, the as yet only partially explored, part of the physical reality are material reality. The subjectivists also denied that the invisible could be matter. They accepted the traditional conjecture that since matter was visible and its basis apparently invisible, then that invisible must be something different from matter, something subjective. Of course they soon went a step further and denied the objective existence of matter. There are subjectivists of two kinds — psychologicists and logicists. Esoterics deprecates both, of course.
8In contrast to such arbitrary speculations esoterics maintains that matter is alive and possesses all the known or as yet unexplored properties of life. All qualities of reality are properties of matter. All matter is life and there is no life but material life.
9The visible material reality must from the physical point of view be regarded as the most real of everything. Matter is the objective reality and the coarsest kind of matter is the most objective. The unknown and unexplored cannot possibly be declared more real than the observable and explored.
10In order to arrive at a correct conception of matter science must make two discoveries: that energy has a material nature; and that invisible matter, which is beyond the matter at present accessible by instruments, is matter still.
1Only natural science provided reason with facts about reality. Before it, the inevitable conjectures of ignorance held sovereign sway. As far as science can ascertain facts about matter and energies, its concepts of these are of course correct. The hypotheses and theories that complement the observations are, however, erroneous.
2Matter is enormously more composed than the boldest hypotheses have ever dared to assume. Science knows of three states of aggregation of physical matter: solid, liquid, and gaseous. In actual fact, there are seven states of physical matter, and where physical matter ends a new kind of matter begins, which is inaccessible even to scientific instruments. Without the esoteric explanation the composition of matter remains an unsolvable problem.
3The energy theory of physics is erroneous. Principally thermodynamics suggested the immediate, fascinating, and erroneous idea of the indestructibility of energy. There is no energy without matter, independent of matter, or acting through anything but matter. Energy is energy only as long as it is motion. When motion ceases, energy as force is annihilated. Energy cannot be converted. No "form" of energy can be turned into another "form". The apparent conversions thought to be observed are not processes of conversion but of parallelism. The latter concept is as yet lacking in scientific physics.
4What science calls force, or energy, is matter. Energy is matter, the action of higher matter on lower matter. All higher kinds of matter are energy in relation to lower kinds. Any kind of matter relates to its next lower kind as energy to matter. Matter dissolves, not into energy but into higher kinds of matter.
1Matter and consciousness, "body and soul", is the ordinary, immediately given opposition and union. Dualism appears to be the natural, the correct view. If, like Descartes, you call matter and consciousness different substances, or, like Spinoza, one substance with two attributes, yet matter and consciousness remain two different principles, two different aspects. In dualism can also be included the theory of psycho-physical parallelism, or duplicism, which quotes Spinoza as its authority.
2If consciousness could be thought to exist without matter, then consciousness itself must be something substantial. Therefore Descartes conceived of immaterial substance as a substratum for consciousness, whereas Spinoza correctly assumed the same as hylozoics teaches, namely that the known matter is the bearer of consciousness, that without matter there cannot be any consciousness.
3It may be pointed out against Descartes that immaterial substance is a fiction. There is no substance but matter. There is nothing immaterial. Therefore, this dualism should, strictly speaking, be just another name for materialism. Science attributes consciousness, not to all matter but only to nerve cells, or possibly all organic matter. A consistent dualism cannot attribute to some matter a quality that must belong to all matter. The two different aspects, matter and consciousness, cannot be made identical or parallel. A "monism" obtained in that way is just a play on words. The different aspects are always abstractions from a reality that is unitary in itself. Neither can consciousness be explained by or from matter. And that which cannot be explained by something else is itself original and its own basis. Consciousness is as absolute as matter.
4Psycho-physical parallelism deprives both matter and consciousness of all independence. Moreover, it lacks the possibility of explaining satisfactorily force, energy, proper motion, will. Consciousness without will is passive.
5According to esoterics reality has three aspects. None of these three can be omitted or explained away without the result being unclear, contradictory, misleading. The three aspects are:
the matter aspect
the motion aspect
the consciousness aspect.
6Moreover, as regards the theory of knowledge, everything is above all what it appears to be, but besides that, always something different and immensely more.
1It is just an insignificant part of the invisible material reality that science has succeeded in exploring by instruments. Thus science has been able to discover the existence of "chemical atoms" and energies. When, in the future, the resources of exploring reality by instrumental means have been exhausted, the total reality will certainly not have been explored thereby. Just the resources of instrumental science will have reached their limit and, with them, those of scientific research. The greater part of material reality remains inaccessible even by the most perfected physical methods of research.
2Esoterics maintains that there is an unexplored material world and that there is a boundary for all beings between perceptible and imperceptible material reality. However, this boundary is always just "temporary" and conditioned by the stage of development reached by consciousness. Impelled by the will, consciousness gradually expands its domain of objective consciousness. At mankind's present stage of development, being the lowest, most people are objectively conscious of the three lower states of physical matter. Man's objective consciousness is at its first stage of development. Consciousness possesses, however, all the necessary conditions of gradually acquiring objective consciousness of the entire invisible, as yet imperceptible, material reality. All reality can be apprehended by sufficiently developed objective consciousness.
3The greater part of the matter aspect of reality is invisible at present. If we include the entire manifestation, then circa 99 per cent of matter is invisible. If we confine our discussion to the worlds of man, then circa 85 per cent of matter is invisible to others than those who have acquired higher objective consciousness. And only a small fraction of the matter in these worlds is subjectively, or psychically, perceptible to the normal individual. Much of what is solely subjective to the normal individual is thus what he cannot as yet be objectively conscious of and, consequently, cannot refer to material reality.
4If we were reduced to our knowledge of the visible world only and that accessible by instruments, we should finally realize that reality was incomprehensible. We should be forced to refrain from all explanation, all comprehension, and exclusively content ourselves with description. But without being able to explain the causal relationships and what goes on in that which goes on, we would never find an explanation of the world to satisfy reason with. Reason demands an explanation and is not content with statistics. "Everything that exists is a fact" for anyone who can ascertain it.
1Nature is a vast experimental workshop. In it, originally given constituents are being eternally combined and dissolved under the action of originally given factors. There is in everything a tendency to transformation depending on, among other things, the eternal attraction and repulsion of the atoms and the mechanical striving of the lowest atomic consciousness towards adaptation.
2Esoterics agrees with biological science in asserting that species are changeable, that new species arise from older ones through transformation, that all forms of life have an inner continuity and a common, natural origin, in the last resort through spontaneous generation (generatio spontanea, or aequivoca), the natural transition from the mineral to the vegetable kingdom. "Acquired qualities" are inherited through the predispositions that made their acquisition possible. In contrast to Darwin, esoterics maintains that biological "struggle for existence" is certainly not a necessary factor of evolution, but what is unfit for life is rejected in accordance with nature's order.
3That methodical view, which regards the finality, or purposiveness, of nature as a product of blind necessity and mechanical processes, must be assigned a definite superiority to any other attempt at explanation, and must always be applied when possible. The immutability of the laws of nature is the condition of a systematic process of life. The mechanical process is a condition of evolution, but is insufficient as a sole basis of explanation.
4The purposive structure of organisms is obtained through functional self-formation. The never-ending mechanical repetition makes possible a relatively enduring change of the structure of matter through proficiency gained and brought to automatization.
5Evolution and finality are partially the common result of interaction between mechanical repetition and atomic consciousness, and largely depend on automatization of matter and its consciousness. Atoms have the "possibility" of consciousness. Consciousness manifests itself to begin with as a tendency to repetition, which becomes a tendency to habit, and can gradually result in organized habit, or "nature". When consciousness increases, a striving towards adaptation arises.
6The relative finality of nature does not aim at the perfection of every material form. Nature is content to safeguard the continuance of the species. Self-realization is a law of life, valid at all stages of development. That law grants freedom, or the possibility of choice, and, thereby, of individual character. The seeming waste of life affords ever greater possibilities of choice the more consciousness increases and the further mechanical proficiency advances through automatization. Nature makes experience possible. And the atomic consciousness learns, even though slowly, from all experiences, not least from the failures of its temporary form of life.
The 49 cosmic 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 can be combined in seven different ways as shown below. The table makes it easier to analyse the composition of matter, the relations of the aspects, the seven types and departments.
1 - 1 2 3 2 - 1 2 3 3 - 1 2 3 4 - 1 2 3 5 - 1 2 3 6 - 1 2 3 7 - 1 2 3
1 = the will aspect (the motion aspect)
2 = the consciousness aspect
3 = the matter aspect
1The following is an attempt, using the scientific concepts of our time, to describe our existence in the cosmos according to the basic facts that were taught in the Pythagorean order of esoteric knowledge. That order was founded considering the future independent exploration of reality by natural science starting from the matter aspect.
2In the present expose of Pythagorean hylozoics, all the ingeniously elaborated symbols have been finally discarded, being misleading and of course misinterpreted. The consistent mathematical nomenclature presented here explains in part the Pythagorean "mystical interpretation of numbers".
3The uninitiated, who does not have the knowledge latently from previous incarnations, enters seemingly into a strange world, the world of reality. May the reader be able to quickly orient himself in it.
1Primordial matter is limitless space, spaceless and timeless, "beyond space and time", or whatever expression you choose.
2In the endless chaos of primordial matter there is room for an unlimited number of cosmoses.
3Innumerable cosmoses are in the making, innumerable cosmoses have accomplished their purpose and are being dismantled.
4A cosmos can be likened to a globe in primordial matter. Its original dimensions are small, but it grows incessantly, being supplied with primordial atoms from the inexhaustible store of primordial matter.
5Our cosmos can be said to have reached such a stage of development that one is justified in speaking of a perfect cosmic organization.
6A cosmos fully built out consists of a series of interpenetrating material worlds of different degrees of density, which worlds occupy the same space in the cosmos (space originates only with the cosmos) and fill up the cosmic globe.
7The cosmic worlds are 49 in number, a necessary number but also the greatest possible number, the limit of dimensional capacity.
8The cosmos with its worlds arises through the composition of primordial atoms (monads) into 49 different kinds of atoms. This process of composition is called involvation. The lower the kind of atom, the more "involved" are the primordial atoms. Involvation implies a process of enormously increasing condensation of more and more primordial atoms.
9The involvation of the atomic kinds is done in such a manner that the next lower atomic kind in the series is formed out of the next higher kind. Primordial atoms are of atomic kind 1. Atomic kind 2 is formed out of atomic kind 1, 3 out of 2, 4 out of 3, etc. The highest atomic kind is 1, the lowest atomic kind is 49. The greater the number of primordial atoms composing the atom of a lower kind, the coarser its kind of matter.
10The lowest atomic kind (49) thus contains atoms of all the 48 higher kinds and possesses the greatest number (billions) of "involved" primordial atoms. In physical matter exist all other kinds of matter as well as primordial matter. Without an uninterrupted continuity of the different atomic kinds the atoms could neither function nor even exist.
11Each atomic world has (besides its own kind of atoms) its own kind of "space" (dimension), "time" (duration, continuous existence), "motion" (energy), and consciousness with its own apprehension of space and time.
12The 49 atomic kinds are divided into a continuous series of seven groups of seven atomic kinds in each: 1-7, 8-14, 15-21, 22-28, 29-35, 36-42, 43-49. Although there are no terms for these 49 atomic kinds, yet it would be meaningless to attribute a name to each of these realities not ascertainable by man. Since it is desirable to have an international, universally acceptable terminology that would not present linguistic obstacles, the mathematical nomenclature has been used consistently. Since the worlds are built out "from above", the numeration has also been made to start from the highest world.
13The numbers three and seven, which recur in various contexts, are explained thus. Three is determined by the three absolute aspects of existence: the motion aspect, the consciousness aspect, and the matter aspect, which are indissolubly united without any confusion or conversion. Seven is the number of possible combinations of three: one combination where the three aspects are equal and strong, and six combinations where the aspects dominate one another in succession (see the diagram prefacing this section).
14The process of involvation is of course paralleled by a process of evolvation, of dissolution of matter. These terms can also be used when discussing incarnation and discarnation: involvation is descent into lower worlds and evolvation is ascent to higher worlds.
15All the atomic worlds exist everywhere in the cosmos. The terms higher and lower atomic worlds thus bear on the mathematical notations (and mainly imply differences in primordial atomic density, dimension, etc.). The higher worlds penetrate the lower ones. The 49 atomic worlds form one integrated sphere, our cosmos. The molecular worlds form spheres of their own within the solar system, starting from the centres of the planets.
16The planetary worlds are globular. The spherical formation of matter is due to the fact that the kinds of matter have been ordered concentrically round an original centre of force. Each higher molecular kind has a somewhat greater radius (as measured from the centre of the planet) than the next lower one.
17In every world there exist involvatory matter, involutionary matter, and evolutionary matter, of the respective atomic and molecular kinds. The worlds are always populated by material beings who have envelopes, or envelopes, composed of the matter of the worlds and consciousness corresponding to that matter.
18The three lowest atomic worlds (47-49) make up five different molecular worlds, which have been called the worlds of man, since man has envelopes composed of the matter of these five worlds, and since the evolution of human consciousness takes place in these worlds. During incarnation, man is an organism with an etheric envelope in the physical world, a material emotional being in the emotional world, a material mental being in the mental world, and a material causal being in the causal world. It should be evident from this that there cannot exist "immaterial spiritual beings" of any kind. There exists nothing "immaterial".
19The causal world (47:2,3) has also been called the world of ideas and the world of knowledge; the mental world (47:4-7), the world of fictions; and the emotional world (48:2-7), the world of illusions. The physical etheric world is the world of etheric energies.
20The physical etheric world is an exact replica of the visible world (49:5-7) in etheric matter. The material forms of the visible world (the organisms of the natural kingdoms, for example) are replicas of the physical etheric forms. On other planets, also the life forms of the visible world are composed of molecules only and not of cells. In reality, the physical etheric world and the visible world make up one single world. However, before mankind has acquired physical etheric objective consciousness, the etheric world appears to be a world of its own, and this justifies the division of the physical world into two worlds.
21Without the etheric forms there would be no visible or dense forms, without etheric matter no physical life, no physical motion, and no physical consciousness.
22The causal world is sometimes called the formless world, a misleading expression. The causal world is filled with the forms of the natural kingdoms existing in that matter. The term formless has been assigned to that world, since the vibrations of evolutionary beings in causal matter do not form any material aggregates, as occurs in the emotional and mental worlds. The manifestations of causal consciousness do not produce any forms but rather colour phenomena that dissolve at lightning speed.
23In every world there is a distinction between the sphere and the envelope. Spheres and envelopes of the same kind of matter occupy the same space in the concentric formation of matter. The sphere denotes the rotatory matter of the world. The envelope is the part of the world consisting of involutionary and evolutionary matter. Envelopes make up unitary elementals, which are activated by collective beings. Envelopes thus correspond to the aggregate envelopes of evolutionary beings.
1Involution begins after the molecular matters of the solar system and their naturally grouped concentric worlds have been completely formed.
2Involvation and evolvation, involution and evolution, are four different processes of matter, which condition one another. Every atomic kind undergoes these four processes. Involvation concerns the composition of matter to form ever coarser kinds; evolvation, the corresponding process of dissolution. Involvation and evolvation should not be confused with involution and evolution.
3Involution is a second process of involvation undergone by matter already involved once before. Thus involvatory matter (primary matter) and involutionary matter (secondary matter) are distinguished. In the first involvation the atoms of primary matter acquire rotatory motion, the same kind of motion as has the primordial atom. In due time, this primary matter is dissolved, whereupon in a second involvation primary matter is transformed into involutionary matter.
4Primary matter is rotatory matter. The atom rotates round its axis with enormous rapidity. To this motion is added, through the process of involution, a cyclic spiral motion (which the ancients called the elemental essence), in which the atom revolves round a central, focal point in a constantly ascending spiral.
5The rotatory motion of the atom of primary matter makes the formation of molecules possible. The rotatory cyclic spiral motion of secondary matter makes it possible to form aggregates, material forms. This makes it possible to construct and progressively differentiate the series of ever higher, ever more refined forms of life, which serve to afford consciousness, step by step, with the different organs it needs for the slow activation of molecular consciousness.
6Secondary matter is called involutionary or elemental matter. In the process of involution, the unconsciousness of the atom is awakened to passive consciousness in and of the material kind into which the atom is involved.
7In all the worlds of the solar system there exists primary matter; and in all the worlds except the physical molecular, also involutionary matter. The composition of matter is the same for both kinds: one atomic state and six molecular states. The condition of becoming involutionary matter in a lower world is to have been involutionary matter in a higher world.
1After the cosmos has been built out with its 49 atomic kinds, solar systems can be formed by means of a further involvation of the seven lowest atomic kinds (43-49) to form molecular matter. Each solar system accomplishes this process of involvation by itself.
2Each one of the seven lowest atomic kinds (43-49) furnishes the material for six increasingly involved molecular kinds, in which process — like the composition of atomic matter — the next lower kind is composed out of the next higher kind, so that each lower kind has an increasingly condensed content of primordial atoms. Molecular matter is composed in such a manner that the atomic kinds with their molecular kinds form a continuous series of states of aggregation. Thus, a total of 42 molecular kinds is obtained, and these make up the solar system.
3The seven atomic kinds 43-49 are the basis of the division of the worlds of the solar system. For reasons of convenience these seven worlds have been given names beside the mathematical notations:
43 the manifestal world 44 the submanifestal world 45 the superessential world 46 the essential world, the world of unity, wisdom, and love 47 the causal-mental world | 48 the emotional world the worlds of man 49 the physical world |
4The six molecular kinds involved from each atomic kind have been given analogous names and mathematical notations:
(1 atomic)
2 subatomic
3 superetheric
4 etheric
5 gaseous
6 liquid
7 solid
5The figure for each molecular kind (state of aggregation) is put after that denoting the atomic kind. Thus the physical gaseous molecular kind is written 49:5.
6The three higher solar systemic worlds (43-45) are common to all the planets. The four lower worlds (46-49) are called planetary worlds.
7When involution has reached its goal, the emotional world (48), the involutionary atoms pass to the mineral kingdom of the physical world (49), and evolution begins. There is no involutionary matter in the physical molecular world. But of course there are involutionary beings in the emotional world, which penetrates the physical world. Likewise, however many beings from as many different worlds can gather in the same "space".
1All primordial atoms have potential consciousness, which is called to life (passive, reflective consciousness) in the process of involution.
2"Being" bears on the matter aspect. All material forms with a unitary consciousness are beings.
3Involutionary beings, or elementals, are aggregates of involutionary atoms and involutionary molecules. Permanent, semipermanent, and shortlived elementals are distinguished. The permanent ones are material envelopes of evolutionary beings, the temporary ones are other vibrational products.
4The elemental kingdoms are named after their kinds of matter, after the worlds they belong to. The boundaries between the elemental kingdoms are thus determined by their kinds of matter.
5Viewed from the consciousness aspect, involution is the process that actualizes consciousness, and evolution is the process that activates consciousness. The consciousness of primary matter is potential. To begin with, primordial atoms have just the possibility of consciousness. In involutionary matter, unconsciousness awakens into passive consciousness, which means that this matter lacks the possibility of will and self-activity, that the will is just potential. Through the process of evolution, evolutionary matter acquires the possibility of will and self-activity, and passive consciousness is activated into active consciousness.
6In the worlds of man the following main kinds of elementals belonging to three involutionary kingdoms are found:
causal elementals
mental elementals
emotional elementals
7Elementals are formed by vibrations in involutionary matter. By itself this matter lacks the possibility of self-initiated activity and cannot itself form aggregates, affect matter, or produce vibrations. On the other hand, it is extremely easily affected by the faintest vibrations.
8A man's thought produces a vibration in his mental envelope and ejects out of this envelope a portion of its involutionary matter into the mental world surrounding the envelope. The matter ejected immediately assumes a particular form determined by the subject-matter of the thought, a concrete image formed by the thought. This form has its own capacity of vibration, which is of the same quality as the original vibration in the man. The vibration of the thought-form communicates itself to the surrounding mental elemental matter, which is affected by it and is attracted to the thought-form. The original form will then be the nucleus of a greater aggregate with the same kind of form and with similar vibrations and qualities. This aggregate is a mental elemental, which floats about freely and soon dissolves, being reduced to its previous constituents. Correspondingly, an emotional elemental is formed by the emotions of a man or some other evolving being, and a causal elemental by an intuition. Even the faintest "unconscious" initial impulse is obeyed with perfect precision. Elementals are material forms with activated consciousness and energy. Elementals act as perfect robots automatically copying the original vibration. The vitality and durability of the elemental are directly proportional to the act of consciousness that formed it. Through the never-ending process of formation and dissolution of elementals, which continues for seven eons in each elemental kingdom, the atoms and molecules of involutionary matter learn to form aggregates at lightning speed, to respond to all vibrations existing in matter, to reproduce in molecular composition and material form the faintest vibrational variations with unerring precision.
9The process of involution is activation of consciousness from without. Elemental matter at rest, that is: not activated, can only be passive. The elemental, however, is always active. To cease to be active is the same as to dissolve.
10The expression "physical elementals" often met with in occult literature is improper. What is meant are emotional elementals that have been clothed in physical etheric matter. There are no elementals in physical molecular matter (49:2-7). They exist, however, in physical atomic matter (49:1).
1The process of involution concluded, the potential consciousness of the involutionary monads has been actualized into passive consciousness. Then follows the process of evolution, which begins with the involvation of the emotional elementals into physical molecular kinds (into subatomic, superetheric, etheric, gaseous, liquid molecules, and finally into minerals). This entire process of involvation is regarded as part of the process of mineralization, and the pertaining "beings" are classed among the mineral kingdom.
2The process of evolution means that passive consciousness is being activated until, in the human kingdom when it has acquired self-consciousness, it can continue the activation of consciousness methodically and systematically by itself.
3Evolution implies for the matter aspect the beginning of an ascent from physical matter to less composed, ever finer, ever higher matter; a return of primordial atoms to the highest atomic kind. Evolution means a continual transformation towards perfection: for the matter aspect, into full automatization, so that dynamis (the dynamic energy of primordial matter) functions automatically without being supervised by consciousness; for the will aspect, into full activity; for the consciousness aspect, into full objective self-consciousness in ever higher worlds. From the biological point of view, evolution means development of physical matter towards more purposive organic forms of life.
4The "human evolution" — the path of development from mineral to man — is the term for the transmigration of the triads through the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms. With man, evolution in the five lowest worlds (47-49) has reached its goal and expansion begins. Evolution is — by the time-standards of ignorance — a slow process. Its tempo is to some extent determined by that of involution, since both processes condition one another.
5The explanations of the origin of species given by the biological theory of evolution are by no means the only ones, though they are correct in many respects. One factor is the cellular consciousness in the collective cell formations of the organisms, which works as though instinctively, under the impulses of the will. This consciousness displays power of activity, selectivity, and adaptability.
6Involution means the involvation of the monads into the lowest cosmic world (49); evolution, their return to the highest cosmic world (1).
7All life has a form, from atom, molecule, aggregate, to planet, solar system, and cosmic worlds. These forms are subject to the law of transformation, change continually, dissolve, and reform. Change is the condition of life. All forms endure thanks only to the fact that every moment primordial atoms (primary matter) pour through them, which atoms circulate from the highest to the lowest atomic world and back to continue their cycle as long as the cosmos exists. No forms of matter can be built so as to withstand the wear of the cosmic material energies in the long run. Besides, the consciousness development of the individual would be impeded by the permanence of his form. Continually new experiences in always new forms are an accelerating factor of great importance. This can be seen in those beings in nature that have the same envelopes during thousands of years. Their tempo of development is accordingly slow.
8The monads (primordial atoms) make up — as viewed from the physical — an ascending series of ever higher forms of life, in which lower ones enter into and make up envelopes for the higher ones. The entire cosmos makes up a series of increasingly refined forms of life, which serve gradually to furnish the monad consciousness with the "organs" it needs for its further expansion.
9Evolution presents a series of ever higher natural kingdoms with enormously increased capacity of consciousness, intensively and extensively.
10Every monad is found somewhere on this immense ladder of development, where depending on its "age": the moment of its introduction into the cosmos, or its transition from a lower to a higher natural kingdom.
11Evolution is divided into five natural kingdoms and seven divine kingdoms. The planetary worlds (46-49) contain the natural kingdoms; the solar systemic worlds (43-49), the lowest divine kingdom; and the cosmic worlds (1-42), the other six.
1Purposive material forms are necessary to the activation of consciousness. In all manifestation there are material basic forms representing different paths of development, different modes of evolution, different form-beings. The material basic forms necessary to manifestation are as many permanent paths of evolution. All of them offer possibilities of activating consciousness. Man's belief that he is the supreme product of existence and that everything exists of this sole purpose, is one of the countless errors of ignorance.
2Every primordial atom will some time become an independent being, a self. All compositions of matter are collective beings. The unit of consciousness dominating in each being is an atom at a higher stage of development than the other atoms in the collective. Atoms and molecules develop by forming constituent parts of various material forms, wherever a form is required. Evolution makes up one single uninterrupted series of beings, from the lowest to the highest stage of development.
3Evolutionary beings in the worlds of man (47-49) belong to either of the following groups divided according to their kinds of matter:
physical beings,
inorganic physical beings,
organic physical beings,
etheric emotional beings
mental beings
causal beings
4"Nature takes no leaps." The evolutionary kingdoms have subdivisions according to the different states of aggregation. Each molecular kind means the lowest material form for some kind of evolutionary beings. In respect of matter, a being is named after its lowest material envelope. In respect of consciousness, a being is named after its most active kind of consciousness. All envelopes that are not organic (that is: most beings in the physical world and all beings in the higher worlds) are aggregate envelopes.
5All physical matter (inorganic, organic, etheric) belongs to evolution. From of old the visible natural kingdoms have been divided into inorganic and organic kingdoms. The boundary between mineral and organism is not insuperable. Organic beings develop through the vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms, being equipped with — or rather limited by — special sense organs.
6Existence can be compared to a gigantic laboratory and an experimental field with inexhaustible resources. Through various compositions of matter new kinds of manifestational beings can be formed, with possibilities of individually unique experiences resulting in new qualities and abilities. All manifestations resemble each other in their basic methods, which are determined by law. None of them resemble any other in its details. The innumerable possibilities of combination inherent in matter are utilized, and no practicable way is left untested.
7The entire cosmos makes up one continuous process of manifestation, in which all monads participate with their consciousness expressions, unconsciously or consciously, involuntarily or voluntarily. The higher the world and kingdom, the higher the kind of consciousness; the greater the contribution to the process of manifestation made by the monad.
8When the monad has gone through involution and evolution of the process of manifestation, emancipated itself from its involvation into matter, then it becomes conscious of itself acquired and discarded its envelopes in world after world, and, finally, in the highest cosmic world has as a monad. Until then it will identify itself with one or other of the envelopes which it has acquired and activated.
1All evolutionary beings form natural kingdoms. To make the subject easier to understand, it has proved desirable to orient in it according to the accepted division.
2The following six natural kingdoms are found in the solar system:
the first, the mineral kingdom | the second, the vegetable kingdom | the third, the animal kingdom in worlds 47-49 the fourth, the human kingdom | the fifth, the essential kingdom in worlds 45 and 46 the sixth, the manifestal kingdom in worlds 43 and 44
3 When the individual has acquired full subjective and objective self-consciousness in his causal envelope in the causal world and thus has become a causal self, then his consciousness development in the four lower natural kingdoms is concluded. Thereupon begins the individual's consciousness expansion in the fifth natural kingdom.
4The monads in the fifth and sixth natural kingdoms are termed, according to their respective kinds of world consciousness:
essential selves, or 46-selves superessential selves, or 45-selves submanifestal selves, or 44-selves manifestal selves, or 43-selves
5As a 45-self, the superessential world of the solar system, common to all the planets, is at the individual's disposal; as a 43-self, all the systemic worlds are at his command. When, subsequently, the individual conquers 42-consciousness, he enters into the first cosmic kingdom, or the second divine kingdom; and this marks the beginning of his career through the interstellar, cosmic, worlds.
6The individuals in both the essential and manifestal kingdoms are members of the planetary hierarchy, the task of which is to supervise consciousness development in the four lower natural kingdoms.
7The planetary hierarchy is subordinate to the planetary government, which sees to it that all processes of nature in the planet go on with perfect precision. Into this government can enter individuals who have attained the second divine kingdom (worlds 36-42).
8The planetary government, in its turn, belongs under the solar systemic government, which has all the planetary governments of the solar system under its jurisdiction. The members of the solar systemic government belong to the third divine kingdom (worlds 29-35).
9Although the present Esoteric World View has been confined to evolution in the worlds of the solar system (43-49), yet the following survey is given of the further, cosmic, evolution, divided among six different cosmic kingdoms:
Worlds Cosmic kingdoms 36-42 first, with 42-selves to 36-selves, etc. 29-35 second 22-28 third 15-21 fourth 8-14 fifth 1-7 sixth, with 7-selves to 1-selves
10Seven "divine kingdoms" are enumerated in esoterics, the manifestal kingdom being considered the first divine kingdom, since manifestal selves are omniscient and omnipotent in the worlds of the solar system (43-49). The highest kingdom (1-7) is consequently called the seventh divine kingdom.
11When a sufficient number of monads have succeeded in working their way up to the highest divine kingdom, then this collective being is able to leave its cosmic globe in order to begin to build out a cosmic globe of its own in primordial matter, the material being primordial atoms taken from the inexhaustible store of the primordial manifestation.
1The evolution leading up to man is characterized by the development through triads, which makes it possible to have consciousness in several worlds simultaneously.
2The chain of triads, called even more expressively the monad ladder, consists of three triads linked together.
3The chain of triads forms a chain of consciousness, as it were, linking the physical atom (49) of the lowest triad to a manifestal atom (43), and can be compared to a ladder which the monad is to climb from world 49 to world 43. The three units of the three triads form the nine coils of this ladder.
4The triad is a permanent unit consisting of one molecule and two atoms. The molecule is of the fourth (etheric) molecular kind of a kind of matter with an odd number. The atoms are of the two next lower kinds.
5The triad is called so because it consists of these three units.
6The first, or lowest triad consists of:
a physical atom (49:1)
an emotional atom (48:1)
an etheric mental molecule (47:4)
7The second triad consists of:
a mental atom (47:1)
an essential atom (46:1)
an etheric superessential molecule (45:4)
8The third triad consists of:
a superessential atom (45:1)
a submanifestal atom (44:1)
an etheric manifestal molecule (43:4)
9The triads are enclosed in envelopes (envelopes) of involutionary matter. The envelope of the first triad is the causal envelope (47:1-3). The envelope of the second triad is of superessential elemental matter (45:1-3). The envelope of the third triad consists of manifestal involutionary matter (43:1-3).
10The triad units are held together mutually by a "magnetic line of force" similar to an electric arc (which the ancients called the silver cord). Along this path the exchange of energies is conveyed between the triad units and through the latter between the envelopes and the kinds of matter of the different worlds.
11The monad is enclosed in:
the first triad during its sojourn in the fourth natural kingdom (as a man, a "first self"),
the second triad in the fifth kingdom (the "second self"),
the third triad in the sixth kingdom (the "third self").
12The triad units and their material envelopes affect each other mutually. The experiences of the envelopes become those of the triad, and the vibrations of the triad unit determine the envelope's composition of coarse or fine molecular matter. Vibrational capacity indicates the level of development attained. An envelope fully developed and perfectly organized presupposes the corresponding perfection of the triad. The vibrations in the triad units attract and repel, among other activity, so as to make the action of the emotional and mental envelopes a rhythmic suction and ejection of matter, similar to the action of a heart or lung.
13Some of the tasks of the triad units are: to form and maintain the envelopes, to be centres of the exchange of energies, to make up an indestructible memory (although accessible only indirectly), to make it possible to preserve ability acquired, to make it easier to assimilate experience gained, to centralize and synthesize threefold consciousness. The triad's mental molecule is the most important unit. It is the prerequisite of sense and reason as well as it makes it possible for the triad collective consciousness to gather sense perceptions, emotions, and thoughts into a conceivable whole. It makes it possible for the monad in the triad to turn mental vibrations into concrete thoughts; to think in the organism via the mental, emotional, etheric envelopes, and the cerebrospinal nervous system; to work up the experiences of the envelopes in their worlds; to apprehend vibrations comprehensibly; to turn intuitions into concrete thought.
14The triad units are part of evolutionary matter. The triad is put together out of "loose" evolutionary atoms and molecules, which develop to some extent by entering into various compositions and being activated in them by more developed atoms and molecules. The triad makes up an envelope and serves as an instrument for the monad, by analogy with the service of the aggregate envelope to the triad. The triads are self-active to some extent, since they are evolutionary beings, but this self-activity is negligible as compared with that of the monad and is totally dominated by the latter, conforming to it.
15The method of triads facilitates evolution in the solar systemic worlds with their enormous atomic density. The monad has an opportunity of living in up to five worlds (47-49) simultaneously in the first triad already. A collective system is also produced that makes the work of the individual beneficent to many. In the relatively free cosmic worlds the triad method is superfluous.
16When triad activity is mentioned in the following, this always implies monad activity in and through the triad.
1The monad is a primordial atom. The monad is the smallest possible part of primordial matter and the smallest possible firm point for individual consciousness. The monads are the sole indestructible things in the universe.
2By the term monad is meant the individual's matter aspect; and by the term self, the individual's consciousness aspect.
3The monad (atomic kind 1) is involved into a manifestal atom (atomic kind 43), which of course implies that the monad is involved into the atomic kinds of the entire series of 2-43. Once liberated from systemic involvations, the monad ascends through this series of atoms contained in the 43-atom. The monad retains this 43-atom until it has returned to its original condition (atomic kind 1) from cosmic involvation. The monad is dominant (the incomparably farthest developed and most active primordial atom) in all the atomic kinds into which it is involved.
4Before the primordial atom can become a monad in a triad, it has experienced three total involvatory and evolvatory processes. In the first process it is part of rotatory matter; in the second process, of involutionary matter; in the third process, it has been part of various kinds of aggregates or triads as a free evolutionary atom; finally to become, in the fourth process, a monad in a triad. Thereby it has got the prerequisite of being objectively self-conscious in triads as well as activating them and, through them, all kinds of matter to which it will successively belong.
5In the solar system the monad is involved into one of its three triads. In the mineral kingdom of the physical world it is involved into the physical atom (49:1) of its lowest triad. At the end of evolution in the vegetable kingdom, the monad evolves out of the triad physical atom into the emotional atom. In the process of causalization, the monad can evolve into the mental molecule and subsequently disposes of the three units of the lowest triad. During evolution in the human kingdom, the monad remains centred mostly in the emotional atom of the triad, only at the mental stage of the human kingdom (as a mental self) centring itself in the mental molecule; and, at the end of human evolution (at the causal human stage), in the inmost centre of the causal envelope. The classification of human monads (also in the physical world) into physical, emotional, mental, and causal selves indicates what kind of consciousness dominates. The transfer of the monad between the triad units is always possible, since an atom is never an unchangeable unit, but on the contrary there is in it a constant exchange of higher atoms in the continuous circulation of energy between the different worlds, in such a manner, however, that the atom's character of individual unit is preserved.
6The monad is man's true self. The term self is also applied to the triad into which the selfconscious monad is involved, as well as to the envelopes that have been able to acquire selfconsciousness through the activity of the monad. According as the monad eventually centres in its higher triads, they too become self-conscious. Through evolution the monad gradually acquires the ability to activate the different kinds of matter into which it has been involved. When fully activated in atomic kind 43, the monad has learnt to dominate all the lower atomic kinds (44-49) and, consequently, all systemic matter. Emancipated from the dependence on its triads it can subsequently, if need be, attract one atom of each lower atomic kind and through them influence the lower kinds of matter.
7Pythagoras was the first to use the term monad for the primordial atom. Moreover, he was the only teacher from the planetary hierarchy to explain the three aspects of reality, thereby laying the basis for the science of the future.
8Thereupon ignorance took charge of the matter, as usual, so that the word monad has been made to stand for pretty well anything.
9Since the term monad appears in many different contexts also in esoterics, it is desirable to define what is meant in each particular case, for example mineral monad, vegetable monad, animal monad, human monad, all of which are evolutionary monads.
10It is seen from the account of the triads that men are also called "first selves"; individuals in the fifth kingdom, "second selves"; and those in the sixth kingdom, "third selves".
11To sum up: Man is a monad (primordial atom) which, having been introduced into the cosmos, has experienced the processes of involvation and involution, passed through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms and finally has acquired a permanent envelope (the causal envelope), in which his monad will remain (and which incarnates) until he succeeds in attaining the fifth kingdom.
1Evolutionary matter develops by combining into collective units ("aggregates"). The monads in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms develop in many ways, following one or other of the seven parallel paths of evolution.
2Group-soul is the term of the material common envelope for a group of monads. This combining of uniform groups into common involutionary material envelopes greatly facilitates the evolution of the monads through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, as well as their transmigration from one natural kingdom to the next higher one.
3The three units of the triad are evolutionary atoms and evolutionary molecules which develop by serving as envelopes for more highly developed primordial atoms — monads. In the triad is a monad. Any primordial atom that is sufficiently self-active to be able to activate less developed atoms with a prospect of success is involved into a triad, which subsequently serves as an envelope and an instrument for the monad.
4There are three kinds of group-souls: mineral, vegetable, and animal group-soul. Mineral group-souls are enclosed in three different common envelopes, namely a mental envelope, an emotional envelope, and a physical envelope. Vegetable group-souls are enclosed in two envelopes of mental and emotional matter, respectively. Animal group-souls are enclosed in but one common envelope, of mental matter. The boundaries between these natural kingdoms are determined by the number of envelopes enclosing the triads.
5Whenever the monad leaves the common envelope in order to involve, it is enclosed by envelopes from the common envelope with which it is still connected "magnetically". Upon the end of an involvation, it returns to the common envelope and its own temporary ones merge with this envelope. The higher up the scale of evolution an animal is, the fewer are the monads that go to its group. In the course of evolution the group-soul is broken up into smaller and smaller groups. Thus quadrillions of flies go to form one group-soul, millions of rats one, hundreds of thousands of sparrows one, thousands of wolves one, hundreds of sheep one.
6Only the monkey, elephant, dog, horse, and cat, being animals sufficiently developed to belong to group-souls of very few monads, are able to causalize.
7During its involvation into physical matter, the monad is enclosed in envelopes formed out of the common envelopes of the group-souls. At the end of its involvation the monad is returned, and with it its borrowed envelopes, which merge with the common envelopes. In doing this, the monad brings with it molecules from the kinds of matter that it has been able to activate, those of the lowest molecular kinds to begin with. Insofar as the monad has during its involvation succeeded in raising by its own activity the vibrational capacity of the group-units, the molecules retrieved by the monad are of higher kinds than those it brought with itself. These higher molecules are mixed in the group-soul with the previous ones and benefit henceforth all the monads. This facilitates the activity of the monad in its subsequent involvations. By the gradual substitution of higher molecules for lower ones, the entire group as well as each individual monad is raised to ever higher levels with ever finer vibrations and ever higher consciousness. When the envelope of the group-soul mostly consists of the highest molecular kind necessary for the group, the time approaches for the bursting of the lowest envelope and for the transmigration of the enclosed monads to the next higher natural kingdom.
8Within the originally immensely comprehensive group-souls a differentiation takes place. The monads that have had common experiences and have thereby developed similar predispositions are attracted to each other and form their own groups within the common envelope. At the reunion after involvation, the individual monad envelope has a tendency to contract. This tendency is strengthened after each involvation and by the other monad envelopes belonging to the small groups. It is increasingly difficult for these envelopes to merge entirely with the common envelope, and they form within it sub-envelopes, which gradually enclose fewer and fewer monad groups and which finally have grown strong enough to serve as their own common envelopes themselves. The greater group is in this way broken up into smaller groups of fewer monads.
9Their transition to the vegetable kingdom frees the mineral monads from the group-soul's common envelope of physical matter. The new vegetable monads thus produced are sufficiently active to form by self-activity envelopes of their own consisting, in the beginning at least, of the lowest etheric matter (49:4). When the vegetable monads transmigrate to the animal kingdom their common envelope of emotional matter dissolves. Thus the animal has three individual envelopes: an organism, an etheric envelope, and an emotional envelope, whereas the mental envelope belongs to the group envelope. After causalization, the triad mental molecule forms an individual mental envelope.
1The transmigration from the animal to the human kingdom is termed causalization. In causalizing the animal receives an individual "soul", namely a causal envelope.
2The condition of causalization is that the animal is sufficiently highly developed to belong to a group-soul of very few monads. Moreover, an extreme effort of emotional and mental consciousness is necessary on the part of the animal.
3For some reason or other a tension has arisen between the mental molecule of the animal monad's first triad and the mental atom of its second triad. If this tension results in a sufficiently forceful vibration between these two centres of force, if a kind of vortical motion in causal matter occurs momentarily between them, so that an envelope with a vacuum is formed, then the animal monad in its lowest triad can be sucked into this causal envelope. The causal envelope has been formed, the animal has causalized and entered into the human kingdom.
4From this description it should be entirely clear that a man can never be reborn as an animal, no more than an animal can become a plant, or a plant a mineral. Transmigration cannot work backwards. A being that has entered into a higher kingdom cannot return to a lower one. Only ignorance can confuse the esoteric knowledge of reincarnation with the metempsychosis of popular superstition.
5The next higher kingdom after the human or causal kingdom is the essential kingdom in worlds 46 and 45. After it follows the manifestal kingdom in the worlds 44 and 43, and after it expansion continues in the cosmos (worlds 42-1). The individual transmigrates to the next higher kingdom as soon as he has concluded his development in the next lower one. This transmigration can take place at any time.
6In the following, "monad" refers to the human monad in the lowest triad in the causal envelope.
1When a man is incarnated in his organism, that is, when his first triad is involved into dense physical matter, his envelopes are five in number: two physical envelopes (the organism and the etheric envelope), the emotional envelope, the mental envelope, and the causal envelope. All the envelopes except the organism are aggregate envelopes. You can express the same thing saying that man consists of five beings.
2The aggregate envelopes consist of atoms and molecules held together magnetically. The etheric envelope consists of evolutionary matter and all the higher envelopes of involutionary matter. Their magnetism is a joint product of the triad activity and the attraction of all the envelopes. The magnetic attraction is so strong that the entire aggregate would be put together again instantly would the envelope be "blown to atoms". The matter in an aggregate envelope is constantly circulating through the entire envelope like the blood in the organism, and is constantly renewed like the air in the lungs.
3The etheric envelope is the more important of the two physical envelopes. Without the etheric envelope the organism could neither be formed nor have any life. The etheric envelope is the vehicle and conveyor of the various functional energies, which the ancients gave the common name of vital force. Functional deficiencies of the etheric envelope react upon the organism.
4The emotional, mental, and causal envelopes enclose and penetrate all the lower envelopes. In ordinary cases, each higher envelope forms outside the next lower one just an indiscernible layer. They are oval and extend between 30 and 45 cm beyond the organism. Approximately 99 per cent of the matter of these envelopes is attracted to the organism and held together within its periphery, so that these envelopes form complete replicas of the organism. In their totality they form the socalled aura, man's own world of matter and consciousness, which contains in it all kinds of matter and thus also all kinds of systemic and cosmic consciousness, the higher kinds of course being passive.
5The emotional envelope is formed by the activity of the monad in the triad emotional atom. The vibrations of the emotional atom have an attractive or repulsive effect on the surrounding emotional involutionary matter. The vibrational capacity, qualities, organization, etc. of the triad atom determine the material composition, molecular percentages, and organization of the emotional envelope. This envelope thus becomes a sort of replica of the atom, reflecting its "level of development". The corresponding is true of the triad mental molecule in relation to the mental envelope.
6The causal envelope, which is man's one permanent envelope, can justly be regarded as the true man. It is the causal envelope that incarnates together with the lowest triad which it always encloses. All the envelopes, the causal envelope excepted, are renewed at each new incarnation and dissolve after each involvation.
7The higher an individual has attained in his development, the more purposively organized are his aggregate envelopes and the centres of these envelopes. The centres mentioned above have tasks that correspond approximately to those of the organismal organs and consist of evolutionary matter. They perform various functions of consciousness and activity in different molecular kinds. This organization has the effect that the different molecular kinds are concentrated into definite areas. Higher development increases the percentage of higher molecular kinds, causing increasingly finer and stronger vibrations.
8The organic body and etheric envelope consist of evolutionary matter. Viewed separately, as individual beings, the emotional, mental, and causal envelopes belong to involution, and from that point of view they are called elementals. Having passive consciousness, elementals lack the ability of self-activity. But they can easily be activated by vibrations coming from without or produced by the triad. They are unsurpassably sensitive receptive and reproductive apparatuses, which render the finest vibrational nuances with unfailing precision. Their activity is part of man's subconscious when their vibrations are not strong enough to be attended to by waking consciousness. They always receive innumerable vibrations from without when they are not activated by the monad, and they never rest.
1The matter of the etheric envelope is made up of the four physical etheric kinds (49:1-4): atomic, subatomic, superetheric, and etheric physical matter. The etheric envelope is the physical envelope proper. Without it, cell-formation would be impossible, and the cells and the organism would be without life.
2The etheric envelope penetrates the organism, and should it occasionally leave the organism it becomes a complete replica of the latter. In man's incarnated state it penetrates the organism, the cells of which are then enclosed by etheric matter. Every cell, as well as every solid, liquid, or gaseous molecule, has its etheric counterpart and is enclosed by a minute etheric envelope as long as the great etheric envelope is united with the organism.
3The etheric envelope conveys vibrations between the organism and emotional envelope. It depends on the composition of the etheric matter of the etheric envelope and on the functional capacity of the nervous system to what extent or in which manner these vibrations can be apprehended and reproduced by physical man. If a certain portion of nerve-cells is destroyed, undeveloped, or made unserviceable in some other way, there is no possibility of apprehending or reproducing in the organism the vibrations that these cells were intended to receive or express.
4The etheric envelope has centres (Sanskrit: chakras) of different kinds of etheric molecular matter. These centres correspond to nerve-centres or organs in the organism. The most important ones in respect of consciousness are seven in number. Their positions in relation to the organism are defined by the following names:
1 crown centre
2 eyebrow centre
3 throat centre
4 heart centre
5 navel centre
6 sacral centre
7 basal centre
5These names indicate the approximate locations outside the organism. Only the basal centre is within the organism, between the caudal vertebrae and the skin. The centres 3-7 (throat — basal centres) are in direct contact with the spinal marrow.
6From the solar plexus originate 14 etheric stems in 75,000 radiations. Seven of these main stems belong to the sense organs, seven to the motion organs. The etheric counterpart of the spinal marrow forms three etheric currents. The central one of these canals is in contact with the pineal gland. The two other currents spiral round the central one.
7The etheric envelope is faintly luminous in its entirety and violet-blue-grey in colour.
8Five vitalizing energies pervade the etheric envelope by turns during 24 minutes, returning every two hours. An example of the periodicity of the functional energies that can be ascertained by everybody is the rhythmic change of breathing. Breathing is done mainly with one lung and through one nostril at the time. Every two hours breathing changes from right breathing to left breathing, or vice versa, unless special obstacles occur. In right breathing body temperature rises somewhat; in left breathing it sinks. Colds seldom occur in right breathing. Fever is characterized by prolonged right breathing.
9The navel centre is in contact with the emotional atom of the first triad. The throat centre is, via the causal envelope, in contact with the first triad mental molecule. The heart centre is, via the causal envelope and the first triad emotional atom, in contact with the second triad essential atom; and the crown centre, via the first triad physical atom, with the second triad superessential molecule.
10The etheric envelope is enclosed by an enormously dense film of physical atomic matter. This film forms a protective wall without which man (especially when asleep) would be almost defenceless against all sorts of "phenomena" in the emotional world. This arrangement has also a disadvantage, however. The etheric, emotional, and mental envelopes have corresponding centres, which are so closely interconnected that they form common organs. The atomic film, however, prevents the direct transmission, to and from the centres of the etheric envelope, of vibrations from the centres of the other envelopes. When the energy from the base of the spine becomes fully active and runs up the central canal, then this energy bursts the atomic film and thereupon forms a sufficiently strong protective guard.
1The emotional envelope is an aggregate envelope composed of all the seven emotional kinds of matter (48:1-7). The proportion of the different states of aggregation varies considerably in different individuals, depending on their level of development. In the recently causalized man, the two lowest kinds of matter (48:6,7) amount to over 90 per cent. In a civilized Mr Average, the four lower molecular kinds (48:4-7) make up about 95 per cent. In a perfected emotional self, about 99 per cent belong to the two highest kinds of matter (48:1,2). When the emotional envelope consists of the three highest kinds (48:1-3) about 50 per cent, then man can begin being called Man. Until then, the name subman would be more proper.
2The material composition depends on the ability of the triad emotional atom to vibrate in the different molecular kinds, and results from the interaction of the three aspects: will, consciousness, and matter. The more the will can assert itself and the clearer consciousness is, the greater is the proportion of higher molecular kinds in the envelope. The higher the percentage of higher molecular kinds, the greater the receptivity to, perceptivity and expressivity of, the corresponding vibrations.
3The emotional envelope conveys vibrations between the etheric and mental envelopes. At the present stage of mankind's development, the emotional and mental envelopes of most people are so interwoven that they make up one single envelope during incarnation. Vibrations in the one envelope are automatically repeated in the other.
4Like the etheric envelope, the emotional envelope has seven centres with the corresponding functions. These centres, or organs, for consciousness and instruments for the will in different molecular kinds are as though replicas in emotional matter of the centres of the etheric envelope. They are closely connected with the etheric centres and have the same names.
1The mental envelope, or mental aggregate envelope, consists of the four lower kinds of mental molecular matter (47:4-7). For practical reasons we are, as a rule, content with this principal division. Each molecular kind consists of three successive series of molecular subdivisions. These different kinds of matter correspond to as many different main kinds of vibrations and different kinds of consciousness.
2The material composition of the mental envelope is determined by the monad's activity in the triad mental molecule. The percentage of higher mental matter increases according as man develops intellectually. In the recently causalized man, 99 per cent of his mental envelope consist of the lowest mental matter (47:7), in the average individual about 85 per cent. The three factors (matter, vibrations, and consciousness) co-operate and interact, so that a higher kind of mental matter is paralleled by finer and stronger mental vibrations and by freer and clearer mental consciousness.
3The mental envelope conveys the vibrations and the exchange of energies between the emotional and causal envelopes. When man receives thoughts from without or thinks himself, there is quite a complex procedure of interaction of vibrations in the mental envelope with vibrations in the etheric envelopes of brain cells. This transmission is effected via emotional vibrations in the emotional envelope and etheric vibrations in the etheric envelope. To what extent the procedure is undisturbed and efficient, depends on how well all these envelopes function in their respective molecular kinds. Distortion through emotional "colouring" is extremely common.
4When man thinks, mental matter is ejected from his mental envelope into the mental world surrounding this envelope. This molecular mass immediately assumes a concrete, plastic form. The clearer and the more distinct the thought, the more finely chiselled is the thought-form. Most thought-forms — mental elementals — are diffuse clouds, muddy in colour, of the lowest molecular kind. Independent thinkers shape forms infinitely varied in form and colour. The form is determined by the subject-matter of the thought; the definition of its outlines, by the clarity of the thought; its colour, by the quality of the thought.
5The centres of the mental envelope correspond to those of the emotional envelope.
1The causal envelope, man's one permanent envelope, is an envelope of involutionary causal matter (47:1-3). It is this causal envelope, this causal being, that represents the human consciousness proper. Its lifetime lasts from causalization to essentialization. It is the bridge between the first and second triads.
2The causal envelope obtained at causalization gradually develops four centres, each consisting of three permanent evolutionary mental atoms. The first centre is during incarnation, or involvation, magnetically connected to the heart, throat, and eyebrow centres of the etheric envelope. The second centre is in contact with the centres of the emotional envelope corresponding to those mentioned of the etheric envelope. The third centre is connected to three centres in the mental envelope. The fourth centre (the inmost centre) connects the first and second triads. The first triad is regarded as a fifth centre.
3The causal matter obtained at causalization is retained in the causal envelope and remains there during the stages of barbarism and civilization. The influence of the environment at the animal's causalization, the character of emotional and mental stimulus received, are of a certain significance as they strengthen or weaken the attractive or repulsive basic tendency of the individual character already existing. It should be noted, however, that in this the animal, according to the law of affinity, is as a rule attracted to the environment satisfying its basic tendency. As long as the causal envelope just serves as a collector of matter sparingly supplied from its involvations, it cannot itself exercise any active functions but on the whole just conveys the triad functions. It develops activity of its own only at the end of the monad's existence as a man, when the causal envelope has been systematically activated.
4Many animals causalize as pets under the influence of human vibrations. Otherwise mass causalization under the influence of intense animal mass psychosis and special essential vibrations is the commonest also in our eon, which is unsuitable for both causalization and essentialization.
5The causal envelope of the recently causalized man is even from the beginning somewhat larger than the other envelopes. Its material density is minimal, however, so that the causal envelope, enclosing the lower envelopes, more resembles a thin film than anything else. Towards the end of its existence, when once filled up, organized, and penetrating the lower envelopes, it can grow tremendously in size.
6During incarnation the first self has two causal envelopes. This condition lasts until the monad becomes a causal self. At the time of involvation the causal envelope is divided into two. The greater part, serving as a collector of matter supplied, remains in the causal world. The smaller part (the triad envelope), containing the lowest triad, encloses the lower envelopes. When the involvation of the first self is concluded and the personality is dissolved, the two separate parts amalgamate to form one single causal envelope. The four centres of the causal envelope do not belong to the involving triad envelope. It is these two causal envelopes that have been called the "twin souls", a term that has occasioned fantasies of all sorts.
7Among the functions of the lower envelopes is to contribute to the development of the causal envelope, by supplying it with causal matter as well as by influencing this matter into activity. This is done by involvation of causal matter into the lower envelopes and by vibrations from these envelopes. The causal matter involved from the causal envelope can, by attractive vibrations at the stage of culture, attract other causal matter, which it can bring with it later at the amalgamation of the two causal envelopes. In order to reach the causal envelope without fail and be able to activate its matter, the vibrations must belong to the superetheric molecular kind: physical 49:3, emotional 48:3, mental 47:5. As long as these lower envelopes are so undeveloped that such vibrations do not occur, there is no such influence. As for consciousness, this implies that superconscious causal consciousness remains almost inaccessible to lower consciousness. When the emotional envelope is able to vibrate in the third molecular kind (48:3) and the mental envelope in the fifth (47:5) and man thus becomes subjectively conscious in these molecular kinds, then the activation of the causal envelope and of causal consciousness begins eventually, and that makes it possible for man to receive lower causal ideas (from 47:3). The causal envelope, originally consisting of the lowest kind of causal matter (47:3), is able under this influence to activity to incorporate such matter with itself. The relatively empty causal envelope slowly begins to be filled up with this matter. During all the time the causal envelope is composed of the lowest kind of causal molecular matter, it serves almost exclusively as a passive receiver of matter supplied to it. When the subatomic matter of the emotional envelope (48:2) begins being activated and the causal envelope is affected by these vibrations, then the development of the causal envelope has entered upon a second phase. Its superetheric molecules (47:3) can be exchanged for subatomic ones (47:2). Then the causal envelope becomes incipiently self-active and can by itself acquire causal matter from without. The monad can establish itself momentarily in the inmost centre of the causal envelope, stimulating the atoms of this centre into still greater activity in addition to that resulting from the impulses from below. Thereby the monad gains causal understanding of life, is able to receive and concretize causal ideas in mental consciousness. Thereby it wins instinct of reality, subjective knowledge of reality, and purpose in action.
8When the causal envelope has been filled up with subatomic causal matter (49:2), then the exchange of these molecules for mental atoms (47:1) begins. This becomes fully efficient only in connection with the activation of the highest mental matter (47:4). When 25 per cent of the matter of the causal envelope consists of mental atoms, then the closer connection with the second triad mental atom begins, and concurrently the normal objectivation of physical etheric and emotional consciousness.
9When the atomic content of the causal envelope has increased to 50 per cent, then the monad is able to enter into the inmost centre. Thereby the man acquires mental objective consciousness in his waking state. This also entails unbroken continuity of causal consciousness for all time during all future incarnations. The self has become a causal self, the man it strived to become. The envelope of the mental atom is, to begin with, a replica of the old causal envelope with its memory, knowledge, faculties, qualities, understanding, even idiosyncrasies still remaining. When the content of mental atoms of the causal envelope amounts to 100 per cent, then the causal development is concluded. The monad is able to establish itself in the second triad mental atom, which can subsequently form by itself a causal envelope with causal objective consciousness in the waking state. Thereby the collector envelope is made superfluous and is finally dissolved.
10The condition of the monad's final activation of the causal envelope is its almost full sovereignty in its first triad and its refinement of the lower envelopes until they consist of atomic matter to some extent. The causal process can be speeded up by proceeding methodically. The causal envelope connects the first self with the second self, and is the highest part of the first self and the lowest part of the second self. The causal envelope of the mental atom belongs to the second triad. During the development of the second self the causal envelope grows continuously in extent until the limit of the vibrational capacity of the mental atom has been reached.
1From the material point of view, everything is matter, even "empty" space. The entire cosmos is a being.
2The primordial atom is the firm point for individual consciousness, the firm point that makes centralized consciousness possible.
3There is no consciousness without matter. Every kind of consciousness is paralleled by its own kind of matter. There are as many kinds of consciousness as there are kinds of matter. The sense perceptions, emotions, and thoughts of physical man are three different kinds of consciousness corresponding to physical, emotional, and mental matter. Without a physical body man has no sense perceptions in the usual meaning of the word, without an emotional envelope no emotions, without a mental envelope no thoughts.
4Quite a number of accepted absurdities could be discarded if, when discussing the awakening of consciousness, the following different stages were clearly distinguished: unconsciousness (potential consciousness), actualized (passive) consciousness, inactive (latent) consciousness, active subjective and active objective consciousness, and finally self-consciousness. Selfconsciousness makes it possible to acquire objective consciousness of the entire material reality, that is to say: apprehension of the cosmos as the self's own world.
5The three aspects of existence, or of reality, are matter, consciousness, and will. Matter is the carrier of consciousness and the material for the will. In order to be able to think in accordance with reality, you must always take all three aspects into account. Every kind of matter is paralleled by its own kind of consciousness and by its own kind of will. The differentiation of consciousness (when fully activated) is as great as the differentiation of matter. Each higher kind of matter implies a higher kind of consciousness in relation to the lower kinds, and a greater ability of the will to dominate matter. The will cannot be perceived; it just expresses itself in events and processes. The will is motion, the dynamical in mechanical processes.
6All higher consciousness appears non-existent to lower consciousness. Beings in higher worlds cannot be ascertained by lower beings. All lower consciousness appears unimportant to higher consciousness. A consciousness that denies the possibility of higher consciousness is hardly likely to win that higher one. The coarser, the more composed the matter, the coarser and the fainter are the vibrations, and the more limited is the consciousness. In respect of consciousness, the invisible and visible physical world are a unity.
1Primordial matter is not conscious but is the true unconscious. Consciousness can be actualized only in atoms.
2All involutionary and evolutionary matter possesses a common consciousness. Consciousness is one. There is only one consciousness: the consciousness of matter, in which every primordial atom, as soon as its consciousness is actualized, has a common share that can never be lost. Every solar system is a systemic unit of consciousness. Every material globe is a unit of consciousness.
3Every atom has its own consciousness. Every atom in addition has a share in the common consciousness of its aggregate. Every composition of matter, however loose its consistence, however temporary and transitory in composition, has a common consciousness. Wherever two or more atoms are however loosely connected, a common consciousness is obtained. Thus there are as many different kinds of consciousness as there are kinds of matter, atomic kinds, molecular kinds, as well as all kinds of aggregate consciousness, from the simplest molecular consciousness to global consciousness. All kinds of consciousness — atomic, molecular, aggregate consciousness, from the lowest to the highest, from the individual to the universal — form (as seen from above) one continuous, unitary consciousness.
4The unity of consciousness is always primary and immediately given. The unity of a being is above all its unity of consciousness. However composed an aggregate may be (the limits of this are the limits of the composition of matter), the aggregate's unity of consciousness is always primary, whereas the diversity of consciousness in its subdivisions is secondary. Usually, there are several different kinds of consciousness in each unit of consciousness. As seen from the consciousness point of view, however, this diversity is always derived and presupposes, in a selfanalyzing consciousness, a self-conscious division of itself.
5Every primordial atom has an indestructible memory and a share in all the memories of aggregates to which it successively belongs. When the aggregate dissolves, the collective consciousness of the aggregate also dissolves. But every atom in the aggregate (every primordial atom in the atom) has a latent memory, which can never be lost, of everything that formed the content of this collective consciousness. The memory of the solar system consists in the collective consciousness of all the atoms that enter into its total involutionary and evolutionary matter. This memory is accessible, within the solar system, to anyone who has the necessary objective selfconsciousness. Every aggregate has its particular memory. Every primordial atom, thus every individual being, has a share in the universe of consciousness, is like a drop in the ocean of consciousness. The higher the individual develops, the higher the matter in which the monad can be active, the greater its participation in the different kinds of collective consciousness. Consciousness starts from the little sphere of one's own physical atom. Perfection means cosmic consciousness. It is the unity of consciousness, the participation of all in the cosmic consciousness, that is the basis of the unity of all. This unity cannot be divided against itself.
6Every globe as well as every world has its own total consciousness. The total consciousness is a collective consciousness, a unity of the consciousness of all primordial atoms. The total consciousness is also an indestructible memory of all expressions of life within the globe area ever since the globe came into being. The universe makes up one single cosmic consciousness, in which every primordial atom has a share. Every primordial atom has a potential universal consciousness, which through the processes of manifestation finally becomes cosmic omniscience.
1In developmental respect, consciousness is divided into potential, passive, and active consciousness. In involved primary matter consciousness is potential (unconscious). Involutionary matter has actualized passive consciousness. As seen from the consciousness aspect, the process of involution is the process of actualizing consciousness. Evolutionary matter has active consciousness. The process of evolution is intended to bring about the activation of passive consciousness into self-activity in physical, emotional, mental, and causal matter.
2Potential consciousness should not be confused with latent consciousness. Both passive and active consciousness become latent when activity ceases: for elemental matter when the elemental dissolves, for the monad in the triad when its own activity ceases. For the normal individual's monad this occurs at the annihilation of the personality upon the conclusion of an involvation, since his monad has not acquired the ability of permanent causal activity in the causal envelope, and thus permanent causal consciousness. Consciousness awakens as soon as activity begins anew.
3Passive consciousness cannot be self-active. It is unfailingly activated, however, under the influence of the faintest vibrations. All kinds of matter and of consciousness can be influenced from without. Active consciousness develops by self-activity. Active consciousness is not selfconsciousness. The highest self-activity possible within some kind of matter is the prerequisite of total self-consciousness in that matter.
4Passive as well as active consciousness is collective. A common passive consciousness forms an involutionary being; a common active consciousness, an evolutionary being. The condition of the monad's self-conscious participation in some collective consciousness is the monad's ability of self-activity in that aggregate. The participation of an individual consciousness in the collective consciousness does not extend further than his ability of activity in that material aggregate.
5For active consciousness to arise in an envelope, interaction, tension must be brought about between envelope and triad unit. The monad's active consciousness in any matter depends on its ability of activity in this matter and does not extend higher than the consciousness of the molecular kind activated. Every increase in the monad's ability to activate higher molecular matter entails a corresponding increase in the monad's capacity of consciousness and will. The monad is only fully active in some kind of matter when, through the attractive power of its triad activity, it can supply its respective envelopes with the highest kind of their respective molecular matters.
6Activation is done from below up, step by step, through the different subdivisions of the different molecular kinds of matter. In each new incarnation, or form of life, activation begins anew from below, from the lowest molecular kind of the aggregate. Every being entering into a new kingdom must begin in this kingdom from the very beginning, from the lowest molecular matter of its lowest world, and work its way up to ever higher levels by continually, in each involvation, activating anew the matter and consciousness of the different kinds of matter of all its envelopes. The ability of activation is developed by activity in continually new, often radically changed, compositions of matter. The monad will have countless opportunities of similar and dissimilar experiences: in the triad physical atom in the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms; in the emotional atom in the vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms; in the mental molecule in the animal and human kingdoms.
1Consciousness is the very self. Objective consciousness is the self's apprehension of things external to the self, as opposed to the self which is the subjective.
2Principal clarity as to the essential difference between objective and subjective consciousness is necessary because of the subjectivist misapprehension prevalent both in the East and the West. Misinterpreting the physiological manner in which the lowest consciousness apprehends the lowest matter (49:5-7) by sense perceptions, the subjectivists have tried to make the material reality a solely psychological reality. As long as reality is interpreted by theories instead of being experienced, subjectivism will go on misleading the sense of reality.
3Consciousness is objective when its content is determined by material reality. Objective consciousness is direct, immediate, and unreflecting apprehension of matter, the forms of matter, and motion. Objective consciousness is the only possible source of all knowledge, the ultimate proof of a correct conception of reality. Objectivity and materiality are the same thing as seen from the aspects of consciousness and matter, respectively. Objectivity is identification, identity of consciousness, with the material object.
4The waking consciousness of the normal individual can apprehend objectively just the forms of the three lowest physical molecular kinds of the "visible" world (49:5-7), as well as the opposition of consciousness and material reality.
5Subjective consciousness arises when consciousness is not objectively determined by material reality. Consciousness is subjective when its content is made up of emotions and abstract ideas, of imaginative and mental constructions. Consciousness is also subjective when its content is determined by material reality that is out of reach of the objectivity of waking consciousness. This content can be called a fragmentary, preliminary apprehension of material reality. A great number of vibrations from the physical etheric, emotional, and mental kinds of matter we perceive as our own states of consciousness without being able to explain their causes, nor being able to attribute them to material reality. Consciousness in higher molecular kinds that are as yet insufficiently activated is apprehended as subjective when activation begins. Consciousness in a particular kind of matter always begins as subjective before it can be objective. Full objective consciousness of all the molecular kinds of any world is only obtained at the automatization of the individual's envelope of that kind of matter.
6The five main kinds of objective consciousness of material reality possible for the first self are: gross physical, etheric physical, emotional, mental, and causal objective consciousness. In any matter it is the corresponding objective consciousness that can directly and correctly apprehend its own matter and the material realities in it. The tabulation below specifies the eighteen different kinds of objective consciousness about the corresponding molecular kinds:
gross physical, of three kinds (49:5-7)
etheric physical, of three kinds (49:2-4)
emotional, of six kinds (48:2-7)
mental, of four kinds (47:4-7)
causal, of two kinds (47:2,3)
7Aggregate envelopes have their own special centres of perception and motion (Sanskrit: chakras). However, these are instruments of the triad. The various kinds of collective consciousness in the envelopes have no organs of their own. In aggregate envelopes that have objective consciousness, each molecule has objective consciousness in its particular molecular kind. The collective consciousness of the envelope is a synthesis of the consciousness of all the atoms and molecules of the envelope. Full objective consciousness in all three states of aggregation of the etheric envelope provides an objective apprehension also of the three lower physical molecular kinds, furnishes an incomparably more correct apprehension of these three lower kinds than the "five senses" of the organism are able to do. Full objective consciousness in some kind of matter (which includes seven states of aggregation) provides a knowledge of 2401 compositions of matter.
8"Immaterial vision" exists no more than anything immaterial at all. Vision, hallucination etc., are attacks of spontaneous objective consciousness of physical etheric, emotional, or mental material reality, in most cases unconsciously formed through the individual's own emotional or mental consciousness activity.
9It is misleading to call objective consciousness of material molecular states invisible to the eye, "vision". Objective consciousness of material reality that is independent of the sense organs of the organism implies a consciousness of immensely wider areas of matter and vibration than just those of vision. The total objective consciousness of the atom (and of all the atoms in the aggregate as long as they are part of the aggregate envelope) is immediate, direct apprehension of all the vibrations within the atom's own kind of matter that reach the aggregate envelope. The expression "clairvoyance" is a misnomer. Regrettably, "clairvoyants" seldom see clearly. Selfdeception is inevitable for anyone who is inexperienced in the emotional and mental worlds. "No self-tutored seer ever saw correctly" is an esoteric axiom. This depends on two distinct grounds:
10Emotional objective consciousness does not make the emotional world more comprehensible than is the physical world to the ignorant man. Not even mental objective consciousness confers the ability to immediately comprehend reality. "You just see what you already know" is a rule that applies to physical, emotional, and mental reality. The theories of ignorance just provide fictitious knowledge. If what you believe you know is an erroneous hypothesis or theory, you "see" incorrectly, that is, you misapprehend. You will take the part to be the whole. And the theories of ignorance are constructed on the basis of too few facts.
11Emotional and mental matter obeys the faintest expressions of consciousness. Any preconceived opinion, presumption, expectation, desire, even if unconscious or unintentional, shapes the matter in those worlds, so that emotional and mental reality always corresponds to the ideas made about it. The ignorant or inexperienced has no possibility of deciding whether what exists there is his own or some other being's "creation", or permanent reality. Theories, prejudice, superstition, imagination of all sorts shape the matter in the emotional and mental worlds. That is why those two worlds are called the worlds of illusion. Anyone who wishes to study material reality in those worlds must assume a watchful attitude and learn to distinguish carefully between temporarily formed, permanently formed, and unformed matter. The reason why the physical world is also included in "the great illusion" is that in all these worlds subjective consciousness lacks satisfactory criteria of truth, of which fact the history of subjectivism and of still prevalent scholastic logicism is sufficient proof. In contrast, causal and higher matter is of such a nature as to make self-deception impossible. The causal world cannot be comprehended, apprehended, or interpreted by theories. It must be causally experienced.
1By group consciousness is meant the synthesization, made possible through the group, of physical, emotional, and mental consciousness.
2Group-soul implies a collective consciousness, manifesting itself in a common instinct. The group-soul facilitates evolution by allowing a whole group at these lower stages of consciousness to participate of the ability of activity and general experiences of all the individuals composing the group. These experiences benefit the group in the instinct, which develops ever more strongly and which becomes ever more important the higher the activated molecular kinds entering into the collective envelopes.
3In the consciousness activation of the first triad, four different kinds of collective consciousness can be distinguished, corresponding to consciousness in the four natural kingdoms: mineral, vegetable, animal, and human consciousness. The tabulation below shows the developmental stages of consciousness:
potential consciousness: rotatory atom without spiral motion
actualized passive consciousness: elemental
actualized incipient active consciousness: mineral
actualized active subjective consciousness: plant
actualized active objective consciousness: animal
actualized active objective self-consciousness: man
4All the kinds of actualized consciousness mentioned above exist in man.
5Mineral consciousness perceives the vibrations in the three lowest physical molecular kinds (49:5-7) relatively strongly, the next higher kind (49:4) more faintly. Its emotional consciousness is embryonic (48:7:7:7).
6Vegetable consciousness can apprehend a considerably greater number of physical vibrations in 49:2-7 and, in addition, faintly the vibrations in the lowest emotional molecular matter (48:7).
7The highest animals possess fully developed physical consciousness (49:2-7), strongly developed emotional consciousness (48:5-7), apprehend more faintly the vibrations in the fourth emotional molecular kind (48:4), as well as the lowest mental kind (47:7).
8This is said as an orientation. In actual fact, there are no clearly marked dividing lines. The different monads have acquired individual characters by their own experiences. Surprising exceptions are met with everywhere. On the whole, however, the zones indicated can be regarded as the maximal ones, at the upper limits temporarily activated under strong influence, thus with the possibility of subjective consciousness within them. All the utterly differentiated intermediary stages are represented in nature, from the lowest to the highest active consciousness within each particular molecular kind. Minerals, plants, animals, and men form one uninterrupted series of all the possible kinds of states of consciousness, from incipient consciousness up to fully self-active self-consciousness and complete domination of the envelopes through automatization.
9The greater the vibrational capacity — receptive and, especially, self-active — within a particular molecular kind, the greater the extent of that consciousness. The ability of sporadic experience of the vibrations in higher molecular kinds can always extend further than in normal activity, through external influence or one's own spontaneity. The more often such influence or impulses occur, the greater the activity in the molecular kinds already activated and the easier for the next spontaneous experience to appear.
10The monad activates the different envelopes through the triad units. The triad physical atom dominates both the etheric envelope and the organism and is, in its turn, controlled by the emotional atom through automatization. All the atoms of a material kind possess consciousness of the six molecular kinds and their consciousness, since the molecular kinds have been composed of these atoms. The triad consciousness is the synthetic consciousness, the common consciousness (centralized in the monad) about the different kinds of lower consciousness in the molecular matter of the different envelopes. The triad activity unites the physical, emotional, and mental envelopes and makes it possible to synthesize the consciousness of these envelopes.
11The triad units' ability of self-activity is minimal: they have a faint active subjective (dreamlike) consciousness. This consciousness is always dependent on the monad and always agrees with the monad's intentions, which increases the experiences of the triad units.
1Self-consciousness, individual consciousness, depends on the monad consciousness, the central consciousness in all individual consciousness. Every primordial atom must by itself acquire its own self-consciousness. This primordial atom is for self-consciousness its firm point in the cosmos and in the cosmic total consciousness.
2The self-consciousness of the normal individual is still undifferentiated, due to his insufficient objective consciousness and lack of the possibility of a more extensive ascertainment of the opposition between consciousness and material reality. Man identifies himself objectively with his organism and subjectively with all kinds of consciousness perceived by him. He is objectively conscious only in his waking consciousness in the material reality visible to him, comprising the three lowest physical states of aggregation. This visible reality is the only one he knows of. This he regards as the only one existing. He is subjectively conscious, to a certain extent only, but not objectively conscious, of emotional and mental reality. He apprehends the emotional and mental as being something solely subjective. He apprehends the vibrations in the matter of his emotional envelope as being solely emotions, etc., and lacks the ability to decide whether these emotions are produced by himself or are the result of vibrations from without.
3The condition of self-consciousness is objective consciousness in some kind of matter. Finding the opposition between consciousness and material reality self-evident, we quite naturally have difficulty in comprehending what incredible toil the process of objectivation and individualization has cost. Tremendously slowly through the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms, the monad consciousness has reached the insight of its being something separate from everything else. This hard-earned experience, which has made the entire process of manifestation necessary, the subjectivists gladly throw out of the window, declaring it to be an "illusion". In the higher worlds, the matters of which we with our limited apprehension of matter would call "spiritual", the process of objectivation is infinitely more difficult. To enable the apprehension and understanding of that opposition in higher matters, there is the possibility of a special experimental process of condensation. Sooner or later, however, physical experience is necessary. Even those who have acquired objective consciousness in the physical world find it difficult to adhere to it and, especially in higher worlds, not to confuse objectivity with subjectivity. The outer resistance becomes tangible only in dense physical matter; only there is consciousness forced to reflect on the opposition between the outer and the inner, matter and consciousness, objective and subjective.
4The monad consciousness extends in matter just as far as its ability of activity in the aggregates into which it is involved. What it cannot activate is part of its superconscious. The monad is not completely conscious in a kind of matter that it does not fully dominate and cannot activate into automatization.
5The collective consciousness of the triad as well as of the envelopes instinctively expresses itself as self-consciousness, as long as the monad belongs to the triad and the triad belongs to the envelopes.
1The consciousness of the individual is a synthesis of the different kinds of active consciousness of his different envelopes. Even in the molecular kinds that are activated in some respects there are considerable domains that are not even subjectively conscious at the normal individual's present stage of development. The fact that, in the three lowest physical molecular kinds, just a part of material reality can be apprehended objectively is due to the limited possibilities of the "five" senses of the organism. As a rule, the development of an envelope has not been completed until the envelope has become wholly automatized and its consciousness functions have been taken over by the next higher consciousness. The consciousness of the organism and of the etheric envelope has to some extent been taken over by that of the emotional envelope.
2Consciousness can be divided into waking consciousness and the unconscious; the unconscious, into subconsciousness and superconsciousness. Physical waking consciousness can be compared to what the eye sees of the lowest physical world at a given moment. The unconscious has the possibility of contact with the five worlds of man (47-49). Not even a quadrillionth part of the vibrations pouring through his envelopes from these worlds can be apprehended by the normal individual's waking consciousness. Some of these are perceived as vague moods, elation, anxiety, depression, etc.
3The subconscious contains everything that has ever passed through objective and subjective waking consciousness. By far the most of it the individual has forgotten, often not even apprehended clearly. But the subconscious never forgets anything. The subconscious of the normal individual can be said to include the consciousness of all activated molecular kinds: physical (49:2-7), emotional (48:4-7), mental (47:6,7). The vaster the domain of activated consciousness, the greater is also the extent of the subconscious. The subconscious of the normal individual is chiefly emotional.
4The superconscious includes all vibrations in molecular kinds not yet activated by the monad; in the normal individual: the two higher emotional (48:2,3), the two higher mental (47:4,5), and the three causal (47:1-3), as well as all the higher kinds of consciousness. At the stage of culture, the individual begins to be sporadically subjectively conscious of vibrations from the emotional kind 48:3 and the mental kind 47:5. Causal consciousness is the silent "witness", which at the stage of culture begins to learn to see and understand.
5All the kinds of active consciousness indicated above thus belong to the subjective consciousness of the normal individual, with the exception of certain domains within the three lowest physical molecular kinds (49:5-7), which make up his objective consciousness in the current epoch of our globe period. This can to some extent explain the otherwise incomprehensible cardinal logical mistake of subjectivism under the influence of Indian philosophy. Despite its relative insignificance, physical objective consciousness is of fundamental importance, since higher objective consciousness is acquired in it.
6Man has four memories: physical, emotional, mental, and causal memory. The memory of the causal envelope is out of reach of the normal individual. The memories of the triads are mainly latent. They are roused to remembrance anew through similar experiences in the new envelopes. The memories of the envelopes depend on the ability of the envelopes to reproduce vibrations once apprehended by waking consciousness. Physical memory depends on the quality of the cells of the memory centre of the brain and on the corresponding etheric molecules. If these cells are insufficiently active, devitalized by strain or shock, or too quickly replaced by new cells, reproduction is obstructed or made impossible.
1Emotional consciousness is the consciousness in the emotional envelope and in the emotional atom of the triad. All the molecules of the envelope have their share in the common consciousness within their respective molecular kinds. Emotional consciousness arises through the monad's activity in the triad emotional atom and through the monad's ability to apprehend the vibrations in the six emotional molecular kinds (48:2-7) and to turn these vibrations into consciousness.
2At mankind's present stage of development, human consciousness is mainly emotional. The normal individual is the most receptive to emotional vibrations of all kinds. During the emotional eon emotional consciousness is the most developed, most active, most intense, and, therefore, the most important kind of consciousness. Emotional vibrations are stronger and more differentiated than mental vibrations. Emotional will dominates mental will, which is still just faintly developed. The normal individual identifies himself with his emotional being, which he perceives as his true self. The monad is centred in the emotional atom of the triad.
3A mental life independent of emotional life is still a rare thing, and is possible only for those who have by systematic training liberated the mental envelope from its coalescence with the emotional envelope. The mental envelope is activated by the emotional. Activation results in coalescence. The affected matter in the higher envelope is attracted to the affecting matter in the lower. During this time their connection is so intimate that the emotional and mental envelopes function as though being one single envelope. It is this that makes it possible for the monad to be centred in the triad emotional atom. When the emotional and mental envelopes are no longer in this condition of coalescence, the monad can dominate the whole triad from the triad mental molecule, since emotionality has then been automatized. Only when the mental envelope has been half activated and begins to take over its further activation itself can the mental envelope slowly liberate itself from its dependence on the emotional envelope and gravitate towards the causal envelope. The coalescence has as its results that most people think only under the influence of emotional impulses and that emotionality dominates mentality.
4Pure emotionality is desire. As long as the emotional envelope is in coalescence with the mental envelope, the amalgamation of desire and thought produces two new kinds of consciousness, namely feeling and imagination. If desire preponderates, feeling is obtained, which is desire coloured with thought. If thought preponderates, imagination is obtained, which is thought coloured with desire. Desire is mentally blind. If it is strongly vitalized, reason is blinded. Desire also has the effect that emotions can never be quite impersonal. It is desire that makes imagination powerful.
5Desire is either attractive or repulsive. From this it follows that all feelings of necessity have the same tendency and must belong to either of the two basic emotions: love or hatred. Everything with a unifying tendency is "love". Everything with a separative, repulsive tendency is "hatred".
6The vibrations of the spontaneously attractive emotions belong to the three higher kinds of emotional matter (48:1-3). The "spiritual life" of the normal individual at the stage of culture belongs to this higher emotional consciousness, for example devotion, admiration, adoration, enthusiasm, self-sacrifice, respect, trust, reverence. Of course admiration, affection, sympathy, etc., occur at lower stages, but then in conjunction with egoism.
7Every kind of matter, every kind of consciousness, makes it possible to acquire a discriminative principle that subsequently cannot be lost: in physical reality, discrimination between objectivity and subjectivity; in emotional reality between harmony and discord; in mental reality between identity and non-identity. In vibrational respect everything can be said to consist of vibrations. Every kind of matter, aggregate, condition of matter, has its peculiar vibration. Harmony, unison, concord becomes understanding. Dissonance divides. The emotional principle has an undreamt-of significance. It is the basis of the conception of all true art (which becomes possible only at the stage of culture), of the estimation of the beauty of form, the understanding of everything refining, ennobling, the ability to distinguish in many respects between what is genuine and spurious, true and false.
8Since certain occult sects and also some schools of yoga have made a veritable cult of clairvoyance, some information about it is necessary.
9Clairvoyance is the popular term of emotional objective consciousness. By this faculty you see material phenomena in the emotional world. However, since there are no possible criteria of reality, everybody interprets his experiences according to his own knowledge. In the emotional world the dictum of the sophist, Protagoras, can be applied saying that all apprehension is both subjective and individual. What you see in the emotional and mental worlds is no permanent reality and no knowledge of reality can be acquired in those worlds. That is an esoteric axiom.
1Mental consciousness is the consciousness of the triad mental molecule and of the mental envelope. This consciousness is of four main kinds corresponding to the four mental molecular kinds (47:4-7).
2The lowest kind (47:7) is discursive thinking, the ability to infer from ground to consequence.
3The next kind (47:6) is principle thinking, characteristic of philosophers and scientists.
4The third mental ability (47:5) is perspective thinking, of wide views that survey things. Thinking in terms of relativity and percentages belongs to it.
5The fourth ability (47:4) is system thinking, as a rule the result of a causal intuition concretized. It could be called "mental intuition".
6In most people the consciousness of the two higher mental molecular kinds (47:4,5) belongs to their still inactivated superconsciousness. Add to this the fact that the mental activity of the "normal individual" is seldom free from influence by emotionality. Even really intellectual people are content with the products of imagination.
7At the mental stage, the mental envelope begins to liberate itself from its coalescence with the emotional envelope, although only those who have acquired incipient causal consciousness (its lowest kind, 47:3) succeed in this. As long as the coalescence persists, the individual is influenced in his thinking by emotional vibrations, unless the domain of his thinking lies wholly within the sphere of mentality (mathematical problems, for example). Theological, philosophical, historical, etc. thinking is to a great extent emotional thinking, as is everything relating to things personal and human.
8Where knowledge is concerned, mental consciousness is sense and reason. Sense is objective consciousness, that is, consciousness about matter and everything relating to matter. Reason is subjective consciousness, that is, partly the ability to apprehend the content of one's own consciousness, partly the working up by reflection of the content of sense. If reason has developed the faculty of abstraction, the construction of concepts begins. At the stages of ignorance these abstractions are largely the fictions (conceptions without reality content) of world view or the illusions (false prospects) of life view.
9At a primitive stage of mentality, conception works slowly with one detail after the other. By means of a knowledge of facts acquired at the cost of much labour one thought is joined to another to form a totality ordered according to qualitative grounds (not according to "logically" or mathematically quantitative grounds) inherent in the subject-matter itself. Gradually, the rapidity in conceiving, comparing, conjoining increases. Higher mental ability is more and more surveying, more and more exact, more and more summarizing. In concept thinking a unitary group of things is surveyed simultaneously; in principle thinking, the things of a group of concepts; in system thinking, the things of an entire system. Most people lack the power of visualization and must have recourse to auxiliary constructions. Therefore many people mean by concepts words to which have been attached memory pictures of characteristic qualities, so-called essential qualifiers, of the concepts.
10The mental life of the normal individual is a life of reason. Sense (objective apprehension of material objects) is limited to the objects of the visible world. Only when sense can observe all the five material worlds of man (47-49) will it be possible for reason to form a conception of reality that is subjectively correct. Until then, reason will, in default of facts about material reality, be a victim to arbitrary imaginative constructions, as has been the case with subjectivism in philosophy. Reason is an instrument for the working up of facts. If it is supplied with facts, then this working up is faultless. If there is just one fiction among all the facts, however, then the result is false. There is no need of any logic for anyone who is thoroughly familiar with all the facts pertinent to the subject in question. Logic cannot replace or produce facts. But the products of philosophic ignorance have of course been of some importance as mental gymnastics for the activation of mental consciousness.
11Mentality lies between emotionality and intuition. Emotionality apprehends by "feeling" the vibrations. Intuition surveys things. Mentality concretizes, apprehends through working at concretion. The very work at concretion is a condition and a result of comprehension. In its activity mental consciousness forms concrete mental objects in mental matter. The clearer, the more distinct the thought, the more chiselled is the concretion.
11bFour different kinds of concretion, corresponding to the four kinds of mental consciousness (47:4-7), can be distinguished: the massive, chiselled, refined, and etheric kinds. At the stage of barbarism, not even the lowest concretion is completely activated. Incomprehensibility is always a sign of massivity, formlessness. In default of facts, profundity often enough loses itself in more and more massive concretions, until there is immobility and the constructor no longer comprehends what he originally meant. On the higher levels of the stage of civilization, the ability to concretize the second molecular kind from below (47:6) is acquired. This makes it possible to think with facts by means of principles and methodically. The concretions of the stage of culture (47:5) are apprehended as inspiration. The etheric ones (47:4) of the stage of humanity border on intuition, which belongs to causal consciousness.
12When memory pictures, say, a tree, thought forms in mental matter a miniature replica of it that is more or less exact. Therefore, the artist who observes intensely is the one to form the best replicas. To objective consciousness abstractions resemble, more than anything, symbols with their individually characteristic deviations. If objective mental consciousness (improperly called clairvoyance) is directed to a distant object, this object will appear for observation as though it were present. And courses of events in bygone times will go past as though they were live images in a stereoscopic colour picture (to use a comprehensible metaphor) in the tempo you choose.
13Some people confuse the rapidity of mental apprehension with intuition. But the two faculties work radically differently. If man possessed intuition, or causal ideas, there would be no need for him to learn what to think, there would be no divergence of opinion as regards such intellectual problems as have occupied mankind heretofore.
14In the matter of real knowledge, mentality is of the greatest importance as an instrument for causal consciousness. The knowledge ideas belong to causal consciousness. The causal idea always agrees with reality. To be apprehended mentally, the causal ideas must be concretized into mental ideas. In correct concretization, the causal idea is broken up into a number of mental ideas of the highest mental activity (47:4). Not all causal ideas can be concretized in this way. Too much is lost in this procedure, and nothing can be a fully adequate substitute for causal objective consciousness. When understanding of essentials awakens, form becomes an obstacle.
1Causal consciousness is the consciousness of the causal envelope or of the mental atom of the second triad. It is the common name of the three different kinds of consciousness of the three higher mental kinds of matter (47:1-3).
2Causal consciousness is the intuitional consciousness as opposed to the discursive, concretizing form consciousness of mental consciousness. Intuitions lie beyond the possible experience of the normal individual, surpass everything he can imagine about intuition. The word intuition has been idiotized to term freak, vagary, emotional impulse faintly mingled with the lowest kind of mental vibrations. In the cultural individual, intuitions occur a few times during his life, making epochs in it. Objective causal consciousness is necessary in order to have selfacquired (non-authoritative) knowledge of the five worlds of man (47-49).
3As subjective consciousness the content of causal consciousness is infallible causal ideas. These are by themselves the proofs of their truth, always agreeing with reality without any possibility of fictitiousness. Hypotheses, assumptions, suppositions, guesswork, creeds, do not exist for causal consciousness. It is not omniscient in the five lower worlds. What it does know, however, is infallible as far as its content of ideas extends, since it knows from its own experience.
4Experiencing an intuition resembles more than anything a transport to the "Mount of Transfiguration" where you look out over worlds and ages. Anyone who has had such an experience has a sufficient material for an epoch-making work, which he will also achieve. Intuition implies a clarification of things, facts, events, etc., with a simultaneous ascertainment of both the constant and temporary relations between them, independently of space and time.
5This kind of consciousness expression can be compared to an illumination in a flash of a whole landscape of concepts, with a simultaneous photographing of every detail, a content of infinitude momentarily condensed which requires weeks, months, years of work to concretize or express in concepts. It can be compared to a momentarily frozen chord of the world orchestra, in which chord each particular tone in the greatest opera works stands out in its tonal relief. It can be compared to the action of a mental volcano, which in one single moment launches out of its crater all that has during millennia been joined together as causes and effects into some causal chain.
6Intuitions do not form any objectively permanent shapes but are light and colour phenomena that dissolve with lightning rapidity and a content of ideas that is apprehended with the same lightning rapidity.
7There is complete, immediate understanding between beings in the causal world. The solidarity and brotherhood of all is a self-evident thing.
8A fully activated causal consciousness (47:1) can produce more in an hour, in quality and in quantity, than the most efficiently working discursive mentality (47:6,7) manages in a hundred years.
9Mistakes are precluded. If causal consciousness has once been directed to a problem, then the result is correct as far as it is exhaustive. Another characteristic of it is that it always knows what it knows and what it knows not. The relations between cause and effect are completely clarified for causal consciousness. A thing never stands isolated, but is always included both as cause and effect in its causal connection.
10According to esoterics, it is only as a causal self that the individual can claim to have common sense, since this self can never be misled but always sees reality as it is.
11Where causal consciousness is concerned there is no distance nor past time in planetary respect and in the worlds of man (47-49). The causal self has of course its special opportunities of studying all its incarnations ever since its causal envelope was formed at the transmigration from the animal to the human kingdom, since it has its own memory of these past lives. It should be pointed out that the memory of past lives is also preserved in the subconscious of the triad, but this memory is more difficult to contact and, above all, less reliable, since its being placed in the emotional or mental envelope causes the pertaining kinds of consciousness to "interfere" all too easily, and what they "see" simultaneously in the collective memories of their respective worlds are subjective phenomena. There is every reason for taking reports of such experiences with a good share of healthy skepticism.
1The individual becomes an essential self when, as a causal self and conscious in the mental atom of his second triad, he acquires incipient consciousness in the essential atom of that triad, and thus automatically an essential envelope in the essential world.
2The essential world has six dimensions (if three are assigned to the physical) and the capacity of essential consciousness thus is six-dimensional. This ability to apprehend six-dimensionality also in the reality of the lower dimensions of course affords a sovereign insight wholly different from that possible for lower kinds of consciousness. Worlds 46-49 appear as one world.
2bEssential consciousness is the lower consciousness of unity. Discursivity, the successive "external" apprehension, even though with lightning rapidity, has disappeared. Even the most compounded thing has been resolved into unity, the diversities being ever so many. Objects are not apprehended as external realities, as the results of external vibrations, but are apprehended from within. Objects are part of one's own consciousness. This is also true of the consciousnesses of others, which become, if and whenever you wish, part of your own consciousness.
3Essential consciousness is group consciousness. The "incurable loneliness of the soul" is cured for ever. Separate consciousness has ceased, but not therefore the individual monad's self-identity, which can never be lost. The individual is his own self together with other selves. He has a consciousness of community into which others enter to make up a unity. "The drop consciousness has united with the ocean consciousness."
4The planetary hierarchy calls essential consciousness a union of wisdom and love.
5Wisdom means that the all-round experience worked up by the collective consciousness of the group is accessible to everyone as his own experience.
6Love means inseparable unity with all. The opposition between me and you is incomprehensible, impossible.
7Essential consciousness is the consciousness of essential matter and of the whole essential world. It has access to the essential memory of our seven-globe, which memory includes all the lower ones. Thus it is possible for essential consciousness to study the past of the six lower worlds (46-49). The apprehension of time undergoes a radical change. Past, present, and future appear to exist in the present. The explanation for this is simple. All events are dynamic, are the result of cause and effect; cause in the past, effect in the future. Cause and effect appear as a unity. If no new factors join in, then the certainty of a prediction will be one hundred per cent.
1The superessential is a kind of consciousness completely beyond the possibility of man (the mental self) either to comprehend or understand. Every attempt to describe it would thus be meaningless and would just provide imagination with fresh material for idiotizing speculation.
2Through the ever vaster participation in the total consciousness of the planetary, systemic, and cosmic worlds, and the ever greater ability to apprehend what exists in the consciousness of these worlds, also the possibility of knowing the reality content of the three aspects of life increases.
3It is true that the atomic kinds are regarded as belonging to the cosmos, but it is improper to call the 45-self's ability of consciousness in the four lowest atomic kinds (46-49), cosmic consciousness, for it begins only with 42-consciousness.
4There are two kinds of consciousness expansion: the incorporation of new facts with selfconsciousness, and the increasing participation in the common consciousness. The density of primordial atoms decreases with each higher atomic world, so that, to begin with, the consciousness aspect can assert itself more and more, and subsequently, the will aspect. The consciousness aspect dominates in the second self, the will aspect in the third self.
5In all the superhuman kingdoms every individual is a trained specialist in some sphere of knowledge, quite apart from the fact that he is a joint owner of the common consciousness of higher worlds. In those higher worlds dwell not just those individuals who were once men, but also all those who have pursued other paths of evolution. The devas ("angels", etc.) specialize particularly in everything relating to the matter aspect; the former human monads specialize in the consciousness aspect; a third "evolution", in the motion aspect. This arrangement has the advantage that everything requiring a special knowledge can be immediately obtained without any waste of time.
6Also the individuals in higher kingdoms explore their worlds by deducing effects from causes and causes from effects. The capacity of consciousness increases enormously with each higher world, but also the difficulty of the problems of reality of those worlds (which means that they become simpler and simpler!!).
1On each globe in each eon mankind in its development runs through seven different stages, in principal races, or root-races. From each of the seven root-races seven sub-races develop, and from each sub-race, seven branch-races, or "nations"; in total 343 different races in each globe period.
2Each root-race on our globe has had its continent in which to develop and build its civilization, which in due course of time is annihilated by continental cataclysm. Actually, the principal epochs of the root-races are separated by great natural catastrophes and geological processes that remodel the surface of the Earth. Thus the third, or Lemurian, root-race lived in the continent, Lemuria, over which the waves of the Pacific now heave. The fourth, or Atlantean, root-race inhabited a continent that extended over what is now the Atlantic. The last remnant of this continent, the island of Poseidonis, was submerged in the year 9564 B.C. Both these continents will again see the light of the day: Lemuria as the abode of the sixth root-race and Atlantis as that of the seventh root-race.
3The first three root-races of the current emotional eon were a recapitulation of the general course of development in the root-races of the previous three eons, and a quick repetition of the seven root-races of the eon immediately before. Thus they fulfilled the tasks of organism formation, etc.
4The fourth root-race of the current globe period is termed the emotional root-race, the fifth the mental, the sixth the essential, the seventh the superessential root-race, with regard to certain affinities to the corresponding consciousness development in the various races. The same rule applies to the sub-races. The fourth sub-race of each root-race is particularly emotional; the fifth mental; the sixth has its accentuation on unity; and the seventh, on will.
5The first root-race was begun about 300 million years ago. The lowest envelopes of its individuals consisted of physical etheric matter. They had mainly emotional consciousness.
6The second root-race was begun about 150 million years ago. Also that race was etheric. Its physical consciousness was casual and vague. The transition from the etheric to the organic took place in this root-race, between its fifth and sixth sub-races.
7The third, or Lemurian, root-race is about 40 million years old. It presented from its very beginning a fully developed organism, although far from what we would call human. Only its third sub-race slowly changed into being unisexual, having been hermaphroditic, or bisexual, and assumed forms more human. This change can be said to have been fully accomplished about 18 million years ago. A nervous system and a brain were developed, which made mental consciousness possible, although of course emotional consciousness was still the incomparably more important.
8The races now living on Earth belong to either the third, fourth, or fifth root-race. The few degenerate remnants of the third — bushmen, veddahs, the pygmy races, etc. — are fast dying out. The majority of mankind can still be counted among the fourth. All races now existing are mixed races. Pure races do not exist any more. The life-time of a nation has been calculated at 30,000 years on the average.
9The fourth, or Atlantean, root-race was developed from the seventh sub-race of the third rootrace and was begun about twelve million years ago. The colour of the skin of this root-race changed with its different sub-races from dark red to reddish-brown, yellowish-white, and yellow. Its most important sub-races were the third, the coppery-red Tolteks; the fifth, the yellowish-white Original Semites; and the seventh, the yellow Mongols. From the Tolteks originate, among others, the Indians of America; from the Original Semites, the Jews and Kabyles of modern times. The mixed descendants of the Mongols are the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Malays.
10The fifth, or Aryan, root-race was developed from the fifth sub-race of the fourth root-race during a period of about one hundred thousand years. Its first sub-race, the Hindu race, is about 60,000 years old. Its second sub-race, the Arabian, is about 40,000 years old. Its third sub-race, the Iranian, arose about 30,000 years ago. Its fourth sub-race, the Celtic, and its fifth sub-race, the Teutonic, are of the same age, about 20,000 years old. Only remnants exist of the second and third sub-races; of the former, Arabs and Moors; of the latter, the Parsis of modern times. From the fourth sub-race, which was the ancient Greeks of prehistoric times, originate, among others, the various Romance nations. The descendants of the Teutons in historic times are Slavs, Germans, and Anglo-Saxons, among others.
11A new racial formation is impending, the sixth sub-race of the fifth root-race. It has been calculated that the fourth branch-race of this sixth sub-race will be able to acquire physical etheric objective consciousness. Between the second and third sub-races of the sixth root-race the transition from the organism to the etheric envelope will take place, which latter envelope will henceforth be man's lowest envelope. The entire seventh root-race will of course be etheric. The period of incarnation, or the life-time of the personality, of the individual in the etheric races equals the age of a branch-race. A good bit into the fourth globe period of the mental eon mentalcausal consciousness will become fully activated and the mental and causal envelopes will become fully automatized, resulting in full objective consciousness in those envelopes.
1Classes are the natural order of things. The classes of nature indicate different age classes, in the human kingdom as well as in all other natural kingdoms, both lower and higher ones.
2The total number of individuals belonging to the mankind of our seven-globe amounts to circa 60,000 million, most of them asleep in their causal envelopes. They can be divided into four main groups. The first group includes those who causalized normally in the previous seven-globe. This group can be divided into four classes (those who causalized in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh eons of that seven-globe). To the second main group those belong who in that globe causalized too early through artificial stimulation because of the imminent reduction of the seven-globe. The third main group includes those who causalized in the third, the fourth main group in the current eon, of our seven-globe. The oldest age class of the first main group incarnate on our planet in the seventh root-race of the current eon, and the second oldest in the sixth root-race. Before then, the so-called cultural conditions are all too unsuitable. The third and fourth classes began incarnating in the fourth root-race in Atlantis. A few clans of the two oldest classes incarnated too, having since then made up that elite the task of whom has been to guide the rest of mankind.
1The mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, and the first three root-races of the human kingdom have developed sense, objective consciousness, the ability to apprehend the material reality surrounding us. In the animal kingdom also emotional consciousness is activated from below, from the lowest molecular kind. The individual, left all to himself in his lone individuality, must by himself acquire everything from the very bottom.
2The monad's consciousness development from causalization to essentialization is divided into five stages or 777 levels. The five stages of development are the stages of barbarism, civilization, culture, humanity, and ideality. The first three stages can also be commonly termed the emotional stage; the stage of humanity, the mental stage; and the stage of ideality, the causal stage. It is typical of the emotional stage that mentality is dependent on emotionality, that the mental envelope is in coalescence with the emotional. Of the levels, 400 belong to the stage of barbarism, 200 to that of civilization, 100 to that of culture, 70 to that of humanity, and 7 to the stage of ideality.
3Both emotional and mental consciousness can be divided into higher and lower kinds. Of the 777 levels, 600 on the whole belong to the lower emotional (48:4-7), 100 to the higher emotional (48:2,3), 70 to the lower mental (47:4-7), and 7 to the higher mental, or causal, consciousness (47:1-3), which at the stage of civilization still slumbers as inactive ability.
4At the stage of barbarism, the individual is on the whole subjectively conscious within the three lower emotional molecular kinds (48:5-7) and the lowest mental kind (47:7). At the stage of civilization, consciousness moves within the four lower emotional (48:4-7) and two lowest mental (47:6,7) regions. At the stage of culture, emotional consciousness moves mainly within the three middle regions (48:3-5) and the two lowest mental (47:6,7), though it can exceptionally, as in the mystics, also develop the highest emotional kind (48:2).
5At the stage of culture, the vibrations from 48:3 can reach the causal of 47:3, which makes it possible to experience causal "inspirations" and to begin activating the lowest causal consciousness.
6At the stage of humanity, the higher mental consciousness of 47:5 and 4 is conquered, and at the stage of ideality the causal of 47:2,3.
7Of the individuals belonging to our seven-globe, about 36 billion causalized in the previous seven-globe and 24 billion in our seven-globe. The difference in age between the oldest and youngest groups amounts to circa seven eons. The difference in respect of consciousness between a newly causalized man and one about to essentialize is as great as that between the lowest and highest species of the animal kingdom. The age of the causal envelope corresponds on the whole to a certain level of development. Of the mankind incarnating on our planet in periodically recurring clans, in root-races three to five, the majority (circa 60 per cent) in about 1920 were at the stage of barbarism, circa 25 per cent at the stage of civilization, and circa 15 per cent at the higher stages. These conditions can easily change, with a greater or smaller prospect for "public opinion" of understanding life. Many individuals could belong to higher levels if they had not all too willingly allowed themselves to be led by the authorities of public opinion and so themselves had impeded their development. Mankind belongs almost exclusively to the two lowest stages because the clans who have attained the stage of culture will not, with certain exceptions, incarnate until in the sixth and seventh root-races. Their presence would obstruct the selfrealization of the others, promoting imitation instead.
8The lower the level of development, the longer it takes to activate consciousness. The higher the level, the more rapid is the tempo of development and the greater are the distances between the different levels. The crescendo of the races increases with the third root-race and still more with the sixth. Those who cannot keep up in the heightened tempo are transferred to the globe best suited to them in the seven-globe. This transfer ("judgement day") ignorance has as usual embellished with terrors of all sorts.
9Only second selves can define the individual's level of development. Not even the stages, especially not the higher ones, can be ascertained. The presumptuous who try to classify people always make grotesque mistakes.
10The stage, but not the level, of development can be indicated in terms of the highest, most frequent, strongest, and lowest areas of vibration of any individual consciousness, in emotional and mental molecular kinds. Consciousness is a continuous whole susceptible of elastic extension and spontaneous expansion, which fact remains a mystery to the ignorant. The levels merge in each other in an equally incomprehensible manner. The possibility of differentiating the vibrations within some one molecular kind appears to be practically unlimited. The vibrations of any molecular kind move within a series of 343 levels and can be individually varied. The differences between the levels appear in unnoticeably subtle nuances. And yet, these infinitely fine tinges indicate the differences. The finer they are, the more delicate are they. A brutal upbringing or milieu will easily efface them, irrevocably for that incarnation. Another circumstance that also makes it impossible to judge the level is that the same level can appear utterly different in different individuals, depending on their respective departments, the special formation of their individual characters through unique experiences, and the factors of the law of reaping.
11It is perhaps easier to comprehend the difference of levels if you think of the individual as a conglomeration of qualities and abilities divided into degrees. One ability is developed 25 per cent, another 50, a third 75, and a fourth is perfected, 100 per cent. Different abilities have different points. The total score of the total number of abilities acquired is calculated, and the average indicates the level.
1Man's form of existence alternates between involvation into an organism in the visible world and evolvation to the causal world. At incarnation, the causal envelope together with the triad clothes itself in a mental envelope in the mental world, an emotional envelope in the emotional world; to unite with an etheric envelope and an organism, the true product of reaping, in the physical world. At evolvation the causal envelope with the triad leaves those envelopes in reverse order.
2The total number of incarnations is not fixed. The number depends on many factors. The most important ones are individual character, with its attractive or repulsive basic tendency, and selfinitiated self-activity. The repulsive tendency always sows bad sowing, inevitably resulting in bad reaping, which can swell the number of incarnations boundlessly. There are those who, on account of the one-pointed purpose and attractive tendency of their individual characters, can pass through the human kingdom in one eon; and there are others who will use seven eons or more to achieve the same.
3At lower stages the individual always incarnates in series; one series for each developmental level. The number of incarnations at the stage of barbarism amounts to one hundred or more in each series. As a rule, the number decreases with each higher stage. Seven incarnations are calculated the normal for the last seven levels.
4According to the law of self-realization, the individual must himself seek, himself find, himself acquire everything, all knowledge, all qualities and abilities, and finally, he must himself actualize his potential godhead. Everything that is innate is self-acquired. Everything that you can grasp, comprehend, you have a sense of, all qualities and abilities, everything is previously acquired in previous existences through innumerable experiences and toilsome working up of these experiences. Everything that is really new for the first time, is more or less strange, improbable, hard to understand. There are no innate ideas. But the immediate understanding of concepts that have already been worked up is innate, as are the predispositions of a rapid reacquisition of qualities and abilities previously acquired. This re-acquisition, however, is dependent on the character of the new organism and etheric envelope. What is freely given to the individual by means of upbringing, education, chances of private studies, he can make use of only if he has previously acquired the necessary insight and understanding. The collected cultural heritage of the nations makes it possible to renew the contact with domains of knowledge previously acquired, and thus to have that remembrance anew without which a previous knowledge would remain latent. The greater the ability, the more incarnations' work it has cost. Qualities and abilities once acquired but not cultivated in some incarnation remain latent. The latent includes the incomparably greater part of the experiences the self has once had, the qualities and abilities it has once acquired. A rapid change, an apparent leap in development, is the sudden retrieval of a level of development previously attained. The law of good says that the individual always follows the highest thing of which he has acquired an understanding and an ability to realize, through a sufficient experience of life and working up of this experience, because it is a need and a joy for him to do so.
5With each new eon cosmic vibrations vitalize one more molecular kind of each kind of matter. In the emotional eon, mankind on the whole activates only the four lower physical and emotional and the two lowest mental molecular kinds. Vibrations in these molecular kinds act repulsively. The envelopes are elementals, independent beings that react upon all vibrations, whether these originate from within or from without. At lower stages those coming from without are the stronger ones. Only when the self has acquired the ability to normally produce vibrations that in strength supersede those penetrating from without, only then will the self be free to think, feel, and act independently, according to its own insight and understanding. As a rule, this becomes possible only at the stage of culture.
6The time has come for rebirth when all the necessary conditions are present, which they by no means always are where individuals of higher stages are concerned. Involvation does not take place should the circumstances be such that there is no prospect for the self to learn, thus if the general stage of development existing is too high for a primitive view-point, or too low for a consciousness already developed. Because every incarnation is a speculation with risks taken. When a failure, it swells the number of involvations considerably. Not all incarnations are equally important, equally instructive, equally joyful, equally painful.
7Perhaps we understand that man is not a envelope that has a "soul", but a "soul" that has envelopes. When mankind understands that the meaning of life is consciousness development, then the matter aspect will lose some of its importance and the will to unity will make even the physical world a paradise.
8Rightly it has been said that our fictions blind us against seeing reality as it is.
1Life in between incarnations, life after the death of the organism, can be divided into three different periods: life in the emotional world, life in the mental world, and life in the causal world.
2The first self is man's causal envelope with the monad in the first triad. Man incarnated consists of a triad envelope (the lesser causal envelope), mental and emotional envelopes, and an etheric envelope with an organism. The envelopes of incarnation proper dissolve in three different processes: the organism with the etheric envelope is separated to begin with, after that the emotional envelope, and finally the mental envelope, whereupon the triad envelope merges with the greater causal envelope in the causal world. The incarnation is concluded.
3With the separation of the organism and the etheric envelope the self's ability of physical sense perception ceases; with the separation of the emotional envelope, the self's desires and feelings cease. When the mental envelope dissolves, whatever remains of the self's possibility of consciousness is annihilated. The self sinks into dreamless sleep in its triad in its causal envelope, and awakens to consciousness only at the next incarnation.
4Man's self-conscious emotional life as a rule begins when the triad physical atom leaves the etheric envelope and pupates in the causal envelope. When the etheric envelope liberates itself from the organism, the emotional envelope simultaneously liberates itself from the etheric envelope. The latter remains in the proximity of the dead organism and dissolves in exactly the same tempo with it. Thus the etheric envelope too dissolves in the quickest possible way when the organism is cremated. When the emotional envelope liberates itself from the etheric envelope, there is, as a rule, unconsciousness for a while, varying from a minute or so up to several hours. After that, self-consciousness becomes fully subjectively conscious, and usually to some extent objectively conscious, in the emotional envelope. Emotional life has come to its end when the triad envelope with the triad emotional atom, which will then pupate, finally leaves the emotional envelope. The latter, which subsequently is just an elemental, dissolves gradually.
5After the separation from the emotional envelope, the triad mental molecule continues its activity alone, and the sojourn of the mental envelope in the mental world begins in an absolutely subjective mental self-consciousness. When the mental envelope finally dissolves through the pupation of the triad mental molecule, the so-called personality is annihilated. The triad in the causal envelope is to wait in the causal world for a new period of activity by means of a new involvation. Causal activity and consciousness are precluded where the normal individual at mankind's present stage of development is concerned.
6The life-time of the emotional envelope can vary as much as that of the physical envelope. The rule is that there is no rule. Countless factors co-operate, with the result that every individual in most respects departs from the norm, of course within reasonable limits. In esoterics, dogmatism is a proof of ignorance. Each particular case must be investigated individually. Some people can leave the emotional to dissolve immediately. Statistical investigation has thought itself able to ascertain that it can be considered normal for a primitive savage to have five years of emotional life (without a subsequent mental life). Where the civilized man is concerned, 25 years can be considered the average life-time. It rarely exceeds 100 years for anybody. The independent existence of the mental envelope can vary from some hours to thousands of years. Where the average individual is concerned, one thousand years can be reckoned an average. Life in the causal world is for most people an unconscious existence. The conscious causal life of the intellectual elite can be estimated at 100 years. It rarely exceeds 250 years. The unconscious state in the causal world can last an unlimited time: thousands, millions of years. Those who will enter on a new period of incarnations in the sixth root-race of our globe period may have slept for about four eons. Others reincarnate immediately upon the dissolution of the mental envelope, depending on the fact that all the prerequisites stipulated by the law of development and the law of reaping are there. There is a possibility of involving in other globes, in case special experiences are desirable.
7Life in the emotional world (improperly called the astral world) can be either a dream-state, a subjective, introvert, meditative life; or an objectively conscious life. Objective consciousness is in most cases limited to the consciousness domain of one molecular kind at the time. According as the lower molecular kinds of the emotional envelope gradually dissolve, the consciousness in higher molecular kinds is objectivated.
8In most people the emotional envelope dissolves in five stages: first the lowest molecular kind (48:7), then the next higher (48:6), etc., until finally the two highest (48:2,3) remain for the fifth dissolution. The more the individual has cultivated the consciousness belonging to some certain molecular kind, the greater is the amount of this matter existing in the envelope, the more vitalized is the matter, and the longer it takes to dissolve it. This gradual separation of the lower molecular kinds implies a gradual heightening of emotional consciousness. The personality is ennobled, as it were, in five stages. In this it is typical of self-judgement that the individual ascertains the ennoblement of his environment but not that of himself. He was the same noble individual all the time.
9Contact with emotional beings still retained in their physical organisms is possible only as long as the emotional envelope has anything left of its three lower molecular kinds (48:5-7).
10Many people in the emotional world are occupied with speculative problems and have introvert consciousness, like day-dreamers in physical existence. Rousing them to an extravert life is doing them a disservice. The experiences of emotional life are on the whole worthless for the intellectual man. Becoming conscious of all disturbances there are in the emotional world counteracts that inner composure which liberates the mental envelope from the emotional in the most rapid way. Extravert activity vitalizes the emotional envelope and prolongs its life. Those who are awake in the emotional world find that they have entered into a new, unknown, incomprehensible world. The physical ways of looking at things that they have brought with them just make orientation still more difficult. They barely have the time to make themselves at home tolerably in some one environment before they find themselves in another, that of the next higher molecular kind. A factor adding to their disorientation is their formative imagination, which constantly plays tricks on them. Anyone who has believed in the tales of Hell, finds his fears realized, and many people suffer from these self-created terrors. It is true that they can get information from emotional beings who already have a scanty orientation. But since most people prefer to believe in their dogmas, believe that they know and comprehend, rather than let themselves be informed, they will learn slowly by their own experience. What you do not know or comprehend is substituted with and "proved" by imaginative constructions even more easily in the emotional world than in the physical. Intellectually, the individuals in the emotional world are in an decidedly worse situation, since objective research there has difficulties to surmount that are incomparably greater than those in the physical world. (In the emotional world you communicate by means of the peculiar emotional forms of language, so that a knowledge of languages is necessary for communication. Mental consciousness, however, immediately deciphers all mental vibrations.)
11Suffering is always within reach in the emotional world with its emotional states intensified thousandfold. In emotional respect, the emotional world can be divided into two "heavens" (48:2,3) and four "hells" (48:4-7). As physical beings, most people live in someone of those four repulsive states, the physical conditions disregarded. When they leave physical life, those additional conditions are removed. Any emotional suffering can be cured by an act of determined will, by refusing to pay regard to whatever causes suffering, by refusing to suffer. Only those who have tried to escape suffering by suicide suffer irremediably in the emotional world. They realize their fatal mistake but too late. Their consciousness remains in those emotional states which they wanted to escape, during the time that would normally have been left of their physical existence. The experience of such a period, without a chance of dulling, relaxation, or even momentary forgetfulness, may very well have caused the legend of "eternal Hell".
12In the mental world, consciousness leads an absolutely subjective mental illusory existence, not having the possibility of objectivity or even suspecting its subjectivity. The self's long sojourn in the mental world explains why subjectivists have their fantastic "feeling" that matter is unreal and illusory. The condition in the mental world agrees with their theory. Philosophers in the mental world cannot possibly realize their inability of objectivity and hence must be subjectivists (solipsists). Many people already in physical existence lead an unreal imaginative life in important respects, a life full of arbitrary constructions. They refuse to consider the criteria of material reality. All that the mental being is conscious of in the mental world, with a sense of absolute reality that is incomprehensible to us, is absolute bliss and perfection. Everything is there as soon as you think of it. Your friends speak and act exactly as you think it perfect yourself. At a hint from thought all circumstances are changed, and everything is quite natural. Where the normal individual is concerned, objective mental consciousness is precluded and thus also any contact with mental beings. The ways of looking at things that you have brought with you from the physical world (three-dimensional apprehension of space, for instance) remain unaltered. New facts cannot be added (in default of objectivity), and therefore a wider insight is precluded. The individual is dependent on the fictions and illusions collected during physical existence.
13Being in his absolutely subjective state, man believes that he is omniscient and omnipotent, unless he confines himself by dogmas of his impotence, etc., and spends his time thanking and praising god for his beatitude. You always have your superstitions confirmed in the emotional world as well as in the mental.
14In the undisturbed existence of the mental world, the self is able to survey its latest earthly life and analyse its mental experiences over and over again, sublimating them into ideas which are utilized by the causal superconsciousness. After that it is of inestimable value for the first self to lose the idiosyncrasies, crystallized fictions and views, useless stupidities of its personality, to be allowed, in due time, to begin a new existence enriched by the possibility of wider insight and understanding and without the burden of the past to hamper the self.
15The first self of the normal individual loses its consciousness through its inability of activity in causal matter. The self's consciousness becomes latent. When the self can activate its causal envelope for an unlimited time, the self becomes "immortal", since the monad's consciousness can then never more become latent. Becoming latent, the self's continuity of consciousness ceases, and also its memory becomes latent. The new envelopes of the self do not have any memory, and therefore the monad's memory, which cannot contact the memories of the previous envelopes, remains latent. Thus the latent state depends on the inactivity of the previous envelopes and on the inability of objective atomic consciousness. Remembrance anew is subjective and objective. When subjective, it is immediate understanding. When objective, it is in the normal individual, in case it occurs at all, dependent on a temporary or partial activation of the atomic consciousness of the triad physical atom.
1The basis of individual character is laid through all the experiences of the atom and individual influences on it — all of them from the very beginning always different — in innumerable kinds of material combinations as primary and secondary matter. Individual character is strengthened through the individual's experiences when being mineral, vegetable, and animal life. During eons of influences into adaptation, of dim feeling and groping, of instinctive reaction, instinctive discernment and selection, individual character crystallizes as an individual total synthesis of all unconscious and conscious experiences ever since the primordial atom was involved into cosmic matter.
2For the monad the entire process of manifestation is the further individualization of its individual character. Its sojourn in the human kingdom, which gives the monad selfconsciousness, is neither the beginning nor the end of the formation of its individual character. But this period of isolation, the most difficult of all developmental phases, is necessary to the confirmation of its individuality; for it to remain self-determined in the collective expansion.
3Matter undergoes total involvation and evolvation in four phases. In the first process it becomes rotatory matter; in the second, elemental matter; in the third (tertiary matter) it becomes evolutionary matter; and in the fourth, individual matter, the matter that acquires selfconsciousness. Tertiary matter consists of "loose" evolutionary atoms and evolutionary molecules that develop through being connected with monads. This matter enters into more or less permanent aggregates, for example triad units, centres in aggregate envelopes, etc. But it can also form temporary material forms, which are dissolved when their task is fulfilled. These cannot be formed "unconsciously" as is the case with involutionary matter, but at least superessential knowledge and ability are required for this. They are of course more active and purposeful than elementals and fulfil perfectly the missions they are charged with in accordance with the wisdom and irresistible will that formed them.
4Thus the monad has a long journey behind it. Apart from its participation in cosmic processes preparatory to solar systemic concretion (43-49), it has been both primary and secondary matter in various solar systems. After that, as an evolutionary atom, it has acquired incipient subjective consciousness, which manifests itself as vague instinct. Finally, with the development of selfactivity, it has been able to involve into triads in order to acquire in them the ability of activity, which is a prerequisite of objective consciousness and self-consciousness.
5During the course of evolution the monad in its first triad acquires full objective selfconsciousness in all the different kinds of matter, and full ability of vibration by means of its triad envelopes in these same kinds of matter. Step by step through each molecular kind, the monad acquires the requisite abilities, solves in succession the seemingly endless series of problems of consciousness and will. The monad learns to dominate matter from below up and does not definitively leave any kind of matter until the consciousness functions of the corresponding envelope have been taken over by the next higher envelope through automatization.
6When the triad mental molecule can vibrate in all four mental molecular kinds, the monad passes to a superetheric mental molecule (47:3) in the causal envelope, from there to a subatomic molecule, and finally to a mental atom, from which it will in due time pass to the mental atom of the second triad. The first triad can subsequently be dispensed with. In case it is separated, it is broken up into its three constituents. The monad has acquired omniscience and omnipotence in the five lower worlds (47-49) and can, at need, form a temporary triad for activity in the lower worlds.
7The monad's human evolution is completed when it has, in waking consciousness, acquired objective consciousness of the physical etheric, emotional, mental, and causal worlds; organized and automatized the emotional, mental, and causal envelopes; acquired the ability of full vibrational power in these envelopes; and centred itself in the second triad. What follows after that is part of expansion, first through worlds 46-43 within the solar system, then through worlds 42-2 in the six progressively higher cosmic kingdoms. When the monad has reached atomic kind 1, it will for the first time be conscious of being the ultimate self it always was.
8Being in its primordial atomic state free from all involvation, having acquired cosmic omniscience and omnipotence, the self enters into a state unknown to lower consciousness. The ancients called this "to enter into the unmanifested". The monad is then able to let itself be dissolved and to merge with the homogeneity and unconsciousness of primordial matter. This is the true nirvana, hopelessly misunderstood. The prerequisite of universal expansion and emancipation from all involvation is to serve life, to enter into a globe, a seven-globe, and ever greater global formations in cooperation with other selves. To seek knowledge and power for other purposes than to serve life results in renewed involvations in the ever coarser matter of ever lower worlds. When life is at its best it is work in inconceivable bliss in the service of the process of manifestation, without any thought of one's self. Helping the primordial atoms, unconscious in the primordial manifestation, to acquire consciousness, self-consciousness, collective consciousness, omniscience, and omnipotence in the quickest possible way is the only path to the longed-for final goal: eternal rest. To continue to live after that is to offer the true "sacrifice".
9At the emotional stage the self identifies with its emotional being; at the stage of humanity, with its mental being. At the stage of ideality, the individual knows that his causal being is not his true self, but just an envelope, permanent in the human kingdom, for the self. His true self the individual will not know until he has reached the primordial atomic stage as a free monad. Until then he will be one with his envelopes, particularly with the most active one.
1The monad is the self. The first triad becomes a self when the monad has acquired selfconsciousness in it. After that, self-consciousness is always the self, whatever stage of development the self is at. The second triad becomes a second self and the third triad a third self when the monad with its self-consciousness and individual character takes possession of them. In the first triad the monad acquires self-determined self-consciousness. In the second and third triads its individuality expands into a collective embracing more and more, through the unity with life that it has itself acquired. The first self is the individual self. All higher selves are collective selves. Thus the individual becomes a collective self when he has entered into the common consciousness.
2The second self consists of four different beings: the higher superessential being (45:1-3), which embraces the three lower envelopes: namely, the lower superessential being (45:4-7), an essential being (46:1-7), and a causal being (47:1-3). The developmental levels of the second self are 14 in number; one level for each molecular kind of the essential and superessential kinds of matter. The three kinds of causal consciousness the monad has already acquired as a first self. The third self consists likewise of four beings: a superessential (45:1-3), a submanifestal (44:1-7), and two manifestal (43:4-7 and 43:1-3) beings.
3The activity of the higher triads commences when they are activated from below. They become fully active when the monad has centred itself in them. The activation of the causal envelope begins at the stage of culture. The activation of the second triad commences when the causal envelope of the first self consists 25 per cent of mental atoms. The activation of the second triad mental atom keeps pace with the monad's ability of activity in the inmost centre of the causal envelope. When the causal envelope consists exclusively of mental atoms after, as calculated, seven incarnations, then it has been possible to activate the essential atom of the triad so that this atom has formed an essential envelope with active consciousness in the two lowest essential molecular kinds (46:6,7). With the activation of the third molecular kind (46:3) begins the activation of the triad superessential molecule (45:4). After, as calculated, seven more incarnations, the monad will be able to centre itself in the envelope of the second triad (45:1-3). The activation of the third self begins when the second self has become subjectively conscious in its higher superessential envelope, which corresponds to the envelope of the third triad superessential atom (45:1).
4As long as the collective selves (the second and third selves) are inactive, the second and third triads lack the corresponding envelopes in their worlds. The envelopes are formed when these selves are activated by the monad in the lowest atom of the respective triad.
5To the extent that the esoteric knowledge deals with the aspects of existence and the necessary basic facts, it is authoritative also for second and third selves, and is confirmed through the entire series of higher beings in ever higher worlds. This knowledge has been communicated as being necessary for solar systemic selves in order to understand existence. This does not mean, however, that anything may be accepted without examination. Everybody must examine and ascertain the facts for himself. The knowledge is to be regarded as hypothetical until the individual's own experience transforms it into being apodictic. This is done through all-round experience of the different globe memories, which always exist in the present, with their content, not just of all processes and events, but also of everybody's consciousness expressions.
6As a collective being the self has countless kinds of such beings to choose between. Some selves prefer to have experiences in different kinds of aggregates. Others continue in one and the same collective. There are degrees also within collective beings, and promotion depends on the individual's further self-acquisition of qualities and abilities.
1The following four material realities are distinguished:
primordial matter (chaos)
primordial manifestation
cosmos (atomic matter)
solar systems with planets (molecular matter)
2Primordial matter is both matter proper and true, unlimited space.
3The primordial manifestation — the product of blind will — consists of primordial atoms formed in primordial matter, and thus is the inexhaustible store of free, uninvolved primordial atoms. The primordial atoms, the original material for all other matter, are indestructible and constitute the only really indestructible matter. All other matter is formed and dissolved. In every primordial atom the eternally blind, eternally dynamic will of primordial matter, the inexhaustible source of all power, is ever present and is the source of the boundless power that is at the disposal of every primordial atom.
4The cosmos as an extension in space corresponds in a certain manner to what is called a galaxy, the aggregation of millions of solar systems. Each cosmos is its own galaxy. The number of cosmoses is unlimited. Each cosmos has its own atomic matter. Being originally of insignificant extent, the cosmos grows with the number of solar systems.
5Each solar system has its own molecular matter. The solar system is like a replica of the cosmos. With an intimate knowledge of the solar system (its matter, composition, consciousness) you can draw analogies in many respects about the cosmos. The old saying about the analogy between macrocosmos and microcosmos has a thorough justification for it that extends down to many details.
6The word manifestation also denotes globe systems with their worlds and natural kingdoms.
1The solar system is a vast globe filled up with lesser globes. A three-dimensional conception of space is insufficient for a correct idea of the globes. Our solar system consists of the 49-globes, each of which consists of seven seven-globes.
2The seven-globe forms a unitary system of its own. Seven seven-globes form a unitary system of their own in involutionary and evolutionary respect, a 49-globe. Anyone who has fully comprehended the principles of a seven-globe and a 49-globe can by analogy apply these principles to cosmic globe aggregations.
3The seven-globe consists of seven globes that are tangent to each other; the 49-globe of seven seven-globes. In any seven-globe, the first corresponds in materiality to the seventh, the second to the sixth, the third to the fifth. The fourth globe in a seven-globe has always the lowest matter existing. The kinds of matter indicated refer — as must always be the case — to the lowest kind of matter existing, all the higher kinds being included. The lowest kind of matter is always the most important one in respect of objectivity.
4The seven-globe we belong to is a seven-globe of the lowest kind, having the grossest kinds of matter. It has three globes of physical matter. Globes 1 and 7 in our seven-globe are mental globes (47:4-7). Globes 2 and 6 are emotional globes (48:1-7). Globes 3 and 5 are invisible physical etheric globes (49:1-4). Our globe 4 is a dense physical globe (49:5-7). This last mentioned globe (4) is always the only globe in a 49-globe that is visible to the normal individual. All the planets enter into the corresponding seven-globe of their respective 49-globes.
5Our planet (4) has five material worlds: the dense physical, physical etheric, emotional, mental, and causal worlds. Our globe has four unitary envelope consciousnesses with their corresponding envelope memories. Of these, the total memories of the physical and emotional worlds are practically inaccessible because of the chaotic condition of the consciousness of all individuals at the pertaining stages of evolution. The globe memory proper is the causal, being the highest one in the globe. The essential world (essential matter, consciousness, and memory) of our globe belongs to the seven-globe.
6In order to travel without aid to any other lowest seven-globe in our solar system it is necessary to have higher superessential objective consciousness. Thus only perfected second selves are able to visit other planets in our solar system.
7(In their writings the ancients called the three seven-globes preceding ours in our 49-globe Neptune, Venus, and Saturn; and the three seven-globes that will in turn supersede ours, Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter. Globe 1 in our seven-globe was called Vulcan, 2 Venus, 3 Mars, 5 Mercury, 6 Jupiter, 7 Saturn. These names were keys that indicated certain relationships.)
1The process of matter goes on in all globes. The processes of involution and evolution go on chiefly in one of the seven-globes of any 49-globe at a time. Matter acquires in each seven-globe those qualities which the material composition of this very seven-globe intends to make possible. Each seven-globe thus means a certain phase of development in involutionary and evolutionary respect. Anyone who has understood the processes in a seven-globe is able to conclude by analogy about the processes in other kinds of seven-globes.
2In each seven-globe each natural kingdom reaches the perfection that makes it possible for it to continue its development in the next higher kingdom in the next seven-globe.
3Involution and evolution make up a process that implies, among many other things, the transportation of both involutionary and evolutionary matter from one seven-globe to another. This process takes seven eons for each natural kingdom.
4When being transported from one seven-globe to another, all natural kingdoms transmigrate, both the involutionary and evolutionary kingdoms. For the elemental kingdoms, this implies one step down towards the mineral kingdom of the physical world; for the evolutionary kingdoms, one step up, to the next higher natural kingdom. All material forms dissolve, their kinds of matter continue their development in the next seven-globe while preserving, in latent state, qualities and abilities acquired.
5As for involution, the causal elementals in a seven-globe become mental elementals in the next seven-globe, emotional elementals in the succeeding seven-globe, and pass to the mineral kingdom in the still next seven-globe.
6As for evolution, the mineral group-souls in a seven-globe, when they pass to the next sevenglobe, are liberated from their group envelopes of physical etheric matter and thereby pass to the vegetable kingdom automatically. The vegetable group-souls are liberated from their envelopes of emotional matter and pass to the animal kingdom. The animal group-souls are stimulated so that the common envelopes burst and every animal triad gets its own causal envelope. Thus also the triads (evolutionary monads in triad envelopes) need as a rule a seven-globe to reach the next higher natural kingdom.
7This is the programmatic procedure, and the description intends to show the general process of evolution. In actual fact, not all the triads of any kingdom pass to the next kingdom exactly at the time of their transfer to the new seven-globe. Many triads have reached their next goal already before that, while others are as yet far from ready for a new transmigration, and remain in their lower kingdoms also after their transportation to the next seven-globe.
8It should be added that transfers of monads from one solar system to another, from one planet to another, often take place. In fact, human monads that have completed their evolution in the human kingdom within the same globe are rather rare.
9Involution and evolution are comprehensive terms of a great number of different processes, which in the future will give rise to several new disciplines necessary to a scientific understanding of the whole. Until then, the most important thing is that the two ideas be comprehensible, and so they will be through the schematic description of the procedure. It must be expressly emphasized that all too few facts are at hand for imaginative speculation to elucidate the matter any further. When the scientific authorities some time will realize the incomparable superiority of hylozoics as a working hypothesis, then their interest will be satisfied with the facts necessary to scientific elucidation. The planetary hierarchy wish nothing more than be allowed to liberate mankind from its ignorance of (or, rather, perfect disorientation as to) the superphysical reality.
10The knowledge of these involutionary and evolutionary processes explodes definitively the Indian doctrine of metempsychosis, saying that it is possible to relapse from a higher kingdom into a lower.
1The life-time of a seven-globe is divided into seven seven-globe periods (eons), or 49 globe periods. By seven-globe period (eon) is meant the time for the transportation of life activity from globe to globe round the seven globes of the seven-globe. When the "life" — that is, the majority of the mass of triads — has in this way been transported seven times round the seven-globe, the seven-globe is emptied of the greater part of its involutionary and evolutionary matter, which is transferred to the next seven-globe.
2Three journeys have already been completed round the seven globes of our seven-globe. We are in the fourth eon, the activity of which has continued for a total of more than 2,000 million years. Thus there is full life activity on our planet for the fourth time.
3In the first eon of our seven-globe our planet was gaseous; in the second eon, liquid physical matter. In the third eon, a solid crust had formed which in the present eon has already reached its greatest solidity and thickness with symptoms of incipient etherization.
4The seven eons of our seven-globe can be divided into three involutionary and four evolutionary eons.
5The three involutionary eons can be termed:
1 the elementalization eon
2 the mineralization eon
3 the organism eon
6The four evolutionary eons can be termed:
4 the emotional eon
5 the mental-causal eon
6 the essential eon
7 the superessential eon
7These terms indicate that involution is regarded from the material point of view; and evolution, from the consciousness point of view. They also intimate the most dominant tendency of the eons. It is true that during the periods of activity, there are all kinds of activity everywhere. The first three eons, however, can be regarded as chiefly stimulating involution and thereby preparing for greater possibilities of evolution.
8The first eon was characterized by a general stabilization of newly formed kinds of matter in conjunction with an efficient elementalization through special involutionary vibrations. During this period of involution was prepared the formation of etheric envelopes for the typical kinds of organisms and other forms of life of the new system.
9In the second eon the triads were transferred from the previous seven-globe. The evolutionary forms of life were involved more and more towards the density of the solid state of matter. This was true especially of the mineral kingdom.
10In the third eon organic life became possible on our planet. All physical life had hitherto been etheric. The vegetable kingdom reached its greatest differentiation during this period.
11In the current fourth eon the life activity in our globe has been in progress for more than 320 million years, or about half the time of our globe period of 600 million years. This, the emotional, eon is the special period for the animal kingdom and is particularly for the animal kingdom a period of the greatest activity, with new impulses of life and experiments of differentiation in all conceivable directions. The automatization of the organisms is perfected and that of the etheric envelopes is accelerated. Since a large part of the mankind from the previous seven-globe have not concluded their emotional development with the automatization of their emotional envelopes, they are still involving.
12The next, the mental, eon will be the special one for man. Then about 60 per cent of mankind will succeed in attaining at least subjective causal consciousness, and most of them will take possession of their proper world as causal selves. At the same time, the highest animal species will approach that developmental stage at which they are able to causalize collectively.
13The sixth and seventh eons are intended for the transmigration of the lower natural kingdoms, expansion of the second selves, formation of collectives, and preparations for future tasks.
14In the seventh eon, the seven globes are reduced in turn, according as the mass of triads leaves one globe after the other. The filling up of a subsequent seven-globe with involutionary and evolutionary matter takes place simultaneously with the reduction of the previous seven-globe.
15When the triads were moved for the last time from globe 1 to globe 2 of the previous sevenglobe, the remaining involutionary and evolutionary matter (rotatory matter exists everywhere) was transferred from that globe to globe 1 of our seven-globe to be further involved. The corresponding applies to the other globes. Our globe 2 was filled up with matter from the older globe 2, our globe 3 with matter from the older globe 3, etc. Our globe 4, our planet, was filled up with involutionary and evolutionary mental and emotional matter as well as physical matter from globe 4 of the previous seven-globe.
16The life activity in our seven-globe began in globe 1, proceeded from there to globe 2, and further to globe 3, etc. round the seven globes. The transition of evolution from the previous seven-globe to ours began with those mineral triads which had not been able to transmigrate into vegetable group-souls, and the analogous is always the case in the other natural kingdoms. Those who have fallen behind and have not been able to keep up with the general evolution are in this way given an extra refresher course, which is intended to make it possible for them to catch up with their companions. When the vegetable triads make their entry into globe 1, mineral triads are ready to go on to globe 2. The animal triads stream into globe 1 at the same time as mineral triads from globe 2 are transferred to globe 3 and vegetable triads from globe 1 go on to globe 2. When finally the human triads enclosed in their causal envelopes are transferred to globe 1, mineral triads have reached to globe 4, vegetable triads to globe 3, and animal triads to globe 2. The majority of the triads, however, accompany the human triads. With man's entry into any globe begins a rapid development of new forms of life from such ones as possibly already exist, and a rapid differentiation of the types takes place. The life activity delays in each globe until mankind has gone through its seven root-races.
17At the same time the other forms of life have reached a state of relative perfection for these forms, a state that continues for those who have been left behind when the great mass of triads leaves the globe. The life left behind does not develop any new forms, since new impulses of life are absent. When the mass of triads is transferred to the next globe in order to begin a new development of life, triads are always left behind for two different reasons. Some cannot continue to develop in the same tempo, some have sped before in development and have managed to go round the seven-globe. The former await the return of the life in order to resume their work. The latter wait for their transportation at a more suitable time.
18With the return of the "life" the new impulses of life come and new forms of life suddenly appear in immense multiplicity. Most of these soon disappear upon having fulfilled their function of being the experiments of life to find the most purposeful forms, and thus they become the missing links of biological evolution, which in the domains of all forms of life constantly present problems to the scientist.
19Life in the six higher globes of our seven-globe approximately corresponds to life in the higher worlds of our planet. The difference lies chiefly in the fact that a new world is added and a former is omitted according as the life is transported from one globe to another.
1The process of manifestation can be divided into four simultaneous, inseparable, continuous and constant processes. During the passive periods of a system they are, however, reduced to a minimum where that system is concerned.
2The four processes of manifestation are: the processes of involvation, involution, evolution (in the four lower natural kingdoms), and expansion (in the higher natural kingdoms).
3The systemic process of involvation also includes the combination of the cosmic atomic states 43-49 to form the seven different kinds of molecular matter, each kind of which has six molecular states. That is done in the forming of the globe systems.
4The process of involution includes, among other processes, the transformation of primary matter (which has rotatory motion) into secondary matter (which has rotatory-cyclic spiral motion).
5The process of evolution includes the evolution of the forms of life, the formation of the triads and their combination into group-souls, transmigration, causalization, essentialization, and other processes. The process of expansion is a continuation in higher worlds of the process of evolution.
6The process of manifestation can be viewed as both a cyclic and a continuous process. It is cyclic because of the continually repeated involvation into more composed matter accompanied by evolvation towards the relatively uncompounded initial stage. It is continuous, since the different processes cooperate to reach the goal in the shortest possible way: the actualization, activation, objectivation, and expansion of consciousness in order to acquire omniscience and omnipotence in all the worlds.
7Although the three aspects of reality are always equally important, yet the matter aspect dominates in the process of involution. The process of evolution entails the transition from the matter aspect to the consciousness aspect as apparently the most important one. In the process of expansion the consciousness aspect dominates to begin with, but is gradually superseded by the will aspect.
8The process of manifestation as "past time" is the true universal history. Not until we experience the past causally shall we be able to interpret history correctly, shall we realize that the truth-value of so-called universal history is as fictitious as the philosophic or scientific metaphysics. The knowledge of the matter aspect, of the process of nature, or of matter; and that of the consciousness aspect, are inseparable and presuppose each other.
9The processes of manifestation result in a perfect organization with an effected distribution of work. A cosmos fully built out is an immensely complicated organization, which works with unfailing precision. The primordial manifestation is the work of dynamis. The other manifestations are the works of monads who have themselves gone through involution, evolution, and expansion and thus have traversed the path from unconsciousness to cosmic omniscience. All manifestation is of necessity a process conditioned by law. In its individual formations, however, it is in addition a perpetual improvising and experimenting with the inexhaustible possibilities of the originally given conditions.
1Manifestation can also be called motion in time. The duration of manifestation is determined by a great number of factors. One important factor is evolution. This applies to both the cosmos and solar systems. In this, the principle is that all primordial atoms involved into the fully built-out cosmos shall acquire objective self-consciousness of the entire cosmos; that is, cosmic omniscience and omnipotence. The definitive dissolution of manifestational matter is done gradually from the coarsest matter up towards the original state, atomic kind 1, in such a tempo that also the laggards will manage to develop normally.
2No life is always equally active. The law of periodicity applies to all life. In manifestation, periods of activity and passivity interchange. Thus, for example, the states in between incarnations are rather to be viewed as periods of passivity where the first self is concerned. A period of activity means increased and relatively all-round activity, a period of passivity means decreased life activity.
3The length of the various periods of manifestation can be exactly calculated by those who have the requisite facts. The exoteric periods, known in India for a long time past, are mostly fictitious, being used to mask the real ones. It is known for certain that the periods vary for different globes as well as for different root-races, that the life-time of a solar system as given in years is expressed by a fifteen digit number, and that one eon (called by the Indians a kalpa, or day of Brahma) amounts to 4,320 million years. The globe period for our globe in the current emotional eon is estimated at about 600 million years.
4The periods of passivity imply, in lower worlds, dissolution of matter and liberation for more purposive compositions of matter for the different natural kingdoms, and, in higher worlds, increased activity involving preparations for the next period, and other things.
1Of the ten 49-globes of the solar system three are greater and seven lesser. The three greater prepare for evolution in the lesser, gather up the results of evolution, and send forth newly formed collective beings. In the seven lesser globes evolution is specialized. When evolution in the latter has been concluded, the harvest is gathered in to the three greater globes. Thereupon the seven lesser globes undergo a remoulding of their physical, emotional, and mental matter. When they have again reached the stage of habitability, a distribution and specialization of evolution is begun again. Thereupon the three greater globes undergo a remoulding. The procedure is repeated two more times, resulting in three different kinds of solar system; whereupon the entire solar system is dissolved and the laggards are transferred to other solar systems.
2Each of the seven lesser 49-globes, being a unit in involutionary and evolutionary respect, represents one of the seven main types. Each 49-globe has of course its own seven departments. Circulation between the seven lesser 49-globes can occur insofar as development is furthered by this. Many individuals need — at least for some time — to have experiences in the special system of their own type, or experiences of another system than their own. The transfer between the systems is easily made.
3A total solar systemic manifestation thus requires three solar systemic periods to conclude its evolution. The first two kinds of solar system are to be considered as preparing for the third, the real mass expansion. In the first solar system, physical and emotional matter is mentalized, which makes possible mental apprehension, mental synthesization of sense perceptions and emotions, of all vibrations in the lowest three kinds of matter (47-49) with their enormous atomic density. Especially physical matter is of an atomic density that makes the mechanization of matter necessary preparatory to the automatization, in the second solar system, of all physical, emotional, and mental envelopes. The third solar system presupposes the complete automatization of these kinds of matter, because all the lower evolutionary matter is to be manifestalized. The kinds of matter that have not concluded their development are transferred to other solar systems. Also our solar systems of the first and second kinds have taken over much such "remnant" matter. The first solar system is the particular manifestation of the matter aspect; the second, that of the consciousness aspect; the third, that of the will aspect.
1The organization of manifestation is based on the division into seven departments. The seven departments have been given different names in the various esoteric schools: the seven rays, the seven types, etc. Their purpose is, as is that of many other things, differentiation, multiplicity in unity, the purposeful distribution of work, the education of specialists. In them, seven main kinds are educated for various functions in the process of manifestation.
2The division into departments has the result that every involutionary and evolutionary atom belongs to one of the seven departments. The departments form seven different, parallel, lines of development and seven different main types. Within each department the septenary division is repeated in such combinations that there exists something more or less of all the types in all beings, although one of the types dominates in each being. This makes it possible for an individual to change his type as a developed causal self and move to another department by means of special training.
3There is a certain affinity between kinds of matter and types. Each type asserts itself — following the law of least resistance — most strongly in some particular kind of matter. To characterize the types is a difficult matter, because mankind has not come so far in its evolution that the types have as yet become pronounced. This is true especially of the first three types.
4The first department type, of superessential emphasis, is the man of will, the leader. The second department type, of essential emphasis, is the unifier, the wisdom type. The third department type, of causal emphasis, is the all-round thinker type. The fourth department type, of mental-causal emphasis, is a union of logic and intuition, which in the normal individual often takes an aesthetic-artistic-dramatic expression. The fifth department type, of mental emphasis, is the scientist. The sixth department type, of emotional emphasis, is the vibration type who perceives and understands by "feeling" the vibrations. The seventh department type, of physical emphasis, is the organizing man of law.
5The first three departments are the main ones corresponding to the three aspects: will, consciousness, matter; the first three processes of manifestation; and the three collective beings: guardians of law (supervisors of balance), guides of evolution, and formers of matter.
6The types having odd numbers develop most easily during periods having odd numbers. Consequently, in our fourth eon, the types belonging to the second, fourth, and sixth departments follow the law of least resistance.
7All special activity occurs in ordered cycles. A special activity develops in each of the seven departments in turn and involves all the types, even though it is more or less characteristic of some one type. The departmental activity that in the year 1898 was initiated in the seventh department succeeded that of the sixth department, which had then been going on for about 2,500 years.
8As pure types the departmental types correspond to different "temperaments", and this is the grain of truth there is in the hopeless speculation of ignorance as to that problem.
1All essential and higher beings are part of expanding collective beings. Those who follow the human path of development have their own collectives as well as those who belong to other evolutions. Man becomes aware of his own collective of consciousness (group of other second triads) only at essential consciousness expansion. As a rule, those individuals belong to the same collective being who essentialize in the same root-race, or causalize together, or belong to the same clan. If the monad's evolution proceeds "normally", the monad remains within its collective and expands as a second self, a third self, etc. in it. Every individual is free to pass into other collective beings with other tasks. Those are few, however, who avail themselves of this, since, as a rule, the individual prefers to stay with the clan with which he has been collaborating ever since he causalized.
2An expanding collective being is a unity of individual beings. Every collective being is a unitary being, that is, has a common consciousness. Every individual in such a being is, in his own collective consciousness, this being himself. Thus in respect of consciousness every individual is both an individual and a collective.
3There are innumerable kinds of collective beings embracing larger and larger groups of individual beings. Everything that can form a collective is automatically a collective being. Thus every material world, planet, solar system, the entire cosmos, is a collective being. Collective beings form a continuous series of ever higher natural kingdoms. In this thorough-going continuity of ever higher, ever larger collective beings, unity finds expression. Those beings who approach cosmic omniscience and omnipotence through cosmic expansion thus are no "lonely individuals erring through the cosmos at random" but collectives that enter into ever higher and larger units, until, in the highest cosmic world, they make up one single total being.
4The entire manifestation participates in the process of manifestation, unconsciously or consciously, unwittingly or intentionally, involuntarily or voluntarily.
5The life of collective beings is a life of service. Individually as well as collectively they acquire in this the qualities they need for their further expansion. The individuals of collective beings expand together and are by each collective expansion ever more intimately united with one another and with ever more individuals. In a collective being, all collaborate in common tasks with functions individually distributed. Collective beings are composed according to a great number of principles of division. Every individual is at the same time a specially trained expert.
6When merging into higher collective beings, those retiring entrust their tasks to those succeeding, and in their turn assume those of their predecessors. All depend on all. The expansion of the lower is a necessary condition of that of the higher.
7In every collective being there is some one individual who in respect of consciousness could belong to a higher being. This individual is the connection, as regards consciousness, with higher collective beings. The subconsciousness and consciousness, respectively, of the higher, are the superconsciousness of the lower. By remaining in the lower he can pass on to his collective consciousness the knowledge of the higher, insofar as this higher can be comprehended at all by the lower. It is in this manner that the knowledge becomes authoritative, since the knowledge of the higher can always be passed on to the lower to the extent that this knowledge is necessary for the lower.
1The tasks of collective beings can be summed up in three main groups on the basis of the three aspects: the matter aspect, the consciousness aspect, and the will aspect. Accordingly we have formers of matter, supervisors of evolution, and restorers of balance.
2Formers of matter put the whole of manifestational matter together, shape the globes and the forms of life of the natural kingdoms.
3Leaders of evolution supervise involution and evolution and everything that goes with those processes. Where rational, self-responsible beings are concerned, they may influence (inspire) those who by their work really serve evolution. As for the rest, they must try to prevent that the whole human race goes astray definitively.
4Supervisors of balance, restorers of harmony, guardians of causality, see that causality, the law of cause and effect, sowing and reaping, the interplay of concurrent and counteracting forces, does not make the continuance of life impossible, that material forces do not result in chaos through individual arbitrariness.
5All matter has its own "causality": all compositions, kinds of matter, all forms — everything from a globe to the lowest molecule. The same is true of all natural kingdoms, races, nations, groups, individuals. In repercussions according to the law of reaping, all the various combinations produced through constant or temporary connections must be taken into account.
6No supreme power can reach that omnipotence of dynamis which is required to produce primordial atoms in primordial matter. This work can only be done by the dynamic energy of primordial matter. Even the highest beings are subject to the Law. The very nature of primordial matter and of dynamis is the basis of the conformity to law of everything and makes "arbitrary" omnipotence impossible. The law finds expression in the immutability of the process of matter and in the inevitable constant relationships of matter and energy. Every law is a part of still more general constant complexes, which finally merge into that fundamental law which derives from the nature of matter. Expressed differently: natural law is the mechanical mode of action of dynamis. The more the process of matter progresses and, with it, differentiation, the more laws appear. If there were no law, then the stone would not fall, no technology would be possible, no prediction could be made, and the cosmos would be a chaos. The assumption that law is absent is an evidence of ignorance. According to the fundamental esoteric axiom, there are laws in everything and everything is expressive of law. Anyone who possesses a knowledge of all the laws, is omniscient. Omnipotence is possible only through absolutely faultless application of the laws in their entirety.
1The law of self-realization through self-activity is universal and is valid for all life, from the lowest to the highest. It is up to man to acquire knowledge of reality and life and a conception of right in harmony with the laws. Mankind as a collective also has its problems which it must try to solve on its own. As necessary as it is that the individual works for his own development, as necessary is the assistance of higher evolutions. Collective beings themselves develop by their work at manifestation. The envelopes of lower evolutions are part of the envelopes of collective beings. The lower ones are given nearly all of the material automatization for nothing is due course of time. The human individual does not need alien guidance. His higher triads belong to collective beings, his own superconsciousness is part of the waking consciousness of these collective beings. It is true that the consciousness of his first triad is at the human stage isolated from the consciousness of other first triads. This temporary solitude, however, is necessary in order that he acquire self-reliance (as a potential godhead with the rights that this implies) and self-determination. In this solitude the individual is given all the assistance that he is entitled to according to the laws of unity and reaping. The individual develops by learning from his own experiences and by reaping what he has sown. Everything "good and evil" that the individual meets with is his own doing. Life need not be the hell that men have made it. But as long as men hold unity in contempt, tread their brothers under foot, set themselves up as laws and judges on others, they must reap what they have sown until they learn that the responsibility of freedom means brotherhood and not self-will.
2In serving evolution and unity the individuals of the collectives have found the only life worth living, have become one with life. Man can, just as they, reach that goal by striving after unity. Essential consciousness makes it clear that all are one. The sooner man realizes his unity with all life, the sooner he will be consciously united with those who have thus attained. They, too, have trod the path from impotence to freedom. They know man: his ignorance, conceit, inability, errors. They administer the sowing and reaping of causal law. Besides this incorruptible justice they feel sympathy for that brave being who — following the law of self-realization — erring blindly gropes his way towards an unknown goal. Nobody can identify a causal self or suspect the essential self in its humble human shape. Nobody would benefit in the least from doing it. They do not make themselves known. For magical tricks they refer to professional illusionists. They leave authority wholly to professors and prophets. The causal world is the common meeting ground for all, where all are known and all will find each other in the end. The worlds of the personality, of the illusion of life (with the ignorance of life, ineradicable self-deception, and unending misunderstandings) do not interest the collective selves. Anyone who in a life of service shows that all the illusions of life (power, wealth, honour, etc.), which hamper and separate, have been annihilated for evermore, speeds quickly towards his anticipated goal.
3By denying his own potential godhead man does not gain any favours with the collective being that supervises human evolution. The only "thanks" for their toil that they may possibly expect is that man will seek to use purposefully the prospects of development and of the good sowing of unity that life offers daily. If you think you affect them in any other way, it would be tantamount to imputing to them unlawful arbitrariness. In that respect you are more correct to view them as impersonal laws of nature than arbitrary deities. Those beings are incorruptibly objective. Just one action by anyone of them against the Law would "throw something out of gear" and, besides, would be impossible without the assent of all the individuals of the collective and also of higher instances. According to the law of freedom, the right of any being to self-acquired freedom must not be violated, which freedom is unlimited as far as it is not abused to the detriment of any other being. The law of freedom also implies that you cannot demand anything to which you have not acquired the right. No higher being has any right to help arbitrarily. Everything is done under law, and infallible justice is inevitable. Injustice at any stage of life whatsoever is impossible. The general talk about the injustice of life is part of ignorance and envy. Those who know the Law are "divinely indifferent" to whatever happens to them.
4Ignorance has been wont to regard some aspects of life as proof of the non-existence of an allwise and all-good supreme power. In atoms of repulsive basic tendency, development can take the wrong course, which becomes apparent already in the parasitism of the vegetable kingdom and predacity of the animal kingdom. Unconscious and, to a still higher degree, conscious violation of the law of freedom (encroachment on the individual's inalienable, inviolable divine freedom, limited by the equal right of all life) results in the struggle for existence and the cruelty of life. Nature's waste with the seeds of life is also in conformity with the law of reaping, which affects all life automatically and mechanically. The mechanical makes arbitrariness impossible and in this also serves finality.
1Primordial matter is without space and time. Space and time only arise with the cosmos.
2Space in the cosmic sense is dimension (kind of "space": the closest simile you can choose). "Empty" space is a higher kind of matter with a lesser density of primordial atoms.
3There are as many kinds of "space" as there are dimensions and atomic kinds. The lowest atomic kind (the physical) has one dimension (line and area are not counted), the world of the highest atomic kind has 49 dimensions.
4With each higher dimension it appears as though space contracted. Thus, the solar system appears as a single point to 7-dimensional vision, the cosmos as a single point to 49-dimensional vision. In all kinds of matter all the dimensions are accessible to a perfected primordial atomic being (1).
5Higher worlds appear to "penetrate" lower worlds; and higher kinds of matter, to penetrate lower kinds (the most adequate explanation possible, although improper as a description).
6Time is the unbroken continuity of the cosmic process of manifestation. Where manifestation is concerned, there is no absolute space or time. The manifestation is limited as a globe in the primordial manifestation. Also time is limited, since it is expressive of manifestational processes.
7Time is a manner of measuring processes, changes in the matter and motion aspects. Each atomic world has its own kind of time. The physical time of our planet is determined by the rotation of the Earth and its revolution round the Sun, these being points of motion in relation to other solar systems.
8The eternal present in the highest cosmic world is limited with each lower atomic world. In the essential world (46), man's division of time into past, present, and future appears an unwieldy concept. For causal consciousness, there is, as far as our globe 4 is concerned, no distance and no past time.
9Time has no "dimension". All man's speculations as to space and time have proved to be irrational. It is high time that man realized his immense limitation and were content with the endeavour to explore the physical world. To be able to speak with authority of higher worlds, you must have become at least a causal self. They have learnt to see their own limitations and to distinguish between what they know and what they know not, what they can comprehend and what they cannot. Very few people have as yet learned this. According to esoterics, no "speculation" can discover the truth. A contact with reality is not achieved in that way but through experience prepared methodically and systematically (with esoteric methods).
1All three terms — dynamis (the dynamic energy of primordial matter), energy, vibration — are necessary to avoid vagueness. The more concepts we have, the more distinctions are possible for the full understanding of a reality that is extremely complex and hard to comprehend. We do not benefit the least from the strange method of trying to clarify by discarding the auxiliary concepts that are necessary.
2Energies are the action of higher kinds of matter upon lower kinds. Each higher kind of matter can act as energy on each lower kind of matter. The three fundamental energies, the initial energies of the constant solar systemic energies, are three cosmic kinds of matter: of the atomic kinds 28, 35, 42. (The prana of the Hindus is not one, but these three.)
3In order to reach lower kinds of matter, the higher energies do not need to go down via all the successive molecular kinds, but they pour down directly through the molecular kinds, one in each kind of matter, which correspond to them numerically.
4Energy, or force, manifests itself as motion, vibration. Vibrations arise in matter through the penetration of lower matter by higher matter, transportation of higher matter through lower matter. This transportation, which follows the law of least resistance, manifests itself as various kinds of motion (wave, spiral motion, etc.). Each kind of matter has as energy its own kind of motion, or vibration. When studying this transportation or penetration, you should notice that each molecular kind has its material subdivisions.
5Thought does not just form a mental elemental in mental matter, but also emits vibrations in all the five dimensions (three if line and area are not counted) of the mental world. Being a material form the elemental can be localized, but not the vibrations, which reach all and can be apprehended by those who are tuned in to the corresponding wave-length.
6From the vibrational point of view, everything can be said to consist of vibrations, and consciousness can be called the apprehension of vibrations in matter. The different kinds of sense perceptions are vibrations in the etheric envelope within certain definite areas. Desires and feelings are vibrations in the emotional envelope. Thoughts are vibrations in the mental envelope.
7Vibrations in a certain molecular kind vitalize this molecular kind. Every repetition intensifies. For active consciousness in a certain molecular kind to be activated by the vibrations, it is necessary that consciousness can be active in this matter.
8In connection with the study of vibrations, the study of periodicity will open up new fields for scientific research. Periodicity, or rhythm, is a quality of molecular matter. Periodicity implies, among other things, a continuous succession of periods of activity and passivity. One of the conditions of infallible prediction is a knowledge of the periodicity, or time-cycles, of the various pertaining realities.
9Without matter there would be no motion or vibration, no power or energy, no material for dynamis. Dynamis acts by setting matter in motion. The ultimate initial impulse is always dynamis. Dynamis in the primordial atoms is independent of consciousness; in manifestational matter, until consciousness is activated. Dynamis is at the disposal of every primordial atom. Consciousness cannot affect matter. All affection is the work of dynamis. Active consciousness is the ability of consciousness to let dynamis act through it. Consciousness activity in some matter depends on the ability of consciousness to utilize dynamis in that matter. In respect of dynamis, the process of evolution is the unconscious and automatic acquisition of dynamis by consciousness; and the process of expansion, the conscious acquisition of dynamis by consciousness.
1Higher kinds of matter have the qualities of light and colour — luminous colour — which are perceptible to the objective consciousness that corresponds to the respective kinds of matter. This was one of the reasons why the ancients denoted higher matter symbolically by "astral light", "cosmic fire", etc.
1The "atom" of science is the chemical "atom", the physical etheric molecule (49:4). When the true physical atom (49:1) is "split" (its spiral motion momentarily stopped), 49 emotional atoms (48:1) are obtained.
2The atom has a globular form. The atomic globe consists of ten endless seeming threads drawn in a spiral — three thick and seven fine ones — which at no point touch one another. These threads in their turn have still finer threads wound round them (like an electric flex). Each of the seven threads evinces an affinity for one of the seven molecular kinds of that kind of matter to which the atom belongs. The function of the thread is to act as a conveyor of the special energies of its molecular kind, to produce or receive vibrations. The threads are vitalized through the cosmic energies mentioned above. The atom is either positive or negative. In the positive atom, energy flows in from the next higher world and through the atom into the world of the atom. In the negative atom, energy flows from the world of the atom through the atom forth into the next higher world. With each new eon in the seven-globe, one more spiral in the atom is vitalized. In the emotional eon, four threads in the atom (4-7) are vitalized. The higher layers of consciousness of the atom remain inactive. The threads that are not vitalized cannot receive any vibrations. Anyone who wishes to conquer consciousness in the higher molecular kinds, must be able by himself to vitalize the corresponding spirals in the units of his triad. The vibrations in the four lower molecular kinds are mainly repulsive; those in the higher three, attractive. The individual must acquire self-initiated ability of producing vibrations in the three units of his triad lest he be a slave to the vibrations from without.
1Physical life has its physical etheric, emotional, mental, etc. material counterparts. The physical is just like a condensation, coarsening, scaling down, of the emotional; the emotional, the same of the mental, etc. Planets, natural kingdoms, etc., have their correspondences, their origins, in higher worlds. The process of involvation does not just imply an involvation of the atoms but moreover of the forms which are thought in the second cosmic kingdom (29-35), which forms assume their lowest shapes in the physical world. The physical world is the result, the effect, of the activity in matter of the higher worlds. We seek in vain in the physical for the true causes of physical processes. The process of involvation is a successive repetition of higher matter, and that which exists in higher matter, in ever coarser, ever more composed matter. Without first existing in higher matter, no enduring forms can exist in lower matter. The higher the matter to which the form originally thought belongs, the more enduring, differentiated, viable is the final form. And the forms that are required for evolution must be of the highest possible viability. It was this basic and universal principle of form-furnishing that Platon had in mind when using his metaphor of ideas as the origin of everything.
2This explains why the solar system can be called a replica of the cosmos, why analogy is the principal method of inference in esoterics; what the analogy of higher and lower, of macrocosmos and microcosmos, depends on. When making such inferences by analogy, you must of course proceed cautiously, since analogy can never be quite exact. That which exists in finer, higher matter can never be exactly represented in coarser, lower matter. In being coarsened, the next higher must be "adapted" to the material possibilities of the next lower. And the greater the distances in respect of kinds of matter between the realities compared, the more erroneous is an analogy pushed too far. Without the greatest possible likeness between higher and lower, however, friction would increase and automatism would be made more difficult, not to say impossible altogether. The laws of least resistance, highest efficiency, fullest automatism, greatest possible likeness to the ideal, are one and the same universal law of matter.
3The material forms that constitute the four natural kingdoms of our globe — the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms — derive their first origin in worlds 29-35. In those worlds they are constructed as forms serviceable for future evolutions in lower worlds. These material forms are condensed when passing through each lower kind of matter. Each transportation from higher to lower matter entails a progressive experimental adaptation to coarser kinds of matter. The most essential involutionary work done in the lower worlds is that of rectifying tendencies to deviation in this adaptation. The purposive energies from the higher worlds act with a pushing force that is irresistible. From atomic kind 43 down the forming is also done in molecular matter. These involving material forms are elementals that are reproduced in ever lower kinds of matter, until the physical etheric kind of matter has been reached where the moulding of organic forms becomes possible. This formation in solid physical matter (49:7) becomes dependent on the functional auto-formation of organic life all the way from the primordial cell. In this process the direct impulses originate in the etheric matter of the cells. Material forms are either involutionary or evolutionary beings. They are involutionary beings until taken possession of by active evolutionary monads.
4The first self finds its ideal in the causal world. The form of causal matter is the highest form, the ideal form, for this self. The artist who, when watching a physical form of nature, can have a vision of the corresponding causal form, sees that which Platon called "the idea of beauty".
5The forces that act automatically were divided by the ancients into mechanical and final (purposive) forces. In actual fact, there are two kinds of purposefulness, or finality: the kind explained above and that finality which is the outcome of coaction of mechanical forces of nature with the instinctive striving of consciousness after adaptation. The greater this adaptation, the more the mechanical forces act with a seeming finality. Physical and emotional evolutionary matter acquired this instinctual finality through the mentalization in the previous (or first) solar system.
6The natural forces that act mechanically are functional energies, which are constantly emitted from the automatized envelopes of collective beings. The differentiation of the forces depends on the fact that each molecular kind becomes its own kind of energy and also that every collective being emits its specialized energy.
7All triads, forms of nature, the entire involution and evolution, exist all the time in worlds 29-35, that origin of causality whence and whither all chains of causality ultimately extend. Those worlds can be called the experimental laboratories of the forms. Every atom passes through the different "stages of nature" in many different processes in the cosmos before it reaches its final "form" in a solar system. All life is an "infinite" repetition until perfection is achieved through the expansion of atomic consciousness. Only primordial atoms are, if they so wish, immortal. Everything lower dissolves according as the final evolvation attains ever higher through the process of manifestation.
1There are three kinds of reality: the reality of matter, motion, and consciousness. The same idea can also be expressed thus: the three equivalent aspects of reality are matter, motion, and consciousness. This is the esoteric explanation of trinitism: the doctrine of trinity. Matter, motion, and consciousness are indissolubly and inseparably united without any confusion or conversion. None of these aspects is possible, can exist, without the other two. The world of matter is at the same time the world of motion and the world of consciousness. All three aspects are equivalent and inescapable if you wish to have a correct total view of reality.
2Anyone who has understood the trinity of reality has solved the basic problem of existence. The three immediately given and therefore self-evident absolutes: matter, motion, and consciousness, are the ultimate basics to explain everything. They explain themselves by their modes of being, their manifestations, and cannot be further explained, just be ascertained by everybody. Motion, becoming, or the process of nature, is also termed force, energy, activity, will.
3Also viewed separately, each of the three aspects of reality constitutes in its totality an indivisible unity in which unity is the primary thing. Matter is one and a unity. Primordial energy is one and a unity. Primordial consciousness is one and a unity.
1Primordial matter is spaceless and timeless. "Space" only originates with the cosmos, which can be likened to a gas bubble in a boundless ocean. Primordial matter is matter proper. Primordial matter is not atomic but of homogenous consistency, with the two seemingly contradictory qualifications: absolute density and absolute elasticity. In primordial matter exist potentially all known and unknown qualities of life, which find expression in atomized manifestational matter.
2By the dynamic activity of primordial matter eternal primordial atoms are produced without end in primordial matter. This activity of dynamis in primordial matter and in the primordial atoms does never change.
3Primordial atoms are as though bubbles in primordial matter. Primordial atoms can be likened to gas bubbles in water, water to primordial matter, and the bubble to the atom. Primordial atoms are voids in primordial matter. This explains how solidity and hardness arise. The voids of primordial atoms make manifestation possible, are the condition of the existence and indestructibility of the primordial atoms. The primordial atom is indissoluble, is "dynamis" itself.
4Primordial matter is unconscious. Primordial atoms possess potential consciousness, the possibility of consciousness. The kinds of consciousness actualized and activated in primordial atoms through manifestation of course remain finite, even though by expansion they can extend across an entire cosmos and build a universe.
5The primordial atoms are the building materials for all composed matter, for manifestational matter. Manifestational matter is put together by dynamis, possibly through active consciousness. Primordial matter is the highest matter and all other matter is lower matter.
6The primordial atom is the smallest possible part of primordial matter and the smallest possible point, but also a firm point, for individual consciousness (unlosable self-identity after the acquisition of collective consciousness).
1This energy, which Pythagoras called dynamis, is one, is a unity, the one force, the primordial force, the source of all power, unlimited, inexhaustible, the basic cause of the perpetuum mobile of the universe, dynamic, eternally self-active, omnipotent within the limits set by the possibilities of matter. It is also called will, since it can act through consciousness, can be conquered by consciousness and become the omnipotence of omniscience. Dynamis makes the primordial manifestation (the primordial atoms) an eternally dynamic motion. Dynamis is in every primordial atom. Dynamis is eternally unconscious.
2Dynamis produces the primordial atoms in primordial matter (the chaos of the Greeks), confers on the atoms their original motion, the possibility of all other motion, makes the primordial atoms eternal and indestructible by eternally maintaining their dynamic motion, impels the primordial atoms to manifestation, impels matter to act in accordance with the law, or nature, of matter itself.
3Dynamis is the one force. It should not be confused with so-called forces of nature, or energies of physical science. Energy is matter. Various energies are various kinds of matter. Matter can act as energy on other matter. Energy is the action in or effect on lower matter by higher matter. In the last resort it is dynamis that impels higher matter to act on lower matter as energy. Matter is energy as long as dynamis "wills". When dynamis acts no longer, matter ceases to be energy and, with that, energy as energy is annihilated. Thus dynamis is the sole indestructible force. Any other "force" is annihilated.
4Dynamis is the dynamical and matter as energy is the mechanical. Dynamis affects matter directly. Dynamis is always the initial impulse that sets matter as energy in motion. Energy acts directly only on its "own" kind of matter and cannot act on other matter but through matter. There are as many different kinds of energy (more correctly: modes of activity or expression of energy) as there are different kinds of atomic matter. Dynamis acts directly only in primordial matter and in the primordial atoms, or the primordial manifestation, and indirectly through active consciousness. Primordial matter is both matter and energy for manifestational matter.
5The primordial manifestation is the dynamic process of primordial matter, and all other manifestation is of necessity simultaneously both primordial manifestation and primordial matter. The blind dynamic force of primordial matter keeps everything in perpetual motion. Nothing can or may stand still. Should the rotatory motion of the primordial atom cease but for a fraction of a second, then the atom would dissolve. The bubble would no longer be a bubble but be annihilated. The entire primordial manifestation is motion, and every primordial atom is eternally dynamic.
6Will is dynamis acting through active consciousness. Active consciousness is thus the power of consciousness to let dynamis act through it. There are as many kinds of modes of action of the will as there are different kinds of modes of active consciousness.
7Dynamis executes the work, brings about whatever happens, the process of nature. In manifestational matter it is consciousness that directs, forms, determines the mode. Dynamis is everywhere the primary factor. Yet this is most evident when consciousness is not active. Dynamis is both primary and secondary. As primary, dynamis in time exists before consciousness, and is independent of it. As secondary, dynamis is dependent on active consciousness, then being will. Whatever in addition to this we call will is just traditional names for various thing that can be directly or indirectly connected, but also not connected at all, with the will: terms such as desire, aspiration, energy, vitality, determination, perseverance, choice of motive, freedom or power of action, etc.
8Only two of the three aspects of reality are treated in this Esoteric World View: the aspects of matter and consciousness. The part of the esoteric doctrine that treats of the channeling of dynamis through active consciousness, remains esoteric. Dynamis is and will remain an unsolved "mystery", which fact cannot possibly be too strongly emphasized. The unspeakable suffering, the hell on earth, that men cause each other and all other living beings, is great enough as it is. The knowledge that confers real power — the criterion of real knowledge — must as far as possible be reserved for those who cannot possibly abuse power. Such as men are constituted, power unfailingly entails its own abuse, and becomes the enemy of freedom and life, at best only because of ignorance. Those who seek to acquire the knowledge of the will ("magic") through obstinacy, must take the inevitable catastrophic consequences, and yet fail.
1Most traditional religious terms were originally esoteric symbols. Being misinterpreted by the ignorant they have lost their original meaning and have thereby become fictions (conceptions without counterparts in reality). The result is a confusion of ideas that is irremediable without the explanations of esoterics. When being liberated from the fictions we are at the same time relieved from the superstitions based on them. After that we stand a chance of formulating the pertaining problems correctly.
2Each esoteric school that eventually came into existence elaborated its own symbolic terminology, adapting that terminology as far as possible to prevalent exoteric conceptions. This has proved to be inexpedient. The kinds of matter and consciousness of unknown worlds should not be denoted by terms of common usage that are already idiotized and therefore misleading.
3In the opposition, "spirit-matter", spirit denoted will as well as consciousness and higher matter. The Chaldean magians used "spirit" to denote the greatest secret of all, namely the will. Indian philosophers by "spirit" meant the same as higher consciousness. This is connected with the overemphasis of the consciousness aspect in subjectivism. The most prevalent tendency was to term the three higher atomic kinds, globes, worlds, or kinds of consciousness of any septenary "spirit"; and the four lower ones, "matter". Also the opposition "good-evil" (the same as "higherlower") appeared here: 1-3 were termed "good", 4-7 "evil".
4The term "spiritual" has always been particularly usable because of its vagueness. Men have no experience of essential consciousness (46), and only the elite have any experience of causal consciousness (47:1-3). The "spirituality" of the normal individual belongs to the higher emotional (48:2,3).
5Of course the terms "body, soul, and spirit" occur with different meanings, such as: the three triads; the two lower triads (where "body" termed the physical, emotional, and mental envelopes; "soul" the causal envelope, and "spirit" the essential (46) and superessential (45) envelopes); the lowest triad ("envelope" = the organism, "soul" = the emotional body, "spirit" = the mental envelope).
6The following expressions were originally gnostic. "God is spirit" = the lowest matter for the collective unity is essential matter. "The union of the soul with god" = "the entrance into nirvana" of Buddhism = the centring of the monad into the third triad. "The fall of spirit into matter" = "the Fall" = the transition from essential to causal matter in involution. "Spirits" = all higher material beings (and other beings than material ones do not exist) from essential beings (or possibly causal beings) up. Of course, this word was eventually used to denote emotional beings.
7"Reality is an illusion". Illusionist philosophy (vedanta, advaita, yoga) is Indian exoteric philosophy, and no esoterics. The first Shankara (several persons carried that name, which even became a title) lived shortly after the Buddha. His doctrine, intended as a preparation for the sannyasi's initiation into esoterics, was utterly distorted by his successors, as usual. It degenerated into subjectivism and became an inexhaustible source for the speculation of ignorance.
8Propedeutic esoterics taught that it is an illusion to think that the visible reality is the total reality, or that the coarsest matter is the only reality. This illusion disappears according as consciousness becomes objectively determined by material reality in higher worlds. Propedeutic esoterics taught that there are many different kinds of material reality, many different worlds; that you do not have as infallible criteria of reality (everything's conformity to law) in the worlds of the first self as in still higher worlds.
9Degenerated this doctrine resulted in a diversity of opinions, all of them erroneous, some of them absurd. The most important ones should be pointed out. Illusionist philosophy calls whatever changes, whatever is subject to the law of transformation, "illusion". Reality is said to be independent of this law. The law of transformation applies, however, to all cosmic reality. Also relatively permanent reality changes. In actual fact, the concept of illusion does not belong in the world view but in the life view, not in the matter aspect but in the misconception of the meaning, goal, and means of life. In that respect, the physical, emotional, and mental worlds, being the worlds of the ignorance of life, can quite rightly be termed "the worlds of illusion".
10Of course different views were brought up concerning where the boundary between illusion (= maya = apparent reality) and reality was. Some thought that everything conscious was part of the illusion and that everything superconscious belonged to reality. Others considered that everything solely subjectively apprehended was real and that everything objectively apprehended was illusory. The boundaries of illusion and reality were moved according as you acquired higher objective consciousness. Lower consciousness was an illusion to higher consciousness, or to express it esoterically: the worlds of the first self were an illusion to the second self; the worlds of the second self were an illusion to the third self, etc. Finally, of course, the absurd view was brought up that all reality was a mere product of consciousness. Matter itself was declared an illusion.
11These misleading and confusing terms (illusion and reality) obviously gave rise to erroneous mental constructions. If they had used the correct terms: a lower and a higher kind of reality, instead of the terms illusion and reality, these misconceptions would have been avoided. It is in any case improper to judge the worlds of the first self by the second self's view of reality, as the yoga philosophers do.
12A further confusion of ideas has been caused by terming the material reality invisible to the normal individual subjective, as opposed to the visible reality as objective. There is no subjective matter. Just the first apprehension of matter is subjective. Everything that belongs to the consciousness aspect is subjective, everything that belongs to the matter aspect is objective.
13The esoteric axiom about the unity and collectivity of consciousness led to the subjectivism of the advaita philosophy with its subtleties resulting from its hopeless attempts to explain away the existence of matter. Anyone familiar with esoterics will easily see that the many absurd theories of subjectivism are esoterisms misunderstood.
14Indian philosophy is interspersed with esoterisms and is incomparably closer to esoterics than is Western philosophy. Even it, however, is on the whole made up of the constructions of ignorance. In Indian speculation, the consciousness aspect has been over-emphasized and the matter aspect neglected. In the West they have principally cultivated the lowest matter aspect and are profoundly ignorant of almost everything pertaining to the consciousness aspect and the higher matter aspect.
15On account of the great number of attempts at interpretation of it, Indian symbolism has degenerated into chaotic mythology. The Indian predilection for unessential subtleties, for using the same term for different things and different terms for the same thing, for drawing arbitrary boundaries between various realities, and for using the term "unmanifested" arbitrarily, has conduced to this. Had they, when making their distinctions, referred to the different kinds of matter instead, then clarity and order would have been obtained in the simplest way.
16"Man is god." Man, like every atom, is divine in essence. However, the entire process of manifestation comes between the potential and actual god. Man is a first self that unconsciously or consciously aspires to become a second self.
17The expression "everything is ensouled" is vague and misleading, as though matter were provided with a "soul". Consciousness is a quality of the atom, which quality becomes latent when ceasing and awakens (with the possibility of capacity once acquired) when activity sooner or later begins anew.
18Not all secret knowledge societies are known to exoteric research even by name. And of the known ones little more is known but the fact that they have existed. Of course, this has not prevented the publishing of academic studies of the content of their doctrines, as for instance has been the case with gnostics. It existed, with prospering lodges in Asia Minor, Persia, Arabia, and Egypt, three centuries before Christ and about five centuries before Christianity, which arose from gnostics through "popularization". Ignorance quite logically distorted the gnostic symbols into Christian dogmas. Something similar is happening in our days in the matter of the Rosicrucian Order. It was instituted in 1375 by Christian Rosencreutz. The doctrine of this order has remained secret. No Rosicrucian has even made himself known to outsiders. This has not prevented the spreading of exoteric Rosicrucian sects, which have fraudulently usurped the original name.
19Magianism, hermetics, hylozoics, gnostics, Platonism, kabbalism, Maltesianism, Rosicrucianism, etc., have remained esoteric because their symbolic literature has been unintelligible to the uninitiated.
20In our days many societies have appeared, claiming to be in possession of the "one true doctrine". They offer more or less successful presentations of available esoteric facts. Out of an understandable desire to arrange these facts into a comprehensible whole they have (in order to fill up the gaps of their knowledge) made their own attempts at interpretation, which are not always exact, of symbols previously not elucidated. These exoteric societies have all in common that they admit anybody without examining whether the prerequisites of understanding are there. As an inevitable consequence of this proselytizing they have got dogmatic sectarianism that fosters belief in the infallible authority of the sect founder, an even more infallible proof of their own lack of judgement.
21Esoterics has no use for believers. The esoterician must be able to discriminate between the individual and the general (the ideas), between the person and the thing (objectivity), between fiction (theory) and reality. He must understand what the moralist never can; that the knowledge of reality is one thing and the ability to realize the ideal is quite another. No literary work is improved by invoking authorities. Every book stands or falls by its own contents. Anyone who cares for the signature (asks "who said that?") is unfit for esoterics. Anyone who has comprehended does not quote any authorities but thinks for himself. So many facts are extant that this has nowadays become possible in basic respects. No esoterician is infallible. There are even for essentialists (46-selves) not yet fully activated layers of consciousness in the highest molecular kinds of the three lower worlds (47-49). Superessentialists need never be mistaken. That their personalities sometimes do so depends on the fact that the first self as an independent being has not consulted the second self, which is occupied elsewhere. Perfected third selves, serving mankind and thus keeping their two lower triads, can be active in several different worlds at the same time, though not of course with full capacity. It is part of esoteric training to try to do two things at the same time. The different kinds of consciousness can, when the coalescence is dissolved, work separately, mechanically and in a routine manner as "robots" sporadically inspected by the self.
22In the old esoteric schools they avoided exact concepts. One purpose, among others, of the symbols was to force the seeker to develop his intuition. Clarity came with the attainment of causal consciousness. After the requirements for understanding have nowadays been lowered below a minimum, the vagueness of symbolism in respect of concepts has of course led to charlatans, mystagogues, and divers coxcomb prophets springing up like mushrooms. At last a profitable industry! Impressing the gullible by mysterious intimations as to their superior knowledge of the secret wisdom and by miscellaneous tricks with breathing exercises, mirrors, pendulums, crystal balls, formulas, ceremonies, divinations, they propagate their superstitions, everybody according to his own infallible method, with belief in miracles, witchcraft, suspension of the laws of nature, intervention of "exalted spirits" (for hard cash) in egoistic matters, instruction in how to utilize the powers of the "overself", and other nonsense. Their attempts at interpretation of ancient symbols evidence their lack of true insight. Should they, when making their attempts, come in contact with the unexplored powers of emotional-mental superconsciousness (which are capable of much designed to confuse and deceive), the result will be worst for the conceited and curious who always think they are chosen and never let themselves be cautioned lest they like "fools rush in where angels fear to tread". Of course there are still undiscovered laws of nature governing unexplored forces in nature. But ignorance will always become their victim. Any ambiguity has proved to make it easier for mystagogues to deceive. The fact that superstition gains ground more and more and the general disorientation is more and more aggravated has demonstrated the need for an unshakably concrete mental system. In due course of time the system will be broken up at the stage of ideality. What occult research should concentrate on in the first place is gaining a wider insight into the nature of matter through physical etheric facts. By this the acquisition of the pertaining objective consciousness is prepared.
23Emotional objective consciousness at best (for causal selves) furnishes knowledge but of the emotional world, and mental objective consciousness but of the mental world. Through this, however, you do not get the facts necessary to a correct total comprehension of reality, but you remain ignorant on the whole. Mental objective consciousness is never innate in the emotional eon. The method of its acquisition is not given out and the bungling attempts of ignorance in certain modern secret orders inevitably lead — if any results are obtained at all — to catastrophe. If the methods of activation were not to remain esoteric, the war of all against all and the total annihilation of mankind would be unavoidable. The nobility of good intention is certainly not sufficient, it being nothing but the mask of self-deception everlasting. The self as a personality is egoistic. Only essential consciousness precludes abuse of any kind. The Indian secret yoga schools with their methods of objectivation handed down for thousands of years succeed but with physical-etheric and emotional objectivity, and then physiological conditions inherited through generations are a prerequisite.
24"Avatar" (divine incarnation) is a title with which the Indians are generous, like "mahatma" (great spirit). There are five kinds of avatars: perfected second or third selves, and selves from the first (worlds 43, 44), second (36-42), and third (29-35) divine kingdoms. Avatars of the two higher kinds cannot incarnate in organisms, since the latter cannot sustain the direct, formidable vibrations. As a rule, these two kinds do not involve into lower worlds than the essential (46). They are called in when the existing staff of workers is insufficient for impending changes. The task of the lower avatars is to prevent mankind from going astray and to arouse new essential (46) impulses.
25There is good reason to call attention to the mischief practised with the so-called Akashic Records. All worlds have their collective memories. Everything that has taken place within the different worlds is preserved in the passive, reflective consciousness of the involutionary matter of these worlds. But as regards the collective memories of the emotional world, there is no possibility of correctly differentiating between subjective and objective reality for others than those who have acquired consciousness in the atomic memory of that world. Mankind is at the emotional stage, and the dynamic activity of the emotional envelopes of all makes the involutionary matter of the whole emotional world rather resemble a boiling gigantic cauldron where molecular matter is being constantly re-formed.
26Only what is repeated over and over again in human mass consciousness is made sufficiently permanent to be perceived as enduring material reality, representing the past in concrete emotional forms.
27Only an essential self (46-self) can decide what in all this is or has been objective reality, by comparing the molecular memories of the emotional world with the atomic memory of that world.
28The basic ideas of esoterics are in full accordance with the scientific world view. All processes obey the eternal, immutable laws of matter. Without them, cosmos and development would be impossible. Laws are the condition of knowledge, are the enduring in all knowledge.
29Development is a process conditioned by nature. The individual can accelerate it for himself by applying the laws rationally, by hygiene, diet, noble emotions, noble thoughts, by acquiring noble qualities. Attempts at artificial forcing-house development, as for instance the exertions of Indian fakirs and others, amount to roundabout ways with delays. The ability of the envelopes to vibrate in higher and higher molecular kinds is increased automatically by living naturally. The results will inevitably show in due course of time. According to esoterics, 25 per cent of all disease depends on misdirected mentality, 50 per cent on misdirected emotionality, and just 25 per cent on physical conditions.
30Esoterics gives us a basis of reality, makes it possible for us to develop our sense of reality, shows us the way that stretches before us, frees us from fictions and illusions. The value of this alone cannot be overestimated.
The above text constitutes the essay Esoteric World View by Henry T. Laurency. The essay is part of the book The Philosopher's Stone by Henry T. Laurency. Copyright © 1979 by the Henry T. Laurency Publishing Foundation.