The Way of Man by Henry T. Laurency
10. THE CAUSAL SELF
10. THE CAUSAL SELF
1Much that is said in connection with the causal self actually belongs to the first self. But at the present stage of mankind’s development and particularly considering the lack of true culture manifest in this century, the lack of understanding of true culture (of which fact the so-called products of culture are sufficient proof), much that properly belongs to the first self can be mentioned only in reference to the second self. Not all first selves are as judicious as they think. On the contrary, self-overestimation is the most characteristic trait of 99 out of 100 people. Many who have not reached beyond principle thinking believe they are mental selves. They believe their ability to put facts and ideas into a system is the same as system thinking.
1When man has concluded his consciousness development in the human kingdom, he is a causal self. This means that the monad via the causal envelope has moved from the first triad mental molecule to the second triad mental atom. This presupposes that man has acquired full subjective and objective self-consciousness in the two molecular kinds of the causal envelope, 47:2-3, though not in its atomic kind.
2Being a causal self, he has fully active causal consciousness in all the centres of his envelopes of incarnation, he is subjectively as well as objectively conscious in the molecular consciousness, though not in the atomic consciousness, of the causal world and lower worlds.
3Hitherto he has been a causal being, since he has possessed a causal envelope. All material envelopes in all worlds are called “beings”, as their material content is made up of molecules and atoms with passive consciousness. The monad becomes a “self” in such an envelope only when the monad has acquired self-consciousness in it. That is an essential difference.
4When the monad has become a causal self, only then will the entire causal envelope incarnate (will there be no division into a greater and a lesser envelope), will the causal envelope wholly penetrate the lower envelopes and master their consciousness. Until then, only the consciousness of the triad envelope has been activated. In the causal self, consciousness of the entire causal envelope is activated simultaneously and the exchange of lower molecules for higher ones is done more rapidly. When the envelope eventually consists of mental atoms only, the time is up for the causal self to move to the essential world.
5The causal self is in a position to acquire the qualities and abilities required to become an essential self.
6The causal self can in the causal world ascertain objectively the material causes of events in the worlds of man.
7The causal self has access to the causal energies, the causal ideas, and the lower causal memory (not the atomic 47:1, although the monad is centred in the mental atom). The causal ideas are whatever causal selves have once perceived of the facts of reality. They cannot (no more than anything existing in the lower) render higher reality exactly.
8The causal self is able to ascertain facts in the five molecular worlds of man (the causal, mental, emotional, physical-etheric, and “visible” world) within the framework of the planet, independent of space and time. Consequently, this self has objective consciousness in these worlds and is able to experience their past as present, is able to differentiate primary involvatory matter and secondary involutionary matter in the worlds of man, which is quite impossible for first selves.
9Where still higher worlds (1–46) are concerned, the causal self is dependent on “authoritative knowledge”, namely the knowledge of the planetary hierarchy.
10The causal self is able, by means of first triad vibrations, to shape a mental, an emotional, and an etheric envelope. The etheric envelope can then in its turn magnetically draw together molecules of the lower physical molecular kinds, so that the envelope thus formed is confusingly similar to an organism. Formation and dissolution is the work of an instant. If you are not able to do this, you are not a causal self but, at the most, you have causal subjective consciousness. Regrettably, many people who are not even mental selves believe they possess causal consciousness. Only mental selves (47:5) are able, by means of the highest emotional energies via the causal envelope, to achieve a contact with the lowest essential consciousness. That contact affords them trust in life which they cannot lose.
11The causal self is a disciple of the planetary hierarchy (the individuals of the fifth and sixth natural kingdoms) and can learn from his teacher everything he needs to know in order to fully exploit his capacity to serve mankind, evolution, and unity.
12The causal self is aware of his capacity and its limits. He knows what he knows and what he knows not, what he can do and what he cannot do. Human beings do not know that, above all because they have not learnt to tell the difference between what they know and what they believe they know.
13As causal consciousness and all the higher kinds of atomic consciousness are acquired there follows a radical rethinking in all respects. Even the lower worlds are apprehended in quite another manner, made possible through the new dimension the monad has acquired. Even the causal self sees the infantility of the first self’s attempts to grasp reality in worlds above the mental world.
14The causal self is not a second self, which the individual becomes only as an essential self and as the causal envelope of Augoeides is dissolved and the monad is able to form his own causal envelope.
15The statement that dissolution of the causal envelope occurs before the individual has become an essential self is erroneous. He will keep the same old causal envelope as he received when passing from the animal kingdom until he has become a full second self.
16The causal self is still a member of mankind and finds it easier than higher selves to be an efficient teacher, since the causal self is familiar with the prevalent illusionism and fictionalism.
1Man’s highest envelope is the causal envelope. This means that it is his task to become conscious in this envelope, to become a causal self.
2Man is not fully man until he has become a causal self. That is an esoteric axiom, which cannot be too often stated. As a first self the individual is an isolated being out of contact with reality, and is mistaken in practically everything he thinks and does. Only when he has entered into unity and is able to experience the unity of all things, he sees what is right for unity. Even if the causal self is still unable to do so, he fully understands the planetary hierarchy’s view on life and tries as best he can to realize universal brotherhood. That is unrewarding work at the present stage of mankind’s development. It is met with opposition by most people. Egoism and hatred rule.
3Also objectively the causal self is man proper. The causal self is able to objectively perceive material reality in the three lowest worlds and ascertain facts in them. In contrast, he cannot objectively perceive the matter aspect of the superhuman worlds (beginning with the essential world, world 46). His contact with higher worlds thus remains subjective, is not objective. The corresponding is true of all worlds, both lower and higher ones. Only subjective apprehension is possible, not objective, until you have become a self, have acquired self-consciousness, in those worlds.
4In a causal self, all the centres of his envelopes are fully functioning and there is a free communication established between the basal centre and the crown centre, which is possible only now. The yogis have not succeeded in this, but confuse the energy from the sacral centre with that from the basal centre.
5Man identifies himself with his organism, believes that “this” envelope is his self. At the stage of the mystic he becomes certain that he is something different, that his “soul” (emotionalized mentality) is his true self. Only as a causal self will he acquire a knowledge of reality and thus understanding of the fact that he is a permanent self-identity.
6In the ancient esoteric knowledge orders, they considered that the individual had not acquired self-knowledge of the lowest order until he was able by himself to exactly determine to which departments his five envelopes belonged.
7The Indian term, “self-realization”, originally referred to the acquisition of unlosable self-identity, which is possible only for causal selves, not for Indian yogis. Then the individual knows that he is the same self throughout his incarnations.
8In the highest kind of emotional consciousness, the yogi is able to identify himself with a self-formed Brahman, and this he will call self-realization.
1In order to become a mental self man must learn to control his emotionality; and in order to become a causal self, to control his mentality, and so progressively in order to become ever higher selves. In this it should be noted that you cannot cultivate a higher kind of consciousness by neglecting a lower kind. It is through the energies of the lower you reach the higher.
2Nobody can become a causal self who does not serve mankind, evolution, and unity.
3Before the individual can become a causal self, he must have reached the insight that everything makes up a unity, everything is “divine”, however immense the distances between the different kinds of atomic consciousness; he must have developed that “sense of proportion” which is a prerequisite of this. He must have seen the “abysmal depths of evil”, which equals ignorance of life, everything that counteracts evolution and unity, everything that wars against the laws of life; the satanic in everything that is not divine. Theoretical knowledge is not sufficient but insight requires the experience of consciousness. In order to stand that experience you must be certain of the godhood of life. Mankind has a long way yet to go to reach that insight despite all its horrific experiences in historical times. (How about researching that aspect historically? It would certainly be another kind of history than the falsification now offered people, that “temple of glory”.)
4Nobody can become a causal self who has not acquired common sense to the highest degree, a critical reason that accepts only what he has found to be rational in all connections.
5For anyone who is seeking after a firm basis for world view and life view it is a good rule to keep to the basic facts of publicized esoterics (the meaning and goal of life, higher worlds with their higher kinds of consciousness, consciousness development, the laws of life) and disregard the rest. So doing you train your logical faculty to tell main issues from side issues, essentials from non-essentials. That promotes the acquisition of perspective consciousness. Whatever is not important to the “cosmic vision” (the synthetic conception of the system) is of secondary importance. It is the purpose of the mental system to provide such a vision without encumbrance with details unnecessary to the vision or system. Such details you can ascertain later as a causal self. You do not need the details in order to become causal self, and man should seek to become one.
6Those who think they are able to explore reality on their own bear witness to their own ignorance and lack of judgement. With their teachings they counteract evolution and unity.
7Nobody can become a causal self except as a disciple of the planetary hierarchy. After the year 1925 nobody has been accepted as a disciple who has not acquired the highest kind of mental consciousness (47:4) and the possibility of subjective emotional (48:2) consciousness contact with the essential world via the unity centre of the causal envelope. The tendency to self-deception has proved to be so great that the prerequisites cannot be too energetically pointed out.
8There is much which the disciple of the planetary hierarchy must learn before he can become a causal self. He must be able to distinguish between the different kinds of consciousness and energies that pour through his envelopes, to which centres in his envelopes they belong, be able to guide them to their right centres and rightly use them. He must be in telepathic contact with all members of his esoteric group and be able to recognize the vibrations of those of the planetary hierarchy. He must be able to determine what departments his own envelopes are and what are the percentages of the various molecular kinds of his envelopes.
9On the other hand, he need not yet know anything about his previous incarnations. He will ascertain them himself as a causal self.
10Three stages in the acquisition of causal consciousness can be distinguished: the self reaches contact with the “soul”, identifies with the soul, and finally becomes the soul. The process of identification expresses in the fact that the self imagines to be the soul, thinks and lives “as if” it were the soul until one day it senses that it is the soul. The disciple receives personal instructions how this is to be done. It is connected with the method of vitalizing some certain centre. This method is individual depending on the departments of the envelopes.
11The bridge between the mental molecule (47:4) and the mental atom (47:1), the so-called antahkarana, is built through acquisition of consciousness in the three centres of the causal envelope. For the self this implies the highest possible intensity in mental analysis, striving to unity, and will to self-realization; three faculties that will eventually be developed through the incarnations and through discipleship under the planetary hierarchy.
12Before the individual becomes a causal self, he has been a conscious disciple during three incarnations. The first time he becomes a conscious disciple is when he decides to always serve mankind, evolution, and unity. The second time is in connection with his incarnation as an emotional saint. The third time is as a mental self in connection with the acquisition of causal consciousness to become a causal self. How many incarnations without awareness of his discipleship the individual will use between these three conscious ones depends on himself.
13Between these three incarnations there are on the average seven incarnations during which he unconsciously (instinctively affected by his subconscious triad consciousness and by Augoeides through his superconsciousness) strives to acquire the requisite qualities and abilities.
14When mankind has reached so far in its consciousness development that esoterics has been generally accepted as a working hypothesis, then the individual will receive this knowledge of reality and life from childhood and need not use a large part of his life to free himself from all the false idiologies. So doing he has a prospect of becoming a causal self in just a few incarnations.
15Even for the aspirants to discipleship it is an almost superhuman feat to become a causal self, not least on account of mankind’s total ignorance of reality, life, and the laws of life. For the aspirant it will be a life-long struggle against all degrading forces in his subconscious, strengthened by all the misleading opinions in the intelligentsia, regrettably also in the occultists.
1It is important to differentiate between the causal envelope as a mainly involutionary envelope (the causal being) and as an evolutionary envelope. As an involutionary envelope it is only a transfer envelope for the vital energies from higher worlds. As an evolutionary envelope, when the monad has become a causal self, its matter is activated by its three vitalizing and active causal centres.
2Through the activation of the lowest causal matter (47:3) in the triad envelope, the knowledge centre of the causal envelope becomes activated and the possibility to apprehend the pertaining kind of causal consciousness arises. The corresponding is true of the second and third kind of causal matter. The second kind activates the unity centre, in which process essential (46) ideas and essential matter can be assimilated by the monad. The third kind activates the will centre so that superessential will energy pours in.
3One of the reasons why the greater and the lesser causal envelope (the large collector envelope and the incarnating triad envelope) are differentiated is that these two generally are of different departments. Another reason is the fact that the causal envelope (with Augoeides) and the triad envelope (with the monad in the triad) often are in mutual opposition, until the human monad has acquired a knowledge of reality and of the laws of life. Even later there is the opposition that results from the fact that Augoeides is “omniscient” and man, despite his esoteric knowledge, remains life-ignorant until he has become a causal self.
4In order to become a causal self, those whose causal envelopes are filled with matter of departments 4, 5, 6, or 7 must supply the envelope with matter from departments 1, 2, or 3, so that those matters predominate in the envelope. Most simply and most efficiently this is done by working to acquire will to unity (aspiration to unity, loving understanding of everybody). Thereby essential energies are supplied to the emotional envelope and the unity centre of the causal envelope is vitalized.
1All reality ideas are causal ideas, originally come from the causal world and are found there. Whatever is not found in the world of ideas is without reality content. The causal ideas are the only ideas that agree with reality.
2The knowledge of reality and life, so far as it can be rendered with causal ideas, is found in the ideas of the causal world, which are made up of what causal selves have thought ever since the causal world was formed.
3Only in the causal world there is knowledge in permanent causal forms, independent of individuals. The causal consciousness is our one and only source of knowledge and the condition of true reason. This is the explanation of mankind’s general lack of reason through the ages.
4Tenable mental ideas, which time and again men rediscover and think are new, are down-scalings of causal ideas. Whatever true reason we possess are such down-scalings of causal ideas.
5They are rare, however, scarcely one idea out of a thousand of those ideas which men have constructed and accepted.
6The causal ideas lose the essential of their reality content by being scaled down to mentality, and lose it completely in emotional consciousness, where they easily give rise to all manner of idiocies.
7The reality ideas cannot be obtained through analysis but only through intuition. That is a truth which exoterists have not yet been able to grasp, since they know nothing of the causal world or the causal ideas.
8Those who have guided mankind forward, the great geniuses, have all been receivers of ideas from the causal world. This is the explanation of genius.
9The corresponding is true of the consciousness and energies of higher worlds. Whatever understanding of true love we have is a down-scaling of the energy of the essential world, and whatever understanding of the will aspect we have is a down-scaling of the energy of world 45. The lower is down-scaling of the higher. How would it be possible for psychologists to understand these realities without esoterics?
10Material energies, and along with them everything in lower worlds, come from higher kingdoms. How could men know anything about that? They do not even care to examine the reality content of esoterics.
11The facts and ideas of esoterics belong to the causal world. The esoteric mental system can be regarded as a down-scaling of causal ideas. By esoteric study we contact causal ideas and eventually we acquire the possibility of subjective causal consciousness, at any event understanding of the pertaining realities, if we eliminate everything unessential, unnecessary, unfit for life and personal, which regrettably too often is given space in occult literature.
12It should be clear from what has been said how little they have understood what Platon meant by the world of ideas, how little they have been able to grasp the meaning intended.
13Those who know nothing about the world of ideas (the causal world) remain victims of the fictions of mental consciousness; then they may be however well-oriented in the physical world. And this is true of theologians, philosophers, scientists, or yogis.
14When men have seen their immense ignorance of existence and seen that the explanations they have made out of their ignorance are fictions, they have learnt one of the most dearly-bought lessons of life. Then they will stop speculating, stop believing their brainwaves are true, stop listening to the prophets of the day who proclaim the latest truth.
1They have wondered much what is meant by the twelve essential qualities, which the causal self must acquire to become an essential self. Apparently, they have difficulty in grasping that there may exist qualities which mankind cannot understand, qualities belonging to the aspects and dimensions of higher worlds and kingdoms. If mankind possessed knowledge of astrology, or, more correctly, possessed the prerequisites of understanding it, the prospects of having the experiences required to comprehending it, then mankind would also find the right definitions of these qualities.
2The twelve zodiacal constellations around our solar system supply us with energies of twelve different kinds. Those energies do not arise within our solar system of the second degree, but in the course of 30 000 years they assert themselves in turn within all the worlds of our solar system.
3The heart centre has twelve spokes in its wheel. They have their cosmic counterparts in the energies of the twelve zodiacal constellations and enable the acquisition of the twelve essential qualities. Those qualities are described in the esoteric account of the “twelve labours of Herakles” and correspond to the full capacity of the causal self. They include all the good qualities a man can acquire. The more of them he possesses, the greater percentage of energies he knows how to use rightly.
4The twelve zodiacal energies cannot be rightly apprehended or assimilated by selves lower than causal selves. When the causal self is able to do this, he has achieved what legend symbolized by the “twelve labours of Herakles”, acquired the twelve essential qualities.
5If this sounds mystical like so many things esoteric, this shows that you are not ripe for that knowledge, which probably is the case with all who are not former initiates. Esoteric knowledge is only for those who sense the need and have the prerequisites of understanding it. To others it is a folly. This, too, is to be taken by the esoterician as a trial, an exercise of endless patience, a good thing.
6The causal self acquires the twelve essential qualities by assimilating the energies from the twelve zodiacal constellations during his twelve last incarnations. Anyone who has earlier assimilated those qualities unconsciously reaches the essential stage more rapidly. There are so many exceptions from every rule that the knowledge of all normal processes actually has only a theoretical interest. That is why any dogmatizing disorients.
7The zodiacal energies do not disappear as the vernal equinox passes through the zodiacal constellations in succession. They remain stored in gigantic accumulators supervised by specialists who belong to the deva evolution and are called nirmanakayas in Sanskrit. Energies are always at hand for those who need to use them for a particular purpose. Thus the causal self does not have to wait 30 000 years to acquire all the qualities.
8Of course also energies from other solar systems than the ones mentioned are stored, energies for purposes of countless kinds. The material energies used are particularly expedient for their particular functions, also of countless kinds, to meet the different needs of individuals and collectives. The various solar systems of higher degrees, which have dismantled their planetary systems for the evolution of the four lower natural kingdoms, serve as experimental fields for all the 42 series of ever higher cosmic selves. Such a system is Sirius, and such systems also exist in the Great Bear and the Pleiades, constellations with which our solar system has special relations. The Pleiades make up a centre around which our solar system revolves in the course of about 250 000 years.
9Our astronomers have no ideas of these matters. Their speculations about the cosmos are sheer imaginative constructions, which have significance only as mental training and preparation for special tasks in the future, as is the case with all other science. Abilities are built on the basis of all experiences had even in the four lower natural kingdoms. Everything has a purpose. We learn from everything. Regrettably, ignorance is still too great for us to see the limitation of man’s possibilities. Esoterics liberates us at least from the usual megalomania and teaches us scientific humility.
10Astrologers have heard about esoteric astrology. And they at once believe they know what is meant by it, imagine, speculate, and proclaim, not suspecting that only the astrologers of the planetary hierarchy (who are at least causal selves) are able to understand but cannot explain the matter, since the pertaining studies are done in the world of ideas (the causal world). Hylozoics is a mental system for mental selves and thus first selves. It renders reality as exactly as a first self is able to grasp and understand at the present stage of mankind’s development. However, mastering hylozoics does not equal being a causal self and does not enable you to solve problems of the causal self.
1Causal consciousness (vaguely called causal intuition) is an objective vision of material reality with its molecular compositions in the three lowest atomic worlds within the planet, independent of space and time.
2Causal objective consciousness, which can explore the matter aspect in the worlds of man, is a faculty of the second triad mental atom. The faculty of the essential atom concerns the consciousness aspect. Of course, the essential self also has the qualities and abilities of the causal self, since the higher includes the lower. Then it is another matter which department he belongs to, the particular interests of his individual character, specialization, and the extra faculties he has acquired.
3There are five kinds of objective consciousness, the ability to objectively observe material forms in the “visible” (49:5-7), in the physical etheric (49:2-4), emotional (48:2-7), mental (47:4-7), and causal (47:1-3) worlds. Physical etheric vision has been improperly called “clairvoyance”, improperly because it is by the eye of the organism (etheric molecules of the eye) that you see. Emotional objective vision is clairvoyance proper. You see material objects in the emotional world, and your instrument of vision for this is the solar plexus centre, or navel centre, of the emotional envelope. Mental and causal objective vision is not called clairvoyance. The instrument of vision has in both cases its lowest anchorage in the eyebrow centre of the etheric envelope.
4Causal consciousness has an intermediate position between the matter aspect and consciousness aspect. Being the consciousness of the second triad mental atom it belongs to the second self. Being objective consciousness it affords the monad the only possible exact apprehension of the material composition and material forms of the three lowest atomic worlds. It is the consciousness of the second triad essential atom that makes it possible to study the consciousness aspect in the three lowest worlds.
5Causal intuition is of three kinds: the three expressions of the consciousness aspect that exist in the three causal matters (47:1-3) and which first and foremost concern the three aspects of reality. The word “intuition” thus is a common name for all higher kinds of consciousness beyond the highest mental (47:4). Since all those kinds are beyond the range of the normal individual, there has been no reason to give them individual terms. The esoterician is content to use the mathematical ones, which also are the most expedient for international use and moreover the most exact possible. The terms already extant have proved to be highly unsuitable. New terms will appear quite automatically, when mankind has once acquired those higher consciousnesses and is able to use them in the domains of everyday experience. It is of the utmost importance that terms are expedient and not vague, meaningless, or misleading.
6The above can perhaps be best clarified by pointing out that of the present esoteric terms, only those referring to the three lowest physical molecular kinds (solid, liquid, gaseous) correspond to the generally valid view, since they are objectively ascertainable and have been given their final definition.
7Long before the individual has become a causal self he can be subjectively conscious in the two lowest consciousness centres of his causal envelope. This requires, however, that he be a disciple of the planetary hierarchy.
8Objective consciousness in the intelligence centre (47:3) provides objective consciousness in all lower worlds (47–49) and thus has reference to the matter aspect.
9The unity centre (47:2) provides the causal ideas and refers to the consciousness aspect.
10The will centre (47:1) provides the highest energy possible and can be said to represent the motion aspect. This aspect also is a synthesis of all three aspects.
11The unity centre enables the mystics to contact the lowest layer of the essential world, which affords a sense of ineffable bliss. This does not imply intuition, however, nor does it afford a knowledge of higher worlds. However, this centre is the only possibility for those at the stages of humanity and ideality to contact and activate essential consciousness. Therefore, it is a great mistake to believe that the humanist can neglect to revive his ability of emotional attraction. Regrettably, this is very common and easily understandable, since the humanist has acquired the ability to mentally control emotionality and also since his entire attention is directed to the acquisition of mental qualities and abilities.
12Causal selves do not need mental systems to understand reality. But as teachers of mental selves they have great use of such a system, if it is sufficiently orienting. It makes it easier for them to present things more comprehensibly. If Blavatsky had had a mental system at her disposal, then theosophy would have had a firm basis to build on from the beginning and the entire movement would have been given a unitary direction. But she was unable to work at and even uninterested in mental systematics.
13Causal idea knowledge refers to “knowable things”, which largely means the correct perception of reality in the physical world. The knowledge causal selves possess beyond that they have received from their teachers in higher kingdoms. If they speculate on their own, which, strangely, both Besant and Leadbeater did, the result will not be exact. As the public esoteric knowledge increases, it will appear that those two must not be regarded as authorities without condition. An esoterician does not speculate. If he nevertheless does so, he knows that it is probably wrong and, at best, a working hypothesis, for himself only. He never publicizes such things, for all hypotheses lead the ignorant astray. Disciples never claim they are infallible. One reason for this is that they scale the knowledge down to their levels. Another is that they may have misunderstood their teachers. Before men will be able to directly contact the planetary hierarchy, authorities of any kind will be permanent sources of erroneous notions.
14All events are effects of past and present causes, a basic insight which has not yet become axiomatic. When you have started asking about the meaning of everything, only then will you have taken the first step towards understanding causes. And when you are able to ascertain causes, only then will you have a right to call it knowledge. Knowledge is the insight of the relation between cause and effect, causal knowledge, a knowledge still reserved for causal selves who are able to objectively view the relations of the causal world, the world of the causation of events.
1Consciousness development displays different levels which depend on the automatic activity in the consciousness centres of the etheric, emotional, and mental envelopes. Activity in the centres below the diaphragm expresses largely as instinct; activity in the higher centres, those above the diaphragm, as intellect and intuition: intellect in the throat and eyebrow centres of the integrated envelopes; intuition, in the eyebrow centre of the causal self, and in the crown centre of the essential self.
2 For want of a better terminology three kinds of intuition can be enumerated: causal intuition concerning the matter aspect in space and time; essential intuition concerning the consciousness aspect; superessential intuition as for the energy aspect, will aspect, simultaneously a synthesis of all three aspects. Intuition thus is a faculty of individuals of the fifth natural kingdom.
3Usually, however, “intuition” has been used to term causal and essential consciousness.
4Causal intuition implies the ability to study past events in the worlds of man; and essential intuition, the ability to experience the consciousness of other beings as your own, and not merely individual but also collective consciousness.
5Causal consciousness is limited to the past and the present. It has prevision only in so far as it sees which causes must in some way make themselves felt in the future. Only essential consciousness can foresee the future, can see how the causes of the past work in future events, in so far as these already lie prepared.
6Causal intuition refers to the matter aspect, not the consciousness aspect; refers to objective events in the worlds of man. It ascertains causes and effects of material realities.
7From the material point of view, intuitions are causal molecules with penetrating power, form and colour phenomena that dissolve in seconds.
8In contrast, mental ideas are permanent material forms, at the best event (in 47:4) concretizations of causal ideas. The two lowest kinds (47:6,7) agree with reality approximately one per cent.
9Causal intuition is the ability to attract mental forms (ideas) in the world of ideas. When this has succeeded, the idea hits like a lightning in subjective reason as well as in objective sense. Therefore, the causal idea appears as a “flash of thought”, a system of thought, apprehended with lightning rapidity, or a chain of causes and effects in the “past”.
10The observer sees and knows.
11“The causal ideas are channels of hierarchic (“divine”) energies.” (D.K.)
12Intuitions always agree with reality, since according to the law of harmony ruling they could never arise otherwise. “Platonic ideas” are simultaneously true, beautiful, good, and harmonious. The law of harmony is a law which mankind as yet scarcely can conceive as universal, a basic law of existence. Everything in the causal world and higher worlds is in agreement with “harmony eternal”. The fact that some people find harmony intolerable is evidence of their stage of development (with bad reaping; a consequence of mistakes as to the law of harmony).
1Common sense is the demand that thought should agree with reality in historic, economic, social, political respect, the reality we all live in. Common sense thus is a norm for reason, a deduction from the law of identity.
2Common sense is part of reason and is insofar subjective, the individual’s own, self-acquired conception. It is moreover a logical principle without which communal life would be impossible, a condition of understanding between people, an honest striving to judge things objectively and impersonally. Its opposites are unreasonableness, blind belief, arbitrary assumption, dogmaticism, skepticism and criticism carried too far.
3We must be well aware that the acquisition of common sense and freedom of fanaticism are the first basic prerequisites of discipleship, prerequisites of learning, grasping the fact that the laws of life are necessary, unchanging and inescapable.
4It is probably inevitable that everybody thinks he is possessed of common sense when judging from what he believes (according to the motto, “everyone is the master of his own wisdom”). The term “common sense” is abused as often at it is used. The beginning of wisdom is the insight that “you know nothing and understand nothing” about anything essential.
5If the term “common sense” is to have any meaning, we must perhaps, if the abuse goes on, replace it with “the individual’s supreme reason”. Consequently, what men mean by “common sense” presents a gamut graded according to the 777 levels of development.
6At the present stage of mankind’s development, you must either be a causal self or be approaching that stage to possess common sense in the proper sense. True common sense is possessed only by the causal self who is able to objectively study the past and utilize the experiences of his subconscious, being free from the personal subjectivity of the first self.
7As long as there are different conceptions of reality, knowledge of it is lacking. True, the conception of reality is totally different in the different worlds, but in each world there is only one that is correct, and that can be ascertained only by causal and higher selves. Nobody can become a causal self who has not acquired the true conception of reality in the physical, emotional, and mental worlds, the conception that is common to all causal selves.
8It is only when the monad has centred itself in the second triad mental atom that the self can have a conception that accords with reality, can by itself explore the matter aspect of the worlds of man, has a total physical, emotional, and mental objective consciousness. Therefore, the causal self represents common sense. He can no more be misled by illusions and fictions. The causal self is true man. He may still make mistakes, if he is not always aware of his limitation. But he does not need to make mistakes, if he submits his “opinion” to the judgements of higher selves.
9Not until he has become a causal self is the individual fully oriented in reality, for this requires his own experience. Before this is the case, he always runs the risk of being misled. This cannot be too strongly emphasized. The Pythagorean teaching certainly affords us a knowledge of reality. Taken only as a theory, however, it will so remain until it is realized. The theory leads the way but is worthless without self-realization.
10We owe to higher kingdoms the fact that we are able to think at all. To the esoterician, people’s wiseacre reflections on everything of which they can know nothing appear childish to say the least. Besides, this is true of most that is said. Mankind still is far off the Sokratean wisdom. The esoterician’s request to Augoeides before rebirth is not to be forced to be idiotized anew by life-ignorant educators. Regrettably, still too few people possess a knowledge of reality. Almost always they have got stuck in some one of the thousands of idiologies that have led mankind astray.
1A pioneer in psychology who must be admired for her courage was Geraldine Coster, author of the book Yoga and Western Psychology. In the chapter on “the gradual development of consciousness”, she addresses the problem of man as a five-fold being.
2“At his present stage of development (note this! – H.T.L.) man moves on three such planes of consciousness with relative ease, the physical, the emotional, and the lower mental, and with some exercise he can also learn to touch on the higher mental now and then.” So far Coster could follow. As she then proceeds, she goes astray. The higher mental (= the causal) she defines as the “domain of creative thought”. Causal consciousness, however, is the domain of objective vision. All human (first self) creativity belongs to the higher emotionality under the influence of higher energies. And totally erroneous is Coster’s definition of man’s “fifth kind” of consciousness, which she calls “cosmic consciousness”. Cosmic consciousness begins by world 42, beyond the highest solar systemic consciousness (43). In any case, this is a remarkable achievement by a scientific psychologist, a category from which the esoterician expects nothing for a long time yet.
3Laurency’s critique of Western research must not be taken as contempt for it. On the contrary, he admires its results, fully understanding the enormous difficulty it is faced with when trying to explore so-called superphysical reality without higher objective consciousness. It is against the dogmatic attitude and self-sufficiency that Laurency directs his critique. What is still lacking is the Sokratean humility, the instinctive understanding of the existence of an infinite field of research.
1What has always occasioned doubts and disputes among those unfamiliar with esoterics is the conception of causal selves. In order to have a tolerably correct idea of what a causal self is, you must be clear about the fact that an individual may be a causal self and yet be unaware of it in his brain. With his objective causal consciousness, the causal self certainly is a “master” in the worlds of man and has acquired continuity of consciousness and self-identity between his incarnations, but need not therefore (in a new incarnation) know about his true status, know that he is a causal self and what this means in relation to the whole. There are causal selves who only in their forties become aware of their true status and contact causal consciousness in their brain. Only their contact with either the esoteric knowledge or with higher selves awakens them to remember who they are, to restore their continuity of consciousness, and renew their knowledge of their status as causal selves. Only the essential self, who has entered forever into the common consciousness with other essential selves, is immediately aware of his identity also in a new incarnation.
2Even the causal self may make astonishing mistakes, because he still lives isolated in his causal envelope and may by no means claim to ask the often necessary advice of those in the fifth natural kingdom. Even the causal self must learn by his own experience. It is only when he consciously shares in the essential common consciousness that he has access to the infallible wisdom.
3Before he is finally clear about his status, he may have made so many mistakes that those around him have looked upon him as an injudicious, ignorant, and unremediable eccentric. Before esoterics has been accepted as a working hypothesis, people’s judgements of each other will be largely totally erroneous. Only an essential self would be able to write a true biography of a man even at one of the lower stages.
4Now we must hope that fantasts will not imagine they are unappreciated causal selves! Because the risk involved in giving out esoteric facts is that human imagination at once takes care of them. That is why there is much that cannot be said. Fantasts evidence their capacity for such things, and general gullibility has no bounds. In people of critical inclination, the reaction leads to a general skepticism and refusal to take notice of such nonsense.
5The mistakes made by the causal self can have the result that the possibility of becoming conscious in the brain of his new incarnation is cut off for a longer time than would otherwise be necessary or for a whole incarnation. The mistakes committed by Cagliostro entailed a situation where Blavatsky could never have become aware of her true status unless this proved necessary to the fulfilment of her mission.
6In this connection it may be pointed out that initiates never bear witness or give information as to their own personalities or those of other initiates. Those are things which are of absolutely no concern to slanderous and gossipy mankind. It is no use asking them what kind of beings they are and how they can know what they are speaking about. Everybody must himself decide whether they tell the truth. They claim no “authority”. It was very deplorable and in some respects even disastrous for both Besant and Leadbeater that they made mistakes in those matters. Provisions have been made for such things never more to occur. Those who bear witness of themselves are no initiates or are automatically disconnected from what they otherwise would be able to know.
1The individual’s memories, the monad’s possibility to remember in lower envelopes what it has experienced in higher ones, are due to the acquisition of continuity of consciousness between the envelopes and between the triads, between the triads and the collective memories of the envelopes, and finally, due to contact with the causal planetary memory.
2Continuity of consciousness between the first triad and the memory of the causal envelope enables remembrance of past incarnations. The causal self has access to the memory of his own causal envelope as well as the memory of the causal world.
3So-called subconsciousness consists of envelope memories and the triad memory.
4The self’s objective causal consciousness in the causal envelope entails uninterrupted continuity of consciousness through all incarnations, so that the individual need not experience new incarnations as “another man” but knows that he is the same individual. Before then, man has no guarantee of immortality either. Continued existence in the emotional world after physical life is no guarantee, since also the emotional envelope dissolves.
5Then it of course depends on how far you will extend the concept of “eternity”, and this in its turn on how long the different atomic worlds exist. In the great cosmic process of evolvation, in which the atomic worlds from world 49 to world 1 gradually dissolve, the individual must have acquired objective consciousness in ever higher atomic kinds in order not to fall a victim to “annihilation”. Even annihilation is relative, however, because monads who have not managed to conclude their consciousness development in their own cosmos are transferred to a new cosmos where they have the opportunity to continue their development from the point where it was interrupted. Eternal life is guaranteed by the fact that the monad has been introduced to the cosmos. Thereby the monad is guaranteed the right to attain cosmic omniscience and omnipotence in the highest cosmic world some time, however long it will take. Vainly the individual will believe himself able to attain final annihilation before then.
6Where the concept of time is concerned, it should be evident that time (gauge of processes) is determined by the material processes and the existence of the material worlds.
1Emotional clairvoyants believe they are able to explore their own and other people’s past incarnations. But what they see are phenomena which they have themselves created in this incarnation and the self-delusion of their previous ones. At the best event, they are able to see only fragments of, though not the entire, process of incarnation. It is necessary to see the entire process in order to ascertain individual identity. You must be able to see how the monad in the triad in the causal envelope separates a portion of that envelope which incarnates with the triad. Subsequently, the triad mental molecule begins to produce a mental envelope. Then the triad emotional atom with recently awakened vibrations shapes an emotional envelope, and finally the triad physical atom shapes an etheric envelope (the “reaping envelope” proper), which at the moment of birth is attached to the etheric heart centre of the foetus (whose formation is a separate process), and the individual awakens to a new life in the physical world. Anyone who cannot follow this process when studying past incarnations cannot ascertain the self’s identity. Clairvoyants know nothing of the existence of the causal envelope, the envelope that incarnates and is the true man.
2You cannot rightly study your previous incarnations (you have a distorted picture of them in the higher regions of the emotional world), until you are able to follow the journey of the monad all the way from the mineral kingdom.
3Right observation is obtained through causal objective consciousness and emotional atomic consciousness (as in essential selves). Thus it is only as a causal self that man can study his own previous incarnations. The causal self experiences himself as the one who has lived those lives. Moreover, the causal self can ascertain in the planetary memory that it is the same causal envelope and follow the entire process of repeated incarnations ever since the formation of the causal envelope at the transition from the animal kingdom. This is connected with the fact that the causal self when incarnating need not any more lose his continuity of consciousness, his self-identity.
4The planetary causal memory (the always actual, present consciousness of the past) can be studied by causal selves; the three planetary atomic memories (47–49), by essential selves. The causal memory mainly bears on the matter aspect; the essential memory, particularly the content of consciousness; the superessential memory, the energy and will aspect.
5When the individual has become a causal self, he goes over his past incarnations in order to study his path of development, to learn from the mistakes he has made, to see what sufferings he has directly or indirectly caused his fellow wanderers (also monads in the animal kingdom); in order to make good everything and blot out all his mistakes from the planetary memory. In contrast, he takes not the least interest in the physical circumstances of those incarnations. They are part of the unessential. They offer no gratifying sights, and interest in them is proof of meaningless curiosity. The esoterician is enjoined “not to look back”. In any case we are unable to rightly judge the past. Therefore, the causal self is not interested in past incarnations.
6Only causal selves are able to infallibly ascertain other people’s past incarnations. However, causal selves do not examine the previous incarnations of other people for any other reason than to help them; no more than he takes any interest in “other people’s business”. Violations of the laws of freedom and unity entail serious consequences for higher selves. Moreover, the causal self must obtain the permission of the planetary hierarchy to make the examination. Permission is granted only if the individual intended permits the examination and it can benefit him. The experiments made hitherto have proved to fall short of the expectations, so in the future such permissions will probably be given only in exceptional cases.
7Very few of those who causalized 20 million years ago have attained the stage of culture (the higher emotional stage). This esoteric fact perhaps clarifies that consciousness development is a slow process. The studies of general reincarnation made by causal selves show that usually no discernible advances can be demonstrated even after some hundred incarnations. No general statistics have yet been presented. The planetary hierarchy has more important business at hand. Only when the individual is ripe for discipleship will his path of development through his incarnations be studied. The number of requisite incarnations is individually different, some individuals use thousands of incarnations more than others. There are record-holders as to both the maximal and minimal numbers.
1Only as a causal self and disciple of the planetary hierarchy is the individual able to independently explore the worlds of man (the physical, emotional, and mental worlds).
2The causal self is objectively conscious in the worlds of man and their past, is unaffected by consciousness in the worlds of man, has a prospect of studying the knowledge of reality possessed by the fifth natural kingdom.
3Using causal objective consciousness you can study the matter aspect in the worlds of man, the composition of matter and its modes of expression; the forms assumed by consciousness expressions in the emotional and mental worlds. In the mental world, geometrical figures of the most variegated quality (outlines, colours, energy charges) are shaped. If thought is affected by emotion, the “thought form” is dragged down into the emotional world and is reshaped (also there of similar quality and material composition).
4The causal self can work with full understanding in the “fourth dimension” and the essential self, in the fifth. Before those stages, mere “illusionism” is obtained at such attempts.
5The causal self can study all past events in the matter aspect of the planet ever since the planet was born.
6Memory, in the function of consciousness divided into present and past, is a thing that is part of the first self’s kinds of consciousness.
7Karma in the animal kingdom is produced by the suffering which animals cause each other. The amount of suffering the individual has originated becomes, according to the law of reaping, bad sowing which must be reaped unto the last grain before the animal is able to causalize. Absolute justice rules in all kingdoms. The justice of lower natural kingdoms can be read in the planetary memory. There essential selves can study sowing and reaping in the consciousness aspect; causal selves, in the matter aspect.
8Causal selves, who are able to study the planetary memory, are agreed that the “goddess of history”, Clio (Latin) or Kleio (Greek), one of the nine Muses, is a story-teller and no stickler for the truth. That is their assessment of the truth value of exoteric history. Small wonder, then, that historians declare esoterics to be nothing but humbug.
9Those ignorant in esoterics cannot possibly understand how Blavatsky was able to draw quotations from any books or manuscripts whatever, not even knowing that those works existed. Isis Unveiled is studded with such quotations. When causal consciousness is directed to a certain problem and desires to know what has been previously said in the matter, everything that has been written about it presents itself automatically, thanks to the magnetic power of attraction that ideas exercise on each other in a common centre of ideas, in a series of pictures of pages from all the books treating of the subject-matter, so that the observer can freely chose from them. All of this is preserved in the causal planetary memory and accessible to causal researchers who are able to scale their vision down to emotional levels, if this facilitates their work. The gnostic saying, “there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed” refers to this possibility among so much else. Nothing can be annihilated which has once been reality in the three aspects of someone of the various worlds, as long as those worlds subsist. And, finally, in the highest cosmic world there is the memory of everything in the cosmos from its genesis. That is one of the grounds why injustice in any respect whatsoever is impossible.
1There are seven main kinds of physical consciousness, the seven main centres of the etheric envelope, there are seven main kinds of emotional consciousness, and four of mental consciousness. It will be the task of the esoteric psychology of the future to survey the pertaining kinds of vibrations and the functions of the different envelope centres. Of course, this requires the cooperation of causal and essential selves. Such ones will reincarnate increasingly as scientists will be able to grasp these realities. The scientific dogmas still hinder them from comprehending and understanding. Their fictions blind them to existing possibilities. Hammer-blows are needed to drive the nails of new knowledge into the blockheads. And such blows will come in the shape of revolutionary discoveries. They will be able to photograph physical-etheric (49:3,4) and emotional (48:4-7) material forms. This is necessary to break the stubborn resistance to the esoteric knowledge. Characteristically, among scientists medical men are the most dogmatic towards the esoteric world view just as theologians to the esoteric life view. Regrettably, also occultists evince dogmatic tendencies. The specific occult character is a mixture of credulity, speculative fantastry, and dogmatism. Mankind will not have common sense until psychology has elucidated the prerequisites of understanding and until the lessons to be drawn from it have been drawn. And that will not be possible until psychology has been substantiated with esoteric psychology. If psychologists would condescend to master esoterics theoretically, if only as a hypothesis, and then start from it in their experiments, they would experience stupendous insights. But the fear of being stamped as fantasts has the effect that they do not even dare to examine it. It is high time we got special esoteric high schools and universities.
1Causal selves never tally with the notions of them held by occultists, quite apart from the fact that they all have a distinct individual character. Therefore, they cause a general disappointment. And that is excellent, so they are spared the fate of being the object of admiration and reverence, a very trying experience (which they will take as a test).
2Occultists more than others try the patience of esotericians, since they believe they comprehend, understand, and are able to judge. They cannot grasp that it requires a causal self to understand a causal self. Occultists make the same impression on esotericians as so-called semi-educated on cultured people.
3When, some time in the future, an esoterician will depict how the “initiates” were regarded and treated by their contemporaries and also by their posterity, Paracelsus, Francis Bacon, Saint Germain, Cagliostro, Blavatsky, Leadbeater will appear in another light. But from this you should cherish no illusions that the esoteric pioneers of the future will be judged more justly. The mankind of our planet has in all times proved to be incorrigible.
4To the causal self, all life is unceasing service. Also the esoterician sees that service is the only bearable way of life, and a rich and happy life. This service of course implies everything you need to be a competent server and fulfil the post that suits you best in the service of mankind, evolution, and unity, service in loving understanding.
5Young people are idealists as long as they believe that life can be reformed according to their primitive, theoretical conception of reality. The same is true of all utopists who thereby evidence their life ignorance. The only true idealists are those who have attained or are approaching the causal stage. They also know the stage of development mankind is at and how impossible it is to have that ideal realized before mankind has attained at least the stage of emotional attraction. As long as hatred rules, as it has done for 20 million years, the basic conditions are not there.
1Man finds it infinitely difficult to solve his many problems. It would be a truism to say that this is due to his great life ignorance. There are so many other hindrances: all the illusions and fictions he has acquired, especially emotional thinking, which hinders him from seeing the facts, ascertaining and analysing impersonally. He is afflicted with prejudice of countless kinds: racial, national, class and family prejudice. He is afraid of trouble. He gets into clashes of obligations. You can go on for a long while. And he is never clearly aware of all those hindrances, a few at the most. We know so little of what exists in our subconscious. Countless impressions and experiences we received in childhood and youth may have developed complexes that determine our attitude to the realities of life. Man does not know even one per cent of himself. That is a truth which educators should inculcate on the rising generation. Juvenile idealism is not enough, for it is without judgement. Knowledge and understanding are required as well, and they are acquired only through experience and work on that experience. It appears as though a causal self were required to see through the emotional illusions and mental fictions. Perhaps some time in the future other people than mental selves will profit by the insights of causal selves. At the present stage of mankind’s development, people are unwilling to relearn. It offends their self-glory to see and, above all, to acknowledge their own ignorance and injudiciousness. It is characteristic that old initiates are much less certain in most respects than all the others who have never had a glimpse into the difficulty of the problems of life. Old esotericians admit without reservation that they are “idiots”, when erudition plays the teacher of wisdom. They have at least acquired self-criticism, sometimes to excess, being all too conscious of their life ignorance. There lies much deep symbolism in the Beatitudes of the Gospels, at any event too deep for most laymen and priests. Literalists will always misinterpret everything. The history of the Christian religion is one great example of that.
2We can liberate ourselves from emotional illusions through mental fictions. But we are liberated from fictions only when we have become causal selves, even if we are able to replace fictions of lower kinds with such of higher kinds in the course of development. True, we may achieve liberation also through the causal facts and ideas of the esoteric knowledge, but these belong to the domain of working hypothesis until we can ourselves objectively ascertain their correctness, and until then they will occasion a state of uncertainty.
3In the causal self, the emotional envelope normally is empty, and the causal self is free from dependence on everything emotional. However, when the causal self in his consciousness identifies with individuals at the emotional stage, his own emotional envelope is filled with their content. This is necessary for full understanding until the essential consciousness of unity has been acquired. By experiencing other people’s emotionality, the causal self experiences its limitations and shares voluntarily in existent suffering.
4To the causal self, everything is simple because he has liberated himself from the worlds of appearances (emotional illusions and mental fictions) and entered into the world of facts and axioms.
1Esoterics can be called the causal self’s view of reality and life, scaled down into a mental system.
2Only causal selves can, on the basis of their own observations and ascertainment of facts in the causal world, supply us with the material required for an esoteric world view and life view.
3The knowledge of reality is the knowledge of the nature of reality in the different worlds. There are as many kinds of correct description of reality as there are worlds. Causal selves can describe reality in the physical, emotional, and mental worlds; 45-selves, in addition in worlds 46 and 45; 43-selves, all the worlds of the solar system and the planets.
4The esoteric world view presented in PS corresponds mainly to the causal self’s possibility to perceive reality, approximately what was taught in Pythagoras’ secret knowledge order. In most other orders, emphasis was put more on the consciousness aspect, physical existence and its control through application of the laws of life, and the method of the right use of physical etheric energies. Pythagoras had rightly apprehended the Greek sense of the objective matter aspect and thereby laid the basis of the natural research of the future with scientific concepts in agreement with reality such as it can be conceived by the first self and by the causal self when he ascertains the material reality in the worlds of man. From this it follows, of course, that all causal selves have the same objective perception of the pertaining realities, even though they have different interests and tasks.
5Esoterics invokes no authority. It is up to everyone to judge for himself, accept it or leave it open. The two laws of life, the law of freedom and the law of self-realization, should be sufficiently clarifying in that respect. What would be the sense of the law of self-realization, if we could lean on authorities and by their means have everything arranged for us? No development would be brought about that way. Through the esoteric world view we can receive knowledge of a reality that is as yet inaccessible to us. Through esoteric life view we can receive knowledge of the laws of life we must apply ourselves for our development. But it is up to everyone to apply the laws himself.
6At a primitive stage, where such realities as law, development, etc. are incomprehensible (they still appear to be incomprehensible to our philosophers who wonder whether there are such things as laws and development), men were given directions, preliminary substitutes for the laws of life. As a guidance for relations to other people, prohibitions against murder, theft, deceit, slander were issued. They were necessary to the very existence of society. They were the most elementary application of the law of unity. Then came the positive commandment of “love of one’s fellow man”, the next step to unity. In our time, when esoterics has been released, we have received knowledge of the most elementary laws of life. Children must be given prohibitions that are valid until they understand why such sanctions have come about. Those commandments are not necessary, when the child himself sees that they have been issued so that the child in his ignorance will not harm himself or others.
7At least the intellectual elite should have learnt so much of history, philosophy, anthropology (“psychology”), that they could see that these laws of life are purposeful, expedient, even inevitable, lest mankind annihilate itself and all organic life. If mankind still is too primitive for this knowledge, then the premature scientific discoveries, which have put tools of destruction into the hands of children, will perform that work which otherwise the planetary government would have been forced to perform for the third time: to make mankind start all over again from the stage of barbarism. Clans at that stage have now gained power (democracy) on account of the sentimentality and ideality of a life-ignorant mankind and the abuse of power by higher castes in times past. If the laws of life were to rule, those barbarian individuals would be put in the environment that could help them to acquire the common sense they need not to destroy the culture which they will in due time be given for nothing.
8Mankind has allowed itself to be so idiotized by its idiologies that causal selves are needed to say this, which should be self-evident to the simplest reason.
1As a causal self, before he has become an essential self, the individual is largely thrown back on his own resources. Of course, he is still ignorant in many respects. Even if he always has the possibility of contact with the members of the planetary hierarchy, who know, yet this is an expedient which he has recourse to only in extreme emergency. For one reason he should try to solve the problem on his own if he has the least prospect to do so. For another, he should not unnecessarily trouble those in the planetary hierarchy who are overburdened with work already.
2It takes time before a fresh causal self is a perfected causal self, before he has learnt to rightly use the faculties he has acquired. Nobody is born a master. Even for a 45-self it takes time to be oriented in world 45.
3When the monad has become a perfected causal self, its human evolution is completed and its transition to the fifth natural kingdom is made possible. What remains for this is its acquisition of the twelve essential qualities and, through this, incipient essential consciousness, and moreover its work at forming an essential envelope.
4It is only as a causal self that the individual acquires an essential envelope and essential consciousness.
5When the causal self has acquired the twelve essential qualities, his old causal envelope has reached the limit of its resources and needs to be replaced with a higher envelope, the essential envelope. After the monad has managed to form this envelope by its newly acquired qualities and abilities, it moves from the second triad mental atom to the essential atom with its encompassing essential envelope. At the same time dissolves the old causal envelope, which man received from Augoeides at causalization, whereupon the newly-become essential self forms his own causal envelope by the vibrations of his mental atom.
6If there is any sowing left to reap according to the law of sowing and reaping, this must be done definitively in the causal self’s last incarnation. The essential self is “without debt” and does not need to incarnate any more, although he usually does so when his monad moves from the essential atom to the superessential molecule and acquires a superessential envelope. The necessity of incarnation exists only for the first self and for the causal self up to essentialization. Every incarnation is not just a recapitulation of experiences had in life but also a reassumption of old duties, a reestablishment of old relations, opportunities of making good, fresh possibilities to acquire higher kinds of consciousness (attainment of a higher level of development).
7The number of incarnations the individual goes through as a causal self can depend on several factors. Many find it difficult to sacrifice all the knowledge they have gathered during thousands of incarnations, a knowledge which disappears in that form at the dissolution of the causal envelope, even though the essential of it is found again in essential consciousness. Many causal selves still have to make good various kinds of mistakes made in previous incarnations. Some of them think they are better able to serve their fellow men through the closer contact the causal envelope offers.
8The department of the causal envelope often influences the monad’s further evolution as a second self. Essential consciousness, consciousness of unity, displays two tendencies: wisdom and love. The extravert types usually follow the line of wisdom; the introvert types, the line of love.
9When that hour of great trial is up when man feels “abandoned by both god and men”, he still knows that he always is “a monad (primordial atom) and as such sharing in the cosmic total consciousness, sharing in unlosable godhood”.
1The theosophists in the beginning had an exaggerated notion of the faculties of higher consciousness and they still seem not to have seen the limitations of those faculties. It is typical of the injudiciousness of those theosophists who completely reject Besant and Leadbeater because of their mistakes that they cherish a conceited belief that causal selves cannot make mistakes. The less you know and the less you understand, the more certain you are that you can judge everything – the triumph of democracy. Besides, Besant and Leadbeater got much of their knowledge through studies in the esoteric archive; thus it was not always the result of their own objective observations.
2The enemies of the knowledge are at once ready, with malicious delight, to point out errors made by causal selves. Therefore it should be made clear that nobody is infallible. It is a great mistake to regard causal selves as infallible esoteric authorities. Nor does any causal self claim that he is infallible. Causal selves have made astonishing, incomprehensible mistakes. Mistakes as to the law of freedom should have been avoided. The planetary hierarchy gives no directions, and disciples must not act dictators.
3Mistakes are made by all in all worlds, even in the highest ones, whenever they make attempts at conquering still higher kinds of consciousness. They, too, learn by making mistakes. That is relevant to the matter and is unavoidable, which is no justification of mistakes that could have been avoided. Even Gautama made a kind of “mistake”. That was made quite intentionally, however, and in full understanding of the fact that it was a mistake, and he was willing and also able to “pay the price”. But that is “another story”, a mistake that only a Buddha can make.
1The serious shortcoming of the causal self is his inability of atomic consciousness and of consciousness of unity.
2The causal self is able to explore the matter aspect in the gross physical, physical etheric, emotional, and mental worlds, can rightly conceive the pertaining causal ideas. But whatever in those worlds belongs to the atomic kind remains inaccessible to this self. Only essential selves have access to the atomic consciousness of the first triad, have objective consciousness in 49:1, 48:1, and 47:1, and in those atomic worlds. That is the ground of mistakes causal selves make, almost unavoidable mistakes also as to conditions in lower worlds, since they are reduced to their own judgement and cannot use the atomic memories of the worlds.
3The exploration of the consciousness aspect of those worlds requires the consciousness of unity of the essential world.
4Causal selves of course are able to judge the stage of development though not with full certainty the level of development, cannot judge what is found in the subconscious of the individual. That requires essential selves who are able to fully identify themselves with the consciousness of other beings. The causal self can ascertain what belongs to the matter aspect in the envelopes of other beings, the kinds of molecular matter in their envelopes, what the individual has said and done in his present incarnation and in past ones, etc., and from this he can conclude much about the consciousness aspect. But that is not the same as community of consciousness.
5It is not sufficient to be a causal self in order to be wise. For “wisdom” is part of essentiality, the consciousness of unity, the common consciousness, the collective consciousness, the consciousness aspect. The causal self is still a disciple of the planetary hierarchy. Causal selves regard it their duty to serve mankind so fully with their knowledge and not “trouble” their teachers in the planetary hierarchy by submitting to them the results of their research, and so they make unnecessary mistakes in the matter of wisdom. All of them have done so.
6The ideas and facts of the world of Platonic ideas are in agreement with those of the planetary hierarchy. The fact that causal selves have made mistakes is due to their not being causal selves constantly but being sometimes influenced by the content of their emotional and mental envelopes. Instead, it is their business to be in uninterrupted contact with the essential world. That is not quite easy, however, when living among people. Even causal selves are influenced by their environment. Only essential selves are unaffected by the energies of the worlds of man.
7As to ideas and facts beyond the matter aspect in worlds 47–49, causal selves are reduced to their teachers. Causal selves know nothing about higher worlds which they have not been given to know by still higher selves. Those are the limits to the capacity of causal selves. Whenever they transcend those limits, relying on their own power of judgement, they have fallen victims to their remaining emotionality, the illusoriness of the highest region of the emotional world (48:2), the last and most treacherous illusoriness. As a result, many theosophical “facts” have proved erroneous. It is not as easy to liberate oneself from old, inadequate “faculties” as occultists believe.
8The fact that also causal selves fall victims to the illusoriness of the highest region of the emotional world, if they occupy themselves with the pertaining phenomena, is the best proof of the intensity of that illusoriness. It clarifies how impossible it is for clairvoyants, occultists, and yogis to emancipate themselves from its power.
9There are risks for causal selves to “look back”, to take an interest in their past incarnations in the physical world. They do not observe that this interest makes them live in the past and thereby in the “most dangerous” of all worlds, the emotional world, with its fascinating power. True, causal selves must study the past. But that is done with the motive of studying consciousness development throughout the incarnations, not of dwelling upon unessentials.
10Blavatsky was an old causal self; Besant and Leadbeater, quite fresh ones (only in that most recent incarnation). Blavatsky was strongly conscious of her limitation. Besant and Leadbeater overrated their power of judgement (as do all fresh causal selves), quite natural after such an expansion of consciousness.
11A causal self should never go beyond the physical world in his research, at any event not without submitting his results to his teacher in the planetary hierarchy. If this had always been observed, then we had been spared the consequences of the mistakes causal selves have publicized.
1Both Besant and Leadbeater thought that the disciple could “enter into the essential world”. However, only essential selves are able to do so. The mystic of the highest emotional stage can achieve a contact with the essential world (via the unity centre of his causal envelope) and receive energies from the lowest essential molecular kind (46:7). A mental self can receive energies from the two lowest ones (46:6,7); and a causal self, from the three lowest ones (46:5-7). So doing you have not acquired essential consciousness, however. To that kind of consciousness there is no opposition of subject and object, of me and you. The two are one in a way that you must be an essential self to understand. All kinds of consciousness must be experienced to be grasped. Any attempt at explanation must fail.
2Besant’s and Leadbeater’s misconception of this matter demonstrates what difficulties you are faced with when acquiring higher kinds of consciousness for the first time. It takes time to learn how to use new faculties unfailingly and utilize the capacity they afford. Their misconception had serious consequences, however, demonstrating in their misjudgement of their own disciples.
3In this connection it should be pointed out that even if you are able to use consciousnesses and energies in your own highest world, where you try to orient yourself, you cannot merely because of that rightly utilize and judge them but only those of lower worlds.
4The causal self is certainly able to assimilate causal ideas and to study realities in the causal memory of the planet, but he cannot explore the three aspects of the causal world on his own. In such cases the axiom says that only a higher kind of consciousness can explore the three aspects of the next lower world. Full sovereignty requires an even greater distance.
1All members of higher kingdoms are collaborators in the processes of manifestation, and those people who want to reach higher must also try to fill a post. We reach the higher by serving the lower. We are all links in a chain from the lowest to the highest world. To know one’s post in life and to fill it is our task in life. Our qualities and abilities, our understanding of life, indicate our level. We always have use for them in some way in the relations of life where life has put us. The greatest individuals pass through life unnoticed. It is not the judgements of ignorance we care about. We know that nobody can be overlooked, that no thought, not even the most hidden one (the faintest vibration) can fail to be recorded in the planetary memory. Our desire to be appreciated proves that we have not forgotten ourselves, that we still want to be first selves and not second selves. In order to become causal selves we must first become mental selves seeing everything in perspective, no literalists, pedants, earth-creepers with paper-popes and the usual spiritual short-sightedness. We must learn to tend our cattle (envelopes) well while being their masters. This does not imply that the old things must end up in the slop-pail. That is the view of fanatics. But whatever is useful should be sorted out to different libraries for the needs of the different developmental stages. Literature shows us the way we have gone and may be valuable for incarnating clans on the pertaining levels in future times. Only those on the barbarous levels destroy the results of toil and diligence.
Endnote by the translator into English
10.11 The quotations from Geraldine Coster’s book Yoga and Western Psychology are not exact quotations, but retranslations into English of quotations from the Swedish edition of Coster’s book. Notwithstanding his critique, Laurency admired Geraldine Coster very much, calling her an “educational genius” (in an essay he wrote on her book published in Knowledge of Life Five).
The above text constitutes the essay The Causal Self by Henry T. Laurency. The essay is part of the book The Way of Man by Henry T. Laurency. Copyright © 1999 by the Henry T. Laurency Publishing Foundation.