I STUDIES IN OCCULTISM A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. BLAVATSKY NO. III. PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION BOSTON NEW ENGLAND THEOSOPHICAL CORPORATION 24 Mt. Vernon St. 1895 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. BLAVATSKY No. I. Practical Occultism. Occultism Versus the Occult Arts. The Blessings of Publicity. No. II. Hypnotism. Black Magic in Science. Signs of the Times. No. III. Psychic and Noetic Action. No. IY. Kosmic Mind. Dual Aspect of Wisdom. No. Y. Esoteric Character of the Gospels. No. YI. Astral Bodies. Constitution of the Inner Man. Nos. I, II, III, and IV now ready. Nos. V and VI are in press. Printed on the best of paper, in large type, and well bound, manual size, in linen cloth. Price 35 cents for single numbers, or $1.50 for the six. The whole of H.P.B.’s mag¬ azine articles on Occultism will be issued in like manner. Special Edition for Students, interleaved with fine writ¬ ing paper for notes. Edition limited to 100 copies. Price 50 cents each, or $2.50 for the six. Published by the N. E. Theosophical Corporation, 24 Mt. Vernon St., Boston, Mass., from whom they may be ordered. CONTENTS Psychic and Noetic Action page 121 From “Lucifer ”, Oct . and iVot?., 1890 PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION. “.I made man just and right, Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall, Such I created all th’ethereal powers And spirits, both them who stood and them who fail’d, Truly, they stood who stood, and fell who fell.”— Milton. “ The assumption that the mind is a real being , which can be acted upon by the brain, and which can act on the body through the brain, is the only one compatible with all the facts of experience.”— George T. Ladd, in the “ Elements of Physiological Psychology”. I A NEW influence, a breath, a sound— “as of a rushing mighty wind”—has suddenly swept over a few Theosophical heads. An idea, vague at first, grew in time into a very definite form, and now seems to be working very busily in the minds of some of our members. It is this: if we would make converts, the few ex¬ occult teachings, which are destined to see the light of publicity, should be made, henceforward, more subservient to , if not 122 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM entirely at one with modern science . It is urged that the so-called esoteric* (or late esoteric) cosmogony, anthropology, ethnol¬ ogy, geology, psychology and—foremost of all—metaphysics, having been adapted into making obeisance to modern (hence materi¬ alistic) thought, should never henceforth be allowed to contradict (not openly , at all events) “scientific philosophy”. The latter, we suppose, means the fundamental and ac¬ cepted views of the great German schools, or of Mr. Herbert Spencer and some other English stars of lesser magnitude; and not only these, but also the deductions that may be drawn from them by their more or less instructed disciples. A large undertaking this, truly, and one, moreover, in perfect conformity with the policy of the mediaeval Casuists, who dis¬ torted truth and even suppressed it, if it clashed with divine Revelation . Useless to say that we decline the compromise. It is quite possible—nay, probable and almost * We say “ so-called,” because nothing of what has been given out publicly or in print can any longer be termed esoteric . PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 123 unavoidable—that “the mistakes made” in the rendering of such abstruse metaphysical tenets as those contained in Eastern Occult¬ ism, should be “frequent and often import¬ ant”. But then all such have to be traced back to the interpreters, not to the system itself. They have to be corrected on the authority of the same Doctrine, checked by the teachings grown on the rich and steady soil of Gupta Vidya , not by the specula¬ tions that blossom forth to-day, to die to¬ morrow—on the shifting sands of modern scientific guess-work, especially in all that relates to psychology and mental phenom¬ ena. Holding to our motto, “There is no religion higher than truth ”, we refuse most decidedly to pander to physical science. Yet, we may say this: If the so-called exact sciences limited their activity only to the physical realm of nature; if they concerned themselves strictly with surgery, chemistry —up to its legitimate boundaries, and with physiology—so far as the latter relates to the structure of our corporeal frame, then the Occultists would be the first to seek help in modern sciences, however many their 124 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM blunders and mistakes. But once that over¬ stepping material Nature the physiologists of the modern “animalistic”* school pre¬ tend to meddle with, and deliver ex cathedra dicta on, the higher functions and phenom¬ ena of the mind, saying that a careful analy¬ sis brings them to a firm conviction that no more than the animal is man a free-agent , far less a responsible one—then the Occult¬ ist has a far greater right than the average modern “Idealist” to protest. And the Occultist asserts that no Materialist—a pre¬ judiced and one-sided witness at best—can claim any authority in the question of men¬ tal physiology, or that which is now called by him the physiology of the soul . No such * “Animalism” is quite an appropriate word to use (who¬ ever invented it) as a contrast to Mr. Tylor’s term “ anim¬ ism”, which he applied to all the “ Lower Races” of mankind who believe the soul a distinct entity. He finds that the words psyche , pneuma, animus , spiritus , etc., all belong to the same cycle of superstition in “ the lower stages of culture ”, Professor A. Bain dubbing all these distinctions, moreover, as a “ plurality of souls ” and a “doublematerialism”. This is the more curious as the learned author of “Mind and Body” speaks as dispar¬ agingly of Darwin’s “ Materialism ” in Zoonomia , wherein the founder of modern Evolution defines the word idea as “contracting a motion, or configuration of the fibres which constitute the immediate organ of Sense ”. (“ Mind and Body”, p. 190, Note.) PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 125 noun can be applied to the word “ soul ”, unless, indeed, by soul only the lower, psy¬ chic mind is meant, or that which develops in man (proportionally with the perfection of his brain) into intellect , and in the ani¬ mal into a higher instinct. But since the great Charles Darwin taught that “our ideas are animal motions of the organ of sense” everything becomes possible to the modern physiologist. Thus, to the great distress of our scientif¬ ically inclined Fellows, it is once more Lucifer's duty to show how far we are at logger-heads with exact science, or shall we say, how far the conclusions of that science are drifting away from truth and fact. By “ science ” we mean, of course, the major¬ ity of the men of science; the best minority, we are hapy to say, is on our side, at least as far as free-will in man and the immateri¬ ality of the mind are concerned. The study of the “Physiology” of the Soul, of the Will in man and of his higher Conscious¬ ness from the standpoint of genius and its manifesting faculties, can never be summar¬ ized into a system of general ideas repre- 126 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM sented by brief formulae; no more than the psychology of material nature can have its manifold mysteries solved by the mere anal¬ ysis of its physical phenomena. There is no special organ of will, any more than there is a physical basis for the activities of self- consciousness. “If the question is pressed as to the physical basis for the activities of self-consciousness, no answer can be given or suggested. . . . From its very nature, that marvelous verifying actus of mind in which it recognizes the states as its own, can have no analogous or corresponding mater¬ ial substratum. It is impossible to specify any physiological process representing this unifying actus; it is even impossible to imagine how the description of any such process could he brought into intelligible relation with this unique mental power.” * Thus, the whole conclave of psycho-phy¬ siologists may be challenged to correctly de¬ fine Consciousness, and they are sure to fail, because Self-consciousness belongs alone to man and proceeds from the Self, the higher Manas. Only, whereas the psychic element * Physiological Psychology , etc ., p. 545, by George T. Ladd, Professor of Philosophy in Yale University. PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 127 (or Kama Manas')* is common to both the animal and the human being—the far higher degree of its development in the latter rest¬ ing merely on the greater perfection and sensitiveness of his cerebral cells—no physi¬ ologist, not even the cleverest, will ever be able to solve the mystery of the human mind, in its highest spiritual manifestation, or in its dual aspect of the psychic and the noetic (or the manasic), t or even to com¬ prehend the intricacies of the former on the purely material plane—unless he knows something of, and is prepared to admit the presence of this dual element. This means that he would have to admit a lower (ani¬ mal), and a higher (or divine) mind in man, or what is known in Occultism as the “per¬ sonal” and the “impersonal’’ Egos . For, between the psychic and the noetic , between the Personality and the Individuality , there exists the same abyss as between a “Jack * Or what the Kabalists call Nephesh , the “breath of life”. t The Sanskrit word Manas (Mind) is used by us in prefer¬ ence to the Greek Nous (noetic) because the latter word having been so imperfectly understood in philosophy, suggests no definite meaning. 128 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM the Ripper”, and a holy Buddha. Unless the physiologist accepts all this, we say, he will ever he led into a quagmire. We in¬ tend to prove it. As all know, the great majority of our learned “Didymi” reject the idea of free¬ will. Now this question is a problem that has occupied the minds of thinkers for ages; every school of thought having taken it up in turn and left it as far from solution as ever. And yet, placed as it is in the fore¬ most ranks of philosophical quandaries, the modern “psycho-physiologists” claim in the coolest and most bumptious way to have cut the Gordian knot forever. For them the feeling of personal free agency is an error, an illusion, “the collective hallucination of mankind”. This conviction starts from the principle that no mental activity is possible without a brain, and that there can be no brain without a body. As the latter is, moreover, subject to the general laws of a material world where all is based on neces¬ sity, and where there is no spontaneity, our modern psycho-physiologist has nolens volens to repudiate any self-spontaneity in human PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 129 action. Here we have, for instance, a Lau¬ sanne professor of physiology, A. A. Herzen, to whom the claim of free will in man appears as the most unscientific absurdity. Says this oracle :— u In the boundless physical and chemical laboratory that surrounds man, organic life rep¬ resents quite an unimportant group of phenom¬ ena ; and amongst the latter, the place occupied by life having reached to the stage of conscious¬ ness, is so minute that it is absurd to exclude man from the sphere of action of a general law, in order to allow in him the existence of a sub¬ jective spontaneity or a free will standing outside of that law. ”—(Psychophysiologie Generale.) For the Occultist who knows the differ¬ ence between the psychic and the noetic elements in man, this is pure trash, notwith¬ standing its sound scientific basis. For when the author puts the question—if psy¬ chic phenomena do not represent the results of an action of a molecular character whith¬ er then does motion disappear after reaching the sensory centres?—we answer that we never denied the fact. But what has this to do with a free-will? That every phenomenon in the visible Universe has its genesis in 130 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM motion, is an old axiom in Occultism; nor do we doubt that the psycho-physiologist would place himself at logger-heads with the whole conclave of exact scientists were he to allow the idea that at a given moment a whole series of physical phenomena may disappear in the vacuum. Therefore, when the author of the work cited maintains that the said force does not disappear upon reach¬ ing the highest nervous centres, but that it is forthwith transformed into another series, viz., that of psychic manifestations, into thought, feeling, and consciousness, just as this same psychic force when applied to pro¬ duce some work of a physical ( e. g . muscu¬ lar) character gets transformed into the latter—Occultism supports him, for it is the first to say that all psychic activity, from its lowest to its highest manifestations, is “nothing but—motion”. Yes, it is motion; but not all “molecular” motion, as the writer means us to infer. Motion as the great breath (vide “Secret Doctrine”, vol. I., sub voce)—ergo “sound” at the same time —is the substratum of Kos- mic-Motion. It is beginningless and end- PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 131 less, the one eternal life , the basis and genesis of the subjective and the objective universe; for life (or Be-ness) is the fons et origo of existence or being. But molecu¬ lar motion is the lowest and most material of its finite manifestations. And if the gen¬ eral law of the conservation of energy leads modern science to the conclusion that psy¬ chic activity only represents a special form of motion, this same law, guiding the Occultists, leads them also to the same con¬ viction—and to something else besides, which psycho-physiology leaves entirely out of all consideration. If the latter has dis¬ covered only in this century that psychic (we say even spiritual) action is subject to the same general and immutable laws of motion as any other phenomenon manifest¬ ed in the objective realm of Kosmos, and that in both the organic and the inor¬ ganic^) worlds every manifestation, wheth¬ er conscious or unconscious, represents but the result of a collectivity of causes, then in Occult philosophy this represents merely the A, B, C, of its science. “All the world is in the Swara; Swara is the Spirit itself ”— 132 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM the one life or motion, say the old books of Hindu Occult philosophy. “ The proper translation of the word Swara is the current of the life wave”, says the author of “Na¬ ture’s Finer Forces”,* and he goes on to explain :— “ It is that wavy motion which is the cause of the evolution of cosmic undifferentiated matter into the differentiated universe. . . . From whence does this motion come ? This motion is the spirit itself. The wofd atma (universal soul) used in the book (vide infra), itself carries the idea of eternal motion, coming as it does from the root, at, or eternal motion; and it may be significantly remarked, that the root at is con¬ nected with, is in fact simply another form of, the roots ah, breath, and as, being. All these roots have for their origin the sound produced by the breath of animals (living beings). * The Theosoqhist , Feb. 1888, p. 275, by Rama Prasad, President of the Meerut Theosophical Society. As the Occult book cited by him says: “ It is the Swara that has given form to the first accumulations of the divisions of the universe; the Swara causes evolution and involution; the Swara is God, or more properly the Great Power itself (Maheshwara ). The Swara is the manifestation of the impression on matter of that power which in man is known to us as the power which knows itself (mental and psychic consciousness). It is to be understood that the action of this power never ceases. . . . It is unchange¬ able existence”—and this is the “Motion” of the Scien¬ tists and the universal Breath of Life of the Occultists. PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 133 The primeval current of the life-wave is then the same which assumes in man the form of inspira¬ tory and expiratory motion of the lungs, and this is the all-pervading source of the evolution and involution of the universe.” So much about motion and the “conserva¬ tion of energy” from old books on magic written and taught ages before the birth of inductive and exact modern science. For what does the latter say more than these books in speaking, for instance, about ani¬ mal mechanism , when it says:— 44 From the visible atom to the celestial body lost in space, everything is subject to motion .... kept at a definite distance one from the other, in proportion to the motion which animates them, the molecules present constant relations, which they lose only by the addition or the sub¬ traction of a certain quantity of motion.”* But Occultism says more than this. While making of motion on the material plane and of the conservation of energy, two funda¬ mental laws, or rather two aspects of the same omnipresent law— kSwara , it denies point blank that these have anything to do * Animal Mechanism, a treatise on terrestrial and aer¬ ial locomotion. By E. J. Marey, Prof, at the College of France, and Member of the Academy of Medicine. 134 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM with free-will in man which belongs to quite a different plane. The author of “ Psycho- physiologie Generale ”, treating of his dis¬ covery that psychic action is but motion, and the result of a collectivity of causes—re¬ marks that as it is so, there cannot be any further discussion upon spontaneity—in the sense of any native internal proneness cre¬ ated by the human organism; and adds that the above puts an end to all claim for free-will! The Occultist denies the conclu¬ sion. The actual fact of man’s psychic (we say manasic or noetic) individuality is a sufficient warrant against the assumption; for in the case of this conclusion being cor¬ rect, or being indeed, as the author expresses it, the collective hallucination of the whole mankind throughout the ages , there would be an end also to psychic individuality. Now by “psychic” individuality we mean that self-determining power which enables man to override circumstances. Place half a dozen animals of the same species under the same circumstances, and their actions, while not identical, will be closely similar; place half a dozen men under the same cir- PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 135 cumstances, and their actions will be as different as their characters, i. e ., psychic individuality . But if instead of “psychic” we call it the higher Self-conscious Will, then having been shown by the science of psycho-phy¬ siology itself that will has no special organ , how will the materialists connect it with “ molecular ” motion at all ? As Professor George T. Ladd says: “ The phenomena of human consciousness must be regarded as activities of some other form of Beal Being , than the moving molecules of the brain. They require a subject or ground which is in its nature unlike the phosphorized fats of the cen¬ tral masses, the aggregated nerve-fibres of nerve- cells of the cerebral cortex. This Real Being thus manifested immediately to itself in the phenomena of consciousness, and indirectly to others through the bodily changes, is the Mind (Manas). To it the mental phenomena are to be attributed as showing what it is by what it does. The so-called mental ‘ faculties ’ are only the modes of the behavior in consciousness of this real being. We actually find, by the only meth¬ od available, that this real being called Mind believes in certain perpetually recurring modes; therefore, we attribute to it certain faculties. . . Mental faculties are not entities that have an 136 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM existence of themselves.They are the modes of the behavior in consciousness of the Mind. And the very nature of the classifying acts which lead to their being distinguished, is explicable only upon the assumption that a Real Being called Mind exists , and is to be distinguished from the real beings known as the physical mole¬ cules of the brain’s nervous mass.” * And having shown that we have to regard consciousness as a unit (another occult proposition) the author adds :— “We conclude, then, from the previous con¬ siderations: the subject of all the states of con¬ sciousness is a real unit-being , called Mind; which is of non-material nature , and acts and develops according to laws of its own, but is specially corre¬ lated with certain material molecules and masses forming the substance of the Brain .” t This “ Mind ” is Manas , or rather its lower reflection, which whenever it disconnects it¬ self, for the time being, from kama , becomes the guide of the highest mental faculties, and is the organ of the free-will in physical * The higher manas or “ Ego ” ( Kshetrajna ) is the “ Silent Spectator”, and the voluntary “sacrificial victim”: the lower manas, its representative—a tyrannical despot, truly. t Elements of Physiological Psychology. A treatise of the activities and nature of the Mind, from the Physical and Experimental Point of View, pp. 606 and 613. PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 137 man. Therefore, this assumption of the newest psycho-physiology is uncalled for, and the apparent impossibility of reconcil¬ ing the existence of free-will with the law of the conservation of energy is—a pure fallacy. This was well shown in the “ Sci¬ entific Letters” of “Elpay” in a criticism of the work. But to prove it finally and set the whole question definitely at rest, does not even require so high an interfer¬ ence (high for us, at any rate) as the Occult laws, but simply a little common sense. Let us analyse the question dispassionately. It is postulated by one man, presumably a scientist, that because “ psychic action is found subject to the general and immutable laws of motion, there is, therefore, no free¬ will in man ”. The “ analytical method of exact sciences” has demonstrated it, and materialistic scientists have decreed to “p ass the resolution ” that the fact should be so accepted by their followers. But there are other and far greater scientists who thought differently. For instance, Sir William Law¬ rence, the eminent surgeon, declared in his 138 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM lectures * that:— “ The philosophical doctrine of the soul, and its separate existence, has nothing to do with this physiological question, but rests on a species of proof altogether different. These sublime dogmas could never have been brought to light by the labors of the anatomist and physiologist. An immaterial and spiritual being could not have been discovered amid the blood and filth of the dissecting room.” Now, let us examine on the testimony of the materialist how this universal solvent called the “ analytical method ” is applied in this special case. The author of u Psy- chophysiologie ” decomposes psychic activ¬ ity into its compound elements, traces them back to motion, and, failing to find in them the slightest trace of free-will or spon¬ taneity, jumps at the conclusion that the latter have no existence in general; nor are they to be found in that psychic activity which he has just decomposed. “Are not the fallacy and error of such an unscientific proceeding self-evident?” asks his critic; *W. Lawrence. Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man . 8vo. London, 1848, p. 6. PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 139 and then argues very correctly that:— “At this rate, and starting from the stand¬ point of this analytical method, one would have an equal right to deny every phenomenon in nature from first to last. For, do not sound and light, heat and electricity, like all other chemical processes, once decomposed into their respective elements, lead the experimenter back to the same motion, wherein all the peculiarities of the given elements disappear, leaving behind them only ‘ the vibrations of molecules ’ ? But does it necessarily follow that for all that, heat, light, electricity—are but illusions instead of the actual manifestations of the peculiarities of our real world? Such peculiarities are not, of course, to be found in compound elements, simply because we cannot expect that a part should contain, from first to last, the properties of the whole. What should we say of a chemist, who, having decomposed water into its compounds, hydrogen and oxygen, without finding in them the special characteristics of water, would maintain that such did not exist at all nor could they be found in water? What of an antiquary, who upon examining distributed type and finding no sense in every separate letter, should assert that there was no such thing as sense to be found in any printed document? And does not the author of Psychophysiologie act just in this way when he denies the existence of free-will or self-spon- 140 STUDIES IK OCCULTISM taneity in man, on the grounds that this dis¬ tinctive faculty of the highest psychic activity is absent from those compound elements which he has analysed? ” Most undeniably no separate piece of brick, of wood, or iron, each of which has once been a part of a building now in ruins, can be expected to preserve the smallest trace of the architecture of that building— in the hands of the chemist, at any rate; though it would in those of a psychometer , a faculty, by the bye, which demonstrates far more powerfully the law of the conserva¬ tion of energy than any physical science does, and shows it acting as much in the subjective or psychic worlds as on the ob¬ jective and material planes. The genesis of sound, on this plane, has to be traced back to the same motion, and the same correlation of forces is at play during the phenomenon as in the case of every other manifestation. Shall the physicist, then, who decomposes sound into its compound element of vibra¬ tions and fails to find in them any harmony or special melody, deny the existence of the latter? And does not this prove that the PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 141 analytical method having to deal exclusively with the elements, and nothing to do with their combinations , leads the physicist to talk very glibly about motion, vibration, and what not, and to make him entirely lose sight of the harmony produced by certain com¬ binations of that motion or the “ harmony of vibrations”? Criticism, then, is right in accusing Materialistic psycho-physiology of neglecting these all-important distinctions; in maintaining that if a careful observation of facts is a duty in the simplest physical phenomena, how much more should it be so when applied to such complex and import¬ ant questions as psychic force and faculties? And yet in most cases all such essential dif¬ ferences are overlooked, and the analytical method is applied in a most arbitrary and prejudiced way. What wonder, then, if, in carrying back psychic action to its basic elements of motion, the psycho-physiologist depriving it during the process of all its essential characteristics, should destroy it; and having destroyed it, it only stands to reason that he is unable to find that which exists in it no longer. He forgets, in short, 142 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM or rather purposely ignores the fact, that though, like all other phenomena on the material plane, psychic manifestations must he related in their final analysis to the world of vibration (“ sound ” being the substratum of universal Akasa ), yet, in their origin, they belong to a different and a higher World of Harmony. Elpay has a few se¬ vere sentences against the assumptions of those he calls “ physico-biologists ” which are worthy of note. “Unconscious of their error, the psycho-physi¬ ologists identify the compound elements of psychic activity with that activity itself: hence the conclusion from the standpoint of the ana¬ lytical method, that the highest, distinctive spe¬ ciality of the human soul—free-will, spontaneity —is an illusion, and no psychic reality. But as we have just shown, such identification not only has nothing in common with exact science, but is simply impermissible, as it clashes with all the fundamental laws of logic, in consequence of which all these so-called physico-biological de¬ ductions emanating from the said identification vanish into thin air. Thus to trace psychic action primarily to motion, means in no way to prove the “illusion of free-will”. And, as in the case of water, whose specific qualities cannot PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 143 be deprived of their reality although they are not to be found in its compound gases, so with regard to the specific property of psychic action: its spontaneity cannot be refused to psychic real¬ ity, though this property is not contained in those finite elements into which the psycho-physiolo¬ gist dismembers the activity in question under his mental scalpel.” This method is “a distinctive feature of modern science in its endeavor to satisfy inquiry into the nature of the objects of its investigation by a detailed description of their development ”, says G. T. Ladd. And the author of “ The Elements of Physiolog¬ ical Psychology ”, adds:— “The universal process of ‘Becoming’ has been almost personified and deified so as to make it the true ground of all finite and concrete existence.The attempt is made to refer all the so-called development of the mind to the evolution of the substance of the brain, under purely physical and mechanical causes. This attempt, then, denies that any real unit-being called the Mind needs to be assumed as undergo¬ ing a process of development according to laws of its own. On the other hand, all at¬ tempts to account for the orderly increase in complexity and comprehensiveness of the men- 144 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM tal phenomena by tracing the physical evolution of the brain are wholly unsatisfactory to many minds. We have no hesitation in classing our¬ selves among this number. Those facts of ex¬ perience which show a correspondence in the order of the development of the body and the mind, and even a certain necessary dependence of the latter upon the former, are, of course, to be admitted; but they are equally compatible with another view of the mind’s development. This other view has the additional advantages that it makes room for many other facts of ex¬ perience which are very difficult of reconcilia¬ tion with any materialistic theory. On the whole, the history of each individual's experiences is such as requires the assumption that a real unit¬ being (a Mind) is undergoing a process of devel¬ opment, in relation to the changing condition or evolution of the brain, and yet in accordance with a nature and laws of its own ” (p. 616 ). How closely this last u assumption ” of science approaches the teachings of the Occult philosophy will be shown in Part II of this article. Meanwhile, we may close with an answer to the latest materialistic fallacy, which may be summarized in a few words. As every psychic action has for its substratum the nervous elements whose ex¬ istence it postulates, and outside which it PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 145 cannot act; as the activity of the nervous elements are only molecular motion, there is therefore no need to invent a special and psychic Force for the explanation of our brain work. Free-will would force Science to postulate an invisible Free - Witter, a cre¬ ator of that special Force. We agree: “not the slightest need” of a creator of “ that special ” or any other Force. Nor has any one ever claimed such an absurdity. But between creating and guiding there is a difference, and the latter implies in no way any creation of the ener¬ gy of motion, or, indeed, of any special energy. Psychic mind (in contradistinc¬ tion to manasic or noetic mind) only trans¬ forms this energy of the “ unit-being ” according to “ a nature and laws of its own ”—to use Ladd’s felicitous expression. The “ unit-being ” creates nothing, but only causes a natural correlation in accordance with both the physical laws and laws of its own; having to use the Force, it guides its direction, choosing the paths along which it will proceed, and stimulating it to action. And, as its activity is sui generis, and inde- 146 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM pendent, it carries this energy from this world of disharmony into its own sphere of harmony. Were it not independent it could not do so. As it is, the freedom of man’s will is boyond doubt or cavil. Therefore, as already observed, there is no question of creation, but simply of guidance . Because the sailor at the wheel does not create the steam in the engine, shall we say that he does not direct the vessel? And, because we refuse to accept the fallacies of some psycho-physiologists as the last word of science, do we furnish thereby a new proof that free-will is an hallucination? We deride the animalistic idea. How far more scientific and logical, besides being as poetical as it is grand, is the teaching in the Kathopanishad, which, in a beautiful and descriptive metaphor, says that: “ The senses are the horses, body is the chariot, mind (Jcama-manas) is the reins, and intellect (or free-will ) the charioteer”. Yerily there is more exact science in the less important of the Upan - ishads , composed thousands of years ago, than in all the materialistic ravings of PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 147 modern “ physico-biology ” and “ psycho¬ physiology ” put together! “.The knowledge of the past, present, and future is embodied in Kshetrajna (the ‘Self ’).’’—Occult Axioms. TTAVING explained in what particulars, * 1 and why, as Occultists, we disagree with materialistic physiological psychology, we may now proceed to point out the dif¬ ference between pyschic and noetic mental functions, the noetic not being recognized by official science. Moreover, we, Theosophists, understand the terms “psychic” and “psychism” some¬ what differently from the average public, science, and even theology, the latter giving it a significance which both science and Theosophy reject, and the public in general remaining with a very hazy conception of what is really meant by the terms. For many, there is little, if any, difference be- 148 STUDIES m OCCULTISM tween “psychic” and “psychological”, both words relating in some way to the human soul. Some modern metaphysicians have wisely agreed to disconnect the word Mind (pneuma ) from Soul {psyche) , the one being the rational, spiritual part, the other— psyche —the living principle in man, the breath that animates him (from anima , soul). Yet, if this is so, how in this case refuse a soul to animals f These are, no less than man, informed with the same principle of sentient life, the nephesh of the 2d chapter of Genesis . The Soul is by no means the Mind, nor can an idiot, bereft of the latter, be called a “ soul-less ” being. To describe, as the physiologists do, the human Soul in its relations to senses and appetites, desires and passions, common to man and the brute, and then endow it with God-like intellect with spiritual and rational faculties which can take their source but in a supersensible world—is to throw forever the veil of an impenetrable mystery over the subject. Yet in modern science, “psychology” and “ psychism ” relate only to conditions of the nervous system, mental phenomena being PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 149 traced solely to molecular action. The higher noetic character of the Mind-Princi¬ ple is entirely ignored, and even rejected as a “ superstition ” by both physiologists and psychologists. Psychology, in fact, has be¬ come a synonym in many cases for the sci¬ ence of psychiatry. Therefore, students of Theosophy being compelled to differ from all these, have adopted the doctrine that underlies the time-honored philosophies of the East, What it is, may be found fur¬ ther on. To better understand the foregoing argu¬ ments and those which follow, the reader is asked to turn to the editorial in the September Lucifer , (“The Dual Aspect of Wisdom”, p. 3), and acquaint himself with the double aspect of that which is termed by St. James in his Third Epistle—at once—the devilish, terrestrial wisdom, and the “wis¬ dom from above ”. In another editorial, “Kosmic Mind” (April, 1890), it is also stated that the ancient Hindus endowed ev¬ ery cell in the human body with conscious¬ ness, giving each the name of a God or Goddess. Speaking of atoms in the name 150 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM of science and philosophy, Professor Ladd calls them in his work “supersensible be¬ ings”. Occultism regards every atom* as an “ independent entity ” and every cell as a “conscious unit”. It explains that no sooner do such atoms group to form cells, than the latter become endowed with con¬ sciousness, each of its own kind, and with free will to act within the limits of law. Nor are we entirely deprived of scientific evidence for such statements as the two above named editorials well prove. More than one learned physiologist of the golden minority, in our own day, moreover, is rap¬ idly coming to the conviction, that memory has no seat, no special organ of its own in the human brain, but that it has seats in every organ of the body. “No good ground exists for speaking of any special organ, or seat of memory,” writes Professor G. T. Ladd. “Every organ, indeed every area, and every limit of the nervous system has its own memory ” (p. 553, loc . tit.). *One of the names of Brahm& is anu or “ atom PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 151 The seat of memory, then, is assuredly neither here nor there, but everywhere throughout the human body. To locate its organ in the brain is to limit and dwarf the Universal Mind and its countless Rays (the Manasa putra) which inform every rational mortal. As we write for Theosophists, first of all, we care little for the psychophobian prejudices of the Materialists who may read this and sniff contemptuously at the men¬ tion of “ Universal Mind ”, and the Higher noetic souls of men. But, what is memory ? we ask. “ Both presentation of sense and image of memory, are transitory phases of consciousness ”, we are answered. But what is Consciousness itself?—we ask again. “ We cannot define Consciousness ”, Professor Ladd tells us.* Thus, that which we are asked to do by physiological psychology is, to con¬ tent ourselves with controverting the vari¬ ous states of Consciousness by other people’s private and unverifiable hypotheses; and this, on “questions of cerebral physiology where experts and novices are alike ignorant”, * Elements of Physiological Psychology. 152 STUDIES m OCCULTISM to use the pointed remark of the said au¬ thor. Hypothesis for hypothesis, then we may as well hold to the teachings of our Seers, as to the conjectures of those who deny both such Seers and their wisdom. The more so, as we are told by the same honest man of science, that “if metaphysics and ethics cannot properly dictate their facts and conclusions to the science of phy¬ siological psychology .... in turn this science cannot properly dictate to meta¬ physics and ethics the conclusions which they shall draw from facts of Consciousness, by giving out its myths and fables in the garb of well ascertained history of the cerebral processes” (p. 554). Now, since the metaphysics of Occult physiology and psychology postulate within mortal man an immortal entity, “divine Mind ”, or JVous , whose pale and too often distorted reflection is that, which we call “Mind” and intellect in men—virtually an entity apart from the former during the period of every incarnation—we say that the two sources of “ memory ” are in these two “ principles ”. These two we dis- PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 153 tinguish as the Higher Manas, (Mind or Ego), and the Kama-Manas, i. e ., the rational, but earthly or physical intellect of man, incased in, and bound by, matter, therefore subject to the influence of the lat¬ ter : the all-conscious Self, that which rein¬ carnates periodically—verily the Word made flesh!—and which is always the same, while its reflected “ Double ”, changing with every new incarnation and personality, is, there¬ fore, conscious but for a life-period. The latter “ principle ” is the Lovier Self, or that, which manifesting through our organic sys¬ tem, acting on this plane of illusion, imagines itself the Ego Sum, and thus falls into what Buddhist philosophy brands as the “ heresy of separateness The former we term In¬ dividuality, the latter Personality. From the first proceeds all the noetic element, from the second, the psychic, i. e ., “ terres¬ trial wisdom ” at best, as it is influenced by all the chaotic stimuli of the human or rather animal passions of the living body. The “ Higher Ego ” cannot act directly on the body, as its consciousness belongs to quite another plane and planes of ideation: 154 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM the “ lower ” Self does: and its action and behavior depend on its free-will and choice as to whether it will gravitate more towards its parent (“the Father in Heaven”) or the “animal ” which it informs, the man of flesh. The “Higher Ego”, as part of the essence of the Universal Mind, is uncon¬ ditionally omniscient on its own plane, and only potentially so in our terrestrial sphere, as it has to act solely through its alter ego — the Personal Self. Now, although the for¬ mer is the vehicle of all knowledge of the past, the present, and the future, and al¬ though it is from this fountain-head that its “double” catches occasional glimpses of that which is beyond the senses of man, and transmits them to certain brain cells (un¬ known to science in their functions), thus making of man a Seer , a soothsayer, and a prophet; yet the memory of bygone events —especially of the earth earthy—has its seat in the Personal Ego alone. No memo¬ ry of a purely daily-life function, of a physi¬ cal, egotistical, or of a lower mental nature —such as, e.g ., eating and drinking, enjoying personal sensual pleasures, transacting busi- PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 155 ness to the detriment of one’s neighbor, etc., etc., has aught to do with the “Higher” Mind or Ego. Nor has it any direct deal¬ ings on this physical plane with either our brain or our heart—for these two are the organs of a power higher than the Person¬ ality —but only with our passional organs, such as the liver, the stomach, the spleen, etc. Thus it only stands to reason that the mem¬ ory of such-like events must be first awak¬ ened in that organ which was the first to induce the action remembered afterwards, and conveyed it to our “sense-thought”, which is entirely distinct from the “ super- sensuous ” thought . It is only the higher forms of the latter, the superconscious men¬ tal experiences, that can correlate with the cerebral and cardiac centers. The memories of physical and selfish (or personal) deeds, on the other hand, together with the mental experiences of a terrestrial nature, and of earthly biological functions, can, of neces¬ sity, only be correlated with the molecular constitution of various Kamic organs, and the “dynamical associations” of the ele- 156 STUDIES 11ST OCCULTISM ments of the nervous system in each particu¬ lar organ. Therefore, when Professor Ladd, after showing that every element of the nervous system has a memory of its own, adds:— “ This view belongs to the very essence of every theory which considers conscious mental reproduction as only one form or phase of the biological fact of organic mem¬ ory ”—he must include among such theories the Occult teaching. For no Occultist could express such teaching more correctly than the Professor, who says, in winding up his argument: “We might properly speak, then, of the memory of the end-organ of vision or of hearing, of the memory of the spinal cord and of the different so-called 6 centers ’ of reflex action belonging to the cords of the memory of the medulla oblongata, the cerebellum, etc.” This is the essence of Occult teaching—even in the Tantra works. Indeed, every organ in our body has its own memory . For if it is endowed with a con¬ sciousness “of its own kind”, every cell must of necessity have also a memory of its own kind, as likewise its own psychic and PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 157 noetic action. Responding to the touch of both a physical and a metaphysical Force,* the impulse given by the psychic (or psycho- molecular) Force will act from without with¬ in; while that of the noetic (shall we call it Spiritual-dynamical ?) Force works from within without . For, as our body is the covering of the inner “principles”, soul, mind, life, etc., so the molecule or the cell is the body in which dwell its “principles”, the (to our senses and comprehension) im¬ material atoms which compose that cell. The cell’s activity and behavior are de¬ termined by its being propelled either inwardly or outwardly by the noetic or the psychic Force, the former having no re¬ lation to the physical cells proper. There¬ fore, while the latter act under the unavoidable law of the conservation and correlation of physical energy, the atoms —being psycho-spiritual, not physical units —act under laws of their own, just as Professor Ladd’s “Unit-Being”, which is our “Mind-Ego”, does, in his very *We fondly trust this very unscientific term will throw no “Animalist” into hysterics beyond recovery. 158 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM philosophical and scientific hypothesis. Every human organ and each cell in the latter has a key-board of its own, like that of a piano, only that it registers and emits sensations instead of sounds. Every key contains the potentiality of good or bad, of producing harmony or disharmony. This depends on the impulse given and the com¬ binations produced; on the force of the touch of the artist at work, a “ double-faced Unity ”, indeed. And it is the action of this or the other “ Face ” of the Unity that determines the nature and the dynamical character of the manifested phenomena as a resulting action, and this whether they be physical or mental. For the whole life of man is guided by this double-faced Entity. If the impulse comes from the “Wisdom above ”, the Force applied being noetic or spiritual, the results will be actions worthy of the divine propeller; if from the “ ter¬ restrial, devilish wisdom” (psychic power), man’s activities will be selfish, based solely on the exigencies of his physical, hence ani¬ mal, nature. The above may sound to the average reader as pure nonsense; but every PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 159 Theosophist must understand when told that there are Manasic as well as Kamie organs in him, although the cells of his body answer to both physical and spiritual impulses. Yerily that body, so desecrated by Mater¬ ialism and man himself, is the temple of the Holy Grail, the Adytum of the grandest, nay, of all, the mysteries of nature in our solar universe. That body is an JEolian harp, chorded with two sets of strings, one made of pure silver, the other of catgut. When the breath from the divine Fiat brushes softly over the former, man becomes like unto his God—but the other set feels it not. It needs the breeze of a strong ter¬ restrial wind, impregnated with animal efflu¬ via, to set its animal chords vibrating. It is the function of the physical, lower mind to act upon the physical organs and their cells; but, it is the higher mind alone which can influence the atoms interacting in those cells, which interaction is alone capable of exciting the brain, via the spinal “ center ” cord, to a mental representation of spiritual ideas far beyond any objects on this materi- 160 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM al plane. The phenomena of divine con¬ sciousness have to be regarded as activities of our mind on another and a higher plane, working through something less substantial than the moving molecules of the brain. They cannot be explained as the simple re¬ sultant of the cerebral physiological pro¬ cesses, as indeed the latter only condition them or give them a final form for purposes of concrete manifestation. Occultism teach¬ es that the liver and the spleen-cells are the most subservient to the action of our “ per¬ sonal ” mind, the heart being the organ par excellence through which the “ Higher ” Ego acts—through the Lower Self. Nor can the visions or memory of purely terrestrial events be transmitted directly through the mental perceptions of the brain —the direct recipient of the impressions of the heart. All such recollections have to be first stimulated by and awakened in the or¬ gans which were the originators, as already stated, of the various causes that led to the results, or, the direct recipients and partici¬ pators of the latter. In other words, if what is called “association of ideas” has PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 161 much to do with the awakening of memory, the mutual interaction and consistent inter¬ relation between the personal “Mind-En¬ tity” and the organs of the human body have far more so. A hungry stomach evokes the vision of a past banquet, because its action is reflected and repeated in the per¬ sonal mind. But even before the memory of the personal Self radiates the vision from the tablets wherein are stored the experi¬ ences of one’s daily life—even to the mi¬ nutest details—the memory of the stomach has already evoked the same. And so with all the organs of the body. It is they which originate according to their animal needs and desires the electro-vital sparks that illuminate the field of consciousness in the Lower Ego; and it is these sparks which in their turn awaken to function the reminiscences in it. The whole human body is, as said, a vast sounding board, in which each cell bears a long record of im¬ pressions connected with its parent organ, and each cell hajs a memory and a conscious¬ ness of its kind, or call it instinct if you will. These impressions are, according to 162 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM the nature of the organ, physical, psychic, or mental, as they relate to this or another plane. They may be called “ states of con¬ sciousness” only for the want of a better expression—as there are states of instinct¬ ual, mental, and purely abstract, or spiritual consciousness. If we trace all such “psy¬ chic ” actions to brain-work, it is only because in that mansion called the human body the brain is the front-door, and the only one which opens out into Space. All the others are inner doors, openings in the private building, through which travel inces¬ santly the transmitting agents of memory and sensation. The clearness, the vividness, and intensity of these depend on the state of health and the organic soundness of the transmitters. But their reality, in the sense of trueness or correctness, is due to the “ principle ” they originate from, and the preponderance in the Lower Manas of the noetic or of the phrenic (“ Kama ”, terres¬ trial) element. For, as Occultism teaches, if the Higher Mind-Entity—the permanent and the im¬ mortal—is of the divine homogeneous PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 163 essence of “ Alaya-Akasa or Mahat—its reflection, the Personal Mind, is, as a tempo¬ rary “ Principle ”, of the Substance of the Astral Light. As a pure ray of the “ Son of the Universal Mind”, it could perform no functions in the body, and would remain powerless over the turbulent organs of Mat¬ ter. Thus, while its inner constitution is Manasic, its “body”, or rather functioning essence, is heterogeneous, and leavened with the Astral Light, the lowest element of Ether. It is a part of the mission of the Manasic Ray, to get gradually rid of the blind, deceptive element which, though it makes of it an active spiritual entity on this plane, still brings it into so close contact with matter as to entirely becloud its di¬ vine nature and stultify its intuitions. This leads us to see the difference be¬ tween the pure noetic and the terrestrial psychic visions of seership and mediumship. The former can be obtained by one of two means; (a) on the condition of paralysing at will the memory and the instinctual, inde¬ pendent action of all the material organs * Another name for the universal mind. 164 STUDIES IX OCCULTISM and even cells in the body of flesh, an act which, once that the light of the Higher Ego has consumed and subjected for ever the passional nature of the personal, lower Ego, is easy, but requires an adept; and ( b ) of being a reincarnation of one, who, in a previous birth, had attained through ex¬ treme purity of life and efforts in the right direction almost to a To^’-state of holiness and saintship. There is also a third possi¬ bility of reaching in mystic visions the plane of the Higher Manas; but it is only occasional and does not depend on the will of the Seer, but on the extreme weakness and exhaustion of the material body through illness and suffering. The Seeress of Pre- vorst was an instance of the latter case; and Jacob Boehme of our second category. In all other cases of abnormal seership, of so-called clairaudience, clairvoyance, and trances, it is simply— mediumship. Now what is a medium ? The term med¬ ium, when not applied simply to things and objects, is supposed to be a person through whom the action of another person or being is either manifested or transmitted. Spirit- PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 165 ualists believing in communications with disembodied spirits, and that these can manifest through, or impress sensitives to transmit “ messages ” from them, regard mediumship as a blessing and a great privi¬ lege. We Theosophists, on the other hand, who do not believe in the “communion of spirits ” as Spiritualists do, regard the gift as one of the most dangerous of abnormal nervous diseases. A medium is simply one in whose personal Ego, or terrestrial mind ( jpsuche ), the percentage of “ astral ” light so preponderates as to impregnate with it his whole physical constitution. Every organ and cell thereby is attuned, so to speak, and subjected to an enormous and ab¬ normal tension. The mind is ever on the plane of, and quite immersed in, that de¬ ceptive light whose soul is divine, but whose body—the light waves on the lower planes —infernal; for they are but the black and disfigured reflections of the earth’s memo¬ ries. The untrained eye of the poor sensi¬ tive cannot pierce the dark mist, the dense fog of the terrestrial emanations, to see beyond in the radiant field of the eternal 166 STUDIES IX OCCULTISM truths. His vision is out of focus. His senses, accustomed from his birth, like those of a native of the London slums, to stench and filth, to the unnatural distortions of sights and images tossed on the kaleido¬ scopic waves of the astral plane—are un¬ able to discern the true from the false. And thus, the pale, soulless corpses moving in the trackless fields of “ Kama Loka ”, ap¬ pear to him the living images of the “ dear departed ” ones; the broken echoes of once human voices, passing through his mind, suggest to him well co-ordinated phrases, which he repeats, in ignorance that their final form and polish were received in the innermost depths of his own brain factory. And hence the sight and the hearing of that which if seen in its true nature would have struck the medium’s heart cold with horror, now fills him with a sense of beatitude and confidence. He really believes that the im¬ measurable vistas displayed before him are the real spiritual world, the abode of the blessed disembodied angels. We describe the broad main features and facts of mediumship, there being no room PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 167 in such an article for exceptional cases. We maintain—having unfortunately passed at one period of life personally through such experiences—that on the whole, medium- ship is most dangerous ; and psychic experi¬ ences, when accepted indiscriminately, lead only to honestly deceiving others, because the medium is the first self-deceived victim. Moreover, a too close association with the “ Old Terrestrial Serpent ” is infectious. The odic and magnetic currents of the As¬ tral Light often incite to murder, drunk¬ enness, immorality, and, as Eliphas Levi expresses it, the not altogether pure natures “ can be driven headlong by the blind forces set in motion in the Light ”—by the errors and sins imposed on its waves. And this is how the great Mage of the XIXth century corroborates the foregoing when speaking of the Astral Light:— “We have said that to acquire magical power, two things are necessary; to disengage the will from all servitude, and to exercise it in control. “The sovereign will (of the adept) is repre¬ sented in our symbols by the woman who crushes the serpent’s head, and by the resplendent angel who represses the dragon and holds him under 168 STUDIES IX OCCULTISM his foot and spear; the great magical agent, the dual current of light, the living and astral fire of the earth, has been represented in the ancient theogonies by the serpent with the head of a bull, a ram, or a dog. It is the double serpent of the caduceus , it is the Old Serpent of Genesis , but it is also the brazen serpent of Moses entwined around the tau , that is to say, the generative lingha. It is also the goat of the witch-sabbath, and the Baphomet of the Templars; it is the Hyle of the Gnostics; it is the double-tailed ser¬ pent which forms the legs of the solar clock of the Abraxas; finally it is the Devil of M. Eudel de Mirville. But in very fact it is the blind force which souls (i.e., the lower Manas or Nephesh) have to conquer to liberate themselves from the bonds of the earth; for if their will does not free * them from this fatal attraction, they will be ab¬ sorbed in the current by the force which has produced them, and will return to the central and eternal fire V’ * The “ central and eternal fire ” is that disintegrating Force, that gradually con¬ sumes and burns out the Kama Rapa, or “ personality ”, in the Kama Loka, whither it goes after death. And verily, the Med¬ iums are attracted by the Astral Light, it is *Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie , quoted in Isis Unveiled. PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION 169 the direct cause of their personal u souls ” being absorbed “by the force which has produced ” their terrestrial elements. And, therefore, as the same Occultist tells us:— “All the magical operations consist in freeing one’s self from the coils of the Ancient Serpent; then to place the foot on its head, and lead it according to the operator’s will. 4 I will give unto thee’, says the Serpent, in the Gospel myth, 4 all the kingdoms of the earth, if thou wilt fall down and worship me’. The initiated should reply to him, 4 1 will not fall down, but thou shalt crouch at my feet; thou wilt give me nothing, but I will make use of thee and take whatever I wish. For I am thy Lord and Master! ’ ” And as such, the Personal JSffo, becoming at one with its divine parent, shares in the immortality of the latter. Otherwise .... Enough, however. Blessed is he who has acquainted himself with the dual powers at work in the Astral Light; thrice blessed he who has learned to discern the Noetic from the Psychic action of the “Double- Faced ” God in him, and who knows the potency of his own Spirit—or “Soul Dynamics ”. THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN AMERICA. INFORMATION FOR ENQUIRERS. The principal aim and object of this Society is to form a nucleus of Universal Brotherhood without any distinction whatever. The subsid¬ iary objects are; the study of ancient and mod¬ ern Religions, Philosophies, and Sciences, and the demonstration of the importance of such study; and the investigation of the unexplained laws of nature and the psychical powers latent in man. This Society is an integral part of the inter¬ national Theosophical Movement which began at New York in the year 1875. Any person declaring sympathy with the first object of the Society may be admitted to mem¬ bership, as provided in the By-laws. 2 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM Every member lias tlie right to believe or dis¬ believe in any religious system or philosophy, and to declare such belief or disbelief, without affecting his standing as a member of the Soci¬ ety, each being required to show that tolerance of the opinions of others which he expects for his own. Five or more persons applying in writing to the President, and complying with conditions of membership, or who are already members, may receive a Charter to form a Branch, with con¬ sent of the Executive Committee; and the num¬ ber of Branches which may be formed at any place is not limited. Members not belonging to Branches are known as Members-at-large. Each Branch may make its own By-laws and manage its own local affairs in any manner con¬ sistent with the provisions of the Constitution. The Society does not pretend to be able to establish at once a universal brotherhood among men, but only strives to create a nucleus for such a body, and believes that a careful study of the religions and philosophies of the past as well as of the present day will reveal the common basis upon which all rest, and there¬ fore the truth underlying them all. The or¬ ganization is, therefore, wholly unsectarian, with no creed or dogma to enforce or impose. Hence in its ranks, and co-operating in its work, are to be found professors of every faith, APPENDIX 3 as well as those who have none whatever. No restriction is placed on its members save that of loyalty to its one fundamental principle— Universal Brotherhood. Nor is it, as a Soci¬ ety, to be held responsible for the opinions of its members, who all have a right to hold their own views and to receive for them, from their fellow-members, the respect which they in turn should show for the views of others. This toleration and respect is asked from all members as a duty, since it is believed that dogmatism and intolerance have always been the greatest foes to human progress. The So¬ ciety therefore represents all creeds and all branches of science, opposing bigotry, super¬ stition, credulity, and dogmatism wherever found, and by whomsoever taught. It asks of its members an unflinching condemnation of vice in every form, and of all that tends to feed or propagate it, and expects every one who joins its ranks to avoid doing what will be likely to throw discredit upon the Society or dishonor upon his fellow-members. 4 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM THEOSOPHY . The mystical system which gives its name to the Society, and is vaguely known under the general title “Theosophy”, is put forward by certain members as at once the result of, and an incentive to that particular line of study described in the “subsidiary objects”. They believe that the doctrines, or leading ideas of Theosophy, both Eastern and Western, are es¬ pecially worthy of attention at the present time, as suggesting the probable solution of many of the most vexed religious, social, and scientific questions of the day. An extensive literature has sprung up in connection with the Theosoph- ical Movement, in which many of these ideas are explained and discussed. It must be borne in mind, however, that these doctrines * are not advanced as dogmas, but merely as reasonable hypotheses, throwing light upon many phases and conditions of life which otherwise appear incomprehensible or inconsistent. The Theosophical Society aims at assisting its members by the spread of lit¬ erature and by all other methods within its power, in their searchings after truth, and, as above said, it places no restrictions upon its members beyond that of loyalty to its one fundamental principle of thought and action— APPENDIX 5 Universal Brotherhood. It may, however, be stated that the majority of the members, as individuals, believe that the realization of this first object of the Theosophical Society can best be attained by a thorough grasp of the principles of Theosophy, which, in their opinion, place universal brotherhood on a scientific and logical basis. Further information may be had on applica¬ tion to William Q. Judge, President of the Theosophical Society in America, 144 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y., or N. E. Theosophical Corporation, 24 Mt. Yernon St., Boston, Mass. LIST OF BOOKS, Which may be obtained post-paid from the New England Theosophical Corporation, 24 Mt. Yernon St., Boston, Mass. Experience indicates the following as a good series of books in a preliminary course: 1st, Wilkesbarre Letters on Theosophy; 2d, Simple Theosophy; 3d, Modern Theosophy; 4th, Ocean of Theosophy; 5th, Occult World; 6th, Echoes from the Orient; 7th, Esoteric Buddhism; 8th, 0 STUDIES IN OCCULTISM Seven Principles of Man, Besant; 9th, Reincar¬ nation, Besant; 10th, Death—and After, Besant; 11th, Key to Theosophy; 12th, Letters that have Helped Me. The following are for deeper study: 1st, Patan- jali’s Yoga Aphorisms; 2d, Magic, White and Black; 3d, Isis Unveiled; 4tli, The Secret Doctrine. Of devotional works: 1st, Voice of the Silence; 2d, Bhagavad-Gita; 3d, Light on the Path. Bhagavad-Gita, American Edition. Judge 1.00 “ “ Mohini’s translation and notes. 2.00 Bhagavad-Gita, Discourses on the. Subba Row.75 Blavatsky, Madame, Incidents in the life of. Sinnett. 3.00 Blavatsky, Madame, Memorial Articles on .35 Compendium of Raja-Yoga Philosophy- 1.25 Death—and After ? 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