LIB R ARY 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIFT OF" 
 
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 . , JUL 28 1893 
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 4 ccessions No.&LjZS Shelf No. 
 
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REINCARNATION. 
 
 Study of the Human Soul 
 
 In its Relation to Re-Birth, 
 
 Evolution, Post-Mortem States, the 
 
 Compound Nature of Man, Hypnotism, Etc. 
 
 BY 
 
 JEROME A. ANDERSON, M. D. f F. T. S, 
 
 / is decwve of the que-stion whether the Soul exists if among the activities and 
 
 emotional states of our being there are to be found such as 
 
 do not belong to our bodies." ARISTOTLE. 
 
 THE LOTUS PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 1504 Market Street, San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 MAY 8, 1893. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1892, 
 BY JEROME A. ANDERSON, M. D.. F.T.S., 
 
 I I 70 Market Street, 
 SAN FRANCISCO, - CALIFORNIA. 
 
 7 
 
BY A. 
 
 PUPIL. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ''PHESE pages are intended to present, in as concise a form as pos- 
 L sible, an outline of certain phenomena in nature, together with 
 logical and philosophical deductions therefrom, which go to prove, 
 first, the existence of a soul, and, second, the repeated incarnation of 
 this soul in physical bodies. No phenomena will be considered ex- 
 cept such as have been fully verified and accepted as a portion of the 
 armamentarium of modern science. That there are vast classes of 
 genuine phenomena not acknowledged as genuine by science is well 
 known; and, although fully entitled to an appeal to these in support 
 of our position, it has been thought best to pass them by, and to 
 meet modern scientific agnosticism entirely upon the territory of its 
 own facts. It is believed that by thus "carrying the war into 
 Egypt" more good may be accomplished in directing attention 
 towards the higher spiritual aspects of these phenomena than if the 
 argument were advanced into disputed domains. This completely 
 bars access to an immense mass of so-called spiritualistic phenomena 
 which, while very far from establishing the fact of spirit communi- 
 cation in the manner claimed by spiritualists, are still of great im- 
 portance as illustrating many of the lower psychic faculties of man, 
 and his essential independence of his body in their production. The 
 numerous marvels of many countries, and especially of India, have 
 also been omitted; for they, although partly accepted by scientists, 
 who fancy they find in "glamour " and "collective hallucination" an 
 explanation, are still an unclassified residuum, whose scientific ex- 
 planation itself needs to be explained even more than the phenomena 
 for which it attempts to account. In short, the purpose of this book 
 is to establish the fact of the existence and repeated rebirth of the 
 soul by an appeal to logic and reason alone, based upon phenomena 
 of such universal and every-day experience that all who choose may 
 verify each successive step taken, or phenomenon to which reference 
 is had. 
 
PREFACE. IV 
 
 The writer was bitterly antagonized by the idea of reincarnation 
 when he first became familiar with it in Theosophic literature ; but, 
 after careful and earnest attempts to arrive at a philosophic or scien- 
 tific hypothesis in harmony with natural phenomena which would 
 render this view unnecessary, he was compelled by sheer force of 
 facts and logic to accept it. The trains of reasoning followed, and 
 the phenomena appealed to are outlined in these pages. They are 
 issued in the hope of aiding others who may have become, as the 
 writer had, biased toward materialistic views by a one-sided "scien- 
 tific" education, to recognize this grand truth. The attention of 
 inquirers is also called to the scholarly work of the late E. D. Walker, 
 and to the occult, intuitional, and philosophic Manual by Mrs. 
 Annie Besant, both being upon the same subject Reincarnation. 
 
 J. A. A. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. ^ - 
 
 THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE SOUL. The Three Abso- 
 lute Hypostases Consciousness Substance Force 9 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE 
 SOUL. No Physiological Basis for the Unity of Conscious- 
 ness Memory Feeling, Etc. Mechanical Motion cannot 
 Originate Sensation. 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE 
 SOUL. The Nature of Dream Trance Clairvoyance 
 Thought Transference, Etc 37 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL. The Unit of Consciousness 
 from Atom to God by the Widening of the Conscious Area 
 through Experience, Etc 55 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE INDIVIDUALIZATION OF THE SOUL. Centers of Conscious- 
 ness Freed by Pralayas The Cycle of Necessity 76 
 
 , CHAPTER V. 
 
 REINCARNATION PHILOSOPHIC AND LOGICAL EVIDENCE. 
 Failure of One-Birth Theories Life only to be Explained Philo- 
 sophically by Reincarnation 85 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 REINCARNATION THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. Bulbs 
 Seeds Metamorphosis of Insects Genius Idiocy Prodigies, 
 Etc. . . .102 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE COMPOSITE NATURE OF THE SOUL. The Seven Aspects 
 of the One Center of Consciousnesss 116 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE REINCARNATING EGO. The Nature and Functions of the 
 Higher Ego 128 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE PERSONALITY. The Animal Man How Related to the 
 Divine Man 147 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 POST-MORTEM STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. Devachan Kama 
 Loca and Nirvana Nature of. 158 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 HYPNOTISM AND THE HUMAN SOUL. Hypnotic Processes and 
 States of Consciousness 185 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OBJECTIONS To REINCARNATION. Loss of Memory Explained 
 Other Objections Answered 210 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 KARMA. The Law of Cause and Effect on all Planes 220 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ETHICAL CONCLUSIONS. 238 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 EMBRYOLOGY AND REINCARNATION. The Nutrition of the 
 Fetus 245 
 
INTRODUCTION- 
 
 THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE SOUL. 
 
 TT7HE term " Soul" may be defined as a vehicle for con- 
 sciousness. The latter, as one of the triple aspects of 
 the Unknowable or Absolute, must be regarded as infinite. 
 Anything which, by limiting this infinity, enables con- 
 sciousness to manifest upon finite and knowable planes is 
 therefore classed as Soul. The Universal Soul, under this 
 definition, would be the vehicle for Universal not Abso- 
 lute Consciousness; the human soul, the vehicle for the 
 finite manifestation of that limitation of the Infinite which 
 we recognize as huma'n, or self-consciousness. 
 
 The material aspect of the Unknowable seems to be 
 the means by which Infinite Consciousness is enabled to 
 manifest finitely. Hence, all Soul has its ultimate essence 
 in this material or Substance-root of the Unknowable, and 
 is of a material nature. But the three Aspect-Roots 
 the third being Motion or Force are eternally associated, 
 so that one must not fall into the error of taking, a too 
 materialistic view of Soul. If it is the material vehicle of 
 consciousness in one aspect, it is in another by virtue of 
 its being incapable of dissociation from this consciousness 
 itself. It is only because of philosophic necessities and of 
 certain phenomena of consciousness upon the material 
 plane that Soul is thus more intimately associated with the 
 Substance-Aspect of the Unknowable Rootless Root than 
 with the Conscious-Aspect. 
 
 A human soul, then, is a center of consciousness having 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 its origin in Infinite Consciousness, and limited and 
 brought into self-conscious relations with itself and the 
 Universe by a material vehicle. In its inmost essence, 
 this material vehicle is derived from the indestructible 
 Substance- Aspect of the Unknowable; substance of so re- 
 fined and ethereal a nature as to utterly transcend all 
 those properties and qualities with which we ordinarily as- 
 sociate matter, and which, because of this and because it 
 is incapable of weight, measurement or even comparison 
 with the matter of this plane, has led to the formulating 
 of the absurdly unscientific and unphilosophic materialistic 
 hypotheses and philosophies of to-day. Instead of fol- 
 lowing, by correspondence and analogy, the retreat of 
 matter into those realms which for us are at present sub- 
 jective, both modern science and so-called materialistic 
 philosophy have failed to recognize the philosophic neces- 
 sity for that Unity which must underlie every aspect of 
 nature, and have in consequence utterly failed to bridge 
 the illusionary chasm which seems to divide spirit or 
 consciousness from matter. It is, of course, impossible 
 to carry molecular physics grossly and bodily over into 
 conscious realms; but it is quite possible, and the only 
 philosophic procedure, to carry the molecular laws of the 
 conservation of force and the correlation of energy over 
 into the realms of (comparatively) pure consciousness. 
 By so doing, we at once secure a firm and stable founda- 
 tion for our philosophic superstructure. There is no 
 longer a necessity for "scientific" laws and hypotheses for 
 one kingdom of nature, and quite a different and con- 
 flicting code for another, as is the case with modern scien- 
 tific attempts to deal with mind and matter as though 
 they were totally separate and distinct elements in the 
 
INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 Universe. The same lack of an unifying base is also pain- 
 fully apparent in dealing with purely physical sciences; as, 
 for example, in the disagreements of geologic and as- 
 tronomic calculations of the age of the earth. 
 
 It follows from the above that "Soul" must be a generic 
 term, and "Souls" capable of infinite gradation and classifi- 
 cation. From the anima mundi, the " Over-Soul" of 
 Emerson, down to the unifying center of consciousness 
 which makes possible the molecular combination forming 
 the structure of the humblest am<zba aye, down to that 
 diffuse attraction which combines even inorganic nature 
 into form the term "Soul" applies. For the material Uni- 
 verse, from our puerile, finite point of view at least, would 
 seem to be a vast evolutionary laboratory constructed in 
 Space and Time, into which enters pure Spirit, or Con- 
 sciousness, and which, forever disappearing as such, eter- 
 nally reappears in endless intelligent variations and trans- 
 mutations of form. Form is but the result of Infinite 
 Consciousness seeking finite expression in matter. Every 
 tree is a materialized or externalized idea; every flower, a 
 sculptured poem; every appearance of form, a passing 
 from Infinite Ideation into finite expression through finite 
 limitation : and all this under law so absolute, so in- 
 violable, that a single exception to or escape from its uni- 
 versal domain is unthinkable. This law, the one stable 
 bond which unites the knowable to the Unknowable, the 
 finite to the Infinite, is that of Cause and Effect; the 
 Karma of Eastern philosophy and modern Theosophy. 
 Its objective arc appears upon this plane under the 
 guise of Evolution ; its subjective arc, when not entirely 
 ignored, is known as Involution. An involution of spirit, 
 or consciousness, equals an evolution of matter into form. 
 
xil INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " Soul," therefore, in the abstract, stands for and is the 
 Substance-Aspect of the Unknowable, by means of which 
 both involution and evolution of the Conscious- Aspect, or 
 " Spirit," is accomplished. 
 
 Yet, throughout this work, by the term " human soul" 
 is meant a self-conscious center of Consciousness not a 
 center of Substance. The latter limits, defines and makes 
 possible the existence of this individualized center; but 
 while an absolutely necessary element, this necessity 
 would seem somewhat mechanical. The Conscious- 
 Aspect, the " I," the Unit of Consciousness, by which 
 alone the finite universe may be measured and known, is 
 the supreme essential. If it be, apparently, confused 
 with its relatively lower material vehicle by speaking of it 
 as the human soul, it is because of the poverty of the 
 English language in accurate metaphysical terms, and 
 also because it can not, even in thought, be entirely dis- 
 sociated from this vehicle. That by the human soul is 
 really understood a center of self-consciousness, and not 
 its substance base, will become plainly apparent when, in 
 the course of this study, we shall find this center using 
 " souls," or vehicles, composed of varying differentiations 
 of Substance, accordingly as it functions upon objective 
 or to us subjective planes: 
 
triZVIlt.SXT? 
 
 REINCARNATION. 
 
 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF THE 
 EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL, 
 
 JT STUDY of the Soul, or of those phenomena of con- 
 X\. sciousness usually classed under this head, must 
 logically be prefaced by proof that a "soul" really exists. 
 Some doubt arises as to whether this can be best accom- 
 plished by an examination of those general evolutionary 
 processes which lead up to the human soul as a necessary 
 sequence, or whether the phenomena of human conscious- 
 ness itself shall be first considered. As appeal will be 
 taken to both classes of phenomena, it has been thought 
 best to begin with the latter method, leaving the broader 
 and more philosophic generalizations of evolution to 
 follow. The evidence of a soul, then, will be sought 
 first in Human Physiology. 
 
 Without cumbering the argument with histological, ana- 
 tomical, or even physiological details, to be found in the 
 numerous text-books upon these subjects, let it suffice to 
 state generally that these and allied sciences prove that 
 
14 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 the human body is a mechanism constructed and con- 
 trolled from within, without, by a central energy called 
 variously "mind," "soul," "spirit," or "Ego," according to 
 the inclination or bias of the writer. The existence of 
 this central energy is disputed by no one; the issue being 
 as to the relation it sustains to the body. Broadly de- 
 fined, Materialism declares the mind or soul to be the prod- 
 uct of the molecular activities going on within the brain ; 
 or, if not a direct product, at least a concomitant of these. 
 Under this view, it must necessarily cease to exist when 
 the brain molecules cease their activities. To account for 
 the appearance of a conscious factor as an outcome of 
 purely mechanical motion among molecules, it declares 
 this to be a "property" of matter, capable of being exhibit- 
 ed under certain conditions similarly as electricity may 
 be made to manifest its presence under proper excitation. 
 Spiritualism takes directly the opposite view. It declares 
 that, while it is true that molecular activities are the coun- 
 terparts of conscious experience, upon this plane, the rela- 
 tion of effect is entirely upon the material side ; that the 
 mind or soul is causal, and quite superior to and independ- 
 ent of the body, except as this is a mechanism of sense 
 organs constructed and synthesized by it, in order to re- 
 late its higher consciousness to material planes. There 
 can thus be no compromise; one or the other theory errs. 
 A little examination makes it evident that all thought, 
 emotion, willing or feeling arise from and in the inner re- 
 cesses of our being, and are then reflected outwards in 
 speech or action, or remain as unexpressed, subjective 
 ideas or feelings. It is quite true that this inner arousing 
 is apparently due primarily to external stimuli alone, and 
 that all through life external impressions transmuted into 
 
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 15 
 
 sensations form a much larger basis for even the highest 
 intellectual life than would be suspected except upon a 
 searching analysis. But ex nihilo nihil fit; and if there 
 were not present in the body a potential center of con- 
 ciousness capable of being aroused, external stimuli might 
 knock for eternal ages at the door of life without awaken- 
 ing a conscious response. 
 
 Here, at the first step, then, the battle for the existence 
 of the soul begins. For when physiologists or psycholo- 
 gists say, though ever so glibly and confidently, that an 
 external stimulus has been converted through nervous 
 "shock" into a "sense" impression, they are assuming to 
 explain a process of which they have absolutely no knowl- 
 edge, and which no microscope nor culture chamber has 
 ever demonstrated, nor can ever hope to demonstrate. 
 For, "if by nervous shock be meant a psychical event, the 
 break between such shock and the nerve commotion which 
 is its antecedent is absolutely impassible. No physical 
 energy, under the general laws of its conservation and cor- 
 relation, can pass this break."* Nor no lightly leaping 
 across a chasm proves its non-existence. In sound, for 
 example, an entirely mechanical and physical shock has 
 been transmuted into terms of consciousness utterly unlike 
 its cause. Until it can be shown both how and why me- 
 chanical motion becomes sensation, two factors must be as- 
 sumed. These are the receiver and transmitter of the 
 nervous shock or commotion, and the inner observer of 
 this commotion, as it records itself in molecular agitation 
 or changes within the brain. 
 
 It will be cheerfully admitted that this inner observer is 
 
 *L/add's Physiological Psychology, p. 628, to which magnificent 
 work I am more indebted in the preparation of this chapter than any 
 quotation marks can adequately indicate. 
 
1 6 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 quite dependent upon the physical apparatus for sensation 
 upon and communication with the material plane, but this 
 dependence in no way argues its non-existence as an en- 
 tity, or the non-possibility of its possessing much higher 
 powers upon its own spiritual plane than its sense organs 
 enable it to display upon this. As has been beautifully 
 pointed out by Prof. Ladd : 
 
 "Beings do not lose their reality, or characteristic nature, or value 
 in the universe of Being, because they are causally connected with 
 other beings. On the contary, none but real beings can thus be con- 
 nected with each other; none but real beings can act and be acted 
 upon. The so-called causal connection is no bondage of such nature 
 as to destroy the nature of the beings which act under it. Only 
 beings that have natures of their own can be causally connected. In 
 other words, all that appears to us as a causal relation between the 
 objects of our experience is, ultimately considered, due to no mate- 
 rial spur or whip which urges, or band that represses, as though one 
 kind of real being could thus dominate and subdue another. No 
 atom acts without being acted on ; what it does depends both upon 
 what it is and also upon how it stands related to other atoms."* 
 
 The break between physical motion and conscious sen- 
 sation, if there really be one, is between the sentient atom 
 and the physical molecule. And Prof. Ladd is therefore 
 quite correct in insisting that: 
 
 "No relation exists between these two kinds of beings [soul and 
 body] which can be represented as an interchange of physical energy, 
 under the law of the conservation and correlation of such energy. 
 This fact, however, affords no objection to our recognizing a true 
 causal connection between the two, unless we are ready to insist 
 upon the monstrous claim that modern physical science is entitled 
 to affirm the impossibility of any interaction (or conditional action) 
 taking place in the universe otherwise than between material atoms 
 under the aforesaid law. ' ' t 
 
 *Loc. Cit., p. 661. flvoc. Cit., p. 663 et seq. 
 
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 17 
 
 Yet the soul is not utterly unrelated to the body by the 
 actual transmission of energy; for were this the case a 
 physical response to the will would be impossible. There 
 is a transmission of energy from the soul to the body, 
 actual and real, but it does not consist in the ebbing 
 and flowing of physical force The soul may be said to 
 use modes of the "inter-etheric force" of Keeley, for its 
 material base is composed necessarily of these inner and 
 more potent states of matter. These forces the soul lib- 
 erates in willing, which latter results in motion upon its own 
 plane ; and this, while not interchanging, is the cause of a 
 corresponding molecular motion on the plane below. It is 
 thus true that each cycle of energy is unrelated in the way 
 of the conservation or correlation of the energy of one 
 plane upon that of the other; for each completes its cycle 
 in its own proper field of action, and no mode of force 
 belonging to one plane passes over from that to another. 
 But each can none the less act upon the other; and, in the 
 case of the soul, the terrible inter-etheric nature of the 
 energy used may be seen in instances of the sudden 
 death of the body from fright, anger or strong emo- 
 tion. Physical force and soul, or will-force, touch each 
 other's boundaries, but the very rebound keeps each acting 
 in its own proper domain. Yet this touch is actual, and 
 sets up motion on the other plane; though, as correctly 
 pointed out by Prof. Ladd, nothing physical passes from 
 the one to the other. Nor does anything physical pass 
 when one moving billiard ball strikes another, yet the lat- 
 ter is none the less set in motion. In the same manner 
 there is no plane of the manifested cosmos utterly unre- 
 lated to others. Effects may pass though causes do not. 
 
1 8 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 The human nervous system is plainly a mechanism to 
 relate entities thus acting upon different planes and using 
 dissimilar modes of force. It has its end-organs to receive 
 impacts from without, or those from the material world; 
 its system of nerve-wires to conduct not the shocks, but 
 certain effects of these entirely unlike them in essence 
 to the brain and minor ganglia; and, lastly, these gangli- 
 onic collections of gray matter, to receive and to send out 
 counter-shocks or commotions to other appropriate end- 
 organs, which cause motion in response to such stimuli. 
 Yet in this, which seems so entirely mechanical, there has 
 entered a factor which has hopelessly removed it from the 
 domain of material physics, and which demonstrates that 
 by means of the highly complex nervous organism the 
 body has been related to the plane of spirit, or conscious- 
 ness. Motion has been translated into terms of sensation, 
 a thing unthinkable except as the act of a conscious en- 
 tity. Motion can not become sensation; it can only be rec- 
 ognized as motion by a conscious entity, and conscious 
 inferences or information deduced therefrom. A billiard 
 ball may be made to strike another, and this still another ; 
 but no synthesizing power arises out of the original impact 
 or resulting motion. Nor could such power arise though 
 force enough were used to keep the whole set caroming 
 among each other for ages. Logic and reason absolutely 
 require the presence of the conscious factor to take note of 
 the molecular commotion caused by the physical impact, 
 and to originate upon its part n,ew and appropriate mole- 
 cular agitations in response, in the manner indicated. 
 
 There must be, then, a conscious entity moving both 
 billiard balls and brain molecules, else neither could ever 
 synthesize themselves into orderly sequences. That there 
 
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 19 
 
 are certain complex reflex responses continually taking 
 place, which are even absolutely necessary to our existence, 
 without rising to the plane of our brain or mind conscious- 
 ness, does not weaken, but rather strengthens, the argu- 
 ment for such an entity. For the greater the complexity 
 of the mechanism, the greater the necessity for an intelli- 
 gent, synthesizing center of consciousness to control this 
 complexity. And, as evolution shows, these minor cen- 
 ters of activity are lower entities, in a universe which is 
 but embodied consciousness of some degree, working their 
 way upward in the scale of becoming, and aided very ma- 
 terially by this association with a superior directing and 
 controlling energy. 
 
 The psychical experiences arising from physical energy 
 acting upon the periphery of the body are too unlike that 
 energy to be related directly thereto. There are many 
 physiological processes necessary before the energy rises 
 above the threshold of consciousness as a psychical ex- 
 perience. What these are physiology can not explain, 
 and psychology is equally helpless. At the physical side 
 they may be first simply dynamic, and then complex or 
 chemical; at the psychic threshold, they must be the per- 
 ceptions of a conscious, cognizing entity. In man alone 
 this entity is self-conscious, but an entity of some degree 
 is none the less present in every form of organic life as its 
 synthesizer and organizer. That even in man the relation 
 between this inner cognizer and the form through which it 
 acts is intimate and mutually dependent, goes without 
 saying. The immediate agent in this intimacy is undoubt- 
 edly the mechanism of the nervous system, the duty of 
 which is to concatenate or synthesize the sense impres- 
 sions arising out of the innumerable physical impacts upon 
 
20 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 the periphery of the m body. But a mechanism requires a 
 mechanic, and this is plainly the inner soul. There can be 
 no equality between a mere mechanism, as such, and the 
 intelligence which directs it. In the case of man, too, the 
 mechanism does not express the entire powers of its inner 
 mover, which of itself quite disproves the materialistic 
 theory, however much we might otherwise be inclined to 
 accept it. There is positively no physical equivalent pos- 
 sible for any of the higher faculties. What particular mo- 
 tion among the molecules of the brain can .be postulated 
 as the physical equivalent and causal antecedent of our 
 conceptions of justice, of truth, of moral obligation? The 
 feeblest mind revolts against such a crass conception of 
 its native powers. Perception and sensation may be con- 
 ceived of as arising out of physical correlates, but no such 
 correlate can be conceived of the being who moves about, 
 as it were, among these, selecting this one and rejecting 
 that. The physical brain is limited to motion only; it can 
 not choose its own mode of motion even. 
 
 Of these powers, which even the wildest materialism can 
 not connect with any physical process, the unity of con- 
 sciousness is perhaps the most convincing proof of the ex- 
 istence of a soul. Unity is unique in consciousness; it is 
 undefinable, unapproachable ; yet none the less it IS; and 
 every act, thought, emotion, willing or feeling is, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, built upon and referred to this 
 underlying unit, the "I am I." All the myriad states of 
 consciousness are recognized by this ''I" as its own. The 
 states, indeed, may result from external causes in nature, or 
 internal, within the organism; but the "I," the unit of con- 
 sciousness, the synthesizer of them all, has no such rela- 
 tion. It is, in truth, a reflection of that incomprehensible 
 
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 21 
 
 Unity which is One and yet All, at the dawn of a manvan- 
 tara. No number of successive states of consciousness can 
 constitute the unity which synthesizes and connects them 
 all. The string of pearls must have a real string, or they 
 are but individual gems, not a sequence of them. Nor can 
 any conceivable number of molecules constitute unity, for 
 upon their own plane each is a unit, and no mere combi- 
 nation of them can produce self-conscious unity upon a 
 higher. They can be synthesized by unity from above 
 into a complex system upon their own plane, but even in 
 this relation they are units grouped, not unity. 
 
 Again, the mind is a unit, or it could not perceive it- 
 self at all. If it were composed of a complexity of varying 
 states it would exist only as such variety, and no one state 
 would have any real hold upon or memory of those past, 
 or anticipation of those to come. We can not conceive, 
 much less perceive, any quality in nature which we do not 
 possess. It would be so foreign, so utterly unrelated to 
 our consciousness that we might owe our very being to it 
 without being aware of its existence. Unity can alone 
 recognize unity can alone construct unit things out of the 
 objects in nature. We recognize such unit beings or 
 "things" in nature ; we could not bestow this quality upon 
 them did we not possess it, nor could we recognize it at 
 the base of our "I am I" if it were not really there. As 
 has been so forcibly pointed out by Lotze: 
 
 "No twisting of imagination, or subtlety of argument, can show 
 how a mind not really one could appear to itself at all; or break the 
 strength of the conviction inwrought into the very structure of self- 
 consciousness, that the real and spiritual being, which we call Mind, 
 is not a fortunate confluence or phenomenal center of changing 
 modes, but a unit-being, and a reason of all unity in whatever be- 
 comes the object of its thought."* 
 
 *Loc. Cit, p. 687. 
 
22 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 Nor does this recognition of a real unit, an "I am my- 
 self," ever vary, from the cradle to the grave. Through 
 pain and grief, in joy or gladness, in youth or age, though 
 means after means of communication with externals be 
 cut off by disease or old age, through every conceivable 
 mental change of opinion or belief, the "I am I" is equally 
 undisturbed. The connection between soul and body 
 must be absolutely severed by insanity (disease) or death 
 for this center of consciousness to cease to recognize itself 
 upon this plane, even as a real, abiding unity. Every 
 state of consciousness is constantly referred to this "I" as 
 its base, as the subject which experiences the state. A 
 mental self-conscious state not involving an "I" at its base 
 is absolutely unthinkable. 
 
 In this "I," thus shown to be necessary to self-conscious 
 existence, there are many other attributes, besides those we 
 have been studying, incapable of arising out of any combi- 
 nation of sense-perceptions, and which must therefore be 
 inherent to or potential within itself. One such is mem- 
 ory. This is a reproduction in consciousness, not only of 
 things not there, but of things which never were there. 
 For the things we perceive through our senses are not 
 stored up in the brain even as infinitesimally small pict- 
 ures or representations, for they never reach our brain as 
 such. It is only the effects of these, recorded in molecu- 
 lar changes, which are thus stored, and the mind in re- 
 membering has to take these old effects, connect them with 
 their old causes, and from this construct the old represen- 
 tation. Truly, this is a creative process, requiring a crea- 
 tive center of consciousness, and a center which can only 
 exercise this power through its being one in essence with 
 creative consciousness in nature. It requires an abiding, 
 
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 23 
 
 permanent "I," or the picture could not be recognized as 
 belonging to a past experience. As has been pointed out 
 by Prof. Ladd : 
 
 "It is a fact of consciousness, on which all possibility of connected 
 experience and of recorded and cumulative human knowledge is de- 
 pendent, that certain phases or products of consciousness appear 
 with a claim to stand for [to represent] past experiences to which they 
 are regarded as in some respect similar. It is this peculiar claim in 
 consciousness which constitutes the essence of an act of memory; it 
 is this which makes memory wholly inexplicable as a mere persist- 
 ence or recurrence of similar impressions. It is this which makes 
 conscious memory a spiritual phenomenon, the explanation of which , 
 as arising out of nervous processes and conditions, is not simply un- 
 discoverable in fact, but utterly incapable of approach by imagina- 
 tion. When, then, we speak of a physical basis of memory, recogni- 
 tion must be made of the complete inability of science to suggest any 
 physical process which can be conceived of as correlated with that 
 peculiar and mysterious actus of the mind, connecting its present 
 and its past, which constitutes the essence of memory."* 
 
 Again, memory proves a unit center because each soul 
 remembers its own experiences only. It cannot encroach 
 upon those of another, which would be the case if there 
 were any general remembrance possible in nature. No 
 chasm can be more abrupt or impassible than the line 
 which divides conscious experiences; and no theory will 
 account for this except that of permanent, conscious unit- 
 centers or souls. It is granted that impressions are regis- 
 tered not only in the brain, but in every tissue of the body 
 as well, for each organ has its memory, but 
 
 "For that spiritual activity which actually puts together in con- 
 sciousness the sensations, there can not even be suggested the be- 
 ginning of a physical explanation."! 
 
 *Loc. Cit., p. 558. tLoc. Cit., p. 556. 
 
24 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 This-is to be found in a unifying center, or soul, alone. 
 Memory, then, is a conscious reproduction by a permanent 
 center of consciousness, an "I am myself," of past experi- 
 ences. Especially will this be apparent when the relation 
 of will to memory is considered. We consciously and de- 
 liberately will to reproduce past events an impossible 
 process were there not within us the subject of those 
 experiences we will to recall. 
 
 In the Will, also, we find a power native to the soul, 
 and one unthinkable except as the action of a conscious 
 entity. As well predicate thought without a Thinker as 
 will without a Willing Entity. This faculty is entirely 
 without a physical basis, or at least it has no physical or- 
 gans, but pervades the entire structure of the body, ap- 
 parently as the agent of an inner, controlling essence. 
 Nor is an organ necessary; for the simple, homogeneous 
 speck of protoplasm known as the amoeba, structureless 
 and entirely destitute of organs, exercises this faculty un- 
 deniably in those changes it makes "which can not be 
 wholly explained by reference to any change in its envi- 
 ronments." Its superiority to and control over the body 
 as a purely physical mechanism is shown by the fact, 
 pointed out by Duchenne, and others, that the will is the 
 very first agent to act upon restored nerve fibers after their 
 injury. It is the active agent of consciousness in selecting 
 what sensations and perceptions, among the vast number 
 continuously clamoring for the soul's attention, shall be at- 
 tended to. It can even change the very reports, so to 
 speak, of those sense organs, upon whose action material- 
 ism would fain have us base its coming into existence. 
 Willing, too, is a purely mental activity. No passing-over 
 of force from spiritual to physical realms accompanies its 
 
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 25 
 
 action. There is positively no physical energy expended in 
 willing. All the apparent effort is entirely the result of the 
 physical mechanism carrying out, or attempting to carry 
 out, the mandates of the will, as pronounced by the Ego. 
 
 Like the memory, too, the will is always specialized. 
 There is no general willing; it can only act with a definite 
 object. Its sole material connection is that when a fiat 
 of the will issues certain molecules, associated with the 
 line of action willed, move. But this shows an extraneous 
 mover. It is a physical correlation of molecules with an 
 act of consciousness; not an origination in such motion of 
 either will or consciousness. Were there no other evi- 
 dence, the undoubtedly genuine cases of recovery from 
 deep-seated diseases under the action of the will would be 
 sufficient to show that it is either the agent of th$ mind, 
 or the mind itself, in activity, and quite superior to the 
 physical body which it controls. It is true that, primarily, 
 acts of the will arise out of sensations and perceptions 
 depending upon environment; but the choosing among 
 these of the particular perception or sensation to which 
 the attention shall be directed is a new element, which 
 can not be relegated to mere experiences, or a combina- 
 tion of any other mental activities. It is a deliberate 
 choice of a tool by an artisan having more than one at 
 his disposal. 
 
 For if we examine these very sensations themselves, 
 which materialism claims have arisen out of mechanical 
 motion among physical molecules, we find that they are 
 located in the mind itself, and not in the body. They 
 evade all attempts to reduce them to the domain of 
 physics by measurement. There is no standard in all 
 molecular physics to determine the amount of sensation 
 
26 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 involved in a "severe" pain or a "highly pleasurable" feel- 
 ing. Being activities of the mind alone, and only corre- 
 lated with, not transmuted from, molecular activities, they 
 can only be expressed in terms of consciousness, not in 
 those of physics. 
 
 We have several sense organs, also, each carrying a 
 distinct class of impressions to the mind. To synthesize 
 these widely varying activities into a harmonious whole, 
 recognized by the "I am I" as its experiences, requires 
 that this "I am I" should be separate from and superior 
 to any one or all of them. And upon this ability to as- 
 sociate different classes of sensations is built the mind's 
 power to project and locate in space those objects which 
 its sense-organs bring into its environment. The sensa- 
 tions themselves can not be extended within the brain ; 
 it requires a power potent in the soul itself to project 
 into space certain sensations depending, as has been 
 pointed out, upon molecular activities entirely unlike them 
 in action and essence. The presence of this synthesizing 
 center is shown unquestionably by the fact that a syn- 
 thesis does take place that two or more distinct sensations 
 are unified in the mind as one object. Were there not 
 this synthesizing center, different senses, such as sight, 
 hearing and touch, might all report the same object; but 
 how could any knowledge arise that all these reports re- 
 ferred to the same thing without a synthesizer? Except for 
 synthesis, also, there could be but one sensation at a time 
 actively present in a consciousness compounded only of 
 varying states. And were there but one sense organ, 
 which would be practically the case if but one could act at 
 once, our concepts of time and space would be so changed 
 that we would be as unlike our present selves as an oys- 
 
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 27 
 
 ter, whose consciousness, indeed, must be largely similar 
 to that which ours would be under such circumstances. 
 
 Sensations and ideas are themselves only phenomena, 
 and not entities. It is impossible, therefore, for a sensa- 
 tion to be the subject of its own states; there is absolutely 
 required an entity for this purpose. Nor can any reason 
 be given why motion should become sensation. It is not 
 a product of evolution As pointed out by Prof. Ladd: 
 
 ' 'That I am affected with a certain sensation of color, lying at the 
 bottom of the spectrum's scale, when several billion vibrations of 
 ether strike the retina, and with a qualitatively different sensation 
 when the number of vibrations is increased by several billions more, 
 cannot be explained as an evolution. The same remark holds with- 
 in the limits of each of the other senses. Their scales of quality are 
 not such that experiences at one place of the scale can be evolved 
 from those at other places of the scale. Some of them, such as smell 
 and taste, do not admit of being referred to any form of a scale dia- 
 gram representing relations of quality. The feeling of heat is not 
 another phase of the feeling of cold; neither of the feelings of tem- 
 perature is to be explained as arising out of feelings of pressure or 
 motion."* 
 
 It is quite evident, too, that the senses restrain and limit 
 the powers of the Ego. As observed by Plato, "The soul 
 reasons best when least harassed by the senses." There 
 are evidently more "things" than senses, as is shown in 
 many ways; notably, in the world of effects lying just out- 
 side the colors of the spectrum, and of which our senses 
 afford us no intimation. Finally, if the sense organs were 
 the result of outer stimuli there could never happen, as is 
 the case with every organized being now, the construction 
 of sense organs in entire absence of the stimuli held to be 
 a necessary antecedent to their appearance. Every child 
 
 *Loc. Cit. 
 
28 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 at birth comes into the world with perfectly formed eyes 
 which have never known the stimulus of light, and so on, 
 although in a lesser degree, with all its sense organs. It 
 is no explanation to say that these have been primarily so 
 organized, and are now transmitted by heredity; for the 
 very first step in their acquirement, no matter how small, 
 has always and necessarily been taken in the silence and 
 darkness of subjective being. The outer stimuli have only 
 aroused the inner response; they have not created, nor can 
 they create, evolve, nor even modify, this. 
 
 Of course, we shall be met here with the materialistic 
 assertion that, as the vegetable kingdom, even, shows 
 traces of nerve functions, and as this proceeds upward 
 through the apparently structureless amoeba to the highly 
 complex system of rnan, increasing in conscious function- 
 ing with each increase of specialization, sensation is thus 
 plainly a product of evolution. Yet the functions of the 
 simplest nervous system are unique. Nothing in the 
 whole curriculum of physical science affords even a work- 
 ing hypothesis by which to explain or account for the ap- 
 pearance of the conscious factor. Until some reasonable 
 attempt is made to explain how motion becomes sensation, 
 occult theories must take precedence; especially as these 
 are in full accord with the facts. These teach that the 
 outer sense organ is constructed by and because of the 
 inner impulse of consciousness seeking expression in form, 
 in order to bring about sense relations on the material plane 
 the only relation possible at the present stage of the 
 soul's becoming; and that so far from consciousness arising 
 mechanically out of these sense organs, they actually 
 limit and inhibit conscious manifestations. There is a 
 continuous effort for more consciousness to function than 
 
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 29 
 
 the sense organ affords opportunity for, which fact is 
 the very base and causal antecedent of all so-called evo- 
 lution, were science not too blind to perceive it. But he 
 who starts in the wrong direction travels a weary journey; 
 and until scientists cease to seek in material phenomena 
 for the origin of consciousness they can only increase 
 their distance from the truth by any apparent progress 
 they may make. 
 
 To return: Of ideas arising out of sensations it can 
 only be affirmed that they are modes of activity of the 
 Ego, not of any conceivable physical juxtaposition of mole- 
 cules. The laws governing the association of ideas are to 
 be found in the nature of the soul itself. They can not be 
 derived from any known behavior of so-called physical 
 atoms. They are sui generis; and, while undoubtedly 
 correlated with, do not nor can not arise out of, the molec- 
 ular activities of the brain because of the impassible gulf 
 shown to exist between motion and sensation. Their 
 origination is inexplicable unless we admit the presence 
 of an observing entity, or soul. Ideas can not associate 
 themselves; and while they may arise semi-mechanically 
 in an idle brain, the case is quite different when the 
 aroused Ego, through its will, asserts not only what ideas 
 shall arise in the mind, but the manner of their association 
 as well. 
 
 All material ideas having their root in sensations are 
 conscious relations of the Ego to the material plane, con- 
 ditioned upon its material organ. They are in no way 
 similar to the Ego's consciousness of self, or of its own 
 being. The mind or thinking Ego never applies the 
 terms of sensation arising out of its relations with exter- 
 nal nature to its own being; it never thinks of itself as 
 
30 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 "large" or "small," or as "hot" or "cold." Nothing could 
 be more definite than the line drawn between its own na- 
 tive and proper functions and those arising out of its as- 
 sociation with the sense organs of the body. And so en- 
 tirely dependent is sensation upon the soul that clear 
 vision and acute hearing, etc., depend for their nicety not 
 upon perfect sense organs though these are necessary 
 accessories, but upon a clear mental interpretation of 
 what is seen or heard. 
 
 Again, if consciousness were a transmutation, in some 
 inconceivable manner, of molecular into psychic activities 
 within the brain, then there ought to be both a specializa- 
 tion of nerve substance and a constant ratio between the 
 brain and mind. But, as Prof. Ladd states: 
 
 ' 'So far as we know anything about the particular molecular activi- 
 ties of the central nervous system which are most directly connected 
 with the phenomena of consciousness, they do not differ essentially 
 from other molecular activities of this system not thus connected 
 with consciousness. The chemical constitution and structural form 
 of the nerve-fibers and nerve-cells of the brain do not differ from 
 those of the spinal cord in any such respect as, of itself, to account 
 for the difference in the relations in which the two stand to conscious 
 mental states. They do not so differ even from the molecules which 
 enter into the living plant or animal, of much lower species, mentally, 
 than man."* 
 
 Thus there is evidently no physical evolution of the 
 ganglionic cells after they have reached a certain point. 
 The most profound philosopher is using cells of the same 
 kind to relate him to sensuous existence as his Darwinian 
 "cousin," the ape. There ought to have been a further 
 and most marked specialization of form and structure if 
 mental activities had been evolved from increasing nerv- 
 
 ~Loc. Cit. 
 
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 31 
 
 ous complexities. Instead of this, there is only an en- 
 tirely relative not absolute increase in the amount of 
 these cells. Is it not evident that "gray matter" is only 
 the pigment, as it were, with which the ape makes his 
 feeble conscious daubs, while man produces magnificent 
 paintings because the pigment in his case is in the hands 
 of superior intelligence ? 
 
 There is often, too, the most marked divergence between 
 mental and physical evolution. The human child comes 
 into the world perfectly mindless as far as anything be- 
 yond reflex action is concerned, yet it is possessed of a 
 most perfect and elaborate nervous system, u far surpassing 
 that of the most intelligent adult animal." Where is the 
 mental activity which ought to have unavoidably accom- 
 panied this physical evolution, if the one process arises 
 out of the other? In the first year of the child's life, 
 mental activity makes the most wonderful strides, running 
 far ahead of its supposed physical source. The same in- 
 equality attends their relations throughout life. Especi- 
 ally is it marked in old age, where, long after the physical 
 has ceased to progress, and is even rapidly retrogressing, 
 the mind retains all its pristine vigor. Of course, this is 
 seen only in cases of men who have lived a mental life. A 
 man who has passed his existence as an ambulating vege- 
 table decays like one; he has no mind to shine forth 
 amidst the ruins of his body. But the presence of a vigor- 
 ous mentality connected with great physical decrepitude in 
 but one case proves its possibility in all. Cases of illness 
 with mental vigor are in point here in fact, many dis- 
 eases, by refining and subduing animality, actually in- 
 crease mentality. Of course, there is a golden mean, and 
 bodily age or disease to the point of cutting off the Ego's 
 
32 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 hold upon its sense organs must be followed by their ceas- 
 ing to give evidence of its presence. In such cases men- 
 tal decrepitude apparently follows upon the physical. 
 But, as already pointed out, there can be no argument 
 drawn from this intimate dependence upon the body by 
 the soul for its conscious relations with this plane against 
 its actual and independent existence. Every entity in 
 nature is dependent upon other entities; the very cells of 
 man's body are made up of countless lives, having their 
 own life history beyond and outside of this association, 
 upon which, nevertheless, they entirely depend. The Ego 
 within the body shows more numerous and important 
 phenomena to entitle it to be claimed as a real unit entity 
 than do any or all physical phenomena on the part of the 
 latter; and if either is to be declared non-existent, it must, 
 by all the laws of logic, be the body, and not the soul. 
 
 But the crowning physiological argument in favor of a 
 soul is in the nature of consciousness itself, and that, as 
 has been pointed out, all its higher spiritual activities can 
 neither be connected with any definite material organ 
 nor proven to arise out of any conceivable mode of mole- 
 cular motion within the brain. 
 
 "For all the higher spiritual faculties," says Lotze, "which consist 
 in judgment of the relations of given conceptions, we neither know 
 how empirically to demonstrate a definite bodily organ, nor should 
 we know how to conceive precisely what such an organ could con- 
 tribute toward the solution of the most essential part of the problem 
 that is, the pronouncing of the judgment itself. It is conceivable, 
 on the other hand, that these higher activities might presuppose the 
 complete and clear representation of the content about which the 
 judgment is to be passed, and, consequently, also the undisturbed 
 function of those organs which contribute, first, to perception by the 
 senses; then to its reproduction and combination with other percep- 
 
THE 'PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 33 
 
 tions; and, finally, to the appropriate attachment of feelings of value 
 to each" of them."* 
 
 Yet this " clear representation of the content about 
 which the judgment is to be passed" must not be con- 
 ceived of as taking part in the judgment itself. This 
 would land us in the materialistic absurdity of supposing 
 that all the activities of consciousness were only the 
 product of the molecular associations concerned in their 
 representation. As well try to identify the bile as a real 
 physical secretion of hypochondria, or tears as liquid sor- 
 row. 
 
 In this connection, too much stress can not be laid upon 
 the importance of the unity of consciousness (before re- 
 ferred to), of the Ego, or soul. All our mental faculties are 
 but modes of its behavior. Its presence and native 
 powers are demonstrated by its phenomenal activities. It 
 would be less unphilosophic to deny the existence of elec- 
 tricity than of the center of consciousness at the base of 
 the soul; for all we know concerning the former is drawn 
 entirely from its objective phenomena, while of the latter 
 we have in addition to these its subjective phenomena as 
 well. And although the mental states, perceptions and 
 sensations may be and are innumerable, they are alike re- 
 ferred to the one subject the "I" upon which they all rest. 
 Is it a thinkable proposition that the whole possible gamut 
 of conscious experiences could be thus unified in a subject 
 of them all without the real and actual existence of that 
 subject ? 
 
 "To have a variety of changing states attributed to it as the subject 
 of them all this is to demonstrate in consciousness a claim to real 
 being. Unchanging rigidity, the permanence of the mathematical 
 
 *Loc. Cit., p. 558. 
 
34 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 point or of the material atom, on the supposition that the latter 
 undergoes no interior changes whatever, if such rigidity and perma- 
 nence anywhere exist, constitutes no claim to the title of real being. 
 
 ' ' The soul exists in reality, above all other kinds of being, because 
 it alone, so far as we know on good evidence, knows itself as the sub- 
 ject of its own states; or, indeed, knows the states of which it is the 
 subject as states belonging to itself. But its law is that of develop- 
 ment; and, unlike all 'things' which are subjects of various kinds of 
 evolution, so called, the soul can recognize the law of its own being. 
 When, therefore, we are asked what the mind really is, we can re- 
 spond by telling what it comes to be as the result of its unfolding 
 under the fixed conditions of its native powers. But these 'powers' 
 cannot be called native, as though they were actual achievements of 
 the mind's inborn faculties, or separate forms of energy inherent in 
 it, after the analogy of the forces said [somewhat unintelligibly, it 
 must be admitted,] to be 'inherent' in the atom. 
 
 "But we do not define the nature of any real being simply by stat- 
 ing how it appears and behaves in its most germinal and undeveloped 
 form. The tree explains the seed; the adult bird, the egg; the 
 character of the highly differentiated product must be studied in 
 order to know the full description of the energies that are potential 
 in the simple stages. It is an undoubted fact that the mind [soul] 
 has a history in each individual case; and in each case such history 
 is a development. This self-recognizing unity of development which 
 belongs to the mind is a striking proof of the validity of its claim to 
 be considered a real being. As the being .which acts and knows it- 
 self as acting, which is acted upon and knows itself affected, which 
 is the subject of states and itself attributes these states to itself, 
 which develops according to a plan and so remembers and compre- 
 hends the significance of the past states that it can recognize the fact 
 of its own development as such a being the mind [soul] is more en- 
 titled to consider itself 'real' than to consider real any of the various 
 objects that, immediately or indirectly, appear before it in the course 
 of its history."* 
 
 *Loc. Cit., p. 680. 
 
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 35 
 
 There is still another faculty of the mind which is, if 
 possible, even more undiscoverable in and unrelated to 
 any definite physical basis than those heretofore consid- 
 ered. This is that aspect or phase of consciousness 
 known as the Feelings. Just what feeling consists in 
 escapes definition. It is an innate, underived power 
 of consciousness. It accompanies all sensation and all 
 ideation, while it itself may be and often is experienced 
 independently of any other conscious state. It is there- 
 fore, upon this plane at least, a basic aspect evidently of 
 consciousness, if not the very essence of this itself. For 
 all sense of personal identity may be lost, as in chloroform 
 narcosis; all thought may cease, as in yoga or other con- 
 centration; all will may be suspended, as in the passivity 
 of mediumship; or these may be annulled or suspended 
 together in moments of terror, surprise, joy, or pleasure. 
 Yet, untouched by all, burns the steady light of a con- 
 scious center which feels that it exists, or, rather, that it IS. 
 That feeling is related to this plane by the sense organs 
 is evident. That it is modified as to its states by these, 
 follows as a necessary corollary, else there would be no 
 reason for or even possibility of the association; but that 
 it arises, de novo, out of any possible combination of 
 merely fortuitous molecular activities is simply absurd. 
 It measures all sensation, as to whether it is painful, 
 pleasurable, or neutral (if such a state can exist); it 
 equally accompanies thought, and classifies this by its own 
 inherent analytical powers as belonging to or connected 
 with one or other of the higher activities of the mind, such 
 as imaginative, religious, moral, esthetical, etc. It binds 
 all the other faculties of the mind into an unity such as is 
 unexplainable except as the conscious functioning of a 
 
36 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 self-conscious Ego. Feeling accompanies all possible ex- 
 perience. Whether one hate or love, whether he live in 
 intellectual realms or those of sensuous emotions, feeling 
 accompanies each state so faithfully that the only explana- 
 tion of this is that it is the presence of a self-conscious 
 soul, exercising an underived and underivable power in- 
 nate in consciousness itself, and hence a ray from or an 
 aspect of the Causeless Cause, in its finite manifestation. 
 All the evidence thus adduced to prove the presence of 
 a soul as a necessary deduction from physiological phe- 
 nomena must not be understood as asserting or even in- 
 dicating that this soul is capable of being analyzed and its 
 nature explained, because we can prove its existence. 
 There is no phenomenon, nor entity, nor being in the 
 universe which does not at last escape analysis by disap- 
 pearing in the great Unknowable Source of All, the 
 Causeless Cause. But it would seem the height of un- 
 philosophic reasoning to admit the reality of the fleeting 
 and illusionary beings which constitute our bodies, to- 
 gether with their environments, and then to deny the real 
 existence of the conscious and permanent base, the 
 Knower, Observer and Recorder of this illusory experi- 
 ence. An Unknowable must always be admitted as an 
 ultimate factor; the finite can never hope to contain or 
 measure the Infinite, but we must beware that in our 
 ignorance we do not relegate to this Unknowable prob- 
 lems which belong only to the Unknown, and which it is 
 vital to our progress, and even our very existence, that 
 we discover. To this Unknown which must be discovered 
 belong evidently inquiries such as we have been consider- 
 ing, as well as all phenomena which relate to the existence 
 of the soul, the modes of its behavior, the things which re- 
 tard, prevent or accelerate its progress through the Cycle 
 of Necessity in which it has its present being. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF THE 
 EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL. 
 
 TN the preceding chapter attention has been paid to 
 JL the evidences of a soul in the psycho-physiology of the 
 waking state, or that of normal consciousness. No refer- 
 ence was had to the large and fertile field consisting of 
 man's dreaming consciousness, together with the allied 
 phenomena of trance, hypnotism, clairvoyance, and super- 
 sensuous states generally. 
 
 It is evident that if there be a psycho-physiology of the 
 waking state, there must also be one of sleep. As this 
 occupies one-third of our entire existence, it cannot be 
 safely ignored in any psychological investigation. It is 
 hardly reasonable, in view of the wonderful utilization of 
 every opportunity by nature, to infer that sleep is only 
 intended for that bodily rest and recuperation to which it 
 has been assigned by science. Furthermore, the so-called 
 abnormal phenomena of trance, clairvoyance, thought 
 transference, etc., representing a large" unclassified residu- 
 um" of psychic phenomena, have a most important bear- 
 ing upon the question of human consciousness functioning 
 independent of the body, and hence upon the existence of 
 a soul. 
 
 There are also further facts and generalizations to be 
 drawn from the study of the nature of the relation of con- 
 sciousness to the human organism in particular, and to 
 biological evolution in general, which may, perhaps, be 
 profitably studied in connection with and as a preface to 
 
38 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 the consideration of dreaming and other supersensuous 
 phenomena. 
 
 Taking up, primarily, then, these general considerations, 
 we find a soul directly pointed at by the fact of self-con- 
 sciousness. While consciousness of some degree necessa- 
 rily accompanies every step of evolutionary development, 
 in man alone it first reaches the condition of self-conscious- 
 ness, or consciousness of consciousness. Man analyzes 
 and examines his own consciousness. Now, analysis re- 
 quires two factors an analyzer and the thing analyzed. 
 Therefore, self-consciousness implies most conclusively 
 that man has become at least dual in his nature ; that 
 something has been added above and beyond the animal 
 consciousness (which knows no "I") of the kingdom below 
 him. One constituent of his being steps aside and critic- 
 ally examines other constituents. Unless his conscious- 
 ness is dual and separable, it is incapable of this. No 
 molecular motion the materialistic source of thought and 
 consciousness can isolate itself and observe the mechan- 
 ical details to which -it owes its own existence. Such a 
 process is inconceivable. As we have seen, only a soul 
 independent of its physical sense organs for its conscious 
 existence can satisfy the conditions of the problems of self- 
 consciousness and self-analysis. 
 
 Further consideration shows us, also, that self-conscious- 
 ness does not exhaust its peculiar and proper object, 
 which is self. If consciousness were the product of the 
 chemico-vital processes going on within the body, it ought, 
 as the mere expression of this, to express it fully. It 
 would be a simple question in mathematics a case of two 
 and two making four. Instead <f this, our ordinary con- 
 sciousness finds itself occupying a body of which it knows 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 39 
 
 next to nothing. Our ordinary consciousness take no- 
 tice. That there is an inner consciousness, or soul, and 
 that this soul is intelligently conscious of every process 
 going on within the body, is abundantly proven by recent 
 experiments in hypnotism. This state, in which the ordi- 
 nary consciousness is suspended to a greater or lesser 
 degree and an inner permitted to function, shows that a 
 very illiterate, ignorant person will display a familiarity 
 with the anatomy and physiology of his or her organism, 
 and a recognition of diseased conditions together with a 
 knowledge of the remedies necessary to their alleviation or 
 cure, far exceeding that of the most learned and experi- 
 enced physician. That this information and knowledge 
 proceed from an inner source, and are not due to thought 
 transference or suggestion on the part of the physician, is 
 proven by unsuspected physical conditions thus described 
 having been verified by post mortem. This strange phe- 
 nomenon can only be accounted for by admitting to man 
 a higher consciousness than that which functions on the 
 ordinary or waking plane, and which consciousness can 
 only exist as the functions of an independent Ego, or soul. 
 
 It is true that self-prescribing, etc., are only compara- 
 tively low planes of the conscious functioning of the soul, 
 but this does not diminish their real significance. The 
 point made clear by them is that normal, waking con- 
 sciousness expresses only a portion a very small por- 
 tion, in reality of the conscious powers of the soul. The 
 fact that the soul is superior to the body, and its conscious 
 area actually limited by the sense organs of the latter, 
 is thus firmly established. 
 
 If, also, we examine the relation sustained by conscious- 
 ness to biological processes in general we shall find that 
 
40 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 the same conditions obtain. The manifestation of divine 
 consciousness in physical form, which constitutes nature 
 as we perceive it, is likewise limited in its expression by 
 its material vehicle. There is a constant struggle on the 
 part of the inner consciousness to express itself more fully 
 and harmoniously than the " matter" with which it is as- 
 sociated permits. This fact is the sole agent in and the 
 cause of all evolution. Both man and nature are con- 
 stantly trying to displace this movable threshold of con- 
 sciousness which they have in common. This threshold, 
 the point of unstable equilibrium in nature, is the battle- 
 field wherein every contest between " matter and spirit" 
 takes place. Here the outer form is slowly modified by 
 the continuous efforts of the inner consciousness, seeking a 
 more perfect vehicle for its expression. The fact that 
 modification is possible in man and nature prophesies in 
 both, also, unlimited potentialities of future development. 
 And, truly, a biological process is only possible by means 
 of a higher or transcendental consciousness in nature. If 
 we take any division the vertebrates, for example we 
 shall find the designing idea always precedes in time its 
 evolution in matter. The intention of nature is plainly 
 foreshadowed in the notochord, which still persists in some 
 of the lower vertebrates; and the prophecy of this insignifi- 
 cant notochord finds its realization in the magnificent elab- 
 oration of the vertebral column, with its cranial enlarge- 
 ment, muscular, nervous, arterial, lymphatic, digestive, and 
 other accessory systems, which together constitute the 
 body of the being declared to be " a little lower than the 
 angels in heaven." Yet science would have us believe 
 that this wonderful result is due alone to the blind groping 
 of natural forces under the impelling influence of unintelli- 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 41 
 
 gent law! Nay, if there were no other proof of there be- 
 ing a higher consciousness in nature and in man, it is 
 shown beyond all doubt by the very facts upon which 
 materialistic science chiefly relies those of evolution. 
 No building was ever yet constructed whose model or de- 
 sign was not previously present in the consciousness of its 
 architect, and no biological process ever took place which 
 was not previously present in the mind of a Higher In- 
 telligence. 
 
 Evolution continuously displaces the threshold of con- 
 sciousness in nature and in man. And biology, also, 
 shows that for the whole of organic nature, including man, 
 there are two increasingly unequal divisions that part 
 which sense organs disclose, and that portion which is 
 transcendental to or beyond sensuous perception. For 
 an oyster most of the world is transcendental; that man's 
 consciousness is very much widened in area does not by 
 any means imply that he is in contact with the whole of 
 nature. Step by step, the higher consciousness has 
 evolved organs capable of relating itself to larger and 
 larger areas of contact with external things. 
 
 The design in each instance has preceded the construc- 
 tion of the thing designed. If the brain, for example, 
 were developed by blind force alone, how could it have 
 been adapted for future needs ? Yet all the functions of 
 the human mind, all its god-like faculties, were foreseen 
 and provided for in anticipation by the first swelling 
 which, at one extremity of an otherwise indistinguishable 
 line of nerve substance, prophesied and promised the 
 magnificent display of will, intellect, reason, emotion and 
 intuition subsequently enabled to manifest through the 
 brain of a Spencer or a Shakespeare. And the tin- 
 
42 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 broken sequence of design and thought lie before our 
 eyes all our lives, yet we are asked to believe that for- 
 tuitous chance caused force to take this direction ; that all 
 this is but the sum of the molecular and chemical action 
 of blindly working law ! 
 
 This movable and moving threshold of conscious- 
 ness, then, appears in all nature. It can only be the 
 result of two causes. Either an inner and a higher con- 
 sciousness is shaping and transforming matter, with a def- 
 inite and intelligent end in view, or it is the result of 
 blind chance working under the despotic need of unintelli- 
 gent force. And if we are compelled to admit an inner 
 and a higher consciousness in any single effort of nature, 
 the fortress is taken; for, step by step, we shall be forced 
 to admit a higher consciousness in all ; and the question 
 as to whether man has a higher consciousness, or soul, is 
 answered by the biological argument in the affirmative. 
 And again we are driven to the conclusion that, since this 
 higher consciousness is not dependent in any way upon 
 the matter which it shapes to further its ends as a pot- 
 ter might for its continued existence, then it does not, 
 and indeed can not, die upon the death or transforma- 
 tion of the latter. /On the contrary, analogy points to the 
 fact that, as a man wears out and renews his body, cell by 
 cell, many times in the labors of a life, so his soul must 
 wear out and renew many bodies in the course of its in- 
 finite pilgrimage. Here, once again, then, the fact of and 
 reason for reincarnation meets us squarely as the logical 
 result of biological necessities. 
 
 Again, the evolution of sense organs and the widening 
 of consciousness upon this plane are parallel. Nor is it 
 probable that man will evolve any absolutely new sense 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 43 
 
 organ which will relate him to new phenomena or facts of 
 nature. But this is <not necessary, since those he has are 
 capable of almost infinite expansion along lines they now 
 subtend. And that no new physiological organs are in 
 process of evolution points plainly to the inference that 
 future development must be in psychic or mental direc- 
 tions. This will certainly be the case unless we refuse to 
 predicate any further advance as possible to the human 
 Ego a conclusion to which the egotism of self-satisfaction 
 is very prone. 
 
 If one wears blue glasses all nature assumes a blue hue. 
 Materialism has looked at the universe so long through 
 material lenses that it has become spiritually color blind. 
 It also confounds the condition of thinking with the cause 
 of thought; it mistakes the physical brain, which is the 
 battery by means of which the operator beyond transmits 
 thought messages to this physical plane, for the creator of 
 that which it merely transmits. It is exactly the same as 
 if a countryman were to insist that the instrument which 
 ticks off his message is the source of the intelligence dis- 
 played. 
 
 Self-consciousness, then, together with its varied func- 
 tions, such as reflective thought, constructive imagination, 
 volition, even to the extent of deliberately abandoning 
 the body by suicide-t-all show that that body is occupied 
 and controlled by a soul almost infinitely superior to it in 
 function and powers; and, as a necessary corollary, that the 
 soul has acquired this undoubted superiority by an almost 
 numberless series of reincarnations.? 
 
 A careful examination must convince any one that 
 thought comes into the consciousness ready made; that is, 
 that we do not consciously create it, but receive it as 
 
44 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 though transmitted to us from some source outside or be- 
 yond us. From a perception of this, poets have always 
 claimed to be inspired by a "muse." This reception of 
 completed thought shows plainly that the physical brain is 
 only an organ to relate thought to the physical plane, and 
 not to create it in any sense of the word. The whole of 
 nature's so-called creative processes are simply uncon- 
 scious thought -that is, unconscious to us. Could we 
 attune our consciousness to that of the creative intelli- 
 gences in nature, we would know what is going on in the 
 mind of an ant, as also in the mind of a flower or stone. 
 And that the soul is so attuned, in a degree at least, is 
 proven by the fact that in deep hypnotic states it knows 
 nature's thoughts or processes going on within its own 
 physical organism, and can and does recognize and pre- 
 scribe for diseased conditions therein. This is just in ac- 
 cordance with what must be predicated of soul, which, being 
 independent of the body for all except one class of purely 
 material functions, and which, passing from body to body 
 by means of reincarnation, must accumulate an amount of 
 conscious experiences, with knowledge and wisdom arising 
 therefrom, which cannot of necessity find full and complete 
 expression in any one body, as a small engine is insuffi- 
 cient to afford full expression for the energy of a series of 
 boilers. To turn on the full force would in both instances 
 be to destroy the vehicle. 
 
 Proceeding, next, more directly to the examination of the 
 dreaming and other abnormal states of consciousness, we 
 note, as a basic parallel, that the projection of images dur- 
 ing sleep is exactly equivalent to perception in the waking 
 state, both placing objectively something we perceive sub- 
 jectively. A tree, for example, is not seen actually where 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 45 
 
 it is; nor is its size nor color nor any of its attributes 
 perceived externally. The perception is entirely internal ; 
 the location and definition of the object externally is an 
 after operation belonging to experience and judgment. 
 A blind man, suddenly restored to sight, as has been 
 done by operation, is at first utterly unable to estimate the 
 distance, perspective, and other qualities of objects, except 
 as the result of painfully acquired experience, in which 
 perception plays no further part than to furnish the pri- 
 mary data. Therefore, there is, ipso facto, nothing in 
 dreams which excludes their phenomena from the domain 
 of actual perception. As continuously occurs in waking 
 life, these perceptions may be wrongly interpreted; but 
 they are none the less true perceptions, and have their 
 psycho-physiology, our ignorance of which is no warrant 
 for its non-existence. 
 
 Waking consciousness is the result of an almost infinite 
 number of physical stimuli reaching perception and rec- 
 ognition by means of the sense organs. In dream, the soul 
 responds to stimuli from inner and more spiritual planes. 
 The senselessness of most remembered dreams is due to a 
 mixing of the waking and dreaming states, when objective 
 stimuli are partly dramatized on the subjective plane, and 
 vice versa. In ordinary dreams all stimuli are dramatized; 
 thus resembling somewhat a play where the actors are 
 limited to pantomime for the expression of their ideas. 
 And the causes of the dramatization not being perceived, 
 the judgment necessarily rests on false premises. The 
 waking state is partly objective and partly subjective; 
 dream is the same only between the two states the 
 threshold of consciousness is greatly displaced. In the 
 waking condition the consciousness is engross'ed by the 
 
46 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 stronger stimuli of physical life, and the subjective thresh- 
 old recedes accordingly. In dream the objective thresh- 
 old recedes, and the consciousness responds to an en- 
 tirely different class of stimuli, of a subjective nature. It 
 is not claimed that these minor stimuli are not present in 
 the waking condition. They are; but are crowded out of 
 the attention, or displaced by the stronger. They resem- 
 ble a feeble chord in music so lost in louder and higher 
 pitched ones that we are unaware it is being sounded. 
 It is only as objective stimuli fade or are suppressed that 
 we can become conscious on subjective planes. In both 
 sleeping and waking states it is, of course, the same con- 
 sciousness, but responding to different stimuli. 
 
 If, then, the physiology of dreams carries perception 
 and consciousness to the dream plane, the importance of 
 studying this and its allied unconscious (so called) con- 
 ditions cannot be overestimated. For once we show that 
 ordinary dream and the higher dream states, such as 
 somnambulism and trance, are merely gradations of the 
 same consciousness responding to new stimuli; we not 
 only establish the fact of another consciousness than the 
 waking, but we also prove that this consciousness is very 
 greatly superior to the waking, in knowledge, functions, 
 and power. In other words, we prove an inner Ego, or 
 soul. 
 
 In demonstration of this connection, if we pass but a 
 single step above the ordinary dream, and admit signifi- 
 cant dreams as possib^ and who does not ? we are in 
 contact with a consciousness which is capable of forewarn- 
 ing, or prophecy powers far surpassing its waking capaci- 
 ties. Again, sleep-walking is but the dreamer acting 
 out the dramatization of his own dreams, as the writer, 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 47 
 
 who was in youth a somnambulist, can personally testify. 
 Many, if not all, the phases of natural somnambulism are 
 so plainly identical with those of induced somnambulism, 
 or the hypnotic states, that we are enabled to connect these 
 conditions beyond any doubt. And in the hypnotic or 
 induced somnambulism, whether self-induced or due to 
 the will of another, we forge the last and strongest 
 link which binds the waking consciousness to one almost 
 infinitely higher than itself, which is yet truly its own 
 self, only functioning above and beyond the limitations 
 of its material sense organs. 
 
 In studying dream, as the very lowest yet most univer- 
 sal of these states, we note the entrance of a most impor- 
 tant factor, or the use by the dreaming consciousness of 
 entirely new concepts of time and space. It is a well- 
 known and admitted physiological fact that dreams which 
 on the waking plane would require years of time for their 
 enactment find on the dream plane that even a moment 
 is sufficient for the dreaming consciousness to appreciate 
 them in their most minute details. Thus De Quincey had 
 one dream which apparently extended over some sixty 
 years, but which actually occupied scarcely as many mo- 
 ments. Uxhill, also, on three successive nights, not only 
 saw his whole life pass in review, but appreciated its 
 moral bearing.* 
 
 Now, the fact that the relation of the thinking Ego to 
 time conceptions is changed in dream is one whose 
 importance cannot be overestimated. The exact speed 
 at which objective stimuli are transmitted from the 
 periphery to the brain centers is well known. In like man- 
 ner, the time required by the consciousness to record 
 visual perceptions is also subject to accurate measure- 
 *Du Prel, Philosophic der Mystic. 
 
48 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 ment, as has been pointed out by Helmholtz, Fechner, 
 and others. Since it is the same "I" which perceives both 
 in the waking state and in dreams, and since perception 
 in the waking state can only proceed at a definite, meas- 
 urable rate of speed, if we find in dream this same "I" 
 recording perceptions at a rate a million times greater 
 than that which its physical organ, or brain, is capable of 
 registering, it follows that it can not be using this phys- 
 ical organ, and is therefore not limited to the latter for its 
 manifestations of consciousness. This alone proves that 
 we possess a consciousness independent of the body, and, 
 therefore, a soul, beyond all cavil or dispute. 
 
 Of the nature of dreams are the cases of partial drown- 
 ing, where the whole life of the individual passes in review, 
 to its most minute detail, during the brief interval in which 
 the higher consciousness is permitted to function through 
 the suppression of the lower by the physical asphyxiation 
 and psychic exaltation which accompany the act. In 
 the same category are the well-authenticated facts of the 
 entire suppression of pain during the burning of both 
 witches and martyrs. Through the tremendous psychic 
 exaltation upon such occasions, the consciousness is trans- 
 ferred to higher, or soul, planes, and the body burns with- 
 out giving the soul any concern ; it feeling, in the supreme 
 arousing of its faculties, that its existence is not depend- 
 ent upon its body in any degree. 
 
 The power of the center of consciousness, or soul, to use 
 differing vehicles for its manifestation is the key to all hyp- 
 notic and supersensuoUs states. It is their only rational 
 explanation. For if the threshold of consciousness is dis- 
 placed to any marked extent, or, in other words, if the 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. -49 
 
 center of consciousness which constitutes the human soul 
 uses an inner vehicle, the new stimuli relate it to such unfa- 
 miliar phenomena that it often seems even to itself to be 
 another consciousness to belong to some other person. 
 This has been well shown by the experiments of Binet 
 and Janet, in jFrance. In these, the permitting of the in- 
 ner Ego to function through the suppression of the limiting 
 sense organs by hypnosis caused an ignorant peasant 
 woman, for example, to so widen her conscious area as to 
 refuse to believe that she was identical with the stupid 
 " Janet" of her ordinary, unhypnotized experience. 
 
 This non-recognition of the functions and powers of 
 the soul accounts for most, if not all, the cases of "spirit 
 guides" and "controls" in mediums and hypnotics; for 
 the ordinary mediumistic or trance " control," or "guide," 
 is only a case of self-hypnosis, where a dramatization of 
 the inner consciousness takes on the part of such guide, 
 adviser, or prevaricator, according as the medium or 
 hypnotic rises to a higher or lower plane of his or her 
 being. 
 
 It may be objected, in this relation, that these particular 
 manifestations of the powers of the soul are morbid, be- 
 cause connected with morbid conditions. But this does 
 not follow. As well hold the light which passes through 
 a lens to be abnormal, and not really light, because the 
 process of polishing and shaping the lens which permits 
 of its being focused is unusual, or because the capacity 
 to focus light is not a property of the stone in its natural 
 condition. 
 
 All such phenomena must be carefully studied, analyzed, 
 and classified by science before it can impose its dictum 
 upon the results of investigations in regions which it 
 
50 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 proudly refuses to enter. Nor can it be expected to lead 
 investigation or thought. It has always been the un- 
 relenting opposer of new ideas, as the new ideas in their 
 turn have always been the deadliest foes of the old. It 
 was scientific authority, as expressed in a little body of 
 men, who, having mastered the externals of existing 
 thought, and thus filled the measure of their own capacity, 
 railed when Harvey asserted that the blood circulated 
 through the human body ; when Stevenson foretold the 
 speed and usefulness of steam vehicles; and so on, 
 trirough a long list of similar counts; and which to-day 
 looks on with solemn discontent as the birds float through 
 the air in direct violation of its conceptions of the 'laws of 
 physics, dynamics and gravitation. For the same force, 
 applied in the same manner, and attached to the same 
 proportion of weight, when put into a " scientific" machine 
 refuses to fly. And yet no field is so full of proofs of 
 the existence and functioning of a divine soul as that 
 found in the marvelous collection of facts, and deduc- 
 tions of design and intelligence therefrom, which are the 
 result of scientific inquiry. 
 
 But whether or not man has a soul, it is evident that 
 he exhibits mental and spiritual powers which can not be 
 connected with nor explained by his material organism. 
 All the conscious aspects of his being are sui generis, and 
 not derivable in any manner from his material aspects. 
 Yet under the philosophic axiom that any law must neces- 
 sarily be universal in its action to exist at all, this con- 
 scious energy which he exhibits must fall under the same 
 law of conservation which obtains on the material plane. 
 And this conservation of mental energy requires a 
 mental vehicle, and one capable of passing from body to 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 51 
 
 body upon the death of these; else the mental energy of 
 one life is not conserved and carried over to the next, as its 
 true conservation demands. Thus a reincarnating soul is 
 directly pointed out and connected with the body by the 
 two greatest generalizations of modern science the con- 
 servation of force and the law of evolution. For either 
 subjective energy, intellect, emotion, will, etc., are stored 
 up in and transmitted under the law of force conservation 
 by a soul, or this law, as well as that of evolution, is 
 violated. Intelligence can only be conserved by intelli- 
 gence, and its evolution thus lies necessarily along its 
 own, or subjective, lines. In other words, the cause must 
 be equal to the effect; and intelligence can only be the 
 creation of and transmitted by intelligence. One sees at 
 once how immense must be the waste of energy manifest- 
 ing as intellect or intuition if the process of its evolution 
 has to be begun anew with each new babe born on earth, 
 to be again cut short by death when perhaps at its very 
 highest evolutionary activity, unless that energy is carried 
 forward from personality to personality by means of the 
 repeated reincarnation of the soul. If, then, the energies 
 of the soul obey, as they must, the law of force conserva- 
 tion, reincarnation becomes an absolute necessity. 
 
 There is another point overlooked by science. For in- 
 telligence to supervene upon unintelligent matter, under 
 the play of blind force, demands as great an effort of the 
 imagination and faith as the exploded theological theory 
 of creation out of nothing. In the face of this, science 
 has ever sought to find the source of intelligence in some 
 nook or by-way of matter, forgetting that matter only 
 shows the evidence of the presence of intelligence, not its 
 underlying source. The key to the confusion lies in the 
 
52 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 fact of subconscious thought, which is none the less 
 thought because acting below the plane of self-conscious- 
 ness. Thought is of every plane in the Cosmos; the 
 very stones have their manasic principle. Thought and 
 organization go on side by side unconsciously until the 
 plane of self-consciousness is reached, when man sud- 
 denly becomes aware of both a thinking and a conscious 
 principle within him. This does not imply that either 
 or both were absent on the planes below. Remember 
 that thought, as we have pointed out, comes into the 
 mind ready made, and is the ideation of the Higher 
 Ego, the rationale of which will be explained in the 
 chapter which deals directly with that subject. Mean- 
 while, it is plainly seen that the soul is conscious on 
 lower planes by self-prescribing, etc., and, in varying 
 degree, upon higher ones by clairvoyance and prophetic 
 vision. 
 
 When man's consciousness is limited to the coarser 
 stimuli transmitted by his physical senses, it can only 
 function on the physical plane. In this condition it is 
 termed the lower Ego, or personality. When these senses 
 are suspended by sleep, trance, or death, his consciousness 
 functions on interior and higher planes until again aroused, 
 by awakening, in the one case, and by reincarnation 
 in the other, to the old physical stimuli. This latter con- 
 sciousness, which passes in sleep or death to purely spirit- 
 ual planes, we term the Higher or true Ego, because it is 
 not limited by its physical envelope, is untouched by the 
 changes of state we know as birth and death, and trans- 
 mits its constantly increasing increment of wisdom and 
 intelligence from body to body by means of its reincarna- 
 tion. The threshold of physical consciousness is the 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 53 
 
 dividing line between the Higher Ego and lower person- 
 ality. It embraces a large field of more or less confused 
 conscious states before it merges into the pure spiritual 
 consciousness of the Higher Ego, upon the one side, or 
 into the purely sensuous consciousness of the personality, 
 upon the other. As the physical senses and sensitive- 
 ness to the finer vibrations of astral matter constitute this 
 threshold, each man has of necessity a differing conscious- 
 ness both of Higher Ego and lower personality from all 
 other men. Taken together, they represent the sum of the 
 wisdom and knowledge acquired throughout the entire 
 series of his rebirths, or reincarnations. The personal 
 consciousness is limited by the particular body it is in- 
 habiting. The body, again, is the result of the law of 
 cause and effect, running through the affinities which 
 govern its selection, and which Theosophy terms "karma," 
 or sequence, or the unvarying succession of cause and 
 effect upon all planes, physical, pyschic, and intellectual. 
 
 If it be asked why man's personal consciousness has 
 not yet reached the point where he is sensible of these 
 finer forces, it is answered that the coarser the force the 
 quicker the evolution of the organ to express it. The 
 finer, more spiritual forces have not yet had biological 
 time to evolve organs, especially as it would seem that 
 this evolution must largely consist in rendering more 
 delicate and sensitive those man now possesses. By 
 these, the eye and ear are not so much referred to as 
 analogous organs for psychic and spiritual perception, 
 which man now possesses at least in a rudimentary con- 
 dition. 
 
 But the time will come, and in fact is now here for cer- 
 tain individuals of the race, when clairvoyance, thought 
 
54 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 transference, intuition, and many other spiritual faculties 
 will be as normal as is sense perception at present. They 
 are simply natural faculties of man's Higher Ego, or 
 soul, struggling into the domain of self-consciousness up- 
 on this plane. In this soul, or Higher Ego, is the true 
 individuality, the real life, and consciousness. The per- 
 sonality is but the bundle of sense organs through which 
 we gather experience and wisdom on the material plane, 
 which is our present area of activity. The Higher Ego 
 represents all that we have become since we assumed con- 
 trol of our own destinies. 
 
 The personality represents the amount of this stored 
 wisdom which any particular body is capable of express- 
 ing; remembering that all bodies (sense organs) limit con- 
 sciousness, instead of creating it. But this limitation falls 
 under the universal law of cause and effect, and is there- 
 fore in each life brought about by the deeds of those of 
 the past, as will be shown in the proper connection. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL. 
 
 STUDY of the evolution* of the human soul implies 
 and necessitates a primary examination of the pro- 
 cesses of evolution generally. Man is but a factor in 
 nature a part of the finite expression of the inexpressible 
 Infinite and differs only in degree from entities both 
 above and below him in the scale of being. To arrive at 
 his basic principles, to discover the modus operandi of the 
 law of evolution under whose action he has reached his 
 present standpoint, we have to turn to the universal 
 cosmic factors which are equally the cause of man and 
 of his every environment, whether material, intellectual or 
 spiritual. 
 
 Certain recent experiments in physics, as well, also, as 
 studies in mathematics, indicate hitherto unsuspected facts 
 concerning natural phenomena, which have a profound 
 bearing upon our conceptions of evolution. For instance: 
 We have been taught by modern Western science to 
 believe that force is most active and most potent upon 
 grossly material planes, and that as we retreat to those 
 more subjective it becomes less and less potent, until when 
 mental or thought planes are reached it ceases to exist 
 as force at all. Having passed the uttermost limits of 
 our ability to pursue or detect it by physical means, it, 
 
 *The human soul can not be said to ' ' evolve, ' ' in the scientific 
 acceptation of this term, which is one-sided, as is most materialistic 
 nomenclature. It is retained because convenient, and because its 
 real meaning will be made clear in the context. 
 
56 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 of course, no longer exists, unless we ascend to its higher 
 retreats. Naturally, all experiments which deal with the 
 purely physical seem to warrant this conclusion ; especially 
 those in which our very thoughts have been measured by 
 molecular vibrations, expressed in a rise of temperature 
 of the superficies of our brain, and which expression 
 becomes more and more faint as our thoughts become 
 more and more interior and subjective. But the behavior 
 of water, even, when changed into vapor by heat, ought to 
 have aroused suspicion that higher states of matter con- 
 tain greater potencies than lower. And the liberation 
 of " inter-etheric" force by Keeley, backed by the behavior 
 and potencies of electricity, together with numerous other 
 phenomena, show us that what we have been in the habit 
 of considering as the very essence of force is only the 
 driftwood, so to speak, cast upon the shores of the great 
 seas and oceans of potential energies in which we have 
 our being. 
 
 Force being, like Substance and Consciousness, an 
 attribute of the Absolute, must have infinite potencies. 
 Hence, it logically follows that the nearer we penetrate to 
 Absolute planes and eternal states of matter and con- 
 sciousness the more stupendous and inconceivable be- 
 come the forces which have there their normal field of 
 activity. Nothing could exceed the emptiness, the utter 
 void, in our conception of the interstellar or ethereal spaces 
 lying between planets or suns. "Ether" has become a 
 synonym for a state of matter which, while necessary to 
 account for certain phenomena, is still considered so 
 tenuous that it is practically non-existent, and hydrogen 
 gas becomes by comparison with it as dense as iron. Yet 
 out of this ether, when manipulated by knowledge, ap- 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL. 57 
 
 pears an energy before which ajl purely physical forces 
 are brushed aside, as are wisps of vapor in the path of a 
 cannon-ball. The only reason for the existence and rela- 
 tive permanency of the forces and matter of this plane 
 lies in the fact that they are out of direct relation to, and 
 only sustain those distantly harmonic with, the forces of 
 higher ones; that for astral, ethereal and akasic matter 
 our own " physical basis of life" is practically non-existent. 
 The ethereal vibrations play through our earth, our bodies 
 and our senses even, without producing any effect upon 
 our consciousness, or, as far as analogy permits us to sup- 
 pose, our affecting by our presence the consciousness of 
 entities ensouled by this higher form of matter. 
 
 Of course, this earth is not out of all relation to inner 
 states of matter and modes of force, but it is out of direct 
 relation thereto. Physical matter is the production of 
 forces having their origin in vibrations upon these interior 
 planes; but before such force is converted into physical 
 terms it passes through many gradations, each removing 
 it more and more from the potencies of those infinite 
 store-houses of energy from which the Cosmos springs 
 into being. 
 
 Bearing in mind, then, that force becomes more and 
 more potent as it retires to realms which to us are more 
 and more subjective, we can approach the subject of evo- 
 lution with a better conception of the nature of the prob- 
 lems to be solved. For evolution is not, in this view, the 
 study of the process of "creation out of nothing" the task 
 set themselves by theologians and theology-biased philos- 
 ophers; but, rather, the method by which the Absolute 
 or Infinite Force, Matter and Consciousness, limits itself 
 and becomes the finite as revealed to man. We are not 
 
58 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 troubled at all by the insufficiency of the Cause, but by 
 the apparent limiting in time and space of the effects of a 
 necessarily unlimited Causeless Cause. One thing seems 
 certain that, as has been expressed by a recent writer,* 
 "if Infinite Being is to be manifested in finite existence, it 
 must be through infinite variations of the finite." The 
 law of infinite variation, indeed, would seem to be one of 
 the methods by which the Infinite expresses itself without 
 lessening its own infinity. Another means by which, 
 from our point of view, the Absolute and Unconditioned 
 becomes the finite and conditioned, is in the all-pervading 
 and unbroken law of cycles. In some form or degree, 
 cyclic activity marks all existence or evolution, from that 
 of a molecule to that of a manvantara.f Still another of 
 these basic generalizations which have their common root 
 in the Unknowable is the absolute sway of Cause and 
 Effect in all realms of nature, from the highest and most 
 super-spiritual to the lowest and most material. It is a 
 logical conclusion that all absolutely unvarying laws, 
 modes of motion, or states of consciousness, are direct as- 
 pects of the Absolute ; and that by means of them we may 
 approach to at least a partial conception of some planes 
 of the Great Source of all life and being. Such would 
 appear to be those we have cited; viz.: Infinite poten- 
 tiality reflected in infinite variation of the finite; Absolute 
 permanency of Being, shown in the absolute sway of 
 Cause and Effect; and Eternal Duration in the unending, 
 universal cycles which enable Duration to manifest as 
 Time. 
 
 ^Geometric Psychology. 
 
 fManvantara a period of universal objective existence followed by 
 an equal period of (to us) unknowable subjective existence. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL. 59 
 
 To the above, we have to add the unavoidable deduc- 
 tion that there can not be opposing factors in the 
 universe, whether existing as force, matter, or conscious- 
 ness; because these would be either equal, and produce 
 universal inertia, or unequal, in which case the greater 
 must necessarily have overcome the lesser in the unthink- 
 able durations of the eternities of the past. An early 
 conception of the importance of. this simple and logical 
 law, that unity in essence must underlie every manifesta- 
 tion in nature, however differentiated and opposed such 
 manifestations may appear, will clear away a mass of 
 theological rubbish from our first postulates, at the very 
 outset. If all matter, force, and consciousness proceed 
 from unity, even though that unity remain for us an Un- 
 knowable Causeless Cause, still it effectually excludes the 
 possibility of evil as such from the cosmic scheme. Hence, 
 Satans, Ahrimans, Beelzebubs, or Plutos are relegated to 
 realms of ignorance and fear in which they had their birth, 
 and good and evil become only relative aspects and planes 
 of the play of the absolute, impersonal law of Cause and 
 Effect. 
 
 A study of evolution in general, then, is necessarily 
 prefaced by the admission or postulating of three great 
 Aspects of the one Unknowable Root, or Causeless Cause. 
 These are, as already pointed out, Consciousness, Sub- 
 stance, and Force. Consciousness, often referred to as 
 " spirit," embraces all that manifestation of the Absolute 
 which we term subjective. Substance is the root of all 
 matter and form, or the Object* side of nature, while 
 Force or Motion relates the one tq the other and causes 
 all the bewildering complexity of form and function in the 
 
 *Cf. Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, page 16. 
 
60 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 Cosmos. The absolute potentialities of Consciousness, 
 Force, and Matter are and must ever remain infinite and 
 unchanged. Yet the degree to which each is manifested 
 in successive Universes must ever remain felative and 
 finite. Hence, all the vast scheme of evolution which we 
 perceive in nature is due solely to the correlations and 
 combinations of these three Immutable and Universal 
 Bases. We can not say, even at the end of a great 
 manvantara, or the duration of a Universe, that any- 
 thing has been added to the sum total of the Force, Con- 
 sciousness, or Matter within the great Mother and Con- 
 tainer of all Space. Only their mutual relations have 
 been somewhat changed. Consciousness, which before 
 existed as an undifferentiated part of the Whole, has ac- 
 quired Self-Consciousness, or a new quality or potency; 
 but as Consciousness per se it remains unmodified. So 
 of Force and Substance; they have been brought into 
 newer and perhaps grander correlations, but as basic po- 
 tentialities they remain unaltered. Nor can an end of 
 this change of relation, or evolution as it appears to us, 
 ever be predicated, for infinite potentialities of variation 
 require infinite time for their manifestation. A dim con- 
 ception of the possibilities of changes and of conscious ex- 
 periences which never had a beginning, and of which no 
 end can be predicated, may be had from a study of the 
 law^of permutation. The combinations possible with two 
 elements are but two, but with three they rise o six; with 
 four, to twenty-four; with five, to one hundred and twenty; 
 and so on, ever increasing until we are driven to the 
 recognition that an infinite series of atoms, such as are at 
 the base of physical manifestation, even, must be capable 
 of infinite combinations and correlations, and hence re- 
 quire infinite duration for that manifestation. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL. 6 1 
 
 Approaching the survey of evolution from its material 
 or Substance Aspect the only one recognized by modern 
 science we may obtain a relative and limited idea of the 
 manner in which matter takes on or descends into object- 
 ive form by the following illustration : 
 
 Imagine a large vessel or receptacle filled with a solu- 
 tion of some salt to the saturation point when heated to 
 ioo." As long as this temperature is maintained the 
 solution is perfectly transparent. No one would suspect 
 any solid material hidden in its crystal clearness. But 
 now let the rate of vibration be changed in the fluid; let 
 the temperature fall to, say, 60, and out of that which 
 was before so clear, crystallizes a solid mass which renders 
 the whole solution translucent, opaque, or it may so change 
 its mqlecular relations as to cause it to become a solid. 
 
 From this comparison we may at least faintly conceive 
 of that which transpires within the Universe at the dawn 
 of a manvantara; for then Space may be likened to a 
 clear, transparent, ethereal fluid, holding in potentiality 
 the future Universe, which, so to speak, crystallizes out 
 by a change of vibration within this universal, homo- 
 geneous substance. 
 
 If we imagine matter as it exists upon our earth to pass 
 into greater and still greater degrees of attenuation and 
 dissociation as, for example, when iron becomes gaseous 
 we will arrive ultimately at a state in which it is evenly 
 distributed throughout the Cosmos, and subjected to con- 
 ditions so different from any that now obtain, or at least 
 that we can perceive, that we can no longer term it matter, 
 but, rather, as approximating that eternal Substance, its 
 (to us) subjective Root. To aid in forming some idea 
 of the extreme attenuation and molecular dissociation to 
 
62 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 which matter in its cosmic condition is thus subjected, 
 it is necessary to remember how minute the specks We 
 know as planets are when compared to the space in which 
 they revolve. The old illustration of Herschel as to the 
 immense distances involved in visible space may aid us 
 here: 
 
 Suppose one wished to construct a model of the 
 solar system in which its proportions, though reduced, 
 would be accurately preserved ; and that for this purpose 
 he should take a globe two feet in diameter to represent 
 the sun. Then the earth, reduced to a corresponding size 
 and in its proper position, would be represented by a pea 
 placed at a distance of two hundred and fifteen feet from 
 the globe; Jupiter, by an orange, placed a quarter of a 
 mile away; and Neptune, our farthest planet, by a plum, 
 at a distance of a mile and a quarter. On the same scale, 
 Sirius, one of the brightest fixed stars, would be removed 
 to the distance of forty thousand miles, so that it would 
 require a space of nearly twice the entire circumference 
 of the earth for a model to be constructed in which the 
 earth is represented by a pea! Now, Sirius is not the 
 nearest star; but the very closest one to our sun Alpha 
 Centaur is 20,000,000,000,000,000 of miles distant, and 
 within at least one-third of this vast extent of space our sun 
 and his little band of planets represent all the visible mat- 
 ter, except a few wandering comets and systems of meteors. 
 
 We know matter in three states solid, liquid and gas- 
 eous; and the experiments of Prof. Crooke prove a fourth 
 state that of " radiant matter" as demonstrable to 
 our senses. If beyond this fourth, or radiant, state we 
 could imagine, if ever so dimly, the three following and 
 still higher states, recognized and taught by Theosophy, 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL. 63 
 
 we would have a dim conception of that original Sub- 
 stance out of which the material portion of this universe 
 is fashioned, when the dawn of a manvantara awakens it 
 once more to sentient life. 
 
 The infinite Universe, then, is filled, from a material 
 standpoint, with that which holds both the potency and 
 potentiality of matter. It also holds the potentiality and 
 potencies of spirit, or consciousness; being, besides, in 
 its aspect of ever-present, indestructible space, the arena 
 of that force which we know to be equally eternal under 
 its objectivized aspect of motion. Thus, at the dawn of 
 differentiation, at the beginning of the "out-breathing of 
 Brahm," or the manvantaric activity following the " in- 
 breathing" or universal pralaya, three hypostases of the Ab- 
 solute potential Matter, potential Thought, and poten- 
 tial Force are held concealed, in some inconceivable way, 
 within the bosom of space, as our salt was also concealed 
 within the solution which we have used as a symbol. 
 And the material side of the Unknowable Triad is prob- 
 ably concealed in a precisely similar manner, or by the 
 rate of its vibration. For Theosophy accepts the matter 
 of science, and its force, or motion, also; but it avers, 
 most uncompromisingly, that the former is molded and 
 shaped by the latter through a third eternal predicate, 
 Intelligence, under the aspects of Consciousness and Idea- 
 tion. Hence, when one great rhythm of the Universe has 
 expended its original impetus in a manvantaric objectiva- 
 tion, and has returned into the Silence and Darkness of 
 Non-Being until again at the initial moment of another 
 outward flow of the never-ceasing Motion, at this point 
 Intelligent Beings assume control, and, by ideative Will, 
 guide the vibrations of the eternal motion, so that matter 
 
64 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 capable of exhibiting form appears as a consequence of 
 this modification or change of vibration in the eternal Mo- 
 tion. Yet, as Absolute Force or Motion can not be 
 added to nor diminished, so this modification of vibration 
 must eventually be overcome, and the Universe return to 
 its original condition, to again re-emerge in form when the 
 reactionary swing of the pendulum of eternity has de- 
 scribed its arc, and so permits v of another effort on the 
 part of these Creative Intelligences. Thus the law of 
 cycles controls even this inconceivable period which meas- 
 ures the duration of an Universe. Like the intermittent 
 glow of a fire-fly to one who watches the flight of the in- 
 sect must appear even these vast successions of Universes 
 to Intelligences behind the Veil of Isis, who remain for- 
 ever untouched by any dissolution of form. At the out- 
 ward flow of the eternal Motion, for them, nebulae, suns 
 and systems blaze into a fleeting existence; at the 
 " inbreathing of Brahm" all disappear; and this in an eter- 
 nal succession of exact cycles. These cycles, so transitory 
 in eternity, are so vast in time that reason reels in the 
 effort to conceive of them. The nature of the initiatory 
 impress of these Formless Creative Intelligences from its 
 conscious aspect is seen in the unerring selective "affin- 
 ities" of atoms; from its force aspect it is undoubtedly a 
 modification or change of vibration. 
 
 As the result of this primal modification of vibration, 
 matter throughout the Universe assumes a state which the 
 Book of Dzyan, quoted in the Secret Doctrine, describes 
 as resembling " milk-white curds." These curds, which 
 must be conceived of as infinitely more attenuated than 
 the ether of science, are next brought by the agent 
 through which cosmic intelligences act upon cosmic 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL. 65 
 
 matter, known in Eastern Occultism as Fohat, into forms 
 described as " fiery whirlwinds," or that in which mag- 
 netic attraction alone is controlling the vibration. Gravi- 
 tation, representing a response to much lower rates of 
 vibration and coarser aggregation of particles, o~nly acts 
 after the finer magnetic forces have prepared the neces- 
 sary conditions permitting this form of attraction and re- 
 pulsion to obtain 'a foothold among the sentient atoms. 
 This stage in the evolution of matter up through the do- 
 main of that force we hazily describe as " magnetic," into 
 the field where the lower 'activity of gravity obtains, may 
 be traced in the form of some nebulae, whose arrangement 
 of matter still shows evidences of the original "whirlwind" 
 force in the magnetic disposition of their contents.* 
 
 From the time of the evolution of matter into the nebu- 
 lous condition, the after processes are comparatively easy 
 to trace. Indeed, many of the subsequent evolutionary 
 strides of Fohat are plainly visible within the limits of our 
 own little solar system. The differing degrees of density 
 from Neptune to Mercury ; the state of matter in the sun ; 
 the dead moon, now in a minor pralaya, or rest; the 
 comets which occasionally visit our region of space all 
 illustrate degrees of differentiation, and different states of 
 
 *One of the first discoveries made by means of the Lick telescope, 
 at Mt. Hamilton, California, was this "whirlwind" disposition of the 
 matter ot some of the nebulae. Prof. Holden, in an article -contrib- 
 uted to a San Francisco journal, announced that "the arrangement 
 of matter in some of these nebulae was such as to indicate that some 
 other force than gravitation had been concerned in its production." 
 Science thus most unexpectedly confirmed the assertion, made some 
 time previously by Madame H. P. Blavatsky, to the effect that 'if sci- 
 entists had instruments sufficiently powerful to penetrate and resolve 
 certain nebulae they would discover that gravitation was not the 
 universal force they suppose it to be. 
 
66 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 that which, known to us only by its external attributes 
 and not by its inner essence, we term matter. 
 
 Yet this Material Aspect of evolution is incomplete, and 
 indeed incomprehensible, except in the light of its Con- 
 scious Aspect. This brings us to the direct consideration 
 of those High Intelligences from whom proceed the wis- 
 dom to plan and the energy to stamp that original im- 
 press upon the plastic " root of matter" which remains an 
 indelible and unalterable law for it throughout all its 
 subsequent transformations and evolutionary processes. 
 Here we approach the real problem; and here, in com- 
 mon with all religious and philosophical systems, we have 
 to postulate a Causeless Cause, Omnipresent and Eternal, 
 and having the Substance, Force, and Conscious Aspects 
 to which reference has already been had, and upon the 
 correlations and permutations of which all evolution de- 
 pends. The late Subba Row, in his lectures on the 
 Bhagavad Gita, regarding this Absolute, Causeless Cause, 
 writes: 
 
 "Even the so-called atheists have never denied it. Various 
 creeds have adopted various theories as to the nature of this 
 Causeless Cause.* All sectarian disputes have arisen not from a dif- 
 ference of opinion as to its existence, but from the difference of the 
 attributes which man's intellect has constantly tried to impose upon 
 it. Is it possible to know anything about the Causeless Cause ? No 
 doubt it is possible to know something about it. It is possible to 
 know all about its manifestations, though it is next to impossible for 
 
 *The learned lecturer termed this throughout the First Cause, but 
 as he evidently meant that which Theosophy, following the Secret 
 Doctrine, recognizes as the Causeless Cause, reserving the term First 
 Cause for the creative energy in manvantaric activity, I have accord- 
 ingly taken the liberty to change the original reading in accordance 
 with this, to avoid unnecessary confusion. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL. 67 
 
 human knowledge to penetrate into its inmost essence, and say what 
 it really is in itself. We know that it is subject to periods of activity 
 and passivity. When cosmic pralaya comes, it is inactive ; and 
 when evolution commences, it becomes active. But even the real 
 reason for this activity and passivity is unintelligible to our minds. 
 
 "This Causeless Cause, or Parabrahmam of the Vedantin philoso- 
 phers, is not matter nor anything like matter. It is not even con- 
 sciousness, because all we know of consciousness is with reference to 
 a definite organism. What consciousness is or will be when sepa- 
 rated from a vehicle in which to function is a thing utterly incon- 
 ceivable to us, and not only to us but to any other intelligence which 
 has the notion of self or Ego in it, or which has a distinct, individu- 
 alized existence. 
 
 " Of course, every entity in this Cosmos must come under the head 
 of Ego, Non-Ego, or Consciousness. But Parabrahmam, the Causeless 
 Cause, does not come under any one of them. Nevertheless, it seems 
 to be the One source of which Ego, Non-Ego, and Consciousness are 
 manifestations, or modes of existence. In the case of every objective 
 consciousness, we know that what we call matter, or Non-Ego, is, 
 after all, a mere bundle of attributes. But whether we arrive at our 
 conclusion by logical inference, or whether we derive it from innate 
 consciousness, we always suppose that there is an entity the real 
 essence of the thing upon which all these attributes are placed 
 which bears these attributes as it were, the essence itself being un- 
 known to us. 
 
 " Now this Parabrahmam, or Causeless Cause, which exists before 
 all things in the Cosmos, is the one essence from which starts into ex- 
 istence a center of energy called the Logos. In almost every doctrine 
 is formulated the existence of a center of spiritual energy which is 
 unborn and eternal, and which exists in a latent condition in the 
 bosom of the Causeless Cause at the time of pralaya, and starts as a 
 center of conscious energy at the time of Cosmic activity. It is the 
 first Ego in the Cosmos, and every other Ego and every other self is 
 but its reflection or manifestation. It is the great mystery in the 
 Cosmos, with reference to which all the initiations and all the systems 
 of philosophy have been devised. It is not material nor physical in 
 
68 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 its constitution, and it is not objective ; it is not different in substance 
 as it were, or in essence, from the Causeless Cause, and yet at the 
 same time it is different from it in having an individualized existence. 
 It exists in a latent condition in the Causeless Cause at the time of 
 pralaya, just as the sense of Ego, or 'I am I,' is latent in man 
 during sleep. 
 
 "It must not be supposed that this Logos is but a single center of 
 energy which is manifested by Parabrahmam, or the Causeless Cause. 
 There are innumerable others. Their number is almost infinite. 
 This first manifestation of Parabrahmam appears to it as Mulapra- 
 Icriti." 
 
 That is to say, that the first conscious. Beings in the 
 Universe awaken to self-consciousness to find themselves 
 in material forms or vehicles, precisely as we awaken to 
 consciousness to find ourselves encased in these physical 
 bodies. We know that our " I" is not the same as the 
 matter which clothes it; similarly, the Logoi know that 
 the " root" of matter which clothes them is only a 
 clothing, and what the real nature and essence of that 
 Causeless Cause, which calls into objective existence both 
 the "I" of the Logoi and their material base, is as un- 
 knowable to the great and primal Ideation expressed in 
 those First Logoi as is the source of our "I" and its 
 physical vehicle to us. 
 
 At the first dawn of differentiation and consequent evo- 
 lution matter has impressed upon it, from these First 
 Logoi, the primal manifestation of Consciousness in the 
 Cosmos that impulse and directing energy which will 
 carry it through all the successive and myriad phases of 
 its succeeding evolutionary manifestations, to the time 
 when the Great Pralaya, or Rest, shall interpose another 
 period of inactivity, as certainly as that Niagara will carry 
 over its sublime cataracts all the water which flows into 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL. 69 
 
 it from the great lakes. Remember, there is no evolution 
 of consciousness; but only an evolution of matter into 
 forms fitted to express higher and higher states or reflec- 
 tions of that Absolute Consciousness, which it is just as ab- 
 surd and unscientific to predicate any additions to 
 through evolution, or in any other manner, as it 1 is to as- 
 sume the " creation" of new matter. 'The matter of the 
 Universe is a whole, which can not be added to nor taken 
 from; Consciousness is also a whole, alike incapable of ad- 
 dition to or subtraction from. The relation of the one to 
 the other is, as already pointed out, all that falls under the 
 law of evolution ; the real essence of both remains forever 
 untouched, resting in the bosom of the Causeless Cause. 
 This does not bar from our consideration intelligent su- 
 pervision over the evolutionary impulse by those high, 
 Creative Logoi above referred to. For the whole scheme 
 of evolution, so far as it seems comprehensible to finite 
 beings, consists in and has for its motive the changing of 
 the relations between matter, force, and consciousness, so 
 that through this change undifferentiated consciousness 
 shall "evolve" into self-consciousness. It is only neces- 
 sary that these Creative Beings should act in conformity 
 to those few primal and underlying laws which apparently 
 limit the Absolute itself, of which the law of cycles, the 
 law of karma, and the law of infinite Unity rendered man- 
 ifest by infinite diversity, or variation, are examples. The 
 "I" in a man can and does take control of his body, for 
 instance, and transport it wheresoever it pleases, so long 
 as it acts in accordance with the underlying and basic laws 
 of mechanics and gravitation pertaining to this plane. 
 Man can, also, take matter and transform it into any 
 shape, or transport it to any place, if he keep within the 
 
70 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 same bounds, or his possible as distinguished from his 
 impossible. In like manner, these First Great Logoi 
 can fashion worlds and even sentient beings in any man- 
 ner they see fitting, so long as they, in turn, do not attempt 
 to transcend their impossible, or those Absolute limita- 
 tions pomted out above. And this working in harmony 
 with and under the direction of this original impress of 
 the First Logoi by intelligent, sentient, yet relatively 
 lower beings, representing of necessity infinite degrees 
 and grades of intelligence, is the true source of that much- 
 harped-on " Design" which Christians assume as indubi- 
 table evidence of the existence of their personal Jehovah. 
 Much of this creative, or fashioning, intelligence is evi- 
 dently very greatly inferior to that of man in some 
 aspects, though immensely transcending his powers in 
 others. For instance, the intelligence which fashions the 
 beautiful form and flowers of an apple-tree is not suffi- 
 cient to prevent the seed which chances to fall under the 
 angle of a stone wall from the hopeless task of attempting 
 to penetrate this obstacle; nor even in the case of man's 
 physical form which is not created by the same order of 
 intelligences that are the source of his intellect will it 
 suffice to stay the progress of an intended evolution of a 
 human body, although this has been rendered plainly 
 impossible by some intra-uterine accident or influence. 
 This is the real source of the monstrosities in nature, 
 which puzzle alike the scientist and theologian. 
 
 ftr, now, we symbolize the Conscious-Aspect of the Ab- 
 solute by physical light, then matter may be likened to a 
 prism which decomposes it into many differing strata. 
 Being thus decomposed, that which during pralaya was 
 Absolute Unity, in manvantara manifests differing rates 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL. /I 
 
 \ 
 
 of conscious vibration, so to speak, just as the white light 
 of the sun when passed through a prism is broken up into 
 the varied colors of the spectrum, each having an entirely 
 different rate of vibratory motion and wave length. Bear- 
 ing in mind, then, that the One Consciousness, or One 
 Life, is limited in its manifestations by the particular form 
 of matter in which it is functioning, as the human vision 
 is dark, clear, or colored, according to the physical media 
 through which it attempts to look; and, further, that this 
 matter itself is the result of differing rates of vibration 
 acting upon and in the eternal Substance-Aspect of the 
 Absolute we get at least one turn of the key which at the 
 seventh revolution shall unlock the secrets' of evolution 
 and objective life. We can perceive how these original 
 cosmic curds, driven before the descending vibrations, the 
 mechanical agents of evolution, assume coarser and more 
 compact states as they touch successively lower vibrations 
 of the Force-Aspect of the Causeless Cause. Having 
 reached the lowest point in that which we ignorantly term 
 "dead" or inorganic matter, under the stress of the 
 original impulse they begin to ascend the evolutionary 
 arc to respond to successively finer and more delicate vi- 
 brations thus affording ever clearer and more perfect 
 forms, in which higher centers of consciousness can find 
 suitable vehicles. At the beginning of manvantaric man- 
 ifestation, it is the One life, represented in self-conscious- 
 ness by the Logoi, or cosmic centers. When the impulse 
 reaches our plane of matter, it is still the One life, but 
 represented in self-consciousness here by the individual- 
 ized centers of humanity;.- 
 
 The state of matter upon our little earth does not imply 
 that all that in the solar system much less the Cosmos 
 
72 * A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 is in similar conditions. Therefore, Consciousness is in as 
 many various stages of expression as its material vehicle 
 is in stages of evolution. From this it will be seen how 
 necessary is the inference that there are infinite grades of 
 intelligences both above and below us, as the result of the 
 completed evolutions of other worlds, other systems, and 
 even other manvantaras. A Logos, the first " I," which 
 appears in the Cosmos at the manvantaric dawn, is an in- 
 dividualized center of self-consciousness which had at- 
 tained to this stage at the close of trie last great manvan- 
 tara. With other Logoi, it becomes a duty to watch over 
 and direct the successive evolutions which occur during 
 the manvantara over which they thus preside. Below 
 them are the various Hierarchies, Builders, Regents, Cos- 
 moscratores, at work in the myriad departments of mani- 
 fested nature. 
 
 Ylhe knowledge that one manvantara is the reincarna- 
 tion of the entire Universe, having its karma, or causes,' set 
 up in preceding manvantaras, exactly corresponding to 
 the reincarnation of the human soul, on its lower plane of 
 operation, enables us to understand much that occurs. The 
 Logoi would correspond to man's self-conscious, reincar- 
 nating Ego; these lower Hierarchies, Forces and Builders, 
 to the universal " skandas," or forces which necessarily 
 pass into latency at the striking of Universal pralaya. 
 No manvantara can ever complete conscious evolution; 
 and each must take up its work just as the human soul 
 does at the point it had attained when the universal dis- 
 solution of the Great Pralaya compelled its cessation. 
 When the "hour" strikes for this universal pralaya, the 
 consciousness ensouled in the lowest mineral bodies will 
 first of all pass into a condition of latency, or that of bare 
 
THE .EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL. 73 
 
 subjective potentiality of manifestation when fitting mat- 
 ter is again projected at another manvantaric dawn. This 
 enforced latency will be because the matter or combina- 
 tion of molecules it requires for its outer manifestation no 
 longer exists in the Universe, on account of the withdraw- 
 ing of the energy which caused it to appear. In like man- 
 ner, will plane after plane of consciousness be reached, and 
 its entities, deprived of material form, be compelled to sleep 
 during the great eternity of unconsciousness which must 
 precede another reawakening of the Cosmos. All con- 
 scious beings, whether of high or low degree, will thus be 
 indrawn into the Absolute ; yet while the consciousness of 
 lower forms remains only a potentiality, like that of a 
 sleeping or entranced man, to be again awakened at the 
 new Dawn, that of the highest ones will, we are .told, pass 
 self-consciously into this great subjective arc of the cycle 
 of Eternal Duration. These are They, the Logoi, the 
 " luminous Sons of Manvantaric Dawn," who first awaken 
 to self-conscious life upon the objective plane at the new 
 manvantaric projection. Like our Higher Egos, which 
 represent the wisdom resulting from the sum of our 
 personal experiences, they represent the sum of manvan- 
 taric experience, and know that which has been and that 
 which is to be. They project the ideal plan of the man- 
 vantara that is to be through Their Divine Ideation, just 
 as an architect creates in his mind the plan of the mag- 
 nificent structure, which may not be materialized except 
 by years of slow and tedious labor. Having this concep- 
 tion of what is to be, They may be said to have fore- 
 knowledge of it; but it is similar to the foreknowledge of 
 the architect of the structure he proposes 'to erect. This 
 ideal plan, first clothed with the divine Substance- Aspect 
 
74 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 of the Absolute, stands as the eternal prototype of that 
 which is to be, throughout its entire cycle. It is past, 
 present, and future combined in an eternal Now. As it 
 clothes and materializes itself by descending to success- 
 ively lower and more material planes, we name the slow 
 process, the successive stages of this unfolding, Time, and 
 imagine that it. marks real divisions of eternity. Could 
 we approach nearer to the heart of Being this phantasma- 
 goria of fleeting illusion would cease, and the time- 
 harassed soul pass into eternal peace. 
 
 At each successive stage of this unfolding in time of the 
 Divine Ideation, the entities, overtaken by the last pra- 
 laya, awaken from their long repose. They have no con- 
 ception of the unthinkable periods which have passed 
 them by, because they have not passed them by time 
 has not existed for them. Like the Seven Sleepers of 
 Ephesus, their awakening finds them with no knowledge 
 of any interval. The monad ensouled in the mineral 
 atoms again reclothes itself as this form of matter appears, 
 and the various Hierarchies, Cosmocratores and Builders 
 resume their labors. The great workshop of nature, so 
 long stilled, is again filled with its countless entities, each 
 performing its proper office; making what progress it 
 may, until the striking of another pralaya calls to another 
 season of subjective being and rest. There are thus 
 myriads of " Gods," or Creative Forces, or entities, in 
 nature. 
 
 These different Orders of Creators or Builders must be 
 accepted, if evolution is to be intelligently comprehended. 
 It is as though the great Prism to which we have likened 
 matter was capable of being acted upon by eternal Force 
 or Motion until it gradually became more and more trans- 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL. 75 
 
 parent and permitted higher and higher rates of vibrations 
 of consciousness to pass through it. Thus, at the stage of 
 "dead" matter the prism is so dense as only to permit the 
 red rays or vibrations, so to speak, to pass. 
 /Keeping to our simile, in these red rays there can only 
 find expression that form of consciousness which is so dif- 
 ferent from the human that we call its matter "dead." 
 Yet the impulse received at the manvantaric or creative* 
 dawn will not permit matter to rest in this or any other 
 condition. So, very gradually, and requiring ages of 
 geologic time, " dead" matter is lifted or forced up, until, 
 like a mountain top at sunrise, it catches here and there 
 the streams of the next color, or the orange vibrations; 
 and, a higher consciousness being now permitted to obtain 
 a foothold, the vegetable kingdom appears. Becoming, 
 under the constant impact of the eternal motion, still 
 more translucent, it transmits now the yellow rays, and 
 animal consciousness makes its appearance upon the 
 earth. Becoming still more refined, green rays are trans- 
 mitted, and human consciousness is enabled to find a fit- 
 ting vehicle and man appears upon the scene. And when 
 matter has evolved to that state in which the remaining 
 colors of the spectrum are permitted to pass, anct a cor- 
 responding consciousness to function, who can even im- 
 agine its glorious potentialities! 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE INDIVIDTJALIZATION OF THE SOUL. 
 
 @ONSIDERING Consciousness, then, as an essential 
 aspect of the Causeless Cause, we have to postu- 
 late it as inhering potentially in every stratum or pos- 
 sible subdivision of the Substance-Aspect of the same 
 Causeless Cause, and as becoming a potency only by 
 virtue of this association. In like manner, matter may be 
 said to be a potentiality in all spirit or consciousness, and 
 as also becoming potent (evolving form) only by and 
 because of this association. As neither can manifest 
 upon the finite plane without the aid of the other, it is 
 useless to speculate as to their relative superiority. Be- 
 cause the consciousness which we recognize as self-con- 
 sciousness in our thinking, feeling and willing Ego is evi- 
 dently very greatly superior in function to the material 
 form or body with which it is associated, it does riot fol- 
 low that on their own plane the matter and consciousness 
 of the cells out of which this body is constructed are in 
 any similar degree of relative superiority and inferiority, 
 nor that the material basis in which our Ego has its own 
 proper habitation is in a relatively inferior state. Our 
 Egos, as will presently be shown, are now using these 
 bodies to bring themselves into sense relations with the 
 material plane, similarly as a scientist uses the microscope 
 to open up avenues of knowledge otherwise unattainable. 
 Matter of some degree is the great register upon which 
 
THE INDIVIDUALIZATION OF THE SOUL. 77 
 
 the Conscious-Aspect of the Causeless Cause records its 
 experiences. Without this association, continuity of con- 
 scious experiences could not be assured unless we as- 
 sume consciousness without any material basis whatever 
 to be a possibility in nature, which position must always 
 remain an assumption because unverifiable, unthinkable, 
 and analogically unwarrantable from all phenomena to 
 which we have present access. The immortality of that 
 conscious center we recognize as our " I am myself" de- 
 pends entirely, from its material aspect, upon the relative 
 permanency or impermanency of the material tablets 
 upon which it records its conscious experiences. And 
 the " Primordial Substance" of Western philosophy, as 
 well as the " mulaprakriti," or " root of matter," of the 
 Eastern Vedantins the Substance-Aspect of this study 
 is but the great and eternal tablet upon which Infinite 
 Consciousness inscribes its finite experiences. 
 
 If, then, at the dawn of a new awakening to material 
 existence, we have the re-emerging, in obedience to the 
 law of cyclic activity, of consciousness clothed in material 
 form, we may picture such consciousness as a bare 
 potency only. It IS, but it can not be said to have any 
 other attributes. It has clothed itself with appropriate 
 Substance, under another great law of the Absolute unto 
 itself that of Cause and Effect. Passing by, for the 
 present, those infinite variations of appropriate form re- 
 sulting from the degrees of becoming attained by differ- 
 ing entities during past manvantaras, let us take up that 
 which we may term monadic or (to us) undifferentiated 
 consciousness. It represents as nearly as we can imagine 
 pure, subjective potentiality of becoming. Yet in this first 
 clothing of itself in its counterpart pure, unimpressed, 
 
78 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 virgin substance it has imposed upon itself a limitation. 
 It has acquired the widening of consciousness resulting 
 from this association, and can never again return to its for- 
 mer condition of bare subjectivity. Let us suppose that 
 this association, which for want of a better we may term 
 elemental, continues for a manvantara. At that period, if 
 no sooner, the bond would be dissolved and the conscious- 
 ness freed, to take a new clothing and attain a farther ex- 
 perience at the next great awakening of the Cosmos. 
 This time it can not re-enter just the same class or degree 
 of substance it did before, for it has something added to 
 it which makes it greater than before this addition. 
 Therefore, it must, under the stress of that which we term 
 natural evolution, seek higher avenues, and this plainly 
 and simply because of the mathematical axiom that the 
 lesser can not contain the greater. It seeks, then, a 
 higher expression, and clothes itself, let us say, with that 
 which we know as mineral, or inorganic, matter. It re- 
 mains another planetary or minor manvantara in this 
 form until freed by another planetary or minor pralaya. 
 
 Under the same law it can not at a new world-birth re- 
 clothe itself in mineral matter; it must seek the vegetable 
 kingdom. Thence it rrvust pass to the animal, and from 
 thence be pushed to the human ; and all this under the 
 necessity of natural law governing evolution of form, this 
 u natural law" being that primal impress upon it by the 
 Logoi at the great manvantaric dawn. 
 
 This is a general view of the process from its purely ma- 
 terial aspect. It of necessity only pictures half the real- 
 ity, as all one-sided views must. ' There is also a .con- 
 scious aspect, which must not be left out of consideration. 
 Retracing our steps to pick this up, let us pause to reflect 
 
THE INDIVIDUALIZATION OF THE SOUL. 79 
 
 upon what must take place when bare, subjective con- 
 sciousness has been released from its first association with 
 a material vestment. We have seen, under the law that 
 the lesser can not contain the greater, that it can not re- 
 clothe itself with the same undifferentiated matter again. 
 Where, then, will it find material for its next and higher 
 expression? Evidently, it can only do this by creating 
 for itself vestments out of matter already the seat of con- 
 sciousness in its own former and lower expression. So, 
 if this lower expression be pictured in some inconceivable 
 way as transcendentally atomic using this term "atom" 
 in its ordinary scientific acceptation, then it must syn- 
 thesize and collect these transcendental atoms into, let us 
 suppose, transcendental molecules, and of these build its 
 higher habitation. By so doing it not only does not in- 
 terfere with the evolution of form and the becoming in 
 consciousness going on in these primitive atoms, but also 
 actually aids and hastens this process by its own presence, 
 and consequent imparting, to a degree at least, its own 
 essence to this atomic consciousness with which it is thus, 
 as it were, molecularly associated. This lifting up of 
 lower consciousness by the presence and surrounding of 
 higher is the spiritual aspect of the great evolutionary 
 process, and one which the scientist resolutely refuses to 
 recognize, although obeying its commands inTTis 'associa- 
 tion with, and impress imparted to, the cells of his body 
 every moment of his life. It has been called the Divine 
 Law of Compassion, and an attribute of the very Abso- 
 lute itself. Thus it is that the higher must help the lower; 
 unconsciously in the lower kindoms, consciously in the 
 higher or try to oppose the highest law in nature, and 
 perish ! In this fact lies the oft-repeated assertion of 
 
80 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 Theosophists that altruism is the law, and the only 
 means of progress, upon the higher human planes at least. 
 For man has become a self-conscious factor in that 
 great scheme of evolution which has for its basis Divine 
 compassion. 
 
 Recognizing, then, the dual aspect of that which we 
 term evolution, but which is only an evolution of form and 
 a becoming in consciousness, let us once more retrace our 
 steps somewhat in our study of the becoming of the hu- 
 man soul. Yet in all this we must not lose sight of the 
 fact that " every entity in the Universe either is, was, or 
 prepares to become, a man."* We must not view man 
 for one instant as apart from nature as a whole, or as* not 
 subject to her every law in common with all other en- 
 tities whether of high or low degree. We have seen, in a 
 general way, how the process of evolution, which has been 
 well termed the Cycle of Necessity, forces entities into 
 progressively higher forms of matter; that, in fact, every 
 descent or involution of spirit, or consciousness, in matter 
 is the exact equivalent of an evolution of material form. 
 For the new descent compels the building of higher 
 forms to contain, or to allow expression for, the entities 
 crowded out if the term be allowable of their old habi- 
 tations by the incoming guests. We have seen, also, that 
 consciousness is at first monadic using this term in its 
 true sense of One-ness, and which is quite different from 
 that in which we speak of the human Monad and is only 
 very gradually impressed with the stamp of any individual 
 experience. It might be likened to the crude gold nuggets, 
 which are simply gold at first, and indistinguishable from 
 other nuggets until they become coins of different values 
 
 *Secret Doctrine. 
 
THE INDIVIDUALIZATION OF THE SOUL. 8 1 
 
 under the various individualizing processes and stamps 
 received in the mint. If, now, we remember that this 
 which we have termed a Great Manvantara, or objective 
 arc of the Universe, is interrupted by an almost infinite 
 number of minor pralayas, or subjective cycles of rest, 
 of equally infinite degrees of incompleteness, we shall at 
 length be in a position to appreciate evolution as we per- 
 ceive its action in nature about us. For under the gen- 
 eral view, with which this chapter was prefaced, it would 
 seem to have been inferred that only Great Pralayas, or 
 times of Universal Rest, allowed of the liberation of con- 
 sciousness and its consequent progression in future man- 
 vantaras. This is By no means the case. These pralayas 
 extend from the unthinkable periods contemplated by the 
 Brahmanical classification, and represented arithmetically 
 by fifteen places of figures, to periods of perhaps less than 
 a second, as in the case of the death and renewals of the 
 molecules composing the cells of our bodies. The death 
 of a human body is only a .pralaya or rest for the soul, 
 affording another opportunity, after this rest is over, for 
 further conscious experiences. The death of a planet is 
 its pralaya; and so on for a cell, a sun, or any entity 
 whatever. These minor pralayas by no means restore 
 consciousness to its absolute condition, as the Great Pra- 
 layas do, but only to relative and infinitely varying states 
 of freedom from material form. Thus, sleep is a pralaya 
 which temporarily frees man's higher principles, while 
 death is similar, but of much higher degree. After the 
 first, consciousness must return to the same body; after 
 the second, it clothes itself with an entirely new one. 
 Minor and incomplete pralayas, such as sleep, are often 
 spoken of as Obscurations. 
 
82 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 Returning from this necessary digression : The con- 
 sciousness expressed in mineral form, upon its dissocia- 
 tion from any cause from this, could easily re-enter any, or 
 almost any, portion of the entire mineral kingdom. So 
 the lowly forms of vegetable or animal life, respectively, 
 might easily be capable of a wide range of choice among 
 other lowly forms of their kingdoms. But how about that 
 consciousness expressed in the elephant, the tiger, or the 
 stately tree, even? Is it possible to conceive of a mag- 
 nificent oak, for example, upon the destruction of its cel- 
 lular clothing, re-entering a fungus or a daisy ? or of the 
 carnivorous, cruel tiger reappearing as a dove? These 
 would be but senseless attempts to make the lesser con- 
 tain the greater; to pour the ocean into the thimble. 
 
 It is easy to see that each conscious experience added 
 makes it more" and more difficult, as the ages go by, for a 
 reincarnating entity to even re-enter its own class; and 
 that thus, in its minor degree, it will travel its own cycle of 
 necessity, first as an element, then as a mineral, then a 
 plant, an animal, a man and a god ! It is also compre- 
 hensible, if but dimly, how r the beginnings of individuality 
 are thus faintly impressed upon potential centers of con- 
 sciousness in kingdoms far below the human, or even the 
 animal. How these potential centers themselves originate 
 is not a subject for finite inquiry; it is a mystery per- 
 taining to the Great Unknowable Causeless Cause. We 
 only know that they do originate; and, as stated, may, 
 without transcending finite limits, dimly conceive of their 
 after processes. It is within our power, also, to imagine 
 and even to trace a pathway by following which we 
 can perceive that, after unthinkable periods of conscious 
 experiences in lower forms, there would at last come a 
 
THE INDIVIDUALIZATION OF THE SOUL. 83 
 
 time when a conscious center forced into a higher king- 
 dom would recognize that this state was unlike former 
 ones and, lo ! the mystery of self-consciousness is 
 achieved, and a human soul has become ! For self-con- 
 sciousness is but the recognition that our consciousness is 
 different from that of entities around us, the differenti- 
 ation of Ego from Non-Ego. This once recognized, all 
 our magnificent introspective or subjective mental proc- 
 esses become only a question of widening phenomenal 
 experience. 
 
 Yet the view of man's becoming will still be one-sided 
 if we lose sight of the spiritual aspect of evolution, already 
 referred to. Every advanced entity in the Universe, as 
 we have seen, is forced during the Cycle of Necessity, by 
 this grand law of involution, plus evolution, to clothe itself 
 with entities occupying lower forms of matter. It thus 
 secures its own continued conscious experiences, and mer- 
 cifully assists those with which it is thus associated to rise 
 in the scale of being. This is the true mystery of man's 
 relation to the bodies in which he is incarnated. He is 
 using lower forms of life to enable him to obtain conscious 
 experiences on the material plane. Until this simple ex- 
 planation is recognized by Western nations they will con- 
 tinue to grope between the Scylla of materialistic nega- 
 tion and Charybdis of dogmatic superstition. 
 
 Once this spiritual aspect of evolution 'is recognized, 
 however, much of the mystery of man's dual nature, of 
 those two souls which Goethe declares strive in every 
 human breast, becomes intelligible. The entities our 
 Higher Egos thus occupying the highly complex molec- 
 ular associations composing our bodies, light up, by their 
 presence in this form, a reflection of the pure flame con- 
 
84 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 stituting their own higher essence. Having thus ration- 
 alized that which was before but physical senses common 
 to all animals as well as animal man, they or we can 
 now relate themselves to this plane of phenomena through 
 this reflection thus imparted by their presence. But, alas, 
 in rationalizing they have not destroyed the desires and 
 passions of purely animal, sensuous existence. On the 
 contrary, these are strengthened a thousand-fold by being 
 thus illumined by reason. There has been added to the 
 sensuous delight that of anticipation as well as remem- 
 brance. The reasoning, remembering animal now runs 
 riot in its mad chase after sensuous delights. And to 
 control this fatally beautiful animal, to spiritualize senses 
 thus rationalized, is the hard task set before every human 
 soul. This is the conflict the two souls within our breast 
 fighting for mastery which has been the theme of many 
 an inspired poem, from the Bhagavad Gita down to the 
 humble Salvation Army enthusiast who sings, " My Soul, 
 be on thy guard!" Yet this very conflict strengthens, 
 even as the fierce winds only cause the oak to strike 
 more deeply its roots into the earth. It is a necessary 
 part of the great scheme of evolution a rugged, danger- 
 ous portion of that way which " leads up hill to the very 
 end." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 REINCARNATION PHILOSOPHIC AND LOG- 
 ICAL EVIDENCE. 
 
 JTHE preceding chapters having, it is believed, estab- 
 lished the fact that man has a center of conscious- 
 ness, or soul, quite independent of the body for its exist- 
 ence, or conscious functions except as the sense organs 
 of the latter relate it to the material plane of the Cosmos, 
 those remaining will be devoted to a study of the na- 
 ture of the relations sustained by this soul to the body. 
 Standing first and foremost among these is the fact of its 
 reincarnation, or its successive occupation of many bodies 
 during its evolution through matter. 
 
 Reincarnation is quite distinct from metempsychosis, 
 when this is understood to mean the return of the soul to 
 earth through human or animal bodies indifferently; for it 
 emphatically denies that, having once attained the human 
 state, the soul can ever retrograde into an animal condi- 
 tion. A human soul has developed, as we have seen in 
 the study of its evolution, certain qualities and potencies 
 which are as incapable of functioning in an animal body 
 as the tissues of a giant oak are incapable of being me- 
 chanically recompressed within the limits of the original 
 acorn out of which it grew. 
 
 A correct conception of Reincarnation recognizes that 
 the body, as such, has no part in the soul's return to earth; 
 that the connection of the body with the soul is, prima- 
 rily, to furnish sense organs to relate the latter to a plane 
 
86 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 so far beneath its own spiritual nature as to be reached 
 only by this means; and, secondarily, in the matter of 
 which the body, or bundle of sense organs, is constructed 
 reside certain " qualities" the nature of which it is essen- 
 tial to the intellectual progress of the soul that it learn. 
 For it is only by experiencing its " opposite" that true 
 knowledge of any "quality" in nature, whether physical, 
 mental or spiritual, can be obtained. Matter upon the 
 fourth plane of any world is said to be " kamic," or full of 
 " rajas" or desire. Hence, anger, passion, malice, envy, 
 ambition, and a host of similar " qualities" of matter, are 
 brought directly to the cognizance of the soul by means 
 of its incarnating in a body full of them. Out of the ex- 
 perience of these, so undergone, it acquires a knowledge 
 of the true nature of their opposites ; and evolves a wis- 
 dom it could never gather but for this association with a 
 body. This will be more fully explained in the chapter 
 upon the Reincarnating Ego. 
 
 To Western minds, Reincarnation is both unfamiliar 
 and distasteful. The unfamiliarity is due, perhaps, to the 
 materialistic tendencies of its great thinkers, especially in 
 the domain of science. Most scientists have been, and 
 are, unwilling to admit the existence of a soul in man, to 
 say nothing of its reincarnating. 
 
 That the idea should be distasteful to the unphilosophic 
 mind, especially if trained to base all concepts, whether 
 human or divine, upon personality and separateness, is 
 not surprising. The superstructure of modern civilization 
 is erected upon a foundation of individualism, and this in 
 its lowest and most material sense. To succeed in life is 
 its one object, and by success is understood the acquire- 
 ment of wealth or fame. The view which involves a sue- 
 
PHILOSOPHIC AND LOGICAL EVIDENCE. 87 
 
 cession of lives in its perspective is necessarily lost sight 
 of with horizons rigidly defined by matter. " When we 
 are dead it is for a long time," a remark by a French 
 cynic, fairly presents the conception of life from the mod- 
 ern materialistic and utilitarian standpoint. That he who 
 does not make the most of it is missing opportunities 
 which will never again offer, is generally accepted. From 
 this it necessarily follows that strong personalities should 
 evolve as the soul returns, life after life, with its longing 
 for riches, fame, or power strengthened and confirmed by 
 successive partial realizations. Therefore, when Western 
 people are told that death ends the career of Mr. Smith, 
 who has amassed millions, or of Mr. Brown, who has be- 
 come a great general, and that all that really survives in 
 any life are certain higher, spiritual thoughts and aspira- 
 tions which have become foreign to the very motive of 
 our Western civilization, they are naturally repulsed. 
 The Christian heaven, with its guarantee of the eternal 
 persistence of the entire Mr. Smith, minus his body but 
 plus a pair of wings, seems much more desirable. 
 
 But that Reincarnation should be unsatisfactory to the 
 philosophic mind is unaccountable. For materialistic phi- 
 losophy deliberately parts with life at the death of the 
 body; and in view of the utter blank beyond the grave 
 the terrible, awful conception of ceasing to be it would 
 seem reasonable that it should seize eagerly upon any ten- 
 able hypothesis which promises an extension of being. 
 Yet, of all classes, materialists are the most eager to prove 
 that when the curtain falls at death the play is over, ex- 
 cept to new audiences. 
 
 The proofs of the Reincarnation of the soul follow, logic- 
 ally, as a corollary to the evidence of its existence as an 
 
88 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 entity independent of the body; for a soul shown to 
 possess powers superior to its tenement must have brought 
 such faculties and powers with it, and will necessarily take 
 them when it departs. The only remaining evidence 
 required, then, is to connect the source of this supe- 
 riority with Reincarnation in successive bodies, such as, 
 or similar to, those we now possess. This evidence may 
 be conveniently studied under its logical, or philosophical 
 and scientific aspects. 
 
 jTaking up, primarily then, the logical and philosophic 
 portion of our enquiry, it may be said that there are three 
 hypotheses concerning the origin and destiny of the soul, 
 under which almost every possible form of belief may be 
 classified. The first, and that which is held by a very 
 large majority of the human race, is Reincarnation, or the 
 repeated descent of the soul into material bodies. The 
 second is the one-birth theory, which supposes the crea- 
 tion of a new soul at each birth, and having its chief rep- 
 resentative in modern not ancient Christianity. It 
 also includes most of the believers in Spiritualism. The 
 third looks upon the soul as the product of the molecular 
 and chemical activities going on within the body, and 
 holds that tlje cessation of these activities necessitates its 
 destruction. This is the theory of modern materialism. 
 Now, if we apply the crucial test of an hypothesis that 
 of accounting for all the phenomena included within its 
 own proper territory we shall be at once in a position to 
 judge of the truth or falsity of each of these three con- 
 cerning the soul. 
 
 First, then, as to the object of life. Except we deny 
 any aim at all in Nature's processes which have led up to 
 man, it is evident that in man the one paramount object is 
 
PHILOSOPHIC AND LOGICAL EVIDENCE. 89 
 
 to gain knowledge and wisdom through experience. 
 Even one short life forces us to this conclusion. Mate- 
 rialism does not deny this, but claims that this increment 
 of wisdom is transmitted to the race, and that the individ- 
 ual has no future share in it. If experience and wisdom 
 resulting therefrom be the object, then one life is simply 
 absurd. Did all attain old age, the case would be bad 
 enough, but when we consider the vast number who die 
 with no experience whatever, the inadequacy of one life to 
 accomplish this purpose becomes apparent to the dullest 
 intellect. 
 
 As has been well shown by a recent writer :* 
 "The usual belief is that we are here but once, and once for all de- 
 termine our future. And yet it is abundantly clear that one life, even 
 if prolonged, is no more adequate to gain knowledge, acquire expe- 
 rience, solidify principle, and form character, than would one day in 
 infancy be adequate to fit for the duties of mature manhood. Any 
 man can make this even clearer by estimating, on the one hand, the 
 probable future which Nature contemplates for humanity, and, on 
 the other, his present preparation for it. That future includes evi- 
 dently two things an elevation of the individual to god-like excel- 
 lence, and his gradual apprehension of the Universe of Truth. His 
 present preparation, therefore, consists of a very imperfect knowledge 
 of a very small department of one form of existence, and that mainly 
 gained through the partial use of misleading senses ; of a suspicion, 
 rather than a belief, that the sphere of super-sensuous truth may ex- 
 ceed the sensuous as the universe does this earth ; of a partially 
 developed set of moral and spiritual faculties, none acute and none 
 unhampered, but all dwarfed by non-use, poisoned by prejudice, and 
 perverted by ignorance ; the whole nature, moreover, being limited 
 in its interests and affected in its endeavor by the ever-present needs 
 of a physical body which, much more than the soul, is felt to be the 
 
 *The Necessity for Reincarnation. Leaflet. 
 
90 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 real 'I.' Is such a being, narrow, biased, carnal, sickly, fitted to 
 enter at death on a limitless career of spiritual acquisition ? 
 
 ' ' Now, there are only three ways in which this obvious unfitness 
 may be overcome, a transforming power in death, a post-mortem 
 and wholly spiritual discipline, a series of Reincarnations. There is 
 nothing in the mere separation of soul from body to confer wisdom, 
 ennoble character, or cancel dispositions acquired through fleshliness. 
 If any such power resided in death, all souls, upon being disem- 
 bodied, would be precisely alike, a palpable absurdity. Nor could 
 a post-mortem discipline meet the requirement, and this for the fol- 
 lowing reasons : (a) the soul's knowledge of human life would always 
 remain insignificant ; (b) of the various faculties only to be developed 
 during incarnation, some would still be dormant at death, and there- 
 fore never evolve ; (c) the unsatisfying nature of material life would 
 not have been fully demonstrated ; (d) there would have been no de- 
 liberate conquest of the flesh by the spirit ; (e) the meaning of Uni- 
 versal Brotherhood would have been very imperfectly seen ; (f) desire 
 for a career on earth under different conditions would persistently 
 check the disciplinary process ; (g) exact justice could hardly be se- 
 cured ; (h) the discipline itself would be insufficiently varied and co- 
 pious ; (i) there would be no advance in the successive races on earth. 
 
 "There remains, then, the last alternative, a series of Reincarna- 
 tions, or, in other words, that the enduring principle of the man, en- 
 dowed during each interval between two earth-lives with the results 
 achieved in the former of them, shall return for further experience 
 and effort." 
 
 The author then proceeds to show how all of the ob- 
 jections are met and fully satisfied through Reincarnation ; 
 thus : 
 
 "Only through Reincarnation can knowledge of human life be 
 made exhaustive, or opportunity afforded for the development of all 
 those faculties which can only be developed during incarnation. 
 Only through reincarnations is the unsatisfying nature of material 
 life fully demonstrated ; the subordination of the lower to the 
 
PHILOSOPHIC AND LOGICAL EVIDENCE. 9! 
 
 higher nature made possible ; the meaning of Universal Brotherhood 
 become apparent ; the desire for other forms of earthly experience be 
 extinguished by undergoing them ; exact justice meted to every man ; 
 variety and copiousness to the discipline we all require, be secured ; 
 and a continuous advance in the successive races of men ensured." 
 
 Justice, especially, is most completely set aside by any 
 other theory. According to Christian dogmas, a child who 
 dies at birth is surely " saved." It has had none of the 
 experience and temptations of its fellow-mortals, yet its 
 future happiness is eternally assured because of the acci-. 
 dental cutting short of its earthly career. A Christian 
 who really believes this ought to pray for death for his 
 children, and return devout thanks when the grave 
 closes over their little forms. For what are the pleasures of 
 one brief life compared with the eternal happiness which, 
 according to their belief, awaits the child just beyond the 
 grave, and which it runs the hazard of losing if its exist- 
 ence is prolonged sufficiently for it to encounter the many 
 temptations which must await it in the event of its surviv- 
 ing? Nor is the Spiritist happier in his efforts to explain 
 away the inconsistencies of one life. He claims that ex- 
 perience may be acquired by proxy in a spiritual realm. 
 This postulates the absurdity of attaining material knowl- 
 edge under spiritual environments. But were this possi- ( 
 ble, it still banishes both method and reason from the 
 scheme of evolution, for there is either no necessity for the 
 spirit to incarnate at all, or else the coming to earth for a 
 few moments, as in the case of babes who die at birth, 
 cannot fulfill the requirements. And this without speak- 
 ing of the injustice of compelling one soul to undergo the 
 pains of mortal experience in order that it may teach an- 
 other to whom accident or disease denied opportunity. 
 
92 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 Either this world is one of chance, "where Chaos umpire 
 sits, and by decision adds but to the confusion," or else all 
 one-birth theories must be set aside, as not accounting for 
 even a small portion of the observed facts. 
 
 The same fatal defects apply to the materalistic theory 
 of the non-existence of a soul independently of the body. 
 For admitting that experience and wisdom might be 
 transmitted to the race as its heritage, yet the race itself 
 must eventually perish, and with it all the fruits of the suf- 
 ferings of its units. Materialism merely removes the diffi- 
 culty one step, and leaves life none the less a farce be- 
 cause this now assumes colossal proportions. It is quite 
 as unjust for the race to die, even after millions of years, 
 as it is for the individual to do so after one life. Both re- 
 sults argue the non-existence of any design in nature, and 
 relegate the whole problem of human life to either pure 
 chance, or else the barbarous whim of some Jehovah, who 
 creates and destroys men and worlds as the humor suits 
 him. No sane man can deny the evidence of intelligent 
 design in nature. His imperfect physical senses make 
 this plain, and the most powerful microscope or telescope 
 only adds to the evidence already at hand. The more 
 deeply one searches the more abundant the proofs be- 
 come. This is admittedly the law of the physical plane. 
 Having reached the mental or spiritual plane, does nature 
 now suddenly fly in the face of her former methods and 
 hand the guiding reins over to blind fate or blinder 
 chance ? 
 
 Materialism is particularly unhappy, also, in applying its 
 negative hypothesis to its own grandest and most sweep- 
 ing generalizations. It proudly announces that ex nihilo 
 nihil fit, and then assumes an intelligent, reasoning soul as 
 
PHILOSOPHIC AND LOGICAL EVIDENCE. 93 
 
 starting into existence "out of nothing," and departing 
 into the same unreasonable and impossible limbo when 
 certain processes pertaining to the bodily form cease to be 
 active. The indestructibility of matter, the correlation of 
 force, the conservation of energy, tKe law of evolution 
 all are in hopeless irreconcilability with the materialistic 
 theory, as they also are to the one-birth hypothesis. 
 Matter, force, and intelligence are, as has been pointed 
 out, but three aspects of the One Reality, the CAUSE- 
 LESS CAUSE, and their separation under any condition 
 is absolutely unthinkable. If matter is indestructible, 
 then 1 the material base of the soul is indestructible; if 
 force is always conserved, then this includes psychic or 
 soul force; if energy is eternal in its action, then intel- 
 lectual energy cannot be excluded; if evolution be a fact 
 in nature, then it includes the larger fact that its processes 
 are necessarily infinite in duration. 
 
 But materialism fancies it sees a loophole for avoiding 
 these conclusions in the fact that matter, force, and energy 
 reappear as things apparently differing from their former 
 modes of manifestation. Granted ; but these apparent 
 differences are only the masks which the one actor as- 
 sumes upon taking differing parts. It is the same actor, 
 whose real identity is always one throughout the entire 
 performance. It is not claimed by Theosophy that the 
 soul functions in the same manner when using the sense 
 organs of the body as it does when this limitation is no 
 longer interposed. But it is always the soul, and nothing 
 else, although its phenomena are necessarily modified by 
 the form of matter with which it is temporarily associated. 
 Heat and light are none the less one because differing 
 conditions cause them to display differing modes of mo- 
 
94 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 tion; and no mode of motion, which links the material 
 aspect of nature to the spiritual, has ever been traced to a 
 transmutation into any form of intelligence. The two are 
 opposite facets of the ONE, and can never interchange on 
 the plane of manifestation. It is for this reason that the 
 soul must persist as intelligence; its force can only be 
 conserved by that which is essentially itself in properties. 
 Scientists claim that atoms of matter can never escape 
 from the laws of affinity; that atoms of iron, for instance, 
 will ever be attracted to iron atoms, and that no power 
 can destroy that particular property which constitutes the 
 atom iron, instead of, for example, gold, although it may 
 be so buried among other atoms as to be entirely indis- 
 tinguishable by our coarse physical senses. So intelli- 
 gence must follow the same law, by all the evidence of 
 analogy. The soul represents, in its " I am I" manifesta- 
 tion, an ultimate division if we may be allowed the 
 term of intelligence, and must retain its " I am I" quali- 
 ties under whatever associations it may find itself; just as 
 truly, as reasonably, and as certainly as that the ultimate 
 material atom whose properties constitute it iron can never 
 be destroyed nor changed into something which is not iron. 
 If the one is law on the material plane, the other is equally 
 law on the psychic. The physical atom represents the 
 unit of matter; the " I am I" represents the unit of con- 
 sciousness. From both, the idea of magnitude or ex- 
 tension in space is excluded. Certainly, the "I am I" 
 can not be conceived as limited by the size or any other 
 physical qualities of any body with which it is associated. 
 It is, as we have said, the unit of Consciousness the true 
 basis of all manifestations of intelligence in nature, as 
 the atom is the unit of matter, and the physical basis of 
 all material forms. 
 
PHILOSOPHIC AND LOGICAL EVIDENCE. 9$ 
 
 So with materialistic concepts of evolution. As we 
 have pointed out, there is just as great a defect in logic, 
 and as fatal a disagreement between the hypothesis and 
 the fact that design pervades every department of nature, 
 in annihilating a race, as there is in predicating the anni- 
 hilation of the individual soul. If uncounted millions of 
 individuals are to be sacrificed to perfect a glorious race 
 only for this, too, to be ultimately annihilated, then the 
 evil and unreason of creation are only magnified, not 
 removed. 
 
 But once admit the fact of reincarnation, and observe 
 how the apparent chaos of injustice changes into the most 
 beautiful harmony. Apparently discordant and irreconcil- 
 able phenomena are marshaled into orderly array ; confu- 
 sion and injustice disappear, and life assumes a deeper 
 and more significant meaning. The terrible inequalities 
 of birth, utterly inexplicable by the single-birth, and still 
 more so by the materialistic hypothesis, are shown to be 
 the. result of causes set in operation by the soul itself in 
 former incarnations, and not the careless or stupid inca- 
 pacity of some personal god playing at creation, and 
 making a sad mess of it. The wretch born of drunken 
 and vicious parents, amid such surroundings as make vir- 
 tue practically a miracle, foredoomed to a life of want 
 and woe, has created such attractions in former lives as 
 render it impossible for him to be born under any other 
 conditions. No cruel fate nor blind chaince has been the 
 slightest factor in bringing about the result. Just as 
 surely as the magnet turns to the north, so surely will the 
 helpless soul be drawn to those parents having the 
 greatest sum of similar attractions. The acid poured 
 freely into a vessel containing a solution of a hundred 
 
9" A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 alkaline bases will with unerring certainty combine with 
 that, and with that only, for which it has the greatest 
 affinity. How much more surely, then, will the soul seek 
 out its strongest affinities at the moment of reincarnation 
 than the so-called unconscious atoms on a plane so far 
 beneath it ! 
 
 There is no other theory which will account for the in- 
 finite variations of character which appear from the very 
 moment of birth. To say nothing of our material en- 
 vironments, to omit all notice of the manifest injustice 
 which SENDS equally' helpless souls to rich or poor, to 
 civilized or cannibalistic, to black or white parents, or any 
 of the other infinite variations of merely physical circum- 
 stances, we do not start fair in the race from a moral and 
 intellectual standpoint. One child is born with genius, 
 another an idiot both of parents of about the same men- 
 tal capacity, it may be. What cause brought about this 
 great and unjust difference, if neither lived before? One 
 infant comes into the world handicapped by a sullen tem- 
 per and vicious disposition ; another, with the most lovable 
 traits. If it is claimed, as materialism erroneously asserts, 
 that each inherits its peculiarities from its parents, even 
 then how can reason accept the black injustice which sends 
 one soul to the pure parents, and the other to the impure 
 ones, if neither had had any previous voice in the matter ? 
 We must accept reincarnation if we would ever hope to 
 solve the awful inequalities which attend upon birth. No 
 man could find it in his heart to condemn his child to be 
 born a poor, innocent victim of such fiendish caprices, such 
 an unavoidable life of temptation, suffering, degradation 
 and death, followed by an eternal hell, as birth to vicious, 
 barbarous, or even ignorant parents almost surely pre- 
 
PHILOSOPHIC AND LOGICAL EVIDENCE. 97 
 
 supposes; yet Christians believe this horrible thing of a 
 Jehovah whom they claim to be of infinite compassion 
 and mercy! It is the logical outcome, however, of a phi- 
 losophy whose most learned divines calmly discuss with 
 approval such topics as: "The Loving Kindness of God 
 as Evidenced in the Eternal Punishment of Sinners!"* 
 and " The Greatness of God as shown in the SLOW 
 Christianizing of the Earth !"f 
 
 Again, as we have seen, the fact that no two individuals 
 of the entire human race were ever born with the same 
 character, or ever acquired the same, is one of the 
 strongest logical proofs of the truth of reincarnation. 
 Each babe comes into the world with the stamp of its 
 former desires, appetites and experiences indelibly im- 
 pressed upon it in the form of this individual character. 
 Materialism claims ante-natal influence within the womb 
 as the cause of this infinite divergence in human character; 
 but the proof that this is not so is too abundant. Were 
 there none other, the cases of twin births would suffice; 
 for here the ante-natal influence must be absolutely the 
 same, yet from the hour of birth twin infants often show 
 the most marked differences in disposition and char- 
 acter. It is true that most twins, for obvious reasons 
 chief among which is the affinity which drew both to the 
 same parents at the same time display marked similarity 
 in mental and physical characteristics; but a working 
 hypothesis must be one which explains all the phenomena, 
 and these occasional divergences completely nullify ante- 
 natal influence as a factor. 
 
 *Irenics. Jas. Strong, S. T. D., LIv. D. 
 
 fA paper by a Minister in a Christian magazine. Indexed in "The 
 Review of Reviews." 
 
98 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 The almost infinite differences in human character 
 have a most profound bearing upon any philosophy of life, 
 and can only be explained by admitting the fact of re- 
 incarnation; for the character as displayed by babes from 
 the moment of birth, and which throughout life separates 
 each man from all other men, is the sum of the experiences 
 the Ego, or soul, has already undergone and assimilated, 
 and which experiences remain as indelible impressions 
 upon and modifications of the soul's conscious area, and 
 constitute the differences which distinguish it from other 
 souls. Had all souls similar experiences character would 
 be inconceivable, for all would be alike. 
 
 Much of the desires and passions which constitute the 
 larger portion of the soul's activities at any given time are 
 necessarily suspended by the change called death, and 
 therefore remain dormant, or latent, until it is compelled 
 by its karmic affinities to again seek incarnation, when 
 they become active with the opportunity afforded by a 
 new body. Just as a man's passions are held in abeyance 
 by sleep, to regain all their former activity upon awaken- 
 ing, so all his desires and appetites which are so gross 
 and earthly as to lie below the planes of Devachan,* re- 
 main inoperative, but by no means destroyed, until he 
 again awakens to earth life in his new dwelling. It is for 
 this reason that " character" is so important an element in 
 reincarnation. It is simply the old affinities man has him- 
 self created acting upon all planes ; determining the kind of 
 body in which he shall find his new habitation ; the 
 family, the nation, the race, the social station, the intel- 
 lectual trend, the predisposition to disease or long life, 
 
 *DEVACHAN The subjective cycle intervening between two 
 earth lives. See chapter on Post-mortem States. 
 
PHILOSOPHIC AND LOGICAL EVIDENCE. 99 
 
 and every other conceivable limitation in the environment 
 or circumstances of the new life. All these limitations 
 are effects resulting from causes set in operation in former 
 lives, which causes have, under the law of Karma, or 
 Cause and Effect, delivered his soul, a helpless, uncon- 
 scious captive, to do with whatsoever this Supreme Law 
 shall determine. For during the subjective, or de- 
 vachanic, interim between earth lives the human will is in 
 complete abeyance. It becomes a potency during earth 
 life because man has acquired self-consciousness upon this 
 plane has, under that which Eastern philosophy terms 
 the Great Heresy, separated Ego from Non-Ego, and in 
 consequence of this delusion too often opposed his will to 
 that of nature. Not so, in devachan. Here only the spir- 
 itual will is consciously functioning and all the unex- 
 pended material or sensuous causes generated in past 
 earth lives, and especially in the last of these, exert their 
 full affinities entirely below the present conscious plane of 
 the Ego, and it only awakens from its devachanic exist- 
 ence to find itself in a body, which, under the karmic law 
 of Cause ancl^Effect, is thus, unconsciously to it, predeter- 
 mined. 
 
 During one incarnation the thousands of thoughts, 
 emotions, and mental states included in our every-day life, 
 and constituting that thread or consciousness which mate- 
 rialism insists is all there is at the base of our " I am I," 
 constantly crystallize into habits, desires, and instinctive 
 tendencies to assume certain mental attitudes to the ex- 
 clusion of others; all of which enters into the composition 
 of our personal character. This latter, in its larger degree, 
 is again crystallizing into our true or individual character, 
 or that of our reincarnating Ego, or soul. The memory of 
 
100 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 the myriad states of consciousness by which this perma- 
 nent character is acquired is left behind at each death of 
 the body; but the result, the sum total, is carried over at 
 reincarnation to the new account. The statue preserves 
 no record of the ten thousand strokes of the chisel by 
 which it was chipped into shape, yet the result is none the 
 less^ beautiful because of this. 
 
 f Reincarnation, then, affords the key, and the only key, 
 to the mysteries of the inequalities of birth ; for the great 
 divergence of character and mental capacity, ranging from 
 genius to idiocy, at birth, accounts for the presence of evil 
 in the world, explains "original sin," makes immortality 
 reasonable by extending the existence of the soul to an 
 infinite past as well as to an eternal future. The last 
 point mentioned existence in both directions avoids the 
 absurdity of postulating a semp- or half-eternal being an 
 existence with but one end, which a soul created at birth 
 and having immortality from that point presupposes. A 
 line must have two ends, whether it be physical or 
 spiritual. 
 
 Reincarnation, also, is in perfect accord with the sci- 
 entific conceptions of the persistence of force and the con- 
 servation of energy; and shows how a cause, once set in 
 motion, must have its effect; that energies generated in 
 one life cannot be cut short by death, but must find ex- 
 pression in a future one ; that the affinity which guides a 
 soul into the most fitting body to express its charac- 
 teristics is but an exemplification of the law of energy or 
 force taking the direction of the least resistance. 
 
 No effort is lost; soul force, like all other forms offeree, 
 is ever conserved. The soul which has longed and strug- 
 gled for a desired result, finding its efforts cut short by 
 
PHILOSOPHIC AND LOGICAL EVIDENCE. IOI 
 
 death when, perhaps, on the very point of realization, does 
 not lose the fruit of its toil and self-denial. The energy 
 so generated will accompany, guide, and control the next 
 birth so as to continue its expression in one unbroken line. 
 No effort, whether for good or evil, can be without its re- 
 sults. It is a cause, and in the eternal harmony of nature 
 must have its corresponding effect. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 REINCARNATION THE SCIENTIFIC EVI- 
 DENCE. 
 
 BUT aside from all philosophic necessities or hypoth- 
 eses, if Reincarnation be true, we shall find evidence 
 of it in nature, for natura non saltet. At the outset of this 
 portion of our inquiry, we see that the repetition of her 
 processes is universal. In the mineral kingdom, the sand, 
 formed from the crumbling rocks of the mountain's side, 
 re-forms into stony stratifications, at the bottom of the 
 sea, to be again upheaved, and reprint the geologic page 
 in future ages. Tree or plant, animal or human, each is 
 reproduced "after its kind," in an apparently endless suc- 
 cession. Embryologists trace the history of the incal- 
 culable periods during which the physical form of man 
 evolved up through the lower kingdoms by means of the 
 repetition of each successive stage, in gestation. Cell, 
 fish, reptile, bird, animal, man each step upwarcj is 
 repeated, though the necessity for this would seem to have 
 ceased with the completion of the more perfect design. 
 Man casts aside his 'prentice efforts once he succeeds, 
 but nature ever follows the familiar pathways. 
 
 Yet the countless elemental hosts and hierarchies of 
 " nature Spirits," engaged in carrying out the practical 
 aspect of evolution do not pause at the simple reproduc- 
 tion of the old form. Having reached the end of beaten 
 paths, each still struggles onward, though its progress is 
 as little perceptible as the impress of a single wave upon 
 the beach which, nevertheless, is slowly wearing away. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. 103 
 
 This gradual perfection of type also shows that idea pre- 
 cedes form, and that nature is not working blindly, under 
 the impulse of unintelligent force. Ages were occupied 
 in so modifying the gills of water-breathing mammalia 
 that they could live in the purer, rarer atmosphere of the 
 earth; yet is it not evident that the idea of the perfected 
 bird was present and potent during the whole process ? 
 Is it not also evident that the idea of perfected man, with 
 all his wonderful organization, was present when the 
 first protoplasmic cell responded to the force of the 
 inner, energizing thought ? 
 
 It will be universally admitted that it is the idea, and 
 not the form, which is preserved; the point of dispute is 
 as to the method by which the idea is carried onward. 
 The materialist avers that it is due to physical procreation 
 alone; that, for instance, if the dove should become un- 
 fertile, the idea of it would perish off the earth with the 
 cessation of its physical existence. The Theosophist de- 
 nies this, and declares that if every dove on earth were to 
 die nature is amply able to reproduce the form out of the 
 pre-existing idea from whence it evolved the species. The 
 materialist affirms that force and matter have, by the 
 merest chance, brought about the evolution of form and 
 intelligence; that both these are but properties of matter, 
 and are dissipated with the dissolution of the chemical 
 and vital forces which caused their manifestation. The 
 Theosophist declares that spirit, or consciousness, under- 
 lies and is the basis of all form, and passes from form to 
 form as these decay or become unfitted for its further oc- 
 cupation. As Plato declares, "The soul weaves ever her 
 garments anew." To interrogate nature as to her 
 methods of taking these subjective steps in pursuit of her 
 objects constitutes the motive of this chapter. 
 
104 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 Our first inquiry must be as to the identity of con- 
 sciousness when passing from vehicle to vehicle. That 
 is, does the same conscious entity ensoul successive 
 bodies? From the human standpoint, the answer to 
 this question is all important. To the kingdoms below 
 man we look for the proof of the affirmative of the 
 question, as under the law of evolution there must be 
 a preparation for, or a beginning of, the processes nec- 
 essary. 
 
 It would seem that every center of consciousness 
 forming within the All-Consciousness, or Over Soul/ 
 retains its individuality under all circumstances, except 
 two, which two are practically one. These are : (a) the 
 failure to maintain itself in the struggle with nature's 
 warring elements, and a consequent loss of identity 
 as an entity; and, (b) the passing through and beyond 
 the Cycle of Necessity, and returning laden with the 
 spoils of conscious victories to the all-embracing Over 
 Soul, which latter process involves no real loss of indi- 
 vidual identity. Certainly, up to the point where 
 consciousness is developed sufficiently to take control 
 of its own destinies, there can hardly be any lapsing 
 back predicated; for the original Energy which set 
 the evolutionary forces in operation the Outbreathing 
 of the Great Breath can not fail before this stage, 
 because the force is practically omnipotent. And after this 
 the will of the innumerable centers of developed con- 
 sciousness represent and stand instead of that original 
 Energy which can not be diminished, and of which they 
 in their totality are the undiminished correlations. Yet, 
 as on the material plane, certain laya centers of worlds, 
 even may lose themselves by a succession of apposite 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. 1 05 
 
 unfavorable causes, so there can arise in the evolution 
 of every soul destructive causes, set up by itself, which 
 end in its annihilation as a self-conscious center of 
 energy. 
 
 From these premises the inference is justified that 
 an entity representing an apparent separation of con- 
 sciousness, whether its outer physical clothing be a 
 plant, a tree, an animal, or the human form, maintains 
 its individuality throughout the major half, if not the 
 whole, of the planetary cycle, or minor manvantara; 
 that is, that the consciousness (elemental in this c^se) 
 of a tree reincarnates or re-embodies itself in another 
 tree; and similarly for all organisms throughout animated 
 nature. For the monadic base, the Ray from the Cause- 
 less Cause, upon which all shades and grades of differen- 
 tiated consciousness rest, must be absolutely colorless. It 
 is only by material experience or expression that it gets 
 this. But having once received a definite stamp in. any 
 kingdom, as was pointed out in the study of the Indi- 
 vidualization of the Soul, it has acquired individuality to 
 this extent, and individuality thus impressed upon it can 
 not be removed. It may be added to, as when vegetable 
 consciousness is added to mineral, and animal to this; but 
 to remove it is unthinkable. Therefore, it logically fol- 
 lows that the consciousness of a tree or plant impressed 
 upon a monadic base renders it impossible . for this 
 monadic center to again re-enter the mineral king- 
 dom, just as the human consciousness, once attained, 
 renders it impossible for the human soul to again reincar- 
 nate in an animal, or any lower form. It would be mak- 
 ing the lesser contain the greater a mathematical impos- 
 sibility and logical absurdity. For this reason, conscious- 
 
106 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 ness, having reached any definite point of expression, can 
 only remain stationary, in opposition to the evolutionary 
 impulse, or go forward in harmony with this. 
 
 We have thus the strongest and most cogent reason for 
 predicating the identity of any monadic expression of con- 
 sciousness when passing from form to form, upon the dis- 
 integration or death of these. For the consciousness of a 
 bear, for instance, to lapse back into a universal reservoir 
 of conscious force, as taught by some materialistic hypoth- 
 eses, implies the destruction of all those emotions and in- 
 stin^ts which distinguish the character of the animal. 
 Now, consciousness is only related to the material plane 
 in terms of motion or force, and this is universally admitted 
 to be indestructible. Then how is it possible to destroy 
 that force which expresses animal instinct? It cannot be 
 destroyed; it must find expression on the animal plane, 
 and in the bear, or some closely allied species, until it is 
 transmuted by evolution, and the consequent widening of 
 its consciousness into higher forms of conscious expres- 
 sion. 
 
 There is, thus, an absolute and logical necessity for spe- 
 cific reincarnation, of plant in plant, animal in animal, and 
 man in man, and it only remains to examine the methods 
 which nature adopts to secure this end. 
 
 It is evident that the universal repetition of idea in 
 form throughout all nature, to which we have called 
 attention, is but the expression of a deep and basic law. 
 This law is that all existence proceeds in cycles, each 
 having its objective and its subjective arc. Eastern occult 
 philosophy terms the action of this universal law the 
 " Great Breath," a definition in which Theosophy coin- 
 cides and adopts. That finite time is related to Infinite 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. IQ? 
 
 Duration by means of these cycles of existence, is a great 
 and all-embracing truth, without the proper recognition of 
 which no intelligent conception of reincarnation can be 
 formulated. From the major manvantara, occupying 
 unthinkable eons of years, to the life of a single cell, last- 
 ing, in many instances, but a few moments, the rhythmic 
 flow of motion and consciousness from without within, and 
 from within without, is absolute, universal, without excep- 
 tion. Objective life succeeds subjective life, subjective 
 life is followed by objective, in an eternal succession. 
 The chain cannot be broken; it is as continuous as Dura- 
 tion itself. 
 
 In the vegetable kingdom, this ebb and flow of con- 
 scious force is within material limits largely, and easily 
 studied. Especially in the annuals of cold or temperate 
 climates is this flux and efflux plainly apparent. Every 
 year a large portion of the material form dies down. All 
 the beautiful imagery and design expressed in leaf, stalk, 
 and flower perish as completely as though they had never 
 existed. The life force has ebbed, yet not entirely. 
 Root, rhizoma, or bulb hold in subjective embrace every 
 detail, even to the most minute; and when the subjective 
 cycle is completed the inner, subjective entity thrills, 
 expands, clothes itself again with its vestment of cells, 
 and reproduces the dead plant in all its former perfection 
 and beauty. Every such a reproduction by a root or bulb 
 is a genuine, specific reincarnation of the same elemental 
 center of consciousness, or "elemental soul,"* in the same 
 
 *A "soul," or vehicle of consciousness [see Introduction], is 
 termed "elemental" when below the plane of self-consciousness; 
 "human," when it reaches this plane; "divine," when it passes it. 
 Every entity in the Universe either "is, was, or prepares to become, 
 a man." 
 
108 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 plant, yet we fail to recognize this. To us, nothing un- 
 usual has taken place nor has there because of our 
 familiarity with the phenomenon. We say the plant has 
 "grown" again from the root. But, in growing, it has fol- 
 lowed a definite plan and idea. Was this hidden in the 
 shriveled mass of matter, which gave no indication of its 
 presence whatever? Doubtless; but how? The form 
 was not hidden ; only the elemental entity in its subjective 
 arc, or "pralaya," representing the "idea" of the plant. 
 In other words, the plant has been living a subjective life, 
 without losing one iota of that distinguishing character 
 which made it a denizen of a definite genus, family, and 
 species. Because of the apparent clinging to material 
 form in root, bulb, or seed, the reality and importance of 
 the subjective arc. of the existence of the plant entity has 
 been lost sight of. There has not been that total separa- 
 tion of subjective from objective which we find upon 
 higher planes. There has been a preparing for, an experi- 
 ment in, subjective consciousness without entirely aban- 
 doning the material vestment, which is just what analogy 
 would have led us to expect in this kingdom, for natura 
 non saltet. 
 
 Indeed, it would seem reasonable to suppose that it is 
 only by clinging to some portion of the material form that 
 specific reproduction would be most practicable here ; for 
 vegetable, like mineral, consciousness is so little differen- 
 tiated, its monadic base so general and diffused, that a 
 total abandonment of the material form is to be expected 
 to prove the exception rather than the rule. Where plants 
 are reproduced from the seed, in many seeds plainly, and 
 probably in all if we had the proper means of examina- 
 tion, the form of the plant to be reproduced is already 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. 1 09 
 
 partially expressed in terms of matter. Witness the 
 Hindu emblem of immortality, the lotus, and all 
 cotyledonous plants. In fact, the essential part of any 
 seed is the embryo, upon which one or more leaves are 
 often capable of being distinguished. There is no doubt 
 that nature-elementals can and do really incarnate any 
 ideal form by starting from a single cell, and that any lost 
 form could be so reproduced; but the inquiries undertaken 
 in this chapter do not lie along this particular line. It is 
 reincarnation we are studying not incarnation in general 
 terms. 
 
 This incomplete reincarnation is universal upon all 
 planes, but of course is most markad in the comparatively 
 low vegetable kingdom. Every tree that puts forth flower 
 and foliage with returning Spring exemplifies the law. 
 Ripened fields of grain proclaim its completion; the 
 lichen, "creeping up out of the rock," rejoicing in its new 
 vesture, bears witness to the ebb and flow of the Eternal 
 Motion, the " Great Breath," the Force- Aspect of the 
 Causeless Cause, as it bears on its bosom the myriad hosts 
 of nature elementals, now clothed in objective form, now 
 resting in unconscious subjective arcs of their cycles of 
 existence. 
 
 Passing to the animal kingdom, we find the evidences 
 of specific reincarnation becoming more and more pro- 
 nounced. Other elements of consciousness have been 
 gradually added to the colorless base; differentiation has 
 advanced farther, and anything but specific individual re- 
 incarnation has become more difficult in consequence. A 
 distinct step, and one not observed in the vegetable king- 
 dom, is seen in the metamorphosis of insects. Metamor- 
 phosis is, of course, but another exemplification of the rep- 
 
110 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 etition by nature of steps already taken in attaining a de- 
 sired end; yet it is more. It shows a deliberate use of the 
 old material, a reconstruction of a new form from outworn 
 matter without permitting a dispersion of this, which 
 plainly proves an unwillingness to enter subjective realms 
 with the material connection entirely severed. As this 
 connection was maintained in the vegetable kingdom by 
 roots, seeds, and bulbs, so here it is accomplished by 
 means of larvae, pupae, and perfect insects. Between each 
 stage is a condition of almost perfect subjectivity a De- 
 vachanic interlude from the insect standpoint followed 
 by the return of the objective arc, which results in reincar- 
 nating the same individual in an entirely different body, 
 constructed out of the old material. Form, function, 
 habit, are all so changed that nothing but the evidence 
 of actual observation would convince us that the beau- 
 tiful butterfly was the actual reincarnation and re-embodi- 
 ment of the repulsive caterpillar. 
 
 It is interesting to note the preparation for metamor- 
 phosis, and its significance in several directions. New- 
 port, quoted in Duncan's "Transformation of Insects," 
 thus describes the process: 
 
 "When a full-grown larva is preparing to change into the pupa 
 state, it becomes exceedingly restless, ceases to eat, and diminishes 
 much in weight. Many species spin for themselves a covering of 
 silk, termed a cocoon, or case, in which they await their transforma- 
 tion. Others prepare little cavities in the earth, and line them with 
 silk, for the same purpose; and some suspend themselves by their 
 hindermost legs to the under surface of a leaf. In each of these in- 
 stances the important change takes place in the same manner. Be- 
 fore the larva thus prepares itself for metamorphosis, its alimentary 
 canal is completely evacuated of its contents; its body becomes dry 
 and shriveled, and much contracted in length; and certain enlarge- 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. I I 1 
 
 ments at the sides of the anterior segments indicate the now rapidly 
 developing parts of the future pupa. 
 
 ' 'The larva of the butterfly either fastens itself by a little rope of 
 silk carried across its thorax to the under surface of some object, as a 
 ceiling, etc., or suspends itself vertically by its hind legs, with its 
 head directed downwards, as is the case with the common nettle but- 
 terfly Vanessa urtica. We have watched the changes with much 
 care in this insect, which frequently remains thus suspended for 
 more than ten or twenty hours before the transformation takes place. 
 When that period has arrived, the skin bursts along the back part of 
 the first segment, or mesothorax, and is extended along the second 
 and fourth, while the coverings of the head separate into three pieces. 
 The insect then exerts itself to the utmost to extend the fissure along 
 the segments of the abdomen, and, in the meantime pressing its body 
 through the opening, gradually withdraws its antennae and legs, 
 while the skin, by successive contortions of the abdomen, is slipped 
 backwards, and forced towards the extremity of the body, just as a per- 
 son would slip off his glove or stocking. The efforts of the insect to 
 entirely get rid of it are very great; it twists itself in every direction, 
 in order to burst the skin, and when it has exerted itself in this man- 
 ner for some time, twirls itself swiftly, first in one direction and then 
 in the opposite, until at last the skin is broken through and falls to 
 the ground, or is forced to some distance. The new pupa then hangs 
 for a few seconds at rest. ' ' 
 
 After the formation of the pupa case, in describing 
 pupa life, the author continues: 
 
 "In all insects which undergo complete metamorphosis this is the 
 period of quiescence and entire abstinence. Many species remain in 
 this state during the greater part of their existence, in others it is the 
 shortest period of their lives. ' ' 
 
 That is to say that all the wonderful changes which 
 transform a crawling, slimy caterpillar into a glorious vis- 
 ion of beauty and freedom take place in silence and dark- 
 ness, "from within without," in the absence of all that 
 
112 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 food supply which is so necessary to the "scientific" con- 
 ception of the generation and continuation of "vital" force. 
 With how little waste of matter nature accomplishes this 
 conformation of external form to internal idea, is shown 
 by the fact that a pupa weighing some 71 grains immedi- 
 ately after its transformation in August, in the following 
 April weighed over 67 grains, "having thus lost but 3.7 
 grains in the long period of nearly eight months of com- 
 plete abstinence." 
 
 In the higher planes of the animal kingdom, metamor- 
 phosis of the entire organization practically ceases; the 
 remnants of it which persist being limited to organs rather 
 than bodies, as in the transformation of the water-breathing 
 tadpole into the air-breathing frog, through the metamor- 
 phosis of the respiratory apparatus, together with that of 
 locomotion. The long abstinence from food among 
 insects in the pupa state is also found in a modified form 
 in some of the higher vertebratae, as in the various hiber- 
 nating animals, and in the fasts of reptiles, in all of which 
 the consciousness practically retires to subjective realms. 
 
 Yet in this kingdom the most important advance made 
 is in the substitution of the egg for the seed as a point 
 d'appui for the reincarnating entity.* The clinging to the 
 
 *That is, the highest point tfappui. The fact that the lowly forms 
 of both animal and vegetable life approach each other so closely that 
 even the microscope oftentimes distinguishes with difficulty the 
 kingdom to which a given specimen belongs, only shows that entities 
 from either kingdom use the same protoplasm with almost identical 
 results in form-building in these lowly beginnings. It is, also, a mag- 
 nificent illustration and confirmation of the fact that there is an inner 
 spiritual essence, and not an outer material force, causing the primal 
 appearance and subsequent evolution of form ; for under the latter 
 hypotheses there is no possible explanation why two cells apparently 
 molecularly identical should diverge, the one into the vegetable, the 
 other into the animal kingdom. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. 113 
 
 material form in the latter has been boldly abandoned, and 
 a minute speck of protoplasm substituted. This shows that 
 the entity has evolved to a point of greater differentiation 
 has acquired greater confidence, as it were. It also af- 
 fords room for greater variation ; as the soul, whether ani- 
 mal or human, is not rigidly bound by a form already 
 partly constructed in advance. Greater freedom is thus 
 afforded it in modifying its own tenement; and the evolu- 
 tion not only of more perfect forms, but of a greater di- 
 versity of organs in the same form is provided for. The 
 balance of evolution has distinctly swung to the spiritual 
 or Conscious-Aspect of nature; the middle point has been 
 reached in the animal and passed in the human kingdom. 
 
 To sum up, it is plainly evident that consciousness en- 
 souled in the mineral kingdom has the mineral stamp im- 
 pressed upon it, and is limited by this until it struggles 
 out as a zoophyte or lichen, under the pressure of the gen- 
 eral evolutionary impulse. In this kingdom, reincarnation 
 as a universal process can only occur at the birth of a new 
 world, and every such birth is a reincarnation of a pre- 
 viously existing planet which has died. There is no crea- 
 tion in its ordinary sense possible in nature. Matter, 
 Force, and Consciousness are equally indestructible, and 
 uncreate. 
 
 In the vegetable kingdom, specific reincarnation of 
 plants takes place under the ebb and flow of the natural, 
 cyclic laws known as the " seasons." In the animal, the 
 metamorphosis of insects absolutely proves the re-embodi- 
 ment of the same conscious entity in an entirely different 
 organism, under an inner, subjective force, unaided by ex- 
 ternal conditions. And between the creeping caterpillar 
 and the beautiful butterfly there is certainly a vaster dif- 
 
I 14 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 ference in form and function than is necessitated on any 
 plane by the conscious entity, or soul, merely passing from 
 body to body through the medium of intervening sub- 
 jective states. 
 
 Efflux and influx, subjectivity and objectivity, follow 
 each other in unending succession, and are universal in 
 nature. Life succeeds death, to again give place to its op- 
 posite when the subjective arc of the cycle is reached. 
 The periods occupied by their alternations are infinitely 
 varied, as well as the degree to which the one state is re- 
 placed by the other. It is easy to trace the beginning of 
 these subjective and objective alternations in the vegetable 
 kingdom into and through the animal, and to observe them 
 becoming all the time more pronounced and, apparently, 
 more disconnected from each other. But we have seen 
 that this disconnection was only apparent, and not real ; 
 that the same entity was merely passing through the sub- 
 jective arc of its life-spiral during the period we variously 
 term root-life, metamorphosis, hibernation, sleep, and 
 death. It has been shown that the monadic base, the Ray 
 from the Conscious-Aspect of the Causeless Cause, being 
 of necessity uncolored and attributeless, has attributes and 
 limitations impressed upon it by the various material ex- 
 periences it passes through, and the widening of its con- 
 scious area, as a result of this. We have noticed that as 
 this consciousness is widened each addition, to the human 
 state at least, increases limitation and intensifies individ- 
 ualization, so that the range of possible choice in reincar- 
 nation becomes all the time more restricted. Thus an 
 entity that could choose from the whole mineral kingdom, 
 in the vegetable might be limited to a genus, in the animal 
 to a species, and in the human to a family. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. 115 
 
 Now, if the individualization of a tulip, even, has pro- 
 ceeded so far that nature has expressly provided for sub- 
 jective cycles of the same individual, by the evolution of a 
 bulb, how much more reasonable it is that the intense indi- 
 vidualization in man should also be conserved by subjective 
 periods in his life history. That the conditions limiting 
 his consciousness in each state are different is no argu- 
 ment against these existing. The consciousness of a but- 
 terfly differs vastly from that of a caterpillar; nor does 
 the butterfly ever know of the caterpillar state, as far, at 
 least, as we can judge. The two are quite separated in 
 time. It logically follows, then, that the individualization, 
 carried to so marked an extent as it is in man, should be 
 provided with subjective periods in which to assimilate 
 and make its own the experiences of the last physical life. 
 It is also reasonable that this experience, being so widely 
 varied, should be best assimilated under conditions of en- 
 tire subjectivity. If, as Plato declares, " the soul reasons 
 best when least harassed by the bodily senses," so much 
 the better will it garner the wisdom taught by the fleeting 
 panorama of its past life when entirely free from physical 
 perturbation. 
 
 Then, if everything in nature is pointing towards and 
 preparing for distinct periods of subjective experience in 
 the cycle of human existence, we can hardly be wrong 
 when assuming that reincarnation is fully and completely 
 proven by this preparation for and gradual leading up to 
 it on her part, for again the truism meets us that natura 
 non saltet, and it would be a great deal more than a leap 
 for her to suspend processes once inaugurated. It would 
 be like a great river, whose waters have been collected 
 from the four quarters of a continent, suddenly ceasing to 
 flow and disappearing into nothingness when within 
 sound of its aim and end, the sea. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE COMPOSITE NATURE OF THE SOUL. 
 
 JT^HUS far, in our study, we have spoken of that which 
 J^ reincarnates in man under the generic term of 
 Soul. It now becomes necessary to use a more specific 
 expression, in order that we may determine just what 
 portion of man reincarnates, and what does not. This 
 can only be accomplished by a study of that composite 
 nature of man's soul which is evidenced by the com- 
 plex character of his conscious functioning. 
 
 All systems of philosophy, with the sole exception of 
 that which passes for a philosophy under the name of 
 modern Materialism, recognize the complex nature of 
 man, and all classify this complexity as a necessary 
 step in any philosophic analysis of his being. In the 
 Kabala, Gnosticism and Buddhism, the division is into 
 seven Principles or basic elements entering into his 
 composition; in Vedantin Brahmanism and the teach- 
 ings of Lao-Tse, there are five; in Christianity, three 
 the body, soul and spirit, of Paul; while Materialism 
 alone recognizes but one, the "matter" of his body, 
 and of which all his other faculties are, according to it, 
 but properties. 
 
 Without pausing to examine wherein other systems 
 agree or disagree with the theosophic classification, we 
 will take up that as being identical with the exoteric 
 enumeration of several great religions, and as agreeing 
 esoterically with all of them. This is the seven-fold 
 division, and corresponds with other great septenates 
 
COMPOSITE NATURE OF THE SOUL. I I/ 
 
 in nature. It separates man into Body (Sthula Sharira); 
 Astral Body (Linga Sharira) ; Vitality (Prana) ; Animal 
 Soul (Kama); Human Soul (Manas); Spiritual Soul 
 (Buddhi); and Spirit (Atman). The words in paren- 
 theses are the Sanscrit originals, of which the English 
 equivalents are attempted translations. 
 
 [~From this classification it is at once apparent that 
 " soul " may be defined as any vehicle for conscious- 
 ness, as was shown in the opening sentences of this work; 
 and the necessity for an accurate technology is seen to 
 be imperative. For in the above enumeration there are 
 three Principles classed as " souls," each being a vehicle 
 for a higher expression of consciousness, while the Body 
 and Astral Body fall, strictly speaking, under the same 
 category, both being also but vehicles for other states of 
 consciousness. 
 
 Let us begin this necessarily brief examination with 
 the lowest principle, or the Body. Under the evolu- 
 tionary and philosophic necessity, as previously pointed 
 out, of higher, more developed centers of consciousness, 
 using matter already the seat of consciousness in lower 
 expressions of form, it is at once seen that the Body 
 represents in its molecular constitution hosts of these 
 lower lives. Every cell is a synthesized group of such 
 lives; every organ, a synthesized group of cells; every 
 system, a synthesized group of organs; every Body, 
 a synthesized group of systems. Now, a synthesis 
 demands and demonstrates a synthesizer. So it is 
 evident that man, even in his lowest, most material 
 aspect, or Body, represents hosts of such synthesizing 
 centers of consciousness. That each cell is an entity, 
 even science freely admits. Green, for example, in his 
 "Pathology and Morbid Anatomy," states: 
 
Il8 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 " Bver since Schwann discovered the cellular nature of animals, and 
 established the analogy between animal and vegetable cells, there 
 has been a gradually increasing conviction among physiologists, 
 which has now become a universally accepted physiological and path- 
 ological doctrine, that the cell is the seat of nutrition and function ; 
 and, further, that each individual cell is itself an independent 
 organism, endowed with those properties and capable of exhibiting 
 those active changes which are characteristic of life. Bvery organ- 
 ized part of the body is either cellular, or is derived from cells, and 
 under no circumstances do they originate de novo" 
 
 This is directly confirmatory of Weismann's theory of an 
 immortal cell handed down from parent to offspring, from 
 modifications of which, by the countless elemental lives 
 actively engaged in the construction, maintenance and 
 repair of his body, all that magnificent structure is formed. 
 It has an important bearing, as will be shown when deal- 
 ing with the Reincarnating Ego, upon the karmic relation 
 of the Thinker to his body; this immortal cell being the 
 actual physical basis for the transmission of physical 
 heredity. 
 
 The Body, then, is simply a molecular and cellular as- 
 sociation of lower " lives," of various degrees of conscious- 
 ness, synthesized and used by the Thinker, the true Re- 
 incarnating Ego, as a necessary bundle of sense organs to 
 relate its higher consciousness to this lower plane. 
 
 The Linga Sharira, or Astral Body, is the ethereal 
 counterpart of the gross body; the location of the 
 centers of sensation; and the vehicle of Prana, the 
 Life Principle, upon one side, and of Kama or desire, 
 upon the other. The philosophic and logical necessity 
 for such a body is abundantly demonstrable, yet space 
 limits to the consideration of phenomenal proof alone. 
 These consist in dreams, in " dopplegangers," in 
 
COMPOSITE NATURE OF THE SOUL. 119 
 
 "materializations," in "repercussions" of injuries in- 
 flicted during "materializations," in the "physical mani- 
 festations" of mediums in (low) clairvoyance, in "ghosts," 
 "wraiths," and apparitions, etc. The complete hypo- 
 thetical proof of the existence, by necessity, of such 
 a body is to be found in certain phenomena of hypnotism. 
 It is well known that hypnotizers can prevent their sub- 
 jects from seeing any person or object which the hypno- 
 tizer designates by simply willing or "suggesting" that 
 upon awakening they can not. This prohibition may be 
 made to extend to any or all of the senses, at pleasure. 
 Thus, is one instance, the "subject" was made unable to 
 see the .body of a person present, but was permitted to 
 see his hat. This resulted in an apparent movement of 
 a hat through space without any perceptible cause, 
 greatly to her astonishment and dismay. 
 
 Now, it is at once apparent that if the centers of 
 sensation are located in the physical cells of either 
 retina, optic nerve, or thalami, nothing but an actual 
 physical interposition of matter upon their own plane 
 can possibly inhibit their action. Given that physical 
 cells convey the result of a vibratory impact along 
 physical nerve tracts to physical ganglia, and we have 
 a physical sequence that only physical means can possibly 
 disturb. This, too, without noting the further factor in 
 the problem of purely mechanical motion having been 
 transmuted into terms of sensation an impossible phe- 
 nomenon with a purely physical circuit. Nothing but 
 degenerative disease, or the surgeon's knife, can interpose 
 any barrier between the vibration and its translation into 
 terms of sensation, if the whole sequence have actually 
 been limited to the physical plane. Therefore, when 
 
120 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 phenomena force us to admit the fact of such inhibition 
 we are also forced to postulate this "inner man " as the 
 only possible explanation. Its presence, also, is, as we 
 have seen, proven by hosts of other phenomena, and it 
 is thus not compelled to rest its claims for recognition 
 solely upon a hypothetical necessity. But given a Linga 
 Sharira, having within it centers of sensation for the 
 reception and transmutation of molecular vibrations, 
 which centers respond and yield to the will, then a 
 stronger will can interpose between the soul and such 
 centers of sensation, with the results brought out by 
 hypnotism, the phenomena of which is thus satisfac- 
 torily explained. This will be more fully seen in the 
 chapter devoted to the bearing of hynotism and Mes- 
 merism upon the phenomena of consciousness. 
 
 The Linga Sharira is formed of "matter" immediately 
 above or "within" that of the physical earth. It dis- 
 integrates with the body, of which it is, as stated, an 
 ethereal counterpart, whose office is to furnish a con- 
 necting link between man's inner Ego and the coarser 
 physical molecules. 
 
 The third human Principle is Prana; vaguely recognized 
 by science as " vitality," because of the constant occur- 
 rence within the human organism of phenomena exceed- 
 ing the possibility of being explained by any " natural"- 
 i. ., materialistic law. It is the phenomenal aspect of the 
 universal Life Principle in the Universe ; or of that which 
 Eastern philosophers call Jiva. Jiva is but one of many 
 terms for the Force- Aspect of the Causeless Cause; the 
 latter being objectivized as the " Light" the " Life," or the 
 creative power of the Logoi. There is no point in space 
 where this Jiva, or "Light," is not potentially present; 
 
COMPOSITE NATURE OF THE SOUL. 121 
 
 when it becomes a potency, it is transmuted into Prana. 
 Thus Prana is not the life principle in man alone, but 
 also that of every entity in the material universe, whether 
 that entity be ensouled in the mineral kingdom as a stone, 
 in the vegetable as a plant, or in the animal or human 
 kingdoms as individual members of these natural divisions. 
 Jiva and Prana are one; Jiva becomes Prana when ap- 
 parently refracted and differentiated by matter or Sub- 
 stance. 
 
 The fourth human principle is Kama, or desire. Like 
 all the others, this is also an universal principle in nature. 
 It finds its point of grossest and most material expres- 
 sion upon the fourth plane of the Cosmos, and upon the 
 seventh sub-plane, or the human-animal plane. In its 
 highest aspect, Kama is that pure, untainted spiritual 
 Compassion-Desire which brings the objective universe 
 into activity, that it may again permit subconscious en- 
 tities to take up their evolution towards freedom from 
 limitation. In its lowest aspect, it is reflected in the 
 "loves of the atoms" by which molecular association be- 
 comes possible. In animals and animal-man, it is a rag- 
 ing, irrationalized, insatiable selfishness ; the cause of that 
 apparently cruel " struggle for existence," which we ob- 
 serve in the kingdoms below us; and which, alas! is also 
 but too evident in that of man. 
 
 All entities in the Cosmos, at some stage in their be- 
 coming, reach and pass through this intensely kamic 
 plane a plane only in the sense that, being a real " prop- 
 erty" of matter, entities having reached it exhibit in the 
 matter with which they clothe themselves this quality of 
 Rajas, or passion. As we can not believe in any deliber- 
 ate cruelty in nature, the kamic stage must therefore be a 
 
122 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 necessary and beneficent one. It may be the means of 
 so concentrating and individualizing centers of conscious- 
 ness and nascent souls as to permit of their being lifted 
 as individualities to higher planes. It certainly affords an 
 efficient school of instruction in the Pairs of Opposites of 
 Eastern Philosophers, and thus permits and enforces the 
 widening of man's conscious area. As it will be further 
 dealt with in connection with the Reincarnating Ego, it is 
 passed by for the present. 
 
 The four principles enumerated, and which are com- 
 monly classed as the Lower Quaternary, are thus seen to 
 belong equally to man and to the kingdoms below him. In 
 them alone there is nothing to distinguish man from the 
 animals, nor does this Quaternary reincarnate in the spe- 
 cific sense in which we speak of the reincarnation of the 
 human soul. Upon the death of a man, as the microcosm 
 of the Macrocosm, he of necessity goes into a pralaya, or 
 subjective existence, corresponding accurately to that of 
 the Cosmos. For when the Great Cycle is completed, 
 when the hour of universal dissolution strikes, the "body" 
 of the Cosmos, or matter upon this molecular plane, first 
 disintegrates. The consciousness ensouled by it becomes 
 subjective, or " latent"; a bare potentiality of again man- 
 ifesting, when similar conditions again present an oppor- 
 tunity. Next, plane after plane of entities ensouled with 
 higher conscious centers is reached by the touch of 
 Brahma-Siva, and each in turn becomes also a bare poten- 
 tiality during the eons of Non-Being which constitutes the 
 Great Pralaya. At last those are reached which have 
 evolved to the point of eternal self-consciousness. The 
 latter, therefore, pass consciously into these eternally sub- 
 jective planes. An analogy might be thought of thus: 
 
COMPOSITE NATURE OF THE SOUL. 123 
 
 Suppose a cold wave were to gradually pass from the 
 poles to the equator, freezing every plant, animal, and man 
 into a stony rigidity, but not destroying their potentiality 
 of again manifesting all their former activities should 
 the cold wave pass away and permit the old climatic con- 
 ditions to be restored. Let us suppose this frigid con- 
 dition to last for ages, after which it does pass away 
 and again permits of the resumption of active life by 
 the inhabitants of each successive zone as the wave 
 of cold recedes northward. If we further conceive 
 of this process of successive suspension and regain- 
 ing of consciousness as eternally repeated, and that 
 entities overtaken below trie plane of subjective self- 
 consciousness have no conception of the interval passed 
 in the frozen condition, we may dimly imagine that 
 which takes place upon all the ' planes below self- 
 consciousness at the out-breathing and in-breathing 
 of the " Great Breath," or the great Cycles of Being 
 and Non-Being. Only that in this pralaya it is con- 
 sciousness which must be thought of as frozen or 
 latent, if below the plane of subjective self-consciousness; 
 and not form, as in the illustration given, for all form 
 disappears under the power of the In-Breathing of 
 Brahm. 
 
 /""""Similarly, upon the death of the body, the cell-forms 
 disintegrate, and the entities ensouled by them become 
 " frozen," or latent. Their Great Pralaya has struck; their 
 Prana re-becomes Jiva; their ''matter," now the abode of 
 lower, unsynthesized lives alone, enters the general store- 
 house of nature, or, rather, returns to the plane from which 
 it had .been temporarily lifted by this association, and 
 may be and is used over and over again for similar pur- 
 
124 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 poses by other entities. The Linga Sharira, which is but 
 finer ethereal matter, surrenders its Prana, and is sim- 
 ilarly resolved back into its component lower "lives." 
 The higher kamic " elementals," those which synthesize 
 the various " organs" of the body, are next reached by the 
 " inbreath," and become latent changing into those 
 skandhas of Vedantin philosophy which await the return 
 of the soul to incarnation, which is their manvantara, or 
 opportunity for renewed conscious manifestation. 
 
 Thus the whole of the four lower principles take no 
 part in reincarnation as self-conscious entities. There yet 
 remains that which is termed the Higher Triad to deal 
 with, which completes the Septenary classification. 
 
 Of these the most important (to us) is the Reincarnat- 
 ing Ego, the Center of Self-Consciousness ; that which Mrs. 
 Annie Besant first termed the Thinker, which is the real 
 basis of man's apparent and (relatively) true individualized 
 existence. But as this will be dealt with in a separate 
 chapter it will be passed for the present, and the remain- 
 ing two briefly considered. 
 
 Sophists have tried to show that the Causeless Cause 
 of Theosophic Philosophy was an impossibility, because 
 the moment any cause is postulated one antecedent and 
 causal to it, as well as one subsequent, are at once re- 
 quired. The Universe, from this point of view, is but an 
 eternal sequence of causes and effects impossible of inter- 
 ruption or cessation. This is a true view of all finite 
 causes and effects. These are a series in which the cessa- 
 tion of one cause as an effect changes necessarily the rela- 
 tion of this to a future one, so that it becomes in turn a 
 cause. Yet if this is true of finite causes and effects, it 
 none the less demands the postulating, philosophically, of 
 
COMPOSITE NATURE OF THE SOUL. 125 
 
 a causal basis which supports the whole finite series with- 
 out itself being in any way modified or limited by so 
 doing. Thus, if the series of finite causes and effects 
 which we recognize as the manifested or phenomenal 
 Universe be likened to an immense series of arches 
 spanning an ocean, the existence and integrity of each of 
 which truly depends upon its immediate neighbor upon 
 either side, then the Causeless Cause would be the solid 
 rock upon which the piers supporting all the arches rest. 
 That rock is equally undisturbed and unmodified whether 
 piers or arches rest upon it or not. And this non-limit- 
 ation and non-modification is the same, although a portion 
 of this rock be used in the construction of both piers and 
 arches. In like manner, the Causeless Cause remains 
 unmodified, although it is both the base upon which phe- 
 nomenal existence rests and that phenomenal existence 
 itself (as one aspect of its manifestation). 
 
 The Atman, the highest human principle, is a Ray from 
 the Causeless Cause, and thus defies definition and eludes 
 analysis. It is the base upon which man's Thinking prin- 
 ciple rests its phenomenal existence. It is the pier which 
 supports the arch of a human soul. But it also equally 
 supports and is the base of all things in the Universe as 
 well. It is the Unknowable Something, or No-thing, 
 rather, which binds together those properties which con- 
 stitute alike Matter, Force, or Consciousness. Thus in 
 gold we have certain properties, as ductility, malleability, 
 weight, cohesion, extension, etc. Now, what has caused 
 these various properties, this malleability, ductility, cohe- 
 sion, etc., to unite into atomic form as gold? Is it 
 chance, or is there an unifying, synthesizing, causal base, 
 upon which all the properties of any so-called matter 
 
126 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 can equally rest? Theosophy declares for the latter 
 proposition, and further insists that the varied and 
 multiform qualities and faculties of man's divinely com- 
 plex mind are also synthesized by and rest upon a 
 Ray from this same Causeless Cause. This Unknow- 
 able Ray, then, is Atman, and bestows potentially 
 upon man by virtue of its origin all the Creative, 
 Preservative, and Destructive (or regenerative) powers 
 we see manifested in the Universe about us. 
 
 But a Cause without an agent to bring about its 
 effect is inconceivable at least, to all but Western 
 materialistic philosophy. Therefore, as we see in 
 nature an obvious duality in spirit and matter, and 
 recognize that any absolute law must obtain on all 
 planes of the Cosmos, we must also postulate a material 
 aspect or vehicle for this Atmic Ray. It is as unde- 
 finable and metaphysical as Atman itself, but it is an 
 absolutely necessary philosophic hypothesis. It also 
 arises as a perfectly legitimate logical sequence in fol- 
 lowing physical laws into metaphysical domains. This 
 vehicle, for Atman, then, is called Buddhi, and, like 
 Atman, is an universal, indestructible principle poten- 
 tially present in every conceivable point of space, and, 
 like the latter, its apparent separation in man or nature- 
 an illusion. 
 
 Yet we would err were we to look upon this base of 
 the material aspect of man's being as being only material. 
 There is no pure matter in the Cosmos, as there is also 
 no pure spirit. And as each expression of consciousness, 
 under the law of cause and effect, must seek a fitting 
 vehicle, Buddhi, being the vehicle of the Atmic Ray 
 from Absolute Consciousness, is of itself possessed of 
 
COMPOSITE NATURE OF THE SOUL. 127 
 
 faculties and powers infinitely superior to man, even 
 in his highest aspect of a Thinking, Reincarnat- 
 ing entity. As the vehicle of Absolute Wisdom and 
 Power, it is called the Knower, in superior contra- 
 distinction to that Thinker next it which has to arrive 
 at knowledge and wisdom by thought or reason. As 
 the vehicle of Absolute Consciousness, it corresponds, 
 in its relation to this, to the human brain, or man's 
 physical basis for registering conscious experiences. In 
 the latter are recorded all his conscious experiences in 
 matter during a physical life. In Buddhi is stored, as 
 corresponding to an eternal, metaphysical brain of the 
 Universe, the conscious experiences of all manvantaras. 
 To reach the wisdom residing in this Divine Vehicle, to 
 widen one's conscious area to Infinite bounds, is to 
 become immortal in very truth, for it is union with 
 that which is One and Indestructible. Such an union 
 is undoubtedly attainable, but before its attainment 
 stretch such immeasurable vistas of time, such incon- 
 ceivable experiences in consciousness, that at our present 
 stage speculation upon it seems unwarranted. The union 
 of the lower Personality with the Higher Ego is our 
 present evolutionary task, the relation of which to each 
 other and to nature will be next considered. 
 
W" 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE REINCARNATING EGO. 
 
 'E have now reached a point where we may perhaps 
 profitably study the nature and function of man's 
 Fifth Principle, omitted in the general review because 
 its importance required a more extended and careful 
 consideration. This Principle is variously spoken of as 
 Higher Manas, the Reincarnating Ego, the Thinker, and 
 other names. It is the true individuality, as contra- 
 distinguished from the lower, fleeting personalities of 
 its successive incarnations. It represents that aspect 
 or power of the Absolute which causes individualized 
 centers of consciousness to first form and then to at- 
 tain to self-consciousness in the Phenomenal Universe. 
 It is this Principle which reincarnates, for it alone 
 represents the true man. The Quaternary disappears 
 as an entity at death. Buddhi and Atman are universal 
 non-individualized Principles; Manas, the Thinker, alone 
 journeys as a self-conscious entity from body to body 
 by means of Reincarnation. This Thinker, then, in its 
 various relations to the body, and especially in its 
 aspect as the Lower Manas, or the personal self, re- 
 mains, after all possible elimination of other factors, 
 as of prime and paramount importance in the problem 
 of human existence. Let us study it carefully and 
 reverentially, for in and through it alone shall we be 
 able to come into an understanding of the Divine in 
 nature and in man; for they are One. 
 
 There has been shown, in the chapter devoted to the 
 
THE REINCARNATING EGO. 129 
 
 evolution of, the soul, the gradual process by which an 
 atomic center of consciousness, through continuous con- 
 scious experiences, attains to the self-conscious, or human 
 stage, while on its way to godhood. We have also seen 
 that the law of cyclic periodicity shows how and why 
 such centers are graded into great hierarchies, by the 
 natural limits thus set to their emergence from the bosom 
 of the Absolute. The relation which the Reincarnating 
 Ego bears to this world and its cycle is thus capable of 
 logical solution. 
 
 It is evident both phenomenally and philosophically 
 that the material Universe is embodied Consciousness, 
 or Consciousness of infinite gradations, clothed in equally 
 infinite expressions of form. As the Universe ebbs and 
 flows to finite perception from subjective to objective 
 states throughout the eternities of Duration, it follows 
 that worlds appear and disappear endlessly; the Great 
 Prayala, even, being only a subjective arc of larger 
 immensity. In the life history of all worlds, as is proven 
 by the records now visible in the heavens, there comes 
 a time when they cool down sufficiently to become habit- 
 able; when they pass through this stage; when, by the 
 ebbing of their life force, or the completion of their 
 limiting cycle, humanities can no longer exist upon them 
 in material form. There is no doubt but that their minor 
 pralayas, or deaths, overtake them with the consciousness 
 of their entities in states of infinite diversity, such as we 
 now perceive upon this earth. Hence, there would be 
 Egos passing through the human stage overtaken when 
 their world became uninhabitable for them ; for the life 
 cycle of a planet pursues its course perfectly uninterrupted 
 and uncontrolled by the evolution of any humanity upon 
 
130 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 it, although the two always correspond. Similarly, were 
 pralaya to strike for this earth to-day, would all entities, 
 human, animal, or elemental, be arrested in their material 
 evolution and be compelled to remain in subjective states 
 until other worlds arrived at stages capable of affording 
 them expression in suitable material forms. 
 
 Our Higher Egos have witnessed, it is claimed, the 
 death or pralaya of many such worlds, for matter on our 
 own physical or molecular plane, by its power of illusion, 
 and by the ease and rapidity with which its unstable 
 nature permits of disintegration and the entering of the 
 out-worn constituents into new combinations, is evidently 
 a very important, if humble, school in a Universe where 
 every entity "is, was, or prepares to become a man."* 
 Planetary pralayas, therefore, have overtaken our Higher 
 Egos, it may be a great number of times; for who can 
 estimate the period necessary in material states of con- 
 sciousness for them to arrive at their present stage ? At 
 any rate, when their last world went into pralaya they 
 had not yet passed beyond the desire for material or 
 sensuous existence, and so were, under the law of cause 
 and effect, drawn to human-animal bodies which nature, 
 through its lower hierarchies of " Builders," had been pre- 
 paring for their occupation during those interminable 
 periods which geology is beginning to recognize as 
 necessary factors in human evolution. This reincar- 
 nation of already highly advanced Egos of former 
 worlds in human-animal forms, prepared for them under 
 the physical aspect of the triple-sided process (physical, 
 intellectual, and spiritual) of evolutionary activity upon 
 this world, is the key of the whole scheme of human 
 
 ^Secret Doctrine. 
 
THE REINCARNATING EGO. 131 
 
 evolution upon this planet. It also solves many other- 
 wise hopelessly insoluble problems in human conscious- 
 ness, such as clairvoyance, prophetic dreams, and the 
 "buried selves," so strangely dug out of their unsuspected 
 graves by hypnotic processes. All such phenomena, as 
 we have seen, prove that there is in man's body a soul 
 too superior to that body to be the product of the same 
 evolutionary process which has produced its transient 
 tenement of clay. 
 
 Man's Higher Ego, then, as shown by its possessing 
 powers and faculties far transcending its material vehicle, 
 must be the product of former world periods. Because of 
 its derivation from the Conscious-Aspect of the Absolute, 
 as a Ray from Mahat or the Cosmic Mind, the Reincarnat- 
 ing Ego is a center of potential self-consciousness upon 
 all the planes of nature in the Cosmos. This potentiality 
 has, during these former manvantaras, become a potency 
 upon many of these planes, some of which, as shown by 
 the Divine Wisdom of the Higher Ego, must be infinitely 
 superior to the sensuous consciousness of this earth. It 
 now seeks cosmic perfection by the evolution or attain- 
 ment of this same, or perfect, self-consciousness, upon all 
 planes of the Cosmos yet remaining unexplored. For 
 Self-Consciousness is the aim, the end, and the crown 
 of consciousness upon any plane, whether material or 
 spiritual. 
 
 Being a Ray from the Absolute, emanating as it must 
 from that Causeless Cause lying hidden behind all mani- 
 festation, the Higher Ego possesses the creative and 
 ideative functions involved in its own emanation, or crea- 
 tion. This creative power in the Reincarnating Ego 
 creative in the sense of changing or renewing form only 
 
132 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 is most important to bear in mind. It must not be 
 supposed that ordinary men consciously create a power 
 reached by Adeptship alone; or even that the Re- 
 incarnating Ego consciously creates or builds its own 
 bodies: that again is only possible for those in whom 
 the Higher and Lower Egos have become one. But the 
 Reincarnating Ego does build astral and thought forms 
 unconsciously, under the potency of that power or force 
 which is carried with it in its emanation from the Cause- 
 less Cause. This creative power is the source of the 
 Linga Sharira, the second human principle; within which 
 the physical molecules which constitute the Sthula 
 Sharira, or physical form, are moulded. It is also the 
 source of all thought forms, from the " Mayava Rupa," 
 the consciously constructed " illusion body" of the Adept, 
 to those airy forms and scenes which in dreams change 
 and shift even while we gaze upon them, so unstable and 
 feeble is the action of the will in these unrecognized, faint 
 functioning of a soul thus unconsciously exercising 
 creative faculties. 
 
 In harmony with all nature, the Reincarnation of the 
 Higher Ego occurs in regular cycles of alternating ob- 
 jective and subjective existence. Its objective arc is 
 earth life; its subjective is termed Devachan.* With the 
 return of the Higher Ego to incarnation, when its sub- 
 jective cycle of existence in Devachan is ended, the 
 Linga Sharira for the new physical body which is to be 
 built becomes an active, formative potency. It awakens 
 into activity all those elemental or "skandhic" forces, in 
 enforced pralaya during the devachanic interlude. Con- 
 ception having taken place, these and still lower hier- 
 
 *Devachan. See chapter on Post-mortem States. 
 
THE REINCARNATING EGO. 133 
 
 archies of Builders begin to mould physical cells within 
 the astral model, so furnished. Here and now occurs the 
 first struggle with matter and material limitations which 
 attends all the subsequent conscious experience of the 
 Ego in the new body. Under the awakening presence 
 of the Higher Ego, the hierarchies of Builders, called by 
 scientists though very unscientifically " natural forces," 
 must set to work; but this work is very greatly modified 
 because of the stamp upon the physical cells by the 
 parents of the physical form, under the law of physical 
 heredity, the lowest phase of the triple evolution before 
 referred to. On the other hand, this physical impress is 
 again modified in a greater or lesser degree by the urgent 
 tendencies of the Higher Ego to express certain dom- 
 inant qualities under the force of " skandhas " of past 
 incarnations. Unmodified by a Higher Ego, man would 
 represent the exact average of the sum of his parents' 
 qualities, both physical and pyschic, as is seen in the 
 almost endless continuation of identical forms in the 
 vegetable kingdom and in the lower animal in mollusks, 
 for example. Unmodified by physical heredity, the 
 Higher Ego would have no real karmic hold upon earth. 
 As experience is an absolute necessity for development, 
 the struggle with this physical impress given by parents 
 under the law of physical heredity affords the opportunity 
 required to develop the Higher Ego's functions and 
 potencies upon this plane of consciousness. It also 
 satisfies the law of cause and effect, or Karma, which 
 compels Egos with certain characteristics to seek parents 
 having similar ones, for growth must always proceed from 
 the present point of attainment. Did physical heredity 
 not modify the habitation and powers of the Reincar- 
 
134 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 nating Ego, there would be no reason why it should 
 seek expression through one parent rather than another, 
 and we would be forced back upon the unjust Christian 
 hypothesis of the human soul having no voice in the 
 selection of its body. Did not the Reincarnating Ego 
 have the power to very greatly modify its material 
 tenement, the faculties and psychic powers of the child 
 would represent the average of the sum of those of its 
 parents at best; and the innumerable instances where 
 these are very greatly transcended, as well as those 
 where the account is on the debit side, would be wholly 
 unaccounted for. 
 
 It is thus apparent that man's soul and body are each 
 the exact complement of the other. The relation of the 
 one to the other becomes explicable, and is but another 
 illustration of the absolute play of cause and effect, or 
 of action and reaction, between the material and spirit- 
 ual poles of the One Reality. Intellectual, or Higher 
 Ego, heredity brings over the results of man's entire 
 conscious past; physical heredity enables him to begin 
 further evolution or widening of consciousness at the 
 exact point where he left off, and along just those lines 
 where his spiritual need is greatest. Thus a man in 
 a body full of any of the lower, rajasic qualities pro- 
 claims to the world that his Higher Ego has need to 
 further evolve their opposites, and such instances ought 
 to arouse all our sympathies call forth our best brotherly 
 efforts, rather than that contempt and aversion which we 
 are too apt to experience. It is as though we were to 
 turn shudderingly away from a pure, saintly prisoner 
 because the cell in which he is confined is loathsome. 
 
 Physical heredity is thus explained: There are, ac- 
 
THE REINCARNATING EGO. 135 
 
 cording to Weismann, certain cells in man's body which 
 have never died since his appearance in a physical form 
 upon this earth. These cells are, necessarily, according to 
 him, transmitted directly from parent to offspring, and 
 actually carry forward those physical qualities which 
 constitute purely physical heredity. But it is not 
 necessary to predicate an eternal cell, although this is 
 possible and probable. It is enough that actual, physical 
 matter is so transmitted, for no possible division of matter 
 into smaller particles can destroy or even diminish its 
 physical properties. The great and all-important quality 
 of matter is to register and record conscious experiences 
 obtained by material associations. Upon tablets of some 
 degree of materiality all conscious records must be graven, 
 even though this be the Mulaprakriti of Eastern, or 
 Primordial Substance of Western, Philosophy. 
 
 At conception, there is an actual fusion of cells from 
 the father with others from the mother, thus forming one 
 cell, the type of all life. This cell divides, and sub- 
 divides, almost infinitely, for out of its subdivisions, 
 through repeated modifications, all the various tissues 
 of the body are constructed. There is not nor can not 
 be an introduction of a single new or foreign cell in the 
 entire organism. All increase or growth is by division 
 of the original cell, and molecular accretions thereto by 
 means of nutriment supplied a fact which explains the 
 wonderful selective power the various tissues exercise 
 upon the common food supply. Portions of this original 
 cell are therefore present in every other cell of the body, 
 and- by virtue of their registering qualities, carry into 
 the new body the impress of all purely physical ex- 
 periences or form limitations of both parents. The fusion 
 
 UHI7ERSITY 
 
136 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 of two necessarily differing parental cells gives also the 
 opportunity and basis for all requisite variation. As the 
 matter of the father or the mother predominates, so will 
 the new body more closely resemble the one or the other 
 parent. And back of this, even, a peculiarly strong 
 physical impression made by an ancestor may dominate 
 that of both parents, and atavism result, or the sam'e 
 effect may be brought about by "skandhas" unable to 
 incarnate previously, and so lying latent. 
 
 Thus is seen how powerful is the influence from the 
 physical line of heredity, when each cell of the entire 
 body is tainted with every physical desire, appetite, or 
 passion of the purely animal nature of both parents. And 
 the Linga Sharira, enmeshed in these cells, and being the 
 seat of the centers of sensation, bring its parent, the 
 Reincarnating Ego, into direct karmic relations with all 
 these animal propensities. It also affords a vehicle for 
 the re-awakened skandhic elementals to pour their stream 
 of muddy desires into the physical body ; owing to karmic 
 attraction having drawn the Reincarnating Ego to parents 
 having similar characteristics. Thus the physical conform- 
 ation, the tendency to disease, to a long or a short life, 
 to repeat such abnormalities as six fingers or toes, or such 
 peculiarities as red hair or squint eyes, together with 
 hosts of other purely physical limitations, are the result 
 of physical heredity, and transmitted by the handing 
 down from parent to offspring of actual physical matter so 
 impressed, and with a subconscious tendency to repeat the 
 original impression. The emotional and passional nature, 
 while afforded easy and fitting expression by physical 
 cells from parents having like characters, appears to be 
 of skandhic heredity, and carried over in this manner from 
 
THE REINCARNATING EGO. 137 
 
 former lives. It is a form of physical heredity, it is true, 
 but not purely so, for it abandons one body to reincarnate 
 in another; thus resembling the "seed" reincarnation in 
 nature, while the physical cell heredity is a case of pure 
 propagation by fission. But no mental characteristics can 
 be carried over to the new life thus. As we have seen, 
 the conservation of mental force requires a mental 
 vehicle, so that all purely mental qualities are the 
 result of mental or intellectual heredity, and come by 
 and through the Reincarnating Ego. Mental powers 
 may be and are but too often sadly inhibited, or almost 
 destroyed, by overwhelmingly bad psychic and physical 
 heredity, which retard or prevent their manifestation; 
 but they none the less come through the channel of the 
 Reincarnating Ego alone. 
 
 The creative power of the Higher Manas, then, acting 
 upon subconscious planes; produces or creates a Linga 
 Sharira; similarly as on the subconscious planes of the 
 Lower Manas, our personal self, all the vital activities as 
 well as the repair of wounded or diseased tissue, go on 
 quite independently of our conscious supervision. 
 
 On its own planes its creative potencies are exercised 
 consciously in the production of those higher astral forms 
 which the Adept uses when he abandons the physical, in 
 his journeyings. With this higher creative faculty man- 
 kind at large is not, at present at least, concerned. But 
 since the Higher Manas builds, or rather, causes to be 
 built, its physical body, through creative power thus un- 
 consciously exercised, in what manner is it consciously, 
 and so karmically, connected with the body? 
 
 This calls for an examination of its creative functions 
 or^ideative or mental planes, or the reflection in matter of 
 
138 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 its true, individualizing consciousness. This reflection 
 perhaps refraction would be the better term of itself is 
 quite another process to that concerned in the formation 
 of the Linga Sharira, which we have been considering, 
 and is the most important of all. The Linga Sharira may 
 be said to represent its purely physical expression, so to 
 speak; this refraction, the Lower Manas, is itself, mirrored 
 in material thought processes. The former expresses its 
 purely physical karma,* or its physical creative force 
 taking the lines of least resistance; the latter connects it 
 karmically with the thoughts and mental processes of past 
 lives. Being, when its devachanic or subjective existence 
 between two lives is closing, drawn to the parents pre- 
 senting the greatest sum of karmic affinities, the contact 
 of the soul with the growing form sets up in the phys- 
 ical brain of the latter a thinking principle similarly as a 
 magnet upon being brought in contact with non-magnetic 
 iron imparts magnetism to this, without having caused the 
 smallest change in those physical qualities which con- 
 stitute it iron. And, as the evolution of the physical 
 form, which it took ages for the Elemental Builders, or 
 the ordinary evolutionary forces in nature, to accomplish, 
 is repeated swiftly during the first few weeks of gestation, 
 so is the entire evolution of the Lower Manas also re- 
 peated during the first few years of the child's life. For 
 these Builders only push matter up to the animal or 
 kamicf plane; the brooding presence of the Higher Manas 
 
 *Karma the sequence of causes and their effects. Karmically 
 brought about under the law of cause and effect, etc. Used in this 
 work to avoid cumbersome English phraseology only. 
 
 tKama Sanscrit for desire, especially associated with animal or 
 non-intellectualized desire. 
 
THE REINCARNATING EGO. 139 
 
 must impart the stimulus which brings it where it is of 
 sufficient transparency, so to speak, to receive and refract 
 its image. It will be at once plain that our Lower Manas, 
 the ordinary self, is thus a portion of the very essence of the 
 Higher, just as the magnetism in the iron is a portion of 
 that in the magnet. And just as the magnet may be 
 withdrawn from its contact with the iron, leaving a portion 
 of its magnetic qualities to slowly dissipate, so may the 
 Higher Manas be separated entirely from its lower reflec- 
 tion, thus constituting for the latter a veritable "loss of 
 the soul." 
 
 For this portion of the Higher Manas actually refracted 
 or incarnated in matter is ourselves, the " I am myself," 
 of our earthly life. Could it remain simply a portion of 
 the Higher, its functions and fate might be different, but 
 this is impossible. As the pure ray of light is colored by 
 the color of the glass which transmits it until it is indis- 
 tinguishable from that tint, so is the Lower Manas colored 
 and changed by its contact with Kama (sensuous desire), 
 the chief and ruler of the earthly Quaternary. All the 
 fierce desires, the unrest, the sensuous appetites, the " lusts 
 of the flesh," of the latter at once seize upon it, and impart 
 to it that curious mixture of the animal with the Divine 
 which we name the lower self, or Personality. This could 
 not occur had not the kamic Principle in the lower Quat- 
 ernary already been evolved to a point where it is not 
 only able to receive the magnetic impress of Manas, but 
 to color this with its own qualities of passion and desire. 
 
 It is the opinion of the writer that it must not be in- 
 ferred from the above that only a portion, as it were, of 
 the Higher Manas incarnates in the lower Quaternary, 
 leaving the rest to enjoy a kind of superior consciousness 
 
140 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 upon other planes. While the teaching is reserved upon 
 this point, still there is enough given out, in the Secret 
 Doctrine and elsewhere, to make it reasonably certain that 
 each individuality has but one center of consciousnesss, 
 and that this is not in full activity in two places, nor in 
 two or more states, at the same time. While it is active 
 upon one plane it may have a subconsciousness on others, 
 just as we may be reading and yet be conscious of noise 
 about us. But this is only a subconsciousness, not a 
 splitting of it. Therefore, when once the Higher Manas 
 has perfected its vehicle sufficiently to permit this, it 
 would seem that it only functions through that vehicle 
 when this is active, for its very activity compels its use as 
 a vehicle. In other words, our " I am myself," or individ- 
 ualizing center of consciousness which comes from the 
 Higher Manas and is its distinguishing characteristic, is 
 functioning actively only through the body when this is in 
 the waking state, although its subconsciousness may ex- 
 tend over many higher planes. When the body ceases 
 its activity, as in sleep or death, then it can of course re- 
 tire to its own proper spheres, to be dragged down from 
 these by its kamic connection with the body when this 
 awakens. It follows, then, that when awake and occupied 
 by material or sensuous thoughts only, the Higher Manas 
 is simply paralyzed its consciousness upon this plane a 
 potentiality only, somewhat, perhaps, like that of the 
 lower consciousness when inhibited by hypnotism. This 
 is its daily crucifixion, and the true meaning of all the re- 
 ligious myths of crucified Saviours. 
 
 Yet, though the Higher Manas be paralyzed as to con- 
 scious functioning, it cannot be said to be wholly or even 
 partially incarnated in the body, nor is it even ever 
 
THE REINCARNATING EGO. 14! 
 
 fully conscious upon this plane except when its Higher 
 and Lower aspects have been enabled to unite, through the 
 latter having conquered in its contest with Kama. The 
 oneness and yet the separateness of the Higher and 
 Lower Manas is one of the hardest of mystic teachings to 
 understand. It is another illustration of the " Same and 
 the Other" of which Plato taught that the Universe was 
 constructed. Perhaps the phenomena of an ordinary 
 Faradic electrical battery may help us, by analogy, to a 
 better conception. In this, the current, generated by the 
 zinc and carbon, or other elements, in the presence of an 
 acid or saline solution, is passed through a coil of insulated 
 wire. Around this, in what is technically termed the helix, 
 is coiled another wire, also completely insulated, and en- 
 tirely disconnected from the first, or "primary," coil. There 
 ought, therefore, to be no current in this latter, or " second- 
 ary," coil, yet the instant the current from the chem- 
 ical cell is passed through the primary coil there is set up 
 in the secondary at each opening and closing of the pri- 
 mary circuit a modified current, known as " induced" 
 electricity. Because there has been no actual contact be- 
 tween the two coils, this secondary current is thus said to 
 have been produced by " induction" one of those con- 
 venient terms by means of which science seems to explain 
 so much, while really explaining nothing. Without at- 
 tempting to account for the real origin of this induced cur- 
 rent, except to point out that the electro-dynamic waves in 
 the ether, discovered by Prof. Hertz of Bonn, will give all 
 necessary clews, the analogy to the origin of the Lower 
 Manas and its relation to the Higher is very close. The 
 presence of the Higher Manas, overshadowing the body, 
 originates a distinct Thinking Principle in the brain of the 
 
142 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 latter, in a manner strikingly similar to the induced cur- 
 rent of electricity that is, by imparting to the latter its 
 own essential qualities. Thus it can be at once seen that, 
 while the Lower Manas is caused by and is of the very 
 essence of the Higher, it is yet distinct without being sep- 
 arate. Withdraw the primary current, and the induced 
 will disappear; withdraw the Higher Manas, and the 
 Lower perishes, the chief distinction being in the slower 
 process in the latter case. 
 
 Perhaps a closer analogy to the behavior of the Higher 
 and Lower Thinking Principles after death is afforded in 
 the phenomena of transferred magnetism just referred to. 
 For, in the illustration given, when artificial magnetism 
 has been imparted to non-magnetic iron, upon the with- 
 drawal of the true magnet is seen almost identically that 
 phenomenon which takes place upon the separation of the 
 Higher and Lower Manas. A portion of magnetism re- 
 mains in the iron, to be slowly or quickly dissipated, as 
 the case may be; it having apparently become entangled, 
 so to speak, in the molecules of the latter, or having, more 
 correctly, caused a polarized arrangement among those 
 molecules whose vibratory ratio exhibits the qualities of 
 magnetism. So, at death, only that portion of the Lower 
 Manas is withdrawn which is untainted by kama. That 
 portion colored by kama is left; a residue, having, by 
 virtue of its original Manasic origin, enough still of the 
 unconscious creative power, before referred to, to clothe 
 itself with an astral form; thus constituting the "Kama 
 Rupa," which, senseless and fallen as it is, is still the 
 " guide" of many a poor, obsessed " medium." For while 
 having no center of consciousness capable of feeling and 
 functioning as such, still it is capable again, by virtue of 
 
THE REINCARNATING EGO. 143 
 
 its Manasic origin, of having a false feeling of personality 
 reflected into it by the Lower Manas of a medium. This 
 reflection may so synthesize its fading consciousness as to 
 enable it to connect itself with its past life, and to relate 
 the leading events of this quite accurately. Its feeling of 
 "I am myself" is thus an illusion of an illusion, if we may 
 be allowed the expression, for the feeling of "I am my- 
 self," which we experience in our waking state, real as it 
 seems, is entirely illusive, being reflected there in a similar 
 manner by the overshadowing of the Higher Manas. It 
 only exists because of its connection with the latter, and is 
 added to the sum total of the experiences of its parent at 
 death, as the memory of each day may be said to be 
 added to the sum of the consciousness of our personal 
 selves. For, having drawn what of wisdom it may from 
 each association with a body, the Higher Manas with- 
 draws at death, taking all of Lower Manas which has 
 freed itself from Kama, leaving the remains of Lower 
 Manas and Kama to disintegrate in Kama Loca.* And 
 as there are many days that leave little or no impress 
 upon the consciousness of our personal selves, so there 
 may be many lives having but small record on the tablets 
 of the Higher Manas, while some may be forgotten 
 altogether. 
 
 These forgotten lives are the most dreadful fate which 
 may befall a personality, for they are truly "lost souls." 
 The whole of the reflected portion of the Higher Manas 
 has been sunk so low in Kamic desires and passions that 
 there is no union possible after death ; and the Personality, 
 strong by virtue of this robbing of the qualities of its 
 parent, clothes itself in a powerful Kama Rupa and becomes 
 
 *See Chapter on Post-mortem States. 
 
144 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 an active agent for evil, while at the same time descending 
 its own arc to utter annihilation amidst indescribable suf- 
 fering, of which the realization of its impending fate is not 
 the least. 
 
 We may now, perhaps, dimly perceive the relation be- 
 tween Higher Manas, the Thinker, which, with Atma and 
 Buddhi as a Monadic base constitute the Reincarnating 
 Ego, and Lower Manas, its reflection in matter which 
 constitutes the personal self. The one is the result of the 
 evolution through unthinkable aeons of time, of an individ- 
 ualized, spiritual self-conscious soul; a self-conscious Ray 
 from the Great Cosmic Thinking Principle; the potency 
 of Thought in the Atmic Ray individualized. It persists 
 throughout all minor manvantaras and pralayas; through 
 all obscurations or destructions of worlds or systems. Yet 
 of itself it is not immortal. It must become one in essence 
 with Buddhi, the Eternal Knower and Recorder, to win 
 eternal persistence as an individual entity. Similarly, the 
 Lower Manas can only survive one life by becoming one 
 in essence with its source ; by freeing itself from the at- 
 tractions of Kama and returning to its source with the 
 tribute of its conscious experiences in matter to add to the 
 already stored wisdom of the latter. The Lower Manas 
 is thus but the illusory reflection of the Higher, when this 
 has been karmically drawn to a human-animal body by 
 its desire and necessity for complete knowledge of the 
 material and sensuous states of consciousness upon this 
 plane of existence. This reflection, or refraction, thus 
 produced, wins its immortality according as it approxi- 
 mates towards its Divine parent or yields to the sensuous 
 delights of Kama. And not only this, but of even more 
 importance, since personal immortality is more the con- 
 
THE REINCARNATING EGO. 145 
 
 cern of many incarnations, it determines in each life by 
 its thoughts and acts the social environment, the race, the 
 nation, the family, the intellectual trend and capacity, and 
 the ease or difficulty, even, with which the Higher Manas 
 can control -the following life or personality; so intimate 
 is the karmic relation between the two. For while the 
 Higher Manas, as compared to its reflection, is god-like in 
 its wisdom and powers, it by no means follows that it has 
 perfected wisdom on this plane. If it had, the necessity 
 for repeated incarnations might be questioned. And the 
 tendencies of our finite minds is, all the time, to take the 
 finite view of everything to want to complete and round 
 out the whole scheme and plan of the Cosmos in a few 
 years. This is the pitiful mistake which Christian the- 
 ology falls into in predicating the completion of man's 
 earthly destiny in one short life. Our Higher Egos may 
 have spent manvantaras in other humanities developing 
 on quite distinct lines from those which we vaingloriously 
 imagine include all possible mental and spiritual charac- 
 teristics; they may spend manvantaras to come, evolving 
 consciousness along equally unsuspected lines. 
 
 Yet, god-like and wise as is the Higher Manas, it has, 
 as we have thus shown, to descend life after life to over- 
 shadow, impart its own essence to, and acquire wisdom 
 through and from the human bodies with which it is kar- 
 mically associated. During the waking states of these 
 bodies it can only function through them by means of its 
 reflection, the Lower Manas, which is thus, for this period, 
 its only conscious avenue for reaching this plane. Yet so 
 dimmed and discolored is the Lower Manas by the de- 
 sires and passions of kama, that the consciousness trans- 
 mitted through it by the Higher Ego may well be com- 
 pared to the light from a sunbeam struggling to penetrate 
 
146 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 an opaque, densely- stained prison window. To the pris- 
 oner within, who has never known any other light, the 
 purity and brilliancy of the source of the dim, scarcely 
 discernible ray, penetrating the gloom of the cell, might 
 well remain a matter of doubt, or even of absolute disbe- 
 lief. Yet in a precisely similar manner does our Higher 
 Ego overshadow our gross material body, struggling to 
 penetrate and enlighten its inner darkness; whispering to 
 our Lower Soul in the divine voice we recognize as con- 
 science; prompting us to altruistic work for humanity; 
 filling our hearts with its divine compassion; the true 
 source of every aspiration to become purer, wiser, and 
 more unselfish than we feel ourselves to be. 
 
 And the task of every human soul is to help in this 
 great evolution of spiritual consciousness; to turn the 
 strength of a purified will consciously to the aid of nature 
 in the warfare between good and evil; between light and 
 darkness; between Life and Death. This struggling, 
 sinning, suffering Personality can only return to and be- 
 come one with its divine progenitor by freeing itself 
 from all coloring of kama by the utter killing out of de- 
 sire. How important, then, a correct conception and re- 
 alization of the nature, interrelations, and mutual depend- 
 ence of our Higher and Lower Egos become! By 
 this knowledge, and only by it, is it possible to formulate a 
 theory of ethics, a rule for human action, for right living 
 and thinking, which shall explain why a man ought to 
 strive to be pure, passionless, altruistic; to live in the 
 spiritual portion of his nature ; to yield a willing, loving 
 obedience to the dictates of his Higher Self; to treasure 
 each glimmering Ray from its Divine Light, even though 
 it take the form of stern rebuke, as of a million times 
 more value than all the gold of Ophir ! 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE PERSONALITY. 
 
 JT LTHOUGH considered at some length in the preceding 
 jPY chapter, the lower self, or the man of earthly sor- 
 rows, woes, ambitions, appetites and desires, which all of 
 us are while encased in these material vestments, may 
 still, perhaps, be examined profitably as a separate study. 
 The Personality is, as we have seen, the lower Quater- 
 nary, or the Man-animal, intellectualized by the incarna- 
 tion of the Higher Ego, from one point of view, and the 
 Higher Ego itself, benumbed, paralyzed, and its con- 
 sciousness suppressed or distorted and discolored by the 
 imperfect sense organs of its body, from another. To 
 disentangle and define just what the relation of the Per- 
 sonality to the Higher, Reincarnating Ego is, constitutes 
 one of the most difficult of tasks, and one, perhaps, im- 
 possible until man's reasoning faculties are quickened and 
 corrected by intuition. The theory which follows is sub- 
 mitted for consideration, only. It has no authority except 
 that it seems a reasonable hypothesis, in view of the 
 many phenomena it explains. 
 
 We have seen that reincarnation is an universal law; 
 that it obtains on every plane and in every kingdom of 
 nature. It has also been shown that it is always specific, 
 and occurs under the law that not only do causes produce 
 their inevitable effects, but that like causes produce like 
 effects. In other words, the cause must not only be 
 equal to the effect, but must correspond to this effect in 
 essence or nature. Material causes can not originate 
 
148 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 conscious effects, and vice versa. For this reason, all re- 
 incarnation must be specific; each class conserving its 
 own differentiation of consciousness. An animal must 
 reincarnate in the animal kingdom, and in some species 
 like to itself in character. Thus the conscious center of 
 a tiger, for example, must reincarnate in an animal having 
 similar characteristics. 
 
 The condition of these animal centers of conscious- 
 ness between incarnations bears also upon the problem. 
 It has been stated that they become latent; but this is a 
 vague term. It must not be understood that they lose 
 their identity as conscious centers. The term "latency" is 
 used to distinguish their state from the devachanic one of 
 the human soul. In the latter, consciousness does not 
 cease to function, but only transfers the scene of its ac- 
 tivities to inner or subjective planes. In animal souls, 
 the consciousness becomes a potentiality only; it ceases to 
 exist as an active potency even on subjective planes. 
 That consciousness is capable of this cessation of activity, 
 or change of the mode of its manifestation, is abundantly 
 shown by analogous phenomena on the physical plane. 
 Thus, oxygen and hydrogen, when combined as water, 
 cease to exist as gases, without at all losing the poten- 
 tiality of again returning to gaseous states when their as- 
 sociation as water is terminated. This mysterious ability 
 to retain a primal potentiality throughout infinite 
 sequences of later correlations and associations is another 
 key to the mystery of evolution, and the manner in which 
 everything in the Universe may philosophically and ac- 
 tually have its source in Absolute Unity. For if hy- 
 drogen and oxygen can combine to form water, so, also, 
 can water be decomposed into hydrogen and oxygen 
 
THE PERSONALITY. 149 
 
 again. It is, therefore, evident that not only can every- 
 thing in the Universe arise out of Unity, but that the re- 
 verse is also true that all things can be resolved back into 
 Unity with equal certainty. 
 
 This latent condition of animal centers, then, is a re- 
 tiring of such centers into states where, though their 
 identity disappears as a potency, it is preserved as a po- 
 tentiality. It is the state to which all mineral, all veg- 
 etable, and most animal conscious centers retire. It is as 
 near an approach to the primal monadic consciousness as 
 the evolution of these centers will permit. But, as all 
 planes of consciousness pass gradually into those above 
 and below, so, also, in the higher animals are there evi- 
 dences of the beginnings of subjective states. Dogs, 
 canaries, etc., undoubtedly dream, and this ability must 
 include the power to maintain a subjective existence for 
 brief periods after death. In other words, many, if not 
 most, animals have a stage in their life cycle corre- 
 sponding, in a lower degree, to that of Kama Loca in man. 
 
 It will now have become apparent to what all this leads. 
 Since animals have a subconscious center, or " elemental," 
 which persists as an entity not only through latent states, 
 but also through real subjective ones as well, it is plain 
 that the human animal also has such an " elemental," only 
 of higher degree. This " human elemental" is, evidently, 
 the source to which we have to look for the next 
 humanity, in a becoming which is necessarily infinite in 
 duration. It is this nascent human center which flames 
 up under the intellectualization of its animal desires into 
 the larger portion of that which we recognize as the " per- 
 sonality." When the rationalizing presence of the lower 
 Manas is withdrawn by death, it is this entity which runs 
 
150 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 riot during the brief period of its ability to maintain a 
 subjective existence in Kama Loca, both before and after 
 the Higher Ego passes into the tranquillity of Devachan. 
 It is its still raging desires which at first disturb and 
 prevent the devachanic rest of the soul. It, also, is able 
 to flame up again under the influence of the Lower Manas 
 of a " medium." when, of course, it may often give cor- 
 rectly facts concerning its past life, and especially those 
 so powerfully impressed upon it by the manner of 
 the death of its body. 
 
 Yet there is in it no " I am I," except it be reflected 
 there. It has not evolved to this point by many cycles. 
 That which each one feels as his " I am myself," if his 
 consciousness be upon the material plane and concerned 
 with sensuous desires, is only a reflection from the Higher 
 Ego, faintly shining through the intellect of the human- 
 animal. It is thus an illusion, and must remain so unless 
 one can so hush the clamors of the senses as to permit 
 his consciousness to rise to its own divine plane. With- 
 draw Manas, and the " brain-mind" collapses, all sense of 
 " I am myself" disappears, and the human " elemental," 
 after gathering itself together as the " spook" or "Kama- 
 Rupa," for a brief period of uncanny subjective existence, 
 becomes "latent"; retiring from even subjective thought 
 planes until a new reincarnation enables it to become a 
 potency by clothing itself once more in a human-animal 
 form. 
 
 Within this human-animal reside all sensuous passions, 
 desires, and appetites; all those "qualities" of rage, greed, 
 cunning, and hosts of others, which the Hindoo philoso- 
 phers class as " rajas" and "tamas" Western theology 
 would fain have us believe these lower "devilish" qualities 
 
THE PERSONALITY. !$! 
 
 to be inherent in man's true or spiritual nature. They 
 are a part of its conception of " original sin," and, truly, a 
 " vicarious atonement" by an omnipotent god is necessary 
 if these are really constituents of our spiritual being. But 
 the Eastern metaphysicians fall into no such error. 
 These qualities are foreign to and impossible of existence 
 upon the spiritual planes of the Higher Ego; so much so 
 that they can not even be impressed upon its divine 
 memory. They can only be experienced by proxy, as it 
 were, or by the Higher Ego incarnating in an animal form 
 where these have their normal plane of activity. 
 
 From its own plane, the Higher Ego brings its own 
 native powers. Intuition or direct perception of truth, 
 justice and virtue; complete unselfishness; prophetic 
 power; and so on, may be taken as types. It is also the 
 source and plane of true self-consciousness. By its simple 
 presence it intellectualizes the lower rajasic appetites and 
 passions, thus rendering them a thousand-fold more diffi- 
 cult to subdue. The process is, as we have seen, similar 
 to the contact of the magnet imparting magnetism to 
 non-magnetic iron. But to intellectualize only is not its 
 mission. It must spiritualize these lower qualities, and 
 transmute the experience so acquired in the contest into a 
 knowledge of their "opposites," which can be recorded 
 and preserved on its own divine plane. 
 
 All the "qualities," all the passions, desires, appetites, 
 and intellectual powers, even, of purely animal man are 
 to be found in varying degrees in the lower animals. As 
 an animal, man in no way differs from other animals ex- 
 cept in degree, and this degree, in many of the lower in- 
 stincts, is relatively and actually lesser in him. If one 
 were to attempt a diagrammatic illustration of the effect 
 
152 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 upon animal man of the incarnation of his Higher Ego, it 
 might be shown first in what the " quality" consisted 
 upon the animal plane, what it becomes when merely in- 
 tellectualized, and what when spiritualized or transmuted. 
 Thus, in its highest animal type the 
 
 INTELLECTUALIZED. 
 
 SPIRITUALIZED. 
 
 Cunning of the Fox, Becomes Cheating; 
 
 Inventive Skill, 
 
 Vanity " Peacock, 
 Ambition " Eagle, 
 
 Love of Dress; 
 Desire of Fame; 
 
 True Self-Respect. 
 Desire for the Ad- 
 
 
 
 vancement of the 
 
 
 
 race. 
 
 Greed, " Swine, " 
 
 Love of Riches; 
 
 Altruistic Desire. 
 
 Rivalry, " Horse, " 
 Cruelty, " Tiger, 
 
 Wars, Prize F'ts; 
 Slave-Driving. 
 
 To help others succeed. 
 
 
 Wage- Robbing; 
 
 Indifference to Per- 
 
 
 
 sonal Suffering. 
 
 Mechanic Skill of the Bee, 
 
 Palace Building, 
 
 Philosophy Building, 
 Higher Mathemat- 
 
 
 
 ics, etc. 
 
 The Personality, then, in its lower aspect, is this human- 
 animal rationalized by lower Manas. Yet the presence 
 and action of the latter must not be overlooked in our 
 too close study of the lower aspect, or we shall have, at 
 best, but an one-sided conception of our lower self. 
 Through the various Principles which connect the 
 Thinker, the Higher Ego, with the body, and especi- 
 ally by means of lower Manas, the Higher Ego is able 
 to project rays of its own divine ideation upon the 
 brain cells; to infuse its consciousness into the " brain- 
 mind," and so purify by its own golden light the muddy 
 flames of brain intellectuality. The voice of conscience 
 is a message direct from this divine inner sufferer and 
 prisoner, who knows by virtue of its own native powers 
 the ethical bearings of any doubtful question or transac- 
 tion. There is no need for time to consider or reason; 
 the judgment is instantaneous and unmistakable; the soul 
 is before the tribunal of its own divinity ; for the brief mo- 
 ment the warning voice is heard. 
 
 If, then, there be no " I am myself" in the Personality 
 
THE PERSONALITY. 153 
 
 except as reflected there by the presence of the Higher 
 Ego, thus " clothed in a coat of skin," thus " crucified in 
 the bonds of flesh," it is at once evident why there can be 
 for it no immortality. The lower aspect which has 
 flamed up under the vivifying presence of the Higher 
 Ego, as the dimly burning flame of a night lamp might 
 under the impetus of a jet of pure oxygen, fades into bare 
 latency after death. It can not endure even as a 
 memory ; for its passionate cycle of existence is not nor 
 can it be recorded in the memory of the Divine Inner 
 Ego. The Higher Ego retires to subjective planes, and 
 in Devachan assimilates the wisdom acquired in its last life 
 on earth. All is gone the lower aspect of the Person- 
 ality to the oblivion of latency, the higher to its source. 
 
 How, then, is any immortality possible for the Person- 
 ality ? Only in the memory of the Higher Ego of the 
 period during which it spent a life cycle in such or such a 
 body is any record preserved. The association is remem- 
 bered as the memory of such or such a dwelling occupied 
 by man during one life might be. Illumined by some 
 noble act, some self-sacrificing deed, how the memory of 
 all surroundings shines forth out of the obscurity of 
 common-plac, selfish existence! Every detail remains 
 vivid; the act and all its accessories of environment or 
 circumstance are accurately preserved. 
 
 So with our Personalities. It is possible to so illumine 
 our life with noble and unselfish deeds and thoughts that 
 it shall remain a vivid and pleasant memory to our 
 Higher Ego throughout eternal vistas. It is, also, pos- 
 sible to permit the consciousness of our divine Self to be 
 so drowned in the clamor of the senses, to be so sup- 
 pressed by a wicked, selfish, or even a vain or idle life, that 
 
1 54 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 no record is preserved. Such a life is a day in which 
 " nothing happened to us"; forgotten, not because of 
 this, but rather because we permitted it to pass without 
 making it live in our memory by some good deed done to 
 our fellow-men. 
 
 Such will be the fate of most of the Personalities now 
 upon the human stage. The biblical warning, " Behold, 
 they are neither hot nor cold, therefore will I spew them 
 out of my mouth," contains an occult truth it would be 
 well to ponder. The memory of such lives will be taken 
 to Devachan, to be dreamed over and their foolish fancies 
 enacted in pleasant, illusory "-castles in the air," and 
 the soul will then be returned to earth for renewed oppor- 
 tunities to live a higher, nobler life. But beyond Devachan 
 such lives can not pass. There their cycle terminates 
 forever as surely as that of the animal soul terminates in 
 latency. It can not be too strongly impressed that only 
 truly spiritual or unselfish deeds survive in the eternities 
 of the memory of the Higher Ego, for like causes can 
 only produce like results. Animal, earthly, or kamic 
 causes can not be followed by spiritual effects; the stream 
 can not rise higher than its source. 
 
 There is yet one aspect of the Personality which must 
 be considered before we can fully, or even partially, grasp 
 its entire functions and potencies. This is the possibility 
 of its complete separation from the Higher go through 
 deliberately choosing the low, sensuous plane of the 
 Quaternary, and the cruel, conscienceless struggle for ex- 
 istence which there has its normal field of activity. By 
 stifling the voice of the Higher Ego, or conscience; by 
 allying itself to evil; by vice and crime committed with 
 the full realization that they are vices and crimes there 
 
THE PERSONALITY. 155 
 
 becomes possible for the Personality the fate of its utter 
 and entire extinction. The rationale of this may be 
 readily understood by what has already been explained 
 as to its post-mortem history. We have seen how in- 
 tensely the presence of the Thinking Principle, the Re- 
 incarnating Ego, rationalizes those which before were 
 merely animal passions and desires. If, now, the Higher 
 Manas fail entirely to spiritualize these, the " I am myself" 
 of such a person is only that of an animal more cunning, 
 more selfish, more conscienceless and more cruel, by a 
 thousand fold, than if the Higher Ego had never incar- 
 nated within it. The whole of the energy aroused and 
 imparted by the latter is absorbed by the human animal. 
 Instead of burning for a time in Kama Loca, like the 
 smoking wick of a candle whose flame has been ex- 
 tinguished, this being enters this plane at death with all 
 its potencies for evil in full activity. No Devachan is pos- 
 sible; and as all its desires rage furiously earthwards, their 
 very force will carry it speedily to a new reincarnation, 
 and we then have a Jesse Pomeroy, or a Deeming, horri- 
 fying mankind by his atrocious crimes. So great may 
 have been the impetus, so powerful the energy thus 
 robbed from Manas, that a series of these human-animal 
 incarnations may occur, each more soddenly brutal than 
 the last, until an incarnation such as a jabbering idiot at 
 the end prefaces the final plunge into animal latency. As a 
 nascent center of human consciousness, the human-animal 
 Personality can not be destroyed; but it is evident that it 
 can so cut itself off from the Higher Ego upon one hand, 
 and from the natural evolutionary activities of the up- 
 coming animal monads upon the other, that it is quite 
 separated from all chance of progress during incalculable 
 
156" A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 periods. For the same widening of the area of its evil 
 nature which cut it off as unlike and unassimilable by the 
 Higher Ego, also made it unlike and superior in evil to 
 the kingdom below; and it can n jt, therefore, re-enter this. 
 Of its fate, however, after it has lost all of its borrowed 
 glory, and after it no longer recognizes itself as the man 
 who had once the opportunity to become divine, it is use- 
 less to speculate. It is enough to know that the suffer- 
 ings of such a Personality must be awful, indescribable. 
 For whether he reincarnate, immediately, or whether, this 
 reincarnation being for karmic reasons impossible, he 
 obsesses poor "mediums," to their ultimate sharing of 
 his fate, alike must he expiate to the full every crime or 
 evil thing done during the time he forged the chains, which 
 bound him to so terrible a destiny. 
 
 This is a fate which can overtake every human Person- 
 ality, and the fact should be known as an evolutionary 
 possibility. There are too many evident failures upon 
 the purely physical plane too many infant deaths not to 
 make it plain by correspondence and analogy that there 
 may be also failures upon the mental plane. Let each 
 one who considers himself too far over the line of danger 
 pause, and seriously question himself as to whether his 
 life is lighted by the pure flame of spirituality, or whether 
 he is not, after all, living an unsuspected life of merely 
 animal emotions, instincts and appetites, intellectualized 
 to such a brilliancy that the glow may prove a false 
 beacon light to the ultimate wreckage of his soul ; for it 
 can not be too often nor too strongly insisted upon that no 
 amount of mere intellectuality removes us from the animal 
 plane to the safety of spiritual existence. Altruism is the 
 law; compassion, the means; self-sacrifice, the surety, of 
 existence upon the stable spiritual planes of being. 
 
THE PERSONALITY. 157 
 
 The monadic base upon which our center of conscious- 
 ness rests is alone eternal and immortal. Our Higher 
 Ego depends for its immortality upon rising to this 
 monadic base in its conscious functioning. In a much 
 greater degree is the personal Ego dependent upon the 
 Higher for its promise of eternal life. All turns, as we 
 have seen, -upon the plane in which the personal " I" 
 habitually functions; upon how deeply it permits itself to 
 be dragged below the Divine plane to that of mortal pas- 
 sions and desires. Meanwhile, as our Higher Ego gathers 
 strength and expands its consciousness through this expe- 
 rience of many lives, its reflections in material incarna- 
 tions, or personal " I am I's," become also stronger, and 
 the loss of any one of them through having been over- 
 come by sensuous attraction grows more serious, both to 
 Higher Ego and lower personality. For the mutual re- 
 action and interdependence of the (Higher) Ego free and 
 the (lower) Ego incarnated, are very great, or successive 
 incarnations under the iron law of cause and effect would 
 not take place as they now inevitably do. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 POST-MORTEM STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 a recognition of the truth of the continuous evo- 
 lution of the soul by means of Reincarnation pre- 
 cludes all such puerile and childish conceptions of Post- 
 mortem states as the Christian's " heaven" and " hell," the 
 Spiritualist's " Summerland," or the materialist's blank 
 negations, it becomes necessary to examine into this 
 phase of the Ego's existence from the view-point of the 
 larger philosophy. As few men have evolved the ability 
 to consciously penetrate during life to those inner planes 
 where the Reincarnating Ego of necessity retires upon the 
 death of its physical body, itfollows that the teachings con- 
 cerning the Post-mortem states of consciousness are some- 
 what ex cathedra. Nor is there anything derogatory to 
 intellectual dignity in accepting statements of this na- 
 ture from those who are in a position to know as sufficient 
 evidence of the facts. We willingly accept the statements 
 of astronomers, mathematicians, chemists, etc., as to facts 
 beyond our reach physically, and often above our percep- 
 tion intellectually, because they are known to be experts 
 by virtue of study along these particular lines. We are un- 
 der equal obligations to accept information or facts con- 
 cerning the spiritual aspects of our being from known stu- 
 dents and experts in these fields. Both classes of data 
 are equally capable of personal verification the one by 
 the exercise of our intellectual, the other by our spiritual, 
 faculties. And spiritual truths at first veiled by spir- 
 itual blindness may be perceived later by persistent 
 cultivation of the spiritual faculties, for growth and power 
 
POST-MORTEM STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 159 
 
 follow exercise of these as certainly as that using the ham- 
 mer enlarges and strengthens the biceps of a blacksmith. 
 
 However, information and knowledge concerning these 
 post-mortem states are not purely, nor even largely, 
 ex cathedra. The teaching has all the authority of a phil- 
 osophic hypothesis which fully explains and synthesizes 
 the phenomena within its proper territory. Were there 
 no other reason for accepting it, the fact that it explains 
 the chaotic phenomena of "spiritualism" would alone 
 entitle it to our respectful consideration; and when to these 
 are added large classes of cognate and quite unclassified 
 supersensuous facts, it may be said to rest upon a strictly 
 philosophic and scientific basis. 
 
 The Theosophic classification of these Post-mortem or 
 ante-natal states is into Kama Loca, Devachan, and 
 Nirvana terms borrowed from the Sanscrit because of 
 the want of accurate English synonyms. These are simply 
 states of consciousness, dependent upon the relation of 
 Ego to its material vestments and environments. Our 
 ordinary waking .consciousness is dependent upon and 
 conditioned by the sense organs of the body, being the 
 result, as pointed out in the chapter upon the Physiologi- 
 cal Evidence of the Soul, of innumerable molecular shocks 
 or changes arising chiefly without, but also within, the 
 organism. Deprived of sense organs by death, conscious- 
 ness depends upon the ability of the Ego to function upon 
 interior planes of ethereal substance. The ordinary man 
 has not evolved to the point of being able to do this, so 
 that after complete separation from his lower and more 
 truly "material" principles his consciousness becomes sub- 
 jective a state analogous to pure dream, and undisturbed 
 by any real, objective phenomena whatever. Before 
 
160 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 reaching this state of pure subjectivity, however, the con- 
 sciousness has to pass through a process of gradually 
 abandoning these lower vehicles. This condition of mixed 
 objectivity and subjectivity is termed Kama Loca; that of 
 pure, dreaming subjectivity, Devachan ; while Nirvana 
 may be defined as consciousness upon planes so far inte- 
 rior to this one of molecular matter that he who enters 
 it self-consciously can never return to lower worlds 
 loses all possibility of response to molecular vibration. 
 All are in their nature and essence subjective states of 
 being, as, indeed, all consciousness necessarily is. The 
 Conscious-Aspect of the Causeless Cause ever appears 
 subjective in its relation to the Substance-Aspect, its ma- 
 terial vehicle. 
 
 Since physical consciousness is manifested on the 
 physical plane of matter, which latter to our senses is cer- 
 tainly a place, in like manner Kama Loca consciousness, 
 being limited to the lower astral plane of substance, may 
 also be understood as connected with locality, that lo- 
 cality being the Linga Sharira of the earth. But these 
 associations of locality are not essential. The place 
 where consciousness is experienced is nothing; the state 
 itself, everything. 
 
 All states of consciousness, too, may be actually expe- 
 rienced while the body is on the physical plane, and all 
 have their physical correspondences in our ordinary 
 waking consciousness. An Arhat attains to Nirvana 
 while yet in the physical body, because he has, through 
 the efforts of his trained will, risen beyond the limitations 
 of this vehicle for purely sensuous consciousness. An or- 
 dinary man experiences Devachan on earth. The day- 
 dreamer, building "castles in the air," very closely ap- 
 
POST-MORTEM STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. l6l 
 
 proximates this condition, because his mind has cast off, 
 for a time, its material fetters, and functions on an inner 
 and more spiritual plane. The sensual and passionate 
 man finds himself very closely approximating the Kama 
 Loca state when yielding to the angry impulses of his 
 lower nature, for the reason that his consciousness is then 
 limited to the physical correspondence of that plane. 
 The analogous states of day-dreaming, anger, or passion, 
 are not accurately identical with Devachan or Kama 
 Loca, for the reason that with the former states there is 
 always the modification of the Thinking Principle through 
 its connection with the body, while in the latter this union 
 is severed by death, and the impeding action of our phys- 
 ical senses due to physical stimuli is withdrawn. Still, 
 we will be best able to understand the nature of the real 
 Kama Loca and Devachan by a close study of their 
 physical analogies, for, as we have said, they are the 
 actual states, excepting for this modification by the 
 physical body and lower principles. It is the one center 
 of consciousness, modified by the vehicle which expresses 
 its dominating condition; while in the body, if in a 
 passion, the Animal Soul, or vehicle for the expression of 
 this form of mental energy, is of necessity used as a me- 
 chanic is compelled to take up a different tool when he 
 wishes to cut from that he uses for polishing only. On 
 the other hand, this passional vehicle could not be em- 
 ployed for devachanic day-dreams; one can not build 
 castles in the air while in a furious passion. 
 
 It must not be understood from the above that'' the 
 Higher Ego ever gets into a passion, or in any similar 
 emotional state, itself. All these passional activities be- 
 long to the consciousness of the various hierarchies synthe- 
 
1 62 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 sized in man's body. The kama-manasic reflection of the 
 Higher Ego is the agent by means of which the latter is 
 brought into sense relations with this plane, and this cen- 
 ter of consciousness vibrates from one to another of these 
 vehicles under the impelling influence of the personal will. 
 This personal will is the reflected will of the Higher Ego 
 tainted and colored by the desires and delights of sen- 
 suous existence. It is thus the offspring of the personal 
 or kama-manasic consciousness, and represents the under- 
 lying motive which directs our whole personal existence. 
 It is created by kama-manasic or brain thought, which 
 thought arises out of the physical stimuli of sensuous ex- 
 istence. Thus is seen the nature of the intimacy between 
 body and soul, and also the importance of controlling the 
 kama-manasic or lower brain thought, or of not permitting 
 these sensuous stimuli to engross the entire attention of 
 this center of consciousness. "As a man thinks, so he is." 
 If we continuously find ourselves getting into rages, it is 
 not, as most of us delude ourselves into fancying, the result 
 of an unhappy combination of environing circumstances, 
 but because we live habitually upon this level. If our 
 desires really ran in the direction of purity and spirituality, 
 the same set of circumstances would arouse no corre- 
 sponding vibrations within us ; we would be non-receptive 
 to them, as completely as we now are to the ultra-violet 
 rays of the spectrum. Through all the psychic storms 
 raging in the body, the Higher Ego is only a spectator, 
 powerless to affect the result except as its lower reflection 
 controls or yields to the tempest of vibrations arising in 
 these rajasic elementals. 
 
 The effect of permitting the center of consciousness to 
 wander from plane to plane, according as this or that desire 
 
POST-MORTEM STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 163 
 
 demands a hearing or clamors for its attention, is more 
 far-reaching than is generally recognized. It is the karmic 
 agent which is largely determining the conditions of our 
 next subjective life as well as the following incarnation. 
 
 Perhaps a resort to object teaching may help to eluci- 
 date this. Let us suppose man to be living within a hol- 
 low sphere or globe, modeled after the fashion of that he 
 now lives upon. Let us further suppose this globe to have 
 a north and south pole that is, a spiritual and material 
 extreme. An equator would then divide its upper spirit- 
 ual from its lower material hemisphere. Below this 
 equator would be the physical and Kama Loca conscious- 
 ness; above, the devachanic and nirvanic. At the upper 
 pole would be the ethereal, spiritual attraction of his 
 Higher Self; at the lower, the kamic desires of his physi- 
 cal body, and each constantly exerting its utmost power 
 to draw his kama-manasic center of consciousness to its 
 own pole. This kama-manasic center of consciousness 
 may be likened to a smaller globe, ever oscillating within 
 the greater one. Now it floats, under the impulse of some 
 altruistic, spiritual impulse, far above the dividing equator 
 into the spiritual region. In an instant it descends to ma- 
 terial zones, as some earthly desire or fit of passion reaches 
 it through the physical senses. Thus it ever vibrates to 
 the impulses arising out of sensuous experiences unless 
 controlled by the will, crossing the dividing line between 
 the spiritual, permanent life, and the fleeting, physical 
 one, perhaps a thousand times a day. With some excep- 
 tionally spiritual natures, the oscillation may be within the 
 devachanic zone of consciousness for days or weeks, with- 
 out ever touching the fatal equatorial line of animal appe- 
 tites or selfish interests. On the other hand, a gross sen- 
 
164 
 
 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 The Absolute 
 
 sualist or materialist might keep his consciousness oscil- 
 lating entirely below the line of spirituality for months, or 
 even a lifetime. 
 
 Carrying our illustration 
 a step further, let us sup- 
 pose this larger, or en- 
 vironing, globe to have 
 the power of responding 
 to and recording each 
 visit made by the smaller 
 globe, representing the 
 kama-manasic conscious- 
 ^ness, to any of its planes 
 or zones, either deva- 
 chanic or those of Kama 
 Loca or Nirvana. Let 
 us suppose, also, that 
 this record takes the form 
 of a kind of mental 
 or thought-deposit within 
 the greater globe, and which, under the accretion of 
 numberless visits, grows into a thought fund, so to speak 
 a memory-deposit, upon which the Higher Ego can 
 draw in order to maintain a conscious connection with, or 
 memory of, its last life on earth, during the interval which 
 must elapse in Devachan before it can again descend into 
 the world of causes by reincarnating. 
 
 This fanciful thought-deposit roughly represents a fact 
 in nature; for just as our physical brain responds to and 
 records molecular vibrations, so do spiritual thoughts arid 
 desires set up vibrations upon higher planes, and which 
 are recorded upon their permanent tablets. These illus- 
 
POST-MORTEM STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 165 
 
 trations, crude and imperfect as they of necessity are, en- 
 able us to catch a glimpse a shadowy conception, at any 
 rate of the mutual inter-relation and interdependence of 
 our life upon earth and that which awaits us after death. 
 By them may be seen how we are daily and hourly cre- 
 ating the conditions which, without the arbitrary inter- 
 ference of any personal god, will determine our state in 
 the next or subjective phase of our existence, as well as 
 the conditions which will environ our next objective life. 
 After death, when the physical vehicle of consciousness 
 is destroyed, the soul, if it have not evolved the power of 
 objective consciousness upon the inner, astral planes, is 
 compelled to continue its existence in a subjective state. 
 A blind man cannot see, nor a deaf one hear; they lack 
 the physical organs. Therefore, when all of man's physi- 
 cal senses are annulled by death, either his consciousness 
 is annihilated, as the materialists claim, or it uses inner 
 senses to project the astral plane objectively, or it must 
 become subjective that is to say, it must enter 
 upon a dreaming state similar to that which obtains 
 during life when the physical senses are paralyzed by 
 sleep. Then what happens after death, returning to our 
 globe illustration, would evidently be this: The grossly 
 physical attraction at the lower pole being removed, the 
 consciousness rises to that point in the globe where its 
 mental deposits during life have been of sufficient amount 
 to sustain it. It can no longer select its material vehicle 
 by the self-conscious will, for this has become par- 
 alyzed by the disintegration of the lower Principles, 
 through which it had been accustomed to function, and 
 through its not yet having learned to function on spiritual 
 planes and in spiritual vehicles. If, now, the devachanic 
 
1 66 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 accretions preponderate, it floats to this zone, and remains 
 until it has received its reward for, or rather exhausted 
 the effects of, the altruistic and elevating thoughts and 
 aspirations of its last life. If the Kama Loca deposits are 
 in excess, there the consciousness remains until, having 
 succeeded in separating itself from these, it rises to its 
 devachanic stores, or, having none there, it again returns 
 to earth and reincarnates, or slowly fades out upon 
 this plane. But this preponderance of deposits does not 
 mean simply an accurate physical or mental balancing 
 of accounts a casting up of a debtor and creditor column. 
 If this were so, few, perhaps, would reach Devachan. 
 But, just as the material attraction was greatly in excess 
 during life, through the physical or sensuous connection, 
 so now the spiritual forces at the upper pole exercise a 
 correspondingly increased influence when no longer coun- 
 terbalanced by the body; so much so that Devachan is 
 the almost universal state of the human soul after death. 
 For the personal consciousness, the " I am I," not to be 
 drawn into the safety of Devachan means, as we hinted 
 above, the most terrible fate for it its utter and entire 
 extinction. Remember, the poles of our globe have more 
 attributes than being merely higher and lower, or outer 
 and inner. The great the all-important difference con- 
 sists in that the one is eternal and everlasting, and the 
 other mortal and impermanent. Therefore, we see but 
 too plainly how that soul which has cultivated none but 
 grossly material affinities during life will find itself over- 
 poweringly drawn down into the abyss of matter and de- 
 struction at death. This is the true and esoteric meaning 
 of the scriptural injunction to "lay up treasures in heaven." 
 For the phrase, " Where a man's treasure is, there will his 
 
 / 
 
POST-MORTEM STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 1 67 
 
 heart be also," has a real and awful significance when 
 read by the light of Theosophic teachings. Herein is 
 found the explanation and meaning of that mysterious 
 tenet running through all religions the possibility of the 
 eternal loss of the soul, which will be referred to later. 
 
 It might be supposed that, since most souls live to a 
 great degree upon the plane of sensuous desires, thereby 
 laying up treasures of a highly undesirable nature, yet, as 
 they pass almost without exception into the devachanic 
 state after death, the effects or karma of these evil acts 
 were thus avoided. Not so. This is just the mistake 
 that Christianity makes when it translates its repentant 
 murderer from the gallows to eternal bliss, by means of 
 its unphilosophical and unjust vicarious atonement. The- 
 osophy commits no such blunder. As the soul, having 
 experienced the spiritual effects of the spiritual causes set 
 up while in the body, or, having received its devachanic 
 reward, descends to reincarnate in another body, it meets 
 and carries forward to the new account the unbalanced 
 debt of evil, in the shape of the skandhas of its former life. 
 It is these which, following the reincarnating soul into its 
 new body, largely determine the selection of that body, 
 through the law of karma. As Madame Blavatsky ex- 
 plains, in relation to these skandhas, or karmic results of 
 evil acts :* 
 
 ' ' They are destroyed as the working stock in hand of the person- 
 ality; they remain as karmic effects or germs, hanging in the air of 
 the terrestrial plane, ready to come to life as so many avenging 
 fiends, to attach themselves to the new personality of the Ego when 
 it reincarnates." 
 
 Thus we see the perfect justice and reasonableness of 
 
 *Key to Theosophy. 
 
168 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 the Theosophic conception of these post-mortem states, 
 as well as why we are daily and hourly influencing and 
 determining our future states, both in and out of our future 
 bodies. The man who finds himself in a diseased or de- 
 formed body, or a member of a depraved family, can not, 
 in the light of karma, charge it to accident, nor injustice, 
 nor to carelessness nor indifference on the part of some 
 god, but must recognize it as a result of these karmic 
 " fiends" these unexhausted causes created during his 
 past incarnation which, having been set up there, have 
 followed him into the only plane where they could be sat- 
 isfied that of physical life. 
 
 After death has separated the soul from its body, what is 
 it that enters Kama Loca, and what that enters Devachan? 
 Man is constituted, as we have seen in its proper connec- 
 tion, of seven Principles, or vehicles for consciousness. To 
 briefly recapitulate, these are : The physical body; its 
 vitality, or Prana; the astral model of the physical body, or 
 Linga Sharira; the passional center, or animal soul, com- 
 mon to man and the animals, called Kama; the human 
 soul, or Manas, having a higher and a lower aspect; the 
 spiritual soul, or Buddhi; and Atma, or pure spirit. The 
 three latter form the upper spiritual Triad, or the true 
 reincarnating Ego. The remaining four form that which 
 is known as the lower, or material, Quaternary. At death 
 the body returns to the matter, or " earth," from whence it 
 came; the vitality, or Prana, rebecomes one with its 
 source the Jiva, or One Life; the Astral Body, or 
 Linga Sharira, slowly fades out, also returning to its 
 source The soul abandons these three Principles at 
 once and forever when the body dies. But the conscious- 
 ness still clings to kama is still, though deprived of 
 
POST-MORTEM STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 169 
 
 kamic organs, kama-manasic, by reason of its long associ- 
 ation with the body. There are thus, immediately after 
 death, five Principles, including the dual aspects of Manas; 
 in Kama Loca, where at once a process of separation be- 
 gins. The clamor of the senses is stilled; and, no new im- 
 petus being given to Kama, its vibrations cease gradually 
 to command the Ego's attention, and the latter becomes 
 slowly separated or freed from the influence of this 
 vehicle. Until this separation is accomplished, Devachan 
 is impossible. When it is, which may take from a few 
 moments to many years, according as the relative 
 strength of the material or the spiritual in the soul, the 
 higher Triad, with all of the late personality worthy of im- 
 mortality, enters Devachan as a Triad, leaving two more 
 Principles, or vehicles to become skandhas in Kama Loca. 
 Thus we see man has become from a septenary on earth, 
 a Triad in Devachan ; to rebecome a septenary upon his 
 next reincarnation. Irt other words, the true man puts 
 on a new body, just as he does here a new suit of clothes, 
 only that the union is more intimate. It is as though one 
 could not see without glasses, nor hear without a trumpet, 
 etc., when all of these accessories would become part of 
 his necessary clothing. In a similar way his lower Prin- 
 ciples, or vehicles, simply relate him to matter, clothe him 
 with a " coat of skin," by means of which he is brought 
 into sensuous contact with material things. 
 
 The Ego, then, must remain in Kama Loca until it is 
 freed from sensuous desire, and fitted for the quiet bliss 
 of dreaming Devachan. The actual states of conscious- 
 ness immediately after death are thus described by 
 Madame H. P. Blavatsky:* 
 
 *Lucifer, Jan., '89 
 
A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 ' ' The Ego receives always according to its deserts. After the dis- 
 solution of the body, there commences for it either a period of full, 
 clear consciousness, a state of chaotic dreams, or an utterly dream- 
 less sleep indistinguishable from annihilation; and these are the 
 three states of conscionsness. Our physiologists find the cause of 
 dreams and visions in an unconscious preparation for them in our 
 waking hours; why cannot the same be admitted for our Post- 
 mortem dreams ? I repeat it, death is sleep. After death there be- 
 gins before the spiritual eyes of the soul, a performance according to 
 a programme learned and very often composed unconsciously by our- 
 selves, the practical carrying out of correct beliefs or illusions which 
 have been created by ourselves. A Methodist will be a Methodist, 
 a Mussulman, a Mussulman, of course just for a time in a perfect 
 fool's paradise of each man's creation and making." 
 
 This is the key-note to these Post-mortem states as 
 struck by a Teacher. We find no foolish nor impossible 
 heaven nor hell described, but states analogous to and 
 built upon our subjective life while in the body. Death 
 is truly a sleep, wherein the dreams are pleasant or hor- 
 rible according as we lay the foundation for them while 
 in the physical form. 
 
 But all Post-mortem, or even all subjective life, must 
 not be included with those which are analogous to sleep. 
 The opposite poles of being have a common state for the 
 Ego that of being awake or vividly self-conscious ; only 
 at the material pole it is the personality or Kama-Manasic 
 consciousness which is awake, while at the spiritual pole 
 it is the Individuality; or Reincarnating Ego, which is in 
 this acutely self-conscious condition. To the conscious- 
 ness at either extremity, that of the other seems, perhaps, 
 like sleep as compared with its own. But the intervening 
 Kama Locaand devachanic conditions are a true sleep, as 
 compared to both poles ; only in Kama Loca the dreams 
 
POST-MORTEM STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. I/I 
 
 will be "chaotic," while in Devachan they will be as 
 bright and as beautiful as the imagination of the Ego is 
 able to construct out of the material stored up from the 
 altruistic efforts, the spiritual aspirations, and the highest 
 idealizations of its past life. 
 
 Passing, now, to the separate consideration of the con- 
 sciousness in Devachan, it is evident that, being en- 
 tirely subjective and self-created, in a manner exactly 
 corresponding to dreaming creations while in the body, no 
 two devachanic experiences can be the same. The dis- 
 tinction of individuality remains as sharply drawn as while 
 in the body. On attaining consciousness in Devachan we 
 will take up our old life in our dream, without the faintest 
 suspicion that its continuity has been interrupted. But 
 how changed! Pain, suffering, hardships and sorrow will 
 all have disappeared, as before a magician's wand. Again, 
 as pointed out by Madame Blavatsky :* 
 
 ' ' Devachan is an absolute oblivion of all that gave pain or sorrow 
 in the past incarnation, and even oblivion of the fact that such 
 things as pain or sorrow exist at all. The Devachanee lives its in- 
 termediate cycle between two incarnations, surrounded by everything 
 it had aspired to in vain, and in the companionship of every one it 
 loved on earth. It has reached the fulfillment of all its soul yearn- 
 ings. And thus it lives throughout long centuries an existence of 
 unalloyed happiness which is the reward for its sufferings in earth- 
 life. In short, it bathes in a sea of uninterrupted felicity, spanned 
 only by events of still greater felicity in degree. ' ' 
 
 "It is with those whom it has lost in the material form, and far, 
 far nearer to them now than when they were alive. And it is not 
 only in the fancy of the Devachanee as some may imagine, but in 
 reality. For pure, divine love is not merely the blossom of a human 
 heart, but has its roots in eternity. Spiritual, holy love, is immortal, 
 
 *Loc. cit. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 and Karma brings sooner or later all those who loved each other with 
 such a spiritual affection to incarnate once more in the same family 
 group. Again we say, that love beyond the grave, illusion though 
 you might call it, has a magic and divine potency which reacts on 
 the living. A mother's Ego filled with love for the imaginary chil- 
 dren it sees near itself, living a life of happiness, as real to it as when 
 on earth that love will always be felt by the children of the flesh. 
 It will manifest in their dreams, and often in various events in 
 providential protections and escapes, for love is a strong shield, and 
 is not limited by space or time." 
 
 The devachanic consciousness is also most lucidly ex- 
 plained by another MASTER* of Eastern Wisdom. He 
 writes : 
 
 " Devachan is not, cannot be, monotonous; for this would be con- 
 trary to all analogies and antagonistic to the laws and effects under 
 which results are proportionate to antecedent energies. 
 
 "There are two fields of casual manifestations: the objective and 
 the subjective. The grosser energies find their outcome in the new 
 personality of each birth in the cycle of evoluting individuality. The 
 moral and spiritual activities find their sphere of effects in Devachan. 
 
 "The dream of Devachan lasts until Karma is satisfied in that 
 direction, until the ripple offeree reaches the edge of its cyclic basin 
 and the being moves into the next area of causes. 
 
 " That particular one moment which will be most intense and upper- 
 most in the thoughts of the dying brain at the moment of dissolution 
 will regulate all subsequent moments. The moment thus selected 
 becomes the key-note of the whole harmony, around which cluster 
 in endless variety all the aspirations and desires which in connection 
 with that moment had ever crossed the dreamer's brain during his 
 lifetime, without being realized on earth, the theme modelling itself 
 on, and taking shape from, that group of desires which was most in- 
 tense during life. 
 
 "In Devachan there is no cognizance of time, of which the Deva- 
 chanee loses all sense. 
 
 *See Notes on Devachan by "X," in THE PATH, Vol. V, pp. 40 
 and 80, et seq. 
 
POST-MORTEM STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 1/3 
 
 " (To realize the bliss of Devachan or the woes of Avitchi you have 
 to assimilate them as we do.) 
 
 "The a priori ideas of space and time do not control his percep- 
 tions; for he absolutely creates and annihilates them at the same time. 
 Physical existence has its cumulative intensity from infancy to prime, 
 and its diminishing energy to dotage and death; so the dream-life of 
 Devachan is lived correspondentially. Nature cheats no more the 
 devachanee than she does the living physical man. Nature provides 
 for him far more than real bliss and happiness there than she does 
 here, where all the conditions of evil and chance are against him. 
 
 "To call the Devachan existence a 'dream' in any other sense 
 than that of a conventional term, is to renounce forever the knowl- 
 edge of the esoteric doctrine, the sole custodian of truth. As in 
 actual earth life, so there is for the Ego in Devachan the first flutter 
 of psychic life, the attainment of prime, the gradual exhaustion of 
 force passing into semi-consciousness and lethargy, total oblivion, 
 and not death, but birth, birth into another personality, and the 
 resumption of action which daily begets new congeries of causes that 
 must be worked out in another term of Devachan and still another 
 physical birth as a new personality. What the lives in Devachan 
 and upon earth shall be respectively in each instance is determined 
 by Karma, and this weary round of birth must be ever and ever run 
 through until the being reaches the end of the seventh Round, or at- 
 tains in the interim the wisdom of an Arhat, than that of a Buddha, 
 and thus gets relieved for a round or two, having learned how to 
 burst through the vicious circle and to pass into Para-nirvana. 
 
 "A colorless, flavorless personality has a colorless, feeble deva- 
 chanic state. 
 
 " There is a change of occupation, a continual change in Devachan, 
 just as much and far more than there is in the life of any man or 
 woman who happens to follow in his or her whole life one sole occu- 
 pation, whatever it may be, with, this difference, that to the Deva- 
 chanee this spiritual occupation is always pleasant and fills his life 
 with rapture. Life in Devachan is the function of the aspirations of 
 earth life; not the indefinite prolongation of that 'single instant,' 
 
174 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 but its infinite developments, the various incidents and events based 
 upon and outflowing from that one ' single moment' or moments. 
 The dreams of the objective become the realities of the subjective 
 existence. Two sympathetic souls will each work out its own 
 devachanic sensations, making the other a sharer in its subjective 
 bliss, yet each is dissociated from the other as regards actual mutual 
 intercourse; for what companionship could there be between sub- 
 jective entities which are not even as material as that Ethereal body 
 the Mayavi Rupa ? 
 
 "The stay in Devachan is proportionate to the unexhausted psychic 
 impulse originating in earth life. Those whose attractions were pre- 
 ponderatingly material will sooner be drawn back into rebirth by the 
 force of Tanha. [Taiiha desire for sensuous existence. J. A. A.] 
 
 " The reward provided by nature for men who are benevolent in a 
 large, systematic way, and who have not focused their affections on 
 an individual or speciality, is that if pure they pass the quicker for 
 that thro' the Kama and Rupa lokas into the higher sphere of Trib- 
 uvana, since it is one where the formulation of abstract ideas and the 
 consideration of general principles fill the thought of its occupant. 
 
 "Certainly, the new Ego, once that it is reborn (in Devachan), re- 
 tains for a certain time proportionate to its earth life, a complete 
 recollection of his life on earth, but it can never visit the earth 
 from Devachan except in reincarnation. 
 
 "'Who goes to Devachan?' The personal Ego, of course; but 
 beatified, purified, holy. Every Ego the combination of the 6th 
 and 7th Principles which after the period of unconscious gestation is 
 reborn into the Devachan, is of necessity as innocent and pure as a 
 new born babe. The fact of his being reborn at all shows the pre- 
 ponderance of good over evil in his old personality. And while the 
 Karma [of Evil] steps aside for the time being to follow him in his 
 future earth reincarnation, he brings along with him but the Karma 
 of his good deeds, words, and thoughts into this Devachan. ' Bad ' 
 is a relative term for us as you were told more than once before 
 and the Law of Retribution is the only law that never errs. Hence 
 all those who have not slipped down into the mire of unredeemable 
 
POST-MORTEM STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 175 
 
 sin and bestiality go to the Devachan. They will have to pay for 
 their sins, voluntary and involuntary, later on. Meanwhile they are 
 rewarded receive the effects of the causes produced by them. 
 
 " Of course, it is a state, so to say, of intense selfishness, during which 
 an Ego reaps the reward of his unselfishness on earth. He is com- 
 pletely engrossed in the bliss of all his personal earthly affections, 
 preferences, and thoughts, and gathers in the fruit of his meritorious 
 actions. No pain, no grief, nor even the shadow of a sorrow comes 
 to darken the bright horizon of his unalloyed happiness : for it is a 
 state of perpetual 'Maya.' Since the conscious perception of one's 
 Personality on Earth is but an evanescent dream, that sense will be 
 equally that of a dream in the Devachan only a hundred-fold inten- 
 sified; so much so, indeed, that the happy Ego is unable to see 
 through the veil of evils, sorrows, and woes to which those it loved 
 on earth may be subjected. It lives in that sweet dream with its 
 loved whether gone before or yet remaining on earth ; it has them 
 near itself, as happy, as blissful, and as innocent as the disembodied 
 dreamer himself; and yet, apart from rare visions, the denizens of 
 our gross planet feel it not. It is in this during such a condition of 
 complete Maya that the souls or astral Egos of pure, loving sensi- 
 tives, laboring under the same delusion, think their loved ones come 
 down to them on earth, while it is their own spirits that are raised 
 towards those in the Devachan. 
 
 "Yes, there are great varieties in the Devachan states, and all find 
 their appropriate place. As many varieties of bliss as on Earth there 
 are of perception and of capability to appreciate such reward. It is 
 an ideal paradise ; in each case of the Ego's own making, and by him 
 filled with the scenery, crowded with the incidents, and thronged 
 with the people he would expect to find in such a sphere of compen- 
 sative bliss. And it is that variety which guides the temporary per- 
 sonal Ego into the current which will lead him to be reborn in a 
 lower or higher condition in the next world of causes. Everything 
 is so harmoniously arranged in nature especially in the subjective 
 world that no mistake can be ever committed by the Tathagatos 
 who guide the impulses. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 " Devachan is a 'spiritual condition' only as contrasted with our 
 own grossly material condition; and, as already stated, it is such de- 
 grees of spirituality that constitute and determine the great varieties 
 of conditions within the limits of Devachan. A mother from a sav- 
 age tribe is not less happy than a mother from a royal palace, with 
 her lost child in her arms ; and altho', as actual Egos, children pre- 
 maturely dying before the perfection of their septenary entity do not 
 find their way to Devachan, yet all the same, the mother's loving 
 fancy finds her children there without one missing that her heart 
 yearns for. Say it is but a dream; but, after all, what is objective 
 life itself but a panorama of vivid unrealities ? The pleasure realized 
 by a red Indian in his 'happy hunting grounds' in that land of 
 dreams is not less intense than the ecstacy felt by a connoisseur who 
 passes aeons in the rapt delight of listening to divine symphonies by 
 imaginary angelic choirs and orchestras. As it is no fault of the 
 former if born a ' savage' with an instinct to kill tho' it caused the 
 death of many an innocent animal why, if with it all he was a lov- 
 ing father, son, husband why should he not also enjoy his share of 
 reward ? The case would be quite different if the same cruel acts had 
 been done by an educated and civilized person, from a mere love of 
 sport. The savage in being reborn would simply take a low place in 
 the scale, by reason of his imperfect moral development ; while the 
 Karma of the other would be tainted with moral delinquency. . . 
 
 "Remember, that we ourselves create our Devachan, as also our 
 Avitchi, while yet on earth, and mostly during the latter days and 
 even moments of our intellectual sentient lives. That feeling which 
 is strongest in us at that supreme hour, when, as in a dream, the 
 events of a long life to their minutest details are marshalled in the 
 greatest order in a few seconds in our vision,* that feeling will be- 
 come the fashioner of our bliss or woe, the life-principle of our future 
 existence. In the latter we have no substantial being, but only a 
 
 *That vision takes place when a person is already proclaimed dead. 
 The brain is the last organ that dies. 
 
POST-MORTEM STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 177 
 
 present and momentary existence, whose duration has no bearing 
 upon, no effect nor relation to its being, which, as every other effect 
 of a transitory cause, will be as fleeting, and in its turn will vanish 
 and cease to be. The real, full remembrance of our lives will come 
 but at the end of the minor cycle not before. . . . . 
 
 " Unless a man loves well, or hates well, he need not trouble him- 
 self about Devachan ; he will be neither in Devachan nor Avitchi. 
 ' Nature spews the lukewarm out of her mouth' means only that she 
 annihilates their personal Egos (not the Shells, nor yet the 6th Prin- 
 ciple) in the, Kama L/oca and the Devachan. This does not prevent 
 them from being immediately reborn, and if their lives were not very, 
 very bad, there is no reason why the eternal Monad should not find 
 the page of that life intact in the Book of Life." 
 
 In Kama Loca there is no entity after the separation of 
 the three higher Principles, as described, has taken place. 
 Ordinarily, the interval required for this separation is of 
 brief duration, as compared with the following period in 
 Devachan. But we can easily see that a soul which has 
 lived entirely on the material plane, which has created 
 strong affinities for the grossly physical pleasures of life, 
 will find itself unable to enter the devachanic sleep until 
 these have loosened their hold. When this separation is 
 completed, however, this which was an entity becomes a 
 nonentity. As the Key says: 
 
 "Then the kamarupic phantom, remaining bereft of its informing, 
 thinking principle, the higher Manas, and the lower aspect of the 
 latter, the animal intelligence, no longer receiving light from the 
 higher mind, and no longer having a physical brain to work through, 
 collapses. It falls into the state of a frog when certain portions of 
 its brain are taken out by the vivisector. It can think no more, 
 even on the lowest animal plane. ' ' 
 
 It is in a condition similar to a permanently hypnotized 
 
178 A STUDY OF -THE SOUL. 
 
 man. The intelligence which animated it is withdrawn. 
 It is a mere bundle of desires and passions, slowly disin- 
 tegrating, or changing into " skandhas," or effects, wait- 
 ing to attach themselves to the new personality which the 
 Higher Ego enters upon reincarnating. If it float, or is 
 attracted into the aura of a " medium," it may be galvan- 
 ized into apparent consciousness; but this is only apparent. 
 Just as a hypnotized person will obey the will and reflect 
 the thoughts of the hypnotizer, being at the same time 
 utterly unconscious of that which he is doing, so may these 
 " shells," as they are termed, reflect information or opin- 
 ions from the mind of the medium, or of any person pres- 
 ent. 
 
 Still there is a Kama Loca entity, proper, which is the 
 "lost soul," to which reference has been made. As we 
 have seen, there may be those who have evolved no possi- 
 bilities of a continued life in Devachan, with its succeed- 
 ing reincarnation. Cultivating none but Kama Loca affin- 
 ities during physical life, the soul finds itself irresistibly 
 drawn downwards to this zone after death, leaving noth- 
 ing to enter Devachan. Its consciousness therefore 
 remains in Kama Loca, an actual, though evil, entity. 
 Such a soul partakes so closely of the earth condition that 
 it is semi- if not wholly, conscious of itself and of its 
 state, especially when it is able to approximate still more 
 closely the earth consciousness through the aura of a 
 medium. This Being realizes that he has nothing before 
 him but the certainty of eternal extinction, and clings to 
 his Kama Loca life with all the tenacity of a drowning 
 man to the handful of earth he has grasped in slipping 
 down the banks of the fatal stream. He it is who haunts 
 " circles," and renews his fading stock of vitality from the 
 
POST-MORTEM STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 179 
 
 life forces of his admiring and unconscious victims. It is 
 he who materializes ; who preaches mock sentimental mor- 
 ality, while compelling his. medium to practice exactly the 
 reverse. Being allied to evil while in the body, he remains 
 an evil force without the body until dissolution overtakes 
 him for the second and last time. 
 
 For immortality to be assured, the attraction from the 
 spiritual pole of our being must not be severed, which will 
 be the case if our consciousness does not rise above the 
 fatal equatorial line of materiality when freed from the 
 body by death. As no soul could reincarnate if there 
 were not in its consciousness enough physical attraction, 
 or longing for sensuous life, to draw it again within mate- 
 rial limits when its spiritual tendencies become exhausted 
 in Devachan, so neither can it rise to the permanent and 
 immortal pole of its existence if there is not in its con- 
 sciousness enough of spiritual attraction to take it above 
 the material planes of being when its body is removed by 
 death. There is nor can be no " forgiveness" nor "vica- 
 rious atonement" in the matter; it is a plain case of cause 
 and effect. Such a " lost soul" has surrendered itself en- 
 tirely to the play of material law, and it can but submit 
 to the destruction and disintegration which await all that 
 find expression below the line of permanency and sta- 
 bility. 
 
 Remember that analogy holds on all planes; that just 
 as our personal consciousness vibrates during one physical 
 life above and below the line dividing the material from 
 the spiritual, so, in its greater cycle, the true man, or Re- 
 incarnating Ego, is also vibrating between these poles 
 each incarnation being but a single vibration. Now a 
 personality drags it towards the material pole; now an- 
 
180 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 other elevates it far in the direction of the spiritual. And 
 just as the personality has in its vibrations but one end in 
 view the union with its Higher Ego so this Higher Ego 
 has in its reincarnating vibrations the sole object of unit- 
 ing with its Higher Self, or with the Divine Consciousness 
 of Atma-Buddhi. This union of the Higher Ego with its 
 Higher Self is one aspect of Nirvana, and this is why an 
 Adept attains Nirvana during life. His personal con- 
 sciousness has united itself to his Higher Ego/ and this 
 Higher Ego, united to the Higher Self, enables him to 
 thus experience temporarily Nirvanic consciousness. 
 
 Of Nirvana, we of undeveloped spiritual perception can 
 of necessity know but very little. It is only to correct 
 popular misconception that it is referred to here at all. 
 Able Sanscrit scholars have defined it as "annihilation 
 of consciousness." This is because Western thought has 
 become so infected with materialism that it recognizes 
 only material or personal consciousness. This is annihil- 
 ated; and in its annihilation we find supreme happiness, 
 for it enables us to attain to the immortality of true spir- 
 itual consciousness. 
 
 In the non-recognition of spiritual consciousness, or 
 consciousness unlimited by the illusions of matter, lies the 
 source of the Western misapprehension of the term " Nir- 
 vana." As the human consciousness rises more and more 
 toward the spiritual pole of its being, it becomes, pari 
 passu, less limited by matter, with its darkness and gross- 
 ness, and finds its area of perception continuously widen- 
 ing, until, upon reaching Nirvana, it has become one with 
 the Whole. It has not, by any means, lost its individu- 
 ality, but its consciousness has become so marvelously 
 widened that it embraces the whole of manifested nature. 
 
POST-MORTEM STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. l8l 
 
 If this glorious enlargement of perception and con- 
 sciousness, until nature has no further secrets hidden from 
 our enlightened senses, can be called annihilation, then 
 is our human consciousness annihilated; not otherwise. 
 There is an infinity of difference between the annihilation 
 of our puerile personal consciousness, and CONSCIOUS 
 rest in Omniscience. 
 
 All these states Nirvana, Kama Loca, and Devachan 
 have no hard and fast lines which separate them from 
 each other. On the contrary, each is subdivided into an 
 infinity of minor planes, the upper of which pass by inap- 
 preciable gradations into the next succeeding ones. 
 Therefore Devachan in nowise resembles the Christian's 
 heaven in its dreary sameness, nor does Kama Loca 
 plunge all into the one pit of flaming brimstone. In like 
 manner, Nirvana, while interchaining its lower planes 
 with the upper of Devachan, passes from thence through 
 such an innumerable succession of higher zones that we 
 find a variety of definitions of it given, and all correct from 
 the point of view taken. Thus, in the Secret Doctrine and 
 other writings of Madame Blavatsky, we find Nirvana 
 spoken of as a synonym for the laya state, or " that of the 
 dissociation of all substances merged after a life cycle into 
 their original condition of latency." Again, it is stated 
 that as Devachan is a state of rest between two lives, in 
 like manner Nirvana is a state of rest intervening between 
 two world chains. As this would imply the dissociation 
 of matter, it would agree with the preceding definition, 
 while as each world chain includes almost an infinity of 
 conscious progress, so the Nirvana preceding and follow- 
 ing any one of them would differ widely in its degree of 
 consciousness, while still answering to the definition. 
 
1 82 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 In another reference it is stated that Buddhists teach 
 that only " two things are objectively eternal Nirvana 
 and Akasa," which again throws a side light, so to speak > 
 upon this state. Farther on, we are told that a Nirvanee 
 can not return during the manvantara to which he be- 
 longs, which, as his consciousness has become dissociated 
 from matter as we know it, again agrees with the first def- 
 inition. Again, in the "Voice of the Silence," we are 
 told that Nirvana its lower planes, no doubt, being 
 meant is a plane of exalted spiritual selfishness, if strug- 
 gled for and obtained while the great mass of one's fellow- 
 men are" still suffering in the bonds of matter. Thus it is 
 taught in India that Buddha and several of his Arhats re- 
 fused to enter Nirvana, after having won the right to it; 
 but out of their great compassion for mankind remain as 
 Nirmanakayas in order to help its upward progress. 
 
 Returning to the question of annihilation in Nirvana, 
 Madame Blavatsky, in the Secret Doctrine, says: 
 
 " To see in Nirvana annihilation amounts to saying of a man 
 plunged in sound, dreamless sleep one that leaves no impression on 
 the physical memory and brain, because the sleeper's Higher Self is 
 in its original state of Absolute Consciousness during these hours 
 that he, too, is annilated. The latter simile answers to only one side 
 of the question the most material; since reabsorption is by no 
 means such a dreamless sleep, but, on the contrary, absolute existence, 
 an unconditioned unity, or a state to describe which human language 
 is absolutely and hopelessly inadequate. Nor is the individuality, 
 nor even the essence of the personality, if any be left behind, lost be- 
 cause reabsorbed. For however limitless from a human standpoint the 
 p^ranirvanic state, it has yet a limit in eternity. Once reached, the 
 same monad will re-emerge therefrom, as a still higher being, on a 
 far higher plan, to recommence its cycle of perfected activity. The 
 human mind cannot in its present stage of development transcend, 
 
POST-MORTEM STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 183 
 
 scarcely reach, this plane of thought. It totters here on the brink of 
 incomprehensible absoluteness and eternity." 
 
 In conclusion, it will become apparent from this portion 
 of our study that we create the conditions which control 
 our Post-mortem states while we are yet within the phys- 
 ical body; that life in and out of the body pursues its 
 eternal course in obedience to the absolute law of cause 
 and effect, to which it forms no exception ; and that there- 
 fore man can not enter upon a wiser course of study than 
 that which relates to his own nature, origin and destiny. 
 The object of our most strenuous exertions ought to be 
 to transfer our consciousness from the impermanent to 
 the permanent; from the mortal, to the immortal. So 
 long as our personal consciousness is limited to sensuous 
 planes, so long must the subjective cycles of our existence 
 be passed in an unconscious, sleep-like condition, with 
 the possibility of perishing at any time by being drawn 
 permanently within the attraction of matter. Or it might 
 be caught by some cataclysmic, physical change in one of 
 these unconscious subjective states, and eons of ages 
 elapse before another opportunity be afforded for such an 
 undeveloped Ego to again take up the evolution of its 
 consciousness. Suppose our world went into Pralaya be- 
 fore certain souls had attained to true, or spiritual self- 
 consciousness. During this Pralaya there would be an 
 universal Nirvana for the whole of humanity, owing to the 
 dissociation of matter a period of world rest, analogous 
 to the night's rest between days, or the devachanic be- 
 tween lives. But such undeveloped souls would have to 
 enter Nirvana as they now do Devachan, unconscious, ex- 
 cept for this false, sleep-like consciousness, which must 
 soon exhaust its material, even if it can utilize it here at all; 
 
184 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 and then what? There is no more an earth fitted for 
 them to continue their efforts awaiting the termination of 
 the devachanic sleep, and they must remain unconscious 
 during the whole sweep of Nirvanic duration. Hear the 
 same Teacher:* 
 
 ' ' But there is a great difference between conscious and unconscious 
 being. The condition of Paranirvana without Paramartha, the self- 
 analyzing consciousness, is no bliss, but simply extinction (for seven 
 eternities). Thus an iron ball placed under the scorching rays of the 
 sun will get heated through, but will not appreciate the warmth, 
 while man will. It is only with a mind clear and undarkened by 
 personality, and the assimilation of the merit of manifold existence 
 devoted to being in its collectivity (the whole living and sentient 
 universe), that one gets rid of personal existence, merging into and 
 becoming one with the Absolute, and continuing in full possession 
 of Paramartha. "t 
 
 *Secret Doctrine. 
 
 fParamartha Self-consciousness, without which, as stated, even 
 Nirvana is simply extinction while it endures. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HYPNOTISM AND THE HUMAN SOUL. 
 
 VT7HE relation of the soul to the body can, in certain as- 
 pects, be made clearer by a study of the phenomena 
 of Hypnotism than, perhaps, by any other method. Most, 
 if not all, of these can only be explained by admitting the 
 presence and superior powers of a center of conscious- 
 ness, or soul, which is actually limited in its conscious 
 manifestations by the sense organs instead of being helped 
 by them. 
 
 As bases from whence to survey the field of hypnotic 
 phenomena, we must return to the scientific and self- 
 evident postulates of a Unit of Consciousness, and the 
 Compound Nature of Man. 
 
 By a unit is meant a center of consciousness, which, 
 like the mathematical point, excludes from its conception 
 all measures of time or space. Such centers are infinite 
 in number as potentialities; while as potencies, actively 
 ascending the spiral of evolution, they embrace all de- 
 grees from the center of consciousness present and potent 
 in an "atom" to that of the highest Dhyani-Buddhi, or 
 "god." By an atom is not meant the materialistic defini- 
 tion of this. There is no attempt at dividing matter until 
 it is presumably incapable of further division, and then 
 setting up this hypothetical infinitesimal " element" as a 
 measure of both the material and the spiritual worlds, as 
 science would fain do. Holding that " the Universe is 
 worked and guided from within outwards,"* and that as 
 
 *Secret Doctrine, Vol. i, p. 274. 
 
186 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. i 
 
 we pass from the outer, material phenomena to the inner, 
 spiritual noumena, matter becomes not less and less in the 
 size or extension of its particles, but more and more 
 ethereal and homogeneous in its essence, Theosophy de- 
 fines an atom as the seventh or guiding principle of the 
 first differentiation of the homogeneity of the plane above 
 ours toward the heterogeneity of this material plane. 
 
 But this center of consciousness, although regarded as 
 unity, still presents that Trinity in Unity which accompa- 
 nies all conceptions of the One Absolute. As this, though 
 one and indivisible, is yet matter, or substance; force, or 
 motion ; and consciousness, or ideation so the unit of con- 
 sciousness we term human which is only that of an atom 
 extended by countless accretions of material expressions 
 and experiences presents the triple aspects of Thought, 
 Will, and Feeling. It is with the second of these, or Will, 
 that a study of hypnotism must largely deal. 
 
 But what is the Will ? Locke* declares that: 
 
 "That power which the mind has to order the consideration of an 
 idea, or the forbearing to consider it, or to prefer the motion of any 
 part of- the body or its rest, and vice versa, in any particular instance, 
 is that which we call the will. It signifies nothing but the poyer to 
 prefer or choose, and thought determines it. Desire and will are two 
 distinct acts, and desire determines the will." 
 
 Lewesf says, by implication, that the Will is only the 
 play of molecular forces, under the unconscious law of 
 cause and effect. Upham]; regards the Will as the Un- 
 derstanding or Ideation in action the active aspect of 
 Consciousness. Bain holds that the Will is that power 
 in Consciousness which controls spontaneous ideation, or 
 
 *Essay on the Human Understanding. JMental Philosophy. 
 tPhilosophy of Life and Mind. ^Senses and Intellect. 
 
HYPNOTISM AND THE HUMAN SOUL. 187 
 
 ideation which naturally arises in the course of evolution 
 through the reaction between the subject and its envi- 
 ronment. 
 
 But see the prince of modern Agnosticism, Herbert 
 Spencer,* seize the fiery Fohat of the Occultist and drag 
 him, a helpless captive, at the wheel of his materialistic 
 chariot. He writes : 
 
 "When automatic actions become so involved, so varied in kind, 
 and severally so infrequent as no longer to be performed with unhes- 
 itating precision when after the reception of one of the more com- 
 plex impressions, the appropriate motor changes become nascent, 
 but are prevented from passing into immediate action by the antago- 
 nism of certain other nascent motor changes, appropriate to some 
 nearly allied impression^ there is constituted a .state of consciousness 
 which, when it finally issues into action, displays what we term voli- 
 tion. We have a conflict between two sets of ideal motor changes 
 which severally tend to become real, and this passing of an ideal 
 motor change into a real one we distinguish as Will. Thus the cessa- 
 tion of automatic action and the dawn of volition are one and the 
 same thing." 
 
 In other words, the mighty, creative volitions of a 
 Shakespeare, a Goethe, a Dante, a Bacon, an Edison, a 
 Newton, a Harvey, a Galileo, a Kant, a Hegel, or even 
 Spencer's own speculations, are merely the fortuitous 
 emergence of one set of "nascent," unconscious motor 
 changes slightly in advance of other equally unconscious 
 ones, which blind chance has thus caused to be lost to the 
 world forever ! What a relief to feel and, indeed, know, 
 by "scientific authority," that the horrible visions of Dante 
 were not deliberately evoked, but were enabled to "issue 
 into action" in advance of a milder set, perchance by 
 
 ^Principles of Pscyhology. 
 
188 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 the unconscious assistance of a very badly digested din- 
 ner ! An Occultist would declare that the very ability to 
 choose even the subject of our thoughts indicates an inhe- 
 rent power in consciousness which no fortuitous combina- 
 tion of material molecules could ever evoke, though all 
 eternity were granted it in which to exert its "blind force." 
 The stream cannot rise higher than its source; the effect 
 can not exceed its cause; and Will, manifesting as an as- 
 pect and power of Consciousness on this material, phe- 
 nomenal plane, must have its origin and cause in that 
 larger, Cosmic, noumenal plane the Force-Aspect of the 
 Absolute. 
 
 Will, then, from a Theosophic standpoint, is Desire in 
 action guided by Ideation, which latter again is the active 
 aspect of. Consciousness, or Consciousness in action. In 
 man, Will is one aspect of ^the center of consciousness, or 
 Ray, which takes its source directly in the Absolute or 
 Unknowable, and around which has evolved the feeling of 
 "I am I" through accretions of material experiences and 
 expressions in the manner pointed out in the chapter 
 upon the Individualization of the Soul. This center, 
 though a unity in essence, is a trinity in aspect, and be- 
 cause of this unity of base, all three aspects merge into 
 one another, or, rather, into that unity of which they are 
 the phenomenal expression. Will selects the subject of 
 Thought; yet Thought, again, will so modify the Will that 
 we find ourselves desiring or willing that which before we 
 compelled ourselves to think it desirable was repugnant to 
 us. Feeling, also, particularly in its lowest aspect of 
 emotion, will modify both Thought and Will, and be in 
 turn itself modified and transmuted by them. 
 
 This brings us to the standpoint from which we have to 
 
HYPNOTISM AND THE HUMAN SOUL. 189 
 
 examine hypnotism, and all psychic or mental phe- 
 nomena. Will, as one aspect, function, or power of Con- 
 sciousness, is struggling to evolve its potencies, now be- 
 numbed' and paralyzed by its primal "fall" into matter. 
 Thought and Feeling are likewise in the thralldom of the 
 flesh, and are also in the course of an evolutionary effort 
 to find their ultimate state of full and free expression. 
 To perfect man, all three aspects of Consciousness must 
 be rounded out or developed symmetrically. In the 
 natural course of evolution, emotion emerges first, and we 
 see in the limitations of the animal kingdom the effect of 
 asymmetry in the evolution of only one aspect of Con- 
 sciousness. As we have seen in the study of the Evolu- 
 tion of the Soul, it is the incarnation in human-animal 
 forms of Egos which have evolved other aspects of con- 
 sciousness in other worlds which causes the great and 
 otherwise inexplicable hiatus in the evolutionary process 
 the missing link which so puzzles and confounds the Dar- 
 winians. Because of this asymmetry in evolution, men 
 have will power and mental energy developed in various 
 degrees of feebleness, and in dissimilar directions. This 
 accounts for the ability of one will to control another, 
 through superior development along some particular line. 
 This line may be in the direction of evil quite as often as 
 in that of good ; and in the case of professional hypnotizers 
 it is almost always by the strong development of some 
 selfish trait of the character that they are enabled to over- 
 power those who are purer or even more intellectual than 
 they. It is becoming strong in evil which is the origin of 
 the power of the Black Magician. 
 
 Now, to the Theosophist, the development of the Will 
 does not mean the empty abstraction which it conveys to 
 
I9O A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 the scientist. It is the becoming potent of a conscious 
 force, having its own ratio of vibration, and using a mate- 
 rial vehicle in a manner exactly corresponding to force on 
 the material plane. Hence, when a hypnotizer eompels 
 another to obey his will, he has subjected him to an actual 
 force conveyed by a vehicle of matter quite as certainly as 
 has the prize-fighter when he " knocKS out" his helpless 
 antagonist. There are no empty abstractions or immate- 
 rial agents for a student of Theosophy, however much his 
 scientific brother may be compelled to resort to them. 
 The hypnotizer has directed a part of his own "nerve 
 fluid" upon and into the nervous system of his victim, 
 where it remains an actual force, establishing new and 
 modifying centers of vibration, which act in obedience to 
 the ideation which accompanied it. There has been an 
 actual transfer of substance, force, and consciousness a 
 setting up of new conscious centers in a manner exactly 
 analogous to the new centers of physical or molecular vi- 
 brations which are the result of the taking into the system 
 of physical remedies or " medicines." No scientist nor 
 physician has ever offered a rational explanation of the 
 methods by which physical remedies act. But to the The- 
 osophist who recognizes vibratory motion as the univer- 
 sally present Force- Aspect of the Causeless Cause, the 
 reason is plain. Such physical molecules establish innu- 
 merable centers of vibratory motion, which modify the 
 vibrations of the molcules in the physiological or patho- 
 logical cells of the body, according as their ratios of vi- 
 bration are multiples or "chords" of these. The "select- 
 ive affinity" of the physiological empiricist in explaining 
 the action of drugs is but a formula for expressing a law of 
 harmonic vibrations of whose real action he is quite 
 
HYPNOTISM AND THE HUMAN SOUL. 19! 
 
 ignorant. In like manner the will of the hypnotizer estab- 
 lishes innumerable force centers which prevent the con- 
 sciousness of the Ego from controlling its own sense or- 
 gans. It is the same kind of process as that which takes 
 place when the vibratory centers set up by chloroform or 
 morphine interpose actual physical obstacles between the 
 soul and its sense organs through the " affinity" between 
 their vibratory ratios and those of the brain molecules. 
 
 Of course, scientists will deny this. The very name 
 " hypnotism" had its origin in this denial. The Paris Acad- 
 emy had solemnly " sat" upon the phenomena exhibited 
 by Mesmer, and had pronounced them pure delusions. 
 But the ghost refused to remain laid at their bidding, and 
 so Braid, in the 'thirties of this century, undertook to ex- 
 orcise it anew. Being honest and earnest, he was soon 
 compelled to admit the reality of the phenomena of Mes- 
 merism, but denied in toto that the will of another had 
 anything to do with their production. According to his 
 theory, the phenomena were entirely self-induced, and the 
 will of the operator no further shares than to merely " sug- 
 gest" them to the subject, who thereupon hypnotized or 
 mesmerized himself. 
 
 Braid's assumption was eminently consistent with ma- 
 terialistic teachings; for if the will were merely a func- 
 tion of matter in a state of molecular vibration, and had 
 no power of action outside the molecular environment 
 which created it, then nothing could pass from the hyp- 
 notizer to the hypnotized, who must, therefore, be the sole 
 factor in the phenomena. Proceeding upon this assump- 
 tion, he re-named these "hypnotism," or the science of the 
 sleep-like states; from hypnos, sleep. This name has 
 been retained by science, notwithstanding that the theory 
 
' 192 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 of Braid, upon which it was based, has been entirely dis- 
 proven by later scientific invest gat'ons notably those 
 conducted by members of the same Academy which had 
 a few years preceding pronounced Mesmerism an halluci- 
 nation, or worse. As there are psychic and subjective 
 states which can be self-induced without-the interference 
 of any exterior will, it would seem proper to limit the 
 name, " hypnotism," to these self-induced states ; reserving 
 Mesmerism for those which Mesmer, in modern times at 
 least, first demonstrated. However, that is as science 
 may elect. Theosophy retains both terms; calling those 
 phenomena hypnotic which emanate from or are originated 
 in the plane of selfishness or Kama, and those mesmeric 
 which proceed from the higher or Manasic plane. One is 
 Black, the other White, magic. These differ in their man- 
 ner of production, in the material vehicles which they 
 employ, and in other ways, which will be pointed out 
 later. It will thus be seen how important a bearing the 
 recognition of a Unit, or center of human consciousness, 
 manifesting through the several vehicles composing the 
 Septenary nature of man, has upon the proper under- 
 standing of the phenomena of hypnotism and Mesmerism, 
 as well as various allied states, such as somnambulism, 
 trance, thought-reading, clairvoyance, etc. A non- 
 recognition of the one Unit, functioning differently in dif- 
 fering vehicles or bases, has caused the most curious spec- 
 ulations among the observers of these phenomena. For 
 with every grade of depth in the hypnotic process such 
 new and unsuspected mental powers made their appear- 
 / ance that it seemed the startling fact that there were sev- 
 eral " selves" buried in the personality, distinct and dis- 
 tinguishable from the one we recognize, was distinctly 
 
HYPNOTISM AND THE HUMAN SOUL. 193 
 
 pointed out. In fact, as the number of these apparently 
 separate persons exhumed out of one body by hypnosis 
 seemed practically unlimited, the deduction fa irJy followed 
 that as consciousness could be thus split into a series of 
 illusionary personalities there was no real conscious en- 
 tity, or human soul, but only states of consciousness de- 
 pending upon the particular form of " molecular activity." 
 Still, there were awkward facts for the " molecular activity" 
 theory to account for. Although the enlightened and 
 philosophic consciousness buried in a stupid peasant's 
 body refused to believe itself identical with the peasant, 
 still it remembered and knew all about the peasant's life 
 and mental capacities, thus showing a unifying something 
 at the basis of consciousness. And this followed through 
 all the separate persons which were, apparently, exhumed 
 out of the one Personality. Each knew and remembered 
 all about those below it, while remaining profoundly 
 ignorant of any above. 
 
 At this perplexing stage, Theosophy points out the so- 
 lution of the mystery. The one Unit and Center of 
 Consciousness on the physical plane unifies and connotes 
 the various mental states pertaining to matter into our 
 ordinary consciousness; the waking, willing, thinking, 
 feeling "I am I." But this same center of consciousness 
 can and does under proper conditions experience the 
 feeling of "I am I" on other planes, and in other states 
 of matter. Passing to the lower astral plane during the 
 waking-sleeping state, it recognizes itself as quite a distinct 
 person from the waking one; capable of flying, leaping, 
 and many things then impossible. If it could be now 
 told that it was the waking self, it would naturally deny 
 this, although all the time there would be the conscious- 
 ness that there was such a person in existence. 
 
194 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 Similarly, on planes as much higher than the waking 
 as this is lower, it would no doubt be disinclined to believe 
 itself the same limited, stupid person it is when its spir- 
 itual powers are so dulled and obscured by matter. 
 
 Thus we find that all the varied phenomena of mes- 
 meric, hypnotic, clairvoyant, magnetic in short, all nor- 
 mal or abnormal mental states are simply the one con- 
 sciousness, functioning now through this vehicle, now 
 through that. In Mesmerism and hypnotism, as com- 
 monly understood, it is the will of another which compels 
 the " I am I" center of consciousness to abandon its ordi- 
 nary physical vehicles and retire to others. In self- 
 hypnosis, such as is done by all so-called " mediums" 
 when they really get into the trance state, exactly the 
 same thing occurs under the force of their own 'will. And 
 these self-induced states may also be divided into the mes- 
 meric and hypnotic, according as the plane upon which 
 the hypnotizer habitually lives is selfish or unselfish, 
 kamic or manasic. 
 
 But merely to say that the Will of another causes these 
 hypnotic conditions only leaves the matter where we 
 found it; especially if we regard the Will as the immaterial 
 non-entity of materialism. For this reason, this study 
 was preceded by an inquiry as to the nature and functions 
 of the Will. We have seen that in willing there is an 
 actual transfer of substance as the vehicle of force, and 
 both these under the guidance of Consciousness in its ac- 
 tive aspect of Ideation. The Cosmic Will is known in 
 Occultism as Fohat, and the human will is but one of its 
 countless correlations. All willing, from the fohatic to 
 the human, is a controlling or attempting to control or 
 direct that primary Force or Motion, the Force- Aspect of 
 
HYPNOTISM AND THE HUMAN SOUL. 195 
 
 the Causeless Cause. Therefore, hypnotism is an at- 
 tempt, by means of the will of the hypnotizer, to modify 
 or control that molecular motion which enables conscious- 
 ness to manifest in the organism of another being. 
 
 The very first step in hypnotism or Mesmerism, then, 
 is to modify the rate of vibration in the subject sought to 
 be influenced until it becomes identical with, or a ratio of, 
 our own. As all life and consciousness manifest through 
 motion, it will be seen how necessary that the. vibration 
 in any two subjects sought to be related in the intimacy 
 of the hypnotic states should be in proportion, or har- 
 monious. They may not be identical, but they must 
 stand in the relation of harmonic chords to each other 
 unless the one completely replaces the other. This is the 
 solution of the mystery of the production of the hypnotic 
 state by gazing at bright objects, by musical or sudden 
 sounds, etc. In gazing fixedly at a bright object, with the 
 will directed to that end, the point in the human brain 
 which correlates spiritual motion or intelligence with the 
 material plane assumes a rate or ratio of vibration identi- 
 cal with the object so gazed at, and the hypnotized body 
 falls into a similar if not identical state of consciousness. 
 The center of consciousness, being thus compelled to 
 abandon its point d'appui with its material frame, either 
 remains in a dormant condition or functions through one 
 of its more subtle vehicles, or " bodies." In case of self- 
 hypnosis, as in mediums or trance seers, the " I am I" 
 usually establishes itself upon the plane of matter just 
 above the physical, known in Theosophy as the astral, 
 and is there subject to all the hallucinations and illusions 
 which attend upon this condition, and of which we can 
 form a very good idea by its close identity with the ordi- 
 
196 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 nary dreaming state. In hypnosis by another, with or 
 without the subject's acquiescence, the center of conscious- 
 ness is forced to abandon its hold upon the body first of 
 all, which assumes the " lethargic" condition of Charcot 
 and his school. The hypnotizer's will then takes com- 
 plete possession, and the subject obeys the slightest sug- 
 gestion, either spoken or mental, relating to the material 
 plane, such as leaping, t dancing, assuming grotesque or 
 absurd positions, tasting the same object as sweet on 
 one side of the tongue and bitter on the other, seeing re- 
 flections in pasteboard mirrors, or pictures upon blank 
 cards. Rigidity, or tetanus of the muscles, also occurs, and 
 a thousand-and-one other acts, over which scientists have 
 been so puzzled, not having the key. This key is, that 
 every one of these acts, from tetanus to double tasting or 
 picture-seeing where none exist, are pure " suggestions," 
 many of which are unconsciously made by the hypnotizer. 
 He has possession of the physical brain of his subject to 
 an extent of which he is little aware, and it responds to 
 his most subtle, unworded thought. " Suggestion" is only 
 the obedience by the subject's body and brain to the same 
 will currents and finer forces by means of which he gov- 
 erns his own body and mind; and could not take place, 
 even in ordinary, unhypnotic suggestions, if the center of 
 consciousness had not relaxed, to a certain degree at least, 
 its hold upon its own body. In lethargic hypnosis this 
 hold is loosened until it amounts to a practical abandon- 
 ment of its tenement. 
 
 But this center of consciousness can not be annihilated. 
 Driven from its physical habitation, it will, under a more 
 determined effort of the hypnotizer, or under the impetus 
 of the self-hypnotizer's will, reappear, functioning in more 
 
HYPNOTISM AND THE HUMAN SOUL. 197 
 
 and more ethereal bases, or " Principles," until it finally 
 retreats, or is driven to a point where the will of the 
 hypnotizer, no matter how powerful, can no longer control 
 it. This may be called the Noetic or Manasic point, as 
 distinguished from the lower, or psychic states. There 
 are many sub-stages before this point of freedom is 
 reached, in which this Center, using bases more and more 
 spiritualized, displays apparently more and more " super- 
 natural" powers, which are only those appropriate to these 
 planes of materiality. In all of them the subject is influ- 
 enced and controlled to a greater or lesser degree by the 
 will of the hypnotizer, and all opinions, ideas and knowl- 
 edge modified and measured by his. This, again, is the 
 key to that large class of "phenomena just a step above 
 those of which we have spoken, and which may be termed 
 psychic, as those below them were termed physical, and 
 those above Noetic or Manasic. 
 
 It is in this psychic realm that almost all of the so- 
 called " spiritual" manifestations find their habitat, when 
 these display any intelligence at all. This is the home of 
 "seers" and "clairvoyants," of fakirs and fortune-tellers. 
 For he who can by self-hypnosis, or by the aid of another, 
 establish his consciousness upon this psychic plane, will 
 find himself possessed of powers which are just as natural 
 here as ordinary sight and hearing are on the physical. 
 One of the most important of these is the ability to sense 
 thought without its having been materialized in words. 
 This is known as "mind reading," and all those who reach 
 this plane can do this to a greater or lesser degree. Di- 
 rect perception, without the intervention at least of the 
 physical senses, appears upon the higher of these psychic 
 or somnambulic planes, as is shown in cases where hyp- 
 
198 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 notized subjects have correctly diagnosed and located 
 physical ailments, unsuspected before their pointing them 
 out, and verified by subsequent post-mortem examinations. 
 These diagnoses, however, are strictly limited upon this 
 psychic plane to self-diagnosis, or at least have little or no 
 value if they are attempted to be made upon another 
 person. Wonderful as many of the feats done by 
 psychics are, they still fall under the classification of mind- 
 reading, for any information which they give must, to be 
 accurate, already exist in the mind of some one present. 
 Thus one of the most noted, the celebrated Alexis, failed 
 completely to read an unopened letter, the contents of 
 which were unknown to his interlocutor, although he cor- 
 rectly described the personal appearance and surround- 
 ings of the sender, which were known. Had the contents 
 been subjected to even a single reading, Alexis would no 
 doubt have read the letter correctly, although his interloc- 
 utor could not have repeated it from memory, which 
 shows how complete a picture of all the acts and thoughts 
 of our life is recorded upon the physical tablets of the 
 brain an open book to whomever has the power to read. 
 It also indicates how marvelously mental powers are 
 quickened when the mind no longer functions through its 
 lowest or molecular vehicle. 
 
 But far above all these psychic states lies the domain of 
 true Mesmerism, with a class of phenomena peculiarly its 
 own, and which are but very seldom brought to view by 
 the ordinary peripatetic, or even the " scientific," hypno- 
 tizer. Indeed, it is this plane which the hypnotizer seeks 
 to avoid, because, as he complains, his subject "gets be- 
 yond his control." Yet it is this very point which divides 
 White from Black Magic; and all who stop short of it 
 
HYPNOTISM AND THE HUMAN SOUL. 199 
 
 through ignorance or fear may know the class to which 
 they belong. The very vibrations of the hypnotic state 
 pertain to a lower plane of matter. They are Molecular, 
 and can be produced by attuning the consciousness to 
 molecular vibration, such as gazing at bright objects, etc., 
 as pointed out above. The Mesmeric, Noetic, or Manasic 
 vibrations are Atomic, and proceed from a much higher 
 plane, and in an exactly opposite direction. The vibra- 
 tions in hypnotism pass from without within ; those of 
 Mesmerism from within without, in harmony with the law 
 of evolution. The one is on the plane of Kama, or selfish 
 desire, and is destructive in its nature; the other on that 
 of Manas, unselfishness, and is creative, life-giving, Cosmic 
 Magnetism. As pointed out by Wm. Q. Judge,* "the 
 process going on in hypnotism is the contraction of the 
 cells of the body and the brain from the periphery to the 
 center. This is actually a phenemenon of death, and is , 
 the opposite of the mesmeric effect. Magnetism by 
 human influence starts from within and proceeds to the 
 outer surface, thus exhibiting a phenomenon of life the 
 very opposite of hypnotism." If we remember that the 
 occult definition of an atom is the seventh or conscious 
 principle of a molecule, we can see that the play of the 
 one is on the plane of blind, the other of intelligent, force, 
 respectively. This is why the action of Mesmerism is 
 curative and helpful in its nature. It is acting in har- 
 mony with nature's processes; it is the evolution from 
 within without, under which law the whole Universe 
 exists. 
 
 The phenomena of Mesmerism, or, more properly, 
 
 ^Hypnotism and Theosophy. 
 
200 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 Magnetism, are of a nature we might anticipate from the 
 close union of the soul with the source of all its powers, 
 the Higher Ego. They are prophetic, intuitional, uni- 
 versal. As on the higher planes of the psychic states, 
 the soul seems to contact and sense material things with- 
 out the intervention of the physical senses, so upon this it 
 arrives directly at intellectual truths, without the aids of 
 reasoning or ratiocinative processes. Prophecies of the 
 death of their body, as well as future events on the mate-' 
 rial plane, are common to somnambulists who have 
 reached this condition, although these are of the very low- 
 est of mesmeric powers. Prophetic dreams fall under this 
 head, as they are simply the Higher Ego functioning 
 upon its own proper plane, and a glimpse of whose knowl- 
 edge has been impressed upon the brain cells of the per- 
 sonality. Indeed, one great and deep distinction be- 
 tween the hypnotic and mesmeric states is that the 
 former requires that the Ego should be made unconscious 
 on the material plane before its phenomena can fully and 
 freely issue, while mesmeric effects can be produced quite 
 independently of the unconsciousness and destruction of 
 the Will by any of the hypnotic adjuncts. The mesmeric 
 phenomena proceed from the higher, inner planes, and 
 can and do cause an influx of life, strength, and vigor into 
 the physical system of the mesmerized subject while he is 
 in the full possession of all his ordinary mental powers, 
 and quite unconscious that any such process is taking 
 place. Indeed, this unconsciousness is often mutual; 
 neither the giver nor receiver being aware of what is tak- 
 ing place, or, in the case of Mental and Christian Science, 
 not knowing how or why they cure disease when this fol- 
 lows upon their " treatments." It is simply the transfer 
 
HYPNOTISM AND THE HUMAN SOUL. 2OI 
 
 of their own vital, electric, atomic magnetism, taking place 
 under the passive aspect of the will, or Desire. Its prin- 
 cipal agent is the eye, usually assisted by " passes," in 
 contradistinction to the crystal gazing, or other physical 
 methods, of hypnotism. The actual modus operandi of 
 the two processes necessary in the production of Mes- 
 merism and hypnotism have been nicely distinguished 
 by Madame Blavatsky. She writes:* 
 
 "When the first method (Braid's) is used, no electro-psychic, or 
 even electro -physical currents are at work, but simply the mechan- 
 ical, molecular vibrations of the metal or crystal gazed at by the 
 subject. It is the eye the most occult organ of all on the superficies 
 of our body which, by serving as a medium between that bit of metal 
 or crystal and the brain, attunes the molecular vibrations of the 
 nervous centers of the latter into unison (i. e., equality in the num- 
 ber of their respective oscillations) with the vibrations of the bright 
 object held. And it is this unison which produces the hypnotic state. 
 But, in the second case, the right name for hypnotism would certainly 
 be 'animal magnetism,' or that so much derided term, Mesmerism. 
 For, in the hypnotization by preliminary passes, it is the human will 
 whether conscious or otherwise of the operator himself that acts 
 upon the nervous system of the patient. And it is again through the 
 vibrations only atomic, not molecular produced by that act of en- 
 ergy called WILIy in the ether of space (therefore on quite a different 
 plane) that the super-hypnotic (i. e., 'suggestion,' etc.,) is induced. 
 For those which we call will-vibrations and their aura are abso- 
 lutely distinct from the vibrations produced by the simple mechani- 
 cal molecular motion, the two acting on separate degrees of the 
 cosmo-terrestrial planes." 
 
 These statements, again, will be derided by so-called 
 " science." With them " suggestion" by which is meant, 
 according to Dr. Bjornstrom,f " every operation which in 
 
 *Lucifer, Vol. VII, No. 40. fHypnotism, p. 41. 
 
202 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 a living being causes some involuntary effect, the impulse 
 to which passes through the intellect" covers the whole 
 of this terra incognita. How the idea that she is hypno- 
 tized and unable to move is " impulsed" through the in- 
 tellect of a hen, from the point of whose bill a chalk line 
 is drawn upon the ground in front of her, we leave for 
 some learned "Psychical Research Society" to investigate; 
 the subject may be upon its intellectual level. In fact, 
 " suggestion," as accounting for hypnotism upon the 
 theory of ideas set up in the subject, entirely breaks down 
 before the facts of the hypnosis of animals. Let a man 
 stand in front of a hungry lion and " suggest" to him that 
 he is not hungry, and he will presently find himself within 
 the stomach of the beast; while, if he can catch the eye, 
 and has the courage and knowledge to attune its vibra- 
 tions to his own, he need not fear the most ferocious den- 
 izen of the forest. This is the secret of the Rareys and 
 lion-tamers, which they unconsciously exercise; and, 
 indeed, it is the secret of that " dominion over every beast 
 of the earth" which has enabled man to make them his 
 unwilling subjects from the day that he first appreciated 
 the strength of his human will. 
 
 From all of the preceding, it will be gathered that 
 Theosophists look with no friendly eye upon the practice 
 of hypnotism, except under the most strict legal and 
 moral supervision. The dangers are many, and self? 
 evident. If the very walls and stones preserve a record 
 of shadows cast across them, which even science admits, 
 how much more lasting the impression produced upon the 
 sensitive brain structure by the deliberate and forcible 
 impress of the will of another. It is a matter of grave 
 'doubt whether the hypnotized, after a thorough hypnosis, 
 
HYPNOTISM AND THE HUMAN SOUL. 203 
 
 ever regain perfectly free will and entirely normal con- 
 sciousness. Certain well-verified phenomena would indi- 
 cate the reverse. For example : It is related of a well 
 known hypnotizer then classed as a " miracle" worker, or 
 magnetic healer that he once removed a neuralgia, of 
 long standing, from the arm of a certain sufferer, who 
 thereupon returned to his own country. After some years 
 of perfect freedom, the pain suddenly returned one day, 
 with all its former intensity. Inquiry revealed the start- 
 ling fact that at the very hour in which it did so the mag- 
 netizer had died. 
 
 Quite as suggestive is the case, vouched for by several 
 hypnotizers, where the sleeping subject was ordered to do 
 a certain act at some designated interval after he was 
 awakened. The hypnosis was then removed, and the 
 subject to all appearances widely awake; quite free to 
 think and act as he pleased. Yet, when the time arrived 
 at which he was commanded to do it, he obeyed as im- 
 plicitly as though he were yet completely hypnotized. 
 But, though acting with apparently full consciousness and 
 knowledge of what he did, he denied immediately after- 
 ward that he had performed any such action at all, and 
 could not be convinced to the contrary. This experi- 
 ment, verified by many similar ones, showed plainly that, 
 though apparantly awake, as far as human observation 
 could detect, the subject was not so fully and completely, 
 and that a portion of his normal consciousness was en- 
 tirely suppressed and under the subjugation of the will of 
 another. 
 
 From a criminal standpoint, also, these suggestions 
 obeyed after long intervals of apparently complete self- 
 control have a most important bearing. Suggestions have 
 
204 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 been carried out down to the most minute, trifling detail 
 after even a year had elapsed since the hypnosis. It is 
 easy to see how a hypnotizer could cause any crime which 
 avarice or revenge might dictate to be accomplished with- 
 out its being possible to connect him legally with that for 
 which he is morally responsible. 
 
 Again, a suggestion often, if not always, acts like a 
 physical stimulus in a dream, as when a drop of water on 
 the face has caused the dramatization of a whole sequence 
 of thunder-storm, shipwreck, etc., by the dreamer. Simi- 
 larly, a seemingly simple suggestion may set up a train of 
 desires, utterly out of proportion to the primary impulse, 
 as a city may be destroyed by the accidental lighting of 
 a match. Thus, in one instance* it was suggested to the 
 subject that she desired some cherries. Instead of pass- 
 ing off when awakened this desire increased in intensity, 
 and was only satisfied by the purchase of some the next 
 day. 
 
 It is now, also, after a stormy denial on the part of 
 science, universally admitted that hypnotism can be pro- 
 duced from a distance, without the subject knowing it, 
 against his will, and even during sleep. In all these in- 
 stances so far recorded there has been a magnetic rapport 
 established by a submission to hypnosis before these dis- 
 puted phenomena could be accomplished, which only adds 
 strength to the view that the hypnotized is never free 
 from the will of the hypnotizer again, the rapport simply 
 meaning in these cases a state of partial hypnosis. It 
 also emphasizes the fact that one ought to submit to any 
 torture rather than be hypnotized, and that he had far 
 better "experiment" with the most deadly physical 
 
 *Bjornstrom, loc. cit. 
 
HYPNOTISM AND THE HUMAN SOUL. 2O5 
 
 poisons than with this equally deadly moral one. There 
 is no apparent reason why all of these terrible powers for 
 evil could not be exercised upon any one by a Black Ma- 
 gician, sufficiently versed in his art. And there is no 
 question that a pursuit of the study together with a prac- 
 tice of hypnotism will ultimately end in Black magic for 
 all its lay practitioners. The distinction between Black 
 and White Magic is in MOTIVE only; the forces used 
 are the same. There must be a perfect and complete 
 altruism, an utter abandonment of self, before we can rise 
 to the planes of Mesmerism and White magic. The 
 sweetest, purest, most ethereal " Christian Scientist" who 
 accepts a fee for her " denial" that her patient is ill or 
 her affirmation that he is well, has taken the first step on 
 the declivity which will sooner or later lead to the awful 
 precipices of the Black Magician, from which there is no 
 escape ; for there is the element of self, no matter how 
 seemingly justifiable, which will prove the germ that will 
 ultimately poison her whole being. The operations of 
 most " healers" have this in common with White Magic 
 and Mesmerism, that their " suggestions" are made with 
 the subject in full possession of all his mental faculties 
 and consciousness, and are not accompanied with that 
 soul-tainting, will-destroying, obsessing vampirism of the 
 hypnotic "sleep." It is true that the latter may be ap- 
 parently justified in order to overcome a peculiarly stub- 
 born will or vicious habit, but where it is resorted to, the 
 motive ought to be as pure as the snow upon the hights 
 of the Himalayas*. 
 
 This brings us to the consideration of the question as 
 to the extent to which hypnotism may be justifiably prac- 
 ticed. Its field would seem to be limited to attempts to 
 
206 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 cure disease, and to overcome bad habits, and, in selecting 
 cases, the nicest discrimination, guided by considerations 
 pointed out, must be used. Madame Blavatsky,* whose 
 knowledge of occult subjects far exceeded that of any liv- 
 ing writer, defines its legitimate uses and points out some 
 of its abuses thus : . 
 
 "Hypnotic suggestion may cure forever, and it may not. If 
 Karmic, diseases will only be postponed, and return in some other 
 form, not necessarily of disease, but as a punitive evil of another sort. 
 It is always right to try and alleviate suffering whenever we can, and 
 to do our best for it. Thought is more powerful than speech in cases 
 of a real subjugation of the will of the patient to that of his operator. 
 But, on the other hand, unless the suggestion made is for the good 
 only of the subject, and entirely free from any selfish motive, a sug- 
 gestion by thought is an action of Black Magic still more pregnant 
 with evil consequences than a spoken suggestion. It is always wrong 
 and unlawful to deprive a man of his free will, unless for his own or 
 society's good, and even the former has to be done with great dis- 
 crimination. Occultism regards all such promiscuous attempts as 
 Black Magic and sorcery, whether conscious or otherwise. As to 
 whether it is wise to hypnotize a patient out of a vicious habit, such 
 as drinking or lying, it is an act of charity and kindness, and this is 
 next to wisdom. For, although the dropping of his vicious habits 
 will add nothing to his good Karma (which it would had his efforts 
 to reform been personal, of his own free will, and necesitating a 
 great mental and physical struggle), still a successful 'suggestion' 
 prevents him from generating more bad Karma, and adding con- 
 stantly to the previous record of his transgressing. ' ' 
 
 In regard to the modus operandi of " faith" healing, she 
 further says: 
 
 "Imagination is a potent help in every event of our lives. Imag- 
 ination acts on faith, and both are the draughtsmen who prepare the 
 
 *Lucifer, loc. tit. 
 
HYPNOTISM AND THE HUMAN SOUL. 2O7 
 
 sketches for will to engrave, more or less deeply, on the rocks of ob- 
 stacles and opposition with which the path of life is strewn. Says 
 Paracelsus, ' Faith must confirm the imagination, for faith establishes 
 the will. Determined will is the beginning of all magical operations. 
 It is because men do not perfectly imagine and believe the result 
 that the arts (of magic) are uncertain while they might be pefectly 
 certain.' This is all the secret. Half, if not two-thirds, of all our 
 ailings and diseases are the fruit of our imagination and fears. 
 Destroy the latter and give another bent to the former, and nature 
 will do the rest. There is nothing injurious or sinful in the methods, 
 per se. They turn to harm only when belief in his power becomes 
 too arrogant and marked in the faith healer, and when he thinks 
 he can will away such diseases as need, if they are to be removed 
 at all, the immediate help of expert surgeons and physicians." 
 
 But, perhaps, the chief reason for abstaining from the 
 practice of hypnotism, except in extreme cases, and under 
 the restrictions pointed out, is our blind ignorance of the 
 finer forces of nature which we are evoking. Thus, it 
 happened to the writer to find that a subject, whom he 
 had hypnotized merely as a pleasant evening's entertain- 
 ment, appeared to become afterward a kind of reflector of 
 his (the writer's) mental states and ideas. Let the 
 writer be thinking of a subject, and his patient would al- 
 lude to it; let him mentally hum a song, and he would be 
 startled by hearing his unconscious serf immediately vo- 
 calizing it, etc., and all this with no desire or thought on 
 the writer's part that this should follow. 
 
 A paragraph which went the rounds of .the press some 
 time since is very instructive in this connection. It is to 
 the effect that a certain Spaniard, named Perez, arriving 
 at Mier, Mexico, was immediately made the recipient of 
 gifts of a varied character from people to whom he was a 
 perfect stranger. Some of these were silly, as when the 
 
208 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 waiter removed all the bottles of wine from the other 
 guests, and transferred them to the tables of Perez. Be-* 
 ing threatened with violence, and called upon to explain, 
 Perez admitted that he was a trained and marvelously 
 proficient hypnotizer, which had become such a passion 
 that he could not resist practicing his gift upon those 
 about him. But it is evident from the account given that 
 Perez often hypnotized people without himself being 
 aware of it. And here we have a key to the states of 
 consciousness portrayed in " Mr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," 
 as also to that delineated by one who, we have many rea- 
 sons for believing, founded his occult stories upon the 
 basis of real occult knowledge, the result of a partial ini- 
 tiation into the mysteries of the East. This is the char- 
 acter of Margrave in " A Strange Story," by Bulwer 
 Lytton. It appears that the author makes Margrave him- 
 self not aware of the evils which his " double" plotted and 
 carried into execution. At any rate, we have the warn- 
 ing that, before one seeks to transfer his consciousness to 
 higher and inner planes of being, he should first become 
 "pure in heart," as it is only such that truly "see their 
 god." For the farther one retreats within the unfathom- 
 able depths of his being, the stronger and more powerful 
 for good or evil do the forces which he employs become; 
 and this from, a selfish, personal point of view alone, 
 saying nothing of the irremediable woe he may work 
 through employing ignorantly such a potent factor as the 
 human will becomes in hypnotism. 
 
 From all the foregoing it will be apparent how com- 
 pletely the facts of hypnotism sustain the hypothesis that 
 the human soul is an unit center of consciousness, using 
 many vehicles. Of these the physical sense organs are 
 
HYPNOTISM AND THE HUMAN SOUL. 209 
 
 only required to enable it to come into conscious relations 
 with molecular planes of being. It also brings out, with 
 startling distinctness, the fact that these sense organs limit 
 the soul's conscious area, instead of widening it, thus com- 
 pletely negativing the materialistic hypothesis of the con- 
 scious functions of the soul being the result of molecular 
 or chemical activities in the body. Equally important is 
 the light it throws upon the composite nature of man, 
 and the relation sustained to his center of consciousness 
 by the various " souls' " vehicles or Principles through 
 which that center may manifest. But, of course, the 
 crowning usefulness of a study of hypnotic consciousness 
 is that in demonstrating the independence of the human 
 soul of its physical organs, it establishes as a necessary 
 corollary the fact of its Reincarnation. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO REINCARNATION. 
 
 chief objection to reincarnation is that we do not 
 remember our past lives, as we ought to do if our 
 " I am I" is a permanent center of consciousness, and 
 merely passes from body to body upon the death of these. 
 This at first sight seems a valid objection, for memory 
 is a necessary link in constituting true self-consciousness. 
 One chief argument advanced in proof of the existence of 
 a soul is that there is a central something which binds 
 states of consciousness into a continuous and connected 
 unity, and without which unifying center they would of 
 necessity remain simply states of consciousness; those 
 present having no memory of nor hold upon those past, 
 nor anticipation of those in the future. Therefore, we 
 ought to remember our past if that past has been really 
 continuous, and the objection is fatal unless the loss of 
 the memory of our various personalities is fully explained. 
 This explanation is found in the compound nature of 
 man. We have seen that the Higher Ego is only 
 incarnated in a human-animal body for the purpose of 
 descending to this plane of molecular consciousness; that 
 there are really three evolutionary processes going on 
 simultaneously in man a physical, an intellectual or ma- 
 nasic, and a spiritual or monadic. With this third 
 process the divine Monad is alone concerned. The sec- 
 ond, or intellectual evolution, is that of the Higher Ego. 
 The third appertains to the Lower Quaternary. While 
 in man these three distinct streams of evolution are inex- 
 
OBJECTIONS TO REINCARNATION. 211 
 
 tricably interblended, because to a greater or lesser de- 
 gree each process is a factor in both the others, still they 
 are distinct enough without being separate to fully ac- 
 count for non-remembrance of the one upon the plane of 
 the other. Memory has been variously divided and 
 classfied by psychologists, which divisions do not require 
 analysis here. The one essential in any act of memory 
 is the recording of a conscious experience. This record 
 will and must differ with each plane of consciousness. 
 The manasic plane being that of true self-consciousness, 
 it takes here the self-conscious form; upon the physical, 
 it records itself in other changes, which are physical rather 
 than mental. None the less, however, are these changes 
 the records of memory because below the self-conscious 
 plane. The physical form and psychic characteristics, 
 which represent the infinite variations in the entities upon 
 the material plane of the Universe, constitute the memory 
 of the conscious experiences of each entity recorded in 
 these physical modifications. In the physical body of 
 man is thus recorded each conscious experience under- 
 gone since he occupied that mass of jelly-like substance 
 which we have reason to suspect was his first body, al- 
 though the great mass of these experiences have of 
 necessity been below the self-conscious plane. 
 
 Here, then, lies the secret of our not remembering our 
 past lives. They have been and are entirely too much 
 upon the physical plane to find other record than in those 
 physical and lower psychic modifications of form and 
 passional characteristics which lie too far below it to 
 have any record upon the plane of manasic or true self- 
 consciousness. The most of our conscious experiences 
 are almost purely animal and while they are temporarily 
 
212 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 recorded as separate experiences upon the brain cells of 
 each body, this record is of necessity destroyed as a self- 
 conscious register at death, and is only preserved upon 
 the corresponding register of its own plane that of evo- 
 lutionary modification. The record is destroyed as a self- 
 conscious register for the reason that the personality has 
 no true self-consciousness. The feeling of " I am I" of 
 our ordinary conscious experiences is reflected there by 
 the Higher Ego, as was explained in the chapter dealing 
 with that portion of the subject, and passes away entirely 
 either at or briefly following death. All those ambitions, 
 " successes," and even intellectual achievements, no matter 
 how colossal they appear, if only intellectual, and not spir- 
 itualized, fall within the fatal line of non-permanency. 
 The life of a Napoleon, or of a Bacon, represents only the 
 lower animal faculties intensely intellectualized, to be 
 sure, but having no greater claim to the spiritual remem- 
 brance of the Higher Ego than the humblest events in 
 the life of a clodhopper. One must live upon the plane 
 of the Higher Manas to have a truly self-conscious mem- 
 ory; otherwise, he can and ought to expect the oblitera- 
 tion of his personal memory after devachanic existence 
 ceases and his next reincarnation occurs. And just in 
 proportion as one does live in his higher Principles will 
 each personality live in the memory of the Higher Ego; 
 and, also, in proportion to his ability to reach this divine 
 plane of truly continuous self-consciousness while in the 
 body will he remember his past lives. 
 
 Those conscious experiences which represent the bor- 
 derland, as it were, between the higher and lower Manas, 
 or between the Individuality and Personality, are carried 
 forward as devachanic memories; but, being semi-spirit- 
 
OBJECTIONS TO REINCARNATION. 213 
 
 ual only, they are lost as self-conscious experiences upon 
 reincarnation. They have all the permanence to which 
 their mixed nature entitles them in the illusory but very 
 happy recalling of them while in this subjective state. 
 For the chief happiness of this condition lies in the power 
 of the soul to take an earth memory or desire and make 
 it the text, so to speak, upon which a series of thought 
 pictures are constructed and which carry the unrealized 
 desire or interrupted happiness to its highest ideal termi- 
 nation. The whole of Devachan is thus largely composed 
 of these dramatized realizations of desires arising out of 
 conscious experiences while in the body. It is only nec- 
 essary that they should rise above the plane of gross ani- 
 mality for them to become the objects of this devachanic 
 dramatizatipn and realization. 
 
 That man's conscious experiences upon earth are so 
 largely recorded upon the physical plane and in these 
 karmic modifications of physical heredity, is a most bene- 
 ficient provision of nature. So full of mistakes, errors, 
 sins, and crimes is the past of, perhaps, every one of us, 
 that the actual memory of it all carried forward in detail 
 to each new life would overwhelm the soul with despair 
 at the very outset. Nor is it essential to the conviction 
 of our having lived before that we should remember each 
 incident in our past lives, or even that we have lived be- 
 fore at all. Who remembers the first two or three years 
 of his infancy ? The fact that we were the same individ- 
 ual during this period of forgotten existence that we are 
 now, none of us doubt, yet we would be sorely put about 
 if we were required to furnish proof of this from memory. 
 And even after this portion, how much do we remember 
 of our life history if we attempt to recall it day by day, in 
 
214 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 all its trifling minutiae ? Of the three score years and ten 
 of human existence in the body, few can accurately recall 
 the events of as many days nay, hardly of as many min- 
 utes. All, except prodigies of memory, have practically 
 forgotten nine hundred and ninety-nine of every thousand 
 incidents of all their past. And yet the fact does not dis- 
 turb us at all. We know that we are the result of this 
 experience we have come through; that our identity is 
 the same with that of the infant, the school boy, the 
 youth, the over-confident youn man, the earnest, wiser 
 one of middle life, the tranquil, saddened one of old age. 
 Through it all the use of memory, being so largely physi- 
 cal, has been to link results together rather than inci- 
 dents ; to enable us to benefit by the past rather than to 
 be able to remember each particular portion of it. 
 
 This is the surest memory the knowledge that the 
 crystallized results of what we have experienced are fully 
 and completely expressed in what we are now. Are we 
 prone to anger, and find it difficult to control fits of pas- 
 sion ? Here is the memory of many a deed of violence 
 done under the dominance of our lower nature long ago. 
 Do we turn with horror away from injustice or extortion ? 
 Be assured we are remembering the time when we our- 
 selves were the sufferers from similar unjust acts. And 
 so on, through all the most delicate intricacies of our be- 
 ing. We are the creation of our past; and the nature we 
 have evolved is its memory. If we have gathered wis- 
 dom from the experiences of our lives, it is enough; in 
 just what the experience consisted is of little moment. 
 We may feel sure that under the guidance of the divine 
 law of Karma no experience has touched or ever can 
 touch us which we have not deserved in some capacity, 
 
OBJECTIONS TO REINCARNATION. 215 
 
 either in our individual, our family, our racial, or our na- 
 tional relations with our fellow-men. 
 
 Even before death, if we live to be old, nature antici- 
 pates the process by which she prepares us for new expe- 
 riences, and we become again as little children. Our life 
 work is done. All the knowledge which we can assimi- 
 late in this incarnation has been acquired, and so we re- 
 turn to the devachanic condition of childhood; and the 
 mystery of involution, or the assimilating of the net re- 
 sults of experience, begins because the time for it has 
 come and death has temporarily passed us by. 
 
 Another objection made from a purely emotional stand- 
 point is that reincarnation separates us forever from those 
 we have loved in this life. Nothing could be farther from 
 the truth than this, for exactly the opposite occurs. Re- 
 incarnation, in common with every other phenomenon in 
 nature, proceeds under the law of karma, or cause and 
 effect, and we ourselves set up the causes whose effects 
 are our rebirth not only in regard to time, but also as to 
 those with whom we will find ourselves associated. These 
 causes are largely, if not wholly, mental, and originate in 
 the acts, emotions, and thoughts of our daily life. They, 
 therefore, relate us karmically to those with whom we are 
 thus daily associated, who are the subjects or objects of 
 such thoughts or acts, and in exact proportion to the in- 
 tensity of our feeling toward each of these, be that feeling 
 either of love or of hatred. We can not set up causes 
 which will bind our future life to those whom we have 
 never met, nor have even known of mentally. This 
 would be an absurd view to take of the law. We are, 
 therefore, bound to those and to those only with whom 
 we are most closely associated in either the bonds of love 
 
2l6 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 or hatred, for attraction and repulsion are but opposite 
 poles or modes of motion of the same impersonal force, 
 and are of equal strength. Therefore, the impersonal law 
 of cause and effect will bring together those bound by 
 bonds of hatred as surely as it will those related by ties 
 of affection. This fact fully explains the otherwise inex- 
 plicable appearance of a single black sheep in an other- 
 wise unblemished family, or those so-called " unnatural" 
 hatreds between children and parents, or those which ap- 
 pear in any of the closely related ties of consanguinity. 
 
 The attraction thus set up between individuals by their 
 associations and mental Attitudes towards each other is as 
 potent and as patent as that which binds atoms into 
 the stable elements, so far beneath the mental plane. It 
 is but another illustration of the unity of law upon all the 
 planes of the Cosmos. So powerful is it that it can both 
 draw souls to or from material existence, else its results 
 would of necessity fail in uniting those karmically bound. 
 We see its action in taking souls from the earth in those 
 common cases where either the wife or husband quickly 
 follows the other to the grave without apparent physi- 
 ological reason. But more notable, because more op- 
 posed to the normal course of nature, are the numerous 
 instances where a mother's death has been followed by so 
 plain a loosening of its hold upon life by her young babe 
 that even ignorant observers have recognized the fact that 
 she was " drawing" it after her. 
 
 Of course, such cases are exceptions because out of the 
 usual course of nature ; but they are just those exceptions 
 which prove the rule. For in the normal instances those 
 associated would be likely to have subjective or de- 
 vachanic lives of about the same duration. Therefore, if 
 
HYPNOTISM AND THE HUMAN SOUL. 
 
 in a group of karmically associated souls one were drawn 
 by karma and the closing of its subjective cycle to re- 
 incarnate, the center of attractive force thus transferred to 
 the material plane would be amply powerful to draw to it 
 others whose devachanic cycles were also closing; and the 
 close union, as in marriage, of certain of these might 
 easily set up a center of attraction sufficiently powerful to 
 bring to a close the Devachan of any Ego whose karma 
 demanded its association with such Egos thus incarnated. 
 Were this not the case a Devachan extending over 1,500 
 years would eternally separate, as far as material associa- 
 tions are concerned, an Ego from one whose spiritual na- 
 ture entitled it to but 1,200 years in the same state, how- 
 ever close the ties of affection might have been during 
 life on earth. 
 
 As the length of life upon the earth is very greatly 
 modified by association with others, so is Devachan sub- 
 ject to similar modifications. Racial or national karma 
 may subject us to a death by war, pestilence, or famine 
 which would not have been necessitated by our purely 
 personal karma, and the sanitary conditions of communi- 
 ties, even, shorten or lengthen the lives of the units 
 grouped in such karmic relations. Especially is this so in 
 large cities. San Francisco, for instance, has a certain 
 percentage of deaths due entirely to corrupt governments 
 having permitted peculation and dishonest work in its 
 sewer system. Scores of lives are cut short yearly as a 
 direct karmic result of this community karma. On the 
 other hand, scores and hundreds of lives are lengthened 
 by wise sanitary measures especially in times of pesti- 
 lence or epidemics. 
 
 If life be thus subject to modification on the material 
 
218 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 plane, it is also subject to the same in Devachan, under 
 the axiom that the action of any law must be universal. 
 It is at least plain that there is nothing in the nature of 
 Devachan to preclude the after association of individuals 
 upon earth; but, on the contrary, that such associations 
 are certain to continue so long as there is any attraction 
 or repulsion between incarnated souls. 
 
 This is an infinitely wiser provision attraction and re- 
 pulsion for human happiness than any merely physical 
 ties of consanguinity. It ensures association so long as 
 we desire it; it cuts us loose when we have become indif- 
 ferent to any personality thus grouping souls by. their 
 higher natures rather than upon a physical basis. Were 
 the physical ties paramount, each child would demand an 
 eternal association with its parents, they in turn with 
 theirs, and so on back to some antediluvian ancestor, for 
 whom the whole vast throng, except his immediate prog- 
 eny, would feel the most profound indifference, as they 
 also would for each other, except in a similar exceedingly 
 limited relation. But soul attraction brings to each Ego 
 its, own; and as each parent, for instance, returns to in- 
 carnation attracting to it those children it really loved, 
 these in turn, after paying their karmic debt, will attract 
 their beloved, and so the links of human affection will re- 
 main forever unbroken until indifference or development 
 in some new direction severs all old attractions. 
 
 A further objection to reincarnation, sometimes urged, 
 is that it is unjust for us to suffer in this life the conse- 
 quences of acts done in past ones which we have forgot- 
 ten. To answer this it is only necessary to point out the 
 absurdity of supposing that the mere forgetting of any act 
 or crime absolves one from its consequences. Under 
 
HYPNOTISM AND THE HUMAN SOUL. 219 
 
 this strange ethical view, it would be only necessary for a 
 murderer to forget the crime he had committed to be re- 
 lieved from all moral and legal responsibility. Could he 
 not succeed in this himself it would only require that a 
 hypnotizer should interpose, and the criminal thus made 
 unconscious of his crime could be dragged off the very 
 gallows itself. The law of cause and effect is impersonal, 
 and, as far as we can conceive of consciousness, acts un- 
 consciously. Often physical diseases are the result of 
 causes set in action during the unconsciousness of sleep, 
 yet the law inflicts the full penalty nevertheless. But the 
 objection does not really deserve the recognition of an 
 answer. 
 
 All possible objections to reincarnation must likewise 
 disappear under the light of philosophy and logic, and it 
 is only necessary that such objections be thus examined 
 for the proof that this is an universal factor in nature and 
 the method by means of which evolution proceeds to 
 dawn upon the mind as clearly and convincingly as 
 though one had set himself deliberately to prove its truth; 
 for evolution and reincarnation are but aspects of the 
 one eternal process in nature infinite change. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 KARMA. 
 
 T 7 ARM A is the law of cause and effect, acting upon all 
 j^\ planes. It is entirely impersonal in this action; and 
 yet it acts wisely, intelligently and equitably, although 
 the source of this intelligence and wisdom proceeds from 
 the Unknowable. It does not reason, as we understand 
 reasoning, nor is its wisdom accompanied by any men- 
 tality conceivable to human minds. Given a cause, and 
 its corresponding effect will follow inevitably. Could this 
 law be violated in but one instance, however trifling, the 
 whole universe would fall into chaos, like a child's castle 
 of cards. 
 
 Descartes founded his famous system of philosophy 
 upon the postulate, Cogito, ergo sum. How much firmer 
 a basis is afforded for the most profound conceptions of 
 the universe in this law of Karma, that Effect follows 
 Cause. It is a unit of measurement applicable to every 
 conceivable point of space, every atom, every plane of 
 being, every manifestation of consciousness in all this 
 illimitable Cosmos. Taking its source in the Unknow- 
 able, yet having its action plainly perceivable upon our 
 planes of life, it is the link which binds the knowable to 
 the Unknowable. It is the one supreme testimony of 
 unity and design, of intelligence and justice, in nature. 
 Karma is but another name for the great Unknowable, 
 CAUSELESS CAUSE. 
 
 Effect follows cause in the emergence of Cosmos from 
 chaos; in the struggle for existence among the newly 
 
KARMA. 221 
 
 formed bodies of a solar system; in the " process of the 
 suns" as they wing their way around their inconceivably 
 vast orbits; in the aberrations of an Uranus, revealing the 
 presence of a Neptune; in the involution and evolution of 
 humanities; in the birth, life, and death of a man, of a 
 molecule, or of a planetary system; in the racial, national, 
 or social environments of the individual; in the presence 
 of evil and injustice in the world; in the intellectual 
 capacity of men; in their appetites, passions, and desires; 
 in their spiritual aspirations; in their diseases and vices; 
 in short, in every conceivable juxtaposition or combina- 
 tion of thought, act or event, the Law is absolute ; Karma, 
 all-pervading. As far as the most daring generalizations 
 of the human mind can reach, its sway is absolute. No 
 exception can be postulated. Even the CAUSELESS 
 CAUSE, the final goal of all rational philosophies, seems 
 to yield obeisance to this law which proceeds out of its 
 own abysses, for the manifestation of universes would 
 appear to be only links in an Infinite Cycle of Necessity. 
 Once the universality of the action of Karma is recog- 
 nized, we have a safe basis for our future explorations. 
 It is an unfailing touchstone, wherewith we can test the 
 truth of any proposition, whether religious, scientific, or 
 philosophical. Its application to the problems of human 
 life to which, indeed, the term is commonly limited 
 constitutes the motive of this chapter. The importance 
 of this phase of its study cannot be overestimated when 
 we recognize that our whole life is but a succession of 
 Nidanas, a chain of causes and effects, of which each ef- 
 fect becomes a cause in its own turn, and so on, in end- 
 less progression. No act, however trivial; no thought, 
 however faint; no emotion, however fleeting but is a 
 
222 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 cause, a bit of woof woven in the warp of our being, and 
 giving it color and texture. An idle word how often it 
 changes a whole life; a thoughtless act, whose effects, or 
 karma, follow us to and even beyond the grave ! For it 
 is a portion of this law that while any act or thought of 
 ours may have its effect either within us, or externally 
 upon others, the reaction, which is this effect become a 
 cause again, must expend itself upon us individually. 
 And it is most difficult to judge of the comparative mag- 
 nitude of the causes we set in motion. A pebble 
 thrown into the 'ocean seems a trifling cause, yet every 
 separate drop in all the vast expanse of waters has to 
 readjust its relations, as a direct and purely physical 
 effect. And in addition to this permanent readjust- 
 ment, the law of reaction, or restored equilibrium, re- 
 quires every iota of force thrown off by the falling peb- 
 ble to be returned to its source. In other words, the 
 pebble has to receive a shock equal to that which it set 
 in motion. In this simile, the original cause would be 
 the falling pebble; its effect, the readjustment of the 
 waters of the entire ocean; the reaction, or its personal 
 Karma, the impulse of returning pressure, which, in rela- 
 tion to it, has become a cause again. In like manner, 
 every act or thought of a man affects as a cause all 
 other men in some degree, and this effect upon them will 
 be returned to him, as a new cause, modifying his being 
 to the extent of the effects it originally produced. . 
 
 It will thus be seen how impossible it is for any one to 
 separate his Karma from that of his fellow-men. The 
 interweaving and correlations are necessarily infinite; and 
 naught but infinite wisdom, as embodied in the divine 
 law of Karma, could mete out exact justice to us for all 
 
KARMA. 223 
 
 the multiform deeds of a lifetime. Isolation is a chimera. 
 A Crusoe, on a desert island, will reach out to and affect 
 the whole mass of humanity; for the pictures of his acts 
 and thoughts, reflected in the astral light, will be re-reflect- 
 ed upon the physical plane, and influence to some degree 
 the thought of the world. No man can think a good 
 thought without the whole of humanity being somewhat 
 the better for it ; no man can sin against his higher nature 
 without lowering the moral standard of the whole world 
 to some extent. 
 
 This inevitable and necessary interblending of all our 
 Karmas forms a true and scientific basis for the The- 
 osophic conception of universal brotherhood; a reason, 
 logical and necessary, for the practice of altruism. It 
 also affords an occasion for the separation of karmic ad- 
 justments into classes, according as these relate to the in- 
 dividual himself or to his immediate or remote environ- 
 ments. Thus that aspect which views the Karma of all 
 the units as one great whole would be termed world 
 Karma; that which relates one to his race, his nation, his 
 community, and his family, would be respectively, race, 
 national, social, and family Karma; while the compara- 
 tively minute portion remaining would constitute his own, 
 or his individual Karma. Yet this almost infinitesimal 
 portion, this drop in the sea, is that with which we princi- 
 pally concern ourselves, as the very apotheosis of selfish- 
 ness. Our hopes, our purification, our progress, seem, to 
 our blinded eyes, of paramount importance; so subtle do 
 vanity and self-esteem become when transmuted to higher 
 planes. Bereft of intelligence, and depending upon brute 
 force alone, of how much avail would be the strength of 
 one man against the united sinews of his race, his nation, 
 
224 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 or even against his community ? In exact proportion is 
 the ratio of his Karma to that of his community, his na- 
 tion, or his race. It is lost in the great whole; it is of 
 account only before that tribunal which " numbers the 
 hairs upon our heads." Let him who would attain per- 
 sonal " salvation," who would separate his Karma from 
 that of a wicked, sinful race by retiring to the jungle, or 
 within the recesses of his own selfish heart, and there 
 practicing the most austere virtues, go out and push 
 against the side of a mountain, in the hope of retarding 
 the revolution of the earth from West to East, for the one 
 effort will be of as much avail as the other. 
 
 Are there not thousands of men, whose personal 
 Karma would entitle them to be born under conditions as 
 delightful and just as any ever depicted by a Bellamy, 
 whose moral natures quiver under the outrageous ethics 
 of our social system every hour of their lives, yet who are 
 compelled by the national Karma which overwhelms them 
 to do the very acts they loathe; to live by taking the very 
 interest, profit, or rent which they abhor? Are there not 
 tens of thousands, whose sincere efforts in other lives to 
 attain to truth would have entitled them as units to its 
 revelation, who are nevertheless born in Christian or 
 pagan lands where the racial Karma offers only crude 
 dogmas or childish creeds ? But has the justice of Karma 
 failed, then, because of this seeming injustice? Not so; 
 the efforts of these, even in the direction of truth and 
 purity, have been selfish; they have striven egotistically, 
 not altruistically; have worked for their personal salva- 
 tion, not to save others. They have created good per- 
 sonal Karma, and Karma repays them to the uttermost 
 farthing, but they have done nothing to lighten the race 
 
KARMA. 225 
 
 or national Karma, and they are engulfed in its floods. 
 It was no chance thought, no accidental insertion of a 
 "glittering generality," which declared the first object of 
 the Theosophic Society to be the formation of a nucleus 
 for an Universal Brotherhood. It evidences a wisdom 
 and knowledge of the working of the law of Karma far 
 transcending our petty conceptions. Altruistic effort is 
 the law of spiritual progress because of the commingling 
 of our Karmas; and even in selfish self-preservation, if 
 from no higher motive, we ought to practice it. We 
 recognize the injustice, the falsity, the hollowness of the 
 social, ethical and religious customs of our time, yet we 
 accept them and raise no protesting voice, because the 
 whole world is against us, or we fancy it is. Can we 
 charge it to the injustice of this divine law, then, if our 
 next incarnation find us the son of a money-changer, with 
 the lust of gold tainting our very mothers' milk? If the 
 world is too hard for us now, will it not be so then ? Let 
 us exercise a little common sense in our study of Karma; 
 let us remember that it is simply " cause and effect," and 
 cannot but be just. 
 
 There is too much of the Christian idea of the entire 
 separation of earthly from heavenly concerns abroad in 
 the land. If we find this world in a bad state morally 
 and ethically, we must logically expect to find it in a sim- 
 ilar one when we reincarnate, especially if we did nothing 
 towards lightening the world Karma. Cause precedes 
 effect, on all planes. Our first duty, to be sure, is to 
 make ourselves personally pure, because this is always at 
 hand, and always practicable; our next, to strive for the 
 elevation of our community, then our state, our nation, 
 our race; each member of which ascending series includes 
 
226 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 all below it, so that in working for humanity we are puri- 
 fying our race, our nation, our community, and ourselves. 
 And the effect of the causes we set up, of the Karma we 
 generate, is the greater as we ascend the series in motive. 
 It is this which gives the thought and the act force. 
 Thought is creative, and that which aims at the elevation 
 of the race will prove incomparably more potent a factor 
 for good than that directed towards petty or selfish aims. 
 We are but as drops in the great ocean of life. Our 
 very souls are tainted by the saltness and bitterness of 
 the floods about us. The bitterness of the whole ocean 
 can only be removed, and its waters made pleasant and 
 sweet, by the sweetening and purification of each separate 
 drop. No one can do this for another, and yet each can 
 only purify himself by unselfish work for others. How 
 beautifully grand is the LAW! What a magnificent stride 
 above and beyond the brute kingdom, where the 
 Buchners, Tyndalls, Darwins, and Huxleys would perforce 
 relegate us! The law of the animal kingdom is egotism; 
 the survival of the fittest; the cruel struggle for existence. 
 The law of Karma on the human plane is altruism and 
 selflessness, and we must recognize it or perish. For 
 cause and effect are at work in higher states of matter, 
 employing subtle and unperceived forces. The childhood 
 of our race has passed. We are fast reaching our major- 
 ity, where we must take control of our own destinies, for 
 weal or woe. No longer the created, borne helplessly yet 
 safely along the mighty stream of evolution, we have be- 
 come creators, and are karmically responsible for that 
 which we create. Our mouths have learned to voice the 
 WORD. Every thought and act is potent for good or evil; 
 the finer, " unscientific" forces of nature yield obedience 
 
KARMA. 227 
 
 and obeisance whether we are aware of it or not. It is 
 not enough that we recognize the universal presence of 
 cause and effect, the omnipotence and omniscience of 
 Karma; we must realize that we are free to change and 
 direct this divine law, to our preservation or our destruc- 
 tion. This is a most important aspect of Karma, which 
 must not be lost sight of. As the whole Cosmos is the 
 thought of the Absolute, reflected in matter, so we, as a 
 part and portion of that Absolute, exercise and employ 
 creative potencies every hour of our lives. Shall we con- 
 tinue to do this ignorantly and aimlessly, or shall we take 
 a firm hold upon our destinies and guide our souls into 
 the haven of immortality? Certain it is that we must 
 make the decision soon, for we are pilgrims in the cycle 
 of necessity ; we must go forward either to safety or de- 
 struction. And this is not predicated upon the emotion- 
 alism of some wailing Jeremiah of ancient, or Buchanan 
 of modern, times; but simply and entirely for the reason 
 that EFFECT follows CAUSE. One is the upper, the other 
 the nether mill-stone of fate, and we are inextricably 
 caught between them. 
 
 It will be at once evident that, holding as it does to the 
 absolute sway of cause and effect upon every plane of the 
 universe, physical, mental and spiritual, Theosophy stands 
 in irreconcilable antagonism to the Christian dogma of 
 vicarious atonement. And herein is the chief reason why 
 most Theosophists refuse to ally themselves, even under 
 the name of Christian Theosophists, with the churches of 
 to-day. They recognize fully that Christianity is an hu- 
 mane and altruistic effort to improve the condition of 
 mankind morally and spiritually; but this error of the di- 
 vinity of Christ and his vicarious atonement is too basic 
 
228 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 in its nature, too far-reaching in its karmic results, to be 
 passed over in a silence which might be construed into 
 acquiescence. Each time that a repentant sinner is as- 
 sured that the effects of causes he himself set in operation 
 can be nullified by forgiveness from any source, he is 
 being taught an untruth which can not but imperil the fut- 
 ure development of his soul. Each time a priest pro- 
 nounces absolution over some terrified wretch whom the 
 shadow of the gallows, perhaps, has frightened into " re- 
 pentance" after a long life of selfishness and crime, he 
 assumes an authority and a power which is absolutely at 
 variance with the law to which he owes his own existence. 
 The marked contrast between the philosophical doctrine 
 of Karma and the dogma of vicarious atonement has been 
 well set forth by a recent writer.* He says: 
 
 "There is a wide gulf between the Buddhist doctrine of Karma and 
 the Christian teaching regarding the dispensing of reward and pun- 
 ishment. In proportion to that difference the moral control exer- 
 cised on human actions must differ in a corresponding degree. 
 Karma, according to Buddhism and other Eastern schools of philos- 
 ophy, is an inviolable, natural law, which controls the lives of all 
 sentient beings in the Universe, and which in its turn is not gov- 
 erned by any superior force or being. As long as thoughts and 
 actions last so long will their results, or Karma, prevail. The least 
 thing moved in space has a certain effect on the particles floating 
 thereon ; the slightest motion in water gives rise to ripple after ripple 
 until the force thereof is expended ; the gentlest sound sends forth 
 vibrations producing change somewhere ; and the very smallest 
 thought has also its tendency to disturb either the thinker or the ob- 
 ject thought of. The further such research is extended, the more 
 will the application of the karmic law to human actions prove to be 
 as true and natural as are the laws of attraction and gravitation. 
 
 *The Buddhist. 
 
KARMA. 229 
 
 Then, when it is known by man that all his thoughts and actions 
 have certain tangible and perceptible effects, and that these effects 
 have a rebounding tendency, or that they remain registered in his 
 manas skandha, to cleave to him in whatever condition he may be 
 hereafter, a lasting and powerful impression of awe and veneration 
 must be the natural result created in his mind. He who is morally 
 convinced of the inevitable effect and danger of certain thoughts and 
 actions, and of the reward which awaits him through certain others, 
 must be more deeply impressed in mind than another who entertains 
 no such belief. The Christian doctrine of the absolution of sins is a 
 total cancellation of the past whether there be crimes of the black- 
 est type or not by an act of momentary repentance, which places 
 the wretched moral leper on a par with the most exalted saint. It is 
 apparent from this fact that the votaries of Christianity must rely 
 more upon supernatural magic to ease themselves of a life burden of 
 ugly sins than upon an uncheckered course of pure, moral life. If 
 this extraordinary feat could be scientifically or otherwise demon- 
 strated, there are many in these glowing Eastern climes who would 
 readily embrace Christianity." 
 
 The writer also shrewdly draws attention to the fact, 
 emphasized in the first portion of this chapter in regard to 
 the separation by Christians of earthly from heavenly 
 concerns, that we do not apply the doctrine of the re- 
 mission of sins in our treatment of criminals to any very 
 demoralizing extent, and that the effect of such an appli- 
 cation of the laws of heaven to earthly conditions would 
 be to immeasurably increase lawlessness and crime. 
 
 The law of Karma, too, being impersonal in its action, 
 solves two of the greatest puzzles over which Christianity 
 has pondered in vain. These are the presence of evil in 
 a world created by an all-wise and all-powerful Creator, 
 and free will consistent with omniscient fore-knowledge. 
 No Christian theology has ever satisfactorily explained 
 
230 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 why an omnipotent God did not devise some means 
 whereby he might save from the eternal flames lost souls 
 which his omniscient knowledge informed him would 
 eventually be eternally lost. And if God, from all 
 eternity, knew a thing would happen, then it had to 
 happen; and just how this could be reconciled with human 
 free will was another of those conundrums whose dis- 
 tinguishing peculiarity is that they have no answer. 
 
 The Presbyterian branch, of all the protesting churches, 
 recognizes the logical necessity which follows postulating 
 both omnipotence and omniscience of a personal deity, 
 and boldly avows its belief in predestination, or fatalism. 
 As quoted from J. H. Connelly, in the Key to Theosophy^ 
 their Confession of Faith declares : 
 
 " By the decree of God and for the manifestation of his glory, some 
 men and angels are predestinated ^fcnto everlasting life, and others 
 foreordained to everlasting death. 
 
 ' ' These angels and men thus predestinated and foreordained are par- 
 ticularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain 
 
 and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished As 
 
 God hath appointed the elect to glory, neither are any other re- 
 deemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, and sanctified 
 and saved, but the Elect only. 
 
 '"The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearch- 
 able counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth 
 mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his 
 creatures, to pass by and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for 
 their sin to the praise of his glorious justice !" 
 
 This is not the ravings of some hypochondriacal, half- 
 insane prophet; it is a part of the PRESBYTERIAN CONFES- 
 SION OF FAITH, and is accepted to-day by a very large 
 class of intelligent, educated, and refined gentlemen and 
 loving, lovable women, who would no more do that which 
 
KARMA. 231 
 
 they declare their God does, daily and hourly, than they 
 would transform themselves into fiends. It is the inevi- 
 table and logical outcome of a belief whose very founda- 
 tions are laid in error. 
 
 Is Presbyterianism alone in its attributing injustice to 
 God which it would deem barbarous and unfeeling in 
 man ? By no means. No human bar of justice, imperfect 
 as is the attribute in our breasts in its present stage of 
 development, would ever doom any one to the pangs of 
 ETERNAL perdition and suffering for any act, however 
 dreadful or cruel. But all Christian sects, without excep- 
 tion, send comparatively innocent souls to this eternal 
 damnation for simply being unable to believe in and ac- 
 cept this awful Jehovah whom they have set up for wor- 
 ship. In his profession as a physician, the writer has, 
 time and again, known little infants, which some unfore- 
 seen accident deprived of life before receiving baptism, 
 refused burial in " sanctified" ground by the great 
 Catholic Church and condemned to the woes of eternal 
 torment on account of this omission a little water 
 sprinkled on an unconscious infant deciding its eternal 
 destiny ! What a conception of the philosophy of exist- 
 ence the believers in such dogmas must have ! African 
 fetich worship is more reasonable. But how can any 
 system of. faith or philosophy arrive at reasonable or 
 logical conclusions whose very base is founded in untruth 
 and error ? Like a mariner whose compass is untrue, and 
 who, therefore, only deviates the more the farther he sails, 
 so Christian creeds, being founded in error, can only hope 
 to increase their separation from truth the farther they 
 pursue any train of explanation or reasoning. 
 
 Let it be understood, once for all, that by Christianity, 
 
232 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 throughout this chapter, the writer refers to the modern 
 creeds parading under this falsely assumed title. The 
 teachings of the Essenes, of whom Christ was one, are 
 eminently Theosophic in many particulars, and both 
 Christ and Paul taught, as we have undoubted reason for 
 believing, pure Theosophy to an inner circle of disciples. 
 Only to the multitude " spake he in parables." Christ 
 was continually referring to the god within him, his 
 " Father," which, by implication at least, he taught his 
 disciples that they also possessed, for " the things that I 
 do shall ye do also, and greater because I go to my 
 Father." But he nowhere refers to himself as the Creator 
 of heaven and earth, as the purely personal egotism of his 
 latter-day followers has led them to assume. 
 
 There is no place, then, in Theosophy for the vicarious 
 atonement, or the setting aside the law of cause and 
 effect, which is the very soul of the Christian creeds of 
 to-day. Justice is not mocked by an impossible and 
 unphilosophical " forgiveness" whose sole essential is 
 repentance. As well might a dyke repent that it had 
 burst and let in the sea. Repentance itself too often 
 consists of a feeling of fear of the consequence of our act, 
 rather than a real regret for what we have done. As 
 J. H. Connelly further remarks: 
 
 ' ' The sinner is told that he must also repent, but nothing is easier 
 than that. It is an amiable weakness of human nature that we are 
 quite prone to regret the evil we have done when our attention is 
 called, and we have either suffered from it ourselves or enjoyed its 
 fruits. Possibly, close analysis of the feeling would show us that 
 which we regret is rather the necessity which seemed to require the 
 evil as a means of attainment of our selfish ends than the evil itself. 
 
 " Attractive as this prospect of casting our sins at the foot of the 
 Cross may be to the ordinary mind, it does not commend itself to the 
 
KARMA. 233 
 
 theosophic student. He does not apprehend why the student by at- 
 taining knowledge of his evil can thereby merit any pardon for or the 
 blotting out of his past wickedness; or why repentance and future 
 right living entitle him to a suspension in his favor of the universal 
 law of relation between cause and effect. The results of his evil 
 deeds continue to exist; the suffering caused to others by his wicked- 
 ness is not blotted out. The Theosophical student takes the result of 
 wickednes upon the innocent into his problem. He considers not 
 only the guilty person, but his victims. 
 
 "Karma, also, rewards merit as unerringly as it punishes demerit. 
 It is the outcome of every act, thought, word and deed, and by it 
 men mold themselves, their lives and happenings. Eastern philos- 
 ophy rejects the idea of a newly-created soul for every baby born. 
 It believes in a limited number of monads, evolving and growing 
 more and more perfect through their assimilation of many successive 
 personalities. These personalities are the product of Karma, and it 
 is by Karma and reincarnation that the human monad in time 
 returns to its source absolute Deity." 
 
 Karma is inextricably interwoven with reincarnation. 
 Without the latter, it would be impossible to assume, at 
 least in human affairs, that cause is invariably followed by 
 effect. The many murderers who escape detection, the 
 hordes of those who grow rich through robbing the poor, 
 the whole tendency of an age where honesty is not the 
 best policy, if one would win in the mad race for wealth, 
 all show but too plainly that one life is too short for exact 
 justice to be meted out to any one. But, " though the 
 mills of the gods grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly 
 small," and there is no more beautiful or more hope-in- 
 spiring aspect of Karma than this which shows it capable 
 of biding its time. Its eternal patience must seem awful 
 to him who is waiting his turn at the mill. There is no 
 escape. A wheat kernel has been known to lie thousands 
 
234 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 of years in the wrappings of a mummy, and then germ- 
 inate upon being restored to warmth and moisture. This 
 is the key to and the proof of that which we term delayed 
 Karma. Desire is the most potent of all forces, and we 
 may be assured that the attractions for evil things gen- 
 erated by the usurer or murderer will prove causes which 
 will find the conditions for becoming effects in some 
 future birth. So the evils which we uncomplainingly 
 suffer now will be recompensed to the utmost in some 
 bright and beautiful, though it may be far-off, life. What 
 is time to the heir of eternity? Thus the everlasting 
 patience of Karma assures us that no effort we make can 
 be without its ultimate reward ; that no wrong we inflict 
 can escape final punishment. 
 
 In closing this brief chapter upon a subject that vol- 
 umes would leave unexhausted, we can do no better than 
 to quote from the Teacher to whom the Western world is 
 indebted for this revival of an almost forgotten truth. In 
 the Secret Doctrine, Madame Blavatsky writes : 
 
 "Yes ; f our destiny is written in the stars ! ' Only the closer the 
 union between the mortal reflection, MAN, and his celestial PROTO- 
 TYPE, the less dangerous the external conditions and subsequent 
 reincarnations which neither Buddhas nor Christs can escape. This 
 is not superstition, least of all is it fatalism. The latter implies a 
 blind course of some still blinder power, and man is a free agent 
 
 during his stay on earth Those who believe in Karma 
 
 have to believe in destiny, which, from birth to death, every man is 
 weaving, thread by thread, around himself, as a spider does his cob- 
 web ; and this destiny is guided either by the heavenly voice of the 
 invisible prototype outside of us, or by our more intimate astral or 
 inner man, who is but too often the evil genius of the embodied 
 entity called man. Both these lead on the outward man, but one of 
 them must prevail ; and from the very beginning of the invisible 
 
KARMA. 235 
 
 affray, the stern and implacable law of compensation steps in and 
 takes its course, faithfully following the fluctuations. When the 
 last strand is woven and man is seemingly enwrapped in the net- 
 work of his own doing, then he finds himself completely under the 
 
 empire of this self-made destiny There is no return from the 
 
 paths Karma cycles over ; yet these paths are of our own making, 
 for it is we, collectively or individually, who prepare them. Karma- 
 Nemesis is the synonym of PROVIDENCE, minus design, goodness 
 and every other finite attribute or qualification, so unphilosophically 
 attributed to the latter. An Occultist or A philosopher will not 
 speak of the goodness nor cruelty of providence, but, identifying it 
 with Karma-Nemesis, he will teach that nevertheless it guards the 
 good and watches* over them in this, as in future lives ; and that it 
 punishes the evil doer aye, even to his seventh re-birth. So long, 
 in short, as the effect of his having thrown into perturbation even 
 the smallest atom in the infinite world of harmony, has not been 
 finally readjusted. For the only decree of Karma an eternal and 
 immutable decree is absolute harmony in the world of matter as it 
 is in the world of spirit. It is not, therefore, Karma which rewards 
 or punishes, but it is we who reward and punish ourselves according 
 to whether we work with, through, and along with nature, abiding 
 by the laws on which that harmony depends, or break them. 
 
 " Nor would the ways of Karma be inscrutable were men to work 
 in union and harmony instead of disunion and strife. For our 
 ignorance of these ways which one portion of mankind calls the 
 ways of Providence, dark and intricate, while another sees in them 
 the action of blind fatalism, and a third, simple chance, with neither 
 gods nor devils to guide them would surely disappear, if we would 
 but attribute all these to their correct cause With right knowl- 
 edge two-thirds of the world's evil would vanish into thin air. 
 
 Were no man to hurt his brother, Karma-Nemesis would have 
 neither cause to work, nor weapons to act through. It is the con- 
 stant presence in our midst of every element of strife and opposition, 
 and the division of races, nations, tribes, societies and individuals 
 into Cains and Abels, wolves and lambs, that is the chief cause of 
 
236 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 the ways of Providence. We cut these numerous windings in our 
 destinies daily with our own hands, while we imagine that we are 
 pursuing a track on the royal high road of respectability and duty, 
 and then complain of these ways being so intricate and dark. We 
 stand bewildered before the mystery of our own making, and the 
 riddles of life that we will not solve, and then we accuse the great 
 Sphynx of devouring us. But, verily, there is not an accident of our 
 lives, nor a mishappen day, nor a misfortune that could not be 
 traced back to our own doings in this or another life. 
 
 "The law of Karma 'is inextricably interwoven with that of Re- 
 incarnation It is only this doctrine that can explain the myster- 
 ious problem of good and evil, and reconcile man to the terrible and 
 apparent injustice of life. Nothing but such certainty can quiet our 
 revolted sense of justice. For, when one acquainted with the noble 
 doctrine looks around him and observes the inequalities of birth and 
 fortune, of intellect and capacities ; when one sees honor paid to 
 fools and profligates, on whom fortune has heaped her favors by 
 mere privilege of birth, and their nearest neighbor, with all his 
 intellect and noble virtues far more deserving in every way perish- 
 ing for want and for lack of sympathy ; when one sees all this and 
 has to turn away, helpless to relieve the undeserved suffering, one's 
 ears ringing and one's heart aching with the cries of pain around 
 him, that blessed knowledge of Karma alone prevents him from 
 cursing life and men as well as their supposed Creator. This law, 
 whether conscious or unconscious, predestines nothing and no one. 
 It exists from and in eternity truly, for it is eternity itself; and as 
 such, since no act can be co-equal with eternity, it cannot be said to 
 act, for it is action itself. It is not the wave which drowns the man, 
 but the personal action of the wretch who goes deliberately and 
 places himself under the impersonal action of the laws that govern 
 the ocean's motion. Karma creates nothing, nor does it design. It 
 is man who plants and creates causes, and karmic law adjusts the 
 effects, which adjustment is not an act but universal harmony tend- 
 ing ever to resume its original position, like a bough which, bent 
 down too forcibly, rebounds with corresponding vigor. If it happen 
 
KARMA. 237 
 
 to dislocate the arm that tried to bend it out of its natural position, 
 shall we say it is the bough which broke our arm, or that our own 
 folly has brought us to grief? Karma has never sought to destroy 
 intellectual and individual liberty, like the god invented by the 
 monotheists. It has not involved its decrees in darkness purposely 
 to perplex man, nor shall it punish him who dares to scrutinize its 
 mysteries. On the contrary, he who unveils, through study and 
 meditation, its intricate paths, and throws light on those dark ways, 
 in the windings of which so many men perish owing to their ignor- 
 ance of the labyrinth of life, is working for the good of his fellow- 
 men. Karma is an absolute and eternal law in the world of mani- 
 festation ; and as there can only be one absolute, one eternal, ever- 
 present cause, believers in Karma cannot be regarded as atheists or 
 materialists, still less as fatalists, for Karma is one with the Un- 
 knowable, of which it is an aspect, in its effects in the phenomenal 
 world. ' ' 
 
 The confusion of Karma with predestination or fatalism 
 can easily be avoided by remembering that our Karma is 
 predestined to the extent that we must experience the 
 effects of causes we have set up in past lives, only. Yet, 
 even while suffering, this effect changes into a new cause, 
 according to our mental attitude towards it. Thus he 
 who has been sent by deeds done in past lives into a 
 diseased body, by his fortitude in bearing this just effect 
 of his own acts can rise on the " stepping-stones of his 
 dead self to higher things"; while, by rebellion and rail- 
 ings against what he is pleased or taught to call " fate," 
 he enacts new causes whose effects can but be unfavorable. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ETHICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 YT7HE truth of the reincarnation of the human soul car- 
 ries with it as necessary corollaries most important 
 ethical conclusions. It establishes a philosophic and 
 legitimately scientific basis for human conduct some- 
 thing that the world has not had since the perversion of 
 the teachings of Christ, during the second and third 
 centuries of this era. Even at that time the real gnosis 
 underlying Christ's tenets was only trusted in the hands 
 of an inner circle of disciples, and by no means given to 
 the world at large. " Cast not your pearls before swine," 
 taught this Master, which reservation may have afforded 
 the very opportunity for perversion by prohibiting the 
 giving out of the real truth when erroneous teachings 
 began to creep in through the ignorance of the Church 
 Fathers. Certainly, not within the records of modern 
 history has there been such an unveiling of Isis, such 
 light thrown upon the problems ^of human life, as in the 
 writings of Madame H. P. Blavatsky, which goes to prove 
 that human necessity must have been very urgent for the 
 Custodians of the Archaic Wisdom to have permitted this 
 profuse giving out of sacred and secret teachings. 
 
 At any rate, enough light has been thrown upon man's 
 relation to his fellow-men and to nature to afford a sound 
 basis for human ethics. As a part of the great Whole, as 
 an emanation from a higher Logos, and constituting him- 
 self a lower one, a knowledge of these relations is of 
 infinite importance in its determining influence upon not 
 
ETHICAL CONCLUSIONS. 239 
 
 only his highest hopes, aspirations, ambitions, but also 
 upon his every thought and act in his daily life. Know- 
 ing this life to be but a school for preparing him for a 
 higher and happier one, and that this happier existence 
 cannot be attained by any sycophantic adulation, cajoling 
 of or forgiveness by an imaginary Jehovah, but must be 
 won under the iron law of cause and effect; and, further, 
 that, like pupils in our public schools, he will be kept in 
 this grade of sin and suffering by continually reincarnat- 
 ing until he himself earns his promotion to a higher one 
 man cannot but begin to examine his motives more 
 closely, to pay some attention to the debtor and creditor 
 account of a karma as accurate as it is inevitable. 
 
 Under the short-sighted Western conception of but one 
 existence upon this earth, the numerous and grossly pal- 
 pable failures in justice, in human affairs, have exerted a 
 most pernicious influence upon human ethics. Solomon, 
 indeed, declared that he had never " seen the righteous 
 forsaken, nor his seed begging bread"; but the very reverse 
 obtains under our social system, in which, as caustically 
 remarked by Madame Blavatsky, we have made of vice 
 an art and of selfishness a basis for ethics. We loudly 
 claim that " honesty is the best policy," while thousands 
 of millionaires who have come dishonestly by every 
 penny of their hoards not only go down to peaceful and 
 honored graves, but with the assurance signed, sealed, 
 executed, and the " cash " equivalent receipted for of 
 eternal happiness in the future. 
 
 Under the broader view, all these apparent failures in 
 justice are recognized as only apparent, and not real, 
 human self-respect is restored ; and the intuitive belief that 
 honesty is the best policy, obscured by the one-life hori- 
 
240 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 zon, becomes magnificently demonstrated as these hori- 
 zons are seen to stretch away into an infinite perspective. 
 Recognizing that we ourselves have made the bitter pres- 
 ent by an unwise past, that we have not been unjustly and 
 causelessly born into this sphere of existence the helpless 
 victims of fate or of accident, we can set ourselves cheer- 
 fully to right by the light of the broader conception, 
 environments, both physical and mental, which we know 
 to be but the meting out of exact and impersonal justice to 
 us. By the light of Reincarnation and Karma, we per- 
 ceive that the social injustices with which our civilization 
 is now cursed are rooted too deeply to be plucked out by 
 merely changing our laws. Human desires and motives 
 must be radically changed, and this can only be done by 
 making man aware of his true nature and god-like destiny. 
 Then he will recognize that all the evils which now 
 threaten to engulf humanity in a sea of anarchy and 
 bloodshed arise wholly out of yielding to the dominance 
 of the animal portion of his being are on the animal 
 plane and that all appeals to force or violence can only 
 still further arouse and strengthen those brutal elements 
 to control and spiritualize, which (s the chief reason for 
 incarnation upon this earth. Social and political reform 
 must proceed, like every other process in nature, from 
 within without; and when the inner desire to act justly 
 shall have arisen, the outer act will quickly conform. 
 Meanwhile, no effort to show the real unity and solidarity 
 of humanity is of as great importance as the popularizing 
 of the teachings of Reincarnation, which distinguishes the 
 true man and his necessities from the false one with his 
 illusionary ambitions, and Karma, which shows that social 
 as well as all other evolution takes place under the law of 
 cause and effect, and cannot but act justly. 
 
ETHICAL CONCLUSIONS. 241 
 
 Aside from social and political considerations, the twin 
 truths of Reincarnation and Karma, when once clearly 
 comprehended, satisfy the religious element which is, or 
 ought to be, so deeply engrafted in every human heart. 
 It has been well and truly said that " religion is for the 
 wise, and superstition for the ignorant"; and within these 
 teachings only is to be found that food which will supply 
 the need of rational and philosophical men for a scientific 
 and philosophical religion. Therefore, from the religious 
 standpoint, this inquiry into the nature and functions of 
 the soul is amply justified. Blind faith alone fails ; creeds 
 are but idle patterings and empty sounds; man must 
 know his destiny, or the incentive to upward exertion is 
 largely paralyzed. Reason teaches us that death cannot 
 transport us where we are not now; cannot act as a kind 
 of moral filter, that in some miraculous way will remove 
 the impurities of our lower nature, and fit us for habita- 
 tion in some high or " heavenly " sphere, nor, failing this, 
 transport us to some inconceivably horrible hell. The 
 chain of life is formed of continuous links. We have 
 become what we are by an infinite series of past lives; 
 we have to work out our future destiny by an infinite ser- 
 ies of lives to come. Here, where we are struggling in 
 the bonds of matter, is our only " hell," the law of cause 
 and effect our sole punisher, and " heaven " our release 
 from sensuous existence either temporarily by death, or 
 wholly through our evolving beyond sensuous necessities. 
 The warning voice of conscience is but the voice of our 
 Higher Ego, speaking as the result of actual experience 
 and wisdom. And because the seat of conscience is, of 
 necessity, in the Higher Ego, it therefore seems to us as 
 though it came from some outside source, when it is in 
 
242 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 reality our true self, vainly endeavoring to guide and con- 
 trol the coarse and unwieldly physical machine, to which 
 it finds itself karmically attached, and with which it is 
 therefore so closely inter-related that the one must ever 
 react upon the other. Out of this action and reaction 
 grows the real battle of life; the tide turning now this 
 way and now that. Knowing all this, man will rest 
 secure in the Divine law of cause and effect, which 
 neither punishes nor rewards, but wisely, justly, and inex- 
 orably adjusts each cause to its corresponding effect. 
 Knowing himself to be the arbiter of his own destiny, he 
 will cease to complain; cease to attribute his sorrows and 
 sufferings to the ways of a mysterious providence; and 
 recognizing that nothing has come nor can come to him 
 which is not his own by virtue of having created or caused 
 it, he will begin the warfare against his lower nature with 
 a strength of purpose and determination to succeed im- 
 possible before this realization. The worlds, the stars, and 
 suns will no longer be created solely for him, but rather 
 he for them. Even the strife in nature, the cruel struggle 
 for existence, will not seem so dreadful when he realizes 
 that nothing is really slain; that "he who slays and he 
 who thinks himself slain are alike deceived." Nor will he 
 longer trust to forms and creeds, but instead will retire to 
 the inner chamber of his own heart and worship silently 
 that which is equally at the basis of his soul as it is at the 
 base of the flower or stone, the Unknowable, Inconceiv- 
 able Causeless Cause. 
 
 Realizing through these teachings the actual, dynamic 
 brotherhood of mankind ; that the fall of one proportion- 
 ately hurts and retards the advancement of the race; and 
 that the attainment of the goal of assured immortality by 
 
ETHICAL CONCLUSIONS. 243 
 
 but one faithful, unselfish, sacrificing soul shortens in 
 some degree the weary path to be trod by his brother 
 men he will merge all merely selfish longings in the 
 realization of the help to others thus afforded by his own 
 toil, and patiently and tranquilly work for Humanity, un- 
 terrified by life and undismayed by death. 
 
 Rightly comprehended, then, Reincarnation comes to 
 us as a message of hope, of love, and of Divine encourage- 
 ment. To those who so pitifully cling to youth and the 
 pleasures of the young, it holds the promise of renewed 
 youth, life after life. To him who has been conquered in 
 the battle of life, it offers other opportunities for further 
 and more efficient battling. To all it promises that no 
 effort shall be lost, nor without its reward; that the aspir- 
 ations unable to be realized now shall find full fruition 
 then ; that the very loved ones of this life, so rudely torn 
 from us by death, will be again attracted by and drawn to 
 us in our next earth-life, to renew the interrupted associa- 
 tions. 
 
 But the great, the all-important lesson Reincarnation 
 teaches is that our powers are infinite, our opportunities 
 eternal, and our goal god-liice. Our progress is illimitable, 
 and death but a brief rest in a way-side inn, as we journey 
 along. After each death, upon reincarnating, we take up 
 our earth life at the precise point we laid it aside; thus 
 ever increasing our wisdom through continuous experi- 
 ence. A perfect knowledge of earth limitations requires, 
 as we have seen, that each man should undergo every 
 possible phase of human experience; should subdue every 
 variety of human passion, and resist every form of temp- 
 tation. Only by reincarnation is it possible to do this; to 
 round out and develop patience, fortitude, pity, benevo- 
 
244 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 lence, and a host of other god-like attributes; all of which 
 have to be refined out of the crucible of actual experience 
 and suffering. One life is all too short for the lessons of 
 sympathy and love we have to learn, ere we develop com- 
 passion for the woes of others from the fires of our own 
 purification, from the ashes of our sacrificed passions. 
 One life is all too short for us even to approximate that 
 condition of spirituality which would permit us to exist 
 for a moment on planes where earthly concerns and de- 
 sires are utterly unknown. After the great deep had 
 brought forth life in its waters, it took ages for the water- 
 breathing vertebrates to so accustom themselves to the 
 purer, rarer air that life in its thin gases became possi- 
 ble for them. So with man's spiritual nature. How ab- 
 surd, how impossible, to fancy him as capable of living 
 under spiritual conditions before he has developed the 
 spiritual power! He must conquer every earthly passion, 
 subdue every mortal desire, and keenly realize the unsat- 
 isfying nature, the instability, of material life, before he 
 can hope to attain to the life spiritual. At present man 
 is little more than a savage in his instincts, appetites, and 
 passions. Let him first become a MAN, with all the mag- 
 nificent meaning and prophecy in the word, before he as- 
 pires to the Elysean fields of the Gods. Yet these fields 
 are surely his, both by birthright and as the meed of toil 
 and suffering, if he but persist in the warfare, if he but 
 prove faithfnl to the one talent placed in his keeping 
 during this life; renewing his courage and hope in the 
 knowledge that greater and still greater opportunities will 
 be afforded him in future lives by the return of his soul to 
 earth through the golden gate of REINCARNATION. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 EMBRYOLOGY, AND REINCARNATION. 
 
 WHILE not falling strictly within the purpose of this work, there 
 are certain facts connected with the very beginnings of physical 
 life that are of sufficient interest and importance to merit brief notice. 
 For these facts the world is indebted to scientific investigation; for 
 the explanation of them, it must look to the philosophies of the East. 
 All life in the organic kingdoms of nature proceeds from a cell; 
 this cell being in essence a unit body of protoplasm. Subjected to 
 chemical analysis after death, Protoplasm differs in its chemical con- 
 stituents in no wise from matter undoubtedly belonging to the so- 
 called inorganic kingdom beneath, thus showing plainly that in 
 matter itself is not to be found the cause of the subsequent evolution 
 of form and function; but that something besides mere chemical 
 properties has been added to the material molecules. This is further 
 shown by the fact that the chief difference in the simple protozoic or 
 protophytic cell and the highly organized and synthesized plant or 
 animal consists in the fact that in the cell the function is complex, 
 while in the plant or animal it is the form. The beginnings of life 
 thus traced down to the unit cell of protoplasm seems a very simple 
 and basic starting point, when, in fact, it is the form only which has 
 become simplified, the function has been plunged into a more intri- 
 cate maze of obscurity. That which in the higher organism was the 
 work of hosts of differentiated cells and complex organs, is in the cell 
 all accomplished without any such aid; the simple, unorganized, un- 
 differentiated speck of Protoplasm performing many of the complex 
 and all of the necessary functions of life without any of that speciali- 
 zation of labor, in the complex form. Desiring to change its locality, 
 limbs are protruded for the occasion; feeling hungry, a temporary 
 stomach is manufactured, and so on; all the varied functions of loco- 
 motion, nutrition, reproduction, digestion, with many others, being 
 done by means of the same un differentiated protoplasmic substance, 
 showing clearly that there is an inner power merely using the proto- 
 plasm to exhibit these functions. It is thus seen that the function 
 which seemed so simple when the form was complex has almost 
 passed beyond the possibility of explanation when the form in turn 
 has become simple. 
 
246 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 It is evident that the idea of all subsequent evolution of form is po- 
 tentially present in the first simple cell, and that all modification or 
 differentiation which follows is but the slow expression of this ideal 
 potency in form. Therefore, an entity utterly without experience 
 upon this plane would of necessity begin in the humblest forms, and 
 only very gradually modify these as the result of widened conscious 
 experience. The fact that in the lowly forms of life the function 
 greatly exceeds the form in complexity shows conclusively that there 
 is an inner entity synthesizing these functions, and that evolution in 
 all its phases is but the outer response to the inner idea, and, as ideas 
 necessitate an ideator, an inner entity is therefore necessitated. 
 
 In these humblest beginnings of life, too, are to be found many an- 
 alogies to and confirmations of the tenet of Theosophy that every- 
 thing in the Universe proceeds out of Unity and will rebecome Unity 
 when the Universe disappears objectively and enters upon its subjec- 
 tive cycle, or Pralaya. In its first differentiation or manifestation 
 this Unity evolved Duality, which Duality, together with the Force 
 which brought it about, constitute the three Basic Aspects or Hypos- 
 tases of the Absolute. Transposing these terms to the physical 
 plane, in Protoplasm may be recognized the analogue of Primordial 
 Substance; it being, in its relation to this plane, homogeneous and 
 capable of differentiation into any organic form, no matter how com- 
 plex the latter may be. The intelligence which guides and the force 
 which brings about further evolutionary processes are the correspond- 
 ences to the Conscious-Aspect and Force-Aspect of the Causeless 
 Cause, respectively. 
 
 Taking up some of the processes of Embryology, we can find 
 therein the analogies to the Creative processes upon even the highest 
 planes. Thus the Basic Unity is shown in the unit cell of proto- 
 plasm; duality supervenes in its first and entirely inexplicable 
 fission. In its further differentiation into ectoderm endoderm and 
 mesoderm, there is a purely physical correspondence of a law which 
 obta'ins upon the plane of the very highest differentiation. In the 
 central development of Spencer, may be recognized the archaic 
 symbol of the Point in the Circle; in the axial, the point has become 
 a line or diameter, and so on. The symbology of the Bast becomes 
 luminous with meaning once it is intelligently applied to nature's 
 processes. 
 
 Within and because of this Primordial Duality arise all of those 
 polar opposites, such as attraction and repulsion, positive and neg- 
 ative states, spirit and matter, and upon the purely physical plane 
 
EMBRYOLOGY, AND REINCARNATION. 247 
 
 male and female. That sex is a differentiation upon the physical 
 plane only, is shown by the fact that all reproduction is at first purely 
 asexual. Sex, upon this plane, corresponds to a principle which 
 causes differentiation upon those higher. As the| Protoplasm re- 
 sponds more and more to the inner energy, there is first the cell 
 specialization for the reproductive act, and then this differentiation, 
 with many variants and partial reversions to the primal type, be- 
 comes extended to individuals. Sexual differentiation is but another 
 instance of the widening of conscious area through experience of the 
 "pairs of opposites." As a purely physical process, the theory of 
 anabolic and katabolic differentiation of energy very probably ex- 
 plains its origin; but the inner cause of the anabolism and katabolism 
 is still as much a mystery as ever unless we recognize the inner en- 
 tity undergoing conscious experience in the only school and by the 
 sole method of which we can conceive that of experience of the 
 " opposites," by virtue of which the very Universe itself exists. Sex 
 exemplifies the positive and negative forces or aspects of the Abso- 
 lute upon the purely physical plane. 
 
 That there is an inner entity thus continuously widening its con- 
 scious area through evolution is the only logical deduction from the 
 phenomena of evolution itself. All of that careful examination and 
 cautious ratiocination by which it is proven that the fowl, for in- 
 stance, has been evolved from the fish, only emphasizes the fact that 
 it must be the same inner entity which was the fish, arid which is 
 now the fowl. If it has been necessary to take the first steps 
 towards constructing a bird by building a fish form, this proves that 
 the idea of the bird was present, and slowly modifying the fish 
 throughout its entire existence as a fish. To disconnect the fish from 
 the bird for a single moment is to overthrow the entire evolutionary 
 process. If the one is really the modification of the other, then both 
 throughout their respective evolutionary cycles are as much the same 
 entity as are the child and the man, or the butterfly and the cater- 
 pillar. Kither they are connected causally by the evolutionary 
 modification of the one from the other, or they are not. If, as evo- 
 lution declares, they are thus connected, then it is the same entity 
 which has, during the whole period, been slowly evolving different 
 and more perfect forms. There is no logical escape from this con- 
 clusion. 
 
 Without pursuing further the subject of reproduction in general, 
 there are many facts in human embryological detail which go to 
 prove that this process is a specific obedience of the outer Protoplasm 
 
248 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 to an inner, intelligent force. Among these is the wonderful response 
 of the uterus to the stimulation of the developing embryo. If this 
 were a purely mechanical stimulation, due to the presence of the 
 embryo, other foreign bodies ought to call out the same or a similar 
 response. But this is not the case. The womb will quickly expel 
 any invader of its cavity; even a tumor in its walls is often extruded 
 as a polypus. Instead, however, of attempting to expel the fecun- 
 dated cell, every effort is made by the uterus to retain and nourish 
 it. There is poured out from the uterine walls an abundant supply 
 of the most highly nutritious, albuminous pabulum from which the 
 growing embryo builds its marvelously perfect body ; each tissue 
 under the guidance of the inner entity differentiating out of the com- 
 mon protoplasmic stock. 
 
 At this point, perhaps, it may be well to call attention to the 
 grossly incorrect "scientific" teaching concerning the nutrition of 
 the fetus, if but to show how carefully one must examine even the 
 most unquestioned scientific statements if he would avoid steering 
 into the Charybdis of dogmatic assertion in endeavoring to keep 
 clear of the Scyllae of ignorance. This teaching is to the effect that 
 the fetus is nourished through the placenta. The true modus ofierandi 
 was discovered by the author during a series of experiments extend- 
 ing over i882-'83, and was first published in the American Jonrnal of 
 Obstetrics in 1884, in a paper entitled " A New Theory of Fetal 
 Nutrition," from which I shall freely quote. This theory is, that 
 once conception has taken place the fetus is nourished by absorb- 
 tion of nutritive material secreted and poured into the uterine cavity 
 from its walls, and that the office of the placenta is purely respiratory, 
 or an oxygen carrier and carbonic acid gas remover. The facts 
 which prove this to be the correct view are: 
 
 i. The constant presence of nutritive substances in the amni- 
 otic fluid during the entire period of gestation. 2. The certainty 
 of this fluid being absorbed by a developing fetus constantly bathed 
 in it. 3. The permeability of the digestive tract at an early period, 
 and the necessary entrance therein, according to the laws of hydro- 
 statics, of the albuminous amniotic fluid. 4. The presence of 
 meconium in the intestine, urine in the bladder, and bile in the 
 upper intestine all in their normal locations. 5. The mechanical 
 difficulties opposing direct nutrition through the placenta. 6. 
 The absence of a placenta until the third month, and its entire ab- 
 sence in the non-placental mammalia. 7. The maternal source 
 of the fluid, as shown by the hydrorrhoeas, etc., of pregnancy. 
 
EMBRYOLOGY, AND REINCARNATION. 249 
 
 The presence of meconium a residue after absorbtive digestion 
 and of urine and bile are all incompatible with the theory of nutri- 
 tive material being conveyed to the embryo through the placenta ; 
 but the most prominent fact enumerated above is the constant pres- 
 ence of albumen in the amniotic fluid. This constant presence 
 means that it is not accidental. One of the most plausible theories 
 as to the uses of the amniotic fluid is that it constitutes a kind of 
 water cushion to protect the embryo from mechanical injury. This 
 is no doubt one use. But if this were all we would not find nature 
 supplying a very precious and costly to the mother ingredient, or 
 albumen. This would be worse than a blunder. It would be a crime 
 against maternity. If we suppose, with Lusk and a host of other 
 authors, that the source of this fluid " is at first simply an exudate 
 from the tissues of the fetus," and, later, " urine secreted and 
 voided by the fetus," we have the highly "scientific" anomaly of a 
 fetus developing a benignant Bright's disease, voiding urine contain- 
 ing as high as three per cent, of albumen, and growing fat and 
 sturdy under conditions surely fatal to an adult subjected to a similar 
 drain. In short, the further one searches for the origin and uses of 
 the amniotic fluid the wilder all hypotheses become, unless we 
 accept the simplest explanation almost invariably the best that it 
 is secreted by the intra-uterine surfaces for the nourishment of the 
 fetus. 
 
 Accepting this, the correspondence of the macrocosmic and 
 microcosmic processes is apparent. The woinb represents Cosmic 
 Space the universal matrix. The fecundated egg focalizes, synthe- 
 sizes and transmutes or transfers to the material plane the subject- 
 ive force of the reincarnating entity. From this "point in the 
 circle " exudes not the physical but the spiritual amniotic fluid, the 
 force which causes the physical fluid to flow from the uterine walls, 
 or, in the macrocosm, from Cosmic Space. Following the successive 
 upward steps in the building of its bundle of material sense organs, 
 it is easy to see that each specific process but exemplifies a general 
 law in nature. As has been pointed out, the eye is built up with all 
 its nicety of optical detail and physiological capacity for psychologi- 
 cal use without ever having received a single impulse from those 
 light waves to which science would fain teach us it is a specific re- 
 sponse. Granite boulders have been subjected to the daily stimula- 
 tion of direct light waves for untold ages; why are they not studded 
 with eyes ? Similarly with hearing. Not only is an exquisitely per- 
 fect organ built up in the absence of all but very indistinct sounds, 
 
250 A STUDY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 but this organ remains incapable of hearing until certain post-natal 
 processes have taken place. And so on; not only each sense organ, 
 but also the entire form, is constructed in specific response to an inner 
 directing energy. It. is the return to incarnation of an entity having 
 the spiritual potentialities of sense perception, which become poten- 
 cies through the opportunity afforded by fecundation and gestation. 
 There is no other rational explanation for the function building the 
 form except as the effect of an inner entity having such function in 
 potentia, if not in actu. 
 
 Thus process after process in embryology might be taken up and 
 the presence of the inner, designing entity proven ; but enough has 
 been pointed out to indicate the train of reasoning which is to be 
 applied to them all, should any desire to carry their investigations 
 further than is possible in this brief and sketchy appendix. 
 
THEOSOPHY. 
 
 The Objects of THE THEOSOPHICAI, SOCIETY are: FIRST. To form 
 the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without dis- 
 tinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color. SECOND. To promote 
 then study of Arya and other Eastern literatures, religions andsci- 
 ences. THIRD. To investigate unexplained laws of nature and the 
 psychical powers of man. 
 
 The following course of reading is recommended to inquirers, viz : 
 
 Esoteric Buddhism, paper, $0.50 
 
 Echoes of the Orient, $-5 
 
 Key to Theosophy, 1.50 
 
 Seven Principles, Besant, .35 
 Re-Incarnation, Besant, .35 
 
 Wilkesbarre Letters, . 10 
 
 Letters that Have Helped Me, . 50 
 
 cloth, 1.25 
 
 What is Theosophy ? .35 
 
 Isis Unveiled, (2 vols.) 7.50 
 
 Secret Doctrine, (2 vols.) 10.50 
 
 The principal Monthly Magazines devoted to Theosophy are : 
 
 THE THEOSOPHIST: "A Magazine of Oriental Philosophy, 
 Literature, Art, and Occultism." Conducted by Colonel Oi<COTT, 
 and published at Adyar, Madras, India. Annual Subscription, $5.00. 
 
 THE PA TH: "A Magazine devoted to the Brotherhood of Hu- 
 manity, Theosophy in America, and the Study of Occult Science, 
 Philosophy and Aryan Literature." Edited and published in New 
 York by W. Q. JUDGE, (144 Madison Avenue, New York). Annual 
 Subscription, $2.00. 
 
 LUCIFER : "A Theosophical Monthly, designed to bring to 
 Light the Hidden Things of Darkness." Founded by H. P. BI<A- 
 VATSKY. Editor ANNIE BESANT ; Sub-Editor G. R. S. MEAD ; 
 published by the Theosophical Publishing Society, 7 Duke St., 
 Adelphi, W. C. Subscription price, $4.25. 
 
 lnOF?KS. 
 
 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. 
 
 The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy. 2 Vols. Royal 
 Octavo. Cloth. $10.00 ; Postage, 50 Cents. 
 
 THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY. 
 
 Second Edition. Cloth. 307 Pages. Price, $1.50. 
 
V 
 
 ISIS UNVEILED. 
 
 A Master Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and 
 Theology. 2 Vols. Octavo. Cloth. Price, $7.50. 
 
 THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE. 
 
 Fragments from the " Book of the Golden Precepts." Price; 75 Cts. 
 
 GEMS FROM THE EAST. 
 
 ATheosophical Birthday Book Beautifully Embellished with Sketches 
 and Symbols of the Orient. Price, $1.00. 
 
 From the Caves and Jungles of Hindustan. 
 
 Full of Strange Secrets of Indian Life. Cloth 8vo, pp. 318. $1.80. 
 
 A THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY. 
 
 ' 'The above work will be found invaluable by every student of Theos- 
 ophy and Occultism. Everyone should possess a copy. " Cloth, 
 cr. 4to, pp. 389. Price, $3.00. 
 
 NIGHTMARE TALES. 
 
 With Pictorial Cover and other Illustrations designed by R. Machell. 
 
 ECHOES FROM THE ORIENT. 
 
 A Broad Outline of Theosophical Doctrines, being a Series of 21 Ar- 
 ticles. Reprinted from KATE FIELD'S WASHINGTON. BY 
 WM. Q. JUDGE. Cloth. Price, 50 Cents. 
 
 THE BHAGAVAD-GITA. 
 
 Revised and Corrected by WM. Q. JUDGE, Aryan Press Edition. $r. 
 
 The above books and magazines can be obtained by addressing the 
 Pacific Coast Committee for Theosophic Work, 1504 Market St., 
 San Francisco. All Theosophic literature on sale, and a book list 
 containing nearly 250 Theosophic Works and information to in- 
 quirers, sent on application. 
 
 Remit by P. O. Order. to Miss Gertrude Piper, at above address. 
 

 
 
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