THEURGY AND TRANSMUTATION – II

 Unless, however, one draws a basic distinction between the spirit and the soul of man, any effort to practice theurgy will be inverted and turn into psychism or even sorcery. Despite the Pauline classification of spirit, soul and body, Christian theology obscured the distinction between spirit and soul. Even the philosophic doctrines of the medieval Kabbalists, though they paralleled the teachings of the neo-Platonists, were not fully in accord with ancient wisdom. The neo-Platonists were, however, well aware of the dangers and seductions of all theurgy; they knew that would-be neophytes could be caught in the clutches of treacherous daimons. Those who cannot clearly distinguish between spirit and soul, cannot firmly distinguish between higher and lower daimons and theurgy will drift into thaumaturgy. As a result, they are likely to form alliances with lower hosts, worship secondary or even tertiary emanations.

 The most substantial difference consisted in the location of the immortal or divine spirit of man. While the ancient Neoplatonists held that the Augoeides never descends hypostatically into the living man, but only more or less sheds its radiance on the inner man — the astral soul — the Kabalists of the middle ages maintained that the spirit, detaching itself from the ocean of light and spirit, entered into man’s soul, where it remained through life imprisoned in the astral capsule. This difference was the result of the belief of Christian Kabalists, more or less, in the dead letter of the allegory of the fall of man.

H.P. Blavatsky

 The sad consequence of this concretized view of the Fall of man was twofold. First, by ontologically drawing spirit down to the level of soul, it made possible a dependence of spirit upon a third-degree anthropomorphic deity, Jehovah. Secondly, by repudiating the body as representing the Fall through intrinsic sinfulness, one was left with a passive conception of the soul, concerned only with salvation and damnation. The neo-Platonists, however, who viewed the soul as quite distinct from the transcendental spirit, saw no grounds for such an ontological or devotional subordination to lower daimons. They took an active view of the process whereby the soul seeks to link itself to the transcendent spirit. With regard to the spirit,

they allowed its presence in the astral capsule only so far as the spiritual emanations or rays of the ‘shining one’ were concerned. Man and his spiritual soul or the monad — i.e., spirit and its vehicle — had to conquer their immortality by ascending toward the unity with which, if successful, they were finally linked, and into which they were absorbed, so to say. The individualization of man after death depended on the spirit, not on his astral or human soul — Manas and its vehicle Kama Rupa — and body.

H.P. Blavatsky

 From this one may see the central importance of the connection between Atma-Buddhi and Manas. One may also grasp the fundamental importance of devotion to the Brotherhood of Bodhisattvas, for without devotion it is impossible to tap the energies of Atma-Buddhi. Manas is only as luminous as its capacity to focus consciously and radiate the Atma-Buddhic light. If it can do that, then Manas can displace and control kama manas, disengaging the lower Manas from kama, which means freeing the mind from excesses, excuses and evasions. All such errors arise out of the lower manas through its fearful attachment to the body and identification with class, status and property. All of these taints erode the confidence of the soul through the inherent capriciousness of the daimons and elementals within the lower vestures. They are based upon a misguided belief in some entity which holds together all these elementals; in truth, there is only a derived or borrowed sense of entitativeness which is appropriated by the quaternary. This temporary coherence is due to its link with Manas. The lower quaternary is like an image or reflection of the light occurring through an appropriate medium. If the reflective principle of the mind confuses its own image with the authentic source of its illumination, then the polarity of self-consciousness is inverted and the powers of the soul subverted. Fragmentation precludes integration.

 All efforts towards spiritual self-regeneration depend upon strengthening awareness of the shining thread which connects Atma-Buddhi to Manas, and by reflection, Atma-Buddhi-Manas to the quaternary. If this thread is not nurtured in meditation, one will not be able to alter the quality of sleep and so gain continuity of consciousness between day and night and through different states of consciousness. If one cannot do that, one will not be able to generate a strong sense of individuality and ‘I-am-I’ consciousness. One will not realize one’s Self-Being as a reflected ray of the overbrooding Dhyani, linked to the Spiritual Sun. If one cannot do this, one will always identify with one’s name and form, and spiraling downwards, fall into the midst of hosts of secondary and tertiary daimons. When the vision of the soul is deflected downward, it will look only upon that which is dark relative to the invisible radiance of spirit. Fixed by the immortal soul’s energy, this false identification with namarupa will be accompanied by a continuous exaggeration and intensification. As this misuse of divine energy is indefinitely prolonged, the immortal soul will, in time, be estranged from its ray. By assigning an exaggerated sense of reality to that which belongs to physical life, to eating, drinking, working at a job — one is generating a false sense of life, limiting both time and consciousness. This remains essentially true even if one generates a strong attachment to the concept of moral probity in connection with this incarnation. Owing to the diversion of divine energies, all identification with name and form ultimately produces dark emanations which accumulate in kamaloka, where they must be confronted soon after death.

 It is possible, however, to cooperate with the processes of individualization after death. It is possible to live in a manner that dispenses altogether with kamaloka and dispels the karmic accumulations of past attachments. But such a life requires a recognition of total responsibility. It means learning to live with no attachment to name or form. One must ask oneself who is responsible for one’s personality and body, who is responsible for one’s every thought and feeling? Who is responsible for the condition of every life-atom that enters into and emanates from one’s visible and invisible vestures? In asking these questions, one begins to withdraw identification from the instruments, to see oneself as a Monad, and to approach the state of total responsibility from above below. This responsibility extends to the entire field of one’s manifest and unmanifest interactions with all life-atoms. It extends far beyond face and form, to one’s ultimate status as a true Pythagorean spectator. Only by generating a profound sense of critical distance from all names and forms may one learn to exemplify the entirety of one’s dharma in this world.

 Forswearing all anxiety and attachment, all immodesty and false pride, one must learn to put to work in the best possible manner all the instruments and all the energies affecting all the hosts of daimons and devas involved in the human sphere. This can only be done if one develops, retains and strengthens a sense of being changeless and immortal, as Krishna taught Arjuna in the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. One must withdraw from all false ideas of vicarious atonement and salvation which are, as Plato taught in Laws, extremely harmful to the vigilant life of the spirit. Every temptation to cut corners through selfish propitiations and degrading rituals is indeed expensive karmically. The very attempt blinds the eye of wisdom, cuts the soul off from its source of light and leaves the wandering pilgrim a wretched and ridiculed victim of its false gods.

 This, in epitome, is the odyssey of the fall of the human soul since its pristine golden age in the Third Root Race. Just as the divine spiritual instruction of that period retains its impress upon the imperishable centres of the soul to this day, so too does this long karmic history lie like a series of encrustations around humanity and the earth. Because man is linked with hosts of elementals within his vestures and with hosts of daimons without, this karmic inheritance is inscribed in the spatial arena of collective human evolution. It may be discerned in the mystical and sacred geography of the globe itself. Gupta Vidya suggests that when the sevenfold host of divine preceptors descended upon earth to initiate and instruct infant humanity, they descended from Sveta Dwipa, a division of Mount Meru. They established seven divine dynasties reigning over seven divisions of the earth or globe. During the Lemurian and Atlantean ages, some of these divisions changed; others have not.

Raghavan Iyer
The Gupta Vidya II