English
Even without attempt- ing this, a great deal of very instructive and suggestive information on the subject may, it is true, be picked up by those peculiarly qualified, from ancient Oriental literature. Most of this is maddeningly obscure, though when you know what it ought to mean you can often see that this meaning must have been present to the writer's mind. But granting that in this way from one region or another of ancient Oriental literature, it would be possible to compile an account of the great evolutionary processes of Nature, showing the origin of the solar system, the successive development of planets related to each other, the passage of the life influence through the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and the evolution of the human kingdom at last through a series of mighty races, and so on, after all the knowledge so preserved in the Eastern books, must in the first instance have been acquired by persons 46 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. qualified to direct their observation to realms of Nature beyond those penetrated by the ordinary senses. Whether knowledge concerning the higher planes of Nature was obtained bv ancient seers thousands of years ago, or by modern seers quite recently, its acquisition must of necessity depend on the exercise by some persons at one time or another of higher faculties than those concerned with the ordinary objects of sense. We may frankly recognise that the knowledge concerning Nature on which the lofty moral purpose of Theosophic teaching rests, could never have been acquired by the mere intellectual study of evidences lying within the range of mere scientific observation. ‘The gifts of seership, including the highest spiritual clairvoyance, have been brought into play in the prolonged task of educating the human mind to understand the great scheme of Nature to which that mind belongs, and from this reflection it directly follows that the cultiva- tion in ourselves of analogous faculties, is the great task on which it behoves us to enter if we would come fully into communion with the aspects of Nature from contact with which the seer’s knowledge has been developed. But not on that account need we assume that no progress in spiritual science is to be accomplished without first developing faculties that will bring us into conscious relations with higher planes of Nature. As well might we refuse to accept any knowledge concerning the stars unless we were in a position to build an observatory for ourselves, and arm ourselves with a complete comprehension of all sciences subsidiary OCCULT SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 47 to such knowledge. Through every department of human enlightenment through which culture ranges, most of us are daily in the habit of relying to a very large extent upon the original research of others. And for the great majority of mankind, for a long time to come, it will be inevitably necessary that they should rely, in dealing with the science of spiritual things, on the original research of others along those lines. But with reasonable precautions they may do this con- fidently in the one case as in the other. Of course, the situation is embarrassing at the outset in the case of psychic inquiry. In the other case the multitude know that each expert is checked and watched by a number of other experts, and it is quickly known whether any new conclusions of independent research are accepted by contemporary science. If so, the multitude accepts that guarantee. Now, at present, as regards spiritual science, we have no Royal Society at hand to put its imprimatur on progressive discoveries. Some of us know, indeed, that there is, so to speak, a Royal Society of spiritual scientists in existence, and that if we reach it we gain access to a source of authority in such matters far better to be relied on than even the élite leaders of contemporary physical science in their department of knowledge. It is from that source of information, as repeatedly explained, that the theosophical revelation of our time has come. But for reasons which patient investigation makes very intelligible, the foci of spiritual initiation are not teadily accessible to all inquirers at present, so their authority can never be invoked for the guidance of 48 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. people who are merely beginning the investigation of occult teaching. Nothing is more helpful to earnest inquirers than a clear conviction as to the existence of such foci and the conditions under which their influence radiates out into the world, but it is possible to get a long way on the path of theosophic culture before the question is taken up for thorough examination. Leaving it out of sight for the moment we have to decide how we are to investigate spiritual science without special faculties which enable us to cognise other planes of Nature and without access to any body of established knowledge, in reference to which we have as yet entire confidence. My answer is that we all have the capacities of reason that enable us to consider the statements of occult science now lying before the world, to compare them with the familiar facts of life, to test them by reference to ideal con- ceptions as to justice and purpose in the spiritual government of the world, to make prudent and careful use of the wonderful analogies of Nature that visibly in sO many ways, and inferentially in many more, bring her various phases into harmony with one another, and finally—this kind of test bringing me back to the special subject I have in hand for the moment— to apply the declarations of occult science to the great and fundamental conceptions of traditional religion, and see whether or not they offend, confirm, or illuminate the elements of those conceptions to which we may feel the deepest attachment. In reality occult science not only shows itself in fundamental harmony with great religious ideas, but OCCULT SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 49 going far beyond this, reconciles itself, so to speak, with religion; and actually invests in a great many cases with a new and beautiful significance, dogmas of exoteric religion which have gradually forfeited their true spiritual significance for a materialistic generation, which have been for many centuries taken by churches and congregations merely at the foot of the letter, to be a stumbling block for some, unhealthy food for those who have swallowed them in blind faith, taking them literally and yet refusing to bring them out, for consideration, into the light of common reason. Take for example—and merely as an example, for to go fully into the interpretation of religious dogma by the light of occultism would be to write a book on that branch of the subject alone—the Vicarious Atonement that has long taken its place as the leading doctrine of modern Christianity. The notion of a wrathful God, expending anger on an innocent being and ultimately forgiving guilty persons when his desire to take vengeance somehow has heen satisfied, is a notion that blasphemes Deity, offends justice, and is generally grotesque—and refined modern theology sublimates it more or less vaguely into something different, while leaving it in that form for humbler understandings that do not rise in overt rebellion against its horrors. Occult science on the other hand, gives us the true reading of the mysterious dogma. The whole story of the crucifixion is enacted afresh in the case of every human soul that attains spiritual exaltation. It is the allegory of the soul’s progress. It is the only process by which redemption can be 50 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. accomplished—and it is vividly appreciated as soon as we understand the occult teaching concerning the lower and the higher self. The higher self—very roughly anticipating occult explanations that will be given more fully further on—is the truly spiritual, immortal, imperishable part of a man—the growth and expansion of which into full consciousness, 1s the purpose of physical life, and its protracted experiences. That is the Divinity which incarnates, welding its consciousness during each physical life with its lower self, the visible, sinful, fallible man of our every day observation—the reflection of itself on the plane of matter. It can only exalt the personality to the plane of true spiritual evolution and redeem it from sin and suffering by crucifixion on the physical plane, by the painful sacrifice on the plane of its incarnate mani- festation of physical desires and tendencies and personal selfishness—that is to say, by the subordination of the lower self—the ordinary waking consciousness—to the Divine teaching involved in the ce aspiration of the Christ within us—the higher self. Then the atone- ment is accomplished without an atom of injustice entering into the transaction. In a similar way the whole story of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, of the rib, the temptation, and the fall, can be shown, when illuminated by occult knowledge, to be a profound cryptograph embodying some of the most important facts in the evolution of the human race—in the evolution especially of humanity as we know it now, expressed in the two sexes, from that earlier humanity belonging more to the “‘ astral ”’ OCCULT SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 51 than to the physical plane of Nature, which preceded our present, type in the great process of the descent of spirit into matter. But I need not go into the minutiz of that interpretation here. The broad prin- ciple which I am specially concerned to lay down does not really depend on, however much it is fortified by, the precise correspondence between occult teaching and the dogmas of exoteric religion—as soon as these are raised above the level of nursery tales or Icelandic sagas—by an adequate translation into terms of spiritual thought.