English
Now, suppose the two observers become three or four and that their testimony does not relate to one observation but to a continual familiarity with the person or persons and places described, then the actual existence of such persons becomes as assured to you as though the testimony related to the physical plane of facts altogether. That is the state of the case for many modern Theosophists in Europe, not to speak of those in India, where pupils of the Adepts in a position to visit them out of the body, are more often encountered. The whole subject, for them, has been lifted right out of the position in which it stood when it rested on the testi- mony of the first promoters of the Theosophical move- ment. The honesty of that testimony has been abundantly vindicated, but we can afford now to rest our assurances on evidence with which it has had nothing to do. It may be convenient for me to incor- porate with this explanation the substance of a statement I put forward in a Transaction of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society in April, 1894. Referring back to the beginning of my own Theosophical studies in India, about the year 1880, I explained how, growing interested in the whole matter I became acquainted with other persons also interested. Two of these especially, natives of India, earnest spiritual- minded men, told me in course of time that they knew the “ Masters’ on the astral plane—+.e., in that extra- physical state of consciousness of which millions of 16 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. crass materialists know nothing, but of which a large number of mystic students know a great deal. A third Indian acquaintance, after acquiring astral plane knowledge of the Masters, determined to reach them personally—in the physical body—or perish in the attempt. He pushed across the Tibet frontier and, guided by astral perceptions, succeeded in his quest. He saw in the flesh those whom he and others had previously seen in vision, recognising them as such, and returning to tell of his success. Meanwhile I had been receiving a long series of letters, reaching me, apparently from certain Mahatmas, under peculiar circumstances described in my books, and conveying a mass of teaching which in due time I was enabled to publish, and in which great numbers of people have found a better clue to the coinprehension of their own nature and of the world around them than any pre- viously known religion or philosophy afforded. One all-important fact thus revealed was that the avenues of initiation were still open for people who were qualified to advance along them; that the ‘‘Masters,”’ though in seculsion, were not inaccessible for persons in whom certain interior faculties were ripe for development. Many person, including some Europeans whom I know, were inspired by this revelation to make the necessary exertions, and have learned to transfer their consciousness to the astral plane, to get about freely on that level of Nature, to obtain access to the Mahatmas, and to recognise, as also astral pupils, friends whom they know in the flesh. One such person, a European, whose development has INTRODUCTORY. 17 taken place since the formation of the Theosophical Society, first came into conscious relation with the Mahatmas while working for Theosophy in India in connection with the headquarters of the Society at Adyar. Another gained the same privileges here in Europe, scarcely knowing the persons chiefly concerned with the Theosophical Society organisation in India. Within the last year or two, other Europeans and one person of Eastern parentage, among my own circle of intimate friends, have in varying degrees acquired the faculty of consciousness on the astral plane, and of clairvoyance in the ordinary state, to the extent of being able to hold converse, when permitted, with some of the Mahatmas, or to see them when they or some of their disciples have come astrally among us. Thus I am dealing with a large group of witnesses to the truth, not with any one or two. Let me call them by letters of the alphabet, to show more definitely how their testimony hangs together.* A. went in the flesh many years ago to Tibet. C., D., and FE. have seen him with the Masters when them- selves there in the astral. B. is ‘‘dead’’ as regards the body in which I knew *In preparing the second edition of this work nine years after the publication of the first, it would be impossible for me to bring the statement which follows up to date, because to do so I should exhaust the alphabet in referring to the various persons who have since then crossed the threshold dividing mere confident belief from personal knowledge relating to the occult world. I leave the statement as it was given in the first edition as an indication of the manner in which, though not as showing the extent to which, our touch with the higher planes of consciousness has gradually been established. C 18 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. him. Being a regular disciple, his post mortem adventures do not follow the normal course. C. knew him while living in India; and sees him still from time to time in an astral body with the Masters. C. is an advanced disciple, as much at home on the astral plane, and as fully reminiscent of all that happens to him there, as though the matters dealt with were yesterday’s doings in the flesh. On the astral plane he constantly sees D., E., F., and H., all of whom know him and know one another on this plane of life, discuss what takes place when with the Masters, after returning to their normal condition, and are in all respects themselves completely in their mutual relation on the higher plane. D. has more recently attained to similar privileges, and is in the full exercise, not merely of the faculties just noticed, but also, as is indeed the case with C. likewise, of the astral and devachanic vision in the waking state mm the body. A better appreciation of what this means will be acquired by the reader, to whom the terms used may be unfamiliar, when he has gone over some of the later chapters of this book. F,.— Everything just said of C. and D. applies also to FE. in the fullest measure. C. and E. knew one another on the astral plane before they were acquainted in physical life. KE. has been in free and unrestricted relations with the Masters for several years, though only coming into the inheritance of this privilege— earned in former lives—since the activities of the Theosophical Society began. Unlike C. and D., INTRODUCTORY. 19 however, E., though also a European, reached the development described without having any touch with the Theosophical Society in the first instance. This is important with reference to preposterous hypotheses sometimes put forward with regard to “hypnotic influences.”” E. knows others of the Masters besides those of whom theosophic literature has treated, sees on the astral plane (as D. does also) both in and out of the body; has friendly relations also with F., G., and H. on the other plane. F. is not yet so far on, but knows the Masters on the astral plane; also sees D., E., and H. there constantly. G. is but just beginning to exercise the faculty of astral consciousness, and need not be more minutely explained. ; H. is in a position to be present frequently when astral meetings of pupils are held in the Masters’ presence; recollects as yet imperfectly, but is some- times able to corroborate C., D., E., and F. with respect to conversations at which all were present. Concerning the reasons why the great ‘‘ Masters of Wisdom’ have remained in the deep seclusion that has shrouded their very existence, even during recent centuries of Western progress, it would be premature to say much at this stage of my explanation. But for the sake of its direct bearing on the question I may quote a few lines from an old alchemical treatise of the seventeenth century, by a writer who was truly an occult philosopher, though availing himself of the then favourite alchemical disguise. In his Lumen de 20 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. Lumine Eugenius Philalethes, referring obviously to those whom we now speak of as the Adepts or Mahatmas, says: ‘“ Every sophister contemns them because they appear not to the world, and concludes there is no such society because he is not a member of it. There is scarce a reader so just as to consider upon what grounds they conceal themselves and come not to the stage when every fool cries—enter! No man looks after them but for worldly ends. How many are there in the world that study Nature to know God? Certainly they study a receipt for their purses, not for their souls, nor in any good sense for their bodies. It is fit that they should be left to their ignorance as to their cure, It may be the nullity of their expectations will reform them, but as long as they continue in this humour neither God nor good men will assist them.’’ The fact of the matter is, indeed, not so much that the Adepts have withdrawn into seclusion as that mankind at large in the modern world has turned a deaf ear to their teaching, until in the end it has all but forgotten their existence. As Thomas Taylor—- the indefatigable translator of the Neo-Platonists —writes in his preface to the Orphic Hymns, ‘Wisdom, the object of all true philosophy, considered as exploring the causes and principles of things, flourished in high perfection among the Egyptians first and afterwards in Greece. Polite literature was the pursuit of the Romans; and experimental enquiries increased without end and accumulated without order, are the employment of modern philosophy. . . . , INTRODUCTORY.