English
The effect of the bullet when it strikes its object has to do with the direction in which the gun was pointed, which is quite another matter. ‘These reflections, if people will only follow them out fully, will be found to account for all the complex manifestations of what is called ‘“‘ mediumship ”’ in connexion with modern spiritualism, Whether the peculiarities of psychic constitution which 408 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. such mediumship represents are held to be beautiful or pernicious gifts, they are effects which could not have been produced without a cause, and we have seen that whatever effects are discernible in character or mental or moral qualifications are effects the causes of which are to be sought for in the efforts made by their possessors at an earlier stage of their career. The conditions however of what may be called irregular psychic progress are sufficiently intimate and interesting to be studied by themselves independently of the general line of inquiry with which we are now concerned,—the conditions under which an approach is to be made in the present day to the portals of initiation. To understand these rightly it will be well at this stage to review the normal course of Re-incarnation, so as the better to appreciate the way in which at certain stages of the soul’s growth the intervention of Adept help may hasten the process for those who are ready to make soine sacrifices in the hope of getting on the faster. Let us realise, first of all, the exact purpose in the economy of Nature of the usually protracted Devachanic experiences intervening between two lives. The growth of the soul is the result to be accomplished and that growth arises from the experiences and activities of responsible life. In the case of those in whom the work is chiefly being done during physical life,—in the case of the ordinary humanity with which we are surrounded, —the doings of physical life may be thought of as accumulating ‘a large mass of ill-digested material out INITIATION IN THE PRESENT DAY. 409 of which that which is qualified to contribute to the growth of the permanent Ego must be distilled and sublimated. The entity plunges into the astral world with all his accumulated aspirations, desires, habits of life and tendencies of character thickly gathered round him; he is altogether a being of the physical plane of life; the activities of his thought have not qualified him to take advantage, to anything like their full extent, of the opportunities afforded by astral existence, still less to pass into conditions of a more purely spiritual nature. He has, as it were, to grow accustomed to the higher planes of existence, and to expand his consciousness on these so far as the efforts he has been making up to that time in this direction render the achievement possible. Perhaps this gradual indrawing into the permanent Ego of whatever experiences of life and fruit of endeavour may be susceptible of such indrawing, will be best comprehended if for a moment we look at the whole evolutionary progress from another point of view. The actual centre of consciousness, destined to grow and expand,—the Soul in the noblest and deepest sense of the term,—-is of course engendered on a loftier spiritual plane, but at first it is a centre of consciousness wholly uncharacterised by specific attributes. It is an indi- viduality, but an individuality without characteristics. It presses forward and outward, as it were, following the stream of manifestation through the various planes, but finding no resting place until it reaches the bottom of the great descent of spirit into matter, and opens its eyes to the consciousness of objective ‘creation on 4I0 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUI.. the physical plane of life. Here for the first time it begins to experience the sensation of life. The whole objective universe lies around it, and its own first con- ception of things—an illusive plane from the point of view of the higher spiritual consciousness—leads it to commence its long and gradual development by working with an idea which is often spoken of as the fundamental heresy of metaphysics,—the sense of separateness. The awakening soul on the physical plane of life feels itself one thing and the universe another, and however this idea may be destined to qualification at a much later date, it is the first aspect of individuality which neces- sarily presents itself to the germinating Ego. In the language of the nursery, so applicable in many ways to the lower earth life as compared with the higher, the first thing the Ego does in beginning to feel its capacities of reflection is to ‘“ take notice.’ It takes notice of the physical world around it, of the other creatures therein on its own level, of the opportunities it may enjoy for acquiring sensations,—the pleasurable character of some, the painful character of others. We may picture the soul to ourselves at this stage as consisting of an all but formless germ on the higher spiritual plane, the Arupa plane of Devachan, con- nected by a fine colourless thread with the lower earth life, and beginning to throw out roots and expand in contact with that lowest stratum it can touch. Of all the knowledge, experiences, emotions, constituting this expansion on the physical plane, how much is capable of being withdrawn along the thread passing through the various intervening planes of Nature into the INITIATION IN THE PRESENT DAY. 4II spiritual germ above ? Very little for the most part, but that little is drawn back by the contraction of the thread, so to speak, after the life is spent, drawn back through the various intervening planes of Nature, slowly enough, by reason of the fact that the accumula- tion, however much or little it may be, cannot be drawn upward till it has been cleansed and purified of all which only belongs to and is only capable of existence on the lowest plane. By the time the thread is entirely contracted, by the time the whole astral experience following the life has been worked out, and the minute fragments of thought and feeling capable of being drawn higher up through the spiritual planes into the true Ego—by the time all these processes have been accomplished, the permanent spiritual germ is fed with very little, but with something. It is a little more capable of consciousness on its own region, or rather, as it is always theoretically conscious and capable there, it is a little more capable of endowing that conscious- ness with variegated aspects than it was at first. To that extent, however little that extent may be, the thread, when it again extends itself downwards from the higher planes of Nature, seeking re-manifestation in the region where the sensations of life are most possible for it, is a little thicker, to to speak, than it was before; it is a somewhat better channel for the withdrawal inward of whatever it may come in contact with in the course of its second batch of experiences. And its previous expression, the first personality, which has itself disintegrated and disappeared long ago during the upward movement of consciousness after the last 412 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. life, is in a great measure re-created as the root fibre descends through the planes of Nature, by its re-absorp- tion on these various planes of matter appropriate to the expression of such characteristics as it developed before. There is no recovery, as some imperfectly expressed description of this process may have led earlier students to imagine, of the actual astral or lower manasic principles which belong to the previous life, but the Ego gathers similar principles around it afresh from the appropriate material of the various planes through which it passes, or through which it sends its root. All similes of this kind must necessarily be inapplicable at some point ; but at all events, when the physical plane of life is again reached, the personality is, so to speak, once more built up of materials resembling the materials which its own activities in the former life engendered. Here, to make the whole process more intelligible, we may study the esoteric teaching which relates to the methods, so to speak, by means of which the return- ing soul is brought into renewed relations with its old Karma. All the causes which it had set in motion in the former life (the Karma which it had engendered), were built—if we may so contemplate the idea (under the guidance of lofty spiritual agencies controlling these great developments of the world’s affairs)—into an image appropriate to express that personality in another life. This was done at the conclusion of the earth life. when the Karmic causes set in motion were complete, and the astral image awaits the returning personality and the activities of the powers in Nature concerned INITIATION IN THE PRESENT DAY. 413 with the guidance of its re-birth. In the process of re-birth the Etheric Double is actually created in advance of the physical body; it is the Etheric Double which is in turn the agency guiding the deposition of physica] molecules as the body grows, and which thus ensures the production of a form which shall accurately express the necessities of the personality, and accurately involve the rewards or penalties which may be due to his past doings. The explanation of this point is difficult because it involves so much that it has not been neces- sary in this volume to deal with in detail, but a fuller knowledge concerning the place in Nature occupied by the stupendous beings known in occult writings as the Lipika, coupled with an appreciation of the instru- mental resources available for their use in the elemental kingdom, renders the aspect of the whole process clear, symmetrical, and scientific.