Man visible and invisible : examples of different types of men as seen by means of trained clairvoyance

Front matter

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Contents

CHAP.

1. How these Things are Known

G. The Earlier Outpourings

Chapter I HOW THESE THINGS ARE KNOWN

Man is a curiously complex being, and his evolution, past, present and future, is a study of perennial interest for all who can see and understand. Through what toilsome eternities of gradual development he has come to be what he is, to what round in the long ladder of his progress he has now attained, what possibilities of further progress the veil of the future con¬ ceals from us, these are questions to which few can be indifferent — questions which have been occurring all through the ages to everyone who has thought at all.

Among us in the Western world the answers given have been many and various. There has been much dogmatic assertion, based on differ¬ ing interpretations of alleged revelation ; there have been many ingenious speculations, the fruit

in some cases of close metaphysical reasoning.

But dogmatism meets us with a story which is on the face of it manifestly impossible, while speculation moves chiefly along entirely materialistic lines, and endeavours to arrive at a satisfactory result by ignoring half of the phenomena for which we have to account. Neither dogmatism nor speculation approaches the problem from a practical point of view, as a matter which can be studied and investigated like any other science.

Theosophy comes forward with a theory based upon entirely different foundations. While in no way depreciating the knowledge to be gained either by study of the ancient scriptures or by philosophical reasoning, it nevertheless regards the constitution and the evolution of man as matters, not of speculation, but of simple in¬ vestigation — not of vague theory, but of definite fact. Its statement is perfectly clear ; the past, the present, and the future of man may be examined at first-hand by all who will take the trouble to qualify themselves for the study. When so examined, they prove to be parts of a magnificent scheme, coherent and readily com¬ prehensible — a scheme which, while it agrees with and explains much of the old religious teaching, is yet in no way dependent on it, since it can be verified at every step by the use of the inner faculties which, though as yet

HOW THESE THINGS ARE KNOWN latent in the majority of mankind, have already been brought into working order by a consider¬ able number among our students.

For the past history of man, this theory depends not only upon the concurrent testi¬ mony of the tradition of the earlier religions, but upon the examination of a definite record — a record which can be seen and consulted by anyone who possesses the degree of clairvoy¬ ance requisite to appreciate the vibrations of the finely subdivided matter upon which it is impressed. For its knowledge as to the future which awaits humanity, it depends, first, upon logical deduction from the character of the progress already made ; secondly, on direct information supplied by men who have already reached those conditions which for most of us still constitute a more or less remote future ; and thirdly, on the comparison which anyone who has the privilege of seeing them may make between highly evolved men at various levels. We can imagine that a child who did not otherwise know the course of nature might reason that he would presently grow up and become a man, merely from the fact that he had already grown to a certain extent and in a certain way, and that he saw around him other children and young people at every stage of growth between his own and the adult level.

The study of the condition of man at the present time, of the immediate methods for his evolution, and of the effect upon that evolution of his thoughts, his emotions, his actions — all this is regarded by theosophical students as a mere matter of the application of well-known laws as a broad, general principle, and then of careful observation, of painstaking comparison of many cases in order to compre¬ hend the detailed working of these laws. It is, in fact, simply a question of sight, and this book is published in the hope, first, that it may help earnest students who do not yet possess this sight to realise how the soul and its vehicles really appear when examined by its means ; and secondly, that the very large number of persons who are now beginning to exercise this vision more or less perfectly, may by it be helped to understand the meaning of what they see.

I am perfectly aware that the world at large is not yet convinced of the very existence of this power of clairvoyant sight ; but I also know that all who have really studied the question have found the evidence for it irresistible, and we can afford to ignore the very positive convictions which are usually so vehemently expressed by those who have not studied it. I will venture to say that if any intelligent person will take the trouble to read the stories — the authenti-

HOW THESE THINGS ARE KNOWN cated stories — quoted in my little book on Clairvoyance , and will then turn from them to the books from which they were selected, he will see at once that there is an overwhelming mass of irrefutable evidence in favour of the existence of this faculty. To those who them¬ selves can see, and are daily in the habit of exercising this higher vision in a hundred differ¬ ent ways, the denial” of the ignorant majority that such sight is possible naturally seems ridiculous. For the clairvoyant the question is not worth arguing. If a blind man came up to us and assured us that there was no such thing as ordinary physical sight, and that we were deluded in supposing that we possessed this faculty, we in our turn should probably not feel it worth while to argue at great length in defence of our supposed delusion. We should simply say : “I certainly do see, and it is use¬ less to try to persuade me that I do not ; all the daily experiences of my life show me that I do ; I decline to be argued out of my definite knowledge of positive facts.” Now this is pre¬ cisely how the trained clairvoyant feels when ignorant people serenely pronounce that it is quite, impossible that he should possess a power which he is at that very moment using to read the thoughts of the wiseacres who deny it to him !

I am not attempting, therefore, in this book to prove that clairvoyance is a reality ; I take that for granted, and proceed to describe what is seen by its means. Neither will I here repeat the details given in the little book which I have mentioned as to the methods of clairvoyance, but will confine myself to such brief statement of the broad principles of the subject as is absolutely necessary in order that this book shall be comprehensible to one who has not studied other Theosophical literature.

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Chapter II

In order to enunciate even these broad prin¬ ciples, however, it is necessary to begin by ex¬ plaining some of the facts discovered by the use of this very faculty. The first point which must be clearly comprehended is the wonderful complexity of the world around us — the fact that it includes enormously more than comes within the range of ordinary vision.

We are all aware that matter exists in different conditions, and that it may be made to change its conditions by variation of pressure and temperature. We have the three well-known states of matter, the solid, the liquid, and the gaseous, and it is the theory of science that all substances can, under proper variation of temperature and pressure, exist in all these conditions. There are still, I think, a few substances which chemists have not succeeded in reducing from one state to another ; but it is universally believed that just as water may become ice at a lower temperature, and steam at a higher one, so every solid which we know might become liquid or gaseous under proper conditions ; every liquid may be made solid or gaseous, every gas may be liquefied and even solidified. We know that air itself has been liquefied, and that some of the other gases have been reduced to a solid slab.

Occult chemistry shows us another and higher condition than the gaseous, into which also all substances known to us can be translated or transmuted ; and to that condition we have given the name of etheric. That which science postulates as ether is found by occult chemistry to be not a homogeneous body, but simply another state of matter ; not itself a new kind of substance, but ordinary matter reduced to a particular state. We may have, for example, hydrogen in an etheric condition instead of as a gas ; we may have gold or silver or any other element either as a solid, a liquid, or a gas, or in this other higher state which we call etheric. Just as we find in the world about us some elements normally solid, as is gold ; some normally liquid, as is mercury ; and some normally gaseous, as is oxygen, so there are substances which are normally etheric — which ordinarily exist in that condition, though by special treatment they can be brought down to the gaseous condition, or raised to some other state still finer than their own.

In ordinary science we speak of an atom of oxygen, an atom of hydrogen, an atom of any of the sixty or seventy substances which chemists call elements, the theory being that that is an element which cannot be further reduced, and that each of these elements has its atom — and an atom, as we may see from the Greek derivation of the word, means that which cannot be cut, or further subdivided. Occult science has always taught what physical science has only recently realised — that all these so-called elements are not in the true sense of the word elements at all ; that what we call an atom of oxygen or hydrogen is not the ultimate, and in fact is not an atom at all, but a molecule which can under certain circumstances be broken up into atoms. By repeating this breaking-up process it is found that we arrive eventually at an infinite number of definite physical atoms which are all alike ; so that there is one substance at the back of all substances, and different combinations of its ultimate atoms give us what in chemistry are called atoms of oxygen or hydrogen, gold or silver, lithium or platinum, etc. When these are all broken up we get back to a set of atoms which are all identical, except that some of them are positive and some negative.

The study of these atoms and of the possi¬ bilities of their combination is in itself one of most enthralling interest, though foreign to our present subject ; but those specially interested in the matter may be referred to Mrs Besant’s article upon Occult Chemistry in Lucifer for November 1895, since reprinted separately. Even these, however, are found to be atoms only from the point of view of our physical plane ; that is to say, there are methods by which even they can be subdivided, but when they are so broken up they give us matter be¬ longing to a different realm of nature — matter which is not expansible by any degree of heat which we are able to produce, or contractible by any degree of cold with which we are acquainted. Yet this higher matter also is not simple but complex ; and we find that it also exists in a series of states of its own, corresponding very fairly to the states of physical matter which we call solid, liquid, gaseous, or etlieric. Again, by carrying on our process of subdivision far enough we reach another atom — the atom of that realm of nature to which occultists have given the name of the astral world.

Then the whole process may be repeated ; for by further subdivision of that astral atom we find ourselves dealing with another still higher and more refined world, though a world which is still material. Once again we find matter existing in definitely marked conditions corre¬ sponding at that much higher level to the states with which we are familiar ; and the ultimate result of our investigations brings us once again to an atom — the atom of this third great realm of nature, which in Theosophy we call the mental world. So far as we know, there is no limit to this possibility of subdivision, but there is a very distinct limit to our capability of observ¬ ing it. However, we can see enough to be certain of the existence of a considerable number of these different realms, each of which is in one sense a world in itself, though in another and wider sense all are parts of one stupendous whole.

In our literature these different realms of nature are frequently spoken of as planes, because in our study it is sometimes convenient to image them as one above another, according to the different degrees of density of the matter of which they are composed. It will be seen that in the accompanying diagram (Plate II.) they are drawn in this way ; but it must be very carefully borne in mind that this arrange¬ ment is merely adopted for convenience and as a symbol, and that it in no way represents the actual relations of these various planes. They must not be imagined as lying above one another like the shelves of a book-case, but rather as filling the same space and interpenetrating one another. It is a fact well known to science that even in the hardest substances no two atoms ever touch one another ; always each atom has its field of action and vibration, and every molecule in turn has its larger field ; so that there is always space between them under any possible circumstances. Every physical atom is floating in an astral sea — a sea of astral matter which surrounds it and fills every inter¬ stice in this physical matter. It is universally recognised that ether interpenetrates all known substances, the densest solid as well as the most rarefied gas ; and just as it moves with perfect freedom between the particles of the denser matter, so does astral matter interpenetrate it in turn, and move with perfect freedom among its particles. The mental matter in its turn interpenetrates the astral 'in precisely the same manner ; so that all these different realms of nature are not in any way separated in space, but are all existing around us and about us here and now, so that to see them and to in¬ vestigate them it is not necessary for us to make any movement in space, but only to open within ourselves the senses by means of which they can be perceived.

Chapter III

This brings before us another very important consideration. All these varieties of finer matter exist not only in the world without, but they exist in man also. He has not only the physical body which we see, but he has also within him what we may describe as bodies appropriate to these various planes of nature, and consisting in each case of their matter. In the man’s physical body there is etheric matter as well as the solid matter which is visible to us (see Plates XXIV. and XXV.) ; and this etheric matter is readily visible to the clairvoyant. In the same way a more highly developed clairvoyant, who is capable of perceiving the more refined astral matter, sees the man represented at that level by a mass of that matter, which is in reality his body or vehicle as regards that plane ; and exactly the same thing is true with regard to the mental plane in its turn. The soul of man has not one body, but many bodies, for when sufficiently evolved he is able to express himself on all these different levels of nature, and he is therefore provided with a suitable vehicle of the matter belonging to each, and it is through these various vehicles that he is able to receive impressions from the world to which they correspond.

We must not think of the man as creating these vehicles for himself in the course of his future evolutions, for every man possesses them from the beginning, though he is by no means conscious of their existence. We are constantly using to a certain extent this higher matter within ourselves, even though it be uncon¬ sciously. Every time that we think, we set in motion the mental matter within us, and a thought is clearly visible to a clairvoyant as a vibration in that matter, set up first of all within the man, and then affecting matter of the same degree of density in the world around him. But before this thought can be effective on the physical plane it has to be transferred from that mental matter into astral matter ; and when it has excited similar vibrations in that, the astral matter in its turn affects the etheric matter, creating sympathetic vibrations in it ; and that .in turn acts upon the denser physical matter, the grey matter of the brain.

So every time we think, we go through a much longer process than we know ; just as

I every time we feel anything we go through a process of which we are quite unconscious. We touch some substance and feel that it is too hot, and we snatch away our hand from it instan¬ taneously, as we think. But science teaches us that this process is not instantaneous, and that it is not the hand which feels, but the brain ; that the nerves communicate the idea of intense heat to the brain, which at once telegraphs back along the nerve-threads the instruction to withdraw the hand ; and it is only as a result of all this that the withdrawal takes place, though it seems to us to be immediate. The process has a definite duration, which can be measured by sufficiently fine instruments ; the rate of its motion is perfectly well defined and known to physiologists. Just in the same way thought appears to be an instantaneous process ; but it is not, for every thought has to go through the stages which I have described. Every impression which we receive in the brain through the senses has to pass up through these various grades of matter before it reaches the real man, the ego, the soul within.

We have here a kind of system of telegraphy between the physical plane and the soul ; and it is important to realise that this telegraph-line has intermediate stations. It is not only from the physical plane that impressions can be received ; the astral matter within a man, for example, is not only capable of receiving a vibration from etheric matter and transmitting it to the mental matter, but it is also quite capable of receiving impressions from the sur¬ rounding matter of its own plane, and trans¬ mitting those through the mental body to the real man within. So the man may use his astral body as a means for receiving impressions from and observing the astral world which surrounds him ; and in exactly the same way through his mental bt)dy he may observe and obtain information from the mental world. But in order to do either of these things, he must first learn how they are done ; that is to say, he must learn to focus his consciousness in his astral body or in his mental body, just as it is now focussed in the physical brain. I have already treated this subject fully in my little book on Clairvoyance , so that I need do no more than refer to it here.

Although science is not yet prepared to admit the existence of these various planes or degrees of matter in nature, there is nothing in this hypothesis in the least contradictory to its teaching. It should always be remembered that all this is a matter of direct knowledge and certainty to those who are in the habit of studying it, although it is presented to the consideration of the world merely as a hypothesis ; but even the man who approaches the subject for the first time must surely see that in suggesting this we are not in any way claiming faith in a miracle, but simply inviting investigation of a system. The higher grades of matter follow on in orderly sequence from those which we already know, so that though to some extent each plane may be regarded as a world in itself, it is yet also true that the whole is in reality one great world, which can be fully seen only by the highly developed soul.

To aid us in our grasp of this, let us take an illustration which, although impossible in itself, may yet be useful to us as suggesting rather startling possibilities. Suppose that instead of the sight which we now possess, we had a visual apparatus arranged somewhat differently. In the human eye we have both solid and liquid matter ; suppose that both these orders of matter were capable of receiving separate impressions, but each only from that type of matter in the outside world to which it corresponded. Suppose also that among men some possessed one of these types of sight and some another. Consider how very curiously imperfect would be the conception of the world obtained by each of these two types of men. Imagine them as standing on the sea¬ shore ; one being able to see only solid matter, would be utterly unconscious of the * ocean stretched before him, but would see instead the vast cavity of the ocean-bed, with all its various inequalities, and the fishes and other inhabitants of the deep would appear to him as floating in the air above this enormous valley. If there were clouds in the sky they would be entirely invisible to him, since they are composed of matter in the liquid state ; for him the sun would be always shining in the daytime, and he would be unable to comprehend why, on what to us is a cloudy day, its heat should be so much diminished ; if a glass of water were offered to him, it would appear to him to be empty.

Contrast with this the appearance which would be presented before the eyes of the man who saw only matter in the liquid condition. He would indeed be conscious of the ocean, but for him the shore and the cliffs would not exist ; he would perceive the clouds very clearly, but would see almost nothing of the landscape over which they were moving. In the case of the glass of water he would be entirely unable to see the vessel, and would therefore be quite unable to understand why the water should so mysteriously preserve the special shape given to it by the invisible glass. Imagine these two persons standing side by side, each describing the landscape as he saw it, and each feeling perfectly certain that there could be no other kind of sight but his in the universe, and that anyone claiming to see anything more or any¬ thing different must necessarily be either a dreamer or a deceiver !

We can smile over the incredulity of these hypothetical observers ; but it is exceedingly difficult for the average man to realise that in proportion to the whole that is to be seen, his power of vision is very much more imperfect than either of theirs would be in relation to the world as he sees it. And he also is strongly disposed to hint that those who see a little more than he does must really be drawing upon their imagination for their alleged facts. It is one of the commonest of our mistakes to con¬ sider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all that there is to perceive. Yet the scientific evidence is indisputable, and the infinitesimal proportion (as compared to the whole) of the groups of vibrations by which alone we can see or hear is a fact about which there can be no doubt. The clairvoyant is simply a man who develops within himself the power to respond to another octave out of the stupendous gamut of possible vibrations, and so enables himself to see more of the world around him than those of more limited perception.

Chapter IV

If we turn to Plate II. we shall see there a diagram of these planes of nature, and we shall also observe the names which have been em¬ ployed to designate the vehicles or bodies of man which correspond to them. It will be noticed that the names used in Theosophical literature for the higher planes are derived from Sanskrit, for in Western philosophy we have as yet no terms for these worlds composed of finer states of matter. Each of these names has its especial meaning, though in the case of the higher planes it indicates only how little we know of those conditions.

Nirvana has for ages been the term employed in the East to convey the idea of the highest conceivable spiritual attainment. To reach Nirvana is to pass beyond humanity, to gain a level of peace and bliss far above earthly comprehension. So absolutely is all that is earthly left behind by the aspirant who attains its transcendent glory, that some European

PLANES OF NATURE

II

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orientalists fell at first into the mistake of supposing that it was an entire annihilation of the man — an idea than which nothing could be more utterly the opposite of the truth. To gain the full use of the exalted consciousness of this exceedingly elevated spiritual condition is to reach the goal appointed for human evolution during this aeon or dispensation — to become an adept, a man who is something more than man. For the vast majority of humanity such progress will be attained only after cycles of evolution, but the few determined souls who refuse to be daunted by difficulties, who as it were take the kingdom of heaven by violence, may find this glorious prize within their reach at a much earlier period.

Of the states of consciousness above this we naturally know nothing, except that they exist. “Para” signifies “beyond,” and “Maha” means “ great,” so all the information conveyed by the names of these conditions is that the first is “ the plane beyond Nirvana,” and the second is “ the greater plane beyond Nirvana” — showing that those who bestowed these appellations thousands of years ago either possessed no more direct information than we have, or else, possessing it, despaired of finding any words in which it could be expressed.

The name of Buddhi has been given to that principle or component part of man which mani¬ fests itself through the matter of the fourth plane, while the mental plane is the sphere of action of what we call the mind in man. It will be observed that this plane is divided into two parts, which are distinguished by a differ¬ ence in colour and the names of “rupa” and “ arupa,” meaning respectively “ having form ” and “ formless.” These are names given in order to indicate a certain quality of the matter of the plane ; in the lower part of it the matter is very readily moulded by the action of .human thought into definite forms, while on the higher division this does not occur, but the more ab¬ stract thought of that level expresses itself to the eye of the clairvoyant in flashes or streams. A fuller account of this will be found in the sixth of our series of Theosophical manuals, and also in the book Thought- For ms, where are portrayed many of the interesting figures created by the action of thoughts and emotions. ;*■ The name “ astral ” is not of our choosing ; we have inherited it from the mediaeval alchemists. It signifies “ starry,” and is supposed to have been applied to the matter of the plane next above the physical because of the luminous appearance which is associated with the more rapid rate of its vibration. The astral plane is the world of passion, of emotion and sensation ;

and it is through man’s vehicle on this plane that all his feelings exhibit themselves to the clairvoyant investigator. The astral body of man is therefore continually changing in ap¬ pearance as his emotions change, as we shall presently show in detail.

In our literature certain tints have usually been employed to represent each of the lower planes, following a table of colours given by Madame Blavatsky in her monumental work The Secret Doctrine ; but it should be clearly understood that these are employed simply as distinctive marks — that they are merely sym¬ bolical, and are not in any way intended to imply a preponderance of a particular hue in the plane to which it is applied. All known colours, and many which are at present un¬ known to us, exist upon each of these higher planes of nature ; but as we rise from one stage to another, we find them ever more delicate and more luminous, so that they might be described as higher octaves of colour. An attempt is made to indicate this in our illustrations of the various vehicles appropriate to these planes, as will be seen later.