** The so-called "Spirits" that may occasionally possess themselves of the bodies of mediums are not the Monads or Higher Principles of disembodied personalities.
Such a "Spirit" can only be either an Elementary, or -- a Nirmanakaya.
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or taking temporary possession of a medium.
Just as certain persons -- men and women, reverting to parallel cases among living persons -- whether by virtue of a peculiar organization, or through the power of acquired mystic knowledge, can be seen in their "double" in one place, while the body is many miles away; so the same thing can occur in the case of superior Beings.
Man, philosophically considered, is, in his outward form, simply an animal, hardly more perfect than his pithecoid-like ancestor of the third round.
He is a living body, not a living being, since the realisation of existence, the "Ego-Sum," necessitates self-consciousness, and an animal can only have direct consciousness, or instinct.
This was so well understood by the Ancients that the Kabalist even made of soul and body two lives, independent of each other.* The soul, whose body vehicle is the Astral, ethero-substantial envelope, could die and man be still living on earth -- i.e.
, the soul could free itself from and quit the tabernacle for various reasons -- such as insanity, spiritual and physical depravity, etc.** Therefore, that which living men (Initiates) [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * On p.
340-351 (Genesis of the Soul) in the " New Aspects of Life ," the Author states the Kabalistic teaching: "They held that, functionally, Spirit and Matter of corresponding opacity and density tended to coalesce; and that the resultant created Spirits, in the disembodied state, were constituted on a scale in which the differing opacities and transparencies of Elemental or uncreated Spirit were reproduced.
And that these Spirits in the disembodied state attracted, appropriated, digested and assimilated Elemental Spirit and Elemental Matter whose condition was conformed to their own." "They therefore taught that there was a wide difference in the condition of created Spirits; and that in the intimate association between the Spirit-world and the world of Matter, the more opaque Spirits in the disembodied state were drawn towards the more dense parts of the material world, and therefore tended towards the centre of the Earth, where they found the conditions most suited to their state; while the more transparent Spirits passed into the surrounding aura of the planet, the most rarified finding their home in its satellite." This relates exclusively to our Elementary Spirits, and has naught to do with either the Planetary, Sidereal, Cosmic or Inter-Etheric Intelligent Forces or "Angels" as they are termed by the Roman Church.
The Jewish Kabalists, especially the practical Occultists who dealt with ceremonial magic, busied themselves solely with the spirits of the Planets and the "Elementals" so-called.
Therefore this covers only a portion of the Esoteric Teaching.
** The possibility of the "Soul" ( i.e.
, the eternal Spiritual Ego) dwelling in the unseen worlds, while its body goes on living on Earth, is a pre-eminently occult doctrine, especially in Chinese and Buddhist philosophy.
See "Isis Unveiled," vol.
i., [[Footnote continued on next page]] [[Vol.
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can do, the Dhyanis, who have no physical body to hamper them, can do still better.
This was the belief of the Antediluvians, and it is fast becoming that of modern intellectual society, in Spiritualism, besides the Greek and Roman Churches, which teach the ubiquity of their angels.
The Zoroastrians regarded their Amshaspends as dual entities (Ferouers), applying this duality -- in esoteric philosophy, at any rate -- to all the spiritual and invisible denizens of the numberless worlds in space which are visible to our eye.
In a note of Damascius (sixth century) on the Chaldean oracles, we have a triple evidence of the universality of this doctrine, for he says: "In these oracles the seven Cosmocratores of the world, ('The World-Pillars,') mentioned likewise by St.
Paul, are double -- one set being commissioned to rule the superior worlds the spiritual and the sidereal, and the other to guide and watch over the worlds of matter." Such is also the opinion of Jamblichus, who makes an evident distinction between the archangels and the "Archontes." (See "De Mysteriis," sec.
ii., ch.
3.) The above may be applied, of course, to the distinction made between the degrees or orders of spiritual beings, and it is in this sense that the Roman Catholic Church tries to interpret and teach the difference; for while the archangels are in her teaching divine and holy, their doubles are denounced by her as devils.* But the word "ferouer" is not to be understood in this sense, for it means simply the reverse or the opposite side of some attribute or quality.
Thus when the Occultist says that the "Demon is the lining of God" (evil, the reverse of the medal), he does not mean two separate [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- [[Footnote continued from previous page]] p.
602, for an illustration.
Many are the Soulless men among us, for the occurrence is found to take place in wicked materialists as well as in persons "who advance in holiness and never turn back." (See ibid and also "Isis," vol.
ii., p.
369.) * This identity between the Spirit and its material "double" (in man it is the reverse) explains still better the confusion, alluded to already in this work, made in the names and individualities, as well as the numbers, of the Rishis and the Prajapatis; especially between those of the Satyayuga and the Mahabharatan period.
It also throws additional light on what the Secret Doctrine teaches with regard to the Root and the Seed Manus (see Book ii.
"On the primitive Manus of humanity").
Not only those progenitors of our mankind, but every human being, we are taught, has its prototype in the Spiritual Spheres; which prototype is the highest essence of his seventh principle.
Thus the seven Manus become 14, the Root Manu being the Prime Cause, and the "Seed-Manu" its effect; and when the latter reach from Satyayuga (the first stage) to the heroic period, these Manus or Rishis become 21 in number.
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actualities, but the two aspects or facets of the same Unity.
Now the best man living would appear, side by side with an Archangel -- as described in Theology -- a fiend.
Hence a certain reason to depreciate a lower "double," immersed far deeper in matter than its original.
The universal fluid or medium of occult philosophy — Lévi's Great Magical Agent — that transmits will, thought, and magical influence between minds and matter, and preserves the impress of all forms and actions as a book of consciences; cognate with akasha and the anima mundi. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (a doctrine of hidden affinity) in being a substantival medium that can be charged, directed, and abused.
The passage identifies the soul's body vehicle as the 'Astral, ethero-substantial envelope,' referencing the astral medium as a substantive vehicle rather than merely a transmitting fluid.
Naturally-existing, non-human intelligences native to a single element — earth, air, fire, or water — rather than the fourfold-composite human nature: Paracelsus's gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, and undines; the Deva Kingdom or fairy kingdom of Western occultism, forming their own parallel kingdom capable of incarnating in or forming relationships with humans. Distinct from artificial_elemental (a manufactured thought-entity deliberately created by a single operator, not a naturally-occurring species) and animism (the general doctrine that nature-places host indwelling spirits, of which this is one specific taxonomic system organised around the four elements rather than locality).
The passage discusses Elementaries as a distinct class of spirit, their relationship to the material world based on opacity, and their distinction from Planetary, Sidereal, Cosmic, and Inter-Etheric Intelligent Forces.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The passage lays out a clear hierarchy of spiritual beings from Elementary Spirits through Planetary, Sidereal, Cosmic, and Inter-Etheric Intelligent Forces, with the Kabalistic teaching of Spirits constituted on a scale of differing opacities.
The doctrine and practice by which the etheric or astral double separates from the physical body, at will or involuntarily, to act, travel, or encounter other entities on a plane subtler than the physical — remaining tethered to the body by a silver cord, and capable of returning physical injury (bruises, exhaustion) sustained while thus projected. Distinct from linga_sharira (the static doctrine that a subtle form persists as a template) in describing its active operative use, and from shamanic_journey (a trance-journey framed within a shamanic ritual complex, undertaken to return with knowledge, songs, or a recovered soul) in being a Western-esoteric technical practice with its own physiology of cord-attachment and reciprocal wounding.
The passage describes persons seen in their 'double' in one place while the body is many miles away, and extends this to superior Beings (Dhyanis) who have no physical body to hamper them.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The passage is explicitly framed as 'pre-eminently occult doctrine' and references the Secret Doctrine's teaching on the Root and Seed Manus, indicating esoteric knowledge reserved for the initiated.
A non-physical dimension of reality, interpenetrating the physical world, populated by forces, beings, and forms ordinarily imperceptible to physical senses and instruments, that can affect embodied life without being seen — Dion Fortune's 'mind-side of nature,' the astral plane of Western esotericism broadly construed. Distinct from astral_light (a specific transmitting medium or fluid operating within this realm, not the realm itself), pleroma (the divine fullness at the summit of a cosmic hierarchy, not a parallel plane coextensive with ordinary life), and animism (particular indwelling spirits bound to specific natural objects, not the general unseen dimension itself).
The passage is centrally concerned with the unseen worlds, the astral/ethero-substantial envelope, and the non-physical dimensions populated by spirits, Dhyanis, and elementary beings that interpenetrate and affect the physical world.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The passage states that every human being has its prototype in the Spiritual Spheres which is the highest essence of his seventh principle, making the human a microcosmic reflection of a macrocosmic archetype.
The Hermetic doctrine that apparent opposites are identical in nature but differ in degree — two extremes of the same scale (hot/cold, love/hate) — such that one pole can be shifted toward its opposite by a change of degree ('mental transmutation'). Distinct from opposites_transcended (a completion-state marking the path's end, not this doctrine's active technique) and magical_equilibrium (balance held BETWEEN two forces, not identity-by-degree of what looks like two forces).
The passage explicitly defines 'ferouer' as 'the reverse or the opposite side of some attribute or quality' and states that 'the Demon is the lining of God' — two aspects or facets of the same Unity, not two separate actualities.
The state of a person being controlled or inhabited by an external spirit or entity — the entity as subject acting through the person's body, rather than merely troubling them from without. Distinct from haunting (a discarnate soul or place-bound presence that interferes without necessarily entering and controlling a living body) and from spirit_conjuration (an operator deliberately commanding a spirit's appearance, the reverse relation — here the spirit is uninvited and in control, not summoned and subordinated).
The passage opens by discussing spirits that 'possess themselves of the bodies of mediums' and distinguishes what kind of entity (Elementary or Nirmanakaya) performs the possession.
Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma).
The passage explicitly divides man into soul (with its Astral/ethero-substantial body vehicle) and body as two independent lives, and references the 'seventh principle' and the 'eternal Spiritual Ego' as distinct from the lower principles.