Page 16 (part 11)

. . . All these Genii preside over mundane affairs,** they shake and overthrow the constitution of States and of individuals; they imprint their likeness on our Souls, they are present in our nerves, our marrow, our veins, our arteries, and our very brain-substance . . . at the moment when each of us receives life and being, he is taken in charge by the genii (Elementals) who preside over births,*** and who are classed beneath the astral powers (Superhuman astral Spirits.) They change perpetually, not always identically, but revolving in circles.**** They permeate by the body two parts of the Soul, that it may receive from each the impress of his own energy. But the reasonable part of the Soul is not subject to the genii; it is designed [[Footnote(s) -------------------------------------------------]] * See Stanzas III . and IV . and the Commentaries thereupon, especially the Comments on Stanza IV . "the Lipika and the four Maharajas," the agents of Karma. ** And "Gods" or Dhyanis, too, not only the genii or "guided Forces." *** The meaning of this is that as man is composed of all the Great Elements: Fire, Air, Water, Earth and Ether -- the ELEMENTALS which belong respectively to these Elements feel attracted to man by reason of their co-essence. That element which predominates in a certain constitution will be the ruling element throughout life. For instance, if man has a preponderance of the Earthly, gnomic element, the gnomes will lead him towards assimilating metals -- money and wealth, and so on. "Animal man is the son of the animal elements out of which his Soul (life) was born, and animals are the mirrors of man," says Paracelsus ( De Fundamento Sapientiae ) . Paracelsus was cautious, and wanted the Bible to agree with what he said, and therefore did not say all. **** Cyclic progress in development. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 295 UNIVERSAL ILLUSION. for the reception of (the) God,* who enlightens it with a sunny ray. Those who are thus illumined are few in number, and from them the genii abstain: for neither genii nor Gods have any power in the presence of a single ray of God.** But all other men, both soul and body, are directed by genii, to whom they cleave, and whose operations they affect........... The genii have then the control of mundane things and our bodies serve them as instruments........... The above, save a few sectarian points, represents that which was a universal belief common to all nations till about a century or so back. It is still as orthodox in its broad outlines and features among pagans and Christians alike, if one excepts a handful of materialists and men of Science. For whether one calls the genii of Hermes and his "Gods," "Powers of Darkness" and "Angels," as in the Greek and Latin Churches; or "Spirits of the Dead," as in Spiritualism or, again, Bhoots and Devas, Shaitan or Djin, as they are still called in India and Mussulman countries -- they are all one and the same thing -- ILLUSION. Let not this, however, be misunderstood in the sense into which the great philosophical doctrine of the Vedantists has been lately perverted by Western schools. All that which is , emanates from the ABSOLUTE, which, from this qualification alone, stands as the one and only reality -- hence, everything extraneous to this Absolute, the generative and causative Element, must be an illusion, most undeniably. But this is only so from the purely metaphysical view. A man who regards himself as mentally sane, and is so regarded by his neighbours, calls the visions of an insane brother -- whose hallucinations make the victim either happy or supremely wretched, as the case may be -- illusions and fancies likewise. But, where is that madman for whom the hideous shadows in his deranged mind, his illusions, are not, for the time being, as actual and as real as the things which his physician or keeper may see? Everything is relative in this Universe, everything is an illusion. But [[Footnote(s) -------------------------------------------------]] * The God in man and often the incarnation of a God, a highly Spiritual Dhyan Chohan in him, besides the presence of his own seventh Principle. ** Now, what "god" is meant here? Not God "the Father," the anthropomorphic fiction; for that god is the Elohim collectively, and has no being apart from the Host. Besides, such a god is finite and imperfect. It is the high Initiates and Adepts who are meant here by those men "few in number." And it is precisely those men who believe in "gods" and know no "God," but one Universal unrelated and unconditioned Deity. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 296 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. the experience of any plane is an actuality for the percipient being, whose consciousness is on that plane; though the said experience, regarded from the purely metaphysical standpoint, may be conceived to have no objective reality. But it is not against metaphysicians, but against physicists and materialists that Esoteric teachings have to fight, and for these Vital Force, Light, Sound, Electricity, even to the objectively pulling force of magnetism, have no objective being, and are said to exist merely as "modes of motion," "sensations and affections of matter." Neither the Occultists generally, nor the Theosophists, reject, as erroneously believed by some, the views and theories of the modern scientists, only because these views are opposed to Theosophy. The first rule of our Society is to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. The Theosophists, therefore, are the first to recognize the intrinsic value of science. But when its high priests resolve consciousness into a secretion from the grey matter of the brain, and everything else in nature into a mode of motion, we protest against the doctrine as being unphilosophical, self-contradictory, and simply absurd, from a scientific point of view, as much and even more than from the occult aspect of the esoteric knowledge. For truly the astral light of the derided Kabalists has strange and weird secrets for him who can see in it; and the mysteries concealed within its incessantly disturbed waves are there, the whole body of Materialists and scoffers notwithstanding.* These secrets, along with [[Footnote(s) -------------------------------------------------]] * The astral light of the Kabalists is very incorrectly translated by some "AEther;" the latter is confused with the hypothetical Ether of Science, and both are referred to by some theosophists as synonymous with Akasa. This is a great mistake. "A characteristic of Akasa will serve to show how inadequately it is represented by Ether," writes the author of Rational Refutations, thus unconsciously helping Occultism.