OCCULTISM/PART 1 / FINAL
OCCULTISM
H.
P. BLAVATSKY defined Occultism as “the study of the Divine Mind in Nature”. and
it would be difficult to find a nobler definition. All life, all energies, are
hidden, and only their effects are patent. The forces by which a jewel is
crystallized in the womb of the earth, by which a plant develops from a seed,
by which an animal is evolved from a germ, by which a man feels and thinks — all
these are occult, hidden from the eyes of men, to be studied by scientists only
in the phenomena of growth, of evolution, as these present themselves, while
the impelling forces, the nature of vitality, the invisible, intangible, secret
springs of all activities, these remain ever hidden.
Moreover,
this admirable definition posits Mind behind all the manifestations which we
totalize as Nature. It is these manifestations which are woven into that
garment by which we see God (“and weave for God the garment thou seest Him
by”). His Mind is revealed in natural phenomena, and by the visible”, the
invisible things . . . are clearly seen”. Bruno spoke of natural objects as the
divine language; they are the Self-expressions of God. In the divine Mind exist
the Ideas which are to be embodied in a future universe; the world of mind, the
Intelligible World precedes the material world. So taught the Hebrews; so
taught the Greeks; and the teaching is confirmed by our everyday experience. We
think, before we embody our thought in an action. Ere a man creates a great
picture, he must have the idea of the picture in his mind; he thinks it out
before he paints it on the canvas. It is the world of Ideas, the Intelligible
World, which is the realm explored by the Occultist.
He
seeks to understand this hidden world whence flow all outer manifestations; to
grasp the Ideas which embody themselves in varied forms; to seek the hidden
sources of life and to trace their outflow, as the physical scientist seeks and
traces physical types and their evolution. He is the scientist of the
invisible, as the ordinary scientist is the scientist of the visible, and his
methods are scientific; he observes, he experiments, he verities, he compares,
and he is continually enlarging the boundaries of the known.
The
Occultist and the Mystic differ in their methods as well as in their object.
The Occultist seeks knowledge of God; the Mystic seeks union with God. The
Occultist uses Intellect; the Mystic Emotion. The Occultist watches Ideas
embodying themselves in phenomena; the Mystic unfolds the Divine within him
that it may expand into the Divinity whose Body is a universe. These sharp-cut
definitions are, of course, true only of abstract types; the concrete
individuals shade off into each other, and the perfected Occultist finally
includes the Mystic, the perfected Mystic finally includes the Occultist. But
on the way to perfection, the Occultist must evolve, pari passu, his
consciousness and the successive vehicles in which that consciousness works; while
the Mystic sinks into the depths of his consciousness, and cares naught for the
bodies, which he disregards and abandons. To borrow two well known terms: the
Occultist tends to become the Jîvanmukta, the liberated Spirit residing in
material bodies; the Mystic tends to become the Jîvanmukta, the liberated
Bodiless One. The Occultists rise, grade by grade, through the Hierarchy; the
Mystics become the Nirmãnakãyas, the Reservoir of Spirituality, from which are
drawn the streams which irrigate the worlds. Blessed, holy and necessary are
both types, the two Hands of the One LOGOS in His helping of His universe.
Bearing
in mind H. P. Blavatsky's definition, we can readily see how the more ordinary
view of Occultism, that it merely means the study of the hidden — without
defining the hidden — inevitably grows up. The Occultist is to study the Divine
Mind in Nature then he must not only expand his consciousness, so as to enter
into the Divine Mind, but must also evolve his subtle bodies and their senses,
in order to contact Nature in all the grades of subtlety of her manifestations.
This evolution of the subtle senses and the knowledge gained through them of
the phenomena of the subtle, or superphysical, worlds of matter — loom large in
the eyes of the superficial observer, and he comes to identify Occultism with
clairvoyance, clairaudience, traveling in the subtle bodies, and the like. It
would be as sensible if this same good gentleman identified physical science
with its apparatus — its microscopes, telescopes, spectroscopes. The subtle
senses are merely the apparatus of the Occultist, they are not Occultism. They
are the instruments by which he observes the objects which escape the normal
physical eye. As the ordinary instruments of science may have flaws in them,
and so may distort the physical objects observed, so may the super-physical
instruments have flaws in them, and distort the superphysical objects observed.
Mal-observation with a defective instrument does not vitiate the scientific
method, though it may for the moment vitiate particular scientific conclusions.
The same is true as regards mal-observations with ill-evolved superphysical
senses; the occult method is scientific and sound, but for the moment the
particular conclusions drawn by the Occultist are erroneous. Where then is
safety? In repeated observations by many observers — just as in physical science.
Let
us examine this a little more closely. A scientific observer finds his
observations through his microscope yield him a certain picture; he draws what
he sees. Then he puts a higher power on his microscope, and again observes the
object; he obtains another picture. He compares the two. He finds that certain
parts of the object that he thought were isolated from each other are connected
with threads so fine that they were invisible under the lower power. His first
observations were accurate, but incomplete. One result of such incompleteness
is that every scientific man, in giving pictures of objects as seen through the
microscope, notes on them the power of the lens through which he observed them.
Again, if a young observer, on comparing his drawings with those made by
experts and inserted in the text-books, finds that he has inserted something
not seen in the others, he will test his lens and repeat his observation,
taking another object, indentical with the first, lest some dust, or hair, or
other accidental intruder should have presented itself unbidden for his
inspection. Let us apply this to the student of Occultism. He has evolved a
power of sight beyond the normal; he observes some etheric object, and puts
down his observations; a few years later, having evolved a higher power of
sight, he observes the object again, and finds that the two parts of it he
thought successive are divided by some intermediate process. I will take an
exact instance. Mr. Leadbeater and myself in 1895 observed that the ultimate
physical atom, being disintegrated, broke up into the coarsest form of astral
matter. In 1908, observing the same process again, with a higher power of sight
evolved during the intervening years, we saw that the physical atom, on
disintegration, ran through a series of further disintegrations, and
re-integrated finally into the coarsest form of astral matter. The parallel
with the lower and higher powers of the microscope is complete.
Once
more; a young observer sees some astral form; he compares it, if he is wise —
he is not always wise — with previous observations of older observers, or with
statements by great seers in world-scriptures. He finds his observation unlike
theirs. If he is a serious student he tries again, making repeated and careful observations,
and finds out his mistake. If he is foolish, he proclaims his mal-observation
as a new discovery.
But,
it may be said, people respect the physical scientist, and accept his
observations, while they mock at those of the Occultist. All the discoveries of
new facts were mocked at before the public was ready for them; was not Bruno
burned and Galileo imprisoned for declaring that the earth moved round the sun?
Was not Galvani called the frogs dancing-master when he laid his finger on the
hidden force now called by his name? What matters the mockery of ignorant men
to those whose steadfast eyes are seeking to pierce through the veils in which
Nature shrouds her secrets?
So
far as the methods of observation of the material side of Nature are concerned,
observations carried on by means of improved apparatus — externally
manufactured or internally evolved — the methods of physical and of
superphysical science are identical. Knowledge is gained by study of the
results obtained by predecessors in the same field, and by observations
directed to similar phenomena, with a view to verifying or correcting the
results.
The
evolution of the consciousness which observes through the senses is another
matter, and this plays a greater part in occult than in physical science; for
consciousness must unfold as higher senses evolve, else would the better tools
be useless in the hands of the inefficient workman. But the object of physical
and superphysical science alike is the extension of the boundaries of
knowledge.
Is
this extension desirable or not? If the knowledge be turned to human service,
yes; if to the increase of human misery, no. The application of physical
science to the destruction of human life is most evil; yet not for that can we
seek to block the advance of chemistry. The Occultist who knows how to liberate
the forces imprisoned in the atom will not place within the hands of the
competing nations of the world this means of wholesale destruction. Yet he
knows that chemistry is advancing in this direction, and that it must not be
hindered in its advance.
As
regards the Occultists themselves they are useful or dangerous according to
their motives. If they are devoted to the welfare of the worlds, then their
rapid evolution is beneficial. If they seek power for their own aggrandizement,
then they are dangerous. The evolution of consciousness is all to the good,
for, as that unfolds, the wider view brings the man gradually more and more
into unison with the Divine Will in evolution, and, at a certain point in this
expansion, he inevitably recognizes the all-compelling claims of the larger
Self. But in the lower stages, in the astral and mental worlds, while his
self-discipline must be rigid as regards his bodies, pride and selfishness may
make him a danger to his fellow men. The discipline of the senses and the
control of the mind are equally necessary, whether the man is aiming at
development for service or for individual aggrandizement. He must lead a life
of rigid temperance in all things, and he must become master of his thoughts.
But if personal ambition rule him, if he seek to gain in order that he may
hold, not in order that he may give, then every added power becomes a menace to
the world, and he enters the ranks of the Adversary. The Occultist must evolve
into a Christ or into a Satan — to borrow the Christian terms. For him there is
no half-way house. Safer are the green pastures where the flock may feed at
peace than the arid heights, with their crevasses and their precipices, with
their shrouding mists and their crashing avalanches. None who has trodden part
of the rugged way would seek to induce others to enter on it. But there are
some whom an imperious inner force compels; some who cannot rest by the still
waters, but must seek to climb the heights. For such the way is open, and for
them there is no other way which is possible. Only, that they may not add their
shattered lives to the “wrecks which strew the path of Occultism”, let them
gird their loins with strength, let them don the armor of purity and the helmet
of unselfishness, and then let them go forward, in the Name of the World's
Redeemers, with their eyes fixed on the Star which shines above them, careless
of the stones which gash their bleeding feet.
END
OF THIS BOOK
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