After our introductory episode on Theosophy, it is time now to dive deeper into the theosophical ideas concerning the Universe, God, and Human beings. This will hopefully be helpful to understand better concepts that influenced significantly modern spirituality and magic practices. Akashic Records, Astral Projection and the Aura have entered the modern occult discourse thanks to Theosophy. So, let’s learn more about the Nature of it all!
Hello everyone, I’m Dr Angela Puca and welcome to my Symposium. I’m a PhD and a Religious Studies scholar and this is your online resource for the academic study of Magick, Esotericism, Paganism, Shamanism and Theosophy.
In fact in this episode, we will explore the basic tenets of the Theosophical worldview.
Starting with… God
In Theosophy, the Divine Principle is unknowable, undefinable, and ineffable. It can be called the One Absolute Reality, the Infinite and Eternal, the Omnipresent Principle, the Original Creative Impulse, the Primal Source, the Abyss, the One Unity, and the Divine Thought.
That’s quite a lot.
This divine source is unborn and undying and everything from the macrocosm to the microcosm is an aspect of this One Unity, participating in its Truth and Nature. Since the Divine source is the All, human thought cannot understand it. This primal source periodically manifests itself in a finite series of emanations.
[Macrocosm (universe) – Microcosm- Human
Believed to Mirror/resemble/Be Connected to each
This analogy has its roots in Ancient Greece and took the meaning now known in esoteric circles thanks to Hermetic texts such as the Corpus Hermeticum]
You can see here inspirations from Neoplatonism as well as Gnosticism, Hermeticism and Buddhism. These influences will be much more apparent as we move forward.
So, the first emanation of the Divine Source is the First Logos or Primal Word. Doesn’t this remind you of the Neoplatonic great chain of being and some Hermetic text?
The Divine Thought unfolds in a sevenfold process that goes from perfect to less perfect. In this process, it creates first spiritual essences to control the order of the Cosmos, the Cosmos itself, then Nature, then Matter. Being the final emanation, the Material form is the opposite and imperfect end of the Spirit, where Darkness and Evil dwell. It’s essential to clarify that Darkness and Evil are relative concepts in Theosophy as they are not the opposite of Divinity but rather the most distant and hence imperfect and distorted form of the Divine. As such, they are also perceived as an illusion dictated by our inhabitancy of the material realm.
Since everything emanates from the divine source and every aspect of the creation retains a connection to the divine source, every human microcosm is connected to the Divine Macrocosm and can ascend to it. Divinity resides in every person and every atom of every part of the manifested and non-manifested world. As a result, theosophy can be said to embrace Pantheism while rejecting the idea of a personal God or individual immortality in the light of an all-encompassing Divinity.
The Universe, in a Theosophical worldview, is characterised by periodicity and governed by the law of cycles. This cosmology is heavily influenced by Buddhism and Hindu traditions, symbolised by the circle and the spiral and a manifestation of the cyclical nature of Being.
Indeed, being and non-being alternate in the cycle of MANVANTARA, a Sanskrit word that indicates periods of manifestation and activity, separated from each other by PRAYALA or periods of dissolution and rest. A complete cycle encompassing these two stages is called by Mme Blavatsky a Day and a Night of Brahma -name of the Absolute in Hindu traditions – or the Waking and Sleeping of the Universe. A year of Brahma is completing 360 days and nights of Brahma. A Maha-Kalpa is one Age of Brahma, which translates into a 100 years of Brahma corresponding to trillions or quadrillions of human years. In this cycle of manifestation and dissolution, the universe itself will dissolve and rest to then eventually become manifested again in these cycles without end.
During each MANVANTARA, each solar system or planetary chain goes through a cycle of seven planetary reincarnations, described as One Revolution of the Wheel. On each of the seven planets, there are seven waves of seven kingdoms of nature, constituted by different types of minerals, vegetables, animals, humans and superhumans.
The seventh wave is represented by Humanity, consisting – on each planet – of seven root races. Every root race also has seven sub-races, and each sub-race has seven branches.
You can tell Theosophy truly loves the number 7, don’t they?!
Between planetary rounds, there is a minor PRALAYA while the planets rest. Interesting to notice that every planetary incarnation happens under the supervision and guidance of ‘builders’ and ‘watchers’, namely divine intelligent Essences. The Human monad is currently living its fourth round, which is the incarnation on the Earth, in its fifth root race, the Aryan.
[Monad
(from Ancient Greek μονάς (monas) ‘unity’, and μόνος (monos) ‘one/alone’) is employed in philosophy and cosmogony to intend the most basic and original substance.]
According to Theosophy, the human being is a God who parted from their spiritual nature to descend into the material world due to desires. You can see here a Gnostic understanding of matter and spirit, where the former is opposed to the latter, and the aim of one’s spiritual journey is to ascend from the prison of the body to the metaphysical realm of the spirit.
The intellectual side of humanity can lean towards the spirit or towards the matter. In the latter case, especially when physical intellectuality is not informed by the spirit, it can have detrimental consequences. An example of this form of intellectual endeavour is seen in the materialism and scientific positivism of nineteenth-century Europe.
Now let’s talk about the HUMAN BEING
When it comes to the view that theosophy endorses, regarding human beings, I first have to clarify that the word you will find in theosophical literature to generally refer to humanity is ‘Man’. However, I will here use the words human, human beings and humanity as they reflect a more inclusive understanding, and that’s what it was meant anyway, albeit in 19th-century terminology. The perception of Human beings is substantially influenced by Hermetic philosophy and the reception of the Emerald Tablet, with its tenant of “that which is above is like that which is below, to perpetuate the mystery of One thing”. Theosophy adopts the Hermetic understanding that human beings are microcosms replicating the macrocosm of the universe.
Also, humans have a ternary nature, made of matter, intellect and spirit or body, soul and spirit and are septenary in their evolutionary composition. The seven principles of human beings form an upper, eternal, spiritual triad and a lower mortal physical quaternary.
The three spiritual principles are:
1 – ATMA, the Universal Spirit and an emanation of the Absolute.
2 – BUDDHI, the Spiritual Soul and vehicle of Universal Spirit.
3 – HIGHER MANAS, Mind, intelligence and human or consciousness soul.
The four physical principles are:
4 – KAMA RUPA or Animal Soul, where primal desires and passions come from. This is also the demarcation line between the mortal and immortal principles of human beings and the agent of Will during their lifetime.
5 – LINGA SHARIRA, the Astral Body and vehicle of life. Also, the sentient soul.
6 – PRANA the etheric double, the life essence, the vital power and matter as a force.
7 – RUPA, the gross and physical matter.
As a scholar who learned Sanskrit and has studied and taught at university Indian Philosophies and Religion, I find fascinating the Theosophical employment of Sanskrit words and Indian concepts as they might – yet sometimes they don’t – resemble the traditional meaning but were clearly reformulated and reframed through a Western esoteric filter, influenced by Gnostic, Hermetic and Neoplatonic theoretic legacies.
The reincarnation cycles manifest in the three lowest bodies, the Astral, the Etheric and the Physical. As for the planes of existence… well, of course, they’re going to be seven!
However, human beings in their incarnation of the Earth can only perceive the first three, or the most spiritually advanced can get to four.
So, which are they?
- Physical Plane
- Astral Plane
- Mental Plane (Manas or Devachanic)
- Intuitional Plane (Buddhic)
- Spiritual Plane (Nirvanic)
- Monadic Plane (Para-Nirvanic)
- Divine Plane (Maha-para-nirvanic)
As I explained in my video on the Astral Plane, this concept is much more recent than people may think, and it was first conceptualised in the way we understand it today by Theosophists. According to Theosophy, the Astral world or plane is not really a place but a state or condition of existence. This surrounds us, and we’re immersed in it while we live on Earth. The astral plane can be perceived passively through dreams, drugged states, or insanity or can be perceived actively through developing spiritual sight.
It’s also believed possible to train your astral body to leave the physical body during circumstances such as sleep or an altered state of consciousness. When the astral body can travel and act on the astral plane, it’s called astral projection. Every idea, feeling or thought assumes a visible form on the astral plane, where the act of thought becomes an act of actual creation. Everything that happens on the physical plane happens and is imprinted in a mirror-like manner on the astral plane. Also, everything that has ever happened, every thought, feeling or action, is impressed in the so-called Akashic Record, where the entirety of the world’s history is believed to be accessible to those who develop a “supersensible sight”.
Another element belonging to human beings in a Theosophical understanding is the Aura, a radiant energy field produced by the human body and visible to those who can penetrate the astral plane. A trained occultist can, therefore, astral project and understand another person more deeply by seeing their aura, its shape and colour, each associated with a specific trait. The human aura is also tripartite, with the lowest sheath that shows the influence of the body on the soul, a middle sheath that reflects the life of the soul and the highest sheath, namely the spiritual state.
The third one, that we haven’t covered yet, is the DEVACHANIC plane, the realm where the Gods reside and the Christian heaven. This is where the human monad goes in between incarnations to integrate its past experiences and get prepared for the next life ahead. Only when the human monad develops further on its spiritual journey and concludes its incarnations on Earth, then will it start progressively experiencing the higher planes of existence.
So, as for now, when the human monad – and hence us – is incarnating on Earth, the spiritual journey consists of acknowledging the illusory nature of the physical world, seen as Maya, an illusion. An illusion that deceives us through Death, Time and Evil – three illusory aspects of our experience in the physical body that doesn’t truly exist. Everything that occurs in the physical realm is distorted, transient, and sometimes a parodic and grotesque reflection of what really happens in the spiritual realm.
The truth, according to Theosophy, is unchanging, eternal and immutable and cannot be found on the physical plane. Hence why our mission, as inhabitants of a body, is to look beyond and ascend to a truer state of being.
So this is it for today’s video. I hope you enjoyed it. I definitely want to make more videos on Theosophical concepts, especially on Anthroposophy and Rudolf Steiner and a deeper dive into Mme Blavatsky. But I can only do so and keep working on this amazing project thanks to you guys. So if you have the means and can help keep this project alive, I would really appreciate it if you’d support my work with a one-off PayPal donation, by joining Memberships, or my Inner Symposium on Patreon. That’s a great community as well, other than a way of supporting my work. We have monthly lectures, a book club, one-to-one conversations with me, private lectures and all sorts of things depending on your chosen tier.
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Bye for now.
References:
(Carlson, 2016, pp.115–129)
Carlson, M. 2016. No Religion Higher Than Truth [Online]. Princeton University Press.
[Accessed 28 September 2022]. Available from:
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691636337/no-religion-higher-than-truth.
Uploaded 3 Dec 2022