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E U R O P E A N S C H O O L O F T H E O S O P H Y 2 0 1 8P e s c i a , I t a l y

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Memento Mori: Worldviews on Death & Dying

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European School of Theosophy2018

With the support of The Blavatsky Trust

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European School of Theosophy Proceedings © October 2018Memento Mori: Worldviews on Death and DyingWebsite: www.europeanschooloftheosophy.euEmail: [email protected] in Greece

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PREFACE

The present book contains the proceedings of the European School of The-osophy (EuST) 2018. The EuST was launched in October 1982 in England and its activities are characterised by a five-day programme of intensive guided study.

The main focus of the School is the research and study of the early Theo-sophical literature, such as HPB’s writings, the Mahatma Letters and current developments in the field of humanities and science, including subjects related to Western Esotericism, religions, Eastern and Western philosophies which gave rise to the contemporary Theosophical Move-ment.

The language of the School is necessarily English, its location varies each year to places that facilitate opportunities to commune with nature, phys-ical activities, as well as contemplation and meditation.

This year the EuST will be held in Pescia, Italy. Its main theme is “Memen-to Mori: Worldviews on Death & Dying.” The speakers are: Dr William Wilson Quinn (USA), Erica Georgiades (GR), Dr Orlando Fernadez (UK), Tim Wyatt (UK), Jerry Hejka-Ekins and Dr April Hejka-Ekins (USA).

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The Transition from Death to Rebirth - William Wilson Quinn

Part I: The Tibetan Bardo Thödol

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 09 2. Provenance of the Bardo Thödol ................................................................................................. 11 3. Structure of the Bardo Thödol ....................................................................................................... 13 4. Process and Methods of the Bardo Thödol .......................................................................... 15 5. The Three Bardos of the Bardo Thödol ................................................................................. 17 6. The Transference of Consciousness at Death .................................................................... 28 7. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................... 31

Part II: The Doctrine of H.P.B. and Her Teachers

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 35 2. Variable Terminology ........................................................................................................................... 37 3. The Seven Principles .............................................................................................................................. 38 4. The Skandhas and the Seven Principles ................................................................................ 40 5. Tracing Theosophical Usage of the Term Bardo ............................................................ 42 6. Three Sub-periods of Post-Mortem Transition ................................................................ 45 7. Transference of Consciousness to Another Body .......................................................... 52 8. Similarities, Dissimilarities, and Conclusions .................................................................. 55

Memento Mori: Living & Dying Well - Erica Georgiades 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 65 2. Memento Mori in the Ancient Egyptian Tradition ........................................................ 71 3. Memento Mori in the Socratic Tradition ................................................................................ 74 4. Memento Mori in the Stoic Tradition ........................................................................................ 77 5. HPB on Death and Memento Mori .............................................................................................. 80

Death & Rebirth: Funerary Traditions of Ancient Egypt

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 84 2. H. P. Blavatsky & the Book of the Dead ............................................................................... 86 3. Aspects and Principles ......................................................................................................................... 87 4. Funeral Rites, Tombs & Priests .................................................................................................... 89 5. Funeral Rites ................................................................................................................................................. 90 6. Tombs ................................................................................................................................................................... 93 7. The Mummy .................................................................................................................................................. 95 8. Duat – The Underworld ..................................................................................................................... 101 9. The Seven Arits or Gates of Osiris ........................................................................................... 103

Memento Mori: Eternalism versus Presentism

1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 113 2. Meditation Contemplation ............................................................................................................... 115

The Wisdom of Madame Blavatsky - Leslie Price ............................................................................... 125

Immortality & Ressurection - Orlando Fernandez

1. Theosophico-Kabbalistic Prolegomena .............................................................................. 139 2. Death as a Part of Life: Immortality ....................................................................................... 144 3. Live Death to the Full .......................................................................................................................... 151 4. The Kabbalah .............................................................................................................................................. 152 5. The Tree of Life ........................................................................................................................................ 155

The Extinction Myth - Tim Wyatt ......................................................................................................................... 161

HPB The Destroyer of Death - Tim Wyatt ..................................................................................................... 173

Contents

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May the Supreme Being protect us both, teacher and taught.

May we acquire strength.

May our study bring us illumination.

May there be no enmity among us.

Katha Upanishad

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The Transition from Death to RebirthPart I: The Tibetan Bardo Thödol

William Wilson Quinn

Introduction

The Tibetan sacred treatise called the Bardo Thödol (Tibetan bar-do thos-grol chen-mo), whose literal translation is “The Great Liberation through Hearing,” was first entitled “Tibetan Book of the Dead” in 1927 by W.Y. Evans-Wentz,1 its original translator into a modern European language. Yet the Bardo Thödol is only one in a corpus of numerous similar texts and treatises on the traditional Tibetan Buddhist practices not just of death and dying but, perhaps as significantly, also of living spiritually. In the universal Buddhist tradition including that of Tibet, to be true and meaningful, right “living” must among other things necessarily include the acceptance and omnipresent remembrance of the fact of one’s death–of memento mori. This because it is recognized in this tradition that the “life” of each human being persists both in the corporeal state we call living, and in the non-corporeal state following one’s death–the post-mortem states. It is similarly recognized that these two states are fully and inextricably linked as one cyclic continuum, though each of these two states necessarily affects the other. Due to its growing popularity in the West since the 1920s, the Bardo Thödol has now been translated into other languages. The most recent–and arguably best–English translation was published in 2005 by a team of scholars under the auspices of the 14th Dalai Lama and under the title The Tibetan Book of the Dead, First Complete Translation2 (hereafter

1. Evans-Wentz 1960. This edition also includes a commentary by the psychiatrist Carl Jung.2. Coleman et al. 2005.

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“TBD”). As explained by its Introducers, the title contains the word “Complete” because its Contents include fourteen chapters on related Tibetan Vajrayāna Buddhist texts that deal with various practices and methods to be employed at the time of death or shortly thereafter, for attaining liberation from rebirth or, failing that, at least for attaining a propitious rebirth in a new body. The Bardo Thödol is but one chapter–Chapter 11–in this complete list of fourteen chapters, all of which as a whole comprise what the TBD truly and accurately calls “the Tibetan Book of the Dead.”

Among the main reasons for the popularity of the Bardo Thödol is that it is predicated upon cycles spanning multiple millennia of repeated births and deaths through which the immortal surviving element of each human being passes–an element or principle that will later be discussed in more detail. This specific human cycle is most often referred to as reincarnation, and less frequently but alternatively as transmigration. The recognition of reincarnation began to gain popular footing in the West during the 19th century, followed by more widespread acceptance in the 20th century. The predicate of the Bardo Thödol also includes another principle co-equal with periodicity (the cyclic aspect): this other principle, rendered in Sanskrit as karma, functions in this vast cyclic context like a compass for the immortal “surviving element” of the human being that determines by its own choices and volition, not unlike a helmsman, its own course and destiny in traversing numerous incarnations. “The law of KARMA,” wrote H.P. Blavatsky, “is inextricably interwoven with that of Re-incarnation.”3

Together these cardinal principles of its predicate–periodicity and karma–help make the Bardo Thödol unique within the available literature of eschatology, religious or otherwise. It effectively charts the journey of this immortal surviving human element–at its core the transmigrant–from the moment of death and release from its physical

3. Blavatsky 1947, 303.

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body, in which body it traversed the passage from birth to death as a man or woman in this material world, through various intermediate states to its next destination. These facts are not meant to suggest, however, that reincarnation itself is in any way unique, since it is both a central feature of Buddhism and Hinduism. Similarly, it has been a core principle of the philosophia perennis, or theosophia, since time immemorial. Accordingly, the specifics of the transmigrant’s actual passage from death to rebirth will be of extraordinary interest to esotericists and students of the philosophia perennis. For them the correlations and correspondences of the Bardo Thödol to the writings of H.P. Blavatsky and those Adepts who were her teachers will be of paramount importance. But in order to profit most from such comparisons, which will be the principal subject of Part II of this presentation, we must first gain a basic working knowledge of the production, structure, and message–or objective–of the Bardo Thödol, which is the principal subject of what follows in this Part I.

Provenance of the Bardo Thödol

Padmasambhava (Sanskrit: “Lotus-Born”), known in Tibet as Guru Rinpoche, was an 8th-century Indian Buddhist master who is credited with producing the Bardo Thödol and related tantras on dying and the post-mortem experience.Although there was an actual Padmasambhava, little is known of him historically other than his having been a faculty member of the renown Nalanda University of Buddhist studies, which was located near the present-day Indian city of Patna, and his assisting in the construction of the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet at Samye in the 8th century C.E. Owing to his legendary mastery of the Buddhist dharma, the Tibetan Buddhist Nyingma school considers Padmasambhava to be a founder of their lineage.

The Transition from Death to Rebirth I - William Wilson Quinn

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According to Tibetan tradition, Trisong Detsen, the 38th king of the Yarlung dynasty and the first Emperor of Tibet (742–797 C.E.), is said to have invited the abbot of Nalanda University, Shantaraksita, to Tibet in order to begin construction of Samye monastery. Legend holds that demonical forces hindered the introduction of the Buddhist dharma, and for this reason Padmasambhava was then invited to Tibet, at the suggestion of Shantaraksita, to subdue the demonic forces. King Trisong Detsen thereafter ordered the translation of all Buddhist dharma texts into Tibetan. Padmasambhava, Shantaraksita, dozens of translators, and many of Padmasambhava’s senior disciples are said to have worked for years in a comprehensive translation project. The substantial translations from this period comprise the initial scriptural transmission of Buddhist dharma teachings, sutras and tantras, into Tibet from their original Indian sources. Tibetan tradition further holds that Padmasambhava, because of intrigues at the royal court, subsequently had the Bardo Thödol buried, or alternatively hidden in a cave. The text was rediscovered in the 14th century by the treasure revealer Karma Lingpa (Kar ma gling pa; born ca. 1350 C.E.). It was thereafter copied and disseminated to Tibetan Buddhist monasteries where over time it became part of the ritual and liturgical practice of Vajrayāna Buddhism in dealing with the dying and the recently deceased. The Bardo Thödol remained an integral, closely held doctrine of Vajrayāna Buddhism until its translations into other languages in the 20th century.

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Structure of the Bardo Thödol

Bardo is a Tibetan term meaning a “gap” or an “in-between,” which the TBD translates as “intermediate state” within the contexts of the (i) consciousness of a person occupying a physical body, and (ii) the surviving consciousness of a person no longer occupying a body. The Bardo Thödol expressly makes mention of six bardos of which the first three pertain to the corporeal life we live from birth to death, and are only briefly mentioned in passing in the text. Nonetheless, this should not be construed to diminish the significance of the first three bardos, since they appear together as equal to the last three in the companion text that appears in TBD as Chapter 3, the “Root Verses of the Six Intermediate States.” Only the last three intermediate states (bardos) that pertain to dying and the post-mortem states are those that constitute the subject of the Bardo Thödol. These last three bardos describe in detail the effects on one’s consciousness at the moment of death and in the various after-death experiences of the deceased as he or she transitions through the post-mortem states, until liberation from the wheel of death and rebirth is achieved, or until the next rebirth. These six intermediate states or bardos are: (a) living incarnate, with (1) skye-gnas bardo or ordinary waking consciousness, (2) rmi-lam bardo or dreaming consciousness, (3) bsam-gtan bardo or deep meditative consciousness; and (b) dying and living excarnate in the post-mortem states, being (4) chi-kha’i bardo or the moment of death, (5) chos-nyid bardo or experiencing Reality, and (6) srid-pa bardo or experiencing the process of rebirth. The six bardos of the pre-mortem and post-mortem conditions illustrate both the principle of the eternally returning cycle or spinning wheel in Buddhist tradition, and the application of this principle to birth–an entrance–and to death–an exit–as those relate to the intermediate states on either side of these two portals upon the “wheel” of death and rebirth.


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Together, corporeal life from birth to death and post-mortem life from death to rebirth form the complete wheel of human life within a longer cyclic experience of repeated re-incarnations (births) and repeated re-excarnations (deaths). Liberation from this spinning wheel of death and rebirth (samsara) is the primary focus of the Bardo Thödol. The “hearing” in “The Great Liberation by Hearing” is in reference to the prescribed 49 days of reciting the Bardo Thödol aloud to the deceased so that, by hearing it, the deceased might attain lasting liberation from this unremitting cycle of suffering–the wheel of death and rebirth. Significantly, to the extent that liberation from the wheel of death and rebirth is the primary focus of the Bardo Thödol, it is fair to say that a propitious rebirth in a new body is the secondary focus. As a practical matter, the ritual structure of the Bardo Thödol assumes and rests upon the dying or recently deceased person being ministered to by an “attending lama,” or Tibetan Buddhist monk, during the whole recitation of the text. So the text itself is effectively addressed to the attending lama as a manual for conducting certain rituals, for proper recitations, and for being mindful of certain signs and occurrences surrounding the dying or deceased person. In turn, the attending lama is instructed to address the dying or deceased person by reciting aloud a series of long exhortations (which are printed in the TBD in italics, differing from the non-italicized text that constitutes the ritual instructions to the attending lama). And at a further level, many of these long exhortational passages contain short prayers and affirmations that the dying or deceased person is prompted either to remember and/or to recite himself or herself in the transition through the post-mortem intermediate states (which prayers the TBD further indents within the italicized portions of the text). The Bardo Thödol thus lays out a structurally participatory event in its objective of assisting the dying or deceased person to attain liberation from the wheel of death and rebirth or, failing that, a propitious rebirth in a new body.

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Process and Methods of the Bardo Thödol

After first carefully reading the Bardo Thödol one may be struck by how genuinely compassionate are this text and its ritual, employed for the benefit of the dying and recently deceased. Opportunity after opportunity is given to the dying and deceased to attain liberation, and if at first he or she fails to attain liberation at a beginning portion of the Bardo Thödol, then the attending lama continues to the next portion of the text, which offers yet another chance for the dying or deceased person to succeed, and so on through multiple opportunities. The text reflects an acute awareness of the fact that virtually all of what happens in the three bardos will be “...depending on the positive and negative past actions...” (TBD 232) or karma of the deceased. Therefore, those with a lifetime of meditative practice and spiritual advancement necessarily have a greater likelihood of attaining liberation than an “ordinary person” or one who is “...burdened by the most non-virtuous past actions....” (TBD 301), and no illusions appear in the text that everyone will have the same experience in the bardos.

Moreover, consistent with that of the Buddhist bodhisattva ideal, the compassion of the Bardo Thödol lies in its primary focus, or goal, to assist all who are dying or recently deceased–and by extension all who shall die–to attain liberation, thus forever putting an end to the suffering of those beings. Only as a final resort after failing to attain liberation does it assist the transmigrant to navigate the risky labyrinth of choosing a womb for a new bodily rebirth, this last option of rebirth being understood as a continuation of one’s suffering in samsara.

It is understandable that much of the process and methods of the Bardo Thödol are couched in the sacred simulacra of Vajrayāna Buddhism, especially given its derivation from another source or root text whose short title is Peaceful and Wrathful Deities4 and that illustrates the centrality

4. The Bardo Thödol describes itself as an “extract” of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities: A Pro-found Sacred Teaching,[entitled] Natural Liberation through [Recognition of] Enlightened Intention,


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of these deities in Vajrayāna Buddhism. In the middle parts of the Bardo Thödol the deceased is exhorted to confront 100 specific peaceful and wrathful deities, most having names and various attributes, and to these deities these middle parts of the text are almost entirely devoted. Repeatedly these 100 Vajrayāna Buddhist deities which appear to the deceased are described in the text as his or her own “psychological projections.” In colorful Tibetan thangkas and similar artwork found everywhere and in all parts of Tibet–especially prior to the advent of the Chinese–the subjects depicted are often drawn from among these 100 deities.

But to the extent that dying and death are universal events for all human beings, students of the text should also be mindful that particularly the beginning part, and arguably the ending part, of the Bardo Thödol may be perceived as more universally familiar to multiple populations (or cultures) of people. The beginning and, to a lesser extent, the ending parts of the text are less heavily dependent upon Buddhist iconography than the middle parts of the text in which the deceased confronts his or her own psychological projections depicted as the 100 specific peaceful and wrathful deities. This might have a bearing on how the post-mortem experience of projected “deities” may be perceived by many, if not most, non-Buddhists. Given that psychological projections are also universal in occurrence, students might consider respectfully acknowledging the Vajrayāna depictions in the text while also conceiving of alternative non-Buddhist simulacra that could be animated by psychological projections of decedants whose immediately previous incarnations were in regions of the world other than Asia.

a text that appears in TBD at page 225.

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The Three Bardos of the Bardo Thödol

At the outset, the Bardo Thödol indicates a preference for the opportunity of the attending lama to interact with the dying person immediately prior to his or her death, though by no means is this obligatory for the attainment of liberation. According to the text, such an interaction facilitates the process of attaining liberation from the wheel of death and rebirth by “hearing” up to and beyond the moment of death. In addition, it also allows the attending lama to assist the dying person who is awake and not unconscious, nor drifting in and out of consciousness, to skip the entire recitation and hearing process by performing a deliberate “transference of consciousness” (Tibetan: p’howa) that should be “effected at that moment when the respiration is about to cease” (TBD 228). The pre-mortem transference of consciousness will be addressed in more detail below in a separate section devoted to this extraordinary process. Upon arriving at the venue and before his actual recitation of the Bardo Thödol to the dying or recently deceased person, the attending lama first prepares the area by arranging sacred artworks, providing offerings, and performing several ritual prayers including the triple Refuge. The attending lama then explains to the dying or deceased person the progressive dissolution of the outer and inner bodily elements during the post-mortem states, by which the deceased ultimately becomes the transmigrant.5 Thereafter begins the formal recitation of the text aloud, and the introduction to the first or chi-kha’i bardo, the intermediate state of the moment of death. It may be helpful at this point to reproduce from the text a succinct description, a precís perhaps, of the three bardos or intermediate states that must be navigated by most decedants:

5. The dissolution process in the Bardo Thödol, though focusing on the five “elements,” in effect recalls the principle discussed in theosophical literature as the gradual post-mortem disintegration of constituent “vehicles” or “bodies” or “sheaths” from the Vedantic doctrine, related to the Buddhist principle of skandhas.


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[The main subject matter of the Great Liberation by Hearing] comprises three sections: the introduction to inner radiance during the intermediate state of the time of death, the great elucidation which introduces the intermediate state of reality, and a teaching on the means for obstructing the entrance to the womb during the intermediate state of rebirth (TBD 227).

As the text is lengthy and contains much detail pertaining to each of the bardos encountered by the decedant, given the limitations of space what appears here can only constitute a very basic outline of the Bardo Thödol.

Chi-kha’i bardo: The first of the three intermediate states, that of the moment of death, is said to cover the time from the cessation of breath to the end of “the time it takes to eat a meal,” or a bit more, and is comprised of two separate opportunities to recognize the “inner radiance.” The first of these opportunities refers to recognition of the “inner radiance of the ground” and calls upon the ability of the deceased–which ability varies greatly from person to person–to recognize the inner ground radiance, or “luminosity” as described in other translations from the Tibetan.6 It has elsewhere been translated and further described as the clear light, sparkling, pure and vibrant, and as having no center or boundaries but rather as an all-pervasive white light. For the deceased to recognize it and understand that it is the quintessence of his or her own conscious awareness, is to achieve liberation from the wheel of death and rebirth in that moment of recognition. The TBD’s descriptions of this inner radiance include “a brilliant emptiness,” “beyond substance, beyond characteristics, beyond colour, completely empty of inherent existence,” and “manifest in a great mass of light, in which radiance and emptiness are indivisible” (TBD 231).

6. “Luminosity” is the term used in the English translation by Fremantle et al. 1975. The term “clear light” is yet another rendition in English of the same phenomenon; see, Thurman 1994.

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The duration of experiencing this inner radiance differs for everyone. For those who led a life of diligent and compassionate spiritual practice, this experience lasts the longest, and thus provides for such individuals a meaningful opportunity for recognition and thus for liberation from the wheel of death and rebirth. For those on the other end of the karmic spectrum, however, the inner radiance is said to pass by in a flash, so that these individuals rarely understand or recognize the opportunity associated with this brilliant light. There are also those who, while experiencing the inner radiance for enough time to be captivated by it but fail to recognize its inherent nature, may yet have a second opportunity for liberation in this first bardo.

This other opportunity is an introduction to the “inner radiance of the path,” otherwise called the “second” inner radiance. At the moment of death the deceased enters into a sort of swoon state devoid of all exterior sensory input during the time in which the first inner radiance appears. If the opportunity to recognize this first inner radiance passes, then after the vital energy and consciousness of the deceased leaves the body–preferably through the anterior fontanelle7 of the skull–the deceased momentarily regains his or her consciousness and becomes lucid. It is at this moment that many decedants may first become aware that they have just died. The text states that in this instance of extraordinary lucidity, between the passing of the first inner radiance but before the “bewildering experiences related to past actions have arisen,” i.e., the advent of the 100 peaceful and wrathful deities, the deceased has another opportunity in this second inner radiance to destroy the “controlling force of past actions” and attain liberation.

7. This aperture, also referred to as the “foramen,” is called in Sanskrit brahamarandhra, and in Lat-in janua coeli, the “door of the sky.” The TBD and Bardo Thödol classify this aperture as one among the “orifices” through which the deceased can depart the physical body at the time of death.


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In the bardo or intermediate state of the moment of death where the inner radiance or ground luminosity appears, we see a clear example of one feature of the Bardo Thödol which is universally familiar to multiple populations or cultures that never had any exposure to Vajrayāna Buddhism. A voluminous thanatological literature recounts hundreds of individual incidents worldwide of those who medically “died” and within minutes were brought back or resuscitated, often referred to as “near-death” experiences. Although the anecdotes of these incidents differ in numerous ways, one consistent aspect common to many of them is the presence or appearance of a pervasive “white light,” often accompanied by a sense of profound serenity or peace. While the phenomenon of such anecdotal near-death experiences including a pervasive white light may be dispositive of nothing, it is too striking a parallel to the Bardo Thödol to overlook in this context.

Chos-nyid bardo: After the passing of several days since death the deceased, after failing to achieve liberation in the first, now enters this second of the three intermediate states, that state which the TBD refers to as “experiencing Reality.” It is during this phase, the text states, in which “the bewildering apparitions, [which are the products] of past actions, emerge” (TBD 234). In the Bardo Thödol these apparitions–the 100 peaceful and wrathful deities–appear amid “sounds, lights and rays of light,” often evoking emotional or passionate reactions in decedants. Over the course of the next 12 days the deceased normally experiences the appearance of these 100 deities, which emerge sequentially as families and groups of deities each representing some element or aspect of awareness or manifestation. First to appear over the course of six days are the peaceful deities, most in the form of the “five enlightened families.” Each family consists of a Buddha-form or “lord” with his consort, and most are surrounded by a retinue of attendants. Each family also represents a “realm,” of which there are six altogether. In addition to serene and thunderous sounds, each family is also surrounded by the dull light of

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the realm associated with it–this realm being its oppositive energy and in which rebirth is possible based on reactive emotions and/or negative past actions. But more importantly each of these families offers to the deceased a “light-ray hook” of another color, which he or she is exhorted to seize or internalize in order to achieve liberation. The deceased is exhorted by the attending lama neither (i) to “turn away in fear and terror” from the light ray hook, nor (ii) to be drawn to or delight in the dull light of the realm associated with the family. Rather, the deceased is told to focus on the light ray of compassion extended by the lord and his family, which is the method to attain liberation. This entire process is repeated by each such deity and his family over the period of six days. These peaceful deities and their families are: (1) the Buddha Vairocana and his consort Ākāśadhātvīśvarī, (2) the Buddha Vajrasattva and his consort Buddhalocanā, (3) the Buddha Ratnasambhava and his consort Māmakī, (4) the Buddha Amitābha and his consort Pāndaravāsinī, and (5) the Buddha Amoghasiddhi and his consort Samayatārā. The Vairocana family represents both the element of space (ether) and “the pristine cognition of reality’s expanse,” and is associated with the realm of the gods with its dull white light; the Vajrasattva family represents both the element of water and the pristine cognition of “purity of the aggregate of form,” and is associated with the realm of hell with its smoky light; the Ratnasambhava family represents both the element of earth and the pristine cognition of “sameness or oneness,” and is associated with the realm of humans with its dull blue light; the Amitābha family represents both the element of fire and the pristine cognition of “discernment,” and is associated with the realm of agitated spirits with its dull yellow light; and the Amoghasiddhi family represents both the element of wind (air) and the pristine cognition of “accomplishment,” and is associated with the realm of antigods with its dull red light.


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With the appearance of these peaceful deities and their five families, the deceased has multiple separate opportunities to achieve liberation. The deceased must not be terrorized or afraid of any of these deities or their families, and the deceased must not be attracted to the dull but enticing colors of the realms with which these families appear. These are both passionate reactions to the deities-as-psychological projections, and if either of these occurs with one family then the deceased having failed to internalize its light-ray hook confronts the next family and so on, until the peaceful deities have concluded. The key for the deceased in this process is to avoid both aversion and attraction, as the text asserts repeatedly. This relates directly to the fundamental and profound first principle of duality, or contraries, which all those on the higher spiritual path must ultimately “synthesize” within while incarnate, this being one term for achieving an inner state of coincidentia oppositorum–ascending to a place beyond contraries. This principle is equally applicable in the post-mortem bardos, or intermediate states. In confronting these peaceful deities in this bardo, the deceased must avoid these two contrary reactions and dispassionately recognize the light ray being offered by each deity. Simultaneously, the deceased must recognize that the deific simulacra are his or her own psychological projections, and upon availing himself or herself of that light-ray hook of the deity’s compassion, attain liberation from the wheel of death and rebirth.

Following the progression of the path of the deceased in the second intermediate state of the Bardo Thödol, having failed to achieve liberation, on the sixth day after entry into this intermediate state the deceased has either (i) fled in terror from the awe generated by these deities, or has (ii) become attached to one of the dull lights of the realms and will thereafter roam within the “realms and be drawn into [the cycles of existence of] the six classes of beings” (TBD 237). On this sixth day, all the peaceful deities appear together to assist the deceased to attain liberation. If these deities again cannot induce the deceased toward liberation, then follows one last

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attempt before the appearance of the 58 wrathful deities. This is the appearance of five “awareness holders,” representing the center and four directions of a multi-colored mandala, whose purpose is to escort the deceased to liberation with their own threaded five-colored light ray, but also surrounded by a dull green light signifying the animal realm. The deceased is confronted by all the 42 peaceful deities with the same choice as before–react emotionally through aversion or attraction, or dispassionately seize and internalize the light ray and attain liberation. The deceased having failed to attain liberation to this point, on the eighth day after death the second half of the chos-nyid bardo begins: the emergence of the 58 wrathful deities. Pursuant to the classic dual pattern of polarity, the experience of the deceased with the wrathful deities is a sort of mirror image, or flip side, of his or her experience with the peaceful deities. As the text proclaims, at this point “...the blazing assembly of the fifty-eight wrathful blood-drinking deities, who are a natural transformation of the above assembly of peaceful deities, will arise” (TBD 255). The first wrathful deity is the Buddha Heruka, with his consort Buddhakrodheśvarī, who, “...in reality, is the transcendent lord Vairocana and his consort, so do not be afraid” (TBD 259). Unlike the peaceful deities, however, the wrathful deities offer the deceased no “light ray hooks” of compassion, so the deceased is left with only his or her own ability to recognize that these wrathful deities arise “...vividly manifesting before you from within your own brain,” and are the “...buddha-body of your own intrinsic awareness,” i.e., again, as psychological projections of the surviving consciousness of the deceased. Such recognition will lead the deceased to liberation, but the failure of recognition leads to another opportunity provided by the next wrathful deity on the following day, etc. In this pattern in which each of the peaceful deities is “transformed” into a wrathful deity, the peaceful Vairocana becomes the wrathful Buddha Heruka, the peaceful Vajrasattva becomes the wrathful Vajra Heruka, the


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peaceful Ratnasambhava becomes the wrathful Ratna Heruka, the peaceful Amitābha becomes the wrathful Padma Heruka, and the peaceful Amoghasiddhi becomes the wrathful Karma Heruka. The consorts and retinues of these peaceful deities are similarly transformed, and are depicted as frightful, terrifying entities who drink blood from skulls and are adorned with garlands of “snakes and fresh skulls,” among other odious accessories.

Having further failed to attain liberation after confronting all the wrathful deities, on the twelfth day after death, the deceased then confronts an entire congregation of loathsome entities, including the five wrathful deity families, who are no longer alone. The text states that “...on the twelfth day, the assembled deities of the Karma family of blood-drinking deities, followed by the Gaurī, the Piśācī, the Female Gatekeepers, and the Īśvarī, will come to escort the deceased” (TBD 262). This horrific congregation or assemblage constitutes the last chance of the deceased to attain liberation before he or she moves to the final bardo of the Bardo Thödol–that of rebirth.

This last chance, like the others before it, amounts to a recognition that the “apparitions” are essentially the projections from within the mind of the deceased. The deceased is reminded by the attending lama that at this stage his or her body is no longer a corporeal or physical body with its associated habitual tendencies, and that “Therefore, even if you are slain and cut into pieces you will not die. You are [in reality], a natural form of emptiness, so there is no need to be afraid.” Moreover, as to these ghastly forms or apparitions, which are variously described as having garlands of fresh entrails, eating “a [human] heart and lungs,” and “drinking brains,” the text further declares that “They have no material substance. Emptiness cannot be harmed by emptiness” (TBD 268). Nonetheless, in the face of this overwhelming visual and audible terror, the deceased will either overcome his or her fright and recognize the truth of the text’s declarations of the origin and emptiness of these psychological projections, or will faint, and having fainted will pass on into the third of the three bardos to begin the preparation for rebirth.

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Srid-pa bardo: The faint, or brief unconsciousness, from which the deceased awakes in this bardo of “experiencing the process of rebirth” is said to last several days. Upon this awakening, the deceased has now effectively become the transmigrant, since the process of outer and inner dissolution that death brings has finally placed the transmigrant in its (no longer his or her) unobstructed and genderless “mental body.” As the text provides, “...‘unobstructed’ means that the body you have now is a mental body. Your awareness is now separated from its [former] physical support.” (TBD 275) The transmigrant is now prepared for re-entry into a new body.

Even at this last stage, the last bardo, it is not inevitable that the transmigrant has lost all opportunity to achieve liberation from the wheel of death and rebirth. Throughout the Bardo Thödol, right up to the point of selecting a womb for rebirth, there is always and ever the possibility that the deceased/transmigrant will fully recognize the reality of existing in the post-mortem intermediate states without aversion or attraction to anything in them, and thereupon achieve liberation. And in this srid-pa bardo the additional option exists that the attending lama may succeed in directing the transmigrant to obstruct entrance into any womb through which to be reborn, the result of which would be liberation. But if the transmigrant is unsuccessful in either recognizing its real post-mortem existence or in obstructing entrances to wombs, then it will necessarily be reborn into one of the six realms. As the text states, these realms are those of the “lower existences” of the gods, the antigods, the humans, the animals, the agitated spirits, and the hell beings. Of these six only two are recommended by the text–the realm of the gods and the realm of the humans. Rebirth into any of the other four realms is considered misfortunate.


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At this new situation in the post-mortem states, the transmigrant undergoes various new stresses, from fear and terror to confusion to a powerful need to acquire a new body. Here the attending lama reads continuous pages of exhortations to the transmigrant, aimed at directing its focus and awareness and providing advice and direction. At one point the attending lama reminds the transmigrant that “It is due to your own past actions [karma] that you are now suffering in this way,” and that the innate conscience within will gather together “...all your virtuous actions, counting them out with white pebbles,” and “...all your non-virtuous actions, counting them out with black pebbles,” the weighing of which will necessarily affect what lies ahead (TBD 279). Above all, in the process ahead involving obstruction to womb entrances associated with the six realms, the transmigrant is told how critical it is that its “perceptions are not coloured by either attachment or aversion,” but rather it must seek to “maintain purity of perception” (TBD 284).

One last and emphatic effort is made by the attending lama to have the transmigrant undertake various meditative practices and forms of concentration in order to achieve liberation and avoid rebirth, before arriving at the final stage, which is described as follows:

At this stage, it is extremely important that you carefully employ the methods for obstructing the womb entrances. [Principally], there are two such methods of obstruction. These are: [first], the method which obstructs the person who is to enter the womb and, [second] the methods which obstruct the womb which is to be entered (TBD 287).

As to the first of these alternatives, or obstructing the person who is to enter the womb, the attending lama advises the transmigrant to visualize its “meditational deity” which image should be actively dissolved until it disappears into emptiness which conjoins with the inner radiance. If this meditative technique is to no avail, then the second alternative above–obstructing the womb entrance–must be employed, to which method there are five sub-methods.

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The five sub-methods given in the Bardo Thödol that obstruct the womb which is to be entered are intricate and cannot be fully repeated here. However, in brief, before the entrance to each womb encountered, the transmigrant will have pre-entry visualizations or “perceptions” and is instructed how to deal with each as the method to obstruct entrance. In the first, it will perceive “a male and female engaging in sexual intercourse,” and is instructed not to get between this couple but rather to mediate on them as the “spiritual teacher with consort.” In the second, it will perceive this spiritual teacher with consort as its “meditational deities,” and meditate upon them. In the third, it will again perceive the copulating male and female and must sublimate all feelings of aversion or attachment and maintain purity of perception. In the fourth, it will again perceive the “father and mother in sexual union” and must recognize them as unreal and illusory, being but the “perceptions of my own mind.” In the fifth, or last, with whatever perceptions it may experience, the transmigrant must meditate on the inner radiance, recognizing that the mind is “of the nature of emptiness,” and that it should now “return to an uncontrived and stainless state” (TBD 292). Where the transmigrant succeeds in obstructing all womb entrances it encounters, it achieves liberation. Where it fails, it moves on to the final option.

The final option for the transmigrant in the Bardo Thödol is that of choosing a propitious womb entrance. Prior to this last act, however, the transmigrant is again warned of entering a womb in the realm of the antigods, animals, agitated spirits, and hell beings; it is warned against the temptation to flee and find some refuge in which to hide; and it is advised to seek a protector, preferably its meditational deity. Then follow the “instructions for choosing a womb entrance within impure cyclic existence,” which are focused on entering a womb, and thus a new corporeal life, where one is able to further one’s spiritual development and gain merit so as to be more equipped to attain liberation in this new incarnation or in the post-mortem states following this incarnation. The best family into which to be reborn, therefore, is one that “...maintains an


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immaculate lineage of the [sacred] teachings, or into a family where the mother and father are deeply devout” (TBD 299). The attending lama exhorts the transmigrant at this point to “think as follows”: “Then, once I have taken on a body which is blessed with the merit of being able to act on behalf of all sentient beings, I shall [dedicate myself to] acting on their behalf!” (TBD 299) With this last repetition of the bodhisattva ideal, the transmigrant is at last ready to re-enter corporeal existence.

The Transference of Consciousness at Death

The Bardo Thödol twice mentions in its pages–once in the beginning and once at the end–a method of transference of consciousness at death, and in the first mention devotes several pages to the process. This transference effectively bypasses the principal methods of the Bardo Thödol, “The Great Liberation by Hearing,” for achieving liberation. The text expressly refers “yogins” to one of its companion treatises, stating that such yogins “...should implement, during the intermediate state of the time of death, [the appropriate procedure outlined in] the Consciousness Transference: Natural Liberation through Recollection” (TBD 225).

Chapter 10 of the TBD is Consciousness Transference: Natural Liberation through Recollection, where this method, known widely in Vajrayāna Buddhism as p’howa, is described as “...a powerful method, a means for attaining buddhahood which does not [necessarily] require meditation”8 (TBD 200). This text further states that it has “two aspects,” which are (i) training and (ii) actual application. Both the training for and actual application of this transference–some translations use “ejection”–of consciousness at the moment of death are comprised of highly specific yogic practices and mantras, whose objective if successful is the attainment of “liberation” (elsewhere in this text referred to as “buddhahood”) or “higher rebirth.”

8. Cf., regarding more on consciousness transference, Guenther 1995, 197.

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This text encourages its readers to undertake and practice regular training in p’howa during one’s incarnate life, from birth to death, which could be described as a methodical and concrete manifestation of memento mori. Such training, according to the text, vastly increases the successful transference at the actual time of death, when the applicable methods are utilized by the dying person. The p’howa training is quite technical, and includes methods that bear similarities to the yogic practices of prānāyāma, or the control and regulation of the breath, and kundalinī yoga, pertaining to the activation and control of the primary plexuses or chakras associated with the nādīs or channels of subtle energy within the physical body.

In the training for transference of the consciousness, this text instructs the practitioner to sit on a comfortable seat “...in the posture of the bodhisattvas...” and “...close the orifices [of the body which lead to rebirth] within cyclic existence” (TBD 202). In this posture

The body should be upright and erect. The hands should cover the knees, forming the earth-touching gesture, and the shoulders should be drawn upwards. Then, in one’s own heart one should visualize an azure blue syllable HÜM, blazing with light, from which a single syllable HÜM breaks away and descends to the rectum, precisely blocking the orifice through which the hells are entered (TBD 202).

In this posture and following this initial blocking method, all of the orifices are blocked one at a time, until “...on the crown of the head, one should visualize that the crown [anterior] fontanelle is blocked by a downward-facing white syllable HAM.” This is immediately followed by visualizing “the central channel, in the middle of the body, straight and erect” that arises from a seminal point just below the navel “...which is the essence of awareness, radiant and clear, breathing rhythmically, continuously pulsating, and on the verge of ascending” (TBD 203).


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Having completed this blocking technique and visualization of the subtle channels, the practitioner is instructed in the method of the actual transference or ejection of consciousness:

[Then], from below the navel, the seminal point is moved forcefully upwards, and, through the engagement of speech, it is elevated with the support of guttural gasps pronounced as ‘HI-KA HI-KA.’ Through the force of the vital energy below, the seminal point is unable to resist being accelerated upwards through the central channel. By this method, it is moved upwards, with seven HI-KA gasps, to the navel (TBD 203).

Following the ascending vital energy from the navel, it is forced upward by this same “HI-KA breathing” method until “...it reaches the heart, with a further seven it reaches the throat, and with a further seven it reaches the space between the eyebrows.” Finally, by this same method of mantra and breath, the vital energy is forced upwards from the forehead until it makes contact with the crown or anterior fontanelle of the skull, after which it “...spins downwards again and comes to rest below the navel as a white diffusion” (TBD 203). The application of this process at the moment of death is, effectively, the actual implementation of this training exercise. The difference between them is, of course, that in the application process the consciousness of the deceased is in fact transferred, and is transferred to one of three kāyas, or “bodies” of the Buddha. These bodies are dimensions or modalities of Buddha consciousness, and while another entire treatise could be written on the kāyas within Buddhism, there is neither time nor space to devote to them here. The text elaborates on these modalities, but summarizes that if successful in this particular practice, one achieves liberation either by “...consciousness transference into the Buddha-body of Reality [dharmakāya]; consciousness transference into the Buddha-body of Perfect Resource [sambhogakāya]; [or] consciousness transference into the Buddha-body of Emanation [nirmānakāya]....” (TBD 205).

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Before leaving the discussion of p’howa, reference should be made to a related technique which, though it appears nowhere in the TBD, will be of particular interest to esotericists and students of the philosophia perennis. This is the lesser known technique of drongjuk p’howa (Tibetan, grong-’jug) in which the yogin may forcefully transfer his or her consciousness either into a recently deceased body, or into the body of one who, while living, is prepared to allow such a transference. This technique is suggestive of the activities of certain of the Adepts who were the gurus of H.P. Blavatsky, and were known to use this or a similar technique for various purposes, though never arbitrarily and always with a beneficial purpose that was consistent with their sacred mission. More on this technique will be discussed in Part II of this presentation.

Conclusion

Invariably, death comes to us all. What varies, and widely, are the beliefs and attitudes that human beings worldwide hold regarding death as the exit from their own earthly lives, and what lies beyond this exit. Those who can be counted among the increasing, and now sizeable, number of atheists or secular humanists who discount spirituality generally take the position that death is a final state of unawareness and unconsciousness, even though this position is based on nothing but speculation and is therefore unscientific. Those who adhere to the sacred tenets of Hinduism and Buddhism accept, generally, that they will likely be reborn at some time after their deaths in circumstances forged by the law of compensation, or karma, accumulated from prior incarnations. And those who are adherents of the exoteric orthodoxies of the Abrahamic religions–Judaism, Christianity, and Islam–generally accept that each will enter for eternity a post-mortem paradise or hell depending upon the fidelity, or lack thereof, with which they adhered to the postulates of their religions.


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This variability of beliefs and attitudes about death and the post-mortem states can be further expanded to include those of various smaller religious traditions, those who adhere to the many sacred mythologies of indigenous or tribal religions, and those who are simply indifferent to the subject and give it no thought at all.

In a category separate from all these are esotericists or students of the philosophia perennis, and Vajrayāna Buddhists, for whom the process of the transition from death to rebirth is explicit, detailed, and of profound significance. These individuals are in a separate category first, because their perspective of death and the post-mortem transition rests on knowledge, esoteric though it may be, rather than on faith or nonfactual speculation. These same individuals are in this separate category for another equally important reason that pertains to the tradition of memento mori. A majority of human beings who adhere to exoteric religions, or even to no religion, would no doubt confirm the prima facie fact that the conscious recognition of inevitable death impels many to appreciate incarnate life more fully, or alternatively to lead more virtuous lives in order to avoid eternal damnation or a new incarnation of suffering. While these admittedly laudable goals may be enough for this majority, this perception of memento mori is nonetheless limited. This limitation is resolved by esotericists and Vajrayāna Buddhists who add another more compelling purpose: preparation for the actual post-mortem journey. The Bardo Thödol itself promotes such preparation as a key feature of living one’s incarnate life and following the Buddhist dharma when it expressly advocates that “Further, this text should be recited constantly. Its words and meaning should be learnt by heart.” This should be done over time during one’s incarnate life, the text explains, so that when one senses one’s death approaching, “...one should read this text aloud to oneself, and reflect on its words and meaning” (TBD 302).

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Ultimately, the transition from death to rebirth and its processes are universally human and applicable to all of humanity, even though understood clearly by few. Accordingly, neither this transition nor the “afterlife” are the property of any one religion or tradition, as some such religions and denominations perniciously announce when speaking of theirs as the only “true” religion and thereby promoting a competitive exclusivity for their particular eternal paradise or heaven, as if this were even possible. It is significant that the Bardo Thödol makes no claim that it describes a process of transition from death to liberation, or rebirth, that is applicable only to Tibetans, or to Vajrayāna Buddhists, or to Buddhists in general. Implicit in the text is the idea that it is applicable to everyone who meets death, since it describes all types and kinds of people–from devout yogins and monks to “ordinary” individuals to evil-doers–and how they often fare in the bardos. And particularly for esotericists or students of the philosophia perennis and Vajrayāna Buddhists, the Bardo Thödol stands as a lighted beacon in both the literature of and transition through the darkness of death and its post-mortem states. Together these facts support the assertion that this venerable text has the potential to be helpful as a guide for all decedants everywhere that embark every minute on the bewildering journey from death to rebirth.

Yet before the Bardo Thödol can fulfil such a universal potential, its core teaching must be customized, as it were, for all those people other than Vajrayāna Buddhists who find its sacred simulacra and accompanying language to be confusing, if not impenetrable. This is essentially an issue of “relatability,” in which the majority of the human race who are not Buddhist cannot truly relate to the Buddhist simulacra-as-psychological projections arising from within their own minds in the bardos. This process of customization, therefore, must first acknowledge the text as an integral part of Vajrayāna Buddhist tradition which well serves that community as it is. Then, it must carefully and respectfully find substitutes for the Vajrayāna ritual and iconic simulacra congruous to the culture of the decedant but without changing the underlying or core message of the Bardo Thödol, which is guiding the transmigrant safely through the challenges of the transition from death to rebirth. Once this post-mortem


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transition is universalized in this way, the immortal surviving element of all human beings–their one and only transmigrant–can more easily traverse the path between death and rebirth, in the eloquent words of Ananda Coomaraswamy, as a “...Spirit, or Life that is no more or less ‘mine’ than ‘yours,’ but that never itself becomes anyone; a principle that informs and enlivens one body after another, and than which there is no other that transmigrates from one body to another, one that is never born and never dies, though president at every birth and death....”9

9. Coomaraswamy1977, 248. “The Meaning of Death.”

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The Transition from Death to RebirthPart II: The Doctrine of H.P.B. and Her Teachers

William Wilson Quinn

Introduction

There is a solitary and solemn journey inevitably made by every human being, repeatedly, which traverses the metaphysical states between the exit of death and the entrance of rebirth. Collectively, these post-mortem journeys may be said to be the “nights” of our cosmic migration through aeons of major and minor cycles of spiritual evolution, just as our corporeal or incarnate lives from birth to death may be said to be its “days.” Compared to the days of these cycles–the incarnate lifetimes–little specific has been written or is widely known of the nights–the post-mortem existence. What has been written of them establishes that both these days and nights are subject to the dual immutable laws of (i) periodicity, the eternal cyclic motion, and (ii) karma, the invariable law of mediate causes–the law of compensation. Based on these universal laws, we also know that these days and nights affect each other as two co-equal sides of one cyclic continuum.

One of the rare treatises on the post-mortem journey of human beings expressly predicated on these two immutable laws is the Bardo Thödol (Tibetan bar-do thos-grol chen-mo), a Tibetan text whose literal translation is “The Great Liberation through Hearing,” but which has come to be known in the West as The Tibetan Book of the Dead. This presentation, being the second of two parts, requires some familiarity with the Bardo Thödol in order to make it meaningful: we leave to the discretion of the reader whether to read carefully beforehand the Tibetan text (or a competent translation), or at least Part I of

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this presentation subtitled “The Tibetan Bardo Thödol.” This preparation is necessary because chief among the aims of this presentation is to compare the 14th-century Bardo Thödol to the 19th-century writings of those who were primarily responsible for establishing The Theosophical Society (“TS”). These would certainly include the writings of H.P. Blavatsky (“HPB”), but more significantly include the writings of two Adepts who were her teachers, Morya and Koot Hoomi (“KH”), initiates of an Order of spiritually advanced individuals. The writings of these two Adepts in the form of letters will be taken from The Mahatma Letters to A.P Sinnett1 (hereafter referred to as “MLS”).

Two further introductory remarks will alert readers to what they might consider extraneous references made in certain quotes below by these 19th-century theosophical writers regarding the post-mortem journey of the “transmigrant,” the human Monad and its related principles. First are references to spiritualism, popular at the time, whose practices involve human “shells” of the post-mortem states, and which was the subject of considerable discourse among members of the TS during the 1870s and 1880s. Second are references to cycles of the evoluting life-force, of which humans are the apex, covering “globes,” “rounds,” and “kalpas” involving immense spans of time within recurring and periodic cycles of extant manifestation, known in Sanskrit as manvantaras, and their polar opposites of non-existence, known in Sanskrit as pralayas. Quotations by these 19th-century theosophical writers appearing below will occasionally contain wording that relates to spiritualism or cosmic periodicity. While these two subjects are too extensive to be meaningfully treated here, both do have a bearing on the post-mortem states, so readers are hereby alerted to the presence of such references in certain quotes that follow and, if they wish, can pursue their own study of these subjects.

1. The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, 1993.

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Variable Terminology

The Bardo Thödol provides no single invariable term of art for the surviving element of the human being that reincarnates, and keeps reincarnating, until liberation from the “wheel of death and rebirth” is achieved. In stark contrast to this omission, the 19th-century theosophical writers provide several terms for this surviving element, which presents another set of issues. This difference may be due in part to the fact that unlike the 14th-century Tibetans who used no term, invariable or otherwise, for the surviving element of the human being, the 19th-century theosophical writers drew upon multiple traditions that did have such terms, from the Vedānta to the Kabalists to the Egyptians, among others. This method necessarily led these writers to employ–and compare–multiple terms from different languages for the same principle, with such comparisons all being further subject to variations in and fallibility of translations.

In naming the immortal surviving element of the human being the Adepts Morya and KH appear to have preferred the term “spiritual Ego,” or “immortal Ego,” while HPB appears to have preferred the term “Monad,” though by no means were these usages exclusive. In fact, these two terms were occasionally used interchangeably by the Adepts and HPB. Speaking to precisely this point, KH wrote to A.P. Sinnett that “I am sorry you do not find her [HPB] answer written under my direct inspiration ‘very satisfactory,’ for it proves to me only that up to this you have not yet grasped very firmly the difference between the sixth and seventh and the fifth [principles], or the immortal and the astral or personal ‘Monads = Egos’” (MLS 259). For her part, HPB provides a useful definition of “Monad” in the Theosophical Glossary: “The Unity, the one; but in Occultism it often means the unified triad, Atma-Buddhi-Manas, or the duad, Atma-Buddhi, that immortal part of man which reincarnates in the lower kingdoms, and gradually progresses through them to Man and then to the final goal–Nirvâna.”

The Transition from Death to Rebirth II - William Wilson Quinn

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Though these terms differ, in their usage of “spiritual Ego” the Adepts convey the same meaning as in HPB’s definition of Monad, and it must be emphasized that none of these terms stands apart from but are fully integrated with the doctrine of the seven “principles” of the human being. As Morya stated, “Man has his seven principles, the germs of which he brings with him at his birth” (MLS 120). This core doctrine is foundational to an understanding of both the immortal element in the human being that survives death and appears in future incarnations, and the journey through the night of the post-mortem states from death to rebirth. This doctrine is too extensive to treat in detail here, but at least a cursory overview is warranted for understanding as clearly as possible the post-mortem transition as described by the 19th-century theosophical writers, and the comparisons between their views and those set forth in the Bardo Thödol.

The Seven Principles

The higher principles of the human being can be understood by reference to the Vedantic formulation of five (pancha) constituent koshas, or “bodies” (alternatively translated as “sheaths” or “vehicles” or “envelopes”) of the human being as found in the Taittiriya Upanishad. We may add to these translations the word “principles” for the three higher koshas, principles being the term of choice for HPB and the Adepts. Referred to as the “higher triad,” the highest three koshas or principles are the anandamaya-kosha, which may also be termed the atma; the vijnanamaya-kosha, which may also be termed the buddhi; and the manomaya-kosha, often termed the manas. The Vedantic atma-buddhi-manas koshas align exactly with the three higher principles of the 19th-century theosophical writers, and these writers consistently follow the order in their writings that the atma, buddhi, and manas are the seventh, sixth, and fifth principles.

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The lower four of these seven principles, or “lower quaternary,” does not as easily lend itself to comparisons with either of the Vedantic concepts of kosha, described above, or to sharīra, also translated as “body,” of which there are three. The exceptions to this are the sthūla-sharīra, the gross physical body, which is the first of the septenary principles, and the linga-sharīra, a subtle counterpart of the physical body composed of energy known as akasa and the second of the septenary principles. The third of the principles composed of fohat energy is consistently referred to as jivatma, or “life principle,” by all the 19th-century theosophical writers. Similarly, the fourth lower principle is referred to as the kama-rupa, and is the center of desire, energy, and volition (or will).

It may seem from this that the Adepts and HPB arbitrarily pulled Sanskrit terms from extant systematic Vedantic doctrines in order to arrive at a terminology of their own to describe the septenary principles of human beings. But Sanskrit had–and has–an existing vocabulary for them, and while those early Vedantic systems of kosha and sharīra were memorialized in writing and describe other composite features of human beings, no such discrete system was complete in terms of conveying the facts of the septenary organization that HPB and the Adepts used throughout their writings, and which pertain directly to the transition of the Monad through the post-mortem states. Perhaps the most comprehensive statement on these seven principles was made by Morya, when he wrote that

Thus the body of man is wedded to and remains for ever within the body of his planet; his individual jivatma life principle, that which is called in physiology animal spirits returns after death to its source–Fohat; his linga shariram will be drawn into Akasa; his Kamarupa will recommingle with the Universal Sakti–the Will-Force, or universal energy; his “animal soul” borrowed from the breath of Universal Mind will return to the Dhyan Chohans; his sixth principle–whether drawn into or ejected from the matrix of the Great Passive Principle–must remain in its own sphere–either as part of the crude material or as an individualized entity to be reborn in a higher world of causes. The seventh will carry it from the Devachan and follow the new Ego to its place of re-birth.... (MLS 119)


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One last and crucial observation about these principles needs highlighting, which is that the fifth principle–manas or mind–is bifurcated between the lower mind, the seat of ordinary thoughts, and the higher mind, the seat of abstract and/or spiritual thought. In esoteric literature these two aspects of manas, sometimes referred to as rupa (lower) and arupa (higher), are separated by a subtle divide known as the antahkarana. For our purposes, it is indispensable to understand that for most during the post-mortem journey the arupa, the higher mind–or in any event the highest portions of it–“joins” the sixth and seventh principles–buddhi and atma–and together these three form the spiritual Monad, the immortal surviving element of the human being that reincarnates.

The Skandhas and the Seven Principles

Above we recounted the fact that the Bardo Thödol provides no single invariable term of art for the surviving element of the human being that reincarnates. While it may seem odd that a treatise which seeks to detail the processes that occur in the transition from death to rebirth has no specific term for that which actually makes this journey and reincarnates, this likely points to a tension between the early Buddhist dogma of anatta, a Pāli term usually translated as “no-self” or “non-self,” and the more esoteric tantra tradition of the later Vajrayāna Buddhism of Tibet. The theosophical student of the Bardo Thödol must therefore acknowledge the acquiescence of the text to this dogmatic tenet of early Buddhism, and therefore actively infer the existence of a surviving element of the human being, for the sake of logic if for no other reason. The Bardo Thödol does, however, employ the Buddhist doctrine of the skandhas, a Sanskrit term translated variously as “aggregates or groupings,” which posits five elements or phenomena that comprise the whole of an individual’s physical and mental existence. The five skandhas are, in order, (1) rupa, the gross physical body (not to be confused with the rupa of manas just described), (2) vedana, sensations

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or sensate feelings; (3) samjña, perceptions of the senses, (4) samskaras, ordinary mental formations or conceptions, and (5) vijñana, awareness or consciousness. In The Tibetan Book of the Dead, First Complete Translation2 (hereafter “TBD”), the term skandha is translated as “aggregate,” and is defined as “A general philosophical term referring to the [five] principal psycho-physical components which constitute the mind-body complex of a sentient being” (TBD 444). The “aggregates” (or skandhas) appear in the text of the Bardo Thödol in five instances, each related to one of the five peaceful deities encountered by the deceased in the chos-nyid or second bardo. The aggregates are said to be “liberated”–effectively extinguished–along with those among the deceased who in fact achieve liberation in the bardos from the wheel of death and rebirth. As long as liberation is not attained in the earlier bardos, the remaining skandhas of decedants undergo gradual dissolution in the later bardos while the surviving transmigrant continues onward to rebirth.

If the skandhas, therefore, present somewhat of an incomplete picture as to what part of the human being disintegrates, or what part may survive, throughout the post-mortem journey, this incompletion is made complete in the doctrine of HPB and the Adepts. KH provides a poignant assessment of this subject, including the accusation of heresy risked by those Buddhists who would seek to expand on the skandhas by suggesting or implying the existence of an immortal transmigrant:

It is the group of Skandhas that form and constitute the physical and mental individuality we call man (or any being). This group consists (in the exoteric teaching) of five Skandhas...We add to them two more, the nature and names of which you [Sinnett] may learn hereafter. Suffice for the present to let you know that they are connected with, and productive of Sakkayaditthi, the “heresy or delusion of individuality” and of Attavada “the doctrine of Self,” both of which (in the case of the fifth principle, the soul) lead to the maya of heresy and belief in the efficacy of vain rites and ceremonies, in prayers and intercession (MLS 199).

2. Coleman et al. 2005.


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What is truly significant about this quotation is that it supports the conclusion that in truth there is no substantive conflict between the Buddhist dogma of anatta and the views of HPB and the Adepts. The Buddhist view is that the five skandhas do not comprise a “self,” since they are all impermanent, or “mortal” in the original etymological meaning, and disintegrate following death. With this these theosophical writers agree. But since the transmigrating self is made up primarily of the sixth and seventh principles–buddhi and atma–which are not recognized within this Buddhist dogma, one can simultaneously agree with the Buddhist dogma regarding the skandhas yet still maintain the existence of a reincarnating Self based on the two “added” skandhas, or principles, that comprise the immortal Monad.

Tracing Theosophical Usage of the Term Bardo

The Tibetan term bardo was once used by HPB and the Adepts in their writings, and they did understand it to refer to the post-mortem “intermediate states,” as it is translated in the TBD. Moreover, because KH was a resident of Tibet during the 1880s and conversant with the doctrines of Vajrayāna Buddhism, it is probable that he was familiar with the Bardo Thödol, though his own perceptions of the post-mortem journey did not completely align with the Tibetan text. But KH’s definition of bardo, to which he simply referred as the “period between death and rebirth,” differed from that of HPB. She intrepidly used the term at least once–incorrectly–in a piece she published in The Theosophist, and was quickly corrected by KH in its usage.

The story of this usage of bardo by the 19th-century theosophical writers begins with a review of Arthur Lillie’s Buddha and Early Buddhism by M.A. (Oxon) that appeared in 1881 in the Psychological Review. HPB commented–unfavorably–on both Lillie’s book and its review in an article she wrote for The Theosophist titled “Esoteric Axioms and

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Spiritual Speculations.”3 In that article HPB wrote, among other things, that she made notations on the review and sent that off to be “reviewed and corrected by two authorities,” one of whom was “Chohan-Lama of Rinch-cha-tze (Tibet), the Chief of the Archive-registrars of the secret Libraries of the Talay and Tashi-Lhünpo Lamas-Rimpoche,” whom she further described as a great teacher and expert in “esoteric Lamaism.” She reported in this same article, of January 1882, that she had already received a response from this Lama.

For reasons that are not clear, the Lama’s response to HPB was not published until years later, after her death. In the September-October, 1894 number of Lucifer, under the title “Tibetan Teachings,” the response of the Lama appeared along with HPB’s comments, and in that article the Lama at one point speaks of the fate of those who die prematurely through accidents and suicide, noting that “Their state is what we call a false Bar-do–the period between two incarnations.”4 It seems inconceivable, moreover, that given this Tibetan Lama’s biography and credentials, he would not have studied thoroughly the Bardo Thödol. But, in 1882, armed with this Lama’s “Tibetan teachings” and in response to one of her correspondents, HPB published an Editor’s Note under the title “Seeming Discrepancies” in the June 1882 number of The Theosophist in which she sought to describe the Tibetan term bardo. She wrote there, noting three “intervals” or intermediate states, that “Interval the first is that period between the physical death and the merging of the spiritual Ego into that state which is known in the Arhat esoteric doctrine as ‘Bar-do.’ We have translated this as the ‘gestation’ period, and it lasts from a few days to several years, according to the evidence of the adepts.” This statement was immediately seized upon by A.P. Sinnett, who was then in the midst of a prolonged correspondence with KH on precisely

3. H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings 1975, Vol. III., 396. [The Theosophist, Vol. III, No. 4, January, 1882, pp. 92-93.] 4. H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings 1975, Vol. VI, 107. [Lucifer, Vol. XV, Nos. 85-86, September-October, 1894, pp. 9-17 and 97-104].


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these subjects, as injecting some confusion into their exchanges, and asked the Adept for clarification: “The period of gestation between Death and Devachan has hitherto been conceived by me at all events as very long. Now it is said to be in some cases only a few days, in no cases (it is implied) more than a few years” (MLS 194).

KH’s response to Mr. Sinnett came to him promptly in a letter dated July of 1882, and in that letter KH corrected HPB’s account of the term bardo in a characteristically humorous but affectionately chiding way. KH conveyed to Sinnett that this was “Another fine example of the habitual disorder in which Mrs. H.P.B.’s mental furniture is kept. She talks of ‘Bardo’ and does not even say to her readers what it means! ‘Bardo’ has nothing to do with the duration of time in the case you are referring to.” (MLS 194) This response to Sinnett begins a further elaboration by KH on what may be called the esoteric or theosophical teaching of the transition of the deceased or transmigrant through the post-mortem states, and is the doctrine that shall hereafter be compared to corresponding teachings of the Bardo Thödol. KH states as follows:

“Bardo” is the period between death and rebirth–and may last from a few years to a kalpa. It is divided into three sub-periods (1) when the Ego delivered of its mortal coil enters into Kama-Loka (the abode of Elementaries); (2) when it enters into its “Gestation State”; (3) when it is reborn in the Rupa-Loka of Devachan. Sub-period (1) may last from a few minutes to a number of years... Sub-period (2) is “very long,” as you say, longer sometimes than you may even imagine, yet proportionate to the Ego’s spiritual stamina; Sub-period (3) lasts in proportion to the good KARMA, after which the monad is again reincarnated (MLS 194).

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Three Sub-periods of Post-Mortem Transition

It may appear at first glance that KH’s use of the single term bardo as being simply “the period between death and rebirth” is inconsistent with the triple bardo components of the post-mortem states as set forth in the Bardo Thödol. As we have seen, that text enumerates not just three bardos in those states, but rather a total of six bardos: the three during excarnate existence from death to rebirth, and also another three during incarnate existence from birth to death. Yet it must be kept in mind, regarding the use of the term bardo among Buddhists in Tibet, that there is in addition to the technical or ritual usage among those familiar with the Bardo Thödol, a more popular or short-hand usage in which bardo is used as a generic term for the “gap” or “in-between” of the post-mortem states between two incarnations. We saw this usage appear in the explanation to Western readers by the scholar Chohan-Lama of Rinch-cha-tze who, like KH, referred to bardo simply as “the period between two incarnations.” The more significant fact is that, like the three bardos that are the focus of the Bardo Thödol, KH describes three “sub-periods” as the post-mortem states of the “bardo,” or the states between incarnations. While it cannot be said that the three Tibetan post-mortem bardos necessarily correspond to the three sub-periods of KH and the other theosophical writers, certain correlations are apparent.

(1) Death and Entry into Kama-Loka. In this first of three theosophical sub-periods, there is no clear reference to an inner or ground luminosity which is the central focus of the chi-kha’i bardo of the Bardo Thödol. But no clear reference to this luminosity does not necessarily mean that the deceased does not experience this–only that it is not articulated anywhere in the literature generated by the Adepts or HPB about the first sub-period. There is, however, wording suggestive of this luminosity. KH wrote that “No man dies insane or unconscious–as some physiologists assert. Even a madman, or one in a fit of delirium tremens will have his


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instant of perfect lucidity at the moment of death, though unable to say so to those present” (MLS 326). And HPB asserted that “At the solemn moment of death every man, even when death is sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshaled before him, in its minutest details. For one short instant the personal becomes one with the individual and all-knowing Ego.”5 Moreover, as we see clear references made by KH and HPB to the related post-mortem phenomenon of a review of one’s life, this phenomenon is also alluded to in the Bardo Thödol. Consistent with HPB’s assertion above, KH adds that “Yet from the last pulsation, from and between the last throbbing of his heart and the moment when the last spark of animal heat leaves the body–the brain thinks and the Ego lives over in those few brief seconds his whole life over again.”

Beyond this, there is not much discussion by the Adepts or HPB about the actual moment of death and its effects. As to the timeframe, KH wrote that “The rule is, that a person who dies a natural death will remain from ‘a few hours to several short years’ within the earth’s attraction, i.e., in the Kama-Loka” (MLS 200). He added that “When man dies his second [linga-sharīra] and third [jivatma] principles die with him; the lower triad disappears, and the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh principles form the surviving Quaternary”(MLS 193).6 This is not inconsistent with the “dissolution” process of the outer and inner bodily elements described in the Bardo Thödol.

Once the lower three principles have died, and thus have separated from the remaining higher four principles, these four principles then exist together, temporarily, in the Kama-loka:

5. Blavatsky 1987, 162. One wonders, when “the personal becomes one with the individual and all-knowing Ego,” if there is not a corresponding brilliance or luminosity at such a fusion. 6. The reader should be mindful here of the use of the term “quaternary” for two differ-ent purposes. The first is when the person is incarnate, and refers to the lower four prin-ciples (quaternary), the first of which is the physical body. The second is when the per-son is excarnate, and the quaternary describes the remaining or surviving four principles, being atma and buddhi–7th and 6th–and kama and manas–4th and 5th–locked in a struggle.

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Thenceforth it is a “death” struggle between the Upper [6th and 7th principles] and Lower [4th and 5th principles] dualities. If the upper wins, the sixth, having attracted itself the quintessence of Good from the fifth–its nobler affections, its saintly (though they be earthly) aspirations, and the most Spiritualised portions of its mind [5th principle]–follows its divine elder (the 7th) into the “Gestation” State; and the fifth and fourth remain in association as an empty shell.... (MLS 193)

Like the first through third principles that all die together at death, the fourth and fifth principles–once having lost the karmic struggle with the sixth and seventh principles and thus temporarily existing as a “shell”–will also gradually dissolve. While there are those decedants whose sixth and seventh principles loose this “struggle,” we learn from the Adepts and HPB that these constitute a minority of beings. It may be interesting to follow the fate of such beings and those few who are destined for the state referred to as avitchi, i.e., annihilation, but for our purposes we concentrate here on the majority of cases and follow the 6th and 7th principles–the immortal Monad.

Adding to the specifics of what the deceased undergoes immediately after death, HPB stated that “After death, before the spiritual eyes of the soul, begins a performance according to a programme learnt and very often unconsciously composed by ourselves: the practical carrying out of correct beliefs or of illusions which have been created by ourselves.”7 It is unclear whether this “programme” described by HPB is equivalent to the “death struggle” between the 7th-6th and 4th-5th principles described by KH. But HPB’s description replicates wording that appears throughout the Bardo Thödol regarding the confrontation of the deceased with the 100 peaceful and wrathful deities as being projections of, and thus “created by,” one’s own psyche.

7. Blavatsky 1987, 163.


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Specifically discussing “post-mortem dreams,” HPB notes that “After the dissolution of the body, there commences for it [the “Ego”] a period of full awakened consciousness, or a state of chaotic dreams, or an utterly dreamless sleep undistinguishable from annihilation, and these are the three kinds of sleep.” In these first two types of post-mortem sleep the deceased or spiritual Ego would be capable of experiencing the confrontation with simulacra along the lines of the Tibetan peaceful and wrathful deities. And that confrontation may well correspond to the death struggle between the 7th-6th and 4th-5th principles referred to above by KH. HPB does not, however, explain whether the “dreamless sleep” constitutes or relates to the beginning of the gestation state within the Kama-loka, following which the spiritual Ego enters devachan. Unfortunately, not enough detail on this phase of the post-mortem states is provided by either HPB or the Adepts to make conclusive determinations about such correspondences. (2) Entry into the Gestation State. There is in their descriptions of the post-mortem journey an unambiguous use of the metaphor of procreation by the Adepts and HPB, evidenced by their deliberate choice of the term “gestation” which is actually used to name the second sub-period, followed by a “rebirth” from there into the third sub-period of devachan. Such a procreative paradigm appears nowhere in the Bardo Thödol, which adds to those features of the post-mortem transition from death to rebirth described by the 19th-century theosophical writers that do not correspond to the Tibetan text. Furthering this paradigm of the human foetus gestating unconsciously in the womb, KH asserted that “Every Ego–the combination of the sixth and seventh principles–which, after the period of unconscious gestation is reborn into the Devachan, is of necessity as innocent and pure as a new-born babe” (MLS 190).

While technically occurring at the very end of the first sub-period, we are told that the supreme struggle, elsewhere described as the death struggle between the 7th-6th and 4th-5th principles, occurs at the “threshold” of the second sub-period. KH reminds us that

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[T]he supreme struggle [occurs] between the sixth and seventh [principles], and the fifth and fourth [principles] at the threshold of the gestation state. And even after that, when the sixth and seventh carrying off a portion of the fifth [principle] have gone into their Akasic Samadhi, even then it may happen that the spiritual spoil from the fifth will prove too weak to be reborn in Devachan; in which case it will there and then re-clothe itself in a new body.... (MLS 213)

And there, in the gestation of the second sub-period, will the “sixth and seventh carrying off a portion of the fifth” principles–the immortal Ego or Monad–sleep unconsciously in “akasic samadhi” for a “very long” time, based on KH’s earlier statement.

However long this unconscious sleep may last in gestation, toward the end of that time the Monad begins to return to consciousness and to recollection of the principal events of his or her prior incarnation. “That remembrance will return slowly and gradually toward the end of the gestation (to the entity or Ego)... and fully to the Ego at the moment of its entrance into the Devachan” (MLS 263). This illustrates another difference between the theosophical and Bardo Thödol views of the post-mortem journey: the latter describes two points of a decedant’s unconsciousness or swoon, which are immediately after the moment of death and again on the cusp separating the second and third bardos. The former, the theosophical view, describes the decedant as losing conscious recollection, or memory, from the moment of death and “replay” of his or her prior incarnation to this concluding point of gestation in the second sub-period. “Every just disembodied four-fold entity,” wrote KH, “whether it died a natural or violent death, from suicide or accident, mentally sane or insane, young or old, good, bad, or indifferent–loses at the instant of death all recollection, it is mentally–annihilated; it sleeps its akasic sleep in the Kama-loka” (MLS 263). Slowly awakening from this akasic sleep and regaining its conscious recollection, the immortal Ego is readying for rebirth into devachan.


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(3) Entry or “Rebirth” into the Rupa-Loka of Devachan. HPB defines the Sanskrit term devachan in the Theosophical Glossary as“The ‘dwelling of the gods.’ A state intermediate between two earth-lives, into which the EGO (Atmâ-Buddhi-Manas or the Trinity made One) enters, after its separation from Kâma Rupa, and the disintegration of the lower principles on earth.” The Adepts wrote that devachan is not a locality, but a “state.” Once “reborn” there, the spiritual Monad’s stay in devachan is equal or proportionate to the amount of positive karma generated in prior incarnations, and KH used the simile of an oil lamp to convey the thought. “The Ego is the wick and Karma the oil,” he wrote, so the greater the pool of positive karmic oil, the longer will the lamp of devachan burn. And with regard to the differing experiences of Monads in the state of devachan, it is important to understand that “As no two men, not even two photographs of the same person, nor yet two leaves resemble line for line each other, so no two states in Devachan are like” (MLS 263).

Described in general terms, however, devachan is a temporary state in which the immortal Ego–the transmigrant–exists in pristine happiness. KH describes it this way:

Of course it is a state, one, so to say, of intense selfishness, during which an Ego reaps the reward of his unselfishness on earth. He is completely engrossed in the bliss of all his personal earthly affections, preferences and thoughts, and gathers in the fruit of his meritorious actions. No pain, no grief nor even the shadow of a sorrow comes to darken the bright horizon of his unalloyed happiness: for, it is a state of perpetual “Maya”... Since the conscious perception of one’s personality on earth is but an evanescent dream, that sense will be equally that of a dream in the Devachan–only a hundred fold intensified. So much so, indeed, that the happy Ego is unable to see through the veil the evils, sorrows and woes to which those it loved on earth may be subjected. It lives in that sweet dream with its loved ones–whether gone before, or yet remaining on earth; it has them near itself, as happy, as blissful and as innocent as the disembodied dreamer himself; and yet, apart from rare visions, the denizens of our gross planet feel it not (MLS 190).

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Toward the end of the immortal Ego’s stay in devachan, when its karmic “oil” has been exhausted, it prepares for rebirth not unlike a person prepares for death and a new existence in the post-mortem states. “As physical existence,” writes KH, “has its cumulative intensity from infancy to prime, and its diminishing energy thenceforward to dotage and death, so the dream-life of Devachan is lived correspondentially”(MLS 358). HPB adds to this that “...at the moment he is reborn on to earth, the Ego, awaking from the state of Devachan, has a prospective vision of the life which awaits him, and realizes all the causes that have led to it. He realizes them and sees futurity, because it is between Devachan and re-birth that the Ego regains his full manasic consciousness....”8 Thus the spiritual Ego is reincarnated, and begins yet another life on Earth.

Before moving on, there are two significant points to be made regarding devachan upon which the mindful student should reflect. The first is that only one’s positive karma determines the duration of the spiritual Ego’s stay in devachan, and the experience is all blissful without any negative aspects that one might expect to be compensation for one’s oppositive karma. This is because the immortal Ego’s oppositive karma is, in effect, put “on hold” during the stay in devachan, and will instead begin to manifest or take effect upon rebirth into physical existence in its next incarnation. “And while the Karma (of evil) steps aside for the time being to follow him in his future earth-reincarnation,” wrote KH, “he brings along with him but the Karma of his good deeds, words, and thoughts into this Devachan”(MLS 190). This temporary “stepping aside” of one’s oppositive karma during devachan can be compared to the notion in the Bardo Thödol where it is said that like “...darkness is destroyed by the light of the sun, the controlling force of past actions [karma] is destroyed by this ‘inner radiance of the path’ and liberation is attained”(TBD 233). Though the postponement of oppositive karma cannot be reasonably equated to its destruction–which would not be

8. Blavatsky 1987, 165.


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possible according to KH, who avers that “the law of Retribution is the only law that never errs”–the two notions do provide yet another basis for comparison between the theosophic and Tibetan depictions of the post-mortem journey.

The second significant point to remember about devachan is that the immortal Ego is only conscious in any post-mortem state, including devachan, by virtue of the presence of the arupa manas, the principle of the higher mind, or at least “...some of the more abstract and pure of the mental attributes of the fifth principle...” (MLS 192). This is because the atma and the buddhi are in themselves not vehicles of self-conscious awareness. As KH explained, “...the sixth and seventh principles apart from the rest constitute the eternal, imperishable, but also unconscious ‘Monad.’ To awaken in it to life the latent consciousness, especially that of personal individuality, requires the Monad plus the highest attributes of the fifth...” (MLS 194). This profound fact reflects again the principle earlier discussed of the Buddhist dogma of anatta, or “no-self,” and the corresponding emphasis placed on mind throughout the Bardo Thödol.

Transference of Consciousness to Another Body

In our discussion of this topic in Part I of this presentation, we identified the several locations within the Bardo Thödol in which consciousness transference was explained, and promoted. For the most part, the practice discussed there concerned p’howa, or the transference of consciousness into one of the three kayas or Buddha states, constituting liberation from the wheel of death and rebirth and no further incarnations. We made reference to another similar practice in our discussion there, not referenced in the Bardo Thödol, that involved the transference of consciousness at the time of death to another physical body, known as drongjuk p’howa. This esoteric Tibetan technique is similar to, if not the same as, techniques discussed by both the Adepts and HPB in their writings about consciousness transference at or near the time of death, and share in common

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the notion that such techniques are effectively limited to “yogins” or spiritually advanced initiates when faced with the death of their lower quaternaries.

It is true that in both the Bardo Thödol andConsciousness Transference: Natural Liberation through Recollection of the TBD reference is made to the assertion that this technique is available to “ordinary beings.” Yet the bulk of the teachings in these two texts regarding this technique is actually directed at “yogins,” or “highly realized spiritual masters” (TBD 223). This emphasis in the Tibetan texts is in line with the occult doctrines of the Adepts and HPB which, as a reflection of the immemorial philosophia perennis, allow a departure from the norms of transitioning the post-mortem states experienced by the majority of human beings in favor of pure efficiency wherein the consciousness of an Adept is transferred from one body to another without the interruptions or delays that are normally forced by death and rebirth. This efficiency serves as a benefit to the Adept as that relates to his or her duty and work as a bodhisattva, and consequently also as a benefit to all beings. Remarkably consistent with our subject here, KH made reference to the Tibetan term tchang-chub in this regard, declaring that

The Tchang-chub (an adept who has, by the power of his knowledge and soul enlightenment, become exempt from the curse of UNCONSCIOUS transmigration)– may, at his will and desire, and instead of reincarnating himself only after bodily death, do so, and repeatedly–during his life if he chooses. He holds the power of choosing for himself new bodies...while in possession of his old form, that he generally preserves for purposes of his own (MLS 75).


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The goal, therefore, for such an Adept is an uninterrupted conscious transmigration that allows for continuous awareness or consciousness throughout the process of death and “re-location” or perhaps “re-appearance,” rather than rebirth. HPB added regarding this practice that the Adept has several choices, and “...can avail himself of an entirely new physical body, whether that of a newly-born infant or–as Śamkarāchārya is reported to have done with the body of a dead Rājā–by ‘entering a deserted sheath,’ and living in it as long as he chooses. This is what is called ‘continuous existence.’”9 This allows for the magnanimous work of such Adepts to be uninterrupted, and obviates the necessity of years of spiritual re-training. The discussion of techniques of consciousness transference at or near the moment of death in both Parts I and II of this presentation was included to illustrate one of the most striking parallels pertaining to death and eschatology between the TBD as a whole, and the corresponding doctrines of the Adepts and HPB. As a general rule, these arcane techniques of consciousness transference lay far beyond the abilities of the vast majority of those human beings who routinely make the transition from death to rebirth, and the varying phenomena they experience in the post-mortem bardos, or intermediate states. So, since our primary focus here has been and continues to be on this vast majority of human beings who regularly traverse the “night” of the post-mortem states between death and rebirth, a summary listing of the similarities and dissimilarities between the two systems–that of the Bardo Thödol and that of the Adepts and HPB–together with a few cautious conclusions, shall now occupy our attention.

9. H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings 1975, Vol. XIV, 53-54.

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Similarities, Dissimilarities, and Conclusions

In comparing these two systems, one finds similarities and dissimilarities both of greater and lesser significance. We believe the two similarities of greatest significance are (i) that both systems are expressly predicated on the immutable laws of periodicity (reincarnation) and compensation (karma) which determine outcomes for all who die and are reborn, and (ii) that each system divides the post-mortem states between death and rebirth into three parts–bardos and “sub-periods”–even though these three parts of the two systems do not align in important ways. Nonetheless, these two similarities alone place the Bardo Thödol and the corresponding doctrines of the Adepts and HPB into a small and unique category among all the texts, scriptures, treatises, myths, and related religious writings regarding death and the journey of the “soul” after its earthly life. At least in the West, in the majority of these writings the deceased–typically having lived only a single earthly life–undergoes a judgment and thereafter enters a locus either of everlasting joy (heaven/paradise) or suffering (hell) based upon the extent to which he or she conformed or failed to conform to the commandments and dogmas of some exoteric system of faith.

Apart from the grand and over-arching similarities noted above between the two systems–those of the Bardo Thödol and the doctrines of the Adepts and HPB–other similarities and dissimilarities are to be found in a comparison of the three bardos and “sub-periods” between death and rebirth. Among these within the first bardo and sub-period is that of the clear light, or luminosity, which is unambiguously clear and express in the Bardo Thödol, but only veiled or admittedly ambiguous in the theosophical literature, as was discussed above. Nonetheless, as HPB describes, when in an instant at the moment of death the personal Ego “becomes one” with the “all-knowing Ego,” it would be hard to conceive of an experience in which the powerful and sacred emanations of the atma fusing with the decedant’s lower or self-conscious principles did not result in a corresponding brilliance and luminosity.


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Conversely, both KH and HPB clearly and unambiguously describe the deceased seeing “the whole of his past life marshaled before him” at the moment of death “in its minutest details.” Yet in the Bardo Thödol this same post-mortem phenomenon is veiled, or perhaps more accurately is ambiguous, and occurs later in the srid-pa bardo of that text, where the transmigrant confronts the totality of its past life by its conscience gathering together white and black pebbles that represent all the “virtuous and non-virtuous” actions of that life in determining its next destination (TBD 279). Perhaps the best that can be said pertaining to any correlations of these two post-mortem phenomena at the moment of death–the replay of one’s life and the clear light or luminosity–is that the former is clear in the theosophical writings but veiled in the Bardo Thödol, and the latter is clear in the Bardo Thödol but veiled in the theosophical writings.

While it benefits no one to seek correlations between these two systems where none exist, there are post-mortem phenomena in both systems that facially may appear to be dissimilar, but on closer examination may cautiously support a conclusion of being similar. Specifically to this point, we refer (i) to the decedant’s confrontation of the 100 peaceful and wrathful deities in the chos-nyid bardo, the second of the three bardos of the Bardo Thödol, and (ii) to the death struggle between the 7th-6th and 4th-5th principles that occurs at the “threshold” of the second sub-period based on KH’s descriptions. In this part of the Bardo Thödol, the deceased comes face to face with his or her own psyche, own character, with all its positives and negatives that are projected by the psyche as deific icons. Through encountering the five peaceful deities with their compassionate offers of liberation, the decedant is given a chance for immediate liberation from the wheel of death and rebirth simply by taking hold of the Buddha deity’s “light-ray hook.” If he or she fails to grasp one of these hooks in five attempts, then a more difficult task awaits in confronting the wrathful deities, where the decedant must rely solely on his or her ability to overcome paralyzing fear and “recognize” the wrathful deity as a “transformation” or alter-ego of the peaceful deity, and by this achieve liberation.

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While these two experiences in the chos-nyid bardo differ, and are overtly different from anything described by the Adepts and HPB, one may safely say that these two experiences each suggest internal manifestations of the psyche of the decedant by its interaction first with benign or higher forces in the form of peaceful deities, and then with horrific or lower forces in the form of wrathful deities. But there is insufficient description of the death struggle between the 7th-6th and 4th-5th principles provided by KH or the other theosophical authors to be able to draw any definitive correlations between the two systems on this point. Still, a correlation is suggestive, however, especially given that in both systems these are the primary points of “confrontation” and “struggle” by the decedant in truthfully facing itself during the post-mortem journey.

Yet in order to extend such a correlation to a more satisfactory conclusion, one would need to acknowledge that there was a conscious or “fifth principle” awareness by the decedant in this “death struggle,” even if never “recollected” by the decedant. Such an awareness would necessarily be required for the purpose of fabricating–and responding to–psychological projections as Buddhist deities or comparable simulacra. And any simulacra appearing in this struggle would have to be–if not Tibetan Buddhist–icons and images endemic to the culture and/or religion of the decedant’s immediate earthly life. Whether or not there is any confrontation of sacred aspirations or demons arising from one’s psyche in the death struggle between the 7th-6th and 4th-5th principles comparable to what the decedant experiences as the 100 peaceful and wrathful deities in the Bardo Thödol, this point exhumes the discussion in Part I regarding the employment of non-Buddhist simulacra in this process, or at least in the Tibetan process.


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It is an anthropological norm that traditional cultures, whether their traditions are oral or literate, are typically self-referent; that is to say, their sacred writings and oral teachings are seldom intended to be universally applicable, comparative, or to refer to other cultures, but are addressed to their own adherents and orthodoxies. The Bardo Thödol is a good example of this, even though its authors–perhaps Padmasambhava–would likely have acceded to the simple fact that people of non-Buddhist cultures in other countries also die, and probably thus would not confront in the bardos any Vajrayāna Buddhist icons they had never before seen. While the text does not suggest to the reader, for the reasons just mentioned, that the deceased should substitute his or her own socio-religious simulacra for the 100 peaceful and wrathful Buddhist ones, it should not be surprising that scholars of Tibet, psychologists, and even a Tibetan Rinpoche have made this suggestion.

When added to the fact that the Adepts and HPB approached the bardo not from a traditional Tibetan Buddhist perspective but from a universal perspective in which all human beings make the post-mortem journey from death to rebirth, and assuming that in this journey the decedant confronts and struggles with its own issues in a “state of chaotic dreams” and “illusions that have been created by ourselves” as HPB stated, the employment of non-Buddhist simulacra becomes a virtual necessity. This conclusion is supported by Robert Thurman, who wrote that the Buddhist simulacra of the Bardo Thödol “...could be used by non-Buddhist practitioners who seek to mobilize the Tibetan art of dying to prepare for their own between-transition, while deepening their sense of contact with the images and deities of their own religion.”10

10. Thurman 1994, 72.

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The renown psychologist Carl Jung, who wrote a Psychological Commentary to the Evans-Wentz translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, observed that in regard to the Bardo Thödol “...one is perfectly free, if one chooses, to substitute Christian symbols for the gods of the Chönyid Bardo.”11 And Sogyal Rinpoche, a Tibetan Lama and author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, similarly commented that “...the deities can take on forms we are most familiar with in our lives. For example, for Christian practitioners, the deities might take the form of Christ or the Virgin Mary.” He added this conclusory remark: “But in whatever form the deities appear, it is important to recognize that there is definitely no difference whatsoever in their fundamental nature.”12 Thus we have a Tibetan Rinpoche who, in a sense, is universalizing the Bardo Thödol.

Regarding correlations between the third or srid-pa bardo, and the third sub-period as described by KH, there are relatively few. The third sub-period is comprised, as we have seen, entirely by the transmigrant’s stay in devachan. In the srid-pa bardo, the transmigrant is mostly occupied first by blocking entrances into wombs and, failing that, by selecting a womb for a propitious rebirth. The only overt similarity between the two systems is the fact that the ends of the third bardo/sub-period are the actual gateways to rebirth. Yet there is one apparent commonality, faint though it is when compared to devachan, where in the srid-pa bardo the transmigrant enters a specific phase at the beginning of this bardo. At this point, behind it is a swirling “hurricane” of past actions, and before it is “a dense and unfathomable darkness” obscuring several precipices over which the transmigrant may fall. “At this stage,” the text reads, “in the case of those individuals who have gathered the accumulations [of merit and pristine cognition] and have sincerely practiced the teachings, one will be welcomed by [visions of] abundant riches and one will experience manifold blissful and happy states”(TBD 278).

11. Evans-Wentz 1960, xlix. 11.

12. Sogyal Rinpoche 2002, 288.


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Of the clear dissimilarities between the two systems, different readers may arrive at different conclusions based on their innate perceptions of what is relevant. There are, however, at least three apparent principal dissimilarities between the systems that need elaboration. The first is that of underlying assumptions within the Bardo Thödol and the doctrines of the Adepts and HPB about the outcomes of transmigrants traversing the post-mortem states: the former strongly emphasizes liberation from the wheel of death and rebirth as primary, while the latter views rebirth as normal and almost a given, as that which occurs to transmigrants in the vast majority of cases. The second dissimilarity concerns timeframes relating to the duration that the transmigrant experiences from death to rebirth: in the Bardo Thödol these timeframes are both specific–normally 49 days from one end to the other–and relatively brief compared to the theosophic view of the duration, which as KH stated “may last from a few years to a kalpa.” While the Sanskrit term kalpa is variously defined, one definition of kalpa in the Vishnu and Bhāgavata Purānas enumerates 4.32 billion Earth years, and all other such Indic definitions involve similar aeons of time.

The third and perhaps most contentious dissimilarity goes to the question of whether a human spiritual Monad can be reincarnated into the body of an animal as a result of that being’s oppositive karma in previous incarnations. In Part I of this discussion we had occasion to discuss the six “realms” of the Vajrayāna Buddhist eschatology into which the transmigrant can be reborn, one of which was the realm of animals. The six realms is yet another topic too extensive to be given detailed treatment here, but simply stated, if one accepts a literal translation and exegesis of this Buddhist doctrine, then one can believe that non-virtuous humans can be reborn as animals, or “hell beings,” etc. However, KH provides us with an insightful discussion of this topic where he concludes that several of these realms, which he describes as “lokas,” should properly be divided into “the ‘form’ or objective, and the ‘formless’” meaning that there is as strong an argument for their metaphysical existence as for their objective

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physical existence (MLS 195). Whether rebirth as an animal may instead be metaphoric, or otherwise ambiguous, within the Vajrayāna Buddhist context, no such ambiguity exists within the theosophical context. In corresponding to Sinnett about Mrs. Anna Kingsford’s understanding of this point, KH observed that “As to its [Ego] being reborn in animal forms after human incarnation it is the result of her loose way of expressing things and ideas”(MLS 64). Whatever doubts this statement by KH may have left about the theosophic doctrine on whether human Monads can be reborn as animals, they were eradicated by HPB when she wrote years later–in 1889–that

As a general rule, he [a dilettante] talks reincarnation before he has even learned the difference between metempsychosis, which is the transmigration of the human Soul into an animal form, and Reincarnation, or the rebirth of the same Ego in successive human bodies. Ignorant of the true meaning of the Greek word, he does not even suspect how absurd, in philosophy, is this purely exoteric doctrine of transmigrations into animals. Useless to tell him that Nature, propelled by Karma, never recedes, but strives ever forward in her work on the physical plane; that she may lodge a human soul in the body of a man, morally ten times lower than any animal, but she will not reverse the order of her kingdoms; and while leading the irrational monad of a beast of a higher order into the human form at the first hour of a Manvantara, she will not guide that Ego, once it has become a man, even of the lowest kind, back into the animal species...13

Each reader may decide for himself or herself whether, as between the Bardo Thödol’s account of the transition from death to rebirth and that of the Adepts and HPB, there are more similarities than dissimilarities, or vice versa. The more important decision, however, is whether to undertake an assiduous study of all relevant texts about this transition before

13. H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings 1975, Vol. XI, 137 [Lucifer, Vol. IV, No. 20, April 1889, pp.

90].


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we meet death in this incarnation. Praemonitus praemunitus (“forewarned is forearmed”) is an adage that applies as well to the transition between death and rebirth as to anything. That ancient adage, combined with memento mori–“remember that you shall die”–impels the intelligent to study, at the least, the Bardo Thödol and the corresponding writings of the Adepts and HPB while yet incarnate and competent in order to prepare for this transition–this journey. Like the intelligent traveler who plans a long, international journey to distant lands, the less angst, trouble, and even danger will be encountered in making the journey. And exactly so with the solemn journey through another “night” of our extended lives on this planet–the transition from death to rebirth.

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Bibliography

Blavatsky, H.P. 1987. The Key to Theosophy. A facsimile of the original edition of 1889. Los Angeles: The Theosophy Company.

Blavatsky, H.P. 1947. The Secret Doctrine. A facsimile of the original edition of 1888. Los Angeles: The Theosophy Company.

Blavatsky, H.P. 1973. The Theosophical Glossary. A facsimile of the original edition of 1892. Los Angeles: The Theosophy Company.

Coleman, G. and Thupten, J. (Eds), 2005. The Tibetan Book of the Dead, first complete translation. New York: Penguin Books.

Coomaraswamy, A. K. 1977. Coomaraswamy 2: Selected Papers Metaphysics. Bollingen Series LXXXIX. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Evans-Wentz, W.Y. (Comp. & Ed.) 1960. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. 3rd edition. London: Oxford University Press.

Fremantle, F. and Chögyam, T. 1975. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Boulder: Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Guenther, H. V. 1995. The Life and Teachings of Naropa. Boston: Shambhala Publications.

1975. H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings. Vols. I - XV. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House.

1993. The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett. Quezon City, Philippines: Theosophical Publishing House.

Sogyal Rinpoche. 2002. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. 20th anniversary edition. New York: HarperOne.

Thurman, R. A. F. 1994. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. New York: Bantam Books.

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Memento Mori: Living & Dying WellErica Georgiades

Even though we know that we will die, we rarely think or talk about it. We may believe that death is the opposite of life, but it is, in fact, a part of it. We all may have lost family members, friends, colleagues, and we know we will die. If death is part of life, why do we rarely talk about it? Because we fear death a dying. We live in a society that ignores death and dying, focusing on ways to increase the number of years we live continually. The educational system does not teach us to live in harmony with the ideas of death and dying, totally ignoring we all we eventually die. We should try to shift from the fear of death and dying to accept that death and dying are part of our lives. We should begin doing so by discussing it, meditating on it. Today, we will do so by looking at how some ancient traditions and Theosophy interpret death and dying.

Death is defined here as the end of the biological functions of an organism. But, how do we know when someone died? For quite a long time, the criterion to determine when someone died was cardiopulmonary arrest: the heart stops beating, causing a lack of oxygen. Then, to establish death, the pulse was checked, “moisture on a mirror held in front of the mouth, or other indications that the heart and lungs were working.”1 However, technological advancements such as the development of respirators and electric shock, for example, can revive someone. Thus cardiopulmonary arrest is no longer an incontestable standard in establishing whether a person is dead or alive. As a result, in the 70s, the cardiopulmonary criteria to determine death shifted to brain-death.

1 DeGrazia, 2017.

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Yet, the brain may be gone, but machines can keep the heart and lungs functioning. So, is the person dead or alive? In some religious traditions, such as the ancient Egyptian one, the seat of the soul is in the heart. For some people, the fact that the heart is beating, even if the brain is dead, means the person is still alive. Hence brain-dead is also not an incontestable criterion in determining death. Furthermore, one could ask, is the brain-dead person critically ill or dead? What are the criteria to determine the brain dead? Are such criteria incontestable? No, the criteria to determine brain dead are not incontestable; in fact, there is a lot of controversies related to it. Technological advancements allow the dying process to be prolonged by the use of machines and other methods such as suspended animation, for example.2 As a result, the criteria to determine death is controversial, and ongoing debates are focusing on what standards should determine it, i.e. morally, scientifically, ontologically, and so forth.

Organ donations also raise controversies about determining whether someone has died or is living in some other form through the person who received the organ. In a study about heart transplants,3 six per cent of patients with a new heart reported changes in their personality. The study considers such reports as mere fantasies. However, the DNA and all genetic information of a donated organ remain the same. The person receiving a donated organ, such as a heart, for instance, will have a vital organ with the genetic information of someone else. For this reason, personality changes may not be mere fantasies and could be based on the genetic information the organ carries, as well as on other factors.

2 Suspended animation is “the inducement of a temporary cessation or decay of main body functions, including the brain, to a hypometabolic state in order to try to preserve its mental and physiological capabilities.” See “induced animation” in Wikipedia. 3 B. Bunzel, B. Schmidl-Mohl, A. Grundböck, & G. Wollenek (1992). “Does Changing the Heart Mean Changing Personality? A Retrospective Inquiry on 47 Heart Transplant Patients.” Quality of Life Research, 1(4), 251-256. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4035054 > [Last Accessed 20 January 2018.

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The Theosophical worldview suggests that there is a connection between the organ donator and the organ receiver. For instance, let us consider heart donation in light of the Theosophical system. The heart is connected to prana, the vital principle. The physical body (Sthulasariram), which includes all its organs, is linked to prana, the breath of life. In this manner, organ donor will remain in the kama-loka4 until the organs stop functioning. Technically, the donor, somehow, lives through the donated organs. On the other hand, organ donation is an act of compassion. A blessing for the receiver who can live on, perhaps, until the time of his/her natural death. An act of kindness has an impact on all the principles. For this reason, organ donation may have a beneficial influence on the donor. In any case, organ donations may soon become a thing of the past. Scientists have been working on ways to create human organs by using 3d printers “loaded with living cells.”5 That is not to say that bionic parts are now replacing amputated limbs.

In addition to that, sooner or later, the so-called technology of immortality will cause profound changes in the way people deal with death. Soon, it will be possible to create virtual clones of people, animated by artificial intelligence (hereafter AI), able to interact and communicate with others. Such digital selves will be created by very sophisticated algorithms, allowing AI to collect data from social networks, personal emails, mobile messages, and input from people wishing to develop their virtual clone or one of a deceased family member’s. Using this material, AI will construct a digital self that can interact with others in the same way the dead person would chat, write messages, send emails, express complex thoughts, ideas and even emotions. To construct a digital self, people will feed information to AI. In the beginning, this information may be used by AI to reply to e-mails and do other jobs the person may have not the time to deal to attend. After the person dies, his/her virtual self will be interacting with others. When, for instance, someone’s mother

4 The Mahatma Letters, 16. 5 Drake, M. 2018. “Human beings on brink of achieving Immortality by year 2050.” Sunday Express, Feb 19.

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dies, her digital self will be around comforting, sending you emails, giving recipes and advising in trying moments. ETER9 is working on such a project, currently at the Beta stage.

Futurologists have also predicted that in 2050, people will no longer die. They will be able to upload their minds to machines. To rent a mind carrier will be like renting a “car to go to see events in different corners of the planet. If you wanted to spend the evening in Australia, going to the Sydney opera house, you could use an android. People on poor incomes may even eventually be able to afford an android and it could even potentially be given on the NHS. By 2060, people like you or I will be able to buy it [android], and by 2070 people in poor countries on modest incomes will be able to buy it. Everyone will have a chance to have immortality, a sort of electronic immortality.”6

Furthermore, Ideology 2045, founded by a Russian billionaire, aims “to create technologies enabling the transfer of an individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality.”7 They plan to create avatars to achieve such an aim. For instance, the 2015-2020 avatars will be anthropomorphic robots remotely controlled by a brain-computer interface. The 2021 avatars will be “synthetic carriers of personality and consciousness,”8 that make individuals see, hear and feel. The 2020-2025 avatar involves transplanting the human brain to another carrier.9 The 2030-2035 avatar will be “a computer model of the brain and human consciousness, with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier.”10 Finally, the 2040-2045 avatar will be a hologram of the person, formed

6 Drake, M. 2018. “Human beings on brink of achieving Immortality by year 2050.” Sunday Express, Feb 19. 7 Ward, T and Gohd, C. 2017. “The 2045 Movement and Four Routes to Immortality.” Futurism. < https://futurism.com/new-tech-is-giving-humanity-many-potential-paths-to-immortality/> [Last Accessed 21 January 2018]. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 10 See Ideology 2045 Open Letter to the United Nations. http://2045.com/tech2/

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by nanorobots able to interact with matter. People who are going to die will be able to buy an avatar to transfer their personality onto it.

We are heading towards a post-humanistic era, where humans will blend with technology and a new and artificial species will emerge. This post-humanistic age will be characterised by the use of technological apparatus to achieve immortality, as well as by the improvement of physical and cognitive functions of humans.11 The age of artificial, soulless creatures animated by AI, and humans biologically improved by technology of immortality, will mark the end of humanity as we know it. Parallel to that, the search for biological immortality also continues in different ways, but we have no space to discuss it here.

Unfortunately, our society promotes and promulgates the pursuit of pleasure, self-indulgent experiences, economic growth, and a narcissistic way of living. As a result, the educational system ignores entirely the importance of teaching how to live a good life, wellbeing (Eudaimonia), and the need to come to terms with biological mortality. Therefore, death has become a kind of taboo, and people do not even want to talk about it. For instance, research organised by the Dying Matters Coalition in the UK shows that half of the English population never discuss with their partner their end-of-life wishes. Unfortunately, even though we know, we will die, and our passing may be a very traumatic event for those we love, some of us avoid talking or thinking about death and dying. Ideally, we should organise our own life and death to come to make the burden lighter to others. To do so we should come to terms with the mortality of our biological body by embracing the fact that dying is a natural process, everyone will die sooner or later. We need to stop thinking of death in terms of otherness and come into an understanding based on a profound acceptance of the transitoriety of our biological body.

11 See See Bovey, N. ? “Posthumanism, technology and immortality.” Be Thinking.


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There are many ways to accept the transitoriety of our biological body. For instance, the ancient-wisdom tradition offers the knowledge that death is an illusion; what dies is the biological body; the soul continues to exist in other realms. However, the theoretical knowledge that death is an illusion is not enough for us to no longer fear or be apprehensive about it. For this truth to be able to penetrate the depths of our being, becoming an adamant conviction, we must live in awareness of our mortality by contemplating death. We need to make a profound change in our way of life in order not to be carried away by what is excessive and nonessential. Hence we find in the ancient-wisdom tradition daily exercises recommended to making the theoretical knowledge of the illusion of death a practical conviction in our lives. Such practices referred here as memento mori, are traced back to the ancient Egyptians, Buddhists, Hinduists, the Medieval-Christian tradition shaping much of their monastic ethics, as well as the Socratic and Stoic philosophers and so forth. Memento mori (Latin: remember you will die) is the practice of reflecting and contemplating death, in contrast with the vanities and illusions of the world.

In the Socratic philosophy, memento mori involves the notion that we should free ourselves from desires and passions to know the immateriality of the soul:

We shall, I think, be nearest to knowledge when we avoid, so far as possible, intercourse and communion with the body, except what is absolutely necessary, and are not filled with its nature... And in this way, freeing ourselves from the foolishness of the body and being pure, we shall...be with the pure and shall know of ourselves all that is pure and that is, perhaps, the truth. (Plat. Phaedo: 66d-67b).

Plotinus said that the soul can become aware of its immortality only when free from passions and attachment to physical existence (Ennead IV, 7, 10). Detachment from the physical body is achieved by way of purification from passions and desires. The Stoics practised, premeditatio malorum, a

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meditation exercise in which they imagined themselves suffering. Their rationale is that we need to be prepared to endure hardships, with unshaken emotional, mental and psychological harmony. The ancient Egyptians had many practices; one of them involved passing the image of the dead during festivals and banquets. This custom aimed at reminding them of the impermanence of the body and the eternal. The booklet, written by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Voice of the Silence, provides many purification exercises from the Buddhist tradition, aiming at helping us to achieve detachment from the body and control of passions, necessary to realise the immateriality of the soul: Kill out desire; but if thou killest it take heed lest from the dead it should again arise. Kill love of life, but if thou slayest tanhâ (34), let this not be for thirst of life eternal, but to replace the fleeting by the everlasting.12 The pearls of the ancient-wisdom tradition are too many to be outlined in this brief introduction, for this reason, we will explore only a few.

12 HPB, The Voice of the Silence, session I.


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Memento Mori in the Ancient Egyptian Tradition

Death is before me today: like the recovery of a sick man,

like going forth into a garden after sickness.Death is before me today: like the odor of myrrh,

like sitting under a sail in a good wind.Death is before me today:

like the perfume of lotuses, like the course of a stream; death is in my sight today

like the blue sky, like the return of a man from the war-galley to his house.

Death is before me today: like the home that a man longs to see,

after years spent as a captive.13

The ancient Egyptians disliked the notion of mortality, using euphemisms such as to tread the ways of rejuvenation to refer to death. Yet, they had many memento mori practices. For instance, we learn from Herodotus (484-425 BC) that during banquets, in ancient Egypt, “a man carries around an [wooden] image in a coffin, painted and carved in exact imitation of a corpse two or four feet long. This he shows to each of the company, saying ‘While you drink and enjoy, look on this; for to this state you must come when you die.’ Such is the custom at their symposia” (Hdt. 2.78.1). This custom aimed at reminding them of the impermanence of the body and of the eternal.

In the wisdom literature of ancient Egypt, there is

13 Excerpt from a Debate between a man tired of life and his soul. Source: http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/texts/man_tired_of_life.htm

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a fascinating debate entitled A Debate between a Man and his Soul (2000 BC), which is part of a written tradition of memento mori, reminding us of death and the impermanence of this world. The debate is between a man we will call “Self,” and his Soul, focusing on death and burial.14 The story goes like this, a man died, and his Self is going through great hardship as it cannot let go attachment to things of the physical world. The man’s Soul explains to his Self that they need to depart to the underworld to plead the case to Anubis, to be allowed to take their journey to the fields of Aaru.15 The Self resists departing and attempts to convince the Soul to stay for a little longer. The Soul explains the Self that departing is the only way to enter the underworld.16 The Self, realising that the Soul is departing, pleads: “Oh! No; This I cannot bear; My soul replies not; Indeed, worse than anger is this indifference. Don’t go my soul! Stay! Only with me you will arise!”17

The Self resists the departing of the Soul. The Soul returns and says to the Self that he is no longer in the realm of the living and must depart. The Self refuses. The Soul wants to leave now; the Self wants to wait. “The Self pleads for time, delay, waiting, patience; the Soul pleads for the “now,” the actual moment.”18 The Self refuses to depart, claiming it is necessary to wait to resolve some unfinished business: “I said I will not go as long as this is neglected. Surely, you are running away without caring. Be patient my soul, my brother, until my heir comes, one who will make offerings, who will stand at the tomb on the day of the burial.”19 They both, the Self and the Soul want death. But each one of them wants to depart in their own time. The Self needs time to prepare to depart. The Soul is ready to leave. The Soul thinks that the interest of the Self for

14 Assman 1998: 388. 15 Assman 1998: 390. 16 Assman 1998: 390. 17 Reed 1997: 15-17. The dialogue is preserved on what is known today as the Berlin Papyrus 3024. The debate, between a man and his soul, has been also interpreted as a dialogue between a man who wants to commit suicide and his soul, trying to convince him not to do so. Interpreting ancient texts is quite difficult, translations are debatable. This is especially true for cases involving damaged material. 18 Assman 1998: 391. 19 Ibid.


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earthly things is an illusion, and warns the Self that if he thinks of mundane things, he will not “go forth to see the sun.”20 The debate between the Self and the Soul may be interpreted in different ways. For instance, the Soul lives in eternity. The Self lives in the past with expectations for the future, but not in the eternal. The Self knows it must depart, but does not want to let go of attachment to his former existence. The Soul longs to return to the divine realm.

In light of the Theosophical worlview, the drama between the Self and the Soul can be interpreted as the Self representing kama-manas, and the Soul representing buddhi-manas. Kama-manas is the aspect of the mind under the influence of kama-rupa, i.e. emotions, desires, attachments, and so forth. Buddhi-manas is the aspect of the mind illuminated by Buddhi, the universal soul. The Self represents the kama-manasic aspect of the deceased not willing to let go, not ready to depart because of attachment to his former life. The Soul represents buddhi-manas, the mind illuminated by the universal soul, ready to depart because it sees all kama-manasic (mind-desire)attachments as an illusion. In this vein, The Debate between a Man and his Soul symbolically represents the moment the soul departs to Devachan, leaving behind all attachments to his former existence. As a result, we could consider that the moment of death, for ancient Egyptians, may have been represented as a challenging process when the dying is struggling to depart and to let go of attachments to their lives before going forth to see the sun, entering Devachan.

20 Assman 1998: 391.

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Memento Mori in the Socratic Tradition

In the Socratic philosophy, memento mori is emphasised in Phaedo,21 a dialogue between Socrates (470 – 399 BC) and his students, who are saddened and scared because their teacher is going to die. This dialogue explores questions such as whether death is a good or a bad thing, the nature of the afterlife and more. It is in this context that, the most beautiful Socratic dialogue, focusing on death and the moment of death, unfolds.

One of the most puzzling thoughts expressed by Socrates in this dialogue is that: “those who philosophise properly study how to die” (Οι Ορθώς Φιλοσοφούντες Αποθνήσκειν Μελετώσi) and that his entire life was a preparation for the moment of his death:

I deem that the true disciple of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other men; they do not perceive that he is ever pursuing death and dying; and if this is true, why, having had the desire of death all his life long, should he repine at the arrival of that which he has been always pursuing and desiring? (Plat. Phaedo: 59-64).

Socrates also explains to his students that if they want to know any absolute truth, the main aim of the philosopher, they should not fear to die. The soul is imprisoned in the body, and for this reason, it is not possible to know any absolute truth. Death represents the possibility of knowing absolute truths because it frees the philosopher from the limitations of the body. Therefore, the philosopher should not fear death. For Socrates, it is not possible to acquire absolute knowledge while identified with the body. In this way, death is a friend of the philosopher and represents the only possibility to know the absolute and divine truth of anything. He also says that while living in the physical body, we should do our best not to

21 Phaedo, also known as On the Soul, is a very inspiring booklet, a must read!


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identify ourselves with it, if we aspire to approach any relative truth:

[If] we are ever to know anything absolutely, we must be free from the body and must behold the actual realities with the eye of the soul alone. And then, as our argument shows, when we are dead we are likely to possess the wisdom which we desire and claim to be enamored of, but not while we live. For, if pure knowledge is impossible while the body is with us, one of two thing must follow, either it cannot be acquired at all or only when we are dead; for then the soul will be by itself apart from the body, but not before. And while we live, we shall, I think, be nearest to knowledge when we avoid, so far as possible, intercourse and communion with the body, except what is absolutely necessary, and are not filled with its nature, but keep ourselves pure from it until God himself sets us free. And in this way, freeing ourselves from the foolishness of the body and being pure, we shall, I think, be with the pure and shall know of ourselves all that is pure and that is, perhaps, the truth. (Plat. Phaedo: 66d-67b).

A short digression here is necessary to briefly discuss the view on relative and absolute truth in light of the Theosophical literature. HPB embraces an approximated Socratic view about the truth. For instance, in the article What is the Truth, she discusses absolute and relative truths:

To sum up the idea, with regard to absolute and relative truth... Outside a certain highly spiritual and elevated state of mind, during which Man is at one with the UNIVERSAL MIND -- he can get nought on earth but relative truth, or truths, from whatsoever philosophy or religion... Meanwhile, every one can sit near that well -- the name of which is KNOWLEDGE -- and gaze into its depths in the hope of seeing Truth’s fair image reflected, at least, on the dark waters...22

22 HPB 1888, What is Truth.

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However, she supports the notion that it is possible to reach, using her own words, “a ray” of the absolute truth, while in the physical body, but only by way of identification of the mind or manas with the spiritual soul, buddhi.

Still, regarding death, Socrates says the following in the Apology:

To fear death is nothing other than to think oneself wise when one is not; for it is to think one knows what one does not know. No man knows whether death may not even turn out to be the greatest blessing for a human being; and yet people fear it as if they knew for certain that is the greatest of evil.23

Socrates also thinks that death may mean two things: a. the soul moves from one place to another; 2. nothingness, a dreamless sleep in eternity (Plat. Apol. 40e). If death is a migration from one place to another, there is no reason to fear it. If death is like a night of dreamless sleep in eternity, there is no reason to fear it also.

Finally, at the moment of Socrates’s death, his last words were: “don’t forget to sacrifice a rooster to Asclepios” (Phaedo 117a–118a). Asclepios, the healer, is also said to have the power to resurrect the dead. In this way, as in the Egyptian poem at the beginning of this presentation, death is considered a cure for the sick man. The sickness is the limitation imposed by the prison of the soul in the physical body. Death is freedom and a possibility of knowing the truth, the main aim of the philosopher.

23 See, “The Apology (The Defense of Socrates).” Great Dialogues of Plato, trans. W.H.D. Rouse, Ber-genfield, NJ: Mentor Books, 1971, p 435.


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Memento Mori in the Stoic Tradition

The Stoic philosophers supported the notion that for a good life and death, we should live in awareness of the transitory nature of our existence. Such awareness is the foundation of a good life and death, and may be developed by the daily contemplation of our mortality, discernment, control of our emotions and thoughts, concentration and focus on what matters, i.e. goodness and kindness towards all beings. For instance, in the Enchiridion of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus (50 AD - 135 AD), he advises us to be concerned about what is in our control and to ignore what is not in our control. What is in our control are our opinions, thoughts, emotions, desires, aversions, our actions and reactions. What is not in our control are the biological functions of our body subject to illness and death, wealth, reputation, whatever others may think of us and whatever is not of our action:

Remember, then, that if you suppose that things which are slavish by nature are also free, and that what belongs to others is your own, then you will be hindered. You will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others such as it really is, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will. No one will hurt you, you will have no enemies, and you not be harmed.

The stoic notion of self-control is a condition of profound peace and inner balance in which there is no place for anger and disruptive emotional feelings and thoughts.

One of the stoic philosophers writing on death and the good life is Marcus Aurelius (121 – 180 AD). Mahatma KH considers him a remarkable person: “Many are the grains of incense destined for one and the same altar: one falls sooner into the fire, the other later — the difference of

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time is nothing,” remarked a great man when he was refused admission and supreme initiation into the mysteries.”24 Marcus Aurelius, in his Meditations, focuses on the examined life and contemplation of death as two crucial factors for a good life and death. Like Socrates, he also thinks there is no reason to fear death. Remarkably, he writes:

Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh (Meditations).

Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgement. And, to say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream and vapour, and life is a warfare and a stranger’s sojourn, and after-fame is oblivion. What then is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing and only one, philosophy. But this consists in keeping the daemon within a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing nothing without purpose, nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy, not feeling the need of another man’s doing or not doing anything; and besides, accepting all that happens, and all that is allotted, as coming from thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself came; and, finally, waiting for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every living being is compounded. But if there is no harm to the elements themselves in each continually changing into another, why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements? For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature (Meditations).

Meditate upon what you ought to be in body and soul when death overtakes you; meditate on the brevity of life, and the measureless gulf of eternity behind it and before, and upon the frailty of everything material” (Meditations).

24 Mahatma Letters, n.5.


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Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good (Meditations).

Marcus Aurelius, advises the practice of negative meditation or premeditatio malorum, the pre-meditation of evils, summarised as follows:

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural (Meditations).

Premeditatio malorum is a meditative practice focusing on difficulties that we could face. It involves the visualisation of how we react to hardships, which ideally should be in a balanced, peaceful and unemotional way. This daily morning meditation aims to prepare ourselves to endure pain, hardship, with an attitude of inner peace. According to some modern psychologists, this practice results in increasing our humility, gratitude and happiness, as well as helping us to face hardships in a more balanced way. Advocators of positive thinking may find the Stoic negative contemplation practice terrifying. It is, however, important to say that in the Theosophical literature, most specifically in HPB’s teachings, destruction and creation, negative and positive experiences, suffering and happiness are inter-related forces. The practice of positive thinking cannot help us in facing hardships, although it can help to relieve stress in some cases. In the same way, the daily practice of premeditatio malorum, can also be problematic because it focuses

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only on contemplating hardships. A balanced contemplation practice, involving both the negative and positive aspects of life, is undoubtedly an ideal practice for our daily lives.

Marcus Aurelius also suggests that we should practice contemplation of death, in continuous awareness of our transitory nature:

Don’t let yourself forget how many doctors have died, furrowing their brows over how many deathbeds. How many astrologers, after pompous forecasts about others’ ends. How many philosophers, after endless disquisitions on death and immortality...In short, know this: Human lives are brief and trivial. Yesterday a blob of semen; tomorrow embalming fluid, ash. To pass through this brief life as nature demands. To give it up without complaint. Like an olive that ripens and falls. Praising its mother, thanking the tree it grew on (Meditations).

HPB on Death and Memento Mori

In The Secret Doctrine death is interpreted as a temporary rest, disappearance or destruction: “the Eternity of the Universe in toto as a boundless plane; periodically “the playground of numberless Universes incessantly manifesting and disappearing.”25 This alternation between appearance and disappearance, rest and activity, life and death, creation and destruction is considered as a fundamental law of the universe.

Furthermore, “every atom and molecule in the Universe is both life-giving and death-giving to that form, inasmuch as it builds by aggregation universes and the ephemeral vehicles ready to receive the transmigrating soul, and as eternally destroys and changes the forms and expels those souls from their temporary abodes. It creates and kills; it is self-generating and self-destroying.”26 In this manner,

25 Blavatsky 1888: I, 17. 26 Blavatsky 1888: I, 185.


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death is considered as a natural process part of cyclical periods such as activity and rest.

Regarding the moment of death, HPB says that even though the dying person may not be able to communicate with those present, the moment of death is characterised by extreme lucidity. The entire life flashes before the eyes, and the dying sees every detail and all of the forgotten memory.27 At this moment, the personality and the soul become one. The projections are generated by both the brain and the soul, releasing strong impulses and restoring in the ultimate detail all impressions registered in memory. Most impressions will fade away, but the strongest and most vivid ones will be recalled in Devachan.

The vivid memories, in the moment of death will determine both the condition of the soul in Devachan, as well as that of the lower spheres, i.e. kama-loka and kama-manas: “that feeling will become the fashioner of our bliss or woe, the life-principle of our future existence.”28 However, such memories will vanish from the lower principles where the deceased will stay in a state of “akasic sleep which may last from a few hours up to many years depending on the mental state at the moment of death.”29

In the moment of death the awareness of the dying is beyond space and time and both the memories of the soul and the ones of the brain are blended.30 After death, the biological functions may shut down, but the brain is still active for some time.31 For this reason, profound silence should be made by the persons present in the moment of death because the brain is still active after the person dies. With regard to this, K.H. writes:

27 HPB 1889: s9. 28 The Mahatma Letters, 20c. 29 The Mahatma Letters, 85b. 30 HPB 1891: 205-211. 31 See, Fabricius et. al. 2005. ”Cortical spreading depression and peri-infarct depolarization in acute-ly injured human cerebral cortex.” Brain, 129, 3, pp.778-790.

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The man may often appear dead. Yet from the last pulsation, from and between the last throbbing of his heart and the moment when the last spark of animal heat leaves the body – the brain thinks and the Ego lives over in those few brief seconds his whole life over again. Speak in whispers, ye, who assist at a death-bed and find yourselves in the solemn presence of Death. Especially have you to keep quiet just after Death has laid her clammy hand upon the body. Speak in whispers, I say, lest you disturb the quiet ripple of thought, and hinder the busy work of the Past casting on its reflection upon the Veil of the Future.32

According to HPB, at the moment of death, those who are dying are shown the entire karmic chain of causes and effects. They see their true nature without adornation or flattery. They watch their lives as spectators in a theatre. It is at this moment they know that all the suffering they faced in life was based on fairness.

Furthermore, HPB in The Voice of the Silence, among other things, exhorts us to meditate on life and death. In fact, in The Voice of the Silence memento mori is depicted as one of the core practices leading towards enlightenment and the ending of suffering. For instance, Taṇhā is defined by HPB as the fear of death and attachment to life, the main force keeping us entangled in the wheel of samsara. Hence to go beyond Taṇhā we need to kill out the desire for life and the fear of death.

Embodying the same principles of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, HPB says that we should focus on what is under our control, being undisturbed by things not in our control. This is explained in the following assertion: “Desire nothing. Chafe not at Karma, nor at Nature’s changeless laws. But struggle only with the personal, the transitory, the evanescent and the perishable.”33 We need to focus on things we can control, our thoughts, emotions, actions. We should not struggle over

32 The Mahatma Letters, 93b. 33 The Voice of the Silence.


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things and situations we cannot control, i.e. the thoughts and emotions of others, what others may think of us and so forth.

Furthermore, HPB says in The Voice of the Silence “Help Nature and work on with her; and Nature will regard thee as one of her creators and make obeisance.”34 By this she means that we should observe nature, its cyclic processes, its time of rest and activitity of flourishing and fading away and learn learn the same processes apply to us. There is a time to born, to flourish, to harvest, to rest and to die. In this way, the first lesson The Voice of the Silence teaches is that to overcome Taṇhā we must learn from nature and live in awareness of the mortality of our physical body.

34 See The Voice of the Silence,

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Death & Rebirth:Funerary Traditions of Ancient Egypt

Erica Georgiades

You have not departed dead,you have departed alive!

Seat yourself on the throne of Osiris,your aba-scepter in your (one) hand,

that you may command the living;your “mekes”- and your “bud”-scepter are in your (other) hand,

that you may command those whose seats are hidden.35

For thousands of years, we humans have been musing over the problem of what happens when we die. The ancient Egyptians believed they knew what happens. To them, death was only a transition from this world to the realm of immortality. To assure that the dead had a blessed afterlife, they organised funerary rites, such as mummification and magic spells. After mummification, the deceased was embarking on a long and dangerous journey to the Fields of Aaru, the Devachan in the Theosophical worldview. However, to get there, they needed the help of the magic spells in the Book of the Dead, which they believed to have been performed to Osiris.36

35 Classical mortuary liturgy in the “Pyramid Texts,” cited in Assman 2005: 142. 36 One of the main source of information about Osiris was written by Plutarch (b. 45 AD – d. 127 AD) in De Iside et Osiridis.

Death & Rebirth: Funerary Traditions of Ancient Egypt - Erica Georgiades

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The ancient Egyptians believed that only with the help of the Book of the Dead (hereafter BD) they could reach the Fields of Aaru. The BD37 (c. 2025-1700 BC)38 originally known as the Chapters for Coming Forth by Day, is a corpus of mortuary rites and magic formulae, written on tombs, bandages of mummies, papyri, sarcophagi, magic artefacts and so forth, to guide and protect the dead during their journey in the underworld, Duat. There are four different versions of the BD: 1. the Heliopolitan, edited by the priests of the School of Annu “(the On of the Bible, and the Heliopolis of the Greeks);”39 2. the Theban; 3. The hieratic version, registered in papyri 4. the Saïte version, which is the Ptolemaic one.40 The BD is also comprised of material from the Coffin Texts 41(c. 2.000 BCE) and the Pyramid Texts42 (c. 2400 BCE),43 as well as other sources. Most of the magic formulae in the BD may pre-date the civilisation of Egypt. Scribes committed errors (c. 3.500 BC) while copying some of the magic spells. This suggests that the original passages may have been unintelligible to them,44 and most probably belonged to a more ancient civilisation. For this reason, the origin of the BD is shrouded in mystery.

The magic formulae in the BD were found “on coffins and shrouds of the royal family of the 17th Dynasty (c. 1650-1550 BC); from the reign of Hatshepsut (c. 1450 BC) until the Roman Period (after 30 BC).”45 For instance, in Memphis (c. 400-100 BC), many mummies were found with the BD written on bandages wrapped around them.

37 In this presentation, I will be using two different translations of the Book of Dead: Budge 1913 and Renouf 1904.38 For a detailed chronology of the “Book of the Dead” visit website of the Digital Egypt for Univer-sities.39 Budge 1895. 40 Ibid.41 The Coffin Texts date back to Middle Kingdom (c. 2025-1700 BC), and were found in sarcophagi and tombs. 42 The Pyramid Texts consists of sacred funerary spells carved on the walls of the pyramids at Saqqa-ra, during the Old Kingdom (c. 2686-2181 BC). The contents of the Pyramid Texts were also found in the First Intermediate Period and in the Middle Kingdom (c. 2025-1700 BC), in tombs and coffins of high-ranking officials, as well as in the New Kingdom (c. 1550-1069 BC) and in the Late Period. 43 For chronology see “The Pyramid Texts,” at Digital Egypt for Universities. 44 Romer 2008, Introduction. 45 See, “Book of the Dead” at Digital Egypt for Universities.

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Some examples of the formulae in the BD are the formula for making the ushabti dolls to work in the underworld. The ushabti dolls are funerary statuettes made to accompany the dead to the after-life. Another example is the magic formula made for elevation and transfiguration; the formula for giving the mouth of a man to him in the underworld; formula for opening the mouth of a man in the underworld and so forth.

H. P. Blavatsky & the Book of the Dead

HPB refers to the BD as the “bible of the Egyptians.”46 She interprets it as an ancient Egyptian ritualistic and occult work attributed to Thot-Hermes, linking it to Hermeticism47 she says “No Hermetic work written by Egyptians (vide “Book of the Dead”) would speak of the one universal God of the Monotheistic systems”48 She is referring to the Saïte, the Ptolemaic, version of BD. The BD pre-dates Hermeticism and the Ptolemaic period. HPB however, differs from Egyptologists, by suggesting that the Pyramids and the Coffin texts are an offshoot of the BD, when in fact it is the other way around.

Furthermore, in her chef-d’œuvre The Secret Doctrine, she says that “in the Egyptian Papyri the whole Cosmogony of The Secret Doctrine is found scattered about in isolated sentences, even in the Book of Dead.”49 The sentiment expressed in the quotation, embodies the view that the ancient Egyptian tradition occupies a vital place in HPB’s worldview. One of the reasons why she attributes such an importance to it is:

The Book of the Dead gives a complete list of the “transformations” that every defunct undergoes, while divesting himself, one by one, of all those principles --

46 HPB 1888: I, 220-221. 47 Hermeticism is a religious and esoteric current which emerged approximately in the 3rd AD. 48 HPB 1888: I, 675-676. 49 Ibid.


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materialised for the sake of clearness into ethereal entities or bodies.50

Indeed, as HPB points out, the sevenfold constitution and after-death transformations are symbolically given in the BD, as well as in other ancient Egyptian sacred texts such as the Two-Ways book, for instance.

Aspects and Principles

The number seven occupies a special place in the ancient Egyptian worldview. In the BD, there is a reference to the Seven Spirits in the constellation of the Great Bear, in the northern sky.51 Seven spirits were appointed by Anubis to protect the dead body of Osiris.52 They are the Lords of the Right and Truth, represented by the Ursa Major, the seven stars constellation. The latter is one of the main circumpolar53 constellations, in Latin, the Great Bear. Circumpolar stars represented divinities and the souls of the dead. The seven spirits appointed by Anubis to protect Osiris may be interpreted as deities ruling each one of the Arits or levels the deceased needs to pass through to reach the Field of Reeds (paradise).

In the Theosophical literature, the seven spirits are also linked to the sevenfold constitution of men/women. In short, Isis and Osiris are related to the Monad. Osiris symbolises Atma, the immortal spirit and divine aspect of men, while Isis represents Buddhi, the spiritual soul or the vehicle of pure spirit. Ba represents the Ego or Manas, with its dual aspects: the higher and the lower. The Ka represents the Kama; Ankh represents the Linga Sharira, Khat the physical body or the Sthula Sarira. There may be variations in this association, and it is not possible to comment on that here. We

50 HPB 1888: I, 226-227.51 Budge 1913: II, 386,387. 52 Budge 1913: II, 386,387. 53 “A circumpolar star is a star, as viewed from a given latitude on Earth, that never sets below the horizon due to its apparent proximity to one of the celestial poles.” Source: “Circumpolar Star at Wikipedia. < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumpolar_star> Last accessed, 26/03/2018.

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will, however, briefly discuss some of the related principles and aspects.

The Khat or physical body was the primary link between the deceased and his former life. This link could be preserved only when the physical body was preserved. In this way, mummification was the method used to sustain the connection between the deceased and his former existence. However, to meet this aim, different ritualistic devices were used. For instance, a statuette of the dead was placed in the tomb. In case the mummy was damaged, a replica of the departed would be preserved by the statue.54

Ren, was the secret name of the deceased. It was believed that the “only way that fate or destiny can change is if a creature of higher power changes the name. As long as the name of the being exists, the being will exist throughout eternity as part of the fabric of the divine order.”55 The Ren of the deceased was either carved on their statuette or written on the mummy’s wrappings. This carving and writing allowed the priest to link the essence of the dead, to the physical body. A pharaoh, for instance, “owned five names which of each symbolising a manifestation of his power.”56 In this way, the Ren was considered an essential link between the physical realm and the deceased, which could be used either for evil or good purposes.57 Another critical element of the personality is the shadow (šwt) or Khaibit. In funerals, the šwt was often represented by statuettes painted in black. Sometimes a pharaoh, for instance, would have his šwt box containing many statuettes of his shadows. In the light of the Theosophical system, the shadow is interpreted as continually irradiating magnetic emanations. 58 HPB links the Khaibit to the astral body. In this respect, Khaibit is one aspect of the Ka, the linga-sharira. One of the purposes of the mummification process was to keep the Ka of the deceased linked to his physical body.

54 David 2003. 55 Pumphrey 2009:6,7. 56 Pumphrey 2009:17. 57 David 2003. 58 HPB 1885: 220-21.


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Funeral Rites, Tombs & Priests

The Egyptian priests of the dead were known as the gods of the beyond, i.e. Anubis and Osiris.59 They formed a brotherhood which was structured in an hierarchical way. The neophyte priest was called “wab (pure one).”60 Wab priests were responsible for carrying offering at funerals61 and renewing offers at the tomb temple. Another rank of priests were the hem-ka, the or servants of ka, being responsible for the regular care of the dead with libations; meal offerings as the ones consumed by the living.62

The lectors63 were a class of priests, with knowledge of the divine scriptures, responsible for the keeping of the divine scriptures, as well as the recitation of texts during funeral rites.64 The Sem priests, dressed in a Leopard robe, were responsible for the embalming ritual; conducting the Opening of the Mouth and Eyes ceremony and for reciting magic spells and litanies, which would help the deceased achieving immortality and eternal life.

Funerary Rites

For the ancient Egyptians, death was not the end but a process of transition from one realm to another. Nonetheless, they believed that to enter paradise (Devachan) two conditions should be met: a. the deceased should have lived a good life; b. the deceased needed the help of the BD. If the deceased did not live a good life, they would be devoured in the Hall of Ma’at and die a second death, meaning total annihilation. If the deceased were not guided by the BD, they would be unable to cross the Seven Arits, which we will discuss further on, and would stay in a state of limbo, as a ghost. In this

59 Sauneron 1960:108. 60 Teeter 2011:20. 61 Teeter 2011:20. 62 Sauneron 1960:110. 63 Sauneron 1960:108. 64 Teeter 2011:22.

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respect, the aim of the funeral rites of passage, among other things, to guide and help the soul to overcome the dangers of the underworld in order to reach Devachan safely.

The ancient Egyptian funerary rites65 involved practices such as mourning and mummification. The rites also included litanies performed over the mummy or over a statue of the deceased. Another part of the rites were “recitations, sprinklings of water, fumigations of incense, and, at the door of the tomb, the essential rite of the opening of the mouth,66 in which one of the officiants equipped with an adze makes a gesture over the statue of parting the lips of the dead so that he may use his power of speech and various other physical faculties.”67

Such practices can be interpreted as rites of passage,68 ceremonies of transition, performed when an individual leaves a group or condition of being to enter into another. For instance, when someone was dying, mourning, mummification and other practices can be interpreted as separation rites, concluding with the sealing of the sarcophagus . Rites involving food, precious stones, metal offerings, recitation of magic formulae from the BD to guide the soul in the underworld, and so forth, can be interpreted as rites of transition. Finally, rebirth rites celebrating the triumphant entering of the living-

65 The word rite (n.) early 14c., is derived from ecclesiastical Latin rītus religious compliance and ceremony, consuetude, mode of conduct. Initially used as a reference to liturgy. Marcus Ter-entius Varro (116 BC – 27 BC), used the word to differentiate the Roman ritualistic practices from the Greek ones. Sextus Pompeius Festus (3rd century ad) interpreted rītus as an articulation from the Latin mos habit, custom, manner. The Italian philologist Egidio Forcellini (1699-1799), sug-gested the word rītus originated from the Etruscan via eritu meaning sacred ministry. In classi-cal Latin, rītus was used in a binary way: to refer to sacred things; to refer to cultural traditions.66 See the session focusing on the mummy, where the Opening of the Mouth & Eyes Ritual is briefly discussed. 67 Teeter 2011:22. 68 Charles-Arnold Kurr van Gennep (1873–1957) coined the notion “rites of passage” (approx. 1908). He defined a rite of passage as an action observed by either religious or non-religious groups or indi-viduals to represent the transition, passage, from one condition into another. Such as the transition re-lated to an important experience or episode in life, e.g. birth, death and so forth. For instance, birthday celebrations mark the passage from one age to another; funerals mark the passage or transition from one condition to another so forth. Gennep structured the rites of passage in three levels: 1. pre-liminal or rites of separation; b. liminality or transitional rites involving states like marginality, the space in between, metamorphosis; c. post-liminal or rites of incorporation, involving regeneration, rebirth or emergence.


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deceased into the blessed realm of the gods, the Field of Aaru (Devachan).

An equally significant aspect of the ancient Egyptian funerary rites is that, in HPB’s worldview, they had an occult aspect related to elementals and elementaries. The ancient Egyptians had a profound knowledge of the elemental and elementary beings:

“The ancient Egyptians, who derived their knowledge from the Âryans of India, pushed their researches far into the kingdoms of the “elemental” and “elementary” beings. Modern archaeologists have decided that the figures found depicted on the various papyri of The Book of the Dead, or other symbols relating to other subjects painted upon their mummy cases, the walls of their subterranean temples and sculptured on their buildings, are merely fanciful representations of their Gods on the one hand, and on the other, a proof of the worship of the Egyptians of cats, dogs, and all manner of creeping things. This modern idea is wholly wrong, and arises from ignorance of the astral world and its strange denizens.”69

Although, food offerings attract and feed ghosts, as well as the Linga-Sarira and elementaries of the deceased, they have no effect whatsoever on the higher principles.70

Elementaries are the phantoms of the dead, unable to proceed further in the afterlife stages because they were evil and depraved people. In such cases, before death, the lower quaternary is separated from the higher triad, the divine spirit. Elementaries inhabit Kama-Loka until they are dissolved, disintegrated; it is a process that may last a long time.71 Kama-Loka is:

“semi-material plane, to us subjective and invisible, where the disembodied “personalities”, the astral forms, called Kamarupa remain, until they fade out from it by the complete exhaustion of the

69 See HPB on “Elementals,” in Blavatsky Collected Writings, vi, p. 195. <http://www.katinkahes-selink.net/blavatsky/articles/v6/yxxxx_007.htm> [Accessed 20th June 2018]. 70 HPB 1883: 23-24. 71 See Elementaries in HPB 1892.

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effects of the mental impulses that created these eidolons of human and animal passions and desires; (See “Kamarupa”.) It is the Hades of the ancient Greeks and the Amenti of the Egyptians, the land of Silent Shadows; a division of the first group of the Trailôkya.”72

There are four classes of elementaries. The first class are the terrestrial ones, also known as the Brothers of the Shadow. They are “Cunning, low, vindictive, and seeking to retaliate their sufferings upon humanity, they become, until final annihilation, vampires, ghouls, and prominent actors.”73 The second class is related to cases of suicide and unexpected death, e.g. death by accident, murder, suicide and so on.They are known as the “Half-Dead” or “Earth-Walkers,” and need to remain in the “Kama-Loka — till the very last moment of what would have been the natural duration of their lives. In other words, that particular wave of life-evolution must run on to its shore.”74 Finally, the third class is one of the Astral shells or what remains from the deceased person deprived of their higher principles. Another significant factor, according to HPB, is that one of the functions of funeral rites is to protect the astral shell from its desires to earthly things or “to furnish the shell “with an armour against terrestrial attraction.”75 She asserts that if funeral rites are performed by a true occultist, well versed in magical arts, then one rite in the night of death will achieve its purpose. The simple mechanical repetition of ceremonies, by a priest or person not well versed in occultism, has no effect whatsoever.

It is also important to note that HPB is quite sceptical about the efficacy of funerary rites to help the deceased. This scepticism it is because, ultimately, it the law of Karma that will determine the experiences in the afterlife. She asserts that the only thing that could help the astral shell, the phantom, “is the attitude and thought based on the firm confidence that

72 See Kama Loka in HPB 1892. 73 HPB 1877: I, 319. 74 See KH, Letter 16, in the Mahatma Letters. 75 See, HPB “The Efficacy of Funeral Ceremonies,” in Theosophist, June, 1883, p. 221.


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the “ghost” having been comforted by the offering…no longer return, or feel unrestful.”76 She also says that it is our brain and imagination, which usually calls forth ghost apparitions. The exception to this rule is when such a phenomenon (apparitions) occurs soon after death, in which case it may indeed be the spirit of the dead.77

Tombs

The tomb, in ancient Egypt was a sacred place, but there is no space to discuss this in detail here. Instead, we will briefly see what HPB says about it.

She refers to Mastaba, a type of ancient Egyptian tomb, as follows:

But in death the order is reversed; and while the Mastaba with its scenes of daily life painted on the walls, its table of offerings, to the Larva, the ghost, or “Linga Sarira”, was a memorial raised to the two Principles and Life which had quitted that which was a lower trio on earth; the Pit, the Passage, the Burial Chambers and the mummy in the Sarcophagus, were the objective symbols raised to the two perishable “principles”, the Personal mind and Kama, and the three imperishable, the higher Triad, now merged into one. This “One” was the Spirit of the Blessed now resting in the Happy Circle of Aanroo.78

According to HPB, some types of Egyptians tombs represent the seven principles:

The upper portion of an Egyptian tomb, which, say the Egyptologists, consisted always of three parts: namely (1) the Mastaba or memorial chapel above ground, (2) a Pit from twenty to ninety feet in depth, which led by a passage, to (3) the Burial Chamber, where stood the Sarcophagus, containing

76 See, HPB “Pyndams at Gya” in The Theosophist, v,i,(49), October, 1883, pp. 23-24. 77 Ibid. 78 See Mastaba in HPB 1892.

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the mummy sleeping its sleep of long ages. Once the latter interred, the pit was filled up and the entrance to it concealed. Thus say the Orientalists, who divide the last resting place of the mummy on almost the same principles as theologians do man--into body, soul, and spirit or mind. The fact is, that these tombs of the ancients were symbolical like the rest of their sacred edifices, and that this symbology points directly to the septenary division of man.79

HPB also relates the architecture of the tomb and the mummy to the seven principles:

The Pit, the Passage, the Burial Chambers and the mummy in the Sarcophagus, were the objective symbols raised to the two perishable “principles”, the Personal mind and Kama, and the three imperishable, the higher Triad, now merged into one. This “One” was the Spirit of the Blessed now resting in the Happy Circle of Aanroo.80

The Mummy

In Egyptian, the word for mummy81 is sch meaning aristocrat, dignity, nobility. Its meaning denotes the ”elevated sphere of existence to which the deceased has been transferred and initiated in the course of the process of embalment.”82 This spiritual state was characterised, in the physical sphere, by the embalming of the corpse and a series of magical rituals symbolically metamorphosing the mummy into a vehicle representing the immortal aspect of the deceased. In this way, the word mummy can be interpreted as elevation or dignity, to denote this superior sphere the dead entered into during the course of embalming, whilst the coffin or sarcophagus may be interpreted as a regressus ad uterum, leading to the rebirth of the living-deceased into the sphere of Nut, the heavenly mother goddess.

79 Ibid. 80 Ibid. 81 In ancient Egypt, during the pre-dynastic Period (c. 6000-3150 BCE), the dead was either cremated, dismembered, or buried intact in shallow graves. Attempts to embalm the dead were made by wrap-ping the corpse in animal skin. Mummification started during the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties (circa 2.600 BC). See Sauneron 1960:108 & Teeter 2011:20.82 Assmann1989: 135-159.


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The mummification process lasted seventy-days, involving various stages.83 In short, three-days were dedicated to the purification of the corpse by way of removal of vital organs and filling it up with myrrh and spices. After that, the corpse was immersed in a salt solution for about forty-days. Finally, the deceased was wrapped in bandages. The purpose of the mummification process was to provide an abode to the Ba and Ka of the deceased. In this respect, the mummy was endowed with semi-divine status, symbolising death, transformation, transmutation and resurrection in higher levels of existence.

Mummification was linked to the resurrection of Osiris (Ausar). For this reason, HPB said that, for the ancient Egyptians, this process was “considered one of the most sacred ceremonies.”84 She explores the mummy in a threefold manner: a. its symbolic meaning; b. the mummy in relation to the sevenfold principles; c. the function of the mummy in the process of reincarnation. In symbolical terms, the mummy “from the moment that it was embalmed, lost its physical individuality in one sense; it symbolised the human race,”85 because the individual characteristics of the deceased were concealed under the bandages, leading to a symbolical loss of individuality. In this way, the mummy could be considered representing the spiritual point from where all humanity comes from and to where all will return, i.e. Adam-Kadmon,86 the archetype of the heavenly human being.

HPB is also interpreting Osiris as a symbol of humanity: “The song of the Resurrection” chanted by Isis to recall her dead husband to life, might be translated “Song of Rebirth”, as Osiris is collective Humanity.”87 Resurrection, immortality and a portrait of the Avatar are also symbolical meanings she attributes to the mummy, by citing a very long passage, reproduced here in toto, from Massey’s (1838-1905):

in the astronomical phase the constellation Orion is called the Sahu [sic], or mummy. The soul of Horus was represented as rising from the dead and ascending to heaven in the stars of Orion. The mummy-

83 For more details on embalming processes, see Herodotus, The Histories: 2.86.4- 2.88.1.84 HPB 1892: 218. 85 HPB 1877: I, 296-7. 86 HPB 1877: I, 296-7. 87 See Reincarnation in HPB 1892.

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image was the preserved one, the saved, therefore a portrait of the Saviour, as a type of immortality. This was the figure of a dead man, which, as Plutarch and Herodotus tell us, was carried round at an Egyptian banquet when the guests were invited to look on it and eat and drink and be happy, because, when they died, they would become what the image symbolised—that is, they also would be immortal! This type of immortality was called the Karest, or Karust, and it was the Egyptian Christ. To Kares means to embalm, anoint, to make the Mummy as a type of the eternal; and, when made, it was called the Karest; so that this is not merely a matter of name for name, the Karest for the Christ.

This image of the Karest was bound up in a woof without a seam, the proper vesture of the Christ! No matter what the length of the bandage might be, and some of the mummy-swathes have been unwound that were 1,000 yards in length, the woof was from beginning to end without a seam. . . Now, this seamless robe of the Egyptian Karest is a very tell-tale type of the mystical Christ, who becomes historic in the Gospels as the wearer of a coat or chiton, made without a seam, which neither the Greek nor the Hebrew fully explains, but which is explained by the Egyptian Ketu for the woof, and by the seamless robe or swathing without seam that was made for eternal wear and worn by the Mummy-Christ, the image of immortality in the tombs of Egypt. . .

Further, Jesus is put to death in accordance with the instructions given for making the Karest. Not a bone must be broken. The true Karest must be perfect in every member. “This is he who comes out sound; whom men know not is his name.

In the Gospels Jesus rises again with every member sound, like the perfectly-preserved Karest, to demonstrate the physical resurrection of the mummy. But, in the Egyptian original, the mummy transforms. The deceased says: “I am spiritualised. I am become a soul. I rise as a God.” This transformation into the spiritual image, the Ka, has been omitted in the Gospel, and, as a result, the Christian Christ is neither physical nor spiritual; the Gnostic types having been continued without the Gnosis.


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. . . This spelling of the name as Chrest or Chrést in Latin is supremely important, because it enables me to prove the identity with the Egyptian Karest or Karust, the name of the Christ as the embalmed mummy, which was the image of the resurrection in Egyptian tombs, the type of immortality, the likeness of the Horus, who rose again and made the pathway out of the sepulchre for those who were his disciples or followers. Moreover, this type of the Karest or Mummy-Christ is reproduced in the Catacombs of Rome. No representation of the supposed historic resurrection of Jesus has been found on any of the early Christian monuments. But, instead of the missing fact, we find the scene of Lazarus being raised from the dead. This is depicted over and over again as the typical resurrection where there is no real one! The scene is not exactly in accordance with the rising from the grave in the Gospel. It is purely Egyptian, and Lazarus is an Egyptian mummy! Thus Lazarus, in each representation, is the mummy-type of the resurrection; Lazarus is the Karest, who was the Egyptian Christ, and who is reproduced by Gnostic art in the Catacombs of Rome as a form of the Gnostic Christ, who was not and could not become an historical character.88

HPB considers the Osirified mummy to be a portrait of the saviour (Avatar), because it represents the eternal: the image of divine resurrection. However, it is not the mummy which is resurrected but the highest principles animating it. She also discusses the mummy in relation to the sevenfold principles and reincarnation:

We are taught that for 3,000 years at least the “mummy” notwithstanding all the chemical preparations goes on throwing off to the last invisible atoms, which from the hour of death re-entering the various vortices of being go indeed “through every variety of organized life forms.” But it is not the soul, the 5th, least of all the 6th, principle, but the life atoms of the jiva the 2nd principle [Prana or vital principle]. At the end of

88 HPB 1887-8:197-202.

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the 3,000 years, sometimes more, and sometimes less, after endless transmigrations all these atoms are once more drawn together, and are made to form the new outer clothing or the body of the same monad (the real soul) which had already been clothed with two or three thousands of years before. Even in the worst case that of the annihilation of the conscious personal principle the monad or individual soul is ever the same as are also the atoms of the lower principles which regenerated and renewed in this ever flowing river of being are magnetically drawn together owing to their affinity, and are once more re-incarnated together. Such was the true occult theory of the Egyptians.89

In this way, one of the functions of the mummy is to throw off atoms animated by the dormant Jiva or life energy. When the soul is ready to reincarnate, the atoms are pulled together. This pulling together of atoms probably results in the reincarnated personality having the possibility to remember his or her former lives; the physical body getting shaped with similar physical characteristics of the former one, and so forth.

The ancient Egyptians also believed that the deceased was present in the mummy. The principle, “Sah [sic] —or mummy,”90 was becoming active only “after the death of the body.”91 The mortal and perishable physical body is linked to the lower principles of the deceased, also known, in the Theosophical system as the lower quaternary: the physical body or Sthula-Sarira; Prana or vital principles; Linga Sarira or Astral body; Kama-Rupa or the seat of desires:

...the astral soul was believed to be lingering about the mummy for the whole space of the three thousand years of the circle of necessity. Attached to it by a magnetic thread, which could not be broken but by its own exertion, the Egyptians hoped that the ever-burning lamp, symbol of their incorruptible and immortal

89 HPB, The Transmigration of Life Atoms, 1883.90 HPB 1877: II, 367.91 Ibid.


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spirit, would at last decide the more material soul to part with its earthly dwelling, and unite forever with its divine SELF. Therefore [perpetual] lumps were hung in the sepulchers of the rich. Such lamps are often found in the subterranean caves of the dead, and Licetus has written a large folio to prove that in his time, whenever a sepulcher was opened, a burning lamp was found within the tomb, but was instantaneously extinguishes on account of the desecration.92

The most sacred aspect of the ancient Egyptian funerary rites was the “Opening of the Mouth and Eyes” (wepet-er) ceremony,93 linking the astral soul to the mummy. During this ceremony the living-deceased was Osirified by the Sem priests representing Horus, in the presence of two women symbolically representing Nephthys and Isis.

A Vignette from the Book of the Dead of Hunefer. Date circa 1300 BCE. Opening of the Mouth and Eyes Ceremony.

92 HPB 1877: I, 262-263. 93 The Opening of the Mouth and Eyes ceremony was also performed on statues of the gods or god-dess of Egypt to animate them.

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The ceremony took place in a secluded area, most likely the tomb, where the mummy was placed upright. The Sem priest aided the transmission of life force to the mummy by using a sacred object to imbue it with the Ba, in the belief it to leave the body in the moment of death. The priest touched the object in the mouth of the mummy, to restore its ability to eat and taste; touched it in the eyes, to restore vision; in the ears, to restore audition and the nose, to restore its ability to smell. After that, the mummy was filled with the Ka of the deceased, representing the manifestation of its vital powers and ways of being in the physical world.

During the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, the mummy was offered food; beverages; cosmetics followed by litanies recited by the priest. One of the offerings consisted of a mourner’s hair lock “that had been shook and pulled and that served for symbolizing the revitalization process of the mummy (recovery of vital faculties, return to the Nun and to the womb…) and the removal of the evil which could drag out that process (lunar eye suffering, enemies, chaos).”94 The hair lock95 was offered as an image of the Eye of Horus consummating the mummy’s resurrection. In the Theosophical literature, the hair retains vital essence, and is connected functions of the brain, like memory, for example.96 After the ceremony, the mummy was considered resurrected, like Osiris. Then it was put in the sarcophagus, the heart of the tomb, representing the point of union, or the gate, between the physical world and heaven.

94 Martín 2013.95 The Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484 – c. 425 BC) registered some of the mourning practices of ancient Egyptians. According to him when the member of a family died, the women wore a “gar-ments girt around them,” and with their breasts showing they were leaving the corpse in the house and going around the city weeping, with other members of the family, and daubing their head or face with mud. (Hdt. 2.85.1). They would also beat themselves, rip their clothes and to pull a lock of hair.96 See Hair in HPB 1892.


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Duat – The Underworld

The Egyptian Book of the Gates and the Book Am-Tuat, both written during the New Kingdom (1550-712 BC), describes the journey of the deceased in the underworld. Am-Tuat (also Amduat), divides the underworld in twelve hours of the night, describing the journey of Ra from West to East, beginning in the time the sun sets and ending at the time the sun rises.

The Book of Gates narrates the journey of the deceased into the underworld, dividing the world in the same way as Am-Tuat, although there are some differences between the two texts. For instance, differently from Am-tuat, each hour in the Book of Gates ends in a gate guarded by a serpent and two guardians. Another feature of the Book of Gates, also not present in Am-Tuat, is that it describes four different people (races) and their journey in the underworld.

In both books, each hour symbolises friends and enemies the deceased will encounter in their twelve-hour journey, from West to East. In hour 1, for instance, the dead summons the Celestial Ferryman, also known as “He whose face is behind him,” the keeper of the boat to navigate through the waterways to the underworld. The underworld is represented by the Western horizon, symbolising the transition between day and night, light and darkness, life and death.

Another significant guide to the underworld is the Two-Ways Book, Middle Kingdom (c. 2134-1991 BC), picturing the most ancient description of the ancient Egyptian underworld; also considered to be the precursor of the Book of Gates and the Book of Am-Tuat, as well as the BD. The Two-Ways book describes the underworld as having seven divisions, and contains around 100 spells to guide the dead on their afterlife journey. It depicts two paths or waterways to the underworld or the region with many routes: the blue higher path and the dark lower path. The bends, of both pathways and waterways, are localities of demons and mythical monsters. There is no space here to discuss the seven gates, as explained in the Two-

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Ways Book. However, there is a session in the BD focusing on the Seven Arits, which we will explore in detail further on.

In general lines, the underworld was watched by dreadful creatures and had many caves inhabited by terrifying mythical beings. The deceased needed to deal with these creatures to reach the Hall of Ma’at. After arriving at the Hall their hearts were weighed against Ma’at’s feather. If the heart was heavier than the feather, the dead were devoured by Ammit, dying a second time, meaning total annihilation. If the heart was as light as a feather, the dead could continue their journey to the celestial fields of immortality, where they would be transfigured into a spirit-state (akh), acquiring a semi-divine status and entering the Field of Reeds, the blessed realm of the Gods.

The Seven Arits or Gates of Osiris

HPB, drawing from the BD, says that the soul of the deceased needs to cross “seven chambers representing seven planets, to “exit through the symbolical apex” of the pyramid.97 May be she is talking about the Seven Arits,98 levels, divisions, chambers, mansions or the Gates of Osiris:

These “seven souls” or lives (that which we call Principles) are admirably described in the Egyptian Ritual and the oldest papyri. Chabas has unearthed curious papyri and Mr. Gerald Massey has collected priceless information upon this doctrine; and though his conclusions are not ours, we may yet in a future number quote the facts he gives, and thus show how the oldest philosophy known to Europe—the Egyptian—corroborates our esoteric teachings. 99

97 HPB 1877: I, 296-7.. 98 This sevenfold division is not the same across time in ancient Egyptian tradition. There are other viewpoint attributing a tenfold. twelvefold and twenty one fold divisions to Tuat. See Budge 1913. 99 Blavatsky 1888: 37-42.


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The Lords of the Duat (underworld), inhabit the Seven Arits.100 Each Arit has three sublevels, each level is guarded by three gods: the first god occupies the position of the gatekeeper; the second, the position of the warder and the third, the position of the herald. When a soul seeks admission in any Arit, the gatekeeper reports the arrival of the soul by saying his/her name; the warder repeats the soul’s name to Osiris; the herald, if positively ordered, admits the soul.

In some versions of the BD, the admission of the dead depends on the knowledge of secret passwords and mystical names. The mystical names are the names of the Arits and each one of their three guardians. In case the soul forgets the secret passwords, admission is denied and the soul is “turned back and obliged to remain where it was, in a sort of limbo.”101

The Seven Arits102 are the gates the soul needs to cross to return to the divine realm. Their guardians form a protective enclosure around Osiris.103 After crossing the Seven Arits, the soul needs to pass through the Twenty One Pylons of the House of Osiris, which we will not discuss here.

In the First Arit, the soul must say the name of its guardians: the gatekeeper Sekhet-her-asht-aru [he whose face is overturned, who has many attributes],104 the warder, Smetti [the adjuster]105 and the herald Hakheru [he with a loud voice].106 After that the soul should say:

I am the mighty one who createth his own light. I have come unto thee, O Osiris… purified from that which defileth thee... I beseech thee not to let me be driven away, nor to be cast upon the wall of blazing fire... I say, O Osiris in truth, that I am the

100 There are versions of the BD with 12 Arits. The Arits reproduced here are from Budge, but I have included between brackets the translation given to the name of the officers by Renouf. 101 Budge 1913: 354. 102 In different versions of the BD the Arits are 10 or 21. 103 Assman 1989:148. 104 Renouf 1904: 296. 105 Renouf 1904: 296. 106 Renouf 1904: 296.

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Sahu (Spirit-body) [different translations refers to this passage as: I am the divine mummy] of the god, and I beseech thee not to let me be driven away, nor to be cast upon the wall of blazing fire. Let the way be opened in Ra-stau, let the pain of the Osiris be relieved, embrace that which the Balance hath weighed, let a path be made for the Osiris in the Great Valley, and let the Osiris have light to guide him on his way.107

In this instance, the dead claims to be pure and identifies himself with Osiris and they ask Ra to be admitted to Ra-stau, meaning the Gate of the Passages or “one of the Gates between the underworld and heaven.”108

Also the dead says, “I am the Sāhu (Spirit-body or Divine Mummy) of the god.” Sāhu, has been described by HPB as, the physical body transformed by mummification. She also quotes Massey, who says the following about it:

…the Sahu, or mummy. The soul of Horus was represented as rising from the dead and ascending to heaven in the stars of Orion.109

Sāhu is a symbol of immortality or the reincarnating ego. HPB says that Sāhu has two aspects: the “glorified body of the Ego and also the kâmalokic shell.”110 Additionally, Purucker, describes Sāhu as “The spiritual entity, the entity of the deceased in heaven. According to popular legend, it grew out of the dead body and was called into being by the ceremonies performed over the defunct. From the comparatively little that has come down to us, this is equivalent to the reincarnating ego. In this sense, a spiritual entity, a development of the earthly experiences of the monad.”111 In the Theosophical system, the reincarnating ego is the higher-manas, the immortal aspect of the deceased carried on to the Devachan, where it remains in a

107 Renouf 1904: 402-403. 108 Renouf 1904: 204. 109 Blavatsky 1877: II, 653. 110 HPB 1892: 277. 111 See Sāhu in Purucker, Theosophical Glossary.


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state of bliss, reviewing the noblest and highest points of his journey on earth until the time to reincarnate again.

The Second Arit is guarded by the gatekeeper Unhāt [he who shows his face]; the warder Seqt- her [he with a revolving face] and the Herald Ust [the consumer]. After naming the guardians of this gate, the soul needs to recite the following spell:

He sitteth to carry out his heart’s desire, and he weigheth words as the Second of Thoth. The strength which protecteth Thoth humbleth the hidden Maati gods, who feed upon Maat during the years of their lives...O grant thou that I may continue to advance...112

The dead evokes the power of, the lunar abis-headed god, Thoth. According to HPB, Thoth is:

the most mysterious and the least understood of gods, whose personal character is entirely distinct from all other ancient deities. While the permutations of Osiris, Isis, Horus, and the rest, are so numberless that their individuality is all but lost, Thoth remains changeless from the first to the last Dynasty. He is the god of wisdom and of authority over all other gods. He is the recorder and the judge. His ibis-head, the pen and tablet of the celestial scribe, who records the thoughts, words and deeds of men and weighs them in the balance, liken him to the type of the esoteric Lipikas113

The Lipikas are the celestial recorders, the Lords of the Karma. HPB describes them as “the four Maharajas, who record every thought and deed of man; they are called by St. John in the Revelation, the Book of Life. They are directly connected with Karma and what the Christians call the Day of Judgment; in the East, it was called the Day after Mahamanvantara, or

112 Renouf 1904: 403-404. 113 Renouf 1904: 404.

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the “Day-Be-With-Us.”114 They are also linked to the fourfold aspect of Mahat, the producer of Manas.

The Third Arit, the gatekeeper is Unem-hauatu-ent-pehui [he who eateth his own filthy]; the warder Seres-her [the watchful], and the Aa [the great one]. There the soul needs to recite the following spell:

I am he who is hidden in the great deep. I am the Judge of the Rehui, I have come and I have done away the offensive thing which was upon Osiris. I tie firmly the place on which he standeth, coming forth from the Urt. I have stablished things in Abtu, I have opened up a way through Ra-stau, and I have relieved the pain which was in Osiris. I have balanced the place whereon he standeth, and I have made a path for him; he shineth brilliantly in Ra-stau.115

He who is hidden in the great deep is “Temu, or Khepera, who in primeval times dwelt alone in the Celestial Waters.”116 Khepera is a scarab-headed god, holding aloft the morning sun. This god symbolises the renewal of life and the morning aspect of Ra.117

HPB says that the scarabæus “has...been made a symbol and an emblem of human life and of the successive becomings of man, through the various peregrinations and metempsychoses (reincarnations) of the liberated Soul;”118 also that it “represented resurrection and rebirth.”119 In this way, Kheper symbolises the rebirth or resurrection of the highest principles of the mummy. By mummy here she means the eternal spiritual aspect of the dead, not its corpse, which immortalises “whatever becomes united with it.”120 What,

114 HPB 1966: 405. 115 Renouf 1904: 404.. 116 Budge 1903:404. 117 Ra has three aspects: Khepera, the morning sun; Ra the mid-day sun and Atum, the evening sun. 118 HPB 1888: II, 552. 119 HPB 1892: 293-294. 120 HPB 1892: 293-294.


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according to her, aspires to be immortalised or Osirified is the personal Ego or Kama-Manas,121 and Kheper, means “to be, to become, to build again.”122 Consequently, the Third Arit could be interpreted as the passage from kama-rupa to a level of awareness of Kama-Manas, or that aspect attached to corporal existence but aspiring to unite with Higher-Manas.

The gatekeeper, of the Fourth Arit, is Khesef-her-asht-kheru [he who opposes garrulity]; the warder is Seres-tepu [the attentive one]; the name of the Herald is Khesef-at [he who drives back the crocodile]. The magic spell says:

I am the Bull, the son of the ancestress of Osiris. O grant ye that his father, the Lord of his god-like companions, may bear witness on his behalf. I have weighed the guilty in judgment. I have brought unto his nostrils the life which is ever lasting. I am the son of Osiris, I have accomplished the journey, I have advanced in Khert-Neter [underworld].123

In this gate the dead evokes the power of Osirapis, the living-deceased one. Hapi-ankh, the bull god Apis, is the son of the goddess Hathor and the god Ptah. One of the functions of Hathor, also known as the Mistress of the West, is to welcome the dead into the underworld.

The bull Apis was ritualistically killed by Egyptian priests, who ate some of his parts and mummified the carcass. The mummified bull was buried in the Serapeum, “along the sacred way from Memphis to the necropolis at Saqqara.”124 The killing “was not considered slaughter but transformation,”125 for Apis to join Osiris in the underworld. Alive, Apis represented Ptah as “giver of life,”126 but dead becomes the god Osirapis127 or Osorapis. HPB says the following about Apis:

121 Ibid. 122 Ibid. 123 Renouf 1904: 404. 124 See Apis, in Ancient History Encyclopedia. Joshua J. Mark, 2017. 125 Ibid. 126 HPB 1892: 264. 127 Ptolemy I (c. 367 BC – 283/2 BC) identified Osirapis with Zeus, creating the a new deity name

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The “living deceased one” or Osiris incarnate in the sacred white Bull. Apis was the bull-god that, on reaching the age of twenty-eight, the age when Osiris was killed by Typhon-was put to death with great ceremony. It was not the Bull that was worshipped but the Osiridian symbol; just as Christians kneel now before the Lamb, the symbol of Jesus Christ, in their churches.128

The herald, of this Arit, is the one “who drives back the crocodile.” In general, the crocodile is an aggressive and animalistic creature and, for this reason, the deities associated with it are often linked to destruction and annihilation. The crocodile, in the underworld, is related to Ammit, god crocodile-hippopotamus. Sebek, is also a godman with a crocodile head. HPB says about him:

… the triple-crocodile of Egypt, the symbol of the higher Trinity or human Triad, Atma, Buddhi and Manas. In all the ancient papyri the crocodile is called Sebek (Seventh), while the water is the fifth principle esoterically; and, as already stated, Mr. Gerald Massey shows that the crocodile was “the Seventh Soul, the supreme one of seven -- the Seer unseen.129

In this way, the passage through the Fourth Arit, may be interpreted as the higher principles disconnecting from the lower ones, i.e. the entrance of the living-deceased into higher spheres.

The Fifth Arit is guarded by the gatekeeper Ankhf-em-fent [He who lives on worms], the warder Shabu [the consuming flame] and the herald Teb-her-kha-kheft [the horn which strikes the furious]. The spell says:

I have brought unto thee the jawbone in Ra-stau. I have brought unto thee thy backbone in Anu. I have gathered together his manifold members therein. I have driven back Aapep for thee. I have spit

Serapis. 128 HPB 1892: 26. 129 Renouf 1904: 405.


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upon the wounds [in his body]. I have made myself a path among you. I am the Aged One among the gods. I have made offerings to Osiris. I have defended him with the word of truth. I have gathered together his bones, and have collected all his members.130

Aapep is a god representing chaos. According to HPB, this deity symbolises human passions, the dark side of Osiris, Seth. In this way, this Arit represents the triumph of the living-deceased over passions. desires and attachment to his former existence.

The Sixth Arit is guarded by the gatekeeper Atek-tau-kehaq-kheru [He who makes the loaves, with a thundering voice], the warder An-her [he who shows his face] and the herald Ates-her-[ari]-she [the stoneknife which belongs to the sky]. The spell says:

I have come daily...I have made myself a way. I have advanced over that which was created by Anpu (Anubis). I am the Lord of the Urrt Crown. I am the possessor [of the knowledge of] the words of magical power, I am the Avenger according to law, I have avenged [the injury to] his Eye. I have defended Osiris. I have accomplished my journey. The Osiris Ani advanceth with you with the word which is truth.131

In this Arit, the living-deceased celebrates his progress in the underworld. Anubis, in HPB’s viewpoint, is “the revealer of the mysteries of the lower world”-not of Hell or Hades as interpreted, but of our Earth (the lowest world of the septenary chain of worlds).”132 He guides the resurrected one in the afterlife. The seventh Arit is guarded by the gatekeeper Sekhmet-em-tsu-sen [He who takes possession of their knives], the warder Aa-maa-kheru [the high voice], and the name of the herald is Khesef-khemi [he who drives back the enemies]. The spell says:

130 Renouf 1904: 405, 406. 131 Renouf 1904: 406,407. 132 HPB 1892.

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I have come unto thee, O Osiris, being purified from foul emissions. Thou goest round about heaven, thou seest Ra, thou seest the beings who have knowledge. [Hail], thou, ONE! Behold, thou art in the Sektet Boat which traverseth the heavens. I speak what I will to his Sahu (Spirit-body). He is strong, and cometh into being even [as] he spake. Thou meetest him face to face. Prepare thou for me all the ways which are good [and which lead] to thee.133

In this gate, the living-deceased identifies himself with Osiris, the ruler of the underworld. According to HPB, Osiris has four aspects: Osiris-Phtah (Light), the spiritual dimension; Osiris-Horus (Mind), the intellectual manasic aspect; Osiris-Lunus, the ‘Lunar’ or psychic, astral aspect; Osiris-Typhon, Daimonic, or physical, material, therefore passional turbulent aspect. In these four aspects he symbolises the dual ego — the divine and the human, the cosmico-spiritual and the terrestrial.”134 In the seventh gate the living-deceased is identified with Osiris-Phtah buddhi and Osiris-Horus buddhi-manas, representing the first mystical ressurection i.e. kama-manas illuminated by buddhi-manas. The Seventh Arit is the last gate the dead needs to cross, before journeying through the Twenty-One Pylons and the Hall of Judgment. Anubis leads the soul of the dead into the Hall of Judgment where they must stand in front of Osiris, Thoth and forty-two judges and declare their innocence. The Declaration of Innocence is a list of forty-two sins the dead must confess to never having committed. The list involves statements such as “I have not stolen;” “I have not slain men and women;” “I have not stolen grain” and so forth. After that, the dead gives his heart to one of the judges. The heart is put on a scale to be weighed against the feather of Ma’at. If the heart is lighter, the dead can continue his journey to heaven; if the heart is heavier it is devoured by Ammit and the soul is annihilated. HPB describes the Hall of Judgement as follows :

133 Renouf 1904: 407,408. 134 Ibid.


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In the Scene of Judgment, Osiris is represented sitting on his throne, holding in one hand the symbol of life, “the hook of attraction,” and in the other the mystic Bacchic fan. Before him are the sons of God, the forty-two assessors of the dead. An altar is immediately before the throne, covered with gifts and surmounted with the sacred lotus-flower, upon which stand four spirits. By the entrance stands the soul about to be judged, whom Thmei, the genius of Truth, is welcoming to this conclusion of the probation. Thoth holding a reed, makes a record of the proceedings in the Book of Life. Horus and Anubis, standing by the scales, inspect the weight which determines whether the heart of the deceased balances the symbol of truth, or the latter preponderates. On a pedestal sits a bitch — the symbol of the Accuser.135

Rudi Jansma136 interprets the Hall of Judgment as the “moment which the higher self, meets his true jīva, named Osiris...Those who are devoured by the monster are thrown back into wandering cyclic existence.”137 In the Theosophical literature, the Hall of Judgment can be explained in two ways: a. samsara, the karmic cycle of birth and death, dragging the soul to a future reincarnation; b. the moment of separation between the lower and higher principles, with Ammit symbolising the process of annihilation. Extremely wicked and evil people, according to HPB, lose their souls and their lower principles are annihilated overtime.

Ultimately, the Seven Arits are a symbolical representation of the transformation the dead undergoes during the journey to Devachan. Each time one of the gates of Osiris is crossed the dead emerges into higher divine realms.

135 HPB 1877: II, 495-494. 136 Rudi Jansma (1947-2017) was a Theosophist from Holland. 137 See, Rudi Jansma How it is to be really dead at < http://www.dailytheosophy.net/01-1-introduc-tion-to-theosophy/articles-on-theosophy/01-2-cycles-of-birth-and-death/how-it-is-to-be-really-dead/> [Last Accessed 9/06/2018].

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Memento Mori: Eternalism versus Presentism

Erica Georgiades

Introduction to Daily Morning Meditations Practised Dying the EuST 2018, Pescia, Italy.

The notion that when meditating, we should focus on the now, the present, is known as presentism. The idea we should focus on the eternal is known as eternalism. Presentism is based on a temporal perception of space, based on the conventional time models of the past, present and future: the past is gone, the future is not yet here. Only the present moment is real and matters. Presentism involves the idea that both the past and future are meaningless because they do not exist.

Eternalism is anti-meaninglessness and suggests that every act of kindness, no matter how small, exists in eternity. Everything is profoundly meaningful. It has been suggested by modern scientists, such as McTaggart, for instance, that time is an illusion. HPB also suggests the same in The Secret Doctrine: “Time is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of consciousness as we travel through the eternal duration.”138 However, notice that HPB refers to eternal duration. She is an eternalist, not a presentist. In eternalism, things and events are deprived of properties such as past present and future and reality is non-temporal.

Eternalists consider that space has many dimensions and is non-temporal. This approach is based on the notion that there is no objective flow of time. The past and the future are meaningful and important as the present moment. Examples of what it means to have an eternalist perception have been given in fictional literature and philosophical thought experiments. For instance, if we had a four-dimensional sight, we would

138 HPB 1888: I,35.

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be able to see all points in time and space simultaneously. We would see the dead before they died, living their lives; the unborn, born living their lives. We would see our death, which would not be the end of our lives but an event in it. Our brain functions within a temporal timeframe, meditating within temporality, i.e. present, does not help to transcend our current way of being. Eternalism is an approach which may lead to a profound change in our way of thinking and seeing things. In the eternal the observer and the observed are one.

It is important to emphasise, however, that the Theosophical viewpoint on eternalism is not related whatsoever to the Buddhist doctrine sassatavada or the unchanging self. It supports the notion that an immortal spiritual essence periodically manifests itself by way of cyclic processes as stated in the first fundamental proposition of the Secret Doctrine: “An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable Principle on which all speculation is impossible since it transcends the power of human conception and could only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude.”139

139 HPB 1888: I,10.

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Meditation and Contemplation

The contemplation exercises outlined here will be used in the daily meditations of the European School of Theosophy, 2018.140

Day 1 Meditate like a Mountain

Contemplate a majestic mountain.

A mountain is quiet and at peace. The body should be like a mountain, quiet and at peace. Feel the weight of the body to settle in. Feel the balance that brings and how gently quietness settles in. This is the lesson a mountain teaches us.

A mountain is peaceful, allowing all that passes the right to exist. Like a mountain, we are peaceful, allowing all that passes the right to exist.

The mountain is quiet and stands high above the world, contemplating the eternal. Like a mountain, the mind is quiet, standing high above the world contemplating the eternal.

In contemplating the eternal, we reflect on our passage in this world:

We move daily closer to death. Soon we will be ashes or bones. Do not act as if we were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over us. While we live, while it is in our power, be good.141

140 The exercises outlined here are inspired by techniques, taught by a monk in the Holy Mountains of Greece, transcribed by Jean-Yves Leloup. See, Being Still: Reflections on the Ancient Mystical Tradition. 141 Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

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Day 2 Meditate like a Poppy – Discernment, Right Frame of Mind

Contemplate a poppy

The poppy turns towards the light, opening as sunlight touches the blossoms, closing when darkness falls. In trying to reach the light, the poppy straights its stem. Like the poppy, our mind is oriented towards light, in trying to reach it, we straighten our body. This is the lesson the poppy teaches us.

The poppy is fragile, dies in the rainstorm. Like the poppy, the body is fragile, dies in the storm of life.

The poppy is also resilient, because, even though it withers and dies, lives the brightest life by following the light burning bright in the sunlight. Like the poppy, even though we wither and die, we are resiliently living the brightest lives by following the light. In contemplating light, we reflect on our passage in this world:

I am subject to ageing, have not gone beyond ageing.I am subject to illness, have not gone beyond illness.I am subject to death, have not gone beyond death. I will grow different, separate from all that is dear and appealing to me. I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir.142

142 Upajjhatthana Sutta < https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.057.than.html>

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Day 3 Meditate like the Sea - Right Breathing

Contemplate the sea.

The waves of the sea come and go, ebb and flow. Beneath the surface, the sea is deep, calm and peaceful. Inhale and exhale like the waves of the sea. Like the sea, we let ourselves to be carried by the breath. This is the lesson the sea teaches us.

In the deep, in calmness, lies the soul of the sea. Like the sea, deep within, in calmness, lies our soul.

Delving into the soul, in sacred quietness, we reflect on our passage in this world:

When to ourselves our form appears unreal, as do on waking all the forms we see in dreams;

When we have ceased to hear the many, we may discern the ONE — the inner sound which kills the outer.

Then only, not till then, shall we forsake the region of Asat, the false, to come unto the realm of Sat, the true.143

143 Slightly adapted Extract from the Voice of the Silence, .

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Day 4 Meditate like a Saint - Compassion

To meditate like a saint is to meditate like a mountain, like a poppy, like a sea. To meditate like a saint is to meditate in the heart. This is the lesson the saint teaches us.

The saint is calm, tranquil, peaceful, lives in the world and yet stands high above it contemplating the eternal. Like the master, we are calm, tranquil, peaceful, living in the world, yet standing high above it contemplating the eternal.

The saint has the right frame of mind and is immersed in light. Like the saint, we have the right frame of mind and are immersed in light.

The saint, in sacred quietude, delves into the essence of things, in the eternal. Like the saint, in sacred quietude we delve into the essence of things, in the eternal.

The saint is immersed in infinite love and compassion for all things. Like the saint, we are immersed in infinite love and compassion for all things. Immersed in love and compassion, we reflect on our passage in this world:

We must die to everything while living in the body, in order not to harm anyone. Be joyful at all times… and give thanks for all things.144

144 The sayings of the Desert Fathers.

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Blavatsky, H. P. 1888. “The Life Principle.” Lucifer, ii, 7, pp. 37-42.

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“Pyramids Texts”? Faulkner, Piankoff and Speleer (trans).<http://w w w . p y r a m i d t e x t s o n l i n e . c o m / t r a n s l a t i o n . h t m l # s a r c s o u t h > [Accessed: 10thJanuary 2018].

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125

The Wisdom of Madame BlavatskyLeslie Price

Madame Blavatsky (1831-1891), H.P.B. as we call her, is one of the few nineteenth century authors widely remembered today. She is known to Theosophical Society members, but not always read. It is only in recent decades that her (almost) full works have become widely available. Some of her essays and reviews were long out of print until included in the “Collected Writings” edition of Boris De Zirkoff. The standard edition of her Letters is still in progress. There are varying versions of her esoteric instructions.

Her reputation remained under the cloud of the 1885 report of a committee of the Society for Psychical Research, which branded her an impostor, until in April 1986 Dr Vernon Harrison, in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, was able to clear her of having forged the Mahatma Letters.

In Theosophical libraries, we can find many studies of HPB’s teachings. Some of the best were in the Blavatsky Lecture series. But she is now receiving more academic attention than ever before. No doubt that can be arid or hair splitting, but it is much better than the indifference or contempt that is still found on occasion; it is possible to publish an academic book which discusses HPB but her own work is not in the bibliography, and one may wonder if the author has actually read her.

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In the detailed studies by some scholars today, they often ask the questions that scholars enjoy – what sources did she use? Did she change her mind over time? Who influenced her, and whom did she influence? Theosophists now find themselves in a more crowded landscape. As well as ourselves who are sympathetic to HPB, and the traditional opponents who denigrate her- sceptics, fundamentalist believers, rival occultists etc - there is a community of scholars who can deploy expertise in various languages, and who have access to electronic and paper resources which few Theosophical groups can match.

In May, 2002, the academic journal Esoterica [not to be confused with the UK Theosophical journal of that name) hosted the First North American Symposium on the Study of Esotericism, at Michigan State University. There, the invited participants created a new scholarly organization, the Association for the Study of Esotericism [ASE], along with a mission statement and a set of goals. The primary mission of this organization is to support excellence in scholarship and to foster communication among scholars who, though their work originates from a wide range of fields, find esotericism a common theme of their research.

The European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE) is another learned society, established in 2005 to advance the academic study of the various manifestations of Western esotericism from late antiquity to the present and to secure the future development of the field. ESSWE works closely with ASE.

A wide network of supporting groups, publications and events now exists with the general aim of promoting scholarship into esotericism. Some of their work is freely available in various blogs, web sites and inexpensive journals but other research appears in costly books or periodicals, which presents a challenge to financially hard-pressed Theosophical bodies.

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If we are to appreciate the wisdom of HPB, however, we need to pay attention to this new research, to supplement the original texts and generations of Theosophical comment on them. Fresh eyes, with different presuppositions, may notice points which we have overlooked.

In the Theosophical Society in England we got an early warning of this rise of scholarship because it was in London, with the warm support of Dr Hugh Gray, the general secretary, that “Theosophical History” journal was launched in 1985, and the associated. Theosophical History conferences began in 1986. At that first conference, speakers included Dr James Santucci, who was teaching a course on theosophy to religious studies students in California; Dr Nicholas Goodricke-Clarke, later to hold the chair in Western Esotericism at Exeter University; and Paul Johnson who wrote the best-selling HPB study of the 1990s, “The Masters Revealed” (1994), which incidentally came from a university press, SUNY.

After Dr James Santucci became TH editor in 1990, theosophical history was firmly linked to scholarship, and most of the great scholars of western esotericism have contributed to its pages, such as Antoine Faivre, and Wouter J. Hanegraaff. The doyenne of British historians in the field, Jean Overton Fuller of the Astrological Lodge of London, was a pillar of the TH conferences and the TH journal.

In 2013 came the launch of “Enchanted Modernities, Theosophy, Modernism. and the Arts, an international network funded by the Leverhulme Trust which through a series of events, exhibitions and concerts explored the relationship between Theosophy and the arts from 1875-1960 approximately. Janet Lee, then of the TSE Executive Committee, who is an art historian, often represented Theosophists in this seminal project, publications from which are still appearing.

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Indeed, esotericism as an academic area is now well established. For the 2015 Riga conference of ESSWE, the programme and abstracts alone covered 80 pages. Much of this was not relevant to Theosophy, but some of it was. There was, for example, a seminal paper at Riga on the Masters, by one of the leading historians, Joscelyn Godwin, which will appear shortly in an academic symposium. on Theosophy.

These scholarly developments challenge Theosophists to reconsider in what HPB’s essential contribution lies.

We learn from the letters of the Mahatmas, and from HPB herself that she was a messenger, with the mission of establishing a society which would be a vehicle for their message. To help launch the society, she used phenomena (and came to regret it) and stimulated a general interest in occultism. Gradually through her writings, and the growth of the T.S. these themes were developed. In general, “The Secret Doctrine “summarised what could be made known about the evolution of the cosmos and of man; Voice of the Silence set out a spiritual path.

To establish her authority, HPB wrote on many subjects, but it does not appear that she was equally versed in all of them from the beginning. Certainly her writings show her citing some authors, and later others, and expressing herself in different ways over time.

A few days before she passed away in 1891, Madame Blavatsky completed an article entitled “My Books”. It was mainly about the problems with her first book “Isis Unveiled.” but had general application.1

She noted that ”friends, as unwise as they were kind, spread abroad that which was really the truth, a little too enthusiastically, about the connection of my Eastern Teacher and other Occultists with the work; and this was seized upon by the

1 See <http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/isis/iu2-ap2.htm>.

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enemy and exaggerated out of all limits of truth. It was said that the whole of Isis had been dictated to me from cover to cover and verbatim by these invisible Adepts. And, as the imperfections of my work were only too glaring, the consequence of all this idle and malicious talk was, that my enemies and critics inferred — as well they might — that either these invisible inspirers had no existence, and were part of my ‘fraud,’ or that they lacked the cleverness of even an average good writer.”

HPB went on to say: “When I came to America in 1873, I had not spoken English — which I had learned in my childhood colloquially — for over thirty years. I could understand when I read it but could hardly speak the language. I had never been at any college, and what I knew I had taught myself; I have never pretended to any scholarship in the sense of modern research; I had then hardly read any scientific European works, knew little of Western philosophy and sciences. The little which I had studied and learned of these, disgusted me with its materialism, its limitations, narrow cut-and-dried spirit of dogmatism, and its air of superiority over the philosophies and sciences of antiquity. Until 1874 I had never written one word in English, nor had I published any work in any language.”

However she insists “Save the direct quotations and the many afore-specified and mentioned misprints, errors and misquotations, and the general make-up of Isis Unveiled, for which I am in no way responsible, (a) every word of information found in this work or in my later writings, comes from the teachings of our Eastern Masters; and (b) that many a passage in these works has been written by me under their dictation. In saying this no supernatural claim is urged, for no miracle is performed by such a dictation. “

Even when writing on Tibetan matters, H.P.B. would make mistakes, David Reigle, who has done much to establish the authentic nature of H.P.B.’s inspiration, has warned of this in an important appendix to one of his papers. “On Errors in H.P. Blavatsky’s Writings.”


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“Blavatsky brought out a number of erroneous statements that were copied from the published books available at the time. The explanation for this is, I think, not far to seek. Blavatsky, like the secretary of any busy executive today, was given certain basic materials and then left on her own to make a coherent presentation of them. This meant supplementing them with whatever sources were then available. She herself would not necessarily have known that the publicly available sources were faulty, any more than anyone else at that time would have. Her adept teachers were busy men, and simply did not have time to check everything she wrote. This is only common sense, and would have been taken for granted in any other situation. Blavatsky repeatedly disclaimed infallibility for her writings. It is quite unreasonable to assume that everything she wrote is free from errors, as some of her followers assumed. Because much of her material came from her adept teachers, they thought that all of it did.”2

Let us to turn to some recent examples of scholarship which help us understand how Madame Blavatsky developed her public work. There is a free online journal called Correspondences. In volume 5, (2017) there are two articles about HPB.3

The first is “The Theosophical Imagination” by Wouter J. Hanegraaff. He claims that:

it is well known that the worldviews of modern Theosophy are based largely on ¬authoritative claims of superior clairvoyance. But what did clairvoyance really mean for ¬Theosophists in the decades before and after 1900? How did it work? And where did the practice come from? I will be arguing that the specific type of clairvoyance claimed by Theosophists should not be ¬confused – as is usually done in the literature – with its Spiritualist counterpart: while

2 See <http://www.easterntradition.org/article/Tsongkhapa%20and%20the%20Teachings%20of%20the%20Wisdom%20Tradition.pdf>.3 See <https://correspondencesjournal.com/volume-5/>.

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¬Spiritualists relied on somnambulist trance states induced by Mesmeric techniques, ¬Theosophists relied on the human faculty of the imagination, understood as a superior ¬cognitive power operating in a fully conscious state. As will be seen, this Theosophical understanding of the clairvoyant ¬imagination can be traced very precisely to a forgotten nineteenth-¬century author, Joseph Rodes Buchanan, whose work was subsequently popularized by William and Elizabeth Denton. Buchanan’s theory and practice of “psychometry” is fundamental to the clairvoyant claims of all the major Theosophists, from Helena P. Blavatsky herself to later authors such as Annie Besant, Charles Webster Leadbeater and Rudolf Steiner.

Is this actually so? Our colleagues, such as Erica Georgiades and Kurt Leland (who is an authority on Besant and Leadbeater’s work), immediately questioned this and the debate will continue. How does it fit, for example, with the analysis by Geoffrey Barborka of “H.P. Blavatsky, Tibet and Tulku”?

The second relevant paper in Correspondences is “Reincarnation in H.P. Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine” by Julie Chajes (formerly Julie Hall). She argues that

“Throughout her career as an occultist, H. P. Blavatsky (1831–1891), the primary theorist of the nineteenth century’s most influential occultist movement, the Theosophical Society, taught two distinct theories of rebirth: metempsychosis and reincarnation. This paper provides a detailed description of the latter, as outlined in Blavatsky’s magnum opus, The Secret Doctrine (1888), and contemporaneous publications. In so doing, it offers several correctives and refinements to scholarly analyses of Theosophical reincarnationism offered over the last thirty years.”

Now even in her own lifetime, Theosophists were trying to reconcile what HPB said in “Isis” with what was later taught. Did she really teach two distinct theories?


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There is a note under the first page of this paper. The publication of this paper was made possible by grants from The Blavatsky Trust and the Israel Science Foundation.” That Trust is of course a supporter of the European School, and was a primary sponsor of the chair in Western Esotericism at Exeter University. It is clearly aware of the importance of engagement with the academic world.

But I am certainly not arguing that scholars are a new source of infallibility and that Theosophists should defer to them. They can be wrong!

Let me give you an example of this. In May 1964, a new book was reviewed in the Theosophical Journal of the T.S. in England.: ‘Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition’ by Frances A Yates.

One can see the attraction of such a book to Theosophists. Was not Bruno a past incarnation of Annie Besant? Are not Theosophists part of the Hermetic tradition? The suggestion made by Frances Yates that occultism imbued the Scientific Revolution of the 16th-17th century was congenial. The book was an immense success, and after much other scholarly work, Frances Yates eventually became a Dame.( She was promoted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 1977 to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to Renaissance studies).

However more detailed examination by scholars indicated that she had gone astray. As Wouter Hanegraaf has recently observed:

most of her guiding assumptions have proved to be incorrect. She misidentified important thinkers such as Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and Giordano Bruno as “Hermetic philosophers”; she marginalized the actual Hermetic philosophers active in the Renaissance period; and she miscontextualized the Corpus Hermeticum, suggesting incorrectly that it was grounded in astral magic and concerned with questions leading up to modern science.4

4 In an entry “Hermes Trismegistus and Hermetism” to the “Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philos-ophy” posted at Academia.edu by Wouter J. Hanegraaff, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

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Theosophists must therefore proceed cautiously, like any other students. There are today many scholars working on Theosophy and related topics, and this is welcome, but they, like Theosophists, can fall into scholarly temptation.

What applies to the humanities is also pertinent to science. The founders were very conscious that on one side there was dogmatic theology, its authority declining, and on the other science; already Col. Olcott spoke in his inaugural presidential address 1875 of “the arrogance of science”. The president of the infant T.S. was hopeful that there would soon be an actual scientific demonstration of occult power by Mr Felt, whose famous lecture triggered the decision to launch the T.S. But Mr Felt did not deliver, neither elementals conjured up, nor anything else..

Olcott also believed that ancient civilisations had practical knowledge of occult science, the “profound scientific attainments of the ancient magi.” as he termed them. Certainly in his travels across the world, he witnessed some remarkable phenomena, but demonstrating what had been known in the past to present day savants proved more difficult.

After the founders arrived in India in India, the teachers behind the Society emerged though the Mahatma Letters. We must remember of course that these letters were known only incompletely until Trevor Barker published the full text in 1923. These teachers attached great importance to science. You will recall the statement of KH in a letter to Hume. ”Modern science is our best ally.”

Ed Abdill, who taught at the European school recently, has provided a reassessment of science in the Letters, and in the S.D. In his book “Masters of Wisdom” (2015), he draws attention to a comment of K.H.” If our greatest adepts and Bodhisattvas have never penetrated themselves beyond our solar system, - and the idea seems to suit your preconceived theistic theory wonderfully, my respected Brother - they still know of the existence of other such solar systems, with as mathematical a certainty as any western astronomer knows of the existence of invisible stars which he can never approach or explore” Similarly K.H. also writes: “No planets but one have hitherto been discovered outside of the solar system, with all their photometers, while we know with the sole help of our spiritual naked eye a number of them; every completely matured Sun-star having like in our own system several companion planets in fact.”


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Ed Abdill concludes “These statements of K.H. were a prediction of what we call “exoplanets” and we now know there are more than a thousand of them.” (p.107). I have highlighted these statements, which are among other correct scientific prophecies by the Mahatmas, because when I was young there were only nine planets and one solar system. Now there is one star, called Trappist 1, which has no less than seven planets, and doubtless this record will soon be broken.

But what of current Theosophical contributions to science? Here we are fortunate to have a recent assessment by Egil Asprem, now at Stockholm University. “Theosophical attitudes to science: past and present.”5

Dr Asprem reminds us of the danger of celebrating an aspect of contemporary science which appears to support Theosophy. The classic example was the concept of ether, which in Victorian times was believed to be a medium through which a variety of physical phenomena occurred. It was tempting to approximate this to the occultist understanding of the ether. Twentieth century physics largely dropped the ether concept.

Some Theosophists also believed that clairvoyance could be used to obtain knowledge of sub-atomic realms - occult chemistry. Here too as physics changed, so the Theosophical findings came into question. When I was young I met Dr Lester Smith who was confident that a new interpretation of occult chemistry findings could verify them by means of quark theory. At the T.S. in England today Professor Gwyn Hocking , our national secretary has reinterpreted occult research in the light of “remote viewing”.

Between approximately 1935 and 1980, it was possible in the United Kingdom, for a Theosophical Research Centre to flourish, in which active scientists and doctors carried out research with clairvoyants, and published books, journals and pamphlets. Indeed in the TSE archives, notes of experiments go back to a Science Group formed in the early 1920s.

5 Footnote. one of the essays in the volume “Handbook of the Theosophical Current”<https://brill.com/view/title/22123>. This is a seminal paper which should be studied by all Theosophical leaders.

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About 1960 a crisis took place when the TRC leaders found that some of their research disagreed with what Theosophical teachers had written. This was highlighted by a Discrepancies sub-committee of the TRC. The only public account of this can be found in the 1998 Blavatsky Lecture by Professor Arthur Ellison.6

The TS in England therefore closed down the Discrepancies Sub-committee, and in his lecture Dr Ellison suggested the natural home for such work became the Scientific and Medical Network,(SMN) founded in the UK in 1973. This reminds that the teachers made it clear that they worked also through bodies other than the Theosophical Society. Interestingly, Dr Asprem concludes his survey of Theosophy and Science by citing the work of Dr Edi Bilimoria, then a senior member of Blavatsky Lodge London. But since 2011, he has been active in SMN. One of the current SMN initiatives is the Galileo Commission, which is hoping to facilitate a change in the scientific outlook <https://www.galileocommission.org/>. Dr Bilimoria, who alerted me to this notes.” Whilst not exactly ‘Theosophy-Science’ it is a major step in that direction preparing the ground, in my opinion, for more esoteric seeds to sprout.“

Is it possible that William Crookes, perhaps the greatest scientist ever to join the T.S., who became a member in 1883, and was a personal friend of HPB, was a. disappointment as a Theosophist? He never played any part in the administration of the Society or its leadership. He joined the London Lodge, which under the leadership of A,.P. Sinnett was largely detached from the work of promoting Theosophy in England. Sinnett was preoccupied with psychism, and I fear that Crookes shared this preoccupation beyond legitimate Third Object work.

6 See <http://resources.theosophical.org/pdf/Series/Blavatsky%20Lectures/BL_1998_Ellison_Sci-ence_Consciousness_and_the_Paranormal.pdf>.


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In our own time, the leading scientist in the TS is Dr Rupert Sheldrake, and his books certainly advance Theosophical ideas. Dr Sheldrake celebrated 40 years membership earlier in 2018; he had joined when working in India.. But again, he plays no part in TS affairs. Perhaps that it wise!

In conclusion, Theosophists should keep in touch with academic research into HPB’s work.. One way is through events dealing with particular aspects to which scholars and Theosophists (the two groups overlaps of course) are invited to offer papers. Another is for Theosophists to attend scholarly gatherings where HPB is under discussion.

Theosophical libraries should also invest in the books and journals which report such work. National sections for example, and major lodges ought, to subscribe to “Theosophical History.”

I commend the practice of the Theosophy Science group in Australia of publishing a regular free newsletter, and of holding conferences, often in association with the regular national Theosophical conferences,

....................................

The Wisdom of HPB lies with that in which she had been initiated, as a disciple on the path, able to show others that path which she faithfully followed. We can learn from non-committed scholars on many factual points, and they from us, but this is subordinate to the spiritual message, and the response of each of us.

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Immortality & RessurectionTheosophico-Kabbalistic Prolegomena

Orlando Fernandez

The Theosophical Society has three clearly defined objectives:

1. To form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or colour. 2. To encourage the study of Comparative Religion, Philosophy, and Science.3. To investigate the unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent in man.

In this workshop we will be aiming to align ourselves to these goals by sharing an examination of the phenomenon of death, using a contemporary version of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, an eclectic tool usually associated with the Jewish mystical tradition, but whose origins may be traced back to the ancient civilizations of Assyria and Babylon, and that has been further developed in the West by many esoteric thinkers. Using this tool we will explore the mysteries concerning the disincarnate aspect of life.

“There is no Religion Higher than the Truth,” says the motto of the Theosophical society. It is somewhere explained that this motto is not specifically about religion itself, but about how our commitments, social conventions or personal ideas can measure up to the reality of what truly IS. Reality is greater than any of its parts. Reality is not reduced and it is beyond any of our notions about it. Truth is the Ultimate Reality, it is what was, is, and will be, and this goes far beyond anything that we can articulate or imagine. H. P. Blavatsky says in her essay What is Truth:

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Outside a certain highly spiritual and elevated state of mind, during which Man is at one with the UNIVERSAL MIND -- he can get nought on earth but relative truth, or truths, from whatsoever philosophy or religion. Were even the goddess who dwells at the bottom of the well to issue from her place of confinement, she could give man no more than he can assimilate. Meanwhile, everyone can sit near that well -- the name of which is KNOWLEDGE -- and gaze into its depths in the hope of seeing Truth’s fair image reflected, at least, on the dark waters.

The Truth is unreachable and unfathomable. There are objective experiences with Truth, but as soon as they are articulated they become partial: incarnated.

The mysteries that we are going to examine together can be articulated in many ways. This examination can be done using many philosophical, religious or spiritual models. There is no ultimate truth in any of these particular ways, but all of them may contribute to our understanding, and ultimately help us to achieve a direct perception of that that cannot be explained rationally.

Despite its unreachability, nevertheless we aim for Truth, and we try to speak about it. And so, our “spiritual truths” take many forms, never comprehending it. Some of these articulations may be lofty and poetic, but they can also be pragmatic and direct, applicable. They can certainly be both. This workshop aims to be pragmatic. I am not interested in dogmas or philosophies that will make us “comfortable” with the idea of death and dying, putting the mind at ease. I am not interested in lofty cosmologies for their own sake, or in sophisticated descriptions that, beautiful or interesting as they may be, are unusable. And I am certainly not into ways of thinking that are nothing but dogmas of faith in disguise.

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The fact is that we will experience death, and in this workshop we will be interested in what we can do about death, what can be known about it. Useful knowledge that can be put to the test. Not the knowledge of the average person, but the knowledge that we have inherited from the Wisdom traditions of both East and West.

This workshop encourages eclecticism as we will be using a spiritual model that is different from the Eastern model that is familiar to the student of Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine. The model we will use is a Western model based on the mystical system inspired by the Jewish tradition that was further developed in Christianity during the Renaissance. More precisely we will use a contemporary form of the Rosicrucian Kabbalah, a model used by many esoteric organizations in the West.

We are well aware of the tremendous importance of the Theosophical Society in the development of esotericism in the West. But the Theosophical Society is not the only major influence in the modern Esoteric West. Apart from the Theosophical Society, there has been another major influence in the formation of contemporary esoteric thought. This is The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a magical Order with Kabbalistic foundations organized in accordance with the Tree of Life. Every major development in Western Esoteric thought in the Twentieth Century can be traced back to one of these organizations, most of the time to both. Both organizations, and the movements they have inspired are, in fact, related in a most intimate way.

The Kabbalah is a model that is close to the early years of the Theosophical Society. Blavatsky started discussing Kabbalah in one of her early publications, A Few Questions to Hiraf (1875), and she devoted a full chapter to Kabbalah in her Isis Unveiled (1877). The Kabbalah was never far away from the Theosophical Society, as its influence has been found even in The Secret Doctrine.


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As we are all well aware, the Theosophical Society was founded in New York City on the 17th November 1875 by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott and William Quan Judge as an unsectarian body of seekers after Truth, endeavouring to promote Brotherhood, striving to serve humanity, and having as objective the study and elucidation of Occultism, Cabala, and other esoteric subjects. Although a few years later Olcott and Blavatsky moved to India and shifted the teaching of the Theosophical Society towards an Eastern model, its inception was dominated by the Western Esoteric tradition. There were no representatives of the Eastern Mysteries among the founders of the Theosophical Society, and at this early stage Blavatsky identified her inner contacts with masers from an Egyptian Order, working according to a Western model. In other words, the Theosophical Society was originally founded as a Western esoteric society, and Isis Unveiled, the original synthesis of Theosophical teaching, is devoted to a description of the Western esoteric tradition.

In its early days, The Theosophical Society attracted the attention of a most extraordinary human being: the occultist, mystic, doctor, author, women’s activist and vegetarian Anna Kingsford (1846-1888). I am sure that you are familiar with the remarkable achievements of this most admirable woman. She was to become an important influence in both the Golden Dawn and the Theosophical Society and a link between them.

In 1873, after reading By and By: An Historical Romance of the Future by Edward Maitland (1824-1897) Anna began to correspond with its author. Anna and Edward discovered that they had many interests in common and that they shared a mystical vision. In 1872 they published together the record of their exploration of the Western mystery tradition: The Perfect Way. On it they looked at the esoteric significance of biblical stories and symbolism. They were heavily influenced by Egyptian, Greek and Roman mythologies, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and the mystical Kabbalah.

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Blavatsky was very impressed by Anna, and The Perfect Way gained its authors a solid reputation in Theosophical circles. In 1883, Anna and Edward took the posts of President and Vice-President of the London Lodge. However, by that time the Theosophical Society teaching was moving towards an Eastern interpretation, whereas Anna wished to remain working within the Western Mystery Tradition. With this purpose in mind, Anna and Edward resigned their posts in the London Lodge and in 1884 they formed the Hermetic Society. They would organize a series of lectures featuring, two of the future founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn: MacGregor Mathers and William Westcott. Anna Kingsford made a lasting impact on the impressionable young Mathers. It was to Anna and Edward that Mathers dedicated his Kabbalah Unveiled, the first English translation of some parts of Knorr Von Rosenroth’s, Kabbalah Denudata. Kabbalah Unveiled will have an important impact on the further development of esotericism in the West.

Anna’s ideas were to have a profound influence on Western mysticism and occultism, especially in reshaping Theosophical concepts for the Western mind and influencing the formation of the Golden Dawn. She was among the first women to encourage the involvement of both women and men in esoteric organizations. Following his mentor, Mathers insisted on the admission of both men and women in the Golden Dawn, not allowing any further progress in the formation of the Order until this point was unanimously agreed and setting the precedent for contemporary esoteric and occult societies.

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, was founded in 1888 by three Freemasons: Dr. William Wynn Westcott, a London coroner a Master Mason and Secretary General of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia; Dr. William Robert Woodman a retired physician, a leading member of the SRIA and an outstanding Kabbalist; and Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers. The Order aim was to serve as the guardian of the Western Esoteric Tradition while at the same time preparing and teaching those individuals called to the initiatory path of the mysteries.


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The Initiatory path of the Golden Dawn is a form of Rosicrucianism, a spiritual model based on the Christian Kabbalah, mapping its grades on the spheres of the Tree of Life. This model has been used by several organizations operating in the West since the Seventeenth Century. This system has been modernized and include several developments of Nineteenth Century esotericism, like the integration of the Tarot cards with the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, a development made public in the writings of the French occultist Eliphas Levy.

Death as a Part of Life: Immortality

Death is universal. It will eventually come to each one of us. It is called the “King of Terrors” as most fear the unknown and dread the separation from their loved ones.

However, according to the Higher Knowledge, this fear is unfounded. Death is part of life, not its end, a positive transition to the invisible realms. We experience it many times. In What is Death? an article attributed to H.P. Blavatsky, it is remarked that:

The theosophical view [of death] is really older than any religion, because it is natural to man. It was held as the truest thought by the Hindus and Egyptians and Greeks - to name but a few in ancient times - that death is simply a longer sleep than that we experience every night of our lives, after which the soul wakes again in a new body. All through the centuries this idea has been expressed by poets and philosophers. Theosophical writers have called this idea of rebirth “reincarnation,” signifying that the soul, or real man, incarnates again in flesh when the suitable conditions for a further working out of its destiny are provided by a new body. Theosophists say, then, in answer to the question, “Where are the dead?” that we might consider, there can be no such thing as someone “dead”. The man who loses his body is, simply, according to this view, resting - and, perhaps, dreaming.

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This Theosophical view of death is in agreement with the various forms of the Esoteric Tradition of both the West and the East. In few words it says: We are immortal, what we call death is nothing but a part of life, not its opposite, and we are all destined to enter it once and again. We pass from this side to the other, only to come back again.

There are literally thousands of quotes in the literature of the ages, affirming life everlasting:

Goodness and virtue make men know and love, believe and delight in their immortality. John Smith, the Platonist

Where does the soul go, when the body dies? …There is no necessity for it to go anywhere. Jacob Boehme

Seeing Him alone, one transcends death; there is no other way Svetasvatara Upanishad

God, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life. Book of Common Prayer

I died a mineral and became a plant. I died a plant and rose an animal. I died an animal and I was man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying? Yet once more I shall die as man, to soar With the blessed angels; but even from angelhood I must pass on. All except God perishes. When I have sacrificed my angel soul, I shall become that which no mind ever conceived. O, let me not exist! for Non-Existence proclaims, ‘To Him we shall return.’ Rumi

The spiritual creature which we are has need of a body, without which it could nowise attain that knowledge which it obtains as the only approach to those things, by knowledge of which it is made blessed. St. Bernard


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Having achieved human birth, a rare and blessed incarnation, the wise man, leaving all vanity to those who are vain, should strive to know God, and Him only, before life passes into death. Srimad Bhagavatam

Life is the childhood of our immortality. Goethe

Man is immortal; therefore, he must die endlessly. For life is a creative idea; it can only find itself in changing forms. Rabindranath Tagore

Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality. Abraham Lincoln

The end of birth is death; the end of death is birth. The Bhagavad Gita

Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Master Yoda

This point of view is reaffirmed through the Theosophical literature:

He who holds the keys to the secrets of Death is possessed of the keys of Life. Master K.H.

Death comes to our spiritual selves ever as a deliverer and friend. The Key to Theosophy

The breath leaves the body and we say the man is dead, but that is only the beginning of death; it proceeds on other planes. When the frame is cold and eyes closed, all the forces of the body and mind rush through the brain, and by a series of pictures the whole life just ended is imprinted indelibly on the inner man not only in a general outline but down to the smallest detail of even the most minute and fleeting impression. At this

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moment, though every indication leads the physician to pronounce for death and though to all intents and purposes the person is dead to this life, the real man is busy in the brain, and not until his work there is ended is the person gone. When this solemn work is over the astral body detaches itself from the physical, and, life energy having departed, the remaining five principles are in the plane of kama loka. W.Q. Judge, The Ocean of Theosophy

The spirit is dazed after death and falls very soon into what we call “pre-devachanic unconsciousness. The Key to Theosophy

But the process of stripping off the lower, the fourth and part of the fifth, principles is an unconscious one in all normal human beings. It is only in very exceptional cases that there is a slight return to consciousness in Kama-loka: and this is the case of very materialistic unspiritual personalities, who, devoid of the conditions requisite, cannot enter the state of absolute Rest and Bliss. Some Old Questions Answered

In chronological order we go into kama loka – or the plane of desire – first on the demise of the body, and then the higher principles, the real man, fall into the state of Devachan. After dealing with kama loka it will be more easy to study the question of Devachan. … Kama loka – or the place of desire – is the astral region penetrating and surrounding the earth. … It is called the plane of desire because it relates to the fourth principle, and in it the ruling force is desire devoid of and divorced from intelligence. It is an astral sphere intermediate between earthly and heavenly life. Beyond any doubt it is the origin of the Christian theory of purgatory, where the soul undergoes penance for evil done and from which it can be released by prayer and other ceremonies or offerings. The fact underlying this superstition is that the soul may be detained in kama loka by the enormous force of some unsatisfied desire, and cannot get rid of the astral and kamic clothing until that desire is satisfied by some one on earth or by the soul itself.


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But if the person was pure minded and of high aspirations, the separation of the principles on that plane is soon completed, permitting the higher triad to go into Devachan. Being the purely astral sphere, it partakes of the nature of the astral matter which is essentially earthly and devilish, and in it all the forces work undirected by soul or conscience. It is the slag-pit, as it were, of the great furnace of life, where nature provides for the sloughing off of elements which have no place in Devachan, and for that reason it must have many degrees, every one of which was noted by the ancients. These degrees are known in Sanskrit as lokas or places in a metaphysical sense. Human life is very varied as to character and other potentialities, and for each of these the appropriate place after death is provided, thus making kama loka an infinitely varied sphere. W.Q. Judge,The Ocean of Theosophy

The length of this transfer depends, however, on the degree of spirituality in the ex-personality of the disembodied Ego. For those whose lives were very spiritual this transfer, though gradual, is very rapid. The time becomes longer with the materialistically inclined. The Key to Theosophy

The three higher principles, grouped into one, merge into the state of Devachan, in which state the Higher Ego will remain until the hour for a new reincarnation arrives; and the eidolon of the ex-Personality is left alone in its new abode. Here, the pale copy of the man that was, vegetates for a period of time, the duration of which is variable and according to the element of materiality which is left in it, and which is determined by the past life of the defunct. Bereft as it is of its higher mind, spirit and physical senses, if left alone to its own senseless devices, it will gradually fade out and disintegrate. Theosophical Glossary

After a certain time in kama loka the being falls into a state of unconsciousness which precedes the change into the next state. It is like the birth into life, preluded by a term of darkness and heavy sleep. It then wakes to the joys of devachan. W.Q. Judge The Ocean of Theosophy

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We have translated this as the “gestation” period, and it lasts from a few days to several years, according to the evidence of the adepts. It lasts so long as the merits of the old Ego entitle the being to reap the fruit of its reward in its new regenerated Ego-ship. It occurs after the gestation period is over, and the new spiritual Ego is reborn – like the fabled Phoenix from its ashes – from the old one. Seeming “Discrepancies”

But what is Devachan? The “land of gods” literally; a condition, a state of mental bliss. Philosophically a mental condition analogous to, but far more vivid and real than, the most vivid dream. It is the state after death of most mortals. The Key to Theosophy

I repeat it: death is sleep. After death, before the spiritual eyes of the soul, begins a performance according to a programme learnt and very often unconsciously composed by ourselves: the practical carrying out of correct beliefs or of illusions which have been created by ourselves. The Methodist will be Methodist, the Mussulman a Mussulman, at least for some time – in a perfect fool’s paradise of each man’s creation and making. These are the post-mortem fruits of the tree of life. The Key to Theosophy

What goes into Devachan? What reincarnates? It is certainly the ego, the Manas, the higher portion of Manas. … It is the reincarnating Manas that goes. The Secret Doctrine Dialogues

There is no transforming power in death; as a tree falls, so must it lie. It is during the life-time that we must recognize and awaken our true natures. Death opens no door to knowledge. Robert Crosbie, The Friendly Philosopher

The states after death are merely the effects of the life last lived. We step through from the place of our endeavour to reap what we have sown – first casting off the evil, and then experiencing the highest and best of all our aspirations. Robert Crosbie, The Friendly PhilosopherAs in actual earth life, so there is for the Ego in Devachan


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the first flutter of psychic life, the attainment of prime, the gradual exhaustion of force passing into semi-consciousness and lethargy, total oblivion and – not death, but birth, birth into another personality, and the resumption of action which daily begets new congeries of causes that must be worked out in another term of Devachan and still another physical birth as a new personality. Master K.H., Notes on Devachan

How long does the incarnating Ego remain in the Devachanic state? This, we are taught, depends on the degree of spirituality and the merit or demerit of the last incarnation. The Key to Theosophy

It must be borne in mind that each ego for itself varies the length of stay in the post-mortem states. They do not reincarnate at the same interval, but come out of the state after death at different rates. W Q Judge, The Ocean of Theosophy,

The atheist will not be compelled, nor will he see anything. Having persistently denied during life the continuance of existence after death, he will be unable to see it, because his spiritual capacity having been stunted in life, it cannot develop after death, and he will remain blind. HPB, The Key to Theosophy.

What it is clearly stated in these quotes is that we are immortal and death is just another part of life and that there is a general agreement that life in a body provides uniquely good opportunities for achieving spiritual illumination and growth.

There are differences between schools of thought about what is meant by Illumination and how exactly it is accomplished, but there is also a widespread agreement on the necessity of returning to some form of embodied life, in which the advancement towards complete enlightenment, can be continued. Some even go to affirm that it is in the embodied state that we progress spiritually. Shankara for example, says that one should daily give thanks to God for being born in a human body.

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That we are immortal is then, well established and understood through the ages, and this is not just theoretical, or just as an ideal possibility. The teaching suggests that there are some extraordinary people, living in the flesh, that once were like use, confused and in ignorance, whom through certain disciplines and methods have achieved immortality, in the flesh. Those who have succeeded in doing this and are masters of the process of incarnation are called by many names. Sometimes they are referred as “one who doesn’t go anywhere when he dies” because he is already, actually and consciously, where everyone else has to go without knowing.

Who are these people, and what does it means to be immortal? What is that which is Immortal? Is it my thoughts, my emotions? Is it a body? What is that which is becoming “more spiritual” and that suffers innumerable deaths in order to ascertain its own immortality? And how? We will explore all these mysteries in the workshop.

Live Death to the Full

It has been affirmed that the life of the soul in the invisible realms is consistent with the life of the soul in this side. The mental attitude and knowledge acquired during the incarnated period of life determines how we live. We live according to what we believe life is, and this is true for both the incarnate and disincarnate aspects of life. Death is lived according to what we believe, and to live death to the full, we do it in the same way that we live life to the full. To understand death, we need to understand life!

What is life? This is too big a question. What we can say is that inherent in life there is a positive impulse, a tendency to express growth, beauty and bliss. It is said that those who have entered deeper into the meaning of life experience a joy and a bliss that goes beyond words.


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The purpose of life is to give full expression to what the Higher Soul is. This is joy, this is bliss, richness, understanding wisdom, purpose!

One aspect of the system that we will use is its inherent positivity. This contrasts with some systems of metaphysics that interpret life in the physical plane in a depressed way. For the Rosicrucian philosopher the physical plane is not something to escape from. Matter is a spiritual manifestation that hides in its interior a treasure. Matter is the canvas in which the One is drawing its picture. In this system, Life is joyful and can be a wonderful experience, full of richness and opportunities, if we learn to unblock its secrets. It is a positive philosophy that focus the mind on the opportunities and the glory of being alive. And if death is a part of life, death should share this positive tendency.

In this workshop we are aiming to regain a view of death that is consistent with this vision of life! A positive view! Death as a friend, positive and liberating. In consequence we will explore intellectually, emotionally and mystically a positive view of death, a view that is inherited from the Western Esoteric tradition of which Theosophy is part.

The Kabbalah

Mystery Schools of both East and West, despite using different symbols, languages and systems, when carefully examined shows a consistent record regarding the main events experienced by the soul on its existence on the invisible worlds. All spiritual systems have a way to articulate this knowledge. As we remarked before, in our exploration we will use a contemporary version of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life to guide us through the gates of death. This is not something new for a

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Theosophist; as we have mentioned before, Blavatsky used the Kabbalah many times to articulate difficult concepts regarding Cosmogony and the Divine. In her Theosophical Glossary she explains that Kabbalists are students of a Secret Science used to interpret hidden meanings by the use of symbols.

Kabbalah is a Jewish word that comes from a root that means reception. The Kabbalah is the practices and teachings that lead to the reception of the Inner Truth. The Kabbalistic method is a practical art of entering and participating in higher worlds. It is conceived as a work of perfection of man and of unification with the Divine. It has been practiced for a long time not always under its present name. It was practiced and studied in many of the great cultural centres of the Middle East, long before Israel was formed. Traces of it can be found in Babylon, Hellenistic Egypt and Roman Judea. It travelled to the Arabic countries and during the Middle Ages was cultivated in Provence and Spain, where it found its present name. It was present all over Europe during the Renaissance and the Baroque, and this line has continued until the present day in which is founded everywhere in many forms. Kabbalah is not a fixed, static doctrinal body. It is an eclectic tradition that transforms and adapts its teachings and methods to particular times and places. The version that we will use is a relatively modern version, particularly adapted to the Christian West.

The Kabbalah is based on the ten Sephiroth, an Hebrew word meaning numberings or emanations, and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The doctrine of the Sephiroth appeared for the first time in the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation), dating back to the third century A. D., showing a strong influence by the Neoplatonist currents of late antiquity. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, an esoteric form of the Kabbalah emerged in Provence and northern Spain with the Sefer Bahir (Book of Illumination), composed by Isaac the Blind (circa1190–1210). The Bahir described the Sephiroth as a “tree of emanation,” which from the fourteenth century onward was depicted in the Tree of Life. The Bahir arranged the ten Sephiroth in a group of three major emanations that reflected


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themselves into another three intermediate emanations that were above three lower emanations that coalesced into a single one to give rise to the material world. The doctrine of the Sephiroth was developed further in the Sefer Zohar (Book of Splendor), written in Spain during the thirteenth century. In this the Sephiroth are related to the ten names of God, and the created universe is seen as the external manifestation of these forces through the agency of four worlds. In these worlds God acts through Archangels, Angels and elemental spirits which act as intermediaries and are themselves arranged in hierarchies. The Sephiroth are also linked to the world, the spheres of the seven planets, the sphere of fixed stars, and the higher spheres

The twenty-two pathways linking the Sephiroth correspond to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

The mysteries hidden in Kabbalistic texts are pursued through three main exegetical techniques based on the numerical vlue of the Hebrew letters. These techniques known as gematria, notarikon, and themurah applied to the exegesis of Scripture are meant to provoke thought and meditation. These ideas were further explored by the Castilian Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla (ca. 1247–1305) in his Ginnat Egoz (Garden of Nuts), written in 1274. Gikatilla was an associate of the famous Kabbalist Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia (1240–ca. 1292), who had introduced an ecstatic Kabbalah based on the mystical contemplation of the Divine Names.

During the Renaissance, Kabbalah adapted itself to suit the needs of Christianity and a Christian Kabbalah was developed, initially in Florence by Giovanni Pico de la Mirandola (1463-1494), incorporating the Neoplatonic Hermeticism of Marcilio Ficino. The Christian Kabbalah was further developed in the following centuries, and since then it has been at the core of the Western Esoteric Tradition.

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The Tree of Life

The initial consideration to grasp the meaning of the Tree of Life is found in the words of the Hermetic Emerald Tablet: “All things are from One, by the mediation of One, and all things have their birth from this One Thing by adaptation.”


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The One Thing is the Limitless Living Light, the Ain Suph Aur. Every cycle of manifestation, great or small, is begun by the concentration of this Living Light, upon itself, at a Point within itself, represented on the Tree of Life diagram by the number 1. This Point is the Innermost the Central Point named Kether, the Crown, because it is the control point for everything external and subordinate to it.

From 1, follows logically 2 as the one, living, conscious Light knows itself perfectly, and this perfect self-knowledge is represented by 2, because that knowledge is the perfect duplication of the real Being of the One, in that One’s complete self-awareness. To this idea is given the name Chokmah, Wisdom. And the title Ab, Father, because the One knows itself to be the perfection of all that is initiative.

Knowing itself perfectly, the One Reality knows also the logical outcome of what it knows itself to be. Looking into itself, it sees what it is in itself. Looking, as it were, away from this aspect of itself, it perceives the necessary consequences of what it finds in itself. This intuitive perception of the consequences of what it knows itself to be is designated by the number 3, and is named Binah, Understanding.

These three Sephiroth, Kether, Chokmah and Binah, constitute the Supernal, or Divine, Triad. Eternal, changeless, without beginning or end, this Divine Triad is the core of Reality behind and within every manifestation of the One Life. This is true of all forms of manifestation, whatever may be the scale of relative size or importance, as measured by conventional standards. The Supernal Triad has always been, is now, and will be always the innermost reality of our being.The Supernal Triad is reflected in the three Sephiroth of the human individuality, as distinguished from human personality. Whatever is real in human personality is actually a direct expression of the One, Living Light. There is no separate individuality. Neither is there any separate personality. All are related, one to another. All are aspects of the ONE.

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The Sephirah numbered 4 is called Chesed, Mercy or Beneficence, and also Gedulah, Majesty or Magnificence.

Sephira 5 has three names: Pachad, fear; Geburah, usually translated as strength or severity; And Deen, justice which represents the highest aspect of Law and of Volition.

The Sixth Sephirah, Tiphareth, Beauty, is the seat of the Human Ego. The human Ego is a direct reflection of the One Self. It is that One Self at work in an individualized field of expression. It is a point of concentration for powers which are above, behind and within it. It is also a point through which these powers are radiated to the four aspects of Reality which are subordinate, in front of, and apparently outside it.

Just as the Supernal Triad is eternal, so is its reflection, the Triad of Individuality. This Egoic Triad is the Higher Mind, and the Ego or Higher Soul is the point in which the powers of this Triad are concentrated.

The seventh Sephirah, Netzach, Victory, is a direct reflection of the fourth, as the fourth mirrors the second. It is the field of operation of the desire-nature, the Kama Manas of some Eastern systems.

The eighth Sephirah, Hod, usually translated as Splendor, mirrors the fifth. It is also the opposite and complement to the seventh. Its special activity is the discriminative power of Intellect.

Yesod, Foundation, is the name of the Ninth Sephirah, the seat of the animal soul that we share with all creatures. It is the basis, or foundation, of Malkuth, the sphere representing the physical universe. Yesod is the seat of the Vital Soul. Below Yesod isMalkuth, the Kingdom, the tenth Sephirah, which is the fruit, or completion, of the Tree of Life. To Malkuth is assigned the lowest, and most external, aspect of personality, the physical body.


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The Workshop

What we will consider in the first part of the workshop is a very small portion of the knowledge that exists about what happens between the phenomena of death and rebirth. This is knowledge given by the adepts of the spiritual Traditions of the East and the West.

The travel of the soul on the other side of life will be mapped upon the Tree of Life, whose correspondences will give us knowledge and insight on the experiences that the soul goes through between incarnations.

The Ageless Wisdom liberating view of death has a further dimension of utmost importance.

The same process of going through the Spheres of the Tree of Life when experienced death, can be experienced when still in the body. It not only consists of a description of the actual travel of the Initiate, but it is also the framework of a training system that prepares the Initiate for liberation.

This training has a long history. In the centre of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh there is an empty stone coffin. It has been suggested that it was not a tomb for a Pharaoh, but the altar of the Chamber of Initiation into the Greater Mysteries. In it lay the candidate while his soul was sent out upon the journey of death and recalled, and that after the experience he never feared death again. The experience answered the basic questions: Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?

The importance of the correct understanding of these doctrines may be judged by the significant phrase of Master K.H. he who holds the keys to the Secrets of Death is possessed of the Keys of Life. In the Higher Mysteries lies hid the precious teaching which rightly understood will bring to rebirth the aspirant who has passed through the agonies of Death in Life.In this second part of the workshop we will travel through the Spheres of the Tree of Life again, but this time instead of making emphasis in the post-mortem states, we will make emphasis in the practical training of an actual Initiate, following the same pattern that the soul travels on the invisible realms when experiencing death.

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Recommended Reading

Today we can find many books devoted to the many varieties of Kabbalah and the Tree of Life. One of the best is Dion Fortune’s The Mystical Qabbalah. Fortune was a member of the Golden Dawn, and later she founded her own esoteric school. The clarity of her exposition is legendary and her books have exerted a refreshing influence on the contemporary occult movements. Through the Gates of Death is an excellent exposition of what happens in the initial stages of the experience of death. Full of insight and advice, this book is a perfect introduction to the subject.

Another book containing invaluable insights and advice on some aspects of the phenomena of death, using Eastern terminology, is Yogi Ramacharaka’s The Life Beyond Death. The Yogi is actually the American occultist William Walker Atkinson whose many books are also a mine of occult information.

These two books are quite learned and of a serious tone. A most refreshing account of the experience of death can be found in The Boy Who Saw True (originally published by the composer and musician Cyril Scott, the writer of The Adept trilogy). This is the diary of an extraordinary boy with an amazing clairvoyant skill. Charming, insightful, very funny and moving, the young author records his conversations with the death, sometimes failing to realise that other people couldn’t understand what he was doing.There are many good books explaining the Rosicrucian training system. Paul Foster Case’s The True and Invisible Rosicrucian Order: An Interpretation of the Rosicrucian Allegory & An Explanation of the Ten Rosicrucian Grades is a brilliant explanation of the original Rosicrucian manifestos and the Kabbalistic training system derived from them. The book contains the texts of the two manifestos and is an introduction to the basic Kabbalistic techniques represented by the Rosicrucian tradition.


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The Extinction MythTim Wyatt

There’s an idea so poisonous to the spiritual development of the human race – an idea so totally toxic, so completely irrational and so absolutely disfiguring that it needs to be eradicated permanently from our mind-sets. This is a task that will take generations because this idea is so deeply embedded in the mass psyche of mankind. The difficulty is that at this stage of human affairs, this is extremely problematic because the majority of humanity have atrophied and crystallised minds which often prevent free thought and fresh possibilities.

This pernicious idea is both dangerous and damaging because it represents an implacable hostility towards the human spirit itself – and what is tantamount to a stringent denial of its very existence. This malign but persistent and widely-held idea encapsulates the flabby belief that the universe is random, accidental, chaotic and purposeless – that ‘fortuitous concurrence of atoms’ as Madame Blavatsky so eloquently phrased it.

As you may have guessed, this is the puerile, persistent and strident assertion that death of the physical body is somehow the end of all existence for us. It is the ridiculous and deluded concept of death as annihilation, oblivion and extinction of all being and consciousness – the end of the line and the cessation of life as we know it. Most of my contemporaries – even the intelligent and the intellectual – persist in this idea even though it is illogical to the point of absurdity. They resent any ideas of an afterlife.

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The highly destructive consequences of this false notion are almost incalculable in every sphere in which we operate – culturally, politically, socially, economically and much more besides. Denying the realities of death is effectively denying life itself. Such is the critical stage we have reached in the human project – where the fetishistic lure of the material and the indulgence of the lower self with all its passionate drives obliterates alternative possibilities.

In the West, this belief in death as the final curtain really took root in the 20th Century, fuelled by the then unstoppable fashions of scientific materialism, the then trendy theories of Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx all cooked up in a climate of so-called rationalism. This hollow and shallow belief has also been invigorated by the spiritual vacuum left by the slow but inevitable decline and decay of Christianity.

Despite fresh and more enlightened spiritual stirrings across this planet, the idea that death is the ultimate Goodnight Vienna remains a persuasive and all-encompassing belief among many. You see car bumper stickers with the slogan: ‘One life, live it’. Young people text each other the bleak abbreviation Y-O-L-O – You Only Live Once. You hear this reinforced around you all the time as people make fatuous remarks such as: ‘We’re only here once’ or ‘You’re a long time dead’.

Suggestions to the contrary are usually met with amusement, incredulity, ridicule or the belief that psychiatric attention may be required to cure this laughable heresy.

In many ways, subtle and otherwise, the extinction myth is perpetuated and constantly re-vivified. Over time this distortion of the truth has also led to a progressive spiritual atrophy. It has set in motion myriad chains of events which directly and indirectly have made a major contribution to the current planetary chaos, conflict and disorder. There can never be harmony as long as we deny the cycles and continuum of life on and beyond the physical plane.

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None of this is surprising because death has always defined our world and never more so than now. Even for some reincarnationists it has remained their most acute fear. It’s difficult to avoid death. It’s everywhere like the air we breathe. It permeates everything around us all the time. TV would be incomplete without it and it’s never off the screens. Instant global news has created a prurient new voyeuristic genre in the form of war pornography.

It is a central ingredient of news, drama and documentaries. The internet and social media platforms purvey a constant and almost contemporaneous diet of battered and dismembered bodies resulting from natural disasters, terrorist bombings or rocket attacks.

Hardly a film or TV drama doesn’t feature death either in a genteel Agatha Christie country mansion setting or in a much more violent and blood-drenched Sam Peckinpah or Quentin Tarantino way. We are also obsessed with disease and illness – certainly in the UK – because these are usually the harbingers of death. Which is why doctors have now largely replaced the role of priests.

The stark paradox is that we are both immune and de-sensitised to death and yet absolutely terrified by it. This produces its own fascination. It’s a circle we just can’t quite square. It’s a contradiction we cannot resolve using our prevailing materialistic mind-set.

Believing that you only have a single life on Earth in a physical body has huge consequences – virtually all of them negative. This narrow vision has spawned a major distortion in the nature of reality itself. This view breeds greed, selfishness, materialism, short-termism, hunger for power and many other undesirable things besides. It glorifies lower personality drives and turns grasping and self-seeking into desirable human character traits which shape our entire existence. This belief underpins and reinforces the conventional morality that you should take what you can whenever and wherever you

The Extinction Myth - Tim Wyatt

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can get it because there are no consequences beyond this life. It encourages people to act solely in their own interests. And, most importantly, it divorces people from their true identity, purpose and destiny. It shreds any sense of responsibility and undermines self-development. It means you can act as you please, treat other people as you wish, plunder and waste resources at will – all with a grim smile of self-satisfaction. ‘Well, what has posterity ever done for me?’ they mockingly ask.

If this weren’t enough it also acts like Viagra on our emotional bodies and is like constantly feeding the Dweller on the Threshold powerful amphetamines.

If you wanted a true archetype of modern everyman you could do far worse than choose the cartoon figure of Homer Simpson. Homer is an unashamedly lazy, greedy, stupid and selfish individual with about as much spiritual sophistication as a rock. But he considers these to be noble human values which should be espoused universally. Homer’s main source of pride is that he doesn’t think about anything.

But change is beginning to stir as more and more people question the death-as-extinction myth. Even disillusioned Christians, weary of that religion’s threadbare and entirely inadequate explanations of the afterlife and absolute denial of reincarnation, are seduced into this belief in nothingness. Those with even a rudimentary capacity for analytical thought, who have pondered Christianity’s rather woolly notions about the post-mortem states, begin to realise that the highly vague explanations offered are not only entirely flawed but an affront to logic itself.

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But if you say something often enough – and say it with enough muscle and ecclesiastical authority down the centuries – you can make people believe just about anything you wish – however ridiculous and wrong it may be. So you wind up with a situation where the majority of Christians still cling to this Will o’ the wisp vision of spending the remainder of eternity in a glittering gold- and jewel-encrusted paradise or hunkered down in some cumulo-nimbus heaven with God, Jesus, Elvis Presley or Auntie Doreen.

For those who’ve upset The Almighty One or failed in their duty to perfectly mimic Jesus’s exemplary behaviour, a less desirable alternative for infinity awaits. It may start off with a gentle sado-masochistic flailing and scourging of the soul in some superheated purgatorial realm. But eventually you get the full Hollywood hellfire and damnation treatment complete with devils, terrifying evil spirits, burning pits, sulphurous fumes and no doubt all the other technicolour clichés, too.

Christianity took a wrong turn and subsequently lost its way on the question of death when it finally declared reincarnation as one of its growing list of anathemas at the infamous Councils of Nicea and then Constantinople between the 4th and the 6th Centuries. The reasons for outlawing reincarnation and a sudden U-turn in its orthodoxy among the early Church hierarchy were both doctrinal and ecclesiastical but even more than that they were also driven by political expediency. They were also complex and still disputed by those who spend their lives poring over such evidence.

Within Christianity, Judaism and Islam – beliefs in reincarnation by a rogue minority stubbornly persist. It no doubt remains common knowledge amongst the top brass in The Vatican as it does among Sufi sects and those many variants of Catholicism which have been fused together in often bizarre blends with indigenous beliefs.


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This very idea of spending eternity in the same place – be it heavenly or hellish – is the most horrifying notion I can conceive of. It’s also one of the most absurdly illogical propositions you could ever offer to people. By nature human beings have always had itchy feet and forcing them to stay anywhere for a prolonged period, let alone eternity, is a cruel and unusual punishment even from a vengeful and generally bad-tempered Jehovah. And it rather contradicts the central tenet of Theosophy and the Ageless Wisdom teachings that everything is in perpetual ferment, that nothing stays still for the tiniest fraction of a second and that everything is intimately inter-connected and constantly in the process of becoming something else. Being in heaven – or hell – forever constitutes a denial of evolution. It also offends the entire economy of the universe.

There is no economic sense in creating souls for use once only in a single life and then piling up these spent human souls for eternity in some giant warehousing operation. Is that really the best that God can come up with in his infinite wisdom? Is he nothing more than a logistics expert?

Just imagine that you were trapped in heaven for infinity. Even if it were the ultimate luxury five-star heaven with breath-taking sea views, 24 hour a day room service and the best stocked cocktail bar this side of The Pleaides, after a year or a century or a millennium you would be heartily sick of it. Exacerbated by the fact that you had nothing to do and there was no evident purpose to anything anymore, there’s a strong likelihood of your becoming suicidal – but perhaps heaven has specially trained therapists and counsellors to deal with this sort of thing.

After a while when the terminal boredom had set in you really would start to wish that there was such a thing as permanent annihilation. You would start to plead with whoever it was who ran the place to be lenient and let you mercifully slit your throat and slip away into final entropy.

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As I alluded to earlier, science, too, remains unable to explain the deeper truths or even admit that there are hidden realms of existence – even though it does concede that much is invisible to even its most powerfully probing instruments, cloaked and concealed by mysteries they cannot penetrate or yet explain. Science is very good at explaining the hows of the physical plane but never the whys. It says that’s the job of philosophy – or possibly religion.

The harsh and exclusively material world of icy logic and supposedly rational thinking which prevails in the modern world not only hugely distorts and massively limits our perception of reality, it enhances the existing illusion. This way of thinking relies solely on the restricted perceptions of our brains and five physical senses. It means that all that we perceive is refracted through the restricted prism of the unreal and what we sense is a limited and constricted world of shifting shadows and phantom phenomena.

This is the everyday world dominated by the lower concrete mind.

As long as mainstream science refuses to admit that there are subtle and invisible realms beyond the physical spectrum, it cannot unlock the secrets of the universe. These will only be revealed when science sheds its outdated and narrow prejudices about the constitution of matter. And science doesn’t even fully understand the physical realm with which it is so obsessed. The vast majority of scientists have no inkling that the physical spectrum also consists of four etheric states of energy beyond solids, liquids and gases. One day it will be accepted and understood. But it will take brave scientists prepared to risk their salaries, reputations and lucrative research grants by proposing radical – and esoteric – theories, before these notions enter the physics textbooks.

Thankfully this change is already beginning to unfold. There is a painfully slow convergence of science and spirituality and soon there may be an upheaval. However, it is most unlikely that the soul will be discovered lurking in the nooks and crevices of atom-smashers like the Large Hadron


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Collider. It will emerge from the imaginative and enlightened mind of some new Francis Bacon, Marie Curie, H. P. Blavatsky or Max Planck. It is much more likely to emanate from an individual rather than through any corporate thought process. The rediscovery of the Ageless Wisdom tradition in the West over the past century and a half has energised and transmuted the consciousness of a minority. But its assertion that death as annihilation and extinction is a lie and an untruth still remain very much a minority view – certainly in the developed world. The Ageless Wisdom in all its guises down the centuries has always held as one of its core tenets that there is nothing but life in the cosmos and that there is no empty space or dead matter. (Science still has a little catching up to do on this score, too. The trinity of Judaeo-Christian religions of the West probably never will.)

The modern incarnation of this wisdom – Theosophy – emphasises the cyclic nature of all life. Atoms, galaxies, butterflies, oak trees and human beings all follow the same inevitable trajectory – birth, growth, maturity, decline and death. There are no exceptions.

Over the past six or seven decades surveys consistently show a rise in the number of people believing not only in some form of after-life but also in re-birth. A UK survey carried out in 2012 by the University of London found that 49 per cent of those questioned – almost half - believed in an afterlife but only 31 percent – fewer than a third - actually believed in God. A study in the United States showed a similar trend.

Another interesting development since the middle of the last century has been an inexorable increase in the number of people who believe in reincarnation. At the time of the Second World War outside esoteric circles only a tiny proportion of people in the United States and Europe believed in any form of reincarnation. These days you find the proportion increasing year on year – including those who are supposed to regard such ideas as anathema – namely Christians. Catholics are more likely to believe in re-birth than mainstream Protestants

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while hard-line Methodists are the least likely to be convinced.To the esoterically-minded or those with a degree of wisdom, death may have no more significance than changing one’s clothes or going into another room of your home. After all we have all died many hundreds or even thousands of times before and you might think we’ve reached the stage where we should be getting used to it by now. Apparently not. The problem is that we simply don’t remember those previous occasions where we left our physical bodies.

Death in its many different forms – natural or otherwise – is still viewed with dread and terror by millions of people. In some cases this fear is so acute that it blights and haunts the lives of some individuals, sometimes for decades. Fear of death makes people ill. Death is a subject to be avoided as much as possible. It is not to be discussed – especially over dinner. It is better that we deny it – until that inevitable moment of transition arrives. And then we can all commiserate with each other and cry on each others’ shoulders bemoaning what a tragedy it all is. There are those, of course, who believe that as with everything else technology will valiantly ride to the rescue, with sophisticated devices enabling us to infinitely prolong our lives in physical bodies. For reasons both exoteric and esoteric, this is deeply undesirable. Somewhere in America, almost certainly California, there are those who believe that if you stop smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol, that if you spend 15 hours a day in a gym and live on a macrobiotic diet, you can live forever. Unless, of course, you’re unlucky enough to get caught up in one of those mass-shootings in which the Americans indulge so frequently.

For those with less faith in this approach there is another immediately available alternative – if you have a few hundred thousand dollars to spare. This option has actually been around for quite a while and a few resource-rich individuals have selected it as a post-mortem choice. This is the intriguing science of cryonics or cryogenics where after death people


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have themselves consigned to special facilities where they are frozen in liquid nitrogen and preserved at temperatures approaching absolute zero or minus 273 degrees Celsius. The idea is that at some distant point in the future, when science has discovered a cure for whatever it was they died from, they can be conveniently revived and reconstituted to continue their interrupted incarnation.

Of course, a basic knowledge of occult science shows conclusively that this Dr Frankenstein approach is completely impossible since the revived entity would not even have an etheric double, let alone astral or mental bodies or a soul. Unensouled it would be nothing more than a piece of meat plucked out of the deep-freeze. However, unlike a leg of lamb it would be entirely inedible and given that cannibalism remains unlawful in most jurisdictions there may be legal impediments to its consumption.

None of this stops a few rich and gullible people from paying a small fortune to unscrupulous operators to participate in this vain and futile exercise. But no doubt it keeps a few people in work and softens the terror of those who cling to physical life like a limpet to a boat.

At this current stage in the world cycle as a new spirituality begins to slowly blossom, I’d assert that the most important lesson that humanity can learn right now is that death as annihilation, extinction and ultimate oblivion is not only a myth but the biggest lie being peddled on this planet at the present time. Physical death as the end of personal or even planetary existence is the entire polar opposite of the truth. It is a cardinal lie corroding the minds of large sections of humanity and it needs to be urgently counteracted. Not only that, the extinction myth needs to be banished permanently from the human psyche because it is corrupting, limiting and narrowing. Whenever and wherever this notion prevails, it will always act as a curb to human progress.

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Death as a portal of transition to subtle after-life realms is a reality and it is this exciting opportunity that we need to convey to people in ways they can both understand and apply. Dealing with this question has been one of the chief things we’ve been attempting to do in recent years at The School of Applied Wisdom which operates from the Leeds Lodge of the Theosophical Society in Yorkshire, England, where I live. The purpose of the school is to simplify and explain some of the basic ideas of the Ageless Wisdom. Whenever we deal with the subject of death – and we often do – we notice that there is always a significantly larger audience than when we deal with some of the drier and more technical aspects of Theosophy such as chains, globes and rounds.

When people start to understand and accept the intricacies of karma and reincarnation it can have a transformative effect on both their outlooks and their lives. I’ve seen it happen many times. People get excited by the notion that it’s not the deity who’s in charge of their destinies but they themselves. When people are freed from the idea that they’re locked up in God’s penitentiary, it has a hugely liberating effect. When people make that connection between cause and effect and understand that their words, thoughts and deeds can have ramifications for lifetimes to come, their attitude and behaviour alters. Sometimes it’s only subtle. In some cases it has an almost initiatory effect.

What we should be teaching – and it’s what I do teach – is that death of the physical body is the most exciting, desirable and creative career opportunity there is. We should make the most of it. It is to be welcomed and not feared like a gunman in the night.


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But we can only begin to do this when we have acquired some kind of relaxed certainty that we are part of an eternal, cyclic continuum bound by cosmic law and that we are co-creators in a divine grand plan to further unfold the universe and all the realities in it. Esoteric understanding means committing yourself to the long game – not worrying over the temporary circumstances prevailing in any one incarnation any more than we need to. It means reorganising our priorities and deciding what is really important.

It’s only when we do begin to understand the nature of the endless cyclic voyage of discovery in which all of us are engaged, evolving through planetary systems and progressing through the various kingdoms of nature that the illusion of time itself begins to recede. It’s then that we can start to engage with that eternal present and live in the now. And living in the now is something which most of us find difficult if not impossible to achieve because of the illusions of linear time.

As long as we worry that the expiry of our physical bodies is the end of the journey and we are no more, we are trapped in that illusory hall-of-mirrors which further hampers our liberation into greater truths.

Humanity needs to learn that simple but vital truth – that to die is to live.

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HPB The Destroyer of DeathTim Wyatt

Prior to Madame Blavatsky’s dramatic esoteric revelations about the nature of human beings and the cosmos in the late 19th Century, ideas of re-birth and reincarnation – let alone karma – were virtually unknown in the West outside narrow academic and occult circles. Until Madame Blavatsky presented her trenchant and ground-breaking ideas, the Western view of death was predominantly either atheistic annihilation or a Christian-inspired eternal afterlife languishing in paradise or a sulphurous hell.

Although ideas of reincarnation and karma remain a minority view today, belief in ideas of re-birth especially in Europe and the US have seen a seismic increase in the past half century. Immediately after World War II surveys showed at most two or three per cent of people subscribing to such ideas. Now polls even among Christians show that up to a third of people questioned belief in repeated rebirth on Earth.

Without HPB, it is unlikely that there would have been such a dramatic and relatively quick change of attitude especially in countries dominated and entrenched by Christian assertions that human souls spend only a single life in flesh and bone. Not only did she reveal great cosmic truths about the true cyclic relationship between life and death (and much else besides), she effectively globalised these ideas via the Theosophical Society and the various thought-schools it influenced. Blavatsky, then, was the greatest destroyer of purely materialistic notions of death the Western world has ever seen.

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As we know everything is cyclic – undergoing the regular and relentless process of renewal via birth, growth, maturity, decline and physical death, followed by re-configuration on the inner planes and eventually by physical re-birth and beginning the cycle all over again. This is true of everything from daisies and human beings to atoms and galaxies.

But sometimes a catalyst is required at some stage of this cycle – especially when it comes to the birth of new ideas which humanity at that point requires but doesn’t yet recognise. The eventual acceptance of radically new notions usually undergoes its own recognisable – and indeed cyclic – scenario. It normally begins with outright hostility, opposition and denial but eventually winds up as unchallengeable wisdom. However, this takes time – from a few weeks to a few centuries.

The process begins with Individual X proposing an idea which is so far ahead of its time – so radically shocking, so devastatingly ground-breaking and so absolutely threatening to existing worldviews – that the very mention of it evokes withering scepticism, implacable anger, mockery and outright rejection from virtually everyone. Only a very few people get it. But after a while a growing minority of people start to explore this fresh idea and after a while they begin to tacitly admit that, yes, there just may be something in this whacky and apparently dangerous notion after all. Years, decades or even centuries down the line the idea slowly gains wider acceptance, reaches critical mass and gradually seeps into the popular consciousness of the masses and is finally accepted as unassailable truth. After this no one imagines how we could not always have accepted this concept.

Occasionally but regularly down the corridors of history individuals appear whose ideas are so radical and so revolutionary that they challenge the very existence of the prevailing paradigms and dominant thought-forms of the age. They aren’t necessarily avatars like Buddha, Krishna or

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Christ but they are highly advanced individuals who are so far ahead of the game they are often perceived as mad, bad or dangerous to the secular or religious order of the time. What usually happens is that they are ridiculed, marginalised, persecuted or sometimes killed by religious authorities, by the state or by the mob. Or a combination of all three.

The extent of their genius is usually not appreciated during their life-times and often not for many decades or centuries afterwards. Socrates, Joan of Arc and Giordano Bruno paid the ultimate price for their attempts at radical innovation. Countless others have been martyred for what occupied their minds. Others fared a little better but beyond-the-horizon thinkers such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Nikolai Tesla and Steven Hawking were not always well understood by their contemporaries. And yet in the very male-dominated 19th Century the person who proved the most challenging to Western spiritual, religious and indeed scientific traditions and thought was a woman. A very remarkable individual.

I regard Helena Petrovna Blavatsky as a kind of destroying angel – zapping the cant, shattering the hypocrisy and lashing out at all the smug certainty and arrogance of that first industrial age which had reached such ascendancy by the middle of the 19th Century. Blavatsky’s chief weapons were a cosmogony and esoteric worldview so revolutionary that it literally triggered an ‘explosion of consciousness’ among the most radical thinkers and intellectuals of her day. She used her reinterpretation of the Ageless Wisdom teachings as a wrecking-ball to demolish the sacred certainties of religion and dogmatic rigidities of Victorian science. But as well as a destroyer HPB was also the ultra-synthesiser abolishing the distinctions and traditional demarcation lines between religion, philosophy and science.

HPB The Destroyer of Death - Tim Wyatt

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She did more than anyone to revivify and enhance the Western Esoteric tradition with a series of timeless universal principles about deity, cosmos and man. She was to some a wicked and to others a welcome messenger despatched to a world mired in materialistic excess and religious unravelling. Almost a century and a half later these ideas still remain far off the radar for most people, although the broad brush-strokes continue to slowly permeate mass consciousness.

Given her immense influence Madame Blavatsky should be far better known in the modern world than she is. By resurrecting the Ageless Wisdom teachings in the West, she not only helped create and shape large swathes of contemporary esoteric thought, she effectively re-defined notions of spirituality itself. Although incomprehensible to 99.99 per cent of humanity, her monumental work The Secret Doctrine has never been out of print in all the 130 years since its first publication. This hasn’t, of course, made it any easier to understand but its status as the modern esoteric bible and blueprint for an emerging 21st Century spiritual rebellion remains unchallenged.

Many intelligent and educated people you speak to have a vague notion of who Blavatsky was but the impression they retain tends to be confused and usually sceptical or negative. ‘She was a fraud. She was an impostor. She was a black magician.’ Other supposedly knowledgeable people have never heard of her. ‘Did she win the Eurovision Song Contest for Latvia?’ they ask you. Very few people recognise the enormous contribution she made in offering fresh but timeless explanations for the composition and workings of the universe and its many different classes of inhabitants.

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Blavatsky is often described as the godmother of the New Age – and this is a very apt appraisal. As we know, she never enjoyed an easy ride. But in order to pave the way for esoteric ideas and occult propositions which were so far beyond the most distant horizon for the vast majority of people in the West at the time, she also had to adopt an often highly controversial role. Fortunately Blavatsky wasn’t in the business of winning popularity contests. Luckily, she wasn’t usually too choosy about whom she offended and no one was immune – especially those in her closest circles. She became a weaponised force for wisdom even though she sometimes spoke like a fish-wife. And in stark contradiction to today’s fluffy and often passive notions about spirituality Blavatsky – despite her various disabilities and ailments – was a determined woman of action. She was prepared to take up arms and engage in a fight she believed to be just – whether physical or metaphysical. And she had the bullet wounds to prove it. Today’s Theosophists tend not to be anything like as adventurous – and indeed a passivity prevails amongst us which the old woman herself would have found repugnant. However, we live in far more dumbed down times than in her day and humanity’s attention span and capacity for concentration have shrunk alarmingly.

Regarded by some as the woman who rescued and reinterpreted the Ageless Wisdom tradition, she is still viewed by others today with deep suspicion and branded as a fraudulent charlatan. Her ideas have slowly permeated beyond narrow occult groups and into wider public consciousness – ideas that life is everywhere and that we live in a conscious, inter-connected, evolving and eternal universe. These are not yet the factory setting for the human mind-set but over coming generations they will be.

Blavatsky was a true seeker spending decades wandering across Asia, Europe, Africa and The Americas – a remarkable feat for anyone at that time but unprecedented for a rebellious Russian noblewoman. She had no academic qualifications whatsoever – just a life of visceral experience penetrating previously impervious mysteries.


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As we know, she had a great many adversaries, enemies and critics who unceasingly tried to attack, ridicule and undermine her work. Given the rigidity of 19th Century Western notions of spirituality, this was inevitable. Her resilience in facing down her many opponents became legendary and this tough, no nonsense approach is something I also find deeply appealing along with her persistence and sheer determination.

I first encountered Madame Blavatsky as a teenager. I found The Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled lurking on those obscure shelves of my local library which are rarely visited. Although my initial dalliance with her was brief and unconsummated, I’ve always been an enormous admirer of this highly unconventional woman – precisely because of her ability and willingness to offend, to promote free speech and to generally stretch the boundaries of human potential, especially as far as consciousness is concerned. All these things are even more essential in our chaotic and conflicted world today where every freedom is under attack.

My fascination with her continues but I don’t regard her as some demagogic messenger whose unchallengeable words are carved in stone and who should be regularly worshipped like some deified idol.

Blavatsky was the first to admit that she had only lifted a tiny corner of that veil shrouding the hitherto secret esoteric knowledge preserved by a few advanced initiates down the long and winding corridors of history. Blavatsky was an important pioneer and a fearless pathfinder on the way but we should never regard hers as the final word on any matter because there is no final word. Blavatsky herself would be appalled and deeply angered by the way she has sometimes been fetishized by certain theosophists who shrilly assert that everything that came after her is bogus, neo-Theosophy which somehow offends her sacred words. It is this rigid interpretation of HPB’s works – as it is with literal interpretations of holy scriptures such as The Koran or The Bible

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– which promotes narrow-mindedness and ossified thought. This is very dangerous in a world becoming more dangerous by the day. Rigidity of thought was always in the cross-hairs of Blavatsky’s sniper rifle.

You have to say that Blavatsky was a most unlikely role model for the greatest esoteric innovator of the past few centuries. She was an agitator, an idealist and a deeply-flawed person – and it’s this latter character trait that I possibly admire the most. She was the grand iconoclast of her day slashing away at the scientific, social and religious prejudices and practises. She was the slayer of the unreal and arguably the greatest psycho-spiritual anarchist to incarnate on this planet for centuries. You don’t get all that many people like her in a millennium.

Blavatsky was usually in the business of brutally challenging prevailing 19th Century notions about almost everything – the dominant social order, education, politics, diet and money – and many other things besides. But more importantly she ripped away the accepted orthodoxies of who we are as human beings, where our distant origins lie, why we are here and the kind of adventure we are on.

One of Blavatsky’s chief missions was to destroy the very idea of death as oblivion, annihilation or cessation of existence. Blavatsky was familiar with death. It had often brushed past her.

On numerous occasions throughout her life from childhood onwards this Russian adventuress frequently diced with death but mysteriously manage to dodge it until her frail body finally succumbed to its imperfections in 1891.

Those familiar with Blavatsky’s life and the circumstances of the time are aware that at the 75 year mark of any century the hidden guides of the race make special efforts to ‘enlighten’ the ignorant western world. Before Blavatsky was selected for her world mission The Masters had been


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engaged for ‘nearly a century’ in a forlorn and fruitless search for a suitable individual to carry out this task.

From her earliest days there appears to be persuasive evidence that she was under the guardianship and protection of the Himalayan adepts. When she was baptised at only a few hours old because it was feared she wouldn’t survive, the officiating priest’s robes caught fire and the ceremony had to be hastily abandoned. That proved to be something of an omen for a remarkable life that was to follow.

As a young child at her grandparents’ home curiosity got the better of her and she was determined to look at a picture hanging high on the wall covered with a curtain. She first dragged a table in front of the picture but when she still couldn’t reach it, she precariously placed a chair on top of that and clambered up. When she pulled the curtain aside the chair slid away and she tumbled to the floor. But rather than being hurt there was some invisible intervention in which unseen arms grasped her and laid her on the carpet. When she opened her eyes both the table and chair were back in place. High on the wall beside the curtain was her tiny handprint.

A similar rescue from serious injury or death came when she was a teenager out riding. Her foot got caught in the stirrups but unseen hands again intervened and the horse was reined in.

Similar incidents continued. In May 1848 she narrowly escaped being engulfed by an avalanche in Russia. She survived two ship-wrecks. The first was in 1851 when the SS Gwalior sank off the Cape of Good Hope. She was one of twenty survivors. Almost two decades later she was sailing on the SS Eunomia off the Greek coast when its supply of gunpowder exploded and the ship sank. Again she was one of a handful of survivors. In another episode she was rescued from a remote desert by twenty-five horsemen summoned by a shaman accompanying her and later given a fever-cure in Burma during an epidemic.

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But it wasn’t only marine and equestrian incidents which she survived. She was cured from a number of serious illnesses. In 1859 in St Petersburg she contracted a critical illness. A wound appeared near her heart and she was in a death-like coma for four days before mysteriously recovering. Five years later a similar incident occurred. Madame Blavatsky was diagnosed by a Russian doctor to be near death but inexplicably recovered. Shortly after this she was thrown from a horse, fractured her spine but recovered.

One of Blavatsky’s most dramatic and colourful brushes with death came in 1867 when she was embroiled in the Battle of Mentana in Italy between Garibaldi’s red shirts and the French and was wounded five times. Her left arm was broken in two places by a sabre and she was shot in the shoulder and leg. Another unexplained and highly mysterious recovery.

After two separate injuries to her leg in early 1875 in New York it became paralysed, black and swollen to twice its size in May and there were fears it would have to be amputated. Again death had no dominion and she survived.

There were two other noteworthy incidents which should have been fatal but weren’t. In Adyar in 1885 she was revived from serious illness by occult means – ‘thanks to the Master’s protecting hand’, to quote her own words. When writing The Secret Doctrine in Ostend in early 1887 a kidney infection became so severe that consular officials actually prepared for her death. This was the famous incident when her Master appeared and offered her the stark choice of finishing her monumental work or departing from the physical plane.It is believed that much of Blavatsky’s illness resulted from her prolonged and rigorous occult training by adepts in Tibet. We are told that she left one of her seven vehicles behind on the roof of the world to ‘preserve the link’ with her instructors but also as a guarantee to ensure that certain secrets were not divulged.


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So the prospect of death was no mere dry theory for her. It had been intimately and regularly interwoven into the fabric of her life.

Blavatsky certainly challenged the widely-held notions of a personal, anthropomorphic God – a subtle blend of wrathful and vengeful deity along with an imperious emperor-like authority figure on a throne. And she did her very best to assure humanity that God was more of a universal consciousness than sadistic cosmic overlord intent on making you suffer.

While revering aspects of some religions – principally Eastern ones – she savaged many aspects of Christianity for its shallow double-speak and ignorance. She railed against the rigours, rituals, bigotry and hypocrisy of what she sarcastically called Churchianity. In her mission to disseminate and promote the occult ideas and esoteric teachings she had acquired during her decades of world travel she fundamentally called into question every single word of the Christian creed and its doctrines or lack of them – about the human constitution and evolution. And about death.

From her teenage years and that early, disastrous and unconsummated marriage to Colonel Blavatsky, this headstrong and highly unconventional Russian aristocrat was well aware of her life’s mission.

(However imperfect she may have been, she was still apparently the best vehicle for this newly-created post of arcane agitator available to the adepts of the race at that time. That doesn’t speak highly of the quality of those in incarnation at that period of history.)

Blavatsky radically re-defined the soul in a cohesive and comprehensive way never seen before in the West. It both challenged and humbled traditional and predominantly fuzzy Christian notions of a use-only-once soul destined for an eternity languishing at God’s right hand or smouldering infinitely in the hot wastes of hell.

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Her ideas not only provided a stark challenge to these amorphous, illogical and extremely vague Christian assertions about an afterlife, they made them seem ridiculous. Perhaps more importantly she introduced the idea of a continuity of existence in and out of physical form – an idea incomprehensible to virtually everyone in the West at the time. She provided clarity and coherence to the concept of humans as increasingly conscious, self-evolving entities not subordinate to a whimsically pugnacious God – but free to roam the planes of existence while moulded and directed by their own karma. Humans, she insisted, are in charge of their own growth and destiny – part of the unfoldment of a grand plan whose scope and ultimate purpose we cannot yet possibly comprehend.

Blavatsky was well aware that Christianity had lost its way a millennium and a half earlier when its original notions of reincarnation were outlawed. In the centuries leading up to the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 CE, Christianity effectively called time on the Ageless Wisdom tradition by denying and subverting one of the most sublime eternal truths: that for members of humanity there is no death in terms of annihilation, extinction or oblivion. There is merely a shedding of the physical form and an ensuing change of state and consciousness. The early Church fathers didn’t want you to know that.

But let’s not forget that the Catholic Church was effectively the sole successor and benefactor controlling the legacy of the Roman Empire, inheriting all its authoritarianism, hierarchical control and disregard of human beings’ true make-up and destiny. And, of course, its huge capacity to inflict suffering on those who are perceived as enemies.

Blavatsky re-defined life and therefore she re-defined death, too. This was arguably her greatest triumph. She was the killer of illusion and therefore the destroyer of death as it was – and still largely is – understood by the mass mind. She insisted that there was no dead matter or empty space –


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simply abundant life in every nook and cranny of an eternal and boundless universe constantly in motion as it evolves in cyclic symmetry with periodic set-backs.

Her ideas were rare, slow-growing seeds disseminated only very gradually and which remain extremely exotic. Unlike religious dogma these seeds are neither weeds nor invasive species. Nevertheless, she was effectively the individual who first globalised these Ageless Wisdom ideas and timeless truths in the modern era.

Some of her ideas have very slowly permeated the heavily prejudiced minds of a few Judaeo-Christians and materialists but the majority remain immune to them. Apart from anything else, studying Blavatsky involves a degree of mental effort which is a turn-off for most people today. Nevertheless, these ideas are continuing to gain traction as increasing numbers of people forsake the churches and pursue alternative spiritual paths unshackled by dead doctrine, false promises and empty ritual. A century and a quarter after this troubled and turbulent lady exited the physical plane, her paradigm-shifting notions have given hope to an expanding minority of intelligent and free-thinking individuals.

Reliable surveys across the Western world reveal that growing numbers of people regard themselves as ‘spiritual but not religious’. Even in the still heavily Christianised United States a survey by the Pew Foundation found that the number of people in this category increasing from 21 per cent to 27 per cent in just five years.

Other surveys show progressive changes to people’s beliefs about an afterlife and even reincarnation. After the Second World War polls showed only a tiny fraction of people being aware of – let alone believing in such things. Modern surveys show that there has been a sea-change with a much more sophisticated view of what happens in the post-mortem world and far greater acceptance of re-birth tempered by past behaviour – i.e reincarnation and karma.

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Blavatsky was right about one thing. Despite her many reservations and protestations against the ultra-materialistic science of her day, she retained the belief that science would still prove to be Theosophy’s best ally in revealing the secrets of the cosmos as well as human beings’ constitution and ultimate destiny. Since her departure from the physical world more than a century and a quarter ago there has been a painfully slow convergence of science and spirituality. Quantum physics and particle theory have gradually put paid to notions of a Newtonian clockwork universe filled with the icy wastes and dead empty expanses of space. But not everyone in the scientific community is convinced. Science still retains its myths and superstitions – a gravity- rather than electric-driven universe, The Big Bang and the incomplete theories of Darwinian evolution.

And yet if Blavatsky was able to introduce the means to debunk death, surely her many other assertions about the nature of reality will start to trickle through the concrete walls of science – eventually. It seems that HPB’s DNA will continue to flow through the arteries of history.


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