6.1 Introduction 1
The esoteric knowledge orders instituted by the planetary hierarchy were closed in 1875, and the knowledge of reality and life was permitted for general availability. The occult societies that have appeared since then should not be confused with the esoteric knowledge orders. These modern societies are no offshoots of the ancient knowledge orders, are not authorized by the planetary hierarchy. Those who assert the contrary are in error, deliberate deceivers or self-deceived. 2
The Theosophical Society was founded on Blavatsky’s initiative. The Society was intended to work for the spread of esoterics, it is true, but its main task was to make propaganda for the idea of universal brotherhood (not for the idea of the equal level of development of all). Because the condition of the “right” to the knowledge is that the knowledge is used in life. As you know the Society failed in its true mission, and because of its division it has forfeited the right to represent the hierarchy. With the exception of this society, which the planetary hierarchy as early as 1882 realized to have misconceived its mission beyond remedy, no societies started after 1875 have been authorized by the planetary hierarchy. 3
All the other sects that have appeared have more or less counteracted the spread of the knowledge. The help they render by their propaganda for the existence of higher worlds is nullified by the harm they do by their speculation in people’s credulity, their ludicrous secretiveness, their mix-up of esoteric facts with the fictions that dominate the human conception of reality, a mix-up that counteracts the acquisition of esoterics. The fact that they cannot realize this is in itself a sufficient demonstration of the intellectual standard of these sects. 4
By their secretiveness they demonstrate that they have not even understood why the genuine knowledge orders were instituted and why all genuine knowledge orders are nowadays closed. Thus in the present time no order and no society is in contact with the planetary hierarchy nor receives new facts from the hierarchy. The old orders have not been disbanded but they are closed. The planetary hierarchy plans to establish esoteric schools in several countries in due time. This will happen only as the hierarchy reappears, however.
Those who teach something at variance with this are false prophets. 5
The esoteric facts publicized between the years 1875 and 1920 were all too few for anyone using them to formulate a satisfactory esoteric knowledge system, and that is why 45-self
D.K. asserts that the occult societies that appeared during that time no longer serve any useful purpose. They have done a desirable pioneering work and roused an interest in esoterics, but need to be superseded by more suitable bodies. At the same time, he considers that societies and sects have an isolating effect, going against the idea of “universal brotherhood”. The
Judge–Tingleyan secessionist movement, which has monopolized the theosophical designation, has evinced a tendency directly counteracting universality. 6
Attempts made by occult societies at interpreting the ancient symbols too often give evidence of a deficient understanding. Moreover, these societies have often been too dependent on prevalent historical views, which are, all of them, misleading. The knowledge cannot be derived from ancient sources. “There are no sacred writings.” (The Buddha) The living knowledge has existed, exists now, and will always exist in the planetary hierarchy.
The new modes of presentation all come directly from the fifth natural kingdom. The rule of paper popes is over. 17
The life of the occult sects will be short, since they do not dare simply add to their systems the esoteric facts publicized by the planetary hierarchy after 1920 They have no right to do so, since their leaders are not disciples of the hierarchy. 8
It should be mentioned in this connection that the black lodge of course has its orders, a fact of which the public should not be ignorant. 9
It remains an open question how many of the occult sects will sooner or later come under the unconscious or conscious influence of the black lodge. Besides, there is no need for speculation on this matter, since outsiders can never decide such things. However, there is no harm in pointing out that there is such a risk, and that it is greater than is generally thought. 6.2 Unity 1
What theosophists, anthroposophists, exoteric Rosicrucians (excepting Amorc) have in common is the knowledge of reincarnation (not metempsychosis, or the reversal to a lower natural kingdom), of the law of reaping (the universal validity of causal law), and of the existence of higher worlds. Then it is less important whether there are diverging views on the number and characteristics of those higher worlds. 2
D.K. urges all occult societies to agree about what they have in common and not to dispute on details, which at any event only causal selves can elucidate and which before this is done are of minor importance. What is important for the time being is to make mankind see that there is an “after-life”, that we are reborn, that we shall reap what we have sown. 3
He also points out, however, that there are always societies that operate under misleading names and have been founded by disciples of the black lodge. And that is not all. All “white” societies are infiltrated by those who work at creating division, spreading gossip, casting suspicion on other people’s motives, etc. It does not seem to be comprehended yet, let alone understood, whose agents they are, since they have always succeeded in their conspiracies. 4
The occult sects could have made a quite different contribution to the process of liberation, if they had not occupied themselves with ridiculously insignificant details in their propaganda for the possibility of superphysical knowledge, but had been agreed on the essential message. 5
The essential message is the existence of superphysical reality. They can all agree on this point. New facts about the superphysical are constantly added which modify the original conceptions, but this implies no criticism of the previous temporary views. Those views represented an enormous progress as against the theories of the physicalists. 6
It is typical that the sects are all mistaken about such things as they have disputed between themselves. They were too short-sighted to descry that in so doing they harmed the cause they in any case wanted to promote. Always the same story. Division makes you weaker. When will people learn that lesson? It appears to be an idée fixe that we all must have the same views in all issues to get on well and to collaborate. Such a demand is absurd. On the contrary, it has a stimulating effect on individual experiments that we all have different views except on the basics. This is also the case with the planetary hierarchy: a loyal collaboration for a common plan on a higher plane. 7
When will the occult (theosophical, anthroposophical, so-called Rosicrucian) societies give up dogmatism, sectarianism, gossip, judgment, and hatred? 6.3 Occult and Esoteric Schools 1
Occult and esoteric schools must be distinguished. An occult school can be started by anyone who has assimilated a few esoteric facts. The founding of an esoteric school, however, requires a teacher who is a disciple having latent knowledge acquired in the ancient secret knowledge orders. 2
The esoteric schools include the Arcane School founded by Alice A. Bailey with branches in several countries. 23
They belong to different departments of the hierarchy and have different tasks. 4
The occult schools (theosophical, anthroposophical, so-called Rosicrucian) are no true esoteric schools. An individual becomes a true esoterician only when he has become a disciple. Then he will be taught things that only disciples can grasp. 5
The occult schools are for exoterists. Hitherto none of these schools has been in possession even of Pythagorean hylozoics. But as soon as it is publicized, the “Rosicrucians” (who sponge on others) will incorporate it with their systems, if possible. 6
Occult schools that have the individual’s own development as their aim have not been instituted by the planetary hierarchy. The hierarchy is on the look-out for co-workers for evolution. By helping others to develop you develop your essential qualities yourself. 6.4 The Importance of the Occult Sects 1
None of the many occult sects has been able make a presentation of the knowledge of reality and life satisfactory to philosophers and scientists or to intellectuals with an academic training, none of them has succeeded in formulating an acceptable mental system. They have not been in possession of the requisite facts or of hylozoics, the most perfect of all systems. In spite of this they have played an important role, however. They have called people’s attention to the existence of higher realities and in so doing have made it possible for their adherents to direct their attention to something beyond the physical. However deficient their knowledge, it has nevertheless freed them from addiction to the idiotization of the dogmas of theology, philosophy, and science. However divergent their presentations of esoterics, yet they had some basic facts in common, the knowledge of higher worlds, of evolution through natural kingdoms, of reincarnation (not metempsychosis!), and of the law of sowing and reaping. 2
Those are facts that have made it possible for people to understand superphysical reality, consciousness development, a fifth natural kingdom, bringing about a complete revolution in their conception of reality. Then it depends on the individual’s insight, understanding, and demand on the mental system’s clarity, exactitude, and concordance with the facts later to be given which society he will choose. Whatever is erroneous in the teachings of the various sects will be corrected eventually, the more facts are publicized. The disadvantage of the sects lies in their making their adherents believe in their exposés of higher worlds, etc., believe that those exposés were in accord with reality, whereas their authors brought forward nothing but their self-made fiction systems and their own fiction concepts. It is only a question of time, however, before the wretchedness of these teachings is revealed. The multitude of occult sects will disappear when mental systems acknowledged by the planetary hierarchy are the object of comparative analysis. 3
The occult sects still have a mission to fulfil. They mediate the esoteric knowledge, constitute the bottom level, so to speak, from which the comprehension of reality must start to gradually be able to conceive of reality such as it appears to the esotericians. The transition from the world of the exoteric to that of esoterics is too difficult for those who do not have the knowledge latently. It has proved that an unmediated transition is possible only for the intellectual élite. Many people who read in The Philosopher’s Stone what is said there on history (PhS 1.36–1.40) become eager to study the existing exoteric history of the world, not understanding that it is fictitious. In The Knowledge of Reality they read about the history of philosophy (KofR 5.1–5.37) and return to the text-books currently used. They read the critique of Steiner’s teachings and join the Anthroposophical Society, and they read about the theosophists and adhere to them. In so doing they demonstrate how little they have been able to understand of Laurency. 4
We get a vision of a school made up of successively higher grades arranged in such a manner that the students will finally grasp what the “graduate” knows. The ancient knowledge 3orders were divided into different degrees. It appears that esoterics remains inconceivable if not mediated. That is one explanation for the fact that esoterics is so little studied. 5
There is, however, a category of people of the opposite kind. They have in former lives reached the first or second degree, perhaps, and so have a latent understanding of reincarnation and of the law of reaping, and of higher worlds. Then they come across an esoteric book written for those approaching the causal stage. And at once they believe they are able to understand it all and to judge it all, not knowing that in each new incarnation you have to relearn everything from the bottom to avoid misunderstanding. 6
There could still be a justification for occult sects in so far as they satisfy the needs of people at a certain stage of development. But they will have to put up with critique whenever they claim to hold exceptional positions in respect of knowledge and in relation to others.
Such dogmatic pretensions stamp them at once as unreliable. The esoterician judges them according to their efforts at developing people’s discrimination or exploiting their credulity. 6.5 Esotericians and Occultists 1
Most people who study esoteric literature think they are esotericians, which is the almost unavoidable mistake made by those lacking in self-criticism, being victims of their own boldness and self-importance. Those may call themselves esotericians who have mastered hylozoics so that using the hylozoic system they can think independently and explain rationally what was previously inexplicable, solve thousands of problems hitherto unsolvable, presenting solutions that later do not prove to be mock solutions. 2
Occultists can be said to include dogmatic theosophists, anthroposophists, “Rosicrucians”, etc., who ask “who said that?” and believe they comprehend. You are wise never to discuss esoteric problems with people who know it all better. There are plenty of them. Teachers of esoterics have experience of many people who, upon learning some few things, are at once ready to correct their teacher, not knowing what they are talking about. When they begin their study they believe the teacher omniscient, whereupon they gradually reduce him, so that finally they place him far below themselves in knowledge, comprehension, and understanding. 3
As time goes by there will be increasing numbers of occultists of the type represented by
Swedenborg, Steiner, Martinus, etc. They are suited to people on their own level. They have no right to call themselves esotericians, however, even though they will certainly try. 4
The occult sects are mostly peopled by intellectuals at the stage of civilization who from a purely conceptual standpoint have seen the rationality of reincarnation and the law of reaping, realized that these two facts are the only possible explanation. But they have not reached the stage of the mystic, have not even acquired emotional attraction (learnt to love their fellow human beings). They think they are far advanced “on the path” merely because they have accepted an occult system as a “creed”. Their good reaping in this incarnation has enabled them to contact a correct theory, which on the whole they prove unable to put into practice, being unaware of the law saying that knowledge entails responsibility. They sow a bad sowing that will mature into a bad reaping. In a new incarnation they perhaps will not have the opportunity of renewing their contact. There is also a risk that they deprive themselves of the possibility of understanding and so of accepting the “system” anew, that they even turn enemies of it. Regrettably those occultists and so-called esotericians are misled by their leaders who promise excellent results from the meditations they assign and make their followers undergo all manner of “high initiations” in the emotional world. 5
In the emotional world, there are live replicas of all kinds of “masters”, simulacra which are calculated to mislead the life-ignorant members of the occult sects and to which most occultists fall prey. Anyone who thinks himself “ready”, believes himself “chosen” will unsuspectingly be their welcome spoil. It cannot be too vigorously asserted that the emotional 4world does not exist to the planetary hierarchy. The emotional world is the world of the black lodge, and the planetary hierarchy refuses to have anything to do with that world. 6
Many occultists go to India to learn Indian wisdom, not understanding that Indian ways of looking at things by no means are esoteric views, which Westerners are in a better position to grasp once they have been liberated from the philosophical dogmas ruling. 7
Different categories of seekers must be distinguished. There are lots of seekers in search of everything “mystic and occult”, people who confuse esoterics (hylozoics) with parapsychology, spiritualism, yoga, pendulum practices, etc. Those people should be told that hylozoics deals with facts from the planetary hierarchy and not with the speculations of human ignorance on the occult. It looks upon spiritualism, clairvoyance, “Rosicrucian teachings”, drivel about cosmic consciousness, etc., as deplorable errors by the self-deceived.
No human being (no yogi) is able to give us real knowledge of superphysical worlds. That axiom must be established. Nobody need remain a seeker, however. When you have found the one real thing, the truth, the knowledge of reality, such as it is taught by the planetary hierarchy, seeking further would be pointless. That does not prevent you being “up to date”, studying the awkward attempts mankind makes at orienting itself in reality, to ascertain how far consciousness development has progressed. 6.6 Esotericians Do Not Found Societies 1
The esoterician does not organize new societies for esotericians, for they need no such things, even if societies could be of some help to those who are looking for like-minded people to exchange their thoughts with and to break the isolation that esotericians always live in because the people around them do not understand them. Joining a society the esoterician more easily finds people who have some understanding, who belong to his esoteric clan or class, or individuals whom he can help by conversing with them, and widen his own perspectives in the process. 2
They should feel the need of being together with other people without risks of misunderstanding, of having opportunities to cultivate their tendency to unity. What is needed is, as D.K. has proposed, a recording office that issues a mailing list of all people who want to cooperate for the spread of the knowledge, a register to be distributed to all who subscribe to that list as it is continuously updated. The subscribers themselves are presumably esotericians and so have their names entered on the list. 6.7 Pseudo-Orders 1
Max Heindel, a writer of pseudo-occult books, called himself a Rosicrucian and claimed to have been initiated into that order by Rudolf Steiner, who in his turn was initiated by the head of a Rosicrucian sect. All three demonstrated that they were ignorant of the fact that the only individual entitled to initiate anyone into that order is the head of the Order and the original founder, Christian Rosencreutz, who in his present incarnation of course bears another name.
Besides, he is nowadays a 43-self. He is and remains the sole initiator of the Order. And the people initiated by him never disclose that they are Rosicrucians. Their pledge of silence covers everything, even the existence of the Order. Therefore, those who call themselves
Rosicrucians are no Rosicrucians. If you examine the claims to correct knowledge advanced by such occultists, you will find that they are all victims of self-deception. They have never been in possession of the knowledge of the Rosicrucians. 2
There is no need for secret orders, since the orders instituted by the planetary hierarchy have been finally closed and no one has been initiated into any one of them after the year 1875. There are several reasons for this state of affairs. What was formerly taught in the lowest three degrees of these orders has been publicized. Disciples of the planetary hierarchy nowadays receive personal tuition on the matters formerly taught in the highest degrees of the 5orders. The 46-selves who founded the orders have nowadays attained the sixth natural kingdom and even acquired cosmic consciousness and so have left the planetary hierarchy.
Therefore, they cannot tutor their old initiates any longer. 3
Instead, the system of orders has degenerated into a ludicrous mystery-making and even turned into a hotbed for crime, just like any shady activity at mankind’s present stage of development. 4
It is certainly foreseen that the planetary hierarchy will found new knowledge orders in the 21st century, if that is possible (depending on mankind), but they will be of quite different kinds than the old ones. New methods have been developed already. Everything that happens has been precalculated long ago, which nevertheless does not imply inevitability of any kind.
It can all change. The only thing bearing a semblance to predestination is what lies in the individual’s own character and path of development, preordaining him for future tasks. 6.8 Occult Experiments 1
There are schools teaching hothouse methods of “spiritual development” they have taken from India, methods that are in any case unnecessary and even risky. Teachings on certain body positions, the use of ancient formulas, breathing exercises, mysterious allusions to kundalini, vitalization of the centres of the envelopes, etc., have spread like the plague. What is true in these facts and procedures are effects and not causes, are automatic attendant phenomena that occur when the individual has acquired causal consciousness. Right breathing and right rhythm of living are obtained automatically when the individual has acquired the right attitude to life, has integrated his envelopes, and strives purposively for unity with all life. 2
However much you warn against any experimentation with “occult forces”, it is apparently hopeless. All seem to think that the warnings do not apply to them, that now they have found a new method, boosted by credulity which will tell you about the excellent achievements of the charlatans. Even the most learned experts on esoterics, even the most reliable clairvoyants, know too little about the energies they handle. The result is bound to be deplorable. It has been positively asserted that mankind is too egoistic to be trusted with the knowledge of occult forces. The idealism of individuals may be however great, but that does not suffice. A warning once more against any experimentation and meditation on the envelope centres. If they are vitalized, the victims of those experiments incur self-inflicted suffering. 6.9 Rudolf Steiner 1
If you read the many articles Rudolf Steiner wrote in newspapers and periodicals, you will form another picture of him than the one you get from his rationalizing autobiography, which is not reliable testimony, and must not be accepted as a “true account of things past and gone”. Much of it is downright false, if intentionally so is an open question. 2
Rudolf Steiner underwent many “metamorphoses” before he “found his way”, and he made a clean sweep of them all with the general explanation that he had been misled for some time. That is a convenient way of deceiving posterity. Steiner was not honest, which many of his associates could observe. He was one of those fairly common imaginative people who constantly rewrite their past into something that agrees with the views they hold for the moment. 3
His attempts at defending his many changing standpoints in response to the many attacks directed against them are eloquent of how shaky his basis always was. His followers noticed nothing of this, however. A prophet is always right, however many times he contradicts himself. 4
Steiner claimed that he was an initiate of the Rosicrucian Order. In that respect he was terribly deceived. He was never even in contact with the then incarnation of the permanent 6head of the Order. He did not even know that no one has been admitted to the Order after the year 1875. Nor did he know anything of the existence of the planetary hierarchy, that alone being sufficient proof. All the data he gives about historical personages who are members of the Order are erroneous as well. 5
According to Steiner, the development of consciousness proceeds from collective thinking to individual thinking. In reality, it is the other way round. His enormous error, his belief that clairvoyance affords a knowledge of reality, whereas it only strengthens the individual’s illusory conception, demonstrates his esoteric disorientation. 6
Rudolf Steiner was not inspired by the planetary hierarchy. His attitude to the messengers of the hierarchy made this impossible; his dishonest criticism of Annie Besant and his scornful, supercilious criticism of H.P.B. 7
His derogatory remarks about Blavatsky, that great disciple of the planetary hierarchy, are quite sufficient proofs of his incompetence, no matter what Steiner’s fanatical apologists might say. Steiner took all manner of vagaries for real ideas. Whatever is exact in his works he received through Annie Besant. 8
The knowledge of existence, reality, and life is a gift from the planetary hierarchy. No man is in a position to solve the pertaining problems on his own. All who believe themselves able to do so will fail. Rudolf Steiner is just one demonstration of that truth. 6.10 Roerich and Others 1
Helena Roerich and her apostle Brandstätter maintain that they have received facts from the planetary hierarchy (44-self M.), which is false. Roerich alleges to have visited Shamballa in the physical world, which is impossible as well. Apparently there are people who can imagine anything and make others believe in any foolish claim they make. 2
No facts are given out except through D.K., in any case not before the year 2025. The planetary hierarchy, at all events, never gives out facts to occultists but only to their disciples, and those who claim to be disciples are self-deceived or controlled by the black lodge.
Brandstätter’s writings abound with erroneous data. For example, he asserts that 44-self M. is
Maitreya and also archangel Michael, and other follies. 3
Krishnamurti is a warning example of the risks involved in the forced cultivation of latent qualities. Everything he wrote during the years of his training was the memorized lessons of the school-boy. That day in Ommen, when asked whether he was the new world teacher, he affirmed this, he severed the connection with the planetary hierarchy unconsciously but definitively. His later production indicates that he lapsed to the stage of the mystic, and from there to life-blind fictitiousness, rather reminiscent of Zen Buddhism, according to which one experiences “true reality” by emptying one’s consciousness of all its content acquired throughout one’s incarnations. In that procedure one is supposed to attain to nirvana or annihilation. Is there any crazy idea that people will not swallow? 4
Krishnamurti was one of the many cases that only the esoterician can explain. Like all “false prophets” he succeeded in misleading many of those all too many people who believe they know and comprehend but do not understand. 5
For certain reasons it should be pointed out that Edouard Schuré’s book, Les grands initiés (The Great Initiates), is an imaginative novel that contains just a few esoteric facts and is historically unreliable. 6
Kurt Almqvist, Ph.D., published in 1959 a little book entitled Den glömda dimensionen (The Forgotten Dimension). This work is typical of the pseudo-occultism making much of itself in our times. His use of the term “dimension” alone is absurd. His progressionism is faith in the guesswork of ignorance. His definition of “metaphysical” as being “beyond the cosmos” indicates a serious confusion of ideas. His definitions of soul, spirit, intellect, individuality, the ego, the self are utterly misleading. Almqvist has a lot to say about the 7metaphysical knowledge he ascribes to the medieval builders’ guilds. In any case they did not possess esoteric knowledge, a fact of which freemasonry is the best demonstration. As for the rest, we are served a rehash of Indian yoga philosophy and Christian mysticism. 6.11 The Age of Deception 1
The year 1960 saw the publication of a book by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier, Le matin des magiciens. It is an account of the many occult sects that have appeared in the last one hundred years. Even if we should be glad about all the signs showing a rising interest in superphysical problems, it can only be deplored that this interest finds such infantile and, as usual, disorienting expressions. 2
Mankind is awakening to the realization that there is a superphysical reality. And so countless deceivers and self-deceived ones come to the fore at once to cash in on human ignorance, credulity, injudiciousness, and curiosity. It is typical that everything misleading raises people’s interest and has success. The real thing is given the silence treatment or is misrepresented. The book mentioned above confirms what has been said repeatedly to no avail, that everything not presented by disciples of the planetary hierarchy is patent deception. 3
We must expect the coming of an age of deception, when all manner of occult sects will spring up like mushrooms and like all frauds spread their false doctrines and win lots of followers. 4
The world will teem with magical swindlers of all calibres. When people have once realized that mental energy controls physical etheric matter, and the latter in its turn is an energy that dominates the lower physical molecular kinds, then unsurveyable fields for deception of all kinds will open up. And at the present stage of mankind’s development we know the outcome. We must only hope that the planetary hierarchy can stop the influx of clans at the stage of barbarism, so that they will not incarnate in the nations that stand a chance to attain the stage of culture, and that cultural clans can be prevailed upon to incarnate in them to a sufficient extent. 5
There are many people who apparently have an irresistible urge to institute their own “orders”. Perhaps they imagine that they are among the “called”; they have certainly not been chosen, for only members of the planetary hierarchy institute esoteric knowledge orders. “Orders” of any other kind are the bungling attempts by people who are just self-deceived at best. We experience in our times the same kind of chaos in all respects as characterized the transition from the age of Aries to that of Pisces. Then there were about 70 pseudo-gnostic sects vying for the position of knowing most and best. And they were all self-deceived. Does the world want to be deceived? It very much looks like it. 6
Many people incarnating in our times were once initiates of esoteric knowledge orders.
They always have some latent knowledge from them. The orders usually had seven degrees, however, and most initiates never reached beyond the third degree. Only an esoterician who has reached higher degrees can decide which degree the occultist has possibly attained. This is evidenced in the occultist’s innate understanding of life. A lot of fantasts have been “initiates” of spurious orders and have a special ability to dupe people with their fictions. We must keep on warning people against “false prophets”, even if it seems hopeless. Their numbers are in constant increase. That is why the esoterician is encouraged to acquire common sense first of all. Moreover, he should learn to disregard everything that has to do with the personality, and so it is because all that is part of the personality and interest in the personality based on curiosity will always be distorted and misunderstood. 7
The esoterician has to learn that man is quite incapable of correctly judging other beings in any natural kingdom. Only individuals in the fifth natural kingdom are able to do so, because this requires the ability to be those beings in one’s own consciousness. Everything else is “appearance”. 88
You can just advise everybody against joining any sect or paying for occult information.
All people who make a living on such tings are conscious or unconscious cheats. No esoterician is permitted to receive any kind of compensation or make any profit whatever on his work for mankind or even delight in recognition or fame for it. He sacrifices his time, his work, his toil, everything in his possession, for the sake of unity. 9
No esoterician will found a sect or join one. No occult sects are needed any longer. All the facts given out by the planetary hierarchy are available to all after the year 1875, when the esoteric knowledge was permitted for publication for the first time after Atlantis. 10
Everything has its price. Everything must be paid for. All deceptions must be made good and be compensated for. Anyone who profiteers on occultism will have to pay for it at usurious interest some time when the day of reckoning is up. Besides, it might be said that one man finds a diamond and thinks it is a piece of glass, and the other man finds a piece of glass and thinks it is a diamond. 6.12 The Worlds of Illusion and Fiction 1
In these times of disorientation, it is important to see that “agreement with reality” is possible in the physical and causal worlds only, that knowledge of material reality can be acquired in the physical and causal worlds only, and that there are only two kinds of truth: physical facts and causal intuition. Everything in the emotional world is part of illusion, and everything in the mental world is part of fiction. 2
The fate of the esoteric knowledge ever since it was permitted for publication in 1875, its distortion in the various occult sects, and the appearance of all manner of occult prophets (Schuré, Steiner, Heindel, Martinus, to mention just a few) are confirmations of the esoteric axiom saying, “as long as the individual has not realized the enormous limitation of emotional and mental consciousness (the only kinds of consciousness accessible to man), he will be the irremediable victim of his emotional illusions and mental fictions”. Emotional and mental consciousness is useless as a source of knowledge. The basic importance of emotionality lies in its “dynamism” (its “will”). Mental consciousness has two basic functions. It enables us to ascertain physical facts and order them into systems. It enables us to concretize the ideas of the causal world. However, it cannot make us realize that the “facts” of the emotional and mental worlds have no reality content. And that is why the teachings of the occultists are untenable. 3
It is to be deeply deplored that people have not realized yet that imagination is mentality controlled by emotionality. Imagination combines facts according to the individual’s self- acquired subconscious thought system (which spontaneously determines his views), so that facts always end up in the wrong contexts. The seductive factor in this is that the acuity of principle thinking too often lends its products the semblance of overwhelming probability.
Hence all these idiologies which flood mankind and which can always count on lots of adherents. Only the esoteric system of causal ideas can clear up this jungle of misleading and reality-falsifying views. We receive those ideas from the planetary hierarchy. The causal intuitions that man can experience himself are too sporadic to be combined into a unitary system, a fact that theosophy, anthroposophy, Rosicrucianism, not to mention the imperfectly revived hermetic, gnostic, magic, etc. doctrines, clarify to esotericians with an all-round orientation. What is common to them all are certain basic facts about superphysical reality.
Beyond that, however, they contain misleading data, which are due to their erroneous interpretations of esoteric symbols and the speculations added by the occult writers, guesswork that is always abortive. 4
It may be laid down that theosophy as presented by Blavatsky, Besant, and Leadbeater is the only reliable occultism, because these three individuals were causal selves, whereas the other occult writers were not. The others did not keep to causal, objective, ascertained facts, 9but brought forward the “facts” of illusions and fictions from the emotional and mental worlds, and they have no “reality”. The facts of Swedenborg, Steiner, and Ramakrishna (not to mention even less reliable sources) have no counterpart in permanent reality but are instances of the life of life-ignorance in the worlds of life-ignorance (the emotional and mental worlds). 6.13 Esoterics Is Not for Everybody 1
The occult sects try to recruit adherents as though they were proselytizing for some church. They fail to see that what matters is not quantity but quality, not the multitude but the élite. It never occurs to them that they should screen applicants for admission, assess their level of development, their capacity for understanding. As a result of their proselytizing they have got a crowd of believers who never reach clarity but discredit the movement by their drivel. Not passive members are needed but active ones, who have mastered the hylozoic system and can account for their understanding in such a simple manner that the ignorant realize that it is a thing well worth examining. 2
As has been repeatedly emphasized, the planetary hierarchy is not in the least interested in convincing doubters, in having esoterics preached to the immature (for whom it can only become a blind faith and so strengthen credulity already prevalent). What the hierarchy thinks of all those occult sects that make propaganda for their pseudo-systems should not need to be said. 3
It was necessary to publicize the esoteric knowledge. The disadvantages of doing it are serious, however. All higher knowledge is misunderstood and distorted. As was foreseen by the majority of the planetary hierarchy, esoterics would give rise to as much sectarianism as religion had done. The permission to publicize the knowledge did not in the least imply that is should be preached to everyone. It should have been spread by personal recommendation to such people as were in a position to realize that it was correct. As it is now, esoterics must have been mistaken for some sort of a new religion, which is quite comprehensible considering all the undiscerning people who believe they understand what they do not even comprehend, as demonstrated by the occult sects. 4
Esoterics is for those who have been initiates or have acquired perspective consciousness.
All the others who study it form their own views of it and criticize those of all the others. And the esotericians are unable to put an end to this mischief, since this would require an understanding that is not there. It will probably be even worse when esoterics is introduced in the schools. People at the stage of civilization, who have been taught principle thinking, acquire some degree of critical judgment and believe they can judge everything by it, which we see already in the compositions written in the secondary schools and even more in the academic prattle at the universities. This tendency found its most pregnant expression in the
Nietzschean apes, who showed off as supermen. “Against stupidity even the gods fight in vain.” Only very few have reached the Sokratean realization yet. 6.14 Credulity 1
The fundamental error of the occult sects is their appeal to people’s credulity, their readiness to accept things they cannot understand. Such people believe what the great authority teaches them. The esoterician is taught not to accept anything without examining it himself, never to assume anything without a sufficient ground. “Because the Master says so” is no sufficient ground. Esoterics appeals to common sense and what is incontestable in the logical presentation and the logical ground for explanation. The individual must learn how to use his reason and not to accept anything that he cannot comprehend. Esoterics forces the individual to develop self-determination. This has the result that the esoterician is above all a provisional skeptic: “This is perhaps correct. This is a thing worth investigating. This sounds 10sensible. This is first and foremost possible. Perhaps it is even probable. I shall perhaps be able to ascertain whether it is real.” That is the basic attitude of the esoterician. At all events he is never a dogmatic. 2
If you want to have a definitely clarifying demonstration of man’s faith in his own judgement, belief in the infallibility of his own brainwaves and vagaries, confidence that his own imaginative speculations agree with reality, then you only have to study the history of theology, philosophy, and science. It must be hoped that mankind will be able to learn something from that experience. 3
Unremittingly demanding of his disciples to use their common sense, the Buddha wanted to train their mental consciousness and their power of judgment, to emancipate them from their dependence on emotionality, to make them independent thinkers, so that they would not become the helpless victims of their credulity, and to teach them to refuse to believe in their own vagaries, a thing most occultists are unable to, since the impulse is to strong for them.
According to the Buddha, it is better to be a skeptic than a dogmatic, better to doubt than to believe in things you cannot both comprehend and understand (explain in detail). That is one of the basic propositions of esoterics. 4
That is the difference between occultists and esotericians as well. The occultist has confidence in something that he is unable to judge, whereas the esoterician demands a full understanding in order to exactly clarify the objective realities theoretically. The esoterician refuses to deal with forces without having a detailed knowledge of their causes and effects and of the infallible method of their application. The occultist fails in his experiments, because he believes that he knows. The esoterician cannot fail, because he can tell the difference between what he knows and what he does not know. The occultist falls prey to both illusoriness and fictitiousness. The esoterician has causal ideas, whereas the occultist can never determine whether he has them. Nor can occultists distinguish between the faith of superior intelligence in its own power of judgment and the esoterician’s understanding of the enormous difficulties involved in right judgment. 5
Actually people have no idea of the fact that the tendency of mental consciousness is faith in the correctness of its own conception, faith in its own insight and power of judgment. That is why everyone is the master of his wisdom, believes in his brainwaves and vagaries and can imagine anything about his own unlimited capacity for understanding. Without esoteric knowledge, self-deception is unavoidable even at the mental stage. 6
Man is dependent on the consciousness content of his envelopes (his envelopes of incarnation!); all that they have absorbed ever since childhood. He takes their content for reality. Only the esoterician knows that all this (except physical experience, which is very limited) is error. Sokrates was the wisest man in Greece because he was the only man in
Greece to realize that he knew nothing (worth knowing). The esoterician can say the same thing of himself. What he knows worth knowing is what he has received from the planetary hierarchy. He has not accepted that knowledge as a mere assumption but subjects it to daily tests to see whether it is the most rational ground of explanation in comparison with other resources. In the process, he receives a material for daily meditation which teaches him something that most people never learn: to tell the difference between what he knows and what he does not know. Then he also develops a sensitive ear to the unreliability (about 99 per cent) of what other people say. He learns never to accept anything without a sufficient ground. The fault with human beings is that they “trespass against that commandment” many times daily. 7
It is credulity that makes mankind so utterly disoriented in existence, a victim of its own vagaries and speculations, a prey to all manner of prophets and quacks; prophets in religion, philosophy, science, and occultism; quacks in all professions. Most people are quacks because 11they have chosen their profession for their bread and butter and not to make it their mission in life. 6.15 Belief and Mastery of System 1
You may receive the requisite facts as a free gift. But you will never understand esoteric facts, if you do not work them up into a mental system of “your own”. True knowledge and insight are only obtained through your own work. Without your own work upon the facts, they will be useless to you. 2
The mental system you take over from another will only be a matter of belief, unless you work upon it mentally so that you become convinced that it is correct because it explains what was previously inexplicable. 3
Theosophists do not work upon the facts to reach mental clarity but accept them as tenets of a belief. That is why they keep asking, “who said that?”. The esoterician never asks who said it but works the thing up until he realizes that it makes sense. The esoterician knows, but most theosophists “believe they know”, and that is not the same thing. 4
Instead of comprehending and understanding, so that they will not be bound like slaves to some authority, they relapse into letter slavery. The theologians made the Bible an infallible paper pope, and the theosophists have their own infallible paper pope, Blavatsky’s Secret
Doctrine. The theosophists should consider the Buddha’s saying, that there are no “sacred” (inerrable) scriptures. The Buddha warned his disciples not to accept anything they did not understand, the planetary hierarchy does the same. Instead they dispute on things they cannot judge. Why not leave such things open? Why dispute about inessentials? When will people stop believing and try to understand instead? 6.16 Systems Are Never Final 1
All systems of thought are phenomena of their times, since they in their expositions must start from the prevalent concepts of reality to be comprehensible at all. According as these concepts of reality are superseded by new ones arrived at by never-ending research, new mental systems are constructed using the new concepts. However, these concepts must be the final results of research by the means available in a certain epoch. The speculations of philosophical conceptual analysts only lead astray. They are not based upon scientific research but are part of that philosophy which has paralysed thought ever since the sophists, the Piscean zodiacal epoch, of lamentable memory, an epoch of horrors. 2
As the planetary hierarchy sees it, the good, the right is in all things the essential that should be considered and promoted, and the rest, being inessential, should be left to die out of itself. The hierarchy works at the different religions, the many occult sects, in so far as they offer individuals at different stages of development aids to consciousness development, prospects of living a better life. 3
It is a matter of course that the disciples charged with the task of improving existing systems of thought also demonstrate the shortcomings of the older systems to indicate what is the new and therefore a more correct conception. Of course, this is frowned upon by those who have already accepted an older system and emotionalized it in the process (which is almost unavoidable at the emotional stage). Fanatics in all sects make their systems absolute and want to force them on other people. In so doing they provoke naked war between the sects, as is to be regretted. This is unavoidable at the emotional stage, to be sure. When, some time in the future, mankind has reached the mental stage, the different systems of thought will be viewed as different working hypotheses and their divergences and merits will be the objects of the analysis of common sense. Reference to authorities will not then be accepted as proof or tenable argument. 124
It is a seemingly ineradicable tendency in human beings to look upon certain writings as sacred or indispensable. This is the dogmatic attitude which locks up conception and puts a stop to further consciousness development. However, consciousness development is practically unlimited in the process of cosmic manifestation. The dogmatic attitude views something that corresponded to the view held at a certain stage of development as imperishable, as if development towards ever increasing knowledge of reality and life were brought to an end. Dogmatism is seen in the infantile attitude of theologians to the Bible, and in the equally infantile attitude of theosophists to Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine. Whenever any view is regarded as fundamental, it is turned into a hindrance to evolution. The secretary of the planetary hierarchy (D.K.) dictated some 18 works to Alice A. Bailey. Probably, these books will be considered fundamental by some occult sect. If so, it would be an instance of the same inability to realize that these teachings will be seen as “pedantic”, when a new presentation becomes possible thanks to the addition of new facts. 5
Consciousness development, and the increase of knowledge that is its concomitant, implies that there can never be any final world view and life view. It is impossible to formulate a system of thought valid for all times to come, but such a system is valid only for a certain stage in the process of mankind’s increasing possibility of understanding reality. It is true that certain basic facts can be summed up in a system such as the hylozoic world view. And it is equally true that the knowledge of the laws of life can be summarized in a world view.
However, as the understanding of the three aspects of reality, of the nature of matter, motion, and consciousness, is deepened, another formulation of the world view and life view will ensue. Therefore, there cannot be any final such view. When mankind has reached the causal stage and everybody will be in a position to ascertain facts by himself and see them in their contexts, then the need of a mental system will be dropped. We understand from this what the
Buddha meant when he declared that there cannot be any sacred writings. All such writings are only temporary aids for a progressive orientation. The talk about the “word of god” is a demonstration of a serious ignorance of life. The planetary hierarchy will never acknowledge any work as infallible but at the most as the best possible at a certain stage of development, as a suitable working hypothesis. There can never be any sacred writing containing the “word of god”. The Buddha tried in vain to make that truth comprehensible to mankind. How long will it take for mankind to comprehend such a simple truth? 6
Also the beings of higher kingdoms are evolving. There is no finally correct perception of reality for them either, but their perception changes continuously as they go on exploring ever higher kinds of reality. They, too, in their higher worlds are unable to grasp how the three aspects of reality appear to those in still higher kingdoms. If there is some final perception, it must be the perception of reality in the highest cosmic world. There are those who doubt that there is such a perception. They build new cosmoses, availing themselves of the inexhaustible possibilities of primordial matter to make the worlds ever more perfect, affording ever greater prospects of understanding the still unfathomable. Primordial matter is the “ultimate mystery” even to the supreme cosmic omniscience. 6.17 “Who Said That?” 1
An esoterician is not permitted to invoke any authority or to witness to himself. His works must stand or fall with their agreement or disagreement with reality. No esoteric work indicates any sources. An esoteric author does not defend his views. The manner in which he understands and renders esoteric facts is his private business and responsibility. But then no esoterician can say that the facts and ideas he presents are his own. Only the formulation is his own. If somebody asks, “Who said that?” he has the right, as he has formulated the matter, to reply to such an incurable hunter of authorities: “I said it.” The inevitable ridicule rebounds on his invulnerability. 132
Who said that? Blavatsky? Well, then it is right. If not, it is wrong. Theosophists should consider that by this method people have in all times rejected truths and believed in lies. 3
The esoterician refuses to answer the question from where he has got the knowledge and the questions where it can be read and who said it. He fights this kind of belief in authority which disconnects reason, strengthens injudiciousness and credulity, gullibility. 4
Either it is right or it is wrong. It is up to everybody to decide, and everybody is responsible for what he accepts or rejects. Nobody has any right to pose as an authority, not even “god almighty”. 5
The meaning of life is consciousness development for all and everyone. Once you have understood what that means you also see that everyone has a right to his own view and that he should form one, too. 6.18 Fictions of Occultists 1
There are occultists of many kinds and there will probably be many more of them, of those who exploit the superstition, apparently ineradicable, saying that what man imagines is essential to his “spiritual” development. What is essential is not his views, however, which almost never agree with objective reality. When during many incarnations man has demonstrated his unwavering reliability in serving evolution, his resolution to enter the universal community of unity, has proved that he never uses the powers he acquires for his own good, then he can use esoteric methods of vitalization to rapidly activate consciousness in his higher emotional and mental molecular kinds and to become a causal self. The bad reaping remaining will not hinder him, for “love blots out karma”. The tests he must undergo (strains of all kinds trying him to the breaking-point, people’s manifestations of hatred of all kinds, disease, etc.) are strength tests demonstrating the capacity and solidity he has acquired, are both tests and reaping. 2
In occult literature (it does not deserve the name esoteric, being too primitive), we come across such profundities as the exhortation to “kill out desire”. This is the same ignorance of life as induces people to destroy their organism by mortification and flagellation of all sorts.
Envelopes are the tools the self needs to develop its physical, emotional, and mental consciousness. Therefore they should be given the best care and methodical maintenance. It is by desiring possessions, fame, power, amusements, etc. that man has necessary experience and learns to see their relative value. They are important on their level. When the individual has developed so far that he begins to think for himself and so starts the self-initiated activation of his mental consciousness, then emotional interests in the spheres of feeling and imagination are superseded by mental interests. It is during this period of transition, which is long, relatively speaking, that conflict arises between emotional and mental interests. If the individual realizes that emotional interests counteract mental ones, he liberates himself from his lower interests to be able to cultivate his higher ones. He does not kill out desire. He puts it to use as a driving force in the service of mental development. 3
Certain occultists assert that prayer is of no significance. Suffice it to say against this that every consciousness expression has its effect. It stands to reason that misdirected prayers can harm the individual and strengthen his egoism. And it goes without saying that thoughts in conflict with the Law are bad sowing that makes a bad reaping. Much false belief in authority should have been overcome if people made the effort of thinking for themselves and were not such thoughtless parrots. We are responsible for what we accept. The faith in the possibility of discharge by “washing one’s hands”, as Pilate did according to legend, is superstition pure and simple. 4
As man begins to think in accord with reality, his thoughts (energies) have quite another effect, which manifests itself in his envelopes first and foremost and has an indirect influence on his environment. He must be prepared for surprises in many respects. In occult literature 14this has been erroneously explained to the effect that the powers of destiny and reaping go into action, taking opportunities to increase the individual’s “burden of payment”. 5
Occultists seem to think that members of the planetary hierarchy can be consulted to answer questions of all kinds and to solve the problems of mankind. Big error. They do not play the part of the oracle. When the individual has become a disciple, he is taught how to solve his own problems but not those of other people. That way out is blocked, which is fortunate, for otherwise the disciple would soon be drowned in a flood of questions from all curious people. The disciple is no channel to the hierarchy (thank goodness!) but is pledged to keep silent about what he has been taught. He must not be at other people’s beck and call. No torture can force the disciple to answer questions, for he would at once be deprived of the ability to answer them. He will become ignorant in the same instant, so fortunately that way out is also blocked to the satanists. 6
Ignorance has heard of “initiation” and of course knows everything about that process, because guesswork always hits it, which implies that everybody knows all about everything.
Of course, such fantasy thrives in the occult sects as well. One is amazed at their gullibility and injudiciousness. It should be made clear in this connection that anyone who accepts anything because “the master said so”, not checking for himself, if it is within the range of human possibility of understanding, does not stand the least chance of discipleship. The planetary hierarchy has no use of the gullible. 7
Planetary initiation is a process that you have already gone through when you have passed the tests. Anyone who pushes his way forward will inevitably fail in these tests. You have for instance covered the stage of the saint and gained the possibility of temporary contact with the lowest kind of unity consciousness of the essential world (46:7) via the unity centre of the causal envelope. Tests bordering on the breaking-point are passed in the most difficult life situations. If you then have demonstrated that you have acquired the requisite qualities and abilities, you will go through a ritual (if anything resembling a shock treatment) that totally vitalizes all the petals of the solar plexus centre of the etheric, emotional, and mental envelopes. You have demonstrated competence in the right use of the pertaining energies. 8
In one of the many occult sects that apparently have arisen to mislead people (if intentionally should left open), Morya is called Morya–Maitreya. However, 44-self Morya (who will soon become a 43-self) is a member of the first department. Maitreya is the Indian name of the bodhisattva, a buddha in becoming and the head of the second department. Such nonsense should be a bit too thick even for an occult sect. 9
In a book by Alarik Degerman, Yoga utvecklar dolda krafter (Yoga Develops Hidden
Powers), we read about the Count of Saint German that while on extensive travels in Persia and India he learnt the art of making diamonds, etc., in the usual way. From whom did he learn it and why is it not taught to others? Always the same old ignorant talk about learning from other people. At the time (the 18th century), he was a 45-self and certainly did not need to learn anything from human beings, since such a self knows all about everything in the worlds of man. Such unreliable statements demonstrate the complete incompetence of these writers in the esoteric matters of which they treat. 10
Unfortunately, occultists have conceived the Indian term “karma” as denoting a law of “retribution”. But a good sowing does not yield a bad reaping. The process could perhaps be represented in a purely material fashion. The first triad is surrounded by mental and emotional atoms (skandhas) accompanying it at incarnation. These atoms are the results of the individual’s consciousness expressions (words, deeds) in the different worlds. They are the tools the law of reaping works with. When the individual “reaps”, they are released from the triad and this process (attachment and release) goes on throughout all his incarnations until the individual in his last incarnation as a man is completely free from the burden and so “free from debt”. The whole thing can be conceived as a mechanical process, an automatic release 15of active forces. This description is of course extremely primitive, but may serve as a sketchy picture of the very process. There is no possibility of arbitrariness, no escape, and no “grace”.
Law is law. The individual is able to eliminate the bad skandha atoms through good consciousness expressions (words, deeds) or, in any case, is able to weaken their energy at their release. It should be added that nobody but himself can do this. What theologians call the “vicarious act of sacrifice” can only refer to “collective reaping”, not to individual reaping (we all share in the collective reaping by our belonging to groups and have willingly or unwillingly participated in the good and bad contributions of the group). 11
Occultists talk about “karma” as though it were the only law of life. Man does not act against that law only, but also against all the other laws of life, daily and with inevitable consequences. There is no harm in thoroughly rethinking also the primitive conception of the “law of karma”. Many of those who have written on that law and described its action down to the least detail have (according to view of the planetary hierarchy) behaved like veritable “lords of karma”, apportioning rewards and punishments in many respects. 12
We should try to grasp the law of reaping, of course, but at the same time we should make it clear to ourselves that our knowledge is too scant for us to have any logical right whatever to decide in individual cases what law has been applied. Life is not as simple as to allow the action of one law only. Whenever occultists learn of a new fact, their imagination starts speculating, putting this fact into all conceivable, erroneous contexts. Small wonder then that occultism has fallen into disrepute. In fact, occultists are as much the victims of their speculations as exoterists, only in other areas. 13
The allegation found in occult literature that man, when asleep and in his emotional envelope, fusses about in the emotional world is true only in a very qualified sense. It may be true of disciples of the planetary hierarchy but not of ordinary mortals who cannot find their bearings in that world and so cannot do anything sensible there, cannot learn anything. The ability to identify the emotional counterparts of the physical natural forms requires emotional objective consciousness acquired during physical existence. If an individual not having this training is awakened in his emotional, this will only result in gossip, as senseless as in the physical world, but usually even more poisonous, with people who are as disoriented in that sphere as they were in the physical world. He may count himself fortunate, if he avoids being awakened to sow even more bad sowing. 14
The ground of the errors of most occultists is their conviction that their vagaries, brainwaves are correct, that they can judge what they see in the “inner world”, that they can judge the correctness of their occult experiences. They should be clear about the fact that only a causal self need not be mistaken. But as a rule it is useless to point this out to them. 15
The only secure foundation is a well-ordered system of facts. If you do not have the facts, then you do not know, whatever you believe. 6.19 Speculations of Occultists 1
Regrettably, the apparently ineradicable tendency to speculate on the basis of insufficient facts has been rampant in occultism as well, so that it runs the risk of degenerating into the same mania for speculation that has always been characteristic of philosophy and theology of all sorts. 2
They do not seem to have understood yet that the knowledge is inaccessible for human intellect, that knowledge can be acquired in the fifth natural kingdom only, that you must not mix up scientific hypotheses with esoteric facts from the planetary hierarchy. 3
Neither philosophy nor science nor mysticism (Christian mysticism, Islamic sufism, Indian yoga, which by nature are subjectivist speculation) will ever be able to solve the problem of knowledge. That is an esoteric axiom, which besides is self-evident to all hylozoicians. 164
Everything in the way of philosophy (human imaginative speculation, however logical) is also a demonstration that this axiom is correct, which probably many million people have already realized. And it is a gladdening sign that common sense is on the increase and the mania for speculation is on the decrease. 5
However, merely because of that realization they have not reached the insight that man is incapable of solving the superphysical problems. There simply is nothing superphysical that the first self can know anything about. The consciousness aspect and the superphysical part of the matter aspect, let alone the motion aspect, are problems for second selves, not for first selves. The occultists may have accepted esoterics. But they cannot use it except to liberate themselves from exoteric views and to have an explanation of otherwise inexplicable phenomena. They must be content with that. They should have learnt that speculation does not agree with reality. Not even occultists suspect how ignorant of life they are, and their statements are usually 99 per cent erroneous. Existence is not as simple as they imagine. 6
It proves increasingly necessary to differentiate between occultism and esoterics. Thus occultism includes all that literature which represents a mixture of esoteric facts and exoteric hypotheses or where the authors have permitted themselves to advance their own speculations. The term esoteric should be reserved for the works that exclusively contain facts from the planetary hierarchy. 7
When after the year 1875 the knowledge of reality (of superphysical worlds, etc.) was allowed for publication and so was made available to everybody, a number of writers who had just an exceedingly imperfect knowledge of the pertaining facts began to explain to the public what it all was about. Without a sufficient knowledge and insight they started interpreting the esoteric writings and their symbols. And the result was all those spurious works, which were in part erroneous, in part misleading, in part quite insufficient. They had managed to pick up a few esoteric facts, and the seemingly ineradicable tendency to believe oneself able to think in accord with reality manifested itself at once. 8
Anyone who expected that at least the so-called occultists should have learnt from the fiasco of theology and philosophy, and from the erroneous application of the dogmatized hypothesis method of science, to leave off the idiotizing mania for speculation and to content themselves with the facts given out by the planetary hierarchy has received a new confirmation of the fact that the mere demonstration of absurdities is not sufficient. Those who have not reached higher mental levels simply cannot learn things that belong on those levels. 9
Just like every philosopher and every religious man believes that he comprehends reality and has faith in the correctness of his vagaries and brainwaves, the same is true of all those who nowadays start speculating on esoteric facts. And in this manner we have got and shall get even more occult sects. It is to be expected that within a few decades we shall have more occult sects than the thousands of religious sects that believe in their speculations. Fantasts construct new systems of thought using the new facts from the planetary hierarchy that are publicized eventually. The older systems know nothing of the planetary hierarchy and so display their ignorance. That will soon be changed, however. New systems will see the light of the day, and speculants will invoke their familiarity with “masters” of all sorts. For speculate they must, conceit and faith in vagaries being ineradicable. And the clairvoyant has his imaginations confirmed in the emotional world and meets his masters there as well. 10
Against all such things it must be firmly asserted that only causal or higher selves are in a position to ascertain esoteric facts or to study past incarnations. In the emotional world, everything is illusory. Clairvoyants or “spirits”, who obtain their information from the akashic chronicles, make statements on people’s past incarnations. All such data have proved to be erroneous. 1711
It is a monstrous fact that people accept lies infinitely more readily than truths. It is the matter of two entirely different kinds of vibrations. Vibrations that accord with reality are part of a “higher octave” and are nothing but harmony as well. At the present stage of mankind’s development, people have no sense of this higher and harmonious. 12
Where new esoteric facts are concerned, the esoterician constantly asks himself: how will this be misunderstood and what new fantasies will it give rise to? For experience has taught him that it must be expected that it will be in some way distorted, misinterpreted, and put into wrong contexts. The esoterician and the occultist do not speak the same language. 13
The esoterician accepts no data on the superphysical but facts from the planetary hierarchy, and in our times, none but those given out by the secretary of the planetary hierarchy, 45-self D. K. 6.20 Terminology of Occultists 1
When reading the occult literature of today with its awkward attempts at describing superphysical realities, one soon realizes that it all needs to be rewritten and to be presented in a simpler and more comprehensible manner. 2
There is much in higher worlds that cannot be explained in lower worlds. Those who nevertheless have tried have only caused a confusion of ideas and irremediable misunderstandings. The esoteric writings afford many examples of this. But there are also great many ideas and facts which could have been made comprehensible but have been ruined by incompetence and which in their corrupt state will probably haunt us still hundreds of years hence. 3
The deplorable feature of the sphere of ideas of the occult sects is that the basic concepts have never been given the requisite logical treatment and have never been given clear definitions. 4
They use old terminology, confusion of ideas being the inevitable result. The question what is meant by “soul”, for instance, cannot be answered, because they have never meant anything in agreement with reality. The only rational thing we can do is to strike out all those old words from our dictionary once and for all, and to introduce new terms. Otherwise there will always be a confusion of ideas in some respect. 5
This is necessary, if the esotericians shall succeed in winning the intelligentsia trained in
Western logic and science. The three aspects of reality must be kept clearly apart; likewise the monad in the triad envelope, in the causal envelope, in the first and second triad; the envelopes of incarnation, the causal envelope, the monad (self), and Augoeides must all be differentiated, among many other things. There is a hopeless confusion of ideas in these matters. That is best realized by anyone who has tried to find his bearings in this jungle of vague notions. As it is now, the individual demanding clarity above all must use a great part of his incarnation for this work. That is an absurd condition for others than the mystics who are happy in such unclear states. 6.21 Things Esoteric and Exoteric 1
What has harmed esoterics the most is the pseudo-knowledge obtained when mixing up fictionalism (philosophy and science) with esoterics. 2
Quite a number of occult sects try to impress injudiciousness by accounting for the most recent scientific discoveries when presenting their imaginative speculations. It is depressing to hear occultists of all sorts voicing the false ideas of philosophical subjectivism. 3
It is typical of injudiciousness in the occult sects that they cannot realize the enormous difference there is between esoterics and exoterics but mix them up into an irremediable pseudo-knowledge. 184
It obviously needs to be clarified, and this once and for all, that esoterics and exoterics have no points in common. Esoterics is such knowledge as mankind will never be able to reach by its own research. Esoterics is the knowledge possessed by the second self, not by the first self. Any confusion of esoterics and science is impermissible and will only amount to pseudo-knowledge, the very jumble which we have seen in the occult sects and which has deterred thinking people from even examining esoterics. 5
It is to be hoped that we shall soon be spared the term esoterics, which has a tinge of sectarianism, whereas it denotes the real view of existence. It is difficult to set people free from fiction systems they have assimilated and make them examine hylozoics to discover how much there is in existence that through esoterics has its simplest, only rational explanation, you could as well say: its direct, self-evident significance. 6.22 Illusions of Occultists 1
Mankind has received from the planetary hierarchy a lot of facts about reality. But people have not been content to put those facts into systems but have ruined it all by their own guesswork. 2
It is typical of injudiciousness that it has faith in its own assumptions. This faith is particularly disastrous in the matter of discipleship. Merely because they have received one more “primitive” system, occultists think they comprehend everything. Merely because they have received a few simple facts, they think they are finished and are sitting there waiting for initiation into the hierarchy and are surprised that they are not duly appreciated or “discovered”. 3
Occultists of all kinds think they are important because they have acquired some occult learning. They think they are far in advance of the rest of mankind merely because of this. A big mistake. There are many religious people who work for the welfare of all; many scientists who reject everything that cannot be proved but serve mankind by their devoted work for science; many people in finance and industry who have no ideas of things superphysical but who regard their wealth as an obligation they must use well to prevent unemployment, etc.
These people often are considerably more advanced than occultists who revel in their learning but are incapable of benefiting anyone with it. 4
More and more people come to see that esoterics is the only tenable working hypothesis.
And what do they do, those who have reached that insight? They keep their knowledge, their insight to themselves instead of spreading information about it. The knowledge is so common nowadays that they do not run the risk of being considered “nutty” any longer. Instead they delight in their ever widening perspectives and are very contented. They take delight in their insight. Perhaps they deplore their inability to “do something for the cause” to help other people. Or they live in their imaginative world and dream about doing something big on a perfect day. Or they gang up with others in a group where they meet like-minded people, or they form an organization which is as unfit for work as each individual member is. They are drones in the beehive of life. 5
The worst ones are those fanatics who believe they are special elects and perfect because they have become vegetarians and celibates and renounce such things as disciples must renounce. That is not the way of becoming a disciple, however, and not even of advancing on the path of discipleship. The only way is aspiration to unity and acquisition of common sense.
You cannot skip any stage of development. Most fanatics, believing themselves finished, are still at the stage of civilization notwithstanding all their esoteric learning. 6
Knowledge is energy, and the beginner very easily loses his balance, becomes presumptuous and crazy, and believes he is able to comprehend and judge everything. It is such a common phenomenon that the exceptions demonstrate they are “mature souls” who realize their relative ignorance and incapacity. The more we understand, the more we 19understand how little we understand, and the same is true of our capacity for realization. Once again a matter of stages of development. 7
If we want to develop quickly, if we want to rapidly acquire qualities and abilities, then let us live to serve mankind, evolution, and unity, realize in life universal brotherhood, the love of every living creature, meeting everyone on his level and stop forcing wisdom on those who are unable to understand! By becoming simple, natural, unassuming people and not imagining we are particular or important people we demonstrate that we are not the under the spell of illusions. “Self-realization is a process that goes on in the unconscious when you do as best you can without any eager expectation of seeing results. We have many incarnations left to discipleship, and only when we are there shall we know what we should eat and renounce.
Until then, we are wise in following the general rules of health that universal human experience has seen to be rational. Cultivating admiration, affection, and sympathy, developing the power of judgment is more important than becoming a vegetarian. 8
And finally. Only causal selves can rightly judge the phenomena in the emotional and mental worlds. Occult powers acquired at earlier stages do not benefit either yourself or other people, whatever the occultists say, but the risk of irremediable aberration is very great. 6.23 The Illusions of Sectarianism 1
Scientists demand mathematical exactitude and philosophers clarity (unambiguousness) and absence of contradictions. Everything not coming up to these requirements is regarded as pseudo-knowledge. And these deficiencies have marred the presentations of occultists of all sects. The very fact that there are “sects” (different “hypotheses”) demonstrates that there are basic flaws in the conception of reality, whether it be religion, philosophy, science, or, in particular, occultism. 2
Division and sectarianism are the irrefutable proof of the fact that they do not have knowledge, that they are all wrong, for there can never be divergence of opinion about the true knowledge of reality. Truth is one and cannot be distorted. 3
It must be firmly asserted that no such sects are needed. Everything in the way of sectarianism implies division, exclusion, separateness going against the free exchange of knowledge between people. No sect, no society, no religion has any patent for the truth.
Whenever people form a sect, what they wanted to give to mankind is lost. Esoterics is set free, and nobody must try to restrict it again or adulterate it by mixing it with new fictions.
Sects counteract the truth. All religions and societies are proofs of that. Societies degenerate and sooner or later become ends in themselves, counteracting their own purpose in the process, unless that purpose is to fight the truth, which all of them do unconsciously, some of them even consciously, as must be deplored. Disband all societies and become free human beings, independent of societies! Find out ways of creating free communities! 6.24 Clairvoyance 1
How could people know anything of superphysical worlds, when they are unable to ascertain their existence? To do so requires objective consciousness. It is by our physical sense, our faculty of physical objective consciousness, that we can examine physical matter and its material forms. It is suitable to define sense as the faculty of objective consciousness.
Then you could speak about physical sense, emotional sense, mental sense, causal sense, etc. 2
The objective world perceptible to the normal individual with his “five senses” is just three sevenths of the physical world, 49:5-7. Those who succeed in acquiring emotional objective consciousness (emotional sense) can at best observe four sevenths of emotional matter (48:4- 7). This implies that they, when watching emotional beings, can see only the kinds of matter containing the lowest qualities of those beings, and so their judgment must always amount to an underestimation of the individuals in question. 203
Since presumptuous clairvoyants appear with absurd claims to authority, it should once and for all be asserted that the highest kind of consciousness possible for a man is subjective causal consciousness and lower kinds of subjective essential consciousness. This presupposes, however, (conscious or unconscious) discipleship with the planetary hierarchy. 4
Human beings can be objectively conscious in the physical and emotional worlds only. No man can on his own acquire a higher kind of objective consciousness than emotional clairvoyance. Those who assert something else are self-deceivers. This is an important fact that should be borne in mind when assessing the prophets who appear laying claims to being guides of mankind. Being clairvoyants they are victims of their emotional objective consciousness. There are many such people; the ones best known internationally are
Swedenborg, Steiner, Ramakrishna; and in Scandinavia, Martinus. It is important that this fact is established definitively, for in the future we may expect ever more prophets of this kind. 5
Many people who have acquired special occult powers consider themselves particular elects and are eager to develop these faculties in order to use them. It is seldom worthwhile to tell them that powers which do not belong to their actual level of development are roused too early and generally entail incurable illusions and fictions. The individual should delay the enfoldment of special faculties until he has acquired causal objective consciousness. Before that stage, clairvoyance of all kinds will be misunderstood and all “abnormal” powers will only be misleading if they are heeded and used. This cannot be said too often and appears impossible to understand. 6
To the normal individual there cannot be any other reality than the physical matter and energy phenomena of the visible world and the physical consciousness perceiving those matter and motion aspects. To the esoterician, there is a whole series of material worlds of ever higher kinds. The emotional or mental clairvoyant, however, is in no position to objectively explore those material worlds and to differentiate the various kinds of “reality” there are in the emotional and mental worlds, if he has not received a quite particular esoteric training. And so it is because the matter of those worlds is automatically affected by consciousness activity and is transformed by it with enormous rapidity, so that the untrained cannot possibly decide whether what they see is the product of their own imaginings or is permanent reality. This means that the kinds of sense involved can ascertain the existence of the emotional and mental worlds, but that the observations made by them are not reliable.
Only the physical and causal worlds are worlds of reality in this respect. In the two intermediate worlds, only a causal self is able to ascertain what is permanent reality. This has been said many times before but apparently cannot be said too often. 7
Mankind has been warned time and again not to try to acquire higher sense or objective consciousness (physical-etheric, emotional, and mental). 8
Emotional and mental objective consciousness affords no knowledge but of the fact that the worlds in question exist. Everything else is misunderstood, only strengthening emotional illusions and mental fictions. There is no knowledge of reality to be had in those worlds, only misperceptions of the true content of those worlds. Only causal objective consciousness affords true knowledge of superphysical reality, since everything you see in the causal world is reality, no thought-forms created by causal beings. The material forms to be seen in worlds 48 and 47:4-7 are creations of the inhabitants of those worlds. 9
Perhaps you think that physical-etheric sense (physical-etheric objective consciousness, the power of seeing through walls, etc.) cannot be harmful. But using it you see only what you already know, for your knowledge conditions your interpretation of whatever you see. The interpretations of ignorance are erroneous. In addition, the man who abuses such powers (for instance by spying on people to satisfy his curiosity, by gossip, etc.) sows a very bad sowing that will mature into reaping some time. In any case it is important that anyone who has received the power has received the power of being silent and has overcome curiosity as well. 21For espionage of all sorts (glorified in detective novels) brings about a very bad sowing. We need not “administer justice”, cannot do it either. The great Law will see to it that all sowing is reaped to the last grain, all sowing of thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds, however many incarnations it will take until it all is finally reaped. The man wishing to play the part of punitive providence makes a serious blunder in life. 10
So-called clairvoyance can never be higher than emotional clairvoyance. Mental clairvoyance is acquired along with causal objective consciousness (47:3). Several 45-selves have unanimously declared that emotional clairvoyance can only mislead. All phenomena in the emotional world mislead and disorient. All “teachers” in that world are self-deceived.
Typical victims of this inescapable illusoriness are Swedenborg, Steiner, Martinus, and yogis of all kinds. 11
Clairvoyants such as Swedenborg, Ramakrishna, Steiner, Martinus, etc., really see what they say they see and must believe in what they see. Their testimonies are true. But they are quite unable to judge the reality content of what they see. Also, they all have divergent views of reality. 12
It is very typical of ignorant boldness that all clairvoyants think they understand everything they see and are able to interpret all the phenomena correctly. Do they not understand that they enter another world, a totally unexplored world of which they cannot know anything and whose inhabitants are even more disoriented than mankind in the physical world? 13
The esoterician has no intention of acquiring clairvoyance (emotional objective consciousness), for in the emotional world it is quite impossible to obtain knowledge, but everything there is illusory. The esoterician ascertains facts but does not believe anything, does not try to explain anything, does not interpret anything, but waits until he has gained esoteric knowledge of that reality. Only when he has received all the facts about those phenomena from the planetary hierarchy does he consider himself competent to judge. This has been said so many times before from the “highest quarters” that it should suffice.
Therefore: accept nothing coming from the emotional world and its inhabitants. They are totally disoriented and know nothing about life. What they have experienced on their own and believe they know is sheer illusionism. 14
The planetary hierarchy has stated clearly that those who practise mediumship, are occupied with clairvoyance, live in the emotional world and are interested in the problems of that world are not disciples of the planetary hierarchy and stand no chance of being it either.
Everything in the emotional world is mere first self’s activity without any prospect of contacting causal consciousness and therefore without any prospect of liberation from emotional illusions. The emotional world is the particular sphere of the black lodge, and there it rules sovereign. This has been said so many times before in many different ways. In the emotional world, no qualities and abilities are acquired, no insight and no understanding, no knowledge of reality or of past events. Everybody in that world is the victim of his own ignorance. The inhabitants of the emotional world are in no position to see the illusoriness of their knowledge for it is dazzling and blinding. 15 “Self-tutored seer” means such a one as has emotional objective consciousness, emotional sense (emotional clairvoyance), who has not received tuition from any member of the fifth natural kingdom. In such a tuition the disciple has first of all to learn about the different kinds of matter (involvatory and involutionary matter) and their respective molecular kinds.
Thereupon the disciple has to carefully attend a long series of experiments and, when the teacher has satisfied himself that the disciple has grasped the matter in theory, he may perform the experiments himself under the teacher’s supervision, this going on until he can make them faultlessly. This tuition and these experiments are performed in the emotional world. At such occasions, the 45-selves form temporary emotional envelopes, a procedure 22they otherwise never engage in, and this for the simple reason that there are replicas of them which people mistake for their teachers (“masters”), misunderstand, adore, and misinterpret.
This is a warning to everyone. D.K. says that there is an emotional form resembling him and leading people astray, a form which he has not shaped, never uses, and which in no way is linked to him. “It reproduces in an intelligent way what I have written in my books and what disciples have learnt and contemplated. Their adoration of me has formed the ‘statue’, and it is vitalized daily by all my readers. There is a risk that a black magician will utilize it to mislead and confuse people without their noticing it. Refuse to listen to it!” 16
No member of the planetary hierarchy dwells in the emotional world. But that world is replete with all the characters known from history, and all gods and goddesses. All adorers find their gods whom they have shaped in emotional matter themselves. This, of course, is their definite proof that those gods exist. The believers never realize that the “gods” preach nothing but what is already written in the “sacred writings”, that the “gods” are their own echoes. The new “facts” that they teach are the “facts” that human imagination henceforth has ascribed to them. 17
But since there will always be new sect founders and prophets, their numbers will grow. It is characteristic of them all that they diverge in their views. Everyone of them has his own teaching of existence in accord with the products of his emotional imagination. 18
It must be unequivocally stated that no inhabitant of the emotional world can possess any knowledge of reality but what he has received from the planetary hierarchy through its esoteric work in the physical world. Of course this fact, firmly established for all time to come, is controverted in good faith by self-appointed guides in the physical and emotional worlds. They are wrong. Such guides can only have a disorienting effect. They have always had and will always have that effect. There is no true knowledge of reality but the one we receive from the planetary hierarchy. There are even more guides in the emotional world than in the physical. The esoterician is taught not to let himself be guided by them. 19
The science of the emotional world is not publicized yet. Until this happens you can just advise those who listen to advice not to occupy themselves with the pertaining problems.
Only errors will come out of it. All clairvoyants must be mistaken in all essentials. 20
The higher emotional, the stage of the mystic, affords no knowledge of reality. Its importance lies in the fact that it makes it possible for man to acquire the qualities and powers of attraction, the precondition of the acquisition of unity consciousness (46), of essential intuition (“psychological” understanding of people and every living creature). Everything that is part of repulsion cuts off the possibility of understanding. 21
Through the planetary hierarchy and, therefore, by its special permission (and for a particular purpose) we have been informed of the names of some past incarnations of a few historical personages or of the fact that they were initiates of esoteric knowledge orders. This information has excited the imagination of all manner of occultists who believe themselves able to know their own past incarnations or those of other people. 22
It must apparently be emphatically stated that only causal selves are in a position to determine the previous incarnations of individuals. To see past lives such as they really were requires causal objective consciousness, for only in the world of Platonic ideas is it possible to study the past. No lower kinds of consciousness afford any knowledge of reality. Authorities of all sorts may then assert the opposite. But that is not all. No “initiate” would ever blab out such things, satisfying the hyena instinct, since he is bound by his pledge of silence.
Information about who we were in past lives is of no avail to us whatsoever. On the contrary, we have forgotten it because that is the best for us. 23
Knowing the formidable power of human conceit and the concomitant, albeit unconscious self-deception, we must warn against the pseudo-occultism of the future. If people learn that the causal self is able to study his previous incarnations, many people will imagine that they 23are causal selves. For they believe they can study their previous incarnations. It must be unequivocally stated that they are the victims of their own illusions they have seen in the global memory of the emotional world. Everything that human imagination can produce unconsciously exists there, and the victims of those illusions are firmly convinced that their experiences have a permanent reality. When a Swedenborg, a Steiner, an unspecified number of raja yogis fall victims to the phenomena in that world of illusions, the worst may be expected as to future errors. 24
According as esoterics becomes more generally known, increasing numbers of clairvoyants and fantasts of other kinds will propagate their misconceptions, and uncritical people will disseminate them to the detriment of the one genuine esoterics, the facts of the planetary hierarchy. Only the data given out through the secretary of the planetary hierarchy,
D.K., should thus be considered reliable. There are too many people who have an interest in creating confusion among those who would otherwise study esoterics in order to discredit this superphysical knowledge, the only true one. This warning would not be necessary, if people possessed the ability to decide what is real facts. It has been seen, however, that no one who is not a disciple of the planetary hierarchy is possessed of the requisite qualifications for doing this. 6.25 “Cosmic Consciousness” 1
Clairvoyants in increasing numbers talk nonsense about “cosmic consciousness”, and ever more occult sects have adopted the term. Many occultists use it to denote superphysical consciousness. They are ignorant of the fact that 43-selves acquire cosmic consciousness when they have concluded their evolution in the sixth natural kingdom of the solar system. No individual confined within the planetary and solar systemic worlds (43–49) can acquire cosmic consciousness, which begins with 42-consciousness. There are 42 different kinds of cosmic consciousness. 2
Anyone who has acquired cosmic consciousness has automatically either left the solar system or joined the planetary government. No human being can acquire more than physical, emotional, mental, and, at the utmost, causal consciousness. Consciousness is bound up with a certain kind of matter, a certain kind of material envelope for the monad. And no man has a higher envelope than the causal. The utmost a man can acquire on his own is the highest kind of mental consciousness (47:4). As a disciple of the planetary hierarchy he can become a causal self (47:1-3). But in so doing he has become more than human. Not even the most advanced members of the black lodge can become causal selves. They never reach beyond 47:4. To become a causal self, the monad must be able to move from the first triad mental molecule to the second triad mental atom. And the black ones have severed their connection to the second triad. 3
When entering world 46, the individual acquires a consciousness of community of the lowest kind and, with it, the ability to identify his self-consciousness with all beings in all the lower worlds and in the four lowest natural kingdoms. It might be said that essential consciousness is the lowest kind of the cosmic total consciousness of which the individual can be self-conscious. This is not the same as “cosmic consciousness”, however. No one in the entire cosmos can be conscious of or conscious in a higher kind of consciousness than the one he has acquired himself. You are conscious in all the lower kinds but never in any higher kind. A 46-self thus cannot identify his consciousness with that of a 45-self. That higher consciousness remains absolutely inaccessible. 4
No human being can acquire cosmic consciousness. Before he can do so, the individual must have left the human kingdom and have become, in succession, a second self and a third self. Above all, he must not be ignorant of the planetary hierarchy and the planetary government. There are many other signs of recognition, which should not be mentioned lest 24charlatans be furnished with opportunities of deceiving people by their tricks. One infallible sign, however, to scotch all “magical brethren” is the fact that the initiate does not bear witness to himself. Anyone doing so is not an initiate. The initiate has definitively “entered into the silence” regarding everything that has not finally become common knowledge. The sects promising their adherents knowledge of secrets are, at best, led by self-deceived deceivers. 5
A human being can acquire physical-etheric and emotional objective consciousness but not mental objective consciousness while a man. Mental “clairvoyance” thus can be acquired only by a causal self. Anyone who has seen this is also able to judge the reliability of the claims to omniscience (of some sort) that mankind will hear from all manner of clairvoyants in the future. They are all victims of their emotional objective consciousness. This is true also of
Swedenborg, Steiner, Ramakrishna and all Indian yogis. They could tell what they saw and experienced in the emotional regions. But from the mere power of vision does not follow the power of rightly interpreting what they see. And they cannot possibly realize this. They believe in what they see. And the ignorant trust in their prophets, who demonstrably are honest and sincere and tell nothing but the truth. 6
Martinus, one of those clairvoyants who believe in what they see, claims to have acquired “cosmic consciousness”. This is an absurd arrogation, as should be evident from what was said above. Not having esoteric knowledge, the clairvoyant will unfailingly become a victim of this kind of objective consciousness. 7
People hear about “cosmic consciousness” and want to acquire that faculty at once, “for
Martinus has done so, to be sure.” Neither he nor his followers grasp that he has fallen prey to his emotional clairvoyance. There is in all his writings not one single correct esoteric fact. It is all of it his own imaginative speculation. Human beings are unable to solve the problems of existence. Those who believe themselves able to do it are at best self-deceived, the victims of their clairvoyant “hallucinations”. The very expression, “cosmic consciousness”, evidences an incredible ignorance of reality. Faced with such an ignorance of life you will not think it worthwhile to speak about common sense. There have been many clairvoyants, and we must expect crowds of them in the future. They must go through this experience and fantasize about their cosmic powers. We must only hope that in a later incarnation they will succeed in acquiring a somewhat higher mental consciousness, so that common sense can begin to make itself felt. 8
Consciousness development is a difficult matter and a long and tiresome path through a long series of incarnations. We develop by methodically cultivating our physical, emotional, and mental consciousness, by studying and by leading simple and natural lives with our fellow human beings. Energy follows thought, and right motive entails right action and increasing opportunities of development in future lives. This sounds too simple, and few there are who appear to have seen how basic it is. It takes a constant attention to what kinds of thoughts we think and what motives we have had, until one day we have acquired automatic thought control and can leave it to the superconscious to act through us, being certain that it will be well done. 6.26 Conclusion 1
Man is and remains in essential respects an incurable idiot, even when equipped with the theoretical knowledge of reality offered by esoterics. Most esotericians are proofs of that. We have been liberated from all the speculations with theological, philosophical, scientific theories and hypotheses that ignorance has produced at all times. We have received a vision of existence with its laws of nature and laws of life, so that we shall be able to defend ourselves against the idiologies we must expect for hundreds of years yet. In addition, the hylozoician is protected from all the occult systems that will be manufactured by fantasts of 25all sorts equipped with “cosmic consciousness”. We have been presented with a tenable world view and life view, and this is of immeasurable value. But when it comes to living the life and to solving all the countless problems that daily demand their expedient solutions, we realize how little we comprehend and understand. And this is true even of the esoterician of the highest mental levels. Things are once and for all so arranged that man (the first self, the monad in the first triad) remains an idiot in respect of life. In order to live “right” in all respects, intuition is required, and that is a faculty we acquire only as second selves, then our clever expert psychologists may twaddle however much on the matter. 2
Intuition is a faculty belonging to the consciousness aspect, the collective consciousness to be precise. Intuition enables second selves to judge things expediently in accord with that synthesis of the collective planetary experience of life which in the essential selves is called wisdom. 3
It is in the essence of things that the more you learn, the more you see what an idiot you are. The fool understands everything and has a patent for wisdom. He may have when it affects only himself. Regrettably, he is so narrow that he does not see where he oversteps the limits to other people’s right to personal freedom and views of their own. To be sure, there are many degrees of idiocy as well. If it has a bottom, practically speaking, must be left open. It certainly would do them no harm, if our learned men, learned authorities, were made to look down once into that abyss of ignorance of reality and life they have tried to bridge over to the realm of knowledge with the cobwebs of their imagination. And this is true in all spheres of learning. Deplorably few they are who have reached the insight one physician voiced when he shuddered at the thought of all those people whom medical science had put to rest in the cemeteries. Nor would it do them any harm, if politicians of all parties gave a thought once to all the people that their wisdom had dispatched to the other world. So it may surely be said that all of history is a temple to idiocy. One thing is certain: there will be no improvement in this respect until mankind has learnt to see its inability to solve even the problems of physical life and decides to call back the planetary hierarchy whom it banished in its immeasurable and irremediably idiocy. 4
One thing is obvious. People are unable to lead rational lives. They do not lack the conditions, the qualifications, the possibilities, but their attitude to life is entirely wrong. They cannot lead lives without friction either, at peace with their fellow human beings. And then they believe they understand everything and think they are very clever and important. It is all both tragic and ridiculous, depending on the viewpoint taken. There will be no change until everyone blames himself for this misery instead of blaming others. 5
Additions such as this one, which is irrelevant to the matter under discussion, is called “escapism” by doctors of literature. They may very well do so. The present writer is fully aware of that.
The above text constitutes the essay Occult Sects by Henry T. Laurency.
The essay is part of the book Knowledge of Life Three by Henry T. Laurency. Translated from the Swedish by Lars Adelskogh.
Copyright © 2007 by the Henry T. Laurency Publishing Foundation.
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