[1]

The Human Aura.

A Study.

[Respectfully Dedicated to Those Who Can See, and to Those Who,
Not Able to See, Yet Can Understand Intuitively.]


Chapter I.

Introductory.

In an address delivered before the Aloha Branch T. S. of Honolulu, on the latest "Scientific Corroborations of Theosophy," occurred the following passage:

Theosophy claims that we are, all of us, as well as all things primate and inanimate, enveloped, surrounded, by a very complex, yet subtle, emanation, which (to the clairvoyant eye) is not only luminous, but tinted with the most variegated colors, these colors indicating our constitution, our passions, our ideas. Of course, materialistic scientists — who are so far from being gifted with clairvoyant vision, since materialistic tendencies destroy psychic faculties, and who consequently cannot see any man's or woman's aura — boldly denied its existence in toto. But here comes the photographic camera — this little instrument that cannot lie (as an enthusiast expressed it) and which has already revealed so many things which were imperceptible even with the help of the microscope and telescope, this little fairy who has given us the picture of millions of stars, whose light does not affect our vision or manifest through our other instruments — the camera comes forward to certify to the existence of the aura. A scientist in Paris, Dr. Baraduc, after special study in the matter, has been rewarded by obtaining a series of beautiful photographs, which will soon be published, and in which the auras of various persons are clearly imprinted, with variations due to the tendencies or passions, ideas and emotions, of the subject (Theosophist XVII, 182; Lucifer XVII, Oct.: T. Aust, 102.) Moreover, I must not fail to add that quite recently, an American physician, Dr. Gates reported in the Medical News; 1st, that the emanations of the living body, or auras, differ according to the states of the mind, as well as to the conditions of physical health; 2nd, that these emanations can be tested by the chemical reactions of some salts of selenium; 3nd, that these reactions are characterized by various tints or colors, according to the nature of the mental impressions; 4th, that forty different "emotion" products, as he calls them, have already been thus obtained. Here is another confirmation by scientific authority. Thus it will no longer be possible to sneer at Theosophy's scientific description of the human aura and its variations, which show the spiritual man in his true nakedness for good or bad, just as Roentgen's X-ray shows the nakedness of the skeleton. Now, admitting that there is [2] a growing number of sensitives who can perceive this aura, there can eventually be but one result. All hypocrisy and crime will be vain, when man will be able to see every other man just as he really is, not as he tries to appear; and the world must, therefore, be on the eve of some psychical revolution, as occultism intimates, and as the Bible predicted for the time when "men will rush to and fro and knowledge will increase," as it certainly is the case nowadays.

The interest aroused by this statement led to a request for a special lecture on the "Human Aura"; and what herein follows is the outcome of the particular study made of all the available information, for the purpose of answering that request. Some of the facts have been culled from Theosophical literature, when they actually corroborated direct observations; others are new and original, the writer having had the good fortune of being able to investigate the subject with some very intelligent and educated persons, highly gifted both psychically and metaphysically, naturally clairvoyant without being in trance or under hypnotic influence, who had already devoted to the matter years of study and research. But while only the results of observations carefully repeated, and verified according to the established scientific methods, are here given, they must not be taken as authoritative; they are fully subject to correction, and especially to amplification. And if they are at present made public, it is principally with the hope that they may act as an incentive for future researches and verifications, more systematic and complete, of a fascinating subject, the full elucidation of which — especially in what concerns the Pranic Aura and its innumerable tatwic changes, and the Kamic Aura with its emotional flashes, ever varying, — would require a whole life-time.

While nothing can be found on the subject in scientific literature, in many of the early communications on Theosophy the idea was often hinted at, in a general but very guarded manner, that all objects in nature are surrounded by or exhale from their periphery a sort of vapor or cloud, constituting, as it were, their own localized atmosphere, which is more and more extended and complicated as we pass on to more complex organisms, from mineral up to man. Even artificial objects, made by man, emit auric manifestations, since they are formed of natural molecules, which, as such, possess their inherent auras. Moreover, it is asserted by [3] those who ought to know, that these manifestations of artificial objects vary with the special character imprinted on them by their manufacturer: thus, even books present a limited aura, which differs, not only with the material, but also according to the language used and the subject treated in the book.

In H. P. Blavatsky's standard Glossary, aura is defined: "A subtle, invisible essence or fluid that emanates from human and animal bodies and even things; it is a psychic effluvium, partaking of both the mind and the body, as it is the electro-vital and at the same time an electro-mental aura, called in Theosophy the akasic or magnetic." But, as a whole, much was taken for granted, and very little, nearly nothing, was properly described, a kind of secrecy even being observed in the matter, under the pleas: — 1st, that as the aura was visible only to a limited number of gifted persons, it was better not to dwell on such a question of recondite but not absolutely essential importance, that the majority could not verify; 2nd, that although simple in appearance, it is in reality very complex, and contains some great mysteries which, in past ages, had been deemed by all the occult schools as too sacred to be promiscuously mentioned.

However, of late, the original reserve or secrecy seems to have been withdrawn, and constantly more numerous are the bits of information dropped in various later studies of psychical laws, culminating in two distinct monographs on the "Human Aura," by Sinnett (Transactions London Lodge No. 18) and Leadbeater (Theosophist XVII, 134), and followed up in some of Mrs. Besant's latest lectures. In his last work ("Growth of the Soul," 165), Mr. Sinnett goes even further, and boldly asserts that the "study of man's principles is really inseparately blended with the investigation of the human aura. The higher vehicles involved in the constitution of man — or in reference to which it may equally be said, and perhaps with greater accuracy, that man is involved in them — are actually visible to the astral senses and devachanic perception of people whose clairvoyant powers are developed, and, as so visible, are habitually described as the aura."

Here, however, it must be well understood that, though ignored scientifically, the idea of the existence of individual auras is no new [4] revelation; but the knowledge of it may well be said to have actually been lost in the night of time. In effect, while Paracelsus described it 300 years ago, under the name of personal "astral light," and while the old alchemists termed it the "sphere of influence" of the person, [*] what we now call aura is found clearly indicated in various forms of the arts of the remotest antiquity — in India, Egypt, Greece, and even Yucatan and Peru. In the ruins of these countries it is yet found exhibited on pictures and statues, as a distinctive attribute of nearly all divinities and of all holy, godly men. This recognized symbol of moral excellence could not be ignored by early Christianity, and henceforth it has always been found, in pictorial representations of Jesus-Christ, the Virgin Mary, and all Catholic Saints — not as an arbitrary invention of the painter's imagination, but as a fact of nature. The subject of the aura was even so well understood formerly that four words were used to designate various of its forms; nimbus and halo being applied to the disk or partial aura streaming from the head of a divine being, aureola used for that which envelopes the whole body (what we now term aura generally), and glory for a combination of both; viz., the aura with a distinct nimbus, either circling around or shining over the head; and it was considered important for the correct significance of Christian iconography not to use these words indiscriminately. In old Egypt the nimbus, or head aura, seems to have been first attributed to the solar god "Ra," and thence adopted for the Greek solar god "Apollo," though in these instances it may have been a simple allegory of the Sun's splendor. But in India, in the caves of Ellora, can to this day be seen the figure of Indranee, the wife of Indra, sitting with her infant Sun-god in her arms, and elsewhere exists a picture of Krishna, nursed by Devaki, the heads of all the personages mentioned being in both cases represented as surrounded with a golden halo, thus anticipating by several centuries before Christ the favorite representations of the Catholic aureoled "Santissima Maria," with her divine "Bambino." Another picture, quite common in modern Greek and Roman Catholic churches, is the "Ascension," in which the whole figure of the floating Virgin [5] is represented as surrounded by an oval or egg-shaped mist, crowned by a dense, bright nimbus, making a full glory. Up to the present day, in all Oriental — countries, India, China, Japan — representatives of every god, Buddha included, never fail to have their adequate and symbolic auras or halos. As Surgeon-Major Waddell says in his excellent new book on Thibet, "The halo or nimbus around the heads (of gods) is subelliptical, never acuminated, * * * that of the fierce deities being bordered by flames; then, an additional halo is often represented as surrounding the whole body, this consisting of the six colored rays of light * * * conventionally indicated by wavy gilt lines with small tremulous lines alternating" ("Buddhism or Lomaism in Thibet," 357.) — As will be understood later on, all these representations were based on absolute physiological and psychic truths, well known to the ancients.

Now, the very fact of this knowledge, attested by pictorial and artistic evidence, as well as by traditions from remote ages, shows:

1st. That the ancients were more familiar than we are to-day, in our boasted civilization, with the intimate composition of the human being and his manifestations on the higher planes, and had even been able to ascertain that, in highly saintly, spiritual men, the common aura grows so intensified and luminous as to become a distinctive feature, an outward, special sign of their development.

2nd. That in ancient times, down to relatively modern ages, existed in much larger numbers than in the present century seers, or people with what are now termed psychic powers, clairvoyants able to see and sense on what we now call the astral plane, and thereby capable of distinguishing the ordinary auras and their supernormal, intensified manifestations. In fact, H. P. Blavatsky affirmed that "there must have been a period in the evolution of the human race when the whole of humanity was composed of sensitives and clairvoyants." (Trans. Blavatsky Lodge, I, 38.) But as our modern races became more immersed in materialism through the past dark, bigoted and ignorant Roman and medieval ages, this sensitiveness, these psychic faculties, became gradually blunted and obliterated, and were lost to the masses; then, through the succeeding psychic blindness, the knowledge of the human aura, even [6] to science, gradually sank into oblivion, until the very idea of it, and its representations in religious pictures, got to be treated as mere superstitions of "ignorant ages." So, this universal obscuration of psychic powers, in previous centuries, certainly explains why, in the present age of "enlightenment" — outside of the few people whose eyes are, by exceptional evolutionary development, susceptible of perceiving it — so very little is yet known now of the auric phenomena. It also explains another curious fact; viz., that apparitions, phantoms, ghosts, and other astral manifestations were so much more common ages ago than they are now, outside of spiritualistic circles — not because the phenomena have grown less frequent or humanity less "credulous," but because in this century there have been fewer sensitives to sense them. In respect to the aura, the matter has been aggravated by the fact that its emanations being invisible to the materialists, whose very education tends to obliterate what they might naturally have of sensitiveness, they ridiculed and even condemned, as a damnable freak of imagination, hallucination or dementia, the faculty possessed by "unfortunate," "ill-balanced" sensitives — as they were termed — of seeing every object surrounded by some kind of luminous cloud, or colored streamers emanating from various persons or things, or colored flashes in correlation with musical sounds, or again of perceiving the whole of the atmosphere filled with beautiful, living, quivering geometrical figures. It is true that, after deriding in the most insulting manner the patient, honest, and valuable researches of Baron Reichenbach, in what he termed the odic fluid and the odic lights (the lowest, most material of the auras), modern science did condescend to acknowledge electric and magnetic emanations later; and men like Sir B. Ward Richardson, M.D., have gone so far as to suggest a material "nervous ether" and a "nervous atmosphere" (Asclepiad, X. 37). So it is now, in schools, a favorite amusement to test the sight of pupils by making them observe and describe the effluvium of magnets and electrical instruments closed up in dark rooms; yet, outside of some bold "Borderlander" scientists, science has not so far attempted to read all the human emanations in the broad daylight.

But psychic faculties are rapidly growing more common, in [7] connection with intelligence and education; and of late, it is an incontrovertible fact that — outside of members of the Theosophical Society, who are deliberately and steadily training themselves to regain the lost powers — the number of truly healthy sensitive persons who can naturally distinguish and sense the auras and other psychic colors and phenomena is daily increasing, especially in America. Yet very many sensitives instead of realizing the value of their gift, attribute their peculiar vision to a defect of the organs of sight, and do not allude to it willingly, for fear of being ridiculed, while others consider it an ordinary phenomenon common to all; and not until their attention is called to the fact that this vision of theirs is a supernormal gift do they apply themselves to its study and development. I do not doubt that in any large audience a number of persons can always be found who are thus gifted, and could so testify, if they wished. Here, however, lies a difficulty: with psychic sight, while the vision is natural, yet it is quite varied, according to the evolutionary stage of the person, and consequently the reports thereof may appear unreliable or too changeable. Thus, at the first glance, ordinary psychics may see the whole of an aura — invisible to ordinary sight — as a mere confused mass of mist, or a uniform cloud of vapor, more or less luminous, more or less colored, extending from 10 to 20 or more inches in all directions from the body, sometimes with more or less defined edges, generally fading off gradually into invisibleness; many will see it as a kind of brilliant shade, others as a luminous flame, this being merely the total appearance, the general effect, of the mass of electro-magnetic or odic emanations; others again will descry this luminous cloud as tinted with only one shade of color, the predominant one of the personality, which may be violet or gold, or blue or grey; some will immediately distinguish colored subdivisions, or will recognize the aura as a cloudy playground for the chromatic kaleidoscope of Kama; while a few, very sensitive, will even sense that those various shades of beautiful colors are due to vibrations produced by the special qualities, and express the various conditions of the entity from whom they emanate. But few, indeed, are those who can naturally discern higher than the kamic aura; or if able to do so, they only obtain a very faint impression. It is, there [8] the complicated subject of the human aura, and "untrained sight is generally useless for purposes of close comparison and exact analysis" (Leadbeater). In other words, while the faculty of grasping or sighting the general aspect of the lower auric clouds is becoming natural to a relatively large number of psychics, or, as Mr. Leadbeater says, although this faculty is "often one of the earliest evidences of the opening of a supernormal sense of sight" in students who are striving to develop their powers, yet, in order to distinguish the details and classify them, in order to separate the various interblending matters and their shades, and sense them as if they were alone, it does require more than ordinary psychism or more than ordinary training. Hence, very fine, delicate, and educated psychic senses are necessary to be able to study them scientifically with any success. Then, a closer examination of the cloud reveals the fact, not only, as Theosophy teaches, that it has several distinct components — consisting of matter of very different degrees of tenuity, or belonging to different states or planes, yet intermingling as closely as oxygen and nitrogen do in the atmosphere — but, furthermore, that these components are exceedingly complex in their nature; and this very complexity is only a consistent consequence of that of man himself, in all his parts, since nearly everything that goes to make man what he is will be found manifested, represented or included in his aura. In fact, occult writers go so far as to say that the aura is the true man. Moreover, to all the above facts we must add another important one: we know that the physical body is composed of myriads of distinct microscopical lives (Secret Doctrine I, 231), each one of which is enveloped by or emits a separate, distinct tiny aura of its own, which merges into that of its neighbors to make up a whole effluvium representing the sum total of auras belonging to those living entities in man's body. It is clear that this sum total must mix up with the human aura proper and render it still more confusing to analyze; then, again, every separate part of the body, and especially the hairs, show also distinct emanations; so that, taking everything into consideration, the reader will more readily realize the extreme complexity and difficulty of this study, which must be a hopelessly insoluble problem to anything but a well-developed and well-balanced psychic sight.

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According to Theosophical authorities, the general phenomenon designated as "aura," in its generic or collective sense, includes all the vehicles of the "soul," blended with certain radiations from the three lower principles "which manifest themselves within the area to which the higher vehicles extend around the body; so that each aura, if separated from the others, for scientific treatment, must be thought of as conterminous with the others" (Sinnett, "Growth of the Soul," I 34). In a similar manner, in previous works, Mr. Sinnett, and after him Mr. Leadbeater, who merely copies him on this point, both say "that each of these various components constitutes as it were, a distinct aura, and would, if all the others were withdrawn, be seen to occupy the same space as the entire mass." Now from the observations known to the writer and from the description that follows, this does not appear to be always or absolutely correct; or, at any rate, it is misleading, because the various auras, though mutually interblending, interpenetrating at their basis, near the body, appear to extend out each to a different length. As the sun is enveloped in a nebular egg which limits the extension of the solar system, and in the interior of which, at progressive distances from the center, revolve his various principles or sacred planets, so the whole of man's system is included in his Auric Egg; and the auras of his various principles or sheaths, while permeating each other mutually from the center outwards — that center being probably the heart or the navel — gradually extend farther away from the body, the most material, Prana, being the shallowest and closest to the skin, and the most spiritual, the Auric Egg, reaching the farthest out.

From the information at present available to the writer, the following enumeration seems to embrace the principal characteristics of the auric subdivisions seen by the best scientific psychics, in their order from the skin outward from the body:

1. A forest of vertical rays or striations of Electrical light, — health lines, — coming from the material body, probably representing the positive or solar Prana, and producing a sun-like illumination around them, often the only aura seen by clairvoyants;

2, 3. A sort of ribbon-like permanent series of five horizontal lines or stripes, one bright, colorless and four colored lines belonging [10] to the Tatwic currents and correlated with the circulatory-system, each of these various lines being separated by fainter intervals;

4. Innumerable geometrical figures and festoons, running through all the above ribbon lines, characteristic of whatever Tatwic currents maybe flowing at the time of observation, and therefore connected with the phenomenon of respiration;

5. One or more wavy, horizontal striations or radiations, emanations of magnetic or odic light, also from the body, and probably representing the negative or lunar Prana, producing a moon-like illumination above them, which blends with the preceding one;

6. A quivering emanation of caloric radiation;

7. A reddish effluvium produced by the exhalation of the unassimilated portion of the vital Prana;

8. Independent of all the above, quite separate and distinct from them, and at a variable distance from the material body, is found the Double or etheric body, bordered by its own faint Pranic Aura;

9, 10, 11. Enveloping the whole of the preceding, and extending beyond them, are seen the three permanent clouds of varying shades of pink or red, violet or blue, and orange-yellow, composing the aura of Kama, through which shoot all the shades and flashes produced by ideas, emotions and desires;

12, 13. Beyond this, another cloud of greenish hue, with a yellowish edge, belonging to the Lower Manas;

14. Over all the preceding elements, as a kind of veil, one general, uniform tint, the characteristic one of the Personality, sometimes modifying the hues of all the lower colors. It has been suggested that this might also be connected with the ruling planet;

15, 16. Then another cloud of dark blue or indigo, with an edge of bright silvery light, extending much farther than any of the preceding, and belonging to the Higher Manas;

17. Through all these various elements shoot and whirl varying geometrical figures, very different from and not connected with the Tatwic ones mentioned above;

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18, 19. Then a cloud of indescribable, spiritual blue, with an edge of glorious light, "the essence of spiritual gold light," characteristic of Buddhi;

20. A general mist of "golden dust," permeating through all the other components, and many other as yet indescribable manifestations;

21. Over and above and through all the preceding, the mysterious zone of the sacred Auric Egg.

This, of course, must be taken as only a rough sketch, far from exhaustive, a mere specimen of classification; and no doubt Masters distinguish in the various Auras yet many more subdivisions and many more shades of colors; so that, having also the key to the value and significance of each, it cannot be wondered that they should thereby be able to read out the nature and status, the past and the present of the entity to whom the Aura belongs, as they would an open book.

Here, in order to make the description of the Aura, — with the various emanations mingled within it, — clearer to the ordinary reader, it will be proper to say that, while the methodical study of the question brings one immediately to recognize how its various divisions are intimately connected with the composite nature of man, as taught by Theosophy, and with the known septenary subdivisions of his "Principles," it also soon leads the student to the necessity of viewing these principles somewhat differently from the enumeration ordinarily used in the earlier Theosophical works.

But this view agrees perfectly with the change which of late is apparent in our literature, — more especially since the publication of the studies of Mrs. Besant — a change due to a more extended knowledge of Theosophic concepts. The septenary principles are no longer considered as basic component parts of the entity, but instead, the tendency is towards the adoption of the Indian system of classifying them as sheaths or Koshas. The Hindus use exoterically a division in 5 koshas, which is mentioned in the Secret Doctrine (I. 157). But, a study of the Aura soon compels one to admit the existence of seven such sheaths, the triadic entity still being above and outside of them, thus making of the perfect man [12] a Decade instead of a septenary, and bringing him to the Pythagorean complete or sacred number, ten.

Now, this appears to be also the occult classification; and, although H. P. Blavatsky was obliged to restrict herself publicly on many points, yet in the Secret Doctrine, she does refer many times to this decadic division, plainly enough to any one who can read between the lines, and still plainer in the diagram on the Planes (Secret Doctrine I, 200). Thus, after reading that the Monad is the "emanating Spark from the uncreated Ray, — a mystery" (Secret Doctrine I, 571), we find that "viewed as ONE, it is above the seventh principle in Kosmos and in Man, and viewed as a TRIAD" — man thus being ten numbers in all — "IT (the Spark) is the direct radiant progeny of the compound Unit of Deity" (ibid. 573); then again we read that according to Pythagoras, the Monad of the Absolute "returns into silence and darkness as soon as it has evolved the Monad of the Triad, from which emanate in their turn, the remaining seven numbers of the ten numbers which are at the basis of the manifested Universe" (ibid. 427) * * * "this figure ten, or unity with in the zero, being the symbol of Deity, of the Universe and of Man" (Secret Doctrine II, 581). Elsewhere, it is said that this Pythagorean Decade, representing the Universe * * * * "presented two sides or aspects to the student, it could be and was first applied to the Macrocosm, after which it descended to the Microcosm or Man," so that "the purely intellectual, metaphysical or inner Science and the purely materialistic or surface science * * * * * could both be expounded by and contained in this Decade" (ibid. 573). Furthermore, the fact that our Monad is truly the triadic emanating Spark "from the uncreated Ray" and exists "outside of the other seven principles", (or vehicles) is plainly corroborated by the Stanzas themselves (VII, 5): "the Spark hangs from the Flame by the finest thread of Fohat, it journeys through the Seven Worlds of Maya, it stops in the first and is a metal and a stone, it passes into the second, and behold, a plant, the plant whirls through seven forms and becomes a sacred animal, and from the combined attributes of these, Manu, the man, the thinker, is formed;" and H. P. Blavatsky adds [13] significantly in her commentary: "What is that Spark which hangs from the Flame? it is Jiva, the (human) monad in conjunction with Manas or rather the aroma — that which remains from each personality when worthy — and hangs from (Para) Atma-Buddhi-Manas, the Flame, by the thread of life * * * In whatever way interpreted and in whatever number of principles the human being is divided, it may easily be shown that this doctrine is supported by all the ancient religions from the Vedic to the Egyptian, from the Zoroastrian to the Jewish. In the case of the last mentioned, the Kabalistic works offer abundant proof of this statement. The entire system of Kabalistic numerals is based upon the Divine Septenary hanging down from the Triad, thus forming the Decade" (Secret Doctrine, I. 238—239). Other quotations could be adduced, (Secret Doctrine I. 333, II. 463; Isis Unveiled II. 98, 171) but these will suffice, if we add that ten being the true number of the Universe it must by virtue of the Esoteric law "as above, so below," be also that of man. But "the ten being the sacred number of the Universe, it was secret, esoteric," (ibid. 360), and this is why the public use of it was not allowed when Theosophy was first given out to a scoffing, incredulous world. It was however used in the teaching of the Esoteric classes of the Theosophical Society, but given out only under a strict pledge of secrecy, which has just been removed by the publication of the 3rd volume of the Secret Doctrine, the times having apparently been found ripe for less exclusive reserve. Consequently, as foreshadowed in the first volumes of the Secret Doctrine, — without entirely discarding the use of the number Seven, which is decidedly the ruling one on the lower, material planes, but not complete when spirituality has to betaken into account, [*] — henceforth in the study of man, the old incomplete septenary classifications will have to give way to one based on the Pythagorean sacred Decade. In this, the upper Three or Triad, our true Individuality, will be reserved to the three higher "arupa" planes, while the lower Seven will naturally refer only to the envelopes, which the Monad has to clothe himself with [14] to penetrate through the seven "rupa" planes of form and matter, each envelope being made of the matter of the corresponding plane, [*] — as follows:

   1. 2. 3. or Δ the Monad, Jiva or Higher Ego, three in one, one in three, the invisible divine Spark of the "Stanzas" emanation of the highest (para) Atma-Buddhi-Manas or Universal Spirit;

4. (old 1, Atma) Atmic Aura, Auric Egg, or highest immortal vehicle, sheath, kosha or body;

5. ( " 2, Buddhi) Buddhic or Nirvanic sheath; { Inhaled or absorbed; and exhaled;

6. ( " 3, Higher Manas), Higher Devachanic sheath;

7. ( " 4, Lower Manas) Lower Devachanic or Psychic sheath, the personality;

8. ( " 5, Kama) Astral or Kamic sheath of passions and desires;

9. ( " 6, Prana), Pranic envelope, vitality or life;

10. ( " 7, Sariras), { Linga, Etheric Body, or Double, Sthula, Material, dense Body;

In this classification, each lower sheath is the vehicle of the full entity clothed in its higher sheaths, and this agrees perfectly with the direct observations of the Aura. [†] But all this seems to be farther from, and more irreconcilable than ever with the Christian division, generally used by the Churches, of two parts only, Soul and Body. St. Paul, however, who was an Occultist, went a little further and admitted three divisions, Body, Soul and Spirit, and [15] this order can readily be made to match into the above decadic one, if we allow subdivisions to each of the three, as follows:

Our "Spark" of divinity, or Triadic Monad, clothed in its Auric Egg or Incorruptible Body, corresponds to "Spirit" as understood by St. Paul. In that which the apostle termed "Soul," which was avowedly in itself triadic, viz: spiritual, human and animal (the human one being itself further dual, higher and lower, mind and intellect), we can easily find our four middle Sheaths, — Buddhic, Manasic, Psychic and Kamic, — with their soul attributes; and his "Body" is really our dense body crystallized, built upon our subtle Etheric model, both being connected with the Soul, — with i.e., our four middle sheaths, — by the Vitality (Prana), which, in fact, permeates all the other principles, vivifying the whole human total. In this wise, we easily dispose of the whole of the sacred Decade into the Christian Triad. [*]

Footnotes for Chapter I.

  1. In the Hindu literature, it is often referred to as the individual "Akashic Sphere."
  2. "All the ancient Cosmologies based the whole of their mysteries on the number TEN, the highest Triangle, 1—2—3, standing for the invisible, metaphysical world, the lower three and four, or SEPTENATE, for the physical realm." (Secret Doctrine, II, 603).
  3. The justification of this theory of various sheaths can easily be undertaken: For Spirit, — or the Ego, — to be able to plunge into matter and gather experience from each successive plane or kind of matter, it cannot go unprotected, "naked," but it must clothe itself with matter belonging to the plane into which it has to live for the time being. Thus, when ready for reincarnation, the Ego first clothes himself, — or lines his Auric Egg, — with matter of the highest tenuity, belonging to the highest spiritual plane; then starting down, he successively assumes matter from the Manasic and Kamic, or Astral, planes; coming lower still, the physical body, built upon its Etheric model, is finally crystallized in the midst of the eternal Auric Egg, whose expansibility allows the full growth of the other bodies, and who thus contains always the entire man. Through these various coatings, the reincarnating Ego is enabled to obey the laws of life and expansion in all his components and upon all planes, — Spirit, Soul and Bodies, — each of which gradually develops, grows better defined for its ultimate purpose of accomplishing Nature's purpose, man's complete evolution.
  4. It will be well to repeat here that the numbering of the principles is a mere question of metaphysical order, or better, of spiritual progress; so, the strict enumeration of any one man ought to be made according to the natural predominance of his principles between themselves. In this century, the predominant and consequently first principles of the majority would probably be Kama; in many others, characterized by their superb assertion of personality, it might be Lower Manas; in some, it might simply be Prana, or even the physical body, while in only a small minority, it would be Higher Manas or Buddhi.
  5. All this will be still better shown on the annexed diagram of Concordances.

References

  1. Blavatsky, H P. The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy. Theosophical University Press, 1888. Print. [Reprint, paperback: <http://amzn.to/1B3pMHD>; also available in digital forms: <http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd-hp.htm>]
  2. Blavatsky, H. P. Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge of the Theosophical Society: Discussions on the Stanzas of the First Volume of the Secret Doctrine. London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1890. Print. [Digital: <http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008680633>]
  3. Marques, Auguste J.B. Scientific Corroborations of Theosophy; Or, H.P.B.'s Secret Doctrine Vindicated by the Progress of Science: A Lecture by A. Marques. San Francisco: Mercury Print, 1897. Print. [Digital: <http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011257214>]
  4. Richardson, Benjamin W. The Asclepiad: A Book of Original Research and Observation in the Science, Art, and Literature of Medicine, Preventive and Curative. Vol. 10. London: Longmans, Green, 1893. Print. [Digital: <http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000522881>]
  5. Sinnett, Alfred P. The Growth of the Soul: A Sequel to "Esoteric Buddhism". London: Theosophical Pub. Society, 1896. Print. [Digital: <http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001405886>]
  6. Sinnett, Alfred P. Transactions of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society: No. 18, The Human Aura. London: The Theosophical Publishing Company, 1895. Print.
  7. Waddell, Laurence A. The Buddhism of Tibet: Or Lamaism with Its Mystic Cults, Symbolism and Mythology, and Its Relation to Indian Buddhism. London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1895. 357. Print. [Digital: <http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001394430>]
  8. -- Lucifer, 17:2 (October 1895): 102. Print.
  9. Leadbeater, C.W. "The Aura." The Theosophist, 17:3 (December 1895): 134. Print.
  10. -- The Theosophist, 17:3 (December 1895): 182. Print.

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