Theosophy - Ancient Opinions Upon Psychic Bodies - and - The Popular Idea of Soul-survival - by H.P.Blavatsky
Ancient Opinions Upon Psychic Bodies
by H.P. Blavatsky
originally
published in The Theosophist, Vol 1
by
The Theosophical Society, Adyar, Chennai [Madras].
India 600 020
and
reprinted from “Theosophical Siftings” Volume
1 -
[Page
15] It must
be confessed that modern Spiritualism falls very short
of the ideas formerly suggested by the sublime designation
which it has assumed. Chiefly intent upon recognising
and putting forward the phenomenal proofs of a future
existence, it concerns itself little with speculations
on the distinction between matter and spirit, and rather
prides itself on having demolished Materialism without
the aid of metaphysics. Perhaps a Platonist might say that
the recognition of a future existence is consistent with
a very practical and even dogmatic materialism, but it
is rather to be feared that such a materialism as this
would not greatly disturb the spiritual or intellectual
repose of our modern phenomenalists. [ "I
am afraid”, says Thomas Taylor, in his Introduction
to the Phaedo, “there are scarcely any at
the present day who know that it is one thing for the soul
to be separated from the body, and another for the body
to be separated from the soul, and that the former is by
no means a necessary consequence of the latter”] Given
the consciousness, with its sensibilities safely housed
in the psychic body, which demonstrably survives the physical
carcass, and we are like men saved from shipwreck, who
are for the moment thankful and content, not giving thought
whether they are landed on a hospitable shore, or a barren
rock, or on an island of cannibals. It is not, of course,
intended that this "hand to
mouth" immortality is sufficient for the many thoughtful
minds whose activity gives life and progress to the movement,
but that it affords a relief which most people feel when
in an age of doubt they make the discovery that they are
undoubtedly to live again. To the question, "How
are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come?" modern
Spiritualism, with its empirical methods, is not adequate
to reply. Yet, long before Paul suggested it, it had the
attention of the most celebrated schools of philosophy,
whose speculations on the subject, however little they
may seem to be verified, ought not to be without interest
to us, who, after all, are still in the infancy of a Spiritualist
revival.
It
would not be necessary to premise, but for the frequency
with which the phrase occurs, that the “spiritual body” is
a contradiction in terms. The office of body is to relate
spirit to an objective world. By platonic writers it is usually
termed okhema — "vehicle". It is the medium
of [Page
16] action and
also of sensibility. In this philosophy the conception of
soul was not simply, as with us, the immaterial subject of
consciousness. How warily the interpreter has to tread here,
every one knows who has dipped even superficially into the
controversies among the Platonists themselves. All admit
the distinction between the rational and the irrational part
or principle, the latter including, first, the sensibility,
and, secondly, the plastic, or that power which in obedience
to its sympathies enables the soul to attach itself to, and
to organize into a suitable body, those substances of the
universe to which it is most congruous. It is more difficult
to determine whether Plato or his principal followers recognized
in the rational soul or nous a distinct and
separable entity — that which is sometimes
discriminated as “the Spirit”. Dr. Henry
More, no mean authority, repudiates this interpretation. "There
can be nothing more monstrous", he says, "than
to make two souls in man, the one sensitive, the other
rational, really distinct from one another, and to give
the name of Astral Spirit to the former; when there is
in man no astral spirit save the plastic of the soul itself,
which is always inseparable from the rational. Nor upon
any other account can it be called astral, but as it is
liable to that corporeal temperament which proceeds from
the stars, or rather from any material causes in general,
as not being yet sufficiently united with the divine body — that
vehicle of divine virtue or power". So
he maintains that the Kabalistic three souls — Nephesh, Ruach,
Neshama — originate in a misunderstanding
of the true Platonic doctrine, which is that of a threefold “vital
congruity”. These correspond to the
three degrees of bodily existence, or to the three vehicles,
the terrestrial, the aerial, and the ethereal.
The latter is the augoeides — the
luciform vehicle of the purified soul whose irrational
part has been brought under complete subjection to the
rational. The aerial is that in which the
great majority of mankind find themselves at the dissolution
of the terrestrial body, and in which the incomplete process
of purification has to be undergone during long ages of
preparation for the soul's return to its primitive etherial
state. For it must be remembered that the pre-existence
of souls is a distinguishing tenet of this philosophy,
as of the Kabala. The soul has "sunk into matter".
From its highest original state the revolt of its irrational
nature has awakened and developed successively its vitalcongruities with
the regions below passing, by means of its Plastic, first
into the aerial and afterwards into the terrestrial
condition. Each of these regions teems also with an appropriate
population which never passes, like the human soul, from
one to the other — "gods”, “demons”,
and, "animals”. [The allusion here is
to those beings of the several kingdoms of the elements
which we Theosophists, following after the Kabalists, have
called the “Elementals” ] As
to the duration, "the shortest of all is that of
the terrestrial vehicle. In the aerial, the soul
may inhabit, as they define, many ages, and in the ethereal
forever". Speaking [Page
17] of
the second body, Henry More says: "The soul's astral
vehicle is of that tenuity that itself can as easily
pass the smallest pores of the body as the light does
glass, or the lightning the scabbard of a sword without
tearing or scorching of it". And again: "I shall make
bold to assert that the soul may live in an aerial
vehicle as well as in the ethereal, and that there are
very few that arrive to that high happiness as to acquire
a celestial vehicle immediately upon their quitting the
terrestrial one, that heavenly chariot necessarily carrying
us in triumph to the greatest happiness the soul of man
is capable of, which would arrive to all men indifferently,
good or bad, if the parting with this earthly body would
suddenly mount us into the heavenly, when by a just Nemesis
the souls of men that are not heroically virtuous will
find themselves restrained within the compass of this
caliginous air, as both reason itself suggests, and the
Platonists have unanimously determined".
Thus, also, the most thorough-going and probably the
most deeply versed in the doctrines of the master among
modern Platonists, Thomas Taylor (Introduction, Phaedo). "After
this our divine philosopher informs that the pure soul
will after death return to pure and eternal natures; but
that the impure soul, in consequence of being imbued with
terrene affections, will be drawn down to a kindred nature,
and be invested with a gross vehicle capable of being seen
by the corporeal eye. [This is the Hindu theory
of nearly every one of the Aryan philosophies] For
while a propensity to body remains in the soul, it causes
her to attract a certain vehicle to herself, either of
an aerial
nature or composed from the vapours and spirit of her terrestrial
body, or which is recently collected from the surrounding
air; for, according to the arcana of the Platonic philosophy,
between an etherial body which is simple and immaterial,
and is the eternal connate vehicle of the soul, and a terrene
body which is material and composite, and of short duration,
there is an aerial body which is material indeed,
but simple and of a more extended duration; and in this
body the unpurified soul dwells for a long while after
its exit from hence, till this pneumatic vehicle being
dissolved, it is again invested with a composite body;
while, on the contrary, the purified soul immediately ascends
to the celestial regions with its ethereal vehicle alone."Always
it is the disposition of the soul that determines the quality
of its body. "However the soul be affected", says
Porphyry (translated by Cudworth), "so does it always
find a body suitable and agreeable to its present disposition,
and therefore to the purged soul does naturally accrue
a body that comes next to immateriality, that is, an
ethereal one". And the same author: "The soul is never
quite naked of all body, but has always some body or
other joined with it, suitable and agreeable to its present
disposition (either a purer or impurer one). But that
at its first quitting this gross earthly body, the spirituous
body which accompanieth it (as its vehicle) must needs
go away fouled and incrassated with the vapours and steams
thereof, till the soul afterwards by degrees purifying
itself, this becometh at length a dry [Page
18] splendour,
which hath no misty obscurity nor casteth any shadow".
Here, it will be seen, we lose sight of the specific
difference of the two future vehicles: the ethereal
is regarded as a sublimation of the aerial This, however,
is opposed to the general consensus of Plato's commentators.
Sometimes the ethereal body, or augoeides, is appropriated
to the rational soul, or spirit, which must then be
considered as a distinct entity, separable from the
lower soul. Philoponus, a Christian writer, says "that
the rational soul, as to its energy, is separable from
all body; but the irrational part, or life thereof,
is separable only from this gross body, and not from
all body whatsoever, but hath, after death, a spirituous
or airy body, in which it acteth — this I
say, is a true opinion which shall afterwards be proved
by us . . . . The irrational life of the soul hath
not all its being in this gross earthly body, but remaineth
after the soul's departure out of it, having for its
vehicle and subject the spirituous body, which itself
is also compounded out of the four elements, but receiveth
its denomination from the predominant part, to wit,
air, as this gross body of ours is called earthy from
what is most predominant therein" (Cudworth, Intell.
Syst.). From the same source we extract the following: "Wherefore
these ancients say that impure souls, after their departure
out of this body, wander here up and down for a certain
space in their spirituous, vaporous and airy body,
appearing about sepulchers and haunting their former
habitation. For which cause there is great reason that
we should take care of living well, as also of abstaining
from a fouler and grosser diet; these ancients telling
us likewise that this spirituous body of ours, being
fouled and incrassated by evil diet, is apt to render
the soul in this life also more obnoxious to the disturbances
of passion. They further add that there is something
of the plantal or plastic life, also exercised by the
soul, in those spirituous or airy bodies after death;
they being nourished, too, though not after the same
manner as those gross earthy bodies of ours are here,
but by vapours, and that not by parts or organs, but
throughout the whole of them (as sponges), they imbibing
everywhere those vapours. For which cause those who
are wise will in this life also take care of using
a thinner and dryer diet, that so that spirituous
body (which we have also at this present time within
our proper body) may not be clogged and incrassed,
but attenuated. Over and above which, those ancients
made use of catharms, or purgations, to the same end
and purpose also. For as this earthy body is washed
by water, so is that spirituous body cleansed by cathartic
vapours — some of these vapours being nutritive,
others purgative. Moreover, these ancients further
declared concerning this spirituous body that it was
not organized, but did the whole of it in every part
exercise all the functions of sense, the soul hearing,
seeing, and perceiving all sensibles by it everywhere.
For which cause Aristotle himself affirmeth in his
Metaphysics that there is properly but one sense and
one sensory. He by this one sensory meaneth the spirit,
in subtle airy body, in which the sensitive power
doth all of it, through the [Page
19] whole,
immediately apprehend all variety of sensibles. And
if it be demanded to how it comes to pass that this
spirit becomes organized in sepulchers, and most
commonly of human form, but sometimes in the forms
of other animals, to this these ancients replied that
their appearing so frequently in human form proceeded
from their being incrassated with evil diet, and then,
as it were, stamped upon with the form of this exterior
ambient body in which they are, as crystal is formed
and coloured like to those things which it is fastened
in, or reflects the image of them. And their having
sometimes other different forms proceedeth from the
phantastic power of the soul itself, which can at
pleasure transform the spirituous body into any shape.
For being airy, when it is condensed and fixed, it
becometh visible, and again invisible and vanishing
out of sight when it is expanded and rarified".
(Proem in Aristotle, “De Anima”.)
And
Cudworth says, "Though those spirits or ghosts had certain
supple bodies which they could so far condense as to
make them sometimes visible to men, yet is it reasonable
enough to think that they could not constipate or fix
them into such a firmness, grossness, and solidity as
that of flesh and bone as to continue therein, or at
least not without such difficulty and pain as would hinder
them from attempting the same. Notwithstanding which
it is not denied that they may possibly sometimes make
use of other solid bodies, moving and acting them, as
in that famous story of Phlegon's, when the body vanished
not as other ghosts used to do, but was left a dead carcase
behind".
In
all these speculations the AnimaMundi plays
a conspicuous part. It is the source and principle of
all animal souls, including the irrational soul of man.
But in man, who would otherwise be merely analogous to
other terrestrial animals, this soul participates in
a higher principle, which tends to raise and convert
it to itself. To comprehend the nature of this union,
or hypostasis, it would be necessary to have mastered
the whole of Plato's philosophy as comprised in the “Parmenides” and
the “Timaeus” ; and he
would dogmatize rashly who without this arduous preparation
should claim Plato as the champion of an unconditional immortality.
Certainly in the "Phaedo",
the dialogue popularly supposed to contain all Plato's teaching
on the subject, the immortality allotted to the impure soul
is of a very questionable character, and we should rather
infer from the account there given that the human personality,
at all events, is lost by successive immersions “into
matter”. The following passage from Plutarch will at
least demonstrate the antiquity of notions which have recently
been mistaken for fanciful novelties: " Every soul hath
some portion of nous — reason, — a
man cannot be a man without it; but as much of each soul
as is mixed with flesh and appetite is changed, and through
pain and pleasure becomes irrational. Every soul does not
mix herself after one sort: some plunge themselves into the
body, and so in this life their whole frame is corrupted
by appetite and passion; others are mixed as to some part,
but the purer part still remains without the body. It is
not drawn down into the body [Page
20] but it
swims above, and touches the extremest part of the man's
head; it is like a cord to hold up and direct the subsiding
part of the soul, as long as it proves obedient and is
not overcome by the appetites or the flesh. The part that
is plunged into the body is called the soul; but the incorruptible
part is called the nous, and the vulgar think
it is within them, as they likewise imagine the image
reflected from a glass to be in that glass. But the more
intelligent, who know it to be without, call it a Daemon".
And in that learned work, “Isis Unveiled”,
we have two Christian authorities, Irenaeus and Origen,
cited for a like distinction between spirit and soul
in such a manner as to show that the former must necessarily
be regarded as separable from the latter. In the distinction
itself there is of course no novelty for the most moderately
well-informed. It is insisted upon in many modern works,
among which maybe mentioned Heard's “Tricotomy
of Man”
and Green's “Spiritual Philosophy” ;
the latter being an exposition of Coleridge's opinion
on this and cognate subjects. But the difficulty of regarding
the two principles as separable in fact as well as in
logic arises from the sense, if it is not the illusion,
of personal identity. That we are partible, and that
one part only is immortal, the non-metaphysical mind
rejects with the indignation which is always encountered
by a proposition which is at once distasteful and unintelligible.
Yet, perhaps, it is not a greater difficulty (if, indeed,
it is not the very same) than that hard saying which
troubled Nicodemus and which yet has been the key-note
of the mystical religious consciousness ever since. This,
however, is too extensive and deep a question to be treated
in this article, which has for its object chiefly to
call attention to the distinctions introduced by ancient
thought into the conceptions of body as the instrument
or "vehicle" of soul. That there is a correspondence
between the spiritual condition of man and the medium of
his objective activity every spiritualist will admit to
be probable, and it may well be that some light is thrown
on future states by the possibility or the manner of
spirit-communication with this one.