[Page
1 ] H.
P. BLAVATSKY defined Occultism as “the study of the Divine
Mind in Nature”. and it would be difficult to find a nobler definition.
All life, all energies, are hidden, and only their effects are patent. The
forces by which a jewel is crystallized in the womb of the earth, by which
a plant develops from a seed, by which an animal is evolved from a germ, by
which a man feels and thinks — all these are occult, hidden from the
eyes of men, to be studied by scientists only in the phenomena of growth, of
evolution, as these present themselves, while the impelling forces, the
nature of vitality, the invisible, intangible, secret springs of all
activities, these remain ever hidden.
Moreover, this admirable
definition posits Mind behind all the manifestations which we totalize as Nature.
It is these manifestations which are woven into that garment by which we
see God (“and weave for God
the garment thou see'st Him byâ€). His Mind is revealed in natural
phenomena, and by the visibleâ€, the invisible things . . . are clearly seenâ€.
Bruno spoke of natural objects as the divine language; they are the Self-expressions
of God. In the [Page
2] divine Mind exist the Ideas
which are to be embodied in a future universe; the world of mind, the Intelligible
World
precedes the material world. So taught the Hebrews; so taught the Greeks; and
the teaching is confirmed by our everyday experience. We think, before we embody
our thought in an action. Ere a man creates a great picture, he must have the
idea of the picture in his mind; he thinks it
out
before he paints it on the canvas. It is the world of Ideas, the Intelligible
World, which is the realm explored by the Occultist.
He seeks to understand this hidden world whence flow all outer
manifestations; to grasp the Ideas which embody themselves in varied
forms; to seek the hidden sources of life and to trace their outflow, as the
physical scientist seeks and traces physical types and their evolution. He is
the scientist of the invisible, as the ordinary scientist is the scientist of the
visible, and his methods are scientific; he observes, he experiments, he
verities, he compares, and he is continually enlarging the boundaries of the
known.
The Occultist and the Mystic differ in their methods as well as in their
object. The Occultist seeks knowledge of God; the Mystic seeks union with
God. The Occultist uses Intellect; the Mystic Emotion. The Occultist
watches Ideas embodying themselves in phenomena; the Mystic unfolds
the Divine within him that it may expand into the Divinity whose Body is a
universe. These sharp-cut definitions are, of course, true only of abstract
types; the concrete [Page 3] individuals shade off into each other, and the
perfected Occultist finally includes the Mystic, the perfected Mystic finally
includes the Occultist. But on the way to perfection, the Occultist must
evolve, pari passu, his consciousness and the successive vehicles
in which that consciousness works; while the Mystic sinks into the depths
of his consciousness, and cares naught for the bodies, which he disregards
and abandons. To borrow two well known terms: the Occultist tends to become
the Jîvanmukta, the liberated Spirit residing in material bodies; the Mystic
tends to become the Jîvanmukta, the liberated Bodiless One. The
Occultists rise, grade by grade, through the Hierarchy; the Mystics become
the Nirmãnakãyas, the Reservoir of Spirituality, from which
are drawn the streams which irrigate the worlds. Blessed, holy and necessary
are both types, the two Hands of the One LOGOS in His helping of His universe.
Bearing
in mind H. P. Blavatsky's definition, we can readily see how the more ordinary
view of Occultism, that it merely means the study of the hidden — without
defining the hidden — inevitably
grows up. The Occultist is to study the Divine Mind in Nature then
he must not only expand his consciousness, so as to enter into the Divine
Mind, but must also evolve his subtle bodies and their senses, in order
to contact Nature in all the grades of subtlety of her manifestations.
This evolution of the subtle senses and the knowledge gained through them
of the phenomena of the subtle, or superphysical, worlds of matter — loom [Page
4] large
in the eyes of the superficial observer, and he comes to identify Occultism
with clairvoyance, clairaudience, traveling in the subtle bodies, and the
like. It would be as sensible if this same good gentleman identified physical
science with its apparatus — its microscopes, telescopes, spectroscopes.
The subtle senses are merely the apparatus of the Occultist, they are not
Occultism. They are the instruments by which he observes the objects which
escape the normal physical eye. As the ordinary instruments of science may
have flaws in them, and so may distort the physical objects observed, so
may the super-physical instruments have flaws in them, and distort the superphysical
objects observed. Mal-observation with a defective instrument does not
vitiate the scientific method, though it may for the moment vitiate particular
scientific conclusions. The same is true as regards mal-observations with
ill-evolved superphysical senses; the occult method is scientific and sound,
but for the moment the particular conclusions drawn by the Occultist are
erroneous. Where then is safety ? In repeated observations by many
observers — just as in physical science.
Let us examine this a little more closely. A scientific observer finds his
observations through his microscope yield him a certain picture; he draws
what he sees. Then he puts a higher power on his microscope, and again
observes the object; he obtains another picture. He compares the two. He
finds that certain parts of the object that he thought were isolated from
each other are connected with threads [Page 5] so fine that they were
invisible under the lower power. His first observations were accurate, but
incomplete. One result of such incompleteness is that every
scientific man, in giving pictures of objects as seen through the
microscope, notes on them the power of the lens through which he
observed them. Again, if a young observer, on comparing his
drawings with those made by experts and inserted in the text-books, finds
that he has inserted something not seen in the others, he will test his lens
and repeat his observation, taking another object, indentical with the
first, lest some dust, or hair, or other accidental intruder should have
presented itself unbidden for his inspection. Let us apply this to the
student of Occultism. He has evolved a power of sight beyond the
normal; he observes some etheric object, and puts down his
observations; a few years later, having evolved a higher power of sight,
he observes the object again, and finds that the two parts of it he thought
successive are divided by some intermediate process. I will take
an exact instance. Mr. Leadbeater and myself in 1895 observed that
the ultimate physical atom, being disintegrated, broke up into the coarsest
form of astral matter. In 1908, observing the same process again, with
a higher power of sight evolved during the intervening years, we saw that
the physical atom, on disintegration, ran through a series of further
disintegrations, and re-integrated finally into the coarsest form of astral
matter. The parallel with the lower and higher powers of the
microscope is complete. [Page
6]
Once
more; a young observer sees some astral form; he compares it, if he is
wise — he is not always wise — with previous observations of older
observers, or with statements by great seers in world-scriptures.
He finds his observation unlike theirs. If he is a serious student he
tries again, making repeated and careful observations, and finds out his
mistake. If he is foolish, he proclaims his mal-observation as a new
discovery.
But, it may be said, people respect the physical scientist, and accept
his observations, while they mock at those of the Occultist. All the
discoveries of new facts were mocked at before the public was ready
for them; was not Bruno burned and Galileo imprisoned for declaring
that the earth moved round the sun ? Was not Galvani called the
frogs dancing-master when he laid his finger on the hidden force
now called by his name ? What matters the mockery of ignorant
men to those whose steadfast eyes are seeking to pierce through the
veils in which Nature shrouds her secrets ?
So
far as the methods of observation of the material side of Nature are concerned,
observations carried on by means of improved apparatus — externally manufactured
or internally evolved — the
methods of physical and of superphysical science are identical. Knowledge
is gained by study of the results obtained by predecessors in the same
field, and by observations directed to similar phenomena, with a view to
verifying or correcting the results.
The evolution of the consciousness which observes through the senses is
another matter, and this plays [Page 7] a greater part in occult than in
physical science; for consciousness must unfold as higher senses evolve,
else would the better tools be useless in the hands of the inefficient
workman. But the object of physical and superphysical science alike is the
extension of the boundaries of knowledge.
Is this extension desirable or not ? If the knowledge be turned to human
service, yes; if to the increase of human misery, no. The application of
physical science to the destruction of human life is most evil; yet not for
that can we seek to block the advance of chemistry. The Occultist who
knows how to liberate the forces imprisoned in the atom will not place
within the hands of the competing nations of the world this means of
wholesale destruction. Yet he knows that chemistry is advancing in this
direction, and that it must not be hindered in its advance.
As regards the Occultists
themselves they are useful or dangerous according to their motives. If they
are devoted to the welfare of the worlds, then their rapid evolution is beneficial.
If they seek power for their own aggrandizement, then they are dangerous.
The evolution of consciousness is all to the good, for, as that unfolds,
the wider view brings the man gradually more and more into unison with the
Divine Will in evolution, and, at a certain point in this expansion, he inevitably
recognizes the all-compelling claims of the larger Self. But in the lower
stages, in the astral and mental worlds, while his self-discipline must be
rigid as regards his bodies, pride and selfishness may make him a danger
to his [Page
8] fellow
men. The discipline of the senses and the control of the mind are equally
necessary, whether the man is aiming at development for service or for
individual aggrandizement. He must lead a life of rigid temperance in all
things, and he must become master of his thoughts. But if personal
ambition rule him, if he seek to gain in order that he may hold, not in order
that he may give, then every added power becomes a menace to the world,
and he enters the ranks of the Adversary. The Occultist must evolve into
a Christ or into a Satan — to borrow the Christian terms. For him there
is no half-way house. Safer are the green pastures where the flock may feed
at peace than the arid heights, with their crevasses and their precipices,
with their shrouding mists and their crashing avalanches. None who has
trodden part of the rugged way would seek to induce others to enter on it.
But there are some whom an imperious inner force compels; some who
cannot rest by the still waters, but must seek to climb the heights. For
such the way is open, and for them there is no other way which is possible.
Only, that they may not add their shattered lives to the “wrecks which strew
the path of Occultism”, let them gird their loins with strength, let them
don the armor of purity and the helmet of unselfishness, and then let them
go forward, in the Name of the World's Redeemers, with their eyes fixed on
the Star which shines above them, careless of the stones which gash their
bleeding feet.