Theos-Talk Archives (October 2004 Message tt00263)

Blavatsky/Mahatma accounts "clash very 
emphatically" with Leadbeater's descriptions.....

The late Dr. Hugh Shearman, a Theosophist and 
a priest in the Liberal Catholic Church, once
admitted:

". . . the accounts of after-death conditions 
in her [Blavatsky's] own direct writings and 
in the Mahatma Letters clash very emphatically 
not only with what Bishop Leadbeater and other 
members of the [Adyar Theosophical] Society 
later described, but also with descriptions 
given by psychics quite unconnected with the 
Society." 

Another Theosophist, Helen Zahara also wrote:

"The original statements in the Theosophical 
Society regarding the after death processes 
were given in Letters of the Mahatmas to A.P. 
Sinnett. . . . One must, however, note that 
a different description of the after death 
process appears in some works by theosophical 
writers. One such exponent was C.W. Leadbeater, 
a notable clairvoyant, who recorded what he 
saw of after death conditions. . . . This 
[Leadbeater's version] would seem to be at 
variance with the original teaching."  

In light of some of the material in 

"Jehovah Witnesses & Mahatma KH/HPB on Body/Soul/Spirit & Life after 
Death"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/19586

one might gain some insight into the reasons
for these differences.

I would suggest that in the Blavatsky/Mahatma
corpus of writings one is given the esoteric
meaning/ideas whereas A.P. Sinnett, C.W. Leadbeater and
other later theosophical writers succumbed to
spiritualistic/exoteric influences.

In the 1885 Fifth edition of A.P. Sinnett's ESOTERIC BUDDHISM,
you will find a NEW annotation/appendix added which
shows the beginning of this "succumbing". This annotation was
not in the original 1883 edition.

Sinnett writes in this new annotation the following:

---------------------------------------------------

There is no part of the present volume which I now regard as in so 
much urgent need of amplification as the two chapters which have just 
been passed. The Kāma loca stage of existence, and that higher
region 
or state of Devachan, to which it is but the antechamber, were, 
designedly I take it, left by our teachers in the first instance in 
partial obscurity, in order that the whole scheme of evolution might 
be the better understood. The spiritual state which immediately 
follows our present physical life, is a department of Nature, the 
study of which is almost unhealthily attractive for every one who 
once realizes that some contact with it - some processes of 
experiment with its conditions - are possible even during this life. 
Already we can to a certain extent discern the phenomena of that 
state of existence into which a human creature passes at the death of 
the body. The experience of spiritualism has supplied us with facts 
concerning it in very great abundance. These facts are but too highly 
suggestive of theories and inferences which seem to reach the 
ultimate limits of speculation, and nothing but the bracing mental 
discipline of esoteric study in its broadest aspect will protect any 
mind addressed to the consideration of these facts from conclusions 
which that study shows to be necessarily erroneous. For this reason, 
theosophical inquirers have nothing to regret as far as their own 
progress in spiritual science is at stake, in the circumstances which 
have hitherto induced them to be rather neglectful of the problems 
that have to do with the state of existence next following our own. 
It is impossible to exaggerate the intellectual advantages to be 
derived from studying the broad design of Nature throughout those 
vast realms of the future which only the perfect clairvoyance of the 
adepts can penetrate, before going into details regarding that 
spiritual foreground, which is partially accessible to less powerful 
vision, but liable, on a first acquaintance, to be mistaken for the 
whole expanse of the future.

The earlier processes, however, through which the soul passes at 
death, may be described at this date somewhat more fully than they 
are defined in the foregoing chapter. The nature of the struggle that 
takes place in Kāma loca between the upper and lower duads may
now, I 
believe, be apprehended more clearly than at first. That struggle 
appears to be a very protracted and variegated process, and to 
constitute,- not as some of us may have conjectured at first, an 
automatic or unconscious assertion of affinities or forces quite 
ready to determine the future of the spiritual monad at the period of 
death, - but a phase of existence which may be, and in the vast 
majority of cases is more than likely to be, continued over a 
considerable series of years. And during this phase of existence it 
is quite possible for departed human entities to manifest themselves 
to still living persons through the agency of spiritual mediumship, 
in a way which may go far towards accounting for, if it does not 
altogether vindicate, the impressions that spiritualists derive from 
such communications.

But we must not conclude too hastily that the human soul going 
through the struggle or evolution of Kāma loca is in all respects 
what the first glance at the position, as thus defined, may seem to 
suggest. First of all, we must beware of too grossly materializing 
our conception of the struggle, by thinking of it as a mechanical 
separation of principles. There is a mechanical separation involved 
in the discard of lower principles when the consciousness of the Ego 
is firmly seated in the higher. Thus at death the body is 
mechanically discarded by the soul, which (in union, perhaps, with 
intermediate principles), may actually be seen by some clairvoyants 
of a high order to quit the tenement it needs no longer. And a very 
similar process may ultimately take place in Kāma loca itself, in 
regard to the matter of the astral principles. But postponing this 
consideration for a few moments, it is important to avoid supposing 
that the struggle of Kāma loca does itself constitute this
ultimate 
division of principles, or second death upon the astral plane.

The struggle of Kāma loca is in fact the life of the entity in
that 
phase of existence. As quite correctly stated in the text of the 
foregoing chapter, the evolution taking place during that phase of 
existence is not concerned with the responsible choice between good 
and evil which goes on during physical life. Kāma loca is a
portion 
of the great world of effects, - not a sphere in which causes are 
generated (except under peculiar circumstances). The Kāma loca 
entity, therefore, is not truly master of his own acts; he is rather 
the sport of his own already established affinities. But these are 
all the while asserting themselves, or exhausting themselves, by 
degrees, and the Kāma loca entity has an existence of vivid 
consciousness of one sort or another the whole time. Now a
moment's 
reflection will show that those affinities, which are gathering 
strength and asserting themselves, have to do with the spiritual 
aspirations of the life last experienced, while those which are 
exhausting themselves have to do with its material tastes, emotions, 
and proclivities. The Kāma loca entity, be it remembered, is on
his 
way to Devachan, or, in other words, is growing into that state which 
is the Devachanic state, and the process of growth is accomplished by 
action and reaction, by ebb and flow, like almost every other in 
Nature, - by a species of oscillation between the conflicting 
attractions of matter and spirit. Thus the Ego advances towards 
Heaven, so to speak, or recedes towards earth, during his Kāma
loca 
existence, and it is just this tendency to oscillate between the two 
poles of thought or condition, that brings him back occasionally 
within the sphere of the life he has just quitted.

It is not by any means at once that his ardent sympathies with that 
life are dissipated. His sympathies with the higher aspects of that 
life, be it remembered, are not even on their way to dissipation. For 
instance, in what is here referred to as earthly affinity, we need 
not include the exercise of affection, which is a function of 
Devachanic existence in a pre-eminent degree. But perhaps even in 
regard to his affections there may be earthly and spiritual aspects 
of these, and the contemplation of them, with the circumstances and 
surroundings of the earth-life, may often have to do with the 
recession towards earth-life of the Kāma loca entity referred to 
above.

Of course it will be apparent at once that the intercourse which the 
practice of spiritualism sets up between the Kāma loca entities as 
here in view, and the friends they have left on earth, must go on 
during those periods of the soul's existence in which earth
memories 
engage its attention; and there are two considerations of a very 
important nature which arise out of this reflection.

1st. While its attention is thus directed, it is turned away from the 
spiritual progress on which it is engaged during its oscillations in 
the other direction. It may fairly well remember, and in conversation 
refer to, the spiritual aspirations of the life on earth, but its new 
spiritual experiences appear to be of an order that cannot be 
translated back into terms of the ordinary physical intellect, and, 
besides that, to be not within the command of the faculties which are 
in operation in the soul during its occupation with old-earth 
memories. The position might be roughly symbolized, but only to a 
very imperfect extent, by the case of a poor emigrant, whom we may 
imagine prospering in his new country, getting educated there, 
concerning himself with its public affairs and discoveries, 
philanthropy, and so on. He may keep up an interchange of letters 
with his relations at home, but he will find it difficult to keep 
them au courant with all that has come to be occupying his thoughts. 
The illustration will only fully apply to our present purpose, 
however, if we think of the emigrant as subject to a psychological 
law which draws a veil over his understanding when he sits down to 
write to his former friends, and restores him during that time to his 
former mental condition. He would then be less and less able to write 
about the old topics as time went on, for they would not only be 
below the level of those to the consideration of which his real 
mental activities had risen, but would to a great extent have faded 
from his memory. His letters would be a source of surprise to their 
recipients, who would say to themselves that it was certainly so-and-
so who was writing, but that he had grown very dull and stupid 
compared to what he used to be before he went abroad.

2ndly. It must be borne in mind that a very well-known law of 
physiology, according to which faculties are invigorated by use and 
atrophied by neglect, applies on the astral as well as on the 
physical plane. The soul in Kāma loca, which acquires the habit of 
fixing its attention on the memories of the life it has quitted, will 
strengthen and harden those tendencies which are at war with its 
higher impulses. The more frequently it is appealed to by the 
affection of friends still in the body to avail itself of the 
opportunities furnished by mediumship for manifesting its existence 
on the physical plane, the more vehement will be the impulses which 
draw it back to physical life, and the more serious the retardation 
of its spiritual progress. This consideration appears to involve the 
most influential motive which leads the representatives of 
Theosophical teaching to discountenance and disapprove of all 
attempts to hold communication with departed souls by means of the 
spiritual séance. The more such communications are genuine the
more 
detrimental they are to the inhabitants of Kāma loca concerned
with 
them. In the present state of our knowledge it is difficult to 
determine with confidence the extent to which the Kāma loca
entities 
are thus injured. And we may be tempted to believe that in some cases 
the great satisfaction derived by the living persons who communicate, 
may outweigh the injury so inflicted on the departed soul. This 
satisfaction, however, will only be keen in proportion to the failure 
of the still living friend to realize the circumstances under which 
the communication takes place. At first, it is true, very shortly 
after death, the still vivid and complete memories of earth-life may 
enable the Kāma loca entity to manifest himself as a personage
very 
fairly like his deceased self, but from the moment of death the 
change in the direction of his evolution sets in. He will, as 
manifesting on the physical plane, betray no fresh fermentation of 
thought in his mind. He will never, in that manifestation, be any 
wiser, or higher in the scale of Nature, than he was when he died; on 
the contrary, he must become less and less intelligent, and 
apparently less instructed than formerly, as time goes on. He will 
never do himself justice in communication with the friends left 
behind, and his failure in this respect will grow more and more 
painful by degrees. . . . 

The recognition of all these facts and possibilities of Kāma loca 
will, I think, afford theosophists a satisfactory explanation of a 
good many experiences connected with spiritualism which the first 
exposition of the esoteric doctrine, as bearing on this matter, left 
in much obscurity....

----------------------------------------------------

Yet in 1888, H.P. Blavatsky wrote in LUCIFER:

---------------------------------------------
According to the Eastern teaching, the state of the deceased in Kama-
loka is not what we, living men, would recognise 
as "conscious." . . . the process of stripping off the lower . . . 
principles is an unconscious one in all normal human beings. It is 
only in very exceptional cases that there is a slight return to 
consciousness in Kama-loka; and this is the case of very 
materialistic unspiritual personalities. . . . 

"In dealing with dicta of psychics and mediums, it must always be 
remembered that they translate automatically and unconsciously their 
experiences on any plane of consciousness into the languages and 
experiences of our normal plane. . . . All conclusions drawn from 
such data are vitiated . . . ."

There can be no conscious meeting in Kamaloka hence no grief. . . . 
in Kamaloka there is as a rule (apart from vicarious life and 
consciousness awakened through contact with medium) no recognition of 
friends or relatives. . . . We meet those we loved only in 
Devachan. . . .

-----------------------------------------------

Compare all of the above with the following:

At the Solemn Moment of Death: Dying & Soon After
http://blavatskyarchives.com/deathml.htm

Life After Death in Kamaloka (the Astral World)
H.P. Blavatsky versus C.W. Leadbeater
http://blavatskyarchives.com/morganafterdeath.htm

Daniel
http://blavatskystudycenter.org