Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00704)

16 Excerpts from the writings of H.P. Blavatsky & the Mahatmas

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EXCERPT 1

Writing about Emmanuel Swedenborg, "the
great Swedish seer and mystic," Mme. Blavatsky
comments that Swedenborg "claimed to pass at
will into that state when the Inner Self frees
itself entirely from every physical sense, and
lives and breathes in a world where every
secret of Nature is an open book to the Soul-eye."

But she adds:

"Unless one obtains exact information and the
right method, one's visions, however correct
and true in Soul-life, will ever fail to get
photographed in our human memory, and certain
cells of the brain are sure to play havoc with
our remembrances."

Elsewhere, Madame Blavatsky states that Swedenborg's "clairvoyant
powers . . . were very remarkable; but they did not go beyond this
plane of matter; all that he says of subjective worlds and spiritual
beings is evidently far more the outcome of his exuberant fancy, than
of his spiritual insight. . . ." "The Theosophical Glossary," entry
on Swedenborg.

H.P. Blavatsky gives more information on this topic in her E.S.
Instruction No. I:

"Yet even a clairvoyant possessed of such faculties, if not an Adept,
no matter how honest and sincere he may be, will through his
ignorance of the truths of Occult Science, be led by the visions he
sees in the Astral Light only to mistake for God or Angels the
denizens of those spheres of which he may occasionally catch a
glimpse, as witness Swedenborg and others." 

Elsewhere Madame Blavatsky wrote:

". . . We find in the romances as in all the so-called scientific
fictions and spiritistic revelations from moon, stars, and planets,
merely fresh combinations or modifications of the men and things, the
passions and forms of life with which we are familiar, when even on
the other planets of our own system nature and life are entirely
different from ours. Swedenborg was pre-eminent in inculcating such
an erroneous belief. . . .

For even great adepts (those initiated of course), trained seers
though they are, can claim thorough acquaintance with the nature and
appearance of planets and their inhabitants belonging to our solar
system only. They know that almost all the planetary worlds are
inhabited, but can have access to -- even in spirit -- only those of
our system; and they are also aware how difficult it is, even for
them, to put themselves into full rapport even with the planes of
consciousness within our system, but differing from the states of
consciousness possible on this globe. . . .

Many are the romances and tales, some purely fanciful, others
bristling with scientific knowledge, which have attempted to imagine
and describe life on other globes. But one and all, they give but
some distorted copy of the drama of life around us. . . . So strong
is this tendency that even great natural, though non-initiated seers,
when untrained, fall a victim to it; witness Swedenborg, who goes so
far as to dress the inhabitants of Mercury, whom he meets with in the
spirit-world, in clothes such as are worn in Europe.

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EXCERPT 2

. . . every thought of man upon being evolved
passes into the inner world and becomes an active
entity by associating itself - coalescing, we
might term it - with an elemental; that is to say
with one of the semi-intelligent forces of
the kingdoms. It survives as an active intelligence,
a creature of the mind's begetting, for a longer or
shorter period proportionate with the original
intensity of the cerebral action which generated it.
Thus, a good thought is perpetuated as an active
beneficent power; an evil one as a maleficent demon.
And so man is continually peopling his current in
space with a world of his own, crowded with the
offsprings of his fancies, desires, impulses, and
passions. . . .

Koot Hoomi

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EXCERPT 3

Faith in the Gods and God, and other superstitions attracts
millions of foreign influences, living entities and powerful agents
[elementals?] around them [the devotees of various religions]. . . .
The unprogressed Planetaries [elementals?]. . . delight in
personating gods and sometimes well known characters who have lived
on earth. There are Dhyan-Chohans and 'Chohans of Darkness,' not what
they term devils but imperfect 'Intelligences' who have never been
born on this or any other earth or sphere no more than the 'Dhyan
Chohans' have and who will never belong to the 'builders of the
Universe,' the pure Planetary Intelligences, who preside at every
Manvantara while the Dark Chohans preside at the Pralayas. . . . As
all in this universe is contrast . . . so the light of the Dhyan
Chohans and their pure intelligence is contrasted by the 'Ma-Mo
Chohans' -- and their destructive intelligence. These are the gods
the Hindus and Christians and Mahomed and all others of bigoted
religions and sects worship. . . .

Morya

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EXCERPT 4

Vainly do your modern seers and their prophetesses, creep into every
cleft and crevice without outlet or continuity they chance to see;
and still more vainly, when once within do they lift up their voices
and loudly cry: 'Eureka! We have gotten a Revelation from the 
Lord!' - - for verily have they nothing of the kind. They have 
disturbed but bats [elementals, unprogressed Planetaries?], less 
blind than their intruders; who, feeling them flying about, mistake 
them as often for angels -- as they too, have wings! Doubt not, my 
friend: it is but from the very top of those 'adamantine rocks' of 
ours, not at their foot, that one is ever enabled to perceive the 
whole Truth, by embracing the whole limitless horizon.

Koot Hoomi

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EXCERPT 5

. . . You have heard of and read about a good many Seers, in the past
and present centuries, such as Swedenborg, Boehme, and others. Not
one among the number but thoroughly honest, sincere, and as
intelligent, as well educated; aye, even learned. Each of them in
addition to these qualities, has or had . . . a 'Guardian' and a
Revelator -- under whatever 'mystery' and 'mystic name' -- whose
mission it is -- or has been to spin out to his spiritual ward -- a
new system embracing all the details of the world of Spirit. Tell me,
my friend, do you know of two that agree? And why, since truth is
one, and that putting entirely the question of discrepancies in
details aside -- we do not find them agreeing even upon the most
vital problems -- those that have either 'to be, or not to be' -- and
of which there can be no two solutions?"

Koot Hoomi

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EXCERPT 6

Stainton Moses, a "seer" and medium of the 1880s, wrote
about his "guide":

". . . my inner spirit-sense is opened. Only yesterday . . . 
Imper[ator] . . . was clearly visible and audible to me. . . . "

To this comment by Stainton Moses [S.M.], Koot Hoomi wrote:

". . . So is Jesus and John the Baptist [clearly visible and audible]
to Edward Maitland; [who is] as true and as honest and sincere as
S.M. . . . And does not E. Maitland see Hermes the first and second
and Elijah, etc. Finally does not Mrs. [Anna] Kingsford feel as sure
as S.M. with regard to + [Imperator] that she saw and conversed with
God!! . . . And who purer or more truthful than that woman or
Maitland! Mystery, mystery will you exclaim. IGNORANCE we answer; the
creation of that we believe in and want to see. . . . "

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EXCERPT 7

[Salig Ram is] -- a truly good man -- yet a devotee of another
error. Not his guru's voice -- his own. The voice of a pure,
unselfish, earnest soul, absorbed in misguided, misdirected
mysticism. Add to it a chronic disorder in that portion of the brain
which responds to clear vision and the secret is soon told: that
disorder was developed by forced visions; by hatha yog and prolonged
asceticism. S. Ram is the chief medium and at same time the principal
magnetic factor, who spreads his disease by infection --
unconsciously to himself; who innoculates with his vision all the
other disciples. There is one general law of vision (physical and
mental or spiritual) but there is a qualifying special law proving
that all vision must be determined by the quality or grade of man's
spirit and soul, and also by the ability to translate divers
qualities of waves of astral light into consciousness. There is but
one general law of life, but innumerable laws qualify and determine
the myriads of forms perceived and of sounds heard. There are those
who are willingly and others who are unwillingly -- blind. Mediums
belong to the former, sensitives to the latter. Unless regularly
initiated and trained -- concerning the spiritual insight of things
and the supposed revelations made unto man in all ages from Socrates
down to Swedenborg . . . no self-tutored seer or clairaudient ever
saw or heard quite correctly.

. . .[Salig Ram and the other disciples] say and affirm that the one
and only God of the Universe was incarnated in their [deceased] guru,
and were such an individual to exist he would certainly be higher
than any 'planetary' [spirit]. But they are idolators. . . . Their
guru was no initiate only a man of extraordinary purity of life and
powers of endurance. He had never consented to give up his notions of
a personal god and even gods. . . . He was born an orthodox Hindu
and died a self-reformed Hindu. . . . with no ambition to taint his
bright soul. Many of us have regretted his self-delusion. . . .

Morya

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EXCERPT 8

Our Correspondent seems to have been misled as to the state of
consciousness which entities experience in Kama-loka. He seems to
have formed his conceptions on the visions of living psychics and the
revelations of living mediums. But all conclusions drawn from such
data are vitiated by the fact, that a living organism intervenes
between the observer and the Kama-loka state per se. There can be no
conscious meeting in Kama-loka, hence no grief. . . .

In dealing with the 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 language
and experience of our normal physical plane. And this confusion can
only be avoided by the special study-training of occultism, which
teaches how to trace and guide the passage of impressions from one
plane to another and fix them on the memory.

H.P. Blavatsky

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EXCERPT 9

You cannot acquire psychic power until the causes of psychic debility
are removed. . . . You have scarcely learned the elements of self-
control in psychism. . . . Your vivid creative fancy [imagination]
evokes illusive Gurus and chelas, and puts into their mouths words
coined the instant before in the mint of your mind, unknown to
yourself. The false appears as real, as the true, and you have no
exact method of detection, since you are yet prone to force your
communications to agree with your preconceptions."

Koot Hoot

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EXCERPT 10


In reference to your wonder that the views
of the three mystics "are far from being
identical," what does the fact prove? Were
they instructed by disembodied, pure, and
wise Spirits -- even by those of one remove
from our earth on the higher plane -- would
not the teachings be identical? The question
arising: "May not Spirits as well as men
differ in ideas?" Well, then their teaching --
aye, of the highest of them since they are
the "guides" of the three great London Seers
-- will not be more authoritative than
those of mortal men. "But, they may belong
to different spheres?" Well; if in the different
spheres contradictory doctrines are propounded,
these doctrines cannot contain the Truth,
for Truth is One, and cannot admit of
diametrically opposite views; and pure
Spirits who see it as it is, with the veil
of matter entirely withdrawn from it -- cannot err.

Koot Hoomi

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EXCERPT 11

[Hallucination is a] . . . state produced sometimes by 
physiological disorders, sometimes by mediumship, and at 
others by drunkenness. But the cause that produces the visions 
has to be sought deeper than physiology. All such visions, 
especially when produced through mediumship, are preceded 
by a relaxation of the nervous system, in variably generating 
an abnormal magnetic condition which attracts to the sufferer 
waves of astral light. It is the latter that furnishes the various 
hallucinations. These, however, are not always what physicians 
would make them, empty, and unreal dreams. No one can see that 
which does not exist—i.e., which is not impressed—in or on
the 
astral waves. A Seer may, however, perceive objects and scenes 
(whether past, present, or future) which have no relation whatever 
to himself, and also perceive several things entirely disconnected 
with each other at one and the same time, thus producing the most 
grotesque and absurd combinations. Both drunkard and Seer, medium 
and Adept, see their respective visions in the Astral Light; but 
while the drunkard, the madman, and the untrained medium, or one 
suffering from brain-fever, see, because they cannot help it, and 
evoke the jumbled visions unconsciously to themselves, the Adept and 
the trained Seer have the choice and the control of such visions. 
They know where to fix their gaze, how to steady the scenes they 
want to observe, and how to see beyond the upper outward layers of 
the Astral Light. With the former such glimpses into the waves are 
hallucinations: with the latter they become the faithful 
reproduction of what actually has been, is, or will be, taking 
place. The glimpses at random caught by the medium, and his 
flickering visions in the deceptive light, are transformed under the 
guiding will of the Adept and Seer into steady pictures, the 
truthful representations of that which he wills to 
come within the focus of his perception.

H.P. Blavatsky

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EXCERPT 12

No doubt, Mrs. Kingsford, the gifted author of
The Perfect Way, is the most competent person
in all Europe — I say it advisedly and unhesitatingly —
to reveal the hidden mysteries of real Christianity.
But, no more than Mr. Sinnett is she an initiate,
and cannot, therefore, know anything about a doctrine,
the real and correct meaning of which no amount of natural
seership can reveal, as it lies altogether beyond the
regions accessible to untrained seers. If revealed,
its secrets would, for long years, remain utterly
incomprehensible even to the highest physical sciences.
I hope, this may not be construed into a desire of
claiming any great knowledge for myself; for I certainly
do not possess it. All that I seek to establish is, that
such secrets do exist, and that, outside of the initiates,
no one is competent to prove, much less to disprove,
the doctrines now given out through Mr. Sinnett.

H.P. Blavatsky


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EXCERPT 13

There are two kinds of seership -- that of the soul and that of the 
spirit. The seership of the ancient Pythoness, or of the modern
mesmerized subject, vary but in the artificial modes adopted to 
induce the state of clairvoyance. But, as the visions of both depend 
upon the greater or less acuteness of the senses of the astral body,
they differ very widely from the perfect, omniscient spiritual 
state; for, at best, the subject can get but glimpses of truth, 
through the veil which physical nature interposes. The astral 
principle, or mind . . . is the sentient soul, inseparable from our 
physical brain, which it holds in subjection, and is in its turn 
equally trammelled by it.
 
This is the ego, the intellectual life-principle of man, his
conscious entity. While it is yet within the material body, the
clearness and correctness of its spiritual visions depend on its more
or less intimate relation with its higher Principle. When this
relation is such as to allow the most ethereal portions of the soul-
essence to act independently of its grosser particles and of the
brain, it can unerringly comprehend what it sees; then only is it the
pure, rational, supersentient soul. That state is known in India as
the Samaddi. . . .When the body is in the state of dharana -- a total
catalepsy of the physical frame -- the soul of the clairvoyant may
liberate itself, and perceive things subjectively. And yet, as the
sentient principle of the brain is alive and active, these pictures
of the past, present, and future will be tinctured with the
terrestrial perceptions of the objective world; the physical memory
and fancy will be in the way of clear vision. But the seer-adept
knows how to suspend the mechanical action of the brain. His visions
will be as clear as truth itself, uncolored and undistorted, whereas,
the clairvoyant, unable to control the vibrations of the astral
waves, will perceive but more or less broken images through the
medium of the brain. The seer can never take flickering shadows for
realities, for his memory being as completely subjected to his will
as the rest of the body, he receives impressions directly from his
spirit. Between his subjective and objective selves there are no
obstructive mediums. This is the real spiritual seership, in which,
according to an expression of Plato, soul is raised above all
inferior good. When we reach "that which is supreme, which is simple,
pure, and unchangeable, without form, color, or human qualities: the
God -- our Nous."

This is the state which such seers as Plotinus and Apollonius termed
the "Union to the Deity". . . but this state is as far above modern
clairvoyance as the stars above glow-worms. Plotinus, as is well
known, was a clairvoyant-seer during his whole and daily life; and
yet, he had been united to his God but six times during the sixty-six
years of his existence, as he himself confessed to Porphyry

H.P. Blavatsky

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EXCERPT 14

The world of force, is the world of Occultism and the only one 
whither the highest initiate goes to probe the secrets of being. 
Hence no-one but such an initiate can know anything of these 
secrets. Guided by his Guru the chela first discovers this world, 
then its laws, then their centrifugal evolutions into the world of 
matter. To become a perfect adept takes him long years, but at last 
he becomes the master. The hidden things have become patent, and 
mystery and miracle have fled from his sight forever. 

Koot Hoomi

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EXCERPT 15

>From Swedenborg onwards there have been many
seers who profess to gather their knowledge
of other worlds from actual observation, but
such persons are isolated, and subject to
the delusions of isolation. Any intelligent
man will have an intuitive perception of this,
expressing itself in a reluctance on his part
to surrender himself entirely to the assurances
of any such clairvoyants. But in the case of
regularly initiated seers it must be remembered
that we are dealing with a long — an extraordinarily
long — series of persons who, warned of the
confusing circumstances into which they pass
when their spiritual perceptions are trained
to range beyond material limits, are so enabled
to penetrate to the actual realities of things,
and who constitute a vast organized body of seers, who check
each other's conclusions, test each other's discoveries and
formulate their visions into a science of spirit as precise
and entirely trustworthy as, in their humble way, are the
conclusions, as far as they go, of any branch of physical
science. Such initiates are in the position, as regards
spiritual knowledge, that the regularly taught professor
of a great university is in, as regards literary knowledge,
and anyone can appreciate the superior claims of instruction
which might be received from him, as compared with the
crude and imperfect instruction which might be offered
by the merely self- taught man. The initiate's speculations,
in fact, are not spun at all; they are laid out before
him by the accumulated wisdom of ages, and he has merely
followed, verified and assimilated them.

H.P. Blavatsky

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EXCERPT 16

The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, and its 
cosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate system. The 
facts have actually occupied countless generations of initiated 
seers and prophets to marshal, to set down and explain. The flashing 
gaze of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel of matter, 
and recorded the soul of things there.  

The [Esoteric] system is no fancy of one or several isolated 
individuals. It is the uninterrupted record covering thousands of 
generations of Seers whose respective experiences were made to test 
and to verify the teachings of higher and exalted beings, who 
watched over the childhood of Humanity. For long ages, the "Wise 
Men" of the Fifth Race had passed their lives in learning by 
checking, testing, and verifying in every department of nature the 
traditions of old by the independent visions of great adepts; i.e., 
men who have developed and perfected their physical, mental, 
psychic, and spiritual organisations to the utmost possible degree. 
No vision of one adept was accepted till it was checked and 
confirmed by the visions --- so obtained as to stand as independent 
evidence --- of other adepts, and by centuries of experiences. 

H.P. Blavatsky

[The above extract has been transcribed from the original source but 
some material has been silently deleted.]

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Daniel H. Caldwell
Blavatsky Study Center
http://hpb.cc