Theos-Talk Archives (July 2006 Message tt00340)

					H  P  B   on

				    RULES IN OCCULTISM

			       [WQJ  report on conversation with  HPB]



	KARMA HERE ACTS AS IT DOES ELSEWHERE

Student. - Are there any rules, binding on all, in white magic or good
occultism? I mean rules similar to the ten commandments of the Christians,
or the rules for the protection of life, liberty, and property recognized by
human law.

Sage. - There are such rules of the most stringent character, the breaking
of which is never wiped out save by expiation. Those rules are not made up
by some brain or mind, but flow from the laws of nature, of mind, and of
soul. Hence they are impossible of nullification. One may break them and
seem to escape for a whole life or for more than a life; but the very
breaking of them sets in motion at once other causes which begin to make
effects, and most unerringly those effects at last react on the violator. 
Karma here acts as it does elsewhere, and becomes a Nemesis who, though
sometimes slow, is fate itself in its certainty.


		ZANONI

Student. - It is not, then, the case that when an occultist violates a rule
some other adept or agent starts out like a detective or policeman and
brings the culprit to justice at a bar or tribunal such as we sometimes read
of in the imaginative works of mystical writers or novelists?

Sage. - No, there is no such pursuit. On the contrary, all the fellow-adepts
or students are but too willing to aid the offender, not in escaping
punishment, but in sincerely trying to set counteracting causes in motion
for the good of all. For the sin of one reacts on the whole human family.
If, however, the culprit does not wish to do the amount of counteracting
good, he is merely left alone to the law of nature, which is in fact that of
his own inner life from which there can be no escape. 

In Lytton's novel, ZANONI, you will notice the grave Master, Mejnour, trying
to aid Zanoni, even at the time when the latter was falling slowly but
surely into the meshes twisted by himself that ended in his destruction. 

Mejnour knew the law and so did Zanoni. The latter was suffering from some
former error which he had to work out; the former, if himself too stern and
unkind, would later on come to the appropriate grief for such a mistake. But
meanwhile he was bound to help his friend, as are all those who really
believe in brotherhood.



	DO NOT COVET THE WEALTH OF ANY CREATURE.

Student. - What one of those rules in any way corresponds to "Thou shalt not
steal"?

Sage. - That one which was long ago expressed by the ancient sage in the
words, "Do not covet the wealth of any creature." This is better than "Thou
shalt not steal," for you cannot steal unless you covet. If you steal for
hunger you may be forgiven, but you coveted the food for a purpose, just as
another covets merely for the sake of possession. 

The wealth of others includes all their possessions, and does not mean mere
money alone. Their ideas, their private thoughts, their mental forces,
powers, and faculties, their psychic powers - all, indeed, on all planes
that they own or have. While they in that realm are willing to give it all
away, it must not be coveted by another.


	MIND AND IDEA THEFT

You have no right, therefore, to enter into the mind of another who has not
given the permission and take from him what is not yours. You become a
burglar on the mental and psychic plane when you break this rule. 

You are forbidden taking anything for personal gain, profit, advantage, or
use. But you may take what is for general good, if you are far enough
advanced and good enough to be able to extricate the personal element from
it. 

This rule would, you can see, cut off all those who are well known to every
observer, who WANT PSYCHIC POWERS FOR THEMSELVES and their own uses. If such
persons had those powers of inner sight and hearing that they so much want,
no power could prevent them from committing theft on the unseen planes
wherever they met a nature that was not protected. And as most of us are
very far from perfect, so far, indeed, that we must work for many lives, yet
the Masters of Wisdom do not aid our defective natures in the getting of
weapons that would cut our own hands. 

For the law acts implacably, and the breaches made would find their end and
result in long after years. The Black Lodge, however, is very willing to let
any poor, weak, or sinful mortal get such power, because that would swell
the number of victims they so much require.



	THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS


Student. - Is there any rule corresponding to "Thou shalt not bear false
witness"?

Sage. - Yes; the one which requires you never to inject into the brain of
another a false or untrue thought. As we can project our thoughts to
another's mind, we must not throw untrue ones to another. It comes before
him, and he, overcome by its strength perhaps, finds it echoing in him, and
it is a false witness speaking falsely within, confusing and confounding the
inner spectator who lives on thought.


	PRIVACY

Student. - How can one prevent the natural action of the mind when pictures
of the private lives of others rise before one?

Sage. - That is difficult for the run of men. Hence the mass have not the
power in general; it is kept back as much as possible. But when the trained
soul looks about in the realm of soul it is also able to direct its sight,
and when it finds rising up a picture of what it should not voluntarily
take, it turns its face away. 

A warning comes with all such pictures which must be obeyed. This is not a
rare rule or piece of information, for there are many natural clairvoyants
who know it very well, though many of them do not think that others have the
same knowledge.


Student. - What do you mean by a warning coming with the picture?

Sage. - In this realm the slightest thought becomes a voice or a picture.
All thoughts make pictures. Every person has his private thoughts and
desires. Around these he makes also a picture of his wish for privacy, and
that to the clairvoyant becomes a voice or picture of warning which seems to
say it must be let alone. With some it may assume the form of a person who
says not to approach, with others it will be a voice, with still others a
simple but certain knowledge that the matter is sacred. All these varieties
depend on the psychological idiosyncrasies of the seer.


	PLAGIARISM

Student. - What kind of thought or knowledge is excepted from these rules?

Sage. - General, and philosophical, religious, and moral. That is to say,
there is no law of copyright or patent which is purely human in invention
and belongs to the competitive system. When a man thinks out truly a
philosophical problem it is not his under the laws of nature; it belongs to
all; he is not in this realm entitled to any glory, to any profit, to any
private use in it. Hence the seer may take as much of it as he pleases, but
must on his part not claim it or use it for himself. Similarly with other
generally beneficial matters. They are for all. If a Spencer thinks out a
long series of wise things good for all men, the seer can take them all.
Indeed, but few thinkers do any original thinking. They pride themselves on
doing so, but in fact their seeking minds go out all over the world of mind
and take from those of slower movement what is good and true, and then make
them their own, sometimes gaining glory, sometimes money, and in this age
claiming all as theirs and profiting by it.

WQJ  Report on Conversation with  HPB,  
	PATH, January, 1895

============================================

Sage. - General, and philosophical, religious, and moral. That is to say,
there is no law of copyright or patent which is purely human in invention
and belongs to the competitive system. When a man thinks out truly a
philosophical problem it is not his under the laws of nature; it belongs to
all; he is not in this realm entitled to any glory, to any profit, to any
private use in it. Hence the seer may take as much of it as he pleases, but
must on his part not claim it or use it for himself. Similarly with other
generally beneficial matters. They are for all. If a Spencer thinks out a
long series of wise things good for all men, the seer can take them all.
Indeed, but few thinkers do any original thinking. They pride themselves on
doing so, but in fact their seeking minds go out all over the world of mind
and take from those of slower movement what is good and true, and then make
them their own, sometimes gaining glory, sometimes money, and in this age
claiming all as theirs and profiting by it.

WQJ  Report on Conversation with  HPB,  
	PATH, January, 1895

Dallas