F. The Seven Souls Of The Egyptologists.

If one turns to those wells of information, The Natural Genesis and the Lectures of Mr. Gerald Massey, the proofs of the antiquity of the doctrine under analysis become positively overwhelming. That the belief of the author differs from ours can hardly invalidate the facts. He views the symbol from a purely natural standpoint, one perhaps a [pg 667] trifle too materialistic, because too much that of an ardent Evolutionist and follower of the modern Darwinian dogmas. Thus he shows that:

But the able author of The Book of the Beginnings and of The Natural Genesis does—very fortunately, for us—quite the reverse. He demonstrates most triumphantly our Esoteric (Buddhist) teachings, by showing them identical with those of Egypt. Let the reader judge [pg 668] from his learned lecture on “The Seven Souls of Man.”1528 Says the author:

Just so, for the Hindûs place their seven primitive Rishis in the Great Bear, and call this constellation the abode of the Saptarshi, Riksha and Chitra-shikhandinas. And their Adepts claim to know whether it is only an astronomical myth, or a primordial mystery having a deeper meaning than it bears on its surface. We are also told that:

So it was with the Âryans. One has but to read the Purânas about the beginnings of Brahmâ and his Egg, to see this. Have the Âryans then, taken the idea from the Egyptians? But, as the lecturer proceeds:

All this was taught in the Esoteric Doctrine, but it was interpreted and its mysteries unlocked, as already stated, with seven, not two or, at the utmost, three keys; hence the causes and their effects worked in invisible or mystic as well as in psychic Nature, and were made referable to Metaphysics and Psychology as much as to Physiology. As the author says:

And it was so used. For:

And then, the author, with several misspellings, tabulates the two teachings—the Esoteric and the Egyptian—and shows that the latter had the same series and in the same order.

[Esoteric] Indian.	Egyptian.
1. Rûpa, body or element of form.	1. Kha, body.
2. Prâna, the breath of life.	2. Ba, the soul of breath.
3. Astral body.	3. Khaba, the shade.
4. Manas, or intelligence.1534	4. Akhu, intelligence or perception.
5. Kâma Rûpa, or animal soul.	5. Seb, ancestral soul.
6. Buddhi, or spiritual soul.	6. Putah, the first intellectual father.
7. Âtmâ, pure spirit.	7. Atmu, a divine, or eternal soul.1535

Further on, the lecturer formulates these seven (Egyptian) Souls, as (1) The Soul of Blood—the formative; (2) The Soul of Breath—that breathes; (3) The Shade or Covering Soul—that envelopes; (4) The Soul of Perception—that perceives; (5) The Soul of Pubescence—that procreates; (6) The Intellectual Soul—that reproduces intellectually; and (7) The Spiritual Soul—that is perpetuated permanently.

From the exoteric and physiological standpoint this may be very correct; it becomes less so from the Esoteric point of view. To maintain this, does not at all mean that the “Esoteric Buddhists” resolve men into a number of elementary spirits, as Mr. G. Massey, in the same lecture, accuses them of maintaining. No “Esoteric Buddhist” has ever been guilty of any such absurdity. Nor has it been ever imagined that these shadows “become spiritual beings in another world,” or “seven potential spirits or elementaries of another life.” What is maintained is simply that every time the immortal Ego incarnates it becomes, as a total, a compound unit of Matter and Spirit, which together act on seven different planes of being and consciousness. Elsewhere, Mr. Gerald Massey adds:

[pg 670]

And a still greater one, as these stars represent also the seven keys of the Seven Churches or the Sodalian Mysteries, kabalistically. However, we will not stop to discuss, but add that other Egyptologists have also discovered that the septenary constitution of man was a cardinal doctrine with the old Egyptians. In a series of remarkable articles in the Sphinx, of Munich, Herr Franz Lambert gives incontrovertible proof of his conclusions from the Book of the Dead and other Egyptian records. For details the reader must be referred to the articles themselves.

Böhme, the prince of all the mediæval seers, says:

[pg 671]

And again:

This is rendering in mystical language our theosophical doctrine. But how can we agree with Mr. Gerald Massey when he states that:

Each of these descriptions, allegorical and even perverted in their later form, is, nevertheless, an echo of the Secret Doctrine teaching. They all refer to the pre-human evolution of the “Water-men terrible and bad” by unaided Nature through millions of years, as previously described. But we deny point-blank the assertion that “these were never real races,” and point to the Archaic Stanzas for our answer. It is easy to infer and to say that our “instructors have mistaken these shadows of the Past, for things human and spiritual”; but that “they are neither, and never were either,” it is less easy to prove. The assertion must ever remain on a par with the Darwinian claim that man and the ape had a common pithecoid ancestor. What the lecturer takes for a “mode of expression” and nothing more, in the Egyptian Ritual, we take as having quite another and an important meaning. Here is one instance. Says the Ritual, the Book of the Dead:

The last sentence but one is explained by the lecturer, who says parenthetically, “that is, as a type of intelligence,” and the last as meaning, “the Horus, or Christ, as the outcome of all.”

[pg 672]

The Occult Teaching answers: It means far more.

It gives first of all a corroboration of the teaching that, while the human Monad has passed on Globe A and others, in the First Round, through all the three kingdoms—the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal—in this our Fourth Round, every mammal has sprung from Man, if the semi-ethereal, many-shaped creature with the human Monad in it, of the first two Races, can be regarded as Man. But it must be so called; for, in the Esoteric language, it is not the form of flesh, blood, and bones, now referred to as man, which is in any way the Man, but the inner divine Monad with its manifold principles or aspects.

The lecture referred to, however, much as it opposes Esoteric Buddhism and its teachings, is an eloquent answer to those who have tried to represent the whole as a new-fangled doctrine. And there are many such, in Europe, America, and even India. Yet, between the Esotericism of the old Arhats, and that which has now survived in India among the few Brâhmans who have seriously studied their Secret Philosophy, the difference does not appear so very great. It seems centred in, and limited to, the question of the order of the evolution of cosmic and other principles, more than anything else. At all events it is no greater divergence than the everlasting question of the filioque dogma, which since the eighth century has separated the Roman Catholic from the older Greek Eastern Church. Yet, whatever the differences in the forms in which the septenary dogma is presented, the substance is there, and its presence and importance in the Brâhmanical system may be judged by what one of India's learned meta-physicians and Vedântic scholars says of it:

The above is perfectly correct, save, perhaps, on one point. The “seven-fold classification” in the Esoteric System has never (to the writer's knowledge) been claimed by any one belonging to it, as “the peculiar property of the ‘Trans-Himâlayan Esoteric Doctrine’ ”; but only as having survived in that old School alone. It is no more the property of the Trans-, than it is of the Cis-Himâlayan Esoteric Doctrine, but is simply the common inheritance of all such Schools, left to the Sages of the Fifth Root-Race by the great Siddhas1543 of the Fourth. Let us remember that the Atlanteans became the terrible sorcerers, now celebrated in so many of the oldest MSS. of India, only toward their “Fall,” whereby the submersion of their Continent was brought on. What is claimed is simply that the Wisdom imparted by the “Divine Ones”—born through the Kriyâshaktic powers of the Third Race before its Fall and separation into sexes—to the Adepts of the early Fourth Race, has remained in all its pristine purity in a certain Brotherhood. The said School or Fraternity being closely connected with a certain island of an inland sea—believed in by both Hindûs and Buddhists, but called “mythical” by Geographers and Orientalists—the less one talks of it, the wiser he will be. Nor can one accept the said “seven-fold classification” as having “a closer connection with the Brâhmanical Logos than with the Buddhist Logos,” since both are identical, whether the one Logos is called Îshvara or Avalokiteshvara, Brahmâ or Padmapâni. These are, however, [pg 674] very small differences, more fanciful than real, in fact. Brâhmanism and Buddhism, both viewed from their orthodox aspects, are as inimical and as irreconcilable as water and oil. Each of these great bodies, however, has a vulnerable place in its constitution. While even in their esoteric interpretation both can agree but to disagree, once that their respective vulnerable points are confronted, every disagreement must fall, for the two will find themselves on common ground. The “Achilles' heel” of orthodox Brâhmanism is the Advaita philosophy, whose followers are called by the pious “Buddhists in disguise”; as that of orthodox Buddhism is Northern Mysticism, as represented by the disciples of the philosophies of the Yogâchârya School of Âryâsangha and the Mahâyâna, who are twitted in their turn by their co-religionists as “Vedântins in disguise.” The Esoteric Philosophy of both these can be but one if carefully analyzed and compared, as Gautama Buddha and Shankarâchârya are most closely connected, if one believes tradition and certain Esoteric Teachings. Thus every difference between the two will be found one of form rather than of substance.

A most mystic discourse, full of septenary symbology, may be found in the Anugita1544 There the Brâhmana narrates the bliss of having crossed beyond the regions of illusion:

The sage describes the entrance into and exit from the forest—a symbol for man's life-time—and also that forest itself:1545

The senses, says the commentator:

The explanation is harmless, if unsatisfactory. Says the Brâhmana, continuing his description:

Now, all the above is very plain, and no Theosophist, even among the least learned, can fail to understand the allegory. And yet, we see great Orientalists making a perfect mess of it in their explanations. The “great sages” who “receive hospitality” are explained as meaning the senses, “which, having worked as unconnected with the self are finally absorbed into it.” But one fails to understand, if the senses are “unconnected” with the “Higher Self,” in what manner they can be “absorbed into it.” One would think, on the contrary, that it is just because the personal senses gravitate and strive to be connected with the impersonal Self, that the latter, which is Fire, burns the lower five and purifies thereby the higher two, “mind and understanding,” or the higher aspects of Manas1549 and Buddhi. This is quite apparent from the [pg 676] text. The “great sages” disappear after having “been worshipped.” Worshipped by whom if they (the presumed senses) are “unconnected with the self”? By Mind, of course; by Manas (in this case merged in the sixth sense) which is not, and cannot be, the Brahman, the Self, or Kshetrajña—the Soul's Spiritual Sun. Into the latter, in time, Manas itself must be absorbed. It has worshipped “great sages” and given hospitality to terrestrial wisdom; but once that “another forest shone forth” upon it, it is Intelligence (Buddhi, the seventh sense, but sixth principle) which is transformed into the Tree—that Tree whose fruit is emancipation—which finally destroys the very roots of the Ashvattha tree, the symbol of life and of its illusive joys and pleasures. And therefore, those who attain to that state of emancipation have, in the words of the above-cited Sage, “no fear afterwards.” In this state “the end cannot be perceived because it extends on all sides.”

“There always dwell seven females there,” he goes on to say, carrying out the imagery. These females—who, according to Arjuna Mishra, are the Mahat, Ahamkâra and five Tanmâtras—have always their faces turned downwards, as they are obstacles in the way of spiritual ascension.

No translator among the Western Orientalists has yet perceived in the foregoing allegory anything higher than mysteries connected with sacrificial ritualism, penance, or ascetic ceremonies, and Hatha Yoga. But he who understands symbolical imagery, and hears the voice of Self within Self, will see in this something far higher than mere ritualism, however often he may err in minor details of the Philosophy.

And here we must be allowed a last remark. No true Theosophist, from the most ignorant up to the most learned, ought to claim infallibility for anything he may say or write upon Occult matters. The [pg 677] chief point is to admit that, in many a way, in the classification of either cosmic or human principles, in addition to mistakes in the order of evolution, and especially on metaphysical questions, those of us who pretend to teach others more ignorant than ourselves—are all liable to err. Thus mistakes have been made in Isis Unveiled, in Esoteric Buddhism, in Man, in Magic: White and Black, etc., and more than one mistake is likely to be found in the present work. This cannot be helped. For a large or even a small work on such abstruse subjects to be entirely exempt from error and blunder, it would have to be written from its first to its last page by a great Adept, if not by an Avatâra. Then only should we say, “This is verily a work without sin or blemish in it!” But so long as the artist is imperfect, how can his work be perfect? “Endless is the search for truth!” Let us love it and aspire to it for its own sake, and not for the glory or benefit a minute portion of its revelation may confer on us. For who of us can presume to have the whole truth at his fingers' ends, even upon one minor teaching of Occultism?

Our chief point in the present subject, however, has been to show that the septenary doctrine, or division of the constitution of man, was a very ancient one, and was not invented by us. This has been successfully done, for we are supported in this, consciously and unconsciously, by a number of ancient, mediæval, and modern writers. What the former said, was well said; what the latter repeated, has generally been distorted. An instance: Read the Pythagorean Fragments, and study the septenary man as given by the Rev. G. Oliver, the learned Mason, in his Pythagorean Triangle, who speaks as follows:

Compare this jumbled account and distribution of Western Theosophic Philosophy with the latest Theosophic explanations by the [pg 678] Eastern School of Theosophy, and then decide which is the more correct. Verily:

As to the charge that our School has not adopted the sevenfold classification of the Brâhmans, but has confused it, this is quite unjust. To begin with, the “School” is one thing, its exponents (to Europeans) quite another. The latter have first to learn the A B C of practical Eastern Occultism, before they can be made to understand correctly the tremendously abstruse classification based on the seven distinct states of Prajñâ or Consciousness; and, above all, to realize thoroughly what Prajñâ is, in Eastern metaphysics. To give a Western student that classification is to try to make him suppose that he can account for the origin of consciousness, by accounting for the process by which a certain knowledge, though only one of the states of that consciousness, came to him; in other words, it is to make him account for something he knows on this plane, by something he knows nothing about on the other planes; i.e., to lead him from the spiritual and the psychological, direct to the ontological. This is why the primary, old classification was adopted by the Theosophists—of which classifications in truth there are many.

To busy oneself, after such a tremendous number of independent witnesses and proofs have been brought before the public, with an additional enumeration from theological sources, would be quite useless. The seven capital sins and seven virtues of the Christian scheme are far less philosophical than even the seven liberal and the seven accursed sciences—or the seven arts of enchantment of the Gnostics. For one of the latter is now before the public, pregnant with danger in the present as for the future. The modern name for it is Hypnotism; used as it is by scientific and ignorant Materialists, in the general ignorance of the seven principles, it will soon become Satanism in the full acceptation of the term.