Rudiments
of the Perennial Philosophy may be found among the traditionary
lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in
its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher
religions... [Its] inexaustible theme has been treated again and
again, from the standpoint of every religious tradition and in
all the principal languages of Asia and Europe.
– Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy
Paraphrasing
Hermes who said, “all is above as it is below to make up the miracle
of a single thing,” we could say that all is within us as it is
outside of us to make up a single reality.
– Pierre Mabille, Mirror of the Marvelous
collective
unconscious n: the psychical inheritance of racial experience
functionally potential in each individual.
– Webster’s Third New International Dictionary
Out-of-body
(OOB) perception is a latent faculty of human consciousness –
an unusual, albeit universally described phenomenon which is theoretically
capable of development in anyone. In the first two articles of
this series we compared the out-of-body experiences of Robert
A. Monroe with both shamanic and gnostic world-views, showing
how they correspond to a common archetype of expanded awareness.
Since OOB awareness is not measurable by scientific methods, we
next discussed how any subjective observation must be evaluated
to avoid either uncritical acceptance or gratuitous refutation.
We concluded that, whether scientifically verifiable or not, the
world-wide historical consistency of out-of-body testimony offers
overwhelming evidence of a universal human experience – which
doesn’t make it any easier to evaluate, but does demand that we
not dismiss it arbitrarily as a hallucination.
Our last article presented the most plausible hypothesis to be
drawn from these data: that our four-dimensional space-time continuum
is the integral component of a higher dimensional construct, and
that out-of-body perception constitutes the penetration of subjective
awareness into this trans-dimensional realm. If true, then logic
argues that we should seriously consider the idea of Consciousness
itself as a dimensional phenomenon.
Anticipating that some people might regard this exposition as
“speculative,” it is time to reinforce our emerging thesis with
analogous ideas found in other systems. This is not difficult
to do – it has all been described before in the Perennial Philosophy.
The phrase “Perennial Philosophy” refers to a complex of archetypal
ideas underlying the esoteric lore of every culture in the world.
In its simplest form it describes a “spiritual” (i.e. higher-dimensional)
Primal Cause which originally emanated and still animates
all of reality. Our physical space-time continuum (“All That Is”)
emerged from this higher-dimensional source and is continuously
being nourished by it. By definition then, every entity in the
universe has its origin in this reality and is both an observing
component and subjective reflection of the whole of which it is
a part. Every projected fragment of the Unity is thus eternal
and immortal. According to the Perennial Philosophy, the goal
of life for each reincarnating being is to ultimately reunite
with the Primal Cause which is both our source and our
destiny.
These ideas are found in Hinduism, in Buddhism and in Taoism.
They are also manifested in the corpus of the Western Mystery
Tradition, which includes Hermeticism, the Hebrew Kabbalah, both
Pythagorean and Neo-Platonic Greek thought, and of course Gnosticism.
You can find its images in all shamanic religions, in Wicca, in
Alchemy and in concepts such as the Dreamtime upon which
Australian Aboriginal cosmology is founded. Analytic (Jungian)
Psychology is a Gnostic system, hence a contemporary interpretation
of these ancient concepts. Were you to boil all the above systems
down to their essence the result would be pure, unadulterated,
“Perennial Philosophy.”
The fact that these structures (like out-of-body data itself)
are so universal argues that they are cognate with the Objective
Psyche, from which subjective awareness emanates. The fact that
they are generally regarded in the West as “occult,” “pagan,”
“heathen,” “mystical,” or “heretical” suggests Archonic censorship
by the world’s Monotheisms. This is because the essential message
of the Perennial Philosophy mandates the evolution of consciousness
via individual responsibility and freedom of choice – ideas which
challenge the control of any centralised authority, be it religious,
political or corporate.
It is highly significant that some of the most fundamental insights
of quantum physics are symbolically explicit in the Perennial
Philosophy. Indeed, this venerable tradition actually propounds
an esoteric “Big Bang” theory which was extant thousands of years
before the idea was proposed by modern science. Let’s compare
their analogous concepts.
The generally accepted “exoteric” theory of Cosmogenesis offered
by science is that it all began with the explosion of a “singularity”:
singularity:
1: Something that is separate or singular: UNIT. 2a:
An unusual manifestation or eccentricity in manner or behavior.
b. A unique or remarkable characteristic or development.
c. An odd or peculiar feature or characteristic.
–
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary
Cosmologists interpret the word “singularity” in a special sense
which seems to encompass all of the above definitions – i.e.,
as the “remarkable behavior” of a “single unit” (conceived of
as infinite mass compacted into a zero-dimensional point) – which
then “explodes”:
The
evidence suggests that the Universe was born out of a singularity
– a point of infinite density occupying zero volume – and that
in the first split second the tiny seed containing all the mass
and energy in the observable Universe went through a period of
exponential expansion, known as inflation.1
This concept of the universe emanating from an expanding Singularity,
or Unit is found in many spiritual traditions world-wide. Here
is a version described in the sacred literature of Hinduism:
In
the beginning there was Existence alone – One only, without a
second. He, the One, thought to himself: Let me be many, let me
grow forth. Thus out of himself he projected the universe; and
having projected out of himself the universe, he entered into
every being. All that is has its self in him alone. Of all things
he is the subtle essence. He is the truth. He is the Self. And
that, Svetaketu, THAT ART THOU.2
The Taoists (anticipating modern science perhaps) chose to render
this archetypal idea in mathematical terms:
Out of Tao,
One is born;
Out of One, Two;
Out of Two, Three;
Out
of Three, the created universe.3
The same idea is found in Pythagorean and Neo-Platonic thought,
where the “One” is called the “Monad” (from the Greek monas,
meaning a unit, or singularity.) Note that the Taoist and Pythagorean
concepts of numerical progression emanating from a primordial
unit differ only in the detail of “Tao” (Zero?) being the source
of the Monad:
[The
Pythagoreans] taught that the Monad is the beginning of all things.
From the Monad came the “Indefinite Dyad,” and from the Dyad the
other numbers and geometrical quantities... The Monad in Pythagorean
arithmetic was not itself a number, but the source in which the
whole nature of all numbers was gathered up and implicit.4
This archetypal idea has been stated even more concisely. Here
is Irish poet William Butler Yeats, a life-long student of the
Western Mystery Tradition:
All
things are a single form which has divided and multiplied in time
and space.5
The essential idea is quite clear: the creation of multiplicity
out of unity – many things out of One thing. (This
is indeed the Primal Differentiation: all the questions of philosophy
can be traced back to the polarity between unity and multiplicity,
objectivity and subjectivity.) The fact that contemporary scientific
speculation about the origin of the universe accords with such
an ancient pattern is a strong argument for the Objective Psyche
being the Monad from which everything originated: where else could
these archetypes come from? Jung of course, describes the Big
Bang using psychological metaphors:
The
alchemist... knew definitely that as part of the whole he had
an image of the whole in himself, the “firmament” or “Olympus,”
as Paracelsus calls it. This interior microcosm was the unwitting
object of alchemical research. Today we would call it the collective
unconscious, and we would describe it as “objective” because it
is identical in all individuals and is therefore one. Out of this
universal One there is produced in every individual a subjective
consciousness, i.e., the ego.6
Actually, the fact that we naively refer to our greater reality
as a “universe” harks back to this primordial Singularity, this
One from which we emerged. To be semantically precise, we do not
perceive One thing (a Universe) at all – we are
the subjective observers of a multiverse, an infinity of
many things. This mandates that for any differentiated
being, objectivity is an impossible abstraction. We can imagine
objectivity, but that is not the same as being able to perceive
objectively. “God” is our traditionally imagined Objective
Observer, so it is a semantic non sequitur for any observer
but “God” to be able to perceive the multiverse as Universe.
The fact that these constructs emerge into awareness at all is
strong evidence that “something in us” remembers that preexistent
Monad which held the multiverse within itself. That “something
in us,” of course, is the “spark,” the “chip off the old block,”
dwelling in the deep unconscious of everyone, that can and does
remember the original Unity. What this means is that each of us
is a monad (small “m”) which is a part, a fragment, of the original
Monad (capital “M”). As immortal sparks of the Creator, we are
essential participants in the evolution of Divine Consciousness
as it contemplates its own hierarchy of self-emanated dimensions.
This is one of the fundamental concepts of the Perennial Philosophy.
The
monad is frequently described as a “Divine Spark”... Its ray is
borne downwards through the various spheres of matter... [to eventually
appear] in a causal body as a spirit possessing the aspect of
activity... These three lower bodies the mental, the astral, and
the physical, constitute the human personality which dies at death
and is renewed when the monad, in fulfillment of the process of
reincarnation, again manifests itself in these bodies.7
The idea expressed above, which we will explore in more detail
momentarily, is that when the Singularity exploded, its contents
settled into a descending hierarchy of awareness manifesting as
dimensions containing spiritual, mental, emotional and
physical “matter.” Each separate monad is fated to work its way
through the entire spectrum, gaining gnosis of the multiverse
until it has rectified itself enough to reunite with the Primal
Monad from which it emerged.
Crudely, and perhaps irreverently: God blew Himself up so that
all His parts could get to know each other and reposition themselves
within the Whole from which they were born. It’s a kind of Divine
Solipsism in which we are all personified ideas in God’s Mind,
trying to (as Paul McCartney sang so poignantly): “get back Homeward.”
Stated bluntly, a case could be argued that if the above is true,
then “God” (as traditionally imagined) fits the description of
a schizophrenic! The Judeo-Christian concept of the Fall of man
into a world of sin could be just another way of describing this
Primordial Nervous Breakdown.
Creation,
the incomprehensible passage from the unmanifested One into the
manifest multiplicity of nature, from eternity into time, is not
merely the prelude and necessary condition of the Fall: to some
extent it is the Fall.8
This implies that “God” must remain dissociated, deranged, incomplete,
psychotic, insane – at the very least, “scattered” – until every
differentiated monad in the Cosmos gets its respective act together.
It puts full responsibility on each of us monads to integrate
our awareness, in effect: to stop being crazy – a powerful directive,
given the contemporary state of the world. This idea is implicit
in the Kabbalistic version of the Perennial Philosophy, although
of course, it isn’t stated quite that starkly!
At
opposite poles, both man and God encompass within their being
the entire cosmos. However, whereas God contains all by virtue
of being its Creator and Initiator in whom everything is rooted
and all potency is hidden, man’s role is to complete this process
by being the agent through whom all the powers of creation are
fully activated and made manifest. What exists seminally in God
unfolds and develops in man... To use the neoplatonic formula,
the process of creation involves the departure of all from the
One and its return to the One, and the crucial turning-point in
this cycle takes place within man, at the moment he begins to
develop an awareness of his own true essence and yearns to retrace
the path from the multiplicity of his nature to the Oneness from
which he originated.9
In Analytical Psychology, this is called the process of “individuation,”
in which the purpose of life is to integrate one’s psychological
complexes and eventually unite with the “Self.” (More of this
later on.) The movement is from multiplicity (which at its worst
is identical with psychosis) to integration, unity, or sanity.
Other versions of the Perennial Philosophy refer to the product
of this process as “Enlightenment.”
Following this reasoning, one could say that to the extent that
we are not enlightened, we are demented or at the very least deluded.
Every version of the Perennial Philosophy, from Buddhism through
Kabbalah to the Gurdjieffian “Great Work” is based upon this general
assumption: we are all incomplete, and the entire meaning of life
is to work our way “back Homeward” via any of a number of different
paths.
Although these universal postulates can be found in many different
systems world-wide, there is one particular assemblage of observations
which corresponds almost exactly with the out-of-body cosmology
of Robert Monroe. This is the metaphysical system known as Theosophy.
Theosophy has two meanings – generically, it denotes “divine wisdom,”
hence could be a synonym for the Perennial Philosophy itself,
since they encompass the same ideas. In contemporary usage however,
“Theosophy” usually refers to the philosophical-religious system
presented to the world in 1875 by Madame H.P. Blavatsky as the
doctrine of her newly-founded Theosophical Society.
Blavatsky was one of those flamboyant, “egregious” characters
(like Gurdjieff, Crowley, and Castaneda), who seem fated to play
defining roles in public perceptions of the esoteric. These people
act as objective correlatives for the ideas they espouse, each
manifesting some degree of genuine psychic ability, yet inevitably
presenting themselves as tricksters. Because they can’t help surrounding
themselves with outwardly pointless controversy, their apparent
function is to polarise public opinion into true believers and
debunkers. (The Mystery they represent evidently demands that
this be their role in life!) All “paranormal” phenomena (including
the UFO enigma) exhibit this maddening ambiguity. Since all anomalies
are rips in the “seems” of illusion, we can regard the dilemma
as a Koan posed by the Objective Psyche.
At any rate, as one part gifted psychic, one part confidence trickster
and two parts psycho-neurotic, Madame Blavatsky introduced the
Western world (most of which had never heard of it before) to
the Perennial Philosophy. This happened during the era when Darwin’s
theory of evolution was ravaging traditional belief systems and
disillusioned people were desperately searching for a more “scientific”
cosmology than the one found in the Bible. Clearly, the evolution
of consciousness explicit in Theosophy reconciled science with
religion for many latter-day Victorians.
As
the originator of modern Theosophy and cofounder of the Theosophical
Society, [Blavatsky] saw her mission as sublimely messianic: to
save the world. Theosophy, literally interpreted from the Greek,
means divine wisdom or knowledge of God, and, pre-Blavatsky, had
been associated with the Christian Gnostics, Hebrew Cabalists
and the teachings of Jakob Bohme and Paracelsus. Madame Blavatsky’s
Theosophy was nothing less than an attempt to synthesize Brahmanism,
Buddhism, and Occultism into a new religion.10
The continuing controversy over whether or not Blavatsky was a
fraud is irrelevant to our discussion because most of the concepts
revealed via her often plagiarised writings are pure Perennial
Philosophy and, as such, commensurate with a multitude of established
sources. For the purposes of this essay, the Theosophical classification
of Monroe’s Locales One and Two (which were most
accurately portrayed by authors other than Blavatsky) is highly
relevant.
THE
COSMOS ACCORDING TO THEOSOPHY
C.W. Leadbeater was an early Theosophist and out-of-body adept
at least as gifted as Robert Monroe, who also wrote books about
his perceptions. A major difference between the two authors is
that Leadbeater was initiated by a guru, and described his explorations
using traditional Theosophical terminology. Since Monroe was “self-taught”
and knew nothing of these categories (at least he never mentions
them) it is instructive to compare their respective interpretations
of the same phenomena.
Monroe’s “rings” or “Belief System Territories” are described
in great detail by Leadbeater as “planes” and “subplanes.” For
example, the lower rings of Locale-II are called “the astral
plane,” an ancient, though perhaps unfortunate label, since even
the Theosophists don’t seem to like it very much.
The
word “astral,” starry, is not a very happy one, but it has been
used during so many centuries to denote super-physical matter
that it would now be difficult to dislodge it. It was probably
at first chosen by observers in consequence of the luminous appearance
of astral as compared with physical matter.11
In Far Journeys, pages 243 to 246, Monroe
provides a conceptual map of the rings, describing in general
the types of awareness represented therein and the kinds of entities
dwelling at each level. Although he does outline a hierarchy of
generic environments, it is impossible to total them, since Monroe
regarded the rings as virtually infinite in number. Superficially,
the subtle planes of Theosophy seem more limited because their
tradition confines Locale-II to a septenary hierarchy of
divisions and subdivisions:
It
must be understood that the astral plane has seven subdivisions,
each of which has its corresponding degree of materiality and
its corresponding condition of matter... The matter of each plane
or subplane interpenetrates that of the plane or subplane below
it, so that here at the surface of the earth all exist together
in the same space.12
These seven subdivisions of the astral plane are immediately contiguous
to a higher realm, the mental plane, which in turn has its own
seven subdivisions. What’s important here is not how many levels
there are but how Monroe’s modern portrayal of them obviously
matches the classical description. Unless he’s plagiarising, which
I sincerely doubt, he is confirming the multi-dimensional structure
of reality as it has been observed for millennia by countless
out-of-body observers.
The planes, or rings (regardless of how many subdivisions they
contain), constitute a sedimentation of Consciousness mirroring
the contents of the Primary Emanation. Our original “Home” lies
in an impossibly abstract realm, somewhere above the “spiritual
plane,” and we are separated from it by a spectrum of ever coarser
“matter” – mental, emotional, etheric and finally physical. In
many (not all) traditions, the symbolic assignment of density
for each is correlated with fire (spiritual or intuitional
plane), air (mental plane), water (emotional plane)
and earth (physical plane). Thus: the four increasingly
dense elements of matter as described by the ancients.
As each differentiated monad descends through these planes it
attracts to itself subtle bodies made of the matter comprising
each realm. These are often depicted as the “vessels” or “garments”
which clothe the divine spark of awareness like a series of increasingly
bulky space suits.
While
in the act of emanation the divine substance goes forth into vessels,
these vessels or garments assume an increasingly less refined
existence as the process continues downward. And yet behind these
infinite garments there is not a single link in the chain where
the substance of [divine essence] does not remain present and
immanent.13
Hence, we have (at bare minimum) a mental body for the mental
realm; an emotional (astral) body for the emotional (astral) realm;
and an etheric body which links them to the physical body. In
essence, we are spiritual monads simultaneously inhabiting
at least four bodies in at least three realms of awareness. With
clear perception smothered by all these garments it’s understandable
why so few of us are able to experience our pure spiritual essence!
Psychological systems derived from the Perennial Philosophy (such
as those formulated by Jung and his disciples), don’t specifically
postulate “bodies” per se, but their basic conceptualisation
is clearly analogous:
Our
spiritual being, the Self, which is the essential and most real
part of us, is concealed, confined and “enveloped” first by the
physical body with its sense impressions; then by the multiplicity
of the emotions and the different drives (fears, desires, attractions
and repulsions); and finally by the restless activity of the mind.
The liberation of the consciousness from the entanglements is
an indispensable prelude to the revelation of the spiritual center.14
Although most versions of the Perennial Philosophy describe multiple
bodies, there is some difference of opinion about just how many
we actually have. The number can range from four to seven or more,
and some out-of-body observers, such as William Buhlman, speculate
that we may have as many bodies as there are differentiated realms
in the multiverse! (As mind-numbing as this concept is, it is
consistent with quantum theory which postulates an infinite number
of dimensions or universes.) However, for the purpose of this
essay, we will discuss only those vehicles necessary for a comprehension
of the general system we’re describing.
THE
ETHERIC DOUBLE
The so-called etheric double is an energy body which is more or
less “hard-wired” into the physical. Although it does dissociate
from the physical body during sleep, it cannot travel more than
a short distance away from it. It has only a rudimentary awareness,
corresponding in some respects to the Kabbalistic concept of the
nefesh, or “animal soul.” The Theosophists describe it
thus:
The
etheric double... [is] the exact duplicate of the visible body,
particle for particle, and the medium through which play all the
electrical and vital currents on which the activity of the body
depends.15
Those familiar with computers might regard the etheric double
as a kind of “DOS” – the Data Operating System which activates
the physical body. Robert Monroe describes his own etheric double
this way:
One
of the earliest discoveries... was that I had more than one nonphysical
body... My physical body appeared to be not one, but two – much
as when your vision is slightly impaired by astigmatism... I began
to take particular notice of physical reentry and found that I
did indeed reenter a second form just prior to the physical body...
I could stay in the second body, hovering near the physical, but
could move no more than ten or fifteen feet away.16
Since consciousness cannot function very well in the etheric double,
it holds comparatively little interest for us in this discussion.
The body that most people experience while in the OOBE state of
awareness is the so-called astral, or emotional body.
THE
ASTRAL BODY
The celebrated astral body is known in Hindu philosophy as both
mayavirupa (“shining illusory body”) and kamarupa
(“desire body”), and the astral plane itself is called the
Kamaloka, or “desire world.” (Since much of Theosophy is
based upon Vedic and Buddhist concepts, its earlier authors often
used the terminology of those systems.) This is the body Monroe
describes travelling in while visiting the lower rings of Locale-II
(i.e. Kamaloka). As portrayed in our previous articles,
it is quintessentially an emotional-desire vehicle – sexuality
being perhaps the most compelling force experienced while in this
state of awareness. Here is a description of what the astral body
of an average person might look like when seen by an out-of-body
observer:
When
he is asleep a separation has occurred, and we see the physical
body – the dense body and the etheric double – lying by themselves
on the bed, while the astral body is floating in the air above
them. If the person we are studying is one of mediocre development,
the astral body when separated from the physical is the somewhat
shapeless mass before described; it cannot go far away from its
physical body, it is useless as a vehicle of consciousness, and
the man within it is in a very vague and dreamy condition, unaccustomed
to act away from his physical vehicle... The whole effect given
to the observer is one of sleepiness and vagueness, the astral
body lacking all definite activity and floating idly, inchoate,
above the sleeping physical form.17
Here is how an advanced adept, such as Oliver Fox, Robert Monroe
or William Buhlman might appear to someone with astral vision:
But
if a person be observed who is much more developed, say one who
is accustomed to function in the astral world and to use the astral
body for that purpose, it will be seen that when the physical
body goes to sleep and the astral body slips out of it, we have
the man before us in full consciousness; the astral body is clearly
outlined and definitely organized, bearing the likeness of the
man, and the man is able to use it as a vehicle – a vehicle far
more convenient than the physical.
It is significant to observe that few modern out-of-body explorers
make further distinctions between their subtle bodies, leaving
the impression that the etheric and astral vehicles are all there
are. The Theosophists however, have differentiated realms and
bodies of ever increasing abstraction. The next level of subtlety
is the mental plane, and of course the vehicle used to explore
it is referred to as the mental body.
THE
MENTAL BODY
The mental body sheathes the astral body in the same way that
the astral body sheathes the etheric double, which in turn sheathes
the physical body. Indeed, all fit into one another like Chinese
balls. They constitute the spectrum of our aura – each body and
its perceptual attainments being represented by a range of colours
visible to those observers with the ability to see them.
It goes without saying that when consciousness is focused in the
physical vessel, none of these subtle bodies feels like a “body”
– each is experienced as a capacity of awareness: when
thinking, we use the mental “body,” when feeling, it’s the emotional
“body.” It is only while in the disembodied state that we perceive
these functions as differentiated vehicles of perception.
Experienced out-of-body observers are unanimous in saying that
the mental body (whether or not they call it that) in the upper
rings of Locale-II (i.e., the mental plane) is perceived
as an ovoid sphere:
[The
mental body] does not, like the astral body, become a distinct
representation of the man in form and feature when it is working
in connection with the astral and physical bodies; it is oval
– egg-like – in outline, interpenetrating of course the physical
and astral bodies, and surrounding them with a radiant atmosphere
as it develops – becoming, as I said, larger and larger as the
intellectual growth increases. Needless to say, this egg-like
form becomes a very beautiful and glorious object as the man develops
the higher capacities of the mind: it is not visible to astral
sight, but is clearly seen by the higher vision which belongs
to the world of mind.18
Everyone from Fox to Buhlman has described this ovoid perceptual
sphere, though they seldom differentiate it specifically as a
“mental” vehicle. Here’s Fox’s description:
Occasionally
I have not been able to see any astral body when I looked for
it – no legs, no arms, no body! – an extraordinary sensation –
just a consciousness, a man invisible even to himself, passing
through busy streets or whizzing through space.19
Notice how Fox still refers to his body as “astral.” This suggests
that one fades into this more subtle vehicle without necessarily
being able to feel the change. Monroe, for example, never differentiates
beyond the term “second body,” regardless of the realm he’s visiting:
In
the early stages of OBE activity, you seem to retain the form
of your physical body – head, shoulders, arms, legs, and so on.
As you become more familiar with this other state of being, you
may become less humanoid in shape. It is similar to gelatin when
taken out of the mold. For a short period it retains the form
of the mold; then it begins to melt around the edges and finally
it becomes a liquid or a blob.20
A Theosophical Initiate might explain that Monroe only noticed
that his “Second” body changed when he began visiting the upper
rings, which is to say, when he passed from the astral realm into
the mental. Monroe himself never makes that differentiation, and
he is so adept by now that he takes his egg-shaped spherical body
for granted.
Because all of these bodies and their higher-dimensional environments
interpenetrate the physical, the illusion is that we are “One.”
We experience spacetime as physical monads, as single “vessels”
containing relatively integrated sensations, feelings, thoughts
and intuitions. However, this conviction of unity is illusory,
for the truth is that we are not One at all: we are actually the
fragments of a higher Essence, or “Self.” The proper Theosophical
term for this transcendental organism is the causal body.
THE
CAUSAL BODY
The causal body is the most vitally important, yet probably least
understood, concept within the Perennial Philosophy. Without a
firm comprehension of what it represents, anyone’s spiritual evolution
is severely hampered. The consciousness represented by the causal
body is nothing less than our true substance, our “essence,” the
source of all our potential. In conception it corresponds exactly
to the Jungian Self, as we shall see.
Each causal body is one of the sparks from the original Monad
which has descended to the causal plane – that spiritual realm
situated immediately above (when visualised three-dimensionally)
the rarefied outer rings of the mental plane. (I use three-dimensional
terms solely for ease in visualisation – in actuality, all realms
interpenetrate.)
For all practical purposes, the causal plane represents the outer
limit of “human” functioning. There are dimensions beyond this
realm to be sure, but they are too ethereal for pragmatic apprehension
at our level. In his last book, Ultimate Journey, Robert
Monroe penetrated the spaces beyond the rings, but was “sent back”
because he wasn’t ready to explore them yet. For now, we will
be doing very well indeed if we can learn to orient our awareness
to the causal body/Self and attune ourselves to its intentions.
The Perennial Philosophy observes that the soul (spark, monad,
Self, or causal body), cannot itself descend lower than the causal
plane. Instead it projects portions of itself into the
denser mental, astral and physical dimensions below it. These
salients into spacetime are human beings – each of us is but one
projection of our respective causal body. Therefore, objectively
imagined, we are not One at all: we are the second-generation
“descend-ents” of those eternal first-generation monads
projected during the Primary Emanation. Every causal body is an
immortal reference point existing outside of space and time. This
makes us, in essence, one half of a temporary dyad: the whole
soul being dimensionally separated for the duration of each spacetime
incarnation. The Kabbalah describes it this way:
In
substance the souls as such remain above and do not enter into
bodies at all but rather radiate sparks of themselves that can
be called souls... by analogy only. The true soul hovers over
a man, whether from near or afar, and maintains an immediate magic
tie with its spark below.21
Which is to say: the Self repeatedly projects ego-bodies composed
of mental, astral and physical matter into three-dimensional space.
According to the Perennial Philosophy, the purpose of these incarnations
is to gain experience leading to enlightenment, to ultimate union
with the original Monad. Thus, it is not any given ego (“you,”
your predecessors, or followers) who reap the full benefits of
spacetime incarnation: instead, the experience of each ego-lifetime
is absorbed by its causal body after death. Seen in this way,
every ego is temporary: i.e., “mortal” – it is the Self, the monad,
which is “immortal.” Looked at another way the ego does
participate in immortality, but only as an organ of the Self,
not as the whole entity. (The contrary might be compared to the
hand or the foot hallucinating a separate existence from the body.)
Probably because it can contemplate the consequences of its choices
in all of the dimensions, some Theosophists refer to the Self
as “the Thinker”:
The
growth of the permanent body, which, with the divine consciousness,
forms the Thinker, is extremely slow. Its technical name is the
causal body, because he gathers up within it the results of all
experiences, and these act as causes, moulding future lives. It
is the only permanent one among the bodies used during incarnation,
the mental, astral and physical bodies being reconstituted for
each fresh life; as each perishes in turn, it hands on its harvest
to the one above it, and thus all the harvests are finally stored
in the permanent body.22
The spacetime ego’s fantasy that it is the centre of the psyche
rather than just one of its causal body’s many satellites is arguably
the greatest misconception a human being can have and the first
illusion to be eliminated before meaningful spiritual growth can
take place.
Jung observes that the inner Self (causal body) is interpreted
by uninitiated awareness as a “god-image.” Which is to say: because
the naive observer does not recognise this force as a part of
his own psychological makeup, he perceives it as a divine personality
(a “not me”), existing “outside” of himself – as God, Christ,
Mohammed, Buddha, Moloch, whoever. Ironically, we “project” (in
the psychological sense of the word) our conception of a supreme
being onto that part of ourselves who has projected us
(in the physical sense of the word) into spacetime!
Unfortunately, when a partial comprehension of the ego’s true
connection with the Self dawns, it is common for people to hallucinate
that “they are God.” Because such errors are obviously short-circuits
in the individuation process, the phenomenon is a definitive diagnosis
of faulty integration, or psychosis. We may be “God,” (technically,
“a god”) at some level, but for all practical purposes these syntheses
seldom, if ever, take place in the spacetime dimension and never
with the ego as the focal point.
Jung notes that Christ is a common God-image of the Self in Western
cultures. If we follow the symbolism of “the Father” as the emanating
Monad (God), then “the Son” (Christ) is the projected monad, or
Self, and each individual human ego is just one of the Self’s
projections into the spacetime dimension. Assuming that all higher
dimensions are “within” (as described in the fourth article of
this series; see New Dawn No. 74), then Christ’s statement
in John 14:20 becomes immediately clear:
On
that day you will understand that I am in my Father and you in
me and I in you.
This image of dimensional interpenetration makes little sense
except within the cosmology of the Perennial Philosophy. Viewed
this way, most of the divine entities worshipped by the world’s
religions are symbols emerging from the Objective Psyche which
enable an uninitiated awareness to visualise its own inner essence.
Intellectually
the self is no more than a psychological concept, a construct
that serves to express an unknowable essence which we cannot grasp
as such, since by definition it transcends our powers of comprehension.
It might equally well be called the “God within us.” The beginnings
of our whole psychic life seem to be inextricably rooted in this
point, and all our highest and ultimate purposes seem to be striving
towards it.23
Nevertheless, because each Self is but one of many evolving monads
on the causal plane, it is essential to remember that it is
by definition incomplete and has some distance to go yet before
it can reunite with its own Source! Although seemingly “godlike”
from the uninitiated ego’s point of view, the Self is hardly a
fully integrated entity – a subtle fact seldom understood even
by psychologists.
From
the unconscious emerges the ego – a fruit grown by the Self specifically
for the furtherance of its own evolution. Implicit is the concept
that the Self is not yet perfect, is indeed itself evolving, and
though it possesses powers which the ego can hardly conceive of,
it is not “God” in the sense of a totally perfected being.24
If every earthbound human ego is but one of many projections of
their own incomplete, discarnate, “god-image” Selves (each
undergoing a multi-dimensional individuation process of its own),
then we have a credible structure for understanding analogous
“projections” of “gods,” “demons” and (especially) “archons” from
hyperspace. It’s also a plausible context for evaluating virtually
any psychic phenomenon. Is it possible that all those entities
hiding behind the world’s “God-Images” aren’t quite as perfect
as we imagine them to be?
FOOTNOTES:
1. Gribbin, John “Is The
Universe Alive?,” Whole Earth Review, No. 84, Winter 1994
(pg 31-33)
2. Prabhavananda/Manchester
translation (1948, 1957). The Upanishads, Breath of the Eternal,
Mentor Books, NY, Pg 68
3. Yutang, Lin (1948). The
Wisdom of Laotse (Tao Te Ching), Modern Library,
NY, Pg 214
4. Hastings, James, ed. (1927).
Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics,Scribners, NY, Pg 308,
315
5. Yeats, W. B. (1937, 1965).
A Vision,Macmillan, NY, Pg 212
6. Jung, Carl G. (1959).
Aion, Princeton University Press, NJ, Pg 164
7. Shepard, Leslie A., ed.
(1978). Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, Avon
Books, NY, Pg 608
8. Huxley, Aldous (1944).
The Perennial Philosophy, Harper & Row, NY, Pg 182
9. Scholem, Gershom (1974).
Kabbalah, New American Library, NY, Pg 152
10. Meade, Marion (1980).
Madame Blavatsky, The Woman Behind the Myth, G.P.
Putnam’s Sons, NY, Pg 7
11. Besant, Annie (1896),
Man and His Bodies, Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton,
IL, Pg 35
12. Leadbeater, C.W. (1895,
1963). The Astral Plane, The Theosophical Publishing House,
Madras, India, Pg 15
13. Scholem, op. cit., Pg
150
14. Assagioli, Robert (1965).
Psychosynthesis, Viking, NY, Pg 214
15. Besant, Annie (1896),
Man and His Bodies, Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton,
IL, Pg 6
16. Monroe, Robert A. (1985).
Far Journeys, Doubleday, NY, Pg 78
17. Besant, (1896).
Pg 46, passim
18. Ibid, Pg 64
19. Fox, Oliver (1962). Astral
Projection: A Record of Out- of-the-Body Experiences, University
Books, New Hyde Park, NY, Pg 129
20. Monroe, Robert A. (1994).
Ultimate Journey, Doubleday, NY, Pg 5
21. Scholem, op. cit., Pg
162
22. Besant, (1897, 1998).
Pg 144
23. Jung, Carl G., Vol
7, Collected Works, quoted in Whitmont, Edward C. (1969, 1978).
The Symbolic Quest,Princeton University Press, Princeton,
NJ, Pg 218
24. Neumann, Erich (1970).
The Origins and History of Consciousness, Bollingen Series
XLII, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. (The page number
of this quotation was not recorded, but I’m 90% certain it came
from this source.)
______________________________________________________________________________
The
above chapter is excerpted from the author’s work in progress
called The Structure of Reality. Jim DeKorne is the author
of Psychedelic Shamanism: The Cultivation, Preparation, and
Shamanic Use of Psychotropic Plants (ISBN: 0-9666932-5-6),
available via mail order from Polyester Books in Melbourne, Tel:
(03) 94195223 or on the Internet through www.loompanics.com.
Interested publishers can contact Jim DeKorne via New Dawn at
editor@newdawnmagazine.com
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