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     ELEMENTARY THEOSOPHY


         L. W. ROGERS


         LOS ANGELES
  THEOSOPHICAL BOOK CONCERN
            1917


          Copyright
             By
        L. W. Rogers
            1917




PREFACE


To comprehend the significance of great world changes, before Time has
fully done his work, is difficult. While mighty events are still in
their formative period the future is obscure. But our inability to
outline the future cannot blind us to the unmistakable trend of the
evolutionary forces at work. One thing that is clear is that our boasted
Christian civilization is the theater in which has been staged the most
un-Christian war of recorded history and in which human atrocity has
reached a point that leaves us vaguely groping for a rational
explanation of it. Another obvious fact is that the more than twenty
nations involved have been forced into measures and methods before
unknown and which wholly transform the recognized function and powers of
governments. With these startling facts of religious and political
significance before us thoughtful people are beginning to ask if we are
not upon the threshold of a complete breaking down of modern
civilization and the birth of a new order of things, in which direct
government by the people throughout the entire world will be coincident
with the rise of a universal religion based on the brotherhood of man.

In such a time any contribution to current literature that will help to
clear the ground of misconceptions and to bring to the attention of
those interested in such things, that set of fundamental natural truths
known as theosophy, may perhaps be helpful. Whether or not the world is
about to recast its ethical code there can at least be no doubt that it
is eagerly seeking reliable evidence that we live after bodily death and
that it will welcome a hypothesis of immortality that is inherently
reasonable and therefore satisfies the intellect as well as the heart.
Those who are dissatisfied with the old answers to the riddle of
existence and demand that Faith and Reason shall walk hand in hand, may
find in the following pages some explanation of the puzzling things in
life--an explanation that disregards neither the intuitions of religion
nor the facts of science.

Of course no pretension is made of fully covering the ground. The book
is a student's presentation of some of the phases of theosophy as he
understands them. They are presented with no authority whatever, and are
merely an attempt to discuss in simple language some of the fundamental
truths about the human being. No claim is made to originality but it is
hoped that by putting the old truths in a somewhat different way, with
new illustrations and arguments, they may perhaps be seen from a new
viewpoint. The intention has been to present elementary theosophy simply
and clearly and in the language familiar to the ordinary newspaper
reader. All technical terms and expressions have been avoided and the
reader will not find a single foreign word in the book.

L. W. R.




CONTENTS


  I.    THEOSOPHY                            9

  II.   THE IMMANENCE OF GOD                15

  III.  THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL           23

  IV.   LIFE AFTER BODILY DEATH             29

  V.    THE EVOLUTIONARY FIELD              43

  VI.   THE MECHANISM OF CONSCIOUSNESS      49

  VII.  DEATH                               59

  VIII. THE ASTRAL WORLD                    69

  IX.   REBIRTH: ITS REASONABLENESS        103

  X.    REBIRTH: ITS JUSTICE               135

  XI.   REBIRTH: ITS NECESSITY             153

  XII.  WHY WE DO NOT REMEMBER             167

  XIII. VICARIOUS ATONEMENT                181

  XIV.  THE FORCES WE GENERATE             187

  XV.   SUPERPHYSICAL EVOLUTION            205




CHAPTER I.

THEOSOPHY


Rediscovery is one of the methods of progress. Very much that we believe
to be original with us at the time of its discovery or invention proves
in time to have been known to earlier civilizations. The elevator, or
lift, is a very modern invention and we supposed it to be a natural
development of our civilization, with its intensive characteristics,
until an antiquarian startled us with the announcement that it was used
in Rome over two thousand years ago; not, of course, as we use it, but
for the same purpose, and involving the same principles. A half century
ago our scientific men were enthusiastic over the truths of evolution
that were being discovered and placed before western civilization. But
as we learn more and more of the thought and intellectual life of the
Orient it becomes clear that the idea of evolution permeated that part
of the world centuries ago. Even the most recent and startling
scientific discoveries occasionally serve to prove that what we supposed
to be the fantastic beliefs of the ancients were really truths of nature
that we were not yet able to comprehend! The transmutation of metals is
an example. We have already gone far enough in that direction to show
that the alchemists of old were not the foolish and superstitious people
we supposed them to be. We have given far too little credit to past
civilizations and we are coming to understand now that we have rated
them too low. Our modesty must necessarily increase as it becomes
clearer that much of our supposed contribution to the world's progress
is not invention but rediscovery. We are beginning to see that it is not
safe to put aside without careful examination an idea or a belief that
was current in the world thousands of years ago. Like the supposed folly
of the alchemists it may contain profound truths of nature that have
thus far been foreign to our modes of thinking.

Theosophy is both very old and very new--very old because the principles
it contains were known and taught in the oldest civilizations, and very
new because it includes the latest investigations of the present day. It
is sometimes said by those who desire to speak lightly of it that it is
a philosophy borrowed from the Buddhists, or at least from the Orient.
That is, of course, an erroneous view. It is true that the Buddhists
hold some beliefs in common with theosophists. It is also true that
Methodists hold some beliefs in common with Unitarians, but that does
not show that Unitarianism was borrowed from Wesley! When different
people study the same facts of nature they are likely to arrive at
substantially the same conclusions. Theosophy is based upon certain
truths of nature. Those who study those truths and formulate a belief
from them must reasonably be expected to resemble theosophists in their
views. Buddhism is not unique in resembling theosophy. In the same list
may be placed the Vedanta philosophy, the Cabala of the Jews, the
teachings of the Christian Gnostics, and the philosophy of the Stoics.
The more general charge must also be denied; theosophy is not something
transplanted from the Orient. It belongs to the race, as the earth does,
and cannot be localized, even to a continent. As it is taught today in
Europe and America it is probably unknown to the masses of the Orient,
for the great general truths it embodies have here the special
application and peculiar emphasis required by a totally different
civilization. But that theosophical principles were earlier known and
more widely accepted in the Orient is quite true. That fact can in no
possible way lessen their value to us. Precisely the same thing is true
of the principles of mathematics. The science of mathematics reached
European civilization directly from the Arabs, but we do not foolishly
decline to make use of the knowledge on that account.

The literal meaning of the word theosophy is self-evident--knowledge of
God. It has three aspects, determined by the different ways in which the
human being acquires knowledge--through the study of concrete facts, by
the study of the relationship of the individual consciousness to its
source, and through the use of reasoning faculties in constructing a
logical explanation of life and its purpose. In one aspect it is,
therefore, a science. It deals with the tangible, with the facts and
phenomena of the material scientist and makes its appeal to the evidence
of the physical senses. In another aspect it is a religion. It deals
with the relationship between the source of all consciousness and its
multiplicity of individual expressions; with the complex relationships
that arise between these personalities; with the duties and obligations
which thus come into existence; with the evolution of the individual
consciousness and its ultimate translation to higher spheres. In its
other aspect it is a philosophy of life. It deals with man, his origin,
his evolution, his destiny. It seeks to explain the universe and to
throw a flood of light upon the problem of existence that will enable
those who study its wisdom to go forward in their evolution rapidly,
safely and comfortably, instead of blundering onward in the darkness of
ignorance, reaping as they go the painful harvests of misdirected
energy.

While theosophy is distinctly a science and a philosophy it is not, in
the same full sense, a religion. It has its distinctive religious
aspect, it is true, but when we speak of a religion we usually have in
mind a certain set of religious dogmas and a church that propagates
them. Theosophy is a universal thing like mathematics--a body of natural
truths applicable to all phases of life. It sees all religions as
equally important, as peculiarly adapted to the varying civilizations in
which they are found, and it presents a synthesis of the fundamental
principles upon which all of them rest.

From all of this it will be seen that there is a vast difference
between theosophy and theology. Theosophy declares the immortality of
man but not as a religious belief. It appeals to the scientific facts in
relation to the nature of consciousness. It knows no such word as
"faith," as it is ordinarily used. Its faith arises from the constancy
of natural law, the balance and sanity of nature, and the harmonious
adjustment of the universe. Theosophy is very ancient in that it is the
great fund of ancient wisdom about man and his earth, that has come down
through countless centuries, reaching far back into prehistoric times.
But added to that hoary wisdom are the up-to-date facts that have been
acquired by its most successful students, who have evolved their
consciousness to levels transcending the physical senses--facts which,
however, do not derive their authority from the method of their
discovery but from their inherent reasonableness. A detailed discussion
of such methods of consciousness and the proper value to be placed upon
such investigations rightly belongs to another chapter. It is enough now
to warn the reader against the error of confusing the pronouncements of
pseudo psychism with the work of the psychic scientists who have already
done much toward placing a scientific foundation beneath the universal
hope of immortality.




CHAPTER II.

THE IMMANENCE OF GOD


The antagonism between scientific and religious thought was the cause of
the greatest controversy in the intellectual world in the nineteenth
century. If the early teaching of the Christian Church had not been lost
the conflict could not have arisen. The Gnostic philosophers, who were
the intellect and heart of the church, had a knowledge of nature so true
that it could not possibly come into collision with any fact of science.
But unfortunately they were enormously outnumbered by the ignorant and
the authority passed wholly into their hands. It was inevitable that
misunderstanding should follow. The gross materialization of the early
teaching, the superstition, the bigotry and the persecution of the
Middle Ages was a perfectly natural result. That perverted,
materialistic view has come down to us, and even now gives trend to the
religious thought of Western civilization. Of that degradation of the
early teaching the Encyclopedia Britannica says:

      The conception of God as wholly external to man, a purely
      mechanical theory of creation, is throughout Christendom
      regarded as false to the teaching of the New Testament as
      also to Christian experience.

It is, indeed, false to the teaching of the Christ but if it is so
regarded "throughout Christendom" it is only on the part of its
scholars; most certainly not by the masses of the people. The popular
conception is undeniably that the relationship between God and man is
identical with that between an inventor and an animated machine. It is
an absolutely anthropomorphic view of the Supreme Being and thinks of
God as being apart from man in precisely the same sense that a father is
apart from his son. It may be an exalted, idealized conception of the
relationship of father and son but it is nevertheless just that
relationship, and along that line runs practically all the teaching and
preaching of those who speak officially in modern religious
interpretation. Emerson sought to counteract that popular misconception
but he was regarded as a heretic by all but an infinitesimal portion of
the church.

The idea of the immanence of God is as different from the popular
conception as noontide is different from midnight. It is so radically
different that one who accepts that ancient belief must put aside his
old ideas of what man is and raise him in dignity and potential power to
a level that will, at first, seem actually startling; for it means, in
its uttermost significance that God and man are but two phases of the
one eternal life and consciousness that constitute our universe! The
idea of the immanence of God is that He _is_ the universe; that the
solar system is an emanation of the Supreme Being as clouds are an
emanation of the sea, and that the relationship between God and man is
not merely that of father and son but also that of ocean and raindrop.
This conception makes man _a part of_ God, having potentially within him
all the attributes and powers of the Supreme Being. It is the idea that
nothing exists except God and that humanity is one portion of Him, and
one phase of His being, as clouds are one expression of the waters that
constitute the sea. The immanence of God is a conception of the universe
that puts science and religion into perfect harmony with each other
because miraculous creation disappears and evolutionary creation takes
its place.

Although the anthropomorphic idea of God has such widespread dominion in
Occidental thought the immanence of God is plainly taught and repeatedly
emphasized in the Christian scriptures. "For in Him we live, and move,
and have our being," is certainly very explicit and admits of no
anthropomorphic interpretation. It could not be said that a son lives
and moves in his father. The declaration presents the relationship of a
lesser consciousness within a greater, and constituting a part of it.
The essentially divine nature of man is made clear in the declaration in
Genesis that he is an image of God. To say that the likeness is on the
material side would, of course, be absurd. In divine essence, in latent
power, in potential spirituality, man is an image of God, because he is
a part of Him. The same idea is more directly put in the Psalms with the
assertion, "ye are gods."[A] If the idea of the immanence of God is
sound man, as a literal fragment of the consciousness of the Supreme
Being, is an embryo god, destined to ultimately evolve his latent powers
into perfect expression.

The oneness of life was explicitly asserted by Jesus in his teaching.
Emerson's teaching of the immanence of God is unmistakable in both his
prose and poetry. "There is no bar or wall," he says, "in the soul where
man, the effect, ceases and God, the Cause, begins." Still more
explicitly he puts it:

      The realms of being to no other bow;
      Not only all are Thine, but all are Thou.

The statement is as complete as it is emphatic. "Not only all are Thine,
_but all are thou_." It's an unqualified assertion that humanity is a
part of God, as leaves are part of a tree--not something a tree has
created in the sense that a man creates a machine but something that is
an emanation of the tree, and is a living part of it. Thus only has God
made man. Humanity is a growth, a development, an emanation, an
evolutionary expression of the Supreme Being.

It is upon the unity of all life that theosophy bases its declaration of
universal brotherhood, regarding it as a fact in nature. The immanence
of God gives a scientific basis of morality. The theosophical conception
is that men are separated in form but are united in the one
consciousness which is the life base of the universe. Their relationship
to each other is somewhat like that of the fingers to each other--they
are separate individuals on the form side but they are united in the
one consciousness that animates the hand. If we imagine each finger to
possess a consciousness of its own, which is limited to itself and
cannot pass beyond to the hand, we shall have a fair analogy of the
unity and identity of interests of all living things. Under such
circumstances an injury to one finger would not appear to the others as
an injury to them, but if the finger consciousness could be extended to
the hand the reality of the injury to all would be apparent. Likewise an
injury to any human being is literally an injury to the race. The race
does not recognize the truth of it just because, and only because, of
the limitation of consciousness. Lowell put the fact clearly when he
said:

      He's true to God who's true to man;
      Wherever wrong is done
      To the humblest and weakest
      'Neath the all-beholding sun,
      That wrong is also done to us;
      And they are slaves most base
      Whose love of right is for themselves,
      And not for all the race.

He's true to God who's true to man because they are one life; because
they are but different expressions of the one eternal consciousness;
because they are as inseparable as the light and warmth of the sun. It
follows that being true to man is fidelity to God.

The popular idea is that people should be moral because that sort of
conduct is pleasing to the Supreme Being and that He will, in the life
beyond physical existence, in some way punish those who have broken the
moral laws. It is belief in an external authority that threatens
punishment as a deterrent to law breaking, as a state devises penalties
commensurate with offenses. But the immanence of God represents a
condition in which not punishments, but consequences, automatically
follow all violations of natural law. Under such a state of affairs it
would require no penalties, but only knowledge, to insure right conduct,
for it would be perceived that there is no possible escape from the
consequences of an evil act.

It is not difficult to see the relative value of the two systems of
thought when put to a practical test in human affairs. Imagine an
unscrupulous man of great mental capacity who is amassing an enormous
fortune through sharp practices that enable him to acquire the earnings
of others while he safely keeps just within the limits of the law. We
can point out to him that while he is not violating the law, and cannot
therefore be prosecuted, he is nevertheless inflicting injury upon
others and consequently public opinion will condemn him. But such a man
usually cares nothing at all for public opinion and he sees no good
reason why he should not continue in his injurious work. But if he can
be made to understand that all life is one and that we are so knit
together in consciousness that an injury to another must ultimately
react upon the person who inflicts it; if he once clearly understands
that to enslave another is to put chains upon himself, that to maim
another is to strike himself, he will require neither the fear of an
exterior hell nor the threat of legal penalties to induce him to follow
a moral course. He would see that his own larger and true self-interest
could be served only when his conduct was in harmony with the welfare of
all. It is but a simple statement of the truth to say that the immanence
of God furnishes a scientific basis of morality.


FOOTNOTES:

[A] Psalms LXXXII--6.




CHAPTER III.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL


If we accept the idea of the immanence of God we shall be forced to
abandon belief in a miraculous instantaneous creation of man and the
earth on which he exists. The old, absurd, unscientific, impossible idea
that the race came from an original human pair must be replaced by the
hypothesis of the evolution of the soul.

It was about the fact of evolution that the great storm of controversy
raged between scientists and theologians in the middle of the nineteenth
century, and later. The evolutionary truths were not at first well
understood. They seemed to question or deny the existence of God. Deep
within humanity is intuitive religious belief. It is a natural faith
that transcends all facts, like the faith of a child in its mother.
Because evolution was contrary to all preconceived ideas of the earth's
inception it seemed at first to shatter faith and destroy hope, and
against fact and reason itself rose the protest of intuition with
spiritual intensity. People felt more than they reasoned and cried out
that science was about to destroy the belief in God. But time has proved
that they had merely misinterpreted the meaning of evolution. Further
understanding has shown that, instead of destroying the belief in God,
evolution has given us a new and better understanding of the whole
matter and has placed the hope of immortality on firmer ground than it
previously occupied.

Evolution is an established and generally accepted fact. No educated
person now thinks of questioning it. It is settled beyond dispute that
all things in the physical world have become what they are through a
long, slow, gradual evolution and that organisms the most perfect in
form and most complex in function have evolved from simpler ones. The
age of miracle has passed and belief in miracle has passed so far as its
relation to the material world is concerned. It is no longer necessary
to have a belief in an anthropomorphic God, performing feats in defiance
of natural law, in order to account for that which exists. Science has
reduced the cosmos to comprehension and shown that, given nebulous
physical matter, we can understand how the earth came into existence.

But why should we stop with the application of the laws of evolution to
material things? Only the outright materialist, who asserts that life is
a product of matter, can logically do so, and so great an authority in
the scientific world as Sir Oliver Lodge has asserted that there is no
longer any such thing as scientific materialism.[B] Those who accept the
idea of the existence of the soul at all must necessarily accept the
idea of the evolution of the soul. How can consciousness possibly
escape the laws that evolve the media for the expression of
consciousness? There must be the evolution of mind as certainly as there
is evolution of matter. The material and the spiritual, form and life,
are inseparable. Indeed, scientific progress has now brought us to the
point where matter, as such, practically disappears and we are face to
face with the fact that matter is really but a manifestation of force.
How, then, is it longer possible to speak of the soul and not accept the
evolution of the soul? Psychology is no less a science than physiology.
The phenomena of consciousness are as definitely studied as physical
phenomena, and it is no more difficult to account for a myriad souls
than to account for a million suns and their planets. The scientists who
have taken the position that the universe has a spiritual side as well
as a material side are among the most eminent and distinguished of the
modern world. If evolution has produced the starry heavens from the
material side it has likewise evolved the human souls of our world and
others from the spiritual side. It is no more difficult to understand
the one than the other.

From the scientific viewpoint the old popular belief in the creation of
the earth and the race by an act suddenly accomplished is, of course,
preposterous. If we could know nothing back of the present moment and
were called upon to account for the world as we see it--with its cities,
its ships and railways, its cultivated fields and parks--many people who
still believe in instantaneous creation of the soul would save
themselves much mental exertion by declaring that God had made it all as
it stands for the use and entertainment of man. But we know that it is
utterly absurd to think of the world leaping into existence
instantaneously--nothing existing one day and all trains running on time
between ready-made cities the next, carrying ready-made people about. It
sounds ridiculous only because we are putting it in material terms, but
in very truth it is less ludicrous than thinking of the instantaneous
creation of the creators of cities and railways.

The idea that we are a sudden creation is only possible because of the
very vague ideas of what human souls are. The chief difficulty with the
popular notion that a human soul is as new as the body it inhabits is
that it is a vague and indefinite conception of life, and the moment we
begin to think seriously about it the weakness of the idea becomes
apparent. Such a notion has no relationship to the processes of
reasoning. How can one reason with a man who believes it possible for a
soul to spring into existence from the void? What is the use in
reasoning about the "whys and wherefores" when it settles the whole
matter to say: "God did it"?

One thing that prevents us from believing not only that millions of
souls were created in the twinkling of an eye, but also that the world
as it now is was likewise suddenly created, is that we happen to know
quite definitely the history of the world a little way into the past,
and that history affirms that the earth and all life on it is the
product of slow evolutionary growth.

The evolution of the soul places the realm of religion on a scientific
basis. Not only the origin of the soul but its development and its
destiny at once appear in a new light. The mind is instinctively
impressed with the dignity of the idea of the evolution of the soul,
which, with its corollary, the immanence of God, makes the divinity of
man a fact in nature.


FOOTNOTES:

[B] Raymond: or Life and Death.




CHAPTER IV.

LIFE AFTER BODILY DEATH


One of the really remarkable facts of modern life is the disinclination
to accept at apparent value the scientific and other evidence there is
to prove that consciousness persists after the death of the physical
body. There is in existence a large amount of such evidence and much of
it is offered by scientists of the highest standing; and yet the average
man continues to speak of the subject as though nothing about it had yet
been definitely learned. It is the tendency of the human mind to adjust
itself very slowly to the truth, as it is discovered. Sometimes a
generation passes away between the discovery and the general acceptance
of a great truth. When we recall the intense opposition to the
introduction of steam-driven boats and vehicles, and the slowness with
which the world settles down to any radical change in its methods of
thinking, it will perhaps seem less remarkable that the truth about the
life after bodily death has waited so long for general recognition.

The evidence upon which a belief in the continuity of consciousness is
based is of two kinds--that furnished by physical science and that
furnished by psychic science. Together they make a very complete case.

The printed evidence of the first division--physical science--is
voluminous. In addition to that gathered by the Society for Psychical
Research there are the researches and experiments by the scientists of
England, France and Italy, among whom are Crookes, Lodge, Flammarion and
Lombroso. Crookes was a pioneer in the work of studying the human
consciousness and tracing its activities beyond the change called death.
All of that keenness of intellect and great scientific knowledge, which
has enabled him to make so many valuable discoveries and inventions, and
has won for him world-wide fame, were brought to bear upon the subject,
and for a period of four years he patiently investigated and
experimented. Many illustrated articles prepared by him, fully
describing his work, were published at the time in _The Journal of
Science_ of which he was then the editor.

Three vital points in psychic research were established by Sir William
Crookes. One was that there is psychic force. He demonstrated its
existence by levitation. He showed next, that the force is directed by
intelligence. By various clever experiments he obtained most conclusive
evidence of that fact. He then demonstrated that the intelligence
directing the force is not that of living people. Crookes also went
exhaustively into the subject of materialization and here, again, he was
remarkably successful. He was the first scientist to photograph the
materialized human form and engage in direct conversation with the
person who thus returned from the mysterious life beyond. This evidence
from the camera must be regarded as particularly interesting. It was
received with much amazement at the time, but that was before we had
revised our erroneous ideas about the nature of matter and before the
day of liquid air. Materialization is no longer a startling idea, for
that is precisely what liquid air is--a condensation of invisible matter
to the point where it becomes tangible and can be weighed, measured,
seen and otherwise known to the physical senses.

All these things Sir William Crookes did upon his own premises and under
the most rigid scientific conditions. All the methods and mechanism
known to modern science were employed and he finally announced his
complete satisfaction and acceptance of the genuineness of the phenomena
observed.

As Sir William Crookes was the earliest, Sir Oliver Lodge is the latest
of the famous scientists who have taken up the investigation of the
continuity of consciousness. In a lecture upon the subject, before the
Society for the Advancement of Science, he declared not only that the
subject of life after physical death was one which science might
legitimately and profitably investigate but that the existence of an
invisible realm had been established. He declared the continent of an
invisible world had been discovered, and added, "already a band of
daring investigators have landed on its treacherous but promising
shores."

Different scientists make a specialty of certain kinds of psychic
investigation and while Crookes made a detailed and careful study of
materialization Lodge has given equally painstaking efforts to
investigations by the use of that class of sensitives known as
"mediums." A medium is not necessarily a clairvoyant, and usually is
not clairvoyant. A person in whose body the etheric matter easily
separates from the physical matter is a medium and can readily be
utilized as a sort of telephone between the visible and the invisible
planes. A medium is an abnormal person and is a good medium in
proportion to the degree of abnormality. If the etheric matter of the
body is easily extruded the physical body readily falls into the trance
condition and the mechanism of conversation can be operated by the
so-called "dead" person who has temporarily taken possession of it. In
such cases it is not the medium who speaks for the living-dead
communicator. He is speaking directly himself, but he may often do it
with great difficulty and not always succeed in accurately expressing
the thought he has in mind. He may have to contend with other thoughts,
moods and emotions than his own and to those who understand something of
his difficulties it is not strange that such communications are
frequently unsatisfactory. It is not often that an analogy can be found
that will give a physical plane comprehension of a superphysical
condition, but perhaps a faint understanding may be had by thinking of a
"party line" telephone that any one of a dozen people may use at any
moment he can succeed in getting possession of it. A listener attempting
to communicate with one of them may