The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul

Priest, Prince, and Potentate generally, united to terrorize through force, and by superstition and fear, in order to retain their power.

The reaction has invariably resulted from economic conditions, as in the case of the Protestant Reformation, when the gold sent to Rome through the shameless sale of Indulgences, threatened to impoverish the whole of Northern Europe, and Princes broke allegiance to the Priesthood in desperate self-protection.

Then, and then only, came sufficient protest and Reformation.

The religionist is apt to regard and designate Science as “profane,” and Religion per se, as essentially “holy.”

Nothing can be really considered “holy” that does not elevate, encourage, and inspire the whole human race and promote the Brotherhood of Man. Whenever any religion fails to do this it becomes indeed a profanation of holy things.

The only religion that ever became the inspiration of a whole people, so far as history records, was that of Christna, with the teeming millions of India. Buddhism was driven out of India by the powerful and unscrupulous Brahmans, and took refuge in Ceylon, Thibet, and adjacent provinces.

The religion of Jesus met a similar fate from the Jews and the Roman governors, until Pagan Rome adapted and transformed it on the principle of dominance and exploitation inherent in the genius of the Latin Race.

Since which time no one will pretend to claim that the Religion of Jesus has ever dominated the human race or any large part of it.

Rome to-day no more represents the religion of Jesus than the Brahmans of to-day represent that of Christna, or Buddha, or the religion of the Vedas.

Nothing is so amazing to-day as that the intelligence of the present age fails to recognize this fact.

All of these religions of the past have adapted their teaching to the multitude through parable and allegory. Nothing in literature can be found more beautiful and inspiring, and at the same time comprehensible to the commonest intelligence, than Christna’s “Parable of the Fisherman.”

Christna and Buddha, like Jesus, taught to their disciples a “Secret Doctrine,” apprehensible only to the few. “To you it is given to know the mysteries,” but to others, who are without, it is not given.

It can readily be proven from at least a half score of the early Church Fathers (see page 70 et seq. of the author’s “Mystic Masonry”), that the early church practiced “Initiation,” patterned after those of the Gnostics, Therapeutia and the Mysteries of Egypt, and divided their neophytes and postulants into three degrees, as in Blue Lodge Masonry to-day.

While the great mass of mankind to-day are incapable of apprehending these genuine mysteries of life, and of the individual soul of man, it is doubtful if any civilization ever existed where so many were willing and capable of understanding them as are found here in America to-day.

The reason for this and the growth of intelligence have already been outlined.

A new race is slowly forming here, designated by the ancient Wisdom as the “Fifth Race,” and called the Manasic, the growth of Intelligence, or “Mind.”

It is above all things important that with this development of Mind there should also develop that of Buddhi, or Loving Kindness, the essential element in the Universal Brotherhood of Man; a thing largely overlooked in the modern theory of Evolution, and ignored, or set at naught by Romanism by its dogmas, anathemas, and persecutions. Instead of the brotherhood of man, she has exhibited the cruelty and rapacity of devils. (Establishment of Roman Catholic Caste.)

This all-around development of the whole man, as essential to human evolution, is everywhere insisted upon by all the great Masters of antiquity, and is illustrated and exemplified in the genuine Greater Mysteries.

Hence, the saying in Kabala, “The wicked obey the law through fear; the wise keep the law through knowledge.” The Saviors all preached and practiced the “Good Law,” and obedience to legal mandates.

The explanation usually given of an Avatar by the ancient Masters, as “a descent, embodiment, or incarnation of Vishnu,” who is not only the “Preserver,” but the “Rejuvenator” of mankind, is rather a blind, and was an interpretation given to the common people, or the “profane.”

All things – even heaven and earth – pass away, and all things are renewed.

This renewal, or regeneration, through the constructive principle of evolution, is “designed” to be continually on higher and still higher planes.

It is not the range of experience, nor the growth of intelligence alone, that elevates man, but the progressive and constructive growth of the soul, from the physical toward the spiritual plane of Being.

This actual growth means Knowledge, Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge of the Law, Obedience to its Commands, and Realization of its Rewards.

This Constructive Psychology is the growth of the Soul.

Man passes, therefore, from the age of Fable, Superstition, and Fear, to the age of Faith and Obedience, and finally to that of actual Knowledge.

This age of Knowledge– not for all of mankind, but for a larger number who are worthy and well-qualified, duly and truly prepared than was ever known at one time before – has at last dawned.

The question is continually asked, “Why do the Masters of Wisdom Conceal their Knowledge?”

The only adequate answer is that so few are ready, willing, and able to receive it in the right way, and to use and not abuse it.

Those who deny that any such knowledge has ever existed, or exists to-day, or can exist, had better waste no time over it. They cannot alter it, nor destroy it, as their predecessors have tried to do for ages, often murdering or crucifying all who were even suspected of possessing it. They might as well try to destroy the law of gravitation, or imagine that by murdering the foremost mathematician of the day that they had destroyed the science of mathematics. I am speaking of Knowledge of Spiritual things.

A new Avatar, therefore, is not simply an individual, though many individuals may understand and exemplify it – the Initiated, the Illuminati – and one man may lead in representing it.

To call it “the descent and embodiment, or Incarnation of Vishnu,” in a metaphysical sense, the Spirit (generically), that renews, rejuvenates, transforms, and regenerates, is by no means an empty metaphor.

In the same sense we speak of the “Genius of Greece,” or of Rome, or of Civilization.

The idea is composite, and represents an underlying and universal principle and potency.

But after all metaphor and generalization, each Avataric movement centered around an individual Man, and this Man embodied the principle and undertook the special work of an evangel, or Christos, or “Avatar,” amongst men.

Not only have there been many Avatars, and many Buddhas, but when we realize the meaning of these terms and the mysteries they represent, we discover that while it may be the special mission of one, like Christna, or Buddha, or Jesus, to undertake the work of enlightening and redeeming any age; there are other Masters, or Illuminati, engaged in other work, on different planes, to promote the same general results.

The result with each of the great Saviors of mankind has been, that the common people, or the priesthood, have eventually either crucified or deified them.

In the case of Jesus they have done both. Eight separate and deliberate attempts have already been made to assassinate the present representative of the School of Natural Science, who was educated in the order of the Illuminati, and delegated by that Order to present these great truths to the world to-day.

This individual is only in the broadest metaphysical sense (as already defined), an Avatar, which, as shown, is a composite idea, focused in and represented by an individual man or teacher.

The work of this Master is to instruct, to exemplify, and to demonstrate, the ancient Wisdom on Scientific lines, in keeping with the needs, the opportunities, and the scientific spirit of the present age.

He does not preach to the multitude in parables. He undertakes to instruct the few who are ready and qualified to receive such instruction, and who will properly use and not abuse it, and he does this “without money and without price”; “without the hope of fee or reward.” (Herein is the Avataric Spirit of Freemasonry.)

What his reward will be with the rabble, or with the “money changers,” he knows too well, but to such as he, fear is unknown.

I am speaking not for him, but of him, after the blessed privilege of seven years of the most intimate association, and such co-operation as I have been capable of giving.

His plan and motive seem to be to get as much as possible of this knowledge of the soul, and of spiritual things, to the attention of the “progressive intelligence of the present age,” in order that it may become exemplified and diffused among all classes, and for the benefit of the whole human race.

We have passed the age of fable, and of blind faith, and have come to the age of fact and law. Kali Yuga means the Iron Age.

As two natures, the physical and spiritual, meet and mingle in the constitution of man, so do his faculties, capacities, and powers mingle and function on the two planes, the physical and the spiritual, though very largely on the former, with the great majority in any age or time.

There is implanted in the very foundation of man’s being the idea or the consciousness of a separable soul. It would seem to be an intuition, for with nearly every people of which we have any knowledge, no matter how near the animal plane, the belief or the folklore of a separable soul exists, in many cases held to be separable during life, and in most cases believed to survive the death of the physical body. (See folio editions of Herbert Spencer’s “Descriptive Sociology,” and Chapter XIII, herein.)

It has generally been held by scientists and commentators, that this intuition, or belief, results largely from dreams.

To say that dreams, in general, are mere fantasies, or the results of imagination, and have no real basis in consciousness, is folly; for dreams are of many kinds, and present great varieties.

They are, moreover, both reminiscent and prophetic, sometimes moving like any other conscious experience, from fact to fruition, and in others, we are unable to relate them to any other conscious experience.[1]

Hypnosis and Telepathy are related to the same states, so much so, that the modern scientist has been constrained to coin two new terms to avoid endless repetitions, viz.: “subliminal” and “supraliminal” states of consciousness.

Bearing in mind all these subjective states and experiences, including the whole range of so-called mediumship, the theorem of the Masters and adepts of all ages may be made exceeding plain.

[Footnote 1: For a very valuable and suggestive treatise on “Sleep,” see F. W. H. Myers “Human Personality,” Chap. IV.]

It consists in the dominance of the Will over all conscious states.

This is the Alpha and the Omega– the principle, the potency, and the act – of Mastership.

The mind of the Master no longer drifts in a boundless sea of fantasy, but with rudder and compass, he guides his ship whithersoever he would go.

This does not mean that there are not still degrees and related states and conditions of consciousness in his experience.

It does mean, however, that all these states and conditions, with all his faculties, capacities, and powers, are co-ordinated, not only in his awareness of them as a whole, but in the exercise of each and its relation to the others, dominated by his own Will.

He has “Mastered” them, and can incite or repress them, while they can no longer dominate him. Can the reader imagine such a degree of Self-Control?

This, however, is but the beginning, as the “Secret of Power,” and by no means the end.

Controlling the phases and forms of consciousness, there comes next the determination to extend their boundary and to refine and elevate the powers of the Soul.

In the first case, that of co-ordination, the ancient Wisdom admonishes the student or chela to “make the mind one pointed, like a light burning in a quiet place.” Light a candle and put it in a corner where no draught can reach it, and the flame will seem as though cut out of solid fire, and “one pointed.”

It is at the point of refining and elevating the individual consciousness that Ethics or Morals come in. It is just at this point also that the Path is determined.

What our ancient Brothers called “the power of Will and Yoga” – self-control —may ignore Ethics. Here the paths separate, and are called “the Right-hand Path” and “the Left-hand Path,” determining the “White” and the “Black Magician,” about whom so much is said in all ancient scriptures and traditions regarding “Sorcery” and “Black Magic,” of which Egypt and Rome and Modern Mediumship and Hypnotism, are illustrations.

The supreme importance of this natural division or “parting of the way” reveals the real and final reason why the Masters of the “right-hand path” conceal their knowledge from the profane and reveal it only after an ethical formulary has been learned and once for all ingrained.

The “Thugs” of India are no more an idle dream nor a bugaboo to frighten children and old women than are the Mafia and the Roman Jesuit to-day.

In Egypt the time came when these “Black Magicians” dominated the people and drove out those of the right-hand path who built the great pyramid and gave to Egypt the wisdom and glory of its prime.

The consciousness and power of these evil men, however, was limited to the lower planes. Whenever they wished to transcend these lower planes they were powerless. Hence arose the Sibyl; young boys or virgins were hypnotized, and being pure, they could thus be inducted into a somewhat higher plane. (See Mabel Collins’ “Idyll of the White Lotus.”)

Margrave, in Bulwer’s “Strange Story,” is a fine picture of an “adept of the left-hand path.” He would sacrifice the whole human race in order to gain his personal and selfish ends, just as would “Mother Church” to-day.

The Master of the White Lodge would readily lay down his life for the benefit of his fellowmen. Herein is the vital difference.

Here lies the meaning and the complete antithesis represented by Christos and Satan. Both names are generic and Avataric, and yet, may be personified.

This elevating and refining process to which I have referred is not a matter of sentiment or emotion, but a matter of fact, with a definite, scientific formula.

In a previous chapter belief in the existence AND SEPARABILITY OF THE HUMAN SOUL HAS BEEN SHOWN to be virtually universal, and in some cases, even with people of very low development, the belief is held that the soul may be separated from the body and reunited again during life.

This is, however, a belief, and proves nothing as to fact, science, and law, beyond the existence of the belief, with all the appurtenances, concomitants, and subjective experiences of individuals thereunto belonging.

We thus arrive at the real theorem as a cold psychological problem.

Can the existence and separability of the soul of man, during his physical embodiment on earth, and its survival of the death of the physical body, be scientifically demonstrated as a fact?

If so, then the principles involved, the methods employed and the whole modus operandi must be capable of exact, scientific formulation, the same as any other theorem of science.

Furthermore, granting that this is true, and that it can be done according to exact formulary, the value, the effect of such a demonstration upon the character and the normal faculties, capacities, and powers of the individual who undertakes and accomplishes such a demonstration, must be revealed and taken fully into account.

Does it elevate or degrade him? Is it in line with normal evolution, and therefore, potentially the birthright, and finally, through spiritual evolution, the higher destiny of all men?

Nor is this all. The effect of the existence of such Knowledge and of its teaching, upon communities, as a substitute for blind superstition, credulity, or belief, must also be taken into account.

It may thus be seen how much even beyond the mere fact of demonstration, is included in this transcendent problem; this question of all ages, “If a man die, shall he live again?” or, “Does the real man ever die at all?”

Now it is a demonstrated fact, proven in every case of a genuine Master, and held inviolable in the “Greater Mysteries” of every age and time, that the ethical question above raised, as to the effect upon individuals and society, comes first, and is made a test of the “first step” in the way of demonstration.

This is the meaning of the oft repeated quotation, the candidate for initiation must first be “worthy and well-qualified, duly and truly prepared.”

This comprises and constitutes the “Lesser Mysteries,” as in the School of Pythagoras, viz.: the instruction of the neophyte in ethics or morals.

Nor is this instruction sufficient in any case. The candidate must himself demonstrate that he has absorbed, apprehended, and utilized such instruction by “Living the Life.”

In other words, it must have become so ingrained in his character as to govern absolutely all his acts and impulses to action, i.e., automatic, habitual, and natural.

In the School of Natural Science this comprises and constitutes the “Ethical Section of the General Formulary.”

In the School of Pythagoras we are informed that students sometimes remained for years in the “outer court,” and sometimes they failed entirely and hopelessly, and went back to the outer world. Whereupon a white stone was erected to their memory as though they were dead. They were indeed, for the time being, dead to the School.

This fully answers the ethical question as to the effect of this real knowledge on the individual and on mankind.

The real Master sees to it that all that precaution can provide, or human wisdom can suggest, is done to insure beneficent use of the knowledge gained.

It is here that “degrees” in initiation become a necessity. Every step, or passage of the candidate from a lower to a higher degree, is marked and determined finally and solely by his “proficiency in the preceding degree.”

The question of Morals, or the ethical effect, therefore, is pre-determined, and as far as possible, solved first.

But even with all this wise precaution, the unprepared and the unqualified have sometimes entered the outer courts; and when compelled at last to reveal their character, have turned to rend their teachers, and have done their utmost to destroy the School and demoralize mankind.

If these moral renegades could only realize the meaning to themselves of thus entering the “Left-hand Path” of devolution and of starting voluntarily “down the deep descent,” as portrayed in Dante’s “Inferno,” or in Ahrinzeman, they would, indeed, hesitate long before “turning to the left,” for inevitable destruction lies that way.

Here lies the scientific explanation of the “Fall of Lucifer,” portrayed in some form in the pantheons and mythologies of every philosophy and religion known to man.

The ordinary “sinner” may yet possess an “average” of all the virtues, and the ordinary “saint” an “average” of all the vices. Concerning these it was said, “I would have you either hot or cold, but because ye are neither hot nor cold, I have spewed you out of my mouth.” No lukewarm soul ever entered the Kingdom of Heaven.

But a time at last comes when the soul of man, enmeshed in the “lusts of the flesh and the deceitfulness of riches,” must make his choice. He realizes that he can no longer “serve two masters.” He will make his choice knowingly, deliberately, and voluntarily. Happy and blessed will be he if with his whole soul, and with every impulse of his being, he declares, “I know not what others may do, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

If there are real Masters (and there are), they have to work under both Natural and Divine Law, and in strict harmony with the higher evolution of the whole human race.

It is only a low, feeble, and undeveloped intelligence that finds God and Nature at cross-purposes.

He who has found “the place of peace,” harmonized his own nature, purified his own life, and elevated all his desires and aspirations, has discerned the “harmony of the morning stars,” and caught the symphony of the heavenly hosts. In other words, he is already functioning on the Spiritual Plane.

This would seem to make clear the ethical problem raised, the stress placed upon it, and how it is met and answered by every genuine Initiate throughout the ages.

It has to be solved first in each individual case. Only “he who lives the life shall know the doctrine,” or advance to power.

CHAPTER XV

THE SCIENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY AS A KNOWLEDGE OF THE HUMAN SOUL

The writer of the present treatise is quite well aware that the great majority of intelligent and educated people at the present day will deny that any real knowledge of the human soul as a spiritual entity, separable from the physical body during life and demonstrably surviving its death, exists now, has heretofore existed, or, if possible for man, is likely to exist for some time to come. Some will unhesitatingly declare such a thing unknowable for man.

I hold the firm conviction that this knowledge has been for ages the possession of certain individuals, few in number in any age or country, and that this knowledge has resulted through conformity to certain definite and specific requirements, formulated under well-known laws of man’s spiritual being, involving a definite individual experience and resulting in a scientific and exact demonstration.

I ask the reader to note two points in the foregoing statement: First, that for myself I use the word “conviction,” and not “knowledge”; and, second, that the demonstration of real knowledge referred to, is made by, and confined to an individual, in each instance.

With these individuals the knowledge is a scientific demonstration through personal experience. With me, the “firm conviction” is a matter of “circumstantial evidence,” supported by analogy, and fortified by empirical testimony, such as acquaint the world with the facts and findings of science, and which I think admit of no other consistent and rational interpretation.

In the foregoing pages I have endeavored to give outlines, analogies, and suggestions which seem to fortify the conviction referred to.

While these are fragmentary and desultory, owing to the fact that the circumstances are so varied, the subject so vast, and the materials so abundant, yet, taken as a whole, they seem overwhelming, and, except to the careful, persistent, and intelligent student, confusing.

It must be clearly apprehended that no one familiar with the subject can reasonably suppose, nor has it ever been claimed by a real Master of the “Art,” that this knowledge ever has been, or can be, communicated to, or acquired by groups of individuals at any time, or under any circumstances.

Through all the past, and at the present time, it is designated as an individual experience.

True, the ethics, and the philosophy, and even the principles of exact psychic science that in the past constituted the “Lesser Mysteries,” can be, and often have been, taught to groups, or classes.

In the present “School of Natural Science,” this preparatory training constitutes the “Ethical Section.”

But above and beyond all the foregoing general considerations the “empirical facts” and the “circumstantial evidence,” if we know personally one who claims to have had the specific instruction, the personal experience, and to have made the scientific demonstration referred to and outlined in the problem, our opportunity for instruction, and for the application of tests for validity and reasonableness as to the whole problem, is exceedingly valuable.