Introduction to Hylozoics
A Guide to Individual and Group Study
of the First Section of The Knowledge of Reality
by Henry T. Laurency (the Internet Edition)
by Lars Adelskogh
If students want to progress so as to eventually arrive at a thorough understanding of hylozoics, it has proved advisable that they first acquaint themselves with the hylozoic system in its basic outlines and master its most important concepts. The system is best presented in The Knowledge of Reality (KofR) by Henry T. Laurency, chapters 1.1–1.43. This text, together with the commentaries and study questions given below, are suitable materials for the first period of study. The proposed study for the following period is Esoteric Life View (chapters 3.1–3.73) in The Philosophers’s Stone by Laurency.
First study period: Introduction to Hylozoics.
Study materials: The Knowledge of Reality (Laurency), chapters 1.1–1.43. Commentaries, Study Questions.
In group study, it is suggested that the group gathers seven times with intervals of 14 days. The first meeting is given to presentation of the material and to planning of its study. In preparation for each following meeting the students work individually the indicated chapters of KofR with the Commentaries and Questions and check their grasp of the subject by trying to answer the study questions. The chief aim of the study at this stage should be to master the system in its main features and basic definitions, leaving details until later.
The second meeting: KofR, chapters 1.1–1.3 (What Most People Do Not Know – The Proofs of Hylozoics). Study Questions 1–9.
The third meeting: KofR, chapters 1.4–1.14 (THE BASIC FACTORS OF EXISTENCE, THE MATTER ASPECT). Study Questions 10–20.
The fourth meeting: KofR, chapters 1.15–1.23 (THE CONSCIOUSNESS ASPECT). Study Questions 21–29.
The fifth meeting: KofR, chapters 1.24–1.31 (THE MOTION ASPECT – The “Rebirth” of Everything). Study Questions 30-37.
The sixth meeting: KofR, chapters 1.32–1.34 (THE NATURAL KINGDOMS – The Fourth Natural Kingdom). Study Questions 38–48.
The seventh meeting: KofR, chapters 1.35–1.43 (The Fifth Natural Kingdom – Conclusion). Study Questions 49–58.
COMMENTARIES ON The Knowledge of Reality, Chapters 1.1–1.43
Commentary on 1.1 What Most People Do Not Know
Fictions are intellectual ideas that are false to facts.
To know something a priori means to know it without previous examination.
A paper pope, in Laurency’s parlance, means a book with a purported infallibly true content. Just as the Catholics have the Pope as their infallible authority, so the Protestants have the Bible as their “paper pope”.
Indian rishis, Egyptian hierophants, gnostic theurgists, true Rosicrucians are examples of esoteric teachers and and disciples belonging to various genuine schools.
Superphysical reality is the term used to denote all reality beyond the visible gross physical and (to most people) invisible etheric physical reality.
States of aggregation (molecular kinds): solid, liquid, and gaseous matter are the three states of aggregation, or molecular kinds, of visible physical matter. This visible molecular matter is penetrated by a series of (to most people) invisible physical states of aggregation.
The pre-existence of the soul is the existence of the soul prior to the birth of the human individual.
Objective consciousness and subjective consciousness are two concepts that must be clearly understood and distinguished, since they are indispensable to the entire reasoning about the nature of consciousness. To begin with: What is objective and what is subjective? Material reality (“outer reality”), consisting of objects, is objective. Consciousness reality (“inner reality”), consisting of subjective states, is subjective. So by objective consciousness we understand the ability to perceive objective reality, material reality. Sense perceptions such as vision, hearing, and touch are instances of objective consciousness, since those perceptions refer to material reality, material forms. In contrast, subjective consciousness is unable to perceive material reality. Feelings, thoughts, and ideas, are subjective, since those “inner states” normally (where most people are concerned) do not involve the perception of material forms. Normally, man’s sense perceptions are his only kind of objective consciousness.
Agnostics deny the possibility of reaching a knowledge of the superphysical but do not therefore deny the possible existence of the superphysical. Skeptics deny it, however.
A working hypothesis is an explanation that cannot at present be proved correct but can be used pending definitive knowledge.
We study facts in four types of contexts: historical, logical, psychological, causal. 1) By a historical context is meant the succession of events in time (but therefore not necessarily their causal connections). 2) A logical context shows how ideas and statements depend on each other. 3) Psychological contexts: actions depend on their motives. 4) Causal contexts show how material effects depend on their causes. 4) The ground–consequence context is a logical one, the cause–effect context a causal one. Only 4) is cause in a material sense. There is very often a mix-up in people’s minds about cause–effect and ground–consequence. (As you see, I avoid here the word reason precisely because it is part and parcel of this mix-up.) For instance, if I am out walking in the woods and see smoke rising somewhere far away, I conclude that there must be a fire. My conclusion is a logical context, a connection of the two ideas of “smoke” and “fire”, where “smoke” is the ground and “fire” is the consequence of my reasoning. In the physical world, however, fire is the cause and smoke is the effect. So we see that cause and ground should not be confused. Reasoning, going from ground to consequence, can work both ways: inferring causes from effects or effects from causes. Or, expressed differently: the ground of my reasoning could be a cause or an effect. Physical world causal action, however, is always a one-way process, going only from cause to effect.
Illusions are false ideas and values that have become emotional motivations, such as desires for power, glory, possessions, etc.
Commentary on 1.2 The Esoteric Knowledge Orders
Emotional consciousness includes desires and feelings, mental consciousness comprises thoughts and ideas. At the emotional stage man is dominated by his desires and feelings, and his dawning common sense fights as serious odds against his illusion-creating wishful thinking. At the subsequent mental stage, man strives to become independent of emotionality.
The antimetaphysical position rejects the idea of superphysical reality.
Synthetic instinct of life: Countless experiences during thousands of incarnations combine to form a subconscious synthesis, which expresses itself in an instinctive understanding of life.
Laurency distinguishes between idiology and ideology. An idiology is a doctrine that does not accord with reality but is mostly made up of fictions, e.g. Christianity, Marxism, physicalism. An ideology is a doctrine that consists of unadulterated reality ideas, an esoteric teaching.
In ancient Greece (from about 500 BCE), sophists were philosophers who challenged traditional ideas and knowledge indiscriminately and tried to solve the problems of existence by means of “logic” (that is, speculation without the necessary facts).
Nirvana, buddhi, manas, atma are ancient Indian (Brahmanical or Buddhist) terms for several superphysical states of matter and consciousness. Karma is the law of sowing and reaping, the law of the good and bad results of individual and collective action. These orginally esoteric terms were taken over and misinterpreted by ignorant exoteric speculation.
Advaita (Sanskrit: non-dualism), Indian philosophical school which maintains that the only real existence is Brahman (the absolute, transcendental immutable being), whereas material reality is called illusion. Subjectivism is the philosophical view that accords reality to consciousness only, viewing material reality as mere subjective conception, or ”illusion”.
Commentary on 1.3 The Proofs of Hylozoics
Quasi-occultism is the common name for all such teachings on the superphysical as are not entirely based on the facts of esoteric knowledge but present a mixture of esoterics and man-made speculation.
Fictionalism is the common term for all the doctrines that lack a firm foundation in reality.
Physical etheric material energies exist in the matter which is next to gross physical matter in composition.
Commentary on 1.4 THE BASIC FACTORS OF EXISTENCE
Pythagoras lived about 700 BCE. He founded an order of esoteric knowledge and formulated the hylozoic system, which he taught to his disciples. You will find more information on him and his order in KofR, Section Five, chapter 5.3. Hylozoics consistently avoids the use of traditional terms, such as spirit, soul, mind, etc., which through the abuse of ignorance have lost their rational content.
The theory of knowledge, or epistemology, is the philosophical study of the possibility and conditions of knowledge. The basic tenet of hylozoic epistemology: “Everything is above all what it appears to be, physical material reality, but in addition always something totally different and immensely more.” The “totally different” is consciousness and motion, which can never be matter. The “immensely more” is that greater part of reality (more than 99 per cent) which is beyond the visible physical.
Before consciousness is actualized, awakened, it is only potential, dormant. Consciousness is passive when it can never be self-active but must be activated by impulses from without; the opposite is self-active consciousness, or active consciousness for short.
As for Demokritos, see chapter 5.4.
THE MATTER ASPECT
Commentary on 1.5 Primordial Matter
The unmanifested is such reality as does not appear in the kinds of matter (atoms, molecules, etc.) that compose the cosmoses.
Commentary on 1.6 The Cosmos
The combination of three into seven is made in the manner shown in the diagram below, where the size of the figures indicates the relative strength of the three aspects, 1 = motion (will), 2 = consciousness, 3 = matter.
1 1 2 3 2 1 2 3 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 5 1 2 3 6 1 2 3 7 1 2 3
Dimension is kind of space, duration is length of time.
Commentary on 1.7 Atomic Matter
Aggregates are atoms and/or molecules gathered into coherent forms. Dynamic means self-active.
Commentary on 1.8 Space and Time
The concept of cosmic space refers to manifested matter, not to primordial matter, but to cosmic matter of the atomic kinds 1–49. Space always implies limitation and spherical form. Absolute space, unmanifested primordial matter, is unlimited, is not space in the cosmic sense (the only comprehensible sense).
Atomic matter and molecular matter also differ in their respective spatial structures. Atomic matter (1–49) exists everywhere in the cosmos. Molecular matter (see chapter 1.10) exists only in the solar systems (43–49), composing their planets.
Commentary on 1.9 Solar Systems
Pralaya (Sanskrit) means a period during which lower kinds of matter are dissolved while higher kinds are reorganized pending a future period of new activity, manvantara, in lower worlds. Manvantara and pralaya, or the days and nights of Brahma, are ancients terms for solar systemic periods of activity and passivity, respectively.
Commentary on 1.10 Molecular Matter
The various molecular kinds making up the physical, emotional, mental, etc. matter of any planet form concentric layers in the globe in such a manner that each kind penetrates all the lower ones as well as extends beyond them. Thus the lowest kind of physical molecular matter (49:7) forms a solid innermost core which, if it were a perfect sphere, would be entirely covered by the water of the oceans (49:6), while the latter is surrounded by the atmosphere (49:5), etc. All these three lower molecular kinds are penetrated by three successively higher molecular ethers (49:2-4.) The corresponding is true of the emotional (48:2-7) and mental (47:2-7) molecular layers.
The emotional, mental, etc. molecular kinds are sometimes called solid, liquid, etc. by analogy with the physical kinds, from which the terms have been taken. Emotional matter is, of course, of a quality radically different from physical matter, so that “solid”, “liquid”, etc., must not be taken literally when applied to emotional matter.
The 147 layers of matter: 49 layers each in 49:4, 49:3 and 49:2 must be penetrated before the true physical atom (49:1) will be reached.
Commentary on 1.11 The Planets
When the systemic worlds 43–45 are said to be common to all who have acquired objective consciousness in them, this means that these individuals are able to move freely between the various globes of the solar system, identify with the consciousness of their inhabitants, etc; see also the tabulation in 1.35.19. Individuals in 46–49, however, are restricted to their own planets.
The division of the planetary worlds 47–49 into five molecular worlds also implies that the monad eventually acquires five envelopes in 47–49, one in each molecular world.
Commentary on 1.13 The Monad’s Envelopes
Every form of nature (mineral form, vegetable, animal, or human organism) is an envelope for an indwelling monad. The envelope is an instrument for the development of the monad’s consciousness. The envelope consists of molecules, atoms, and therefore ultimately of primordial atoms. There is a great difference, however, between the monads that collectively and in enormous quantities go to make up the 2-atoms that make up the 3-atoms that make up the 4-atoms, etc., down to, for instance the physical atoms (49) of which the etheric envelope is composed, and that one monad which uses the envelope as its instrument for consciousness and activity, a great difference and distance in consciousness development.
The organism is made up of cells, tissues, organs, and organ systems. Aggregate envelopes are constituted quite differently; they can be formed and dissolved instantly, for example.
Commentary on 1.14 Man’s Five Envelopes
The human monad is the monad during its evolution in the human kingdom.
The monad’s consciousness is self-consciousness proper. It develops from the lowest physical consciousness (49) to the highest cosmic (1) omniscience. During this development from 49 to 1, and as a condition of it, the monad identifies itself with successively higher kinds of consciousness: sense perceptions (49), emotions (48), thoughts (47), etc.
THE CONSCIOUSNESS ASPECT
Commentary on 1.15 The Monad Consciousness
Expressed more exactly, active consciousness means self-active, self-initiated consciousness, whereas passive consciousness is not self-active. Thus, passive consciousness is not inactive but active just under influence from without; to cite an instance: man’s emotional and mental envelopes have their own passive consciousness, which must be activated (1) by the self-active monad, or (2) by robot functions once established by the monad (complexes, habits, etc.), or (3) by vibrations from without (telepathically received). The monad begins to acquire self-active consciousness already in the subhuman evolutionary kingdoms.
Commentary on 1.16 Different Kinds of Consciousness
“Technically”, that is, consciousness divided according to material worlds: cosmic consciousness in worlds 1–42, solar systemic consciousness in worlds 43–45, and planetary consciousness in worlds 46–49. As for essential consciousness, see 1.35.5ff.
Higher kinds of consciousness can apprehend lower, but lower consciousness cannot apprehend higher. Thought (47) can apprehend (for example, analyse) and control desire (48) and sense perceptions (49), desire can sort sense perceptions into pleasant and unpleasant ones. No senses can apprehend desires, however, nor can any desires apprehend thoughts.
Commentary on 1.17 Subjective and Objective Consciousness
In order to grasp the concepts of subjective and objective, it is necessary to understand the three aspects of reality. Matter is objective reality; consciousness is subjective reality; motion is dynamic reality to be found in both the objective and the subjective (everything is in a constant state of change and flux). There is nothing purely subjective or solely objective reality. When man perceives physical reality (49) as solely objective (as matter), this is so because he has a deficient apprehension of consciousness (the subjective) in this reality. When he apprehends emotional reality (48) as purely subjective feeling, and mental reality (47) as mere subjective thought, this is so because he cannot observe the material forms that are the vehicles of his feelings and thoughts. Such observation requires emotional and mental objective consciousness corresponding to the physical senses. Reason is subjective consciousness. Sense is objective consciousness.
Commentary on 1.18 Physical Consciousness
Subjective consciousness in the etheric envelope (49:2-4) is mostly experienced as physical vitality or the lack of it.
Commentary on 1.19 Emotional Consciousness
The stage of barbarism is the first of the five stages of development that the monad goes through in the human kingdom; see 1.34.12.
Repulsive feelings are “hatred”: wrath, contempt, judging, fear, depression, envy, etc. Attractive feelings are “love”: affection, respect, confidence, admiration, gratitude, courage, sacrifice, loyalty, etc.
Commentary on 1.20 Mental-Causal Consciousness
Thought is said to be discursive when going from one concept to the other in succession, a process that finds expression in a train of thought. Discursive thought is thinking by means of concepts, and the opposite of intuitive thought.
Thought absolutifies when it views things, not in their inevitable contexts, in their relations with other things, but in isolation, so making them absolute, unchanging, and independent. Most people’s valuations of good and evil, right and wrong in morality, religion, etc., are instances of this.
In esoterics, intuition means at least causal consciousness (47:1-3), but often also essential consciousness (46:1-7), so that a distinction has to be made between causal and essential intuition, two radically different modes of perceiving reality. However, this true intuition has nothing whatsoever in common with what most people call their “intuition”, which is emotional thinking with a scanty mental content.
Causal consciousness is both subjective – intuition – and objective – instant perception of all material facts in the planetary worlds 47–49. At the fifth and last stage of human development, the stage of ideality, the individual activates causal consciousness. When he has learnt how to live in this kind of consciousnesss whenever he wants to in his waking state, he is a causal self.
Commentary on 1.21 Higher Kinds of Consciousness
About the term self as applied to stages of development: What kinds of self are human beings? The monad’s goal in the human kingdom is to become a causal self, or a higher 47-self; causal selves are exceedingly rare, however. The bulk of present mankind have “full subjective and objective self-consciousness and ability of activity” in the physical world (world 49) only. Yet a large percentage of mankind are defined as emotional selves (48-selves) and a much lesser percentage as mental selves (lower 47-selves), since their strongly developed emotional and mental subjective consciousness dominates their physical objectivity.
Commentary on 1.22 The Self’s Unconscious
Do not confuse latency and potentiality! Everything that has once existed in the monad’s waking consciousness, its attention, but has since faded into its subconscious, is latent. All higher kinds of consciousness, which the monad has as yet never owned, or contacted only sporadically, is potential. The latent is in the subconscious. The potential is the superconscious. The latent is the past. The potential is the future.
Global vibrations extend over the entire planet.
Commentary on 1.23 The Individual’s Memories
The causal envelope was acquired when the monad passed from the animal to the human kingdom.
About skandhas: When certain impressions and experiences, feelings, ideas, etc. are repeated often and strongly enough, their corresponding emotional and mental molecules are retained in the proximity of the monad instead of being scattered when the emotional and mental envelopes are eliminated after the death of organism. These skandhas are preserved in the causal envelope.
About globe memories: Those globes of etheric physical, emotional, mental, and causal matter which surround our visible physical planet are the planet’s envelopes (aura) in higher worlds and have, like all envelopes, a complete memory of everything that has happened to them ever since they came into being. These are the planetary globe memories. The corresponding is true of other planets, solar systems, and the entire cosmos.
THE MOTION ASPECT
Commentary on 1.24 Motion Defined
The word ”dynamis” is stressed on the y.
Commentary on 1.27 The Cosmic Motion
Primary matter: Those primordial atoms which have most recently been introduced into the cosmos from chaos (primordial matter) are undergoing the process of involvation (not involution) to form composite atoms (2–49) and then the process of evolvation back to the primitive uncompounded state (1). The atomic and molecular kinds formed in these processes are called primary matter. In going through the processes of involvation and evolvation, the (as yet unconscious) monads of primary matter eventually learn to form stable aggregates, whereupon they can embark on the process of involution in worlds 43–48, in which their consciousness is actualized, awakened.
When it is said that “a constant current of primordial atoms flows down through the atoms of all the worlds”, this does not imply downward motion in space but the transition of primordial atoms from a higher state of matter and energy to a lower one.
Commentary on 1.28 The Will
About ”energy’s individualized mode of acting though consciousness”: Consciousness is always bound up with beings – individuals or collectives – which all of them have their unique characters.
About everything’s individual character, see chapter 2.8 Some Problems for Future Psychology.
About consciousness activation in the different natural kingdoms: Consciousness is said to be active when the monad is self-active in that consciousness, has acquired will and the faculty of initiative in it: faint physical will in the vegetable kingdom (the striving of plants towards light and support), stronger physical will (faculty of motion) and incipient emotional will (desire) in the animal kingdom, also mental will (rational will) in the human kingdom. In the human kingdom, activation finally becomes conscious when man will no longer let emotions and thoughts lead their own uncontrolled life, which only results in “inner babble” and negative emotions. Then man realizes that he should himself decide the content of his consciousness, that he should be increasingly self-active in his consciousness. Self-initiated consciousness is such feelings, thoughts, etc. as we have felt and thought by our own accord. There is an essential difference between “I think” and “it thinks in me” (see 2.9.9-10).
Commentary on 1.29 Different Kinds of Energy and Will
Man is developing subjective self-consciousness in the physical, emotional, and mental worlds. He perceives his self as the centre of all his sense perceptions, feelings, and thoughts. At his present stage of development, he has objective self-consciousness in the physical world only. Starting from it, he has activated his physical will and then activates also his emotional and mental will.
The atomic energies thus act directly from 47:1 to 48:1 and from there to 49:1, by-passing the molecular kinds.
Commentary on 1.30 THE MEANING AND GOAL OF EXISTENCE
The power which the application of the laws afford: see 4.11.7 about the fundamental axiom of esoterics.
The self is disoriented in the consciousness chaos of its envelope whenever it is not self-active in its envelope; does not think and feel by itself. Then the envelope is activated either by vibrations from without (telepathy) or by automatized mental and emotional habits, which “think in us”. See chapter 2.9 Telepathy.
Atomic consciousness: Consciousness in 49:1 makes omniscience in the planetary physical world planet possible, 48:1 omniscience in the planetary emotional world, 47:1 in the causal-mental world. Omniscience in a higher world includes all the lower worlds.
Commentary on 1.31 The “Rebirth” of Everything
Consciousness expansion in the fifth natural kingdom: From world 46 up consciousness development entails the expansion of self-consciousness. Preserving its self-identity, the monad enters into shared consciousness with ever larger collectives in ever higher worlds. The extension of these collectives in world 43–46 is indicated in 1.35.19.
Commentary on 1.32 THE NATURAL KINGDOMS
Do not confuse natural kingdoms and worlds! A world is state of matter with its peculiar kind of consciousness and motion (will). A natural kingdom is a stage in the evolution of the monads. Monads of several different natural kingdoms can exist in one and the same world, and the monads of one natural kingdom can be conscious in several worlds.
One eon = 4320 million years.
An instance of the fact that every form of nature is an envelope for a monad in a higher kingdom: The monads that in the last analysis go to form man’s organism belong to the mineral kingdom, so that man (the monad in the human kingdom) has an evolutionary lead of three kingdoms ahead of these envelope monads.
Commentary on 1.33 The Three Lowest Natural Kingdoms
The process of objectivation implies that the monad’s perception of reality is increasingly determined by the external world, objective reality. The well-developed sense-organs of the highest animal species are the results of this process going on through three natural kingdoms. Thanks to its objective consciousness the monad is able to apprehend the contrast between its own consciousness and the surrounding world, between subjective and objective. This leads to the awakening of self-consciousness. Philosophers have in all times tried to explain objective reality away in terms of subjectivitst fancies. The self’s opposition to other selves is necessary at the lowest human stage in order to confirm as yet but faintly developed self-consciousness. At higher stages, however, this self-assertion becomes evil.
Adaptation to ever higher vibrations as a necessary condition of passing to a higher kingdom: In order to pass to the essential kingdom, man must learn to receive and to adapt to the vibrations of his causal envelope (47:1-3), subsequently to learn how to apprehend reality by causal consciousness to use causal will. He will learn this towards the close of his sojourn in the human kingdom. Prior to this, the causal energies have served mainly to vitalize the lower envelopes. In the esoteric sense, health is the unobstructed inflow of the causal energies into the mental, emotional, and etheric envelopes. When these causal energies are blocked somewhere in the lower envelopes, by destructive thoughts and feelings, for instance, disease arises in the envelopes and in the last resort in the organism.
49:4:7:7 is the lowest of the 49 subdivisions of the 49:4 molecular kind. See Commentary on 1.10.8
Etherization is that process the future result of which is that the etheric envelope will be man’s lowest envelope. In so shedding the organism, man will be liberated from 99 per cent of his present physical sufferings and cares, so that he will be able to devote himself wholly to realizing the meaning of life, which is consciousness development. One condition of etherization is the development of etheric objective consciousness (etheric vision in 49:4 and 3 to begin with), which is not clairvoyance but a faculty of the etheric counterpart of the eye.
Commentary on 1.34 The Fourth Natural Kingdom
Of the 777 levels of development, 400 belong to the stage of barbarism, 200 to that of civilization; 100, 70, and 7 levels, to the stages of culture, humanity, and ideality, respectively. At the lower stages, man remains on the same level during several incarnations, and the more incarnations the lower the level. At the stages of barbarism and civilization, he will often use a hundred incarnations or more per level. The entire stage of ideality can be covered in seven incarnations.
“God cannot create a single monad…”. “God” in this sense is the collective of monads in the highest, or seventh, divine kingdom in worlds 1–7.
The law of destiny puts man into situations where he is forced to develop missing, though in evolutionary respect necessary, qualities and abilities. If, in addition, he will not have the opportunity to actualize important latent abilities, then he will appear very disoriented and be assessed by the moralists as being on a much lower level than his actual one.
The law of reaping forces bad qualities, faults, defects, debasing acquaintances, etc., on a man according as he acted in previous lives.
A clan is a group of monads (from hundreds to thousands) who causalized together and will subsequently incarnate together.
Newly causalized man is often less intelligent than individuals of the highest animal species, since the latter have access to the common experience of their group soul, which expresses itself in the instinct of the species. Man in his causal envelope is an isolated individual, which is necessary if he is to develop self-reliance and self-determination.
The intellectualization of desires implies that they are transformed into feelings of increasing rationality. The understanding and ability of sympathy with other beings there is in all higher emotionality is the intellectual element of feeling. Desire supplies the power of repulsion and attraction to lower and higher feelings, respectively.
The mystic’s intellectuality does not reach beyond 47:6, principle thinking. The latter cannot control imagination in 48:3, since this requires at least perspective thinking (47:5), which is activated only at the stage of humanity. This explains why the mystic lacks a sense of proportion; why he does not understand the facts that evolution is relatively slow and goes through stages, since this wars against his fiction of instant union with “god”; why he does not see the striking incongruity between his own “realized godhead” (bliss and beauty in the consciousness aspect), as he experiences it, and his actual, mere human ability of realization (the energy aspect), striking, for what is omniscience without omnipotence?
Sainthood is emotional genius, the ability to permanently retain the waking consciousness in 48:2 or 48:3.
Mental systems: all true knowledge systems are mental. Emotional systems appeal to emotion, which is no path to knowledge, however. Most occult and so-called esoteric systems can be termed emotional systems; they are too much characterized by the author’s wishful thinking, by universal human illusions (e.g. religious views), etc.
The world of intuition and of true ideals is the causal world.
The causal self enters into communication with members of higher kingdoms as their disciple and co-worker.
The twelve essential qualities, see KofR, 7.23.3.
The six regions of the emotional world are the six concentric layers of emotional molecular matter (48:2-7) surrounding and partly penetrating our physical planet.
When man is asleep, the emotional envelope with the mental and causal envelopes and the monad are separated from both physical envelopes, so that the monad lives in the emotional world, where its degree of wakefulness in part depends on its stage of development. Sleep differs from death mainly in the fact that the monad’s connection with the two physical envelopes remains, which eventually forces the monad with its higher envelopes to re-enter the organism.
At the end of his incarnation, ordinary man loses his continuity of consciousness when entering the causal world after the elimination of his mental envelope, a condition that is repeated after each incarnation until he has acquired causal consciousnes in physical waking consciousness. Then man has unbroken continuity of causal consciousness for all his remaining incarnations in the human kingdom, unless this is hindered by his bad reaping.
Commentary on 1.35 The Fifth Natural Kingdom
Since lower consciousness cannot apprehend reality higher than its own world, all individuals must receive knowledge of still higher reality from individuals in higher natural kingdoms. This is the principle of the transmission of all esoteric knowledge, the principle that contasts esoterics to clairvoyance of Steiner’s (KofR 6.8) and Ramakrishna’s (KofR, 7.14) type, where human emotionality is used to “explore” the entire cosmos, higher natural kingdoms, etc. The exteme subjectivity and unreliability of this is clear from the fact that no two emotional clairvoyants present even roughly compatible world views. The individual’s fascination with the “revelations” of clairvoyants and mediums is overcome at the stage of humanity and superseded by the humanist individual’s striving after an objective attitude to reality and common sense, which are conditions of esoteric study and discipleship.
About gnosticians, see KofR 5.13.
The unadulterated globe memories are found in 47:1, 48:1, and 49:1. In globe memories of lower, molecular matter (47:4-7, 48:2-7), there are material forms corresponding to everything that human beings and other ignorant beings have thought and felt, believed and supposed, all mythologies, theologies, and versions of false history. These material forms are observable by emotional and mental clairvoyance. The atomic memories, however, are inaccessible to illusion-creating lower consciousness.
An avatar is a being from a divine kingdom (chapter 1.37 Cosmic Kingdoms) who incarnates voluntarily in mankind, not to “save” us by making us believe in his godhood, etc., but to show us, by his presence, the fact of man’s potential divinity and, by his example, the ancient and unchanging path to that that goal: the path of love and wisdom.
Love and wisdom: Essential consciousness apprehends all life as a unity, an immensely larger self with the individual monad as a focus in it. Self-consciousness remains, but the opposition to other monads is overcome for ever, there is no isolation, and even the concepts of “you” and “me” are unthinkable. That is love. In the essential collective being all the constituent monads have access to each other’s experience and memory whenever they wish to. That is wisdom.
Also attraction will be overcome in the course of evolution since it limits the experience of life to the isolated self, and this hinders expansion into the collective self. Anybody who has to feel attracted to those whom he wish to serve does not know what service is. Essential love (46) is beyond attraction and repulsion, is indissoluble unity with all.
44- and 43-selves move freely about in the solar system. Lower selves are restricted to their respective planets.
All the planets of our solar system are inhabited by members of all the natural kingdoms.
Life being divine implies that all monads will some time reach divine stages (omnipotence and omniscience), and also that the cosmos as a whole, the solar systems and the planets, are ruled by divine beings.
Commentary on 1.37 The Cosmic Kingdoms
Cosmic consciousness exists only in the cosmos, in world 42 at the lowest. The “cosmic consciousness” referred to by some occultists is emotional clairvoyance (in 48:2-4).
Commentary on 1.38 The Planetary Hierarchy
Just the individuals of the fifth and sixth kingdoms of our planet are intended here. The other planets of our solar system have their own hierarchies.
Concerning the seven departments, see KofR 2.6.
Commentary on 1.39 The Planetary Government
The matter department of the planetary government is especially responsible for the formation of matter, the motion department administers the laws of life (sees to it that balance disturbed is restored), and the consciousness department stimulates the evolution of all living beings in the planet.
In esoterics, the term “god” or “gods” never refers to any hypothetical “absolute” being, nor to any beings who use arbitrary personal will as some religions teach, but always to elder brothers in evolution who have reached relative perfection, omniscience and omnipotence within some globe system. They do not need our worship but our co-operation.
Commentary on 1.41 THE LAW
Since nothing exists in isolation but always in relation to everything, it follows that relations between things are the essential content of life. Moreover, since “everything changes”, those relations are the most important to study which are relatively constant and determine the relations of everything. These are the laws. According to the fundamental axiom of esoterics (4.11.7), “there are laws in everything and everything is expessive of law.”
Basic tendencies: As early as in the mineral kingdom the monad has its unique character in which either of two tendencies dominates. The attractive tendency strives after adaptation to and identification with other beings. The repulsive tendency strives after self-assertion against and domination over other beings. The repulsive tendency is gradually overcome at the three higher human stages and must be entirely eliminated before the monad can pass to fifth natual kingdom.
Commentary on 1.42 THE SCIENCE OF THE FUTURE
Such concepts as matter, atom, idea, evolution, etc., originated in the Pythagorean (hylozoic) school, which assisted at the birth of ancient Greek science and philosophy.
That the matter aspect is the necessary basis of exact comprehension appears in the fact that it is impossible to distinguish or define the different kinds of consciousness without referring them to the respective monad envelopes and their atomic and molecular kinds. Anyone who tries to define consciousness by consciousness must think in circles, using old terms such as “soul” or “spirit”, which on account of ignorant overuse have come to stand for pretty well anything and thus have no rational content unless they are redefined, which thus must be done starting from the monad envelopes and their various atomic and molecular kinds (the matter aspect). Another instance showing that definitions must be based on the matter aspect: The boundaries between the natural kingdoms cannot be defined with reference to the consciousness aspect, since the newcomer, say, in the human kingdom is generally less intelligent than the highest animal species. The boundaries can be defined only with reference to the number of individual envelopes of the monad in the respective kingdoms: mineral: 1, vegetable: 2, animal: 3, human: 5 (the monad passes into the human kingdom by acquiring individual mental and causal envelopes; animal monads do not possess causal envelopes and their mental envelopes are not individual but the common property of their respective group-souls).
Commentary on 1.43 Conclusion
Concerning the “Akashic Records, see The Knowledge of Reality, 6.9, and the Commentary on 1.35.
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. Why cannot science decide what “conflicts with the laws of nature”?
2. Why will esoterics be just a working hypothesis for most people?
3. Why are systems necessary to thinking?
4. What function does remembrance anew have for our knowledge?
5. In what can the inestimable value of the esoteric knowledge be seen?
6. How can mankind acquire knowledge of existence and of its meaning and goal?
7. Explain the difference between belief and assumption.
8. Why is it that “no self-tutored seer ever saw correctly”?
9. Sum up the basic hylozoic outlook.
10. What does it mean that the three aspects of reality constitute a trinity?
11. Define the monad.
12. Give a few characteristics of a cosmos.
13. In what respects do the 49 cosmic worlds differ from each other?
14. Describe how the atomic kinds arise.
15. Is there any indestructible matter in the cosmos?
16. Has time dimension?
17. Give a few characteristics of a solar system.
18. Define atomic and molecular matter.
19. Which are the five worlds of man and which are his five envelopes in them?
20. Describe briefly the functions of the five envelopes of man.
21. What is meant by “actualization of consciousness”?
22. What is meant by “self”?
23. What is the cosmic total consciousness?
24. What is the most important to know about consciousness?
25. What is meant by subjective and objective consciousness?
26. How is it that everything subjective has its objective counterpart?
27. Describe briefly man’s three main kinds of consciousness.
28. What is meant by “47-self”, “46-self”, etc.?
29. What is meant by “waking consciousness”, “subconsciousness”, and “superconsciousness”?
30. What is the most important to know about the motion aspect of existence?
31. What are the main kinds of motion? Define them.
32. What is active consciousness?
33. What is meant by “activation of consciousness”?
34. Why does the monad need envelopes?
35. What is the meaning of existence?
36. What is the goal of existence?
37. What does the law of form say?
38. What is a natural kingdom?
39. Enumerate the natural kingdoms of the solar system.
40. What is transmigration?
41. What do the classes of nature imply?
42. What is causalization?
43. Which envelope is permanent during the monad’s entire evolution in the human kingdom?
44. What is the explanation for the different stages of development in the human kingdom?
45. Is man good or evil?
46. Enumerate the five stages of human development and describe them briefly.
47. What is the monad’s goal in the human kingdom?
48. Which of man’s five worlds is the most important one?
49. How much esoteric knowledge do we get?
50. Give a few characteristics of essential consciousness (46).
51. What is suffering and where does it exist?
52. What is the task of the planetary hierarchy?
53. What is the importance of law from the hylozoic point of view?
54. What is the difference between law of nature and law of life?
55. Enumerate and describe briefly the laws of life most important to man.
56. What is evil and why does evil exist in a cosmos ruled by perfected beings?
57. What is the ultimate goal of human legal and social systems?
58. What makes hylozoics the superior knowledge system?