PART 2 OF 2
Involution, Evolution and Epigenesis
Having in the foregoing paragraphs disentangled from the general confusion the identity and mission of Jehovah, it may be that we can now find harmony in the two seemingly contradictory accounts of the creation of man, as recorded in the first and second chapters of Genesis, in the first of which it is written that he was the last, and in the second that he was the first created of all living things.
We note that the first chapter deals chiefly with the creation of Form, the second chapter is devoted to the consideration of Life, while the fifth chapter deals with the Consciousness. The key to the meaning, then, is that we must differentiate sharply between the physical Form, and the Life that builds that Form for its own expression. Although the order of the creation of the other kingdoms is not as correctly given in the second chapter as in the first, it is true that if we consider man from the Life side, he was created first, but if we consider him from the standpoint of Form, as is done in the first chapter, he was created last.
All through the course of evolution -- through Periods, Globes, Revolutions and Races -- those who do not improve by the formation of new characteristics are held back and immediately begin to degenerate. Only that which remains plastic and pliable and adaptable for molding into new Forms suitable for the expression of the expanding consciousness; only the Life which is capable of outgrowing the possibilities for improvement inhering in the forms it ensouls, can evolve with the pioneers of any life wave. All else must straggle on behind.
This is the kernel of the occult teaching. Progress is not simply unfoldment; not simply Involution and Evolution. There is a third factor, making a triad -- Involution, Evolution, and -- Epigenesis.
The first two words are familiar to all who have studied Life and Form, but while it is generally admitted that the involution of spirit into matter takes place in order that form may be built, it is not so commonly recognized that the Involution of Spirit runs side by side with the Evolution of Form.
From the very beginning of the Saturn Period up to the time in the Atlantean Epoch when "man's eyes were opened" by the Lucifer Spirits, and as a consequence the activities of man -- or the Life-force which has become man -- were chiefly directed inward; that very same force which he now sends out from himself to build railways, steamboats, etc., was used internally in building a vehicle through which to manifest himself. This vehicle is threefold, like the spirit which built it.
The same power by which man is now improving outside conditions was used during Involution for purposes of internal growth.
The Form was built by Evolution, the Spirit built and entered it by Involution; but the means for devising improvements is Epigenesis.
There is a strong tendency to regard all that is, as the result of something that has been; all improvements on previously existing forms, as being present in all forms as latencies; to regard Evolution as simply the unfolding of germinal improvements. Such a conception excludes Epigenesis from the scheme of things. It allows no possibility for the building of anything new, no scope for originality.
The occultist believes the purpose of evolution to be the development of man from a static to a dynamic God -- a Creator. If the development he is at present undergoing is to be his education and if, during its progress, he is simply unfolding latent actualities, where does He learn to create?
If man's development consists solely in learning to build better and better Forms, according to models already existing in his Creator's mind, be can become, at best, only a good imitator -- never a creator.
In order that he may become an independent, original Creator, it is necessary that his training should include sufficient latitude for the exercise of the individual originality which distinguishes creation from imitation. So long as certain features of the old Form meet the requirements of progression they are retained, but at each rebirth the evolving Life adds such original improvements as are necessary for its further expression.
The pioneers of science are constantly brought face to face with Epigenesis as a fact in all departments of nature. As early as 1759, Caspar Wolff published his "Theoria Generationis," in which he shows that in the human ovum there is absolutely no trace of the coming organism; that its evolution consists of the addition of new formations; a building of something which is not latent in the ovum.
Haeckel (that great and fearless student of nature as he sees it, and very near to knowledge of the complete truth regarding evolution) says of the "Theoria Generationis": "Despite its small compass and difficult terminology, it is one of the most valuable works in the whole literature of biology."
Haeckel's own views we find thus stated in his "Anthropogenie": "Nowadays we are hardly justified in calling Epigenesis an hypothesis, as we have fully convinced ourselves of its being a fact and are able at any moment to demonstrate it by the help of the microscope."
A builder would be but a sorry craftsman were his abilities limited to the building of houses after only one particular model, which, during his apprenticeship, his master had taught him to imitate, but which he is unable to alter to meet new requirements. To be successful he must be capable of designing new and better houses, improving that which experience teaches was not serviceable in the earlier buildings. The same force which the builder now directs outward to built houses better adapted to new conditions, was used in past Periods to build new and better vehicles for the evolution of the Ego.
Starting with the simplest organisms, the Life which is now Man built the Form to suit its necessities. In due time, as the entity progressed, it become evident that new improvements must be added which conflicted with the lines previously followed. A new start must be given it in a new species, where it could retrieve any previous mistakes which experience taught would preclude further development if the old lines were adhered to, and thus the evolving life would be enabled to progress further in a new species. When later experience proved that the new form also was inadequate, inasmuch as it could not adapt itself to some improvement necessary to the progress of the evolving life, it too was discarded and still another departure made, in a form adaptable to the necessary improvement.
Thus by successive steps. does the evolving Life improve its vehicles, and the improvements are still going on. Man, who is in the vanguard of progress, has built his bodies, from the similitude of the amoeba up to the human form of the savage, and from that up through the various grades until the most advanced races are now using the best and most highly organized bodies on Earth. Between deaths and rebirths we are constantly building bodies in which to function during our lives, and a far greater degree of efficiency than the present will yet be reached. If we make mistakes in building between lives, they become evident when we are using the body in Earth life, and it is well for us if we are able to perceive and realize our mistakes, that we may avoid making them afresh life after life.
But just as the builder of houses would lag commercially if he did not constantly improve his methods to meet the exigencies of his business, so those who persistently adhere to the old forms fail to rise above the species and are left behind, as stragglers. These stragglers take the forms outgrown by the pioneers, as previously explained, and they compose the lower Races and species of any kingdom in which they are evolving. As the Life which is now Man passed through stages analogous to the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, and through the lower human Races, stragglers were left all along the way who had failed to reach the necessary standard to keep abreast of the crestwave of evolution. They took the discarded Forms of the pioneers and used them as stepping-stones, by means of which they tried to overtake the others, but the advanced Forms did not stand still. In the progress of Evolution there is no halting-place. In evolving Life, as in commerce, there is no such thing as merely "holding your own." Progression or Retrogression is the Law. The Form that is not capable of further improvement must Degenerate.
Therefore there is one line of improving forms ensouled by the pioneers of the evolving Life, and another line of degenerating forms, outgrown by the pioneers, but ensouled by the stragglers, as long as there are any stragglers of that particular life wave to which those forms originally belonged.
When there are no more stragglers, the species gradually dies out. The Forms have been crystallized beyond the possibility of being improved by tenants of increasing inability. They therefore return to the mineral kingdom, fossilize and are added to the different strata of the Earth's crust.
The assertion of material science that man has ascended through the different kingdoms of plant and animal which exist about us now to anthropoid and thence to man, is not quite correct. Man has never inhabited forms identical with those of our present-day animals, nor the present-day anthropoid species; but he has inhabited forms which were similar to but higher than those of the present anthropoids.
The scientist sees that there is an anatomical likeness between man and the monkey, and as the evolutionary impulse always makes for improvement, he concludes that man must have descended from the monkey, but he is always baffled in his efforts to find the "missing link" connecting the two.
From the point where the pioneers of our life wave (The Aryan Races) occupied ape-like forms, they have progressed to their present stage of development, while the Forms (which were the "missing link") have degenerated and are now ensouled by the last stragglers of the Saturn Period.
The lower monkeys, instead of being the progenitors of the higher species, are stragglers occupying the most degenerated specimens of what was once the human form. Instead of man having ascended from the anthropoids, the reverse is true -- the anthropoids have degenerated from man. Material science, dealing only with Form, has thus misled itself and drawn erroneous conclusions in this matter.
The same relative conditions are to be found in the animal kingdom. The pioneers of the life wave which entered evolution in the Sun Period are our present-day mammals. The different grades correspond to the steps once taken by man, but the forms are all degenerating under the management of the stragglers. Similarly, the pioneers of the life wave which entered evolution in the Moon Period are found among the fruit trees, while the stragglers of that life wave ensoul all other plant forms.
Each life wave, however remains definitely confined within its own borders. The anthropoids may overtake us and become human beings, but no other animals will reach our particular point of development. They will reach a similar stage, but under different conditions, in the Jupiter Period. The present plants will be the humanity of the Venus Period, under a still greater difference of condition, and our minerals will reach the human stage under the conditions of the Vulcan Period.
It will be noted that the modern evolutionary theory, particularly that of Haeckel, would, if it were completely reversed, be in almost perfect accord with the knowledge of occult science.
The monkey has degenerated from the man.
The polyps are the last degeneration left behind by the mammals.
The mosses are the lowest degenerations of the plant kingdom.
The mineral kingdom is the final goal of the forms of all the kingdoms when they have reached the acme of degeneration.
A corroboration of this is found in coal, which was once vegetable or plant forms; also in petrified wood and fossilized remains of various animal forms. Common stone or rock, which no scientist would admit had it origin in another kingdom, is to the occult investigator as truly mineralized plants as coal itself. The mineralogist will learnedly explain that it is composed of hornblende, feldspar, and mica, but the trained clairvoyant, who can trace it back in the memory of Nature, through millions of years, can supplement that statement by adding: Yes, and that which you call hornblende and feldspar are the leaves and stems of prehistoric flowers, and the mica is all that remains of their petals.
The occult teaching of evolution is also corroborated by the science of embryology in the ante-natal recapitulation of all past stages of development. The difference between the ovum of a human being and of some of the higher mammals, and even of the higher developments in the plant kingdom, is indistinguishable, even under the microscope. Experts are unable to tell which is animal and which is human. Even after several of the initial ante-natal stages have been passed through, the experts cannot differentiate between and animal and human embryo.
But if the animal ovum is studied through the entire period of gestation, it will be observed that it passes through the mineral and plant stages only, and is born when it reaches the animal stage. This is because the Life ensouling such an ovum passed through its mineral evolution in the Sun Period, its plant life in the Moon Period, and is now forced to stop at the animal stage in the Earth Period.
Where Epigenesis is inactive in the individual, family, nation, or Race -- there evolution ceases and degeneration commences.
A Living Soul?
Thus the two Creation stories harmonize very well.
One deals with Form, which was built up through mineral, plant and animal and reached the human last.
The other tells us that Life which now ensouls human forms was manifested anterior to the Life which ensouls the forms of the other kingdoms.
One of these accounts of Creation would not have been sufficient. There are important particulars hidden behind the narrative of man's creation, in the second chapter; the verse reads: "Then Jehovah formed man from the dust of the Earth, and blew into his nostrils the breath [nephesh], and man become a breathing creature [nephesh chayim]."
In other places in the King James version, nephesh is translated "life," but in this particular instance (Gen. ii.7) it is rendered "living soul," thus conveying the idea that there was a distinction made between the life that ensouled the human form and that which ensouled inferior creations. There is no authority whatever for this difference in translation, which is purely arbitrary. The life-breath (nephesh) is the same in man and beast. This can be shown even to those who stand firmly upon the Bible as authority, for even the King James version distinctly states (Eccles. iii:19,20): "... as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they all have one breath [nephesh]; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast: ... All go unto one place."
The animals are but our "younger brothers," and though they are not now so finely organized, they will eventually reach a state as high as our own, and we shall then have ascended higher.
If it is contended that man received his soul in the way described in this seventh verse of the second chapter of Genesis, and that he could have received it in no other way, it is pertinent to ask where and how woman received her soul?
The meaning of the chapter, and of the inspiration of the breath of life by Jehovah, is very plain and clear when we use the occult key, and it has the further and immense advantage of being logical.
The fact that the Regent of the Moon (Jehovah), with His Angels and Archangels, were the principals in this action, fixes the time when this creation occurred. It was between the early and the middle parts of the Lemurian Epoch, and must have been after the Moon was thrown out from the Earth, because Jehovah had nothing to do with the generation of bodies before the Moon was thrown off. The forms were then more ethereal. There were no dense and concrete bodies. It is possible to make such bodies only by means of the hardening and crystallizing Moon-forces. It must have been in the first half of the Lemurian Epoch, because the separation of the sexes, which is recorded later, took place in the middle of that epoch.
At that time, man-in-the-making had not yet commenced to breathe by means of lungs. He had the gill-like apparatus still present in the human embryo while passing through the stage of ante-natal life corresponding to that Epoch. He had no warm, red blood, for at that stage there was no individual spirit, the entire form was soft and pliable and the skeleton soft like cartilage. Before the later date, when it became necessary to separate humanity into sexes, the skeleton had grown firm and solid.
The work done by Jehovah was to build dense, hard bone substance into the soft bodies already existing. Previous to this time, i.e., during the Polarian and Hyperborean Epochs, neither animal nor man had bones.
Adam's Rib
The grotesque and impossible manner in which the separation of the sexes is said to have been accomplished (as described in the common versions of the Bible and, in this particular case, in the Masoretic text also) is another example of what may be done by changing vowels in the old Hebrew text. Read in one way, the work is "rib"; but in another, which has at least as good a claim to consideration, with the additional advantage of being common-sense, it reads "side." If we interpret this to mean that man was male-female and that Jehovah caused one side, or sex in each being, to remain latent, we shall not be doing violence to our reason, as we would by accepting the "rib" story.
When this alternation is made, the occult teaching as previously given harmonizes with that of the Bible, and both agree with the teaching of modern science that man was bi-sexual at one time, before he developed one sex at the expense of the other. In corroboration of this, it is pointed out that the fetus is bi-sexual up to a certain point; thereafter one sex predominates, while the other remains in abeyance, so that each person still has the opposite sex organs in a rudimentary form and therefore is really bi-sexual, as was primitive man.
Apparently the Bible narrator does not wish to give, in this second creation account, an accurate picture of the whole of evolution, but rather to particularize a little more what was said in the first chapter. He tells us that man did not always breathe as he does now; that there was a time when he was not separated into sexes; and that it was Jehovah Who effected the change, thus fixing the time of the occurrence. As we proceed, it will be found that much further information is given.
Guardian Angels
During the earlier Epochs and Periods, the great creative Hierarchies had worked upon humanity as it was unconsciously evolving. There had been only one common consciousness among all human beings; one group-spirit for all mankind, as it were.
In the Lemurian Epoch, a new step was taken. Bodies had been definitely formed, but they must have warm, red blood before they could be ensouled, and become the abode of indwelling spirits.
In nature, no process is sudden. We would get a wrong idea were we to imagine that air blown into the nostrils could put a soul into an image of clay, and galvanize it into life as a sentient, thinking being.
The individual spirit was very weak and impotent, and quite unfitted for the task of guiding its dense vehicle. In that respect, it is not yet very strong. To any qualified observer, it is evident that the desire body rules the personality more than does the spirit, even at our present stage of advancement. But in the middle of the Lemurian Epoch, when the lower personality -- the threefold body --- was to be endowed with the light of the Ego, the latter, if left to itself, would have been absolutely powerless to guide its instrument.
Therefore it is necessary for someone much more highly evolved to help the individual spirit, and gradually prepare the way for its complete union with its instruments. It was analogous to a new nation, over which, until it becomes capable of forming a stable government for itself, some stronger power establishes a protectorate, guarding it alike from external dangers and internal indiscretions. Such a protectorate was exercised over evolving humanity by the Race-spirit, and is exercised over the animals by the group-spirit, in a somewhat different way.
Jehovah is the Most High. He is Race-God, as one might express it, having dominion over all Form. He is the Chief Ruler and the highest Power in maintaining the form, and exercising an orderly government over it. The Archangels are the Race-spirits, each having dominion over a certain group of people. They also have dominion over animals, while the Angels have dominion over the plants.
The Archangels have dominion over races or groups of people, and also over the animals, for these two kingdoms have desire bodies, and the Archangels are expert architects of desire matter, because in the Sun Period the densest globe was composed of that materials, and the humanity of that period, who are now Archangels, learned to build their densest vehicles of desire stuff as we are now learning to build our bodies of the chemical elements whereof our Earth-globe is composed. Thus it will be readily understood that the Archangels are peculiarly qualified to help later life waves through the stage where they learn to build and control a desire body.
For analogous reasons, the Angels work in the vital bodies of man, animal and plant. Their densest bodies are composed of ether, and so was the Globe D in the Moon Period when they were human.
Jehovah and His Archangels, therefore, hold a similar relation to Races that the group-spirit does to animals. When individual members of a Race have evolved entire self-control and government, they are emancipated from the influence of the Race-spirit and kindred beings.
As we have seen, the point of vantage of the group-spirit, as of any Ego in the dense body, is in the blood. The Masoretic text shows that this knowledge was possessed by the writer of Leviticus. In the fourteenth verse of the seventeenth chapter the Jews are prohibited from eating blood because "... the soul of all flesh is in the blood ...;" and in the eleventh verse of the same chapter we find these words: "... for the soul of the flesh is in the blood ... the blood itself mediates for the soul," which shows that this applies to both man and beast, for the word here used in the Hebrew is neshamah and means "soul" -- not "life," as it is rendered in the King James version.
The Ego works directly through the blood. The Race-spirit guides the Races by working in the blood, as the group-spirit guides the animals of its species through the blood. So also does the Ego control its own vehicle, but with a difference.
The Ego operates by means of the heat of the blood, while the Race (i.e., tribal, or family) spirit works by means of the air, as it is drawn into the lungs. That is why Jehovah, or His messengers, "breathed into man's nostrils," thereby securing admission for the Race-spirit, Community-spirits, etc.
The different classes of Race-spirits guided their peoples to various climates and different parts of the Earth. To the trained clairvoyant, a tribal-spirit appears as a cloud enveloping and permeating the atmosphere of the whole country inhabited by the people under its dominion. Thus are produced the different peoples and nations. Paul spoke of "The Prince of the Power of the Air"; or "principalities and powers," etc., showing that he knew of the Race-spirits, but now not even an attempt is made to understand what they mean, although their influence is strongly felt. Patriotism is one of the sentiments emanating from and fostered by them. It has not now so much power over people as formerly. There are some who are being liberated from the Race-spirit and can say with Thomas Paine, "The world is my country." There are those who can leave father and mother and look upon all men as brothers. They are being liberated from the Family-spirit, or spirit of the Clan which is different from the race-spirit, an etheric entity. Others again, who are deep in the toil of the Race or Family spirit, will suffer the most dreadful depression if they leave home or country and breathe the air of another Race of Family spirit.
At the time the Race-spirit entered human bodies, the individualized Ego commenced to get some slight control of its vehicles. Each human entity became more and more conscious of being separate and distinct from other men, yet for ages he did not think of himself primarily as an individual, but as belonging to a tribe or family. The affix "son" to many present day surnames is a remnant of this feeling. A man was not simply "John," or "James." He was John Robertson, or James Williamson. In some countries a woman was not "Mary," or "Martha." She was Mary Marthasdaughter, Martha Mary's daughter. The custom was continued in some European countries until within a few generations of the present time, the "son" affix remains with us yet and the family name is still much honored.
Among the Jews, even down to the time of Christ, the Race-spirit was stronger than the individual spirit. Every Jew thought of himself first as belonging to a certain tribe or family. His proudest boast was that he was of the "Seed of Abraham." All this was the work of the Race-spirit.
Previous to the advent of Jehovah, when the Earth was yet a part of the Sun, there was one common group-spirit, composed of all the creative Hierarchies, which controlled the entire human family, but it was intended that each body should be the temple and pliable instrument of an indwelling spirit, and that meant an infinite division of rulership.
Jehovah came with His Angel and Archangels and made the first great division into Races, giving to each group the guiding influence of a Race-spirit -- an Archangel. For each Ego He appointed one of the Angels to act as guardian until the individual spirit had grown strong enough to become emancipated from all outside influence.
Mixing Blood in Marriage
Christ came to prepare the way for the emancipation of humanity from the guidance of differentiating Race- and Family-spirit, and to unite the whole human family in One Universal Brotherhood.
He taught that "Abraham's seed" referred to the bodies only, and called their attention to the fact that before Abraham lived [the] "I" -- the Ego -- was in existence. The threefold individual spirit had its being before all Tribes and Races, and it will remain when they have passed away and even the memory of them is no more.
The threefold spirit in man, the Ego, is the God within, whom the personal, bodily man must learn to follow. Therefore did Christ say that, to be His disciple, a man must forsake all he had. His teaching points to the emancipation of the God within. He calls upon man to exercise his prerogative as an individual and rise above family, tribe, and nation. Not that he is to disregard kin and country. He must fulfill all duties, but he is to cease identifying himself with part, and must recognize an equal kinship with all the world. That is the ideal given to mankind by the Christ.
Under the rule of the Race-spirit, the nation, tribe or family was considered first -- the individual last. The family must be kept intact. If any man dies without leaving offspring to perpetuate his name, his brother must "carry seed" to the widow, that there might be no dying out (Due. XXV:5-10). Marrying out of the family was regarded with horror in the earliest times. A member of one tribe could not become connected with another without losing caste in his own. It was not an easy matter to become a member of another family. Not only among the Jews and other early nations was the integrity of the family insisted upon, but also in more modern times. As previously mentioned, the Scots, even in comparatively recent times, clung tenaciously to their Clan, and the old Norse Vikings would take no one into their families without first "mixing blood" with him, for the spiritual effects of haemolysis, which are unknown to material science, were known of old.
All these customs resulted from the working of Race- and tribal-spirit in the common blood. To admit as a member one in whom that common blood did not flow would have caused "confusion of caste." The closer the inbreeding, the greater the power of the Race-spirit, and the stronger the ties that bound the individual to the tribe, because the vital force of the man is in his blood. Memory is intimately connected with the blood, which is the highest expression of the vital body.
The brain and the nervous system are the highest expression of the desire body. They call up pictures of the outside world, but in mental image-making, i.e., imagination, the blood brings the material for the pictures; therefore when the thought is active, the blood flows to the head.
When the same unmixed strain of blood flows in the veins of a family for generations, the same mental pictures made by great-grandfather, grandfather and father are reproduced in the son by the family-spirit which lived in the hemoglobin of the blood. He sees himself as the continuation of a long line of ancestors who live in him. He sees all the events of the past lives of the family as though he had been present, therefore he does not realize himself as an Ego. He is not simply "David," but "the son of Abraham"; not "Joseph," but "the son of David."
By means of this common blood men are said to have lived for many generations, because through the blood their descendants had access to the memory of nature, in which the records of the lives of their ancestors were preserved. That is why, in the fifth chapter of Genesis, it is stated that the patriarchs lived for centuries. Adam, Methuselah and the other patriarchs did not personally attain to such great age, but they lived in the consciousness of their descendants, who saw the lives of their ancestors as if they had lived them. After the expiration of the period stated, the descendants did not think of themselves as Adam or Methuselah. Memory of those ancestors faded and so it is said they died.
The "second sight" of the Scotch Highlanders shows that by means of endogamy, the consciousness of the inner World is retained. They have practiced marrying in the Clan until recent times; also in Gypsies, who always marry in the tribe. The smaller the tribe and the closer the inbreeding, the more pronounced is the "sight."
The earlier Races would not have dared to disobey the injunction issued by the tribal God, not to marry outside of the tribe, nor had they any inclination to do so, for they had no mind of their own.
The Original Semites were the first to evolve Will, and they at once married the daughters of the men of other tribes, frustrating temporarily the design of their Race-spirit and being promptly ejected as evil-doers who had "gone a-whoring after strange gods," thereby rendering themselves unfit to give the "seed" for the seven Races of our present Aryan Epoch. The Original Semites were, for the time being, the last Race that the Race-spirit cared to keep separate.
Later, man was given free will. The time had come when he was to be prepared for individualization. The former "common" consciousness, the involuntary clairvoyance or second-sight which constantly held before a tribesman the pictures of his ancestor's lives and caused him to feel most closely identified with the tribe or family, was to be replaced for a time by a strictly individual consciousness confined to the material world, so as to break up the nations into individuals, that the Brotherhood of Man, regardless of exterior circumstances, may become a fact. This is on the same principle that if we have a number of buildings and wish to make them into one large structure, it is necessary to break them up into separate bricks. Only then can the large building be constructed.
In order to accomplish this separation of nations into individuals, laws were given which prohibited endogamy or marriage in the family, and henceforth incestuous marriages gradually came to be regarded with horror. Strange blood has thus been introduced into all the families of the Earth, and it has gradually wiped out the involuntary clairvoyance which promoted the clannish feeling and segregated humanity into groups. Altruism is superseding patriotism, and loyalty to the family is disappearing in consequence of the mixture of blood.
Science has lately discovered that haemolysis results from the inoculation of the blood of one individual into the veins of another of a different species, causing the death of the lower of the two. Thus any animal inoculated with the blood of a man dies. The blood of a dog transfused into the veins of a bird kills the bird, but it will not hurt the dog to have the bird's blood inoculated into its veins. Science merely states the fact, the occult scientist gives the reason. The blood is the vantage ground of the spirit, as shown elsewhere. The Ego in man works in its own vehicles by means of the heat of the blood; the race, family or community spirit gains entrance to the blood by means of the air we inspire. In the animals are also both the separate spirit of the animal and the group-spirit of the species to which it belongs, but the spirit of the animal is not individualized and does not work self-consciously with its vehicles as does the Ego, hence it is altogether dominated by the group-spirit which works in the blood.
When the blood of a higher animal is inoculated into the veins of one from a lower species, the spirit in the blood of the higher animal is of course stronger than the spirit of the less evolved; hence when it endeavors to assert itself it kills the imprisoning form and liberates itself. When, on the other hand, the blood of a lower species is inoculated into the veins of a higher animal, the higher spirit is capable of ousting the less evolved spirit in the strange blood and assimilating the blood to its own purposes, therefore no visible catastrophe ensues.
The group-spirit always aims to preserve the integrity of its domain in the blood of the species under its charge. Like the human Race-God, it resents the marriage of its subjects into other species and visits the sins of the fathers upon the children as we see in the case of hybrids. Where a horse and a donkey produce a mule for instance, the mixture of strange blood destroys the propagative faculty so as not to perpetuate the hybrid which is an abomination from the standpoint of the group-spirit, for the mule is not so definitely under the dominion of the group-spirit of the horses or of the group-spirit of the donkeys as the pure breed, yet it is not so far away as to be entirely exempt from their influence. If two mules could mate, their offspring would be still less under the dominion of either of these group-spirits, and so a new species without a group-spirit would result. That would be anomaly in nature, an impossibility until the separate animal-spirits should have become sufficiently evolved to be self-sufficient. Such a species, could it be produced, would be without the guiding instinct, so-called, which is in reality the promptings of the group-spirit; they would be in an analogous position to a litter of kittens removed from the mother's womb prior to birth. They could not possibly shift for themselves, so they would die.
Therefore, as it is the group-spirit of the animals that sends the separate spirits of the animals into embodiment, it simply withholds the fertilizing seed-atom when animals of widely differing species are mated. It permits one of its charges to take advantage of an opportunity for re-embodiment where two animals of nearly the same nature are mated, but refuses to let the hybrids perpetuate themselves. Thus we see that the infusion of strange blood weakens the hold of the group-spirit, and that therefore it either destroys the form or the propagative faculty where it has the power.
The human spirit is individualized, an Ego, it is evolving free will and responsibility. It is drawn to birth by the irresistible law of Consequence, so that it is beyond the power of the race, community or family spirit to keep it from returning at the present stage of human development, and by the admixture of strange blood, by intermarriage of the individuals of different tribes or nations, the leaders of man are gradually helping him to oust the family, tribal or national spirit from the blood, but with it has necessarily gone the involuntary clairvoyance which was due to its working in the blood, whereby it fostered the family traditions in its charges, and so we see that also in the case of man a faculty was destroyed by the mixture of blood. That loss was a gain, however, for it has concentrated man's energy on the material world and he is better able to master its lessons than if he were still distracted by the visions of the higher realms.
As man becomes emancipated, he gradually ceases to think of himself as "Abraham's Seed," as a "Clan Stewart Man," as a "Brahmin" or a "Levite": he is learning to think more of himself as an individual, an "I". The more he cultivates that "Self," the more he frees himself from the family and national spirit in the blood, the more he becomes a self-sufficient citizen of the world.
There is much foolish, even dangerous, talk of giving up the Self to the Not-Self; only when we have cultivated a "Self," can we sacrifice ourselves and give up the Self to the whole. So long as we can only love our own family or nation we are incapable of loving others. We are bound by the tie of kin and country. When we have burst the tie of blood and asserted ourselves, and become self-sufficient, may we become unselfish helpers of humanity. When a man has reached that stage he will find that, instead of having lost his own family, he has gained all the families in the world, for they will have become his sisters and brothers, his fathers and mothers to care for and help.
Then he will regain the viewpoint of the Spiritual World which he lost by the mixing of blood, but it will be a higher faculty, an intelligent, voluntary clairvoyance where he can see what he wills and not merely the negative faculty imprinted in his blood by the family spirit which bound him to the family to the exclusion of all other families. His viewpoint will be universal, to be used for universal good.
For aforementioned reasons, intertribal, and later international, marriages came gradually to be regarded as desirable and preferable to close intermarriages.
As man progressed through these stages, and gradually lost touch with the inner world, he sorrowed over the loss and longed for a return of the "inner" vision. But by degrees he forgot, and the material world gradually loomed up before his mind as the only reality, until at last he has come to doubt the idea that such inner Worlds exist and to regard a belief in them as foolish superstition.
The four causes contributing to this condition were:
The clearing of the foggy atmosphere of the Atlantean continent.
The indrawing of the vital body, so that a point at the root of the nose corresponds to a similar point in the vital body.
The elimination of inbreeding and the substitution therefore of marriages outside the family and tribe.
The use of intoxicants.
The Race-spirits still exist in and work with man, but the more advanced the nation, the more freedom is given the individual. In countries where people are most fettered, the Race-spirit is strongest. The more in harmony a man is with the law of Love, and the higher his ideals, the more he frees himself from the spirit of the Races. Patriotism, while good in itself, is a tie of the Race- spirit. The ideal of Universal Brotherhood, which identifies itself with neither country nor race, is the only path which leads to emancipation.
Christ came to reunite the separated races in bonds of peace and good will, wherein all will willingly and consciously follow the law of Love.
The present Christianity is not even a shadow of the true religion of Christ. That will remain in abeyance until all race feeling shall have been overcome. In the Sixth Epoch there will be but one Universal Brotherhood, under the Leadership of the Returned Christ, but the day and the hour no man knows, for it is not fixed, but depends upon how soon a sufficient number of people shall have commenced to live the life of Fellowship and Love, which is to be the hall-mark of the new dispensation.
The Fall of Man
In connection with the analysis of Genesis, a few more words must be said about "The Fall," which is the backbone and sinew of popular Christianity. Had there been no "Fall," there would have been no need for the "plan of salvation."
When, in the middle of the Lemurian Epoch, the separation of the sexes occurred (in which work Jehovah and His Angels were active), the Ego began to work slightly upon the dense body, building organs within. Man was not at that time the wide-awake conscious being he is at present, but by means of half the sex force, he was building a brain for the expression of thought as previously described. He was more awake in the Spiritual World than in the physical, hardly saw his body, and was not conscious of the act of propagation. The Bible statement that Jehovah put man to sleep when he was to bring forth is correct. There was no pain nor trouble connected with childbirth; nor (because of man's exceedingly dim consciousness of his physical surroundings) did he know anything of the loss of his dense body by death, or of his installment in a new dense vehicle at birth.
It will be remembered that the Lucifers were a part of the humanity of the Moon Period; they are the stragglers of the life wave of the Angels, too far advanced to take a dense physical body, yet they needed an "inner" organ for the acquisition of knowledge. Moreover, they could work through a physical brain, which the Angels or Jehovah could not.
These spirits entered the spinal cord and brain and spoke to the woman, whose Imagination, as explained elsewhere, had been aroused by the training of the Lemurian Race. As her consciousness was principally internal, a picture-consciousness of them was received by her, and she saw them as serpents, for they had entered her brain by the serpentine spinal cord.
The training of the women included watching the perilous feats and fights of the Men in developing Will, in which fights bodies were necessarily often killed. The dim consciousness of something unusual set the imagination of the woman to wondering why she saw these strange things. She was conscious of the spirits of those who had lost their bodies, but her imperfect sense of the Physical World failed to reveal these friends whose dense bodies had been destroyed.
The Lucifers solved the problem for her by "opening her eyes." They revealed to her her own body and that of the man and taught her how, together, they might conquer death by creating new bodies. Thus death could not touch them for they, like Jehovah, could create at will.
Lucifer opened the eyes of woman. She sought the help of man and opened his eyes. Thus, in a real though dim way, they first "knew" or became aware of one another and also of the Physical World. They became conscious of death and pain, and by this knowledge they learned to differentiate between the inner man and the outer garment he wears and renews each time it is necessary to take his next step in evolution. They ceased to be automatons and became free thinking beings at the cost of freedom from pain, sickness and death.
That the interpretation of the eating of the fruit as a symbol of the generative act is not a far-fetched idea, is shown by the declaration of Jehovah (which is not a curse at all, but simply a statement of the consequences that would follow the act) that they will die and that the woman will bear her children in pain and suffering. He knew that, as man's attention had now been called to his physical garment, he would become aware of its loss by death. He also knew that man had not yet wisdom to bridle his passion and regulate sexual intercourse by the positions of the planets, therefore pain in childbirth must follow his ignorant abuse of the function.
It has always been a sore puzzle to Bible commentators what connection there could possibly be between the eating of fruit and the bearing of children, but if we understand that the eating of the fruit is symbolical of the generative act whereby man becomes "like God" inasmuch as he knows his kind and is thus able to generate new beings, the solution is easy.
In the latter part of the Lemurian Epoch when man arrogated to himself the prerogative of performing the generative act when he pleased, it was his then-powerful will that enable him to do so. By "eating of the tree of knowledge" at any and all times, he was able to create a new body whenever he lost an old vehicle.
We usually think of death as something to be dreaded. Had man also "eaten of the tree of life," had he learned the secret of how to perpetually vitalize his body, there would have been a worse condition. We know that our bodies are not perfect today, and in those ancient days they were exceedingly primitive. Therefore the anxiety of the creative Hierarchies lest man "eat of the tree of life also," and become capable of renewing his vital body, was well founded. Had he done so, he would have been immortal indeed, but would never have been able to progress. The evolution of the Ego depends upon its vehicles, and if it could not get new and improving ones by death and birth, there would be stagnation. It is an occult maxim that the oftener we die the better we are able to live, for every birth gives us a new chance.
We have seen that brain-knowledge, with its concomitant selfishness, was bought by man at the cost of the power to create from himself alone. He bought his free will at the cost of pain and death; but when man learns to use his intellect for the good of humanity, he will gain spiritual power over life and, in addition, will be guided by an innate knowledge as much higher than the present brain-consciousness as that is higher than the lowest animal consciousness.
The fall into generation was necessary to build the brain, but that is, at best, only an indirect way of gaining knowledge, and will be superseded by direct touch with the Wisdom of Nature, which man, without any co-operation, will then be able to use for the generation of new bodies. The larynx will again speak "the lost Word," the "creative Fiat," which, under the guidance of great Teachers, was used in ancient Lemuria in the creation of plants and animals.
Man will then be a creator in very truth. Not in the slow and toilsome manner of the present day, but by the use of the proper word or magical formula, will he be able to create a body.
All that was manifested during the descending period of involution remains until the corresponding point on the ascending arc of evolution has been reached. The present generative organs will degenerate and atrophy. The female organ was the first to come into existence as a separate unit and, according to the law that "the first shall be last," will be the last to atrophy. The male organ was differentiated last and is even now commencing to divide itself from the body. Diagram 13 will make this clear.
Diagram 13: Higher Worlds