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Theosophy House
The Devachanic Plane.
Its Characteristics
and Inhabitants
By
C
The
Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
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.
Theosophical
Publishing Society,
26,
1896.
PREFACE.
Few words are needed in sending this little book out
into the world. It is the sixth of a series of Manuals
designed to meet the public demand for a simple exposition
of Theosophical teachings. Some have complained that
our literature is at once too abstruse, too technical, and
too expensive for the ordinary reader, and it is our hope
that the present series may succeed in supplying what is
a very real want. Theosophy is not only
for the learned ;
it is for all. Perhaps among those who in these little
boohs catch their fast glimpse of its teachings, there may
be a few who will be led by them to penetrate move
deeply into its philosophy, its science and its religion,
facing its abstruser problems with the student s zeal and
the neophyte s ardonr. But these Manuals are not
written for the eager student, whom no initial difficulties
can daunt ; they are written for the busy men and women
of the ivorh-a-day world, and seek to make plain some of
the great truths that render life easier to bear and death
easier to face. Written by servants of the Masters who
are the Elder Brothers of our race, they can have no
other object than to serve ourfellow-men.
CONTENTS.
PACK
Introduction. The investigation The place of Devachanin
evolution Difficulties of expression i
Characteristics. A beautiful description The bliss of
Devachan Its intense vitality The devachanic sense
Surroundings The sea of light The colour-language of the
Devas The great waves The rupa and arupa planes The
action of thought The formation of artificial elementals
Thought-forms The sub-planes The akashic records 6
Inhabitants.
I. Human. The embodied Adepts and initiates Those
in sleep or trance 28
The disembodied Their consciousness Is the deva
chanic life an illusion ? The qualities necessary for
devachanic life How a man first gains Devachan 33
The four rupa levels, with examples on each - 46
The three arupa levels - 65
II. Non-Human. The elemental essence What it is
The Veiling of Atma The four elemental kingdoms
How the essence evolves 74
The Devas Their divisions 82
III. Artificial 86
Conclusion. The still higher planes - 87
THE DEVACHANIC PLANE.
INTRODUCTION.
IN the introduction to the manual recently issued on
The Astral Plane, I remarked that "a good deal of in
formation on the subject of this realm of nature is to be
found scattered here and there in our books, but there
is not, so far as I am aware, any single volume to which
one can turn for a complete summary of the facts at
present known to us about this interesting region." It
seems evident that this remark applies with even
greater force to the plane next above the astral that
of Devachan or Sukhavati. There is indeed a most in
structive chapter on the subject in that indispensable
text-book of every Theosophical student, Mr. Sinnett s
Esoteric Buddhism ; but though nothing which we have
since learnt has in any way contradicted the lucid ex
position of the devachanic state there given, it is never
theless true that such investigations as we have been
able to make during the thirteen years which have
elapsed since it was written have placed us in possession
of a considerable body of additional information as to
details. It will be readily understood that there are
many minor points about which Mr. Sinnett could not
venture to trouble his Adept correspondent, which are
nevertheless of the greatest interest to humanity, since
by far the greater part of its existence is passed upon
the plane under consideration a plane which is in fact
the true and permanent home of the reincarnating ego,
each descent into incarnation being merely a short
though all-important episode in its career. The object
of this manual then is to present a summary of the
facts about Devachan at present known to us ; and, as
previously in the case of the astral plane, I am requested
by our investigators to say that, while they deprecate
the ascription of anything like authority to their state
ments, they have felt it due to their fellow-students to
take every precaution in their power to ensure accuracy.
Indeed, I may say that in this case also " no fact, old
or new, has been admitted to this treatise unless it has
been confirmed by the testimony of at least two inde
pendent trained investigators among ourselves, and has
also been passed as correct by older students whose
knowledge on these points is necessarily much greater
than ours. It is hoped therefore that" this account,
though it cannot be considered as complete, may yet be
found reliable as far as it
goes."
I will not here reproduce the remarks made in the pre
vious manual as to the absolute necessity, to the student
of Occultism, of a definite realization of the fact that
nature is divided into various great planes, each with
its own matter of different degrees of density, and each
interpenetrating those below it though these observa
tions are quite as applicable to the study of the
devachanic plane as to the astral : I will simply refer
the enquirer on that matter to the introduction to
Theosophical Manual No. V., and recapitulate here
only so far as to remind the reader that Devachan is
the third of the five great planes with which humanity
is at present concerned, having below it the astral and
the physical, and above it the buddhic (sometimes,
though perhaps less appropriately, called the sushuptic)
and the nirvanic. As just now remarked, it is the plane
upon which man, unless at an exceedingly early stage
of his progress, spends by far the greater part of his
time during the process of evolution ; for, except in the
case of the entirely undeveloped, the proportion of the
physical life to the devachanic is rarely much greater
than one in twenty, and in the case of fairly good
people it would sometimes fall as low as one in forty.
It is therefore well worth our while to devote to its
study such time and care as may be necessary to
acquire as thorough a comprehension of it as is possi
ble for us while encased in the physical body.
Unfortunately there are practically insuperable
difficulties in the way of any attempt to put the
facts of this third plane of nature into language
and not unnaturally, for we often find words insuffi
cient to express our ideas and feelings even on this
lowest plane. Readers of The Astral Plane will re
member what was there stated as to the impossibility
of conveying any adequate conception of the marvels of
that region to those whose experience had not as yet
transcended the physical world ; one can but say that
every observation there made to that effect applies with
tenfold force to the effort which is before us in this
sequel to that treatise. Not only is the matter which
we must endeavour to describe much further removed
than is astral matter from that to which we are accus
tomed, but the consciousness of that plane is so
immensely wider than anything we can imagine down
here, and its very conditions so entirely different, that
when called upon to translate it all into mere ordinary
words the explorer feels himself utterly at a loss, and
can only trust that the intuition of his readers will
supplement the inevitable imperfections of his descrip
tion.
To take one only out of many possible examples,
it would seem as though in Devachan space and time
were non-existent, for events which here take place in
succession and at widely-separated places, appear there
to be occurring simultaneously and at the same point.
That at least is the effect produced on the consciousness
of the ego, though there are circumstances which
lavour the supposition that absolute simultaneity is the
attribute of a still higher plane, and that the sensation
of it in Devachan is simply the result of a succession
so rapid that the innnitesimally minute spaces of time
are indistinguishable, just as, in the well-known optical
experiment of whirling round a stick the end of which
is red-hot, the eye receives the impression of a con
tinuous ring of fire if the stick be whirled more than
ten times a second ; not because a continuous ring
really exists, but because the average human eye is
incapable of distinguishing as separate any similar im
pressions which follow one another at intervals of less
than the tenth part of a second.
However that may be, the reader will readily
comprehend that in the endeavour to describe a con
dition of existence so totally unlike that of physical
life as is the one which we have to consider, it
will be impossible to avoid saying many things that
will be partly unintelligible and may even seem
wholly incredible to those who have not personally ex
perienced the devachanic life. That this should be so
is, as I have said, quite inevitable, so readers who find
themselves unable to accept the report of our investi
gators must simply wait for a more satisfactory account
of Devachan until they are able to examine it for
themselves : I can only repeat the assurance that all
reasonable precautions have been taken to ensure
accuracy.
The general arrangement of the previous manual
will as far as possible be followed in this one also, so
that those who wish to do so will be able to compare
the two planes stage by stage. The heading " Scenery
"
would however be inappropriate to Devachan, as will
be seen later ; we will therefore substitute for it the
title which follows.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.
Perhaps the least unsatisfactory method of approach
ing this exceedingly difficult subject will be to plunge
in medias res and make the attempt (foredoomed to
failure though it be) to depict what a pupil sees when
first the devachanic plane opens before him. I use the
word pupil advisedly, for unless a man stand in that
relation to a qualified Master, there is but little likeli
hood of his being able to pass in full consciousness into
that glorious land of bliss, and return to earth with
clear remembrance of that which he has seen there.
Thence no accommodating "
spirit
" ever comes to
utter cheap platitudes through the mouth of the pro
fessional medium ; thither no ordinary clairvoyant ever
rises, though sometimes the best and purest have
entered it when in deepest trance they slipped from the
control of their mesmerizers yet even then they have
rarely brought back more than a faint recollection of an
intense but indescribable bliss, generally deeply coloured
by their personal religious convictions.
When once the departed ego, withdrawing into himself
after what we call death, has reached that plane, neither
the yearning thoughts of his sorrowing friends nor the
allurements of the spiritualistic circle can ever draw
him back into communion with the physical earth until
all the spiritual forces which he has set in motion in his
recent life have worked themselves out to the full, and
he once more stands ready to take upon himself new
robes of flesh. Nor, even if he could so return, would
his account of his experiences give any true idea ot the
plane, for, as will presently be seen, it is only those
who can enter it in full waking consciousness who are
able to move about freely and drink in all the wondrous
glory and beauty which Devachan has to show. But
all this will be more fully explained later, when we
come to deal with the inhabitants of this celestial realm.
A BEAUTIFUL DESCRIPTION.
In an early letter from an eminent occultist the
following beautiful passage was given as a quotation
from memory. I have never been able to discover
whence it was taken, though what seems to be another
version of it, considerably expanded, appears in Beal s
Catena of Buddhist Scriptures, p. 378.
" Our Lord BUDDHA says : Many thousand myriads
of systems of worlds beyond this is a region of bliss
called Sukhavati. This region is encircled within
seven rows of railings, seven rows of vast curtains,
seven rows of waving trees. This holy abode of the
Arhats is governed by the Tathagatas and is possessed
by the Bodhisattvas. It has seven precious lakes, in
the midst of which flow crystalline waters having seven
and yet one distinctive properties and qualities. This,
O Sariputra, is the Devachan. Its divine udambara
flower casts a root in the shadow of every earth, and
blossoms for all those who reach it. Those born in
this blessed region who have crossed the golden
bridge and reached the seven golden mountains they
are truly felicitous ; there is no more grief or sorrow in
that cycle for them."
Veiled though they be under the gorgeous imagery
of the Orient, we may easily trace in this passage some
of the leading characteristics which have appeared
most prominently in the accounts of our own modern
investigators. The " seven golden mountains " can
be but the seven subdivisions of the devachanic plane,
separated from one another by barriers impalpable, yet
real and effective there as " seven rows of railings, seven
rows of vast curtains, seven rows of waving trees "
might be here : the seven kinds of crystalline water,
having each its distinctive properties and qualities,
represent the different powers and conditions of mind
belonging to them respectively, while the one quality
which they all have in common is that of ensuring to
those residing upon them the utmost intensity of bliss
which they are capable of experiencing. Its flower
indeed " casts a root in the shadow of every earth,"
for from every world man enters the corresponding
Devachan, and happiness such as no tongue may tell is
the blossom which burgeons forth for all who so live as
to fit themselves to attain it. For they have " crossed
the golden bridge" over the stream which divides this
realm from Kamaloka ; for them the struggle between
the higher and the lower is over, and for them, there
fore, is " no more grief or sorrow in that cycle,"
until
once more the ego puts himself forth into incarnation,
and the celestial world is again left for a time behind.
THE BLISS OF DEVACHAN.
This intensity of bliss is the first great idea which
must form a background to all our conceptions of
Devachan. It is not only that we are dealing with a
world in which, by its very constitution, evil and
sorrow are impossible ; it is not only a world
in which every creature is happy : the facts of the
case go far beyond all that. It is a wTorld in which
every being must, from the very fact of his presence
there, be enjoying the highest spiritual bliss of which
he is capable a world whose power of response to his
aspirations is limited only by his capacity to aspire.
How this can be so we must endeavour to make clear
later on ; the point to be emphasized for the moment
is that this radiant sense not only of the welcome
absence of all evil and discord, but of the insistent,
overwhelming presence of universal joy, is the first and
most striking sensation experienced by him who enters
upon the devachanic plane. And it never leaves him
so long as he remains there ; whatever work he may
be doing, whatever still higher possibilities of spiritual
exaltation may arise before him as he learns more of the
capabilities of this new world in which he finds himself,
the strange indescribable feeling of inexpressible delight
in mere existence in such a realm underlies all else this
enjoyment of the abounding joy of others is ever present
with him. Nothing on earth is like it, nothing can
mage it ; if one could suppose the bounding life of
childhood carried up into our spiritual experience and
then intensified many thousandfold, perhaps some faint
shadow of an idea of it might be suggested ; yet even
such a simile falls miserably short of that which lies
beyond all words the tremendous spiritual vitality of
the devachanic plane.
One way in which this intense vitality manifests itself
is the extreme rapidity of vibration of all particles and
atoms of devachanic matter. As a theoretical proposi
tion we are all aware that even here on the physical
plane no particle of matter, though forming part of the
densest of solid bodies, is ever for a moment at rest ;
nevertheless when by the opening of astral vision this
becomes for us no longer a mere theory of the scientists,
but an actual and ever-present fact, we realize the
IO
universality of life in a manner and to an extent that
was quite impossible before ; our mental horizon widens
out and we begin even already to have glimpses of
possibilities in nature which to those who cannot yet
see must appear the wildest of dreams.
If this be the effect of acquiring the mere astral vision,
and applying it to dense physical matter, try to imagine
the result produced on the mind of the observer when,
having left this lower plane behind and thoroughly studied
the far more vivid life and infinitely more rapid vibrations
of Kamaloka, he finds a new and transcendent sense
opening within him, which unfolds to his enraptured gaze
yet another and a higher world, whose vibrations are as
much quicker than those of our physical plane as vibra
tions of light are than those of sound a world where the
omnipresent life which pulsates ceaselessly around and
within him is of a different order altogether, is as it
were raised to an enormously higher power.
THE DEVACHANIC SENSE.
The very sense itself, by which he is enabled to cognize
all this, is* not the least of the marvels of this celestial
world ; no longer does he hear and see and feel by
separate and limited organs, as he does down here, nor
has he even the immensely extended capacity of sight
and hearing which he possessed on the astral plane ;
instead of these he feels within him a strange new
power which is not any of them, and yet includes them
all and much more a power which enables him the
moment any person or thing comes before him not only
to see it and feel it and hear it, but to know all about it
instantly inside and out its causes, its effects, and its
possibilities, so far at least as that plane and all below
it are concerned. He finds that for him to think is to
1 1
realize ; there is never any doubt, hesitation, or delay,
about this direct action of the higher sense. If he
thinks of a place, he is there ; if of a friend, that friend
is before him. No longer can misunderstandings arise,
no longer can he be deceived or misled by any outward
appearances, for every thought and feeling of his friend
lies open as a book before him on that plane.
And if he is fortunate enough to have among his friends
another whose higher sense is opened, their intercourse
is perfect beyond all earthly conception. For them
distance and separation do not exist ; their feelings are
no longer hidden or at best but half expressed by
clumsy words ; question and answer are unnecessary,
for the thought-pictures are read as they are formed,
and the interchange of ideas is as rapid as is their
flashing into existence in the mind.
All knowledge is theirs for the searching all, that is,
which does not transcend even this lofty plane ; the
past of the world is as open to them as the present ;
the akashic records are ever at their disposal, and
history, whether ancient or modern, unfolds itself before
their eyes at their will. No longer are they at the
mercy of the historian, who may be ill-informed, and
must be more or less partial ; they can study for them
selves any incident in which they are interested, with
the absolute certainty of seeing " the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth." If they are able
to stand upon the higher or arupa levels of the plane
the long line of their past lives unrolls itself before them
like a scroll ; they see the karmic causes which have
made them what they are ; they see what Karma still
lies in front to be worked out before " the long sad
count is closed," and thus they realize with unerring
certainty their exact place in evolution.
12
If it be asked whether they can see the future
clearly as the past, the answer must be in the
negative, for though prevision is to a great extent
possible to them, yet it is not perfect, because wherever
in the web of destiny the hand of the developed man
comes in, his powerful will may introduce new threads,
and change the pattern of the life to come. The course
of the ordinary undeveloped man, who has practically
no will of his own worth speaking of, may often be
foreseen clearly enough, but when the ego boldly takes
his future into his own hands, exact prevision becomes
impossible.
SURROUNDINGS.
The first impressions, then, of the pupil who enters
the devachanic plane in full consciousness will proba
bly be those of intense bliss, indescribable vitality,
and enormously increased power. And when he
makes use of his new sense to examine his surround
ings, what does he see ? He finds himself in the
midst of what seems to him a whole universe of everchanging
light and colour and sound, such as it has
never entered into his loftiest dreams to imagine.
Verily it is true that down here " eye hath not seen,
nor ear hath heard, neither hath it entered into the
heart of man to conceive " the glories of the devachanic
plane : and the man who has once experienced them in
full consciousness will regard the world with widely
different eyes for ever after. Yet this experience is so
utterly unlike anything we know on the physical plane
that in trying to put it into words one is troubled by a
curious sense of helplessness of absolute incapacity,
not only to do it justice, for of that one resigns all hope
13
from the very outset, but even to give any idea at all of
it to those who have not themselves seen it.
Let a man imagine himself, with the feelings of intense
bliss and enormously increased power already described,
floating in a sea of living light, surrounded by every
conceivable variety of loveliness in colour and form
the whole changing with every wave of thought that
he sends out from his mind, and being indeed, as he
presently discovers, only the expression of his thought
in the matter of the plane and in its elemental essence.
For that matter is of the very same order as that of
which the mind-body is itself composed, and therefore
when that vibration of the particles of the mind-body
which we call a thought occurs, it immediately extends
itself to this surrounding devachanic matter, and sets
up corresponding vibrations in it, while in the
elemental essence it images itself with absolute exacti
tude. Concrete thought naturally takes the shape of
its objects, while abstract ideas usually represent them
selves by all kinds of perfect and most beautiful
geometrical forms ; though in this connection it should
be remembered that many thoughts which are little
more than the merest abstractions to us down here
become concrete facts on this loftier plane.
It will thus be seen that in Devachan anyone who
wishes to devote himself for a time to quiet thought,
and to abstract himself from his surroundings, may
actually live in a world of his own without possibility
of interruption, and with the additional advantage of
seeing all his ideas and their consequences fully worked
out passing in a sort of panorama before his eyes. If,
however, he wishes instead to observe the plane upon
which he finds himself, it will be necessary for him
very carefully to suspend his thought for the time, so
H
that its creations may not influence the readily impres
sible matter around him, and thus alter the entire con
ditions so far as he is concerned.
This holding of the mind in suspense must not be con
founded with the blankness of mind towards the at
tainment of which so many of the Hatha Yoga practices
are directed : in the latter case the mind is dulled down
into absolute passivity in order that it may not by any
thought of its own offer resistance to the entry of any
external influence that may happen to approach it a
condition closely approximating to mediumship ; while
in the former the mind is as keenly alert and positive as it
can be, holding its thought in suspense for the moment
merely to prevent the intrusion of a personal equation
into the observation which it wishes to make.
When the visitor to the devachanic plane succeeds
in putting himself in this position he finds that
although he is no longer himself a centre of radiation
of all that marvellous wealth of light and colour, form
and sound, which I have so vainly endeavoured to
picture, it has not therefore ceased to exist ; on the con
trary, its harmonies and its coruscations are but grander
and fuller than ever. Casting about for an explana
tion of this phenomenon, he begins to realize that all
this magnificence is not a mere idle or fortuitous display
a kind of devachanic aurora borealis ; he finds that
it all has a meaning a meaning which he himself can
understand ; and presently he grasps the fact that what
he is watching with such ecstasy of delight is simply
the glorious colour-langauge of the Devas the expres
sion of the thought or the conversation of beings far
higher than himself in the scale of evolution. By
experiment and practice he discovers that he also can
use this new and beautiful mode of expression, and by
15
this very discovery he enters into possession of another
great tract of his heritage in this celestial realm the
power to hold converse with, and to learn from, its
loftier non-human inhabitants, with whom we shall
deal more fully when we come to treat of that part of
our subject.
By this time it will have become apparent why it
was impossible to devote a section of this paper to the
scenery of Devachan, as was done in the case of the
astral plane ; for in point of fact Devachan has no
scenery except such as each individual chooses to make
for himself by his thought unless indeed we take into
account the fact that the vast numbers of entities who
are continually passing before him are themselves
objects in many cases of the most transcendent beauty.
THE GREAT WAVES.
If the visitor wishes to carry his analysis of the plane
still further, and discover what it would be when
entirely undisturbed by the thought or conversation of
any of its inhabitants, he can do so by forming round
himself a huge shell through which none of these
influences can penetrate, and then (of course holding
his own mind perfectly still as before) examining the
conditions which exist inside his shell.
If he performs this experiment with sufficient care,
he will find that the sea of light has become not still,
for its particles continue their intense and rapid vibra
tion, but as it were homogeneous ; that those wonderful
coruscations of colour and constant changes of form are
no longer taking place, but that he is now able to
perceive another and entirely different series of regular
pulsations which the other more artificial phenomena
had previously obscured. These are evidently universal,
i6
and no shell which human power can make will check
or turn them aside. They cause no change of colour,
no assumption of form, but flow with resistless re
gularity through all the matter of the plane, outwards
and in again, like the exhalations and inhalations of
some great breath beyond our ken.
There are several sets of these, clearly distin
guishable from one another by volume and by period
of vibration, and grander than them all sweeps
one great wave which seems the very heart-beat
of the system a wave which, welling up from un
known centres on far higher planes, pours out its
life through all our world, and then draws back in
its tremendous tide to That from which it came. In
one long undulating curve it comes, and the sound of
it is like the murmur of the sea ; and yet in it and
through it all the while there echoes a mighty ringing
chant of triumph the very music of the spheres. The
man who once has heard that glorious song of nature
never quite loses it again ; even here on this dreary
physical plane of illusion he hears it always as a kind
of undertone, keeping ever before his mind the strength
and light and splendour of the real life above.
If the visitor be pure in heart and mind, and has
reached a certain degree of spiritual development, it is
possible for him to identify his consciousness with the
sweep of that wondrous wave to merge his spirit in it,
as it were, and let it bear him upward to its source. It
is possible, I say; but it is not wise unless, indeed, his
Master stands beside him to draw him back at the right
moment from its mighty embrace ; for otherwise its
irresistible force will carry him away onward and
upward into still higher planes, whose far greater glories
his ego is as yet unable to sustain ; he will lose conI?
sciousness, and with no certainty as to when and where
and how he will regain it. It is true that the ultimate
object of man s evolution is the attainment of unity, but
he must reach that final goal in full and perfect con
sciousness as a victorious king entering triumphantly u pon
his heritage, not drift into absorption in a state of blank
unconsciousness but little removed from annihilation.
THE RUPA AND ARUPA PLANES.
All that we have hitherto attempted to indicate in
this description may be taken as applying to the lowest
-subdivision of the devachanic plane ; for this realm of
nature, exactly like the astral or the physical, has its
seven subdivisions. Of these four are called in the
books the rupa planes, while the other three are spoken
of as arupa or formless the reason for these names
being that on the rupa planes every thought takes to
itself a certain definite form, while on the arupa sub
divisions it expresses itself in an entirely different
manner, as will presently be explained. The distinction
between these two great divisions of the plane the
rupa and the arupa is very marked; indeed, it even
extends so far as to necessitate the use of different
vehicles of consciousness.
The vehicle appropriate to the four rupa levels is the
mind-body, out of the matter of which the Adept forms
his Mayavirupa, while that of the three arupa levels is
the causal body the vehicle of the reincarnating ego, in
which he passes from life to life throughout the whole
manvantara. Another enormous distinction is that on
those four lower subdivisions illusion is still possible
not indeed for the entity who stands upon them in full
consciousness during life, but for the person who passes
there after the change which men call death. The
i8
higher thoughts and aspirations which he has poured
forth during earth-life then cluster round him, and make
a sort of shell about him a kind of subjective world of
his own ; and in that he lives his devachanic life, seeing
but very faintly or not at all the real glories of the plane
which lie outside. On the three arupa subdivisions no
such self-deception is possible ; it is true that even there
many egos are only slightly and dreamily conscious of
their surroundings, but in so far as they see, they see
truly, for thought no longer assumes the same de
ceptive forms which it took upon itself lower down.
THE ACTION OF THOUGHT.
The exact condition of mind of the human inhabitants
of these various sub-planes will naturally be much
more fully dealt with under its own appropriate heading ;
but a comprehension of the manner in which thought
acts in the rupa and arupa levels respectively is so
necessary to an accurate understanding of these great
divisions that it will perhaps be worth while to recount
in detail some of the experiments made by our explorers
in the endeavour to throw light upon this subject.
At an early period of the investigation it became evi
dent that on the devachanic as on the astral plane there
was present an elemental essence quite distinct from the
mere matter of the plane, and that it was, if possible,
even more instantaneously sensitive to the action of
thought here than it had been in that lower world.
But here in Devachan all was thought-substance, and
therefore not only the elemental essence, but the very
matter of the plane was directly affected by the action
of the mind ; and hence it became necessary to make
an attempt to discriminate between these two effects.
After various less conclusive experiments a method
19
was adopted which gave a fairly clear idea of the
different results produced, one investigator remaining
on the lowest subdivision to send out the thought-forms,
while others rose to the next higher level, so as to be
able to observe what took place from above, and thus
avoid many possibilities of confusion. Under these
circumstances the experiment was tried of sending an
affectionate and helpful thought to an absent friend.
The result was very remarkable ; a sort of vibrating
shell, formed in the matter of the plane, issued in
all directions round the operator, corresponding ex
actly to the circle which spreads out in still water
from the spot where a stone has been thrown into
it, except that this was a sphere of vibration ex
tending itself in three (or perhaps four) dimensions
instead of merely over a flat surface. These vibra
tions, like those on the physical plane, though very
much more gradually, lost in intensity as they passed
further away from their source, till at last at an
enormous distance they seemed to be exhausted, or
at least became so faint as to be imperceptible.
Thus every one on the devachanic plane is a centre
of radiant thought, and
yet
all the rays thrown out
cross in all directions without interfering with one
another in the slightest degree, just as rays of light do
down here. This expanding sphere of vibrations was
many coloured and opalescent, but its colours also
grew gradually fainter and fainter as it spread away.
The effect on the elemental essence of the plane was,
however, entirely different. In this the thought imme
diately called into existence a distinct form resembling
the human, of one colour only, though exhibiting many
shades of that colour. This form flashed across the
ocean with the speed of thought to the friend to whom
20
the good wish had been directed, and there took to
itself elemental essence of the astral plane, and thus
became an ordinary artificial elemental of that plane,
waiting, as explained in Manual No. V., for an oppor
tunity to pour out upon him its store of helpful influ
ence. In taking on that astral form the devachanic
elemental lost much of its brilliancy, though its glowing
rose-colour was still plainly visible inside the shell of
lower matter which it had assumed, showing that just
as the original thought ensouled the elemental essence
of its own plane, so that same thought, plus its form
as a devachanic elemental, acted as soul to the astral
elemental thus following closely the method in which
Atma itself takes on sheath after sheath in its de
scent through the various planes and sub-planes of
matter.
Further experiments along similar lines revealed the
fact that the colour of the elemental sent forth varied
with the character of the thought. As above stated,,
the thought of strong affection produced a creature of
glowing rose-colour ; an intense wish of healing, pro
jected towards a sick friend, called into existence a
most lovely silvery-white elemental ; while an earnest
mental effort to steady and strengthen the mind of a
depressed and despairing person resulted in the pro
duction of a beautiful flashing golden-yellow messenger.
In all these cases it will be perceived that, besides
the effect of radiating colours and vibrations produced
in the matter of the plane, a definite force in the shape
of an elemental was sent forth towards the person to
whom the thought was directed ; and this invariably
happened, with one notable exception. One of the
operators, while on the lower division of the plane,
directed a thought of intense love and devotion towards
21
the Adept who is his spiritual teacher, and it was at
once noticed by the observers above that the result was
in some sense a reversal of what had happened in the
previous cases.
It should be premised that a pupil of any one of
the great Adepts is always connected with his Master
by a constant current of thought and influence, which
expresses itself on the devachanic plane as a great
ray or stream of dazzling light of all colours violet
and gold and blue ; and it might perhaps have been
expected that the pupil s earnest, loving thought would
send a special vibration along this line. Instead of
this, however, the result was a sudden intensification
of the colours of this bar of light, and a very distinct
flow of magnetic influence towards the pupil ; so that it
is evident that when a student turns his thought to the
Master, what he really does is to vivify his connection
with that Master, and thus to open a way for an addi
tional outpouring of strength and help to himself from
higher planes. It would seem that the Adept is, as it
were, so highly charged with the influences which sus
tain and strengthen, that any thought which brings
into increased activity a channel of communication
with him sends no current towards him, as it ordinarily
would, but simply gives a wider opening through which
the great ocean of his love finds vent.
On the arupa levels the difference in the effect of
thought is very marked, especially as regards the ele
mental essence. The disturbance set up in the mere
matter of the plane is similar, though greatly intensified
in this much more refined form of matter ; but in the
essence no form at all is now created, and the method
of action is entirely changed. In all the experiments
on lower planes it was found that the elemental pro22
duced hovered about the person thought of, and awaited
a favourable opportunity of expending his energy either
upon his mind-body, his astral, or even his physical
body ; here the result is a kind of lightning-flash of the
essence from the causal body of the thinker direct to
the causal body of the object of his thought ; so that
while the thought on those lower divisions is always
directed to the mere personality, here you influence the
reincarnating ego, the real man himself, and if your
message has any reference to the personality it will
reach it only from above, through the instrumentality
of the Karana Sharira.
THOUGHT-FORMS.
Naturally the thoughts to be seen on this plane are
not all definitely directed at some other person ; many
are simply thrown off to float vaguely about, and the
diversity of form and colour shown among these is
practically infinite, so that the study of them is a
science in itself, and a very fascinating one. Anything
like a detailed description even of the main classes
among them would occupy far more space than we
have to spare ; but an idea of the principles upon
which such classes might be formed may be gained from
the following extract from a most illuminative paper
on the subject written by Mrs. Besant in Lucifer for
September, 1896. She there enunciates the three
treat
principles underlying the production of thought-
}rms that (a) the quality of a thought determines its
colour, (b) the nature of a thought determines its form,
(c) the definiteness of a thought determines the clear
ness of its outline. Giving instances of the way in
which the colour is affected, she continues :
" If the astral and mental bodies are vibrating under
23
the influence of devotion, the aura will be suffused with
blue, more or less intense, beautiful and pure according
to the depth, elevation and purity of the feeling. In a
church such thought-forms may be seen rising, for the
most part not very definitely outlined, but rolling
masses of blue clouds. Too often the colour is dulled
by the intermixture of selfish feelings, when the blue is
mixed with browns and thus loses its pure brilliancy.
But the devotional thought of an unselfish heart is
very lovely in colour, like the deep blue of a summer
sky. Through such clouds of blue will often shine out
golden stars of great brilliancy, starting upwards like a
shower of sparks.
" Anger gives rise to red, of all shades from brickred
to brilliant scarlet ; brutal anger will show as
flashes of lurid dull red from dark brown clouds,
while the anger of noble indignation is a vivid
scarlet, by no means unbeautiful to look at though it
gives an unpleasant thrill.
" Affection sends out clouds of rosy hue, vary
ing from dull crimson, where the love is animal in its
nature, rose-red mingled with brown when selfish, or
with dull green when jealous, to the most exquisite
shades of delicate rose like the early flushes of the
dawning, as the love becomes purified from all selfish
elements, and flows out in wider and wider circles of
generous impersonal tenderness and compassion to all
who are in need.
" Intellect produces yellow thought-forms, the pure
reason directed to spiritual ends giving rise to a very
delicate, beautiful yellow, while used for more selfish
ends or mingled with ambition it yields deeper shades
of orange, clear and intense "
(Lucifer, vol. xix. p. 71).
It must of course be borne in mind that astral as well
24
as mental thought-forms are described in the above
quotation, some of the feelings mentioned needing
matter of the lower plane as well as of the higher before
they can find expression. Some examples are then
given of the beautiful flower-like and shell-like forms
sometimes taken by our nobler thoughts ; and especial
reference is made to the not infrequent case in which
the thought, taking human form, is liable to be con
founded with an apparition :
" A thought-form may assume the shape of its pro
jector ; if a person wills strongly to be present at a
particular place, to visit a particular person, and be
seen, such a thought-form may take his own shape, and
a clairvoyant present at the desired spot would see
what he would probably mistake for his friend in the
astral body. Such a thought-form might convey a
message, if that formed part of its content, setting up
in the astral body of the person reached vibrations like
its own, and these being passed on by that astral body
to the brain, where they would be translated into a
thought or a sentence. Such a thought-form, again,
might convey to its projector, by the magnetic relation
between them, vibrations impressed on itself" (p. 73).
The whole of the article from which these extracts
are taken should be very carefully studied by those who
wish to grasp this very complex branch of our subject,
for, with the aid of the beautifully-executed coloured
illustrations which accompany it, it enables those who
cannot yet see for themselves to approach much more
nearly to a realization of what thought-forms actually
are than anything previously written.
THE SUB-PLANES.
If it be asked what is the real difference between the
25
matter of the various sub-planes of Devachan, it is
not easy to answer in other than very general terms,
for the unfortunate scribe bankrupts himself of adjec
tives in an unsuccessful endeavour to describe the
lowest plane, and then has nothing left to say about
the others. What, indeed, can be said, except that
ever as we ascend the material becomes finer, the
harmonies fuller, the light more living and transparent ?
There are more overtones in the sound, more delicate
intershades in the colours as we. rise, more and more
new colours appear hues entirely unknown to the
physical sight ; and it has been poetically yet trul}
said that the light of the lower plane is darkness
on the one above it. Perhaps this idea is simpler
if we start in thought from the top instead of the
bottom, and try to realize that on that highest
sub-plane we shall find its appropriate matter en
souled and vivified by an energy which still flows
down like light from above from a plane which lies
away beyond Devachan altogether. Then if we
descend to the second subdivision we shall find that
the matter of our first sub-plane has become the
energy of this or, to put the thing more accurately,
that the original energy, plus the garment of matter of
the first sub-plane with which it has endued itself, is
the energy of this second sub-plane. In the same way,
in the third division we shall find that the original
energy has twice veiled itself in the matter of these
first and second sub-planes through which it has
passed; so that by the time we get to our seventh sub
division we shall have our original energy six times
enclosed or veiled, and therefore by so much the
weaker and less active,. This process is exactly analo
gous to the veiling of Atma in its descent as monadic
26
essence in order to energize the matter of the planes of
the cosmos, and as it is one which frequently takes
place in nature, it will save the student much trouble
if he will try to familiarize himself with the idea.
THE AKASHIC RECORDS.
In speaking of the general characteristics of the
plane we must not omit to mention the akashic records,
which form what may be called the memory of nature,
the only really reliable history of the world. Whether
what we have on this plane is the absolute record itself
or merely a devachanic reflection of something higher
still, it is at any rate clear, accurate, and continuous,
differing therein from the disconnected and spasmodic
manifestation which is all that represents it in the astral
world. It is, therefore, only when a clairvoyant pos
sesses the vision of this devachanic plane that his
pictures of the past can be relied upon ; and even then,
unless he has the power of passing in full consciousness
from that plane to the physical we have to allow for
the possibility of errors in bringing back the recollec
tion of what he has seen.
But the student who has succeeded in developing
the powers latent within himself so far as to en
able him to use the devachanic sense while still in
the physical body, has before him a field of his
torical research of most entrancing interest. Not
only can he review at his leisure all history with
which we are acquainted, correcting as he examines it
the many errors and misconceptions which have crept
into the accounts handed down to us ; he can alsa
range at will over the whole story of the world from
its very beginning, watching the slow development of
intellect in man, the descent of the Lords of the Flame,.
27
and the growth of the mighty civilizations which they
founded.
Nor is his study confined to the progress of humanity
alone; he has before him, as in a museum, all the
strange animal and vegetable forms which occu
pied the stage in days when the world was young ; he
can follow all the wonderful geological changes which
have taken place, and watch the course of the great
cataclysms which have altered the whole face of the
earth again and again.
Many and varied are the possibilities opened up
by access to the akashic records so many and so
varied indeed that even if this were the only advan
tage of the devachanic plane it would still transcend
in interest all the lower worlds ; but when to this
we add the remarkable increase in the opportunities
for the acquisition of knowledge given by its new
and wider faculty the privilege of direct untram
melled intercourse not only with the great Deva
kingdom, but with the very Masters of Wisdom them
selves the rest and relief from the weary strain of
physical life that is brought by the enjoyment of its
deep unchanging bliss, and above all the enormously
enhanced capability of the developed student for the
service of his fellow-men then we shall begin to have
some faint conception of what a pupil gains when
he wins the right to enter at will and in perfect
consciousness upon his heritage in the bright realm
of Sukhavati.
28
INHABITANTS.
In our endeavour to describe the inhabitants of Deyachan
it will perhaps be well for us to divide them
into the same three great classes chosen in the manual
on the astral plane the human, the non-human, and
the artificial -though the sub-divisions will naturally
be less numerous in this case than in that, since the
products of man s evil passions, which bulked so largely
in Kamaloka, can find no place here.
I. HUMAN.
Exactly as was the case when dealing with the lower
world, it will be desirable to subdivide the human in
habitants of the devachanic plane into two classes
those who are still attached to a physical body, and
those who are not the living and the dead, as they are
commonly but most erroneously called. Very little
experience of these higher planes is needed to alter
fundamentally the student s conception of the change
which takes place at death ; he realizes immediately on
the opening of his consciousness even in the astral, and
still more in the devachanic world, that the fulness of
true life is something which can never be known down
here, and that when we leave this physical earth we are
passing into that true life, not out of it. We have not
at present in the English language any convenient and
at the same time accurate words to express these condi
tions ; perhaps to call them respectively embodied and
disembodied will be, on the whole, the least misleading
of the various possible phrases. Let us therefore pro
ceed to consider those inhabitants of Devachan who
come under the head of
THE EMBODIED.
Those human beings who, while still attached to a
physical body, are found moving in full consciousness
and activity upon this plane are invariably either ini
tiates or Adepts, for until a pupil has been taught by
his Master how to form the Mayavirupa he will be un
able to move with freedom upon even the rupa levels
of Devachan. To function consciously during physical
life upon the arupa levels denotes still greater advance
ment, for it means the unification of the Manas, so that
the man down here is no longer a mere personality,
more or less influenced by the individuality above, but
is himself that individuality trammelled and confined
by a body, certainly, but nevertheless having within
him the power and knowledge of a highly developed
ego.
Very magnificent objects are these Adepts and ini
tiates to the vision which has learnt to see them
splendid globes of light and colour, driving away all
evil influence wherever they go, and shedding around
them a feeling of restfulness and happiness of which
even those who do not see them are often conscious. It
is in this celestial world that much of their most impor
tant work is done more especially upon its higher
levels, where the individuality can be acted upon
directly. It is from this plane that they shower the
grandest spiritual influences upon the world of thought;
from it also they impel great and beneficent movements
of all kinds. Here much of the spiritual force poured
out by the glorious self-sacrifice of the Nirmanakayas is
distributed ; here also direct teaching is given to those
pupils who are sufficiently advanced to receive it in
this way, since it can be imparted far more readily and
completely than on the astral plane. In addition to all
these activities they have a great field of work in con
nection with devachanees, but this will be more fitly
explained under a later heading.
It is a pleasure to find that a class of inhabitants
which obtruded itself painfully on our notice on the
astral plane is entirely absent here. In a world whose
characteristics are unselfishness and spirituality the
black magician and his pupils can obviously find no
place, since selfishness is of the essence of all the pro
ceedings of the darker school. Not but that in many
of them the intellect is very highly developed, and con
sequently the matter of the mind-body extremely active
and sensitive along certain lines ; but in every case
those lines are connected with personal desire of some
sort, and they can therefore find expression only through
Kama-Manas that is, the part of the mind-body which
has become almost inextricably entangled with
As a necessary consequence of this limitation it follows
that their activities are confined to the astral and
physical planes, and thus is justified the grand old de
scription of the heaven-world as the place " where the
wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at
rest."
IN SLEEP OR TRANCE.
In thinking of the living inhabitants of Devachan,
the question naturally suggests itself whether either
ordinary people during sleep, or psychically developed
persons in a trance condition, can ever penetrate to this
plane. In both cases the answer must be that the
occurrence is possible, though extremely rare. Purity
of life and purpose would be an absolute pre-requisite,
and even when the plane was reached there would be
nothing that could be called real consciousness, but
simply a capacity for receiving certain impressions.
As exemplifying the possibility of entering the devachanic
state during sleep, an incident may be mentioned
which occurred in connection with the experiments
made by the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society
on dream consciousness, an account of some of which
was given in their Transaction on Dreams. It may be
remembered by those who have read that Transaction
that a thought-picture of a lovely tropical landscape
was presented to the minds of various classes of sleepers,
with a view of testing the extent to which it was after
wards recollected on awaking. One case which was
not referred to in the account previously published, as
it had no special connection with the phenomena of
dreams, will serve as a useful illustration here.
It was that of a person of pure mind and consider
able though untrained psychic capacity ; and the effect
of the presentation of the thought-picture to her mind
was of a somewhat startling character. So intense was
the feeling of reverent joy, so lofty and so spiritual were
the thoughts evoked by the contemplation of this
glorious scene, that the consciousness of the sleeper
passed entirely into the mind-body or to put the same
32
idea into other words, rose on to the devachanic plane.
It must not, however, be supposed from this that she
became cognizant of her surroundings upon that plane,
or of its real conditions ; she was simply in the state of
the ordinary devachanee after death, floating in the sea
of light and colour indeed, but entirely absorbed in her
own thought, and conscious of nothing beyond itresting
in ecstatic contemplation of the landscape and
of all that it had suggested to her yet contemplating it,
be it understood, with the keener insight, the more
perfect appreciation, and the enhanced vigour of
thought peculiar to the devachanic plane, and enjoying
all the while the intensity of bliss which has so often
been spoken of before. The sleeper remained in that
condition for several hours, though apparently entirely
unconscious of the passage of time, and at last awoke
with a sense of deep peace and inward joy for which,
since she had brought back no recollection of what had
happened, she was quite unable to account. There is
no doubt, however, that such an experience as this,
whether remembered in the physical body or not,
would act as a distinct impulse to the spiritual evolu
tion of the ego concerned.
Though in the absence of a sufficient number of
experiments one hesitates to speak too positively, it
seems almost certain that such a result as this just
described would be possible only in the case of a person
having already some amount of psychic development ;
and the same condition is even more definitely neces
sary in order that a mesmerized subject should touch
the devachanic plane in trance. So decidedly is this
the case, that probably not one in a thousand among
ordinary clairvoyants ever reaches it at all ; but on the
rare occasions when it is so attained the clairvoyant, as
33
before remarked, must be not only of exceptional
development, but of perfect purity of life and purpose :
and even when all these unusual characteristics are
present there still remains the difficulty which an un
trained psychic always finds in translating a vision
accurately from the higher plane to the lower. All
these considerations, of course, only emphasize what
has been so often insisted upon before the necessity of
the careful training of all psychics under a qualified
instructor before it is possible to attach much weight totheir
reports of what they see.
THE DISEMBODIED.
Before considering in detail the condition of the dis
embodied entities on the various sub-planes of Devachan,
we must have very clearly in our minds the broad
distinction between the rupa and arupa levels, of which
mention has already been made. On the former the
man lives entirely in the world of his own thoughts,
still fully identifying himself with his personality in the
life which he has recently quitted ; on the latter he is
simply the reincarnating ego, who (if he has developed
sufficient consciousness on that level to know anything
clearly at all) understands, at least to some extent, the
evolution upon which he is engaged, and the work that
he has to do. It should be remembered that every
man passes through both these stages between death
and birth, though the undeveloped majority have so
little consciousness in either of them as yet that they
might more truly be said to dream through them.
Nevertheless, whether consciously or unconsciously,
every human being must touch his own ego on the
arupa level of Devachan before reincarnation can
34
take place : and as his evolution proceeds this touch
becomes more and more definite and real to him. Not
only is he more conscious here as he progresses, but the
period he passes in this world of reality becomes longer;
for the fact is that his consciousness is slowly but
steadily rising through the different planes of the
system.
Primitive man, for example, would have compara
tively little consciousness on any plane but the physical
during life and the lower astral after death; and indeed
the same may be said of the quite undeveloped man even
in our own day. A person a little more advanced would
perhaps begin to have a short devachanic period (on
the rupa levels, of course), but would still spend by far
the greater part of his time, between incarnations, on
the astral plane. As he progressed the astral life
would grow shorter and the devachanic life longer, until
when he became an intellectual and spiritually-minded
person he would pass through Kamaloka with hardly
any delay at all, and would enjoy a long and happy
sojourn on the higher of the rupa levels. By this time,
however, the consciousness in the true ego on the
arupa levels would have been awakened to a very con
siderable extent, and thus his conscious life in Devachan
would divide itself into two parts the later and
shorter portion being spent on the higher sub-planes in
the causal body.
The process previously described would then repeat
itself, the life on the rupa levels gradually shortening,
while the higher life became steadily longer and fuller,
till at last the time came when the consciousness was
unified when the higher and lower Manas were indissolubly
united, and the man was no longer capable
of wrapping himself up in his own cloud of thought,
35
and mistaking that for the great heaven-world around
him when he realized the true possibilities of his life,
and so for the first time truly began to live. But by
the time that he attains these heights he will already
be an initiate, and will have taken his future progress
definitely into his own hands.
Is THE DEVACHANIC LIFE AN ILLUSION ?
It has frequently been urged, as an objection to the
Theosophical teaching on the subject of the hereafter,
that the life of the ordinary person in Devachan is
nothing but a dream and an illusion that when he
imagines himself happy amidst his family and friends,
or carrying out his plans with such fulness of joy and
success, he is really only the victim of a cruel delusion :
and this is sometimes unfavourably contrasted with
what is called the solid objectivity of the heaven
promised by Christianity. The reply to such an objec
tion is twofold : first, that when we are studying the
problems of the future life we are not concerned to
know which of two hypotheses put before us would
be the pleasanter (that being, after all, a matter of
opinion), but rather which of them is the true one ; and
secondly, that when we enquire more fully into the
facts of the case we shall see that those who maintain
the illusion theory are looking at the matter from quite
a wrong point of view.
As to the first point, the actual state of the facts is
quite easily discoverable by those who have developed
the power to pass consciously on to the devachanic
plane during life; and when so investigated it is found
to agree perfectly with the teaching given to us by the
Masters of Wisdom through our great founder and
teacher Madame Blavatsky. This, of course, disposes
36
of the " solid objectivity
"
theory mentioned above.
As to the second point, if the contention be that on the
lower levels of Devachan trutli in its fulness is not yet
known to man, and that consequently illusion still exists
there, we must frankly admit that that is so. But that
is not what is usually meant by those who bring
forward this objection ; they are generally oppressed
by a feeling that the devachanic life will be more illu
sory and useless than the physical an idea which
further consideration will, I think, show to be in
accurate.
Let it be clearly grasped first of all that such illusion
as there is inheres in the personality, and that when
that is for the time dissipated no illusion remains.
(Of course 1 am using the word illusion in its ordinary
everyday meaning not in that metaphysical sense in
which all is illusion until the absolute is attained.) It
will be seen, as our account of the plane progresses,
that this illusion differs very much on different levels,
and that it steadily diminishes as the soul advances.
Indeed, we may say that just as it is only the child
down here who constantly "makes believe," so it is
only the child-soul who surrounds himself again and
again with an illusory world created by his own
thoughts.
In point of fact, the Devachan of each person is
exactly suited to him ; as he becomes more real, it be
comes more real also. And we ought in fairness to
bear in mind, before inveighing against the unreality of
Devachan, that we are, after all, at the present moment
living a life which is still more unreal. Is it contended
that on that plane we make our own surroundings, and
that they have therefore no objective existence ? But
surely that argument cuts both ways : for even down
37
here the world of which a person is sensible is never
the whole of the outer world, but only so much of it as
his senses, his intellect, his education, enable him to take
in. It is obvious that during life the average person s
conception of everything around him is really quite a
wrong one empty, imperfect, inaccurate in a dozen
ways ; for what does he know of the great forces
etheric, astral, devachanic which lie behind every
thing he sees, and in fact form by far the most import
ant part of it ? What does he know, as a rule, even of
the more recondite physical facts which surround him
and meet him at every step that he takes ? The truth
is that here, as in Devachan, he lives in a world which
is very largely of his own creation. He does not realize
it, of course, either there or here, but that is only
because of his ignorance because he knows no
better.
It may be thought that there is a difference in the
case of our friends that here we have them really
with us, whereas in Devachan what we have is only an
image of them. which we ourselves make. This latter
statement is true only of the lowest planes, and if the
friend is an entirely undeveloped person ; but, once
more, is not the case exactly the same down here ?
Here also we see our friend only partly we know
only the part of him which is congenial to us, and
the other sides of his character are practically non
existent for us. If we were for the first time, and with
the direct and perfect vision of the devachanic plane,
to see the whole of our friend, the probability is that he
would be quite unrecognizable : certainly he would not
be at all the dear one whom we had known.
Not only is it true that as a man becomes more
real himself his Devachan becomes more real ; it is also
38
a fact that, as the man evolves, the image of him in
his friend s Devachan becomes more real too. This
was very well illustrated by a simple case which
recently came under the notice of our investigators.
It was that of a mother who had died perhaps twenty
years ago, leaving behind her two boys to whom she
was deeply attached. Naturally they were the most
prominent figures in her Devachan, and quite naturally,
too, she thought of them as she had left them, as boys
of fifteen or sixteen years of age. The love which
she thus ceaselessly poured out upon these images
in Devachan was really acting as a beneficent force
showered down upon the grown-up men in this phy
sical world, but it did not affect them both to the same
extent not that her love was stronger for one than the
other, but because there was a great difference between
the images themselves. Not a difference, be it under
stood, that the mother could see ; to her both appeared
equally with her and equally all that she could possibly
desire : yet to the eyes of the investigators it was very
evident that one of these images was a mere thoughtform
of the mother s, without anything that could be
called a reality at the back of it, while the other was
distinctly much more than a mere image, for it was
instinct with living force. On tracing this very in
teresting phenomenon to its source, it was found that
in the first case the son had grown up into an ordinary
man of business not specially evil in any way, but by
no means spiritually-minded while the second had
become a man of high unselfish aspiration, and of con
siderable refinement and culture. His life had been
such as to develope a much greater amount of con
sciousness in the ego than his brother s, and conse
quently his higher self was able to energize the image
39
of himself as a boy which his mother had formed in her
Devachan to put something of himself into it, as it
were.
A large number of similar instances were revealed by
further research, and it was eventually clearly estab
lished that the more highly a man is developed along,
spiritual lines, the more truly is his image in his,
friend s Devachan informed by a ray from his higher!
ego, even though the personality down here in incarna
tion may often be entirely ignorant of its action.
Thus as the man rises his image becomes more really
himself, until in the case of an Adept that image is fully
and consciously entered and used as a means of raising
and instructing the pupil who has formed it. Of this
more will be said later ; but meantime it is abundantly
evident that, as man evolves, the illusions which clung
round his spiritual childhood drop away, and he draws
ever nearer and nearer to the reality which lies behind
them.
In this manner, and in this manner only, is com
munication possible between those who still live on
earth and those who have passed into this celestial
realm. A man s higher self may be informing his
image in a friend s Devachan, and yet the living man
here on earth may know nothing of it, and therefore
remain quite unable to communicate with his departed
friend ; but if the living man has evolved his conscious
ness to the point of unification, and can therefore use
the powers of the ego while still in the physical body,
he can enter at will and in full consciousness into that
image of his, and can speak once more face to face
with his friend, as of yore : so that in such a case the
" devachanic dream "
is no longer an illusion, but a
living reality.
4
Is it said that on the devachanic plane a man takes
his thoughts for real things ? He is quite right ;
they are real things, and on this, the thought-plane,
nothing but thought can be real. There we recognize
that great fact here we do not ; on which plane, then,
is the delusion greater ? Those thoughts of the devachanee
are indeed realities, and are capable of pro
ducing the most striking results upon living men
results which can never be otherwise than beneficial,
because upon that high plane there can be none but
loving thought.
Another point worth bearing in mind is that this
system upon which nature has arranged the life after
death is the only imaginable one which could fulfil its
object of making every one happy to the fullest extent
of his capacity for happiness. If the joy of heaven
were of one particular type only, as it is according to
the orthodox Christian theory, there must always be
some who would weary of it, some who would be incap
able of participating in it, either from want of taste in
that particular direction, or from lack of the necessary
education to say nothing of that other obvious fact,
that if this condition of affairs were eternal the grossest
injustice must be perpetrated by giving practically the
same reward to all who enter, no matter what their
respective deserts might be.
Again, what other arrangement with regard to
relatives and friends could possibly be equally satis
factory ? If the departed were able to follow the
fluctuating fortunes of their friends on earth, happiness
would be impossible for them ; if, without knowing
what was happening to them, they had to wait until
the death of those friends before meeting them, there
would be a painful period of suspense, often extending
over many years, while the friend would in many cases
arrive so much changed as to be no longer sympathetic.
On the system so wisely provided for us by nature
every one of these difficulties is avoided ; a man decides
for himself both the length and the character of his
Devachan by the causes which he himself generates
during his earth-life; therefore he cannot but have
exactly the amount which he has deserved, and exactly
that quality of joy which is best suited to his idiosyn
crasies. Those whom he loves most he has ever with
him, and always at their noblest and best ; while no
shadow of discord or change can ever come between
them, since he receives from them all the time exactly
what he wishes. In point of fact, as we might have
expected, the arrangement really made by nature is
infinitely superior to anything which the imagination of
man has been able to offer us in its place.
THE QUALITIES NECESSARY FOR DEVACHANIC LIFE.
The greater reality of the devachanic life as compared
with that on earth is again evidenced when we consider
what conditions are requisite for the attainment of this
higher state of existence. For the very qualities which
.a man must develope during life, if he is to have any
Devachan after death, are just those which all the best
and noblest of our race have agreed in considering as
really and permanently desirable. In order that an
aspiration or a thought-force should result in existence
on that plane, its dominant characteristic must be un
selfishness.
Affection for family or friends takes many a man
into Devachan, and so also does religious devo
tion ; yet it would be a mistake to suppose that all
42
affection or all devotion must therefore necessarily find
its post-movtem expression there, for of each of these
qualities there are obviously two varieties, the selfish
and the unselfish though it might perhaps reasonably
be argued that it is only the latter kind in each case
which is really worthy of the name.
There is the love which pours itself out upon its
object, seeking for nothing in return never even think
ing of itself, but only of what it can do for the loved one ;
and such a feeling as this generates a spiritual force which
cannot work itself out except upon the devachanic plane*
But there is also another emotion which is sometimes
called love an exacting, selfish kind of passion which
desires mainly to be loved which is thinking all the time
of what it receives rather than of what it gives, and is
quite likely to degenerate into the horrible vice ofjealousy
upon (or even without) the smallest provocation. Such
affection as this has in it no seed of devachanic deve
lopment ; the forces which it sets in motion will never
rise above the astral plane.
The same is true of the feeling of a certain very large
class of religious devotees, whose one thought is, not the
glory of their deity, but how they may save their own
miserable souls a position which forcibly suggests that
they have not yet developed anything that really deserves
the name of a soul at all.
On the other hand there is the real religious devotion,
which thinks never of self, but only of love and grati
tude towards the deity or leader, and is filled with
ardent desire to do something for him or in his name ;.
and such a feeling often leads to prolonged Devachan
of a comparatively exalted type.
This would of course be the case whoever the deity
or leader might be, and followers of Buddha, Krishna,.
43
Ormuzd, Allah and Christ would all equally attain their
meed of devachanic bliss its length and quality depend
ing upon the intensity and purity of the feeling, and
not in the least upon its object, though this latter
consideration would undoubtedly affect the possibility
of receiving instruction during that higher life.
Most human devotion, however, like most human
love, is neither wholly pure nor wholly selfish. That
love must be low indeed into which no unselfish
thought or impulse has entered ; and on the other hand
an affection which is usually and chiefly quite pure and
noble may yet sometimes be clouded by a spasm of
jealous feeling or a passing thought of self. In both
these cases, as in all, Karma discriminates unerringly ;
and just as the momentary flash of nobler feeling in the
less developed heart will receive its devachanic meed,,
even though there be nought else in the life to raise
the soul above the astral plane, so the baser thought
which erstwhile dimmed the holy radiance of a real
love will reap its due reward in Kamaloka, interfering
not at all with the magnificent celestial life which flows
infallibly from years of deep affection here below.
How A MAN FIRST GAINS DEVACHAN.
It will be seen, therefore, that many undeveloped
and backward egos never consciously attain the deva
chanic state at all, whilst a still larger number obtain
only a comparatively slight touch of some of its lower
planes. Every ego must of course withdraw into its
true self upon the arupa levels before reincarnation ;
but it does not at all follow that in that condition it
will experience anything that we should call conscious
ness. This subject will be dealt with more fully when
44
we come to treat of the arupa planes ; it seems better
to begin with the lowest of the rupa levels, and work
steadily upwards, so we may for the moment leave on
one side that portion of humanity whose conscious exis
tence after death is practically confined to the astral
plane, and proceed to consider the case of an entity who
has just risen out of that position who for the first
time has a slight and fleeting consciousness in the
lowest subdivision of Devachan.
There are evidently various methods by which this
important step in the early development of the ego may
be brought about, but it will be sufficient for our pre
sent purpose if we take as an illustration of one of them
a somewhat pathetic little story from real life which
came under the observation of our students when they
were investigating this question. In this case the agent
of the great evolutionary forces was a poor seamstress,
living in one of the dreariest and most squalid of our
terrible London slums a foetid court in the East End
into which light and air could scarcely struggle.
Naturally she was not highly educated, for her life had
been one long round of the hardest work under the least
favourable of conditions ; but nevertheless she was a
good-hearted, benevolent creature, overflowing with
love and kindness towards all with whom she came into
contact. Her rooms were as poor, perhaps, as any in
the court, but at least they were cleaner and neater
than the others. She had no money to give when sick
ness brought need even more dire than usual to some
of her neighbours, yet on such an occasion she was
always at hand as often as she could snatch a few
moments from her work, offering with ready sympathy
such service as was within her power.
Indeed, she was quite a providence to the rough,
45
ignorant factory girls about her, and they gradually
came to look upon her as a kind of angel of help and
mercy, always at hand in time of trouble or illness.
Often after toiling all day with scarcely a moment s
intermission she sat up half the night, taking her turn
at nursing some of the many sufferers who are always
to be found in surroundings so fatal to health and
happiness as those of a London slum ; and in many
cases the gratitude and affection which her unremitting
kindness aroused in them were absolutely the only
higher feelings that they had during the whole of their
rough and sordid lives.
The conditions of existence in that court being such
as they were, there is little wonder that some of her
patients died, and then it became clear that she had
done for them much more than she knew ; she had
given them not only a little kindly assistance in their
temporal trouble, but a very important impulse on the
course of spiritual evolution. For these were un
developed egos pitris of a very backward class who
had never yet in any of their births set in motion the
spiritual forces which alone could give them conscious
existence on the devachanic plane ; but now for the
first time not only had an ideal towards which they
could strive been put before them, but also really
unselfish love had been evoked in them by her action,
and the very fact of having so strong a feeling as this
had raised them and given them more individuality,
and so after their stay in Kamaloka was ended they
gained their first experience of the lowest subdivision
of Devachan. A short experience, probably, and of
by no means an advanced type, but still of far greater
importance than appears at first sight ; for when once
the great spiritual energy of unselfishness has been
46
awakened the very working-out of its results in
Devachan gives it the tendency to repeat itself, and
small in amount though this first outpouring may be,
it yet builds into the ego a faint tinge of a quality
which will certainly express itself again in the next life.
So the gentle benevolence of a poor seamstress
has given to several less developed souls their intro
duction to a conscious spiritual life which incarnation
after incarnation will grow steadily stronger, and react
more and more upon the earth-lives of the future.
This little incident perhaps suggests an explanation of
the fact that in the various religions so much import
ance is attached to the personal element in charity
the direct association between donor and recipient.
SEVENTH SUB-PLANE.
This lowest subdivision of Devachan, to which the
action of our poor seamstress raised the objects of her
kindly care, has for its principal characteristic that of
affection for family or friends unselfish, of course, but
usually somewhat narrow. Here, however, we must
guard ourselves against the possibility of misconcep
tion. When it is said that family affection takes a
man to the seventh devachanic sub-plane, and religious
devotion to the sixth, people sometimes very naturally
imagine that a person having both these character
istics strongly developed in him would divide his
devachanic period between these two subdivisions, first
spending a long period of happiness in the midst of his
family, and then passing upward to the next level,
there to exhaust the spiritual forces engendered by his
devotional aspirations.
This, however, is not what happens, for in such a
47
case as we have supposed the man would awaken to
consciousness in the sixth sub-division, where he would
find himself engaged, together with those whom he had
loved so much, in the highest form of devotion which he
was able to realize. And when we think of it this is
reasonable enough, for the man who is capable of
religious devotion as well as mere family affection is
naturally likely to be endowed with a higher and
broader development of the latter virtue than one whose
mind is susceptible to influence in one direction only.
The same rule holds good all the way up ; the higher
plane may always include the qualities of the lower as
well as those peculiar to itself, and when it does so its
inhabitants almost invariably have these qualities in
fuller measure than the souls on a lower plane.
When it is said that family affection is the character
istic of the seventh sub-plane, it must not therefore be
supposed for a moment that love is confined to this
plane, but rather that the man who will find himself
here after death is one in whose character this affection
was the highest quality the only one, in fact, which
entitled him to Devachan at all. But love of a far
nobler and grander type than anything to be seen on
this level may of course be found upon the higher subplanes.
One of the first entities encountered by the investiga
tors upon this sub-plane forms a very fair typical
example of its inhabitants. The man during life had
been a small grocer not a person of intellectual
development or of any particular religious feeling, but
simply the ordinary honest and respectable small
tradesman. No doubt he had gone to church regularly
every Sunday, because it was the customary and
proper thing to do ; but religion had been to him a sort
48
of dim cloud which he did not really understand,,
which had no connection with the business of everyday
life, and was never taken into account in deciding itsproblems.
He had therefore none of the depth of
devotion which might have lifted him to the next subplane
; but he had for his wife and family a warm
affection in which there was a large element of unselfish
ness. They were constantly in his mind, and it was for
them far more than for himself that he worked from morn
ing to night in his tiny little shop ; and so when, after a
period of existence in Kamaloka, he had at last shaken
himself free from the decaying astral body, he found
himself upon this lowest subdivision of Devachan with
all his loved ones gathered round him.
He was no more an intellectual or highly spiritual man
than he had been on earth, for death brings with it no
sudden development of that kind ; the surroundings in
which he found himself with his family were not of a
very refined type, for they represented only his own
highest ideals of non-physical enjoyment during life ;
but nevertheless he was as intensely happy as he was
capable of being, and since he was all the time thinking
of his family rather than of himself he was undoubtedly
developing unselfish characteristics, which would be
built into the ego, and so would reappear in his next
life on earth.
Another typical case was that of a man who had died
while his only daughter was still young ; here in
Devachan he had her always with him and always at
her best, and he was continually occupying himself in
weaving all sorts of beautiful pictures of her future.
Yet another was that of a young girl who was always
absorbed in contemplating the manifold perfections of
her father, and planning little surprises and fresh
49
pleasures for him. Another was a Greek woman who
was spending a marvellously happy time with her
three children one of them a beautiful boy, whom
she delighted in imagining as the victor in the Olympic
games.
A striking characteristic of this sub-plane for the last
few centuries has been the very large number of
Romans, Carthaginians and Englishmen to be found
there this being due to the fact that among men of
these nations the principal unselfish activity found its
outlet through family affection ; while comparatively
few Hindus and Buddhists are here, since in their case
real religious feeling usually enters more immediately
into their daily lives, and consequently takes them to a
higher level.
There was, of course, an almost infinite variety among
the cases observed, their different degrees of advance
ment being distinguishable by varying degrees of
luminosity, while differences of colour indicated re
spectively the qualities which the persons in question
had developed. Some were lovers who had died in
the full strength of their affection, and so were always
occupied with the one person they loved to the entire
exclusion of all others ; others there were who had been
almost savages, one example being a Malay, a low
third-class pitri, who obtained a slight experience of
Devachan in connection with a daughter whom he had
loved.
In all these cases it was the touch of unselfish
affection which gave them their Devachan ; indeed,
apart from that, there was nothing in the activity of
their personal lives which could have expressed itself on
that plane. In most instances observed on this level
the images of the loved ones have in them but the
5"
faintest glimmer of real vitality, owing to the fact that
naturally in the vast majority of cases their individuali
ties have not been developed into activity on this plane.
Of course wherever such development has taken place
the image would be vivified by a ray of the higher self of
the person whom it represented, and much benefit
might be derived by the devachanee from his intercourse
with it.
Before passing on to consider the higher levels it
would be well perhaps to refer to the way in which
consciousness is recovered upon entering the devachanic
plane. On the final separation of the mind-body from
the astral a period of blank unconsciousness supervenes
varying in length between very wide limits analogous
to that which usually follows physical death. The awak
ening from this into active devachanic consciousness
closely resembles what often occurs in waking from a
night s sleep. Just as on first awakening in the morning
one sometimes passes through a period of intensely de
lightful repose during which one is conscious of the sense
of enjoyment, though the mind is as yet inactive and
the body hardly under control, so the entity awakening
on the devachanic plane first passes through a more
or less prolonged period of intense and gradually increas
ing bliss before his full activity of consciousness on that
plane is reached. When first this sense of wondrous
joy dawns on him it fills the entire field of his con
sciousness, but gradually as he awakens he finds himself
surrounded by a world of his own creation presenting
the features appropriate to the sub-plane to which he
has been drawn.
SIXTH SUB-PLANE.
The dominant characteristic of this subdivision
5 1
appears to be anthropomorphic religious devotion. The
distinction between such devotion and the religious feeling
which finds its expression on the second sub-plane of
the astral lies in the fact that the former is purely
unselfish, and the man who feels it is totally uncon
cerned as to what the result of his devotion may be as
regards himself, while the latter is always aroused by
the hope and desire of gaining some advantage through
it ; so that on the second astral sub-plane such religious
feeling as -is there active invariably contains an element
of selfish bargaining, while the devotion which raises
a man to this sixth devachanic sub-plane is entirely free
from any such taint.
On the other hand this phase of devotion, which con
sists essentially in the perpetual adoration of a personal
deity, must be carefully distinguished from those still
higher forms which find their expression in performing
some definite work for the deity s sake. A few examples
of the cases observed on this sub-plane will perhaps show
these distinctions more clearly than any mere descrip
tion can do.
A fairly large number of entities whose devachanic
activities work themselves out on this level are drawn
from the oriental religions ; but only those are included
who have the characteristic of pure but comparatively
unreasoning and unintelligent devotion. Worshippers of
Vishnu, both in his avatar of Krishna and otherwise, as
well as a few followers of Shiva, are to be found here,
each wrapped up in the self-woven cocoon of his own
thoughts, alone with his own god, and oblivious of the
rest of mankind, except in so far as his affections may
associate with him in his adoration those whom he
loved on earth. A Vaishnavite, for example, was noticed
wholly absorbed in the ecstatic worship of the very
52
same image of Vishnu to which he had made offerings
during life.
Some of the most characteristic examples of this
plane are to be found among women, who indeed form
a very large majority of its inhabitants. Among others
there was a Hindu woman who had glorified her hus
band into a divine being, and also thought of the child
Krishna as playing with her own children, but while
these latter were thoroughly human and real the child
Krishna was obviously nothing but the semblance
of a blue wooden image galvanized into life. Krishna
also appeared in her Devachan under another form
that of an effeminate young man playing on a flute;
but she was not in the least confused or troubled
by this double manifestation. Another woman, who
was a worshipper of Shiva, had confounded the god
with her husband, looking upon the latter as a manifes
tation of the former, so that the one seemed to be
constantly changing into the other. Some Buddhists
also are found upon this subdivision, but apparently
exclusively those who regard the Buddha rather as an
object of adoration than as a great teacher.
The Christian religion also contributes many of the
inhabitants of this plane. The unintellectual devotion
which is exemplified on the one hand by the illiterate
Roman Catholic peasant, and on the other by the
earnest and sincere " soldier " of the Salvation Army,
seems to produce results very similar to those already
described, for these people also are found wrapped up
in contemplation of their ideas of Christ or his mother
respectively. For instance, an Irish peasant was seen
absorbed in the deepest adoration of the Virgin Mary,
whom he imaged as standing on the moon after
the fashion of Titian s "
Assumption," but holding out
53
her hands and speaking to him. A mediaeval monk
was found in ecstatic contemplation of Christ crucified,
and the intensity of his yearning love and pity was
such that as he watched the blood dropping from the
wounds of the figure of his Christ the stigmata
reproduced themselves upon his own body.
Another man seemed to have forgotten the sad story
of the crucifixion, and thought of his Christ only as
glorified on his throne, with the crystal sea before him,
and all around a vast multitude of worshippers, among
whom he himself stood with his wife and family. His
affection for these relatives was very deep, yet his
thoughts were more occupied in adoration of the Christ,
though his conception of his deity was so material that
he imaged him as constantly changing kaleidoscopically
backwards and forwards between the form of a man
and that of the lamb bearing the flag which we often
see represented in church windows.
A more interesting case was that of a Spanish nun
who had died at about the age of nineteen or twenty.
In her Devachan she carried herself back to the date
of Christ s life upon earth, and imagined herself as
accompanying him through the chain of events re
counted in the gospels, and after his crucifixion taking
care of his mother the Virgin Mary. Not unnaturally,
perhaps, her pictures of the scenery and costumes of
Palestine were entirely inaccurate, for the Saviour and
his disciples wore the dress of Spanish peasants, while
the hills round Jerusalem were mighty mountains
clothed with vineyards, and the olive trees were hung
with grey Spanish moss. She thought of herself as
eventually martyred for her faith, and ascending into
heaven, but yet only to live over and over again this
life in which she so delighted.
54
A quaint and pretty little example of the Devachan
of a child may conclude our list of instances from this
sub-plane. He had died at the age of seven, and was
occupied in re-enacting in the heaven-world the religious
stories which his Irish nurse had told him down here ;
and best of all he loved to think of himself as playing
with the infant Jesus, and helping him to make those
clay sparrows which the power of the child- Christ is
fabled to have brought to life and caused to fly.
It will be seen that the blind unreasoning devotion
of which we have been speaking does not at any time
raise its votaries to any great spiritual heights ; but it
must be remembered that in all cases they are entirely
happy and most fully satisfied, for what they receive is
always the highest which they are capable ot appreciat
ing. Nor is it without a very good effect on their future
career, for although no amount of mere devotion such
as this will ever develope intellect, yet it does produce
an increased capacity for a higher form of devotion,
and in most cases it leads also to purity of life. A
person therefore who lives such a life and enjoys such
a Devachan as we have been describing, though he is
not likely to make rapid progress on the path of spirit
ual development, is at least guarded from many dangers, for it is very
improbable that in his next birth he
should fall into any of the grosser sins, or be drawn
away from his devotional aspirations into a mere
worldly life of avarice, ambition or dissipation. Never
theless, a survey of this sub-plane distinctly emphasizes the necessity
of following St. Peter s advice, " Add to your faith virtue, and to
virtue knowledge.""
FIFTH SUB-PLANE.
The chief characteristic of this subdivision may be
. 55
defined as devotion expressing itself in active work.
The Christian on this plane, for example, instead of
merely adoring his Saviour, would think of himself as
going out into the world to work for him. It is
especially the plane for the working out of great schemes
and designs unrealized on earth of great organizations
inspired by religious devotion, and usually having for
their object some philanthropic purpose. It must be
borne in mind, however, that ever as we rise higher
greater complexity and variety is introduced, so that
though we may still be able to give a definite charac
teristic as on the whole dominating the plane, we shall
yet be more and more liable to find variations and ex
ceptions that do not so readily range themselves under
the general heading.
A typical case, although somewhat above the average,
was that of a man who was found working out a
grand scheme for the amelioration of the condition
of the lower classes. While a deeply religious man
himself, he had felt that the first step necessary
in dealing with the poor was to improve their phy
sical condition ; and the plan which he was now work
ing out in Devachan, with triumphant success and
loving attention to every detail, was one which had
often crossed his mind while on earth, though he had
been quite unable there to take any steps towards its
realization.
His idea had been that, if possessed of enormous
wealth, he would buy up and get into his own hands
the whole of one of the smaller trades one in which
perhaps three or four large firms only were now
engaged ; and he thought that by so doing he could
effect very large savings by doing away with competi
tive advertising and other wasteful forms of trade
56
rivalry, and thus be able, while supplying goods to
the public at the same price as now, to pay much
better wages to his workmen. It was part of his scheme
to buy a plot of land and erect upon it cottages for his
workmen, each surrounded by its little garden ; and
after a certain number of years service, each workman
was to acquire a share in the profits of the business
which would be sufficient to provide for him in his old
age. By working out this system the devachanee had
hoped to show to the world that there was an eminently
practical side to Christianity, and also to win the souls
of his men to his own faith out of gratitude for the
material benefits they had received.
Another not dissimilar case was that of an Indian
prince whose ideal on earth had been the divine herokin^,
Rama, on whose example he had tried to model
his life and methods of government. Naturally down
here all sorts of untoward accidents had occurred, and
many of his schemes had consequently failed, but
in Devachan everything went well, and the greatest
possible result followed every one of his well- meant
efforts Rama of course personally advising and direct
ing his work, and receiving perpetual adoration from all
his devoted subjects.
A curious and rather touching instance of personal
religious work was that of a woman who had been a nun,
belongingtoonenot of the contemplative but of the work
ing orders. She had evidently based her life upon the
text " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least
of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me," and now
in Devachan she was still carrying out to the fullest
extent the injunctions of her Lord, and was constantly
occupied in healing the sick, in feeding the hungry,
and clothing and helping the poor the peculiarity of the
57
case being that each of those to whom she had ministered
at once changed into the appearance of the Christ,
whom she then worshipped with fervent devotion.
An instructive case was that of two sisters, both of
whom had been intensely religious ; one of them had
been a crippled invalid, and the other had spent a long
life in tending her. On earth they had often discussed
and planned what religious and philanthropic work
they would carry out if they were able, and now each
is the most prominent figure in the other s Devachan,
the cripple being well and strong, while each thinks of
the other as joining her in carrying out the unrealized
wishes of her earth-life ; and in this case the image of
each sister in the other s Devachan was at least to some
extent vivified and real.
On this plane also the higher type of sincere and
devoted missionary activity finds expression. Of course
the ordinary ignorant fanatic never reaches this level,
but a few of the noblest cases, such as Livingstone,
might be found here engaged in the congenial occu
pation of converting multitudes of people to the parti
cular religion which they happened to advocate. One
of the most striking of such cases which came under
notice was that of a Mohammedan, who imagined him
self as working most zealously at the conversion of the
world and its government according to the most
approved principles of the faith of Islam.
It appears that under certain conditions artistic
capacity may also bring its votaries to this sub-plane.
But here a careful distinction must be drawn. The
artist or musician whose only object is the selfish one
of personal fame, or who habitually allows himself to
be influenced by feelings of professional jealousy, of
course generates no forces which will bring him to the
58
devachanic plane at all. On the other hand that
grandest type of arj: whose disciples regard it as a
mighty power entrusted to them for the spiritual eleva
tion of their fellows will express itself in even higher
regions than this. But between these two extremes
those devotees of art who follow it for its own sake or
regard it as an offering to their deity, never thinking of
its effect on their fellows, may in some cases find their
appropriate Devachan on this sub-plane.
As an example of this may be mentioned a musician
of very religious temperament who regarded all his labour
of love simply as an offering to the Christ, and knew no
thing of the magnificent arrangement of sound and colour
which his soul-inspiring compositions were producing
in the matter of the devachanic plane. Nor would all
his enthusiasm be wasted and fruitless, for its result
would certainly be to give him increased devotion
and increased musical capacity in his next birth; but
without the still wider aspiration to help humanity
this kind of Devachan might repeat itself almost
indefinitely. Indeed, glancing back at the three planes
with which we have just been dealing we may notice
that they are in all cases concerned with the working
out of devotion to personalities either to one s family
and friends or to a personal deity rather than the
wider devotion to humanity for its own sake which
finds its expression on the next sub-plane.
FOURTH SUB-PLANE.
So varied are the activities of this, the highest of the
rupa levels, that it is difficult to group them under a
single characteristic. Perhaps they might best be
arranged into four main divisions unselfish pursuit of
59
spiritual knowledge, high philosophic or scientific
thought, literary or artistic ability exercised for unsel
fish purposes, and service for service s sake. The
exact definition of each of these classes will be more
readily comprehended when some examples of each
have been given.
Naturally it is from those religions in which the
necessity of obtaining spiritual knowledge is recognized
that most of the population of this sub-plane is drawn.
It will be remembered that on the sixth sub-plane we
found many Buddhists whose religion had chiefly taken
the form of devotion to their great leader as a person ;
here on the contrary we have those more intelligent
followers whose supreme aspiration was to sit at his
feet and learn who looked upon him in the light of a
teacher rather than as a being to be adored.
Now in their Devachan this highest wish is fulfilled ;
they find themselves in very truth learning from the
Buddha, and the image which they have thus made of
him is no mere empty form, but most assuredly has in
it a ray which is really part of himself. They are
therefore beyond doubt acquiring fresh knowledge
and wider views ; and the effect upon their next life
cannot but be of the most marked character. They
will not, of course, remember any individual facts that
they may have learnt (though when such facts are
presented to their minds in a subsequent life they
will grasp them with avidity and intuitively recognize
their truth), but the result of the teaching will be to
build into the ego a strong tendency to take broader
and more philosophical views on all such subjects.
Thus it will be seen that the Devachan enjoyed on
this higher subdivision very definitely and unmistak
ably hastens the evolution of the ego ; and once more
6o
our attention is drawn to the enormous advantage
gained by those who have in their Devachan the figures
of real, living and powerful teachers.
A less developed type of this form of instruction is
found in cases in which some really great and spiritual
writer has become to a student a living personality, and
has taken on the aspect of a friend, forming part of the
student s mental life an ideal figure in his musings.
Such an one may enter into the pupil s Devachan, and
by virtue of his own highly evolved ego may vivify the
devachanic image of himself, and further illuminate the
teachings in his own books, bringing out of them the
more hidden meanings.
Many of the followers of the path of wisdom among
the Hindus find their Devachan upon this plane that
is, if their Gurus have been men possessing any real
knowledge. A few of the more advanced among the
Sufis and Parsis are also here, and we still find
some of the early Gnostics whose spiritual development
was such as to earn for them a prolonged stay in this
celestial region. But except for this comparatively
small number of Sufis and Gnostics neither Moham
medanism nor Christianity seems to raise its followers
to this level, though of course some who nominally
belong to these religions may be carried on to this subplane
by the presence in tneir character of qualities
which do not depend upon the teachings peculiar to
their religion.
In this region we also find earnest and devoted
students of Occultism who are not yet so far advanced
as to have earned the right and the power to forego
their Devachan for the good of the world. Among
these was one who in life had been personally known to
some of the investigators a Buddhist monk who had
6i
been an earnest student of Theosophy,
and had long
cherished the hope of being one day privileged to receive
instruction directly from its adept teachers. In his
Devachan the Buddha was the dominant figure, while
the two Masters who have been most closely concerned
with the Theosophical Society appeared also as his
lieutenants, expounding and illustrating his teaching.
All three of these images were very fully vitalized and
informed by the power and wisdom of the great beings
whom they represented, and the monk was therefore
definitely receiving real teaching upon occult subjects,
the effect of which would almost certainly be to bring
him actually on to the Path of Initiation in his next
birth.
Another instance from our ranks which was encountered
on this level illustrates the terrible effect of harbouring
unfounded and uncharitable suspicions. It was the
case of a devoted and self-sacrificing student who
towards the end of her life had unfortunately fallen into
an attitude of quite unworthy and unjustifiable distrust
of the motives of her old friend and teacher, Madame
Blavatsky ; and it was sad to notice how this feeling
had shut out to a considerable extent the higher
influence and teaching which she might have enjoyed
in her Devachan. It was not that the influence and
teaching were in any way withheld from her, but that
her own mental attitude rendered her to some extent
unreceptive of them. She was of course quite uncon
scious of this, and seemed to herself to be enjoying the
fullest and most perfect communion with the Masters,
yet it was obvious to the investigators that but for this
unfortunate self-limitation she would have reaped far
greater advantage from her stay on this level.
It will be understood that since there are other
62
Masters of wisdom besides those connected with our
own movement, and other schools of occultism working
along the same general lines as that to which they
belong, students attached to some of these are also
frequently met with upon this sub-plane.
Passing now to the next class, that of high philosophic
and scientific thought, we find here many of those
nobler and more unselfish thinkers who seek insight
and knowledge only for the purpose of enlightening and
helping their fellows. We are of course not including
as students of philosophy those men, either in the east
or the west, who waste their time in mere verbal
argument and hair-splitting a form of discussion which
has its roots in selfishness and conceit, and can there
fore never help towards a real understanding of the
facts of the universe ; for naturally such foolish super
ficiality as this produces no results that can work them
selves out on the devachanic plane.
As an instance of a true student noticed on this subplane
we may mention one of the later followers of the
neo-platonic system, whose name has fortunately been
preserved to us in the surviving records of that period.
He had striven all through his earth-life really to master
the teachings of that school, and now his Devachan
was occupied in unravelling its mysteries and in endeav
ouring to understand its bearing upon human life and
development.
Another case was that of an astronomer, who seemed
to have begun life as a Christian, but had gradually
under the influence of his studies widened out into
Pantheism ; in his Devachan he was still pursuing these
studies with a mind full of reverence, and was un
doubtedly gaining real knowledge, apparently from
the Devas who are concerned on this plane with the
63
distribution and administration of stellar influences.
He was lost in contemplation of a vast panorama of
whirling nebulae and gradually-forming systems and
worlds, and he appeared to be groping after some dim
idea as to the shape of the universe, which he imagined
as some vast animal. His thoughts surrounded him as
elemental forms shaped as stars, and one especial
source of joy to him consisted in listening to the stately
rhythm of the music that pealed out in mighty chorales
from the moving orbs.
The third type of activity on this plane is that highest
kind of artistic and literary effort which is chiefly
inspired by a desire to elevate and spiritualize the race.
Here we find all our greatest musicians ; on this subplane
Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner and others
are still flooding the heaven-world with harmony far
more glorious even than the grandest which they were
able to produce when on earth. It seems as if a great
stream of divine music poured into them from higher
regions, and was, as it were, specialized by them and
made their own, to be then sent forth through all the
plane in a great tide of melody which adds to the bliss
of all around. Those who are functioning in full con
sciousness on the devachanic plane will clearly hear
and thoroughly appreciate this magnificent outpouring,
but even the disembodied entities of this level, each of
whom is wrapped up in his own thought-cloud, are
affected also by the elevating and ennobling influence
of its resonant melody.
The painter and the sculptor also, if they have
followed their respective arts always with a grand,
unselfish aim, are here constantly making and send
ing forth all kinds of lovely forms for the delight
and encouragement of their fellow-men the forms
64
being, of course, artificial elementals created by their
thought. And not only may these beautiful concep
tions give pleasure to those living entirely upon this
plane ; they may also in many cases be grasped by the
minds of artists still in the flesh may act as inspirations
to them, and so be reproduced down here for the
elevating and ennobling of that portion of humanity
which is struggling amid the turmoil of physical life.
One touching and beautiful figure seen upon this
plane was that of a boy who had been a chorister, and
had died at the age of fourteen. His whole soul was full
of music and of boyish devotion to his art, deeply
coloured with the thought that by it he was expressing
the religious longings of the multitude who crowded a
vast cathedral, and yet was at the same time pouring
out to them celestial encouragement and inspiration.
He had known little enough save for this one great gift
of song, but he had used that gift worthily, trying to
be the voice of the people to heaven and of heaven to
the people, and ever longing to know more music and
render it more worthily for the Church s sake. In his
Devachan his wish was bearing fruit, and over him was
bending a teacher in a form evidently made by his
mind from the quaint angular figure of a mediaeval St.
Cecilia in a stained glass window, and this thoughtimage
was vivified by a Deva, who through it taught
him greater music than he had ever dreamed on earth.
Here also was one of earth s failures for the tragedy
of the earth-life leaves strange marks sometimes even
in " the heavenly places." He was alone in Devachan ;
in the world where all thoughts of loved ones smile
upon man as friends, he was thinking and writing in
solitude. On earth he had striven to write a great
book, and for the sake of it had refused to use his
65
literary power in making mere sustenance from paltry
hack-work ; but none would look at his book, and he
walked the streets despairing, till sorrow and starvation
closed his eyes to earth. He had been lonely all his
life in his youth friendless and shut out from family
ties, and in his manhood able to work only in his own
way, pushing aside hands that would have led him to a
wider view of life s possibilities than the earthly para
dise which he longed to make for all. Now, as he
thought and wrote, though there were none he had
loved as personal or ideal helpers who could make part
of his devachanic life, he saw stretching before him the
Utopia of which he had dreamed, for which he had
tried to live, and the vast thronging impersonal multi
tudes whom he had longed to serve ; and the joy of
their joy surged back on him and made his solitude a
heaven. When he is born again to earth he will surely
return with power to achieve as well as to plan, and the
devachanic vision will be partially bodied forth in
happier terrene lives.
Many were found on this plane who during their
earth-stay had devoted themselves to helping men
because they felt the tie of brotherhood who rendered
service for service s sake rather than because they
desired to please any particular deity. They were
engaged in working out with full knowledge and calm
wisdom vast schemes of beneficence, magnificent plans
of world-improvement, and at the same time they were
maturing powers with which to carry them out here
after on the lower plane of physical life.
THE ARUPA LEVELS.
We now pass from the four lower or rupa levels of
Devachan, on which the personality functions, to the
66
three higher or arupa levels, where the reincarnating
ego has his home. Here, so far as he sees at all, he
sees clearly, for he has risen above the illusions of
personality and the refracting medium of the lower self,
and though his consciousness may be dim, dreamily un
observant and scarcely awake, yet his vision is at least
true, however limited. The conditions of consciousness
are so far away from all with which we are familiar
down here that all terms known to psychology are use
less and misleading. This has been called the realm of
the noumenal in contrast with the phenomenal, of the
formless in contrast with the formed ; but it is still a
world of manifestation, however real when opposed to
the unrealities of lower states, and it still has forms,
however rare in their materials and subtle in their
essence.
THIRD SUB-PLANE.
This, the lowest of the arupa sub-planes, is also by
far the most populous of all the regions with which we
are acquainted, for here are present almost all the sixty
thousand millions of egos who are said to be engaged in
the present human evolution all, in fact, except the
comparatively small number who are capable of func
tioning on the second and first sub-planes. Each ego
is represented by an ovoid form, the auric egg at first
a mere film, colourless and almost invisible, of most
tenuous consistency; but, as the ego developes, this body
begins to show a shimmering iridescence like a soapbubble,
colours playing over its surface like the chang
ing hues made by sunlight on the spray of a waterfall.
Composed of matter inconceivably fine, delicate and
ethereal, intensely alive and pulsating with living fire,
67
it becomes as its evolution proceeds a radiant globe of
flashing colours, its high vibrations sending ripples of
changing hues over its surface hues of which earth
knows nothing brilliant, soft and luminous beyond the
power of language to describe. Take the colours of
an Egyptian sunset and add to them the wonderful
softness of an English sky at eventide raise these as
high above themselves in light and translucency and
splendour as they are above the colours given by the
cakes of a child s paint-box and even then none who
have not seen can image the beauty of these radiant
orbs which flash into the field of the devachanic sight as
it is lifted to the vision of this supernal world.
All these causal bodies are filled with living fire
drawn from a higher plane, with which the globe
appears to be connected by a quivering thread of
intense light, vividly recalling to the mind the words
of the Stanzas of Dzyan, "the Spark hangs from the
Flame by the finest thread of Fohat ;
" and as the
ego grows and is able to receive more and more from
the inexhaustible ocean of Atma-Buddhi which pours
down through the thread as a channel, the latter
expands and gives wider passage to the flood, till on
the next sub-plane it might be imaged as a water-spout
connecting earth and sky, and higher still as itself a
great globe through which rushes the living spring,
until the causal body seems to melt into the inpouring
light. Once more the Stanza says it for us: "The
thread between the Watcher and his shadow becomes
more strong and radiant with every change. The
morning sunlight has changed into noon-day glory.
This is thy present wheel, said the Flame to the
Spark. Thou art myself, my image and my shadow.
I have clothed myself in thee, and thou art my vahan
68
to the day, Be-with-us, when thou shalt rebecome
myself and others, thyself and me."
The egos who are connected with a physical body
are distinguishable from those enjoying the disembodied
state by a difference in the types of vibrations set up
on the surface of the globes, and it is therefore easy to
see at a glance whether an individual is or is not in
incarnation at the time. The immense majority,
whether in or out of the body, are but dreamily semi
conscious, though few are now in the condition of mere
colourless films ; those who are fully awake are marked
and brilliant exceptions, standing out amid the less
radiant crowds like stars of the first magnitude, and
between these and the least-developed are ranged every
variety of size and beauty of colour each thus repre
senting the exact stage of evolution at which it has
arrived.
The majority are not yet sufficiently definite, even
in such consciousness as they possess, to understand
the purpose or the laws of the evolution in which they
are engaged ; they seek incarnation in obedience to the
impulse of the Cosmic Will, and also to Tanhd, the
blind thirst for manifested life a desire to find some
region in which they can feel and be conscious of living;
they put forth as groping, waving tentacles into the
ocean of existence the personalities which are them
selves on the lower planes of life, but they are as yet in
no sense aware that these personalities are the means
whereby they are to be nourished and to grow. They
see nothing of their past or their future, not being yet
conscious on their own plane. Still,, as they are slowly
drawing in experience and assimilating it, there grows
up a sense that certain things are good to do and others
bad, and this expresses itself imperfectly in the con6g
nected personality as the beginning of a conscience, a
feeling of right and wrong : and gradually as they
develope, this sense more and more clearly formulates
itself in the lower nature, and becomes a less inefficient
.guide of conduct.
When the personality belonging to an ego in this
undeveloped condition has completed its Devachan on
the rupa levels, it yields up to the higher individuality
whatever it has assimilated and transmuted, itself dis
integrating and leaving the ego as the sole survivor,
the real and enduring man. But at that moment,
before it puts itself forth again into embodied exist
ence, the ego has a flash of consciousness, showing the
results of the life that is completed, and something of
what will follow from that life in the next ; for a moment
all that there is of the man is in the arupa world, and
thence it again descends. These glimpses may be said to
be the opportunities of the ego. At first it makes little
of them, being so dimly conscious and so poorly fitted to
apprehend facts and their inter-relations ; but gradu
ally the power to appreciate what is seen increases,
and later the ability comes to remember the flashes of
the past and to compare them, and thus to mark out
the road which is being traversed, and estimate the
progress made and the direction in which it is going.
In this way the most advanced egos of this subplane
develope to a point at which they are engaged
in studying their past, tracing out the causes set going
in it, and learning much from the retrospection, so that
the impulses sent downwards become clearer and more
definite, and translate themselves in the lower con
sciousness as firm convictions and imperative intuitions.
It is perhaps scarcely necessary to repeat that the
thought-images of the rupa levels are not carried into
70
the arupa world ; if an ego conscious on this plane has
been surrounded by the images of less developed in
dividualities who were dear to him on earth, he comesinto
contact with them in this higher region as they
really are, and will find them irresponsive to him here,,
because they have not yet developed their conscious
ness on this loftier plane. This, however, can be but
an exceedingly rare case, and even when it occurs the
ego experiences no sense of loss, for the ties that are
only of the personality have no power over him ; his
true relations are with other individualities, and these
endure when the personality vanishes, so that on the
arupa levels each ego knows his real kindred, sees
them and is seen in his own royal nature, as the true
immortal man that passes on from life to life, with
all the ties intact that are knit to his real being.
SECOND SUB-PLANE.
From the densely-thronged region which we have
been considering we pass into a more thinly-populated
world, as out of a great city into a peaceful country
side ; for at the present stage of human evolution only
a small minority of individuals have risen to this loftier
level where even the least advanced is definitely selfconscious,
and also conscious of his surroundings.
Able at least to some extent to review the past through
which he has come, the ego on this level is aware of
the purpose and method of evolution ; he knows that
he is engaged in a work of self-development, and recog
nizes the stages of physical and post-mortem life through
which he passes in his lower vehicles. The personality
with which he is connected is seen by him as part of
himself, and he endeavours to guide it, using his knowledge
of the past as a store of experience from which
he formulates principles of conduct, clear and immu
table convictions of right and wrong. These he sends
down into his lower mind, superintending and directing
its activities. While he continually fails in the earlier
part of his life on this sub-plane to make the lower
mind understand logically the foundations of the prin
ciples he impresses on it, he yet very definitely succeeds
in making the impression, and such abstract ideas as
truth, justice and honour become unchallenged and
ruling conceptions in the lower mental life.
There are rules of conduct enforced by social, national
and religious sanctions, by which a man guides himself
in daily life, and yet which may be swept away by some
rush of temptation, some overmastering surge of passion
and desire ; but there are some things an evolved man
cannot do things which are against his very nature ;
he cannot lie, or betray, or do a dishonourable action.
Into the inmost fibres of his being certain principles
are wrought, and to act against them is an impossibility,
no matter what may be the strain of circumstance or
the torrent of temptation ; for these things are of the
life of the ego. While, however, he thus succeeds in guid
ing his lower vehicle, his knowledge of it and its doings
is often far from precise and clear. He sees the lower
planes but dimly, understanding their principles rather
than their details, and part of his evolution on this
plane consists of coming more and more consciously
into direct touch with the personality which so imper
fectly represents him below.
It will be understood from this that only such egos
as are deliberately aiming at spiritual growth live on
this plane, and they have in consequence become largely
receptive of influences from the planes above them.
72
The channel of communication grows and enlarges, and
a fuller flood pours through. The thought under this
influence takes on a singularly clear and piercing quality,
even in the less developed, and the effect of this in the
lower mind shows itself as a tendency to philosophic
and abstract thinking. In the more highly evolved the
vision is far-reaching : it ranges with clear insight over
the past, recognizing the causes set up, their working
out, and what remains still unexhausted of their
effects.
The egos living on this plane have wide opportunities
for growth when freed from the physical body, for here
they may receive instructions from more advanced
entities, coming into direct touch with their teachers.
No longer by thought-pictures, but by a flashing
luminousness impossible to describe, the very essence
of the idea flies like a star from one ego to the other,
its correlations expressing themselves as light waves
pouring out from the central star, and needing no separ
ate enunciation. A thought is like a light placed in a
room ; it shows all things round it, but requires no words
to describe them.
FIRST SUB-PLANE.
This, the most glorious level of the devachanic world,
has but few denizens from our humanity, for none but
Masters and initiates dwell on its heights. Of the
beauty of form and colour and sound here no words
can speak, for mortal language has no terms in which
those radiant splendours may find expression. Enough
that they are, and that some of our race are wearing
them, the earnest of what others shall be, the fruition
of which the seed was sown on lowlier planes. These
73
have accomplished the manasic evolution, and have
unified self-consciousness ; from their eyes the illusion -
veil of personality has been lifted, and they know and
realize that they are not the lower nature, but only use
it as a vehicle of experience. It may still have power
in the less evolved of them to shackle and to hamper,
but they can never fall into the blunder of confusing it
with themselves. From this they are saved by carry
ing their consciousness through unbroken, not only
from day to day but from life to life, so that past lives
are not so much looked back upon as always present
in the consciousness, the man feeling them as one life
rather than as many.
From this highest level of the arupa world come
down most of the influences poured out by the Masters
as they work for the evolution of the human race, act
ing on the individualities of men, shedding on them the
inspiring energies which stimulate spiritual growth,
which enlighten the intellect and purify the emotions.
Hence genius receives its illumination ; here all upward
efforts find their guidance. As the sun-rays fall every
where from one centre, and each body that receives
them uses them after its nature, so from the Elder
Brothers of the race fall on all egos the light and life
which it is their function to dispense ; and each uses as
much as it can assimilate, and thereby grows and
evolves. Thus, as everywhere else, the highest glory
of the devachanic world is found in the glory of ser
vice, and they who have accomplished the manasic
evolution are the fountains from which flows strength
for those who still are climbing.
74
II. NON-HUMAN.
When we attempt to describe the non-human inhabi
tants of the devachanic plane, we at once find ourselves
face to face with difficulties of the most insuperable
character. For in touching the arupa levels we come
into contact for the first time with a plane which is
cosmic in its extent on which therefore may be met
many an entity which mere human language has no
words to portray. For the purposes of our present
paper it will probably be best to put aside altogether
those vast hosts of beings whose range is cosmic, and
confine our remarks strictly to the inhabitants peculiar
to the manasic plane of our own chain of worlds. It
may be remembered that in the manual on The Astral
Plane the same course was adopted, no attempt being
made to describe visitors from other planets and sys
tems; and although such visitors as were there only
occasional would here be very much more frequent, it
is obviously desirable in an essay for general reading to
adhere to the same rule. A few words, therefore, upon
the elemental essence of the plane and the sections of
the great Deva kingdom which are especially connected
with it will be as much as it will be useful to give here ;
and the extreme difficulty of presenting even these
comparatively simple ideas will conclusively show how
impossible it would be to deal with others which could
not but be far more complicated.
THE ELEMENTAL ESSENCE.
It may be remembered that in one of the earlier
letters received from an Adept teacher the remark was
75
made that to comprehend the condition of the first and
second of the elemental kingdoms was impossible
except to an initiate an observation which shows how
partial must be the success which can attend any effort
to describe them down here upon the physical plane.
It will be well first of all that we should endeavour to
form as clear an idea in our minds as possible of what
elemental essence really is, since this is a point upon
which much confusion often seems to exist, even
amongst those who have made considerable study of
Theosophical literature.
WHAT IT is.
Elemental essence, then, is merely a name applied
during certain early stages of its evolution to monadic
essence, which in its turn may be defined as the out
pouring of Atma-Buddhi into matter. We are all
familiar with the fact that before this outpouring
arrives at the stage of individualization at which it
ensouls a man, it has passed through and ensouled in
turn six lower phases of evolution the animal, vege
table, mineral and three elemental kingdoms. When
energizing through those respective stages it hassometimes
been called the animal, vegetable or
mineral monad though this term is distinctly mis
leading, since long before it arrives at any of these
kingdoms it has become not one but many monads.
The name was however adopted to convey the idea
that, though differentiation in the monadic essence had
already long ago set in, it had not yet been carried to the
extent of individualization. Now When this monadic
essence is energizing through the three great elemental
kingdoms which precede the mineral it is called by the
name of "elemental essence."
76
THE VEILING OF ATMA.
Before, however, its nature and the manner in which it
manifests itself on theyarious planes can be understood,
the method in which Atma enfblds itself in its descent
into matter must be realized. We are not now dealing
with the original formation of the matter of the planes
by aggregation after a universal pralaya, but simply
with the descent of a new wave of evolution into matter
already existing.
Before the period of which we are speaking, this
wave of life has spent countless ages evolving, in a
manner of which we can have very little comprehension,
through the successive encasements of atoms, molecules
and cells : but we will leave all that earlier part of its
stupendous history out of account for the moment, and
consider only its descent into the matter of planes
somewhat more within the grasp of human intellect,
though still far above the merely physical level.
Be it understood then that when Atma, resting on any
plane (it matters not which), on its path downward into
matter, is driven by the resistless force of its own evo
lution to pass onward to the plane next below, it must,
in order to manifest itself there, enfold itself in the
matter of that lower plane draw round itself as a body
a veil of that matter, to which it will act as soul or
energizing force. Similarly, when it continues its de
scent to a third plane, it must draw round itself some of
its matter, and we shall have then an entity whose body
or outer covering consists of the matter of that third
plane.
But the force energizing in it its soul, so to
speak will not be Atma in the condition in which it
was upon the higher plane on which we first found it ;
77
it will be that Atma pins the veil of the matter of the
second plane through which it has passed. When a
still further descent is made to a fourth plane, the entity
becomes still more complex, for it will then have a body
of the matter of that fourth plane, ensouled by Atma
already twice veiled, in the matter of the second and
third planes. It will be seen that, since this process
repeats itself for every sub-plane of each plane of the
solar system, by the time the original force reaches our
physical level it is so thoroughly veiled that it js small
wonder that men often fail to recognize it as Atma at
all.
THE THREE ELEMENTAL KINGDOMS.
Now suppose that the monadic essence has carried
on this process of veiling itself down to the atomic level
of the devachanic plane, and that, instead of descending
through the various subdivisions of that plane, it
plunges down directly into the astral plane, ensouling
or aggregating around it a body of atomic astral matter;
such a combination would be the elemental essence of
the astral plane, belonging to the third of the great
elemental kingdoms the one immediately preceding
the mineral. In the course of its two thousand four
hundred differentiations on the astral plane it draws to
itself many and various combinations of the matter of
its several subdivisions ; but these are only temporary,
and it still remains essentially one kingdom, whose
characteristic is monadic essence involved down to the
atomic level of the devachanic plane only, but manifest
ing primarily through the atomic matter of the astral
plane.
The elemental essence which we find on the deva
chanic plane constitutes the first and second of the
great elemental kingdoms, but the principle of its for
mation is the same as that described above. A mass
of monadic essence (the expression is materialistic and
misleading, but it is difficult to see how to avoid it)
carries on the process of veiling itself down to the
atomic level of the buddhic plane, and then plunges
down directly into the devachanic plane, ensouling a
body of atomic devachanic matter that is, of the
matter belonging to the highest of the arupa levels
and so becomes the elemental essence of the first great
kingdom. In this its simplest or natural condition, be
it understood it does not combine the atoms of the
plane into molecules in order to form a body for itself,
but simply applies by its attraction an immense com
pressing force to them. In the course of its differentia
tions it aggregates around itself various combinations
of the matter of the second and third sub-divisions, but
it never loses the special and definite characteristics
which mark it as the elemental essence of the arupa levels.
The second great kingdom, whose habitat is the rupa
division of Devachan, is formed upon a very similar
principle. The essence of the first kingdom, after evolv
ing through various differentiations during ages whose
length is unknown to us, returns to its simplest condi
tion not of course, as it was before that evolution, but
bearing within it all that it has gained throughout its
course ; and it then puts itself down directly into the
fourth sub-division of Devachan the highest of the
rupa levels drawing to itself as a body some of the
matter of that sub-plane. That is the simplest condition
of the elemental essence of the second kingdom, but as
before, it takes on in the course of its evolution garbs
many and various, composed of combinations of the
matter of the lower sub-planes.
79
It might naturally be supposed that these elemental
kingdoms which exist and function upon the devacharic
plane must certainly, being so much higher, be further
.advanced in evolution than the third kingdom, which
belongs exclusively to the astral plane. This however
is not so ; for it must be remembered that in speaking
of this phase of evolution the word "higher" means
not, as usual, more advanced, but less advanced, since
here we are dealing with the monadic essence on the
downward sweep of its arc, and progress for the ele
mental essence therefore means descent into matter
instead of, as with us, ascent towards higher planes.
Unless the student bears this fact constantly and clearly
in mind, he will again and again find himself beset by
perplexing anomalies, and his view of this side of evo
lution will be lacking in grasp and comprehensive
ness.
The general characteristics of elemental essence were
indicated at considerable length in the manual on The
Astral Plane, and all that is there said as to the number of
subdivisions in the kingdoms and their marvellous im
pressibility by human thought is equally true of these
devachanic varieties. A few words should perhaps be
said to explain how the seven horizontal subdivisions of
each kingdom arrange themselves in connection with the
sub-planes of Devachan. In the case of the first king
dom, its highest subdivision corresponds with the first
sub-plane of Devachan, while the second and third subplanes
are each divided into three parts, each of which
is the habitat of one of the elemental subdivisions. The
second kingdom distributes itself over the rupa levels,
its highest subdivision corresponding to the fourth subplane,
while the fifth, sixth and seventh sub-planes are
each divided into two to accommodate the remainder.
8o
How THE ESSENCE EVOLVES.
So much was written in the earlier part of this manual
as to the effect of thought upon the devachanic elemen
tal essence that it will be unnecessary to return to that
branch of the subject now ; but it must be borne in
mind that it is, if possible, even more instantaneously
sensitive to thought-action here than it is on the astral
plane, the wonderful delicacy with which it responds to
the faintest action of the mind being constantly and
prominently brought before our investigators. We
shall grasp this capability the more fully if we realize
that it is in such response that its very life consists
that its progress is due to the use made of it in the
process of thought by the more advanced entities whose
evolution it shares.
If it could be imagined as entirely free for a moment
from the action of thought, it would be but a formless
conglomeration of dancing infinitesimal atoms instinct
indeed with a marvellous intensity of life, yet making
no kind of progress on the downward path of its involu
tion into matter. But when by the thoughts of the
beings functioning on those respective planes it is
thrown on the rupa levels into all kinds of lovely forms,
and on the arupa levels into flashing streams, it receives
a distinct additional impulse which, often repeated,
helps it forward on its way. For whenever a thought
is directed from those higher levels to the affairs of
earth, it naturally sweeps downward and takes upon
itself the matter of the lower planes. In doing so it
brings into contact with that matter the elemental
essence of which its first veil was formed, and so by
degrees habituates it to answering to lower vibrations ;
Hi
thus, very gradually, proceeds its downward evolution
into matter.
Very noticeably also is it affected by music by the
splendid floods of glorious sound of which we have
previously spoken as poured forth upon these lofty
planes by the great masters of melody who are carrying
on there in far fuller measure the work which down
here on this dull earth they had only commenced.
Another point which should be remembered is the
vast difference between the grandeur and power of
thought on this plane and the comparative feebleness of
the efforts that we dignify with that name down here.
Our ordinary thought begins in the mind-body on the
rupa levels and clothes itself as it descends with the
appropriate astral elemental essence ; but when a man
has advanced so far as to have his consciousness active
in the true ego upon the arupa levels, then his thought
commences there and clothes itself first in the elemental
essence of the rupa levels, and is consequently infinitely
finer, more penetrating and in every way more effective.
If the thought be directed exclusively to higher objects,
its vibrations may be of too fine a character to find
expression on the astral plane at all ; but when they do
affect this lower matter they will do so with much more
far-reaching effect than those which are generated so
much nearer to its own level.
Following this idea a stage further we see the thought
of the initiate taking its rise upon the buddhic plane,
above Devachan altogether, and clothing itself with the
elemental essence of the arupa levels for garment,
while the thought of the Adept pours down from
Nirvana itself, wielding the tremendous, the wholly
incalculable powers of regions beyond the ken of mere
ordinary humanity. Thus ever as our conceptions rise
82
higher we see before us wider and wider fields of
usefulness for our enormously increased capacities,
and we realize how true is the saying that the work of
one day on levels such as these may well surpass in
efficiency the toil of a thousand years on the physical
plane.
THE DEVAS.
So much of the little that can be expressed in human
language about these wonderful and exalted beings was
written in The Astral Plane that it is unnecessary to go
at length into the subject here. For the information of
those who have not that manual at hand I will repeat
here somewhat of the general explanation there given
with reference to these entities.
The highest system of evolution connected with this
earth, so far as we know, is that of the beings whom
Hindus call the Devas, and who have elsewhere been
spoken of as angels, sons of God, etc. They may in
fact be regarded as a kingdom lying next above
humanity in the same way as humanity in turn lies
next above the animal kingdom, but with this important
difference, that while for an animal there is no possi
bility of evolution through any kingdom but the
human, man, when he attains the level of the Asekha,
or full Adept, finds various paths of advancement open
ing before him, of which this great Deva evolution is
only one (see article on " The Steps of the Path," in
Lucifer for October, 1896).
In Oriental literature this word " Deva "
is frequently
used vaguely to mean almost any kind of non-human
entity, so that it would often include DHYAN CHOHANS
on the one hand and nature-spirits and artificial
elementals on the other. Here, however, its use will
be restricted to the magnificent evolution which we are
now considering.
Though connected with this earth, the Devas are
by no means confined to it, for the whole of our
present chain of seven worlds is as one world to
them, their evolution being through a grand system of
seven chains. Their hosts have hitherto been recruited
chiefly from other humanities in the solar system, some
lower and some higher than ours, since but a very
small portion of our own has as yet reached the level at
which for us it is possible to join them : but it seems
certain that some of their very numerous classes have
not passed in their upward progress through any
humanity at all comparable with ours.
It is not possible for us at present to understand very
much about them, but it is clear that what may be
described as the aim of their evolution is considerably
higher than ours; that is to say, while the object of
our human evolution is to raise the successful portion
of humanity to the position of the Asekha Adept by
the end of the seventh round, the object of the Deva
evolution is to raise their foremost rank to a very
much higher level in the corresponding period. For
them, as for us, a steeper but shorter path to still
more sublime heights lies open to earnest endeavour ;
but what those heights may be in their case we can
only conjecture.
THEIR DIVISIONS.
Their three lower great divisions, beginning from the
bottom, are generally called Karnadevas, Rupadevas,
and Arupadevas respectively. Just as our ordinary
body here the lowest body possible for us is
84
the physical, so the ordinary body of a Kamadeva is
the astral ; so that he stands in somewhat the same
position as humanity will do when it reaches planet F,
and he, living ordinarily in an astral body, would go
out of it to higher spheres in a Mayavirupa just as we
might in an astral body, while to enter the causal
body would be to him (when sufficiently developed) no
greater effort than to form a Mayavirupa might be to us.
In the same way the Rupadeva s ordinary body would
be the Mayavirupa, since his habitat is the four rupa
levels of the devachanic plane ; while the Arupadeva
belongs to the three higher levels of that plane, and owns
no nearer approach to a body than the Karana Sharira.
Above the Arupadevas there are four other great
classes of this kingdom, inhabiting respectively the four
higher planes of our solar system ; and again above and
beyond the Deva kingdom altogether stand the great
hosts of the DHYAN CHOHANS, but the consideration of
such glorified beings would be out of place here.
Each of the two great divisions of this kingdom
which have been mentioned as inhabiting the devachanic
plane contains within itself many different classes ; but
their life is in every way so far removed from our own
that it is useless to endeavour to give anything but the
most general idea of it. I do not know that I can
better indicate the impression produced upon the minds
of our investigators on the subject than by reproducing
the very words used by one of them at the time of the
enquiry :
" I get the effect of an intensely exalted con
sciousness a consciousness glorious beyond all words ;
yet so very strange; so different so entirely different
from anything I have ever felt before, so unlike any
possible kind of human experience, that it is absolutely
hopeless to try to put it into words."
85
Equally hopeless is it on this physical plane to try to
give any idea of the appearance of these mighty beings,
for it changes with every line of thought which they
follow. Some reference was made earlier in this paper
to the magnificence and wonderful power of expression
of their colour-language, and it will also have been
realized from some passing remarks made in describing
the human inhabitants that under certain conditions it
is possible for men functioning upon this plane to learn
much from them. It may be remembered how one of
them had animated the angel-figure in the Devachan of
a chorister, and was teaching him music grander far
than any ever heard by earthly ears, and how in another
case those connected with the wielding of certain
planetary influences were helping forward the devachanic
evolution of a certain astronomer.
Their relation to the nature-spirits (for an account
of whom see Manual V.) might be described as some
what resembling, though on a higher scale, that of men
to the animal kingdom ; for just as the animal can
attain individualization only by association with man,
so it appears that a permanent reincarnating individu
ality can normally be acquired by a nature-spirit only
by an attachment of somewhat similar character to
members of some of the orders of Devas.
Of course nothing that has been, or indeed can be,
said of this great Deva evolution does more than brush
the fringe of a very mighty subject, the fuller elabora
tion of which it must be left to each reader to make for
himself when he developes the consciousness of these
higher planes ; yet what has been written, slight and
unsatisfactory as it is and must be, may help to give
some faint idea of the hosts of helpers with which man s
advance in evolution will bring him into touch, and to
86
show how every aspiration which his increased capa
cities make possible for him as he ascends is more than
satisfied by the beneficent arrangements which nature
has made for him.
III. ARTIFICIAL.
Very few words need be said upon this branch of our
subject. The devachanic plane is even more fully
peopled than the astral by the artificial elementals
called into temporary existence by the thoughts of its.
inhabitants ; and when it is remembered how much
grander and more powerful thought is upon this plane,,
and that its forces are being wielded not only by the
human inhabitants, embodied and disembodied, but by
the Devas and by visitors from higher planes, it will at
once be seen that the importance and influence of such
artificial entities can hardly be exaggerated. It is not
necessary here to go over again the ground traversed in
the previous manual as to the effect of men s thoughts
and the necessity of guarding them carefully ; and
enough was said in describing the difference between
the action of thought on the rupa and arupa levels to
show how the artificial elemental of the devachanic
plane is called into existence, and to give some idea of
the infinite variety of temporary entities which might
be so produced, and the immense importance of the
work that might be, and constantly is, done by their
means. Great use is made of them by Adepts and
initiates, and it is needless to say that the artificial
elemental formed by such powerful minds as these is
a being of infinitely longer existence and proportionately
greater power than any of those described in dealing
with the astral plane.
CONCLUSION.
In glancing over what has been written, the prominent
idea is not unnaturally a humiliating sense of the utter
inadequacy of all the attempts at description of the
hopelessness of any effort to put into human words the
ineffable glories of the heaven-world. Still, lamentably
imperfect as such an essay as this must be, it is yet
better than nothing, and it may serve to put into the
mind of the reader some faint conception of what awaits
him on the other side of the grave; and though when
he reaches this bright realm of bliss he will certainly
find infinitely more than he has been led to expect, he
will not, it is hoped, have to unlearn any of the informa
tion that he has here acquired.
Man, as at present constituted, has within him
principles belonging to two planes even higher than
Devachan, for his Buddhi represents him upon what
from that very fact we call the buddhic plane, and his
Atma upon that third plane of the solar system which
has usually been spoken of as the nirvanic. In the
average man these highest principles are as yet almost
entirely undeveloped, and in any case the planes to
which they belong are still more beyond the reach of
all description than was Devachan. It must suffice to
say that on the buddhic plane all limitations begin to
fall away, and the consciousness of man expands until
88
he realizes, no longer in theory only, but by absolute
experience, that the consciousness of his fellows is
included within his own, and he feels and knows and
experiences with an absolute perfection of sympathy
all that is in them, because it is in reality a part of
himself ; while on the nirvanic plane he moves a step
further, and realizes that his consciousness and theirs
are one in a yet higher sense, because they are all in
reality facets of the infinitely greater consciousness of
the LOGOS, in Whom they all live and move and have
their being ; so that when " the dewdrop slips into
the shining sea " the effect produced is rather as though
the process had been reversed and the ocean poured
into the drop, which now for the first time realizes that
it is the ocean not a part of it, but the whole.
doxical, utterly incomprehensible, apparently impos
sible ; yet absolutely true.
But this much at least we may grasp that the
blessed state of Nirvana is not, as some have ignorantly
supposed, a condition of blank nothingness, but
of far more intense and beneficent activity ; and that
ever as we rise higher in the scale of nature our
possibilities become greater, our work for others *ver
grander and more far-reaching, and that infinite
wisdom and infinite power mean only infinite capacity
for service, because they are directed by infinite love.
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