The Key to Theosophy / Being a Clear Exposition, in the Form of Question and Answer, of the Ethics, Science and Philosophy for the Study of Which the Theosophical Society Has Been Founded

by H. P. Blavatsky

Enq. To this the adherents to this belief might answer, that if even the orthodox dogma does promise the impenitent sinner and materialist a bad time of it in a rather too realistic Inferno, it gives them, on the other hand, a chance for repentance to the last minute. Nor do they teach annihilation, or loss of personality, which is all the same.

Theo. If the Church teaches nothing of the kind, on the other hand, Jesus does; and that is something to those, at least, who place Christ higher than Christianity.

Enq. Does Christ teach anything of the sort?

Theo. He does; and every well-informed Occultist and even Kabalist will tell you so. Christ, or the fourth Gospel at any rate, teaches re-incarnation as also the annihilation of the personality, if you but forget the dead letter and hold to the esoteric Spirit. Remember verses 1 and 2 in chapter xv. of St. John. What does the parable speak about if not of the upper triad in man? Atma is the Husbandman—the Spiritual Ego or Buddhi (Christos) the Vine, while the animal and vital Soul, the personality, is the “branch.” “I am the true vine, and my Father is the Husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away.... As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the Vine—ye are the branches. If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered and cast into the fire and burned.”

Now we explain it in this way. Disbelieving in the hell-fires which theology discovers as underlying the threat to the branches, we say that the “Husbandman” means Atma, the Symbol for the infinite, impersonal Principle,[50] while the Vine stands for the Spiritual Soul, Christos, and each “branch” represents a new incarnation.

Enq. But what proofs have you to support such an arbitrary interpretation?

Theo. Universal symbology is a warrant for its correctness and that it is not arbitrary. Hermas says of “God” that he “planted the Vineyard,” i.e., he created mankind. In the Kabala, it is shown that the Aged of the Aged, or the “Long Face,” plants a vineyard, the latter typifying mankind; and a vine, meaning Life. The Spirit of “King Messiah” is, therefore, shown as washing his garments in the wine from above, from the creation of the world.[51] And King Messiah is the Ego purified by washing his garments (i.e., his personalities in re-birth), in the wine from above, or Buddhi. Adam, or A-Dam, is “blood.” The Life of the flesh is in the blood (nephesh—soul), Leviticus xvii. And Adam-Kadmon is the Only-Begotten. Noah also plants a vineyard—the allegorical hot-bed of future humanity. As a consequence of the adoption of the same allegory, we find it reproduced in the Nazarene Codex. Seven vines are procreated—which seven vines are our Seven Races with their seven Saviours or Buddhas—which spring from Iukabar Zivo, and Ferho (or Parcha) Raba waters them.[52] When the blessed will ascend among the creatures of Light, they shall see Iavar-Xivo, Lord of Life, and the First Vine.[53] These kabalistic metaphors are thus naturally repeated in the Gospel according to St. John (xv., 1).

Let us not forget that in the human system—even according to those philosophies which ignore our septenary division—the Ego or thinking man is called the Logos, or the Son of Soul and Spirit. “Manas is the adopted Son of King —— and Queen ——” (esoteric equivalents for Atma and Buddhi), says an occult work. He is the “man-god” of Plato, who crucifies himself in Space (or the duration of the life cycle) for the redemption of Matter. This he does by incarnating over and over again, thus leading mankind onward to perfection, and making thereby room for lower forms to develop into higher. Not for one life does he cease progressing himself and helping all physical nature to progress; even the occasional, very rare event of his losing one of his personalities, in the case of the latter being entirely devoid of even a spark of spirituality, helps toward his individual progress.

Enq. But surely, if the Ego is held responsible for the transgressions of its personalities, it has to answer also for the loss, or rather the complete annihilation, of one of such.

Theo. Not at all, unless it has done nothing to avert this dire fate. But if, all its efforts notwithstanding, its voice, that of our conscience, was unable to penetrate through the wall of matter, then the obtuseness of the latter proceeding from the imperfect nature of the material is classed with other failures of nature. The Ego is sufficiently punished by the loss of Devachan, and especially by having to incarnate almost immediately.