The Path, Vol. I.—1886-'7. / A Magazine Devoted to the Brotherhood of Humanity, Theosophy in America, and the Study of Occult Science, Philosophy, and Aryan Literature.

by Various

SEERSHIP.

The following remarks are not intended to be a critique upon the literary merits or demerits of the poem which is taken as the subject of criticism. In 1882, The Theosophist[6] published a review of “The Seer, a Prophetic Poem,” by Mr. H. G. Hellon, and as clairvoyance is much talked of in the West, it seemed advisable to use the verses of this poet for the purpose of inquiring, to some extent, into the western views of Seership, and of laying before my fellow seekers the views of one brought up in a totally different school.

I have not yet been able to understand with the slightest degree of distinctness, what state is known as “Seership” in the language of western mysticism. After trying to analyze the states of many a “seer,” I am as far as ever from any probability of becoming wiser on the subject, as understood here, because it appears to me that no classification whatever exists of the different states as exhibited on this side of the globe, but all the different states are heterogeneously mixed. We see the state of merely catching glimpses in the astral light, denominated seership, at the same time that the very highest illustrations of that state are called trances.

As far as I have yet been able to discover, “Seership,” as thus understood here, does not come up to the level of Sushupti, which is the dreamless state in which the mystic’s highest consciousness—composed of his highest intellectual and ethical faculties—hunts for and seizes any knowledge he may be in need of. In this state the mystic’s lower nature is at rest (paralyzed): only his highest nature roams into the ideal world in quest of food. By lower nature, I mean his physical, astral or psychic, lower emotional and intellectual principles, including the lower fifth.[7] Yet even the knowledge obtained during the Sushupti state must be regarded, from this plane, as theoretical and liable to be mixed upon resuming the application of the body, with falsehood and with the preconception of the mystic’s ordinary waking state, as compared with the true knowledge acquired during the several initiations. There is no guarantee held out for any mystic that any experience, researches or knowledge that may come within his reach in any other state whatever, is accurate, except in the mysteries of initiation.

But all these different states are necessary to growth. Yagrata—our waking state, in which all our physical and vital organs, senses and faculties find their necessary exercise and development, is needed to prevent the physical organization from collapsing. Swapna—dream state, in which are included all the various states of consciousness between Yagrata and Sushupti, such as somnambulism, trance, dreams, visions, &c.—is necessary for the physical faculties to enjoy rest, and for the lower emotional and astral faculties to live, become active, and develop; and Sushupti state, comes about in order that the consciousnesses of both Yagrata and Swapna states may enjoy rest, and for the fifth principle, which is the one active in Sushupti, to develop itself by appropriate exercise. In the equilibrium of these three states lies true progress.

The knowledge acquired during Sushupti state, might or might not be brought back to one’s physical consciousness; all depends upon his desires, and according as his lower consciousnesses are or are not prepared to receive and retain that knowledge.

The avenues of the ideal world are carefully guarded by elementals from the trespass of the profane.

Lytton makes Mejnour say:[8] “We place our tests in ordeals that purify the passions and elevate the desires. And nature in this controls and assists us, for it places awful guardians and unsurmountable barriers between the ambitions of vice and the heaven of loftier science.”

The desire for physical enjoyment, if rightly directed, becomes elevated, as a desire for something higher, gradually becoming converted into a desire to do good to others, and thus ascending, ceases to be a desire, and is transformed into an element of the sixth principle.

The control by nature to which Mejnour refers, in found in the natural maximum and minimum limits; there cannot be too much ascension, nor can the descent be too quick or too low. The assistance of nature is found in the Turya state, in which the adept takes one step and nature helps for another.