These in man are distinguished as: (1) Atma, pure spirit, one with the uni versal spirit. (2) Buddhi, the vehicle of Atma and inseparable from it, some times spoken of as the spiritual soul. (3) Manas, the mind, the ego or indi vidualizing principle, called the rational or human soul. These three are the im mortal part of man, Manas striving for union with Buddhi, such union making the spiritual ego, the spiritual man per fected. The remaining principles form the quaternary, the perishable part of man. These are: (4) Kama, the emo tions, passions, and appetites. (5) Deana, the vitality. (6) Linga Sharira, the astral double. (7) Sthiila Sharira, the physical body. (These principles are generally numbered in reversed order, starting from the physical, Sthfila Sha rira being taken as 1 and Atma as 7.) At death, it is taught, the physical body and the astral double disintegrate to gether; the vitality returns to the uni versal life; the passional nature, in its own ethereal envelope, exists for a longer or shorter period, according as it domi nated, or was subservient to, the higher nature, but ultimately fades away. The higher triad has, during earth life, been joined to the lower nature of Manas, the mind; this Manas is divided into higher and lower, the higher striving upward, the lower entangled with Kama, and held by the desire for material life which is at the root of all manifestation. At death the higher triad gradually sepa rates itself from the lower nature, the lower mind which is but a ray of the higher returning to its source, carrying with it the experiences gained during incarnation; the triad, with this added experience, the harvest of life, enters on a neriod of repose, the state of Devachan, a state of consciousness apart from the physical body, in which the intelligence is free from physical limitations. Deva chan is a state of consciousness in which the experiences of the lately concluded earth life are assimilated, its best aspira tions have their fruition, and the com munion of the consciousness with other consciousnesses is freed from physical limitations, and is more complete and satisfying. This stage endures for a period proportionate to the stage of evo lution reached on earth, and is concluded by the re-entry of the consciousness into the embodied condition.
The method of evolution, according to theosophy, is reincarnation. The rein carnating ego, the agent in progress, is the Manas. In the past, when physical evolution, guided by the indwelling spirit, had produced man's physical form, Manas first became incarnate therein, and has since reincarnated after each devachanic interlude. Throughout each incarnation it labors to evolve in the body it inhabits the capacity to respond to its impulses, but it is through the mold ing of successive bodies that it ac complishes its task of human elevation. The thoughts produced by its activity are real things on the mental plane, made of subtle matter, "thought stuff," a form of ether. The thoughts of each life ultimate in a thought body, that expresses the result of that incarnation, and this thought body serves as a mold into which is built the physical body which forms the next dwelling to the ego.
The "innate character" which the child brings into the world is the result of its own past and is physically expressed in its brain and nervous organization. The reincarnating ego is drawn by af finity to the nation and family fitted to supply the most suitable physical, ma terial, and physical environment. The physical particles thence supplied are stamped with the racial and family char acteristics, bodily and mental, but this arrangement is dominated by the thought body resulting as above stated.
Mental and moral capacities gained by struggle in one of many incar nations become innate qualities, exer cised "naturally," without effort, in a later incarnation, and thus progress is secured. This law, by which all causes work out their due effects, is called Karma (the Sanskrit word for action), and according to this all thoughts, good and bad, leave their traces on the thought body and reappear as tendencies in future lives. No escape from this sequence of cause and effect is possible; all our past must work itself out, but as the same agent that made the past is making the present it sets up fresh cause in meeting the effects of the past.
Thus a trouble generated by past ac tion is inevitable; it is in our Karma. But met badly, it sets up fresh cause for bad Karma in the future; or met well it generates good Karma. We made our present destiny in our past, and we are making our future destiny in our present. Reincarnation crushes out all differences of race, sex, class; Karma so interweaves human lives that each can only find hap piness and perfection as all find it. It is claimed by theosophy that these facts in nature yield a scientific basis for ethics, and make the practical recognition of hu man brotherhood a necessary condition of accelerated evolution.
The chief agent in founding the Theo sophical Society was Madame H. P. Blavatsky, who, with Col. H. S. Olcott, W. Q. Judge, and others, established it in New York in 1875. In 1879 the head quarters were transferred to Madras. In 1887 Madame Blavatsky visited London, from which epoch dates the great liter ary activity that has recently character ized it. There are now over 300 branches in Europe, India, American, and the colonies, and a large literature. The society has three declared objects, viz.: (1) To form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity, without dis tinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color.
(2) To encourage the study of compara tive religion, philosophy, and science. (3) To investigate unexplained laws of na ture and the powers latent in man. The society is unsectarian. No articles of faith need be subscribed to by an ad herent, the only condition of membership being an assent to the first object.
No dogmas are forced on members, as is the case with religions, and the teach ings which are promulgated are merely propositions which can be verified by the student in the course of his progress in the study of occultism. Any individual member has a right to make any declara tion of personal belief he pleases, on the understanding that the Society is not implicated.