By Israel
Regardie (1929)
(Part 1 of 3)
Edited
(2009) by Sandra Tabatha Cicero
(NOTE: This article was published by the Societas
Rosicruciana in America in the Order’s periodical Mercury: A Magazine of Mysticism, volume 14, Number 1, March 1929.
Regardie was
initiated into the Neophyte grade of the Washington College on March 18, 1926,
and advanced to the Zelator grade on June 2, 1927. The article presented here
shows that the young Regardie had a deep working knowledge of esoteric
philosophy well beyond his years. My edits of this work consist of correcting a
number of antiquated spellings and adding an occasional footnote with helpful
URLs. –STC)
HOWEVER, of all the objections forwarded
against this doctrine, the most important is the lack of memory of former
existences, but, as will be seen after a little memory, this is a very puerile
objection, as a little examination will show. Because a man remembers nothing
concerning his childhood days, surely it does not imply that he was never a
baby; because he cannot remember anything concerning the intra-uterine
existence, can not imply that he has not passed through that form of existence.
Because he cannot recall what he did last night during his hours of sleep,
does not imply that he never slept. This is a very poor objection; let us see what
modern philosophy might have to say to this.
The question, first of all, to be asked is,
Where does this sort of cosmic memory reside? In the pure spirit itself, not in
the tissue of the brain, answers Bergson,[1] a modern spiritual philosopher,
the author of "Creative Evolution."[2] But why is it that we
sometimes search in vain to recover a memory from the hidden depths of the
spirit, which at other times comes to us unasked? Bergson gives the
paradoxical answer that it is the mechanism of the brain which causes us to
forget either on purpose or by not responding accurately in a given case. What
is the meaning of this rather novel and interesting view that the brain is a
"forgetter" rather than the instrument of memory? It bears out the
theory that the brain is organized solely for action. If the one object in life
were contemplation, or pure knowledge, it would be no disadvantage if all the
data of our consciousness stood out together as against stationary background.
People confronted by the prospect of sudden death have told, after surviving
the danger, of some such experience, every detail of things long forgotten,
reviving with perfect clarity. But life is for action rather than for
contemplation. To act, we must center our attention on the present time and
space. A vision of all our past memories would not only be useless for action,
it would be a positive hindrance and distraction. So the organ of action must
also be an organ for excluding all memories that would be irrelevant, admitting
to our attention only such memories as would fit into and be of use in a
present emergency. It follows that the destruction of the brain, while it would
paralyze action, instead of causing the destruction of memories would open
memory's flood gates, admitting all the past to our waking consciousness. This
suggests the probable effect of death. The organ for action in external space
is lost, but the whole of the past life would be resurrected from oblivion.
Thus death would be the state of pure memory, a postulate that is extremely
interesting to students who have done a little thinking, and it is nothing but
pure occultism; it is a matter of pleasure to note how the various discoveries
and speculations of modern research and philosophy vindicate our ancient brethren
and corroborate their occult investigations.
Thus reincarnation is seen to be the
expression of a personal will, and a will of nature, and we will find this
concept of a nature-will in all of the important philosophies. With the deeply
religious Fichte—who rightly reserves the appellation of a
"God-Intoxicated Philosopher"[3] —this will was a sublime
will; a law, determined by no fancy or caprice, eternal, unchangeable, the
spiritual bond of the entire universe; the one True and Imperishable Spirit of Goodness,
for which the human soul yearns from its inmost depths, all else being mere
appearance, ever vanishing, and ever returning in new semblances. But on the
other side of the golden shield is the Will of Schopenhauer,[4] a mere blind impulsive
desire; an overmastering instinct for the continuation of Life. "One
Enormous Will, constantly rushing into life." Taking each one of these conceptions
separately we find that there is something lacking, but by a skillful blending,
it is comparable to the theosophical Tanha,
the thirst—the will to live; that will so deeply imbedded in the skandhas (seed) atoms of the personality
cast off by the deceased ego, now in Devachan,
in its mental heaven world, which draws it slowly and inexorably back to earth
life.
The full freedom of
the Spirit of man is the ideal of his development. We cannot ask "Is man
free or not." Philosophers who thus state this question of freedom can
never arrive at a clear conception of the truth. For man in his present
condition is neither free nor in bondage, but is on the way to freedom; he is partly free, partly bound. He is free to
the degree in which he has acquired knowledge and consciousness of the connections
of the Cosmos. That our fate, our Kama, comes to us in the shape of an unconditional
necessity, is no hindrance to our freedom, for when we act, we approach our
fate with the measure of independence that we have acquired. Fate, does not,
and cannot act, but we act in conformity with the laws of our fate.
Kant[5] has discussed the problems
of time and the problems of free will, but it seems never to have occurred to
him that there is any connection between the two problems. Kant had recognized
that reason can argue with almost equal cogency on both sides of this
question; the determinist denies that there is any measure of freedom whatever
open to the human will; the libertarian goes as far in the opposite direction,
maintaining that the freedom of the will is always and everywhere absolute;
therefore Kant classes it among the four great antimonies, or self
contradictions of the reason. Bergson, on the contrary, assumes that every one
of us has two selves—the "fundamental self and its spatial representation"
and he adds "only the former is free." The spatial representation of
the self is spread out in space and is a member of an artificial social order,
more or less congenial or uncongenial. We think when we get to know this
representation of the self, which others know, that we know our real self. Now and then, we come to a
realization with Matthew Arnold[6] that underneath the
surface there is a buried self. We
realize that once we could get the knowledge of this fundamental self, such
self knowledge would carry with it an insight into the meaning of life as a
whole. Even our incomplete apprehensions of this deeper self make us realize
that between it and its representation there is a lack of harmony. So long as this lack of adjustment continues
we are hampered and not free. And this is the issue of occult philosophy
in a nutshell. "Although we are free whenever we are willing to get back
into ourselves, it seldom happens that we are willing." The price of
freedom is willingness to be our fundamental self. Only the man of the utmost
daring is a free man. Freedom then, is not a complete fact, but an ideal toward
which the individual must strive in opposition to all his natural interests
and impulses. It can never be fully realized in the world of space and time. It
can be approached and become fully attainable in the future supersensible
world, outside both time and space. Bergson does not prove that we are just
naturally free. He does prove, however, that it is possible for us to attain an
increasing measure of freedom. Our everyday actions are mainly automatic and
determined, obeying the laws of association, etc. But in crises our decisions
may become really free by expressing our fundamental self. Freedom is real, but
indefinable. If it could be defined it would not be free.
[1] Henri
Bergson (1859-1941) was one of the most influential French philosophers of the
late 19th century-early 20th century. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bergson/
He was also the brother of Moina Mathers.
[3] Johann
Gottlieb Fichte: a major figure in German philosophy who developed a system of
transcendental philosophy called Wissenschaftslehre. http://www.iep.utm.edu/fichtejg/
[4] Often
considered a pessimist, Arthur Schopenhauer contended that at its core, the
universe is not a rational place. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/
[5] German
philosopher Immanuel Kant is considered one of the most influential thinkers of
modern times. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-development/
[6] Matthew
Arnold: a Victorian poet who is now better known for his critical essays. http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/88
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