The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-01-18
THE NEW RELIGIONS.
Theosophists Expound Beauties
of ReincarnatiOn.
ABODE OF DIsEMsoDlED SPIRITS
Lecture on Their Purgatory and Para
dise-spiritualists Discourse on
Evolution of Soul.

to hear a lecture delivered under the
auspices of the Theosophical Society by
Mrs. 4. L. Crosby, of Tacoma, her subject
being Kama Loka and Devachan." The
meeting was composed manly of inquir-
ers after truth, and of those Who like the
Athenians of old, are eager to hear some
new thing in religion, politics or science.
w. +. Richardson presided and opened
the meeting by reading a passage from
THE Voice of the Silence" telling of the
many lives which must be lived IN
order to reach Nirvana, the condition
of spiritual perfection. Frank j. Blodgett
then read passage from the writings OF
Mrs. Annie Besant, explaining the doc
trines of theosophy-the necessity for the
spirit to enter again and again into new
spheres in order to gain new experiences
and thereby to know all things, to subdue
the material and develop the spiritual be-
ing. and thus bring about universal
brotherhood. Both gentlemen commented
on and expounded their scriptures" as
they read them.
Mrs. Crosby then read her paper, which
is an exposition of the main theories Of
theosophy. She began by picturing the
terrors of death to the mind Of the average
person, and said that Christianity had
sought to dispel those terrors by
offering heaven to those who have faith
in Jesus. "But," she continued, "the
dreadful doctrine of eternal punishment to
all who possess not that faith has more
than overbalanced the sense of security
felt by even the very ones who are con-
WINGED of their own salvation. There
fore, Christianity failed to remove the fear
of death. Material science has tended TO
increase that fear by teaching that death
ends all, and many have even denied that
there is any soul to survive this life, and
have silenced the voice of truth within
them, which would say: There is no
death; beyond the tomb lie glorious reali-
ties In opposition to purely physical
science spiritualism had proclaimed that
there is life beyond the grave, and that
this can be proven as an actual
fact" She divided philosophers into
three schools ''the gnostics, who
know divine truth from the voice of God
within; the agnostics, who deny the exist
ence of anything beyond earthly wisdom,
and the spiritualists, who have con-
structed religion upon the lower aspects
or astral shadow of divine things. 1t had
remained for theosophy to offer rational
science, philosophy and religion, and ex-
plain the true meaning of the words
heaven. hell and death.
Mrs. Crosby then gave the theosophist
view of death as ''an open book containing
nothing more wonderful or strange than
life itself-a natural step from lower to
higher planes. 1t thus becomes to
the student of occultism benignant,
nd L,
ceeded:
Earth life, says theosophy, is that era in which
an incarnate individuality undergoes expert
ence, forms character and suffers whatever evil
its dement's demand. Life beyond the earth is
the era during which the individuality, no
longer incarnate, digests the results of that ex.
perience and enjoys whatever good it deserves
in the calm sunlight of subjective experience.
But when the full reward has been given Kama
draws it back to earth and another personality.
And here it is that we make our true heaven or
hell and constantly experience the day of judg-
ment.
The speaker went on to say that the an
clients believed that the destiny of the
soul is determined by the character of its
earthly life, and the spiritual condition
which it enters after death is not eternal.
They believed that the soul lives in three
planes of existence above the earth.
These are-earth for the physical man, or
animal soul; Kama Loka for the disem-
bodied man, or his shell; and Devachan
for three higher spiritual principles, which
constitute the immortal part. Thus man
has two distinct natures-the immortal,
heir to everlasting life, and the physical.
doomed to perish. 1t is for him to de-
eide with which he will unite his
mind or consciousness. The speaker then
defined the seven principles in man as:
The physical body, or Stulha Sarira; its
vitality or life principle, Prana; the astral
body, the double OF the physical, Linga
Sarira; the animal soul, the seat of de-
sires and passions, which man has in COM
mon with the animals, Kama Rupa; the
human mind on intellectual principle,
called Manas. having higher and lower
aspect; the spiritual soul, called the Bud
dhi or Christ principle; pure spirit, or
Alma, which is the essence of God. The
latter three-mind, soul and spirit-form
the reincarnating ego; the others form the
material quaternary.
At death the body returns to the matter
whence it came; the vitality re-becomes
one with the one life; the astral body
slowly fades out into the other. The soul
abandons these principles when the body
dies, but the animal nature clings to the
lower portions of the mind, whose higher
portions cling to the spiritual soul and are
elevated by il. The lower instincts and
impurities of the animal nature remain in
Kama Loka, the purgatorial sphere imme-
diately surrounding the earth, which is
the dividing line between the earth life
and the Deyachanic state Here the soul
viii he puFged of the impurities of earth.
Thus a person who quits life with
strong spiritual tendencies will sooner he
freed from animal nature than one who
dies full of material desires Until the
separation from the animal nature is COM
plete, the soul cannot advance and must
remain in Kama Loka. whence it is some
times drawn earthward by mediumship or
intense grief for the departed.
The separation having been completed
and the higher triad having drawn TO itself
all Of the late personality worthy of i'm
mortality, enters Devachan, and again has
the seven principles on its next incarna-
ton. In Kama Loka is left the astral
she'll which is absolutely senseIess and
fades away like the physical body.
II 4 person meets sudden death when
all his principles are firmly united. the
elementary which enters Kama Loka ia
the person himself, minus only the BODY.
and by the completeness OF his astral con
stltution IS able to so on generating Karna
by obsessing some weak-minded or mega
tive person and provoking him to all the
indulgences and vices Of which he had not
become gratifed in life Such persons
generally become esrth-walkers. The
struggle which must take place in Kama
LoSa between tie earthly and spiritual
rrlnclnIes of such nersnus may he the