Notes on Esoteric Terminology
The Way of Man
(7.19) Terminology(7.19.1) Every esoteric writer has his own terminology so that there is a complete muddle with ensuing confusion of ideas in their readers. One example of this is the traditional term “soul” in the esoteric literature.
(7.19.2) The ancients called the causal envelope the “soul”. Only the Pythagoreans had a special term for the monad, or the self. All the other esoteric schools used the term “soul” also in this sense as in several others. Thus they mean by the “soul” now the monad (the individual, the self), now the causal envelope, now the causal self, now Augoeides, now the second triad, now the second self, now even the consciousness aspect generally. It is said that the “soul is omniscient and omnipotent” (in the worlds of man). Then it is said that the “soul incarnates in order to have experiences”, that the “soul makes the mistake of identifying itself with its envelopes of incarnation”, etc. One esoteric writer calls the incarnating triad envelope the “human soul” and the greater causal envelope, now the “soul”, now the “over-soul”.
(7.19.3) Such carelessness must of course entail obscurity and confusion of ideas. If the intention of the writers was to cultivate the intuition of their readers by forcing them to learn to understand what in various contexts is meant by “soul”, then the writers have probably underrated the difficulty or overestimated the prospects of non-initiates to comprehend before they have got the basic concepts clearly defined once and for all.
(7.19.4) In order to differentiate between monad-individual-self and temporary incarnation, the theosophists called the greater causal envelope the “individual” and the incarnating part the “personality”, a practical distinction provided you know what the terms mean. This division was misleading because, when incarnating, the self (individual) goes along in the triad in the lesser causal envelope and so the difference between “individual” and “personality” in reality disappears. The lack of facts caused much obscurity, a circumstance that has prejudiced theosophy and still deters researchers who think logically. You cannot help wondering what the result would have been if, from the very beginning of theosophy, the Pythagorean mental system had been presented in the logical form required by Western thinking or if Saint Germain had been permitted to publicize the Rosicrucian system. Instead, the theosophical pioneers planned to reform Buddhism, which met with a complete failure.
(7.19.5) In the occult literature there is still much confusion about the nature of the so-called Ego. “The Ego puts down a fragment of itself into the personality in order to experience the vibrations of the lower planes.” (Leadbeater) That is supposed to be a description of the division of the causal envelope at incarnation. (Personality = the incarnating causal envelope = the triad envelope.) However, this is not done by the self (the monad), but by Augoeides. The self sleeps in the causal envelope until it is awakened through a new incarnation. The “Ego” is taken in a double sense: the causal envelope and the second triad. Augoeides of course needs no such experiences, which are over and done with in past eons. Those Augoeides, who supervise the human consciousness development, follow a particular line of cosmic evolution thanks to their experience of monads with basic repulsive tendency of the worst kind.
(7.19.6) The causal envelope corresponds to the “holy spirit” of the gnosticians; the essential (46) envelope, to the “son”; and the manifestal atom, to the “father”. Causal matter, however, is no more “spiritual” than any other matter, if by “spirit” you mean, like Pythagoras, the consciousness of matter. All matter is “holy”, for it is formed out of primordial atoms sharing in the cosmic total consciousness. Thus all worlds are holy. The planetary hierarchy makes no difference between holy and profane. That division is a theological mistake.
(7.19.7) So far from understanding reality are theologians. There is no “sin” (crime against an infinite being), only mistakes about the laws of life; mistakes which all make and of which they must reap the consequences until they have learnt to apply the laws rightly. Mistakes retard consciousness development and increase the number of incarnations.
(7.19.8) The whole cosmos consists of individuals (primordial atoms), and everyone is found somewhere on the way to the final goal of life. The guarantee that they will reach their goal some time is their unlosable share in the cosmic total consciousness, which is “god”. That is also why “all are one”.
(7.19.9) There are risks to publicizing esoteric facts. For sooner or later they will be picked up by some mystic with a Messiah complex who believes he is called to proclaim the one and only truth. After such a sect-founder has misunderstood these facts he puts them into an imaginative system by which he manages to dupe a lot of ignorant people.
(7.19.10) That gnostic symbol, “transfiguration”, has been misinterpreted, of course, like all esoteric symbols. A modern occult sect, Lectorium Rosicrucianum, has expounded it as the “practically used teaching of how man is born again”. If the true explanation is given, there is a risk that it will be deftly exploited in some new sect, yet it should be given. The very formulation “born again” (taken from the Gospels) has been turned into a theological construction. “Transfiguration” was the gnostic term of that process of consciousness which a disciple of the planetary hierarchy went through when the monad moved from the first triad mental molecule to the second triad mental atom. The process had the result that the mental self became a causal self.
(7.19.11) The founder of the said Rosicrucian sect, J. van Rijckenborgh, also managed to pick up an esoteric fact that was allowed for publication in 1950 only, namely “primordial atoms”. This he of course misunderstood, which appears in the following piffle: “As long as the outer man does not correspond to the inmost meaning of his life, his primordial atom ...” When the individual, upon the completion of his evolution and at the end of tens of thousands of eons, reaches the highest cosmic kingdom, then and only then will he “correspond” to his primordial atom.