Theosophical Society,
H P Blavatsky
Astral Bodies or Doppelgangers
by
H. P. Blavatsky
This
article is in the form of a dialogue with an enquirer
M.
C. Great confusion exists in the minds of people about the various kinds of
apparitions,
wraiths, ghosts, or spirits. Ought we not to explain once for all
the
meaning of these terms? You say there are various kinds of "doubles"
what
are
they?
H.
P. B. Our occult philosophy teaches us that there are three kinds of
"doubles,"
to use the word in its widest sense. First, man has his "double" or
shadow,
properly so called, around which the physical body of the fetus -- the
future
man -- is built. The imagination of the mother, or an accident which
affects
the child, will affect also the astral body. The astral and the physical
both
exist before the mind is developed into action, and before the Atma awakes.
This
occurs when the child is seven years old, and with it comes the
responsibility
attaching to a conscious sentient being. This "double" is born
with
man, dies with him, and can never separate itself far from the body during
life,
and though surviving him, it disintegrates, pari passu, with the corpse.
It
is this which is sometimes seen over the graves like a luminous figure of the
man
that was, during certain atmospheric conditions. From its physical aspect it
is,
during life, man's vital double, and after death, only the gases given off
from
the decaying body. But, as regards its origin and essence, it is something
more.
This double is what we have agreed to call Linga-sarira, but which I would
propose
to call, for greater convenience, "Protean" or "Plastic
Body."
M.
C. Why Protean or Plastic?
H.
P. B. Protean, because it can assume all forms; e.g., the "shepherd
magicians"
whom popular rumor accuses, perhaps not without some reason, of being "were-wolves,"
and "mediums in cabinets," whose own "Plastic Bodies" play
the part of materialized grandmothers and "John Kings." Otherwise,
why the invariable custom of the "dear departed angels" to come out
but little further
than
arm's length from the medium, whether entranced or not? Mind, I do not at
all
deny foreign influences in this kind of phenomena. But I do affirm that
foreign
interference is rare, and that the materialized form is always that of
the
medium's Astral, or Protean body.
M.
C. How is this astral body created?
H.
P. B. It is not created; it grows, as I told you, with the man and exists in
the
rudimentary condition even before the child is born.
M.
C. And what about the second?
H.
P. B. The second is the "Thought" body, or Dream body, rather; known
among Occultists as the Mayavi-rupa, or "Illusion-body." During life
this image is the vehicle both of thought and of the animal passions and
desires, drawing at one and the same time from the lowest terrestrial manas
(mind) and
in
the
M.
C. And the third?
H.
P. B. The third is the true Ego, called in the East by a name meaning
"causal-body,"
but which in the trans-Himalayan schools is always called the
"Karmic
body," which is the same. For Karma, or action, is the cause which
produces
incessant rebirths or "reincarnations." It is not the Monad, nor is
it
Manas
proper; but is, in a way, indissolubly connected with and a compound of
the
Monad and Manas in Devachan.
M.
C. Then there are three doubles?
H.
P. B. If you call the Christian and other Trinities "three Gods,"
then there
are
three doubles. But in truth there is only one under three aspects or phases:
the
most material portion disappearing with the body; the middle one surviving
both
as an independent but temporary entity in the land of shadows; the third,
immortal
throughout the Manvantara, unless Nirvana puts an end to it before.
M.
C. But shall not we be asked what difference there is between the Mayavi and
Kama-rupa,
or as you propose to call them the "Dream body" and the
"Spook"?
H.
P. B. Most likely, and we shall answer, in addition to what has been said,
that
the "thought-power" or aspect of the Mayavi or "Illusion-body,"
merges
after
death entirely into the causal body or the conscious, thinking Ego. The
animal
elements, or power of desire of the "Dream body," absorbing after
death
that
which it has collected (through its insatiable desire to live) during life;
i.e.,
all the astral vitality as well as all the impressions of its material
acts
and thoughts while it lived in possession of the body, forms the
"Spook" or
Kama-rupa.
Our Theosophists know well enough that after death the higher Manas unites with
the Monad and passes into Devachan, while the dregs of the lower Manas or
animal mind go to form this Spook. This has life in it, but hardly any consciousness,
except, as it were, by proxy; when it is drawn into the current of a medium.
M.
C. Is it all that can be said upon the subject?
H.
P. B. For the present this is enough metaphysics, I guess. Let us hold to the
"Double"
in its earthly phase. What would you know?
M.
C. Every country in the world believes more or less in the "double"
or
doppelganger.
The simplest form of this is the appearance of a man's phantom the moment after
his death, or at the instant of death, to his dearest friend. Is
this
appearance the mayavi-rupa?
H.
P. B. It is; because produced by the thought of the dying man.
M.
C. Is it unconscious?
H.
P. B. It is unconscious to the extent that the dying man does not generally
do
it knowingly; nor is he aware that he so appears. What happens is this. If he
thinks
very intently at the moment of death of the person he either is very
anxious
to see, or loves best, he may appear to that person. The thought becomes objective;
the double, or shadow of a man, being nothing but the faithful reproduction of
him, like a reflection in a mirror: that which the man does, even in thought,
that the double repeats. This is why the phantoms are often seen in such cases
in the clothes they wear at the particular moment, and the image reproduces
even the expression on the dying man's face. If the double of a man bathing were
seen it would seem to be immersed in water; so when a man who has been drowned
appears to his friend, the image will be seen to be dripping with water.
The
cause for the apparition may also be reversed; i.e., the dying
man
may or may not be thinking at all of the particular person his image appears
to,
but it is that person who is sensitive. Or perhaps his sympathy or his
hatred
for the individual whose wraith is thus evoked is very intense physically
or
psychically; and in this case the apparition is created by, and depends upon
the
intensity of the thought. What then happens is this. Let us call the dying
man
A, and him who sees the double B. The latter, owing to love, hate, or fear,
has
the image of A so deeply impressed on his psychic memory, that actual
magnetic
attraction and repulsion are established between the two, whether one
knows
of it and feels it, or not. When A dies, the sixth sense or psychic
spiritual
intelligence of the inner man in B becomes cognizant of the change in
A,
and forthwith apprizes the physical senses of the man by projecting before
his
eye the form of A as it is at the instant of the great change. The same when
the
dying man longs to see some one; his thought telegraphs to his friend,
consciously
or unconsciously along the wire of sympathy, and becomes objective.
This
is what the "Spookical" Research Society would pompously, but none
the less muddily, call telepathic impact.
M.
C. This applies to the simplest form of the appearance of the double. What
about
cases in which the double does that which is contrary to the feeling and
wish
of the man?
H.
P. B. This is impossible. The "Double" cannot act unless the key-note
of this
action
was struck in the brain of the man to whom the "Double" belongs, be
that
man
just dead, or alive, in good or in bad health. If he paused on the thought a
second,
long enough to give it form, before he passed on to other mental
pictures,
this one second is as sufficient for the objectivization of his
personality
on the astral waves, as for your face to impress itself on the
sensitized
plate of a photographic apparatus. Nothing prevents your form then
being
seized upon by the surrounding Forces -- as a dry leaf fallen from a tree
is
taken up and carried away by the wind -- being made to caricature or distort
your
thought.
M.
C. Supposing the double expresses in actual words a thought uncongenial to
the
man, and expresses it -- let us say to a friend far away, perhaps on another
continent?
I have known instances of this occurring.
H.
P. B. Because it then so happens that the created image is taken up and used
by
a "Shell." Just as in seance-rooms when "images" of the
dead -- which may
perhaps
be lingering unconsciously in the memory or even the auras of those
present
-- are seized upon by the Elementals or Elementary Shadows and made
objective
to the audience, and even caused to act at the bidding of the
strongest
of the many different wills in the room. In your case, moreover, there
must
exist a connecting link -- a telegraph wire -- between the two persons, a
point
of psychic sympathy, and on this the thought travels instantly. Of course
there
must be, in every case, some strong reason why that particular thought
takes
that direction; it must be connected in some way with the other person.
Otherwise
such apparitions would be of common and daily occurrence.
M.
C. This seems very simple; why then does it only occur with exceptional
persons?
H.
P. B. Because the plastic power of the imagination is much stronger in some
persons
than in others. The mind is dual in its potentiality: it is physical and
metaphysical.
The higher part of the mind is connected with the spiritual soul
or
Buddhi, the lower with the animal soul, the Kama principle. There are persons
who
never think with the higher faculties of their minds at all; those who do so
are
the minority and are thus, in a way, beyond, if not above, the average of
human
kind. These will think even upon ordinary matters on that higher plane.
The
idiosyncrasy of the person determines in which "principle" of the
mind the
thinking
is done, as also the faculties of a preceding life, and sometimes the
heredity
of the physical. This is why it is so very difficult for a materialist
--
the metaphysical portion of whose brain is almost atrophied -- to raise
himself,
or for one who is naturally spiritually-minded to descend to the level
of
the matter-of-fact vulgar thought. Optimism and pessimism depend on it also
in
a great measure.
M.
C. But the habit of thinking in the higher mind can be developed -- else
there
would be no hope for persons who wish to alter their lives and raise
themselves?
And that this is possible must be true, or there would be no hope
for
the world.
H.
P. B. Certainly it can be developed, but only with great difficulty, a firm
determination,
and through much self-sacrifice. But it is comparatively easy for
those
who are born with the gift. Why is it that one person sees poetry in a
cabbage
or a pig with her little ones, while another will perceive in the
loftiest
things only their lowest and most material aspect, will laugh at the
"music
of the spheres," and ridicule the most sublime conceptions and
philosophies?
This difference depends simply on the innate power of the mind to think on the
higher or on the lower plane, with the astral (in the sense given
to
the word by
powers
are often no proof of, but are impediments to spiritual and right
conceptions;
witness most of the great men of science. We must rather pity than
blame
them.
M.
C. But how is it that the person who thinks on the higher plane produces more perfect
and more potential images and objective forms by his thought?
H.
P. B. Not necessarily that "person" alone, but all those who are
generally
sensitives.
The person who is endowed with this faculty of thinking about even
the
most trifling things from the higher plane of thought has, by virtue of that
gift
which he possesses, a plastic power of formation, so to say, in his very
imagination.
Whatever such a person may think about, his thought will be so far
more
intense than the thought of an ordinary person, that by this very intensity
it
obtains the power of creation. Science has established the fact that thought
is
an energy. This energy in its action disturbs the atoms of the astral
atmosphere
around us. I already told you; the rays of thought have the same
potentiality
for producing forms in the astral atmosphere as the sunrays have
with
regard to a lens. Every thought so evolved with energy from the brain,
creates,
nolens volens a shape.
M.
C. Is that shape absolutely unconscious?
H.
P. B. Perfectly unconscious unless it is the creation of an adept, who has a
preconceived
object in giving it consciousness, or rather in sending along with
it
enough of his will and intelligence to cause it to appear conscious. This
ought
to make us more cautious about our thoughts.
But
the wide distinction that obtains between the adept in this matter and the
ordinary
man must be borne in mind. The adept may at his will use his
Mayavi-rupa,
but the ordinary man does not, except in very rare cases. It is
called
Mayavi-rupa because it is a form of illusion created for use in the
particular
instance, and it has quite enough of the adept's mind in it to
accomplish
its purpose. The ordinary man merely creates a thought-image, whose properties
and powers are at the time wholly unknown to him.
M.
C. Then one may say that the form of an adept appearing at a distance from
his
body, as for instance Ram Lal in Mr. Isaacs, is simply an image?
H.
P. B. Exactly. It is a walking thought.
M.
C. In which case an adept can appear in several places almost simultaneously.
H.
P. B. He can. Just as Apollonius of Tyana, who was seen in two places at
once,
while his body was at
M.
C. Then it is very necessary for a person of any amount of imagination and
psychic
powers to attend to their thoughts?
H.
P. B. Certainly, for each thought has a shape which borrows the appearance of the
man engaged in the action of which he thought. Otherwise how can
clairvoyants
see in your aura your past and present? What they see is a passing
panorama
of yourself represented in successive actions by your thoughts. You
asked
me if we are punished for our thoughts. Not for all, for some are
still-born;
but for the others, those which we call "silent" but potential
thoughts
yes. Take an extreme case, such as that of a person who is so wicked as to wish
the death of another. Unless the evil-wisher is a Dugpa, a high adept in black
magic, in which case Karma is delayed, such a wish only comes back to
roost.
M.
C. But supposing the evil-wisher to have a very strong will, without being a
dugpa,
could the death of the other be accomplished?
H.
P. B. Only if the malicious person has the evil eye, which simply means
possessing
enormous plastic power of imagination working involuntarily, and thus turned
unconsciously to bad uses. For what is the power of the "evil eye"?
Simply
a great plastic power of thought, so great as to produce a current
impregnated
with the potentiality of every kind of misfortune and accident,
which
inoculates, or attaches itself to any person who comes within it. A
jettatore
(one with the evil eye) need not be even imaginative, or have evil
intentions
or wishes. He may be simply a person who is naturally fond of
witnessing
or reading about sensational scenes, such as murder, executions,
accidents,
etc., etc. He may be not even thinking of any of these at the moment
his
eye meets his future victim. But the currents have been produced and exist
in
his visual ray ready to spring into activity the instant they find suitable
soil,
like a seed fallen by the way and ready to sprout at the first
opportunity.
M.
C. But how about the thoughts you call "silent"? Do such wishes or
thoughts
come
home to roost?
H.
P. B. They do; just as a ball which fails to penetrate an object rebounds
upon
the thrower. This happens even to some dugpas or sorcerers who are not
strong
enough, or do not comply with the rules -- for even they have rules they
have
to abide by -- but not with those who are regular, fully developed "black
magicians";
for such have the power to accomplish what they wish.
M.
C. When you speak of rules it makes me want to wind up this talk by asking
you
what everybody wants to know who takes any interest in occultism. What is a principal
or important suggestion for those who have these powers and wish to
control
them rightly -- in fact to enter occultism?
H.
P. B. The first and most important step in occultism is to learn how to adapt
your
thoughts and ideas to your plastic potency.
M.
C. Why is this so important?
H.
P. B. Because otherwise you are creating things by which you may be making
bad
Karma. No one should go into occultism or even touch it before he is
perfectly
acquainted with his own powers, and that he knows how to commensurate it with
his actions. And this he can do only by deeply studying the philosophy of
Occultism before entering upon the practical training. Otherwise, as sure as fate
-- HE WILL FALL INTO BLACK MAGIC.
Theosophical Society,