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An Outline of Theosophy

By

Charles Webster Leadbeater

 

 

Charles Webster Leadbeater

1858? - 1934

 

 

The Wider Outlook

 

 

A little thought will soon show us what a radical change is introduced into the life of the man who realises that his physical life is nothing but a day at school, and that his physical body is merely a temporary vesture assumed for the purpose of learning through it. He sees at once that this purpose of “learning the lesson” is the only one of any importance, and that the man who allows himself to be diverted from that purpose by any consideration is acting with inconceivable stupidity.

 

To him who knows the truth, the life of the ordinary person devoted exclusively to physical objects, to the pursuit of wealth and fame, appears the merest child’s play – a senseless sacrifice of all that is really worth having for a few moments gratification of the lower parts of man’s nature.

 

The student “sets his affection on things above, and not on things of the earth”, not only because he sees this to be a right course of action, but because he realises very clearly the valuelessness of these things of earth.

 

He always tries to take the higher point of view, for he sees that the lower is utterly unreliable – that the lower desires and feelings gather round him like a dense fog, and make it impossible for him to see anything clearly from that level.

 

Yet even when he is thoroughly convinced that the higher course is always the right one, and when he is fully determined to follow it, he will nevertheless sometimes encounter very strong temptations to take the lower course, and will be sensible of a great struggle within him. He will discover that there is “a law of the members warring against the law of the mind”, as St. Paul says, so that “those things that I would, I do not, and the thing which I would not, that I do”.

 

Now good religious people often make the most serious mistakes about this interior struggle which we have all felt to a greater or less extent. They usually accept one or two theories on the subject.

 

Either they suppose that the lower promptings come from exterior tempting demons, or else they mourn over the terrible wickedness and blackness of their hearts, in that such fathomless evil still exists within them. Indeed, many of the best men and women go through a vast amount of totally unnecessary suffering on this account.

 

The first point to have clearly in mind if one wishes to understand this matter is that the lower desire is not in truth our desire at all.  Nor is it the work of some demon trying to destroy our souls. It is true that there sometimes are evil entities which are attracted by the base thought in man, and intensify it by their action; but such entities are man-made, everyone of them, and impermanent. 

 

They are merely artificial forms called into existence by the thought of other evil men, and they have a period of what seems almost like life, proportioned to the strength of the thought that created them.But the undesirable prompting within us usually comes from quite another source.

 

It has been mentioned how man draws round him vestures of matter at different levels, in order that he may descend into incarnation. But this matter is not dead matter (indeed, occult science teaches us that there is no such thing as dead matter anywhere), but it is instinct with life; though it is life at a stage of evolution much earlier than our own – so much earlier that it is still moving on a downward course into lower matter, instead of rising again out of lower matter into higher.

 

Consequently its tendency is always to press downwards towards the grosser material and the coarser vibrations which mean progress for it, but retrogression for us; and so it happens that the interest of the true man sometimes comes into collision with that of the living matter in some of his vehicles.

 

That is a very rough outline of the explanation of the curious internal strife that we sometimes feel – a strife which has suggested to the poetic minds the idea of good and evil angels in conflict over the soul of man. A more detailed account will be found in The Astral Plane, p. 40. 

 

But in the meantime it is important that the man should realise that he is the higher force, always moving towards and battling for good, while this lower force is not he at all, but only an uncontrolled fragment of one of his lower vehicles.

 

He must learn to control it, to dominate it absolutely, and to keep it in order; but he should not therefore, think of it as evil, but as an outpouring of the Divine power moving on its orderly course, though that course in this instance happens to be downwards into matter, instead of upwards and away from it, as ours is.

 

 

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Cardiff Theosophical Society

206 Newport Road,

Cardiff, Wales, UK, CF24 – 1DL.

 

 

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The Most Basic Theosophy Website in the Universe

If you run a Theosophy Study Group you can use

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Theosophy

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The Key to Theosophy

 

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The South of Heaven Guide to

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The South of Heaven Guide

To Theosophy and Dreams

 

The South of Heaven Guide

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The Universe

 

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Visit the Feelgood Lodge

 

Theosophy Tekels Park

Article describing Tekels Park and its much

cherished wildlife by Theosophist and long

term Tekels Park Resident Madeleine Leslie Smith

 

The Theosophical Value of

Tekels Park

 

SearchSight

 

The Tooting Broadway

Underground Theosophy Website

The Spiritual Home of Urban Theosophy

 

The Mornington Crescent

Underground Theosophy Website

The Earth Base for Evolutionary Theosophy

 

_____________________

 

Tekels Park

Camberley, Surrey, England GU15 – 2LF

 

Tekels Park to be Sold to a Developer

Concerns are raised about the fate of the wildlife as

The Spiritual Retreat, Tekels Park in Camberley,

Surrey, England is to be sold to a developer

 

Many feel that the sale of a sanctuary for 

wildlife to a developer can only mean disaster

 for the park’s animals

 

Confusion as the Theoversity moves out of 

Tekels Park to Southampton, Glastonbury & 

Chorley in Lancashire while the leadership claim

that the Theosophical Society will carry on using 

Tekels Park despite its sale to a developer

 

Theosophy talks of a compassionate attitude

to animals and the sale of the Tekels Park

sanctuary for wildlife to a developer has

dismayed many Theosophists

 

 

Future of Tekels Park Badgers in Doubt

Badgers have been resident

in Tekels Park for Centuries

 

Tekels Park & the Loch Ness Monster

A Satirical view of the sale of Tekels Park

in Camberley, Surrey to a developer

 

 

The Toff’s Guide to the Sale of Tekels Park

What the men in top hats have to say about the

sale of Tekels Park to a developer. It doesn’t

require a Diploma in Finance or indeed a

Diploma in Anything to realize that this is a

bad time economically to sell Tekels Park

 

Party On! Tekels Park Theosophy NOT

 

St Francis Church at Tekels Park

 

____________________

 

 

 

 

 

 

Theosophy &

Reincarnation

 

This guide has been included in response

to the number of enquiries we receive on this

subject at Cardiff Theosophical Society

 

 

Reincarnation

Annie Besant

 

Memories Of Past Lives

Annie Besant

 

The Law of Rebirth

Annie Besant

 

Reincarnation

From A Textbook of Theosophy By C W Leadbeater

 

Argument for Reincarnation

 W Q Judge

 

How We Remember our Past Lives

C Jinarajadasa

 

The Vision of the Spirit

C Jinarajadasa

 

The Hidden Work of Nature

C Jinarajadasa

 

The Law of Renunciation

C Jinarajadasa

 

Is Reincarnation True?

Ernest Egerton Wood

 

Life after Death & Reincarnation

The Aftermath of the Somme

The Slaughter of the Battle of the Somme 1916 leads to

a great demand by the public for lectures on Reincarnation

 

 

 

 

 

A Text Book of Theosophy

Charles Webster Leadbeater

 

What Theosophy Is  From the Absolute to Man

 

The Formation of a Solar System  The Evolution of Life

 

The Constitution of Man  After Death  Reincarnation

 

The Purpose of Life  The Planetary Chains

 

The Result of Theosophical Study

 

An Outline of Theosophy

Charles Webster Leadbeater

 

Theosophy - What it is    How is it Known?

 

The Method of Observation   General Principles

 

The Three Great Truths  

 

Advantage Gained from this Knowledge

 

The Deity  The Divine Scheme  The Constitution of Man

 

The True Man   Reincarnation   The Wider Outlook

 

Death   Man’s Past and Future   Cause and Effect

 

What Theosophy does for us

 

 

 

 

Quotes from the Writings of

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

That which is to be shunned is pain not yet come. The past cannot be changed or amended; that which belongs to the experience of the present cannot and should  not be shunned; but alike to be shunned are disturbing anticipations or fears of  the future, and every act or impulse that may cause present or future pain to ourselves or others.

Practical Occultism, Page 87

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Perfection, to be fully such, must be born out of imperfection, the incorruptible must grow out of the corruptible, having the latter as its vehicle and basis and contrast

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 100

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

It is only by the attractive force of the contrasts that the two opposites — Spirit and Matter — can be cemented together on Earth, and, smelted in the fire of self-conscious experience and suffering, find themselves wedded in Eternity.

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 108

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Strength to step forward is the primary need of him who has chosen his path. Where is this to be found? Looking round, it is not hard to see where other men find their strength. Its source is profound conviction.

Practical Occultism, Page 67

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

It is the motive, and the motive alone, which makes any exercise of power become black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic. It is impossible to employ spiritual forces if there is the slightest tinge of selfishness remaining in the operator .... The powers and forces of animal nature can equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as by the unselfish and the all-forgiving; the powers and forces of spirit lend themselves only to the perfectly pure in heart — and this is Divine Magic.

Practical Occultism, Page 7

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Finite reason agrees with science, and says: “There is no God”. But, on the other hand, our Ego, that which lives and thinks and feels independently of us in our mortal casket, does more than believe. It knows that there exists a God in nature, for the sole and invincible Artificer of all lives in us as we live in Him. No dogmatic faith or exact science is able to uproot that intuitional feeling inherent in man, when he has once fully realised it in himself.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, Page 36

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

It may be a pleasant dream to attempt to conceive of the beauties of the spirit world; but the time can be spent more profitably in a study of the spirit itself, and it is not necessary that the subject for study should be in the spirit world.

Modern Panarion Page 70

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Physical existence is subservient to the spiritual, and all physical improvement and progress are only the auxiliaries of spiritual progress, without which there could be no physical progress.

Modern Panarion Page 78

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Mankind — the majority at any rate — hates to think for itself. It resents as an insult the humblest invitation to step for a moment outside the old well-beaten tracks and, judging for itself, to enter into a new path in some fresh direction.

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 3, Page 14

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Even ignorance is better than Head-learning with no Soul-wisdom to illuminate and guide it.

The Voice of the Silence, Page 43

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Many theosophists have had slight conscious relations with elementals, but always without their will acting, and upon trying to make elementals see, hear or act for them, a total indifference on the part of the nature spirit is all they have got in return. These failures are due to the fact that the elemental cannot understand the thought of the person; it can only be reached when the exact scale of being to which it belongs is vibrated, whether it be that of colour, form, sound, or whatever else

Annotation - The Path, May, 1888

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Parabrahman is not “God” because It is not a God. “It is that which is supreme, and not supreme”. ....It is supreme as cause, not supreme as effect.

The Secret Doctrine , Proem [Volume 1], Page 35

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

The ancients ..... fully realised the fact that the reciprocal relations between the planetary bodies is as perfect as those between the corpuscles of the blood, which float in a common fluid; and that each one is affected by the combined influence of all the rest, as each in its turn affects each of the others.

Isis, Volume 1, Page 275

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Strength to step forward is the primary need of him who has chosen his path. Where is this to be found? Looking round, it is not hard to see where other men find their strength. Its source is profound conviction.

Practical Occultism, Page 67

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

There are two kinds of magnetic attraction: sympathy and fascination; the one holy and natural, the other evil and unnatural.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, Page 210

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

In the phenomenal and Cosmic World Fohat is that occult, electric, vital power, which, under the Will of the Creative Logos, unites and brings together all forms, giving them the first impulse, which in time becomes law.

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 1, Page 134

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Oaths will never be binding till each man will fully understand that humanity is the highest manifestation on earth of the Unseen Supreme Deity, and each man an

incarnation of his God; and when the sense of personal responsibility will be so

developed in him that he will consider forswearing the greatest possible insult to himself, as well as to humanity. No oath is now binding, unless taken by one who, without any oath at all, would solemnly keep his simple promise of honour.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 2, Page 374

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

It is the motive, and the motive alone, which makes any exercise of power become

black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic. It is impossible to employ spiritual forces if there is the slightest tinge of selfishness remaining in the operator .... The powers and forces of animal nature can equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as by the unselfish and the all-forgiving; the powers and forces of spirit lend themselves only to the perfectly pure in heart — and this is Divine Magic.

Practical Occultism, Page 7

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Woe to those who live without suffering. Stagnation and death is the future of all that vegetates without change. And how can there be any change for the better without proportionate suffering during the preceding stage?

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 498

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

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.

Lucifer, December, 1888

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Finite reason agrees with science, and says: “There is no God”. But, on the other hand, our Ego, that which lives and thinks and feels independently of us in our mortal casket, does more than believe. It knows that there exists a God in nature, for the sole and invincible Artificer of all lives in us as we live in Him. No dogmatic faith or exact science is able to uproot that intuitional feeling inherent in man, when he has once fully realised it in himself.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, Page 36

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Our voice is raised for spiritual freedom, and our plea made for enfranchisement  from all tyranny, whether of Science of Theology.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, I2.

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

If through the Hall of Wisdom thou wouldst reach the Vale of Bliss, Disciple, close fast thy senses against the great dire heresy of Separateness that weans thee from the rest.

Voice of the Silence, Page 23

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

From strength to strength, from the beauty and perfection of one plane to the

greater beauty and perfection of another, with accessions of new glory, of fresh

knowledge and power in each cycle, such is the destiny of every Ego, which thus

becomes its own saviour in each world and incarnation.

The Key to Theosophy, Page 105

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

The assertion that “Theosophy is not a Religion” , by no means excludes the fact that “Theosophy is Religion” itself. A religion in the true and only correct sense is a bond uniting men together — not a particular set of dogmas and beliefs. Now Religion, per se, in its widest meaning is that which binds not only all Men but also all Beings and all things in the entire Universe into one grand whole.

Lucifer, November, 1888

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

The Present is only a mathematical line which divides that part of Eternal Duration which we call the Future from that part which we call the Past

The Secret Doctrine , Volume 1, Page 69

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

The mind receives indelible impressions even from chance acquaintance or persons

encountered but once. As a few seconds' exposure of the sensitized photographic plate is all that is requisite to preserve indefinitely the image of the sitter, so is it with the mind.

Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, Page 311

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

 “Beneficent Magic” , so called, is divine magic, devoid of selfishness, love of power, of ambition or lucre, and bent only on doing good, to the world in general and one's neighbour in particular. The smallest attempt to use one's abnormal powers for the gratification of self makes of these powers sorcery or black magic.

The Key to Theosophy, Page 228

 

Blavatsky Quotation

 

Believing in a spiritual and invisible Universe, we cannot conceive of it in any other way than as completely dovetailing and corresponding with the material, objective Universe; for logic and observation alike teach us that the latter is the outcome and visible manifestation of the former, and that the laws governing both are immutable.

Modern Panarion Page 137

 

 

 

Elementary Theosophy

By

A Student of Katherine Tingley

Katherine Tingley (1847 -1929)Was the founder & President

of the Point Loma Theosophical Society 1896 -1929

She and her students produced a series of informative

Theosophical works in the early years of the 20th century

 

 

Elementary Theosophy   Who is the Man?

 

Body and Soul  Body, Soul and Spirit   Reincarnation

 

Karma  The Seven in Man and Nature

 

The Meaning of Death

 

 

The Occult World

By

Alfred Percy Sinnett

 

The Occult World is an treatise on the

Occult and Occult Phenomena, presented

 in readable style, by an early giant of

the Theosophical Movement.

 

Preface to the American Edition  Introduction

 

Occultism and its Adepts   The Theosophical Society

 

First Occult Experiences   Teachings of Occult Philosophy

 

Later Occult Phenomena   Appendix

 

 

 

 

 

The Occult World

By Alfred Percy Sinnett

 

Preface to the American Edition    Introduction

 

Occultism and its Adepts    The Theosophical Society

 

First Occult Experiences   Teachings of Occult Philosophy

 

Later Occult Phenomena    Appendix

 

 

The Ocean of Theosophy

William Quan Judge

 

Preface    Theosophy and the Masters    General Principles

 

The Earth Chain    Body and Astral Body    Kama – Desire

 

Manas    Of Reincarnation    Reincarnation Continued

 

Karma    Kama Loka    Devachan    Cycles

 

Septenary Constitution Of Man

 

Arguments Supporting Reincarnation

 

Differentiation Of Species Missing Links

 

Psychic Laws, Forces, and Phenomena

 

Psychic Phenomena and Spiritualism

 

 

Theosophy Cardiff’s

Instant Guide to Theosophy

Quick Explanations with Links to More Detailed Info

 

 

What is Theosophy ?  Theosophy Defined (More Detail)

 

Three Fundamental Propositions  Key Concepts of Theosophy

 

Cosmogenesis  Anthropogenesis  Root Races

 

Ascended Masters  After Death States

 

The Seven Principles of Man  Karma

 

Reincarnation   Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

 

Colonel Henry Steel Olcott  William Quan Judge

 

The Start of the Theosophical Society

 

History of the Theosophical Society

 

Theosophical Society Presidents

 

History of the Theosophical Society in Wales

 

The Three Objectives of the Theosophical Society

 

Explanation of the Theosophical Society Emblem

 

The Theosophical Order of Service (TOS)

 

Ocean of Theosophy

William Quan Judge

 

Glossaries of Theosophical Terms

 

Worldwide Theosophical Links

 

 

 

The Ancient Wisdom

by

Annie Besant

 

THE UNITY UNDERLYING

ALL RELIGIONS

 

 

THE PHYSICAL PLANE

 

 

THE ASTRAL PLANE

 

 

KÂMALOKA

 

 

THE MENTAL PLANE

 

 

DEVACHAN

 

 

THE BUDDHIC AND NIRVANIC PLANES

 

 

REINCARNATION

 

 

KARMA

 

 

THE THREE KINDS OF KARMA

 

 

COLLECTIVE KARMA

 

 

THE LAW OF SACRIFICE

 

 

MAN'S ASCENT

 

 

BUILDING A KOSMOS

 

 

 

______________________

 

 

Avataras

Annie Besant

 

Annie Besant Visits Cardiff 1924

 

 

 

 

 

A Study in Karma

Annie Besant

 

Karma  Fundamental Principles  Laws: Natural and Man-Made  The Law of Laws 

 

The Eternal Now  Succession  Causation The Laws of Nature  A Lesson of The Law

 

  Karma Does Not Crush  Apply This Law  Man in The Three Worlds  Understand The Truth

 

Man and His Surroundings  The Three Fates  The Pair of Triplets  Thought, The Builder

 

  Practical Meditation  Will and Desire  The Mastery of Desire  Two Other Points

 

  The Third Thread  Perfect Justice  Our Environment  Our Kith and Kin  Our Nation

 

The Light for a Good Man  Knowledge of Law  The Opposing Schools

 

The More Modern View  Self-Examination  Out of the Past

 

Old Friendships  We Grow By Giving  Collective Karma  Family Karma

 

National Karma  India’s Karma  National Disasters

 

 

Try these if you are looking for a

local Theosophy Group or Centre

 

 

UK Listing of Theosophical Groups

Please tell us about your UK Theosophy Group

 

Worldwide Directory of Theosophical Links

 

International Directory of 

Theosophical Societies

 

 

WALES

Pages about Wales

General pages about Wales, Welsh History

and The History of Theosophy in Wales

 

 

Bangor University

 

 

The hut circles of the ancient settlement in Porthdafarch,

 which is believed to date back 4000 years

Porth Dafarch is on the coast road between Treaddur Bay and Holyhead.

Holyhead is on Holy Island off the north west of the Island of Anglesey 

which is off the North Wales Coast

 

South Stack Lighthouse

Off Holy Island about 3 miles from Holyhead

 

 

Wales is a Principality within the United Kingdom

and has an eastern border with England. The land

area is just over 8,000 square miles. Snowdon in

North Wales is the highest mountain at 3,650 feet.

The coastline is almost 750 miles long. The population

of Wales as at the 2001 census is 2,946,200.

 

 

 

Theosophy Wales

 

 

theosophycardiff.org

 

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