THEOSOPHY

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 191, 14 August 1899, Page 2

THEOSOPHY

Mr C. W. Sanders lectured last night in the Theosophical Society's rooms Mutual Life Buildings, Lower Queen-street, comparing an essay of Sir Edwin Arnold's on "Death and Afterwards" with the theoKOphical teachings on- the same subject, and showing the agreement between them. From the essay he quoted: "Man is not by any means convinced as yet of his immortality. All the great religions have in concert more or less positively affirmed it to him, but no safe logic proves it, and no entirely accepted voice from some farther world proclaims it. And perhaps the most foolish are those who following ardent researches of science learn so little at the knees of their 'star-eyed' mistress as to believe that those forces which are called intellect, emotion, and will, capable of extinction, while they discover and declare the endless conservation of motion and matter. But only a few feel quite certain that they will never cease to exist."

The teachings of theosophy again affirm to man the fact of his immortality, and in such works as the "Secret Doctrine" and the "Key to Theosophy," by Madam Blavatsky, "The Ancient Wisdom," "Man and His Bodies," "Karma," and "Reincarnation" by Mrs Besant, and "The Astral Plane" \md "Devachom" by Mr C. W. Leadbeater, and many other books, logical arguments are brought forward in support of this great idea.

One does not need to die in order to get proof of conscious existence apart from the physical body; it can be obtained without that. Students have advanced so far as to be able to say they have reached a point intheir studies at which much that was at first vague has become definite, and much that was accepted as theory has beco •!• onttet- of first hand knowledge; and it is therefore possible a range sscertnined facts in a definite sequence, facts which can be observed again and again as successive students develop the power of observation, and to speak on them with the same certainty as is felt by the physicist who deals with other observed and tabulated phenomena.

Tli i« it ne infn o'virvd ihat the man, the thinker, or the self, functions in a body composed of various sheaths, each consisting of finer matter than the preceding-, which interpenetrate one another. They may be roughtly described as physical, astral, and mental, and correspond in material to the matter of the physical, astral and mental planes. Even during sleep the astral and mental bodies leave the physical, and sleep is analogous to death in a way; the departure of the other bodies and the rest obtained during the night being similar to the longer departure from the physical plane and the rest obtained between the different incarnations.

Tn their observation of these things theosophical students state that every precaution in their power is taken to ensure accuracy, no fact old or new being admitted unless it has been confirmed by the testimony of at least two independent trained investigators among ourselves, and has also been passed as correct by older students whose knowledge on these points is necessarily much greater than ours.

There was a fair audience in attendance. The lecture was followed by discussion.