FROM SAVAGE TO SUPERMAN

Evening Star, Issue 22618, 9 April 1937, Page 14

FROM SAVAGE TO SUPERMAN

Speaking in the Theosophical Hall on Thursday evening, Miss Mary K. Neff said that the four great rounds of Theosophical teachings corresponded with the four great scientific ages which again corresponded with four developments of creatures. Lantern slides depicting the evolution of creatures from Amoeba, through seaweeds, jellyfish, backbone creatures, amphibians were then shown, also illustrations of fossils from which we derive much of our knowledge of such things. Life began in the sea, and when _ land formed, creatures called amphibians walked upon it. These were the immense dinosaurs, etc, some of which showed grotesque appearances of flying animals. Then came the Ice Age when these .huge creatures disappeared and smaller ones appeared; the horse was very small then. There were four Ice Ages, and so animals developed fur;man stood on his hind legs, and discovered fire in volcanoes. Scientists of the nineteenth century emphasised the evolution of form, but to-day we learn of the ©volution of the soul, for, as Ella Wheeler Wilcox says, “ we are climbing back to God.” The earth had not only its dense physical part but also an emotional globe extending as far as the moon. This was called by the ancients the astral world, or starry sphere (or purgatory), while still beyond was the mental globe, or heaven. We lived in three worlds her)*and now, but we used three different bodies called the aura. These three bodies perished at death and man lived then in his soul, or ego, the real man, and when the soul was ready to reincarnfe*, it took on again

these three perishable bodies. The conditions of each life depended npon the great law named in our Scriptures as “ as a man soweth, that shall he also reap,” but called one word, “ Karma,” by the Eastern people. Serviceable actions in one life made a good environment for the next, and vice versa. All men were either on the path of outgoing or the path of return. We might wind our way very slowly around the spirals of the path of return, or take the straight path up the mountain side. The East called it the Path of Yoga; Christianity called it the straight gate or the narrow way; the Hindu spoke of it as the razor path. Theosophists called it the way of initiation, and certain virtues, beginning with discrimination, were required of him who would tread it.