Common misconceptions of Theosophical Doctrines removed

Book excerpt: The Inner Man is a trinity, not a duality. By adding the physical body, he becomes a Tetractys, or quaternity. Plato never confused the périsprit with the soul or spirit. In common with every other philosopher, he called it neither nous nor psyche, but gave it the name eidolon, sometimes that of imago or simulacrum. The psychic element never seems to have been in the odour of sanctity, either with the Saints of Christianity or with the Philosophers of Paganism. Let us now compare this philosophic quaternary, composed of the body, the périsprit, the soul, and the spirit — to the ether and its subsequent correlations. Spirit is the personal god of each mortal and his only divine element. On the contrary, the dual soul is semidivine, i.e., potentially divine. It is only when the human individuality, soiled with earthly impurities, overcomes separateness and identifies itself with the divine intelligence within, that the aroma of personal experience can become immortal. Thought is a material force, although invisible. Let the least cerebral motion reverberate in the Ether of Space and it will produce a disturbance reaching to infinity. Nothing is stationary in nature; everything must advance or fall back, and an incurable drunkard, a debauchee wholly immersed in materiality, having never made the least effort towards the good, dead or living, will never make progress! Sentimentality has no place in our ranks; he who does not feel ready to sacrifice his dearest personal hopes to the Eternal Truth may become a member of the Theosophical Society, but will never belong to our Esoteric Circle. Our Masters are Patañjali, Kapila, Kanada, and all the systems and schools of Aryavarta which served as inexhaustible mines for the Greek philosophers, from Pythagoras to Proclus. It is based on the esoteric wisdom of ancient Egypt, where Moses, like Plato, went to learn from the Hierophants and Adepts in the East; it was therefore developed by methods that do not proceed by inference, but decide by strict analogy alone, and are based on the immutability of universal laws.