Human Animals Part 31

types of the human races as they revert once again to astral, out of the mire of physical life. There were none before man and they will be extinct before the Seventh Race develops. Karma will lead on the monads of the unprogressed men of our race and lodge them in the newly evolved human frames of this physiologically regenerated baboon.

"This will take place, of course, millions of years hence. But the picture of this cyclic procession of all that lives and breathes now on earth, of each species in its turn, is a true one, and needs no 'special creation' or miraculous formation of man, beast or plant _ex nihilo_.

"This is how Occult Science explains the absence of any link between ape and man and shows the former evolving from the latter."

The Indians believe that sinners are reborn as animals. "After having suffered the torments in the h.e.l.ls, the evil-doers pa.s.s into animal bodies,"[179] and their cla.s.sification of such punishment has been carefully worked out.

Mortal sinners enter the bodies of worms or insects. Minor offenders enter the bodies of birds. Criminals in the fourth degree enter the bodies of the aquatic animals. Those who have committed a crime effecting loss of caste, enter the bodies of amphibious animals. Those who have committed a crime degrading to a mixed caste enter the bodies of deer. Those who have committed a crime rendering them unworthy to receive alms, enter the bodies of cattle. Those who have committed one of the miscellaneous crimes enter the bodies of miscellaneous wild carnivorous animals (such as tigers).

A thief (of other property than gold) becomes a falcon.

One who has appropriated a broad pa.s.sage, becomes a serpent or other animal living in holes.

One who has stolen grain becomes a rat.

One who has stolen water becomes a water-fowl.

One who has stolen honey becomes a gad-fly.

One who has stolen milk becomes a crow.

One who has stolen juice (of the sugar-cane or other plants) becomes a dog.

One who has stolen clarified b.u.t.ter becomes an ichneumon.

One who has stolen meat becomes a vulture.

One who has stolen fat becomes a cormorant.

One who has stolen oil becomes a c.o.c.kroach.

One who has stolen salt becomes a cricket.

One who has stolen sour milk becomes a crane.

One who has stolen silk becomes a partridge.

One who has stolen linen becomes a frog.

One who has stolen cotton cloth becomes a curlew.

One who has stolen a cow becomes an iguana.

One who has stolen sugar becomes a Valguda (kind of bat).

One who has stolen perfumes becomes a musk-rat.

One who has stolen vegetables becomes a peac.o.c.k.

One who has stolen prepared grain becomes a boar.

One who has stolen undressed grain becomes a porcupine.

One who has stolen fire becomes a crane.

One who has stolen household utensils becomes a wasp.

One who has stolen dyed cloth becomes a partridge.

One who has stolen an elephant becomes a tortoise.

One who has stolen a horse becomes a tiger.

One who has stolen fruit or blossoms becomes an ape.

One who has stolen a woman becomes a bear.

One who has stolen a vehicle becomes a camel.

One who has stolen cattle becomes a vulture.

He who has taken by force any property belonging to another or eaten food not first presented to the G.o.ds, inevitably enters the body of some beast.

Women who have committed similar thefts, receive the same ignominious punishment: they become females to those male animals.

Then having undergone the torments inflicted in the h.e.l.ls and having pa.s.sed through the animal bodies the sinners are born as human beings with marks indicating their crime.

These transformations came about by the insistent wickedness of human thoughts and deeds. Eliphas Levi discusses the magic power of the spoken word in bringing changes of shape to pa.s.s. "In the opinion of the vulgar," he says,[180] "transformations and metamorphosis have ever been the very essence of magic.... Magic really changes the nature of things, or rather modifies their appearances at pleasure, according to the strength of the operator's will and the fascination of aspiring adepts. Speech creates forms, and when a person reputed infallible gives anything a name, he really transforms the object into the substance which is signified by the name that he gives it....

"The life of creatures is a progressive transformation, having forms which may be determined and renewed, preserved longer, or else destroyed sooner. If the motion of metempsychosis were true, might we not say that debauch, represented by Circe, changes men really and materially into swine, for the chastis.e.m.e.nt of vices would on this hypothesis be a lapse into those animal forms which correspond to them? Now metempsychosis, which has been frequently misunderstood, has a perfectly true side. Animal forms communicate their sympathetic imprints to the astral body of man and are soon reflected on his features, according to the force of his habits. A man of intelligent and pa.s.sive mildness a.s.sumes the ways and inert physiognomy of a sheep; in somnambulism, however, it is no longer a person of sheep-like appearance but a sheep itself that is seen, as the ecstatic and learned Swedenborg experienced times out of number. Thus we can really change men into animals--it is all a question of will-power."

"The fatal ascendancy of one person over another is the true rod of Circe," he continues. "Almost every human countenance bears some resemblance to an animal. That is, it has the signature of a specialised instinct. Now instincts are balanced by contrary instincts, and dominated by others which are stronger. To govern sheep, the dog evokes the fear of the wolf. If you are a dog and would be loved by a pretty little cat, be metamorphosed into a cat, and you will win her. But how is the change to be accomplished? By observation, imitation, and imagination.... By polarising one's own animal light in equilibrated antagonism with an opposite pole."[181]

Paracelsus has written at length on the same aspect of the subject.

"Men have two spirits," he explains,[182] "an animal spirit and a human spirit in them. A man who lives in his animal spirit is like an animal during life, and will be an animal after death: but a man who lives in his human spirit will remain human. Animals have consciousness and reason, but they have no spiritual intelligence. It is the presence of the latter that raises man above the animal, and its absence makes an animal of what once appeared to be a man. A man in whom the animal reason alone is active is a lunatic, and his character resembles that of some animal. One man acts like a wolf, another like a dog, another like a hog, a snake or a fox, etc. It is their animal principle that makes them act as they do, and their animal principle will perish like the animals themselves. But the human reason is not of an animal nature, but comes from G.o.d, and being a part of G.o.d, it is necessarily immortal."

"The animal soul of man is derived from the cosmic animal elements,"

he writes elsewhere,[183] "and the animal kingdom is therefore the father of the animal man. If man is like his animal father, he resembles an animal; if he is like the Divine Spirit that lives within his animal elements, he is like a G.o.d. If his reason is absorbed by his animal instincts, it becomes animal reason; if it rises above his animal desires, it becomes angelic. If a man eats the flesh of an animal, the animal flesh becomes human flesh; if an animal eats human flesh, the latter becomes animal flesh. A man whose human reason is absorbed by his animal desires is an animal, and if his animal reason becomes enlightened by wisdom he becomes an angel.

"Animal man is the son of the animal elements out of which his soul was born, and animals are the mirrors of man. Whatever animal elements exist in the world exist in the soul of man, and therefore the character of one man may resemble that of a fox, a dog, a snake, a parrot, etc. Man need not, therefore, be surprised that animals have animal instincts that are so much like his own; it might rather be surprising for the animals to see that their son (animal man) resembles them so closely....

"A man who loves to lead an animal life is an animal ruled by his interior animal heaven. The same stars (qualities) that cause a wolf to murder, a dog to steal, a cat to kill, a bird to sing, etc., make a man a singer, an eater, a talker, a lover, a murderer, a robber, or a thief.

These are animal attributes and they die with the animal elements to which they belong; but the divine principle in man, which const.i.tutes him a human being, comes from G.o.d. Man should therefore live in harmony with his divine parent, and not in the animal elements of his soul."

The object of human life is therefore to realise that one is not an animal, but a G.o.d-like being inhabiting a human animal form. If man once realises what he actually is, he will be able to use his divine powers and be himself a creator of forms.[184]

The same writer describes beings which are neither animal nor man, but which have characteristics of both, and which he calls Nature-spirits or Elementals. To these he gives the names of the Gnomes, the Nymphs or Undines, the Sylphs or Sylvestres, the Salamanders, the Pigmies and the Sirens. He attributes to them curious qualities and shapes. They can, for instance, pa.s.s through matter, yet they are not spirits, rather occupying a place "between men and spirits." They are not immortal, and when they die they perish like animals. They have only animal intellects and are incapable of spiritual development. The Nymphs live in the element of water, the Sylphs in that of the air, the Pigmies in the earth, and the Salamanders in the fire. Each species moves only in the element to which it belongs. To each elemental being the element in which it lives is transparent, invisible, and respirable. The Gnomes have no intercourse with the Undines or Salamanders, nor the Sylvestres with either. Animals receive their clothing from Nature, but the spirits of Nature prepare it themselves. The Elementals belonging to the element of water resemble human beings of either s.e.x; those of the air are greater and stronger; the Salamanders are long, lean and dry; the Pigmies are of the length of about two spans, but they can extend or elongate their forms until they appear like giants. The Elementals of air and water, the Sylphs and Nymphs, are kindly disposed towards man; the Salamanders cannot a.s.sociate with him on account of the fiery nature of the element wherein they live, and the Pigmies are usually of a malicious nature.

Men live in the exterior elements and the Elementals live in the interior elements. They are sometimes seen in various shapes.