Compilation Dark Brothers
(OM 92) 3—Dangers arising from the subtle
forces that you ignorantly call evil; such dangers consist in attack
on the pupil by extraneous entities
on some one plane. These entities may simply be discarnate human beings; they may be the denizens of the other planes who
are nonhuman; later on,
when the student is of sufficient importance to attract notice, the attack
may come from those who deal purely with matter to the hindrance of spiritual
growth,—the black magicians,
the dark brothers, and other
forces that appear destructive. This appearance is only such when viewed
from the angle of time and in our three worlds, and is but incidental
to the fact that our Logos Himself is also evolving, and (from the standpoint
of the infinitely greater Ones Who assist Him in His development) it is
dependent upon His transitory imperfections. The imperfections of nature—as
we term them—are the imperfections of the Logos, and will eventually be
transcended.
I have therefore outlined for you this
morning the material I shall seek to impart during the coming days.
(OM 125) A still
rarer cause of obsession is definitely the work of the dark Brothers. It takes the form
of snapping the magnetic link that attaches the Ego to the lower physical
body, leaving him in his emotional and mental bodies. This
would normally result in the death
of the physical body, but
in cases such as these the dark Brother, who is to use the physical body,
enters it and makes connection
with his own cord. These cases are not common. They involve only two classes of people:—
Those who
are highly evolved and on the Path,
but who through some wilful shortcoming fail
for some one incarnation and so lay themselves open to the evil force.
Sin (as you call it) in the Personality of a disciple leads to a weakness
in some one spot, and this is taken advantage of. This type of obsession
shows itself in the transformation that is sometimes seen when a great
soul suddenly plunges on an apparent downward path, when he changes the
whole trend of his existence and besmirches a fair character with mud.
It carries with it its own punishment, for on the inner planes the disciple
looks [Page 126] on, and in agony of mind sees his lower vehicle dishonouring the fair name of its real owner and causing evil
to be said of a loved cause.
The little evolved, weakly organised, and so unable to resist.
The Kinds of Obsessing Entities.
These are too numerous to mention in detail
but I might enumerate a few.
l—Discarnate entities of a low order awaiting
incarnation, and who see, in cases one and two, their wanted opportunity.
2—Suicides, anxious to undo the deed and
to again get into contact with earth.
3—Earth-bound spirits, good and bad, who
from anxiety over loved ones, over their business affairs, or eager to
do some wrong or to undo some evil act, rush
in and take possession of cases one and two.
4—Dark
Brothers as aforesaid, who avail themselves principally of the
third and fourth
cases already cited. They require highly developed bodies, having no
use for weak or unrefined bodies. In case three the weakness is entirely
relative, due to over-accentuation of the mental vehicle.
5—Elementals and subhuman entities of
a malicious nature who rush in on the slightest opportunity and where
kindred vibration may be felt.
6—Some
of the lower devas, harmless but mischievous who, from sheer
freakishness and fun, enter another body in much the same way that a child loves to dress up.
7—Occasional
visitors from other planets
who enter certain highly evolved
bodies for purposes of their
own. This is very, very rare....
Let me now give you some of the methods
that eventually will be the first attempts at cure.
In the first type of cases, those due
to physical plane weakness, the stress of the cure will be laid first
on building up a strong physical body in both its departments, though
especially the etheric body. This will be done
in future years with the direct aid of the devas
of the shadows (the violet devas or devas of the ethers).
The strengthening of the etheric web will be aided by means of the violet light, with
its corresponding sound, administered in quiet sanitariums. Coincident
with this treatment will be the attempt to strengthen the mental body.
With the strengthening of the physical body will come longer and longer
periods of freedom from attack. Eventually the attacks will cease altogether.
When the cause is lack of co-ordination
between the physical and the emotional vehicles the first methods of cure
will be definite exorcism by the aid of mantrams
and ceremonial (such as religious ritual). Qualified persons will use
these mantrams at night when the obsessing entity
may be supposed to be absent during the hours of sleep. Those mantrams
will call the real owner back, will build a protective wall after his
re-entry and will seek to force the obsessing one to stay absent. When
the real owner has returned, the work then will be to keep him there.
Educative work during the day and protective measures at night for longer
or shorter periods will gradually eliminate the evil occupant, or unwanted
tenant, and in the course of time the sufferer will continue to procure
immunity. More anent this can later be given.
Where mental
obsession is involved the
matter is more difficult. Most of the first cures achieved in the future
will centre around the first two groups. Mental obsession must await
greater knowledge, though experimentation [Page 128] from the very first
should be undertaken. The work will have to be done mostly from the mental plane
by those who can function there freely and so contact
the Thinker in his mental body. The co-operation of the Thinker must then be procured
and a definite attack conjointly made on the obsessed physical
and emotional bodies. During
the night much of the work in the first two cases of cures will be done,
but in the latter case the Thinker
has to win back his physical and his emotional bodies as well, hence the exceeding difficulty. Death often
eventuates in these cases.
In the severing
of the magnetic cord naught
can be done as yet.
Danger from the Dark
Brothers.
I think I gave you earlier practically
all that I can as [Page 131] yet impart anent the Brothers of Darkness,
as they are sometimes termed. I only want at this point to lay emphasis
upon the fact that no danger
need be feared by the average student from this source. It is only as discipleship is approached and a man
stands out ahead of his fellows as an instrument of the White Brotherhood
that he attracts the attention of those who seek to withstand. When through
application to meditation, and power and activity in service, a man has
developed his vehicles to a point of real achievement, then his vibrations
set in motion matters of a specific kind, and he learns to work with that
matter, to manipulate the
fluids, and to control the
builders. In so doing he encroaches on the domain of those who work with
the forces of involution and thus he
may bring attack upon himself.
This attack may be directed against
any of his three vehicles
and may be of different kinds. Let me briefly point out some of the methods
employed against a disciple which are the ones which alone concern the
student of these letters:
a—Definite attack
on the physical body. All
kinds of means are employed to hinder the usefulness of the disciple through
disease or the crippling of his physical body. Not all
accidents are the result of karma,
for the disciple has usually surmounted a good deal of that type of karma
and is thus comparatively free from that source of hindrance in active
work.
b—Glamour is another method used, or the
casting over the disciple of a cloud of emotional or mental matter which
suffices to hide the real, and to temporarily obscure that which is true.
The study of the cases wherein glamour has been employed is exceedingly
revealing and demonstrates how hard it is for even an advanced disciple
always to discriminate between the real and the false, the true and the
untrue. Glamour may be either on the [Page 132] emotional or mental levels
but is usually on the former. One form employed is to cast over the disciple the shadows of the thought of
weakness or discouragement
or criticism to which he may at intervals give way. Thus cast, they loom
in undue proportion and the unwary disciple, not realising
that he is but seeing the gigantic outlines of his own momentary and passing
thoughts, gives way to discouragement, aye even to despair, and becomes
of little use to the Great Ones.
Another form is to throw into his mental
aura suggestions and ideas purporting to come from his own Master but
which are but subtle suggestions that hinder and help not. It takes a wise disciple always to discriminate between
the voice of his real Teacher and the false whispers of the masquerading
one, and even high initiates have been temporarily misled.
Many and subtle are the means used to
deceive and thereby curtail the effective output of the worker in the
field of the world. Wisely therefore have all aspirants been enjoined
to study and work at the development of viveka or that discrimination which safeguards from deception.
If this quality is laboriously built in and cultivated in all events,
big and little, in the daily life, the risks of being led astray will
be nullified.
c—A third method frequently employed is
to envelop the disciple in a thick cloud of darkness, to surround him with an impenetrable night and fog
through which he stumbles and often falls. It may take the form of a
black cloud of emotional matter, of some dark emotion that seems to imperil
all stable vibration and plunges the bewildered student into a blackness
of despair; he feels that all is departing from him; he is a prey to varied
and dismal emotions; he deems himself forsaken of all; he considers that
all past effort has been futile and that naught remains
but to die. At such times
he needs much the gift [Page 133] of viveka,
and to earnestly weigh up and calmly reason out the matter. He should
at these times remind himself that the darkness hides naught from the
God within, and that the stable centre of consciousness remains there,
untouched by aught that may betide. He should persevere until the end,—the
end of what? The end of the enveloping cloud, the point where it merges
itself into sunlight; he should pass through its length and out into the
daylight, realising that nothing can at any
time reach to and hurt the inner consciousness. God is within, no matter what transpires without. We are so apt to look out at environing circumstances,
whether physical, astral or mental, and to forget that the inmost centre
of the heart hides our points of contact with the Universal Logos.
d—Finally (for I cannot touch on all the
methods used), the means employed may be to cast a mental darkness over
the disciple. The darkness may be intellectual, and is consequently still
more difficult to penetrate, for in this case the power of the Ego must
be called in, whereas in the former frequently the calm reasoning of the
lower mind may suffice to dispel the trouble. Here, in this specific
case, the disciple will be wise if he not only attempts to call his Ego
or Higher Self for the dispelling of the cloud, but calls likewise upon
his Teacher, or even upon his Master, for the assistance that they can
give.
These are but a few of the dangers encircling
the aspirant, and I hint at them solely for the purpose of warning and
guidance, and not to cause alarm. You can here interpolate the earlier
letter with the rules that I there give for the assistance of the disciple.
Today I seek to speak to you on the powers of the Dark Brotherhood. Certain laws that govern their actions, [Page 134] certain methods
employed by them in work need to be realised and certain methods of protection apprehended and utilised. As before I have told you the danger is as yet inappreciable
to the majority, but more and more as time elapses shall we find it necessary
to teach you, the physical plane workers, how
to shield and guard yourselves from attack.
The Dark Brothers are—remember this always—brothers, erring and misguided
yet still sons of the one Father though straying far, very far, into the
land of distances. The way back for them will be long, but the mercy
of evolution inevitably forces them back along the path of return in cycles
far ahead. Anyone who over-exalts
the concrete mind and permits
it continuously to shut out the higher, is in danger
of straying on the left-hand path.
Many so stray...but come back, and then in the future avoid like errors
in the same way as a child once burnt avoids the fire. It is the man
who persists in spite of warning and of pain who eventually becomes a brother of darkness. Mightily fights
the Ego at first to prevent
the Personality so developing, but the deficiencies of the causal body
(for forget not that our vices are but our virtues misused) result in
a lop-sided causal body, over-developed in some direction and full of
great gulfs and gaps where virtues should be.
The dark
brother recognises no unity with his species, only seeing in them people
to be exploited for the furtherance of his own ends.
This then, on a small scale, is the mark of those who are being used by
them wittingly or unwittingly. They respect no person, they regard all
men as fair prey, they use everyone to get their own way enforced, and
by fair means or foul they seek to break down all opposition and for the
personal self acquire that which they desire.
The dark brother considers not what suffering he may
cause; he cares not what
agony of mind he brings upon an opponent; he persists in his intention
and desists not from the hurt of any man, woman or child, provided that
in the process his own ends
are furthered. Expect absolutely
no mercy from those opposing the Brotherhood of Light.
On the physical
plane and on the emotional plane,
the dark brother has more power than the Brother of the Light,—not more
power per se but more apparent power, because the White Brothers choose not to exert Their
power on those two planes, as do the Dark Brothers. They could exert
Their authority but They choose to refrain, working with the powers of
evolution and not of involution. The elemental forces to be found on
these two planes are manipulated by two factors.
a—The inherent forces of evolution that
direct all on to eventual perfection. The White Adepts co-operate in
this.
b—The Dark
Brothers who occasionally employ these elemental forces to wreak their
will and vengeance on all opponents. Under their control
work sometimes the elementals
of the earth plane, the gnomes and the elemental essence as found in evil
form, some of the brownies, and the fairy folk of colours brown, grey and sombre-hued.
They cannot control the devas of high development, nor the fairies of colours
blue, green and yellow, though a few of the red fairies can be made to
work under their direction. The water elementals (though not the sprites or sylphs) move on occasion to their assistance, and in the control
of these forces of involution they at times damage the furtherance of
our work.
Oft too the Dark Brother masquerades as an agent of the
light, oft he poses as a
messenger of the gods, but for your assurance I would say that he who
acts under the guidance of the Ego will have clear vision, and will escape
deception.
At this time their power is ofttimes mighty. Why? Because so much exists as yet in the
Personalities of all men that respond to their vibration, and so it is
easy for them to affect the bodies of men. So few of the races, comparatively speaking, have as
yet built in the higher vibration that responds to the key-note of the
Brotherhood of Light, who move practically entirely on the two highest levels (or the atomic and sub-atomic subplane) of
the mental, emotional and physical planes. When moving on these subplanes
the attacks of elementals
on lower planes may be felt but effect no harm, hence the necessity of pure living and controlled pure emotions and elevated thought.
You will notice that I said that the power
of the Dark Brotherhood is dominant apparently on the physical and emotional
planes. Not so is it on the
mental, which is the plane
on which the Brothers of the Light work. Mighty dark magicians may
be located on the lower mental levels, but on the higher, the White Lodge
dominates, the three higher subplanes being the levels that They beg the evolving sons of
men to seek; it is Their region, to which all must strive and aspire.
The Dark Brother impresses his will on human beings (if analogous vibration
exists) and on the elemental kingdoms of involution. The Brothers of
Light plead as pleaded the Man of Sorrows for an erring humanity to rise
upward to the light. The Dark Brother retards progress and shapes all
to his own ends; the Brother of Light bends every effort to the hastening
[Page 137] of evolution
and—foregoing all that might be His as the price of achievement—stays
amid the fogs, the strife, the evil and the hatred of the period if, in
so doing, He may by all means aid some, and (lifting them up out of the
darkness of earth) set their feet upon the Mount, and enable them to surmount
the Cross.
And now what methods
may be employed to safeguard the worker in the field of the world? What can be done to ensure his safety in the present
strife and in the greater
strife of the coming centuries?
1—A realisation
that purity of all the vehicles is the prime essential. If a Dark Brother gains control over any man it but
shows that that man has in his life some weak spot. The door whereby
entrance is effected must be opened by the man himself; the opening whereby
malignant force can be poured in must be caused by the occupant of the vehicles. Therefore the need of scrupulous cleanliness of the physical body, of clean steady emotions permitted in the emotional
body, and of purity of thought in the mental body. When this is so, co-ordination will be present in
the lower vehicles and the indwelling Thinker himself permits no entrance.
2—The elimination
of all fear. The forces
of evolution vibrate more rapidly than those of involution and in this
fact lies a recognisable security. Fear
causes weakness; weakness causes a disintegration; the weak spot breaks
and a gap appears, and through that gap evil force may enter. The factor
of entrance is the fear of the man himself, who opens thus the door.
3—A standing firm and unmoved, no matter
what occurs. Your feet may be bathed in the mud of earth, but your head
may be bathed in the sunshine of the higher regions. Recognition of the
filth of earth involves not contamination.
4—A Recognition of the use of common-sense
and the application of this common-sense to the matter in hand. Sleep
much and, in sleeping, learn to render the body positive; keep busy on
the emotional plane and achieve the inner calm. Do
naught to overtire the body physical,
and play whenever possible. In hours of relaxation comes the adjustment
that obviates later tension.
(OM 192) It is on
the misuse of this knowledge that much of what we call black
art or evil magic is based.
By means of invocation and forms the Dark Brothers (or those who tamper
with what you ignorantly term the powers of evil) tap forces connected
with dark intelligences in high places. Thus they set
in motion happenings on the physical plane
that have their origination in the dark mysterious caves of cosmic evil as found within our solar system. Equally so, it is
possible to tap the still greater forces of light and good and to make
application of them on the side of evolution.
(RI 348) I would point out also that even
the black magician possesses these qualities, for they are the sine qua non of all magical art, both
black and white; the black magician passes through the door of initiation as it opens
twice for the first two initiations.
He passes through on the strength
of his will and his character accomplishments and because the group-conscious aspect of the soul is
active in him as in his brother seeking affiliation with the Great White
Lodge. The love aspect is, however, lacking in the black magician. Forget
not that all is energy and there is nothing else. The energy which [Page
349] is an aspect of the soul and which we call magnetic attraction (t
he group-building quality) he shares with the spiritual aspirant. He
is essentially group conscious,
and though his motives are separative, his methods
are those of the group, and these he can get only from the soul.
You see again another reason why the first and second initiations are not regarded by the Lodge of Masters as major initiations.
Only the third is so regarded, because at that initiation the entire personality life
is flooded with energy coming from the Spiritual Triad, via the "sacrifice
petals" of the will and purpose aspect of the soul. To this type of energy the black magician is not responsive.
He can and does respond to the knowledge—most ancient and hardly won—stored
up in the "knowledge petals" of the souls he can appropriate
and utilise the energy of attraction (erroneously
called love by some students) stored up in the "love petals"
of the soul, but he cannot respond to and use the energy of divine love,
working out in the divine Plan which controls all knowledge and converts
it into wisdom, and which actuates and clarifies the motive which brings
loving magnetic attraction into action and which we call true group consciousness
and group cohesion. It is at this point that the two ways—of darkness
and of light—become widely divergent. Until the third initiation is taken, glamour may condition
the attitude of those seeking
to understand the life of a man upon the Path, and they may mistake the
spurious for the real. The black magician leads a disciplined life, analogous
to that of the spiritual aspirant; he practices purity for his own safeguarding
and not in order that he may become a channel for the energy of light;
he works with power (the power of magnetic attraction) with and in groups,
but he does this for his own
selfish ends and for the fulfillment of his own
ambitious purposes. But
at the third initiation there comes to the true spiritual initiate the
revelation which is the reward of perseverance and purity rightly motivated—the
revelation of the divine purpose, as the soul records it in terms of the hierarchical
plan, though not yet in terms of the Monad. To this purpose and [Page
350] to the loving Will of God (to use a trite Christian phrase) the black brother cannot respond; his aims are different. You
have here the true meaning of the oft-used
and misunderstood phrase, "the parting of the ways."
But both groups of aspirants (the black
and the white) stand before the door of initiation and take the needed
steps to open it on two similar occasions.
Both overcome glamour after the second initiation, and see their way clearly ahead; but their goals emerge
as widely different; one treads the broad way which leads
ever deeper into matter and materialism, into darkness and "black power"; the other leads to the straight
and narrow way, to the razor-edged path which leads into light and life.
One group has never freed
itself from the principles which governed
the first solar system. They were principles entirely related to matter and
substance, and were at that time and in that period (so remote that the
number of years of distance can be stated only in super-astronomical figures)
the conditioning factors for
the initiation of the time.
Certain units of humanity—then existent—were so completely conditioned
by these material principles and so deliberately unready for moving on
to the comprehension of another set of principles (more expressive of
the divine nature) that they
remained of "fixed and selfish material purpose"
and a planned distortion of the divine will was intelligently created
by them. You have here a hint as to the nature of evil and a clue to
a part (though only a part) of the mystery to be noted in the statement
that evil and good are reverse aspects of the same one reality, and evil
is that good which we should have left behind, passing on to greater and
more inclusive good. Forget not that the black magicians of today were the initiates of a previous
solar system. (here
it is in a nutshell, the black brothers of the 2nd order (those
who take the 2nd initiation but are blocked at the 3rd) are
drawn exclusively from the group of 3rd ray Monads (the failures)
from the last Solar system)
When the door of initiation is ready to open for the third time, the parting of the ways takes place. Some
follow selfish intention
and the fixed determination to remain with the separative
condition of matter; and
to others, the divine will is clearly impressed upon them and becomes
the motivating power in their lives. It was under instructions from the
Great White Lodge on Sirius that the door remains [Page 351] closed the
third time to the dark brothers. Evil, as we understand it, has absolutely
no place on Sirius.
To the black
magician, at this third opportunity,
the door of initiation presents an insuperable barrier and obstacle; to
the true spiritual neophyte, the door connotes "overcoming."
We shall not consider further
the approach of the black brothers to that door,
but shall confine ourselves to a consideration of the initiations of the
Great White Lodge.
(CF 992) ……..The
few who do not do so in this manvantara are the "failures" who have to continue the struggle at a later
date……….In the case of the "failures" the Ego severed itself from the personality or lower self, entailing a setback for a lesser period, but still
having opportunity within the system. (within the life of the solar system)
(CF 992) A tiny percentage wilfully refuse
(presumably after
the 2nd and before the 3rd initiation) to "pass on," and they
become the true "black magicians." For them the end is ever the same, first,
severance of the Ego from
the Monad, entailing a wait
for many aeons until another
solar system has its being……………
Second, a cycle of existence, spent
in unlimited evil, and dependent upon the vitality
of the severed egoic body and
its innate persistence. These are the ordinary "lost souls"
spoken of in the Secret Doctrine.1 If students will study these conditions,
and will extend the same concept to an earlier
and more matured solar system,
they will get [Page 993] some light upon the problem of the origin
of evil in this solar system.