In this most unseal book Geoffrey Hodson, one of the greatest occultists of our times, gives a fascinating account of evolution as it relates to a kingdom of nature parallel hosts, Known in the East as the Kingdom of the Deva-s or ‘the Shining Ones’.
Every religion has its angels and archangels, Legends, myths and folklore of every country throughout the world and in all age speaks of angels and of mischievous imps which delight in playing pranks on human beings. Yet very litter specific information is available about them or their function and activities.
The kingdom of the Gods is based on knowledge revealed in occult books like The Secret Doctrine of H. P. Blavatsky and clairvoyant investigations by occultists like Annie Besant, C.W. Lead beater and the author himself. As to the proof of the existence of these invisible beings the author points out that, while there can be no demonstrable proof of the fruits of mystical experience, test by personal research is possible book is in part a record of my own findings’.
The graphic descriptions of the various Deva-s-of water, of fire, of mountains and seas, of trees and plants, of music, of individual nations-with the colorful illustrations of their forms as seen by clairvoyant vision, lead one unconsciously into a wonderful experience of the ‘comradeship of the angels’.
Geoffrey Hodson was born and educated in England. During the First World war be served with distinction in the British Army and afterwards became actively interested in Theosophical studies. He carried out occult research with medical men. Physicists, anthropologists and archeologists.
For some sixty years Mr. Hodson lectured for the Theosophical Society, speaking, in America, Europe, South Africa, India, New Zealand, Australia and the Far East. He was the author of about forty Theosophical and other books, dealing with such topics as meditation, the spiritual life, health and disease, and the life and powers of the occultist. He carried evolution.
Mr. Hodson was four times Director of Studies at the School of the Wisdom at the International Headquarters of the Theosophical Society, Ayer, and Chennai.
He was awarded the Subba Row Medal in 1954 for his contributions to Theosophical literature.
The successful study of the subject of the Angelic Hosts restores to its essential monotheism every apparel to polytheistic religion. At the heart of every great world Faith is the concept of an Absolute, Unknowable, Infinite and Unchanging Source and Foundation. From this, at regular intervals, emanates the potentiality of divine Ideation as the purest abstraction. This is the reality behind the One God, however formalized, of all religions and especially of the esotericism of the Ancient Mysteries. At this stage in the process of emanation from the Absolute, unity alone exists. No later changes, no series of successive emanations from this One Alone, alter the fact that the manifested Source is a Monad.’
By reflection of itself in the eternal, pre-cosmic, virginal Space, the One is said thereupon to establish a dyad! Which is positive-negative, male-female, potential father-mother in one Existence. It should be noted that not an actual but a reflected “Second Person” has now come into existence, or rather is conceived, after which numerical law assumes supreme rule of the process of emergence or emanation and objective appearance of creative Gods in multiplicity.
The positive and negative aspects of the One interact interiorly, as an androgyne, to produce an objective Third. This Third is not regarded as a self-separate unit, an independent existence. Monad, dyad, triad, remain as atrifunctioning unit, a three-in-one, behind and yet within the veil of pre-cosmic Substance.
An irresistible process has now been initiated. An omnipotent force has begun to emanate from Absolute Existence. The Three-in-one is propelled, as it were, towards objectivity and finiteness. The Triple God awakes and opens Its single eye. The triangle of light emits rays. These are inevitably seven in number. Sub-rays shine from them, each an intelligent Power, each a creative Logos,’ each an Archangel of spiritual light.
Universal, divine Ideation becomes focused creative thought. The single, all-inclusive Idea passes through the phases of duality, triplicity and sevenfold expression into the almost infinite diversity potentially present in primordial thought. The purely spiritual has thus become manifest as the purely mental, which is formative and, by the ceaseless action of the propellant force, projects its Ideations as the Archetypes of Cosmoi, Solar Systems and all that they ever produce.
Numerical law, time in succession, evolutionary and evolutionary processes, replaces spaceless eternity. Divine thought sets up time-space conditions and in them produces material forms which increase in density until a limit has been reached. Thereafter, the whole process is reversed until limited time and space disappear into eternity, thus bringing the great cycle io a close.
The Angelic Hosts may be regarded as the active, creative Intelligences and form-builders of all objective creation. They are manifestations of the One, the Three, and the seven and all Products thereof. From dawn to eve of Creative Day, they are ceaselessly in action as directors, rectors, designers, artists, producers and builders, ever subservient to and expressive of the One Will, the One Substance and the One Thought.
In the exoteric aspects of ancient Faiths, these Beings, as also the underlying principles, the laws, the processes and the modes of manifestation of the creative force are personified, named and given traditional forms. Esoterically, however, these personifications were in no sense regarded as realities but rather as thought forms and symbols of major creative Powers and Beings. These symbols were partly invented by the Initiated Teachers of earlier peoples as aids to the masses for whom abstractions could possess no reality. Generations of worship gave to them durable concrete shapes in the mental world which served as links between the human mind and the realities which the symbols represented. These symbolic figures also served as channels through which the true Intelligences could be invoked and pour down their beneficent influence, enlightening truths and occult forces for the helping of mankind.
These are the exoteric Gods of all religions, not to be confused with the Hosts of the Logos, the Archangels of the Face, the Sephiroth, the Angels of the Presence, the Mighty Spirits before the Throne, the physically invisible yet omnipresent manifestos and engineers of the one propellant Power by which alone all things are made and without which nothing was made that was made. From nature spirit to Cherubim, all these Intelligences make manifest—without the intervention of individuality—the One Divine Thought.
This is the foundation upon which this book is constructed. This is the idea underlying all its contents. This, I believe, is the key to a subject so vast and so important that complete comprehension and exposition of it are impossible to the purely human mind. Continued neglect of these teachings of the Arcane Wisdom by a race which is being led by science into knowledge and practical use of the one Creative Force—cosmic, solar and planetary electricity—of which Angelic Hosts are the chief and subordinate engineers, can lead to disastrous consequences, of which the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atom bombs might possibly be regarded as foreshadowing.
This work appears as man is thus learning to release physically, and under his control, atomic energy. Despite my great limitations of knowledge and power of exposition, it is my hope that, with other works on the subject of greater merit, this book may lead to the investigation and ultimate discovery of and reverence for the noumena behind phenomena and that One Presence and Power within which all things live and move and have their being.
The safeguards which can prevent man from self-destruction by the natural forces which he is now learning to employ are reverence, probity, morality. These qualities are amongst the greatest of the needs of modern man as he seeks world confidence, world security and the freedom from fear by which alone he can advance into an age rich with promise of lofty human achievement, material, cultural, intellectual and spiritual.
If, in addition, there is a single idea which emerges from a study of the Gods and an attempted presentation of the fruits of such study, that idea seems to me to be: “Man can know the facts. Faith need not be blind.” Man is endowed with all the faculties necessary for complete knowledge both of himself and the visible and invisible universe. Extended vision is one of the required faculties. By its development and use, the boundaries of human knowledge may be gradually advanced until noumenon and phenomenon are fully investigated and ultimately known as one.
This fact is of importance, for at heart man is a seeker, an investigator, an explorer. Human life is a search, first for the ponderables that they may be possessed and give pleasure and security, and later that they may be shared. At last, shattered and frustrated by the impermanence of things tangible and visible, man turns towards the imponderables. Especially does he seek conviction founded upon immovable reality.
Guided by the methods and the findings of successful explorers, I have also begun to search. Whilst I think I have found out what the ultimate discovery is, its attainment is obviously, as yet, very far off. En route, certain experiences have been passed through, certain intermediate discoveries made. Since they seem to be interesting and useful in themselves and also have their place in reaching ultimate truth, I share them, hoping that they may inform and help others who similarly seek.
Knowledge when substantiated is valuable for its own sake. It is still more valuable if it can be applied to human welfare. The present approach of science to the idea that the universe is the product of creative thought and purpose renders valuable knowledge concerning the realm of universal mind in which, according to occult investigation, creative Intelligences are active.
Modern medicine proclaims the causes of many human illnesses to be in the mind and seeks to cure them by the correction of mental disabilities. Knowledge of the inhabitants of the plane of mind and of the agents which direct formative and corrective thought currents can, in consequence, be very helpful in healing the sick.
Information upon these subjects is offered in this book.
What then is the ultimate discovery, the Himalayan summit? At the heart of the Cosmos there is One. That One has its sanctuary and shrine in the heart of every human being. The first major discovery is of this Presence within, “the Inner Ruler Immortal seated in the heart of all beings.” (Bhagavad-Gita) Ultimately identity with the One Aloen, fully tenacious absorption for evermore in the eternal, self- existent ALL, is attained. This is the goal.
As a mountaineering expedition includes geologists, botanists, surveyors and photographers who observe for the service of others the nature of the country, the foothills and the higher slopes leading to the summit, so the climber in the mountains of truth may usefully observe and describe the phenomena of the levels through which he passes. This book is a record of such observations.
Admittedly, knowledge concerning the lesser and Greater Gods is not essential to the rediscovery of the inseparable unity and the identity of man-spirit and God-spirit which is the goal. Admittedly, also, unless used as a stepping stone from the unreal to the Real, for some temperaments, undue interest in external phenomena, physical or super physical, can prove a distraction.
The controlled mind is, however, capable of directing its attention where it will and a controlled mind is essential to success in the Great Search. Few major attainments stand alone. Nearly all are led up to by preceding successes and discoveries, which at the time were not necessarily regarded as leading to a greater truth. As long, therefore, as the ultimate goal is remembered, a study of the results of intermediate phases of illumination can assist, encourage, inspire and instruct.
The pure mystic, absorbed in contemplation of the Eternal One and in the ecstasy of union, is no longer interested in the external. Once the capacity for contemplation has been attained, naught else is needed. One-pointedly the exalted devotee pursues his path to the lotus feet of the Immortal One.
Men are not all mystics, though all must one day attain to the mystical union, each following his own road to bliss which there are said to be seven. Upon one of them, svecia11y, and possibly upon others, direct knowledge of the roes and Intelligences of Nature and acquirement of the faculty of co-operating with them in what is sometimes called ‘r Great Work can be of much value. If, therefore, the contents of such a work as this seem to some minds to be irrelevant to the true purpose of the human life and the true work of the human quest, I would draw attention to the words of a Great One: “However men approach Me, even do I welcome them, for the path men take from every side s Mine.” (Bhagavad-Gita, iv, 11, translated by A. Besant.).
One day’s on a hillside at the edge of a beech forest in a secluded valley in the West of England, I was seeking ardently to enter the Sanctuary of Nature’s hidden life, for me the heavens suddenly became filled with light. My consciousness was caught up into a realm radiant with that light which never was on land or sea. Gradually I realized the presence of a great Angelic Being, who was doubtless responsible for my elevated state. From his mind to mine there began to flow a stream of ideas concerning the life, the force and the consciousness of the universe and their self-expression as angels and as men. This description is not strictly accurate, however, because during such communication, the sense of duality was reduced to a minimum. Rather did the two centers of consciousness, those of the angel and myself, become almost co-existent; temporarily forming one” being” within the stream of ideas arose. This, I believe, is essentially true of all interchanges which occur a bove the level of the formal mind, and especially at those of spiritual Wisdom and spiritual will. In the latter, duality virtually disappears and oneness, uttermost interior unity, alone remains.
Daily entering that realm of light, I found that the great ocean of the life, the force and the soul of the universe had its myriad denizens. These are the Spiritual Selves of men and Super-men and vast company of the Angelic Hosts. Of which the Benign who “addressed” me was a member. He was supernally beautiful, majestic, godlike, and impassive and impersonal to the degree. As teacher to pupil, he began to tell of-and to enable me, with gradually increasing clarity, to perceive-the Angelic Hosts, their Orders and digress. He told of their communication with men, as in ancient Greece, Egypt and Eastern lands, their place in Nature as Ministers of the Most High and of that great dawn of creation when, metaphorically, as the Morning Stars they sang together and the Sons of god they shouted for joy. He spoke of the creative as the composition and performance of a celestial symphony, of the Logos as Divine Musician and of His universe as a manifestation of celestial harmony. He told of the great Gods who assimilate the mighty creative chords in their primordial potency and ready them through all their ranks from the highest spiritual worlds to the realm of everlasting archetypes, the great sound-forms upon and by which the physical universe is modeled. Therefore, he said, the music of the Creative “Word” passes on to the lower words, where lesser Hosts formatively echo and re-echo it, thereby building all Nature’s varied forms. Since the Great Artist of the Universe perpetually creates, the Creative Symphony is ever being composed and ever performed. Angels and men live amidst celestial celestial harmonies, the everlasting music of the spheres.
Such, in part, is the vision which once I had and which still lives me. With it there has come the knowledge that, in their real existence, the Gods who once were so near to men were none other than the Angelic Hosts, that throughout the great racial darkness they have still been near, though unperceived, and that the time approaches when again the Major Creative Powered and Beings, the laws by which Cosmos emerges from chaos and the place of humanity in the vast process of divine manifestation will become apparent to mankind. For that day, it was intimated, man may well prepare. Ugliness must be banished, war must be outlawed, prepare. Ugliness must be banished, war must be outlawed, brotherhood must reign, and beauty must be enshrined in human hearts and revealed through human lives. Then to a humanity united in one fraternity the High Gods will reveal their immortal loveliness and lead their aid in building a new world in which all men may perceive and serve the Supreme as Beauty and as Truth.
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