Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
Septenary Man
By J.A. Anderson
The Problem Of Hereditary
Having pointed out at some length the complex nature of man,q| or the many streams which unite to form the microcosm ofwhich he is Regent or Rector, it becomes pertinent to inquiremore particularly into the relations which these differing streams,or Principles, bear to each other and to man from the view-pointof heredity. To what extent is man indebted for his mental,moral, psychic, or physical traits or qualities to his parents, his general ancestry, his nation, and his race? And these inquiries may even broaden out into the relation between the soul and this molecular plane of matter—the influence which matter, per se, exerts; the amount of free will or choice of action which remainsto the soul once it incarnates among the passionate entities ofthis molecular plane.
The " Secret Doctrine" points out there are three distinct hereditary streams flowing into man—a statement which even a superficial examination must verify. For the evidence of purely physical heredity, or that of parent to offspring, is plainly apparent;it is susceptible of the "proof" which materialism demands whendealing with psychic or mental problems—it may be weighed andmeasured. It is equally plain, though not susceptible of the sameclass of proof, that each soul conserves and carries forward that modification of character which is the net result of its consciousexperiences. This constitutes mental heredity—the assimilated results of personal conscious experiences, which is as impossibleto be carried forward in any manner except by the personalexperiencer as it is for one to digest another's dinner. In anyone life may be plainly seen this conscious conservation, and it is equally plain that it is carried forward life after life, and is the basis for differences in so-called "natural" capacities. The third stream of heredity is purely spiritual, or "monadic," and with it we have no present concern. It represents that necessary immu table base upon which, in common with all manifested life, the human soul must rest.
The influence of nation, or race, or that exerted by the entities ensouling the "matter" of the bodies of any particular people, is tremendous, and but little appreciated by the ordinary man. Let us suppose an extreme, yet possible, instance—that of an Adept incarnating in an Navajo, or other Indian body, in order to get into closer touch with these souls the more effectually to aid them. There is but small doubt that he would at once lose all his Adept powers—would become an Indian to all outward and inner appearance. He would be a great-hearted, compassionate Indian —one who would make a lasting impress for good upon his people; but still an Indian! And having voluntarily and consciously bound himself karmically by the ties which he must perforce set up, it might be many weary lives before he could, under the law of cause and effect, win his way back to his old state of Adeptship. So powerfully do race, nation, and country modify, that the Jews, the most exclusive and race-proud people upon the earth, perhaps, quickly respond to these influences. The German, the Polish, the French, the English Jew we all know; the number of differ- ing types are only limited by the number of different races they dwell among. Therefore, the strongest soul must yield, to a large extent, to the influence of race and nation. In the case of the Indian, he would be shut out from booklore, for instance, and each nation would present differing limitations, which of necessity must modify his conscious experiences, and, to a degree, his character.
Let us enter upon the study of the problems of heredity with a clear conception of the fact that, like all other phenomena, they must fall under the action of the law of cause and effect; and, fur- ther, that every change in the evolutionary progress of any entity is due to thought. All heredity is due to thought—is the conservation of its energies. But not all heredity is due to the thought of the individual soul; much comes from foreign sources, and is the result of the karmic action and interaction between man, the unit, and collective humanity. To this latter class may be largely assigned purely physical heredity, for here the karmic relation the 1,6 SEPTENARY MAN. unit bears to parents, nation, and race is adjusted. The type ofnation, race, and family is imposed upon the individual unit fromthese respective sources.
We have seen that the plastic matter of the Linga Sharirayields to the stronger impress, whether this is self-generated orcomes from without. We have also seen the conflict which takesplace between the different elements entering into man's naturebefore the final karmic adjustment is arrived at, and the soul is placed in the prison house of the body. A careful study of thesediffering elements will make most, if not all, the puzzling problemswhich confront the student plain. For with each new elementthere enter new hereditary influences; each element brings fromits own past that conservation of its energy which is the immutable law throughout the Cosmos. And Theosophy does not segregate one factor in the Cosmos, and declare that this alone is conserved—which is the attitude of materialism towards force; butdeclares that consciousness as well as force falls under this law,and that the indestructibility of matter is but another mode ofstating the same truth.
These differing elements, which bring over from their past thatconservation of energy which is recognized as heredity, rangefrom the divine Higher Ego, upon the one hand, to the humblest"lives" which go to build up the cells of the body, upon the other.Beginning with the lowest phase of purely physical heredity, wehave to take into account the influence of the original cell, formedby the union of the sperm and ovum of the two parents, andwhich, according to Professor Weissmann,* "determines, aloneand unaided, by means of a constant segmentation and multiplication, the correct image of the future man (or animal) in his physical, mental, and psychic characteristics." This curious andpartially correct theory further supposes that such " germinal cellsdo not have their genesis at all in the body of the individual, butproceed directly from the ancestral germinal cell passed fromfather to son through long generations." It breaks hopelesslydown in failing to account for the first appearance of this everlast-ing cell, and in ignoring the necessary fusing of two "everlasting cells" at each conception—unless one accepts the Mohammedan view, that man alone is immortal while woman is not.
Without, however, digressing further, the fact remains that the multiplication by fission of this germinal cell is the method by which the entire body is built up, as far as its outward, molecular clothing is concerned. The "embryonic tissue" theory of cancer, advocated by able medical scientists, is founded upon a recognition of this genesis by fission. One can easily see the excessively minute portion of the original plasm that would be found in any one cell after millions of subdivisions, yet it is to the presence and influence of this infinitesimal element that much of physical heredity can be plainly traced.
Prominent among these is that peculiar tendency of the cells of the body to yield to certain diseases. Very few diseases are transmitted from parent to offspring in the matter of the germinal cell, and these show themselves at or even before birth. But that impress which causes the body to yield to the invasion of a microbic disease (consumption, for example), and especially at about the period of life at which the parent was affected, comes from the taint of weakness stamped upon the cells by the presence in every one of an infinitesimal portion of the germinal cell. Cancer, heart disease—in fact all those diseases which have been wrongly attributed to direct transmission—arise in this way; for it is not the disease itself which is passed over, but the tendency to yield, the inability to withstand attack, which is transmitted undoubtedly, and the only physical avenue for which is that unbroken sequence of molecular matter handed down from par- ents to offspring, and which is really " everlasting" in that it rep- resents an uninterrupted physical sequence of life since humanity first clothed itself with "coats of skin" upon this planet. Through this avenue, also, are transmitted race and family traits; the dark or light skin, the Caucasian or the Negro features, and all of those physical peculiarities which seem so fixed that they can only be modified or changed by the introduction of the blood of another race. This germinal stamp, repeated generation after generation, molds the body into the general type of race and nation, and is largely concerned with such abnormalities as six fingers or toes, etc., although even here the influence of thoughtmay often be plainly traced. It becomes of greater importanceas we descend into the kingdoms below the human, and is thecause of that repetition of form and function which obtains here,and which becomes an almost absolute law in the lowest ordersbecause mind is absent, and the entity is blindly obeying thegeneral evolutionary impulse, or that from creative Dhyan Chohanshaving in charge this particular portion of the countless workshops of nature.
The moment, however, that we pass above or beyond the influ- ence of this " everlasting" matter, we have to deal with re-embodiedor reincarnated entities, or those which constitute man's micro-cosm. All of these are mindless, and many even senseless.Therefore, they yield to the stronger impress coming from above,whether this be racial, family, personal, or individual. Here maybe classed all those qualities and traits belonging to the personality which seem to be inherited, or passed on from parent tooffspring. The same passions, appetites, and desires, the sametendency to repeat similar crimes or vices which have broughtthe descendants of criminals into such deserved ill-repute, andwhich criminal taint has been clearly identified with inheritedmental or physical unsoundness from parents—all these are tobe plainly accounted for under the law of cause and effect governing the re-embodiment of these, (man's microcosmic) associates; andchief among which is that passionate human elemental, with its desires and appetites flaming up under the light of intellectualization. But while these lower associates seem to yield to thethought of the parents in reproducing undesirable mental traits orphysical peculiarities, it is not a real yielding. The tendency toevil is in them—brought over from their own past,—and the par-ents only give the bent to its physical expression, or mark outthe particular direction in which the muddy current shall flow for the one life. That even upon this low plane the personalityinherits from its own past, is plainly proven by the innumerableinstances where the same parents have given birth to both goodand evil offspring.
In considering these lower qualities, as well as many of the THE PROBLEMS OF HEREDITY. II9 higher, there enters an important factor in imitation. Children are adepts in this faculty, as indeed the plastic conditon of their minds makes a necessity. Many a psychic trick or mental habit which would seem at the first blush to have been surely inherited arises in imitation, and is confirmed by habit. And this plastic, imitative condition of childhood can and ought to be taken advantage of to establish habits and instill principles, if even almost mechanically, which shall aid the soul in overcoming evil tendencies it has permitted to take root in its lower associates during some past life. Herein is the necessity and the justification for the State taking charge of the education of the young, and providing wise and virtuous teachers. This is one of the many duties which collective humanity owes to each of its units.
In this struggle of the soul and its personality with its physical parents it must often happen that the latter prove the weaker, and a particularly strong personality will thus succeed in impressing its own characteristics upon the new body. This fully accounts for the continual appearance of children who resemble neither parent, as well as for that hopeless riddle of materialism—its so- called " atavism," or the skipping of direct ancestors and revert- ing to an older type. Reversion to an original type in the lower kingdoms, however, is but the throwing off of an artificially established peculiarity or variation, which was at its best highly unstable and outside the domain of the true evolutionary processes. Most important of all hereditary influences, and constituting the reproach of science and the despair of materialism, are those mental traits and powers which the soul inherits from its own almost infinite past. Overwhelmingly in evidence, constituting incontrovertible proof of the existence, nature, and powers of the soul, this record, not graven in matter, and soaring above all taint of its influence, is ignored, and the appearance of the genius,—the philosopher, the poet, the inventor, and so on,—is sought to be accounted for in some unknown, unreliable, mysterious "property" of matter, which acts in defiance of the universal law of the conservation of energy; or else is attempted to be explained along mental lines by prenatal influence! The genius of Napoleon, according to these wise men of the West, arose from the fact that 120 SEPTENARY MAN. his mother was a camp-follower and his father a common soldier conditions which have obtained since wars began, but which failed in all the innumerable instances except this one ! Yet such philosophers would scorn the idea of this not being a law-governed Cosmos, but they must admit that this "law" acts in a very devious, uncertain manner. Genius defies the efforts of materialists to account for it by any appeal to paternal transmission, as it equally defies those of Idealists to explain it in the same way. The straits to which science is reduced is well exemplified in the admissions of Professor Proctor. He writes: *
"At present all that can be claimed is that some mental qualities and some artistic aptitudes have unquestionably in certain instances been transmitted, and that, on the whole, men of great distinction in philosophy, literature, science, and art are rather more likely than others to have among their relations (more or less remote) persons above the average in mental or artistic qualities. But it is not altogether certain that this superiority is even quite so great as it might be expected to be if hereditary trans- mission played no part in the matter at all." Forgetting on both sides of questions of which they in reality know nothing, the sci- entists are certainly to be commended !
There is no theory or hypothesis which will explain the differ- ences in mental traits and qualities, to say nothing of other differ- ences in character, between individuals (even twins) having the same parentage and other environments, except this which recognizes that the soul is a conscious, thinking entity, superior to andindependent of its body (only as this is necessary to relate it to molecular or physical matter), and that it returns to earth again and again to complete its evolutionary tasks here. What these tasks are has already been shown, and the nature of the soul, the place of the weld between it and the body, fully gone into. It only remains to point out that here, in the conservation of the conscious experiences of the thinking ego, or soul, is to be found the complete solution of the vexing (without this solution) problems of heredity. It is but a shallow philosophy which fancies that a portion of the Cosmos is governed by unvarying law, * Hereditary Traits. THE PROBLEMS OF HEREDITY. 12 1 while another portion is under the sway of mutable, chance-acting, or even of directly opposite laws or forces. All law, of whatever nature, is the result of some force—is its expression or mode of manifestation; and therefore mental force falls under the universal law of force conservation. There is no escape from this proposition, for that mental energies give rise to and are directly corol- lated with physical dynamics is easily susceptible of the most direct proof. Arouse emotion by thought, and, with a sufficiently delicate instrument attached to the superficies of the head, the amount of force generated may be instantly read off in units of heat. That heat, light, and electricity may be mutually trans- muted into each other has long been known, and here is the evi- dence that mental energy uses at least similar modes of motion for its physical manifestation. Therefore, we are brought face to face with the fact that, as these other forms of energy are undoubtedly conserved, mental energy must fall under the same law and be also conserved. That it is conserved in one life is evidenced by the mental growth of the individual during that life; that it is conserved life after life is equally proven by the phenomena of genius, or of its antipodes, imbecility. For if ex nihil nihilo fit, it is equally certain that " nothing can not come out of something," either, which would have to be the case if idiocy were attributable to the physical parentage through heredity.
Mental energies are conserved, and brought over life after life, by the reincarnating of the Higher Ego and its accompanying microcosm. The most important stream of heredity, then, is that which each soul inherits from its own past. Under the law of cause and effect, which is but stating in other terms the law of the eternal conservation of energy, we reap exactly that which we have sown, and so return to earth with that character, whether lovely or unlovely, which we have created, and which is but the conservation of the conscious energies of our past. National, racial, and family heredity are but the karmic relation between us and our past, and, as has been pointed out, only direct the current of our conserved energies into appropriate channels; but have no part in the creation of those energies. Therefore, the character, the abilities—the imbecility, the mediocrity, or the genius,—which we V 122 SEPTENARY MAN. possess we have inherited from ourselves, and from ourselves alone. No other theory can reconcile the circumstances of life which surround us with our outraged sense of justice. The babe born with a transmitted tendency to a disease which cripples and maims its mentality, which leads to insanity or imbecility, does not depend for such an evil fate upon chance, nor upon the acci- dent of birth. The inherited disease which cuts off a young life in the glory of its highest promise has been earned in the past is but the conservation of the energies of that past, and is not, can not be, in a law-governed, orderly Cosmos, the result of acci- dent, of blind fate, or of the caprice of some changeful or vengeful god. Under the inviolable law of cause and effect, the soul returns with its powers crippled or expanded by its own actions alone. The race, and the parents even, are those with whom it has set up karmic ties in other lives, and it must share in the herit- age of limitations of all kinds which the matter of their physical cells demands. The very forces of love or of hatred are conserved and bind the soul to the same family or persons for whom it has felt these emotions as surely as the lower forces of attraction and repulsion upon the molecular plane bind the planets in their orbits about the sun. There is no accident of birth, there is not one atom acting by chance in all this great Cosmos, but with unerr- ing certainty each cause is bound up with its effect; the two are but aspects of the same thing, and can not be separated in reality, however much so they may seem to be by time. So that man can, under the theosophic view of heredity, set about building his future with the absolute certainty that no effort will be lost, that each step he wins upon the eternal stairway of the gods will not have to be taken again; but that he, and he alone, will inherit his past, be that past evil or good.
