[Page 3] THESE remarks are intended to elucidate, in a fragmentary manner, the meaning and in some cases the derivation of the Biblical words used to express the several principles in man." Some of these notes have been previously read before the Blavatsky Lodge, and the interest they gave rise to has induced me to extend them. We who are here, were all born and bred in this so-called Christian country, and have therefore received no teaching when young which threw any light upon any other religion than the Protestantism of this country, which is a system professedly secondary in point of time and of parentage to the Jewish Theocracy, as taught in the Old Testament of the Hebrews, and especially in the Pentateuch.

As we were then so exclusively nurtured on Christian doctrine, and were so ignorant of all the other of the world's great religions, it is very desirable that now we have claimed the right to call ourselves Theosophists, or searchers after the Divine — the Unknown God, careless of where we may find Divinity, so long as that we attain to, be really of the Highest — it is very desirable, I repeat, that we should look back on the Bible, which we have discarded as an infallible standard, and search into it, and seek for the views it really presents to us concerning the constitution of man, apart from the doctrinal interpretation now given to them. As Theosophists, we have at any rate commenced a study of a most philosophic theory of man's composition, his origin and his destiny. Let us, from our now independent standpoint, investigate the views held by the Bible writers. But to be as honest and fair to the Book we have laid aside as a touchstone of absolute truth, as we believe we are to Theosophy, let us remember that we must not expect the Bible language or teaching to be of high philosophic cast; it must have been written at various times, and by various authors — unless, indeed, it be verbally inspired by the one great Divine Being, and he were the Yod-Heh-Vau-Heh, Jehovah of Israel — but whenever, or by whom written, it was intended for the people, for the ordinary people, and not only for the learned, for the Rabbis, the teachers.

Hence it will be necessary for us to make some allowance in this [Page 4] respect, and not to draw too strongly the contrast with our present Theosophic scheme, which is of so high and abstract a character as to be beyond the grasp of the unlearned, even of our own day. I mean, of course, the complete philosophic scheme; its elements could no doubt be taught to the people as easily as the present orthodox system. Conversely, if our review of the Bible scheme of man's constitution demonstrate a confusion of thought and expression therein, we must be led to perceive how much more philosophic and hence presumably more correct is the view of man's constitution supplied by our late lamented teacher, H. P. Blavatsky. Considerable difficulty arises in these somewhat abstruse studies from the imperfections of language. Neither our present English tongue, nor the Latin of mediaeval Europe, in which the Bible was first printed, nor the Greek in which the New Testament was originally written, nor the Hebrew in which the Old Testament books have been handed down to us, possess in any degree the characters of a philosophical language. The very ancient Sanskrit from which the Theosophic scheme has descended to us, possesses on the other hand a much more extended choice of words of metaphysical import, and in that language almost alone, can, I am informed, the complete and complex Eastern scheme which explains and illustrates the finely interwoven principles of man, be adequately explained.

But the good workman spends no long time in complaining of his tools, so I will proceed at once to consider those Bible words which refer to the body, soul, spirit, intellect and passions of man considered as a person or individual.

The Hebrew Bible then is the original; Greek, Latin and English translations are open to us for comparison. But it has appeared to me that even if the original books did enshrine any definite views, they have been marred by the other versions so much and so often that the conclusion is forced upon me that the translators had ideas of their own, and meant to make their translations illustrate them, rather than state the ideas of the originals. This system of manipulation obviously flourished at several periods of Bible editing, and some evidence of its existence during this decade even, might be found in the labours of the late revisers of the Old and New Testaments.

It will be most convenient to consider the several Bible words relating to man in our Theosophic order as near as possible, and with that object first to consider the lower quaternary — material body, shadow or astral form, life principle, animal soul ; and subsequently to investigate words demonstrating the higher principles — mind or human soul, spiritual soul, and divine spirit.

To commence with the material body of man, the Hebrew name is [Page 5] Guph, or by letters GUP and also GU, GUIT, GUPT, from the root GUH or GUP. Yet the word Nephesh, animal soul, to which we shall come presently, is also translated "body". This word Guph becomes in the Latin version — corpus, and in the Greek — soma. Examples of Guph or Guit as body are found in the quotations: I. Samuel xxxi. 10, " they fastened his body (the body of Saul) to the wall of Bethshan" ; also in I. Chronicles x. 12, "the body of Saul"; and again in .Proverbs x. 13, " a rod is for the back (of the body) of him that is void of understanding". So that with regard to the physical body of man, there is no difficulty.

The Astral Body comes next in order for our consideration. That any such part of man exists at all is an almost entirely novel idea to the majority of English people; for according to Christian orthodoxy the Bible contains no allusion to the Linga Sharira or Astral Form, although this human principle has always been recognised by the Eastern and Western schools of Magic and Occultism, and Pneumatology, and a notice of it is also found in Germanic and Celtic folk lore, as in the title Doppel-ganger of the Germans. But it is my wish to suggest to you, and to argue that two words in the Hebrew Old Testament were originally intended to refer to this Shadow Form or prototype underlying a man's physical and material body. These words are Tzelem and Temunah. Tzelem occurs variously according to the construct state, as TzL, TzLM, or TzLMA, and in Hebrew dictionaries is rendered "shadow" or "image". The word Temunah is from the root MNH or MIN, meaning "resemblance" or "species, and is translated shadow, similitude, or image. Now the Theosophic conception is, that for a man the Astral Form is first produced, and that the material body is then built or moulded on to and into this Astral Form. Now, if we believe the Bible authors possessed any of the true history of the origin and constitution of man, and if we believe our Eastern doctrine to be the true one, we should expect to find in the ancient Hebrew writings some reference, however veiled, to the moulding of the material human body upon an ethereal or more diffuse framework, its predecessor.

NOW in the book of Genesis, chapter I. and verse 26, we may find just this sort of allusion, with what is conceived to be some mistranslation. This is from the so-called Elohistic version of the Creation narrated in the first chapter and concluding at the end of verse 3 of chapter ii. We find "And God said let us make man in our image, after our likeness". Here the word God is translated from the word Elohim, ALHIM, which is a curiously compounded word — plural — and yet containing both male and female suggestions: for AL is God, singular and male, Eloah, ALH is God, single and female, and IM is a common masculine plural form.

The word image here is Tzelem, and likeness is Demooth, DMUT, a word often used with tzelem. In the English version note that the singular [Page 6] word " God " is used, but the plural pronoun "our" ; a halting between two opinions, as if the intended meaning were — when I awake or reincarnate in the image or form of Thee, who art One above me, i.e., more divine: for the individuality, the Manasic entity, has some sort of astral body or aura in every stage of existence, however much above our present mode of life.

This root Tzel reappears in the Hebrew word Tzelmuth, meaning death, and the "shadow of death": Tzel, shadow; and Muth, death; in the Latin Vulgate — "umbra mortis", in Greek — "skia thanatou". This is a curious coincidence if there be no Hebrew recognition of the astral, because the astral, like the physical body, is subject to similar change at death.

Consider next the formation of Eve, the first female, in Genesis ii. 21-23: here we have the so-called Jehovistic narrative, in which the Hebrew Divine names are Jehovah Elohim, IHVH ALHIM, and these are rendered into the English words "Lord God ".

"And he took one of his (Adam's) ribs" — "and of the rib which the Lord God had taken from Adam, made He a woman". Now this word rib suggests the idea side; the Hebrew word is TzLO, Tzaddi, Lamed, and Ayin, which has a suspicious resemblance to the word TzLM, a. shadow form.

Consider next that Eastern occultism teaches that there is a curious connection between the spleen, an organ lying on the left side, and the astral form — clairvoyants report having seen the astral form ooze out from the left side. Have we not here a blind, an intentional Hebrew blind for purposes of concealment ?

The word Temunah is used for the likeness of any thing, as in Exodus xx. 4, or as in Numbers xii. 8, "the similitude of the IHVH"; or in Psalm xvii. 15, "I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness", meaning the likeness of Deity.

The next principle to be noticed is the Prana or Life essence, the Vitality; that power resident in the astral vehicle which animates the physical body, and keeps it in action and living existence. Perhaps the word which most definitely represents this principle in the Hebrew Bible is ChlH, or MChlH. Chi means living: Chiah, life. ChlYA, an animal alive. These words become in Greek, Zoe; and in Latin, Vita. For example, we find the word Chiah in Genesis i. 30, " wherein there is life"; in Latin, "anima vivens", it occurs again in Genesis ii. 7, "the breath of life", where the Latin version reads "halitus vitae"; and again, Genesis i. 20, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life". In the Chaldee book of Daniel xii. 2, " many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake to everlasting life"; in Latin vita is again used — "Vitam eternam".

Lastly, note Ezekiel i. 20, "the spirit of life was in the wheels". Here [Page 7] the reference to active life energy is not to "man" but to the extraordinary living creatures, the symbols of divine power; in this case the Latin translations give " spiritus vitalis", the living or vital essence.

Coming next to Kama, which connotes self-preservation, the passion to live, and the passions of life; the Animal Soul, which prompts us to preserve life; we find that one Hebrew word is very constantly applied, and this is NPSh or Nephesh. Yet it will be almost impossible to find preserved in the Hebrew any clear distinction between the animal soul and the life, for Nephesh and Chiah are often used in conjunction, and often one for the other.

Another word also is found presenting the same ideal; but it is used in conjunction with Chiah, and this is Neshamah, in the form "Nesnamath Chiim"; as in. Genesis ii. 7, we read: — "the Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul"'. Here the former phrase is Neshamath Chiim and the latter Nephesh Chiah.

The root word is NPSh, meaning "he breathed", i.e., lived. NShM is also a root word, meaning "he breathed ". (All Hebrew words may be traced to root-words of two or three letters.)

Samuel Frey, in his Dictionary, 1815, gives a variety of translations for Nephesh : — halitus, breath; vita, life; animal, living creature; caro, flesh; anima, animal soul; cor, heart; appetentia, desire, appetite; and for NShM, anima and spiritus, animal soul and the spirit of life.

Nephesh becomes in Greek, Psuche; hence Psyche, the vital soul, as opposed to body, but with no idea of "mind". The learned Calmet in his "Dictionary of the Bible" writes: " the word soul — nephesh — is very equivocal, in the stile of the Hebrews, it is taken for the soul which animates man, the soul which animates beasts, for a living person, for life, for death, for desire, love, inclination, and for the life of a beast".

In the dictionary of the learned and orthodox Parkhurst, we find a confession of sad confusion under the word Nephesh. He gives as meanings; —

1. Breath, as Job xli. 12, 21. .
2. Animal body, as Genesis ix. 4.
3. The blood. Psalm cxli. 8.
4. A dead body. Lev. xxi. i, Numbers xix., II
5. An animal that has breathed. Lev. vi. 6.
6. A living creature. Gen. i. 20.
7. Living men. Gen. xii. 5.
8. The self of IHVH, the God of the Hebrews, by which He swore. Amos vi. 8.
9. Fish. Isaiah xix. 10.
10. Appetite and desire. Gen. xxiii. 8.
11. The spiritual Soul Gen. xxxv. 18 (or rather what we should call the Manasic ray). [Page 8]

But to demonstrate in the clearest manner the entirely fanciful nature of the English translation of the Hebrew Nephesh, let us turn to Leviticus xvii.II. Here we read, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh atonement: by reason of the life" (Rev. Ver.). In this curious statement of doctrine we find the word Nephesh three times. First it is translated "life of the flesh". Secondly, "soul". Thirdly, " life ".

You may read, say the Revisers of the Old Testament, the first word "life", as "soul of the flesh"; and the last word "life " as "soul".

The Latin version more reasonably puts the word "anima", or animal soul, every time, and leaves you to make any sense you can out of it. More confusion still arises from the use of Nephesh, in the sense of "person", or " any body"; but worst of all is, of course, the fact that the translators have in four places in the books of Leviticus and Numbers considered this word, so typical of the living energy, to mean "dead body". (Lev. xix. 28, xxi. I ; Numbers v. 2, ix. 6, xix. II.)

The Hebrew word Nephesh then is variously allotted to Body; possibly to Astral Form; to Prana, or life; to Kama; and probably to Buddhi also, at least Parkhurst says it is applied to the "spiritual soul".

The next problem is supplied by the word Ruach, RUCh this is a Hebrew root, and may mean either he breathed, or air, wind, breath, or space. It is applied in an indefinite way to man, and is also a very distinct title of Divinity; in the compound form of " Ruach Elohim ", which seems to have really meant "the spirits of the gods, male and female", it is translated "the Spirit of the Living God", the "Divine Spirit", and is used at times very nearly as the Theosophist uses the word Atma, our highest conception.

Calmet, the author of the "Bible Dictionary", remarks that "Ruach" means Spirit, and may be: —

1. The third person of the Trinity.
2. Breath of animal life. Genesis vii. 12; Numbers xvi. .22; Job xii. 10.
3. The rational soul capable of choosing eternal happiness.
4. The wind.
5. An angel, demon, ghost, or soul, as I. Samuel xvi. 14.
6. The breath. Genesis vi. 17.
7. The disposition of mind, as in Numbers v. 14, " the spirit of jealousy "; and in Isaiah xi. 2, we find Ruach meaning alternately the" Spirit of the Lord ", of "wisdom", of "understanding", of "counsel", of "might", and of "knowledge". [Page 9]

This confusion is fatal to any clear conception of meaning. We must so often be in doubt whether in any case Ruach is to mean the respiratory air, or the Divine influx.

Compare Daniel vii. 2, "the winds of heaven", Daniel iv. 8, "the Spirit of the Holy Gods". Daniel vii. 15, "my (human) spirit was grieved". Hosea ix. 7, "the man that hath the spirit is mad".

While in I. Samuel xvi. 23, we have first Ruach Elohim, translated "evil spirit from God was upon Saul", and later in the verse "Ve Ruach le Shaul" becomes "Saul was refreshed".

In Esther iv. 14, Ruach becomes "enlargement".

In chapter iii. of Ecclesiastes there are notable uses of the word Ruach as a human principle: in verse 19, speaking of man and beast, are the words, "they have all one breath" — Ruach — and in verse 21, "who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth"; "here spirit is in each case "Ruach". In the context also it is stated "that which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth beasts"; "as the one dieth so dieth the other". But orthodoxy denies an immortal soul to beasts, but grants it to man. Is the wise Solomon then a fool ? or does orthodoxy desert the wise Solomon ? If the Ruach of those passages be the human soul, then animals have it also; pace Shelomoh; or else Ruach is a name here for some element of the lower quaternary, Prana, i.e., Life, or the material breath.

Again in Genesis xxxii. 16, Ruach means space: "put a space betwixt drove and drove".

Ecclesiastes xii. 7, "The spirit shall return unto God who gave it"; here apparently Ruach means the Manasic ray of Theosophy.

It has been considered by some commentators that as Ruach was properly translated into the Greek pneuma, that Ruach was essentially the Spirit as opposed to the Flesh — that which communicates with the divine ones, rather than with men; but in face of these examples the conclusion is very doubtful; indeed, none of these words so far appear to have any close relation to the human soul, the manasic entity, the mind or intellect of the higher plane.

We must now seek for glimpses of the immortal Manas whose ray is the personal Man of human life, who differs from the animal by conscience, by reason, and the power to recognise good and evil, and to occupy himself in something beyond the support of life, and procreation. It is a notable and wonderful fact that the old Hebrew tongue seems to have no definite word meaning mind or intellect, nor is there in the Hebrew Bible any acceptance of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, or any principle or essence of a man. [Page 10]

Dictionaries of English-Hebrew Bible words give no word for immortality or immortal: under the word eternal is given NTzCh, which really means victory, or OD, which is simply "forward". The English Old Testament has not the word immortal, or any form of it: and there are only six examples of eternal and eternity — but neither of them refers to man. Everlasting is once applied to man, but this example is as late as the Babylonish captivity of the Jews, occurring in Daniel xii. 2, stating that some of them that sleep in the dust shall awake "to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt". But even here it is a prophecy, and not a statement of the actual fate of man. Whereas the "end of man'' is in the Bible one hundred times referred to; for example, in Ecclesiastes vii.2, "it is better to go to the house of mourning; . . . that is the end of all men".

In Job xix. 26, there is indeed in poetic language a reference to the ego — I — seeing God after death — yet here there is a special statement that "in the flesh" this should occur — reincarnation — rather than in spiritual essence, and free from matter, and so fitted for reunion with the high divine source from which the human ego had sprung in its origin and in which it is to be once again absorbed.

The immortality of the soul was a Chaldee doctrine, and the Jews in captivity learned it, and so glimpses of it are found in the latest Hebrew books; but it is certain that although modern orthodoxy prides itself on its form of belief in the immortality of the soul, such doctrine is nowhere explicitly stated in the Bible. The early Alexandrian school of Christians taught that man was triple in his essence; body, personal soul, and spirit from the divine source; but this trinal system was dropped as Christianity spread in Europe, and the majority of Christian authors have recognised only body and soul: it may be noted here that the immortality of the soul was only declared as an article of faith by the Lateran Council in 1513.

In considering the brain as the organ of mind, Theosophy teaches how the Manasic principle sends a ray or reflection to dwell in the material brain, and how the mental powers of a man are fettered and limited by the physical state of the brain and spinal cord which he possesses. Now it is a curious fact, but it is nevertheless true — that the word "brain" does not occur in the English Bible, nor the word "cerebrum" in the Latin version; nor the Hebrew word for brain — "muach" — MUCh, in the Hebrew original; at least not in the sense of "brain": it occurs once, but is there translated "marrow of the bones", a second meaning which still attaches to it; just as the Latin word "medulla" means both brain and marrow. The word "intellect " also, does not occur in the English Bible, and the word "intelligence" only once, viz., in Daniel xi. 30, "he shall have intelligence with them" ; in the Revised Version " he shall have [Page 11] regard". The Hebrew word "tebuna" is used here, it is from the root BUN, meaning "he perceived". The word "consciousness" does not occur, nor even the word "conscience", in all the Old Testament, except in one solitary instance, and that is in Ecclesiastes x. 20, "curse not the king, no not in thy conscience"; in the Revised Version this reads "in thy thought". The Hebrew word is BMDOK, from the root IDO, meaning "he knew". The word "mind" or "minds" occurs forty-one times in the Old Testament, but in many of these instances the reference is to "Nephesh", the "Kamic passions” and not to true Manasic or mental operations.

So lacking is the sacred Hebrew tongue in words meaning "mind" (as Mr. Old has also remarked to me) that among substitutes we notice — "daath", "knowledge," this word varies in its construct states and is sometimes DOH, DOUT, DOIM, and DOT. These are four forms from the root IDO, Yodah, meaning "he understood" or "he knew".

"Daath" is the infinitive, and is used to express "cognitio", " knowledge", as in Jeremiah iii. 15, " which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding"; the same root word twice: in Proverbs iii. 20, " by his knowledge the depths were broken up ".

So "daath" is clearly "knowledge".

Yet the old Latin-Hebrew dictionaries give "daath" as equivalent to the Latin "mens", and English "mind", as a human principle, essence or organ.

There is also the root BUN, meaning'" he understood"; as already mentioned, from this comes the word TBNH, "tebunah", which has been for centuries used to mean the understanding, intellect, and the mind-consciousness, this occurs in the Old Testament in the verbal form " Te Tebunnu" or TTBNNU, i.e., "shall understand it perfectly", and in Exodus xxxi. 3, we read " I have filled Bezaleel with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding and in knowledge", these words are respectively Ruach Elohim, Chokmah the second Sephira, Tebunah, and Daath.

The word "understanding" occurs more often in the English Bible than any other word meaning one of the human principles.

The Hebrew word LB, pronounced "laib", is related in meaning to the brain and mental powers, although often in dictionaries translated "heart " in the symbolic sense of the affections and mental passions. The word "laib" is derived from the root LB, to vibrate or pulsate as a heart does; then from the reference to the material heart pulsating and to the effect of the passions on its pulsations, the checked action of alarm, the increased rapidity of excitement, the turbulent action of horror, there followed the transference of association from heart to mind and brain action. In Genesis xlv. 26, "laib" means "heart", "and his (Joseph's) heart fainted" with emotion presumably.[Page 12]

In Genesis vi. 5, 6, the reference is rather to the mind, " every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was evil continually" — "and it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart ". The mind of man in one case, the mind of the Creator of man in the second. And again in Psalm vii. 10, " My shield is with God, which saveth the upright in heart", here "laib" is clearly used in reference to the reasoning mind.

I give here examples of the varying meanings of the Bible word "mind": —

In Genesis xxvi. 35, RUCh or "ruach", and Deuteronomy xviii. 6, NPSh, "Nephesh", the English word "mind ", applies to the heart, the physical organ.

In Psalm xxxi. 12, LB, "laib", and Isaiah xlvi. 8, LB, "laib", it means memory.
In Proverbs xxi. 27, it infers design.
In Isaiah xxvi. 3, it is imagination.
In Genesis xxvi., 35, Ruach is translated a "grief of mind".
In Deuteronomy xviii. 6, Nephesh is .translated " all the desire of his mind".
In I. Chronicles xxviii. 9, we have "perfect heart and willing mind" translated from the words Nephesh and Laib.
In Daniel v. 20, "when his heart was lifted up and his mind hardened in pride", heart and mind are Laib and Ruach.

Shekal, ShKL, is given by the dictionaries as "understanding" and has been used for intellect, mind: it is a root word also, meaning "understood".

This is given as the equivalent to the Latin "intellectus", the intellect of a man; the perceiver, from "intelligere", to perceive.

Then lastly there is the word Binah — understanding; this also is used to express the mind. This is the title of the Kabalistic Sephira, the third of the highest Triad; with Kether or Crown first, and Chokmah or Wisdom in the second place. This Binah is the only really philosophical term among those we have considered.

In the New Testament, which was first written, as is well-known, in the Greek language and character, we also do not find in the English version the word brain, nor intelligence, nor consciousness. The substantive word "mind" occurs sixty-one times. But its meaning varies, and it is not always the translation of the same Greek word, for example, it may mean: —

1. The understanding between right and wrong, as in Titus i. 15, here "nous" is the Greek word.
2. The regenerate part of a man, as Romans vii. 25 — "nous" again.
3. Wit, or mental soundness, Mark v. 15, "nous", "sophronounta"
4. The will, as I. Peter v. 2, "Thumos", "Prothumos" , "of a ready mind”.
5. Affection, as Acts xvii. 2. " Prothumias ", "with all readiness of mind". [Page 13]

The word "passions" of the mind occurs twice in the New Testament in English; as "men of like passions as ye are" once in the Acts, once in the Epistle of James; but there is no Greek noun translated here, the phrase is "omoiopathes", that is, "suffering in the same manner". These "like passions" correspond, I suppose, to the Theosophic "Kama Manas".

Of the Greek words meaning mind the word "Nous" is pre-eminently restricted to intellectual operations; the other alternative words are much more frequently associated either with Prana, vitality, or with the animal soul and animal passions.

Such are Psuche, "soul", nearly always corresponding to Nephesh, that is Kamic energy: it is from a root meaning "to breathe".

Pneuma, translated "spirit" in the dictionaries: this is from a root also meaning "to breathe", and is, commonly, breath and life; but curiously is also specially applied to the high spiritual conception of the Holy Spirit — the Divine Breath, just as the Hebrew Ruach, as mentioned earlier, is at times Breath of Life — at others it touches the other extreme of meaning, the Divine Spirit, the Spirit of the Elohim of Life.

Thumos is the animal soul in the Homeric poems, and in the Bible it refers to passions, often evil and of low nature. Turning to the Latin versions of the Bible, we find a closer adherence to meaning in the several words employed to specify mind.

The chief words referring to the mental and passional principles are Anima, animal soul, Kama. Animus, human soul, Lower Manas. Mens, the intellect, Higher Manas. Spiritus, an afflatus from above, spirituality, the higher aspirations; like the higher Ruach of the Kabbalists, and symbolic more nearly of our Theosophical conception of Atma-Buddhi.

There was a difference recognised even in common conversation in ancient Rome between the higher and the lower minds, between "Buddhi Marias" and "Kama Manas", between the Manasic element of the Triad and the Kamic element of the Tetrad — note the Roman use of the two words, anima and animus, from one root. Anima was animal soul; what the animal had. Animus was the human soul.

They said, "Animâ vlvĭmus et sentimus, animo săpĭimus et intellegĭmus . "By the animal soul we live and perceive, by the human soul we become wise and we understand". Otherwise, "Anima est vitae", the animal soul pertains to life, "Animus consilii" — the human soul to consideration, intelligence, and knowledge. [Page 14]

There are other words which, in the mouths of some Greek and Latin authors, are of similar meaning to our Higher Manas, and these are "Daïmon" and "Genius" , the Daïmon or Genius of a man was a spiritual being who overlooked and impelled a man this way or that, a spiritual guide, the spirit of a man. Socrates perceived in earlier times that he possessed a guiding daïmon — a spiritual someone — who put him in the way of wisdom. He declared that an inner voice warned and instructed him on all important occasions, and this voice he felt he ought to obey.

But it is open for consideration whether even Socrates was or was not later in his life deceived by some inferior elemental being, which prompted him to the causation of his death: whether he did not become mediumistic, passive, and that thus his eccentricities may be accounted for. Referring to the word daïmon, it should be borne in mind that the word was applied to good spirits as well as to evil ones; but that our English word demon, which was no doubt derived from the Greek word, through the Latin has commonly an entirely evil attribution.

The mediaeval Latin phrase, "Demon est Deus inversus", was penned after the word had lost its old signification. Other words relating to evil powers have also been thus curiously debased, note the word Lucifer, originally meaning light-bearer and allotted to Venus as a morning star, has been degraded into its present use as a title of the modern Christian conception of the One evil spirit. Perhaps the key to an occult truth lies hid in this fact of the change of attribution in names from one extreme to the other, from divinity to malignancy.

The recent revision of the New Testament led to a controversy as to what was the modern position of the Church regarding evil ones, evil, and the Evil One. The result being that the words of Matthew vi. 13, "Deliver us from the evil",have become changed to, "Deliver us from the Evil One". This seems to suggest that the Revisers looked upon evil in the abstract, as an essence from an evil spirit, and notably from one evil spirit; apparently implying that other evil beings either do not exist, or may be neglected.

This superficial glance at these Bible terms, specifying man and his organs and attributes, leads me to think that not only were the views of the Hebrew authors of these Old Testament books very shallow, and so very different to the views of the Hebrew philosophical Kabala; but that editors and translators have ever since the Hebrew books were first drafted, been steadily employed in recasting words and phrases to suit the preconceived opinions held by them. There is hardly any chapter or book that does not bear out the suggestion that if the work was originally either truth or sound allegory, it has been tampered with and re-edited, until no one can say what was really first written or intended. From which I conclude [Page 15] that, according to his means and opportunities, each man should seek out these matters for himself, and work out his own salvation, or future progress, and that we should not trust too much to the aid of others. The histories of all religions point out the tendency to the formation of a class of men whose business is not alone that of teacher and philosopher, but also that of soul-saving; and no sooner does soul-saving become a profession and a means of livelihood, than do the tendencies to fraud and folly, to manufacture doctrine "ad majorem Deigloriam", creep in. Doctrines are perverted by, and in favour of this privileged class and new profession, and the simple truths of man's origin, course, life aim and destiny, are obscured to demonstrate the need of spiritual guides who can then live at leisure on the fears and foibles of a timorous laity, composed of men and women who, while accepting the ideal of a just and merciful God, yet mistrust his justice and his mercy, and feel it necessary to attempt to elude his decisions by substituted service, or to degenerate his mercy into weakness by temporary professions of abject humility. For did any one but really believe in one tithe of the awful punishments for sin, with which even the Christian Church has threatened its members, there would be an end to all work, and all pleasure in our lives, and each would alone be concerned at every hour in staving off so great a curse, so terrible a doom.

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