To continue from where we left off in the last presentation, in our look at the processes of rebirth, the soul, with the help of its guardian angels and devas from the mental and emotional plane, builds out its principle envelopes.
During the prenatal period, the soul watches over the human mother, in whom its future body is developing. However, the soul has little influence on the embryo except through a weak connection to the physical permanent atom. The embryo cannot perceive or participate in the thoughts and emotions of the soul as expressed in its causal body.
The Hindus had various ceremonies to surround both the mother and the child with purifying influences before and after birth. The purpose was to create special conditions that would ward off negative influences and invite positive ones. These ceremonies were considered to be very valuable.
The inherent negative tendencies that a child inherits at birth have often been referred to as ‘original sin’, although they are incorrectly associated with the mythological story of Adam and Eve. In the Christian Church, the sacrament of baptism is specifically intended to minimise the effects of these inherent negative tendencies. To achieve this, magnetised or “holy” water is used. This allows the priest to strongly stimulate the child’s etheric matter, activate the pituitary gland, and influence the emotional state and, subsequently, the mental state. The force poured in flows up and down until it reaches a balance, similar to the flow of water. The “exorcism” performed by the priest aims to restrain the evil forces in their current state, preventing them from being nourished or supported in any way, causing them to eventually weaken and dissipate. Most priests think they are just giving a blessing. If they knew the true esoteric significance of what they were doing, the effects of the ceremony would be much more powerful.
During the ceremony performed in the Liberal Catholic Church, the priest makes the sign of the cross down the entire length of the front and back of the child’s envelope. This action creates a thought form or artificial elemental, which is sometimes associated with the concept of the baptismal guardian angel. This thought form is filled with divine force and ensouled by a higher-order nature-spirit called a sylph. It acts as a protective shield of white light for the child. Over time, the sylph associated with the thought form can evolve into a seraph through its connection with the divine energy and thoughts of Christ Himself. Even if the child passes away shortly after the baptism, the ritual may still hold significance for the child in the afterlife. This is because it could prevent potentially harmful emotional reactions and may contain the seeds of evil from becoming active in the Emotional World.
In summary, during baptism, certain energy centres or chakras in the child are awakened and open to spiritual influence. Additionally, the seeds of evil are somewhat subdued, and the child is effectively given a guardian angel, a new and powerful force for good.
The sign of the cross made on a child’s forehead with consecrated oil remains visible in the person’s energy field throughout their life. This mark signifies the person as Christian, just as the tilaka spot for Hindus represents Shiva or the trident symbol for Vishnu.
The aura of a child is often a most beautiful thing, pure and bright in colour, free from the clouds of sensuality, avarice, ill-will, and selfishness, which so frequently darken the life of adults. It is sad to see how the child’s aura almost always changes as the years pass by, noticing how negative tendencies are encouraged and strengthened by their environment while positive ones are ignored. Observing this, it’s no surprise that human evolution progresses so slowly, and most souls make almost imperceptible progress despite spending many lifetimes in the lower world.
The solution lies with parents and teachers, whose personal character, behaviour, and habits have an immeasurable impact on the development of children. It’s important to emphasise the significant influence of the thoughts and emotions of parents and teachers on their children. This subject is extensively discussed by C.W. Leadbeater in “The Hidden Side of Things.”
In the Atlantean civilisation, the role of the teacher was highly valued. Only trained clairvoyants were allowed to hold this position, as they could see the hidden qualities and capabilities of their students. This enabled them to work effectively with each student, helping to develop their strengths and improve their weaknesses. This principle will be even more extensively applied in the distant future of the Sixth Root Race.
Even with the best efforts of parents to protect a child, it is almost certain that the child will eventually come across negative influences in the world, which may encourage negative behaviour in the child. However, it is crucial whether the child’s positive or negative inclinations are encouraged first. In most cases, negative influences take hold before the child has a strong grasp on their emotions and actions. As a result, when the child does gain control, they find themselves having to fight against strong tendencies towards negative behaviour. When the seeds of positive behaviour are awakened late, they struggle to assert themselves against already firmly established negative tendencies. I wonder if this is why Freud was so fixated on potty training. Get that wrong, and the child goes on to declare war on Poland!
If parents provide exceptional care before and after a child’s birth and encourage only positive behaviour, the child will develop a strong inclination toward goodness. As the child matures, it becomes easy for them to express themselves in a positive manner, as they have formed a habit of doing so. When faced with negative influences, the child’s strong foundation of goodness makes it difficult for those influences to take hold. The soul, unless highly advanced, initially has little control over its vehicles. However, it’s important to note that its will is always for the good as it seeks to evolve through its vehicles. Any power it is able to exert will, therefore, always be on the right side.
During embryonic and infantile life, the soul is carrying on its own wider, richer life and gradually comes more and more closely into touch with the embryo. We may note that the Monad’s relation to the universe, in which its consciousness is evolving, is analogous to the soul’s relation to its new physical envelope.
The mental envelope, being a new one, cannot contain memories of previous births, as it did not exist during those times. Such memories belong to the soul, which, along with its permanent atoms, persists from one incarnation to another. Therefore, a person in the physical world cannot remember past lives as long as they primarily remember through their mental envelope. In the development of the human envelope, the gestation period corresponds to the downward course of the elemental kingdoms. Many educators believe that from birth to age seven, attention should be given to the child’s physical nature; from about seven to fourteen, the focus should be on emotional development, and up to about twenty-one, teachers should appeal to the unfolding of the mind.
These last three ages can be likened to the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. In the first age, consciousness exists on the physical plane; in the second, on the emotional plane; and in the third, the lower mind gradually gains ground, leading to the stage when a human becomes the true thinker. The extended period of middle life represents the true human career. The stage of old age should bring wisdom, although, for most people, it remains imperfect, only providing a hint of the higher levels of achievement they could reach in the future.
It is important to note a curious possibility that may occur in certain rare cases when a person is reborn. In a previous presentation, we discussed how if a person leads a thoroughly degraded life, completely identifying with their lower, animal nature and neglecting their higher nature, the lower nature becomes completely disconnected from the higher nature, resulting in the incarnation being a total loss to the soul. Under such conditions, the soul becomes so disillusioned with its physical vessels that upon death, it discards them. In fact, it may even vacate the desecrated temple during physical life. The term soul is used loosely here because these executive decisions about what to keep and what to discard are made by the guardian angel, the chief solar deva; you have 13 in total. Remember, even when we are processing the outcome of our latest incarnation on the way back to our causal envelope, we are still operating with only the small amount of causal matter we incarnated with, which we call the persona or personality. This is not the mythical “higher self”, much talked about in occult books.
After death, a soul without emotional or mental attachments that have to be processed will reincarnate quickly. In this case, the old mental and emotional elements may not have fully disintegrated and could be drawn to the new mental and emotional bodies by natural affinity. This creates what is known as the “dweller on the threshold,” which is a form of intense negative energy.
With that depressing thought, we have completed the examination of the structure and function of our mental envelope. In the next presentation, we will examine the last topic that I wish to address, that of discipleship as it pertains to our sojourn in our mental envelope.