Category: The Key To Theosophy (1889): H. P. Blavatsky

"Enq:  But how does your theory avoid this? How can you reconcile the theory of Soul's omniscience with its blindness to that which is taking place on earth?   Theo:  Because such is the law of love and mercy. During every Devachanic period the Ego, omniscient as it is per se, clothes itself, so to [...]

"Enq:  What do you mean? Why should this interfere with their bliss?   Theo:  Simply this; and here is an instance. A mother dies, leaving behind her little helpless children - orphans whom she adores - perhaps a beloved husband also.   We say that her "Spirit" or Ego - that individuality which is now [...]

"Enq:  What of the latter? How long does the incarnating Ego remain in the Devachanic state?   Theo:  This, we are taught, depends on the degree of spirituality and the merit or demerit of the last incarnation. The average time is from ten to fifteen centuries, as I already told you.   Enq:  But why [...]

"Enq:  You spoke of Kama-loka, what is it?   Theo:  When the man dies, his lower three principles leave him forever; i.e., body, life, and the vehicle of the latter, the astral body or the double of the living man.   And then, his four principles - the central or middle principle, the animal soul [...]

"Enq:  But where is the equity you speak of, since these new "personalities" are not aware of having sinned or been sinned against?   Theo:  Has the coat torn to shreds from the back of the man who stole it, by another man who was robbed of it and recognizes his property, to be regarded [...]

"Enq:  Then am I to understand that the murderer, the transgressor of law divine and human in every shape, is allowed to go unpunished?   Theo:  Who ever said that? Our philosophy has a doctrine of punishment as stern as that of the most rigid Calvinist, only far more philosophical and consistent with absolute justice. [...]

"Enq:  I have heard you say that the Ego, whatever the life of the person he incarnated in may have been on Earth, is never visited with post mortem punishment.   Theo:  Never, except in very exceptional and rare cases of which we will not speak here, as the nature of the "punishment" in no [...]

"Enq:  But are there no modes of communication between the Spiritual and human consciousness or memory?   Theo:  Of course there are; but they have never been recognized by your scientific modern psychologists. To what do you attribute intuition, the "voice of the conscience", premonitions, vague undefined reminiscences, etc., etc., if not to such communications? [...]

"Enq:  But what is the difference between the two? I confess that I am still in the dark. Indeed it is just that difference, then, that you cannot impress too much on our minds.   Theo:  I try to; but alas, it is harder with some than to make them feel a reverence for childish [...]

"Even in his Buddhist Catechism, Col. Olcott, forced to it by the logic of Esoteric philosophy, found himself obliged to correct the mistakes of previous Orientalists who made no such distinction, and gives the reader his reason for it.   Thus he says:   "The successive appearances upon the earth, or 'descents into generation', of [...]