Casual Body and the Ego

This is one of a series of four books by this author, researching and enlightening readers on the 'spirit' of man, its role and functions.

This book has been compiled with the object of presenting to the student of Occultism a coherent synthesis of all, or nearly all, the information regarding the Etheric Double, and other closely allied phenomena, which has been given to the world through the medium of modern Theosophical and psychical research literature. This information is scattered over a very large number of books and articles, some forty of which the compiler has consulted, a list of these being given at the end of this document. The writer wishes it understood that his work is a compilation - nothing more. All he has done is to collect and arrange the material which others have provided.

There are many advantages in this method of study. In these busy days few have the leisure, even if they possess the inclination, to search through some scores of books for scattered item of knowledge, and then to weld them into a coherent whole. It is better, therefore, for one to do this work, that others may benefit and save their own time and labour.

From the Introduction

This book forms the fourth, and last, of the series of compilations dealing with the bodies of man. Throughout the series the same plan has been adopted.

Approximately forty volumes mostly those written by Annie Besant and by C.W. Leadbeater, have been thoroughly searched, the material thus found has been sorted, arranged and classified into its appropriate departments, so as to present to the student of modern Theosophy a coherent and sequential account of the finer bodies of man.

In addition, there has been incorporated a considerable amount of information regarding the planes, or worlds, associated with these four bodies of man. It is therefore, probably near the truth to say that the gist of nearly everything that has been published by the two principle pioneers into the mysteries and complexities of the Ancient Wisdom, with the exception of certain clearly marked specialities [such as Occult Chemistry, for example] is to be found in these four books.

The compiler thus hopes that the intensive labour, which has occupied him for about three years and a half years, will serve to make a little easier the path of those who desire to obtain a comprehensive grasp of what may be termed the technical aspects of modern Theosophy.

In view of the fact that our occult knowledge, of planes finer than the physical, is likely to be enormously increased in the near future, it has seemed desirable to undertake the not inconsiderable task of arranging, in textbook form, such data as are already in our possession, before the total mass becomes too unwieldy to be handled in this manner. Moreover, by such orderly arrangement of our materials, we construct for ourselves an outline, or skeleton into which further information can be built, as it becomes available.

Excerpt

When we come to study the causal body of man, we enter upon a new phase of our work, and must take a far wider sweep in our purview of man's evolution. The reason for this is, that whilst the etheric, astral and mental bodies exist for one human incarnation only, i.e.., are distinctly mortal, the causal body persists throughout the whole of man's evolution, through many incarnations, and is therefore relatively immortal. We say relatively immortal advisedly because, as will be seen in due course, there is a point where a man, having completed his purely normal human evolution, commences his supernormal human evolution, and actually loses the causal body in which he has lived and evolved during the past ages of his growth.

Hence, in dealing with man's causal body, we are no longer standing within the personality , looking upon any vehicle of that personality, and seeing from its own standpoint how it is serving the evolution of the real man who uses it, but instead we must take up our stand by the side of the man himself, looking from above on the vehicles of the personality, and regarding them as so many temporary instruments fashioned for the use of the man himself, and discarded, as a broken tool is discarded, when they have served their purpose.

Furthermore, in order to make our study comprehensive, and to round it off in a manner that will be intellectually satisfactory, we must discover and study the origin and birth of the causal body, i.e., how it has formed in the first instance. Finding that it had a beginning, we see at once, not only that it must have an end, but also that there must be some other form of consciousness which uses the causal body, much as the ego in the causal body uses the vehicles of the personality. This other form of consciousness is, of course, the human Monad. Hence, in order that we may fully comprehend the part that the causal body plays in the tremendous story of human evolution, we must study also the human Monad.

Reverting to the birth or formation of the causal body, we are at once plunged into a consideration of the somewhat intricate subject of Group-Souls, with which we shall have to deal. Tracing the origin of Group-Souls, we are led back, step by step, to the Three Great Outpourings of the Divine Life, from which all forms of manifested life arise. Whilst studying the Three Outpourings, we must necessarily consider to some extent the formation of the material world into which the Outpourings are projected.

Thus in order that our study of the Causal Body may be a comprehensive one, we must describe, though in brief outline only, the formation of the field of evolution, the flow into that field of the great streams of life, the coming forth of the Monads, the building of the many kingdoms of life, and the plunging of the Monads, with the assistance of the permanent atoms, into the material universe, and the gradual development of the life in the Group Souls until eventually, after aeons of existence, the point of Individualisation is reached, when the causal body for the first time appears.

Thereafter, our study will follow much the same lines as in the previous books of this series. We shall have to deal in turn with the functions of the Causal Body: its composition and structure; the nature of causal thought; the development and faculties of the causal body; the portion of life after death spent in the causal body in the higher heaven worlds.