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Nº.
XIV
CONCERNING THE GENIUS OR DAIMON (1)
PART 1
EVERY human spirit-soul has attached to him a genius
or daimon, as with Socrates; a ministering spirit, as with the apostles; or an
angel, as with Jesus. All these are but different names for the same thing. My
genius says that he does not care for the term angel because it is
misinterpreted. He prefers the Christian nomenclature, and to be called
minister, as their office is to guide, admonish, and illumine.
My genius looks like Dante, and like
him is always in red. And he has a cactus in his hand, which he says is my
emblem. (Speaking of Dante, I see that Beatrice represents the soul. She is to
him what the woman should be to the man.) He tells me to say that the best
weapon against the astrals is prayer. Prayer means the intense direction of the
will and desire towards the Highest; an unchanging intent to know nothing but
the Highest. So long as Moses held up his hands towards heaven, the Israelites
prevailed. When he dropped them, then the Amalekites. The genii are not fighting
spirits, and cannot prevent evils. They were allowed to minister to Jesus only
after his exhaustion in combat with the lower spirits. Only they are attacked by
these, who are worth attacking.
I am to inform you that the genius
never “controls” his client, never suffers the soul to step aside from the body
to allow the entrance of another spirit. The person controlled by an astral or
elemental, on the contrary, speaks not in his own person, but in that of the
spirit controlling; and the gestures, expression, intonation, and pitch of
voice, change with the obsessing spirit. A person prophesying speaks always in
the first person, and says, either, “Thus saith the Lord,” or “So says some one
else,” never losing his own personality. This is one sign of difference whereby
to distinguish between the various orders of spirits.
Another sign, he says, whereby to
distinguish extraneous spirits
from one’s genius, is this, – the genius is
never absent. Provided the mind is in a condition to see, he is always present.
Other spirits need times to be appointed and engagements to be made for certain
hours, because they may be elsewhere at any moment. These spirits, moreover,
know nothing of the Gods. Their very names are secrets from them, and if they
have heard them they are, but names to them. (1)
They are unable to grasp or conceive of anything beyond the atmosphere of their
own circle. It is true that they speak of God, but it is without understanding
the meaning of the word. The more negative the mind of the individual, the more
ready and apt he is to receive these spirits. And, on the contrary, the more
positive and pronounced the will of the individual, the more open he is to
divine communication. The command always is –“To labour is to pray”; “To ask is
to receive”; “To knock is to have the door open.” “I have often said,” says my
genius, “Think for yourself. When you think inwardly, pray intensely, and
imagine centrally, then you converse with God.”
He knows, he says, concerning our
immediate future, but will not tell. All he will say is this, – “Be sure there
is trouble. No man ever got to the
The genius is linked to his client by
a bond of soul-substance. Persistent ill-living weakens this bond, and after
several incarnations – even to “seventy times seven” – thus ill-spent, the
genius is freed and the soul definitively lost. It is not isolated crime, as
murder, adultery, or incest, or even a repetition of these, which breaks this
bond; but a continued condition of the heart
in which the will of the individual is in
persistent opposition to the Divine Will. For this is a state in which
repentance is impossible. The condition most favourable to salvation and speedy
emancipation from successive incarnations, is the attitude of willing obedience,
– freedom and submission. The great object to be attained is emancipation from
the body, – from the power and need of the body, that is.
In order the better to comprehend the
procession of Spirit, it must be understood that Life may be represented by a
triangle, at the apex of which is God. Of this triangle the two sides are formed
by two streams, the one flowing outwards, the other upwards. The base may be
taken to represent the material plane. Thus, from God proceed the Gods. >From
the Gods proceed all the hierarchy of heaven, with the various orders from the
highest to the lowest. And the lowest is the order of the genii, or guardian
angels. These rest on the material plane, but do not enter it. The other side of
the triangle is a continuation of the base. The initiatory forms of the base of
the triangle are the lowest expressions of life. These are the first expressions
of incarnation, and of the stream which, unlike the first, flows inwards and
upwards. The side of the triangle represented by this stream, culminates in the
Christ, and empties itself into pure spirit, which is God. There are,
consequently, spirits who, by their nature, never have been and never can be
incarnate. And there are others who reach their perfection through incarnation.
You will see, then, that the genii and the astrals have nothing in common. For
the space contained in the triangle, and separating on the one hand the apex
from the base, and on the other hand the two opposing sides, is a space occupied
by the planetary fluid.
There are but two eternal
generations, – that of the celestials who begin from the Spirit and are
“begotten”; and that of the created entities who accrete a body exteriorly. The
astrals are between these two. They are as planes which cannot focus the Divine
Spirit, since their rays are reflected in all directions, and do not converge to
a central point. They cannot know God. They are not microcosms. Man – alone of
the created entities is a microcosm, and he is this because the Divine Spirit,
the nucleolus, contains necessarily the potentiality of the whole celestial
cell. In God are all the Gods included; and the nucleolus in the perfected
created cell is, therefore, multiple. Every man is a planet, having sun, moon,
and stars.
The genius of a man is his satellite.
Man is a planet. God – the God of the man – is his sun, and the moon of this
planet is Isis, its initiator, or genius. The genius is made to minister to the
man, and to give him light. But the light he gives is from God, and not of
himself. He is not a planet but a moon, and his function is to light up the dark
places of his planet.
The day and night of the microcosm,
man, are its positive and passive, or projective and reflective states. In the
projective state we seek actively outwards; we aspire and will forcibly; we hold
active communion with the God without. In the reflective state we look inwards,
we commune with our own heart; we indraw and concentrate ourselves secretly and
interiorly. During this condition the “Moon” enlightens our hidden chamber with
her torch, and shows us ourselves in our interior recess.
Who or what, then, is this moon? It
is part of ourselves, and revolves with us. It is our celestial affinity, – of
whose order is it said, “Their angels do always behold the face of My Father.”
Every human soul has a celestial
affinity, which is part of his system and a type of his spiritual nature. This
angelic counterpart is the bond of union between the man and God; and it is in
virtue of his spiritual nature that this angel is attached to him. Rudimentary
creatures have no celestial affinity; but from the moment that the soul
quickens, the cord of union is established.
It is in virtue of man’s being a
planet that he has a moon. If he were not fourfold, as is the planet, he could
not have one. Rudimentary men are not fourfold. They have not the Spirit.
The genius is the moon to the planet
man, reflecting to him the sun, or God, within him. For the divine Spirit, which
animates and eternises the man, is the God of the man, the sun that enlightens
him. And this sun it is, and not the outer and planetary man, that his genius,
as satellite, reflects to him. Thus attached to the planet, the genius is the
complement of the man; and his “sex” is always the converse of the planet’s. And
because he reflects, not the planet, but the sun, not the man (as do the
astrals), but the God, his light is always to be trusted.
The genius knows well only the things
relating to the person to whom he ministers. About other things he has opinions
only. The relation of the ministering spirit to his client is very well
represented by that of the Catholic confessor to his penitent. He is bound to
keep towards every penitent profound secrecy as regards the affairs of other
souls. If this were not the case, there would be no order, and no secret would
be safe. The genius of
each one knows about another person only so much
as that other’s genius chooses to reveal.
PART 2 (1)
Now, there are two kinds of memory,
the memory of the organism and the memory of the soul. The first is possessed by
all creatures. The second, which is obtained by Recovery, belongs to the fully
regenerate man. For the Divine Spirit of a man is not one with his soul until
regeneration, which is the intimate union constituting what, mystically, is
called the “marriage of the hierophant.”
When this union takes place, there is
no longer need of an initiator; for then the office of the genius is ended. For,
as the moon,
For the memory of the soul is recovered by a threefold operation, – that of the
soul herself, of the moon, and of the sun. The genius is not an informing
spirit. He can tell nothing to the soul. All that she receives is already within
herself. But in the darkness of the night, it would remain there undiscovered,
but for the torch of the angel who enlightens. “Yea,” says the angel genius to
his client, “I illuminate thee, but I instruct thee not. I warn thee, but I
fight not. I attend, but I lead not. Thy treasure is within thyself. My light
sheweth where it lieth.”
When regeneration is fully attained,
the divine Spirit alone instructs the hierophant. “For the gates of his city
shall never be shut; there shall be no night there; the night shall be no more.
And they shall not need the light of the lamp, because the Lord God shall
enlighten them.” The prophet is a man illumined by his angel. The Christ is a
man married to the Spirit. And he returns out of pure love to redeem, needing no
more to return to the flesh for his own sake. Wherefore he is said to come down
from heaven. For he hath attained, and is a
medium for the Highest. He baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, and with the Divine
Fire itself. He is always “in heaven.” And in that he ascendeth, it is because
the Spirit uplifteth him, even the Spirit who descendeth upon him. “And in that
he descendeth, it is because he has first ascended beyond all spheres into the
highest Presence. For he that ascendeth, ascendeth because he also descended
first into the lower parts of the earth. He that descended is the same also who
ascendeth above all the heavens, to fill all things.” Such an one returns,
therefore, from a higher world; he belongs no more to the domain of Dionysos.
But he comes from the “sun” itself, or from some nearer sphere to the sun than
ours; having passed from the lowest upwards.
And what of the genius himself? I
asked. Is he sorry when his client attains perfection, and needs him no more?
And he said, “He that hath the bride
is the bridegroom. And he that standeth by rejoiceth greatly because of the
bridegroom’s voice.” I return, therefore, to my source, for my mission is ended,
and my Sabbath is come. And I am one with the twain.
Here he led me into a large chamber
where I saw four bullocks lying slaughtered upon altars, and a number of persons
standing round in the act of adoration. And above, in the fumes arising from the
spirits of the blood, were misty colossal shapes, half-formed, from the waist
upwards, and resembling the Gods. And he said “These are Astrals. And thus will
they do until the end of the world.” (1)
After this instruction concerning the
degradation of religion through the materialisation of the spiritual doctrine of
sacrifice, he resumed: –
The genius, then, remains with his
client so long as the man is fourfold. A beast has no genius. A Christ has none.
For first, all is latent light. That is one. And this one becomes two; that is,
body and astral body. And these two become three; that is, a rational soul is
born in the midst of the astral body. This rational soul is the true Person.
>From that moment, therefore, this personality is an individual existence, as a
plant or as an animal. These three become four; that is, human. And the fourth
is the Nous, not yet one with the soul, but
overshadowing it, and transmitting light as it were through a glass, that is,
through the initiator. But when the four become three, – that is,
when the “marriage” takes place, and the soul
and spirit are indissolubly united, – there is no longer need either of
migration or of genius. For the Nous has become one with the soul, and the cord
of union is dissolved. And yet again, the three become twain at the dissolution
of the body; and again, the twain become one, that is, the Christ-spirit-soul.
The Divine Spirit and the genius, therefore, are not to be regarded as diverse,
nor yet as identical. The genius is flame, and is celestial; that is, he is
spirit, and one in nature with the Divine; for his light is the divine light. He
is as a glass, as a cord, as a bond between the soul and her divine part. He is
the clear atmosphere through which the divine ray passes, making a path for it
in the astral medium.
In the celestial plane, all things
are personal. And therefore the bond between the soul and spirit is a person.
But when a man is “born again,” he no longer needs the bond which unites him to
his divine source. The genius, or flame, therefore, returns to that source; and
this being itself united to the soul, the genius also becomes one with the
twain. For the genius is the divine light in the sense that he is but a divided
tongue of it, having no isolating vehicle. But the tincture of this flame
differs according to the celestial atmosphere of the particular soul. The divine
light, indeed, is white, being seven in one. But the genius is a flame of a
single colour only. And this colour he takes from the soul, and by that ray
transmits to her the light of the Nous, her divine spouse. The angel-genii are
of all the tinctures of all the colours.
I have said that in the celestial
plane all things are personal, but in the astral plane they are reflects. The
genius is a person because he is a celestial, and of soul-spirit, or substantial
nature. But the astrals are of fluidic nature, having no personal part. In the
celestial plane, spirit and substance are one, dual in unity; and thus are all
celestials constituted. But in the astral plane they have no individual, and no
divine part. They are protoplasmic only, without either nucleus or nucleolus.
The voice of the genius is the voice
of God; for God speaks through him as a man through the horn of a trumpet. Thou
mayest not adore him, for he is the instrument of God, and thy minister. But
thou must obey him, for he hath no voice of his own, but sheweth thee the will
of the Spirit.
Footnotes
(36:1)
See
Life of Anna Kingsford, vol. i, pp. 388-415, relating “Conversations with the Genii.” S.H.H.
(37:1) One of their commonest modes of
deception is by the assumption of divine names; but their utterances are always
pretentious and inane. E.M.
(40:1)
(41:1) Meaning, “the end of materialism in
Religion” (see Part I, No. V (2), p. 15, note). S.H.H.
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Previous: XIII - Concerning Persephone, or the Soul’s Descent into Matter Next: XV - Concerning the “Powers of
the Air”