Sunday, June 23rd, 1974

WISDOM'S GOLDENROD, ALAN BERKOWITZ CLASS NOTES

(TYPED)

JUNE 23, 1974

HINDUISM; SAMKHYA; ETHERS

TOPIC: Hinduism

SUBJECT: Samkhya

SUBSUBJECTS: Ethers, Elements, Four Kingdoms of Nature, Etheric and Astral Bodies, Instincts, Chakras

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Manly Palmer Hall, The Philosophy of Astrology

DIAGRAMS embedded in these notes:

• FIGURE 1974 0623-1-AB. Fludd Diagram: Three Levels of Cosmos.

• FIGURE 1974 0623-2-AB. Four Ethers correlated with Four Kingdoms of Nature.

• FIGURE 1974 0623-3-AB. Ethers and Human Body.

TYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2023

NOTES:

• RETYPED HANDWRITTEN NOTES (hence V08). From Alan Notes 3 1973 to 1975 psyche and soul.PDF.

• All spelling, capitalization, and punctuation corrected, all abbreviations and most numbers spelled out.

1974 06/23 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Hinduism; Samkhya; Ethers

[Alan Notes 1974 0623 Begin]

6/23/74

Fludd diagram

[FIGURE 1974 0623-1-AB. Fludd Diagram: Three Levels of Cosmos. A F W E = Air Fire Water Earth. Facsimile scan from AB class notes.]

Manly P. Hall

Gross and Subtle:

Ether - spirit

Air - intellect

Fire - soul

Water - principle of generation

Earth - corporeal bodies

[Elements] are vehicles of stellar powers, conditioned by the planets and confer a force or condition on the organism it composes. [Note: Many P. Hall, The Philosophy of Astrology, p. 52.]

Earth → mineral kingdom → stability, endurance, cohesion -- body chemistry

Water (and earth) → plant → vitality, fecundity, growth, generation -- recuperative powers

(Water and earth) and Fire → animal → motion, emotion, sensory perception -- digestion, assimilation, emotion

(Water, Earth, Fire) Air → Man → intellectual impulse -- thought processes, attitudes

(Water, Earth, Fire, Air) and Ether → gods, extrasensory senses → intuitive, inspirational, ESP

[FIGURE 1974 0623-2-AB. Four Ethers correlated with Four Kingdoms of Nature. Facsimile scan from AB class notes.]

Ethers -- etheric and astral instincts

Form is imposed on substance by the principle. Ethers result in four classes of physical experience -- solid, liquid, gas -- conditions of experience only perceived in our thinking -- they are a secondary kind of matter -- matter as potentiality to become -- universal substance (primary matter) in a secondary form = ethers.

Psychical processes of understanding world, and objective world, are two ends of the same stick.

Astral body -- a reflecting apparatus, organization of the instincts into a sort of unity --

Etheric and astral are not the same -- two different bodies. Etheric formative forces are modes for manifestation of astral forces, and not in the astral body.

Physical body has a predominance of life ether. On physical level earth ether is predominant. Surrounding physical body is a life-vital body, manifesting through it. Predispositions or structure are not in physical, but in vital. (Sound ether) life principle gives vitality -- it if withdraws, laws of physics take over.

Earth principle gives cohesion.

Goals, instincts are in astral. Instincts are embodied in organism and guide it. Instincts have goals and the ability to follow through -- all instinctual activities have a wisdom of their own -- they reflect a meaning in their operation -- from animals up. They have a material and mental level which are not separate. Plant has no guiding instinct -- it takes in poison, can't discriminate. Osmosis happens to plant, by operation of etheric forces, while instinct does the guiding or controlling in animal or man. Plant's don't 'do', things happen to it as a result of etheric functioning. A plant is part of macrocosmic forces, while an animal with its organs also constitutes a microcosm with the organization of the astral. Animals have a group, not individual soul, which is perfecting a particular function. Animal is not individual, but identical with the function or instinct. The resistance of the world to the instincts causes them to reflect their own activity within the animal. Animal adapts -- plant can't because it is controlled by forces of Nature.

Example -- leaf is basic organ of plant -- everything else is a modification of it.

Instincts tend to manifest in some sort of understanding (even if it is not an ego). No instincts in plant, or individuality. The plants in an (experience/experiment) are not reacting, but the ethers through them. When an instinct is incorporated into a body, it tends to get lived out -- it is compulsive.

Jung -- two poles of instinct. Deflection or reflection of instinct is important -- you meditate instead of eating. Astral body is the sum total and organization of these instincts. Embodied and guides an animal. Lower manas -- desires.

Planets and aspects symbolize astral -- instincts

Structure of individual units, or instincts = soul complex, or astral body.

Man also has ego -- a nucleated structure of thought → individuality, airy component. The I-thought, which is a concept, the content of which is all that makes one person to be what he is and not another (the structure of your personality). This makes you a species unto yourself -- an individual.

The signs give us the physical organs.

A true concept imposes order -- is airy. It carries its own authority. The Airy vehicle creates experience (no thought, no experience) and evolves the three lower vehicles.

[FIGURE 1974 0623-3-AB. Ethers and Human Body. Cons = Conscious. Facsimile scan from AB class notes.]

The greatest amount of mineralization is in head, most formed in the embryo.

Circulation is a function of water. The blood differentiates an organ for its activity -- the heart. Blood pumps itself through and creates heart. First activity, then organ.

Most evolved creature has more of life ether [symbolized by half Moon] and less of others.

Ether comes up from ground on right side and down on left.

Head -- your past life incarnated -- most individual, conscious pole = the dome of heaven. Brain is an exact duplicate of heavens at birth.

Limbs preoccupied with will.

7 chakras = 7 ethers, all not manifest. Earth at bottom.

Chakras are etheric centers controlling the sensible reality that manifests.

All bodily organs are manifestations of cosmic principles.

The etheric body is a permanent organ which retains essences and memories --

Astral body is the subtle counterpart of the fire ether -- but this is only the substantial side of the astral that manifests -- the astral itself is beyond and different from the etheric.

Example: to communicate thought, we use sound, but sound ≠ thought.

The content that is manifested through the airy vehicle is not the air element.

The ego has the astral as its substance -- the astral has the ether, the ether the physical as its substance. Matter on one level is form for the next. Your etheric body's composition will determine how the astral and spirit can manifest. The ether most conducive to the astral is fire, to ego is air. The mind is a whole which has fire and air as the more subjective side and water and earth as the objective.

[Alan Notes 1974 0623 End]