Welcome to Metaphysics of the Real. It is New Year’s Eve, 2024, and this is your host, Oliver St. John. Sophia is our Guiding Light.
This fourth episode of the new series picks up the thread from where we left off with Advaita Vedanta—Question of the Real. The listener that has assimilated the previous episode on Reincarnation, Talismans and Familiar Spirits will be well prepared for this. The initiatic Journey of the Soul is to get initiated and realise she is infinitely greater than tanything she has previously supposed. The soul fears death greatly because she is identified with body and mind and the body at least will surely die and become nothing but a pile of ashes. The question is, what is it that dies? It is certainly not Atma, which is deathless, immutable and so forth. The second part of this episode examines two of the Supernormal Powers of the yogin, from Metamorphosis—Hermetic Science and Yoga Power: How to Read Minds and How to be Invisible.
The music Gypsy Caravan was composed and played on the guitar and other instruments by Oliver St. John.  This recording features local field ambience from the West Penwith Peninsula, including the river Stennack and a couple of blackbirds in the early evening.

Metaphysics of the Real, Episode 4 Part One: What is Death to the Soul?
Questions concerning the soul, and what happens to it after physical death, are made difficult by the word ‘soul’ itself. In English we have only the one word, soul, which can mean a variety of different things. So unless we know what we mean when we use that word we are cast adrift. In Hinduism, the word soul is often taken as Self (with a capital) in which case it means Atma. But as the individuality, which is closer to what it means in English, it is more jivatma or ahankara. In general or conventional usage, the English word soul only means the mentality, even feelings and emotions or the psychological component, and that is no use to us at all. It is best then if we look at the soul in terms of the Hindu doctrine, otherwise it can be anything you like. There is also a treatise on the soul that we have written, using very specialised terminology but it includes Sanskrit terms so as to be precise. In that book, The Law of Thelema—Hidden Alchemy, the soul is called the Scarlet Woman, and she is referred to the elemental nature.
If you are not familiar with the Hindu doctrine of the five envelopes of being, then I must refer you to another of my books, Metamorphosis—Hermetic Science and Yoga Power. The soul as the Scarlet Woman includes three of these five envelopes of being on the subtle form level.
1. The Intellectual (boddhi; inclusive of anhankara).
2. The Mentality (manas; thought and mental faculties).
3. Action and Sensation (pranas and senses).
It is reasonable to simplify all this down to the ‘elemental nature’, however imperfect that is. The ‘woman of blood’, another term used for the soul or Scarlet Woman, includes everything we normally think of as ‘life’, ‘me’, ‘my existence’, as typically identified with body and mind.
The journey of the Scarlet Woman is to get initiated and realise she is infinitely greater than that. The terminology is simple but fits with our actual experience. The soul fears death greatly because she is identified with body and mind and the body at least will surely die and become nothing but a pile of ashes. The soul has also identified her mind very closely with her body so as not to realise they are completely as separate as you are from your writing pad. As soon as we are born into physical existence the one absolutely certain thing is we—meaning our bodies—will die. It is written into the contract so to speak and there is nothing we can do to get out of it. The question is, what is it that dies? It is certainly not Atma, which is deathless, immutable and so forth.
From the Advaitan point of view, being born into another life is only another round of experiencing temporary pleasure and pain, growing old, sickness and death—over and over again, until we are sick of it and want to become enlightened and find freedom from all that forever. So Advaita does not concern itself all that much with the details of all that happens after death and questions arising therefrom but it accepts the general doctrine as a basis: it is the subtle part, not the gross part, that is able to transmigrate. 
The doctrine of transmigration, which bears no resemblance to modern ‘reincarnationism’, as we pointed out in the previous podcast episode, is embedded in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism; transmigration is in the Egyptian tradition and seems to have been in the Orphic and other ancient initiatic traditions. This is why secular funerals, very popular in our country now, which involve no religious part whatsoever and only remember the person’s life are a total disaster in spiritual terms. People think they are only body and mind so when death comes that is it—like switching off a television set. Some of the subtle anatomy can linger for some time after physical death and a main part of religious rites is to cut that short and give the soul a chance to know God and get a better birth in another life or otherwise attain salvation or liberation, however that is understood. In that case there is a kind of translation of the soul, an upward transposition to higher states, which is helped by rites such as in Christianity properly understood.
According to the doctrine of the transmigration of the soul, death and birth are indefinite in so far as we are unable to put a number on how many there might be. We cannot say, ‘We will have ten thousand births and deaths and then no more’. It is not measurable by quantity but at the same time, the births and deaths are not infinite.
We can transmigrate to higher worlds, for example the celestial worlds, populated by devas and devis, we can even become such gods—and may have been in former lives. But an end comes to all such existences eventually unless we fully realise we are Parambrahma, the infinite, absolute, eternal, sat-chit-ananda. The Jiva can form a new body and mind—in fact it is really jivatma the core of the individuality that does this. If we are religious we will say it is God that determines it.
We do not remember anything about former existences; when the reincarnationists think they can do that they are deluding themselves totally. Advanced yogins can use Samyama Yoga to know something about it, or they could once, but that is very exceptional—I must again refer you to my book, Metamorphosis for detail on the Supernormal Powers in traditional yoga.
It needs to be understood, to avoid confusions, that the human state is not the ultimate of any series of births—because sequential time is only a determination of the human state. Admittedly, this can become quite complex, which is one reason perhaps why it is not written or spoken about much. There is general agreement though that the human state, which only comes about once, as do all other states, has a unique opportunity to know God, or Atma and Brahma as one, and to obtain liberation (moksha).
The boddhi or higher intellect is the principle of the individuality in man. It is sometimes likened to a ray from the sun, where the sun symbolises Atma. One might then ask, does that ‘ray’ of which the reflection is jivatma continue after physical death? It is the physical body, first and foremost, that dies with the physical death. The subtle body, as previously stated, can continue to a certain extent, and which allows transmigration.
However, from the strictly Advaitan point of view, we can counter such a question with this: does a ray of the sun continue after the sun goes down in the evening? No. And yet the sun is still there. We must remember that a ray is not a physical or real object either, it is an analogy. We can see the sun reflected on a surface and so we say the image is caused by a ray of the sun—but the ray is not actually a ‘thing’. We cannot catch a ray of the sun and keep it in a jar. The sun’s light is not divided into parts and so it is for Atma—Atma is not divisible into parts.
The boddhi forms the individuality; the individuality does not emerge from the mind or body. It is sometimes said by Egyptologists and others that the ancient Egyptians must have believed the latter, but this rests on a misunderstanding of symbolism. The boddhi is the instrument by which Atma knows individual mind and body. It is also that by which knowledge can be gained of other states of being such as are found in the celestial worlds, including gods or devas.
If a new individual mind and body is formed, as in the doctrine of transmigration, then a boddhi principle must exist as it is the root of that individuality but to all intents and purposes it cannot be said to be the same boddhi that formed a previous one. It has dissolved into the prakriti ‘substance’, involving the three Gunas, and has then emerged again so it is in no way a replica of what it was; and what it was and what it is, is in any case a relative existence, not an absolute one.
Now arises a further important question regarding the soul, which as has already been stated can transmigrate. How can it be then that the soul can pass through many states on the way to the goal of realisation and yet it is often implied that the soul can perish? This kind of question can carry some erroneous presumptions. For example, some will readily assume that there is a sort of ‘purpose’ to transmigration, which is very dangerously close to the Theosophical notion of a succession of human lives likened to ‘lessons’ where we ‘evolve’.
There is nothing at all like that in traditional doctrine or in Advaitan source texts. The superimposition or covering upon the Real called maya is without beginning or end until knowledge destroys ignorance and we are free forever. That is the Non-dual view. Our writings and the scriptures of various ancient traditions nonetheless accept the dreadful possibilities of:
1. Hell and great suffering and torment to the soul in the postmortem state(s) as well as in earthly existence.
2. Total annihilation of the soul.
In Hinduism, the first possibility is seldom mentioned. However, it is an essential part of the doctrine—if there are higher worlds then there are lower worlds too, including the worlds of demons or asuras, and a region where no light can enter at all. Hinduism therefore includes at least the first possibility mentioned above. When it comes to the second possibility, we have to remember that in Hinduism the word ‘soul’ is used as a translation for immortal Atma, whereas in Abrahamic traditions and in our culture generally the soul refers to the individuality, especially the mind associated with a body. What is born can (and must) die. What is never born never dies. Hell and death as finality are definitely included in the ancient Egyptian tradition. The doctrine is very solidly held within Christianity even if discussion is avoided in modern times; it is held not only within the moral exoteric side of it but also in the teaching narratives of Jesus and St. Paul. Perhaps the most sublime example is in the words of Jesus recorded by John, 15: 1–7:
I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Christ Jesus says here that he is the vine, which is life, and God in heaven is the keeper of the vine. This ‘life’ is not nature as such but the Real, Atma, whose messenger is the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. To hear that word is to be purged of ignorance concerning the true nature of things by the jnana-svarupa, pure knowledge, and the essence of what is real and true. One must abide in that truth, not in an afterlife or a time to come, but now, while living life in the flesh. The analogy of the branches and the vine is like that of the pot and the clay it is made of. The pot only exists relatively, by name and form. When it is seen to be made of clay and nothing but clay, then clay remains and is not even the cause of the pot.
Without that Self-Realisation the branch, or the body or pot, is broken and has no further existence. The fruit that is referred to is jnana-svarupa, the essential knowledge of what is real. By abiding to the truth, the word of God that is Christ, anything that is desired will be granted—exactly as is the case with the Hindu Mahadevi. The best thing to desire is jnana-svarupa, the pure knowledge, for in that alone is freedom.
So we have this possibility of death as finality in the ancient Egyptian, the Greek and probably in some aspects of the Orphic and Persian traditions as well as Christianity, as clearly shown in the text from John and elsewhere. The latter, however, excluded the doctrine of transmigration altogether presumably to avoid all the complexity that comes with that, not to mention that a simplistic notion of that nullifies the need for salvation thus neutralising the teaching of Jesus. The doctrine of transmigration is complex, resting on a cosmological application and development of metaphysics. It cannot be put across in simple terms without risk of distortion, for example, modern ‘reincarnationism’. The Neoplatonist Macrobius expressed a view of the Hermetic text, ‘Descent of the Soul from the Height of Cosmos to the Depth of Earth’, that seems on the face of it closer to that of Hinduism. This is given in Part One of the aforementioned book, Metamorphosis. Macrobius asserts the soul’s indestructibility, where the worst that can happen appears to be an indefinite duration in a dormant condition akin to the deep or dreamless sleep:
“And this is the difference between terrene bodies and supernal—I mean those of the heaven and stars and of the other elements [apart from those of earth]—that the latter are summoned upwards to the abode of the soul, and are worthy of immunity from death [that is immortality] from the very nature of the space in which they are and their imitation of sublimity. The soul, however, is drawn down to these terrene bodies; so it is thought to die when it is imprisoned in the region of things fallen and in the abode of death. Nor should it cause distress that we have so often spoken of death in connection with the soul that we have declared to be superior to death.
“For the soul is not annihilated by what is called its death, but is only buried for a time; nor is the blessing of its perpetuity taken from it by its submersion for a time, since when it shall have made it worthy to be cleansed clean utterly of all contagion of its vice, it shall once more return from body to the light of Everlasting Life restored and whole.”
One must first be aware that the ancient Greek word for the human soul is psyche (φυχη), often regarded as a ‘spark’ of the pneuma (πνευμα), of which the direct Latin equivalent is Spirit. Some have the notion that it is a kind of ‘force of nature’ that gives form to ‘matter’, and so it is present even in non-sentient objects. All this is deplorably vague and it would be fruitless trying to explain what is already obfuscated by the very use of the terms involved. However, Macrobius is clear enough even if he puts this in simple language. 
The key to it, and one that fits well with the unified doctrine of Hinduism as set forth by René Guénon in Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta, is that the bodily soul, as defined by her elemental or lower nature, must rise upward to the subtle abode so that immortality is a possibility. This owes to the ‘very nature of the space in which they are’, that is to say, the souls have undergone a change of state to a higher one—which also signifies a death to the previous state. The ‘imitation of sublimity’ is most interesting, as it corresponds to the qualification for immortality gained by ritual, devotional and yoga practices, including meditation, for example. Immortality is to be distinguished from the goal of Advaitan and yoga practice called moksha, ‘deliverance’, which is final immersion in Brahma Supreme where there is no return to any manifested state of existence. The realm of immortality, when effective and not ‘virtual’ or by ‘imitation’, is a higher state of being in the abode of the Gods or the celestial sphere, typified by the Sanskrit amrita, called ambrosia by the Greeks. The imitation of sublimity is typified by the Journey of the Soul in various traditions, by which ignorance is removed like so many veils, by degrees. Initiation is also regarded, in its primary form, as a kind of death and a new birth into a life of spirit. This is called the ‘second birth’ in my book Law of Thelema—Hidden Alchemy:
“Death came into the world so that man could receive the spiritual knowledge of the True Will—the flame of love that burns within his heart, his real identity.”
Man’s real identity is Atma. Atma and Brahma are one. That is the Supreme Identity. The Advaitan answer to the question, ‘Why did death come into the world’ would be something like ‘Maya—which is ignorance’. Through the covering of maya upon Brahma, we believe that Atma is one and the same as the body and mind. At the beginning of the Advaitan path we have to get rid of that false notion. The sense of the quoted sentence from my book is kinder than the shock tactics sometimes used by Sri Shankaracharya. It gives in as few words as possible the meaning and purpose of life or existence, which necessarily includes death as certainty, as obtaining freedom through spiritual knowledge. The seers and sages have devoted their lives to helping others obtain this freedom down the ages, for thousands of years. While that proves nothing to the sceptic, it is self-evident to the one that is qualified—that is to say, the knowledge that is the goal itself is latent within them.
After a short break, we will resume with Yoga Supernormal Powers: How to Read Minds and How to be Invisible.
Metaphysics of the Real, Episode 4 Part Two: Yoga and Yoga Powers
A great deal of my more recent writing has concerned the practice of yoga. Most particularly Thunder Perfect Gnosis—Intellectual Flower of Mind and Metamorphosis—Hermetic Science and Yoga Power.
Much of what I wrote previous to that was about magick, a term that was used as an umbrella to include all the vedangas or traditional sciences. In that, a symbolic language was always used. It has become necessary, owing to the conditions of the times in which we live, to become more exact and discursive. My use of the term magick was also inclusive of theurgy and so was not in any way limited to the application of Hermetic correspondences to produce effects. 
Theurgy, the ‘practice of God’ on the other hand, is what might be described as yoga of other traditions than those of the East, with which the term ‘yoga’ is most commonly linked. That link owes to the vast body of knowledge, developed from a complete metaphysics, contained in the Vedas, Puranas and Shastras. Nonetheless, the Chaldean Oracles, Mithraic Rites and all of the so-called ‘spells’ of the ancient Egyptians indicate a science of the mind and yoga. Patañjali—a family name that does not necessarily refer to one person—did not invent the Yoga-Shastra, so it is completely wrong to call it a ‘philosophy’ as though comparable to the theories of the Western thinkers. The knowledge had already existed since times of even greater antiquity than the Yoga-Sutras, reckoned to originate from around two thousand years ago. While many will automatically think of ‘yoga’ as a collection of postures, breathing exercises and so forth, that is to confuse the means with the goal, which is yoga in fact, or ‘union’ with the Universal or Absolute.
Yoga is designed to transform all those elements in the human being that pose an obstacle to the goal of union with the Universal. It serves to prepare for that union by the use of rhythms, for example the control of breath and the utterance of sonic mantras or sacred syllables. These are preliminary means. Of all such means, theoretical knowledge—which includes not only that of yoga but also the six vedangas or traditional sciences—is indispensible. While theoretical knowledge alone is not sufficient in itself it acts as a very necessary support to the goal of Self-Realisation. The path is one of contemplation, which involves assimilation of knowledge through reflective thought, and meditation, when that is understood in the technical sense of dharana ‘concentration’ and dhyana ‘knowledge’.
It is concentration that matters the most for that alone leads to true meditation. This is not in any way comparable with ordinary thought or mere absence of thought, is itself the fruit of knowledge that is the goal, and that can alone lead to metaphysical realisation. Such realisation is not always complete, which is to say the final supreme state may not have been attained, even if higher states are reached.
It can be said then there are lesser degrees of realisation, which all the observances of Ashtanga Yoga are there to support.
The yogin is in reality one who has realised the perfect and final union, which means they have realised the ultimate of all that is possible for the human being. So when this term yogin is used as descriptive of mere practitioners it suffers some degradation. The lesser states belong to the yogin too, but they are never considered to be of much importance compared to the totality of existence. The same applies to the Supernormal Powers, otherwise called siddhis or ‘magical powers’ in the Western Tradition. These powers are never pursued for their own sake—or at least, the Yoga-Sutras include severe warnings against this. They must be realised as ultimately of an illusionary nature. For that reason the true yogin will generally only use such powers in rare and exceptional circumstances. The warnings exist because the powers can become serious obstacles to further progress. Those who would show off or exhibit peculiar or extraordinary faculties, which includes those in the domain of the supernatural, are never true yogins. The real yogin is one that has, through metaphysical realisation, become entirely and permanently free from all illusory limitations upon the Self and has therefore entered the supra-individual order.
How to Read Minds and How to be Invisible:
This Yoga-Sutra is not about telepathy exactly, as it is exclusively concerned with mind-reading, not transmission. The means is, as always, Samyama Yoga—that is, the practice of yoga, not necessarily the goal itself. It is understood that some persons are born with the ability to read the minds of other people and so they do not get the power from yoga. If Samyama is practiced on any idea of the mind, that idea is fully realised. One must be able to do this before applying concentration on the thoughts of others. The idea, thought or ‘notion’ is then isolated from all other thoughts and concentration is brought to bear on it. In order to realise the thoughts of another, the reader holds only the sense or ‘view’ of the other person, restraining all other thoughts entirely, effectively then producing a mental vacuum. Thoughts arising are then the thoughts of the other person. A reader may also know a feeling long forgotten.
We had this demonstrated to us once by a person that was born with the ability. They were able to retrieve thoughts and feelings from long ago, and which were quite exactly correct. Nonetheless, the mind-reader did not understand the power or know if it had any real use; neither were they able to tell from where in the person’s life this originated, and whether the kind of thought was in any way still active. The mind-reader did not need to be in the presence of the one whose mind they were reading but only needed to be able to quietly concentrate on the ‘view’ of the person, as it is put in the aphorism.
In this case, the mind-reader only seemed able to read thoughts and feelings from long ago with precision; she used the power to a certain extent even in a social situation, and without disclosing what she was doing, perhaps because it had become habitual; however, her ability to do this with any degree of accuracy was impaired by psychological and other bias.
The yogin may learn the nature of such an idea, for example as one of attachment or desire, but is unable to know the basis, the object. This is because it is the mental modification only that is observed by the yogin. Fear is given as an example: fear may be observed, as mental modification, but that fear is independent of the tiger that generated the sense of fright. The aphorism is emphatic: ‘The prop (support or basis) of the notion remains unknown because that is not the object of the (yogin’s) observation.’
The Power of Invisibility: 
this reading, as with the previous one, is taken from Metamorphosis—Hermetic Science and Yoga Power. The Supernormal Power of making the body disappear so it is completely invisible to others is perhaps one of the most well known of all the powers. It is known about, though scarcely believed in, through the popularity of the legends of King Arthur and the wizard Merlin, for example, who made full use of such powers. We are here looking at special applications of Samyama Yoga. Unless a person has practiced and experienced Samyama then no doubt all of these powers will seem to them as no more than fantasy.
However, in the book I intentionally placed the three chapters Samyama, Transmutation and Phenomena to serve as a kind of introduction before describing the Supernormal Powers. If that is understood perfectly well then the reader—who will no doubt also be a practitioner—should have little difficulty in seeing that what is being described here has nothing to do with ‘tricks’ or stagecraft, and is not being written for the purpose of entertainment only.
The Yoga-Sutra is very brief as the method owes mainly to the use of a highly trained will, such as comes about through yoga, which involves prolonged control of body and mind towards a goal that far transcends the acquiring of siddhis or magical powers as commonly understood. The visual link between the body and the sensory perceptions is suppressed by use of an effort of will. To put it another way, the body is placed beyond the sphere of perception of the eye. First one must perform Samyama on the visual appearance of the body; the yogin is accustomed through long practice to passing beyond the physical and subtle senses and even the cognitions, for the five vrittis or cognitions are modifications of the I-sense—that is, the pure conscious self awareness. It is not ‘having thoughts about something’. Thus it will be seen by those who have succeeded in yoga practice to at least the realisation of the pure I-sense how the visual link can be suppressed, even in the faculties of other persons, thus rendering one invisible. In the words of Vyasa, ‘the body ceases to be an object of observation by another person’. In fact, it is not only the visual faculty but also the audio and other faculties, so for example the yogin will not be heard either.
Magicians, or more accurately fakirs in the East, are able to exert their will so that others only see what the fakir wants them to see. In this case, no knowledge of any real kind is implied, as fakirs are not yogins. They develop their powers over long and arduous training, often involving extreme and torturous methods.
Such a fakir could turn a man into an elephant or a snake into a house and yet have no knowledge of any transcendent principle; the difference must be noted that they do not do this by yoga power. There may be an analogy drawn between the use of this power by a fakir and the use of it by politicians and other advertisers who seek to profit from the manipulation of minds so that others see only what they want them to see. Likewise, the previous Supernormal Power that was described, the reading of minds, might be comparable on a very degraded level with the Western magical power of ‘political and other ascendancy’, or exerting influence over others, which is there a correspondence of Jupiter. A politician must at least have a sort of instinctive sense of the kind of direction the mind of the populace is leaning, and the extent to which it can be given a ‘push’ in the desired direction.
The power of invisibility exists in the Western correspondences, and is ascribed to the twentieth path linking Chesed with Tiphereth, the letter yod and Virgo. Interestingly, the further correspondence of the Tarot Atu the Hermit IX introduces the notion of the ‘cloak of concealment’, which we will describe later. The Hebrew letter yod is sometimes analogously taken as the power of will, and the sage or the hermit is seen as one who practices the necessary austerities by which such a will is made possible.
The attribution of the zodiacal sign of Virgo lends to this another aspect, for a further power of the path is parthenogenesis, which links it to the ancient Egyptian Isis, to whom the power of both concealment and pristine conception of a divine ‘child’ (Horus) belongs. This takes us away altogether from any kind of tricks or deception, for we are back on the ground of the yoga powers developed through silence and withdrawal from the world of appearances. The ‘child’ is then emblematic of that aspect of the devotional path complemented by the ‘warrior’, and where the child as a yogic state is the superior of the two and not to be confused with any sentimental notions. The warrior ‘clings’ to wisdom by his own volition whereas the child does not act or will, resting wholly upon divine ordinance. Horus nonetheless carries both attributes, the former indicating the active mode (rajas) and the latter the non-active (sattvic) mode.
Finally, mention might be made of a very elaborate attempt to gain the power of invisibility through magical means that was at one time circulated among members of the Golden Dawn. This made use of the notion of a cloak of concealment, and rested upon the theory that the astral light could be ‘densified’ and woven into a shroud and worn for a temporary period of time by the magician, so as to make him invisible. This was sometimes supported by the use of talismans, which are themselves usually concealed or wrapped up. The whole operation is placed under the governance of Saturn, though some might find it worthwhile considering there is an analogous relation between Saturn and the Moon.
That brings Episode 4 of Metaphysics of the Real to a close. The music is called Gypsy Caravan. I composed and played it on the guitar and other instruments. This recording features local field ambience from the West Penwith Peninsula, including the river Stennack and a couple of blackbirds in the early evening.
Thank you for your attention.
Sophia be-with-us forever.