Popular lectures on theosophy. I : Ladder of lives / by Annie Besant.

  • Annie Besant
Date:
[1910?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Popular lectures on theosophy. I : Ladder of lives / by Annie Besant. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the evolution of forms throngh stages of ever- increasing beauty, complexity and capacity, so that, within all, the evolving involved life is seen. I have called these stages, these grades, “The Ladder of Lives”. These living forms occupy successive steps on the ladder, from the mineral to the throne of the Locos Himself. It is a veritable Jacob’s Ladder, with its foot in the mire of earth and its highest poimt lost in the divine Glory. The Hierarchies of living things are the rungs of the ladder, from the dust to the mightiest Archangel or Deva. One of those Hierarchies is the human, some way up the ladder. The method of the climbing we shall study later. It is clear that in this, as in all other sciences, there must be certain great conceptions, mother- ideas, vital and productive. These may be dis- entangled from the vast mass of details fillimg up the master-thoughts, and these can be placed clearly before the mind of any one who is willing to exercise a certain amount of patience and sus- tained thought. On the other hand, there 1s a vast mass of details filling up these huge concep- tions, and the mastery of that vast mass of details means the devotion of a whole life to a small portion of the mass. The case is exactly the same with Theosophical teaching. There are cer- tain great conceptions of evolution that I propose to try to put before you this afternoon. My hope
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