Three Deaths, and a Fourth

Cicero, H.P. Blavatsky, Éliphas Lévi, W.Q. Judge · Constitution of Man Series · 23 pages

A compilation from four authors, arranged as a sequence of seven short studies: death as a release from the house of hell; premonitions of death; the three deaths and a fourth that gives the file its title; occult methods of corpse disposal, where a body may be placed in a vase of aqua-fortis or consigned to fire or earth; and the argument that death is not an evil and that we have no duty to lament it.

The sixth section is the doctrinally important one. Antahkarana is presented as our only link with the Higher Self, described in both its ante-mortem and post-mortem functions, and the position taken is set against Vedanta: where Vedanta teaches that Raja-Yoga can be attained by bypassing the higher mind, Theosophy asserts that no communication with Atman is possible except through Buddhi-Manas — so that to destroy Antahkarana before the personal is absolutely under the control of the impersonal Ego is like destroying a bridge over an impassable chasm. The last section maps the Bardo as three phases with their durations: Kama-Loka, lasting from hours to years and averaging 150, where the souls of the depraved may remain for centuries; gestation, from which the irredeemably wicked are barred because their Antahkarana is permanently severed; and Devachan, whose ratio to earth life averages twenty-one to one.

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