The Theosophical Society, as such, is not responsible for any opinion or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless contained in an official document. A THE DANGERS OF PSYCHISM NUMBER of short treatises, in verse and prose, are attributed to the great Indian Teacher, Shankaracharya, though it is probable that the actual writing was done by his disciples. Among these treatises, there is one, Vakya Sudha, which has a particularly happy phrasing of the three worlds in relation to the seven principles of manifested life. The three worlds, beginning from below, are called "the ordinary world," "the looking-glass world," and "the transcendent world"; and the forms in which the One Spirit is manifested in these three worlds are called, in the same way, "the ordinary life," "the looking-glass life," and "the transcendent life," the last being in reality one with the Eternal. This apt and lucid naming of the three worlds lends itself admirably to the purpose of the present "Notes and Comments." That purpose is, so far as may be possible, to indicate the character of the psychical world, which corresponds to the looking-glass world of our treatise; to show the place which the psychic world holds in normal development; and to describe certain morbid developments, which lead to confusion, and which are full of danger. The theme, therefore, is the normal and the abnormal activity of the psychic world. It will be seen at once that the threefold division given above closely corresponds with St. Paul's division of man into body, soul and spirit; psyche, the psychical nature, being the middle term, somewhat loosely translated "soul." The most important passage illustrating Paul's use of this threefold division, a passage which clearly shows what he means by the middle term, psyche, the psychical nature, is in the fifteenth chapter of the first letter to the disciples in Corinth. Neither in the Authorized nor in the Revised Version of 1881, is the passage satisfactorily translated. A closer rendering would be as follows: 19 289 |