[Dante Alighieris “Göttliche Komödie” und die okkulte Philosophie. Einleitung.]

Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl[1]

Introduction

“The kingdom of God is within ourselves”

It is ancient history, written in the books of the wise of all nations, yet understood by few; the eternal invisible truth in the visible and multicolored robe of poetry, a symbolic but truthful portrayal of the path of salvation that every human being must walk, leading in the wilderness of error to the knowledge of evil as evil, then to purification and finally to union arrived with the good. This is what the immortal Dante reminds us of in his descriptions of the states of existence referred to as “hell” (avitchi), “purgatory” (kama loca [Kāma-loka]), and “heaven” (devachan), and our task is to examine how far these descriptions agree with the investigations of occult science. The one from Dr. R. Pfleiderer’s notes attached to the translation of the Divine Comedy are excellent; but the truth is best known to man by his own experience, and as heaven, purgatory, and hell are not merely around us, but also states within oneself, we need not go far to make observations about them close. Anyone who has let himself be carried away by a passion into an evil act knows hell; everyone who strives for good in the struggle which self-control demands knows purgatory, and everyone who feels the presence of God in his heart is in heaven. There are probably few people who have come to their senses at a more mature age who cannot exclaim with Dante:

“Found halfway through human life

I tuck myself into a dark forest,

Because I have turned away from the straight path.

How difficult it is to say of this way

How wild, how dense he was, full of fear and need.”

          There is no need to suppose that, because Dante wrote this, he was guilty of particularly serious youthful sins; for everyone who did not come into the world as a helpless idiot, or as a perfect wise man, and has blood in his veins, wanders for a shorter or longer time in the labyrinth of error, falls and gets up again, until he finally awakens, i.e., comes to self-knowledge. All sin and suffering is rooted in ignorance, and ignorance is the unconscious in the spirit, “sleep.” So too, when the light of truth begins to dawn in his soul and he beholds the star which guides him out of the forest of error, each of us can say:

“I do not know how I wound myself into it;

So I was completely enraptured by the deep sleep,

At the time when the true way was fading from me.”

          In this forest everyone encounters on his life path “the colorful panther” (lust), the “lion” (ambition) and the “she-wolf” (greed), from which he is threatened with destruction; but for everyone the savior, reason, is ready to help. She is the guide which leads us safely through Hell, and Dante dresses her in the mask of Virgil. As long as we have reason and follow its guidance, we can confidently traverse the deepest abysses of hell as observers without falling into the abyss. Human reason is enough to protect us from the devils, from the evil passions which want to drag us down. Their possession enables us to become reasonable and remain reasonable; but it goes no further; it cannot elevate us above the human, and give us nothing better than itself. It cannot enlighten itself. Therefore, if we are not content with merely avoiding evil and remain indifferent, but want to rise to the good and experience divine existence, it requires a higher power belonging to the divine, and this is divine grace from above, the light of the wisdom of the God-man, illuminating human reason and connecting man to God. This divine guide, the enlightened soul who shows us the way to heaven, appears in Dante’s poem under the name “Beatrix.”

“Lady of Virtue, Teacher of the Wise,

Through which mankind towers far above

What lives in that heaven’s smaller circles!

So I am gladly ready to serve you.”

          Without this divine grace, which no man can procure for himself, because the self has not the ability to rise above itself, even the most discerning intellect cannot attain wisdom.[2] Earthly reason and earthly intellect belong to earthly man, but divine wisdom belongs to that principle which is of divine nature in him. Reason leads us from the realm of ignorance (tamas), through the realm of passion (rajas) to knowledge (sattwa); but the light of God in man alone can lead us to that true divine self-knowledge (Theosophy) which is above all human knowledge, thought and will, and of which Dante says:

“The spirit is never satisfied, I see this here,

As in the splendor of truth, the fountain of life,

Which shows us as delusion everything but her.

But if he found it, then the torment of striving rests.

And he can find her, otherwise it would be yes

Every wish of the human breast in vain,

Therefore, when the spirit sees the truth,

At her foot take root the doubt,

And drives from height to height close to the highest.”

          As long as man lives on earth and soul and spirit are connected through the body, wisdom, reason, intellect, desire and animal instincts also work in him, and it is therefore possible for us, by the power of free will, in heaven, in purgatory or stop us in hell. Our body can be on earth, our soul in purgatory, and the spirit rave to heaven. Thus we also find described in Dante’s poem the souls of some people in Hell, whose personalities were still living on earth at the same time. Nor can man free himself from the torments of hell which his bad conscience causes him by rational ruminations and logical shortcuts. This can only happen in this life through the power of divine grace, which brings him to the knowledge of the truth. But when, after the death of the body, the separation of the higher principles from the lower comes or begins, each also gravitates to where it belongs: the divine to the divine, the animal to the animal, the material to unconscious matter; and since only the true is the real, and only the divine possesses true consciousness and free will, even after this separation only the base and transitory with its instincts, inner sensations and memories remain back as a larva or shadow on earth or in Kama loca [Kāma-loka].[3] Here the leading reason as well as wisdom has left the spiritless shadow; for that which was of a divine nature in man (the higher manas, intuition), assuming that it was active in him at all, takes away with it that which is compatible with his divine nature, and leaves the unreasoning shadow with his apparent life in the lower astral plane, and the inanimate body back on earth.

The true and real God-man is only one, “Christ, the Lord.” He is the true light, through whose re-appearance in the material world the various illusory egos have formed, which the man caught in earthly dreams of life considers his true self-consciousness. It is only in Christ, in the consciousness of God, in the indivisible sole light of truth (Ātma Buddhi Manas) which is our salvation. Without this consciousness, man in this life is but a sum total of states of existence (tattwas) put together by the law of karma, without true spiritual life in which the divine spark slumbers and can awaken, and, after the divine has left him, an equal sum or “constellation” of lower principles, but in which such an awakening is no longer possible.

For this reason, no other salvation from hell is conceivable other than either through the complete annihilation of the individuality or through re-embodiment (reincarnation). Evil cannot redeem itself from itself by its own power; it includes the presence of the good which is (still) in it. Assisting in an error only makes it a bigger error. Since evil is the opposite of good, allowing evil to grow will only make it worse. Then the soul, from which the divine spark has disappeared, has no choice but to approach the light anew through a new incarnation.

Two people are present in man: the man of the earth, the son of nature, who can also become unnatural and an animal or “devil,” and the heavenly man, who is an inhabitant of heaven, and only for a short time visited the earth in order to collect experiences in a human body and soar to higher knowledge. Both are found together and embodied in the human form, and over both shines the non-individualized, indivisible light of Deity, the Logos of the universe.[4] But the devilish element from an earlier incarnation can also cling to the reincarnating spirit. Thus one has to contend with a devil throughout life which one generated and created in a previous existence, and it is true to say that children (compounds of skandhas or properties) are not only of heaven and nature, but also be born from hell.

That composition of earthly and heavenly and perhaps also devilish qualities which we call “man” forms his being and character, and man is that being with whom he actually identifies himself. The real Self, which no one can know unless he knows God, is above heaven and hell and suffers nothing; But according to Buddhist teachings there are five paths to the illusionary self with which man identifies himself as long as he has not come to true knowledge of God: the wrong way (hell), the animal womb, the kingdom of ghosts [hungry ghosts], the human world and the world of the gods. Thus Gautama, the Enlightened One says:

“I see through and recognize a person’s heart and mind, Sariputto [Śāriputra]: “This is how this person acts, he works towards it, such a path he has taken, that in the dissolution of the body after death he descends, towards bad track, will fall into ruin and disaster; and I then later see him with the heavenly eye, the clarified unearthly one, at the dissolution of the body, after death, gone downward, on the wrong track, in ruin and calamity, filled only with painful, stinging, burning feelings; as if there were a coal mine, deeper than a man’s height, full of glowing coals, without flames and without smoke; and one would come, roasted by sunburn, consumed by sunburn, exhausted, trembling, thirsty, and would walk straight up to that pit and fall into it.”[5]

Similarly, the Buddha describes the fate of that manas who, after the dissolution of the body, falls into the womb of animals, “like one who falls into a cesspool lulled with fetid dross.” Also the one who falls into the realm of ghosts, like one who seeks in vain under a dead tree with stunted foliage and sparse greenery for shade to shelter from the heat of the sun. Also, the one who reappears as a human being; then those who reach places of heavenly joy, and finally those who have come to true Self-knowledge, freedom and bliss through the redemption of the mind from the delusion of being separate [from the Ātman].

In this pit of glowing coals, in this stinking cesspool, under this dry tree, in the feeling of being human or in the dwelling place of heavenly bliss, man is already now, during his life, tormented by pangs of conscience, by torments of soul fulfilled, or unselfish and open to the sentiment of good. He can rise or fall in his soul, according as he surrenders to the devil of selfishness or rises to the God of love. Also during earthly life the outer sense impressions have an effect on him, so that while he lives on the outside the inner impressions do not fully come into their own. But when free will has vanished from the lower manas after death and the outer senses have ceased to be active, when the unknowing soul is dependent on what it has accumulated during life, so she herself is the victim of her feelings; just as a man shut up in a lonely dark dungeon has no distractions and finds no light or rest unless these are within himself.

Some have found contradictions between the teachings of the Buddha, the teachings of the Bible, and those of the Tibetan adepts; but this is only because they have not been correctly understood, which is mainly due to the fact that the word “man” has a very varied meaning, depending on the point of view from which one looks at it, and that the concept of the reincarnation, that is, the recombination of a sum of skandhas into a new personality, again overshadowed by the higher Self with which “transmigration” or “possession” is often confused.

The principle from which man takes his name (Man = Sanskrit) and from which his essence as “man” consists is manas, the mind. But in man there is a higher and a lower sphere, higher and lower soul forces, which separate after death; and thus the human being divides, as it were, into two human beings, as it happens with a dreaming person, of which one (Buddhi Manas) can be in Devachan, the other (Kāma Manas) in Kama loca [Kāma-loka], and everyone can be as its own individual consciousness, of which only that which is endowed with reason is real. The part left by the higher divine consciousness is no longer a real human being, but only the remnant, the dreaming larva, the shadow of such a person, although as such it can still be equipped with feeling, intelligence, memory, etc., like the wick of a lamp which still glows when the flame is extinguished; or he is an astral corpse in which personal memory, memory, etc., have slumbered after the escape of the higher manas, though they may be temporarily reawakened through the influence of the mental powers of a living being (medium).[6] This is the reprehensible art of necromancy, or “necromancy,” and is alluded to in many places in Dante’s visit to Hell, in that as he approaches, the denizens of Hell awaken and tell him the events of their past lives. But the higher manas which has entered the heavenly existence, which is freed and separated from everything earthly, has nothing more to do with all the lower things which concerned its personality on earth; he lives in the ideals he has accumulated, just as the dweller in hell suffers from the passions and ideas he has accumulated within himself, just as it cannot be otherwise according to the immutable law of nature.

(Sequel follows.)


(Continuation.)[7]

Hell

“Hell” (Avitchi) is not a particular place, but a state of mind. The soul in which the fires of hell are kindled by some passion carries that hell within itself and takes it with it wherever it may be. If she were in paradise, she would still have hell in her and would be in it. The fire of hell is the fire of desire, the devil is the “self”; “Bad luck” is the symbol of the earthly ideas and memories that attach the soul to the earthly, the “burning sulphur” the bad conscience that prevents it from soaring up to the highest and being happy.

H. P. Blavatsky says, “There is no worse hell than one finds in this life on earth.” Where but in this world could we be more surrounded by stupidity, selfishness, hypocrisy, avarice, greed, lies, folly, and passions of every kind?, not to think of physical suffering, sickness, oppression, poverty, cruelty, etc. The death of the body puts an end to outward suffering; but he does not change the state of the soul. Therefore, if it is admitted that after the death of the body there can still be a continuance of personal consciousness, it follows that the soul which has left the body still carries hell within it even on the astral plane (kama loca) [Kāma-loka], which she created on earth.

We have, therefore, to distinguish two kinds of denizens of hell; namely those who still inhabit material bodies and whom we meet daily on the street, and those who have taken leave of earthly life; and of these two there are again two distinct genera; viz., those who are “spiritually dead,” i.e., whom the spark of the divine life (Jīva) has left, and who are no longer capable of noble sentiment, however much sagacity and learning they possess, and those in whom, in spite of all the sins with which they are burdened, the divine grace, that is, the ability to recognize the truth, is still present. The former are called “the damned,” not because anyone condemns them, but because they no longer have within them divine life to save them; the latter, whether alive or defunct, are in “purgatory”; for the separation of the divine from the terrestrial, although it may occur during this life as a result of moral depravity, in most cases takes place some time after death, in that intermediate state known as kama loca [kāma-loka] or also called “purgatory.”

To make this clear, we must hold fast to the thought that there is but one immortal God-man, whether we call him Jesus or Iśwara. “He is the head and we are its members.” His spirit is the light and spiritual life in all men, and from the reflection of his divine life springs in the personal man his personal life, consciousness, intellectual activity, etc. The Divine Consciousness in man is his true Awareness. So long as this Divine Consciousness has not awakened in man, or if it has disappeared from him, man cannot be regarded as a truly living being, but only as a “shadow,” whether that shadowy soul inhabits a body or is disembodied.

The world is full of such mindless shadows in which real life has not yet become conscious. It consists of that rabble, part educated, part illiterate, in which neither good nor evil reigns consciously, but only thoughtlessness and selfishness. Too weak for good and too cowardly for evil, incapable of judgment of their own, they are driven hither and thither by fashion, and they represent a picture of everyday social life, where everyone, plagued by petty cares, struggles for his wretched existence, chasing worthless goods, and morally punching and poking one another in the ribs as each tries to get ahead of the other. Those hovering over the abyss of hell, “neither cold nor warm,” and surrounded by the night of ignorance, Dante describes as

“ . . . the people of misery, dedicated to mockery,

That lived without shame and without praise;

Not mutineers and not faithful to their God;

The heavens drove her out as a miss;

And since through them the sinner’s pride arose,

Don’t take them into the deep horror of hell.”

          We don’t need to look for these spirits in the “beyond”; we are in their midst and see how they hate each other and haunt how their whole being is absorbed in this ephemeral life. We see everyday this people of souls,

“That naked and surrounded by flies and wasps,

Goaded and tormented forever.

Different languages, words, horribly roaring,

punches, sounds of hoarse shouting;

The anger at screaming and the pain groaning

Through this circle of eternally black air.”

          But from thoughtless selfishness to crime is but one step. Without knowing how it happens, one passes from the realm of ignorance into the realm of evil deeds, where indifference as to good and evil ceases and the struggle of egoism against divine love begins. It is here that the evil conscience awakens the slumbering soul.

But before we enter the kingdom of hell, Dante leads us into the realm of the “pagans who died before Christ was born,” that is, those who wanted the good, but in whose hearts the redeeming light of God-knowledge is not yet risen. As our readers know, there is a distinction between the higher and the lower manas in man. As long as the light of knowledge of God has not dawned in the mind, man (Kāma-Manas) can enjoy nature and all earthly things, but not the true bliss for which the divine Soul (Buddhi-Manas) is destined. No one can attain divine existence through their own earthly power. This only happens through the “resurrection of Christ” within ourselves. Only when we are baptized by the power of divine grace do we cease to be merely intellectual people (“Jews and Gentiles”) and become discerning sons of light: called “Christians.”

“A mighty One has come in,

Crowned with splendor and glory.”

          When this mighty one in us celebrates his resurrection, our own ephemeral self appears to us as an insubstantial shadow. Thus Virgil, who has come to knowledge and visits hell with his companion, reason, also sees his own apparent self in the realm of shadows. The highest can only be recognized in truth when it has come to life within us.

“And if they also lived before Christ, then honored

Don’t treat the highest as is due;

And these spirits I myself call companions.

This, and nothing else, has brought us here.”

          First we were in the kingdom of stupidity (Tamas), where the deep darkness of ignorance reigns; then in the realm of twilight, where there is indeed a longing for the good and therefore no torment and remorse, but also no true bliss.

“Not a wail, just a deep, low sigh,

And this came from suffering without torment.”

          But now we enter the realm of passion (rajas), hell, which is morally divided into different regions according to the type of mental suffering caused by the various desires, which Dante symbolizes as spatial divisions before our eyes. It is inhabited by unreasoning shadows because, as has already been explained above, God (Reality) is the essence of all things, and a creature without God can also be nothing but an unsubstantial appearance, with which man nevertheless suffers as long as this insubstantial thing has a relative existence for him and his consciousness is identical with it.[8] The divine man is the light, the earthly man is the shadow. The divine man suffers in man through his sins so long as he is united with him[9]; through his incarnation in the earthly man he takes upon himself the burden of his karma.[10] Man’s salvation and the forgiveness of his sins consist in entering into the consciousness of the God-man. Through death and the separation of the divine from the earthly, light is redeemed from shadow; but man (Manas) finally enters the light or the darkness, depending on whether his nature corresponds to the nature of light, or is materially minded, or is kindled by the fire of passion; for everything returns in the end to its origin.

An old Latin proverb says:

“Terra tagit carnem, tumulum circumvolat umbra,

Orcus habet manes, Spiritus astra petit.”

“The earth touches the flesh, the shadow flies around the tomb

The orc has ghosts, the spirit seeks the stars.”

(Die Erde bedeckt das Fleisch, das Grab umschwebet der Schatten,

Die Unterwelt hält die Manen, der Geist steigt zu den Sternen empor.)

(The earth covers the flesh, the shadow hovers around the grave,

The underworld holds the manes, the spirit rises to the stars.)

          But the manes (manas) are twofold, and that part of the mind which unites with the divine spirit is not restrained by the underworld (kama loca) [kāma-loka], but rises after death with the spirit up to the “stars.” Such a person already knows quite well during his life that he is a citizen of heaven, even if his earthly soul inhabits the earth.

But we are now dealing with those insubstantial shadows who are forsaken by God-consciousness and true life, and for whom therefore, whether embodied on earth or in kama loca [kāma-loka], there is no salvation. Charon speaks to them:

“Woe to you, outcasts! (heard his screams)

No hopes of ever reaching heaven!”

          For them no prayer helps; for if the spark of divine love is extinguished in the heart, how could the consciousness of immortality arise from a seed that is no longer there? On the other hand, in a madman or an idiot, there can be this divine spark; for it is not his spirit that is insane or foolish, but only the brain unfit to be a serviceable instrument for the workings of reason and understanding.

The images which Dante shows us are most apt to depict the states of mind which are the results of sin. Thus we see daily how people who exercise no self-control are driven by the storm of their sensual desires:

“Hell’s gale of ceaseless raging

Sweeps away the tormented spirits,

And turns them upside down, down and up.

You can hear howls and lamentations.”

          So too we see those possessed by the spirit of avarice or envy up to their necks in a filth far more disgusting than all material filth, and no one will deny that the greedy one carries a useless burden, albeit the same cannot be weighed with any decimal scale. Then come the spirits of narrow-mindedness, bigotry, and intolerance. They are comparable to people who lie in their graves and still burn in the fire of passion.

“Between graves one sees flames blazing,

And they are all aflame through and through.

Half open their lids all

And from outside such tones ring out,

That you can tell who’s inside be damned.”

          Indeed, the intolerant are generally those who see a semblance of truth, but draw false conclusions from it, and by the clamor they make, it is known of whose spirit they are children.

Dante depicts the unrest and remorse of the suicidal man, tormented by remorse, by drawing the shadow pursued by angry dogs, calling in vain for death, which cannot come until the clock is up; for even if the suicide has rid himself of his visible body, he is nevertheless, as every occultist knows, still subject to the law of life as long as the lifetime determined by his karma lasts.

Deeper still in the abyss of depravity and hell are those who are addicted to unnatural vices.

“Scholars and priests are united here,

Of great reputation, once tainted

With that mistake that everyone is now weeping for.”

          The scam is portrayed as a stinking beast:

“It looked like an honest man

And let gentleness and grace be seen from outside;

But then the form of the dragon began.”

          But the clerics and Simonists and pious hypocrites, who make God the servant of the church, and thus turn the highest down, are buried in their perversity, heads down in narrow holes, while the soles of their feet burn. Acknowledging the justice of this punishment, Dante exclaims:

“All-wisdom, how great is your art,

In heaven, on earth, in the pit of hell,

And how fairly you split every lot.”

          Here there are innumerable theologians who were more concerned with gaining money than with the truth. There are also many popes who misused the religion’s name to deceive the world:

“Your God is gold and silver, splendor and glory,

Better are those who cling to idols

The ones have where you make a hundred.”

          But space does not allow us to follow Dante all the way through hell, in which he describes to us the sufferings of man’s false ‘I’. These false ‘I’s are the desires, passions and ideas of a lower nature personified in us. They are only illusory beings, our own changing, ephemeral illusory selves, which we take for our real selves until we know the God-man who is the real self of all men.

In this twisted world, which is the very hell, the human nature in everyone strives to increase this make-believe self, and millions daily pray for salvation from all evil. But this apparent self and false “I” should not be enlarged and glorified, but overcome, not redeemed, but destroyed; for its essence is error, and if the error is nurtured, only a greater error will result from it. If one were to “redeem” the lie, the truth would perish; tolerance does not consist in associating with evil and fighting against good. It is not the false egos that are to be saved, but rather the true self that is to be redeemed from them. But this can only happen when man recognizes his true self, and this happens through overcoming error and sin when man’s true self-consciousness, which is God-consciousness, awakens in his heart. This divine Self-knowledge, and nothing else, is the divine wisdom or “Theosophy.”

(Sequel follows.)


(Continuation and conclusion.).[11]

Purgatory

The symbols which the immortal Dante brings before our eyes in his description of the states of the soul which are called “hell” and “purgatory” are not difficult to understand for every feeling and thinking person who knows how to look at himself; for there are probably only a few who have not already found themselves in the night of spiritual dumbing down, which forms the kingdom of materiality (tamas), or “hell,” i.e., have known the fire of passion (rajas) which springs from selfishness; everyone has probably already tried to climb the mountain of faith in his own inner being, the summit of which is the knowledge of the truth (Theosophy), and always fell behind when he did not get this knowledge in its own light, but in external things and sought evidence. But if he succeeds in climbing “the mountain which purifies”[12] even only partially, then he knows from his own experience and without books and evidence what is to be understood by “spiritual breathing” and that the life of the soul is different as the life of the body, a life that must remain unsearchable, inaccessible and hidden (occult) to all scholars and unlearned, no matter how well they would be well-read and versed in the “occult sciences” and theology, until they are inner awakening to whose consciousness have come.

The higher the soul rises to these spiritual heights through the power of its innate divine grace, the more the spiritual horizon expands, the more pure does the divine light appear, and it enters a new world full of glory, where it is filled with bliss is penetrated, and rejoicing resounds within her.

“How different it was here than in the corridor

Through Hell. At songs I climbed up

And down there with wild sounds of lamentation.”[13]

          The fool and the unbeliever always look for evidence where spiritual things are concerned, and when he finds a theory that suits him, he thinks he has found the truth. But he always remains in the dark. The wise do not concern themselves with proofs and scientific theories regarding the existence of the light, but step out of the darkness of ignorance and the fire of passion into the eternal light themselves and let the light itself be revealed within themselves. “Occult science,” in the true sense of the word, is the science which emerges from the knowledge of one’s own higher existence, and it is only attained through one’s own higher becoming, i.e. through the awakening of the higher soul forces dormant within ourselves.

Dante describes this “spiritual progress” in his “Purgatory”; it is in fact no “progress” at all, but only a purification, a shedding of the impure and base that veils the free spirit view, and whereby the true man becomes not something other than what he already was from eternity, but himself as that what he is in his innermost being from eternity as the image or reflection of God in the universe.[14] This knowledge, on which man’s salvation from error and the suffering arising from it rests, is not obtained through scientific research, nor through external teachings and revelations, nor through apparitions of angels, etc., but is only attained through the inward working power of divine love.

“The love which speaks to my heart.”[15]

 

Reason rules what is below us. It is enough to guide us through “hell” and not let us perish in “purgatory”; but it cannot produce the star of wisdom that shines high in the sky, showing us the way out of the labyrinth.

“Fool, whoever hopes to penetrate everything

With reason, even in endless spheres,

Where He, the Eternal, is one in three.”[16]

          The true knowledge of God is only achieved through spiritual rebirth, i.e., attained by the revelation of the God-man in the soul of man;

(“Because if it were allowed to see everything,

Not then did Mary need to give birth.”)[17]

it belongs to the God-man in man, but not to mortal rational man; but when the consciousness of God awakens in man, the personal man also participates in it, and that is his salvation. That’s why the Bible says:

“Christ in us is the mystery of redemption, the hope of that glory.[18] Through the death of the body, the mortal separates from the immortal, i.e., the God-man from man, and the more man has renounced his mortal part through self-denial during life and has attained true consciousness, the more he will also attain eternal life through his union with the divine. In order to attain this lofty goal, Dante exhorts us to direct all our striving towards it, and not to be sidetracked by less important things.

“The goal that you thought you were close to escapes,

When thoughts and thoughts chase each other,

And one always steals the strength of the other.”[19]

          Also, this progression is only possible as long as the light of knowledge shines, because

“When night falls, one does not climb.”[20]

          Without the influence of divine grace, which is the spiritual life of man (jīva), dreaming and rapturous ideas can take place, but no realization of the ideal, no inner growth of the soul, just as no tree grows after the material life (Prāna) is gone from it. But when we have entered through the gate of grace and come to the knowledge of the eternal, through which alone a distinction between the permanent and the transitory is possible,[21] we also recognize that, considered as personalities, we are nothing but “earthworms.”

“Destined for that butterfly unfolding,

Whose flight never escapes justice.”[22]

          This knowledge is the only safeguard against the spiritual pride which falls so many who scale spiritual heights which they are not yet mature enough to inhabit, because they aspire to personal greatness and lack true humility.

“Only a gust of wind is glory on earth, it rustles

From here, from there, to die away quickly

By just swapping sides and names.”[23]

          Through the kingdom of grace we enter the kingdom of love; for when man recognizes himself as one in his being with all creatures, hatred and envy disappear. Through love we come into possession of gentleness and patience, which forgives all the faults of our neighbor, since it recognizes that they spring from error.

“And the eternal power streams down richer,

The more joyfully the heart’s love blooms.”[24]

          There is also talk here of free will, which grows with knowledge, while knowledge springs from the experience of good and evil:

“Thus you got knowledge for good and bad,

And free will, even if it is now

At first only laboriously argues with the stars,

Hardened by battle, surely wins last.”[25]

          Through the power of the will which has become free through the knowledge of the truth, the lust for the world is overcome and attains eternal peace.

In the twenty-fifth canto Dante gives us a description of the formation of the “astral body.”

“The purest blood, never from the veins

Is drunk, comparable to a meal,

Which nature bestowed beyond need,

Receives in the heart in a wonderful way

The formative power for human form.”[26]

          The doctrine of reincarnation is also confirmed here.

“If education commended the brain of the fruit,

Return, glad of nature’s artistic work

To her the creator[27] himself, and breathes the spirit,

The new spirit you in, of such strength,

That he seizes what is active there,

And united with him to one soul,

That lives and feels and circles within itself.”

          Once man has overcome the transitory through the power of reason and thereby gained control over himself, he no longer needs this guide, for he is now in possession of wisdom and thus also his own Master. We see, therefore, how Virgil, having arrived at this destination with Dante, bids him farewell:

“The suffering of the temporal and eternal fire

Did you see and are where nothing more

I can differentiate through myself.

I led you here by spirit and art;

Henceforth take your good judgment as your guide,

Your path is henceforth not steep and difficult.

          .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .   .    .    .

Do not wait for my hints and teachings;

Free and healthy is what you will want

And it would be a mistake to resist your arbitrariness;

Henceforth be your bishop and your prince.”

          A person who is thus enlightened by the Holy Spirit of self-knowledge is not “rational,” but divine wisdom has taken the place of the ignorance in him, and since he has this as his guide, he no longer needs any other. This leader is now introduced by Dante in “Paradise,” the realm of love, under the name “Beatrice.” We leave it to the reader to follow him there.

Note:

[1] Three part series: Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy” and Occult Philosophy. Introduction. [Dante Alighieris “Göttliche Komödie” und die okkulte Philosophie. Einleitung. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 11, no. 67 (April 1898), 241-255]; Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy” and Occult Philosophy. Hell. [Dante Alighieris “Göttliche Komödie” und die okkulte Philosophie. Die Hölle. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 11, no. 68 (May 1898), 351-364]; Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy” and Occult Philosophy. Purgatory. [Dante Alighieris “Göttliche Komödie” und die okkulte Philosophie. Das Fegefeuer. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 11, no. 69 (June 1898), 447-456] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}

[2] The Bible poetically introduces us to John the Baptist as human reason, the light of wisdom (the enlightened soul) as “Jesus.” Jesus, the knowing but not thinking principle (Ātma Buddhi) must be baptized by John, the thinking but not self-knowing principle (Manas), the “fire” by “water.” Then also there is the baptism of “water” by “fire,” of thought by divine love, the baptism of John by Jesus, the union of Ātma-buddhi with manas; for only in this union is man perfect as a thinking being. The Bible says (Matt. XI:11): “Truly I say to you, among those born of women (i.e. the forms of self-will) there arose not greater than John the Baptist (the earthly intellect), and yet the least is in heaven (the tiniest spark of the true knowledge of God) greater than he.”

[3] The mindless larvae of the dead with whom the spiritualists associate.

[4] See: “Three Lectures on the Bhagavad Gita.” Lotusblüten, Vol. I.

[5] K.E. Neumann, “The Speeches of Gotamo Buddho,” p. 118.

[6] Since only the spirit of God is true life, everything that is separated from this spirit can have nothing but a semblance of life.

[7] Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy” and Occult Philosophy. Hell. [Dante Alighieris “Göttliche Komödie” und die okkulte Philosophie. Die Hölle. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 11, no. 68 (May 1898), 351-364]

[8] Sleep is the brother of death; the earthly vigil of the brother of the divine life. Observation of earthly dreams tells us of dreams in heaven or in hell. The “I” which dreams within me while I’m sleeping or waking is not the real me; if during my dream reason and judgment are no longer active in my person, then my true self-confidence is also no longer present in my person; nevertheless I take part in the dreams of my person, because my spirit is connected with the egos that are dreaming in me. The adept who is united with his true self is unaffected by the dream-images appearing in his sleeping personality; he is also fully conscious of his divine self while his body is asleep.

[9] Bhagavad Gītā XVIII, 6.

[10] John I, 29.

[11] Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy” and Occult Philosophy. Purgatory. [Dante Alighieris “Göttliche Komödie” und die okkulte Philosophie. Das Fegefeuer. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 11, no. 69 (June 1898), 447-456]

[12] Canticle XIII, 1.

[13] Canticle XII, 112.

[14] As the “Secret Doctrine” tells us, in the universe as a whole, as in the individual human being, there are four states of consciousness or existence, comparable to four planes of light, each of the lower ones being a reflection or reflection of the next higher one. The sun of eternal wisdom shines again in the light of the Logos, whose light illumines the inner man, and the reflection of the latter is the personal consciousness of man on earth. Each awakening to one of these higher forms of consciousness is tantamount to entering a new and higher existence. But if it is difficult to find ourselves within ourselves, how much more difficult is it to recognize ourselves in the light of the Logos (in Christ) or even in the Absolute (Nirvana). In addition, without the inner revelation of the light, all scientific and philosophical speculation and enthusiasm is useless and worthless.

[15] Canticle II, 112.

[16] Canticle III, 34.

[17] “Mary” is the symbol of the soul in which self-knowledge is revealed through the action of the spirit of truth.

[18] Colossians I, 27.

[19] Canticle V, 16.

[20] Canticle VII, 49.

[21] See Śaṅkarāchārya “Tattva Bodha.”

[22] Canticle X, 124.

[23] Canticle XI, 100.

[24] Canticle XV, 70.

[25] Canticle XVI, 75.

[26] See Canticle XXV, 37-106. It is described here how the “shadow body” is not the actual human soul, but its image, in which after the separation from the divine, the lower soul forces, intellect, will, memory, are not only still active, but even more acute can emerge since they are no longer required to work through the body of flesh.

“It expresses itself in the shadow, yes, like desire

And passion excites us, and lust and grief.”

[27] The “Creator” is the reincarnating immortal I, “the Father in heaven,” who again appears overshadowed and embodied in new “sons,” i.e., personal appearances on earth, like an actor who appears in different roles on different evenings, but still remains the same person.