Theosophical Correspondence
Translation from German by Robert Hutwohl[1]
External and Internal.
Question: — Most pious people worship an external God, while the mystics say that God is within us. Which of the two is right?
Answer: — Both. — God is the life in everything and therefore omnipresent. Thus he is both within us and outside us; but we can only find him by his divine power working within us and coming to our consciousness. Anyone who does not feel the omnipresence of God in his heart will not find God in external things either.
God in the imagination.
Question: — What kind of idea should one have of “God”?
Answer: — None at all. — One cannot come to know God through a human idea, but only through love for the deity. The Bible teaches that one should not have an “image” of God, i.e. no idea. An imagined God is a self-made image of the imagination. Since God is only one, indivisible and omnipresent in the entire universe, one cannot ascribe to him a form limited to space[2]; but all forms that emerge from nature are manifestations of his[3] primal power that underlies all existence, and whoever wants to love God must love him in all his creatures. One cannot love God and despise his works.
But not everyone is capable of recognizing the deity in all creatures, nor is he revealed to the same degree in all of them. Also, as long as people have not yet worked their way up to the knowledge of the invisible Absolute, they need a visible form [R.H.—a crutch until they are able to take the blinders off], and therefore religious systems set up perfect and sanctified people as ideals, models and incarnations of the Deity for the contemplation and edification of believers. Whether and when such a person lived on earth is irrelevant to our development, since it is not the person but the ideal represented in him that is destined to be the object of the highest veneration. Even the best and most venerable man is in his mortal personality nothing other than an appearance, a perishable product of nature formed from earth and water. What is permanent in him is the soul permeated by the divine spirit, which is above all ideas and can only be known spiritually.
Prayers for the dead.
Question: — Why do the souls of the dead often ask for prayers?
Answer: — Because after leaving the body they enter a dream-like state in which they cannot help themselves. The material organism is a focal point in which all the human forces, physical, psychological, intellectual and spiritual, are united. After death, the spirit withdraws, similar to falling asleep (but never to return); with it the strength that the human being needs for self-determination and self-control also disappears, and he is now more or less subject to the laws of psychic-magnetic attraction and repulsion that prevail on the astral plane. We know from experience that we have no free-will in dreams. We may believe that we want this or that, but in reality we are only guided involuntarily by our imagination; in dreams we lack the reason necessary for a correct assessment. The situation may be similar in “purgatory” (Kāmaloka), when the light of the spirit withdraws and the departed soul only has a dim glow of it.
Dangers of occultism.
Question: — Isn’t it dangerous to study the teachings of occult science?
Answer: — Yes, as long as one is not yet mature enough to understand them, because they are then easily misunderstood and applied incorrectly. The knowledge of the truth does no one any harm, but misunderstanding it has already brought much harm into the world, as the history of religious wars and superstition shows. Anyone who leaves the safe ground of external church belief and boldly ventures into the unknown regions of occultism is like a bird that falls out of the nest before it has grown its wings to fly. That is why the teachings of “occult” science are not intended for everyone. But when the young eagle has fledged, it has nothing more to do in the nest, and when a person has become mature enough to think for himself, it is useful to show him the way to freedom. If you took away the crutches from a cripple, without which he cannot walk, it would be of little help to him; but there are also people who could stand quite well on their own feet if they did not prefer to keep their crutches out of habit and not let go of them. Humanity in general is still in its childhood and cannot do without the leading rope; the higher secrets of nature are for adults, i.e. for those who have grown out of self-conceit, have come to an awareness of true human dignity and are determined to act accordingly.
Suffering in the “afterlife”.
Question: — Can the soul of a deceased person feel physical pain in the “afterlife” if the body is cremated or dismembered?
Answer: — I cannot deny this possibility; because all pain is essentially felt spiritually. We can only feel what comes to our consciousness, and consequently it is always the inner man who feels the suffering inflicted on his living body; a corpse has no sensation, and if consciousness is withdrawn from any part of the body, that part is not felt either. (A toothache stops as soon as you stop thinking about it.)[4] On the other hand, the more attention is concentrated on the suffering part, the more severe the pain is, because you identify more or less with that part. But we also know that physical pain can also be induced by hypnotic suggestion. For example, if you . . . If, for example, a hypnotized person is placed on his skin with a piece of wood and made to believe that it is a red-hot iron, he may not only feel the same pain as if he were being burned, but may even develop blisters on the affected area. Now let us assume that the corpse of a person who died suddenly while still filled with self-delusion and tied to earthly things is burned or dissected, and he perceives what is happening to his corpse as a result of the connection that still exists between him and his corpse, this may well seem to him in his dream-like state as if this were happening to him and this autosuggestion may evoke in him the same feelings as if he himself were being burned or cut up alive. Certain reports from deceased people (suicides, murders, executed) show that this is often the case. This may seem incredible to some readers; but there are still some natural laws that are not yet known to official science, but which future science will shed light on.[5] One thing is certain, however, that the more a person frees himself from his self-conceit in this life and does not consider his personal appearance to be his true self, the less he will be bound to his earthly remains in the “afterlife.” Redemption from all evil in this world and the next comes when a person frees himself from his self-delusion and selfishness.
Finding yourself.
Question: — How can one find one’s higher self?
Answer: — Only by uniting with it, and this union takes place when the higher self is revealed in man, i.e. when the higher self-consciousness awakens in man. Since man is this self in his innermost being, he cannot perceive it objectively, but it can teach the external man by way of intuition or through images and symbols.
Notes
[1] Hartmann, F. (1908). “Theosophical Correspondence. External and Internal. God in the imagination. Prayers for the dead. Dangers of occultism. Suffering in the “afterlife”. Finding yourself.” Hutwohl, R. (trans.), Theosophischer Wegweiser 9, no. 6 (March), 195-198. [Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025]
[2] [R.H.—Theosophy teaches this as the “One Life.”
[3] [R.H.—The “One Life” is better determined as neuter. Arguments over whether God is male or female are pointless and will lead to nowhere. How can one give a gender to the One Life, or Ultimate Reality or the Absolute?]
[4] [R.H.—The Alice Bailey, D.K. writings teach: “Energy follows thought.”]
[5] [R.H—When the existence of the etheric body or liṅga-śarīra is discovered by western science. In other words, the western world discovers what the shāmen, and the esoteric side of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Chinese mystics, etc. have long known.