The Doors of the Temple C. W. Leadbeater

The Doors of the Temple

C. W. Leadbeater^[1]

Collated and reformatted by Robert Hutwohl

This document incorporates live notes. Click on a superscripted endnote number in the text to jump to its corresponding endnote; click on the superscripted endnote numeral in the endnotes to return to the original text reference.

Translator’s note (Robert Hutwohl):

The human body contains vital centers, or “doors,” that connect the physical and astral planes. These doors should be opened gradually through spiritual growth and purification, as forced opening can lead to vulnerability to negative astral entities. Alcohol and drug use, as well as passive psychic development, can damage these protective sheaths, leaving individuals susceptible to psychic imposition and deception.

End.

Within the human body are certain vital centres comparable to doors opening into inner shrines. Using these centres as points of contact, the life-forces from the higher planes flow into the physical body through them as an electrical current flows through a wire, and it is through these centres that the Christ-force must flow to reach and spiritualize man’s various bodies before their redemption or resurrection can take place. These centres or doors are normally protected by nature with oily coverings or sheaths (composed of astral and physical matter) that permit the flow of the normal life-forces and protect them from all others. These doors should be opened only by a gradual purification and development of the protecting sheaths. Normally this takes place as a natural growth resulting from a life of mental and bodily purity, and intense spiritual aspiration. It should not be forced as hothouse growth; for each door must be opened and closed under the absolute control of the will. Each individual has been given these doors to guard, and is held responsible for their keeping; only as he can master them, and in full knowledge open them to the knock of the Christ, and close them to His enemies, can he hope to conquer: for it is only after long training and great spiritual growth that the entities of the astral world can be mastered and held at bay when the doors are opened. In fact the first and most important work of the advanced disciple is to stand faithful Watch over these doers. “Keep thou the door of thy heart.”

The sin against the Holy Ghost, the “unpardonable sin” (unpardonable only because irreparable), is this breaking down of the doors or the destruction of the oily sheaths that protect the centres leading from the physical body into the astral body. Once these sheaths are destroyed the person is no longer able to close the doors, and so becomes an easy prey to the denizens of the astral. Such an one is a helpless victim of any and all sorts of psychic imposition and deception.

There are several abnormal ways in which these oily protecting sheaths can be broken down and the doors thrown open, chief among which are the use of alcohol and narcotic drugs.

Chemically speaking, ordinary alcohol is ethil-hydroxide. The ethyl (the spirit) is in the highest stage of physical matter where it transcends the physical and enters the astral; the ethyl actually functioning on both planes. Narcotic drugs also contain an ethyl element. The ethyl when taken into the body immediately seeks to escape into the astral, and naturally it follows the usual avenues of communication between the two planes. But in escaping it passes through centres in a reverse direction to the normal current and gradually burns off the insulating sheaths (just as an electrical insulation might be burned off by interference with the normal flow of the current), until, in a comparatively short time, they are utterly destroyed. This leaves the doors unguarded and open for all the horrors of the lower astral plane to rush in and take possession of the “Temple of the Living God” thus desecrated. Bulwer Lytton gives a very realistic description of some of these horrors in his occult novel Zanoni. In that story the student opened the doors abnormally by the use of drugs, and being unable to close them, through fright at the sight that met his gaze, was haunted until his death.

The drunkard and the drug-habitué open the doors while in a state of debauchery, and in such a condition, being particularly unable to defend themselves, they practically invite all the fiends of the underworld to enter and take possession. No matter how sincerely they repent or what spiritual advance they may make as a result of the sufferings they undergo, when the protective sheaths of these centres are broken, or when the aura is tainted with narcotics or filled with fumes of alcohol, it is utterly impossible for a Master of the Great White Lodge to contact such an one, no matter how great the student’s psychic or spiritual development.

The karmic results of the use of narcotics and alcohol in past incarnations can be seen in the numerous non-spiritual, subjective mediums of the irresponsible type that are to be found on every hand. Their doors, destroyed in past lives, now stand wide open and put the person at the mercy of any and every entity who desires to gratify its animal senses upon the physical plane. Truly, their lot is a pitiable one; the more so because they know not the terrible dangers which they run.

Another karmic result of the action of alcohol and drugs is to be found in a certain class of congenital imbeciles whose psyche cannot even connect with the ordinary centres of the physical body. They have almost no voluntary control of any of the lowest animal functions, and must finish out their incarnation in a sort of vegetative existence.

Still another way in which the doors are frequently broken open is by placing yourself in a passive, non-resisting state and making the demand for psychic experiences, or “sitting for development” as it is called. In this practice you are placing yourself in a state in which any entity dwelling on the lower astral plane can help you break open the doors. This either destroys the doors or abnormally forces the development of the psychic centres instead of unfolding them as a natural accompaniment of spiritual growth. When results have been thus obtained since the doors are not under the control of your will they are open to any entity who desires to obsess you. Even if the obsessing entity is a disembodied friend of good moral character, your condition is not altered, for he must be near you constantly to protect you from the trends. This is what takes, place in ordinary subjective mediumship.

Charles W. Leadbeater

Note:

The Doors of the Temple C. W. Leadbeater

The Doors of the Temple C. W. Leadbeater