Super-Human Men Among Us.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 1 May 1914, Page 2

Super-Human Men Among Us.

MRS. ANNIE BESANT EXPLAINS

HER THEOSOPHY

OCCULT POWERS AT WORK

Mrs. Annie Besant, just returned from India, has introduced to a London Queen's Hall audience some " Manifestations of Super-Human Beings in Our World," in her capacity as president of the Theosophical Society. Mrs. Besant opened her subject by declaring that there are men and women living among us now who have developed in themselves certain occult powers, by the use of wTiich they can read incidents of the past recorded by the pictures existing in subtler matter than the physical. By the use of these powers, she averred, the favoured men and women can see that ancient civilisations and ancient religions were always started by super-human beings who walked on earth among men in physical form, and who guided men along the ways of progress and evolution. PERFECTION AND RE-BIRTH. "Through the religion and the race into which a man i 9 born," explained Mrs. Besant, "he has the opportunity to rise and attain such perfection that he will" not have to come back into re-birth on ©arth, but shall become a liberated spirit, and shall join the hosts of angels that guide the evolution of the world in which we live. " The spiritual world inter-pene-trates the physical, as every religion teaches, and super-human beings walk amongst us now and take their part in physical form as they did in the old days. "Our public men, our rulers are but as puppets moved by the superhuman men from the higher world. "They are giving to England today the possibility of the mightypart she may play in advancing humanity in making an Empire ! mightier than any Empire of the ; past, to be based, not on the sub- ! mission of a conquered people, but on the free-will allegiance of self- | governad but united communities." ; The lecturer went on to urge that ' that was done to-day not by direct order from the mouth of the recognised super-human superior, but by '• the subtler working on the ambitions and the passions and the thoughts of men. ! METHOD OF MANIFESTATION. "The opportunity is given," she said, "and if rejected it passes away to someone else, who is able to , grasp it. But progress is definite ' and certain, and the march of human affairs is in the hands of these won- : dj-ous agencies who can never fail.

"To understand lrbw: these super- • human beings manifest theinselv<« to | the world nowadays, we must re- i member that we are not merely ' earthly things, but soulp—spirits liv- : ing in a garment of flesh. "One way in which a super-human being helps to direct earthly affairs is by inspiring an ordinary human soul or many such souls. "This he does by pouring strength and force upon that soul so that it thereby becomes greater and wiser and further-seeing, than it would normally be by itself, and thus it helps to carry out the mandates of these beings. ; i OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL.. "Every one of us may hope to be inspired by these beings. "What is necessary, according to the doctrines of theosophy, is that the soul should aspire to live a 1 nobler life, and that the body should also be purified of all things that coarsen it and sully it. "The reservoir of inspiration is practically limitless, and every perI son can obtain the fullest measure of inspiration if he does his best to exult his nature to those heights. "Inspiration is stimulation by the ! higher vibrations of super-human beings. \ "Human men can also be overshadowed by these beings. In such a case the human consciousness is actually dominated by the higher one, though the human may not be aware of it. WAY TO ANOTHER LIFE. "There is the desire for service, the aspiration for the helping of others, which are breathed out from. I a higher consciousness to a lower, and which dominate the lower and become its ideals. "It is thus that the world of [ ideals is constantly replenished oiid exalted. We can all share in this if we put our lower nature under the control of the higher. The lower is good as a servant. bat fatal as a master. "Another way in which super-hu-man beings manifest themselves is by substituting their consciousness for human consciousness on special and unusual occasions. "In this case the body of the human being is used, and his soul withdraws for the time being."