Life-Atom

Life-atoms is a term used by H. P. Blavatsky who regarded atoms as centers of life that undergo their own process of "transmigration." This concept rests on the occult theory "that there is neither organic nor inorganic matter or particles, but that every atom is permeated with Life".

Related concepts are the "permanent atoms" of Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater and the "tanhic elementals" of G. de Purucker.

Transmigrations of the life-atoms

H. P. Blavatsky explains that the atoms are transferred from one being or object to other, and that this fact is the cause for the teaching in some religions about reincarnation of human beings into lower forms of life:

The esoteric meaning of the Laws of Manu (Chap. XII, 3 and 55), of the verses that state that “every act, either mental, verbal or corporeal, bears good or evil fruit [Karma], the various transmigrations of men [not souls] through the highest, middle, and lowest stages, are produced by his actions”; and again that “A Brahman-killer enters the body of a dog, bear, ass, camel, goat, sheep, bird, &c.,” bears no reference to the human Ego, but only to the atoms of his body, of his lower triad and his fluidic emanations. It is all very well for the Brahmins to distort in their own interest, the real meaning contained in these laws, but the words as quoted never meant what they were made to yield from the above verses later on. The Brahmins applied them selfishly to themselves, whereas by “Brahman,” man’s seventh principle, his immortal monad and the essence of the personal Ego were allegorically meant. He who kills or extinguishes in himself the light of Parabrahm, i.e., severs his personal Ego from the Atman and thus kills the future Devachanee, becomes a “Brahman-killer.” Instead of facilitating through a virtuous life and spiritual aspirations the mutual union of the Buddhi and the Manas, he condemns by his own evil acts every atom of his lower principles to become attracted and drawn in virtue of the magnetic affinity, thus created by his passions, into the forming bodies of lower animals or brutes. This is the real meaning of the doctrine of Metempsychosis.

Mme. Blavatsky says that in the Buddhist scripture the Buddha is shown "to have once remarked to his Bhikkhus, while pointing out to them a broom, that “it had formerly been a novice who neglected to sweep out” the Council room, hence was reborn as a broom." Her explanation for this literal impossibility is as follows:

“Indeed it is life atoms” that a man in a blind passion throws off, unconsciously, and though he does it quite as effectively as a mesmeriser who transfers them from himself to any object consciously and under the guidance of his will. Let any man give way to any intense feeling, such as anger, grief, etc., under or near a tree, or in direct contact with a stone; and many thousands of years after that any tolerable Psychometer will see the man and sense his feelings from one single fragment of that tree or stone that he had touched. Hold any object in your hand, and it will become impregnated with your life atoms, indrawn and outdrawn, changed and transferred in us at every instant of our lives. Animal heat is but so many life atoms in molecular motion. It requires no adept knowledge, but simply the natural gift of a good clairvoyant subject to see them passing to and fro, from man to objects and vice versa like a bluish lambent flame. Why then should not a broom, made of a shrub, which grew most likely in the vicinity of the building where the lazy novice lived, a shrub, perhaps, repeatedly touched by him while in a state of anger, provoked by his laziness and distaste to his duty, why should not a quantity of his life atoms have passed into the materials of the future besom and therein have been recognised by Buddha, owing to his superhuman (not supernatural) powers?

Some of the life-atoms can be transmitted to the progeny, while others are withdraw into the Monad:

The latter (Occultism) teaches that—(a) the life-atoms of our (Prâna) life-principle are never entirely lost when a man dies. That the atoms best impregnated with the life-principle (an independent, eternal, conscious factor) are partially transmitted from father to son by heredity, and partially are drawn once more together and become the animating principle of the new body in every new incarnation of the Monads. Because (b), as the individual Soul is ever the same, so are the atoms of the lower principles (body, its astral, or life double, etc.), drawn as they are by affinity and Karmic law always to the same individuality in a series of various bodies, etc., etc.

The life-atoms conserve a memory of their own:

The Occultists, who trace every atom in the universe, whether an aggregate or single, to One Unity, or Universal Life; who do not recognize that anything in Nature can be inorganic; who know of no such thing as dead matter—the Occultists are consistent with their doctrine of Spirit and Soul when speaking of memory in every atom, of will and sensation. But what can a materialist mean by the qualification? The law of biogenesis, in the sense applied to it by the Hæckelians—“is the result of the ignorance on the part of the man of science of occult physics.” We know and speak of “life-atoms”—and of “sleeping-atoms”—because we regard these two forms of energy—the kinetic and the potential—as produced by one and the same force or the ONE LIFE, and regard the latter as the source and mover of all.

Life-atoms and sleeping-atoms

In his article "Transmigration of the Life-Atoms" Mme. Blavatsky regards as life-atoms, or "organic atoms" those actively animated by jiva or prana, while those in which prana is not active are called "sleeping" or inorganic atoms. She wrote:

We regard and call in our occult phraseology those atoms that are moved by Kinetic energy as “life-atoms,” while those that are for the time being passive, containing but invisible potential energy, we call “sleeping atoms,” regarding at the same time these two forms of energy as produced by the one and same force, or life.

According to her, "these two forms of energy —the kinetic and the potential— [are] produced by one and the same force or the ONE LIFE, and regard the latter as the source and mover of all."

Permanent Atoms

Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater developed the term "permanent atom" which Besant claims is connected to H. P. Blavatsky's "life-atoms." This concepts resembles also G. de Purucker's teachings about his "tanhic elementals".

Whilst nothing evil can be stored in the causal body, it is, however, stored if we may so use the term, in the lower vehicles to which it pertains. For under the law of justice, every man must receive the results of his own actions, be they bad or good. But evil necessarily works itself out on the lower planes, because it is only the matter of those planes that its vibrations can be expressed, and it has not even overtones capable of awakening a response in the causal body. Its force, therefore, is all expended at its own level, and it reacts in its entirety upon its creator in his astral and physical life, whether in this or in future incarnations. More precisely, the result of evil is stored in the mental unit and in the astral and physical permanent atoms : and so the man has to face it over and over again: but that, of course, is a very different matter from taking it into the ego and making it really a part of himself. Good actions and thoughts also, of course, produce results on the lower planes, but, in addition to that, they have the immensely higher and permanent effect upon the causal body. Thus all alike produce effects on the lower planes, and are manifested in the lower temporary vehicles, but good qualities alone are retained in the causal body as so much definite gain to the real man.

The student should realise that it is necessary for evolution that these permanent, atoms should be carried over, the reason being that the developed man must be master of all planes or worlds, and the permanent atoms form the only direct channel, imperfect though it be, between the spiritual triad, or ego, and the forms he is connected with. If it were conceivable that he could develop without permanent atoms, he might possibly become a glorious, archangel upon higher planes, but he would be entirely useless in these lower worlds, having cut off from himself the power of feeling and thinking. We must not, therefore, drop the permanent atoms: our business is to purify and develop them.

We have seen that as the ego descends to a fresh incarnation, he has to take up the burden of his past, much of which has been stored as vibratory tendencies in his permanent atoms. These germs or seeds are known to Buddhists as Skandhas, a convenient word for which there seems to be as yet no exact equivalent in English. They consist of material qualities, sensations, abstract ideas, tendencies of mind, mental powers, the pure aroma of all these having been built into the causal body, the remainder being stored, as stated, in the permanent atoms and mental unit.

Tanhic elementals

G. de Purucker talks about these life-atoms as "tanhic elements"

Now all these principles and aspects, and indeed everything in the human constitution, are enclosed within the auric egg, which is at one and the same time the aggregated effluvia from all the different monads and, because of this, the conjoined representative expression of the forces and energies of the septenary imbodied human being. Yet, when death ensues, the lower part of the auric egg, because built largely of the effluxes from the aspects, dissipates in that part of the astral light which is called the kama-loka of earth; although even here the more ethereal life-atoms or appurtenant forces and substances are drawn upwards into latency to become the tanhic elementals in the higher parts of the auric egg enclosing the permanent basic principles mentioned by H.P.B.

The tanhic elementals may be otherwise described as the emotional and mental thought-deposits, as Patanjali did; and these remain after the second death -- and before the ego's entering the devachan -- stamped upon the various kinds of life-atoms which had functioned on all the lower planes of man's constitution. Some of these tanhic elementals or life-atoms peregrinate, and finally are psychomagnetically attracted back to the reincarnating ego during its process of bringing forth a new astral form preceding rebirth. Others belong to the monadic substances of the auric egg, and consequently remain therein in a latent condition, to awaken only when the devachani leaves the devachan. Then these dormant tanhic elementals, in combination with the other life-atoms which had been peregrinating, combine in building up the new astral form that H.P.B. speaks of; and it is largely these two classes of tanhic life-atoms or elementals which compose the skandhas (a Sanskrit word meaning bundles or aggregates) of the man in his coming incarnation.

Further reading

• Life-Atom at Theosopedia

• Tanhic Elementals at Theosopedia