Karma

Author(s): Annie Besant
Publisher: Theosophical Publishing House

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or without “God's ” permission or order, but man himself-his deeds, or Karma attracting individually and collectively (as in the case of whole nations sometimes) every kind of evil and calamity. We produce Causes, and these awaken the corresponding powers in the Sidereal World, which are magnetically and irresistibly attracted to and react upon—those who produce such causes; whether such persons are practically the evil-doers, or, simply “thinkers ” who brood mischief. For thought is matter, we are taught by Modern Science; and “every particle of the existing matter must be a register of all that has happened," as Messrs. Jevons and Babbage in their Principles of Science tell the profane. Modern Science is every day drawn more into the maelstrom of Occultism: unconsciously no doubt, still very sensibly.
“ Thought is matter”: not, of course, however, in the sense of the German Materialist Moleschott, who assures us that “ thought is the movement of matter”-a statement of almost unparalleled absurdity. Mental states and bodily states are utterly contrasted as such. But that does not affect the position that every thought, in addition to its physical accompaniment (brain-change), exhibits an objective-though to us supersensuously objective-aspect on the astral plane.
It seems that when men generate a large number of malignant thought-forms of a destructive character, and when these congregate in huge masses on the astral plane, their energy may be, and is, precipitated on the physical plane, stirring up wars, revolutions, and social disturbances and upheavals of every kind, falling as collective karma on their progenitors and effecting widespread ruin. Thus then, collectively also man is the master of his destiny, and his world is moulded by his creative action.
1 The Secret Doctrine, i, 148, 149.