The Secret Doctrine

That which is the unevolved cause is emphatically called by the most eminent sages, Pradhâna, original base, which is subtile Prakriti, viz., that which is eternal and which at once is, and is not, a mere process.(947) That which in modern phraseology is referred to as Spirit and Matter, is ONE in eternity as the Perpetual Cause, and it is neither Spirit nor Matter, but IT—rendered in Sanskrit by TAD, “that”—all that is, was, or will be, all that the imagination of man is capable of conceiving. Even the exoteric Pantheism of Hindûism renders it as no monotheistic Philosophy ever did, for in superb phraseology its Cosmogony begins with the well‐known words: There was neither day nor night, neither heaven nor earth, neither darkness nor light. And there was not aught else apprehensible by the senses or by the mental faculties. There was then, however, one Brahma, essentially Prakriti [Nature] and Spirit. For the two aspects of Vishnu which are other than his supreme essential aspect are Prakriti and Spirit, O Brâhman. When these two other aspects of his no longer subsist, but are dissolved, then that aspect whence form and the rest, i.e., creation, proceed anew, is denominated time, O twice‐born.

It is that which is dissolved, or the illusionary dual aspect of That, the essence of which is eternally One, that we call Eternal Matter, or Substance, formless, sexless, inconceivable, even to our sixth sense or mind,(948) in which, therefore, we refuse to see that which Monotheists call a personal, anthropomorphic God.

How are these two propositions—that “Matter is eternal,” and that “the Atom is periodical, and not eternal”—viewed by exact Modern Science? The materialistic Physicist will criticize and laugh them to scorn. The liberal and progressive man of Science, however, the true and earnest scientific searcher after truth, such as the eminent Chemist, Mr. Crookes, will corroborate the probability of the two statements. For hardly had the echo of his lecture on the “Genesis of the Elements” died away—the lecture which, delivered by him before the Chemical Section of the British Association, at the Birmingham meeting in 1887, so startled every evolutionist who heard or read it—than there came another in March, 1888. Once more the President of the Chemical Society brought before the world of Science and the public the fruits of some new discoveries in the realm of Atoms, and these discoveries justified the Occult Teachings in every way. They are more startling even than the statements made by him in the first lecture, and well deserve the attention of every Occultist, Theosophist, and Metaphysician. This is what he says in his “Elements and Meta‐Elements,” thus justifying Stallo’s charges and prevision, with the fearlessness of a scientific mind which loves Science for truth’s sake, regardless of any consequences to his own glory and reputation. We quote his own words:

Permit me, gentlemen, now to draw your attention for a short time to a subject which concerns the fundamental principles of chemistry, a subject which may lead us to admit the possible existence of bodies which, though neither compounds nor mixtures, are not elements in the strictest sense of the word—bodies which I venture to call “meta‐elements.” To explain my meaning it is necessary for me to revert to our conception of an element. What is the criterion of an element? Where are we to draw the line between distinct existence and identity? No one doubts that oxygen, sodium, chlorine, sulphur are separate elements; and when we come to such groups as chlorine, bromine, iodine, etc., we still feel no doubt, although were degrees of “elementicity” admissible—and to that we may ultimately have to come—it might be allowed that chlorine approximates much more closely to bromine than to oxygen, sodium, or sulphur. Again, nickel and cobalt are near to each other, very near, though no one questions their claim to rank as distinct elements. Still I cannot help asking what would have been the prevalent opinion among chemists had the respective solutions of these bodies and their compounds presented identical colours, instead of colours which, approximately speaking, are mutually complementary. Would their distinct nature have even now been recognized? When

we pass further and come to the so‐called rare earths the ground is less secure under our feet. Perhaps we may admit scandium, ytterbium, and others of the like sort to elemental rank; but what are we to say in the case of praseo‐ and neo‐dymium, between which there may be said to exist no well‐marked chemical difference, their chief claim to separate individuality being slight differences in basicity and crystallizing powers, though their physical distinctions, as shown by spectrum observations, are very strongly marked? Even here we may imagine the disposition of the majority of chemists would incline toward the side of leniency, so that they would admit these two bodies within the charmed circle. Whether in so doing they would be able to appeal to any broad principle is an open question. If we admit these candidates how in justice are we to exclude the series of elemental bodies or meta‐elements made known to us by Krüss and Nilson? Here the spectral differences are well marked, while my own researches on didymium show also a slight difference in basicity between some at least of these doubtful bodies. In the same category must be included the numerous separate “elements”—commonly so‐called—have been and are being split up. Where then are we to draw the line? The different groupings shade off

so imperceptibly the one into the other that it is impossible to erect a definite boundary between any two adjacent bodies and to say that the body on this side of the line is an element, while the one on the other side is non‐elementary, or merely something which simulates or approximates to an element. Wherever an apparently reasonable line might be drawn it would no doubt be easy at once to assign most bodies to their proper side, as in all cases of classification the real difficulty comes in when the border‐line is approached. Slight chemical differences, of course, are admitted, and, up to a certain point, so are well‐ marked physical differences. What are we to say, however, when the only chemical difference is an almost imperceptible tendency for the one body—of a couple or of a group—to precipitate before the other? Again, there are cases where the chemical differences reach the vanishing point, although well‐marked physical differences still remain. Here we stumble on a new difficulty: in such obscurities what is chemical and what is physical? Are we not entitled to call a slight tendency of a nascent amorphous precipitate to fall down in advance of another a “physical difference”? And may we not call coloured reactions depending on the amount of some particular acid present and

varying, according to the concentration of the solution and to the solvent employed, “chemical differences”? I do not see how we can deny elementary character to a body which differs from another by well‐marked colour, or spectrum‐reactions, while we accord it to another body whose only claim is a very minute difference in basic powers. Having once opened the door wide enough to admit some spectrum differences, we have to inquire how minute a difference qualifies the candidate to pass? I will give instances from my own experience of some of these doubtful candidates.

Here the great Chemist gives several cases of the very extraordinary behaviour of molecules and earths, apparently the same, but which yet, when examined very closely, were found to exhibit differences which, however minute, still show that none of them are simple bodies, and that the 60 or 70 elements accepted in chemistry can no longer cover the ground. Their name, apparently, is legion, but as the so‐called “periodic theory” stands in the way of an unlimited multiplication of elements, Mr. Crookes is obliged to find some means of reconciling the new discovery with the old theory. “That theory,” he says:

Has received such abundant verification that we cannot lightly accept any interpretation of phenomena which fails to be in accordance with it. But if we suppose the elements reïnforced by a vast number of bodies slightly differing from each other in their properties, and forming, if I may use the expression, aggregations of nebulæ where we formerly saw, or believed we saw, separate stars, the periodic arrangement can no longer be definitely grasped. No longer, that is, if we retain our usual conception of an element. Let us, then, modify this conception. For “element” read “elementary group”—such elementary groups taking the place of the old elements in the periodic scheme—and the difficulty falls away. In defining an element, let us take not an external boundary, but an internal type. Let us say, e.g., the smallest ponderable quantity of yttrium is an assemblage of ultimate atoms almost infinitely more like each other than they are to the atoms of any other approximating element. It does not necessarily follow that the atoms shall all be absolutely alike among themselves. The atomic weight which we ascribed to yttrium, therefore, merely represents a mean value around which the actual weights of the individual atoms of the “element” range within certain limits. But if my conjecture is tenable, could we separate atom from atom, we should find them varying within narrow limits on each side of the mean. The very process of fractionation implies the existence of such differences in certain bodies.

Thus fact and truth have once more forced the hand of “exact” Science, and compelled it to enlarge its views and change its terms, which, masking the multitude, reduced them to one body—like the Septenary Elohim and their hosts transformed by the materialistic religionists into one Jehovah. Replace the chemical terms “molecule,” “atom,” “particle,” etc., by the words “Hosts,” “Monads,” “Devas,” etc., and one might think the genesis of Gods, the primeval evolution of manvantaric intelligent Forces, was being described. But the learned lecturer adds to his descriptive remarks something still more suggestive; whether consciously or unconsciously, who knoweth? For he says:

Until lately such bodies passed muster as elements. They had definite properties, chemical and physical; they had recognized atomic weights. If we take a pure dilute solution of such a body, yttrium for instance, and if we add to it an excess of strong ammonia, we obtain a precipitate which appears perfectly homogeneous. But if instead we add very dilute ammonia in quantity sufficient only to precipitate one‐half of the base present, we obtain no immediate precipitate. If we stir up the whole thoroughly so as to insure a uniform mixture of the solution and the ammonia, and set the vessel aside for an hour, carefully excluding dust, we may still find the liquid clear and bright, without any vestige of turbidity. After three or four hours, however, an opalescence will declare itself, and the next morning a precipitate will have appeared. Now let us ask ourselves, What can be the meaning of this phenomenon? The quantity of precipitant added was insufficient to throw down more than half the yttria present, therefore a process akin to selection has been going on for several hours. The precipitation has evidently not been effected at random, those molecules of the base being decomposed which happened to come in contact with a corresponding molecule of ammonia, for we have taken care that the liquids should be uniformly mixed, so that one molecule of the original salt would not be more exposed to decomposition than any other.

If, further, we consider the time which elapses before the appearance of a precipitate, we _cannot avoid coming to the conclusion that the action which has been going on for the first few hours is of a selective character_. The problem is not why a precipitate is produced, but what determines or directs some atoms to fall down and others to remain in solution. Out of the multitude of atoms present, _what power is it that directs each atom to choose the proper path? We may picture to ourselves some directive force passing the atoms one by one in review, selecting one for precipitation and another for solution till all have been adjusted._

The italics in the above passage are ours. Well may a man of Science ask himself: What power is it that directs each Atom? and what is the meaning of its character being selective? Theists would solve the question by answering “God”; and would thereby solve nothing philosophically. Occultism answers on its own Pantheistic grounds, and teaches the student about Gods, Monads, and Atoms. The learned lecturer sees in it that which is his chief concern: the finger‐posts and the traces of a path which may lead to the discovery, and the full and complete demonstration, of an homogeneous element in Nature. He remarks: In order that such a selection can be effected there evidently must be some slight differences between which it is possible to select, and this difference almost certainly must be one of basicity, so slight as to be imperceptible by any test at present known, but susceptible of being nursed and encouraged to a point when the difference can be appreciated by ordinary tests.

Occultism, which knows of the existence and presence in Nature of the One Eternal Element, at the first differentiation of which the roots of the Tree of Life are periodically struck, needs no scientific proofs. It says: Ancient Wisdom has solved the problem ages ago. Aye; earnest, as well as mocking reader, Science is slowly but surely approaching our domains of the Occult. It is forced by its own discoveries to adopt nolens volens our phraseology and symbols. Chemical Science is now compelled, by the very force of things, to accept even our illustration of the evolution of the Gods and Atoms, so suggestively and undeniably figured in the Caduceus of Mercury, the God of Wisdom, and in the allegorical language of the Archaic Sages. Says a Commentary in the Esoteric Doctrine: The trunk of the ASVATTHA (the tree of Life and Being, the ROD of the Caduceus) grows from and descends at every Beginning (every new Manvantara) from the two dark wings of the Swan (HANSA) of Life. The two Serpents, the ever‐living and its illusion (Spirit and matter) _whose two heads grow from the one head between the wings, descend along the trunks interlaced in close embrace. The two tails join on earth_ (the manifested Universe) into one, and this is the great illusion, O Lanoo!

Every one knows what the Caduceus is, modified considerably by the Greeks. The original symbol—with the triple head of the serpent—became altered into a rod with a knob, and the two lower heads were separated, thus disfiguring somewhat the original meaning. Yet it is as good an illustration as can be for our purpose, this laya rod, entwined by two serpents. Verily the wonderful powers of the magic Caduceus were sung by all the ancient poets, with a very good reason for those who understood the secret meaning. Now what says the learned President of the Chemical Society of Great Britain, in that same lecture, which has any reference to, or bearing upon, our above‐mentioned doctrine? Very little; only this—and nothing more:

In the Birmingham address already referred to I asked my audience to picture the action of two forces on the original protyle—one being time, accompanied by a lowering of temperature; the other, swinging to and fro like a mighty pendulum, having periodic cycles of ebb and swell, rest and activity, being intimately connected with the imponderable matter, essence, or source of energy we call electricity. Now, a simile like this effects its object if it fixes in the mind the particular fact it is intended to emphasize, but it must not be expected necessarily to run parallel with all the facts. Besides the lowering of temperature with the periodic ebb and flow of electricity, positive or negative, requisite to confer on the newly‐born elements their particular atomicity, it is evident that a third factor must be taken into account. Nature does not act on a flat plane; she demands space for her cosmogenic operations, and if we introduce space as the third factor, all appears clear. Instead of a pendulum, which, though to a certain extent a good illustration, is impossible as a fact, let us seek some more satisfactory way of representing what I conceive may have taken place. Let us suppose the zigzag diagram not drawn upon a plane, but projected in space of three dimensions. What figure can we best select to meet all the conditions involved? Many of the facts can be well explained by supposing the projection in space of Professor Emerson Reynolds’ zigzag curve to be a spiral. This figure is, however, inadmissible, inasmuch as the curve has to pass through a point neutral as to electricity and chemical energy twice in each cycle. We must, therefore, adopt some other figure. A figure of eight (8), or lemniscate, will foreshorten into a zigzag just as well as a spiral, and it fulfils every condition of the problem.

A lemniscate for the evolution downward, from Spirit into Matter; another form of a spiral, perhaps, in its reinvolutionary path onward, from Matter into Spirit; and the necessary gradual and final reabsorption into the laya state, that which Science calls, in her own way, “the point neutral as to electricity,” or the zero point. Such are the Occult facts and statement. They may be left with the greatest security and confidence to Science, to be justified some day. Let us hear some more, however, about this primordial genetic type of the symbolical Caduceus.

Such a figure will result from three very simple simultaneous motions. First, a simple oscillation backwards and forwards (suppose east and west); secondly, a simple oscillation at right angles to the former (suppose north and south) of half the periodic time—i.e., twice as fast; and thirdly, a motion at right angles to these two (suppose downwards), which, in its simplest form, would be with unvarying velocity. If we project this figure in space we find on examination that the points of the curves, where chlorine, bromine, and iodine are formed, come close under each other; so also will sulphur, selenium, and tellurium; again, phosphorus, arsenic, and antimony; and in like manner other series of analogous bodies. It may be asked whether this scheme explains how and why the elements appear in this order? Let us imagine a cyclical translation in space, each evolution witnessing the genesis of the group of elements which I previously represented as produced during one complete vibration of the pendulum. Let us suppose that one cycle has thus been completed, the centre of the unknown creative force in its mighty journey through space having scattered along its track the primitive atoms—the seeds, if I may use the expression—which presently are to coalesce and develop into the groupings now known as lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen,

fluorine, sodium, magnesium, aluminium, silicon, phosphorus, sulphur, and chlorine. What is most probably the form of track now pursued? Were it strictly confined to the same plane of temperature and time, the next elementary groupings to appear would again have been those of lithium, and the original cycle would have been eternally repeated, producing again and again the same 14 elements. The conditions, however, are not quite the same. Space and electricity are as at first, but temperature has altered, and thus, instead of the atoms of lithium being supplemented with atoms in all respects analogous with themselves, the atomic groupings which come into being when the second cycle commences form, not lithium, but its lineal descendant, potassium. Suppose, therefore, the vis generatrix travelling to and fro in cycles along a lemniscate path, as above suggested, while simultaneously temperature is declining and time is flowing on—variations which I have endeavoured to represent by the downward sink—each coil of the lemniscate track crosses the same vertical line at lower and lower points. Projected in space, the curve shows a central line neutral as far as electricity is concerned, and neutral in chemical properties—positive electricity on the north, negative on the south. Dominant atomicities are governed by the distance east and west from the neutral centre line, monatomic elements being one remove

from it, diatomic two removes, and so on. In every successive coil the same law holds good.

And, as if to prove the postulate of Occult Science and Hindû philosophy, that, at the hour of the Pralaya, the two aspects of the Unknowable Deity, “the Swan in darkness,” Prakriti and Purusha, Nature or Matter in all its forms and Spirit, no longer subsist but are absolutely dissolved, we learn the conclusive scientific opinion of the great English Chemist, who caps his proofs by saying: We have now traced the formation of the chemical elements from knots and voids in a primitive, formless fluid. We have shown the possibility, nay, the probability that the atoms are not eternal in existence, but share with all other created beings the attributes of decay and death.

Occultism says amen to this, as the scientific “possibility” and “probability” are for it facts, demonstrated beyond the necessity for further proof, or for any extraneous physical evidence. Nevertheless, it repeats with as much assurance as ever: “MATTER IS ETERNAL, becoming atomic (its aspect) only periodically.” This is as sure as that the other proposition, which is almost unanimously accepted by Astronomers and Physicists—namely, that the wear and tear of the body of the Universe is steadily going on, and that it will finally lead to the extinction of the Solar Fires and the destruction of the Universe—is quite erroneous on the lines traced by men of Science. There will be, as there ever were in time and eternity, periodical dissolutions of the manifested Universe, such as a partial Pralaya after every Day of Brahmâ; and a Universal Pralaya—the Mahâ‐Pralaya—only after the lapse of every Age of Brahmâ. But the scientific causes for such dissolution, as brought forward by exact Science, have nothing to do with the true causes. However that may be, Occultism is once more justified by Science, for Mr. Crookes said:

We have shown, from arguments drawn from the chemical laboratory, that in matter which has responded to every test of an element, there are minute shades of difference which may admit of selection. We have seen that the time‐honoured distinction between elements and compounds no longer keeps pace with the developments of chemical science, but must be modified to include a vast array of intermediate bodies—“meta‐elements.” We have shown how the objections of Clerk‐Maxwell, weighty as they are, may be met; and finally, we have adduced reasons for believing that primitive matter was formed by the act of a generative force, throwing off at intervals of time atoms endowed with varying quantities of primitive forms of energy. If we may hazard any conjectures as to the source of energy embodied in a chemical atom, we may, I think, premise that the heat radiations propagated outwards through the ether from the ponderable matter of the universe, by some process of nature not yet known to us, are transformed at the confines of the universe into the primary—the essential—motions of chemical atoms, which, the instant they are formed, gravitate inwards, and thus restore to the universe the energy which otherwise would be lost to it through radiant heat. If this conjecture be well founded, Sir William Thomson’s startling prediction of the final decrepitude of the universe through the dissipation of its energy falls to the ground. In this fashion, gentlemen, it seems to me that the question of the elements may be provisionally treated. Our slender knowledge of these first mysteries is extending steadily, surely, though slowly.

By a strange and curious coincidence even our Septenary doctrine seems to force the hand of Science. If we understand rightly, Chemistry speaks of fourteen groupings of primitive atoms—lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, sodium, magnesium, aluminium, silicon, phosphorus, sulphur and chlorine; and Mr. Crookes, speaking of the “dominant atomicities,” enumerates seven groups of these, for he says: As the mighty focus of creative energy goes round, we see it in successive cycles sowing in one tract of space seeds of lithium, potassium, rubidium, and cæsium; in another tract, chlorine, bromine, and iodine; in a third, sodium, copper, silver, and gold; in a fourth, sulphur, selenium, and tellurium; in a fifth, beryllium, calcium, strontium, and barium; in a sixth, magnesium, zinc, cadmium, and mercury; in a seventh, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, and bismuth [which makes seven groupings on the one hand. And after showing] ... in other tracts the other elements—namely, aluminium, gallium, indium, and thallium; silicon, germanium, and tin; carbon, titanium, and zirconium ... [he adds] while a natural position near the neutral axis is found for the three groups of elements relegated by Professor Mendeleeff to a sort of Hospital for Incurables—his eighth family.

It might be interesting to compare these seven, and the eighth family of “incurables,” with the allegories concerning the seven primitive sons of “Mother, Infinite Space,” or Aditi, and the eighth son rejected by her. Many a strange coincidence may thus be found between “those intermediate links ... named meta‐elements” or elementoids, and those whom Occult Science names their Noumenoi, the intelligent Minds and Rulers of those groupings of Monads and Atoms. But this would lead us too far. Let us be content with finding the confession of the fact that: This deviation from absolute homogeneity should mark the constitution of these molecules or aggregations of matter which we designate elements and will perhaps be clearer if we return in imagination to the earliest dawn of our material universe, and, face to face with the Great Secret, try to consider the processes of elemental evolution. Thus finally Science, in the person of its highest representatives, in order to make itself clearer to the profane, adopts the phraseology of such old Adepts as Roger Bacon, and returns to the “protyle.” All this is hopeful and suggestive of the “signs of the times.”

Indeed these “signs” are many and multiply daily; but none are more important than those just quoted. For now the chasm between the Occult “superstitious and unscientific” teachings and those of “exact” Science is completely bridged, and one, at least, of the few eminent Chemists of the day is in the realm of the infinite possibilities of Occultism. Every new step he will take will bring him nearer and nearer to that mysterious Centre, from which radiate the innumerable paths that lead down Spirit into Matter, and which transform the Gods and the living Monads into man and sentient Nature. But we have something more to say on this subject in the following Section.

Shall we say that Force is “moving Matter,” or “Matter in motion,” and a manifestation of Energy; or that Matter and Force are the phenomenal differentiated aspects of the one primary, undifferentiated Cosmic Substance? This query is made with regard to that Stanza which treats of FOHAT and his “Seven brothers or Sons,” in other words, of the cause and the effects of Cosmic Electricity, the Brothers or Sons of Occult parlance being the seven primary forces of Electricity, whose purely phenomenal, and hence grossest, effects are alone cognizable by Physicists on the cosmic and especially on the terrestrial plane. These include, among other things, Sound, Light, Colour, etc. Now what does Physical Science tell us of these “Forces”? SOUND, it says, is a sensation produced by the impact of atmospheric molecules on the tympanum, which, by setting up delicate tremors in the auditory apparatus, thus communicate their vibrations to the brain. LIGHT is the sensation caused by the impact of inconceivably minute vibrations of ether on the retina of the eye.

So, too, say we. But these are simply the effects produced in our atmosphere and its immediate surroundings, all, in fact, which falls within the range of our terrestrial consciousness. Jupiter Pluvius sent his symbol in drops of rain, of water composed, as is believed, of two “elements,” which Chemistry dissociates and recombines. The compound molecules are in its power, but their atoms still elude its grasp. Occultism sees in all these Forces and manifestations a ladder, the lower rungs of which belong to exoteric Physics, and the higher are traced to a living, intelligent, invisible Power, which is, as a rule, the unconcerned, but, exceptionally, the conscious, Cause of the sense‐born phenomena designated as this or that natural law. We say and maintain that SOUND, for one thing, is a tremendous Occult power; that it is a stupendous force, of which the electricity generated by a million of Niagaras could never counteract the smallest potentiality when directed with Occult Knowledge. Sound may be produced of such a nature that the pyramid of Cheops would be raised in the air, or that a dying man, nay, one at his last breath, would be revived and filled with new energy and vigour.

For Sound generates, or rather attracts together, the elements that produce an ozone the fabrication of which is beyond Chemistry, but is within the limits of Alchemy. It may even resurrect a man or an animal whose astral “vital body” has not been irreparably separated from the physical body by the severance of the magnetic or odic chord. As one saved thrice from death by that power, the writer ought to be credited with personally knowing something about it.

And if all this appears too unscientific to be even noticed, let Science explain to what mechanical and physical laws, known to it, are due the recently produced phenomena of the so‐called Keely motor. What is it that acts as the formidable generator of invisible but tremendous force, of that power which is not only capable of driving an engine of 25 horse‐ power, but has even been employed to bodily lift the machinery? Yet this is done simply by drawing a fiddle‐bow across a tuning fork, as has been repeatedly proven. For the Etheric Force, discovered by John Worrell Keely, of Philadelphia, well‐known in America and Europe, is no hallucination. Notwithstanding his failure to utilize it—a failure prognosticated and maintained by some Occultists from the first—the phenomena exhibited by the discoverer during the last few years have been wonderful, almost miraculous, not in the sense of the supernatural(949) but of the superhuman. Had Keely been permitted to succeed, he might have reduced a whole army to atoms in the space of a few seconds, as easily as he reduced a dead ox to that condition. The reader is now asked to give serious attention to that newly‐discovered potency, which the discoverer has named Inter‐Etheric Force, and Forces.

In the humble opinion of the Occultists, as of his immediate friends, Mr. Keely was, and still is, at the threshold of some of the greatest secrets of the Universe; of that chiefly on which is built the whole mystery of physical Forces, and the Esoteric significance of the “Mundane Egg” symbolism. Occult Philosophy, viewing the manifested and the unmanifested Kosmos as a UNITY, symbolizes the ideal conception of the former by that “Golden Egg” with two poles in it. It is the positive pole that acts in the manifested World of Matter, while the negative loses itself in the unknowable Absoluteness of SAT—Be‐ness.(950) Whether this agrees with the philosophy of Mr. Keely, we cannot tell, nor does it really much matter. Nevertheless, his ideas about the ethero‐material construction of the Universe look strangely like our own, being in this respect nearly identical. This is what we find him saying in an able pamphlet compiled by Mrs. Bloomfield‐Moore, an American lady of wealth and position, whose incessant efforts in the pursuit of truth can never be too highly appreciated:

Mr. Keely, in explanation of the working of his engine, says: “In the conception of any machine heretofore constructed, the medium for inducing a neutral centre has never been found. If it had, the difficulties of perpetual‐motion seekers would have ended, and this problem would have become an established and operating fact. It would only require an introductory impulse of a few pounds, on such a device, to cause it to run for centuries. In the conception of my vibratory engine, I did not seek to attain perpetual motion; but a circuit is formed that actually has a neutral centre, which is in a condition to be vivified by my vibratory ether, and, while under operation by said substance, is really a machine that is virtually independent of the mass (or globe),(951) and it is the wonderful velocity of the vibratory circuit which makes it so. Still, with all its perfection, it requires to be fed with the vibratory ether to make it an independent motor.... All structures require a foundation in strength according to the weight of the mass they have to carry, but the foundations of the universe rest on a vacuous point far more minute than a molecule; in fact, to express this truth properly, on an inter‐etheric point, which requires an infinite mind to understand it. To look down into the depths of an etheric centre is precisely the same as it would be to search into the broad space of heaven’s ether to find the end, with this difference: that one is the positive field, while the other is the negative field.”

This is, as may easily be seen, precisely the Eastern Doctrine. Mr. Keely’s inter‐etheric point is the laya‐point of the Occultists; this, however, does not require “an infinite mind to understand it,” but only a specific intuition and ability to trace its hiding‐place in this World of Matter. Of course, the laya centre cannot be produced, but an inter‐ etheric vacuum can be—as is proved by the production of bell‐sounds in space. Mr. Keely speaks as an unconscious Occultist, nevertheless, when he remarks, in his theory of planetary suspension:

As regards planetary volume, we would ask in a scientific point of view, How can the immense difference of volume in the planets exist without disorganizing the harmonious action that has always characterized them? I can only answer this question properly by entering into a progressive analysis, starting on the rotating etheric centres that were fixed by the Creator(952) with their attractive or accumulative power. If you ask what power it is that gives to each etheric atom its inconceivable velocity of rotation (or introductory impulse), I must answer that no finite mind will ever be able to conceive what it is. The philosophy of accumulation is the only proof that such a power has been given. The area, if we can so speak, of such an atom presents to the attractive or magnetic, the elective or propulsive, all the receptive force and all the antagonistic force that characterize a planet of the largest magnitude; consequently, as the accumulation goes on, the perfect equation remains the same. When this minute centre has once been fixed, the power to rend it from its position would necessarily have to be so great as to displace the most immense planet that exists. When this atomic neutral centre is displaced, the planet must go with it. The neutral centre carries the full load of any accumulation from the start, and remains the same, for ever balanced in the eternal space.

Mr. Keely illustrates his idea of “a neutral centre” in this way: We will imagine that, after an accumulation of a planet of any diameter, say, 20,000 miles, more or less, for the size has nothing to do with the problem, there should be a displacement of all the material, with the exception of a crust 5,000 miles thick, leaving an intervening void between this crust and a centre of the size of an ordinary billiard ball, it would then require a force as great to move this small central mass as it would to move the shell of 5,000 miles thickness. Moreover, this small central mass would carry the load of this crust for ever, keeping it equidistant; and there could be no opposing power, however great, that could bring them together. The imagination staggers in contemplating the immense load which bears upon this point of centre, where weight ceases.... This is what we understand by a neutral centre. And this is what Occultists understand by a laya centre.

The above is pronounced to be “unscientific” by many. But so is everything that is not sanctioned and kept on the strictly orthodox lines of Physical Science. Unless the explanation given by the inventor himself is accepted—and his explanations, being quite orthodox from the Spiritual and the Occult standpoints, if not from that of materialistic speculative Science, called exact, are therefore ours in this particular—what can Science answer to facts already seen, which it is no longer possible for anyone to deny? Occult Philosophy divulges few of its most important vital mysteries. It drops them like precious pearls, one by one, far and wide apart, and even this only when forced to do so by the evolutionary tidal wave that carries on Humanity slowly, silently, but steadily, toward the dawn of the Sixth Race mankind. For once out of the safe custody of their legitimate heirs and keepers, those mysteries cease to be Occult: they fall into the public domain, and have to run the risk of becoming curses more often than blessings in the hands of the selfish—of the Cains of the human race. Nevertheless, whenever such individuals as the discoverer of Etheric Force are born, men with peculiar psychic and mental capacities,(953) they are generally and more frequently helped, than allowed to go unassisted, groping on their way; if left to their own resources, they very soon fall victims to martyrdom or become the prey of unscrupulous speculators. But they are helped only on the condition that they should not become, whether consciously or unconsciously, an additional peril to their age: a danger to the poor, now offered in daily holocaust by the less wealthy to the very wealthy.(954) This necessitates a short digression and an explanation.

Some twelve years back, during the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, the writer, in answering the earnest queries of a Theosophist, one of the earliest admirers of Mr. Keely, repeated to him what she had heard in quarters, information from which she could never doubt. It had been stated that the inventor of the “Self‐Motor” was what is called, in the jargon of the Kabalists, a “natural‐born magician.” That he was and would remain unconscious of the full range of his powers, and would work out merely those which he had found out and ascertained in his own nature—firstly, because, attributing them to a wrong source, he could never give them full sway; and secondly, because it was beyond his power to pass to others that which was a capacity inherent in his own special nature. Hence, the whole secret could not be made over permanently to anyone, for practical purposes or use.(955)

Individuals born with such a capacity are not very rare. That they are not heard of more frequently is due to the fact that they live and die, in almost every case, in utter ignorance that they are possessed of abnormal powers. Mr. Keely possesses powers which are called abnormal, just because they happen to be as little known, in our day, as was the circulation of the blood before Harvey’s time. Blood existed, and it behaved as it does at present in the first man born from woman; and so exists and has existed in man that principle which can control and guide etheric vibratory Force. At any rate, it exists in all those mortals whose Inner Selves are primordially connected, by reason of their direct descent, with that group of Dhyân‐Chohans who are called “the first‐born of Æther.” Mankind, psychically considered, is divided into various groups, each group being connected with one of the Dhyânic Groups that first formed psychic man (see paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the Commentary to Stanza VII.). Mr. Keely—being greatly favoured in this respect, and besides his psychic temperament, being, moreover, intellectually a genius in mechanics—may achieve most wonderful results. He has achieved some already—more than any mortal man, not initiated into the final Mysteries, has achieved in this age up to the present day. What he has done is—as his friends justly say of him—certainly quite sufficient “to demolish with the hammer of Science the idols of Science”—the idols of matter with the feet of clay. Nor would the writer for a moment think of contradicting Mrs. Bloomfield‐Moore, when, in her paper on “Psychic Force and Etheric Force,” she states that Mr. Keely, as a Philosopher:

Is great enough in soul, wise enough in mind, and sublime enough in courage to overcome all difficulties, and to stand at last before the world as the greatest discoverer and inventor in the world. And again she writes: Should Keely do no more than lead scientists from the dreary realms where they are groping into the open field of elemental force, where gravity and cohesion are disturbed in their haunts and diverted to use; where, from unity of origin, emanates infinite energy in diversified forms, he will achieve immortal fame. Should he demonstrate, to the destruction of materialism, that the universe is animated by a mysterious principle to which matter, however perfectly organized, is absolutely subservient, he will be a greater spiritual benefactor to our race than the modern world has yet found in any man. Should he be able to substitute, in the treatment of disease, the finer forces of nature for the grossly material agencies which have sent more human beings to their graves than war, pestilence and famine combined, he will merit and receive the gratitude of mankind. All this and more will he do, if he and those who have watched his progress, day by day for years, are not too sanguine in their expectations.

The same lady, in her pamphlet, Keely’s Secrets,(956) brings forward the following passage from an article, written in the Theosophist a few years ago, by the writer of the present volume: The author of No. 5 of the pamphlets issued by the Theosophical Publication Society, What is Matter and What is Force, says therein: “The men of science have just found out ‘a fourth state of matter,’ whereas the Occultists have penetrated years ago beyond the sixth, and therefore do not infer, but know of, the existence of the seventh, the last.” This knowledge comprises one of the secrets of Keely’s so‐called “compound secret.” It is already known to many that his secret includes “the augmentation of energy,” the insulation of the ether, and the adaptation of dynaspheric force to machinery. It is just because Keely’s discovery would lead to a knowledge of one of the most Occult secrets, a secret which can never be allowed to fall into the hands of the masses, that his failure to push his discoveries to their logical end seems certain to Occultists. But of this more presently. Even in its limitations this discovery may prove of the greatest benefit. For:

Step by step, with a patient perseverance which some day the world will honour, this man of genius has made his researches, overcoming the colossal difficulties which again and again raised up in his path what seemed to be (to all but himself) insurmountable barriers to further progress: but never has the world’s index finger so pointed to an hour when all is making ready for the advent of the new form of force that mankind is waiting for. Nature, always reluctant to yield her secrets, is listening to the demands made upon her by her master, necessity. The coal mines of the world cannot long afford the increasing drain made upon them. Steam has reached its utmost limits of power, and does not fulfil the requirements of the age. It knows that its days are numbered. Electricity holds back, with bated breath, dependent upon the approach of her sister colleague. Air ships are riding at anchor, as it were, waiting for the force which is to make aërial navigation something more than a dream. As easily as men communicate with their offices from their homes by means of the telephone, so will the inhabitants of separate continents talk across the ocean. Imagination is palsied when seeking to foresee the grand results of this marvellous discovery, when once it is applied to art and mechanics. In taking the throne which it will force steam to abdicate, dynaspheric force will rule the world with a power so mighty in the interests of civilization, that no finite mind can conjecture the results. Laurence Oliphant, in his preface to Scientific Religion, says: “A new moral future is dawning upon the human race—one, certainly, of which it stands much in need.” In no way could this new moral future be so widely, so universally, commenced as by the utilizing of dynaspheric force to beneficial purposes in life.

The Occultists are ready to admit all this with the eloquent writer. Molecular vibration is, undeniably, “Keely’s legitimate field of research,” and the discoveries made by him will prove wonderful—yet only in his hands and through himself. The world so far will get but that with which it can be safely entrusted. The truth of this assertion has, perhaps, not yet quite dawned upon the discoverer himself, since he writes that he is absolutely certain that he will accomplish all that he has promised, and that he will then give it out to the world; but it must dawn upon him, and at no very far distant date. And what he says in reference to his work is a good proof of it:

In considering the operation of my engine, the visitor, in order to have even an approximate conception of its modus operandi, must discard _all thought of engines that are operated upon the principle of pressure and exhaustion, by the expansion of steam or other analogous gas which impinges upon an abutment, such as the piston of a steam‐engine_. My engine has neither piston nor eccentrics, nor is there one grain of pressure exerted in the engine, whatever may be the size or capacity of it. My system, in every part and detail, both in the developing of my power and in every branch of its utilization, is based and founded on sympathetic vibration. In no other way would it be possible to awaken or develop my force, and equally impossible would it be to operate my engine upon any other principle.... This, however, is the true system; and henceforth all my operations will be conducted in this manner—that is to say, my power will be generated, my engines run, my cannon operated, through a wire. It has been only after years of incessant labour, and the making of almost innumerable experiments, involving not only the construction of a great many most peculiar mechanical structures, and the closest investigation and study of the phenomenal properties of the substance “ether,” per se, produced, that I have been able to dispense with complicated mechanism, and to obtain, as I claim, mastery over the subtle and strange force with which I am dealing.

The passages underlined by us, are those which bear directly on the Occult side of the application of the vibratory Force, that which Mr. Keely calls “sympathetic vibration.” The “wire” is already a step below, or downward from the pure Etheric plane into the Terrestrial. The discoverer has produced marvels—the word “miracle” is not too strong—when acting through the inter‐etheric Force alone, the fifth and sixth principles of Âkâsha. From a generator six feet long, he has come down to one “no larger than an old‐fashioned silver watch”; and this by itself is a miracle of mechanical, but not of spiritual, genius. As was well said by his great patroness and defender, Mrs. Bloomfield‐Moore: The two forms of force which he has been experimenting with, and the phenomena attending them, are the very antithesis of each other.

One was generated and acted upon by and through himself. No one, who should have repeated the thing done by himself, could have produced the same results. It was truly Keely’s Ether that acted, while Smith’s or Brown’s Ether would have remained for ever barren of results. For Keely’s difficulty has hitherto been to produce a machine which would develop and regulate the Force without the intervention of any “will power” or personal influence of the operator, whether conscious or unconscious. In this he has failed, so far as others were concerned, for no one but himself could operate on his “machines.” Occultly this was a far more advanced achievement than the “success” which he anticipates from his wire, but the results obtained from the fifth and sixth planes of the Etheric, or Astral, Force, will never be permitted to serve for purposes of commerce and traffic. That Keely’s organism is directly connected with the production of his marvellous results is proven by the following statement, emanating from one who knows the great discoverer intimately.

At one time the shareholders of the “Keely Motor Co.” put a man in his workshop for the express purpose of discovering his secret. After six months of close watching, he said to J. W. Keely one day: “I know how it is done, now.” They had been setting up a machine together, and Keely was manipulating the stop‐cock which turned the force on and off. “Try it, then,” was the answer. The man turned the cock, and nothing came. “Let me see you do it again,” the man said to Keely. The latter complied, and the machinery operated at once. Again the other tried, but without success. Then Keely put his hand on his shoulder and told him to try once more. He did so, with the result of an instantaneous production of the current. This fact, if true, settles the question. We are told that Mr. Keely defines electricity “as a certain form of atomic vibration.” In this he is quite right; but this is Electricity on the terrestrial plane, and through terrestrial correlations. He estimates— Molecular vibrations at 100,000,000 per second. Inter‐molecular vibrations at 300,000,000 per second. Atomic vibrations at 900,000,000 per second. Inter‐atomic vibrations at 2,700,000,000 per second. Ætheric vibrations at 8,100,000,000 per second. Inter‐Ætheric vibrations at 24,300,000,000 per second.

This proves our point. There are no vibrations that could be counted or even estimated at an approximate rate beyond “the realm of the fourth Son of Fohat,” to use an Occult phrase, or that motion which corresponds to the formation of Mr. Crookes’ radiant matter, lightly called some years ago the “fourth state of matter”—on this our plane. If the question is asked why Mr. Keely was not allowed to pass a certain limit, the answer is easy; it was because that, which he has unconsciously discovered, is the terrible sidereal Force, known to, and named by the Atlanteans Mash‐mak, and by the Âryan Rishis in their Astra Vidyâ by a name that we do not like to give. It is the Vril of Bulwer Lytton’s Coming Race, and of the coming Races of our mankind. The name Vril may be a fiction; the Force itself is a fact, as little doubted in India as is the existence of the Rishis, since it is mentioned in all the secret books.

It is this vibratory Force, which, when aimed at an army from an Agni‐ ratha, fixed on a flying vessel, a balloon, according to the instructions found in Astra Vidyâ, would reduce to ashes 100,000 men and elephants, as easily as it would a dead rat. It is allegorized in the Vishnu Purâna, in the Râmâyana and other works, in the fable about the sage Kapila whose “glance made a mountain of ashes of King Sagara’s 60,000 sons,” and which is explained in the Esoteric Works, and referred to as the Kapilâksha—Kapila’s Eye. And is it this Satanic Force that our generations are to be allowed to add to their stock of Anarchist’s baby‐toys, known as melenite, dynamite clock‐work, explosive oranges, “flower baskets,” and such other innocent names? Is it this destructive agency, which, once in the hands of some modern Attila, a bloodthirsty Anarchist, for instance, would in a few days reduce Europe to its primitive chaotic state, with no man left alive to tell the tale—is it this Force which is to become the common property of all men alike?

What Mr. Keely has already done is grand and wonderful in the extreme; there is enough work before him in the demonstration of his new system to “humble the pride of those scientists who are materialistic, by revealing those mysteries which lie behind the world of matter,” without, nolens volens, revealing it to all. For surely Psychics and Spiritualists, of whom there are a good number in European armies, would be the first to personally experience the fruits of the revelation of such mysteries. Thousands of them would speedily find themselves in blue Ether, perhaps with the populations of whole countries to keep them company, were such a Force to be even entirely discovered, let alone made publicly known. The discovery in its completeness is by several thousand—or shall we say hundred thousand—years too premature. It will be in its appointed place and time only when the great roaring flood of starvation, misery, and underpaid labour ebbs back again—as it will when the just demands of the many are at last happily attended to; when the proletariat exists but in name, and the pitiful cry for bread, that rings unheeded throughout the world, has died away. This may be hastened by the spread of learning, and by new openings for work and emigration, with better prospects than now exist, and on some new continent that may appear. Then only will Keely’s Motor and Force, as originally contemplated by himself and his friends, be in demand, because it will then be more needed by the poor than by the wealthy.

Meanwhile the Force he has discovered will work through wires, and, if he succeeds, this will be quite sufficient to make of him the greatest discoverer of the age in the present generation. What Mr. Keely says of Sound and Colour is also correct from the Occult standpoint. Hear him talk as though he were the nursling of the “Gods‐Revealers,” and as if he had gazed all his life into the depths of Father‐Mother Æther. In comparing the tenuity of the atmosphere with that of the etheric flows, obtained by his invention for breaking up the molecules of air by vibration, Keely says:

It is as platinum to hydrogen gas. Molecular separation of air brings us to the first sub‐division only; inter‐molecular, to the second; atomic, to the third; inter‐atomic, to the fourth; etheric, to the fifth; and inter‐etheric, to the sixth sub‐ division, or positive association with luminiferous ether.(957) In my introductory argument I have contended that this is the vibratory envelope of all atoms. In my definition of atom I do not confine myself to the sixth sub‐division where this luminiferous ether is developed in its crude form, as far as my researches prove.(958) I think this idea will be pronounced by the physicists of the present day, a wild freak of the imagination. Possibly, in time, a light may fall upon this theory that will bring its simplicity forward for scientific research. At present I can only compare it to some planet in a dark space, where the light of the sun of science has not yet reached it.... I assume that sound, like odour, is a real substance of unknown and wonderful tenuity, emanating from a body where it has been induced by percussion and throwing out absolute corpuscles of matter, inter‐atomic particles, with velocity of 1,120 feet per second; in vacuo 20,000. The substance which is thus disseminated is a part and parcel of the mass agitated, and,

if kept under this agitation continuously, would, in the course of a certain cycle of time, become thoroughly absorbed by the atmosphere; or, more truly, would pass through the atmosphere to an elevated point of tenuity corresponding to the condition of sub‐division that governs its liberation from its parent body.... The sounds from vibratory forks, set so as to produce etheric chords, while disseminating their tones (compound), permeate most thoroughly all substances that come under the range of their atomic bombardment. The clapping of a bell in vacuo liberates these atoms with the same velocity and volume as one in the open air; and were the agitation of the bell kept up continuously for a few millions of centuries it would thoroughly return to its primitive element; and, if the chamber were hermetically sealed, and strong enough, the vacuous volume surrounding the bell would be brought to a pressure of many thousands of pounds to the square inch, by the tenuous substance evolved. In my estimation, sound truly defined is the disturbance of atomic equilibrium, rupturing actual atomic corpuscles; and the substance thus liberated must certainly be a certain order of etheric flow. Under these conditions, is it unreasonable to suppose that, if this flow were kept up, and the body thus robbed of its element, it would in time

disappear entirely? All bodies are formed primitively from this highly tenuous ether, animal, vegetable, and mineral, and they are only returned to their high gaseous condition when brought under a state of differential equilibrium.... As regards odour, we can only get some definite idea of its extreme and wondrous tenuity by taking into consideration that a large area of atmosphere can be impregnated for a long series of years from a single grain of musk; which, if weighed after that long interval, will be found to be not appreciably diminished. The great paradox attending the flow of odorous particles is that they can be held under confinement in a glass vessel! Here is a substance of much higher tenuity than the glass that holds it, and yet it cannot escape. It is as a sieve with its meshes large enough to pass marbles, and yet holding fine sand which cannot pass through; in fact, a molecular vessel holding an atomic substance. This is a problem that would confound those who stop to recognize it. But infinitely tenuous as odour is, it holds a very crude relation to the substance of sub‐ division that governs a magnetic flow (a flow of sympathy, if you please to call it so). This sub‐division comes next to sound, but is above sound. The action

of the flow of a magnet coincides somewhat to the receiving and distributing portion of the human brain, giving off at all times a depreciating ratio of the amount received. It is a grand illustration of the control of mind over matter, which gradually depreciates the physical till dissolution takes place. The magnet on the same ratio gradually loses its power and becomes inert. If the relations that exist between mind and matter could be equated and so held, we would live on in our physical state eternally, as there would be no physical depreciation. But this physical depreciation leads, at its terminus, to the source of a much higher development—viz., the liberation of the pure ether from the crude molecular; which, in my estimation, is to be much desired.(959)

It may be remarked that, save for a few small divergencies, no Adept nor Alchemist could have better explained these theories, in the light of Modern Science, however much the latter may protest against these novel views. In all its fundamental principles, if not in its details, this is Occultism pure and simple; and moreover, it is modern Natural Philosophy as well. This new Force, or whatever Science may call it, the effects of which are undeniable—as is admitted by more than one Naturalist and Physicist who has visited Mr. Keely’s laboratory and personally witnessed its tremendous effects—what is it? Is it a “mode of motion,” also, in vacuo, since there is no Matter to generate it except Sound—another “mode of motion,” no doubt, a sensation caused, like Colour, by vibrations? Fully as we believe in these vibrations as the proximate, the immediate, cause of such sensations, we as absolutely reject the one‐sided scientific theory that there is no factor to be considered as external to us, other than etheric or atmospheric vibrations. In this case the American Substantialists are not wrong, though they are too anthropomorphic and material in their views for these to be accepted by Occultists, when they argue through Mrs. M. S. Organ, M.D., that:

There must be positive entitative properties in objects which have a constitutional relation to the nerves of animal sensations, or there can be no perception. No impression of any kind can be made upon brain, nerve, or mind—no stimulus to action—unless there is an actual and direct communication of a substantial force. [“Substantial” as far as it appears, in the usual sense of the word, in this universe of Illusion and Mâyâ, of course; not in reality.] That force may be the most refined and sublimated immaterial Entity [?]. Yet it must exist; for no sense, element, or faculty of the human being can have a perception, or be stimulated into action, without some substantial force coming in contact with it. This is the fundamental law pervading the whole organic and mental world. In the true philosophical sense there is no such thing as independent action: for every force or substance is correlated to some other force or substance. We can with just as much truth and reason assert that no substance possesses any inherent gustatory property or any olfactory property—that taste and odour are simply sensations caused by vibrations; and hence mere illusions of animal perceptions.

There is a transcendental set of causes put in motion, so to speak, in the occurrence of these phenomena, which, not being in relation to our narrow range of cognition, can only be understood and traced to their source and their nature, by the spiritual faculties of the Adept. They are, as Asclepios puts it to the King, “incorporeal corporealities,” such as “appear in the mirror,” and “abstract forms” that we see, hear, and smell, in our dreams and visions. What have the “modes of motion,” light, and ether to do with these? Yet we see, hear, smell and touch them, ergo they are as much realities to us in our dreams, as any other thing on this plane of Mâyâ.

When the Occultist speaks of Elements, and of human Beings who lived during those geological ages, the duration of which it is found as impossible to determine—according to the opinion of one of the best English Geologists(960)—as the nature of Matter, it is because he knows what he is talking about. When he says Man and Elements, he means neither man in his present physiological and anthropological form, nor the elemental Atoms, those hypothetical conceptions, existing at present in scientific minds, the entitative abstractions of Matter in its highly attenuated state; nor, again, does he mean the compound Elements of Antiquity. In Occultism the word Element in every case means Rudiment. When we say “Elementary Man,” we mean either the proëmial, incipient sketch of man, in its unfinished and undeveloped condition, hence in that form which now lies latent in physical man during his life‐time, and takes shape only occasionally and under certain conditions; or, that form which for a time survives the material body, and which is better known as an Elementary.(961) With regard to Element, when the term is used metaphysically, it means, in distinction to the mortal, the incipient Divine Man; and, in its physical usage, it means inchoate Matter in its first undifferentiated condition, or in the Laya state, the eternal and normal condition of Substance, which differentiates only periodically; during that differentiation, Substance is really in an abnormal state—in other words, it is but a transitory illusion of the senses.

As to the Elemental Atoms, so‐called, the Occultists refer to them by that name with a meaning analogous to that which is given by the Hindû to Brahmâ, when he calls him Anu, the Atom. Every Elemental Atom, in search of which more than one Chemist has followed the path indicated by the Alchemists, is, in their firm belief, when not knowledge, a Soul; not necessarily a disembodied Soul, but a Jîva, as the Hindûs call it, a centre of Potential Vitality, with latent intelligence in it, and, in the case of compound Souls, an intelligent active Existence, from the highest to the lowest order, a form composed of more or less differentiations. It requires a Metaphysician—and an Eastern Metaphysician—to understand our meaning. All those Atom‐Souls are differentiations from the One, and are in the same relation to it as is the Divine Soul, Buddhi, to its informing and inseparable Spirit, Âtmâ.

Modern Physics, in borrowing from the Ancients their Atomic Theory, forgot one point, the most important point of the doctrine; hence they have got only the husks and will never be able to get the kernel. In adopting physical Atoms, they omitted the suggestive fact that, from Anaxagoras to Epicurus, to the Roman Lucretius, and finally even to Galileo, all these Philosophers believed more or less in animated Atoms, not in invisible specks of so‐called “brute” matter. According to them, rotatory motion was generated by larger (read, more divine and pure) Atoms forcing other Atoms downwards; the lighter ones being simultaneously thrust upward. The Esoteric meaning of this is the ever cyclic curve of differentiated Elements downward and upward through intercyclic phases of existence, until each again reaches its starting‐point or birthplace. The idea was metaphysical as well as physical; the hidden interpretation embracing Gods or Souls, in the shape of Atoms, as the causes of all the effects produced on Earth by the secretions from the divine bodies.(962) No Ancient Philosopher, not even the Jewish Kabalists, ever dissociated Spirit from Matter, or Matter from Spirit. Everything originated in the One, and, proceeding from the One, must finally return to the One.

Light becomes heat, and consolidates into fiery particles; which, from being ignited, become cold, hard particles, round and smooth. And this is called Soul, imprisoned in its robe of matter.(963) Atoms and Souls were synonymous in the language of the Initiates. The doctrine of “whirling Souls,” Gilgoolem, in which so many learned Jews have believed,(964) had no other meaning esoterically. The learned Jewish Initiates never meant Palestine alone by the Promised Land, but they meant the same Nirvâna as do the learned Buddhist and Brahman—the bosom of the Eternal ONE, symbolized by that of Abraham, and by Palestine as its substitute on Earth.

Surely no educated Jew ever believed this allegory in its literal sense, that the bodies of Jews contain within them a principle of Soul which cannot rest, if the bodies are deposited in a foreign land, until, by a process called the “whirling of the Soul” the immortal particle reaches once more the sacred soil of the “Promised Land.”(965) The meaning of this is evident to an Occultist. The process was supposed to be accomplished by a kind of metempsychosis, the psychic spark being conveyed through bird, beast, fish, and the most minute insect.(966) The allegory relates to the Atoms of the body, each of which has to pass through every form, before all reach the final state, which is the first starting‐point of the departure of every Atom—its primitive Laya state. But the primitive meaning of Gilgoolem, or the “Revolution of Souls,” was the idea of the reïncarnating Souls or Egos. “All the Souls go into the Gilgoolah,” into a cyclic or revolving process; i.e., they all proceed on the cyclic path of re‐births. Some Kabalists interpret this doctrine to mean only a kind of purgatory for the souls of the wicked. But this is not so.

The passage of the Soul‐Atom “through the seven Planetary Chambers” had the same metaphysical and physical meaning. It had the latter when it was said to dissolve into Ether. Even Epicurus, the model Atheist and Materialist, knew so much and believed so much in the ancient Wisdom, that he taught that the Soul—entirely distinct from immortal Spirit, when the former is enshrined latent in it, as it is in every atomic speck—was composed of a fine, tender essence, formed from the smoothest, roundest, and finest atoms.(967)

And this shows that the ancient Initiates, who were followed more or less closely by all profane Antiquity, meant by the term Atom, a Soul, a Genius or Angel, the first‐born of the ever‐concealed Cause of all causes; and in this sense their teachings become comprehensible. They asserted, as do their successors, the existence of Gods and Genii, Angels or Demons, not outside, nor independent of, the Universal Plenum, but within it. Only this Plenum, during the life‐cycles, is infinite. They admitted and taught a good deal of that which modern Science now teaches—namely, the existence of a primordial World‐Stuff or Cosmic Substance, eternally homogeneous, except during its periodic existence; then, universally diffused throughout infinite Space, it differentiates, and gradually forms sidereal bodies from itself. They taught the revolution of the Heavens, the Earth’s rotation, the Heliocentric System, and the Atomic Vortices—Atoms being in reality Souls and Intelligences. These “Atomists” were spiritual, most transcendental, and philosophical Pantheists. It is not they who would have ever conceived or dreamed that monstrous contrasted progeny, the nightmare of our modern civilized race: inanimate material and self‐ guiding Atoms, on the one hand, and an extra‐cosmic God on the other. It may be useful to show what the Monad was, and what its origin, in the teachings of the old Initiates.

Modern exact Science, as soon as it began to grow out of its teens, perceived the great, and to it hitherto esoteric, axiom, that nothing, whether in the spiritual, psychic, or physical realm of Being, could come into existence out of nothing. There is no cause in the manifested Universe without its adequate effects, whether in Space or Time; nor can there be an effect without its primal cause, which itself owes its existence to a still higher one—the final and absolute Cause having to remain to man for ever an incomprehensible Causeless Cause. But even this is no solution, and must be viewed, if at all, from the highest philosophical and metaphysical standpoints, otherwise the problem had better be left unapproached. It is an abstraction, on the verge of which human reason—however trained in metaphysical subtleties—trembles, threatening to collapse. This may be demonstrated to any European, who would undertake to solve the problem of existence, by the articles of faith of the true Vedântin for instance. Let him read and study the sublime teachings of Shankarâchârya, on the subject of Soul and Spirit, and the reader will realize what is now said.(968)

While the Christian is taught that the human Soul is a breath of God, being created by him for sempiternal existence, having a beginning, but no end—and therefore never to be called eternal—the Occult Teaching says: Nothing is created, it is only transformed. Nothing can manifest itself in this Universe—from a globe down to a vague, rapid thought—that was not in the Universe already; everything on the subjective plane is an eternal is; as everything on the objective plane is an ever‐becoming—because all is transitory. The Monad—a truly “indivisible thing,” as defined by Good, who did not give it the sense we now do—is here rendered as the Âtmâ, in conjunction with Buddhi and the higher Manas. This trinity is one and eternal, the latter being absorbed in the former at the termination of all conditioned and illusive life. The Monad, then, can be traced through the course of its pilgrimage and in its changes of transitory vehicles, only from the incipient stage of the manifested Universe. In Pralaya, the intermediate period between two Manvantaras, it loses its name, as it loses it when the real One Self of man merges into Brahman, in cases of high Samâdhi (the Turîya state), or final Nirvâna; in the words of Shankara:

When the disciple having attained that primeval consciousness, absolute bliss, of which the nature is truth, which is without form and action, abandons this illusive body that has been assumed by the Âtmâ just as an actor (abandons) the dress (put on).

For Buddhi, the Anandamaya Sheath, is but a mirror which reflects absolute bliss; and, moreover, that reflection itself is yet not free from ignorance, and is not the Supreme Spirit, since it is subject to conditions, is a spiritual modification of Prakriti, and is an effect; Âtmâ alone is the one real and eternal substratum of all, the Essence and Absolute Knowledge, the Kshetrajña. Now that the Revised Version of the Gospels has been published and the most glaring mistranslations of the old versions are corrected, one can understand better the words in 1 John v. 6: “It is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth.” The words that follow in the mistranslated version about the “three witnesses,” hitherto supposed to stand for “the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost,” show the real meaning of the writer very clearly, thus still more forcibly identifying his teaching in this respect with that of Shankarâchârya. For what can the sentence mean, “there are three that bear witness ... the Spirit and the Water and the Blood”—if it bears no relation to, nor connection with, the more philosophical statement of the great Vedântin teacher, who, speaking of the Sheaths—the principles in man—Jîva, Vijñânamaya, etc., which are, in their physical manifestation, “Water and Blood” or Life, adds that Âtmâ, Spirit, alone is what remains after the subtraction of the Sheaths and that it is the Only Witness, or synthesized unity. The less spiritual and philosophical school, solely with an eye to a Trinity, made three witnesses out of “one,” thus connecting it more with Earth than with Heaven. It is called in Esoteric Philosophy the “One Witness,” and, while it rests in Devachan, is referred to as the “Three Witnesses to Karma.”

Âtmâ, our seventh principle, being identical with the Universal Spirit, and man being one with it in his essence, what is then the Monad proper? It is that homogeneous spark which radiates in millions of rays from the primeval Seven;—of which Seven something will be said further on. It is the EMANATING SPARK FROM THE UNCREATED RAY—a mystery. In the esoteric, and even exoteric Buddhism of the North, Âdi‐Buddha (Chogi Dangpoi Sangye), the One Unknown, without beginning or end, identical with Parabrahman and Ain Suph, emits a bright Ray from its Darkness.

This is the Logos, the First, or Vajradhara, the Supreme Buddha, also called Dorjechang. As the Lord of all Mysteries he cannot manifest, but sends into the world of manifestation his Heart—the “Diamond Heart,” Vajrasattva or Dorjesempa. This is the Second Logos of Creation, from whom emanate the seven—in the exoteric blind the five—Dhyâni‐Buddhas, called the Anupâdaka, the “Parentless.” These Buddhas are the primeval Monads from the World of Incorporeal Being, the Arûpa World, wherein the Intelligences (on that plane only) have neither shape nor name, in the exoteric system, but have their distinct seven names in the Esoteric Philosophy. These Dhyâni‐Buddhas emanate, or create from themselves, by virtue of Dhyâna, celestial Selves—the super‐human Bodhisattvas. These, incarnating at the beginning of every human cycle on Earth as mortal men, become occasionally, owing to their personal merit, Bodhisattvas among the Sons of Humanity, after which they may reäppear as Mânushi, or Human, Buddhas. The Anupâdaka, or Dhyâni‐Buddhas, are thus identical with the Brâhmanical Mânasaputra, Mind‐born Sons—whether of Brahmâ, or of either of the other two Trimûrtian Hypostases; they are identical also with the Rishis and Prajâpatis. Thus, a passage is found in Anugîtâ, which, read esoterically, shows plainly, though under another imagery, the same idea and system. It says:

Whatever entities there are in this world, moveable or immoveable, they are the very first to be dissolved [at Pralaya]; and next the developments produced from the elements [from which the visible universe is fashioned]; and (after) these developments [evolved entities], all the elements. Such is the upward gradation among entities. Gods, Men, Gandharvas, Pishâchas, Asuras, Râkshasas, all have been created by Nature [Svabhâva, or Prakriti, plastic Nature], not by actions, nor by a cause [not by any physical cause]. These Brâhmanas [the Rishi Prajâpati?], the creators of the world, are born here (on earth) again and again. And whatever is produced from them is dissolved in due time in those very five great elements [the five, or rather seven, Dhyâni‐Buddhas, also called “Elements” of Mankind], like billows in the ocean. These great elements are in every way (beyond) the elements that make up the world [the gross elements]. And he who is released, even from these five elements [the Tanmâtras],(969) goes to the highest goal. The Lord Prajâpati [Brahmâ] created all this by the mind only [by Dhyâna, or abstract meditation and mystic powers, like the Dhyâni‐Buddhas].(970)

Evidently then, these Brâhmanas are identical with the terrestrial Bodhisattvas of the heavenly Dhyâni‐Buddhas. Both, as primordial, intelligent “Elements,” become the Creators or the Emanators of the Monads destined to become human in that cycle; after which they evolve themselves, or, so to say, expand into their own Selves as Bodhisattvas or Brâhmanas, in heaven and earth, to become at last simple men. “The creators of the world are born here, on earth again and again”—truly. In the Northern Buddhist system, or the popular exoteric religion, it is taught that every Buddha, while preaching the Good Law on Earth, manifests himself simultaneously in three Worlds: in the Formless World as a Dhyâni‐ Buddha, in the World of Forms as a Bodhisattva, and in the World of Desire, the lowest or our World, as a man. Esoterically the teaching differs. The divine, purely Âdi‐Buddhic Monad manifests as the universal Buddhi, the Mahâ‐Buddhi or Mahat, in Hindû philosophies, the spiritual, omniscient and omnipotent Root of divine Intelligence, the highest Anima Mundi or the Logos. This descends “like a flame spreading from the eternal Fire, immoveable, without increase or decrease, ever the same to the end” of the cycle of existence, and becomes Universal Life on the Mundane Plane. From this Plane of conscious Life shoot out, like seven fiery tongues, the Sons of Light, the Logoi of Life; then the Dhyâni‐Buddhas of contemplation, the concrete forms of their formless Fathers, the Seven Sons of Light, still themselves, to whom maybe applied the Brâhmanical mystic phrase: “Thou art THAT”—Brahman. It is from these Dhyâni‐Buddhas that emanate their Chhâyâs or Shadows, the Bodhisattvas of the celestial realms, the prototypes of the super‐terrestrial Bodhisattvas, and of the terrestrial Buddhas, and finally of men. The Seven Sons of Light are also called Stars.

The star under which a human Entity is born, says the Occult Teaching, will remain for ever its star, throughout the whole cycle of its incarnations in one Manvantara. But this is not his astrological star. The latter is concerned and connected with the Personality; the former with the Individuality. The Angel of that Star, or the Dhyâni‐Buddha connected with it, will be either the guiding, or simply the presiding, Angel, so to say, in every new rebirth of the Monad, which is part of his own essence, though his vehicle, man, may remain for ever ignorant of this fact. The Adepts have each their Dhyâni‐Buddha, their elder “Twin‐ Soul,” and they know it, calling it “Father‐Soul,” and “Father‐Fire.” It is only at the last and supreme Initiation, however, when placed face to face with the bright “Image” that they learn to recognize it. How much did Bulwer Lytton know of this mystic fact, when describing, in one of his highest inspirational moods, Zanoni face to face with his Augoeides?

The Logos, or both the unmanifested and the manifested Word, is called by the Hindûs, Îshvara, the Lord, though the Occultists give it another name. Îshvara, say the Vedântins, is the highest consciousness in Nature. “This highest consciousness,” answer the Occultists, “is only a synthetic unit in the World of the manifested Logos—or on the plane of illusion; for it is the sum total of Dhyân Chohanic consciousness.” “O wise man, remove the conception that Not‐Spirit is Spirit”—says Shankarâchârya. Âtmâ is Not‐ Spirit in its final Parabrahmic state; Îshvara, or Logos, is Spirit; or, as Occultism explains, it is a compound unity of manifested living Spirits, the parent‐source and nursery of all the mundane and terrestrial Monads, plus their divine Reflection, which emanate from, and return into, the Logos, each in the culmination of its time. There are seven chief Groups of such Dhyân Chohans, which groups will be found and recognized in every religion, for they are the primeval Seven Rays. Humanity, Occultism teaches us, is divided into seven distinct Groups, with their sub‐divisions, mental, spiritual, and physical. Hence there are seven chief planets, the spheres of the indwelling seven Spirits, under each of which is born one of the human Groups which is guided and influenced thereby. There are only seven planets specially connected with Earth, and twelve houses, but the possible combinations of their aspects are countless. As each planet can stand to each of the others in twelve different aspects, their combinations must be almost infinite; as infinite, in fact, as the spiritual, psychic, mental, and physical capacities in the numberless varieties of the genus homo, each of which varieties is born under one of the seven planets and one of the said countless planetary combinations.(971)

The Monad, then, viewed as One, is above the seventh principle in Kosmos and man; and as a Triad, it is the direct radiant progeny of the said compound Unit, not the Breath of “God,” as that Unit is called, nor creating out of nihil; for such an idea is quite unphilosophical, and degrades Deity, dragging It down to a finite, attributive condition. As well expressed by the translator of the Crest‐Jewel of Wisdom—though Îshvara is “God.” Unchanged in the profoundest depths of Pralayas and in the intensest activity of Manvantaras, [still] beyond [him] is ÂTMÂ, round whose pavilion is the darkness of eternal MÂYÂ.(972) The “Triads” born under the same Parent‐Planet, or rather the Radiations of one and the same Planetary Spirit or Dhyâni‐Buddha are, in all their after lives and rebirths, sister, or “twin” souls, on this Earth. The idea is the same as that of the Christian Trinity, the “Three in One,” only it is still more metaphysical: the Universal “Over‐Spirit,” manifesting on the two higher planes, those of Buddhi and Mahat. These are the three Hypostases, metaphysical, but never personal.

This was known to every high Initiate in every age and in every country: “I and my Father are one,” said Jesus.(973) When he is made to say, elsewhere: “I ascend to my Father and your Father,”(974) it meant that which has just been stated. The identity, and at the same time the illusive differentiation of the Angel‐Monad and the Human‐Monad is shown in the sentences: “My Father is greater than I”;(975) “Glorify your Father which is in Heaven”;(976) “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (not our Father).(977) So again Paul asks: “Know ye not ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”(978) All this was simply meant to show that the group of disciples and followers attracted to him belonged to the same Dhyâni‐Buddha, Star, or Father, and that this again belonged to the same planetary realm and division as he did. It is the knowledge of this Occult Doctrine that found expression in the review of The Idyll of the White Lotus, when T. Subba Row wrote:

Every Buddha meets at his last Initiation all the great Adepts who reached Buddhahood during the preceding ages ... every class of Adepts has its own bond of spiritual communion which knits them together.... The only possible and effectual way of entering into such brotherhood ... is by bringing oneself within the influence of the Spiritual light which radiates from one’s own Logos. I may further point out here ... that such communion is only possible between persons whose souls derive their life and sustenance from the same divine Ray, and that, as seven distinct Rays radiate from the “Central Spiritual Sun,” all Adepts and Dhyân Chohans are divisible into seven classes, each of which is guided, controlled, and overshadowed by one of the seven forms or manifestations of the divine Wisdom.(979)

It is then the Seven Sons of Light,—called after their planets and often identified with them by the rabble, namely, Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Venus, and presumably the Sun and Moon, for the modern critic, who goes no deeper than the surface of old religions(980)—which are, according to the Occult Teachings, our heavenly Parents, or synthetically our “Father.” Hence, as already remarked, Polytheism is really more philosophical and correct, as to fact and Nature, than is anthropomorphic Monotheism. Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus, the four exoteric planets, and the three others, which must remain unnamed, were the heavenly bodies in direct astral and psychic communication, morally and physically, with the Earth, its Guides, and Watchers; the visible orbs furnishing our Humanity with its outward and inward characteristics, and their Regents or Rectors with our Monads and spiritual faculties. In order to avoid creating new misconceptions, let it be stated that among the three Secret Orbs, or Star‐Angels, neither Uranus nor Neptune were included; not only because they were unknown under these names to the ancient Sages, but because they, like all other planets, however many there may be, are the Gods and Guardians of other septenary Chains of Globes within our System.

Nor do the two great planets last discovered depend entirely on the Sun, as do the rest of the planets. Otherwise, how can we explain the fact that Uranus receives 1/390th part of the light received by our Earth, while Neptune receives only 1/900th part; and that their satellites show a peculiarity of inverse rotation found in no other planets of the Solar System? At any rate, what we say applies to Uranus, though the fact has again been disputed recently.

This subject will, of course, be considered as a mere vagary, by all those who confuse the universal order of Being with their own systems of classification. Here, however, simple facts from Occult Teachings are stated, to be either accepted or rejected, as the case may be. There are details which, on account of their great metaphysical abstraction, cannot be entered upon. Hence, we merely state that only seven of our planets are as intimately related to our Globe, as the Sun is to all the bodies subject to him in his System. Of these bodies the poor little number of primary and secondary planets known to Astronomy, looks wretched enough, in truth.(981) Therefore, it stands to reason that there are a great number of planets, small and large, that have not been discovered yet, but of the existence of which ancient Astronomers—all of them initiated Adepts—must certainly have been aware. But, as the relation of these to the Gods was sacred, it had to remain arcane, as did also the names of various other planets and stars.

Besides this, even the Roman Catholic Theology speaks of “seventy planets that preside over the destinies of the nations of this globe;” and, save the erroneous application, there is more truth in this tradition than in exact modern Astronomy. The seventy planets are connected with the seventy elders of the people of Israel,(982) and the Regents of these planets are meant, not the orbs themselves; the word seventy is a play and a blind upon the 7 × 7 of the subdivisions. Each people and nation, as we have already said, has its direct Watcher, Guardian and Father in Heaven—a Planetary Spirit. We are willing to leave their own national God, Jehovah, to the descendants of Israel, the worshippers of Sabaoth or Saturn; for, indeed, the Monads of the people chosen by him are his own, and the Bible has never made any secret of it. Only the text of the Protestant English Bible is, as usual, in disagreement with those of the Septuagint and the Vulgate. Thus, while in the former we read: When the Most High [not Jehovah] divided to the nations their inheritance ... he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.(983)

In the Septuagint the text reads “according to the number of the Angels,” Planet‐Angels, a version more concordant with truth and fact. Moreover, all the texts agree that “the Lord’s [Jehovah’s] portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance”;(984) and this settles the question. The “Lord” Jehovah took Israel for his portion; what have other nations to do with that particular national Deity? Let then, the “Angel Gabriel” watch over Iran and “Mikael‐Jehovah” over the Hebrews. These are not the Gods of other nations, and it is difficult to see why Christians should have selected a God against whose commandments Jesus was the first to rise in rebellion.

The planetary origin of the Monad, or Soul, and of its faculties was taught by the Gnostics. On its way to the Earth, as on its way back from the Earth, each soul born in, and from, the “Boundless Light,”(985) had to pass through the seven planetary regions either way. The pure Dhyâni and Devas of the oldest religions had become, in course of time, with the Zoroastrians, the Seven Devs, the ministers of Ahriman, “each chained to his planet”;(986) with the Brâhmans, the Asuras and some of the Rishis—good, bad and indifferent; among the Egyptian Gnostics it was Thoth, or Hermes, who was the chief of the Seven whose names are given by Origen as Adonai, genius of the Sun; Tao, of the Moon; Eloi, of Jupiter; Sabaoth, of Mars; Orai, of Venus; Astaphai, of Mercury; and Ildabaoth (Jehovah), of Saturn. Finally, the Pistis‐Sophia, which the greatest modern authority on exoteric Gnostic beliefs, the late Mr. C. W. King, refers to as “that precious monument of Gnosticism”—this old document echoes the archaic belief of the ages, while distorting it to suit sectarian purposes. The Astral Rulers of the Spheres, the planets, create the Monads, or Souls, from their own substance out of “the tears of their eyes, and the sweat of their torments,” endowing the Monads with a spark of their substance which is the Divine Light. It will be shown in Volume II why these “Lords of the Zodiac and Spheres” have been transformed by sectarian Theology into the Rebellious Angels of the Christians, who took them from the Seven Devs of the Magi, without understanding the significance of the allegory.(987)

As usual, that which is, and was from its beginning, divine, pure, and spiritual in its earliest unity, became—by reason of its differentiation through the distorted prism of man’s conceptions—human and impure, as reflecting man’s own sinful nature. Thus, in time, the planet Saturn became reviled by the worshippers of other Gods. The nations born under Saturn—the Jewish, for instance, with whom he became Jehovah, after being considered as a son of Saturn, or Ilda‐Baoth, by the Ophites, and in the Book of Jasher—were eternally fighting with those born under Jupiter, Mercury, or any other planet, except Saturn‐Jehovah; genealogies and prophecies notwithstanding, Jesus the Initiate (or Jehoshua)—the type from whom the “historical” Jesus was copied—was not of pure Jewish blood, and thus recognized no Jehovah; nor did he worship any planetary God beside his own “Father,” whom he knew, and with whom he communed, as every high Initiate does, “Spirit to Spirit and Soul to Soul.” This can hardly be taken exception to, unless the critic explains to every one’s satisfaction the strange sentences put into the mouth of Jesus during his disputes with the Pharisees by the author of the Fourth Gospel:

I know that ye are Abraham’s seed(988).... I speak that which I have seen with my Father; and ye do that which ye have seen with your Father.... Ye do the deeds of your Father.... Ye are of your Father, the Devil.... He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it.(989)

This “Father” of the Pharisees was Jehovah, for he was identical with Cain, Saturn, Vulcan, etc.—the planet under which they were born, and the God whom they worshipped. Evidently there must be an Occult meaning sought in these words and admonitions, however mistranslated, since they are pronounced by one who threatened with hell‐fire anyone who says to his brother simply Raca, fool.(990) And evidently, again, the planets are not merely spheres, twinkling in Space, and made to shine for no purpose, but they are the domains of various Beings with whom the uninitiated are so far unacquainted, but who have, nevertheless, a mysterious, unbroken, and powerful connection with men and globes. Every heavenly body is the temple of a God, and these Gods themselves are the temples of God, the Unknown “Not Spirit.” There is nothing profane in the Universe. All Nature is a consecrated place, as Young says: Each of these Stars is a religious house.

Thus can all exoteric religions be shown to be the falsified copies of the Esoteric Teaching. It is the priesthood which has to be held responsible for the reaction of our day in favour of Materialism. It is by worshipping and enforcing on the masses the worship of the shells of pagan ideals—personified for purposes of allegory—that the latest exoteric religion has made of Western lands a Pandemonium, in which the higher classes worship the golden calf, and the lower and ignorant masses are made to worship an idol with feet of clay.

Modern Science is Ancient Thought distorted, and no more. We have seen, however, what intuitional Scientists think, and are busy about; and now the reader shall be given a few more proofs of the fact that more than one F.R.S. is unconsciously approaching the derided Secret Sciences.

With regard to Cosmogony and primeval matter, modern speculations are undeniably ancient thought, “improved” by contradictory theories of recent origin. The whole foundation belongs to Grecian and Indian Archaic Astronomy and Physics, in those days called always Philosophy. In all the Âryan and Greek speculations, we meet with the conception of an all‐ pervading, unorganized, and homogeneous Matter, or Chaos, re‐named by modern Scientists “nebular condition of the world‐stuff.” What Anaxagoras called Chaos in his Homoiomeria is now called “primitive fluid” by Sir William Thomson. The Hindû and Greek Atomists—Kanâda, Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, etc.—are now reflected, as in a clear mirror, in the supporters of the Atomic Theory of our modern days, beginning with Leibnitz’s Monads, and ending with the Vortical Atoms of Sir William Thomson.(991) True, the corpuscular theory of old is rejected, and the undulatory theory has taken its place. But the question is, whether the latter is so firmly established as not to be liable to be dethroned like its predecessor? Light, from its metaphysical aspect, has been fully treated in Isis Unveiled:

Light is the first begotten, and the first emanation of the Supreme, and Light is Life, says the Evangelist [and the Kabalist]. Both are electricity—the life principle, the Anima Mundi—pervading the Universe, the electric vivifier of all things. Light is the great Protean magician, and under the divine Will of the Architect(992) [or rather the Architects, the “Builders,” called One collectively], its multifarious, omnipotent waves gave birth to every form as well as to every living being. From its swelling electric bosom, spring Matter and Spirit. Within its beams lie the beginnings of all physical and chemical action, and of all cosmic and spiritual phenomena; it vitalizes and disorganizes; it gives life and produces death, and from its Primordial Point gradually emerged into existence the myriads of worlds, visible and invisible celestial bodies. It was at the ray of this First Mother, one in three, that “God,” according to Plato, “lighted a Fire which we now call the Sun,”(993) and which is not the cause of either light or heat, but merely the focus, or, as we might say, the lens, by which the Rays of the Primordial Light become materialized, are concentrated upon our Solar System, and produce all the correlations of forces.(994)

This is the Ether, as just explained in the views of Metcalfe, repeated by Dr. Richardson, save for the submission of the former to some details of the modern undulatory theory. We do not say that we deny the theory; we assert only that it needs completion and reärrangement. But the Occultists are by no means the only heretics in this respect; for Mr. Robert Hunt, F.R.S. finds that:

The undulatory theory does not account for the results of his experiments.(995) Sir David Brewster, in his Treatise on Optics, showing “that the colours of vegetable life arise ... from a specific attraction which the particles of these bodies exercise over the differently‐coloured rays of light,” and that “it is by the light of the sun that the coloured juices of plants are elaborated, that the colours of bodies are changed, etc.,” remarks that it is not easy to allow “that such effects can be produced by the mere vibration of an ethereal medium.” And he is forced, he says, “by this class of facts, to reason as if light was material” [?]. Professor Josiah P. Cooke, of Harvard University, says that he “cannot agree ... with those who regard the wave‐ theory of light as an established principle of science.”(996) Herschell’s doctrine, that the intensity of light, in effect of each undulation, “is inversely as the square of the distance from the luminous body,” if correct, damages a good deal, if it does not kill, the undulatory theory. That he is right, was proved repeatedly by experiments with photometers; and though it begins to be much doubted, the undulatory theory is still alive.(997)

To this remark of Sir David Brewster—“forced to reason as if light was material”—there is a good deal to reply. Light, in one sense, is certainly as material as is electricity itself. And if electricity is not material, if it is only a “mode of motion,” how is it that it can be stored up in Faure’s accumulators? Helmholtz says that electricity must be as atomic as matter; and Mr. W. Crookes, F.R.S., supported the view in his address at Birmingham, in 1886, to the Chemical Section of the British Association, of which he was President. This is what Helmholtz says: If we accept the hypothesis that the elementary substances are composed of atoms, we cannot avoid concluding that electricity also, positive as well as negative, is divided into definite elementary portions, which behave like atoms of electricity.(998)

Here we have to repeat that which was already said in Section VIII, that there is but one science that can henceforth direct modern research into the one path which will lead to the discovery of the whole, hitherto Occult, truth, and it is the youngest of all—Chemistry, as it now stands reformed. There is no other, not excluding Astronomy, that can so unerringly guide scientific intuition, as can Chemistry. Two proofs of this are to be found in the world of Science—two great Chemists, each among the greatest in his own country, namely, Mr. Crookes and the late Professor Butlerof: the one is a thorough believer in abnormal phenomena; the other was as fervid a Spiritualist, as he was great in the natural sciences. It becomes evident that, while pondering over the ultimate divisibility of Matter, and in the hitherto fruitless chase after the element of negative atomic weight, the scientifically trained mind of the Chemist must feel irresistibly drawn towards those ever‐shrouded worlds, to that mysterious Beyond, whose measureless depths seem to close against the approach of the too materialistic hand that would fain draw aside its veil. “It is the unknown and the ever‐unknowable,” warns the Monist‐ Agnostic. “Not so,” answers the persevering Chemist. “We are on the track and we are not daunted, and fain would we enter the mysterious region which ignorance tickets unknown.”

In his Presidential Address at Birmingham Mr. Crookes said: There is but one unknown—the ultimate substratum of Spirit [Space]. That which is not the Absolute and the One is, in virtue of that very differentiation, however far removed from the physical senses, always accessible to the spiritual human mind, which is a coruscation of the undifferentiable Integral. Two or three sentences, at the very close of his lecture on the Genesis of the Elements, showed the eminent Scientist to be on the royal road to the greatest discoveries. He has been for some time overshadowing “the original protyle,” and he has come to the conclusion that “he who grasps the Key will be permitted to unlock some of the deepest mysteries of creation.” Protyle, as the great Chemist explains: ... is a word analogous to protoplasm, to express the idea of the original primal matter existing before the evolution of the chemical elements. The word I have ventured to use for this purpose is compounded of πρὸ (earlier than) and ὕλη (the stuff of which things are made). The word is scarcely a new coinage, for 600 years ago Roger Bacon wrote in his Arte Chymiae, “The elements are made out of ὕλη and every element is converted into the nature of another element.”

The knowledge of Roger Bacon did not come to this wonderful old magician(999) by inspiration, but because he studied ancient works on Magic and Alchemy, and had a key to the real meaning of their language. But see what Mr. Crookes says of Protyle, next neighbour to the unconscious Mûlaprakriti of the Occultists: Let us start at the moment when the first element came into existence. Before this time, matter, as we know it, was not. It is equally impossible to conceive of matter without energy, as of energy without matter; from one point of view both are convertible terms. Before the birth of atoms, all those forms of energy, which become evident when matter acts upon matter, could not have existed(1000)—they were locked up in the protyle as latent potentialities only. Coincident with the creation of atoms, all those attributes and properties, which form the means of discriminating one chemical element from another, start into existence fully endowed with energy.(1001)

With every respect due to the great knowledge of the lecturer, the Occultist would put it otherwise. He would say that no Atom is ever “created,” for the Atoms are eternal within the bosom of the One Atom—“the Atom of Atoms”—viewed during Manvantara as the Jagad‐Yoni, the material causative womb of the World. Pradhâna, unmodified Matter—that which is the first form of Prakriti, or material, visible, as well as invisible Nature—and Purusha, Spirit, are eternally one; and they are Nirupâdhi, without adventitious qualities or attributes, only during Pralaya, and when beyond any of the planes of consciousness of existence. The Atom, as known to modern science, is inseparable from Purusha, which is Spirit, but is now called “energy” in Science. The Protyle Atom has not been comminuted or subtilized: it has simply passed into that plane, which is no plane, but the eternal state of everything beyond the planes of illusion. Both Purusha and Pradhâna are immutable and unconsumable, or Aparinâmin and Avyaya, in eternity; and both may be referred to during the Mâyâvic periods as Vyaya and Parinâmin, or that which can expand, pass away and disappear, and which is “modifiable.” In this sense Purusha, must, of course, be held distinct in our conceptions from Parabrahman. Nevertheless that, which is called “energy” or “force” in Science, and which has been explained as a dual force by Metcalfe, is never, in fact, and cannot be, energy alone; for it is the Substance of the World, its Soul, the All‐permeant, Sarvaga, in conjunction with Kâla, Time. The three are the trinity in one, during Manvantara, the all‐potential Unity, which acts as three distinct things on Mâyâ, the plane of illusion. In the Orphic philosophy of ancient Greece they were called Phanes, Chaos, and Chronos—the triad of the Occult Philosophers of that period.

But see how closely Mr. Crookes brushes the “Unknowable,” and what potentialities there are for the acceptance of Occult truths in his discoveries. He continues, speaking of the evolution of Atoms: Let us pause at the end of the first complete vibration and examine the result. We have already found the elements of water, ammonia, carbonic acid, the atmosphere, plant and animal life, phosphorus for the brain, salt for the seas, clay for the solid earth ... phosphates and silicates sufficient for a world and inhabitants not so very different from what we enjoy at the present day. True the human inhabitants would have to live in a state of more than Arcadian simplicity, and the absence of calcic phosphate would be awkward as far as the bone is concerned.(1002)... At the lower end of our curve ... we see a great hiatus.... This oasis, and the blanks which precede and follow it, may be referred with much probability to the particular way in which our earth developed into a member of our solar system. If this be so, it may be that on our earth only these blanks occur, and not generally throughout the universe. This justifies several assertions in the Occult works.

Firstly, that neither the stars nor the Sun can be said to be constituted of those terrestrial elements with which the Chemist is familiar, though they are all present in the Sun’s outward robes—as well as a host more of elements so far unknown to Science. Secondly, that our globe has its own special laboratory on the far‐away outskirts of its atmosphere, crossing which, every Atom and molecule changes and differentiates from its primordial nature. And thirdly, that though no element present on our Earth could ever possibly be found wanting in the Sun, there are many others there which have either not reached, or not as yet been discovered on our globe. Some may be missing in certain stars and heavenly bodies in the process of formation; or, though present in them, these elements, on account of their present state, may not respond as yet to the usual scientific tests.(1003) Mr. Crookes speaks of helium, an element of still lower atomic weight than hydrogen, an element purely hypothetical as far as our earth is concerned, though existing in abundance in the chromosphere of the Sun. Occult Science adds that not one of the elements regarded as such by Chemistry really deserves the name. Again we find Mr. Crookes speaking with approbation of

Dr. Carnelly’s weighty argument in favour of the compound nature of the so‐called elements, from their analogy to the compound radicles. Hitherto, Alchemy alone, within the historical period, and in the so‐ called civilized countries, has succeeded in obtaining a real element, or a particle of homogeneous Matter, the Mysterium Magnum of Paracelsus. But then that was before Lord Bacon’s day.(1004)