THE FORMATION OF A SOLAR SYSTEM
The beginning of the universe (if ever it had a beginning) is beyond our
ken. At the earliest point of history that we can reach, the two great
opposites of spirit and matter, of life and form, are already in full
activity. We find that the ordinary conception of matter needs a revision,
for what are commonly called force and matter are in reality only two
varieties of Spirit at different stages in evolution and the real matter or
basis of everything lies in the background unperceived. A French scientist
has recently said: "There is no matter; there are nothing but holes in the
æther." This also agrees with the celebrated theory of Professor Osborne
Reynolds. Occult investigation shows this to be the correct view, and in
that way explains what Oriental sacred books mean when they say that matter
is an illusion.
The ultimate root-matter as seen at our level is what scientists call the
æther of space. [This has been described in _Occult Chemistry_ under the
name of koilon.] To every physical sense the space occupied by it appears
empty, yet in reality this æther is far denser than anything of which we
can conceive. Its density is defined by Professor Reynolds as being ten
thousand times greater than that of water, and its mean pressure as seven
hundred and fifty thousand tons to the square inch.
This substance is perceptible only to highly developed clairvoyant power.
We must assume a time (though we have no direct knowledge on this point)
when this substance filled all space. We must also suppose that some great
Being (not the Deity of a solar system, but some Being almost infinitely
higher than that) changed this condition of rest by pouring out His spirit
or force into a certain section of this matter, a section of the size of a
whole universe. This effect of the introduction of this force is as that of
the blowing of a mighty breath; it has formed within this æther an
incalculable number of tiny spherical bubbles, [The bubbles are spoken of
in _The Secret Doctrine_ as the holes which Fohat digs in space.] and these
bubbles are the ultimate atoms of which what we call matter is composed.
They are not the atoms of the chemist, nor even the ultimate atoms of the
physical world. They stand at a far higher level, and what are usually
called atoms are composed of vast aggregations of these bubbles, as will be
seen later.
When the Solar Deity begins to make His system, He finds ready to His hand
this material--this infinite mass of tiny bubbles which can be built up
into various kinds of matter as we know it. He commences by defining the
limit of His field of activity, a vast sphere whose circumference is far
larger than the orbit of the outermost of His future planets. Within the
limit of that sphere He sets up a kind of gigantic vortex--a motion which
sweeps together all the bubbles into a vast central mass, the material of
the nebula that is to be.
Into this vast revolving sphere He sends forth successive impulses of
force, gathering together the bubbles into ever more and more complex
aggregations, and producing in this way seven gigantic interpenetrating
worlds of matter of different degrees of density, all concentric and all
occupying the same space.
Acting through His Third Aspect He sends forth into this stupendous sphere
the first of these impulses. It sets up all through the sphere a vast
number of tiny vortices, each of which draws into itself forty-nine
bubbles, and arranges them in a certain shape. These little groupings of
bubbles so formed are the atoms of the second of the interpenetrating
worlds. The whole number of the bubbles is not used in this way, sufficient
being left in the dissociated state to act as atoms for the first and
highest of these worlds. In due time comes the second impulse, which seizes
upon nearly all these forty-nine bubble-atoms (leaving only enough to
provide atoms for the second world), draws them back into itself and then,
throwing them out again, sets up among them vortices, each of which holds
within itself 2,401 bubbles (49^2). These form the atoms of the third
world. Again after a time comes a third impulse, which in the same way
seizes upon nearly all these 2,401 bubble-atoms, draws them back again into
their original form, and again throws them outward once more as the atoms
of the fourth world--each atom containing this time 49^{3} bubbles. This
process is repeated until the sixth of these successive impulses has built
the atom of the seventh or the lowest world--that atom containing 49^{6} of
the original bubbles.
This atom of the seventh world is the ultimate atom of the physical
world--not any of the atoms of which chemists speak, but that ultimate out
of which all their atoms are made. We have at this stage arrived at that
condition of affairs in which the vast whirling sphere contains within
itself seven types of matter, all one in essence, because all built of the
same kind of bubbles, but differing in their degree of density. All these
types are freely intermingled, so that specimens of each type would be
found in a small portion of the sphere taken at random in any part of it,
with, however, a general tendency of the heavier atoms to gravitate more
and more towards the centre.
The seventh impulse sent out from the Third Aspect of the Deity does not,
as before, draw back the physical atoms which were last made into the
original dissociated bubbles, but draws them together into certain
aggregations, thus making a number of different kinds of what may be called
proto-elements, and these again are joined together into the various forms
which are known to science as chemical elements. The making of these
extends over a long period of ages, and they are made in a certain definite
order by the interaction of several forces, as is correctly indicated in
Sir William Crookes's paper, _The Genesis of the Elements_. Indeed the
process of their making is not even now concluded; uranium is the latest
and heaviest element so far as we know, but others still more complicated
may perhaps be produced in the future.
As ages rolled on the condensation increased, and presently the stage of a
vast glowing nebula was reached. As it cooled, still rapidly rotating, it
flattened into a huge disc and gradually broke up into rings surrounding a
central body--an arrangement not unlike that which Saturn exhibits at the
present day, though on a far larger scale. As the time drew near when the
planets would be required for the purposes of evolution, the Deity sets up
somewhere in the thickness of each ring a subsidiary vortex into which a
great deal of the matter of the ring was by degrees collected. The
collisions of the gathered fragments caused a revival of the heat, and the
resulting planet was for a long time a mass of glowing gas. Little by
little it cooled once more, until it became fit to be the theatre of life
such as ours. Thus were all the planets formed.
Almost all the matter of those interpenetrating worlds was by this time
concentrated into the newly formed planets. Each of them was and is
composed of all those different kinds of matter. The earth upon which we
are now living is not merely a great ball of physical matter, built of the
atoms of that lowest world, but has also attached to it an abundant supply
of matter of the sixth, the fifth, the fourth and other worlds. It is well
known to all students of science that particles of matter never actually
touch one another, even in the hardest of substances. The spaces between
them are always far greater in proportion than their own size--enormously
greater. So there is ample room for all the other kinds of atoms of all
those other worlds, not only to lie between the atoms of the denser matter,
but to move quite freely among them and around them. Consequently, this
globe upon which we live is not one world, but seven interpenetrating
worlds, all occupying the same space, except that the finer types of matter
extend further from the centre than does the denser matter.
We have given names to these interpenetrating worlds for convenience in
speaking of them. No name is needed for the first, as man is not yet in
direct connection with it; but when it is necessary to mention it, it may
be called the divine world. The second is described as the monadic, because
in it exist those Sparks of the divine Life which we call the human Monads;
but neither of these can be touched by the highest clairvoyant
investigations at present possible for us. The third sphere, whose atoms
contain 2,401 bubbles, is called the spiritual world, because in it
functions the highest Spirit in man as now constituted. The fourth is the
intuitional world, [Previously called in Theosophical literature the
buddhic plane.] because from it come the highest intuitions. The fifth is
the mental world, because from its matter is built the mind of man. The
sixth is called the emotional or astral world, because the emotions of man
cause undulations in its matter. (The name astral was given to it by
mediæval alchemists, because its matter is starry or shining as compared to
that of the denser world.) The seventh world, composed of the type of
matter which we see all around us, is called the physical.
The matter of which all these interpenetrating worlds are built is
essentially the same matter, but differently arranged and of different
degrees of density. Therefore the rates at which these various types of
matter normally vibrate differ also. They may be considered as a vast gamut
of undulations consisting of many octaves. The physical matter uses a
certain number of the lowest of these octaves, the astral matter another
group of octaves just above that, the mental matter a still further group,
and so on.
Not only has each of these worlds its own type of matter; it has also its
own set of aggregations of that matter--its own substances. In each world
we arrange these substances in seven classes according to the rate at which
their molecules vibrate. Usually, but not invariably, the slower
oscillation involves also a larger molecule--a molecule, that is, built up
by a special arrangement of the smaller molecules of the next higher
subdivision. The application of heat increases the size of the molecules
and also quickens and amplifies their undulation, so that they cover more
ground, and the object, as a whole expands, until the point is reached
where the aggregation of molecules breaks up, and the latter passes from
one condition to that next above it. In the matter of the physical world
the seven subdivisions are represented by seven degrees of density of
matter, to which, beginning from below upwards, we give the names solid,
liquid, gaseous, etheric, superetheric, subatomic and atomic.
The atomic subdivision is one in which all forms are built by the
compression into certain shapes of the physical atoms, without any previous
collection of these atoms into blocks or molecules. Typifying the physical
ultimate atom for the moment by a brick, any form in the atomic subdivision
would be made by gathering together some of the bricks, and building them
into a certain shape. In order to make matter for the next lower
subdivision, a certain number of the bricks (atoms) would first be gathered
together and cemented into small blocks of say four bricks each, five
bricks each, six bricks or seven bricks; and then these blocks so made
would be used as building stones. For the next subdivision several of the
blocks of the second subdivision cemented together in certain shapes would
form building-stones, and so on to the lowest.
To transfer any substance from the solid condition to the liquid (that is
to say, to melt it) is to increase the vibration of its compound molecules
until at last they are shaken apart into the simpler molecules of which
they were built. This process can in all cases be repeated again and again
until finally any and every physical substance can be reduced to the
ultimate atoms of the physical world.
Each of these worlds has its inhabitants, whose senses are normally capable
of responding to the undulations of their own world only. A man living (as
we are all doing) in the physical world sees, hears, feels, by vibrations
connected with the physical matter around him. He is equally surrounded by
the astral and mental and other worlds which are interpenetrating his own
denser world, but of them he is normally unconscious, because his senses
cannot respond to the oscillations of their matter, just as our physical
eyes cannot see by the vibrations of ultra-violet light, although
scientific experiments show that they exist, and there are other
consciousnesses with differently-formed organs who _can_ see by them. A
being living in the astral world might be occupying the very same space as
a being living in the physical world, yet each would be entirely
unconscious of the other and would in no way impede the free movement of
the other. The same is true of all other worlds. We are at this moment
surrounded by these worlds of finer matter, as close to us as the world we
see, and their inhabitants are passing through us and about us, but we are
entirely unconscious of them.
Since our evolution is centred at present upon this globe which we call the
earth, it is in connection with it only that we shall be speaking of these
higher worlds, so in future when I use the term "astral world" I shall mean
by it the astral part of our own globe only, and not (as heretofore) the
astral part of the whole solar system. This astral part of our own world is
also a globe, but of astral matter. It occupies the same place as the globe
which we see, but its matter (being so much lighter) extends out into space
on all sides of us further than does the atmosphere of the earth--a great
deal further. It stretches to a little less than the mean distance of the
moon, so that though the two physical globes, the earth and the moon, are
nearly 240,000 miles apart, the astral globes of these two bodies touch one
another when the moon is in perigee, but not when she is in apogee. I shall
apply the term "mental world" to the still larger globe of mental matter in
the midst of which our physical earth exists. When we come to the still
higher globes we have spheres large enough to touch the corresponding
spheres of other planets in the system, though their matter also is just as
much about us here on the surface of the solid earth as that of the others.
All these globes of finer matter are a part of us, and are all revolving
round the sun with their visible part. The student will do well to accustom
himself to think of our earth as the whole of this mass of interpenetrating
worlds--not only the comparatively small physical ball in the centre of it.