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.