This is, then, the last word of Physical Science up to the present year,
1888. Mechanical laws will never be able to prove the homogeneity of
Primeval Matter, except inferentially and as a desperate necessity, when
there will remain no other issue—as in the case of Ether. Modern Science
is secure only in its own domain and region; within the physical
boundaries of our Solar System, beyond which everything, every particle of
Matter, is different from the Matter it knows, and where Matter exists in
states of which Science can form no idea. _This_ Matter, which is truly
homogeneous, is beyond human perception, if perception is tied down merely
to the five senses. We feel its effects through those INTELLIGENCES which
are the results of its primeval differentiation, whom we name Dhyân
Chohans, called in the Hermetic works the “Seven Governors”; those to whom
Pymander, the “Thought Divine,” refers as the “Building Powers,” and whom
Asklepios calls the “Supernal Gods.” This Matter—the real Primordial
Substance, the Noumenon of all the “matter” we know of—some of our
Astronomers even have been led to believe in, for they despair of the
possibility of ever accounting for rotation, gravitation, and the origin
of any mechanical physical laws, unless these INTELLIGENCES be admitted by
Science. In the above‐quoted work upon Astronomy by Wolf,(1035) the author
endorses fully the theory of Kant, and the latter theory, if not in its
general aspect, at any rate in some of its features, reminds one strongly
of certain Esoteric Teachings. Here we have the world’s system “reborn
from its ashes,” through a nebula—the emanation from the bodies, dead and
dissolved in Space, resultant of the _incandescence_ of the Solar
Centre—reänimated by the combustible matter of the Planets. In this
theory, generated and developed in the brain of a young man hardly twenty‐
five years of age, who had never left his native place, Königsberg, a
small town of Northern Prussia, one can hardly fail to recognize either
the presence of an inspiring external power, or an evidence of the
_reïncarnation_ which the Occultists see in it. It fills a gap which
Newton, with all his genius, failed to bridge. And surely it is our
Primeval Matter, Âkâsha, that Kant had in view, when he postulated a
universally pervading primordial Substance, in order to solve Newton’s
difficulty, and his failure to explain, by natural forces alone, the
primitive impulse imparted to the Planets. For, as he remarks in Chapter
viii, if it is once admitted that the perfect harmony of the Stars and
Planets and the coincidence of their orbital planes prove the existence of
a natural Cause, which would thus be the Primal Cause, “that Cause cannot
really be the matter which fills to‐day the heavenly spaces.” It must be
that which filled Space—was Space—originally, whose motion in
differentiated Matter was the origin of the actual movements of the
sidereal bodies; and which, “in condensing itself in those very bodies,
thus abandoned the space that is to‐day found void.” In other words, it is
of that same Matter that are now composed the Planets, Comets, and the Sun
himself, and that Matter, having originally formed itself into those
bodies, has preserved its inherent quality of motion; which quality, now
centred in their nuclei, directs all motion. A very slight alteration of
words in this is needed, and a few additions, to make of it our Esoteric
Doctrine.
The latter teaches that it is this original, primordial Prima Materia,
divine and intelligent, the direct emanation of the Universal Mind, the
Daiviprakriti—the Divine Light(1036) emanating from the Logos—which formed
the nuclei of all the “self‐moving” orbs in Kosmos. It is the informing,
ever‐present moving‐power and life‐principle, the Vital Soul of the Suns,
Moons, Planets, and even of our Earth; the former latent, the latter
active—the invisible Ruler and Guide of the gross body attached to, and
connected with, its Soul, which is the spiritual emanation, after all, of
these respective Planetary Spirits.
Another quite Occult Doctrine is the theory of Kant, that the Matter of
which the inhabitants and the animals of other Planets are formed is of _a
lighter and more subtle nature and of a more perfect conformation, in
proportion to their distance from the Sun_. The latter is too full of
Vital Electricity, of the physical, life‐giving principle. Therefore, the
men on Mars are more ethereal than we are, while those on Venus are more
gross, though far more intelligent, if less spiritual.
The last doctrine is not quite ours—yet these Kantian theories are as
metaphysical, and as transcendental as any Occult Doctrines; and more than
one man of Science would, if he but _dared_ speak his mind, accept them as
Wolf does. From this Kantian Mind and Soul of the Suns and Stars to the
Mahat (Mind) and Prakriti of the _Purânas_ there is but a step. After all,
the admission of this by Science would be only the admission of a natural
cause, whether it would or would not stretch its belief to such
metaphysical heights. But then Mahat, the Mind, is a “God,” and Physiology
admits “mind” only as a temporary function of the material brain, and no
more.
The Satan of Materialism now laughs at all alike, and denies the visible
as well as the invisible. Seeing in light, heat, electricity, and even in
the phenomenon of _life_, only properties inherent in Matter, it laughs
whenever life is called the _Vital Principle_, and derides the idea of its
being independent of and distinct from the organism.
But here again scientific opinions differ as in everything else, and there
are several men of Science who accept views very similar to ours.
Consider, for instance, what Dr. Richardson, F.R.S. (elsewhere quoted at
length) says of that “Vital Principle,” which he calls “Nervous Ether”:
I speak only of a veritable _material agent_, refined, it may be,
to the world at large, but _actual and substantial_: an agent
having quality of weight and of volume, an agent susceptible of
chemical combination, and thereby of change of physical state and
condition, an agent passive in its action, moved always, that is
to say, by influences apart from itself,(1037) obeying other
influences, an agent possessing no initiative power, no _vis_ or
_energeia naturæ_,(1038) but still playing a most important, if
not a primary part in the production of the phenomena resulting
from the action of the _energeia_ upon visible matter.(1039)
As Biology and Physiology now deny, _in toto_, the existence of a Vital
Principle, this extract, together with De Quatrefages’ admission, is a
clear confirmation that there are men of Science who take the same views
about “things Occult” as do Theosophists and Occultists. These recognize a
distinct Vital Principle independent of the organism—material, of course,
_as physical Force cannot be divorced from Matter_, but of a Substance
existing in a state unknown to Science. _Life for them is something more
than the mere interaction of molecules and atoms._ There is a Vital
Principle without which no molecular combinations could ever have resulted
in a living organism, least of all in the so‐called “inorganic” Matter of
our plane of consciousness.
By “molecular combinations” are meant, of course, those of the Matter of
our present illusive perceptions, which Matter energizes only on this, our
plane. And this is the chief point at issue.(1040)
Thus the Occultists are not alone in their beliefs. Nor are they so
foolish, after all, in rejecting even the “gravity” of Modern Science
along with other _physical_ laws, and in accepting instead _attraction_
and _repulsion_. They see, moreover, in these two opposite Forces only the
two _aspects_ of the Universal Unit, called _Manifesting Mind_; in which
aspects, Occultism, through its great Seers, perceives an innumerable Host
of operative Beings: cosmic Dhyân Chohans, Entities, whose essence, in its
_dual_ nature, is the Cause of all terrestrial phenomena. For that essence
is con‐substantial with the universal Electric Ocean, which is LIFE; and
being dual, as said—positive and negative—it is the emanations of that
duality that act now on Earth under the name of “modes of motion”; even
Force having now become objectionable as a word, for fear it should lead
someone, even in thought, to separate it from Matter! It is, as Occultism
says, the dual _effects_ of that dual essence, which have now been called
centripetal and centrifugal forces, now negative and positive poles, or
polarity, heat and cold, light and darkness, etc.
And it is further maintained that even the Greek and Roman Catholic
Christians are wiser in believing, as they do—even if blindly connecting
and tracing them all to an anthropomorphic God—in Angels, Archangels,
Archons, Seraphs, and Morning Stars, in all those theological _deliciæ
humani generis_, in short, that rule the Cosmic Elements, than Science is,
in disbelieving in them altogether, and in advocating its mechanical
Forces. For these act very often with more than human intelligence and
pertinency. Nevertheless, that intelligence is denied and attributed to
blind chance. But, as De Maistre was right in calling the law of
gravitation merely a _word_ which replaced “the thing unknown,” so are we
right in applying the same remark to all the other Forces of Science. And
if it is objected that the Count was an ardent Roman Catholic, then we may
cite Le Couturier, as ardent a Materialist, who said the same thing, as
did also Herschell and many others.(1041)
From Gods to men, from Worlds to atoms, from a Star to a rush‐light, from
the Sun to the vital heat of the meanest organic being—the world of Form
and Existence is an immense chain, the links of which are all connected.
The Law of Analogy is the first key to the world‐problem, and these links
have to be studied coördinately in their Occult relations to each other.
When, therefore, the Secret Doctrine—postulating that conditioned or
limited space (location) has no real being except in this world of
illusion, or, in other words, in our perceptive faculties—teaches that
every one of the higher, as of the lower worlds, is interblended with our
own objective world; that millions of things and beings are, in point of
localization, around and _in_ us, as we are around, with, and in them;
this is no mere metaphysical figure of speech, but a sober fact in Nature,
however incomprehensible to our senses.
But one has to understand the phraseology of Occultism before criticizing
what it asserts. For example, the Doctrine refuses—as Science does, in one
sense—to use the words “above” and “below,” “higher” and “lower,” in
reference to _invisible_ spheres, since here they are without meaning.
Even the terms “East” and “West” are merely conventional, necessary only
to aid our human perceptions. For though the Earth has its two fixed
points in the poles, North and South, yet both East and West are variable
relatively to our own position on the Earth’s surface, and in consequence
of its rotation from West to East. Hence, when “other worlds” are
mentioned—whether better or worse, more spiritual or still more material,
though both invisible—the Occultist does not locate these spheres either
outside or inside our Earth, as the theologians and the poets do; for
their location is nowhere in the space known to, or conceived by, the
profane. They are, as it were, blended with our world—interpenetrating it
and interpenetrated by it. There are millions and millions of worlds and
firmaments visible to us; there are still greater numbers beyond those
visible to the telescope, and many of the latter kind do not belong to our
_objective_ sphere of existence. Although as invisible as if they were
millions of miles beyond our Solar System, they are yet with us, near us,
_within_ our own world, as objective and material to their respective
inhabitants as ours is to us. But, again, the relation of these worlds to
ours is not that of a series of egg‐shaped boxes enclosed one within the
other, like the toys called Chinese nests; each is entirely under its own
special laws and conditions, having no direct relation to our sphere. The
inhabitants of these, as already said, may be, for all we know, or feel,
passing _through_ and _around_ us as if through empty space, their very
habitations and countries being interblended with ours, though not
disturbing our vision, because we have not yet the faculties necessary for
discerning them. Yet by their spiritual sight the Adepts, and even some
seers and sensitives, are always able to discern, whether in a greater or
smaller degree, the presence and close proximity to us of Beings
pertaining to other spheres of life. Those of the spiritually higher
worlds communicate only with those terrestrial mortals who ascend to them,
through individual efforts, on to the higher plane they are occupying.
_The sons of Bhûmi_ [Earth] _regard the Sons of Deva‐lokas_ [Angel‐
spheres] _as their Gods; and the Sons of lower kingdoms look up to the men
of Bhûmi as to their Devas_ [Gods]; _men remaining unaware of it in their
blindness.... They_ [men] _tremble before them while using them_ [for
magical purposes].... _The First Race of Men were the __“__Mind‐born
Sons__”__ of the former. They_ [the Pitris and Devas] _are our
progenitors_.(1042)
“Educated people,” so‐called, deride the idea of Sylphs, Salamanders,
Undines, and Gnomes; the men of Science regard any mention of such
superstitions as an insult; and with a contempt of logic and common good
sense, that is often the prerogative of “accepted authority,” they allow
those, whom it is their duty to instruct, to labour under the absurd
impression that in the whole Kosmos, or at any rate in our own atmosphere,
there are no other conscious, intelligent beings, save ourselves.(1043)
Any other humanity (composed of distinct _human_ beings) save a mankind
with two legs, two arms, and a head with man’s features on it, would not
be called human; though the etymology of the word would seem to have
little to do with the general appearance of a creature. Thus, while
Science sternly rejects even the possibility of there being such (to us,
generally) invisible creatures, Society, while believing in it all
_secretly_, is made to deride the idea openly. It hails with mirth such
works as the _Comte de Gabalis_, and fails to understand that _open satire
is the securest mask_.
Nevertheless, such invisible worlds do exist. Inhabited as thickly as is
our own, they are scattered throughout apparent Space in immense numbers;
some far more material than our own world, others gradually etherealizing
until they become formless and are as “breaths.” The fact that our
physical eye does not see them, is no reason for disbelieving in them.
Physicists cannot see their Ether, Atoms, “modes of motion,” or Forces.
Yet they accept and teach them.
If we find, even in the natural world with which we are acquainted, Matter
affording a partial analogy to the difficult conception of such invisible
worlds, there seems little difficulty in recognizing the possibility of
such a presence. The tail of a Comet, which, though attracting our
attention by virtue of its luminosity, yet does not disturb or impede our
vision of objects, which we perceive through and beyond it, affords the
first stepping‐stone toward a proof of the same. The tail of a Comet
passes rapidly across our horizon, and we should neither feel it, nor be
cognizant of its passage, but for the brilliant coruscation, often
perceived only by a few interested in the phenomenon, while everyone else
remains ignorant of its presence and of its passage _through_, or across,
a portion of our globe. This tail may, or may not, be an integral portion
of the being of the Comet, but its tenuity subserves our purpose as an
illustration. Indeed, it is no question of superstition, but simply a
result of transcendental Science, and of logic still more, to admit the
existence of worlds formed of even far more attenuated Matter than the
tail of a Comet. By denying such a possibility, Science has for the last
century played into the hands of neither Philosophy nor true Religion, but
simply into those of Theology. To be able to dispute the better the
plurality of even material worlds, a belief thought by many churchmen
incompatible with the teachings and doctrines of the _Bible_,(1044)
Maxwell had to calumniate the memory of Newton, and to try and convince
his public that the principles contained in the Newtonian philosophy are
those “which lie at the foundation of all atheistical systems.”(1045)
“Dr. Whewell disputed the plurality of worlds by appeal to scientific
evidence,” writes Professor Winchell.(1046) And if even the habitability
of physical worlds, of Planets, and distant Stars which shine in myriads
over our heads is so disputed, how little chance is there for the
acceptance of invisible worlds within the apparently transparent space of
our own!
But, if we can conceive of a world composed of Matter still more
attenuated to _our_ senses than the tail of a Comet, hence of inhabitants
in it who are as ethereal, in proportion to _their_ Globe, as we are in
comparison with _our_ rocky, hard‐crusted Earth, no wonder if we do not
perceive them, nor sense their presence or even existence. Only, in what
is the idea contrary to Science? Cannot men and animals, plants and rocks,
be supposed to be endowed with quite a different set of senses from those
we possess? Cannot their organisms be born, develop, and exist, under
other laws of being than those that rule our little world? Is it
absolutely necessary that every corporeal being should be clothed in
“coats of skin” like those that Adam and Eve were provided with in the
legend of Genesis? Corporeality, we are told, however, by more than one
man of Science, “may exist under very divergent conditions.” Professor A.
Winchell—arguing upon the plurality of worlds—makes the following remarks:
It is not at all improbable that substances of a refractory nature
might be so mixed with other substances, known or unknown to us,
as to be capable of enduring vastly greater vicissitudes of heat
and cold than is possible with terrestrial organisms. The tissues
of terrestrial animals are simply suited to terrestrial
conditions. Yet even here we find different types and species of
animals adapted to the trials of extremely dissimilar
situations.... That an animal should be a quadruped or a biped is
something not depending on the necessities of organization, or
instinct, or intelligence. That an animal should possess just five
senses is not a necessity of percipient existence. There may be
animals on the earth with neither smell nor taste. There may be
beings on other worlds, and even on this, who possess more
numerous senses than we. The possibility of this is apparent when
we consider the high probability that other properties and other
modes of existence lie among the resources of the Cosmos, and even
of terrestrial matter. There are animals which subsist where
rational man would perish—in the soil, in the river, and the sea
... [and why not _human_ beings of different organizations, in
such case?].... Nor is incorporated rational existence conditioned
on warm blood, nor on any temperature which does not change the
forms of matter of which the organism may be composed. There may
be intelligences corporealized after some concept not involving
the processes of injection, assimilation, and reproduction. Such
bodies would not require daily food and warmth. They might be lost
in the abysses of the ocean, or laid up on a stormy cliff through
the tempests of an Arctic winter, or plunged in a volcano for a
hundred years, and yet retain consciousness and thought. It is
conceivable. Why might not psychic natures be enshrined in
indestructible flint and platinum? These substances are no further
from the nature of intelligence than carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and
lime. But, not to carry the thought to such an extreme [?], might
not high intelligence be embodied in frames as indifferent to
external conditions as the sage of the western plains, or the
lichens of Labrador, the rotifers which remain dried for years, or
the bacteria which pass living through boiling water.... These
suggestions are made simply to remind the reader how little can be
argued respecting the necessary conditions of intelligent,
organized existence, from the standard of corporeal existence
found upon the earth. Intelligence is, from its nature, as
universal and as uniform as the laws of the universe. Bodies are
merely the local fitting of intelligence to particular
modifications of universal matter or force.(1047)
Do not we know through the discoveries of that same all‐denying Science
that we are surrounded by myriads of invisible lives? If these microbes,
bacteria and the _tutti quanti_ of the infinitesimally small, are
invisible to us by virtue of their minuteness, cannot there be, at the
other pole, beings as invisible owing to the quality of their texture or
matter—to its tenuity, in fact? Conversely, as to the effects of cometary
matter, have we not another example of a half visible form of Life and
Matter? The ray of sunlight entering our apartment reveals in its passage
myriads of tiny beings living their little life and ceasing to be,
independent and heedless of whether they are or are not perceived by our
grosser materiality. And so again, of the microbes and bacteria and such‐
like unseen beings in other elements. We passed them by, during those long
centuries of dreary ignorance, after the lamp of knowledge in the heathen
and highly philosophical systems had ceased to throw its bright light on
the ages of intolerance and bigotry of early Christianity; and we would
fain pass them by again now.
And yet these lives surrounded us _then_ as they do now. They have worked
on, obedient to their own laws, and it is only as they have been gradually
revealed by Science that we have begun to take cognizance of them and of
the effects produced by them.
How long has it taken the world to become what it now is? If it can be
said that even up to the present day cosmic dust, “which has never
belonged to the earth before,”(1048) reaches our Globe, how much more
logical is it to believe—as the Occultists do—that through the countless
millions of years that have rolled away since that dust aggregated and
formed the Globe we live in round its nucleus of _intelligent_ Primeval
Substance, many humanities—differing from our present mankind as greatly
as the humanity which will evolve millions of years hence will differ from
our races—appeared but to disappear from the face of the Earth, as will
our own. These primitive and far‐distant humanities are denied, because,
as Geologists think, they have left no tangible relics of themselves. All
trace of them is swept away, and therefore they have never existed. Yet
their relics—though very few of them, truly—are to be found, and they must
be discovered by geological research. But, even if they were never to be
met with, there would be no reason to say that no men could have ever
lived in the geological periods to which their presence on earth is
assigned. For their organisms needed no warm blood, no atmosphere, no
feeding; the author of _World‐Life_ is right, and there is no extravagance
in believing as we do, that as, on scientific hypotheses, there may be to
this day “psychic natures enshrined in indestructible flint and platinum,”
so there were psychic natures enshrined in forms of equally indestructible
Primeval Matter—the real forefathers of our Fifth Race.
When, therefore, as in Volume II, we speak of men who inhabited this Globe
18,000,000 years ago, we have in mind neither the men of our present
races, nor the present atmospheric laws, thermal conditions, etc. The
Earth and Mankind, like the Sun, Moon, and Planets, all have their growth,
changes, development, and gradual evolution in their life‐periods; they
are born, become infants, then children, adolescent, grown‐up, they grow
old, and finally die. Why should not Mankind be also under this universal
law? Says Uriel to Enoch:
Behold, I have showed thee all things, O Enoch.... Thou seest the
sun, the moon, and those which conduct the stars of heaven, which
cause all their operations, seasons, and arrivals to return. In
the days of sinners the years shall be shortened ... everything
done on earth shall be subverted ... the moon shall change its
laws.(1049)
The “days of sinners” meant the days when Matter would be in its full sway
on Earth, and man would have reached the apex of physical development in
stature and animality. That came to pass during the period of the
Atlanteans, about the middle point of their Race, the Fourth, which was
drowned, as prophesied by Uriel. Since then man has been decreasing in
physical stature, strength, and years, as will be shown in Volume II. But
as we are at the mid‐point of our sub‐race of the Fifth Root‐Race—the acme
of materiality in each—the animal propensities, though more refined, are
none the less developed; and this is most marked in civilized countries.