Chapter LI: Section XVII: Summary of the Position (3)

644 This is from De Mirville, who proudly confesses the similarity, and
he _ought to know_. See “Archéologie de la Vierge Mère,” in his _Des
Esprits_, pp. 111‐113.

645 _Magie_, p. 153.

646 De Mirville, _Ibid._, pp. 116 and 119.

647 _Hymns to Minerva_, p. 19.

648 _Sermon sur la Sainte Vierge._

649 _Apoc._, ch. xii.

650 Wägner and McDowall, _Asgard and the Gods_, p. 86.

651 See _De Vitâ Apollionii_, I. xiv.

652 _Adv. Hæres._ xxxvii.

653 Gerald Massey, _The Natural Genesis_, I. 340.

654 Ch. xv.

655 Ch. xi.

656 _De Mundi Opif._, _Par._, pp. 30 and 419.

657 For the same reason the division of the principles in man into seven
is thus reckoned, as they describe the same circle in the higher and
lower human nature.

658 Thus the septenary division is the oldest and preceded the four‐fold
division. It is the root of archaic classification.

659 In Chinese Buddhism and Esotericism, the Genii are represented by
four Dragons—the Mahârâjahs of the Stanzas.

660 _Op. cit._, II. 312‐13.

661 _Ibid._, I. 321.

662 Proclus, _Tim._, I.

663 _Prep. Evang._, I. iii. 3.

664 _Op. cit._, pp. 366‐8.

665 _Job_, ii.

666 _Genesis_, vi.

667 _James_, i. 13.

668 _James_, i. 2, 12; _Matth._, vi. 13. See Cruden, _sub voc._

669 _Padma Purâna._

670 _Vishnu Purâna_, I. i.

671 Vol. II. ch. x.

672 See Chwolsohn, _Nabathean Agriculture_, II. 217.

673 One Day of Brahmâ lasts 4,320,000,000 years—multiply this by 360!
The A‐suras (No‐gods, or Demons) are here still Suras, Gods higher
in hierarchy than such secondary Gods as are not even mentioned in
the _Vedas_. The duration of the War shows its significance, and
also shows that the combatants are only the personified Cosmic
Powers. It is evidently for sectarian purposes and out of _odium
theologicum_ that the illusive form Mâyâmoha, assumed by Vishnu, was
attributed in later reärrangements of old texts to Buddha and the
Daityas, as in the _Vishnu Purâna_, unless it was a fancy of Wilson
himself. He also fancied he found an allusion to Buddhism in the
_Bhagavadgîtâ_, whereas, as proved by K. T. Telang, he had only
confused the Buddhists and the older Chârvâka materialists. The
version exists nowhere in other _Purânas_ if the inference does, as
Professor Wilson claims, in the _Vishnu Purâna_; the translation of
which, especially of Book III. ch. xviii, where the reverend
Orientalist arbitrarily introduces Buddha, and shows him teaching
Buddhism to Daityas, led to another “great war” between himself and
Col. Vans Kennedy. The latter charged him publicly with wilfully
distorting Purânic texts. “I affirm,” wrote the Colonel at Bombay,
in 1840, “that the _Purânas_ do not contain what Professor Wilson
has stated is contained in them; ... until such passages are
produced I may be allowed to repeat my former conclusions that
Professor Wilson’s opinion, that the _Purânas_ as now extant are
compilations made between the eighth and seventeenth centuries
[A.D.!], rests solely _on gratuitous assumptions and unfounded
assertions_, and that his reasoning in support of it is either
futile, fallacious, contradictory, or improbable.” (See _Vishnu
Purâna_, trans. by Wilson, edit, by Fitzedward Hall, Vol. V,
Appendix.)

674 This statement belongs to the _third_ War, since the terrestrial
continents, seas and rivers are mentioned in connection with it.

675 _Vishnu Purâna_, III. xvii (Wilson, Vol. III. 204‐5).

676 Book I. chap. xvii (Wilson, Vol. II. 36), in the story of
Prahlâda—the Son of Hiranyakashipu, the Purânic Satan, the great
enemy of Vishnu, and the King of the Three Worlds—into whose heart
Vishnu entered.

677 _Ibid._, I. iv (Wilson, Vol. I. 64).

678 II _Chronicles_, ii. 5.

679 “There was a day when the _Sons of God_ came before the Lord, and
Satan came _with his brothers_, also before the Lord.” (_Job_ ii.,
Abyss., Ethiopic text.)

680 _Ibid._, Vol. III. 205‐7.

681 _Journal of the Royal Asiat. Society_, xix. 302.

682 Wilson’s opinion that the _Vishnu Purâna_ is a production _of our
era_, and that in its present form it is not earlier than between
the VIIIth and the XVIIth (!!) century, is absurd beyond noticing.

683 P. 3.

684 _Ibid._, p. 2.

685 _Ibid._, p. 21.

686 See _The Monthly Magazine_, for April, 1797.

687 Ἤτοι μὲν πρώτιστα Χάος γ’eνετ᾽ (l. 166); γένετο being considered in
antiquity as meaning: “was _generated_” and not simply “_was_.” (See
Taylor’s “Introd. to the _Parmenides_ of Plato,” p. 260.)

688 It is the confusion between the “Bound,” and the “Infinite,” that
Kapila overwhelms with sarcasms in his disputations with the Brâhman
Yogis, who claim in their mystical visions to see the “Highest One.”

689 _Ibid._

690 See T. Taylor’s article in his _Monthly Magazine_, quoted in the
_Platonist_ of Feb., 1887, edited by T. M. Johnson, F.T.S., Osceola,
Missouri.

691 _Vit. Pythag._, p. 47.

692 _Asgard and the Gods_, 22.

693 Vâch—the “melodious cow, who milks sustenance and Water,” and yields
us “nourishment and sustenance,” as described in the _Rig Veda_.

694 _The Theosophist_, Feb., 1887, pp. 302‐3.

695 _Ibid._, p. 304.

696 _The Masonic Review_, June, 1886.

697 Objective—in the world of Mâyâ, of course; still as real as we are.

698 “In the course of cosmic manifestation, this Daiviprakriti, instead
of being the Mother of the Logos, should, strictly speaking, be
called his Daughter.” (“Notes on the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_,” _op. cit._,
p. 305.)

699 The wise men who, like Stanley Jevons amongst the moderns, invented
a method to make the incomprehensible assume a tangible form, could
only do so by resorting to numbers and geometrical figures.

700 The Pranava, Om, is a mystic term pronounced by the Yogis during
meditation; of the terms called, according to exoteric commentators,
Vyâkritis, or Aum, Bhûh, Bhuvah, Svah, (Om, Earth, Sky, Heaven),
Pranava is, perhaps, the most sacred. They are pronounced with
breath suppressed. See _Manu_ II. 76‐81, and Mitakshara commenting
on the _Yâjnavâkhya‐Smriti_, I. 23. But the esoteric explanation
goes a great deal further.

701 “Lectures on the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_,” _ibid._, p. 307.

702 It is this Trinity that is allegorized by the “Three Steps of
Vishnu,” which mean—Vishnu being considered as the Infinite in
exotericism—that from Parabrahman issued Mûlaprakriti, Purusha (the
Logos) and Prakriti; the four forms—with itself, the synthesis—of
Vâch. And in the _Kabalah_, Ain Suph, Shekinah, Adam Kadmon and
Sephira, the four, or the three, emanations being distinct—yet One.

703 Chaldean _Book of Numbers_. In the current _Kabalah_ the name
Jehovah replaces that of Adam Kadmon.

704 Justin Martyr tells us that, owing to his ignorance of these four
sciences, he was rejected by the Pythagoreans as a candidate for
admission into their school.

705 Diogenes Laërtius, in _Vit. Pythag._

706 31415, or π, the synthesis, or the Host _unified_ in the Logos and
the Point, called in Roman Catholicism the “Angel of the Face,” and
in Hebrew, Michael, מיכאל, “who [is like unto, or the same] as God,”
the manifested representation.

707 Appearing at the beginning of Cycles, as also of every Sidereal
Year, of 25,868 years. Therefore, the Kabeira or Kabarim received
their name in Chaldæa, for it means the Measures of Heaven, from
_Kob_, “measure of,” and _Urim_, “Heavens.”

708 _The Natural Genesis_, II. 316.

709 See Kircher’s _Œdipus Ægypt._, II. 423.

710 This Egyptian word Naja reminds one a good deal of the Indian Nâga,
the Serpent‐God. Brahmâ and Shiva and Vishnu are all crowned and
connected with Nâgas—a sign of their cyclic and cosmic character.

711 _Comment. on the Yashna_, 174.

712 First Treatise, p. 59.

713 Says the translator of Avicebron’s _Qabbalah_ of this “Sum Total”:
“The letter of Kether is י (Yod), of Binah ה (Heh), together YaH,
the feminine Name; the third letter, that of ’Hokhmah, is ו (Vav),
making together יהו YHV of יהוה YHVH, the Tetragrammaton, and really
the complete symbols of its efficaciousness. The last ה (Heh) of
this Ineffable Name _being always applied to the Six Lower and the
last, together the Seven_ remaining Sephiroth.” (Myer’s _Qabbalah_,
p. 263). Thus the Tetragrammaton is holy only in its abstract
synthesis. As a Quaternary containing the lower Seven Sephiroth, _it
is phallic_.

714 The statement will, of course, be found preposterous and absurd, and
simply laughed at. But if one believes in the final submersion of
Atlantis, 850,000 years ago, as taught in _Esoteric Buddhism_—the
gradual first sinking having begun during the Eocene Age—one has
also to accept the statement for the so‐called Lemuria, the
continent of the Third Root‐Race, which was first nearly destroyed
by combustion, and then submerged. As the Commentary teaches: “_The
First Earth having been purified by the Forty‐nine Fires, her
people, born of Fire and Water, could not die ...; the Second Earth
[with its Race] disappeared as vapour vanishes in the air ...; the
Third Earth had everything consumed on it after the Separation, and
went down into the lower Deep [the Ocean]. This was twice eighty‐two
Cyclic Years ago._” Now a Cyclic Year is what we call a Sidereal
Year, and is founded on the Precession of the Equinoxes. The length
of this Sidereal Year is 25,868 years, and the period mentioned in
the Commentary is, therefore, in all equal to 4,242,352 years. More
details will be found in Volume II. Meanwhile, this doctrine is
embodied in the “Kings of Edom.”

715 The same reserve is found in the _Talmud_ and in every national
system of religion whether monotheistic or exoterically
polytheistic. From the superb religious poem by the Kabalist Rabbi
Solomon ben Yehudah Ibn Gabirol, the “Kether Malchuth,” we select a
few definitions given in the prayers of Kippûr: “Thou art One, the
beginning of all numbers, and the foundation of all edifices; Thou
art One, and in the secret of Thy unity the wisest of men are lost,
because they know it not. Thou art One, and Thy Unity is never
diminished, never extended, and cannot be changed. Thou art One, but
_not as an element of numeration; for Thy Unity admits not of
multiplication, change or form_. Thou art Existent; but the
understanding and vision of mortals cannot attain to thy existence,
nor determine for thee the Where, the How, and the Why. Thou art
Existent, but in thyself alone, there being none other that can
exist with thee. Thou art Existent, before all time and without
place. Thou art Existent, and thy existence is so profound and
secret that none can penetrate and discover thy secrecy. Thou art
living, but within no time that can be fixed or known; Thou art
living, but not by a spirit or a soul, for _Thou art Thyself_, the
Soul of all Souls.” There is a distance between this Kabalistical
Deity and the Biblical Jehovah, the spiteful and revengeful God of
Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, who tempted the first and wrestled with the
last. No Vedântin but would repudiate such a Parabrahman!

716 Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_, ch. xx. And very wisely have they acted.

717 If he rejected it, it was on the ground of what he calls the
“changes,” in other words, rebirths of man, and constant
transformations. He denied immortality to the Personality of man, as
we do, not to Man.

718 He may be laughed at by the Protestants; but the Roman Catholics
have no right to mock him, without becoming guilty of blasphemy and
sacrilege. For it is over 200 years since Confucius was canonized as
a Saint in China by the Roman Catholics, who have thereby obtained
many converts among the ignorant Confucianists.

719 The animals regarded as sacred in the _Bible_ are by no means few in
number; as, for instance, the Goat, the Azaz‐el, or God of Victory.
As Aben Ezra says: “If thou art capable of comprehending the mystery
of Azazel, thou wilt learn the mystery of His [God’s] name, for it
has similar associates in Scriptures. I will tell thee by allusion
one portion of the mystery; when thou shalt have _thirty three years
of age_ thou wilt comprehend me.” So with the mystery of the
Tortoise. Rejoicing over the poetry of biblical metaphors,
associating “incandescent stones,” “sacred animals,” etc., with the
name of Jehovah, and quoting from the _Bible de Vence_ (XIX. 318) a
pious French writer says: “Indeed all of them are Elohim, _like
their God_”; for, these Angels, “ ‘assume,’ _through a holy
usurpation_, ‘the very divine name of Jehovah each time they
represent him’.” (De Mirville, _Des Esprits_.) No one ever doubted
that the Name must have been _assumed_, when under the guise of the
Infinite, One Incognizable, the Malachim, or Messengers, descended
to eat and drink with men. But if the Elohim and even lower Beings,
_assuming_ the God‐name, were and are still worshipped, why should
the same Elohim be called Devils, when appearing under the names of
other Gods?

720 _Matth._, xxiv. 28.

721 Bryant is right in saying “Druid bardism says of Noah that when he
came out of the ark (the birth of a new cycle), after a stay therein
of a year and a day, that is 364 + 1=365 days, he was congratulated
by Neptune upon his birth from the waters of the Flood, who wished
him a _Happy New Year_.” The “Year,” or cycle, esoterically, was the
new race of men, _born from woman_, after the Separation of the
Sexes, which is the secondary meaning of the allegory; its primary
meaning being the beginning of the Fourth Round, or the _new_
Creation.

722 From an unpublished MS.

723 Or literally: “One Prâdhânika Brahma Spirit: THAT was.” The
“Prâdhânika Brahma Spirit” is Mûlaprakriti and Parabrahman.

724 Wilson, _Vishnu Purâna_, I. 73‐5.

725 Origen, _Contra Celsum_, VI. xxii.

726 _Timæus._

727 “And the fourth creation is _here_ the primary, for _things_
immovable are emphatically known as primary”—according to a
commentary translated by Fitzedward Hall in his editing of Wilson’s
translation.

728 How can “divinities” have been created _after_ the animals? The
esoteric meaning of the expression “animals” is the _germs of all
animal life_, including man. Man is called a _sacrificial animal_,
that is, the only one among the animal creation who sacrifices to
the Gods. Moreover, by “sacred animals” the twelve Signs of the
Zodiac are often meant in the sacred texts, as already stated.

729 _Vishnu Purâna_, _ibid._

730 _Op. cit._, I. ix.

731 Myer’s _Qabbalah_, 415‐16.

732 _Contra Hær._, I. xvii. 1.

733 _Ibid._, I. xxx.

734 Superior to the Spirits, or “Heavens,” of the Earth only.

735 _Ibid._, I. v. 2.

736 See _Isis Unveiled_, II. 183.

737 See also King’s _Gnostics and their Remains_, p. 97. Other sects
regarded Jehovah as Ialdabaoth himself. King identifies him with
Saturn.

738 _Ordinances of Manu_, I. 33.

739 _Irenæus_, _op. cit._, I. xxx. 6.

740 Elsewhere, however, the identity is revealed. See _supra_ the
quotation from Iba Gabirol and his 7 heavens, 7 earths, etc.

741 This must not be confused with _precosmic_ “DARKNESS,” the Divine
ALL.

742 I. 2; and also at the beginning of II.

743 The quotations that follow in treating of the seven Creations,
except when otherwise stated, are all from _Vishnu Purâna_, Bk. I.
Ch. i‐v.

744 I. 240.

745 Brucker, _ibid._

746 Compare _Genesis_ xix. 34‐8 and iv. 1.

747 Vishnu is both Bhûtesha, “Lord of the Elements,” and of all things,
and Vishvarûpa, “Universal Substance” or Soul.

748 Compare, for their “post‐types,” the Treatise written by Trithemius,
Agrippa’s master, in the sixteenth century, “Concerning the Seven
Secondaries, or Spiritual Intelligences, who, after God, actuate the
Universe,” which, in addition to secret cycles and several
prophecies, discloses certain facts and beliefs about the Genii, or
the Elohim, which preside over and guide the septenary stages of the
World’s Course.

749 From the first, the Orientalists have found themselves beset with
great difficulties in regard to any possible order in the Purânic
“Creations.” Brahman is very often confused by Wilson with Brahmâ,
for which he is criticized by his successors. The _Original Sanscrit
Texts_ are preferred by Mr. Fitzedward Hall for the translation of
the _Vishnu Purâna_, to the text used by Wilson. “Had Professor
Wilson enjoyed the advantages which are now at the command of the
student of Indian philosophy, unquestionably he would have expressed
himself differently,” says the editor of his work. This reminds one
of the answer given by one of Thomas Taylor’s admirers to those
scholars who criticized his translations of Plato: “Taylor might
have known less Greek than his critics, but he knew more Plato.” Our
present Orientalists disfigure the _mystic_ sense of the Sanskrit
texts far more than Wilson ever did, though the latter is undeniably
guilty of very gross errors.

750 _Vâyu Purâna._

751 _Collected Works_, III. 381.

752 Professor Wilson translates as though animals were higher in the
scale of “creation” than divinities, or angels, although the truth
about the Devas is very plainly stated further on. This “Creation,”
says the text, is both Primary (Prâkrita) and Secondary (Vaikrita).
It is the Secondary, as regards the origin of the Gods from Brahmâ,
the _personal_ anthropomorphic _creator_ of our material universe;
it is the Primary as affecting Rudra, who is the immediate
production of the First Principle. The term Rudra is not only a
title of Shiva, but embraces agents of creation, angels and men, as
will be shown further on.

753 Neither plant nor animal, but an existence between the two.

754 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 276, art., “Mineral Monad.”

755 “These notions,” remarks Professor Wilson, “the birth of Rudra and
the saints, seem to have been _borrowed_ from the Shaivas, and to
have been awkwardly engrafted upon the Vaishnava system.” The
esoteric meaning ought to have been consulted before venturing such
a hypothesis.

756 See _Sânkhya Kârikâ_, v. 46. p. 146.

757 Parâshara, the Vedic Rishi, who received the _Vishnu Purâna_ from
Pulastya and taught it to Maitreya, is placed by the Orientalists at
various epochs. As correctly observed, in the _Hindû Classical
Dictionary_: “Speculations as to his era differ widely, from 575
B.C. to 1391 B.C., and _cannot be trusted_.” Quite so; but they are
no more untrustworthy than any other date, as assigned by the
Sanskritists, so famous in the department of arbitrary fancy.

758 They may indeed mark a “special” or extra “creation,” since it is
they who, by incarnating themselves within the senseless human
shells of the two first Root‐Races, and a great portion of the Third
Root‐Race, create, so to speak, a _new race_: that of thinking,
self‐conscious and _divine_ men.

759 _Hindû Classical Dictionary._

760 _Linga Purâna_, Prior Section, lxx. 174.

761 See _Manu_, I. 10.

762 See _Linga_, _Vâyu_ and _Mârkandeya Purânas_.

763 Movers, _Phoinizer_, 282.

764 Weber, _Akad. Vorles_, 213, 214, etc.

765 IX. 850.

766 _Stromata_, I. v. 6.

767 The Gehenna of the _Bible_ was a valley near Jerusalem, where the
monotheistic Jews immolated their children to Moloch, if the word of
the prophet Jeremiah is to be believed. The Scandinavian Abode of
Hel or Hela was a frigid region—Kâma Loka again—and the Egyptian
Amenti a place of purification. (See _Isis Unveiled_, II. 11.)

768 I. vi. i.

769 _Cod. Naz._, I. 47; see also _Psalms_, lxxxix. 18.

770 I _Cor._, viii. 5.

771 _Concerning Divine Names_, traduction Darboy, 364.

772 See de Mirville, _Des Esprits_, ii. 322.

773 _The Correlation of Physical Forces_, p. 89.

774 _Ibid._, xiv.

775 II _Sam._, xxii. 9, 11.

776 _Deut._, iv. 24.

777 _Op. cit._, III. 415.

778 II _Sam._, xxii. 14, 15.

779 Herodotus, _Polymnia_, 190, 191.

780 viii. 24.

781 _Fa‐hwa‐King._

782 See _La Mission des Juifs_.

783 _China Revealed_, as quoted in Hargrave Jennings’ _Phallicism_, p.
273.

784 p. 202.

785 _Op. cit._, p. 60.

786 _Ibid._

787 O’Brien, _Round Towers of Ireland_, p. 61, quoted by Hargrave
Jennings in his _Phallicism_, p. 246.

788 _Introduction to the Science of Religion_, p. 332.

789 _Pantheon_, text 3.

790 Their intellection, of course, being of quite a different nature to
any we can conceive of on Earth.

791 See his Third Letter to Bentley.

792 _Concepts of Modern Physics_, pp. xi, xii, Introd. to 2nd Ed.

793 “Recherches expérimentales sur la relation qui existe entre la
résistance de l’air et sa température,” p. 68, translated from
Stallo’s quotation.

794 From the criticism of _Concepts of Modern Physics_, in _Nature_. See
Stallo’s work, p. xvi of Introduction.

795 Mr. Robert Ward, discussing the questions of Heat and Light in the
November _Journal of Science_, 1881, shows us how utterly ignorant
is Science about one of the commonest facts of Nature—the heat of
the Sun. He says: “The question of the temperature of the sun has
been the subject of investigation with many scientists: Newton, one
of the first investigators of this problem, tried to determine it,
and after him all the scientists who have been occupied with
calorimetry have followed his example. All have believed themselves
successful, and have formulated their results with great confidence.
The following, in the chronological order of the publication of the
results, are the temperatures (in centigrade degrees) found by each
of them: Newton, 1,699,300°; Pouillet, 1,461°; Tollner, 102,200°;
Secchi, 5,344,840°; Ericsson, 2,726,700°; Fizeau, 7,500°; Waterston,
9,000,000°; Spoëren, 27,000°; Deville, 9,500°; Soret, 5,801,846°;
Vicaire, 1,500°; Rosetti, 20,000°. The difference is as 1,400°
against 9,000,000°, or no less than 8,998,600°!! There probably does
not exist in science a more astonishing contradiction than that
revealed in these figures.” And yet without doubt if an Occultist
were to give out an estimate, each of these gentlemen would
vehemently protest in the name of “exact” Science at the rejection
of his special result.

796 See _Correlation of the Physical Forces_, Preface.

797 _Soirées_, vol. ii.

798 Stallo’s above‐cited work, _Concepts of Modern Physics_, a volume
which has called forth the liveliest protests and criticisms, is
recommended to anyone inclined to doubt this statement. “The
professed antagonism of science to metaphysical speculation,” he
writes, “has led the majority of scientific specialists to assume
that the methods and results of empirical research are wholly
independent of the control of the laws of thought. They either
silently ignore, or openly repudiate, the simplest canons of logic,
including the laws of non‐contradiction, and ... resent with the
utmost vehemence every application of the rule of consistency to
their hypotheses and theories ... and they regard an examination (of
them) ... in the light of these laws as an impertinent intrusion of
‘_à priori_ principles and methods’ into the domains of empirical
science. Persons of this cast of mind find no difficulty in holding
that atoms are absolutely inert, and at the same time asserting that
these atoms are perfectly elastic; or in maintaining that the
physical universe, in its last analysis, resolves itself into ‘dead’
matter and motion, and yet denying that all physical energy is in
reality kinetic; or in proclaiming that all phenomenal differences
in the objective world are ultimately due to the various motions of
absolutely simple material units, and, nevertheless, repudiating the
proposition that these units are equal.” (p. xix.) The blindness of
eminent Physicists to some of the most obvious consequences of their
own theories is marvellous. “When Prof. Tait, in conjunction with
Prof. Stewart, announces that ‘matter is simply passive’ (_The
Unseen Universe_, sec. 104), and then, in connection with Sir
William Thomson, declares that ‘matter has an innate power of
resisting external influences’ (_Treat. on Nat. Phil._, Vol. I. sec.
216), it is hardly impertinent to inquire how these statements are
to be reconciled. When Prof. Du Bois Reymond ... insists upon the
necessity of reducing all the processes of nature to motions of a
substantial, indifferent substratum, _wholly destitute of quality_
(_Ueber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens_, p. 5), having declared
shortly before in the same lecture that ‘resolution of all changes
in the material world into motions of atoms _caused by their
constant central forces_ would be the completion of natural
science,’ we are in a perplexity from which we have the right to be
relieved.” (Pref. xliii.)

799 Stallo, _loc. cit._, p. x.

800 _Silliman’s Journal_, vol. viii. pp. 364 _et seq._

801 See Clerk Maxwell’s _Treatise on Electricity_, and compare with
Cauchy’s _Mémoire sur la Dispersion de la Lumière_.

802 Stallo, _loc. cit._, p. x.

803 _Nature_, vol. xxvii. p. 304.

804 _Op. cit._, p. xxiv.

805 “_Somewhat_ different!” exclaims Stallo. “The real import of this
‘somewhat’ is, that the medium in question _is not, in any
intelligible sense, material at all_, having none of the properties
of matter.” All the properties of matter depend upon differences and
changes, and the “hypothetical” Ether here defined is not only
destitute of differences, but incapable of difference and change—in
the physical sense let us add. This proves that if Ether is
“matter,” it is so only as something visible, tangible and existing,
for _spiritual_ senses alone; that it is a Being indeed—but not of
our plane—Pater Æther, or Âkâsha.

806 _Veræ causæ_ for Physical Science are mâyâvic or illusionary causes
for the Occultist, and _vice versâ_.

807 Very much “differentiated,” on the contrary, since the day it left
its _laya_ condition.

808 _Op. cit._, pp. xxiv‐xxvi.

809 _Sept Leçons de Physique Générale_, p. 38, _et seq._, Ed. Moigno.

810 Defin. 8, B. I. Prop. 69, “Scholium.”

811 See _Modern Materialism_, by the Rev. W. F. Wilkinson.

812 “Attraction,” Le Couturier, a Materialist, writes, “has now become
for the public that which it was for Newton himself—a simple word,
an Idea” (_Panorama des Mondes_), since its cause is unknown.
Herschell virtually says the same, when remarking, that whenever
studying the motion of the heavenly bodies, and the phenomena of
attraction, he feels penetrated at every moment with the idea of
“the existence of causes that act for us under a veil, disguising
their direct action.” (_Musée des Sciences_, August, 1856.)

813 If we are taken to task for believing in operating Gods and Spirits
while rejecting a personal God, we answer to the Theists and
Monotheists: Admit that your Jehovah is _one of the Elohim_, and we
are ready to recognize him. Make of him, as you do, the Infinite,
the ONE and the Eternal God, and we will never accept him in this
character. Of tribal Gods there were many; the One Universal Deity
is a principle, an abstract Root‐Idea, which has nought to do with
the unclean work of finite Form. We do not worship the Gods, we only
honour Them, as beings superior to ourselves. In this we obey the
Mosaic injunction, while Christians disobey their
_Bible_—missionaries foremost of all. “Thou shalt not revile the
Gods,” says one of them—Jehovah—in _Exodus_, xxii. 28; but at the
same time in verse 20 it is commanded: “He that sacrificeth to any
God, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed.” Now in
the original texts it is not “God” but Elohim—and we challenge
contradiction—and Jehovah is one of the Elohim, as proved by his own
words in _Genesis_, iii. 22, when “the Lord God said: Behold the Man
is become as one of us.” Hence both those who worship and sacrifice
to the Elohim, the Angels, and to Jehovah, and those who revile the
Gods of their fellowmen, are far greater transgressors than the
Occultists or than any Theosophist. Meanwhile many of the latter
prefer believing in some one “Lord” or other, and are quite welcome
to do as they like.

814 To liken the “immateriate species to wooden iron,” and to laugh at
Spiller for referring to them as “incorporeal matter” does not solve
the mystery. (See _Concepts of Modern Physics_, p. 165 _et infra_.)

815 See _Vossius_, Vol. II. p. 528.

816 _De Carlo_, I. 9.

817 _De Motibus Planetarum Harmonicis_, p. 248.

818 _World‐Life_, Prof. Winchell, LL.D., pp. 49 and 50.

819 _Panorama des Mondes_, pp. 47 and 53.

820 Newton, _Optics_, III. Query 28, 1704; quoted in _World‐Life_, p.
50.

821 _Ibid._

822 When read in a fair and unprejudiced spirit, Sir Isaac Newton’s
works are an ever ready witness to show how he must have hesitated
between gravitation and attraction, impulse, and some other _unknown
cause_, to explain the regular course of the planetary motion. But
see his _Treatise on Colour_ (Vol. III. Question 31). We are told by
Herschell that Newton left with his successors the duty of drawing
all the scientific conclusions from his discovery. How Modern
Science has abused the privilege of building its newest theories
upon the law of gravitation, may be realized when one remembers how
profoundly religious was that great man.

823 The materialistic notion that because, in Physics, real or sensible
motion is impossible in pure space or vacuum, therefore, the eternal
Motion of and in Cosmos—regarded as infinite Space—is a _fiction_,
only shows once more that such expressions of Eastern metaphysics as
“pure Space,” “pure Being,” the “Absolute” etc., have never been
understood in the West.

824 From Winchell’s _World‐Life_, p. 379.

825 _Correl. Phys. Forces_, p. 173.

826 See _Revue Germanique_ of the 31st Dec. 1860, art., “Lettres et
Conversations d’Alexandre Humboldt.”

827 Prof. Winchell.

828 _World‐Life_, p. 553.

829 But see _Astronomie du Moyen Age_, by Delambre.

830 See _Isis Unveiled_, I. 270, 271.

831 _World‐Life_, 554.

832 Godefroy, _Cosmogonie de la Révélation_.

833 The terms “high” and “low” being only relative to the position of
the observer in Space, any use of those terms tending to convey the
impression that they stand for abstract realities, is necessarily
fallacious.

834 Jacob Ennis, _The Origin of the Stars_.

835 P. 99, note.

836 If such is the case, how does Science explain the comparatively
small size of the planets nearest the Sun? The theory of meteoric
aggregation is only a step farther from truth than the nebular
conception, and has not even the quality of the latter—its
metaphysical element.

837 Laplace, _Système du Monde_, p. 414, ed. 1824.

838 Faye, _Comptes Rendus_, t. xc. pp. 640‐2.

839 Wolf.

840 _Panorama des Mondes_, Le Couturier.

841 _World‐Life_, Winchell, p. 140.

842 Sir William Thomson’s lecture on “The latent dynamical theory
regarding the probable origin, total amount of heat, and duration of
the Sun,” 1887.

843 Thomson and Tait, _Natural Philosophy_. And even on these figures
Bischof disagrees with Thomson, and calculates that 350,000,000
years would be required for the Earth to cool from a temperature of
20,000° to 200° centigrade. This is, also, the opinion of Helmholtz.

844 Coulomb’s Law.

845 _Musée des Sciences_, 15 August, 1857.

846 _Panorama des Mondes_, p. 55.

847 _Revue des Deux Mondes_, July 15, 1860.

848 _Cosmographie._

849 _Soirées._

850 _Discours_, 165.

851 p. 28.

852 _Des Esprits_, III. 155, Deuxième Mémoire.

853 Laing’s _Modern Science and Modern Thought_.

854 _Ibid._, p. 17.

855 _Heaven and Earth._

856 Winchell, _World‐Life_, p. 196.

857 _L’Univers expliqué par la Révélation_, and _Cosmogonie de la
Révélation_. But see De Mirville’s _Deuxième Mémoire_. The author, a
terrible enemy of Occultism, was yet one who wrote great truths.

858 See _Kabbala Denudata_, II. 67.

859 “Sur la Distinction des Forces,” published in the _Mémoires de
l’Académie des Sciences de Montpellier_, Vol. II. fasc. i, 1854.

860 P. 123.

861 _Der Weltæther als Kosmische Kraft_, p. 4.

862 See _Popular Science Review_, Vol. V. pp. 329‐34.

863 See _Correlation of Physical Forces_, p. 110.

864 See Buckwell’s _Electric Science_.

865 Schelling, _Ideen_, etc., p. 18.

866 _Op. cit._, p. 161.

867 _Princ._, Def. iii.

868 _Philosophical Magazine_, Vol. II. p. 252.

869 _Concepts of Modern Physics_, xxxi., Introductory to the 2nd
Edition.

870 _Loc. cit._

871 J. P. Cooke, _The New Chemistry_, p. 13.

872 “It imports that equal volumes of all substances, when in the
gaseous state, and under like conditions of pressure and
temperature, contain the same number of molecules—whence it follows
that the weights of the molecules are proportional to the specific
gravities of the gases; that therefore, these being different, the
weights of the molecule are different also; and inasmuch as the
molecules of certain elementary substances are monatomic (consist of
but one atom each) while the molecules of various other substances
contain the same number of atoms, that the ultimate atoms of such
substances are of different weights.” (_Concepts of Modern Physics_,
p. 34.) As shown further on in the same volume, this cardinal
principle of modern theoretical chemistry is in utter and
irreconcilable conflict with the first proposition of the atomo‐
mechanical theory—namely, the absolute equality of the primordial
units of mass.

873 Wundt, _Die Theorie der Materie_, p. 381.

874 Nazesmann, _Thermochemie_, p. 150.

875 Krœnig, Clausius, Maxwell, etc., _Philosophical Magazine_, Vol. XIX.
p. 18.

876 _Philosophical Magazine_, Vol. XIV. p. 321.

877 Referring to the “Aura,” one of the Masters says in the _Occult
World_: “How could you make yourself understood by, command in fact,
those semi‐intelligent Forces, whose means of communication with us
are not through spoken words, but through sounds and colours in
correlation between the vibrations of the two.” It is this
“correlation” that is unknown to Modern Science, although it has
been many times explained by the Alchemists.

878 The Substance of the Occultist, however, is to the most refined
Substance of the Physicist, what Radiant Matter is to the leather of
the Chemist’s boots.

879 The names of the Seven Rays—which are, Sushumnâ, Harikesha,
Vishvakarman, Vishvatryarchâs, Sannaddha, Sarvâvasu and Svarâj—are
all mystical, and each has its distinct application in a distinct
state of consciousness, for Occult purposes. The Sushumnâ, which, as
said in the Nirukta (11, 6), is only to light up the Moon, is the
Ray nevertheless cherished by the initiated Yogîs. The totality of
the Seven Rays spread through the Solar System constitutes, so to
say, the physical Upâdhi (Basis) of the Ether of Science; in which
Upâdhi, light, heat, electricity, etc., the Forces of orthodox
Science, correlate to produce their terrestrial effects. As psychic
and spiritual effects, they emanate from, and have their origin in,
the supra‐solar Upâdhi, in the Æther of the Occultist—or Âkâsha.

880 Leslie’s _Fluid Theory of Light and Heat_.

881 Buckle’s _History of Civilization_, Vol. III. p. 384.

882 On the plane of manifestation and illusionary matter it may be so;
not that it is nothing more, for it is vastly more.

883 Neutral, or Laya.

884 _Scientific Letters_, Professor Butlerof.

885 _Ibid._

886 _Ibid._

887 _Ibid._

888 Called the “drinker of waters,” solar heat causing water to
evaporate.

889 I. ii. (Wilson, I. 38.)

890 Its founder, Râmânujâchârya, was born A.D. 1017.

891 The Gandharva of the _Veda_ is the deity who knows and reveals the
secrets of heaven and divine truths to mortals. Cosmically, the
Gandharvas are the aggregate Powers of the Solar Fire, and
constitute its Forces; psychically, the Intelligence residing in the
Sushumnâ, the Solar Ray, the highest of the Seven Rays; mystically,
the Occult Force in the Soma, the Moon, or lunar plant, and the
drink made of it; physically, the phenomenal, and spiritually, the
noumenal, causes of Sound and the “Voice of Nature.” Hence, they are
called the 6,333 heavenly singers, and musicians of Indra’s Loka,
who personify, even in number, the various and manifold sounds in
Nature, both above and below. In the later allegories they are said
to have mystic power over women, and to be fond of them. The
Esoteric meaning is plain. They are one of the forms, if not the
prototypes, of Enoch’s Angels, the Sons of God, who saw that the
daughters of men were fair (_Gen._, vi.), who married them, and
taught the daughters of Earth the secrets of Heaven.

892 Pp. 329‐334.

893 Not only “through space,” but filling every point of our Solar
System, for it is the physical residue, so to say, of Ether, its
“lining” (envelope) on our plane; Ether having to serve other cosmic
and terrestrial purposes besides being the “agent” for transmitting
light. It is the Astral Fluid or Light of the Kabalists, and the
Seven Rays of Sun‐Vishnu.

894 What need, then, of etheric waves for the transmission of light,
heat, etc., if _this_ substance can pass through vacuum.

895 And how can it be otherwise? Gross ponderable matter is the body,
the shell, of Matter or Substance, the female passive principle; and
this Fohatic Force is the second principle, Prâna—the male and the
active. On our globe this Substance is the second principle of the
septenary Element—Earth; in the atmosphere, it is that of Air, which
is the cosmic gross body; in the Sun it becomes the Solar Body and
that of the Seven Rays; in Sidereal Space it corresponds with
another principle, and so on. The whole is a homogeneous Unity
alone, the parts are all differentiations.

896 Or the reverberation, and for Sound repercussion, _on our plane_ of
that which is a perpetual motion of that Substance on higher planes.
Our world and senses are ceaselessly victims of Mâyâ.

897 An honest admission, this.

898 Yet it is not Ether, but only one of the principles of Ether, the
latter being itself one of the principles of Âkâsha.

899 And so does Prâna (Jîva) pervade the whole living body of man; but
alone, without having an atom to act upon, it would be
quiescent—dead; _i.e._, would be in Laya, or, as Mr. Crookes has it,
“locked in Protyle.” It is the action of Fohat upon a compound or
even upon a simple, body that produces life. When a body dies, it
passes into the same polarity as its male energy, and repels
therefore the active agent, which, losing hold of the whole, fastens
on the parts or molecules, this action being called chemical.
Vishnu, the Preserver, transforms himself into Rudra‐Shiva, the
Destroyer—a correlation seemingly unknown to Science.

900 Verily, unless the Occult terms of the Kabalists are adopted!

901 “Unchangeable” only during manvantaric periods, after which it
merges once more into Mûlaprakriti; “invisible” for ever, in its own
essence, but seen in its reflected coruscations, called the Astral
Light by the modern Kabalists. Yet, conscious and grand Beings,
clothed in that same Essence, move in it.

902 One has to add ponderable, to distinguish it from that Ether which
is Matter still, though a substratum.

903 The Occult Sciences reverse the statement, and say that it is the
Sun, and all the Suns that are from it, which emanate at the
manvantaric dawn from the Central Sun.

904 Here, we decidedly beg to differ from the learned gentleman. Let us
remember that this Ether—whether Âkâsha, or its lower principle,
Ether, is meant by the term—is septenary. Âkâsha is Aditi in the
allegory, and the mother of Mârttânda, the Sun, the Devamâtri,
Mother of the Gods. In the Solar System, the Sun is her Buddhi and
Vâhana, the Vehicle, hence the sixth principle; in Kosmos all the
Suns are the Kâma Rûpa of Âkâsha and so is ours. It is only when
regarded as an individual Entity in his own Kingdom, that Sûrya, the
Sun, is the seventh principle of the great body of Matter.

905 To be more correct, let us rather call it Agnosticism. Brutal but
frank Materialism is more honest than Janus‐faced Agnosticism in our
days. Western Monism, so‐called, is the Pecksniff of modern
Philosophy, turning a pharisaical face to Psychology and Idealism,
and its natural face of a Roman Augur, swelling his cheek with his
tongue, to Materialism. Such Monists are worse than Materialists;
because, while looking at the Universe and at psycho‐spiritual man
from the same negative stand‐point, the latter put their case far
less plausibly than do sceptics of Mr. Tyndall’s or even of Mr.
Huxley’s stamp. Herbert Spencer, Bain and Lewes are more dangerous
to universal truths than is Büchner.

906 _Geology_, by Professor A. Winchell.

907 See _Five Years of Theosophy_, pp. 245‐262—Arts. “Do the Adepts deny
the Nebular Theory?” and “Is the Sun merely a Cooling Mass?”—for the
true Occult teaching.

908 _Philosophie Naturelle_, art. 142.

909 _Astronomie_, p. 342.

910 Commentary on Stanza IV, _ante_, pp. 126‐7.

911 _Popular Science Review_, Vol. IV. p. 148.

912 And the _central mass_, too, as will be found, or rather the centre
of the reflection.

913 This “matter” is just like the reflection in a mirror of the flame
from a “photogenic” lamp‐wick.

914 See _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 258, for an answer to this
speculation of Herschell.

915 _Ibid._, p. 156.

916 Paracelsus for one, who called it Liquor Vitæ, and Archæus.

917 _Alchemical_ “composition,” rather.

918 “This vital force ... radiates around man like a luminous sphere,”
says Paracelsus in _Paragranum_.

919 _Popular Science Review_, Vol. X. pp. 380‐3.

920 _De Generatione Hominis._

921 _De Viribus Membrorum_. See _Life of Paracelsus_, by Franz Hartmann,
M.D., F.T.S.

922 P. 384.

923 Ch. xiii; Telang’s translation, p. 292.

924 _Ibid._, ch. xxxvi; p. 385.

925 The division of the physical senses into five, comes to us from a
great antiquity. But while adopting the number, no modern
Philosopher has asked himself how these senses could exist, _i.e._,
be perceived and used in a self‐conscious way, unless there were the
_sixth_ sense, mental perception, to register and record them;
and—this for the Metaphysicians and Occultists—the _seventh_ to
preserve the spiritual fruitage and remembrance thereof, as in a
Book of Life which belongs to Karma. The Ancients divided the senses
into five, simply because their teachers, the Initiates, stopped at
_hearing_, as being that sense which developed on the physical
plane, or rather, got dwarfed and limited to this plane, only at the
beginning of the Fifth Race. The Fourth Race already had begun to
lose the _spiritual_ condition, so preëminently developed in the
Third Race.

926 _Ibid._, ch. x: pp. 277, 278.

927 _Mundakopanishad_, p. 298.

928 _Bhagavadgîtâ_, ch. vii; _ibid._, pp. 73, 74.

929 Ahamkâra, I suppose, that “Egoship,” or “Ahamship,” which leads to
every error.

930 The Elements are the five Tanmâtras of earth, water, fire, air and
ether, the producers of the grosser elements.

931 _Anugîtâ_, ch. xx; _ibid._, p. 313.

932 The conductor in the sense of Upâdhi—a material or physical basis;
but, as the second principle of the universal Soul and Vital Force
in Nature, it is intelligently guided by the fifth principle
thereof.

933 And too great an exuberance of it in the nervous system leads as
often to disease and death. If it were the animal system which
generated it, such would not be the case, surely. Hence, the latter
emergency shows its independence of the system, and its connection
with the Sun‐Force, as Metcalfe and Hunt explain.

934 P. 387.

935 _Paragranum; Life of Paracelsus_, by Dr. F. Hartmann.

936 In a recent work on Symbolism in Buddhism and Christianity—in
Buddhism and Roman Catholicism, rather, many later rituals and
dogmas in Northern Buddhism, in its popular exoteric form, being
identical with those of the Latin Church—some curious facts are to
be found. The author of this volume, with more pretensions than
erudition, has indiscriminately crammed into his work ancient and
modern Buddhist teachings, and has sorely confused Lamaïsm with
Buddhism. On page 404 of this volume, called _Buddhism in
Christendom, or Jesus the Essene_, our _pseudo_‐Orientalist devotes
himself to criticizing the “Seven Principles” of the “Esoteric
Buddhists,” and attempts to ridicule them. On page 405, the closing
page, he speaks enthusiastically of the Vidyâdharas, “the seven
great legions of dead men made wise.” Now, these Vidyâdharas, whom
some Orientalists call “demi‐gods,” are in fact, exoterically, a
kind of Siddhas, “affluent in devotion,” and, esoterically, they are
identical with the seven classes of Pitris, one class of which endow
man in the Third Race with Self‐consciousness, by incarnating in the
human shells. The “Hymn to the Sun,” at the end of his queer volume
of mosaic, which endows Buddhism with a Personal God (!!), is an
unfortunate thrust at the very proofs so elaborately collected by
the unlucky author.

Theosophists are fully aware that Mr. Rhys Davids has likewise
expressed his opinion on their beliefs. He said that the theories
propounded by the author of _Esoteric Buddhism_ “were not Buddhism,
and were not esoteric.” The remark is the result of (_a_) the
unfortunate mistake of writing “Buddhism” instead of “Budhaïsm,” or
“Budhism,” _i.e._, of connecting the system with Gautama’s religion
instead of with the Secret Wisdom taught by Krishna, Shankarâchârya,
and many others, as much as by Buddha; and (_b_) of the
impossibility of Mr. Rhys Davids knowing anything of the true
Esoteric Teachings. Nevertheless as he is the greatest Pâli and
Buddhist scholar of the day, whatever he may say is entitled to
respectful hearing. But when one who knows no more of exoteric
Buddhism on Scientific and Materialistic lines, than he knows of
Esoteric Philosophy, defames those whom he honours with his spite,
and assumes with the Theosophists the airs of a profound scholar,
one can only smile or—heartily laugh at him.

937 _The Human Species_, pp. 10, 11.

938 _The Theosophist._

939 Not only does it not deny the occurrence, though attributing it to a
wrong cause, as always, each theory contradicting every other (see
the theories of Secchi, of Faye, and of Young), the spots depending
on the superficial accumulation of vapours cooler than the
photosphere (?), etc., etc., but we have men of Science who
_astrologize_ upon the spots. Professor Jevons attributes all the
great periodical commercial crises to the influence of the sun‐spots
every eleventh cyclic year. (See his _Investigations into Currency
and Finance_.) This is worthy of praise and encouragement surely.

940 _Le Soleil_, II. 184.

941 _World‐Life_, p. 48.

942 Unfortunately, as these pages are being written, the “archebiosis of
terrestrial existence” has turned, under a somewhat stricter
chemical analysis, into a simple precipitate of sulphate of
lime—hence, from the scientific standpoint, not even an organic
substance! _Sic transit gloria mundi!_

943 _Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson, I. 16, Fitzedward Hall’s rendering.

944 _Popular Astronomy_, p. 444.

945 In his _World‐Life_ (page 48), in the appended footnotes, Professor
Winchell says, “It is generally admitted that at excessively high
temperatures matter exists in a state of dissociation—that is, no
chemical combination can exist”; and, to prove the unity of Matter,
would appeal to the spectrum, which in every case of homogeneity
will show a _bright_ line, whereas in the case of several molecular
arrangements existing—in the nebulæ say, or a star—“the spectrum
should consist of two or three bright lines”! This would be no proof
either way to the Physicist‐Occultist, who maintains that beyond a
certain limit of visible Matter, no spectrum, no telescope and no
microscope are of any use. The unity of Matter, of that which is
real cosmic Matter to the Alchemist, or “Adam’s Earth” as the
Kabalists call it, can hardly be proved or disproved, by either the
French _savant_ Dumas, who suggests “the composite nature” of the
“elements” on “certain relations of atomic weights,” or even by Mr.
Crookes’ “radiant matter,” though his experiments may seem “to be
best understood on the hypothesis of the homogeneity of the elements
of matter, and the continuity of the states of matter.” For all this
does not go beyond _material_ Matter, so to say, even in what is
shown by the spectrum, that modern “eye of Shiva” of physical
experiments. It is only of this Matter, that H. St. Claire Deville
could say that “when bodies, deemed to be simple, combine with one
another, they vanish, they are individually annihilated”; simply
because he could not follow those bodies in their further
transformation in the world of spiritual cosmic Matter. Verily
Modern Science will never be able to dig deep enough into the
cosmological formations to find the Roots of the World‐Stuff or
Matter, unless she works on the same lines of thought as the
mediæval Alchemist did.

946 _Concepts of Modern Physics_, p. vi.

947 Book I. ch. II. p. 25. _Vishnu Purâna_, Fitzedward Hall’s
Translation.

948 _Vide_ in preceding Section VII., “Life, Force, or Gravity,”
quotation from _Anugitâ_.

949 The word “supernatural” implies _above or outside_ nature. Nature
and Space are one. Now Space for the metaphysician exists outside
any act of sensation, and is a purely subjective representation,
notwithstanding the contention of Materialism, which would connect
it forcibly with one or another datum of sensation. For our senses,
it is fairly subjective when independent of anything within it. How
then can any phenomenon, or anything else, step outside, or be
performed beyond, that which has no limits? But when spatial
extension becomes simply conceptual, and is thought of in an idea
connected with certain actions, as by the Materialists and the
Physicists, then again they have hardly a right to define and claim
that which can, or cannot, be produced by Forces generated within
even limited spaces, as they have not even an approximate idea of
what those Forces are.

950 It is not correct, when speaking of Idealism, to show it based upon
“the old ontological assumptions that things or entities exist
independently of each other, and otherwise than as terms of
relations” (Stallo). At any rate, it is incorrect to say so of
Idealism in Eastern Philosophy and _its_ cognition, for it is just
the reverse.

951 Independent, in a certain sense, but not _disconnected_ with it.

952 “By Fohat, more likely,” would be an Occultist’s reply.

953 The reason for such psychic capacities is given farther on.

954 The above was written in 1886, at a time when hopes of success for
the “Keely Motor” were at their highest. Every word then said by the
writer proved true, and now only a few remarks are added with regard
to the failure of Mr. Keely’s expectations, so far, a failure now
admitted by the discoverer himself. Though, however, the word
_failure_ is here used, the reader should understand it in a
relative sense, for, as Mrs. Bloomfield‐Moore explains: “What Mr.
Keely does admit is that, baffled in applying vibratory force to
mechanics, upon his first and second lines of experimental research,
he was obliged either to confess a _commercial_ failure, or to try a
third departure from his base or principle, seeking success through
another channel.” And this “channel” is on the _physical_ plane.

955 We learn that these remarks are not applicable to Mr. Keely’s latest
discovery; time alone can show the exact limit of his achievements.

956 _Theosophical Siftings_, No. 9.

957 This is also the division made by the Occultists, under other names.

958 Quite so, since there is the _seventh_ beyond, which begins the same
enumeration from the first to the last, on another and higher plane.

959 From Mrs. Bloomfield‐Moore’s paper, _The New Philosophy_.

960 In answer to a friend, that eminent Geologist writes: “I can only
say, in reply to your letter, that it is at present, and perhaps
always will be, impossible to reduce, even approximately, geological
time into years, or even into millenniums.” (Signed, William
Pengelly, F.R.S.)

961 Plato, in speaking of the irrational, turbulent Elements, “composed
of fire, air, water, and earth,” means Elementary Dæmons. (See
_Timæus_.)

962 Plato in the _Timæus_ uses the word “secretions” of turbulent
Elements.

963 Valentinus’ _Esoteric Treatise on the Doctrine of Gilgul_.

964 See Mackenzie’s _Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_.

965 See _Isis Unveiled_, II. 152.

966 See Mackenzie, _ibid._, _sub voc._

967 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 317.

968 _Viveka Chudamani_, translated by Mohini M. Chatterji, as “The Crest
Jewel of Wisdom.” See _Theosophist_, July and August, 1886.

969 The Tanmâtras are literally the type or rudiment of an element
devoid of qualities; but esoterically, they are the primeval Noumena
of that which becomes in the progress of evolution, a Cosmic
Element, in the sense given to the term in Antiquity, not in that of
Physics. They are the Logoi, the seven emanations or rays of the
Logos.

970 Ch. xxxvi; Telang’s translation, pp. 387‐8.

971 See _Theosophist_, August, 1886.

972 The now universal error of attributing to the Ancients the knowledge
of only seven planets, simply because they mentioned no others, is
based on the same general ignorance of their Occult doctrines. The
question is not whether they were, or were not, aware of the
existence of the later discovered planets; but whether the reverence
paid by them to the four exoteric and three secret Great Gods—the
Star‐Angels, had not some special reason. The writer ventures to say
there was such a reason, and it is this. Had they known of as many
planets as we do now—and this question can hardly be decided at
present, either way—they would still have only connected the seven
with their religious worship, because these seven are directly and
specially connected with our Earth, or, using esoteric phraseology,
with our septenary Ring of Spheres.

973 _John_, x. 30.

974 _Ibid._, xx. 17.

975 _Ibid._, xiv. 28.

976 _Matt._, v. 16.

977 _Ibid._, xiii. 43.

978 1 _Cor._, iii. 16.

979 _Theosophist_, Aug., 1886.

980 These are planets accepted for purposes of Judicial Astrology only.
The astro‐theogonical division differed from the above. The Sun,
being a central _star_ and not a planet, stands, with _its_ seven
planets, in more occult and mysterious relations to _our_ Globe than
is generally known. The Sun was, therefore, considered the great
Father of all the Seven “Fathers,” and this accounts for the
variations found between the Seven and Eight Great Gods of Chaldean
and other countries. Neither the Earth, nor the Moon, its satellite,
nor yet the stars, for another reason, were anything more than
_substitutes used for Esoteric purposes_. Yet, even with the
exclusion of the Sun and the Moon from the calculation, the Ancients
seem to have known of _seven_ planets. How many more are known to
us, so far, if we throw out the Earth and Moon? _Seven_, and no
more: Seven primary or principal planets, the rest _planetoids_
rather than planets.