Chapter LII: Section XVII: Summary of the Position (4)

981 When one remembers that under the powerful telescope of Sir William
Herschell, that eminent Astronomer—gauging merely that portion of
heaven in the equatorial plane, the approximate centre of which is
occupied by our Earth—saw in one quarter of an hour, 16,000 stars
pass; and applying this calculation to the totality of the “Milky
Way” he found in it no less than eighteen millions of Suns, one
wonders no longer that Laplace, in conversation with Napoleon I,
should have called God a _hypothesis_—perfectly useless to speculate
upon for _exact_ Physical Science, at any rate. Occult Metaphysics
and transcendental Philosophy will alone be able to lift the
smallest corner of the impenetrable veil in this direction.

982 _Numb._, xi. 16.

983 _Deut._, xxxii. 8, 9.

984 _Ibid._, 9.

985 C. W. King in _The Gnostics and their Remains_ (p. 344), identifies
it with “that _summum bonum_ of Oriental aspiration, the Buddhist
Nirvâna, ‘perfect repose, the Epicurean _Indolentia_’;” a view that
looks flippant enough in its expression, though not quite untrue.

986 See Origen’s Copy of the Chart, or Diagramma of the Ophites.

987 See also Section XIV.

988 Abraham and Saturn are identical in astro‐symbology, and he is the
forefather of the Jehovistic Jews.

989 _John_, viii. 37, 38, 41, 44.

990 _Matthew_, v. 22.

991 The Elemental Vortices inaugurated by the “Mind” have not been
improved by their modern transformation.

992 I have often been taken to task for using expressions in _Isis_
denoting belief in a _personal_ and anthropomorphic God. This is
_not_ my idea. Kabalistically speaking, the “Architect” is the
generic name for the Sephiroth, the Builders of the Universe, as the
“Universal Mind” represents the collectivity of the Dhyân Chohanic
Minds.

993 _Timæus._

994 I. 258.

995 _Researches on Light in its Chemical Relations_.

996 _Modern Chemistry._

997 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 137.

998 _Faraday Lectures_, 1881.

999 Thus, what the writer of the present work said ten years ago in
_Isis Unveiled_ was, it seems, prophetic. These are the words: “Many
of these mystics, by following what they were taught by some
treatises, secretly preserved from one generation to another,
achieved discoveries which would not be despised even in our modern
days of exact sciences. Roger Bacon, the friar, was laughed at as a
quack, and is now generally numbered among ‘pretenders’ to magic
art; but his discoveries were nevertheless accepted, and are now
used by those who ridicule him the most. Roger Bacon belonged by
right, if not by fact, to that Brotherhood which includes all those
who study the Occult Sciences. Living in the thirteenth century,
almost a contemporary, therefore, of Albertus Magnus and Thomas
Aquinas, his discoveries—such as gunpowder and optical glasses, and
his mechanical achievements—were considered by everyone as so many
miracles. He was accused of having made a compact with the Evil
One.” (Vol. I, pp. 64, 65.)

1000 Just so; “those forms of energy ... _which become evident_ ...” in
the laboratory of the Chemist and Physicist; but _there are other
forms of energy_ wedded to _other forms_ of matter, _which are
supersensuous_, yet are known to the Adepts.

1001 _Presidential Address_, p. 16.

1002 It is just the existence of such worlds on other planes of
consciousness that is asserted by the Occultist. The Secret Science
teaches that the primitive race was boneless, and that there are
worlds invisible to us, peopled as our own, besides the
_populations_ of Dhyân Chohans.

1003 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 258 _et seq._

1004 Says Mr. Crookes in the same address: “The first riddle which we
encounter in chemistry is: ‘What are the elements?’ Of the attempts
hitherto made to define or explain an element, none satisfy the
demands of the human intellect. The text books tell us that an
element is ‘a body which has not been decomposed;’ that it is ‘a
something to which we can add, but from which we can take nothing,’
or ‘a body which increases in weight with every chemical change.’
Such definitions are doubly unsatisfactory: they are provisional,
and may cease to‐morrow to be applicable in any given case. They
take their stand, not on any attribute of the things to be defined,
but on the limitations of human power: they are confessions of
intellectual impotence.”

1005 And the lecturer quotes Sir George Airy, who says (in _Faraday’s
Life and Letters_, Vol. II., p. 354): “I can easily conceive that
there are plenty of bodies about us not subject to this intermutual
action, and therefore not subject to the law of gravitation.”

1006 The Vedântic philosophy conceives of such; but then it is not
physics, but metaphysics, called by Mr. Tyndall “poetry” and
“fiction.”

1007 In the form they are now, we conceive?

1008 And to Kapila and Manu—especially and originally.

1009 Here is a scientific corroboration of the eternal law of
correspondences and analogy.

1010 This method of illustrating the periodic law in the classification
of elements is, in the words of Mr. Crookes, proposed by Professor
Emerson Reynolds, of Dublin University, who ... “points out that in
each period, the general properties of the elements vary from one to
another, with approximate regularity until we reach the _seventh
member_, which is in more or less striking contrast with the first
element of the same period, as well as with the first of the next.
Thus chlorine, the seventh member of Mendeleef’s third period,
contrasts sharply with both sodium, the first member of the same
series, and with potassium, the first member of the next series;
whilst on the other hand, sodium and potassium are closely
analogous. The six elements, whose atomic weights intervene between
sodium and potassium, vary in properties, step by step, until
chlorine, the contrast to sodium, is reached. But from chlorine to
potassium, the analogue of sodium, there is a change in properties
_per saltum_..... If we thus recognize a contrast in properties—more
or less decided—between the first and the last members of each
series, we can scarcely help admitting the existence of a point of
mean variation within each system. In general the _fourth_ element
of each series possesses the property we might expect a transition‐
element to exhibit.... Thus for the purpose of graphic translation,
Professor Reynolds considers that the fourth member of a
period—silicon, for example—may be placed at the apex of a
symmetrical curve, which shall represent for that particular period,
the direction in which the properties of the series of elements vary
with rising atomic weights.”

Now, the writer humbly confesses complete ignorance of modern
Chemistry and its mysteries. But she is pretty well acquainted with
the Occult Doctrine with regard to _correspondences of types and
antetypes_ in nature, and to perfect analogy as a fundamental law in
Occultism. Hence she ventures on a remark which will strike every
Occultist, however it may be derided by orthodox Science. This
method of illustrating the periodic law in the behaviour of
elements, whether or not still a hypothesis in Chemistry, _is a law
in Occult Sciences_. Every well‐read Occultist knows that the
_seventh_ and _fourth_ members—whether in a septenary chain of
worlds, the septenary hierarchy of angels, or in the constitution of
man, animal, plant, or mineral atom—that the _seventh_ and _fourth_
members, we say, in the geometrically and mathematically uniform
workings of the immutable laws of Nature, always play a distinct and
specific part in the septenary system. From the stars twinkling high
in heaven, to the sparks flying asunder from the rude fire built by
the savage in his forest; from the hierarchies and the essential
constitution of the Dhyân Chohans—organized for diviner
apprehensions and a loftier range of perception than the greatest
Western Psychologist ever dreamed of, down to Nature’s
_classification_ of species among the humblest insects; finally from
Worlds to Atoms, everything in the Universe, from great to small,
proceeds in its spiritual and physical evolution, cyclically and
septennially, showing its seventh and fourth number (the latter the
turning point) behaving in the same way as is shown in that periodic
law of Atoms. Nature never proceeds _per saltum_. Therefore, when
Mr. Crookes remarks on this that he does not “wish to infer that the
gaps in Mendeleef’s table, and in this graphic representation of it
[the diagram showing the evolution of Atoms] necessarily mean that
there are elements actually existing to fill up the gaps; these gaps
may only mean that at the birth of the elements there was an easy
potentiality of the formation of an element which would fit into the
place”—an Occultist would respectfully remark to him that the latter
hypothesis can only hold good, if the septenary arrangement of Atoms
is not interfered with. This is _the one law_, and an infallible
method that must always lead one who follows it to success.

1011 A group of electricians has just protested against the new theory of
Clausius, the famous professor of the University of Bonn. The
character of the protest is shown in the signature, which has “Jules
Bourdin, in the name of the group of Electricians, which had the
honour of being introduced to Professor Clausius in 1881, and whose
war‐cry (_cri de ralliement_) is _À bas l’Ether_”—down with Ether,
even; they want Universal _Void_, you see!

1012 _Smithsonian Contributions_, xxi., Art. 1. pp. 79‐97.

1013 _System of Logic_, p. 229.

1014 Beyond the zero‐line of action.

1015 _Progymnasmata_, p. 795.

1016 _De Stellâ Novâ in Pede Serpentarii_, p. 115.

1017 _Hypothèses Cosmogoniques_, p. 2, C. Wolf, 1886.

1018 See _Philosophical Transactions_, p. 269, _et seq._

1019 Laplace conceived that the external and internal zones of the ring
would rotate with the same angular velocity, which would be the case
with a solid ring; but the principle of equal areas requires the
inner zones to rotate more rapidly than the outer. (_World‐Life_, p.
121.) Prof. Winchell points out a good many mistakes of Laplace; but
as a geologist he is not infallible himself in his “astronomical
speculations.”

1020 _Five Years of Theosophy_, pp. 249‐251, Art. “Do the Adepts deny the
Nebular Theory?”

1021 Had Astronomers, in their present state of knowledge, merely held to
the hypothesis of Laplace, which was simply the formation of the
Planetary System, it might in time have resulted in something like
an approximate truth. But the two parts of the general problem—that
of the formation of the Universe, or the formation of the Suns and
Stars from the Primitive Matter, and then the development of the
Planets round their Sun—rest on quite different facts in Nature and
are even so viewed by Science itself. They are at the opposite poles
of Being.

1022 Aristotle’s _Physica_, viii. 1.

1023 _Hypothèses Cosmogoniques_, p. 3, Wolf.

1024 Vol. I., p. 185, quoted by Wolf, p. 3. Wolf’s argument is here
summarised.

1025 Note vii. Summarized from Wolf, p. 6.

1026 _Five Years of Theosophy_, pp. 241, 242, and 239.

1027 But the spectra of these nebulæ have never yet been ascertained.
When they _are_ found with bright lines, then only may they be
cited.

1028 _Hypothèses Cosmogoniques_, p. 3.

1029 Mr. Crookes’ Protyle must not be regarded as the _primary_ stuff,
out of which the Dhyân Chohans, in accordance with the immutable
laws of Nature, wove our Solar System. This Protyle cannot even be
the Prima Materia of Kant, which that great mind saw used up in the
formation of the worlds, and thus existing no longer in a diffused
state. Protyle is a _mediate_ phase in the progressive
differentiation of Cosmic Substance from its normal undifferentiated
state. It is, then, the aspect assumed by Matter in its middle
passage into full objectivity.

1030 See Stanza III, Commentary 9, (p. 109) about “Light,” or “_Cold_
Flame,” where it is explained that the “Mother”—Chaos—is a cold
Fire, a cool Radiance, colourless, formless, devoid of every
quality. “_Motion as the One Eternal_ IS, _and contains the
potentialities of every quality in the Manvantaric Worlds_,” it is
said.

1031 _Hypothèses Cosmogoniques_, pp. 4, 5.

1032 _World‐Life_, p. 196.

1033 _Westminster Review_, XX., July 27, 1868.

1034 Vol. XIV. p. 252.

1035 _Hypothèses Cosmogoniques._

1036 Which “Light” we call Fohat.

1037 This is a mistake, which implies a material agent, distinct from the
influences which move it, _i.e._, blind matter and perhaps “God”
again, whereas this One Life is the very God and Gods “Itself.”

1038 The same error.

1039 _Popular Science Review_, Vol. X.

1040 “Is the Jîva a myth, as Science says, or is it not?” ask some
Theosophists, wavering between materialistic and idealistic Science.
The difficulty of really grasping Esoteric problems concerning the
“ultimate state of Matter” is again the old crux of the _objective_
and the _subjective_. What is Matter? Is the Matter of our present
objective consciousness anything but our _sensations_? True, the
sensations we receive come _from without_, but can we really—except
in terms of phenomena—speak of the “gross matter” of this plane as
an entity apart from and independent of us? To all such arguments
Occultism answers: True, in _reality_ Matter is not independent of,
or existent outside, our perceptions. Man is an _illusion_: granted.
But the existence and actuality of other, still more illusive, but
not less _actual_, entities than we are, is not a claim which is
lessened, but rather strengthened, by this doctrine of Vedântic and
even Kantian Idealism.

1041 See _Musée des Sciences_, August, 1856.

1042 Book II. of the _Commentary on the Book of Dzyan_.

1043 Even the question of the plurality of worlds inhabited by sentient
creatures is rejected, or is approached with the greatest caution!
And yet see what the great astronomer, Camille Flammarion, says in
his _Pluralité des Mondes_.

1044 Nevertheless, it may be shown on the testimony of the _Bible_
itself, and of such good Christian theologians as Cardinal Wiseman,
that this plurality is taught in both the _Old_ and the _New
Testaments_.

1045 See _Plurality of Worlds_, Vol. II.

1046 See on this _La Pluralité des Mondes Habités_, par C. Flammarion,
wherein is given a list of the many men of Science who have written
to prove the theory.

1047 _World‐Life_, pp. 496‐498, _et seq._

1048 _World‐Life._

1049 _The Book of Enoch._ Trans. by Archbishop Laurence, Ch. LXXIX.

1050 The Âtmâ, or Spirit, the Spiritual SELF, passing like a thread
through the five Subtle Bodies, or Principles, Koshas, is called
“Thread‐soul,” or Sûtrâtmâ in Vedântic Philosophy.

1051 “The Septenary Principle,” _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 197.

1052 _Pythagorean Triangle_, by the Rev. G. Oliver, p. 36.

1053 See Kant’s _Critique de la Raison Pure_, Barui’s transl., II. 54.

1054 Plutarch, _De Placitis Philosophorum_.

1055 In the Greek and Latin Churches—which regard marriage as one of the
sacraments—the officiating priest during the marriage ceremony
represents the apex of the triangle; the bride, its left feminine
side, and the bridegroom the right side, while the base line is
symbolized by the row of witnesses, the bridesmaids and best men.
But behind the priest there is the Holy of Holies, with its
mysterious containments and symbolic meaning, inside of which no one
but the consecrated priests should enter. In the early days of
Christianity the marriage ceremony was a mystery and a true symbol.
Now, however, even the Churches have lost the true meaning of this
symbolism.

1056 _New Aspects of Life and Religion_, by Henry Pratt, M.D., p. 7. Ed.
1886.

1057 _Ibid._, pp. 7, 8.

1058 _Ibid._, p. 9.

1059 _Pythagorean Triangle_, by the Rev. G. Oliver, pp. 18, 19.

1060 P. 387.

1061 P. 387.

1062 In the World of Form, symbolism finding expression in the Pyramids,
has in them both triangle and square, four co‐equal triangles or
surfaces, four basic points, and the fifth—the apex.

1063 Pp. 385, 386.

1064 _Op. cit._ By Isaac Myer. P. 174.

1065 P. 175.

1066 P. 175.

1067 “The lowest designation, or the Deity in Nature, the more general
term Elohim, is translated God.” (P. 175.) Such recent works as the
_Qabbalah_ of Mr. Isaac Myer, and of Mr. S. L. MacGregor Mathers,
fully justify our attitude towards the Jehovistic Deity. It is not
the transcendental, philosophical, and highly metaphysical
abstraction of the original Kabalistic thought—Ain‐Suph‐Shekinah‐
Adam‐Kadmon, and all that follows—that we oppose, but the
crystallization of all these into the highly unphilosophical,
repulsive, and anthropomorphic Jehovah, the androgynous and _finite_
deity, for which eternity, omnipotence, and omniscience are claimed.
We do not war against the _Ideal Reality_, but the hideous
theological _Shadow_.

1068 Let not the word “Psychology” cause the reader, by association of
ideas, to carry his thought to modern “Psychologists,” so‐called,
whose _Idealism_ is another name for uncompromising Materialism, and
whose pretended Monism is no better than a mask to conceal the void
of final annihilation—even of consciousness. Here _spiritual_
Psychology is meant.

1069 “Vishvânara is not merely the manifested objective world, but the
one physical basis [the horizontal line of the triangle] from which
the whole objective world starts into existence.” And this is the
Cosmic Duad, the Androgynous Substance. Only beyond this is the true
Protyle.

1070 T. Subba Row. See _Theosophist_, Feb. 1887.

1071 By W. Crookes, F.R.S., V.P.C.S., delivered at the Royal Institution,
London, on Friday, February 18th, 1887.

1072 How true it is will be fully demonstrated only on that day when Mr.
Crookes’ discovery of radiant matter will have resulted in a further
elucidation with regard to the true source of light, and will have
revolutionized all the present speculations. Further familiarity
with the northern streamers of the _aurora borealis_ may help the
recognition of this truth.

1073 _Genesis of the Elements_, p. 1.

1074 _De Placit. Philos._

1075 _The Path_, I. 10, p. 297.

1076 P. 11.

1077 Corresponding on the cosmic scale with the Spirit, Soul, Mind, Life,
and the three Vehicles—the Astral, the Mâyâvic and the Physical
Bodies (of mankind), whatever division is made.

1078 _Ibid._ p. 16.

1079 Vol. I, p. 429.

1080 _Ibid._, p. 21.

1081 “The Lord is a consuming _fire_.” “In him was _life_, and the life
was the light of men.”

1082 Which if separated _alchemically_ would yield the Spirit of Life,
and its Elixir.

1083 Foremost of all, the postulate that there is no such thing in Nature
as _inorganic_ substances or bodies. Stones, minerals, rocks, and
even chemical “atoms” are simply organic units in profound lethargy.
Their coma has an end and their inertia becomes activity.

1084 _Ibid._, p. 144.

1085 The orthography of the name—as spelt by himself—is Leibniz. He was
of Slavonian descent though born in Germany.

1086 _Monadologie_, Introd.

1087 “Leibnitz’s dynamism,” says Professor Lachelier, “would offer but
little difficulty if, with him, the monad had remained a simple atom
of _blind force_. But....” One perfectly understands the perplexity
of Modern Materialism!

1088 _The Path_, I. 10, p. 297.

1089 Leibnitz was an _absolute_ Idealist in maintaining that “material
atoms are contrary to reason.” (_Système Nouveau_, Erdmann, p. 126,
col. 2.) For him Matter was a simple representation of the Monad,
whether human or atomic. Monads, he thought (as do we), are
everywhere. Thus the human soul is a Monad, and every cell in the
human body has its Monad, as has every cell in animal, vegetable,
and even in the so‐called _inorganic_ bodies. His Atoms are the
molecules of modern Science, and his Monads those _simple atoms_
that Materialistic Science takes on faith, though it will never
succeed in _interviewing_ them—except in imagination. But Leibnitz
is rather contradictory in his views about Monads. He speaks of his
“Metaphysical Points” and “Formal Atoms,” at one time as
_realities_, occupying space; at another as pure spiritual _ideas_;
then he again endows them with objectivity and aggregates and
positions in their co‐relations.

1090 _Examen des Principes du P. Malebranche._

1091 The Atoms of Leibnitz have, in truth, nothing but the name in common
with the atoms of the Greek Materialists, or even the molecules of
Modem Science. He calls them “Formal Atoms,” and compares them to
the “Substantial Forms” of Aristotle. (See _Système Nouveau_, § 3.)

1092 Letter to Father Desbosses, _Correspondence_, xviii.

1093 _Monadologie_, § 60. Leibnitz, like Aristotle, calls the “created”
or _emanated_ Monads (the Elementals issued from Cosmic Spirits or
Gods)—Entelechies, Ἐντελέχειαι, and “incorporeal automata.”
(_Monadologie_ § 18.)

1094 These three “rough divisions” correspond to Spirit, Mind (or Soul),
and Body, in the human constitution.

1095 Brother C. H. A. Bjerregaard, in the lecture already mentioned,
warns his audience not to regard the Sephiroth too much as
_individualities_, but to avoid at the same time seeing in them
_abstractions_. “We shall never arrive at the truth,” he says, “much
less the power of associating with these celestials, until we return
to the simplicity and fearlessness of the primitive ages, when men
mixed freely with the gods, and the gods descended among men and
guided them in truth and holiness.” (P. 296.) “There are several
designations for ‘angels’ in the Bible, which clearly show that
beings like the elementals of the Kabbala and the monads of
Leibnitz, must be understood by that term rather than that which is
commonly understood. They are called ‘morning stars,’ ‘flaming
fires,’ ‘the mighty ones,’ and St. Paul sees them in his cosmogonic
vision as ‘Principalities and Powers.’ Such names as these preclude
the idea of personality, and we find ourselves compelled to think of
them as impersonal existences ... as an _influence_, a spiritual
substance, or _conscious_ force.” (Pp. 321, 322.)

1096 _Buddhist Catechism_, by H. S. Olcott, President of the Theosophical
Society, p. 51.

1097 _Ibid._ 51, 52.

1098 We refer those who would regard the statement as an impertinence or
irreverence levelled at accepted Science, to Dr. James Hutchinson
Stirling’s work _As regards Protoplasm_, which is a defence of a
Vital Principle _versus_ the Molecularists—Huxley, Tyndall, Vogt,
and Co.—and request them to examine whether it is true or not to say
that, though the scientific premisses may not be always correct,
they are, nevertheless, accepted, to fill up a gap or a hole in some
beloved materialistic hobby. Speaking of protoplasm and the organs
of man, as “viewed by Mr. Huxley,” the author says: “Probably then,
in regard to any continuity in protoplasm of power, of form, or of
substance, we have seen _lacunæ_ enow. Nay, Mr. Huxley himself can
be adduced in evidence on the same side. Not rarely do we find in
his essay admissions of _probability_, where it is _certainty_ that
is alone in place. He says, for example: ‘It is more than probable
that _when_ the vegetable world is thoroughly explored we _shall_
find all plants in possession of the same powers.’ When a conclusion
is decidedly announced, it is rather disappointing to be told, as
here, that the premisses are still to collect [!!].... Again, here
is a passage in which he is seen to cut his own ‘_basis_’ from
beneath his own feet. After telling us that all forms of protoplasm
consist of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen ‘in very complex
union,’ he continues: ‘To this complex combination, _the nature of
which has never been determined with exactness_ [!!], the name of
_protein_ has been applied.’ This, plainly, is an identification, on
Mr. Huxley’s own part, of protoplasm and _protein_; and what is said
of one, being necessarily true of the other, it follows that he
admits the nature of protoplasm never to have been determined with
exactness, and that even in his eyes the _lis_ is still _sub
judice_. This admission is strengthened by the words, too, ‘If we
use this term (protein) with such _caution_ as may properly arise
out of our _comparative ignorance_ of the things for which it
stands’ ” ... etc. (pp. 33 and 34, ed. 1872, in reply to Mr. Huxley
in _Yeast_).

This is the eminent Huxley, the king of physiology and biology, who
is proven playing at blind man’s buff with _premisses_ and _facts_!
What may not the “smaller fry” of Science do after this!

1099 “The Cycles of Matter,” a name given by Professor Winchell to an
Essay written in 1860.

1100 _World‐Life_, pp. 535, 548.

1101 Quoted in Büchner’s _Force and Matter_.

1102 Men of Science will say: We deny, because nothing of the kind has
ever come within the scope of our experience. But, as argued by
Charles Richet, the Physiologist: “So be it, but have you at least
demonstrated the contrary?... Do not, at any rate, deny _à priori_.
Actual Science is not sufficiently advanced to give you such
right.”—_La Suggestion Mentale et le Calcul des Probabilités._

1103 _Lectures on the Philosophy of History_, p. 26. Sibree’s Eng.
Transl.

1104 _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. 1, p. 34.

1105 This symbolism does not prevent these now seemingly mythic
personages from having ruled the Earth once upon a time under the
human form of actual living, though truly divine and god‐like Men.
The opinion of Colonel Vallancey—and also of Count de Gebelin—that
the “names of the Kabiri appear to be all allegorical, and to have
signified no more [?] than an almanac of the vicissitudes of the
seasons—calculated for the operations of agriculture” (_Collect. de
Reb. Hibern._, No. 13, Præf. Sect. 5), is as absurd as his assertion
that Æon, Cronus, Saturn and Dagon are all one, namely, the
“Patriarch Adam.” The Kabiri were the instructors of mankind in
agriculture, because they were the Regents over the seasons and
Cosmic Cycles. Hence it was they who regulated, as Planetary Spirits
or Angels (Messengers), the _mysteries_ of the _art_ of agriculture.

1106 “Who dread Karma‐Nemesis,” would be better.

1107 Dryden.

1108 Not all, however, for there are men of Science awakening to truth.
This is what we read: “Whatever way we turn our eyes we encounter a
mystery ... all in Nature for us is the unknown.... Yet they are
numerous, those superficial minds for whom nothing can be produced
by natural forces outside of facts observed long ago, consecrated in
books and grouped more or less skilfully with the help of theories
whose ephemeral duration ought, by this time, to have demonstrated
their insufficiency, .... I do not pretend to contest the
possibility of invisible beings, of a nature different from ours and
capable of moving matter to action. Profound philosophers have
admitted this in all epochs, as a consequence of the great law of
continuity which rules the universe. That intellectual life, which
we see starting in some way from non‐being (_néant_) and gradually
reaching man, can it stop abruptly at man to reäppear only in the
infinite, in the sovereign regulator of the world? This is little
probable.” Therefore, “I no more deny the existence of spirits than
I deny soul, while I yet try to explain certain facts without this
hypothesis.” _The Non‐Defined Forces, Historical and Experimental
Researches_, p. 3. (Paris, 1877.) The author is A. de Rochas, a
well‐known man of Science in France, and his work is one of the
signs of the time.

1109 ix. 9.

1110 xxxviii. 31, 32.

1111 _Astronomie Antique._

1112 The Pleiades, as all know, are the seven stars beyond the Bull,
which appear at the beginning of spring. They have a very Occult
meaning in the Hindû Esoteric Philosophy, and are connected with
_Sound_ and other mystic principles in Nature.

1113 See _Astronomie Antique_, pp. 63 to 74.

1114 _Temple de Jerusalem_, Vol. II, Part II, Chap. xxx.

1115 Ch. vii.

1116 Quoted by De Mirville, _Des Esprits_, iv. p. 58.

1117 _Natural Genesis_, ii. p. 318.

1118 _Proœm_, 2.

1119 _Astronomy of the Ancients_, Lewis, p. 264.

1120 _Natural Genesis_, ii. p. 319.

1121 Proclus, _In Timæum_, i.

1122 _Genesis_, xlix.

1123 Creuzer, iii. p. 930.

1124 _Cyropædia_, viii. p. 7, as quoted in _Des Esprits_, iv. p. 55.

1125 _Des Esprits_, iv. pp. 59, 60.

1126 _Origine de tous les Cultes_, “Zodiaque.”

1127 _Vie de Notre Seigneur Jésus Christ_, I. p. 9.

1128 Whether many nations have seen that identical star, or not, we all
know that the sepulchres of the “three Magi”—who rejoice in the
quite Teutonic names of Kaspar and Melchior, Balthazar being the
only exception, and the two having little of the Chaldean ring in
them—are shown by the priests in the famous cathedral of Cologne,
where the Magian bodies are not only supposed, but firmly believed
to have been buried.

1129 This tradition about the “seventy planets” that preside over the
destinies of nations, is based on the Occult cosmogonical teaching
that besides our own septenary chain of World‐Planets, there are
many more in the Solar System.

1130 _Des Esprits_, iv. p. 67.

1131 _The Mythological Astronomy of the Ancients Demonstrated_; Part the
Second, or The Key of Urania: pp. 23, 24. Ed. 1823.

1132 Every scholar is aware, of course, that the Chaldeans claimed the
same digits (432), or 432,000, for their Divine Dynasties as the
Hindûs do for their Mahâyuga, namely 4,320,000. Therefore has Dr.
Sepp, of Munich, undertaken to support Kepler and Wilford in their
charge that the Hindûs borrowed them from the Christians, and the
Chaldeans from the Jews, who, it is claimed, expected their Messiah
in the lunar year of the world 4,320!!! As these figures, according
to ancient writers, were based by Berosus on the 120 Saroses—each of
the divisions meaning six Neroses of 600 years each, making a sum
total of 432,000 years—they would appear to be peremptory, remarks
De Mirville (_Des Esprits_, iii. p. 24). So the pious professor of
Munich undertook to explain them _in the correct way_. He claims to
have solved the riddle by showing that “the saros being composed,
according to Pliny, of 222 synodial months, to wit, 18 years 6/10,”
the calculator naturally fell back on the figures “given by Suidas,”
who affirmed that the “120 saroses made 2,222 sacerdotal and cyclic
years, which equalled 1,656 solar years.” (_Vie de Notre Seigneur
Jésus Christ_, ii. p. 417.)

But Suidas said nothing of the kind; and, even supposing he had, he
would prove little, if anything, by such a statement. The Neroses
and Saroses were the same thorn in the side of _uninitiated_ ancient
writers as the apocalyptic 666 of the “Great Beast” is in that of
the modern, and the former figures have found their unlucky Newtons,
as have the latter.

1133 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii. p. 132.

1134 The reader has to bear in mind that the phrase “climacteric year”
has more than the usual significance, when used by Occultists and
Mystics. It is not only a critical period, during which some great
change is periodically expected, whether in human or cosmic
constitution, but it likewise pertains to universal spiritual
changes. The Europeans called every 63rd year the “grand
climacteric,” and perhaps justly supposed those years to be the
years produced by multiplying 7 into the odd numbers 3, 5, 7 and 9.
But 7 is the real scale of Nature, in Occultism, and 7 has to be
multiplied in quite a different way and method than is as yet known
to European nations.

1135 _Des Espirits_; iv. p. 61.

1136 ii. p. 490.

1137 See _Recueil de l’Académie des Inscriptions_, 1853, quoted in _Des
Esprits_, iv. p. 62.

1138 _Ruins of Empires_, p. 360.

1139 See pp. 54, 196, _et seqq_.

1140 For a detailed scientific proof of this conclusion, see page 121 of
M. Bailly’s work, where the subject is discussed technically.

1141 Why it should be “fictitious” can never be made plain by European
Scientists.

1142 Bailly’s _Traité de l’Astronomie Indienne et Orientale_, pp. xx. _et
seq._ Ed. 1787.

1143 Ch. III. “On Matter.”

1144 _Lecture on Protoplasm_, by Mr. Huxley.

1145 Ganot’s _Physics_, p. 68, Atkinson’s Translation.

1146 See Vol. I. pp. 338, 339, quoted from _Le Mystère et la Science_,
Conférences, Père Félix de Notre Dame.

1147 Behold the work of Cycles and their periodical return! Those who
denied such “Entities” (Forces) to be bodies, and called them
“Spaces,” were the prototypes of our modern “science‐struck” public,
and their official teachers, who speak of the Forces of Nature as
the imponderable energy of Matter and as modes of motion, and yet
hold electricity, for one, as being as _atomic as Matter_
itself—(Helmholtz). Inconsistency and contradiction reign as much in
official as in heterodox Science.

1148 _The Virgin of the World_ of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, rendered
into English by Dr. Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland. Pp. 83, 84.

1149 “Hermes here includes as Gods the sensible Forces of Nature, the
elements and phenomena of the Universe,” remarks Dr. A. Kingsford in
a foot‐note explaining it very correctly. So does Eastern
Philosophy.

1150 _Ibid._, pp. 64, 65.

1151 See also Section IX, THE COMING FORCE.

1152 “O Toom, Toom! issued from the great [female] which is in the bosom
of the waters [the great Deep or Space], luminous through the two
Lions,” the dual Force, or power of the two _solar eyes_, or the
electro‐positive and the electro‐negative forces. See _Book of the
Dead_, ch. iii.

1153 See _Book of the Dead_, chapter xvii.

1154 Chapter lxxix.

1155 An image expressing the succession of divine functions, the
transmutation of one form into another, or the correlation of
forces. Aam is the electro‐positive force, devouring all others, as
Saturn devoured his progeny.

1156 Aanroo is in the domain of Osiris, a field divided into _fourteen_
sections, “surrounded with an _iron_ enclosure, within which grows
the _corn of life seven_ cubits high,” the Kâma Loka of the
Egyptians. Those only of the dead, who know the names of the
janitors of the “seven halls,” will be admitted into Amenti _for
ever_; _i.e._, those who have passed through the Seven Races of each
Round—otherwise they will rest in the _lower fields_; and it
represents also the seven successive Devachans, or Lokas. In Amenti
one becomes pure spirit for the eternity (xxx. 4); while in Aanroo
the “soul of the spirit,” or the Defunct, is _devoured_ each time by
Uræus—the Serpent, Son of the Earth (in another sense the primordial
vital principles in the Sun), _i.e._, the Astral Body of the
deceased or the “Elementary” fades out and disappears in the “Son of
the Earth,” _limited_ time. The soul quits the fields of Aanroo and
goes on earth under any shape it likes to assume. (See chapter
xcix., _Book of the Dead_.)

1157 See _Book of the Dead_, chapter cviii. 4.

1158 Maspero in the _Guide au Musée de Boulaq_, p. 152. Ed. 1883.

1159 See _Book of the Dead_, ch. xciv.

1160 _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1865, pp. 157 and 158.