The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 of 4 The Synthesis of...

In his reply to Dr. Gull's attack on the theory of Vitality, which is inseparably connected with the Elements of the Ancients in the Occult Philosophy, Professor Beale, the great Physiologist, has a few words as suggestive as they are beautiful:

There is a mystery in life—a mystery which has never been fathomed, and which appears greater, the more deeply the phenomena of life are studied and contemplated. In living centres—far more central than the centres seen by the highest magnifying powers, in centres of living matter, where the eye cannot penetrate, but towards which the understanding may tend—proceed changes of the nature of which the most advanced physicists and chemists fail to afford us the conception: nor is there the slightest reason to think that the nature of these changes will ever be ascertained by physical investigation, inasmuch as they are certainly of an order or nature totally distinct from that to which any other phenomenon known to us can be relegated.

The Sun is the heart of the Solar World [System] and its brain is hidden behind the [visible] Sun. Thence, sensation is radiated into every nerve-centre of the great body, and the waves of the life-essence flow into each artery and vein.... The planets are its limbs and pulses.

It has been stated elsewhere938 that Occult philosophy denies that the Sun is a globe in combustion, but defines it simply as a world, a glowing [pg 591] sphere, the real Sun being hidden behind, and the visible Sun being only its reflection, its shell. The Nasmyth willow leaves, mistaken by Sir John Herschell for “solar inhabitants,” are the reservoirs of solar vital energy; “the vital electricity that feeds the whole system; the sun in abscondito being thus the storehouse of our little Cosmos, self-generating its vital fluid, and ever receiving as much as it gives out,” and the visible Sun only a window cut into the real solar palace and presence, which, however, shews without distortion the interior work.

Thus, during the manvantaric solar period, or life, there is a regular circulation of the vital fluid throughout our System, of which the Sun is the heart—like the circulation of the blood in the human body; the Sun contracting as rhythmically as the human heart does at every return of it. Only, instead of performing the round in a second or so, it takes the solar blood ten of its years to circulate, and a whole year to pass through its auricle and ventricle before it washes the lungs, and passes thence back to the great arteries and veins of the System.

This, Science will not deny, since Astronomy knows of the fixed cycle of eleven years when the number of solar spots increases,939 the increase being due to the contraction of the Solar Heart. The Universe, our World in this case, breathes, just as man and every living creature, plant, and even mineral does upon the Earth; and as our Globe itself breathes every twenty-four hours. The dark region is not due to the “absorption exerted by the vapours issuing from the bosom of the sun, and interposed between the observer and the photosphere,” as Father Secchi would have it,940 nor are the spots formed “by the matter [heated gaseous matter] itself which the irruption projects upon the solar disk.” The phenomenon is similar to the regular and healthy pulsation of the heart, as the life fluid passes through its hollow muscles. Could the human heart be made luminous, and the living and throbbing organ made visible, so as to have it reflected upon a screen, such as is used by lecturers on Astronomy to show the moon, for instance, then every one would see the sun-spot phenomena repeated every [pg 592] second, and that they were due to contraction and the rushing of the blood.

Occult Philosophy has taught this since the existence of human speech and language, adding, however, on the principle of the immutable law of analogy, “as it is above, so it is below,” another of its axioms, that there is neither Spirit nor Matter, in reality, but only numberless aspects of the One ever-hidden Is, or Sat. The homogeneous primordial Element is simple and single, only on the terrestrial plane of consciousness and sensation, since Matter, after all, is nothing more than the sequence of our own states of consciousness, and Spirit an idea of psychic intuition. Even on the next higher plane, that single element which is defined on our Earth by current Science, as the ultimate undecomposable constituent of some kind of Matter, would be pronounced in the world of a higher spiritual perception to be something very complex indeed. Our purest water would be found to yield, instead of its two declared simple elements of oxygen and hydrogen, many other constituents, undreamed of by our modern terrestrial Chemistry. As in the realm of Matter, so in the realm of Spirit, the shadow of that which is cognized on the plane of objectivity exists on that of pure subjectivity. The speck of the perfectly homogeneous Substance, the sarcode of the Hæckelian Moneron, is now viewed as the archebiosis of terrestrial existence (Mr. Huxley's protoplasm)942; and Bathybius Hæckelii has to be traced to its pre-terrestrial archebiosis. This is first perceived by the Astronomers at its third stage of evolution, and in the “secondary creation,” so-called.

Brahmâ ... has essentially theaspect ofPrakriti, both evolved and unevolved.... Spirit, O Twice-born [Initiate], is the leadingaspectof Brahmâ. The next is a two-fold aspect [of Prakriti and Purusha] ... both evolved and unevolved; and Time is the last!943

Surely, then, the elements now known to us—be their number whatever it may—as they are understood and defined at present, are not, nor can they be, the primordial Elements. Those were formed from “the curds of the cold radiant Mother” and “the fire-seed of the hot Father,” who “are one,” or, to express it in the plainer language of Modern Science, those Elements had their genesis in the depths of the primordial Fire-mist, the masses of incandescent vapour of the irresolvable nebulæ; for, as Professor Newcomb shows,944 resolvable nebulæ do not constitute a class of proper nebulæ. More than half of those, he thinks, which were at first mistaken for nebulæ, are what he calls “starry clusters.”

The elements now known have arrived at their state of permanency in this Fourth Round and Fifth Race. They have a short period of rest before they are propelled once more on their upward spiritual evolution, when the “living fire of Orcus” will dissociate the most irresolvable, and scatter them again into the primordial One.

Meanwhile the Occultist goes further, as has been shown in the Commentaries on the Seven Stanzas. Hence he can hardly hope for any help or recognition from Science, which will reject both his “anîyâmsam anîyasâm,” the absolutely spiritual Atom, and his Mânasaputras or Mind-born Men. In resolving the “single material element” into one absolute irresolvable Element, Spirit, or Root-Matter, thus placing it at once outside the reach and province of Physical Philosophy—he has, of course but little in common with the orthodox men of Science. He maintains that Spirit and Matter are two Facets of the unknowable Unity, their apparently contrasted aspects depending, (a) on the various degrees of differentiation of Matter, and (b) on the grades of consciousness attained by man himself. This is, however, Metaphysics, and has little to do with Physics—however great in its own terrestrial limitation that physical Philosophy may now be.

Nevertheless, once that Science admits, if not the actual existence, at any rate, the possibility of the existence, of a Universe with its numberless forms, conditions, and aspects built out of a “single [pg 594] Substance,”945 it has to go further. Unless it also admits the possibility of One Element, or the One Life of the Occultists, it will have to hang up that “single Substance,” especially if limited to only the solar nebulæ, in mid air, like the coffin of Mahomet, though minus the attractive magnet that sustained that coffin. Fortunately for the speculative Physicists, if we are unable to state with any degree of precision what the nebular theory does imply, we have, thanks to Professor Winchell, and several dissident Astronomers, been able to learn what it does not imply.

Unfortunately, this is far from clearing even the most simple of the problems that have vexed, and do still vex, the men of learning in their search after truth. We have to proceed with our enquiries, starting with the earliest hypotheses of Modern Science, if we would discover where and why it sins. Perchance it may be found that Stallo is right, after all, and that the blunders, contradictions and fallacies made by the most eminent men of learning are simply due to their abnormal attitude. They are, and want to remain Materialistic quand même, and yet “the general principles of the atomo-mechanical theory—the basis of modern Physics—are substantially identical with the cardinal doctrines of ontological Metaphysics.” Thus, “the fundamental errors of ontology become apparent in proportion to the advance of physical science.”946 Science is honeycombed with metaphysical conceptions, but the Scientists will not admit the charge, and fight desperately to put atomo-mechanical masks on purely incorporeal and spiritual laws in Nature, on our plane—refusing to admit their [pg 595] substantiality even on other planes, the bare existence of which they reject à priori.

It is easy to show, however, how Scientists, wedded to their materialistic views, have, ever since the days of Newton, endeavoured to put false masks on fact and truth. But their task is becoming every year more difficult; and every year also, Chemistry, beyond all the other sciences, approaches nearer and nearer the realm of the Occult in Nature. It is assimilating the very truths taught by the Occult Sciences for ages, but hitherto bitterly derided. “Matter is eternal,” says the Esoteric Doctrine. But the Matter the Occultists conceive of in its laya, or zero state, is not the matter of Modern Science, not even in its most rarefied gaseous state. Mr. Crookes' “radiant matter” would appear Matter of the grossest kind in the realm of the beginnings, as it becomes pure Spirit before it returns back even to its first point of differentiation. Therefore, when the Adept or Alchemist adds that, though Matter is eternal, for it is Pradhâna, yet Atoms are born at every new Manvantara, or reconstruction of the universe, it is no such contradiction as a Materialist, who believes in nothing beyond the Atom, might think. There is a difference between manifested and unmanifested Matter, between Pradhâna, the beginningless and endless cause, and Prakriti, or the manifested effect. Says the Shloka:

That which in modern phraseology is referred to as Spirit and Matter, is one in eternity as the Perpetual Cause, and it is neither Spirit nor Matter, but it—rendered in Sanskrit by Tad, “that”—all that is, was, or will be, all that the imagination of man is capable of conceiving. Even the exoteric Pantheism of Hindûism renders it as no monotheistic Philosophy ever did, for in superb phraseology its Cosmogony begins with the well-known words:

There was neither day nor night, neither heaven nor earth, neither darkness nor light. And there was not aught else apprehensible by the senses or by the mental faculties. There was then, however, one Brahma, essentially Prakriti [Nature] and Spirit. For the two aspects of Vishnu which are other than his supreme essential aspect are Prakriti and Spirit, O Brâhman.Whenthese two otheraspectsof his no longer subsist, but are dissolved,thenthataspectwhence form and the rest,i.e.,creation, proceedanew, is denominated time, O twice-born.

It is that which is dissolved, or the illusionary dual aspect of That, the essence of which is eternally One, that we call Eternal Matter, or Substance, formless, sexless, inconceivable, even to our sixth sense or mind,948 in which, therefore, we refuse to see that which Monotheists call a personal, anthropomorphic God.

How are these two propositions—that “Matter is eternal,” and that “the Atom is periodical, and not eternal”—viewed by exact Modern Science? The materialistic Physicist will criticize and laugh them to scorn. The liberal and progressive man of Science, however, the true and earnest scientific searcher after truth, such as the eminent Chemist, Mr. Crookes, will corroborate the probability of the two statements. For hardly had the echo of his lecture on the “Genesis of the Elements” died away—the lecture which, delivered by him before the Chemical Section of the British Association, at the Birmingham meeting in 1887, so startled every evolutionist who heard or read it—than there came another in March, 1888. Once more the President of the Chemical Society brought before the world of Science and the public the fruits of some new discoveries in the realm of Atoms, and these discoveries justified the Occult Teachings in every way. They are more startling even than the statements made by him in the first lecture, and well deserve the attention of every Occultist, Theosophist, and Metaphysician. This is what he says in his “Elements and Meta-Elements,” thus justifying Stallo's charges and prevision, with the fearlessness of a scientific mind which loves Science for truth's sake, regardless of any consequences to his own glory and reputation. We quote his own words:

Permit me, gentlemen, now to draw your attention for a short time to a subject which concerns the fundamental principles of chemistry, a subject which may lead us to admit the possible existence of bodies which, though neither compounds nor mixtures, are not elements in the strictest sense of the word—bodies which I venture to call“meta-elements.”To explain my meaning it is necessary for me to revert to our conception of an element. What is the criterion of an element? Where are we to draw the line between distinct existence and identity? No one doubts that oxygen, sodium, chlorine, sulphur are separate elements; and when we come to such groups as chlorine, bromine, iodine, etc., we still feel no doubt, although were degrees of“elementicity”admissible—and to that we may ultimately have to come—it might be allowed that chlorine approximates much more closely to bromine than to oxygen, sodium, or sulphur. Again, nickel and cobalt are near to each other, very near, though no one questions their claim to rank as distinct elements. Still I cannot help asking what would have been the prevalent[pg 597]opinion among chemists had the respective solutions of these bodies and their compounds presented identical colours, instead of colours which, approximately speaking, are mutually complementary. Would their distinct nature have even now been recognized? When we pass further and come to the so-called rare earths the ground is less secure under our feet.

Perhaps we may admit scandium, ytterbium, and others of the like sort to elemental rank; but what are we to say in the case of praseo- and neo-dymium, between which there may be said to exist no well-marked chemical difference, their chief claim to separate individuality being slight differences in basicity and crystallizing powers, though their physical distinctions, as shown by spectrum observations, are very strongly marked? Even here we may imagine the disposition of the majority of chemists would incline toward the side of leniency, so that they would admit these two bodies within the charmed circle. Whether in so doing they would be able to appeal to any broad principle is an open question. If we admit these candidates how in justice are we to exclude the series of elemental bodies or meta-elements made known to us by Krüss and Nilson? Here the spectral differences are well marked, while my own researches on didymium show also a slight difference in basicity between some at least of these doubtful bodies. In the same category must be included the numerous separate“elements”—commonly so-called—have been and are being split up. Where then are we to draw the line? The different groupings shade off so imperceptibly the one into the other that it is impossible to erect a definite boundary between any two adjacent bodies and to say that the body on this side of the line is an element, while the one on the other side is non-elementary, or merely something which simulates or approximates to an element.

Wherever an apparently reasonable line might be drawn it would no doubt be easy at once to assign most bodies to their proper side, as in all cases of classification the real difficulty comes in when the border-line is approached. Slight chemical differences, of course, are admitted, and, up to a certain point, so are well-marked physical differences. What are we to say, however, when the only chemical difference is an almost imperceptible tendency for the one body—of a couple or of a group—to precipitate before the other? Again, there are cases where the chemical differences reach the vanishing point, although well-marked physical differences still remain. Here we stumble on a new difficulty: in such obscurities what is chemical and what is physical? Are we not entitled to call a slight tendency of a nascent amorphous precipitate to fall down in advance of another a“physical difference”? And may we not call coloured reactions depending on the amount of some particular acid present and varying, according to the concentration of the solution and to the solvent employed,“chemical differences”? I do not see how we can deny elementary character to a body which differs from another by well-marked colour, or spectrum-reactions, while we accord it to another body whose only claim is a very minute difference in basic powers. Having once opened the door wide enough to admit some spectrum differences, we have to inquire how minute a difference qualifies the candidate to pass? I will give instances from my own experience of some of these doubtful candidates.

Here the great Chemist gives several cases of the very extraordinary behaviour of molecules and earths, apparently the same, but which yet, when examined very closely, were found to exhibit differences which, however minute, still show that none of them are simple bodies, and that the 60 or 70 elements accepted in chemistry can no longer cover the ground. Their name, apparently, is legion, but as the so-called “periodic theory” stands in the way of an unlimited multiplication of elements, Mr. Crookes is obliged to find some means of reconciling the new discovery with the old theory. “That theory,” he says:

Has received such abundant verification that we cannot lightly accept any interpretation of phenomena which fails to be in accordance with it. But if we suppose the elements reïnforced by a vast number of bodies slightly differing from each other in their properties, and forming, if I may use the expression, aggregations of nebulæ where we formerly saw, or believed we saw, separate stars, the periodic arrangement can no longer be definitely grasped. No longer, that is, if we retain our usual conception of an element. Let us, then, modify this conception. For“element”read“elementary group”—such elementary groups taking the place of the old elements in the periodic scheme—and the difficulty falls away. In defining an element, let us take not an external boundary, but an internal type. Let us say,e.g., the smallest ponderable quantity of yttrium is an assemblage of ultimate atoms almost infinitely more like each other than they are to the atoms of any other approximating element. It does not necessarily follow that the atoms shall all be absolutely alike among themselves. The atomic weight which we ascribed to yttrium, therefore, merely represents a mean value around which the actual weights of the individual atoms of the“element”range within certain limits. But if my conjecture is tenable, could we separate atom from atom, we should find them varying within narrow limits on each side of the mean. The very process of fractionation implies the existence of such differences in certain bodies.

Thus fact and truth have once more forced the hand of “exact” Science, and compelled it to enlarge its views and change its terms, which, masking the multitude, reduced them to one body—like the Septenary Elohim and their hosts transformed by the materialistic religionists into one Jehovah. Replace the chemical terms “molecule,” “atom,” “particle,” etc., by the words “Hosts,” “Monads,” “Devas,” etc., and one might think the genesis of Gods, the primeval evolution of manvantaric intelligent Forces, was being described. But the learned lecturer adds to his descriptive remarks something still more suggestive; whether consciously or unconsciously, who knoweth? For he says:

Until lately such bodies passed muster as elements. They had definite properties, chemical and physical; they had recognized atomic weights. If we take a[pg 599]pure dilute solution of such a body, yttrium for instance, and if we add to it an excess of strong ammonia, we obtain a precipitate which appears perfectly homogeneous. But if instead we add very dilute ammonia in quantity sufficient only to precipitate one-half of the base present, we obtain no immediate precipitate. If we stir up the whole thoroughly so as to insure a uniform mixture of the solution and the ammonia, and set the vessel aside for an hour, carefully excluding dust, we may still find the liquid clear and bright, without any vestige of turbidity. After three or four hours, however, an opalescence will declare itself, and the next morning a precipitate will have appeared. Now let us ask ourselves, What can be the meaning of this phenomenon? The quantity of precipitant added was insufficient to throw down more than half the yttria present, therefore a process akin to selection has been going on for several hours. The precipitation hasevidently not been effected at random, those molecules of the base being decomposed which happened to come in contact with a corresponding molecule of ammonia, for we have taken care that the liquids should be uniformly mixed, so that one molecule of the original salt would not be more exposed to decomposition than any other.

If, further, we consider the time which elapses before the appearance of a precipitate, wecannot avoid coming to the conclusion that the action which has been going on for the first few hours is of a selective character. The problem is not why a precipitate is produced, but what determines or directs some atoms to fall down and others to remain in solution. Out of the multitude of atoms present,what power is it that directs each atom to choose the proper path? We may picture to ourselves some directive force passing the atoms one by one in review, selecting one for precipitation and another for solution till all have been adjusted.

The italics in the above passage are ours. Well may a man of Science ask himself: What power is it that directs each Atom? and what is the meaning of its character being selective? Theists would solve the question by answering “God”; and would thereby solve nothing philosophically. Occultism answers on its own Pantheistic grounds, and teaches the student about Gods, Monads, and Atoms. The learned lecturer sees in it that which is his chief concern: the finger-posts and the traces of a path which may lead to the discovery, and the full and complete demonstration, of an homogeneous element in Nature. He remarks:

In order that such a selection can be effected there evidently must be some slight differences between which it is possible to select, and this difference almost certainly must be one of basicity, so slight as to be imperceptible by any test at present known, but susceptible of being nursed and encouraged to a point when the difference can be appreciated by ordinary tests.

Occultism, which knows of the existence and presence in Nature of the One Eternal Element, at the first differentiation of which the roots of the Tree of Life are periodically struck, needs no scientific proofs. It [pg 600] says: Ancient Wisdom has solved the problem ages ago. Aye; earnest, as well as mocking reader, Science is slowly but surely approaching our domains of the Occult. It is forced by its own discoveries to adopt nolens volens our phraseology and symbols. Chemical Science is now compelled, by the very force of things, to accept even our illustration of the evolution of the Gods and Atoms, so suggestively and undeniably figured in the Caduceus of Mercury, the God of Wisdom, and in the allegorical language of the Archaic Sages. Says a Commentary in the Esoteric Doctrine:

The trunk of theAsvattha (the tree of Life and Being, the rod of the Caduceus) grows from and descends at every Beginning (every new Manvantara) from the two dark wings of the Swan (Hansa) of Life. The two Serpents, the ever-living and its illusion (Spirit and matter) whose two heads grow from the one head between the wings, descend along the trunks interlaced in close embrace. The two tails join on earth (the manifested Universe) into one, and this is the great illusion, O Lanoo!

Every one knows what the Caduceus is, modified considerably by the Greeks. The original symbol—with the triple head of the serpent—became altered into a rod with a knob, and the two lower heads were separated, thus disfiguring somewhat the original meaning. Yet it is as good an illustration as can be for our purpose, this laya rod, entwined by two serpents. Verily the wonderful powers of the magic Caduceus were sung by all the ancient poets, with a very good reason for those who understood the secret meaning.