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GODS, MONADS, AND ATOMS - IV

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__When, therefore, Professor Crookes declares that "If we can show how the so-called chemical elements might have been generated we shall be able to fill up a formidable gap in our knowledge of the universe, . . ." the answer is ready. The theoretical knowledge is contained in the esoteric meaning of every Hindu cosmogony in the Puranas; the practical demonstration thereof - is in the hands of those who will not be recognised in this century, save by the very few. The scientific possibilities of various discoveries, that must inexorably lead exact Science into the acceptation of Eastern Occult views, which contain all the requisite material for the filling of those "gaps," are, so far, at the mercy of modern materialism. It is only by working in the direction taken by Professor Crookes that there is any hope for the recognition of a few, hitherto Occult, truths.

__Meanwhile, one thirsting to have a glimpse at a practical diagram of the evolution of primordial matter, which, separating and differentiating under the impulse of cyclic law, divides itself into a septenary gradation of SUBSTANCE (from a general view), can do no better than examine the plates attached to Mr. Crookes' lecture, "Genesis of the Elements," and ponder well over some passages of the text. In one place (p. 11) he says:

__". . . . Our notions of a chemical element have expanded. Hitherto the molecule has been regarded as an aggregate of two or more atoms, and no account has been taken of the architectural design on which these atoms have been joined. We may consider that the structure of a chemical element is more complicated than has hitherto been supposed. Between the molecules we are accustomed to deal with in chemical reactions and ultimate atoms as first created, come smaller molecules or aggregates of physical atoms; then sub-molecules differ one from the other, according to the position they occupied in the yttrium edifice."

__"Perhaps this hypothesis can be simplified if we imagine yttrium to be represented by a five-shilling piece. By chemical fractionation I have divided it into five separate shillings, and find that these shillings are not counterparts, but like the carbon atoms in the benzol ring, have the impress of their position, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, stamped on them. . . . If I throw my shillings into the melting-pot or dissolve them chemically, the mint stamp disappears and they all turn out to be silver." . . .

__This will be the case with all the atoms and molecules when they have separated from their compound forms and bodies - when pralaya sets in. Reverse the case, and imagine the dawn of a new manvantara. The pure "silver" of the absorbed material will once more separate into SUBSTANCE, which will generate "Divine Essences" whose "principles" * are the primary elements, the sub-elements, the physical energies and subjective and objective matter; or, as these are epitomised - GODS, MONADS, and ATOMS. If leaving for one moment the metaphysical or transcendental side of the question, - dropping out of the present consideration the supersensuous and intelligent beings and entities believed in by the Kabalists and Christians - we turn to the atomical theory of evolution, the occult teachings are still found corroborated by exact Science and its confessions, as far, at least, as regards the supposed "simple" elements, now suddenly degraded into poor and distant relatives ? not even second cousins to the latter.

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* Corresponding on the cosmic scale with the Spirit, Soul-mind, Life, and the three VehiclesMayavic and the physical bodies (of mankind) whatever division is made.
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For we are told by Prof. Crookes that:

"Hitherto, it has been considered that if the atomic weight of a metal, determined by different observers, setting out from different compounds, was always found to be constant . . . then such metal must rightly take rank among the simple or elementary bodies. We learn . . . that this is no longer the case. Again, we have here wheels within wheels. Gadolinium is not an element but a compound. . . We have shown that yttrium is a complex of five or more new constituents. And who shall venture to gainsay that each of these constituents, if attacked in some different manner, and if the result were submitted to a test more delicate and searching than the radiant-matter test, might not be still further divisible? Where, then, is the actual ultimate element? As we advance it recedes like the tantalizing mirage lakes and groves seen by the tired and thirsty traveller in the desert. Are we in our quest for truth to be thus deluded and baulked? The very idea of an element, as something absolutely primary and ultimate, seems to be growing less and less distinct. . ." (p. 16).

__On page 429 of Isis Unveiled, Vol. I., we said that "the mystery of first creation, which was ever the despair of Science, is unfathomable unless they (the Scientists) accept the doctrine of Hermes. They will have to follow in the footsteps of the Hermetists." Our prophecy begins to assert itself.

__But between Hermes and Huxley there is a middle course and point. Let the men of Science only throw a bridge half-way, and think seriously over the theories of Leibnitz. We have shown our theories with regard to atomic evolution - their last formation into compound chemical molecules being produced within our terrestrial workshops in the earth's atmosphere and not elsewhere - as strangely agreeing with the evolution of atoms shown on Mr. Crookes' plates. Several times already it was stated in this volume that Marttanda (the Sun) had evolved and aggregated, together with his smaller seven Brothers, from his Mother's (Aditi's) bosom, that bosom being prima MATER-ia - the lecturer's primordial protyle. Esoteric doctrines teach the existence of "an antecedent form of energy having periodic cycles of ebb and swell, rest and activity" (p. 21) - and behold a great scholar in Science now asking the world to accept this as one of the postulates. We have shown the "Mother," fiery and hot, becoming gradually cool and radiant, and that same Scientist claims as his second postulate, a scientific necessity, it would seem - "an internal action akin to cooling, operating slowly in the protyle." Occult Science teaches that "Mother" lies stretched in infinity (during Pralaya) as the great Deep, the "dry Waters of Space," according to the quaint expression in the Catechism, and becomes wet only after the separation and the moving over its face of Narayana, the "Spirit which is invisible Flame, which never burns, but sets on fire all that it touches, and gives it life and generation." ? And now Science tells us that "the first-born element . . . most nearly allied to protyle" . . . would be "hydrogen . . . which for some time would be the only existing form of matter" in the Universe. What says Old Science? It answers: just so; but we would call hydrogen and oxygen (which instils the fire of life into the "Mother" by incubation) in the pregenetic and even pre-geological ages ? the Spirit, the noumenon of that which becomes in its grossest form oxygen and hydrogen and nitrogen on Earth ? nitrogen being of no divine origin, but merely an earth-born cement to unite other gases and fluids, and serve as a sponge to carry in itself the breath of LIFE - pure air.? Before these gases and fluids become what they are in our atmosphere, they are interstellar Ether; still earlier and on a deeper plane - something else, and so on in infinitum. The eminent and learned gentleman must pardon an Occultist for quoting him at such length; but such is the penalty of a Fellow of the Royal Society who approaches so near the precincts of the Sacred Adytum of Occult mysteries as virtually to overstep the forbidden boundaries.

__But it is time to leave modern physical science and turn to the psychological and metaphysical side of the question. We would only remark that to the "two very reasonable postulates" required by the eminent lecturer, "to get a glimpse of some few of the secrets so darkly hidden" behind "the door of the Unknown" - a third should be added ? - lest no battering at it should avail; the postulate that Leibnitz, in his speculations, stood on a firm groundwork of fact and truth. The admirable and thoughtful synopsis of these speculations - as given by John Theodore Merz in his "Leibnitz" - shows how nearly he has brushed the hidden secrets of esoteric Theogony in his Monadologie. And yet that philosopher has hardly risen in his speculations above the first planes, the lower principles of the Cosmic Great Body. His theory soars to no loftier heights than those of the manifested life, self-consciousness and intelligence, leaving the regions of the earlier post-genetic mysteries untouched, as his ethereal fluid is post-planetary.

__But this third postulate will hardly be accepted by the modern men of Science; and, like Descartes, they will prefer keeping to the properties of external things, which, like extension, are incapable of explaining the phenomenon of motion, rather than accept the latter as an independent Force. They will never become anti-Cartesian in this generation; nor will they admit that "this property of inertia is not a purely geometrical property, that it points to the existence of something in external bodies which is not extension merely." This is Leibnitz's idea as analyzed by Mertz, who adds that he called this something Force, and maintained that external things were endowed with Force, and that in order to be the bearers of this force they must have a substance, for they are not lifeless and inert masses, but the centres and bearers of form, a purely esoteric claim, since force was with Leibnitz an active principle, the division between mind and matter disappearing by this conclusion. But,

__"The mathematical and dynamical inquiries of Leibnitz would not have led to the same result in the mind of a purely scientific inquirer. But Leibnitz was not a scientific man in the modern sense of the word. Had he been so, he might have worked out the conception of energy, defined mathematically the ideas of force and mechanical work, and arrived at the conclusion that even for purely scientific purposes it is desirable to look upon force, not as a primary quantity, but as a quantity derived from some other value."

But, luckily for truth ?

"Leibnitz was a philosopher; and as such he had certain primary principles, which biassed him in favour of certain conclusions, and his discovery that external things were substances endowed with force was at once used for the purpose of applying these principles. One of these principles was the law of continuity, the conviction that all the world was connected, that there were no gaps and chasms which could not be bridged over. The contrast of extended thinking substances was unbearable to him. The definition of the extended substances had already become untenable: it was natural that a similar inquiry was made into the definition of mind, the thinking substance. . ."

__The divisions made by Leibnitz, however incomplete and faulty from the standpoint of Occultism, show a spirit of metaphysical intuition to which no man of science, not Descartes - not even Kant - has ever reached. With him there existed ever an infinite gradation of thought. Only a small portion of the contents of our thoughts, he said, rises into the clearness of apperception, "into the light of perfect consciousness." Many remain in a confused or obscure state, in the state of "perceptions;" but they are there; . . . Descartes denied soul to the animal, Leibnitz endowed, as the Occultists do, "the whole creation with mental life, this being, according to him, capable of infinite gradations." And this, as Mertz justly observes, "at once widened the realm of mental life, destroying the contrast of animate and inanimate matter; it did yet more - it reacted on the conception of matter, of the extended substance. For it became evident that external or material things presented the property of extension to our senses only, not to our thinking faculties. The mathematician, in order to calculate geometrical figures, had been obliged to divide them into an infinite number of infinitely small parts, and the physicist saw no limit to the divisibility of matter into atoms. The bulk through which external things seemed to fill space was a property which they acquired only through the coarseness of our senses. . . . Leibnitz followed these arguments to some extent, but he could not rest content in assuming that matter was composed of a finite number of very small parts. His mathematical mind forced him to carry out the argument in infinitum. And what became of the atoms then? They lost their extension and they retained only their property of resistance; they were the centres of force. They were reduced to mathematical points . . . but if their extension in space was nothing, so much fuller was their inner life. Assuming that inner existence, such as that of the human mind, is a new dimension, not a geometrical but a metaphysical dimension . . . having reduced the geometrical extension of the atoms to nothing, Leibnitz endowed them with an infinite extension in the direction of their metaphysical dimension. After having lost sight of them in the world of space, the mind has, as it were, to dive into a metaphysical world to find and grasp the real essence of what appears in space merely as a mathematical point. . . . As a cone stands on its point, or a perpendicular straight line cuts a horizontal plane only in one mathematical point, but may extend infinitely in height and depth, so the essences of things real have only a punctual existence in this physical world of space; but have an infinite depth of inner life in the metaphysical world of thought . . . " (p. 144).

__This is the spirit, the very root of occult doctrine and thought. The "Spirit-Matter" and "Matter-Spirit" extend infinitely in depth, and like "the essence of things" of Leibnitz, our essence of things real is at the seventh depth; while the unreal and gross matter of Science and the external world, is at the lowest end of our perceptive senses. The Occultist knows the worth or worthlessness of the latter.