for the time being an independent mind, omniscient and universal; and by the same process of magnetic aggregation they create for themselves objective, visible bodies, out of the interstellar atoms. For atoms and Monads, associated or dissociated, simple or complex, are, from the moment of the first differentiation, but the principles, corporeal, psychic and Spiritual, of the "Gods,"--themselves the Radiations of primordial nature. Thus, to the eye of the Seer, the higher Planetary Powers appear under two aspects: the subjective-as influences, and the objective-as mystic FORMS, which, under Karmic law, become a Presence, Spirit and Matter being One, as repeatedly stated. Spirit is matter on the seventh plane; matter is Spirit-on the lowest point of its cyclic activity; and both-are MAYA.

Atoms are called "Vibrations" in Occultism; also "Sound "--collectively. This does not interfere with Mr. Tyndall's scientific discovery. He traced, on the lower rung of the ladder of monadic being, the whole course of the atmospheric vibrations—and this constitutes the objective part of the process in nature. He has traced and recorded the rapidity of their motion and transmission; the force of their impact; their setting up vibrations in the tympanum and their transmission of these to the stolithes, etc., etc., till the vibration of the auditory nerve commences—and a new phenomenon now takes place: the subjective side of the process or the sensation of Sound. Does he perceive or see it? No; for his speciality is to discover the behaviour of matter. But why should not a psychic see it, a spiritual seer, whose inner Eye is opened, and who can see through the veil of matter? The waves and undulations of Science are all produced by atoms propelling their molecules into activity from within. Atoms fill the immensity of Space, and by their continuous vibration arc that Motion which keeps the wheels of Life perpetually going. It is that inner work that produces the natural phenomena called the correlation of Forces. Only, at the origin of every such "force," there stands the conscious guiding noumenon thereof Angel or God, Spirit or Demon—ruling powers, yet the

same.

As described by Seers—those who can see the motion of the interstellar shoals, and follow them in their evolution clairvoyantly— they are dazzling, like specks of virgin snow in radiant sunlight. Their velocity is swifter than thought, quicker than any mortal physical eye could follow, and, as well as can be judged from the tremendous rapidity of their course, the motion is circular. . . . . Standing on an open plain, on a mountain summit especially, and gazing into the vast vault above and the spacial infinitudes around, the whole atmosphere seems ablaze with them, the air soaked through with these dazzling coruscations. At times, the intensity of their motion produces flashes

like the Northern lights during the Aurora Borealis. The sight is so marvellous, that, as the Seer gazes into this inner world, and feels the scintillating points shoot past him, he is filled with awe at the thought of other, still greater mysteries, that lie beyond, and within, this radiant

ocean. ....

However imperfect and incomplete this explanation on "Gods, Monads and Atoms," it is hoped that some students and theosophists, at least, will feel that there may be indeed a close relation between materialistic Science, and Occultism, which is the complement and missing soul of the former.

XVI.

CYCLIC EVOLUTION AND KARMA.

It is the Spiritual evolution of the inner, immortal man that forms the fundamental tenet in the Occult Sciences. To realize even distantly such a process, the student has to believe (a) in the One Universal Life, independent of matter (or what Science regards as matter); and (b) in the individual intelligences that animate the various manifestations. of this Principle. Mr. Huxley does not believe in "Vital Force," others do. Dr. J. H. Hutchinson Sterling's work "Concerning Protoplasm" has made no small havoc of this dogmatic negation. Professor Beale's decision is also in favour of a Vital Principle; and Dr. B. W. Richardson's lectures on the "Nervous Ether," have been sufficiently quoted from. Thus, opinions are divided.

The One Life is closely related to the one law which governs the World of Being—Karma. Exoterically, this is simply and literally "action," or rather an "effect-producing cause." Esoterically it is quite a different thing in its far-fetching moral effects. It is the unerring Law Of Retribution. To say to those ignorant of the real significance, characteristics and awful importance of this eternal immutable law, that no theological definition of a personal deity can give an idea of this impersonal, yet ever present and active Principle, is to speak in vain. Nor can it be called Providence. For Providence, with the Theists (the Christian Protestants, at any rate), rejoices in a personal male gender, while with the Roman Catholics it is a female potency, "Divine Providence tempers His blessings to secure their better effects," Wogan tells us. Indeed "He" tempers them, which Karma

—a sexless principle—does not.

Throughout the first two Parts, it was shown that, at the first flutter

THE ROOTS AND CAUSES.

635

of renascent life, Svabhavat, "the mutable radiance of the Immutable Darkness unconscious in Eternity," passes, at every new rebirth of Kosmos, from an inactive state into one of intense activity; that it differentiates, and then begins its work through that differentiation. This work is KARMA.

66

The Cycles are also subservient to the effects produced by this activity. The one Cosmic atom becomes seven atoms on the plane of matter, and each is transformed into a centre of energy; that same atom becomes seven rays on the plane of spirit, and the seven creative forces of nature, radiating from the root-essence follow, one the right, the other the left path, separate till the end of the Kalpa, and yet are in close embrace. What unites them? Karma." The atoms emanated from the Central Point emanate in their turn new centres of energy, which, under the potential breath of Fohat, begin their work from within without, and multiply other minor centres. These, in the course of evolution and involution, form in their turn the roots or developing causes of new effects, from worlds and "man-bearing globes, down to the genera, species, and classes of all the seven kingdoms (of which we know only four). For "the blessed workers have received the Thyan-kam, in the eternity" (Book of "The Aphorisms of Tson-ka-pn").

"Thyan-kam” is the power or knowledge of guiding the impulses of cosmic energy in the right direction.

ness,

The true Buddhist, recognising no" personal god," nor any " Father" and "Creator of Heaven and Earth," still believes in an absolute conscious“Adi-Buddhi”; and the Buddhist philosopher knows that there are Planetary Spirits, the "Dhyan Chohans." But though he admits of "spiritual lives," yet, as they are temporary in eternity, even they, according to his philosophy, are "the maya of the day," the illusion of a "day of Brahma/' a short manvantara of 4,320,000,000 years. The "Yin-Sin " is not for the speculations of men, for the Lord Buddha has strongly prohibited all such inquiry. If the Dhyan Chohans and all the invisible Beings—the Seven Centres and their direct Emanations, the minor centres of Energy—are the direct reflex of the One Light, yet men are far removed from these, since the whole of the visible Kosmos consists of" self-produced beings, the creatures of Karma." Thus regarding a personal God " as only a gigantic shadow thrown upon the void of space by the imagination of ignorant men," they teach that only "two things are (objectively) eternal, namely Akdsa and Nirvana "; and that these are One in reality, and but a maya when divided. "Buddhists deny creation and cannot conceive of a Creator." "Everything has come out of Akasa (or Svabhavat

Vide Stanza VI. (Book I.) and Commentary.

+ Buddhist Catechism, by H. S. Olcott, President of the Theosophical Society.

on our earth) in obedience to a law of motion inherent in it, and after a certain existence passes away. Nothing ever came out of nothing." (Buddhist Catechism.)

If a Vedantic Brahmin of the Adwaita Sect, when asked whether he believes in the existence of God, is always likely to answer, as Jacolliot was answered—“ I am myself 'God'; a Buddhist (a Sinhalese especially) would simply laugh, and say in reply, "There is no God; no Creation." Yet the root philosophy of both Adwaita and Buddhist scholars is identical, and both have the same respect for animal life, for both believe that every creature on earth, however small and humble, "is an immortal portion of the immortal matter"—for matter with them has quite another significance than it has with either Christian or materialist—and that every creature is subject to Karma.

The answer of the Brahmin is one which would suggest itself to every ancient philosopher, Kabalist, and Gnostic of the early days. It contains the very spirit of the Delphic and Kabalistic commandments, for esoteric philosophy solved, ages ago, the problem of what man was, is, and will be: of man's origin, life-cycle—interminable in its duration of successive incarnations or rebirths—and finally of his absorption into the source from which he started.

But it is not physical Science that we can ever ask to read man for us, as the riddle of the Past, or that of the Future; since no philosopher is able to tell us even what man is, as he is known both to physiology and psychology. In doubt whether man was "a god or beast," he is now connected with the latter and derived from an animal. No doubt that the care of analyzing and classifying the human being as a terrestrial animal may be left to Science, which occultists—of all men— regard with veneration and respect. They recognize its ground and the wonderful work done by it, the progress achieved in physiology, and even—to a degree—in biology. But man's inner, spiritual, psychic, or even moral, nature cannot be left to the tender mercies of an ingrained materialism; for not even the higher psychological philosophy of the West is able, in its present incompleteness and tendency towards a decided agnosticism, to do justice to the inner; especially to his higher capacities and perceptions, and those states of consciousness, across the road to which such authorities as Mill draw a strong line, saying "So far, and no farther shalt thou go."

No Occultist would deny that man—no less than the elephant and the microbe, the crocodile and the lizard, the blade of grass or the crystal— is, in his physical formation, the simple product of the evolutionary forces of nature through a numberless series of transformations; but he puts the case differently.

It is not against zoological and anthropological discoveries, based on

THE SWING OF KARMA.

637 the fossils of man and animal, that every mystic and believer in a divine soul inwardly revolts, but only against the uncalled-for conclusions built on preconceived theories and made to fit in with certain prejudices. Their premises may or may not be always true; and as some of these theories live but a short life, the deductions therefrom must ever be one-sided with materialistic evolutionists. Yet it is on the strength of such very ephemeral authority, that most of the men of science frequently receive undue honours where they deserve them the least.

To make the working of Karma, in the periodical renovations of the Universe, more evident and intelligible to the student when he arrives at the origin and evolution of man, he has now to examine with us the esoteric bearing of the Karmic Cycles upon Universal Ethics. The question is, do those mysterious divisions of time, called Yugas and Kalpas by the Hindus, and so very graphically—Kókos—"cycle," ring or circle, by the Greeks, have any bearing upon, or any direct connection. with, human life? Even exoteric philosophy explains that these perpetual circles of time are ever returning on themselves, periodically, and

* We refer those who would regard the statement as an impertinence or irreverence against accepted Science, to Mr. James Hutchinson Stirling's work concerning "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 the scientific premises may not be always correct, but that they are accepted, nevertheless, 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 lacuna enow. Nay, Mr. Huxley himself can be adduced in evidence on the same side. Nat 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 judicc. 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., etc. (p. 33 and 34, 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!