have said that Laya is what Science may call the Zero-point or line; the realm of absolute negativeness, or the one real absolute Force, the Noumenon of the Seventh State of that which we ignorantly call and recognise as "Force"; or again the Noumenon of Undifferentiated Cosmic Substance which is itself an unreachable and unknowable object to finite perception; the root and basis of all states of objectivity and subjectivity too; the neutral axis, not one of the many aspects, but its centre. It may serve to elucidate the meaning if we attempt to imagine a neutral centre—the dream of those who would discover perpetual motion. A "neutral centre" is, in one aspect, the limiting point of any given set of senses. Thus, imagine two consecutive planes of matter. as already formed; each of these corresponding to an appropriate set of perceptive organs. We are forced to admit that between these two planes of matter an incessant circulation takes place; and if we follow the atoms and molecules of (say) the lower in their transformation upwards, these will come to a point where they pass altogether beyond the range of the faculties we are using on the lower plane. In fact, to us the matter of the lower plane there vanishes from our perception into nothing—or rather it passes on to the higher plane, and the state of matter corresponding to such a point of transition must certainly possess special and not readily discoverable properties. Such "Seven Neutral Centres," then, are produced by Fohat, who, when, as Milton has it— "Fair foundations (are) laid whereon to build

quickens matter into activity and evolution.

The Primordial Atom (ami) cannot be multiplied either in its pregenetic state, or its primogeneity; therefore it is called "Sum Total," figuratively, of course, as that "sum Total" is boundless. (See Addendum to this Book.) That which is the abyss of nothingness to the physicist, who knows only the world of visible causes and effects, is the boundless Space of the Divine Plenum to the Occultist. Among many other objections to the doctrine of an endless evolution and re-involution (or re-absorption) of the Kosmos, a process which, according to the Brahminical and Esoteric Doctrine, is without a beginning or an end, the Occultist is told that it cannot be, since " by all the admissions of

66

Such, we believe, is the name applied by Mr. Keely, of Philadelphia, the inventor of the famous "Motor"-destined, as his admirers have hoped, to revolutionise the motor power of the world-to what he again calls the "Etheric Centres."

THE MOON IS NOT DEAD, BUT ONLY SLEEPETH.

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modern scientific philosophy it is a necessity of Nature to run down." If the tendency of Nature "to run down" is to be considered so forcible an objection to Occult Cosmogony, "How," we may ask, "do your Positivists and Free-thinkers and Scientists account for the phalanx around us of active stellar systems?" They had eternity to "run down" in; why, then, is not the Kosmos a huge inert mass? Even the moon is only hypothetically believed to be a dead planet, "run down," and astronomy does not seem to be acquainted with many such dead planets.* The query is unanswerable. But apart from this it must be noted that the idea of the amount of "transformable energy" in our little system coming to an end is based purely on the fallacious. conception of a "white-hot, incandescent Sun" perpetually radiating away his heat without compensation into Space. To this we reply that nature runs down and disappears from the objective plane, only to reemerge after a time of rest out of the subjective and to reascend once more. Our Kosmos and Nature will run down only to reappear on a more perfect plane after every Pralaya. The matter of the Eastern philosophers is not the "matter" and Nature of the Western metaphysicians. For what is Matter? And above all, what is our scientific philosophy but that which was so justly and so politely defined by Kant as "the Science of the limits to our Knowledge?" Where have the many attempts made by Science to bind, to connect, and define all the phenomena of organic life by mere physical and chemical manifestations, brought it to? To speculation generally—mere soap-bubbles, that burst one after the other before the men of Science were permitted to discover real facts. All this would have been avoided, and the progress of knowledge would have proceeded with gigantic strides, had only Science and its philosophy abstained from accepting hypotheses on the mere one-sided Knowledge of their Matter.t

* The moon is dead only so far as regards her inner "principles "—i.e., psychically and spiritually, however absurd the statement may seem. Physically, she is only as a semiparalysed body may be. She is aptly referred to in Occultism as the insane mother," the great sidereal lunatic.

†The instance of Uranus and Neptune, whose satellites, four and one respectively, revolved, it was thought, in their orbits from East to West, whereas all the other satellites rotate from West to East, is a very good one, as showing how unreliable are all a priori speculations even when based on the strictest mathematical analysis. The famous hypothesis of the formation of our Solar System out of the nebulous rings, put

If no physical intellect is capable of counting the grains of sand covering a few miles of sea-shore; or to fathom the ultimate nature and essence of those grains, palpable and visible on the palm of the naturalist, how can any materialist limit the laws changing the conditions and being of the atoms in primordial chaos, or know anything certain about the capabilities and potency of their atoms and molecules before and after their formation into worlds? These changeless and eternal molecules far thicker in space than the grains on the ocean shoremay differ in their constitution along the line of their planes of existence, as the soul-substance differs from its vehicle, the body. Each atom has seven planes of being or existence, we are taught; and each plane is governed by its specific laws of evolution and absorption. Ignorant of any, even approximate, chronological data from which to start in attempting to decide the age of our planet or the origin of the solar system, astronomers, geologists, and physicists are drifting with each new hypothesis farther and farther away from the shores of fact into the fathomless depths of speculative ontology. The Law of Analogy in the plan of structure between the trans-Solar systems and the intra-Solar planets, does not necessarily bear upon the finite conditions to which every visible body is subject, in this our plane of being. In Occult Science this law is the first and most important key to Cosmic physics; but it has to be studied in its minutest details and, "to be

orward by Kant and Laplace, was chiefly based on the above fact that all the planets revolved in the same direction. It is on this fact, mathematically demonstrated during the time of Laplace, that this great astronomer, calculating on the theory of probabilities, offered to bet three milliards to one that the next planet discovered would have in its system the same peculiarity of motion Eastward. The immutable laws of scientific mathematics got "worsted by further experiments and observations," it was said. This idea of Laplace's mistake prevails generally to this day; but some astronomers have finally succeeded in demonstrating (?) that the mistake had been in accepting Laplace's assertion for a mistake; and steps to correct it without attracting general attention to the bévuc are now being taken. Many such unpleasant surprises are in store for hypotheses of even a purely physical character. What further disillusions, then, may there not be in questions of a transcendental, Occult Nature? At any rate, Occultism teaches that the so-called "reverse rotation" is a fact.

* The Occultists, having most perfect faith in their own exact records, astronomical and mathematical, calculate the age of Humanity, and assert that the latter (as separate sexes) has existed in this Round just 18,618,727 years, as the Brahmanical teachings and even some Hindu calendars declare.

NATURE CAN NEVER CEASE.

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turned seven times," be fore one comes to understand it. Occult philosophy is the only science that can teach it. How, then, can anyone hang the truth or the untruth of the Occultist's proposition that "the Kosmos is eternal in its unconditioned collectivity, and finite but in its conditioned manifestations" on this one-sided physical enunciation that "it is a necessity of Nature to run down?"

With these verses—the 4th Sloka of Stanza VI.—ends that portion of the Stanzas which relates to the Universal Cosmogony after the last Mahapralaya or Universal destruction, which, when it comes, sweeps out of Space every differentiated thing, Gods as atoms, like so many dry leaves. From this verse onwards, the Stanzas are concerned only with our Solar System in general, with the planetary chains therein, inferentially, and with the history of our globe (the 4th and its chain) especially. All the Stanzas and verses which follow in this Book I. refer only to the evolution of, and on, our Earth. With regard to the latter, a strange tenet—strange from the modern scientific standpoint only, of course—is held, which ought to be made known.

But before entirely new and rather startling theories are presented to the reader, they must be prefaced by a few words of explanation. This is absolutely necessary, as these theories clash not only with modern. science, but contradict, on certain points, earlier statements made by other Theosophists, who claim to base their explanations and renderings of these teachings on the same authority as we do.*

This may give rise to the idea that there is a decided contradiction between the expounders of the same doctrine; whereas the difference, in reality, arises from the incompleteness of the information given to earlier writers, who thus drew some erroneous conclusions and indulged in premature speculations, in their endeavour to present a complete system to the public. Thus the reader, who is already a student of Theosophy, must not be surprised to find in these pages the rectification of certain statements made in various Theosophical works, and also the explanation of certain points which have remained obscure, because they were necessarily left incomplete. Many are the questions upon which even the author of "Esoteric Buddhism" (the best and

* "Esoteric Buddhism" and "Man."

most accurate of all such works) has not touched. On the other hand, even he has introduced several mistaken notions which must now be presented in their true mystic light, as far as the present writer is capable of doing so.

Let us then make a short break between the Slokas just explained and those which follow, for the Cosmic periods which separate them are of immense duration. This will afford us ample time to take a bird's-eye view of some points pertaining to the Secret Doctrine, which have been presented to the public under a more or less uncertain and sometimes mistaken light.

A FEW EARLY THEOSOPHICAL MISCONCEPTIONS CONCERNING PLANETS, ROUNDS, AND MAN.

Among the eleven Stanzas omitted there is one which gives a full description of the formation of the planetary chains one after another, after the first Cosmic and Atomic differentiation had commenced in the primitive Acosmism. It is idle to speak of "laws arising when Deity prepares to create" for (a) laws or rather Law is eternal and uncreated; and (b) that Deity is Law, and vice versa. Moreover, the one eternal Law unfolds everything in the (to be) manifested Nature on a sevenfold principle; among the rest, the countless circular chains of worlds, composed of seven globes, graduated on the four lower planes of the world of formation (the three others belonging to the Archetypal Universe). Out of these seven only one, tht lowest and the most material of those globes, is within our plane or means of perception, the six others lying outside of it and being therefore invisible to the terrestrial eye. Every such chain of worlds is the progeny and creation of another, lower, and dead chain—its reincarnation, so to say. To make it clearer: we are told of the planets—of which seven only were held as sacred, as being ruled by the highest regents or gods, and not at all because the ancients knew nothing of the others—that each of these, whether known or unknown, is a septenary, as is the chain to which the Earth belongs (see "Esoteric See the note which follows the Commentary on the preceding page, and also the summary of the Stanzas in the Proem, page 22.

Many more planets are enumerated in the Secret Books than in modern. astronomical works.