Book: Five Years Of Theosophy

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We pass on to some points beyond the ordinary range of science or
history on which we should be very glad to hear more, if possible.

9. We should like to understand more clearly the nature of the
subjective intercourse with beloved souls enjoyed in Devachan. Say, for
instance, that I die and leave on earth some young children. Are these
children present to my consciousness in Devachan still as children? Do
I imagine that they have died when I died? or do I merely imagine them
as adult without knowing their life-history? or do I miss them from
Devachan until they do actually die, and then hear from them their
life-history as it has proceeded between my death and theirs?

10. We do not quite understand the amount of reminiscence attained at
various points in the soul's progress. Do the Adepts, who, we presume,
are equivalent to sixth rounders, recollect their previous incarnations?
Do all souls which live on into the sixth round attain this power of
remembrance? or does the Devachan, at the end of each round bring a
recollection of all the Devachans, or of all the incarnations, which
have formed a part of that particular round? And does reminiscence
carry with it the power of so arranging future incarnations as still to
remain in company with some chosen soul or group of souls?

We have many more questions to ask, but we scruple to intrude further.
And I will conclude here by repeating the remark with which we are most
often met when we speak of the Adepts to English friends. We find that
our friends do not often ask for so-called miracles or marvels to prove
the genuineness of the Adepts' powers. But they ask why the Adepts will
not give some proof--not necessarily that they are far beyond us, but
that their knowledge does at least equal our own in the familiar and
definite tracks which Western science has worn for itself. A few
pregnant remarks on Chemistry,--the announcement of a new electrical
law, capable of experimental verification--some such communication as
this (our interlocutors say), would arrest attention, command respect,
and give a weight and prestige to the higher teaching which, so long as
it remains in a region wholly unverifiable, it can scarcely acquire.

We gratefully recognize the very acceptable choice which the Adepts have
made in selecting Mr. Sinnett as the intermediary between us and them.
They could hardly have chosen any one more congenial to our Western
minds:--whether we consider the clearness of his written style, the
urbanity of his verbal expositions, or the earnest sincerity of his
convictions. Since they have thus far met our peculiar needs with such
considerate judgment, we cannot but hope that they may find themselves
able yet further to adapt their modes of teaching to the requirements of
Occidental thought.

--An English F.T.S.
London, July 1883.



Reply to an English F.T.S


Answers

It was not in contemplation, at the outset of the work begun in
Fragments, to deal as fully with the scientific problems of cosmic
evolution as now seems expected. A distinct promise was made, as Mr.
Sinnett is well aware, to acquaint the readers with the outlines of
Esoteric doctrines and--no more. A good deal would be given, much more
kept back.

This seeming unwillingness to share with the world some of Nature's
secrets that may have come into the possession of the few, arises from
causes quite different from the one generally assigned. It is not
SELFISHNESS erecting a Chinese wall between occult science and those who
would know more of it, without making any distinction between the simply
curious profane, and the earnest, ardent seeker after truth. Wrong and
unjust are those who think so; who attribute to indifference for other
people's welfare a policy necessitated, on the contrary, by a far-seeing
universal philanthropy; who accuse the custodians of lofty physical and
spiritual though long rejected truths, of holding them high above the
people's heads. In truth, the inability to reach them lies entirely
with the seekers. Indeed, the chief reason among many others for such a
reticence, at any rate, with regard to secrets pertaining to physical
sciences--is to be sought elsewhere.* It rests entirely on the
impossibility of imparting that the nature of which is at the present
stage of the world's development, beyond the comprehension of the
would-be learners, however intellectual and however scientifically
trained may be the latter. This tremendous difficulty is now explained
to the few, who, besides having read "Esoteric Buddhism," have studied
and understood the several occult axioms approached in it. It is safe
to say that it will not be even vaguely realized by the general reader,
but will offer the pretext for sheer abuse. Nay, it has already.

-------
* Needless to remind AN ENGLISH F.T.S. that what is said here, applies
only to secrets the nature of which when revealed will not be turned
into a weapon against humanity in general, or its units--men. Secrets
of such class could not be given to any one but a regular chela of many
years' standing and during his successive initiations; mankind as a
whole has first to come of age, to reach its majority, which will happen
but toward the beginning of its sixth race--before such mysteries can be
safely revealed to it. The vril is not altogether a fiction, as some
chelas and even "lay" chelas know.
---------

It is simply that the gradual development of man's seven principles and
physical senses has to be coincident and on parallel lines with Rounds
and Root-races. Our fifth race has so far developed but its five
senses. Now, if the Kama or Will-principle of the "Fourth-rounders" has
already reached that stage of its evolution when the automatic acts, the
unmotivated instincts and impulses of its childhood and youth, instead
of following external stimuli, will have become acts of will framed
constantly in conjunction with the mind (Manas), thus making of every
man on earth of that race a free agent, a fully responsible being--the
Kama of our hardly adult fifth race is only slowly approaching it. As
to the sixth sense of this, our race, it has hardly sprouted above the
soil of its materiality. It is highly unreasonable, therefore, to
expect for the men of the fifth to sense the nature and essence of that
which will be fully sensed and perceived but by the sixth--let alone the
seventh race--i.e., to enjoy the legitimate outgrowth of the evolution
and endowments of the future races with only the help of our present
limited senses. The exceptions to this quasi-universal rule have been
hitherto found only in some rare cases of constitutional, abnormally
precocious individual evolutions; or, in such, where by early training
and special methods, reaching the stage of the fifth rounders, some men
in addition to the natural gift of the latter have fully developed (by
certain occult methods) their sixth, and in still rarer cases their
seventh, sense. As an instance of the former class may be cited the
Seeress of Prevorst; a creature born out of time, a rare precocious
growth, ill adapted to the uncongenial atmosphere that surrounded her,
hence a martyr ever ailing and sickly. As an example of the other, the
Count St. Germain may be mentioned. Apace with the anthropological and
physiological development of man runs his spiritual evolution. To the
latter, purely intellectual growth is often more an impediment than a
help. An instance: radiant stuff--"the fourth state of matter"--has
been hardly discovered, and no one--the eminent discoverer himself not
excepted--has yet any idea of its full importance, its possibilities,
its connection with physical phenomena, or even its bearing upon the
most puzzling scientific problems. How then can any "Adept" attempt to
prove the fallacy of much that is predicated in the nebular and solar
theories when the only means by which he could successfully prove his
position is an appeal to, and the exhibition of, that sixth sense--
consciousness which the physicist cannot postulate? Is not this plain?

Thus, the obstacle is not that the "Adepts" would "forbid inquiry," but
rather the personal, present limitations of the senses of the average,
and even of the scientific man. To undertake the explanation of that
which at the outset would be rejected as a physical impossibility, the
outcome of hallucination, is unwise and even harmful, because premature.
It is in consequence of such difficulties that the psychic production of
physical phenomena--save in exceptional cases--is strictly forbidden.

And now, "Adepts" are asked to meddle with astronomy--a science which,
of all the branches of human knowledge has yielded the most accurate
information, afforded the most mathematically correct data, and of the
achievements in which the men of science feel the most justly proud! It
is true that on the whole astronomy has achieved triumphs more brilliant
than those of most other sciences. But if it has done much in the
direction of satisfying man's straining and thirsting mind and his
noble aspirations for knowledge, physical as to its most important
particulars, it has ever laughed at man's puny efforts to wrest the
great secrets of Infinitude by the help of only mechanical apparatus.
While the spectroscope has shown the probable similarity of terrestrial
and sidereal substance, the chemical actions peculiar to the variously
progressed orbs of space have not been detected, nor proven to be
identical with those observed on our own planet. In this particular,
Esoteric Psychology may be useful. But who of the men of science would
consent to confront it with their own handiwork? Who of them would
recognise the superiority and greater trustworthiness of the Adept's
knowledge over their own hypotheses, since in their case they can claim
the mathematical correctness of their deductive reasonings based on the
alleged unerring precision of the modern instruments; while the Adepts
can claim but their knowledge of the ultimate nature of the materials
they have worked with for ages, resulting in the phenomena produced.
However much it may he urged that a deductive argument, besides being an
incomplete syllogistic form, may often be in conflict with fact; that
their major propositions may not always be correct, although the
predicates of their conclusions seem correctly drawn--spectrum analysis
will not be acknowledged as inferior to purely spiritual research. Nor,
before developing his sixth sense, will the man of science concede the
error of his theories as to the solar spectrum, unless he abjure, to
some degree at least, his marked weakness for conditional and
disjunctive syllogisms ending in eternal dilemmas. At present the
"Adepts" do not see any help for it. Were these invisible and unknown
profanes to interfere with--not to say openly contradict--the dicta of
the Royal Society, contempt and ridicule, followed by charges of crass
ignorance of the first elementary principles of modern science would be
their only reward; while those who would lend an ear to their
"vagaries," would be characterized immediately as types of the "mild
lunatics" of the age. Unless, indeed, the whole of that August body
should be initiated into the great Mysteries at once, and without any
further ado or the preliminary and usual preparations or training, the
F.R.S.'s could be miraculously endowed with the required sixth sense,
the Adepts fear the task would be profitless. The latter have given
quite enough, little though it may seem, for the purposes of a first
trial. The sequence of martyrs to the great universal truths has never
been once broken; and the long list of known and unknown sufferers,
headed with the name of Galileo, now closes with that of Zollner. Is the
world of science aware of the real cause of Zollner's premature death?
When the fourth dimension of space becomes a scientific reality like the
fourth state of matter, he may have a statue raised to him by grateful
posterity. But this will neither recall him to life, nor will it
obliterate the days and months of mental agony that harassed the soul of
this intuitional, far-seeing, modest genius, made even after his death
to receive the donkey's kick of misrepresentation and to be publicly
charged with lunacy.

Hitherto, astronomy could grope between light and darkness only with the
help of the uncertain guidance offered it by analogy. It has reduced to
fact and mathematical precision the physical motion and the paths of the
heavenly bodies, and--no more. So far, it has been unable to discover
with any approach to certainty the physical constitution of either sun,
stars, or even cometary matter. Of the latter, it seems to know no more
than was taught 5,000 years ago by the official astronomers of old
Chaldea and Egypt--namely, that it is vaporous, since it transmits the
rays of stars and planets without any sensible obstruction. But let the
modern chemist be asked to tell one whether this matter is in any way
connected with, or akin to, that of any of the gases he is acquainted
with; or again, to any of the solid elements of his chemistry. The
probable answer received will be very little calculated to solve the
world's perplexity; since, all hypotheses to the contrary
notwithstanding, cometary matter does not appear to possess even the
common law of adhesion or of chemical affinity. The reason for it is
very simple. And the truth ought long ago to have dawned upon the
experimentalists, since our little world (though so repeatedly visited
by the hairy and bearded travelers, enveloped in the evanescent veil of
their tails, and otherwise brought in contact with that matter) has
neither been smothered by an addition of nitrogen gas, nor deluged by an
excess of hydrogen, nor yet perceptibly affected by a surplus of oxygen.
The essence of cometary matter must be--and the "Adepts" say is--totally
different from any of the chemical or physical characteristics with
which the greatest chemists and physicists of the earth are familiar--
all recent hypotheses to the contrary notwithstanding. It is to be
feared that before the real nature of the elder progeny of Mula Prakriti
is detected, Mr. Crookes will have to discover matter of the fifth or
extra radiant state; et seq.

Thus, while the astronomer has achieved marvels in the elucidation of
the visible relations of the orbs of space, he has learnt nothing of
their inner constitution. His science has led him no farther towards a
reading of that inner mystery than has that of the geologist, who can
tell us only of the earth's superficial layers, and that of the
physiologist, who has until now been able to deal only with man's outer
shell, or Sthula Sarira. Occultists have asserted, and go on asserting
daily, the fallacy of judging the essence by its outward manifestations,
the ultimate nature of the life-principle by the circulation of the
blood, mind by the gray matter of the brain, and the physical
constitution of sun, stars and comets by our terrestrial chemistry and
the matter of our own planet. Verily and indeed, no microscopes,
spectroscopes, telescopes, photometers, or other physical apparatuses
can ever be focused on either the macro-or micro-cosmical highest
principles, nor will the mayavirupa of either yield its mystery to
physical inquiry. The methods of spiritual research and psychological
observation are the only efficient agencies to employ. We have to
proceed by analogy in everything to be sure. Yet the candid men of
science must very soon find out that it is not sufficient to examine a
few stars--a handful of sand, as it were, from the margin of the
shoreless, cosmic ocean--to conclude that these stars are the same as
all other stars--our earth included; that, because they have attained a
certain very great telescopic power, and gauged an area enclosed in the
smallest of spaces when compared with what remains, they have,
therefore, concurrently perfected the survey of all that exists within
even that limited space. For, in truth, they have done nothing of the
kind. They have had only a superficial glance at that which is made
visible to them under the present conditions, with the limited power of
their vision. And even though it were helped by telescopes of a
hundred-fold stronger power than that of Lord Rosse, or the new Lick
Observatory, the case would not alter. No physical instrument will ever
help astronomy to scan distances of the immensity of which that of
Sirius, situated at the trifle of 130,125,000,000,000 miles away from
the outer boundary of the spherical area, or even that of (a) Capella,
with its extra trifle of 295,355,000,000,000* miles still farther away,
can give them, as they themselves are well aware, the faintest idea.
For, though an Adept is unable to cross bodily (i.e., in his astral
shape) the limits of the solar system, yet he knows that, far
stretching beyond the telescopic power of detection, there are systems
upon systems, the smallest of which would, when compared with the system
of Sirius, make the latter seem like an atom of dust imbedded in the
great Shamo desert. The eye of the astronomer, who thinks he also knows
of the existence of such systems, has never rested upon them, has never
caught of them, even that spectral glimpse, fanciful and hazy as the
incoherent vision in a slumbering mind that he has occasionally had of
other systems, and yet he verily believes he has gauged INFINITUDE! And
yet these immeasurably distant worlds are brought as clear and near to
the spiritual eye of the astral astronomer as a neighbouring bed of
daisies may be to the eye of the botanist.

--------
* The figures are given from the mathematical calculations of exoteric
Western astronomy. Esoteric astronomy may prove them false some day.
--------

Thus, the "Adepts" of the present generation, though unable to help the
profane astronomer by explaining the ultimate essence, or even the
material constitution, of star and planet, since European science,
knowing nothing as yet of the existence of such substances, or more
properly of their various states or conditions, has neither proper terms
for, nor can form any adequate idea of them by any description, they
may, perchance, be able to prove what this matter is not--and this is
more than sufficient for all present purposes. The next best thing to
learning what is true is to ascertain what is not true.

Having thus anticipated a few general objections, and traced a limit to
expectations, since there is no need of drawing any veil of mystery
before "An English F.T.S.," his few questions may be partially answered.
The negative character of the replies draws a sufficiently strong line
of demarcation between the views of the Adepts and those of Western
science to afford some useful hints at least.

Question 1.--Do the Adepts deny the Nebular Theory?

Answer:--No; they do not deny its general propositions, nor the
approximative truths of the scientific hypotheses. They only deny the
completeness of the present, as well as the entire error of the many
so-called "exploded" old theories, which, during the last century, have
followed each other in such rapid succession. For instance: while
denying, with Laplace, Herschel and others, that the variable patches of
light perceived on the nebulous background of the galaxy ever belonged
to remote worlds in the process of formation; and agreeing with modern
science that they proceed from no aggregation of formless matter, but
belong simply to clusters of "stars" already formed; they yet add that
many of such clusters, that pass in the opinion of the astro-physicists
for stars and worlds already evoluted, are in fact but collections of
the various materials made ready for future worlds. Like bricks already
baked, of various qualities, shapes and colour, that are no longer
formless clay but have become fit units of a future wall, each of them
having a fixed and distinctly assigned space to occupy in some
forthcoming building, are these seemingly adult worlds. The astronomer
has no means of recognizing their relative adolescence, except perhaps
by making a distinction between the star clusters with the usual orbital
motion and mutual gravitation, and those termed, we believe, irregular
star-clusters of very capricious and changeful appearances. Thrown
together as though at random, and seemingly in utter violation of the
law of symmetry, they defy observation: such, for instance, are 5 M.
Lyrae, 5 2 M. Cephei, Dumb-Bell, and some others. Before an emphatic
contradiction of what precedes is attempted, and ridicule offered
perchance, it would not be amiss to ascertain the nature and character
of those other so-called "temporary" stars, whose periodicity, though
never actually proven, is yet allowed to pass unquestioned. What are
these stars which, appearing suddenly in matchless magnificence and
splendour, disappear as mysteriously as unexpectedly, without leaving a
single trace behind? Whence do they appear? Whither are they engulfed?
In the great cosmic deep--we say. The bright "brick" is caught by the
hand of the mason--directed by that Universal Architect which destroys
but to rebuild. It has found its place in the cosmic structure and will
perform its mission to its last Manvantaric hour.

Another point most emphatically denied by the "Adepts" is, that there
exist in the whole range of visible heavens any spaces void of starry
worlds. There are stars, worlds and systems within as without the
systems made visible to man, and even within our own atmosphere, for all
the physicist knows. The "Adept" affirms in this connection that
orthodox, or so-called official science, uses very often the word
"infinitude" without attaching to it any adequate importance; rather as
a flower of speech than a term implying an awful, a most mysterious
Reality. When an astronomer is found in his Reports "gauging
infinitude," even the most intuitional of his class is but too often apt
to forget that he is gauging only the superficies of a small area and
its visible depths, and to speak of these as though they were merely the
cubic contents of some known quantity. This is the direct result of the
present conception of a three-dimensional space. The turn of a
four-dimensional world is near, but the puzzle of science will ever
continue until their concepts reach the natural dimensions of visible
and invisible space--in its septenary completeness. "The Infinite and
the Absolute are only the names for two counter-imbecilities of the
human (uninitiated) mind;" and to regard them as the transmuted
"properties of the nature of things--of two subjective negatives
converted into objective affirmatives," as Sir W. Hamilton puts it, is
to know nothing of the infinite operations of human liberated spirit, or
of its attributes, the first of which is its ability to pass beyond the
region of our terrestrial experience of matter and space. As an
absolute vacuum is an impossibility below, so is it a like impossibility
above. But our molecules, the infinitesimals of the vacuum "below," are
replaced by the giant-atom of the Infinitude "above." When
demonstrated, the four-dimensional conception of space may lead to the
invention of new instruments to explore the extremely dense matter that
surrounds us as a ball of pitch might surround--say, a fly, but which,
in our extreme ignorance of all its properties save those we find it
exercising on our earth, we yet call the clear, the serene, and the
transparent atmosphere. This is no psychology, but simply occult
physics, which can never confound "substance" with "centres of Force,"
to use the terminology of a Western science which is ignorant of Maya.
In less than a century, besides telescopes, microscopes, micrographs and
telephones, the Royal Society will have to offer a premium for such an
etheroscope.

It is also necessary in connection with the question under reply that
"An English F.T.S." should know that the "Adepts" of the Good Law reject
gravity as at present explained. They deny that the so-called "impact
theory" is the only one that is tenable in the gravitation hypothesis.
They say, that if all efforts made by the physicists to connect it with
ether, in order to explain electric and magnetic distance-action have
hitherto proved complete failures, it is again due to the race ignorance
of the ultimate states of matter in Nature, and, foremost of all, of the
real nature of the solar stuff. Believing but in the law of mutual
magneto-electric attraction and repulsion, they agree with those who
have come to the conclusion that "Universal gravitation is a weak
force," utterly incapable of accounting for even one small portion of
the phenomena of motion. In the same connection they are forced to
suggest that science may he wrong in her indiscriminate postulation of
centrifugal force, which is neither a universal nor a consistent law.
To cite but one instance this force is powerless to account for the
spheroidal oblateness of certain planets. For if the bulge of planetary
equators and the shortening of their polar axes is to be attributed to
centrifugal force, instead of being simply the result of the powerful
influence of solar electro-magnetic attraction, "balanced by concentric
rectification of each planet's own gravitation achieved by rotation on
its axis," to use an astronomer's phraseology (neither very clear nor
correct, yet serving our purpose to show the many flaws in the system),
why should there be such difficulty in answering the objection that the
differences in the equatorial rotation and density of various planets
are directly in opposition to this theory? How long shall we see even
great mathematicians bolstering up fallacies to supply an evident
hiatus! The "Adepts" have never claimed superior or any knowledge of
Western astronomy and other sciences. Yet turning even to the most
elementary textbooks used in the schools of India, they find that the
centrifugal theory of Western birth is unable to cover all the ground.
That, unaided, it can neither account for every spheroid oblate, nor
explain away such evident difficulties as are presented by the relative
density of some planets. How indeed can any calculation of centrifugal
force explain to us, for instance, why Mercury, whose rotation is, we
are told, only "about one-third that of the Earth, and its density only
about one-fourth greater than the Earth," should have a polar
compression more than ten times greater than the latter? And again, why
Jupiter, whose equatorial rotation is said to be "twenty-seven times
greater, and its density only about one-fifth that of the Earth," should
have its polar compression seventeen times greater than that of the
Earth? Or, why Saturn, with an equatorial velocity fifty-five times
greater than Mercury for centrifugal force to contend with, should have
its polar compression only three times greater than Mercury's? To crown
the above contradictions, we are asked to believe in the Central Forces
as taught by modern science, even when told that the equatorial matter
of the sun, with more than four times the centrifugal velocity of the
earth's equatorial surface and only about one-fourth part of the
gravitation of the equatorial matter, has not manifested any tendency to
bulge out at the solar equator, nor shown the least flattening at the
poles of the solar axis. In other and clearer words, the sun, with only
one-fourth of our earth's density for the centrifugal force to work
upon, has no polar compression at all! We find this objection made by
more than one astronomer, yet never explained away satisfactorily so far
as the "Adepts" are aware.

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