Ancient and Modern Physics - Thomas E. Willson
The prakritic body of the animal man was the result in prakriti
of an etheric-pranic-manasic, or "astral" body, formed in
accordance with the Universal Law. For what he was by nature, he
could not be blamed. He stood naked and not ashamed before the
Radiance. He did not make his astral body; he was the mere
translation of it into prakriti, as all other created things
were, and that invisible astral self (figuratively) stood at his
right hand, moulding and shaping him.
But when the Angel-man entered his mind, all this was changed.
He "knew Good from Evil." To his mind of manasa had been added
the Spirit--the Atma-Buddhi's Consciousness of the three
Spiritual planes. He has become "as one of us," said the Angel-
men of the firmament, of Heaven. He now held the seven planes
and was a creator. Each thought and desire that, when an animal
only, fell harmless, now created on the pranic and etheric world.
Soon beside him, at his left hand (figuratively) there grew up a
second etheric or astral body, that of his desires; and his
prakritic body was no longer the product of the astral body on
his right hand. It was the joint product of the left-hand Kamic
astral body he had created, and the right hand normal astral
body. He was no longer in harmony with the Radiance. He could
no longer face it. He had created discord--Sin.
The pretty legend of the two "Angels," one on the right hand and
one on the left, has its physical basis in this truth, but, of
course, as a matter of actual fact, the normal and abnormal
astral bodies are in mechanical union. It is the Kamic self-made
astral body that remains from one incarnation to another,
producing in joint action with a new normal astral body, a new
physical body for the Inner-Self, or Angel taking the pilgrimage
through the lower world.
All the Angel-men did not enter the animal men on the pranic
etheric-prakritic globes; only a few. It was a pilgrimage
through matter in which those who make it are meeting many
adventures, but the legends are many, and have no place in the
physics, although the legends are all founded on the facts of the
physics.
Of the number of monads, willing to undertake the pilgrimage,
only a few of those within the kinetic belt of the manasic globe
have reached the pranic. Only a few of those within the pranic
kinetic belts reached the etheric. And of all who have reached
this earth, only a few may win their way back before the great
day Be-With-Us.
The problem of man, and his relations to the universe, are an
entirely different line of study from that of the Spiritual
Monad, the over-soul of every prakritic atom. Each prakritic
atom has what may be called a soul, its three-fold astral cause;
and an over-soul, or the three-fold spiritual archetype, or
causeless cause.
Every combination of these atoms, whether a knife, a leaf, an
animal, an earth, a sun, or a star, has this soul and oversoul.
Once the idea of what is meant by these terms becomes clear, the
difficulty in understanding them vanishes. The study of man is
physical in its lower branches; metaphysical only in its highest
and last analysis. The study of the Monad is metaphysical from
start to finish. The two studies are apt to be confused, because
metaphysically they are often joined for study, the teacher
taking it for granted that the pupil fully understands the simple
and easy physics of the problem of humanity.
This, in crude and bold outline, is the story of creation to the
fall of man according to the ancient physics, translated into the
words and phrases of modern physics. The latter, in the latest
discoveries of modern science, seem to have stolen a shive
from the ancient loaf in the expectation that it would not be
detected. Each and every step forward that modern science has
made in the past twenty years, each and every discovery of every
kind in the physical field, has been but the affirmative of some
ancient doctrine taught in the temples of the East before "Cain
took unto himself a wife."
Chapter Ten
The Septenary World
In the physical universe we have the four informing physical
globes, so that as a whole or in its parts, it is "a string of
seven globes," reaching from the highest spirit to the lowest
matter. The awakened Universal Consciousness in vibration
--undifferentiated in the three globes above, differentiated in
the four globes below--in its last analysis is all one. But there
is a gulf between matter and spirit, radically dividing them, and
in the physical universe we are concerned only with physics and
physical laws, until we reach its outmost boundaries and come in
touch with the spiritual planes beyond.
This is the view of the universe at first glance, as in the
smaller universe of this earth we at first see only its solid and
liquid globes. And even after the discovery of the gas, we do
not apprehend its important work in and behind the others until
it has been pointed out to us. Nor do we at first apprehend the
work of the spiritual in the material, and the object of
metaphysics is to show, through the physics, the connection
between them that the spirit works through matter; that where we
can see but four there are seven beads on each material string;
and that the last bead of each string is itself a chain of beads,
the "chain of seven" applying only to the seventh manifestation,
or prakriti, while the "strings" apply to the way in which they
come.
On each unraveled string leading from our central sun down to a
planet there are seven beads corresponding to the seven globes in
the chain of each planet, each to each, yet not the same. There
is a distinction, and it is no wonder there should have been
confusion at first and a mixing of "strings" with "chains." The
physics as they progress will clear this confusion away.
In the manasic globe, which is the first differentiation of that
which forms the spiritual globes above, the resulting mind or
manasa is mainly the differentiated Divine Mind of the highest.
It has a "chain" of two globes only, itself and the Divine Mind
globe, although its "string" of globes is four.
It is the perfected differentiation of the Buddhi in manasa
that causes the formation of the pranic globes, which have
chains of four and strings of five, and the full and perfect
differentiation of the Atma in manasa-prana that causes the
formation of the etheric globes, which have chains of six and
strings of six. Consciousness, Buddhi and Atma are practically
the same as the manasa, prana, and ether, each to each, only the
latter are differentiated and the former are not.
Each of the three astral globes is the reflection in matter of
the three spiritual globes beyond, each to each, and all to all.
The difference between matter and spirit is a difference in
Motion only. Both are vibrating, so that both are in mechanical
motion, from force without, like the waves of the ocean, but only
the matter has what we may properly call motion of its own, or
that produced from within--from the atom and each organism of it
up to the ALL, as the vibration is from the ALL down to the atom.
It is this centre of force in an atom, this motion outside of
vibration, or rather beside it, which we call "differentiation."
Brinton's "daring psychological speculation" that "mind was
coextensive with motion" (from organization) was but a repetition
of one of the most ancient axioms.
Take our solar etheric globe. It has two other globes of matter,
consubstantial; a globe of prana and a globe of manasa. They
are not beyond it, or beside it, but one with it, atom for atom.
But what are they in reality? Globes of Atma, Buddhi, and
Consciousness in which the atoms, having organized, are in
motion, are they not?
Let this motion in this material universe cease, and matter would
melt away and resolve into spirit. From spirit it came, to
spirit it belongs, and to spirit it returns.
Behind each and every astral globe, whether the globe be but an
astral atom, or an astral planet, or an astral world; beyond its
physics there is a meta-physical globe, its cause, and that
is the real globe, of which the astral is but a temporary
phenomenon. Take a spiritual globe and differentiate it. The
Motion resulting produces a material astral globe. Stop the
motion; bring it to a state of rest. The astral shadow
disappears. It was merely spiritual phenomena.
Each and every astral atom is a model in miniature of the
material and spiritual universe. Each and every prakritic atom
is the joint result of spirit and matter united and working
together--of physics and metaphysics; and in its last analysis
pure spirit; pure metaphysics.
Behind each and every prakritic atom of our earth there are six
other atoms (or globes), three material shadows and three
spiritual realities, so that it is a string of seven--the whole
universe in miniature--material and spiritual. And all things
combined and formed on a prakritic base are a chain of seven
--whether a peach or a planet.
The "chain" belongs to the prakritic plane. The lines of descent
from the Light through the star and sun to planet are "strings."
The "chains" are beads of the same size strung on a thread. The
strings are beads of different sizes strung on a thread. The
beads of the chain are in coadunition--in the same space, as gas
in water and the water in a sponge.
In metaphysics this earth can only be regarded as a chain of
seven globes, its three astral globes in coadunition having their
three spiritual doubles. Of course no one of the higher globes
can be seen by the prakritic eye, but that is not to say the
astral world cannot be seen by the astral eye in sleep, or by the
person who qualifies himself for the astral world, through the
development of his astral body. "No upper globes of any chain in
the solar system can be seen," says H.P. Blavatsky in the Secret
Doctrine (vol. I, p. 187), yet she means by astronomers, not by
sages. And she does not mean the upper globes in the stellar
system of Alcyone and its companions.
In pure physics the earth can only be regarded as a chain of four
globes consubstantial and in coadunition--four in and three out.
This makes seven, and the metaphysician when talking physics uses
the metaphysical terms interchangeably and speaks of "the chain
of seven globes" meaning in one sentence the four material globes
making this earth; in another meaning the line of descent or
string of beads of different sizes reaching down from the Divine
Consciousness; and in still another the seven beads or globes of
the same size in coadunition to form this earth chain. To the
student who is thoroughly grounded in the eastern physics this
interweaving of the physical and metaphysical presents no
difficulties; but to the western mind just beginning the study
it is a tangle.
We can now see what is meant by illusion, or Maya, and understand
why such stress is laid upon it by every teacher.
Take the physical side first. The motion of a top gives it bands
of color to our eyes that it does not have at rest. They are
temporary and not permanent, a result of motion merely; illusion
and not reality.
The motion of the material atoms of the four planes, in harmony
with their vibration, a motion the spiritual world does not have,
produces all material phenomena. This is of course within the
kinetic belts, for above or below them there is no change, and
its phenomena are the mere change in relation of one atom to
another caused by motion. The changes are not real. They
disappear when the motion stops. They have no existence in
matter above or below the belt.
All phenomena of every kind are as much an illusion as the
supposed bands of colour around the top. The illusion is the
result of changes of relation in differentiated atoms caused by
their motion. Without this motion the four material globes would
dissolve into the atomic dust of the manasic world, with all that
is within them. The whole material universe is all illusion; a
mere temporary relation of its atoms through motion, without
Reality or permanence.
What then is real? What is not illusion? That which is beyond
the physical, that which is its cause and root; broadly, the
metaphysical, which is not the result of differentiated atoms
through relation. What was real in the top is real here. What
was illusion in the top is illusion here.
The meta-physical or spiritual (the terms are interchangeable)
does not have to pass beyond the manasic globe to get on the
solid ground of reality. The spiritual world is here in every
physical atom and in every aggregation of them; in every planet,
sun, and star; for they are seven, each and every one, not four.
Behind the illusion of one atom or many, whether here or on
Alcyone, there is reality and permanency in the undifferentiated
cause, the spiritual archetype, the three higher beads on the
string which are the proper study of metaphysics.
Chapter Eleven
Stumbling Blocks in Eastern Physics
The Western student of the ancient Eastern physics soon meets
serious stumbling-blocks; and one at the very threshold has in
the last half century turned many back. In beginning his study
of the solar system, the pupil is told:
The first three planets--Mercury, Venus, and the moon--are dead
and disintegrating. Evolution on them has ceased. The proof of
this is found in the fact, that they have no axial rotation,
Mercury and Venus always presenting the same surface to their
father, the sun, and the moon the same surface to its daughter,
the earth.
This is a concrete statement of physical fact at which the
Western student protests. If in the whole range of Western
astronomical science there is any one fact that he has accepted
as absolutely proved, it is that Mercury revolves once in 24h.,
5m., 30.5s., and Venus once in 23h., 21m., 22s. He would as soon
credit a statement that the earth has no axial rotation as that
Mercury or Venus has none; and if he continues his study of
Eastern physics it is with no confidence in its accuracy, and as
a matter of curiosity.
The statement that Mercury, Venus, and the moon "are dead
and disintegrating," the former two "always presenting the
same surface" to the sun, is the basis for an elaborate
superstructure, both in the physics and the metaphysics of the
East. It is used in physics to explain how the "evolutionary
wave" came to an end at the perfection of the mineral on Mercury
with the loss of its axial rotation; how the "wave" then passed
on to Venus with the seed of the vegetable kingdom, where the
vegetable evolution ended with the loss of axial rotation;
how from Venus it leaped to the moon, mother of animals and
controller of animal life, with the seed of animal life in the
vegetable; and how finally it came to the earth, when the moon
ceased to revolve, bringing in the animal the seed of man. Here
man will be evolved and perfected. Man has not yet been "born"
on this earth, they say. He is still in a prenatal or embryonic
condition within the animal.
The lunar Pitris, the men-seed, have a physical reason for being,
if this evolutionary theory be true; none if it is not. Axial
rotation is necessary in evolution, the ancient physics teaches,
which must cease with it. The reasons for this are too lengthy
to give here. Briefly, the rotation makes the electrical flow
and a thermopilic dynamo of each planet.
The ancient astronomical teaching is absolutely true. There will
not be a work on astronomy published in Europe or the United
States this year, or hereafter, that will not state that "Mercury
and Venus revolve on their axes in the same time that they
revolve around the sun," which is another way of saying that
"they have no axial rotation, always presenting the same face to
the sun," and an inaccurate way of presenting the truth. The
screw that holds the tire at the outer end of the spoke does not
revolve "once on its axis" each time the wheel revolves. Run a
cane through an orange and swing it around; the orange has not
revolved "once on its axis." Nor does the stone in a sling
revolve "once on its axis" for each revolution around the hand.
The motion of Mercury is identically that of the impaled orange
or the stone in the sling. It has no axis and no axial rotation.
The modern astronomers, detected in pretenses to knowledge they
never possessed, let themselves down easy.
This "discovery," of no axial rotation by the interior planets,
made by Schiaparelli and confirmed by Flammarion in 1894, has
since been fully verified by our Western astronomers. All the
new astronomies accept it. But the admission of astronomical
"error," to speak politely, comes too late for the student it
turned back from his study of Eastern physics. He cannot regain
his lost faith and lost ground.
Thirty years ago Proctor made it clear to Western students that
the orbit of the moon was a cycloidal curve (a drawn-out spring)
around the sun, the earth's orbit being coincident with its axis;
and that the moon was, astronomically and correctly, a satellite
of the sun, not a satellite of the earth. This has been the
Eastern view and teaching from time immemorial.
The Eastern distinction between father Sun and mother Moon, and
the classification of the latter as a planet, did not disturb the
Western student. He understood that. It was the "absolute
accuracy" of modern astronomers in regard to the length of the
day on Mercury or Venus, which the astronomers declared had
been corrected down to the fraction of a second, that made it
impossible for him to accept the Eastern physics when the latter
squarely contradicted his own.
This was but the first of many similar stumbling-blocks in the
path of the student of Eastern physics.
"Few were the followers, straggling far,
That reached the lake of Vennachar;"
and when they did, this was what they had to face:
"The planets absorb and use nearly all the solar energy--all
except the very small amount the minor specks of cosmic dust may
receive. There is not the least particle of the sun's light, or
heat, or any one of the seven conditions of the solar energy,
wasted. Except for the planets, it is not manifested; it is
not. There is no light, no heat, no form of solar energy, except
on the planets as it is transferred from the laya center of each
in the sun to them. The etheric globe is cold and dark, except
along the lines to them--the "Paths of Fohat" [solar energy].
Six laya centers are manifested in the sun; one is laid aside,
though the wheels [planets] around the One Eye be seven. [This
alludes to the moon, whose laya center in the sun is now also
that of the earth; but it is considered as a planet]. What each
receives, that it also gives back. There is nothing lost."
"That settles it," says one student; and the others agree. Of
the hundred who started,
"The foremost horseman rode alone,"
before the next step was won.
In the light of the tardy but perfect justification of the first
stumbling-block, this statement may be worth following out, "to
see what it means," and how "absurd" it can be. An etheric
globe; cold as absolute zero, dark as Erebus, with here and
there small pencils of light and heat from the sun to the planets
--just rays, and nothing more--is a very different one from the
fiery furnace at absolute zero of the modern physicist.
On a line drawn from the center of the earth to the center of the
moon there is a point where the "weights" of the two bodies are
said in our physics exactly to balance, and it lies, says our
physics, "2,900 miles from the center of the earth, and 1,100
miles from the surface." This is the earth's "laya center" of
the Eastern physics. It is of great importance in problems of
life; but it may be passed over for the present.
Between the earth and the sun--precisely speaking, between this
laya center and the sun--there is a "point of balance," which
falls within the photosphere of the sun. This point in the sun
is the earth's solar laya, the occult or hidden earth of the
metaphysics.
A diagram will make this clearer. Draw a line from the laya
center in the sun to that in the earth. Draw a narrow ellipse,
with this line as its major axis, and shade it. At each end of
the axis strike the beginning of an ellipse that will be tangent.
If positive energy is along the shaded ellipse, negative energy
is in each field beyond--earth and sun. This is a very crude
illustration of a fundamental statement elaborated to the most
minute detail in explanation of all astronomical phenomena; but
for the moment it will do.
The point is that along this axial line connecting the
laya centers play all the seven solar forces--light, heat,
electricity, etc.--that affect the earth, and on every side of
this line is the "electric field" of these forces. To this line
any escaping solar energy is drawn, as the electricity of the air
is drawn to a live wire or magnet. But there is little or none
to escape. From the laya point in the sun to the laya point in
the earth, the solar energy is transferred as sound is carried
along a beam of light (photophone), or electricity from one point
to another without a wire.
To the advanced student of electricity the ancient teaching is
easily apprehended; to others it is difficult to make clear.
These laya centers, it says, are "the transforming points of
energy." From the earth laya to the solar laya centre, the
energy, we may say, is positive; beyond both the solar and the
earth laya centre, in the fields touching at them, it is negative
--or vice versa. The line connecting the layas is the "Path of
Fohat"--the personification of solar energy.
This is a very crude and brief way of putting many pages of
teaching, but the important point is that this line between the
layas is one of solar energy, with a dynamic "field" of solar
energy, elliptical in shape, connecting with the reverse fields
at the laya points. These "dead points" are the limits of each
electric field, which "create", we say in electrical work,
opposing fields beyond them.
Each one of these planets has its laya centre inside the sun's
photosphere. Each planet has a line of solar energy with its
"field" of solar energy--not only a wireless telegraph, but a
wireless lighting, heating, and life-giving system. These six
solar laya points are the six "hidden planets," the earth and
moon being one, of the ancient metaphysics. The moon is the one
"laid aside." In their reception of energy from the sun, it is
as if the planet were at the solar laya point, or connected with
it by a special pipe-line. The position of these six planetary
laya points in the sun is indicated by the position of the
planets in the heavens, and they may often influence or modify
one another. If Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn is anywhere near
conjunction with the earth, not only will a part of their
"fields" be joined, but their laya points in the sun will be
modified.
The physical basis of the old astrology was the physical
interferences of these fields of solar energy; and what it
depended on mainly in its work was the position of the six hidden
planets, or laya centers, which was shown by the position of the
planet with reference to the earth. That the planets themselves
affected any one or anything on this earth, no real astrologer
ever believed; that their position in the heavens indicated
certain changes and modifications of the flow of solar energy to
the earth, they knew from their knowledge of physics. "The
twelve houses are in the sun," says Hermes, "six in the north and
six in the south." Connect them with the zodiac, and the
position of the planets shows the interferences of the solar
currents.
The one objection to this ancient theory is that it does not
present enough difficulties. The present value to science of the
many theories in relation to the sun is the impossibility of
reconciling any two of them, and the fact that no two theorists
can unite to pummel a third. This ancient theory does not call
for any great amount of heat, light, or energy in any condition
to keep the Cosmos in order--not even enough for two persons to
quarrel over. It merely turns the sun into a large dynamo
connected with smaller dynamos, and these with one another with
return currents by which "there is nothing lost." In its
details, it accounts for all facts--neatly, simply, and without
exclamation points. It is so simple and homespun, so lacking in
the gaudiness that makes (for example) our light and heat less
than the billionth part wasted on space always at absolute zero,
that we may have to wait many centuries to have it "verified" and
"confirmed" by our Western Science. That it will be "verified"
in time, even as the first stumbling-block has been removed at
the end of the nineteenth century, its students may at least
hope.
The lesson, if there is one, is that the Western student of
Eastern physics does not ride an auto along asphalted roads.
He must own himself and not be owned by another man, or even
by "Modern Science."