The Secret Doctrine, page 83
Can have no sides at all, being simply a phantom of the mind to which, if sides be imputed, these must be the sides of the object it constructively represents.1061
But in such case most of the scientific hypotheses are no better than “phantoms of the mind”; they are unverifiable, except on inference, and have been adopted merely to answer scientific necessities. Furthermore, the ideal Triangle—“as the abstract idea of a triangular body, and, therefore, as the type of an abstract idea”—accomplished and carried out to perfection the double symbolism intended. As an emblem applicable to the objective idea, the simple triangle became a solid. When repeated in stone, facing the four cardinal points, it assumed the shape of the Pyramid—the symbol of the phenomenal merging into the noumenal Universe of thought, at the apex of the four triangles; and, as an “imaginary figure constructed of three mathematical lines,” it symbolized the subjective spheres—these lines “enclosing a mathematical space—which is equal to nothing enclosing nothing.” And this because, to the senses and the untrained consciousness of the Profane and the Scientist, everything beyond the line of differentiated Matter—i.e., outside of, and beyond the realm of even the most Spiritual Substance—has to remain for ever equal to nothing. It is the Ain Suph—the No Thing.
Yet these “phantoms of the mind” are in truth no greater abstractions than the abstract ideas in general as to evolution and physical development—e.g., Gravity, Matter, Force, etc.—on which the exact Sciences are based. Our most eminent Chemists and Physicists are earnestly pursuing the not hopeless attempt of finally tracing to its hiding-place the Protyle, or the basic line of the Pythagorean Triangle. The latter is, as we have said, the grandest conception imaginable, for it symbolizes both the ideal and the visible universes.1062 For if
The possible unit is only a possibility as an actuality of nature, as an individual of any kind, (and as) every individual natural object is capable of division, and by division loses its unity, or ceases to be a unit,1063
this is true only of the realm of exact Science in a world as deceptive as it is illusive. In the realm of Esoteric Science the Unit divided ad infinitum, instead of losing its unity, approaches with every division the planes of the only eternal Reality. The eye of the Seer can follow it and behold it in all its pregenetic glory. This same idea of the reality of the subjective, and the unreality of the objective Universe, is found at the bottom of the Pythagorean and Platonic Teachings—limited to the Elect alone; for Porphyry, speaking of the Monad and the Duad, says that the former only was considered substantial and real, “that most simple Being, the cause of all unity and the measure of all things.”
But the Duad, although the origin of Evil, or Matter—hence unreal in Philosophy—is still Substance during Manvantara, and is often called the Third Monad, in Occultism, and the connecting line as between two Points, or Numbers, which proceeded from That, “which was before all Numbers,” as expressed by Rabbi Barahiel. And from this Duad proceeded all the Scintillas of the three Upper and the four Lower Worlds or Planes—which are in constant interaction and correspondence. This is a teaching which the Kabalah has in common with Eastern Occultism. For in the Occult Philosophy there is the “One Cause” and the “Primal Cause,” the latter thus becoming, paradoxically, the Second, as is clearly expressed by the author of the Qabbalah, from the Philosophical Writings of Ibn Gabirol, who says:
In the treatment of the Primal Cause, two things must be considered, the Primal Cause per se, and the relation and connection of the Primal Cause with the visible and unseen universe.1064
Thus he shows the early Hebrews, as the later Arabians, following in the steps of the Oriental Philosophy, such as the Chaldean, Persian, Hindû, etc. Their Primal Cause was designated at first,
By the triadic שדי Shaddaï, the (triune) Almighty, subsequently by the Tetragrammaton, יהוה, YHVH symbol of the Past, Present, and Future,1065
and, let us add, of the eternal IS, or the I AM. Moreover, in the Kabalah the name YHVH (or Jehovah) expresses a He and a She, male and female, two in one, or Chokmah and Binah, and his, or rather their Shekinah or synthesizing Spirit (or Grace), which again makes of the Duad a Triad. This is demonstrated in the Jewish Liturgy for Pentecost, and the prayer:
“In the name of Unity, of the Holy and Blessed Hû (He), and His She'keenah, the Hidden and Concealed Hû, blessed be YHVH (the Quaternary) for ever.” Hû is said to be masculine and YaH feminine, together they make the יהוה אחד i.e., one YHVH. One, but of a male-female nature. The She'keenah is always considered in the Qabbalah as feminine.1066
And so it is considered in the exoteric Purânas, for Shekinah is no more than Shakti—the female double of any God—in such case. And so it was with the early Christians, whose Holy Spirit was feminine, as Sophia was with the Gnostics. But in the transcendental Chaldean Kabalah, or Book of Numbers, Shekinah is sexless, and the purest abstraction, a state, like Nirvâna, neither subject nor object, nor anything except an absolute Presence.
Thus it is only in the anthropomorphized systems—such as the Kabalah has now for the most part become—that Shekinah-Shakti is feminine. As such she becomes the Duad of Pythagoras, the two straight lines which can form no geometrical figure and are the symbol of Matter. Out of this Duad, when united in the basic line of the Triangle on the lower plane (the upper Triangle of the Sephirothal Tree), emerge the Elohim, or Deity in Cosmic Nature, with the true Kabalists the lowest designation, translated in the Bible “God.”1067 Out of these (the Elohim) issue the Scintillas.
The Scintillas are the “Souls,” and these Souls appear in the three-fold form of Monads (Units), Atoms and Gods—according to our Teaching. As says the Esoteric Catechism:
Every Atom becomes a visible complex unit (a molecule), and once attracted into the sphere of terrestrial activity, the Monadic Essence, passing through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, becomes man.
Again:
God, Monad, and Atom are the correspondences of Spirit, Mind, and Body (tmâ, Manas, and Sthûla Sharîra) in man.
In their septenary aggregation they are the “Heavenly Man,” in the Kabalistic sense; thus, terrestrial man is the provisional reflection of the Heavenly. Once again:
The Monads (Jîvas) are the Souls of the Atoms; both are the fabric in which the Chohans (Dhyânîs, Gods) clothe themselves when a form is needed.
This relates to cosmic and sub-planetary Monads, not to the super-cosmic Monads, the Pythagorean Monad, as it is called, in its synthetic character, by the Pantheistical Peripatetics. The Monads of the present dissertation are treated, from the standpoint of their individuality, as Atomic Souls, before these Atoms descend into pure terrestrial form. For this descent into concrete Matter marks the medial point of their own individual pilgrimage. Here, losing in the mineral kingdom their individuality, they begin to ascend through the seven states of terrestrial evolution to that point where a correspondence is firmly established between the human and Deva (divine) consciousness. At present, however, we are not concerned with their terrestrial metamorphoses and tribulations, but with their life and behaviour in Space, on planes wherein the eye of the most intuitional Chemist and Physicist cannot reach them—unless, indeed, he develops in himself highly clairvoyant faculties.
It is well known that Leibnitz came very near the truth several times, but he defined Monadic Evolution incorrectly, a thing not to be wondered at, since he was not an Initiate, nor even a Mystic, but only a very intuitional Philosopher. Yet no Psycho-physicist ever came nearer than has he to the Esoteric general outline of evolution. This evolution—viewed from its several standpoints, i.e., as the Universal and the Individualized Monad, and the chief aspects of the Evolving Energy after differentiation, the purely Spiritual, the Intellectual, the Psychic and the Physical—may be thus formulated as an invariable law: a descent of Spirit into Matter, equivalent to an ascent in physical evolution; a reäscent from the depths of materiality towards its status quo ante, with a corresponding dissipation of concrete form and substance up to the Laya-state, or what Science calls the “zero-point,” and beyond.
These states—once the spirit of Esoteric Philosophy is grasped—become absolutely necessary from simple logical and analogical considerations. Physical Science having now ascertained, through its department of Chemistry, the invariable law of this evolution of Atoms—from their “protylean” state down to that of a physical and then a chemical particle, or molecule—cannot well reject these states as a general law. And once it is forced by its enemies—Metaphysics and Psychology1068—out of its alleged impregnable strongholds, it will find it more difficult than it now appears to refuse room in the Spaces of Space to Planetary Spirits (Gods), Elementals, and even the Elementary Spooks or Ghosts, and others. Already Figuier and Paul D'Assier, two Positivists and Materialists, have succumbed before this logical necessity. Other and still greater Scientists will follow in that intellectual “Fall.” They will be driven out of their position not by spiritual, theosophical, or any other physical or even mental phenomena, but simply by the enormous gaps and chasms that open daily and will still be opening before them, as one discovery follows the other, until they are finally knocked off their feet by the ninth wave of simple common sense.
We may take as an example, Mr. W. Crookes' latest discovery of what he has named Protyle. In the Notes on the Bhagavad Gîtâ, by one of the best metaphysicians and Vedântic scholars in India, the lecturer, referring cautiously to “things Occult” in that great Indian Esoteric work, makes a remark as suggestive as it is strictly correct. He says:
Into the details of the evolution of the solar system itself, it is not necessary for me to enter. You may gather some idea as to the way in which the various elements start into existence from these three principles into which Mûlaprakriti (the Pythagorean Triangle) is differentiated, by examining the lecture delivered by Professor Crookes a short time ago upon the so-called elements of modern chemistry. This lecture will give you some idea of the way in which these so-called elements spring from Vishvânara,1069 the most objective of these three principles, which seems to stand in the place of the protyle mentioned in that lecture. Except in a few particulars, this lecture seems to give the outlines of the theory of physical evolution on the plane of Vishvânara, and is, so far as I know, the nearest approach made by modern investigators to the real occult theory on the subject.1070
These words will be reëchoed and approved by every Eastern Occultist. Much from the lectures by Mr. Crookes has already been quoted in Section XI. A second lecture has been delivered by him, as remarkable as the first, on the “Genesis of the Elements,”1071 and also a third one. Here we have almost a corroboration of the teachings of Esoteric Philosophy concerning the mode of primeval evolution. It is, indeed, as near an approach, made by a great scholar and specialist in Chemistry,1072 to the Secret Doctrine, as could be made apart from the application of the Monads and Atoms to the dogmas of pure transcendental Metaphysics, and their connection and correlation with “Gods and intelligent conscious Monads.” But Chemistry is now on its ascending plane, thanks to one of its highest European representatives. It is impossible for it to go back to that day when Materialism regarded its sub-elements as absolutely simple and homogeneous bodies, which it had raised, in its blindness, to the rank of Elements. The mask has been snatched off by too clever a hand for there to be any fear of a new disguise. And after years of pseudology, of bastard molecules parading under the name of Elements, behind and beyond which there could be nought but void, a great professor of Chemistry asks once more:
What are these elements, whence do they come, what is their signification?... These elements perplex us in our researches, baffle us in our speculations, and haunt us in our very dreams. They stretch like an unknown sea before us—mocking, mystifying, and murmuring strange revelations and possibilities.1073
Those who are heirs to primeval revelations have taught these “possibilities” in every century, but have never found a fair hearing. The truths inspired into Kepler, Leibnitz, Gassendi, Swedenborg, etc., were ever alloyed with their own speculations in one or another predetermined direction—hence were distorted. But now one of the great truths has dawned upon an eminent professor of exact Modern Science, and he fearlessly proclaims as a fundamental axiom that Science has not made itself acquainted, so far, with real simple Elements. For Mr. Crookes tells his audience:
If I venture to say that our commonly received elements are not simple and primordial, that they have not arisen by chance or have not been created in a desultory and mechanical manner, but have been evolved from simpler matters—or perhaps, indeed, from one sole kind of matter—I do but give formal utterance to an idea which has been, so to speak, for some time “in the air” of science. Chemists, physicists, philosophers of the highest merit, declare explicitly their belief that the seventy (or thereabouts) elements of our text-books are not the pillars of Hercules which we must never hope to pass.... Philosophers in the present as in the past—men who certainly have not worked in the laboratory—have reached the same view from another side. Thus Mr. Herbert Spencer records his conviction that “the chemical atoms are produced from the true or physical atoms by processes of evolution under conditions which chemistry has not yet been able to produce.”... And the poet has forestalled the philosopher. Milton (Paradise Lost, Book V.) makes the Archangel Raphael say to Adam instinct with the evolutionary idea, that the Almighty had created
... “One first matter, all
Indued with various forms, various degrees
Of substance.”
Nevertheless, the idea would have remained crystallized “in the air of Science,” and would not have descended into the thick atmosphere of Materialism and profane mortals for years to come, perhaps, had not Mr. Crookes bravely and fearlessly reduced it to its simple constituents, and thus publicly forced it on scientific notice. Says Plutarch:
An idea is a Being incorporeal, which has no subsistence by itself, but gives figure and form unto shapeless matter, and becomes the cause of the manifestation.1074
The revolution produced in old Chemistry by Avogadro was the first page in the volume of “New Chemistry.” Mr. Crookes has now turned the second page, and is boldly pointing to what may be the last. For Protyle once accepted and recognized—as invisible Ether was, both being logical and scientific necessities—Chemistry will have virtually ceased to live: it will reäppear in its reïncarnation as—“New Alchemy,” or “Meta-chemistry.” The discoverer of radiant matter will have vindicated in time the Archaic ryan works on Occultism, and even the Vedas and Purânas. For what are the manifested “Mother,” the “Father-Son-Husband” (Aditi and Daksha, a form of Brahmâ, as Creators), and the “Son”—the three “First-born”—but simply Hydrogen, Oxygen, and that which in its terrestrial manifestation is called Nitrogen. Even the exoteric descriptions of the “First-born” Triad give all the characteristics of these three “gases.” Priestley, the “discoverer” of Oxygen, or of that which was known in the highest antiquity!
Yet all the ancient, mediæval, and modern Poets and Philosophers have been anticipated even in the exoteric Hindû books as to the Elemental Vortices inaugurated by the Universal Mind—Descartes' “Plenum” of Matter differentiated into particles; Leibnitz's “ethereal fluid”; and Kant's “primitive fluid” dissolved into its elements; Kepler's solar vortex and systemic vortices; in short, through Anaxagoras, down to Galileo, Torricelli, and Swedenborg, and after them to the latest speculations by European Mystics—all this is found in the Hindû Hymns, or Mantras, to the “Gods, Monads and Atoms,” in their Fulness, for they are inseparable. In Esoteric Teachings, the most transcendental conceptions of the Universe and its mysteries, as also the most seemingly materialistic speculations, are found reconciled, because these Sciences embrace the whole scope of evolution from Spirit to Matter. As declared by an American Theosophist:
The Monads (of Leibnitz) may from one point of view be called force, from another matter. To Occult Science, force and matter are only two sides of the same substance.1075
Let the reader remember these “Monads” of Leibnitz, every one of which is a living mirror of the Universe, every Monad reflecting every other, and compare this view and definition with certain Sanskrit Shlokas translated by Sir William Jones, in which it is said that the creative source of the Divine Mind,
Hidden in a veil of thick darkness, formed mirrors of the atoms of the world, and cast reflection from its own face on every atom.
When, therefore, Mr. 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 Hindû cosmogony in the Purânas; the practical demonstration thereof—is in the hands of those who will not be recognized 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 Mr. William Crookes that there is any hope for the recognition of a few, hitherto Occult, truths.
Meanwhile, any 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 on a general view into a septenary gradation of Substance—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 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; these sub-molecules differ one from the other, according to the position they occupy in the yttrium edifice.
