Ancient and Modern Physics Part 5

This is the great battle ground, the only one worth considering in a general view. There are minor "critical stages" which the chemist studies, but for us, in this broad sketch of the universe, the important battle-ground is that between solid and liquid on one side representing gravity, and gas on the other, representing apergy.

All the solids and liquids of this earth of ours gather at the centre, in a core, each of the elements (or their combinations) in this core vibrating in their three lower notes, producing the attraction, which is "in proportion to the ma.s.s" and which decreases from the surface of the core "as the square of the substance."

Around this central core gather all the elements vibrating in the three higher notes of their octave as gases, producing repulsion which increases by 1.6 for each doubled time. It is worth while making this clear. It has never before appeared in print.

Let the amount of apergy, or repulsion, or centrifugal force at the surface of the earth be represented by x. This is the result of motion at the rate of 1,000 miles per hour. Make this motion 2,000 miles per hour, and the apergy is increased 1.6. Four thousand miles above the surface of this earth the rotation is at the rate of 2,000. It is the globe of 48,000 miles in circ.u.mference revolving in 24 hours, and the speed is doubled.

This apergy has increased by 1.6. As the apergy increases at this rate every time the speed is doubled, at a distance of 21,000 miles the speed is 7,000 miles per hour and the centrifugal force has been increased nearly four times what it was at the surface of the ocean. The attraction has been decreased to about one-thirtieth. At the surface it is equal to 120 x. At 4,000 miles to one-quarter, or 30 x; at 16,000 miles to one-sixteenth, or 7 x; and at 21,000 miles to 4 x.

If "equatorial gravity is about 120 times that of the equatorial apergy," at the ocean level, then at the distance of 21,000 miles from it, in a revolving globe, the two forces would be equal; the "pull" of each being 4 x, and an anchor will weigh no more than a feather, for weight is the excess of gravity or apergy.

If the pyramids had been built of the heaviest known material on the gases 21,000 miles above us, and so that they should revolve in the same time, 7,000 miles per hour, they would remain there.

All the attraction of the solid core of the earth that could be exerted on them at that distance would not be enough to pull them an inch nearer to it through our gaseous envelope. Their gaseous foundation there would be as firm as igneous rock here.

The force of repulsion created by the three higher notes of an octave means just as much at the attraction created by the three lower notes, whether it is in a chemical retort, within this earth, or within this universe. The two forces balance, and are exactly equal. They fight only within kinetic zones.

Given the vast manasic globe of differentiated matter, its atoms uniting in different numbers to form molecules as the bases of elementary substances, manasic substances, of course. The thrill of vibration is sweeping through it from the spiritual plane above, and the elements (and their combinations) which answer in the lower notes gather and form a core, the Invisible Central Sun, with its attraction. The elements answering in the higher notes gather around it with their repulsion. So the two opposing forces were born, with a vast kinetic skin for a battle-ground between them.

The attraction of the invisible central sun manifests itself to us in prakriti as Light. The repulsion of its covering, or the higher static vibration of manasa, manifests itself to us as Darkness. The first creative act in or on matter was the creation of Light and its separation from the Darkness. The next creative act was the establishment of a kinetic skin or zone between them, a firmament in which the two forces of Light and Darkness could strive for mastery. "And G.o.d called the firmament Heaven." The third creative act was the gathering of the solids and liquids together, and the beginning of the kinetic work in the creation of forms and shapes, by the cross play of the two forces in their combinations of solid with gases.

All this had to happen before the manasa combined and dropped in vibration to prana--and before the pranic globes were formed and the Light could be manifested to us through them. It may be well to read the first chapter of Genesis over and ask forgiveness for our ignorance, from the writer who records this creation of the pranic globes as the fourth act of creation, and the creation of the etheric sun and prakritic moon to follow that. That record is mutilated, fragmentary; but the writer of it knew the facts.

If we had the full story, instead of a sentence here and there, taken from an older story not to tell of creation but to hide another tale for the priest, the writer of Genesis would laugh last.

But let us return to the kinetic skin of energy between Light and the Darkness--the firmament which G.o.d calls Heaven--the battle ground for gravity and apergy, or attraction and repulsion, or good and evil, or the powers of light and darkness. This skin is like that of an onion, thickest at the equator and thinnest at the poles--not only on this earth but in the solar, alcyonic, and manasic globes. The equatorial belt, where phenomena are richest in the manasic globes, we call the Milky Way; in the solar globe we call it the plane of the ecliptic; and on the earth, the tropics. Modern science has not yet found it in Alcyonic globe--because it has never thought of looking for it.

This division of the Light from the Darkness was all that was required for evolution on the manasic globe within the kinetic belt. This evolution was not confined to the making of a few alcyonic or pranic globes. It was (and is) a great and wonderful evolution beyond words and almost beyond imagination. It is the Heaven which mankind has longed to see and know. The writer of Genesis mixed it with the creation of this earth, using earthly metaphors. Before finding fault, we should better his language.

We have not the words in physics to do it, and must wait for our metaphysics. But of one thing we may be sure, that the pranic- alcyonic globes here and there at the "sea level" of the manasic globe--in what G.o.d calls Heaven--amount to no more on that globe, or in Heaven, than so many b.a.l.l.s of thistle-down blown across a meadow do on this earth of ours. Everything that can be created in thought must be there. It is in thought only, but in thought it is differentiated as sharply as anything in prakriti.

The manasic world, the Heaven of the Bible, is as real as our own world can possibly be; in fact, more real, for when ours is resolved back into its final elements, it will be but "the dust of the ground" of the manasic world.

The pranic globes created in this manasic skin by Sound, or the Logos, or vibration, evolved in identically the same way--with a central static core and an outer static envelope, of low and high vibration in prana, creating attraction and repulsion, or gravity and apergy. The kinetic skin between, in which these forces play in the pranic world, makes a real, not an imaginary pranic world, though but a faint reflection of the manasic. When our father, the Central Invisible Sun, transfers his attraction to these alcyonic suns, the Light has something in which to manifest itself, and we "see" this manifesting core and call it Alcyone, and its manifestation Light; but light in its last material a.n.a.lysis is but the static mind or thought vibrating in the three lower notes of the octave.

Chapter Nine

The Dual Man

Within the alcyonic globes of differentiated pranic-manasic atoms the vibration divided them also into solid-liquid cores and gaseous envelopes, and a kinetic skin of phenomena. And then a new world--a world of Life, came into material existence. All the atoms of thought or manasa, surrounding each and every pranic atom, and making its molecule of energy, so to speak, were that particular kind of kinetic manasa ready to change its rate of vibration within an octave, and the forms prana a.s.sumes from the action of thought within the kinetic belt were living and thinking. Each pranic globe, which was a small state of product of the manasic, consisted of two globes in coadunition--two in one. Each pranic atom was the centre of a manasic molecule and represented the universe. All things were two in one, created by harmonic vibration between them, and existence by the greater strength of the lower notes, or attraction. It was at once less and more wonderful than the manasic world--a specialized form of it.

When within this kinetic belt of the prana the etheric solar globes formed here and there, they were three fold, each atom of the new plane of matter having its surrounding envelope of prana- manasa--a specialization of the pranic world in which (what we call) force had been added to life and mind. The static ether, vibrating in each of its elements through one octave, divided into central core (our sun, and other suns) and outer covering, with a skin or belt of kinetic energy, "as above" which developed an etheric world. All things on this etheric world were caused by the harmonic vibration between the etheric atoms and their surrounding envelopes, except that while all things in this etheric world must have life, not all need have mind. The chord of three was not necessary to create; the chord of two was enough, and the manasic atoms might cease to vibrate in chord with the prana and ether without affecting the creation. Only in the etheric world (and below it) could there be living mindless ones. To the etheric globes the stellar pranic cores transferred their light, which manifested itself in the solid static ether as Attraction and in the gaseous static ether as Repulsion, within the kinetic skin of each etheric world more specialized and less varied than the pranic.

Our sun is not of prakriti, but of static ether, composed of the separate and individual elementary substances of the ether, and their compounds vibrating in the lower notes of their octaves.

It is our father, not our elder brother. Its envelope of static ether in which the planet revolves is composed of the elementary substances and combinations vibrating in the higher notes of their octave. The light transferred to this etheric globe from its mother, Alcyone, manifests itself in the lower vibration of the sun as Attraction; in the higher vibrations of its envelope as Repulsion, and within the kinetic skin wherein these forces play, the prakritic globes, planets, were born.

Take our earth. Each atom is fourfold--whether of the static core or of the static gaseous envelope. Creation on it is limited to the kinetic skin, wherein the attraction of the lower and repulsion of the higher notes in each octave of vibration have full play. All things on it must have come from the chording vibrations of the atoms of the prakritic elementary substances and their envelope of ether. They may or may not have life or mind the ether atom may have lost its chord with its pranic envelope, or the pranic envelope may have lost its chord with the manasic; but the combination must have force or energy within it. It may have lost Mind and Life in acquiring it, or after acquiring it; but it had to have life before it could become prakriti.

All things in the prakritic world flow from the Life of the etheric and the Mind of the pranic worlds. Everything in the etheric world has life, and our unconscious personification or "vivification" of etheric life transferred into fauna or flora, or into force of any kind, has a natural explanation. The thrill of vibration in one octave through the differentiated consciousness of the universe by which the light was separated from the darkness, the lower from the higher, was all that was required to create each star and sun, and world, and all that in them is. And it was all good.

Each thing on every lower world was but the translation into form of the type of the next world (or plane) above. As each element on this prakritic type, so each combination of those elements into crystal or tree or animal is but the translation. The normal earth from the crystal to (the animal) man was pure, and clean, and holy. Sin had not entered.

How did it come?

On the vast manasic world there was "a special creation"--that of the Angel Man. The three planes of Spirit above were undifferentiated consciousness, but they were in different octaves of vibration, and these working on the three highest forms of differentiated consciousness (manasic matter) brought them to chording Vibration so that when they combined and reached their highest point in evolution they "created" the Angel (or manasic) man. He was the product in kinetic manasa of the three spiritual planes above him, precisely as the animal man was the product in kinetic prakriti of the three material planes above him. The latter was the "shadow" of the other.

The Angel-man had a material (manasic) body, but his energy life, and mind were spiritual. The animal man had a prakritic body, with energy, life and mind that were material.

So far all was good.

The animal man has four bodies--one of prakriti, one of ether, one of prana, and one of manasa. It may be true, and probably is, that his manasic body is not sounding in chord with his prakritic body, but only with those atoms of it which are in his brain and nerves; but that is immaterial--for future consideration.

The Angel man had but one body, of manasa, in which the spirit dwelt; but that body was identical in substance with the body that made the mind of the animal man. His manasic body joined the manasic body of the animal man, joined with it by entering into the animal man's mind, as easily as water from one gla.s.s is added to water in another gla.s.s, and the animal "man became a living soul," endowed with speech, while the Angel-man was given "a skin coat."

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 a.n.a.lysis. 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 s.h.i.+ve 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 a.n.a.lysis 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.