Thomas Edgar Willson

“ This question of the four globes, of the four planes of matter, of the four skins, and of the four conditions or states of all matter and necessarily of all persons, from the purely material standpoint, is not only the foundation of Oriental physics, but the very essence of Oriental metaphysics—its starting-point and corner-stone. To one who carries with him, consciously or unconsciously, the concrete knowledge of the physics, the abstract teaching of the metaphysics presents no difficulty; it is as clear as crystal. But without the physical teaching the metaphysical is not translatable. ”

“ The Hindu understands without explanation. He understands his physics.
The Hindu physics teaches, with ours, that "the ether is the source of all energy," but, it adds, "as prana is the source of all life, and manasa of all mind."
"When the prakritic atom is vibrating in chord with its etheric envelope," say our textbooks, "we have physical phenomena —light, heat, electricity." "Yes," says the Hindu teacher; "but when the atom and its ether and its prana are vibrating in chord, we have life and vital phenomena added to the energy. ”

“ The knowledge that comes through intuition tells us of matter vibrating in another great octave just beyond our own, which Science has chosen to name the etheric octave, or plane. The instant our intuition reveals the cause of phenomena our reason drops in and tells us it is the chording vibration of the matter of the two planes—the physical and etheric—that produces all physical phenomena. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Land or water, mountain or lake, man or beast, bird or reptile, cold or heat, light or darkness, all are the reflection in physical matter of the true and real thing in the invisible and intangible world about us. ”

“ Science is correct in holding only in its assumption that it is physical science; incorrect only in its assumption that it is physical science of this plane and globe only. There is no quarrel between science and religion when the full knowledge of one stands beside the full knowledge of the other. They are twin-sisters.
This solar-etheric globe in which we are interested revolves around Alcyone within that kinetic belt or skin of prana which is subject to phenomena or vibration through one octave—else it would never have been formed. ”

“ Nearly if not all our great discoveries have come to us through intuition and not from observation and experience. When we know the lines on which to work, when intuition has given us the KEY, then the observation and experience men prize so highly, and the reason they worship so devoutly, will fill in the details. The knowledge that flows from observation and the reasoning from the facts it records, is never more than relatively true, it is always limited by the facts, and any addition to the facts requires the whole thing to be restated. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Nothing, no combination of atoms, no matter of any kind, however small or large, can exist in this prakritic world unless it has the four elements, which from time immemorial our philosophers have called Earth, Water, Fire, Air, meaning the four globes or forms of matter in the universe. We do not have to leave the earth to live in the etheric globe. It is here. Nor do we have to go millions of miles to reach the pranic globe. It is here. The problems of light and heat are no easier than the problems of birth and death. The pranic globe is within us; within everything. So is the manasic. ”

“ As each atom of this physical world of ours—whether of land, or water, or air; whether of solid, liquid or gas—is the centre of an etheric molecule, we have two worlds, not one: a physical world and an etheric one; a visible world and an invisible world; a tangible world and an intangible world; a world of effect and a world of cause.
And each animal, including man, is made in the same way. He has a prakritic body and an etheric body; a visible body and an invisible body; an earthly body and one "not made with hands," in common touch with the whole universe. ”

“ You are as far out of the way as you were in supposing that our sun could be a centre of gravity of a lot of planets revolving around it and around Alcyone without being a globe of ether. Now that it has been mentioned, you see very clearly for yourself that it must be a solar globe of ether. It follows from one of your physical axioms. When I tell you why the earth is and must be about fifty thousand miles in diameter, you will see that it must be so, and that you knew it all the time, but never stopped to formulate your knowledge. ”

“ 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 assumes from the action of thought within the kinetic belt were living and thinking. ”

“ Each physical atom is as far apart from every other atom as the stars in heaven from one another—in proportion to their size. The atoms and the spaces between them are so small to our sight that they seem to touch. If we had a microscope of sufficient power to reveal the atom, you would see that no two atoms touch, and that the spaces between them are, as Faraday says, very great in proportion to their size. ”

“ The Hindu system of physics, on which the metaphysical thought of the East is based, does not in its beginnings differ widely from the latest physics of the West; but it goes so much farther that our physics is soon lost sight of and forgotten. The Hindu conception of the material universe, taken from the Upanishads and some open teaching, will serve for an illustration. They divide physical matter into four kinds—prakriti, ether, prana, and manasa—which they call "planes." ”

“ Once rid of the fallacious notion that we were creatures of the surface of the earth, once clearly conscious that we were creatures of the interior, of the bottom of this gaseous ocean, then we could understand not only how the earth could be created in this etheric globe, but how we could be creatures of the solar globe living on it. ”

“ He was more afraid of sin than of ignorance. We are more afraid of ignorance than of sin. He preferred to better men's moral condition; we prefer to better their physical condition.
If one of the Sages of the East could be called up and put on the stand to be questioned, he would say, substantially:
"You are right in regard to your ether, and to prakriti being ether that has been dropped a great octave in vibration. Your physical atom is surrounded by a molecule of ether, this molecule containing many atoms of ether. The chording vibration does produce all physical phenomena. ”

“ But the flash of revelation having once made the path apparent, the light of reason carries us through all the winding ways. Our knowledge of the ether is not guess-work or fancy, any more than our geometry is, because it is based on axioms our reason cannot prove. In both cases the basic axioms are obtained from intuition; the structural work from reason. Our knowledge of the ether may be as absolute and exact as our knowledge of prakriti, working on physical as we work on geometrical axioms. ”

“ The recognition of the two sources of knowledge, the work of the spirit within us and of the mind within us, is absolutely necessary to correctly comprehend the true significance of the results of modern science and to accept the ancient. ”

“ That we live in the earth, not on the earth, is one of the most important of the facts of eastern physics in the study of its metaphysics. The mathematical and physical proof that the physical earth is 50,000 miles in diameter should not be passed over lightly in our haste to get on, for the perfect understanding of all this fact implies makes easy the comprehension of how we live etherically in the solar etheric globe, of how we live pranically in the stellar pranic globe, and how we live manasically in the manasic globe. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The European who believed—no Asiatic or African or American could have believed —that the earth rested on an elephant and the elephant on a turtle was wise, in comparison. Nor is it any sign of intelligence to say that we may learn something of the village and county while we live, but that to learn anything about the state and nation we must wait until we are dead. ”

“ If the orbital speed of the earth were a mile less per hour, or even a foot less, then the earth would wind up around the sun as a dog gets wound up with his chain around a tree. If this speed were a mile more per hour, then the earth would wind out, each year getting farther and farther away, until finally it would be lost. When the speed is exactly proportional to the pull—that is, when it is as 1.6 is to 2,—the result is a circular orbit, the eccentricity of which is caused by certain fluctuations in the attraction and repulsion. ”

“ As some men on this earth never leave their native village and never know or care for any matters outside of it, so in this little earth village, in the kinetic belt of the manasic globe, there are men who do not care to know anything which relate to matters outside its boundaries. As some men may pass the boundaries of their village, but not of their county, caring only for the matters concerning it, so the western scientists of this earth village on the manasic globe do not pass the boundaries of Helios county, caring only for etheric matters. ”

“ Modern science represents each and every prakritic atom as a globe like the earth, floating in space and surrounded by an atmosphere of ether. "The subdivision of prakritic matter until we reach etheric atoms chemically united to make the physical unit" is the correct definition of an atom. The prakritic physical atom has length, breadth and thickness. And it has an atmosphere of ether which not only interpenetrates the atom as oxygen and hydrogen interpenetrate the drop of water, but furnishes it with an envelope as the oxygen and hydrogen furnish the drop of water with one. ”

“ Matter is something—science does not know or care to know what —in vibration. A very low octave of vibration produces prakriti; a very high octave of vibration produces ether. The vibration of prakriti ends in thousands; that of ether begins in billions. Between them there is a gulf of vibrations that has not yet been bridged. For that reason science divides matter into two "planes," or octaves, of vibration—the matter of this visible and tangible plane being called prakriti and that of the invisible and intangible plane being called etheric. ”

“ There is friction between prakriti, between ether, between prana; but not between ether and prana, or ether and prakriti. Friction is a phenomenon confined to the matter of each plane separately. We live at the bottom of this gaseous ocean—on its floor —21,000 miles from the surface and only 4,000 miles from the center. Here, in a narrow "skin" limited to a few miles above and below us, is the realm of phenomena, where solid turns into liquid and liquid into gas, or vice versa. The lesson impressed upon the pupil's mind by Hindu physics is that he lives far within the earth, not on it. ”

“ The etheric, invisible bar is the source and cause of all phenomena connected with the bar. It is the real bar, and the one we see is merely the shadow in physical matter of a real bar. In shape, strength, color, in short, in everything, it depends on the invisible one. The invisible dominates, governs, disposes. The visible is merely its attendant shadow, changing as the invisible, etheric bar changes, and recording for our senses these invisible changes.
"The invisible change always comes first; the invisible phenomena invariably precede the visible. ”

“ It is not worthwhile attempting to translate the occult Eastern physics into the language of our Western and modern physics, unless those who are to read the translation understand generally and broadly what our own modern physics teach. It is not necessary that they should know all branches of our modern physics in all their minute ramifications; but it is necessary that they should understand clearly the fundamental principles upon which our scientific and technical knowledge of today rests. ”

“ 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. ”