When a planetary chain is in its last Round, its Globe 1 or A, before finally dying out , sends all its energy and "principles" into a neutral centre of latent force, a "laya centre," and thereby informs a new nucleus of undifferentiated substance or matter, i.e.
, calls it into activity or gives it life.
Suppose such a process to have taken place in the lunar "planetary" chain; suppose again, for argument's sake (though Mr.
Darwin's theory quoted below has lately been upset, even if the fact has not yet been ascertained by mathematical calculation) that the moon is far older than the Earth.
Imagine the six fellow-globes of the moon -- aeons before the first globe of our seven was evolved -- just in the same position in relation to each other as the fellow-globes of our chain occupy in regard to our Earth now.
(See in "Esoteric Buddhism," "The Constitution of Man," and the "Planetary Chain.") And now it will be easy to imagine further Globe A of the lunar chain informing Globe A of the terrestrial chain, and -- dying; Globe B of the former sending after that its energy into Globe B of the new chain; then Globe C of the lunar, creating its progeny sphere C of the terrene chain; then the Moon (our Satellite*) pouring forth into [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * She is the satellite, undeniably, but this does not invalidate the theory that she has given to the Earth all but her corpse.
For Darwin's theory to hold good, besides the hypothesis just upset (vide last footnote), other still more incongruous speculations had to be invented.
The Moon, it is said, has cooled nearly six times as rapidly as the Earth (Winchell's "World-Life"): "The Moon, if the earth is 14,000,000 years old since its incrustation, is only eleven and two thirds millions of years old since that stage .
.
." etc.
And if our Moon is but a splash from our Earth, why can no similar inference be established for the Moons of other planets?
The Astronomers "do not know." Why should Venus and Mercury have no satellites, and by what, when they exist, were they formed?
Because, we say, science has only one key -- the key of matter -- to open the mysteries of nature withal, while occult philosophy has seven keys and explains that which science fails to see.
Mercury and Venus have no satellites but they had "parents" just as the earth had.
Both are far older than the Earth and, before the latter reaches her seventh Round, her mother Moon will have dissolved [[Footnote continued on next page]] [[Vol.
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the lowest globe of our planetary ring -- Globe D, our Earth -- all its life, energy and powers; and, having transferred them to a new centre becoming virtually a dead planet , in which rotation has almost ceased since the birth of our globe.
The Moon is now the cold residual quantity, the shadow dragged after the new body, into which her living powers and "principles" are transfused.
She now is doomed for long ages to be ever pursuing the Earth, to be attracted by and to attract her progeny.
Con stantly vampirised by her child, she revenges herself on it by soaking it through and through with the nefarious, invisible, and poisoned influence which emanates from the occult side of her nature.
For she is a dead , yet a living body.
The particles of her decaying corpse are full of active and destructive life, although the body which they had formed is soulless and lifeless.
Therefore its emanations are at the same time beneficent and maleficent -- this circumstance finding its parallel on earth in the fact that the grass and plants are nowhere more juicy and thriving than on the graves; while at the same time it is the graveyard or corpse-emanations, which kill.
And like all ghouls or vampires, the moon is the friend of the sorcerers and the foe of the unwary.
From the archaic aeons and the later times of the witches of Thessaly, down to some of the present tantrikas of Bengal, her nature and properties were known to every Occultist, but have remained a closed book for physicists.
Such is the moon from the astronomical, geological, and physical standpoints.
As to her metaphysical and psychic nature it must remain an occult secret in this work, as it was in the volume on "Esoteric Buddhism," notwithstanding the rather sanguine statement made therein on p.
113 (5th edition) that "there is not much mystery left now in the riddle of the eighth sphere." These are topics, indeed, "on which the adepts are very reserved in their communications to uninitiated pupils," and since they have, moreover, never sanctioned or permitted any published speculations upon them, the less said the better.
Yet without treading upon the forbidden ground of the "eighth sphere," it may be useful to state some additional facts with regard to ex-monads of the lunar chain -- the "lunar ancestors" -- as they play a [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- [[Footnote continued from previous page]] into thin air, as the "Moons" of the other planets have, or have not, as the case may be, since there are planets which have several moons -- a mystery again which no OEdipus of astronomy has solved.
[[Vol.
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leading part in the coming Anthropogenesis.
This brings us directly to the septenary constitution of man; and as some discussion has arisen of late about the best classification to be adopted for the division of the microcosmic entity, two systems are now appended with a view to facilitate comparison.
The subjoined short article is from the pen of Mr.
T.
Subba Row, a learned Vedantin scholar.
He prefers the Brahmanical division of the Raja Yoga, and from a metaphysical point of view he is quite right.
But, as it is a question of simple choice and expediency, we hold in this work to the "time-honoured" classification of the trans-Himalayan "Arhat Esoteric School." The following table and its explanatory text are reprinted from the "Theosophist" of Madras, and they are also contained in "Five Years of Theosophy": -- SEPTENARY DIVISION IN DIFFERENT INDIAN SYSTEMS.
"We give below in a tabular form the classifications adopted by the Buddhist and Vedantic teachers of the principles of man: -- [[Footnote(s) to table]] * Kosa (kosha) is "Sheath" literally, the sheath of every principle.
† "Life." ‡ The astral body or Linga Sarira.
§ Sthula-Upadhi, or basis of the principle.
|| Buddhi.
[[Vol.
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The doctrine of the periodic restoration or recurrence of all things to their original state after vast cycles.
The cyclical structure of planetary Rounds, where chains die out and new ones are informed from the residual energy, implies periodic recurrence of cosmic states after vast cycles.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The passage explicitly draws a structural parallel between the lunar chain's globes and the terrestrial chain's globes, showing the same pattern of six fellow-globes at different cosmic scales.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The entire passage is a cosmogonic narrative describing how the terrestrial planetary chain came into being from the energy of the preceding lunar chain, globes informing globes in sequence.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The planetary chain structure with globes A through D each sending its energy into the next, and the lunar chain informing the terrestrial chain, describes a cascading flow of principles from one level to the next.
A historical or mythical chain of transmission for secret wisdom from master to disciple across time and cultures — the credential of the teaching, not merely its content. Distinct from oral_tradition (the spoken-not-written modality of transmission, which a lineage may or may not use) and hidden_sayings (the concealment-for-readiness of a teaching's meaning, independent of who transmitted it or in what unbroken chain).
References to 'the trans-Himalayan Arhat Esoteric School' and the 'adepts' who guard these secrets imply a chain of transmission for this cosmological knowledge across time.
The interference of a discarnate human soul, or the lingering condition of a particular place, with the living — Dion Fortune's distinction between a soul in distress that clings out of ignorance and ties itself to a person or locality, versus deliberate malice. Distinct from animism (indwelling nature-spirits inherent to a place by nature, not a specific dead individual's soul) and from psychopomp_journey and ancestor_veneration (guiding the dead onward, or the living's ongoing ritual obligation to the honoured dead) in naming the pathological case: a soul that has NOT been guided onward and instead interferes, whether with a person or a place.
The Moon is described as a 'dead, yet a living body' whose 'decaying corpse' emanates 'nefarious, invisible, and poisoned influence' that 'soaks through' the Earth, analogous to a lingering dead presence interfering with the living.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The passage explicitly states that the Moon's metaphysical and psychic nature 'must remain an occult secret' and that 'the adepts are very reserved in their communications to uninitiated pupils,' concealing inner truth behind an outer presentation.
The doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference, populated by innumerable worlds — Bruno's rejection of the closed Aristotelian sphere; the divine and the cosmos as ontologically infinite.
The passage implies multiple planetary chains (lunar, terrestrial, and others with or without satellites) existing across vast aeons, suggesting a universe populated by innumerable worlds.
A non-physical dimension of reality, interpenetrating the physical world, populated by forces, beings, and forms ordinarily imperceptible to physical senses and instruments, that can affect embodied life without being seen — Dion Fortune's 'mind-side of nature,' the astral plane of Western esotericism broadly construed. Distinct from astral_light (a specific transmitting medium or fluid operating within this realm, not the realm itself), pleroma (the divine fullness at the summit of a cosmic hierarchy, not a parallel plane coextensive with ordinary life), and animism (particular indwelling spirits bound to specific natural objects, not the general unseen dimension itself).
The passage describes the Moon's 'occult side of her nature,' her 'invisible, and poisoned influence,' and the 'eighth sphere' as a realm of metaphysical and psychic reality imperceptible to ordinary physical science.
The doctrine that the cosmos unfolds as a structured descent of spirit into matter — a directional process traced stage by stage from an unconditioned principle down through successive planes to full materialization — complemented by its own eventual return ('evolution'). Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (the static structure of the resulting levels of the cascade) and cosmogony (a single originating event rather than an ongoing staged process) in naming the directional cosmic PROCESS of descent itself, paired with its own complementary ascent.
The process of energy flowing from a 'laya centre' into a 'new nucleus of undifferentiated substance' and the sequential informing of globes A through D describes a directional descent of spirit/energy into progressively denser matter.
The persistent form or image of a human being that exists from birth to death, distinct from the impermanent physical matter.
The table at the end explicitly lists 'Linga Sarira' (the astral body) as one of the septenary principles of man, with a footnote identifying it as 'The astral body or Linga Sarira.'
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The passage transitions from the macrocosmic planetary chain structure directly to 'the septenary constitution of man,' implying the human being mirrors the cosmic structure of seven globes/principles.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
The passage explicitly references 'ex-monads of the lunar chain' as entities playing a leading part in Anthropogenesis, treating the monad as an undivided unit of spiritual existence.
The Hermetic doctrine that apparent opposites are identical in nature but differ in degree — two extremes of the same scale (hot/cold, love/hate) — such that one pole can be shifted toward its opposite by a change of degree ('mental transmutation'). Distinct from opposites_transcended (a completion-state marking the path's end, not this doctrine's active technique) and magical_equilibrium (balance held BETWEEN two forces, not identity-by-degree of what looks like two forces).
The Moon is described as simultaneously 'dead, yet a living body' whose emanations are 'at the same time beneficent and maleficent,' expressing the Hermetic principle that apparent opposites are identical in nature differing only in degree.
The 'ex-monads of the lunar chain' or 'lunar ancestors' are described as entities that have migrated from the lunar chain to play a role in terrestrial Anthropogenesis, indicating transmigration of spiritual units across cosmic cycles.