Page 35 (part 2)

Newton is credited with having given the death-blow to the Elemental Vortices of Descartes (the idea of Anaxagoras, resurrected, by-the-bye), though the last modern "vortical atoms" of Sir W. Thomson do not, in truth, differ much from the former. Nevertheless, when his disciple Forbes wrote in the Preface to the chief work of his Master a sentence declaring that "attraction was the cause of the System," Newton was the first to solemnly protest. That which in the mind of the great mathematician assumed the shadowy, but firmly rooted image of God, as the noumenon of all,* was called more philosophically by the ancient (and modern) philosophers and Occultists -- "Gods," or the creative fashioning Powers. The modes of expression may have been different, and the ideas more or less philosophically enunciated by all sacred and profane Antiquity; but the fundamental thought was the same.** For Pythagoras the Forces were Spiritual Entities, Gods inde- [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * " Attraction ," Le Couturier, a materialist, writes, "has now become for the public that which it was for Newton himself -- a simple word, an idea " ( Panorama des Mondes ), since its cause is unknown. Herschell virtually says the same, when remarking, that whenever studying the motion of the heavenly bodies, and the phenomena of attraction, he feels penetrated at every moment with the idea of "the existence of causes that act for us under a veil, disguising their direct action . " ( Musee des Sciences , August, 1856.) ** If we are taken to task for believing in operating "Gods" and "Spirits" while rejecting a personal God , we answer to the Theists and Monotheists: "Admit that your Jehovah is one of the Elohim , and we are ready to recognise him. Make of him, as you do, the Infinite, the ONE and the Eternal God, and we will never accept him in this character." Of tribal Gods there were many; the One Universal Deity is a principle, an abstract Root-Idea which has nought to do with the unclean work of finite Form. We do not worship the Gods, we only honour Them, as beings superior to ourselves. In this we obey the Mosaic injunction, while Christians disobey their Bible -- Missionaries foremost of all. " Thou shalt not revile the gods ," says one of them -- (Jehovah) -- in Exodus xxii. 28); but at the same time in verse 20 it is commanded, "He that sacrificeth to any God, save unto the Lord, he shall be utterly destroyed." Now in the [[Footnote continued on next page]] [[Vol. 1, Page]] 493 THE TRIPLE SIDEREAL FORCE. pendent of planets and Matter as we see and know them on Earth, who are the rulers of the Sidereal Heaven. Plato represented the planets as moved by an intrinsic Rector, one with his dwelling, like "A boatman in his boat." As for Aristotle, he called those rulers " immaterial substances;"* though as one who had never been initiated, he rejected the gods as Entities ( See Vossius , Vol. II. , p. 528). But this did not prevent him from recognising the fact that the stars and planets "were not inanimate masses but acting and living bodies indeed. . . . . . ." As if " sidereal spirits were the divine portion of their phenomena, [[ ta theoitera pon phaneron ]]" ( De Caelo. I. 9). If we look for corroboration in more modern and Scientific times, we find Tycho Brahe recognising in the stars a triple force, divine , spiritual and vital. Kepler, putting together the Pythagorean sentence, "The Sun, guardian of Jupiter," and the verses of David, "He placed his throne in the Sun," and "The Lord is the Sun," etc., said that he understood perfectly how the Pythagoreans could believe that all the globes disseminated through Space were rational Intelligences, facultates ratiocinativae , circulating around the Sun, "in which resides a pure Spirit of fire; the source of the general harmony" ( De Motibus planetarum harmonicis , p. 248). When an Occultist speaks of Fohat -- the energising and guiding intelligence in the Universal Electric or Vital Fluid, -- he is laughed at. Withal, as now shown, neither the nature of electricity, nor of Life nor even of Light, are to this day understood. The Occultist sees in the manifestation of every force in Nature, the action of the quality, or the special characteristic of its noumenon; which noumenon is a distinct and intelligent Individuality on the other side of the manifested mechanical Universe. Now the Occultist does not deny -- on the contrary he will support the claim -- that light, heat, electricity and so on are affections (not properties or qualities) of matter. To put it more clearly: matter is the condition -- the necessary basis or vehicle, a sine qua non -- for the manifestation of these forces, or agents, on this plane. But in order to gain the point the Occultists have to examine the credentials of the law of gravity, first of all, of "Gravitation, the King [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- [[Footnote continued from previous page]] original texts it is not "god" but Elohim , -- and we challenge contradiction -- and Jehovah is one of the Elohim, as proved by his own words in Genesis iii. 22, when "the Lord God said: Behold the Man has become as one of us ," etc. Hence both those who worship and sacrifice to the Elohim , the angels, and to Jehovah, those who revile the gods of their fellow-men, are far greater transgressors than the Occultists or any Theosophist. Meanwhile many of the latter prefer believing in some one "Lord" or other, and are quite welcome to do as they like. * To liken the "immateriate species to wooden iron ," and laugh at Spiller referring to them as "incorporeal matter" does not solve the mystery (See "Concepts of Modern Physics," p. 165 et infra ) . [[Vol. 1, Page]] 494 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. and Ruler of Matter," under every form. To do so effectually, the hypothesis in its earliest appearance has to be recalled to mind. To begin with, is it Newton who was the first to discover it? The Athenaeum of Jan. 26, 1867, has some curious information upon this subject. It says that "positive evidence can be adduced that Newton derived all his knowledge of gravitation and its laws from Boehme, with whom gravitation or ATTRACTION is the first property of Nature." . . .