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The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 1 [[Vol. 1, Page]] 554 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. [[This page continued from previous section ]] X. THE COMING FORCE. ITS POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES. Shall we say that Force is "moving matter," or "matter in motion," and a manifestation of energy; or that matter and force are the phenomenal differentiated aspects of the one primary, undifferentiated Cosmic Substance? This query is made with regard to that Stanza which treats of F OHAT and his "Seven brothers or Sons ," in other words, of the cause and the effects of Cosmic Electricity, the latter called, in Occult parlance, the seven primary forces of Electricity, whose purely phenomenal, and hence grossest effects are alone cognizable by physicists on the cosmic and especially on the terrestrial plane. These include, among other things, Sound, Light, Colour, etc., etc. Now what does physical Science tell us of these "Forces"? S OUND, it says, is a sensation produced by the impact of atmospheric molecules on the tympanum , which, by setting up delicate tremors in the auditory apparatus, thus communicate themselves to the brain. L IGHT is the sensation caused by the impact of inconceivably minute vibrations of ether on the retina of the eye. So, too, we say. But this is simply the effect produced in our atmosphere and its immediate surroundings, all, in fact, which falls within the range of our terrestrial consciousness. Jupiter Pluvius sent his symbol in drops of rain, of water composed, as is believed, of two "elements," which chemistry dissociates and recombines. The compound molecules are in its power, but their atoms still elude its grasp. Occultism sees in all these Forces and manifestations a ladder, the lower rungs of which belong to exoteric physics, and the higher are traced to a living, intelligent, invisible Power, which is, as a rule, the unconcerned, and exceptionally, the conscious cause of the sense-born phenomenon designated as this or another natural law. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 555 DIVINE, INFERNAL, OR TERRESTRIAL FORCE? We say and maintain that S OUND, for one thing, is a tremendous Occult power; that it is a stupendous force, of which the electricity generated by a million of Niagaras could never counteract the smallest potentiality when directed with occult knowledge . Sound may be produced of such a nature that the pyramid of Cheops would be raised in the air, or that a dying man, nay, one at his last breath, would be revived and filled with new energy and vigour. For Sound generates, or rather attracts together, the elements that produce an ozone , the fabrication of which is beyond chemistry, but within the limits of Alchemy. It may even resurrect a man or an animal whose astral "vital body" has not been irreparably separated from the physical body by the severance of the magnetic or odic chord. As one saved thrice from death by that power, the writer ought to be credited with knowing personally something about it. And if all this appears too unscientific to be even noticed, let Science explain to what mechanical and physical laws known to it, is due the recently produced phenomena of the so-called "Keely motor?" What is it that acts as the formidable generator of invisible but tremendous force, of that power which is not only capable of driving an engine of 25 horse-power, but has even been employed to lift the machinery bodily? Yet this is done simply by drawing a fiddle-bow across a tuning fork, as has been repeatedly proven. For the etheric Force, discovered by the well-known (in America and now in Europe) John Worrell Keely, of Philadelphia, is no hallucination. Notwithstanding his failure to utilize it, a failure prognosticated and maintained by some Occultists from the first, the phenomena exhibited by the discoverer during the last few years have been wonderful, almost miraculous, not in the sense of the supernatural * but of the superhuman. Had Keely been permitted to succeed, he might have reduced a whole army to atoms in the space of a few seconds as easily as he reduced a dead ox to the same condition. The reader is now asked to give a serious attention to that newly-discovered potency which the discoverer has named "Inter-Etheric Force and Forces." In the humble opinion of the Occultists, as of his immediate friends, [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The word "supernatural" implies above or outside of nature. Nature and Space are one. Now Space for the metaphysician exists outside of any act of sensation, and is a purely subjective representation; materialism, which would connect it forcibly with one or the other datum of sensation, notwithstanding. For our senses, it is fairly subjective when independent of anything within it. How then can any phenomenon, or anything else, step outside of or be performed beyond that which has no limits? But when spacial extension becomes simply conceptual, and is thought of in an idea connected with certain actions, as by the materialists and the physicists, then again they have hardly a right to define and claim that which can or cannot be produced by Forces generated within even limited spaces, as they have not even an approximate idea of what those forces are. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 556 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Mr. Keely, of Philadelphia, was, and still is, at the threshold of some of the greatest secrets of the Universe; of that chiefly on which is built the whole mystery of physical Forces, and the esoteric significance of the "Mundane Egg" symbolism. Occult philosophy, viewing the manifested and the unmanifested Kosmos as a UNITY, symbolizes the ideal conception of the former by that "Golden Egg" with two poles in it. It is the positive pole that acts in the manifested world of matter, while the negative is lost in the unknowable absoluteness of SAT -- " Be - ness. "* Whether this agrees with the philosophy of Mr. Keely, we cannot tell, nor does it really much matter. Nevertheless, his ideas about the ethero-material construction of the Universe look strangely like our own, being in this respect nearly identical. This is what we find him saying in an able pamphlet compiled by Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore, an American lady of wealth and position, whose incessant efforts in the pursuit of truth can never be too highly appreciated: -- "Mr. Keely, in explanation of the working of his engine, says: 'In the conception of any machine heretofore constructed, the medium for inducing a neutral centre has never been found. If it had, the difficulties of perpetual-motion seekers would have ended, and this problem would have become an established and operating fact. It would only require an introductory impulse of a few pounds, on such a device, to cause it to run for centuries.