Gravity is an obsolete law in starry heaven. Among the materialists, gravity is the king of the all-potent imponderables. But among the students of the Sacred Science, gravity in one of the attributes of differentiation manifested as the law of attraction and repulsion between various states of matter. Newton did not use the word “attraction” with regard to the mutual action of bodies in a physical sense; to him, attractions were impulses; he believed that there is some subtle spirit, by the force and action of which all movements of matter are determined. For Pythagoras, Forces were Spiritual Entities (Gods independent of planets and matter, as we see and know them on Earth), who are the Rulers of the Sidereal Heaven. Light, heat, electricity, etc., are Affections, not properties or qualities of matter. Matter is the prerequisite and vehicle for the manifestation of Intelligent Forces on this plane. Newton had derived his knowledge of Gravitation and its laws from Jacob Böhme, with whom Gravitation or Attraction is the first property of Nature. Newton, whose profound mind had fathomed the spiritual thought of the great Seer in its mystic rendering, owes his great discovery to Böhme, the nursling of the genii who watched over and guided him. The voidness of the seeming full is the fullness of the seeming void. It was from Newton’s theory of a universal void that dates the immense scorn now shown by the moderns for ancient physics. Though the old sages had always maintained that “nature abhorred vacuum,” the mathematicians of the new world had discovered the antiquated “fallacy” and exposed it. More recently, modern Science vindicated, however ungracefully, archaic knowledge having, moreover, to also vindicate Newton’s character and powers of observation at this late hour. And now Father Æther is welcomed once more with open arms and wedded to gravitation. “Look back before moving forward” must become the motto of exact Science, in finding herself itself inexact every leap-year. Rough and up-hill is the path of Science; her days are full of vanity and vexation of Spirit. The metaphysical tenets of Kepler are purely occult. He was not the first to discover the theory of Attraction and Repulsion in Kosmos, for it was known from the days of Empedocles, the two opposite forces being called by him Hate and Love, or Repulsion and Attraction. Kepler also gave a pretty fair description of Cosmic Magnetism. Why should he be denounced then as most unscientific, for offering just the same solution as Newton did — only showing himself more sincere, more consistent, and even more logical? Where is the difference between Newton’s “all-powerful Being” and Kepler’s Rectores, his Sidereal and Cosmic Forces, or Angels?

The difference between Eternity and the “Seven Eternities” of the Secret Doctrine explained. Cosmic Pralaya differs greatly from deep sleep. Duration is infinite, time is a finite conception. Duration contains time but time has no duration. Space and duration are one and the same. One cannot image Space as not being. Space always is.

There are two Times, Universal and Finite. The one is the abstraction or noumenon of Infinite Time (Kala); the other, its phenomenon appearing periodically as the effect of Mahat. What is called temporal can exist only in time, which is a portion of the revolution of the highest sphere. Time is asleep in the bosom of the Orphic trinity. Secondary Logoi, like Zeus-Jupiter are born in and out of Chronos-Saturn, or Infinite Time. The last vibration of the Seventh Eternity, when Time was not, is First Logos. Time dawns in Second Logos, and is fully expressed in the Third. All Logoi are all the Sons of the Mother before they become those of the Father. Time is the panoramic succession of our states of consciousness. Present, “past,” and “future” are compound phenomenal time.

The real Saviours of Mankind all descend to the Nether World, the Kingdom of Darkness, of temptation, lust, and selfishness. And, after having overcome the Chrest condition or the tyranny of separateness, their astral or worldly ego is enlightened by Lucifer, the Glorified Divine Ego (Buddhi-Manas), who is the real Christ in every man. Pythagoras, Buddha, Apollonius, were Initiates of the same Secret School. The Sun is the external manifestation of the Seventh Principle of our Planetary System while the Moon is its Fourth Principle. Shining in the borrowed robes of her Master, she is saturated with and reflects every passionate impulse and evil desire of her grossly material body, our earth. Jesus as “Son of God” and “Saviour of Mankind,” was not unique in the world’s annals. The “infallible” Churches made up history as they went along, building up the Apostolic Church on a jumble of contradictions. See how the Fathers have falsified Jesus’ last words and made him a victim of his own success. “My God, my Sun, thou hast poured thy radiance upon me!” concluded the thanksgiving prayer of the Initiate, “the Son and the Glorified Elect of the Sun.” The Baptism in the Jordan is the Rite of Initiation and the final purification, when Christos and Sophia (Divine Intelligence–Wisdom) enter the Initiate by transference from Guru to Chela, leave the physical body upon death of the latter, and re-enter the Nirmanakaya, the Astral Ego of the new Adept. The “baptism” or Initiation of Jesus stands for the “descent” of the Higher Self or Soul (Atma-Buddhi) on Manas, the Higher Ego. And the union of Christos with Chrestos establishes a conscious communication of the Universal Individuality with the transcendent personality (Theophania) — the Adept. Jesus was crucified by his own Church, not by Scripture. The key to the hitherto unfathomable mystery of Jesus is hidden in the paronomasia of Chrestos and Christos. He who will not ponder over and master the great difference between the meaning of the two Greek words (Chrestos and Christos), must remain blind for ever to the true esoteric meaning of the Gospels; that is to say, to the living Spirit entombed in the sterile dead-letter of the texts, the very Dead Sea fruit of lip-Christianity. Jesus was Chrestos, a virtuous man in his trial of life and candidate to initiation. Not yet Christos, as he had not passed the third degree of initiation to become Epoptes. Chrestos, the neophyte, is admitted into the Christos condition at the end of his last incarnation when Manas is fully merged with Buddhi. His real temple is the awakened soul in the sanctuary of the heart. The real Christ is the Serpent or Dragon of Wisdom falling from on high into the hearts and minds of men. Christos is a Ray of Logos: Passive Wisdom in Heaven and Self-Active, Conscious Wisdom on Earth. Though the two are one, the permanent can never merge with the impermanent. It is only when the impermanent begins loving the permanent sufficiently to give up its ephemeral self and being, that a spiritual union of the “Heavenly man” with the “Virgin of the World” is accomplished and a new Saviour of Humanity is born here on earth but “without sin.” Alas, few are they who are fit to join that Holy Brotherhood where each, in order to gain admittance, must be at one with the Christ within him. Deity in Man is symbolised by Tau, a double glyph. Tau is formed from the figure Seven and the Greek letter Gamma, symbols of divine and earthly life, respectively. In its terrestrial attachment, Tau is the Sun shorn of his beams. In Greek Mythology, Tau is the iron lathe of Procrustes, the Attican Vishvakarman. Christos is Prometheus, a personification of the Great Logoic Sacrifice. On sending out its personal ray, Christos or Higher Manas becomes “crucified between two thieves”: the lower, impure tendencies that after death dissipate in Kama-Loka, and the higher aspirations that survive death and reascend the cyclic arc. Vishvakarman, the creator and “carpenter” of gods and men, crucifies Vikartana on a lathe and, cutting off the eighth part of his rays, deprives his head of its effulgence and creates round it a dark aureole. Christos is the “Man-God” of Plato, who crucifies himself for an eternity in the darkness of matter for the redemption of the Spirit of Light from the Kingdom of Darkness. As Deity and Man are One, so Christ is the God in Space and Man’s Saviour on Earth. Christos is the eternal, real Individuality or Universal Altruism, whereas Jesus-Chrestos is the ephemeral, false individuality or Egotism. Man is Deity on Earth, whose body is the cross of flesh, on, through, and in which he is ever crucifying and putting to death Christ, the Divine Logos, who is his benefactor and true friend. Chrest is a Ray made manifest from that Centre of Life which is hidden from the eyes of Humanity for and in Eternity. That Centre is the real Christ, crucified as a body of flesh and bones. The great mystery is at last unravelled: Christos, incarnating in Chrestos, becomes for certain purposes a willing candidate for a long series of tortures, mental and physical. Chrestos is the mortal man who, by crucifying the man of flesh and his passions on the Procrustean bed of torture, is reborn Immortal and leaves the animal-man behind him tied on the Cross of Initiation like an empty chrysalis. Then, his Higher Soul becomes as free as a butterfly.

Book 2 of 17, translated from the Arabic by the Divine Doctor John Everard, next to the Greek which has probably descended from Psellus’ archetype. With Greek and English side-by-side. Thoth-Hermes Trismegistus is Self-created Logos, the Voice of Egypt’s Great Hierophants. The High Priest of Memphis and author of the Book of the Dead is simply a personification of the teachings of the sacerdotal caste of Egypt. Thus the Babylonian Nebo, the Egyptian Thoth, and the Greek Hermes, were all gods of Esoteric Wisdom and golden threads of destiny, i.e., agents of the Sun and revealers of the Secret Doctrine. Wisdom is inseparable from Divinity.

The concepts of the West are the allegories of the East, and the truths of the Elect. Behind the veil of terrestrial phenomena, the Occultist sees in the Elemental Forces of Nature secondary Causes which are, in themselves, the effects of primary Causes produced and guided unerringly by Divine Intelligences. The idea of anything in Nature being inorganic or dead is materially fallacious, and is utterly rejected by Esoteric Philosophy. When matter appears inert, it is the most active. A stone block is motionless and impenetrable to all intents and purposes. Nevertheless, its particles are in ceaseless eternal vibration which is so rapid that, to the physical eye, the stone seems devoid of motion. Substance is the pre-cosmic substratum of matter, undifferentiated yet interrelated with Ideation, supersensuous but atomic, informed by the Divine Breath of its form. Substance does not mean matter in metaphysics. It is boundless Æther, formless and supernal, the ultimate essence of matter in Space and noumenon of evanescent matter on Earth. Ether is physical and infernal. Kosmos is Eternal Noetic Motion Unmanifested, the Great Breath of One Element. Father-Æther is the source and cause of All Cosmic Forces, which are differentiated aspects of Cosmic Substance, generated by substantial yet super-sensuous Powers. Our Cosmos is ruled by Creative and Intelligent Occult Forces: they are emanations of conscious living entities, acting behind the veil of matter. The forces we know of are but the phenomenal manifestations of realities we know nothing about, but which were known by the ancients. The truths of today are the falsehoods of yesterday. Conceit and prejudice strangle every truth. As only truth can dispel error, Truth should be the sole aim of Science and Justice. It is true that pure Force is nothing in the world of physics; but it is the All in the domain of metaphysics. Inertia is the Greatest of Occult Forces. A flying cannon ball moves only from its own inherent Force of Inertia. Eternal Vibration is the spiritual term for Motion Unmanifested, unconscious, innate, noumenal. It is the “Great Breath” of the One Eternal Element. Vortical Motion is the material term for Motion Manifested, conscious, external, phenomenal. Whatever may be the future name given to the Force of Inertia by scientists, to maintain that that Force does not reside in the atoms but only in the “space between them,” is not true. To the mind of an Occultist it is like saying that water does not reside in the drops of which the ocean is composed, but only in the space between those drops. The Atom belongs wholly to the domain of metaphysics. It is an entified abstraction and has nought to do with physics, strictly speaking, as it can never be brought to the test of retort or balance. Avogadro’s law holds the same place in chemistry as the law of gravitation does in astronomy. Occultists see in gravity only Sympathy and Antipathy, or Attraction and Repulsion, caused by physical polarity on our terrestrial plane, and by spiritual causes beyond our illusive earth. Matter, to the Occultist and to those men of Science who care too much for truth and too little for their vanity to dogmatise, is that totality of existences in the Kosmos, which falls within any of the planes of possible perception. If Scientists could fathom the ultimate nature of these Forces, they would have first to admit their substantial nature, however supersensuous. Science merely traces the sequence of phenomena on a plane of effects, illusory projections from the region that Occultism has long since penetrated. Light and heat, sound and cohesion, are the ghosts or shadows of matter in motion. However, there is no fundamental difference between light and heat, each is merely a metamorphosis of the other. Heat is light in complete repose. Light is heat in rapid motion. When light is combined with a body, it becomes heat; but when thrown off from that body, heat reverts to light. Occult Science may err in particulars but it can never become guilty of a mistake in questions of Universal Laws, simply because Divine Science was born on higher planes, and was brought on Earth by Beings who were far wiser than man will ever be. Occult Science may be less well-informed as to the behaviour of compound elements in various cases of physical correlations: still, it is immeasurably higher in its knowledge of the ultimate occult states of matter, and of the true nature of matter, than all the Academies of Science of our day may possess. Occult Science does not regard either electricity, or any of the forces supposedly generated by it, as matter in any of the states known to physical Science. None of these “forces,” so-called, are either solids, gases, or fluids. An Occultist would even object to electricity being called a fluid, as it is an effect and not the cause. But its noumenon, he would say, is a conscious cause. The force, which materialism considers as the cause of the diversity that surrounds us, is in sober reality only an effect, i.e., a result of that diversity. In other words, the cause of any force is not matter, but motion itself. And thus the great dogma, “no force without matter and no matter without force,” is dethroned and loses the solemn significance with which materialism has tried to invest it. If nature abhors vacuum, what is atom? To admit the divisibility of the atom, amounts to an admission of an infinite divisibility of substance, which is equivalent to reducing substance to nothingness. If the Universe is composed of atoms, then those atoms must be elastic. Absolutely non-elastic atoms could never exhibit a single one of those numerous phenomena that are attributed to their correlations. Without any elasticity the atoms could not manifest their energy, and the substance of the materialists would remain weeded of every force. Materialism is now enmeshed in a fatal circle of its own making. If the blind inertia of physical Science is replaced by the Intelligent Active Powers behind the veil of illusive matter, motion and inertia become subservient to those Powers. Acceptance of the infinite divisibility of the atom opens limitless horizons to Substance, informed by the Divine Breath of its Soul in every possible state of tenuity, states still undreamt of even by the most spiritually disposed chemists and physicists. But alas, the insanities of materialism and pessimism are incurable. The most Science can do is to assume the attitude of agnosticism. But to do this, requires a boundless love of truth and the surrender of the prestige of infallibility, which the men of Science have acquired among the flippant masses. Dualistic and anthropomorphic may be the philosophy of Vishisht Advaita, when compared with the non-duality of Advaita, it is yet supremely higher in logic and philosophy than the cosmogenesis exalted by Christianity and Science, its great opponents.