Enq. But what are your data for this assertion?
Theo. What science in general will never accept as proof—the cumulative testimony of an endless series of Seers who have testified to this fact. Their spiritual visions, real explorations by, and through, physical and spiritual senses untrammeled by blind flesh, were systematically checked and compared one with the other, and their nature sifted. All that was not corroborated by unanimous and collective experience was rejected, while that only was recorded as established truth which, in various ages, under different climes, and throughout an untold series of incessant observations, was found to agree and receive constantly further corroboration. The methods used by our scholars and students of the psycho-spiritual sciences do not differ from those of students of the natural and physical sciences, as you may see. Only our fields of research are on two different planes, and our instruments are made by no human hands, for which reason perchance they are only the more reliable. The retorts, accumulators, and microscopes of the chemist and naturalist may get out of order; the telescope and the astronomer’s horological instruments may get spoiled; our recording instruments are beyond the influence of weather or the elements.
Enq. And therefore you have implicit faith in them?
Theo. Faith is a word not to be found in theosophical dictionaries: we say knowledge based on observation and experience. There is this difference, however, that while the observation and experience of physical science lead the Scientists to about as many “working” hypotheses as there are minds to evolve them, our knowledge consents to add to its lore only those facts which have become undeniable, and which are fully and absolutely demonstrated. We have no two beliefs or hypotheses on the same subject.
Enq. Is it on such data that you came to accept the strange theories we find in Esoteric Buddhism?
Theo. Just so. These theories may be slightly incorrect in their minor details, and even faulty in their exposition by lay students; they are facts in nature, nevertheless, and come nearer the truth than any scientific hypothesis.
ON THE SEPTENARY CONSTITUTION OF OUR PLANET.
Enq. I understand that you describe our earth as forming part of a chain of earths?
Theo. We do. But the other six “earths” or globes, are not on the same plane of objectivity as our earth is; therefore we cannot see them.
Enq. Is that on account of the great distance?