In Volume II, we shall have to openly approach dangerous subjects. We must bravely face Science and declare, in the teeth of materialistic learning, of Idealism, Hylo-Idealism, Positivism and all-denying modern Psychology, that the true Occultist believes in “Lords of Light”; that he believes in a Sun, which—far from being simply a “lamp of day” moving in accordance with physical law, and far from being merely one of those Suns, which, according to Richter, “are sun-flowers of a higher light”—is, like milliards of other Suns, the dwelling or the vehicle of a God, and of a host of Gods.
In this dispute, of course, it is the Occultists who will be worsted. They will be considered, on the primâ facie aspect of the question, to be ignoramuses, and will be labelled with more than one of the usual epithets given to those whom the superficially judging public, itself ignorant of the great underlying truths in Nature, accuses of believing in mediæval superstitions. Let it be so. Submitting beforehand to every criticism in order to go on with their task, they only claim the privilege of showing that the Physicists are as much at loggerheads among themselves in their speculations, as these speculations are with the teachings of Occultism.
The Sun is Matter, and the Sun is Spirit. Our ancestors, the “Heathen,” like their modern successors, the Parsîs, were, and are, wise enough in their generation to see in it the symbol of Divinity, and at the same time to sense within, concealed by the physical symbol, the bright God of Spiritual and Terrestrial Light. Such belief can be regarded as a superstition only by rank Materialism, which denies Deity, Spirit, Soul, and admits no intelligence outside the mind of man. But if too much wrong superstition bred by “Churchianity,” as Laurence Oliphant calls it, “renders a man a fool,” too much scepticism makes him mad. We prefer the charge of folly in believing too much, to that of a madness which denies everything, as do Materialism and Hylo-Idealism. Hence, the Occultists are fully prepared to receive their dues from Materialism, and to meet the adverse criticism which will be poured on the author of this work, not for writing it, but for believing in that which it contains.
Therefore the discoveries, hypotheses, and unavoidable objections which will be brought forward by the scientific critics must be anticipated and disposed of. It has also to be shown how far the Occult Teachings depart from Modern Science, and whether the ancient or the modern theories are the more logically and philosophically correct. The unity and mutual relations of all parts of Kosmos were known to the Ancients, before they became evident to modern Astronomers and Philosophers. And even if the external and visible portions of the Universe, and their mutual relations, cannot be explained in Physical Science, in any other terms than those used by the adherents of the mechanical theory of the Universe, it does not follow that the Materialist, who denies that the Soul of Kosmos (which appertains to Metaphysical Philosophy) exists, has the right to trespass upon that metaphysical domain. That Physical Science is trying to, and actually does, encroach upon it, is only one more proof that “might is right”; it does not justify the intrusion.
Another good reason for these Addenda is this. Since only a certain portion of the Secret Teachings can be given out in the present age, the doctrines would never be understood even by Theosophists, if they were published without any explanations or commentary. Therefore they must be contrasted with the speculations of Modern Science. Archaic Axioms must be placed side by side with Modern Hypotheses, and the comparison of their value must be left to the sagacious reader.
On the question of the “Seven Governors”—as Hermes calls the [pg 521] “Seven Builders,” the Spirits which guide the operations of Nature, the animated atoms of which are the shadows, in their own world, of their Primaries in the Astral Realms—this work will, of course, have every Materialist against it, as well as the men of Science. But this opposition can, at most, be only temporary. People have laughed at everything unusual, and have scouted every unpopular idea at first, and have then ended by accepting it. Materialism and Scepticism are evils that must remain in the world so long as man has not quitted his present gross form to don the one he had during the First and Second Races of this Round. Unless Scepticism and our present natural ignorance are equilibrated by Intuition and a natural Spirituality, every being afflicted with such feelings will see in himself nothing better than a bundle of flesh, bones, and muscles, with an empty garret inside, which serves the purpose of storing his sensations and feelings. Sir Humphrey Davy was a great Scientist, as deeply versed in Physics as any theorist of our day, yet he loathed Materialism. He says:
I heard with disgust, in the dissecting-rooms, the plan of the Physiologist, of the gradual secretion of matter, and its becoming endued with irritability, ripening into sensibility, and acquiring such organs as were necessary, by its own inherent forces, and at last rising into intellectual existence.
Nevertheless, Physiologists are not those who should be most blamed for speaking of that only which they can see by, and estimate on the evidence of, their physical senses. Astronomers and Physicists are, we consider, far more illogical in their materialistic views than are even Physiologists, and this has to be proved. Milton's
... Light
Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure,