And this is what Occultists understand by a laya centre.
The above is pronounced to be “unscientific” by many. But so is everything that is not sanctioned and kept on the strictly orthodox lines of Physical Science. Unless the explanation given by the inventor [pg 609] himself is accepted—and his explanations, being quite orthodox from the Spiritual and the Occult standpoints, if not from that of materialistic speculative Science, called exact, are therefore ours in this particular—what can Science answer to facts already seen, which it is no longer possible for anyone to deny? Occult Philosophy divulges few of its most important vital mysteries. It drops them like precious pearls, one by one, far and wide apart, and even this only when forced to do so by the evolutionary tidal wave that carries on Humanity slowly, silently, but steadily, toward the dawn of the Sixth Race mankind. For once out of the safe custody of their legitimate heirs and keepers, those mysteries cease to be Occult: they fall into the public domain, and have to run the risk of becoming curses more often than blessings in the hands of the selfish—of the Cains of the human race. Nevertheless, whenever such individuals as the discoverer of Etheric Force are born, men with peculiar psychic and mental capacities,[953] they are generally and more frequently helped, than allowed to go unassisted, groping on their way; if left to their own resources, they very soon fall victims to martyrdom or become the prey of unscrupulous speculators. But they are helped only on the condition that they should not become, whether consciously or unconsciously, an additional peril to their age: a danger to the poor, now offered in daily holocaust by the less wealthy to the very wealthy.[954] This necessitates a short digression and an explanation.
Some twelve years back, during the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, the writer, in answering the earnest queries of a Theosophist, one of the earliest admirers of Mr. Keely, repeated to him what she had heard in quarters, information from which she could never doubt.
It had been stated that the inventor of the “Self-Motor” was what is called, in the jargon of the Kabalists, a “natural-born magician.” That he was and would remain unconscious of the full range of his powers, and would work out merely those which he had found out and ascertained in his own nature—firstly, because, attributing them to a [pg 610] wrong source, he could never give them full sway; and secondly, because it was beyond his power to pass to others that which was a capacity inherent in his own special nature. Hence, the whole secret could not be made over permanently to anyone, for practical purposes or use.[955]
Individuals born with such a capacity are not very rare. That they are not heard of more frequently is due to the fact that they live and die, in almost every case, in utter ignorance that they are possessed of abnormal powers. Mr. Keely possesses powers which are called abnormal, just because they happen to be as little known, in our day, as was the circulation of the blood before Harvey's time. Blood existed, and it behaved as it does at present in the first man born from woman; and so exists and has existed in man that principle which can control and guide etheric vibratory Force. At any rate, it exists in all those mortals whose Inner Selves are primordially connected, by reason of their direct descent, with that group of Dhyân-Chohans who are called “the first-born of Æther.” Mankind, psychically considered, is divided into various groups, each group being connected with one of the Dhyânic Groups that first formed psychic man (see paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the Commentary to Stanza VII.). Mr. Keely—being greatly favoured in this respect, and besides his psychic temperament, being, moreover, intellectually a genius in mechanics—may achieve most wonderful results. He has achieved some already—more than any mortal man, not initiated into the final Mysteries, has achieved in this age up to the present day. What he has done is—as his friends justly say of him—certainly quite sufficient “to demolish with the hammer of Science the idols of Science”—the idols of matter with the feet of clay. Nor would the writer for a moment think of contradicting Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore, when, in her paper on “Psychic Force and Etheric Force,” she states that Mr. Keely, as a Philosopher:
Is great enough in soul, wise enough in mind, and sublime enough in courage to overcome all difficulties, and to stand at last before the world as the greatest discoverer and inventor in the world.
And again she writes:
Should Keely do no more than lead scientists from the dreary realms where they are groping into the open field of elemental force, where gravity and cohesion are disturbed in their haunts and diverted to use; where, from unity of origin, emanates [pg 611]infinite energy in diversified forms, he will achieve immortal fame. Should he demonstrate, to the destruction of materialism, that the universe is animated by a mysterious principle to which matter, however perfectly organized, is absolutely subservient, he will be a greater spiritual benefactor to our race than the modern world has yet found in any man. Should he be able to substitute, in the treatment of disease, the finer forces of nature for the grossly material agencies which have sent more human beings to their graves than war, pestilence and famine combined, he will merit and receive the gratitude of mankind. All this and more will he do, if he and those who have watched his progress, day by day for years, are not too sanguine in their expectations.
The same lady, in her pamphlet, Keely's Secrets,[956] brings forward the following passage from an article, written in the Theosophist a few years ago, by the writer of the present volume:
The author of No. 5 of the pamphlets issued by the Theosophical Publication Society, What is Matter and What is Force, says therein: “The men of science have just found out ‘a fourth state of matter,’ whereas the Occultists have penetrated years ago beyond the sixth, and therefore do not infer, but know of, the existence of the seventh, the last.” This knowledge comprises one of the secrets of Keely's so-called “compound secret.” It is already known to many that his secret includes “the augmentation of energy,” the insulation of the ether, and the adaptation of dynaspheric force to machinery.