Again:
God, Monad, and Atom are the correspondences of Spirit, Mind, and Body [Âtmâ, Manas, and Sthûla Sharîra] in man.
In their septenary aggregation they are the “Heavenly Man,” in the Kabalistic sense; thus, terrestrial man is the provisional reflection of the Heavenly. Once again:
The Monads [Jîvas] are the Souls of the Atoms; both are the fabric in which the Chohans [Dhyânîs, Gods] clothe themselves when a form is needed.
This relates to cosmic and sub-planetary Monads, not to the super-cosmic Monads, the Pythagorean Monad, as it is called, in its synthetic character, by the Pantheistical Peripatetics. The Monads of the present dissertation are treated, from the standpoint of their individuality, as Atomic Souls, before these Atoms descend into pure terrestrial form. For this descent into concrete Matter marks the medial point of their own individual pilgrimage. Here, losing in the mineral kingdom their individuality, they begin to ascend through the seven states of terrestrial evolution to that point where a correspondence is firmly established between the human and Deva (divine) consciousness. At present, however, we are not concerned with their terrestrial metamorphoses and tribulations, but with their life and behaviour in Space, [pg 680] on planes wherein the eye of the most intuitional Chemist and Physicist cannot reach them—unless, indeed, he develops in himself highly clairvoyant faculties.
It is well known that Leibnitz came very near the truth several times, but he defined Monadic Evolution incorrectly, a thing not to be wondered at, since he was not an Initiate, nor even a Mystic, but only a very intuitional Philosopher. Yet no Psycho-physicist ever came nearer than has he to the Esoteric general outline of evolution. This evolution—viewed from its several standpoints, i.e., as the Universal and the Individualized Monad, and the chief aspects of the Evolving Energy after differentiation, the purely Spiritual, the Intellectual, the Psychic and the Physical—may be thus formulated as an invariable law: a descent of Spirit into Matter, equivalent to an ascent in physical evolution; a reäscent from the depths of materiality towards its status quo ante, with a corresponding dissipation of concrete form and substance up to the Laya-state, or what Science calls the “zero-point,” and beyond.
These states—once the spirit of Esoteric Philosophy is grasped—become absolutely necessary from simple logical and analogical considerations. Physical Science having now ascertained, through its department of Chemistry, the invariable law of this evolution of Atoms—from their “protylean” state down to that of a physical and then a chemical particle, or molecule—cannot well reject these states as a general law. And once it is forced by its enemies—Metaphysics and Psychology[1068]—out of its alleged impregnable strongholds, it will find it more difficult than it now appears to refuse room in the Spaces of Space to Planetary Spirits (Gods), Elementals, and even the Elementary Spooks or Ghosts, and others. Already Figuier and Paul D'Assier, two Positivists and Materialists, have succumbed before this logical necessity. Other and still greater Scientists will follow in that intellectual “Fall.” They will be driven out of their position not by spiritual, theosophical, or any other physical or even mental phenomena, but simply by the enormous gaps and chasms that open daily and will still be opening before them, as one discovery follows the other, until they are finally knocked off their feet by the ninth wave of simple common sense.
We may take as an example, Mr. W. Crookes' latest discovery of what he has named Protyle. In the Notes on the Bhagavad Gîtâ, by one of the best metaphysicians and Vedântic scholars in India, the lecturer, referring cautiously to “things Occult” in that great Indian Esoteric work, makes a remark as suggestive as it is strictly correct. He says:
Into the details of the evolution of the solar system itself, it is not necessary for me to enter. You may gather some idea as to the way in which the various elements start into existence from these three principles into which Mûlaprakriti [the Pythagorean Triangle] is differentiated, by examining the lecture delivered by Professor Crookes a short time ago upon the so-called elements of modern chemistry. This lecture will give you some idea of the way in which these so-called elements spring from Vishvânara,[1069] the most objective of these three principles, which seems to stand in the place of the protyle mentioned in that lecture. Except in a few particulars, this lecture seems to give the outlines of the theory of physical evolution on the plane of Vishvânara, and is, so far as I know, the nearest approach made by modern investigators to the real occult theory on the subject.[1070]
These words will be reëchoed and approved by every Eastern Occultist. Much from the lectures by Mr. Crookes has already been quoted in Section XI. A second lecture has been delivered by him, as remarkable as the first, on the “Genesis of the Elements,”[1071] and also a third one. Here we have almost a corroboration of the teachings of Esoteric Philosophy concerning the mode of primeval evolution. It is, indeed, as near an approach, made by a great scholar and specialist in Chemistry,[1072] to the Secret Doctrine, as could be made apart from the application of the Monads and Atoms to the dogmas of pure transcendental Metaphysics, and their connection and correlation with “Gods and intelligent conscious Monads.” But Chemistry is now on its ascending plane, thanks to one of its highest European representatives. It is impossible for it to go back to that day when Materialism regarded its sub-elements as absolutely simple and homogeneous bodies, which it had raised, in its blindness, to the rank of Elements. [pg 682] The mask has been snatched off by too clever a hand for there to be any fear of a new disguise. And after years of pseudology, of bastard molecules parading under the name of Elements, behind and beyond which there could be nought but void, a great professor of Chemistry asks once more: