And if Physicists persist in such speculations, why should the chronology of the Hindûs be laughed at as exaggerated?

It is said, moreover, that the Planetary Chains having their Days and their Nights—i.e., periods of activity or life, and of inertia or death—behave in heaven as do men on earth: they generate their likes, grow old, and become personally extinct, their spiritual principles only living in their progeny as a survival of themselves.

Without attempting the very difficult task of giving out the whole process in all its cosmic details, enough may be said to give an approximate idea of it. When a Planetary Chain is in its last Round, its Globe A, before finally dying out, sends all its energy and principles into a neutral centre of latent force, a laya centre, and thereby informs a new nucleus of undifferentiated substance or matter, i.e., calls it into activity or gives it life. Suppose such a process to have taken place in the Lunar Planetary Chain; suppose again, for argument's sake—though Mr. Darwin's theory quoted below has lately been upset, even if the fact has not yet been ascertained by mathematical calculation—that the Moon is far older than the Earth. Imagine the six fellow-globes of the Moon—æons before the first Globe of our seven was evolved—just in the same position in relation to each other as the fellow-globes of our Chain now occupy in regard to our Earth.[267] And now it will be easy to imagine further Globe A of the Lunar Chain informing Globe A of the Terrestrial Chain, and—dying; next Globe B of the former sending its energy into Globe B of the new Chain; then Globe C of the Lunar creating its progeny Sphere C of the Terrene Chain; then the Moon (our satellite) pouring forth into the lowest Globe of our Planetary Chain—Globe D, our Earth—all its life, energy and powers; and, having transferred them to a new centre, becoming virtually a dead planet, in which since the birth of our Globe rotation has almost ceased. The Moon is the satellite of our Earth, undeniably, but this does not invalidate the theory that she has given to the Earth all but her corpse. For Darwin's theory to hold good, besides the hypothesis just upset, other still more incongruous speculations had to be invented. The Moon, it is said, has cooled nearly six times as rapidly as the Earth.[268] “The Moon, if the earth is 14,000,000 years old since its incrustation, is only eleven and two-thirds millions of years old since that stage ...” etc. And if our Moon is but a splash from our Earth, why can no similar inference be established for the Moons of other planets? The Astronomers “do not know.” Why should Venus and Mercury have no satellites, and by what, when they exist, were they formed? The Astronomers do not know, because, we say, Science has only one key—the key of matter—to open the mysteries of Nature, while Occult Philosophy has seven keys and explains that which Science fails to see. Mercury and [pg 180] Venus have no satellites, but they had “parents” just as the Earth had. Both are far older than the Earth, and, before the latter reaches her Seventh Round, her mother Moon will have dissolved into thin air, as the Moons of the other planets have, or have not, as the case may be, since there are planets which have several Moons—a mystery again which no Œdipus of Astronomy has solved.

The Moon is now the cold residual quantity, the shadow dragged after the new body, into which her living powers and principles are transfused. She now is doomed for long ages to be ever pursuing the Earth, to be attracted by and to attract her progeny. Constantly vampirized by her child, she revenges herself on it, by soaking it through and through with the nefarious, invisible and poisoned influence which emanates from the occult side of her nature. For she is a dead, yet a living body. The particles of her decaying corpse are full of active and destructive life, although the body which they had formed, is soulless and lifeless. Therefore its emanations are at the same time beneficent and maleficent—a circumstance finding its parallel on earth, in the fact that the grass and plants are nowhere more juicy and thriving than on graves; while at the same time it is the graveyard, or corpse-emanations, which kill. And like all ghouls or vampires, the Moon is the friend of the sorcerers and the foe of the unwary. From the archaic æons and the later times of the witches of Thessaly, down to some of the present Tântrikas of Bengal, her nature and properties have been known to every Occultist, but have remained a closed book for Physicists.

Such is the Moon from the astronomical, geological, and physical standpoints. As to her metaphysical and psychic nature, it must remain an occult secret in this work, as it was in the volume entitled Esoteric Buddhism, notwithstanding the rather sanguine statement made therein, that “there is not much mystery left now in the riddle of the eighth sphere.”[269] These are topics, indeed, “on which the Adepts are very reserved in their communications to uninitiated pupils,” and since they have, moreover, never sanctioned or permitted any published speculations upon them, the less said the better.

Yet, without treading upon the forbidden ground of the “eighth sphere,” it may be useful to state some additional facts with regard to the ex-monads of the Lunar Chain—the “Lunar Ancestors”—as they play a leading part in the coming Anthropogenesis. This brings us [pg 181] directly to the Septenary Constitution of man; and as some discussion has arisen of late about the best classification to be adopted for the division of the microcosmic entity, two systems are now appended with a view to facilitate comparison. The subjoined short article is from the pen of Mr. T. Subba Row, a learned Vedântin scholar. He prefers the Brâhmanical division of the Râja Yoga, and from a metaphysical point of view he is quite right. But, as it is a question of simple choice and expediency, we hold in this work to the time-honoured classification of the Trans-Himâlayan “Arhat Esoteric School.” The following table and its explanatory text are reprinted from the Theosophist, and are also contained in Five Years of Theosophy.[270]

The Septenary Division In Different Indian Systems.

We give below in a tabular form the classifications adopted by the Buddhist and Vedântic teachers of the principles of man:

“Esoteric Buddhism.”Vedânta.Târaka Râja Yoga.
1. Sthûla Sharîra.Annamayakosha.[271]Sthûlopâdhi.[272]
2. Prâna.[273]Prânamayakosha.Sthûlopâdhi.
3. The Vehicle of Prâna.[274]Prânamayakosha.Sthûlopâdhi.
4. Kâma Rûpa.Mânomayakosha.Sûkshmopâdhi.
5. Mind (Volitions and feelings); Vijñânam.Mânomayakosha.Sûkshmopâdhi.
6. Spiritual Soul.[275]Ânandamayakosha.Kâranopâdhi.
7. Âtmâ.Âtmâ.Âtmâ.