Ancient and Modern Physics

by Thomas Edgar Willson

In the physical universe we have the four informing physical globes, so that as a whole or in its parts, it is "a string of seven globes," reaching from the highest spirit to the lowest matter. The awakened Universal Consciousness in vibration —undifferentiated in the three globes above, differentiated in the four globes below—in its last analysis is all one. But there is a gulf between matter and spirit, radically dividing them, and in the physical universe we are concerned only with physics and physical laws, until we reach its outmost boundaries and come in touch with the spiritual planes beyond.

This is the view of the universe at first glance, as in the smaller universe of this earth we at first see only its solid and liquid globes. And even after the discovery of the gas, we do not apprehend its important work in and behind the others until it has been pointed out to us. Nor do we at first apprehend the work of the spiritual in the material, and the object of metaphysics is to show, through the physics, the connection between them that the spirit works through matter; that where we can see but four there are seven beads on each material string; and that the last bead of each string is itself a chain of beads, the "chain of seven" applying only to the seventh manifestation, or prakriti, while the "strings" apply to the way in which they come.

On each unraveled string leading from our central sun down to a planet there are seven beads corresponding to the seven globes in the chain of each planet, each to each, yet not the same. There is a distinction, and it is no wonder there should have been confusion at first and a mixing of "strings" with "chains." The physics as they progress will clear this confusion away.

In the manasic globe, which is the first differentiation of that which forms the spiritual globes above, the resulting mind or manasa is mainly the differentiated Divine Mind of the highest. It has a "chain" of two globes only, itself and the Divine Mind globe, although its "string" of globes is four.

It is the perfected differentiation of the Buddhi in manasa that causes the formation of the pranic globes, which have chains of four and strings of five, and the full and perfect differentiation of the Atma in manasa-prana that causes the formation of the etheric globes, which have chains of six and strings of six. Consciousness, Buddhi and Atma are practically the same as the manasa, prana, and ether, each to each, only the latter are differentiated and the former are not.

Each of the three astral globes is the reflection in matter of the three spiritual globes beyond, each to each, and all to all.

The difference between matter and spirit is a difference in Motion only. Both are vibrating, so that both are in mechanical motion, from force without, like the waves of the ocean, but only the matter has what we may properly call motion of its own, or that produced from within—from the atom and each organism of it up to the ALL, as the vibration is from the ALL down to the atom. It is this centre of force in an atom, this motion outside of vibration, or rather beside it, which we call "differentiation." Brinton's "daring psychological speculation" that "mind was coextensive with motion" (from organization) was but a repetition of one of the most ancient axioms.

Take our solar etheric globe. It has two other globes of matter, consubstantial; a globe of prana and a globe of manasa. They are not beyond it, or beside it, but one with it, atom for atom. But what are they in reality? Globes of Atma, Buddhi, and Consciousness in which the atoms, having organized, are in motion, are they not?

Let this motion in this material universe cease, and matter would melt away and resolve into spirit. From spirit it came, to spirit it belongs, and to spirit it returns.

Behind each and every astral globe, whether the globe be but an astral atom, or an astral planet, or an astral world; beyond its physics there is a meta-physical globe, its cause, and that is the real globe, of which the astral is but a temporary phenomenon. Take a spiritual globe and differentiate it. The Motion resulting produces a material astral globe. Stop the motion; bring it to a state of rest. The astral shadow disappears. It was merely spiritual phenomena.