id="id00137">As we divide the seven octaves of a piano into Treble and Bass for clearness of thought and writing, so the Hidden Knowledge divides the seven octaves of vibration, or planes, into Spirit and Matter. In their ultimate analysis they are one and the same thing, as ice and water are the same thing; but for study they must be differentiated.

The material and physical universe consists of four planes of matter, or four great octaves of vibration, each differentiated from the other as in our physics prakriti is differentiated from ether. The material universe, the ancient physics teach, was originally pure thought, Manasa, the product of the spiritual planes above. This manasic world was differentiated, a real world. That is to say it was given elementary substances by the union of its atoms in different sized molecules. Some of its elements combined and formed Prana. The prana gathered and formed other worlds, pranic worlds. Then in the pranic world etheric worlds were formed; and finally in the etheric worlds, prakritic globes like the earth were formed. The earth is the centre of a prakritic globe, revolving in ether around the sun. The sun is the centre of a solar globe of ether, revolving in prana around Alcyone. Alcyone is the centre of a stellar globe of prana revolving in manasa around the central and hidden sun of the great manasic globe. These four conditions of matter prakriti, ether, prana, and manasa are the earth, water, fire, air of the Ancient Metaphysics, the four elements of matter, and are present in every atom of prakriti. When the atom of prana was formed, it had an envelope of manasa. When the atom of ether was formed it had an envelope of pranic-manasic atoms. When the prakritic atom was formed it had an envelope of etheric-pranic- manasic atoms, each of its encircling etheric atoms being the centre of a pranic molecule, and each pranic atom of that molecule being the centre of a manasic molecule.

Each atom of prakriti was the material universe in miniature. It held the potentialities of mind, life, and phenomena. In every aggregation of atoms, there were the four planes, each in touch through the Cosmic Mind, its manasa, with other atoms in the universe, with every other globe of whatever kind. "As above, so below," was the secret Key-word. The unity of all the material universe in its prakriti, ether, prana and manasa, was the corner stone of this knowledge. The three planes above prakriti were called Astral, and in common speech there was the ordinary division into two planes, visible and invisible, or "Spirit," as the invisible was called, and "Matter," as the visible was called. Only in the hidden secret doctrine of physics, and in the open metaphysics which were a "stumbling block" and "foolishness" to those who had not the "inner light" of the physics, were the three divisions of the "astral" made known, and the true distinction between the spirit of the three higher planes and the matter of the four lower was kept out of the metaphysics, or only vaguely alluded to.

There is no "oriental science" because the oriental does not attach the same value to merely physical knowledge that we do. But that must not be understood to imply that there is no oriental physics. In all the matters that interest us now, as far as principles are concerned, the oriental knew all that we know. He knew it thousands of years ago, when our ancestors were sleeping with the cave bears.

"That is all the good it did him," the scientist says. No. That is not true. It is perfectly true that the oriental, the Babylonian who carved on the Black Stone now in the British Museum the five moons of Jupiter, exposing himself to the derision of our astronomers prior to their own discovery of the fifth moon in 1898, did not care particularly whether there were four moons or five, and had no sale for any telescopes he might make, for no one else cared particularly. But it was not true that he did not care for any and all knowledge that would improve his spiritual condition by giving him correct ideas of the universe and of his own part in it. To him life was more than meat and the body more than raiment. He was more afraid of sin than of ignorance. We are more afraid of ignorance than of sin. He preferred to better men's moral condition; we prefer to better their physical condition.

If one of the Sages of the East could be called up and put on the stand to be questioned, he would say, substantially:

"You are right in regard to your ether, and to prakriti being ether that has been dropped a great octave in vibration. Your physical atom is surrounded by a molecule of ether, this molecule containing many atoms of ether. The chording vibration does produce all physical phenomena.

"But where did the ether atom come from? How can you explain how and whence life comes, or what it is? This explains physical, but how do you explain vital phenomena?

"You are wrong in assuming that all the matter of the universe apart from the earth or planets is ether and only ether. The etheric world in which you are interested ends with your solar system. It ends with each solar system, to the people of that system. Between each solar system and another there is another form of matter that is not ether.

"This etheric solar world of ours is very large, many billions of miles in diameter; but it is not the whole universe. You know that the sun and all its planets are revolving around the star Alcyone. Your astronomers told you that years ago, and they have recently given you the rate of speed as 4,838 miles per hour.

"Did you not see and know that if they had this revolution around a central sun it must be within a solar globe?

"Did you think that the sun and its planets, and other suns and their planets, were tearing their way through the ether like so many fish on a dipsy-hook from a Marblehead fishing smack running before the wind?

"Did it never occur to you that the ether of this solar system must be revolving around this central sun? The whole solar system, ether and planets, are revolving around Alcyone, and the reason why their minor revolution around the sun is not affected by it is because the solar system is a vast globe of ether, having a thinner and rarer medium to revolve in, the same as our earth has. It is the motion of a fly in a moving car.

"Now fix your attention on this globe of ether, this solar globe. You must do it to get the concept before you. You have known of it all your life without once really apprehending it, for you have never learned to think, or to utilize the knowledge that was given you. The idea is as new and as strange as if you had never known it.

"What lies beyond the surface of the solar globe? Something must; something as much rarer and thinner than the ether as the ether is rarer and thinner than prakriti. Can you not guess?

"It is Prana, the life force of the universe. As prakriti is made from ether, so ether is made from prana. It is made in the same way. Each atom of the ether is the centre of a molecule of prana, surrounded by an atmosphere of pranic atoms, exactly as your prakritic atom is surrounded by an atmosphere of etheric atoms. You say that each atom of prakriti is the centre of a molecule of ether. So it is. But each atom of that etheric molecule is the centre of a pranic molecule. Each atom of your physical matter is triple, not double.

"You say that all physical phenomena come from the chording vibration of the etheric and prakritic atoms of the two planes of matter. Yes. But do you not see that all vital phenomena come from the chording vibration of the pranic, etheric, and prakritic atom of the three planes of matter which are in each atom?

"In the living leaf the three planes are sounding in chord in