CHAPTER I.
A
PRELIMINARY SURVEY.
The
deep interest and importance of the research which this book
describes will best be appreciated if introduced by an account of
the
circumstances out of which it arose. The first edition, consisting
mainly of articles reprinted from the
Theosophist
, dealt
at once with the later phases of the research in a way which,
though
intelligible to the occult student, must have been rather
bewildering
to the ordinary reader. These later phases, however, endow the
earlier results with a significance that in the beginning could
only
be vaguely conjectured. I am the better entitled to perform the
task
that has been assigned to me—that of preparing the present
edition—by reason of the fact that it was in my presence and at my
instigation that the first efforts were made to penetrate the
mystery
previously enshrouding the ultimate molecule of matter.
I
remember the occasion vividly. Mr. Leadbeater was then staying at
my
house, and his clairvoyant faculties were frequently exercised for
the benefit of myself, my wife and the theosophical friends around
us. I had discovered that these faculties, exercised in the
appropriate direction, were ultra-microscopic in their power. It
occurred to me once to ask Mr. Leadbeater if he thought he could
actually
see
a molecule of physical matter. He was quite willing to try, and I
suggested a molecule of gold as one which he might try to observe.
He
made the appropriate effort, and emerged from it saying the
molecule
in question was far too elaborate a structure to be described. It
evidently consisted of an enormous number of some smaller atoms,
quite too many to count; quite too complicated in their arrangement
to be comprehended. It struck me at once that this might be due to
the fact that gold was a heavy metal of high atomic weight, and
that
observation might be more successful if directed to a body of low
atomic weight, so I suggested an atom of hydrogen as possibly more
manageable. Mr. Leadbeater accepted the suggestion and tried again.
This time he found the atom of hydrogen to be far simpler than the
other, so that the minor atoms constituting the hydrogen atom were
countable. They were arranged on a definite plan, which will be
rendered intelligible by diagrams later on, and were eighteen in
number.
We
little realized at the moment the enormous significance of this
discovery, made in the year 1895, long before the discovery of
radium
enabled physicists of the ordinary type to improve their
acquaintance
with the "electron." Whatever name is given to that minute
body it is recognised now by ordinary science as well as by occult
observation, as the fundamental unit of physical matter. To that
extent ordinary science has overtaken the occult research I am
dealing with, but that research rapidly carried the occult student
into regions of knowledge whither, it is perfectly certain, the
ordinary physicist must follow him at no distant date.
The
research once started in the way I have described was seen to be
intensely interesting. Mrs. Besant almost immediately co-operated
with Mr. Leadbeater in its further progress. Encouraged by the
success with hydrogen, the two important gases, oxygen and
nitrogen,
were examined. They proved to be rather more difficult to deal with
than hydrogen but were manageable. Oxygen was found to consist of
290
minor atoms and nitrogen of 261. Their grouping will be described
later on. The interest and importance of the whole subject will
best
be appreciated by a rough indication of the results first attained.
The reader will then have more patience in following the
intricacies
of the later discoveries.
The
figures just quoted were soon perceived to have a possible
significance. The atomic weight of oxygen is commonly taken as 16.
That is to say, an atom of oxygen is sixteen times heavier than an
atom of hydrogen. In this way, all through the table of atomic
weights, hydrogen is taken as unity, without any attempt being made
to estimate its absolute weight. But now with the atom of hydrogen
dissected, so to speak, and found to consist of 18 somethings,
while
the atom of oxygen consisted of 290 of the same things, the sixteen
to one relationship reappears: 290 divided by 18 gives us 16 and a
minute decimal fraction. Again the nitrogen number divided by 18
gives us 14 and a minute fraction as the result, and that is the
accepted atomic weight of nitrogen. This gave us a glimpse of a
principle that might run all through the table of atomic weights.
For
reasons having to do with other work, it was impossible for the
authors of this book to carry on the research further at the time
it
was begun. The results already sketched were published as an
article
in the magazine then called
Lucifer
, in
November, 1895, and reprinted as a separate pamphlet bearing the
title "Occult Chemistry," a pamphlet the surviving copies
of which will one day be a recognised vindication of the method
that
will at some time in the future be generally applied to the
investigation of Nature's mysteries. For the later research which
this volume deals with does establish the principle with a force
that
can hardly be resisted by any fair-minded reader. With patience and
industry—the authors being assisted in the counting in a way that
will be described (and the method adopted involved a check upon the
accuracy of the counting)—the minor atoms of almost all the known
chemical elements, as they are commonly called, were counted and
found to bear the same relation to their atomic weights as had been
suggested by the cases of oxygen and nitrogen. This result throws
back complete proof on the original estimate of the number of minor
atoms in hydrogen, a figure which ordinary research has so far
entirely failed to determine. The guesses have been widely various,
from unity to many hundreds, but, unacquainted with the clairvoyant
method, the ordinary physicist has no means of reaching the actual
state of the facts.
Before
going on with the details of the later research some very important
discoveries arising from the early work must first be explained. As
I
have already said clairvoyant faculty of the appropriate order
directed to the minute phenomena of Nature is practically infinite
in
its range. Not content with estimating the number of minor atoms in
physical molecules, the authors proceeded to examine the minor
atoms
individually. They were found to be themselves elaborately
complicated structures which, in this preliminary survey of the
whole
subject, I will not stop to explain (full explanation will be found
later on) and they are composed of atoms belonging to an
ultra-physical realm of Nature with which the occultist has long
been
familiar and describes as "the Astral Plane." Some rather
pedantic critics have found fault with the term, as the "plane"
in question is of course really a sphere entirely surrounding the
physical globe, but as all occultists understand the word, "plane"
simply signifies a condition of nature. Each condition, and there
are
many more than the two under consideration, blends with its
neighbour,
via
atomic structure. Thus the atoms of the Astral plane in combination
give rise to the finest variety of physical matter, the ether of
space, which is not homogeneous but really atomic in its character,
and the minute atoms of which physical molecules are composed are
atoms of ether, "etheric atoms," as we have now learned to
call them.
Many
physicists, though not all, will resent the idea of treating the
ether of space as atomic. But at all events the occultist has the
satisfaction of knowing that the great Russian chemist, Mendeleef,
preferred the atomic theory. In Sir William Tilden's recent book
entitled "Chemical Discovery and Invention in the Twentieth
Century," I read that Mendeleef, "disregarding conventional
views," supposed the ether to have a molecular or atomic
structure, and in time all physicists must come to recognise that
the
Electron is not, as so many suppose at present, an atom of
electricity, but an atom of ether carrying a definite unit charge
of
electricity.
Long
before the discovery of radium led to the recognition of the
electron
as the common constituent of all the bodies previously described as
chemical elements, the minute particles of matter in question had
been identified with the cathode rays observed in Sir William
Crookes' vacuum tubes. When an electric current is passed through a
tube from which the air (or other gas it may contain) has been
almost
entirely exhausted, a luminous glow pervades the tube manifestly
emanating from the cathode or negative pole of the circuit. This
effect was studied by Sir William Crookes very profoundly. Among
other characteristics it was found that, if a minute windmill was
set
up in the tube before it was exhausted, the cathode ray caused the
vanes to revolve, thus suggesting the idea that they consisted of
actual particles driven against the vanes; the ray being thus
evidently something more than a mere luminous effect. Here was a
mechanical energy to be explained, and at the first glance it
seemed
difficult to reconcile the facts observed with the idea creeping
into
favour, that the particles, already invested with the name
"electron," were atoms of electricity pure and simple.
Electricity was found, or certain eminent physicists thought they
had
found, that electricity
per se
had inertia.
So the windmills in the Crookes' vacuum tubes were supposed to be
moved by the impact of electric atoms.
Then
in the progress of ordinary research the discovery of radium by
Madame Curie in the year 1902 put an entirely new face upon the
subject of electrons. The beta particles emanating from radium were
soon identified with the electrons of the cathode ray. Then
followed
the discovery that the gas helium, previously treated as a separate
element, evolved itself as one consequence of the disintegration of
radium. Transmutation, till then laughed at as a superstition of
the
alchemist, passed quietly into the region of accepted natural
phenomena, and the chemical elements were seen to be bodies built
up
of electrons in varying number and probably in varying
arrangements.
So at last ordinary science had reached one important result of the
occult research carried on seven years earlier. It has not yet
reached the finer results of the occult research—the
structure
of the
hydrogen atom with its eighteen etheric atoms and the way in which
the atomic weights of all elements are explained by the number of
etheric atoms entering into their constitution.
The
ether of space, though defying instrumental examination, comes
within
scope of the clairvoyant faculty, and profoundly interesting
discoveries were made during what I have called the early research
in
connexion with that branch of the inquiry. Etheric atoms combine to
form molecules in many different ways, but combinations involving
fewer atoms than the eighteen which give rise to hydrogen, make no
impression on the physical senses nor on physical instruments of
research. They give rise to varieties of molecular ether, the
comprehension of which begins to illuminate realms of natural
mystery
as yet entirely untrodden by the ordinary physicist. Combinations
below 18 in number give rise to three varieties of molecular ether,
the functions of which when they come to be more fully studied will
constitute a department of natural knowledge on the threshold of
which we already stand. Some day we may perhaps be presented with a
volume on Occult Physics as important in its way as the present
dissertation on Occult Chemistry.