English
And in the astral vehicle, physical temperature is a condition that does not affect him: one way or the other. In an astral body he could live as comfortably in the heart of a furnace or in the midst of arctic ice-floes as in the meadows of an English farm in the sumuiner. It is not even necessary to assume 302 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. that the bodies of the beings who inhabit the interstitial spaces of the earth are entirely of astral matter. That intervening condition of matter which is called etheric would, perhaps, furnish the material adapted to provide vehicles of consciousness for the beings in question. However this may be arranged, this closely packed earth of ours is made use of throughout. Not merely in the heated spaces that constitute the surface of each interior globe but within the substance of each con- centric sphere there are forms of life adapted to the conditions around. For in the cool and solid depths of each mighty crust there are great cavernous spaces in which beings exist who are going through evolutions of their own, and are scarcely in touch at all with the supreme evolution—supreme as far as this Earth is concerned—to which the human race belongs. Very little information relating to these interior races has reached me, and it would be useless to speculate as to the purpose in the whole economy of the system served by the involvement of any part of the Supreme con- sciousness, in forms and in the midst of conditions that do not appear favourable to spiritual or any other kind of growth. But the varieties of condition under which life is carried on, in and around the world we share with so manv other tenants, is all but infinite. Nor is the life of the Earth’s interior confined to the more or less intelligent beings or entities established there. Wild as the notion may strike one at the first glance, there is something analogous to a vegetable kingdom on the white hot surfaces of the interior globes—actual plants with leaves and a kind of granular THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG. 303 circulation analogous to the sap of plants on the outer surface. If difficulties present themselves to the mind as we endeavour to realise the scenes of these strange worlds within our own, that is merely due to the false system on which the average mind of the nineteenth century has been educated. The tendency has been not merely to encourage the idea that “what I know not is not knowledge ”’ but to invest the victims of our educational system with a conviction that what they do not understand cannot exist. We do know some- thing of the relationship in space and magnitude between the habitable portions of the Earth’s surface and the universe at large. And yet the nineteenth century mind has been only half inclined to admit that there may be intelligent beings in other worlds than ours—always assuming that some of these may be adequately provided with water, food, and sunshine, without which we know life is impossible! The contrast afforded by the brilliant intellectual achievements of the nineteenth century mind along some lines of activity and investigation, with the imbecile silliness of its habitual limitations, is equally irritating and amusing to the occult student who has got outside those limita- tions. But even for many such students, familiar though they may be with the idea of superior planes of Nature and faculties of a wider reach than those of the physical brain, the explanation here given of the real condition of the Earth’s interior may be received with a kind of gasping surprise. We were not prepared for so complex an organisation in the body of our planet, any more than the physiologists of, say, the Flizabethan 304 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. period were prepared to find so much in the human body as later research has disclosed. But in all likeli- hood the sketch here given errs in its omissions to a far greater extent than in its positive statements. It is a mere broad outline of the story that might be told by those thoroughly conversant with the facts. The interest from the mere scientific point of view of further detail if we could obtain it would be intense, but for the present we must remain, if not content, unsatisfied as regards the multitude of questions that naturally arise in the mind. To what extent does the incombustible vegetable kingdom of the interior sur- faces cover the whole glowing landscape ? Are there forests of white hot trees, and is there an appropriate animal kingdoin associated with the others of the inner worlds ? The beings in more or less astral bodies already referred to, would be the selatively human kingdom in each case, the head evolution of the series to which it belonged, but it is more than probable that it would be surrounded by satellite evolutions, as our own on the outer surface is so surrounded. With intense heat we naturally associate the idea of light, so as regards the inhabitants of the regions I have called the interstitial spaces there is no need to consider the question how these are illuminated. But directly we confront that question we cannot but be struck with the mistaken impulse which prompts it. If the intelligent beings of the inner regions are invested with astral vehicles of consciousness they sce with senses altogether unlike those of the physical plane, and are thus quite independent of physical plane light. THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG. 305 A very moderate acquaintance with the experiences of super-physical research amongst ourselves will render us familiar with the idea that darkness is more favourable than what we call light to the activities of some beings at all events functioning in astral vehicles of consciousness. So it may easily be that the beings inhabiting the dark interior caverns of the solid crusts may have senses to which that darkness is perfectly luminous. It is apparently held by the authorities of the Earth that the humanity of the outer surface 7 be effectually cut off from communication with the interior kingdoms, and this may be provided for by the heated stratum at the twenty-five mile depth through which it is quite impossible that any inquisitive borings on our part should ever penetrate. But know- ledge may be gained, as occult students are well aware, in reference to regions quite beyond the reach of physical investigation. And so it is coming “to pass that we are learning something of the conditions under which existence is carried on in the deeply buried cavern worlds of the Earth’s interior. All thoughts will turn in connexion with this subject to the beautiful story evolved from Lord Lytton’s imagination concerning the magnificent civilisation of his ‘‘ Coming Race.’ But though there is just so much actual justification for the tale in question as Is embodied in the fact that races do actually exist in vast cavernous spaces in the interior of the outermost and some others of the concentric globes. we must deny ourselves the intellectual luxury of conceiving that the superb Gy-ei of Vrilya will ever ascend to the W 306 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. upper world to set our ‘‘ Koom-poshes’”’ in order. The interior evolutions are far below the intellectual level of even our present humanity, although they are advanced enough to have something like systems of government, dwelling-places of artificial construction, and to put inscriptions on the walls of their inner world. Yet a third order of consciousness ranges the interior spaces of the Earth, but this is altogether elemental in its character. I have spoken of the armies of “ fire elementals’ employed under the Spirit of the Earth on the mysterious tasks carried out in the central globe of all. Elemental evolutions are very difficult to under- stand, but in some way there is an evolution outwards possible for these fire elementals, and an emergence for them in some cases into the superior elemental life of the external surface of the earth. I can say so little on this subject that it may seem to some readers hardly worth while to have said anything at all, but vague as our information must for the present remain in refer- ence to the interior evolutions, the mere recognition of these as in progress is calculated to enlarge our view of the Nature of which we form a part. To my mind there is a gulf of difference in the conception of this vast planet on the surface of which we roam about, as a huge lump of inorganic matter serviceable for no other purpose than to bear the minute organisms Swarming on its outside, and on the other hand the conception of it as a teeming hive of life and conscious- ness filled to overflowing with the vital influence of The Iogos. The mere physical complexity of its THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG. 307 structure as now explained dignifies the whole globe as compared with the crude ideas of its interior condition prevalent in the common imagination hitherto. And although orthodox science—as bigoted in reference to its methods as the Church in reference to its dogmas— will decline any enlightenment that does not come along familiar roads, occult students will be enabled by the explanations now set forth to check some of the speculations concerning the past history of the Earth in which scientific writers allow themselves to indulge. We are constantly told that the manner in which the Moon rotates once on her axis in the same time that she revolves once round the Earth, is the result of tidal action in the remote past. The satellite is assumed to have been cast off from the Earth while this was still in its early molten condition and having thus been flung into space to have settled down to its present habits as the result of tidal retardation while it was still a plastic mass.