English
Tidal friction is very much in favour just now among speculative physicists as an explanation of some phenomena that have taken place (in an entirely different way) and of some others (erroneously) assumed to be in preparation for the future. As the Moon was really in existence for millions of years before the first initial measures were taken for the formation of the Earth, all guesses based upon the idea that it was a bit of the original Earth torn off by an early convulsion of Nature are little likely to find themselves in harmony with the truth. The Moon is indeed a dead planet now, not because it has never been anything else, as the conventional theory would 308 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. imply, but because it has fulfilled its part in the economy of the scheme to which it belonged and is in process of disintegration. For the final return to the bosom of Nature of the materials used in the construction of a planet is accom- plished by degrees, just as the planet in the beginning has been built up by degrees. The concentric sphere arrangement is, as I infer from what I have learned, the method of planetary formation adopted throughout the solar system, but at any rate it was the method adopted in the formation of the Moon in the beginning (long before the Earth was thought about) just as in our own case afterwards. And when the active life of the Lunar world was over and its physical body had to be dispersed again—as in the case of each one of us when each life is spent the physical body concerned has to return to dust—the outermost shells disintegrated first. As with their original construction forces are employed that we do not habitually reckon with, so in the processes of disintegration agencies of an unfamiliar kind take the work in hand, but the broad idea is that when the Spirit of the Planet that is outworn has no longer any work to do there he leaves it and decay sets in as naturally as it sets in with a human corpse when the soul has fled away. In its full maturity the Moon must have been a planet about the same size as our own, for as we look at it now we see the surface of what was originally its third concentric sphere going inwards. The two outer ones have been shed, and the matter of which they were composed no doubt largely drawn upon for the final deposit of matter THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG. 309 on the outer shell of the Earth. A long time will yet elapse before the four remaining shells and the internal nucleus return to the oceanic store of meteoric matter, but time in these undertakings is spent by Nature with much prodigality. In guess-work concerning the duration of astronomical periods modern science has not yet been furnished with data on which to proceed with security, and its confidence in the data which it assumes is apt to be misplaced. Thus all calculations relating to the supposed maintenance of the Sun’s heat by shrinkage are quite ludicrously wrong, and the forecasts at present in favour as regards the time at which there will be no room for it to shrink any more, and at which consequently the planetary family around it will be frozen to death, will sooner or later be looked back upon by the science of the future as quite on a level with the theory of the tortoise that supports the world. I am little inclined, however,-to encourage the flippancy of some occultists who speak disrespectfully of modern science because our information enables us to catch it out here and there in mistakes. The science of the western world is in the van of human intelligence, if we except only the wisdom of Adeptship. Its achievements so far have been beautiful and glorious. It merely needs now to avail itself of the wonderful instruments of research which lie but half hidden in the depths of human faculty, and then it will carry the exquisite discipline of its thought into regions where at present only a few exceptionally gifted explorers are roaming, unprepared by their training for the work they attempt to perform. In times not long gone by, the 310 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. reconciliation of science and religion was hoped for by enthusiasts as promising, when it should be accom- plished, some immense advance in general civilisation. That union is in process of realisation, religion having, so to speak, accorded a grudging consent. But the next great step must be the reconciliation of science and occultism. That, too, must come, though perhaps this time it will be the scientific world that will show some disposition to be sulky as the change forces its way. That will not matter in the long run, and in that long run the state of facts dealt with in this volume will assuredly be the subject of investigations with which future members of the Royal Society will be engaged, though at the moment the wonderful story I have had to tell may find even some Theosophists incredulous, unless they have intuition enough to feel sure that, all things considered, I should not be likely to put it forward without such assurance of its accuracy as suffices to justify its association with the many other Fragments of Occult Truth which it has been my privilege to set forth. The changes which thus take place from time to time within the interior economy of the solar system must, of course, produce perturbing effects on the movements of planets already in existence at any given period when an old planet is disintegrated, or a new one solidified, and probably such perturbations play a part in the cyclic processes going forward in the active worlds of the time. It sometimes happens that isolated statements cropping up in occult teaching point to astronomical events that we cannot easily refer to THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG. 311 cosmic causes visibly in operation. They are very likely promoted by changes which are going on in what may be called the configuration of -the system, at great intervals. It can never fall to the lot of any one genera- tion of observant beings on any one planet to witness the evolution of a new world or the destruction of an old one. Such processes are protracted compared with the span of human life. But crises must come on at some periods in the future when rational inhabitants of some planets may see new worlds in formation, or processes in activity foreshadowing the disintegration of some aged planet that has fulfilled its purpose. The seven great schemes of planetary evolution pro- ceed on independent lines, and there is no intermingling of their activities during their normal course. But helpfulness is the law of life throughout the entire system, and in this way it comes to pass that the various schemes are not rigidly excluded from the possibility of receiving benefits from others. On this subject we need only concern ourselves with one example of such inter-comimunication, but it is important to comprehend this one example correctly if we are endeavouring to understand our own evolutionary history. The Venus scheme, as already stated, is in the seventh round of its fifth Manvantara, we of the earth chain being at present in the course of our fourth round. This means that the humanity of the Venus chain was already on spiritual ‘levels immensely higher than those of our humanity when we were still struggling on in the earlier phases of our evolution during this earth period. Thus it came to pass that some of the representatives of the 312 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. Venus chain Adeptship, availing themselves of possi- bilities having to do with immensely exalted spiritual planes common to the whole solar system, transferred themselves to this earth for a time during part of the third and early fourth race, and took part in the teaching and guidance of our comparatively infant humanity. Readers approaching these conceptions for the first time may be inclined to wonder how so great a gulf on the scale of evolution can have separated the earlier humanity of this world period from that inhabiting the earth to-day, and including masters of wisdom who have already scaled heights on a level, so far as we can understand, with those from which our Venus teachers descended. ‘The explanation lies in this simple fact that until the midway point of any Manvantara is reached the whole process of evolution must be thought of as a downward growth into the complexities of materiality. No one, however individually ripe for spiritual evolution, could begin to transcend his com- panions in any extraordinary degree until the middle point of the Manvantara was turned. Then he had a clear course before him; it was possible for any one, assuming extraordinary aptitudes on his part, to achieve in a comparatively brief series of lives the whole development, for which, as regards the race at large, Nature liberally provides the whole second half of the Manvantara. Before the midway point of our Manvantara—that is to say, before the middle period of the great root race preceding our own—there were no Adepts belonging to our human family; thus no further back than at the beginning of the great THE SYSTEM 10 WHICH WE BELONG. 313 Atlantean, or fourth root race, the earth chain was entirely dependent on external help for its loftier spiritual guidance. The course of human progress through this world period, therefore—the history of the great root races— may be best studied in Theosophical books devoted specially to the elucidation of that magnificent progress, but the general character of such progress must be borne in mind by all who would form a mental picture of the whole system to which we belong, calculated to give an intelligent significance to individual progress.