Theos-Talk Archives (February 2002 Message tt00824)

<<<The 8 system originates with the ancient Indian alchemical tradition where there are the different stages or forms of mercury named: 
murcchita, mrtasuta, jalukabandha, muttibandha, 
pattabandha,bhasmasuta, khota bandha, and finally is purified to arota wich is Brahma , the unifying principle.>>>

OK. Thanks. 

<<<There is also the eight chaka system, with the eight, unifying chakra, above the head. >>>

OK, although this system is not used much.


<<<The seven system of Blavatsky is not oriental it's decidedly Western , and it was used in western occult sources, including in the 
USA years before Blavatsky. She used that system and placed everything else she could get a hold of in there.>>>

Yeah. I suppose you are familiar with Wescott's association:
"The number 7 was curiously related to H. P. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society. "Lucifer" was first published in 1887, and 1887 is the sum of 17 hundreds, 17 tens, and 17 units; H.P.B. lived at 17 lansdown Road, and 17 Avenue Road; "Lucifer" was published at 7 Duke Street; 7 volumes were completed at her death; Colonel Olcott first met her at 7 Bechman Street, and later at 71 Broadway, New York. Anna Kingsfort was elected president first of the London T.S. Lodge on 7th January 1883; "Isis Unveiled" was published in 1877, and the Third volume of the "Secret Doctrine" was published in 1897, after her death." (W.W.Wescott)


<<<You might know that in the orient besides the 4 chakra system of the Buddhists, and the 8 chakra system I just mention, there were also systems of nine, twelve, and twenty-seven chakras. See : "The
System of Cakras According to Goraksanatha", in Gopinath Kaviral, Aspects of Indian Thought, Calcutta: University of Burdwan, 1966, p. 
229-37.>>>

Yes. Buddhists tended to use whatever suited, but generally used three or four.

<<<The Aether that later showed up in Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine is what early western (hermetic) alchemists called the Quintessence which to 
them was the fifth element, a power or essence that bound in a unity the otherwise separate four elements and is nor related to the Buddhist 
Skandas. >>>

Right. 


<<<Quintessence was synonymous with elixir, mercury of the Philosophers Stoneand etheric. The Quintessence was said to be semi-material and visible to certain persons. The four elements, the fifth named Quintessence and two other unnamed elements formed the Seven Cosmical Elements.(Or seven Planets) >>>

Dee used a Tablet of Union to signify the 5th uniting element that united his 4 Watchtowers. I have never seen any reference to a 6th or 7th, and this has always bothered me because it seems to be a ruse used in order to match the elements with the planets.


<<<Akasha or Akasa was used in occultism and theosophy as an equivalent of the ancient term "aether. The word is the Sanskrit term for "all 
pervasive space." Akasha is also called Soniferous Ether. Theosophical doctrine links it to Quintessence. Accordmg to Blavatsky, the Akasha forms the anima mundi, the soul of the world. 
Through it, divine thought was allowed to manifest in matter. The anima mundi constitutes the soul and spirit of mankind. It produces mesmeric, magnetic operations of nature." Blavatsky introduced the concept of Akasha in the early 19th century and connected it to the other notions of the universal life force, such as the Sidereal Light of the Rosicrucians, Levi's Astral Light and the Odic Force of Von Reichenbach. >>>

The notion of a unifying element is not limited to Theosophy or to the alchemists. Modern science has been trying to unite everything into a Grand Unified Theory (or GUT) for many years now. They use the langugage of mathematics, and so far have not been successful.


<<<Astral Light is held by the occultists as a manifestation of the Aether, which is not to be confused with the ether of the modem physicists. 
Aether however can be linked to the Etheric of the occultists. Etheric was to them the force or energy that gives life within our cosmos. The influence of the etheric forces on inert matter creates the diversities of natural phenomena.>>>

Astral Light was a name given to the four lower planes - the etheric, astral, mental, and causal, when lumped together. Many occultists still prefer to lump these four together. It is a matter of personal experience and taste.

Jerry S.
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