Theos-Talk Archives (April 2002 Message tt00263)

Sunday, April 21, 2002

Dear Friends:

This is a most interesting article. I thought we could enjoy it
as it opens some of the previous study on Occultism to a review.

Best wishes

Dallas



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THE SYNTHESIS OF OCCULT SCIENCE

I

The impassable gulf between mind and matter discovered by modern
science is a logical result of the present methods of so-called
scientific investigation. These methods are analytical and
hypothetical, and the results arrived at are necessarily
tentative and incomplete.

Even the so-called "Synthetic Philosophy" of Spencer is, at best,
an effort to grasp the entire method and modulus of nature within
one of its processes only. The aim is at synthesis, but it can
hardly deserve the name of philosophy, for it is purely
speculative and hypothetical. It is as though the physiologist
undertook to study the function of respiration in man through the
single process of expiration, ignoring the fact that every
expiratory act must be supplemented by inspiration or respiration
cease altogether.

Taking, therefore, the facts of experience derived from the
phenomena of nature and viewing both cosmic and organic processes
purely from their objective side, the "missing links,"
"impassable gulfs," and "unthinkable gaps" occur constantly.


OCCULT SCIENCE

Not so in Occult Science. So far as the science of occultism is
concerned, it is both experimental and analytical, but it
acknowledges no "missing links," "impassable gulfs," or
"unthinkable gaps," because it finds none.


NATURE IS ONE WHOLE - NO MISSING LINKS

Back of occult science there lies a complete and all-embracing
Philosophy. This philosophy is not simply synthetical in its
methods, for the simplest as the wildest hypothesis can claim
that much; but it is synthesis itself. It regards Nature as one
complete whole, and so the student of occultism may stand at
either point of observation. He may from the stand-point of
Nature's wholeness and completeness follow the process of
segregation and differentiation to the minutest atom conditioned
in space and time; or, from the phenomenal display of the atom,
he may reach forward and upward till the atom becomes an integral
part of cosmos, involved in the universal harmony of creation.
The modern scientist may do this incidentally or empirically, but
the occultist does it systematically and habitually, and hence
philosophically. The modern scientist is confessedly and
boastfully agnostic. The occultist is reverently and
progressively gnostic.


ONE LIFE

Modern science recognizes matter as "living" and "dead,"
"organic" and "inorganic," and "Life" as merely a phenomenon of
matter. Occult science recognizes, "foremost of all, the
postulate that there is no such thing in Nature as inorganic
substances or bodies. Stones, minerals, rocks, and even chemical
'atoms' are simply organic units in profound lethargy. Their coma
has an end, and their inertia becomes activity." (Secret
Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 626 fn.) Occultism recognizes ONE UNIVERSAL,
ALL-PERVADING LIFE. Modern science recognizes life as a special
phenomenon of matter, a mere transient manifestation due to
temporary conditions. Even logic and analogy ought to have taught
us better, for the simple reason that so-called "inorganic" or
"dead" matter constantly becomes organic and living, while matter
from the organic plane is continually being reduced to the
inorganic. How rational and justifiable, then, to suppose that
the capacity or "potency" of life is latent in all matter!


PRIMORDIAL MATTER

The "elements," "atoms," and "molecules" of modern science,
partly physical and partly metaphysical, though altogether
hypothetical, are, nevertheless, seldom philosophical, for the
simple reason that they are regarded solely as phenomenal. The
Law of Avogadro involved a generalization as to physical
structure and number, and the later experiments of Prof. Neumann
deduced the same law mathematically from the first principles of
the mechanical theory of gases, but it remained for Prof. Crookes
to perceive the philosophical necessity of a primordial
substratum, protyle, and so, as pointed out in the Secret
Doctrine, to lay the foundations of "Metachemistry"; in other
words, a complete philosophy of physics and chemistry that shall
take the place of mere hypothesis and empiricism. If one or two
generalizations deduced as logical or mathematical necessities
from the phenomena of physics and chemistry have been able to
work such revolutions in the old chemistry, what may we not
expect from a complete synthesis that shall grasp universals by a
law that compasses the whole domain of matter? And yet this
complete synthesis has been in the possession of the true
occultist for ages. Glimpses of this philosophy have been
sufficient to give to minds like Kepler, Descartes, Leibnitz,
Kant, Schopenhauer, and, lastly, to Prof. Crookes, ideas that
claimed and held the interested attention of the scientific
world. While, at certain points, such writers supplement and
corroborate each other, neither anywhere nor altogether do they
reveal the complete synthesis, for none of them possessed it, and
yet it has all along existed.

"Let the reader remember these 'Monads' of Leibnitz, every one of
which is a living mirror of the universe, every monad reflecting
every other, and compare this view and definition with certain
Sanskrit stanzas (Slokas) translated by Sir William Jones, in
which it is said that the creative source of the Divine
Mind,...'Hidden in a veil of thick darkness, formed mirrors of
the atoms of the world, and cast reflection from its own face on
every atom'." - S.D., Vol. I, p. 623.


SCIENCE IS ANCIENT AND UNIVERSAL

It may be humiliating to "Modern Exact Science" and repugnant to
the whole of Christendom to have to admit that the Pagans whom
they have despised, and the "Heathen Scriptures" they long
ridiculed or ignored, nevertheless possess a fund of wisdom never
dreamed of under Western skies. They have the lesson, however, to
learn, that Science by no means originated in, nor is it confined
to, the West, nor are superstition and ignorance confined to the
East.
It can easily be shown that every real discovery and every
important advancement in modern science have already been
anticipated centuries ago by ancient science and philosophy. It
is true that these ancient doctrines have been embodied in
unknown languages and symbols, and recorded in books inaccessible
to western minds till a very recent date. Far beyond all this
inaccessibility, however, as a cause preventing these old truths
from reaching modern times, has been the prejudice, the scorn and
contempt of ancient learning manifested by the leaders of modern
thought.


WISDOM IS OPPOSED BY BIGOTRY AND SCORN

Nor is the lesson yet learned that bigotry and scorn are never
the mark of wisdom or the harbingers of learning; for still, with
comparatively few exceptions, any claim or discussion of these
ancient doctrines is met with contempt and scorn. The record has,
however, been at least outlined and presented to the world. As
the authors of the Secret Doctrine have remarked, these doctrines
may not be largely accepted by the present generation, but during
the twentieth century they will become known and appreciated.


METAPHYSICS AND PHILOSOPHY A BASIS

The scope and bearing of philosophy itself are hardly yet
appreciated by modern thought, because of its materialistic
tendency. A complete science of metaphysics and a complete
philosophy of science are not yet even conceived of as possible;
hence the ancient wisdom by its very vastness has escaped
recognition in modern times.

That the authors of ancient wisdom have spoken from at least two
whole planes of conscious experience beyond that of our ever-day
"sense-perception," is to us inconceivable, and yet such is the
fact; and why should the modern advocate of evolution be shocked
and staggered by such a disclosure? It but justifies his
hypothesis and extends its theatre. Is it because the present
custodians of this ancient learning do not scramble for
recognition on the stock exchange, and enter into competition in
the marts of the world?

If the practical outcome of such competition needed illustration,
Mr. Keely might serve as an example. The discoveries of the age
are already whole centuries in advance of its ethical culture,
and the knowledge that should place still further power in the
hands of a few individuals whose ethical code is below, rather
than above, that of the ignorant, toiling, suffering masses,
could only minister to anarchy and increase oppression.


SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE AND ETHICS

On these higher planes of consciousness the law of progress is
absolute; knowledge and power go hand in hand with beneficence to
man, not alone to the individual possessors of wisdom, but to the
whole human race. The custodians of the higher knowledge are
equally by both motive and development almoners of the divine.
These are the very conditions of the higher consciousness
referred to. The synthesis of occult science becomes, therefore,
the higher synthesis of the faculties of man. What matter,
therefore, if the ignorant shall scout its very existence, or
treat it with ridicule and contempt? Those who know of its
existence and who have learned something of its scope and nature
can, in their turn, afford to smile, but with pity and sorrow at
the willing bondage to ignorance and misery that scorns
enlightenment and closes its eyes to the plainest truths of
experience.

Leaving, for the present, the field of physics and cosmogenesis,
it may be profitable to consider some of the applications of
these doctrines to the functions and life of man.

The intellect derived from philosophy is similar to a charioteer;
for it is present with our desires, and always conducts them to
the beautiful.	- DEMOPHILUS



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DTB