Himalayas, he begins his relationship with the Brothers on exactly the same terms as the humblest Chela who ever tried to scale their Parnassus; he must " win his way." If you only knew how often, within my time even, a deaf ear has been turned to the importunities, both of influential outsiders professing readiness to do everything in the way of personal exertion and liberal gifts, and of our own fellows, who pretended to be ready to sacrifice the world if the Brothers would only come to them and teach them, you would perhaps be less surprised at their failure to visit you. Events have always proved their wisdom, and so it will be in your case, I fancy; for if you do see them, as I hope and trust you may, it will be because you have earned the right to command their presence. The phenomena they have done have all had a purpose, and good has eventually come even from those which brought down upon us for the moment the greatest contumely. As for my mistakes of judgment and H. P. B.'s occasional tomfooleries, that is a different affair, and the debits are charged to our respective accounts. My teachers have always told me that the danger of giving the world complete assurance of their existence is so great, by reason of the low spiritual tone of the Society, and the ruthless selfishness with which it would seek to drag them from their seclusion, that it is better to tell only so much as will excite the curiosity and stimulate the zeal of the worthy minority of metaphysical students. If they can keep just enough oil in the lamp to feed the flame it is all that is required• 1 do not know whether or not there is any significance in the fact of my Chohan's visiting me on the night of the 27th, but you may. He made me rise, sit at my table and write from his dictation for an hour or more. There was an expression of anxiety mingled with sternness on his noble face, as there always is when the matter concerns H. P. B., to whom for many years he has been at once a father and a devoted guardian. How I do hope you may see him! You would confess, I am sure, that he was the finest possible type of man. I have also personally known -since 1875. He is of quite a different, a gentler type, yet the bosom friend of the other. They live near each other, with a small Buddhist Temple about midway between their houses. In New York, I had's portrait, my Chohan's, that of another Brother, a Southern Indian Prince, and a colored sketch on China silk of the landscape near's and my Chohan's residences with a glimpse of the latter's house and of part of the little temple. But the portraits of—and the Prince disappeared from the frames one night just before I left for India. I had still another picture, that remarkable portrait of a Yogi about which so much was said in the papers. It too disappeared in New York, but one evening tumbled down through the air before our very eyes, as H. P. B., Damodar and I were conversing in my office at Bombay with (if I remember aright) the Dewan Sankariah of Cochin. You and I will never see Jesus in the flesh, but if you should never meet—‚or one or two others whom I might mention, I think you will say that they are near enough our ideal" to satisfy one's longing for the tree of humanity to put forth such a flower." I am ordered to say that you may use this letter as your judgment may dictate, after noting carefully its contents. With sincere regards and best wishes, Yours, H. S. OLCOTT. Were all thy fond endeavors vain To chase away the sufferer's mart ? Still hover near, lest absence pain His lonely heart. For friendship's tones have kindlier power Than odorous fruit, or nectared bowl, To soothe, in sorrow's languid hour, The sinking soul. Sa'di. SCIENTIFIC NOTES. HE article on "The Ether of Space" which appeared in the June Theosophist contains important information from the standpoint of science. Its importance arises from the fact that it can be immediately linked with some of the results of physicists. The articles on "Occult Chemistry" are also of great importance, but scientific researches are not at present sufficiently advanced to enable us to bridge over the gaps between the two, whereas some of the statements in " the Æther of Space" are immediately assimilable to the exoteric investigations. Even the most startling statement contained therein that what we call matter is not matter but the absence of matter will probably not be received by the scientific world with either great surprise or incredulity, for some of them have been already led to conclude that such is the case. On June 10th, 1902, Prof. Osborne Reynolds delivered "The Rede Lecture" on An Inversion of ideas as to the Structure of the Universe, published by the Cambridge University Press, wherein he shows that physical phenomena are all mechanically explainable if the parts of space which appear to us as filled with matter are in reality empty space, whilst what to us is empty space is filled with matter. The complete mathematical proof of this was communicated by him to the Royal Society on February 3rd, 1902, and was accepted for publication in full. It was published in 1908 by the Cambridge University Press as Vol. III of Prof. Reynolds Scientific Papers. The above work, therefore, may be said to constitute a scientific proof of the fundamental statement in the article on "The Æther of Space" and Prof. Reynolds claims to have shown that it not only explains physical phenomena but that it is the only conceivable mechanical explanation of the Universe. The nature of the proof is highly technical and can only be followed by advanced mathematicians. So far it has not caused much discussion in the scientific journals and no attempt has been made to refute either the premises or conclusions. It may be said in a sense to have been shelved, the attention of scientific men having been drawn away to the more attractive theories of J. J. Thomson and Sir Oliver Lodge. When modern physicists first measured the mass of an electron and found it was only about one thousandth of that of Hydrogen, it seemed at first to some of us that this was inconsistent with the result of occult investigation, for we had been told in 1895 that hydrogen consisted of eighteen physical atoms. But on page 825 of the June Theosophist we are now told that each of these physical atoms is represented by 49 astral atoms, hence Hydrogen will be represented by 18 x 49-882 astral atoms; and if these 882 astral atoms have collectively the same mass as an atom of Hydrogen, then the mass of one of them will be about one thousandth of the mass of Hydrogen; in other words the mass of one of these astral atoms is the same as the mass of an electron and in all probability is identical with it. If this surmise be correct, as I believe it is, very important conclusions follow from it, for it means that modern physicists in discovering the electron have crossed the physical borderland and discovered the astral plane; so far they have been under the impression that in the electron they had found the basis of physical matter, whilst in reality they have found the basis of Astral matter; and since modern theories of electricity are now all based upon the distribution and motions of these electrons, it follows that all these theories have astral matter for their basis and that all manifestations of electricity are astro-physical phenomena. The investigations of J. J. Thomson and others have proved that these electrons are all charged with a fixed quantity of electricity, and that the electrons whose mass is about one thousandth of the hydrogen atom have all a negative charge. The electron having a positive charge has not yet been isolated, but so far it is known that the bodies carrying the equivalent positive charge to the negative electron have masses never less than the atom of hydrogen and often much greater than this; hence it seems that positive electricity is always associated with physical matter, whilst negative electricity is always associated with astral matter. From this the very natural inference can be drawn that all astral matter is negatively charged and all physical matter positively charged, so that the science of electricity may be said to be the science of the interaction of the physical and astral planes. In other words it is a borderland science, involving two mutually interpenetrating universes, the physical and the astral. G. E. SUTCLIFFE. I spoke the holy name as soon I spoke His name at busy noon, And when at evening, robed and crowned, The soul returns redeemed, I went apart and in my heart I spoke His name and dreamed. And thus I came to weave the sound With vast eternal things, And dreamed until I rose at will Beyond the range of hurt or harm For when I spoke His name I woke It has more power than any charm Than any ring that Queen or King For when the good within me drifts Whose vapors keep the soul asleep, And like a breath of wind it lifts And in the midmost passion there Look out, and see the stars! I see the stars far off but clear, Which He discerned and haply learned, The One Encircling Soul. AUBREY VERNON, |