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200 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
with the three elemental kingdoms, the ten,
the Sephirothal number.
It is at this point that begins:
A descent of spirit into matter equivalent to an ascent in physical evolution; a
reascent from the deepest depths of materiality (the mineral) towards its status quo
ante, with a corresponding dissipation of concrete organism—up to Nirvana, the
vanishing point of differentiated matter.*
Therefore it becomes evident, why that which is pertinently called
in Esoteric Buddhism "wave of evolution," and "mineral, vegetable,
animal and man-impulse," stops at the door of our Globe, at its
Fourth Cycle or Round. It is at this point that the Cosmic Monad
(Buddhi) will be wedded to, and become the vehicle of, the Atmic
A
Ray; i.e., Buddhi will awaken to an apperception of it (Atman), and
thus enter on the first step of a new septenary ladder of evolution,
which will lead it eventuallj^ to the tenth, counting from the lowest
upwards, of the Sephirothal Tree, the Crown.
Everything in the Universe follows analogy. "As above, so below";
Man is the microcosm of the Universe. That which takes place on the
spiritual plane, repeats itself on the cosmic plane. Concretion follows
the lints of abstraction; corresponding to the highest must be the
lowest; the material to the spiritual. Thus, corresponding to the
Sephirothal Crown, or Upper Triad, there are the three elemental
kingdoms, which precede the mineral, f and which, using the language
of the Kabalists, answer in the cosmic differentiation to the Worlds of
Form and Matter, from the Super-Spiritual to the Archetypal.
Now what is a Monad And what relation does it bear to an Atom
The following reply is based upon the explanations given in answer
to these questions in the above-cited article, "The Mineral Monad,"
written by the author. To the second question it is answered:
None whatever to the atom or molecule as at present existing in the scientific conception.
It can neither be compared with the microscopic organisms, once classed
among polygastric infusoria, and now regarded as vegetable, and classed among
algae; nor is it quite the monas of the Peripatetics. Physically or constitutionally
the Mineral Monad differs, of course, from the Human Monad, which is not
physical, nor can its constitution be rendered by chemical symbols and elements.
In short, as the Spiritual Monad is One, Universal, Boundless and
Impartite, whose Rays, nevertheless, form what we, in our ignorance,
call
the "Individual Monads" of men, so the Mineral Monad—being at
the opposite curve of the circle—is also One, and from it proceed the
* Ibid. t See diagram, op. cU., p. 277. t Op. cit., pp. 273-4.