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ATOMS ARE INVISIBLE LIVES. 279
the two States of the One, which is neither Spirit 7ior Matter, both being
the Absolute Life, latent. . . . Spirit is the first differentiation of {and
in'\ Space; and Matter the first differentiation of Spirit. That, which is
neither Spirit nor Matter,
That is IT—the Causeless Cause of Spirit and
Matter, which are the Cause of Kosmos. And THAT we call the One
lyiFE, or the Intra-Cosjnic Breath.'^
Once more we say like must produce like. Absolute I,ife cannot
produce an inorganic atom, whether single or complex, and there is
life even in Laj'a, just as a man in a profound cataleptic state—to all
appearance a corpse—is still a living being.
When the "Devourers"—in whom the men of Science are invited to
see, with some show of reason, atoms of the Fire -Mist, if the}^ will, as
the Occultist will offer no objection to this—when the "Devourers,"
we say, have differentiated the "Fire Atoms," by a peculiar process of
segmentation, the latter become I,ife-Germs, which aggregate according
to the laws of cohesion and affinity. Then the Life-Germs produce
Ivives of another kind, which work on the structure of our Globes.
Thus, in the First Round, the Globe, having been built by the primitive
Fire-Iyives i.e., formed into a sphere—had no solidity, no qualifications,
save a cold brightness, no form, no colour; it is only towards
the end of the First Round that it developed one Element, which, from
its inorganic, so to saj", or simple Essence, has become now, in our
Round, the fire we know throughout the System. The Earth was in her
first Riipa, the essence of which is the Akashic Principle named * * *,
that which is now known as, and very erroneously termed, Astral
Light, which Eliphas Levi calls the "Imagination of Nature," probably
to avoid giving it its correct name, as others do.
Speaking of it, in his Preface to the Histoire de la Magie, Eliphas Levi
says
It is through this Force that all the ner\^ous centres secretly communicate with
each other; from it—that sympathy and antipathy are born; from it—that we
have our dreams; and that the phenomena of second sight and extra-natural
visions take place Astral Light [acting under the impulsion of powerful
wills] . . . destroys, coagulates, separates, breaks, gathers in all things.
. . . God created it on that day when he said: ''Fiat Lux!'"'' . . . It is
directed by the Egregores, i.e., the chiefs of the souls, who are the spirits of
energy and action.t
Eliphas Levi ought to have added that the Astral Light, or Primordial
Substance, if matter at all, is that which, called Light, Lux esoterically
• Book of Dzyan, Comm. Ill, par. 18. t p. ig.