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FORCES ARE DEVAS AND GENII. 5 19
and Spiritual Entities; in terrestrial, semi-intelligent, and highly intellectual
Forces on other planes ;* and in Beings that dwell around us in
spheres imperceptible, whether through telescope or microscope.
Hence the necessity of examining the beliefs of materialistic Science,
of comparing its views about the "Elements" with the opinions of the
Ancients, and of analysing the physical Forces as they exist in modern
conceptions, before the Occultists admit themselves to be in the wrong.
We shall touch upon the constitution of the Sun and planets, and the
Occult characteristics of what are called Devas and Genii, and are now
termed by Science, Forces, or "modes of motion," and see whether
Esoteric belief is defensible or not. Notwithstanding the efforts made
to the contrary-, an unprejudiced mind will discover that under Newton's
"agent, material or immaterial,"! the agent which causes gravity,
and in his personal working God, there is just as much of the metaphysical
Devas and Genii, as there is in Kepler's Angelus Rector conducting
each planet, and in
the species immateriata by which the celestial
bodies were carried along in their courses, according to that
Astronomer.
In Volume II, we shall have to openly approach dangerous subjects.
We must bravely face Science and declare, in the teeth of materialistic
learning, of Idealism, Hylo-Idealism, Positivism and all-denying
modern Psycholog>', that the true Occultist believes in "Lords of
Light"; that he believes in a Sun, which—far from being simply a
"lamp of day" moving in accordance with physical law, and far from
being merely one of those Suns, which, according to Richter, "are
sun-flowers of a higher light"—is, like milliards of other Suns, the
dwelling or the vehicle of a God, and of a host of Gods.
In this dispute, of course, it is the Occultists who will be worsted.
They will be considered, on the prima facie aspect of the question, to
be ignoramuses, and will be labelled with more than one of the usual
epithets given to those whom the superficially judging public, itself
ignorant of the great underlying truths in Nature, accuses of believing
in mediaeval superstitions. Let it be so. Submitting beforehand to
every criticism in order to go on with their task, they only claim the
privilege of showing that the Physicists are as much at loggerheads
among themselves in their speculations, as these speculations are with
the teachings of Occultism.
* Their intellection, of course, being of quite a different nature to any we can conceive of on Earth.
+ See his Third Letter to Bentley.