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THE TREE OF LIFE 61
the Gnostics, and the double tail which forms the legs of the solar
cock of Abraxos."
In these terms of symbols eloquent and quaintly expressive in their
way, although to the casual reader smacking of verbosity, does the
French Magus describe the Astral Light. They are highly interesting
and significant symbols, and if much care and attention be given to
their interpretation they tend to considerable edification and may
be made to yield up much valuable information, aiding in the
intellectual comprehension, at least, of the nature and characteristics
of this subtle plane. Vibrating at another rate of motion than
does the gross substance of the physical world, and thus existing
on a higher plane, the Astral Light contains the builder's plan or
model, so to speak, projected downwards by the Ideation or Imagination
of the Father ; the plan on which the external world is constructed,
and within whose essence lies latent the potentiality of all
growth and development. All the forces and " ideas " from the
Creative and Archetypal realms are represented and focussed in this
plastic agent, the Formative World. It is at once substance and
motion, the movement being one which is " simultaneous and perpetual
in spiral lines of opposite motion." It was the late Lord
Salisbury, I may interpolate here, who defined the ether as the
nominative of the verb " to undulate."
In many respects this Formative World, the recipient of the higher
creative forces, is comparable in its lowest aspects to the Ether of
Science, There is, however, this exception. The Astral Light has
been in the past and may in the future be verified by direct visional
experience. The scientific conception of ether to-day is radically
different from what the scientist of fifty years ago meant by the
luminiferous ether. So much so, that judged by his standards and
speaking his language, the modern idea of ether and its radiation
waves are not realities at all. And yet, strangely enough, remarks
Sir James Jeans in The Mysterious Universe, the ether is one of the
most real things " of which we have any knowledge or experience,
and so is as real as anything possibly can be for us." The entity
which the experimental physicists to-day would define as ether must
be one which would respond qualitatively and quantitatively to their
instruments and mathematical equations. On the other hand, when
the Theurgists refer to the magnetic and electric substance of the
Astral Light, a metaphysical condition or state of substance is
implied, one which at present cannot be measured or observed with