Occult Chemistry | Page 3

nitrogen. This result throws back complete proof on the original
estimate of the number of minor atoms in hydrogen, a figure which
ordinary research has so far entirely failed to determine. The guesses
have been widely various, from unity to many hundreds, but,
unacquainted with the clairvoyant method, the ordinary physicist has
no means of reaching the actual state of the facts.
Before going on with the details of the later research some very
important discoveries arising from the early work must first be
explained. As I have already said clairvoyant faculty of the appropriate
order directed to the minute phenomena of Nature is practically infinite
in its range. Not content with estimating the number of minor atoms in
physical molecules, the authors proceeded to examine the minor atoms
individually. They were found to be themselves elaborately
complicated structures which, in this preliminary survey of the whole
subject, I will not stop to explain (full explanation will be found later
on) and they are composed of atoms belonging to an ultra-physical
realm of Nature with which the occultist has long been familiar and
describes as "the Astral Plane." Some rather pedantic critics have found
fault with the term, as the "plane" in question is of course really a
sphere entirely surrounding the physical globe, but as all occultists
understand the word, "plane" simply signifies a condition of nature.
Each condition, and there are many more than the two under
consideration, blends with its neighbour, via atomic structure. Thus the
atoms of the Astral plane in combination give rise to the finest variety
of physical matter, the ether of space, which is not homogeneous but
really atomic in its character, and the minute atoms of which physical
molecules are composed are atoms of ether, "etheric atoms," as we
have now learned to call them.
Many physicists, though not all, will resent the idea of treating the ether
of space as atomic. But at all events the occultist has the satisfaction of
knowing that the great Russian chemist, Mendeleef, preferred the
atomic theory. In Sir William Tilden's recent book entitled "Chemical
Discovery and Invention in the Twentieth Century," I read that
Mendeleef, "disregarding conventional views," supposed the ether to

have a molecular or atomic structure, and in time all physicists must
come to recognise that the Electron is not, as so many suppose at
present, an atom of electricity, but an atom of ether carrying a definite
unit charge of electricity.
Long before the discovery of radium led to the recognition of the
electron as the common constituent of all the bodies previously
described as chemical elements, the minute particles of matter in
question had been identified with the cathode rays observed in Sir
William Crookes' vacuum tubes. When an electric current is passed
through a tube from which the air (or other gas it may contain) has been
almost entirely exhausted, a luminous glow pervades the tube
manifestly emanating from the cathode or negative pole of the circuit.
This effect was studied by Sir William Crookes very profoundly.
Among other characteristics it was found that, if a minute windmill was
set up in the tube before it was exhausted, the cathode ray caused the
vanes to revolve, thus suggesting the idea that they consisted of actual
particles driven against the vanes; the ray being thus evidently
something more than a mere luminous effect. Here was a mechanical
energy to be explained, and at the first glance it seemed difficult to
reconcile the facts observed with the idea creeping into favour, that the
particles, already invested with the name "electron," were atoms of
electricity pure and simple. Electricity was found, or certain eminent
physicists thought they had found, that electricity per se had inertia. So
the windmills in the Crookes' vacuum tubes were supposed to be
moved by the impact of electric atoms.
Then in the progress of ordinary research the discovery of radium by
Madame Curie in the year 1902 put an entirely new face upon the
subject of electrons. The beta particles emanating from radium were
soon identified with the electrons of the cathode ray. Then followed the
discovery that the gas helium, previously treated as a separate element,
evolved itself as one consequence of the disintegration of radium.
Transmutation, till then laughed at as a superstition of the alchemist,
passed quietly into the region of accepted natural phenomena, and the
chemical elements were seen to be bodies built up of electrons in
varying number and probably in varying arrangements. So at last

ordinary science had reached one important result of the occult research
carried on seven years earlier. It has not yet reached the finer results of
the occult research--the structure of the hydrogen atom with its
eighteen etheric atoms and the way in which the atomic weights of all
elements