Occult Chemistry | Page 4

are explained by the number of etheric atoms entering into
their constitution.
The ether of space, though defying instrumental examination, comes
within scope of the clairvoyant faculty, and profoundly interesting
discoveries were made during what I have called the early research in
connexion with that branch of the inquiry. Etheric atoms combine to
form molecules in many different ways, but combinations involving
fewer atoms than the eighteen which give rise to hydrogen, make no
impression on the physical senses nor on physical instruments of
research. They give rise to varieties of molecular ether, the
comprehension of which begins to illuminate realms of natural mystery
as yet entirely untrodden by the ordinary physicist. Combinations
below 18 in number give rise to three varieties of molecular ether, the
functions of which when they come to be more fully studied will
constitute a department of natural knowledge on the threshold of which
we already stand. Some day we may perhaps be presented with a
volume on Occult Physics as important in its way as the present
dissertation on Occult Chemistry.
* * * * *

CHAPTER II.
DETAILS OF THE EARLY RESEARCH.
The article detailing the results of the research carried on in the year
1895 (see the November issue for that year of the magazine then called
_Lucifer_), began with some general remarks about the clairvoyant
faculty, already discussed in the preceding chapter. The original record
then goes on as follows:--

The physical world is regarded as being composed of between sixty and
seventy chemical elements, aggregated into an infinite variety of
combinations. These combinations fall under the three main heads of
solids, liquids and gases, the recognised substates of physical matter,
with the theoretical ether scarcely admitted as material. Ether, to the
scientist, is not a substate or even a state of matter, but is a something
apart by itself. It would not be allowed that gold could be raised to the
etheric condition as it might be to the liquid and gaseous; whereas the
occultist knows that the gaseous is succeeded by the etheric, as the
solid is succeeded by the liquid, and he knows also that the word
"ether" covers four substates as distinct from each other as are the
solids, liquids and gases, and that all chemical elements have their four
etheric substates, the highest being common to all, and consisting of the
ultimate physical atoms to which all elements are finally reducible. The
chemical atom is regarded as the ultimate particle of any element, and
is supposed to be indivisible and unable to exist in a free state. Mr.
Crookes' researches have led the more advanced chemists to regard the
atoms as compound, as a more or less complex aggregation of protyle.
To astral vision ether is a visible thing, and is seen permeating all
substances and encircling every particle. A "solid" body is a body
composed of a vast number of particles suspended in ether, each
vibrating backwards and forwards in a particular field at a high rate of
velocity; the particles are attracted towards each other more strongly
than they are attracted by external influences, and they "cohere," or
maintain towards each other a definite relation in space. Closer
examination shows that the ether is not homogeneous but consists of
particles of numerous kinds, differing in the aggregations of the minute
bodies composing them; and a careful and more detailed method of
analysis reveals that it has four distinct degrees, giving us, with the
solid, liquid and gaseous, seven instead of four substates of matter in
the physical world.
These four etheric substates will be best understood if the method be
explained by which they were studied. This method consisted of taking
what is called an atom of gas, and breaking it up time after time, until
what proved to be the ultimate physical atom was reached, the breaking

up of this last resulting in the production of astral, and no longer
physical matter.
[Illustration]
It is, of course, impossible to convey by words the clear conceptions
that are gained by direct vision of the objects of study, and the
accompanying diagram--cleverly drawn from the description given by
the investigators--is offered as a substitute, however poor, for the
lacking vision of the readers. The horizontal lines separate from each
other the seven substates of matter; solid, liquid, gas, ether 4, ether 3,
ether 2, ether 1. On the gas level are represented three chemical atoms,
one of hydrogen (H), one of oxygen (O), one of nitrogen (N). The
successive changes undergone by each chemical atom are shown in the
compartments vertically above it, the left-hand column showing the
breaking up of the hydrogen atom, the middle column that of the
oxygen atom, the right-hand column, that of the nitrogen atom. The
ultimate physical atom is marked