THEOSOPHY – THE WORD

FORCE

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The AH-HI (Dhyani-Chohans) are the collective hosts of spiritual beings – the Angelic Hosts of Christianity, the Elohim and “Messengers” of the Jews – who are the vehicle for the manifestation of the divine or universal thought and will. They are the Intelligent Forces that give to and enact in Nature her “laws,” while themselves acting according to laws imposed upon them in a similar manner by still higher Powers; but they are not “the personifications” of the powers of Nature, as erroneously thought.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p30]

Centres of Forces at first, the invisible sparks of primordial atoms differentiate into molecules, and become Suns – passing gradually into objectivity – gaseous, radiant, cosmic, the one “Whirlwind” (or motion) finally giving the impulse to the form, and the initial motion, regulated and sustained by the never-resting Breaths – the Dhyani-Chohans.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p103]

Fohat, then, is the personified electric vital power, the transcendental binding Unity of all Cosmic Energies, on the unseen as on the manifested planes, the action of which resembles – on an immense scale – that of a living Force created by WILL, in those phenomena where the seemingly subjective acts on the seemingly objective and propels it to action. Fohat is not only the living Symbol and Container of that Force, but is looked upon by the Occultists as an Entity – the forces he acts upon being cosmic, human and terrestrial, and exercising their influence on all those planes respectively.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p111]

“Four winged wheels at each corner . . . . for the four holy ones and their armies (hosts)” . . . . These are the “four Maharajahs” or great Kings of the Dhyani-Chohans, the Devas who preside, each over one of the four cardinal points. They are the Regents or Angels who rule over the Cosmical Forces of North, South, East and West, Forces having each a distinct occult property. These BEINGS are also connected with Karma, as the latter needs physical and material agents to carry out her decrees, such as the four kinds of winds, for instance, professedly admitted by Science to have their respective evil and beneficent influences upon the health of Mankind and every living thing.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p122-3]

So does Fohat. He is One and Seven, and on the Cosmic plane is behind all such manifestations as light, heat, sound, adhesion, etc., etc., and is the “spirit of ELECTRICITY, which is the LIFE of the Universe. As an abstraction, we call it the ONE LIFE; as an objective and evident Reality, we speak of a septenary scale of manifestation, which begins at the upper rung with the One Unknowable CAUSALITY, and ends as Omnipresent Mind and Life immanent in every atom of Matter. Thus, while science speaks of its evolution through brute matter, blind force, and senseless motion, the Occultists point to intelligent LAW and sentient LIFE, and add that Fohat is the guiding Spirit of all this. Yet he is no personal god at all, but the emanation of those other Powers behind him ...

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p139]

The Occultists, who do not say – if they would express themselves correctly – that matter, but only the substance or essence of matter, is in destructible and eternal, (i.e., the Root of all, Mulaprakriti), assert that all the so-called Forces of Nature, Electricity, Magnetism, Light, Heat, etc., etc., far from being modes of motion of material particles, are in esse, i.e., in their ultimate constitution, the differentiated aspects of that Universal Motion which is discussed and explained in the first pages of this volume (See PROEM).

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p147]

... Laya is what Science may call the Zero-point or line; the realm of absolute negativeness, or the one real absolute Force, the NOUMENON of the Seventh State of that which we ignorantly call and recognise as “Force”; or again the Noumenon of Undifferentiated Cosmic Substance which is itself an unreachable and unknowable object to finite perception; the root and basis of all states of objectivity and subjectivity too; the neutral axis, not one of the many aspects, but its centre.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p148]

... The active Power, the “Perpetual motion of the great Breath” only awakens Kosmos at the dawn of every new Period, setting it into motion by means of the two contrary Forces,* and thus causing it to become objective on the plane of Illusion. In other words, that dual motion transfers Kosmos from the plane of the Eternal Ideal into that of finite manifestation, or from the Noumenal to the phenomenal plane. Everything that is, was, and will be, eternally IS, even the countless forms, which are finite and perishable only in their objective, not in their ideal Form. They existed as Ideas, in the Eternity, and, when they pass away, will exist as reflections.

* The centripetal and the centrifugal forces, which are male and female, positive and negative, physical and spiritual, the two being the one Primordial Force.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p282]

The latter teaches that the whole universe is ruled by intelligent and semi-intelligent Forces and Powers, as stated from the very beginning.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p287]

Parasakti:– Literally the great or supreme force or power. It means and includes the powers of light and heat.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p292]

MANTRIKA-SAKTI:– Literally the force or power of letters or speech or music . . . . Mantra Sastra has for its subject-matter this force in all its manifestations . . . . The influence of [melody] is one of its ordinary manifestations. The power of the mirific ineffable name is the crown of the Sakti.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p293]

“The one Universal Light, which to Man is Darkness, is ever existent,” says the Chaldean Book of Numbers. From it proceeds periodically the ENERGY, which is reflected in the “Deep” or Chaos, the store-house of future worlds, and, once awakened, stirs up and fructifies the latent Forces, which are the ever present eternal potentialities in it. Then awake anew the Brahmâs and Buddhas – the co-eternal Forces – and a new Universe springs into being. . . . .

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p337]

In the “Forces” of Science we see but the material effect of the spiritual affect of one or the other of the four primordial Elements,...

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p342]

According to esoteric teaching there are seven primary, and seven secondary “creations;” the former being the Forces self-evolving from the one causeless FORCE; the latter, showing the manifested Universe emanating from the already differentiated divine elements.

Esoterically, as well as exoterically, all the above enumerated Creations stand for the (7) periods of Evolution, whether after an “Age” or a “Day” of Brahmâ.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p446]

Faraday, R.J. Boscovitch, and all others, however, who see , in the atoms and molecules, “centres of force”, and in the corresponding element, force, and ENTITY BY ITSELF, are far nearer the truth,...

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p506]

No one will deny that a force (whether gravity, electricity, or any other force) which exists outside of the bodies and in open space – be it ether or vacuum – must be something, and not a pure nothing, when conceived apart from a mass? Otherwise it could hardly exist in one place with a greater and in another with reduced “intensity.”...

... it is not in the least unscientific to speak of the substantiality of the so-called Forces. Subject to some future specific name, this force is substance of some kind, and can be nothing else; and perhaps one day Science will be the first to re-adopt the derided name of phlogiston. Whatever may be the future name given to it, to maintain that force does not reside in the atoms, but only in “space between them,” may be scientific enough; nevertheless it is not true. To the mind of an Occultist it is like saying that water does not reside in the drops of which the ocean is composed, but only in the space between those drops!

The objection made that there are two distinct schools of physicists, by one of which “the force is assumed to be an independent substantial entity, which is NOT a property of matter nor is it essentially related to matter,” is hardly likely to help the profane to any clearer understanding. It is, on the contrary, still more calculated to throw the question into greater confusion than ever. For Force is, then, neither this nor the other. By viewing it as “an independent substantial entity,” the theory extends the right hand of fellowship to Occultism, while the strange contradictory idea that it is not related to matter otherwise than by its power to act upon it,” leads physical science to the most absurd contradictory hypotheses. Whether “force” or “motion,” (Occultism, seeing no difference between the two, never attempts to separate them) it cannot act for the adherents of the atomo-mechanical theory one way, and for those of the rival school in another way.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p511-2]

Referring to the Aura, one of the Masters says in the “Occult World, “How could you make yourself understood by, command in fact, those semi-intelligent forces, whose means of communication with us are not through spoken words but through sounds and colours in correlation between the vibrations of the two.” It is this “correlation” that is unknown to modern Science, yet was many times explained by the Alchemists.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p514fn]

... it must first be observed that the Occult Sciences do not regard either electricity or any of the forces supposed

to be generated by it, as matter, in any of the states known to physical Science; to put it more clearly, none of these “forces,” so-called, are either solids, gases, or fluids. If it did not look pedantic, an Occultist would even object to electricity being called a fluid – as it is an effect and not a cause. But its noumenon, he would say, is a conscious cause. The same in the cases of “Force” and the “Atom.”

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p517]

But his [Butleroff’s] argument with regard to the nature of the essence that acts behind the physical phenomena of light, heat, electricity, etc., is no less scientific and authoritative for all that, and apply admirably to the case in hand. Science has no right to deny to the Occultists their claim to a more profound knowledge of the so-called Forces; which, they say, are only the effects of causes generated by Powers, substantial, yet supersensuous, and beyond any kind of matter with which they (the Scientists) have hitherto become acquainted.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p520]

Now all this shows that the writers of the Puranas were perfectly conversant with the “Forces” of Science and their correlations; moreover, with the various qualities of the latter in their bearing upon those psychic and physical phenomena which receive no credit and are unknown to physical science now.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p521]

Occultism has named it for ages, and so have all the ancient philosophers; but then all such beliefs are now proclaimed exploded superstitions. The “extra cosmic” God has killed every possibility of belief in intra-cosmic intelligent Forces, yet who, or what is the original pusher in that motion? “When we have learned the cause, unique et speciale, that pushes, we will be ready to combine it with the one which attracts.” And again – “Attraction between the celestial bodies is only repulsion: it is the Sun that drives them incessantly onward; for otherwise, their motion would stop.”

If ever this theory of the Sun-Force being the primal cause of all life on earth and motion in heaven is accepted, and if that other far bolder one of Herschell – about certain organisms in the Sun – is accepted even as a provisional hypothesis, then will our teachings be vindicated, and esoteric allegory shown to have anticipated Modern Science by millions of years, probably, for these are the Archaic teachings. Marttanda (the Sun) watches and threatens – without abandoning the central position to which his Mother, Aditi, relegated him – his seven brothers, the planets; “he pursues them, turning slowly around himself . . . and follows them from afar, moving in the same direction that they do, on the path that encircles their houses” – or the orbit. It is the Sun-fluids or Emanations that impart all motion and awaken all into life, in the Solar System. It is attraction and repulsion, but not as understood by modern physics and according to the law of gravity; but in harmony with the laws of Manvantaric motion designed from the early Sandhya, the Dawn of the rebuilding and higher reformation of the System. These laws are immutable; but the motion of all the bodies, which motion is diverse and alters with every minor Kalpa – is regulated by the Movers, the Intelligences within the Cosmic Soul.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p530]

Thus fact and truth have once more forced the hand of “exact” Science, and compelled it to enlarge its views and change its terms which, masking the multitude, reduced them to one body – like the Septenary Elohim and their hosts transformed by the materialistic religionists into one Jehovah. Replace the chemical terms “Molecule,” “atom,” “particle,” etc., by the words “Hosts,” “Monads,” “Devas,” etc., and one might think the genesis of gods, the primeval evolution of manvantaric intelligent Forces, was being described. But the learned lecturer adds something still more suggestive to his descriptive remarks; whether consciously or unconsciously, who knoweth?

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p548]

Shall we say that Force is “moving matter,” or “matter in motion,” and a manifestation of energy; or that matter and force are the phenomenal differentiated aspects of the one primary, undifferentiated Cosmic Substance?

This query is made with regard to that Stanza which treats of FOHAT and his “Seven brothers or Sons,” in other words, of the cause and the effects of Cosmic Electricity, the latter called, in Occult parlance, the seven primary forces of Electricity, whose purely phenomenal, and hence grossest effects are alone cognizable by physicists on the cosmic and especially on the terrestrial plane. These include, among other things, Sound, Light, Colour, etc., etc.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p554]

The reader is now asked to give serious attention to that newly-discovered potency which the discoverer has names “Inter-Etheric Force and Forces”.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p555]

These recognise a distinct vital principle independent of the organism – material, of course, as physical force cannot be divorced from matter, but of a substance existing in a state unknown to Science. Life for them is something more than the mere interaction of molecules and atoms. There is a vital principle without which no molecular combinations could ever have resulted in a living organism, least of all in the so-called “inorganic” matter of our plane of consciousness.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p603]

Nor are they [Occultists] so foolish, after all, in rejecting even the “gravity” of modern Science along with other physical laws, and in accepting instead attraction and repulsion. They see, moreover, in these two opposite Forces only the two aspects of the universal unit, called “MANIFESTING MIND”; in which aspects, Occultism, through its great Seers, perceives an innumerable Host of operative Beings: Cosmic Dhyani-Chohans, Entities, whose essence, in its dual nature, is the Cause of all terrestial phenomena. For that essence is co-substantial with the universal Electric Ocean, which is LIFE; and being dual, as said – positive and negative – it is the emanations of that duality that act now on earth under the name of “modes of motion”; even Force having now become objectionable as a word, for fear it should lead someone, even in thought, to separate it from matter! It is, as Occultism says, the dual effects of that dual essence, which have now been called centripetal and centrifugal forces, negative and positive poles, or polarity, heat and cold, light and darkness, etc., etc.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p604]

The “Forces” – their noumena rather – are the same, of course; therefore, the phenomenal Forces must be the same also. But how can any one feel so sure that the attributes of matter have not altered under the hand of Protean Evolution? How can any materialist assert with such confidence, as is done by Rossmassler, that “this eternal conformity in the essence of phenomena renders it certain that fire and water possessed at all times the same powers and ever will possess them?” Who are they “that darken counsel with words without knowledge,” and where were the Huxleys and Büchners when the foundations of the earth were laid by the great Law? It is a fundamental principle of the Occult philosophy, this same homogeneity of matter and immutability of natural laws, which are so much insisted upon by materialism; but that unity rests upon the inseparability of Spirit from matter, and, if the two are once divorced, the whole Kosmos would fall back into chaos and non-being. Therefore, it is absolutely false, and but an additional demonstration of the great conceit of our age, to assert (as men of science do) that all the great geological changes and terrible convulsions have been produced by ordinary and known physical forces. For these forces were but the tools and final means for the accomplishment of certain purposes, acting periodically, and apparently mechanically, through an inward impulse mixed up with, but beyond their material nature. There is a purpose in every important act of Nature, whose acts are all cyclic and periodical. But spiritual Forces having been usually confused with the purely physical, the former are denied by, and therefore, have to remain unknown to Science, because left unexamined.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p640]

This is quite philosophical and in accordance with the spirit of Eastern esotericism: for all the Forces, such as Light, Heat, Electricity, etc., etc., are called the “Gods” – esoterically.

It must be so, since the esoteric teachings in Egypt and India were identical. And, therefore, the personification of Fohat synthesizing all the manifesting forces in nature is a legitimate result. Moreover, as will be shown in the division that follows this one, the real and Occult forces in nature only now begin to be known – and even in this case, by heterodox, not orthodox, Science, though their existence, in one instance at any rate, is corroborated, and certified to by an immense number of educated people and even by some official men of science.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p672]

..........

Force, then, does not emerge with Primordial Substance from Parabrahmic Latency. It is the transformation into energy of the supra-conscious thought of the Logos, infused, so to speak, into the objectivation of the latter out of potential latency in the One Reality. Hence spring the wondrous laws of matter: hence the “primal impress” so vainly discussed by Bishop Temple. Force thus is not synchronous with the first objectivation of Mulaprakriti. But as, apart from it, the latter is absolutely and necessarily inert – a mere abstraction – it is unnecessary to weave too fine a cobweb of subtleties as to the order of succession of the Cosmic Ultimates. Force succeeds Mulaprakriti; but, minus Force, Mulaprakriti is for all practical intents and purposes non-existent.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p24-5]

It is only by the sevenfold Ray of this light that we can become cognizant of the Logos through the Demiurge, regarding the latter as the creator of our planet and everything pertaining to it, and the former as the guiding Force of that Creator” – good and bad at the same time, the origin of good and the origin of evil. This “Creator” is neither good nor bad per se, but its differentiated aspects in nature make it assume one or the other character.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p25]

Evolution is an eternal cycle of becoming, we are taught; and nature never leaves an atom unused. Moreover, from the beginning of the Round, all in Nature tends to become Man. All the impulses of the dual, centripetal and centrifugal Force are directed towards one point – MAN.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p170]

In their opinion, a conscious God cannot be the origin of the Universe, as his Ego would be the effect of a previous cause, if the word conscious conveys but its ordinary meaning. They cannot admit that the grand total of all the states of consciousness in the Universe is their deity, as these states are constantly changing, and as cosmic ideation ceases during Pralaya. There is only one permanent condition in the Universe, which is the state of perfect unconsciousness, bare Chidakasa (the field of consciousness) in fact. When my readers once realize the fact that this grand universe is in reality but a huge aggregation of various states of consciousness, they will not be surprised to find that the ultimate state of unconsciousness is considered as Parabrahman by the Advaiti.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p598]

The Sun, Moon, and planets being the never-erring time measurers, whose potency and periodicity were well known, became thus the great Ruler and rulers of our little system in all its seven domains, or “spheres of action.”*
* The spheres of action of the combined Forces of Evolution and Karma are (1) the Super-spiritual or noumenal; (2) the Spiritual; (3) the Psychic; (4) the Astro-ethereal; (5) the Sub-astral; (6) the Vital; and (7) the purely physical spheres

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p621]

.

But since there is no self-consciousness as yet in either speck, seed, or germ, according to both Materialists and Psychologists of the modern school – Occultists agreeing in this for once with their natural enemies – what is it that guides the force or forces so unerringly in this process of evolution? Blind force? As well call blind the brain which evolved in Haeckel his “Pedigree of Man” and other lucubrations. We can easily conceive that the said brain lacks an important centre or two. For, whoever knows anything of the anatomy of the human, or even of any animal, body, and is still an atheist and a materialist, must be “hopelessly insane,” according to Lord Herbert, who rightly sees in the frame of man’s body and the coherence of its parts, something so strange and paradoxical that he holds it “to be the greatest miracle of nature.” Blind forces, and no design” in anything under the Sun; when no sane man of Science would hesitate to say that, even from the little he knows and has hitherto discovered of the forces at work in Kosmos, he sees very plainly that every part, every speck and atom are in harmony with their fellow atoms, and these with the whole, each having its distinct mission throughout the life-cycle. But, fortunately, the greatest, the most eminent thinkers and Scientists of the day are now beginning to rise against this “Pedigree,” and even Darwin’s natural selection theory, though its author had never, probably, contemplated such widely stretched conclusions.... He [Dr Bourgès] explains the origin of the variety of organic forms, made to fit their environments with such evident intelligent design, by the existence and the mutual help and interaction of two principles in (manifest) nature, the inner Conscious Principle adapting itself to physical nature and the innate potentialities in the latter.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p653-4]

No more than Science, does esoteric philosophy admit design or “special creation.” It rejects every claim to the “miraculous,” and accepts nothing outside the uniform and immutable laws of Nature. But it teaches a cyclic law, a double stream of force (or spirit) and of matter, which, starting from the neutral centre of Being, develops in its cyclic progress and incessant transformations. The primitive germ from which all vertebrate life has developed throughout the ages, being distinct from the primitive germ from which the vegetable and the animal life have evolved, there are side laws whose work is determined by the conditions in which the materials to be worked upon are found by them, and of which Science – physiology and anthropology especially – seems to be little aware. Its votaries speak of that “primitive germ,” and maintain that it is shown beyond any doubt that the “design” and the “designer,” if there be any, in the case of man, with the wonderful structure of his limbs, and his hand especially, “must be placed very much farther back, and (the design) is, in fact, involved in the primitive germ,” from which not only all vertebrate life, but, “probably all life, animal and vegetable, have been slowly developed”.

This is as true of the “primitive germ” as it is false that that “germ” is only “very much farther back” than man is; for it is at an immeasurable and inconceivable distance (in time, though not in space) from the origin even of our Solar system. As the Hindu philosophy very justly teaches, the “Aniyamsam aniyasam,” can be known only through false notions. It is the “many” that proceed from the ONE – the living spiritual germs or centres of forces – each in a septenary form, which first generate, and then give the PRIMARY IMPULSE to the law of evolution and gradual slow development.

Limiting the teaching strictly to this, our earth, it may be shown that, as the ethereal forms of the first Men are first projected on seven zones by seven Dhyani-Chohanic centres of Force, so there are centres of creative power for every ROOT or parent species of the host of forms of vegetable and animal life. This is, again, no “special creation,” nor is there any “Design,” except in the general “ground-plan” worked out by the universal law. But there are certainly “designers,” though these are neither omnipotent nor omniscient in the absolute sense of the term. They are simply Builders, or Masons, working under the impulse given them by the ever-to-be-unknown (on our plane) Master Mason – the ONE LIFE and Law. Belonging to this sphere, they have no hand in, or possibility of working on any other, during the present Manvantara, at any rate.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p731-2]

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The exercise of magical power is the exercise of natural powers, but SUPERIOR to the ordinary functions of Nature. A miracle is not a violation of the laws of Nature, except for ignorant people. Magic is but a science, a profound knowledge of the Occult forces in Nature, and of the laws governing the visible or the invisible world.

[C.W.I, p137]

Yet he, who has fathomed the ultimate secrets of the Proteus-nature – which changes but is ever the same – can, without disturbing the LAW, avail himself of the yet unknown correlations of natural Force to produce effects which would seem miraculous and impossible, but to those who are unacquainted with their causes.

[C.W.III, p151]

Naturalism, properly defined, is simply another form of pantheism, that theory which resolves all phenomena into forces in nature – forces either blind or intelligent – but ever in accordance with fixed and immutable laws, and independent of any direction by one intelligent force called God. And such “naturalists” believe in invisible beings endowed with will and various gradations of intelligence.

[C.W.III, p277]

If he was an initiate – well and good; but, in such case, how happened it that he asked one, who was not an adept, to teach him in return? Such are not the ways of initiates. An adept, acquainted with one CENTRE, knows them all, since there is but one centre, of Occult Force in nature. He knows that in the centre of the Astral Fire must he search in nature for the origin of every sound – it is sound – Vach – that is the curative agent in a mantram. Such a man knows that it is from this centre alone, never from the circumference of the SHATKONO CHAKRA,* that the sounds transmitted (even by the external currents of Astral Light or Ether) proceed, while the six diverging points (which represent the radiations of this central point) but convey and echo them from within without, and vice versa, in every occult process of nature. It is within and from a given point in space (which must always be central, where-soever it is placed) that the force which is at the basis of any phenomena, in whatsoever element, proceeds; for this centre is the “seat” of the unmanifested deity – says the esoteric Brahmanical doctrine – of the “Avyaktabrahm,” and stands for the seventh principle within the six points of the chakra. All the forces in nature, whether great or small, are trinities completed by quaternaries; all – except the ONE, the CROWN of the Astral Light.

[C.W.IV, p165-6]

* The hexagonal wheel, or six-pointed star – the wheel of Vishnu with the Hindus; Solomon’s seal – with the Western Kabalists. It is, in this ease, the representation of the Astral Fire, the seventh being represented by the central point. In this connection, one would do well to study the article on the five and six-pointed star in the 26th number of The Theosophist, November, 1881.

[C.W.IV, p165fn]

... those textbooks of pre-modern science, which refer the phenomena of heat and electricity to attenuated forms of matter. Nothing, they hold, can be added to, or subtracted from bodies without altering their weight. This was said and written in 1876, by one of the greatest chemists in America. With all that, have they become any the wiser for it? Have they been able to replace by a more scientific theory the old and tabooed “phlogiston theory” of the science of Stahl, Priestley, Scheele, and others? – or, because they have proved, to their own satisfaction, that it is highly unscientific to refer the phenomena of heat and electricity to attenuated forms of matter have they succeeded at the same time in proving what are really, Force, Matter, Energy, Fire, Electricity – LIFE? The Phlogiston of Stahl – a theory of com¬bustion taught by Aristotle and the Greek philosophers – as elaborated by Scheele, the poor Swedish apothecary, a secret student of Occultism, who, as Professor Cooke says of him, “added more knowledge to the stock of chemical science in a single year than did Lavoisier in his lifetime,” was not a mere fanciful speculation, though Lavoisier was permitted to taboo and upset it. But, indeed, were the high priests of modern science to attach more weight to the essence of things than to mere generalizations, then, perhaps, would they be in a better position to tell the world more of the “ultimate structure of matter” than they now are.

[C.W.IV, p217-8]

And now the results of old and modern investigation fully corroborate what they had always affirmed, namely, that in reality there is no such thing as a “chemical ray,” a “light ray,” or a “heat ray.” There is nothing but radiant energy; or, as a man of science expresses it in the Scientific American, radiant energy – “motion of some kind, causing vibrations across space of something between us and the sun – something which, without understanding fully [verily so!], we call ‘ether,’ and which exists everywhere, even in the ‘vacuum’ of a radiometer.” The sentence [though] confused, is none the less, the last word of science. Again: “We have always one and the same cause, radiant energy, and we give this one thing different names, ‘actinism,’ ‘light,’ or ‘heat.’” And we are also told that the miscalled chemical or actinic rays, as well as those which the eye sees as blue or green, or red, and those which the thermometer feels – “are all due to one thing – motion of the ether.”

[C.W.IV, p221]

But the day may not be far distant when the theory of the Occultists that the “law of gravitation” is nothing more or less than the “law of attraction and repulsion”, will be proved scientifically correct.

[C.W.IV, p222]

And still beyond, lies the source of electricity – still MATTER.

[C.W.IV, p224]

Our bodies, as organized tissues, are indeed “an unstable arrangement of chemical forces,” plus a molecular force – as Professor Bain calls electricity – raging in it dynamically during life, tearing asunder its particles, at death, to transform itself into a chemical force after the process, and thence again to resurrect as an electrical force or life in every individual atom. Therefore, whether it is called Force or Matter, it will ever remain the Omnipresent Proteus of the Universe, the one element – LIFE – Spirit or Force at its negative, Matter at its positive pole; the former the MATERIO-SPIRITUAL, the latter, the MATERIO-PHYSICAL Universe – Nature, Svabhavat or INDESTRUCTIBLE MATTER.

[C.W.IV, p226]

The whole question lies in the ultimate and scientific decision upon the nature or essence of FORCE. Shall we say that Force is – Spirit, or that Spirit is – a force? Is the latter physical or spiritual, Matter or SPIRIT? If the latter is something – it must be material, otherwise it is but a pure abstraction, a no-thing. Nothing which is capable of producing an effect on any portion of the physical – objective or subjective – Kosmos can be otherwise than material. Mind – whose enormous potentiality is being discovered more and more with every day, could produce no effect were it not material; and believers in a personal God, have themselves either to admit that the deity in doing its work has to use material force to produce a physical effect, or – to advocate miracles, which is an absurdity.

[C.W.IV, p307]

The “misunderstanding” arises from a natural misconception of the sense in which certain terms are made use of rather than from any “inconsistent language” used. The alternative of moving for ever in a vicious circle faces the European student of Occult philosophy, who begins his study before having made himself familiar with the technical mode of thought and peculiarity of expression of its teachers. His first necessity is, to know the esoteric views of the ultimate nature of Spirit, of Matter, Force and Space; the fundamental and axiomatic theories as to the Reality and Unreality, Form and the Formless (rupa and a-rupa), dream and waking. Especially should he master – at least approximately – the distinction between the “objective” and the “subjective” in the living man’s sensuous perceptions and the same as they appear to the psychic perceptions of a disembodied entity.

[C.W.V, p74]

“Every kind of subjugation to another is pain and subjugation to one’s self is happiness: in brief, this is to be known as the characteristic marks of the two.” Now it is universally admitted that the whole system of Nature is moving in a particular direction, and this direction, we are taught, is determined by the composition of two forces, namely, the one acting from that pole of existence ordinarily called “matter” towards the other pole called “spirit,” and the other in the opposite direction. The very fact that Nature is moving shows that these two forces are not equal in magnitude.

[C.W.V, p340]

A “blind” action does not necessarily constitute an undeniable proof that the agent it emanates from is devoid of individual consciousness or “intelligence.” It may simply point out the superiority of one force over the other, domineering, and hence guiding forcibly the actions of the weakest. There are no “blind” forces in nature in the sense the author places on the adjective. Every atom of the universe is permeated with the Universal Intelligence, from the latent spark in the mineral up to the quasi-divine light in man’s brain. It is all as E. L. [Eliphas Lévi] says “action and reaction,” attraction or repulsion, two forces of equal potentiality being often brought to a dead standstill only owing to a mutual neutralization of power.

[C.W.VI, p176]

There are six Forces in Nature : this in Buddhism as in Brahmanism, whether exoteric or esoteric, and the seventh – the all-Force, or the absolute Force, which is the synthesis of all.

[C.W.VII, p291]

The real difference between modern science and occult science consists in this: The first opposes to a natural force another natural force more powerful on the physical plane; the second opposes to a physical force, a spiritual or psychic force, in other words, the soul of that same force.

[C.W.VIII, p79]

Materialists who arraign the Occultists and Theosophists for believing that every Force (so called) in Nature has at its origin a substantial NOUMENON, an Entity, conscious and intelligent, whether it be a Planetary (Dhyan Chohan) or an Elemental, are advised to fix their attention, first of all, on a far more dangerous body than the one called the Theosophical Society.

[C.W.VIII, p315]

The Substantiality of certain Forces of Nature cannot be denied – for it is a fact in Kosmos. No Energy or Force without Matter, no Matter without Force, Energy or Life – however latent. But this ultimate Matter is—Substance or the Noumenon of matter.

[C.W.VIII, p317]

They [occultists] would define those Forces as purely immaterial perceptive effects – without, of substantial and essential CAUSES – within: at the ultimate end of which, or at the origin, stands an ENTITY, the essence of the latter changing with that of the Element it belongs to.

[C.W.VIII, p325]

... “force” is merely an expression used to denote the cause of motion, whatever that may be. We only know this cause in its aspect of motion, and cannot penetrate behind the veil in order to grasp the Noumenon of which motion is the phenomenal effect. The necessity, therefore, of recognising the fact that motion is all that falls within the cognizance of sense, forbids the (profane) scientist to use the term “force” as representative of anything but an abstraction. The question is complicated by the consideration that the substantiality of various so-called “forces” appears most probable, and that this substantiality becomes objectively real to sense, only on a plane beyond this – the domain of matter in its order of physical differentiations.

The materialistic doctrine that force merely = a motion of matter, is contradicted by the fact that, as shown by Mill, motion can be temporarily neutralized. Lift a heavy weight on to a shelf and the mechanical energy expended in the act is latent in the potentiality of the weight to fall to the ground again. There is no immediate equivalent, as the attraction of the earth for the object remains the same (the now greater distance tending to diminish the amount, though in a very minute degree).

It may be further noted that, granting Mr. Sundaram Iyer’s definition of matter as “extension pure and simple,” to be correct (p. 112), it is difficult to understand how he predicates this barren content as endowed with motion (p. 83). What moves?

[C.W.IX, p14-5]

It is impossible to employ spiritual forces if there is the slightest tinge of selfishness remaining in the operator. For, unless the intention is entirely unalloyed, the spiritual will transform itself into the psychic, act on the astral plane, and dire results may be produced by it. The powers and forces of animal nature can equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as by the unselfish and the all-forgiving; the powers and forces of spirit lend themselves only to the perfectly pure in heart – and this is DIVINE MAGIC.

[C.W.IX, p156-7]

For man is also an atom, possessing attraction and repulsion, and is the Microcosm of the Macrocosm. But would it be also true to say that because of the force and intelligence in him, he moves independently of every other human unit, or could act and move, unless there were a greater force and intelligence than his own to allow him to live and move in that higher element of Force and Intelligence?

One of the objects of The Secret Doctrine is to prove that planetary movements cannot be satisfactorily accounted for by the theory of gravitation alone. Besides the force acting in matter there is also a force acting on matter.

[C.W.X, p386]

The universal force cannot be regarded as a conscious force as we understand the word consciousness, because it would immediately become a personal god. It is only that which is enclosed in form, a limitation of matter, which is conscious of itself on this plane. This Free Force or Will, which is limitless and absolute, cannot be said to act understandingly, but it is the one and sole immutable Law of Life and Being.

Fohat, therefore, is spoken of as the synthetic motor power of all the imprisoned life-forces and the medium between the absolute and conditioned Force. It is a link, just as Manas is the connecting link between the gross matter of the physical body and the divine Monad which animates it, but is powerless to act upon the former directly.

[C.W.X, p392]

... Swara is the Spirit itself” – the ONE LIFE or motion...

[C.W.XII, p355]

... “It is the swara that has given form to the first accumulations of the divisions of the universe; the swara causes evolution and involution; the swara is God himself, or more properly the Great Power (Maheshwara). The swara is the manifestation of the impression on matter of that power which in man is known to us as the power which knows itself [mental and psychic consciousness]. It is to be understood that the action of this power never ceases. It is . . . . unchangeable existence” – and this is the “Motion” of the Scientists and the universal Breath of Life of the Occultists.

[C.W.XII, p356fn]

The creative force, at work in its incessant task of transformation, produces colour, sound and numbers, in the shape of rates of vibration which compound and dissociate the atoms and molecules.

[C.W.XII, p550]

In the author’s [C.E. Love’s] opinion these Forces are atomistic agents, endowed with intelligence, spontaneous will, and motion, and he thus, like the Kabalists, makes the causal Forces substantial, while the Forces that act on this plane are only the effects of the former, as with him matter is eternal, and the Gods also;‡ so is the Soul likewise, though it has inherent in itself a still higher Soul [Spirit], pre-existent, endowed with memory, and superior to Electric Force; the latter is subservient to the higher Souls, those superior Souls forcing it to act according to the eternal laws. The concept is rather hazy, but is evidently on the Occult lines. Moreover, the system proposed is entirely pantheistic, and is worked out in a purely scientific volume. Monotheists and Roman Catholics fall foul of it, of course; but one who believes in the Planetary Spirits and who endows Nature with living Intelligences, must always expect this.

[C.W.XIV, p226]

Thus we find in both of the cases above cited – that of self-correcting planets and of meteors of gigantic size flying back into the air – a “blind force” regulating and resisting the natural tendencies of “blind matter,” and even occasionally repairing its mistakes and correcting its failures. This is far more miraculous and even “extravagant,” one would say, than any “Angel-guided” Element.
Bold is he who laughs at the idea of von Haller, who declares that:
The stars are perhaps an abode of glorious Spirits; as here Vice reigns, there is Virtue Master.

[C.W.XIV, p231-2]

The Occultists say that:
The psychic and ectenic forces, the “ideo-motor” and “electro-biological powers”; “latent thought,” and even “unconcious cerebration” theories can be condensed in two words: the Kabalistic ASTRAL LIGHT.

[C.W.XIV, p413]

The next point for the physiologists to verify is his [Paracelsus’s] proposition that the nourishment of the body comes not merely through the stomach, “but also imperceptibly through the magnetic force, which resides in all nature and by which every individual member draws its specific nourishment to itself.”

[Isis Unveiled Vol.I, p169]

Science tells that when the theory of the indestructibility of matter (also a very, very old idea of Demokritus, by the way) was demonstrated, it became necessary to extend it to force. No material particle can ever be lost; no part of the force existing in nature can vanish; hence, force was likewise proved indestructible, and its various manifestations or forces, under divers aspects, were shown to be mutually convertible, and but different modes of motion of the material particles. And thus was rediscovered the force-correlation....

The ancient Hindus founded their doctrine of emanation and absorption on precisely that law. The ... primordial point in the boundless circle, “whose circumference is nowhere, and the centre everywhere,” emanating from itself all things, and manifesting them in the visible universe under multifarious forms; the forms interchanging, commingling, and, after a gradual transformation from the pure spirit (or the Buddhistic “nothing”), into the grossest matter, beginning to recede and as gradually re-emerge into their primitive state, which is the absorption into Nirvana – what else is this but correlation of forces?

[Isis Unveiled Vol.I, p242]

..........

“Finally, we learn, by the last three Sephiroth [Hod, Netsach, Yesod], that the Universal Providence, that the Supreme artist is also absolute Force, the all-powerful cause, and that, at the same time, this cause is the generative element of all that is. It is these last Sephiroth that constitute the natural world, or nature in its essence and in its active principle. Natura naturans.”

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p40]

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