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universe — viewed from the other side the numerical order would be exactly reversed) but we are not permitted to name it except among the initiates. I may however hint that it is connected with the process of the highest intellection. Let us call it N. And besides these, there is under all the activities of the phenomenal universe an energizing impulse from X, call this Y. Algebraically stated, our equation would therefore read A+B+C+D+E+N+Y=X. Each of these six letters represents, so to speak, the spirit or abstraction of what you call elements (your meagre English gives me no other word). This spirit controls the entire line of evolution, around the whole manwantaric cycle in its own department — the informing, vivifying, impelling, evolving cause, behind the countless phenomenal manifestations in that department of
Letter №67
Letter 67 (ML-15)
Mahatma K.H. - A.P. Sinnett/A.O. Hume
10 July, 1882
Pages - 37.
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Nature. Let us work out the idea with a single example. Take fire. D — the primal igneous principle resident in X — is the ultimate cause of every phenomenal manifestation of fire on all the globes of the chain. The proximate causes are the evoluted secondary igneous agencies which severally control the seven descents of fire on each planet. (Every element having its seven principles and every principle its seven sub-principles and these secondary agencies before doing so, have in turn become primary causes.) D is a septenary compound of which the highest fraction is pure spirit. As we see it on our globe it is in its coarsest, most material condition, as gross in its way as is man in his physical encasement. In the next preceding globe to ours fire was less gross than here: on the one before
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that less still. And so the body of flame was more and more pure and spiritual less and less gross and material on each antecedent planet. On the first of all in the manwantaric chain, it appeared as an almost pure objective shining — the Maha Buddhi, sixth principle of the eternal light. Our globe being at the bottom of the arc where matter exhibits itself in its grossest form along with spirit — when the fire element manifests itself on the globe next succeeding ours in the ascending arc it will be less dense than as we see it. Its spiritual quality will be identical with that which fire had on the globe preceding ours in the descending scale; the second globe of the ascending scale will correspond in quality with that of the second anterior globe to ours in the descending scale, etc. On each globe of the chain
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there are seven manifestations of fire of which the first in order will compare as to spiritual quality with the last manifestation on the next preceding planet: the process being reversed, as you will infer, with the opposite arc. The myriad specific manifestations of these six universal elements are in their turn but the offshoots, branches or branchlets of the one single primordial "Tree of Life."
Take Darwin's genealogical tree of life of the human race and others and bearing ever in mind the wise old adage, "As below so above" — that is the universal system of correspondences — try to understand by analogy. Thus will you see that in this day on this present earth in every mineral, etc., there is such a spirit. I will say more. Every grain of sand, every boulder or crag of granite, is that spirit crystallized or petrified. You hesitate. Take a primer
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of geology and see what science affirms there about the formation and growth of minerals. What is the origin of all the rocks, whether sedimentary or igneous. Take a piece of granite or sandstone and you find one composed of crystals, the other of grains of various stones (organic rocks or stones formed out of the remains of once living plants and animals, will not serve our present purpose: they are the relics of subsequent evolutions while we are concerned but with the primordial ones). Now sedimentary and igneous rocks are composed, the former of sand gravel and mud, the latter of lava. We have then but to trace the origin of the two. What do we find? We find that one was compounded of three elements or more accurately three several manifestations of the one element, — earth, water and fire, and that the other was similarly compounded (though under different physical conditions) out of
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cosmic matter — the imaginary materia prima itself one of the manifestations (6th principle) of the one element. How then can we doubt that a mineral contains in it a spark of the One as everything else in this objective nature does?
(2) When the pralaya commences what becomes of the Spirit that has not worked its way up to man?
(2) . . . The period necessary for the completion of the seven local or earthly — or shall we call it — globe-rings (not to speak of the seven Roundsin the minor manwantaras followed by their seven minor pralayas) — the completion of the so-called mineral cycle is immeasurably longer than that of any other kingdom. As you may infer by analogy every globe before it reaches its adult period, has to pass through a formation
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period — also septenary. Law in Nature is uniform and the conception, formation, birth, progress and development of the child differs from those of the globe only in magnitude. The globe has two periods of teething and of capillature — its first rocks which it also sheds to make room for new — and its ferns and mosses before it gets forest. As the atoms in the body change [every] seven years so does the globe renew its strata every seven cycles. A section of a part of Cape Breton coalfields shows seven ancient soils with remains of as many forests, and could one dig as deep once more seven other sections would be found following. . . .
There are three kinds of pralayas and manwantara: —
1. The universal or Maha pralaya and manwantara.
2. The solar pralaya and manwantara.
3. The minor pralaya and manwantara.
When the pralaya No. 1 is finished the universal
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manwantara begins. Then the whole universe must be re-evoluted de novo. When the pralaya of a solar system comes it affects that solar system only. A solar pralaya = 7 minor pralayas. The minor pralayas of No. 3 concern but our little string of globes, whether man-bearing or not. To such a string our Earth belongs.
Besides this within a minor pralaya there is a condition of planetary rest or as the astronomers say "death," like that of our present moon — in which the rocky body of the planet survives but the life impulse has passed out. For example. Let us imagine that our earth is one of a group of seven planets or man-bearing worlds more or less eliptically arranged. Our earth being at the exact lower central point of the orbit of evolution, viz., half way round — we will call the first globe A, the last Z. After each solar pralaya there is a complete destruction of our system and after each solar p. begins
de novo Latin for "anew," which means starting over.
string of globes “We called chains ‘Strings’ in those days of lip-confusion.”
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the absolute objective reformation of our system and each time everything is more perfect than before.
Now the life impulse reaches "A" or rather that which is destined to become "A" and which so far is but cosmic dust. A centre is formed in the nebulous matter of the condensation of the solar dust disseminated through space and a series of three evolutions invisible to the eye of flesh occur in succession, viz., three kingdoms of elementals or nature forces are evoluted: in other words the animal soul of the future globe is formed; or as a Kabalist will express it, the gnomes, the salamanders, and the undines are created. The correspondence between a mother-globe and her child-man may be thus worked out. Both have their seven principles. In the Globe, the elementals (of which there are in all seven species) form (a) a gross body, (b) her fluidic double
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(linga sariram), (c) her life principle (jiva); (d) her fourth principle kama rupa is formed by her creative impulse working from centre to circumference; (e) her fifth principle (animal soul or Manas, physical intelligence) is embodied in the vegetable (in germ) and animal kingdoms; (f) her sixth principle (or spiritual soul, Buddhi) is man (g) and her seventh principle (atma) is in a film of spiritualized akasa that surrounds her. The three evolutions completed: palpable globe begins to form. The mineral kingdom fourth in the whole series, but first in this stage leads the way. Its deposits are at first vaporous soft and plastic, only becoming hard and concrete in the seventh ring. When this ring is completed it projects its essence to globe B — which is already passing through the preliminary stages of formation and mineral evolution begins on that globe. At this juncture the evolution of the vegetable kingdom commences on globe A. When the latter has made its seventh ring its essence passes on to globe B. At that
Cape Breton is a geographic region in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia and much of its recent economic history can be tied to the coal industry.