Spirits of the Aether. (Spirits of the Earth)
by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Category: Religion

Part 1. Aether is the Father of the Universe and the all-vivifying Spirit of Cosmic Matter. Myths always speak to those who listen. In Kosmos there are three higher principles: Chthonia (Chaos), Æther (Zeus) and Chronos (Time). Æther is the Spirit of Cosmic Matter, represented by Zeus, Osiris, and other androgynous deities; Astral Light is their shadow on earth. Fire is the unity of Æther in its universality. But there are two Kosmic “Fires,” and a distinction is made between them in the Occult teachings. Æther and H?mera are the light of the superior and the light of the inferior or terrestrial regions. Æther–Chaos–?k??a is Deity. The Æther of the Greeks is the ?k??a of the Hindus; the Ether of modern physics is one of Æther’s subdivisions on our plane. Æther and Chaos (Plato’s Mind and Matter) are the two primeval and eternal principles of the universe, utterly independent of anything else. Æther is the all-vivifying intellectual principle; Chaos, a shapeless liquid principle, without “form or sense,” from the union of which two sprung into existence the Universe the first androgynous deity — the chaotic matter becoming its body, and æther its soul. Chaos–Theos–Kosmos are aspects of the Unknown Space. Deity, in the shape of Æther–Chaos–?k??a, Soul of the Universe and noumenon of Astral Light, pervades all things. The Theurgists called it the Living Fire, and the Spirit of Light. The science of physics, and of metaphysics for that matter, know nothing of Æther. Yet Father-Æther is re-welcomed with open arms; and wedded to gravitation. Æther is the source and cause of all forces, whether cohesive, chemical, thermal, electric, or magnetic. Æther is septenary, whether ?k??a is meant by the term, or its lower principle — Ether. ?k??a is the Matrix of the Universe and the “Mysterium Magnum,” from which all that exists is born by separation or differentiation: it is the cause of existence; it fills the infinite Space; and is Space itself, in one sense. But as the finite within the Infinite, this light must have its shadowy side — the “Astral Light,” which is no light. Individual human beings can overpower that “fatal light” but only by the holiness of their lives, and by acts of kindness and brotherly love. In Buddhism there are no compulsory beliefs. We are to believe only when the writing, doctrine, or teaching is corroborated by our own reason and consciousness. But then, we have to act accordingly and abundantly. Nihil is synonym for the impersonal divine Principle, the Infinite All, which is neither “being” nor “thing.” It is the Parabrahman of the Ved?ntist, The One Life of the Buddhist, “That” of the Chh?ndogya Upanishad, the Ain-Soph of the Kabbalah, The Absolute of Hegel. Lord Buddha taught that the Primitive Substance is eternal and unchangeable. Its vehicle is the pure, luminous Æther, boundless, infinite Space — still a creation of m?y?. Mastery of Buddhist dogmas can be attained only by following the Platonic deductive method, i.e., proceeding from universals to particulars. In Buddhist philosophy annihilation implies only a dispersion of matter in whatever form or semblance of form it may be. Even our astral bodies, pure ether, are but illusions of matter, so long as they retain their terrestrial outline. Æther is incorruptible. The spirits of creatures, who are emanations of the most sublimated portions of Æther, are Breaths not forms. The body of Jesus was abandoned to the earth while Christos, the Inner Man, was clothed with a luminous body made up of Æther. Part 2. Ether is the Mother of differentiated matter vivified by the formless Fire of Aether. When we recall pictures from the ether, the returning current meeting the outgoing wave of crystallised sound takes it up by magnetic attraction, and returns to us simultaneously the images of the past and the vibrations of its sounds. Each particle of matter is the register of all that has happened and previsionally apprehends even unspoken thought which, once conceived, displaces the particles of the brain by setting them in motion, and scatters its ideas throughout the universe, thus impressing them indelibly upon the eternal and boundless expanse of ether. The Divine Intellect is veiled in man. His animal brain alone philosophizes. When “astral light” circulates in harmony with the divine spirit, the occult powers of plants, animals, and minerals magically sympathize with the “superior natures,” and the divine soul of man attunes with the “inferior” ones. But during the barren periods, the latter lose their magic sympathy, and the spiritual sight of the majority of mankind is so blinded as to lose every notion of the innate powers of its divine lineage and essence. Spirit is the personal god of each mortal and his only divine element. The dual soul, on the contrary, is semidivine, i.e., potentially divine. It is only when the human individuality, soiled with earthly impurities, overcomes separateness and identifies itself with the divine intelligence within, that the aroma of personal experience can become immortal. Although invisible, thought is a material force. Let the least cerebral motion reverberate in the Ether of Space and it will produce a disturbance reaching to infinity. ?k??a is not the Holy Ghost, because it would then be Shekh?nah (M?laprakriti). ?k??a is the noumenon of the Cosmic Septenary, whose soul is Ether. Ether is the lining of ?k??a, and ?k??a is the Anima Mundi and Mother of Kosmos. ?k??a, whose lowest form is the Ether of Space, is entirely different from the medium of Science. Fire is the Spirit of Deity, the active, male, generative principle; and Ether, the Soul of Matter, is the light of the Fire, the passive female principle from which everything in this Universe emanated. Hence, Ether or “Water” is Mother, and Fire is Father. Sound is the characteristic of ?k??a (Ether): it generates air, the property of which is touch, and which, by friction, generates colour and light. The ether of Science is the grossest manifestation of ?k??a, though on our plane, it is the seventh principle of the astral light, and three degrees higher than “radiant matter.” When ether penetrates or informs something, it may be molecular because it takes on the form of the latter, and its atoms inform the particles of that “something.” We may perhaps call matter “crystallised ether.” There is no such things as light, heat, sound, or electricity. There is nothing but radiant energy due to one thing — Motion of Ether. Modern Science may divide its hypothetically conceived ether in as many ways as it likes; the real Ether of Space, i.e., Æther, will remain as it is throughout. Ether is the vibrating sound-board in Nature, in all of her seven differentiations. Where there was no Ether there would be no sound. The “Astral Light,” or Ether of Space, preserves the images of all beings and things on its sensitised waves. An occult explanation of “Spirit” photographs is that they are objective copies from subjective photographs impressed upon the ether, and constantly thrown out by our thoughts, words, and deeds. There exists an infinite ocean of ether, in which all material substance floats, and through which are transmitted all forces in the physical universe. So long as “Spirit” photography, instead of being regarded a science, is presented to the public as a new revelation from the God of Israel and Jacob, the jury will go on deliberating much longer. The mediumistic rapping is a correlation of vital force, emitted from the person of the rapper, with the potential energy of the ether. Cyprianus, the reformed sorcerer of Antioch, confessed that he knew of the Chaldæan division of ether into parts. Part 3. The Seven Cosmic Elements, with their numberless sub-Elements, are modifications of One Element. There is but One Element in Nature, and at its rootless root is Deity. The so-called Seven Elements, of which five have already manifested and asserted their existence, are the fabric veiling Deity. Father-Æther has pre-eminence over, and is the synthesis of, all elements. Chaos-Theos-Kosmos is Unknown Space, producing the four primary Elements, which are known on the terrestrial plane as Seven Cosmic Elements. The attempt to derive God from the Anglo-Saxon word “good” is an abandoned idea. God is J?d, a phallic hook. He may be the creator of physical man, “out of nothing,” but not the spark of divine intelligence that “fell” in order to make animal man divine. The Seven “immortal gods who give birth and life to all” are constantly forming matter under the never-ceasing impulse of the One Element. The Seven Cosmic Elements, with their numberless sub-Elements, are modifications and aspects of the One and only Element. Four are entirely physical, and the fifth (Ether) semi-material. ?k??a, of which Ether is the grossest form, is the Fifth Cosmic Principle which corresponds to, and from which unfolds, the human Manas. The first four numbers in German are named after four elements. But the Ancients represented the world by five elements. Had they been ignorant of the heterogeneity of the elements they would have had no personifications of Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and Æther. Of the Seven Elements on our Earth, four are now fully manifested, while the fifth — Ether — is only partially so, as we are hardly in the second half of the Fourth Round and, consequently, the Fifth Element will manifest fully only in the Fifth Round. It will only be in the next, or Fifth Round, that Ether, the gross body of ?k??a, will become a familiar fact of Nature to all men, as air is familiar to us now. Cosmic Elements are the noumena of the terrestrial elements. “Water” is Matter in its precosmic state. Ether contains all other states of matter and their properties. The “waters” of creation are not the liquid we know, but Æther — the Fiery Waters of Invisible Space. Fohat is the “Son of Æther,” in its highest aspect. From Mahat-Intelligence proceeds ether; from ether, air; from air, heat; from heat, water; and from water, earth with everything on her. Æther is universal Fire — imponderable power and potency. Ether is one of Seven Cosmic Principles. ?k??a is the synthesis of Æther; and Ether, an aspect of ?k??a. The Astral Light is no “light,” it is the dark side of Ether, teeming with conscious, semi-conscious, and unconscious entities.