Official Social Network of The Theosophical Society in America
Physics in The Secret Doctrine and Occult Chemistry - Pablo Sender
Physics in The Secret Doctrine and Occult Chemistry - Pablo Sender
Download handouts
Physics in The Secret Doctrine and Occult Chemistry
Occult Chemistry: Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements by Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater
The Synthesis of Occult Science by W. Q. Judge
Taking, therefore, the facts of experience derived from the phenomena of nature and viewing both cosmic and organic processes purely from their objective side, the "missing links," ''impassable gulfs, and "unthinkable gaps occur constantly. Not so in Occult Science. So far as the science of occultism is concerned, it is both experimental and analytical, but it acknowledges no "missing links," "impassable gulfs," or "unthinkable gaps," because it finds none. Back of occult science there lies a complete and all embracing Philosophy. This philosophy is not simply synthetical in its methods, for the simplest as the wildest hypothesis can claim that much; but it is synthesis itself. It regards Nature as one complete whole, and so the student of occultism may stand at either point of observation. He may from the stand-point of Nature's wholeness and completeness follow the process of segregation and differentiation to the minutest atom conditioned in space and time; or, from the phenomenal display of the atom, he may reach forward and upward till the atom becomes an integral part of cosmos, involved in the universal harmony of creation. The modern scientist may do this incidentally or empirically, but the occultist does it systematically and habitually, and hence philosophically. The modern scientist is confessedly and boastfully agnostic. The occultist is reverently and progressively gnostic.--W. Q. Judge, The Synthesis of Occult Science
Discussion questions
Reread the following passage as a group:
Knowledge comes in visions, first in dreams and then in pictures presented to the inner eye during meditation. Thus have I been taught the whole system of evolution, the laws of being and all else that I know the mysteries of life and death, the workings of karma. Not a word was spoken to me of all this in the ordinary way, except, perhaps, by way of confirmation of what was thus given me nothing taught me in writing. And knowledge so obtained is so clear, so convincing, so indelible in the impression it makes upon the mind, that all other sources of information, all other methods of teaching with which we are familiar dwindle into insignificance in comparison with this. One of the reasons why I hesitate to answer offhand some questions put to me is the difficulty of expressing in sufficiently accurate language things given to me in pictures, and comprehended by me by the pure Reason, as Kant would call it. --Blavatsky, Collected Writings, v. 13, p. 285.
1a- Discuss as a group what the writing process must have been for Blavatsky, to take images of these most abstract ideas, almost untranslatable, and then articulate them in English.
1b- Does this knowledge about Blavatsky’s writing process affect the way you view books like The Secret Doctrine? If so, how?
2- How would you compare Blavatsky’s writing process to your own process of understanding personal dreams? Do you ever feel you understand your dreams by a type of “pure Reason” or intuition?
3- If you have ever experimented with journaling about your own dream images, please share your experiences with the group. What was it like to try to convert into language the whole content of a meaningful dream, or the often illogical and poetic nature of dream pictures?
4- One key difference between mainstream modern science and Occult science is how the two different disciplines disagree on what they consider to be and not to be alive. Would it be possible to argue that this difference in opinion amounts to a sort of culture war? What are the implications of each viewpoint in our daily life, and in our relationship with nature?
5- What do you think was Blavatsky’s purpose in writing about science? What do you think was Besant’s and Leadbeater’s purpose in performing their occult researches?
6- Do you think the occult scientific aspect of theosophical teachings is important? How does this help human evolution? What do you think was the influence of the publication of this occult knowledge?
7- According to W. Q. Judge, “The modern scientist may do this incidentally or empirically, but the occultist does it systematically and habitually, and hence philosophically. The modern scientist is confessedly and boastfully agnostic. The occultist is reverently and progressively gnostic.” Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not?
8- In what ways is science similar or different to religion, especially considering that in practice there are many assumptions which are accepted based on somebody else’s testimony?
Proposed activities
1a- Read this section aloud as a group and briefly discuss the process of Adepts accumulating Occult knowledge:
The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages . . . that for long ages, the Wise Men [Adept] of the Fifth Race, of the stock saved and rescued from the last cataclysm and shifting of continents, had passed their lives in learning, not teaching. How did they do so? It is answered: by checking, testing, and verifying in every department of nature the traditions of old by the independent visions of great adepts; i.e., men who have developed and perfected their physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual organizations to the utmost possible degree. No vision of one adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the visions so obtained as to stand as independent evidence of other adepts, and by centuries of experiences. --Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine v. I, pp. 272-3.
1b- Break into groups, and create a short narrative, perhaps children’s story style, about one page or two pages in length, which dramatizes this idea of the scientific accumulation and verification of Occult knowledge by the Adepts. Each group could share their narratives.
1c- After each group has shared its educational narrative, read The Synthesis of Occult Science by W. Q. Judge. Return to smaller groups and prepare a short speech, about a page, in which your group will pretend to be an Occult Scientist addressing a group of mainstream scientists. In these brief speeches you will convert the basic key principles of Occult Science in ways that you hope might convince the mainstream scientist of at least the possibility of their being true.
1d- Share these brief speeches.
2a- In Theosophy we claim that all matter is alive, and therefore we say that stones are alive. Considering the scientific definition of life, this statement, with no further explanation, is unscientific.
Look up the scientific definition of “life” in an encyclopedia (we are providing below a couple of definitions to compare with the ones your group found).
Life is a process that distinguishes organisms from non-living objects . . . Living organisms are capable of growth and reproduction, some can communicate and many can adapt to their environment through changes originating internally. A physical characteristic of life is that it feeds on negative entropy . . . Life is a member of the class of phenomena which are open or continuous systems able to decrease their internal entropy at the expense of substances or free energy taken in from the environment and subsequently rejected in a degraded form (see: entropy and life). (Wikipedia)
Conventional definition: The consensus is that life is a characteristic of organisms that exhibit all or most of the following phenomena:
1. Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, electrolyte concentration or sweating to reduce temperature.
2. Organization: Being composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.
3. Metabolism: Consumption of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
4. Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of synthesis than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. The particular species begins to multiply and expand as the evolution continues to flourish.
5. Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present.
6. Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of higher animals. A response is often expressed by motion, for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism) and chemotaxis.
7. Reproduction: The ability to produce new organisms. Reproduction can be the division of one cell to form two new cells. Usually the term is applied to the production of a new individual (either asexually, from a single parent organism, or sexually, from at least two differing parent organisms), although strictly speaking it also describes the production of new cells in the process of growth
2b- Could you say that stones are “alive” from a scientific point of view?
3a- Now read the following passages aloud as a group:
Esoteric philosophy teaches that everything lives and is conscious, but not that all life and consciousness are similar to those of human or even animal beings. (The Secret Doctrine, v. I, p. 49)
[Occult science recognizes] foremost of all, the postulate that there is no such thing in Nature as inorganic substances or bodies. Stones, minerals, rocks, and even chemical ‘atoms’ are simply organic units in profound lethargy. Their coma has an end, and their inertia becomes activity. (The Secret Doctrine, v. I, p. 626)
3b- What do Theosophical teachings mean by saying that life is present in everything?
3c- If anyone in the group has had experience working with crystals and/or is knowledgeable about the subject, please share your knowledge with others in order to give yet another view about the life of this matter which modern science does not consider alive.
3d- Similarly, if anyone in the group is familiar with Native American ideas about the wisdom and intelligence inherent in stones, please share your ideas with the group.
4a- Read through as a group the following twenty definition possibilities for the word “life”, as used daily, given by the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary. Alternate readers with every new definition to emphasize the differences. In the end, this dictionary entry on “life” works as a sort of poem which comments on the very nature of the limits and power of language to affect thought and understanding.
Main Entry: life
1 a: the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body
b: a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings
c: an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction
2 a: the sequence of physical and mental experiences that make up the existence of an individual
b: one or more aspects of the process of living
3: BIOGRAPHY
4: spiritual existence transcending physical death
5a: the period from birth to death
b: a specific phase of earthly existence
c: the period from an event until death
d: a sentence of imprisonment for the remainder of a convict's life
6: a way or manner of living
7: LIVELIHOOD
8: a vital or living being; specifically: PERSON
9: an animating and shaping force or principle
10: SPIRIT, ANIMATION
11: the form or pattern of something existing in reality
12: the period of duration, usefulness, or popularity of something
13: the period of existence (as of a subatomic particle) — compare HALF-LIFE
14: a property (as resilience or elasticity) of an inanimate substance or object resembling the animate quality of a living being
15: living beings (as of a particular kind or environment)
16 a: human activities
b: animate activity and movement
c: the activities of a given sphere, area, or time
17: one providing interest and vigor
18: an opportunity for continued viability
19: capitalized Christian Science: GOD
20: something resembling animate life
4b- Ask group participants to share their reactions to these many definitions on life. Was their surprise at the multiplicity of definitions? Did anyone have a favorite definition? What does the sheer amount of definitions tell us about the nature of language?
Resources:
Books
- Arnikar, Hari Jeevan, Essentials of Occult Chemistry and Modern Science, 539 ARN EOCMS
- Besant, Annie Wood, Occult Chemistry: Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements, T B463 OC 1967
- Besant, Annie Wood, Occult Chemistry Investigations: A Record of the Examination by Clairvoyant Magnification into the Structure of 99 Chemical Elements and some Compounds, T B463 OCI
- Besant, Annie Wood, Occult Chemistry : Investigations by Clairvoyant Magnification into the Structure of the Atoms of the Periodic Table and of Some Compounds, T B463 OC 1951A
- Illert, Christopher Roy, Alchemy Today : Platonic Geometries in Nuclear Physics : Matter on the E[5] Level, 540.1 ILL AT V.1
- Illert, Christopher Roy, Alchemy Today. Volume 2 : A Beginner's Guide to Hadronic Circuit Diagrams ... and the Secrets of Cold Nuclear Fusion, 540.1 ILL AT V.2
- Kingsland, William, The Physics of The Secret Doctrine, T K613 PSD
- Leet, Leonora, The Secret Doctrine of the Kabbalah : Recovering the Key to Hebraic Sacred Science, 296.16 LEE SDK
- Smith, E. Lester, Occult Chemistry Re-evaluated, 539 SMI OCR
- Smith, E. Lester, The Field of Occult Chemistry, T-PAM SM62 FCC
Sound recordings
(AR: audiocassette; CDA: Compact Disc)
- Ravindra, Ravi, Krishnamurti and Eastern Philosophy, CDA 0413
Videorecordings
(VR: VHS Videocassette)
- Lemkow, Anna F., The Birthing Process of the New Whole, VR 0808
Download handouts
Physics in The Secret Doctrine and Occult Chemistry
Occult Chemistry: Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements by Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater
The Synthesis of Occult Science by W. Q. Judge
Taking, therefore, the facts of experience derived from the phenomena of nature and viewing both cosmic and organic processes purely from their objective side, the "missing links," ''impassable gulfs, and "unthinkable gaps occur constantly. Not so in Occult Science. So far as the science of occultism is concerned, it is both experimental and analytical, but it acknowledges no "missing links," "impassable gulfs," or "unthinkable gaps," because it finds none. Back of occult science there lies a complete and all embracing Philosophy. This philosophy is not simply synthetical in its methods, for the simplest as the wildest hypothesis can claim that much; but it is synthesis itself. It regards Nature as one complete whole, and so the student of occultism may stand at either point of observation. He may from the stand-point of Nature's wholeness and completeness follow the process of segregation and differentiation to the minutest atom conditioned in space and time; or, from the phenomenal display of the atom, he may reach forward and upward till the atom becomes an integral part of cosmos, involved in the universal harmony of creation. The modern scientist may do this incidentally or empirically, but the occultist does it systematically and habitually, and hence philosophically. The modern scientist is confessedly and boastfully agnostic. The occultist is reverently and progressively gnostic.--W. Q. Judge, The Synthesis of Occult Science
Discussion questions
Reread the following passage as a group:
Knowledge comes in visions, first in dreams and then in pictures presented to the inner eye during meditation. Thus have I been taught the whole system of evolution, the laws of being and all else that I know the mysteries of life and death, the workings of karma. Not a word was spoken to me of all this in the ordinary way, except, perhaps, by way of confirmation of what was thus given me nothing taught me in writing. And knowledge so obtained is so clear, so convincing, so indelible in the impression it makes upon the mind, that all other sources of information, all other methods of teaching with which we are familiar dwindle into insignificance in comparison with this. One of the reasons why I hesitate to answer offhand some questions put to me is the difficulty of expressing in sufficiently accurate language things given to me in pictures, and comprehended by me by the pure Reason, as Kant would call it. --Blavatsky, Collected Writings, v. 13, p. 285.
1a- Discuss as a group what the writing process must have been for Blavatsky, to take images of these most abstract ideas, almost untranslatable, and then articulate them in English.
1b- Does this knowledge about Blavatsky’s writing process affect the way you view books like The Secret Doctrine? If so, how?
2- How would you compare Blavatsky’s writing process to your own process of understanding personal dreams? Do you ever feel you understand your dreams by a type of “pure Reason” or intuition?
3- If you have ever experimented with journaling about your own dream images, please share your experiences with the group. What was it like to try to convert into language the whole content of a meaningful dream, or the often illogical and poetic nature of dream pictures?
4- One key difference between mainstream modern science and Occult science is how the two different disciplines disagree on what they consider to be and not to be alive. Would it be possible to argue that this difference in opinion amounts to a sort of culture war? What are the implications of each viewpoint in our daily life, and in our relationship with nature?
5- What do you think was Blavatsky’s purpose in writing about science? What do you think was Besant’s and Leadbeater’s purpose in performing their occult researches?
6- Do you think the occult scientific aspect of theosophical teachings is important? How does this help human evolution? What do you think was the influence of the publication of this occult knowledge?
7- According to W. Q. Judge, “The modern scientist may do this incidentally or empirically, but the occultist does it systematically and habitually, and hence philosophically. The modern scientist is confessedly and boastfully agnostic. The occultist is reverently and progressively gnostic.” Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not?
8- In what ways is science similar or different to religion, especially considering that in practice there are many assumptions which are accepted based on somebody else’s testimony?
Proposed activities
1a- Read this section aloud as a group and briefly discuss the process of Adepts accumulating Occult knowledge:
The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages . . . that for long ages, the Wise Men [Adept] of the Fifth Race, of the stock saved and rescued from the last cataclysm and shifting of continents, had passed their lives in learning, not teaching. How did they do so? It is answered: by checking, testing, and verifying in every department of nature the traditions of old by the independent visions of great adepts; i.e., men who have developed and perfected their physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual organizations to the utmost possible degree. No vision of one adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the visions so obtained as to stand as independent evidence of other adepts, and by centuries of experiences. --Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine v. I, pp. 272-3.
1b- Break into groups, and create a short narrative, perhaps children’s story style, about one page or two pages in length, which dramatizes this idea of the scientific accumulation and verification of Occult knowledge by the Adepts. Each group could share their narratives.
1c- After each group has shared its educational narrative, read The Synthesis of Occult Science by W. Q. Judge. Return to smaller groups and prepare a short speech, about a page, in which your group will pretend to be an Occult Scientist addressing a group of mainstream scientists. In these brief speeches you will convert the basic key principles of Occult Science in ways that you hope might convince the mainstream scientist of at least the possibility of their being true.
1d- Share these brief speeches.
2a- In Theosophy we claim that all matter is alive, and therefore we say that stones are alive. Considering the scientific definition of life, this statement, with no further explanation, is unscientific.
Look up the scientific definition of “life” in an encyclopedia (we are providing below a couple of definitions to compare with the ones your group found).
Life is a process that distinguishes organisms from non-living objects . . . Living organisms are capable of growth and reproduction, some can communicate and many can adapt to their environment through changes originating internally. A physical characteristic of life is that it feeds on negative entropy . . . Life is a member of the class of phenomena which are open or continuous systems able to decrease their internal entropy at the expense of substances or free energy taken in from the environment and subsequently rejected in a degraded form (see: entropy and life). (Wikipedia)
Conventional definition: The consensus is that life is a characteristic of organisms that exhibit all or most of the following phenomena:
1. Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, electrolyte concentration or sweating to reduce temperature.
2. Organization: Being composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.
3. Metabolism: Consumption of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
4. Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of synthesis than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. The particular species begins to multiply and expand as the evolution continues to flourish.
5. Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present.
6. Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of higher animals. A response is often expressed by motion, for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism) and chemotaxis.
7. Reproduction: The ability to produce new organisms. Reproduction can be the division of one cell to form two new cells. Usually the term is applied to the production of a new individual (either asexually, from a single parent organism, or sexually, from at least two differing parent organisms), although strictly speaking it also describes the production of new cells in the process of growth
2b- Could you say that stones are “alive” from a scientific point of view?
3a- Now read the following passages aloud as a group:
Esoteric philosophy teaches that everything lives and is conscious, but not that all life and consciousness are similar to those of human or even animal beings. (The Secret Doctrine, v. I, p. 49)
[Occult science recognizes] foremost of all, the postulate that there is no such thing in Nature as inorganic substances or bodies. Stones, minerals, rocks, and even chemical ‘atoms’ are simply organic units in profound lethargy. Their coma has an end, and their inertia becomes activity. (The Secret Doctrine, v. I, p. 626)
3b- What do Theosophical teachings mean by saying that life is present in everything?
3c- If anyone in the group has had experience working with crystals and/or is knowledgeable about the subject, please share your knowledge with others in order to give yet another view about the life of this matter which modern science does not consider alive.
3d- Similarly, if anyone in the group is familiar with Native American ideas about the wisdom and intelligence inherent in stones, please share your ideas with the group.
4a- Read through as a group the following twenty definition possibilities for the word “life”, as used daily, given by the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary. Alternate readers with every new definition to emphasize the differences. In the end, this dictionary entry on “life” works as a sort of poem which comments on the very nature of the limits and power of language to affect thought and understanding.
Main Entry: life
1 a: the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body
b: a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings
c: an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction
2 a: the sequence of physical and mental experiences that make up the existence of an individual
b: one or more aspects of the process of living
3: BIOGRAPHY
4: spiritual existence transcending physical death
5a: the period from birth to death
b: a specific phase of earthly existence
c: the period from an event until death
d: a sentence of imprisonment for the remainder of a convict's life
6: a way or manner of living
7: LIVELIHOOD
8: a vital or living being; specifically: PERSON
9: an animating and shaping force or principle
10: SPIRIT, ANIMATION
11: the form or pattern of something existing in reality
12: the period of duration, usefulness, or popularity of something
13: the period of existence (as of a subatomic particle) — compare HALF-LIFE
14: a property (as resilience or elasticity) of an inanimate substance or object resembling the animate quality of a living being
15: living beings (as of a particular kind or environment)
16 a: human activities
b: animate activity and movement
c: the activities of a given sphere, area, or time
17: one providing interest and vigor
18: an opportunity for continued viability
19: capitalized Christian Science: GOD
20: something resembling animate life
4b- Ask group participants to share their reactions to these many definitions on life. Was their surprise at the multiplicity of definitions? Did anyone have a favorite definition? What does the sheer amount of definitions tell us about the nature of language?
Resources:
Books
- Arnikar, Hari Jeevan, Essentials of Occult Chemistry and Modern Science, 539 ARN EOCMS
- Besant, Annie Wood, Occult Chemistry: Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements, T B463 OC 1967
- Besant, Annie Wood, Occult Chemistry Investigations: A Record of the Examination by Clairvoyant Magnification into the Structure of 99 Chemical Elements and some Compounds, T B463 OCI
- Besant, Annie Wood, Occult Chemistry : Investigations by Clairvoyant Magnification into the Structure of the Atoms of the Periodic Table and of Some Compounds, T B463 OC 1951A
- Illert, Christopher Roy, Alchemy Today : Platonic Geometries in Nuclear Physics : Matter on the E[5] Level, 540.1 ILL AT V.1
- Illert, Christopher Roy, Alchemy Today. Volume 2 : A Beginner's Guide to Hadronic Circuit Diagrams ... and the Secrets of Cold Nuclear Fusion, 540.1 ILL AT V.2
- Kingsland, William, The Physics of The Secret Doctrine, T K613 PSD
- Leet, Leonora, The Secret Doctrine of the Kabbalah : Recovering the Key to Hebraic Sacred Science, 296.16 LEE SDK
- Smith, E. Lester, Occult Chemistry Re-evaluated, 539 SMI OCR
- Smith, E. Lester, The Field of Occult Chemistry, T-PAM SM62 FCC
Sound recordings
(AR: audiocassette; CDA: Compact Disc)
- Ravindra, Ravi, Krishnamurti and Eastern Philosophy, CDA 0413
Videorecordings
(VR: VHS Videocassette)
- Lemkow, Anna F., The Birthing Process of the New Whole, VR 0808
Read our Guide to Community Features to learn your way around!
Also, check out our Guidelines for Community Conduct to review our rules.
Have a question or issue to report? Send a message to the moderators and let them know.
Do you enjoy using this site and other online resources provided by the Theosophical Society in America? Would you like to contribute to these efforts? Click below to make a monetary donation. Your support is appreciated and will help us to add to the resources we offer online.
Events
© 2009 Created by The Theosophical Society
