Occult Chemistry
Occult Chemistry
Occult Chemistry
Leadbeater Pagina 1 di 79
OCCULT CHEMISTRY
BY
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AND
CHARLES W. LEADBEATER
LONDON
1919
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
When undertaking to prepare a new edition of this book I received permission from
the authors to "throw it into the form in which you think it would be most useful at
the present time." It was left to my discretion, "What to use and what to omit." I
have not found it necessary to avail myself to any considerable extent of this latter
permission. But as the contents of the book were originally arranged the reader was
ill-prepared to appreciate the importance of the later research for want of
introductory matter explaining how it began, and how the early research led up to
the later investigation. I have therefore contributed an entirely new preliminary
chapter which will, I hope, help the reader to realise the credibility of the results
attained when the molecular forms and constitution of the numerous bodies
examined were definitely observed. I have not attempted to revise the records of the
later research in which I had no personal share, so from the beginning of Chapter III
to the end the book in its present form is simply a reprint of the original edition
except for the correction of a few trifling misprints.
I have thus endeavoured to bring into clear prominence at the outset the scientific
value of the light the book sheds on the constitution of matter. The world owes a
debt to scientific men of the ordinary type that cannot be over-estimated, but though
they have hitherto preferred to progress gradually, from point to point, disliking
leaps in the dark, the leap now made is only in the dark for those who will not
realise that the progress to be accomplished by means of instrumental research must
sooner or later be supplemented by subtler methods. Physical science has reached
the conception that the atoms of the bodies hitherto called the chemical elements are
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CONTENTS.
OCCULT CHEMISTRY.
CHAPTER I.
A PRELIMINARY SURVEY.
The deep interest and importance of the research which this book describes will
best be appreciated if introduced by an account of the circumstances out of which it
arose. The first edition, consisting mainly of articles reprinted from the Theosophist,
dealt at once with the later phases of the research in a way which, though
intelligible to the occult student, must have been rather bewildering to the ordinary
reader. These later phases, however, endow the earlier results with a significance
that in the beginning could only be vaguely conjectured. I am the better entitled to
perform the task that has been assigned to me—that of preparing the present
edition—by reason of the fact that it was in my presence and at my instigation that
the first efforts were made to penetrate the mystery previously enshrouding the
ultimate molecule of matter.
I remember the occasion vividly. Mr. Leadbeater was then staying at my house, and
his clairvoyant faculties were frequently exercised for the benefit of myself, my
wife and the theosophical friends around us. I had discovered that these faculties,
exercised in the appropriate direction, were ultra-microscopic in their power. It
occurred to me once to ask Mr. Leadbeater if he thought he could actually see a
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molecule of physical matter. He was quite willing to try, and I suggested a molecule
of gold as one which he might try to observe. He made the appropriate effort, and
emerged from it saying the molecule in question was far too elaborate a structure to
be described. It evidently consisted of an enormous number of some smaller atoms,
quite too many to count; quite too complicated in their arrangement to be
comprehended. It struck me at once that this might be due to the fact that gold was a
heavy metal of high atomic weight, and that observation might be more successful
if directed to a body of low atomic weight, so I suggested an atom of hydrogen as
possibly more manageable. Mr. Leadbeater accepted the suggestion and tried again.
This time he found the atom of hydrogen to be far simpler than the other, so that the
minor atoms constituting the hydrogen atom were countable. They were arranged
on a definite plan, which will be rendered intelligible by diagrams later on, and
were eighteen in number.
We little realized at the moment the enormous significance of this discovery, made
in the year 1895, long before the discovery of radium enabled physicists of the
ordinary type to improve their acquaintance with the "electron." Whatever name is
given to that minute body it is recognised now by ordinary science as well as by
occult observation, as the fundamental unit of physical matter. To that extent
ordinary science has overtaken the occult research I am dealing with, but that
research rapidly carried the occult student into regions of knowledge whither, it is
perfectly certain, the ordinary physicist must follow him at no distant date.
The research once started in the way I have described was seen to be intensely
interesting. Mrs. Besant almost immediately co-operated with Mr. Leadbeater in its
further progress. Encouraged by the success with hydrogen, the two important
gases, oxygen and nitrogen, were examined. They proved to be rather more difficult
to deal with than hydrogen but were manageable. Oxygen was found to consist of
290 minor atoms and nitrogen of 261. Their grouping will be described later on.
The interest and importance of the whole subject will best be appreciated by a
rough indication of the results first attained. The reader will then have more
patience in following the intricacies of the later discoveries.
The figures just quoted were soon perceived to have a possible significance. The
atomic weight of oxygen is commonly taken as 16. That is to say, an atom of
oxygen is sixteen times heavier than an atom of hydrogen. In this way, all through
the table of atomic weights, hydrogen is taken as unity, without any attempt being
made to estimate its absolute weight. But now with the atom of hydrogen dissected,
so to speak, and found to consist of 18 somethings, while the atom of oxygen
consisted of 290 of the same things, the sixteen to one relationship reappears: 290
divided by 18 gives us 16 and a minute decimal fraction. Again the nitrogen
number divided by 18 gives us 14 and a minute fraction as the result, and that is the
accepted atomic weight of nitrogen. This gave us a glimpse of a principle that might
run all through the table of atomic weights. For reasons having to do with other
work, it was impossible for the authors of this book to carry on the research further
at the time it was begun. The results already sketched were published as an article
in the magazine then called Lucifer, in November, 1895, and reprinted as a separate
pamphlet bearing the title "Occult Chemistry," a pamphlet the surviving copies of
which will one day be a recognised vindication of the method that will at some time
in the future be generally applied to the investigation of Nature's mysteries. For the
later research which this volume deals with does establish the principle with a force
that can hardly be resisted by any fair-minded reader. With patience and
industry—the authors being assisted in the counting in a way that will be described
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(and the method adopted involved a check upon the accuracy of the counting)—the
minor atoms of almost all the known chemical elements, as they are commonly
called, were counted and found to bear the same relation to their atomic weights as
had been suggested by the cases of oxygen and nitrogen. This result throws back
complete proof on the original estimate of the number of minor atoms in hydrogen,
a figure which ordinary research has so far entirely failed to determine. The guesses
have been widely various, from unity to many hundreds, but, unacquainted with the
clairvoyant method, the ordinary physicist has no means of reaching the actual state
of the facts.
Before going on with the details of the later research some very important
discoveries arising from the early work must first be explained. As I have already
said clairvoyant faculty of the appropriate order directed to the minute phenomena
of Nature is practically infinite in its range. Not content with estimating the number
of minor atoms in physical molecules, the authors proceeded to examine the minor
atoms individually. They were found to be themselves elaborately complicated
structures which, in this preliminary survey of the whole subject, I will not stop to
explain (full explanation will be found later on) and they are composed of atoms
belonging to an ultra-physical realm of Nature with which the occultist has long
been familiar and describes as "the Astral Plane." Some rather pedantic critics have
found fault with the term, as the "plane" in question is of course really a sphere
entirely surrounding the physical globe, but as all occultists understand the word,
"plane" simply signifies a condition of nature. Each condition, and there are many
more than the two under consideration, blends with its neighbour, via atomic
structure. Thus the atoms of the Astral plane in combination give rise to the finest
variety of physical matter, the ether of space, which is not homogeneous but really
atomic in its character, and the minute atoms of which physical molecules are
composed are atoms of ether, "etheric atoms," as we have now learned to call them.
Many physicists, though not all, will resent the idea of treating the ether of space as
atomic. But at all events the occultist has the satisfaction of knowing that the great
Russian chemist, Mendeleef, preferred the atomic theory. In Sir William Tilden's
recent book entitled "Chemical Discovery and Invention in the Twentieth Century,"
I read that Mendeleef, "disregarding conventional views," supposed the ether to
have a molecular or atomic structure, and in time all physicists must come to
recognise that the Electron is not, as so many suppose at present, an atom of
electricity, but an atom of ether carrying a definite unit charge of electricity.
Long before the discovery of radium led to the recognition of the electron as the
common constituent of all the bodies previously described as chemical elements,
the minute particles of matter in question had been identified with the cathode rays
observed in Sir William Crookes' vacuum tubes. When an electric current is passed
through a tube from which the air (or other gas it may contain) has been almost
entirely exhausted, a luminous glow pervades the tube manifestly emanating from
the cathode or negative pole of the circuit. This effect was studied by Sir William
Crookes very profoundly. Among other characteristics it was found that, if a minute
windmill was set up in the tube before it was exhausted, the cathode ray caused the
vanes to revolve, thus suggesting the idea that they consisted of actual particles
driven against the vanes; the ray being thus evidently something more than a mere
luminous effect. Here was a mechanical energy to be explained, and at the first
glance it seemed difficult to reconcile the facts observed with the idea creeping into
favour, that the particles, already invested with the name "electron," were atoms of
electricity pure and simple. Electricity was found, or certain eminent physicists
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thought they had found, that electricity per se had inertia. So the windmills in the
Crookes' vacuum tubes were supposed to be moved by the impact of electric atoms.
Then in the progress of ordinary research the discovery of radium by Madame
Curie in the year 1902 put an entirely new face upon the subject of electrons. The
beta particles emanating from radium were soon identified with the electrons of the
cathode ray. Then followed the discovery that the gas helium, previously treated as
a separate element, evolved itself as one consequence of the disintegration of
radium. Transmutation, till then laughed at as a superstition of the alchemist, passed
quietly into the region of accepted natural phenomena, and the chemical elements
were seen to be bodies built up of electrons in varying number and probably in
varying arrangements. So at last ordinary science had reached one important result
of the occult research carried on seven years earlier. It has not yet reached the finer
results of the occult research—the structure of the hydrogen atom with its eighteen
etheric atoms and the way in which the atomic weights of all elements are explained
by the number of etheric atoms entering into their constitution.
The ether of space, though defying instrumental examination, comes within scope
of the clairvoyant faculty, and profoundly interesting discoveries were made during
what I have called the early research in connexion with that branch of the inquiry.
Etheric atoms combine to form molecules in many different ways, but combinations
involving fewer atoms than the eighteen which give rise to hydrogen, make no
impression on the physical senses nor on physical instruments of research. They
give rise to varieties of molecular ether, the comprehension of which begins to
illuminate realms of natural mystery as yet entirely untrodden by the ordinary
physicist. Combinations below 18 in number give rise to three varieties of
molecular ether, the functions of which when they come to be more fully studied
will constitute a department of natural knowledge on the threshold of which we
already stand. Some day we may perhaps be presented with a volume on Occult
Physics as important in its way as the present dissertation on Occult Chemistry.
CHAPTER II.
The article detailing the results of the research carried on in the year 1895 (see the
November issue for that year of the magazine then called Lucifer), began with some
general remarks about the clairvoyant faculty, already discussed in the preceding
chapter. The original record then goes on as follows:—
The physical world is regarded as being composed of between sixty and seventy
chemical elements, aggregated into an infinite variety of combinations. These
combinations fall under the three main heads of solids, liquids and gases, the
recognised substates of physical matter, with the theoretical ether scarcely admitted
as material. Ether, to the scientist, is not a substate or even a state of matter, but is a
something apart by itself. It would not be allowed that gold could be raised to the
etheric condition as it might be to the liquid and gaseous; whereas the occultist
knows that the gaseous is succeeded by the etheric, as the solid is succeeded by the
liquid, and he knows also that the word "ether" covers four substates as distinct
from each other as are the solids, liquids and gases, and that all chemical elements
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have their four etheric substates, the highest being common to all, and consisting of
the ultimate physical atoms to which all elements are finally reducible. The
chemical atom is regarded as the ultimate particle of any element, and is supposed
to be indivisible and unable to exist in a free state. Mr. Crookes' researches have led
the more advanced chemists to regard the atoms as compound, as a more or less
complex aggregation of protyle.
To astral vision ether is a visible thing, and is seen permeating all substances and
encircling every particle. A "solid" body is a body composed of a vast number of
particles suspended in ether, each vibrating backwards and forwards in a particular
field at a high rate of velocity; the particles are attracted towards each other more
strongly than they are attracted by external influences, and they "cohere," or
maintain towards each other a definite relation in space. Closer examination shows
that the ether is not homogeneous but consists of particles of numerous kinds,
differing in the aggregations of the minute bodies composing them; and a careful
and more detailed method of analysis reveals that it has four distinct degrees, giving
us, with the solid, liquid and gaseous, seven instead of four substates of matter in
the physical world.
These four etheric substates will be best understood if the method be explained by
which they were studied. This method consisted of taking what is called an atom of
gas, and breaking it up time after time, until what proved to be the ultimate physical
atom was reached, the breaking up of this last resulting in the production of astral,
and no longer physical matter.
It is, of course, impossible to convey
by words the clear conceptions that
are gained by direct vision of the
objects of study, and the
accompanying diagram—cleverly
drawn from the description given by
the investigators—is offered as a
substitute, however poor, for the
lacking vision of the readers. The
horizontal lines separate from each
other the seven substates of matter;
solid, liquid, gas, ether 4, ether 3,
ether 2, ether 1. On the gas level are
represented three chemical atoms,
one of hydrogen (H), one of oxygen
(O), one of nitrogen (N). The
successive changes undergone by
each chemical atom are shown in the
compartments vertically above it, the
left-hand column showing the
breaking up of the hydrogen atom,
the middle column that of the oxygen
atom, the right-hand column, that of
the nitrogen atom. The ultimate
physical atom is marked a, and is
drawn only once, although it is the
same throughout. The numbers 18,
290 and 261 are the numbers of the
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arrangement of the contained ultimate atoms, enclosed in a wall, and the other
being the third body enclosed in E 4 and now set free. The negative body of E 4
similarly, on losing its wall, becomes two bodies, one consisting of the two particles
marked b', and the second the remaining body, being set free. These free bodies do
not remain on E 3 but pass immediately to E 2, leaving the positive and negative
bodies, each containing two particles, as the representatives of hydrogen on E 3. On
taking these bodies a step higher their wall disappears, and the internal bodies are
set free, those containing the atoms arranged lineally being positive, and those with
the triangular arrangement being negative. These two forms represent hydrogen on
E 2, but similar bodies of this state of matter are found entering into other
combinations, as may be seen by referring to f on E 2 of nitrogen (N). On raising
these bodies yet one step further, the falling away of the walls sets the contained
atoms free, and we reach the ultimate physical atom, the matter of E 1. The
disintegration of this sets free particles of astral matter, so that we have reached in
this the limit of physical matter. The Theosophical reader will notice with interest
that we can thus observe seven distinct substates of physical matter, and no more.
The ultimate atom, which is the same in all the observed cases, is an exceedingly
complex body, and only its main characteristics are given in the diagram. It is
composed entirely of spirals, the spiral being in its turn composed of spirillæ, and
these again of minuter spirillæ. A fairly accurate drawing is given in Babbitt's
"Principles of Light and Colour," p. 102. The illustrations there given of atomic
combinations are entirely wrong and misleading, but if the stove-pipe run through
the centre of the single atom be removed, the picture may be taken as correct, and
will give some idea of the complexity of this fundamental unit of the physical
universe.
Turning to the force side of the atom and its combinations, we observe that force
pours in the heart-shaped depression at the top of the atom, and issues from the
point, and is changed in character by its passage; further, force rushes through every
spiral and every spirilla, and the changing shades of colour that flash out from the
rapidly revolving and vibrating atom depend on the several activities of the spirals;
sometimes one, sometimes another, is thrown into more energetic action, and with
the change of activity from one spiral to another the colour changes.
The building of a gaseous atom of hydrogen may be traced downward from E 1,
and, as stated above, the lines given in the diagram are intended to indicate the play
of the forces which bring about the several combinations. Speaking generally,
positive bodies are marked by their contained atoms setting their points towards
each other and the centre of their combination, and repelling each other outwards;
negative bodies are marked by the heart-shaped depressions being turned inwards,
and by a tendency to move towards each other instead of away. Every combination
begins by a welling up of force at a centre, which is to form the centre of the
combination; in the first positive hydrogen combination, E 2, an atom revolving at
right angles to the plane of the paper and also revolving on its own axis, forms the
centre, and force, rushing out at its lower point, rushes in at the depressions of two
other atoms, which then set themselves with their points to the centre; the lines are
shown in +b, right-hand figure. (The left-hand figure indicates the revolution of the
atoms each by itself.) As this atomic triad whirls round, it clears itself a space,
pressing back the undifferentiated matter of the plane, and making to itself a
whirling wall of this matter, thus taking the first step towards building up the
chemical hydrogen atom. A negative atomic triad is similarly formed, the three
atoms being symmetrically arranged round the centre of out-welling force. These
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atomic triads then combine, two of the linear arrangement being attracted to each
other, and two of the triangular, force again welling up and forming a centre and
acting on the triads as on a single atom, and a limiting wall being again formed as
the combination revolves round its centre. The next stage is produced by each of
these combinations on E 3 attracting to itself a third atomic triad of the triangular
type from E 2, by the setting up of a new centre of up-welling force, following the
lines traced in the combinations of E 4. Two of these uniting, and their triangles
interpenetrating, the chemical atom is formed, and we find it to contain in all
eighteen ultimate physical atoms.
The next substance investigated was oxygen, a far more complicated and puzzling
body; the difficulties of observation were very much increased by the extraordinary
activity shown by this element and the dazzling brilliancy of some of its
constituents. The gaseous atom is an ovoid body, within which a spirally-coiled
snake-like body revolves at a high velocity, five brilliant points of light shining on
the coils. The snake appears to be a solid rounded body, but on raising the atom to
E 4 the snake splits lengthwise into two waved bodies, and it is seen that the
appearance of solidity is due to the fact that these spin round a common axis in
opposite directions, and so present a continuous surface, as a ring of fire can be
made by whirling a lighted stick. The brilliant bodies seen in the atom are on the
crests of the waves in the positive snake, and in the hollows in the negative one; the
snake itself consists of small bead-like bodies, eleven of which interpose between
the larger brilliant spots. On raising these bodies to E 3 the snakes break up, each
bright spot carrying with it six beads on one side and five on the other; these twist
and writhe about still with the same extraordinary activity, reminding one of fire-
flies stimulated to wild gyrations. It can been seen that the larger brilliant bodies
each enclose seven ultimate atoms, while the beads each enclose two. (Each bright
spot with its eleven beads is enclosed in a wall, accidentally omitted in the
diagram.) On the next stage, E 2, the fragments of the snakes break up into their
constituent parts; the positive and negative bodies, marked d and d', showing a
difference of arrangement of the atoms contained in them. These again finally
disintegrate, setting free the ultimate physical atoms, identical with those obtained
from hydrogen. The number of ultimate atoms contained in the gaseous atom of
oxygen is 290, made up as follows:—
When the observers had worked out this, they compared it with the number of
ultimate atoms in hydrogen:—
290 / 18 = 16.11 +
The respective number of ultimate atoms contained in a chemical atom of these two
bodies are thus seen to closely correspond with their accepted weight-numbers.
It may be said in passing that a chemical atom of ozone appears as an oblate
spheroid, with the contained spiral much compressed and widened in the centre; the
spiral consists of three snakes, one positive and two negative, formed in a single
revolving body. On raising the chemical atom to the next plane, the snake divides
into three, each being enclosed in its own egg.
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The chemical atom of nitrogen was the third selected by the students for
examination, as it seemed comparatively quiet in contrast with the ever-excited
oxygen. It proved, however, to be the most complicated of all in its internal
arrangements, and its quiet was therefore a little deceptive. Most prominent was the
balloon-shaped body in the middle, with six smaller bodies in two horizontal rows
and one large egg-shaped one in the midst, contained in it. Some chemical atoms
were seen in which the internal arrangement of these contained bodies was changed
and the two horizontal rows became vertical; this change seemed to be connected
with a greater activity of the whole body, but the observations on this head are too
incomplete to be reliable. The balloon-shaped body is positive, and is apparently
drawn downwards towards the negative egg-shaped body below it, containing seven
smaller particles. In addition to these large bodies, four small ones are seen, two
positive and two negative, the positive containing five and the negative four
minuter spots. On raising the gaseous atom to E 4, the falling away of the wall sets
free the six contained bodies, and both the balloon and the egg round themselves,
apparently with the removal of their propinquity, as though they had exercised over
each other some attractive influence. The smaller bodies within the egg—marked q
on E 4—are not on one plane, and those within n and o form respectively square-
based and triangular-based pyramids. On raising all these bodies to E 3 we find the
walls fall away as usual, and the contents of each "cell" are set free: p of E 4
contains six small bodies marked k, and these are shown in k of E 3, as containing
each seven little bodies—marked e—each of which has within it two ultimate
atoms; the long form of p E 4—marked l—appears as the long form l on E 3, and
this has three pairs of smaller bodies within it, f', g and h, containing respectively
three, four and six ultimate atoms; q of E 4, with its seven contained particles, m,
has three particles m on E 3, each showing three ultimate atoms within them; e from
n of E 4 becomes i of E 3, with contained bodies, e, showing two ultimate atoms in
each; while e' from o of E 4 becomes j of E 3, each having three smaller bodies
within it, e', with two ultimate atoms in each. On E 2, the arrangement of these
ultimate atoms is shown, and the pairs, f', g and h are seen with the lines of force
indicated; the triads in f—from m of E 3—are similarly shown, and the duads in e
and e'—from i and j of E 3—are given in the same way. When all these bodies are
raised to E 1, the ultimate physical atoms are set free, identical, of course, with that
previously described. Reckoning up the number of ultimate physical atoms in a
chemical atom of nitrogen we find they amount to 261, thus divided:—
62 + bodies with 2 ultimate atoms, 62 x 2 = 124
24 - " " 2 " " 24 x 2 = 48
21 - " " 3 " " 21 x 3 = 63
2 + " " 3 " " 2 x 3 = 6
2 + " " 4 " " 2 x 4 = 8
2 + " " 4 " " 2 x 6 = 12
----
261
261 / 18 =14.44 +
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Some other observations were made which went to show that as weight-numbers
increased, there was a corresponding increase in the number of bodies discerned
within the chemical atom; thus, gold showed forty-seven contained bodies; but
these observations need repetition and checking. Investigation of a molecule of
water revealed the presence of twelve bodies from hydrogen and the characteristic
snake of oxygen, the encircling walls of the chemical atoms being broken away.
But here again, further observations are necessary to substantiate details. The
present paper is only offered as a suggestion of an inviting line of research,
promising interesting results of a scientific character; the observations recorded
have been repeated several times and are not the work of a single investigator, and
they are believed to be correct so far as they go.
Some of our readers may be glad to have a drawing of the Platonic solids, since
they play so large a part in the building up of elements. The regular solids are five,
and five only; in each:
NOTES.
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Thinking over the diagrams, it seemed to me likely that a fourth group exists,
coming on the paramagnetic side, directly under iron, cobalt, nickel, just one
complete swing of the pendulum after rhodium, ruthenium, palladium. This would
make four interperiodic groups, and they would come also periodically in the table
too.
I took the diagram for Osmium, and in a bar postulated only three columns for the
first element of the new groups, i.e., one column less than in Osmium. This would
make 183 atoms in a bar; the new group then would follow in a bar, 183, 185, 187.
Here I found to my surprise that the third postulated group would have a remarkable
relation to Os, Ir, Pt.
Thus
Os.--245 (in a bar); less 60 = 185
Ir. 247 less 60 = 187
Pt. 249 less 60 = 189
They come probably among the rare earths. Probably also Neodymium and
Praseodymium are two of them, for their weights are 143.6, 140.5.
CHAPTER III.
The first difficulty that faced us was the identification of the forms seen on focusing
the sight on gases.[2] We could only proceed tentatively. Thus, a very common form
in the air had a sort of dumb-bell shape (see Plate I); we examined this, comparing
our rough sketches, and counted its atoms; these, divided by 18—the number of
ultimate atoms in hydrogen—gave us 23.22 as atomic weight, and this offered the
presumption that it was sodium. We then took various substances—common salt,
etc.—in which we knew sodium was present, and found the dumb-bell form in all.
In other cases, we took small fragments of metals, as iron, tin, zinc, silver, gold; in
others, again, pieces of ore, mineral waters, etc., etc., and, for the rarest substances,
Mr. Leadbeater visited a mineralogical museum. In all, 57 chemical elements were
examined, out of the 78 recognized by modern chemistry.
In addition to these, we found 3 chemical waifs: an unrecognized stranger between
hydrogen and helium which we named occultum, for purposes of reference, and 2
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varieties of one element, which we named kalon and meta-kalon, between xenon
and osmium; we also found 4 varieties of 4 recognized elements and prefixed meta
to the name of each, and a second form of platinum, that we named Pt. B. Thus we
have tabulated in all 65 chemical elements, or chemical atoms, completing three of
Sir William Crookes' lemniscates, sufficient for some amount of generalization.
In counting the number of ultimate
atoms in a chemical elemental atom,
we did not count them throughout,
one by one; when, for instance, we
counted up the ultimate atoms in
sodium, we dictated the number in
each convenient group to Mr.
Jinarâjadâsa, and he multiplied out
the total, divided by 18, and
announced the result. Thus: sodium
(see Plate I) is composed of an upper
part, divisible into a globe and 12
funnels; a lower part, similarly
divided; and a connecting rod. We
counted the number in the upper part:
globe—10; the number in two or
three of the funnels—each 16; the
number of funnels—12; the same for
the lower part; in the connecting PLATE I. SODIUM.
rod—14. Mr. Jinarâjadâsa reckoned:
10 + (16 x 12) = 202; hence: 202 + 202 + 14 = 418: divided by 18 = 23.22
recurring. By this method we guarded our counting from any prepossession, as it
was impossible for us to know how the various numbers would result on addition,
multiplication and division, and the exciting moment came when we waited to see if
our results endorsed or approached any accepted weight. In the heavier elements,
such as gold, with 3546 atoms, it would have been impossible to count each atom
without quite unnecessary waste of time, when making a preliminary investigation.
Later, it may be worth while to count each division separately, as in some we
noticed that two groups, at first sight alike, differed by 1 or 2 atoms, and some very
slight errors may, in this way, have crept into our calculations.
In the following table is a list of the chemical elements examined; the first column
gives the names, the asterisk affixed to some indicating that they have not yet been
discovered by orthodox chemistry. The second column gives the number of ultimate
physical atoms contained in one chemical atom of the element concerned. The third
column gives the weight as compared with hydrogen, taken as 18, and this is
obtained by dividing the calculated number of ultimate atoms by 18. The fourth
column gives the recognized weight-number, mostly according to the latest list of
atomic weights, the "International List" of 1905, given in Erdmann's "Lehrbuch der
Unorganischen Chemie." These weights differ from those hitherto accepted, and are
generally lighter than those given in earlier text-books. It is interesting to note that
our counting endorses the earlier numbers, for the most part, and we must wait to
see if later observations will endorse the last results of orthodox chemistry, or
confirm ours.
--------------------------------------------
Hydrogen | 18 | 1 | 1
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*Occultum | 54 | 3 | --
Helium | 72 | 4 | 3.94
Lithium | 127 | 7.06 | 6.98
Baryllium | 164 | 9.11 | 9.01
Boron | 200 | 11.11 | 10.86
Carbon | 216 | 12 | 11.91
Nitrogen | 261 | 14.50 | 14.01
Oxygen | 290 | 16.11 | 15.879
Fluorine | 340 | 18.88 | 18.90
Neon | 360 | 20 | 19.9
*Meta-Neon | 402 | 22.33 | --
Sodium | 418 | 23.22 | 22.88
Magnesium | 432 | 24 | 24.18
Aluminium | 486 | 27 | 26.91
Silicon | 520 | 28.88 | 28.18
Phosphorus | 558 | 31 | 30.77
Sulphur | 576 | 32 | 31.82
Chlorine | 639 | 35.50 | 35.473
Potassium | 701 | 38.944 | 38.85
Argon | 714 | 39.66 | 39.60
Calcium | 720 | 40 | 39.74
*Metargon | 756 | 42 | --
Scandium | 792 | 44 | 43.78
Titanium | 864 | 48 | 47.74
Vanadium | 918 | 51 | 50.84
Chromium | 936 | 52 | 51.74
Manganese | 992 | 55.11 | 54.57
Iron | 1008 | 56 | 55.47
Cobalt | 1036 | 57.55 | 57.7
Nickel | 1064 | 59.ll | 58.30
Copper | 1139 | 63.277 | 63.12
Zinc | 1170 | 65 | 64.91
Gallium | 1260 | 70 | 69.50
Germanium | 1300 | 72.22 | 71.93
Arsenic | 1350 | 75 | 74.45
Selenium | 1422 | 79 | 78.58
Bromine | 1439 | 79.944 | 79.953
Krypton | 1464 | 81.33 | 81.20
*Meta-Krypton | 1506 | 83.66 | --
Rubidium | 1530 | 85 | 84.85
Strontium | 1568 | 87.11 | 86.95
Yttrium | 1606 | 89.22 | 88.34
Zirconium | 1624 | 90.22 | 89.85
Niobium | 1719 | 95.50 | 93.25
Molybdenum | 1746 | 97 | 95.26
Ruthenium | 1848 | 102.66 | 100.91
Rhodium | 1876 | 104.22 | 102.23
Palladium | 1904 | 105.77 | 105.74
Silver | 1945 | 108.055 | 107.93
Cadmium | 2016 | 112 | 111.60
Indium | 2052 | 114 | 114.05
Tin | 2124 | 118 | 118.10
Antimony | 2169 | 120.50 | 119.34
Tellurium | 2223 | 123.50 | 126.64
Iodine | 2287 | 127.055 | 126.01
Xenon | 2298 | 127.66 | 127.10
*Meta-Xenon | 2340 | 130 | --
*Kalon | 3054 | 169.66 | --
*Meta-Kalon | 3096 | 172 | --
Osmium | 3430 | 190.55 | 189.55
Iridium | 3458 | 192.11 | 191.56
Platinum A | 3486 | 193.66 | 193.34
*Platinum B | 3514 | 195.22 | --
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Gold | 3546 | 197 | 195.74
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It will be understood from the foregoing, that the atom cannot be said to have a wall
of its own, unless these whorls of force can be so designated; its "wall" is the
pressed back "space." As said in 1895, of the chemical atom, the force "clears itself
a space, pressing back the undifferentiated matter of the plane, and making to itself
a whirling wall of this matter." The wall belongs to space, not to the atom.
In the three whorls flow currents of different electricities; the seven vibrate in
response to etheric waves of all kinds—to sound, light, heat, etc.; they show the
seven colours of the spectrum; give out the seven sounds of the natural scale;
respond in a variety of ways to physical vibration—flashing, singing, pulsing
bodies, they move incessantly, inconceivably beautiful and brilliant.[12]
The atom has—as observed so far—three proper motions, i.e., motions of its own,
independent of any imposed upon it from outside. It turns incessantly upon its own
axis, spinning like a top; it describes a small circle with its axis, as though the axis
of the spinning top moved in a small circle; it has a regular pulsation, a contraction
and expansion, like the pulsation of the heart. When a force is brought to bear upon
it, it dances up and down, flings itself wildly from side to side, performs the most
astonishing and rapid gyrations, but the three fundamental motions incessantly
persist. If it be made to vibrate, as a whole, at the rate which gives any one of the
seven colors, the whorl belonging to that color glows out brilliantly.
An electric current brought to bear
upon the atoms checks their proper
motions, i.e., renders them slower;
the atoms exposed to it arrange
themselves in parallel lines, and in
each line the heart-shaped depression
receives the flow, which passes out
through the apex into the depression
of the next, and so on. The atoms always set themselves to the current. The well-
known division of diamagnetic and paramagnetic depends generally on this fact, or
on an analogous action on molecules, as may be seen in the accompanying
diagrams.[13]
Two atoms, positive and negative, brought near to each other, attract each other,
and then commence to revolve round each other, forming a relatively stable duality;
such a molecule is neutral. Combinations of three or more atoms are positive,
negative or neutral, according to the internal molecular arrangement; the neutral are
relatively stable, the positive and negative are continually in search of their
respective opposites, with a view to establishing a relatively permanent union.
Three states of matter exist between the atomic state and the gaseous—the state in
which the chemical atoms are found, the recognized chemical elements; for our
purposes we may ignore the liquid and solid states. For the sake of clearness and
brevity in description, we have been obliged to name these states; we call the
atomic state of the chemist elemental; the state which results from breaking up
chemical elements, proto-elemental; the next higher, meta-proto-elemental; the next
higher, hyper-meta-proto-elemental; then comes the atomic state. These are briefly
marked as El., Proto., Meta., and Hyper.[14]
The simplest unions of atoms, never, apparently consisting of more than seven,
form the first molecular state of physical matter.
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This is to be read, following the lines of the "figures of eight": H, He, Li, Gl, B, C,
N, and so on, each successive element being heavier than the one preceding it in
order. The disks which fall immediately below each other form a class; thus: H, Cl,
Br, I; these resemble each other in various ways, and, as we shall presently see, the
same forms and groupings re-appear.
Another chart—taken from Erdmann's Lehrbuch—arranges the elements on a
curved line, which curiously resembles the curves within the shell of a nautilus. The
radiating lines show the classes, the whole diameter building up a family; it will be
observed that there is an empty radius between hydrogen and helium, and we have
placed occultum there; on the opposite radius, iron, rubidium and osmium are seen.
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The external forms may be classified as follows; the internal details will be dealt
with later :—
1. The Dumb-bell.—The
characteristics of this are a higher and
lower group, each showing 12
projecting funnels, grouped round a
central body, and a connecting rod. It
appears in sodium, copper, silver, and
gold,[17] and gold is given (1 on Plate
III) as the most extremely modified
example of this form. The 12 almond-
like projections, above and below, are
severally contained in shadowy
funnels, impossible to reproduce in
the drawing; the central globe
contains three globes, and the
connecting portion has swollen out
into an egg, with a very complicated
central arrangement. The dumb-bell
appears also in chlorine, bromine and
iodine, but there is no trace of it in
hydrogen, the head of the group. We
have not met it elsewhere. It may be
remarked that, in Sir William
PLATE III.
Crookes' scheme, in which they are
all classed as monads, these two
groups are the nearest to the neutral line, on the ingoing and outgoing series, and
are respectively positive and negative.
II and IIa. The Tetrahedron.—The characteristics of this form are four funnels,
containing ovoid bodies, opening on the face of a tetrahedron. The funnels
generally, but not always, radiate from a central globe. We give beryllium
(glucinum) as the simplest example (2 on Plate III), and to this group belong
calcium and strontium. The tetrahedron is the form of chromium and molybdenum,
but not that of the head of their group, oxygen, which is, like hydrogen, sui generis.
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These two groups are marked in orthodox chemistry as respectively positive and
negative, and are closely allied. Another pair of groups show the same tetrahedral
form: magnesium, zinc and cadmium, positive; sulphur, selenium and tellurium,
negative. Selenium is a peculiarly beautiful element, with a star floating across the
mouth of each funnel; this star is extremely sensitive to light, and its rays tremble
violently and bend if a beam of light falls on it. All these are dyads.
The tetrahedron is not confined to the external form of the above atoms; it seems to
be one of the favourite forms of nature, and repeatedly appears in the internal
arrangements. There is one tetrahedron within the unknown element occultum; two
appear in helium (3 on Plate III); yttrium has also two within its cube, as has
germanium; five, intersecting, are found in neon, meta-neon, argon, metargon,
krypton, meta-krypton, xenon, meta-xenon, kalon, meta-kalon, tin, titanium and
zirconium. Gold contains no less than twenty tetrahedra.
III. The Cube.—The cube appears to be the form of triads. It has six funnels,
containing ovoids, and opening on the faces of the cube. Boron is chosen as an
example (4 on Plate III). Its group members, scandium and yttrium, have the same
form; we have not examined the fourth; the group is positive. Its negative
complement consists of nitrogen, vanadium and niobium, and we have again to note
that nitrogen, like hydrogen and oxygen, departs from its group type. Two other
triad groups, the positive aluminium, gallium and indium (the fourth unexamined)
and the negative phosphorus, arsenic and antimony (the fourth unexamined), have
also six funnels opening on the faces of a cube.
IV. The Octahedron.—The simplest example of this is carbon (5 on Plate III). We
have again the funnel with its ovoids, but now there are eight funnels opening on
the eight faces of the octahedron. In titanium (6 on Plate III) the form is masked by
the protruding arms, which give the appearance of the old Rosicrucian Cross and
Rose, but when we look into the details later, the carbon type comes out clearly.
Zirconium is exactly like titanium in form, but contains a large number of atoms.
We did not examine the remaining two members of this group. The group is
tetratomic and positive. Its negative pendant shows the same form in silicon,
germanium and tin; again, the fourth was unexamined.
V. The Bars.—These characterise a
set of closely allied groups, termed
"inter-periodic." Fourteen bars (or
seven crossed) radiate from a centre,
as in iron (1 on Plate IV), and the
members of each group—iron, nickel,
cobalt; ruthenium, rhodium,
palladium; osmium, iridium,
platinum—differ from each other by
the weight of each bar, increasing in
orderly succession; the details will be
given later. Manganese is often
grouped with iron, nickel, and cobalt
(see Crookes' lemniscates), but its
fourteen protruding bodies repeat the
"lithium spike" (proto-element 5) and
are grouped round a central ovoid.
This would appear to connect it with
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II.
We now pass from the consideration of the outer forms of the chemical elements to
a study of their internal structure, the arrangement within the element of more or
less complicated groups—proto-elements—capable of separate, independent
existence; these, once more, may be dissociated into yet simpler groups—hyper-
meta-proto-elements—equally capable of separate, independent existence, and
resolvable into single ultimate physical atoms, the irreducible substratum of the
physical world (see Theosophist, 1908, pp. 354-356).[18]
We shall have to study the general internal structure, and then the breaking up of
each element, and the admirable diagrams, patiently worked out by Mr.
Jinarâjadâsa, will make the study comparatively easy to carry on.
The diagrams, of course, can only give a very general idea of the facts they
represent; they give groupings and show relations, but much effort of the
imagination is needed to transform the two-dimensional diagram into the three-
dimensional object. The wise student will try to visualize the figure from the
diagram. Thus the two triangles of hydrogen are not in one plane; the circles are
spheres, and the atoms within them, while preserving to each other their relative
positions, are in swift movement in three-dimensional space. Where five atoms are
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seen, as in bromine and iodine, they are generally arranged with the central atom
above the four, and their motion indicates lines which erect four plane
triangles—meeting at their apices—on a square base, forming a square-based four-
sided pyramid. Each dot represents a single ultimate atom. The enclosing lines
indicate the impression of form made on the observer, and the groupings of the
atoms; the groups will divide along these lines, when the element is broken up, so
that the lines have significance, but they do not exist as stable walls or enclosing
films, but rather mark limits, not lines, of vibrations. It should be noted that it is not
possible to show five of the prisms in the five intersecting tetrahedra of prisms, and
30 atoms must, therefore, be added in counting.
The diagrams are not drawn to scale, as such drawing would be impossible; the dot
representing the atom is enormously too large compared with the enclosures, which
are absurdly too small; a scale drawing would mean an almost invisible dot on a
sheet of many yards square.
The use of the words "positive" and "negative" needs to be guarded by the
following paragraphs from the article on "Chemistry" in the Encyclopædia
Britannica. We use the words in their ordinary text-book meaning, and have not, so
far, detected any characteristics whereby an element can be declared, at sight, to be
either positive or negative:—
"When binary compounds, or compounds of two elements, are decomposed by an
electric current, the two elements make their appearance at opposite poles. These
elements which are disengaged at the negative pole are termed electro-positive or
positive or basylous elements, while those disengaged at the positive pole are
termed electro-negative or negative or chlorous elements. But the difference
between these two classes of elements is one of degree only, and they gradually
merge into each other; moreover the electric relations of elements are not absolute,
but vary according to the state of combination in which they exist, so that it is just
as impossible to divide the elements into two classes according to this property as it
is to separate them into two distinct classes of metals and non-metals."
We follow here the grouping according to external forms, and the student should
compare it with the groups marked in the lemniscate arrangement shown in Article
II (p. 377, properly p. 437, February), reading the group by the disks that fall below
each other; thus the first group is H, Cl, Br, I (hydrogen, chlorine, bromine, iodine)
and a blank for an undiscovered element. The elements grow denser in descending
order; thus hydrogen is an invisible gas; chlorine a denser gas visible by its colour;
bromine is a liquid; iodine is a solid—all, of course, when temperature and pressure
are normal. By the lowering of temperature and the increase of pressure, an element
which is normally gaseous becomes a liquid, and then a solid. Solid, liquid,
gaseous, are three interchangeable states of matter, and an element does not alter its
constitution by changing its state. So far as a chemical "atom" is concerned, it
matters not whether it be drawn for investigation from a solid, a liquid, or a gas; but
the internal arrangements of the "atoms" become much more complicated as they
become denser and denser, as is seen by the complex arrangements necessitated by
the presence of the 3546 ultimate atoms contained in the chemical "atom" of gold,
as compared with the simple arrangement of the 18 ultimate atoms of hydrogen.
According to the lemniscate arrangement, we should commence with hydrogen as
the head of the first negative group, but as it differs wholly from those placed with
it, it is better to take it by itself. Hydrogen is the lightest of the known elements, and
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is therefore taken as 1 in ordinary chemistry, and all atomic weights are multiples of
this. We take it as 18, because it contains eighteen ultimate atoms, the smallest
number we have found in a chemical element. So our "number-weights" are
obtained by dividing the total number of atoms in an element by 18 (see p. 349,
January).
HYDROGEN (Plate V, 1).—Hydrogen
not only stands apart from its reputed
group by not having the characteristic
dumb-bell shape, well shown in
sodium (Plate I, opposite p. 349,
January), but it also stands apart in
being positive, serving as a base, not
as a chlorous, or acid, radical, thus
"playing the part of a metal," as in
hydrogen chloride (hydrochloric
acid), hydrogen sulphate (sulphuric
acid), etc.
It is most curious that hydrogen,
oxygen and nitrogen, the most widely
spread gases, all differ fundamentally
in form from the groups they
reputedly head.[19] Hydrogen was the
first chemical element examined by
us, nearly thirteen years ago, and I PLATE V.
reproduce here the substance of what
I wrote in November, 1895, for we
have nothing to add to nor amend in it.
Hydrogen consists of six small bodies, contained in an egg-like form (the outer
forms are not given in the diagrams). The six little bodies are arranged in two sets
of three, forming two triangles which are not interchangeable, but are related to
each other as object and image. The six bodies are not all alike; they each contain
three ultimate physical atoms, but in four of the bodies the three atoms are arranged
in a triangle, and in the remaining two in a line.
HYDROGEN: 6 bodies of 3 18
Atomic weight 1
Number weight 18/18 1
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The funnel (shown flat as an isosceles triangle, standing on its apex) is a somewhat
complicated structure, of the same type as that in sodium (Plate VI, 2), the
difference consisting in the addition of one more globe, containing nine additional
atoms. The central globe is the same as in sodium, but the connecting rod differs.
We have here a regular arrangement of five globes, containing three, four, five,
four, three atoms respectively, whereas sodium has only three bodies, containing
four, six, four. But copper and silver, its congeners, have their connecting rods of
exactly the same pattern as the chlorine rod, and the chlorine rod reappears in both
bromine and iodine. These close similarities point to some real relation between
these groups of elements, which are placed, in the lemniscates, equi-distant from
the central line, though one is on the swing which is going towards that line and the
other is on the swing away from it.
CHLORINE: Upper part {12 funnels of 25 atoms 300
{Central globe 10
Lower part same 310
Connecting rod 19
----
Total 639
----
Atomic weight 35.473
Number weight 639/18 35.50
(The Atomic Weights are mostly from Erdmann, and the Number Weights are those
ascertained by us by counting the atoms as described on p. 349, January, and
dividing by 18. Prof. T.W. Richards, in Nature, July 18, 1907, gives 35.473.)
BROMINE (Plate V, 3).—In bromine, each funnel has three additional bodies, ovoid
in shape, an addition of 33 atoms being thus made without any disturbance of form;
two pairs of atoms are added to the central globe, and a rearrangement of the atoms
is effected by drawing together and lessening the swing of the pair of triplets, thus
making symmetrical room for the newcomers. The connecting rod remains
unchanged. The total number of atoms is thus raised from the 639 of chlorine to
1439. Over and over again, in these investigations, were we reminded of Tyndall's
fascinating description of crystal building, and his fancy of the tiny, ingenious
builders busied therein. Truly are there such builders, and the ingenuity and
effectiveness of their devices are delightful to see.[20]
BROMINE: Upper part {12 funnels of 58 atoms 696
{Central globe 14
Lower part same 710
Connecting rod 19
----
Total 1439
----
Atomic weight 79.953
Number weight 1459/18 79.944
IODINE (Plate V, 4).—We find herein that the central globe gains 4 atoms, the two
pairs becoming 2 quartets; the connecting rod exactly reproduces the rods of
chlorine and bromine; the funnel is also that of bromine, except that five bodies,
containing 35 atoms, are added to it. The 1439 atoms of bromine are thus raised to
2887.
IODINE: Upper Part {12 funnels of 90 atoms 1116
{Central globe 18
Lower part same 1134
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Connecting rod 19
----
Total 2287
----
Atomic weight 126.01
Number weight 2287/18 127.055
The plan underlying the building up of groups is here clearly shown; a figure is
built up on a certain plan, in this case a dumb-bell; in the succeeding members of
the group additional atoms are symmetrically introduced, modifying the
appearance, but following the general idea; in this case the connecting rod remains
unaltered, while the two ends become larger and larger, more and more
overshadowing it, and causing it to become shorter and thicker. Thus a group is
gradually formed by additional symmetrical additions. In the undiscovered
remaining member of the group we may suppose that the rod will have become still
more egg-like, as in the case of gold.
I b.—The corresponding positive group to that which we have been considering
consists of Na, Cu, Ag, and Au (sodium, copper, silver and gold), with an empty
disk between silver and gold, showing where an element ought to be. These four
elements are monads, diamagnetic, and positive, and they show the dumb-bell
arrangement, although it is much modified in gold; we may presume that the
undiscovered element between silver and gold would form a link between them.
SODIUM (Plate VI, 2) has been
already described (p. 349, January),
as a type of the group, so we need
only refer to its internal arrangement
in order to note that it is the simplest
of the dumb-bell group. Its twelve
funnels show only four enclosed
bodies, the same as we see in
chlorine, bromine, iodine, copper and
silver, and which is very little
modified in gold. Its central globe is
the simplest of all, as is its connecting
rod. We may therefore take it that
sodium is the ground-plan of the
whole group.
SODIUM: Upper part
{ 12 funnels of 16 each 192
{ Central globe 10
Lower part same 202
Connecting rod 14
----
Total 418PLATE VI.
----
Atomic weight 23.88
Number weight 418/19 23.22
COPPER (Plate VI, 3) introduces an addition in the funnel, that we shall find
elsewhere, e.g., in silver, gold, iron, platinum, zinc, tin, the triangular arrangement
near the mouth of the funnel and adds to the ten atoms in this nineteen more in three
additional enclosed bodies, thus raising the number of atoms in a funnel from the
sixteen of sodium to forty-five. The number in the central globe is doubled, and we
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meet for the first time the peculiar cigar or prism-shaped six-atomed arrangement,
that is one of the most common of atomic groups. It ought to imply some definite
quality, with its continual recurrence. The central column is the three, four, five,
four, three, arrangement already noted.
COPPER: Upper part {12 funnels of 45 atoms 540
{Central globe 20
Lower part same 560
Connecting rod 19
----
Total 1139
----
Atomic weight 63.12
Number weight 1139/18 63.277
SILVER (Plate VI, 4) follows copper in the constitution of five of the bodies
enclosed in the funnels. But the triangular group contains twenty-one atoms as
against ten, and three ovoids, each containing three bodies with eleven atoms, raise
the number of atoms in a funnel to seventy-nine. The central globe is decreased by
five, and the prisms have disappeared. The connecting rod is unaltered.
SILVER: Upper part {12 funnels of 79 atoms 948
{Central globe 15
Lower part same 963
Connecting rod 19
----
Total 1945
----
Atomic weight 107.93
Number weight 1945/18 108.055
(This atomic weight is given by Stas, in Nature, August 29, 1907, but it has been
argued later that the weight should not be above 107.883.)
GOLD (Plate VII) is so complicated
that it demands a whole plate to itself.
It is difficult to recognize the familiar
dumb-bell in this elongated egg, but
when we come to examine it, the
characteristic groupings appear. The
egg is the enormously swollen
connecting rod, and the upper and
lower parts with their central globes
are the almond-like projections above
and below, with the central ovoid.
Round each almond is a shadowy
funnel (not drawn in the diagram),
and within the almond is the
collection of bodies shown in e,
wherein the two lowest bodies are the
same as in every other member of the
negative and positive groups; the PLATE VII.
third, ascending, is a very slight
modification of the other thirds; the fourth is a union and re-arrangement of the
fourth and fifth; the fifth, of four ovoids, adds one to the three ovoids of bromine,
iodine and silver; the triangular group is like that in copper and silver, though with
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28 atoms instead of 10 or 21, and it may be noted that the cone in iron has also 28.
The central body in the ovoid is very complicated, and is shown in c, the bodies on
each side, d, are each made up of two tetrahedra, one with four six-atomed prisms at
its angles, and the other with four spheres, a pair with four atoms and a pair with
three. We then come to the connecting rod. One of the four similar groups in the
centre is enlarged in a, and one of the sixteen circling groups is enlarged in b. These
groups are arranged in two planes inclined to one another.
GOLD: Upper part
{ 12 funnels of 97 atoms 1164
{ Central ovoid {c 101
{2 d, 38 76
Lower part same 1341
Connecting rod { 4 a 84 336
{16 b 33 528
----
Total 3546
----
Atomic weight 195.74
Number weight 3546/18 197
It may be noted that the connecting rod is made up of exactly sixteen atoms of
occultum, and that sixteen such atoms contain 864 ultimate atoms, the exact
member of atoms in titanium.
III.
Occultum was observed by us in 1895, and, finding that it was so light, and so
simple in its composition, we thought that it might be helium, of which we were
unable, at the time, to obtain a sample. When, however, helium itself came under
observation in 1907, it proved to be quite different from the object before observed,
so we dubbed the unrecognised object Occultum, until orthodox science shall find it
and label it in proper fashion.
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kept standing and popped in where wanted. The sphere marked x is a proto-
compound, the balloon when set free.
As was noted under gold (p. 41), sixteen occultum bodies, re-arranged, make up the
connecting rod in gold:—
OCCULTUM: Tetrahedron 24
Balloon 9
Triplets 6
Rope-circle 15
----
Total 54
----
Atomic weight Not known
Number weight 54/18 3
DISSOCIATION OF ATOMS.
Before proceeding to the study of other chemical atoms, as to their general internal
arrangements, it is desirable to follow out, in those already shown, the way in which
these atoms break up into simpler forms, yielding successively what we have called
proto-, meta-, and hyper-compounds. It is naturally easier to follow these in the
simpler atoms than in the more complex, and if the earlier dissociations are shown,
the latter can be more readily and more intelligibly described.
The first thing that happens on removing a gaseous atom from its "hole" (see pp. 21
to 23) or encircling "wall," is that the contained bodies are set free, and, evidently
released from tremendous pressure, assume spherical or ovoid forms, the atoms
within each re-arranging themselves, more or less, within the new "hole" or "wall."
The figures are, of course, three-dimensional, and often remind one of crystals;
tetrahedral, octagonal, and other like forms being of constant occurrence. In the
diagrams of the proto-compounds, the constituent atoms are shown by dots. In the
diagrams of the meta-compounds the dot becomes a heart, in order to show the
resultants of the lines of force. In the diagrams of the hyper-compounds the same
plan is followed. The letters a, b, c, &c., enable the student to follow the breaking
up of each group through its successive stages.
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triangular triplets similarly remain together, casting out the third, so that hydrogen
yields four meta-compounds.
In the hyper-condition, the connexion between the double triplets is broken, and
they become four independent groups, two like ix, in the hyper-types (p. 25), and
two remaining linear, but rearranging their internal relations; the two remaining
groups break up into two pairs and a unit.
The final dissociation sets all the atoms free.
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the result of the dissociation of chlorine into its proto-compounds. As all the
compounds which are in sodium break up in the same way into meta- and hyper-
compounds, we need not repeat the process here. We have only to consider the new
meta- and hyper-compounds of the highest sphere within the funnel, and the two
triplets and one quintet from the connecting rod.
The additional body within the proto-funnel is of a very simple character, three
contained triangles within the flattened sphere. On release from the funnel, on the
meta-level, the atoms rearrange themselves in a whirling set of three triplets, and
these break off from each other as hyper-compounds. The two triplets from the
connecting rod, also, are of the simplest character and need not delay us. The five-
atomed body, a four-sided pyramid as a proto-compound, becomes a ring whirling
round a centre on the meta, and two pairs with a unit on the hyper.
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five atoms in a new arrangement, and the triangular body at the mouth with its ten
atoms. This triangular body, with an increased number of atoms, reappears in
various other chemical elements. The central globes are different from any we have
had before, in their internal arrangement, but the constituents are familiar; there are
two contained spheres with four atoms each, the a in the globe of bromine (see
above) and 2 "cigars." The "cigars" may be followed under occultum (see above).
The connecting rod is as in chlorine, bromine and iodine.
The atoms in the bodies a and b are curiously arranged. A consists of two square-
based pyramids turned so as to meet at their apices, and breaks up into two quartet
rings and a duad. B is again two four-sided pyramids, but the bases are in contact
and set at right angles to each other; the second apex is not seen, as it is directly
below the first. The pyramids separate as meta-bodies, and the atoms assume the
peculiar arrangement indicated and then break up into four pairs and two units on
the hyper level.
IV.
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The funnel is almost that of iodine, re-arranged. Four of the first ring in the iodine
funnel are replaced by the triangular body, which becomes a four-sided pyramid
with an occupied base. The second ring of three ovoids in iodine becomes four in
gold, but the internal arrangement of each ovoid is the same. The next two spheres
in the iodine funnel coalesce into one sphere, with similar contents, in the gold
funnel. The fifth in iodine is slightly rearranged to form the fourth in descent in
gold, and the remaining two are the same. B has been broken up under occultum (p.
628) and can be followed there. The sixteen rings set free from the four a, after
gyrating round the central body, now become a sphere, break up, as in occultum
(see p. 44) into a meta seven-atomed ring and an eight-atomed double cross, and so
on to the hyper level. The sphere with its two contained bodies breaks up into eight
triangles on the meta level, and each of these, on the hyper, into a duad and a unit.
The twelve septets of c assume the form of prisms as in iodine (see p. 48) and
pursue the same course, while its central body, a four-sided pyramid with its six
attendants, divides on the meta level into six duads, revolving round a ring with a
central atom as in chlorine (p. 47), the duads going off independently on the hyper-
level and the ring breaking up as in chlorine. The "cigar" tetrahedron of d follows
its course as in occultum, and the other sets free two quartets and two triplets on the
meta level, yielding six duads and two units as hyper compounds. It will be seen
that, complex as gold is, it is composed of constituents already familiar, and has
iodine and occultum as its nearest allies.
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BERYLLIUM: 4 funnels of 40 atoms 160
Central globe 4
----
Total 164
----
Atomic weight 9.01
Number weight 164/18 9.11
CALCIUM (Plate VIII, 2) shows in each funnel three contained spheres, of which the
central one has within it seven ovoids identical with those of beryllium, and the
spheres above and below it contain each five ovoids (7 b) in which the three
contained spheres have, respectively, two, five, and two atoms. The central globe is
double, globe within globe, and is divided into eight segments, radiating from the
centre like an orange; the internal part of the segment belonging to the inner globe
has a triangular body within it, containing four atoms (7 c), and the external part,
belonging to the encircling globe, shows the familiar "cigar" (7 d). In this way 720
atoms are packed into the simple beryllium type.
CALCIUM: 4 funnels of 160 atoms 640
Central globe 80
----
Total 720
----
Atomic weight 39.74
Number weight 720/18 40.00
STRONTIUM (Plate VIII, 3) shows a still further complication within the funnels, no
less than eight spheres being found within each. Each of the highest pair contains
four subsidiary spheres, with five, seven, seven, five atoms, respectively (7 e, g, f).
The g groups are identical with those in gold, but difference of pressure makes the
containing body spherical instead of ovoid; similar groups are seen in the top ring
of the iodine funnel, where also the "hole" is ovoid in form. The second pair of
spheres contains ten ovoids (7 b) identical with those of calcium. The third pair
contains fourteen ovoids (7 a) identical with those of beryllium, while the fourth
pair repeats the second, with the ovoids re-arranged. The internal divisions of the
double sphere of the central globe are the same as in calcium, but the contents
differ. The "cigars" in the external segments are replaced by seven-atomed ovoids
(7 h)—the iodine ovoids—and the external segments contain five-atomed triangles
(7 i). Thus 1,568 atoms have been packed into the beryllium type, and our wonder
is again aroused by the ingenuity with which a type is preserved while it is adapted
to new conditions.
STRONTIUM: 4 funnels of 368 atoms 1472
Central globe 96
----
Total 1568
----
Atomic weight 86.95
Number weight 1568/18 87.11
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appearance given in the former diagram will be obtained by placing the five septets
on one side on the top of those on the other, so that the ten become in appearance
five, and thus doubling the whole, the doubling point leaving eleven duads on each
side. The composition is, however, much better seen by flattening out the whole.
On the proto level the two snakes separate and are clearly seen.
OXYGEN: Positive snake
{ 55 spheres of 2 atoms }
{ + 5 disks of 7 atoms } 145
Negative snake " 145
----
Total 290
----
Atomic weight 15.87
Number weight 290/18 16.11
CHROMIUM (Plate VIII, 5) "reverts to the ancestral type," the tetrahedron; the
funnel is widened by the arrangement of its contents, three spheres forming its first
ring, as compared with the units in beryllium and calcium, and the pairs in
strontium and molybdenum. Two of these spheres are identical in their
contents—two quintets (7 f), a quintet (7 j), and two quintets (7 e), e and f being to
each other as object and image. The remaining sphere (7 b) is identical with the
highest in the calcium funnel. The remaining two spheres, one below the other, are
identical with the corresponding two spheres in calcium. The central globe, as
regards its external segments, is again identical with that of calcium, but in the
internal segments a six-atomed triangle (7 k) is substituted for the calcium four-
atomed one (7 e).
CHROMIUM: 4 funnels of 210 atoms 840
Central globe 96
-----
Total 936
-----
Atomic weight 51.74
Number weight 936/18 52.00
II a.—This group contains magnesium, zinc, cadmium, and mercury, with an empty
disk between cadmium and mercury; we did not examine mercury. All are diatomic,
diamagnetic and positive; the corresponding group consists of sulphur, selenium
and tellurium, also all diatomic and diamagnetic, but negative. The same
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characteristics of four funnels opening on the faces of a tetrahedron are found in all,
but magnesium and sulphur have no central globe, and in cadmium and tellurium
the globe has become a cross.
MAGNESIUM (Plate IX, 1) introduces
us to a new arrangement: each group
of three ovoids forms a ring, and the
three rings are within a funnel; at first
glance, there are three bodies in the
funnel; on examination each of these
is seen to consist of three, with other
bodies, spheres, again within them.
Apart from this, the composition is
simple enough, all the ovoids being
alike, and composed of a triplet, a
septet and a duad.
MAGNESIUM: 4 funnels of 108 atoms 432
Atomic weight 24.18
Number weight 432/18 24.00
CADMIUM (Plate IX, 3) has an increased complexity of funnels; the diagram shows
one of the three similar segments which lie within the funnels as cylinders; each of
these contains four spheres, three pillars and three ovoids, like the spike of zinc
turned upside down, and the zinc ten-atomed triangle changed into three ten-atomed
ovoids. The centre-piece is a new form, though prefigured in the central globe of
zinc.
CADMIUM: 3 segments of 164 atoms = 492
4 funnels of 492 atoms 1968
Central body 48
-----
Total 2016
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-----
Atomic weight 111.60
Number weight 2016/18 112.00
SELENIUM (Plate X, 2) is
distinguished by the exquisite
peculiarity, already noticed, of a
quivering star, floating across the
mouth of each funnel, and dancing
violently when a ray of light falls
upon it. It is known that the
conductivity of selenium varies with
the intensity of the light falling upon
it, and it may be that the star is in PLATE X.
some way connected with its
conductivity. It will be seen that the
star is a very complicated body, and in each of its six points the two five-atomed
spheres revolve round the seven-atomed cone. The bodies in the funnels resemble
those in magnesium, but a reversed image of the top one is interposed between
itself and the small duad, and each pair has its own enclosure. The central globe is
the same as that of zinc.
SELENIUM: 4 funnels of 198 atoms 792
4 stars of 153 atoms 612
Central globe 18
-----
Total 1422
-----
Atomic weight 78.58
Number weight 1422/18 79.00
TELLURIUM (Plate X, 3), it will be seen, closely resembles cadmium, and has three
cylindrical segments—of which one is figured—making up the funnel. The
contained bodies in the pillars run three, four, five, four, three, two, instead of
starting with two; and a quartet replaces a duad in the globes above. The central
cross only differs from that of cadmium in having a seven-atomed instead of a four-
atomed centre. So close a similarity is striking.
TELLURIUM: 3 segments of 181 atoms = 543
4 funnels of 543 atoms 2172
Central body 51
-----
Total 2223
-----
Atomic weight 126.64
Number weight 2223/18 123.50
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V.
We must now consider the ways in which the members of the tetrahedral groups
break up, and as we proceed with this study we shall find how continual are the
repetitions, and how Nature, with a limited number of fundamental methods, creates
by varied combinations her infinite variety of forms.
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The third member of this group repeats the a groups of beryllium and the b groups
of calcium, and they dissociate into the bodies already described under these
respectively. The two upper globes in each funnel repeat each other, but each globe
contains four smaller spheres showing three varieties of forms. The two marked g,
which are repeated in the central globe as h, are seven-atomed, and appear as
spheres or ovoids according to pressure. They are figured on p. 48, under iodine; e
and f are related as object and image, and we have already seen them in copper (pp.
38 and 48); in each case, as in copper, they unite into a ten-atomed figure; on the
meta level the pair of fours form a ring, and the remaining two atoms form a duad;
i, which repeats f, makes a ring with the fifth in the centre, as in the five-atomed b
of calcium, as shown above. There is, thus, nothing new in strontium, but only
repetitions of forms already studied.
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II a.—We come now to the second great tetrahedral group, which though very
much complicated, is yet, for the most part, a repetition of familiar forms.
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or there may be some other reason. The cross in tellurium is identical with that in
cadmium, except that the centre is seven-atomed instead of four-atomed.
VI.
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spheres with three, four, six, six, four, three, atoms respectively. It will be observed
that this balloon appears in every member of these two groups, except boron.
The B funnel runs largely to triads, c and b, b (see 4 b) having not only a triadic
arrangement of spheres within its contained globes, but each sphere has also a
triplet of atoms. In c (see 4 c) there is a triadic arrangement of spheres, but each
contains duads. B is completed by a five-atomed sphere at the top of the funnel. It
should be noted that a, b and c all are constituents of nitrogen.
The central globe repeats that of boron, with an additional four-atomed sphere in
the middle.
SCANDIUM: 3 funnels (A) of 140 atoms 420
3 " (B) of 116 " 348
Centre globe 24
----
Total 792
----
Atomic weight 43.78
Number weight 792/18 44.00
YTTRIUM (Plate XI, 3). Here we have a quite new arrangement of bodies within the
funnel—the funnel being of one type only. Two "cigars" whirl on their own axes in
the centre near the top, while four eight-atomed globes (see 4 e) chase each other in
a circle round them, spinning madly on their own axes—this axial spinning seems
constant in all contained bodies—all the time. Lower down in the funnel, a similar
arrangement is seen, with a globe (see 4 d)—a nitrogen element—replacing the
"cigars," and six-atomed ovoids replacing the globes.
The "nitrogen balloon" occupies the third place in the funnel, now showing its usual
shape in combination, while the b globe (see 4 b) of scandium takes on a lengthened
form below it.
The central globe presents us with two tetrahedra, recalling one of the combinations
in gold (see Plate VII d), and differing from that only by the substitution of two
quartets for the two triplets in gold.
One funnel of yttrium contains exactly the same number of atoms as is contained in
a gaseous atom of nitrogen. Further, a, b, and d are all nitrogen elements. We put on
record these facts, without trying to draw any conclusions from them. Some day,
we—or others—may find out their significance, and trace through them obscure
relations.
YTTRIUM: 6 funnels of 261 atoms 1566
Central globe 40
----
Total 1606
----
Atomic weight 88.34
Number weight 1606/18 89.22
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future, perhaps, will find the secret in the arrangement of its constituent parts,
which we are able only to describe.
NITROGEN (Plate XII, 1) does not
assume the cubical form of its
relatives, but is in shape like an egg.
Referring again to our 1895
investigations, I quote from them.
The balloon-shaped body (see 4 a)
floats in the middle of the egg,
containing six small spheres in two
horizontal rows, and a long ovoid in
the midst; this balloon-shaped body is
positive, and is drawn down towards
the negative body b (see 4 b) with its
seven contained spheres, each of
which has nine atoms within it—three
triads. Four spheres are seen, in
addition to the two larger bodies; two
of these (see 4 d), each containing
five smaller globes, are positive, and
two (see 4 c) containing four smaller PLATE XII.
globes, are negative.
NITROGEN: Balloon 110
Oval 63
2 bodies of 20 atoms 40
2 " " 24 " 48
----
Total 261
----
Atomic weight 14.01
Number weight 261/18 14.50
VANADIUM (Plate XII, 2) closely follows scandium, having two types of funnels.
Funnel A only differs from that of scandium by having a globe (see 4 d) inserted in
the ring of four ovoids; funnel B has a six-atomed, instead of a five-atomed globe at
the top, and slips a third globe containing twenty atoms (see 4 d) between the two
identical with those of scandium (see 4 c). The central globe has seven atoms in its
middle body instead of four. In this way does vanadium succeed in overtopping
scandium by 126 atoms.
VANADIUM: 3 funnels (A) of 160 atoms 480
3 " (B) " 137 " 411
Central globe 27
----
Total 918
----
Atomic weight 50.84
Number weight 918/18 51.00
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The rest of the funnel is the same. In the central globe both the tetrahedra have
"cigars," and a central nine-atomed globe spins round in the centre (see 4 f),
seventeen atoms being thus added.
NIOBIUM: 6 funnels of 277 atoms 1662
Central globe 57
----
Total 1719
----
Atomic weight 93.25
Number weight 1719/18 95.50
III a.—Aluminium, gallium and indium were examined from this group. They are
triatomic, diamagnetic, and positive. The corresponding group contains phosphorus,
arsenic and antimony: bismuth also belongs to it, but was not examined; they are
triatomic, diamagnetic and negative. They have no central globes.
ALUMINIUM (Plate XIII, 1), the head
of the group, is, as usual, simple.
There are six similar funnels, each
containing eight ovoids, below which
is a globe.
ALUMINIUM: 6 funnels of 81 atoms 486
Atomic weight 26.91
Number weight 486/18 27.00
INDIUM (Plate XIII, 3) repeats the segments of gallium exactly, save in the
substitution of a sixteen-atomed body for the seven-atomed cone of the left-hand
segment, and a fourteen-atomed body for the five-atomed corresponding one in
gallium. But each funnel now has three segments instead of two; three funnels out
of the six contain two segments of type A and one of type B; the remaining three
contain two of type B, and one of type A.
INDIUM: Segment A 121 atoms
Segment B 107 "
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3 funnels of 2 A and 1 B ([242 + 107] 3) 1047
3 " " 2 B and 1 A ([214 + 121] 3) 1005
----
Total 2052
----
Atomic weight 114.05
Number weight 2052/18 114.00
The corresponding negative group, phosphorus, arsenic, and antimony, run on very
similar lines to those we have just examined.
PHOSPHORUS (Plate XIV, 1) offers us
a very curious arrangement of atoms,
which will give some new forms in
breaking up. Two segments are in
each funnel, in fact the only two of
group III a which do not show this
arrangement, or a modification
thereof, are aluminium and arsenic.
PHOSPHORUS: Left segment 50 atoms
Right segment 43 "
--
93
6 funnels of 93 atoms 558
Atomic weight 30.77
Number weight 558/18 31.00
ANTIMONY (Plate XIV, 3) is a close copy of indium, and the arrangement of types
A and B in the funnels is identical. In the middle rings of both A and B a triplet is
substituted for a unit at the centre of the larger globe. In the lowest body of type A
the "cigar" has vanished, and is represented by a seven-atomed crystalline form.
ANTIMONY: Segment A 128 atoms
Segment B 113 atoms
3 funnels of 2 A and 1 B ([256 + 113]3) 1107
3 " " 2 B and 1 A ([226 + 128]3) 1056
----
Total 2163
----
Atomic weight 119.34
Number weight 120.16
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VII.
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and soon vanish, each liberating a cigar and two septets, the quartet and triad
uniting. On the hyper the quartet yields two duads but the triangle persists. The
second set of bodies divide on the meta level, forming a sextet and a cross with a
duad at each arm; these on the hyper level divide into two triangles, four duads and
a unit. The seven-atomed cone becomes two triangles united by a single atom, and
on the meta level these form a ring round the unit; on the hyper they form three
duads and a unit.
In the right-hand segment, the same policy is followed, the four triads becoming
two sextets, while the central body adds a third to the number. The second ring has
a quartet instead of the sextet, but otherwise breaks up as does that of the left; the
quintet at the base follows that of boron.
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figure, which breaks up into a triplet and two quartets on the hyper level. The
lowest seven-atomed sphere of the three at the base is the same as we met with in
copper.
VIII.
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54
4 pairs of funnels of 54 atoms 216
Atomic weight 11.91
Number weight 216/18 12.00
TITANIUM (Plate III, 6, and XV, 2) has a complete carbon atom distributed over the
ends of its four arms, a pair of funnels with their linking atom being seen in each.
Then, in each arm, comes the elaborate body shown as 3 c, with its eighty-eight
atoms. A ring of twelve ovoids (3 d) each holding within itself fourteen atoms,
distributed among three contained globes—two quartets and a sextet—is a new
device for crowding in material. Lastly comes the central body (4 e) of five
intersecting tetrahedra, with a "cigar" at each of their twenty points—of which only
fifteen can be shown in the diagram—and a ring of seven atoms round an eighth,
that forms the minute centre of the whole. Into this elaborate body one hundred and
twenty-eight atoms are built.
TITANIUM: One carbon atom 216
4 c of 88 atoms 352
12 d of 14 " 168
Central globe 128
----
Total 864
----
Atomic weight 47.74
Number weight 864/18 48.00
ZIRCONIUM (Plate XV, 3) has exactly the same outline as titanium, the carbon atom
is similarly distributed, and the central body is identical. Only in 5 c and d do we
find a difference on comparing them with 4 c and d. The c ovoid in zirconium
shows no less than fifteen secondary globes within the five contained in the ovoid,
and these, in turn, contain altogether sixty-nine smaller spheres, with two hundred
and twelve atoms within them, arranged in pairs, triplets, quartets, quintets, a sextet
and septets. Finally, the ovoids of the ring are also made more elaborate, showing
thirty-six atoms instead of fourteen. In this way the clever builders have piled up in
zirconium no less than 1624 atoms.
ZIRCONIUM: One Carbon atom 216
4 c of 212 atoms 848
12 d of 36 " 432
Central globe 128
----
Total 1624
----
Atomic weight 89.85
Number weight 90.22
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It will be noticed (Plate XVII, 3, 4, 5,) that each bar has two sections, and that the
three lower sections in iron, cobalt and nickel are identical; in the upper sections,
iron has a cone of twenty-eight atoms, while cobalt and nickel have each three
ovoids, and of these the middle ones alone differ, and that only in their upper
globes, this globe being four-atomed in cobalt and six-atomed in nickel.
The long ovoids within each bar revolve round the central axis of the bar, remaining
parallel with it, while each spins on its own axis; the iron cone spins round as
though impaled on the axis.
IRON (Plate IV, 1, and XVII, 3):
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14 bars of 72 atoms 1008
Atomic weight 55.47
Number weight 1008/18 56.00
(The weight of cobalt, as given in Erdmann's Lehrbuch, is 58.55, but Messrs. Parker
and Sexton, in Nature, August 1, 1907, give the weight, as the result of their
experiments, as 57.7.)
The next sub-group, ruthenium,
rhodium, and palladium, has nothing
to detain us. It will be observed that
each bar contains eight segments,
instead of the six of cobalt and nickel;
that ruthenium and palladium have
the same number of atoms in their
upper ovoids, although in ruthenium
a triplet and quartet represent the
septet of palladium; and that in
ruthenium and rhodium the lower
ovoids are identical, though one has
the order: sixteen, fourteen, sixteen,
fourteen; and the other: fourteen,
sixteen, fourteen, sixteen. One
constantly asks oneself: What is the
significance of these minute changes?
Further investigators will probably
discover the answer.
RUTHENIUM (Plate XVIII, 1):
PLATE XVIII.
14 bars of 132 atoms 1848
Atomic weight 100.91
Number weight 1848/18 102.66
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The third sub-group, osmium, iridium and platinum, is, of course, more complicated
in its composition, but its builders succeed in preserving the bar form, gaining the
necessary increase by a multiplication of contained spheres within the ovoids.
Osmium has one peculiarity: the ovoid marked a (XVIII, 4) takes the place of axis
in the upper half of the bar, and the three ovoids, marked b, revolve round it. In the
lower half, the four ovoids, c, revolve round the central axis. In platinum, we have
marked two forms as platinum A and platinum B, the latter having two four-atomed
spheres (XVIII, 6 b) in the place of the two triplets marked a. It may well be that
what we have called platinum B is not a variety of platinum, but a new element, the
addition of two atoms in a bar being exactly that which separates the other elements
within each of the sub-groups. It will be noticed that the four lower sections of the
bars are identical in all the members of this sub-group, each ovoid containing thirty
atoms. The upper ring of ovoids in iridium and platinum A are also identical, but
for the substitution, in platinum A, of a quartet for a triplet in the second and third
ovoids; their cones are identical, containing twenty-one atoms, like those of silver
and tin.
OSMIUM (Plate XVIII, 4):
14 bars of 245 atoms 3430
Atomic weight 189.55
Number weight 3430/18 190.55
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POTASSIUM (Plate XIX, 2) consists of nine radiating lithium spikes, but has not
petals; its central globe contains one hundred and thirty-four atoms, consisting of
the "nitrogen balloon," encircled by six four-atomed spheres.
POTASSIUM: 9 bars of 63 atoms 567
Central globe 134
----
Total 701
----
Atomic weight 38.94
Number weight 701/18 38.85
The corresponding negative group consists only of fluorine and manganese, so far
as our investigations have gone.
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FLUORINE (Plate IV, 3, and Plate XVII, 1) is a most peculiar looking object like a
projectile, and gives one the impression of being ready to shoot off on the smallest
provocation. The eight spikes, reversed funnels, coming to a point, are probably
responsible for this warlike appearance. The remainder of the body is occupied by
two "balloons."
FLUORINE: 8 spikes of 15 atoms 120
2 balloons 220
----
Total 340
----
Atomic weight 18.90
Number weight 340/18 18.88
MANGANESE (Plate XVII, 2) has fourteen spikes radiating from a central "balloon."
MANGANESE: 14 spikes of 63 atoms 882
Central balloon 110
----
Total 992
----
Atomic weight 54.57
Number weight 992/18 55.11
IX.
We have now to consider the breaking up of the octahedral groups, and more and
more, as we proceed, do we find that the most complicated arrangements are
reducible to simple elements which are already familiar.
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The lower ovoids in ruthenium are identical in composition, with those of iron,
cobalt and nickel and may be studied under Iron. The upper ones only differ by the
addition of a triplet.
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one on the meta. The body a splits up into triplets on the hyper; b and d follow their
iron and silicon models; c yields four duads and a unit; e breaks into four quartets.
X.
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It will be observed that the meta form in each case shows seven more atoms than its
fellow.
HELIUM (Plate III, 5, and Plate XX,
1) shows two "cigar"-bearing
tetrahedra, and two hydrogen
triangles, the tetrahedra revolving
round an egg-shaped central body,
and the triangles spinning on their
own axes while performing a similar
revolution. The whole has an
attractively airy appearance, as of a
fairy element.
HELIUM: Two tetrahedra of 24 atoms 48
Two triangles of 9 atoms 18
Central egg 6
----
Total 72
----
Atomic weight 3.94
Number weight 72/18 4.00
----
Total 360
----
Atomic weight 19.90
Number weight 360/18 20.00
META-NEON (Plate XX, 3 and 6) differs from its comrade by the insertion of an
additional atom in each of the groups included in the second body within its arm,
and substituting a seven-atomed group for one of the triplets in neon.
META-NEON: Six arms of 47 atoms 282
Central tetrahedra 120
----
Total 402
----
Atomic weight ----
Number weight 402/18 22.33
ARGON (Plate XX, 4, 6 and 7) shows within its arms the b 63 which we met in
nitrogen, yttrium, vanadium and niobium, but not the "balloon," which we shall find
with it in krypton and its congeners.
ARGON: Six arms of 99 atoms 594
Central tetrahedra 120
----
Total 714
----
Atomic weight 39.60
Number weight 714/18 39.66
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METARGON (Plate XX, 5, 6 and 7) again shows only an additional seven atoms in
each arm.
METARGON: Six arms of 106 atoms 636
Central tetrahedra 120
----
Total 756
----
Atomic weight ----
Number weight 756/18 42
XENON (Plate XXI, 2 and 4, and Plate XX, 6 and 7) has a peculiarity shared only by
kalon, that x and y are asymmetrical, the centre of one having three atoms and the
centre of the other two. Is this done in order to preserve the difference of seven
from its comrade?
XENON: Six arms of 363 atoms 2178
Central tetrahedra 120
-----
Total 2298
-----
Atomic weight 127.10
Number weight 2298/18 127.66
META-XENON differs from xenon only by the substitution of two z's for x and y.
META-XENON: Six arms of 370 atoms 2220
Central tetrahedra 120
-----
Total 2340
-----
Atomic weight -----
Number weight 2340/18 130
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KALON (Plate XXI, 3 and 4, and Plate XX, 6 and 7) has a curious cone, possessing
a kind of tail which we have not observed elsewhere; x and y show the same
asymmetry as in xenon.
KALON: Six arms of 489 atoms 2934
Central tetrahedra 120
----
Total 3054
----
Atomic weight ----
Number weight 3054/18 169.66
Only a few atoms of kalon and meta-kalon have been found in the air of a fair-sized
room.
It does not seem worth while to break up these elements, for their component parts
are so familiar. The complicated groups—a 110, b 63 and c 120—have all been
fully dealt with in preceding pages.
There remains now only radium, of the elements which we have, so far, examined,
and that will be now described and will bring to an end this series of observations.
A piece of close and detailed work of this kind, although necessarily imperfect, will
have its value in the future, when science along its own lines shall have confirmed
these researches.
It will have been observed that our weights, obtained by counting, are almost
invariably slightly in excess of the orthodox ones: it is interesting that in the latest
report of the International Commission (November 13, 1907), printed in the
Proceedings of the Chemical Society of London, Vol. XXIV, No. 33, and issued on
January 25, 1908, the weight of hydrogen is now taken at 1.008 instead of at 1. This
would slightly raise all the orthodox weights; thus aluminium rises from 26.91 to
27.1, antimony from 119.34 to 120.2, and so on.
XI.
RADIUM.
Radium has the form of a tetrahedron,
and it is in the tetrahedral groups (see
article IV) that we shall find its
nearest congeners; calcium,
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RADIUM: 4 funnels of 618 atoms 2472
4 spikes of 199 atoms 796
Central sphere 819
----
Total 4087
----
Atomic weight ----
Number weight 4087/18 227.05
PLATE XXIII.
PLATE XXIV.
APPENDIX.
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of science, they have (perhaps unadvisedly) called these states etheric, and have
thus left themselves without a convenient name for that substance which fulfils the
other part of the scientific requirements.
Let us for the moment name this substance koilon, since it fills what we are in the
habit of calling empty space. What mûlaprakrti, or "mother-matter," is to the
inconceivable totality of universes, koilon is to our particular universe—not to our
solar system merely but to the vast unit which includes all visible suns. Between
koilon and mûlaprakrti there must be various stages, but we have at present no
direct means of estimating their number or of knowing anything whatever about
them.
In an ancient occult treatise, however, we read of a "colorless spiritual fluid"
"which exists everywhere and forms the first foundation on which our solar system
is built. Outside the latter, it is found in its pristine purity only between the stars
[suns] of the universe.... As its substance is of a different kind from that known on
earth, the inhabitants of the latter, seeing through it, believe, in their illusion and
ignorance, that it is empty space. There is not one finger's breadth of void space in
the whole boundless universe."[21] "The mother-substance" is said, in this treatise, to
produce this æther of space as its seventh grade of density, and all objective suns
are said to have this for their "substance."
To any power of sight which we can bring to bear upon it, this koilon appears to be
homogeneous, though it is probably nothing of the kind, since homogeneity can
belong to the mother-substance alone. It is out of all proportion denser than any
other substance known to us, infinitely denser—if we may be pardoned the
expression; so much denser that it seems to belong to another type, or order, of
density. But now comes the startling part of the investigation: we might expect
matter to be a densification of this koilon; it is nothing of the kind. Matter is not
koilon, but the absence of koilon, and at first sight, matter and space appear to have
changed places, and emptiness has become solidity, solidity has become emptiness.
To help us to understand this clearly let us examine the ultimate atom of the
physical plane (see pp. 21-23). It is composed of ten rings or wires, which lie side
by side, but never touch one another. If one of these wires be taken away from the
atom, and be, as it were, untwisted from its peculiar spiral shape and laid out on a
flat surface, it will be seen that it is a complete circle—a tightly twisted endless
coil. This coil is itself a spiral containing 1680 turns; it can be unwound, and it will
then make a much larger circle. This process of unwinding may be again
performed, and a still bigger circle obtained, and this can be repeated till the seven
sets of spirillæ are all unwound, and we have a huge circle of the tiniest imaginable
dots, like pearls threaded on an invisible string. These dots are so inconceivably
small that many millions of them are needed to make one ultimate physical atom,
and while the exact number is not readily ascertainable, several different lines of
calculation agree in indicating it as closely approximate to the almost inconceivable
total of fourteen thousand millions. Where figures are so huge, direct counting is
obviously impossible, but fortunately the different parts of the atom are sufficiently
alike to enable us to make an estimate in which the margin of error is not likely to
be very great. The atom consists of ten wires, which divide themselves naturally
into two groups—the three which are thicker and more prominent, and the seven
thinner ones which correspond to the colors and planets. These latter appear to be
identical in constitution though the forces flowing through them must differ, since
each responds most readily to its own special set of vibrations. By actual counting it
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has been discovered that the numbers of coils or spirillæ of the first order in each
wire is 1680; and the proportion of the different orders of spirillæ to one another is
equal in all cases that have been examined, and correspond with the number of dots
in the ultimate spirillæ of the lowest order. The ordinary sevenfold rule works quite
accurately with the thinner coils, but there is a very curious variation with regard to
the set of three. As may be seen from the drawings, these are obviously thicker and
more prominent, and this increase of size is produced by an augmentation (so slight
as to be barely perceptible) in the proportion to one another of the different orders
of spirillæ and in the number of dots in the lowest. This augmentation, amounting at
present to not more than .00571428 of the whole of each case, suggests the
unexpected possibility that this portion of the atom may be somehow actually
undergoing a change—may in fact be in process of growth, as there is reason to
suppose that these three thicker spirals originally resembled the others.
Since observation shows us that each physical atom is represented by forty-nine
astral atoms, each astral atom by forty-nine mental atoms, and each mental atom by
forty-nine of those on the buddhic plane, we have here evidently several terms of a
regular progressive series, and the natural presumption is that the series continues
where we are no longer able to observe it. Further probability is lent to this
assumption by the remarkable fact that—if we assume one dot to be what
corresponds to an atom on the seventh or highest of our planes (as is suggested in
The Ancient Wisdom, p. 42) and then suppose the law of multiplication to begin its
operation, so that 49 dots shall form the atom of the next or sixth plane, 2401 that of
the fifth, and so on—we find that the number indicated for the physical atom (496)
corresponds almost exactly with the calculation based upon the actual counting of
the coils. Indeed, it seems probable that but for the slight growth of the three thicker
wires of the atom the correspondence would have been perfect.
It must be noted that a physical atom cannot be directly broken up into astral atoms.
If the unit of force which whirls those millions of dots into the complicated shape of
a physical atom be pressed back by an effort of will over the threshold of the astral
plane, the atom disappears instantly, for the dots are released. But the same unit of
force, working now upon a higher level, expresses itself not through one astral
atom, but through a group of 49. If the process of pressing back the unit of force is
repeated, so that it energises upon the mental plane, we find the group there
enlarged to the number of 2401 of those higher atoms. Upon the buddhic plane the
number of atoms formed by the same amount of force is very much greater
still—probably the cube of 49 instead of the square, though they have not been
actually counted. Therefore one physical atom is not composed of forty-nine astral
or 2401 mental atoms, but corresponds to them, in the sense that the force which
manifests through it would show itself on those higher planes by energising
respectively those numbers of atoms.
The dots, or beads, seem to be the constituents of all matter of which we, at present,
know anything; astral, mental and buddhic atoms are built of them, so we may
fairly regard them as fundamental units, the basis of matter.
These units are all alike, spherical and absolutely simple in construction. Though
they are the basis of all matter, they are not themselves matter; they are not blocks
but bubbles. They do not resemble bubbles floating in the air, which consist of a
thin film of water separating the air within them from the air outside, so that the
film has both an outer and an inner surface. Their analogy is rather with the bubbles
that we see rising in water, before they reach the surface, bubbles which may be
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said to have only one surface—that of the water which is pushed back by the
contained air. Just as such bubbles are not water, but are precisely the spots from
which water is absent, so these units are not koilon, but the absence of koilon—the
only spots where it is not—specks of nothingness floating in it, so to speak, for the
interior of these space-bubbles is an absolute void to the highest power of vision
that we can turn upon them.
That is the startling, well-nigh incredible, fact. Matter is nothingness, the space
obtained by pressing back an infinitely dense substance; Fohat "digs holes in space"
of a verity, and the holes are the airy nothingnesses, the bubbles, of which "solid"
universes are built.
What are they, then, these bubbles, or rather, what is their content, the force which
can blow bubbles in a substance of infinite density? The ancients called that force
"the Breath," a graphic symbol, which seems to imply that they who used it had
seen the kosmic process, had seen the LOGOS when He breathed into the "waters of
space," and made the bubbles which build universes. Scientists may call this
"Force" by what names they will—names are nothing; to us, Theosophists, it is the
Breath of the LOGOS, we know not whether of the LOGOS of this solar system or of
a yet mightier Being; the latter would seem the more likely, since in the above-
quoted occult treatise all visible suns are said to have this as their substance.
The Breath of the LOGOS, then, is the force which fills these spaces; His the force
which holds them open against the tremendous pressure of the koilon; they are full
of His Life, of Himself, and everything we call matter, on however high or low a
plane, is instinct with divinity; these units of force, of life, the bricks with which He
builds His universe, are His very life scattered through space; truly is it written: "I
established this universe with a portion of myself." And when He draws in His
breath, the waters of space will close in again, and the universe will have
disappeared. It is only a breath.
The outbreathing which makes these bubbles is quite distinct from, and long
antecedent to, the three outpourings, or Life-Waves, so familiar to the theosophical
student. The first Life-Wave catches up these bubbles, and whirls them into the
various arrangements which we call the atoms of the several planes, and aggregates
them into the molecules, and on the physical plane into the chemical elements. The
worlds are built out of these voids, these emptinesses, which seem to us "nothing"
but are divine force. It is matter made from the privation of matter. How true were
H.P.B.'s statements in "The Secret Doctrine": "Matter is nothing but an aggregation
of atomic forces" (iii, 398); "Buddha taught that the primitive substance is eternal
and unchangeable. Its vehicle is the pure luminous æther, the boundless infinite
space, not a void, resulting from the absence of all forms, but on the contrary, the
foundation of all forms" (iii, 402).
How vividly, how unmistakably this knowledge brings home to us the great
doctrine of Mâyâ, the transitoriness and unreality of earthly things, the utterly
deceptive nature of appearances! When the candidate for initiation sees (not merely
believes, remember, but actually sees) that what has always before seemed to him
empty space is in reality a solid mass of inconceivable density, and that the matter
which has appeared to be the one tangible and certain basis of things is not only by
comparison tenuous as gossamer (the "web" spun by "Father-Mother"), but is
actually composed of emptiness and nothingness—is itself the very negation of
matter—then for the first time he thoroughly appreciates the valuelessness of the
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physical senses as guides to the truth. Yet even more clearly still stands out the
glorious certainty of the immanence of the Divine; not only is everything ensouled
by the LOGOS, but even its visible manifestation is literally part of Him, is built of
His very substance, so that Matter as well as Spirit becomes sacred to the student
who really understands.
The koilon in which all these bubbles are formed undoubtedly represents a part, and
perhaps the principal part, of what science describes as the luminiferous æther.
Whether it is actually the bearer of the vibrations of light and heat through
interplanetary space is as yet undetermined. It is certain that these vibrations
impinge upon and are perceptible to our bodily senses only through the etheric
matter of the physical plane. But this by no means proves that they are conveyed
through space in the same manner, for we know very little of the extent to which
the physical etheric matter exists in interplanetary and interstellar space, though the
examination of meteoric matter and kosmic dust shows that at least some of it is
scattered there.
The scientific theory is that the æther has some quality which enables it to transmit
at a certain definite velocity transverse waves of all lengths and intensities—that
velocity being what is commonly called the speed of light, 190,000 miles per
second. Quite probably this may be true of koilon, and if so it must also be capable
of communicating those waves to bubbles or aggregations of bubbles, and before
the light can reach our eyes there must be a downward transference from plane to
plane similar to that taking place when a thought awakens emotion or causes action.
In a recent pamphlet on "The Density of Æther," Sir Oliver Lodge remarks:—
"Just as the ratio of mass to volume is small in the case of a solar system or a nebula
or a cobweb, I have been driven to think that the observed mechanical density of
matter is probably an excessively small fraction of the total density of the substance
or æther contained in the space which it thus partially occupies—the substance of
which it may hypothetically be held to be composed.
"Thus, for instance, consider a mass of platinum, and assume that its atoms are
composed of electrons, or of some structures not wholly dissimilar: the space which
these bodies actually fill, as compared with the whole space which in a sense they
'occupy,' is comparable to one ten-millionth of the whole, even inside each atom;
and the fraction is still smaller if it refers to the visible mass. So that a kind of
minimum estimate of ætherial density, on this basis, would be something like ten
thousand million times that of platinum."
And further on he adds that this density may well turn out to be fifty thousand
million times that of platinum. "The densest matter known," he says, "is trivial and
gossamer-like compared with the unmodified æther in the same space."
Incredible as this seems to our ordinary ideas, it is undoubtedly an understatement
rather than an exaggeration of the true proportion as observed in the case of koilon.
We shall understand how this can be so if we remember that koilon seems
absolutely homogeneous and solid even when examined by a power of
magnification which makes physical atoms appear in size and arrangement like
cottages scattered over a lonely moor, and when we further add to this the
recollection that the bubbles of which these atoms in turn are composed are
themselves what may be not inaptly called fragments of nothingness.
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In the same pamphlet Sir Oliver Lodge makes a very striking estimate of the
intrinsic energy of the æther. He says: "The total output of a million-kilowatt power
station for thirty million years exists permanently, and at present inaccessibly in
every cubic millimetre of space." Here again he is probably underestimating the
stupendous truth.
It may naturally be asked how, if all this be so, it is possible that we can move about
freely in a solid ten thousand million times denser, as Sir Oliver Lodge says, than
platinum. The obvious answer is that, where densities differ sufficiently, they can
move through each other with perfect freedom; water or air can pass through cloth;
air can pass through water; an astral form passes unconsciously through a physical
wall, or through an ordinary human body; many of us have seen an astral form walk
through a physical, neither being conscious of the passage; it does not matter
whether we say that a ghost has passed through a wall, or a wall has passed through
a ghost. A gnome passes freely through a rock, and walks about within the earth, as
comfortably as we walk about in the air. A deeper answer is that consciousness can
recognize only consciousness, that since we are of the nature of the LOGOS we can
sense only those things which are also of His nature. These bubbles are His essence,
His life, and, therefore, we, who also are part of Him, can see the matter which is
built of his substance, for all forms are but manifestations of Him. The koilon is to
us non-manifestation, because we have not unfolded powers which enable us to
cognise it, and it may be the manifestation of a loftier order of LOGOI, utterly
beyond our ken.
As none of our investigators can raise his consciousness to the highest plane of our
universe, the âdi-tattva plane, it may be of interest to explain how it is possible for
them to see what may very probably be the atom of that plane. That this may be
understood it is essential to remember that the power of magnification by means of
which these experiments are conducted is quite apart from the faculty of
functioning upon one or other of the planes. The latter is the result of a slow and
gradual unfoldment of the Self, while the former is merely a special development of
one of the many powers latent in man. All the planes are round us here, just as
much as any other point in space, and if a man sharpens his sight until he can see
their tiniest atoms he can make a study of them, even though he may as yet be far
from the level necessary to enable him to understand and function upon the higher
planes as a whole, or to come into touch with the glorious Intelligences who gather
those atoms into vehicles for Themselves.
A partial analogy may be found in the position of the astronomer with regard to the
stellar universe, or let us say the Milky Way. He can observe its constituent parts
and learn a good deal about them along various lines, but it is absolutely impossible
for him to see it as a whole from outside, or to form any certain conception of its
true shape, and to know what it really is. Suppose that the universe is, as many of
the ancients thought, some inconceivably vast Being, it is utterly impossible for us,
here in the midst of it, to know what that Being is or is doing, for that would mean
raising ourselves to a height comparable with His; but we may make extensive and
detailed examination of such particles of His body as happen to be within our reach,
for that means only the patient use of powers and machinery already at our
command.
Let it not be supposed that, in thus unfolding a little more of the wonders of Divine
Truth by pushing our investigations to the very farthest point at present possible to
us, we in any way alter or modify all that has been written in theosophical books of
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the shape and constitution of the physical atom, and of the wonderful and orderly
arrangements by which it is grouped into the various chemical molecules; all this
remains entirely unaffected.
Nor is any change introduced as regards the three outpourings from the LOGOS, and
the marvellous facility with which the matter of the various planes is by them
moulded into forms for the service of the evolving life. But if we wish to have a
right view of the realities underlying manifestation in this universe, we must to a
considerable extent reverse the ordinary conception as to what this matter
essentially is. Instead of thinking of its ultimate constituents as solid specks floating
in a void, we must realise that it is the apparent void itself which is solid, and that
the specks are but bubbles on it. That fact once grasped, all the rest remains as
before. The relative position of what we have hitherto called matter and force is still
for us the same as ever; it is only that, on closer examination, both of these
conceptions prove to be variants of force, the one ensouling combinations of the
other, and the real "matter," koilon, is seen to be something which has hitherto been
altogether outside our scheme of thought.
In view of this marvellous distribution of Himself in "space," the familiar concept
of the "sacrifice of the LOGOS" takes on a new depth and splendour; this is His
"dying in matter," His "perpetual sacrifice," and it may be the very glory of the
LOGOS that He can sacrifice Himself to the uttermost by thus permeating and
making Himself one with that portion of koilon which He chooses as the field of
His universe.
What koilon is, what its origin, whether it is itself changed by the Divine Breath
which is poured into it—does "Dark Space" thus become "Bright Space" at the
beginning of a manifestation?—these are questions to which we cannot at present
even indicate answers. Perchance an intelligent study of the great Scriptures of the
world may yield replies.
NOTES
[1] See footnote in next Chapter.
[2] The drawings of the elements were done by two Theosophical artists, Herr Hecker and
Mrs. Kirby, whom we sincerely thank; the diagrams, showing the details of the
construction of each "element," we owe to the most painstaking labour of Mr. Jinarâjadâsa,
without whose aid it would have been impossible for us to have presented clearly and
definitely the complicated arrangements by which the chemical elements are built up. We
have also to thank him for a number of most useful notes, implying much careful research,
which are incorporated in the present series, and without which we could not have written
these papers.
[3] The atomic sub-plane.
[4] The astral plane.
[5] Known to Theosophists as Fohat, the force of which all the physical plane
forces—electricities—are differentiations.
[6] When Fohat "digs holes in space."
[7] The first life-wave, the work of the third Logos.
[8] A mâyâ, truly.
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[9] By a certain action of the will, known to students, it is possible to make such a space
by pressing back and walling off the matter of space.
[10] Again the astral world.
[11] Each spirilla is animated by the life-force of a plane, and four are at present normally
active, one for each round. Their activity in an individual may be prematurely forced by
yoga practice.
[12] "The ten numbers of the sun. These are called Dis—in reality space—the forces
spread in space, three of which are contained in the Sun's Atman, or seventh principle, and
seven are the rays shot out by the Sun." The atom is a sun in miniature in its own universe
of the inconceivably minute. Each of the seven whorls is connected with one of the
Planetary Logoi, so that each Planetary Logos has a direct influence playing on the very
matter of which all things are constructed. It may be supposed that the three, conveying
electricity, a differentiation of Fohat, are related to the Solar Logoi.
[13] The action of electricity opens up ground of large extent, and cannot be dealt with
here. Does it act on the atoms themselves, or on molecules, or sometimes on one and
sometimes on the other? In soft iron, for instance, are the internal arrangements of the
chemical atom forcibly distorted, and do they elastically return to their original relations
when released? and in steel is the distortion permanent? In all the diagrams the heart-
shaped body, exaggerated to show the depression caused by the inflow and the point
caused by the outflow, is a single atom.
[14] These sub-planes are familiar to the Theosophist as gaseous, etheric, super-etheric,
sub-atomic, atomic; or as Gas, Ether 4, Ether 3, Ether 2, Ether 1.
[15] It must be remembered that the diagrams represent three-dimensional objects, and the
atoms are not all on a plane, necessarily.
[16] That is, the surrounding magnetic fields strike on each other.
[17] The fifth member of this group was not sought for.
[18] This, with references which appear later (pp. 32, 33, 50, etc.), relates to articles which
appeared in the Theosophist, 1908.
[19] Since writing the above I have noticed, in the London, Edinburgh and Dublin
Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, conducted by Dr. John Joly and Mr.
William Francis, in an article entitled "Evolution and Devolution of the Elements," the
statement that it is probable that in "the nebulous state of matter there are four substances,
the first two being unknown upon earth, the third being hydrogen and the fourth ... helium.
It also seems probable that ... hydrogen, the two unknown elements, and helium are the
four original elements from which all the other elements form. To distinguish them from
the others we will term them protons." This is suggestive as regards hydrogen, but does
not help us with regard to oxygen and nitrogen.
[20] Theosophists call them Nature-Spirits, and often use the mediæval term Elementals.
Beings concerned with the elements truly are they, even with chemical elements.
[21] Quoted in "The Secret Doctrine." H.P. Blavatsky, i, 309.
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