  Stumbling Blocks in Eastern Physics The Western student of the ancient Eastern physics soon meets serious stumbling-blocks; and one at the very threshold has in the last half century turned many back. In beginning his study of the solar system, the pupil is told: The first three planets—Mercury, Venus, and the moon—are dead and disintegrating. Evolution on them has ceased. The proof of this is found in the fact, that they have no axial rotation, Mercury and Venus always presenting the same surface to their father, the sun, and the moon the same surface to its daughter, the earth. This is a concrete statement of physical fact at which the Western student protests. If in the whole range of Western astronomical science there is any one fact that he has accepted as absolutely proved, it is that Mercury revolves once in 24h., 5m., 30.5s., and Venus once in 23h., 21m., 22s. He would as soon credit a statement that the earth has no axial rotation as that Mercury or Venus has none; and if he continues his study of Eastern physics it is with no confidence in its accuracy, and as a matter of curiosity. The statement that Mercury, Venus, and the moon "are dead and disintegrating," the former two "always presenting the same surface" to the sun, is the basis for an elaborate superstructure, both in the physics and the metaphysics of the East. It is used in physics to explain how the "evolutionary wave" came to an end at the perfection of the mineral on Mercury with the loss of its axial rotation; how the "wave" then passed on to Venus with the seed of the vegetable kingdom, where the vegetable evolution ended with the loss of axial rotation; how from Venus it leaped to the moon, mother of animals and controller of animal life, with the seed of animal life in the vegetable; and how finally it came to the earth, when the moon ceased to revolve, bringing in the animal the seed of man. Here man will be evolved and perfected. Man has not yet been "born" on this earth, they say. He is still in a prenatal or embryonic condition within the animal. The lunar Pitris, the men-seed, have a physical reason for being, if this evolutionary theory be true; none if it is not. Axial rotation is necessary in evolution, the ancient physics teaches, which must cease with it. The reasons for this are too lengthy to give here. Briefly, the rotation makes the electrical flow and a thermopilic dynamo of each planet. The ancient astronomical teaching is absolutely true. There will not be a work on astronomy published in Europe or the United States this year, or hereafter, that will not state that "Mercury and Venus revolve on their axes in the same time that they revolve around the sun," which is another way of saying that "they have no axial rotation, always presenting the same face to the sun," and an inaccurate way of presenting the truth. The screw that holds the tire at the outer end of the spoke does not revolve "once on its axis" each time the wheel revolves. Run a cane through an orange and swing it around; the orange has not revolved "once on its axis." Nor does the stone in a sling revolve "once on its axis" for each revolution around the hand. The motion of Mercury is identically that of the impaled orange or the stone in the sling. It has no axis and no axial rotation. The modern astronomers, detected in pretenses to knowledge they never possessed, let themselves down easy. This "discovery," of no axial rotation by the interior planets, made by Schiaparelli and confirmed by Flammarion in 1894, has since been fully verified by our Western astronomers. All the new astronomies accept it. But the admission of astronomical "error," to speak politely, comes too late for the student it turned back from his study of Eastern physics. He cannot regain his lost faith and lost ground. Thirty years ago Proctor made it clear to Western students that the orbit of the moon was a cycloidal curve (a drawn-out spring) around the sun, the earth's orbit being coincident with its axis; and that the moon was, astronomically and correctly, a satellite of the sun, not a satellite of the earth. This has been the Eastern view and teaching from time immemorial. The Eastern distinction between father Sun and mother Moon, and the classification of the latter as a planet, did not disturb the Western student. He understood that. It was the "absolute accuracy" of modern astronomers in regard to the length of the day on Mercury or Venus, which the astronomers declared had been corrected down to the fraction of a second, that made it impossible for him to accept the Eastern physics when the latter squarely contradicted his own. This was but the first of many similar stumbling-blocks in the path of the student of Eastern physics. "Few were the followers, straggling far, and when they did, this was what they had to face: "The planets absorb and use nearly all the solar energy—all except the very small amount the minor specks of cosmic dust may receive. There is not the least particle of the sun's light, or heat, or any one of the seven conditions of the solar energy, wasted. Except for the planets, it is not manifested; it is not. There is no light, no heat, no form of solar energy, except on the planets as it is transferred from the laya center of each in the sun to them. The etheric globe is cold and dark, except along the lines to them—the "Paths of Fohat" [solar energy]. Six laya centers are manifested in the sun; one is laid aside, though the wheels [planets] around the One Eye be seven. [This alludes to the moon, whose laya center in the sun is now also that of the earth; but it is considered as a planet]. What each receives, that it also gives back. There is nothing lost." "That settles it," says one student; and the others agree. Of the hundred who started, "The foremost horseman rode alone," before the next step was won. In the light of the tardy but perfect justification of the first stumbling-block, this statement may be worth following out, "to see what it means," and how "absurd" it can be. An etheric globe; cold as absolute zero, dark as Erebus, with here and there small pencils of light and heat from the sun to the planets —just rays, and nothing more—is a very different one from the fiery furnace at absolute zero of the modern physicist. On a line drawn from the center of the earth to the center of the moon there is a point where the "weights" of the two bodies are said in our physics exactly to balance, and it lies, says our physics, "2,900 miles from the center of the earth, and 1,100 miles from the surface." This is the earth's "laya center" of the Eastern physics. It is of great importance in problems of life; but it may be passed over for the present. Between the earth and the sun—precisely speaking, between this laya center and the sun—there is a "point of balance," which falls within the photosphere of the sun. This point in the sun is the earth's solar laya, the occult or hidden earth of the metaphysics. A diagram will make this clearer. Draw a line from the laya center in the sun to that in the earth. Draw a narrow ellipse, with this line as its major axis, and shade it. At each end of the axis strike the beginning of an ellipse that will be tangent. If positive energy is along the shaded ellipse, negative energy is in each field beyond—earth and sun. This is a very crude illustration of a fundamental statement elaborated to the most minute detail in explanation of all astronomical phenomena; but for the moment it will do. The point is that along this axial line connecting the laya centers play all the seven solar forces—light, heat, electricity, etc.—that affect the earth, and on every side of this line is the "electric field" of these forces. To this line any escaping solar energy is drawn, as the electricity of the air is drawn to a live wire or magnet. But there is little or none to escape. From the laya point in the sun to the laya point in the earth, the solar energy is transferred as sound is carried along a beam of light (photophone), or electricity from one point to another without a wire. To the advanced student of electricity the ancient teaching is easily apprehended; to others it is difficult to make clear. These laya centers, it says, are "the transforming points of energy." From the earth laya to the solar laya centre, the energy, we may say, is positive; beyond both the solar and the earth laya centre, in the fields touching at them, it is negative —or vice versa. The line connecting the layas is the "Path of Fohat"—the personification of solar energy. This is a very crude and brief way of putting many pages of teaching, but the important point is that this line between the layas is one of solar energy, with a dynamic "field" of solar energy, elliptical in shape, connecting with the reverse fields at the laya points. These "dead points" are the limits of each electric field, which "create", we say in electrical work, opposing fields beyond them. Each one of these planets has its laya centre inside the sun's photosphere. Each planet has a line of solar energy with its "field" of solar energy—not only a wireless telegraph, but a wireless lighting, heating, and life-giving system. These six solar laya points are the six "hidden planets," the earth and moon being one, of the ancient metaphysics. The moon is the one "laid aside." In their reception of energy from the sun, it is as if the planet were at the solar laya point, or connected with it by a special pipe-line. The position of these six planetary laya points in the sun is indicated by the position of the planets in the heavens, and they may often influence or modify one another. If Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn is anywhere near conjunction with the earth, not only will a part of their "fields" be joined, but their laya points in the sun will be modified. The physical basis of the old astrology was the physical interferences of these fields of solar energy; and what it depended on mainly in its work was the position of the six hidden planets, or laya centers, which was shown by the position of the planet with reference to the earth. That the planets themselves affected any one or anything on this earth, no real astrologer ever believed; that their position in the heavens indicated certain changes and modifications of the flow of solar energy to the earth, they knew from their knowledge of physics. "The twelve houses are in the sun," says Hermes, "six in the north and six in the south." Connect them with the zodiac, and the position of the planets shows the interferences of the solar currents. The one objection to this ancient theory is that it does not present enough difficulties. The present value to science of the many theories in relation to the sun is the impossibility of reconciling any two of them, and the fact that no two theorists can unite to pummel a third. This ancient theory does not call for any great amount of heat, light, or energy in any condition to keep the Cosmos in order—not even enough for two persons to quarrel over. It merely turns the sun into a large dynamo connected with smaller dynamos, and these with one another with return currents by which "there is nothing lost." In its details, it accounts for all facts—neatly, simply, and without exclamation points. It is so simple and homespun, so lacking in the gaudiness that makes (for example) our light and heat less than the billionth part wasted on space always at absolute zero, that we may have to wait many centuries to have it "verified" and "confirmed" by our Western Science. That it will be "verified" in time, even as the first stumbling-block has been removed at the end of the nineteenth century, its students may at least hope. The lesson, if there is one, is that the Western student of ***** Produced by Jake Jaqua Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. - You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work. 1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. 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