See Jung: Modern Man in Search of a Soul, page 130.

venerable specter of Zarathustra, lying with the spear wound in his back; and Moses, the strong man of Israel, alone in death upon the dreary hills of Moab.

The line is endless, these Masters of other days. They were men above creed and clan, nobler than those distinctions with which we separate the common aspirations of humanity. They served not idols but ideals. Theologies grew up about them, yet each was greater than the order which he founded. From the same place they all came forth. The spirit of their doctrines was identical and each finally mingled his own smaller self with the common accomplishment. Among the great teachers of humanity there was neither superiority nor inferiority. There was simply difference; not difference of purpose but of method; not divergence of end but of way. Hand in hand they marched down the ages. Each revered the other, for all true greatness loves greatness, and only littleness hates. That same overshadowing consciousness that had made them truly great had revealed to them not only the brotherhood of all life but, more than this, the identity of all life.

As never before, the secret doctrines of the ancients intrigue the philosophically minded. The insufficient creeds and dogmas that survived the Renaissance are fast crumbling before the crushing force of rationalism, and men who were once of different faiths are now united in the common questing of a more reasonable code of living. Though the objects of his veneration may change, man remains essentially a religious animal. He may break away from the limitations and futilities of ecclesiastical schisms, but he cannot escape from the inherent urge to venerate his Creator. Ever surrounded by irrefutable evidence of an Abiding Destiny, the thinking man is powerless to resist that dominating impulse to propitiate in some appropriate manner the mysterious Spirit abiding in the Furthermost and the Innermost.

Throughout the first ages of humanity certain divinely instituted Mysteries were the intermediaries between man and his Maker. These august institutions were the custodians of a superior learning by which the human mind was inclined toward the way of truth and understanding. But as nations verged towards materialism and the peoples of the earth ceased to venerate the Sovereign Good, so these sacred schools gradually became corrupted. Those which through compromise escaped utter annihilation remained as perverse spirits to impede the very progress which they had once sponsored.

Politically we are disillusioned as to the divine right of temporal monarchs and ecclesiastically as to the apostolic succession of the spiritual elect. Thus disheartened by the sophistry of an unenlightened age, we turn from vagaries to renew our endless search for the substance of Truth. We would follow in the footsteps of those prophets of earlier days who, ascending the mountain tops of wisdom, beheld their Maker face to face in the midst of the lightnings and heard the deep rumble of his voice even above the far-flung echoes of the thunder. In his rocky cavern upon the slopes of Mount Hira, Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam, prayed that the pure religion of the first patriarchs might again be revealed to a humanity bowed down in sackcloth and ashes by the weight of numberless afflictions. The strong man of Arabia

stretched forth his arms into the darkness and pled with the night that the Wisdom which abides in Space might again come forth to lead men from idolatry back to the worship of that one God who is a Spirit and who must be served in Spirit and in Truth.

Too long have we wandered in the vale of shadows, grovelling before phantoms of our own creation and worshipping ghosts and specters; too long have we been afraid to lift our eyes to the radiant countenance of our Creator lest we be blinded by the awful light of Truth; too long have we prostrated ourselves abjectly at the feet of gilded men, bestowing upon mortals that homage reserved for the gods alone; too long has the shortness of our vision made gods of men and men of gods.

The darkest pages of history are those upon which are traced the record of men's faiths. In the great march of nations and beliefs, Death has ever ridden in the vanguard, loosing upon the earth the horrors described by Milton. Men have sung their "hymns of hate" and in their hearts they have tired of gory splendor. Enough of the God who marches with the arms of ambition and stands upon the battle-field surrounded by the bodies of the slain. A disillusioned humanity, weary of its own mistakes, turns again in despair to the mysterious emptiness about it, an emptiness which seems to be the abiding place of a mighty Spirit.

In all this panorama of confusion and error, Space alone seems capable of gentle comprehension. In extremities such as now confront us, the dark ages have returned. The lust? for power has seriously undermined? the foundations? of social and industrial security?. We are surrounded? by material forces? which threaten? to destroy? us, defying Reason and mocking? at Faith. It is only when the individual? realizes? that he himself? knows the Truth? that he can? rise? above the complications that beset? him.

The Testimony of the Galaxies

CHARLES J. RYAN

The Oxford University Press has just published a lecture by Sir James Jeans, "The Astronomical Horizon" in which the eminent astronomer briefly describes "the strange new world through which astronomers and mathematicians have been trying to grope their way during the last quarter-century," and explains some of the theories called forth by the new discoveries. He gives a fascinating account of the stages of advance in astronomy during the last 2200 years in the western world which have brought us to our present point of vantage, but we miss any reference to the accomplishments of the ancient Oriental philosopher-scientists whose "astronomical horizon" was immensely larger than that of the West until comparatively lately.

Sir James Jeans naturally associates the marked stages of advance passed through by western astronomy in the last few centuries with the improvements in mechanical skill and its application to invention. It is difficult to see how the ancients could have gained their astronomical knowledge without the aid of satisfactory instruments, but a study of the subject in the light of Theosophy shows that other means are available, within man himself, to obtain information. We should surely be greatly surprised if we knew the exact nature of the studies in "natural science" pursued in the ancient Mystery Schools. Even today in India, Brahman occult students possess means of obtaining scientific information which are not available to western scientists. The terrible Bihar earthquake of 1934 which killed countless thousands of people and did incalculable damage was foreseen and publicly announced in the Panchanga an ancient Hindu calendar and almanac at Benares more than a year before it happened, the correct time being given, January 15, 1934, in the afternoon. It took place in Allahabad at 2:41 p.m. and at various times in the afternoon in other places according to the differences in local time. Ceremonies for mitigating the worst effects had been held for weeks before the disaster.

But, in any case, the story of the development of western astronomy is fascinating and filled with dramatic incidents. We first hear definite information from Greece. Aristarchos of Samos (third century B.C.) made a bold attempt to measure the distances and sizes of the sun and moon, and, perhaps influenced by the Pythagorean teachings, concluded that the earth moved round the sun. Imagine the tremendous problem that faced him, and marvel that he achieved even a very limited measure of success. Try it out for yourself without a textbook handy! But many centuries passed in the West before his "utterly absurd" notions were proved to be only the first dim outline of the sublime truth. While the Moors in Spain and elsewhere did much detailed observation and kept the lamp of science burning, it was not till some daring ecclesiastics, defying conventions and risking their lives, such as Cardinal da Cusano (an initiate according to H. P. B. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society.), Canon Copernicus, Giordano Bruno, and Bishop Oresina, put aside the limited cosmology of Aristotle which shackled the human mind and hindered original research.

Then came a great advance and with the invention of the telescope and its application by brilliant minds such as Galileo and others, the planetary system became the object of study, opening a wide horizon to the mind. In the latter end of the eighteenth century the first serious work was begun on the distant stars and about a hundred years ago the distances of a few stars were measured and an immensely wider field of research opened out. Then came the almost magical instrument, the spectroscope, bringing the first revelations of the nature of the stars, their sizes and classification. Today, with our enormous telescopes, greatly improved spectroscopes, and modern photographic methods, the vast reaches of space accessible have already provided a wealth of material from which the "geographical" pattern of the universe is beginning to be revealed. The most serious difficulty against a complete understanding has been the vast quantity of obscuring cosmic "fog" which blocks out the most distant stars in many regions of space.

*The Astronomical Horizon. The P. M. Deneke Lecture, 1944, by Sir J. Jeans. Oxford University Press, 2s. 6d. pp. 23.
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Egyptian, Thrice Deepest Darkness.
Kabbalistic, 3 modes of Ain Soph the Infinite or Boundless
Oriental, 3 hypostases of Atman the Supreme Self

A complex circular diagram titled "The Ladder of Souls." It features a central rose within a heart, surrounded by concentric rings containing various symbols: zodiac signs, planetary symbols, and Hebrew/mystical lettering. The diagram is framed by an ornate border with floral motifs and four corner illustrations of figures, possibly saints or philosophers, in study.

The Ladder of Souls

was made in imitation of the world might be governed by an essence similarly divine."

Above the seven planetary spheres forming the ladder of the world stretches what the Hermetics called the firmament of the fixed stars. In their esoteric instructions, the Egyptians distinguished three conditions or aspects of this empyrean, which together they referred to as the "Thrice Deep Darkness." The highest division was the Ocean of Eternity, which diffused itself throughout all space and through which were scattered innumerable masses of ungerminated stars. This was the Schamayim the fiery-water of heaven of the Cabalists. The middle division was the Milky Way, the seed-ground of souls; and the last division was composed of the fixed stars, which were 1,122 in number and symbolized by the Syrian mystics as a circle of cherubim filled with eyes. These three departments of the empyrean are equivalent to the three divisions of AIN SOPH the Boundless in the Cabala and the three hypostases of Atman the Universal Spirit in Oriental metaphysics. It is from this threefold firmament that the three divine constituents of the soul are derived. The lowest circle of the firmament formed the wall of heaven, known to the Greeks as Mount Olympus and to the Hindus as Mount Meru. When in the exoteric classification of Ptolemy the mundane sphere is divided into seven concentric circles, which are regarded as the orbits of the planets, the empyrean the highest heaven is not included, inasmuch as it is in no way a part of the inferior world, being the abode of principles and not of vehicles. Paracelsus terms it the spirit of the world to distinguish it from the seven planetary rings which are the soul of the world and the four elemental substances which are the body of the world.

Enclosed within the firmament as a fruit within its rind are the concentric orbits of the planets, which the