by Hilton Hotema

From the dawn of man there seems to have been a firm belief in the existence of a world that cannot be reached nor recognized by the physical senses and faculties.

No tribe of people has been too low in the scale of intelligence to entertain such a belief; and no race of men has been too high in the development of intelligence to reject it.

This fact constrains scholars to believe that such a word must exist; for they contend that man cannot even conceive of anything that is not nor cannot be.

It is a self-evident truth that any conviction which sways the entire human race, regardless of rank or quality, is inherent. It could not be otherwise. There is a universal conviction that man, in the case of somatic dissolution, continues to live spiritually. Then that is one self-evident truth.

This conviction inheres in the Soul and rises from Spiritual Intuition. There is not one instance of record that spiritual Intuition has ever borne false testimony. Nor has it ever deceived or misled any creature. It is also a fact of observation that the lower in the scale of individual intelligence is the creature, the more potent and vital is the intuition that guides it.

It is a paradox that the cosmic guiding power appears to be stronger in the more natural and less educated people. What is termed “education” appears to lead people from the natural to the artificial.

Early man appears to have lived a natural life, and was taught by Spiritual Intuition that somatic death is not the end of him. This theory is being confirmed by the best scientific analysis of known facts.

Modern man has searched for the Spiritual World up in the cold spaces intervening in the sky. He has been taught by the church that up there is the Kingdom of Heaven, where God sits on his throne and the gospel Jesus sits on his right hand. Also, that man must be “born of water and of the spirit” before he can enter into that Kingdom (Jn. 3:5).

From the records that Romanism has permitted to reach the people, it appears that man has been unable to discover the kingdom of Immortal Souls, and that has led him to doubt that there is such a realm, or anything more than that he sees on the physical plane. The result of this is that people are rapidly losing faith in the church, and are leaving it annually by the thousands.

Physical science has made certain important discoveries, to-wit:

1. All matter is reducible to vibratory force.
2. Every particle of matter is in a state of constant vibration.
3. Coarse particles vibrate much more slowly than fine ones.

All visible matter is in a certain stage of refinement and is vibrating at a corresponding rate of degree, as it is termed.

The visible world is composed of substance, and this substance may be reduced to an invisible state.

The spiritual part of man is as truly substance as is the physical part, in which the spiritual dwells. Both are substance, and both are in a state of vibration.

The physical portion is visible because of its slower vibratory rate. The spiritual portion is invisible because of its faster vibratory rate. This is the conclusion of science.

If it be admitted that the physical and spiritual worlds are composed of substance, the question arises, ‘Wherein lies the difference?’

The one belongs to the realm of purely physical things, and is designated by the very appropriate term physical substance.

The other belongs to the realm of purely spiritual things, and is designated by the equally fitting term spiritual substance.

For a similar reason, we designate that which belongs to the mineral kingdom as mineral, and that which belongs to the vegetable kingdom as vegetable.

According to occult science, the difference between physical substance and spiritual substance lies in the rate of vibration.

If we examine a rock we can discover no vibratory movement. The vibratory motion of the atom in the rock is at such a low rate it is not perceptible to the physical sense of sight, and the rock appears to be a solid, immovable, impenetrable mass of dead matter.

If we examine growing wood in a tree, we are unable to observe any movement among the atoms of which the wood is composed. But if we use a powerful magnifying glass we will be able to detect a slight vibratory motion among the cells of wood.

While the rate of this vibratory motion is much greater then that in the case of the rock, it is still too slow to affect the physical sense of vision. So the wood, like the rock, appears to the naked eye as a solid, dead mass.

To save time and space, we shall pass over the several intermediate substances, such as animal flesh, gelatin, etc., and examine a drop of water. Here the vibratory motion of the atom in the compound is at a rate many times greater than in either rock or wood.

The molecules of which water is composed move with much facility and rapidity, one upon another, that to a certain extent they elude the physical sense of sight, and the result is that water is transparent to the naked eye.

When we come to the gases, the vibratory motion of the atom in the compound is at a rate so much higher, that the physical sense of vision is entirely eluded.

Gas is substance that is invisible only because the atoms of which it is composed vibrate so fast that the physical sense of sight is unable to follow them.

When a gun is discharged, we are unable to see the bullet speeding on its way, because the rate of movement is so rapid that the physical sense of sight cannot follow it. It simply eludes the eye.

When a carriage wheel is at rest, we can see every spoke clearly. But place the wheel on a spindle and set it to revolving rapidly, and the faster the rate the less distinctly will we be able to see the spokes, until the spokes finally disappear as the rate of revolution increases.

The physical scientist, or physicist, using only physical means, is limited in his investigation and demonstration to the world of visible substance, and is forced to say: I can go no further; the instruments at my command are not fine enough, nor sufficiently subtle, to test the properties and qualities of that which lies beyond. It eludes the methods of physical science and all the means at my command.

That is not all. The ethics of physical science forbids scientists to explore the spiritual world under that definition. Physical science has gone on record as declaring that there is no spiritual world, and that ends and closes the question.

The Master, the spiritual scientist, now takes up the thread, and follows it forward past the borderline of physics into the realm of Psychics.

In the Master’s ability thus to view the subject of both worlds, or the two aspects of One World, his great advantage is inconceivable to one whose sense of vision and investigation is limited to the world of purely physical things.

At the borderline between the two aspects of substance, the Master sees every law of physical substance joined to its correlative law of spiritual substance.

The chain of cosmic law is thus continuous and unbroken. It runs from the visible aspect of the Cosmos directly on to the invisible aspect without interruption.

In this splendid continuity, the Master recognizes the majesty, the power and the glory in the Universality of Law.

Part II

We have noticed briefly the Law of Vibration and the infinity of substance.

We learn that man has a natural or physical body, and in all ages the poets have sung of the spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:44). These bodies, two in one, are controlled, directed and operated by the Divine Entity, the Intelligent Ego.

This is another example of the Eternal Trinity, met with on every plane of existence.

Adopting this basic premise as our working principle, we proceed to consider the purely rational and scientific means and methods of the Masters.

The law we evoke to carry out our demonstration is the Law of Vibration—that Cosmic Law which refines substance and intensifies its action.

The infinite particles of which the body is composed, are collected, collated, correlated, condensed and consolidated into flesh, then move at a correspondingly low rate of vibratory action.

The body is provided with physical sensory organs through which the Spiritual Man contacts his physical environment. The power pack of these organs is actually spiritual, proven by the fact that the eye of an unconscious man sees nothing.

These organs are not adapted to the rapid vibrations of spiritual substance, nor to all vibrations of physical substance. Their combined powers embrace only a limited range of vibration.

This limited range includes only the vibrations of physical substance which lies and exists upon the same plane of refinement and vibratory action as the physical body itself.

Furthermore, our language has been developed to correspond with that degree of refinement and vibratory action. That is the reason why it is so difficult to describe things spiritual in words of a language evolved to describe only the physical.

By the aid of our physical sensory organs, we become cognizant of different external physical objects, elements and conditions. Beyond this, we know nothing of the universe, the major part of which must remain unknown to us; and our recognition of that concerning which we have conscious knowledge, constitutes what we term physical sensation, which is really a spiritual function.

Each one of the physical organs of sensation receives and registers a different range of vibrations. The whole surface of the physical body is supplied with sensory nerves, so as to be and become a medium of vibrations.

The general sense of touch is experienced when any portion of the physical body contacts physical substance that is composed of the coarser particles moving at the lower rates of vibrations.

The general sense of touch is experienced when any portion of the physical body contacts physical substance that is composed of the coarser particles moving at the lower rates of vibrations.

The physical eye is a highly specialized organ of physical sensation. When the eye is brought in contact with rays of physical light, which rays are only fine particles of physical substance moving at a high rate of vibration, we experience the sensation of sight.

As with the eye, so with the ear. When the physical organs of hearing are touched by physical atmosphere moving at certain rates of vibration, the person hears physical sounds.

As with the ear, so with the special physical organs of smell and taste. Both of these organs represent still other and different rates of vibration that obtain in external substance.

Every physical organ of sensation is an organ of touch or contact. The general sense of touch that obtains upon the entire surface of the physical body differs from physical sight only in degree. The one registers the slow vibrations of coarse material particles, while the other registers the rapid vibrations of finer material particles.

Through the operations of these several physical organs, each registering a different range of vibration, the Intelligent Ego comes into conscious relations with a wide range of vibratory activity of physical substance.

The physical sensory organs and the physical brain are constituted and adapted to receive and register only the vibrations of what we term physical substance. They are adapted to receive only a limited range of physical vibrations. This fact is proven by physical science.

For example, the animalculae that swarm upon the earth, in air, water, and in all living bodies, are intangible and invisible to the physical sensory organs. They affect neither the sense of touch nor of hearing, taste, smell nor sight. Except for the microscope, physical science would declare that a belief in anmialculae were superstition.

X-ray makes no impression upon the highest physical organ of sensation. But the x-ray is a vibration of physical substance.

When we realize the marked limitations of the physical senses in a physical world, it is easy to understand why these organs fail to report the vibrations upon a higher plane of Existence. They do that only which they are made to do, and then they deceive us to a great extent.

It is now comparatively easy to understand how the vibrations of the infinitely finer grades of substance must entirely elude these physical organs, which are made and intended for physical vibrations only.

It is also comparatively easy to understand that a physically embodied man, by the aid of his physical sensory organs alone, cannot in any manner “sense” the presence of a disembodied spiritual man.

The spiritual man is in being as truly as is the physical man, and yet he is neither physically tangible nor visible to the physical sensory organs.

As with all substance invisible to the physical sensory organs alone, the vibratory action of the spiritual man cannot be detected by the physical sensory organs any more than can the vibratory action of electricity.

These facts of Existence, demonstrable to Spiritual Science, are already foreshadowed by modern physical science.

The claims of the older schools are substantiated by a series of lessons in science, as written by Elisha Gray. Speaking of the physical sensory organs of sound and sight, this scientific authority says:

“While vibration ceases to affect our senses at 40,000 beats per second, as sound, we find ourselves conscious again of periodic motion when it reaches 398 trillion times per second. Then we hear with our eyes and see with our ears, whichever you choose. The sensation in all cases is the effect of motion.

“The eye is the more perfectly developed, yet it is capable of only comparatively crude photography.

“The red ray comes to the eye with the lowest number of vibrations—four thousand billion.

“The eye cannot record anything with a less number of vibrations a second. The highest color is violet, with 764 trillion vibrations beyond which the eye cannot vibrate in sympathy with color.

“There are colors we cannot see. The Universe is filled with things that are invisible to the human eye and unknown to us.

“In the same way there are things that we cannot feel, and odors that we cannot smell, and flavors that we cannot taste.

“For all we know, this world in which we live may also be the home of another race of beings, who pursue their course unknown to us, and perhaps we to them.

“It is the work of science to come to the aid of man’s limited organism, and to lift a little the Veil of Mysteries.”

Things spiritual cannot be described in our language of the physical world. For words are deduced from things physical, hence words cannot fully express things spiritual, the significance, the bearings, the profundity of which transcend all that human thought can imagine and human skill can paint.

Excerpt from Mystery of Man