Theos-Talk Archives (February 2002 Message tt00804)

Jerry: "My research has found 7 elements used only in Theosophy. Your 
above last sentence indicates an 8th as a unifying source. I haven't 
found that idea anywhere either."

The 8 system originates with the ancient Indian alchemical tradition

where there are the different stages or forms of mercury named: 
murcchita, mrtasuta, jalukabandha, muttibandha, 
pattabandha,bhasmasuta, khota bandha, and finally is purified to
arota wich is Brahma , the unifying principle.

There is also the eight chaka system, with the eight, unifying
chakra, above the head. 

The seven system of Blavatsky is not oriental it's decidedly
Western , and it was used in western occult sources, including in the 
USA years before Blavatsky. She used that system and placed everything 
else she could get a hold of in there.

You might know that in the orient besides the 4 chakra system of the 
Buddhists, and the 8 chakra system I just mention, there were also 
systems of nine, twelve, and twenty-seven chakras. See : "The
System of Cakras According to Goraksanatha", in Gopinath Kaviral,
Aspects of Indian Thought, Calcutta: University of Burdwan, 1966, p. 
229-37.


The Aether that later showed up in Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine is what 
early western (hermetic) alchemists called the Quintessence which to 
them was the fifth element, a power or essence that bound in a unity 
the otherwise separate four elements and is nor related to the Buddhist 
Skandas. 

Quintessence was synonymous with elixir, mercury of the Philosophers 
Stoneand etheric. The Quintessence was said to be semi-material and 
visible to certain persons. The four elements, the fifth named 
Quintessence and two other unnamed elements formed the Seven 
Cosmical Elements.(Or seven Planets) 

Akasha or Akasa was used in occultism and theosophy as an equivalent 
of the ancient term "aether. The word is the Sanskrit term for "all 
pervasive space." Akasha is also called Soniferous Ether. 
Theosophical doctrine links it to Quintessence. Accordmg to 
Blavatsky, the Akasha forms the anima mundi, the soul of the world. 
Through it, divine thought was allowed to manifest in matter. The 
anima mundi constitutes the soul and spirit of mankind. It produces 
mesmeric, magnetic operations of nature." Blavatsky introduced the 
concept of Akasha in the early 19th century and connected it to 
the other notions of the universal life force, such as the Sidereal 
Light of the Rosicrucians, Levi's Astral Light and the Odic Force of 
Von Reichenbach. 

Astral Light is held by the occultists as a manifestation of the Aether, 
which is not to be confused with the ether of the modem physicists. 
Aether however can be linked to the Etheric of the occultists. Etheric 
was to them the force or energy that gives life within our cosmos. The 
influence of the etheric forces on inert matter creates the diversities of 
natural phenomena.

While the term ether crops up in Keely's phraseology around the time 
that it was widely researched to do so, Bloomfield-Moore (friend of 
Blavatsky) admitted that it was from a particular book that both she and 
Keely discovered that "it was the ether that he had imprisoned, and for 
years after he confined his attention to efforts to keep the ether in an 
engine, supposing the ether itself to be the energy induced.


Bri. 
--- In theos-talk@y..., "Gerald Schueler" <gschueler@e...> wrote:
> <<<Quintessence was synonymous with elixir, mercury of the 
Philosophers and etheric. The Quintessence was said to be semi-
material and visible to certain persons. The four elements, the fifth 
mmed 
> Quintessence and two other unnamed elements formed the Seven 
Cosmical Elements. These were held as conditional modifications and 
aspects of one ciement, the source of Akasha itself.>>>
> 
> Brigitte, do you have any references for the notion of "two other 
unnamed elements" to make 7? The reason I ask is that I have never 
found any such reference. Dee and Levi and others I am familiar with
all 
worked with 5 elements. Also, the female consorts of the Dhyani 
Buddhas of Tibetan Buddhism represent 5 elements (the Dhyani Buddhas 
themselves represent the 5 skandhas after purification). 5, not 7. My 
research has found 7 elements used only in Theosophy. Your above last 
sentence indicates an 8th as a unifying source. I haven't found that
idea 
anywhere either.
> 
> Jerry S.
> --