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[This illumination followed upon a meditation on the following passage from G. H. Lewes: "The evolution of organisms, like the evolution of crystals, or of islands and continents, is determined, first, by laws inherent in the substance evolved; secondly, by relations to the medium in which the evolution takes place."]
THERE is a law inherent in the primordial substance of all matter which obliges all things to evolve after the same mode and manner. The worlds in the infinite abyss of heaven are in all respects similar to the cells in vegetable or animal
tissue. Their evolution is similar, their distribution similar, and their mutual relations are similar. Wherefore, by the study of the natural sciences, the truth may be learnt, not only in regard to these, but in regard also to the occult sciences; for the facts of the first are as a mirror to the facts of the last. And just what the spiritual Ego is to the physical man, is God to the manifest universe,--its spirit, dwelling in and pervading it; no more, no less.
And as for the souls of the planets, let us enquire awhile what, as an individual, thou art. Thy soul is constituted of the agglomerate essences of all the individual consciousnesses composing thy system. It has, then, grown,--evolving gradually from rudimentary entities, themselves evolved by polarisation from mineral and gaseous matter. And these entities combine and coalesce to form higher entities, the combined forces of their manifold consciousnesses polarising and centralising so as to form the human soul. In the same way, the souls of the planets are formed by the agglomeration and combination of the myriad souls composing them, these souls ranging from the mineral to the human group, and thus composing the four principles of each planet's kingdom. Each planetary God is, therefore, not a supernatural, extraneous personage, but is the sum total of the souls composing the planet. His physical body is the visible planet and its phenomena. His astral body and mind are the plant and animal intelligences. His soul is man's superior reason; and his spirit is divine, being the Nous of the man. And as when we speak of the planet-god, we specially mean that Nous, it is said with truth that our divine part is no other than the planet-god, in our case Dio-Nysos, the god of the emerald.
And again, such as are all creatures composing the planet to the planet, such also are the planets to the universe, and, in consequence, such are the Gods to GOD.
The primordial God is the sum total of all the Gods. The Spirit of God is the agglomerate essences of all the deities. To pray to God is to address all the Celestial Host, and, by inclusion, all the spirits of just men.
But the Gods are not limited in number. For human convenience they are called seven, or twelve, or twenty-four, or seventy; but these are names of orders only. Beyond number are the orbs in infinite space, and each of these is a God. Phoibos is legion, so also is Hermes, so also Aphrodite, so also Dionysos, so also Ares, Zeus, Hera, Kronos, and the rest. Phoibos is the
spirit of all the suns; Poseidon, of all the seas; and each divinity has his quality, corresponding to the conditions of the elements which compose his kingdom.
To every planet belongs a different spectrum, and the physical is the measure of the spiritual. And every physical world of causes has its spiritual world of effects.
Now, the world of causes is the material and the astral, and the world of effects is the psychic. Therefore it may be said that the soul is the effect of the body, for organism is before function, and the mineral before man. And yet it is true that organism is the effect of idea, and that mind is the cause of evolution. So that spirit is before matter in its abstract, but not in its concrete conception. All things are begotten by fission or section in a universal blastoderm or protoplast, and the power which causes this generation is centrifugal.
99:1 Paris, December 6, 1882. Having previously studied materialistic science in Paris, Mrs Kingsford returned thither to study materialistic philosophy, when this and the following Illuminations, to No. XLVII inclusive, were received by her in elucidation of the subjects studied, and in correction of the doctrine enunciated by her professor. The Illuminations were received chiefly in sleep. E. M.
Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford, vol. ii, pp. 96-97.