9--THE LIGHT ETHER AND THE SUN

In our chapter on the Life Ether we learned something about what Max Heindel designated "the colorless solar ether" and "solar fluid," and we noted that this solar fluid was visible to etheric sight under several varying states or conditions: as a kind of "rain" of cosmic force it rushes in through the etheric spleen, and turns a rose color in the solar plexus. We noted further that this solar fluid was magnetic, and was felt as such by the etheric senses, and that although it is called a "solar" ether it is studied in connection with the Life Ether rather than with the Light Ether, because the Life Ether is the particular avenue through which it is specialized. As magnetism it belongs to the "dark" spectrum which exists below and above the normal range of light visible to the human eye. In cold-blooded creatures and in the plant kingdom, the solar ether seems "colorless" and "cold" as viewed by the etheric senses. We can draw a parallel with this condition if we take in our hands an ordinary iron magnet. This magnet will have a north and a south pole, or positive and negative, and will pick up iron filings; yet ordinarily we can neither see light nor feel any sort of sensation emanating from the magnet. The iron is cold and dark, despite its magnetic field which is so easily demonstrated.

Only when the Light Ether is acting in conjunction with the Life Ether do we have the appearance of biological magnetism and the life-fire of warm- blooded creatures. The colors associated with the activities of the Life Ether, we observed, were those from ultraviolet to infra-red, and other rays not yet familiar to the lay public. Perception of these forces and colors, however, is something else again.

When the occult student begins his study of the Light Ether, he enters into the range of light, heat, and color of the normal senses, because the so- called "five senses" are the gift of forces working through the negative pole of this ether.

We may say further, however, that the Light Ether is the stronghold of the brain-mind, because it is the seat of all SENSORY PERCEPTION, both within, below, and above the normal range of the sense organs. Extra-sensory perception belongs to this Ether in its higher reaches where it impinges upon and interacts with the Reflecting Ether.

The forces working along the negative pole of the Light Ether are the ones that vitalize, and in the beginning create, the SENSE organs, especially the eye, giving them the power to respond to and recognize differences in rates of vibration, and to classify these vibrations according to the effects they produce in Ego-awareness. The nervous system is its special field of activity. We know, of course, that the nerves are in reality part of the sensory- mechanism of the brain, which is made of the same "gray matter" as the nerves, and the new biology knows that electrical impulses travel through brain and nerves.

Vibrations ranging from 16 to 32 thousand per second the Ego recognizes as sound. These are vibrations in the air, but there is a super-sound (supersonic vibration) which is also audible to etheric senses. Another range of vibrations the Ego recognizes as feelings (heat and cold, soft and hard, etc.); another as seeing, another as smelling, another as tasting, and so on. All of which are simply varying rates of vibration recognized by the Ego, the speed of which produces the different sensations as allocated to the five senses or kinds of receptors. There are also organs of internal reception: receptors which report to the Ego such things as weight (the weight sense), heat (the heat sense), balance or equilibrium (the balance sense), the relationship of parts of the body to each other (the proprioceptor sense-- essentially a muscle sense); while a "nearness sense," such as blind people develop, gives the sensation of something near which cannot be seen or felt-- an object which is being approached, or an invisible presence--at which point the "nearness sense" tapes off into the extra-sensory range of perception.

All of these sensory perceptions are properties of the negative pole of the Light Ether as known to occult science. It is of special interest to the esotericist to note that the "heat sense" has finally been located by modern science in a special set of nerves centered in the spinal cord itself, which send out long filaments (nerves) to patches of skin, chiefly around the middle of the body. (Buttocks and back are most sensitive to temperature.) (READER'S DIGEST September, 1963, MYSTERIES OF OUR SIXTH SENSES.)

The heat control center of the body has been generally assigned to the brain area of the cerebellum or to the medulla oblongata, where occultists say that the Flame of Life burns.

It is this negative pole of the Light Ether which acts with the Life Ether in the production of living creatures with a full range of sensory perception, or physical and etheric consciousness. The thalamus, a tiny organ in about the center of the head, and in front of the pineal gland, is thought to be the original or primitive brain, in which the primordial instincts reside; while the great mass of the brain is the seat of sensory consciousness or awareness. (The pituitary body is lower down and farther forward than the thalamus.) Perhaps these are the seats of the subconscious and conscious minds, as defined by modern analytical psychology. The so-called "sub-conscious" mind of modern psychology actually includes what the occult scientists term the "super-conscious" mind, and the forces operative in the Reflecting Ether.

Why is the range of the Light Ether defined in terms of the solar spectrum? Because all human senses have evolved in a system dominated by our Sun, the majority of whose rays are in this particular range, from infrared to ultraviolet. Science had nothing to tell the occultists, until quite recently, about the activities of the negative and positive poles of the Light Ether. What the occultist saw with extended vision could not be explained in terms of academic physics. The situation has changed. A correlation is now possible, and also an explanation, for which Planck's Quantum Theory is responsible. According to this theory the basic unit of radiation is the Quantum--a packet of energy, called a "photon"--which is created continuously in free space by the collisions of positrons and electrons, and are also released from the interior of atoms when electronic changes occur. No law has yet been discovered to show just how or when these sparks of energy are created or liable to be created. There is an "uncertainty principle" in physics.

"Radiation is composed of individual units, known as quanta. When there are enough of them these quanta arrange themselves in wave patterns. Each pattern possesses a wave-length." (Hoyle) Thus light is both "particles" (in the sense of quanta, or energy packets) and waves. Both are visible as such to the etheric sight. We will understand this better if we think of a few drops of water, which do not form a wave; but when there are millions of drops of water, then a wave becomes possible, given right conditions. But we note also that EACH unit ("PHOTON") IS AT THE SAME TIME BOTH PARTICLE AND WAVE.

"It is worth noting," says Hoyle, "that the shorter the wave-length, the more energetic the individual quanta (photons) become. it is because of this that gamma-rays, X-rays, and even ultraviolet light are so destructive of animal tissue, and why radio waves are so harmless."

He continues: "A further interesting point is that of the vast range of wave-lengths from radio waves to gamma rays, only the narrow band from four hundred-thousandths to eight hundred-thousandths (of a centimeter) can be detected by the human senses." And he explains: "This....is not an accident, however, because this is just the range in which most of the Sun's radiation is emitted. It is true that the Sun does emit some ultraviolet and even some X-rays, but the earth's atmosphere absorbs such destructive radiation quite strongly, thereby preventing it from reaching the ground. Consequently there has never been an opportunity for creatures on the Earth to develop senses receptive to these wavelengths." (FRONTIERS OF ASTRONOMY, Hoyle) However, occultists, can and do develop senses receptive to these and other wave- lengths, by means of forces operative in the negative pole of the Light Ether; although it is the scientific aspect of light itself that is most easily observed by the budding occult scientist. All sensory perception belongs to the negative, or passive, aspect of the Light Ether.

Hoyle goes on to say that more infrared rays than other rays do reach the ground, due to droplets of water in the air (not vapor) which absorb more visible light than infrared; but infrared does not affect the human eye. "Clearly it would be a great advantage to possess eyes that were sensitive to infrared, as indeed I suspect that birds may. This would go far toward explaining the amazing sight that birds seem to possess."

Astronomers say that our Sun is a "yellow" or "orange" star, one of the class known as "Orange" or "Yellow Dwarfs," among the most unstable of stars. Sunlight is therefore not really "white," but tinged with yellow or gold; and the Light Ether is also described by the scientist as golden or yellow, although like sunlight again, it does possess a complete band of colors, visible to ordinary eyesight as color or as light, but visible to etheric sight as vibration and sparkling points of energy.

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