In her book
A Treatise on Cosmic Fire Alice
Bailey wrote:
« These major seven planes of
our solar system being but the seven subplanes of the cosmic physical plane, we
can consequently see the reason for the emphasis laid by H. P. B.* upon the
fact that matter and ether are synonymous terms and that this ether is found in
some form or other on all the planes, and is but a gradation of cosmic atomic
matter, called when undifferentiated mulaprakriti or primordial pre-genetic
substance, and when differentiated by Fohat (or the energising Life, the third Logos or
Brahma) it is termed prakriti, or matter.
* See: SD I,
p.153; SD II, p.43; SD I, p.50, call 8; SD I, p.112, 152-153; SD II,
p.359-360. »
(1-C-3-2)
Here Alice
Bailey makes numerous references to The Secret Doctrine to make her readers
believe that Theosophy confirms her assertion that "matter and ether are
synonymous terms" but that is completely false.
If you go to
those references you will see that is not said there this asseveration, nor in
any other part of the Secret Doctrine.
Nor does
Blavatsky say so because Blavatsky defined the ether as follows:
« Students are but too apt to confuse this with Akâsa and with Astral
Light. It
is neither, in the sense in which ether is described by physical Science. Ether is a material agent, though hitherto undetected by any physical
apparatus; whereas Akâsa is a distinctly spiritual agent, identical, in one
sense, with the Anima Mundi, while the Astral Light is only the seventh and
highest principle of the terrestrial atmosphere, as undetectable as Akâsa and
real Ether, because it is something quite on another plane. »
(Theosophical
Glossary)
And in the
instructions that Blavatsky gave to her students of the Esoteric Section, she
showed the following classification:
STATES
OF THE MATTER
|
ELEMENT
WITH IT IS ASSOCIATED
|
TATTVAS
(IN SANSKRIT)
|
still unknown
in Occident
|
primordial or supreme matter (aether)
|
adi
|
still unknown
in Occident
|
self-existing
matter,
«parentless»
|
anupadaka or
aupapaduka
|
ethereal
|
ether
|
akasha or alaya
|
incandescent
|
fire
|
taijasa or tejas
|
gaseous
|
air
|
vayu
|
liquid
|
water
|
apas
|
solid
|
earth
|
prithivi
|
We see
therefore that Blavatsky defines the ether as the fourth state of physical
matter, which is very different from what Alice Bailey wrote.
CONCLUSION
This is one more example of how Alice Bailey pretends
to rely on what Blavatsky taught to appear to lend credibility to her teaching,
but in reality Alice Bailey is saying things that are very different and often
wrong from what Theosophy teaches.