Thomas Troward - The Law and the Word

when the music stops is found to settle into definite forms, sometimes

like a tree or a flower, or else some geometrical figure, but never a

confused jumble. Perhaps in this we may find the origin of the legends

regarding the creative power of Orpheus' lyre, and also the sacred

dances of the ancients--who knows!

Perhaps some critical reader may object that sound travels by means of

atmospheric and not etheric waves; but is he prepared to say that it

cannot produce etheric waves also. The very recent discovery of

transatlantic telephoning tends to show that etheric waves can be

generated by sound, for on the 20th of October, 1915, words spoken in

New York were immediately heard in Paris, and could therefore only have

been transmitted through the ether, for sound travels through the

atmosphere only at the rate of about 750 miles an hour, while the speed

of impulses through ether can only be compared to that of light or

186,000 miles in a second. It is therefore a fair inference that etheric

vibrations can be inaugurated by sound.

Perhaps the reader may feel inclined to say with the Irishman that all

this is "as dry as ditch-water," but he will see before long that it has

a good deal to do with ourselves. For the present what I want him to

realize by a few examples is the mathematical accuracy of Law. The value

of these examples lies in their illustration of the fact that the Law

can always be trusted to lead us on to further knowledge. We see it

working under known conditions, and relying on its unchangeableness, we

can then logically infer what it will do under other hypothetical

conditions, and in this way many important discoveries have been made.

For instance it was in this way that Mendeléef, the Russian chemist,

assumed the existence of three then unknown chemical elements, now

called Scandium, Gallium and Germanium. There was a gap in the orderly

sequence of the chemical elements, and relying on the old maxim--"Natura

nihil facit per saltum"--Nature nowhere leaves a gap to jump over--he

argued that if such elements did not exist they ought to, and so he

calculated what these elements ought to be like, giving their atomic

weight, chemical affinities, and the like; and when they were discovered

many years later they were found to answer exactly to his description.

He prophesied, not by guesswork, but by knowledge of the Law; and in

much the same way radium was discovered by Professor and Madame Curie.

In like manner Hertz was led to the discovery of the electro-magnetic

waves. The celebrated mathematician Clerk-Maxwell had calculated all

particulars of these waves twenty-five years before Hertz, on the basis

of these calculations, worked out his discovery. Again, Neptune, the

outermost known planet of our system was discovered by the astronomer

Galle in consequence of calculations made by Leverrier. Certain

variations in the movements of the planets were mathematically

unaccountable except on the hypothesis that some more remote planet

existed. Astronomers had faith in mathematics and the hypothetical

planet was found to be a reality. Instances of this kind might be

multiplied, but as the French say "à quoi bon?" I think these will be

sufficient to convince the reader that the invariable sequence of Law is

a factor to be relied upon, and that by studying its working under known

conditions we may get at least some measure of light on conditions which

are as yet unknown to us.

Let us now pass on to the human subject and consider a few examples of

what is usually called the psychic side of our nature. Walt Whitman was

quite right when he said that we are not all included between our hat

and our boots; we shall find that our modes of consciousness and powers

of action are not entirely restricted to our physical body. The

importance of this line of enquiry lies in the fact that if we do

possess extra-physical powers, these also form part of our personality

and must be included in our estimate of our relation to our environment,

and it is therefore worth our while to consider them.

Some very interesting experiments have been made by De Rochas, an

eminent French scientist, which go to show that under certain magnetic

conditions the sensation of physical touch can be experienced at some

distance from the body. He found that under these conditions the person

experimented on is insensible to the prick of a needle run into his

skin, but if the prick is made about an inch-and-a-half away from the

surface of the skin he feels it. Again at about three inches from this

point he feels the prick of the needle, but is insensible to it in the

space between these two points. Then there comes another interval in

which no sensation is conveyed, but at about three inches still further

away he again feels the sensation, and so on; so that he appears to be

surrounded by successive zones of sensation, the first about an

inch-and-a-half from the body, and the others at intervals of about

three inches each. The number of these zones seems to vary in different

cases, but in some there are as many as six or seven, thus giving a

radius of sensation, extending to more than twenty inches beyond the

body.

Now to explain this we must have recourse to what I have already said

about waves. The heart and the lungs are the two centres of automatic

rhythmic movement in the body, and each projects its own series of

vibrations into the etheric envelope. Those projected by the lungs are

estimated to be three times the length of those projected by the heart,

while those projected by the heart are three times as rapid as those

projected by the lungs. Consequently if the two sets of waves start

together the crest of every third wave of the rapid series of short

waves will coincide with the crest of one of the long waves of the

slower series, while the intermediate short waves will coincide with the

depression of one of the long waves. Now the effect of the crest of one

wave overtaking that of another going in the same direction, is to raise

the two together at that point into a single wave of greater amplitude

or height than the original waves had by themselves; if the reader has

the opportunity of studying the inflowing of waves on the seabeach he

can verify this for himself. Consequently when the more rapid etheric

waves overtake the slower ones they combine to form a larger wave, and

it is at these points that the zones of sensation occur. If the reader

will draw a diagram of two waved lines travelling along the same

horizontal line and so proportioned that the crest of each of the large

waves coincides with the crest of every third wave of the small ones, he

will see what I mean: and if he then recollects that the fall in the

larger waves neutralizes the rise in the smaller ones, and that because

this double series starts from the interior of the body the surface of

the body comes just at one of these neutralized points, he will see why

sensation is neutralized there; and he will also see why the succeeding

zones of sensation are double the distance from each other that the

first one is from the surface of the body; it is simply because the

surface of the body cuts the first long wave exactly in the middle, and

therefore only half that wave occurs outside the body. This is the

explanation given by De Rochas, and it affords another example of that

principle of mathematical sequence of which I have spoken. It would