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174
THE POWER OF KARMA
sub-celestial bodies," writes the author of "A Tract of Great Price concerning the Philosophical Stone" ("The Hermetic Museum"), "consist of Matter and Form. Now the first Matter having nothing contrary to it, cannot by the force of Nature be destroyed; and being created immediately by God, it cannot be abolished by any inferior agent. And as for the forms of natural bodies, no sooner doth any one abandon the matter it informed, but another instantly steps into the place thereof so that no proportion of the matter is, or at any time can be, altogether void and empty." From this passage it is obvious that the indestructability of matter was known to the alchemist of the seventeenth century. The art of alchemy consisted in carrying Nature to a higher perfection than she herself attains, by means of a regenerative agent which they called the Philosopher's Stone. The philosopher Kant came to the decision that no knowledge that does not refer to phenomena can be acquired except by revelation through inspiration. It has been proved that in deep trance access to knowledge not available to one in waking consciousness is possible. It has been also proved in the séance-room that matter of a kind unfamiliar to the majority of men is seen and handled. From what we know of the
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