CHAPTER XXV

THr Frssunrs ru rsr Gr.rer Well

Ifowrvrn far the " solidiGcation " of the sensible worldmay have gone, it can never be carried so far as to turnthe world into a " closed system " such as is imaginedby the materialists. The very nature ofthings sets limitsto " solidification ", and the more nearly those limits areapproached the more unstable is the corresponding stateof affairs; in actual fac! as we have seen, th€ pointcorresponding to a maximum of " solidification " hasalready been passed, and the impression that the worldis a " closed system " can only from now onwards becomemore and more illusory and inadequate to the reality." Fissures " have been mentioned previously as being thepaths whereby certain destructive forces are alreadyentering: and must continue to entet €ver more freely;according to traditional symbolism these " fissures "occur in the " Great Wall " which surrounds the worldand protects it from the intrusion of maleficent influencescoming from the inferior subtle domain.rrs In orderthat this symbolism may be fully understood in all itsaspects, it is important to note that a wall acts both asa protection and as a limitation: in a sense therefore itcan be said to have both advantages and inconvenienceslbut in so far as its principal purpose is to ensure anadequate defence against attacks coming from below, theadvantages are incomparably the more important, for itis on the whole more useful to anyonc who happens to

5

THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

be enclosed within its perim€ter to be kept out of reach

of what is below, than it is to be continuously exposed

to the ravages of the enemy, or worse still to a more

or less complete destruction. In any case, a walled spaceas such is not closed in at the top, so that communication

with superior domains is not Prevent€d' and this state

of affairs is the normal one; but in the modern periodthe " shell " with no outlet built by materialism has cutoff that communication. Moreover, as already explained,

since the " descent " has not yet come to an end, the

" shell " must necessarily remain intact overhead, that is,

in the direction of that from which humanity need not

be protected, on the contrary' only beneficient infuencescan com€ that way; the " fissures " occur only at the

base, and therefore in the actual protective wall itself, and

the inferior forces which make their way in through them

meet with a much reduced resistance because under suchconditions no power of a superior order can intervene in

order to oppose them effectively. Thus the world is

exposed defenceless to all the attacks of its enemies, the

more so because, the present-day mentality being what

it is, the dangers which threaten it are wholly unperceived.In the Islamic tradition these " fissures " are those by

which, at the end of the cycle, the devastating hordes of

Gog and Magog will force their way in,lr? for they are

unremitting in their efforts to invade this world; these

" entities " represent the inferior influences in question.

They are considered as maintaining an undergroundexistence, and are described both as giants and as dwarfs;

they may thus be identified, in accordance with what was

said earlier on the subject, and at least in certain connec-

tions, which the " guardians of the hidden treasure " and

with the smiths of the " subterranean fire ", who have,206

THE FISSURES IN THE GREAT WALI,it may be recalled, an exceedingly maleficent aspect; inall such symbolisms the same kind of " infra-corporeal "subtle influences are rea)Jy always involved.tre If thetruth be told, the attempts of these " entities " to insinu-ate themselves into the corporeal and human world areno new thing, for they go back at least to somewherenear the beginning of the Kali-Tuga, a period far moreremote than that of " classical " antiquity, by which thehorizon of profane historians is bounded. In this con-nection, the Chinese tradition relates in symbolical termsthat " Niu-Koua (sister and wife of Fo-hi, who is said tohave reigned jointly with him) melted stones of nvecoloursrrr in order to repair a tear in the sky made bya giant " (apparently, though it is not made quite clear,the tear was situated on the terrestrial horizon);tro andthis took place at a period not more than a few centuriesafter the beginnin g of the Kali-Tuga.

Nevertheless, although the Kali-Tuga as a whole isintrinsically a period of obscuration, so that ,,fissures "have been possible ever since it began, the degree ofobscuration pervading its later phases is far from havingbeen attained at once, and that is why " fissures,' couldbe repaired relatively easily in earlier times; it was nonethe less necessary to maintain a constant vigilance againstthem, and this task was naturally among those assignedto the spiritual centres of the varioqE traditions. Lateron there came a period when, as a consequence of theextreme " solidification " of the world, these same .. fiss-ures " were much less to be feared, at least temporarilyithis period corresponds to the first part of modern times,the part that can be defined as being characteristicallymechanistic and materialistic, in which the .. closed sys-tem " alluded to was most nearly realized, at least to the

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THE REIGN OF OUANTITY

extent that any such thing is actually possible. Nowa-days, that is to say, in the period which can be called thesecond part of modern times and which has already begun,conditions are certainly very different from the condi-tions obtaining in all earlier periods: not only can

" fissures " occur more and more extensivel6 and bemuch more serious in charactel, because a greater pro-portion of the descending course of manifestation hasbeen accomplished, but also the possibilities of repairingthem are not the same as they used to be; the action ofthespiritual centres has indeed become ever more enclosed,because the superior influences which they normallytransmit to our world can no longer be manifestedexternally, since they are held back by the " shell "alluded to above; and when the whole of the human andcosmic order is in such a condition, where could a meansof defence possibly be found such as might be effectivein any way against the " hordes of Gog and Magog " ?

But that is not all: what has been said so far covers soto speak only the negative side of the growing dificultiesencountered by all att€mPts to oPPose the intrusion ofmaleficent influences, among these dificulties is a sort ofinertia resulting from the general ignorance of such

matters, and from " survivals " of the materialistic men-tality and of the outlook it engenders; this inertia may

endure longer than it otherwise would lecause the out-look in question has become more or less instinctive in

the moderns and is now incorporated in their very nature.Of course a majoriry of " spiritualists " and even of" traditionalists ", or of people who call themselves such,

are in fact quite as materialistic as other people whenmatters of this kind are in qucstion' so that the situation

is made even more irremediable by the fact that those who208

THE FISSURES IN THE GREAT WALL

most sincerely want to combat the modern spirit arealmost all unwittingly affected by it, and all their effortsare therefore condemned to remain without any appreci-able result; for these are matters in which good-will isfar from being sufficient; effective knowledge is neededas well, indeed it is more needed than anything else,But effective knowledge is the very thing that is madeimpossible by the influence of the modern spirit with allits limitations, even in the case of those who might havesome intellectual capabilities of the required kind if con-ditions were less abnormal.

But apart from all these negative elements, the difi-culties now under review have an aspect which can becalled positive, and it may be taken to include everythingin our world as we know it actively favourable to theintervention of subtle influences of an inferior kind,whether its work be done consciously or unconsciously.The logical sequ€nce here would be to consider in thefirst place the more or less " determining " part playedby the actual agents of the whole modern deviation, sincethe intervention of inferior influences really represents anew phase in the said deviation, and fits in exactly withthe sequence of the " plan " by which it is brought about iit would clearly be necessary to seek in sone such direc-tion for the conscious auxiliaries of the maleficent forces;nevertheless the €xtent to which they are individuallyconscious of what they are doing may actually differgreatly in particular cases. As for the other auxiliaries,those who act in good faith and, because they knownothing of the true nature of the forces involved (thanksto the recently mentioned influence of the modern spirit)they are never anything but mere dupes, though thisdoes not prevent th€ir activity from being proportional

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THE REIGN OF QUANTITY

to their sincerity and to their blindness; these auxiliaries

are already virtually numberless, and they can be placed

in many categories, ranging from the ingenuous adher-ents of all sorts of " neo-spiritualist " organizations to

the " intuitionist " philosophers, by way of the " meta-

psychic " scientists and the psychologists of the rnore

recent schools. This matter need not be pursued any

farther for the moment, for to do so would be to anticipatewhat will come lat€ri in the meantime some examples

must be given of some of th€ ways in which " fissures "

can actually be brought about, also of the " supports "

which the inferior order of subtle or Psychic influences(for the terms " subtle " and " psychic " applied to a

dornain are for present purposes synonymous) are able

to find in the cosmic environment itsel( to assist them in

bringing their action to bear on the human world and

to enable them to propagate themselves therein.

?t9