s assume that a human
being, with the present organs of sense, were to approach the Saturn
condition as a spectator. None of the sense-impressions possible to him
would confront him there except the feeling of warmth, or heat. Suppose
such a being approached this Saturn; he would only sense, upon entering
the space occupied by it, that it was in a different degree of heat from
the rest of surrounding space. But he would not find that portion of space
by any means equally warm throughout, for warmer and colder parts would
alternate in the most complicated manner. Radiating heat would be felt
along certain lines. And not only straight lines, but regular figures
would be formed by the variation in heat. Something like a cosmic being,
organically constructed in itself would be discerned, appearing in
changing conditions, and consisting only of heat.

It is difficult for a man of the present day to form an idea of anything
consisting only of heat, for he is not accustomed to think of heat as
something self-existent, but as a perceptible quality of warm or cold
gaseous, liquid, or solid bodies. To one who has adopted the physical
conceptions of our time it will seem particularly absurd to speak of heat
in the foregoing manner. He will, perhaps, say: "There are solid, liquid,
and gaseous bodies; but heat only denotes a condition assumed by one of
these three bodily forms. If the smallest particles of gas are in motion,
the movement will be felt by heat. Where there is no gas, there can be no
movement, consequently no heat."

To an occult investigator the fact appears differently. To him heat is
something of which he speaks in the same sense as he speaks of gases, of
liquids, or of solid bodies. To him it is simply a still finer substance
than gas. And gas to him is nothing but condensed heat, in the same sense
that liquid is condensed vapour, or a solid body condensed liquid. Thus
the occultist speaks of heat bodies just as he does of bodies formed of
gas and vapour.

If we are to follow the spiritual investigator into this region, it is
however necessary to admit that there is such a thing as psychic
perception. In the world, as it presents itself to the physical senses,
heat appears entirely as a condition of solid, liquid, or gaseous bodies;
but that condition is merely the outward appearance of heat, or the effect
of it. Physicists speak only of this effect of heat, not of its inner
nature. Just let us try then to leave