d upon it by every teacher.

Take the physical side first. The motion of a top gives it bands
of color to our eyes that it does not have at rest. They are
temporary and not permanent, a result of motion merely; illusion
and not reality.

The motion of the material atoms of the four planes, in harmony
with their vibration, a motion the spiritual world does not have,
produces all material phenomena. This is of course within the
kinetic belts, for above or below them there is no change, and
its phenomena are the mere change in relation of one atom to
another caused by motion. The changes are not real. They
disappear when the motion stops. They have no existence in
matter above or below the belt.

All phenomena of every kind are as much an illusion as the
supposed bands of colour around the top. The illusion is the
result of changes of relation in differentiated atoms caused by
their motion. Without this motion the four material globes would
dissolve into the atomic dust of the manasic world, with all that
is within them. The whole material universe is all illusion; a
mere temporary relation of its atoms through motion, without
Reality or permanence.

What then is real? What is not illusion? That which is beyond
the physical, that which is its cause and root; broadly, the
metaphysical, which is not the result of differentiated atoms
through relation. What was real in the top is real here. What
was illusion in the top is illusion here.

The meta-physical or spiritual (the terms are interchangeable)
does not have to pass beyond the manasic globe to get on the
solid ground of reality. The spiritual world is here in every
physical atom and in every aggregation of them; in every planet,
sun, and star; for they are seven, each and every one, not four.
Behind the illusion of one atom or many, whether here or on
Alcyone, there is reality and permanency in the undifferentiated
cause, the spiritual archetype, the three higher beads on the
string which are the proper study of metaphysics.

Chapter Eleven

Stumbling Blocks in Eastern Physics

The Western student of the ancient Eastern physics soon meets
serious stumbling-blocks; and one at the very threshold has in
the last half century turned many back. In beginning his study
of the solar system, the pupil is told:

The first three planets--Mercury, Venus, and the moon--are dead
and disintegrating. Evolution on them has ceased. The proof of