76 The Law of the Rhythmic Breath 



tive and negative currents of Prana (7 x 7 = 49). 

 Every one of these has well-determined chemical 

 and physical potencies in contact with terrestrial 

 matter, and a distinct function in the physical and 

 spiritual worlds, with a corresponding relation to 

 a human psychic faculty. To the ancient Hindu 

 adept all these hidden forces were as an open book, 

 and years ago India's initiates accurately predicted 

 all the amazing discoveries and inventions of re- 

 cent years, which have furnished new foundations 

 for science and kept the world marvelling. 



Out of the invisible, Sir William Crookes, with 

 his " radiant matter," and Roentgen, with his X- 

 ray, lured two of these " Forty-nine Fires." With 

 the X-ray, the principle of radio-activity which 

 revolutionized science was established; and it 

 paved the way for the discovery of the twentieth- 

 century marvel, radium, which disclosed radio- 

 activity as an actual property of matter. No one 

 conversant with the Tattvic Law can doubt that 

 radium and all the radio-active substances can be 

 properly classified among the " Forty-nine Fires " 

 of the Vedas. 



In all these progressions and permutations, the 

 higher, more subtle plane, or state, of matter is 

 positive to the next lower, and every lower one is 

 the result of the interaction of the positive and 

 negative phases of the next higher state. 



Radium furnishes us with invaluable data corro- 



