COSMOLOGY 4$ 



invested with the original power of life, without form, 

 and without any conceivable qualities — in this, the only- 

 matrix of all created things, the substance of all things 

 is contained. It is described by the ancients as the 

 Chaos, and bas been compared to a receptacle of germs, 

 out of which the Macrocosm os, and afterwards by division 

 and evolution in Hysteria specialia,^ each separate being 

 came into existence. All things and all elementary 

 substances were contained in it, in potentia^^ but not in 

 actu, in the same sense as in a piece of wood a figure is 

 contained, which may be cut out by an artist, or as heat 

 is contained in a pebble, that may manifest its essence as 

 a spark if struck with a piece of steel.^ 



The Magnus Limbus is the nursery out of which all 

 creatures have grown, in the same sense as a tree may 

 grow out of a small seed ; with the difference, however, 

 that the great Limbus takes its origin from the Word of 

 God, while the Limbus minor (the terrestrial seed or 

 sperm) takes it from the earth. The great Limbus is 

 the seed out of which all beings have come, and the 

 little Limbus is each ultimate being that reproduces its 

 form, and that has itself been produced by the great. 



discoveries go to prove the unity or identity of matter and energy. Recent 

 researches in chemistry, and comparisons made between the chemical, 

 musical, and colour scales seem to indicate that the cause of the difference 

 between the heterogeneous single bodies is not caused by an essential 

 diflference of the substances of which they are composed, but only a differ- 

 ence in the number of their atomic vibrations. 



^ "Mysterium" is everything out of which something may be developed, 

 which is only germinally contained in it. A seed is the "mysterium" of a 

 plant, an egg the mysterium of a living bird, &c. If Eastern mythology 

 says that the universe came out of an egg put into the water by Brahma 

 (Neuter) or Ideation, it implies the same meaning as the Mysterium magnum 

 of Paracelsus; because the egg represents the mysterium, the water the life, 

 and the spirit hatches out of it the Creative God, BrahmA (Masculine). 



* It seems that Paracelsus anticipated the modern discovery of the 

 "potency of matter" three hundred years ago. 



* The Yliaster of Paracelsus corresponds to the'Ev of Pythagoras and 

 Empedocles, and it was Aristotle who spoke first of the form in potentia 

 before it could appear in actu — the former being called by him * ' th« 

 privation of matter." (Note by H. P. Blavatsky.) 



