No physical instrument will ever
help astronomy to scan distances of the immensity of which that of
Sirius, situated at the trifle of 130,125,000,000,000 miles away from
the outer boundary of the spherical area, or even that of (a) Capella,
with its extra trifle of 295,355,000,000,000* miles still farther away,
can give them, as they themselves are well aware, the faintest idea.
For, though an Adept is unable to cross bodily (i.e., in his astral
shape) the limits of the solar system, yet he knows that, far
stretching beyond the telescopic power of detection, there are systems
upon systems, the smallest of which would, when compared with the system
of Sirius, make the latter seem like an atom of dust imbedded in the
great Shamo desert. The eye of the astronomer, who thinks he also knows
of the existence of such systems, has never rested upon them, has never
caught of them, even that spectral glimpse, fanciful and hazy as the
incoherent vision in a slumbering mind that he has occasionally had of
other systems, and yet he verily believes he has gauged INFINITUDE! And
yet these immeasurably distant worlds are brought as clear and near to
the spiritual eye of the astral astronomer as a neighbouring bed of
daisies may be to the eye of the botanist.
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