e gist of this occult teaching is that in that high form of the
universal substance which is called the Universal Ether there is found to
be recorded all the happenings of the entire World Cycle of which the
present time is a part. All that has happened from the very beginning of
this World Cycle, millions of years ago, is preserved on these astral
records, and may be read by the advanced clairvoyant or other person
possessing occult powers of this kind. These records perish only with the
termination of a World Cycle, which will not happen for millions of years
yet to come.

To those who cannot accept the reasonableness of this occult fact, I would
say that there are analogies to be found on other planes of natural
manifestation. For instance, as astronomy teaches us, a star may be
blotted out of existence, and yet its light will persist long after
(perhaps until the end of world-time) traveling along at the rate of
186,000 miles each second. The light that we now see coming from the
distant stars has left those stars many years ago--in some cases thousands
of years ago. We see them not as they are now, but as they were at the
time the ray of light left them, many years ago; The astronomers inform us
that if one of these stars had been
[*Transcribers Note: Text missing from original]
sands) of years ago, we would still see it as in actual existence. In
fact, it is believed that some of these stars which we see twinkling at
night have actually been blotted out hundreds of years ago. We will not be
aware of this fact until the light rays suddenly cease reaching us, after
their journey of billions of miles and hundreds of years. A star blotted
out of existence today would be seen by our children, and children's
children.

The heat from a stove will be felt in a room long after the stove has been
removed from it. A room will long contain the odor of something that has
been removed from it. It is said that in one of the old mosques of Persia
there may be perceived the faint odor of the musk that was exposed there
hundreds of years ago--the very walls are saturated with the pungent odor.
Again, is it not wonderful that our memories preserve the images of the
sounds and forms which were placed there perhaps fifty years and more
ago? How do these memory images survive and exist? Though we may have
thought of the past thing for half a lifetime, yet, suddenly its image
flashes into our consciousness. Surely this is as wonderful