James Clerk Maxwell’s famous set of equations, which form the basis of modern
electrodynamics, demonstrated in 1862 that light was an electromagnetic wave
identical to heat. An ethereal fluid thus became even further entrenched as the
unique form of matter required for the propagation of these waves. Because light
is capable of traveling even through a vacuum, it was hypothesized that even such
spaces must be filled with a non- moving ethereal substance. The first moment of cri-
sis came in 1887 when the now famous Michelson- Morley experiment, conducted
by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley, which attempted to measure the relative
motion of matter through the stationary luminiferous ether, returned a null result.
More specifically, the experiment was designed to measure the “ethereal wind” that
would result from the earth and ether being in relative motion. However, it failed to
detect any significant change in the relative speed of light that would have indicated
a change in the motion of the earth in relation to the ether. Several subsequent
experiments attempted to measure the effects of the ether’s presence but returned
no valid results, suggesting that a new theory was needed to account for the propa-
gation of electromagnetic waves without the presence of a material medium.
These should be understood in addition to and, to a certain extent, in the context of
the many other nearly identical theorized forms of a subtle universal substance, both
scientific and occult. Notable mentions include Baron Karl Ludwig von Reichenbach’s
(1788– 1869) “Odic Force” and Edward Bulwer- Lytton’s (1803– 1873) “Vril.”
The second major point in Mesmer’s theory, as explained in Reflections on the
Discovery of Animal Magnetism (1779), quoted in Fuller 1982: 5.
Fuller 1982: 7.
See Crabtree 1993.
Blavatsky 1980: 220.
Kriyananda 2011: 267– 68.
The phrase actually originates from Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in
the Thought World (1906), penned by William Walter Atkinson who also wrote
under the famous pseudonym of Yogi Ramacharaka.
Albanese 2007: 195.
Albanese 2007: 198. See also Jung- Stilling and Jackson 1844.
Albanese 2007: 199– 204.
Kate and Margaret Fox, respectively, twelve and fifteen years old at the time, first
heard mysterious rappings at their parents’ home in Hydesville, New York, in 1848.
They attributed the rappings to a spirit, to whom they referred as Mr. Splitfoot. The
two girls would go on to become popular Spiritualist mediums and this incident is
generally identified by historians as the start of the nineteenth- century Spiritualist
movement at large.
