THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21990, 27 June 1933, Page 13

THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

The " Tell New Zealand " campaign was concluded at the Theosophical Hall on Sunday evening by a lecture on " Evolution of Civilisation," by Mr H. F. Mackenjie, who showed the purpose and cause of the rise and fall of the eight great civilisations of history, and also the principles underlying their movements. Commencing with an illustration of a common scientific experiment with a centre magnet and various magnets round the edge of a basin of water and the formation of those smaller magnets in definite circles round the central one, the lecturer showed how the, whole of God's Universe is subject to law and rhythm. Music was a series of vibrations, and the music of the spheres was the orderly vibrations penetrating all manifestation. The same law that governed the arrangement of the electrons in the atom" governed the stars and planets in their courses, and might also be applied to the rise and fall of civilisations. The simplest forms of life, such as the protoplasm, were immortal, hence evolution was eternal. Periodicity was a universal law, but physical science as yet did not explain the laws at work behind the scenes. Each civilisation hag'shown periods of development of mythological, then unconscious belief, then conscious thought; next rational and scientific thought, followed by individual thinkers and systems of philosophy; later came materialism and scepticism, followed_ by idealism, which included Socialism, humanism, etc., then esotericism, including Theosophy and Spiritualism, and lastly, knowledge systematically compiled and put in order..