Enshrined in its pristine, virgin state within the Bosom of the Eternal Mother, every atom born beyond the threshold of her realm is doomed to incessant differentiation. “_The Mother sleeps, yet is ever breathing_.” And every breath sends out into the plane of manifestation her protean products, which, carried on by the wave of efflux, are scattered by Fohat, and driven toward or beyond this or another planetary atmosphere. Once caught by the latter, the atom is lost; its pristine purity is gone for ever, unless fate dissociates it by leading it to a “current of efflux” (an Occult term meaning quite a different process from that which the ordinary word implies), when it may be carried once more to the borderland where it had previously perished, and taking its flight, not into Space _above_ but into Space _within_, be brought under a state of differential equilibrium and happily reabsorbed. Were a truly learned Occultist‐ Alchemist to write the “Life and Adventures of an Atom,” he would secure thereby the supreme scorn of the modern Chemist, though perchance also his subsequent gratitude. Indeed, if such an imaginary Chemist happened to be intuitional, and would for a moment step out of the habitual groove of strictly “Exact Science,” as the Alchemists of old did, he might be repaid for his audacity. However it may be, “_The Breath of the Father‐Mother issues cold and radiant, and gets hot and corrupt, to cool once more and be purified in the eternal bosom of inner Space_,” says the Commentary. Man absorbs cold pure air on the mountain‐top, and throws it out impure, hot and transformed. Thus, the higher atmosphere of every globe, being its mouth, and the lower its lungs, the man of our planet breathes only the “refuse of Mother;” therefore, “he is doomed to die thereon.” He who would allotropize sluggish oxygen into ozone to a measure of alchemical activity, reducing it to its pure essence (for which there are means), would discover thereby a substitute for an “Elixir of Life” and prepare it for practical use. (_b_) The process referred to as the “Small Wheels, one giving birth to the other,” takes place in the sixth region from above, and on the plane of the most material world of all in the manifested Kosmos—our terrestrial plane. These “Seven Wheels” are our Planetary Chain. By “Wheels” the various spheres and centres of forces are generally meant; but in this case they refer to our septenary Ring. 4. HE BUILDS THEM IN THE LIKENESS OF OLDER WHEELS,(257) PLACING THEM ON THE IMPERISHABLE CENTRES (_a_). HOW DOES FOHAT BUILD THEM? HE COLLECTS THE FIERY‐DUST. HE MAKES BALLS OF FIRE, RUNS THROUGH THEM, AND ROUND THEM, INFUSING LIFE THEREINTO, THEN SETS THEM INTO MOTION; SOME ONE WAY, SOME THE OTHER WAY. THEY ARE COLD, HE MAKES THEM HOT. THEY ARE DRY, HE MAKES THEM MOIST. THEY SHINE, HE FANS AND COOLS THEM (_b_). THUS ACTS FOHAT FROM ONE TWILIGHT TO THE OTHER, DURING SEVEN ETERNITIES.(258)