Also called Primordial Atom. It is a term used in theosophical literature to refer to the initial point of evolution during manvantara. It is a potency that is very different from the atom of modern science. “The potentiality which develops finally in a perfected planetary spirit lurks in, is in fact that primordial cosmic atom” (ML, p. 180). The cosmic atom gives rise to other centers of activity in the cosmos, which in turn produces minor centers. In The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, it is stated that these atoms do not lose their original force even as they produce new centers of activity.

Neither the primordial A [atom] and its companion atoms, nor their derived a’s, b’s, c’s, [new centers of activity] have lost one tittle of their original force or life-essence by the evolution of their derivatives. The force there is not transformed into something else . . . but with each development of a new centre of activity from within itself multiplies ad infinitum without ever losing a particle of its nature in quantity or quality. (ML, p. 181)

H. P. Blavatsky wrote that the cosmic atom becomes “seven atoms on the plane of matter, and each is transformed into a centre of energy; that same atom becomes seven rays on the plane of spirit, and the seven creative forces of nature radiating from the root essence . . .” (SD I:635).

V.H.C.

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